Posted 14 days after Part 2, on July 28th:

Subj: To capture the moon.

…And so the night swallowed the sun and the moon as foretold upon the battlefield of Nishnatoba when the world was young, and the soul of the male unicorn was released. As Thoth had cautioned, however, the creature was not as Valnurana had known him. He appeared instead under an enchantment as the fearsome nychtaur, a raging bull-demon rampaging through the cities of Sapience[main continent] and killing indiscriminately.

The souls of the unicorns in the Dreamrealm sensed the soul of the Nychtaur and tore away from their world, pulled to the creature in the realm of mortals. So too was the nychtaur pulled to the unicorns, and between them, fountains across the realms erupted with blood. At the site of these fountains small tears between the Dreamrealm and ours were opened through which the unicorns entered, manifesting within our world as ebon-maned nightmares, ethereal steeds who imparted all those they passed with peculiar waking dreams.

Many days passed, each as dark as the nights. Like the moon in the sky, shadowed by the triune planetary eclipse of the sun, the goddess Ourania had not been seen to mortal eye since the advent of the darkness. Then one day, nearing summer in the first year of the eclipse, the three Visages of the Goddess of the Moon were found knitting at the oceanside entrance to the temple of their Lady. With rapid, rhythmic precision,
the sound of needles striking together ‘click, click, click-click’ sliced clearly through the air.

Feeding the matronly Verthandi’s rapidly moving needles several tendrils of thread, the maiden Skuld tugged and twisted on the impossibly fine, silvered lengths. Light spread from her fingertips and into the material, causing it to glow with a pale luminescence. A gentle ‘tick’, ‘tick’, ‘ticking’ echoed from Verthandi’s swiftly moving hands. Wielding a pair of glistening scissors in one hand and a line of thread in the other, the crone Urdu snapped the blades shut over the thread, once, twice, three times, severing the lengths.

Thread. Knit. Cut. Thread. Knit. Cut. Entirely absorbed by the work, the Visages began to sweat visibly as they increased the tempo of their creation. Then as suddenly as they had begun, the Visages stopped. Skuld’s thread ran out, Verthandi’s needles were rendered silent, and Urdu’s scissors ceased to snap and cut.

The three leaned over to inspect their work lying upon Verthandi’s lap. Satisfied, they closed their eyes resignedly and began to chant, their collective voices barely a whisper at first. The whisper grew louder, though their words remained incomprehensible. As those gathered watched on, the Maiden’s ivory skin started to turn a sickly grey, and her voice cracked and faded. Soon she had become entirely still.

As her jet-black eyes faded to grey, a vision of a shadowed beast surrounded by tendrils of green fire surrounded the lunar maiden. The heatless flames flickered wildly, partially obscuring her from view. An instant later, Skuld collapsed. Yet instead of flesh and bone, broken stone crumbled to the ground until there was nothing left of the Maiden, while the fire that had surrounded her raged on. The two remaining sisters continued their indecipherable chant.

The Matron exhaled a quiet sigh. Ever so slowly, her limbs hardened, turned to grey, and began to crack and splinter apart as her body turned also to stone. With a dry rasp, these words escaped her throat: “Coax… charge… capture… the moon.” Verthandi’s mouth froze open mid-sentence, her ossification complete. Her rotund body crumbled to dust shortly thereafter, and the Crone retrieved the glowing net from the remnants.

Urdu’s aged voice continued to chant in sonorous tones, and the weaving grasped in her gnarled hands began to glow and pulsate. The Crone cast the net into the ethereal green fire that blazed where the Maiden had been. Her chanting ceased as her body rapidly turned to stone, and then dust, as well. The flames surged, then finally subsided, leaving the silvery net upon the ground.

In unison, three voices whispered from the shadows, “Six times submerged in water to capture the moonlight, and six cities voyaged to end the beast’s fiery reign. In the witching hour won, the night’s curse to be undone.”

Swift as ever, the dwarf Skye snatched up the Visages’ creation from the ground. (It has been theorised that this particular dwarf’s proximity to the ground aides her in such deft manoeuvres.) She willingly relinquished the silvery net to the followers of Ourania there, however, at their request.

Deciphering the last whisper of the Visages proved no easy task. Skye Anchors-Lucoster, Elizabeth, Apollodorus Tatharin, Kaixis Corvidae, Ayrh Shiva, Seilyn Moonflair-Corten, Timotheus, Kalehiur Corvidae, and Jaizsur Ta’sa, among others, puzzled over the execution of their instructions. Finally, Ayhr entrusted the net to Apollodorus, beseeching him to travel to the city-state of Ashtan. “Now go,” she bade him. “Find water.”

Apollodorus journeyed to Lake Balaton in the far northeast of Ashtan and there laid the net across its waters. As he did so, the night sky reflected in the water suddenly showed a reflection of the moon, and the tiny crystals adorning the net pulsed, absorbing celestial energy. He returned triumphant.

Kaixis and Elizabeth took the net then, and in each of the remaining cities, the net was laid across a body of water, and each time it became stronger. When the net had been fully charged and radiating with the power of the celestial bodies, the brave party sought out the demonic nychtaur in New Thera, and it was Kaixis who flung the net over the bull-demon.

As the net sailed through the air it expanded dramatically, landing over the head and back of the mighty nychtaur. The nychtaur’s eyes, wild and full of fire, glanced around frantically as an ear-piercing scream ripped from his mighty throat, cleaving through the air. The body of the beast within the silver net shimmered with a brilliant inner light, the massive form wavering like a mirage.

The legs and neck of the nychtaur lengthened, as simultaneously his torso slimmed and his snout extended and narrowed. The scales on his body smoothed into a sleek black coat, leaving standing before Kaixis a stallion black as night with a mane like emerald-coloured flames.

It was then that Valnurana, the Goddess of Sleep and Dreams appeared. [Big event, as Valnurana had not been seen in well over a year due to the retirement of the admin who played her awhile back. This signifies that a new perrson is taking over her role. We often try to weave code or God introductions into storylines.]

Years before the eclipse, the Goddess of Sleep and Dreams had retreated into the depths of the Dreamrealm, far from mortal ken. Stirred by the exodus of her nightmares from her realm, however, she had awakened. The
lifting of the enchantment upon the nychtaur, allowing her to recognise the one unicorn soul that had been kept from her all these years, had been the final impetus for her to awaken once more into the material
world.

All through the land, the ethereal whisper of Valnurana could be heard as she called upon the God of Death to fulfill their ancient pact. The cold, silken voice of Thoth, God of Death resounded in response: “It shall be done.” And with a sudden chill and a whisper on wind, the phantasmal form of Thoth formed before Valnurana.

Ceremoniously, the God of Death formally bequeathed the soul of the male unicorn to Valnurana, rending apart invisible chains that still bound him. The Goddess of Dreams turned to her long-awaited charge and welcomed him, then gave to him the task of gathering the nightmares in the material realm and returning with them to the Dreamrealm.

Thus a divine prophecy has met its end, and a divine pact become consummated, the final promised soul relinquished. Yet still the night has swallowed up the sun and the moon, and there seems to be no end to the darkness in sight.