[The Stars That Divide] - Epilogue

[squakhawk 14040]

 

As The Sorcerer’s Comet descended over Veletz, so too did descendants meet beneath its shadow to cast it from the sky; or bear witness to its apocalypse. For centuries the cycle repeated; The Sorcerer’s Comet bleeding over Aevos until it crashed unto The Divide, bringing apocalypse to the largely uninhabited continent time and time again.

 

Eryndor and Thalandir, enigmatic brothers of The Twinflame Brotherhood, sought to not only unravel the mystery of the comet … but to as well, spare those who may be caught in its flame that threatened nearly a third of Aevos. And to The Shamanic Lodge, Nevaehlen, Caurost, and Celia’nor did they seek the question; Were there still heroes?

 

 

THE DRUID EXPEDITION

 

The Druii of Nevaehlen were quick to accept the invitation of adventure, issuing a call to many of their more distant ilk to attend in what may have been disturbed fae. As a new forest had appeared seemingly overnight in the southern midlands, they ventured to it’s heart among a silent nature where an uncanny monolith stood. Circling and investigating were they whisked quickly to a voidal realm by The Sorcerer’s Construct, corrupted and twisted with sorcery. The group delved deep into it’s corrupt heart, fighting horrors and monstrosities alike as they destroyed the voidal anchors which had kept them there. Following, they had found themselves shunted to The Fae Realm.

 

Within the realm of Fae did the druii encounter many beasts twisted with madness, obsessed with some intruder which they were following in the footsteps of. Though many were unfortunately slain, even further afield of the druids wounded or killed, they encountered another anchor of some kind. This time, it had seemed fresh - placed as if just moments ago. With a surge of blight healing and druidic energies potent enough to purify the forests, they were shunted back to the monolith they’d come from, still yet in the footsteps of the sorcerer’s atronach. Following off from Aevos at the behest of The Mountain, they came upon an island just beyond the storm. After exploring a derelict yet well kept tower and what lay within, they found at the top the construct seeming to call down the meteor. Though the battle was fierce and the construct attempted its best defense, it was destroyed by the combined might of the circles which had come to face it. 

 

 

THE VOIDAL EXPEDITION

 

It was shortly after earthquakes began to tear between the rocky crags and hills of The Divide that the magi of Celia’nor began to notice a significant voidal anomaly occurring nearby beneath the earth. As meteor showers pelted the land, it was just beneath its surface that held the key to their curiosity - and that which they delved into. 

 

Exploring just the shallow caverns which had just been freshly exposed, they found a world nearly alien that had just sat beneath the white walls of their city. Springs of liquid essence, plants and alchemical herbs that had become symbiote of material and immaterial alike; nature and void bonded in unholy union. Pushing further had the magi proceeded further and further into the cavern, discovering bioluminescent plants that traversed to a different biome entirely.

 

Finding then an arid desert cavern that seemed like a different plane entirely, few magi had been eaten by sinkhole and rockfall alike in their insatiable curiosity to delve deeper toward what many had perceived was a heart of the anomaly. Excavating the grains which hid the deeper treasures they’d hoped for, they found a place that had nearly seemed as if it belonged within the sky. Proceeding from island to island, though not without uncautious loss, voidal monstrosities had begun to assail them as they pushed through to finding a laboratory. Revealing some truth to The Sorcerer, they’d unlocked the key to the heart they sought so deeply. Many magi sought it for personal gain, others for study, and few to destroy it. Descending into the heart of corruption which had twisted the caverns around it so unrecognizably that it seemed to assault them at random, they found a horror which had guarded the monolith fiercely. Though many magi found their spells working against them, others slain by raw destructive power, they had attained the heart of the Voidal Heath which had previously lay dormant.

 

Though there were many squabbles over what should be done regarding the artifact, Thalandir had laid the law that it was too dangerous to be kept in the hands of mortals for purposes of power.

 

 

THE SHAMAN EXPEDITION

 

Spirits rumbled beneath the earth in disturbance as Arambor, a spirit that had long dwelled within the heart of The Divide, began to enrage. Though they were scarce and scattered, The Shamanic Lodge had mustered what they had to put together an expedition to calm, if not pacify, the spirits which had been in such uproar. 

 

Descending into a cavern torn unto the earth by the spirit itself, they had found it blocked off not to keep the adventurers out - but to keep the spirits within. Breaking past the barrier utilizing their magics, the shamans were assailed by elemental spawn that had utilized the very earth that surrounded them against them. Magma and stone alike were flung as the spirits were repelled back, until encountering the greater spirit Arambor itself. And though the wounded many in rage blinded by misguidance, the Farseers and Witchdoctors alike were able to calm Arambor to talks.

 

They had discovered that Arambor had been unwillingly a tether for The Sorcerer’s Comet, and with his purification, granted the spirit clarity once more. Though the goal would not be so similar - to sever the tether, they would either have to kill Arambor, or separate the meteor shard from the spirit within the spirit plane itself.

 

The Shamanic lodge shied from no challenge, and though their numbers were sparing, they swelled in courage to bring peace to the spirit. Walking unto the spirit plane, they had ventured to separate the meteor shard by force. Whilst the spirit was incapacitated, the group fought against many a horror which had been borne from the breaking bond of the twisted union. With the threat of death in another plane, the shamans redoubled their efforts and might as they severed the tether between the spirit and The Sorcerer’s Comet in heroic victory.

 

THE CAUROST EXPEDITION

 

Those of Caroust were confined to a different expedition–the manner of their quest was much different to those of the others, as it was pertaining to a simple opening maw: a cave settled in the northern mountains of the Divide, its yawning gulf quaked with every step, as if some indomitable monster lay within its turf, and the surplus of mana that seeped from cracks in the caves surface was alarming to most. 

 

The group descended into the cave after much preparation, having suitable equipment, clothes, food and water to entertain a long trek into the depths of a sprawling, winding labyrinth. Upon entering the cave, their eyes bemused two sights: a folding of the cave to the left, and then, one that proceeded to the right. In order to ensure everybody was safe and secure, those of Caroust ventured together, heading right and bundling their path into an empty cave wall. The large mound of the cave's breadth was suitable to set up temporary encampment, their blade swords and soldiers constructing a fire to keep warmth in the dampening and sour construct of the voidal cavern. 

 

In the fires, their eyes were drawn to something – it was a vision, most cruel, most callous, it envisioned a crown, a mage, and something long: a monster. Upon resting their legs, the group headed out into the deepest pits of the cave, their lanterns hoisted, and their blades readied. On the walls, murals carved by something littered every corner of the wall, it was that of a crown, golden, gleaming, as if marking the cave with the symbol of royalty. 

 

As they reached the end of the cave, their eyes settled upon an opening–it gleamed violet, bubbled viscously, and fumes spat from the voidal emancipation that riddled the stone walls of this cavern. Stalicities, all pure and pure, billowed mana, and the earth quaked. They were chased, it was burrowed in the earth, a horrendous, spiteful thing.

 

Caroust ventured into the depths on three unfolding expeditions back-and-forth, and at the end, their eyes met it – something trilling, alien, its voice enunciated by cruel madness. A basilisk poisoned by the void, its serpentine scales layered by a thick mist and energy that gleamed brightly. Outside of its general nature, the oddest part of this was the crown that sat upon its cranium–a boundless artifact, lustrous gold, exuding power and strength, a mantle of the void. The fight was long, and arduous, but the blades of Caroust struck down the basilisk, and in the end, its body withered violently, warning the group of the crown’s damning. As the crown cluttered onto the earth, it shrunk in size, enough to be held in the palm of two hands. 

 

Wandering out from the cave's depth, a crown besmirched in an auric-oil infested box was carried to their principality, to be contained until called for by that of the wizard Thalandir, or of most humble Eryndor.

 

Credit to @GammaRose for the art.

 

Together did The Shamanic Lodge, The Druii of Nevaehlen, The Blades of Caurost, and scattered Magi of Celia’nor and Solgaard band together to take the longshot of Thalandir and Eryndor’s plan to utilize mere fragments of The Sorcerer’s original spell which had bound his comet to crash unto Aevos time and time again. With reversal of his stabilizing enchantments, and pieces of his artefacts and constructs from long past, were they able to combine their might together.

 

In Aevos’ most frightful moments to date did the comet come to a stop near but a hair’s touch from the surface, and in moments did night become day as a flash of light so great it could be seen from across the continent burst. Pieces of The Sorcerer’s Comet scattered and descended from the sky, collected by scarce few as the white-hot slag represented something greater than a day saved, a calamity prevented, a cycle broken….

 

Eryndor’s Folly was false,

 

Heroes still did yet exist.

 

 

✶ In the depths of a crumbling library, stone drifted away, held together by seams of frothing gray mist. The shelves were covered in dust, neglected, and the books, thousands in total, were left disorganised–it had not been looked after in years. At one corner of the study, there was a large telescope that peaked towards the sky; there were no clouds blocking the view, stars shimmered elegantly in the night, its luminosity sheening with brilliance. On another corner, the broken, shattered remains of a round-table sat in lonesome, its cracks and crevices radiating silver light. 

 

✶ A hoarse, gravelly sigh escaped the pitch of this eternal study–a section private from the main library, its steps conclusive and broken, with a fall so deep and depraved beneath each step that it personified the hungering abyss. Thalandir’s elbow protruded against the arm-rest, his eyes, silver and resembling the dusk of nightfall, raised up towards Eryndor, “The descendants were not faultless, but they have completed their tasks nonetheless, and once more, they have stopped a catastrophe from ruining their land,”

 

✹ The ‘elf’ looked over the horizon through his contraption of contemporary design, searching the stars for any sign of further anomaly. It seemed The Sorcerer’s Comet had no repeat, no unnumbered calamity which would occur decades, centuries, or millenia from crashing into the earth again. Truly was the cycle broken - a result that both gave the brother hope, and yet, despair. A truth began to settle within him that he had not wished to come to even with this best result. “I suppose they have.” He put it flatly, as he continued to ruminate on the truth within. His golden eyes cast down to the floor, looking over the hand of his right. The skin was smooth and unblemished, before a crawling light began to etch over it as the glamour was undone; revealing an unsightly burn. “I believe it is good testament to our will of cooperation with them that we stood with them even in the face of annihilation. I wish I could say this is the last time they would have to worry about something like this - but you and I know alike how far that is from the truth.”

 

✶ “I cannot compare their willpower and strength to the ancient past of this realm, the descendants were much fiercer back then. I recall their might when they supported me in the defeat of our most wretched brother, the Black Scourge, and his throes of evil,” the wizard drawled, his robes, scraggly and unkempt, billowing gently from the fierce wind of the study’s peak. Smoke ripped from his nostrils, pilfering into the open air, “Nevertheless, it was a joyous sight. I am pleased. Do they not remind you of anything, my young, foolish brother?” - “Do they prevail to your expectations? Are they heroes now in your eyes? I am too old and irascible to say.”

 

✹ It was with Thalandir’s words, “Our most wretched brother”, that Eryndor had nearly winced. The burn upon his hand covered once again as glamour overtook and hid what wound he’d borne, his heart briefly coming to a race as he settled a panic within his chest. This was supposed to be victory, courage in the face of apocalypse. Why had he such fear within him? Why was he feeling in such ways that seemed… beneath him? The questions haunted him as he failed to come to answer. Millenia of knowledge and study and hardly was he equipped to grapple his own thoughts and questions. His mind came to, as his chair spun to face Thalandir, a breath escaping his nose as he feigned a reset. “I’d like to say they did, remind me. There were few among them I had recognized - though none, seemingly but perhaps one or two, had recognized me the same. There were few I spoke to… Iduna, Arnuzor, Galahad, Sonna. Among the countless I posed my parable to, only these four had discovered within my question a hypocrisy I did not realise. Or rather - fallacy.” He held, before further elaborating as the grey eminence simply stared. “That heroes are not born, nor inherent. No action is inherently heroic. It is merely what we make of the action in the post of a moment that a hero is deemed hero. I believe they are, but it places thoughts in my mind that had nearly made me think that I would die for nothing all those years ago.” He spoke, his golden gaze casting to his section of the library, gaze unbreaking of the unlit section before he asked without turning. “I wonder what we will do next.”

 

✶ “You overthink it, I am not fond of heroes anywho, they always steal the limelight from others behind the scene,” Thalandir’s finger, blanched and flaunting lurid nails, gently traced the words of an ancient tome–unlike Eryndor, the wizard was much different in his disposition; he was stricter, less philosophical, bound by logic, and he was sapped of his whimsy and joy. “Unfortunately, I will be quite busy from now on. I must venture back to the past to deal with one of my deepest regrets. You should consider what you want to achieve in the meantime by your lonesome. It would do you some good, being independent, as long as you do not make any foolish decisions,”

 

✶ “Go do something productive.”

 

✶ “You have new heroes to put to use, do you not?.”

 

✹ Eryndor tarried over the thought, before nodding solemnly. He had a clue of what he intended, before settling upon his thoughts. “There are many more curiosities over Aevos that we could perhaps explore proactively, rather than waiting for catastrophe to find us. Further, so many of our scattered kin - even one fallen beneath the northern mountains. There are many paths forward - many I have to decide on which will be our best.” He considered, looking over the brooch of steel and crimson that lifted from his belt. “I am sure no matter the course there will be those who seek adventure, and within their hearts, heroes stir awaiting to be released.”

 

 

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Thank you to @BobBox, @Werew0lf, @HugoAntero, @milksoda, @RaiderBlue, @Spoopy_Duck, @Trey, @Benleft, @Destructokeith, @HenryCore, @wowj, @Shorsand,  and@rigorous for all of your help during the eventline. Without you guys none of it would be remotely possible, nor would the amount of coordination, effort, writing, or quality be where it was. I'm looking forward to the next eventlines to come, thank you :)

 

[FadedMoonlight 450]

I LOVE THE DIVIDE EVENT LINE!!!!
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[Frisket 4538]

IN DEFIANCE OF THE HEAVENS 

 

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[PrinceJose270 1211]

ROCK GANG FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!!

Loved the eventline and hope to see more of em. But i'm greatful to be apart of it.