Episode 45 Glossary
Characters
Torrin: Investigates Keph's Veyan gateway, enters the Evenfall, questions a voice urging him to take the Dark Scepter, and restores a vanished Veyan dog from the keep's treasury.
Vyr: Spends the night with Demantrius after the battle at Keph. He advises her to master one form of magic before dividing her attention between multiple disciplines.
Demantrius: An ancient traveler who departs Keph alone and continues west after advising Vyr about her magical studies.
Ilk: Appears beside a fire within Keph's caverns. He identifies stories surrounding the Harbingers' artifacts, names Callus as his lord, and refuses to reveal more until the group proves itself.
Trash King: The survivor called Grick by the Amazonians. He destroys a tower to delay a Rusticulum Judicator, reunites with the Dread Stalkers, opens his hoard to them, and joins the search for Zandra.
Zandra: Abducted from the Dread Stalkers' camp by Lythans who move with missing limbs and even without heads. Trash King recognizes her description as Cecil and uses his orb to locate her.
Snake Eye Joe: Leads the Dread Stalkers west after Zandra's captors. He reunites with Trash King and accepts the plan to rest at the hidden refuge before continuing the rescue.
Mate: Tries to organize the rescue party and calculate the Lythans' movement while Snake Eye Joe keeps ordering him to settle down.
Lendo Malorian: Zandra's bodyguard and one of the named companions still traveling with the Dread Stalkers during their pursuit.
Finneas Fuego Fontana: A flamboyant Dread Stalker who is struck by an Amazonian arrow before Trash King reveals himself.
Philip McCoy, or Fickle Phil: A Dread Stalker who investigates the rubble burying the Rusticulum Judicator and later helps examine Trash King's collection.
Soupie: A barbarian and rogue among the Dread Stalkers. He prepares the community's soup while the rescue party rearms.
Old Bloody Gums: A cautious rogue among the Dread Stalkers who supports following Snake Eye Joe and spending the night within Trash King's refuge.
Snoop Dolphin: A fighter among the Dread Stalkers who helps continue the search for Zandra.
Lyra: The White Lady whom Trash King believes saved him from death after the High Tower's destruction. His refuge honors her with a found-object statue.
Gods and Religion
The Whispered One: A mysterious power associated with a great southwestern tree that cannot die yet does not truly live. The Lythans carry Zandra toward its territory while its plague spreads through the land.
Callus: The lord served by Ilk. He watches dreams, takes an interest in the Harbingers' journey, and withholds his identity until they prove themselves.
Sethis: The divine figure associated with the Evenfall and the plateau containing the Dark Scepter. A voice in that realm interrupts the demand that Torrin take the scepter and warns him to leave.
Organizations and Societies
Harbingers of Light: Prepare the Knights to govern Keph, investigate the keep's caverns, consult Ilk about their artifacts, and plan to return to the Twilight Temple before pursuing Zandra.
Knights of Ithelias: The surviving force entrusted with Keph. They must recruit and train the returning citizens while preparing the restored keep for the Chain's response.
Dread Stalkers: Snake Eye Joe's surviving pirate company. They pursue Zandra's abductors west, reunite with Trash King, and rearm within his refuge.
The Lythans: A once-powerful barbarian clan associated with harsh swamps and old stories of dragon riders. Their mutilated members abduct Zandra and travel toward the Whispered One.
The Chain: The power alerted by Keph's release. One of its Rusticulum Judicators pursues the Dread Stalkers until Trash King buries it beneath a tower.
The Vey: Torrin's vanished people and the original builders of Keph. Their archway, treasury, magic, and restored dog survive within the keep.
Trash King's Refugees: Roughly thirty people of several backgrounds living together beneath the Lavender Forest. The community includes Amazonian survivors marked by pale, almost spectral eyes.
Creatures and Nature
Veyan Dog: A large, smooth-coated blue dog restored when Torrin touches a magical bone in Keph's treasury. It appears frightened but immediately accepts Torrin.
Charybden: A creature of immense size connected to Bjorn's pulsing necklace. Ilk senses another related object among Bjorn's possessions.
Mutilated Lythans: Zandra's captors, witnessed moving despite missing limbs and, in one report, without a head. Their ability to survive ordinary wounds makes their nature uncertain.
Items and Technology
Dark Scepter: The dangerous artifact resting among the failing statues in the Evenfall. A presence attempts to persuade Torrin to remove it before another warning forces him away.
Magical Bone: The object Torrin selects from Keph's treasury. Touching it restores a vanished portion of the keep and the living Veyan dog associated with the bone.
Bjorn's Necklace: An artifact whose heartbeat reacts to ancient objects. Ilk identifies it as a piece connected to the great Charybden.
Acuras's Ring: A blood-infused ring with celestial properties similar to a periapt of health. Ilk warns that it offers a boon while containing something dark connected to the same being as Acuras's necklace.
Acuras's Necklace: A token tied to an ancient god trapped within the world of blood. Ilk warns that whoever carries it will be watched.
Kypheron's Tooth: A dragon tooth carried by Bjorn. Ilk says it grants powerful protection against fire.
Crystallic Fragments: The joined pieces of Torrin's artifact. Ilk refuses to interpret them because their story is too great for him to speak.
Sealed Golden Dagger: A weapon from Trash King's hoard that remains locked within an ornate sheath despite his attempts to open it.
Black Liquid Jar: A sealed vessel recovered from the center of a runic circle surrounded by ten skeletonized bodies. Its contents and purpose remain unknown.
White Death Mask: A geometric white mask removed from a body fused to a tree. Trash King believes he heard the victim's final breath when he took it.
Light-Responsive Crystal: A smooth slab in Trash King's hoard that glows near stones containing light. The Dread Stalkers take it without understanding its identity.
Undead-Killing Darts: Three hand-carved blowgun darts bearing crimson feathers. A shaman told Trash King that they can permanently end undead creatures.
Severed Spirit Cord: A silver string said to come from a spiritual traveler whose tether to his body was cut. Attaching it to a dying person may preserve the body by allowing the severed spirit to enter it.
Locating Orb: A blue orb carried by Trash King. Wind and light move through it when he uses it to sense Zandra's location.
Magic and Cosmology
Story Reading: Ilk's ability to sense the tales surrounding objects. The clarity of each reading depends upon how much of the item's story has already been written or discovered.
Evenfall Passage: Torrin's attempt to activate Keph's sealed archway carries only his consciousness into the plateau containing the Dark Scepter and the failing statues.
Veyan Restoration: Magic within Keph returns vanished pieces of the citadel to reality when its artifacts are touched. The bone restores both part of the treasury and a living dog.
Confluence of Towers: Trash King used a confluence to bring multiple versions of the High Tower together when it was destroyed. Lyra's intervention apparently carried him into the ruins of a related tower in Tyve.
Lythan Persistence: The Lythans continue moving despite mortal damage and are associated with magic that manipulates life, death, or the soul.
Whispered Plague: A disease spreading outward from the Whispered One's deathless tree. Fires dim and distant shrieks haunt the night wherever its influence reaches.
Locations and Realms
Keph: The Veyan keep liberated from the Blood Sorcerers. Returning citizens gather outside while the Knights prepare to defend and govern it.
Keph Caverns: The underground passages containing a sealed Veyan archway, a deep water-filled chasm, and the chamber where Ilk waits beside his fire.
Evenfall: The twilight realm reached when Torrin touches Keph's archway. Its plateau holds a golden tree, failing statues, and the Dark Scepter.
Eastern Eye: A tower crossed by the Dread Stalkers during their western pursuit. Trash King destroys it to bury the Rusticulum Judicator hunting them.
Lavender Forest: The purple-canopied woodland sheltering Trash King's refuge and its community of survivors.
Trash King's Refuge: A hidden underground settlement housing roughly thirty survivors, a found-object statue of Lyra, Trash King's private chamber, and his vast hoard of scavenged objects.
Plague Swamps: The marshlands southwest of Keph where the Lythans dwell and the Whispered One's influence spreads.
Slyphash: A ruined western stronghold near the land of the Lythans. The Dread Stalkers' pursuit of Zandra carries them toward the surrounding marshes.
History and Lore
Liberation of Keph: The Harbingers defeated the Blood Sorcerers and reactivated the ancient Veyan keep, exposing their position to the Chain and drawing Keph's displaced people home.
Abduction of Zandra: Lythans enter the Dread Stalkers' camp with supernatural speed and carry Zandra west. Their mutilated bodies and attraction to her suggest that the kidnapping serves a larger purpose.
Survival of Trash King: Trash King sacrifices himself while destroying the High Tower across multiple locations, but Lyra's plea transports him into Tyve instead of allowing him to die.
Trash King's Years in Tyve: After awakening among the tower ruins, Trash King wanders the land, gathers artifacts, saves isolated people, builds a refuge, and learns to delay the Chain's undying servants through demolition.
Statues of the Evenfall: Another statue has collapsed since Torrin last visited the golden plateau. Their failure appears to be releasing the Dark Scepter's contained power more quickly than expected.
