Tribulations of Wrath, part IX: The Fall of the Aerie

For many winters, the Atavians of the Aerie had endured the tightening noose from the Empire of Bloodloch, a campaign of attrition spearheaded by the former resident, Aren Yaslana. Once a place of refuge for the descendants of the Atav, sheltered by the high Vashnarian peaks, the village had become a grim landscape of iron and atrocity. Imperial raids systematically harvested civilians to slake the Empire’s unending thirst for an enslaved workforce. Even shorn Atavian wings were placed on display to further demoralise the people, in an attempt to force the Satrap to abdicate his position.

Yet, as the fifteenth year following the Creators’ Monomachy drew to a close and the winter snows sealed the mountain passes, the biting winds carried not the scent of surrender, but that of resistance. The catalyst came from an unlikely quarter: as the Vorostran Asura Kshetraghan ravaged the village of Kornar and made quick, brutal work of its defenders, the twin-souled warrior-priest had lifted their voice to the realm entire, offering clemency to any land terrorised by the Sanguine Empire – to forsake the weak and kneel instead to a greater power, to know fair and just rule under the law of a Divine Dragon. Though the offer was made for the ears of el’Jazira and Vilimo, it found fertile ground in the high Vashnarian peaks as well.

Taking advantage of the isolation of the seasonal freeze, the Atavians of the Aerie took their first violent step toward asserting their sovereignty. With a chorus of aeromantic chants, the Atavian priestesses conjured an unnatural gale in the name of their God, so called the Great Dau. This summoned gale scoured the passes and focused its fury on the estate of Aren, whom the Aerie denounced as a false Satrap. The winds shrieked, their strength enough to rip the house from its very foundations within the Aerie, hurling the splintered debris into the wastes of the Mhojave.

Unity within the Aerie proved brittle, however, as a shadow stirred within their own ranks. Zihfer, the Harpy ambassador, harboured a deep-seated loathing for the ruling council born of decades of Atavian suspicion. She quickly dispatched a fledgling harpy named Kriix to the Empire, who delivered a chilling report to Sumie, Naivara and Aren: Aamiran and his ruling council had retreated into the mountain’s depths. Under the cover of the winter blockade, the Satrap was fortifying the Aerie and raising a fledgling army of Atavian soldiers, with the intention of seeking sanctuary within the SWEEP alliance once the spring thaws arrived.

Time, ever unyielding, saw the winter yield to spring and the mountain passes reopen. Observing the escalating military presence within the Aerie, Bloodloch accelerated their plans to take the Aerie under their heel before the Atavian forces could mobilise, fearing a preemptive strike while the Empire was occupied with the tribulations of the Vorastrans.

Yet, unbeknownst to the Empire, Aamiran sought only to blockade his village against further aggression. Aware that the Aerie would fall when autumn came, he penned a petition to the leaders of SWEEP, seeking the protection of the three collective sovereignties. As Bloodlochian troops began their ascent, Aerian scouts alerted the Satrap, who immediately dispatched a smaller division towards the Ophidian Empire. Their intention was simple: to deliver the missive to the Empress in the desperate hope that they would be admitted membership before the armies of the Empire came to roost at their doorstep.

Hopes for a peaceful transition were soon eclipsed by the fog of war. The Empire of Bloodloch rallied around Aren, sending their own division of troops to march towards the Aerie, narrowly missing the Atavian envoys by a stroke of fortune. Meanwhile, a contingent of defenders, composed of citizens of the city-states that had formed to defend the Aerie’s interests, escorted the soldiers bearing the petition. In the ensuing clash, only a hollow victory was achieved: Aamiran’s petition was safely delivered, but his defending soldiers within the Aerie were destroyed, down to the last Atavian; their defence spent on a single gamble for diplomatic sanctuary.

With the Vorastran threat looming at the time, Bloodloch secured the Aerian passes with their remaining horrors. In retaliation, under the leadership of Edhain de Verdigris, a Duirani Speaker, a raiment of Duirani Centaurs marched to the Bloodlochian horrors holding the pass and dispatched them without interference. The citizens of the Aerie might have felt relief at the time, as the Duirani swiftly arrived in numbers to proselytise the Hope of the holy Cathres of Lleis – but once more, the beleaguered Atavians found that the Hope that the Duirani offered was the embrace of Death and the return to the Cycle of Dia’ruis.

Concurrently, the Tyrant of Bloodloch, Akarn Yaslana, no stranger to political intrigue, moved to ensure the Aerie’s isolation. In a summit with Empress Malieh Garilicci of Djeir, the Empire successfully argued that the Aerie was a strategic void – a backwater capable only of draining the alliance’s resources. Yielding to the Tyrant’s logic, the collective sovereignties of the Ophidian Empire, the Holy Impire of Sehal, and Djeir formally declined the petition. The precedent was set: the shield of SWEEP would not be extended to those who offered neither martial strength nor economic might in return.

Abandoned by the world, Satrap Aamiran’s pride curdled into lethal defiance. In a public denunciation of Sapience at large, he decried his distrust of the four great city-states and that the only safety one might attain in such a world was to grasp and wield it with their own strength of arms. So it was that the Aerians chose the storm, as the Satrap and his priestesses began a desperate ritual of aeromancy.

The end came not with a triumph, but with a sickening, wet, squelch.

As the Satrap and the priestesses sang their melodies to the Great Dau, the crescendo of power that crested around Aamiran failed spectacularly with terrible results. The leylines beneath the Vashnars rumbled in complaint to the force of the summoned aeromancy, as the gathering winds – instead of forming a shield – collapsed inwards with the force of a tectonic shift. A deafening boom trumpeted from the peaks as Aamiran, caught in the eye of his own creation, underwent a gruesome apotheosis.

The winds became a torturous vice, swirling and tightening around the Satrap as bone snapped and flesh scoured away. Realising too late that he had been forsaken, Aamiran devolved into a monstrous entity of gale and grief, lashing out at all interlopers within the Aerie with indiscriminate rage. Though Bloodloch responded first, adventurers across the continent came to subdue the fallen Satrap, and blood was shed once more within the Aerie as the Empire contended with the combined forces of Duiran and Enorian, with a few from Spinesreach joining the fray.

Under the combined might of the citizens of the city-states, Aamiran was finally slain after a protracted fight, with the Grand Crusader Benedicto landing the final blow and securing Aamiran’s corpse. Together, the temporary allies found themselves holding the gruesome centerpoint of the Aerians’ ritual against the citizens of the Empire, and building a pyre to purify the broken Satrap’s body. Aamiran’s long rule of the Aerie was finally over, in an abrupt, brutal clash.

The aftermath saw the Aerie a ghost of its former self. With the citizens of the Aerie having already evacuated into the depths of their mines, a permanent schism fractured the survivors as many took in the destruction that had so arrived like a sudden tempest to their home. Some, finding themselves at the knife’s edge of the lash’s end, opted to leave the Aerie. Yet, others – led by Adilla, sister to the fallen Satrap and under the advice of Zihfer, the Harpy ambassador, opted to stay in the ruins of their ancestral home.

~~~~~

Summary: Following years of Bloodlochian aggression and a failed bid for sovereignty, the Aerie’s Satrap attempted a catastrophic ritual, in the name of their God, Dau, to empower himself and his priestesses with disastrous results – the death of Aamiran and his priestesses. In the wake of the disaster, an exodus occurred, with many Atavians opting to leave the Aerie and others choosing to remain with Aamiran’s sister, who would lead the few remaining survivors in the ruins.

Penned by my hand on Tisday, the 21st of Omeian, in the year 17 AC.