Word of interesting events spreads quickly throughout the diminishing world. Although travel is difficult, the approach of the Disjunction has spurred tens of thousands into desperate flight across the land, and the news travels with them.

Travelling through the words of farmers and workmen across the world comes news of a Convocation called by the guild of peasants to be held at the Vihara Fountainhead; the source of the great river that flows eventually to the Hallowed Citadel.

"Come! Come! To the last market of the world. There is food here for those who deserve it, for the people who have worked the land for centuries. The peasants guild will offer the downtrodden the succour of the tilled lands, for it is theirs by right.

To those who have exploited the the poor, the workers, the masses; we call you to Convocation in peace. Come and trade with us, come see the last great bazaar of the end and understand that in uniting we can still achieve great things in the face of the darkness wrought by those in power.

Together we are strong and together we shall weather the storm."

Awed observations of the peoples' of Kyrine, Countrylandtopia and Empire of Blood and Skulls

“I heard the people of Kyrine called out as one in some great ritual and as they sang the horizon burned.”

“It happened at Destiny's Church they say. A shaft of light brighter than the noon day sun-that-was erupted from the great spire of the Church and pierced the heavens with a light so pure, so gloriously that for a few moments the shadows were banished.”

“I stood and watched as the beam soared into the sky, but even as it burned away the darkness about me I saw the skies churn and boil as from the thunderheads great fractured chains, engraved with runes of power, struck forth and encircled the light. The ground quaked and lightning crackled between the links as a voice born on the roar of the storm itself cried 'This shall not be!'.”

“It is a pillar, no a tornado, a column of grinding irons; wreathed in lighting and towering endlessly into the heavens. Occasionally, and just for an instant through the links, I could glimpse a light terrible in its intensity.”

Shortly before the Convocation and from every corner of the World a shaft of pure white light could be seen spearing into the sky; moments later winking out.

In the dark night that is upon us, hope does flicker constantly: it flickers on, and then, before it can be seen, it flickers out again, leaving the darkness darker than before, the coldness colder, the despair more total. This is the ultimate fact of this age, and doubting it is as futile as doubting the wind and the sea.

But the wind and the sea may soon be no more, and just as the old certainties are vanishing, so too does the certainty of despair. For I have heard hope in Richard Kallisto Aristodemos, and it still sings to me.

The event was magnificent; a duel to the musical death between the bards Richard and Barry, each fighting with great passion for their world view, with the superlative backing music of Xanti Thallius lighting up the background. Though Barry was by no means the crowd favourite, after a few transparent hymns to despair about Sebastien and Mordaeon, he dared and succeeded to sing the most harrowing composition I have ever heard: the song of the Disjunction itself. It felt as if the song had swallowed up hope just as surely as the Disjunction swallows all. Nothing could better it…

…Until Richard's voice rose against the darkness, triumphantly singing a heroes march against despair, kindling hope in the hopeless and faith in the faithless. It burned the cynicism from this old heart of mine, and was too perfect for me to blaspheme by attempting to describe it. When his voice broke in a deliberate gesture at the end, it felt as if we had descended from heaven and we stood blinking and stunned in a new dawn.

Richard's perfect triumph, formalised redundantly by the Tyrant of Kyrine, was marred only by Zishan's disgraceful attempts to twist and avoid responsibility. But still… Hope lives!

Almasiol, arch-priest of the cult of despair

Observations by nobles of the Patrician's Ward.

“The City… it moved… I never thought we'd make it…”

“We made it, didn't we? We're saved.”

“Indeed we are. Saved by that Aurora chap, the one with the collar.”

“And the people?”

“They were saved too, the ones that matter at least.”

“What happened to the others?”

“Scattered to the winds. The ones that made it out at least.”

Diary of Elmer Hightower

“The wonder of it. The sheer wonder. The Lord Protector has wrought a work of wonder beyond imagining. I know not how he managed it but the City walks, walks the world as the greatest masterpiece of horology that has ever existed.

Of course some would complain that the Lord Protector chose to abandon the Bondsman's Ward to the Disjunction, but such decisions are the province of the powerful and I believe the Lord Protector made the right decision. He has ensured the Guilds and the nobility are carried to safety; the great and the good protected. Thousands may have died by the best of the city has survived. I only pray they capture the terrorists who tried to doom the City in the Lord Protector's moment of glory.”

For hundreds of leagues around the City people watched as the entire central portion of the City rose on three great legs and began to stride slowly away from the approaching Disjunction, the massive appendages sweeping through the abandoned outer Ward of the City.

A tale exchanged between two displaced refugees from the City

“Sorcery! In the City.”

“I hear it was that captured Auroran Sorcerer working some great magic as he was slain.”

“I was in the Patrician's Ward at the time. Some sort of wave…a wave of blue light swept over us as the ground trembled and lightning crackled between the spires overhead. I thought I was doomed as those dancing gears streamed around me but they seemed to pour away into alleyways and dark corners of the City until, in an instant, they were gone. At last the arcane tempest stopped and I watched as the Watch kicked down the door of the Auroran estate. They brought out a corpse a few minutes later…”

“And?”

“It was headless. But I'd bet my life it was that Sorcerer.”

“Have you seen that play about Ingvar”

“The Beryllium Princess? Bloody brilliant ain't it?”

“Yeah, it was great! I mean, I knew that bloke was an hero, but I hadn't realised just how amazing he was. I mean how he disguises himself as the Doom Knight an' all that. He's cunning as well as brave!”

“You've got to hand it to that Xanti Thallius, guy knows how to put on a show.”

“Yeah, I mean when Ingvar, was fighting that assassin lady, and all her clothes were flying into the audience, it was like I was really there.”

“Genius!”

“The Rescue of the Princess of the Dread City of Beryllium” is proving a hit everywhere the circus travels despite frequent protestations from local churchmen. Ingvar's name is toasted in taverns across the land.

A recent scene played out in Emperor's Drop.

“CATCH HER! SHE'S RUINING EVERYTHING!”

“We're trying, but the witch is too fast. As soon as our men get reports she's in one place, she'll already have moved on. She's almost freed half the slaves and they're rebelling, interfering with our soldiers.”

“THEN KILL THEM ALL, I DON'T CARE IF THEY GET HURT ANYMORE. I WANT HER CAUGHT AND BROUGHT TO ME, ALIVE, SO I CAN BOIL HER MYSELF.”

“We're doing our best, m'Lady, but with the revolts our men are stretched too thin. We're trying to force the slaves back into their pens but there's just too many of them fightin' back.”

“YOU'VE FAILED ME FOR THE LAST TIME, ASTRUM ULULO.”

Rumours are rampant that a Heroine from the City has liberated thousands of slaves form the pens of Emperor's Drop

“So we was over there just tryin' to errr, recover a couple o' bits an pieces folks had left behind, when we see this thing in the sky.”

“That's right. We don't like the looks of that one bit so we nip inside a haystack and watch whilst these two sets of folks show up. They had themselves a bit of a barney.”

“Gods darn sorcerors wrecked half the town! Ain't nothin' left of Milluk's bar but burnt timbers.”

“Still one of them got taken down! Toughs they were fightin' must have got real lucky because all of a sudden someone's shoutin' 'Duncan, Noooo!' an then there were a hellish big explosion. Black an' silver flame done burnt away half o' Clem's store afore it snuffed out.”

“Anyhow was a good thing that those heroes showed up when they did- Richard Aristothingy an' Ingvar. Chased the last sorceror right out o' town.”

“Are you sure, I thought they were workin' with the Sorceror?”

“You got sand in your head? What're good guys like that gonna be workin' with a Willworker for? No like as not it were them that killed this Duncan fella, and then the other 'un got afrighted off!”

“Well that do make sense when you put it like that.”

Gossip from disgruntled landowners

Why on earth is Flavius Itsaso suddenly the man of the hour? About a year ago, he was a nobody. But now everybody likes him! Walk along to any peasant's home, and you'll find banners and some happy idiot telling you that we should all be united, that food should be shared equally and freely and so on. Hope and change, etc.

Well, at least he's expanding production. He's doing a lot better than Zishan's crew ever did - and let's be honest, no one liked that pompous arse. And the food is much cheaper now, so I'm not complaining. But all those people marching, saying Flavius's peasant's guild is their saviour… it just isn't right! It's not the natural order of things for peasants to be so organised. When they took out Zishan in the middle of his auction, man, that's gotta be a warning sign to all us landowners.

Can it really work out alright? I hear when Zishan went, all his men joined up with the peasants, citing that it's the right thing to do. But can such warriors get along with the unwashed poor? How long until it all falls apart? Or worse, how long until these people taste blood, and decide to add more to follow Zishan?

The words of an interrogation whispering through the palace of Astudan

“Tell me Acolyte, what did you see?”

“My Lord Left Eye. There were intruders within Astudan, infidels of the world-corrupt here in the heart of the City of Light. They came in secret into the Refulgent Alcazar and stole one of our number. We did not notice at first but then they began to massacre the faithful in the square before the gates.”

“You followed of course, to purge the darkness?”

“As is my duty Left Eye…but…but there was one among them; a man who burned with golden light of the Sun of old. He called forth fire to rend the faithful and caused the earth to swallow the Acolytes of the Blade who came upon him. He collapsed the Dome of the Alcazar. We fell back. We could not oppose them.”

“You fell back? You allowed the shadows who oppose the Son most Radiant to endure? You lacked faith?”

“Y…y..yes my Lord. I mean no. No!”

“Take him to the chamber of castigation, alert the Resplendent Judge.”

A traveller's tale

Living around the Erewhon desert, you kinda expect a boring life. But what's happened recently wasn't very boring at all. About a week ago, a sizeable force of men arrived. They were a mix of men - some Kyrinian, muttering about revenge or something. There was also a sorcerer - a terrifying man, with a sword made of an unknown material. But mostly there were the cultists of the True Church of the Void. They carried some strange contraptions of wood and cloth and string, and most waited.

A few days later, a wind came in, and I saw what the contraptions were for - with a favourable wind, they tied themselves to these devices, and FLEW! It was unbelievable, this army of men just lifting up from the ground, rising up. About a third of them crashed immediately to the ground of course in a horrible crunching noise, but enough got up high enough, to rise up and disappear into the big floating cloud thing. And then you could hear screaming and fighting for hours.

The cloud began to change shape as the fighting went on. It took a strange lurch, suddenly, and then the wind took hold of it, and tore it away to leave:

Yes, there, flying without support, was a vast fortress made out of some unknown, dark material. There was some sort of tree on top, and you could see the dots of Wardens of the Varkal Oak fighting with the other soldiers. There was a sail, too, but it burned to shreds before my eyes. It seemed that the wardens were caught wholly unprepared by the attack. Little dots screamed as they fell off the fortifications, and the thin string of reinforcements trying to climb up a rope ladder plummetted to the earth when that was cut. By the next day, the Oak was burning, the sounds of fighting ceased, and this… whatever it is, was firmly in the hands of the cultists.

From the diary of Dominik the Just, Knight of Riegland, found hung from a tree at the site of the Evenfall mass suicide

It was on the fifth day of our journey to find the Low Cavern that we came across the hamlet. What its name was, we shall never know, for all within were dead.

At the central square we found the most bodies. Dozens of men and women, each having cut their own throat, all kneeling, dead before the woman hanging from the Poplar Tree in the centre. On the tree were carved the words “I am the new sun. The darkness is banished.”

In the Squire's house we found the children. There are no gods left to thank that their end was merciful, for each lay down quiet on the floor, no mark, no harm done to their bodies, and a serene peace about their countenances. I can only hope that the poison was quick and quiet.

Some few, it seems, tried to flee this fate. We found them, ripped to pieces around the cottages and fields of mushrooms. I can only surmise they were killed before the suicide in the square.

I cannot face this world anymore. For twenty years I have served a nobler cause. But where is the light now that the sun is dead? Where is the light?

I go now to find a Poplar Tree, for I am the new sun. The darkness will be banished.

I can only hope that those who see me will understand, as the people of this unnamed hamlet understood, what I am trying to tell them.

Across the remains of the world, first hundreds, then thousands of people have been taking their lives in mass suicides. Although the theme is not universal, the death of the sun and the promise that the darkness will be banished by the deaths is prominent.

The Low Caverns are supposed to be a series of narrow and small passageways honey-combing through a rockface within the Erewhon Desert. The hardy desert-folk tell tales of strange sounds emerging from within, and how Atraidas, bearing the weapon known as Bane, which legends say was so sharp it could cut lies in half, entered but did not leave.

It is only when the fires are dying, and the only light comes from the glowing embers that they will speak of the deeper mysteries of the Caverns. Of how none who emerge are quite the same, or that deep within the subterranean vaults there are passages deep into the rock which take the form of the outlines of people. Two arms, two legs, a body and a head. And no two are exactly the same.

More of a hill than a mountain, Deryl's peak is a site of little no strategic value. It is the site of neither massive battles nor magical mishaps. No one important has ever done anything there that was worth writing a song about.

Nevertheless Deryl's peak is worthy of note because it is exceptionally pretty. Covered in a thick blanket of flowers, and isolated from the savagery of the end times by the fact that is contains nothing worth looting, it is a charming place to sitback and enjoy the beauty of the world. Whilst you still can.

The fabled residence of the Sorcerer-Scholar Prim, a Will-worker of old who is variously remembered for either his insanity or his genius depending on the authority giving the opinion. Centuries ago he was said to have been the most powerful Sorcerer in existence, so powerful that he dared to ascend to the peak of Mons Aeternae, throne of the Trinity, to see what he might find. Furious at his presumption the Gods hurled him to earth and imprisoned him within a crystal prison to serve as a lesson to any Sorcerer who dared to raise themselves so high.

For a hundred years he was said to have lived inside his crystal manse, descending into madness all the while. After a century so wild had his screams of insanity become that the Trinity commanded the Magisterium to seal the manse within a mountain nevermore to see the light of day. Thought lost or simply imaginary the recent earthquakes have sheared away the side of a mountainside to reveal a building of iridescent crystal.

No, no, no! You boil the gorillas in honey for three hours and thirty six seconds, not thirty eight seconds! Incompetent buffoon! You, sir are downsized; someone bring me an excutioner's axe and a new sous-chef!

• Lord Dreadulous favours mirrored helmets on his troops. That way he might see someone who respects him.
• No Gods. No Kings. Only Man.
• The tree is a bear!
• The tree is a godsherd!
• How many mushrooms do you need to make a soup? As many as you can take from prince Zishan
• If you haven't seen the champagne bottle trick, there's a girl at the Tre Rái Cá that's quite an eye-opener.
• Lord dreadulous is the tree!
• Painted in blood on a City alleyway: The world is running out of Twins. The Bloody Hands will grasp the Prize.
• Lord Dreadulous is so ugly that when he was young his parents had to tie a steak around his neck so the dog would play with him.
• The tree is a lie!
• I hear sun will be back soon and if that can happen then maybe the disjunction can be stopped too.
• The Lord Protector's sun has a beautiful aurora.
• The time of tyranny will soon be an end. Dreadulous, the Church, and the Radiant Son shall be first.
• No Gods. No Kings. Only Me!
• Lord Dreadulous is so conceited he probably thinks this rumour is about him.
• If you have something to hide, you could always run away and join the Circus.
• Rayne does more than tricks
• Richard Kallisto has killed a prince, that makes him a prince. And one third snapper.
• My Republic is full of eels.
• Flyteworthy you have failed me for the last time! AGAIN!
• 97,438 skulls and counting.
• There's an art to eating without using one's hands, and the Tre Rái Cá staff are very artistic.
• The tree is a new dish from the kitchens of Stew!
• …and that is what grieves Lord Dreadulous III the most.
• There are at least five sorcerers attending Convocations. One is dead.
• The end will finally come when Erewhon freezes over.
• Attempts to save the City are futile.
• The Toad stares on.
• The tree is tasty with a little bit of mushroom paste!
• This rumour is non-self referential.