Chapter 8: The Spire Crown
The fight with the Widow of Silence;
There was quiet, and it was good, she thought. Still. Calm. Peaceful. But the silence betrayed her, left her in her darkest moment. She cried out, breaking her beloved stillness, but the claws that came for her were silent, too. And so she wept, to drown out the deafening quiet that she once loved. She wept until even her eyes fell to her trembling hands. And then she sought those in the dark, in the quiet, while they slept- and drowned out their traitorous silence with screams.
Aedronach, Lady of the Shattered:
“The light here is false. The dark here is false. All above and below is a lie. How dare you come here, pretenders, walkers in false shadow? This is not your place. I have seen the truth. I have seen the truth, and the truth is in annihilation.”
If she is stunned or otherwise incapacitated:
I was firstborn to the bosom of Lilloch, shard of Soff. I watched the First Ones raise the firmament from nothing. I watched my mother-maker give of her self-being to cage the shard of the Unmaking Light. I fought Oblivion for eons before the world was made. And when the First Ones forged the bones of sanctuary out of their own forms, it was I and my brethren who breathed life in to the worlds. It was I who helped make you... you beautiful, wretched things... You terrible mistakes. I am so very sorry, my children, to have given you this lie that is existence. To have given you no choice in the matter.
How... how can you stand it? Existing is agony. It is the loneliest thing...
(Alyx, who got the killing blow, evoked the value of companionship)
She responds: You... You have never known oneness. You are all, always, alone.
Aedronach is a fallen angel, once a devil, now mad and turned fully to the service of Ahriman. She was once one of the firstborn (like Yuhime), the entities first made by the primogens' creations. She remembers the forming of the world, she remembers the fall of heaven, (and her part in it) and she has come to believe that sanctuary was a mistake, a falsehood, an abomination against the absolute truth of Ahriman's oblivion.
When they defeat The Lady (and destroy or otherwise alter the crystal) they are cast into the Veil as the spire begins to fall.
Post notes:
They flee the area as a unit of Elahad's men approach ruined Trent. Velka charms two Moose, meeting "HNYAAAAAAAAAAAM", or "Fairwhisper". They ride them to Tim & Tom's cave in the footholds. On bonnie's watch, she is ambushed by Assassins, who conjure an image of Clem when she's down. They search her for the Aether Cypher, and, finding it missing, flee before here allies can come. (I DID THIS POORLY: GIVE MORE AGENCY) They return to Andalbrass!
Parent Plot
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