the rat grinders timeline
after this last episode i feel like i need to clarify all of this so i can get an idea of what the scheme actually is. anyway:
pre-high school:
porter is a scion of the house of cliffbreaker, formerly the house of sunstone, who sought to take the name of ankarna and shift her divine domain from dawn and justice to war and conquest. the house expressed frustration with ankarna for not being willing to strike ruvina or cassandra and after the sundering of the cliffs of calcoth, went into hiding as the cliffbreakers.
porter is nominally a paladin of ankarna, but wishes to take her place as a deity of war and conquest, to be able to strike down cassandra and ruvina.
freshman year:
the high 5 heroes form on the first day of school: kipperlilly copperkettle, lucy frostblade, oisin hakinvar, ivy embra, ruben hopclap, mary ann skuttle.
that same day, the bad kids get detention and face down the corn cuties in the cafeteria. kristen and gorgug die and get brought back by aguefort. jace and porter are the first teachers on the scene; they are established as a duo. may have been attempting to install the rage crystals in kristen and gorgug.
kipperlilly notably doesn't like riz, and feels that the bad kids are getting special treatment. all of the rat grinders have animosity towards the mad kids in some manner.
the high 5 heroes take easy quests that they know they will succeed at.
kalina enters the spy's tongue curse with jace and porter, and is only able to talk about ragh because he was tangential
prompocalypse: kalvaxus falls. yes! is borne in the gym. crown of the nightmare king is stolen. ragh sees arianwen with kalina, then jace and porter and gets kalina transferred into his body via a lay on hands from porter.
sophomore year:
at some point, the high 5 heroes are brought in by jace and porter and start facing high level monsters after they are defeated by porter/jace, thus grinding them for xp.
name change from high 5 heroes to rat grinders--ivy, oisin, ruben, and mary ann for, kipperlilly and lucy against.
lucy is given an mcat for paladin classes so that she might become the champion of ankarna (old)
porter kills "lydia barkrock", likely seeking to release and/or destroy bakur
kalina splits off to raise the nightmare king again, with assistance from angwyn and arianwen abernant. she is defeated and thus unable to work with jace and porter for a time. the nightmare king is apparently integral to the raising of porter as a fetal deity; perhaps as an associated deity, the nightmare king would guide his ascension.
nightmare king is reconstituted as cassandra, championed by kristen applebees.
the rat grinders go on their own spring break quest to the mountains of chaos, presumably to visit the temple of the fallen sun. they are accompanied by jace stardiamond. they do not find the name of ankarna, but likely start establishing the teleportation circle.
after the quest, they are all implanted with the rage crystals and start manifesting more power and anger. this is presumably because they died. and were resurrected.
lucy goes back on the agreement and reaffirms her commitment to ruvina. she withdraws her change of deity paperwork. the rat grinders + porter kill her and bury her in the far haven woods.
porter has correspondence with bobby dawn about collaboration and the potential uses of devil's honey.
mazey phaedra is elected student body president and is given a faculty request to remove the inaugural period of following student body president from the bylaws
summer of the night yorb:
night yorb is released; the bad kids spend the summer chasing down the cult of the night yorb and building the solar lasso. they are out of elmville and generally focused on the red waste
church of sol/helioic church loses followers due to the long night
kipperlilly prepares to run for student body president
the rat grinders request buddy dawn as their replacement cleric
kipperlilly tracks down eugenia shadow and threatens to dig up her grave, after waiting until the first moment of her junior year
ruben writes “in space no one can hear you scream” and it becomes the song of the summer, outcompeting fig and the cig figs. he later writes "get mad!" with porter's advice
the loam family faces embezzlement charges wrt frosty fair and the location of frosty fair (the festival of frost) moves to the thistlespring tree
thistlespring tree is established as a root warden for elmville
the soil is laced with rage crystals
kvx bank changes from red to blue, signaling the presence of oisin's ancestor as their backer
junior year:
aguefort goes on holiday with ayda to the dawn of time (time quangle). gilear goes on holiday with hallariel. this leaves the school in the hands of grix, who was intended to eliminate threats to the school, and jace stardiamond as vice principal. the existing magical protections on the school are still present--they cannot kill mazey and elmville cannot be plane shifted while the AAA is in session.
kipperlilly begins campaigning only to be faced with the ineffable kristen applebees and her campaign manager, the ball
porter refuses gorgug's initial mcat request, hoping to incite rage in him
porter starts taking ambrosia to prepare his body for ascension, using rage to contain himself and not proceed to the afterlife.
the loam family is murdered and their case is dropped
cassandra comes to the astral plane and is trapped and killed. she remains in stasis, surrounding and protecting ankarna
fabian hosts the first party of the year: oisin starts setting his ping-pong ball traps and steals adaine's mephits in order to alter the cloud rider engine. ivy sees fig, transformed as lucy. the bad kids interact with buddy. ankarna pushes yes! through to kristen. gertie, who has been supplying the devil's honey, becomes nemeses with fabian
fig multiclasses as a paladin and is taught by porter--she is encouraged to rage, and pushed away from being a paladin of cassandra.
buddy is also encouraged to become a paladin and gets mcat paperwork
ruben performs at frosty faire and starts the ritual at the thistlespring tree--grix shows up to stop him and is defeated by the bad kids
yolanda badgood follows up with jace about lucy's death--she is brought to the far haven woods and killed. the bad kids find the bodies
the bad kids go to fallinel and find the name of ankarna on the ancient menhirs, and are faced with divine intervention from cassandra and galicaea, unbeknownst to the rat grinders.
they eliminate the curse of the armor of pride and remove bakur from lydia barkrock
fig writes dawn of justice and takes dominion of ankarna's original domain
bobby dawn fails kristen and sends the bad kids to the last stand
kristen catches kipperlilly killing buddy dawn during the last stand
buddy is raised by porter using a rage crystal
rat grinders go to ground, and prepare to go back to the temple of the fallen sun. constant nondetection from ruben, oisin, and possibly ivy
adaine catches jace stardiamond with a scrying into his office
bad kids do teacher evaluations: fig does porter & zara as one instead of two--this gives them the sacred scroll with the name of the intended deity written by the previous deity's champion. zara tells fig one was never submitted for her.
fig writes righteous rebel, makes her oath to ankarna, and releases both songs as singles that rocket up the charts
ruben sees wanda childa die
bad kids go to the temple of the fallen sun and investigate. fig is vindicated about porter.
fig gives the false name (bacharath) to porter and he stuns her in the hall
riz gets into his office and figures out the ascension scheme
the bad kids go to ruben's house and go through the rat grinders' plans
election night: the storm is triggered, the plans for seacaster manor are triggered; cloud rider engine is set and the enchanted ping-pong balls go off. they plan to have oisin's ancestor strike down the bad kids as they make ready to transport elmville during graduation.
the ritual
the ritual is centered on aguefort adventuring academy and requires certain things:
the location where a god was borne (the gym)
the ascending deity (porter), who is a champion of the new domain and has a body prepared for ascension
mortal followers seeking to change the domain/raise ankarna (the rat grinders + jace)
divine attributes of the deity (hammer, armor, etc.)
the writing of the name of the fetal deity on sacred scrolls by the champion of the old deity (fig)
the physical divine domain (elmville, suffused with rage crystals and transported to the astral realm), which requires the removal of the protections on the town that were cast by aguefort
the metaphorical divine domain (ruben's song get mad)
the nightmare king, as an associated deity and the one who would nurture the new deity
and the name of the old deity (ankarna) that they might sunder it and in her image make a new god
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Set in Stone
Pairing: Azriel x Reader
Summary: The Court of Nightmares is an evil place. Secret agendas, forced marriages, malicious intent; there’s nothing good or pure. But then Azriel finds you.
Word count: 1k
Warnings: Angst but just a little to start
a/n: hi 😌 please enjoy my random inspo after the mess that is my life happened. I plan to write more for these guys so consider this a prologue :)
Masterlist ♡
~~
Time moved slower in the library.
People spoke quieter, the air stood still, dim sunlight stiffened in lines that cut across endless tables.
There was no real reason for you to be here.
None at all.
You welcomed the faint buzzing in your ears anyway, relished in the quiet you couldn’t find elsewhere. Flipping the page and going to the next, you pretended you did belong. Maybe as a scholar or researcher. Maybe an acclaimed author. An inventor, entrepreneur, alchemist—anything but the bleak reality.
You were stuck. So, incredibly stuck.
The high lord was coming today. You knew if you weren't in the hall with your family upon his arrival you would get an earful, but it was difficult to pull away from your beautiful corner of the night court.
No one ever came in here, and if they did they were over a millennium old and cared only for the books on foreign policy and probably the torture of young children, if you had to take a guess. But there was plenty of enjoyable material lining the shelves. Sure, it wasn’t very joyful, but it was informative, and anything was better than listening to your father blab on about your marriage prospects—an uncomfortable conversation that was to come to fruition any day now.
With any luck, your husband would be a merchant who traveled endlessly or a soldier whose life would come to a quick end, leaving you free of any wifely obligations. But luck was hardly on your side, and as the daughter of a noble you were expecting a husband of the same station.
And dukes were the absolute worst, all self-important and stagnant.
An unfamiliar echo sent your head whipping to the side before you could tame your reaction. The library door swung open with such force it sent dusty air flying past your face. Typically, the old men entered meekly, the hefty door difficult for them to open. The abruptness of this entry, the power that seeped across the threshold, had you standing and pressing yourself against the table in milliseconds.
You weren’t a fighter. Women were not allowed to learn anything of the sort here. You briefly debated if your embroidery skills would be enough to pose a threat to this presence, but that thought wisped away with the flickering shadows twining around your ankles.
You didn’t recognize him at first. The high lord and his circle didn’t come to court often, and even when they did, they stayed far away on the dais or slinked around in hallways threateningly. And this man especially—the spy—he was almost always cloaked in shadow.
His shadows weren’t covering him now, instead opting to twist up your body in a terrifying display. Were they searching you? Attempting to suffocate you? Paralyze you?
It didn’t matter much, not when the shadowsinger himself was standing before you, exposed and armed to the teeth, his amber eyes locked on your own widened gaze.
Your breath came out in short pants, uncomfortable and hard to capture. Your knuckles went white against the table, and you were sure if you were stronger, fractures would have appeared in the wood. The edge dug into your back. Shadows continued to make paths up your skin.
The spymaster didn’t look away.
The trembling began. It started with your jaw, then your legs, and then your chest. Breathing became nearly impossible.
“Take care of that.”
The last time the high lord made his rounds in court, those words had been a death sentence. One the man before you had carried out. A simple flick of his wrist and shadows had encased the lowly merchant that had insulted the high lady. His screams still echoed in the hall.
At least, they echoed for you.
The merchant was not a good man. Most that resided in the night court were not good people. But death was easy to come by here, and the shadowsinger—with his glaring siphons only inches away—was an executioner.
Your life was little, meaningless, no direction or purpose other than marriage and continuing a family line, but you wanted to live for the chance of more. For the hope that one day, you might be free of this dank palace.
Something softened in the spymaster’s eyes, and then he took a step forward, edging his hand towards you, palm up. The screeching of the table at your back made him halt. Your knees were shaking, your book now toppled over to the floor, and the shadows had refused to answer the call from their master. But you stood your ground, expecting a bruise where the table connected to your skin.
“I apologize,” the Illyrian spoke, causing you to flinch once again. His own features seemed to recoil, and he took half a step back. “I am here on business for the high lord. I only seek the artifact room.”
If you answered him, perhaps he would spare you.
Your mouth opened and closed several times before the first sounds left your lips. “In the back. B-by the archives.”
He nodded, but the action seemed delayed, slowed. As if he was measuring your reactions, trying to anticipate them. When you didn’t flinch again, he sent his hand out once more, this time with more force. Your breath caught, but when the shadows retreated from your body, some of the tension left you.
The shadowsinger sidestepped, taking the longest route possible around your table toward the artifact room. Once his back was turned, you scrambled. You left the book spine up on the floor, quickly gathering your belongings with shaking hands and trembling fingers. The echoing of the man’s heavy boots rang with each step he took, but it was reassuring—it meant he was getting further and further away.
It wasn’t until your hand met the sturdy door that fear crept back along the edges of your chest.
“Your name?”
The words were powerful, gravelly, but they were soft somehow. Effortfully tamed.
You gave him your name, but the sound was lost in the swinging of the door.
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