>>5393823>>5393832>>5393921>>5393998>>5394004>>5394231You feel your fit slip out from under you, and you fall. However, even as you brace for the impact of the stone below, it never comes. You fall down, and down, and down, and down… Into a space Beyond and Below.
“…admit that I thought The Judgemental One would have returned to the fold by now.”
>WHAT FOLD? THERE IS NO ‘FOLD’. I THOUGHT YOU WERE MEANT TO SEE TRUTHS.“We’re better off without him, anyway. He had his time, his prominence, and where did it get any of us?”
>HIS NEW ‘PROJECT’ IS PROMISING ENOUGH, I SUPPOSE.“I remain unconvinced… But I will wait, and watch, and see.”
“Of course you will. What else are you good for?”
You recognize the voices—especially the unmistakable and booming inflection of The Serpent Ascendant, reverberating through the unseen spaces. You are surrounded by a sea of blackness, and yet you think you see… Something. Like distant stars, but darker still, like points of negative-light against the mundane dark. Your dream-eyes struggle to make sense of that which your waking ones never could.
Three points. Three Dark Gods. The Serpent Ascendant, The Master of the Insightful Eye, and The Lady of the Rookery.
“You all should be focusing on the violation before your very eyes.”
You recognize this voice, too, as a fourth pinpoint appears, gradually drifting from the bleak infinity around you (and those distant not-lights) and floating closer. It is a voice like scouring winds, shifting the sand of distant epochs across the stones of fallen empire. It is the voice of Death Himself.
“I fail to see the problem,” the Master of the Insightful Eye says.
“Forbidden knowledge unearthed and used with such recklessness…”
“That is YOUR problem, Lord of Endings,” the Lady of the Rookery replies.
“It threatens the very order of things. The cosmic eddies will stagnate, swirling ever in place, until there is no flow of spirit or life. Our realms will wither and die.”
>PERSONALLY, I RESPECT THE NECROMANCER’S EFFORT. THIS SHALL BE A WORTHY PROVING-GROUND FOR THE COPPER ONE.“If his ambition weakens us all, will you still show such respect?”
“Where was your concern when WE grew weak and hungry, Lord of Gluttony? You who partners with enemies, against his own kin, to further your eternal feast… Now you lecture US about priorities?!”
>YOU, WHO SPAWNS AND FORGETS ABOUT AS MANY CHIDLREN IN A DAY AS A MILLION MORTAL MOTEHRS MIGHT IN A MILLENIUM, HAVE LITTLE ROOM TO CRITICIZE.“You side with the traitor, now, so-called God of Honour?!”
>HA. NO, OBVIOUSLY NOT. HE IS A COWARD! BEGONE, DEATH. NOBODY INVITED YOU.“He did,” the Master of the Insightful Eye speaks up.
Suddenly, you feel a strange sensation, and you feel as if four great lights—or pits of deepest, cosmic darkness—have focused their beams upon you.
