Temporal Limbo hangs in black, white, and grey, a dead plane of stone beneath a sky with no sky. In the distance, colorful strands whirl like torn banners of light. One violet vortex pulses ahead, urgent and alive.
Thanatos stands at its rim, cloak stirring in a wind no mortal would feel. His green eyes burn through the porcelain mask as the call tugs at him, sharp with imbalance.
The vortex opens wider. Through it, Vaelis flickers into view, an arboreal world of woven canopies and crowded branches, its life swelling beyond restraint.
The Origin-Shimmer
Pillar of Death... you hear me at last.
The Origin-Shimmer
Vaelis strains at the seams of balance. Birth crowds every hollow, and the turn toward ending has faltered.
The shimmering presence shudders, a shape without edges, desperate enough to seem almost graspable.
The Origin-Shimmer
Enter the strand. Restore the quiet truth of decline... before the world forgets how to let go.
The violet light bucks and contracts, its opening already narrowing like a wound refusing to stay open.
✓ Quest Accepted
Enter Vaelis and restore the quiet truth of decline
“Can I feel the weight of the imbalance within the light?”
YES, AND MORE (VeryLikely, rolled 8)
Thanatos reaches out, his gloved fingers brushing the edge of the violet light. The imbalance is not merely a concept, but a physical pressure that pushes back against his touch, heavy with the suffocating density of too much life.
Thanatos
It is not just a strain. It is a rot of excess, a sickness that chokes the very air of the world.
“Does the Origin-Shimmer know what has caused the excess of life upon Vaelis?”
NO, BUT (Likely, rolled 71)
The Origin-Shimmer
I cannot name the source of this blight, Thanatos. I only know that the cycle has stalled, and the world gasps under the weight of its own persistence.
“Enter the Strand to see what is happening first hand”
SUCCESS (Fair Agility, rolled -1)