Throne of Steel

Chapter 11 -Below the Foefire

Careful not to trip over the stray bricks and rocks on the floor, the Commander and the other two Charr chased after Varrock through a hallway far below any part of the catacombs that the Priory dared to touch. They passed another open gate into an open, long hall. It was an actual library and they had entered at the very top floor.

Bookshelves reached from leagues beneath them to several metres above. The floor was draped in red carpets, faded in colour due to centuries of decay. Cobwebs filled every corner and railings kept them from falling onto one of the many identical floors below. On each floor's walkways, ladders allowed visitors to reach even the upper bookshelves and spiral staircases in the center of the library, connected every floor.

Varrock called for the others from one of the downward staircases. "Down here, guys!" He then rushed down those stairs, closely followed by the Commander, Rytlock and Rox.

Rox stopped to cough for a moment. "What is this smell? I can barely breathe." The stench of decay lay in the air, and it would only grow stronger the further down they went. Varrock didn't leave it at going down one floor. One set of stairs after the other, all four descended further and further down the colossal library through the middle, allowing the Commander to see its real layout.

It had five separate wings just like the one they came through, each with its ceiling painted with imagery that matched the themes of one of the five gods in question. One wing full of wildlife, brambles and vines, another with pale rocky landscapes and skeletons surrounded by veils of turquoise smoke, one with fiery chasms and burning creatures, another depicting marble temples surrounded by gales of wind, and one with a maze of mirrors and swarms of glowing butterflies abound.

The books were withered, centuries of neglect filled the air with the dust of their fallen-apart pages, the binding on many of them had flaked off. The only movements they could hear were their own. Every larger creature they expected to deal with, lay dead, spread across the walkways of every floor. Gravelings, spiders, trolls, the ghosts had slain every last one in the library. In some cases going by how much they had decomposed, they must have done so long ago. "I suppose this is where the smell comes from. So what are we supposed to see here?"

"Bottom floor," Varrock shouted. After running down floor by floor by floor, they finally got to the bottom. The bright light from the chandeliers and hanging crystals was entirely magic in nature, regular fires would have gone out at some point.

Varrock led them to the far edge of Dwayna's wing. Unlike everything else, the mural on the ceiling was still immaculate. More impatient than before, Rytlock insisted: "You better put up or shut up right now! What was that just now? A Charr ghost? Don't make me laugh, you brought more mesmers down here, didn't you?"

"You overestimate the scope of what is possible, Rytlock Brimstone, " the ghostly voice from before said. Swaths of blue smoke streamed out of the braziers, some of which fused to form the shape of a Charr. "After everything you've seen, I would have expected otherwise."

Rytlock grunted. "I've had enough of this!" He drew Sohothin, marched up to the ghostly Charr and swung it down at him. The ghost simply reached for his wrist and grabbed it, halting his movements before he could strike at him. Rytlock stared at it with wide eyes. "It's not an illusion! It's real! This is a ghost!"

He stepped back, mouth agape from realizing that what he saw here was the actual disembodied spirit of a Charr. The Charr had twice-curved horns and wore a thinly strapped set of crude metal plates, which left a lot of his fur exposed, including his spiked shoulders. The Charr ghost's eyes narrowed and he shook his head. "But I also didn't think that ghosts would surprise you, considering where you are."

With a shake of his arm, the ghost summoned a spectral bow in a conspicuous shape, with pieces of animal hides stitched onto several parts along its stave. Which apparently left the Tribune speechless. Rox pointed at the ghost. "That bow - I know it! I mean, everyone does - every Charr I mean. It's Pyre Fierceshot's! This has got to be Pyre Fierceshot!"

"At least not all of them have lost their sentience." More of the mists gathered next to Pyre's image and formed a second Charr, larger and covered in sparser armor plates with massive spikes wherever it was possible. He held in his hand a particular two-sided dagger, with two blades on each side..

The Commander realized that the dagger was of significance, but didn't know what it meant. After exchanging a glance with Rox, she understood and explained: "That weapon is the Claw of the Khan-Ur. It was lost when the Foefire broke out, which means this is…"

The larger Charr ghost replied: "Galvan Plunderstrike, the Pillager, cub of Ventus and the only rightful Khan-Ur!"

Rytlock did his part in introducing the Commander to all this: "He was an Imperator, the one that led the last assault on Ascalon. He was there when Adelbern created the Foefire and damned this whole country to being haunted."

The last parts of the swirling mist above lowered themselves to form the image of Adelbern, the last king of Ascalon, dressed in his well-known armor and with his crown. The Commander had fought against him before, when he helped Rytlock and Eir Stegalkin retrieve Magdaer. "And I maintain that it was the right decision! I would rather see this land haunted and cursed than to willingly hand it over to the Charr!"

The Commander answered all these introductions with only one question: "How is this possible? Ghost Charr? How have we not seen any of them on the surface?"

The blue flames in the braziers acted up again, enough that they could hear the fire flickering as more smoke streamed out of it and formed more ghosts, dozens and dozens, soon hundreds, all Charr warriors and shamans of various kinds. They looked vaguely like Flame Legionnaires, but not quite the same as the ones the Commander had seen before. While the ghosts of the Charr were still filling the library, Pyre Fierceshot answered his question: "Adelbern's spell should only bind human spirits to the land, but the Charr you see around you caught the brunt of the wave. It didn't take effect as much for us, we can't appear throughout all of Ascalon, our forms spread too thin when we try. We're trapped down here, forced to watch unseen as Charr slaughter Charr in worship of themselves, spitting in the face of the struggles we had in our lifetimes."

The Commander began to understand just what they were looking at. "So if you're Pyre Fierceshot, is that the same one that fought the Destroyers?"

Pyre grinned, glancing over at Rytlock. "Funny that you know of the Destroyers, when mere minutes ago your friend claimed that Charr were above the worship of gods."

Rytlock felt insulted to the point where he couldn't keep quiet: "How are we not? 'There are no gods!', every Charr is taught these words! They're your words! You came up with this! There are no gods and to be a Charr is to understand this!"

Pyre covered his face and sighed. "My exact words were 'There are no gods for the Charr.', and like everyone before you, you've completely forgotten their meaning. The gods of the humans are very, very real. I've traveled through Tyria with people who have been to their realms. They've been to the Fissure of Woe, they've traveled to the Mists several times and met the gods' stewards. And they've faced Abaddon - one of their own gods - in combat and killed him with their very own hands. Braved Abaddon's realm in the Domain of Anguish."

Pyre's words only agitated the tribune even more. "Are you saying their gods are truly gods? Was it all a mistake, should we worship the human gods now?"

"I said 'There are no gods for the Charr.', the humans can worship their gods all they want, but the worship of any gods for the Charr is a mistake, as we've learned painfully time and time again."

"Are you implying that Charr have ever worshiped gods? Adelbern must have put those phony ideas in your head! The Charr have no gods! Never have, never will! We are above it and always have been! This is what sets us apart from other races! It's why we deserved to reclaim this land and Orr!"

"Precious that you would boast about never having worshiped gods, " broke out of Adelbern. "When your very presence in my homeland proves this claim a lie!"

Rytlock snapped at the dead king: "What are you talking about?"

Adelbern replied without the faintest hint of insecurity: "Why do you think your ilk invaded our country in the first place?"

"We retook Ascalon, because it was our homeland!" Rytlock pointed directly at Adelbern with the clawed tip of his right index finger, so as to accuse him before the crowd of silent Charr. "You, Adelbern, you yourself stole Ascalon from us and built your phony kingdom on our soil!"

Adelbern was in disbelief. "How do you walk through your life believing something like this? Do you never have doubts? Does nothing about the ruins you infest strike you as strange?"

"What are you implying?"

"The City of Rin, so vast and beautiful that even after centuries, its ruins still dwarf and outshine the heap of scrap you call a 'Citadel'? The many townships, the estates, the homesteads and all the farmland not to mention the other cities that you so carelessly burned down. Do you think structures as colossal as the northern wall could be built within one day?"

"You just built it very quickly!"

Adelbern's spectre shouted at him: "Gain some common sense! Do you seriously think all of Ascalon was built under my rule alone? I built the northern wall, but all else of this land had been there before. When I seized power in Ascalon, I overthrew a line of kings that dated back over a thousand years! Ascalon has belonged to humans since before the Exodus and you feral beasts attacked us unprovoked and wouldn't stop your assault until you had burned it all to the ground!"

Rytlock's stance weakened, he had noticeable doubts and waved his hands as if he were trying to push them away. What they were saying was messing with his mind in a way that the Commander didn't expect. "Lies and propaganda! That's all I'm hearing."

But when he looked over to Pyre and Galvan, he was met with nods and reassuring looks. "It's true." Pyre said. "All of it. 'There are no gods for the Charr', you seem to hold those words very dear, what do you think was the occasion? If knowing to not worship gods just came to us naturally, I would never have had to spell this out. Not to mention fighting a war over it! I spelled out this lesson not because we never worshiped gods, but because we did. Twice or even more times than I knew. And we've brought nothing but hardship upon ourselves and others because of it!"

Rytlock shook his head, his movements increasingly sudden, with moments of freezing in-between. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. No, it wasn't just that he couldn't believe it, he didn't want to. "You're lying! It's the spell! That's got to be it, it's affecting you! It's making you repeat Adelbern's lies!"

Imperator Galvan roared at Rytlock, causing him to freeze yet again. "Stand strong, Brimstone! Don't let new knowledge throw you off so easily! Your ancestors would be ashamed to see you like this! Some of them are with us right now!"

He stepped forward and cleared his throat, if only for effect. "We are bound by the Foefire like all the human spirits are! More yet, our proximity to the true heart of its power makes our minds more clear, not less! Adelbern may be keen to flock to truths that are convenient, but he has yet to tell you a single lie! Ascalon was not our homeland and even I admit now, that it never was! If your precious Fahrar will not teach you, then I shall refresh your memory!"

Once the Imperator was sure that Rytlock would listen, he continued: "We invaded Ascalon not out of our own free will, but because we were told to! We were once split into smaller warring factions, fighting amongst one another over the rule of the Charr homelands. Yes, I speak of the same ones you now call 'Blood Legion Homelands', completely forgetting that once they were home to all the Charr."

The Imperator continued. "Within the Jaws of Oblivion, a group of Charr found Titans. A discovery that rendered our shamans receptive to their whispers from within the Mists. They were creatures of pure destruction made of stone and fire. Some doubted them, but once they had demonstrated the power they wielded, even from within the Mists, they convinced the Charr that they were gods. The only true gods as we believed, but this couldn't be further from the truth. They were manmade monstrosities, forged to serve the human god Abaddon and in worshiping them, we too became yet another of Abaddon's pawns."

Adelbern followed up where Galvan stopped. "The Charr were primitive, most of their tools and weapons were crudely fashioned from the tusks and teeth of beasts, they only knew the very simplest and most impure forms of metallurgy. So my army drove them back time and time again, but their faith in the Titans emboldened them to repeat their assaults. The fact that I went through the efforts to build the northern wall and make it as large as I did, is a testament to how incessant the Charr's attacks had been. The wall shouldn't just be an obstacle to hold them off, but a show of strength. And so it became so large that now, centuries after the kingdom has fallen, its remains still stand tall above anything the Charr have fashioned around it."

The Imperator picked up their recounting again: "It wasn't just the Titans who told us to invade Ascalon, it was also them who gave us the means to take it."

Rytlock's eyes widened, as everything they said finally started to make sense. "The Searing Cauldron!"

Galvan nodded. "None other. A catalyst for ancient magics of the Charr so powerful, it could burn an entire nation to cinders. Even one as vast as the Ascalon of old. We made use of this weapon once and the entire country fell within the same day. Those who lived through the fire, made up only a fraction of what their people once were. But in destroying their kingdom, we also destroyed the land itself. It became uninhabitable. How can one grow crops, when the soil is poisoned with grime? How can one feed cattle when the ground offers nothing but ash? The only thing that kept us from turning on each other was the struggle against what little survivors Adelbern could rally."

At this point, Adelbern began to tell his part of their story: "Worse than that, they drove my son to such desperation that he abandoned me and his kingdom. He rallied any Ascalonians that would follow him over me, led them out of the country and in so doing, caused the Flameseeker Prophecies to come to pass. Those Ascalonian refugees fled to Kryta, which sent them on a long odyssey that ended in the Fire Islands, where the risen Vizier Khilbron tricked them into releasing the same Titans that the Charr worshiped as their gods. After they realized what they had done, those humans went on a crusade to slaughter the Titans throughout all of Tyria."

Pyre Fierceshot continued: "Our gods were dead and many of us had seen humans slay them before our very own eyes. Wanting for guidance, the Flame tore itself apart, leaving the humans to their own devices while we went back to our usual ways: Forming warbands and killing each other. That was until the Destroyers - mindless creatures made of molten rock - dug their way to the surface."

"A hierophant of the Flame found them and saw an opportunity: The shamans could reclaim their power and their status as the priests of devout Charr, if they only convinced all Charr that the Destroyers were new gods for us to worship. More cruel monsters that would demand more bloodshed and more sacrifices, Charr and human alike. My warband opposed them, but the priests simply had most of us killed, like they did with every warband that did the same."

"I only survived through pure luck. Right when their adherents were about to execute me, the same humans who had slain the titans, stumbled on me, looking for allies to fight the Destroyers. One hand washes the other. They helped me rescue what was left of my warband and together, we stopped the hierophant from uniting the Charr in worship of the Destroyers and rescued the humans they planned to sacrifice."

"When the last battle among Charr was at an end, the freed Charr wanted me to lead them. I knew how uprisings like these play out and used it to make us stop repeating our past mistakes. So instead of becoming a leader and setting myself up to be felled for the next aspirant Imperator, I left them with a single sentence."

Rytlock finished Pyre's thought: "There are no gods for the Charr."

"You see now, it doesn't mean we never worshiped gods, but rather that we shouldn't. That every time we did, was a mistake, and that we shall never do it again. The idea that Ascalon was ours, ripped from us by Adelbern is a blatant lie. In our entire history we never settled outside of the valleys we emerged from, except to venture into the Shiverpeaks and be driven out by Norn who hunted us for our hides and horns. The first humans that came to Ascalon found it empty. Holding up the act of settling in it against them as some moral wrong is senseless, especially when we apply 'might makes right' everywhere else."

The Commander asked: "Why would they lie about this?"

"The lie was invented and propagated by the successors of Horvanad's army, whom you now call the 'Iron Legion'. The idea that Charr never worshiped gods was added to make it plausible. After all, if Ascalon was never our homeland, why would we invade it? We already had a homeland of our own. The Iron Legion needed to legitimize their claim to Ascalon, the other legions simply fell in line. It became the thing that cubs were taught when growing up. Just like you, new cubs were taught these lies from a very young age and within a single generation, everyone came to believe they were true. It was all you ever knew."

The Commander could see Rytlock's eyes dart about. Rox didn't fare much better. She stepped off to the side and choked. "I feel sick." She leaned against one of the bookshelves, but after a while, it looked like she was getting better.

The tribune simply mumbled: "It can't be…it's got to be the Foefire…you're lying! Why else would it all be so convenient for Adelbern? I'm supposed to believe that our first point of pride is actually a mark of shame? And that this only changed when the high and mighty humans came along to help us? No! The Charr have no gods! Never had, never will!"

Pyre replied without hesitation: "Not anymore. Dislike for accepting human help is not new. You're not the first to react to it this way. When I freed my warband, they thought of accepting help from humans as pitiful. Sacrilegious even. But just like the concept of sacrilege, the time for gods and faith among the Charr was over. Even when I was alive, I recognized the pattern for what it was. The Charr couldn't conquer Ascalon until we received the Searing Cauldron from the servants of a human god."

"And likewise the humans couldn't rescue their Ebon Vanguard from being sacrificed to the Destroyers, without our help breaking into the hierophant's compound. There were others before me and there were more after the Foefire. Charr always have their struggles and wars, even if those never compare to the things that the Titans made us do. But when those wars between the Charr reach their peak, whichever side enlists the help of humans is usually the one that wins. They have insights that wouldn't occur to us and we have insights that wouldn't occur to them. The key to victory over Charr and humans alike, is for Charr and humans to work hand in hand."

Varrock, who had been quietly listening to their recounting with his back to one of the bookshelves, now added: "The Separatists didn't start scoring victories against the Shining Blade, until they adopted the ruthless philosophy of the Charr. And the Renegades didn't walk circles around Ash Legion, until I brought them the foresight and finesse of humans and the skills of Krytan mesmers." He turned to Adelbern. "Brimstone's not taking it much better than I did. You have to show him the room."

"So be it, " the ghostly king said and waved at the Charr ghosts that surrounded them. More grinding sounds of stones shifting drew the Commander to the middle of the bottom floor. Another spiral staircase beneath the lowest one opened itself up, down into a basement beneath this underground library. "Descend to the Ruriksvault! The place I fashioned so that my son could retreat in the darkest hour even after my passing. It went unused for its intended purpose, but every Charr I've sent down here has returned understanding that we speak the truth."

Pyre Fierceshot explained: "For as long as the Charr have existed, our homeland in Grothmar has stayed the same. Its borders etched into our minds, down to the blood that courses through our veins. We struggle and fight more than we need to now, because we feel lost. We're out of place, we aren't made for this land. Conquering other countries like Ascalon or Orr was a very recent idea, placed in our heads entirely by malicious forces."

"Go! See for yourselves so you can finally ascend from the catacombs wiser than when you entered!"

The Charr ghosts stepped aside, leaving plenty of room for the living to pass through them to the was made of rough stone, there were no railings or windows. And with no way of seeing where it would end, the descent seemed even longer than the trip between the floors above. The Commander wasn't sure what this Ruriksvault could possibly hold that would convince someone - in ways that meeting the ghosts of these two famous Charr wouldn't.