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Damn my innate good tendencies preventing me from acting upon my violent urges! Give in to your instincts. Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, you gain strength; through strength, you gain power. Through power, you gain victory; through victory, your chains are broken!
The release of the Destroyer and the loss of the Crystal Wyrm are two devastating blows to Vandan military and civilization that come in dangerously close proximity to one another. My armies have been primarily occupied with seeing to the security of our people first and foremost, before beginning the effort to see to the ceasure of the beast above. The dragon is considered lost, and not worth the effort to pursue. With the crystals grown from it before it was corrupted and driven to madness, the seeds have been acquired for the Crystal Drakes we wished to harvest. Even as the earth above us shudders, we grow newborn Drakes to rear and train, to bolster our armies in the place of their devastated parent. A fair number of Vandan territories along the inner world's northern face are evacuated as the tread of the Destroyer ravages the world above, showering cities in colossal debris. Many are lost, but many more saved by the efforts, and the cities are left in abandoned ruin; perhaps one day, when the Destroyer is once again bound (or perhaps even slain?) our people will return to recover what was left behind, if not repopulate the abandoned realms. Only then do my armies and I return to the surface, surging out from the Lightscar to rejoin the forces of the surface races in battle, armed for war with our newest resources - not only the Crystal Drakes, but new mercurial blades, forged with Vanda's lifeblood from the Lightscar, using her very life essence to bring death to the Destroyer and its minions.
VANDA
Vanda isn't a god in the normal sense; rather, she is a sort of gestalt mindforce that embodies the planet that shares her name. The planet's denizens have for centuries on centuries theorized where this entity arose from; some suggest that she is a composite mind made up of the souls of all deceased Vandans, while others theorize that it is the ascendant remnant of their species' progenitor who chose to return her soul to the planet itself rather than surrender to the demands of divine powers. What is known is that the entity chooses to communicate with her dwellers, speaking in certain sacred caverns and crystal grottoes to her priests and seers. Her demands are simple: travel, conquer, and harvest. Under her decree, and those of her people's leaders, the Vandans journeyed to other worlds, overran them, enslaved their peoples and pillaged their resources, and moved on, leaving behind a core of ruling representatives. When they had completed their domination of their own universe, Vanda guided their seers and scholars to develop advanced teleportation arcanotechnology that allowed them to transport their entire planet through the interuniversal void. This new power allowed them to travel from universe to universe, conquering and stripping worlds in their wake and moving on to other realities when their work was done. Upon arriving in this newborn reality, Vanda's planet body was trapped within the core of a newly-formed planet. Her decree only changed slightly - the Vandans were instructed to either remove the outer shell of stone that imprisoned her, or to conquer the entire new planet and resume their journey of tyranny. Vanda only gives divine power to Vandans, ignoring even the slave races under their command, treating and encouraging her followers to treat them as little more than animate tools much like a golem or animated undead. Most of the time when communicating with her people she is little more than a disembodied voice echoing from the depths of her planet or bubbling up from the pools of quicksilver that Vandans refer to as her "blood"; however, on occasion she manifests in a visible form, taking the shape of a Vandan woman made of precious gemstones.
Fire and light burns through the earth, breaching the surface and turning the living and the dead to ash and gemdust. For the first time since this wretched world's creation, Vanda sees the stars once again. At the place where the energy struck, a crater is formed, which soon floods with the ruby-silver fluid that fills our world - Vanda's very blood. This wound, this Lightscar, is our mark and memory of this battle for eons to come. Yet fight on we must and we do, by no means are we to surrender to annihilation! We unleash the dragon, our newborn Crystal Wyrm, after seizing from it the shards of gemstones from which successors, crystal drakes, will one day be born. These secure, the Wyrm is released with firm direction - to ravage the Dogarr, leaving not even corpses in its wake, returning the survivors of the plague menace to dust and nothing more.
Our hunters take the dragon's disabled form back to one of our emerald cities, where it is firmly imprisoned in one of our many laboratories for study and operation. Firstly its bizarre aura of strange fortune is examined, experiments performed and attempts managed, until at last we decipher the nature of its energies and our mages discern how to duplicate its effects in more controlled measures. Once this new power is added to our arsenal, work on the dragon itself commences. Crystals from Vanda herself are inserted into its body, grown within its flesh and armor, strengthening the weaknesses in its argent hide and bolstering its vulnerabilities against further assault. The last few are introduced directly into its brain, where Vanda's will is spoken directly into its subconscious, wiping away the chaos and disorder of its former will and introducing the strength, order, and structure of purpose that guides our people. Once the conversion is complete, guided by our mages this Crystal Wyrm will be brought to the surface to join our armies under mine own command.
Meanwhile, one of the thirteen dragons enters the underworld. With its arrival, terrible fault lines form, and the Vandan world is ravaged by earthquakes. Damnation! Thankfully, even with forces devoted to warding the Destroyer's mount and those committed to the War Above, we have the troops to spare remaining in the Crystal Below to defend our beloved home. Led by the huntress Izell, we will dispatch a special group of trained hunters to find, study, train, and prepare for slaying - or better, capturing - this beast. Perhaps it can be used to our advantage somehow....
... and now Vandans, but I am not sure what those crystal people eat? Rocks maybe? They will have manna to eat (it looks like bread) and fresh water will rain down on them daily. I assure you the manna will be edible, because I will make it so. This food is divinely summoned, Axerus, and I will not allow the good people of this world to starve. I'm sure we'll find some use for it. Feeding the gets, if nothing else. We derive our nourishment from water and magic. Vanda provides.
My Dogarr can easily destroy the gets! I need to know now if you are with us or against us?! Make your choice, Culex! I am sure the worm riddled dead of Puss the Wyrm will have fun with the gets! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! My people have no need for gods. Our strength is in our arms, our minds, and our loyalty to Vanda herself. Faith is the crutch of the weak, the simpering shield of those who lack the power to stand under their own might. There is no alliance, especially not with the one who would unleash such devastation on the world we wish to conquer. The frail flesh-things of this planet's surface may oppose our dominion, but at least they do not wish to eradicate the very stone from beneath us! For this time, carrion creature, Vanda stands alongside those who dwell on the Stone Above, against the forces of annihilation. We will not yield to oblivion.
The surfacers are gathering for war. So be it! The Destroyer is bound and blockaded, thus we may turn our attentions properly to the rest of this miserable prison. We will send forth the gets first, their chains clenched in the claws of our kyton minions. Once they have bled the opposition, we will send our champions and centuries to join the fray. To war, my gemstone guardians and crystal cavalry. To War!
Excellent, a slave race born and bred. These gets will serve admirably, both as laborers and as stock war fodder. It will be their flesh and bone sent into the maw of the awakened Destroyer first, granting my people the time we need to recover from this assault, and plan our vengeance against the twisted feeble gods who hide behind misdirection and deceit, while stopping this abomination from eradicating the world we plan and labor so much to dominate. The fragile flesh-things of the surface world have been spared for a short time due to the necessity of providing a blockade against this monstrosity; for this alone might there be peace found between the dwellers of the Crystal Below and those on the Stone Above. However, in time I will lead the conquest, and this planet shall be Vanda in whole, from stone-shrouded sky to gem-guarded core.
We wandered the countless universes, seeking new worlds to explore and resources to claim, harvesting from the realities we discovered and warring with all who opposed us. When we had exhausted our interests or our resources in one universe, we would through magic and science transfer ourselves - our entire world - into another. Through these eldritch methods we had crafted a victorious society, one built on war and the wealth of eons. Alas but did we never expect that our last traverse would be our final one! For when we entered this newborn universe, our world manifested not in empty space where our divinations had predicted our arrival, but trapped within a world newly formed, imprisoning us and ending our travels forever. Our very planet was entrapped within the core of this new world, our crystal kingdoms and gem fortresses locked inside a shell of base metal and stone. It took a short time for our seers and scholars to determine what had happened - we had arrived just as a new world had been created by divine forces, and were thus trapped by its formation. Encumbered by the newfound shell that gripped us, we could not escape to resume our travels with the devices and calculations we had; our options were clear - either destroy the sphere that anchors us, or gather the resources and information necessary to resume our multiversal travels with our added girth. In either case, conquest of this newborn world is now our first and only priority. Once its other denizens rest under the hand of Vanda's crystal kings and queens, only then can we resume the travels and conquests our people were made for. To lead this charge, a warlord was named, suitable to command the forces that would bring victory to Vanda's people and curb the opposition of the creatures dwelling on the Stone Above. A Dark Knight, champion of the crystals, conqueror of lesser creatures and bringer of victory to Vanda. To him was given this single quest: to either destroy the Stone Above and all that dwell upon it, or to bring them - AND their soft, fragile gods - utterly to heel, kneeling before the amethyst spires of the crystal crowns. ---- Vandans are a race of crystal-bodied creatures with some elemental traits, originating from a universe far from this one. Conquerors and dominators, they once dwelled on the crystalline world of Vanda, which through ancient magic and esoteric science could be transported from universe to universe. It now is trapped within the core of this newborn world, forcing the Vandans to dwell deep beneath the surface in elaborate crystalline caverns. Most Vandans are Lawful Evil, due to the conquest and domination focused society they dwell in. Vandans have no deities, but their divine spellcasters draw power from Vanda itself; Vanda's domains are Earth, Evil, Glory, Law, and Magic (subdomains are Arcane, Caves, Honor, Kyton, Tyranny). VANDAN TRAITS Ability Score Adjustments: Vandans are powerfully built and difficult to harm, and are possessed of great mental capacity; however, their crystalline construction makes them inflexible. A Common Vandan gains +2 CON, +2 INT, -2 DEX. There are also various higher rankings of Noble Vandans which gain greater adjustments.
How dare you call me a false prophet, Culex, when you call yourself a Dark Knight of the most foul Vanda! Your envy of our crystal kingdom of wealth and victory is unbecoming, but also unsurprising.
"And the Beast was taken, and with him the False Prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the Beast, and them that worshiped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone."
"Colonel Yzgal has not reported in, my lady," the messenger replied. "the Ringbearer departed some hours ago on His Dark Lordship's orders, and the Runecaster was summoned up from the prison depths not long ago." The Captain snarled and dismissed the errander to continue about his duties. If Yzgal had not yet reported in, after so long, there were only two reasons: she was dead or she had failed. She, like Yzgal, like all soldiers of Temrath, knew the Law: Death before Defeat. If she returned to Vanda without completing her mission, she would never see Lord Culex to report; she would be executed at the first superior officer who questioned her regarding the status of her mission. If she survived, she was still out there, making her preparations for another attempt. So be it. The Aragh were replaceable, as was Yzgal to a lesser degree. She was merely a Colonel, after all. If she lived and later successfully completed her task, all the better. But it would behoove the Captain to assume she had failed, and act accordingly. New action would need to be taken. She did not know what Culex desired from the Runecaster - the old hermit had been one of their earliest human prisoners, and though she herself disdained the idea of using a human as anything more than fodder, much less allowing one so magically capable to retain their arcana, it was not her place to correct the Dark Knight. It was simply her place to continue as she had been - commanding the lesser officers in Temrath's army, and seeing to the completion of her orders: the death of the angel and the elf. She considered returning to Botun and fetching another beast from the Menagerie, but dismissed the idea. The Ringbearer had been dispatched to Brinay, so the rebels couldn't be far from that location. By land or by sea, was the question. The assassin would handle those on foot, she decided swiftly; she would see to sending troops by water. Considering her options, she noted a location that spread a smile across her stony face from horn to horn. A few leagues off the shore of Brinay lay the Jagged Isle... a place where magic grew wild and strange creatures walked the night. One of the few places where the barriers between this world and the shadow of Vanda were thin. It was a place of power, and the mighty mages of Temrath often sought such locations for their lairs. She knew a mage who had made his home on the Jagged Isle. One who owed a debt of servitude to the army of Temrath. A debt she could call upon. She departed to the scrying room and focused on the the image of the necromancer until he appeared, studious in his lair, in the rippling liquid in the crystal bowl. "Alzir. Alzir! I am Captain Rivie of the first legion of Vanda. Give me your attention!" The mage sat upright. Despite being a Vandan, his stone body - crystal so deeply violet that it nearly looked black - was emaciated and skeletal, his head devoid of hair, his frame supplemented only by the long white robes he wore. "I hear you, captain. What commands our lord?" "Your debt has come due, necromancer," she continued. "A group of rebels nears the village of Brinay. Lord Culex desires their destruction - primarily, a dark elf and a winged entity clothed in runes. I pass this command to you, to be completed in any method you desire. We seek only proof of their destruction." There was a moment of silence, then a barely perceptible nod from the figure in the bowl. "It shall be as the Dark Knight commands, my liege. These vandals shall know why Alzir has been crowned as The Terror of Death."
Yzgal had dreamed of this moment. Glory to the Vandan people, the Empire of Temrath, and Lord Culex himself, all at her clawtips. The Aragh plunged, claws raking at the ground and spraying soot and soil in the air as they raced toward the scent of magic. Every bite would drain blood and mana from the angelic entity before her, until his wounds or his energy reserves ran dry. If he bled to death, so be it; if he simply lay crippled and helpless by the siphoning of his lifeforce and magical power then she would simply crush his neck manually. She was not averse to getting some blood on her claws in the line of duty. Rather she relished it. But that staff... WHERE had he gotten that staff? And what power did it have, to slay a Vandan with but a touch?! They were certainly not arrogant enough to think themselves invulnerable, and Lord Culex could not be considered arrogant to think so for it was simple truth, none had laid a harmful hand on the Dark Knight of Vanda since his ascension to the position, even in training or sparring combat. But they were resilient, extremely difficult to kill creatures. They possessed no lifeblood, their existence powered by pure elemental mana and the dark energy native to the shadowy netherworld of Vanda from whence they came. They could be shattered like stone - for stone they were, living crystal and fluid metal in manlike form - but the immense energy needed to do so could not be wielded by mere mortals save for the most trained of archmages, and the enslavement of humanity had been, among other reasons, to prevent such wizardry from coming to be outside Temrathi control. And now this outsider - this fallen one - was carrying around sufficient power to do so in a single blow in a stick! While it might do to slay humans and, as much as the thought made her cringe and snarl, Vandans, the Aragh had little to fear from the staff, if it was magical in nature - and what else could it be? Even divine magic would do naught but fuel their hunger. If Farael wished to defeat the Aragh in battle, he'd have to tear the mage-hounds apart with his bare hands or any weapons he could get hold of, while avoiding them doing the same to him with their fangs. Yzgal herself was going to destroy that staff before moving in for the kill.
Servants of the Dark Knight navigated the winding streets and narrow aisles of Vanda, the great imperial capital of vast Temrath, with commoners and slaves quick to scatter or step aside when the sight of the familiar knighthood insignia was proudly displayed. Vanda was a city of elemental wonder, crafted - like its rulers - of living crystal and stone. Powered by purest fire and sustained by eternal water, Vanda rides held aloft over the lowly earth of its empire on the backs of the mightiest winds, traveling freely wheresoever its masters deign. For like its masters, Vanda - named after the shadowy otherworld from whence its inhabitants came - never touches the ground. The Vandans themselves are a curious species. Their nature is obviously otherworldly, unearthly, unnatural by the laws known to mortals. Their bodies are crafted of crystal, sculpted with minute precision into forms of physical excellence. Young Vandans are never seen, and the secrets of their procreation, development, and growth are kept secured away from human eyes. They resemble humanity in many ways otherwise, in the shapes of their bodies, from the waist up; the other primary differences are the curved horns protruding from their heads in a unique pattern and shape for each Vandan, the wild manes of grey-and-red hair that flowed from their heads, and the wings on their backs which appear and feel to be fluid, living brass. In place of legs, they have instead an inverted pyramid of crystals that wraps around the base of their torsoes, and a sinuous, shadowy tendril or tail that serves as a third limb. They hover rather than walk, floating a meter or so off the ground, and can fly freely if they so wish, though often they do not, for disdain of having to carry their flightless servants to places they cannot reach. These particular Vandans ignored the lesser commoners and civil servants of their people with as much lack of attention as the many human slaves that adorned their city's streets, attending to tasks and business as commanded by their masters. Their destination was in sight - a low, glassy dome on the outskirts of the city, overlooking Vanda's northernmost cliffside and providing a vista view of the immense landscape of their empire below. In perfect file the knights reached the building and, after assigning two guards at the rear to secure the entrance, marched inside to attend to their mission. They found the old scholar exactly where their lord had expected, crouching over his work on the tier below with the avid enthusiasm of a man pursuing his greatest joy. Botur raised his greenish face to the sound of his visitors' approach, then rose upright at the recognition of the Knights and returned their captain's salute. "Welcome to the Menagerie, my lady. How may I serve the empire?" "Our lord is in need of your services," the captain intoned, cutting immediately through further pleasantries and to the heart of her mission. She was a no-nonsense sort, uninterested in the flattery associated with working as the Dark Knight's immediate emissary. "There is trouble in the borderlands. Lord Culex wishes it to be dealt with swiftly and surely." "Indeed, indeed," the sage replied, turning back to his records. "What sort of trouble?" "Insurrection. Likely after the initial sweep attack was repelled, the troublemakers are going into hiding. They have magical aid." "You will be sending another troop, I assume?" "We are. We will see to it that the slaves are more properly equipped. But they will not be going alone. We will be taking some of your Beasts." Botur chuckled darkly and traced a claw down the list. "I have just the thing. My Aragh will sniff out the magic of these revolutionaries and devour their energies, then turn its might against them." "Two will suffice," the captain acceded. "The slave-troops depart tomorrow with Colonel Yzgal. Ensure the Aragh will answer to her commands and have them ready for the hunt come dawn." "It will be done, my lady," Botur acknowledged with a low bow. He watched her depart, then turned his gaze to the Menagerie below, and its vast collective of his bestial experiments, roaming over the mile-wide enclosed ecosystem he and his fellow arcanobiologists had created for them. The magic-hunting wolves would make swift work of any caster whose spells they could track, and this rebel would be no different. And should he dare to attempt to cast upon them, they would merely devour the magical energy and turn it back double. The perfect mage-killers, and one of his personal greatest creations. The old sage stood proud as he leaned over his work, and dreamed of accolades from his lord for work well done.
Meanwhile, far across the land, in the distant mage-empire that rules this world, a sinister force watches through disembodied eyes. A mighty elemental lord observes the fallen one and his vagabond companion as they travel, and his face twists with an expression of distaste. "What troubles you, sir?" an attendant inquires, drawing the Dark Knight from his reverie. "A force has begun to move," replies the master, though his gaze never departs from the vision before him. "A ravager has appeared, and has dared the night. It seems the Expired will be of no use against this one. His touch renders them to ash." "Shall we dispatch the Knights, my lord?" a captain inquires. Her hand reaches eagerly for the weapon at her side. "Not yet," the leader answers. "They must pass through the forest first. Perhaps the natives of that feral place will spare us the effort. The forest is full of deadly things eager for the lifeblood of mortals. And should the Blooms be disturbed, they might be so conveniently placed as forest guardians themselves, completely under the control of the Forest Mother Alraune." Nods and murmurs around the room confirm the Dark Knight's assessment. "Nevertheless, let us be prepared," he adds. "Dispatch a contingent of armed slaves to the western border. Make sure their collars are functional - I will not stand for another revolt. Tell them to seek the dark archer and the tattooed angel, and destroy them both. They must NOT reach the lair of the seer. Am I understood?" More murmurs of assent, followed by the attendants and underlings departing to do their lord's will. The master turns his attention fully back to the scene before him as Farael and Kryzbyn near the haunted wood. Farael... at last, you have come. I have waited long for this moment. Let us see what dance Fate has in store for you... this time. |
