Prelude
In a time before time, a time that never was, on a planet defying description, for the sight would surely drive any mortal instantly mad with its beauty, flames danced to their own demented tune. On the God World Urugand, the cosmic wind whipped up a storm of sand and the air crackled with energy. There was a smell in the air, a prelude to rain. A storm was coming.
A man is kneeling, his eyes confused. Clad in nothing save a torn loincloth, he was a pathetic wretch of creature. A whimper sounded from the man's lips and he cringed. Yet, despite his decrepit and wizened condition, his skin shining a light pink and blistered from the heat, the hair upon his head reduced to little more then occasional singed tufts, still could one discern a small bit of eminence within the man. His body was coiled thick with muscle, and even his furtive moments betrayed the power he had once used blatantly.
He stood in the ruins of a once great structure now reduced to ruin, a mirror of the man standing within it. You could see the darkness, but not be enveloped by it. The upper reaches of the sky contained odd clouds of dark violet mottled with deep blue, and behind the bank of strangling clouds, a slight disc of a moon struggled to be seen. Surely its light would have been magnificent, had it not been so shrouded by the clouds, which absorbed nearly all its gleaming white light and kept it from ranging across the realm.
He was at the epicenter of the strange place, a hovering island of sorts. Its dimensions seemed fluid. One moment it appeared small, another it appeared infinitely larger. However, its shape never changed; always, it was much like a cone, with a rocky tail jutting down into the abyss and ending in a craggy point. The top of the island was too devoid of vegetation, save for what appeared an exceedingly thin carpet of sickly emerald glass, almost devoid of its color.
But the true point 'round which all things in the plane surely revolved was the horrifying shape growing up from the center of the space- borne isle. A tree it was, that he was sure of. It flowed organically as would any other, yet grew abnormally tall and its bark was what seemed liquid quicksilver, glimmering in the dim light; it seemed almost as if the object was a frozen river of silver which threatened to resume running at any given moment.
It had nearly countless branches up along its length. Hundreds, thousands. And each branch ended in a menacing point, far sharper than anything a mere man could have hoped to forged in his primitive fires. Scattered along the ground were cold dead bodies. Women and children.
In the shattered thing he once called a mind, he knew too that it had not always been like this. He knew that something changed. If only he could remember...So many things to remember. So many things forgotten.
Then, without warning from no where, a raging column of flame arose from the ground, yet no heat came from this flame. Rather, the flame seemed to consume whatever warmth was left in that shattered land.
From the Fire-That-Was-Not-Fire emerged a humanoid form. He was a man of impossible proportions. His head was bulbous, black veins running through his forehead and face. Clad in black and silver, he stood over six feet high, his body closer to that of a child than to a grown man's. It seemed at any moment that his neck would break and his head would fall from his shoulders.
He gazed at the scene before him with utter disgust. His eyes scanned the charred ruins for his prey as he walked forward, each step deliberate. He stumbled over something, looked down in anger. The body of a young women. He cringed, his lips twisting in disgust and moved on. At last, his eyes fall upon he who had began this quest for.
?My, my. You have indeed fallen far, haven't you??Said the man clad in black.
?Do I know you, stranger??said the broken man.
?You...you do not remember?? He said, eye brows rising, eyes widening.
? My travels have been many, friend, I apologize if I have forgotten our meeting. Please, come, sit with me. My sisters will be happy to bring you food and a change of clothing.? The dark man glanced at the body he had stumbled over when he heard this.
?Fool! Pathetic wretch! Has the madness taken you so quickly? Has the Destroyer already changed you so?? The wretched man looked questioningly but said nothing. ? By the source, it pities even me to see you in such a state. You who once called upon the Light of Dyara! You who faced the Dregs themselves in the Hall of Dominion! You, who consigned me to this prison of flesh and blood! Once you stood first among the Ones. And what are you now? What have you become??
?Brigitte? Brigitte, my dear, where are you? Come greet our guest.? Said the man clad in cloth and soot. At this the man clad in black looked back at the mangled body he had stumbled over.
? I came here to kill you but I will not allow you to die in blissful ignorance. I will have you see the face of your killer and, in the end, know that I was your better! You *will* look upon my face and know true fear, fear greater than any you will know in your afterlife!? The man was shouting now, the veins on his head pulsating with the strain, seemingly ready to burst. ?Very well. I have not the power I once did, for that I have you to thank, and I lose more as the sands of time pass, but I will heal you! I will destroy you!? And so, with that the dark man reached out his ebon and let loose a barge of force, searing the man to his very soul. He let out a scream such as had never been heard before. A scream of pain unknowable. The sad infant wheeled about frantically again, seeking something to can succor from. In his panic memories flashed through his shattered mind. He was the past in glimmering fragments, and those images were far more horrifying than his current plight Where before he had been ignorant of his sorry state, now he glimpsed in broken bits the being he had once been, and even the vague recognition of how far he had fallen made him weep openly.
When the pain and the tears subsided, his head rose with infinite patience and he looked upon his ?healer?.
? Ravager.? He whispered, voice hushed. His eyes, once showing of confusion, were filled with hate now. When he looked upon the broken corpse of his sisters. Everywhere he turned his eyes found the dead. Torn or burned or broken. He let loose a wail so heart wrenching the Ravager surely would have wept, had he a soul. As it was, it only brought a smile to his lips. ?You are dead?, he promised. At that he lashed out with power, but knew it to be pitiful to the power he once wielded. The Ravager waved a hand unconcernedly and the crimson energy dissolved to nothing. ? Throughout the ages we have battled, Izekiel, but you have gone to far. How many years, Ravager? How many years have you wracked this realm? It is long enough. I swear by the All-father that you shall not leave here?.
?Come, come now, Lord Balduur. Years? We have waged this war since the Source was young, remade and reborn with each new thread in the tapestry of time. Always you have trapped me, tricked me, stopped me. But always, too, have I eluded you, hurt you, ruined you. You have never defeated me. We have fought an eternity and we will continue until time dies and I am triumphant!?
?Even now the destroyer, Mageddon, my final revenge against the living, comes. Hundreds are tearing the Godworld apart and more join every day!? And then, with a look of joy, of pure ecstacy, the Ravager unsheathed his dark, light eating blade, brought it down, crackling with ebon energies. And with that, Lord Balduur looked upon the face of the Source and perceived the only true winner of the game.
?It is not done between us, Prince of the Dawn. Even now my body crumbles, turns to dust due to your machinations. The shadow shall fall across the land, and you will know fear. We shall battle again, of that I am sure, and you shall fall. The universe will tremble and tear and that, too, shall fall. No, no. It will not be done until the end of time.?
And then he was gone, nothing but sickly black dust in the wind. And the earth was rent and torn asunder and the great devourer at last came and God world was destroyed in an a sea of flame and a crackling of energy.
Yet, had anyone been sane enough to but look, they would have seen the prophecies of the Source and they would have known hope. For on the Great Wall, writ in runes of crimson flame, the following was written ? And so the Shadow shall fall across the land, the sun shall be blood, the seas shall boil, the mountains crumble, and the living shall envy the dead. Yet, one shall be born to fight the shadow. Born again as he was born before. The Lord of Light shall be Reborn and he shall shelter the world from the dark. He will rend the universe and the heavens will weep in fear and protest. The Shadow shall be cast out when the destroyer becomes the creator.?
A beginning.....
In a time before time, a time that never was, on a planet defying description, for the sight would surely drive any mortal instantly mad with its beauty, flames danced to their own demented tune. On the God World Urugand, the cosmic wind whipped up a storm of sand and the air crackled with energy. There was a smell in the air, a prelude to rain. A storm was coming.
A man is kneeling, his eyes confused. Clad in nothing save a torn loincloth, he was a pathetic wretch of creature. A whimper sounded from the man's lips and he cringed. Yet, despite his decrepit and wizened condition, his skin shining a light pink and blistered from the heat, the hair upon his head reduced to little more then occasional singed tufts, still could one discern a small bit of eminence within the man. His body was coiled thick with muscle, and even his furtive moments betrayed the power he had once used blatantly.
He stood in the ruins of a once great structure now reduced to ruin, a mirror of the man standing within it. You could see the darkness, but not be enveloped by it. The upper reaches of the sky contained odd clouds of dark violet mottled with deep blue, and behind the bank of strangling clouds, a slight disc of a moon struggled to be seen. Surely its light would have been magnificent, had it not been so shrouded by the clouds, which absorbed nearly all its gleaming white light and kept it from ranging across the realm.
He was at the epicenter of the strange place, a hovering island of sorts. Its dimensions seemed fluid. One moment it appeared small, another it appeared infinitely larger. However, its shape never changed; always, it was much like a cone, with a rocky tail jutting down into the abyss and ending in a craggy point. The top of the island was too devoid of vegetation, save for what appeared an exceedingly thin carpet of sickly emerald glass, almost devoid of its color.
But the true point 'round which all things in the plane surely revolved was the horrifying shape growing up from the center of the space- borne isle. A tree it was, that he was sure of. It flowed organically as would any other, yet grew abnormally tall and its bark was what seemed liquid quicksilver, glimmering in the dim light; it seemed almost as if the object was a frozen river of silver which threatened to resume running at any given moment.
It had nearly countless branches up along its length. Hundreds, thousands. And each branch ended in a menacing point, far sharper than anything a mere man could have hoped to forged in his primitive fires. Scattered along the ground were cold dead bodies. Women and children.
In the shattered thing he once called a mind, he knew too that it had not always been like this. He knew that something changed. If only he could remember...So many things to remember. So many things forgotten.
Then, without warning from no where, a raging column of flame arose from the ground, yet no heat came from this flame. Rather, the flame seemed to consume whatever warmth was left in that shattered land.
From the Fire-That-Was-Not-Fire emerged a humanoid form. He was a man of impossible proportions. His head was bulbous, black veins running through his forehead and face. Clad in black and silver, he stood over six feet high, his body closer to that of a child than to a grown man's. It seemed at any moment that his neck would break and his head would fall from his shoulders.
He gazed at the scene before him with utter disgust. His eyes scanned the charred ruins for his prey as he walked forward, each step deliberate. He stumbled over something, looked down in anger. The body of a young women. He cringed, his lips twisting in disgust and moved on. At last, his eyes fall upon he who had began this quest for.
?My, my. You have indeed fallen far, haven't you??Said the man clad in black.
?Do I know you, stranger??said the broken man.
?You...you do not remember?? He said, eye brows rising, eyes widening.
? My travels have been many, friend, I apologize if I have forgotten our meeting. Please, come, sit with me. My sisters will be happy to bring you food and a change of clothing.? The dark man glanced at the body he had stumbled over when he heard this.
?Fool! Pathetic wretch! Has the madness taken you so quickly? Has the Destroyer already changed you so?? The wretched man looked questioningly but said nothing. ? By the source, it pities even me to see you in such a state. You who once called upon the Light of Dyara! You who faced the Dregs themselves in the Hall of Dominion! You, who consigned me to this prison of flesh and blood! Once you stood first among the Ones. And what are you now? What have you become??
?Brigitte? Brigitte, my dear, where are you? Come greet our guest.? Said the man clad in cloth and soot. At this the man clad in black looked back at the mangled body he had stumbled over.
? I came here to kill you but I will not allow you to die in blissful ignorance. I will have you see the face of your killer and, in the end, know that I was your better! You *will* look upon my face and know true fear, fear greater than any you will know in your afterlife!? The man was shouting now, the veins on his head pulsating with the strain, seemingly ready to burst. ?Very well. I have not the power I once did, for that I have you to thank, and I lose more as the sands of time pass, but I will heal you! I will destroy you!? And so, with that the dark man reached out his ebon and let loose a barge of force, searing the man to his very soul. He let out a scream such as had never been heard before. A scream of pain unknowable. The sad infant wheeled about frantically again, seeking something to can succor from. In his panic memories flashed through his shattered mind. He was the past in glimmering fragments, and those images were far more horrifying than his current plight Where before he had been ignorant of his sorry state, now he glimpsed in broken bits the being he had once been, and even the vague recognition of how far he had fallen made him weep openly.
When the pain and the tears subsided, his head rose with infinite patience and he looked upon his ?healer?.
? Ravager.? He whispered, voice hushed. His eyes, once showing of confusion, were filled with hate now. When he looked upon the broken corpse of his sisters. Everywhere he turned his eyes found the dead. Torn or burned or broken. He let loose a wail so heart wrenching the Ravager surely would have wept, had he a soul. As it was, it only brought a smile to his lips. ?You are dead?, he promised. At that he lashed out with power, but knew it to be pitiful to the power he once wielded. The Ravager waved a hand unconcernedly and the crimson energy dissolved to nothing. ? Throughout the ages we have battled, Izekiel, but you have gone to far. How many years, Ravager? How many years have you wracked this realm? It is long enough. I swear by the All-father that you shall not leave here?.
?Come, come now, Lord Balduur. Years? We have waged this war since the Source was young, remade and reborn with each new thread in the tapestry of time. Always you have trapped me, tricked me, stopped me. But always, too, have I eluded you, hurt you, ruined you. You have never defeated me. We have fought an eternity and we will continue until time dies and I am triumphant!?
?Even now the destroyer, Mageddon, my final revenge against the living, comes. Hundreds are tearing the Godworld apart and more join every day!? And then, with a look of joy, of pure ecstacy, the Ravager unsheathed his dark, light eating blade, brought it down, crackling with ebon energies. And with that, Lord Balduur looked upon the face of the Source and perceived the only true winner of the game.
?It is not done between us, Prince of the Dawn. Even now my body crumbles, turns to dust due to your machinations. The shadow shall fall across the land, and you will know fear. We shall battle again, of that I am sure, and you shall fall. The universe will tremble and tear and that, too, shall fall. No, no. It will not be done until the end of time.?
And then he was gone, nothing but sickly black dust in the wind. And the earth was rent and torn asunder and the great devourer at last came and God world was destroyed in an a sea of flame and a crackling of energy.
Yet, had anyone been sane enough to but look, they would have seen the prophecies of the Source and they would have known hope. For on the Great Wall, writ in runes of crimson flame, the following was written ? And so the Shadow shall fall across the land, the sun shall be blood, the seas shall boil, the mountains crumble, and the living shall envy the dead. Yet, one shall be born to fight the shadow. Born again as he was born before. The Lord of Light shall be Reborn and he shall shelter the world from the dark. He will rend the universe and the heavens will weep in fear and protest. The Shadow shall be cast out when the destroyer becomes the creator.?
A beginning.....