("Flowers Beneath A Starless Sky" is a prologue story for the game, written in the same style as the lore you'll be discovering in-game.)
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V. A Corpse Can Heal
I didn’t listen, of course.
Gloam lilies only bloom in absolute darkness, too shy for even the dim light of the moon. They were always his favorite, and mine as well. A perfect symbol that not all hope is lost, that even in dismal shadow beauty thrives and new things yet can grow. Nothing else would suffice to honor his memory.
And so, every week that I can I return again to that hillside, cautious now to hide my coming and going. Delphine knows, and some of her efforts stop me for a time. A few weeks lost learning to skirt night patrols, a month to find a way to pass by the new gate barricade undetected. But I always find a way.
I think spite is all that really drives her to such lengths. I’ll never understand how she was ever his apprentice.
Though, perhaps I am not much better. Her worries are not unfounded—terrible things lurk out in the dark, and all settlements dread the thought of being discovered by another—yet I take the risk all the same. And in truth, I think I do it more for myself.
What point is there in living, if there is no hope of a better tomorrow? To cower behind walls for no purpose but to continue cowering? I have to believe that there is always some light still out there in the dark.
He taught me that, the old sage. The only other dreamer I ever knew. And that is why I cannot let his memory fade.
He was a student of Akrilon, an old, old sage from back when the stars still shined. Nearly lost to time save a few scarce writings that managed to find their way to him. If our world is dead, Akrilon’s was dying, yet never do his words show despair. Only wisdom and hope and kindness, a resolve to face any challenge unafraid if it meant the world could be just a little brighter.
Those teachings fall now to me, and I will hold the torch high. Somehow, someway, I will see the day that the world is full of light again, whether the stars should return, or we forge our own.
