Greetings, weary traveler! You find yourself in the company of…
Wait a moment, we’ve met before, haven’t we? Yes, I recall telling you the story of Giant’s Bane. Of the events that unfolded at the Tomb Where Marigolds Grow.
You listened, and then you left. It’s not often that travelers return to me. I am but a stepping stone on their journey, after all.
What’s that? You wish to know more about Queen Faeryn’s disappearance? Well, now, isn’t that an intriguing inquiry? I usually don’t tell that story, but something tells me you have a personal reason for asking.
Let me see beneath that hood that hides your visage, and I’ll tell you the story in return.
Hah! As I suspected. Well, it is nice to finally make your acquaintance…Princess.
Very well, a deal is a deal! Grab a drink, and allow me to tell you the story of what led the Verack Horde to D’veen…
The rivers ran backwards on the day the queen vanished. The waves retreated into the sea, and the sun set an hour earlier than it should have.
Having arisen from a nightmare, King Barrister walked through his castle's cold, moonlit halls. It seemed his wife, Queen Faeryn, had not come to bed. She always had trouble sleeping, but he knew where to find her.
A balcony on the southwest corner of the castle, rarely guarded. It faced the shores of the Endarian Expanse, an unexplored ocean of unfathomable depths that bordered the continent of D'veen on all sides.
King Barrister couldn't help but smile as he approached his Queen. Her soft and ethereal nightgown sparkled beneath the shattered moon in the sky above. As he approached, a flash of blinding light cut across the scene.
It was a brilliant shade of blue, a strange hue he had never seen before and one he would never forget. It quickly faded, but the entire scene had changed.
Queen Faeryn was gone.
King Barrister ran to the edge of the balcony. He leaned over the edge, looking down to the jagged rocks below for any sign of her. He screamed and shouted her name into the night, to no avail.
When the guards heard the commotion, they came running, only to find their king sobbing beneath the pale moonlight.
The next day, the king wasted no time forming a search party. He had no leads or clues, only the haunting blue light that preceded her disappearance.
With his royal advisors' help, he gathered three sailors who ran one of the fishing ships that sailed the shores and rivers surrounding the kingdom of Giant’s Bane. The color drained out of the sailor's faces when he described the haunting blue light to them.
"So you've seen it then?" the king asked.
Cyril Longsway, the eldest of the fishermen, stepped forward. The king saw fear in his tired and gray eyes.
"Aye, your majesty. Our fellow sailors have all shared stories of such a light. Many have claimed to see it, but none have discovered its source."
The king slammed his fist against the armrest of his throne. "That cannot be all that you know. Speak the truth, or I will cast you into the sea myself!"
Cyril pulled the ragged hat off his head of white hair and bowed deeply. "Begging your pardon, your majesty. We sailors are a superstitious type, and lately, we’ve heard stories of other strange sights out on the water.”
"Sights like what? Speak plainly!"
"Some have claimed to see rivers and waves flowing backward. The days have also become shorter for reasons we cannot explain.”
The king sat back on his throne. His heart had not ceased its furious beating since Queen Faeryn’s disappearance, but deep down, he knew that rage would not guide him to the answers he sought. He took a long, deep breath.
“How long has this been going on?” he asked.
Willem Ballast, the youngest of the three, stepped forward.
“Perhaps I can answer that best. Willem Ballast, your majesty, I just joined the crew of the Groggy Goblin.”
“Well, when did this start?”
“Well, sir, I was the first among the fishermen of Giant’s Bane to see the strange glow on the waves. That was about two weeks ago.”
King Barrister mulled over the information in his mind. He was a man of action, of tangible truths. He hated anything ambiguous or uncertain. He wanted an enemy to fight, something to attack in the name of his true love.
“Gentlemen, as denizens of my kingdom, you must know that my love for Queen Faeryn knows no bounds. She is the sun in my sky and the moon in my dreams. We must find her at any cost.”
Raleigh Hookswain, the only one of the three who had yet to speak, suddenly gained a newfound sense of confidence.
“We’ll find her, your highness!” he declared.
Cyril and Willem’s eyes went wide, but the damage was done.
King Barrister smiled and clapped his hands. The sound echoed across the empty hall.
“Very well, it’s settled then! Bring back Queen Faeryn, and I will ensure that none of you work another day in your lives.”
The fishermen left quickly, whispering angrily to one another in hushed tones as they departed.
The next night, the three sailors set out on the Groggy Goblin as the last vestiges of sunlight dipped below the horizon. Their fellow fishermen regarded them with bewilderment as they themselves headed home for the evening.
The air was tense among the three. Cyril stood at the helm, fidgeting with the wheel as a cold sweat beaded on his skin. His eyes darted across the horizon, looking for any sign of the light.
“Can’t believe you dragged us into this!” Willem said.
Raleigh chuckled as he leaned against the port side of the bow. “You’ll be singing me praises once that gold is in your hands; just you watch!”
Cyril’s eyesight had deteriorated in his old age, but his instincts were still sharp. He spotted a flicker of that strange blue light from beneath the waves ahead.
“Shut up, both of ya!” he grunted.
Willem and Raleigh turned to see what their captain was looking at. Silence once more overtook the ship.
“Furl the sails, drop anchor, and by the Titans, do it quick!” Cyril said, stepping away from the wheel. He picked up his fishing knife from the table nearby and slowly lowered the blade into the waist of his leggings.
The ship slowly came to a stop in the eerily calm water. The three sailors approached the edge of the bow, equally mesmerized by how the artificial light flickered and danced beneath the surface.
“Some sort of ancient magic?” Willem asked.
Cyril shook his head. “Magic and those who knew it departed the realm many years ago. This is something different.”
The three men braced themselves as a metallic roar pierced the silence. A flash of brilliant blue light temporarily blinded them. When their vision returned, the water in front of them violently swirled until they found themselves floating in the center of a vast whirlpool.
An impact hit the ship from below, knocking Cyril off balance. He fell against the boat's starboard side and leaned over the edge. His mind struggled to perceive what his eyes beheld.
The ocean had pulled itself apart beneath them like a gaping wound. A strange metal claw had wrapped itself around the bottom of the ship, and before he could speak, it began to pull them down through the open air.
The three sailors looked up in awe as they descended into the space where the ocean had previously been. Great walls of water towered over them from all sides. The metal arm set the ship down on solid ground.
A glass dome closed above them, and the metallic roar ceased. The three men cried out in despair as the ocean collapsed back onto itself but soon realized the dome would protect them from a near-instant death.
Cyril slowly took a breath. Willem did the same while Raleigh turned and vomited his last meal onto the deck.
“What is this place?” Willem asked, admiring the construction of the dome above them.
“In all my years, I’ve never heard of anything like this hidden beneath the Endarian Expanse,” Raleigh said.
“That’s because no one has ever journeyed beneath these waves,” Cyril added.
The sailors climbed off the boat when they saw dry land beneath their feet. The only path forward was a tunnel that ran from the far end of the dome into places unknown. The three men approached the darkened passageway, pausing briefly as a soft white light illuminated the way forward.
Willem and Raleigh admired the bulbs that hung from the ceiling inside the corridor. Glass orbs with metal strings glowed brightly like hot metal on a blacksmith’s anvil.
“What manner of lights are these?” Willem asked.
“Leave them; we have a job to do,” Cyril said.
The tunnel led into yet another expansive hall. Curved windows offered a view into the oceanic abyss all around them, held aloft by twisted metallic vines that arched toward the ceiling.
In the distance, a machine of lightning and metal held a massive crystal disc that glowed with a familiar blue light. A low hum filled the room, but it seemed otherwise dormant. Willem and Raleigh were immediately captivated by the device, but Cyril’s eyes were focused on tapestries hanging from the ceiling behind the machine.
“Everyone stop! I know where we are!” Cyril shouted.
Raleigh and Willem spun around, but Cyril simply pointed a gnarled finger at the tapestries in the distance—seven of them, each depicting the visage of a god. Any resident of D’veen with a passing knowledge of the realm’s history would have recognized them immediately.
“It cannot be. Are those the Aluthian Titans?” Willem asked.
Cyril nodded. “Creators of D’veen and victims of their own hubris.”
“But they’re gone, aren’t they?” Raleigh asked.
“They departed to create a new world in the skies above. The broken moon in the night sky is all that remains of their lasting legacy. When they were killed, their Celestial Forge broke apart and fell into the ocean below,” Cyril said, reciting the legend from memory.
Willem gasped. “So, wait, that would mean that this—”
“This is the Sunken Citadel. One of the three fragments of the Celestial Forge,” Raleigh said.
The three men took in the sight around them with awe and reverence. For a moment, they forget what had brought them there.
“What does this mean? That the Titans took Queen Faeryn?” Willem asked.
“No,” Cyril said, “It was something else, but this proves the Titans knew about them.”
A thunderous crack shook the air around them. The three sailors turned and watched as the machine nearby shook to life. Arcs of lightning danced in the space between its mechanisms and the glowing crystal disc in the middle.
Tiny metal arms held the disc aloft and turned it until the flat side was facing them. The disc spun with incredible speed as bolts of electricity seemed to leap off its surface. A gust of phantom wind rushed past the men, nearly knocking them off their feet.
The room was filled with flashes of blue light as the disc spun faster and faster. Cyril noticed a metallic taste on his tongue just before another crack of thunder shook the room.
The men stood paralyzed as they watched the space in front of the spinning disc tear apart. Glowing strands of light split in the air before them like frayed ends of string until they found themselves gazing through a doorway into another world.
“We must go now!” Willem shouted, turning away from the sight.
He ran to Raleigh, grabbed his shoulders, and violently shook him. The man returned to the present, his eyes blinking in the rushing wind from the gateway.
“Come on, man, we need to leave!” Willem cried.
The two men approached Cyril next, but he didn’t notice. His eyes were focused on a figure climbing through the crackling portal. It stood twice the height of any man he’d ever seen, dressed head-to-toe in smooth, polished armor.
Atop its head was a sleek helmet with only a thin slit for eyesight. Cyril’s stomach sank as he saw blue light escaping from the seams in its armor and from the slit in its helmet.
It stepped into the hall and readied its weapon, a long spear with a jagged blade. The tip crackled with energy.
Willem looked back at the thing that had stepped out of the portal. “What is that?” he asked.
“The Harbinger of our doom,” Cyril replied.
Willem pulled Raleigh to the ground. The figure that had stepped through the portal hurled its spear with ease. Cyril was powerless to stop it as the blade impaled him through the chest.
He fell backward, held aloft by the spear in the ground behind him. He only had a moment to consider the pain before bolts of bright blue energy lept from the spear and onto his body, scorching every inch of his skin and killing him instantly.
Willem and Raleigh climbed to their feet and ran for the exit as the thing behind them roared, its voice a haunting blend of rage and static. Willem made it back to the Groggy Goblin first and scrambled aboard. He turned and extended a hand to help Raleigh.
As his hand grasped Raleigh’s, a thin blue beam hit his fellow sailor in the back. His entire body disintegrated into a thin gray mist in the blink of an eye. Willem screamed, coughing as the ashes of his friend clogged his lungs.
He fell onto the deck as a metallic roar filled the air around him. He felt the ship rising upward. The sea above parted as the dome opened high above. He could see his salvation, his eyes fixated on the shattered moon in the night sky.
He wouldn’t make it to the surface, however. The metallic roar suddenly ceased, and the ocean collapsed onto him.
When Willem opened his eyes again, he was on the floor of the king’s chamber. King Barrister hovered over him, his breath shallow and ragged.
“Get him up, now!” the king shouted.
Willem felt a pair of hands pull him onto his unsteady legs.
“How did I get here?” Willem asked.
“My men found you amidst the wreckage of your ship on the shore this morning. Explain yourself, what happened?”
Willem’s mind flooded with images of what they had seen beneath the waves. He couldn’t comprehend it, and the struggle to do so threatened to shatter his sanity.
“I don’t know,” he whispered.
Pain scorched his vision as the king hit him with the back of his hand.
“That’s not good enough! Where is my wife? Where is Queen Faeryn!”
Willem’s mind was haunted by the visage of the thing that had stepped through the portal.
All he could think about was the blue light.
“They’re coming!” he shouted, “We have to stop them!”
“Who is coming? What did you see?” the king asked.
“The rivers run backward, and the waves retreat into the sea because they wound time every time they turn on that infernal machine!”
The king shook his head and dismissed Willem with a wave of his hand.
“He’s gone mad! Throw him in the dungeon until he’s ready to talk.”
The guards dragged Willem out of the hall, screaming and shouting. Later that night, they heard Willem screaming.
“No, keep that blue light away from me!”
When they arrived at his cell, Willem Ballast was gone. He was never seen again.
I can see in your eyes that you are not satisfied with my tale. I understand, but you must realize that not all stories contain the answers we seek. The pieces are there, though, I assure you.
Give it some thought. Think about what you learned in those moments before you destroyed the Verack Horde’s Leviathan Ship with your magic.
There we go. You’re beginning to see now. I will leave you to your thoughts. Oh, and princess?
Don’t ever come here again…
Thank you for Reading! Here’s Your Musical Pairing
Listen to this after reading, like pairing a glass of wine with dinner.
"Oh my friends, my friends forgive me
That I live and you are gone
There's a grief that can't be spoken
There's a pain goes on and on..."
"My friends my friendssss don't ask me, what you sacrifice was fooorrr...."
😭😭😭
"Willem screamed, coughing as the ashes of his friend clogged his lungs." Good-ness. This is brutal, I love this story so much! It is so action packed and absolutely filled me with anxiety and dread. Every D'Veen story you release is automatically my new favorite, and this is no different!