#this chapter is a doozy at over 2600 words

[memoirsverse]

Dresden Files/The Authors of Paradise: Dark Days

This is a crossover fan novel featuring my own characters and world of The Authors of Paradise, blended with those of Jim Butcher’s The Dresden Files. This derivative crossover work is being written for the sheer fun of it, with no financial gain. Jim Butcher owns Harry Dresden, The Dresden Files, and all associated characters. I own Evelyn Alvar, Arabella Thorne, Thornebridge Manor, The Authors of Paradise, and all associated characters. I’ve taken the two worlds, mashed them together, and whipped up this meandering thingamabob. Mmm, tasty. 

This novel is rated M for Mature, because it’ll get bloody. This chapter isn’t bloody, though; just dreadful.

i. Evelyn

I emerged in a room that shifted and warped, always in motion, always changing, and turned my attention to the figure standing at the far end. A softly glowing, color-changing mist curled around my ankles as I walked past impossible staircases and other Mobius-like structures, approaching the figure. It stood dispassionate, sexless, an endless void that glimmered with distant stars. Its name was Thornebridge, and this was the form it took in this place.

If I looked too deeply into that void, I would be drawn in, tumbling helplessly for eons as every potentiality, every reality, every actuality, every universe seared itself indelibly onto my conscious mind. I would know the truth about myself if I did that. I didn’t want to know. I most certainly did not want to know. I was confident it would drive me mad.

My bare feet settled into place, concealed by the mist, as I stopped directly in front of Thornebridge. I was wearing the filmy white thing that I always wore when I Traveled, and hair the color of moonlight tumbled over my marble-toned shoulders. I’d seen my reflection before in this form. I looked like a marble statue with intensely purple-jewel eyes, inhuman and profoundly alien. I had grown accustomed to it, but I still didn’t understand the why of it.

“You have something to tell me?” I ventured finally. I would never be entirely comfortable talking with Thornebridge-- if talking was the right word. The entity had its own language, one that didn’t often translate well into English, or any other language with actual words.

The response was instantaneous. From out of the mist, a great tower pushed its way out of the hidden ground, rumbling like thunder as it grew to a great height. Dust and debris rained down from it as it stretched higher and higher like some kind of monolithic tree, until its top vanished into the star-studded, nebula-swirled darkness above. A pair of winged figures circled the tower, armed with swords, their wings beating the air into a whirlwind as they flew around and around and around it.

A low, animalistic growl surged behind me, and I turned to see a man dressed in robes and expensive finery, crowned by four inverted pentacles that spun around his head. The man looked like a photograph in negative exposure, black and white, light where he should be dark and dark where he should be light. He ran at the tower and leaped on it, clawing at its base, digging to its foundations, tearing off huge chunks of stone and dropping them into a large canvas bag he carried slung over one shoulder. The two angels didn’t seem to see him, continuing their high-altitude patrol.

I sighed. The overall message was obvious, but the details were still obscured. “Who’s attacking you?” I asked.

The robed man vanished from his place by the tower and appeared before me so suddenly that I took a couple of steps backwards. I took a breath to steady myself and turned my eyes to Thornebridge. “But who is he?”

The human-shaped starry void said nothing. Of course. It stood still, its head turned towards me.

I could look into its void and See...

Shaking my head, I motioned with my hand to the diorama. “If you want our help, you’re going to have to be a bit more clear than that. Okay?”

Thornebridge just watched me. This was apparently the entirety of the message; I wasn’t going to get any more unless I Looked.

I ran my hands through my hair and sighed again. “All right, fine. I’ll see what I can dig up.”

Thornebridge nodded, and the scene vanished, replaced once again with the Escher-like environment. Closing my eyes, I let myself phase through the layers of reality, back to whatever dimension my Traveling form was held in. I felt the threads of silken energy close around me like a cocoon, and my conscious awareness faded to gentle black before becoming aware of the weight and solid mass of my everyday form.

I lay there for a minute, eyes closed, letting my consciousness re-align with physical reality. Slowly, my senses re-connected and began to filter information back to me: the lingering scent of incense, the soothing flow of the meditative music that I had set to play in a loop, the spongy feel of the mat between my body and the hardwood floor, the slight chill in the room that raised gooseflesh over my arms. It was September, and morning, and my stomach informed me that I had not yet eaten breakfast.

Opening my eyes, I stretched, then rose to my feet. The room my housemate Arabella and I had designated for communication sessions with Thornebridge was sparsely decorated with a couple of small tables, a bowl for incense, a scattering of candles, a few carefully placed crystals, some calming prints framed on the walls, a small rock garden, and an iPod set up with a meditation playlist. It was simple and zen, intended to cultivate the kind of relaxation needed to put one’s self into a deep trance.

I turned off the iPod, blew out the candles and the incense, and left the room in the heart of the house, winding my way through corridors that never seemed to follow the same path. I had gotten lost on multiple occasions while trying to find my way through the less stable portions of the house, until I had learned to open my senses enough to navigate my way to the space Arabella and I lived day-to-day. 

I saw the door, and my senses told me it was the one that led to the mundane part of the house. It was always a different door, sometimes massive and intricately carved, sometimes simple and rustic. Today, it was narrow, arterial red, and half my height, sporting an ornate silver knob. I turned the knob, opened the door, and stepped out of the dizzying instability of Thornebridge Manor and into the dimensionally stable, comforting warmth of the house’s living space. 

The difference in energy always takes a moment or two to adjust to. It’s a little bit like waking up from a dream, as reality re-establishes itself around you, solid and fixed. After taking a few slow breaths and doing a little grounding exercise by placing my palm flat against a wall and feeling its solidity, I moved on, making my way to the kitchen. 

_________________________________________

The coffee tasted hot and sweet as I sipped it from my favorite old coffee mug, which depicted a calico cat similar in appearance to my own Nimue, batting playfully at a Victorian-style fairy. The house was strangely quiet and felt vast and empty; Arabella had left town to attend some sort of bookseller’s conference. Slowly, I ate a breakfast of eggs, biscuits, and fruit, as I held my battered, leatherbound notebook in my left hand and read over the notes I had written on this morning’s communication with Thornebridge. A well-worn deck of tarot cards, its colors faded and its edges tattered, rested beside the notebook.

I took a bite of scrambled eggs, set my fork down, and flipped through the cards, withdrawing the Tower, the Emperor, Temperance, and the Four of Pentacles, laying them out on the table beside my plate. Chewing thoughtfully, I studied the cards, static images embodying the living diorama I had seen in the communication room, but I came no closer to achieving clarity. The only thing I knew for certain was that someone was attacking Thornebridge, someone Arabella and I-- the Guardians of Thornebridge Manor-- had not yet seen or encountered.

That... was not good. There was an endless list of reasons why that was not good. But I still had precious little to go on. It would be nice, I thought, if the damn house would learn to speak English.

An alarm sounded on my phone, alerting me that it was time to get ready for work, so I put my plate in the dishwasher, returned to my bedroom to dress, made sure my cat and Arabella’s dog Ghost had plenty of fresh water, checked on Virgil the ferret in his little house, and hurried out the door to drive to the shop. There wasn’t a lot I could do until I had more information, and I certainly wasn’t going to figure out the puzzle sitting here all day.

_________________________________________

I own a little shop called Boreas Curios, Antiques, and Odditites. It’s a quaint little place, sharing a storefront with a pizza parlor and a jewelry store, and is situated directly across the street from Arabella’s place of business, an antique bookstore that she inherited from its former owner when he retired. It was something akin to kismet that the two of us spent years working in these places, across the street from one another, before we met for the first time through completely unrelated events. And it wasn’t for a lack of browsing each others’ shops either-- I love books, and Arabella is a bona fide pack rat and loves to collect all sorts of strange and wonderful things. And vice versa. We just always managed to visit when neither of us was in our respective shop.

The shop was slow throughout the morning, giving me time to sort through inventory and clean a little bit as I tried to shake the lingering feeling that something wasn’t quite right. I chalked it up to the vagaries of my communication session with Thornebridge and carried on. A few minutes to eleven, Violet breezed in through the front door, smiling brightly at me with her black-lipsticked lips as we greeted each other. Her hair was short and spiky, black tipped with blue, and she wore black-and-white striped stockings on her arms and legs, a green corset, a knee-length black tulle skirt, and a pair of worn old army boots. She waved at me with a black-fingernailed hand and disappeared into the back of the shop, re-emerging a short time later wearing a blue apron that absolutely clashed with her getup.

I didn’t mind her eccentric way of dressing; in fact, I felt it fit the atmosphere of the shop perfectly. She cashed in to her register, and then set about helping me sort through a box of mini-Furbies that had been programmed to say diabolical things. The store rang out with sinister phrases such as, “I am Lord Beelzebub, hear me rooooar!” and “Sacrifice your virgins on the altar of the Goat King!” for several minutes as we inserted batteries, cataloged everything in the system, and put the Furbies in a wire bin near the register. The Diabolical Furby Collection was Violet’s idea, and I thought it fit nicely in with the theme of Strange and Bizarre I had cultivated in the shop. After all, I kept a constant supply of haunted dolls on a shelf situated on the back wall. People loved creepy things. They always sold well.

Right around 1:45, just as the lunch rush had mostly dissipated, the sky went dark, not gradually, but in a quick fade, as if somebody had used a dimmer switch to turn off the sun, cloaking the world in night. 

Violet, looking up from where she was ringing up one of the last customers in the store, frowned. “Um. Evelyn?” She paused, then added, “Did somebody forget to pay the sunlight bill?” The joke fell flat as her voice trembled a bit. 

I was busy staring through the glass door, blinking in confusion. The slight uneasiness I had felt earlier amplified itself, evolving into the kind of dread that speeds up the heart rate and sends butterflies swarming through the stomach. Violet clearly felt the same, but it was probably just from the inexplicable celestial event. Right? 

“What in the blazes...” I murmured. Casting a glance at Violet and her equally confused and anxious customer, I strode across the shop and out the door, peering up at the sky, searching for the sun. Violet joined me a minute or two later, after shooing the customers out and locking the door.

“Is... is it an eclipse?” she asked, doubt slowing her words. I shook my head, but pulled my phone from my apron and began pulling up an online almanac to be sure.

“Probably not,” I said. “Wouldn’t have gone dark that quickly.” I scanned the almanac long enough to determine that there had been no eclipses predicted for the day, and then my phone went dark.

So did the rest of the block. All around us, the lights illuminating the buildings flickered out, plunging the world into heavy darkness. Even the cars on the street died, rolling to a stop. I heard the metallic clatter of a car wreck somewhere in the near distance, and somebody screamed.

The creeping dread flared into visceral, heart-pounding terror, and for a moment, I was lost in it. I wanted to fall to my knees, pull at my hair, and moan with it. I wanted to dig into the ground and hide from the darkness, to curl into myself, to lose myself to the fear, to be consumed by it. It coiled around me, a primal, atavistic horror that threatened to strangle the life from me. I was barely aware of Violet next to me, frozen and trembling with the same terror.

A long moment passed, and the dread eased of its own accord. It still lingered, pulsing softly on a psychic wavelength, but it no longer threatened to drive us mad. I found I had indeed fallen to the ground, and slowly got to my hands and knees, reaching out to help Violet to her feet. The girl was still shaking, her blue eyes wide in the gloom, but she let me stand her up and steady her.

“What was that?” she cried, but then seemed to realize how near to panic she was edging, and took a deep breath, squaring her shoulders. She leveled her gaze on me and said, “I’m going to guess you’ll be leaving the shop to me for a bit.”

I hadn’t ever told Violet about my other job, the one where I worked for the sentient spirit of a dimensionally transcendent and unstable house, but the girl wasn’t stupid. She’d picked up on the fact that I had a tendency to deal with the out-of-the-ordinary things that seemed so often to happen around me. I sighed and ran my hand through my short, wavy hair, a deep chestnut with hints of red and a stark contrast to the flowing silver locks of my Traveling form. 

I turned on my heels and strode around to my car, a 90s-era silver Accord parked in the employee-designated spaces in the parking lot. Violet followed. Unlocking the trunk with the key set I had in my jeans pocket, I removed the emergency bag I kept packed and ready. “Close the shop,” I told her, then frowned. I had been about to tell her to pack up and go home, but she lived several miles away and it seemed as if the cars had all died too. “Stay indoors, keep the doors locked, and watch for looters.”

“That baseball bat still under the counter?” she asked.

“Yep,” I said, and paused. If that feeling of dread had been city-wide, it meant we’d be dealing with mass panic, and panicked people can be violent. “But don’t try to be heroic, okay? If anybody gets violent, just get on out of there. Find somewhere safe. There will probably be some sort of organizational effort to keep things under control, maybe a place for people to gather for shelter, a church or something. Try to find it if you can’t stay in the shop.”

“Gotcha.”

From the bag I removed a pair of silver rods, slender, about the length of my forearm, and etched with runes, then slung the bag over my shoulder. 

Then, taking a deep breath, I stepped into the darkness.

[merelliahallewell]

Drustvar and the Light (my desperate case for Kul Tiran Light worship)

A while ago I wrote a post for /r/warcraftlore (that got expanded into a forum post) that examined religion in Kul Tiras in each zone. Some new things have come out since I wrote it and so I wanted to update it and post it here. It mostly focused on the Tidesages and the new lore we’d been given with them (BfA had just come out), but also poked at Tidesage influence in Tiragarde. 

Drustvar, though, was interesting to look at. There’s no Tidesage influence to speak of anywhere in the zone- not a single NPC or building they use for their religion. this could be attributed to how most of the zone seems to be fallen to the Heartsbane Coven (and the Tidesages could be among those killed). Even in Fallhaven - which had yet to see any deaths to the witches and is close to the sea - there is no Tidesage. This one’s a doozy, continue under the jump.

On top of the curious lack of their presence in Drustvar, there’s also burial practices to consider- usually strongly tied to religion. In the Tidesage religion, burial seems to be less important than the collection of souls- to lay their dead to rest in Stormsong Valley, the Tidesages perform a ritual to let the souls flow through the Shrine of the Storm. There are no graveyards throughout the entire zone there, only tidesage markers for players to spawn at. Tiragarde Sound has some graveyards, but they are small and many of them do not even have stone grave markers, only wooden ones.

Drustvar, once again, is the odd one out. Not only does it have numerous graveyards, but it has Kul Tiras’ largest cemetery, Barrowknoll. In Barrowknoll, there is a small quest chain dealing with the Coven raising the strongest spirits of the dead (the Defenders of Drustvar) and putting them into wicker constructs. It seems that here, the souls and bodies rest together- meaning they are not released into the sea by Tidesages at all.

Overall, Barrowknoll is quite reminiscent of the places that Light-worshipping cultures lay their dead to rest, as shown behind Stormwind Cathedral, in Gilneas, at Sorrow Hill and Light’s Hope, and even the redone Arathi Highlands. It features the entrances to crypts (though they are blocked off by gates), and gravestones that are overall of high quality, unlike the simple wooden markers we see in Tiragarde. Most importantly, it resembles Forgotten Hill in Tol Barad- an island once under the control of mages from Kul Tiras.

One last curious burial bit is out in Corlain’s graveyard, on the other side of Drustvar. While most of the gravestones there are the standard models used in Whitegrove, one particular one stood out because paladin players walk past it in their class hall. It features a hammer and a libram- a statue that is meant to mark a paladin of the Silver Hand. Considering that Blizzard created brand new models for gravestones to use in both the Arathi Highlands and Kul Tiras, it strikes me as strange that they’d unintentionally place a single paladin’s marker in a graveyard in Drustvar. We may have had a paladin hail from Drustvar at some point and be buried in their homeland.

There’s more beyond simple burial practices, though. I mentioned the Defenders of Drustvar before, who were powerful spirits being raised by the Coven who had presumably been past heroes. Among them is a woman named Mercy Fairwater. She is one of the few NPCs in Kul Tiras to mention the Light expressly, saying “Light’s Peace be upon you, class.” She also bears the Greatstaff of Righteousness, a staff that features the symbol of the Church of Holy Light as a headpiece. This symbol is on various weapons associated with the Church, and Archbishop Benedictus even wielded these weapons in his fight underneath Wyrmrest.

Another NPC of significance is Inquisitor Erik, a mob added in 8.1. He is a member of the Order of Embers and spawns sometimes for Horde during their world quests. He is dressed in the garb of an Order of Embers inquisitor, yet his attack spells are Crusader Strike and Holy Smite. These are both Light-based attacks… could this really be just a coincidence?

Cleric Loriette is another 8.1 NPC, added from the outpost upgrades you can purchase from the 7th Legion vendor. She is added to Arom’s Stand, and can cast a buff on you called Blessing of the Order of Embers. Clerics are not an uncommon thing in Azeroth- there are the Clerics of Northshire as the most prominent ones, as well as Argent Clerics, Dark Clerics, Alliance Clerics… the list goes on and on. Nno matter what, these clerics are always religious in some manner, usually related to the Church of Light or the Cult of Forgotten Shadow. If Loriette is casting a blessing spell as well, something usually done in Azeroth by priests or paladins, it would seem that perhaps Light worship is implied. The spell effects seem to be orange and almost fiery, perhaps reminiscent of holy fire.

There are other NPCs too that seem to suggest some small level Kul Tiran Light worship, or at least ability to use it. While not based out of Drustvar, the Tol Dagor dungeon features Ashvane-aligned priests who perform the spells Inner Flames and Righteous Flames. The former has a healing effect, the latter is a damage spell. Inner Fire was a once a priest spell.

One last major point comes from Warcraft III: Reforged. While people expected some parts of Warcraft III to be “reforged” per Blizzard’s original word on it, there was also a lot of expectations that minor elements would also be changed to fit with recent lore- such as the Kul Tiran Chaplain unit from Daelin’s forces.

These light-wielding priests would have been perfect fodder to change into a Tidesage to fit with recent lore, yet the released models suggested a continued focus on the Light. The solar iconography of the staff’s head and the golden trimming of the gear makes it pretty clear that they are still using the Light. Since these models are unique and only meant for certain portions of WCIII’s story, there is no reason they could not have replaced them with Tidesages to fit with more recent lore. In my opinion, this is a pretty clear sign of at least some light worship being present. 

Overall, it strikes me as strange that a region that’s primarily mountainous would look to the sea for guidance like the rest of Kul Tiras. Tidesages often bring the rains for crops in Stormsong Valley, but Drustvar has a number of streams and rivers to provide freshwater to its farming regions, and a large amount of snowmelt to feed them. Drustvar’s fishing villages are in disarray for the most part, and so the other part of Tidesage functions (blessing fishing and monster hunting trips, saying where the fish are biting, etc) are simply not present, but that may be more due to Coven attack than them not being there. With water needs taken care of and little ability to fish in the sea save for on the coastal villages, many part of Drustvar just do not have need for those portions of a Tidesage’s duty.

Unfortunately, there are a total lack of religious buildings in Drustvar to confirm or deny the possibility of Light worship. Whitegrove Chapel features no priests to speak of and is overrun by monsters when we arrive. Even going back in time reveals a wedding officiated by Lord Waycrest, rather than a Tidesage or priest of the Light. ”It is my honor to wed these two in the presence of the land, the sky, and the sea” doesn’t particularly sound like the words of a Light worshipper. Since this seems to be a nonreligious ritual conducted on his authority as the lord of Drustvar, it’s hard to know either way. 

Given what’s been displayed between burial practices and NPCs, I’d like to think this post makes the case for some level of minor Light worship in Drustvar- it’s certainly nothing like Stormwind or Lordaeron, but I think that there’s some evidence it exists in the region. 

5/15/21 UPDATE:

Hey so there’s more lore. Also, I updated some grammatical errors in the post because I abuse commas.  All tiny, little snippets, but that’s sort of what Warcraft roleplay relies upon, right?  

This comes from the “Total Cairnage” quests in Drustvar or whatever that chapter is called where you help the thornspeakers and rangers. This lady says this. Not much to say here, it is pretty explicitly Light-related. 

This next piece is an interesting one I came across recently when looking up Arom Waycrest’s story. He would have been either a Gilnean immigrant or descended from them: the stories aren’t clear about how long the war with the Drust took, but it does seem to have been a long-running thing. Either way, the worship of the Light, per Chronicle 1 and 2, had begun long before the settling of Kul Tiras. However, what is important to mention is that the Church of the Holy Light did not exist for some time after the Troll Wars, several centuries.

The date of Kul Tiras’ founding isn’t entirely clear, but it relies on Gilneas existing and being established as a kingdom. Because of this, it’s entirely possible that the Gilnean settlers might have brought the early, pre-Church worship of the Light with them across the sea (but it is important to remember Kul Tiras was discovered by the Stormsongs, who were led there by the Tidemother). Arom, from this quote from a story about him, may have revered the Light. The Light being brought over to Kul Tiras without the Church element might explain why there’s no real organized reverence of it there.

But also, this is a story being told to kids from 2600 or so years ago, so who knows? Maybe it’s not true, and the narrator is unreliable. Also, “light” is not capitalized as a proper noun, but nobody really says “by the light” in this universe without the explicit reference being to the magic.

The last thing is not canon, but is an interesting follow-up to the Reforged Kul Tiran chaplains. This is a Kul Tiran Chaplain art piece from Hearthstone by Vladimir Kafanov. While Hearthstone isn’t canon, I found it interesting that this piece was done in March 2020, when BfA was almost over and Reforged had, uh... decided not to “reforge” elements of the lore because they abandoned the game. He wears Tidesage vestments and bears the mantle with the scrolls, which are very important in that religion. But he’s using the Light. Creative decision, blending of lore, or silly noncanon hearthstone thing? Who knows, honestly? 

I hope that this post and the new updates might have made enough of a case for a minor Light presence on Kul Tiras. The Tidemother is still the dominant religion, but I personally see enough evidence here to include it in my own roleplay and headcanons.