THE GLASSING OF WINBURGH

[Lord_of_losers 955]

The crumbling, molten remains of Winburgh circa 1966.

 

In the Imperial year 1966 the Grand Covenant intended to make good on The Winburgh Proclamation; to tear down the city after years of brutal conflict, and in its place erect a monument to wars past and present for peace, and for commemoration. But nobody said exactly how it needed to be demolished.

 

It was by invitation that Hohkmat heard that there was to be a razing, and as sure as the sun will rise - you can always count on pyromancers to be present where there is fire to be set. A handful of magi, carefully selected by the Chamber of Fire, were to set out from Hohkmat's gates, and ride to Winburgh. Upon arrival, they would soon find more casters to add to their number. The magi prepared to weave their grand spell as the Covenant set about looting and setting fires of their own... There was but one request, from King Aleksandr II himself - "The Church in the centre must niet be touched." - A fitting end for a city that razed churches; to be itself razed, save for its church.

 

An entire bag's worth of focusing crystals had been ground into a fine dust in the name of this objective, then carefully sown about to create the expansive circle that would act as a conduit for the flow of mana. Atticus, not alone - but with the help of many - was to make manifest a new feat of High Magic...

 

"Magi of Hohkmat, heed me!" Called the acting commander of the Hohkmati rally.

 

"Today we bring ruin upon this pitiful, blighted city. From nothing it was raised, and to nothing it shall damn well return."

 

"Atticus! Save for the church... Burn it all to the ground." A self-satisfied grin twisted onto her face. Sarah had been here before, as had many of her fellow Hohkmati, when they were forcefully taken from the streets and their homes; rounded up like animals by a horde of Veletzians, Urukhai, and Ferrymen. That memory, along with the city, was soon to be cleansed by purifying fire. Vengeance comes hot, but it burns slow. She had waited a long, long time for this.

 

Masters, adepts, journeymen and spellblades alike knelt to place their hands against the ritual circle, seeking to grant unto Atticus the power to turn even the very stone itself to ash. Power beyond what any mortal could truly hold alone surged into him from the collective effort of all in attendance, elevating his capacity into the perceivably divine; for how else could you describe the power to level cities?

 

It swelled into existence as a great torrent of flame. Embers floated on the wind, the skies themselves cracked and the air was tainted with the unmistakable sting of ash. Lungs surely burned with each laboured breath of the rapidly exhausting sorcerers. Blazing colour burned into the air until at last the spell reached its peak, giving birth to an indescribable cascade of blue fire that reached into impossible sixth tier - perhaps the seventh tier - of magic.

 

On this day, those in attendance bore witness to Reinhold's Burning Pyre.

Spoiler

 

Thank you for all those who attended, and a big thanks to @BobBox for picking up the empowerment ritual ticket with such short notice.

This was truly gamerific.

 

[ToodIes 1197]

It had been fourteen years since Cerusil’s raid on Hohkmat. Fourteen years since she’d waited, frozen with terror, to hear if Sarah would leave Winburgh alive. 

 

Today, she had it razed. She had liquefied its foundations. Nothing would grow in this part of the Midlands. Her wife and her Chamber had seen to that.

 

This is my revenge. Not a knife in the dark, but a city reduced to ash. Glorious, fiery, honest victory. A shame you’re not here to see it.

[PrimnyaQuorum 1039]

The pyromaniacal Lord-Magister of Paradox watches the inferno from a distance, an unusual sensation swelling - Jealousy. 

 

For now, Atticus has earned his congratulations and respect - in time, however, he knows it must be outdone.

 

He turns away from the distant Reinhold's Burning Pyre, and wanders off his own way. 

[Haseroth 953]

A youth traversed the smoldering remains of th voidal blight. He kneeled besides a crumbled tavern, tugging at a piece of searing brick. He held the stone despite the pain it caused. An act meant to finalize a chapter of this continent, only ultimately planted the seed of future tragedy. The youth gazed up towards the smog filled sky, vengeance would be had. All in good time.

[Destructokeith 621]

The Flamebringer watches in awe as his once student levels the castle of his enemies, he looks to his golden rings then back the pure voidal power "ich need ein new ring" he mutters as he watches the molten remains of the castle all night, the city burning to ashes around him.

[Hom 528]

The sheer scope of the spell had left Atticus reduced to a fevered state, in its wake- Though his mana pool was depleted to wisps, his temperature had skyrocketed after the last of the flame had been drained from his body. It's not an easy thing, not a simple thing, to control such a ritual. The slightest backfire, the disconnection of one mage, and it all folds back in on the caster.

There was a single moment, at the apex of the spell, where he held something terrible. Enough flame to raze a city, boiling in his veins. He felt it under his skin, like he was burning alive, as the shifting colors of the fire around him rose in a terrible crescendo. There was more magic in him than he could contain, more energy in his head than any one man should wield. He didn't know if he could remove it from himself fast enough- He realized, in a terrible second, that the slightest falter of his focus would be the end. A single waver, and the power stored within his body would bubble his skin and incinerate his bones, dashing him like ash to the stone beneath for daring to try and direct it. One blink, one hesitation, would be all it would take. He was not wielding this power- He was terribly, and truly subjected to it. A single speck of breathing life in an inferno, daring to try and control it, to trap it. Under such crushing weight, he felt himself slipping. He had to cling to something to keep his focus intact, teeth grit and hands shaking as the fire continued to pour from him.

He fixes upon the subject of his spell- He fixates upon the keep. He wonders if that was where they had all gone, when they were taken. Before the war even started, before Hohkmat had fought in any battle, before they had done anything to earn Veletz's ire. He wonders if that's where their people were marched, bound, harassed, beaten- Ears cut, hair sheared, threatened and executed. He wonders if it is there, where Wilford's life was almost taken once- Twice- So close to the cliff's edge of losing him, irrevocable, terrifying. He wonders if it was there, where his sister sat in fear, taken as a civilian who'd never touched the battlefield. Atticus had been ordered to burn the keep of Winburgh. But he wanted to do it, too.

 

He wants to warp the glass that watched his husband beaten. He wants to melt the stone Faeran bled upon. He wants to incinerate whatever cell they may have kept Angelina in- He wants to turn ashen any floor where Orion was forced to kneel, where Wren was made to beg, where his friends and neighbors were made to fear. Hohkmat never started this war. Not when it came to them, alone. The first attack upon Hohkmat fell long before the drums of war sung. Now, they answered it in earnest. Now, they closed the book on their own terms.

 

It is that thought which steels his mind and carries the spell to completion, a sense of determination and control that briefly forges into iron, and rips the arcane power out of his chest and into the air. A paradoxically cold anger, steady, purposeful. His mind is gone, one with the flow of energy through his body, single-minded on guiding it away from a soul it could harm. And then, when it's all over- It returns just as quickly, like air returning to his lungs. In the blink of an eye, the Winburgh keep is rendered to glass. A home, to some. A symbol of terror for far, far more. In some part of his chest, still, he wishes it hadn't come to this. He wishes those who had seen it as a home, nothing more, could have been the ones to rule it. 

More than that, though- He knows there is no changing the past.

 

And that finally, knowing there will never again be a place for his family to be tormented- He can sleep.

 

Spoiler

 

[tezzaract 117]

Tragically, with her skygod tormented by the awful phenomena known as time-zones, Angelina had been unable to bare witness to the godlike feat her younger brother had performed that day. But she had heard the tale, and pride was not a strong enough word for the emotion she felt towards Atticus. The progress he'd made, from such a timid, unassuming young man in his youth, to one capable of leveling castles - well, she ought to throw him a party, or ten.

 

And in the night following, she picks her way across the river to what remained, and palms a chunk of still-warm slag for a souvenir. And another. And another. Say, do you think there could be a market for genuine Winburgh glass?

[Rhettthecoldone 63]

A long time it had been since Faeran stepped foot into the surrounding settlements. The only thing he could quite remember was the terror consuming his visage upon entry. His eyes ventured the scene wrought of a twisting, ethereal heat. Colors he hadn’t imagined before danced through his ‘Ker-toned skin, originating from the torrent of hissing, Voidal flame above in the clouds.

 

Perhaps it was the burning pyre above, or the dreadful familiarity of Veletz that had caused his sharpened facial features to twist. A grimacing affinity about the man had obviously set present as the most purest forms of his mana shred off towards the bearer of energies, Atticus, his brother-in-law.

 

His hands set forth to harbour a darkened energy, smokes of a negative shadow whistling from his fingertips and shoulders. It was as if nature’s graceful breath extinguished a metaphorical flame about him, leaving trails of ebon exhaust to wriggle towards the flame-bearing sky. Mentioned smokes of negativity brought forth a light of sorts. A thrumming fizzle of bright illuminance gently departing from the dark. Shreds of moonlight delicately set onward, traveling with the apathetic movement of sluggish ocean waves. They met towards Atticus, fueling the man’s very figure with foreign mana.

 

And at that, the spell was satisfied. Its hunger gratified by a selection of magis’ mana.

 

In a quake of bolstering temperature and overpowering effulgence, that dream-like, elven man crashed to the floor in a heap of exhaustion.

 

He wasn’t quite unconscious, though he wasn’t fully there in the moment. Faeran’s silver eyes graced the fume-filled area as he dazed back into a pool of memories. Beside him… where the ritual was done… he took note of the oozing, melted building that used to be the local clinic. 

 

It was where Wren took her last breath. Where the crimson seeping from her wounds spilled far too much. And then to the grasslands onward… where he was coerced to watch Wren’s lifeless body whittle to darkened, hovering ashes in an assortment of logs and tricking heat. Maybe at first his decision wasn’t clear about his thorough intentions. Was he performing the ritual by order? Or was he fueling the spell to watch his past burn away. Deep inside him, he thought. In fact he did wish this place gone. He wanted every memory, every thought of Veletz crisped away to a fine rubble. Faeran wanted nothing more than tragic death for this dreadful place. In no way had he felt even the slightest regret. All he wanted was death. Death and revenge.