Year 8540. The Great Mountain of Veirn
“I woke that morning to see the sun dimmed and the world cold, a dawn of rusted iron. And I fell to my knees beside my bed and I wept and I prayed. And in my prayer, I saw that He had died and He had died weak.” - Acominatus, The Aureate Code Pg. 1, Par. 1.
SVEND IA
The morning was cold. That was the first thing he noticed every time the sun rose over the east range. There was a visible frost clinging to invisible molecules illuminated by that morning sunlight. Dancing particles of ice and dew swirling in frigid air that took at least two hours to warm up to something bearable for less than coats and thick-hide trousers. He had to smile every time he saw it. It reminded him that he was still alive. As alive as something like him could be.
“They haven't found me yet.” A mantra that had to be repeated each morning. It calmed him. Stopped the fear from taking over. Stopped the voice from repeating her words: “I worship at the flayed skulls of Risen Gods and see their deaths in the coiling rot of the planes above. Let the stench of their boiling innards lend me the strength to carry out the forging of this world for all days to come. Let them grant me the life I crave.”
Life. Life. That was what she gave the world that day with her death. Jira ne'Jiral was a hero for it. He thought about her as he stared at the ceiling of his cot. Where was she now? He believed that her spirit, free and calm, suckled on the very essence of what she gave the world. Life. A furious storm of the elements, all elements, the spheres of the morning and the night. Night. Entropic night, fulfillment of it. “You know what you are. I know what I am. You hear it, you say it, you bleed it. We bleed the bloody gods from our fucking veins.”
He thought about those words, and he remembered her death.
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Year 540
NO ONE
Her gorget had been pierced as if it was not there, and a blade of impossibly sharpened steel had struck her neck. Her eyes widened in surprise, and both of her hands shot up to grab for the arm holding the weapon that was killing her. It had come from behind, and while she could grasp at her assailant, every necessary vein and tendon within that thick stretch of flesh and muscle was severed. She wept silently as she and her killer locked eyes for a moment. Then, she died. It was almost instantly how her expression fell from the sheer shock of it into a despaired confusion. Just as quickly, the killer wrenched the blade from Jira’s neck, and a fountain of blood erupted from her wound. She tumbled forward, gasping one airless breath, and fell onto her face, crushing her nose against the paneling of the rooftop. She coughed once and remained still.
The Highest and Most Noble was also dead.
Naturally, this cessation of life doomed Jira’s death to be an unremembered thing by most for the more significant part of short-term and long-term history. The three people who most knew her would only discuss the intimate details of her life in specific situations. But His death, naturally, would become the need-to-know news of every country, nation, and continent in the world. It would change the fabric of everything known to mortal life. And where Jira’s death was silent and unremarked, His demise was ushered in by a choice phrase from a man of the cloth.
“Our god, our Highest and Most Noble, is...dead. And I killed Him,” he said.
The proclamation had been met with deafening silence from the gathered crowds. A thousand eyes of every color gazed upon the stage, some teary and stinging from the burning sunlight. The stage’s platform was handbuilt from cherry oak and mahogany; bolts and bearings of an unknown make had held it together for nearly five hundred years.
The red-robed man in the middle of it was also a relic but less regarded as such. He was viewed with contemporary hope rather than traditional admiration. Rarely had terrible news spilled from his lips; his favored words were joyous proclamations of his duties to the Most Noble and how the continent’s people could better serve the Almighty. He had led several masses in the wake of his superiors’ absences, earning tremendous respect and - in some cases - reverence. A reverence that would perhaps rival that of the Matriarch Cardinal one day.
The Eldest Augur was a man of aged countenance matched by an enamoring magniloquence, both developed over the long years of his service to his god. Regarding the former, he was particularly well-kept for a man of his advanced years. His face was remarkably patrician in its features, clean-shaven for both hair and beard, and almost naturally demanded loyalty from his most loyal congregational members. He was slightly hunched over by age but was still tall compared to many others. He would have made a grand king in another life.
Thus, none in attendance could believe that they had heard him correctly.
Worry began to spread throughout the masses when he repeated his words with stronger conviction. It was calm anxiety at first, like a hush before a yell or the receding of the tides before a flood.
Questions beyond count poured from the gathered masses. Had the Eldest Augur lost his senses? He said what? He said that he had killed the Highest and Most Noble. What ludicrous idea was that? One that was indeed born of a nightmare or an overactive imagination. There was no way that he had said what they had heard. But then he produced soldiers. Men of his Lambency. Broad figures, broader than most humans in their sheer bulk of muscles and bone structure. Steel armor as thick as a tree trunk only added to these great knights’ imposing visage. There was also a tinge of fear alongside that view today. They dragged a large wooden cart caked in dried blood and other dark fluids, opaque gelatin seeping through the lines of the cart’s paneling, staining the stage floor.
Questions were silenced in the place of murmurs and gasps. Worries and hisses coalesced into a crackling hum of sound.
“What’s going on?” one brave soul dared to ask above the rest, his eyes narrow with apprehension. “What’s in that cart?”
The Eldest Augur’s expression was dark as he nodded to the soldiers closest to the cart. Then, the screams began. Horrific cries and riots defied any term a sane mind could produce.
The soldiers produced something so massive in scale, so utterly radiant and magnificent that it was undeniably divine from this cart. Dozens of people fell to their knees as the terror hit them like warhammers. Others gouged and clawed their eyes, their faces bloodied with the resulting mulch. Some bit their tongues off in their panic. Dozens more turned to flee from the gathering, demanding to be let go so that they could escape what was a trickster demon. Others stood there in stunned silence, unable to process what they saw.
It was left on the stage next to the Eldest Augur like a trophy—a severed head, gigantic in proportions and boasting perfect features. Angularly chiseled, a young-old face with hoary hair and dead glassy eyes. They were the color of blue diamonds. Its pristine teeth were bared in a rictus grimace that spoke of fear, surprise, pain, and anger. The stump of a neck at the base of the skull was charred, and the blood that had previously poured from it had curdled like sour milk and blackish goo, producing an awful skunk-like stench.
Was this their god? Was this the object of their worship brought mortal and low?
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Year 8540. The Great Mountain of Veirn
SVEND IA
Svend rolled out of his cot. His bare feet scrunched on the floor from the cold. Light brown wood. He didn't remember where he got it from. The west, where the ranges cleared up a bit into a berth of forest, just before the ocean spread into the infinite horizon. There were trees there. He got to setting the kettle for his tea. Clouds were above him outside, thin and gray under a burnished sky. Rain would fall soon. His lips crooked into a slight grin. Gíla loved the rain. It distracted her from her grief. She wouldn't cause problems today.
A small fresh pond was just outside the yurt, twenty yards away. He filled the kettle in it and set a fire with stacks of tinder and sticks to place the full container on the heating stone frame. Steam rose from it soon enough, whistling a piercing song across the cliffs. He returned inside the yurt, picking the tea bags from his pack and the cup he soon filled with boiling water. Lavender and honey. Hazy memory told him that this used to be his mother's favorite. Because of her, he thought, was why he was still alive.
"Alive" was a mortal term, but it was the only term he could ascribe to himself because "human" certainly didn't count anymore. "Normal" didn't count anymore, and the word never counted for any of the ones from the days before. He believed he was once human, which was the only reason he knew the word. He would have flashes of life before flames encompassed his memory. Cozy and comfortable.
Tea took precedence after a point. Tears for a faceless parent ran down his cheeks. He wiped them away and let the drink percolate, and he walked away to wash in the basin outside. Frigid water, but it cleaned. Drying off was quick, as was getting dressed again. Shirt, jacket, briefs, trousers, boots. Nothing fancy aside from the marking on the back of his coat. His marking. A pale thing bleeding poison. Elaborate. To let others know who he was.
He drank the tea in silence. Hot, subtle flavors ran down his tongue as he planned his day. Down the cliffs into the village seemed best, though another crack at The Door wouldn't hurt. He had pelts he could sell for food for the Bear. He could also check up on Green. Another smile as her face overtook the trace facelessness of a woman he believed he knew. Green made lonely days better. If need be, she could comfort him in the night. They could share stories about their old fights. Or they could finally plan on trekking further east beyond the east range. Maybe They wouldn't be there.
The crowd shuddered and shook with fury, fear, and insanity. Every negative emotion that could have been was.
“I'll just sell the pelts today.”
He left the yurt as the rainfall began and pulled the hood of his jacket over his head. His pack was hoisted high on his shoulders, pelts stuffed inside. The descent was slow going. Slick rocks kept him from moving as fast as he wanted to. Rocks spread far. Impassable in most places. He picked an excellent place to settle. No one would bother coming after him.
The road to the village hit his feet like a gel when he finally reached the bottom. The dirt road turned into mud. A grunt left his throat as he kicked the clumps off the side of his boots. He moved on and noted the rays of sunlight beaming through the overcast. It was still cold, and his vision was limited. He could see sixty feet ahead of him for half of the trip in the mud. The rain worsened into a storm. Thirty feet for the final half until the buildings came into view.
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Rustic. Inviting. With an air of sickness just under the surface. The mayor, an older man with a gut as big as a cauldron, called the style "nostalgic." He recalled that word from a hazy memory, and another gave him the associated images. People loved living here. On account of its variant lifestyle, that is. It was calmer than Ailc, busier than Frolka. Most folks left him alone when he visited. Doubly so when the Bear was with him, if she ever crawled out of the tomb in the cliffs, away from others. She caused trouble if people talked to her without his intervention. But today, it was just him. Today could be good.
A pin drop before the storm.
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Year 540
NO ONE
Jira would have been able to tell them all the answers they wanted to be answered. She would have been able to satisfy the questions not even the Eldest Augur could satisfy with his oratory. But she couldn’t. Not when she was atop a building - perhaps a tavern or an inn - some ways from the gathered masses. Not when she was dead.
She would have cursed the Eldest Augur through clenched teeth if she had been alive and not a corpse with a sliced open throat. Because he had done it; he had done it. It would be almost incomprehensible if Jira did not learn what she had learned over the entire ordeal she sought to end. If Jira were alive, her hands would have trembled as her fingers tightened around the grip of a black-wood crossbow, a bolt of silver knocked and drawn. Her palms would have become increasingly sweaty, which would have stung the scratches and punctures across her flesh. Despite this risk of the weapon slipping from her grasp, the bolt tip would be perfectly aimed at the robed man on the stage.
The Eldest Augur smiled sadly at the panicked crowd and slammed his cane onto the stage. Iron-tipped wood cracked onto wood with a great clapping sound. Thunder. Belying the possible range of noise from a simple stick. The screams fell into aghast shock. Those attempting to flee stopped and turned back. All eyes were once more upon the Eldest Augur, who rested both hands on the head of his cane. Eyes the color of milk glass scanned through the hundreds of thousands of faces before him. Young, middling, old. Man and woman, peasant and noble.
“Yes...I have killed Him!” he proclaimed again to the mobs’ new shouts of fearful protest. His voice was a haze of confidence; the syllables and vowels were painfully stretched. “I killed Him because of a simple truth burned into my heart that I wish had not been so.”
He let the moment settle before continuing with a flourish of accusatory points to the head, “I killed Him because He deserved to die. I killed Him because He did not deserve your worship...your love. I killed Him because He was a false idol of our world. A god who did what He did only for His gain. A god who used your belief in Him as a leader who saved you from dark and terrible times to benefit His advancement in the world of mortal and divine.”
The Eldest Augur fell silent on choking words and wiped tears from his eyes. His smile, however, never faded. It was a sad smile, proud knowing he had done what was necessary, yet still born with a genuine wish that he had not been forced to kill Him. Of course, no one saw that; if they did, it did not register in their brains. They were far too focused on the decapitated head of their Most Holy and the words of explanation from a man they trusted. What came next drove that crowd into a murderous frenzy.
“As you were all aware, I was forced away for a very long time,” he began again with a voice carrying across rows and rows of the gathering. “Forced away on a quest given to me by the Drayheller, Gíla Senghu. A woman of true worth who, once she returns to our physical world, you should all treat with reverence as you do me.”
The crowd shuddered and shook with fury, fear, and insanity. Every negative emotion that could have been was.
He continued. “Because of her, I learned of a spell. A ritual, if you will, that…assisted me in everything that I needed to know. It reminded me of who I was, what I am, and what your God did. Most importantly, it reminded me of what I needed to do to ensure the world’s survival. I opened a gateway into the realm of the divine. His Heaven. And I went through that shining gateway.” He breathed deeply, another waver to his voice and shimmer of tears to his eyes, “I went through, and I killed Him. I killed our god for His crimes against this world.”
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Year 8540. The Great Mountain of Veirn
SVEND IA
He entered the shop to sell his stock. The owner smoked from a pipe behind the counter. Vanilla scent filled the candle-lit room. Wares of all kinds adorned the shelves. A jack-of-all-trades type of shop. Antiques from a time none of them remembered. Handmade things from the times here and there. Hunting things. Cooking things. Books.
“Rain get you coming down the cliffs?” he asked.
“No,” Svend said to him.
“Good. Come to buy today?” The owner puffed his pipe. His name was Bracken. A local gossip who knew too much and said too little.
He swung the pack off his shoulders onto the counter. “Sell. Barter if I see something I like.”
The owner waved at his supply. “Take a look.”
Svend took a look. His eyes stuck on a pile of wheels. Geared and metallic. Thin and small. He took them in his hand and placed them on the counter like coins. They rattled and clattered into a new pile. Bracken looked at them and then at him expectantly. He reached into his pack and pulled out a bundle of pelts. Skinned and treated not two days ago. Feline creatures in the cliffs. A family of three. The smallest could be turned into a hat. The largest into coats.
“Fair trade?” he asked him.
He shook his head. “You're givin' too much for a pile of gears, kid. Add something else.”
“Pelts for the wheels and information. Fair trade?”
He nodded, scooped up the pelts, placed them behind the counter, and took long puffs from his pipe. “Fair trade.”
He took the gears and placed them in the front pocket of his pack, which he swiftly replaced on his shoulders. “How much were the pelts worth?”
“One for the gears, two for questions and answers.”
“Any news of the Great Blade coming through this way yet?”
“She's near last I heard. Friend of mine had an encounter with her during that fool effort against the Chantry. Lost Monaghan and Uleaven. Barely got out, he did.”
“Is she moving east?”
“Seems to have taken root in the mire to lick her wounds. She got injured, if you believe my friend.”
Svend's lips set, and he left without another word. No more could be said between them in this exchange. He had hope. If the Great Blade was in the mire near, she could be dealt with. He had to tell himself that, or he’d go insane with sickness.
Rain filled the streets in floods, and no one was walking the streets. Today could be good. He went to the tombs to tell the Bear.
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Svend Ia had long considered the consequences of killing the Great Blade for her part in creating this world. What would become of him was always at the forefront of his contemplations of the future. What would become of what friends he had left was close to it. It was often in the background of his mind. Constantly gnawing at the roots, driving him to reconsider his plan. Reconsider his position. Reconsider everything. He would always toss aside such doubt with a drink and a man of the night and awaken with freshened vigor and a surging path toward her most recent sighting.
And that brought him here to Shtarym.
The day had started hot and sweltering in the coverage of some dead hunter's hut. The mountains had been clean and clear, if cold and rainy. Here, in this mire just outside the borders of that town, acid pelted the earth in crescendos of pain. Burning but not burning. Making all it touched ill with the pox. Upon a time long before the Great Blade did what she did, such a day would have been seen as dreary. Unfortunate. A horrific day that spat in the face of reason. In certain parts of the world, one would even assume that this was the work of a god figure or a daemon idol or a thought forge made manifest. Some would believe this was simply a freak accident caused by environmental changes. The truth, Svend had long known, was essentially all of them in some respects.
Sheathing the cobalt blade that sang the tune of a dead race, the black-haired man peered through a slit in the wooden surface of the hut's door. The warmth from the acid outside eeked through the hut's foundations like invisible tendrils. It caused him to snort disdainfully and uncomfortably. He hated the heat of it. With the traveling leathers and thick clothes that provided enough warmth for the mountains, the heat could be unbearable. Today, it was unbearable.
Today could not be good.
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Year 540
NO ONE
A pin drop before the storm.
No words afterward could quell the rampage of brutality throughout the crowd. Collectively, they screamed in protest, insanity, and fury. Some finally escaped their fear and attempted to charge the stage and the Eldest Augur they once greatly adored. With swords carving through their flesh and shields cracking their skulls, they were stopped by the Lambency, who held no qualms with cutting down the pilgrims and the peasants. Dozens were killed instantly by the trampling hundreds on top of those slain at the stage, flattened into jellied meat and cracked bones. Hundreds fell into incurable madness as they attempted to imagine what the Eldest Augur had seen beyond that gateway. What horrors could he have seen to deem the Most Noble as evil? Hundreds more screamed at the heavens in sorrow, pleading for something to awaken them from this horrific nightmare.
If Jira were alive, her finger would brush delicately across the hungry trigger. In a moment, she would have pulled that trigger. The bolt would fly with purpose. It would skewer the cruel man’s heart and end it. The mission, the goal, the curse, the hate. Years of stewing to find her opportunity for vengeance and bring down the man who had caused her so much pain.
But she was dead. She...had failed.
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Year 8540. Shtarym
SVEND IA
With a breath somewhere between short and sharp, Svend clutched the handle of the hut's door and pushed on it. The door opened outward, allowing a wave of heat to wash against him. Scented waves of sick corpses long buried drowned the air as the building gale buffeted against the domicile. He stepped out from the frame and shuddered as the sticky rain splattered against his coat and hat, the green-tinted liquid sizzling away into choking vapor. He moved quickly, shutting the door with force as he set on the path he had tracked down.
He dreaded the walk with each passing moment.
The distance was manageable when thought about. He had measured it at fifty kilometers. But it was a fifty-kilometer jaunt through death and disease, where no mercy would be found for those who strayed from the markers put in place by braver men than most. If one were to do that, Svend recalled, their screams would become the new windchimes seen fluttering on the stalks of fleshy reeds lining the outskirts of the road. Worst-case scenarios would see them frozen in a perpetual state of terror, propped up in unnatural positions atop the oozing waters, moaning through torn throats and clenched teeth for help.
Svend stepped over a log crawling with buzzing cadaver-ants. Something with pincers snapped at him from the sodden grass as he did, its hooked appendages rattling against the sole of his boots. He jolted and looked back at the log, barely visible in the darkness of the hot storm. Something black as pitch crawled back inside it, and Svend no longer saw it as not a log. He moved on, wondering where the rest of the person was.
His eyes, sapphire indigo with trace elements of luminescent glow, inevitably wandered to the pieces of land visible through the haze. Desolation was a word that came closest to describing what he saw in brief flashes of image. What also came to mind was the history behind that word and its context in this analysis of the world.
How it looked eight thousand years ago before it had fully set in. Before Jira ne'Jiral had been killed.
Eight thousand years ago.
How things had changed the day the Druyans came to Heracla. When he had come to Heracla.