The Enmity of Scolrys, Part XXXII: Magic and Iron
As the war betwixt six nations grew cold, the embattled Immortals within Chaos revealed Their warfare to mortalkind once more. The sky trembled as the outer realms exerted their collective influence upon its welkin canvas, its fabric shorn to allow a glimpse at Lanu Du and the seven deities holding It away from the Prime Material. Even as this spectacle took its place in the sky, however, a discordant chorus of screeches echoed from the North as mauve lightning lanced across the heavens and slammed down into the Theocracy’s borders, its wicked tines spearing through the hearts of over one thousand gremlins.
Without anything to justify their constituency or guide their definition, the pitiful minions crumbled into lurid motes – individuals ripe for the influencing, a fickle morass of potential and energy susceptible to a domineering will. They became a shining haze that rose from the streets of Spinesreach as Immortal Memory unspooled the tenacious vexation of gremlins, its shimmering depths serving as the final remains of Fundamental Chaos’ servants. The amassed Chaos essence wound itself into a tight spiral that unfurled into a lunge, carrying it upon a trajectory towards the Memoryscape. It plunged into the Indelible’s domain and vanished within its frigid mists with one last flare of pale light.
Innumerable arcane formulae then coalesced within the raw primordium of Chaos visible to Sapience, each shimmering rune and twisting complexity stitching together to form a vaguely humanoid shape. Raw mana blossomed at the heart of the unknown silhouette, creating a complex network of veins and sinew that rapidly defined the figure of a powerful being.
Cyanic light coursed along the pointless borders of Immortal essence and raw sorcery, leaving in its wake the dispassionate visage of Irathael, the Magician. Elder Magic lifted a wand wrought of greensung elderwood, its surface polished by the blood of the faithful and littered with dawn-kissed runes lit by chromatic light. Spirit’s yearning for order united with the Dia’ruian energy emanating from the implement in Irathael’s hand, the collective energies bound within its confines joining together as one supreme will that exerted itself upon the raw mass of Chaos energy at the battle’s border. As if it were as simple as breathing, the Elder God – a guise in truth, a mask hiding the face of a Goddess – conducted the churning possibility into a nascent realm. Viridian energy trailed along cosmic space as if vines upon a sidereal trellis, its pathway strengthened by prismatic radiance that guided growth and demanded disciplined arrangements.
The clamour of industry and the screech of bending iron rang throughout the realm as Irathael’s machinations continued apace, His gaze held upon some unknown point. A shining protrusion briefly sprouted from one of His shoulders as a new realm joined the Thousandfold within Him, its lumpy intrusion quelled and dispersed with a simple shake of His head. Exerting His dominance as the master of magics past, present and future, the Arcane Elder plied the newborn school of ferromancy to command countless chunks of ore and whole objects to free themselves from gravity’s oppressive confines. Their many flights began from all corners of Sapience, one and all bound for the same destination: the grisly spectacle on high.
A booming incantation in an exotic language left Irathael’s lips as He jabbed His wand through the air, His foreign command demanding obedience from the metal snared within His influence. Pyromancy stoked by deific fire bent and twisted the entire mass into slim, sleek shapes, the manic scheme of the half-mad Lord of Azhoan Sorcery fastening it all together into a jarringly hideous amalgam. When His labour reached its final moment, the Arcane spared one final moment to scrutinise the esoteric instrumentation. The design, dizzying in its myriad twists and intricate gears, confounded the mortal mind, bespeaking the insanity that gnawed hungrily at the edges of Irathael’s genius.
The Magician tapped one ring of the endlessly concentric contraption with the tip of His wand, setting it to a whirring start. Realm and device alike departed from the confines of Irathael’s attention, the newly forged shard of the Chaos Plane cast adrift upon currents heaving in the wake of Fundamental exertion. A pulse of raw magic emanated from the mysterious machine, its endless motion lending itself to rapid repetitions of the same phenomenon. Over and over, the shard emitted cobalt flickers that bathed worlds and demi-planes ensconced within Lanu Du’s domain in enigmatic enchantment. Each realm disturbed quivered as alien magic touched upon its equally alien surface. Every sphere bound by mortal bargain and stolen concept whirled to fixate the gravity of its understanding upon the source of the sorcerous disturbance.
The Chaos Plane spasmed as the Faceless One struggled to split Its attention, Its clarity withering in the face of so many concepts and spectacles. Pale primordial fire lapped at the edges of every twisted reality, the borders of several shards wavering as the maddened Fundament tried to turn Its gaze back to the Prime.
Satisfied with Its grasp upon the Prime, Lanu Du burdened Irathael with the demented gravity of Its gaze.
Finished now with the guise of Elder Magic, Lexadhra discarded the adopted persona with a flick of Her wrist. Irathael’s features sloughed away from Her and spilt into the cosmic winds, gone then like an interrupted reminiscence. The Indelible then gestured with the wand still clutched within Her slender fingers, bidding the misty essence emanating from Her profile to rally to Her command. Colourless conflagration bloomed in the empty void of unformed Chaos, its sudden ignition bidden by the plane’s deranged will. It That Dreamt emitted a psychic screech that rolled throughout the Spiral like trembling thunder, shaking loose ideas and bartered memories that coagulated into a dizzyingly diverse assault against the Goddess.
Putrid lightning and wretched fire coalesced within the vast sea of potential, joined by a phalanx of shining spears and swirling clouds of acidic rot cast out upon the tides of power now realised and actuated. Flights of fancy wheeled and spiralled before cruel purpose clipped their wings, transfiguring them one and all into horrifying nightmares that converged upon lone Lexadhra.
Unconcerned with the mounting threat bearing down upon Her, the Goddess lifted Her wand and traced a full circle over Her head. A colossal braid of Elder Time’s ephemeral mist rose from Immortal Memory’s silhouette, bristling with innumerable tendrils that inspired competition in the Fundament set before Her. Each protrusion lashed out with a life and will of its own, seizing upon Her assailants and gorging them with a deluge of memories, images, thoughts, and will that reduced each to useless dust scattered within the Spiral’s liminal darkness.
The convergence of Chaos and Memory filled Sapience’s skyscape with eerie flashes of light that seared temporary images of myth and legend upon the horizon. Countless champions, criminals and historical figures of two timelines threaded through Prime’s fabric like a watchful pantheon, each brought to partial, fleeting life by the latent power of a fantastic plane and unerring virtue. As these two forces pushed and pulled one another in a ceaseless struggle of creation and destruction reminiscent of Light and Dark at the existential loom, Lexadhra reached out with Her free hand – towards the ever-distant shard wrought so recently by Her hand. The Goddess barely held Her own in the face of Lanu Du’s clarified wrath, Her split concentration keeping Her from launching on the offensive. As if in response to its creator’s gesture, the distant shard and its precious payload emitted another pulse of raw arcana that seeped into every world the miniature realm passed on its journey into the far-flung reaches of an endless plane.
It That Woke devoted another sliver of Its fragmented attention to Its battle with Lexadhra, Its native mastery supplanting Her tricksome spellcraft in a flourish of stretched sinew, steaming blood, and twisted physicality. Distilled down to only specific memories now, the raging power surrounding the Indelible found definition as an army of twisted abominations that closed in upon Her. Four tremendous protrusions loomed behind the endless ranks of Lanu Du’s servants, their long lengths covered in chip-toothed maws and corrosive sores seething with pestilent potential. They slithered through and around the shambling legs of their profane compatriots, coursing serpentine towards Incarnate Memory. As if in response to this threat, seven colossal columns of roaring essence carved across the endless warfare, Their combined brutality cutting a way through towards Lexadhra. Fiendish minions expired in the face of Divine strength, their remains scattered to the winds as excess energy for the next blistering assault loosed by Their manifest will.
Penned by my hand on Quensday, the 13th of Dharos, in the year 5 AC.
