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Source [!] In the silence of night, across lands swept by blizzards and tides, long rolls of fine parchment are pinned to boards across the lands of Aevos - All who live and wander through these lands could easily find a copy, and read what the finely-written words say, though there is evidently a intended audience: To the fellow Watchers, As many of you have, indubitably, seen through your own eyes the vile thing that stalks our world, I imagine a variety of thoughts plague you. Questions remain unanswered, and each wasted month, we sit in isolation in our corners of the world - staring into the Veil as if it will give us answers. A fault of my own making, that I so hastily dismissed all sight except my own. In the spreading of warning across the lands, I ignored my own plea - unity. No sole being, no matter the strength of their will or flawlessness of their soul, holds a candle to what lurks Beyond the Veil. Alone, separated, we are but scraps for the picking. No longer shall I accept this status quo, and I call out to my fellow Watchers - Neither should you. We all bear the burden of this affliction, one of our own choosing. It is well past the time to put aside what separates us, and stand together. We all have something to contribute, be it knowledge to put towards banishing this Horror from the Material, or the strength to stand besides one another and help our friends, our families, and our people for the betterment of all. To those Watchers who heed this call, you will find me in the Mage-State of Hohkmat, in the District of Paradox. There is much to be shared and said, and much work to be done. To those descendants, have faith. While this Horror attempts to divide us with false truths and vicious words, while it attempts to drown us under water and snow and ice - it is all a veil of lies, drawn over your eyes to turn you unto each other. We, who see through such treachery like a clear night sky, offer our sight to you. Know you are not alone in this struggle. Steel your resolve.

Source “…Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace Where never lark nor ever eagle flew— And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod The high untrespassed sanctity of space, Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.” Prayer. That Watcher never thought himself well-kept in Faith. He had once been - devout, enduring through GOD and Kingdom any machination of dread and disgust he sought. Protected, so naively assumed. Fire. Oh, had he done his best to tend to the heath entrusted to him. Restless was his Watch - no soul or thing escaped his attention. How it rotted and festered into his very soul, an idea of duty. An inexact idea that had cost him a life he once had, freeing him to that which he dreamed to have, bordered with the lunacy of freedom. Insensate. Sensationless prayer, to reminisce on what he had been. The false pinnacle he had in his grasp, until that lie turned his flesh to ice, and blood to sludge. Shoved once more into pitiful isolation, he felt naught but anger. Yet it was not anger that had tears weeping from his eyes, so aberrant as they were. Haus stared, mind excused from vacuous body, at the barrier before him - ‘hands’ clasped before him, some solitary mockery of that gesture of worship. Cerulean and Purpureus swarmed across its unfathomable presentation, clashes of Cloral and Saffron spiraled into Maroon and Carmine - The Veil. A hollow spot, rings of white bleeding from it, seemed to spring to life across its surface, spaced across illimitable gaps of ascertain time - before absence swallowed it whole in an instant, like it never truly existed. Even those colors seemed to shift in hue and presence - energy beyond use devoted to purpose so mundane, and yet - absolutely ineluctable. He drifted - movement without expenditure of will or energy, such beneath effortless - a distance from its surface. Like a suitor to a distant admiration, he found himself enthralled, a slip of his mind. Closer he dared glide forward, a ‘hand’ drifting out to brush across that barrier. For a moment - ‘he’ ceased to be. In that mind, stretched past endurance in need of perseverance, it saw no separation between what it saw, and what it considered ‘itself’. ‘He’ was the Voice of that thing - so beautiful and vitriol, so ancient and still Beyond Time. An extension of its need to survive to the existence of mortality, the very will that would see it triumph, or succumb. Mortal and Immortal lacked sufficiency - time did not exist, for it surpassed such boundaries of Material Things. Eternity, and no time at all - as old as existence, and always inexplicably contemporary. A God, a Maker, a End - no difference could be held between such concepts, for to it they simply were itself. So turned that gaze outward - to the absence presented. There was no light from such depths, no darkness - only a gnawing need to entrap more, sustain that nothing. Such hunger writhed with energy, an absurdity that granted itself arcane fuel. In an instant, ‘he’ felt it - He was unwhole, as something stole his senses from that Veil. It was not benevolent or vile - it bore no features, no words. It simply enwreathed him in hated revelations, like a Priest to his Congregation of sinners. Source The Basilica - for a time, the Holy See resided next door. Drenched in Holy Scenes and Fervent Faith, a apex of religion. He wandered forward, standing short of the raised Pulpit. A trio of Thrones sat atop it, and three figures sat on those thrones. He took them in - only to be brushed aside by an eerie figure, its long blonde hair swaying in an unseen breeze, pale skin akin to a mirror in the snow-reflected light that streamed through stained glass. Human, a male. The rest he knew. To the left, a throne stood of books and tomes - above it hung a crimson sun, radiant and scorchingly bright. In that light, Haus found he only felt a comforting warmth that bid him calm. His heart sang to it, but words could not follow - he was silent, unwillingly. The pale woman that sat atop lounged comfortably, a tender smile on her visage. To the right, the throne stood more resembling a stage. Instruments warped together in some peculiar recognition, while atop it all resided a moon, full and pale-white. The light washed over him - igniting his very soul ablaze in righteous rage, as if commanding him to unravel himself where he stood, and surrender to - no, wield - the very hellfire that raged through his veins. The woman who sat on that throne did so confidently, as if she had belonged there beyond any measure. Her eyes, deep monochromatic blues peered towards him with unending energy - the Fuel to his Fury, assurance and belief. In the middle was the most bewildering of them all - clockwork intermixed with flesh, so finely woven together that he could not tell where the machine ended, and life began or the inverse. Nothing hung above that throne of perfect imperfections - the woman who sat atop it did so with poise, golden eyes beaming identical light towards him. It confused him, but he felt no hate in that gaze - perplexingly, he felt like he was being mocked for trying to understand it, in the way a Soldier might mock a child for the pitiful attempt to mimic a drill - yet it was not a evil mockery, but a kindness. He ached to speak - to be Truthful, confess his misunderstandings and wants to those throned, to plead for forgiveness he need not owe and beg penance - but words could not follow. He tried to blink, and even that was stolen from him. Dreadfully, he came to understand his purpose was to observe. That too perfect figure stopped short of the steps, turning to face Haus. It seemed to warp before his very eyes - all features stolen, save a robe of no color that concealed its features, and eyes of swarming hues and colors. Like lightning, it struck him the very Veil he had been abducted from filled those sockets. It gave no reaction, no semblance of emotion. It bid a hand towards the throned, and he felt the very air saturated with energy. Sound filled his head, an awful thing he could not understand - it was no language of flesh, spoken by a speaker without a voice. It’s presence wrought nausea, almost, to his senses as the figures on those thrones succumbed in a blink. To the left, that pale woman’s hair swayed in an unseen wind - only for that screeching gale to erupt from her. Where that energy did not consume her form, winds tainted a blackened color clawed and torn her apart - flesh was ripped away and scattered across that crimson sun. To the right, the woman’s head seemed to tilt to the side, as her skin bubbled and trembled - abruptly, waves of water erupted outward, stained crimson with her blood as it replaced muscle and bone with turbulent waters, swirling and rushing where that same energy did not devour. The moon drowned in those waters in futile protest. In the middle, that golden-eyed woman seemed to simply vanish - a surge of blackened mists expelling from her form, seeping around the very throne she had sat atop. As those mists condensed into the seat, he could only watch in horror at how she had been fused into the Throne - still alive, as those golden eyes blinked and fingers, surging with the very same energy, twitched towards him. She had been utterly rended apart. The only figure left standing turned, flicking a hand towards Haus. He blinked, arms raising to shield himself in some defense and that holy place of worship warped. At once, it was ravaged by flames - metal melted, wood combusted into ash, and the air grew thick with smoke. The Watcher’s eyes opened, only to find his ability to feel had been denied of him. His very arms - his entire body - was warped into flames, avaricious and all-consuming. Smoke flowed where his veins had once been, and where his mouth had been spewed forth flames - ones that spiked and dulled in intensity with each breath of air that fanned the fire. Those ‘arms’ lowered as he looked across at the figure- He was that figure. It stared back at him, a reflection. As he saw his whole self utterly lost to those flames and absent energies, those eyes caught his attention; where the sockets had remained, they had been filled with deep black eyes, tiny and filling every crevice and space like an insect. Something akin to laughter echoed around his skull, as understanding was given - like gospel, like reverence. This was no fate, no past or future. This was him - it already was consuming him. He had already been lost, and in turn - so had all near him. So he screamed in grief, in rage and hatred, fervent - those flames that had become him erupting hotter and brighter as he marched forward, hell-bent on ripping that reflection of himself apart. With each step, however, that figure changed - it no longer resembled a man, and then it no longer resembled anything. The laughter stopped, everything stopped - and it lurched out at him, devoid of thought or feeling or sensation. Only Hunger. Haus awake with a start, gasping in a breath of cold air. A hand raised to shield his cosmic gaze from the rising sun as his mind slows, and his eyes water. His hands cover his eyes as he sobs - he cannot find the strength to absolve himself that it was simply a nightmare. It takes time - time to let each sense seep through his conscious mind: The feebleness of his enfeebled body, the cold air that he shakily breathes in and out, the gentle sound of wind brushing past trees. Reminders of his mortality - where he is, who he is. His purpose. A hand reached out to his bag, fetching a familiar aurum pin. He ran a finger over the four interwoven diamonds inlaid into the item, and watched as they shifted hues - cyans, blues, purples, and grays. A soft smile graced his exhausted visage as he watched faint, red constellations trace the outer edge of the magic pin, before he affixed it to his lapel, over his heart. Delusions and voices pried for his attention, inescapable forever - but for now, he had some measure of peace, enough to saddle up on his Yisar and continue his trek onward. After all, he had no choice - all he left for himself was forward, to endure. ‘He’ was It’s Voice, and It’s Will. And he was so very tired. He shook his head, as that colder air woke him up and dispelled that encroaching madness. He would make it through. For the first time in decades, he had a home and a future - friends by his side, and people in his Heart. For them, he knew, no goal was unobtainable, and to them he was simply Haus. That was enough for the Watcher, amidst Infinity. Enough to Live for.