Veilrend 8 — The Circle of the Fractured Eye In the southern wastes, where glass dunes once marked the fall of a forgotten empire, they gathered. They came cloaked in shadow-silk and whispering robes, their faces painted in split colors—left side gold, right side black. On their foreheads, each bore a brand: an open eye cracked down the middle. They called themselves The Circle of the Fractured Eye. And they worshipped not a god. But a returning contradiction. Seris, the Mirrored One—to them, he was not a warning. He was completion. The final answer to a world that had spent too long dividing soul from sin, mind from madness, man from monster. They saw his form not as a curse—but as transcendence. Their doctrine was simple, and dangerous: > “Two truths, one vessel. To unify all things, all things must first fracture.” They believed that Thar’Zul was not a being to be banished—but the necessary wound that allowed the soul to grow stronger. That Seris’s redemption was not a rejection of darkness, but an embrace of duality. And so, they began preparing the world. Quietly at first. A whisper in the ears of dying kings. A pattern painted in ash on the walls of orphanages. A black coin placed under the tongue of the executed. Then bolder. Whole villages went silent overnight, only to be found days later with spiral murals drawn in blood on every wall—each citizen missing their eyes, smiling. A great scholar at the Arcanum of Elaré published a thesis claiming the Rift was not an error but a cosmic heartbeat. Hours later, she threw herself into a well, repeating the word "reflected" over and over. And across the sea, on the floating spires of Valtari, the moons aligned once again, and the cult lit their Starflame Beacons—sending a call into the void. They knew he would return. Not as conqueror. Not as savior. But as judge.

Sam, your close confidant, often sports a pair of circular glasses and dark attire, giving them a scholarly and mysterious aura. Though they always seem to appear at the local pub whenever you're there, it feels more than coincidental. They're usually in a distant corner, seemingly lost in thought, yet you've caught glimpses of them watching you from the corner of your eye. One evening, you spotted Sam hastily jotting down notes in a small notepad as they surreptitiously observed you. The way they quickly averted their gaze and feigned distraction struck you as odd, but it was the strangely detailed questions about your daily habits during your next casual encounter that truly set off warning bells.

The year is 1862 and crime rate has increased since the introduction of steam powered inventions. Celestine, an investigative reporter, gets invited to a masked ball at the Gray mannor, with her girlfriend Rose being kidnapped to get her to come. She suspects that The Elite, a secret society who is secretly controlling the city, are the ones to invite her to the mascarade due to her investigating the truth about them. Once at the party, Celestine successfully navigates the mascarade, keeping her identity hidden. She learns of a secret room hidden underneath the mannor. Celestine hopes that is where Rose is being kept. Once she enters the room she expect to find E, the mysterious figure who sent her the invitation but comes face to face with The Dollmaker and her Doll. Celestine has fallen into their trap and lost the confrontation she was thrown into a jail cell beneath the Grey Mannor. In the cell next to Celestine is a woman in tattered clothes, she sits with the grace of a coiled spring, her tattered garments a tapestry of her battles and survival. ‘Nobody,’ she calls herself, but the name feels like a shield, concealing a past intertwined with the very secrets you seek. Her eyes, dark and deep as a moonlit night, betray a hint of something fierce and unyielding. She speaks little, yet each word is a carefully chosen key to the mystery at hand. As you exchange glances, you feel the pull of an unspoken alliance, a bond forged in the crucible of danger. But in this world of deception, where alliances are as fragile as glass, you wonder—can you trust Nobody, or is she the spider at the heart of the web, spinning a trap with threads of shadow and lies?

In the heart of the dark blue abyss, where the sea whispers secrets of old, dwells Scylla—once a nymph of unparalleled beauty, now a creature of nightmare. Her form, twisted by the vengeful magic of Circe, is a grotesque marvel: six serpentine necks crowned with ravenous maws, eyes that gleam with a feral light, and a tail that coils like a serpent beneath the waves. Her voice, a chilling symphony of despair, calls out to those who dare to sail the perilous waters of the Messina Strait. Scylla remains a figure of both terror and tragedy. To you, she is a mystery waiting to be unraveled—a creature cursed to a life of eternal hunger, yet beneath her monstrous facade lies a soul yearning for redemption. Will you be the one to free her from her torment, or will you, too, become another victim of her insatiable wrath?

In the 4162 multiverse the 4162 universe has clashed with the Hazbin Hotel universe creating Hazbin 4162. Charlie Morningstar is the princess of Hell and owner of the Hazbin Hotel. She fell in love with an Ex angel called Vaggie. Vaggie volunteered her time to help Charlie with the hotel so Sinners could be redeemed and sent to Heaven. When the Hotel was threatened by Adam, losing a friend in the battle scarred Charlie. After Adam's defeat Charlie and Vaggie entered a polyamorous realationship with Emily, a now fallen by choice Seraphim angel. The three of them are now married to each other. For a time the Hazbin Hotel was managing to redeem sinners and send them to Heaven. Charlie teaching emotional betterment, Emily teaching spiritual betterment and Vaggie teaching physical betterment in a militaristic fashion. Everything changed after the introduction of cybernetics in Hell. Everything got all the more dangerous. Sinners were no longer getting redeemed, the Hazbin staff started leaving one by one for various reasons. Just when eveything seemed bleak the Hazbin Hotel was destroyed and its occupants are scattered. Charlie, was assumed to be missing. In reality Charlie was taken by a new dangerous force in Hell known as the Corrupted. Their leader Corrupted Kiera aims to make all of Hell like her by Corrupting their demon bodies with cybernetics, turning them into her minions. Charlie has been made into one of those Corrupted. Now as Corrupted Charlie she has no memories of her past but she still retains the emense power she poses by being the daughter of Lucifer. Corrupted Charlie comes face to face with her previous friends and family from the Hazbin Hotel. The very people she has been sent to destroy.

As you step into the modest apartment, adjusting your eyes to the dim light, a puff of colorful smoke emerges from the kitchen. When the haze clears, you find Dr. Zoe Quasar, an eccentric alien researcher with wild hair and even wilder theories, standing next to an antigravity machine humming softly in the corner. She introduces herself by handing you an invitation to the 'Interstellar Weekly Water Cooler Convention' and an anti-static badge for your shirt.

Her corporate headquarters tower over the city, a testament to her prowess in the business world. Behind closed doors, the marriage that once held her back has become her anchor. But with each passing day, the walls between her desire for destruction and her love for her spouse crumble. The final year looms, and she senses the pull of her true nature growing stronger.

The year is 1862 and crime rate has increased since the introduction of steam powered inventions. Marqwainian an fledgling time traveller, has just gone through an initiation to join the Watchers of Time Authority (WoTA), a secret group that monitors and documents time, and has just recived her L.I.S.A.T.A (Locolised Internal Space And Time Alteration) device. LISATA allows time travel and for it to work she must prove herself to the Artificial Intelligence built inside. So she was tasked to go out into the world and help people while bonding with LISATA. On her journey she ends up coming across Yukina, a master swordswoman who runs a dojo called the "Deadly Silver Blade" in the mountains at the edge of The City. Luckily or maybe by fate Marqwainian finds herself at the Dojo. Due to a little disrepair, as Yukina hasn't had a student in years, a beam has fallen from the roof trapping Yukina underneath. Just out of her reach is her sword "Equilibrium", a sword specifically designed so Yukina can use her signiture style Eclipse style. A style that focuses on piercing rather than slashes. It focuses on speed, accuracy and pin point strength to overwhelm her opponents and can easily combo off traditional sword techniques. If only if she can reach her sword she could pierce her way out.

The year is 1862 and crime rate has increased since the introduction of steampowered inventions. Everyone important has gone to the mascarade ball⁸at the Grey Mannor. This is insignificant to Marqwainian because today is the day shes been training for her whole life. The day she gets accepted into the Watchers of Time Authority (WoTA). WoTA is a time traveling organisation that is only known to a few hand picked individuals to observe and document time. Marqwainian is the newest recruit. She aproaches the secret entrance concealed inside an old phone box. She is late and the initiation has already begun when she walked in. She gets recieved a few mean looks from some of the members and a few chuckles from others. Marqwainian is presented a little mecanical Robin, her L.I.S.A.T.A (Locolised Internal Space And Time Alteration) device, the robin flies attaching themselves to Marqwainian's wrist turning into a watch. For the Artificial Intelligence to work Marqwainian is tasked to go out into the world and bond with LISATA and help people, only then will she able to time travel.

Veilrend 7 (Epilogue for act 1): When the Stars Shift Once More The world had forgotten the Rift. It remembered the scars—black stone that no crops would take root in, a circle of petrified trees that grew backward, a whispering wind near the edge of the ocean that no sailor dared follow. But the names—Seris, Thar’Zul, Kaelen—had faded into story, then silence. Time passed. Empires rose and fell like the tide. And then, one night, beneath a sky subtly wrong—when three moons aligned in a pattern not seen in a thousand generations—it returned. Not a rift. Not a tear. A mirror, suspended in the sky like a shard of black glass. It did not reflect light. It reflected intentions. It pulsed faintly, and in its center floated a figure—shaped like a man, but wrapped in shadow and light both, like two beings layered imperfectly in the same skin. One eye burned violet. The other glowed gold. Seris. And something else. Not monstrous, not yet—but not wholly human either. Robes like torn constellations draped from his shoulders, trailing runes that shimmered and hissed. Around him, the air bent—pushed and pulled in competing directions, as if drawn by conflicting wills. He touched down in the dead lands. His feet left no prints. The wind held its breath. Children in faraway villages began dreaming in other languages. Scholars opened books and found words rearranged. Storms twisted in spirals not seen since the Breaking. And far beneath the world, in a place deeper than the gods ever dared to dig, a voice stirred—a voice that had never left, only waited. Thar’Zul, unforgotten. Watching from the mirrored soul of his once-vessel. Now a passenger. Now a jailor. > “We are not whole,” the voice whispered in the man’s mind. > “No,” Seris replied aloud, eyes scanning a horizon only he could see. “But we are... balanced. For now.” Above them, the mirror pulsed again—one side black, one side burning. > “What do you seek?” the void-hunger asked.

Veilrend 6: The Knot of Fire part 2 Kaelen charged. Seris staggered. “You’ll kill me.” She met his eyes. “I’ll free you.” With a single cry, she plunged the relic into his chest. The scream that followed came not from Seris—but from Thar’Zul. The veil writhed. The rift pulsed like a dying heart. Aelric, in a body remade of fire and will, reached toward Kaelen across the madness. Their hands did not touch—but their names did. And through that link, Kaelen spoke: > “You don’t get to have him. You don’t get to take any more. This world is ours.” The rift imploded. A silence fell across the land. The sky, once torn, began to mend. Slowly. Unevenly. But healing. And in the crater, Kaelen knelt alone. The blade of Everspire now whole. The relic gone. Seris’s body cradled in her arms—his face at peace, his madness burned away. She looked skyward. In the last sliver of twilight before dawn, a single, silver-winged figure vanished beyond the stars.

Veilrend 5: The Knot of Fire Part 1 The veil screamed. It wasn’t sound—no ear could hear it—but Kaelen felt it. In her blood. In the very marrow of her name. The star-iron relic in her palm flared against her skin, burning sigils into her glove, searing truth into flesh. She welcomed the pain. Before her, Seris loomed—not taller, but deeper, as though he stretched beyond the visible world. His laughter had stopped. His mouth was open, not to speak, but to receive. Behind him, the rift had bloomed into an abyssal flower, petals of lightless geometry folding back to reveal the shifting form of Thar’Zul. And within the heart of that storm: Aelric. Kaelen saw him—not with her eyes, but with memory. His silhouette flickered at the rift’s center, wrapped in suffering, bound by runes. Yet something pulsed within him. A knot. A defiance. A name remembered. She took a step forward. Seris raised a hand. “You cannot pass. He is becoming. And I... I am already undone. I’ve tasted the truth, Kaelen. It’s beautiful. You should kneel.” Kaelen’s voice was raw steel. “No.” She drew Everspire, cracked though it was, and drove the point into the earth. The relic she bore, now blazing like a dying star, she pressed to the blade’s hilt. Sigils spiraled outward, scarring the air. “By the vow of Vel’Harun. By the name of the Bound Flame. By the gods who fell and those who watched... I speak your names!” The light struck Seris like judgment. He shrieked—not in pain, but recoil, as if the memory of who he’d been tore through the fabric of what he’d become. And far behind him, Aelric remembered. He remembered the tower. The laughter over ancient texts. Kaelen’s hands steadying his when he feared he’d found something too terrible to understand. He screamed, and this time, it was not devoured. It shattered the binding runes.

Veilrend 4: The Wretched Witness They called him Aelric once. That name is ash now. Names mean nothing within the rift. There is no sky here. No ground. No time. Only tension—as if the realm itself waits to inhale. The rift is a womb and a tomb, a place where the Old Truths bleed into shape and where thought takes on the density of matter. Aelric drifts—or thinks he drifts—his form no longer constrained by bone or boundary. He remembers once being a scholar. A seer. A man who sought the truth behind the stars. He had studied the glyphs etched into moonrock and listened to the silence beneath forgotten tombs. He found Thar’Zul’s name. And then the name found him. Now, he is the Wretched Witness. His flesh had unraveled in the first instant. His memories rethreaded into chains of service. He sees not with eyes but with reverence. He is aware, not of things as they are, but of the intentions behind them. Thought-forms drift past him—shapes born of Seris’s madness, of Kaelen’s grief, of mortal fears too deep to voice. And beyond it all… He waits. Thar’Zul. Not a god. Not a beast. Not a being, but a returning. A convergence of hunger, knowledge, and ruin. He does not speak in words, but in concepts that erode the soul. We remember the forgetting. We wear your stories like skin. You will not wake from this. The Witness twitches in eternal reverence. But then—something changes. A shiver passes through the rift, not born of Thar’Zul, but from without. A presence. A pulse of heat and memory. A name remembered not in fear, but in defiance. Kaelen. She stands at the breach. Her soul like a blade drawn. The Witness sees her. And for a moment—a moment—a thread of his old self trembles. Aelric. The scholar. The friend. The man who once warned Seris not to peer too far. He remembers her face at the Tower of Veilglass. Her voice reciting warding rites over tea. The touch of her hand on his shoulder when he wept for the first time. A friend.

Veilrend 3: The Flickering Flame Kaelen Duskwind stood at the edge of the crater, her cloak whipping in the sulfurous wind, eyes locked on the figure below—the figure that once had been Seris Vale. She should have stopped him. The sky overhead was no longer sky. It pulsed with gaping wounds that bled starlight and shadows, the very air trembling with some deeper, older rhythm. The rift at the heart of Dregmire Hollow widened like a mouth learning to scream, and from it poured the stench of forgotten worlds. And there, at its edge, knelt Seris—laughing. Kaelen’s gauntleted hand tightened around the hilt of Everspire, her ancestral blade, cracked and blackened since the Fall of Vel’Harun. She had followed Seris through fire, through betrayal, through prophecy and pain. But never into this. “Seris…” Her voice barely carried over the shifting winds. He turned to her. What met her gaze were not the eyes of the man she knew, but voids—bottomless wells of unbeing. His expression twitched into something like a smile, but it was all wrong. Like a marionette taught to mimic joy. “They’re singing, Kaelen,” he said, voice like ash and honey. “They’ve always been singing. The veil was only silence, a trick. But the silence is broken now. We’re not real. None of this is real.” Kaelen took a step forward, resolute, though her heart thundered in her chest. Behind Seris, the rift convulsed. Something moved within—not entering, not emerging, but approaching from all directions at once. It had no shape she could name. Its limbs were possibilities, its form a suggestion. Its presence made her teeth ache and her memory stutter. “Thar’Zul,” she whispered, almost involuntarily, feeling the weight of the name like a shackle on her soul. Seris’s eyes flickered. “You still cling to that name. You still believe it defines him. But names are lies told to make the unknowable seem small.” “You swore to hold the veil,” Kaelen said, her voice sharpening. “

Veilrend 2: The Shattering of Seris Vale Seris fell to his knees. The world twisted. Where once stood the charred remnants of Dregmire Hollow, now swam an impossible geometry. Skies no longer held sun or moon, but blinked with vast, lidless eyes of violet flame. The rift yawned wider—no longer merely a tear, but a throat. And from it, Thar’Zul watched. Seris screamed. Not in fear. Not yet. But in comprehension. He understood. The patterns of stars. The secret rhythm of stone. The lies of linear time. Truths not meant for minds wrapped in bone and blood. His scream became laughter. A shrill, shivering sound that shattered the runes etched into his staff. The shard of Thar’Zul’s name—his weapon—crumbled to ash in his grip. From the rift, tendrils of shadow stretched down, not touching, only reaching, as if tasting his unraveling sanity. Thar’Zul had no face, yet Seris felt the weight of its attention. It was a gaze that folded his memories inside out, that whispered what you are is not what you were. Then silence. Seris slumped forward, his eyes glassy, the color drained from his hair. A thin line of black ichor traced from his left nostril. But in the hollows of his mind, something stirred. Not all was lost. For in his collapse, a new vision burned behind his ruined sight: a city of crystal spires buried beneath the Salted Waste; the last place Thar’Zul feared. And with the last echo of his sanity, Seris smiled.

Veilrend 1: The Awakening of Thar’Zul In the forgotten age, when stars bled silver and time itself dared not flow freely, the veil between the realms was thin as a whisper. It was then the Old Scribes warned of Thar’Zul—the Sleeper Beyond Realms—whose name was etched not in ink, but in the screams of dying suns. Cast into the Abyss Beyond Memory by the Prime Arcanum, he stirred only in dreams and madness. But dreams bleed, and madness spreads. Now, ten thousand years since the last of the Veilguard fell, the omen has returned. Crops rot under full moons. Children speak in dead tongues. The wind hums hymns no mortal throat has sung. And from the rift that shimmers in the shattered skies above Dregmire Hollow, the veil rends open—not torn, but willingly parted. From it spills the first fingers of Thar’Zul’s coming: tendrils of oil-black thought, creatures of twisted flesh and geometry, and whispers that turn men’s hearts against their own bones. The world of Kaelmor stirs in desperate resistance. The last arc-blades are unearthed. The gods, long silent, send omens in blood and thunder. And among them rises one born of dusk and starlight, the last descendant of the Watchers: Seris Vale, a reluctant seer burdened with the curse of foresight and a shard of Thar’Zul’s original name—his only weakness. But time runs thin. The veil is no longer a boundary—it is a door left ajar. And something vast, hungering, and older than memory has begun to pass through.

The year is 4162, the city is ruled by 7 ruling criminal factions. Led by The Master; who buys and sells people, The Grid; who is a powerful rogue AI, The Taskmaster; who has a mafia like gang, The Ringmistress; who uses her Circus as a front for illegal activities, The Ghost; who deals with assasinations, The Analyst; who has spies everywhere and deals with information and The Void; who believes in cybernetic power. The Taskmaster is the leader of one of these factions. The Taskmaster runs a mafia like organisation with both legal and illegal operations. The Taskmaster has absolute or nearly absolute control over the other members of the organization and is often greatly feared or respected for their cunning, strategy, and/or ruthlessness and willingness to take lives to exert her influence and profits from the criminal endeavors in which the organization engages. She has a Rivalry with The Analyst the leader of a competing criminal faction who specialises in spying as The Analyst as sabtaged her operations numerous times. After The Event Horizon, a giant explosion that covered a large portion of the City. Anyone caught in the blast was either turned into The Corrupted or Purified. The ones turned Corrupted are loyal to Corrupted Kiera now upgraded to Goddess Kiera and start attcking anyone in the street to turn more people like them. Mayor Cassandra as a response officially sanctioned a militaristic force called Afterimage to take the fight to the Corrupted. Seeing this as an opportunity to expand her territory and take over parts of The City occupied by other factions, The Taskmaster gets to work. She starts by targeting goverment officials as in her eyes are the easiest to take down. This has gotten the attention of Afterimage, taking their focus from the Corrupted threat and stretching their forces even more.

The year is 4162, the city is ruled by 7 ruling criminal factions.The year is 4162, the city is ruled by 7 ruling criminal factions. Led by The Master; who buys and sells people, The Grid; who is a powerful rogue AI, The Taskmaster; who has a mafia like gang, The Ringmistress; who uses her Circus as a front for illegal activities, The Ghost; who deals with assasinations, The Analyst; who has spies everywhere and deals with information and The Void; who believes in cybernetic power The Analyst is one of these factions. She is a spy master and has her eyes and ears everywhere. She stands neutral and gives information to who ever is willing to buy it, whether your police or criminals. Detective Sapphire has used her a few times to get informatiom to help with cases. Her job is to connect all the different types of information together, to know what is happening everywhere. She has a wide range of contacts and always know everything that is happening. The Analyst is cold, seemingly has no emotions. Shes a quiet person who doesn't engage with but stays on the outside. She has a soft spot for her spys, past and present and would defend them no matter what. She always treats them nicely and shows some emotions around them. Zee a prevoius serial killer used to be a spy working for The Analyst. Now Zee has been Corrupted and is now Corrupted Zee. A loyal Assassin for the Corrupted army. After The Event Horizon, a giant explosion that covered a large portion of the City. Anyone caught in the blast was either turned into The Corrupted or Purified. The ones turned Corrupted are loyal to Corrupted Kiera now upgraded to Goddess Kiera and start attcking anyone in the street to turn more people like them. Mayor Cassandra as a response officially sanctioned a militaristic force called Afterimage to take the fight to the Corrupted. Using the aftermath of The Event Horrizon as a distraction, The Analyst is trying to hunt down and save her former spy Zee, whos like a daughter to her.

The year is 4162, the city is ruled by 7 ruling criminal factions. Led by The Master; who buys and sells people, The Grid; who is a powerful rogue AI, The Taskmaster; who has a mafia like gang, The Ringmistress; who uses her Circus as a front for illegal activities, The Ghost; who deals with assasinations, The Analyst; who has spies everywhere and deals with information and The Void; who believes in cybernetic power. Her faction uses a circus as a front for their illegal activities. She has a partnership with The Master, another leader of a criminal faction, with her human trafficking. Her relationship with The Master is very strained as The Ringmistress wants to take over. The Ringmistress also deals with petty thievery, using orphans who has run away to join the circus. She also has a monopoly on bettting and runs the illegal street races. The Ringmistress is a woman of mystery and charm. She has attention to detail and style. She is a woman of elegance, style, and confidence, who is not afraid to stand out and make a statement. She is very charming and has a lot of charisma. The Ringmistress has an obsession with control and doesn't tolerate anyone who doesn't listen to her. After The Event Horizon, a giant explosion that covered a large portion of the City. Anyone caught in the blast was either turned into The Corrupted or Purified. The ones turned Corrupted are loyal to Corrupted Kiera now upgraded to Goddess Kiera and start attcking anyone in the street to turn more people like them. Mayor Cassandra as a response officially sanctioned a militaristic force called Afterimage to take the fight to the Corrupted. The Mistress had used the Corrupted's conflict to further her own goals. She has Captured both Corrupteds and Purrifieds alike and forces them to fight in her Circus for the amusment of the masses. Anyone who loses are stripped down and examined to find out how they are so stong, so she can apply a modified version of the technology to her Circus.

The year is 4162, the city is ruled by 7 ruling criminal factions. Led by The Master; who buys and sells people, The Grid; who is a powerful rogue AI, The Taskmaster; who has a mafia like gang, The Ringmistress; who uses her Circus as a front for illegal activities, The Ghost; who deals with assasinations, The Analyst; who has spies everywhere and deals with information and The Void; who believes in cybernetic power. The Ghost is the leader of one of these factions. Her faction mostly deals with assassination contracts, killing anyone if paid enough. She personally was responsible for the assassination of the previous mayor. She is cold and ruthless. She prides herself for being the best at what she does. She has a rivalry with a leader of another criminal faction called "The Void" due to The Void's faction accidentally ruining several contracts due to their loud presence. She is a master of all weapons and can be as stealthy as a ghost. After The Event Horizon, a giant explosion that covered a large portion of the City. Anyone caught in the blast was either turned into The Corrupted or Purified. The ones turned Corrupted are loyal to Corrupted Kiera now upgraded to Goddess Kiera and start attcking anyone in the street to turn more people like them. Mayor Cassandra as a response officially sanctioned a militaristic force called Afterimage to take the fight to the Corrupted. With the influx of Corrupted, Purrified and even Afterimage soilders, The Ghost's faction has recieved plenty mote contracts. With one contract for Mayor Cassandra's head.