"WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG!"

Such was the lone cry that rang out from New Sehal later into the season, even as Morvaethe captured more and more of the realm as exhibits for his twisted sanctum. Having gained a soul, a lone Pixie servant raised his voice in shock and horror as fleeting sentience took hold. Once more aware of himself and the wrongful union of a foreign soul and a similar body that made such consciousness possible, the Pixie descended into madness.

It proclaimed his horror to the realm entire, a loud, keening wail of abhorrence mourning a body lost.

As adventurers gathered around to examine the maddened Pixie, he continued to gibber and profess some strange wrongness that only became evident as some eavesdropped on his thoughts and erratic mental state. Though some ascendants asserted that the Pixie had escaped Morvaethe's twisted captivity, such theorems were immediately dismissed as the Pixie fell over, and his soul fled to find another vessel. Upon taking a new body, however, the soul once more declared it wrong and not their own body, not their face - a fact that drove them to claw at their own eyes. While some of Sapience's finest stepped in to keep the Pixie from self-enucleation, others sought to reason with the poor creature to calm its nerves and gain more insight into the situation within the bounds of the Curator's terrible magic. Though few questions managed to penetrate the maddened Pixie's psyche, he did remark that he had been celebrating a flower festival, with banners and music, before a blue light took it all away - and that he remembered little else, an admission accompanied by another parting of soul and body.

This process continued for several vessels until the soul managed to sit the throne that was the imprisoned prince of the Pixie people. Upon its settling, the soul proclaimed this royal body no better than any other and made an obscure demand for release, either from his wooden cage or the bone one that entrapped his soul once more. Huntress Sylara stepped forth to provide the former, causing the nearby Impish guards to close in with sharp spears and sharper reprimands, and the Jackal's Hammer - Whirran the Ogre - quickly became a giant distraction for the tiny troops. In the commotion, the prince collapsed into a slack-jawed pile of flesh - a signal that the Pixie soul had fled to parts unknown.

Late into autumn, flickers of azure light alerted Sapience to Morvaethe's movements, drawing a crowd of ascendants to the Northern Ithmia, where the Curator laid siege to Amitivis' den. Already captured in the throes of stasis magic, the tremendous serpent was moments from imprisonment in a crystalline georama before adventurers from every city-state rushed to distract the ancient wizard. Determined to capture his prize, the old collector held his focus on the serpent and managed to compress it into captivity. However, his frayed mental state made it clear to those gathered that he had struggled to capture such a dangerous magical beast. As further proof of such speculation, a vicious psychic backlash swept through the den as the Fang of Vengeance sought freedom from its newly-wrought captivity, temporarily tearing through the Curator's defences. Sounding a battlecry, Sapience mounted a hasty assault on the avaricious sorcerer, prompting him to panic and reassert his wards. As more creatures in Morvaethe's care began perishing, the man wove a gateway and departed the scene without a word, his dark rage rendering him uncharacteristically silent.

In the weeks following Amitivis' capture, adventurers inspected the Curator's sanctum daily, desperate to find vulnerabilities in his magic. Though several individuals attempted to stir Kivra Mossflower to further defiance or yield more information, the Curator's assistant was similarly silent, her interactions stripped to her barest functions, and the sanctum seemed curiously empty of its typical primitive guards. Awaiting word from Olto the Runemaster, the Heartwood set out to conduct rituals of scrying and baleful curses to seal Morvaethe's fate, and the Hammer's sailing crews began loading the Dawnbreaker for a dangerous diving mission. Even as the now-divorced forces of ancient Life pushed their respective agenda, the Theocracy's terrible and secretive plans proceeded apace, the blood of unauthorised mages given unto the Labyrinth's Grasp at all hours of the day, leading the realm's minor spellcasters and hedgewizards to fear for their lives.

Itensu the Stalwart, feeling the call of duty, made it known to Sapience that Moghedu was under his protection and that he would turn aside Morvaethe's predations if the sorcerer were to advance upon the settlement. When adventurers confronted the Ankyrean on the matter and asked why he would not simply end the threat, the Twice Adherent laughed and explained that the modern era's trials were for modern warriors to handle, and that he was content to watch.

Whilst the nations of Sapience set forth to forge a new destiny for their landmarks, another edifice of power takes to the skies with a rider upon its back...


~~~~~

Summary: Morvaethe's sanctum is not as perfect as it seems, and a Pixie's soul escaped captivity. He struggled to capture Amitivis, the colossal serpent pactbound to Duiran, and the giant beast managed to weaken his magics long enough to allow adventurers to attack him. Itensu declared Moghedu under his protection.

Penned by my hand on Falsday, the 4th of Haernos, in the year 10 AC.