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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dlsharrock" data-source="post: 4279449" data-attributes="member: 55833">HarbingerRound 3 - Dlsharrock vs Berandor--------------------------------Welcome rider of the pale steed, silver scythe of serendipity. Come, let me embrace you, friend and keeper of the Dark Hold. Great is the thrust of thy hall, as jagged fangs of obsidian do the turrets of thy dominion stand. And I have seen the hallowed witch-crags of Elmar and known the marrow biting cold of the grey mists in Redsward where the scales of Melas sway. For within the swamp mire did the Queen of Carvings dwindle in Her rule and wither to the sting of war. Thus do I greet you, in the time honoured tradition, and may you be at peace in my home.Yes, be seated and drink of the wooden chalice. None serve me, for mine is a meagre house, thus must the lofty valiant serve themselves, and with good humour no less. Look thee, upon my shoulder is etched the likeness of our lost Queen's fair raiment, scribed as once it was before the decanting fingertips of time sundered beauty and power to the choler of Tartarus. T'was etched at my behest by the templar of Purros, within the misery of the Redsward and as the raging colossus of thine enemy swept a bane of terror across thy lands. There is the sketch eternal to my flesh, to remind me not all is dust and blood; but that the broken borders of this world can nurture truth as fine as gossamer and light to the eye as the Great Moon. The sun may yet return and not all will be as black towers and petrified bone. And I am honour bound to my Queen.I summoned you, and those arrayed about this room, to hear prophesy and wisdom. You know the faces you see, of course. Meet thee rider of the pale steed, Marshank Crowfoot, warlord of the fortress Purros. Meet thee holy father Parthia, priest of Elmar (and beyond the ever-sentinel clerics of the witch crags who guard their lord even in meetings of alliance). All you have met, as we have met. But greet also one whom you do not know and one who will not speak greeting in turn, for he is mute to all but I. Shadow of the gold stone, shade of the world that was, now without substance in the modest dark of my frugal mansion where he dwells upon the walls, unbidden to whisper the way and reveal fearful ends born of desire for power and glory. Four Kings, with my blood mingled. Four lords, under one Queen no more. The carvings are decayed, though the world still turns and such blinding sorrow have we known that grief hath shed all dignity to become a portent of doom. We four, whose lands suffer pestilence, death and strife. We four who draw to our hearts the end I have seen and may still ride forth to apocalypse. Hear me then, my countrymen and sons of Redsward. Hear all that the shade of the world that was hath shown unto me and let us turn from this path if yet we may. The nuclear winds blow and a squall of grey flakes falls in Warhelm. None have survived the destruction of Thor, whose fires were as a rising sun upon the horizon of the world. This you know.Soon the fuel of bitter magic will turn a great wheel of flame and upon its spokes shall we few be crucified, to turn endlessly in the night of this forgotten realm; to reign forever over a revolution of tortured souls and to suffer on as wraiths in a land named unto us by the six maidens of virtue and the God they serve. For as you know, Lord of the pale steed, fellow rulers of lost souls, death hath long abandoned those who dwell in the Grey Hold. Now we four are death and to our malice shall the reaper hearken, while our people suffer. To their ends must we desist and turn from war.Such omens does the Shadow speak to my sleeping ears, though in truth I do not sleep. Not lightly doth the head that wear the crown rest upon bolster when shadows of the past whisper fitful warnings. For I am told that I, the leper of Leukos, shall be overlord some day, a judge of days in a land of inferno as yet unborn. But it is as nothing to the full gravity of the shade's tale. I impart to you now, the words he spake.Into the fire, the drooling flames of evil. Risen are the multitude, so sayeth he. Servants of the wrath, blood spillers of Tartarus. Their iron armours, spiked and crimson with the sweet slick of countless enemies, glimmer copper and verdigris with rust before the black stone of mighty Purros. Ugly is the odour of this host; a sea of stench breaking forth as a tide upon the fields of Elmar. Defenders of Redsward, warriors of the middle mists, comrades in war. These soldiers of we four lords, clasp limb and gauntlet to make of themselves a wall, while the fleshless victims of glory wax upon raven-feathered soil and sink faceless into the mire. Black and red runs the river of those who live, and its name is fear. Fear even saints cannot banish with their sigils or faith. For war is all and death cleanses even messengers from the burden of deliverance.In these days of ill-fate, the clerics of Parthia's rule shall kneel with clasped hands, knuckle white, eyes as crystal with tear and sorrow, for without the sword they have the luxury of temperance, but lack all hope of defence as the end creeps ever closer. The six maidens are fled and faith is cracked; a broken thing. The ranks of Marshank Crowfoot, meanwhile, shall muster in the combe and witness alone the thudding hoof and marching rabble of thine enemy's approach.It is the one true foe: my brother Nirgal, Over-King of Tartarus, and his soldiers drawn from the abysmal pit with the promise of flesh. He rides upon a horse of pitch, the witch of Burgundy tethered from throat to perennial bone as a horse brass to the collar of that magnificent steed, for once was she his wife. Her murder has turned the dark master once and for all to the path he feels he must tread. Her counsel was wise, but the world would be his and he will listen no more to her continent tongue.In Crowfoot's eyes are long terms of sorrow. Heavy weigh these years, for I see them now, and to the warlord's back a further weight of chainmail sinks low (though no heavier than the fear of owner's oaths) the shoulders of armoured lines. Archers venture forth as though through doors of men. Fear crusts their aim as dry blood to lips cracked by disease. Yet strings are drawn and arrow heads glitter in rows.The Over-King trembles, sensing and wallowing in despair, horned head risen above the fleece-white and black-flecked collar of dark office, for no temperance or luxury of removal has he, here where hoof meets soil, where steel tastes bone, where the rage of the shunned stands teetering upon a precipice of vengeance. No witch's skull but the purple robe descends below, graced across the flanks of the ebon horse whose hooves test the ground and throw apart mud where once was grass. The horse's venerable skull is alight as Aerdry's grazing sky, innocent of Armageddon despite stabling in the plains of Tartarus. To be a horse, great lords of men! To know peace, even while carrying such unhallowed evil! But I folly with wishes and depart from the tale.Arrows make an arc above and the King strides forth to receive fate upon men. There will be no mercy from this driven host whose hearts shall ever sink with vacuous depths. In my vision I can taste my brother's fury and you, my lords, I can taste your fear. It is sour to my tongue. God is forsaken; the six deities of Celestial court are gone from these lands. The fair Priestess Shiva and Goddess Shakti, the four guardians of glade and green whose verdant hues and stately trees may never again gladden the mantle of Redsward, whose purple robes are the pumping blood of life on Earth. They are abandoned in our hearts and their faces obscured are known to us no more. In the cavity of all we believed beats now the heart of the Over-King. It echoes with vulgarity and empty flame, for now there is only the burning vanity of vengeance, the vague jest of freedom upon the routing hope of Men. Though crowns rest upon thy heads, lords of the middle mists, rims blacken a harsh fringe upon your temple and jewels are tarnished with bitter refraction. God is forsaken, for we have forsaken Him.The Over-King sits upon a steed of black, alone before the ranks, deep in a mire of corpse and fetid organ, knowing now that we have embraced his destiny. Arrows bristle from ribs and throats and screams lift to the vaulted heavens, though no divinity remains to hear. Crowfoot is driven back as columns of brave men fall to arms in the running swamp of bubbling gore, and the last defence of Purros is lost. In the wake of retreat, bane crawls forth and his name is Nirgal, swift to take the hindmost. And as the black hollows of his skull tilt I see the horror in his eyes and the furnace sword Hammerfell, emerging from the spires of sorcery upon a chariot of fire. For we four, in our last despair, have summoned the wizards of the witch-crags, and though they have seen the annihilation of Warhelm, they would do again this terrible magic. ‘To lay waste a land that cannot be tamed is greater than to yield a land to evil‘. This shall we four utter and with such logic smite a ruin to the Earth.The furnace sword Hammerfell, brother of Thor, whose billowing flower hath already laid waste to the dragon lairs, shall be unleashed and in the raging tumult shall the realm of the Queen of Carvings be utterly destroyed. Loving memory shall warp and the world will shiver to her core. Such a mighty blow shall cleave the socket of Earth as axe to frailty and all will be consumed by bitter light and furious wind. As two halves of one cradle shall the forgotten realm drift in an endless night, and they will be known as Gehenna and Sheol, and upon them will suffer eternal the humanity of worlds. On Earth as it was in heaven, we four will ride forth upon such a day as befits the final Kings of men and bring this last revelation crashing down upon the spirit of our people. Within the inferno shall the wheel turn and we upon it. No mercy shall come to us and unto the skein of eternity shall we four be branded a harbinger of doom, deliverers of evil, war, death, famine and disease to the exclusivity not of this world but all worlds and for all time. And I will be a judge of days and to my decree shall all souls come who fall upon the wheel. This will be our eternal doom unless we concede Redsward to a lesser evil.Sit now. Be at peace. Your agitation means nothing in this quiet mansion. And before you utter reason, rider of the pale steed, priest of the witch-crags, warlord of Purros, know that more did I see and more did the Shadow whisper. Not for the suffering of the Dark Hold alone does the wheel turn and we upon it. Many are the stars beyond the veil of the middle mists and though we see them not in this choked age of forge and industry, they sparkle yet in Aerdry's heaven and to many are bound other worlds of this true Earth, all touched by the hand of God. In such remembered realms, the six maidens of virtue are still known, the features of their elegance as clarity to peace and the peaceful. And yet the bane of unrest doth sally forth under many guises and our subjugation to the call of war and our own petty prides attend threads we cannot see with the promise of obliteration. Terrible fate, as glimmering dew upon silk, does each droplet of our wrath trickle to the stars. For ours is the one mother Earth and all others are born unto her. Moreover, the Queen of Carvings was born of multiplicity, for she is bound to the fate of the Earth. She lives again among the stars!Yes. Your silence is welcome, your expressions warrant truth and justify the love I have seen in your hearts. For this revelation above all others did I summon you.I have seen familiar eyes in unfamiliar apparitions, beholding the news of a coming terror, and I have seen Shadow in a different guise. A box as Shadow, a world that never was but will become, warning a maiden of beauty that ruin attends and comes fleet with death. A mushroom fire as that of Hammerfell but delivered by steel and thought alone. I have seen her flee and seek refuge, only to perish in the tempest of fire. All have I seen, for the Queen of Carvings lives still in many forms and on each child realm of mother Earth. She is gone from our midst yet tangible within our hearts and so lives on in the pastures of greener lands wherefore she musters the heart to change the frame of creation, as was her withered destiny in Redsward. I would not see her dwindle again, in any form or world, even were such shattering vision beyond my power to see. I would be with her and know her once more, in peace and freedom. For she is my Queen and my love unto her is as cherished as my brotherhood to man. But the threads are sacred and all that we do here upon the capstone of creation, so do we deliver unto all and where our Queen beloved lives incarnate she will die once again by our doing and will not realise her purpose. The wheel turns, and we upon it.I have told all. Now is the time to consult and to tarry, if we must. I request you travel a weary road of much passing in shorter time than any man should expect another to face, but travel you must and with uncommon haste, for men we are no longer, but deities and servants of the greater God. And though we may be kings, we shall forever be subjects of Aquarius, the Queen of Carvings, wherever she may abide. The Shadow of the world that was desires renewal and I am told such power as we possess may be used to this greater good, if we so desire and but close our hearts to pride. Should we convoke the realisation of Nirgal's fiery domain and sunder the Earth? Or may we turn yet from war? Choose, if not for the salvation of we four and those who dwell in the sufferance of our decisions, then for the sake of our Queen, that we may live to see her again in states beyond this one.Thus have I have spoken, my prophesy is spent.</blockquote>

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