The Reft

Written by StillnessandSilence

They call us liars.
They say there is no record.
But I have seen the slitted eyes in void, and
I have felt the chill in my spine when sleep comes too fast.
We are the Reft.
We are what’s left of the truth.

In the depths of the Hollowdeep, some still live with pieces—fractures of forgotten moments, half-remembered dreams. Balen the warrior made a desperate wish: that the Malphas Somniophage had never existed, and never would again. He shattered his celestial gift to unmake them—those nightmare creatures that had brought only pain and ruin. But Balen’s wish, though forged in grief, was cruel in its own way. It echoed in the hollow places of the world, reverberating deep beneath the surface of Astrovos. And though the world above forgot, the Hollowdeep remembered. There are still those who feel them—who dream in voices not their own. Changed by something they can no longer name, they wander through fragmented memories, haunted by echoes of the Soothsayers. The Malphas Somniophage are gone... but not entirely. Shadows remain, stitched into the seams of reality.

The Reft and the Dream Caves

The Reft is formed from many who call the Hollowdeep home—each marked by the ache of what once was. A deep, gnawing grief for something that is no longer there, though none can name it. They wear fragments of silk—once woven by the master weavers of the Silkn elves. Wispy scraps, draped like memory, like mourning. Symbols of their place between waking and dreaming. Between what is real and what was stolen. They speak in broken metaphors, half-poems and riddles. Their voices do not always agree. The Reft is made of many who would not normally gather—Grimlings, the goblins of the Hollowdeep… Vrexari with their veil-wings… horntoothed Scarn who hum in stone-language… even the silent few who remember too much. They do not meet by choice. They are drawn. Something was ripped from their minds, and in that shared wound, the Reft was born. The Reft dwell in the dream caves—winding hollows carved into the bones of the Hollowdeep. Along the stone walls, they paint swirling, cryptic patterns that no outsider seems able to decipher. The shapes repeat like a forgotten song, filling a silent absence none of them can fully name. Some whisper that these caves once held what the world can no longer remember. The Reft mark their own flesh in mimicry, tracing the same motifs onto their skin using pigment made from moss and powdered silver. Across their hearts, many wear tattoos of closed eyes—a silent emblem that they survived the Dreaming. These rites, their art, their rituals, all serve as echoes of a time erased, memories fractured yet still reaching.

“The Reft emerged in response to a forgotten cataclysm, shaped by the silence left in its wake—a subculture defined by the need to remember what the world chose to forget.”

© Sorianna Choate. All rights reserved. All written content, including character, setting, and lore, is the original creation of Sorianna Choate. Artwork and imagery are original works by the author. No part of this piece may be copied, reproduced, or used without explicit permission