keeninghearts - Tumblr blog

[keeninghearts]

She's long, soft by the fire.

[keeninghearts]

No, I don't really remember. There's other things - I was young, really young - that still stick in my head. Basalt cliffs. Brine up to my ankles. Sunlight - so much sunlight. Bruises. And lots of pale green. The closest I get is the smell of it. Magic smells like sulphur and burning. Burning and burning and burning. Brimming up a tight pipe and close to simmering as soon as you learn how to loose the valve.

I remember that magic was dangerous.

And the rest - I suppose there'd have been spellbooks, maybe chalk, and my father would have roped a sullen 'prentice to teach a precocious five year old - the rest, that doesn't matter. I left it behind when I was six.

[keeninghearts]

VYRA

She didn't remember much of being a child that young. Light, basalt, pinks and greens, brine up to her ankles, blurred faces and odd bruises.

Magic wasn't anything defined then. She could suppose there had been spellbooks, perhaps a sullen 'prentice of her father who'd been roped into instructing a five year old. Probably some chalk. Diagrams and theorems. There wasn't any of that left in her head. Just the smell of it, running deep through her nose. Magic was a burning – burning – burning – all sulphur, all smoke. Something that brimmed up and kept simmering from the moment she'd learnt how to breathe.

She kept a good lid on it for the next sixty years.

"But don't you ever feel..." Alut, an ashlander with a half-shaved mullet and a tattoo of her grave to-be, who liked to string a [instrument] with fire dancing on your hand, had asked her. "Like you'd missed out?"

"Absolutely fucking not."

"You can't see it, eh? Not even a little?"

And then, there hadn't been any of it for sixty years. Good fucking riddance.

"

[keeninghearts]

To strike a fire

Three dwemer women consider their relationship to magic.

---

BTHEMETZ

"Oh, there were a ridiculous number of rules – that I broke, obviously. We were designated 'red caste' – cast of red clay, quite literally ‐ and much like a roof tile, we faced the sun, were replaceable, and easy to shatter. Most of us worked in the mines until our legs dropped off and or our backs gave in, like well-behaved little worker bees at a particularly sadistic beehive. To ensure we understood our place in this world, we were not permitted to do anything which had any kind of permanence – which meant we could not read or write, obviously, but it also meant no art, no pottery, no textiles, no tools, not made by our own hands, those were not for us. Food was allowed, as a meal did not truly last, and we could sing and dance in designated areas – our dwellings, at a permitted volume, as long as it did not disturb the scholar-priests in their tomb-temples kilometres below. We were also allowed to use magic.

It seems daft, in retrospect. But it was considered such a vulgar thing.

[keeninghearts]

Reach along the curled hand of Ald Resdaynia, the Morrowind of Old. Leave the palm of saltrice fields, fresh strongholds shaped into tombs, heretical engines of the dwemer, all behind. Nomads do not stray past Necrom, but venture further along those jagged fingers: through the crease of mountains where sorcerers roam and ragged apprentices brew duststorms. Beyond the whitened crags, the ash will clear, the ocean will glitter and cut a lonely coastline into pieces, and there – out there, on an islet, where all is basalt and brine, rises something bizarre. A tower of fungi, violet latticed and viridian sprawling, stalks trumpeting to stormy-ridden skies. There, at the top of the tallest tower, where only birds and the mad might soar, dwells the wizard-Lord. He is, despite the appearance of his tower, a taciturn sort who is constant in his habits. His bright, ornate tower serves as shell for the Lord within, deterring pests and petty rivals while he busies himself with wizardry. Rare has it become for him to wander from Tel Enora’s roots; it is only the drive for esoterica - for he has an extensive collection of miscellaneous arcana, one he likes to itemise an inventory with a particular zeal - that leads him to venture beyond his tower. He acquires all sorts on these journeys - fragments of Nordic tongue-spells, Sinistral light-shifting, long banned Psiijic Rites - but one

(And what a proud collection that is!)

His labyrinthine gallery of forbidden and transformative magics - Nordic tongue-spells and Sinistral light-shifting and long banned Psijiic Rites and, increasingly, artifacts from those ever-busy dwemer - is perhaps his one wizardly eccentricity, one he shrouds from the simple villagefolk, much to their collective relief. As their Lord, Do not let Tel Enora’s wildness deceive: He is meticulous, the wizard of Tel Enora [description]. A shrewd

[keeninghearts]

Reach along the curled hand of Ald Resdaynia, the Morrowind of Old. Leave the palm of saltrice fields, fresh strongholds shaped like tombs, heretical engines of the dwemer, all behind. Nomads do not stray past Necrom, but venture further along those jagged fingers: beyond the crease of mountains where roaming sorcerers and ragged apprentices brew duststorms. There, at the basalt cliffs, where the Padomaic Ocean cuts a lonely coastline, rises a tower of violet and viridian fungus. It sprawls, stalks trumpeting upwards and outwards, Tel Enora, deep in the wilds where wizards dwell.

[keeninghearts]

Reach along the curled hand of Ald Resdaynia, the Morrowind of Old. Leave the palm of saltrice fields, fresh strongholds shaped into tombs, heretical engines of the dwemer, all of it behind. Nomads do not stray past Necrom, but ventured further along those jagged fingers: along the [name: Spine], the crease of mountains where roaming sorcerers and brew duststorms. Beyond its black crags, the Padomaic ocean glitters, kissing a lonely coastline. Where basalt is cut with brine, rises a tower of brilliant viridian. Tel Enora.

[keeninghearts]

A: Tel Enora, 1E597 (Present: 1E668).

[From where the glittering Akaviri seas cut against the Basalt Coast, where tempestuous Telvanni wizard-lords plot and seethe, rises

Past velothi picking saltrice fields, rises a tower of twirling green.

From the brass dam of Kemel-Ze, past velothi picking saltrice fields, fungal forests and pink horizons where bug herders collect carapaces of great scarabs and fat beetles, up the rocky footpaths into the Ridge, where wild dust rovers and their ragged apprentices roam , beyond those crags, the rugged coast, basalt, glittering seas, the Padomaic Ocean,

Trumpets of fungal towers Viridian and violet Tel Enora]

Sentence: At the furthest finger-tip of Ald Resdaynia, the Morrowind of Old, peninsula half-barren, half-wild, brass engines and strongholds built like tombs give way to tempestuous wizard-lords. From where glittering Akaviri seas cut against rugged coast, basalt and brine, rises a tower of brilliant green.

They say beyond the White Ridge where half-wild dust sorcerers and their ragged apprentices roam, the air has a clarity to it that lets it

[keeninghearts]

A Game You Often Play:

Your old home is now a fortress. You stand before the great fortress of brass that is woven into Red Mountain like a crown.

DELETE AS APPROPRIATE: It was once your home / It was never your home.

It lies emoty

YOUR OLD HOME IS NOW A FORTESS.

How does this feel?

1.

You are too late. This is a story that has a definite, clear cut ending.

DO YOU PROCEED?

.

----

PROFANE.

YOUR OLD HOME IS NOW A FORTRESS. BRASS HALLS HAVE BECOME PLACES OF SLAUGHTER.

YOU FEEL:

A) LIKE YOU ARE UNWORTHY OF LICKING THE FLOORS.

B) LIKE YOU'BE BEEN STRICKEN INTO A STATE OF AN UNENDING DREAD THAT SHOULD CLEAVE YOU IN TWO BUT FOR WHATEVER REASON YOU ARE STILL STANDING.

C) NOTHING (LIE)

DO YOU PROCEED?

Y -> / N ->

THAT WAS NOT A QUESTION. THIS IS YOUR NIGHTMARE. OF COURSE YOU PROCEED.

[keeninghearts]

"You are not welcome here," says the Architect.

The Traitor looks at him with a vacant gaze. "Where is Kagrenac?"

"I would sooner devour my young than tell you."

"She will crush you. She will crush all of your sort."

"Since when," says the traitor, "Have we been a people who quash dissidents?"

"Since twenty years of war. And you. You have not changed an inch."

[keeninghearts]

Must I speak about myself?

Oh, I am being sincere, it's such an odious task. There's nothing charming about me.

But if you insist.

Who am I truly? I am a traitor, a thief, a vile and venomous creature who poured poison into the ear of Dwemereth from her lecture stand, who sewed treason, plot, riotuoue discontent. When that did not succeed, I took the matter into my own treacherous hands, spread all our most beloved and foul secrets to the ears of our gods-fearing enemies, who would hang draw quarter and slaughter us for our slights to their gods. I caused this war that has torn apart Resdayn for almost thirty years and I betrayed my people. I am the reason for the end of Dwemereth's golden age. A snake, a worm, a wretch. A foul being. History will call me thus.

[keeninghearts]

12 perspectives

Kagrenac (Architect)

Dumac (King/Fool)

Bthemetz (Traitor)

Vyra (Self-Imposed Exile)

Yagrum (Missing) ?

Nchulem (Loyal Assistant)

Mzuchel (Elder)

GARDENER - Childhood acquaintence of Kagrenac's, joined the Skaal

FREE - Mzel, who was enslaved, fled capture,

New - Warrior

New - Train Driver

New - Farmer/Spider wrangler

New - Youth - a teenager

New - Rourken

New - War factory

New - Vampire - not taken

Those are my key ideas so far. May need refining/changing.

Particularly attached to teenager/elder/warrior as three missing perspectives. Need more working class roles than named characters.

[keeninghearts]

arcane

beloved / ritual - ritual: becoming a telvanni wizard apprentice for a great magister in Port telvannis

starlit / teeth - starlit, luufti's eyes

mortal - bthemetz contemplates her brass body

forgotten / devotion

in bloom / blood - blood - kagrenac is covered in it / something has gone wrong

profane - 12 perspectives on the dwemer ending

free -

could do ALL as short three sentence prompts from luufti's pov

[keeninghearts]

---

The siege begins.

I have instructed the project to be accelerated.

---

The Chamber is almost empty. The light of its opulence feels unnerving.

[POV

---

They are cowards and thieves.

[keeninghearts]

DIALOGUE ONE

Two figures stand at a balcony on a watchtower, overlooking the view of vvardnefell. The sky is brimming with smoke from a recent eruption and blistering with fire on the horizon. In the distance, the enemy armies are camped beyond the crags. Tomorrow, they foyadas will run red with torches. Tomorrow, torrents of cries and shouts and screams and clashes and clanging of metal, blades, spears, knives, and tongues will begin to pound at the walls, shake at the foundations. Tomorrow, the siege will begin.

Dumac sighs. He is here with a heavy heart, worn more freely than usual on his sleeve. He looks to Kagrenac weary.

"So," he says, "we welcome the chimer to our most unhallowed halls once again."

"And the nords," says kagrenac.

Dumac winces. K stands rigid, upright. Her hands are held tight behind her back. She eyes the world below like a hawk.

"Perhaps I should bring out the visitors' whisky. I would not wish to be an impudent host."

Kagrenac's head twitches. A weary glance, and that is all.

"Kagrena, are you not going to chide me for being glib this last time?"

"It would be a waste of words."

"Why? You would have before."

[Scoffing)] "You have scarcely changed Duma."

[Ignoeing her] "Kagrena, I remember the days when you would have even tried to forbid me, despite having no authority to do so, from doing something as trivial as embarrassing myself."

K looks pained.

"I can't reminisce with you Duma."

"Why not?"

"Because that too would be to recognise this as an ending."

[keeninghearts]

blaaaaaaaaaaaah tired. sweepy.

bthemetz tells kagrenac something smart idk

Idk man I'm not a genius

[keeninghearts]

Red Mountain trembles. [Insert dramatic description of the horizon, the bleak prospects of the city, the chimer and the nords advancing on RM here.]

"So the chimer have come to welcome us."

"And the nords."

"How fortuitous. Perhaps we should [glib comment]."

Tired glance.

"You would have called me on that [certain time ago]."