It seemed, almost paradoxically so, that every window upon Dark Alchemy pointed towards the Transmutation. Alexus Repentious always forgot how beautiful it was each time he looked away, always remembered each time he looked back. To look and not forget would be to go mad. There were things that had no place in this universe. He flexed his hand. No, he thought, no place at all.
He turned his gaze from the void with the practiced ease of an Alchemic Twila and walked down the hallway, finding the scents had not changed since he was a boy. He mused at that fact, wondering if that metal aroma was the same one his forebears had breathed millenia ago. It would not have surprised him. It could all have been intentional, knowing the alchemists. They loved their history. He was brought back to his time as a Covalent in the apprenticeship of lonesome Master Abreius. {Let me tell you a story} he used to begin, {no, not a story, a chronicle, the sacrifices of those who came before that have let us come so far…}
Alexus brought in a gasp of air and let the memory take him.
– Paxos and Lithia –
Something yet lives at Mercy’s End
2979 BBT
Cruxus Alchemic Demilitarized Zone
Mercy’s End was the first world to fall in the War of Unjust Retaliation. The surface was beautiful once, but since the early days of the war the planet had begun to rot. A world that had once sustained billions now was populated in the thousands, essential workers only. The most conservative estimates gave it 7 years before a total ecological collapse, and by then it would require a partial terraform if it was to ever be brought back to prominence. The wait list of such worlds was expansive, and Lithia doubted the Syringeheads would be willing to part with such a potent reminder of their fury. Struck down from above and below, the Realm of Saints was now occupied territory.
Even the motherland betrayed them in the end.
It was to Mercy’s End that Lithia and Paxos arrived. They had been called to assist the Overseer in investigating a massing archeological dig as their penitence for sins they insisted were uncommitted. The Guardian fleets were expansive, impossible to call a monolith (at least according to the crew therein), so while the Dread Realm of Drellun called for a gray slate the cooler heads on Auren prevailed. Instead, soldiers would earn their freedom in service to the new trinity, what some were already calling the second Twilight Ascendancy. Refusal of Aesis’s mercy was treason. Those with suspended citizenship were not quick to commit treason. Not anymore.
When Lithia had first read the briefing, she’d thought the details were overexaggerated. As it turned out, the office of the Preceptor-Baron was meticulous, and the elevator kept descending as the minutes ticked away. The Baron himself stood across from her, with Paxos to her left. The glow from their hair seemed to vanish as it touched the stranger’s void suit, with only the scraps of light not devoured by the structure sparkling across its surface. His name was Vekyll, apparently the fourth of his house if his decorated pauldron was anything to go by.
[You’re a Daw, aren’t you? Like us] Paxos flashed, gesturing to the exposed hands of their overseer. [I didn’t know the houses allowed such things in their hierarchy]
[There is much you don’t know about my people, much that I would not care to teach you after all that has occurred. I have seen your records, I know your crimes against my people and my family, and I remain unconvinced of your proclaimed innocence in the face of such horrors unimaginable] He looked down and let out a rasping sigh. [For now all our hands are tied. We shall simply descend this cursed pit in search of your lost kindred, and we will see how many souls it brings back to the surface]
Semi-Retcon
So I’ve been thinking a bit about this and I’ve decided that while I would like to continue the lore I planned to drop here, this is not the place to do it. So while the framing narrative for this is now defunct, I will seek other ways to expand upon the lore of the Alchemists and how they’ve developed. This’ll also free myself to do solo rps I’m passionate about and that have actual pacing planned out.