Table of Contents
- Chapter 1: The Gathering Storm
Chapter 1: The Gathering Storm
Captain Einar Thornholm stood at the helm of the Terran trading vessel, his eyes fixed on the swirling vortex of magic threads twisting around them into a glorious Weaveway. The Weaveway was a marvel - a kaleidoscopic tunnel of light, a shimmering corridor that allowed mere mortals to barrel through the dark of space itself, traveling vast distances in mere moments.
His hands gripped the balustrade, its leather wrappings well-worn from countless journeys. "Steady as she goes!" he bellowed. "Mind the ether-currents to starboard!"
“Aye, Captain!” cried the Helmsman, gripping the giant wheel with white-knuckled hands. He called out orders, in turn, that were relayed to the decks below, where dozens of hulking Brutusks, thick-tusked beastmen, heaved at massive oars, their rhythmic movements keeping the ship's gossamer-thin wings outstretched, maintaining balance in the cosmic maelstrom.
The massive wooden vessel creaked and groaned around them, as it hurtled forward. All around him, the deck crew, their faces obscured by thick leather masks and goggles, scurried about their duties with practiced efficiency. At the prow, an intricately carved wooden figurehead of a beautiful four-armed being pointed in the cardinal directions. Just behind it, a Luminarian Weave-Wielder, dressed in long flowing robes lined with bronzes and silvers, was closely eyeing the path forward, while making small hand movements that seemed to shift stray threads of the Weaveway out of the ship's course.
It was this symphony of arcane arts, technology and brute force that was allowing them to traverse unfathomable distances in the span of heartbeats. No matter how many times Einar had traversed these ancient, cosmic highways, the journey never failed to fill him with awe.
“Port in sight, Captain!” his second-in-command reported. Ahead, the maw of the Weaveway began to part, revealing glimpses of Etherveil's glimmering, viridescent landscapes.
“Prepare to breach!” called the captain.
Suddenly, the ship's lookout began furiously clanging the alarm bell. His cries pierced the ethereal howl surrounding them. Einar could not make out the words the man was screaming, but he only needed to look up for himself.
"By the Tapestry," he gasped.
It had started as a pinprick. Absolute darkness in the Weave, darker than the space between stars. Then it spread, its edges shimmering with impossible colors that hurt to look at directly. The orderly patterns of the Weaveway were beginning to fracture and splinter — a tear ripping and spreading across the spiraling threads of energy
"Full reverse!" he shouted, but it was too late.
The tear expanded with terrifying speed, reality itself seeming to split apart. The very air seemed to vibrate with an otherworldly hum. Colors bled and merged, time seemed to stutter and skip.
Einar felt the ship lurch violently, wood and metal screaming, torn asunder around him, as the entire ship, and all aboard, were sucked out through the hole in the Way.
The last thing he saw was the billion twinkling stars in the cold, unforgiving void of space. “How beautiful,” he thought.
Then the cold silence rushed in to claim them all.
Lady Vespera Galeth stood on the ornate balcony of Lysandra's Grand Citadel, her fingers tracing the intricate metalwork of the balustrade as a light breeze swept through her long deep blue robes.
The citadel was a testament to her planet's enduring strength. Its towers and buttresses, crafted from stone and adorned with gleaming steel spires, sprawled beneath her and stretched towards the sky like ancient sentinels.
Beneath her, the capital of Terra hummed with life — merchants selling their goods, children running around playing, citizens hurriedly trying to get to one of Terra’s four magnificent Weave-ports. She took a deep breath, savoring the last moments of peace.
A gentle chime broke her reverie. She turned towards her chambers, and with a wave of her hand, a small thread of blue light gilded towards a large floating orb composed of metals and oaks. The thread flew into the orb, sending a ripple of the same blue energy through it. The orb began to morph and spin as colors shone through its exterior. The now translucent orb began to magically project a masculine form.
Dr. Moriarty looked at her, his usually composed features etched with concern.
“You've heard, then?” Vespera asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
Moriarty nodded grimly. “I have the details, My Lady. But I'm afraid the news is... grave.”
“Show me.”
The orb’s smaller pieces orbited around it and expanded as the projection grew to fill the room with a haunting tableau. Frozen bodies drifted lifelessly through the void of deep space, their faces contorted in their final moments of terror. Vespera recognized the insignia on their uniforms – a trading party sent to Etherveil.
"How many souls lost?" she whispered.
"Two hundred and seventeen, My Lady," Moriarty replied, his voice heavy. "But I'm afraid that's not all. Please, come to the lab immediately. There's more you need to see."
………
Vespera strode into Moriarty's sanctum, a vast, stone chamber built underneath the citadel. It was filled with a plethora of arcane and mechanical equipment. Glass vials bubbling with mysterious concoctions shared tables with leather-bound tomes and yellowing scrolls, while mysterious contraptions pulsed with other-worldly lights. At the center stood an imposing apparatus of spinning gears and glowing crystals, projecting a ghostly map in midair showing the High Kingdoms, all connected to one another by masses of twisting multicolored threads — the Weaveways.
"Look here," Moriarty said, gesturing to blackened tendrils snaking through the ethereal pathway connecting Terra and Etherveil. "Necros threads. And in quantities I've never seen before."
Vespera's mind raced. "Sabotage?"
Moriarty nodded grimly. "This may be no accident, My Lady. Someone – or something – could have deliberately corrupted the Weaveway. Although no one in living memory has ever attempted something so… brazen."
Vespera's thoughts immediately turned to the two powers known to wield potent Necros threads: Slayn, a world steeped in death-magic and ancient necromantic arts, and the enigmatic Luminarians of Etherveil. "The Luminarians have always been... difficult," Vespera mused aloud. "Hoarding knowledge, looking down on the rest of us from their crystal spires. But outright violence? It doesn't fit their pattern."
‘Which leaves Slayn,” Moriarty finished, his tone grim.
“Yes… it does. I need to speak with Morvana. Now.”
………
Vespera sat on her bed of sprawling blue and gold silks. She leaned down and traced a symbol on the wall, and the ‘click’ of a drawer unlocking greeted her. She reached in, and pulled out a small medallion - intricately carved with different oaks and silvers and engraved with many symbols. Her fingers traced half-forgotten glyphs etched into its surface, willing it to life.
“Morvana,” she whispered.
As she waited, a memory flashed unbidden before her eyes: two young women, one with flowing dark hair, the other with eyes that glowed with an otherworldly light, bent over an ancient tome in a candlelit library.
But minutes stretched into hours, and still the medallion remained cold and lifeless in her palm. Was something terribly wrong on Slayn, or was Morvana unwilling to answer? Either way, she couldn’t wait around to find out.
……..
Vespera stood in the middle of a large council chamber, a place she knew all too well recently. She summoned her council members by gesturing to an orb levitating in the center of the room. The orb pulsed, sending out threads of energy that snaked out of the room and down the tower’s many corridors. Within minutes, chatter filled the chamber as it quickly filled with her most trusted advisors: the battle-hardened Commander, the shrewd Trade Minister, her Counter of Coins, her inscrutable Spymaster, and lastly, the wizened old Keeper, who had served the Citadel since her great-grandfather’s day.
"My Lady?" the Commander inquired.
Vespera's voice was steel. "Effective immediately, we will conduct thorough searches of all vessels passing through Terra's Weaveway ports. No exceptions."
The Trade Minister sputtered in disbelief. "My Lady, you can't be serious! Such invasive measures will cripple our trade agreements. The guilds will revolt. The economic fallout—"
"Will be noticable, yes," Vespera cut him off, her tone brooking no argument. She turned to the Commander. "Assemble your most trusted Vanguards. I want every ship, every crate and every cranny scrutinized. Nothing enters or leaves our weave-ports without my express approval.”
The commander nodded sharply. "It will be done, My Lady."
She turned to the Keeper, with his heavy books. At last, he added. “I don’t need to tell you, Lady Galeth. Not in two hundred years has the kingdom taken such drastic action. This will not go unnoticed.”
“I know. But I am afraid we do not have much choice," she muttered.
As her advisors filed out, Vespera gazed out the window at the bustling port below. Soon, those busy Weaveways would fall near-silent. But it was a price she knew they must pay.
In the heart of Etherveil, Veilspire Dominion rose like a fever dream of impossible architecture. Ancient metallic spires twisted upward, their multi-faceted surfaces refracting sunlight into prismatic cascades of iridescent turquoise, opalescent amethyst, and gleaming citrine. Throughout the city, one could see massive academies and observatories equipped with enormous gazing instruments pointed at the sky, or giant microscopes focused on the makeup of matter. The improbable combinations of alloys and ores caused many of the structures to appear almost liquid in their shimmer, shifting seamlessly between molten emerald, burnished copper, and luminous sapphire.
Within the grand Ethereal Athenaeum, Archmage Thaelira Starfire moved between towering shelves that disappeared into darkness above, her steps measured and precise as she glided across the ancient stones.
Like all Luminarians, her features were sharp and elegant, beneath hair that caught the light like spun platinum. She had a towering, willowy frame and long, pointed ears, and her pearl-blue skin shimmered slightly. Her eyes, ancient and calculating, held the weight of centuries.
The Athenaeum sprawled around her in every direction, a vast labyrinth of knowledge where classical architecture met impossible technology. Scholars from a dozen kingdoms huddled over texts both ancient and modern — massive tomes bound in leather sharing space with humming data-crystals inscribed with runes of power. In lecture halls and research chambers, Luminarian masters taught students of every race, from hulking Orukai warlords to fungal Thallusian philosophers. The very air hummed with arcane energies, signifying the city's mastery of matter itself.
Here in this sanctuary of learning, where the boundaries between magic and fringe science blurred into irrelevance, Archmage Thaelira’s footsteps echoed against floors worn smooth by millennia of seeking minds. Yet despite the Athenaeum's grandeur, a tension hung in the air.
News of Terra's sudden heightened security measures had just reached her ears, and it left a bitter taste in her mouth. Her master artificers, whose enchanted devices and rare metals had filled Terra's markets since before Vespera's grandmother was born, were now being detained at the border like common smugglers. Even apprentices from the Athenaeum's most prestigious academies were being turned away. The audacity of Terra, to disrupt generations of carefully negotiated trade agreements with such crude restrictions!
"Surely," Thaelira mused, her ageless face betraying a flicker of annoyance, "Lady Galeth wouldn't dare blame the failings of the Weaveway on my people?" “Or does she suspect some fou—”
A knock at the door interrupted her brooding. "Enter," she called.
Several luminarians filed in, their long cobalt robes lined with silver and bronze markings barely moving as they glided across the marble, their faces grave. The lead scholar, an elderly Luminarian with eyes that shimmered like starlight, handed Thaelira a scroll.
"Our findings, Archmage," he said softly.
Thaelira's hands trembled as she unfurled the parchment. Her eyes widened as she absorbed its contents. "This can't be," she murmured.
The Necros threads weren’t just in the residue left in the wake of the Weave disturbance, her scholars reported, but appeared to be a part of its structure.
Thaelira's mind reeled, centuries of carefully cultivated composure threatening to crack. "If something is actually wrong with the Weave," she breathed, "if this isn't sabotage, but decay…”
She didn’t dare finish the thought aloud. But she realized this could be a far graver threat than she had allowed herself to imagine.
"Prepare my fastest chariot," Thaelira commanded, her voice regaining its usual ethereal quality. "We must seek counsel from those who can see beyond our mortal perceptions."
High Arbiter Lyris Ithilwen stood alone in the vast, pearlescent chamber at the heart of Uloria's Celestial Citadel. The massive structure hovered at the edge of a sheer cliff, its gleaming spires of crystal and marble reaching toward the heavens. All around, smaller islands drifted through the clear skies, their surfaces adorned with lush gardens of gold and cascading waterfalls. She could see numerous Asterae gliding gracefully between these floating lands, their outstretched wings leaving faint ephemeral trails in the golden light. Even in broad daylight, the stars shimmered visibly in the ethereal sky.
With practiced grace, Lyris let her garments drop the floor and unfurled her luminous wings, their span easily twice her height. Golden ethereal threads coalesced around her and settled onto her skin, as she prepared for communion. She raised a delicate crystal bowl to her lips, sipping the sacred elixir within. As the ancient brew worked its way through her system, she began to chant and let her eyes stare out towards the vast open sky. The world began to shift and blur around her, as an infinite expanse of swirling lights and impossible shapes blossomed.
In the infinity before her, the Seraphim manifested. It was a being beyond mortal comprehension – a constantly shifting form of impossible geometries and cascading wings. At its center, a single, massive eye fixed its gaze upon Lyris.
"HEARKEN!" The Seraphim's voice thundered through Lyris’ mind, although it was felt by all in the vicinity, even if they couldn’t see where it came from. “Hearken unto me, O Arbiter, and tremble, for we behold the fabric has been rent asunder with a decay most unnatural.”
“I am aware, your Eternal Radiance. If you please, what has caused this disturbance?”
There was a silence, followed by a faint hymn of chimes and bells.
“This gathering of darkness is beyond all measure — more terrible than any wrought by the hand of nature. This is a darkness beyond the ken of mortals. It is a corruption, a blight, an abomination that defies the natural order! You must find its root and destroy it!”
As the Seraphim's words echoed through her mind, Lyris found herself plunging into a terrifying vision. She saw the cosmos as it warped and twisted, the stars themselves seeming to scream in agony. She saw the Weaveways, once shimmering pathways of light, now pulsing with sickly blackened veins.
The veins grew, spreading like a cancer across the galaxy. Planets withered and died as the corruption touched them. Lyris watched in horror as entire civilizations crumbled, their inhabitants twisted into grotesque, undying abominations. Reality frayed at the edges, and from the gaps between came... something. Something so alien, so utterly wrong, that her mind recoiled from its very existence. It was entropy given form, oblivion made manifest, reaching out with tendrils of un-light to consume all of creation.
Lyris's eyes snapped open, her face pale. The revelation chilled her to her core.
As the visions faded and reality reasserted itself, she pulled her robes tight and stumbled back to the citadel's central hall. She picked up a parchment and quill as she sat down on one of the crystalline thrones, quickly tracing onto parchment the words spoken to her and the things she saw, trying to recall as many details as possible. The room's ethereal light pulsed in time with her racing heart.
Her time to collect herself was cut short however. A mortal burst through the doors, clearly no more than an apostle, by his plain white robes. “Apologies your eminence, but the Luminarians are here to seek your audience.”
Lyris nodded her thanks, then proceeded to quickly put away her instruments and compose herself as best she could.
Archmage Starfire and her Luminarian delegation soon entered the large halls, their slender forms gliding across the marble. They were escorted by Asterae knights clad in golden armor.
Thaelira dipped her head in a gesture of respect, while the others bowed low around her. "High Arbiter," Thaelira began, her voice like silk over steel. “We come seeking wisdom from your Celestial Deities. Our librarians have found evidence of a disturbance within the Weaveway, but not its source. Might the Seraphim offer insight into this dire situation?"
If she was shocked that the Luminarians already knew, Lyris did not show it, not even a blink of her eyes. She rose from her throne, her wings unfurling in a display of divine authority. Her gaze fell upon the Luminarians, noting the tension in their otherworldly features as some of them hung on her words, while others tried to not look bored. When she spoke, her voice carried the weight of her god’s prophecies:
"The Seraphim have shown me a vision of unspeakable horror. A corruption spreads through the Great Tapestry, threatening to unmake all of creation…" For a fleeting moment, doubt flickered in the depths of her mind. The Seraphim's message had been cryptic, as always, was she misunderstanding them? No. She was the High Arbiter for a reason. It was her duty to interpret, to guide. She pushed aside her uncertainties, then continued.
“This vileness is beyond the ken of mortals… beyond the hand of nature… In our known world, only Slayn's Gravelords possess such mastery of the dark arts, and they are no mortals” she announced.
The pronouncement hung in the air like a death sentence. Thaelira's face paled, the implications of Lyris's words sinking in.
Thaelira, ever the diplomat, chose her words carefully. "High Arbiter, with all due respect… Are you sure?”
Lyris's eyes flashed dangerously. "You would doubt the Seraphim!?” She snapped. “Typical Luminarian arrogance.”
She then quickly composed herself. She unfurled her wings to create an imposing silhouette, ethereal golden residue falling off them, leftover from the ritual.
"Slayn’s dark arts have gone too far. Their era of death must end, lest it consume us all!"
In the obsidian heart of Duskmoor, the Mega-Necropolis of Slayn, Arch-Lich Morvana sat on a throne of obsidian bones, gazing into the projection of her shadow glass. Her skeletal fingers, pale as moonlight, danced through the air, manipulating gossamer strands of magic, as she scrutinized the dark Necros threads spreading across the display. They were impossible to miss, twisting and eating their way through the magnificent Weaveway that connected Etherveil to Terra.
A flicker of fear crossed her face. She turned to the window to catch her breath.
The city of Duskmoor sprawled beneath her, a vast labyrinth of towering mausoleums and twisting catacombs. Spires of blackened bone pierced the perpetually twilight sky, their surfaces etched with glowing necromantic runes. Rivers of sickly purple energy flowed through the streets, powering eldritch machines and feeding the half-life that permeated every corner of the undead metropolis.
At its heart loomed the Sepulcher of Eternity, a massive inverted black pyramid that hovered ominously above a sprawling circular plaza. The necropolis-bazaar below teemed with undead merchants hawking souls, secrets, and arcane artifacts, while heavily armored Deathwardens patrolled the perimeter, their eyes glowing with eerie blue light as they scrutinized all who approached the Weaveway portals embedded in the Sepulcher's base.
High above the Sepulcher, the Weaveway itself tore a hole in reality - an iridescent portal that shimmered like an aurora against the dim sky. Ancient gravitational forces, remnants of technology long forgotten, guided vessels of all shapes and sizes as they emerged from or disappeared into its swirling depths. The ships descended and ascended in an ethereal dance, floating between the portal and the Sepulcher's docking spires like ghostly moths drawn to an otherworldly flame.
As she gazed down at her domain, the ethereal light cast shifting shadows across her form, which was a study in contrasts – simultaneously regal and chilling. Tattered robes of midnight silk draped over a lithe frame of alabaster flesh, cold and pale as moonlight. Her face, once beautiful, now bore the marks of years of necromantic rituals – skin stretched taut over sharp cheekbones, lips thin and colorless. Eyes like smoldering embers burned in hollow sockets. A crown of twisted bone sat atop her skull, adorned with crystals that pulsed with dark power.
At her side stood Varax, her most trusted Deathwarden. His armor, forged from the bones of a forgotten leviathan, creaked softly as he shifted uneasily.
Varax cleared his throat. "My Queen, I swear to you, we have questioned every last necromancer, scoured the darkest reaches of Slayn. Not a shred of evidence left unturned.”
"But if not our Grave Lords," she muttered, her voice a dry rasp, "then what?”
With grim certainty, she knew that it didn’t matter, because her world would be blamed, no other planet besides her could produce such powerful necros. Se knew that war was now unavoidable.
Yet she also understood a painful truth: her people, with their mastery of Necros magic, might be the only ones capable of stopping the true threat.
Suddenly, an unearthly screeching began to fill the halls as the scrying orb began to pulse an urgent red.
Morvana quickly drew invisible sigils in the air, and the crystal sphere beneath the projected weave-map spun, dancing them from one interstellar pathway to another. Now, multiple obscured shapes could be seen racing through it, straight towards Duskmoor.
"My Queen," he gasped, "ships from Uloria and Etherveil approaching through the Weaveways! I can’t tell yet if they are Transports… or Battleships?”
Morvana's eyes closed, briefly, then responded with purpose. “If we wait until they get closer, it will already be too late.”
With a wave of her arm, Morvana parted the obsidian walls of her chamber, revealing the twilight sky of Slayn. She strode out onto a balcony, as strands of violet energy coalesced around her, causing her form to seem to grow and twist.
"Hear me, denizens of Duskmoor!" her voice boomed across the Mega-Necropolis, echoing off the towering spires and cavernous depths. "Our enemies come, and they may well seek to destroy us! We cannot risk their zealous attack on this glorious city. We must seal our Weaveway to keep them at bay. Lend me your strength!"
The many death-mages of Duskmoor raised their arms upwards, with the sound of creaking bones and deathly groans, sending streams of sickly purple necromantic energy upwards from the city towards the sky. The dark energy formed into a vast honeycomb of shadow, suspended like a web across the iridescent portal.
"With this ritual," Morvana intoned, her voice echoing with dark power, "I seal our world against those who would destroy us.”
The strands of shadowy that had been coalescing around Morvana froze, then was drawn into her as she closed her eyes. She outstretched her arms, aiming at the center of the shadowy lattice, then roared. Her magic exploded outward, slamming into the honeycomb pattern and flooding each cell with pure darkness until the entire Weaveway congealed into an impenetrable barrier of absolute shadow.
Through the Weaveway’s aperture, she could just begin to see the approaching ships speeding towards the entrance. She braced, as they slammed into the now nearly opaque barrier of writhing shadows. The ship's hulls crumpled like paper, as their momentum caused them to ram into the blockade. The ships at the helm of the fleet were all but disintegrated, their wooden frames eaten by the necrotic barrier, while the ones further behind were able to retreat back into the Weaveway .
Morvana collapsed, relieved, but also mortified at the damage. She suddenly thought of the medallion that had sat heavy and unanswered in her hand for hours.
"Forgive me, old friend," she whispered to the uncaring void.
Varax, who had been watching in awe from behind, hurried forward to help her to her feet: "My Queen..."
Morvana refused his hand. When she spoke, her voice was barely a whisper: “We have bought ourselves time, but that is all we have done, and at a great cost. Our work has only just begun I fear.”
As the last strands of energy fell into place, the ethereal wall of shadow stopped expanding at last. An unnatural silence fell over Duskmoor, as the already dim sun was now almost entirely obfuscated, and the reality of what had been done began to sink in. Now, all they could do was prepare for the storm that would soon break upon them all.