Prologue:
To Defy Power
> The Roots... the Roots do not protect... They are not our salvation... No... No, they twist beneath and about us... They seal our fate... Our fate is sealed, sealed in metal... sealed in fire... sealed in blood...
>
> — Scrawled in blood, the prison cell wall of an unnamed madman
Cracks rippled through the stone, jagged and sharp, as a new life was forced to the surface. The earth groaned in response.
Rise! Rise! Rise!
A desperate gasp echoed through the cavern, a cry torn from the depths of the molten roots, as a newborn was wrenched from the earth itself. Dust and ash clung to its fragile form, its birth marked not by tenderness, but by the suffocating heat of the rootfires, drawn from the lifeblood of a hundred clans of Stone. For a moment, even the dying embers that lined the pit seemed blinding, and the child’s fractured wail split the silence.
Rise! O, Flame from Stone! O, Life from Death! Rise!
Heat surged in the child’s chest, a fire kindled deep within its core—the first core born beneath the earth since the seed of the Tree was planted. Flickering flames of a thousand-thousand sacrifices flared, tentative at first, before seizing the child’s body with fierce intensity. A dull, orange light bathed the cavern, reflecting off the blasted rock walls. The child’s skin glowed with the raw power of Aether: fire, life, defiance. The flames caressed it, but the child did not burn. It was crafted for this—molded by the hands of those who had given all.
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The voice—once a million strong, now a singular echo—chanted, its words thick with grief and fury, a desperate prayer woven into the gasp of the newly dead.
Rise! Burn the Tree! Rise!
The child’s frail arms reached for the shattered rock, its fingers brushing the jagged edges, feeling the truth of the world through stone. The air, thick with heat and ash, shifted around its feet, sparks rising like embers from a dying flame, drawn to the life now stirring.
Rise, O Fire of the Stone, Rise, O Child of the Dark, Rise!
A ring of corpses surrounded the infant, stretching outward in a perfect circle, their ashen bodies laid in supplication to the edges of the hand-carved cavern. These lives—offered willingly, given without hesitation—served as fuel for the flame that now took shape in their midst. Death and life, fire and stone, twisted together in waves of pulsating energy, the very essence of existence for the clans of Stone; Aether, drawn into the newborn’s core. A Stone core, malformed, perforated, but guttering with life.
The final breath of a million souls surged into the child, a torrent of Aether—thick with death, life, and fire—crushing the air with its sheer force. Creation’s flames roared as they fused with the dust of destruction, twisting into something far beyond either. The last spark of life bled from the ring of bodies, drained into the frail form at the center of the sacrificial rite, as the voice—once deafening—faded into a whisper, carried on the ashes.
Rise... Flame of Avalon... Rise...Ar’Kaen… and carry our Legion... to the Heavens...