Imperator Elijah of the Blackblood.
11th Legion, the Lordlings.
24th of Trescia, 1492.
***
"Congratulations, Elijah of the Blackblood. Imperator of the 11th Legion."
"Thank you, Amun." I reverently bowed and thought of bowing again as the boons, benefits, and bounties befitting my positions drifted at the edge of my perception. More gold. More equipment. Blessings in the form of knowledge, wisdom, and power; as well as a larger world in Eotrom.
In the end, no bow was given to show gratitude for those things, for that would have been unappreciated. Our pact dictated such things, so a flourishing bow served as my dismissal. Officers were not to be saluted in the field, after all. And the 11th Legion operated on the principle of discretion more than any other.
We got on course for Ligin without delay, moving efficiently and with the utmost silence while our channels rang constantly with chatter. With Kele and her subordinates silently stampeding across the ground, Art and his subordinates leaping and drifting from shadow to shadow, and my corps of newly enlisted cultists drawn to us from both the Rharian and Ligin mountains flying in the skies above, the hidden lair I ventured to months ago came into view within half an hour. Shortly after, the phantasmal visages of Art, Kele, and the other top-ranking individuals of my growing legion appeared in my periphery as a private channel opened between us.
Art, my Executor, spoke first. "Congratulations, Father," was all he said.
"Thank you. And congratulations to you all as well." I tersely replied. Though I assumed the practice would be looked at strangely or even frowned upon in the other legions, I found it quite endearing that my spawn referred to me as their Father.
It started just after I turned them, which, in turn, happened just before our venture to the Shadow Realm to undergo the Trial of Five Deaths. Since then, the grace of Twilight saw their blood bonds to me be broken. They were free in the same sense that I was free from Madam Opal. Yet they did not adopt her blood magic like I did. Moreover, they wished to retain our relationship as parent and child. In turn, their subordinates viewed them as their parents once they were guided through the Trial of Five Deaths. They then stalked the lands of Ligin and Rhar, searching for cultists to bring into our midst; of which there was no shortage.
All the while, the undead chimera in Ligin had formed its lair and my resident undead had not only constructed a quaint but respectable hold nearby but had connected the nearby road to our tunnel; ensuring it maintained a respectable distance from the lair and Keep. Through this, a respectable territory had been formed between the Kingdoms of Rhar and Ligin, stretching between the mountains from the Exalted Gloom's first lair to the base of the Ligin Mountains; all governed from the shadows by my ever-increasing subordinates.
Naturally, most of them diverged to spread across our territories as we funneled into the tunnel, darting through the darkness while our Liege and his Troupe ascended the mountain to bless our sister religion. Then, he would be here, the place in which we first stopped upon our descent to the Southern Peninsula; the Willowden.
What before was a grove hidden within an apparent cave was now a veritable castle in disguise. Braziers burning with the white, nearly transparent flames of Shadowfire straddled the entrance, wherein they radiated umbral energy like heat and billowed a lingering smoke that didn't necessarily block light, it filtered color born from light but not energy, creating a monochromatic scape colored only by blood, magic, ki, fire, lightning, and mana.
That alone led many travelers into the seemingly barren caves we carved into the mountain, wherein they would feel the umbral essence of the beasts within before they were devoured. Or, if they were suitable to be recruited, beckoned deeper into a labyrinth of stone tiles and hewn walls that led to the domain of our patron; our Goddess. Cononthoth, the Exalted Gloom.
As always, we stopped in the foyer of her great chamber with gold, black gems, aged meat, and reverence at the ready. As always, they were received and disappeared to the two hoard chambers by tendrils of darkness while the shadows rippled with the smooth and deep tone of our Draconic Goddess.
"You have done well to prepare for my ascension, my Knights. Amun has rewarded you so. Your boons from me will come in time. First, however, you must know your service has just begun."
Those words birthed tendrils of darkness to seep into my mind, giving me visions of my sons and daughters in the future, when they would regress in age whenever they moved to lands afar. Only to live and grow into the Lords and Ladies of whatever regions they traveled to. Lordlings. Lordlings of War, Industry, Commerce, and Law. Lordlings who would birth lairs for the Exalted Gloom, and bring the lands they dwelled within to darkness. In turn, the shining dusk that came with her darkness gave us glimpses of a glutton. A drunk of a man in Bakewia, wishing to be a powerful lord; and so a powerful Lording he would become. We saw glimpses of the Owl's wing pointing him to Dryndrabethei, the first city Amun sundered during his walk through Shujen- our next destination.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
When it ceased, it did so without warning or mercy. Our minds were ripped from their trances like roots were from the ground, leaving us with the sonorous words of our Goddess as the darkness shifted around us.
So it was, we appeared at the entrance to our first lair, wherein we once again saw Etan, Iris, Blude, Geri, and Freki. I welcomed them to our Willowden, and then Cononthoth introduced herself via some… playful banter with Amun. After, she made a curious comment about Etan's heritage, then adopted a form that mirrored his likeness- a drow. An Amazonian-sized drow, it seemed to me, given her size, strength, and domineering presence.
Into the land down under, we followed our Goddess just as the Troupe followed Amun. During the journey, I couldn't help but tease Etan's knowledge of the Darkworld's depths and found an interesting answer. Thus I studied his visage as we fell deeper and deeper.
He was… interesting. More interesting than the rest, I dared say. His uncanny resemblance to Amun aside, he was said to be highly skilled and knowledgeable, yet seemed unsure of himself. Or rather, he was almost… ignorant of himself. I'd seen it in my recruits before. Those who lived with a heel over their necks, demanding they walk, speak, and otherwise behave a specific way or face punishment. Those who had their true personas contained under lock and key. Those who were molded into something they were not. Those were the ones who struggled the most with freedom.
It made me curious as to what he would become in the decades and centuries to come. More so than us. But not as much as our prime deities. So when we descended to the Deep Dark, we melded into the crowd and watched the Troupe approach Madames Opal and Syele.
There was no disgust on even the children's faces as they watched a new clan of religious vampires be birthed into creation. Only a morbid curiosity from those like Etan and Blude while Iris was more focused on the buildings and machines. Geri and Freki on the other hand seemed… famished. They licked their lips and even procured frozen or smoked husks of meat to chow down on until our turn came.
Given the fact that we were already vampiric shades, it took much less time than the others. We merely declared ourselves a denomination of the Black Plume and our devotion to the Exalted Gloom and the Owl- a seemingly small act that wound up having reality-altering ramifications.
While the other Legions saw the change brought to the surface, and the Black Plume was most privy to the change born in Amun and his Troupe, we of the 11th Legion witnessed the change born in Cononthoth. Tied to Amun's soul, hers was. Thus when they made their deal, hers became a divine soul like his. And now that he had ascended, taking his Troupe to Eotrom, she was to do the same, ascending to the divine realm as a divine dragon.
The first sign was her withdrawing the headdress she'd been using to maintain her drow-like form thus far. As it was tossed aside, the hand that released it darkened in pitch at once, enlarging and hardening into blacker-than-black claws that placed a thick arm of midnight scales on the ground with the utmost grace. The second claw came, followed by legs that erected her spined back to a height of 4 meters. As her finned tail swayed, dark, nearly translucent wings stretched around me and my children, pitting us in a conflagration of Shadowfire born from her first breath of new life.
Within that cold inferno, darkness and light merged and proceeded to corrupt. The Shadowfire became something like a miasma, a dark and magmatic slurry of death that gave rise to life; tainted, draconic life.
In both our Goddess and the treasures we showered her with, that divine essence flowed, reforming the catalytic matter and divine energy to the base of her neck, where it spiraled into a crown of branching horns; Horns of Radiant Dusk and Shadowed Dawn. Into us, that draconic miasma and that gilded light flowed, reinforcing the bone on our brows with the beginnings of horns and reforming the flesh on our backs with black, nearly translucent wings of radiant darkness.
When it ceased, it did so without warning or mercy. Our bodies were released from the embrace of our Goddess like blood fruits detaching from their vines, leaving us with an overwhelmingly satisfied sensation and a glimpse of our Goddess emerging from her hibernation as a colossal creature of divine gloom who matched our Liege's mental age.
So it was, the Exalted Gloom ascended. In turn, we did as the Plume and the 8th Legion did and delved into the next phase of our operation by mounting up to depart to Shujen. In doing so, we bore witness to what they did not- the aftermath of Amun's evolution. The realm-shattering change he had no conscious hand in invoking.
The beam of divine energy fired across the World Sea released a shockwave that served as the final kick to fill the realm with arcana. Not only that, but I could sense traces of the ArcaTech's essence everywhere. In every road. In every mine. Every factory. Every wagon. They all became more efficient. Magical in some cases, just like countless beasts, or even powered by the ambient arcana in others. Cities had devolved into chaos, with countless dead and on the rise. Yet above, there were even more changes. The worlds we wove were larger, radiant, and more distant as they danced around Mani, pouring their light on each other and the Mortal Plane whilst occasionally casting shadows on the first world, which now appeared like a true second sun- a silver eye with an illusory lid that opened and closed with the passing months.
And yet, even that was tame in comparison to the impact of Twilight. Above, Twilight brought the sky to life with countless motes of hardly perceivable lights, bringing the eyes of mortals above while the bodies of the dead rose from below. Yet those very stars brought to mind a visage that was to blame for all this death and destruction- a being marked by the tree of eternal darkness. The same one inked into the Lordling's skin, rather than worn on our clothes. Below, on the other hand, a wave of death swept across the Peninsula. And though it did not kill, maim, or harm, it marked, it sowed; it claimed the residents of the Bodhi Peninsula for a post-life eternity above or below. It ingrained the ground with the dormant fingers of Death that would wait until it soaked up enough life to wake and rise.
And Report.