Chapter Text
In your days in the Downside, you have seen little more than sand. There are plants, most of which you cannot eat, and there are animals, many of which are keen to eat you. It has been agonizing. Resigned to accept your death, you lie in the shadow of a valley, listening to the wind.
Listening to… a faint sound of creaking. Listening to a wagon’s wheels. Listening to, seeing, the approach of three figures. Your mind struggles to make them out. All three of them are masked and robed in garments of blue and red. The tallest figure looms over you, and the two shorter ones look at you from the side.
“Hmph.” The tall figure has a deep and resonant voice, a mask with curved horns.
“Well…” The shorter person fiddles with their gloves. Their voice is clear and soft.
“Our sources were right. This is a Commonwealth dumping ground all right, but they promised someone alive.”
“Eh, I don’t think…” The third figure, who walks on all fours, begins to speak, but a look from the first cuts them off.
“Wait… He’s breathing.” The second figure kneels down to look closer at you.
“Then I’ll end his suffering. Go back to the wagon.”
“No, wait, look at those markings on his robes. I think he’s one of them.”
“He is beyond our help.”
“Can’t we at least try?”
The tall figure pauses, then nods. They walk off as the other two fuss with their masks. Your vision goes bright for a second, but it’s only the reflection of their stark golden hair. The shorter person, a young woman with kind eyes, reaches out a gloved hand to touch your arm. The four-legged figure is a sharp-eyed canine with wild flaxen fur. They do not speak at first, merely pulling out canteens, salted rations, vials, and bringing you back to life, little by little.
“Can you stand?”
“Easy does it.”
“You’re looking better.”
“You’ll be alright.”
You get your bearings and they both smile.
“I’m sure this all must be strange to you… I’m S—… I’m Ophilia.”
“Alfyn. Now, c’mon, sun’s setting soon.”
They lead you back to the wagon, Ophilia in front and Alfyn trotting beside you. You battle back the nausea from your resuscitation, but it gets better by the minute. As you get closer, you get a better look at the blackwagon. It’s old, far less refined than anything in the Commonwealth. Ophilia lends you her hand and helps you inside.
The last masked figure stands in the corner of the wagon, and regards the three of you with surprise. They unfasten their mask.
“I should know better than to doubt the two of you.” He looks you straight in the eyes. His face is marred with scars, as are his massive pair of horns. “You may call me Olberic.”
The three seem to relax a bit, but still regard you with a strange expression. Eventually, Ophilia speaks up.
“I don’t mean to impose, but… You can read, right?”
Literacy is a capital crime in the Commonwealth, one you happen to be guilty of. But the three don’t seem to mean you any harm. You hesitate, then nod. The tension in the wagon disperses.
“Then Scribes be blessed! It just so happens that we’ve got something here for you…”
“You owe us your life, Reader.” The term is heavy on Olberic’s tongue, though it feels natural to you. As for your natal name, you cannot recall it, not yet. “We ask for something modest in exchange. Open one of those books,” he points to a pile of thick tomes, “and tell us what it says.”
You make your way to the books and pick one up, struggling with its weight. It’s bound in materials you don’t recognize, and on its cover it bears a particular rune. The book describes a convoluted method by which exiles such as yourself can return to the Commonwealth. The words swim through your head, and Ophilia lays a gloved hand on your shoulder.
“Are you alright? And may we ask, what does it say…?”
You open your mouth to reply, but your vision gives out, and you feel your body weaken before falling to the floor.
A voice, which somehow comes from both above you and all around, blares in your skull.
“Reader! Dare you tamper with forbidden knowledge?”
It continues to berate you, yet it confirms that through this ritual, you may obtain your freedom…
“You witness now the path towards salvation. You witness… The Rites! The one way to return to glory! Though, in your case, I hardly think it possible… Yet, by the grace of the Scribes, it is my duty to inform you anyhow…”
You see Ophilia, Alfyn, and Olberic appear, though you cannot tell where you are in relation to them… It almost feels as though they stand now on the pages of the book you’d opened. They’re clad in the robes and masks they found you in, and look around, tense. They can’t see you.
Ophilia raises her head, the crest of her mask tilted back, her shoulders tightened. “Reader!! We want to free ourselves, we will not die here in the Downside. And I swear, when we leave this place, we will take you with us. Please, lend us your aid!”
You focus, as best you can.
A strange sphere falls onto the page where the three stand, which the Voice calls a “celestial orb”. The three pass it around like a ball. When the Voice instructs them to plunge into the fire on the other side, the Pyre, as it were, you feel your chest tighten. Ophilia grasps her Book tightly, the orb floating lazily above its black pages. She pauses, then walks in. She disappears in a puff of smoke, and the Pyre’s flames weaken.
She’s alive. Banished, is what the Voice said. You don’t relax.
The Voice continues in its instruction, summoning shades to oppose your team. Your triumvirate, as the Book called them. You see, around both Olberic and Alfyn, and the shades, an aura manifests. Olberic’s trumps Alfyn’s in size three times over. Alfyn is next to douse the opponent’s Pyre, as he leaps into it, you see Ophilia reappear.
They continue, passing the orb and banishing their opponents with casted auras, until the other Pyre is extinguished. They experiment with the ritual, even figuring out how to fling the orb into the Pyre, avoiding banishment. Despite the gravity of the situation, they seem to be having fun.
You notice how the Voice called your team the Nightwings. You try to think on it, but you feel your vision slipping away once again.
When you come to in the blackwagon, you see your fellow exiles reeling too.
“So… that’s our way out.” Ophilia runs a hand through her long hair.
“What now? Do we just follow the stars?” Alfyn’s tail is rigid, still tense.
“Supposedly.” Olberic’s face betrays no emotion. Then, he looks right at you. “Let’s go look, then.”
The night is clear, and the cold desert air hits your face. “Show us where the Rites will take place. Quickly, before the howlers are upon us.”
You look up. One star burns brighter than the rest, an unwavering shade of teal. You point at it.
“That’s…” Ophilia’s voice snaps you back. There’s a sad reverence in her eyes. “Aelfric. The South Star.”
“Two hundred leagues due east.” Olberic is already halfway back to the wagon.
“Isn’t that…”
“Yes. The Ridge of Aelfric.”
If the stars are to be believed, you haven’t much time to get there. So, the four of you pack into the wagon. As the old thing stutters along the prairie, you can’t stop your mind from wandering. You think of freedom, and the games you must play to obtain it. You think about what you’d even do if you returned. Whatever awaits you back in the Commonwealth must be better than this.
A Formal Welcome, undersigned by the Eight Scribes:
You, dear Reader, are an exile of the Downside, such as we, the eight who wrote this Book of Rites. That you possess it, and have capacity to glean its words, is testament enough to your potential.
- Thus we reveal a path from this forsaken place, to Freedom! A homecoming in Glory.
- The stars themselves shall be your guide. Ere the turning of the year’s first solstice, seek the nearest longitude between the eight as they align as shown.
- Arrive as a Triumvirate, clad in the raiments of the Rites, bearing this Book.
- Oblige the Voice that tells you more.