None of them: you are a traitor!

You remember your early days in the cult. The air smelled of filth, sex and fear. You could no longer smell that rancid, fresh scent of debauchery, even though Shugga had reeked of it next to you. But you could remember it- every sleepless night, every time your bloodied hands trembled after the of a rival...

How you crawled from sleeping on the floor to the embrace of your own quarters. A humble cell, but such a leap from poverty... you hunger for more, but you never forgot to savor what you had achieved. Did you earn it-?

No. Not a single person lives a life they deserve, this you learned as a lowly child torn from the streets and brought up in Grevakhnu's flock. No one desires to die, be ravaged or traumatized by the evil fruits of the cult's loins. But it happens anyway... it is a transaction of innocence, to gratify the worst selfishness in the world: the wants of women and men long addicted to the taste of wrongful raptures.

You have always longed for Filistra, despite your tarnished heart and steady corossion of all morals and empathy. Beautiful as she was- and gracefully shaped despite her age- what made you so long was that bright glare in her eyes. It saw into people, and past them, how she might use them. She was the most greedy, yet determined woman in the whole world: Filistra's body, mind and soul all radiated a cold and eradicating desire you have wanted to satisfy since boyhood...

Of course, it could never be. Your longings torment you- especially on tonight, the eve of your failure and quaint dismissal as Herald, nothing more than a gilded exile for you. Filistra has quietly and assuredly made a permanent pawn of you that will never be close enough to threaten her or her successor's power, but useful to the cult from afar... you'd surely be a martyr for her dark lady. And you had no sane recourse-

-complain and be punished? Disobey and go dishonored? Your lack of power but plentiful talent and, of course, lowly status as a male in Grevakhnu's cult all pieced together to mechanize the cogwheels of today's unsung refusal of you. Filistra has put you exactly where you belong for her: out in harm's way, being useful to the females as they gush hideous dark spawn from their gaped wombs...

You had entered the ceremony with high hopes. To have risen this high in the cult as a mere man, you were already abnormal. The lives you'd taken haunt you at night still. It was hard to kill... to scheme and betray... bitterly terrifying, and though you could steady your nerves by now, you'd long realized you would know no peace in this life.

You did it for love. You felt the warmth of that love when Filistra touched you during the ceremony. How amazing, that the rub of her skin against yours could liquefy your wits into the most happy ambrosia...

You are so angry- unable to be angry with her, and unable to cast off your grief. Your only saving solace... is that you had expected this might happen, and took insane recourse. It's madness, what you've dared to do! No one could've remotely guessed you'd taken the Chains.

You have secretly formed a pact with **Naridawakil,** a cruel eldritch patron with few cultists, but deserved infamy: he is the Eater of Hope, the Sickening of Spirits, feared across the world as the Prince of Taboo. He favors those who fall from grace, and loves those who grieve selfishly.

To form a pact with the Prince of Taboo, one needs first to answer his condition for his pact: it will only be accepted once his contractee has been betrayed by someone they love wholeheartedly. Naridawakil has no interest in those who cannot love, because they have no true offering.

If the pact-seeker goes unbetrayed, Naridawakil loses interest in them and their bond vanishes. If they experience great grieving and betrayal, however... Naridawakil accepts his pact-maker by binding them in the Chains of Taboo. Phantom, ghostly chains attach to their bodies from Beyond, their lengths disappearing in small distorted voids that linger near the caster. So long as they are shackled- Cultists of Taboo wield Naridawakil's power, but at a price...

**Chains of Taboo**

*Once shackled, a cultist of Naridawakil gains the ability to fully manipulate the chains attached to their body. They are incorporeal- but can manifest solid mass at will, and each link of chain can be selectively included or excluded from interacting with objects. It's possible to pass them through walls or armor: Naridawakil's gloomy shackles are the penultimate assassin's weapon.*

*Although shackled themselves, the user can bind others in Naridawakil's chains, and doing so is deadly- while chained, anyone struck by the wielder's chains will be unable to use magic. The touch of the phantom chains is the bane of anathema to not just magical or Holy things, but contains Naridawakil's power of Undoing, able to insult and weaken aspects of reality: any and all things magic, even gifts of other patrons or great demons, become weak and mundane if shackled for a time.*

*When the user has weakened a shackled enemy for long enough, they may pass them through the voids at the end of each chain as offerings to Naridawakil. It's impossible to know what happens to them in Beyond, but it is assuredly a terrible fate. Naridawakil rewards the pact-maker by restoring the length of their chains by a few day's time for each life offered... but it is never enough.*

*Use of the eldritch chains causes their lengths to shrink. Even when not in use the chains slowly erode away and shorten the pact-maker's distance to the Beyond. If in use, however, they will temporarily revert to full length- their user doesn't weaken by the shortening of chains, but the length of the chains serves another purpose.*

*Once the pact is made, the chains bound to them are scaled to their lifespan, with the generous assumption they would've lived to an elderly age. Using the chains and thus borrowing the Prince of Taboo's power erodes the shackles... as well as their wielder's lifespan. An hour's worth of lifespan is lost for every second that the chains are in use. Once bound, the chains cannot be unbound, and every Cultist of Taboo one day becomes an offering themselves.*

You feel a cold pain in your heart. Your grief has not yet reached its zenith, but you feel Naridawakil's shadow pressing on your heart; your breathing quickens as you stand in Filistra's chambers...

Her eyes are on you. She tilts a bare, flared hip, accentuated by the allure of her scant dress. Your silence has preturbed her. You are not choosing any of the relics on her desk, because you can't: the Chains have taken those gifts away from you. Anything blessed of Grevakhnu would reject you right now.

You will have to tell her the truth. In that moment, you will become Unsung, a to your own undoing bound to these moments.

But, you feel glad- this was a terrible way to go, yet the only way you could satisfy your heart's painful and unrequitable yearning...