This is my first time posting on this wiki’s discuss board. Hope to get to know you all.

In a teaser video released by content creator Slade in collaboration with KingsIsle on April 4th, the title of the upcoming story update this month was revealed to be "Through Death's Door." It will feature the return of Death, in a significant role!

This story was originally published in the Wiki101 - OCs Discord server on April 4, 2024. You can see the original posts here (Part 1) and here (Part 2).

On one fateful afternoon, the citizens of Westvale were routinely carrying out their days when a large and ominous ship appeared in the Skyway on the horizon. As more and more people noticed the vessel approaching, they stopped what they were doing and looked on, confused and talking amongst each other.

Tobias and Iris exited their home, a toddler-age Christopher peacefully playing with toys inside. Just like everyone else, the Carrases did not know what was happening before their eyes. But they knew it looked like trouble.

With the ship just a hundred feet from the wall that bordered the edges of Westvale's island, it turned broadside. A loud horn was heard, as a row of cannons emerged from the side of the ship and fired at the wall, the cannonballs exploding on impact. With brick and shrapnel flying inward, the citizens of Westvale screamed and ran towards their houses, seeking cover. The ship adjusted its position and moved closer, a ramp connecting the deck of the ship to the island. Fierce-looking soldiers ran down the ramp and into the village. Westvale was being invaded.

Some of the villagers standing near the massive hole in the wall attempted to prevent the invaders from getting inside, but were swiftly slaughtered. Iris and Tobias watched the chaos and bloodshed from afar, and quickly ran inside their homestead. Panicked, Tobias ran downstairs to his armory to prepare to fight while Iris grabbed Christopher and brought her to her office while she rummaged through her things.

While Iris used agricultural magic to aid Westvale's crops, she had not used magic for attack or defense since her brief time at Dragonspyre Academy. When she realized that her true calling was gardening, she switched schools to Shenghuo University in MooShu, which she ultimately graduated from. In her philosophy, magic was used to preserve and create life, not to destroy it. But it did not look like she had a choice in this situation.

Soon, Iris was able to find the chest containing her old wand from her teenage years, and she quickly grabbed some spell cards from an old deck she had purchased years ago in case she ever needed to protect herself and her family. Tobias then finally emerged from his armory with a full set of Aquilan armor as well as his trusty shield and stave. He went to embrace Iris and they quickly shared a kiss as they instructed Christopher to stay inside. Together, they slowly approached the door to their home as they prepared to fight for their lives.

Upon opening the door, their eyes immediately filled with the glow of orange. They scanned the landscape to find nothing but homes engulfed in flames, billowing smoke, and the bodies of the men, women, and children of Westvale strung all across the ground. In no time at all, Westvale had fallen. One of the soldiers, covered from head to toe in metal armor, spotted the Carrases and pointed and yelled in their direction. Tobias signaled Iris to stay back as he put his shield in front of him and lifted his staff to the sky. "Zeus, Father of the Sky, grant me your power!" he yelled, as a lightning bolt emerged from the clouds above and struck the top of his staff, energizing it and sending a blue energy through his shield and armor. He charged forward, with a group of soldiers already headed his way. With a single slash of steel and electricity, he took out several soldiers, turning towards others who were attempting to surround him and dispatching them as well.

In his moment of greatest triumph, Tobias failed to see the dark wizard who had just exited the ship and was quickly approaching, charging up a spell in his hand and ordering the soldiers to vacate the scene. Tobias turned to look this wizard in the eyes, as he opened his palm and made a pushing motion towards Tobias, flinging him backwards into a burning home nearby, which promptly collapsed and crushed him to death.

Iris screamed out in grief, as the dark wizard chuckled in delight. She ran towards him, casting several missile-like spells which the wizard effortlessly reflected. What he didn't expect was when she began to use the environment itself to fling massive chunks of the earth at him. The dark wizard moved the first few aside, but was struck by one final piece, knocking him to the ground. He grunted but quickly got back up, with the two casting several spells at each other before the wizard resorted to summoning a fast jet of fire.

Iris was not prepared for this change in strategy, with the flame burning quickly through her clothes and piercing through her chest as she screamed in agony. Despite the immense pain, she conjured up the strength to use a defense aura, deflecting the jet of flame back on the dark wizard in a greater breadth. Fire fully engulfed his body and caused him to fall backward.

Believing the man to be dead and with soldiers coming back into the picture, Iris fell to her knees before getting up and limping back inside her home, which was now set ablaze. Whether it was due to adrenaline or the desire to protect her loved ones, Iris was still kicking despite taking a lethal dose of burn damage. She walked into the room where Christopher still resided, falling to the floor in front of him. Iris knew she was dying, and she only had one thing left to do to ensure the survival of her family. She reached her hand in front of the heart of a crying and scared Christopher and transfered all of her remaining life essence to establish an aura of protection that would keep her son safe for a period of time. Despite the tragic events that had transpired in Westvale that day, she held out hope that her son would be okay and that help would come for him.

As Iris took her last breaths, she held Christopher's hand and assured him that everything would be okay in the end. Just as her heart stopped beating, the Carras homestead collapsed in on itself.

This story was originally published in the Wiki101 - OCs Discord server on March 22, 2024. You can see the original post here.

Centuries ago, a boy by the name of Christopher Carras was born in Westvale, an Aquilan settlement on the outskirts of Grizzleheim's Skyways. His father, Tobias, was an explorer of the skies who assisted with the creation of the first Windstones. His mother, Iris, was an agricultural alchemist, assisting with the growth and survival of food-bearing plants for Westvale's residents via magical means. Christopher, or Chris as he would later be known, was the child that Tobias and Iris had long been wanting, a product of their deep love and one of the first human children born in Westvale. They thanked the Immortals for this gift to their family and their village.

Despite his father's great contributions to the Aquilan Empire and his mother's natural talents and wit, Christopher's earliest years were marked by Westvale's economic struggles. Much of the village's population had fled from Aquila when it was lit ablaze by civil war between the Empire and rebelling states that had rejected the Emperor's rule. As a result, financial aid dwindled over time as the Empire allocated more and more of its resources to the defense of its homeland. This led to villagers working more and more to financially support themselves, with some even turning to illegal means to get by. Westvale suffered even more when a mysterious and devastatating disease brought by merchant ships struck her people and her crops.

But this era of despair would not last. Iris Carras was not going to let her friends and family continue to suffer while they were already dealing with the effects of the war. She spent many days and many nights researching a cure for the disease, but to no avail. She eventually turned to darker means to continue her research, interacting with the shadier bunch in the village and learning of a Hoodoo practitioner in Darkmoor by the name of Ozul.

Traveling to the small village of Thornbrooke in Darkmoor, Iris met Ozul face to face in a rickety shack. The hooded figure, a human or some other variety of primate, taught Iris his own personally crafted aura spell that would destroy the disease at a molecular level, but with the attached risk of the spell latching on to other organisms. Iris begrudgingly agreed, knowing this could be the only chance her village had at ridding itself of the disease for good, and stopping it from spreading further.

Much to Westvale's delight, the spell worked just fine, and all life in the village, sentient and non-sentient, was freed of the disease. This unexpected miracle ushered in a new era, as Aquila's war efforts began to relax and aid poured in to Northvale's ports once again. It truly seemed like the village had been made indestructible, and that its worst days were in the past.

But dabbling with Hoodoo came with an unexpected cost, and no one was prepared for what would happen next...

In case you missed it, the Portal of Peril Game Update for Wizard101 is out now!

Update Notes: https://www.wizard101.com/game/updatenotes/portalofperil

Panel: Haley "Fan Flanders" Parker, Mathew "Sparck" Anderson, Erica "Okidenshi" Adamek, Claire "Calamity" Engvall, Sam "Blind Mew" Johnson, Mia Smith

• SPARCK: Test Realm for the next Pirate101 update (Tartarus) is coming soon.

• HALEY: She shows off an ambient animation for the Tartarus update in Pirate101 featuring Hawkules and Cerberus. It was animated by Erica.

• HALEY: International shipping for the KingsIsle Store is actively being worked on, as are new items.

• SPARCK: 25 new people are being added to the Extra Credits content creator program. For March 2024, existing Extra Credits content creators Bonfirez, calamitythewiz, Photographesque, and piecesofchess are given shoutouts.

• SPARCK: The April 2024 Extra Credits objective will be about decorating your home for Spring.

• SPARCK: The top 3 most common names in Wizard101 are Luke SkyWalker, Taylor Swift, and Jack Frost.

• SPARCK: The top 3 most common names in Pirate101 are Dark Wolf, Davey Jones, and Morgan Freeman.

• SPARCK: There are 4 Gold-promoted Guild Museums, 12 Silver-promoted, and 28 Bronze-promoted.

• SPARCK: Only 0.21% of Pirate101 players have the full trash set from Sinbad Part 3.

• SPARCK: The Wizard101 and Pirate101 newsletters are being moved to quarterly. [Editor's Note: This was already leaked to the public.] The next ones are (hopefully) going out in April.

• CLAIRE: She designed all of the fights in The Forbidden Library Gauntlet. There are 7 variants of the Malevolent Manuscripts which are based on classic literature, and the spells are based on those books.

• MIA: She shows of some of her concepts, including some never-before-seen ones. The Poodle Sailor pet, Joan Locke,

• ERICA: She shows off the idle fidget for the Banana Spider pet for Wizard101 as well as the swim animation, the move and attack animations for the Poodle Sailor pet for Pirate101, the idle fidget animation for the Penguin Cannon mount for Wizard101/Pirate101, the Koala Drover walk cycle, Dingo idle fidget and defeat animations, Joan talking and move animations, Malus cast and defeat animations, Troggy gear rigging, Koala grocery shopper animation, and sleeping wombat cub animation.

• HALEY: The next Pirate101 update teaser will be posted by a creator.

• SAM: Hawkules's club weapon was torn from a wooden structure. It was not crafted.

• SAM: KI might seriously look at going back to older worlds in the future for side story arcs.

• SAM: KI is looking to remedy the issue of the Arcanum scholars besides Ione Virga not showing up enough.

• SPARCK: The team is open to continuing to give more spells with Spellement upgrades unique skins when they're maxed out but it's an issue of time/resources.

CODES:

• GOLDENLUCK324 (W101 - Mount - Gold-wrought Eagle (1-Day), P101 - Mount - Golden Eagle (1-Day)

• SUPERLUCKY324 (W101 - Pack - Super Road Warrior's, P101 - Pack - Super Pirate Nightmare, P101/W101 - Pack - KI Live Snack Pack)

• EUAZOTH324 (W101 EU - Various Azoth)

Voices of the Spiral #44 has been posted!

https://twitter.com/spiralvoices/status/1565460699891081224

Voices of the Spiral #41 has been posted!

https://twitter.com/spiralvoices/status/1552017217457356804

Yep, Test Realm for the Summer Update is now live! Check out the patch notes here:

https://www.wizard101.com/game/community/updatenotes/summerupdate2022