Spooktober 2023: Evenacht

For the spooktober prompts this year, I'm drawing images that will eventually be put into an intro video for my Evenacht serial (which runs here at WA!).

BACKGROUND
The Sun Oracle, Machella, has cradled the prophecy called the Recompense for millennia, making prediction after prediction that turned out to be true. All events led to the rise of a Daughter of the Sun, who, after a full life lived on the continent of Talis, would enter the Evenacht and complete its Redemption.
What this Redemption entailed, Machella never said. Disinformation and misinformation abounded as the Evenacht's religious attempted to guess what the future held. Some saw hope, some saw disaster, some tried to pry the answers from the oracle, and she stubbornly held them close.
It all was for naught; the hero meant to save the Evenacht died before her time, murdered by jealous Sun acolytes who saw her as an impediment to their ambitions. She entered the evening lands long before she fulfilled the parts of the prophecy that took place on Talis. The oracle sundered, and few think the shattered remains salvageable.
The video takes place after the sundering, when Erse Parr, the syimlin of Death, visits Machella in her hidden temple.

Ha! Have my thirteen--but there is much more to the story. While it would be nice if I could get the video done for the end of Spooktober, I have a suspicion that isn't going to happen (I am not a video guru--it takes me time). We will see, what I can get done.
All artwork by Shade Melodique unless otherwise stated
(my new artist pseudonym!)

The Snake's Head Peninsula--the DRY part of the Evenacht.

Erse STALKS to the lightning-coated portal

and enters.

The temple is in an odd VOID.

Who is SUMMONED forth?

A flash of light, all goes dark.

An EERIE mask floats before Death.
"Erse. I expected you before now."

Lightning strikes, THUNDER follows.
"Did you?" Erse asks.

The ghost FADES in.
"You are curious, are you not?"
"You asked that I return. I have done so," Erse says.

FATE is in the house.

Machella shows Erse fortune's ball. An EPITAPH appears.
"The line is broken. Taken before her time, all that she was to have wrought is sand swept to sea, unknown. Too soon, too late."

Erse snaps her fingers. The lightning ceases.
"Riddles bore me, Machella," she warns, annoyed at the CRYPTIC words.

Unphased, Machella shows the two APPARITIONS who represent Light and Darkness.
"Only hints, pieces, a sparse banquet to feast upon. She has help, never fear. They realize the line is broken. They know, they walk the unknown, and they accompany her anyway"

Machella shows the HOPELESSNESS Laken feels.
"And what do your rocks say?" Erse asks.
"They speak of sorrow too intimate for expression. It gnaws the bones of hope," Machella whispers.

The DROWNING DESPAIR of Laken.
"He believes his salvation is empty, a chasm of undetermined end. He sees only a repetition, not realizing the events do not rhyme."