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The toll of the arcane

Is a price thieves can’t escape

End of an age

For those who learn their truths halfway

Black robed sage

In an unknown temple lies in wait

A trail of lights leads winding through the wilds

Invisible to eyes with common sight

A loathsome path of thorns which draw cold blood

A welcome cost to feed obsessive thirst

The thorns they grow in girth till they’re as trees

They guard a heaving cave in woodlands deep

It’s mouth screams accusations in the mind

But chosen few are still urged on inside

Horrors

Unspeakable are seen

Illusions

Yet not weapons of deceit

Prepare

As life becomes what it has been

Behold

A Saint of Darkness at his seat

“Another seeker has arrived

Surely it is he sees himself fit to wield death

That is not in question

The question we may ask instead

Are you fit to worship life?

Or perhaps you are unfit to live it?”

Master of the arts obscure

Keeper of forgotten lore

Inside these walls he rules with iron fist

The weak are pruned the narcissistic shunned

Here piety and wisdom are the laws

Monastic hellscape for those wills unfit

A place for mages pure

The necrourgic forces are implored

Spirit of balance trapped in hidden depths

Rising soon to bring an age of death