Raskies » Lair » Archivist

Archivist

(#70471772)

Statement Begins

Familiar

Death Seeker

Energy: 49/50

Personal Style

Apparel

Skin

Scene

Physical Attributes

Battle Stats

Measurements

Length

5.04 m

Wingspan

6.6 m

Weight

424.03 kg

Genetics

Midnight
Iridescent

Shadow
Shimmer

Midnight
Smoke

Hatchday

Jun 27, 2021
(2 years)

Breed

Adult
Pearlcatcher

Eye Type

Light
Rare

Level 25 Pearlcatcher

Max Level

STR

117

AGI

DEF

QCK

INT

VIT

MND

Lineage

Parents

Dread
Terror

Offspring

none

Biography

art by StarDog

1st Prize entry by Raskies:

Archivist’s Note: I’m seeing things. Perhaps it is an effect of the Lightner. Perhaps I’m merely overtired. Or maybe it’s something else entirely. Today I saw the Head of Institute standing behind the Archivist. She didn’t seem to see him at all, not that she would have recognized him if she had. He looked entirely different, down to his breed. But I am sure it was him. And I know that the eyes that covered his throat saw me looking.

Statement of arcane veilspun Oath, on a supposed sighting of the Shade

We have spent a long time in the shadows. But now comes the time for the deities to play their hidden hands. Sornieth overflows with power, a beacon in the night. And the Arcanist’s children have opened the door.

I have long studied magic in the dark. Long ago my ancestors settled in the Starwood Strand, and there they studied the secrets of magic, listening to the whispers of the Arcanist’s scholars. In the beginning the schools of magic were limited in scope, confining themselves to the study of the heavens or the etherial arts. But there were always those that pushed the boundaries. When the veilspun finally revealed themselves, it was among these scholars I found my place, studying the darker artifacts of the past.

But I have never had the opportunity to truly look at the heavens. The Observatory is heavily guarded, and the only astronomy I knew was that of the naked eye and of numbers written in dusty tomes. So while it lies beyond my specialty, I could not resist when I was given the opportunity to freely gaze through the Observatory’s many lenses. What blessing, to be able to study in plain sight.

So one dark night I turned my head to the skies. I knew the stars by name and number, the lines of coordinates painstakingly recorded, but to see directly the rings of a planet or the shape of a distant galaxy was something else entirely. I watched for hours, constellations rising and setting, pointing my gaze at binary suns and tiny moons and hazy nebulae. But then my eye settled on something strange. It looked almost like a ring, a near perfect circle of light in the sky.

Such rings are not unheard of. They form when gravity bends the light of distant galaxies, acting like a lens which warps their images. But gravity is not a particularly powerful force. The entire mass of our planet can not even keep a dragon from flight, and so only the largest of objects can bend such a thing as light.

It takes galaxies, clusters of galaxies, to warp light to such a noticeable extent. But oftentimes we can not see the object that creates the lens. Over seventy percent of the mass in the universe is completely invisible to us, and we know of it only by its gravitational power. Little else is known of its nature, and so we call it dark matter.

The ring I saw had no visible cause. It seemed reasonable, then, to suppose that the lensing was the result of dark matter, a conclusion that many laymen would consider an ominous one. But dark matter is known to fill most of the night sky. So it was not its general presence that disturbed me.

What was odd was the fact that it was there specifically. I had chosen my coordinates for the purpose of stargazing, and records indicated that I should have been seeing the striking arms of a spiral galaxy. Instead, whatever shape it the galaxy might have had was warped beyond comprehension. I made sure my telescope was oriented correctly. But my coordinates were accurate, and previous observations mentioned nothing about the galaxy being lensed.

I began to record the measurements of the ring. Using them, it was possible to calculate the dark matter’s precise size and location. Unsurprisingly it was massive, the size of a small galactic cluster. But as I rechecked the telescope one more time I saw something that truly terrified me.

The ring was gone. In its place was nothing but darkness. This could mean one of two things: either an entire spiral galaxy had simply winked out of existence or something was now completely blocking its light.

Perhaps it was a cloud, or some atmospheric disturbance. Even an unrecorded asteroid could have been passing through that very section of sky. I switched to a weaker lens, hoping a wider a wider view might be more informative. I truly wish I hadn’t.

Before my eyes galaxies warped, curving and dancing before vanishing into nothing. The mass was moving. And it was moving towards us at incredible speed.

Dark matter is invisible to us, as I have said. It can not block light, or else we would see it by its shadow. But even now the darkness grows like an ink stain across the night sky, devouring the light of the stars as it speeds towards its destination. The weight of a billion suns bears down upon us, and I know it can only be one thing.

***

******

***

Statement Ends

Archivist’s Note: Another prophesy of doom coming from observations of the sky. Unfortunately, Oath did not give me the precise coordinates of the object, making it difficult to verify their statement. I’ve sent a request to have someone double check the locations of observed spiral galaxies, but my contact seemed to consider it unreasonable. Though if Oath is correct, we will all know soon enough.

**************

@Saronai wrote:

Inky spectres, barely visible and entirely unnoticed slipped out of their prison the day the Great Library crumbled into ruins on one side. These wisps of The Shade, trapped together no longer, gathered from fragments in tainted tomes and artifacts. All of them strange, many dangerous, secreted into a warded archive by one Jurgen Lightner. Warded no longer.

Many appear to originate from The Ghostlight Ruins, others...well, no flight’s territory remains completely untouched by The Shade, does it?

Those who built their nests far too close to that secret archive paid the ultimate price, though no one found a trace of them in the aftermath. Only their eggs remained, infected by the fear-drenched fragments of shade, some more than others, perhaps. Either way, this invasive presence transformed all of them to their very core, resulting in one of the Shadeborn.

While these unlucky hatchlings are not contagious like those with a more shallow infection, they must feed it magic, and eventually their descent into madness is nearly assured. At that point, no matter how steadfast they were as guardians against The Shade, they may end up as agents spreading its fear and terror.

This hatchling, however...this one is different. Not only is The Shade built into this one's DNA, but the ever watchful, mysterious Pearlcatcher Shade has possessed it as well, waiting and watching, living like a parasite more than capable of controlling the defenseless host.

Bio template by @Saronai 2021
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Exalting Archivist to the service of the Arcanist will remove them from your lair forever. They will leave behind a small sum of riches that they have accumulated. This action is irreversible.

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