ScreamingDingo 16992 Popular Post Share Posted November 6, 2020 The End of the Mathic Age The Inferi Incursion battered the military bulwark of the Descendants relentlessly. It had been years since the Qualisheen had been displaced by the initial assaults of the otherworldly hordes, as their forces rapidly took control of the Upper Korvassian continent strangling it into submission. Demonic influence spread across the region with record speed as strange anomalies had begun to manifest, militaries sallied as citizens worked intensely to supply the fighting forces confronting the demonic threat. The Last Light Camp, the Firewatch Alliance, many organizations sacrificed lives and resources combating the infernal hordes of Moz Strimoza. The Descendants had worked for years to prevent the taking of the Skull; an object that had descended from the heavens like an accursed comet. Yet, during the Siege of Aegrothond it was displaced through the eternal horrors of the Hive and transported to the center of the Inferis’ own forward base in the center of the Korvassan encampment they called home. The siege had been the first major defeat of the Inferi on Arcas, where the forces of the False Sultan and the Chained Lord broke upon the walls of Aegrothond after razing Siramenor. With the Inferi deterred from taking the city by its staunch defenders and the many armies of the Firewatch Alliance that had assembled for the city’s defense, the Inferi Hordes were pushed back to the chagrin of the remaining demonic generals. So began the Aengudaemonic Intercession with the strange energies within the Skull of Metztli, and the final assault began with resounding force. Many rumors circulated over the years about the possible return of the Betrayer, or the interference of other aengudaemons who were interfering in the conflict for their own aims. Yet none expected the sudden shift that was coming, the shift that would see the ageless aengudaemons reveal themselves to the world once more. 22nd of the Sun’s Smile, 1792 An old grizzled wayfarer stepped along the walls of Al’Faiz on the eve of a terrible battle. The plates of his armor clanking as the city’s inhabitants echoed faintly from the center of the bastion. Siege equipment was prepared as large ladders stolen from the Inferi by the Descendants were reappropriated for use in their own siege to retake the city. Burns littered the side of the Old Wayfarer’s head as he held a single amulet in his gauntlet; a token with the symbol of a goose folded in steel. The emergence of an anomaly in the days prior had alerted the Wayfarer. Spheres of translucent light flooding from the center of the camp, the beams piercing the night sky above with energy with a strange figure floating at its center. A macabre representation of the power of the contents of the bounty of the heavens, a twisted alien-esque embracing and consumption of whatever was held within the ivory object that plagued these lands. Within the camps of Al’Faiz the Knights of the Radiant Star, an order dedicated to the veneration of the Aengul Malchediael, mobilized in preparation for the final battle. Their tabards emblazoned with the sigil of a golden star. The ordermen set to preparing as they honed their blades upon wet stones and strung their bows, sharpening arrows and fetching rations for the courageous undertaking that was to come. The rest of the Descendants were sent letters alerting them to the necessity of immediate action. The armies of Last Light Camp and the Firewatch Alliance arrived and the Order of the Radiant Star prepared to assist them in the retaking of Al Faiz. The Wayfarer turned his head as they all set out for the battlefield. He watched with suspicion as he saw the Aengul Gazardiael in the distance with a weapon wreathed in fiery light. 23rd of the Sun’s Smile, 1792 The day started with the gathering of the united nations of Arcas to make battle preparations. The various factions assembled to meet with the Order of the Radiant Star to coordinate battle plans with the waylaid Knights of Malchaediel. The equipment was prepared in light of Ser Darius’ plan to breach the central encampment and take the battle to the enemy. The proximity of the Hive to the central camp meant that the Descendants would most likely incur heavy losses upon invading Central Korvassa. This would leave a brutal stain upon the battlefield, but the generals knew that it was necessary. The rumors of what laid within that central encampment was unearthed: it was said that Iblees dwelled within the forlorn Skull of Metztli, devouring her deific essence -- her soul perhaps -- in order to begin the end times. The Inferi were no longer blessed with the fortuitous success they had at the beginning of the war. They had lost many crucial strategic zones and their core leadership was in disarray. Unorganized and trapped in unfamiliar territory, every demon acted to save itself. Once they had all served the sigil of the Pentacle; and while some still used the banners of the infernal Pentacle during their conquests, most abandoned their allegiances when given the opportunity to create their own armies, their own independent power structures. As night fell, each of the nations mobilized after the meeting in Al’Faiz. The Firewatch Alliance gathered their troops prepared for the final assessment. Each regiment brought their ladders and prepared to re-conquest the forsworn lands of Korvassa. The skies themselves shifted as the avatars of the sky bound Aenguls manifested for the final battle. Xan, Aeriel, Gazardiael and Esthael mobilized to assist the Descendants and reject the Inferi forces from the planes of the material They aligned themselves with their corresponding parties and set out to destroy the enemy. As the combined armies trudged over the debris of the dunes; blood, sand and feces littered the ground as they crossed into their final positions. The Inferi forces prepared for the inevitable clash as deep drumming echoed through the air from within their encampment. They screeched in the Infernal Tongue while rising themselves to their feet in preparation to slay the Descendants. Pikes, spears, crude axes and bows were carried by the demons as they began to fire upon the brave invaders. Their armor was crudely decorated with spikes, strange eldritch symbols written in smudged blood. The Descendants approached the trenchline and the two massive armies clashed. The horns of battle resounded throughout the field in great bellows that transcended all sense of distance. Blood and gore sprayed from all sides of the field as men let loose their dying cries, and demons crumbled into ash in prompt disintegrations upon being slain. A human soldier bearing the garb of the Imperial State Army gutted an Inferi as it crumbled to ash which got caught in the soldier’s eyes while a closeby Zar’ei lopped off the poor young man’s head with a simple swipe of its curved sword. The terrible crash of cannonfire emanated from the field as cannonballs rocked the great fortress’ vast walls, the palisades exploding in a vast storm of wooden and metal shrapnel. Metal and flesh singing in sick symphony as the chaos of war descended upon both man and beast. With the screams of battle and the death rattle of many living creatures stirred The Hive. As the Aenguls offered the Descendants counsel, the armes parted ways to commit to each of their respective objectives. The Golden Knight Gazardiael led the vanguard of Urguan across the trenches, the brutal battle ensuing as dwarven hammers and battleaxes pierced against the Infernal hordes. Shields of great gold radiated from his form as arrow fire was rejected through the ethereal barrier which protected the legion, The army encased the monumental ballista with their encroaching shields, swarming over the Inferi remnants as they used its own ammunition against its creator. The gargantuan bolt was swiveled around and aimed into a wall of the encampment, blasting it into remnants of broken wood and chain. The breach was successful by the Dwarven front as the others continued. Xan’s thunderous calls rattled the main battlefield as bolts of crude lightning broke upon the Korvassian Bay. The Aegrothond aligned crew battled against the emerging entities of the horde that dashed across to them, spears and arrows were exchanged as were bloodied blades upon those that clashed together. The siege remnants of the eastern coast of the encampment were taken out with the ship’s own weapons. The xannic led battlehead slamming into the side of the coast as they emerged from it, meeting the strange giant brutes with an invigorating wrath that pumped through their veins. The brutality of Xan was shown through his own extension and by his followers, giants were felled and torn to ribbons through the evisceration of their legs. The gore-ridden display of battle hidden from most descendants, but ever so vital as they approached from the rear. The soul-bound flames of Aeriel exploded from the left side of the battlefield as the Norlandic-Orcish alliance broke through the furthest flank of the entrenchment. These pillars of white flame eviscerating the Inferi in a manner where many had not ever experienced, their armor only saving parts of them as the flooding light pierced every part of their twisted forms. As the Inferi carried their mal-flame, the original force it was based upon was clear to the hordes, that of the fabled soulflame sweeping across the battlefield and piercing the mortal planes for the first time in centuries. The Orcish ballista was carried with this detachment, the Rex and a few ologs escorting the strange fabled stone spear across amidst the battle and violence. From the center of the encampment arised a great stone Gargoyle wrought by the power of Iblees. It shuddered as Eshtael clashed with the infernal being, the Aengul’s scintillating magic light clashing with the beast’s body. Zekul'akudah, the Gargoyle, swept outwards with the Hammer of Urguan and with a powerful blow sundered Eshtael’s arm from the rest of her body. The Inferi screamed jeeringly, taunting the Descendants after the perceived victory as the skies themselves parted and turned black. The Hammer of Urguan awakened once again from the call of Perpetiael after the piercing scream of the wounded Elder Aengul resonated across the field of battle. The lines of the Inferi were broken by the brave charge of the Descendants as they crossed the distance killing demons on foot. The horrifying buzzing of The Hive permeating the battlefield and lingering over the horizon. The hell-bent insectoid demons spilled forth from their nests as Gazardiael took the distraction of the Descendants and his fellow Aenguls to commit an uncouth act. The Radiant Man himself slowly unravelled the staff that dwelled within his weapon. The golden helm directed towards the strange cosmic anomaly as he approached and started uttering his own words. Everything fell into place for Gazardiael, all the work he placed and subjected the mortal planes to for the last decade had finally come to fruition. The macabre anomaly floated in the opaque barrier that deterred all from it, the sheer energy felt through the vibrations that haunted the ground that the descendants stood upon as they clashed with the insectoid horde. The ethereal pull was felt by all of the aengudaemons present, an alluring sense that felt innate within their forms as Gazardiael prepared for the completion of his existence. That of the Golden Weapons, that of Aeriel, Esthael and Xan, even that of himself and the fallen Goddess of Time. They were all present, ready to be absorbed into a singular hivemind that would bring the new beginning of existence. Corpses from both sides fell in piles, the ground slick with blood and ligaments, as metal rattled and spells were loosed. The sky trembled from the weight of the mighty cosmic intercession that was transpiring. This had never happened before, and so many Aenguls had never been present in one place for centuries. The bloody rampages continued on the ground as the cosmic intervention hummed in the distance. Gazardiael lifted his hands into the air just as a resounding shot ruptured his epidermis. The Spear of Brev, an ancient weapon doused in Aengudaemonic essence pierced the Aengul’s avatar after being fired by the Orcish Rex. The Elder Aengul was flung into the monolithic gelatinous egg construct with a terrible thud that caused all to look on in horror as his betrayal was realized. The Aengudaemon wreathed and wriggled, the ancient being paralyzed by the Spear of Brev and entrapped. Ichor bled from his body as it quenched the spearhead, and Malchaediel and the Grand King Jorvin Starbreaker approached. Jorvin squared his jaw and looked at Gazardiael menacingly, before shattering the Aengul’s head with a blow from the Hammer of Urguan. Malchaediel turned and with the Sword of Horen he swept his Aengudaemonic brother’s head off to promptly conclude the matter. A stream of light shot out of the godly being’s corpse as the sky was torn asunder. The Hammer of Urguan melted into a sheen of bright light and force that pushed back all the armies of the Descendants, a resonating clap of divine force that tore apart the encampment, the very fabric of reality appearing to be ripped at the seams. Segments of the ground collapsed into an abyssal void beneath the ground, the Korvassa beginning to collapse as a consequence of fissures as the continent was shattered. Aeriel departed back to her realm in a stream of light, as did the wounded Eshtael. Xan erected four wards to surround the gelatinous egg containing the Skull of Metztli as it began to sink through the ground. The sounding thunderous cracks emerged from the fissures as they stained the very mortal plane, rattling the canopies of the nearby coastlines that encapsulated the Sutican and Aegrothond bays. The surge of gold and sapphire intertwined with the white that spread itself across the Korvassian skies akin to a plague, bubbling and seeping into every recess that encompassed the surrounding area. The Descendants fled the sundered lands with their dead and wounded and began to travel back to their cities. Massive clouds of dust were seen in the horizon as the souls of Inferi escaped back into the High Hells of Moz Strimoza. A terrible rift emerged in the sky where Gazardiael had been slain, an oblique tear representing the kinslaying that had transpired there. Endless gaps in the world were visible as the all-consuming abyss lying beneath their feet was visible through cracks in the ground. The descendants had won, they had stopped whatever terrible event that just transpired from ever happening again. The bulwark of the descendants against a plethora of threats was cemented here, where they defied the heavens themselves and created their own path. Though, the world would never be returned to what it was prior. The fissures of the Korvassa occasionally spewed amassed smogs of black mists and strange anomalies that plagued the area. Storms of blood, earthquakes and other pseudo-natural occurrences plagued the descendants from the aftermath of the divine clash. Those of the Brotherhood of Brev began to write letters to the descendant nations, their own ships now preparing to flee from the world that they stumbled upon. The lands where they laid in seclusion and isolation, those of the Titans that encompassed the Spear and the relics that were exchanged between them. All as a single, plated wayfarer dwelled upon the edges of the Korvassian Fissures. Inferi were seen in the distance brutally murdering one another, bands of the roaming remnants scrambling for what little power and security this realm could offer them. Shuddering echoes of light were seen occasionally, the wrath of entities beyond this realm as they struck upon lonesome Inferi in a fit of rage. The Old Man pressed his lips together as he started to whistle a jovial Kaedreni War tune, all as a single goose followed his footsteps. A single emblem of metal held between his fingers as he looks to the center, a simple remark coming from him. “So ends the Age of Mathic.” 44 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ABruhMoment 609 Share Posted November 6, 2020 The Elvenesse aligned Snow Elf, remembers the miracle shot he hit during the initial strike on the eastern coast. Spoiler 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Valannor 6345 Share Posted November 6, 2020 The Keeper would chuckle, looking back on the events fondly. She had bore witness to the slaying of a God, and the resulting aftermath, and had continued on to tell the tale. "They are called 'Gods,' but when he died, you could not hear his pained cries above the din of battle... Curious." She'd continue onwards on her eternal patrol, resolute in the power of her mortality; or rather, the lack thereof. "Perhaps those crazed cultists were right about something after all..." 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
VIROS 2711 Share Posted November 6, 2020 James II’s dreams are plagued with visions of angels and holy fire—he had witnessed one angel slay another, in contravention to all he had once believed. 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luciloo 2653 Share Posted November 6, 2020 A Drui bowed her head from the walls of Al'Faiz, as the land was ripped asunder and forever blasted and warped. She removed her helm and released a sigh, before turning away, hanging her helm at her hip to begin transporting their wounded back to the Grove, assisted by a Halfling Dedicant and a large hippopotamus. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cheezzy_Garlik 502 Share Posted November 6, 2020 Aghuid Ireheart would run through the forests to Hefrumm, his adopted son Kolmuth Ireheart following closely behind him. Aghuid would finally be free of mind, glad that his kins for would be dessimated, though in midst of his weaving through tree branches, the thought of Durgar Ireheart rattled in his brain. He thought about him for days, not leaving his mind for not even a second “ un day, Durgar, oi well breng back ‘onah tae t’e Oir’earts, wit’ yeh boy moi soide.“ Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AfroJoeTheOlogBro 1093 Share Posted November 6, 2020 The Goblin Rex of Krugmar chuckled to himself, resting in this throne as he reminisced the dying scream of the greatest kill he would ever be apart of in his life time. The sound of Gazardial's failure rung in his mind. "Mi muzt give rulg tuh mi kin, ezpezialli Drekur.....without mi bruddahz, agh all dezendentz, diz viktori wuld nub be pozzible, LUP ZKAHIN KRUG YUH ZKI BLIGHTUHZ!........Mi muzt gyve rulg tuh duh Kin of Brev azh lazt tik buhfore dae leave, tuh rulg them for duh wepun dere anzeztuh left tuh uz." 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThatDutchFellow 1054 Share Posted November 6, 2020 (edited) 16 minutes ago, AfroJoeTheOlogBro said: Mi muzt give rulg tuh mi kin, ezpezialli Drekur..... The Large Olog Alpha of clan Ungri rams his way through buildings and demolishes walls in anger roaring out in sheer rage "HUW DEYRE DOZE PINKEHZ NUB MENTZIUN MI! MI ZHOT DAH ZPEER UB DAT ZKAHIN BREV!" This roaring continues on for a while before a small goblin under service of the raging Olog speaks up that the Rex has mentioned him the Alpha calming down... "BAH ZKAHIN PINKEHZ FURGITTYN DREKÜR'UNGRI KLOMPAH UB ENROHK!" Edited November 6, 2020 by ThatDutchFellow 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riftblade 849 Share Posted November 7, 2020 Several weeks passed since the fall of the infernal bastion that was built in the Korvassa. A handful of men donning burgundy tabards, whose fronts have golden stars embroidered onto them, sit around a campfire with a spit fixed over it.Boisterous laughter erupts for the shortest of moments from these men, quiet chatter follows in its wake, and the laughter would thereafter return. A flaxen haired man looks upon a nearby standard fixed into the scorched Korvassan soil; the burgundy flag flies proudly in the breeze, presenting its own golden star to all who'd look upon it. This same man looks to his comrades and speaks. "There's still work here to be done. Isn't that right, brothers?" To this, the other men nod. There was still much work to be done: it was something they all knew. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jake the Dog 290 Share Posted November 7, 2020 Velu planted the banner of the Imperial State Army firmly upon the shore, watching the havoc which was Korvassa. Despite everything, she made it once more through unharmed, the flag by her side pockmarked and damaged from arrow, malflame, and acid, but herself suffering only a dusty uniform. She offered a nod to those who made it through the ordeal alongside her. "Good work, gentlemen. Best see to the wounded, and remember the fallen." 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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