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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9521397" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Long ago, in an age when magic was more than it is today--more powerful, more dangerous, more willful--the wizarchitects of Molcanis ruled this land. Theirs was a tyranny, to be sure, but it was not a savage tyranny. It was cold, bloodless, calculating. Even the magocrats were but weights on the scale. Bigger weights, but still--any life could be spent if the prize was worth the price.In those elden, gilded days, the wizarchitects poured out blood like water, not in war, but in the name of their profane sciences, pushing their occult engineering to its furthest limits. One among them, Zarinaia the Seer-Queen, endured a siege for ten grueling years, with her magic both shield and succor that kept her people alive. "No more," said she. "No more shall we fear the siege. For I shall raise a city that cannot be stopped, the Walls That Walk."Another decade she lost to this endeavor, but her alchemists fuelled her youth and vigor by tapping the vein of her slaves. Slowly, the plan took shape. Slowly, the winding ways of a palace that could be took shape, a citadel that was a centurion, a footsoldier that was a fortification. Zarinaia knew from before she took quill to draft-paper that the magic to power such a thing would be immense, an undertaking of dozens or hundreds of mages working in concert, so she wrote and wooed, wagered and warred to get the assistants she required, and drew yet further from the bedrock of her nation's people, for a few more lives could ensure the eternal safety of all, and the eternal sovereignty of one.Finally, after years of effort, after seven days without food or rest, she spoke the final word that should have woken the Walls That Walk. But she felt it, even as the word escaped her lips. The power was not enough. The spell hung, suspended, hungry, yearning for the power it needed to find completion, to end its suspended sentence. Zarinaia cried out for the slaves to be slaughtered, and they were, but still the spell hungered. She ordered the untouchables executed, but still the spell thirsted. She personally slew the dozen dozen of mages, drowning the stones in their blue-sparking blood, but still the spell craved more.In mad desperation, feeling the spell's hunger as if it were her own, she sacrificed even herself, and all within those damned walls. The spell drank deep, not just of her, but of the thousands that swam in her veins. And it was finally, finally satisifed.Flee from the Walls That Walk. Flee from the ambition that could not be quenched. Flee from the fortress that wanders, restless and empty, the living cenotaph to the hubris of mortals.</blockquote>

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