Quoth the Raven

Asserted Cooperation

I feel the lashing bite of the whip tear into my shins, entangling. I extend my talons and turn in mid-dive, angling to slash at the restraining hold of the weapon. The Governess yanks upon the whip, tightening the grip and sending me off balance. "Caught you again!", she cackles menacingly, her arm swinging the weapon like a sling in a wide arc above her head. Nausiously, I withstand the dizzying ride, until the whip slips and I find myself careening across the compound, crashing into one of the high buttressed walls.

I slide to the ground, in a daze, literally seeing stars. The ground shudders as the titaness crosses to finish me off. "Not so confident now, are we?", she booms from above me. The moonlight again falls to shadow as her immense form steals the light. "Enough games, you are done." I hear the creak of her leather body suit as she lifts her titanic boot and brings the heal crashing down upon my supine form.

My body melds with the earth, the immense pressure of the Governess' weight threatening to burst me like a squashed bug. "Just like that succulent grape, Nemesis.", she laughs tauntingly. The rage mounts, the power builds, arcing lightning spills from my orbless eyes. I squirm my arms and legs beneath me, and push with all my might, the wrath of the energy lending power to the desperate, self-preserving maneuver.

"Wha?!", the Governess screams as she is thrown off balance, and falls with a seismic quake to the ground. I leap into the air, waves of loose dirt billow like a cloud about her prone form. Her hand raises to her face, her head shaking away the cobwebs of the befuddling fall. Her eyes alight upon me and glare with hate.

"Enough.", I intone, devoid of emotion. My hands sweep about me in an energy trailing arc, the casting of a spell limning my body with an azure aura. My wrists gauntlets meet with a concussive blast as I speak the word of power, releasing the incantation. Not at the Governess, but at the earth under her.

Her face contorts fearfully as the ground liquifies into a viscuous gripping quicksand. The titan's massive weight pulls her down like a stone in a pond, sinking her immense body to just above the neck, her thrashing making her sink all the faster. I halt the incantation, allowing the ground to return to its original state, leaving the giantess quite restrained and embedded in several feet of solid rock.

"This won't hold me forever! You will pay!", she screams, thrashing her head back and forth, chipping away at the rock with the blunt bludgeoning of her thick cranium. "Long enough, child, long enough.", I respond deprecatingly, my hand coming to my mouth and wiping a trail of blood away.

Ignoring the now helpless Governess, I alight on the far side of the compound, and walk to the black steel gates. Wrought into patterns of tortured souls, dripping with crimson blood, the gate to Tower is quite imposing to behold, but I'm not here to sightsee and gawk. With but a word and gesture, the gates rise, leaving several sentries staring gape mouthed at my entrance. I peer at them ominously, seeing into the depths of their being. Creatures of abomination, undead beings animated to the Undead Lord's purposes. A feral growl escapes my lips as I extend a taloned fist in their direction, "Stand down, vermin, I have business with thy master. Declare my presence unto him. Tell him the Herald has arrived." They fumble with their weapons for a moment, then coolly advance, seeking to bar my passage. "I can see we require some convincing." My taloned fist, still outstretched toward them, clenches and pulls. The foremost vampire sentinels wither to dust, their dark essence drawn toward me, and devoured in the space of an instant. "Need there be more displays?", I glare pointedly at the now halted survivors. "Take me to thy master, now." They fall into formation, leading the way.

Arrival at the Tower

I find no exhileration of the flight northward, though I should count my blessings considering the fact that I recovered the use of my wings but days ago. They still feel stiff and disjointed, but suit my purposes... I no longer have the leisure to wait longer for answers. My shadow is cast hauntingly below me, trailing in wraithed flight across the valleys and peaks of the Veprezili range, scattering the skittish mountain goats at my passage. My thoughts are focused upon the forthcoming confrontation, oblivious to the devastation of the southern pole that my recent release of power formed.

Like a beacon, the dark Tower, draws me onward. A boil on the festering hinterlands of the realms, the abysmal spire lies nestled deep in the fetid corruption that is now Mindar Llyie. Once proud and powerful, the city of magic is now nothing more than ruins filled with assorted creatures of abomination. All owing to the ruination of Tower. Evil seeps from the roots of that dim place, befouling the land, contorting the natural, defying order... mocking me.

Hours pass as I traverse the length of Miden'nir, the night sky concealing my passage. The torches of the city of Kjeldoran greet me, yet I have no time, nor inclination to stop, I move on. Skirting the city walls I fly onward, to the northeast and my target.

It is midnight by the time I draw near the ruins, the worst of possible times to come, assuredly, considering who I am dealing with. Across the wreckage of Mindar I fly, the wind foul and caustic, licking at my face as I come within sight of the Undead Lord's Tower.

I alight in the courtyard, near a drinking well, the blood moon peering down upon me accusingly. I cautiously survey my surroundings, marking the locations of the garrison, the slave quarters, the piles of detritus and decay. The lunar light reveals an impression in the cobblestones, several strides wide and long. Curiously, I lean down to investigate, scratching at the rock with my talon. Someone was... crushed here, by something... humongous. I stand again, taking in the totality of the titanic boot impression at my feet.

Suddenly the light disappears. Not from the whole of the compound, but just directly about me... as if... as if something were casting a shadow over me from the light of the...

Swiftly I turn, talons extended and teeth grit, to come face to shin with the Dark Governess. "Typical." I berate myself.

The Vault of Heavens

The gods change the world in mystic ways, for each deity looks upon reality through the tinted glass of their own perceptions, a confining and restricting measure of what is right and what is wrong. The earth, being a place of all realities, is seen as insufficient to each god for it is incapable of fitting their whims, their divine sense of what is correct, what must be. Thusly, they immutably change the land wherever they trod to match their innate sense of perfection, most oft without even realizing they do so. Such has occurred within the heights of Mount Caelestistelum.

Long did I meditate within the confines of the cavern atop the mount, the wind outside shrieking, unrelenting. The scars of my battle against the chaotic flux have healed slowly, causing me moments of delirium where the past, future and present have bled together before my eyes. Slowly, my wings have grown back, a source of great and eternal frustration to me, for the sensation of itching never stops as each feather reasserts itself to wing. Maybe I am ill at ease, for I am unable, still, to ascertain the reasoning of the entropic flux that so devastated me. I will, however, not relent until I discover the source and eliminate it.

I look about what once was a rugged chamber, nothing more than a dirty mountain cavern filled with jagged rock and rubble. Now, the walls climb seamlessly to unseen heights, purest obsidian that gleams with an innate light. A magical mixture of tones fill the chamber, the crystalline notes of celestial harmony. Circumscribed upon the levelled floor is a circle of protection, luminous golden sigils forming a center of power into which I have long sat, cross-legged, deep in thought.

"Here. A great evil shall come to pass. Someday." I intone with a leaden voice, my mind taken by the fugue of destiny. Arcing blue lightning shoots from my dead eyes, striking the sigils at my feet, inscribing therein the words of prophecy, a warning, a last hope.

Shaking off the grip of Fate, I stand, stiffly, and stretch. My newly grown wings reaching acroos the length of the cavern. "Soon, I shall be ready." I stroll out the maw of the cave, into the brunt of the ripping winds, shrouded in feathers.

My deepening stare peers piercingly to the north, where my search must inevitably begin. There must always be a beginning, and I know exactly where to start. I clench my fists, my face becoming ashen as brows furrow in immeasurable hatred. "I am coming, Dark One."

Azure lightning spills from my ire filled gaze, igniting the ice that blows about me in tiny detonations. I turn and return to the Vault. More meditation is yet needed.

But soon.

Chilling Passage

The blast of the escaping power sends me reeling across the sky with sizable boulders. Shrieking winds blow in, battering me about as if I were nothing more than a feather in a twister, my face becomes glazed with a fine layer of ice. Had I my wings still, I could have risen above it, but there is no time to lament their loss for now. I focus upon the roiling earth, far below, levelling my body and diving through the timultuous air currents like a porpoise in the bucking sea. As I meet the terminus of my descent, I acrobatically twist and roll, deadening my inertia enough to finally come to a complete stop at the base of the polar mass.

The winds blow the snow and ice in a horizontal haze across my unseeing sight, blurring the land with the sky in a vast canvas of chilling white. Massive drifts rise and flare pennants of misting snow from the apex of their blizzard driven waves.

Chest high, the snow dunes makes the passage through the wastes seem to last forever. Were I mortal, the sub-zero temperatures would have long ago frozen my blood. As it is, I am forced to continuously wipe the frosty sheen of ice from my face as my breath instantaneously freezes in place.

My progress and sense of direction are confused, I fail to notice the uphill slope of my ceaseless passage. All I can think of is returning to the citadel, unravelling the mystery of the recent Chaotic attacks, and visiting swift and fatal vengeance. Upward I climb, higher and higher, the wind shrieking louder and louder, deafening in its cacophony.

At last, I pass through the lower bounds of the clouds and beyond the wrath of the blizzard below. In my delirious wandering, I find myself looking across the vast, billowing ocean of timultuous clouds, encircling and secluding the pinnacle of this great mount like an island. This must now be the highest of mountains in the known realms, I muse, reaching to the heavens like a jagged tooth. I am the cause of this affliction, I only have myself to blame. But what choice was there. *Sigh*

I tred onward, finally coming upon a darkened cave, and entering within I resolve to rest a while. I have much to think upon... what has happened to date... what I have been through... what I have been forced to do. There is a reason for all things... I will know.

I must meditate. I must heal. I must look into the timeless writings and see.

The wind continues to blow outside... there is time for these things... time must be made. For now, I will be content to wait. But first, this dreary chamber needs some changes.

Cataclysmic Benevolence

A force of immeasurable strength strikes the remnants of my awareness with vaulted will. Were I more than I am, I would certainly recognize it for what it is. It's identity is strikingly familiar, yet continues to allude me, slipping through my talons like gossamer.

Molded, shaped, reforged, reformed. Pulled from the empty void of oblivion, I am reborn. Yet the energy of my destruction remains within, overpowering, overwhelming. The chaotic forces threatening to once again unmake me. I am pulled inexplicably to the prime materia, a device of ultimate destruction awaiting to be unleashed. And yet, I feel I can do nothing to avert the disaster.

Yet, I have sensation, I feel. I feel the earth beneath me, surrounding me, enclosing me. My unbound eyes open, revealing the unpenetrating darkness of the underworld. Sealed away in this nebulous tomb, a location certain to bring about the most devestating effects upon my imminent fatality.

The power builds, coursing along my body in arcing bolts of jade lightning. The remnant shards of the Destiny Gate are embedded beneath my black skin, glowing with the power of Order, casting a blue glow that strives to control the rising destructive fury of the chaotic.

I rise to my feet painfully, the withered vestiges of my once boundless wings falling to tatters. The scar upon my face burns to the bone, etching a permenant brand into my skull.
Heat, heat so profound it rises in visible patterns, withering and melting the rocks, pools of magma collect at my taloned boots. Surges of radiation rise from my glowing form permeating the land, forcing a mutative effect that was never meant to be.

"This cannot be. There must be something that can be done."
Order. I am the vessel, the conduit of Order. The power can be bound, changed. The thought rebounds through my mind, forcing a semblance of calm and determination.

The arcing bolts become more aggravated, as if sensing my thoughts, the power exponentially growing, seeking to thwart all control. I draw upon all of my will, forcing the power through the focal of the destiny shards. The energy writhes, seethes, fights all control. "Divine Order, aid me."

My form is enveloped completely in the azure glow of holy light, bolstering the integrity of the mystical crystals. Direction. The power demands direction. Direction which must come now.

The mountain under which I am bound heaves with wave after wave of pulsing energy. I have no choice. The fate of the realm depends upon this now.

Falling to my knees, I drive both fists into the slurried rocks. A glowing azure sphere expands, grows, encompasses the land... I have mere seconds, I must release the power. Wild surges of jade lightning flow into the earth, the power mounting, building, escalating, escaping, refining, rebuilding, remaking, undoing. The land rolls, heaves, roils, seizes, ERUPTS. "What have I done!" Golden tears fall down my smouldering face.
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A cataclysmic eruption shakes the realms. The sky fills with ash and burning cinder, darkening into the depths of lightless night. Far to the south, Mount Kurgan explodes violently, destroyed, the land surrounding it is upheaved, broken. Viscuous polar winds seize the land, encapsulating the area in ice. The remnants of the chaotic energy mutates all life within the confines of the order sphere. None escape. What has happened.