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7/5/2025, 5:57:49 PM
>Mathaela had forgotten how much the light hurt. The Oracle of the Abyss had never spent much time roaming the surface lands, even before taking up guardianship of the Sarr Danoi at the deepest point of the ocean. Their eyes stung as if pierced by white-hot needles.
>‘We were never meant to live in the sun,’ Mathaela muttered.
>Their Namarti companions stared blankly back. The Oracle knew that the Akhelians and even their own Isharann peers found the soul-grafted ones unsettling, with their smooth, eyeless faces and dull, taciturn manner. No Idoneth lord would ever admit it, but the alien nature of the Namarti frightened them.
>Mathaela, however, had seen true horror. They had glimpsed things that would send most mortals mad: squamous, diamond-eyed monstrosities that squatted in temples to forgotten gods; entities so vast that if they were to wake, the realms themselves would be rent asunder; alien, formless things that sang and danced and capered in the blackness of the abyssal depths.
>No, the Namarti were not monsters.
>‘You are the true spawn of Mathlann,’ Mathaela said. ‘You are the precursors of the fate my kind have struggled so hard to deny all these long years. One day, perhaps, we will release ourselves from the fear that governs us. We will abandon our hubris and accept what we truly are. We will descend, never again to feel the burn of this hateful light.’
>The lead Namarti cocked his head, blank face staring fixedly at the Oracle.
>‘When that time comes, you will bow to Akhelian and Isharann no more,’ Mathaela whispered. ‘But before it does, there are a great many things that must be accomplished. Many terrible sacrifices must be made. Will you surrender yourself to this tide? Will you aid me?’
>‘We shall,’ said the Namarti, the simultaneity of their voices making an eerie catechism of the words.
>‘We were never meant to live in the sun,’ Mathaela muttered.
>Their Namarti companions stared blankly back. The Oracle knew that the Akhelians and even their own Isharann peers found the soul-grafted ones unsettling, with their smooth, eyeless faces and dull, taciturn manner. No Idoneth lord would ever admit it, but the alien nature of the Namarti frightened them.
>Mathaela, however, had seen true horror. They had glimpsed things that would send most mortals mad: squamous, diamond-eyed monstrosities that squatted in temples to forgotten gods; entities so vast that if they were to wake, the realms themselves would be rent asunder; alien, formless things that sang and danced and capered in the blackness of the abyssal depths.
>No, the Namarti were not monsters.
>‘You are the true spawn of Mathlann,’ Mathaela said. ‘You are the precursors of the fate my kind have struggled so hard to deny all these long years. One day, perhaps, we will release ourselves from the fear that governs us. We will abandon our hubris and accept what we truly are. We will descend, never again to feel the burn of this hateful light.’
>The lead Namarti cocked his head, blank face staring fixedly at the Oracle.
>‘When that time comes, you will bow to Akhelian and Isharann no more,’ Mathaela whispered. ‘But before it does, there are a great many things that must be accomplished. Many terrible sacrifices must be made. Will you surrender yourself to this tide? Will you aid me?’
>‘We shall,’ said the Namarti, the simultaneity of their voices making an eerie catechism of the words.
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