Category: Interlude
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Interlude: Owls, Implements, and Roiling Clouds
Leading the caravan means turning your eyes away from the market crowds.– Proverb common in the Province of Trade Charisa looked upward, her gaze flitting among the massive stalks of grass towering over her. Only days earlier, she, Kirian, and Shansa had stepped from the Room of Threefold Oath in Dornogor’s trial into what Shansa…
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Interlude: Monarchs
Power commands and compels; authority speaks and is followed by right. Where power imposes, authority persuades, yet neither is complete without the other. Power without rightful claim becomes the weight of tyranny, while authority without strength is but a hollow voice. The Scaled Dominion’s Dual Crown resolves this paradox: a queen to wield power, a…
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Interlude: New Perspectives
The Blind raise a profound philosophical question about the nature of consciousness and experience. Like the Beast Kin after the second apocalypse or the insectile Brood in the far west, the Blind perceive reality through a lens utterly foreign to us. They have no eyes, yet they see—not colors, but what we must call souls,…
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Interlude: Aslavain
The snake in the jeweler’s box slithers no more. – Dion Proverb Aslavain: Seven Days After the Summer Solstice Emilia was jolted from sleep by a suffocating grip of fear, her skin slick with the remnants of a nightmare that clung to her like a shroud. Twisted specters writhed in the gloom of her subconscious,…
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Interlude: A Triumvirate Reunited
Casselia awoke with a gasp, hacking up water as she broke the surface. Memories of her last death surged—stabbed by an [Assassin] sent by the [Procurator] again. The pain had been searing, a betrayal that burned deeply. Coughing violently, she struggled to her feet. How many times must I endure this? She scowled, already plotting…
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