A Plane Beyond | War.

[Valannor 6345]

 

[!] A depiction of the Besieged Realm, during an infernal assault upon one of the central cities. 

 

[!] The events detailed hereon out are not common knowledge, known only to the Barrowlord of the Empyrean, serving to document its journey through a far flung realm. 

---

 

War. That is what Atzudeth awoke to, when It had recovered from being hurled through space, and through time. Its husked form crashed against the soliloquy of a thousand cannons roaring, into the dirt and mud and blood as the howls of aberrant beasts assaulted its dulled senses - memories kindled of the . Its masked face arose, and it was met with all the carnage and viscera that the maddened fantasies of some sick delinquent could muster, devil hordes crashing against a shield wall of mortal men, titanic beasts held back through the drumroll of artillery battering their scarlet forms, cannon shells burning craters through muscle and sinew until hearts were rent asunder. In the midst of the violence, that unhallowed script would be stowed within the Barrowlord’s armor, and it hauled itself to its feet with the aid of its staff, caught between the armies of men and the hordes of some infernal shore. Hushed words and invocation of spectral power would cause It to vanish from sight, and it walked among the battlefield as a specter of foreign realms; souls dwelt upon the field, mere morsels to satisfy the desire for bloodshed, stamped out beneath cloven feet. 

 

Atzudeth lent what aid it could, without revealing its presence. Murmurs of advice and warning when most required, a trick of the light to draw the attention of the fiends from the wounded. Soon, it departed from the frontline, as the stars wheeled overhead and a vermillion dawn soon rose, blanketing the land in that tepid radiance. It walked, trudging through the barren plains for what felt like hours until it came upon the walls of a settlement- a city, ringed and fortified, with numerous ballistae and cannon emplacements lining the parapets. To evade the gate watch was a simple task, the embrace of the ethereal carrying it through the crowds and with little incident, and what It found within was a stark contrast to the horrors that lay upon the blood-drenched soil. Though little, hope was kindled in this place; the market stalls were replete with all sorts of odd goods and flora, children and womenfolk of all sorts wandered the streets with a dampened candor. The city seemed a bastion, far from the din and ken of the battlegrounds where devils laughed and good men died. The winding streets were explored with laxity, and clad in the shroud of ectoplasm to shield it from sight, the Empyrean would soon find itself before a church, erected in the name of some unknown pagan god. The tongue and script of this realm was unfamiliar, yet strangely elegant nonetheless, with written words being fashioned of harsh angles and fine curves to form an alphabet the Barrowlord could seldom fathom. 

 

Days could have passed, months, years, and the Lord would not have known. Time fled as a concept, trapped in the macabre wonder in this world forged by war, and it found itself within a vast graveyard, as large as a field. Headstones and crypts littered the verdant, well-kept soil in the thousands, yet one stood taller than the rest; a vast spire, a dozen feet high, wrought then of finest marble. Atzudeth approached, and soon, it found itself as a supplicant before the monolith, the depiction of a stoic man carved deeply into the rock, alongside a litany of scrawlings and obituaries. The script of this land eluded it still, but the Lord understood the grave nonetheless; the first man to fall, from this city, in the eternal war which it waged for its very right to exist. Its hand lofted, placing itself against the rock, and it bowed its forehead against the marble - and in lowest of tones, it sung. Oceanic arias filled the yard in mournful sorrow, as that Empyreal lord sang for a life that could have been, and the love lost in the malefic flames of the hell which was loosed upon this realm. 

 

When it next lifted its gaze, however, it found itself back home. Away from that grave of a noble soul. Static lingered in the air which was so soon to fade, as the Lord dwelt upon that which lingered in the cosmos beyond.