Version 7

The Battle Begins

Five Gatekeepers, twenty-five fragments. We had risked life, body, and sanity to close each rift, to restore these fractured heroes for one purpose: to stand against the all-devouring glory of the Dreadnought. In the days that followed, a fragile quiet settled over us, but we were not fools -- we knew better than to mistake silence for peace.

Life persisted, as it must, but every heartbeat thrummed with the anticipation of a turning point. We were waiting for the sign that our sacrifices had meant something. The moment we would stand together or fall apart against a hunger that wanted to devour not just our island, but the entire world beyond. We did not have to wait long.

The anomalies began within the week. Subtle at first: shifts in the light that had no source, water beading upside down on leaves, a chill in the shadows that had nothing to do with the wind. The animals felt it first -- retreated into their burrows or fled in a panic as far as their legs could take them; birds would fall silent mid-song, then erupt into frantic, discordant choruses all over the island.

The first tremor struck on the eighth day. A deep, groaning shudder that rattled the foundations of New Ognos. Another followed half a day later, stronger, violent enough to spill provisions from their sacks and send tools clattering across workshop floors. But the third tremor brought something worse than shaking ground. It tore the sky.

Above our island, the heavens split open -- a gaping, vicious wound of ever-shifting color. It was a wrongness, a scar on reality itself. No matter how far we traveled, the wound in the sky remained, fixed overhead like a malevolent eye. Hungry. Patient. Waiting for the end.

The Dreadnought appeared on the edge of our sensor range on the tenth day. A blip of impossible energy, cold and relentless. Its shadow reached us on the twelfth, a palpable gloom that seeped into the land long before the beast itself was visible. Those with courage enough to look gathered on the obsidian walls, their eyes straining toward the northeast.

It crested the horizon like a moving mountain. Crystalline spines, jagged and cruel, rose high above the tallest trees. Its body was a nightmare of refracted growths, sharp angles and pulsing seams that defied natural law. The terrain behind it was not simply destroyed; it was unmade. Whole sections of forest were folded into the earth, hills rippled like water, and pools of water rotated in perfect, impossible spheres. Small buildings sagged into nonsense shapes. The very air grew thick and heavy, reducing visibility without the courtesy of fog or mist. A wave of panic preceded it -- every creature that could run fled in a blind, desperate exodus from something ancient, incomprehensible, and hungry.

A relay station in the northeast hills managed a partial transmission. It was six seconds of scrambled audio, a burst of static, and what might have been a human scream stretched and distorted into mechanical feedback. Then, silence. When a secondary team reached the outpost two hours later, they found nothing to recover. The walls had warped inward, the tower collapsed into itself. There was no sign of heat, no impact crater. No bodies. No spirits to commune with. The Dreadnought had devoured everything without even diverting from its path.

We had done all we could. Now, there was only the wait. Our messages to the neighboring kingdoms had gone unanswered, our pleas met with silence. We believed them shortsighted, perhaps even cowardly. We prepared to stand alone against the end, a final, defiant gesture in the face of oblivion.

We were wrong.

The first sign that we were not abandoned was not a ship on the horizon or a cry from the watchtowers. It was a change in the air itself. A fresh, salt-tanged wind cut through the oppressive stillness, carrying the scent of open sea and clean sails. Then from the west, cutting through the waves with impossible grace, came the fleet of The Scepter of Zephyrs. Their sleek cutters, sails emblazoned with intricate wind-glyphs, moved with a collective purpose. Admiral Serah’s Windward Fleet secured the harbor entrance with a practiced, silent efficiency. Above them, Zephfluffs darted between the masts, their squirrel-like forms tracing agile patterns against the bruised sky, scouting the advancing gloom.

Then, from the east, a different silhouette emerged -- darker, heavier. The ships of The Mountain Kingdom slid into the bay, silent as glacial ice. The Rockfolk disembarked, their movements slow, deliberate, and heavy with finality. Their polished armor, tempered with earth enchantments, reflected the grim light of the fractured sky. Without ceremony, they moved to the landward approaches, their stoic presence a bulwark against the coming storm. Great, shaggy Sentinels took up positions at key archways, and as the Rockfolk chanted, defensive runes flared to life along the natural choke points, etching lines of unwavering power into the very stone.

The forces of Vel’Kora simply appeared. One moment, the inner defenses were manned by our people alone, and the next, Mirajin warriors stood among them, emerging from shimmering mirages that faded like heat haze. Their layered wraps shifted in color and pattern, mimicking the desert sands they called home as they moved with a silent purpose, marking the ground with mirrored sigils that seemed to swallow the light. At the edges of our formations, their Sohlash companions flickered, semi-corporeal forms wreathed in smoke, sharpening the air with latent power and layered intent.

From the south, the harbor waters brightened with the vibrant sails of Asteria. The Volari troops moved with a relaxed, fluid grace that belied their discipline. They assembled shield structures of woven, resilient bioplastic, creating defensive perimeters with a speed that spoke of countless drills. Their Tidewings slipped beneath the waves, forming a living, defensive ring in the deeper coastal waters. The air itself lightened slightly, carrying the faint, hopeful scent of salt and citrus.

Pelagornis came with the tide. There was no fanfare -- only a rising, unnatural swell that revealed a line of Delvyn fighters cresting the surf. They gleamed in armor of pressure-tempered reef metal and coral-dyed oils, moving with an abyssal fluidity that was both beautiful and alien. Their Neravex companions coiled along the seawalls, securing the vital, liminal space where land met sea.

A soft, pervasive light then grew from the northern tree line, accompanied by the rich scent of damp earth and blooming night-flowers. The Auren of The Sanctuary had arrived. High Druid Elira and her Circle moved not upon the land, but with it. Where they passed, flora twisted and grew with accelerated purpose, weaving into formidable, living barricades. In the canopy above, Verdelisks chittered, their shimmering dust falling like a protective mist.

Pyraheim came last, their arrival announced by a wave of dry heat and a faint ashfall on the wind. Pyroptera crossed overhead, their riders releasing signal bursts in intricate, flame-coded glyphs. On the ground, the Emberclad warriors deployed with a grim, wordless efficiency. They reinforced existing structures with controlled burn nodes and pillar bracers, their armored plates hissing as they settled into place. They did not seek glory; they sought a furnace, and they had found it in our collective resolve.

Alone, we had prepared for a final stand. Together, surrounded by the gathered strength of the Kingdoms, we braced not for an end, but for a beginning. The battle was finally to commence.

It was only then, at long last, that the Gatekeepers made their entrance.

Kaemor was the first to arrive. He did not emerge from the trees or the sky, but seemed to condense from the very air to the west, his glacial antlers cresting the ridge like a frozen dawn. A wave of deep, penetrating cold rolled ahead of him, and with each deliberate step, the ground froze solid with the permanent, profound ice of a deep winter that would never thaw. The sea-wind that clung to him smelled of ancient depths and forgotten battles.

Sylthis followed not with silence, but with a shattering of it. The pressure around the northeastern front dropped precipitously, a vacuum formed, and then the wind roared in to fill it, screaming from every direction at once. They descended through the clouds as the eye of a storm -- a massive feline form of crackling lightning and overgrown vines. Their landing was an impact, tearing apart a vast wedge of terrain the Dreadnought had just stepped upon. A visible, spider-webbing crack spread audibly across the titan’s outer crystalline plating, a sound like a mountain breaking.

Veyrith spiraled into existence high above the battlefield. Her vast, owl-like form was barely solid, her mist-feathered wings stretching to distort the light around her. The air currents below her writhed and corrected themselves; gravity bent in her presence and for a moment, loose stones and weapons floated weightlessly. The movements of allied forces slowed to a dreamlike crawl before snapping back to terrifying speed as her influence passed.

Torran erupted from the east, a volcano given legs and wrath. His arrival was an explosion of heat and fury, his obsidian-black armor cracked with veins of molten rage. Each step left the earth smoldering, fire spreading in his wake. The Dreadnought, for the first time, halted its inexorable advance and turned its immense bulk to face this new, searing threat. Torran’s molten eyes met the titan’s gaze, and the air between them shimmered with incipient violence.

Finally, Ixthia shimmered into being above the central watch platform. She was the least definable, the most unsettling. Her many-eyed, fox-like form flickered between states -- solid, translucent, decayed, resplendent. She did not look at the Dreadnought, or the armies, or the other Gatekeepers. Her eyes tracked nothing and everything, seeing possibilities and deceptions invisible to all others. Her breath had no rhythm, syncing with no heartbeat, no wind. A cascade of overlapping whispers -- harmonious, discordant, reassuring, mocking -- drifted down to those below.

The Dreadnought stopped. Its immense, deliberate momentum ceased completely, and the unnatural warping of the land behind it seemed to pause, holding its breath. The beast stood as a terrible silence at the center of the gathered storm of power, its jagged Shards pulsing with that eerie, otherworldly light. The calculated pause of a hunter reassessing a prey that had suddenly grown fangs. In that silence, the hope of thousands flared, fragile and fierce.

It was then that the Paragon’s light returned. All at once it was simply there, high above the battlefield, as if it had been there always, waiting, and had only now allowed itself to be seen. A breathtaking fusion of lion and horse, its powerful frame shimmered with golden crystalline Shards that captured not the grim light of the torn sky, but the light of distant, hopeful stars. A spiraling horn rose from its forehead, a symbol of piercing clarity. Its mane flowed like molten gold, and where that light fell upon the ground, the shattered earth began to subtly mend, the cracks sealing as if healing a wound. The oppressive gloom lifted, if only by a degree. The sky seemed just a little brighter.

The Paragon's vast, star-filled eyes were fixed solely on the Dreadnought. It was a crucible made manifest, a force that forges warriors. Its presence was not a shield, but a demand: Rise.

The Dreadnought responded with a roar at a frequency that vibrated in the bones, not the ears. The air around it congealed. The mirrored sigils of the Mirajin darkened, their surfaces clouding over. The defensive runes of the Rockfolk flickered, the stone beneath them groaning as if under immense pressure. An unnatural silence shattered as the titan took its first step forward since stopping, and the ground did not just shake; it rippled, throwing defenders from their feet.

The battle had finally begun. The Dreadnought’s crystalline spines glowed with a malevolent intensity, and a wave of distorting energy pulsed outwards. Where it passed, reality softened. A Volari shield wall of bioplastic suddenly twisted, the material flowing like liquid before hardening into a useless, abstract sculpture. A section of the Auren’s living barricades writhed, the plants mutating into thorny, aggressive forms that lashed out at the nearest soldiers. The air itself became a weapon, thickening into invisible barriers that slowed movements to a crawl or snapped forward with the force of a tidal wave.

The allied lines held, but at a cost. The Kingdoms fought not as a single unit, but as a symphony of distinct powers, each meeting the surreal assault with their own strengths as the Gatekeepers moved in.

Kaemor advanced, meeting the Dreadnought’s reality-warping pulse with a wall of absolute zero that flash-froze the effect solid, leaving a standing wave of frozen light and distorted space in the air before him, which then shattered into a million glittering fragments.

Sylthis became a whirlwind of pure chaos, leaping onto the Dreadnought’s flank. Lightning arced from their claws, grounding into the titan’s body, while vines sprouted from their fur, latching onto the crystalline spines and pulling with immense force, seeking to pry them loose.

Veyrith drifted above the fray, her unblinking eyes observing the flow of the battle. She would shift gravity around a group of soldiers a heartbeat before a shockwave would have crushed them, or slow time around a section of the Dreadnought’s armor just as Torran’s molten claws struck, amplifying the impact.

Torran himself was a blaze of focused fury, a comet of wrath slamming into the Dreadnought’s front. He ignored the smaller distortions, his hide smoking as he tore at the titan’s leg, his fire searing deep cracks into the celestial shield that protected the beast.

Ixthia... flickered. At one moment, she was a beacon, her shifting form emitting a light that clarified the Dreadnought’s illusions, revealing safe paths through the chaos. In the next, she was a weapon, refracting the titan’s own corrupting energy back upon itself, turning its power into a tangled knot of conflicting possibilities that caused the beast to momentarily recoil.

The Paragon did not yet engage directly. It circled high above, its golden light a constant, stabilizing force. Where its illumination fell, the worst of the Dreadnought’s corrupting influence receded, the ground firming and allies finding a second wind. It was waiting, measuring, preparing for the moment to strike at the heart of the shield.

For some of us, the cacophony of the war faded into the background, replaced by a single, crystal-clear objective. The plan relied not on a single army, but on a series of crucial, individual strikes, and our part was about to begin.

Participant Account: Aevis Clorance

This entry has been crafted by Aevis' player, Renny. Thank you for your contribution!

The world is full of the sounds of battle: the clashing of weapons, the screams of the fallen, the roars of the Dreadnought and it’s lieutenants as it seeks to destroy every last one of them. They are able to hold their own, but it does not come without injuries and casualties. Aevis had been on the front line for hours before she was surrounded and unable to block the numerous blows that had rained down upon her. She is sure she would have been lost had it not been for Leon dragging her out of the fray and all the way to the medic tent for attention and healing. Thankfully, the wounds she had sustained had not been life threatening, but they had slowed her down, weakened her. Her side is bandaged, the wound crudely stitched together in a hurry by magic and stitch, done quickly but efficiently to save time for the healers to work on the rest who needed help.

She had left the medic tent to provide support from the back when the call came. A call for help to maintain order and manage the chaos that had overtaken the healers as the flood of injured seemed to swell. Aevis knew her limitations and though it pained her to leave the fight, she had answered the call and returned to the medic tent to help. An hour later, she finally sits to take a break as the triage has found it’s rhythm again, the swells of injured having slowed to a small trickle of new concerns. She is barely seated for more than a few precious minutes when she sees the runner come in, immediately shoving the missive soaked in blood into the hands of the head healer. Aevis watches with concern clear upon her features as the woman reads the orders and she doesn’t miss the way the healer’s face pales, her skin the color of snow, before jumping into action and barking orders. Evacuate the medic tent? The call is terrifying, because it means that something is heading this way, something big and deadly. She springs to her feet, ready to assist in the evacuation when a word rings out in her mind, clear as day and full of nothing but venomous hatred and fiery anger. Clorance…Clorance…CLORANCE.” Her true last name is a warcry for something as it pierces through her mind, a dark sound cracking like broken bone and rotting wood before turning into a scream of deep, guttural anger and hate. She turns to find the source of the voice when a vision suddenly floods her senses, causing her to stagger and drop to her knees.

There, just beyond the edge of the tent stands a creature, something that may have once been human but is not a twisted mass of decaying flesh, limbs that were not just it’s own, and a tangle of rotting Royal livery. It shows her visions of how it was tortured, corrupted, and abandoned by a King, by her grandfather, once a knight who fought for her people but now has a mission to destroy them, to destroy her and drink the Clorance blood that runs through her veins.

She knows she has little to no time, but the decision she must make isn’t hard. She will not allow this creature to take out its anger on the healers and the wounded, to destroy the lives of those who had no hand in its past. She will go out and meet it head on, wounded as she is. She will face it head on, a hidden princess who refuses to allow her family’s legacy to be tainted by the creature, a princess who will choose to stand and hold the line, protecting everyone she can as she has always done.

She moves to stand, the vision fading and her senses returning to her as a healer approaches, trying to help her stand and get her to evacuate with them.

”No. No. Get the others, get them out. I’ll protect you for as long as I can.”

”But Miss Aevis….”

She doesn’t let the healer finish before she takes her hand, placing a chaste kiss against her cheek. ”Please. Let me do this. She pauses for a moment, her eyes closing as she gathers her courage. ”Elaine, please. If…If I don’t make it, please find Lord Notus Ravenwood. Please tell him that I’m sorry, that although I’m unsure if it is love yet, I wish I could have had more time to find out. That I wish I had kissed him that night at the masquerade.” With that she turns on her heels, picking up her daggers and heading towards the edge where the creature awaits her.

She doesn’t even bother to look back, knowing it may break her, and keeps her eyes forward as she exits the tent. There on the crest of the small hill right outside the tent she can see the creature and she knows that it sees her. She hesitates for a brief moment until she feels the gentle brush of fur against her fingertips and peers down to see the slender form of Leon, always beside her no matter what happens. She sighs softly, running her fingers through his soft fur as she gathers up her strength. ”Thank you Leon. I would have never made it this far without you.” The cat doesn’t speak, simply nudges his head against her thigh in a sort of nuzzle. Even he knows the weight of the fight before them, the weight of everything waiting at the top of the small hill.

Cl-or-ance. The word is broken as the creature speaks, gutteral and deep, the word cracking and breaking. ”Prin-cess.”

She makes her way up the hill, stopping when she gets to the flat top that overlooks some of the battlefield below them, the ground trembling as the Dreadnought roars from beyond. "I am here, Creature. You will go no farther today, you will harm no one else. Your fight is with me and me alone.”

She feels the words pierce her mind again. ”Death. I bring your death, princess. I will destroy you, tear you limb from limb. Then I will find anyone you ever cared for and destroy them, ripping them to shreds.”

Aevis settles into a stance, her daggers ready in her hands as the creature begins to move towards her, lifting the banner it carries and holding the broken edge as though it is a javelin. ”Even if you bring about my death, I will never allow you to carry on. You will meet your final end today and I hope you will find the peace you need.” She looks down at Leon before he slinks away, blending into the shadows around them as dusk falls.

The fight begins in a clash of blade and pole, her daggers moving to block the jabs and swings the creature takes at her. Each block reverberates through her body, pain radiating from the wound in her side. She knows she will have to end this fight quickly if she has any hope of surviving this. She activates her nanites, letting them move to imbue her with power, triggering her abilities and dimming the light around her as the sun begins to set. Her movements become lighter, more agile as she dodges and steps around the creature, engaging in a fight that looks almost like a dance.

He swings at her, over and over, changing up his tactics with well practiced measures, the training of a knight in her grandfather’s order clear. Unfortunately for him, Aevis was no stranger to battle herself and had once trained with the knights when she was younger, before the world fell apart. While she allows herself to remain calm, pushing through the pain, she can see the creature before her growing more and more agitated with every swing. It’s anger and hatred fuel it’s movements, it’s desire to do nothing more than kill her pushing it into a frenzy.

It’s attacks come faster, stronger, and harder. One blow hits so hard, it flips one of her daggers out of her hands and causes her to stumble, pain shooting up her side as she feels the soft trickle of blood warm her from the reopened wound. She can hear the delighted broken laughter, full of poison and hate, as it sets upon her, ready to deal the killing blow.

That’s when Leon rushes in from the shadows, jumping on it’s back and tearing off one of it’s extra limbs with his maw. His roar is loud as the distracted creature grabs at him, dropping it’s weapon in the chaos before grabbing him and throwing him to the side, his body hitting a tree with a crack. “LEON.” She screams before getting back onto her feet. She breaks into a run, her hand scooping up her dagger as she passes it. Before the creature can regather the discarded weapon, she surges forward, plunging both daggers into its throat, pushing forward and out. It takes more pressure and force than she expected as she forces them from the middle of his throat to the sides, ignoring the way it’s twisted limbs punch at her sides, tearing open the wound on her side further as she feels the blood flow, dripping down and out of the bandage that had kept it wrapped.

”CLORA.. It’s scream is reduced to gasping breaths as blood bubbles up, filling its throat before she forces the blades all the way through, decapitating the creature before her.

She watches as it’s head topples from the neck, rolling to a stop somewhere behind it. The limbs stop thrashing and the body crumples to the ground, the decaying flesh fading into floating ash as the night wind blows it away, leaving the rotten livery behind. Her gaze moves towards the head as it begins to break apart and as she sinks to her knees, exhaustion and pain beating out the adrenaline, she is almost positive she sees the face change, a more human and handsome face of a knight appearing briefly, his lips forming a soft thanks before turning to ash.

Her breath grows labored as she finds herself weary and weak. Leon finds his way to her, supporting her as he tries to help keep her upright, concern in his amber eyes as he takes in the blood coating her side, the blood a deep dark red that has saturated both her bandages and her shirt. She buries her face in fur as a scream of pain erupts from her throat, hoarse and heavy. She doesn’t know how bad the wound is anymore, all she can feel is pain. Pain, but also a glimmer of peace. She knows she has saved many lives, she has done what a princess is destined to do. She has helped her people in a way that matters even if they never know who she really is and what it took to do it.

Weary and broken she may be, but she has completed her task.

As her consciousness begins to fade, she can feel Leon shift so she can lay over his back as he begins the long walk to carry her home.

The Grand Finale

[TW: contains some body horror, violent death, insanity]

The tide was turning. The Dreadnought’s steps, once earth-shattering and rhythmic, were now a stumbling, uneven drag. A deep fracture spiderwebbed along its forelimb, scattering shards of crystal with every lurch. Its immense weight listed heavily to one side, and the light pulsing beneath its armor flickered erratically. Though the core in its chest still burned, the power building between movements was gone -- now it was a desperate effort just to stay upright. As it turned, a section of plating at the base of its spine sheared away and clattered to the ground, with no effort to regenerate.

Across the battle line, the shift was instinctive, a wave of released pressure. The Freeborn forces surged forward. Through the haze, a pair of Mirajin Sohlash darted to seal a breach between faltering barricades. A spear hurled by a mountain guardian found its mark, biting deep into the creature’s damaged flank and exploding a shower of crystalline fragments into the air. Sylthis crashed into the earth before the Dreadnought’s front leg, the impact scattering rubble and arcing lightning.

The creature reeled. Its injured leg buckled, plunging too deep into the broken ground and throwing its colossal frame into a forward tilt it couldn’t correct. A back leg kicked out, sending a chunk of the hillside spinning wildly across the field. Its left eye flickered, died, then sputtered back to life. The inner glow surged in one last, defiant pulse before dimming to an uneven, sickly beat across its seams.

But it began to rise again. And then… everything stopped.

A man froze mid-stride, his foot hovering above the ground. A scout’s fingers halted just above her belt pouch. A Mirajin Commander was suspended, arms outstretched, her signal frozen in the air, her expression caught between one moment and the next.

The Gatekeepers were petrified. Veyrith’s wings were locked at the apex of a beat, defying the air. Torran was braced mid-step, talons half-buried in soil. Kaemor was a statue carved from glacial ice and abyssal dark. Ixthia’s every eye was fixed, her ears rigid. Even the Paragon’s glow steadied into a solid, unwavering pulse as if time itself had seized.

At the center of the stillness, she appeared. The Oracle. Untouched by the grime of battle, her snowy gown and crimson hair were a shocking wound of color. Her wide, unblinking eyes were pinned on the Dreadnought. A woman fell to her knees. A blade clattered to the stone. We waited for a prophecy, for hope -- but she offered only silence.

Then, a subtle wrongness. Her left shoulder hitched up, then jerked back too far. Her elbow bent at an unnatural angle, one hand curling into a claw. Her neck tilted without the rest of her body following, and a ripple distorted the skin along her ribs. A sound escaped her chest -- not a breath or a word, but a hollow, structural groan. The back of her gown began to tear at the seams. Her jaw unhinged, mouth gaping wide. Her spine arched inward violently while her shoulders wrenched back. A single rib pressed outward against her skin, then another. Her circlet cracked with a sound like ice breaking. Something swelled beneath her breastbone and dropped.

A clean, bloodless split opened from her clavicle to her sternum as her body began to unmake itself. From the cavity within, something began to move -- a formless presence with edges that blurred and shifted, as if it had forgotten what shape it was meant to hold. Strips of fabric dissolved. Her arms splayed open, bones yielding to impossible angles. The thing extended from the ruin of her chest, widening, crawling out like it had only been wearing her skin. There were colors that swallowed the light. A dozen eyes swam through a single form. Her crown liquefied and ran like mercury down her cheek. The face of the Oracle stretched, split, and sloughed away into the void behind it. What replaced it was never meant to be seen.

The Gatekeepers remained frozen.

A pulse spread from the Oracle’s remains. The world shimmered, its lines doubling and misaligning before snapping back into a focus that felt thin and fragile. In that moment of wrongness, the Dreadnought was reborn. The spines along its back blazed. Plating sealed over its wounds. Scattered crystal fragments lifted from the ground and flew back to their source as if time itself were reversing. Its stance solidified, a shattered limb reforging itself. It rose, larger and more terrible than before, the glow in its chest burning with a cold, white star’s intensity.

The Gatekeepers stirred from their stasis, but they moved through water-thick air. Sylthis’s strike veered off-course, bent by an invisible haze. Torran struggled for footing on warping ground. Veyrith climbed, but the sky offered no purchase. Our momentum, so fiercely won, was simply... gone.

The allied lines faltered, their rhythm broken. Arrows went wide. Shields dropped a fatal second too late. The thing that had been the Oracle -- the Echo -- did not attack. It simply was, and its passive presence was a weight that crushed initiative and hope. The Dreadnought advanced, the very earth melting and reforming beneath its steps.

Then the world broke. A deep, vibrational groan rose from the seabed itself, and the ocean answered. The entire sea lurched inland, a single, monolithic movement that defied tide and wave. The air cracked, thickening into a suffocating blanket as the heat ripped from it, leaving a cold that seized the lungs.

The water tore apart, and Linor rose.

A leviathan of living ocean, a towering form with deep-blue skin that glistened with the abyssal dark. Her hair was a cascading torrent, a relentless flood woven with strands of kelp and the ghostly gleam of drowned pearls. Her eyes were fathomless pits, windows to a crushing, lightless silence. A flowing mantle of water, constantly in motion, crashed and whispered around her form with the thunder of tidal forces. Her presence was a physical weight, an assault on reason. To behold Linor was to stare into the ocean's heart and feel your own sanity dissolve in the pressure.

But our goddess was not here for us: Linor’s attention was fixed ahead. The Echo flickered, splitting into phantom shapes, appearing on the ridge, in the sky -- a desperate, chaotic dance. Linor’s response was a study in terrible efficiency. She reached across the distance, her hand closing around a fragment of its being. It screamed soundlessly as she pulled it apart at the seams. It reformed elsewhere. She turned and caught it again. An inexorable, repetitive correction.

As she contained the Echo, the Paragon moved. The Dreadnought’s chest flared for a final surge, the Paragon was simply within it, her blade already drawn. A light pulsed inward, not out, and the core of the titan splintered with a sound that was universe cracking. The Paragon erupted from its chest in a silent flood of radiance, and the Dreadnought dissolved mid-collapse, its form turning to inert, scorched crystal before it could hit the ground.

Linor raised a hand and the sea retreated, its job done. The field that remained was... changed. The ground held a permanent dampness. Scorched grass stood upright, bleached and soft. A crater marred the center, its edges unnaturally smooth. The crystal shards that littered the ground were hollow, bleeding a faint, dying warmth. The Paragon and the Gatekeepers were gone, and Linor’s absence was as immediate as her arrival, the crushing pressure lifting so suddenly it left a void.

Soldiers moved among the fallen with a numb, purposeless air. The battle was over, but the word victory felt hollow, blasphemous even. In the confusion that followed, something moved in the middle of the battlefield. A shadow, a shape -- no one saw where it went.

Then with a mighty crash the ice wall of the Tangled Deeps broke apart. The path to the island beyond is open now, and the Dreadnought no longer roams. At long last, we can expand our borders.

Version 7: New Horizons

Welcome to Version 7: New Horizons! This version focuses on exploration, expansion, worldbuilding, and deeper divine involvement. Here’s what you can expect!

Exploration & Expansion

Exploration takes center stage this version, and our collective word count will determine how quickly New Ognos expands!

• On the second Saturday of every month, total word count will be reviewed. If enough words have been written, a poll will decide which area unlocks next.  
  •  Occasional bonus polls may follow to define that area’s biome, exports, wildlife, or other features.  
• There are 16 areas and 8 islands currently available for discovery, with the possibility of discovering entirely new regions in the future.

Deities & Divine Influence

Deities will take a far more active role this version, both in-character and through features like Direct Requests.

• When creating a new character or bonding with a Companion, you can now choose a deity to receive a personalized welcome bonus from on the joining/bonding form.
•   Support will provide you with three options from the deity of your choosing, you may select one to keep.
•   Approved deities are automatically added to the joining & bonding forms, making their blessings available right away!  
• Players may request interactions with the deities / their Vessels through #ic-requests ; interactions can be OOC (done on Discord) or in-character.

Waypoints

Every 3,000 words a player personally contributes to the site through regular posting will unlock a Waypoint, which triggers special choices and rewards. Waypoints can be spent in the Waypoint Store.

New Primary Progression Systems

From the aftermath of the conflict between Linor and the Echo Below, two new progression systems have emerged: Eminence & Tenebris.

• Each player may pay 1000c per character to grant up to two characters access to each of our new non-standard systems; that's up to two Primal, two Eminence, and two Tenebris users per player.
• Characters created via the Breeding System have a small chance of being born with access to any of the above systems, with chances being slightly higher if either parent has access themselves.

New Races

Two new races & their companion species have been released:

• Luminari are celestial-born humanoids with immediate access to Starlight Progression. They typically bond with manta ray-like creatures called Stellarae.  
• Frayborn are shadowy Rift-touched humanoids with immediate access to Riftborn Progression. They typically bond with small, semi-corporeal beings called Glitchlings.

Changes & Adjustments

• Riftborn status can now only be added to new characters from the Frayborn race. All pre-existing Riftborn will continue within the system as normal.
• Joining is now free for all Telaspa (a Valka variant) and Five Faction races.  
• Costs to join mixed heritage characters, including Amalgam, Five Faction hybrids, Halflings, Mixlings, and Custom Races, have been reduced.
• Five Faction characters can now bond with their race’s standard Companion species at any time for just 250c.

Player Contributions

• Earn 150c for each new landmark added to the world.  
• Earn 200c for every new NPC introduced.  
• Creating a new deity grants 250c and a special themed reward.

Free Conversion Offers (Available until Jan 1)

Each player gets three free changes; to claim, just request your changes in your private support channel!

• One System Change: Switch one character to Eminence or Tenebris.
• One Race Change: Switch one character to Luminari or Frayborn.
• One Companion Change: Switch one companion to Glitchling or Stellarae.

How to Use Them:

• Stack Them: Use all three on one character (e.g., make a character Frayborn with Tenebris and a Glitchling companion).
• Spread Them Out: Use them on different characters.  

Ongoing Events

• The Drowned Tangle ice wall has collapsed—thank you to everyone who participated.