Threshold Pits Tentacle
Threshold Pits is the most ruined area of the City for a reason. Architecturally, because this is the oldest part of the City, it has seen the most strife, the most Chaos through its history. For this area, of course, long predates any of the Houses, or the lands running from the Threshold ring to the Houses. It's been ravaged and rebuilt many, many times in the history of the Dream. The Corrupted Way gets its name, in particular, from a Prime Artifact of the Dream. It's one that the members of the Light will not even speak aloud "Corrupter of Souls." The "Spike" there that you see dates actually from fairly recent times -- since The Great Loss, actually.
I will call the Artifact in question the IT, which is how we refer aloud to it. The IT was hidden here in Threshold Pits, in a part of the Maze that normally is inaccessible to ordinary Dreamers. There it had laid hidden for centuries, in fact. For it had come to rest there in the final days of The Great Loss. The precise area where it was, is a secret. I don't know it. But its location was able to be viewed only by a powerful Dreamseer, using that Focus' abilities to intuitively grasp the hidden nature of the DreamScape.
Wraith the Undead -- a Ruler of House Dreamers of Light, a Dreamseer Teacher -- was wandering the Dream one day not too long ago. This was not long before the Great Awakening, in fact. And while experimenting with his Vision art, and his Chamele and Invisibility arts, he accidentally found the place where the IT was located. Once he had seen the place, it became clear to him immediately how he could access it. And, being intensely curious -- even for an Undead one -- he went there. And there he found the IT. He knew not what it was. For the memories of the IT had been lost in the Mists of time since The Great Loss. And innocently, he took it up. The IT immediately began to work upon Wraith. IT works by contact. And its effect is subtle, invidious, and impossible for the Dreamer himself to recognize, ordinarily. So for some time after he put the IT into his pack, Wraith continued to wander Threshold Pits.
But gradually -- slowly -- the IT worked IT's evil magic on Wraith's soul. Probably had he not already been Undead, the effect would have overwhelmed him. As things were, though, he only slowly began to transform. And the transformation -- was ultimately terrifying. He became grumpy at first. His normal sharp wit, usually applied with humor, became instead viscous and biting. He picked quarrels. He intervened in others' arguments, settling them by collapsing all in sight. Then he began seeking out targets of opportunity. Anything -- Mare or Dreamer -- that moved, that breathed, he collapsed. Word spread throughout the City. And in alarm, Valourin, Ruler of Light, rushed to Threshold Pits to confront his friend and brother, Wraith. They argued. Wraith in fact attacked Valourin, ruthlessly and without quarter. And it was only when, on the verge of collapse, Valourin unsheathed the Scepter of Light and touched Wraith with it, that Wraith became aware of what had happened to him. For a brief instant -- a millisecond lasting an eon -- Wraith understood. And he collapsed himself in that instant. For he knew that while coherent, and while under the influence of the IT, no power in the Dream could bring him down, save himself.
The spot where this exchange took place was in a room called "The Angled Way." But when Wraith collapsed himself, spoiling the far-advanced plot of the IT to wreak havoc on the Dream through Wraith's corrupted soul, the forces of Chaos ... went berserk! A mighty tremor of Chaos surged up through the Threshold Pits. And through the gap in the floor, the mother of all Dark Nightmares -- literally, that beast which lays their eggs and hatches them, then suckles them to adulthood -- tried to come through. Her name isn't known. Perhaps that's a good thing. But to the everlasting good fortune of the City, at that moment arrived several other powerful Dreamers: Kelrith. Gyarmath. Artamor. Sabra. Then others. Together, they were able to do two things at once.
First, they restored Wraith, and cleansed his Soul temporarily of the influence of the IT. Secondly, they cast powerful Arts of Paralyze on the Mother-Beast that was coming through the floor. Wraith had dropped the IT when he was collapsed, of course -- it's a Prime Artifact. And Valourin knew better than to try to pick it up. But Wraith, being Undead, and temporarily immunized, was asked to take the IT to a place far away, to get IT's influence away from the Mother-Beast that writhed through the floor. He took it to the safest place he knew, the Ruler's Circle in House Dreamers of Light.
And as he gained distance, the Chaos driving the Mother-Beast began to wane in force. Until eventually, there was only enough attraction between the Mother-Beast's dorsal Spike and the IT to cause the Spike to pulsate, up and down, up and down. The Spike has remained in that condition ever since. And fortunately, the Dreamwrights present were able to stabilize the floor sufficiently to prevent the Mother-Beast from coming closer to the IT, following Wraith up Mt. Illapse.
