Empires Fall With The Curling Shadow

[Swgrclan 2682]

[ This is gathered from yesterday's roleplay with Xerxes_XIII. ]

"Time and tide wait for no man."

Ages have passed, and with them, the kingdoms of man. They sprawl across the realms that had been visited, and by either time or by man itself, they fell within a sum of decades -- even years. The clock of the allverse worked against them constantly, for the curse that burned within them refused to recede; and wizards nor the faithful could banish their plight, as a curse was not befit for the machinations of arcane and light. It could not even be touched -- for the curse was only barely malleable by the divines.

But the answers came to others, not to kings and emperors would who only seek to do their subjects good. It came by fire, and draconic truth; from a mind stolen from darkness, bearing secrets passed onto a hidden fellowship that mirror another far in the past. Through the toils of study and prayer, blood came as an answer to one particularly magi -- Valgautr, who bears no face but a mask, and whose visage is known in crimson. He prayed and was answered, and his studies led to an understanding of the curse. But only one understanding could be -- to behold them all would be to go mad. The Fallen One's eldritch secrets are not meant for the mortal mind to harbor.

The day stormed furiously in Valgautr's search; and possible subjects were little to be seen alone, for they crowded in cities and behind their walls for the sake of security. But one came, secluded 'pon the road toward Aldersberg; burdened by the hard rains and the trees that never failed to surround him. Peter Horen came, one of the black dragon's line; he came, and was accosted by a flurry of root and vine; and his demands for clarity by his crimson attacker was met with silence and rare, pious rhetoric before Peter was bludgeoned into a deep sleep brought by trauma.

He was brought into the depths of a forest, where the blood mage could work in pleasing silence and security. Blood was drawn from Peter's bound hands to form a ritualistic circle; the crimson essence painted upon the grasses in symbols unknown to mortal man until the Archdragon came and blessed Valgautr's brethren with them. Once the circle was complete, more blood was drawn in sacrifice.



With his armor torn, Peter was a bloodied mess; half-awake and in pain, his upper-back revealed and harboring a deep wound. Before his eyes could open to survey what he could, a dark agony was afflicted onto the Horen -- a wretched, searing pain that comes from no natural source but magic. It was a reberating burn, and one that did not subside. The constant, furious pain upon Peter was drawn from the malignant manipulation of his captor's abilities; which took hold of the pooling blood, and forced it to contort into a strange, reddened fog -- the essence of blood, picked apart like a sturdy wall's ancient bricks, to become scattered and twisted in form. A light shined deep within the precipice of this essence of creation, and it shined a warm glow -- the heartbeat of life that dwelt the blood of all mortalkind.



But with the light's coming, so did it's shadow. Within the core of the crimson essence's mass came a curling, twisted blackness; a spiteful energy that refused to leave the purity that it invaded. Valgautr was astricken with a fascination in the face of this display that he himself controlled, while his victim writhed in pain; and with little time to control it, Valgautr took hold of this curling darkness within the essence of blood he held, and stoked it like fire - and oh did it spread. It spread until the redness was taken by blackness and the light faded away like a dying white smoke. With it's growth, the darkness was mindlessly furious -- it sought more to spread to, but could not escape the blood mages' grasp.
But the shadow's desires were sated, for the tainted essence of life was cast back into Peter's mortal coil, and there was only more pain this time; no relief.



Peter could not even release his cries of agony, because of the darkness' suffocating spread, but it felt as if the Nether's fire was cast upon him and refused to die out despite his struggles. It was not death that Valgautr's foul magic that would be brought to the once proud noble, but the curse of change; the curse of time, the curse of age. It was a macabre sight as the young Horen's body contorted and shook with the pains of the years forced unto him; his mind remained in the present, but times yet unseen had been forced upon Peter's mortal coil, and deteriorated him until he was but an old man, nearing the age of an elder. No young lingered his person, for the shadow of the curse took him, and lingered his being in constant watch; for this day, the Fallen One's magicks sparked true and worked with power of the blood mage.



The old man was brought to Petrus, dragged like a slave, and cast onto his bridge. Valgautr held his staff close as he made his declarations; his voice a furious boom that stretched across the vicinity where he stood, rasped and proud in the abhorred act he committed.

"His ̴b͢l͜ood͢ ͠w͠ás̶ blacke̕ned ̵by͡ ẁh͡àţ ͠t̷h̷e d̵iv́i̶ne̵s̢ f̸e͜ar!

T͝H͜E ͡E̴LD҉ERMI̡ŃD ͏ST͞IL̴L COM̧E͜S!"

The blood mage left as quickly as he came; leaving Peter to stew in the pain of his stolen years.

One of four had been claimed.

[Glyc 234]

Moved to the Great Library. It shall be sorted into appropriate category shortly.