Ossuary of Dread
In days long past, before the Chaos Wars, there was a SoulMaster DreamWright by the name of Pagas. Her passion and her fury in protecting the City of Dreams was unmatched by any save one. He was a gatekeeper whose renown had whispered his name in the ears of Pagas...the name of Veinio. Yet it was that these great defenders of the dream had differing causes. Pagas was a member of the Orious Society, a team of DreamWrights who were creating a great Artifact...the Orb of Transcendence. The purpose of this artifact was to instill in the mind of all dreamers the belief that chaos can be controlled, and can bring great power to those who succeed. The Society's reason for wanting this comes about thus: For a long time, DreamSeers in the city had predicted a crisis that would soon put the very fabric of the dream in danger. But while few doubted this, no one had any concrete knowledge of what the future might bring. Thus it was that the Society sought to prepare everyone for the worst, and so they wished to encourage, through the use of the Orb, everyone to go on the quest for knowledge and power. There were, however, opponents to this task, among whom was Veinio. These believed that nothing justified brainwashing the masses, not even the existence of the dream city itself. Because of tension arose between the factions which, after a long period of strain, turned into open conflict. So it was that Pagas and Veinio first met on the field of war. The moment they saw each other, each was filled with an intense disgust for the other and commenced to unleash all their fury upon one another. Both were hurt and collapsed numerous times. The war of the factions, later known as The Conflict of Transcendence, lasted 2 months. Each day, Pagas and Veinio stalked the field of combat searching for each other. As the days passed, though, something between them changed. Each came to see the other as an almost perfect reflection of him/herself. Their courage, their willingness to face DreamStrike day in and day out for their beliefs....they each possessed traits found in the other. And as more days passes, the empathy between them developed into something more, till one day they did not attack each other on sight, but spoke instead. After much time spend this way, they returned home without having passed a single blow between them. So it went. Eventually they, as the wheel of fortune would have it, became totally engrossed in one another that, in the face of their peers, they defiantly proclaimed their love for one another. Believing Veinio to be under a spell of Pagas's, his companion focused their powers on Pagas and blasted her to incoherence. One particularly powerful DreamWright who had learned the art of DreamStrike, against his better judgment and somewhat drunk to boot, evoked this curse upon the soulsphere that had been Pagas. Veinio immediately collapsed the man, but it was too late, and his grief knew no bounds. Nor was Pagas the only one to have been dreamstruck in the Conflict of Transcendence. Hundred had been permanently destroyed as a result. But the public death of Pagas did something good as well. It opened the eyes of those blinded by the rage of War, and they finally understood that no matter how much conflict and tension there was, violence served only to help destroy the city of dreams. In memory of those who had perished in the turmoil, the Ossuary was build. In it the soul crystals of the DreamStrike warriors were safely placed. An attachment, the Lower Ossuary of Dread, was constructed in honor of the particularly valiant, among them Pagas. The first room to be built was named after her. As a show of his love, Veinio spent the rest of his days with the soul crystal of Pagas in the Ossuary, there devoting his time to the study of chaos and preparing to combat the REAL threat as foreseen by the DreamSeers. There he stayed till his body in Cloudsbreak took off on its last journey. The room in which he stayed bears his name still. Among the others to be buried there were Arranor and Timid, the other great warriors to have perished in the conflict. A hall was later constructed so that mourners can be accommodated, for the fame of the deceased spread even more after their demises. Thus the Grieving Hall came into being. And so the lower ossuary was finished. Many, many years later, the Great Loss occurred. When the Dorsal Rift was borne, it tore through the ossuary, both lower and upper, and changed it into the grim place it is today. So it is that, nowadays, they bear the names of Dread. And that is the story of how the Lower Ossuary of Dread came into being.
