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Awakening of an Aetherial
I don't usually post logs, but this one deserves to be shared! I am still very much in awe, and I can never gush enough about how much I appreciate everyone who had a hand in coming up with this masterpiece of a story. @Ictinus promised me poignant, thoughtful and a bit emotional, and delivered on all of it (except it was A LOT EMOTIONAL ;_;) beyond expectations.
I had to change some of the colors to have them be readable, and I probably didn't do them justice, but trust me they were the prettiest. You can read this with original colors (and way worse formatting) here.
Without further ado - Awakening of an Aetherial*
South of the glowing core of the Great Oak.
A plain grey pack lies here. Dripping with bright green liquid, a very lush fruit rests on the ground here.
You see exits leading north, northeast, east, southeast, south, southwest, west, and northwest.
"...Shaman," breathes a distant voice, at once above and all around you. The echoing threads of its absence take hold of you, an unseen and scarcely-felt beckon that glimmers in your mind's eye. "Do you hear my voice, across these thousands of years?"
You have emoted: Where Valorie would normally startle, the only sign of her surprise is a soft exhale, a blink of seafoam eyes and a tilt of her head as she turns around, looking for something not visible to her. There is a moment of hesitation before she speaks, voice just loud enough to be heard, "Where are you?"
"Who..."
"I am... distant," the voice affirms, a celestial song underpinning its tones. It has gained certainty, focus, in finding you. "Distant in a way not easily explained." Glimpses of a sidereal void swim past your gaze. "Come to the confluence, the place where time is broken. I would speak with you."
-lots of path tracking, totally ignored Eaku standing guard outside the confluence sorry Eaku -
A strange altar flanked by vast statues.
Wrought from mottled black, white, and green metamorphic stone, this section of the ruins opens up into a surprisingly large buried nave. The chamber, symmetrical in almost all respects, is as pristine as though it had been carved yesterday, untouched by the ravages of time thanks to being sealed away. In the center of the room is a plinth, carved from obsidian, about five feet high and with a flat top that looks as though it might hold an object. This tiny altar is surrounded by seven huge, bronze statues, each looking to be some form of giant. The statues are fifteen feet tall each, and roughly humanoid, although instead of faces, they seem to have an arrangement of recessed sockets, dry spigots, and toothed metal wheels. Each of them clutches an orb in one hand, and a disc in another. Suspended in a protective matrix, time shudders about the amorphous periphery of an aeonic device. A sigil in the shape of a small, rectangular monolith is on the ground. A flowery white cherry dendaric entbeast roams here.
You see a single exit leading south.
So close to the confluence's chaotic churn, you catch chiaroscuro shimmers - the self-same as you witnessed in your imagination, not long before, now realized as multiplicitous visions hanging in the air, silvery slashes across the fabric of reality.
You have emoted: Curiosity wins over whatever caution has been instilled into her, Valorie stepping off her beast at the entrance to the altar, and taking a slow step closer to the confluence. She does not speak, a faint rise and fall of her chest with every breath the only movement as she stares at the amorphous device, eyes wide and ears pricked.
"Hail, Valorie Aresti," speaks a celestial voice, its tones inciting iridescent flickers across the aetherial fissures in the air. They grow more diffuse, taking the form of argent nimbi that dance nearer to you.
You have emoted: A hand lifts in the air, the same relentless curiosity urging Valorie another step closer, fingertips reaching for the nimbi in yearning, as though trying to figure out the being through a fleeting touch. "Hail," she responds, eyes flickering across every glimpse of light she sees, "I do not know your name."
The starry motes settle upon your constellated freckles, the dark tan of your skin, the elongated tapering ends of your ears - mirroring the points and lines of your form. "I am named Veithadros. I have witnessed your terrible plight in coming, and I have counsel and strength to offer you. Will you join me... in the sky?"
A beam of prismatic light suddenly shoots into the room.
Alela suddenly appears, having travelled down the beam of prismatic light.
"Begone," speaks a celestial voice.
Alela is ripped from your location by an unseen force.
You have emoted: "Veithadros," Valorie repeats the name, unfamiliarity in the pronunciation as it rolls off her tongue. She pays little heed to the other women who enters, and is gone just as fast, attention focused solely on the motes of light on her skin and the voice that called them into being. She shakes her head softly, as though to see if they would float off, wonder in her eyes before she replies, clasping her hands behind her back. "I will hear you out."
The nimbi pinwheel nearer in dizzying lemniscate coils, silver fire erupting from their innocuous cores to obliterate you where you stand. Not a trace of you survives the instant of celestial annihilation, save for your still-standing soul and a scattering of silvered motes, their spheroid shapes shot through by iridescence.
Where the silver-starred midnight sings.
A memory of Veithadros, the Hopeful lingers amidst an astral nimbus.
There are no obvious exits.
Entering: the Skies
Unknown Area.
A gruesome bone icon of the Hunter crumbles away in your hands as it loses support from your city's pylon.
Valorie has been consumed by the confluence, her mortal frame rendered irrevocably immaterial by a surge of sidereal fire.
You divine the location of this death as A strange altar flanked by vast statues in the Ruins of Masilia.
Veithadros:
Twilit nimbi and twinkling starlight coalesce into a figure born of Sapient myth and infinite legend. Exemplifying steadfast tenacity, the dusky silhouette towers over mortal and soul upon curiously long, lithe limbs, whilst his hands clasp before him in collected repose. The bespangled features of his heavenly countenance give no hint nor indication of an expression, with only gleaming twin spheres, alight with primordial fire, denotive of consciousness. With any and all motion, whether subtle or distinct, he casts forth an ethereal drift of cosmic dust upon the air, wreathing him in an astral aura of midnight everlasting and eventide eternal.
A celestial memory of Veithadros, the Hopeful radiates with terrifyingly monstrous power.
"Valorie Aresti," whispers the celestial presence of Veithadros, who stands suspended weightlessly within the aetherial void. His eyes, such as what can be glimpsed of their remnants, are astral and calm, burning through the darkness to beckon what's left of you ever closer. "...you have made it here, against all odds. The first mortal to reach these constellated skies in a long, long while." His voice carries little tone to it, a whispering thought that sings through the empty skies.
Where the silver-starred midnight sings.
There is no ground underfoot, nor solidity of any sort to be found in the immediate surroundings. The only indication that there is anything, any distance worth speaking of, comes from thin, far-off lances of silvery light projected by the stars from all possible directions. Someplace else, they might form recognizable constellations; here in the inky emptiness of midnight, though, their shapes are unfamiliar. One star in particular seems a little larger, a little brighter than all the others, and its hues of mottled blue, green, brown, and white imply a conflicted storm. Only upon continued examination does it become clear that this gelid mass is not a star at all, but rather the globe of Aetolia, so far off that it appears as a mere dot from the present, umbral vantage. The continent of Sapience is just a green speck, small by comparisons to the edges of what seems to be the Albedos. Whatever islands might serve to orient the eye cannot be seen across the stellar span, leaving only the dizzying sense of scale and the near-inaudible humming born of the scintillant, sidereal void. A memory of Veithadros, the Hopeful lingers amidst an astral nimbus.
There are no obvious exits.
You have emoted: The woman is given no chance to react, but the sensation of death is familiar enough it does not take Deadvalorie long to catch up, the sudden outrage quelled as soon as she catches sight of the surroundings. "That was not part of the deal," she mumbles, no heat to the words, her senses irrevocably drawn to the pinpricks of light in the distance, trying to make sense of the unfamiliar constellations. It bothers her more than it probably should, to have those gleaming points be so unfamiliar, but her attention turns to a celestial memory of Veithadros, the Hopeful soon enough. "You have me here," she says, an agreement with his words, if not much realization of what implications they might carry, "Will you tell me now?"
Beyond the wonder, beyond the concern for what might be imparted unto her, a flicker of worry. The fact that she's being given counsel means she would be able to leave, right...? There's an image of an Ogre - HER Ogre - that passes through her mind's eye along with the thoughts.
"In times since forgotten and turned to sand," speaks Veithadros, the hopeful, the weight of portent to his celestial voice - indeed, he glimmers through the aether, the nimbi that comprise him turning with ponderous weight, "My lover, the most dangerous Keviti, rode away to do battle with her foes. I wove her a scarf, each day and night I awaited her return, so long that I could wrap myself in its embrace and imagine her returned to my side." Coldness falls again in the wake of this description, astral echoes evanescing, ebbing, into the darkness. "...she did not return to me," he concludes, "And one night I was so empty that the sky took me, to keep me for eternity. So I have watched, Valorie Aresti, and of the many things from the many times I have seen..." The sidereal being need not breathe, but nevertheless does so, a slow, sonorous slough of sound through the immaterial space. "...your love is in grave danger, even at his Hunter's side."
You have emoted: Deadvalorie is nothing if not an attentive listener, attention focused solely on a celestial memory of Veithadros, the Hopeful at the telling of the event. A slow breath escapes her, empathizing with the Veithadros of years past, her words a hushed whisper. As though speaking any louder would break the sanctity of the moment: "I only pray the stars would be merciful enough to take me." She steels herself, then, another aspect of the woman - the huntress, the Fury, the one who can think beyond the panic a celestial memory of Veithadros, the Hopeful's words bring to her - taking over, "From what?" Apparently the answer is not as important, as she moves on instantly to ask, "What must be done?"
Your love's downfall arrives with a violence and vim that defies the vast, abyssal distance of time and space, a surge of blood staining your mind's eye with a vividity that wakes the raw scent of copper and iron. A hand of shadow grows as though from within his guts, a gruesome parody of plant life that throttles and chokes the self-same breath from him. He is a lifetime away, and cannot see you, even as you gaze into his sapphire eyes, and see the lustre and life fade from their gelid depths, his crystalline wings shattered like so much common glass.
"It is many different things," whispers Veithadros, his voice a low and celestial rumination as he indicates, with one long finger, the vision. "This is but one possibility for his end, and this, here..." his hand angles aside, "...another."
Illidan fights with a fury and persistence that defies the lesser shadows that encircle him. He strikes with lightning, fierce blasts of radiance that leave smoldering craters in the fell beasts that hunt him, but there are too many, and they close upon him like the coil of a serpent and drag him down into their all-devouring mass. Droplets of blood fly above the fray, and he screams, gurgling into silence as the bluish flesh of his Ogre form is devoured by multiplicitous mouths and stripped to the pale bone. As the vision fades, the now-tainted skeleton begins to pick itself up, blight infecting the ground where its fleshless feet stand...
"...and so," concludes Veithadros, his natural, pale coloration restored as he looks to you, "...I would offer you the power to avert the fate that I could not. The secrets of the stars. Their celestial power. I would offer you... my story."
You have emoted: The feeling that might have been approaching calmness, purpose, shatters in the blink of an eye at the first vision, a gasp more pained than any yell, any scream could be. Deadvalorie's eyes stare into the Ogre's, hands lifting like she can somehow reach through time and space itself to restore him, bring him back to what she knows. They fall back down to her sides at a celestial memory of Veithadros, the Hopeful's words, her gaze only torn from one vision to fall upon the next excruciating one, eyes wide but tears not daring to interrupt the vivid scene displayed in front of her, taking it in, all of its agonizing glory. "... Anything," she whispers. Her voice does not tremble where the rest of her form does, a sliver of hope to cling to in the midst of the churning whirlpool of pain, loss and sorrow, every sickening image she can think of flickering through her mind without respite.
"Anything," whispers Veithadros, the Hopeful with an equally stark air. Even as he does not cry - cannot, perhaps, for all his astral nature - there is sadness written there, mirrored plain as an aching, cold midnight. "Anything." He does not speak, then, but lifts his hand: revealing new images. Images not your own, but his, emerging out of a dry, earthen dustiness.
A young tailor sews the hem of a shirt, one patient double-stitch at a time. There is care in the cloth, care in its working, finely spun despite its woolen origins. A shadow falls across him, and he looks up. He sees the soldier come to ask him for new underclothes, and there are stars in his eyes when he beholds her.
Keviti. That is the Ankyrean's name. She does not say she is from a village. She says she is from the Conclave of Science and Nature, an expeditionary force meant to quell dissent on the edges of the Empire. Her hair is fine golden-red, and she is skilled in spear and spell alike.
Veithadros sews her the new garments, and she scarcely looks at him when she passes him his sum of coin. There's more there than he asked for, and he buys himself a new pair of scissors.
It isn't long before Keviti is in again, asking for something nice to wear when she isn't on duty. Veithadros labors over a dress for her across days, and she returns - demanding, sharp. Where is it, she demands, why isn't it finished? But she stays to watch him. Watch his hands. Finds herself smiling, when the tailor's eyes aren't on her.
"You're not bad for a rellyw," he remembers, crystal clear, across time.
The next time Keviti is in his shop, she's asking for sewing lessons. He obliges her. She has an art with the needle, the small spear, much like the larger weaponry she wields, but even so she is impatient, clumsy, and Veithadros must caution her against doing violence to the fine silks he's set her to...
...then the next time /he/ sees /her/, they're fighting, his stave against hers, and he's not so bad at that either, so he thinks, until she trips him and lands him on his back, laughing down into his face.
She ends up on top the next time, too. And the time after that. It didn't matter what kind of sparring they did.
...she'd gone to a battle. He'd worried, fretted, the entire time, but when she'd returned, wounded but glorious, spattered in her enemy's blood... that was when he realized, against all his best sense, that he'd fallen for an Ankyrean.
They married, a few months after - in a rush of stumbling confessions, Keviti hesitant at first. She's only convinced when Veithadros gives her a list, thought-through, methodical, of all the things he loves about her. Her violence. Her eyes. Her readiness with a laugh. ...her openness.
...tried for children. None came...
...and then Keviti, his wife, his beloved, rode off again. Veithadros was more than a tailor now. A guardsman in his own right, manning the tower, watching day after day for sign of her, for anybody.
...conflict in the region came and went. Veithadros stayed. Keviti did not return.
The scarf grew long at his feet, his needles grew worn. Keviti did not return.
...he loses himself in the sky, its days and its nights... and Keviti does not return.
He gazes into the golden stain of dawn, feels his skin wrinkle beneath the sun's unkind affections... and Keviti does not return.
Beautiful, verdant green spring blooms outside the village. The flowers are fine. He remembers seeing her, that first time. ...she does not return.
...he floats away from his life, from his body, turning to stardust, ascending to a place of honor in the sky, where his solitude is absolute.
He sees Keviti, at last. Skeletal, hand in hand, with an Ankyrean man of Spinesreach. Children, circling their graves.
...and now Veithadros is here, and Keviti is not. So it will be. Forever.
"...it is by your connection to the stars," breathes Veithadros, the Hopeful, "That you shall know this power over space, time, and light. By memory. By your connection to my story. You shall know me, my life, and all its colors as I have known it." He hesitates, now, a pregnant penumbra staining his visage as his eyes glow out. "This, I have given you - to save your love, and for another purpose, which I would have you hear, now."
You have emoted: Deadvalorie dares not blink, held perfectly still beneath the fine trembles that wrack her form still. The images flicker past her eyes, what is at first the means to her purpose pulling her in quick enough, immersing her in the images that hold back the depths of her worries - for the time being. A ghost of a smile pulls at her lips, the first meeting, the spars that follow familiar enough - in spirit and in sentiment if not in memory. It doesn't last for long, only a matter of time before her lips quiver in the echo of heartbreak, moisture gleaming in her eyes. The tears fall now, crystalline and clear down her cheeks, disappearing into the emptiness. "What will you have left?" She whispers, a question that needs no answering as she sniffles, droplets clinging to her lashes as she tries to blink the tears away to no avail. "Thank you," there is sincerity in her voice, choked with emotion as she repeats, "Thank you."
"The Albedi creature," Veithadros whispers in soft, stygian tones, "Called Aechros... it is responsible for the confluence below, and it seeks the Hunter's preservation. Why, I do not know - but if your love falls, it is not just your grief that is at stake. It is the whole of the wilds that is connected to your story, the whole of the /world/. So take my starlight, Valorie Aresti, and use it not only to defend your beloved, but to see the sky's /full/ span. See the shapes between the disparate dots..." As he speaks, his hand frightens, and he reaches out as dawn breaks across the continent of Sapience far, far below. Fire rises in your mind, across your body, his nimbi all-embracing as they wrap you in a silvery flux of energy. Where there is void in you, the stars and night alike fill it, their memories and their power waking possibilities untold throughout the fabric of your frame.
Experience Gained: 300,000
You have gained the aetherial_form defence.
*Alternate titles include 'Please Make Veithadros Happy' and 'Why Spireans Ruin Everything' (jk (or am I?)).
As I was missing a lot of context after this, I'll let @Illikaal post the rest!
I had to change some of the colors to have them be readable, and I probably didn't do them justice, but trust me they were the prettiest. You can read this with original colors (and way worse formatting) here.
Without further ado - Awakening of an Aetherial*
South of the glowing core of the Great Oak.
A plain grey pack lies here. Dripping with bright green liquid, a very lush fruit rests on the ground here.
You see exits leading north, northeast, east, southeast, south, southwest, west, and northwest.
"...Shaman," breathes a distant voice, at once above and all around you. The echoing threads of its absence take hold of you, an unseen and scarcely-felt beckon that glimmers in your mind's eye. "Do you hear my voice, across these thousands of years?"
You have emoted: Where Valorie would normally startle, the only sign of her surprise is a soft exhale, a blink of seafoam eyes and a tilt of her head as she turns around, looking for something not visible to her. There is a moment of hesitation before she speaks, voice just loud enough to be heard, "Where are you?"
"Who..."
"I am... distant," the voice affirms, a celestial song underpinning its tones. It has gained certainty, focus, in finding you. "Distant in a way not easily explained." Glimpses of a sidereal void swim past your gaze. "Come to the confluence, the place where time is broken. I would speak with you."
-lots of path tracking, totally ignored Eaku standing guard outside the confluence sorry Eaku -
A strange altar flanked by vast statues.
Wrought from mottled black, white, and green metamorphic stone, this section of the ruins opens up into a surprisingly large buried nave. The chamber, symmetrical in almost all respects, is as pristine as though it had been carved yesterday, untouched by the ravages of time thanks to being sealed away. In the center of the room is a plinth, carved from obsidian, about five feet high and with a flat top that looks as though it might hold an object. This tiny altar is surrounded by seven huge, bronze statues, each looking to be some form of giant. The statues are fifteen feet tall each, and roughly humanoid, although instead of faces, they seem to have an arrangement of recessed sockets, dry spigots, and toothed metal wheels. Each of them clutches an orb in one hand, and a disc in another. Suspended in a protective matrix, time shudders about the amorphous periphery of an aeonic device. A sigil in the shape of a small, rectangular monolith is on the ground. A flowery white cherry dendaric entbeast roams here.
You see a single exit leading south.
So close to the confluence's chaotic churn, you catch chiaroscuro shimmers - the self-same as you witnessed in your imagination, not long before, now realized as multiplicitous visions hanging in the air, silvery slashes across the fabric of reality.
You have emoted: Curiosity wins over whatever caution has been instilled into her, Valorie stepping off her beast at the entrance to the altar, and taking a slow step closer to the confluence. She does not speak, a faint rise and fall of her chest with every breath the only movement as she stares at the amorphous device, eyes wide and ears pricked.
"Hail, Valorie Aresti," speaks a celestial voice, its tones inciting iridescent flickers across the aetherial fissures in the air. They grow more diffuse, taking the form of argent nimbi that dance nearer to you.
You have emoted: A hand lifts in the air, the same relentless curiosity urging Valorie another step closer, fingertips reaching for the nimbi in yearning, as though trying to figure out the being through a fleeting touch. "Hail," she responds, eyes flickering across every glimpse of light she sees, "I do not know your name."
The starry motes settle upon your constellated freckles, the dark tan of your skin, the elongated tapering ends of your ears - mirroring the points and lines of your form. "I am named Veithadros. I have witnessed your terrible plight in coming, and I have counsel and strength to offer you. Will you join me... in the sky?"
A beam of prismatic light suddenly shoots into the room.
Alela suddenly appears, having travelled down the beam of prismatic light.
"Begone," speaks a celestial voice.
Alela is ripped from your location by an unseen force.
You have emoted: "Veithadros," Valorie repeats the name, unfamiliarity in the pronunciation as it rolls off her tongue. She pays little heed to the other women who enters, and is gone just as fast, attention focused solely on the motes of light on her skin and the voice that called them into being. She shakes her head softly, as though to see if they would float off, wonder in her eyes before she replies, clasping her hands behind her back. "I will hear you out."
The nimbi pinwheel nearer in dizzying lemniscate coils, silver fire erupting from their innocuous cores to obliterate you where you stand. Not a trace of you survives the instant of celestial annihilation, save for your still-standing soul and a scattering of silvered motes, their spheroid shapes shot through by iridescence.
Where the silver-starred midnight sings.
A memory of Veithadros, the Hopeful lingers amidst an astral nimbus.
There are no obvious exits.
Entering: the Skies
Unknown Area.
A gruesome bone icon of the Hunter crumbles away in your hands as it loses support from your city's pylon.
Valorie has been consumed by the confluence, her mortal frame rendered irrevocably immaterial by a surge of sidereal fire.
You divine the location of this death as A strange altar flanked by vast statues in the Ruins of Masilia.
Veithadros:
Twilit nimbi and twinkling starlight coalesce into a figure born of Sapient myth and infinite legend. Exemplifying steadfast tenacity, the dusky silhouette towers over mortal and soul upon curiously long, lithe limbs, whilst his hands clasp before him in collected repose. The bespangled features of his heavenly countenance give no hint nor indication of an expression, with only gleaming twin spheres, alight with primordial fire, denotive of consciousness. With any and all motion, whether subtle or distinct, he casts forth an ethereal drift of cosmic dust upon the air, wreathing him in an astral aura of midnight everlasting and eventide eternal.
A celestial memory of Veithadros, the Hopeful radiates with terrifyingly monstrous power.
"Valorie Aresti," whispers the celestial presence of Veithadros, who stands suspended weightlessly within the aetherial void. His eyes, such as what can be glimpsed of their remnants, are astral and calm, burning through the darkness to beckon what's left of you ever closer. "...you have made it here, against all odds. The first mortal to reach these constellated skies in a long, long while." His voice carries little tone to it, a whispering thought that sings through the empty skies.
Where the silver-starred midnight sings.
There is no ground underfoot, nor solidity of any sort to be found in the immediate surroundings. The only indication that there is anything, any distance worth speaking of, comes from thin, far-off lances of silvery light projected by the stars from all possible directions. Someplace else, they might form recognizable constellations; here in the inky emptiness of midnight, though, their shapes are unfamiliar. One star in particular seems a little larger, a little brighter than all the others, and its hues of mottled blue, green, brown, and white imply a conflicted storm. Only upon continued examination does it become clear that this gelid mass is not a star at all, but rather the globe of Aetolia, so far off that it appears as a mere dot from the present, umbral vantage. The continent of Sapience is just a green speck, small by comparisons to the edges of what seems to be the Albedos. Whatever islands might serve to orient the eye cannot be seen across the stellar span, leaving only the dizzying sense of scale and the near-inaudible humming born of the scintillant, sidereal void. A memory of Veithadros, the Hopeful lingers amidst an astral nimbus.
There are no obvious exits.
You have emoted: The woman is given no chance to react, but the sensation of death is familiar enough it does not take Deadvalorie long to catch up, the sudden outrage quelled as soon as she catches sight of the surroundings. "That was not part of the deal," she mumbles, no heat to the words, her senses irrevocably drawn to the pinpricks of light in the distance, trying to make sense of the unfamiliar constellations. It bothers her more than it probably should, to have those gleaming points be so unfamiliar, but her attention turns to a celestial memory of Veithadros, the Hopeful soon enough. "You have me here," she says, an agreement with his words, if not much realization of what implications they might carry, "Will you tell me now?"
Beyond the wonder, beyond the concern for what might be imparted unto her, a flicker of worry. The fact that she's being given counsel means she would be able to leave, right...? There's an image of an Ogre - HER Ogre - that passes through her mind's eye along with the thoughts.
"In times since forgotten and turned to sand," speaks Veithadros, the hopeful, the weight of portent to his celestial voice - indeed, he glimmers through the aether, the nimbi that comprise him turning with ponderous weight, "My lover, the most dangerous Keviti, rode away to do battle with her foes. I wove her a scarf, each day and night I awaited her return, so long that I could wrap myself in its embrace and imagine her returned to my side." Coldness falls again in the wake of this description, astral echoes evanescing, ebbing, into the darkness. "...she did not return to me," he concludes, "And one night I was so empty that the sky took me, to keep me for eternity. So I have watched, Valorie Aresti, and of the many things from the many times I have seen..." The sidereal being need not breathe, but nevertheless does so, a slow, sonorous slough of sound through the immaterial space. "...your love is in grave danger, even at his Hunter's side."
You have emoted: Deadvalorie is nothing if not an attentive listener, attention focused solely on a celestial memory of Veithadros, the Hopeful at the telling of the event. A slow breath escapes her, empathizing with the Veithadros of years past, her words a hushed whisper. As though speaking any louder would break the sanctity of the moment: "I only pray the stars would be merciful enough to take me." She steels herself, then, another aspect of the woman - the huntress, the Fury, the one who can think beyond the panic a celestial memory of Veithadros, the Hopeful's words bring to her - taking over, "From what?" Apparently the answer is not as important, as she moves on instantly to ask, "What must be done?"
Your love's downfall arrives with a violence and vim that defies the vast, abyssal distance of time and space, a surge of blood staining your mind's eye with a vividity that wakes the raw scent of copper and iron. A hand of shadow grows as though from within his guts, a gruesome parody of plant life that throttles and chokes the self-same breath from him. He is a lifetime away, and cannot see you, even as you gaze into his sapphire eyes, and see the lustre and life fade from their gelid depths, his crystalline wings shattered like so much common glass.
"It is many different things," whispers Veithadros, his voice a low and celestial rumination as he indicates, with one long finger, the vision. "This is but one possibility for his end, and this, here..." his hand angles aside, "...another."
Illidan fights with a fury and persistence that defies the lesser shadows that encircle him. He strikes with lightning, fierce blasts of radiance that leave smoldering craters in the fell beasts that hunt him, but there are too many, and they close upon him like the coil of a serpent and drag him down into their all-devouring mass. Droplets of blood fly above the fray, and he screams, gurgling into silence as the bluish flesh of his Ogre form is devoured by multiplicitous mouths and stripped to the pale bone. As the vision fades, the now-tainted skeleton begins to pick itself up, blight infecting the ground where its fleshless feet stand...
"...and so," concludes Veithadros, his natural, pale coloration restored as he looks to you, "...I would offer you the power to avert the fate that I could not. The secrets of the stars. Their celestial power. I would offer you... my story."
You have emoted: The feeling that might have been approaching calmness, purpose, shatters in the blink of an eye at the first vision, a gasp more pained than any yell, any scream could be. Deadvalorie's eyes stare into the Ogre's, hands lifting like she can somehow reach through time and space itself to restore him, bring him back to what she knows. They fall back down to her sides at a celestial memory of Veithadros, the Hopeful's words, her gaze only torn from one vision to fall upon the next excruciating one, eyes wide but tears not daring to interrupt the vivid scene displayed in front of her, taking it in, all of its agonizing glory. "... Anything," she whispers. Her voice does not tremble where the rest of her form does, a sliver of hope to cling to in the midst of the churning whirlpool of pain, loss and sorrow, every sickening image she can think of flickering through her mind without respite.
"Anything," whispers Veithadros, the Hopeful with an equally stark air. Even as he does not cry - cannot, perhaps, for all his astral nature - there is sadness written there, mirrored plain as an aching, cold midnight. "Anything." He does not speak, then, but lifts his hand: revealing new images. Images not your own, but his, emerging out of a dry, earthen dustiness.
A young tailor sews the hem of a shirt, one patient double-stitch at a time. There is care in the cloth, care in its working, finely spun despite its woolen origins. A shadow falls across him, and he looks up. He sees the soldier come to ask him for new underclothes, and there are stars in his eyes when he beholds her.
Keviti. That is the Ankyrean's name. She does not say she is from a village. She says she is from the Conclave of Science and Nature, an expeditionary force meant to quell dissent on the edges of the Empire. Her hair is fine golden-red, and she is skilled in spear and spell alike.
Veithadros sews her the new garments, and she scarcely looks at him when she passes him his sum of coin. There's more there than he asked for, and he buys himself a new pair of scissors.
It isn't long before Keviti is in again, asking for something nice to wear when she isn't on duty. Veithadros labors over a dress for her across days, and she returns - demanding, sharp. Where is it, she demands, why isn't it finished? But she stays to watch him. Watch his hands. Finds herself smiling, when the tailor's eyes aren't on her.
"You're not bad for a rellyw," he remembers, crystal clear, across time.
The next time Keviti is in his shop, she's asking for sewing lessons. He obliges her. She has an art with the needle, the small spear, much like the larger weaponry she wields, but even so she is impatient, clumsy, and Veithadros must caution her against doing violence to the fine silks he's set her to...
...then the next time /he/ sees /her/, they're fighting, his stave against hers, and he's not so bad at that either, so he thinks, until she trips him and lands him on his back, laughing down into his face.
She ends up on top the next time, too. And the time after that. It didn't matter what kind of sparring they did.
...she'd gone to a battle. He'd worried, fretted, the entire time, but when she'd returned, wounded but glorious, spattered in her enemy's blood... that was when he realized, against all his best sense, that he'd fallen for an Ankyrean.
They married, a few months after - in a rush of stumbling confessions, Keviti hesitant at first. She's only convinced when Veithadros gives her a list, thought-through, methodical, of all the things he loves about her. Her violence. Her eyes. Her readiness with a laugh. ...her openness.
...tried for children. None came...
...and then Keviti, his wife, his beloved, rode off again. Veithadros was more than a tailor now. A guardsman in his own right, manning the tower, watching day after day for sign of her, for anybody.
...conflict in the region came and went. Veithadros stayed. Keviti did not return.
The scarf grew long at his feet, his needles grew worn. Keviti did not return.
...he loses himself in the sky, its days and its nights... and Keviti does not return.
He gazes into the golden stain of dawn, feels his skin wrinkle beneath the sun's unkind affections... and Keviti does not return.
Beautiful, verdant green spring blooms outside the village. The flowers are fine. He remembers seeing her, that first time. ...she does not return.
...he floats away from his life, from his body, turning to stardust, ascending to a place of honor in the sky, where his solitude is absolute.
He sees Keviti, at last. Skeletal, hand in hand, with an Ankyrean man of Spinesreach. Children, circling their graves.
...and now Veithadros is here, and Keviti is not. So it will be. Forever.
"...it is by your connection to the stars," breathes Veithadros, the Hopeful, "That you shall know this power over space, time, and light. By memory. By your connection to my story. You shall know me, my life, and all its colors as I have known it." He hesitates, now, a pregnant penumbra staining his visage as his eyes glow out. "This, I have given you - to save your love, and for another purpose, which I would have you hear, now."
You have emoted: Deadvalorie dares not blink, held perfectly still beneath the fine trembles that wrack her form still. The images flicker past her eyes, what is at first the means to her purpose pulling her in quick enough, immersing her in the images that hold back the depths of her worries - for the time being. A ghost of a smile pulls at her lips, the first meeting, the spars that follow familiar enough - in spirit and in sentiment if not in memory. It doesn't last for long, only a matter of time before her lips quiver in the echo of heartbreak, moisture gleaming in her eyes. The tears fall now, crystalline and clear down her cheeks, disappearing into the emptiness. "What will you have left?" She whispers, a question that needs no answering as she sniffles, droplets clinging to her lashes as she tries to blink the tears away to no avail. "Thank you," there is sincerity in her voice, choked with emotion as she repeats, "Thank you."
"The Albedi creature," Veithadros whispers in soft, stygian tones, "Called Aechros... it is responsible for the confluence below, and it seeks the Hunter's preservation. Why, I do not know - but if your love falls, it is not just your grief that is at stake. It is the whole of the wilds that is connected to your story, the whole of the /world/. So take my starlight, Valorie Aresti, and use it not only to defend your beloved, but to see the sky's /full/ span. See the shapes between the disparate dots..." As he speaks, his hand frightens, and he reaches out as dawn breaks across the continent of Sapience far, far below. Fire rises in your mind, across your body, his nimbi all-embracing as they wrap you in a silvery flux of energy. Where there is void in you, the stars and night alike fill it, their memories and their power waking possibilities untold throughout the fabric of your frame.
Experience Gained: 300,000
You have gained the aetherial_form defence.
*Alternate titles include 'Please Make Veithadros Happy' and 'Why Spireans Ruin Everything' (jk (or am I?)).
As I was missing a lot of context after this, I'll let @Illikaal post the rest!
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