Lilith Blackravens (The Blood Dragon)

Lilith Blackravens

(The Blood Dragon)

Madlings, I am both excited and terrified to introduce you to Lilith. Each of our next four characters has followed me across my life for the past twenty years. They have become more nuanced along the way, just as my life has. Atius (Malice), Alcmene (Rath), Belial (Damian), and Lilith were my most role-played characters way back in the day. I will introduce you to them if I can stay on task this week.

Today we begin with Lilith, a woman who holds great importance to the entire saga but is irrelevant to many of our opening events. Her story begins hundreds of years before we will open our tale. This rewriting (along with how much Coral had to be changed) is why I have been so silent on our adventure the last few weeks. Fuck I just realized I'm writing a trilogy >.> damn world-building. Before I get too distracted, welcome Madlings to our second character deep dive. I hope you enjoy Lilith.

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The Obsidian Wail has always been a place of violence and betrayal. While many insane vampire lords have claimed to live for a Millennia, few can trace their existence to more than two decades. Thus many struggling souls flock to those claiming to have power. If you possess enough power, few will seek validation on ancestry claims. It was hard to counter allegations of ancestry while dead. The Wail has always been controlled by the mighty.

Establishing an empire that remains the ruling force of the region. Ancestry was everything to the vampire clans. If you held lineage before the banishment, you were a god. Long ago, a Vampire warrior name Kain was the first to bring stability to the Obsidian Wail. Nearly four hundred years after his death, the bloodline of Kain remains revered.

Kain set out immediately to secure his bloodline after the slaughter that gained him a kingdom. Few remember Kain as a mortal, his genocidal crusade to achieve immortality. Any poor soul possessing knowledge of this heresy was dealt with immediately. Except for one poor soul, the girl he claimed as his prize. Lilith would forever wear the scars of remembering her part in handing a lunatic immortality.

Lilith's bloodline was ancient, with powerful connections to the Obsidian Wail. Not that Lilith would have any knowledge of this. Kain had claimed her as his daughter in infancy. She knew Kain as a supportive parent. Whenever she struggled with her magic or felt like a freak, Kain comforted her. How was she supposed to know any of this?

Growing up, Lilith always knew she was different from the other kids. None of the other kids heard the endless Wailing of lost souls in the rain. She remembers the pure terror she could sense from people near her as she practiced her magic. She knew they all hated her, all but her father. She couldn't explain why but could feel it in their blood.

Lilith's specialty was blood. Many feared the rain within the Wail, the crimson torrent of blood was beautiful to Lilith. She could manipulate the blood rain to create pictures in the sky. Drinking the substance, many believed a curse upon the world would grant Lilith visions. Visions containing ancient knowledge of the souls unlucky enough to have lost their lives in the Wail. Most of it made no sense to her. What mattered was her father was so happy every time she shared something of value.

It took her nearly ten years, but Lilith was never as proud as when she told her father she had found their prize. For years her father alone had supported her magic. Everyone else thought her a freak for needing to sustain herself with blood. Her blood would have spilled on the streets if she had not been the Lord's daughter. She would be another monster slain in the pursuit to "cleanse" the Wail. This time she would prove them all wrong, and Lilith would force them to acknowledge her. No longer would she be the "Blood Princess."

She couldn't have imagined the terrors within the Undercroft. Nothing prepared her for watching soldiers explode in a crimson spiral as creatures siphoned blood from every pore. Villagers told stories of "Vampires," creatures like herself that drank the cursed blood rain. To survive, she would have to turn to the same primal forces as these "vampires." Was this madness why people looked at her with such disdain?

After days of fighting through the nightmare-inducing swamp known as the Undercroft, Lilith, and Kain alone found their way into the long-forgotten caverns of the Carpathian Mountains. Their prize would still require them to travel days more through a pitch-black labyrinth of tunnels. Lilith had lost that pride from before, replaced with a terrible pain of loss. Too many people lost their lives for a feeling, the hope that she was leading them to the cure for her father's illness.

When a light in the distance began to appear, she thought herself mad. If Lilith had only known she was the only one seeing the light. Reassured by Kain, the answer to everything was at the glare she again pushed forward to make him proud. At worst, Lilith would die on an adventure seeking the cure for the man that raised her. At best, she can hand her father, who supported everything she has ever done, a second chance at life as he had to her many years ago.

Lilith could never have imagined the sheer majesty of their destination. Everything from her visions was now a physical reality before her eyes. Trees much like the Obsidian Wail, the crimson waterfall, and the meadow near the lake. High above it all is the source of the waterfall, an ancient temple built into the rock. In disbelief, she stepped into the massive cavern with her father. Somehow within a mountain of pure darkness, she found The Sacred Glade.

Lilith had taken her first life within the Undercroft a few days earlier. Compared to that manipulating a river of blood to carry them up to the temple was simple. Also simple was navigating the temple and its passageways. Something was calling to her from the moment she entered the Sacred Glade. When they found the source calling to her, Lilith fell to her knees.

Tears of blood were streaming happily from Lilith. Their days of turmoil were a success. Lilith's visions of the past had all been correct thus far, so surely she could use this sanctum to save her father. As the hair raised on her skin, she jubilantly jumped up and forcefully hugged her father. Lilith never felt the dagger she found from her first vision entering her belly. Nor did she twitch from the slash across her throat. All she remembers are his eyes, those swirling black eyes of blood! Her eyes!

Madlings, I have so much to share with you about Lilith. This dive is only part one of what you might have noticed is a reasonably long life. I will continue writing tonight, but this is a great place to take a break. Going to get food and do a few keys with the Muffins. Please return to the Madhouse again soon. We have so many questions to answer before we connect Aurora to Lilith. First, we must explain how our Ice Dragon Coral relates to all this. Blessed Be my Madlings