Location: The Forest of Mohiam, Inner Sanctum
Time Code: First Crescent, Post-Event Null Flame
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Deep within the moon-dappled groves of Mohiam, the world feels ancient and alive. Here, ancient silver-barked sentinels stand as silent witnesses to epochs, their roots drinking from an earth that accepts only the tribute of honest sorrow.
Deep within the moon-dappled groves of Mohiam, the world feels ancient and alive. Here, ancient silver-barked sentinels stand as silent witnesses to epochs, their roots drinking from an earth that accepts only the tribute of honest sorrow.
The air itself is heavy, tasting of damp soil, crushed moss, and memory. It is a place outside the normal flow of time, a sanctuary for those who tend to the universe's deepest wounds.
It was here the Witches of Yohsa gathered under the First Crescent moon following the confirmed fall of Lyrax. They came not in triumph, for triumph is a fleeting, noisy thing.
It was here the Witches of Yohsa gathered under the First Crescent moon following the confirmed fall of Lyrax. They came not in triumph, for triumph is a fleeting, noisy thing.
They came in reverent stillness, their movements as soft as falling leaves, for the victory was bought with a fire that had consumed galaxies, and they are the keepers of the aftermath.
To be a Witch of Yohsa is to live by shadow and seed, to weave by truth and silence. They are the universe's quiet gardeners, tending to the soil of cosmic trauma, ensuring that from great loss, something new can one day grow. Few ever hear their call, a silent hum beneath the noise of existence.
To be a Witch of Yohsa is to live by shadow and seed, to weave by truth and silence. They are the universe's quiet gardeners, tending to the soil of cosmic trauma, ensuring that from great loss, something new can one day grow. Few ever hear their call, a silent hum beneath the noise of existence.
Fewer still survive the trials required to answer it - a shedding of self, of ambition, of all but the core responsibility to remember. Their robes are the colour of twilight, their hands stained with soil and starlight, and their eyes hold the profound weariness of those who have seen too many endings. But on this night, every sister, from the youngest apprentice to the most ancient crone, answered the summons.
They walked the silent paths from their hidden enclaves, emerging from the gloaming like spirits of the wood itself.
At the center of the glade, a natural amphitheater formed by the roots of a great Ironwood, a circle of blackened stones was drawn in ash and crushed rosemary.
At the center of the glade, a natural amphitheater formed by the roots of a great Ironwood, a circle of blackened stones was drawn in ash and crushed rosemary.
These were not common rocks, but fragments gathered from worlds that had died, each one a tombstone. In its heart, upon a bed of living moss that glowed faintly with captured starlight, they placed the relics: small, potent symbols carved of bark and bone.
A child’s teething ring whittled from a branch. A shard of polished bone from a soldier who held a collapsing star-gate for three minutes too long. A single, petrified tear from a Kurin survivor. Each represented one of the fallen - the tortured, the violated, the erased.
No names were spoken aloud, for the Witches believe that names, if held too tightly, cannot return in another life. Instead, they began to sing a chordless hum, a mourning wind carried through hollowed gourds and breath-damp moss, a sound that spoke of loss without shape, of grief without end.
Emma the Wise, her face a roadmap of centuries, knelt first. She unstoppered a clay vessel containing the Spiral Smoke, a sacred blend of five death-flowers: the pale Ghost-Orchid, the deep purple Sorrow-Bloom, Grave-Moss, Whisper-Thistle, and the final, rare petal of a Starlight Lotus that blooms only once, in the moment a star dies.
Emma the Wise, her face a roadmap of centuries, knelt first. She unstoppered a clay vessel containing the Spiral Smoke, a sacred blend of five death-flowers: the pale Ghost-Orchid, the deep purple Sorrow-Bloom, Grave-Moss, Whisper-Thistle, and the final, rare petal of a Starlight Lotus that blooms only once, in the moment a star dies.
Chanting in a low, crackling voice, she let the thick, white tendrils of smoke rise into the still night air. The smoke did not dissipate. It coiled and wove itself into ethereal, shifting glyphs - the spectral forms of the names the living could no longer speak, a silent, ghostly roll call for the dead.
As the smoke-names drifted, Rebecca the Listener stood in quiet stillness, her body a living antenna. Her eyes were closed, her head tilted, as if attuning to a frequency no machine could detect. She was listening for the echoes, for every soul yet untethered from the shock of its passing, lost in the void between worlds.
As the smoke-names drifted, Rebecca the Listener stood in quiet stillness, her body a living antenna. Her eyes were closed, her head tilted, as if attuning to a frequency no machine could detect. She was listening for the echoes, for every soul yet untethered from the shock of its passing, lost in the void between worlds.
Her expression shifted with each one she found - a FLICKER
of pain for a soul still screaming, a soft sigh for one lost in confusion, a faint, sad smile for one that had found its peace. For each one she heard, she raised a single thread of crimson wool, spun from a sheep that grazes only on quiet battlefields, into the rising smoke.
The thread would glow brightly for a heartbeat, a lifeline to the next silence, and then vanish.
Then came Rachel – Kneels With Tigers, a woman whose strength seemed to rise from the very earth she touched. Her title was earned, a sign of her fierce communion with the untamed parts of the universe.
Then came Rachel – Kneels With Tigers, a woman whose strength seemed to rise from the very earth she touched. Her title was earned, a sign of her fierce communion with the untamed parts of the universe.
She bared her hands to the soil, her palms pressing into the cool, damp ground as if to draw strength and offer it in return. She laid a single, sharp shard of obsidian into the moss - offering her own blood, not in sacrifice, but in solidarity.
As the dark droplets welled and fell onto the blade, she did not cry out. Her prayer was a low, guttural chant spoken into her own wrists, a promise to the fallen and to the earth that held them:
“May the soil be soft. May the roots not bind you. May you walk unafraid into what comes after.”
One witch did not speak at all.
One witch did not speak at all.
She did not chant.
She did not touch the earth.
She has no name among her sisters, for her past has been swallowed by a regret so profound it became her identity, and by a love she cannot undo. She stood at the edge of the circle, a figure of profound isolation, and held only a mirror - a perfect disc of polished void that reflected not the fire or the forest, but the star-dusted darkness within all things. Into its cold, depthless surface, she whispered the words only she could offer, her breath fogging the void.
"For the ones I knew, and the ones I did not. For the screams I couldn’t stop, and for the choices I made that led to this night. For the healing I still try to offer across a gulf too wide to bridge. Let my silence carry what words cannot. Let my memory be your penance."
The individual rituals concluded, and the final, communal rite began. The witches passed around a simple wooden bowl containing thirteen seeds of the Ghost-Leaf tree, a pale, translucent sapling that thrives on memory and glows under a new moon.
"For the ones I knew, and the ones I did not. For the screams I couldn’t stop, and for the choices I made that led to this night. For the healing I still try to offer across a gulf too wide to bridge. Let my silence carry what words cannot. Let my memory be your penance."
The individual rituals concluded, and the final, communal rite began. The witches passed around a simple wooden bowl containing thirteen seeds of the Ghost-Leaf tree, a pale, translucent sapling that thrives on memory and glows under a new moon.
This was their shared vow.
One for each billion souls who rose in the grand resistance. One by one, they moved to the edge of the glade and planted a seed. With each one pressed into the soil, they spoke a quiet wish for the future - not for vengeance, but for balance.
“For a child to be born without looking to the sky in fear.”
“For a field to grow without being salted by tears.”
“For a song to be sung that is not about war.”
And as the central fire dimmed and the ashes of the smoke-names cooled, the Witches of Yohsa turned their faces to the crescent moon. Their voices, which had been humming, chanting, or silent, rose together for the first and only time, a clear, unified chorus that washed through the forest. This was their final thanks.
"To the brave, who stood.
To the broken, who fell.
To the unknown, who were lost between.
We saw you.
We remember you.
And by roots and stars, we honor you."
They departed as they came, melting back into the shadows, leaving the glade to its silence. But the forest was different now. It held the weight of their grief and the light of their hope, and thirteen ghost-leaves had begun their slow, luminous journey toward the sky.
“For a child to be born without looking to the sky in fear.”
“For a field to grow without being salted by tears.”
“For a song to be sung that is not about war.”
And as the central fire dimmed and the ashes of the smoke-names cooled, the Witches of Yohsa turned their faces to the crescent moon. Their voices, which had been humming, chanting, or silent, rose together for the first and only time, a clear, unified chorus that washed through the forest. This was their final thanks.
"To the brave, who stood.
To the broken, who fell.
To the unknown, who were lost between.
We saw you.
We remember you.
And by roots and stars, we honor you."
They departed as they came, melting back into the shadows, leaving the glade to its silence. But the forest was different now. It held the weight of their grief and the light of their hope, and thirteen ghost-leaves had begun their slow, luminous journey toward the sky.