//------------------------------//
// Prologue: Ominous Designs 
// Story: Decretum 
// by BlackRoseRaven 
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Prologue: Ominous Designs
~BlackRoseRaven

“Valthrudnir's dead.” The voice spoke quietly, coming from the outline of a figure dressed in armor. It was one of five different shapes sitting around a plain circular table, their eyes studying each other, not speaking as they sat together cloaked beneath the dim, foreboding depths of shadow. There was only one single point of light, coming from a hanging spotlight that shone down onto the center of the dusty table, casting just enough of a glow to illuminate the shapes of the five that sat around it, and the glimpse of faint details here and there.
“Glad you figured that out, Courage. Did you do it all by yourself?” mocked another voice. This profile sat straighter, eyes glowing with unnatural blue luminescence, reflected in the rubber-gloved hand that rested on the tabletop. The fingers tapped a silent tattoo against the surface with distinct, strange clicks as the one called Courage growled.
There was a giggle from another of the creatures, crumbs pattering down from its mouth, a flash of pallid pink visible within the shadows. Cakes, muffins, other goods were piled up in front of it, and a half-eaten piece of pie rested in its hooves as it cajoled in a high-pitched, female voice: “Come on now, guys, there's no need to fight! We're all in this together, after all...”
“Shut the hell up, Delight. And you shut your face too, Beauty.” Courage muttered, then it grimaced when chains rattled and a larger, burlier shape snorted in disgust from beneath a well-worn cowboy hat. “You got something to say too, Valor? Or hell, what about you, Prudence, going to open that ugly mouth of yours?”
“I'm sorry, Courage, did you say something to me?” asked a soft, gentle voice from the dark shape across the table, the figure sitting back with a small white animal resting in its upper limbs, stroking this slowly, tenderly, and the table went dead silent for a few moments. Courage visibly shivered, wings spreading behind the likely-female figure, and the shape known as Prudence leaned forwards with a soft smile, nodding once to itself, the features of a mare with a single large bang falling across her face illuminated for a single moment. “That's what I thought.”
Then she sat back, and the silence continued around the table, the only sound Beauty's fingers continuing to apprehensively tap a quiet tattoo against the furnishing before a door opened near the back of the room. All eyes turned towards this, towards a tall, majestic unicorn profiled by the terrible white light of the room beyond it as it announced in a calm voice: “The Prophet has had a vision. We continue to watch and wait for our time to strike, but it draws closer, and we now know who we are looking for.”
“I hope you're right, Wisdom. Ain't fun sitting here, waiting all the time.” Valor muttered, reaching up and flicking the cowboy hat on its head back: the front leg was powerful, seemingly too large for even the rest of its bulky frame, and heavy chains clanked when it moved. “Makes me... twitchy.”
“Do not doubt in me or the Prophet, or the Clockwork King.” Wisdom said coldly, and there was silence for a moment... before wings fluttered lightly at the sides of the unicorn, then furled tightly back against its body as it settled itself, announcing calmly: “We will watch. We will wait. The time to strike will be soon, do not fear. But for now, we must locate the layer where they are hiding, and if possible, continue to look for the core reality.
“We must not disappoint the Prophet, we must finish what Valthrudnir started. We will find and destroy the two who dared to defy our master... Brynhild and Scrivener Blooms.”