The Dread Sea | Suffering, Torment, Desolation.

[Valannor 6345]

 

[!] An artist’s rendition of the Ebrietæs, and the sea of suffering which it comprises.

Spoiler

 

 

 

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The truth is not always a clement thing - and some truths should be left well enough alone. 

 

Through space and time, the Barrowlord Atzudeth flung itself into the infinite beyond through ritual sacrament - an intentional jaunt, crafted with far more care than its initial venture. There were laws to reality that It knew of. Fundamentals which governed how one viewed the world, the lens through which one experienced reality itself and allowed a mortal mind to grapple with their existence. From the waters of one world to the next It travelled, shrouded only in the thin veneer of consecration wrought through salt and ritual to act as bulwark from encroaching evils from beyond the Veil. A darkened cavern faded to the brief perception of the vast and unchecked cosmos, a tunnel bored through the stars to deposit It where it so deigned to travel; and perhaps, success was truly the worst outcome of its gamble. A defining goal, best left unachieved. 

 

Where the Empyrean now resided was not a realm of sight, nor smell or touch, for such concepts scarcely existed - could exist - within this space. This was the vast Ebrietæs, and immediately that nascent Barrowlord was drowned in an ocean of suffering and torment, memories and experiences which invaded its amalgam consciousnesses; and in the blink of an eye it experienced a thousand mortal lifetimes, Its will nearly crushed by the weight of anguish and the burdens of the damned. The stain of blood upon the blade of an ‘aheral’s kinslaying, dark maledictions wrought in service of the occult which never cared for a dwarven life, the tortured existence of a sinner who sold his companion’s souls for the vain hope of seeing another day. So many stories, so many lives, consigned to perdition for reasons the Barrowlord could hardly stand to justify nor fathom. It buckled, its pure-white form stained murky gray with the stains of the grasping hands which clung to the foreign soul for succor or consumption; years could have passed, centuries, and It would not have known. An empyreal tide crashing upon itself, an ocean of souls in torment all trapped in their own suffering by mechanisms ordained through the Mongoose’s hand - and whatever the Empyrean had expected, it was anything but this. ‘Sound,’ if it truly was such, took only the place of deafening cacophonies of wails and shrieks of untold pain and agony, the pitiful moans of sobbing widows and the angered howls of the unrepentant damned all coalescing into a drone of haunting, macabre beauty. Lashing tendrils of its own occult power would escape the Lord’s spirit, spurred on by the anguish of those which clung to it, and it broke to the surface of the Wastes - or whatever such could be construed as, for ‘space’ was a relative ideal in the plane of lost souls, a notion which could change at the whim of faux tides. 

 

Vast forms of ebony loomed over all, in the far distance. Hundreds of scarlet eyes permeated their forms, and the Empyrean watched as they strove against one another in battle of the spirit - a far cry from the duels of blade and claw in a mortal realm, but the very will of their immortal souls, the songs of a discordant melody which sought to break one another in a fruitless battle of wit and raw power. The ‘sky’ here bore no stars, no light, no love, providing a murky gray contrast of apathy and contempt to all that lingered below. The dead fell into their forms, and never did they emerge in the wake of these great monoliths and exemplars of the Ebrietæs’ curse; simple creatures, yet a crucial part of this horrific ecosystem. And cursed, indeed, was what this realm was. There was no love to be found here, far beyond the scathing warmth of a golden sun. There was no wisdom, nor compassion, in the entrapment of the dead in their own agonies and personal hells which mingled with the others, forming a vast breadth of writhing and seizing waves of psychic torture for all caught within. For all that the world knew of the Ebrietæs, and thought of it, what this was…

 

Was so much worse than any could have e’er imagined. 

 

And then, Atzudeth saw it. Impossibly far in the distance, yet still grandiose and leviathan in scale, It bore witness to a vortex of shimmering candescence and shadow alike - a dim light of silver and gold, the center around which all revolved. An impossibly beautiful thing, which cast its light far beyond its borders, yet never gracing the wretched souls consigned to wander these wastes ad infinitum; dazzling, enchanting, seraphic, all of these things and more witnessed in the rawest form by a mortal soul. The promise of paradise to those deemed worthy, a stream and road where all things end and are born anew. A kiss of moonlight upon the infinite sea, yet cold and unforgiving, scornful as the embers of a fire which has long since faded. It stared, it witnessed, and it pined for a great length of time - enraptured and transfixed upon the light, before it tore its gaze away. 

 

Atzudeth wept, even as it departed from this realm. It had seen what it had come to see - a vast sea of potential, left in disrepair to rot in its own sin. It wept for what could have been, what had been lost, and what was. It wept and sobbed for the thousands of lives which it had witnessed in the briefest turn of the sundial, their sins and virtues laid bare - and Atzudeth’s own witnessed in turn. Its will was fractured, weakened, yet strengthened all the same. 

 

But the Barrowlord was changed by this experience. And never, not in the rest of its purgatory, would it be able to forget this tragedy.

 

Spoiler

This post merely serves to represent & document the journey of the Barrowlord Atzudeth to the plane of Ebrietæs, and what it bore witness to in its short time in that realm. A big thanks is extended to Kalehart for approving this shunt, and another to Zarsies for helping to give me some creative inspiration for how to write such an alien and traumatic experience. This was a huge moment for the character and the fulfillment of a major character arc, and I'm grateful to have had the opportunity! 

[UnBaed 8957]

In a dark cavern sat an elf, her knees hugged close to herself.  She could hardly remove her heavy eyes off of that odd energy lingering in the air, almost mistakable for a shadow in the dimness around her.  Yet she felt that lingering energy, that offness that circled around it. . . She would wait, and wait.  For the return of her dear friend and mentor.  He will return, Ilaria whispered back to that worrying voice bound within her.  He will return, and we can resume our work with The Shore.

[bloomtiara 368]

A singular phantasmal being remained in the air, floating inches above the stone behind Ilaria. It's gaze was unwavering, blinking naught once, in pleading wait for their brother to return. He had to come back.

He must come back.

He will.

[Krugallah 359]

A new mystic, lilac of eyes, who had watched the events transpire, sat down on his new room, frown on his face. Would he return?