image [https://sygnus.org/flames-of-bedlam/story/pic/bannerflashback.jpg]

Time: A Year Ago

Location: The Glade/The Invader Stronghold

Tywys was reluctant to take me to the place beyond the glade. But I’d been working extra hard at earning her trust. I’d not asked her about the Flames of Bedlam anymore, and tried to make myself appear as upright and concerned about things as she was.

I’d even laid off my wit.

So when I asked to go to the dark place, and I told her it was to better understand our duty — you know, the one where we protect the world from the Flames of Bedlam — she must have believed me. Or if she didn’t believe me, she wanted to so much that she fooled herself.

This… is a part of my story that I’m not particularly proud of.

Maybe, in retrospect, I would have done things differently.

However, despite Tywys’s efforts to show me a balanced path of harmony and justice… the hunger and rage in me had grown monstrous. I’d had a taste of power and manipulation. I was even manipulating her.

…Yes. Not my finest moment.

But I’ll not gloss over the truth, either.

image [https://sygnus.org/flames-of-bedlam/story/pic/divider.png]

She brought me to the Flames of Bedlam. I could see the horror and fear written in the movement of her form. She looked at the hungry, dark flames of twisted energy the way I used to look at my own reflection. Like it was some terrible thing, yet something to be pitied.

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I stepped closer. Closer than she’d dare.

In my mind I could see them, boiling through the flame. Spirits without their people. All that was left of the dead. All that was left of the broken. All who suffered in life and found no peace in death.

The Chaos that hummed temptation in my mind. I knew this power just as much as I knew Creation. Tywys was a balance of both.

My test, I realized, was to choose between them.

I reached towards the Flame and it responded eagerly. Like a blade, it only wanted a hand to wield it. But this blade could give me power beyond even the Invaders. Power to lay low the Adversary.

I would meet their cruelty with more cruelty. And I would revel in their pain.

-No!- I heard Tywys gasp as she realized my intentions. -Please…-

I couldn’t explain this to her. I couldn’t tell her why. There were no words to describe what my life had been. What my people had been through.

“I must,” was all I could tell her.

Then, I embraced the Flames of Bedlam.

image [https://sygnus.org/flames-of-bedlam/story/pic/divider.png]

I expect the fire to burn. That’s what fire does, after all. I expected the Chaos to well within me, maybe even consume me.

But I didn’t expect what happened next.

Tywys. She was tiny, now. Tiny and white next to the immense fury of Chaos that stirred to my command. She stood unwavering before it. She put herself between it and me.

As the flames wrapped around us, she was the one who drew it in. Still protecting me, she was the one who fought to balance the overwhelming rage and pain.

Her power was so small. Too small. Bedlam began to take her instead.

I remember the shocked feeling of mute, sick horror that filled me as I watched. Maybe, just for a second, I was jolted to my senses enough to understand what I’d done. To her. To myself. To this world that waited my cruel coming.

Her once-gentle energies suddenly burned blood red, seared through with Chaos until her form turned pitch black. In my mind, I heard her piteous cries of pain and fear as they mutated into something terrible. Something monstrous.

Whatever Tywys was… her awareness, her spirit… I watched as my guide burned to nothing. I watched as she transformed with the awful power I unleashed.

When she was gone, power and flames began to fill me.