Fire Melts Ice - The Path of Asioth

[Qizu 4038]

FIRE MELTS ICE - THE PATH OF ASIOTH

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It was a day like no other for the elder herald, but alas it was time for him to continue his ascension onto the path of Asioth. His second task was to solve the very thing in which he struggled. To split the waters of what is good and what is bad, so that there may be a path between. This line would not be one of peace as there is never truly peace, but one of equilibrium. Once he had made this divide within himself, he was to bring another with freeing them from the battle of good and evil, but of equilibrium.

With his path set before him the man did not hesitate to begin. Gathering his possessions from the wayside tavern in which he sat he made haste to find one he had known his entire life. One he had known to have a heart of hate, of evil, and a mind of corruption. With determination the two would set off towards the destined location, one unknown to the other but alas it soon would be.
 

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As the two set off into the lands of the North many questions plagued their minds. Each specific to their own, small conversation was exchanged but nothing detailing the future that awaited them. Perhaps it would be death, or perhaps that of being born anew. Whether it be the frozen creeks, rivers, or lakes, or the ice covered hillsides they persisted. With every step a footprint was left behind, and with the next the winter storm erased the last. Much like before small talk was exchanged but the further they delved into the winter before them, words would become muffled and erased in the howling winds. This trek continued onwards, and through grit and persistence the two arrived at their location; a mountain alike no other.
 

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The climb began at once. Starting at a slow, crawling slope the two would begin to make their way up the mountain. With each step that they took the ice would grow deeper into the rock. With each breath that was taken more air would go out then received. This climb would perhaps be the most enduring part of their journey but whether that was true or not would soon be decided.

Eventually making way to the top of the mountain the man would remove the very clothes that kept him warm, before settling himself down amidst the snow below. The only thing protecting his skin from the biting winter winds and snow would be that of layman clothing, a simple shirt and trousers. “You're going to freeze to death!” the companion called onto him but he responded, “We both will - ”.  Alas his companion had settled with him atop the mountaintop in a similar fashion, exposed to the wrath of winter, exposed to an encroaching death. Only then, did the conversation begin. . .
 

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“You feel as if you are a slave to the world around you?” He’d ask with a perked brow towards her, “Why is that?” He'd ask.

“I can't escape,” she warbled. She shifted again, turning to close her arms atop her chain-clad waist. “I want to be free, Tobias. Back to how I once lived - at least, ignorant. Everything,” she crowed, lifting her limbs toward the night. “The material plane . . . The Void, the Abyss, Death, the Nether -- why do they exist? How? If not slaves to these behemoths, are we not just insignificant dots?”

“What has changed from what you once lived as before?” He inquired as he crossed his arms, the cold would continue to set into his body. A thin layer of ice manifesting at the tips of his fingers.


Her voice grew quiet, like a babbling brook beneath ice. She tremmored, breaking away the layers of snow that'd gathered atop her shoulders. “I've lived among the living, I've lived among the dead. I cannot tell . . . What is real,” that elder wept, clinging to one, bruised arm. “What is righteous, what is not. I feel wicked, and yet . . . In pursuit of my old life, I've only grown more estranged from it.”

“You are a wicked being, you must accept that.” Pleaded the man in a croaking voice. His body would slowly begin to tremble as the night grew dark, and the ice thicker. “Why would you wish to pursue something you once were, when you can become something entirely? Why must you cling to what you once were in the past when you can pave a future for yourself.”

Her eyes screwed shut, resisting the cold whips of wind that battered the desolate mountaintop. She shifted, and then fell still, a cold tear dribbling down her her cheek, only to freeze. “Life was simple . . .” she sniffed. “I lived . . . Happily. A -” she rasped, interrupted by a harsh hack. Her voice was caught in her throat, though she continued. “You - when I - you . . . Every time I see you, I see him. Worshipping Asioth and making dumb jokes, and - I slaughtered him for those bygone wraiths, for Tichar. Oh . . .” By now, it'd seemed she'd fallen into some deranged sob, her speech too broken and choked to understand. “Why can't I go back?”

“You are one of the darkness.” He would say with a firm nod. His flesh would slowly turn white, the death of coldness was slowly setting in, “If you do not change, we are to die here.” He would say to her with a grim look, “Do not seek to become what you once were. Seek to become something that you can be proud of, something that you can control. By following this path of darkness, one that I have followed myself, as you know, takes things away from you. Your family, friends, everyone around you has your darkness casted onto them. You are a murderer, a follower of darkness, this darkness has spread onto us and onto this very mountain top where we will die with it.”

 

“No - no!” She barked, bolting up. Her joints groaned against her weight, nearly sending that elf toppling over. She tremored, looking down at the man with a jarring stare. At once, she sought her extra cloak, messily flopping it down atop him in some hope of keeping him alive. “This isn't . . . T-This is a nightmare. If no -- if no . . . Stop acting like a fool, Tobias. It’s the cold that's killing you, not my misdeeds.”

Grabbing the cloak she put on his body he would grab it and throw it up into the wind currents above as it flew away. “You see, when you abandon the world around you to follow that of darkness or light you lose everything. You know this as you have lost friends and family, and now you are to lose me as well. I beg of you to find something within yourself, to burn away this encroaching darkness. Rid it of your body-” the man would fall silent as the cold set in deeper and deeper. Only small compressions would be seen amidst his chest where his body slowly operated on it's last straw.

Her teeth began chattering as wind whipped against the two. She went to grab ahold of his collar and shake him, furrowing her brows at the man she'd known for decades. “Tobias - I was rid of it - long ago. Are you going to die for a point that's already been proven?”

As the man’s body was shaken he would shake his head ever so slowly, “You have done nothing to change, you have only been taken from. Will you change? Will you-” he would close his eyes as a grin fell upon his face as he awaited, whether it would finally be death or an answer only she could decide.
“I . . . Have been. I just' don't know how. I waded in Purgatory's depths for almost a decade and came back, and yet - yet, I still have fear.”
 

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The man's smile would soon fade as his body began to grow cold like that of the mountain in which they sat. He would remain like this, slowly breathing in his final moments of life. Many memories would flicker in his head, of his children, his friends, his wife. As snowflakes littered the man's exposed body all grew quiet. The winds howled one last time and the last snowflakes fell that night. That is until a small cracking noise was heard nearby the two. The darkness that had slowly crept in was soon disrupted by a small flame in the nearby fire. This flame grew larger and larger as the man sat next to it. His eyes would finally open. It was at this moment that the man had truly feared death. As it was told to him earlier that day, only he decides when things come to an end, this phrase echoed within his mind as he chose to go on his journey to the top of the mountain. His companion he had brought with him, one who has fallen victim to the dark after so many years, was only a visage of what he once was. He plagued the world around him with every action, with every word, with every thought. All of this persisted within himself, only to be casted out onto those around him like a plague. When one falls into that of dark or light we lose ourselves, we lose control, we lose the very thing in which we call ourselves.

Her frame trembled as she watched his frame still. Snow gathered around her feet, still as a statue - she was staring at him with wide, unblinking eyes. That woman, her once-iron will ground to smithereens from post-traumatic stress over the dreadful century she'd been alive, couldn't seem to comprehend this - nor, that he truly hadn't died. This had happened many times before, too many; Alaric, Jacquelyn, Derik, Elene, Awaiti - not again. She spoke not a word as her dagger slid out from its sheath, and like a viper's strike, sought to drive it within her own platemail-clad stomach in a desperate attempt to end what she thought had been a nightmare.

As the man’s frosted head turned towards her and saw her soon to be demise, he reached out to grab her arm. His horrid voice spoke out to her, it was consumed with breaks and cracks but the message remained the same. “Only HE can set you free.” At that the fire before them would soon form a commonly known image, the eye of Azdromoth. The flames danced around one another as this image was formed, and there it would continue to crackle and unwind as the display of flames remained persistent.
 

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The companion that he had brought that day broke into a sob. The blacksteel dagger she sought to strike herself with found it’s way clattering toward the floor as her knees buckled from the cold. Her arms reached out to loosely keep ahold of him in a weak embrace, her choked cries and howls too great of a volume to allow her to speak. Flames illuminated her taut face, wrinkled by woe - Viktoriya wasn't quite in her right mind to listen, nonetheless respond.

With a shaking finger the herald pointed towards the fire. The eye would grow brighter and brighter into the night sky. The man's finger would remain pointed towards it, not budging as the girl began to weep. A tear of his own would gracefully fall down his cheek of happiness as he broke through the night. “Through him, I have escaped the monster inside of me. Through him, you will escape the monster inside of you. Your darkness, your hatred, let it burn in his fires my friend.” all went silent as the two looked upon the stars. What arrived shortly after was only to be expected upon the mountain top that night.
 

“Let his flames melt the ice that is darkness in your soul.” and at that, she did.

 

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Spoiler

((THIS POST IS ONLY ACCESIBLE BY @Ryloth))

 

[Ryloth 4312]

 

 

After sending forth Sir Tobias de Sarkozy upon his quest along the path to Asioth, teacher sat silent as student trekked into the world. The task: convert one who opposes the Titan, or slay them where they stand. He could have chosen anyone: holy knight, necromancer, druid, or demon yet Sir Tobias did simply find one so wicked and strange -- he chose a friend who was wicked and strange.

 

As Haskir sat pondering the moments when the Sarkozy had left the gates of San Luciano, he wondered for a minute if he'd return. He was certain Tobias would -- why send a student to his death?

That very same night, Haskir watched the fall of an armsman of Savoy, felled by an otherwise innocent trio of orcs assaulted by the people there, Savoyard men who sought to demand these green-skins kneel before their all-mighty God. This man -- one who had moments before shook the pantera's hand, a man of honor and courage who had fought hours prior against an interloping beast on the beaches afore -- lay dead. So thin, that thread of life.

Thinking of Tobias and the armsman, he settled down against a barrel on the street side. Gazing up, he saw the same stars they bore witness to atop that frigid mountain so far away. He felt at peace -- as did they. 

 

Now he awaited his herald's return -- perhaps, a convert in tow.

[HurferDurfer1 2584]

cant escape the coffin qizu