Echoes of Power, Part XVII: A Pestilent Awakening
Hot on the heels of the Theocracy’s toil and the Light’s triumph, the Sanguine Fist sought to leverage their uncontested grasp upon the Bloodflower Falls.
Throughout the weeks leading to this moment, the Empire’s brightest minds had sequestered themselves to consider the matter of the ritual site’s true power. Convinced that it could be used for an act of grand sorcery, the citizenry was initially split on the purposes to which these energies could be directed. Eventually, however, a good enough use coalesced amongst them:
Stopping the Curator.
It was Primus Myrnma Ladoran themself who proposed that Bloodloch should employ the landmark in a ritual involving the four humours, and their vision defined the basis for the sorcery to come. The Thronekeeper of Blood sought the perfect vessels for the three unrepresented humours and settled upon Naivara for fiery yellow bile, Zethrie Da’Saison for the chilling phlegmatic humour, and Tyrant Akarn for the black bile of insanity and whistling air. As the leader of the ritual magics, the Primus appointed themself to the most crucial of humours: blood, the humour of spirit, life, and absolute ritual power. Having long since ordered the empire to begin anew its slave-driving practice, the Thronekeepers assigned taskmasters to move large crowds of captive villagers to Bloodflower Falls in preparation for the ritual to come. Into the crimson maw of power were each of these hapless lives thrust for many days and nights, with one final procession prepared for the day of despair now nigh.
The final arrival at the ritual site before its beginning was a curious one: a slave covered in pestilent, writhing flesh, his back inscribed with a forbidden incantation by some metal quill. Scabbed over and weeping pus, the unfortunate attendee hardly seemed present, his gaze long since wiped clean of any recognition.
With the empire assembled to defend their claim, the humourists began their work. Slaves were fed to the landmark at an alarming rate as the four sorcerers manipulated their respective humours in a specific sequence, awakening a dark and mysterious intelligence within the previously incoherent falls. At the climax of the ritual, the Tyrant commanded Thronekeeper Iadora to cast a penultimate offering into the landmark’s sanguine waters: a potent mixture of Ithmian soil, blood willingly given, a Scriptorium illness sample, and other assorted sundries unknown to the Grand Library.
With the landmark primed for manipulation, the Tyrant gave the order to cast the despondent, fleshgrafted slave into its dark waters.
A low, ominous gurgle then rumbled throughout the Bloodflower Falls, its crimson mysteries brought to the forefront by the beginnings of the empire’s high magic. Waves of darkling power emanated from the Dun Valley as the Bloodflower Falls stirred, cajoled now to heed the call of its imperial masters. A low, long, rasping hiss echoed from the landmark, like the triumphant ululation of a demon once imprisoned, before a single scream of agony cut through the ominous silence, drawn out far beyond mortal length. Baleful jade light soon wept from the Bloodflower Falls, its sanguine depths parting to reveal a glittering eye wrought from the tormented sorcery birthed by their bloody profanity. Sickly smoke arose from the landmark’s crimson bounty, as if it had come to a vile boil, and its surface clouded over with pestilent froth.
Profane murklight soon slithered forth into the vast leyline network beneath the ancient ritual site, the world’s hearty veins laid bare for an infusion of wretched magic that darted out of sight like a snake on the hunt. As if it were a shark’s silhouette coursing through bloodied waters, the plague-riddled spellcraft coursed serpentine through the land, sowing disease and death in its wake. The inhabitants of recently resettled Xoral and the Mitrine village suffered untold illnesses and losses to their communities as the unknown contagion continued ever further from its once-host – toward its target.
Riding a veritable river of prismatic ylem, the visible twining of raw power and terrible spellcraft surged forth into the southwestern edge of the Liruma Crater. Irradiated corpses succumbed to a horrific arcane fleshrot, obliterating them where they stood. The path of the pestilent strike spanned the full length of the ylem rapids, disappearing into the northeastern edge of the Liruma Crater to delve once more beneath the earth. It was then that a nauseating glow awakened upon the northern roads beyond the Morgun, its insidious light creeping along the western Ithmia’s border like a madbeast lurking at a pasture’s edge.
The pestilent wrath swept throughout the woodland like a rough wave upon an inhabited shore, sending panicked animals lunging through the underbrush to take cover even as a strange patina of virid energy sheathed the forest in a protective embrace. Sickly, slimy flesh swathed the forest floor in patches that grew in density as they approached the Tree of Stasis, the woodland’s leylines wailing in contempt for all the contamination thrust upon them. Writhing pustules sprouted from the earth like twisted flora and burst into explosive novae of sickening fluids and acidic bile that showered the surrounding area in tormented magic. Briefly exposed by the terrible sorcerous assault, the leyline nexus, twisted throughout the Tree of Stasis’s roots, briefly glimmered into sight, its multifaceted hues quelled by the all-encompassing grasp of vile chartreuse. A terrible jade light roiled upon every sickly surface, every pus-drenched root, every humour-soaked blade of grass, its horrifying potential seeping into the earth to multiply the force unleashed upon the wellspring held in the Curator’s implacable grasp.
A long, glowing crack soon coursed across the landmark’s impenetrable protections.
Deep beneath the frigid aegis of Morvaethe’s magic, the Tree of Stasis splintered, its remains contained by the slowly deteriorating shell of enchanted stasis. For the first time since its unfortunate aspecting, the Tree of Stasis shifted, its branches bowing beneath the portentous weight of high ritualism and a virulent poison wrought to consume ordered magics. Wriggling tendrils of flesh pressed themselves up against the glass-like confines of Morvaethe’s thwarted sorcery, one and all ravenous to feast upon the wretched pulp of the dying landmark before their fated terminus.
The Tree of Stasis, struck hard by a diseased hammerblow from another, equal landmark, buckled and began to descend into an inevitable end.
The Bloodflower Falls, having spent all its cosmic power, issued one last, sickening gurgle before its obscure enchantments slipped into indeterminate slumber.
Terrified and furious, Morvaethe soon ordered countless tribes of Menedan shades to travel the realm in search of a new source of power: the missing Sphinx, last of the Eschatonically empowered landmarks. Determined to buy time, he commanded the lurking guardwyrm shade to assume a defensive position around the Tree of Stasis, its glowing bulk coiled around it as if it were a mother shielding a child.
Even as Morvaethe scrambled to protect his holdings, however, the bindings of the arcane began to buck and strain…
~~~~~
Summary: the city of Bloodloch performed an arcane ritual to direct their landmark’s power into a dangerous, magical plague that struck the Curator’s source of power. Furious at their interference, Morvaethe commanded his conjured servants to seek out and capture the Sphinx on his behalf.
Penned by my hand on Falsday, the 13th of Ios, in the year 12 AC.
