The Tragedy & Triumph of The Silver Hex

Before the reign of the Floquet family, the realm now referred to as Sennzia was one, contiguous land mass. The coastal cities of Zazenzar and Hippelka were at that time a single, landlocked metropolis known as Zahar, which stood in the center of a lush cinnamon forest. An independent empire of cats once existed where the Blue Bayou is today. Precious little remains today of that empire and few even remember its name: Wasatlicath. Finally, the Pali’i people lived on an island chain called Awa’ika that existed far beyond The Fala.

The Queendom of Sennzia was formed around Sennzia Floquet after she saved the realm from foreign invaders. Her daughter, Jillian Floquet then came to power, and the realm bound itself to her will. Land masses began to shift according to Jillian’s moods and whims. The young queen was prone to throwing tantrums when things did not go her way. Her younger sister, Rentara, was the only one who seemed to know how to calm and placate her. She usually did so by baking a cake from their mother’s recipes.

As the archfey sisters Jillian and Rentara grew older and more powerful, however, they also began to grow apart. Jillian became more and more obsessed with sweets. Rentara frequently tried to connect with her elder sibling, but Jillian’s only love was for more sugar. Jillian sent Rentara far away to the sea, La Mer, and ordered her to search for new edible ingredients. Jillian was obsessed with her growing list of dessert recipes.

The coastal town of Falcione was developed by Rentara to explore La Mer for new lands. That is when Princess Rentara discovered the Void. Any ships that went beyond it vanished forever, as if erased from existence. Rentara began tracking the Void, sending ships to calculate its distance from the coast and any change or movement. She advised her sister, the Queen, about the emptiness beyond La Mer. She warned her that is was dangerous, but Jillian was beyond all reason.

A series of events unfolded then which created tremendous stress for Jillian all at once. A public pronunciation faux pas by Queen Jillian while on a diplomatic visit to Wasatlicath led to her ridicule by the people of the cat kingdom. A terrible, humiliating series of stories about her began to spread there. That was the first sign of trouble.

Next, the Pali’i islanders demanded substantially more payment of gold for their sugar, as word reached them that the Queen had become ravenous for the sweetener. A series of negotiations between them failed to yield a settlement on price, and the Pali’i cut off all shipments to Sennzia. Jillian was forced to resort to using lower-quality, locally-sourced sugar.

Then, the mega-city of Zahar started seeing high rates of crime and civil unrest. Rumors and strange tales blaming The CreeperJack for inciting the violence took hold. Whether real or fictional, The CreeperJack developed a cult-like following in the city. Zahar deteriorated into a rage pit of anger and fear.

Finally, under the stress of terrible trouble in Zahar, shamed by the people of Wasatlicath, and frustrated by the lack of quality sugar in her desserts, Jillian received yet another dread-filled warning of the nearby Void. Jillian contacted Rentara from across the realm via scrypool. The sisters had an argument that dredged up emotional family history which only the two of them knew of. This led to a full-blown panic attack for Queen Jillian.

The lands between Jillian and Rentara ripped apart in a sudden, terrible cataclysm. The city of Zahar was torn in two as the epicenter of the split tore a chasm between the lands inhabited by Jillian and the land inhabited by Rentara. Eruptions and fires burned the cinnamon forest to ash. Water from the Fala flooded into the new channel and the empire of cats was washed away and sank into a swamp. No one ever heard from the Pali’i or managed to reach their islands again. A small colony on Palinkos was all that remained of their people. Countless lives were lost. In mere moments, nearly everyone that had been creating stress and anxiety for the Queen was wiped out. Only Rentara was spared.

After the rupture, the true power of Jillian Floquet was finally understood and properly feared. Everyone in Sennzia knew that the people of the cat kingdom had humiliated and angered the Queen. Everyone knew that she was intensely unhappy with the state of Zahar. Certainly, everyone knew that the Queen needed her sugar and what could happen if she did not get it. The city of Froupolis was formed in the aftermath of this tragedy.

Rentara wept for a hundred years straight, speaking to no one. During this time, she did nothing but cry in despair over the devastating loss of life. She sobbed for her sister who seemed hopelessly lost. The only family Rentara had was now unforgivably tainted by the eternal stain of genocide. They say that Rentara shed a thousand tears each for everyone who died and a hundred more each for all who had survived in suffering. Rentara’s heart was broken.

The toxic, silvery tears of Rentara pooled into a massive lake outside of what would eventually become Salentis. Mercury Lake was formed; a solemn reminder of all the pain that the rupture had caused. Rentara’s tears, however, would prove to be Sennzia’s salvation.

Rentara’s Voidwatchers learned that Sennzia Tesson was closing towards oblivion and its speed was accelerating. The people needed a solution, or everyone still living on the Shard would be wiped from existence.

Rentara sent her most trusted advisors to gather the smartest, most knowledgeable witches in all The ManyRealms. She tasked them with finding a way to rejoin Sennzia Tesson and Sennzia Core. The Voidwatchers sought out and met with every legendary archmage from every realm they could access. They plumbed tombs in search of ancient artifacts from other realms. They returned with incomparable wealth, but no means of stopping the approaching doom.

A hundred more years of failed spells and growing dread gave rise to many more tales and alleged sightings of the entity called the CreeperJack. People were convinced that the CreeperJack was real and had been in Sennzia for millennia, even before the Floquet sisters. They blamed the CreeperJack for the Separation, and for manipulating events leading up to it. They claimed that the entity’s malicious rumors and whispers had caused a rift between the sisters to grow and fester.

Sennzia survived two hundred years of absolute gloom with little hope among fey folk.

Finally, a brilliant witch from a distant shadow realm stepped forward to offer a solution. The shadow witch had discovered through extensive experimentation in secret over a span of several decades a source of power. The shadow witch explained that Rentara’s tears held within them a hidden power beyond all time or space. Using the tears from Mercury Lake, a large coven of powerful witches could craft an intricate hex which would prevent the shard from separating any further from the core. The shadow witch’s plan had many flaws, however.

The initial casting of the Silver Hex, as it was named, would drain the entire Mercury Lake into a mere puddle. Ever after, however, the hex would need to be routinely and meticulously maintained by a collective of witches expertly trained in its inner workings. It was an extremely complicated hex that would need to be reinforced indefinitely for hundreds or possibly thousands of years.

An entire society of witches would need to be established to maintain the hex in the long-term. That meant building an academy to train the witches in the nuances of the hex. They would need regular recruitment drives to find suitably talented replacement witches whenever an elder witch passed away. They would need infrastructure, and lots of it. But there was another problem.

In all the ManyRealms, only Rentara’s tears held such power. Once Mercury Lake was dry, if Rentara could not produce enough new tears to effectively maintain the Hex, the people of Sennzia Tesson would be doomed. After centuries of anguish, however, Rentara had already cried herself dry. The princess was numb.

Having experienced every other stage of grief, Rentara accepted her fate.

Rentara called a massive public assembly and alerted her people to the dire situation regarding the approaching doom of the Void. The princess advised that those who could do so should flee for the Core without delay. She would be forced to stay in Tesson, as ordered by her sister, the Queen.

The princess explained what her Voidwatchers had done to try to prevent the coming disaster. She outlined the steps they had taken to search The ManyRealms for a solution. She explained to her people that a clever shadow witch had discovered a way with a slim chance of averting the disaster. Rentara openly shared that this solution would use her own tears from Mercury Lake to prevent the Shard from drifting further away from the Core. More tears would be needed, however. Then, in stark terms, she said that she did not have enough any more tears left to give.

The assembly ended, and Rentara went to a private place to try and make herself cry. She thought of her mother, and how much she missed her. She thought of all the horror and death that her sister had unleashed on all those poor, innocent people. She thought of good times growing up, and of cakes that she baked for her big sister. She thought of Jillian, either as her big sister or her queen, never approving of her and never being impressed by anything she did. None of it worked. Rentara could not muster a single tear.

It was then, in the bleakest, most desperate hour that The CreeperJack stepped from the shadows and approached Princess Rentara. The creature was utterly horrifying. Its countenance was layered with every gruesome feature of menace that nightmares could provide. Its mouth hung low and wide, filled with teeth like razor-needles and it had eyes like a botfly. It was tall and deathly thin with a crooked spine that forced it to wobble along on a cane. Locusts buzzed around it as it spoke with a droning, warbling imitation of a voice.

The CreeperJack came to Rentara with an awful, horrible, unthinkable proposition. It was so simple, and yet so insidious. It was something anyone could have thought of, but no one did. No one would.

The CreeperJack offered to clip Rentara’s wings.

Rentara was shocked. She was mortified. She refused The CreeperJack outright and ordered the hideous thing to leave immediately.

Rentara was also, however, intrigued. A fairy without wings would never –could never- run out of tears. To a fairy, losing their wings was the worst pain imaginable. Without wings, they would lose their connection to the mortal children who wished them into existence.

If Rentara did this, she would be forsaking all of the mortal children who gave their wishes for her to even exist. The emotional torment she would experience would be excruciating, to say nothing of the physical pain. She would still live forever, but without wings, she would be groundbound. Without her mortal dreamers, Rentara would have no purpose.

As The CreeperJack turned to leave, Rentara thought of all the fairies of Sennzia Tesson who would be erased if she did not do this. Her own wish-children would be without their fairy either way when the Void came for her. Their dreamers, however, would keep their imaginations alive. Their fairies would still be there to support them. This was Rentara’s purpose. She needed to give up her children so that others could be there for theirs. A single tear welled up in her eye as she realized this.

Rentara shouted for The CreeperJack to stop. In desperation to save her people, Rentara agreed to sacrifice her wings. To avoid panic, she needed to be transparent and to assure the people that they would be safe.

The night of Rentara’s grounding was Glacée 10. The ceremony was public, with the CreeperJack in attendance disguised as an executioner. Rentara’s screams were agonizing to listen to. Princess Rentara’s tears flowed like rivers into Mercury Lake. Word had spread to the Core about what was happening that night and the entire realm wept with her and for her. They understood what Rentara had sacrificed for them.

The Silver Hex was successful. The people of Sennzia Tesson were rescued from the brink of oblivion by Rentara’s sacrifice. Rentara was transformed from a figure of nobility and aristocracy to a legend. She was no longer simply Rentara Floquet, Princess of Sennzia. She was “The Silver Fairy,” savior of millions. Her title crossed over into the myth of mortals, and she became a messianic fairy figure, revered across The ManyRealms.

On a remote island that had been created during the rupture, the Sorrowcrest Society of the Silver Hex was established. The founding coven built a campus there to recruit and train bright and promising young witches. Nearly two thousand years later, Sorrowcrest continues to maintain the Silver Hex for each new generation.

The unnamed shadow witch who conceived of the plan for the Silver Hex is remembered by the Hexcoin. The Hexcoin is a featureless, black slug sliced from Hellrock Steel. It is Sennzia’s most common form of currency, with an estimated 20 billion Hexcoins currently in circulation.

Glacée 10 became known as Grounding Day, the most revered holiday in all of Sennzia.  On this day each year, fairies & pixies around the realm honor Rentara’s sacrifice by remaining grounded and not using their wings for an entire day. No one, not even a dragon is excused from honoring Grounding Day. It is unacceptable to fly anywhere in Sennzia on this particular day.

Somewhere, The CreeperJack sits enjoying a glass of honeydew while staring across at a pair of severed, silver fairy wings in a trophy case.