The spirits aren't happy. They rarely are. A wind blows over the desolate landscape that is The Dark, harsh and hot. Death raises Its head, Its face ever-changing. It can feel it. The Shift is coming. Death knows this. Death knows all. It rises from the rock It chooses to rest on, picks up Its blade, and sets off east, towards the Gates. Death's robe casts an endless shadow, giving passing Shades a glimpse into the Void. As It marches ever on, It observes the spirits, feeding off their anger. Shades and spirits alike swirl around the hem of Its robes, gathering around It, worshipping Death as a god. It arrives at the Gates, and stops. It has never been able to pass before. Not at full strength. No, It can only observe. Once the Shift comes, however... no, It knows better than to think that.
The lower midsection of Death's robe contorts, spirals, and spits out a creature. A male, small, wretched, and pitch black. The creature's arms are too long and his neck too short. He only has six toes and eight fingers. He raises his faceless head, and snatches at Death's hem. The robe responds, wrapping up and around the creature's arm, before covering him like a hooded cloak. Death has once again made a spawn. A Reaper. It is very proud of Its children, short-lived though they are. The Reaper procured a scythe, a wicked blade, even in The Dark. The Reaper steps through the Gates, and out into The Lifelight, where he will travel on to Côstgrere to claim a human soul, birthing a new Shade.
Death silently watches Its Reaper begin the journey to complete his task. Death comes for all, whether It can make a true appearence or not. The Lifelight will not hinder the Reaper, thus is the way of things. The residents of that plane fear the spawn. Death swiftly turns, Its robe enveloping all around It. It has a lot to think about. The Shift. The Lifelight. Côstgrere. It returns to Its rock, and surveys Its domain. The Dark is a barren wasteland, largely colorless sand, with large outcroppings of pure onyx to the south, forming the Forsaken Pitch, where the truly wicked reside. The only other notable landmarks are Death's stone upon which It sat, and the Gates. The only scource of light is the Gates, as they are the door to the Lifelight. The sun died millenia ago. The Shades roam the sands in thousands, milling about aimlessly. Spirits could oft be seen flitting about, grumbling about affairs in Côstgrere, antagonizing the Shades, and being general nuisances. Death does not mind them, however, for both spirit and Shade worship It. Death Itself appears nothing like Its spawn, or how humans expect. It is nine feet tall, and very thin. Its skin is just as black as a Reaper, but Its extremities are proportional. Its head is never covered by the robe that he adorns Itself with, though it is impossible to describe Its face. The blade of Death is a long black sword, with ornate carvings of many languages along the blade. They all convey the same message; All will be enveloped. Death lowers its head, awaiting the next wind, listening to the unhappy spirits.
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It is summer time in the Lifelight, as always, and Layla is more than content to lie in the grass, staring up into the blue sky, where the clouds are light and fluffy, and the sun shines gently, taking great care not to burn skin nor eye. It is a lazy day, and she has gone with it. Other Elves be damned. Her mother could be cross with her tomorrow. For now, however, she could enjoy the day. As she lay there, a gentle breeze began to blow. Warm, yet cool. The rushing of leaves in the wind could be heard from the woods behind her. The wind turned, suddenly becoming uncomfortable and hot. Layla shot upright, confused. The weather was never unpleasant in the Lifelight. What is this? She looked around, and saw…it. A door of darkness had opened across the clearing, and some…thing stepped through. She hadn’t seen anything like it before, yet instinctively feared it. She couldn’t approach it. In fact, once she spotted it, she couldn’t move at all. It was black, and cloaked. Its hood moved, as if looking around, and it set off to the north. Layla stood still, frozen with shock and fear. She couldn’t comprehend the horror that had touched down in front of her eyes. Once the thing had moved on and the door had closed, her muscles relaxed as her brain stopped giving off danger signals. She moved closer to inspect the contact point. The grass was dead. And there was a trail of death, leading in the direction of the creature. Small fuzzy things, squirrels and the like, along with every plant it touched. All dead. With no explanation for it. Layla did not know it yet, but she had encountered a Reaper.
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Ôgherín was a name known to many humans. The center of all. Some worshipped it as a deity. Others speculated it was a place that could be reached, given enough time and effort. All they needed was the correct technology. And thus the inhabitants of the plane called Côstgrere evolved, searching for a way into the unreachable. Rivers were moved. Forests were destroyed. Great standing monuments and cities were built. Humanity moved through the ages, going from using rocks as weapons to wage war, on to great machines made up of gears, pulleys, and energy. It was around this time that they discovered magic. Magic! What a wonderful thing! Once humanity found magic, they progressed increasingly fast. They combined their knowledge of science with magic, and invented the Construct. These machines could be coded using specific instructions, or given free will. Constructs could be found everywhere. Eventually those that were granted full autonomy were recognized as another race altogether. The discovery of the Construct created a new profession, the Construct Forgers. Soon after, this profession was regarded highly, and noble families excelling in the art emerged. Entire Colleges were erected to teach commoners how to create them, all in the name of progress and reaching Ôgherín.
One such College is the subject of this story. In one of the larger cities, known as Cratum, is a well renowned campus, Fortuna College. On these grounds resides the son of a small noble family, a Forging prodigy, Jonah Oritz. Jonah has a dorm on the campus, but rarely uses it. He spends his time in his Forge, a large room, with a great smithing apparatus in the center. Adorning the walls are bottles of various alchemical ingredients, along with maps, charts and blueprints. Quite a few tables are cluttered by tools, scrap metal, large stones, and gears. A hefty claymore is propped up against the east wall, next to the door. Only two tables are clear, one being the Spellgroove. A Spellgroove is a very curious item, first created about a hundred years back. A small, circular desk with hundreds of runes carved upon one another, it is used to grant magical qualities to any item or artifact, so long as the user is skilled enough. The other table has a singular blueprint, along with the skeleton of a Construct. Jonah himself is hunched over the smithy, flattening a hunk of steel. A rather dashing young fellow, only twenty-six years of age, his muscular arms move with the precision of an experienced smith. His hammer creates its own rhythm, and Jonah follows. He works until the shape is just right, and then cools it in the water basin next to him.
“Aucht nif dor hun*.” he mutters, as a blue circle appears in his left palm, three intrinsic runes in tiers towards the center. He pushes it onto the plate, which causes it to shudder, accepting the magic. Jonah carries the piece over to the skeletal Construct, and sets it in place, right over the ‘heart’. With an audible click, it pops into place. A few seconds pass, before a low hum begins emitting from the automaton. Its finger moves, and then it explodes. Jonah dives behind a desk to avoid the shrapnel of stone and metal, but gets nicked in the ear.
“Dammit!” he swore, standing up. “That’d be the fifth blasted one this week.” He moves to clean up the mess, when his door opens, and his roommate, Steve enters.
“Hey… what happened here?” Steve asks, stupidly.
“Blasted Construct exploded. Again.” Jonah replies. He returns to cleaning up the rubble and scrap, and Steve stands in the door watching him. Jonah never cared for Steve, he was obnoxious and stupid. How he even made it to university was a mystery. Jonah shivered as the air grew cold. Cold? This was a Forge, it shouldn’t ever be cold. Trying to ignore the feeling, he turned towards the Spellgroove, hoping to divine an answer for his sudden string of failures. And that’s when he realized… it was awfully quiet. It was never this quiet when Steve was around. “Steve?” he asked quietly. No response. He turned around slowly and saw it. He wasn’t sure what it was exactly, but it looked vaguely humanoid, and was carrying a large, wicked looking scythe, dripping with fresh blood, and the corpse of his roommate hanging from the middle of the blade. This was what the religious quacks of the Green Rose said Death was meant to look like. Fear gripped Jonah, a primal urge to run or kill that he had never felt before. But this thing stood between him and the door where his sword was. He had no options. The Reaper disappeared in a puff of inky blackness, leaving only the blood of Steve behind. That too however, vanished without a trace.