Orange and gold leaves swept through the air. A cool breeze chilled the inhabitants of a small coastal town in Drustvar. The church bells rung at the odd time of 3:30 in the afternoon. Numerous expecting mothers shuffled into a small cellar behind the local inn. As the final of the 11 mothers entered the cellar, the door was locked behind them. Each mother had been set to endure hours long sessions of acupuncture to stimulate labor, whether it be too early or late for the fetus. The children that would go on to be born were preselected before life even began. Members of the village had their genealogical records recorded by a woman who had only gone by the title Inquisitor. Whether the parents knew of their family history or not, the Inquisitor knew. As each mother gave birth to their child, midwives selected by the Inquisitor within the village helped deliver the children. Each child had been inspected at birth by the towns healer for physical ailments or deformities. The Inquisitor made her rounds in examining each child. The Inquisitor dangled a small locket within reach of each child. The locket emitted a black foggy aura, causing most children to be repulsed. Any child that hadn't been repulsed by the aura was selected for ascension. Amongst this group of children, an elven girl had been born with hair layered with shades of plum. Her eyes were solid glowing orbs of mauve fading into white towards the center. She had been crying the entire time within the cellar, her mother tried her best to calm the child. When the Inquisitor made her rounds over to examine the child, the locket pulled the childs attention away from the waking world. Mesmerized, the child reached out and touched the locket, watching it gently swing to and fro. As the selections came to a close, the Inquisitor dismissed all of the mothers along with their children. The child with the plum hair was requested to stay. The mother had been offered a fair some of gold for custody over the child. The townsmen, being incredibly poor to begin with, had no choice but to accept the offering made by the Inquisitor. Upon a hill within Drustvar sat a large library. This library was made from stone cut thousands of years prior. The doors of the library were a heavy solid oak which has been routinely treated over the years. Lanterns were strung along the exterior to provide light to those around the facility. Within the libraries halls were countless aisles within the high ceiling structure that housed hundreds of thousands of ancient relics, scrolls, tomes, and works of art. Beneath the surface of the library held the housing and training of the Eventide Constellate. Indoctrinated at a young age, the girl that the Inquisitor selected would go on to be presented to the Seer of the Eventide to be bestowed with a name. Upon inspection, the Seer named the child Ivy. After the naming, Ivy had been raised within the basement of the library. Years had gone by and the training soon began for Ivy. Members of the Eventide Constellate had two paths: Custodial duties within the libraries walls or ascension to become Tribulationist's. Custodial duties included maintaining the library, keeping the texts in order, permitting visitors and processing their requests, collecting fees from visitors, and plenty of other menial tasks that one would do. The Tribulationist's were renowned members of the Eventide. The goal of the Tribulationist was to collect information regarding every society that had ever existed and to maintain those records. The Eventide has no agenda to push other than the acquisition of knowledge. However, Tribulationist's were also tasked with safeguarding the priceless literatures stored within the library. Because of dire necessity to protect the library, each Tribulationist is bestowed the Curse of the Eventide. Legend has it that the original Tribulationist made a pact with an ancient demonic entity to have his soul bound to a soulstone. The soulstone would be passed down through the generations to each Seer. The Seer would bind their soul to the soulstone. The soulstone would then go on to be placed somewhere in the world to be discovered by the next aspiring Seer. This binding granted the Seer an immense power but at the cost of sacrificing parts of their own body to achieve what they desired. Each Tribulationist goes through an initiation process where they need to sacrifice a sense to accept the Seer's power. The seer would sacrifice part of themselves along with what the initiate wished to sacrifice to bestow the Seer's gift. As long as the Seer is alive, the Tribulationist's have their power. Once the Seer who bound their power within their Tribulationist's passes, their protoge's pass as well. As a Tribulationist, the only way to avoid perishing is to obtain the current Seer's soulstone and rise to take the spot of Grand Seer. Each Tribulationist bound to the current Seer can sense the location of the soulstone, however, the closer they get to the soulstone, the more their bodies begin to decompose. Only those who wish to seek ascension push through the pain to acquire the soulstone. The Curse eats those from the inside out to prevent any Tribulationist from acquiring the soulstone. Those dedicated to serving the Eventide Constellate would be willing to put their bodies through such pain and agony to keep the Constellate alive. During Ivy's teenage years, she had elected to sacrifice her own vision to accept the gift the curse had to offer. During a ritual, the Seer had sacrificed a portion of himself to bestow the curses power upon Ivy. In turn, causing her eyes to develop thick cataracts. This had only been the first step in her ascension. Much of Ivy's time after her ascension was spent learning how to manage her blindness. The Seer at the time elected to spend more time with Ivy. Introducing himself as Vizzir, he was a young elven man. He too chose blindness to receive his gift. He found a lot of himself within Ivy. A burning passion for ascension, an adaptive nature, and a love for tinkering. At the time Vizzir offered to take Ivy under his wing, more so than letting her sit through redundant classes within the halls of the library. Vizzir trained Ivy how to read books without vision. Sacrificing a small fraction of herself, she could raise the ink on the pages to read over them with her fingers. She had spent a lot of time training herself to understand letters and pictures with her fingers. Each letter she felt began to appear in her mind and she could construct words. Vizzir had given Ivy a tour of The Spire. The spire was actually an even further underground library consisting of tomes from when the library was first constructed. The most critical of information was stored here because of how sensitive the works were. Within The Spire, Vizzir had given permission for Ivy to read a specific book titled: Aggamil's Technique. Aggamil was one of the most malevolent leaders the library had. Through the sheer agony he inflicted upon people came many great lessons on handling the curse. Aggamil's Technique was described as the following: Sacrifice a large portion of yourself to manifest the curse. The technique was incredibly risky because those who could not handle sacrificing up to half of themselves to manifest the curse normally succumbed to it. Those who were able to manifest the curse needed to continue to sacrifice parts of themselves to control the manifestation. Ivy was heavily intrigued by the technique. She wanted to prove herself within the Constellate. She had a desire to become something great. This was a thought pattern woven into many of the Tribulationist's as they were raised within the Constellate. Though trained to not be reckless, many of the Tribulationist's end up stalling in their rise to greatness. With Vizzir's permission, Ivy spent the next few years practicing Aggamil's Technique. She found herself needing to rest after each attempt as she would sacrafice much of her muscle, bone, flesh, and blood. Each attempt always failed, the manifestations she created were either too small or died incredibly quickly. These smaller manifestations gave Ivy an idea though. She modified Aggamil's Technique. The small manifestations she was able to muster up, she commanded to sacrifice half of themselves to duplicate. Within minutes, there were small imp like manifestations jumping all over The Spire. With a loud scream of frustration from the duplication, the manifestations each collapsed, being absorbed back onto Ivy. Ivy's body has been rejuvenated from the manifestations absorbed. This caught Ivy off guard. Ivy continued to practice the modified technique, able to control how many manifestations spawned. She was able to command how many sacrificed themselves to heal her. She even was able to merge manifestations into larger beings. She has presented this finding to Vizzir, whom told Ivy to never speak of it to anyone. What she had discovered was a loophole with the curse. The loophole being a means to self heal using the curse, rather than self sacrificing to the curse. Amazed by her finding, Vizzir sent Ivy off on a mission. With Vizzir's blessing, Ivy set off to find the soulstone. Vizzir could not tell Ivy where the soulstone was as any word spoken of it in the living world could be heard by those seeking it's power. Ivy could only use her senses to search for the soulstone. The trekk was long and harsh. Walking through many lands, all while blind, had her pose as an easy target for bandits. Often, she would be haggled by bandits on the road for her belongings. To which, Ivy often used her manifestations to attack the bandits. She didn't always get away unscathed. Often times she took several hits, slashes, or stabs before being able to summon the curses manifestations. Overtime her clothes became bloodied and grungy, which often scared people of towns she visited. Nearing the soulstone, she felt its aura draining her. For how close she was, it was easier to find it as the more pain she was in, the closer she was. She kept summoning manifestations only to heal herself. Her hair began falling out, the fat deposits in her body depleted, her skin wrinkled. She aged almost 50 years in a matter of months. As she began to vomit blackened bile, she knew where she needed to be. With the ground saturated, she began to dig with her hands. Several feet in the ground she pulled out a small glowing orb. With her hands grasping the orb, she felt its power surge through her. The cataracts in her eyes dissolved, the pain and suffering she felt trying to retrieve the soulstone had vanished, she was free. She was confused as to why Vizzir chose to hide the soulstone, why he didn't hang onto this power. To be continued