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+--- Thread: BWP Act V: Cleansing (/showthread.php?tid=9700)
Act V: Cleansing - narrator - 12/23/2025
Story Unlocked, Part Five : 「 Cleansing 」
It has been some time since you last heard from the Dream Visitor, you realize. Were they injured? Can they be injured? Has their spirit-link faded, or have they been removed from this plane of existence altogether?
You do not know; your lids grow heavy as the question fades.
It is a horizon of ruin. What once was a living continent is now a sprawling graveyard of fractured stone and obsidian-black metal, all shaped into impossible towers and spiraling citadels by the aberrations that rule it. Their cities, now festering and rank, litter the land like tumors; expanding, hungry, devouring forest, sea, and sky in equal measure. The wolves themselves are almost completely unrecognizable - hulking, shambling silhouettes with fur split by luminous seams of pulsing blue, each heartbeat tracing a network of light across the corruption of their bodies. Their eyes are hollow and angry, burning a cold, fathomless azure, as if lit from within by some parasitic star.
In their wake is only silence, dust, and the echo of the things they have consumed to make room for their ever-increasing population.
As you witness this, a pressure begins to build in the back of your mind. It feels like the shift in the air one experiences before a heavy storm - but every moment it further intensifies, building, expanding, pushing, pressing against your skull and your eyes until it seems like you might burst -
You feel an uncontrollable, instinctive rage.
It does not belong to you.
It belongs - down - your gaze is pulled downward, inward, and you suddenly recognize the source in a single, terrible instant. The center of this primal fury seems to emanate from the earth below.
Mythris is screaming.
What remains of its ancient power stirs weakly, flickering like a candle; a faint blue aura pulses across the landscape, threading through stone, earth, and every last waterway leading out to the ocean itself. What little the wolves have not devoured is called forth in a final act of vengeance.
The pulse intensifies. Deep below, you can feel Mythris muster its dying strength like a gathering breath of finality, wrath and resolve woven together in singular purpose.
The sky tears open.
With a sound like a thousand voices shrieking at once, the firmament splits, tears, and rains down a cascade of heaven and hell in a torrent; the stars fall in streaks of white fire, pummeling the earth and its inhabitants without mercy. Cities are reduced to ash as their makers burn in incandescent flashes of light, extinguished so quickly they cannot even howl their despair.
But the remaining forests go with them. Even the rivers - the mountains. Every vestige of life, every creature and memory that once called Mythris home is swept away in the same celestial purge; the wolves’ corruption had sunk its roots too far, too deep.
There was no other way.
In the final moments before the dream ends, the smoke clears and time passes as you observe the remains of what once was Mythris - scorched and empty, its life-magic spent. The Moving Isle, once electric and alive with grand purpose, gradually slows its endless, methodical drift.
It lingers as if listening for something.
Anything.
Then, with the quiet grace of one surrendering at last, it slowly sinks below the blackened waves. No blue light follows it; no rumble rises from the deep. Its power is gone, its purpose lost to memory, and so it passes gently and resolutely into the depths of the sea.
Your eye is curiously drawn back toward the mainland, to the only feature left standing in that terrible, empty hellscape.
The tree. You recognize the great, spiraling tree from before, at Lake’s Halo - it alone remains unscathed, its roots tightly folded over the hollowed-out base you know exists beneath. Cracks of golden light peek out through its gnarled embrace, and as you peer closer, you witness a glimpse of another place entirely.
A safe haven buried deep in the well of the world; a grotto. You hear the laughter of the two wolves from before, ringing merrily within.
The tree would keep them safe; it would always keep them safe. Protecting the only memory worth keeping.
A bitterly cold wind suddenly rushes past you, and the sky darkens. You look down and recognize the Mythris of today, lush and full once more, and scattered across the landscape you can see the colorful fire-whorls that had appeared seemingly overnight - but they seem terribly important, somehow.
If only the Dream Visitor had something to say.
Where were they?
You open your eyes.
What’s unnerving is the chill from before lingers as if it has seeped into your very bones, and you shiver.
It's morning - why is it so dark?
You look up, and the sky is a wall of clouds stretching toward every corner of the horizon.
All creatures of Mythris experience this dream.
Those who were not involved IC before will likely be confused or frightened, as they were not aware of anything regarding the situation prior.
Those who were not involved IC before will likely be confused or frightened, as they were not aware of anything regarding the situation prior.
It has been some time since you last heard from the Dream Visitor, you realize. Were they injured? Can they be injured? Has their spirit-link faded, or have they been removed from this plane of existence altogether?
You do not know; your lids grow heavy as the question fades.
It is a horizon of ruin. What once was a living continent is now a sprawling graveyard of fractured stone and obsidian-black metal, all shaped into impossible towers and spiraling citadels by the aberrations that rule it. Their cities, now festering and rank, litter the land like tumors; expanding, hungry, devouring forest, sea, and sky in equal measure. The wolves themselves are almost completely unrecognizable - hulking, shambling silhouettes with fur split by luminous seams of pulsing blue, each heartbeat tracing a network of light across the corruption of their bodies. Their eyes are hollow and angry, burning a cold, fathomless azure, as if lit from within by some parasitic star.
In their wake is only silence, dust, and the echo of the things they have consumed to make room for their ever-increasing population.
As you witness this, a pressure begins to build in the back of your mind. It feels like the shift in the air one experiences before a heavy storm - but every moment it further intensifies, building, expanding, pushing, pressing against your skull and your eyes until it seems like you might burst -
You feel an uncontrollable, instinctive rage.
It does not belong to you.
It belongs - down - your gaze is pulled downward, inward, and you suddenly recognize the source in a single, terrible instant. The center of this primal fury seems to emanate from the earth below.
Mythris is screaming.
What remains of its ancient power stirs weakly, flickering like a candle; a faint blue aura pulses across the landscape, threading through stone, earth, and every last waterway leading out to the ocean itself. What little the wolves have not devoured is called forth in a final act of vengeance.
The pulse intensifies. Deep below, you can feel Mythris muster its dying strength like a gathering breath of finality, wrath and resolve woven together in singular purpose.
The sky tears open.
With a sound like a thousand voices shrieking at once, the firmament splits, tears, and rains down a cascade of heaven and hell in a torrent; the stars fall in streaks of white fire, pummeling the earth and its inhabitants without mercy. Cities are reduced to ash as their makers burn in incandescent flashes of light, extinguished so quickly they cannot even howl their despair.
But the remaining forests go with them. Even the rivers - the mountains. Every vestige of life, every creature and memory that once called Mythris home is swept away in the same celestial purge; the wolves’ corruption had sunk its roots too far, too deep.
There was no other way.
In the final moments before the dream ends, the smoke clears and time passes as you observe the remains of what once was Mythris - scorched and empty, its life-magic spent. The Moving Isle, once electric and alive with grand purpose, gradually slows its endless, methodical drift.
It lingers as if listening for something.
Anything.
Then, with the quiet grace of one surrendering at last, it slowly sinks below the blackened waves. No blue light follows it; no rumble rises from the deep. Its power is gone, its purpose lost to memory, and so it passes gently and resolutely into the depths of the sea.
Your eye is curiously drawn back toward the mainland, to the only feature left standing in that terrible, empty hellscape.
The tree. You recognize the great, spiraling tree from before, at Lake’s Halo - it alone remains unscathed, its roots tightly folded over the hollowed-out base you know exists beneath. Cracks of golden light peek out through its gnarled embrace, and as you peer closer, you witness a glimpse of another place entirely.
A safe haven buried deep in the well of the world; a grotto. You hear the laughter of the two wolves from before, ringing merrily within.
The tree would keep them safe; it would always keep them safe. Protecting the only memory worth keeping.
A bitterly cold wind suddenly rushes past you, and the sky darkens. You look down and recognize the Mythris of today, lush and full once more, and scattered across the landscape you can see the colorful fire-whorls that had appeared seemingly overnight - but they seem terribly important, somehow.
If only the Dream Visitor had something to say.
Where were they?
You open your eyes.
What’s unnerving is the chill from before lingers as if it has seeped into your very bones, and you shiver.
It's morning - why is it so dark?
You look up, and the sky is a wall of clouds stretching toward every corner of the horizon.
Plot Progression : 「 The Frozen Mourning 」
The plagues have lifted entirely; the rivers of the Highlands run clear, the snowfall of the Alpines has been cleansed of its poison, the air of the Woodlands and Wakes is no longer wrathful or dangerous to inhale, and the Wastes no longer scorch beneath a merciless sun.
The parasite persists, invisible and deadly - Dre Klage still lingers in wait, anticipating the quiet moments, ready to emerge when least expected - but the land is free to explore once more.
Or is it?
The clouds gather overhead, and a new threat emerges.
The parasite persists, invisible and deadly - Dre Klage still lingers in wait, anticipating the quiet moments, ready to emerge when least expected - but the land is free to explore once more.
Or is it?
The clouds gather overhead, and a new threat emerges.