Episode 32 Glossary
Characters
Torrin: Appears in an ancient memory as a Veyan commander sent to recover Acuras from the Chained City. In the present, he remembers the mission, receives an intercepted Sending, and supports the journey to Dragdah.
Acuras: Ancient prisoner called the Crimson Knight. The Vey retrieve him from the Chained City, transport him to Tyve, and immediately arrest him under Valens Avarith's authority.
Verian: Torrin's husband and former overseer of the Chained City. He raises the prison from the ground and abandons it after seeing futures in which the Vey are forgotten.
Flint: Torrin's ancient first officer and a developing acolyte of Sethis. He kills the Shadowless guardian, succumbs to Argalus's influence, attacks Torrin, and is pulled from the transport between realms.
Floyd: Veyan archer who remains behind Torrin's daylight and encounters the faceless candle-bearer. Torrin removes the immediate curse, but she retains the memory of its song.
Veyan Warden: Keeper of the Chained City's central mechanism. He explains Verian's prophecy, gives Torrin the prison key, and later submits to an unseen mother before falling from the bridge.
Valens Avarith: Radiant Veyan lord who receives Torrin's returning expedition and arrests Acuras with a spear at his neck.
Kiera: Ilferan healer traveling with the Harbingers. She explains her clan's lost traditions, the Drowned One's corruption, her parents' sacrifice, and her desire to complete the ancestral pilgrimage.
Ned Flan'Deres: Paladin and bodyguard of Zandra who volunteers to help rescue Helena, bringing his devotion to Azran and an impractical quantity of personal belongings.
Silas: Former Gavran captain who joins the mainland journey and pledges his blade to protecting the innocent.
Gods and Religion
Sethis: Divine source of Torrin's ancient twilight sanctuary and daylight. The Shadowless Vey are early products of efforts to remove darkness from Sethis's people.
Mother Argalus: Name cried by Flint as otherworldly hands pull him out of the Veyan transport. Zandra identifies an Argalus as a primal emotional being that crosses from beyond the veil when its associated feelings become overwhelming.
Azran: Dragon god of golden light served by Ned Flan'Deres. Ned's faith motivates him to bring divine light into Tyve despite his weakened connection.
The Drowned One: Sea-born goddess who offered power and safety to Kiera's Ilferan elders in exchange for recurring human tribute.
Teller of Stories: Green-eyed enemy followed by the Denari and opposed by the ancient Vey. A freed human prisoner bears the Teller's sign and predicts the Vey's erasure.
Organizations and Societies
Ancient Vey: Civilization capable of creating floating prisons, shadow-removing rites, magical transport devices, and crystalline mechanisms. Torrin commands one of its elite expeditions.
Chained City Expedition: Torrin, Flint, Floyd, and other Veyan soldiers sent to investigate Verian's abandonment and relocate the Crimson Knight.
Denari: Firstborn people associated with the Vey's ancient enemy. One imprisoned Denari declares the Vey unworthy of the stars' perfect gifts.
Dregda Moor: Feared ancestral barbarian people whose dead may still offer guidance at Dragdah. Even Keph's Blood Sorcerers historically avoided conflict with them.
Ilferan Traditionalists: Secret resistance within Kiera's clan that opposes the Drowned One's sacrificial cult and seeks to recover the old barbarian ways.
Mainland Outpost: Forward base being constructed by Zandra's company around the Twilight Temple portal, with a watchtower, palisade, and reinforced archway.
Harbingers of Light: Choose an indirect rescue strategy for Helena by seeking knowledge at Dragdah rather than attacking Keph immediately.
Creatures and Nature
Shadowless Vey: White, luminous survivor created when darkness was removed from a Vey. She warns Torrin that the extracted darkness became hungry before Flint destroys her.
Faceless Candle-Bearer: Smooth white manifestation that carries a candle made of dripping blood, sings Tyve's song, and leaves visions of mutilated bodies wherever it moves.
Scarecrow Apparition: Repeated image associated with the Chained City's madness. Torrin later remembers the same figure watching from the ruined mainland village.
Denari Firstborn: Impossibly beautiful prisoner whose form cannot be fully comprehended by everyone present. The being leaves its cell without gratitude or resistance.
Rusticulum Body: Human remains reduced to scarred, bulbous tissue and fused into engraved armor. Two wolf brands and extensive whipping marks are visible beneath the metal.
Blind Jackal Trail: Animal tracks that follow one adult and two children into the forest. All humanoid evidence disappears without blood, drag marks, or a visible struggle.
Unknown Winged Creatures: Multiple distant beings heard shrieking and taking flight during the Harbingers' first night on the road.
Items and Technology
Veyan Transport Artifact: Rare device carried by Torrin that can return the expedition from Adra to Tyve. It requires effort to activate and cannot function within Acuras's restraining glyphs.
Torrin's War Hammer: Ornate Veyan weapon that absorbs a magical barrier and channels Sethis's daylight through a luminous center.
Warden's Key: Intricate key worn by the Chained City's warden and required to open Acuras's central prison.
Acuras's Restraining Glyphs: Four red seals that suppress the Crimson Knight and prevent the transport artifact from functioning until destroyed.
Floating-City Mechanism: Tower of golden machinery, white crystals, and concentrated magic that suspends the Chained City above Manus.
Rusticulum Armor and Chain: Engraved metal fused directly to a tortured human body. The Harbingers leave its heavy controlling chain undisturbed.
Torrin's Protective Dome: Ritual shelter large enough to protect the traveling company during its nights on the exposed mainland road.
Magic and Cosmology
Extraction of Darkness: Early Veyan attempt to purify Sethis's followers. It produces Shadowless Vey while allowing separated darkness to develop an independent hunger.
Veil Prophecy: Verian and the warden combine sadness, death, darkness, light, and twilight to view possible futures in which the Vey lose and vanish from history.
Argalus Realm: Red-black space glimpsed during the failed transport, filled with lightning and overwhelming fear, desperation, grief, isolation, and mania.
Argalus Incursion: Emotional pressure allows the faceless presence to distort perception, animate images of carnage, compel obedience, and reach into magical transportation.
Twilight Sanctuary and Daylight: Sethis-derived powers Torrin uses to protect the expedition from fear and force the Chained City's darkness away.
Sending Interception: Torrin's attempt to contact Helena reaches the Chained City presence instead, which repeats its warning without consuming the spell.
Vanishing Tracks: One adult and two children disappear from the forest without physical evidence of violence, leaving the method and destination unknown.
Locations and Realms
Chained City: Veyan citadel converted into a prison and magically raised above the ruined colony of Manus. It contains thousands of abandoned captives and a central Argalus infestation.
Manus: Former Veyan colony on Adra, lost after prolonged war with the continent's inhabitants. Its ruins lie far below the floating prison.
Adra: Distant continent where the Vey established Manus and the citadel later called the Chained City.
Central Mechanism Tower: Eight-hundred-foot structure powering the Chained City's flight and containing the warden within a pool of white light.
Central Prison: Glyph-sealed chamber holding Acuras until Torrin's expedition retrieves him.
Twilight Temple Outpost: New mainland base surrounding the portal back to the Twilight Temple. Zandra's people begin fortifying it after Helena's disappearance.
Ruined Village: Settlement destroyed by the Rusticulum below the outpost. One boy survives, while three other residents vanish into the forest.
Dragdah: Dregda Moor fortress buried within the ice of the Veng'namar Plateau and the Harbingers' chosen source of knowledge against Keph.
Tch'nev: First major settlement on the route toward the plateau and Dragdah.
History and Lore
Abandonment of the Chained City: Verian raises the prison and leaves its population to die after concluding that the Vey are defeated in every future he can see.
Fall of Manus: The Vey lose their Adran colony after a prolonged war and retreat into their most formidable regional citadel.
War of Fang and Fire: Ancient Dragon War in which an imprisoned Veyan warrior abandoned a pivotal battle, causing many deaths. Torrin refuses to release him.
Arrival of Acuras in Tyve: Torrin obeys the king's order and retrieves the Crimson Knight from Adra despite the warden's warning. Valens arrests Acuras the moment the transport arrives.
Attempt to Awaken Older Powers: Verian and the warden believe entities older than the gods might disrupt the future that destroys the Vey, even if those beings consume indiscriminately.
Dregda Moor Pilgrimage: Barbarian clans once traveled to the Veng'namar Plateau for guidance from Dragdah's ancestral dead without entering the buried fortress itself.
Corruption of the Ilferans: Kiera's clan gradually loses its mainland traditions and ability to rage, then accepts the Drowned One's power and begins sacrificing dissenters.
Survivor Named Ned: The last boy in the ruined village is escorted to the outpost, where he can reunite with the brother previously rescued by the Harbingers.
