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![[GIFT]"Certainly Nowhere"](http://d.furaffinity.net/art/danaers/1644439688/1644439688.danaers_20211129_192646.jpg "Click to change the View")
Danathius blinked. He felt...strange. His consciousness, his very being, had been dragged by...something through various dimensions and astral barriers. He couldn't physically feel anything, but his sight and hearing seemed to be functioning, at least. He had a form. It was almost indistinguishable from his normal body...except that he was incredibly pale. And see-through. Exactly like documented cases of fully manifested spirits and ghosts. That fact didn't exactly sit well with Danathius, and he grimaced while internally panicking. Was he dead? Had his spell to resurrect Kherrox failed?
"...doing here?"
The mage paced back and forth. His mind began whirring and spinning while he tried to process exactly what had happened, outside distractions be damned. He went over the incantations of power and the mana yields again. The spell was flawless! He had fine-tuned it again and again! He remembered feeling Mana being drained from his body as he poured his will into his spell, intoning it into existence, altering reality itself.
"...talking to you."
Danathius froze dead in his tracks. The last thing he remembered seeing, besides Kherrox's reconstructed body on the ground before him, was a pair of large, yellow eyes with slitted pupils; and they had been staring directly at him. Or rather, it felt like they had been staring through him. He could still feel the malice behind that oppressive stare... It was a known and documented phenomena that occurred on Altreak, true, but it only occurred in a very specific circumstance: near death experiences.
"Boy, if you don't answer me, I can't help you," an eerie whisper of a voice finally pierced Danathius's awareness, making itself known to the human. Danathius jumped and spun on his heels, turning to face the source of the noise. He finally spotted whatever had been calling to him, and he only grew more confused. Floating before him was a strange figure; it seemed vaguely humanoid...it had two arms, two legs, a torso and a head. But it was featureless, and its skin looked as though it were composed of nothing but black mist. Wisps of smoke billowed off of the hovering hominid, but its body never dispersed and faded into nothingness.
"Oh. Sorry -- thought I was alone," Danathius finally mustered up enough courage to speak. He could only gawk at the sentient mist, with his head canted to one side. The entity reached out a long, wispy arm, and gently pushed up on Danathius's chin, closing his gaped mouth.
"There, much better," the mass of wisp stated, before it turned and began to float away. Only it did not turn, so much as briefly retreat into a cloud of smoke, and then reform its smoky body facing the opposite direction of Danathius. It briefly stopped in place to beckon to Danathius, "come, come, follow. You don't want to stay out here. You'll only anger the Volcaire by doing so."
Danathius's eyes narrowed with suspicion, but he told himself to keep an open mind. He had nothing to lose by following this strange being, after all.
"So..." Danathius began, but he found himself interrupted by a rattling cackle from the entity.
"Yes, you're dead. Well, mostly. There's something different about you...you have this weird aura. It's like..." the talking mist began, but soon it fell silent, before its thick smog dispersed and spread, disappearing from view. Danathius gasped, but he soon found tendrils of black smoke whirling around him. He could feel the entity's presence all around him, and while he did, he noticed that his form began to glow with a soft, but brilliant, golden hue. The smog, sensing Danathius's apprehension about being surrounded, dissipated once more and formed into a more human shape before the mage.
"Oh, you're certainly not entirely dead, yes! How strange! I should inform the Volcaire...and yet, this is much, much more interesting," the entity gushed with enthusiasm. Danathius didn't know if that boded well, but he did feel a little more comfortable talking to an entity that at least shared some joy in discovering new and exciting knowledge.
"Sorry, the Volcaire," Danathius asked with an arched eyebrow. They obviously were the authority around here, Danathius had surmised, but hopefully this creature could enlighten him further on what they were exactly.
"Ah, you must not have seen the beast that dragged your life essence here. Don't worry, you'll see more of them soon. Suffice it to say, the Volcaire are large, multi-limbed organisms, bipedal in stance and about as tall as twice of you stacked on top one another. They have segmented bodies with spiky and chitinous exoskeletons! Very fascinating creatures, unlike anything else in this universe," the entity happily explained. Danathius again found himself frowning.
"Like giant, walking insects, great," Danathius sighed. Well, at least he had confirmation that he was dead. He glanced around, and found himself surprised -- he was no longer staring into a white, endless void. Dirt and stone littered the ground, and trees grew in the distance. There were even fields of grass surrounding an old, rusted gate that seemed to go on forever in either direction. The entity floated before the gate, its attention entirely focused on Danathius. Blinking again, Danathius finally noticed what else was strange about his surroundings: it entirely lacked color. Everything was greyscale, with only shades of black, grey and white blanketing the landscape.
"So...where exactly am I," Danathius was compelled to ask now. The field, the gate, everything had suddenly materialized... Was this all in Danathius's head? Or was he actually someplace else in the universe?
"Well, this place didn't reeeeeally have a name. Rather, I wasn't really interested in giving it a name. But I believe there as an individual from a long time ago..." the smoky entity floated back and forth, and a sound akin to snapping one's fingers echoed from the entity, "oh, what was its name...? Right! It called itself Virgil, from some place called Earth!"
"Okay..." Danathius replied, a bit confused. He wasn't really following, but the entity had been glancing at him expectantly... "so am I on Virgil, or Earth?"
"No, you didn't let me finish! It's a great story," the entity laughed, and Danathius swore he could see the mist swirling into a smirking face as the being continued, "He said "Úbi sum," and I said I didn't know. And then he turned to me and said "ego certe nusquam," and I liked the interaction so much I named this place after it! Welcome to Certe Nusquam! I think in your language, it translates to 'certainly nowhere.'"
"Huh. Certe Nusquam..." Danathius echoed, glancing back at the entity with uncertainty. The mage found this creature's excitability refreshing, but a little abrasive at the same time, considering that Danathius was, for the moment, quite dead.
A lovely gift I received from CartoonSnacks, as part of a commission that I will have to upload here soon... :> But she stripped out Danathius and gave me him as a stand alone image. I love how he looks in her style!
Artwork © CartoonSnacks
Danathius © Me
"...doing here?"
The mage paced back and forth. His mind began whirring and spinning while he tried to process exactly what had happened, outside distractions be damned. He went over the incantations of power and the mana yields again. The spell was flawless! He had fine-tuned it again and again! He remembered feeling Mana being drained from his body as he poured his will into his spell, intoning it into existence, altering reality itself.
"...talking to you."
Danathius froze dead in his tracks. The last thing he remembered seeing, besides Kherrox's reconstructed body on the ground before him, was a pair of large, yellow eyes with slitted pupils; and they had been staring directly at him. Or rather, it felt like they had been staring through him. He could still feel the malice behind that oppressive stare... It was a known and documented phenomena that occurred on Altreak, true, but it only occurred in a very specific circumstance: near death experiences.
"Boy, if you don't answer me, I can't help you," an eerie whisper of a voice finally pierced Danathius's awareness, making itself known to the human. Danathius jumped and spun on his heels, turning to face the source of the noise. He finally spotted whatever had been calling to him, and he only grew more confused. Floating before him was a strange figure; it seemed vaguely humanoid...it had two arms, two legs, a torso and a head. But it was featureless, and its skin looked as though it were composed of nothing but black mist. Wisps of smoke billowed off of the hovering hominid, but its body never dispersed and faded into nothingness.
"Oh. Sorry -- thought I was alone," Danathius finally mustered up enough courage to speak. He could only gawk at the sentient mist, with his head canted to one side. The entity reached out a long, wispy arm, and gently pushed up on Danathius's chin, closing his gaped mouth.
"There, much better," the mass of wisp stated, before it turned and began to float away. Only it did not turn, so much as briefly retreat into a cloud of smoke, and then reform its smoky body facing the opposite direction of Danathius. It briefly stopped in place to beckon to Danathius, "come, come, follow. You don't want to stay out here. You'll only anger the Volcaire by doing so."
Danathius's eyes narrowed with suspicion, but he told himself to keep an open mind. He had nothing to lose by following this strange being, after all.
"So..." Danathius began, but he found himself interrupted by a rattling cackle from the entity.
"Yes, you're dead. Well, mostly. There's something different about you...you have this weird aura. It's like..." the talking mist began, but soon it fell silent, before its thick smog dispersed and spread, disappearing from view. Danathius gasped, but he soon found tendrils of black smoke whirling around him. He could feel the entity's presence all around him, and while he did, he noticed that his form began to glow with a soft, but brilliant, golden hue. The smog, sensing Danathius's apprehension about being surrounded, dissipated once more and formed into a more human shape before the mage.
"Oh, you're certainly not entirely dead, yes! How strange! I should inform the Volcaire...and yet, this is much, much more interesting," the entity gushed with enthusiasm. Danathius didn't know if that boded well, but he did feel a little more comfortable talking to an entity that at least shared some joy in discovering new and exciting knowledge.
"Sorry, the Volcaire," Danathius asked with an arched eyebrow. They obviously were the authority around here, Danathius had surmised, but hopefully this creature could enlighten him further on what they were exactly.
"Ah, you must not have seen the beast that dragged your life essence here. Don't worry, you'll see more of them soon. Suffice it to say, the Volcaire are large, multi-limbed organisms, bipedal in stance and about as tall as twice of you stacked on top one another. They have segmented bodies with spiky and chitinous exoskeletons! Very fascinating creatures, unlike anything else in this universe," the entity happily explained. Danathius again found himself frowning.
"Like giant, walking insects, great," Danathius sighed. Well, at least he had confirmation that he was dead. He glanced around, and found himself surprised -- he was no longer staring into a white, endless void. Dirt and stone littered the ground, and trees grew in the distance. There were even fields of grass surrounding an old, rusted gate that seemed to go on forever in either direction. The entity floated before the gate, its attention entirely focused on Danathius. Blinking again, Danathius finally noticed what else was strange about his surroundings: it entirely lacked color. Everything was greyscale, with only shades of black, grey and white blanketing the landscape.
"So...where exactly am I," Danathius was compelled to ask now. The field, the gate, everything had suddenly materialized... Was this all in Danathius's head? Or was he actually someplace else in the universe?
"Well, this place didn't reeeeeally have a name. Rather, I wasn't really interested in giving it a name. But I believe there as an individual from a long time ago..." the smoky entity floated back and forth, and a sound akin to snapping one's fingers echoed from the entity, "oh, what was its name...? Right! It called itself Virgil, from some place called Earth!"
"Okay..." Danathius replied, a bit confused. He wasn't really following, but the entity had been glancing at him expectantly... "so am I on Virgil, or Earth?"
"No, you didn't let me finish! It's a great story," the entity laughed, and Danathius swore he could see the mist swirling into a smirking face as the being continued, "He said "Úbi sum," and I said I didn't know. And then he turned to me and said "ego certe nusquam," and I liked the interaction so much I named this place after it! Welcome to Certe Nusquam! I think in your language, it translates to 'certainly nowhere.'"
"Huh. Certe Nusquam..." Danathius echoed, glancing back at the entity with uncertainty. The mage found this creature's excitability refreshing, but a little abrasive at the same time, considering that Danathius was, for the moment, quite dead.
A lovely gift I received from CartoonSnacks, as part of a commission that I will have to upload here soon... :> But she stripped out Danathius and gave me him as a stand alone image. I love how he looks in her style!
Artwork © CartoonSnacks
Danathius © Me
Category Artwork (Digital) / Fantasy
Species Human
Size 948 x 1280px
File Size 126.4 kB
Listed in Folders
D&D was and likely always will be a huge influence on me. I'm thankful for every aspect of it, and the boost it gave me to start developing my own world and rules. One of the things that I never did enjoy too much in D&D was how resurrection was handled. Sure, it was crazy expensive -- I think DnD 3.5e had a component cost of diamond dust worth around 5,000 Gold Pieces -- but as long as you had the money and knew a sufficiently powerful cleric, boom, the deal was done and death became a sort of minor inconvenience for important adventurers and NPCs. I drew inspiration from other sources like the novel Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, and the anime/manga Fullmetal Alchemist. Death should be avoidable for sufficiently powerful individuals, sure, but there should be a steep cost associated with it, and it shouldn't be something as easily replaceable as money.
Hence the Volcaire. They are the guardians of life and death and enforce its laws, gathering up the life essence of deceased individuals and delivering them to Certe Nusquam. I didn't get into too much detail in the story, but the reason Danathius remembers feeling malice while staring directly at one is because the Volcaire abhor magic and view it as an abomination against the universe. They will stop at nothing to ensure that the laws of death aren't cheated, but they only have a limited window to strike, and that's after the spell has been cast.
Danathius gets to be the first to develop working resurrection magic, but he is also the first to discover the steep cost associated with it. The more powerful and ancient the individual to be revived (within the spell's limits), the more the Volcaire will gather to fight once the spell has been completed. Of course, as you keenly inferred, once Danathius has knowledge of how death works, he learns how to better circumvent it. In his later years, once he becomes a sufficiently powerful mage, he'll create a back-up body and use a spell to create a contingency to transfer his life essence to the back-up when his physical body is destroyed or injured beyond repair. I still think there should be a cost associated with even this, though, so maybe the Volcaire will always hound Danathius every time it happens. Which, considering how often the poor mage gets eaten or stepped on... ;>
The next part of this story is a really critical moment in Danathius's life. I hope to get it fleshed out and properly written up some day instead of hastily cobbled together under an uploaded commission. XD
Hence the Volcaire. They are the guardians of life and death and enforce its laws, gathering up the life essence of deceased individuals and delivering them to Certe Nusquam. I didn't get into too much detail in the story, but the reason Danathius remembers feeling malice while staring directly at one is because the Volcaire abhor magic and view it as an abomination against the universe. They will stop at nothing to ensure that the laws of death aren't cheated, but they only have a limited window to strike, and that's after the spell has been cast.
Danathius gets to be the first to develop working resurrection magic, but he is also the first to discover the steep cost associated with it. The more powerful and ancient the individual to be revived (within the spell's limits), the more the Volcaire will gather to fight once the spell has been completed. Of course, as you keenly inferred, once Danathius has knowledge of how death works, he learns how to better circumvent it. In his later years, once he becomes a sufficiently powerful mage, he'll create a back-up body and use a spell to create a contingency to transfer his life essence to the back-up when his physical body is destroyed or injured beyond repair. I still think there should be a cost associated with even this, though, so maybe the Volcaire will always hound Danathius every time it happens. Which, considering how often the poor mage gets eaten or stepped on... ;>
The next part of this story is a really critical moment in Danathius's life. I hope to get it fleshed out and properly written up some day instead of hastily cobbled together under an uploaded commission. XD
yo I just saw this comment chain and holy hell I am looking respectfully at your magic system and world-building . D&D is also something that inspired one of my worlds, though the magic system is modified to be a bit more moderate, so no Wish spells or anything of that sort (still working on this system). While I played D&D though, I started feeling that the resurrection part seems to be more of an inconvenience than the big deal is supposed to be, and as a fellow FMA fan, I absolutely love your take on this in your world.
The concept of Volcaire is incredible. I think the fact they’re here to “balance out” magic gives an upper limit to what you can do with magic. Most worlds with soft magic systems may have a bit of trouble with definition limits since there are loose rules, and I think you really made the world believable by placing a limit there.
Right now, Danathius is heading into uncharted territory, and it may come with unforeseen and devastating consequences, and I really love how you had him research a lot before he’s able to come up with something that circumvents(?) death for him, especially considering all the times he’s been a) eaten b) stepped on c) both in rapid succession. I really like how you linked the kinky stuff and lore stuff seamlessly!
I genuinely can’t wait to see what you’ve got! You’re definitely one of my favourite writers on here and I hope I don’t sound condescending in the comment! It’s so nice seeing your lore and I’d love to talk to you about it one day 👀
The concept of Volcaire is incredible. I think the fact they’re here to “balance out” magic gives an upper limit to what you can do with magic. Most worlds with soft magic systems may have a bit of trouble with definition limits since there are loose rules, and I think you really made the world believable by placing a limit there.
Right now, Danathius is heading into uncharted territory, and it may come with unforeseen and devastating consequences, and I really love how you had him research a lot before he’s able to come up with something that circumvents(?) death for him, especially considering all the times he’s been a) eaten b) stepped on c) both in rapid succession. I really like how you linked the kinky stuff and lore stuff seamlessly!
I genuinely can’t wait to see what you’ve got! You’re definitely one of my favourite writers on here and I hope I don’t sound condescending in the comment! It’s so nice seeing your lore and I’d love to talk to you about it one day 👀
YOOO i love this so much! Seeing lore from Danathius’ world is always welcome and I really love the implications of this! Correct me if I’m wrong, but Danathius’ resurrection spell on Kherrox is the first to work on Altreak? I can see things going wrong and I’m here for it 👀
Aaaaah, thank you for the kind compliments! ;_;
You're correct: Danathius's spell is the first resurrection spell to succeed on Altreak. :> And like you guessed, things go TERRIBLY wrong later. But that's what happens when you break the order of the universe in half... >:D
You're correct: Danathius's spell is the first resurrection spell to succeed on Altreak. :> And like you guessed, things go TERRIBLY wrong later. But that's what happens when you break the order of the universe in half... >:D
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