January 4, 2023 • 28 mins
Season 02 - Episode 06.
By the light of the blood moon, Alaric sees a vision unintended for mortal eyes.
Credits:
- Alaric Von Beller - George Ledoux
- The Burning One - Kit Harrison
- The Fetid Prince - K. Beau Foster
- Liche - George Ledoux
Website: http://DeadhausSonata.com
Discord: https://discord.gg/XjUXa4v
Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/DeadhausGame
Created by Apocalypse Studios
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
(Dramatic Music)
First of Primilun, in the year 220 after Deadhaus.
It is by the light of the blood moon that
I write these words, bright
enough that I need no candles.
My heart hammers, but absinthe steadies
(00:23):
my hand enough to put quill to paper.
I saw it again in my nightmare.
As before in the sunken woods.
There was more this time, a vision.
Something I was not meant to see.
At first I felt as if weightless,
(00:46):
drifting above a
stone path without effort.
I marveled at the sensation of being
supported not by my own limbs, but by
some unseen force that carried me so
steadily that it seemed as if the world
was moving around me
while I was perfectly still.
(01:07):
The path ahead was drenched in darkness,
but the shadows
receded as I moved forward.
Driven back by a bluish light that
emanated from somewhere on my person, so
I could not move my
head to find its source.
On either side of me rose immense
(01:30):
rectangular pillars of blackened stone.
They were engraved with symbols that
stretch upward until they vanished into
the darkness beyond
the blue light's reach.
And in the spaces between them, where
their looming shadows swept aside at my
passing, there stood more pillars in the distance and more beyond their shadows.
(01:52):
More and more beyond them and more and
more until my light could not penetrate.
Yet I suspect they went on even further,
a forest of silent stone,
silent stories in the dark.
(02:13):
I drifted this way without any sense of
time or direction, sometimes turning down
one path or another, a passenger within a
vessel that seemed to know where it was
going, and then at once I stopped.
Before me was a pillar,
(02:35):
no different to my eyes than all the
others, but I felt myself drawn to it.
Saw my hand lift a blackened cage from
which a bright blue orb cast its light.
But it was not my hand.
It was a hand of a dead thing, and I had
seen this cage before
(02:56):
and the light inside.
My mind began to race, pulled taut by
panic. I was brought closer to the
surface of the pillar and
found it to be reflective.
No, don't look at it! I screamed to
myself, but my face pulled closer to the
(03:16):
stone and was revealed in its reflection,
dead and desiccated, slumping to one side
without the support of ligaments. It was
the creature from the Sunken Woods.
It was the liche
I felt my mouth open to scream, which
(03:37):
matched the gaping mouth reflected in the
stone, but nothing came out.
My other hand, its other hand, reached
forward and traced along the
engravings, then pulled away.
What happened next will
haunt me to my dying breath.
(04:00):
(Eerie Music)
I felt the liche turn and noticed for the
first time the presence of another. An
emaciated man, his face slack and eyes
blank, stood motionless nearby.
He must have been following the liche as
it moved through the pillars,
but now the liche reached forward with one
(04:22):
arm, twisted its skeletal fingers in the
air and clenched them shut.
The man fell to his knees.
His body began to convulse, and from his
eyes and mouth, they
poured a vapory substance,
cyclically swirling so that it read the
(04:44):
Liche's hand in its glow.
The empty husk of the
man crumpled to the floor,
as the liche turned back to the pillar
without a second glance.
It placed its now glowing hand upon the
stone, which drank in the light so that
the symbols began to flicker in that same
(05:05):
green hue. Then I saw them shifting,
sliding, swirling free of
where they had been chiseled.
A hundred glowing runes encircling one
another and luminous geometry singed
across the surface of the stone.
And then there was no stone.
(05:27):
It was as if a hole had been torn in the
fabric of reality itself, an opening the
same shape and size of the pillar. And
through this opening were
other places, other times.
Through the window, I saw the silver
towers of Ustilia as they once stood,
(05:49):
before Deadhaus, before the fall.
As a scholar of history, I had read of
the old empire, but to seize a capital
with my own eyes, well, not quite my own,
but still, but still.
I know now why it was called the Mirrored
City. Such was the wealth and
(06:12):
craftsmanship of Ustilia that its
ramparts rose as mighty
walls of rounded mirror
so that any invading army would see
itself in total clarity and know, however
vast its numbers, that they were not
enough. And yet the fall of Ustilia was
(06:32):
not brought by foreign invaders.
The Mirrored City fell from within,
blackened by a curse at its very core.
I watched from high above as a dead surge
through the capital. The winding streets
funneled them like so many streams of
rotting flesh, all spiraling in unison to
(06:54):
the center of the city, to the temple of
El’sabayoth. Where the last living
souls in Ustilia made their stand, the
Lucent Templar, sworn defenders of the
temple, formed lines too many deep in a
triangle around the base of the
structure. Their armor was of an
(07:16):
interlocking design lost to modern
smiths, and their helms rose like
steeples far above the narrow slits
through which they
watched the Uncoming Horde.
As the dead gathered in the temple
clearing, the Lucent Templar took their
glaives in both hands, bowed their heads,
(07:36):
and began to vocalize in unison.
It was a deep and wordless mantra, a
focusing of the faith, much as I have
heard from the Ashen
priests in my own time.
From within their helmets, each chant
reverberated, rising so that it seems the
temple grounds were filled, not with the
(07:59):
voices of men, but living bells.
And so the bells tolled together one last
time, a final prayer, a dirge for those
who sung it, still resonating even as the
dead rushed forward, ceasing only when
they reached striking distance.
(08:19):
(Yelling)
The glaives slashed into pinkred flesh,
claws hammered against angled armor, and
the temple grounds were awash in the
cacophony of desperate battle.
The Lucent Templar fought without fear,
(08:42):
but the dead fought without number.
The defenders were pressed back, slowly
ascending the temple steps, narrowing
their triangular formation to prevent any
gaps as their brothers fell. And as the
blood of the fallen seeped into Malorum,
the skies were darkened
with gathering clouds.
(09:04):
Then came the first crash.
(Explosion)
The first blast of light emits the dead,
incinerating many outright, and sending
those nearby hurtling
as smoldering limbs.
Then another, a streak of gold from
above, a deafening explosion, and the
dead scattered as leaves before a storm.
(09:27):
My vision turned to the top of the
temple, and I saw him standing there.
I saw The Burning One I felt at once a
sensation like never before, a
simultaneous belief and disbelief that
would have brought me to my knees had I
been in my own body. As it was, I felt
(09:50):
the literally coil from the image of
El’sabayoth's chosen.
Draped in flowing robes of white, adorned
with golden braces, he stood taller and
broader than the mortal
men whose likeness he bore.
His hair and beard flowed together as a
(10:12):
white mane, framing a face set stern as
stone and eyes that burned with the white
fires of his sacred heritage.
As he reached above his head with one
hand, I saw lightning strike down from
the heavens and strike his open path.
And as it did, it formed into the
(10:34):
likeness of a golden spear. A thunderbolt
caught and suspended, still crackling.
He hurled his thunderous missile from on
high into the swarming dead below.
Blasting another dozen into smoldering
ruin. And again, and again, another
spear, another thunderclap.
(10:56):
Ceaselessly, tirelessly, he lashed out in
righteous fury against those that would
invade the temple, destroying in a matter
of seconds, but would have taken an army
of men to accomplish.
The tide of the dead slackened against a
Lucent Templar who began pressing
forward down the steps.
(11:18):
I believe they could have won that day
with The Burning One behind them, even
against such overwhelming numbers whose
still here might still
stand, if not for what followed.
(Air Whooshing)
(11:39):
I heard it before I saw it. A shuddering,
wheezing hiss that emanated from the
skies washed over the battleground.
Then the clouds began to churn,
whipped into vortices and dispersed as
the winged horror dove below them.
(12:00):
As a boy, I had heard tales of dragons,
mighty beasts that ruled the skies ofAtan
and raised any ships that dared approach.
But this creature was a twisted nightmare
of death brought in dragons formed.
The abomination's wings should not have
granted it flight, tattered as they were,
(12:22):
like the ruined sails of a drowned
frigate. It's still its sword.
Its massive body was parked and marred
with decay, a skeletal frame to which
moldering flesh clung in shreds. The lack
of tissue on its skull laid bare rows of
fangs, as if in perpetual grin. Yet from
(12:46):
its hallowed sockets, their streaked
blood-black ichor, empty eyes that ever
wept above death's smile.
(Air Whooshing)
The abomination alighted upon one of
Ustilia’s Towers, seemingly indifferent
to the smoke that hissed from its
elongated claws upon the silver. It
(13:08):
craned its neck, serpentine and skeleton,
surveying the temple grounds, grinning
without mirth, then unfurled its wings so
that they stretch as
wide as the temple itself.
(Air Whooshing)
It was The Burning One that struck the
beast. As a hand towards the heavens, he
(13:31):
called down his golden spear and hurled
at the wing in terror.
His unnatural swiftness, the creature
loosed itself from the tower, which
blasted apart in a shower of sparks. It
swooped so that it almost struck the
floor, then swept upward with a beat of
its wings, avoiding another
(13:51):
lightning bolt as it rose.
Then I heard its putrid lungs rattling as
they drew a monstrous breath, like a
thousand bragged gasps of the dying.
(Air Whooshing) The exhalation came as a shuddering hiss,
a pale green fog, and in so opening its
(14:13):
mouth, the creature's bottom jaw swung
apart from sheer decay.
The fog rolled over the dead with no
effect, but as it reached the first line
of loose and templar, the living fell to
their knees in choking agony.
The Burning One was quick to react,
(14:34):
drawing a deep breath of his own and
bringing his hands together in a mighty
thunderclap. And from the force of it, a
shockwave rushed over, sweeping away as a
putrid fog, sparing the
second line of defenders.
The winged horror wheeled in
the sky, hissing in outrage.
(14:57):
It circled the temple, coming around for
another breath, but The Burning One was
ready. He hurried the abomination with
thunderbolts, forcing it to dip and dart
aside, crunching from it ever more
baleful hisses, until at last it soared
above the temple itself
and dove directly down.
(15:19):
The rattle of its rotting lungs sounding
with a crackle of lightning brought in
hand. The fog came first. It poured over
the top of the temple, obscuringThe
Burning One and the
creature banked upward.
There was silence.
Neither the dead nor the
(15:41):
Lucent Templar lifted a hand.
Then two white eyes
ignited from within the fog,
and a golden lance of thunder shot
straight up, piercing through the
abomination of long-dead ribcage, sending
grey fluids sloshing free
with a gurgling shriek of rage.
(16:04):
The battle resumed below, and the winged
horror plummeted, its form billowing into
black smoke, and crashed as an inky comet
upon the temple top.
Smoke swirled and roiled, condensing into
bubbling ichor, and then rising once more
(16:25):
as smoke into the likeness of a man.
The Burning One raised one leg and brought
his foot down in a stock that blasted
away the remaining fog and smoke, and
there before him stood a
princely figure, draped in black.
His features were angular and drawn, as
(16:47):
pale and hard as ice, and his
eyes shone like silver coins.
Your aim was true...
but your target false.
The prince's voice was
cold, almost detached,
and as he spoke, he gestured to the
(17:08):
Lucent Templar below, who all had fallen
without the lightning to support them.
Now the temple stood ringed by the dead,
who stared blankly in motionless silence.
The Fetid Prince you are a stain upon
these sacred grounds.
(17:29):
A matter of perspective.
Truth, a null's perspective.
Truth lies.
Their only difference is perspective.
The Fetid Prince slowly began to circle
The Burning One scraping his claw-like
fingers along the stone of the temple.
(17:52):
Be silent. I'll not stand idly by as you
befoul this temple with your deceptions.
The Burning One remained focused on The
Fetid Prince not
allowing him out of sight.
Those that would
silence do not seek truth,
and there is no greater
deceit than hypocrisy.
(18:13):
Come then. I have no fear of death or
those that serve it.
All serve death in the end. Even you know
if I should fall in battle, I will rise
again in fire and vengeance.
(18:34):
Lightning streaked from the heavens to
meet The Burning One's upthrust hand, but
as it struck, it formed into the likeness
of a crackling greatsword. The Fetid
Prince raised his own hand, clutching his
claw-like fingers closed. The blade of
shadow was laid manifest, dripping its
(18:55):
darkness on the temple
floor like blots of ink.
Half of that is truth.
This time, The Fetid Prince struck first,
rushing at The Burning One in a blur of
speed that I could scarcely follow.
Shadow clashed against lightning as the
(19:15):
blade struck and sparks
were shone from the collision.
In that same speed, The Fetid Prince drew
away from his opponent before he could
retaliate, circled him in a blur, and
struck from another angle.
The Burning One whirled and swung his
lightning blade upwards, slicing a molten
(19:36):
trail in the temple floor before the
following clash. Yet again, before he
could counter, The Fetid Prince darted
away, flanked and rushed in. The shadowed
blade sighed in a whisper. The lightning
blade crackled, and the two bound
together in a blast of sparks.
(19:57):
Out and in, The Fetid Prince darted once
more, this time managing a blow against
one of the golden bracers, severing it so
that it splattered to the floor, stained
with black, hissing with corrosion.
As The Burning One lashed out, it drove
through a temple pillar, toppling it in
his fury. But The Fetid Prince was already
(20:20):
gone. Enraged, The Burning One gripped the
hilt of his greatsword with both hands
and tore in either direction.
The blade crackled, arcing along its
length before splitting in twain, two
blades of crackling gold. He set upon The
Fetid Prince then, hammering down with
(20:41):
both weapons again and
again, hitting nothing.
For as the golden blade struck, The Fetid
Prince stepped aside and returned to his
position in a flicker unscathed.
In a cry of fury, The Burning One raised
one leg and stomped down, catching the
Prince in a shockwave that flung him
(21:03):
violently into a pillar.
The Burning One pressed the attack,
hurling one of his golden swords as a
whirling thunderbolt. Still struggling to
regain his footing, the Prince knew he
could not evade the oncoming gold that
filled his eyes and so crossed his hands
over his chest in a flash, causing his
(21:24):
body to dissolve into swirling mist.
The lightning pierced through the cloud,
buckling the pillar behind it. The mist
coalesced into physical fall once more.
The two beings regarded one another for a
moment in silence and
the prince rushed in again.
(21:46):
Darkness smote light as blade to blade
and flashed in
intervals over the dead below,
illuminating rotted
faces in flickers of gold.
And now among them stood the Lucent
Templar, their steepled
helms devoid of song as life.
(22:07):
Sparks danced in the temple as swords
bound anew, yet with a twist of the
wrist, The Fetid Prince rested the
lightning from its master, sending it
streaking into a wall that set ablaze.
And the temple of El’sabayoth was in
flames then and set
agrow the battle in crimson.
(22:28):
Fire was in the silvered eyes ofThe
Fetid Prince The mane of The Burning One
appeared as if soaked in blood.
Reaching for the heavens, The Burning One
called down another bolt. It struck his
hand as the shadow
blade struck his heart.
Forsaken.
(22:50):
With a single word, the
faintest smile pulled at his lips.
The Burning One still held the bolt in
hand. He struggled to lift it. Trembling
and straining through clenched teeth,
The Fetid Prince waved, watching all the
while as the bolt was brought overhead,
(23:12):
then drove the shadow blade deeper, then
botched it fizzle out.
He withdrew his shadow blades and,
stepping back as The Burning One sloped to
his knees, as the
fire spread around them.
From the wound in his chest, the blinding
veins of black had begun to spread. And
(23:36):
his breath came in the ragged wheezes.
Finish it.
It was finished long ago.
The Burning One groped at his body, then
held his hands before his eyes, seeing
them threaded with blackened veins.
(23:58):
What?
What is this?
That is for your priests to tell you,
those that survived to the north.
Why?
It is a message for your lord.
Deadhaus rises.
(24:22):
And with that, The Burning One reached
both hands to the heavens and lightning
fell upon him in such force that his body
was obscured in the width of
the bolt. And when it passed,
he was no more.
The Fetid Prince stood alone in the
Burning Temple, running his claw-like
(24:44):
fingers along the toppled stone.
Then at once he stopped and tilted his
head in perplexion. Slowly he turned to
face my direction, the direction of the
viewing window, and paused.
Those eyes, like silver coins shone
(25:04):
firelight so intently that I
could almost feel its heat.
You're being watched,
he said at last, and I
felt my stomach lurch.
Impossible.
None have followed. I heard the whispered
voice of the Litrus Bonn. Look closely,
(25:28):
The Fetid Prince said, tapping the claws
of his middle and index fingers
underneath his eyes.
The liche waved its hand, and the window
through which we gazed was filled
entirely with the
image of The Fetid Prince
And there, in the silver of his eyes, I
(25:48):
saw myself reflected, an interloper in
the vision, spying through so many nested
windows across distance and time.
The liche hissed in horrible realization,
jerking its hand so that the window in
the pillar snapped shut, replaced once
more by engraved stone.
(26:11):
It jerked its lantern upward and leaned
towards the reflective
surface of the pillar.
I watched helplessly as it scanned its
horrible face under the blue light, and
then I heard it, like a
whisper in my own thoughts.
(26:32):
“Alaric…. Alaric.” It reached towards its own reflection,
toward me, and as I flailed away from it,
I found myself once more, bolted upright.
I flew from my chambers, needing no
candle for the light of the Blood Moon.
It was just a dream, a nightmare. That is
(26:55):
what I want to believe, but as I write
these words, I know them to be false.
I was seeing through its eyes, just as I
did briefly in the sunken woods. But how?
And in the vision, what can it mean?
Our history says that The Burning One
(27:16):
abandoned us in the first battles with
Deadhaus, but I have seen through other
eyes the hidden truth.
And now I must wonder if The Burning One
stood with us, and where has he now?
Where has he been while
the Dead consume his people?
(27:38):
I fear these matters are beyond my
understanding, and yet I must know.
All this time I thought the gods had
abandoned us, a matter of perspective.
I dare not speak of this to anyone.
There is no telling who
can be trusted at this point.
(27:58):
The light of the First Moon stains these
pages red as I write, as if they had been
drenched in my own blood.
I fear that in time,
they will be.
Alaric von Beller, Grand
Inquisitor of the Thacian Empire.
(Dramatic Music)
First of Primilun, in the year 220 after Deadhaus.
It is by the light of the blood moon that
I write these words, bright
enough that I need no candles.
My heart hammers, but absinthe steadies
(00:23):
my hand enough to put quill to paper.
I saw it again in my nightmare.
As before in the sunken woods.
There was more this time, a vision.
Something I was not meant to see.
At first I felt as if weightless,
(00:46):
drifting above a
stone path without effort.
I marveled at the sensation of being
supported not by my own limbs, but by
some unseen force that carried me so
steadily that it seemed as if the world
was moving around me
while I was perfectly still.
(01:07):
The path ahead was drenched in darkness,
but the shadows
receded as I moved forward.
Driven back by a bluish light that
emanated from somewhere on my person, so
I could not move my
head to find its source.
On either side of me rose immense
(01:30):
rectangular pillars of blackened stone.
They were engraved with symbols that
stretch upward until they vanished into
the darkness beyond
the blue light's reach.
And in the spaces between them, where
their looming shadows swept aside at my
passing, there stood more pillars in the distance and more beyond their shadows.
(01:52):
More and more beyond them and more and
more until my light could not penetrate.
Yet I suspect they went on even further,
a forest of silent stone,
silent stories in the dark.
(02:13):
I drifted this way without any sense of
time or direction, sometimes turning down
one path or another, a passenger within a
vessel that seemed to know where it was
going, and then at once I stopped.
Before me was a pillar,
(02:35):
no different to my eyes than all the
others, but I felt myself drawn to it.
Saw my hand lift a blackened cage from
which a bright blue orb cast its light.
But it was not my hand.
It was a hand of a dead thing, and I had
seen this cage before
(02:56):
and the light inside.
My mind began to race, pulled taut by
panic. I was brought closer to the
surface of the pillar and
found it to be reflective.
No, don't look at it! I screamed to
myself, but my face pulled closer to the
(03:16):
stone and was revealed in its reflection,
dead and desiccated, slumping to one side
without the support of ligaments. It was
the creature from the Sunken Woods.
It was the liche
I felt my mouth open to scream, which
(03:37):
matched the gaping mouth reflected in the
stone, but nothing came out.
My other hand, its other hand, reached
forward and traced along the
engravings, then pulled away.
What happened next will
haunt me to my dying breath.
(04:00):
(Eerie Music)
I felt the liche turn and noticed for the
first time the presence of another. An
emaciated man, his face slack and eyes
blank, stood motionless nearby.
He must have been following the liche as
it moved through the pillars,
but now the liche reached forward with one
(04:22):
arm, twisted its skeletal fingers in the
air and clenched them shut.
The man fell to his knees.
His body began to convulse, and from his
eyes and mouth, they
poured a vapory substance,
cyclically swirling so that it read the
(04:44):
Liche's hand in its glow.
The empty husk of the
man crumpled to the floor,
as the liche turned back to the pillar
without a second glance.
It placed its now glowing hand upon the
stone, which drank in the light so that
the symbols began to flicker in that same
(05:05):
green hue. Then I saw them shifting,
sliding, swirling free of
where they had been chiseled.
A hundred glowing runes encircling one
another and luminous geometry singed
across the surface of the stone.
And then there was no stone.
(05:27):
It was as if a hole had been torn in the
fabric of reality itself, an opening the
same shape and size of the pillar. And
through this opening were
other places, other times.
Through the window, I saw the silver
towers of Ustilia as they once stood,
(05:49):
before Deadhaus, before the fall.
As a scholar of history, I had read of
the old empire, but to seize a capital
with my own eyes, well, not quite my own,
but still, but still.
I know now why it was called the Mirrored
City. Such was the wealth and
(06:12):
craftsmanship of Ustilia that its
ramparts rose as mighty
walls of rounded mirror
so that any invading army would see
itself in total clarity and know, however
vast its numbers, that they were not
enough. And yet the fall of Ustilia was
(06:32):
not brought by foreign invaders.
The Mirrored City fell from within,
blackened by a curse at its very core.
I watched from high above as a dead surge
through the capital. The winding streets
funneled them like so many streams of
rotting flesh, all spiraling in unison to
(06:54):
the center of the city, to the temple of
El’sabayoth. Where the last living
souls in Ustilia made their stand, the
Lucent Templar, sworn defenders of the
temple, formed lines too many deep in a
triangle around the base of the
structure. Their armor was of an
(07:16):
interlocking design lost to modern
smiths, and their helms rose like
steeples far above the narrow slits
through which they
watched the Uncoming Horde.
As the dead gathered in the temple
clearing, the Lucent Templar took their
glaives in both hands, bowed their heads,
(07:36):
and began to vocalize in unison.
It was a deep and wordless mantra, a
focusing of the faith, much as I have
heard from the Ashen
priests in my own time.
From within their helmets, each chant
reverberated, rising so that it seems the
temple grounds were filled, not with the
(07:59):
voices of men, but living bells.
And so the bells tolled together one last
time, a final prayer, a dirge for those
who sung it, still resonating even as the
dead rushed forward, ceasing only when
they reached striking distance.
(08:19):
(Yelling)
The glaives slashed into pinkred flesh,
claws hammered against angled armor, and
the temple grounds were awash in the
cacophony of desperate battle.
The Lucent Templar fought without fear,
(08:42):
but the dead fought without number.
The defenders were pressed back, slowly
ascending the temple steps, narrowing
their triangular formation to prevent any
gaps as their brothers fell. And as the
blood of the fallen seeped into Malorum,
the skies were darkened
with gathering clouds.
(09:04):
Then came the first crash.
(Explosion)
The first blast of light emits the dead,
incinerating many outright, and sending
those nearby hurtling
as smoldering limbs.
Then another, a streak of gold from
above, a deafening explosion, and the
dead scattered as leaves before a storm.
(09:27):
My vision turned to the top of the
temple, and I saw him standing there.
I saw The Burning One I felt at once a
sensation like never before, a
simultaneous belief and disbelief that
would have brought me to my knees had I
been in my own body. As it was, I felt
(09:50):
the literally coil from the image of
El’sabayoth's chosen.
Draped in flowing robes of white, adorned
with golden braces, he stood taller and
broader than the mortal
men whose likeness he bore.
His hair and beard flowed together as a
(10:12):
white mane, framing a face set stern as
stone and eyes that burned with the white
fires of his sacred heritage.
As he reached above his head with one
hand, I saw lightning strike down from
the heavens and strike his open path.
And as it did, it formed into the
(10:34):
likeness of a golden spear. A thunderbolt
caught and suspended, still crackling.
He hurled his thunderous missile from on
high into the swarming dead below.
Blasting another dozen into smoldering
ruin. And again, and again, another
spear, another thunderclap.
(10:56):
Ceaselessly, tirelessly, he lashed out in
righteous fury against those that would
invade the temple, destroying in a matter
of seconds, but would have taken an army
of men to accomplish.
The tide of the dead slackened against a
Lucent Templar who began pressing
forward down the steps.
(11:18):
I believe they could have won that day
with The Burning One behind them, even
against such overwhelming numbers whose
still here might still
stand, if not for what followed.
(Air Whooshing)
(11:39):
I heard it before I saw it. A shuddering,
wheezing hiss that emanated from the
skies washed over the battleground.
Then the clouds began to churn,
whipped into vortices and dispersed as
the winged horror dove below them.
(12:00):
As a boy, I had heard tales of dragons,
mighty beasts that ruled the skies ofAtan
and raised any ships that dared approach.
But this creature was a twisted nightmare
of death brought in dragons formed.
The abomination's wings should not have
granted it flight, tattered as they were,
(12:22):
like the ruined sails of a drowned
frigate. It's still its sword.
Its massive body was parked and marred
with decay, a skeletal frame to which
moldering flesh clung in shreds. The lack
of tissue on its skull laid bare rows of
fangs, as if in perpetual grin. Yet from
(12:46):
its hallowed sockets, their streaked
blood-black ichor, empty eyes that ever
wept above death's smile.
(Air Whooshing)
The abomination alighted upon one of
Ustilia’s Towers, seemingly indifferent
to the smoke that hissed from its
elongated claws upon the silver. It
(13:08):
craned its neck, serpentine and skeleton,
surveying the temple grounds, grinning
without mirth, then unfurled its wings so
that they stretch as
wide as the temple itself.
(Air Whooshing)
It was The Burning One that struck the
beast. As a hand towards the heavens, he
(13:31):
called down his golden spear and hurled
at the wing in terror.
His unnatural swiftness, the creature
loosed itself from the tower, which
blasted apart in a shower of sparks. It
swooped so that it almost struck the
floor, then swept upward with a beat of
its wings, avoiding another
(13:51):
lightning bolt as it rose.
Then I heard its putrid lungs rattling as
they drew a monstrous breath, like a
thousand bragged gasps of the dying.
(Air Whooshing) The exhalation came as a shuddering hiss,
a pale green fog, and in so opening its
(14:13):
mouth, the creature's bottom jaw swung
apart from sheer decay.
The fog rolled over the dead with no
effect, but as it reached the first line
of loose and templar, the living fell to
their knees in choking agony.
The Burning One was quick to react,
(14:34):
drawing a deep breath of his own and
bringing his hands together in a mighty
thunderclap. And from the force of it, a
shockwave rushed over, sweeping away as a
putrid fog, sparing the
second line of defenders.
The winged horror wheeled in
the sky, hissing in outrage.
(14:57):
It circled the temple, coming around for
another breath, but The Burning One was
ready. He hurried the abomination with
thunderbolts, forcing it to dip and dart
aside, crunching from it ever more
baleful hisses, until at last it soared
above the temple itself
and dove directly down.
(15:19):
The rattle of its rotting lungs sounding
with a crackle of lightning brought in
hand. The fog came first. It poured over
the top of the temple, obscuringThe
Burning One and the
creature banked upward.
There was silence.
Neither the dead nor the
(15:41):
Lucent Templar lifted a hand.
Then two white eyes
ignited from within the fog,
and a golden lance of thunder shot
straight up, piercing through the
abomination of long-dead ribcage, sending
grey fluids sloshing free
with a gurgling shriek of rage.
(16:04):
The battle resumed below, and the winged
horror plummeted, its form billowing into
black smoke, and crashed as an inky comet
upon the temple top.
Smoke swirled and roiled, condensing into
bubbling ichor, and then rising once more
(16:25):
as smoke into the likeness of a man.
The Burning One raised one leg and brought
his foot down in a stock that blasted
away the remaining fog and smoke, and
there before him stood a
princely figure, draped in black.
His features were angular and drawn, as
(16:47):
pale and hard as ice, and his
eyes shone like silver coins.
Your aim was true...
but your target false.
The prince's voice was
cold, almost detached,
and as he spoke, he gestured to the
(17:08):
Lucent Templar below, who all had fallen
without the lightning to support them.
Now the temple stood ringed by the dead,
who stared blankly in motionless silence.
The Fetid Prince you are a stain upon
these sacred grounds.
(17:29):
A matter of perspective.
Truth, a null's perspective.
Truth lies.
Their only difference is perspective.
The Fetid Prince slowly began to circle
The Burning One scraping his claw-like
fingers along the stone of the temple.
(17:52):
Be silent. I'll not stand idly by as you
befoul this temple with your deceptions.
The Burning One remained focused on The
Fetid Prince not
allowing him out of sight.
Those that would
silence do not seek truth,
and there is no greater
deceit than hypocrisy.
(18:13):
Come then. I have no fear of death or
those that serve it.
All serve death in the end. Even you know
if I should fall in battle, I will rise
again in fire and vengeance.
(18:34):
Lightning streaked from the heavens to
meet The Burning One's upthrust hand, but
as it struck, it formed into the likeness
of a crackling greatsword. The Fetid
Prince raised his own hand, clutching his
claw-like fingers closed. The blade of
shadow was laid manifest, dripping its
(18:55):
darkness on the temple
floor like blots of ink.
Half of that is truth.
This time, The Fetid Prince struck first,
rushing at The Burning One in a blur of
speed that I could scarcely follow.
Shadow clashed against lightning as the
(19:15):
blade struck and sparks
were shone from the collision.
In that same speed, The Fetid Prince drew
away from his opponent before he could
retaliate, circled him in a blur, and
struck from another angle.
The Burning One whirled and swung his
lightning blade upwards, slicing a molten
(19:36):
trail in the temple floor before the
following clash. Yet again, before he
could counter, The Fetid Prince darted
away, flanked and rushed in. The shadowed
blade sighed in a whisper. The lightning
blade crackled, and the two bound
together in a blast of sparks.
(19:57):
Out and in, The Fetid Prince darted once
more, this time managing a blow against
one of the golden bracers, severing it so
that it splattered to the floor, stained
with black, hissing with corrosion.
As The Burning One lashed out, it drove
through a temple pillar, toppling it in
his fury. But The Fetid Prince was already
(20:20):
gone. Enraged, The Burning One gripped the
hilt of his greatsword with both hands
and tore in either direction.
The blade crackled, arcing along its
length before splitting in twain, two
blades of crackling gold. He set upon The
Fetid Prince then, hammering down with
(20:41):
both weapons again and
again, hitting nothing.
For as the golden blade struck, The Fetid
Prince stepped aside and returned to his
position in a flicker unscathed.
In a cry of fury, The Burning One raised
one leg and stomped down, catching the
Prince in a shockwave that flung him
(21:03):
violently into a pillar.
The Burning One pressed the attack,
hurling one of his golden swords as a
whirling thunderbolt. Still struggling to
regain his footing, the Prince knew he
could not evade the oncoming gold that
filled his eyes and so crossed his hands
over his chest in a flash, causing his
(21:24):
body to dissolve into swirling mist.
The lightning pierced through the cloud,
buckling the pillar behind it. The mist
coalesced into physical fall once more.
The two beings regarded one another for a
moment in silence and
the prince rushed in again.
(21:46):
Darkness smote light as blade to blade
and flashed in
intervals over the dead below,
illuminating rotted
faces in flickers of gold.
And now among them stood the Lucent
Templar, their steepled
helms devoid of song as life.
(22:07):
Sparks danced in the temple as swords
bound anew, yet with a twist of the
wrist, The Fetid Prince rested the
lightning from its master, sending it
streaking into a wall that set ablaze.
And the temple of El’sabayoth was in
flames then and set
agrow the battle in crimson.
(22:28):
Fire was in the silvered eyes ofThe
Fetid Prince The mane of The Burning One
appeared as if soaked in blood.
Reaching for the heavens, The Burning One
called down another bolt. It struck his
hand as the shadow
blade struck his heart.
Forsaken.
(22:50):
With a single word, the
faintest smile pulled at his lips.
The Burning One still held the bolt in
hand. He struggled to lift it. Trembling
and straining through clenched teeth,
The Fetid Prince waved, watching all the
while as the bolt was brought overhead,
(23:12):
then drove the shadow blade deeper, then
botched it fizzle out.
He withdrew his shadow blades and,
stepping back as The Burning One sloped to
his knees, as the
fire spread around them.
From the wound in his chest, the blinding
veins of black had begun to spread. And
(23:36):
his breath came in the ragged wheezes.
Finish it.
It was finished long ago.
The Burning One groped at his body, then
held his hands before his eyes, seeing
them threaded with blackened veins.
(23:58):
What?
What is this?
That is for your priests to tell you,
those that survived to the north.
Why?
It is a message for your lord.
Deadhaus rises.
(24:22):
And with that, The Burning One reached
both hands to the heavens and lightning
fell upon him in such force that his body
was obscured in the width of
the bolt. And when it passed,
he was no more.
The Fetid Prince stood alone in the
Burning Temple, running his claw-like
(24:44):
fingers along the toppled stone.
Then at once he stopped and tilted his
head in perplexion. Slowly he turned to
face my direction, the direction of the
viewing window, and paused.
Those eyes, like silver coins shone
(25:04):
firelight so intently that I
could almost feel its heat.
You're being watched,
he said at last, and I
felt my stomach lurch.
Impossible.
None have followed. I heard the whispered
voice of the Litrus Bonn. Look closely,
(25:28):
The Fetid Prince said, tapping the claws
of his middle and index fingers
underneath his eyes.
The liche waved its hand, and the window
through which we gazed was filled
entirely with the
image of The Fetid Prince
And there, in the silver of his eyes, I
(25:48):
saw myself reflected, an interloper in
the vision, spying through so many nested
windows across distance and time.
The liche hissed in horrible realization,
jerking its hand so that the window in
the pillar snapped shut, replaced once
more by engraved stone.
(26:11):
It jerked its lantern upward and leaned
towards the reflective
surface of the pillar.
I watched helplessly as it scanned its
horrible face under the blue light, and
then I heard it, like a
whisper in my own thoughts.
(26:32):
“Alaric…. Alaric.” It reached towards its own reflection,
toward me, and as I flailed away from it,
I found myself once more, bolted upright.
I flew from my chambers, needing no
candle for the light of the Blood Moon.
It was just a dream, a nightmare. That is
(26:55):
what I want to believe, but as I write
these words, I know them to be false.
I was seeing through its eyes, just as I
did briefly in the sunken woods. But how?
And in the vision, what can it mean?
Our history says that The Burning One
(27:16):
abandoned us in the first battles with
Deadhaus, but I have seen through other
eyes the hidden truth.
And now I must wonder if The Burning One
stood with us, and where has he now?
Where has he been while
the Dead consume his people?
(27:38):
I fear these matters are beyond my
understanding, and yet I must know.
All this time I thought the gods had
abandoned us, a matter of perspective.
I dare not speak of this to anyone.
There is no telling who
can be trusted at this point.
(27:58):
The light of the First Moon stains these
pages red as I write, as if they had been
drenched in my own blood.
I fear that in time,
they will be.
Alaric von Beller, Grand
Inquisitor of the Thacian Empire.
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