 Where a photic sea does deny, reflections of azanthus sky, and black stars rain without ascent, echoes of what was never meant. A city built in unknown times, upon the bones of countless crimes, stranger yet is found within, the chaos court of strife and sin. The mad dance here without control, as all must play their given role, for those beyond our mortal kin, we die and live and die again. Our Lord does ride the top his throne, before his glory we atone. With this our blood it is to hang kings, so shall we suffocate upon his puppet strings. Preface, I write to you, dearest reader, from a certain bibliotheco-nexus. I have bartered with the shades and expect my latest travelogue to, piece by piece, reach the infinite worlds. They know of the dark corners, the secret places and janna stores, and wish to deliver my folios. I bleed words and have obliterated myself upon these pages, for your entertainment and enlightenment. A windsman in the court of the hanged king. I remember the rich aroma of decaying flowers, as it struggled against a sharp metallic scent for supremacy, neither linking odor able to disperse the other. Felt within my talons with a flesh-bound grimoire, the ill-tipbered tone biting my hand at its first opportunity. I felt acquainted with its content, as if having finished reading but moments before, and returned a spiteful book to its shelf. In retrospect, I am unable to recall a single word of it. They are developed an itch about my left eye, instinctively trying to soothe the irritation with a scratch. My talons sliding across a polished surface. A porcelain mask, seemingly unremovable, disguised my features. I caught in frustration the grievous itch beyond reach. A tall, iconical entity wagged diverse appendages and trumpeted a shush. The frimlicul frimimim, of frim, was right to be bothered as I was, after all, within a library. Bowing my head apologetically, I took my leave, the aptly named Athenium of severed tongues, eager to explore. I arrived to the Hall of Mercurial Virtue with anomalous speed, unaware of what occurred between the here and there. Such was the nature of Alagata, the restraints of time and space being mere suggestion, not law. Even as an experienced wanderer, I too succumbed to the city's dreamlike malaise. The Hall of Mercurial Virtue blurred the line between the beautiful and grotesque. Pilgrims and emperors, gods and monsters, entities from all possible realities playing their role in the eternal masquerade. Driven by ambition as black as the stars above, most sought a boon from the Hanged King himself. My talents clicked together, my mind overstimulated by the grand chamber and its curious inhabitants. A decadent display of insidious glamour, Alagata was hardly the dismal realm initially anticipated. A moniker, such as the Hanged King, conjured forth images of death and decay, desolation and despair, not reverally. My eyes contained sixteen spectral receptors, and yet I only observed red, white, black and yellow. The color scheme unexpectedly limited. Stranger still was the persistent taste of purple, near hidden beneath the reek of lust sweat and sweet meats. I tried to ignore the perplexing glare of anarchy and watched from a corner, relatively speaking Alagata, the epitome of non-Euclidean architecture. Certain observations are simply too salacious for me to put to writing, however when considering the infinite orgy, one may simply allow their imagination to run wild. Whatever you could possibly conceive, you'll find it within the Hall of Mercurial Virtue. Suffice to say, expect to see a diverse array of shame organs, usually entangled with other shame organs, which brings me to my first observance. A flesh-shaper of aditum, their pale-mask asymmetric, fondled of blood-vestoral adeva with hand and tentacle, the two whispering terrible secrets into each other's ears. Their auras revealed a history intertwined, their copulation practically incestuous from my perspective. My revulsion glanned nearly full, I saw something more palatable to my senses. A centaureal dream-smith of Enroy, bargained with the deathless merchant of London, the one closest to real having the apparent upper hand. The merchant spat legal jargon, majorly articulating his terms of agreement. I detected no past or future for the dream-smith, though an ephemeral existence is challenging to read. In contrast, the merchant cast a long shadow, where dead souls accumulated appointed accusatory fingers. A trio of godlings, entity so often thought to be an opposition, mocked their mortal faithful, their barbed-tongue spinning venom and condescension. The three consisted of a horned tyrant apanthus, a bedroom sprite of Xenolokthusi, and a higher-arch cherub of Eldonai. Betwixt to godlings resided in altar, carved with symbols that twisted and blurred and ceased. A chitinous servitor delivered a hatchling to the shrine, as one might deliver a meal. With dagger raised, the retainer chanted words that escaped translation. I averted my gaze, unwilling to watch their mortal strike. I heard the blade enter the flesh and the spill of blood. The servant removed the ghastly corpse and surrendered a curtsy before vanishing in a blink. Dinner had been served, and the cult of wars appeared satisfied, feasting upon not the victim, but rather the symbolism of the atrocity. The symbols I remind myself have power to such creatures. Casting my eyes skyward, I beheld the legendary masked lords of Alegata. The white lord, wearer of the digilant mask, a porcelain-guide with eyes narrow, the mouth little more than a flat line. The yellow lord, wearer of the odious mask, a porcelain-guide with brow furrowed, the lips curled into a hateful sneer. The red lord, wearer of the mirthful mask, a porcelain-guide with eyes wide and manic, a smile card from cheek to cheek. I saw no sign of the black lord, wearer of the anguished mask. This came as no surprise, they supposedly exiled to some forgotten backwater of dimension. It is written that the cause had been political in nature, the pacific unknown. It is difficult to imagine the court intrigue of such a place. My feathers raised with a sudden shudder, dread began its coil, transforming the music of my dual hearts to dissonance. A stranger, light and sable, made their oculent entrance. Accompanied by a coterie of harlequin psychopaths and paper guards, they wore no mask, their faceless visage and aberration among the masquerade. My hope grew dim in the presence of the ambassador of Alegata. Their title was a misnomer. The designation unable to encompass the totality of their power and prestige. The ambassador of Alegata was the voice of the Hain King. Their will made manifest, and to whom even the masked lords bowed their marionette heads. I chose the better part of valor, and made a casual retreat. The palace was elaborate, bereft of rhyme or reason. Drunk were the gods of physics, above and below without meaning, twisted by the pandemonium city. I encountered myself several times, always located at some unapproachable location, iterations of my past and future self. My attire was red, yellow, white, black, and utterly garish. I apparently having more concern with the enforcement of Alegata in fashion than the entanglement of time, and then a burgeoning terror, an unseen threat closing fast. There existed a void where a memory should have been, unaware of my arrival. Make it in my ignorance, I shivered as the chill gloom embraced me. The wind took pity and sung its sorrow song, as it diminished it whispered onto me a warning, in here is a tragedy. I beheld Alegata's shadow, an amalgamation of rust, rot, and misery, a dead city at the end of all things. Wandering its empty streets, I stepped over tattered batters and broken glass. Dust gave chase, granted life through my careless meanderings. The palace had come to ruin, its one-splitted gates torn from their hinges. The hall of material virtue was lifeless, a tomb for want and vanity, in the room's center was a gaping hole, no, not simply a hole, more an affected wound, a viscous-ickered gush from the aperture, an amber-colored substance imbued with the sixth scent of failed creation. I entered the wound, crawling into the bowels of Alegata. I know not what overcame me, never intending to come this far. Was I to play this role from the beginning? From where I now reside, I can look back and see the puppet strings. I remember only little of my descent, just a singular desire to find what hid beneath. I was a scholar, an explorer, and would play my part well. The broken rules of time and space again summon me elsewhere. A windowless room of humble stone, cloaked in a layer of sepia fog and bereft the opulence so common to Alegata. I sensed no name among its shrouded corridors, sickly vapors slittered around me, saturated with the scent of ripened books. At the far wall was an ascending spiral staircase, its steps crude and uneven, comparatively primitive to the city above or below I could not know. And still, to the boredom of my readers I advanced, faced the banality of more stairs. I felt as if I was the fabled zithius, retainer of the fungal crown who quested through the sloth of three million inconveniences. One step, then another, all fairly straightforward. As I neared the bottom I began to hear whispers, spoken in a tongue I could not understand. Clashay? It this were the work of fiction perhaps, but know that chaos words represent the universal warning for having ventured too far. Consult other world laws and universal constants to learn more. One step, then another, and I felt my soul burst into flames, emulating the ego and casting the psychic aftermath into the wind of cinders. Around and around my fragments twirled, pulled by gravity as something incalculably vast, I was, as thought, a fugitive sentiment before an ancient intelligence. Here among the dreaming dead I have ash, embers, and burning feathers, drifting through the firmament, carried by wind as if my wings were not vestigial. On the land I am anchored, by murderous gravity, I am reformed, only to be torn apart. Again and again, every trace recycled reminders of who I used to be. I became blood, on the hands of criminals, I became the noose around my own throat. From death I am become one step closer to real. From within the center of chaos my fragments felt the vibrations of a great scream, a living emanation of mad anguish. Matter and form grew enamored and gathered around the existential wound. Neither sacred or profane, the hanged king took shape. The shards of my ego become in one with the walls of its throne room and dungeon. The veiled entity, affixiated by a noose of thorns, writhed upon its throne, bound in place by shackles, hooks, and spears. They are unmoved by the cosmic scream, stood the ambassador of Aligata. Although dwarfed by the hanged king, the two were of a similar countenance, a resemblance not shared with denizens of their kingdom. The hanged king lunged at his tormentor, more primal than regal, their faces a mere breath apart. The ambassador, callous and calm, lifted the veil with an ebb and hand. Instead of a face I beheld a visage of nihility, a god-shaped hole. All was void. It came in a familiar aroma, a hint of vanilla, a drop of citrus, and a fixative of mold and mustiness. I opened my eyes and saw a lantern aglow with spectral fire, shelves overflowing with tone both eldrick and mundane. I dipped a finger into a clay jar to my left, swirling the contents within. Satisfied, I withdrew a now ink-soaked claw, placed it upon a scroll of parchment, and began to transcribe my experience from memory. Take us the wayward, Winesman of Coolmonus, Walker of the Astral Plain, Sailor of the Celestial Sea, and Spelunker of the Dimensional Depths.