IX. Tears of Blood

The water speaks to those who listen. It spoke to me of ancient wrongs and stirring darkness, of seals cracking beneath the weight of blood. What I witnessed in my visions I have set down here, though the writing of it brings me no peace. Know that the lake remembers what lies beneath, and now, fed by the river of death, it begins to wake that which should have slept forever.

- Revealed to Sister Morvaine, Oracle of the Veiled Waters, in trance-visions that left her blind for seven days

9:1 Know that blood is never merely blood. It carries memory, intention, the echo of the life it sustained. Blood spilled in violence speaks a language older than words.

9:2 As the battle for Rivermount raged, the blood of the fallen flowed freely - Elf and Orc, Human and Troll, Dwarf and beast. The River Letha received them all without judgment.

9:3 Day after day, the sacred river carried its crimson burden through forest and vale. Its waters, once crystal clear, grew dark with the testimony of war.

9:4 Know that rivers remember their course. The Letha flowed as it had always flowed - onward, downward, toward the still black waters of the Lake of Shadows.

9:5 Beneath that dark mirror lay the ruins of a place spoken of only in whispers - the Sunken City, swallowed by the waters in ages beyond memory for sins that even history had forgotten.

9:6 It is said that the city had once been ruled by Malcath, an Elven king who sought to rival the gods themselves. He had delved into forbidden mysteries, made pacts with entities from the void between worlds.

9:7 Know that those who reach for power beyond their nature invite their own destruction. The land itself turned against Malcath, dragging his civilization into the depths.

9:8 Yet destruction is not always ending. Some things, when drowned, do not die - they merely sleep. And sleeping things may dream. And dreaming things may wake.

9:9 The blood that flowed into the lake was heavy with rage and despair, with the final thoughts of the dying and the hatred of those who killed them. It sank through the dark water like stones.

9:10 Know that in the depths, something stirred. Something that had forgotten its own name in the long darkness, but had never forgotten its hunger.

9:11 The ancient seals that had bound this force began to fracture. They had been made of silence and forgetting - but blood remembers, and blood speaks.

9:12 Each life lost upon the battlefield was another crack in the ancient barriers. Each death, another syllable in an invocation none had meant to speak.

9:13 The waters of the lake began to churn where no wind stirred. Dark tendrils of power coiled through the depths, reaching toward the submerged ruins.

9:14 Know that the defenders above perceived none of this. Their eyes were fixed upon the enemy before them. They could not see the doom rising beneath their feet.

9:15 Yet the creatures of the lake knew. Fish leaped from the water to die upon the shore rather than remain. Birds refused to fly across the surface. The very air grew heavy with dread.

9:16 Then, with a sound like the groaning of the world itself, the lake seemed to cry out. Waves crashed upon distant shores, and from the depths rose a voice - ancient, hungry, pleased.

9:17 Know that what wakes in darkness does not wake gently. It wakes with appetite. And the blood of war had whetted that appetite to a razor's edge.

9:18 The sleeper stirred toward consciousness. And in the stirring, the world trembled.