Early childhood
Viktor Zolotov was born on the 1st day of Erastus, in 4687—the youngest of eight children raised and loved by Katarina Stoiču and Edward Zolotov. Viktor was born on the road, in the Varisian tradition, and his family traveled the Lost Coast Road.
Katarina declined to participate in the family business her Sczarni brother had built up, but Gavrony never held that against his baby sister and they lived in loving relationship—despite Katarina marrying (outside the clan) a simple Varisian herbalist and hedge surgeon.
Young Viktor was always on the move, never standing still. He loved puzzles, logic problems, and games, especially Hide & Seek. And just as he was trained (openly) by his father in the ways of healing, he was also trained (subtly) by his uncle with the skills he’d need to take over his empire. Should the need arise. Little puzzles: “How would you unlock this box if you needed to?” Little games: “How would you sneak up on me, from that angle?”
Viktor’s earliest years were idyllic for a time: a life on the road with a family that loved him. And Viktor’s family was sprawling. So many siblings. Aunts and uncles. Cousins. And all of them loved little Viktor. Especially Uncle G, who found every opportunity to visit.
On the road, everyone had a job, and Viktor’s was to care for the pets: the dogs and cats and ferrets and parrots that their little clan kept around to make life richer and brighter.
But when the Red Death came, everything changed. It started with the leaking sores. And no one was spared—no one but Viktor, and hopefully his eldest brother Sebastijonas. But Sebastijonas wasn’t around, so no one knew for sure what happened to him.
In the darkest days of the plague year, little Viktor would lie in bed, with the covers over his head, and pretend he was in a coffin—trying to feel what his family was going through. He would imagine himself lying there, in the earth, with his loved ones, missing and loving them all.
His memories of the plague months always remained swimmy, but he never forgot the last time he saw Uncle G. The sores were already showing. He whispered in Viktor’s ear, “Search under the family tree, little man. I’ll put it there. It’s yours if you want it.” Viktor didn’t know what he was talking about, but he never forgot the instruction.
Once they were all dead, it was straight to an orphanage in Riddleport: Bergen Belling’s Home for Wayward Boys.
Loss and Consequence
And then it happened. In his ninth year. In a steep, wet Riddleport alleyway. At midnight. As storm was breaking.
Life in Bergen Belling’s Home for Wayward Boys hadn’t been great.
First of all, there were So Many Rules. When you woke. When you ate. What you could eat. What you could do. It was not the life Viktor had known. It was not a life Viktor thrived in.
And, of course, there was the abuse.
Kids were being neglected. Kids were being hurt. But not Viktor. He didn’t know why at first, but the other kids were happy to tell him: “It’s because of your uncle, stupid.” Uncle G had always just been “Uncle G” to Viktor. But to everyone else, who recognized his surname at once, Uncle G was Gavrony Stoiču, the Serpent of the Lost Coast.
Viktor had told the staff that he was “Viktor Stoiču,” not Viktor Zolotov. It was a simple little lie. Not even really a lie, just something he did because he was thinking about his family lines. There was still one Zolotov out there—hopefully—in Sebastijonas (unless he’d changed his name, too?), but there were no more Stoičus. So he thought he’d honor his mom and his Uncle G with a little name change. No harm, no foul, right?
Except, of course, little Viktor had NO IDEA what a legendary figure his uncle was.
And nobody actually believed the Serpent was dead. Not at that time. Not yet. Stoiču’s nephew being at Belling’s place was some kind of weird test—at least, that’s what everyone seemed to believe. Who will dare hurt my nephew?
And, of course, nobody would.
Once Viktor learned about this, and he realized he had some leverage, he decided to use it to help the rest of the kids there. He went to the Headmaster. And the Headmaster listened to the child’s threats. And when Belling responded, he spoke to Viktor of a Plan. “Yes, this place is bad, but it’s not my fault. Yes, we can help all of the kids… if you’re willing to take action?”
Viktor, nine years old, was of course willing to take action.
Belling drowned the child in a sea of jargon about protection rackets, insurance schemes, and shady legalities. Viktor didn’t understand the details, but he understood the Plan: Belling would make arrangements to get all the kids out. He’d leave them at the temple of Iomedae, where’d they’d have to take them in. Meanwhile, while everyone was gone, Viktor would slip into the alley and toss a torch into Belling’s window. Which Belling would leave open. And filled with oil.
Belling would be seen at his club that night and no suspicion would fall on him. The school would go up in flames. Belling would collect his insurance money. The kids would be taken in by the priests. And Viktor could take off and find his brother.
But, of course, on that stormy night when little Viktor stood in that alley and tossed the torch he’d jury-rigged from a broken table in the third floor nursery and some old, used cloth diapers, something terrible happened. Viktor threw the torch. And as it sailed upwards, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the faces above.
The kids were all still in there.
Locked in their dorms on the second floor.
And so, presumably, were the even younger kids on the third floor.
But it was too late. The torch flew.
A Loss.
Scratch that. LOSSES.
Viktor backed down the alley, unable to take his eyes off what had happened. He was facing forward, but moving backward. And just as he was reaching for the slick cloth rope draped over the nearby wall—his escape route—Weiralai reached him.
And nothing was ever the same again.
The Choice
The years between that first murder, or murders, and the next—those years of Change and Transition, of adolescence—they were rough.
By the time Weiralai had found Viktor—or, Rony, as he told her to call him—she was the Stranger. She’d established her contacts in the Inner Sea region. She was on the rise. But she was still looking for Mej One-Eye, so she dumped Rony with Biting Lash and told her to make his life hell.
Which she did. For years.
And poor Rony had so few Choices. And so little Power.
But then something happened that was his Choice. It was a Choice he likely would never have made if his life had not already been shaped by so much trauma. But still, it was a Choice he made. And he made it alone: Rony Stoiçu killed an innocent man just to remain undetected.
And a road he never would have otherwise stumbled down on his own became his Path.
Exactly as Weiralai wanted. A soul corrupted in darkness. A soul Choosing a life of ruin and waste. A soul that could be molded by Nemira and her son to labor on behalf of the King in Yellow.
Not that this Choice was an immediate flipping of a switch. But it marked what he would later identify as a Turning Point. Perhaps a Point of No Return? And it would come to haunt him, before the end.
Nexuses
The following years were unrelenting hell. Much of it he suppressed for the rest of his life. Though he never forgot the moment he was branded, on the back of his neck, with Biting Lash’s mark.
But seventeen years ago, Rony and Riptusk were brought together in Blossoming Thorn. And a bond was forged between the two of them that felt unbreakable. Without the other, neither would have survived. It was Rony who gave Riptusk the name of Grip. It was a secret name. Something only the two of them shared. Something never spoken outside of their little circle. A reference to holding on, no matter the shit life threw at them. No matter what Chaos fell into their lives.
Fifteen years ago, Rony and Riptusk were sold to Lowls and brought under the same roof as Vatticus, Thema, and Ray. Thema, of course, immediately seeded them.
And the thing about Xhamen-Dor is that once He’s up in there, entangled in your brain folds, entwined in your consciousness, He whispers to you not just of Unspeakable Secrets, Endless Life, and Immortal Power, but also of Change, of Transformation, and the secret, undeniable Truth: that you are the worst version of yourself. You are less than the shit scraped loose by the cloak of an Elder God, in a stinking sewer, in a forgotten city that fell to ruin before it was even built.
Yet even as lowly and wretched as you are, you can be a Change Agent in the universe and bring about cataclysmic Transformation.
Then there was an Incident.
Rony was slippery, after all. He got out. And he started whispering THE NAME. Damage control was tough. Some had to be murdered. Some were taken into Iris Hill. But a few slipped notice.
One victim wound up in Briarstone Asylum, where he committed suicide in the Northwest Tower one afternoon. Just one of six patients, sitting in their rocking chairs, staring out over the north lawn. As he slit his throat, he managed to get just half of the Inmost Blot’s name out in a feeble, gurgling croak. Not enough to infect the others, but it wasn’t long after that that Ulver Zandalus began drawing the lone standing stone on the island. Which he had never laid eyes on.
Soon he was drawing others: the ones in the hills of Thrushmoor. And the ones in wastes of Neruzavin.
Consequence.
After the Nexuses
Rony and Riptusk were drugged into compliance, and then eventually into the devoted worship of Hastur.
Mun made the drugs. Vatticus administered the drugs. And Rony and Riptusk fell into their jobs with gusto. They came to simply love murdering people. Soon, they were fully Lowls’ agents and dutiful servants of Carcosa.
That’s the thing about Hastur. Show people enough just enough, through a little crack in the door of Reality, and all they thought they knew about the Natural Order, and the Way Things Are—show them just a hint of the deeper Truths out there—and they walk through that door on their own. For some, it’s about the pure, unbridled chaos and nihilism. For others, it’s all about power. And control.
And for Rony, who had never truly known power, who had never been in control, who had come to see existence itself as kind of Prison… the appeal was real.
During these years, Rony started dreaming every night of his teeth falling out. So he started pulling them out. With pilers. And then Vatticus would fashion new teeth out of scrap metal and pound them into his skull. All of this without any anesthesia.
Rony and Riptusk were on the drugs for five years, but were weaned off them ten years ago when Melisenn proclaimed their conversions complete.
A year later, Rony was given permission to take a visit to his homeland. He returned with a new rapier. And a tattoo. And just as Viktor Zolotov had become Viktor Stoiçu, and Viktor Stoiçu, had become Rony Stoiçu, during this period, Rony Stoiçu became…
Nameless.
He changed his name, and his identity, every week. He allowed no one to look him in the eye, or speak to him until spoken to. He murdered, and he marked his flesh with a triangle for each significant kill. He became a living legend of terror. Just like Uncle G.
During this period of time, Daria was born. And died. At some point, Ray left for university in Cheliax. Thema was always neck-deep in dark tomes. And Grip started dreaming that he was traveling a desert to find something, or lose something, but he didn’t know what it was. He told Rony about these dreams, and Rony was pretty sure he knew what was going on: Nurgal.
Grip’s soul now belonged to two gods: Nurgal and Hastur. But he couldn’t be fully Hastur’s until he broke all ties with Nurgal. This would take ruthless discipline. He would have to break the sigils, reconstruct his soul, and discipline his mind: no drugs. No dwelling on the past. Live in the present.
Live for the King.
It seemed to work.
So, for a while, Vik was doing great. Still pulling his own teeth out, but replacing them with gold ones now. He could afford it.
Five years ago, the hedge wall went up around Iris Hill. Lowls’ and Thema’s studies were progressing. The world needed to REALLY be kept out.
‘Cuz Lowls was cooking on something.
No one was totally clear on exactly what Lowls was trying to puzzle out. But isn’t that the way of closed little cults? No need to ask questions: Hastur and Xhamen-Dor have all the answers. Take the little rewards that make you think you’re doing GREAT, and just keep reading, cultivating, and killing.
The years passed. Riptusk became the constable. Lowls spent all the county’s money on books. Rony and Riptusk would kill the book dealers who wouldn’t sell (or who Lowls just didn’t feel like paying), while they stuck their fingers in every pie of graft and extortion they could bake up in Thrushmoor.
Lowls stared visiting Zandalus in Briarstone Asylum. He wasn’t getting the exact access he wanted, so a change in leadership at the Asylum needed to be arranged. Rony obtained The Chain of Nights, and Thema’s research practically exploded. And Rony and Melisenn started fucking. Why not, right?
Who cares?
Eventually, Lowls’ and Thema’s research lead them to the Oasis.
The Oasis
On the 6th of Sarenith, 4715, the party entered the Dreamlands for the first time.
Rony, Riptusk, Ray, and Vatticus knew almost nothing about what they were heading into. They knew they were going somewhere. They knew they needed to keep Lowls alive. They knew they were seeking someone called the Mad Poet. But that’s about it.
Lowls and Thema kept from them all knowledge of the Dreamlands, what it was, that that was even where they were going. They explained that they’d be going Somewhere Else, and that their only way back would be a command word which only Lowls could speak.
So they didn’t understand that they were in a dream. But they sure found out.
They met the Mad Poet. It didn’t go well. And they all died.
When they woke, it was almost a month later.
The Quests
Upon awakening, they were all mad. None of them truly understood how lucky they were that Melisenn didn’t kill them when they were helpless. When they eventually recovered, Lowls learned about the need to bring Gifts to the Mad Poet, and the hunt for suitable Gifts began.
Everyone was filled in on the basics of Dream Travel. To a point. Just what they needed to know.
Lowls, in his paranoia, made sure that the others were drugged every time they went. He wasn’t comfortable with the idea of his being asleep while the rest might wake up first. Mun sent drugs that would keep their minds active and alert, but their bodies unconscious long enough that no matter what happened, they would always wake last.
Lowls went to the Dreamlands night after night, sometimes with his crew, sometimes with hired mercenaries, sometimes with a mix. They did it in the guest rooms upstairs at Iris Hill: he and Thema had the beds, some of the others would get pallets to collapse on. Brayden and any mercenaries got the floor.
Then, every morning when it was required, Rony and Riptusk would murder the mercenaries and dump them in a mass grave.
This got old, after a while. They started to feel like flunkies rather than key players in service to their King. What were they even doing? What was the Endgame here?
Need-to-know.
That’s what the Endgame was.
Over and over they went. In the Dream, Lowls learned about the Mad Poet and passed the information on to Thema. Thema researched gifts. In the waking world, Rony and Riptusk secured books about ritual magic and brought them to Thema. Thema learned that you could use passphrases to bring you to a specific spot in the Dreamlands, but she had to create the passphrases—a process that took time. Months, in fact, for the first one she made.
They went after the Signet Ring first, on the night of the 3rd of Calistril, 4718.
They arrived in Brellin’s ballroom and arranged a meeting with the viscount, which Lowls took alone, while the others waited. For hours. And hours. Rony, having his first long stretch of time in the Dream doing nothing but sitting around, was struck by the lack of Xhamen-Dor in his head. He’d gotten used to the Inmost Blot whispering away in there, but being reminded of what it was like to have his own space inside his head…
It kicked something loose in him.
They secured the ring and woke.
In the waking world, it took a few weeks for Thema to finish the passphrase for direct travel to the Enchanted Wood. As she toiled away, Vatticus was distracted. Rony had never seen him like this. He just wandered around, or (weirder) just sat there, not doing anything. It couldn’t have been more like him.
Rony leapt on the opportunity.
First of all, Rony wondered if the drugs Lowls was giving them was what was keeping Xhamen-Dor out of the Dream. He resolved to learn more about alchemy. So he snuck into Vatticus’ lab and made copies of his formulas, determined to steal as much knowledge as he could.
Second, with Vatticus so distracted, Rony also finally found a window to study the alchemical torch, to piece out its inner workings. He began work on a small prototype of his own.
They went after the Pard Tail on the 21st of Calistril.
Lowls was hopped-up and excited, talking up a storm, but Rony just wanted to wrap this one up and get back to his Real World projects. (The Zoogs dubbed him “Dead Eyes.”) Thema thought they should negotiate with the Zoogs. Lowls agreed, but Ray ran out of patience and strong-armed the Zoogs into taking them to the Pards.
And the fight that followed was brutal.
Within moments, Vatticus, Lowls and Thema woke themselves up, just to ensure their survival. Over a dozen Zoogs died. The only one worth his salt in the fight was the one they called Mortimer. Eventually, they finished the fight, with Riptusk claiming the killing blow on both Pards.
But not before Rony used Mortimer as a living shield to save himself in a critical moment.
And something about that tiny creature dying in his hands freaked Rony out. Something instinctive kicked in, and he was shaken in a way he hadn’t been in a LONG time.
They grabbed the tail and woke.
They went after the Skull of Ghoul Royalty the very next night. Thema wasn’t sure she had her next passphrase sufficiently honed, but Riptusk egged Lowls on.
They arrived outside of Igguzqaiz on a cliff overlooking the Leng Ghoul necropolis metropolis. There was a civil war brewing between two halves of the mighty civilization, and a group of insurgent arcanists were summoning outsiders to help them in their battle.
As the party materialized there, they all got glimpses into alternate lives and the experience was INTENSE. Rony was haunted by a glimpse of an entire life spent as a “Doctor Professor Vik.” He tried to brush the vision aside, but it burrowed in.
Finding himself trapped in a summoning circle, Lowls called an abort and everyone woke themselves up.
Except for Rony.
He stayed.
He talked to the Ghouls and learned about their conflict, and convinced the Ghouls to let him help them. He snuck into the city, by himself. He found the queen’s crypt and stole her ruby-encrusted skull.
But he didn’t leave right away.
He was curious. So he found a small mausoleum, in an out-of-the-way cave called the Plaza of Bones, and hid himself for a bit. He lived three nights without Xhamen-Dor, just to have the experience. For himself. And before he woke, he left a coin behind, idly curious about what sort of (if any?) impact they could actually make on these places.
And what (if anything?) they could leave behind that might last.
It was an experiment. His intention was to come back and get the coin.
But then Sarnath happened.
In the waking world, Rony told Lowls only what he needed to know: that he got the skull. He didn’t mention his little vacation experiment. Thema begged for more time before they went after the Idol. She knew she could land the party somewhere in Sarnath, but she didn’t know yet if she could actually get them exactly where the idol could be found. But nobody was listening to Thema.
They went after the Green Stone Idol of the Water Lizard the very next night.
They arrived in the palace of King John of the Bone Crown, on the 10th anniversary of the razing of Ib. The mood of the place was muted. First, because of the storm brewing out over the lake. Second, the green stone idol (stolen by Lord Dunsany and his conquering army when they destroyed the city of Ib) had vanished the previous night. It had been held in the temple of Tamash the Illusion, but the high priest had been found dead that very morning. Before his demise, he’d scrawled a single word onto the empty altar: DOOM.
The idol wasn’t in Sarnath anymore.
The next logical place to check would be Ib, but they hadn’t really thought of this quest in trekking terms, and so they wondered if they weren’t better off waking up, having Thema see if she could learn more, and then popping back in. Not having processed yet what happens when you leave the Dreamlands and return to the same location, they woke.
In the waking world, while Ray declined, and Riptusk declined (he was tasting Jane’s drugs by this point), and Vatticus retreated, and with Thema distracted with new research, Rony snuck access to old materials she wasn’t using and he began to teach himself how to perform the Dreamlands Excursion ritual. He wanted more control over how and when he went. Just in case. And he wanted to return to Igguzqaiz to find his coin.
They returned to the Dreamlands on the night of the 8th of Gozran.
They arrived in the reign of King Edward the Learned, on the 37th anniversary of the razing of Ib. The city was celebrating. The anniversary of the slaughter had become a local holiday. They were partying—and the waters of the lake were rising. The group trekked around the lake over the course of four days and found the ruins of Ib. They walked the empty streets until they found a small stone altar on the lakeshore, upon which sat a glowing green idol. When they approached, Ib Shades rose and killed the whole party before they could wake. All except for Lowls, who got himself out in time.
In the waking world, everyone but Lowls “woke” in a catatonic state. It took a month, due to the general lack of healing and counseling he had access to, but he eventually got the group on their feet again.
They went back on the 3rd of Desnus. They arrived during the reign of King Howard the Mad, on the 75th anniversary of the razing of Ib. Nobody died this time, but they had to prematurely wake themselves.
And then this just went on, and on, and on, and on.
They’d go. It would be later. The waters of the lake were higher. The storm was closer. They’d trek around the lake. They’d enter Ib. And the Ib Shades would be too numerous to overcome.
They went nearly every night. Sometimes they’d pause briefly, but never long enough to truly recover.
During this stretch of months, while Ray had his stints in jail and Riptusk’s drug use grew worse and worse, Rony developed extreme paranoia. And the relationship between him and Riptusk took a steep nosedive. Their conflict came to a head over Nixon. There was a confrontation. And the two were never publicly seen speaking to each other after it.
When the party went to Sarnath on the night of the 26th of Sarenith, they finally cleared the Ib Shades, but as Lowls stepped forward to grab the idol, Bokrug rose from the lake and the sight drove them mad.
They all woke blind. Their eyes, according to Melisenn, seemed to be functional, but none of them were receiving visual input. It took time to heal and cure this psychosomatic damage.
On and on this went. Over and over. Sometimes they’d make through the Shades, and sometimes they wouldn’t. Sometimes they’d avoid seeing Bokrug. But sometimes they wouldn’t. Trauma. Madness. And mind-numbing repetition.
In the end, it was Ray who finally got the idol
Back in the waking world, Rony bought a house for himself on the 5th of Lamashan. He needed a space of his own. Just in case. Nobody could be trusted. Not anymore.
Everything was falling apart, but there were still three more gifts to get.
After the shitshow of Sarnath, Rony didn’t want to enter a new location without as much information as possible. So having learned the ritual, he grabbed a couple of the mercenaries Lowls kept around and used them as secondary casters and he went to scope out the Heartstone quest on the 10th of Lamashan.
And Rony loved it in Dylath-Leen.
A whole world of vice. An opportunity to do anything he wanted, free from Xhamen-Dor. And Lowls’ crew.
So he stayed.
He lived under his brother’s name. He did crimes. He made choices. He hooked up with a woman from the drug den. And he stayed with her. He fathered a child with her. He helped raise that child. For years. His daughter Katarina: named after his long-dead, nearly forgotten mother.
Then one morning, Katarina asked her dad what his tattoo meant. Viktor/Rony/Sebastijonas had, almost unconsciously, avoided mirrors for the previous nineteen years, and had forgotten what he looked like.
He had forgotten that he was dreaming.
The utter pointlessness of his life in Dylath-Leen (which would end when he woke), and the utter pointlessness of his life in Thrushmoor crashed home. He found a mirror and stared at those tattoos, in particular the First One. And something broke within him. He cut that first triangle, that piece of himself, off his face. He pressed it into his daughter’s hand and told her that the next time she saw him, if she did, to give it back to him and spit in his face.
The next day in the Real World, but nineteen years later in his own timeline, Rony finally woke.
All that time in the Dreamlands—it broke his brain. He couldn’t fully parse reality. He couldn’t tell, any longer, what was Dream and what was Real.
But his past love for Grip surfaced somewhere in the haze and confusion. He wrote the constable a letter, left it at a known drop-spot, and then before he knew it, the next night, the 11th of Lamashan, the whole party went to Dylath-Leen. It was six weeks later there. They orchestrated their attack on Quaveandra and left with the Heartstone.
Go, go, go. They went after the Captain’s Tricorne on the night of the 12th of Lamashan.
The bleakness hanging over the crew was bad at this point. Riptusk and Ray didn’t even bother to show up. Lowls decided to rely solely on Thema for this one. She descended the stairs alone. And she returned with the hat. But never talked about what she did to get it.
On the 13th of Lamashan, they went to Arventon for the Red Webbed Foot.
When they arrived, there was bitter disagreement about how to put together an expedition to the Black Lake. The fighting got so heated that Lowls just pulled the plug and decided six gifts were enough. So everyone poofed out.
After leaving Arventon, Rony dreamt of peeking in on Katarina, still a child. Sleeping. Warm. Safe. And the fact that the greatest happiness he’d known in his life was an absolute, utter lie made him want to cut his throat.
And—in his dream—he did.
So when Thema came to them all on the 14th day of Lamashan, the day they would return to the Mad Poet’s oasis, he listened to her. He listened when she spoke of freedom. Of an end to the struggle. An end to Memory. And the Self. An escape, not only from the bleak pointlessness of life, but from all the horrors awaiting them after death.
And rather than killing Lowls, they all chose to march to their own Oblivion with full knowledge of what was about to happen.
Lowls had thought he’d outsmarted them, but in the end they outsmarted him and welcomed with open arms the Sacrifice he intended to make of them. He would steal nothing from them. They would make a Choice. And they would finally be free of the lives Weiralai had cursed them with.
On the night of 14th of Lamashan, they entered the Dreamlands and traveled to the Mad Poet’s Oasis a second time. They presented their Gifts.
And Lowls made his Sacrifice.
He drowned them all in the pool.
The Sacrifice
But when the Moment came—the moment Rony felt everything he was, all he knew, all he’d learned, and all he’d lost—from the depths of his soul, clinging to the faint belief that he didn’t deserve this, that this wasn’t his fault, Rony panicked. He knew his entire personhood was about to be stripped of him.
But he was slippery. For so many years he’d subsumed himself in so many identities that even those who knew him well didn’t recognize him half the times they saw him.
His soul cried out: HIDE YOURSELF!
And his mind—self-taught from childhood to avoid detection and hold on to his secrets—this mind entangled with a Great Old One…
HID HIMSELF.
He sank fully into the identity he’d studied the most: Gulliver Vatticus. Maybe the waters will find only him within me, and take that away, he thought, hoping to cheat what was to come.
As he slipped into oblivion.
First Reference: Chapter 150 (Part 3)
Other Notable References: —