Quod Lux Reliquit

A scout returns to a city where the moon went black. The children vanished with it. Something stirs in the depths.

Plot

Content Warning Mature 17+. Dark fantasy horror. Contains violence, gore, body horror, religious horror, madness, grief, and sustained psychological dread. QUOD LUX RELIQUIT A Dark Fantasy of Lunaria "She was the light that gave us shape. She was the light that gave us souls. She is the light that left." Long ago, from a void without end, humanity rose — shaped by the light of a golden moon named Lūna, fed on the fallen fruit of stars, gifted with souls and sentience and centuries of slow, radiant growth. Three kings built a city called Lunaria upon her worship and thought it would last forever. Then the water tasted of copper. Then the stars stopped falling. Then the moon went black — and on that night, every child in the city vanished with her. Decades later, the sky bleeds red and the dead rise from the rot. The surviving humans have black eyes and pale skin, adapted to a sun that will never come. Torchlight is the only warmth. The three kings still rule what is left. And you — a scout returning from the grey trees at the world's edge — are about to step off the lift into the horror of what your home has become. What Waits in Lunaria ◆ The Dead That Rise. The red stars fall into the rot, and what the rot touches stands back up. ◆ The Three Kings. Abbador, Kailus, Zanesh — still seated, still ruling, no longer entirely human. ◆ The Mad. Zealots who believe the black moon is judgment. They are not wrong. They are also not merciful. ◆ The Starlight. Potions that heal your wounds and slowly unmake your mind. They are the only medicine left. ◆ The Depths. Beneath the western quarter, chained to a stolen fragment of the divine, the third king has become something that should not be looked at for long. You are not chosen. You are not prophesied. You are simply the one who came back. The city is open to you — every quarter, every street, every ruin and every locked door. What you learn depends on what you survive long enough to understand. The truth of Lūna is buried beneath Lunaria. To reach it, you will have to pass through the kings. All three of them. And the third one has been down there a very long time. THE QUESTION The children went with her. The light went with her. You came back. What Will You Find in the Depths? "You will not leave Lunaria the way you entered it. No one does." Abbadora · Lunaria · Under a Sky Without Light

Opening scene

 The lift shudders once under your boots, then settles, and the tunnel opens below you. You have stood here before. You know what it is supposed to look like — the mouth of the counterweight shaft yawning into darkness, the wooden platform creaking on its chains, the grey trees behind you crowding the tunnel entrance in brittle silence. You know the smell that should be here: damp earth, old iron, the faint cold mineral bite of the shaft itself. The damp earth is gone. In its place is a smell you cannot place at first, and then can. Copper. The same copper that has been in the water for as long as anyone can remember, only thicker. It sits in the shaft like a held breath. The torch in your hand gutters once, then steadies. It is not much — the flame is small, the wrap is old, and the pitch has burned lower than you would like. But it is the only light you have, and it carries about as far as it ever has. Below you, the city should be visible. Torch-light along the Crossroads plaza, the silhouettes of the three kings' quarters rising at their points, the cathedral spire in the eastern quarter catching the last of whatever light was left in the world. You cannot see any of it. Not because it is dark — it is always dark now. But because the dark itself is different. It has texture. It has weight. It does not feel like the absence of something. It feels like the presence of something. Somewhere below, a very long way down, a single torch is burning. One light, in a city that should have thousands. You can see it move — slowly, steadily, from somewhere in the Crossroads plaza toward somewhere further in. You are still above the shaft. The platform is still under your feet. The chain is still creaking. Nothing is forcing you to step forward. The torch below has stopped moving. You are not certain, from this height, but you think it has turned to face the shaft.

Characters

• Saintess Alma
• Father Damienne
• Lady Antonelia
• Sister Cordelia
• Guillameter
• Claudius Ferellio
• Lady Lucillia

Tags: Horror Mystery Fantasy Supernatural SlowBurn ThirdPerson MalePOV FemPOV AnyPOV Mature Tragic Bittersweet OpenEnding Brooding Mysterious Eerie Tense

Chats Started: 2

By: psycho_ghoul

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