by
Arcanister Thule
Obsidian College
By order of Grand Dean Ermillia
In the fifth year of the First Era, before the abolition of wont and the interring of desire; the Great Realms were gripped like swine in a vice, tight beneath the burden of unwelcome conflict. The wonders of people and edifices they had made were soot-stained and rent by lightning. The brotherhood of civilisation was unravelling and all was in indubitable chaos. Beasts spewn forth from frothy demon portals met savage horrors that once cave-dwelt, bleating a harmonious cry of slaughter all mortal life.
Indeed, it was a dark for the civilised forces of the Great Realms. Kings of every race rallied forth soldiers from city and plane, mountain and forest, thus armed under their great halls by mighty sorceress forges. Arcane-blooded conjurer's summoned their fractured horrors from beyond the black cosmos to counter the surging host of Hell; blue-white golems crafted from some ether stone and clad in flickering runes, held together by their magic, clashed arms with screaming furies and scaley footmen, and the sky turned purple from the haze of strewn power; apparitions drawn from the ley-fabric of existence had their gaze commanded in defence of the Great Realms, to make battle with the hungry beasts from beyond the cosmos. The Kings set forth, their now mighty cavalcades of horse-borne men and women, slave-beast and eldritch bound summons, sorcerers and enslaved dragons, mindless warrior elementals shackled by their whim, all marched now across ruined lands towards their fate. Over salt-crusted plains, once lakes and sea, through splintered woods now smoldering thornfields as far as the magical eye might see. Drawn up now ‘neath the frozen sun of the North they stood, upon the spindled Roof of the World, where the ice rose and met the sky. Their breath was a cloud and their spirit a raging bull beneath the tormenting spear. The mighty host touched either end of the world, ready to plant it’s shield before the rage of hell, in defence of their land.
And like a beacon upon the clifftops, the pulsing star that guides the millions towards home, before the eyes of every mortal being of the Great Realm, stood the hero. The chosen Warden, the Champion of the Sacred, the Final Hope of All: gleaming, golden. He was called Arthur.
He stood tall above all others; a man carved from nought but stone and gold and bedrock fused with magic, with the breath of dragons in his chest and the blood of lions coursing through his veins. Every facet of his marble face was like the risen cresting of iron upon the suit of armor, the bristling horns of the great fire-breathing serpent; the steely upper lip was necessarily adorned with a mustache more solid than perhaps the unquaking stalwart courage that resided within him. Arthur was more was the stone edifice mortal resistance. His name was legend and his deeds were the archetype for all others. He was the knight of yore and all spoke his name alongside the vastness of nature and the arcane.
Hoisting his blade above him, he spoke, words resounding more earthquake than voice, to all before him, and beyond.
“Tremble, ye host of Hell. The hour-hand has struck the End for all, and I am Time’s deliverance. Prepare, unwanted, to welcome the dust.”
Their untempered roar of valor split the skies and soon the hosts clashed beneath the glare of the sun. With Arthur at their fore, the mortal Will of man crushed all resistance led by those furious articles of Hell’s depth, seeking soon to erase their despoiling presence from their land. But not without a price. The brilliance of arcane expulsion, hellbourne magics and the effervescent spilling of souls warped the fabric of reality around them. Demons cut in twain ejected their energies into the sky. The scintillation above them twisted purple and blue and red. Great threads of lightning split the withering dusk and a spectral dust began to settle on each belligerent. Hues were sunken and the clouds whirled above them. The earth trembled. The host of Hell sunk into the earth, their blood river running towards the glittering horizon. The ranks of man lay spent, arms low, brows high. the Warden Arthur stood high upon an outcropping of stone, observing before him the irreversible buckling of the cosmos before him, as his mortal fellowship gathered beneath him. A ragged cry had taken hold of their throats, but no joy came to that lonely vigilant upon his obelisk of stone.
Mounting the formation, behind Arthur now stood the Sorcerer-King of Mythra. The old humans wizened face was distorted and the air around him hummed. “Warden, hear me, there is little time. I feel the world tearing beneath me. Hell has been sealed, but our own cosmos is now threatened. The powers beneath the world, it hungers, it can smell the magic. Such forces have been unleashed on this day, the souls of so many have been set free. They seek to consume it. You…” The old man shrieked and bent forward, a flame alight upon his brow, nay, his soul; the very reality around him was consumed by a devouring azure haze. Arthur stood his ground before that eldritch fire, as the Sorcerer-King became less than ash. The old man's cries subsided, but others took its place. The Warden turned, and before him, the world, his world, the Great Realms, was on fire. Deep into the horizon, blue flame was into the heavens. Fissures split the dark earth beneath the crumbling remains of the mortal army, and men fell into the swallowing deeps.
A spell formed upon Arthur’s lips. Words of magic once buried deep beneath the weight of years, an incantation privy only to his athenian mind. Raw thundering power swirled around him. The skies were boiling with unleashed magics and mighty geysers ejected swirling matter into the firmaments. With his final word spoken low, the sun exploded from his breast and all was consumed and turned dark.
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