Hello.

There's a shrouded figure. She rings a bell.

She is many things resolving into one. Under the Sight she is at once and yet not at all a sorceress, staff held in steady hands and eyes aglow in green, a girl, fists balled in frozen ice and gaze fierce and ready, a teacher, boring enough to put students to sleep, a dead woman, arrows studding her form. She becomes Seer and Weaver and Riftwalker and abolishes the same. She is paying the penalty for murder, paying the trainers. She leads others to the path she walks and vanishes for months at a time.

She hunts and kills and feasts and dies and runs and whales and guards and dies and logs and traps and weaves and dies and sees a pattern there and dies.

Time and time again her spirit is dredged back, yet unbroken, with remnants and reminders and, memorably, spawn from the underworld. She dies a fucking lot, okay? She changes from the experience. She's ugly and bleak, wearing her stripes as though they're badges. She's mad-eyed and loud. She's oddly impulsive, a poor trait for one who works with terrible eldritch powers, a contributing factor to the dozen visits to death's domain (and counting). She boils the blood that runs through veins, then chills it with a glare.

---

Ednia was a character in the text-based roleplaying game New Worlds - Ateraan. She rarely exists. My current project is Garden MUD. I can be found in a discordant place as wnd # 0123.
Ring me up some time if you want to reconnect. - Wendy

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One.

The History of Ednia, as scribed in the Palace Archives of Darmahk.

Ednia is the daughter of a witch. The daughter of a witch, inevitably, is a bit of a witch herself.

Her mother was known as an illusionist, a sorceress, a magic-maker, a wise woman, and a freak. She raised her daughter to be aloof and reserved, to know her strengths and weaknesses, to never hesitate. She raised her to follow her instincts faithfully. She raised her as a huntress and she taught her to learn, and learn well. When she died, her daughter took over her place in the clan. She was an instructor and a teacher to the young felines of the plains, but she knew there was more to the world.

And so she left. Every fiber of her being called her south. South to meditate under the great baobab for three days and three nights. South to follow the mirages she'd seen in her dreams since childhood, the voices that whispered in dreams. South through the gates of Darmahk to devote her self and soul to the great Overseer she had heard of and been terrified of as a kit. South was her home now, and she reoriented her compass thus. Darmahk. Here she worked herself to the bone, daring to believe that at the end of the trials and tribulations, she would find her place. She would find knowledge and power, wisdom and acceptance, and the truth of the universe.

Two.

Early years in Darmahk.

The Guardians and their fall. A tremor in the ground, in the air. The gates re-opened on an empty Collective, and when the rebuilding commenced, Ednia was there, finding her place among the first of Darmahk's new mystics.

Those early days were curious. Throngs of adventurers hunted by the dozens to source plain helms. A rod of lightning was coveted. Spikes were rare. One had to walk uphill both ways to Grahhul. Those days are over. A glimpse in the mirror remains, a reminder of who she once was.

You see a female feline (circa 1518),

Just under six feet tall with a relatively slim build, this lanky feline is almost wraithlike. Her onyx fur is striped with ghostly grey, rippling out from spectacle markings around large luminous green eyes. Curlicue marks along her whisker-framed black nose wreak havoc with the patterns. Short pointed ears top her head, with a mane of coiling white hair dusting her shoulders. A deep scar around her left wrist has affected the growth of the fur there, purposeful in its prominence. Her lazy saunter contributes to a listless demeanor.
She has tapering lines of ink encircling her left wrist. They shape two curved horns in black dotwork, simple and stark.
Piercing on ear: A thin chain hangs from her lobe, suspending a small ivory disc in the air.
Tribal scar: Trolahk Hall of Honor ancestral marking.
((Glowing Mystic Cloak))
Clothing : Shaman cosmos pendant
           Belted linen dress
           Large scabbard {light crossbow}

Three.

Spirit Totem Cow.

Now.

Five.

A house built according to a vision. A library dwells within, nestled between ritual spaces, a classroom, and old comatose initiates turned into coat racks, their mana harvested for eldritch workings (this is a joke)...

House Foyer

    This simple entryway opens up to the north, where a wide archway leads to the central library of the residence. Dark mahogany floors are softened with a hallway runner in deep blue. Unglazed windows to the south look out over the Savannah River, a view made misty by shimmering sparks flowing across the sill. A narrow closet door is tucked next to some hooks for keys, racks for shoes, and a low table strewn with decades of discarded post. The painting above the table depicts a dusky scene in watercolors.

painting
Savannah Eve, by Darrius.

Exit

Six.

Titles of archived writings for Ednia. The texts can be found in Darmahk's Palace Archives.

1 before the fall - the baobab tree
2 the fall of the guardians
3 the oasis congregation
4 a guardian's words
rothar telrith's memorial ritual
the curse of king teraasithon
on ancient travelers

Seven.

Eight.

Clan clan.

The Travelers' clan hall sits at the end of River Trail.

Roster: Arco. Karam. Skef. Xesta. Gadra. Eixie. Ezrin. Kechris. Honorary Traveler: Seraphine (King).

Nine.

Scraps found stowed away.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Visiting felines may eat a MAXIMUM of one (1) butterfly.

Signed,

Local Authorities
-----------------------------------------------------------------

**********************************************************
Your corpse is fertilizing the gardenias. I bet they'll weep mana. **********************************************************

**********************************************************
I buried you in the hedges.
**********************************************************

**********************************************************
Cow goes moo
**********************************************************

Ten.

"Apparently a canoe isn't a ship." - Amaylah, 6/22/1520.

"This arm is about to literally reshape your face, old lady."
"Deserts Don't Have Frowns" - Morwyn Mimsy Borogrove, 7/9/1520.

"You know what. I am not making fun of Ednia today.
For no reason at all other than I am nice.
That is definitely the only reason."
"You are not Amaylah. I hate life.
Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah." - Arco, 7/9/1520.

Me: "We'll drag'on Chuen."

"We should pee on his dog." - Seraphine, 12/23/1520 late night hunt.

Ezrin exclaims loudly, "Yeehaw swamp staff!" 1/7/1521

Cadlaer says to Ezrin, "Put your meat AWAY." 1/8/1521

Theas on a caravan, going through mushroom withdrawal: "We need to murder a druid." 1/29/1521

"Are you really living if you haven't drank a little piss?" - Gadra, 1/30/1521

Sevir asks, "What about big wee?" Paradise Island, 4/24/1521
Context: Valkan asks to Livie, "But also, congratulations lass. When's the wee big day?"

"I would let all of you eat my skin." - Seraphine, 8/16/1521

Zaaju, 8:41 of the morning toll: "He sniffs, therefore he am." - 9/28/1521

Eleven.

Wednesday the Tiger
This gloomy tiger is a looming kitty cat. Big paws, big face, big ears, all in dusty grey. Her tail is long and swishy and she is not interested in making friends.
Charcoal-hued fur covers her.
She has tranquil eyes.

(Nao was killed by Wednesday the Tiger!) (A mining expedition gone very wrong)

Sockes the Bernard
She's a fluffy bear of a black-furred dog with little white socks, floppy ears and an enthusiastic bark.
She sheds so much.
She has bright blue eyes.

Twelve.

Some See best with crystal, mist, or scrying pools. Some See in the auras of others, the blood of the living, the remains of the dead. Ednia's vision was never clear, her Sight rare and only dimly aware. Where others peered into overmorrow as easily as they recalled ereyesterday, she only saw the shadows on the cave walls.

Until her accident. Now, she Sees. From her good eye, she sees the world as it appears, lacking dimension. From her grey eye, she sees spirits in motion that lack definition. From her third eye, she Sees through the haze into what reality is, the warp and weft of the cosmos.

Thirteen.

Fourteen.

Mystical Bathrobe

You look at Ednia's Mystical bathrobe and see:
Lightweight, soft, and perfect to putter about in, this robe boasts a honeycomb weave, shawl collar, patch pockets, and all the trappings of indulgent comfort. Several lumpy toads are embroidered in its pockets, dyed the purple of a spirit flame. Their warty faces and button eyes peek out above. Sometimes, one blinks.

[This armour has been forged by Xesta for Ednia]

A toad hops out of Ednia's pocket, fussing over her wounds.

Fifteen.

A Canoe Adventure.

Moored Canoe
    This narrow canoe appears practically identical to those constructed by the denizens of Grahhul in recent years, though countless scrapes mar its sides. It appears to have been forgotten here, and even with the tarp unfurled and aired out, it is not fit for sailing; it is barely fit for standing still. A good inch of stagnant, algae-green water fills the bottom, courtesy of several little holes, and a family of tadpoles now call this puddle their home. As the cherry on top, someone has seen fit to pour a large mound of birdseed over the stern, which goes some way to explaining all the messenger pigeons.

scrapes
These scrapes might match the damage a canoe would suffer if, for instance, someone had shoved it down a small canyon and then pushed it out and down an entire mountainside, dragged it across a steppe to be gnawed on by hyenas, toured it through lioness-infested country, and finally deposited it somewhere where it would never be used again in the foolhardiest of foolhardy hijinks.

Tiny tadpoles dart through the standing water around your feet.

A few trained homing pigeons coo at one another, nesting on the stern.

Sixteen.

Memorial Heights - Plaza
Bronze Statue
Sculpted in bronze is a statue of a man whose commanding presence rises proudly about six feet in height. So fine is the detail on this statue that one can almost sense the liquid grace and power exuding from the honored figure. From the shoulder length tousled hair and open smile to the complete garrison uniform and morning star gripped in his right hand, a valiant pose in time has been captured to be remembered forever. An inscription has been etched in marble at the base of the statue.
Twinkling in the sky above the statue is a constellation of The Knight.

constellation
Celestial orbs twinkle in the sky far above the statue here. They glitter even in the day, though they shine their brightest when backed by velvety night. Twelve sparkling young stars shape the constellation of The Knight, each aglow in mystical violet light.

Seventeen.

Eighteen.

Nineteen.

Twenty.

Twenty one.

Twenty two.

Twenty three.

Twenty four.

Twenty five.
wood collectible card

This thin panel of rowan wood is shaped like a pentagon, adorned about its five
sides with curls of imitation gold leaf pressed down under a thin, glossy layer
of clear lacquer. The card is about as thick as a crown coin, just solid enough
to stand upright on a smooth surface, as long as no errant breezes tip it over.

Strong, clean lines are used to carve the center of the card with the face of a
human with chiseled, sharply angular features and long hair tied back. In a few
places the carving is as thin as parchment, in others the knife barely traces a
path over the wood; that varying pressure makes for an image with depth. Paints
color his hair a shining black and his eyes a bright green.

This thin panel of rowan wood is shaped like a pentagon, adorned about its five sides with curls of imitation gold leaf pressed down under a thin, glossy layer of clear lacquer. The card is about as thick as a crown coin, just solid enough to stand upright on a smooth surface, as long as no errant breezes tip it over.
Strong, clean lines are used to carve the center of the card with the face of a human with chiseled, sharply angular features and long hair tied back. In a few places the carving is as thin as parchment, in others the knife barely traces a path over the wood; that varying pressure makes for an image with depth. Paints color his hair a shining black and his eyes a bright green.

The card is labeled below: Shamanlord

Twenty six.
chocolate toad
This toad looks way too pleased with itself, with a big broad toady grin going almost all the way around its head. Its bulging eyes are candy drops and its bumpy back is a hardened chocolate shell, tempered to shine. Tied around its waist is a ribbon for a belt, with the number 1 swirled across it in drizzled fudge.

It smells like chocolate and sugar tangled together in a sickeningly sweet aroma.

The toad has been given too much time in the sun, clearly. It's already begun to melt by the time you take a bite. This poses no problem for an avid eater of sweets, although it might just leave a chocolate mess behind. For someone less inclined to pop a whole palm-sized candy in their mouth it's far trickier to consume. Whether one leg is nibbled off at a time or half the toad crunched in twain, eventually the internal organs of this chocolate-shelled creature are found; a gummy stomach, liver, even a sugar-dusted pink candy heart sits within; it reads 'Toadally Hot' if you get that far. The flavor of melting dark chocolate entwines with the gummy candy texture in a kind of gross way, unless you really like sugar.

Twenty seven.

Twenty eight.

Courtyard Garden

    A few cacti bristle around the pebbled paths that crisscross this courtyard,
encircled on all sides by the rooms of the home. Mint thrives here, untamed and
uncontrolled, spread over the dirt. Short succulents and creamy rock cress grow
from the thin ribbon of soil wedged between boulders. Sedum hugs the ground and
blooms with nectar rich flowers in pale mauve, luring butterflies and bees from
afar. Stone hexagon tiles edge the courtyard, mica glittering on their faces. A
few benches in the corners provide respite from the heat, shaded under awnings.

Thirty one.

A maddened nightmare of claws, fangs, and rippling muscle... grotesque... a maw split into a hideous grin howls its insane anger... hello, Fred. Welcome back.

Thirty six.

She's never been one to have a large wardrobe, but things do seem to pile up over the years.

Thirty nine.

Books of self alteration.

L-space, short for library-space, is simple and straightforward. Books are knowledge, knowledge is power, and power is force multiplied by distance divided by time - and sooner or later, using the powers of librarianship, one finds that all libraries and bookstores are potentially infinite in extent, gateways into library hyperspace. "A good bookshop is just a genteel blackhole that knows how to read."

Ednia spends an embarassing amount of time trying to make her library warp space and time. It never really does, as far as she can tell, but strange books keep turning up in her doorstep, and though she never seems to find the time to read them, their strange-sounding authors and worlds haunt her dreams.

Forty one.

Silver half moon spectacles
Delicate silverwork frames a pair of clear crystalline half-moon lenses. When perched low upon the end of the nose, this pair of spectacles assists most ably in magnifying both texts being read below and severe looks shot across the bow. Although the glasses are otherwise unadorned, minute details have been lovingly, painstakingly engraved into their arms. Astrological signs scroll down the left, zodiac signs intermingling with constellation lines of the Knight, the Maiden, and the Timekeeper. On the right, symbols for the endless phases of the moon flow within the silver: new, crescent, quarter, gibbous, full, gibbous, quarter, crescent, and back again to new, a loop unending.
Designed by Morwyn MG.

The scent of ritual herbs and icy mana lingers upon the cold metal.

Your fingers brush the cold metal and trace the minute figures sculpted into the arms of these glasses. What fool spent hours hunched over this trinket, eye strained within a jeweler's loupe to carve such loving detail? The silver begins to warm beneath your touch as you ponder such questions.

Copper hepatizon half moon spectacles
A plain pair of half moon spectacles designed to fit fairly far down, its pads and bridge have been designed to sit comfortably perched on a feline nose. Made of the rare copper and silver alloy hepatizon bronze, the metal gives these glasses a dark, nearly black colour but also a purplish lustre. The earpieces too hook further up and behind to accommodate feline ears comfortably. These glasses are devoid of ornament beyond the choice of metal, save only that the smith placed a single twist in each arm. Finally, the left spectacle is tinged cobalt blue, partially obscuring the eye behind.
Designed by Jaentis.

Forty four.

Dumb cat. Cousin. Hope you've grown roots somewhere.

desert bluebell (by Genri)
Rested upon a deep green stem and sepals, a blossom of brilliant sapphire shades comes to life. Five rounded petals lay across one another, creating a comfortable home for the pistil and stamen to reside. The filaments remain a deep blue but the stamen contrast the entire background by flaunting a dazzling snow white hue. Even the veins that meander through the petals hold a royal blue shade, barely distinguishable from the rest. The result is an object of beauty, a shining gem of flora that brings with it a fragrance of a warm spring day, a hint of citrus awakening the mind for a moment.

Fifty One.

Linguistics Lessons with Jempek Slaves.

Elven
Dwarven
Gnomish

Silent letters are left empty.