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Art by our talented Calico!

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[Note: These threads are occurring in the waking world, and the events happening here can be assumed to be forward-dated and taking place on 4/1 so you are not necessarily threadlocked.]

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You step through the third door.

The moment you emerge, the air shifts; heavy, thick, alive. Stone surrounds you, vast and almost suffocating, the chamber walls carved with strange symbols mirroring those etched on the Runes you helped gather. The rock hums beneath your paws in slow, uneasy pulses, as though the Isle itself is breathing through crippling pain. Dust shakes loose from thin cracks in the ceiling overhead, and somewhere deep within the walls a low wail resonates, agony made into pure sound; you flatten your ears to your head, trying to shut it out. It's almost too much.

At the center of the chamber, bound in chains biting deep into bone and flesh and the very rock they are embedded in, is a wolf.

He is like you - or was, once.

Iron restraints burning with an ethereal glow dig into his limbs, his chest, his throat, and each link is pulled taut as he strains against them. Fury, pain, grief in equal measure are all etched in deep lines across the wolf's expression, and then he sees you - and for a moment, recognition flickers across his face. You see his scarred hind limb, the once-fractured leg somehow miraculously set back into place, likely a product of the potent magic flowing both within him and without.

He is the third wolf from the dream - the one who was left behind.

As if knowing your thoughts, he opens his mouth and another deafening howl escapes.

For centuries unending he has slept dormant beneath the waves; waiting and trapped in a dreamless sleep, duty-bound for the call that would one day pull him back to the surface where he would begin his solemn work of quelling Mythris' wrath.

To keep them safe - always to keep them safe - they would come back for him. There was time. They had promised they would come back for him. And so he toiled, half-numb in blind hope, prowling the coastlines and pushing back against the roiling fury that threatened to break through.

But unknown to the Visitor - through the smallest of errors - he had dreamed with you.

And he saw them running.

He saw them running, and they didn't look back. Not once. He knew now that they had fled for many more years after he who you call the Dream Visitor instructed him to stay hidden, tucked away in that doomed crevasse, assuring him that they would come back when it was safe and his injury would not see them all captured - but they had never looked back, not even when at last the Cleansing was at hand and they hid themselves beneath the roots of an ancient tree.

And left him.

This realization broke whatever fragile sliver of his mind remained, and the wolf within the Isle would see the world burn. Not even Mythris would be spared; the very power he once sought to contain he now dragged up screaming through the bedrock, shattering the landscape and threatening to tear the earth apart until nothing remained but his endless grief.

Lerm eipa - eipar lodrir - eipar lodrir lerm eipa - lerm eipa - (Left me - my brother - my brother left me - left me -) he repeats to nothing, to no one. Lerm eipa - lerm eipa - (Left me - left me -)

When he moves, the chamber seems to respond. Stone shudders and the ground shifts dangerously beneath you, and you notice something in his expression has changed.

Yia kir fier him! (You stink of him!)

You can see the whites of his eyes.

Yia ere kan him! (You are like him!)

He roars again, a terrible sound that stretches on for what feels like minutes as you close your eyes and try to protect your ears. It eventually settles into a low, guttural snarl, and as he turns to fully face you, the chained wolf's intent is clear.

He will never be alone again - even if his only companions are the dead.

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What will you do? Break the tortured wolf’s chains - or end his suffering where he stands?

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How to Participate

This is the high risk option that will directly impact the outcome of the plot and is for those who wish to influence the final stage of the BWP and earn rewards. One of three unique badges will be awarded to characters who choose this path.

Player choices made in this thread will be tallied and the plot will be directly affected by this outcome.

Each character who wishes to participate in this branch must post in this thread one time, and perform one of the two following actions:

- Try to kill the chained wolf
- Try to free the chained wolf

Posts that do not display either action will not be tallied into the final totals and will not be eligible for the badge.

At the conclusion of this thread, staff will roll a 1d100 for each and every participant and then reveal the outcome for these results in a single post.

The table is as follows:

1-40 passes without harm
41-80 gains a minor injury
81-94 gains a major injury
95-100 is a critical failure and may result in death.

Death, however, is not the end in this place.

You will be given options.

Should you roll a critical failure, you may choose for your character to either:

- Enter a four-week coma where they will be fully unconscious for the duration of four OOC weeks

- Die and reincarnate into a brand new account, but retain your end-game BWP badges and rewards, as well as the ability to import a set number of skills per our standard Guidebook reincarnation rules - in addition to one brand new base skill they had not previously known before

- Die immediately and 'reincarnate' through the same account, keeping your post count, all badges earned, and the end-game rewards for the BWP. The consequence for this option will be determined by a 1d3 rolled by staff; the number rolled will add that number of years to your character's current age, shortening their lifespan by up to 3 years.

(If you want to auto-fail your roll for a minor or major injury, please specify in your post and we will be delighted to maim you.)


Note: Characters in-game may only participate in one branch each, so it is impossible to earn all three unique badges on IC accounts. However, if you have multiple characters participate and each one chooses a different branch, your OOC account can collect all three through this means!

Valeska woke with the echo of the haunting dream fresh in her mind. She looked up quickly to see the Visitor close by, watching her carefully, the three portals hovering before her as she stood up beneath the blackened sky. In the first, she witnessed a vision of clouds parting through the chorus of voices; the second, the Great Tree under siege, and then the last - heavy, suffocating, terrifying - the glowering visage of the Moving Isle, its roar a pale glimpse into what horrors must surely await in its depths.

For a long moment, she didn't move.

Duty, she had always believed first and foremost, was not the absence of fear, but the hard decision made in spite of it. And yet there was fear burning hot within her still, coiled tightly beneath her ribs and making her so dizzy (... did she need to throw up?) Valeska thought she might faint. Never in all of her years had she seen anything close to this calamity. From within each door resonated a desperate cry for help, a sound felt more than it was heard; she could almost see the Great Tree's pain inside her mind blooming like a crimson flower, the dark clouds overhead knitting ever more tightly together in a crushing shroud, and...

... The Isle.

She took one step forward.

Valeska thought of Amaranth, of the very first day they'd met. How beautiful she had looked that morning, golden and serpentine, coiled languidly over a pile of sun-bleached bones as she had looked up at Valeska with eyes as mysterious and far away as the moon. They'd not known, then, what they would someday come to mean to each other - or the life they would build together. From friends, to lovers, to mates, to mothers; they had savored every gift the world had offered them and created a legacy of their love that would endure until every star in the sky had faded.

She thought of Dimitri , Violet, Sreda, Narcissa, Alder - their precious first litter, all of them grown up and making their own way, whatever that meant for them, wherever they were. Their physical location had never mattered; she carried them all with her in her heart.

Aelia, Amaris, Amaya - the children she thought they had lost. Never had she known the true depths of grief until that horrific moment, nor had she known it since. It was the Great Tree of this place that had silently pulled them all back from the dead and delivered them within the embrace of its gnarled roots, and she felt anguish knowing it was now in harm's way.

And oh, the grandchildren! Her nieces, her nephews, all of them -

- she looked again toward the third door, and the Isle shrieked in answer as several new fractures burst open across the surface of Mythris. Some of them ran straight through the heart of Fate's Respite, narrowly missing the den-site. Her packmates. Everyone she loved, all of them in danger, and the Isle screamed and screamed as it continued to rip the earth asunder.

The other paths called to her in their own ways. The wolf-song stirred something bright and fierce inside her chest, an oath of unity, of something almost holy in that togetherness of driving back the dark. The Great Tree cried out for her protection, and she felt the righteous pull to defend it from the wraiths, her blood boiling as a rush of adrenaline surged through her limbs.

But the bound wolf... the screaming. Its path of destruction and the inevitable end of her world.

Others would rise to the call of the other two portals. She, however, could not.

Valeska breathed out slowly, a plume of steam rising from her maw as she tried to steady herself. Her paws felt like pure lead and the fur stood straight up along the length of her spine as she braced herself, closed her eyes, and moved into the light.

For them. Their family, their friends and all of the experiences they had shared and had yet to share in this peculiar, damaged, wonderful world.

For her, and for those eyes as mysterious and far away as the moon.

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The door closed behind her. The air was electric, taut, like a rubber band pulled too tight; carvings like that of the Runes they had all searched for were scrawled across the high stone walls of the cave, glowing strange and azure, and snarling at the center of it all was the Wolf.

He loomed before her, his presence so overwhelming it felt like an invisible pressure bearing down upon her. Whatever dark magic was imbued within his chains hummed in a steady, powerful rhythm, and with every movement he made the sound of searing flesh hissed through the air, but he did not seem to notice - or to feel it at all. Wrath burned in his gaze, and he looked at her with pure malevolence. The only way to stop the calamity outside was to stop him.

Please, I know you think you were left behind, but you must believe me - the Dream Visitor, he is remorseful - it was not -

The bound wolf howled a deafening shriek. He would not be reasoned with; that time had long passed, if it had ever existed at all.

He was insane. Unwell. The only peace he could hope to be granted was a quick death, and yet...

"I am afraid of you," she thought to herself, tears welling at the corners of her eyes. She was absolutely terrified. It felt like all of her legs had locked up at once, and she tried desperately to move forward but they would not obey, and as he shrieked again she could feel the earth tearing open outside in waves. He wasn't going to stop.

... And still, I shall not turn away.

Valeska muttered the last half under her breath, every bone in her body rattling with fear. But then she could have sworn she caught the scent of lavender lingering close in the air, and the gentle but steady weight of all she had lived and fought for settled over her like a golden embrace.

Whether he was worthy of freedom, she couldn't know; whether it was the wrong choice, she couldn't be certain. But killing him felt worse. Maybe she would only hasten Armageddon with this decision, but in the same way she had reached down into the pit for Amaranth, she would reach down into the pit for this sad soul.

Valeska lunged forward, wrapped her jaws around the nearest chain rooted firmly into the rock, and pulled with all her might as the smell of her own burning flesh filled the air.

SOUTHEAST TO THE PATH OF ETERNITY

(Aware)

What to do?

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ITEM (Nothing To Use!)

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ACT (Recalling.)

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RUN (Nowhere to Go!)

Health
15/15
No Skill in Progress
0/30

Third Door: Judgement.

Boy in the meatgrinder o7

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”The Dream”

His dreams are met with apathy.

The boy does not care.

He lifts his fuzzy head, eyes lowered to the ground in protest before his vision is stolen from him again. Mythris likes to take, he’s learned. Everything it could. Muzzle twitching and jostling with annoyance and then anger, he is made to watch over and over again. Ears pulled themselves low on either side of his head, and an unwelcoming gleam settled deep within his eyes. Could they not leave him alone? Send him back?

Why was it he and his friends and family that were being made to clean up this mess? They hadn’t done anything.

It was just too familiar for him. Once again plunged into cold darkness, voices unintelligible and echoing out along the endless terrain. They have been running for forever, longer than he himself has ever been.

And yet he has been in the dark for longer than that.

While within his gaze, without his permission, he sees one wolf who he feels has come close.

Southeast leaned on his available forelimb, still tired and still aching along with the earth beneath his shaggy paws.

Little pupils settled on the stranger's leg. It’s not his leg, he knows this now. But he cannot shake the discomfort rising from his limp-hanging shoulder. ’s O-key, The Druid boy manages to steal his voice back, though only weakly. It was as though Mythris forced him to be quiet. To not reveal that wolf’s location.

For there were the Daemons he had been so wary about.

Lungs seized in his chest along with the stranger, a brother, as they drew closer. He recalled the sounds from outside of the caves and those that came from deep within. He remembers hiding along cracks in the walls away from his own peers. He remembers the same mistake. A breath too soon.

He flinches and drags his eyes away from what comes next. That, in part, he remembers too. With a shudder and hiccup, he feels his jaw tighten and the back of this throat close. Southeast wanted to yelp, to cry out and demand the Daemon leave the stranger be, but deep in his steadfast-thump-thump-thumping heart he knew there was nothing to be done. It was just a god-damn dream.

No it wasn’t. That he knew too. It was a vision of the past that he could never have helped because he had been too young to have seen and that he was now too old to have missed. Tears wandered, lost, down his cheeks and to his tipped chin as the next visions passed him by.

But he prevailed. A weed growing up through rickety concrete slabs, fungus peeling and reaching for moisture from between floorboards. A bug twitching and squirming, legs half-crushed underfoot, mandibles swinging.

Southeast had never died. ’s O-key–Hhk–.. This stranger had been left alone too. You were o-key. Even if he was there in those fateful last moments, it hadn’t really happened that way. There was no comfort that Southeast could now give.

He knew how it felt. All too familiar. And it was unfair, and he hated it, and it was something he could not stand for.

It was not easy to feel brave when you had seen the cruelties of the world. When you had been told that you would be killed for raising your voice, that you were despised. The boy’s own mother had forgone him entirely. He couldn’t stand by and let another wolf be–

”The Damned”

Southeast jolted awake, slamming down his paws on the cold, dark floor. He was in another cave now. But he can’t see Juniper. He didn’t want her to see him, anyway. Blinking glossy eyes to bring back the dim light, the boy winced upon the realization that he had slammed his injured leg down as well.

With some difficulty, he rolled off of it, ears twitching anxiously as the Isle out in the distance screamed and begged for its friends’ return. He’d done that, too. Banging on the sealed cave door until his paws bled and he was dragged away. Many move wolves had died by then, but that did not make his pain any more than the Stranger’s.

No quiero hablar contigo. Lo dejaste. (I don’t want to talk to you. You left him.) Slowly, his gaze was once again pulled over to that dastardly ghost. It did not look like a Daemon, but he knew it must have been. He would never have left any of his friends behind. ¡Uno estaba atrapado! ¡Eso no fue culpa de ellos! (One was stuck! That wasn’t his fault!)

The way the ghost was wording it was as though all three played a part. The young wolf once again felt his throat tighten as the Dream Visitor rambled on, cowering pitifully. As though he rejected blame. The Isle in the back cried out again, the sounds of wails and hisses on the wind sounding similar to those two blotted out names he couldn’t decipher. Él podría haber estado bien. (He could have been okay.)

The firmness of his brow softened only slightly when the Visitor began to sputter and crackle. There was almost sympathy, but the caveboy shook his head. No esperes que él te consuele. Esa es su responsabilidad, y se ha ido. (Don't expect me to comfort you. That is his responsibility, and he is gone.)

The silence wasn’t any more deafening than the blizzard outside. Southeast shifted, awkward on his paws.

Stumbling away from the sudden noise that rose with glowing runed, he stopped breathing. Waiting, watching, like his measly nostrils could disrupt the constructing of something grand. Right outside Juniper’s den, though?

Unimpressed and further annoyed by these antics, the doors clicked into place and he stepped out of his deerskin to survey the options. None of which seemed very ideal, until the last. Was.. the Visitor asking if he, too, would turn-tail and run from the stranger? Because that was impossible, after what he’d seen.

Te odio, pero lo ayudaré. (I hate you, but I’ll help him.)

”The Door”

He brought himself through the door, limping and leaning to pull himself as far from the glowing ground as he could. There was the desire to want to turn back around at the sight, but he remained. Everywolf else was an afterthought as he stumbled to the side, fingers and toes almost sinking into the very flesh of the ground itself. This.. poor wolf. That was all that came to his mind then, before his attention was pulled to the chains. To the leg. Once again adjusting his own at the sight, he took in a breath of the cold and damp air.

This was another fucking cave, wasn’t it?

It was like the world had brought him here for.. For some reason. A glimpse at what could have been? At what he would become? Lumbering forward past taller, stronger individuals who did not know, the boy’s nose sniffed pointedly. If there was blood, he couldn’t smell it here. All he could see was.. Himself? But it wasn’t, had never been, and would never be him. It shouldn’t even be this one. It should have been nowolf.

Thinking back to the cult that sealed him away, the pup’s lips straightened. Lo entiendo. De verdad. (I understand. I do.)

His brother left him. Nodding his head slowly, the boy let himself stare down at the ground.

He stunk of him. There was another slow, remorseful nod.

Yia ere kan him! — You are like him!

That, he took offense to. Southeast would Never. It would have been so simple, when he had the freedom, to turn around and prove his point. Or to sink his teeth in deep and prove it again. He was angry. They were all angry. He didn’t forget how the isle had torn apart the continent, how it injured him in its stead.

But that was not this man’s fault. He had been told there would be safety where he hid. And it was unfair that he was lied to.

The caveboy thought back to how his packmates had been convinced they were all terrible. He grew up thinking the cave was all there was, and that if he or his packmates ever left, there would be a great calamity in the world. With a shivering, unstable breath he thought back to cowering in the dark, huddling with corpses, eating what he could. How wolf flesh tore easily and went down easier. That maybe, that woman who led packs into the caves in droves and thinned out the prairie and the desert had been right about him.

He never thought himself a violent boy. Lips and face twitching, he spun on his heels.

If he was being given a chance to choose, to be just old enough to make a difference, he was going to use it. There were two wolves (Will-o'-Wisp and Wendigo) he did recognize, though only faintly. And it was close to them he wandered, hopping up on his thin legs and clasping his wolf-eating mouth around the wolf-holding chain.

He would not have abandoned the stranger then. He would not abandon him now. Southeast freed himself. He knew it possible. So he would free the one which could not do it on his own.

ALL CODING AND CHARACTER ART ON THIS PROFILE ARE DONE BY MYSELF UNLESS STATED OTHERWISE.

Clever as devil and twice as pretty
3-3-3 OC

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Speech Emotional Actions Thoughts

The dream was a startle in a night of what was supposed to be peaceful with the High Mother and sisters. The screams, the sobs, the voices of the wolves ached Mazikeen's heart, it hurt to see despite her hatred for men. She felt..guilty for the wolf left behind, for the pain he'd endured because his own brother had left him behind, and almost immediately, as the doors showed up, Mazikeen plunged herself into the third door, she couldn't let this poor thing suffer anymore, even if she'd bound herself in the idea that men, horrible men who caused pain deserved to die.

He was in pain. He was in pain, scared and abandoned like a mutt on the highway. She couldn't quite bring herself to resent him, couldn't bring herself to bare teeth for his throat.

Instead, her attention turned, eyes snapping onto a chain and a low growl rippled from her throat, glancing at the others already there, a faint hum, one of warmth settled into her chest, looking back to the chained wolf.

we will help you..You don't have to remain trapped anymore,

Her voice, despite rough came gentle like she might as well be speaking to a pup, and quickly, she threw her weight at a chain beside a solid white wolf with purple eyes. Her eyes briefly glanced over the wolf, before turning her focus to the pulsing chain, the burn it had against her skin and how it burned so badly but she didn't dare back off.

She knew what it felt like to be left behind, to be abandoned because she fit in, didn't keep up, and it hurt so much to see him like this, so, a woman, built upon the slaughter of man, put her differences aside, and focused on freeing the poor canine from it's prison. She was careful where her teeth went, digging in, ripping backwards on chains until her teeth slipped, clamping right back down with more vigour.

I know how you feel..It must feel like everything has betrayed you..I'll help you, but please, don't let this be the wrong decision.

Vaelora knew pain. She knew it intimately. She knew of loss. Of Grief. Of despair. She knew the consequences of what abandonment could do to one’s own soul, and she knew it well. The dream visitor’s words were lost on her as Vaelora focused on the pain of what his brother must’ve felt when he had learned he had been left behind.

Vaelora knew what it was like to be left behind.

And though her rage for the dream visitor surged brightly within her, a fire burning as hot as the darkness that often grasped her soul, it was the emergence of three doors—three choices—that stilled her beating heart.

She would not kill nor harm the dream visitor, even as her red-toned eyes slid into narrow slits toward its ghostly silhouette. He deserved to remain in his prison—the one of his own making—as he recalled his choice to leave behind his brother, his blood.

But Vaelora would not leave him behind. Not like him.

She did not wait to hear anything more. As soon as that third door opened and the shrieks of the wolf echoed painfully in her ears, she rushed forward.

Already, there were others. Others whom Vaelora wondered if they felt similarly as she had.

They did not tear into him, whether that had been the goal of the dream visitor’s words or not; they tore into his chains, freeing him.

Just like Vaelora wished to be free.

She barreled forward, a scream atop her lips as the chained wolf’s own wails echoed in her soul. It rattled some deep-seated emotion she refused to name, but as the tears pricked and fell down her cheeks, she aimed teeth to iron and readied herself to yank.

I will free you, she murmured, blubbering out through hasty breaths as she grabbed a chain that no one had yet touched. And she yanked, she clawed, she gripped, and she grasped—uncaring of how the searing metal seemed to burn through her flesh, and the magic of his bounds fought desperately to remain intact.

She didn’t care about any of it.

He didn’t deserve this at all.

And while no one had saved Vaelora, she would do right by him and save this chained wolf’s life.

Even if he wished to kill them all in the end.