She drifted silently through the endless corridors of the Rift, her presence little more than a shimmering ripple of consciousness. Her form had transcended the limitations of matter, reduced now to a subtle echo, drifting gently on the currents of unreality. To an observer, if any existed capable of witnessing such subtlety, she might have appeared as a faint outline, delicate and fragile,a mere whisper against the tapestry of existence.

  She was Vaerys. She was the last.

  Once, her people had been magnificent, beings who had surpassed the bindings of physical reality itself. Born from a species whose name was lost to time, the Vaerys had been a civilization of thought, of luminous consciousness, beings who abandoned the mortal flesh to embrace the pure and infinite realm of ideas and intellect. They had ascended beyond bodies, beyond the pains and limitations of physicality, becoming beings of energy and perception, interwoven with the very fabric of the universe itself.

  The Vaerys had believed themselves untouchable in their purity. They could traverse galaxies as effortlessly as a mortal might cross a room, bend time and probability with mere thoughts. They communicated through intricate symphonies of consciousness, emotions woven into tapestries of perception so nuanced that no lesser beings could comprehend them. They were scholars, artists, philosophers of the highest order, guardians of cosmic wisdom that spanned eons.

  Yet, even as their evolution reached its zenith, they had failed to recognize the insidious whisper that would become their undoing.

  Ammon had not arrived with armies or fleets, not with thunderous proclamations or demands for surrender. Instead, he emerged softly, silently, slipping through the cracks in their collective consciousness. He appeared first as a harmless curiosity, a shadowed thought brushed away by minds too vast, too assured in their own perfection to perceive the danger.

  She remembered vividly how it began,her collective kinship dismissing those first quiet doubts as mere anomalies, moments of distraction, insignificant deviations. But Ammon was patient, patient as decay, and far more insidious. He whispered softly, planting seeds of curiosity and temptation. Subtly he awakened desires long buried, coaxing forth forbidden emotions,envy, ambition, yearning.

  And the Vaerys, unaccustomed to such emotions, fell quickly and catastrophically. Their collective consciousness had long been their strength, but it became their greatest weakness. Once corrupted, their thoughts spread contamination swiftly, the purity of their existence tainted. Minds twisted, radiant intellect warped into darkness.

  The first to fall were those who had lingered closest to the echoes of their past selves, who had held onto fragments of individuality. Their consciousness splintered, corrupted by Ammon’s whisper into monstrous aberrations known as Mind Snipers,entities capable of destroying thought, eradicating sanity, reducing civilizations to hollow shells.

  Vaerys herself had seen beloved companions fall, felt their consciousness shatter. Each loss was a silent scream, resonating in her being as agony, grief beyond mortal comprehension. Yet even as she mourned, she knew there was no salvation, no rescue from this gradual annihilation. Her people had evolved into something glorious only to be undone by the very consciousness that had set them free.

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  She had fled, not from fear, but from wisdom. She understood the truth of Ammon,not a conqueror, but a devourer, insatiable hunger given sentience, an entity that would consume until nothing remained.

  Now, drifting endlessly within the Rift, she felt a loneliness profound and infinite. She was the last remnant of a civilization of limitless beauty and potential, reduced now to a ghost haunting the void between worlds. She existed neither in life nor in death but in sorrowful suspension, burdened with knowledge that was both her blessing and curse.

  Yet still, she clung stubbornly to hope. For within her lingered the memories of wisdom, the beauty of her people's achievements, the lessons learned through their tragic downfall. She carried their story within her, an archive of all that once was and a quiet warning of what must never be again.

  Then, after eons of waiting and watching, others arrived.

  The woman with the blade, strength wrapped in pain. The man who walked within the ripples of time, seeking truths hidden in shadows. They were fragile, mortal beings, yet carried within them possibilities immense and uncertain.

  She watched them closely, feeling a strange kinship,a yearning to guide, to impart the wisdom earned through her own people's bitter destruction. They did not yet understand the gravity of their roles, did not yet grasp the terrifying hunger awaiting them in the dark.

  And so, she resolved to reach out, knowing well the dangers of interaction. She had seen firsthand how consciousness could be corrupted, how even the purest intentions could fracture under the relentless pressure of a being like Ammon.

  But she knew they must learn what the Vaerys had learned too late:

  To fight the abyss, one must sacrifice everything held dear, discard all remnants of former self, embrace the purity of purpose, and abandon personal desire. Only then could one resist corruption.

  She felt sorrowful certainty, a quiet resolve.

  As she drifted toward them, preparing to reveal herself, Vaerys felt the weight of countless generations of her people pressing upon her, urging her forward, reminding her gently that the wisdom of the past could illuminate the darkness of the future.

  In her loneliness and grief, she found a final purpose,to guide those who might yet alter destiny, to teach those who might still resist the hunger, and perhaps, through them, ensure that the Vaerys did not vanish entirely into forgotten silence.

  And so, the last of the Vaerys moved quietly, softly, toward hope.

  “She drifts, an echo lost within corridors of shattered thoughts.

  The last voice of an ancient song silenced by whispers darker than the void itself.

  Her people faded to memory, their wisdom swallowed by hunger eternal.

  Yet still, she endures, neither living nor dying, trapped between what was and what must be.

  She sees them now, warriors unaware, stumbling into the grasp of a hunger that never rests.

  They come to face the darkness, blind to the truth she carries, the lesson forged in loss.

  Listen closely, wanderers, for soon she will speak.

  To survive, to stand, you must abandon what you cling to most dearly.

  Or be consumed, as her people were, by the hunger that devours all.

  She is the last keeper of the old truths.

  And soon, they will understand.”