Runar Olafsson stared down at the cracked, pitted ground beneath his feet.
And at the freshly-made corpse splayed upon it.
It was an awful thing, to see one dead by burning. Fire erased from a body all traces of humanity, wiping clean those most sacred features fellow men might use to distinguish one from another. A lover’s lips, a soldier’s muscle, a child’s plump cheeks. All were swept away by the blaze, such that what remained could scarcely be called human at all.
Bones of ash, skin of cinder.
Runar closed his eyes. He’d seen enough immolation today to last an eternity.
He shed no tears, despite the cadaver’s identity. He was too old, too strong, and too well-used to death, for something as mundane as weeping. And besides, he had the morale of his men to consider.
So he shed no tears. Not a single drop. Instead, a deep malaise, a vast and all-consuming anguish, swept across his body, pervading him from tip to toe. A rolling nausea, that came and went in horrid waves, as he considered not just the corpse itself, but what it represented.
For the first time in two hundred years, he was alone.
Just as he had been, so, so long ago.
The carcass’s features were difficult to discern, so thorough was its forcible cremation. The once proud, majestic wings that had served to swell the hearts of all his people were now desiccated, nothing more than burnt feathers and blistered bone. The terribly powerful, yet impossibly soft hands that had sweetly soothed the roiling muscles of his neck and back on the night of a full moon were naught but singed stumps.
And the face he’d so deeply cared for, the face he’d treasured, the face of his love, his life, his wife, the mother of his children, was simply…gone.
Sigrun, his Sigrun, was dead, but Wergar the White did not cry.
Instead he knelt slowly, reverentially, placing a single hand upon the scorched earth beside her blackened form. His eyes were shut, but the image of her remained, seared into the backs of even his closed lids. It would linger there for decades, he had no doubt.
Slowly, gratingly, the ringing in his ears drained away, and the world around him came back into focus.
It was a world of pain.
Even doing his best to ignore them, Runar’s enhanced senses gave him a grotesque tour of the enveloping chaos and despair. His hearing sat him right next to the wails of friends and comrades, brothers and sisters-in-arms, now in agony, or grief, or both. His nose was assaulted by the scent of charred meat and soiled breeches. Of gore, both freshly-spilt and long-since clotted.
Of Blood and Brimstone.
And the screams of his oldest son.
Einar’s shock had swiftly turned to horror, and horror to rage, rage directed at the few enemies of theirs that still drew breath upon the battlefield. His firstborn bared claws and blade alike towards their devastated, ruined foes with a bloodlust Runar knew all too well.
He sighed, and his body shifted and rippled with ancient might.
Long fangs regressed into human canines, thick fur morphing to skin as pale as moonlight. He shrank a good two feet in height, but even in this lesser form, towered over the honor guard surrounding him.
Runar placed a heavy hand upon his firstborn’s back.
“It’s over, son,” he said.
Einar whipped around to regard him, eyes alight with fury.
“OVER?!” he snarled. The men around them, Blessed all, shrank back. Einar growled up at him, stabbing a clawed finger into his chest. It didn’t matter. It wouldn’t pierce his skin. Runar regarded him with a deep sorrow, but merely repeated his prior words.
“It’s over.”
“NOTHING is over!” Einar screamed. “NOTHING! They don’t get to just, just…WALK AWAY!” The fur across his son’s body stood straight up, like spikes of iron, his hackles raised, spittle flying from his mouth, eyes blood red and churning with vengeful Entropy. The half-moon medallion, sown painfully into the flesh of his collarbone, flashed dangerously.
It was barely keeping him sane.
“And YOU!” his favorite child, his fellow good and righteous knight, rounded on him once more. “You should never have let her come! Why didn’t you stop her?! You should have told her to STAY AWAY!”
“She had just as much a right as any,” Runar said, quietly. Uselessly. His son and he were alike, so alike. Too alike. Einar was almost a babe, barely two decades to his name. And had this been centuries ago, nothing would have stopped Runar, himself. He would have torn his foes apart, guilty and innocent both. Men and women, and children, too. He’d have gorged lavishly on their fatty organs. He’d never had a father to stop him.
But Einar did.
“This is ALL YOUR FAULT!” his beautiful boy wailed, in one final lament, before falling silent, panting heavily. All around them, the soldiers Runar commanded eyed the two worriedly. They’d already sacrificed so much. Could there be more death this day?
“Enough.”
From on high, an angel descended.
Runar’s soldiers knelt. Einar didn’t move, but Runar bowed deeply to the Almighty one. To the figure bedecked in glistening silver, an impermeable alloy somehow unbothered despite its recent immersion in the all-consuming hellfire of the now-deceased Lord Etrigast.
Runar had lived for over two hundred years, but he’d never met anyone quite like Valour.
The Aristocrat’s glittering form hung suspended in the air–but queerly. Valour’s flight was unlike that of any other airborne Mover Runar had ever known. There was no propellant, no acceleration, no momentum. There was no noise, no trace at all of his passage. The Almighty seemed beyond such pithy laws of physics, such rules of space and time.
In the firm grasp of his right hand, a long spear of pure blue-white lightning crackled ominously.
The High Lord of Cell Regis, Quiet King of the Aristocracy. The oldest of all Godkin. The Terror of the Frontlines. He’d seen countless epochs come and pass, watched innumerable Immortal brethren breathe their last. He seemed deathless, indomitable, infinite.
Legendary.
“Lord Valour,” Runar greeted.
“Knight Commander,” the silver-clad seraph replied. His eyeless, mouthless, formless gilded helm turned towards the still-fuming Einar. Gradually, moving in that same uncanny manner, gliding through space like a poorly-animated drawing superimposed jarringly onto the material world, Valour approached the vengeful wolf.
“The battle is won,” the Almighty spoke evenly, devoid of any and all emotion. “Child.”
“Go home.”
Einar paused, hesitating for a moment, a low growl still rumbling in the back of his throat. Runar’s breath came fast and shallow. Valour’s assistance was borne of mercy. Without the Godkin’s help, they’d not a chance of victory, and he’d sacrificed much to be here. Every second of his absence, hundreds of Blessed and mundanes alike drew their last breaths upon the Frontlines.
Surely, no matter Einar’s rage, he couldn’t possibly be foolish enough to attack him.
His son groaned, eyes still flickering between red and grey, thick muscles bunching erratically. Einar’s claws dug deeply into his furred, calloused palms, driving them to weep trails of hot, cloying blood. Finally, he growled again, and spat right at the High Lord’s feet.
Runar’s blood froze. His honor guard gasped. All eyes were on the Almighty.
Valour said nothing, arms hung easily at his side, faceless mask revealing no more than ever.
Einar snarled one last time, before turning on his heel and stomping away. Runar let go a sigh he didn’t know he’d been keeping at bay, relief flooding through him in an awesome wave. Gods be good, it seemed he’d lose no more family today.
Facing the crowd that had gathered around them, he belted out commands. The battle was won, but it didn’t end here. Not all the wounded would be healed in time, nor all the opposing army’s remnants rounded up.
The battle was won, but the aftermath still needed seeing to.
“My deepest gratitude, milord,” Runar said, turning back towards the Aristocrat, who was still watching his son march angrily away. “Your aid was invaluable. Without it, I fear what might have happened. To all. The Assembly, the Faith, the Coterie. All owe you a great deal.”
Valour remained silent as the grave, hanging there eerily. His armored feet didn’t quite touch the ground.
Ever the Quiet King, Runar supposed.
“Einar hurts now, but he is strong,” Runar continued, hoping he sounded more convincing than he felt. The hatred he’d beheld in his son’s eyes made him uncertain, indeed.
“He will endure,” Runar said, all the same, still to no reply. Eventually, he sighed once more, and turned away.
“Do you?”
Runar’s head whipped around.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“...milord?” he asked, hesitantly.
Valour’s featureless silver mask rotated slowly, fixing its nonexistent gaze upon him. It was a strangely chilling thing. From up close, Runar thought, the Almighty seemed almost…alien. Artificial. If he hadn’t known better, he might have thought the Aristocrat another of Grimnir’s creations.
But then, if the Runemaster could make golems as mighty as Valour, there would be no wars at all.
“Do you, owe me a great deal?” Valour stated, emptily and without inflection. One smooth, silver hand raised lethargically to gesture at the still-cooling remains of his wife.
Runar’s eyes widened in shock.
“Lord Valour, if…if you think I blame you for her death, I–,” Runar choked slightly, his wounds still too raw, his words to heavy for him to speak. He shut his working mouth, compressing his lips tightly, and fighting hard against the surge of painful emotion.
All the while, Valour watched.
“Then you are wrong, milord,” he said, firmly. “Etrigast was a devastating foe. Overwhelmingly powerful. We are fortunate enough to have felled him.”
“Overwhelmingly powerful,” Valour echoed, hollowly, turning away from him once more, this time to face the horizon.
“You serve Sybil,” he added, suddenly.
“I serve Grimnir,” Runar corrected, still off-balance. “But…yes, I suppose. By proxy.”
“Overwhelmingly powerful,” Valour repeated, again, just as emotionlessly.
“Tell me, white wolf,” the ancient one began. His speech was satin sliding across sharpened steel. “Has Sybil told you, yet?”
“Of the Work?”
From far, far away, Runar heard the rumble of thunder. His brow furrowed.
“…milord?” he asked.
“Overwhelmingly powerful,” Valour stated for a third time. “One day, I fear you shall learn the true meaning of those words.”
The High Lord of Regis began to levitate, silvered form rising high into the air, his parting message carried forth only by the grim wind that swept across the blackened battlefield.
“White wolf,” the Almighty said.
“I wish you good fortune in the wars to come.”
With an ear-splitting CRACK of air mutilated by his unnatural passage, Valour accelerated off, until he was nothing more than a dot on the early morning horizon.
Runar closed his eyes. Dawn’s rosy fingers were just beginning to creep across the ruined earth.
The battle was over.
But this night would be forevermore.
-Wergar the White, The Night of Blood and Brimstone, 554 AC.
~~~
Title: Chelm, Kiln of Cobalt.
Also known as: The Golem, The Ghost of Pripyat, and the Maker Titan.
Activity: Frequent.
Area: The Radiation Exclusion Zone.
Bio: Chelm is a 30 foot tall android composed entirely of an unknown, cobalt-blue alloy that serves as both skin and armor. Alongside Beelzebub, Hermes, and the Simurgh, Chelm is one of the four humanoid Titans, possessing two arms and two legs attached to a thin, lithe frame. From its neck upwards rises a technologically sophisticated, visored helmet with a video display terminal for a face. Consoles and windows pepper the surface of the screen ephemerally, appearing and disappearing constantly. Any attempts undertaken by Blessed Thinkers to divine the content of or meaning behind these digital interfaces are met with nosebleeds, headaches, blackouts, and eventually brain damage. It is unknown whether Chelm’s actual face exists underneath the helm, or whether the helm itself is the Titan’s face.
Four spider-like appendages are attached to its back, each tipped with three long, metallic micromanipulators. Chelm is orbited by a number of energy and particle-emitting orbs of myriad color and size, which are normally inert. However, Chelm may make the orbs “active” by selecting them with one of its four aforementioned appendages. The exact nature of these orbs is unclear; research on their precise properties is largely nonexistent, and many of their effects have not been cataloged, but they appear to each allow the Titan a measure of Kinesis with a corresponding element.
Chelm roams the ruins of Old Russia, pausing routinely to craft. When Chelm begins crafting, it will shroud itself within a slightly glowing sphere of the same color as its armor, approximately 200 feet in diameter. The sphere is covered with console windows that appear, spawn text, and disappear, in the same manner as its helm and with the same anti-Thinker memetic effects. Though opaque, the sphere is physically permeable. Nevertheless, entry to the sphere is highly discouraged.
If an individual or party enters the sphere, they will be able to see whatsoever Chelm is in the process of crafting. But as soon as they enter, they will be set upon by the Titan. And despite its passive aesthetic, Chelm is a formidable opponent in all forms of combat. The Titan moves in a very precise, exact manner and is able to uncannily detect and attack vital spots and weak points in those it engages.
Chelm will exercise its physical body as little as possible during an engagement, leaving most of the battle to its micromanipulators, which can extend to up to 100 feet, allowing it access to all who enter its sphere. Chelm is incredibly difficult to meaningfully damage; its armor being near-impenetrable, and the vast breadth of esoteric effects levied against it, the Titan counters easily through use of its orbs. Chelm’s crafting periods have lasted as briefly as an hour, and as long as decades. Even now, the minutiae of its crafting processes remain unknown.
Dealing with this Titan is, comparatively speaking, simple. Do not enter the sphere. Do not bother the Maker. Chelm almost exclusively acts in the REZ, secluded in Northwestern Russia, where no one lives. Therefore, the Titan poses no threat to those who do not actively seek it out.
Personality: Chelm is rather unique in being the only Titan, save perhaps for Knossos, to never have attacked without provocation, seemingly only interested in the development of its inventions. However, perhaps unwittingly, the Golem is responsible for one of the most profitable industries to have emerged in the New Age: Relic scavenging.
Relics, the fruits of the Maker Titan’s ceaseless work, wrought by eldritch means and for unknown purpose, pose both incredible danger and reward. Their exotic effects range from the devastating, to the life saving, to the incomprehensible, but their value is unquestioned and has resulted in masses of Scavengers arranging, most often, ill-fated expeditions to the Radiation Exclusion Zone.
Ill-fated, as the Zone is not without its perils. Despite its name, radiation is the least of an adept Scavenger’s concerns. Memetic hazards litter the place. Entropic refuse left by items of unimaginable power and destruction, or actualized as necessary byproducts of their forging.
The works of the Maker distort reality.
The ground is cracked and cratered by vents of flame, so hot they melt the flesh of the strongest Brutes, or creeping frost that shatters them to pieces. Areas of greatly increased or decreased gravity threaten to either turn one’s form to pulp, or send them rocketing off into the upper atmosphere. Ever-present, raging storms spawn rippling balls of condensed lightning that surge across the sky, chasing all nearby lifeforms, and discharging violently into the ground. Lakes and rivers are turned to bright green, bubbling pits of viscous acid. Yet, instead of eating flesh, this liquid turns fauna to flora, converting immersed body parts seamlessly from flesh into clumps of flaking flowers.
But even these dangers are nothing compared to the true horrors of the Zone. Ever so often, one may come across warps in reality, portals to other universes, to mind-bending dimensions and savage hells, host to countless mutants and monsters that crawl unbidden into our own, their brutality eclipsing even those spat forth by the World Titan. These tears in space and time and the creatures that inhabit them make up the few things in the known world capable of destroying even Immortal Blessed.
The REZ is cordoned off, surrounded by towering walls on every side, and manned perpetually by the combined might of Old Europe. No one wants another Stain.
And yet, despite the danger, Relic Scavenging grows more profitable with every passing annum. The industry has, in recent years, overtaken even Delving, the Zone acting as a suitable medium to many experienced and Immortal Dungeoneers who fear traipsing the exotic floors, yet find themselves unsatisfied by the first three. And the treasures offered by the REZ, though scarce, are so much more valuable. Relics represent the pinnacle of power in the New Age, the sole equalizer by which the wealthy may stand on even footing with Godkin, by which those with weak Blessings may enact their revenge on their betters. But many exact a terrible price in turn.
All Relics are potent, though some more than most. For posterity and by way of explanation, a brief list of particularly legendary Relics and their history has been assembled below:
The Nornband: A sleek, polished bracelet of twisting marble and silver patterned with thorns and threads of yarn. This band bestows upon its wearer a minor measure of Chronokinesis, one of the rarest and most potent powers in existence. Specifically, it allows the user to contract or expand the flow of time for themselves or others, as well as a considerable precognitive ability; at the cost of a great amount of Entropy, the wearer may turn back time up to a period of one hour.
The Nornband steals time from its wearers, aging them years for every minute they manipulate. While malign for most, this Relic may be safely used by Immortals, who need not fear time’s passage, though its Entropy cost remains obscene.
Its whereabouts are currently unknown.
Annals of the Ancestors: This Relic is a large, well-bound tome which, on its surface, depicts a roughly-drawn group of warriors kneeling in prayer before a canvas painting. The tome cannot be opened, but upon touching it, it will grant a middling proficiency in any skill contained within its pages. This comes at the cost of losing a skill the holder currently possesses, which is then bound within the Annals, added to its ranks.
While not the most powerful, the Annals of the Ancestors is a relatively benign Relic of great utility (particularly in propagating technically advanced skills, such as Ciphic Engineering) and thus commands considerable value.
It is currently held by the Coterie, kept under lock and key at the Bern Institute of Entropic Arts and Sciences.
A Glimpse of Aether: A glass globe about the size of an orange. Within the globe, in absolute clarity, is depicted a grassy field several leagues’ breadth, below a bright blue sky. Upon grasping the globe and shaking, whilst imagining a particular forecast, those same weather conditions will be replicated about an area of the user’s choice. Nearly any imaginable atmosphere may be brought into being by the globe, even those with exotic effects, such as storms that emit massive lasers in lieu of lightning, or acid rain powerful enough to melt steel.
Upon requesting a forecast, the user sacrifices themselves, becoming trapped within the globe. As no manner of belongings, even food or clothing, may be transported into the Relic alongside them, this is typically a death sentence.
A Glimpse of Aether is classified as malign and currently in possession of Cell Syn, who use the enslaved in order to deploy the Relic as a strategic-class weapon upon the Frontlines.
Fifteen Pearls: A set of beautiful glowing pearls of miniscule size and myriad colors, each inscribed with a character from one to fifteen. These pearls allow their bearers to communicate across any distance, even penetrating through dimensionally isolated space.
The Pearls exact as a price merely a slow dulling of one’s hearing, eventually resulting in deafness. However, as this effect may be healed by Blessings and ignored entirely by Immortals, this remains a relatively benign Relic.
In recent centuries, the Pearls have become a hallmark of the Celestial Empire’s intelligence service’s upper echelons.
Savitri’s Diadem: A slim, tall, nine-pointed ornate obsidian crown embedded with rubies and covered in complex runes. This Relic grants the bearer a high-level Master Blessing, rendering upon them the capability to summon and control demonic entities of variable power via blood sacrifice. Prolonged usage will inevitably turn the bearer themselves more and more demonic, until their very will is subsumed by the crown, perverting them into a mindless puppet. It is unknown whether these summons are extradimensional in origin, or created by the crown itself.
Savitri’s Diadem is, obviously, a malign Relic. It is also one of the oldest, most notorious, and most powerful Relics, having been host to a great number of bearers over the centuries, near-unanimously resulting in destruction and death. It is possible that the crown exhibits a memetic effect that warps the psyches of its holders, enticing them to make use of it, as any efforts to retrieve and store the Relic safely have ubiquitously been met with failure.
The crown’s most recent bearer was Etrigast the Burning, formerly Lord of Balmut’s Maul. Etrigast was slain in 554 A.C., at the climax of the First Infernal Crusade, or as it is otherwise known, the War of the Jehenists. So complete was the dark Lord’s corruption, only the combined efforts of Wergar the White under the light of a full moon and the Almighty Valour were capable of putting him to the sword. And their efforts came at great cost.
The Diadem, itself, was never recovered.
As a final note, on very rare occasions Chelm has been known to “gift” its creations to those it considers worthy. These gifted Relics are, without exception, immensely powerful and carry none of the drawbacks that usual Relics may. A well-known example is the Arkenstone, gifted to Grimnir early in 480 A.C., which now sits at the heart of the Fortress-City of Erebor.
-Excerpt from A Treatise on the Nature and Manner of Titans for Internal Circulation by Chief Chronicler Axio.