Sorcerer
Chapter 8 - A New Enemy, an Old Enemy
We returned to Pandaemonium that day, and straight away set about gathering our forces for a war against these Elyos. The very next day we met in combat again, and full-scale war broke out between our people. Soon, a further test would present itself as the Balaur, long exiled inside the abyss, found a way out from their prison. Their thirst for blood was just as insatiable as before, and with their old allies by their side again their power cannot be underestimated.
The Elyos, in seeking to remake themselves as creatures of tawdry brightness and feigned moral superiority, have only succeeded in cutting themselves off from those deep roots of history which give us Asmodians our strength. They wish to forget the past, to dismiss the blood that was shed in their names by our common ancestors, as if it was a humiliating stain.
But we Asmodians have not dishonoured our past. When we found one another for the first time in that deep night, bloodied but unbroken upon the shattered shores of Asmodae, we sought for a watchword by which we might know our own… for we had not yet taken on our new forms, and there were many strange faces there in the firelight.
‘Blood for blood’, came a whisper from out of the darkness, and to this day we know not who may have said it… some say Asphel, some Zikel, and some claim Aion itself, blessing us with its dying breath, spoke to us so. But when the next day dawned, pale and grim, those words were on the lips of all, and none cared what their source may have been.
Blood must be shed, to avenge those who shed their blood for us. And those of us who are of the blood – the loyal ones, the righteous ones who clung together in the long, long nights thereafter – shall stand by and support one another. The whisper has echoed down the centuries, passed from mothers to sons, fathers to daughters, captains to soldiers, kin to kin. Like our blood itself, it warms us and braces us for the fight.
And now we have discovered that which has given our mission a true sense of urgency. With every passing breath, our planet haemorrhages Aether out of our atmosphere. We spent many months searching for the source of this bleed, searching throughout the Abyss, and Asmodae, when it was right in front of us.
It’s the two towers. A mighty resonance still exists between them, vibrating invisibly between the two halves of our sundered world. As if in memory of the lost Tower of Eternity, they cry out to each other across the void, and it is this reverberation that has created the Abyss.
The Abyss absorbs Aether, draining it away like water pouring into a crevasse. Now the Aether is spread thinner and thinner with each passing day, and will soon start affecting our Daeva, and our planet. Atreia is still only held together by the Aetheric ties Siel and Israphel created when they drained their own ethereal bodies of Aether, a process which effectively ended their own lives. Soon the Abyss will start to weaken these ties, and if they were to break, our atmosphere would collapse, and everyone on this planet will perish.
There remains one viable tactic. The resonance cannot continue if only one stump of the tower survives. Our path is clear: we must destroy the Tower of Light. Only then will we end this bleed and safeguard the lives of the Asmodian people from the arrogant tyranny the Elyos threaten us with.
We will not hesitate this time. There will be no staying of our blades, only a brutal and irresistible wave of destruction that will finally rid our home of the arrogant and naïve fools which still infest our lands.
Our fate is once again in our own hands. Blood for blood, our watchword, stands as true as it is ever did, and with steeled Asmodians either side of me, we will not stop, and we will not falter. This time, we will not fail.
- Kineas, Praefectus Castrorum of the Asmodian Archon
We returned to Pandaemonium that day, and straight away set about gathering our forces for a war against these Elyos. The very next day we met in combat again, and full-scale war broke out between our people. Soon, a further test would present itself as the Balaur, long exiled inside the abyss, found a way out from their prison. Their thirst for blood was just as insatiable as before, and with their old allies by their side again their power cannot be underestimated.
The Elyos, in seeking to remake themselves as creatures of tawdry brightness and feigned moral superiority, have only succeeded in cutting themselves off from those deep roots of history which give us Asmodians our strength. They wish to forget the past, to dismiss the blood that was shed in their names by our common ancestors, as if it was a humiliating stain.
But we Asmodians have not dishonoured our past. When we found one another for the first time in that deep night, bloodied but unbroken upon the shattered shores of Asmodae, we sought for a watchword by which we might know our own… for we had not yet taken on our new forms, and there were many strange faces there in the firelight.
‘Blood for blood’, came a whisper from out of the darkness, and to this day we know not who may have said it… some say Asphel, some Zikel, and some claim Aion itself, blessing us with its dying breath, spoke to us so. But when the next day dawned, pale and grim, those words were on the lips of all, and none cared what their source may have been.
Blood must be shed, to avenge those who shed their blood for us. And those of us who are of the blood – the loyal ones, the righteous ones who clung together in the long, long nights thereafter – shall stand by and support one another. The whisper has echoed down the centuries, passed from mothers to sons, fathers to daughters, captains to soldiers, kin to kin. Like our blood itself, it warms us and braces us for the fight.
And now we have discovered that which has given our mission a true sense of urgency. With every passing breath, our planet haemorrhages Aether out of our atmosphere. We spent many months searching for the source of this bleed, searching throughout the Abyss, and Asmodae, when it was right in front of us.
It’s the two towers. A mighty resonance still exists between them, vibrating invisibly between the two halves of our sundered world. As if in memory of the lost Tower of Eternity, they cry out to each other across the void, and it is this reverberation that has created the Abyss.
The Abyss absorbs Aether, draining it away like water pouring into a crevasse. Now the Aether is spread thinner and thinner with each passing day, and will soon start affecting our Daeva, and our planet. Atreia is still only held together by the Aetheric ties Siel and Israphel created when they drained their own ethereal bodies of Aether, a process which effectively ended their own lives. Soon the Abyss will start to weaken these ties, and if they were to break, our atmosphere would collapse, and everyone on this planet will perish.
There remains one viable tactic. The resonance cannot continue if only one stump of the tower survives. Our path is clear: we must destroy the Tower of Light. Only then will we end this bleed and safeguard the lives of the Asmodian people from the arrogant tyranny the Elyos threaten us with.
We will not hesitate this time. There will be no staying of our blades, only a brutal and irresistible wave of destruction that will finally rid our home of the arrogant and naïve fools which still infest our lands.
Our fate is once again in our own hands. Blood for blood, our watchword, stands as true as it is ever did, and with steeled Asmodians either side of me, we will not stop, and we will not falter. This time, we will not fail.
- Kineas, Praefectus Castrorum of the Asmodian Archon
