[hider=Ex Nihilo][quote][center][img]https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/820f1c9b-80c6-4a0b-85d5-2541d913f05a/d1aq7jn-c8471874-dd9b-4919-84b2-845d0d4fc9c3.jpg/v1/fill/w_800,h_613,q_75,strp/naked_singularity_by_rocqua_d1aq7jn-fullview.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOiIsImlzcyI6InVybjphcHA6Iiwib2JqIjpbW3siaGVpZ2h0IjoiPD02MTMiLCJwYXRoIjoiXC9mXC84MjBmMWM5Yi04MGM2LTRhMGItODVkNS0yNTQxZDkxM2YwNWFcL2QxYXE3am4tYzg0NzE4NzQtZGQ5Yi00OTE5LTg0YjItODQ1ZDBkNGZjOWMzLmpwZyIsIndpZHRoIjoiPD04MDAifV1dLCJhdWQiOlsidXJuOnNlcnZpY2U6aW1hZ2Uub3BlcmF0aW9ucyJdfQ.G6WwIeDAq5ds7qgy-ykelc9fMFeOp0u_2TX9fh6Sa64[/img][b][u][color=black][h3]Ex Nihilo[/h3]The Call of the Void[/color][/u][/b][/center]
[h3][b]Type:[/b][/h3][list][*][h3][i]y = [sup] a[/sup]/[sub]0[/sub][/i][/h3][/list]
[hider=Myth][hider=The Journal of Faculus Alarune][quote=The Journal of Faculus Alarune][/quote][quote][i][u]August 1st, 314 P.F.[/u]
I have arrived at the estate of Lucion Terramis. It is a woodland manor, well fortified, situated in the Southwestern wilderness of Arcos. I received a most timely and auspicious invitation to attend the Prince shortly after fleeing for my life across the Marleon border; evidently he is in need of expertise and my infamy has unexpectedly yielded dividends as to my prospects here.

The invitation arrived by personal courier and directions to a carriage station in a nearby town. Under normal circumstances I would have been quite suspicious, especially as the Prince's letter claimed he had been [u]tracing[/u] my movements using arcane (!) means ever since he had heard of the incident in Gold Crossing. My choice in the matter was simplified by widespread news of my activities and the inevitable bounties the Templars and their agents are doubtlessly beginning to circulate throughout Arcos after having given them the slip.

The choice has proven to be most salubrious. I am not the only practitioner of note the Prince has called into his service. When I arrived, I was escorted to a wing of the manor where a sizable gathering of mages was convened and quartered, including Drejak of the Broken Isles, Juikon Kinslayer, and Aramis the Renouncer (!!!), amongst others. I am barely even a footnote compared to the council Lucion has assembled here.

While so many high-profile heretics and neer-do-wells would normally pose substantial risk, our location is optimal for security. The manor is surrounded by an exterior wall, the Prince has numerous and well-equipped retainers, and companies of patrolling Arcosi soldiers wander nearby as deterrents to Marleon invasion. A sizable force would be necessary to threaten us here, and we would have ample forewarning of the approach of any such group. I am heartened by the unexpected sanctuary I find myself ensconced in.

I am exhausted from the journey and am retiring shortly. I imagine Lucion will soon reveal the purpose he has assembled us all for.

[u]August 7th, 314 P.F.[/u]
Although the Prince did manage to pique my curiosity, his recent declaration of our purpose here has exposed this entire venture as a waste of our time. The fool desires us to bring back his dead wife. In addition to being exasperatingly trite, the notion is utterly impossible. From what he has told us she is very thoroughly dead, with her remains burnt and the ashes scattered.

I am not the only one aware of this. I could practically see the crest of rolling eyes spreading across the ranks of everyone called to meet with Lucion earlier today when he made the announcement. Still, this gathering is not utterly without recourse. A few more individuals of note have trickled in since my last entry, including Lilirn of the Cerulean Sect and Hanuzeth, an Orc (!) who I am given to understand is a Warlock of some sort amongst his people. There was a great deal of outrage amongst our gathered number. Quite a few individuals stormed out of the room and presumably fled the manor. Many still remain however, undeterred even by the somewhat apprehensive presence of this savage in our midst (myself included). Many amongst us have already begun to meet in private and gather into impromptu cabals. This is an opportunity to learn and forge new alliances while stringing the Prince along for as much as we can. 

[u]August 10th, 314 P.F.[/u]
[u]Underestimating and dismissing the Prince has resulted in a rather disastrous turn.[/u] He has become aware of the pall of mockery and contempt the gathering has for his proposed venture and taken to it poorly. As it turns out, in addition to being utterly besotted with her, she was also the connection between Lucion's estate and a number of state-owned commercial interests, which are now subsequently at jeopardy due to her passing. He beheaded three of our number just to underscore the [u]urgency[/u] of his interest, and then subsequently threatened to turn us all in to the Templars in order to make up for his losses if we did not produce results. He attempted to alleviate his coercion by indicating he still intended to reward us handsomely upon the successful resurrection of his wife, though this is of little comfort given what he asks is simply not possible.

I have begun devising a means of escape with several of the others.

[u]August 12th, 314 P.F.[/u]
Escape is likely unfeasible now. After the partially successful attempt to leave by a small group, the Prince has since ransacked our quarters and posted a heavy guard in our wing of the manor. His thugs confiscated many of the materials and tools necessary for more potent magicks and indicated that if anybody desires to leave or attempt any rites of consequence, we will have to present to him a reasonable course beyond appealing to the impossibility of what he wants.

It is not all bad, however. Having considered it with several of the others, we have since arrived at the conclusion that we do not actually have to revive this fool's wife. All we need to do is convince him we have done so - or else show him what he wants to see until he gives us the materials we need to conjure an escape from this place.

[u]August 22nd, 314 P.F.[/u]
Prince Lucion sorely tries our capabilities and patience. The conclave, for lack of a better term, has devised a number of rites capable of conjuring a convincing simulacra, seeming, or construct capable of fooling our captor and patron. What we lack, however, is a reference point. The idiotic man's wife died and, on top of her mortal remnants having been utterly destroyed, there are no depictions of her. No portraits, no wood-cuttings, no written descriptors except for the cursory details of a birth certificate. The few that existed were consumed in the same fire that took her life. Lucion would predictably refuse to avail his mind to the conclave to supply a reference memory (aggravating his already heightened suspicions in the process), and isolated as we are any hope of tracking down somebody who could either render a likeness or provide a memory is remote. Various forms of divination are aimless without any remnants to serve as a catalyst, and the matter is further confounded by the fact that she even shared her full name (Kalitra Aylus Remnest Terramis) with three other women in her lineage! Stupid, stupid, lazy, inbred mongrels! 

Predictably, Lucion himself has very little patience for these excuses. His threats of consigning us to Paterdomus dungeons grow more pointed by the day. What does he expect us to do? Pull her spitting image straight from the void?

[u]August 30th, 314 P.F.[/u]
Lilirn of the Cerulean Sect has offered a possible solution to the problematic absence of any reference visage. She managed to, with some rather miraculous persuasion, gain access to Kalitra's personal library of correspondence and business documents in the hope of gleaning anything useful. One discovery made which Lucion conveniently failed to mention was that both he and his wife are household names in Arcos. The death of his wife was nearly a national tragedy, and there is even reference to a playwright commissioning some sordid theatrical production about it. My initial reaction to learning this was to panic - surely if this couple's romance was so renowned, there was no means by which our presence here in Lucion's estate could remain undiscovered. A fear which is mirrored in many of my erstwhile peers - it is perhaps likely that Lucion's patience with us will end once the inconvenience of concealing our presence begins to outweigh the notion we can produce results.

According to Lilirn there is a silver lining to this situation: Because the wife's personage is so widely known of and held within the greater public's awareness, it may be possible to divine a likeness of her by tapping into that collective conceit. The end result would be some grossly embellished caricature of the real Kalitra of course, but all we need is something superficially similar in appearance.

The tricky part will be giving our seeming true substance. Even with a collective notion of the woman to tap into, without any material catalysts to act as an anchor rendering the image into a high-fidelity construct will take some work. More still, to create something that will not rouse Lucion's suspicion.

[u]September 4th, 314 P.F.[/u]
A golem-binder by the name of Irus has proposed creating a body of malleable clay to project the image onto, which will then shape itself to match the illusory seeming. The principles seem sound and Lucion has approved a fabricated proposal presented to him, and provided the necessary materials without raising issue. Many amongst the conclave, myself included, are cautiously optimistic.

[u]September 6th, 314 P.F.[/u]
Irus is dead, Lucion had him drowned in a basin of molten brass. His encased corpse now presides over the ballroom where the conclave takes its meets and meals.

We need a new approach. As evidenced by Lucion's thrice-damned retainer, on top of all the other impossible aspects of this project, whatever we create will need to be perfectly internally stable - nonmagically and incapable of being disjoined. Or at least sufficiently convincing that the Prince will not want to disjoin whatever we fabricate.

[u]September 10th, 314 P.F.[/u]
Hanuzeth the Orc has proposed we summon a demon - something he called a 'Lesser Scion' - from the Abyss to act in the role of adviser. Few amongst the conclave were amenable to this suggestion, though I suspect it has more to do with it having come from Hanuzeth than due to any misapprehension concerning the summoning of a Demonic entity. After some belabored debate we nonetheless presented the idea to the Prince, who agreed immediately and provided the necessary materials. Given he invited Hanuzeth into our midst to start with, perhaps I should be less surprised. The rite is to be performed in confines of Lucion's choosing and carefully guarded. Any misstep here might also potentially turn the fiend against us.

The cost to conjure it will be great, even with the most powerful members of the conclave assisting. 

[u]September 13th, 314 P.F.[/u]
Tired and empty. Senses are deadened. There is no color in my world, nor texture to my touch. All is ash in my mouth.

The utter absence of scent is actually something of a blessing, as none amongst the conclave have been permitted opportunity to bathe in over a month.

will write more tomorrow.

[u]September 14th, 314 P.F.[/u]
The demon was, insofar as I could discern, intrigued by our predicament. It described to us a most curious arcane principle that it referred to as 'Conceit's Constant,' and how willpower and cognition continuously shape and reshape the living abstraction of magic, and why any attempt to comprehend or encompass it is inevitably doomed. It is why every member of our conclave has a different comprehension of magic, and different means and methods for utilizing it. The fiend retold ancient legends of how amassed faith, worship, belief, and prayer could reshape creation itself in the Dawn Times, when the Exalted One and the Black God still caused the world to quake - and then warned that any attempt to replicate their feats was likely futile due to Conceit's Constant, except perhaps by blind, juvenile chance.

It also indicated that such a phenomenon is normally impossible. Mortal Conceit apparently does not have the requisite Impetus to reshape creation in any meaningful or immediate fashion, at least not in practicable timespans. In bygone times, Mortal Conceit was catalyzed by certain beings - namely the Exalted One and the Black God - by some ineffable quality internal to them, absent from the rest of the world and the beings that inhabit it. A spark of divinity, perhaps? We did not think to query the Demon on this at the time. The conjuring was otherwise unproductive - the fiend was just as certain as we were that what the Prince desires is impossible. At least for mortals.

[u]September 18th, 314 P.F.[/u]
Drejak and Aramis have both agreed that it might be possible to approximate a suitable catalytic effect that can be used to channel the collective abstraction of Kalitra into being. They, much like myself, have decided that what we require is an embodiment of the same Divine Spark as was borne by the Exalted One and the Dark God.

As neither entity is available for our use, we will have to make do with subgradient materials. Artifacts, tokens, sacrificed inhuman servants - if these are taken and reduced, the sublimated essence of Divinity can be rendered. The problem being, of course, that there are not enough of these materials to go around. This is not the first time an effort such as this has transpired. Many of the old Exalted Myths of Martyrdom and Sacrifice, where Celestial beings sacrifice themselves to produce some untold miracle, are based in truth. But the days where sufficiently powerful beings still resided upon Outremer are long gone, meaning we will have to pool together  multiple, disparate sources - potentially even mixing the power of both Exalted and Profane sources. It is questionable whether there is even a singular quality of the two that can be isolated, or if it will even be possible for us to replicate their use of mortal belief due to Conceit's Constant twisting the nature of the power we would be attempting to imitate. The inner circle has nonetheless accepted that, whatever quantity of the Exalted and Fallen powers made it possible, that state should be reflected whole in the power we intend to extricate from whatever items Lucion can procure. We have taken to referring to it as [u]quintessence[/u] as a convenient shorthand amongst ourselves.

In addition to the troublesome obstacle Conceit's Constant represents, the conclave is showing signs that some amongst our number are starting to lose sight of our primary interest - that is, of deceiving Lucion and escaping from this captivity with our lives and freedom. Summoning that Demon was a terrible idea. It has planted in their heads ridiculous notions of godhood and immortality and seven other kinds of tripe, and this latest proposal by Drejak and Aramishas only fueled their delusions. Perhaps a third of the conclave now actually desires to genuine revive Kalitra, while another fifth predictably wants to use the aggregate Spark for their own apotheosis.

This may truthfully be to our benefit...or at least, [u]my[/u] benefit. A resource we have been profoundly lacking in since the onset of this venture has been Lucion's trust. There may be a way to eliminate these troublesome elements while regaining a measure of his confidence.

[u]September 21st, 314 P.F.[/u]
Nearly half the conclave is now dead. The inner circle agreed with my reasoning and plan, albeit all for different reasons. The shaky consensus we have arrived at is that even with Lucion's resources, we will not be able to reduce enough artifacts and the like to reproduce any Miracles akin to the true restoration of the dead. But it might just be enough for half a miracle, in a matter of speaking. Enough to grant our simulacra the internalized stability necessary to persist without magic, once it has been made.

We spun Lucion a yarn about the more troublesome elements in the conclave planning to deceive him and use their quintessence for their own base purposes. He ordered their purge on the spot, without even requesting evidence!

We still have not earned any true measure of trust from him, but he is now letting some of us - those he deems to not be great risks - to leave the manor grounds under escort, myself included. I am heading out to the nearby village early tomorrow for various purposes, most importantly to discern how aware the surrounding populace may be of our presence. I will write more tomorrow.

[u]September 22nd, 314 P.F.[/u]
We tread upon thin and melting ice shoals. Lucion has not been so circumspect as we would like with the means by which he has been procuring and transporting the materials we require. I am certain the entire village knows of the conclave's presence, and tales of the Prince and his thrice-damned wife are still in circulation to the point half of them are convinced we are there to try and revive her.

Moreso, somebody in the village definitely recognized me, from their look and way they were eying me. They were not familiar to me in turn, so they may be an agent of the Templar Knights. If I was able to glean so much in but half a day, they likely also know what transpires at Lucion's estate.

Only our fortified position and the presence of an Arcosi field army is stopping Paterdomus from launching a siege of the manor, I reckon, but that cannot last. What force they cannot bring to bear militarily, they will and doubtlessly have been exerting politically. Prince Lucion's days are numbered, and so are ours. This project must come to fruition soon if we are to have any chance of getting out of this alive.

[u]September 30th, 314 P.F.[/u]
Our plan has hit a snag, and it is only thanks to the peerless capabilities of Juikon that our efforts have not been wasted. 

Lucion has, over the course of the last two weeks, procured and had shipped to his estate a number of potent Exalted and Profane artifacts with residual power of the Exalted One and the Dark God respectively. They have since been destroyed, and their energies extricated - but we cannot get them to meld. They were on the verge of dissipating entirely before Juikon intervened.

We have the quintessence we need, but it is all sorted into incompatible parcels. If we are to go any further, we need a way to make them meld together.

I admit to some measure of excitement over this prospect. This is wild, untamed magic that has never before been touched nor fathomed by mortalkind before. The prospect of reshaping motes of divinity for our own purposes might be a portent of the dawn of a new era of magic - though I am getting ahead of myself. I also must bear in mind the failing of my now deceased colleagues. My objective is [u]escape[/u], not aggrandized and vainglorious ritual shaping.

[u]October 8th, 314 P.F.[/u]
The quintessence cannot be melded as they are, but Hanuzeth believes it might be possible to 'wash' away their affinity for their respective sources. To unbind the energy from the quality of the Exalted One and the Dark God. The notion seems quite queer to me, although then again nothing like this has ever been done before in all of recorded history so perhaps that was inevitable.

What is Divinity, divorced from any substance or intellect? Even rootless and unbound as the quintessence we possess is now, it is still alive in its own way - aware, in a sense. After a fashion, I have been thinking of it this entire time as if we were dealing with infinitesimal shards of two godlike beings, and the idea that their identity could be divorced from their power never occurred to me.

Hanuzeth claims that there exist certain Exalted rites that can sactify Profane relics, and contrawise, there exist Dark rites that can desecrate Exalted relics, effectively changing the nature of the quintessence contained within. What he proposes will not be altogether unlike those rites - only instead of converting the quintessence from one form to another, we will instead purge its affinity and leave only raw, unaligned quintessence behind. Hanuzeth's churlish presence has finally been to our unquestionable benefit. Were it not for his nature as one of the Fell People, we would doubtlessly have had to devise another roundabout process for approximating one. Though most of the lower conclave still detest him immensely, the inner circle has grown to tolerate and accept his counsel, difficult as it may be to understand him due to his mangled handling of the common tongue.

[u]October 11th, 314 P.F.[/u]
Hanuzeth's ritual worked, although the wrath that was called down upon our heads was more fearsome than we expected. Juikon and Drejak are dead, Juikon's corse is a charred lump while Drejak's whole body boiled and dissolved into bloody steam. It would seem the Exalted One and the Dark God did not approve of our efforts.

We were still ultimately successful, although we are faced with two new problems. The first, of course, is that every soul within twenty leagues is now likely aware that something is afoot here if they were not aware already. The atmospheric events that accompanied the smiting of my colleagues unearthly and impossible to miss, not to mention unmistakable. Lucion has announced he is having us moved elsewhere entirely as the efforts to deter investigation of his estate are now too unfeasible to continue. It is likely to be either some random hole in the ground if not a run-down storage shed, bringing to light how much I have been taking our otherwise quite amenable accommodations for granted.

Secondly, this new, wild quintessence we have created continuously attempts to ground itself into something, anything of substance. The flagstones of the floor, the aether hanging about our heads, even torchlight and our very bodies. Hanuzeth was able to keep it corralled for the better part of a day while the rest of us fashioned a crude vessel from the remnants of the artifacts Lucion procured, capable of constraining the quintessence in its ungrounded state.

Its behavior - permitting that this is likely the first time any such thing has ever existed in the annuals of magic - is most peculiar. It is adamant in its efforts to embody itself in something, anything. Why and for what purpose? If it is now divorced of any and all will, all identity, what is guiding, channeling it to act the in this fashion? Perhaps there is some underlying principle betwixt it and the nature of creation itself?

A riddle for the ages, and one unlikely to ever be solved. Lilirn has proposed that the quintessence had best be permitted to ground itself into the peculiar arcane array she had designed. The array made to tap into the collective conceit of the populace writ-large as well as Prince Lucion himself. We scarcely have much time before we are moved, so the array will likely need to be dismantled and reassembled, which is likely for the best. We need more time to devise our choice method of how we are going to embody the conceit of Kalitra in flesh, now that we possess the means.

[u]October 19th, 314 P.F.[/u]
Evidently Lucion espied my worst fears and elected to combine them. Our new workshop is a hole in the ground, the entrance of which is sequestered within a run-down storage shed. The remaining members of the conclave are up to their pits in each other every which way, myself included - I was scarcely able to even get a moment alone to myself in order to write this entry! The accommodations here are so dismal that one of our remaining Earthshapers, Fobin, died from the stink of all our filth, I am certain.

Despite the misgivings of quite literally everyone, we have nonetheless elected to make another golem for our embodying of Kalitra. Magic will have to be used in for the initial rite to reshape its form and substance to match the collective conceit of the blasted woman, but with the grounded quintessence thereafter its state should become perfectly internally stable and capable of persisting without magic. All that lies before us now is to finish reassembling Lilirn's array and to put together the golem.

[u]November 1st, 314 P.F.[/u]
Utter failure.

Upon reflection, our mistake was likely grounding the quintessence in Lilirn's array, rather than in the golem. It is probably now flitting about and recirculating across tens of thousands of minds, accomplishing nothing much in particular except, perhaps, to potentially awaken Psionic capabilities amongst some of the Arcosi commoners.

Lucion is displeased, we are all going to die. He has sealed the entrance to the cavern, and we are running low on supplies. I imagine quite a few of us will perish before the Prince finally deigns to toss the rest of us to the templars.

We failed to heed my own warning. We got swept away with the grandiosity of what we were attempting, not thinking things through as carefully as we should have. We have been blessed to have gone so long with only minor setbacks in this calamity of an endeavor. Completely novel, utterly unknown and undocumented magic never before seen nor heard of by mortals, wielded and shaped for the first time in history by our hands. It is nothing short of miraculous we were even able to come this far without more severe mishaps. 

And it will take nothing short of a miracle to scheme our way out of this mess we have been left in now.

[u]November 5th, 314 P.F.[/u]
Something is up. Lucion unsealed the entrance and stormed in with his guards, demanding to know what we had done. I was not present at the time, as I was delirious from thirst, but I am told he was acting infuriatingly vague. He left behind several casks of provisions before storming off though, so it seems our death sentence has been briefly postponed by whatever it is that we have inadvertently done.

[u]November 12th, 314 P.F.[/u]
This past week has been most surreal.

I find myself with the last few surviving members of the now defunct conclave - Hanuzeth, Aramis, and a few other hanger-ons. Many of the inner circle perished within that hole and the rest of us were due to follow shortly, until Lucion had us all brought out. He had us all bound and hooded before packing us away in a carriage of some sort. I was utterly convinced we were being sent to Paterdomus. Imagine my surprise when I come to in a rather well-appointed private suite.

We have been recovering somewhere unfamiliar. We are in another estate, in the mountains. There is snow all about us and the air is quite chilled here.

Hanuzeth was all but prepared to die throwing himself at Lucion, even weakened as he was. To be truthful, I would have been right at his side. But Lucion scarcely even had time for us. He made a brief appearance when we first arrived to congratulate us for...whatever it was we did, and then vanished. We have nearly free reign of the estate, the guards permit us to come and go as we please, and a number of women I shall charitably refer to as chatelains have been nursing us all back to health. I just now today finally felt up to attempting to resume my writing herein.

Although I cannot help but be grateful for this unexpected turn, I am still waiting for the other shoe to drop. I need answers - I need to understand what it is Lucion believes us to have done, for we most certainly [u]have not[/u] brought back his wife as far as I am aware. Whatever is going on, it could all end at any moment and turn the Prince on us once more just as quickly as before.

[u]November 13th, 314 P.F.[/u]
I wish Lilirn had not died of thirst in the cavern - this mental rot was her area of expertise, none of us who remain have any great insight here. 

I spoke with Lucion in order to determine what had happened, taking care to talk around my ignorance of whatever it was. 

Evidently, the Prince is now experiencing transcendentally vivid and lucid dreams featuring Kalitra. So vivid, in fact, that he has been spending most of his time imbibing sedatives so as to spend more time with her in the realm of sleep. It completely defies any semblance of logic. Lilirn's array did not even explicitly target Lucion, it was keyed to most of the Arcosi coastline. Yet somehow, the Prince is seemingly the only one experiencing these dreams.

I was surprised with the degree of satisfaction he exhibited as, after all, a dream is a far cry from the resurrection he had been demanding. Especially in light of the jeopardy her death had placed Lucion's business interests with the Arcosi state in. He apparently has all but forgotten about the urgency of the affairs of his station.

Love conquers all in the end, it would seem.

[u]November 18th, 314 P.F.[/u]
Whatever we did to Lucion, it is...progressing, I suppose. It is still too early to determine if it is good or ill. The Prince is now experiencing waking dreams and visions of Kalitra, accompanying him in his waking hours, to the extent he has spent less time asleep as of late. He has been most insistent upon inviting us all to dinner in order to discuss arrangement we would like to have made for our eventual retreat from this mountain estate (which we have since been informed is, in fact, Kalitra's legacy estate, abandoned when she married into Lucion's lineage). He has the most disturbing preponderance to become distracted by 'her,' holding extensive conversations with the empty air. He seems quite aware that she is not real, but he has taken to relaying certain attributions made by Kalitra. 'She' is evidently just as grateful as Lucion. With the way he rambles on about her, I almost swear I could picture her there in the room with us. I would be more worried about the portents for the Prince's mental health, were it not for the extent to which he has gone out of his way to be generous with us.

Us, as in the remaining conclave, have had little interaction with each other as of late. Hanuzeth has, to put it delicately, been tending to the figurative harem Lucion has arranged for him. Where and how the Prince managed to find courtesans with such abominable standards is utterly beyond me, and has in fact completely turned me off of those he attempted to foist on me. I question where and [i]with what[/i] they have been. Aramis has been writing all manner of texts and letters, likely theories and details of our time together. The few other hanger-ons 
have likewise been attending to their own affairs. It would seem the original opportunity I saw in this venture for forging new alliances has fallen to the wayside, though we can hardly be blamed. I imagine the others all simply want for this sordid affair to be over and done with, a sentiment which I whole-heartedly agree with.

[u]November 25th, 314 P.F.[/u]
[u]I see her.[/u]

I swear it, multiple times. Fleeting glimpses. I even hear fleeting catches of what might be her voice, indistinct and distant. Aramis has experienced the same. We confronted Lucion, who was visibly straining not to hug us. He claims Kalitra will soon return to the living world. That she is but an apparition for the moment, but that her power waxes by the day, and that she will be whole soon. When I asked how he knew, he said he just 'had a feeling!'

He has been making the most outrageous promises of remuneration I have ever heard in my life. He is so convinced of her return that he is planning to [u]announce[/u] her recovery to her extended family, so as to reclaim the interests of his estate. 

Aramis has scarcely any notion as to what is transpiring. The writings he has been making largely document the minutiae of arcane practices and rites he observed during the conclave's activities and shed no light on any of this.

As far as I know, this may very well just be the ghost of Kalitra, haunting her old estate and glutted on power from the quintessence bouncing around the Arcosi collective unconscious, rooted in the ideal of [u]her[/u].

[u]December 2nd, 314 P.F.[/u]
Lucion called us to his personal chambers early in the morn, and she was there, lying in his bed. Weak as a newborn babe, but solid and very much alive.

Insofar as Aramis and I can discern, her state is - as projected - perfectly internally stable, and completely nonmagical. Aramis attempted a discrete abjuring just to test it! Hanuzeth has not said a word since he went into the room, and has been acting most perturbed. One can tell, as he has dismissed his army of whores and locked himself into seclusion in his suite. Perhaps he knows something we do not?

As for Kalitra herself, she seemed deathly ill and frail while we were there. She was barely conscious or aware of our presence. Over and over, she kept muttering the word 'Dearest.'

It is nothing short of a miracle. Even if her health falters and she dies a second time. 

We have, quite literally, embodied the living conceit of a departed soul. It is not quite resurrection - I severely doubt it is actually her - but it is still a feat normally reserved for the like of demigods. We have fabricated a living being out of thin air, wrought from nothing but the thought to shape it.

I am uncertain of our course from this point on. I was considering leaving this place, not too many days prior, but this could be, as I ventured in an earlier entry, the dawn of a new age of magic. I think I shall be staying to observe and document the construct as it continues to...progress. I will have to speak with Aramis and Hanuzeth about this further. We do not have all the puzzle pieces, but we are the last living souls with intimate knowledge of the rites and methods involved.

[u]December 9th, 314 P.F.[/u]
She is whole and hearty, and is blossoming in the very light she carries with her. I am not endeavoring to come across as poetic. In addition to now being the very image of perfect health, Kalitra is followed by a wake of pale-blue flower petals wherever she goes and is surrounded by an aura of dappled sunlight, even when indoors.

Lucion has not been faring so well. His mental state has been waning almost as quickly as Kalitra's physical form has been growing in strength. The very will to live seems to have been driven from him, in favor of blind adoration of his returned goddess. He did, however, have a moment of lucidity early yesterday, and clarified what is going on to an extent.

This manifestation of Kalitra seems to be derived from a specific memory Lucion has held of her since her passing. Sitting on the stone bench of a patio, with columns entwined with blue flowers and with the light of the late morning sun illuminating her just-so. His memory of the day her first met his betrothed-to-be. The construct is, somehow, growing to match the memory from which it was sourced.

The implications are...frankly beyond me. There are too many unknown hows and whys in this matter. Why that memory? Why his memory at all? Most importantly, how is the construct continuing to [u]evolve[/u] without magic? Its state is still perfectly internally stable. It is changing and metamorphizing as though it were as natural a thing as the passage of the seasons.

Aramis has taken to have very indirect interviews with 'her.' Alarmingly, despite the construct's perfect health, the only thing it will say, at all, is 'Dearest.' Over and over again, with and without prompting, at irregular intervals. Lucion has been acting as an interpreter, relaying statements evidently only he can hear from her. As mentioned, his mental state and attentiveness are not at their peak presently, and what little he has relayed has been uninformative and infuriatingly cryptic.

I am uncertain how the construct will develop from here on out, it is already littering the entire estate with flower petals and single-handedly illuminating rooms on its own. How much closer can it approximate Lucion's memory before it must cease?

[u]December 16th, 314 P.F.[/u]
This is to be my final entry.

It is the shape of the woman Kalitra.

It is the sound of the woman's voice.

It is the sunlight that framed her form.

It is the columns of blue flowers that were there.

The thing we have made, is these things, and these things have begun to overlay everything else around them. The thing is destructive, anathema, where it goes it leaves nothing but stone patios with columns of blue roses in its wake. The light is blinding. Lucion's eyes boiled out from their sockets. His retainers have fled. Those parts of the estate that have not collapsed due to being displaced by patio masonry are either buried in tangled forests of rose vines or smoldering from the intensity of the thing's light. It will all likely burn to ashes soon.

Hanuzeth awoke both myself and Aramis in the middle of the night to steal us to safety. He revealed what he had been up to in his isolation. He had been using what little earthshaping magic he knew to harden and strengthen the golem we were to originally use, as a precaution in case our creation had to be destroyed. It is the only thing now that can safely approach that monstrosity. A golem cannot be blinded or burnt by the light. Hardened as it is, the rose roots should not be able to worm into it.

This abomination - its state is, as written, perfectly internally stable. Nonmagical, incapable of being abjured or disjoined, and yet possessing a supergradient nature that renders its every aspect hazardous. But it is not indestructible. Aramis sacrificed himself proving as much. Even as his eyes and flesh were seared away, he cut the creature's legs out from under it. Even supergradient flesh still fails. So can the rest of it.

I can hear its cries. Dearest. Dearest. Dearest. It is like resonant magic, a keening, maddening pitch. In time it will likely turn our brains to sludge, if we do not destroy it first.

Hanuzeth makes ready the last of his enchantments. I will leave this journal behind, perhaps somebody will find it in case we fail and finish what we started.

I am not a particularly religious man. I have offered grave affront to every creed and faith during my brief life. In these final moments however, I have found the sudden conviction necessary for a final prayer.

Exalted One and Dark God, and all other deities that may exist: Pardon us for the crime of what we have wrought. Pardon us for the forsworn calamity we have birthed into this world.[/i][/quote][/hider][hider=Paterdomus Sect Briefing][quote=Sect Briefing]The Sect of the Sanctic Palisade, in addition to serving as an order of the Templar Knights responsible for investigating and dispatching heresy wherever it may be found and in whatever form it takes, is principally directed to combat the manifestation of the entity herein named as Ex Nihilo.

In the late winter of the 314th year past the descent of the Holy Kingdom, the Arcosi Merchant Prince Lucion Terramis gathered into his employ a conclave of heretics, warlocks, witches, and other piteous individuals for the purposes of using magic most dark and reviled to resurrect his wife, Kalitra Terramis. Their efforts, which the Sect of the Sanctic Palisade has investigated and studied carefully since then, not only failed but invited into creation a most malignant and insidious presence that our order has since been dedicated to thwarting. Ex Nihilo as it has been branded by the highest court of Paterdomus is a force that manifests by using Mortal wishes and base urges as a catalyst in order to conjure a form that crudely reflects those very same desires. Investigation has revealed that this force either cannot or generally does not harness the wishes of any common man or woman for this purpose. Ex Nihilo instead takes root in the minds of of individuals gifted with uniquely great strength of will and with ambitions or desires that are either tremendous in and of themselves, or otherwise reflected in awareness by a vast number of other individuals. The most common victims are great leaders of men, kings, generals, governors, warlords, and so forth. The more reknowned the individual and the more generally aware the greater public is of their aims and philosophy, the more susceptible to the influence of Ex Nihilo that individual is. For this very reason, the most vulnerable individual known to our order is, in fact, the High Father of Paterdomus himself. Rest assured, any possibility of his falling prey to this threat has already been addressed by our order. The fact is presented as a cautionary statement in order to impress upon all members of our order the pervasiveness of the threat Ex Nihilo represents.

To date since the turning of the year, our order has been made aware of two additional successful manifestations of Ex Nihilo, in addition to a third partial manifestation which was successfully prevented by our timely intervention. Much of our sect's knowledge as to Ex Nihilo's methods are due to our investigation of these occurrences post-incident. In the former two cases, both manifestations were mistaken as Scions of the Fallen One, and the High Court of Paterdomus sees no need at this time to correct this misapprehension. Although knowledge of Ex Nihilo is not a state secret, the members of our order are reminded that specific knowledge of its nature is not necessary in order to cooperate with other sects in combatting its manifestations. 

In the first instance, an Orc Warlord from the Arugoth vale abruptly acquired the magical capability of telekinetically levitating and setting aflame stones and masonry, typically in the form of siege boulders. They utilized this capability to breach one of the Church's main fortifications in the Howling Gap, at which point Ex Nihilo manifested in the form of a flaming boulder riding astride a mound of shifting, broken masonry. This entity then proceeded to meander about the battlefield, indiscriminately displacing fortified structures and killing anybody who stood before it. Eventually, a company of Templar Knights confronted the manifestation and destroyed it with the use of siege weapons and warhammers, and its remains were ground to dust. Subsequent interrogation of surviving Orcs revealed that their Warlord had become more and more obsessed with breaching and destroying the specified fortification in question, which had successfully repulsed more than ten previous attacks he had led. The magical capabilities Ex Nihilo bestowed upon the Warlord did not enable him to fully accomplish this ambition as the fortification was not wholly breached and was quickly restored. The theologians of our sect have concluded that the purpose of bestowing the powers at all was to facilitate the manifestation of Ex Nihilo in the approximate realization of the Warlord's ambition, rather than strictly the accomplishment of the ambition itself. A distinction for which we are to be thankful.

In the second instance, the War Chieftain of a raiding band from Twenty Halls experienced an unexpected streak of good fortune while pillaging Calesbail. His raiding band successfully attacked multiple merchant caravans and generally made a nuisance of themselves with little in the way of retaliation, and even managed to attack and rob an armored wagon carrying silver bullion. Immediately prior to the raiding band's attempt to sail back to Twenty Hauls with their plunder, Ex Nihilo manifested in the form of the heaped, shifting mound of lucre they had acquired, interlaced with the War Chieftan's gore and bones. It caused little in the way of overt destruction beyond a few lives lost underneath the crushing coils of its shifting mass, and was shortly contained by a Calesbail militia in a deadfall pit. Shortly thereafter, our sect was able to successfully convince the local governor that the manifestation was in fact a lesser Scion of the Fallen One, and it was relinquished to our custody and melted down to slag which was then diluted in Aqua Regis. Interrogation of several of the raiders revealed that the War Chieftain had become obsessed with the idea of swimming in a pile of riches stolen during successful raids. Although this manifestation was instructive in showing that the forms Ex Nihilo takes are not always formidable, it also demonstrated that its capability for influencing the world at large is worrisome. There is no indication as to how it enabled the raiding band to operate with such runaway success, beyond the inference of several raiders that the War Chieftan had been granted inexplicable flashes of insight or gut feelings that informed many of their raiding strategies. 

In the third instance, a clerical worker and prolific author living in the High City became obsessed with abstracted Muse, who compelled him to finish a peculiar treatise he had been in the process of compiling over several years. As his work on the treatise progressed, his Muse began to manifest as an overt haunting, which was shortly reported by the man's neighbors. Our sect was only alerted to the matter when initial efforts to ward and sanctify the author's domicile failed to evict his Muse. The incident was used as a test-bed for preventative measures by our sect. During the testing, the author's treatise was doctored to seem as if it contained only fugue-derived gibberish, and he was additionally prescribed a diluted tincture of nightshade extract in order to induce dreamless sleep and to steady his nerves during the waking hours of the day. Convincing the author he had been writing while suffering from fever-induced delusion almost immediately caused the haunting to cease entirely, while the administration of the tincture completely eliminated the vivid dreams and visions he had been experiencing. The author was executed (under the pretense of heretical writing) via beheading at the conclusion of the examination in order to deter any future manifestation attempts by Ex Nihilo.

What has been learned over these occurrences is as follows: Almost uniformly, victims of Ex Nihilo experience profoundly vivid dreams and visions of a desire or ambition the individual deeply holds. Over time, these dreams and visions will heighten in clarity as Ex Nihilo embellishes them. By what means this insidious force operates in order to do so remains unknown at the time of writing, and whatever the means completely bypasses all known forms of magical warding. However, at this stage its influence is nonetheless readily detected, and the most telling sign it has targeted an individual is the persistence of these singularly vivid dreams and visions to the exclusion of all else. Once detected, Ex Nihilo's influence is trivially thwarted simply by administering mundane sedatives to the afflicted. Certain common concoctions including trace amounts of nightshade extract resulting in dreamless sleep or steadied nerves during waking hours have shown tremendous efficacy in completely preventing any and all visitations by Ex Nihilo.

In cooperation with the Church and the widespread institutions of our creed, our order has already devised a common libation and sacrament that shall be included amongst the ordinary rites of our faith. Any and all proper followers of the Exalted One who attend church regularly should thus be safely guarded against the profane touch of Ex Nihilo. As an added benefit, church alchemists have indicated the widespread proliferation of this new libation shall improve tolerance to an array of common toxins with regular use. In order to extend the protection of this libation to the unfaithful and the more blasphemous aristocracies, a variant mixture of it is being commercially marketed as a salubrious elixer and antidote that is to begin distribution across Outremer shortly.

Early detection and prevention of Ex Nihilo's influence despite this measure will not always be possible, especially in regards to the more barbarous and unclean peoples such as amongst the lands of Twenty Halls and Portus Cruor, not to mention the Fallen Creatures who reside in Arugoth. It thus falls to our order to remain vigilant for the signs of Ex Nihilo's heightening influence and to be ready to combat it wherever it arises and whatever form it takes.[/quote][/hider][/hider][/quote][/hider]