Drulissa's Domain

 In the hush of Norrath’s whispering glades,   I walk as one who dreams in scales of light—   A maiden’s heart, yet woven through with grace   That gleams like sunrise on a river’s flight.   I chase the butterflies on wings of laughter,   Their painted wings a mirror of my own,   And let them crown my hair with fleeting splendor   While golden motes of joy around me blown.   I weave wildflower crowns beneath the moon,   And sing to fireflies in their silver dance,   Collecting dewdrops like forgotten stars   To wear as jewels upon my upturned hands.   Beneath the silver veil of tumbling falls,   I sit and let the water kiss my skin,   A gentle baptism of crystal song   That cleanses every shadow from within.   I drift through meadows thick with morning mist,   Where unicorns and songbirds pause to play,  ...

The Valor didn't approach the island. It assaulted it. Captain D'Arbene, a man who understood the sea was not a playground but a weapon, drove the ship into a hidden cove with the violence of a battering ram. The hull groaned, a deep, pained cry of splintering wood, as the bow crunched into a sandbar concealed by the low tide. Before the echo died, two gangplanks slammed down onto the black sand like guillotines. They hit the beach in a storm of spray and splintered timber. This was no landing; it was an ambush. The arrows came without warning, without the tell-tale thrum of a loosened string. One moment, the air was empty. The next was a blizzard of black-fletched death. They swarmed from the treeline, a living cloud of jagged points and barbed shafts, their tips glinting with a sickly, greenish poison. The cultists weren't firing to kill; they were firing to cripple, to maim, to spread their pestilence before a single blade was drawn. The assassins didn't run; they we...