It must be noted that I cannot vouch for the entries left by scholars before my time. Much of what we knew has been lost, and much of what we have lost has been forgotten.
Yet it is now my solemn duty — as appointed by The Conclave — to make what remains of Scitherial’s histories accessible to those who still seek them.
Temper all that you read with your own judgment, for I cannot promise truth. Only fragments. Echoes.
But if you are willing, follow me deeper into this bastion of fading knowledge, where the truth, or some semblance of it, we may find together…
Welcome to the archive…
- Valem Orenth, Second scribe of prelmar
Prelmaria, the southern kingdom
As we journey through the archives deep in the catacombs of Mount Prelmar, it is important for the traveller to know where we stand.
Defined by the ancient Morning and Apaladian Mountains, Prelmaria is the Celestial beacon left to Scitherial by Golsored and his eight kin.
From the jagged marble spires of Vorksulat to the tide-smashed walls of Seaspire, whose towers have defied the raging north-blown storms for aeons passed, our kingdom was forged in balance — of land and sky, of justice and faith.
To us, the divine is not debated. It is etched in stone and misted in the breath of our people. The Nine Celestials guide our rituals, our banners, and our last dying words.
And yet, it is the mortal line of Prelmar that has preserved us through chaos. I speak now of King Daralid, sovereign of our time — noble, blood-bound, and beloved.
His reign has been marked by sorrow and siege, and yet, he remains unbowed. Among the halls of the Ruby Palace, I have seen him speak with fire, stand in silence, and pray when no others would.
Prelmaria’s governance lies in an uneasy trinity: the Ancient House of Prelmar, who wear the crown; the Lords of the South, who hold the lands; and the Conclave, who claim the will of the Nine.
Between them flows the power of our realm — though if one were to ask who truly governs us, one would find a dozen different answers, none spoken aloud…
I, Valem Orenth, remain loyal to the crown. To Daralid, whose strength is carved of the same marble as our city. And yet even I must admit… the loudest voice in the kingdom does not always speak from the throne.
- valem orenth, second scribe of prelmar
chingravia, the northern
empire
To our northern border, over the Morning Mountains and through the glades of Oakbreak, stands the Imperium of Chingravia. Built in stone, bred in silence, ruled by law and spearpoint — the empire does not whisper of its power. It marches it. It carves it.
From the spear-lined fjords of Forchansia to the black heights of Chingrav itself, where citadel towers rise like knives of Vulitia’s will. their lands remain ordered, obedient, unblinking. Their soldiers are not born; they are made. Each citizen bleeds a decade in armor — ten years to the Emperor, ten more in dreams.
And above them all: the Gryffin. a beast worshipped in flesh and stone. a symbol of chingravian authority, or perhaps their cruelty mirrored back toward them through the form of a beast still living from ancient mythos.
So too do they worship Nerbus. ancient, brutal, and unwavering. Theirs is not a god of mercy, but of dominion. In the great cathedral of the First Crescht, his tusks are worked into glass, his eyes into fire. They do not pray for guidance. They pray for endurance.
And yet, not all believe. I have seen doubt in the eyes of their legionnaires — men clutching the pendants of Nerbus with hands that tremble, not from fear of death, but from what they must become to survive it, The Crescht binding them as tightly as any chain.
I have walked their roads. Heard their drums. I will not deny their brilliance — nor their cruelty. Their legions move with such precision, one forgets they are men, not stone harbingers of the emperors will. perhaps this is the point.
For time immemorial we have warred with this race — this ideology of death and man fused into one. Neither the kingdom nor the imperium will yield. this foe is indomitable. unbreaking. unfeeling. One truly wonders how our feud begun, or indeed, how it is to end.
for half a generation there has been an uneasy peace between the north and south. Slowly though, in my old bones, I feel the winds of conquest again blowing across the slopes of the Apalad…
- Valem Orenth, Second Scribe of Prelmar
There are places in Scitherial that breathe differently — that exist in dimensions not charted by kings. From what little I know, the Banewood is one of them.
It lies beyond our southern border, dominating the far reaches of the continent and casting shadow across the Oranchian Ocean with its mighty branches. Even our maps hesitate to name its borders, as if the wood itself shifts beneath the ink. No banners fly above its roots. No horns echo through its canopy. The war has no claim within its oaken web.
We know it as the realm of the Dakkenskor — the elemental caretakers who once sang to the trees, shaped the winds, and bathed the land in peace, joy, and harmony. After the Elemental War, when mankind shattered the balance, they were cast into the Banewood. Or perhaps... they chose it.
The forest is alive. Not simply with birdsong or beasts — but with intent. Its glades twist behind travellers. Its light follies memory. Some say the Banewood observes. Others think it waits. Watching what, and waiting for whom — no man can say. Some mysteries choose not to be solved.
A few human villages remain within its shadow — strange places, half-forgotten, untouched by kingdom or crown. Their people speak little, worship nothing, save for the trees, the birds, and the bugs that now rule in quiet dominion.
I have never passed its borders, nor do I know a man who has. Not for lack of courage, but because I have read enough to wonder whether I would be welcome... or remembered. It is no surprise that the Dakkenskor treat us with disdain. Much of their blood lies on the hands of our ancestors. Their treetop settlements cling to the highest oaks, and unseen arrows are never far from the throats of would-be trespassers and conquerors.
whispers from adventurers and fools who have travelled to this old place have one detail in common. do not travel its Labyrinthian paths by night, for when the sun sets on a place as ancient as the banewood, old things begin their hunts for trophies more valuable than flesh.
There are places in this world that do not forgive. The Banewood, I believe, is one of them. There is much to that place — every part of it unwilling to be touched by mortal hands.
The banewood
- Valem orenth, second scribe of prelmar
now we find ourselves at the older scrolls, scrolls which have been preserved from the crumbling’s of time for longer than any of my order know…
It is recorded that beneath the skin of Scitherial lies its true body — a network not carved by hand, but breathed, woven into being. I refer, of course, to the Klorodian. Or as the old Dakkenskor glyphs might render it: That Which Carries the Light Beneath.
To most, a myth. A tale for children and mystics and mad men. A sacred labyrinth lost to time and sealed by purpose.
I have studied too long, read too deeply, travelled too far to dismiss it so easily.
The Klorodian is no road, nor ruin. It is a being. a living piece of pulsing stone where time forgets itself. Some think it a creation of The Nine Celestials. Others, a relic of the Preddenskor, the world architects who came before even the most ancient Elementals. The Dakkenskor, though they rarely speak of it, seem to treat it not as a structure, but as a wounded god.
Its known entrances, if the parchment is to be believed, lie buried beneath mountains and monoliths, sealed behind earthen doors that will not yield to blade or flame. Only ritual — ritual forgotten by man can open the gate, And only then to those it deems worthy. deeper in the archives, further than even i the second scribe am permitted to enter, lie recordings of Dakkenskori seers returning from its tunnels with silver in their eyes, and silent shrouds masking their lips.
from what my research of folktale and hearsay suggests, the Klorodian does not behave as land should. Its halls are lit by blue flame that gives no heat, and lined with runes that speak without sound. Murals stretch along its walls in forgotten languages too dread to read, and the light bends in and out of ones consciousness as a dream may take to a sleeping man.
Some claim it shows you things — memories, futures, sins. Others say it forgets you, or makes you forget yourself. That it takes a piece of you, hiding it somewhere you cannot follow.
And yet… it guides. Even now, whispers in the fat corners of vorksulat persist of pilgrims finding the forgotten paths — arriving weeks ahead, or decades behind. I do not pretend to understand what this means. Only that the Klorodian does not offer direction. It offers judgment.
To walk its tunnels, I believe, is not merely to travel — but to be witnessed. it has chosen to scorn man, and now that my teeth have grown long i cannot say i blame it. what boons could it have granted us if we were more worthy, more given to mercy and peace than to war and destruction? all i know is that sometimes, when i look out of the window of the kernus tower, i know there is something that looks back. the unlit spires peaking over the horizon give me shivers, and i know, deep in my bones i know, it has its eyes set on our kingdom
And if the Klorodian is watching us still… I wonder what reflection it sees in the stained glass of prelmaria.
the klorodian
- Valem Orenth, Second Scribe Of Prelmar
Of all the lands that stain our maps, none are more veiled than Eastern Xyan.
within the catacombs of Mount Prelmar — where scrolls speak of kingdoms long swallowed by sea and flame — there is precious little written of that place. What fragments do remain are marked in ink that has faded too conveniently, or scribed in glyphs that do not wish to be understood.
perhaps this is for good reason.
Xyan lies beyond the misted rim of the Oranchian Ocean, beyond even the last known coral isles, where the stars above bend and flicker in foreign constellations unmappable by our most learned of star cartographers. Some believe the Preddenskor still dwell there, untouched by war, unbowed by the passing of time. Others speak of a land not simply hidden, but forbidden — sealed from mankind not by distance, but by judgment. to travel towards this place is to travel to the heavens, an unattainable voyage through space and smoke.
I have never known a traveller who claimed to return from its coasts. Only a few sailors, half-mad with salt and silence, whispered of fogs that sing and shorelines that shift when watched too closely. One spoke of towers made of water, and another of serpentine voices beneath the waves. All were later found drowned in shallow basins, their bones broken against rock and journals soaked through with symbols no scholar could decipher.
From the accounts I dare trust, Xyan is a place the Nine Celestials once revered — perhaps even feared. There are texts that refer to it as The Womb of the First Light — the place from which the cloth of divine order was spun. If such a title is true, then we are not speaking of a land at all, but a wound in the fabric of creation itself.
I cannot confirm these claims. I only know that our current age does not speak of Xyan unless it must. And when it must… it whispers.
Should any seeker or fell traveller attempt to reach it, I pray they go not for conquest, but for repentance. For if the Preddenskor still live there — if they remember what we did to their gifts — then it is not salvation that awaits across the Oranchian waters.
It is divine recompense.
Eeastern Xyan
- Valem Orenth, Second Scribe of prelmar
There are places in Scitherial that command respect, not through force or decree — but because the world itself pauses in their presence.
The Apalad is such a place.
Nestled in the high ridges of the Apaladian Mountains, where north and south breathe the same cold air, the Apalad sits between empire and kingdom — belonging to neither. It is no fortress. It raises no banners. yet even kings and emperors bow their heads as they pass beneath its shadow.
We call it a monastery, though that word does not suffice. It is older than our sanctuaries, holier than our cathedrals — not by rite, by presence. Some records imply that it was shaped before written memory, by hands that no longer walk this world. perhaps the preddenskor, perhaps some race even elder than they.
the Apaladians were once man, or close enough. Now, they are something else. Changed by knowledge, silence, and the thinness of air at that height. They do not meddle in war. They do not write to courts. But it is whispered among devout circles that they still convene with the golsored and his kin. without prayer, without altar, and, most importantly without the Conclave’s permission.
That, more than anything, is what makes them dangerous. not dangerous to the body or mind. Dangerous to the soul.
The Apalad is a place of peace, but not comfort. Its silence weighs. Its stones watch. Magic, in closed circles some say, forms of the arcane are still practised there — silently, reverently, and without apology. I have read reports of fire drawn from incense, of words that bend wind, of men who speak truths before you offer them.
None of this is confirmed, of course.
And yet… none of it is denied.
In the annals of both north and south, it is recorded that kings, emperors, and generals have walked barefoot in ragged cloaks up those slopes, seeking penance, prophecy, or perhaps divine council. Heroes of holy scripture were raised within its jade walls — taught not by command, but by contemplation. Their names are few, their stories fewer still. the mountain remembers them better than i ever could.
The Apalad is loved. The Apalad is feared. To those with broken faith, it is a hope. To those with power, it is a threat. It answers to no king, and no scripture, and no war.
It simply is.
I have seen its shape from afar, drawn in charcoal by a dying scout. I do not know if I will ever stand upon its steps. But I believe it watches. Not in judgment. Not in wrath. What knowledge remains within its jade walls? what teachings could it offer someone willing to listen?
there is an old saying in scitherial, one that still makes my hair retreat from my flesh —
do what you will in the power of one or the power of two, but if you dabble into the power of three, the mountain is watching all that becomes of thee…
The Apalad
- Valem Orenth, Second Scribe of prelmar
There are truths in this world that demand no proof. They reside not in parchment nor stone, but in the marrow of those who remember how to feel them.
The Nine Celestials are such truths.
They are not kings. They are not myths. They are the breath behind the wind, the word behind the word, the light behind the dawn. Long before Scitherial had name or law or voice, the Nine stood — each a shard of cosmic balance, each a voice in the divine chorus that birthed our world.
We name them as we are able:
Golsored, the All-Father, bearer of the sword that cuts both falsehood and fate.
Nirvene, the Gentle Mother, whose warmth fills the holy gardens and whose silence heals all pain.
Zereli, the comforter, the shoulder on which all may lean.
Mamas, guardian of the threshold, whose blade has not dulled since the first stars sang.
Caralini, justice in stillness — cold, eternal, unwavering.
Sarryni, the groaning void — misunderstood, feared, yet counted among them.
Vavalar, the Builder, whose hands shaped the bones of mountains and carved the sacred steps into the heart of Prelmar.
Embarfinor, keeper of the wild, voice of earth and root, whose silence once stirred the forests to bloom.
And one more…
The Forgotten.
Whose name no longer reaches us. their statues are crumbled — not by weather nor war, but as if the world itself recoiled from remembering. No visage remains. No hymn is sung. Only absence… and the quiet fear that some truths are buried for a reason.
Their images adorn the oldest stones in places no man has ever put chisel to stone. Their hymns once shook the roots of the morning mountains. Their breath guided the early Apaladians, the first Dakkenskor, and even now, I believe, it stirs the hearts of those willing to listen.
And yet, we are told they have gone quiet.
Some claim they are dead. Others say we turned our ears from them first — and so they turned their gaze away. I do not pretend to know their will. But I believe this: the Nine do not die. They retreat. They wait. They watch.
It is the Conclave’s duty to preserve their teachings, though I have seen how even holy hands may tremble under the weight of divine silence. The Nine do not grant favor as they once did. And in the shadow of that silence, man has grown bold… and small.
Still, when I kneel at the foot of the Ruby Cathedral beneath Golsored’s shattered mural, I feel something press against the veil of the world — a breath, a warmth, a memory of mercy.
Perhaps that is all faith is: not the expectation of being heard, but the quiet decision to keep speaking.
And so I write this, not to explain the Nine — I cannot — but to remember them.
If they yet live, I hope they forgive what we have become.
If they do not… then I shall pray to the silence they left behind.
The Nine Celestials
- Valem Orenth, Second Scribe of Prelmar
Of all the faiths that haunt Scitherial, none is so rigid, so joyless, or so dreadfully efficient as that of the Crescht — the state-bound dogma of the Chingravian Imperium. If the conclave speaks in verse, the Crescht speaks in marching orders.
There is only one god in their doctrine: Nerbus — the tusked brute, the war-born boar god. In their holy murals, he stands broad-shouldered, tusked, rippling with strength and fire — not in celestial radiance, but in blood and muscle. He does not promise redemption. He does not forgive.
He demands.
their faith began as a small cult in the frostbitten north — worshippers of a fallen star that carved a path through heaven and bled into the world. That wound, they say, took shape and became Nerbus. Whether that is poetry or madness, I do not know.
Their priests wear armor beneath their robes. Their sacred texts are engraved on iron instead of parchment. They do not pray for love, or guidance, or understanding. They pray for endurance, for order, and for victory. The body is a weapon. The soul is a ledger.
And the Emperor is his voice.
If it all sounds like a tool to bind the masses to obedience… I suspect it is. The Crescht faith fits the architecture of martial law too cleanly to be accident. Obey. Conquer. Serve.
And yet…
There is something there.
I have seen it. Not in temples or sermons, but in feverish, sweat drenched nightmares. A vast shadow in a place without horizon. Tusks the size of towers, breathing slow and heavy, dragging wet air through a throat that has never known silence. Its voice is not speech — it is a pulse, echoing beneath the flesh. A shape that does not move, but arrives.
It is not a god in the way I understand them. It is a truth. A weight. A hunger shaped into form.
I do not think it is a lie. I simply fear it is true.
Their greatest cathedral, the First Crescht, once stood in Capitalis. It was annihilated in the War of the Nine Witches — not desecrated, but erased, as if some force meant to unwrite it. Since then, they have not rebuilt. Instead, they kneel in the dirt beside wooden statues raised in marching camps, surrounded by banners soaked in frost and ash. Around their necks, they wear onyx pendants, carved with the tusks of their god and chained tight to the throat like cosmic leashes.
Some say they wait. Others say they know the faith is marred with taint and rot.
There are whispers, even within the Imperium, of The Shepherd — a figure said to rise not from royal blood nor clerical rank, but from the forgotten. A voice that speaks not to the court, but to the masses. I’ve seen his name whispered in shattered stone, heard it in half-mad prophecy.
I will not record it here.
Let this scroll stand, then, not as a chronicle — but as a warning. The Crescht is not a faith of comfort. It is not a faith of choice. It is a binding — and whatever beast it chains itself to…
...has not yet stopped pulling.
the crescht
- Valem Orenth, Second Scribe of Prelmar
There are names I was never meant to speak.
Not for fear of punishment — though there are punishments — but for fear that saying them aloud might bring them closer.
The Starchildren, as we call them in Prelmaria. The Nobriuki, as the Dakkenskor name them — a word that, in their tongue, loosely translates to “the Light-Forged.”
In the scrolls forbidden to all but the High Conclave — and in the dream-songs of the Apaladian mystics — there are scattered references to beings of a higher resonance. Not gods, and yet not mortal. Not created, but remembered.
They are called by many titles. The Celestial Echoes. The Bridges. The Second Spine.
What little I have read speaks not of their origin, but of their return. That they were once part of Scitherial — or perhaps of something beyond it — and that when the Veil begins to thin, they will walk once more among us. Not as Saviours. As signs.
The Dakkenskor describe them not as individuals, but as harmonics — three tones that must resound together to awaken something long silenced.
It is said that the return of even one Starchild would signal the tipping of an age. That they will appear not in glory, but in quiet, drawn to the cracks in the world where faith has failed and darkness makes its dens.
One is said to carry the memory of the stars. One, the innocence of the flame. And one… the shadow of what we were meant to become, and failed.
If this is true — if even a fragment of it is — then I do not know whether we are meant to welcome them… or to be measured by them.
The Apaladians speak of their arrival in symbols: a dying tree, weeping light, and a child with no name. I confess, I do not know what these mean. But the pattern repeats itself in temple mosaics, cave murals, and songs buried in the First Tongue — songs we were told never to sing.
The Conclave does not speak of the Starchildren. Not publicly. But I have seen their marks in the sealed archives, in ink that hums when the light falls just right upon it. I have seen a name scored out so violently from one scroll that it tore through seven layers beneath.
I fear that name was never forgotten.
It was erased.
And if they are returning — if the Starchildren walk even now beneath foreign stars — then I believe we are not standing at the edge of salvation.
We are standing at the threshold of remembrance.
The Nobriuki
- valem Orenth, Second Scribe of Prelmar
If the Nine Celestials were the architects of our world, then the Elementals were its first breath.
They were not born. They were planted — sown into the bones of Scitherial by divine will, awakened by Preddenskor song. The first people. The oldest voice. They shaped the rivers, carved the mountains, sang the winds into motion. They were not human, nor ever meant to be.
And perhaps that is why we turned on them.
Prelmaria’s denizens speak rarely of the Elementals — and when it does, it speaks in accusation. Tricksters. Heretics. Half-beasts. But deeper in the archives, beyond the reach of the altar scribes, the narrative shifts. In those ancient fragments, they are not deceivers. They are stewards.
The Dakkenskor are the last of these stewards still known to us — tall, long-limbed, tattooed in a tongue that predates our earliest bells. They dwell in the canopy of the Banewood, far from crown and conclave. I have never stood among them, nor do I know any who have — not for lack of interest, but for lack of welcome.
Their presence is said to distort the air itself — thickening the world around them, slowing time, bending silence. Not magic, I think. Memory. Their kind has not forgotten the shape the world once held, and they carry that shape like an oath.
What few records we have speak of a handful of human settlements that endure within the Banewood’s reach — villages without banners, without prayers, without ties to Prelmaria or its systems of belief. And yet… they remain. Some even thrive. I cannot say whether the Dakkenskor permit this, or ignore it, or if some old accord has simply never ended. What I can say is that there is a rhythm between them — tense, wordless, unnatural. Not peace. But something older. Something unspoken.
I do not understand it.
The Moonan were another of the great Elemental lines — now all but extinct. I have only read of them in mythic verse and broken mosaics: creatures vast and scaled, or furred and horned, older than mountain ranges and gentler than firelight. Some believe they dreamed the stars into being. Others say they have not truly died, only gone deeper — into the stone, into the sea, into the breath between worlds.
There is one name, though, that appears again and again — Agril.
The line of Prelmar has long honored a pact with a being by that name. Whether the Agril of legend is a true Moonan or merely a poetic title passed down by kings, I cannot say. But his name is carved beneath the foundation stone of the Ruby Cathedral. That alone gives me pause.
The Elementals did not lose their war. They left it. Or perhaps… they allowed us to believe we had won.
Now they are scattered. Quiet. Fewer each decade. But I do not believe they are defeated.
I believe they are watching.
And when they return — if they return — I wonder if we will recognize them as old gods, or the ancient enemy our histories paint them to be.
The Elementals
- Valem Orenth, Second Scribe of Prelmar
It is said that when gods fall silent, men begin to speak in fire.
The War of the Nine Witches was not our first war, nor our bloodiest. But it was the last time battle was shaped by magic — the final era where spells were cast in open daylight, and sorcery walked the fields as boldly as swords.
It began as all great tragedies do — with power misunderstood, misused, and finally, feared. The southern texts speak of it as a rising — a loose confederation of mages, mystics, and blood-wrights who had, over generations, begun to unlock truths that brushed too close to the divine. The northern texts are less forgiving. There, it is called a purge — a necessary severing of an infected limb.
I have read both.
At the war’s heart were the Nine, sorcerers of incredible power and unknown origin, bound together by pact or prophecy. We do not know their names. We do not know their faces. But we know what they did.
And we know what was done to stop them.
The skies over Scitherial darkened for nine days. Fires fell that did not burn, but erased. The ground warped. Stone sang. And at the height of the conflict, the Chingravian capital of Capitalis was unmade — not conquered, not razed, but shattered. Even now, ten generations later, its ruins lie untouched.
No seeker returns from that place.
Not the bold, not the faithful, not the desperate. Capitalis is guarded by unspeakable things borne of magic — arcane machines or sentient fragments of spellwork that still crawl through its skeleton, stitched together from ash and memory. Some walk without heads. Others whisper in the tongues of the Nine. The wind there does not howl — it speaks. And I believe, with growing certainty, that the city itself still listens.
It was after that devastation that both north and south agreed — no more.
The accords that followed were swift and brutal. Magic was outlawed. Books were burned. Temples were sealed. Those who carried runes upon their flesh were branded traitors, heretics, monsters. The very word witch became a curse, and the art once pursued in the halls of kings was hunted to extinction in the streets.
There are still whispers, of course. Always whispers. In caves, in cracks, in the back alleys of crumbling cities. But they are not spoken openly. Not in Prelmaria. Not in Chingravia. Not anywhere light still touches.
Some believe the Nine were demons. Others say they were saints. But the truth — or what remains of it — is buried under fear, and law, and centuries of silence.
And I confess, even now, one thought haunts me:
Nine witches.
Nine Celestials.
Coincidence, perhaps. But if the symmetry holds meaning… then what war, I wonder, were the Nine truly fighting?
All I know is this: we won.
And in winning, we did not end conflict.
We ended magic.
And perhaps something greater with it.
The War Of The Nine Witches
- Valem Orenth, Second Scholar of Prelmar
I write this not as scribe, nor servant of the crown — but as a man who has looked too deeply in to matters he should not.
I do not know where the Vancronites came from. Not truly. The earliest references are scratched into the walls of tombs beneath the Garlian provinces — not texts, but scratches. Not names, warnings.
They do not serve the Nine. They do not seek glory, balance, or redemption. They seek something they refer to as — unsealing.
They worship something. Or perhaps nothing. Perhaps it is not worship at all, but invitation — the calling of a presence not born of stars or earth. I do not know what it is. I do not want to.
The Vancronites believe that the world is a cage. That pain is a key. That by flaying the soul, one may open a door to something older, something outside, just beyond the realm of reason and sanity.
Their rituals are not symbolic. They are artistic in their dread. I have read whispers of chanting in flesh-draped halls, of screaming stone, of priests with no mouths who still manage to speak. Their knives do not shed blood — they draw something closer to our realm.
They wear red. They wear bone. Their robes are stitched with sigils from no known tongue. Some carry black lanterns that do not burn, but hum. Others wear their victims’ faces like armor.
They are not human. Or if they are, they have forgotten what that means.
There are cities where the birds have stopped nesting. Where mirrors no longer show reflections. Where the ground is soft, though no rain has fallen. And I know — in the deep ache behind my ribs, I know — it is them.
The Conclave denies their existence. The Conclave denies a great many things.
I cannot say what the Vancronites seek. I cannot name what they are trying to reach, or where it waits. I only know that they are always facing downward, even when they look up.
They are not merely a cult.
They are a door.
And something is knocking.
The Vancronites
- Valem Orenth, Second Scribe of Prelmar
We must speak in hushed tones here.
If you have followed me this far — through ink, ruin, and remembrance — then know that what comes now does not reside in the permitted histories. These words are not bound by royal seal, nor blessed by the Conclave. They are taken from the blackened corners of parchment curled with age, from bindings that flinch when opened.
This knowledge was not left to be read. It was left to be buried.
The Baqshaldur.
I do not know what the word means — if indeed it has ever been meant to be spoken aloud. It appears only in fragments: carved in the footnotes of ancient Crescht texts, half-burned into the stone beneath condemned temples, or scratched into the bones of mad prophets.
It is not a place. And yet, all who fear it speak of it as such.
Some say it is beneath the world, or behind it. Others say it is woven into its shadow, as though the realm of men is nothing more than a shell cast by a deeper truth. A place without sky, without sun, where time buckles and faith decays.
I have seen maps from the early Crescht heretics — hastily drawn, incomplete, but marked always with one shape: a spiral that never closes. And in its heart, a single glyph that translates — very roughly — as unreturning.
There are whispers — not stories, not myths, but echoes — of a presence that stirs there. A will. A hunger. Not a god, nor a demon, nor anything the Nine could have made. Something older, larger. something watching us all. I dare not speculate further.
The Dakkenskor do not name it. But high in the cliffs along the Banewood’s edge, I have found carvings in trees and stone — sigils that match those burned into the deepest Prelmarian vaults. Bones lie at their base. Not buried, but arranged. Bloodied. Cracked open as if by reverent hands. And they are not always beast.
Some appear… more than that.
The Conclave denies the Baqshaldur exists.
And yet, in the forbidden vault beneath Mount Prelmar, behind seven seals and two oaths I should not have broken, I found a scrap of prayer — or warning — in the First Tongue. I transcribe it here, though I do not know if I ought:
"Let no soul touch the depth where light does not go. Let no breath be drawn beneath the unnameable sky. If the gate awakens, let none remain to see it opened."
I do not know if this is prophecy. Or history.
…Do you hear that?
We must leave.
Quickly.