Date: 14.04.159 - Summer

  Subject: Tribunal Report: The Realm vs. Veilla Mageschstea

  Dear Professor Duvencrune,

  As requested, I am forwarding a copy of the tribunal report from the trial of The Realm vs. Veilla Mageschstea. Please find the full report attached, including details on Fiorna Mageschstea's prophecy. Unfortunately, I was unable to locate additional information regarding the last child of Veilla.

  I hope this material proves useful for your research. I greatly admire your work and eagerly anticipate any future publications or insights you may share. It would be an honour to receive an autographed copy of "Hexe."

  Thank you for your time and consideration.

  Zora found herself in a white room. Before her, a council and jury loomed, eerie silhouettes devoid of faces, their identities hidden in a hazy blur that distorted the very reality around her. The council's voices were broken—more a series of disjointed echoes than coherent speech.

  Clad only in her nightgown, Zora felt exposed and vulnerable under the crowd's faceless scrutiny. She attempted to stand to flee the tribunal, but an unexplainable weight anchored her to her seat.

  Glancing down at herself, alarmed, she saw her belly swollen as if she were pregnant. "I'm dreaming, I'm dreaming, I'm dreaming", she muttered like a prayer. "I'm not pregnant. I'm just sleeping… It is just a dream. This is not real…”

  Frozen with the realisation, the room seemed to close around her, the faceless jury and blurred surroundings creating a claustrophobic nightmare from which there was no apparent escape. She was trapped.

  "I'm dreaming. It is just a dream! I'm dreaming, I'm dreaming…”

  A silence prevailed, broken only by the squeak of wheels. A faceless soldier pushed a towering, crate-like structure toward the centre of the room. Covered by a heavy cloth, the shape beneath suggested a cage, its proportions dwarfing the man manoeuvring it. As he moved, the eerie stillness of the room was punctured by a low, menacing growl emanating from beneath the fabric.

  Zora's eyes darted around the room, desperately searching for a familiar, friendly face in the sea of ominous white-cloaked figures. Her heart pounded with dread when her gaze landed on Monica.

  The girl's smile tried to offer a glimmer of hope, but it only dreaded Zora.

  “Monica is dead. I killed her.”

  That fleeting moment of terror was shattered when the soldier reached the centre of the room and pulled the cloth away from the cage. The fabric whisked back with a dramatic flourish, revealing its mysterious contents.

  Inside was a woman, or what was left, but not as anyone had known before. She bore six eyes, each filled with a wild, ravenous hunger. She snapped and bit at the bars, her fingers clawing in a desperate attempt to reach beyond her confines.

  Zora recognised a Lamia when she saw one. But why was she here?

  Eerie growls and clasps enveloped the room, and footsteps suddenly interrupted it. Zora's gaze snapped towards the disruption. Approaching was an elf, his presence almost spectral. His silver hair flowed like liquid moonlight, and his eyes were a piercing green. Yet his face was blank, devoid of features as if his identity had been erased. Around his head, a golden band gleamed—a crown, perhaps?

  He neared Zora, and his expression shifted to one of grave seriousness.

  The elf reached her side and took her hands in his, his grip firm yet reassuring. "Whatever you are thinking it, forget it, do not fight them," he whispered.

  Confusion and fear intermingled in Zora's mind. "What is going on?" she asked.

  He leaned closer, his words barely above a murmur, yet they carried the weight of a dire prophecy. "Don't fight it, or she'll kill you! You and the child. Now, I'm not a monster like my wife; I won't let her, and I'll protect them. But whatever you do or say, just say you're guilty, and it will be okay. Trust me."

  Zora's mind raced, a protest forming on her lips. Still, before she could articulate her confusion, the elf had already moved away, taking a seat next to Monica.

  "I'm dreaming, I'm dreaming, I'm dreaming…”

  The murmurs in the room subsided as a collective movement rippled through the assembly, every individual rising to their feet in a synchronised gesture of deference. At the centre of this orchestrated respect stood the Masked Judge, and beside him was Muna, sitting on a high chair with a crown made of ice as an empress.

  Clearing their throat, the Judge’s voice, though muffled slightly by the mask, unfurled a scroll for the intent drama, resonated with an authoritative timbre that filled the room: "Before we begin, let me remind everyone present that this court is a place of respect and decorum. All parties are expected to conduct themselves in a manner befitting this esteemed institution. Interruptions or disturbances will not be tolerated."

  The room dipped into a deep, anxious quiet as the Masked Judge began to speak. "We are here to hear the case..." His voice trailed off Zora's ears, swallowed by an overwhelming rush of static that seemed to emanate from every corner of the room. The noise fuzzed and crackled, drowning out his words, leaving her straining to understand.

  As he resumed speaking, "You have also accused fr..." his speech again dissolved into an indecipherable buzz of static, muddling his sentences into unintelligible noise. The unsettling sound ebbed momentarily as he concluded, "Do you understand the charges as they have been read to you?”

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Zora’s gaze swept across the room. She didn’t know what to say or how to defend herself. But as her eyes landed on Monica, she said, "I do. I plead guilty. I killed you."

  Zora tried to rise, but her body betrayed her. A sharp, pulsating pain clamped down on her lower back. It gripped her with such intensity that she was forced back down, her breath catching in her throat. The pain came in waves, leaving her trembling and unsure. The thought flickered through her mind—was this labour?

  “No! I'm dreaming. I'm dreaming; this is a dream…”

  The Judged, poised to deliver the final verdict, "Very well, as hereby I sentence you to death—" The words were about to seal her fate, but Muna cut him off.

  "I refute," Muna declared. “I will take upon my responsibility the realm and crown," she continued, her voice gaining strength as she stood. And let her..." Her voice was suddenly drowned out by a surge of static noise, obscuring her sentence as it had happened to the masked judge.

  "I object!"

  All empty faces swiftly turned towards Monica, who had been seated silently beside the elven king until that moment.

  Upon hearing these words, Muna turned to face the girl with a smirk sharp as frosted glass. "Is that so?”

  Muna's reaction was one of unbridled amusement. She laughed heartily, her hand coming up to cover her smile, her body shaking as she held her belly. Her laughter bordered on the hysterical, each chuckle laced with disbelief. "Oh, you've always had the best sense of humour. That is so funny! Could you please repeat that? I must have misunderstood. Are you actually challenging me?"

  "I don't need to challenge you."

  "You don’t?”

  Monica walked slowly to the centre of the auditorium and placed a hand on Zora's shoulder.

  "None of you understand what is to come, but I do. I see! And there is nothing that can save us unless we act by what is right."

  As she approached the cage of the Lamia, her finger extended in a commanding gesture. And with dire urgency, Monica addressed the gathered assembly. "Watch, this creature before us is but a harbinger of a much larger threat. They are multiplying rapidly, both in number and might! And there will be only one creature—Eura—not yet born, capable of confronting these creatures without succumbing to their corruption, to their black blood. If we even think of releasing this captive, do not be fooled by appearances. It will show us no mercy. It will feast on us, transforming us into its own twisted likeness with whatever remains of our flesh and bone."

  Her gaze then shifted as she spun to face Muna. Her finger, now accusatory, "Your rule will stretch across forty-four cold winters, and you shall become a Dame. A queen whose very name remains unknown to all creatures of Mir-Grande-Carta and never heard in the Red Sea. Your very identity will fade into obscurity, known only as the Winterqueen by few. Your given name will go unspoken, and your regal title will be unacknowledged. You will become synonymous with Winter itself."

  She paused briefly and proceeded with an almost cracked voice as if she were dictating her own sentence: "You'll be hated by all creatures of blue, green, stone, and even red blood. You will be the villain, the one who stole the sun and every moon in the sky. Your dominion will be engulfed in unrelenting darkness for twenty-two long winters. And then, amidst all this horrible shadow, she will emerge—Eura—the sun that burns over land, sea, and sky. The true Dame will be born, and regardless of your efforts to break her through torture, isolation, starvation, and despair, she will rise to dethrone you!"

  With a terrifying calmness, Muna conjured a spear of ice in her hand. With a flick of her wrist that nobody expected, a chillingly precise motion, she hurled the spear towards Monica. The pike, a crystalline embodiment of Winterqueen's chilling wrath, struck, severing Monica's head from her body—again. The head tumbled gracefully to the ground, rolling for the audience to see and leaving a macabre trail of blue blood that marred the pristine white floor. But it didn’t silence her.

  "Your dominion will be engulfed in unrelenting darkness for twenty-two long winters. And then, amidst all this horrible shadow, she will emerge—Eura—the sun that burns over land, sea, and sky. The true Dame will be born. Eura—the sun that burns over land, sea, and sky. The true Dame will be born."

  As Monica's head prophesized, a sharp, piercing pain erupted again within her. She felt a warm rush of water sliding down her legs, signalling the undeniable start of labour. A contraction gripped her, wrenching a scream from deep within her throat. As she doubled over in agony, golden veins appeared, tearing across her skin like fissures of light, glowing intensely as if the sun itself was burning inside her, preparing to be born.

  

  “1,604 days left” by Duvencrune, Edgar O. Diary of the Long Night, 111th Edition

  Zora jolted awake with a scream, her hands instinctively clutching at her stomach as waves of residual terror coursed through her. She was shaking, sweaty and gasping for air.

  "It's okay," Orlo murmured, quickly wrapping his arms around her quivering form. As her sobs began to break through, her words tumbled out in a frantic, disjointed stream about Muna, Monica, the strange elf, and the baby.

  "It's okay; it was just a nightmare. You’re safe," Orlo reassured her, enveloping her further into the protective cocoon of his wings. He gently stroked her hair, soothing her as he repeated, "It was just a bad dream."

  His voice was a calming balm, trying to ground her back in the safety of their reality, away from the horrors that had plagued her sleep.

  But, she still mumbled the name: Eura.

  For several days, Zora was ensnared in the same relentless nightmare, night after night, each episode unfurling with chilling consistency. She found herself standing accused in a faceless courtroom, the charge unknown but the air thick with betrayal.

  In her dream, a trusted ally would point an accusing finger, usually taking the form of someone she knew. Alongside this betrayal, her only friend would meet a tragic end, uttering cryptic prophecies about someone called Eura, the fabled child destined to resurrect the sun and restore light to the world.

  She didn't dare to say a word, but she was terrified.

  

  Tribunal Report

  Case: The Realm vs. Veilla Mageschstea, Herbstdame (Spiderqueen)

  Date: [Unreadable]

  Location: Central Council of Magi, Whitestone Palace

  Presiding Judge: Magi Regala Messe

  Accused: Veilla Mageschstea, Herbstdame, Master of the Spider Spirit

  Charges:

  

  
1. Slaughter of one hundred and two Menschen across five vessels: The Mary-All, The Odyssey, Red Journey, Wander Boy, and Salty Seek.


  
2. Practising vile magic and creating a new abomination, the Lamia, to instil terror and solidify reign.


  

  Verdict: The trial was interrupted before a formal verdict could be rendered due to Fiona’s assertion of her right to the throne and her declaration to assume responsibility, proposing an alternative punishment for Veilla, which involved confinement rather than execution.

  Recommendations:

  

  
1. Further investigation into the circumstances leading to the charges against Veilla Mageschstea to ensure a fair and impartial judgment.


  
2. Examination of the political implications of Fiona’s claim to the throne and its legitimacy.


  

  Conclusion: The trial of Veilla Mageschstea highlighted issues within the governance and judicial processes of the realm, suggesting the need for systemic review and possible reforms to prevent misuse of power and ensure justice is served in a fair and equitable manner. The proceedings also underscored the well-being of the infant girl (Z.M.) and exiled outside of Ormgrund dominio. - Report 5403-Winter