Smoldering Ember, Burgeoning Flame.

[TheWhiteWolf 1096]

Smoldering Ember, Burgeoning Flame.

11th of the Deep Cold, Year 178 of the Second Age

 

 

Spoiler

 

 

[The following is not known IRP with the exception of those who were there to witness it]

She had not known what to expect, she had some grand ideas of what that blessed realm of Xion, the Abyss, would be but the truth was all the more greater than she could have ever hoped for, an experience that would shake her to her core and stir emotions long forgotten. 

 

She shifted through a wavering rush of gravity, space reorienting around her amid utter blackness. Then, depth. Shape. The skies roil with dark clouds of necrotic storms, desiccated trees carve the landscape of ebony dunes and sooty Aegisian ruins, and therein peace. She could taste, feel her heartbeat. She was graced with the subtle breeze on her phantom skin and felt life as she had once known it in ages past all rushing back and snapping into place.

She could feel the weight on her feet. A Pulse. Breath. A Heartbeat. Her memory of these bygone feelings becoming as real as can be. In this moment she was overcome with sensation, hope. Her faith utterly rewarded after all these long years of service in pursuit of an ideal, an idea, a blessed place that could only be dreamed of even when she could no longer dream.

In the distance swirled an obfuscating haze, the land itself leaking with endless visible lifeforce. It was a stark, monochromatic black-stained wasteland. And therein, a black heaven. A place for restful, peaceable dead. And it was in these moments that her mind was no longer a tumultuous sea of discordant voices all clamoring for attention, her mind was still. Silent. Calm. She was at peace for the first time in unliving memory.

These blessed lands had changed her outlook, changed her mind, thoughts.. she had strayed from the path and for too long had she allowed the Synod and her Children to go shattered in direction and purpose. She stood afore the unliving Drakaar, that Lord of the Abyss and found new purpose in his service. 

Words were exchanged, Plans made, threads of fate plucked and pulled to the benefit of this immortal being.

And in the end, she would seek her leave from this blessed domain though not before seeing a Soulbound Lantern, a Prison.

 The Fate of the Herald of Embers. With this knowledge she knew what had to be done. So mote it be.

The Shadows Lengthened. She returned to the Mortal Realm.

[The following missive is sent far and wide across the Mortal Realm, delivered in the dark of night by flocks of phantom Ravens]

 

"Here us, one and all, the Sons and Daughters of Mortal Kind. For too long have the four Heralds of the Dissentious Way been absent, idle, slumbering away from the affairs of the world. But times are changing, the Dark rises and the Light begins to fade. A resurgent Xionist Faith rises, once a smoldering ember loosing its warmth it now begins to burgeon into a raging flame that casts its warm embrace over all of Mortal Man."

"We should not forget our roots and where we have come from, though the Heralds of yore have been silent, we should not forget that when all was thought lost they kept our ways alive. Even now, new Heralds rise to take the mantles and usher in a new age for all. The Heralds of Umbrage and Strife have been named, Oaks is being sought as we speak which leaves that of Embers left. We have discovered the fate of the previous Herald of Embers, Azazel the Doused and they are lost to us."

"So it is we proclaim such, we Vorztrok, Barrowlord of the Sixth Synod hereby claim the mantle of Herald of Embers. Any who would challenge this claim seek us out in Lumbridge before we become Ordained."

"Times are changing, a new Cradle of Xionism is being born and with it a New Testament of Xionisim shall be written. So Mote it Be."

[Morigung-oog 2480]

 

"A third rises."

 

Spoke forth the choir of voices that was the named of The King Beneath, Barrowlord Fornotos. Their head, a visage concealed by a steel helm, dupped into a nod of acceptance. Having witnessed the existence of the previous herald, she looked upon the ascension of her longtime ally with fondness. Where once they'd known naught but anguish, they had felt peace, if only brief, for the first time in centuries. A gnarled staff was tapped thrice 'pon the stone ground on which she stood, their gaze drifting into the beyond. Though it yearned to slam down once more, it was not yet time...

 

"Radiant is the Black Sun.- Welcome back to the four thrones of Heraldry, my friend."

 

 

[TreeSmoothie 5057]

Some old, battered woman - a creature, more like, or even less than that - peered upon the paper. Few caught its attention these days, but the wisp and the flicker of the creature that delivered it to that part of Aevos beckoned it. Out of fear. Those bygone days, bygone ghasts and wights, eidolon and occultists. The spectral talon-mark of its disconnection still marred the flesh.

 

"Vorztrok. Why does the name sound familiar?"

 

"Not Vevodrok, surely. A different thing. Perhaps one of my old students? The sixth synod . . ."

 

Viktoriya's frenzied mutterings trailed off as the husk of the Orenian meandered elsewhere, lost in thought.

[EdenCringe 178]

 

"There you are."

[Reckless Banzai Screamer 12053]

With Xionists, Xannites, Asiothites and Ibleesians on all sides, a military dictator prepares his webbins.

[Xarkly 12919]

 

Villorik's white cloak billowed in the wind as his destrier stood perched atop a hill, beneath the Norlandic night sky.

 

Through the visor of his winged helmet, he stared across at the stout cylindrical building in the valley, it's walkway bathed in eerie blue flame.

 

"This is the place?" he asked his companion.