Recent content by Archanae

Radu's intrusion clamped Archanae's mouth shut. She had lost her temper at Lazarus' exposition. It must have been the fault of her nerves; overwrought with tension like old ship ropes, too strained from her spending time with the Herald of Halch's corrupting influence. No matter. Work would...

Comfortable existence. Those two words lingered in her stance, like a pair of irritating sea urchin spines, stuck in either foot, forcing her to move them restlessly; stalking like a cougar around him, away from him and then right back. On the way, she stroked Maldragos' clay, who had caught up...

Archanae eyed Lazarus for a long moment. Sifting his eloquent words for the truth between them. "Curseborn, you say? I think I have heard the term." She adjusted her shawls before her, as if gathering her meagre cloth in protection against the hostile environment. "I have indeed pledged myself...

They walked a while, the only sound between them the grinding of bones sinking into the earth like giant spades. Finally, when Radu was out of sight, beyond hills of carcasses and workers, did she speak. She didn't know how far his inhuman ears might reach, so it was better to be safe than...

An admission of limits? That was a new tune. Archanae bowed her head and planted a hand on her chest, obscuring her sapphire medallion. "It is done, then. Should I disappoint you, I would disappoint myself. I will not fail." Her cryptic eyes snapped to Lazarus. "Perhaps we might walk...

Incredible. An army of tireless workers. Archanae was no stranger to owning minions; but to control this many at once, on this scale . . . Maldragos seemed a pale imitation of such titanic servitude. She turned to observe her own clay golem and nearly fooled herself in seeing a cowed expression...

Archanae certainly minded her footing. Even stepping back, as the earth before her erupted in claws from massive, bony wrists that wriggled and burrowed through the soil like giant worms. Impossible skeletal figures emerged, both in size and proportion. Creatures that had no right existing in...

Every moment Archanae spent in the proximity of Radu Basarab might cause her flesh to rebel with terror, but it expanded her mind beyond any measure. She didn't need to open her eyes to imagine the carnage of an army ambitious enough to invade this desolate place. Even more so after a fortress...

While they had stood close before — less than an inch apart, even — they had never touched one another. Not until now. Archanae might as well have transformed into clay, turning even more immobile than her golem. The massive claw crawled on her shoulder like a giant crab, with a texture that...

In comparison to Radu's alien form, Archanae resembled a wandering hermit, dressed in shawls and the remains of a robe bleached to a sandy colour from wind and rain, matching her intricate brass jewelry that covered her ears, neck, arms, waist and legs. The sapphire around her neck and in her...

Alas, Archanae had no wings of her own. The fall was substantial. But she could borrow the flight of another. The floating spectre she had shackled still writhed against her chain. A pulse of white energy went through it, stilling the creature, like one might handle a phantom horse. Then she...

Radu's voice elicited a small nod from Archanae. She stepped away from the edge, releasing the jutting ribcage. "A kindness indeed. What raw element does not secretly yearn to be engineered into beautiful complexity?" An invocation followed this pronouncement, with a swirling gesture of her...

Bones and carrion eaters. As far as the eye could see. Here was a physical manifestation of one, unalienable truth of the universe: the dead vastly outnumbered the living. Her hand tightened on an exposed ribcage; a macabre railing of support on this strange vessel, bare feet planted on the...

Archanae still devoured the Mortis Engine with her eyes. A relic from The Age of Wonders. Until now, that age had been nothing but words to her. Stories, scrolls, stone tablets, mosaics on walls from a bygone age. But now; now it rose up above her in all its morbid glory. How could she not...

Her arms fell slowly to their sides, brought down from detached observation to baffled awe by the enormously grotesque display. She had never quite seen such a calcium constellation before. Did she dare guess at its purpose? "What manner of construct is this?" Her words left her unwillingly...