“How preposterous!” The Beautiful cursed as she reeled back from the onslaught Terrianis’s will and divine authority eroding the pleasant spread of her primordial essence. Her mood quickly shifted upon losing nearly half of the capital except for the few who were either already bearing his protection or were protected by His mark etched onto their bodies and into their souls. Quickly she repossessed a miniscule part of her and immediately retaliated against the Elhyrissiar within the deepest layer of reality.
The reality of Elhyrissian itself consisted of at least eighteen layers according to the Order of Maghia’s Truth who began unfolding each during their erudite research aimed to solve the greatest obstacle in perfecting long-range teleportation. Whilst the solution laid elsewhere, they stumbled upon the vast web of inscriptions, formulas which they now refer to as the building blocks of reality itself. Runes which oozed with power beyond anything their feeble mind and will could fully comprehend, and could only deduct these were either left behind by the Almodo or by the Architect of Planes, The Monarch of the Elements and younger sibling of the Nightscale and the Heavenly Monarch.
Within these layers the two began their relentless dance vying to take control over the oblivious citizens, legionariir whom experienced a wide array of sensations. Pain at being gnawed at when Terrianis tore out her essence and hurled it across the ceaseless voids; a soothing, warm sensation spreading a twinging akin to warm embrace in a cold winter when she wrestled the reins back over them; misanthropic agonies when they were once more deprived of her baleful essence and a myriad other, all within the span of a mere seconds as they clashed against those enjoying the freedom given back by Terrianis.
In just one flip of a bird, a dragon flying out from the praetoriir’s creche, the two tucked a hundred times over the minds of millions. Both driven by their divine privilege over the feebler minds proved created tempestuous tides in the chaotic waters of the astral realms between, disturbing its eon long harmony and beckoning myriad inhabitants drawn by the curiosity as many of them though The Beautiful was simply driven finally insane in the prison of her own making. Yet were mildly surprised at The Beautiful outnumbered by three brilliant, vague shapes spreading across her bewitching form.
From the manifold legs dancing, merging with each other, etheric threads sprouted and concaved towards the gargantuan, pulsing shape alternating between a spherical and an oblique and oblong sack, darkening ulcer vortexes forming along its opaque surface of effervescent polychrome. Dim and vibrant just like the two vying above, whose celestial scuffle drawn more and more with each blow; each strike; each blast echoing through the eternities…
**
“Guess she could not wait any longer.” Albron stood somberly, from his long blade the blood of his truscian subordinate dripped into the lengthening lake of dim blood. A youth who delivered quite mundane news just a mere moment ago, before he uttered fervent praises to an entity, he had no awareness of. Albron hesitated little as the blade was drawn from its sheath with the intent of taking his life for his lack of devotion towards The Beautiful. Compared to the draevhei, tardy as he was freed from the bondage of The Beautiful by a singular pierce through his heart.
“May Her veil protect you on your final journey, Brother!” He offered a prayer, met his vacant gaze before he gently shut down the muddy green eyes. The door burst open and two more of his readied themselves for a futile clash, though before they could hope to even strike, the madness from their gazes faded. Confusion and terror written on their faces behind the slim slits of their enameled ebony helmets with golden trims. Albron let out a sigh then collected his thoughts whilst approaching them.
“Calm down! Head down to the Cradle and make sure our winged friends aren’t effected by this strange madness.” As he placed his hands on their shoulders, his mark flared up under the woven glove, pouring eldritch runes of protection into them. The two without noticing, except for a mildly warm soothing sensation nodded their heads and left his office. He rubbed his hand and looked back at the corpse one more time before sheathing his blade away.
For a moment, regret reared itself in his heart. Regret more towards himself rather than towards Grimslaukh who delivered the ring holding The Beautiful. He now wished he was clever enough at the time to offer an alternative, though he was also aware that may not have saved the life of his subordinate. Before he could have dwelled more on the matter, the door once more flung open at the kick of his old friend, comrade whom stood by his side when he made the journey to the far north to find Moirstyria, who saved him from that horrid whiteworm lurking in the deepest recesses of the Veinways where she disappeared near a century ago.
“Albron! Thank the One and the Eight. What is happening?” Celsushar appeared like then: his stalwart, golden body clad in their ebony panoply drenched in gore, though unlike that time it came from their own flock.
He let out a sigh and turned away from the corpse. “She went ahead of schedule.” Was all he uttered, Celsushar understood with a grim expression. “We shouldn’t have trusted her.”
“We shouldn’t have.” Albron whispered before he relapsed into a pensive silence. “But I have no doubt it is still within his expectations.” For the time being, he had no choice but to believe as he had a sudden surge of awareness of Aurelithae traversing across space and time, down from the Radiant Keep, down to the streets.
The two began moving out, hearing commotion down at the courtyard. “It is quite foolish, but if possible, hold your blade as much as possible.” Celsushar nodded his head without uttering a word, seeing the faint, pained expression of the penitent. They hurried through the winding corridors of the gargantuan, hexangular tower casting its shadow over the ridges and jagged walls of the mountain, overlooking the prosperous city in flames. Strangely only a few of their brothers and sisters impeded their way, evoking a foreboding sense of fear within them.
Outside, they arrived to the scenery of Nawfal holding back his blade, surrounded by his own Wing and theirs with many of them littering the gleaming floor with wounds not dire enough to bring them under the dark veil of Dhaekenia. Though the sight of gashing wounds held in a translucent, etheric bubble healing it just enough they won’t bleed to death proved grim enough to strengthen his remorse, he was glad that Augermil left Nawfal behind a few years ago.
Without words, the elderly Yhanubj Praetoriar augmented with the bones and blood of a dragon noticed the two and felt relief amidst the bizarre euphoria of maghia. The two joined the fray after formulating the very same spell before striking down at their fellows. First, they cut their way through the masses of praetoriir, aiming for the less vital points whilst applying the spell and a second gravitational holding them in place. At the epicenter, all three pushed against each other’s back, blade held out firmly and in swift flashed struck down the few maddened fellows of theirs. Before long the bout came to an end as the number of the shackled dwindled, their agony leaden moans forming a strange sonnet.
“Are we the only ones left unaffected by this taint?” Nawfal inquired between breaths as his gaze swept across the courtyard. “There are a few Father freed. But we are still probably outnumbered.” Albron answered whilst crouching down to a haebrian merkin praetoriar, his palm against the clammy forehead as he drained the vile essence out from her.
“What are your orders?” Albron looked at him mildly confused, but then stared at the dim corridor leading down to the Creche of the Dragons. “We head to the Creche, from there to the aid of the legion.” The two nodded.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“What about them?” Celsushar asked pointing at the unconscious praetoriir. “Leave them be. They shall be cleansed… freed first by Father.” With that the three hurried down the Creche where their winged companions awaited, thrilled by the events unfolding…
**
Isocrates stared down at the long stairs, bringing back the memory of the first arduous climb he felt glad had not been repeated as now new hurdles ornated, tainted the long set of alabaster stairs. Corpses of legionariir and cultists littered the steps adding to the grizzled cityscape brimming in an eerie vibrance. The smell of slowly rotting corpses in the illius caustically burnt his nose.
The others behind him were slowly healed by Naghig and Curia, a fellow faun member of the New Agent with steel grayish fur covering her tall, statuesque body draped in light brownish robes with golden tips. Though unlike Naghig who seemed to be an expert on the restoration of body and mind, her focus laid in the more protective nature of dawn and mind maghia. Qualities which proved quite useful as whilst the battle between the Cult and the First Legion came to an end here, there were still those under the oppressive sway of the Beautiful.
Not long after they stepped forth the strange portal Aurelithae hewn into their layer of reality, the enchanted guard of the House of Records wasted no time to reveal their own fall to the primordial charm. Though it was a short battle between the two groups, it still wasted good few minutes they wished to spend on finding the so-called Maze of Fates. A vast network of roads he heard a few tales about during his days in the academy.
Roads which naturally formed into the Draemons Mountain at least according to one record he did not believe at all. A tale which hearkens back to the tale of two greatest children of the Heavenly Monarch battling against the Titan of Chaotic Waves, a battle the two dragons lost themselves leading to their gargantuan carcasses becoming the foundation of these great mountains he called home. For him it was a grim notion, which proposed that like the corpses of mortals, their carcasses too break down with ages, leading to his fears that one day the mountains holding the city would crumble into dust, killing millions including maybe even him or his descendants one day.
He much preferred the actual tale of them being created by Cinciwen – a former chosen of the Amber Lord – battling an Infaerni who took a giant worm as their vessel. A battle which as usual lasted for days and nights and took the two across both mountains and the lands below the valley. “Iso, wake up!” Aurelithae’s voice brought her out from envisioning the tale of the magnificent hero clashing against a demoniac worm.
He quickly turned around and noticed that Vel and Gnaeurian were healed back up finally. Though a minor surprise greeted them in the form of the Keeper who remained sane and blind to the tainted world around him. He greeted them in his usual genial manner and gave them a strange coin of brass and azure with no distinctive engravings on it except for the trims of serpentine circle.
Isocrates let out a gasp when Aurelithae pushed her thumb onto it, then suddenly evaporated from the entrance hall. A chuckle followed from behind the counter. “Do not be afraid to walk in the bowels of the mountain. It shall lead you all to your destinies woven by the Sightless Seer Himself!”
**
After pressing his thumb onto the center of the coin, Isocrates found himself hurled through time and space, swirling in a nausea inducing pace where his surroundings were a barely recognizable blur of vivid blues, purples and ceruleans merging into each other while retaining their distinctiveness. Compared to Aurelithae’s portal which was the same mundane experience as stepping through a door, it was an experience he no longer wanted to live through if necessary.
At last, he found himself caught by Naghig whose hands glowed in a dawn golden, decreasing his need to lay out the contents of his bowels onto the dim basalt floor beneath his soles. A floor with a peculiar quality the longer he stared at it whilst wrestling with his own body. At first look it resembled basalt like the mines beneath the mountain, though he noticed faint marrow like qualities in them. Smooth yet slightly porous surface with winding striations leading further in the wide passage where all six of them comfortable fit within. The walls curved, arced gently towards the ceiling like ribcages; sutured segmenting the wall and ceiling.
The strangest of the road’s qualities though was not found in its appearance, but in the fact that the air itself was fresh as if they never stepped into the House of Records, that as if they were still standing outside taking in the refreshing mountainous air sweeping across the erected plateaus of the capital.
“Come on boy!” Naghig grabbed his arm with his pale hands still wreathed in the soothing, healing spell, though he freed it himself as the peace settled once more within his body. Nevertheless, as they hurried through the sinuous road, his intuition told him they were no longer in the realm of mortal kindred. When his eyes fell on the walls, strained to pierce through the opaque veil, he seemed to notice wafts of etheric winds seeping in through the sutures and crevices inhibited by a primeval darkness that evoked a soothing nothingness. A sensation he often associated with death, an occasion which in the end was neither grim nor attractive for the recipient. It was just is for Isocrates.
A notion that now walking this road creeped into his mind, blossoming into a sense of doom as he just realized their little group was heading to face a primordial evil lurking in the fiery shadows of existence well before the first of his ancestors were uplifted by the Deossos, granted a new perfect form to mingle amongst the other kindred. Strangely as he found it himself, the prospect filled him with excitement and terror at the same time, feelings that evaded him months ago. By the end of the long etheric road situated between realities, he was assured it was the day his name shall be carved into the Annals of Eternity like Augermil whose name shall forever be remembered for his thousand feats. “This shall be my first in the hundreds awaiting me!” He thought vainly as they came face to face with a pristine mirror emanating an iridescent glow whilst reflecting only their dimly lit surroundings.
**
Madness fluctuated throughout Luth-Astaril. Citizens who dreaded the day they had to survive, praying to the One and the Eight to protect them in these dire days; vagrants who travelled from the distant provinces in hopes of finding work or making a name by putting their amassed martial and arkhaine knowledge to the test; adventurers who came with similar aims or simply came home for the altruistic reason of protecting their loved ones from the cult and the grasp of The Beautiful; legionariir and custodiir making rounds on the streets, searching and hunting for the surreptitious cult lurking in the shadows.
All these good and bad folk now found their minds torn; assailed by a flurry of sensation including the joy of freedom, the dread of life slipping from them as they succumbed to their injuries, nausea induced by murdering their fellows in a sudden and pious rage towards an entity whom at one moment they dread in another love and worship even though the true name of the beast evades their mind. The only thing that lingers before their eyes, whether they are free from her grasp or fallen into it is the haunting beauty whose listless face gazes at them from a space beyond their promised realm.
And amidst these madness infested lands, a dark wanderer of realms and realities walked without a sound, without a scent, without a presence. Not one of the people stared at him or acknowledged him in any capacity. They simply felt a draught of wind devoid of warmth and cold, yet strangely soothing. Many simply chalked this phenomenon up to the Solemn Shepherd or the Gray Monarch walking amongst their flock, waiting to collect the lost, the ones whose life came to a final halt in a cruel twist of fate, in a battle between titans beyond their comprehension.
For him it was nothing more than a pleasant stroll. A chaos he much preferred after centuries, more than a millennia long stasis which calmly blanketed the realm. Though it wasn’t his desire to unleash chaos in such manner, things still advanced towards his much-desired destination. At the center of the bridge ornated with the symbols and various interpretations of Septurrion, he stopped and turned his cloaked head towards the Great Cathedral erected a few levels above, with a long set of stairs leading up a few dozen streets away.
His gaze pierced through marble, limestone altered by the erudite hands of dwarves, aevhei and human masons well-versed in the shaping of stones; through the vast space the Great Architect of Realms stretched, lengthened himself eons before the Deossos elevated the races into their current, bipedal forms they all envisioned in unison. He watched the group step through the portal and enter into the winding bowels of the Daemons Mountain hewn out by ancient magusos of the Order, and charged through a dozen proud members under her charm.
He gazed even beyond, watched as the will of the Infaerni born from the pride of the Almodo clashed against Terrianis who traded his immortality for power that should have never been given to any mortal. A clashing which proved its worth, allowing the little group to reach their destination without alerting the one whose sole purpose is to pave the way towards the epiphany of the little dragon borne by his desire.