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		<title>Midnight Arcana</title>
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		<description>Latest updates from Midnight Arcana</description>
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			<title>Midnight Arcana </title>
			<link>https://canterlotavenue.com/PurpleShady/?status-id=125345</link>
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			<pubDate>Thu, 05 Mar 2026 18:54:51 +0000</pubDate>
			<dc:creator>Midnight Arcana</dc:creator>
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			<title>Midnight Arcana </title>
			<link>https://canterlotavenue.com/PurpleShady/?status-id=124772</link>
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			<pubDate>Mon, 09 Feb 2026 05:55:32 +0000</pubDate>
			<dc:creator>Midnight Arcana</dc:creator>
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			<title>Midnight Arcana </title>
			<link>https://canterlotavenue.com/PurpleShady/?status-id=124714</link>
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			<guid>https://canterlotavenue.com/PurpleShady/?status-id=124714</guid>
			<pubDate>Sat, 07 Feb 2026 03:01:15 +0000</pubDate>
			<dc:creator>Midnight Arcana</dc:creator>
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			<title>Midnight Arcana </title>
			<link>https://canterlotavenue.com/PurpleShady/?status-id=124712</link>
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			<guid>https://canterlotavenue.com/PurpleShady/?status-id=124712</guid>
			<pubDate>Sat, 07 Feb 2026 02:03:36 +0000</pubDate>
			<dc:creator>Midnight Arcana</dc:creator>
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			<title>Midnight Arcana shared a photo</title>
			<link>https://canterlotavenue.com/photo/84732/pony-town-shaded-arcana-f-stand-4x/feed_660518</link>
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			<guid>https://canterlotavenue.com/photo/84732/pony-town-shaded-arcana-f-stand-4x/feed_660518</guid>
			<pubDate>Sun, 01 Feb 2026 22:13:26 +0000</pubDate>
			<dc:creator>Midnight Arcana</dc:creator>
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			<title>Midnight Arcana posted a blog.</title>
			<link>https://canterlotavenue.com/blog/2210/transfer-of-power-2-the-end/</link>
			<description><![CDATA[[i]Ancient[/i]. The only fitting word comes to Verdant's mind as he ascends the crystal spire. Floor after floor of cobwebs is only part of it- some of the things he'd seen the past few hours predated the founding of Equestria. Perhaps predating even the first coming of the windigos! Where would you even find a thunderbird eye in the present day? Nevermind the fact that they've been extinct for at least two thousand years, thunderbirdsÂ [i]never[/i]Â resided in the area Equestria occupies!

And yet Verdant stops his ascent for but a moment in some alchemical storage room, spotting one such eye just sitting there in a jar. Perhaps preserved by an enchantment, or perhaps by how many floors up it is in a windowless tower. [i]"What have I vergessen?"[/i]Â He dares not to speak to himself louder than a whisper, for fear of breaking something already close to crumbling with age. He's always known memory loss was a possibility- he is ancient in his own right- and often a fact. Pony minds just can't hold more than two centuries of memory reliably, let alone a full millenia. But this...
It goes well beyond memory loss. Losing this much history might as well be an identity death. To have no records, it must be intentional wiping. To say nothing of the fact that he remembers Equestria even from when he was a foal! A young colt! One of his assumptions must be false, his memories being accurate or his ownership of the tower. To his despair, however, the higher he ascends, the more sure he becomes it's the former. A feeling deep in his gut, a tickle at the back of his mind, like long abandoned memories are clawing desperately at a locked door to escape their non-existence. This tower- [i]The Blackgem Sanctum[/i], the voice that beckoned him here supplies, seeming as an afterthought- belongs to him. To Verdant Shade, or another name he fails to remember holding.

[center]--------------------------------------------------------------[/center]
[left]

Up and up the dark acanist ascends, stair after stair after stair after stair to his inevitable demise. Only pausing every ten floors or so to catch his breath, rest his legs. Passing storage rooms, alchemical laboratories, entire floors dedicated to channeling or summoning circles. Libraries upon libraries upon libraries- with only very few books that Verdant recognizes. Rooms with long dead skeletons of various creatures in nearly entirely rusted away iron cells. But after at least a hundred floors- he had lost track- Verdant runs into something new. A lounge, with sofas and chairs. Candles instead of magical lighting. A table or two. The next floor up is another library... But this one has books Verdant recognizes! Albeit very very old books. And it seems more pleasant as well, rather than the purely functional libraries below. The next floor up, a kitchen, and above it a dining room. A pantry. A bedroom. And...
The stairs stop. Sunlight streams in through the window in a door to a balcony. Real sunlight, for the first time in hours and hours. A podium in one corner, with a clearly enchanted stack of blank parchment sheets, and obviously magical ink. The center of the room, though, turns Verdant's blood to ice. A tear comes to his eye as the voice urges him. [i]Your end awaits in the center. It's time to leave.[/i][/left]

He walks slowly to the middle of the room, careful not to disturb what lies upon the ground. Taking a deep breath, Verdant Shade sits down for the last time. Removing his saddlebags and his cloak, he sets them by the writing podium. Streaks further darkened in the already grey coat of his cheeks, Ver wipes his eyes with his left hoof. "It's... It ha-had to happen eventually, right?" Nodding to himself, "Of course. This... This was always the plan, I-I just didn't know it.."
And so he lights his horn. He might not know the ultimate effect of the channeling circle he sits within, but the basis is obviously close to the spell he uses to absorb souls. Verdant knows where to start, which symbols to imbue first. The intertwining decagons awaken, the moonstone shards lighting with power. Next the triangle of triangles, clay paste glittering with almost more ruby dust than clay. The circle itself binding the ingredients, lapis shards and salt. A few arcane symbols in the corners of the circle- just chalk, the symbols alone providing enough direction...

And then he screams with fear and pain both as the souls he'd accumulated within his own over the centuries are torn out, flying back down the tower to a storage room he'd overlooked as unimportant. Trapped in enchanted jars. Leaving the soul of the pony formerly Verdant Shade a hollow, screaming husk. Echoing the gradual tearing of his bodies vocal cords all through the tower and into the sky high above the clouds. A body with a shattered soul. Not even truly alive anymore. Still [i]screaming[/i], as the final symbol, a skull of obsidian embedded in the floor, glows green, letting off a purple arcane mist.
Shrouding the former body of Verdant Shade, a body with a soul hollow.
A body perfect for the broken king.]]></description>
			<guid>https://canterlotavenue.com/blog/2210/transfer-of-power-2-the-end/</guid>
			<pubDate>Mon, 18 Nov 2024 22:48:32 +0000</pubDate>
			<dc:creator>Midnight Arcana</dc:creator>
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			<title>Midnight Arcana posted a blog.</title>
			<link>https://canterlotavenue.com/blog/2209/transfer-of-power-1-the-tower-and-entry/</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Verdant Shade stares up at the towering pillar of dark crystal in a forest near the western border of Equestria. His destination. His end. But even worse...

Nopony else could see it, and yet they avoided it like the plague.

He&#039;d asked around so much that nopony within miles would talk to the seemingly crazed stallion. Ponies of a nearby town said the forest is haunted, refusing to elaborate out of fear and superstition. A tribe of buffalo said the forest is cursed land, driving dwellers insane. But the crystal pillar soaring heavensward? Nothing of the sort exists to their eyes. It&#039;s of course no complex feat for any magus worth their horn, but this spell feels [i]ancient[/i]... The power needed to keep it this effective for so long could only be dark magic or harmony- and the one responsible here should be clearly obvious.

Which means the implications are even moreso. A voice within his own head telling him to come here? A powerful dark magus&#039; tower? Verdant draws his gaze back down to the ominously lit entryway as he forces his legs to move through the molasses of fear welling within. Whatever end awaits, it clearly comes by his own hoof. And so what reason would he have to try and run from his fate?

As his tail dissapears through the doorway, the sky turns gray with clouds. The sound of Verdant Shade&#039;s final steps echo through the forest, off of trees that are never to see the stallion again. The spire of crystal that pierces the clouds, unseen for nearly a thousand years, once more welcomes one of it&#039;s masters shapes at the end of their life.

[center][/center]]]></description>
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			<pubDate>Sat, 16 Nov 2024 20:46:33 +0000</pubDate>
			<dc:creator>Midnight Arcana</dc:creator>
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			<title>Midnight Arcana </title>
			<link>https://canterlotavenue.com/PurpleShady/?status-id=117098</link>
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			<guid>https://canterlotavenue.com/PurpleShady/?status-id=117098</guid>
			<pubDate>Fri, 25 Oct 2024 06:19:20 +0000</pubDate>
			<dc:creator>Midnight Arcana</dc:creator>
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			<title>Midnight Arcana </title>
			<link>https://canterlotavenue.com/PurpleShady/?status-id=112821</link>
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			<guid>https://canterlotavenue.com/PurpleShady/?status-id=112821</guid>
			<pubDate>Wed, 03 Jan 2024 21:39:58 +0000</pubDate>
			<dc:creator>Midnight Arcana</dc:creator>
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			<title>Midnight Arcana </title>
			<link>https://canterlotavenue.com/PurpleShady/?status-id=112728</link>
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			<guid>https://canterlotavenue.com/PurpleShady/?status-id=112728</guid>
			<pubDate>Fri, 29 Dec 2023 21:39:35 +0000</pubDate>
			<dc:creator>Midnight Arcana</dc:creator>
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