Midnight Poet

The Midnight Poet is a stage where the path of Darkness finds its voice. Its main ability is called exactly that — Midnight Poem: the bearer recites verses dedicated to the night or to the Goddess of Eternal Night, and these verses work.

The poem has several effects, and all of them are about one thing — silencing another's mind:

Soothing — the listener's body, heart and soul are cleansed and fall quiet; on Beyonders who have lost control it works in such a way that their abnormality comes out and becomes visible;

Lullaby — several people fall asleep at once, and those who held out fall into detachment and struggle to summon any feelings at all; only Beyonders with strong spiritual perception and the Meditation skill can resist, and even they later believe the song was a dream;

Subduing — the opponent calms down so much that they lose the desire to live, go limp and stop responding;

and, finally, with the same poem the Poet casts fear upon the target.

There is a countermeasure, and it is surprisingly simple: focused Meditation or simply plugged ears. But time and again such a defense wears down — against a persistent Poet you won't hold out for long. And if Eternal Darkness exists, then the verses addressed to it raise the power of neighboring paths as well.

Besides poetry, the Midnight Poet excels at quite earthly things: combat, shooting, rock climbing and spiritual perception. The nocturnal nature of the previous stage is strengthened to the point that even at the end of the night, after six in the morning, when the sky is already brightening, he knocks out a door lock together with a piece of the doorframe with a single blow.

The potion's composition matches the image: the vocal cords of a beast howling at the crimson moon, a bell-flower that catches souls, red wine and red sandalwood — ingredients not so much combat-oriented as "resonant."

The most famous bearer of this stage in the fandom is Leonard Mitchell, the Night Hawk from Tingen.