Janos On His Origins and the Hylden Wars
Prologue
From the diary of Janos Audron
Dear diary,
Today I have the strangest of tales to tell you. Waxing nostalgic in my advanced age, I feel as if it is time to detail the events leading up to my Eldergod forsaken residence in the Uschtenheim mountains. My duty to you, dearest diary, is to relay it all with as clear insight as has been my duty all these years.
I was born a poor blue child to Di'Jina and Azzerbyjohnathon Audron in a humble shanty in the shantiest of shanty towns, Ova, on the western shore of the Lake of Tears; it was a suburb of the Ancient Vampire Citadel, or as we called it in Ova, "Boologg Citayy."
We were of modest stature, but our wings were as glossy and pure as our blackened hearts. I had an average childhood, overall – neither excelling nor failing at flight; however, I found myself prevailing among my peers in the arts of magic and enchantery.
It was my parents' hope that I would become a small claims attorney, focusing my utmost attention on the matters of rent collection and child support payments.
I wanted to be a dancer. Each night, by the tranquil sobs of the Lake of Tears, I too wept on the lapping shores as my tender cloven feet expressed themselves upon the sand. They taught me the many tongues of la danza, the most evocative of them all being the ecstatic jazzercismo. By day I was a mere schoolboy. By night I pranced lightly upon the wailing waters.
But that was not enough in this land's state – not with these dastardly wars. It was never enough to be happy. My dreams of becoming the finest dancer were crushed with the damnation of soldiery. I prayed each night that the Eldergod's Wheel of Fate might for me churn out a new destiny. But all was in vain.
The seemingly never-ending battle between the Vampires and the Hylden was coming to a head. They, the scoundrels who had denounced our Lord, had ignited a holy war the likes of which Nosgoth had never seen. Blood soaked the lands – both Hylden and Vampire alike suffered greatly. By the end of my youth, the Vampires had gained the upper hand and devised a solution to the Hylden plight.
Our most competent sorcerers would banish the lot of them to a nightmarish realm. Though one wonders why such a plan had not been brought forth decades ago, then was not the time for critiquing the Boologgian aristocracy.
I was among them, and together we tore a dangerously-sized rift into the surprisingly chilly depths of Hell into which we would stuff the entirety of the Hylden race. What remained was luring them, one by one, to enter the darkness. That was the sacred duty of Hallatosys, the Vampire herald of doom.
Posing as a Vampire defector, he attempted to gain the Hylden leaders' trust and inform them of the Vampires' final solution which would end the war once and for all. He told them the truth.
Hallatosys was, in fact, a perfectly sincere traitor, and had every intention of telling the Hylden of the Vampires' actual plan. He had been chastised his entire life for his scaly gray feathers and was quite fed up with their bigotry. His youthful suffering led him to betray his entire race, presumably unaware that the ensuing genocide would most likely include his own death as well.
Fortunately for myself and my people, Hallatosys proved an ineffective informant and was promptly executed for both trying to plant false information, and generally being an asshole. The Hylden marched immediately for the rift, thinking that the turncoat had been sent to mislead the Hyldens into avoiding the aberration, as it must have contained a secret Vampire weapon.
Never having anticipated that our foe would be so quick to seal their own fate, the Vampires had only secured a loose perimeter around the rift. The angry Hylden horde, vastly outnumbering the Vampire contingent, broke the camp quickly and held us sorcerers hostage, forcing us to keep the portal open.
Nadaberan, who laughed at their request, had his wings ripped off. The rest of us kept our puzzled amusement to ourselves as we strained to keep the rift intact for our captors. Unsure as to what they expected to find inside other than their perpetual banishment and eternal abdominal discomfort, we did our best to fulfill their commands as they one by one danced triumphantly into oblivion.
Whether from sheer exhaustion or quintessential sympathy, I cannot say, but I remember feeling a single chartreuse tear trickle down my azure cheek in a moment of utter jealousy—they danced and they were free.
Once the last of the Hylden had followed their kin like sheep to the cold alternate dimension, we had ourselves a good laugh and wondered what old briny-feathers had to have said to convince them to abandon this world in such a passionate ardor.
It was at this time we heard the shrieking, as though a million Hylden souls cramped behind a pane of dimensionally thick glass. In retrospect, the congratulations might have been better suited till we'd truly sewed the rift closed. For, it was then that the exiled Hylden sent us their sadist's parting gift: the curse of a people tricked into skipping merrily to their doom.
As such, a horrible fever overtook us all, and we underwent a terrible transformation which would forever scar our race.
The Blood Curse, as it came to be called. The first effect hit us the hardest—sterilization. For a single second the dirge of barren wombs and impotent, well, you know…filled the trembling air and vanished with a sigh. The silence was taken up by a sound like roaring fire, a beastly urge for blood. I took this development in stride, as our culture's cuisine had never been much to my liking. I was unsure as of yet if lifeblood would be more palatable, but I saw this as an improvement nevertheless.
Immortality sucked awkwardly at our skin, hermetically sealing our souls into our bodies with relentless indifference. And our flesh buzzed and burned at sunlight's touch. No more were we to walk beneath the sun's warm rays. But the worst, yes, far worse still than this was yet to come.
Our greatest frailty was that we were no longer able to bear even the slightest mist of water upon our skin. And with the capability to bathe also went my greatest joy: dancing atop the water's depths under a sullen, starry sky.
The full implications of the curse were only understood on the following Tuesday morning at the traditional Eldergod Mass. From the depths of the earth emerged our Eldergod's pastorly tentacle. It wriggled timidly, as though with reluctant omens. First right, then left, then slowly undulating from side to side without any particular rhythm, it portended great sorrow for our kind. As the tentacle-augurs consulted the sacred scrolls, their eyes saddened with each languid, swooping motion. Our newfound immortality, he squiggled, was an affront to nature. Our Eldergod, our Wheel of Fate, our past and present and future, forsook us with a final shimmy of abandonment, casting we Vampires into despair.
It soon became clear to us that lest our enemies should bewitch us once more from beyond the veil with even more devastating consequences, we needed to ensure the permanent separation between our world and theirs. Thus, the Pillars were crafted and bound by the greatest mages, including myself.
The Pillars were built to be linked with each aspect of this earth: balance, conflict, mind, death, time, alchemy, energy, nature, and dimensions. I had argued that we could probably get away with simply dimensions, all things considered. However, my kin took the construction of the Pillars as a means to restructure Nosgoth and ensure its prosperity. Time and again I had warned our leaders of the great risks associated with constructing physical embodiments of abstract ideas; Eldergod forbid if something should happen to them!
As a fail-safe for my admonition, the Vampire elders appointed representatives to fill the role of Guardians for each Pillar, a group which came to be known as the Circle of Nine.
I was too astounded by their stupidity to suggest that this development arguably exacerbated the original problem.
My people lamented with the abandonment of our most merciful Lord, but I was reminded of the stories of my youth, as told by my wise and compassionate mother, Di'Jina. Before bedtime, she would often recount to me the grand tales of the ancient Vampire prophecies and the Vampire champion, who would one day regain the favor of the Eldergod and sustain the Wheel of Fate. Thus, during such sorrowful times I would tell my kin to recall these prophecies from our past – the Vampire champion will come! But people had lost faith; however, I had not. Therefore, I took it upon myself to forge our prodigal hero's weapon: the Reaver. This, the weapon which would forever—
It appears as though I will have to finish this entry tomorrow as I have a visitor knocking on my door.
