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With the world in such a pre-flux state, it is expected that prophecies regarding its fate should come about sooner or later. There have always been such things floating around, suggesting that dire events will come to pass if not for the timely intervention of some hero or another. But this time it's different.
For a start, there is actually something looming on the horizon - something that even the gods acknowledge as approaching - and for a second, some of the prophecies have already come true. There are two main prophecies - the Prophecy of Rehan, and the Prophecy of Ouresch.
Rehan was a priest of Golag, god of Temporality, and also a mad dwarf who ranted his prophecy at his fellow clerics over the course of a few weeks until eventually he died from malnutrition and thirst. His fate seemed to be tied into the telling of his prophecy. The dwarves, ever foresighted, distributed a copy of his words to all the leaders of the known nations, but at a later date someone made it their business to steal them all. In recent years these have been resurfacing, the most complete copy being recovered from the den of the great red wyrm Infyrana, whose home was, until recently, the fabled Dragon Mountain.
Ouresch was a priestess of Fate and her visions came to her more coherently - so much so that she penned the writings herself. Unlike Rehan, her sympathies seem to lie with Lucifer's plight, and her predictions are generally considered to be the same as Rehan's, but aimed at the opposite force. It is not recorded what race Ouresch belonged to, but distribution of her words was not carried out until long after her death, and even then only a few copies were made.
There is but one more prophecy known at this time, whose author and existence are unknown (virtually). This prophecy penned itself into the spellbook of Barnabus Scoropco, one of the co-founders of the Academy near Dervish and two-time winner of the Vortis city Trial of Champions. Why him is not known, and where the words came from are also a mystery (many suppose that Barnabus himself wrote them in a dreaming fit).
Below are copies of the three prophecies, although it should be noted that the Prophecy of Rehan is missing some parts. Read, absorb, decipher.
This dream, soon upon us: fale upon the lands of the living and the dead; harsh upon the yoke that grindeth into sand and deep upon the eyes that fall into brokenness. If thunder had rent through the ashes of such a burden then this beast would fly by the light of this dawn for the echoes cometh. Aye, they cometh.
Watch then thee, for the return of those who Walk Among The Stars, for this is the first sign, the first echo of the future. The flaming sword no more stands defeated; it sweeps in a clean arc, ever on and ever through. The one is now triad and the sands shall run ever on, faster with every passing breath: unnoticably steaming in the misty night and the distant dawn.
Signs there shall be: beacons to the Knowing and death to the Unfortunate. Greatness will shine in the light of the fallen Star; in the afterglow of shattering, bound by the Oath, riven in time. Nature will attack thee; reclaim her lost ones. She will retaliate against the yoke upon her. Like a wingé d beast in the night: silent and deadly, shall she come. Thy sleep will be terrible: as eternal as thy screams and as long as such a night. The sense of ages will echo; the bells of eternity tolling with every breath fading as it was and now shall be.
Those who were forsaken shall flee from the depths of the endless night -- rent forth with the bowels of the futureless coming. Fell will be their brow as they gaze upon liquid: for the ways are once more perilous to He who never sleeps. Burning fire seeps from that struck wound and ignites the way ahead for the first bell is ringing in the night and death calls us all from its resting place. The cold nigh… The corridors of his m…of his insanity within… he came unlaiden from… mar him but his screa… swirling from the brow o…
One will come, on… e. number in profusion will sta… One in s… and in the height and breadth; demea… the black undergrowth that pulls… k, false witness lay bear and yet th… air with its broken wings. Fly like… but then shot with an arrow, crun… eneath footsteps where non… ne.
…he Chosen shall stand alone… he hearth in the place once forg… those above and below call the ch… e and impart. What was once hid… m the cage; all is unknown and al… pirit, as spirit to spirit and soul to… er than far and yet nearer than… the Circle the Chosen will stand… r and betrayal shall now darken w… all be in the wake of such burden? …is not and then shall be seen. …ust upon the pillars of time: aeons… for war cometh.
…cometh.
…f burden, cowed not by anger, …turn man upon man in his cradle; …ne and of many, the shattering o… The heart will then falter, the battle lines waver, the Fall, ever repeated through Ages long past. Burned parchment will fall into the sands of time, dripped with blood and chained in destiny...shake froth from the mouth of the hunger. Burn pageants as logs in silence and shatter a crystal long since never known. Wrath, lust, envy, gluttony; stained upon centuries, dragged by a chariot burning the sky.
Nameless for eternity, nameless in name shall be, follow the phoenix of united despair. Turn stone eyes to look inward, for blackness ebbs like a sea of sulphur -- rapine route walked beyond fire and wrath. A circle like stone shall form and none shall pass until the joining of life and life and death, immortal; or until the gates are burst forth with flames and blood and the stench of death.
Past dust driven rivers and over eldritch valleys -- a wall of black bone and flesh shall rise from the Sea of Dragons: there in the earthen home death comes again. Edge from the rage is spawned, spared by black flesh and wall, quest deep into the enemy’s heart. A stake will be driven there, where rivers run red and tides never ebb, where the sky turns to black and the chariot of war rampages on the horizon. There in that place the first hammer will strike, the first blow will resonate through the sandstorms of time and the flight of the navigator, swift, sure and true, will begin then in earnest for the night will come soon.
That which by many is sought, one shall not seek it.
Iron on the land, fist like an anvil, stone within stone turn to ashes and dust. War turns and laps it up, the belly of the beast swathed in bullrushes, the collar hewn from the fiery rock itself: the leash from silver sand is cast. Thrice shall the Hunter call, thrice shall the beast recoil and thrice on the land shall see evergrown life. Cower, those of the Cael -- sons of the elements cast away long ago. Cower, oh Caelen, the Hunter walks among you, walks above the safety of those cavernous burrows. Flee, Demon, for in thy waking the Hunter stalks you ever near; breath on thy neck, horn in thy ear. The balance yet tips both ways... flame and sword unmatched in battle.
She comes forthwith, feel the tremblous ache within the belly of the earth, see the scales tip in the shadow of her rage...fate to fall in the clutch of such a thing. Tremble world, for she has come with the wrath of all the ages. Stone brothers look not to the friendliless world in the threat of her coming the land locks it’s jaw. When the Hunter thrice summons the beast of their burden, begone or the echoes will be heard no more.
Harshness tightens the yoke with the reins of the beast, silver sand pours onto the land, ever engulfing; shadows cast within shadows and they in turn falter, the fruits of thy labour in plentiless scorn thee. Claws wrap around in an icy embrace and the talons rip into the sides of the seasons...burning stains the skyline, claw marks ever scarred upon the skin.
The burning chariot fading, the beast’s belly bulging, her Vengeance untimely -- the Hunter lies broken; shattered in bone. Despair and Dusk ever coming, like a shade on the hilltops, cloud gathers rain and then blows it away. For the words I am uttering, the images like tesselations in the web of the future and past.
Each stands beside, statues in a circle, each catches the fallen, each holds aloft a gem. Each can be shattered, but each cannot shatter, one alone without all. One reaches aloft, Finder not Seeker, held by the circle, triumphant returns to a fear prevailed again, chariot doused. The Risen shall be again, turn thine eye westwards for fale are the lands of mystery. But the Beast leads the Risen, fealt far in the hurricane, cast down with the relic and burnt with the eye. Four times shalt the eye redress. A strike to the chains, frees the new lands from the yoke of the Risen. Burnt blue in the wake of a failure: redemption holds the key as the Apostate beckons, a fire in the eye of the Worldbreaker. Then ofttime the tale be told about the fading of everything -- the leasing of the silver sand, the banishing of time...
And those that fell beneath the yoke in ancient times, in times of strife when war was yet a childhood thing and when life was yet to be explored, fall once again beneath the talons, the hawk’s loud cries without feeling or meter. In death throes the lake throws up droplets of passion: fortune favours the brave and the weak with the same breath as life. Half a yoke for the fighting, half a yoke for the pondering; ceased in flight by the flail.
Then from the sky with fire and thunder cometh the Stealer, from the place of Anger and Rage she flies with wings of darkness and eyes of flame. In rage she was created and to silence shall be rendered and from her belly wrenched Hope. From Ways ever reaching, Courage faced down fate and in death placed the future in the hands of the Strong. A foe, long forgotten, held in realms long abandoned, cast in stone long time lost.
Turn swiftly the knife, the back exposed to the blade; echo the flower now bent in the breeze. Fast turn thee to steeliness, hard heart in the darkness, the light will reveal only anger and pain. What once was is no more. Turn the harp to the light of the dawn breaking o’er the sea and in the haunting melody be.
The turmoil yet cometh, verily as the clouds gather in the sky and the free flee far and wide from that which enslaves them. As surely as that which is coming, turmoil continues with revenge and ire and pain. The Eldritch swarm with hunger in their eyes and fear on their lips; like flies on a corpse they devour all before them. So from fire, torture and flame, in hideous spew, to death and to duty the glass is raised. Drink to the end and then drink to the future for the enemy’s Guide rips thy drink from thy hand. Be still with the Monster, be still in the calmlessness, be still in the heart of the burning beast. That which, once found, must now be unmade and the rivers run down into the earth, into the soul and strike deep a wound never healed. The waters run deep with eddies and currents but more shall be lost in the pits of the fiend. A trust of time must be unforged: liquid swirling to the depths of the world within...
...deny the request and cease coveting that which is no longer thine: she calls thee mockingly no longer.
The flame in the Heart will become a sword; the light in the Heart will become a steed; the tears in the Heart will become a shield. The mirror of the world shall shatter into a thousand silver fragments, scattered upon the heaving ground.
On a steed of purest light, like the arc of a rainbow, cometh Revenge, cometh Salvation, cometh Future, cometh Hope. Like rain to the field in the clutches of death, past the mountains like fingers clawing the bowels of the earth: fale to the Brothers for all that is beneath. Those that in folly were broken, now crumbled in the wake of That passing; eternally lost in a war everlasting. In mist, shrouded dark hearts engulfing, echoing justice, salvation unrendered...
Lightning across the skies, ripping and tearing the present apart. Light casts upon dark, fast within the heart of darkness, fast within the walls of hell. Blood filled lakes like craters cross the breast of the eagle as it falls from the sky. Lion roars as the sands fall quicker beneath the weight of the yoke that binds, the rings that bind, the hope that binds, the binding that blinds. Sight beyond sight, life beyond life, love beyond love beyond death beyond light...
...beyond hope, beyond future, beyond time, beyond past, beyond now, beyond ever in battle.
Victory comes, like a wave to the shore, but the shape of a wave distorted with time immeasurable and future unknowable. Final victory lies along the path of tears and into the flames of the innocent candle....
The images fade now, I can see no more and what I have seen I cannot grasp. I can only see to the point of possibility: to the End of all the futures, to the end of the world as we know it. There is no more, no warning, no conclusion, no epilogue.
Rehan Mallior, 2nd Fane of Golag.
[
Rehan] [Ouresch] [Barnabus]
The wars will begin again once they who left have returned from their distant haunts. When They whose footsteps echo in every mind, corridor and field have come again. And a warning to thee all I send: for the war is not yet begun and the war is not surely won.
Start then thee, to see the path that lies ahead when great things fall into the Abyss, when the world moves against the tide of future like a cloth in a dam. See that They who fight on the fabric torn; that they bite back the words but pull not the punches, rumbling sighs and whispering howls shall search the world for their lost masters.
For the Awakening drives them on and before, like a torrent of destiny they cannot resist, caught in the snare and pulled along by the throat. Tie ropes with the zeal of a thousand ages; with the breath of aeons and the shell is broken at last: the unripe egg splintered in the Sun and the rotting stench in the air. It is now that Time and envy are past; that past and destiny mingle in the Web of ways.
But Four and far, yet close to heart, come ridden from danger with the Breaker: from the heights fallen and to the depths consumed, a hammer in the seal of the darkest gloom. But watch now, for in hope there comes undoing: every veil that lifts reveals a face unseen and every sword that strikes unerring wounds the spirit and cuts the eye. The beholder sees that which he is moved to see; the drifter, aimless wanders into the trap unlaid but sprung.
For ‘neath the crown of power lies the darkness of the light; the Curse of the Pure. Hail to the virtuous, so worthy, so niaive for they too shall fall when the bones of their halls come for them. Their shadows, now fleeing, lose direction but soon shall return when the Sign of their birth calls again from their heart.
A fire shall spring, not a fire, more a flame; gust the winds but they shall not extinguish it for the hollow it lies in, protected by stones, stops the wind and the rain and the force of thy will. Fear thee well, for thy fear will fuel thy flame and thus the cycle is begun again. Watch then, Ancient, for the Changling sees the face but knows not the fear and the burning consumes thy children evermore.
Now the parts will be seen, in the eyes of the Blinded. Fortuitous threads pull thy brothers to arms; bearing weapons of mortality and cloaks of design, last forward they come and in a masquerade they dance. So frivolous a charm and so dangerous a tune.
Thy Undoing lies in the heart of all things, where the Great Ones once flew over torrential streams, from the depths of the waters returns the dark Tower, whose walls bear the scars of it’s violent hour: whose Keeper lies dying but calls unto him a thousand poor wretches of hideous skin. There in the half-light the half-man shall come and from him shall render the passing undone. Flames that shall issue, thy wounds will abhor unless once that vandal is kept from the door but pay not the Keeper his faithless advance for the knights that shall fall will not fall by the lance and the watcher who watches the watchers themselves sees the Reaper approaching but rings not the bells.
A Hunter runs against the rush of the wind; the wake of thy passing, against the fence and through the fields of fire. Cast down in that eye art thou; chastened and bound, thrice fold wounded with the cry of that heart; crush then thee the Hope of the future; make thy nest in the bowl of righteousness, forge a crystal, hammer the blade and quench it with the blood of the hunting soul. For from that quenching comes the Mighty, as from broken heritage comes the wielder of such a crystal blade, a thorn in the side of Destiny, whose leash grows long but snags on the branches and catches in the rye.
Throughout and through great battles abound, fought on the blood now stained into the ground; tapestries woven of valiant retreat, of massacre, standstill and bloody defeat; of fields of bodies burnt with the dawn; fields of unreaped and untended corn. Look then to the sight of the risen again, for their ranks ever swell with defeated men. Over valley and mountain they crush all before and sweep ever onward, chained and enthralled.
Drawn ever towards the deepest of realms, swallowed by foam is a haven of elves. But onward and ever on comes the great tide, caused when the two greatest armies collide; clashed metal and tortured across the whole sky, lit up by fire and the victory cry; for burning consumes all the passions awry and left in the ashes, a roll of the die, a cleave of an axe and the sulphurous smell as the danger erupts from the pyres of Hell; but the chains never ending, never broken go on to the heart of the Daughter, when the fires are done.
A Thief to the wreckage, a dark emiss’ry, whose eyes to the depths of the soulless can see; whose spirit is fused with the power of youth, from a time long since past, now a fading of truth; in the victory path all ways become clear and the road to the end can be trod without fear but in her defeat, yet more defeat is met and the road to the end with snares is beset, but keen are the eyes of the sorrowful two and in their single peace the flame will pass through.
A spark to the flame is met without cry, for the fuel to the fire will spit in thy eye, but think not of the branches that burn in that flame, but look to the twigs that cry out thy name for the way to strike hope from thy enemy’s heart is to take all the twigs from the fire in the hearth: then in stillness await like a lion in grass for a lone antelope to graze on the pass, then pounce like the cat, engage in the chase but run at the flanks to the dangerous place and there on the antelope, feast while he may but eat not the throat that it begs you to take.
Ouresch, High Priestess of Fate.
[
Rehan] [Ouresch] [Barnabus]The Origin dost in four ways part:
The Soul, the Eye, the Hand, the Heart.
From open wound a darkness comes
The heartbeat falters, the hand is numbed.
The fleeing soul in darkness shroud
With life anew now dreams aloud
Ne'er to return to Victory
A land now proud with dignity.
So wounded parts in four ways fall
The whole destroyed, divided wall
Thrice come, thrice go but nought remains
To feel the sallow of the stain.
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