Some hesitate at the threshold. Others stride forth and are undone by their own hubris. But there are those who do not hesitate, do not strive, nor burn themselves against fate—because they thrive in the decay.
Onto our stage steps Count Bludveil, a creature of opportunism and indulgence, one who slips between the cracks of a failing world, instead of wallowing in its inertia.
If fate is already wrought, then why not play your part to the fullest, burn your candle brightest? If the world is collapsing, why not feast upon its ruin?
Dark, darkly does the Count The air of change is asphyxiated, The phoenix fire snuffed out, The light of dawn is relegated, The spirit's now in drought.
Fix your step to the debasing drum, The lords mired in sleaze, Tally my sins in an eager sum, Sliding along with slickease.
Holler as one to the new grey sun, The eclipse of ecstasy, Thank god you heard the starting gun, The day desire was freed.
Attending our dear Archon, Praiseless yet lavished in style, Drawn to eyes that darken, Our emissary Count Bludveil.
Dark, darkly does the Count, But for once in a while, That vile, vile sycophant, From fell lord's rank and file.
Reclining now upon the dais, Insanguinated and spent, Emanating the power of Deus, Resting on revelry's rent.
"Monadan, Deus, the one, the man, In futility doing all it can, To hold together his failing plan, While I treat to a feast of fools, Supping from that mortal spool, Yet I feel a pity for that desperate man, Making busy with his profaned hand."
The Count plays his part well—he feasts & revels in the decay. But what of those who become the feast? What of those who are consumed by indulgence rather than fed by it?
Venustra, radiant and adored, is not unlike Count Bludveil. Both are creatures of a world that rewards excess, idols propped upon a crumbling stage. But where the Count moves within it, Venustra is used by it. Her worship is a sickness. Her beauty, a burden. The same idolatry that she wielded in her ascent, becomes her undoing.
And when the revelry is spent, when the eyes of her admirers grow dull, she too will wane, drained and hollow.
So revel, drink deep, and whisper her name:
Venustra, draped Sweet Venustra so piled upon, By cascading furs falling, You cannot turn and face the throng, Of those milk-eyed fans adoring.
Those suckling fools drink in your eyes, And out they come a-gasping, All held in tow by mine petty lies, Promises baited in ermine.
The way you glamourise heroin, Is really quite disturbing, The way you cling to that sordid thing, Sends my skins a-crawling.
They laid you low, those raveners, Reclined, reposing, and spent, Ravaged by those foaming currs, Hounds upon poppy scent.
You've become so lacklustre, Venustra, Drowning your hours away, Use what power you can muster, You can't forever keep night at bay.
When it comes I hope they'll stay, Smitten suitors at my frays, I really quite dread that day, When it comes, Come what may.
The emergent sea, A veneer of calm, A frothing mantle, Toward which I swam.
As I wrestled with the gathering foam, The flotsam eyeing me in the gloam, A sweet song came in, Calling me home.
And then a thin voice rang out across the clearing water, One final burst before it faltered, If you are to rush me over, then do it now, If you are to fold me up and drag me down, Do it now.
The waiting I cannot bear, The bating of my breath, Shallow, feint, despair, Comes crawling up from the sea-foam air.
Let’s have it then, Open mighty chasm, Deep’s darkest womb, Gather all your strength, And bind me now in the watery tomb.
The maelstrom growling and storm-eye howling, Bind me, drag me from lands so free, Pulled under by the yoke of the emergent sea.
A man drowned a coward, In the unlit firmament, A man became nothing, and there was no one Left to lament.
The mass of waves, like an ichor shade, Gushed ever on in its course, The mighty cars of the dark-burning stars, Burning fringes, the crest, Continued with unparalleled force.
How it dawned on this wretched one, That the sun, it shone, From the singular son, Yet dissolved was he.
It was already done, Undifferentiated and undone, In the slag-heaped wake, Of that emergent sea.
And the entity that I had been was beached, On the sandbar, On a mound of silt, at the bottom, And around it the bodies of those bleached, Corals depicted scenes that were trod on.
In the numbing deluge, Of the great wreckage of man, The forms held true, No, mockeries in vain hue.
And now this entity rued, That he had given all he can, More than he can, To the gloom at the bottom of that Emergent sea.
Oh cruel sea, take pity, Spit me out, why don’t you? Oh gathering ripple of entropy, Break from the path you flow to.
My heart rendered inert, When I breach the surface, I dissolve into the dirt, And as a dust of fine hurt, Sink back to ocean floor.
If only I held my own at the shore, Unbowed before the gnashing maw,
Now I lay on the beach by the lake, Under the emergent sea.
The Emergent Sea 