December 6, 2023 • 33 mins
Season 03 - Episode 02.
Alaric the Damned is given a new offer from an old enemy.
Credits:
Alaric Von Beller - George Ledoux
Liche - Joey Sourlis
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.
(00:03):
It has been 220 years,
11 months, 11 days, 11 hours
since the Burning One was struck downby blackened blade.
Even now, the throne of his fatherscorches the skies in vengeance.
I can feel it beyond these walls,withering my blood.
(00:24):
But El’Sabayoth cannot seewhere sunlight does not fall.
That is why he could not save his son--his enemies conspired in darkness--and
so must I cleave to the shadow…
for all of the days that are left to me.
After I awoke from death,I fled the city that I failed.
(00:45):
My lifeless body took me south, to
the ruins of a village razed by Deadhaus.
What happened there… I cannot write of it,though not for lack of will.
There was a child.
I knelt beside her.
I called out to El’Sabayoth, and then…I was walking under the stars.
(01:06):
Before melay the ruins of an old fishing village,
abandoned decades agoat the end of the War of the Yoke.
Beller, the place of my birth…but it lay miles to the east,
and the stars still hung as theydid when I found the child.
The blood has moved me at tremendous
speeds once before,but this time I had no memory of it,
(01:31):
not even the faintest flicker,and this is not what the blood wanted.
I walked soundlessly through mangledremains of dead houses, jutting
from the ground like the bones of beachedwhales under the light of the stars.
And mere starlightwas as morning to my eyes,
though cast in shades of silver.
(01:53):
Even as I stepped acrossthe ancient wharves,
their rotted planks did not groanor shudder underfoot.
It was as if I was without weight,
not really bound to Malorum any more,a mere shadow
passing over its surface.
I stopped at the edge of the platform,
(02:13):
gazing out at a seathat would never be blue to my eyes again.
To meit was a vast and caustic pool of black,
and as the waves lappedat the wooden beams below, the blood
within mereceded, matching their tidal rhythm.
It took
every fiber of my will to standas I did by the sea.
(02:35):
No matter how hard I tried,I could go no further.
I turned to wander once
more in the skeletal ruin of Beller.
One of these empty husks had been my homeonce.
It did not take me long to find it…what was left of it.
The weathered stones of an old hearthsquatted silently
(02:57):
amid a moldering framework,strangled with vines.
I knelt and placed the handthat remained to me on the stone,
each as cold as the other.
Father would let me cookwhatever I caught at this hearth.
His ashes were scattered to the wind.
All those that died here were burnedso that they would not rise again.
(03:20):
The Ustilians too
burned their dead, thoughnot in fire of this world.
At the heart of every Lucent Temple,a brazier kindled flames of gold.
The All-Fire, it was named, thoughcommoners knew it as the Gold.
It was saidto be a fragment of El’Sabayoth’s will.
(03:41):
Visions from the Goldwould guide the Lucent Priests,
and the dead were laidas kindling upon it.
The color of the ashes left behind
was a mark of El’Sabayoth’s judgementupon the lives of those who were burned.
White ash, they believed, came fromthose who were true.
It was scattered as a blessing over crops,
(04:02):
or mixed with the building materialsfor new temples.
Gray ash came from the common man,
he who was true and false.
It was used in the making of ink, that
the voice of the people should echowith those that had come before them.
But black
ash… that the Ustilians did not speak of.
(04:25):
They struck the names of thosethat burned to black from their records
and buried their ashes beneath Malorum,
out of the sight of El’Sabayoth.
After the fall of Ustilia, the templesin the Southern Provinces
were consumed by the dead, their All-Firescorrupted by foul necromancy.
(04:46):
And in the north, Thacearejected the Lucent temple
when it declared independencefrom the Ustilian Empire.
Worship of El’Sabayoth was outlawed,his temples torn down,
the All-Fires starvedwithout a supply of bodies.
Mankind turned its back on their god
because he turned his back on them.
(05:09):
That is what they believed, what they weretold by the Order of the Ashen Ring,
those who rose up
to protect the living from the deadwhere the Lucent Temple failed.
And for a time they succeeded.
The advance of Deadhaus was halted,at least, but they could not drive them
back, could not reclaimthe Southern Provinces.
(05:32):
In the end, it was all for nothing.
The Ashen Ring failed Thaceaas much as the Inquisitors,
and yet I cannot help but wonder… whatif we had not turned from the old faith?
Could the All-Fire
have revealed the corruptionthat festered beneath our streets?
For thousands of years, Ustilia crushedevery conspiracy, every uprising,
(05:57):
and in a mere 220, Thacea was undone.
Perhaps the Awakened wereonly partly to blame… perhaps it was man’s
own pride, thinking themselves as gods,that brought their ruin.
Nevertheless, Thacea would be avenged.
For so long as my unholy form endured,
(06:19):
I would pursue the destructionof the Awakened.
I would hunt them, studythem, learn their weaknesses.
I would kill them all… but where to begin?
I no longer had the resourcesof the empire at my command--no tools,
no network of informants, no laboratory,
(06:40):
only the nascent power of a vampire,
of which I knew little,and the weaknesses that came with it.
The next lesson in those weaknesses,I would soon
find, was fast approaching from the east.
A sudden dread surged through my veins,
rippling, urging me to move.
(07:01):
I stood abruptly, and the bloodsurged again, lurching my legs
so that I stumbled forward, clasping withmy one hand at the moldering framework.
“What?
What is it?” I spoke to the blood,
but its communications were wordlessimpulse.
The rippling strengthened within,like the surface of a pond struck
(07:22):
by rainstorm, a hundred thousandpinpricks of sickening sensation,
and then upon the horizon,I saw it… the light of dawn.
How can I describe it to mortal eyes?
The firmament of the heavens was
as a tapestry setabove a seed of molten gold.
(07:44):
From the east,the constellations were devoured
as the tapestry was set alight,and shadows were blasted
into being, fleeing westward in terrorbefore an apocalypse of gold.
I fell to my knees, awestruck, and then,before I could see more, to my face.
“Forgive me!”I cried out to the molten skies,
(08:09):
though I know not why, and then the blood
surged into my arms,and I began clawing at the dirt.
With one hand and one stump,I tore into Malorum with maddening speed.
I soon realized that I was burying myself,
but as much as this thought terrified me,I could do nothing to prevent it.
(08:31):
Face first into the dirt, thrashingdesperately
to cover myself completely,and then I was still.
Then there was silence.
I could not breathe.
Any attempt to bring air into my lungsbrought dirt instead.
I could not see, and dared not move, lest
(08:53):
some part of mebecome exposed to the burning sky.
Fear gripped me in the quietdarkness of my shallow grave.
You do not need to breathe,I thought to myself.
You are dead already.
But the fear only grew,as if pressing me deeper into Malorum.
(09:14):
Dead and buried.
A nightmare…an existence of pure nightmare.
“The sun cannot destroy you… not alone,”
a voice issued from the darkness,from nowhere, and from everywhere.
(09:35):
My thoughts froze.
I waited in silence, then opened my mouthto reply, only to choke on soil.
“You need only
think… and I will hear.”
“Who are you?”the thought rose from me by reflex.
“You know who I am.
I’ve been watching you.”My blood pulsed in disgust
(10:00):
at this answer.“What do you want from me?”
“I want what you want.”
The conversation was much like thinking
only half of the thoughts, not my own.
“I very much doubt that.” “Doubt is wise,
Grand Inquisitor, but haste is wiser,
(10:22):
for the hour is nigh.” “What hour
is this?” “The hour of the Awakened.”At the mention of my sworn enemy,
my blood spasmed,twitching my limbs. “What
do you know of them?”“I know how to destroy
them.” “How?”
(10:45):
“Come to me, and I will show you.” “Thatsounds like a trap.”
“It would have been no great effortto kill you in the Sunken Woods,
if that is what I wanted.
Or I could have let the ghoul eatyour head--it pleaded with me for that.
But I have ever been your benefactor,
(11:07):
young Alaric.” “Benefactor?
You laid foul magick upon me!” “That foul
magick has protected you from thingsyou cannot
guess." “You haunted my dreamswith visions of horrors!” “In
your dreams, you have haunted me as well.”“I have!?
(11:30):
You… you cannot expect me to believeyou have acted in my interest--you
are an abominationthat feeds on the souls of the living!”
“Souls are the currency of lichcraft,
just as blood is to your kind.”
“I have not fed uponthe blood of the living!” “Oh?
(11:52):
What is ityou think happened in that cellar?”
“I… I don’t know.”“Your mind could not endure the truth,
that you have becomeas I am… an abomination.
But this lingering frailty,
(12:13):
this delusion of conscience, will fade.
In time, you will be one of us.”
“Us… I have barely less hatredfor Deadhaus
than I do the Awakened.” “Deadhaus,however,
did not destroy your preciousThacea.” “You crushed the Ustilian Empire!
(12:35):
You slaughtered Thaceans for 200 years!”
“Thacea played no small partin the fall of the Ustilian Empire.
They could have cometo the aid of their kin,
but they chose independence…they chose power.”
(12:55):
“I know my enemies, liche;you will not confound
me!” “Is that so?
As you hide in this soil now, a young boy
hid in a cabinetjust above you, half a century ago.
He thought he knew his enemies.”
“No…” “He had spent his short life
(13:19):
thinking that Thacea was his enemy.” “No…
no.” “But in timethe truth was revealed to him.
He threw off his old
hatred and saw Thacea as his savior.”“You are my enemy!”
“Even if that were true,I am still the enemy of your enemy.
(13:44):
Why not use my knowledgeto destroy your greater foe,
then settle your grudgewith Deadhaus.” “Destroy the Awakened…
and then destroy Deadhaus…” “You
are welcome to try.” For a long time
I lay in silence, reflecting on the wordsthat echoed from within.
(14:07):
“Where are you?” “To
the south, beyondwhat you call the Deadhaus Gate.
I can guide you.” “No…if you want my help,
if you want me to trust you,as far as such a thing is even possible,
then you must leave my mind.”“I bound our eyes with a touch
(14:31):
in the Sunken Woods,and so must touch unbind them.”
“If I come to you…you will release me from this magick?”
“You have my word.” “Then so be it.”
As I thought this, the liche fell silent,
receding into the depths of my mind,where I could only faintly sense
(14:54):
its presence, an interloper,a faint pressure
on the nape of my neck,like being watched.
I knew that the sun still shone above,yet though the liche claimed
that it could not destroy me,I had no wish to see it again, preferring
even the choking darkness of burialto its hideous glare.
(15:16):
Now and then,the sounds of animals came from above,
but they would not passnear to where I was buried.
A cat came close
once, sniffed the dirt,hissed, and moved on.
Worms, however, had no such reluctance.
They slid over my body,their naked flesh writhing against me,
(15:38):
but where they tapped to taste me,my blood drew nearer to the skin,
and they were repelled,digging deeper and away.
Other insects came and went.
Some investigated,burrowing close to me and tickling
with so many feelers,so many scuttling legs.
But each was repelled as the blood
(16:00):
responded, ever vigilant from within.
As the hours passed,I found that the greater
whole of my blood was slowly shifting.
At first,it pressed down, but also to the west.
But gradually this westernpressing abated, and the blood
pulled only downward.
(16:22):
Then again, in timeit began to pull to down and the east.
I realized this movement of the bloodwas a counterbalance of the sun’s
position above, straining away
so that I knew always and without sightfrom where daylight came,
until at last it strained no longer,and the sounds of night came.
(16:44):
I began to rise from the
soil, tentatively at first,but then, finding the sky full of stars,
I broke free from my shallow graveand stood anew.
With conscious effort,I coughed the dirt up
from my lungs and knockedwhat I could loose from my coat.
The liche had demanded thatI head south.
(17:05):
Was it telling the truth, that Deadhauswere enemies to the Awakened?
The ghoul did killseveral of their cultists.
But why?
What would monsters care to fightamong themselves?
It could be a trick,a plan to lure me for...
for what?
(17:25):
But if it was the truth,then it was my best chance at vengeance,
not just against the Awakened,but eventually against Deadhaus itself.
I stopped at this thought.
Was the liche listening in?
I would wait to plan my vengeance
until after it “unbound our eyes,”as it called it.
(17:46):
For now, I began to head south.
The Deadhaus Gate was days away,
and so my first thoughtwas to acquire a horse.
I followed roads
where I could to the outskirts of towns,but what I found filled me with dread.
Most of them were burning.
The sounds of slaughtercarried on the wind,
(18:07):
as well as the inhuman voicesI had come to know all too well.
Had anyone survived in meaningful numbersagainst this madness?
Was all of the empirebeing overturned from within?
I would think any temple of the Ashen Ringcould still resist, and god knows
what could bring Fort Serenus down… buthad the Awakened taken everything else?
(18:30):
Eventually, I found a village
that was mostly unburnedand saw a stables there.
I crept quietly out of habit,
but of coursethis was no longer necessary.
I’m not sure my feet are even capableof making sound anymore.
Some voicesclamored elsewhere in the village.
(18:51):
An argument?
A distraction.
I stole into the stables,saw the horses sleeping there.
As I drew closer, I could smell
a sweet heatrising from their sleeping bodies.
It was nowhere near as powerful as...
as before…but I knew it to be their blood.
(19:12):
I spoke softly,
knowing that if they should see meso close without sound,
they could startle and draw the Awakened.
“Who wants to get away from here, hmm?”I spoke quietly,
and the horses gently stirred, thoughtheir eyes remained closed.
I placed my one hand along
(19:34):
one of their necks, and its breathshuddered.
Its eyes were darting back and forthrapidly.
“A dream?” I whispered,
and the eyes slid open,swarming with so many burst blood vessels,
red as the ones that sat aboveslanted smiles in the city.
My hand shot back as the creatureshuddered, its voice panicked and twisted,
(19:58):
and then its face--its entire head--peeledopen like fleshy petals,
and so many spindly tendrilsburst forth, choking
the horse-like cries into somethingnot of this world.
“No!” I shouted, stumbling backward,
and that is when I felt the teethclamp down upon my shoulder.
(20:20):
Another of the Awakened horsesstood behind me
gnawing with the teeth that linedthe great petals that had become its head.
As I jerked away,a chunk of me was torn free,
and then the world blurredinto flowing streams of color
and the wind struck me as a gale.
When sight returned to me, I was so far
(20:42):
from the villagethat I could no longer see it.
I had crossed this distancein mere seconds.
I sank to my knees,taking a deep, unneeded breath
as the blood contorted in my gaping wound.
From either side of the opening,steams of crimson
(21:02):
arched, gripping the oppositeend of the wound and pulling it closed.
I could feel the blood dartingand knitting beneath the closed surface
for a time, and then I was without wounds,save for a missing hand.
“Even the horses!?” I shouted
into the dark, and by my shoutingrealized a sudden weakness.
(21:25):
The blood that impelled me from within
seemed to possess less force.
I knew what was happening inside my bodyfrom the experiments
I performed two years ago.
Though I could not see it,I knew my blood was consuming itself,
shrinking inwardso that its volume was lesser by the hour.
(21:49):
The result was a greater difficultyin moving my dead limbs,
but also a gnawing sensation,not quite hunger, not quite thirst,
not quite lust,but some terrible amalgam of primal needs,
a soundless mantracoursing through my veins
as it had through the veins of eachwho bore this curse before me,
(22:11):
flowing from some wretched font
in the dark night of prehistory.
At the same time,
the sounds of the forestin which I found myself seemed sharpened.
Something was moving in the dark,something my blood wanted me to notice.
I rose silently
and crept toward the noise,seeing by the light of the stars a doe.
(22:36):
I was always more of afisherman than a hunter,
but what followed camefrom older instincts than my own.
The doe, even with its sharpears, could not hear my footsteps,
and the blood flowed to my legsso that I approached from behind.
It cried out as I seized it in the dark.
(22:57):
I tried to break its neck quickly,that it might not suffer,
but the blood resisted this command.
Instead, I pulled its neck to my faceand bit it into it,
finding that its flesh yielded to my teethas easily as paper.
As the first spurt of blood
hit my lips,the blood within began to bubble.
(23:19):
I was vaguely aware of the feeblethrashing of the forest creature,
but this was but a whisper next
to the sensation of slick heatthat spilled into my mouth.
My eyes rolled back,
my tongue undulated, writhing under what
I cannot explain as taste alone.
It was flame that flowed as liquid.
(23:41):
It was the stream of life sprungfrom the fangs of death, an impossible
union, pulsing in time with the doe’sheart, pouring down my throat,
not by muscular contractions of my mouth,
but some other force,as if it was simply commanded to.
I felt my blood tremble
(24:02):
as the doe’sstruck it, devouring it from within,
transmuting itso that it became more of my own.
And I saw visions that flickered in timewith a fading heartbeat,
of forest halls flowingpast me in a rush of green, of dew
glinting on grassas beads of lilac under twilight skies.
(24:23):
Then the heartbeat stopped, my arms
flung the doe from mein violent disgust, and I stood in
a daze.
For a fleeting moment, I was whole.
This forest was safe; it was my home,and then the blood of the doe
was no more--only a vampire’s remained,
(24:44):
and the strange sensation left me.
Once more, I was a dead thing,
a stranger among the darkened woods.I wandered then
until I found my way again,back to the roads that led southwest,
and the stars lit my path as numberlesslanterns, wheeling overhead.
(25:06):
I saw Laterum,
gleaming alone as a star with many sides.
I saw the horns of Haruspexclearer than ever I had in life,
so that they seemed unlike horns at all,
but almost like a ring or band.
There was Coluber, an orb of ink athwart
the skies through which no star couldshine.
(25:27):
And blood red shone Vesania,
brightest of all this night,an omen of terrible dreams.
Its crimson light gazed upon me
as I stood outside the battlements of FortZaestra.
I would need to cross the fortif I was to reach the Deadhaus Gate.
It was the only solid groundbetween myself and the Zaestran River.
(25:50):
What I feared were thoseI had left guarding the fort
when I was Alaric von Beller.
I saw their misshapen bodies
patrolling the battlements,visibly deformed even from a distance.
These
wightshad been ordered to protect the fort.
They would not care that the empirehad fallen, that their creator was dead.
(26:13):
They would not careif 10,000 years passed by.
They would walk these wallsuntil their legs were ground to pulp by
the weathering of steps beyond counting,and then they would crawl,
pulling themselves back and forthalong the stones
until their fleshsloughed from their cores.
(26:34):
The irony that I now facedwas that the wights
had been orderedto protect the fort against the dead.
Then again,I was the one who gave the order.
How would they respondif I were to approach them?
Would they recognize meas their master and creator,
or that whichthey were commanded to destroy?
(26:55):
I approached the edge of the moatbefore the drawbridge and called out,
“It is I, Alaric von Beller,” I lied.
“I command you to grant mepassage to the fort.” Two of the wights
patrolling on the wall above stood still,turning to gaze down upon me.
(27:16):
I could see the faintest glintof starlight on the cannons
which had been fitted to themin place of arms.
A moment later, the bridge began to lower,and the artillery wights
resumed their patrol.So they knew my voice,
which death had not changed,but what of my appearance?
(27:37):
I did not know myself what I looked like,having seen no mirror since my death.
I gathered
my hood closely about my headand stepped across the bridge.
A wight stood motionless as I walkedby, slowly turning the winch
to raise the bridge after I had passed.
Whether my distance and hoodconcealed my nature,
(27:59):
or they still recognized meas their master, I know not.
I fear I know less now aboutthese creatures than I once thought I did.
Once inside,I began to survey the fort.
I found no sign of the fewliving guardsmen
that were posted herealong with the wights.
Had they withdrawn during the recent chaosthat had erupted across the empire,
(28:23):
been recalled perhaps?
No… there would not have been timefor this.
It was not until I crossedinto the central courtyard
that I discovered what remained of them.
Their bodies, mangled beyond recognition,
had been arranged in a spiral patternalong the courtyard floor.
(28:46):
Some of the corpses had sproutedspindly tendrils,
some showed no sign of mutation,from what I could discern at least,
but all had been dead for some days.
What in god’s name had happened here?
The Awakened had infiltrated the fort…
they must have transformed hereat the same time as those in Thacea,
(29:07):
perhaps in all the cities,all at once across the empire.
But for these at Fort Zaestra,this would be the last mistake
they ever made.
Yet the wights had no orders
concerning the Awakened;they had no knowledge of them.
Why had they slaughtered them?
Why had they laid them out like this?
(29:29):
As I stoodstaring down at the bizarre ritual,
searching for some sign,some remnant of sanity, a light fell
upon the bodies from above, and the blood
within me seized in absolute panic.
I whirled, utterly unpreparedfor the source of the light,
a departure from all that which is sane.
(29:50):
I can say for certainthat it was not of this world.
Its formwas not bound by any logical structure
or functionas the creatures of Malorum are.
It was a winged thing of only wings,each as great as a windmill’s arm.
How many there were, I cannot say,nor were they arranged in any structure
(30:13):
that indicatedthey might be capable of flight,
and yet the entity hung above the fort,glaring in all directions
with so many massive lidless eyesupon its wings.
And each wing converged to a centerthat was itself the largest of the eyes,
perpendicular to ground, gazing
(30:34):
unguessably into my very soul.
I opened my mouth to cry out,but no sound came.
I urged the blood to take us awayfrom there, but it no longer obeyed me.
It obeyed the entity whose only wordlesscommand was that I kneel.
The wights
rushed into the courtyard then,gathering about me
(30:57):
with their twisted bodies,as if to shield me from the horror.
A pair of artillery wightsraised their cannons.
The last thing I recallwas the blast of gunpowder,
and then the world fled from me,And there was nothing.
Not even darkness.
And my senses returned.
(31:18):
I was in the courtyard,still kneeling before an entity
that was no longer present.
My blood could move once more.
And as I rose to my feet,
I saw that the spiral pattern alongthe floor had been altered.
At certain points along the fleshy arcs,
white cores had been placed.
(31:39):
By their number
I knew them to belong to every wightthat was positioned at Zaestra.
The cores were inert,utterly stripped of the crucible’s light,
something they had been designed to resistfor centuries of use.
In horror, I looked to the sky,but the stars were unchanged.
No centuries had passed,only perhaps an hour or so.
(32:05):
I took a step forward,leaving the strange spiral,
and a familiar voicesounded from within my thoughts.
“I lost you there for a moment, Alaric.
What happened?” “I… I don’t know.”
It paused, quietlycalculating behind my eyes.
(32:27):
“You seem a bit… shaken.”
I thought nothing for a moment… had itnot seen what I had seen somehow?
Could it not extract the memory from me?
Perhaps it was not as omniscientas it seemed,
or at least not in this instance.
“Yes… yes,” I began, my mind racing.
(32:51):
“I can tell that dawn will be comingsoon.”
Again, the liche paused.
Did it believe me?
“I’ve already told you,Alaric, daylight cannot destroy you.
Now make haste.
You are traveling far tooslowly." “Yes, of course….
(33:11):
haste.” I began to move at once,but soon after the voice returned.
“Oh, and Alaric…” “Yes?”
I thought, praying thatthe liche could not read all my thoughts.
“Stay awayfrom any circles like that one.”
I felt my head turn to glanceupon the spiral. “Why?
(33:34):
What is it?”“Something that shouldn’t be there,”
and then it was gone, returned oncemore to the shadowed depths
of my unconsciousmind. -Alaric the Damned
It has been 220 years,
11 months, 11 days, 11 hours
since the Burning One was struck downby blackened blade.
Even now, the throne of his fatherscorches the skies in vengeance.
I can feel it beyond these walls,withering my blood.
(00:24):
But El’Sabayoth cannot seewhere sunlight does not fall.
That is why he could not save his son--his enemies conspired in darkness--and
so must I cleave to the shadow…
for all of the days that are left to me.
After I awoke from death,I fled the city that I failed.
(00:45):
My lifeless body took me south, to
the ruins of a village razed by Deadhaus.
What happened there… I cannot write of it,though not for lack of will.
There was a child.
I knelt beside her.
I called out to El’Sabayoth, and then…I was walking under the stars.
(01:06):
Before melay the ruins of an old fishing village,
abandoned decades agoat the end of the War of the Yoke.
Beller, the place of my birth…but it lay miles to the east,
and the stars still hung as theydid when I found the child.
The blood has moved me at tremendous
speeds once before,but this time I had no memory of it,
(01:31):
not even the faintest flicker,and this is not what the blood wanted.
I walked soundlessly through mangledremains of dead houses, jutting
from the ground like the bones of beachedwhales under the light of the stars.
And mere starlightwas as morning to my eyes,
though cast in shades of silver.
(01:53):
Even as I stepped acrossthe ancient wharves,
their rotted planks did not groanor shudder underfoot.
It was as if I was without weight,
not really bound to Malorum any more,a mere shadow
passing over its surface.
I stopped at the edge of the platform,
(02:13):
gazing out at a seathat would never be blue to my eyes again.
To meit was a vast and caustic pool of black,
and as the waves lappedat the wooden beams below, the blood
within mereceded, matching their tidal rhythm.
It took
every fiber of my will to standas I did by the sea.
(02:35):
No matter how hard I tried,I could go no further.
I turned to wander once
more in the skeletal ruin of Beller.
One of these empty husks had been my homeonce.
It did not take me long to find it…what was left of it.
The weathered stones of an old hearthsquatted silently
(02:57):
amid a moldering framework,strangled with vines.
I knelt and placed the handthat remained to me on the stone,
each as cold as the other.
Father would let me cookwhatever I caught at this hearth.
His ashes were scattered to the wind.
All those that died here were burnedso that they would not rise again.
(03:20):
The Ustilians too
burned their dead, thoughnot in fire of this world.
At the heart of every Lucent Temple,a brazier kindled flames of gold.
The All-Fire, it was named, thoughcommoners knew it as the Gold.
It was saidto be a fragment of El’Sabayoth’s will.
(03:41):
Visions from the Goldwould guide the Lucent Priests,
and the dead were laidas kindling upon it.
The color of the ashes left behind
was a mark of El’Sabayoth’s judgementupon the lives of those who were burned.
White ash, they believed, came fromthose who were true.
It was scattered as a blessing over crops,
(04:02):
or mixed with the building materialsfor new temples.
Gray ash came from the common man,
he who was true and false.
It was used in the making of ink, that
the voice of the people should echowith those that had come before them.
But black
ash… that the Ustilians did not speak of.
(04:25):
They struck the names of thosethat burned to black from their records
and buried their ashes beneath Malorum,
out of the sight of El’Sabayoth.
After the fall of Ustilia, the templesin the Southern Provinces
were consumed by the dead, their All-Firescorrupted by foul necromancy.
(04:46):
And in the north, Thacearejected the Lucent temple
when it declared independencefrom the Ustilian Empire.
Worship of El’Sabayoth was outlawed,his temples torn down,
the All-Fires starvedwithout a supply of bodies.
Mankind turned its back on their god
because he turned his back on them.
(05:09):
That is what they believed, what they weretold by the Order of the Ashen Ring,
those who rose up
to protect the living from the deadwhere the Lucent Temple failed.
And for a time they succeeded.
The advance of Deadhaus was halted,at least, but they could not drive them
back, could not reclaimthe Southern Provinces.
(05:32):
In the end, it was all for nothing.
The Ashen Ring failed Thaceaas much as the Inquisitors,
and yet I cannot help but wonder… whatif we had not turned from the old faith?
Could the All-Fire
have revealed the corruptionthat festered beneath our streets?
For thousands of years, Ustilia crushedevery conspiracy, every uprising,
(05:57):
and in a mere 220, Thacea was undone.
Perhaps the Awakened wereonly partly to blame… perhaps it was man’s
own pride, thinking themselves as gods,that brought their ruin.
Nevertheless, Thacea would be avenged.
For so long as my unholy form endured,
(06:19):
I would pursue the destructionof the Awakened.
I would hunt them, studythem, learn their weaknesses.
I would kill them all… but where to begin?
I no longer had the resourcesof the empire at my command--no tools,
no network of informants, no laboratory,
(06:40):
only the nascent power of a vampire,
of which I knew little,and the weaknesses that came with it.
The next lesson in those weaknesses,I would soon
find, was fast approaching from the east.
A sudden dread surged through my veins,
rippling, urging me to move.
(07:01):
I stood abruptly, and the bloodsurged again, lurching my legs
so that I stumbled forward, clasping withmy one hand at the moldering framework.
“What?
What is it?” I spoke to the blood,
but its communications were wordlessimpulse.
The rippling strengthened within,like the surface of a pond struck
(07:22):
by rainstorm, a hundred thousandpinpricks of sickening sensation,
and then upon the horizon,I saw it… the light of dawn.
How can I describe it to mortal eyes?
The firmament of the heavens was
as a tapestry setabove a seed of molten gold.
(07:44):
From the east,the constellations were devoured
as the tapestry was set alight,and shadows were blasted
into being, fleeing westward in terrorbefore an apocalypse of gold.
I fell to my knees, awestruck, and then,before I could see more, to my face.
“Forgive me!”I cried out to the molten skies,
(08:09):
though I know not why, and then the blood
surged into my arms,and I began clawing at the dirt.
With one hand and one stump,I tore into Malorum with maddening speed.
I soon realized that I was burying myself,
but as much as this thought terrified me,I could do nothing to prevent it.
(08:31):
Face first into the dirt, thrashingdesperately
to cover myself completely,and then I was still.
Then there was silence.
I could not breathe.
Any attempt to bring air into my lungsbrought dirt instead.
I could not see, and dared not move, lest
(08:53):
some part of mebecome exposed to the burning sky.
Fear gripped me in the quietdarkness of my shallow grave.
You do not need to breathe,I thought to myself.
You are dead already.
But the fear only grew,as if pressing me deeper into Malorum.
(09:14):
Dead and buried.
A nightmare…an existence of pure nightmare.
“The sun cannot destroy you… not alone,”
a voice issued from the darkness,from nowhere, and from everywhere.
(09:35):
My thoughts froze.
I waited in silence, then opened my mouthto reply, only to choke on soil.
“You need only
think… and I will hear.”
“Who are you?”the thought rose from me by reflex.
“You know who I am.
I’ve been watching you.”My blood pulsed in disgust
(10:00):
at this answer.“What do you want from me?”
“I want what you want.”
The conversation was much like thinking
only half of the thoughts, not my own.
“I very much doubt that.” “Doubt is wise,
Grand Inquisitor, but haste is wiser,
(10:22):
for the hour is nigh.” “What hour
is this?” “The hour of the Awakened.”At the mention of my sworn enemy,
my blood spasmed,twitching my limbs. “What
do you know of them?”“I know how to destroy
them.” “How?”
(10:45):
“Come to me, and I will show you.” “Thatsounds like a trap.”
“It would have been no great effortto kill you in the Sunken Woods,
if that is what I wanted.
Or I could have let the ghoul eatyour head--it pleaded with me for that.
But I have ever been your benefactor,
(11:07):
young Alaric.” “Benefactor?
You laid foul magick upon me!” “That foul
magick has protected you from thingsyou cannot
guess." “You haunted my dreamswith visions of horrors!” “In
your dreams, you have haunted me as well.”“I have!?
(11:30):
You… you cannot expect me to believeyou have acted in my interest--you
are an abominationthat feeds on the souls of the living!”
“Souls are the currency of lichcraft,
just as blood is to your kind.”
“I have not fed uponthe blood of the living!” “Oh?
(11:52):
What is ityou think happened in that cellar?”
“I… I don’t know.”“Your mind could not endure the truth,
that you have becomeas I am… an abomination.
But this lingering frailty,
(12:13):
this delusion of conscience, will fade.
In time, you will be one of us.”
“Us… I have barely less hatredfor Deadhaus
than I do the Awakened.” “Deadhaus,however,
did not destroy your preciousThacea.” “You crushed the Ustilian Empire!
(12:35):
You slaughtered Thaceans for 200 years!”
“Thacea played no small partin the fall of the Ustilian Empire.
They could have cometo the aid of their kin,
but they chose independence…they chose power.”
(12:55):
“I know my enemies, liche;you will not confound
me!” “Is that so?
As you hide in this soil now, a young boy
hid in a cabinetjust above you, half a century ago.
He thought he knew his enemies.”
“No…” “He had spent his short life
(13:19):
thinking that Thacea was his enemy.” “No…
no.” “But in timethe truth was revealed to him.
He threw off his old
hatred and saw Thacea as his savior.”“You are my enemy!”
“Even if that were true,I am still the enemy of your enemy.
(13:44):
Why not use my knowledgeto destroy your greater foe,
then settle your grudgewith Deadhaus.” “Destroy the Awakened…
and then destroy Deadhaus…” “You
are welcome to try.” For a long time
I lay in silence, reflecting on the wordsthat echoed from within.
(14:07):
“Where are you?” “To
the south, beyondwhat you call the Deadhaus Gate.
I can guide you.” “No…if you want my help,
if you want me to trust you,as far as such a thing is even possible,
then you must leave my mind.”“I bound our eyes with a touch
(14:31):
in the Sunken Woods,and so must touch unbind them.”
“If I come to you…you will release me from this magick?”
“You have my word.” “Then so be it.”
As I thought this, the liche fell silent,
receding into the depths of my mind,where I could only faintly sense
(14:54):
its presence, an interloper,a faint pressure
on the nape of my neck,like being watched.
I knew that the sun still shone above,yet though the liche claimed
that it could not destroy me,I had no wish to see it again, preferring
even the choking darkness of burialto its hideous glare.
(15:16):
Now and then,the sounds of animals came from above,
but they would not passnear to where I was buried.
A cat came close
once, sniffed the dirt,hissed, and moved on.
Worms, however, had no such reluctance.
They slid over my body,their naked flesh writhing against me,
(15:38):
but where they tapped to taste me,my blood drew nearer to the skin,
and they were repelled,digging deeper and away.
Other insects came and went.
Some investigated,burrowing close to me and tickling
with so many feelers,so many scuttling legs.
But each was repelled as the blood
(16:00):
responded, ever vigilant from within.
As the hours passed,I found that the greater
whole of my blood was slowly shifting.
At first,it pressed down, but also to the west.
But gradually this westernpressing abated, and the blood
pulled only downward.
(16:22):
Then again, in timeit began to pull to down and the east.
I realized this movement of the bloodwas a counterbalance of the sun’s
position above, straining away
so that I knew always and without sightfrom where daylight came,
until at last it strained no longer,and the sounds of night came.
(16:44):
I began to rise from the
soil, tentatively at first,but then, finding the sky full of stars,
I broke free from my shallow graveand stood anew.
With conscious effort,I coughed the dirt up
from my lungs and knockedwhat I could loose from my coat.
The liche had demanded thatI head south.
(17:05):
Was it telling the truth, that Deadhauswere enemies to the Awakened?
The ghoul did killseveral of their cultists.
But why?
What would monsters care to fightamong themselves?
It could be a trick,a plan to lure me for...
for what?
(17:25):
But if it was the truth,then it was my best chance at vengeance,
not just against the Awakened,but eventually against Deadhaus itself.
I stopped at this thought.
Was the liche listening in?
I would wait to plan my vengeance
until after it “unbound our eyes,”as it called it.
(17:46):
For now, I began to head south.
The Deadhaus Gate was days away,
and so my first thoughtwas to acquire a horse.
I followed roads
where I could to the outskirts of towns,but what I found filled me with dread.
Most of them were burning.
The sounds of slaughtercarried on the wind,
(18:07):
as well as the inhuman voicesI had come to know all too well.
Had anyone survived in meaningful numbersagainst this madness?
Was all of the empirebeing overturned from within?
I would think any temple of the Ashen Ringcould still resist, and god knows
what could bring Fort Serenus down… buthad the Awakened taken everything else?
(18:30):
Eventually, I found a village
that was mostly unburnedand saw a stables there.
I crept quietly out of habit,
but of coursethis was no longer necessary.
I’m not sure my feet are even capableof making sound anymore.
Some voicesclamored elsewhere in the village.
(18:51):
An argument?
A distraction.
I stole into the stables,saw the horses sleeping there.
As I drew closer, I could smell
a sweet heatrising from their sleeping bodies.
It was nowhere near as powerful as...
as before…but I knew it to be their blood.
(19:12):
I spoke softly,
knowing that if they should see meso close without sound,
they could startle and draw the Awakened.
“Who wants to get away from here, hmm?”I spoke quietly,
and the horses gently stirred, thoughtheir eyes remained closed.
I placed my one hand along
(19:34):
one of their necks, and its breathshuddered.
Its eyes were darting back and forthrapidly.
“A dream?” I whispered,
and the eyes slid open,swarming with so many burst blood vessels,
red as the ones that sat aboveslanted smiles in the city.
My hand shot back as the creatureshuddered, its voice panicked and twisted,
(19:58):
and then its face--its entire head--peeledopen like fleshy petals,
and so many spindly tendrilsburst forth, choking
the horse-like cries into somethingnot of this world.
“No!” I shouted, stumbling backward,
and that is when I felt the teethclamp down upon my shoulder.
(20:20):
Another of the Awakened horsesstood behind me
gnawing with the teeth that linedthe great petals that had become its head.
As I jerked away,a chunk of me was torn free,
and then the world blurredinto flowing streams of color
and the wind struck me as a gale.
When sight returned to me, I was so far
(20:42):
from the villagethat I could no longer see it.
I had crossed this distancein mere seconds.
I sank to my knees,taking a deep, unneeded breath
as the blood contorted in my gaping wound.
From either side of the opening,steams of crimson
(21:02):
arched, gripping the oppositeend of the wound and pulling it closed.
I could feel the blood dartingand knitting beneath the closed surface
for a time, and then I was without wounds,save for a missing hand.
“Even the horses!?” I shouted
into the dark, and by my shoutingrealized a sudden weakness.
(21:25):
The blood that impelled me from within
seemed to possess less force.
I knew what was happening inside my bodyfrom the experiments
I performed two years ago.
Though I could not see it,I knew my blood was consuming itself,
shrinking inwardso that its volume was lesser by the hour.
(21:49):
The result was a greater difficultyin moving my dead limbs,
but also a gnawing sensation,not quite hunger, not quite thirst,
not quite lust,but some terrible amalgam of primal needs,
a soundless mantracoursing through my veins
as it had through the veins of eachwho bore this curse before me,
(22:11):
flowing from some wretched font
in the dark night of prehistory.
At the same time,
the sounds of the forestin which I found myself seemed sharpened.
Something was moving in the dark,something my blood wanted me to notice.
I rose silently
and crept toward the noise,seeing by the light of the stars a doe.
(22:36):
I was always more of afisherman than a hunter,
but what followed camefrom older instincts than my own.
The doe, even with its sharpears, could not hear my footsteps,
and the blood flowed to my legsso that I approached from behind.
It cried out as I seized it in the dark.
(22:57):
I tried to break its neck quickly,that it might not suffer,
but the blood resisted this command.
Instead, I pulled its neck to my faceand bit it into it,
finding that its flesh yielded to my teethas easily as paper.
As the first spurt of blood
hit my lips,the blood within began to bubble.
(23:19):
I was vaguely aware of the feeblethrashing of the forest creature,
but this was but a whisper next
to the sensation of slick heatthat spilled into my mouth.
My eyes rolled back,
my tongue undulated, writhing under what
I cannot explain as taste alone.
It was flame that flowed as liquid.
(23:41):
It was the stream of life sprungfrom the fangs of death, an impossible
union, pulsing in time with the doe’sheart, pouring down my throat,
not by muscular contractions of my mouth,
but some other force,as if it was simply commanded to.
I felt my blood tremble
(24:02):
as the doe’sstruck it, devouring it from within,
transmuting itso that it became more of my own.
And I saw visions that flickered in timewith a fading heartbeat,
of forest halls flowingpast me in a rush of green, of dew
glinting on grassas beads of lilac under twilight skies.
(24:23):
Then the heartbeat stopped, my arms
flung the doe from mein violent disgust, and I stood in
a daze.
For a fleeting moment, I was whole.
This forest was safe; it was my home,and then the blood of the doe
was no more--only a vampire’s remained,
(24:44):
and the strange sensation left me.
Once more, I was a dead thing,
a stranger among the darkened woods.I wandered then
until I found my way again,back to the roads that led southwest,
and the stars lit my path as numberlesslanterns, wheeling overhead.
(25:06):
I saw Laterum,
gleaming alone as a star with many sides.
I saw the horns of Haruspexclearer than ever I had in life,
so that they seemed unlike horns at all,
but almost like a ring or band.
There was Coluber, an orb of ink athwart
the skies through which no star couldshine.
(25:27):
And blood red shone Vesania,
brightest of all this night,an omen of terrible dreams.
Its crimson light gazed upon me
as I stood outside the battlements of FortZaestra.
I would need to cross the fortif I was to reach the Deadhaus Gate.
It was the only solid groundbetween myself and the Zaestran River.
(25:50):
What I feared were thoseI had left guarding the fort
when I was Alaric von Beller.
I saw their misshapen bodies
patrolling the battlements,visibly deformed even from a distance.
These
wightshad been ordered to protect the fort.
They would not care that the empirehad fallen, that their creator was dead.
(26:13):
They would not careif 10,000 years passed by.
They would walk these wallsuntil their legs were ground to pulp by
the weathering of steps beyond counting,and then they would crawl,
pulling themselves back and forthalong the stones
until their fleshsloughed from their cores.
(26:34):
The irony that I now facedwas that the wights
had been orderedto protect the fort against the dead.
Then again,I was the one who gave the order.
How would they respondif I were to approach them?
Would they recognize meas their master and creator,
or that whichthey were commanded to destroy?
(26:55):
I approached the edge of the moatbefore the drawbridge and called out,
“It is I, Alaric von Beller,” I lied.
“I command you to grant mepassage to the fort.” Two of the wights
patrolling on the wall above stood still,turning to gaze down upon me.
(27:16):
I could see the faintest glintof starlight on the cannons
which had been fitted to themin place of arms.
A moment later, the bridge began to lower,and the artillery wights
resumed their patrol.So they knew my voice,
which death had not changed,but what of my appearance?
(27:37):
I did not know myself what I looked like,having seen no mirror since my death.
I gathered
my hood closely about my headand stepped across the bridge.
A wight stood motionless as I walkedby, slowly turning the winch
to raise the bridge after I had passed.
Whether my distance and hoodconcealed my nature,
(27:59):
or they still recognized meas their master, I know not.
I fear I know less now aboutthese creatures than I once thought I did.
Once inside,I began to survey the fort.
I found no sign of the fewliving guardsmen
that were posted herealong with the wights.
Had they withdrawn during the recent chaosthat had erupted across the empire,
(28:23):
been recalled perhaps?
No… there would not have been timefor this.
It was not until I crossedinto the central courtyard
that I discovered what remained of them.
Their bodies, mangled beyond recognition,
had been arranged in a spiral patternalong the courtyard floor.
(28:46):
Some of the corpses had sproutedspindly tendrils,
some showed no sign of mutation,from what I could discern at least,
but all had been dead for some days.
What in god’s name had happened here?
The Awakened had infiltrated the fort…
they must have transformed hereat the same time as those in Thacea,
(29:07):
perhaps in all the cities,all at once across the empire.
But for these at Fort Zaestra,this would be the last mistake
they ever made.
Yet the wights had no orders
concerning the Awakened;they had no knowledge of them.
Why had they slaughtered them?
Why had they laid them out like this?
(29:29):
As I stoodstaring down at the bizarre ritual,
searching for some sign,some remnant of sanity, a light fell
upon the bodies from above, and the blood
within me seized in absolute panic.
I whirled, utterly unpreparedfor the source of the light,
a departure from all that which is sane.
(29:50):
I can say for certainthat it was not of this world.
Its formwas not bound by any logical structure
or functionas the creatures of Malorum are.
It was a winged thing of only wings,each as great as a windmill’s arm.
How many there were, I cannot say,nor were they arranged in any structure
(30:13):
that indicatedthey might be capable of flight,
and yet the entity hung above the fort,glaring in all directions
with so many massive lidless eyesupon its wings.
And each wing converged to a centerthat was itself the largest of the eyes,
perpendicular to ground, gazing
(30:34):
unguessably into my very soul.
I opened my mouth to cry out,but no sound came.
I urged the blood to take us awayfrom there, but it no longer obeyed me.
It obeyed the entity whose only wordlesscommand was that I kneel.
The wights
rushed into the courtyard then,gathering about me
(30:57):
with their twisted bodies,as if to shield me from the horror.
A pair of artillery wightsraised their cannons.
The last thing I recallwas the blast of gunpowder,
and then the world fled from me,And there was nothing.
Not even darkness.
And my senses returned.
(31:18):
I was in the courtyard,still kneeling before an entity
that was no longer present.
My blood could move once more.
And as I rose to my feet,
I saw that the spiral pattern alongthe floor had been altered.
At certain points along the fleshy arcs,
white cores had been placed.
(31:39):
By their number
I knew them to belong to every wightthat was positioned at Zaestra.
The cores were inert,utterly stripped of the crucible’s light,
something they had been designed to resistfor centuries of use.
In horror, I looked to the sky,but the stars were unchanged.
No centuries had passed,only perhaps an hour or so.
(32:05):
I took a step forward,leaving the strange spiral,
and a familiar voicesounded from within my thoughts.
“I lost you there for a moment, Alaric.
What happened?” “I… I don’t know.”
It paused, quietlycalculating behind my eyes.
(32:27):
“You seem a bit… shaken.”
I thought nothing for a moment… had itnot seen what I had seen somehow?
Could it not extract the memory from me?
Perhaps it was not as omniscientas it seemed,
or at least not in this instance.
“Yes… yes,” I began, my mind racing.
(32:51):
“I can tell that dawn will be comingsoon.”
Again, the liche paused.
Did it believe me?
“I’ve already told you,Alaric, daylight cannot destroy you.
Now make haste.
You are traveling far tooslowly." “Yes, of course….
(33:11):
haste.” I began to move at once,but soon after the voice returned.
“Oh, and Alaric…” “Yes?”
I thought, praying thatthe liche could not read all my thoughts.
“Stay awayfrom any circles like that one.”
I felt my head turn to glanceupon the spiral. “Why?
(33:34):
What is it?”“Something that shouldn’t be there,”
and then it was gone, returned oncemore to the shadowed depths
of my unconsciousmind. -Alaric the Damned
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