starlit heroics chapter 7 point 5 [wip]

~*~*~* Chapter Eight: In The Dark Of The Night *~*~*~

Somewhere, far away from the Eight Kingdoms, and in fact away from Xephixir itself, there was a planet cloaked always in choking dusty purple smog. Beyond that smog lay vast wastelands of dry, cracked plains, ruined forests, and destroyed cities. One such ruined city stared down the very seat of that oppression: The Lost Society Fortress.

In the settlement once known as Shadeholm, the sick, brutalized people were forced to stare down that fortress every day.

It stood tall in the distance, the last thing visible before the filthy haze swallowed the landscape. It rose taller than even the mountains it was ringed by, its eight pillars and ninth central tower seeming to be the only thing sitting on the edge of the ruined world. The people, the diseased and dying humanoids who were forced to subsist in this environment, looked upon it with hatred and disdain. They feared the travelers who came from the single broken road that went that way, for either they could be slaves making an escape, or assassins sent for their heads.

All except for one cloaked figure. The townsfolk learned to recognize the billowing of the shadows that signified the mysterious traveler coming down the road today, and a small, ragged-looking child knocked together a few pieces of rusting metal. The sound was loud enough to alert the villagers, and a number of unwashed heads came to investigate.

Beneath a dark, ratty hood, a pair of soft crimson eyes stared up at them. From that crowd, an older, weathered, draconic looking gentleman wearing a suit vest cobbled together from scrap hobbled down to her, using a dessicated tree branch as a cane. He was much larger than anyone else in the crowd, and stood out from them even further by way of his scales, a bright, sunny yellow that the thin layer of murk only served to dim slightly. Eyes of cyan looked her over, pensive.

“Welcome back, lass. Have you made sure you weren’t followed?”

“As sure as I can, yes.” The woman pulled her tattered cloak around her tighter. “They want to attempt another raid on the town. He knows she’s here somewhere.”

“They’ll have the sage over all of our dead bodies, mark my words. She’s the last of her kind on our battered old Cerphixen, you know. She’s a treasure.”

“I’m aware. Set the traps, make sure you’ve moved them. You have time yet.”

“Thank you for the news. We’ll hide the children in the sanctuary. Are you here for her, then?”

“Yes, please. I need her counsel.”

“You know the way, then. Come along, I’ll escort you.”

When the older man reached out to touch the woman, she flinched and pulled away. It concerned him, but he didn’t pursue it. Not this one. Instead, he took the lead, and led her down the hill the settlement stood on, eventually making a hard left into a thicket of thorns and dead trees. The woman followed him closely into a hidden passage, leading into a deep, dark cave.

Things skittered and hissed in the pitch blackness, and the only visible light to speak of was the dim, sickly purple glow of unnatural spots and patches on the wall. It smelled in here of oil and sickness and the very air around them was slimy and dense. It made the woman’s nose crinkle, but the man who accompanied her seemed resigned to it, from what little he could be seen in the fading light of the entrance now far behind them.

Unknowable things lashed out at them from hidden corners and pools of greenish ichor, blocked off by what seemed to be the dark around them in the form of a hardened shell.

“So, lass...” The man began, “You’re from Xephixir.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Abducted, then.”

“Swept away, to sow discord in Librata, yes…”

“Heh. Once upon a time I lived on Xephixir, too. I traveled around the three worlds to tell my stories to anyone who would listen to them. But… then the Cataclysm fell upon me, and I was one of the survivors. They disrupted the portal to Ethernealrus, so I was trapped. Now, since then, I’ve told my stories to the children here. I felt I had to. The sage down here can’t be the only one keeping the old legends alive, can she.”

“But that was a hundred years ago...”

“Aye lass, I’m older than the Cataclysm. And you… you are much younger. When the portals were closed, many tales were lost, both to the other two worlds and to old Cerphixen. I’ll admit… I would love to see Lumentia again.”

“That makes two of us, yes… sir?”

“Aye?”

“I’ve come here many times now… why, then, did you choose now to speak to me?”

“You haven’t done me wrong yet. Many travelers from out that way only come to do us all dirty. And when you said you were from ol’ Librata, heh… well, I thought I’d never see someone from home again.”

“It is a surprise, yes...”

“Tell me, lass. Would you care to hear a story from this old sack of scales?”

“I’d love to. It would be… comforting.”

“He hasn’t treated you well, I assume.”

Her silence told the man everything he needed to know.

“Well, how about I tell you of the world before the Cataclysm? Cerphixen is a planet as vast as Xephixir, after all, and the same was true back then.”

“Yes sir...”

“Though Xephixir was renowned as a nexus of elemental magic, on Cerphixen, the magic blended together. No one single element had a country built on it alone, no. Countries could carry slants of two, three, maybe even more charges, and it twisted the lands it coalesced in just as it does back home. Before the Cataclysm, I would travel into undersea cities built deep in trenches, lit by only the bioluminescence of the deep sea life. I’ve stayed beneath the glass walls of an inn in a country where it rained light from the sky as much as it rained thunder and lightning. Oh, it’s been a long time since these old bones have seen such radiant light.”

“Fascinating...”

“If Xephixir is a world of raw elemental power, and Ethernealrus is a world where the eight twist and flux around themselves and each other, then Cerphixen could certainly be called a world of possibility. When light and dark meet, you would find it here. Where fire and frost meet, you could certainly find it here. It was just as beautiful as home, and its people loved it, as we loved ours. The secluded Mozorro, the shy Spirit Children. The powerful Existen and the nimble Skrieni. All of ‘em. They revered it, and they revered the gods that they believed shaped it this way. Some lost tales even spoke of gods older than them.”

“...Older gods?”

“Aye… how about I let the sage tell you that tale?”

When the woman looked in front of her again, she was standing in front of filigreed marble doors with the mark of Light emblazoned on them. They seemed pristine, a stark contrast to the filthy, grungy, tainted cave around them, giving off a noticeable glow in the pitch. As soon as she became aware of it, she reached out, and knocked on it.

After a small pause, they could hear a voice through it.

“State your business.”

“Belenus, from the settlement above, and the Requiem agent you’ve been seeing.”

“Which Requiem agent?”

“Cassandra.” The woman stated. When she did, the doors slowly creaked open, into a nicely lit temple made of marble and gold, much like the entrance.

The two of them stepped through into a spotless temple, with a statue of a six-winged goddess standing above an ornate altar. At one point, the windows to either wall may have been portals to outside air, but now they were blocked by dirt and grime and stone. There to greet them, at a table that clearly didn’t belong in the main hall, was a robed woman of porcelain white skin and long ears, with hair that spanned the whole spectrum of colors, down to the floor. She stretched broad white wings out, showing off feathers that glimmered like opals in the light of the hall.

“Hello, Sister Astra.” The man greeted.

“I hope the surface has been safe, Belenus.”

“Quiet, too quiet. The lass here has warned us about a raid.”

“They haven’t found me yet, and they won’t now, either. Send the children down, they will not have another.” The sage of the buried temple looked toward the cloaked woman. “And you, Cassandra. Have you been faring any better? … Has he left you alone..?”

“… No.” Cassandra shook her head. “He won’t. He’s obsessed with me, I’m certain of it. And should I try to resist...”

“I know. You don’t have to say anymore. Not if it’s as bad as I fear.”

The man, Belenus, frowned quite loudly. “If it’s all the same to you, I was telling the lass a tale of how the land used to be.”

“Ah! Of course. You both have the same homeland. You’re both Xephixerian.”

“Aye. I told her, the land used to be magnificent. A land where the gods were revered. And none revered them as much as the Existen, before the Cataclysm.”

“Yes… my fellows. The ones who lost their minds…”

“I was tellin’ her, you’re a treasure. The last one still with us. But you can vouch for me, aye? That your kind revered the divine. Even the old gods. The Creators. You yourself spun me that tale.”

“Yes...” Cassandra nodded. “I wasn’t aware there were gods older than those we know.”

“Oh, of course! You must mean the Tale of the Eleven.” Astra nodded. “Here, have some tea, and some fruit from my trees. I’ll fetch the book. Both of you, make yourselves comfortable, in as much as you can.”

The two of them sat and looked each other over, an awkward silence settling between them. In the silence, Cassandra lowered her hood, revealing her olive skin and her dark, bushy black hair held back only by a damaged and broken diadem. With her face revealed, it looked as if she had been crying.

Belenus had already gleaned that this, in particular, was an extremely touchy subject, and he certainly knew that Xerxes was no gentleman, but he could see the storm brewing. Whatever had happened to this woman had been sustained, and it had been terrible.

“Your eyes, lass.”

“Wh-”

“Those are the eyes of somebody who’s had enough. Someone who’s plannin’ trouble. Big trouble.”

“It’s actually what I came here to discuss. I wanted somebody to remember me if I fail in what I’ve chosen to do.”

“You’re plannin’ a shake-up.”

“I am, yes.”

“That’s dangerous. A thousand shake-ups haven’t loosed his grip on Cerphixen, how’ll yours be different? How do you plan to dethrone a god? I want to believe it’s possible. All of us do.”

“Mine will come from within. He hosts a militant organization of thousands. How many of them do you believe truly want to be there? Jack has disappeared, so have the children he promoted to keep me pacified. He can’t simply melt a force of that size. He is not Death the Reaper, nor the Crow King.”

“Ah, I see you’re familiar with some of the old tales.”

“I learned of him through Sister Astra. A fascinating tale, indeed, and one I would certainly believe.”

“You’d be wise to. I know damn well that the Crow King is real, and his wife, too. The Fae Queen.”

“I’d be interested in hearing that story one day.”

“And I’d be happy to tell it.”

Footsteps from a back room signified the return of the sage who lived in the temple, carrying with her a beaten old tome with a bookmark set in its pages. On its cover was emblazoned in dulled gold letters, ‘Long-Forgotten Myths of Time and Sleep’. She sat across the table from the pair, and carefully opened what was. Clearly, a very old and well-read book.

“This,” she began, “was a very rare book even in Cerphixen’s glory days. Only about seven hundred copies were ever printed, and I would bet that the tyrant has destroyed all of them but mine. Had I the time and power, I would put it back into print, because some of its tales are fascinating. It tells of the dream bubble gardens of the Vaziranha, hanging in the mythical Void of Dreams. It speaks of the curse on the Etherneal City of Sleep, and how those people were hexed only to wake up when a great and powerful entity enters our reality.”

“Fascinating...” Cassandra already looked captivated. The way these two spoke of their tales and myths reminded her of someone very dear to her.

“It also contains the oft-untold legend of the creation of our universe. Contrary to popular belief, our gods were not the gods who shaped this world. Ranthael did not expand space from nothing, nor did Lucina and Lilith concentrate the light and shadow from the magical chaos. They are the inheritors of a legacy, so the tale goes. They are the ones who took the mantle after the great and terrible tragedy that created us.”

“Go on, Sister,” Belenus urged, “Tell us the tale.”

“Long ago, before the universe, before the first mortals, before even Ranthael, there was another world, lost to us. It was a world without magic, but nearly as advanced as ours, so it says. From this world, ten men and women were chosen, contacted by an alien being unknown to them. He spoke in crypitic riddles and coded words, about a game that these ten were fated for.”

“A game?”

“Oh yes, with a great and cosmic bet levied upon it. You see, in order to so much as begin this game, the ten had to pay a great price – the destruction of their home planet. Everything upon it would be reduced to ash. But, if they did not place their bet themselves, it was inevitable that somebody else would. Such is the will of fate. But they did not know the price of entry until it was already too late, so they cannot be faulted.”

“But… bets always come with a prize for winning.”

“The prize should be clear. If the ten, now eleven, of them won, they would be given their own universe in the stead of their home. Rather than a planet, a universe several million orders of magnitude larger. A new home, to shape as they pleased. All there was to do was to complete the tasks set upon them. To do this, each one was gifted powers, and a title. Their alien patron arrived with them, bringing their number to eleven, total.

“The first, a Knave of Space. His role was to shape the world in accordance of the wishes of he and his friends. What our world became was supposed to hinge on his effort. He might have been known as the Spatial Blade.

“The second, an Heiress to Life, whose role was to keep her fellows alive. In exchange, she would be allowed to breathe the breath of life into the world. She would be called Life’s Inheritor.

“The third, a Healer of Winds, who embodied the freedom of the skies and whose role was as a mender of self worth. For her service, she would give the world its winds. She would have been the Sky-Mender.

“The fourth, a Scholar of Light, who gave luck and fortune to his company. He alone would be able to solidify the light and give us knowledge and wealth. He would have been called the Lightkeeper.

“The fifth, a Servitor of Minds, who provided her fellows with good judgement. She would give us the power to think, decide and be aware of ourselves. She would have been the Mind’s Handmaiden.

“The sixth, a Visionary of the Deep Darkness. She provided guidance in the form of what Was Not, and knew all there was to know about secrecy and the spaces beyond worlds, which she would have brought to us in the form of the dark that mirrors the light. She would have been the Voidsinger.

“The seventh, sheer Royalty of Wrath. She was chaos on the battlefield, the vanguard in their party, who would have gifted us with passion and emotion and willpower. She would have been known as the Queen of Rage.

“The eighth, a Wizard of Souls. She would keep the sense of self about the party even at their lowest, and she would have given us souls, the afterlife, and our sense of self. She would have been the Heart-Bender.”

“The ninth, a Defender of Hopes and Dreams. He gave the party something to believe in, gave them inner strength, and he would have given us that same gift. He, the party’s strange, outsider patron, would have been called the Dream-Guard.

“The tenth, a Sorceress of Time. Her duty was to keep her fellows on the right track and ensure they reached their goal before their time was up, by managing branching timelines and fixing them. In exchange, she would give us the flow of days and hours, minutes and months. She was known as the Time-Weaver.

“The last, a terrible piece of work, a Mockmaker of Bonds. She acted as a friend to the others, a sweet and innocent thing, but in truth she was a being of ambition at the expense of others. She tried to drive them apart, make them all feel truly alone and separated from one another, so she could claim our universe for herself. For this, she is mocked herself, as a Sunderer of Blood.

“At the start of the game, the party progressed smoothly, but the Sunderer’s dark ambitions soon took hold. She began to drive apart the bonds of the players, but there were some bonds that even her powers over unity just couldn’t break.

“She could not split the closeness of the Lightkeeper and the Handmaiden, a pair of twins who could not live without each other. She could not drive apart the Time-Weaver and the Voidsinger, for they were dangerously codependent. She could not break those two away from the Queen of Rage or the Heartbender, for they were the parents of these two twin sisters. And, she could not drive a spike between the Time-Weaver and the Lightkeeper, for they kindled a romance deeper than the Sunderer could ever have understood.

“The Sunderer grew digusted with them all, but kept her facade of innocence and levity until the very end. There, at the very tail end of their game, the Eleven would face an unknowable monster, a representation of the sum of their quest. The Sunderer, as the battle began, sent the Heiress headfirst into the beast’s attacks, killing her on impact. There, the line was drawn. This Sunderer would have her way no matter the cost. The Spatial Blade was taken down as he was used as a meat shield, and the Sky-Mender died to her dagger. The Dream-Guard destroyed her, but was taken by the beast known as the Black King.

“Now, where once there were eleven, now there were only six. They fought the best they could, but one by one they were taken down. One by one, each one fell to mortal wounds, unable to fight anymore and certainly near death… except for the Time-Weaver. Enraged by the fall of her dearest loved ones, she split herself, into three, into nine, into twenty-seven, into many more. So many of those splintered selves fell, but the one-woman army was determined not to fall.

“But inevitably, she too faced Death in the eyes. As she, too, was about to meet mortal wounds, a meteor struck the beast, and another being came forth from it. Thanks to that being’s entrance, the Time-Weaver finally took down the Black King. But the damage was done. Her family was dying, and her friends were now dead. She knew she could not save them, and she despaired.

“Balefully, she finished the job of shaping our universe. She breathed the life, gave us judgement, light, dark, wind, passion, souls, hopes and dreams with the essence of the fallen. She entered our world with her dying comrades and the bodies of the rest, and found a man there, shaping the world. She would learn that his name was Ranthael, and that he had inherited the power of the Spatial Blade. He comforted her, and did everything he could to save the fallen, but it was too late for them. They died, and were buried in a location that now only His Highness knows.

“After that, the Time-Weaver hid herself away, unable to bare the grief of her loss. Her lover, her sister, and her mothers were gone. Her friends, slain by hubris. She, with Ranthael’s help, took pieces of the game and sealed herself away with them, in a place outside of time. There she remains to this day, grieving, mourning.”