April 28, 2025 12:13 PM PDT
The greatest terrors of the mind often lie in what we cannot see. In the annals of Thronefastian nightmares, however, one dark silhouette remains visible to this very day, lingering in the memory of anyone who's seen its shape or heard the tale of its undoing.
Once the shimmering Jewel of a noble family, the Sevil Manor hosted regal galas and parades of foreign guests. Fortunes were made and lost in the clandestine black rooms, legacies forged or swept like dust to the floor of its cavernous ballroom. For a time, the family stood as the envy of the Court of Lords, though that time was short-lived. The manor was set to host the coronation of a king before the treasonous crimes of bribery and blackmail were uncovered.
The Sevils never recovered from this public shame and over decades the resplendent manner fell into a den of depravity. Having oversight of the farmlands of the Forlyn outside Thronefast, the family's twisted ambitions began to demand unreasonable excesses from its laborers. While other Noble houses used skills of commerce or war to excel, the Sevil family were adept at extortion and manipulation. They soon had nearly every landowner in the foreland pinched between their own sins and the Sevil’s greedy thumb. Over the years, this grew from skimming profits to forced labor on the manor to, well, things difficult to imagine.
Yet, one night after yet another servant had gone missing, the laborers gathered themselves and marched upon the manor, intent on liberating their own and burning the estate to the ground. When they could not find the woman, a madness took them and they turned to slaughter. Room by room, they carried out their so-called Justice til the walls were stained from the wounds of the dead. For one night, the oppressed walked the halls as the Lords of Sevil Manor, the steps of their wet boots bearing witness to every act undertaken in their fit of power.
When the bloodshed slowed to a trickle, the laborers ringed around the manor and lit their torches anew. In the light, they observed a storm gathered above their heads with the lightest of drops sizzling into the flames; yet, it was said the land had become so defiled that the rains refused to fall upon the ground. A witness reported waves of drops carrying themselves back up into the clouds, wailing in trails as they flew up into the sky. Instead of burning the manor to the ground as was their plan, the liberated farmers turned to shame on what they'd become. They held their torches aloft one last time, letting the cycle of the frenzied rains douse the fires before turning home.
Of course, this tale seems rather poetic fancy, the exaggerated myth-making that inhabits conversations when, in truth, is too costly to afford. So, too, are the stories that something Sevil yet lives in the manor, a site that many have claimed yet far too few can describe.
The rains fall on the grounds the same as anywhere else suggesting that the story might have been a bit more lie than truth. Members of the Sevil family were tried for their pride and banished from the Empire while oversight of the Farms returned to the crown. Yet, one truth stands amidst the fall of this ignoble house. No matter what the rains did that day, Sevil Manor ought to be burned to the ground.
