Shemeska's Planescape Storyhour - (Updated 14February2024)
Shemeska
Adventurer
This seems to be a very popular theory.
I'm surprised this came back up in response to the last update rather than the admission that Shylara the Manged was once her apprentice (and lover).
... I totally did not put two and two together there, I was still waiting for more answers about the Waste!Gehenna. Interesting that that event is both in the past and the future.
Shemeska
Adventurer
It's one of the last things that received a full and complete answer in the original campaign.
That being said, I will also note that all of the assorted stories of the Baernaloth cycle that I've written over the years are all set within the same continuity. The Blind Clockmaker story covers events directly from the storyhour here that haven't happened yet in the storyhour, and which play into the Waste!Gehenna issue. Once we get to that point I'll be rewriting it to better fit my current writing style too.
Also I've got finals this week as I'm back in school yet again, and two freelance projects on my plate (Aethera and the Faerie Ring), so the next update here will be a little while (but when it's ready I may give a Xmas present of the finally finished story for The Architect which is nearly complete after years in-progress and a total rewrite).
Yeah. Thus began by campaign of don't trust...(well let us just say, if you didn't come from the Gods of Good with signed documentation) Pretty certain I didn't really trust Marven all that much from this point either.
Do I have either of my gnomish inventions? The gloves of alchemist awesome or the Holy Water cannon.
Do I have either of my gnomish inventions? The gloves of alchemist awesome or the Holy Water cannon.
Shemeska
Adventurer
Bringing the New Year in with a short update and a face we haven't seen in some time now
As the rattling, agonized wail cut the air like an obsidian blade through the yearning heart of a nycaloth on the slopes of Krangath, Helekanalaith closed his eyes and smiled. The Keeper’s ears involuntarily swiveled forward and he allowed himself a moment of pleasure before pragmatic business began. To the Keeper’s mind, that first touch of his burning stylus upon the newly bound flesh of a petitioner-cum-parchment was ever such a beautiful sound.
The Keeper was not alone however in that moment, though his two guests could not be any more different. Staring at him from across the room stood the petrified form of Shylara the Manged, Overlord of Carceri and consort to the Oinoloth. Shylara’s face remained contorted into the same mad, shrieking visage of rage it had been locked within since she’d fallen afoul of a flesh to stone spell while utilizing a surrogate body on the Astral. The rest of her form had been molded and remolded to suite the Keeper’s ever-changing piques of amusement at his semi-rival’s expense, everything from dressing her like a paper doll in ever more tacky outfits to simply leaving her statue naked and lewdly posed in the corner of his office.
“You do realize that she’s completely barmy yes?” Came the voice of Helekanalaith’s second guest, the Cheshire Fiend, though technically it was only the Fiend’s illusory avatar rather than a physical presence. Glowing pale blue, it hovered in the air before the Keeper’s desk, peering down at his work and then back at the snarling Overlord’s statue. “Once you release her, she’s going to try to kill you in the most excruciatingly brutal way possible.”
“I have no doubt that she will.” The Keeper’s voice was utterly unconcerned, and if anything, betrayed a smug, condescending confidence. He finished his line of calligraphy upon the screaming petitioner’s back and looked up at the Cheshire Fiend.
“And yet you’re not worried at all?” The floating Grin flashed a look of disbelief. “After the whole business of being cursed and exiled from Sigil, she tried to have your other co-conspirator Shemeska killed on no fewer than fifteen occasions – and that’s only counting the attempts she made prior to coming into control of the Tower of Incarnate Pain. She holds grudges, and she holds them irrationally so. Are you counting on the Ebon holding her back as punishment for her idiocy on the Astral?”
“I’m absolutely aware of her personality, her proclivities, her abilities, and her flaws. I oversaw her education here in the Tower and I keenly understand what she will or won’t do.” Helekanalaith shrugged and glanced at the glowing gemstone floating above his desk containing the bottled essence of Larsdana ap Neut. “Unlike some, I pay attention to promising students, fully aware that each and every one of them sees me as a target. Shylara is powerful, ambitious, and fatally out of control of her emotions.”
The Grin waited for more explanation, and finally receiving none, prompted for it, “You didn’t answer my question about what the Ebon will or won’t do as it regards her likely berserk and bloody attempts at revenge and saving what remains of her wounded pride.”
“I suspect in the same way that the Oinoloth hasn’t lifted a claw to help her out, he won’t lift another to help me avoid her petty attempts at retribution.” The Keeper adjusted his golden spectacles and softly chuckled. “He didn’t see it worth his effort to help out here in her imprisonment, and she’s his consort, so what chance would I have at his aid?”
“You sound jealous if I know you at all.” The Cheshire Fiend gave a sly, taunting expression as it slowly completed an orbit around the Keeper’s desk. “Are you?”
Helekanalaith only smirked, not answering the question, though the answer was obvious.
“Changing the topic I suppose from your admirable attraction to power, why summon me here at this particular moment in time? I’d been happily enjoying my own pursuits about the planes in this form and others.” The Grin glanced back at Shylara’s statue once more. “Can I assume that you’re planning on letting her go and you want me to ensure that she doesn’t engage in her expected course of action?”
“I’ll be releasing her in a relatively short timeframe, but the specifics of when remain to be seen. I’d like to see a certain number of her underlings perish and be replaced with others loyal to me prior to letting her off the leash.” The Keeper glanced down at the list of Shylara’s advisors along with their current status in her absence. More than a few were crossed off, having either killed one another or fallen afoul of her protections when they’d tried to kill the Overlord herself.
“Appropriate, though I will seriously miss the statue, especially in its current state.” An illusory blush rose above the Cheshire Fiend’s grin, roughly where cheeks would have been.
“Shylara the Manged is the least of my concerns, and not in fact my reason for calling on you.” Helekanalaith smiled at his servitor and child. “Turn your attention to the aforementioned Marauder. I’m curious about what the Oinoloth has her working on, given the transit of a courier from Khin-Oin into Sigil direct to her doorstep.”
“I take it the Ebon was not forthcoming about sharing any such details with you?” The Cheshire Fiend was now paying rapt attention to the Keeper and no longer making nibbling motions upon the statue. “You did ask him yes?”
“No and yes.” The Keeper smirked with frustration. “I would not think to ask the Oinoloth twice in such a circumstance when he was sitting across from me. This is where you come in. Speak with your people in the Temple of Eternal Darkness and elsewhere outside of her immediate sphere of influence, and have them leak rumors every which way that they can. Someone in one of Sigil’s various circles of power will take notice and either know themselves, or flush out some answer by her reaction to theirs.”
The Cheshire Fiend bobbled side to side ambiguously “She has her dainty little poisoned claws in most every pie in the City of Doors and well beyond the Cage, so which one in particular do you have in mind?”
“Her contact with the Athar,” The Keeper’s tone contained a mild amount of disdain based on the pronunciation, though why wasn’t immediately obvious. “I want to know why she’s backing them, and what she intends to do.”
“My presumption is a local issue pertaining to the growing and long-term conflict between Muriov Garianis and her mountainous ego.” The Grin chuckled at his free reign to denigrate the Keeper’s partner within the Wheels Within Wheels.
“There’s more to it than that.” Helekanalaith narrowed his eyes. “You know that as much as I do, if not more so. She never initiated contact with them until –after– she was given orders by the Oinoloth. Somehow this is on his behalf in one manner or another. That’s what I want to know.”
“So what you’re saying is that you want me to be a giant pain in her groomed and silk-wrapped ass?” The Grin danced about in the air. “Because that I can do!”
****
As the rattling, agonized wail cut the air like an obsidian blade through the yearning heart of a nycaloth on the slopes of Krangath, Helekanalaith closed his eyes and smiled. The Keeper’s ears involuntarily swiveled forward and he allowed himself a moment of pleasure before pragmatic business began. To the Keeper’s mind, that first touch of his burning stylus upon the newly bound flesh of a petitioner-cum-parchment was ever such a beautiful sound.
The Keeper was not alone however in that moment, though his two guests could not be any more different. Staring at him from across the room stood the petrified form of Shylara the Manged, Overlord of Carceri and consort to the Oinoloth. Shylara’s face remained contorted into the same mad, shrieking visage of rage it had been locked within since she’d fallen afoul of a flesh to stone spell while utilizing a surrogate body on the Astral. The rest of her form had been molded and remolded to suite the Keeper’s ever-changing piques of amusement at his semi-rival’s expense, everything from dressing her like a paper doll in ever more tacky outfits to simply leaving her statue naked and lewdly posed in the corner of his office.
“You do realize that she’s completely barmy yes?” Came the voice of Helekanalaith’s second guest, the Cheshire Fiend, though technically it was only the Fiend’s illusory avatar rather than a physical presence. Glowing pale blue, it hovered in the air before the Keeper’s desk, peering down at his work and then back at the snarling Overlord’s statue. “Once you release her, she’s going to try to kill you in the most excruciatingly brutal way possible.”
“I have no doubt that she will.” The Keeper’s voice was utterly unconcerned, and if anything, betrayed a smug, condescending confidence. He finished his line of calligraphy upon the screaming petitioner’s back and looked up at the Cheshire Fiend.
“And yet you’re not worried at all?” The floating Grin flashed a look of disbelief. “After the whole business of being cursed and exiled from Sigil, she tried to have your other co-conspirator Shemeska killed on no fewer than fifteen occasions – and that’s only counting the attempts she made prior to coming into control of the Tower of Incarnate Pain. She holds grudges, and she holds them irrationally so. Are you counting on the Ebon holding her back as punishment for her idiocy on the Astral?”
“I’m absolutely aware of her personality, her proclivities, her abilities, and her flaws. I oversaw her education here in the Tower and I keenly understand what she will or won’t do.” Helekanalaith shrugged and glanced at the glowing gemstone floating above his desk containing the bottled essence of Larsdana ap Neut. “Unlike some, I pay attention to promising students, fully aware that each and every one of them sees me as a target. Shylara is powerful, ambitious, and fatally out of control of her emotions.”
The Grin waited for more explanation, and finally receiving none, prompted for it, “You didn’t answer my question about what the Ebon will or won’t do as it regards her likely berserk and bloody attempts at revenge and saving what remains of her wounded pride.”
“I suspect in the same way that the Oinoloth hasn’t lifted a claw to help her out, he won’t lift another to help me avoid her petty attempts at retribution.” The Keeper adjusted his golden spectacles and softly chuckled. “He didn’t see it worth his effort to help out here in her imprisonment, and she’s his consort, so what chance would I have at his aid?”
“You sound jealous if I know you at all.” The Cheshire Fiend gave a sly, taunting expression as it slowly completed an orbit around the Keeper’s desk. “Are you?”
Helekanalaith only smirked, not answering the question, though the answer was obvious.
“Changing the topic I suppose from your admirable attraction to power, why summon me here at this particular moment in time? I’d been happily enjoying my own pursuits about the planes in this form and others.” The Grin glanced back at Shylara’s statue once more. “Can I assume that you’re planning on letting her go and you want me to ensure that she doesn’t engage in her expected course of action?”
“I’ll be releasing her in a relatively short timeframe, but the specifics of when remain to be seen. I’d like to see a certain number of her underlings perish and be replaced with others loyal to me prior to letting her off the leash.” The Keeper glanced down at the list of Shylara’s advisors along with their current status in her absence. More than a few were crossed off, having either killed one another or fallen afoul of her protections when they’d tried to kill the Overlord herself.
“Appropriate, though I will seriously miss the statue, especially in its current state.” An illusory blush rose above the Cheshire Fiend’s grin, roughly where cheeks would have been.
“Shylara the Manged is the least of my concerns, and not in fact my reason for calling on you.” Helekanalaith smiled at his servitor and child. “Turn your attention to the aforementioned Marauder. I’m curious about what the Oinoloth has her working on, given the transit of a courier from Khin-Oin into Sigil direct to her doorstep.”
“I take it the Ebon was not forthcoming about sharing any such details with you?” The Cheshire Fiend was now paying rapt attention to the Keeper and no longer making nibbling motions upon the statue. “You did ask him yes?”
“No and yes.” The Keeper smirked with frustration. “I would not think to ask the Oinoloth twice in such a circumstance when he was sitting across from me. This is where you come in. Speak with your people in the Temple of Eternal Darkness and elsewhere outside of her immediate sphere of influence, and have them leak rumors every which way that they can. Someone in one of Sigil’s various circles of power will take notice and either know themselves, or flush out some answer by her reaction to theirs.”
The Cheshire Fiend bobbled side to side ambiguously “She has her dainty little poisoned claws in most every pie in the City of Doors and well beyond the Cage, so which one in particular do you have in mind?”
“Her contact with the Athar,” The Keeper’s tone contained a mild amount of disdain based on the pronunciation, though why wasn’t immediately obvious. “I want to know why she’s backing them, and what she intends to do.”
“My presumption is a local issue pertaining to the growing and long-term conflict between Muriov Garianis and her mountainous ego.” The Grin chuckled at his free reign to denigrate the Keeper’s partner within the Wheels Within Wheels.
“There’s more to it than that.” Helekanalaith narrowed his eyes. “You know that as much as I do, if not more so. She never initiated contact with them until –after– she was given orders by the Oinoloth. Somehow this is on his behalf in one manner or another. That’s what I want to know.”
“So what you’re saying is that you want me to be a giant pain in her groomed and silk-wrapped ass?” The Grin danced about in the air. “Because that I can do!”
****
thank you very much for the flurry of updates shemeska! lots of intrigueing things hinted at...i'm sad to see alex leave so soon, i was looking forward to seeing more of him and his paranormal connections, especially after the tollysalmon intersection. if it is possible, can you hint at what might have happened to clueless if he had accepted the baerns offer (with no spoilers)?
that little sentence that helekanalaith is talking to his child is fascinating, even ambiguous as it is
that little sentence that helekanalaith is talking to his child is fascinating, even ambiguous as it is
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Shemeska
Adventurer
thank you very much for the flurry of updates shemeska! lots of intrigueing things hinted at...i'm sad to see alex leave so soon, i was looking forward to seeing more of him and his paranormal connections, especially after the tollysalmon intersection. if it is possible, can you hint at what might have happened to clueless if he had accepted the baerns offer (with no spoilers)?
that little sentence that helekanalaith is talking to his child is fascinating, even ambiguous as it is
He would have brought Alex back, but very likely the baern would have retained a measure of control over him in the future. Alex would also have been given some memories of what he saw when he was killed, and the thing on the other side (Leobtav's god the so-called Ashsinger, etc). We're not done with Tollysalmon by any means either.
Yeah, Alice's Cheshire Cat is referencing 'Cheshire' referring to someone grinning, but the origin is disputed. Cheshire refers to something from the county of Chester in England, and the cat grinning might be because so much cheese, milk, and cream was produced there. Also, in the early 1800s there was a bit of local folklore relating to poorly painted sign of a lion that looked more like a cat, or possibly cheese molded into the shape of a cat, with the cat's head being the last piece eaten (the Cheshire Cat in Alice always having its smile being the last part to vanish).
My Cheshire Fiend is pretty much referencing that lingering smile, since the Cheshire Fiend just appears as an illusory smile without much else. And for them being Helekanalaith's child, I think I might have already mentioned that before once, but yes, the Cheshire Fiend is indeed his kid.
Shemeska
Adventurer
****
“YEEEeeeaaaaarrrggghhh!”
Clueless screamed as the fiend lifted him into the air with one hand clamped over his head. His feet dangled and wings beat at the air in vain as the Chronicler leaned in with a look of calm fascination playing over its sickly, diseased lips.
“What the hell!?” Toras blurted out as he reached for his sword, only to pause halfway there. As soon as he made to reach for the blade, every nearly vanished scar on his sword arm ached and burned as if they might suddenly burst open at once. He reached again, only to feel the same sensation and see the faintest anticipatory smile crease the baernaloth’s mouth. He did not attempt a third time.
“Be silent wriggling worm.” The Chronicler’s tone was commanding yet uncaring in tone.
Clueless stiffened as the ur-fiend tightened its grip and stared into his eyes and seemingly beyond. It chuckled.
“I did not expect a larger audience that was immediately apparent,” The Chronicler seemed genuinely amused by what he saw, treating the dangling bladesinger like a curious thing in a cabinet of curiosities rather than a protesting, living creature. “It would appear however that you have not one lurker therein, but in fact two of them in your head.”
“Helekanalaith that son of a b*tch!” Clueless stopped his struggling as he realized that the Keeper of the Tower had of course lied through his teeth about removing himself from his mind per their previous agreement, but then he realized the implications of the last part of the baernaloth’s statement. “Wait what?! Two?! What do you mean two?!”
“Not that you’re alone in that capacity.” The Chronicler softly chuckled, glancing at Tristol and Fyrehowl as it did so. “Unlike theirs however with the screaming malady of generations in the Madhouse, your situation is one much more complicated in the mending. This presence will not go willingly, and perhaps might require a bit of bargaining or leverage on your part since will alone will not suffice.”
Blindsided by the baernaloth’s insinuation, but realizing that it was, in its own uncaring way, referencing the Howler in their dreams, Tristol turned to Fyrehowl. She returned his glance with a worried shrug. The implications that it was both real and curable needed to be dealt with sooner rather than later, but not while the proto-fiend held their companion up by his head like a screaming ragdoll.
“Is that f*cking b*tch Shemeska still looking in through my ankle?!” Clueless struggled to comprehend who else might be the object of the baernaloth’s statement.
“Sigil’s would-be King abandoned you like every other precious thing she has ever lay claim to. You are safe from her in at least this way.” The Chronicler’s statements were largely devoid of inflection. Automatic answers delivered without compassion or care, the baernaloth was more concerned with peering through the bladesinger like a living and unwilling scrying device.
“Helekanalaith though most certainly yes. The Keeper of the Tower has a lurker planted there most definitely, subtle and well crafted. A model of his caste certainly.” The baernaloth tilted its head and continued to stare. “The other I know of, but am on less intimate terms with: the so-called Lady’s Jester, the original, not the current and self-titled factol of the Ring-Givers. Interesting. So he wasn’t dead after all. Sigil is rather difficult for me to keep a close eye upon.”
“What the hell?” Clueless struggled to comprehend just what he’d been told.
So far having stayed conspicuously and laboriously silent, the others exchanged confused and worried glances. None of them recalled what Clueless had seen in the underhalls of the Palace of the Jester: the tall man in the archaic great cloak and hat that shrouded his face, nor his tiny, inhuman servitor. Something had taken an interest there in the Great Below and had been following him ever since.
“Foolish but talented. Both of you.” The Chronicler smirked. “Neither of you matter. Neither of you are crucial. Transient eddies in the current…”
“So does this mean that you can put Clueless down and we can go back home now?” Nisha quipped with far too much irrational hope in her voice. Florian glared at her and Tristol planted an elbow in her ribs to shut the hell up.
If the baernaloth heard her or even cared, it gave no reaction or response, but without any warning it began to speak in its own tongue.
“F*ck!” Toras clutched his head as the blasphemies rolled off the baernaloth’s tongue like barbed arrows and bolts of unholy lightning that echoed in his head.
Within the first few words spoken all of them were on the ground, clutching their heads, bleeding from the ears, blinded or vomiting into the ice and ash. The unintelligible words roared especially hard into Fyrehowl’s mind, even if her own moral convictions had slid since the events in Belarian, and likewise Toras as the half-blood servitor of a power of good. Both of their vomit was streaked with blood.
“You will know and remember nothing of me or this place, both of you, Keeper of the Tower and child of ours, and you hiding in Sigil’s depths, no child of mine, but fallen servitor of others entirely. Forget me and forget my actions here. By my will this is done. The Chronicler orders it so.”
An interminable period of time later, they came to their senses and staggered to their feet. Clueless sat on the ground where the baernaloth had unceremoniously dropped him like a no longer interesting toy. The Chronicler itself sat upon a low pile of stone, watching them and writing within its book.
“Do you…umm… mind if we get going back home?” Nisha flashed a smile as she looked up at the proto-fiend.
“Yes.” Florian nodded her head in agreement, blood still running from her ears. “Please.”
“That would be wonderful thank you.” Tristol smiled as well, in stark contrast to his bottlebrushed tail.
“I care not what happens to you.” Sarkithel shrugged and turned back towards the ruined cathedral. “My interest is sated, though I will see you again. Every road and path of history twists back on itself to this place where the ouroboros wriggles, chokes, and dies by the noose-chains about its neck.”
“How do you know that?” Fyrehowl asked, even though she could not yet fully see.
The Chronicler grinned knowingly, “You’ll discover that in due time as well. The blade will open the portal for you back to Sigil, as it seems that Sigil wishes to keep a watch over this and me quite keenly. So many things tangled together then, now, and once again.”
Still feeling the effects of the baernaloth’s invocation in its own language, they were terrified beyond belief at their absolute inability to resist its power even when it seemed to not care about hurting them. Clueless was the first to his feet and then into the air, not wanting to touch the sullied, unholy soil below, and the others were swift to join him.
They walked back the way they’d come, avoiding the statues, all of which now were turned in unison to face and watch them as they left, still whispering, still warning, and still begging with their siren song of oblivion. Through it all, they felt the Chronicler watching them as well, but also something else, something barely perceptible there beyond the statues’ eyes, hungry and malevolent.
Only once they passed through the open portal back to Sigil did the feeling of looming dread finally cease.
“You’ll see.” The baernaloth spoke, addressing that very same presence brooding within the ruins of the cathedral. “You’ll see that we were right, even as much as you ignore the chains woven now and ever more, ever tighter. You cannot stop this. You never could.”
Behind the Chronicler, for but a moment, the statues smiled.
****
Three days later:
Tristol’s eyes ached as he glanced down at the brittle pages of a scholar’s travelogue to Pandemonium. It contained a description of the same hallucinations and wasting illness that had latched onto Fyrehowl and himself since their visit to Howler’s Crag. This particular scholar however recorded other, earlier instances of the same affliction and even provided it with a name, ‘The Curse of the Smothering Howls’.
It hadn’t been an easy task to find the record. From the barest hints from the Chronicler (who clearly knew exactly what the malady was, but was in no mood to be altruistic and say more on the manner) he’d delved through records in the Gatehouse. From there he’d gone to the sensory stone-recorded memories of a former Bleaker therapist and healer, and now finally to the record that sat in front of him in the archives of one of the scholar’s descendants.
As he’d recorded the fates of his party members and others before them, all of them had displayed the same hideous dreams, the same waking hallucinations, and the same gradual decline in health and mental fortitude. Most horrifying of all, they’d all eventually died of severe brain bleeding or else been put down by their fellows when they’d launching into screaming, violent fits.
The travelogue’s author however had found a way to possibly cure it. It wasn’t entirely a case of possession, nor a case of a curse or contracted disease, but a bizarre combination of all three. While the record didn’t give a record of the ultimate outcome for the afflicted, it made it absolutely clear that a powerful cleric was able to alleviate the condition by use of a simple remove curse spell. The wording was odd however. Rather than cure or remove, the specific word used was ‘extract’.
“This is it.” Tristol’s ears perked as he smiled. Weary as it was, it was an expression that he hadn’t made for some time. Reading over the author’s speculations, he laughed at his misguided wonder at the malady’s origins and his own theories relating to how mortals and their belief interacted with the base substance of Pandemonium itself.
None of that mattered at the moment however. Given how it had affected both himself and Fyrehowl, it was probably best to let the matter remain an unexplored and unplumbed dark. All that remained was to get back to the Portal Jammer, find Fyrehowl, and see if Florian was powerful enough to cure them both.
****
The wind whistled out of the Gehennan void like the inchoate screams of the damned, breaking the silence of the Vale of Frozen Ashes and stirring the recently disturbed ashes and ice at the feet of the baernaloth dwelling there.
The wind was not a random occurrence however, and the screaming might indeed have actually been just that. The silence descended back upon the Vale only to be broken moments later by the sound of a wooden staff striking the ground, a single foot stepping forward, and another foot dragging lamely behind it.
Sarkithel did not turn around to face his fellow member of The Demented, though a knowing, expectant smile did briefly cross his withered maw as she approached.
“What did you tell them?” Tellura ibn Shartalan spoke as she stared at the Chronicler.
“Precisely what I wanted to tell them.” Sarkithel’s response matter of fact response was devoid of concern.
“I trust your judgment on the matter.” Tellura’s shadow was cold and silent at her feet. “I ask because I’ll undoubtedly be paying those particular mortals a visit at some juncture down the line as events fall into place.”
“If you’re so very curious, you should ask your sibling.” The Chronicler motioned to the ground with his pen. “The Architect was quite keenly listening in.”
“At another time perhaps.” Her tone hid a growing frustration on her part. “The First of the Demented is… occupied… at the moment.”
“As is to be expected of our eldest,” The Chronicler inclined its head respectfully, “Always plotting, planning, infecting more and further. Whatever takes his attention now is not anything of which I’m aware. You will tell me, yes?”
Tellura’s shadow coiled and seethed in the frozen dust at her feet, betraying the emotions that did not show on the aasimar girl’s face. “It is not for me to tell. If my sibling wishes for the rest of us to know, He will inform us. Until that time…”
The silence was profound as the two of them waited there in the Vale of Frozen Ashes amid the ruins. Only the distant screams of the phiuls broke the still as the Chronicler stared out at the void and the Dire Shepherd at the ground, gritting her teeth.
Finally, the Chronicler spoke, “Things are falling into place as expected yes?”
More than you are yet aware. The Shepherd’s mind pictured the image of a singular Key in her mind and for a brief moment she wondered if they had not overstretched their designs. Of all of them however, the Architect did not focus on only one reality, but on larger, grander, more profound things of greater consequence. They had all seen realities rise, fall, and crumble before at their festering hands more often than not time and time again, but He more than any of them.
“Within expected variation, yes,” The Shepherdess eyed her companion, bringing her thoughts back to the present moment, “Probabilities are fuzzy things with their own innate uncertainty, and the ripples of time maddeningly complex. You should know from your own observations what is and isn’t happening according to plan.”
“Everything.” The answer was deliberately, maddeningly nonspecific.
“The Blind Clockmaker is keeping a close eye on the one variable in this all, and he is not concerned. He did not say as much to me mind you, though his brother Daru was quite clear about his feelings on that matter. Thus I am not concerned.”
“Then we have precious little more to speak of.” The Chronicler spread its hands apart in mock sorrow. “If you are not concerned, you have little need to know what I spoke of to the mortals that came here with such a curious blade of black volcanic glass. One never named, never used for its intended target, but used nonetheless.”
Worry danced in the child’s eyes and her shadow’s claws dug into the ground. Tellura eventually spoke, but her leonine tail angrily swatted at the air and she leaned ever more heavily on her staff. “Again, I see nothing here to concern myself with.”
“Good. Then return to me when you –do– have concerns of which you deign to speak.” The Chronicler smirked. “Until then, I have my own tasks to concern myself with.”
The Shepherd was already vanished and gone, leaving only a black, burned smear in the already refreezing ground. Her unspoken snarl was there however, painted into the patterns of crystallization and deposition of ice and soot. The Demented were the closest thing to a family that the chosen servitors of Evil might ever be said to have, but since the start they’d been split apart by divisions, and those same fault lines remained even now.
****
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