The Ashen Vale

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The village of Cael’Morren clung to the edge of the Dreadveil Cliffs, a place where nothing grew right and the wind seemed to whisper secrets only the dead could understand. For decades, its people had learned to keep their heads down beneath the watchful presence of two beings: Avenessa, the silent and commanding Vyrathe who moved among them like a living shadow, and Abbigale, the drifting Wyspar spirit who felt more like a memory than a person. Together they were feared and respected, known as watchers and wardens over a village that barely dared to breathe.

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One evening, as dusk approached and the villagers braced for the rise of the crimson haze, something felt deeply wrong. The red mist did not descend as it always had. Instead, a sudden crack shattered the stillness, like bone breaking underfoot, followed by the sound of something wet stumbling across the courtyard. A figure in courier leathers collapsed against the manse gate, dragged across its warded surface until his skin burned and his body smoked. The gates had not opened for him; he had been forced through, every inch tearing at him.

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Half-alive, he lifted his head and whispered a single name: “Valis…”

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Avenessa recognized the crest burned into his shoulder plate — the Court of Ashes, an ancient order thought extinguished centuries ago. Abbigale saw the man’s spirit already rising from his corpse, still tethered, unable to escape. Something powerful was keeping him pinned between worlds.

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Then the courier gasped, blood pouring upward from his mouth like a reversed waterfall, and screamed a final word: “Kethra!” His body convulsed, and his jaw cracked open. A second voice spilled out from within, feminine and cold, each word sharp as a blade.

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“I can feel your pulse even now. Come to me, heirs of rot. To ignore me is to let the land die beneath you. To delay is to watch your veins split like roots in ash. The Crimson Gate is open. Aegros breathes again. You were mine. And I have waited long enough.”

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With those words, the courier’s body finally went still, his spirit released at last. The name Kethra Valis hung in the air like the taste of old copper, seeping into the cracks of their minds.

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That night, the red mist came early and thick, crawling over Cael’Morren like a living wound. Abbigale felt it inside her — discordant threads vibrating in her chest, plucking at half-forgotten echoes. Somewhere close, something was stitching memory into the very stone, twisting the land’s history into a new shape. Avenessa felt a sudden tug on the dead she commanded, as if invisible threads were pulling them from her grasp and guiding them north, toward Aegros.

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In the fields at the village edge, every boneflower opened at once for the first time. Inside each bloom sat a small black seed — the same seeds once used in blood oaths sworn by the Court of Ashes, a secret Avenessa had hoped to never see again.

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The next morning brought an even stranger horror. Jeren Ashweald, once a loyal thrall of Avenessa’s family and thought dead for over forty years, staggered barefoot into the village. His eyes were dry and bleeding, his voice cracked and trembling as he spoke.

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“My lady… I saw your face in the veil. I saw her wear it.”

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He collapsed to his knees, tears of blood streaming down his face.

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“I came back. I don’t know how. I walked from the red haze. She let me through. She’s calling you back. The court is hungry. And you’re the last piece.”

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Then he fell silent, but he did not die. Kethra would not allow it — not until they answered her summons.

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Desperate for answers, they turned to Old Vyrnna, a half-mad spirit medium who lived hidden among bone relics and shifting spirit tattoos that crawled beneath her skin. Blindfolded, she saw not with eyes but with memory, tracing the echoes of forgotten lives. When they arrived, she greeted them with a crooked smile and whispered words that scraped at their souls.

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“She came to me in a reflection. Asked what your blood would taste like if boiled in regret. She said you wouldn’t remember what you gave up to be alive. I said she was cruel. She laughed. She wants her bloodline back — not just in name, but in flesh.”

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Vyrnna offered them a chance to see what lay buried within themselves. Abbigale stepped into a pool of soulwater, confronted by a mirror-specter of her own past — a chance to remember what she once was to Kethra: a friend, a servant, or a betrayer. Avenessa offered a drop of her own blood to Vyrnna’s silver bell, unlocking long-hidden family memories forcibly stripped from her mind.

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Through these visions, they learned that Kethra was not born a monster but had become something beyond even the Vyrathe’s understanding. She had done what no one else dared: merged her bloodline with a Wyspar, binding two incompatible essences into herself. In doing so, she began to unravel, and now she needed Avenessa to complete her rebirth. The truth cut deeper than any blade — Avenessa was her descendant.

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Determined, the two set out toward Aegros, following a map into the north’s cold and haunted reaches. As they crossed the blighted land, they encountered the Hanging Garden — a ruined watchtower wrapped in crimson vines. Inside, bodies hung suspended not by ropes but by threads of memory, their spirits twitching in silent agony. Abbigale saw them clearly, locked forever in their death poses, unable to pass on. One spirit revealed a fragment of Kethra’s final moments, begging her court to die with her. They had obeyed — and yet, she rose again.

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Farther along, they met the Hollow Shepherds — veiled figures blocking the mountain path, their hollow corpses animated by red threads and glyphs stitched into their flesh. Among them, one bore the face of someone they once knew. Together they whispered in chilling unison, offering a terrible choice.

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“It’s not too late to take her place. You just need to kneel.”

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Avenessa and Abbigale stood side by side, unbending, knowing that their fates and the fate of the land were now tightly entwined. They pressed on toward Aegros, the final echoes of Kethra’s voice trailing after them like a curse they could not outrun.

The Shardbound

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After leaving Cael’Morren and passing the Veinspire Pools, Abbigale and Avanessa pressed onward, each step heavy with the red haze gathering behind them. The path to Aegros narrowed into a rocky descent, and before long they found themselves above a cave, voices echoing faintly below.

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Driven by the Crimson Haze burning in their veins, they scrambled down into the hollow, seeking any refuge from the pain gnawing at their spirit. At the base of the ravine, they discovered a group of Shardbound Knights led by Vex Aldra. The knights had anchored an Emberglass Flame to a rune-carved obelisk, its ghostly blue-red glow pushing back the haze and holding the night at bay.

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As Abbigale and Avanessa approached, the knights drew their blades in alarm. The flickering lantern light revealed their spectral features, and Vex Aldra stepped forward, his nullsteel glaive gleaming. He regarded them with suspicion and disdain, announcing himself and offering them sanctuary — but only if they knelt, surrendered their Fell titles, and submitted to a ritual that would sever them from what they were.

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Abbigale attempted to appear more human, shifting through the fragmented visions of her many deaths. Her effort only deepened the knights’ unease. Avanessa tried diplomacy first, offering Alta in exchange for shelter, but the knights refused, calling themselves holy servants of Lord Aramon. The knights insisted they would cleanse the Fell, strip them of their identity, and bind them to Aramon’s cause.

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Faced with no other choice, Avanessa and Abbigale conferred in hushed urgency. Submission meant losing themselves — perhaps dying truly and finally. Abbigale hatched a sudden plan: rather than submit or flee into the deadly night, she would run straight into the cave behind the knights. In a heartbeat, she bolted past their ranks, and Avanessa chased after her, blades rising in confusion and alarm behind them.

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As they entered the cave, the knights followed quickly, cornering them within the flickering edge of the Emberglass light. Steel clashed as combat erupted. Abbigale, using her new dagger infused with Blinking, darted and evaded, while Avanessa shrouded Abbigale in shadows to conceal her movements. In the chaos, Abbigale's Mesmerize talent turned one knight against another, forcing a loyal zealot to strike down his own ally before vomiting in horror at what he’d been made to do.

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Blades flashed in the dim cavern. Abbigale siphoned abilities, dancing between attacks, while Avanessa’s spectral presence turned nearly invisible, flickering like a haunted echo. Their combined assault cut through the Shardbound ranks, leaving Vex Aldra and a handful of soldiers desperately trying to regain control.

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At the climax, Abbigale seized the Emberglass Flame itself, lifting it into the air and channeling a booming voice, declaring herself a greater force — a mock divine presence. The knights, terrified and disoriented by her trickery, reluctantly backed away. Vex Aldra spat on the ground, swore an oath to leave them, and promised they would not be spared next time.

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With heavy breath and wounded spirit, the knights retreated into the night, taking the Emberglass with them. The cave now belonged to the Fell.

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Bruised and drained, Abbigale and Avanessa collapsed into uneasy rest. As they settled, the haze faded from their veins for the night, but the whispers of memory — and the promise of Kethra — hung heavy in the darkness. They shared quiet words about their choices, weighed their new wounds, and planned the next steps toward Aegros.

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In the silence that followed, both felt the ghostly pull of what awaited them ahead: the court that had once promised them thrones of glass and bone. Together, they closed their eyes, each wondering which part of themselves might not return from the mountain.