Fall of Valahai

See Fall of Valahai in the Lore Graph

They looked out towards the plains of Enion, where ravenirs spread across the plateau as far as Zyggy could see from their vantage point. Like towering islands in a churning sea, the Old Ones, the creatures’ creators and masters, loomed over the seething horde. Rivulets of monstrosity now poured through the thoroughfares of Valahai, drowning their once fair fortress in corruption. Forever hungry, consuming to multiply, their bodies so sickeningly malleable that the Old Ones could sculpt them to their conquering purposes. No two monsters were ever alike, yet all had one thing in common: their stolen flesh once belonged to the living creatures and people of Rathe.

“So many,” said Wendryn. There was a tremor in the veteran Wayfarer’s voice.

“Simply a matter of perspective,” assured Zyggy with all the false confidence they could muster. “A few ants invading our picnic. And look, here is our host to refresh our festivities.”

Yvor descended from the sky and struck Valahai with a clap of thunder. Buildings shattered at the Ancient’s impact. Zyggy gave quiet thanks that most of Valahai had been evacuated as lightning swept the area clean of ravenirs. A towering Old One thrashed in sudden agony before toppling with a resounding crash to the ground.

Gazing at the crater left behind, Zyggy estimated that thousands of ravenirs had succumbed, either shocked by lightning or crushed under their felled master. “Our Ancient knows how to make an entrance.”

Yet more awaited to take their place, their sibling ravenirs consuming the corpses and multiplying even as they surged towards the Ancient. Soon Yvor was defending itself on all sides, a tornado of crackling elemental power encircled by slavering beasts.

Zyggy glanced back at the Auric Keep, the learned heart of Valahai. The glittering Astral Bridge spanned the aetheric moat that protected the citadel, and even now survivors poured across it, retreating to safety. The more time Zyggy could buy for their retreat, the more chance they had to live to fight another day.

“Come, Wendryn, let’s rejoin the others. There is work to be done!”

From the watchtower, they hurried down the stairs and out onto the pathway where a motley troop of Wizards and Wayfarers awaited them, a dozen in all. Their arrival was heralded by a guttural roar as a pack of many-legged ravenirs scuttled towards them. Each was the size of a horse, a chimeric horror of raking claws and snapping jaws.

Zyggy looked to Yvor in the distance and felt its lightning flow through their veins. Sweeping their hands across the scene, Zyggy used their imagination to form a line of stout Ollin, armor gleaming, war hammers raised. With a flourish, they adorned each with a fiery red beard, plaited so the hair formed the two prongs of an inverted V shape. Though the situation was desperate, Zyggy could never resist a touch of the dramatic.

The ravenirs leaped at the illusory Ollin, fooled by faux flesh. With a click of Zyggy’s fingers, the Ollin disappeared, leaving the ravenirs to crash into each other. Another click and the Ollin reappeared, hammers swinging, distracting but not dangerous… yet.

Zyggy drew Aphrodias from their pocket and tossed it forth, the arcane device unfurling in the air. As the first ravenir closed its jaws on a faux Ollin, the Guardian fragmented into holographic shards. The rest of the pack fared no better, their own hunting instincts betraying them as they took the bait. Zyggy sent Aphrodias bolting after the shards to draw them into its orbit. The shards spun faster and faster about the weapon until suddenly unleashed in a stunning arcane blast that scorched the foul creatures’ flesh and burned the eyes from their sockets.

Making the most of the injured ravenirs’ pained confusion, Wayfarer and Wizard alike charged and destroyed them with voltic blades and scorching spells.

Yet their victory was fleeting. This time, another form of ravenir burst through the ground, gaping mouths swallowing three of the defenders whole before they realized their plight, each a maggot of gigantic proportions, eyeless yet hunting by the scent of fear. Zyggy had read the eyewitness accounts from Wayfarer scouts. These were the creatures that tunneled deep under the Isen Ranges, that enabled the Old Ones and their horde to bypass Isenloft and bring the fight to Aldengrove in the south, and to Valahai itself.

The three maggots bulged and split with the nauseating sound of ripping meat. Torn flesh bubbled and healed as blood and gore soaked back into corporeal form. Though only scant moments had passed, where there had once been a trio, there were now six wriggling monsters.

Zyggy knew no optical illusion could fool unseeing beings, but swiftly surmised the scent of living flesh to be the key. Zyggy took in their surroundings, then charged towards the maggots. The allure of meat on bones did indeed trigger the monstrous mass to surge forward as one, their voracious hunger luring them towards the Aetherscribe.

Their gnashing jaws bore down, but Zyggy blinked away with a flash of lightning to a ledge high above the horrors. Just as Zyggy had hoped, the maggots had moved closer to a barracks already decimated from battle. Zyggy summoned Aphrodias once more, filling it with the arcane power of their lightning as it zipped through the sky.

A fierce burst of energy surged out of Aphrodias, slamming into the barracks and shattering the walls down upon the larvae, giving Zyggy’s companions time to retreat to their side. But the maggots thrashed themselves free of the debris.

“Lead our people to the Shyldverk, Wendryn!” shouted Zyggy.

“But Zyggy-”

“That’s an order, darling!”

The Wayfarer acknowledged with a grim nod and ushered the others away as Zyggy stood their ground. The maggots slithered out of the rubble, Zyggy waiting until they were fully exposed before forming an aura as a spectral wall. The blind beasts blundered into the ward, shattering it into a myriad of arcanic pieces that dug deep into the pallid flesh of the maggots until they died, writhing.

In the distance, Yvor wreaked havoc upon the Old Ones and their horde. Its storm scorched thousands with each blast, while its thunder shattered another of the monolithic masters. Yet the enemy was ineluctable. Zyggy could see the first dark patches as swarms of ravenirs climbed the Ancient and latched onto its elemental flesh. To Zyggy’s keen eyes, Yvor appeared to slow, lacking the luster of before. Piece by piece, the Ancient was being consumed. It was only a matter of time, and after that…

Zyggy shielded their mind from that dark, demoralizing thought. They’d learned long ago, during their grueling training with the Auric Seeress, that thoughts were mere projections within the theater of the mind. Zyggy took those projections and cast them outward. Thoughts obeyed, not the other way around.

There was a crash as ravenirs erupted from a nearby building to their left, this time a swarm of little humanoids brandishing stolen weapons. They reminded Zyggy of the chanek, the Rathenfolk with green skin and pointed ears they had met during their explorations of the far west. Though these were twisted mockeries of that kind and noble culture. These were the distorted memories of chanek, consumed and regurgitated into flesh to serve the Old Ones.

Another cacophony followed to the right, and now the end of the avenue crawled with corrupted life. Time to go.

Zyggy laid holograms along their trail as they fled to the Shyldverk, the squat, fortified gatehouse that guarded the bridge to the Auric Keep. Zyggy’s wards would slow the ravenirs, kill a few along the way, but they knew it was a drop in the proverbial bucket. Valahai was lost. The Auric Keep was their only hope now.

No sooner had they passed under the Shyldverk’s archway did the mighty gate slam shut behind them. Zyggy wondered if it would hold, but was heartened by the knowledge that it was forged of arcanite by the best smiths from Anvilheim. Burrowing maggots, even the strongest ravenir, would have no hope of getting through.

Zyggy pushed gently through the crowded Shyldverk, filled to overflowing with Valahai’s remaining defenders, their elders and children, all awaiting their turn to cross the Astral Bridge to the Auric Keep.

“Let the Aetherscribe through!” shouted Wendryn from the entrance to the bridge.

The crowd obeyed, parting to form a corridor of people. As they hurried to the Voltaris device beside which Wendryn waited, Zyggy noted the many faces from all over Rathe, even Dawnhaven. Elves from the north. Dwarves from the south. As far as anyone knew, Isenloft, Aldengrove, and Valahai held the last living Rathenfolk on the continent.

At Zyggy’s approach, the Voltaris Gem hummed and pulsed with the tempest trapped within as it powered the Astral Bridge, a magnificent span of pure arcanity stretching from the Shyldverk to the Auric Keep.

“When the last have crossed, bring the Voltaris Gem with you. It’s far too pretty to leave to the Old Ones.” They patted Wendryn’s shoulder. “You’re too pretty to lose, too, of course.”

Wendryn’s face was puckered with scars that creased awkwardly as the Wayfarer smiled. “The lightning shall carry me before the storm,” he answered, quoting Wynvarin, the first Wayfarer.

“See that it does,” said Zyggy as they stepped out onto the bridge. The mass of Rathenfolk followed them, many gingerly, for this was their first time setting foot upon the magical span. But their timidity soon gave way to urgency as a clamor echoed through the Shyldverk behind them. The ravenirs were at the gate.

Zyggy oversaw the orderly flow of Rathenfolk into the Auric Keep, encouraging and jollying them along until a pair of Aetherscribes joined them in the antechamber: identical twins.

“We’ll see them in,” they said in unison. “You’re needed at the Constella.”

Zyggy made their way inside, past the great oak tree that dominated the atrium, and up the stairs into the Arcane Hall. The cavernous testing chamber had been converted into a laboratory.

“How goes the work on Oscilio?” Zyggy called out, keeping their tone jovial despite their growing desperation. Time was not on their side.

“Three transfers to go,” answered Astrea Quazor. He was one of the keep’s finest surgeons, his knowledge of aether second only to his knowledge of the human body. It was his solemn duty to oversee the transfer of the volunteers’ memories into the construct called the Constella Intelligence. It would hold the arcanized wisdom of Valahai’s finest minds for the preservation of their civilization.

Three Aetherscribes stood waiting with Astrea. The others had already been emptied of their consciousness, their abandoned vessels lined up on stretchers, their closed eyes adorned with shards of polished fulgurite to acknowledge their sacrifice.

The Auric Keep could be destroyed and all within it. Even those they had just welcomed might receive but a momentary reprieve before the end. Every defender of Valahai understood that. But that could not be allowed to happen before the Constella Intelligence was prepared. The invaluable knowledge held within that body of gleaming metal and aetheric energy would serve future generations well, whatever happened here.

Astrea pointed at the chamber’s only other entrance, an archway leading out onto a balcony that normally served as a launch and landing platform for Wayfarers.

“The Seeress needs you.”

Zyggy did as they were bade, joining the lone woman who stood on the balcony in the open air. Below, the last stragglers were trickling along the Astral Bridge. Out beyond the Shyldverk, mighty Yvor battled a grotesque quartet of monolithic Old Ones. The Ancient’s galvanic skin was even more mottled than before, more corrupted than elemental now.

The Seeress turned to Zyggy, her youthful eyes belying her aged wisdom. “I have seen this,” she whispered, “and more.”

“This isn’t the end?” hoped Zyggy.

“A circle of fate, seven signs bound, and the returning shadow in blood be drowned.” The Seeress shook her head. “I know not what it means, only that it is yet to happen.” The smile she offered Zyggy was a desolate one. “The end of all we know.”

Behind them, the last of the chosen Aetherscribes stepped up to the construct. Astrea reached out to place his hands gently on each side of the woman’s head when a heart-stopping screech filled the air. The Aetherscribes turned in time to see a ball of chitin crash through the far wall. The ravenir unfurled from its flight, unsheathing a hideous array of claw-tipped limbs and whipping tentacles, and leaped towards Astrea and the great arcane slab where Oscilio’s affixed components glowed.

To Zyggy, time slowed to fractions of a second as they blinked into the path of the attacking creature and sent a bolt of lightning into its slavering maw. Screeching in pain, its head scorched and steaming, the monster stumbled sideways towards the line of stretchers. There the thing extended its tentacles, and to Zyggy it looked as if the creature might charge again. Instead, the tentacles hooked a pair of bodies from their beds and drew them inwards to a second ghastly maw that opened up in its underbelly. The fiend planned to use the meat of Zyggy’s fallen friends to multiply, just as the maggots had done.

To disturb the dead after they’d been adorned with their last rites… the thought shook Zyggy to their core. A grim but necessary solution came to mind. One they could make a reality.

Zyggy fragmented out a mirror image of themself. In a flash, their shimmering figure blinked over to the next bodies in the monster’s path to place two illusory hands on the glassy shards of fulgurite affixed to their lifeless eyes. Zyggy willed the storm’s fury to be released from this ancient material. As the shards began to glow, the ravenir’s tentacles snapped the two corpses up into its abdominal maw, shattering Zyggy’s illusion but not their intent.

The ravenir lurched forward, and a starry glow began to leak out from underneath the creature’s skin, glowing brighter and brighter still.

“To me – now!” shouted Zyggy.

The other Aetherscribes rushed for Zyggy’s protection. They drew in the sparks from their shattered illusion and reshaped them into a holographic shield.

The ravenir burst. Auric shards of lightning pierced out of its flesh in all directions, sending bits of bone, glass, and lightning crackling against the ward.

Zyggy glanced back. Their fellow Aetherscribes were unharmed. But halfway between the balcony and Zyggy’s shield, the Auric Seeress groaned. She limped over to Zyggy, a chunk of bone lodged in her blood-soaked side. The grizzly sight made their insides turn, but the Auric Seeress gave them a knowing smile.

“I am slower than I once was.” She turned to Astrea, “Fate is with us. Finish this.” The Auric Seeress bowed to them, then moved to sit on the balcony, blood trailing behind her. “I would like some air.”

Astrea gently placed his hands upon the waiting Aetherscribe’s head. Both were obscured within a bright blast of aetheric energy. After a few long moments, the light flickered and disappeared, and the woman’s limp body collapsed to the floor, an empty vessel ready to join the others.

The construct of arcanite and aether crackled into life as the massive standing altar upon which its pieces were mounted descended into the floor, falling from sight into the depths beneath the keep. Down there, in the most impregnable vault the Aetherscribes and the architects of Anvilheim could imagine and build, rooted into the bedrock of Enion, the Constella Intelligence would remain until the Rathenfolk returned to reclaim their world from the Old Ones.

Exhausted, Zyggy limped to the balcony to rejoin the Seeress. Below them, the Astral Bridge flickered and disappeared, having conveyed the last of Valahai’s survivors into the keep. Wendryn had not returned with the Voltaris Gem. Against all hope, the ravenirs had penetrated the Shyldverk’s gates and swarmed inside. Zyggy could see their seething mass at the edge of the moat, so hungry that some tumbled into the aether that engulfed and disintegrated them. There was no time to mourn the Wayfarer.

In the distance, Yvor halted its desperate tempest, and for a moment, in silence, the Ancient swayed.

Then the visions came, resonating through Zyggy’s skull, fragmenting their mind into three pieces.

In the north, before Isenloft, Zyggy saw the raw white cold of Galcia’s Ancient elemental essence shine fiercely through its cloak of ravenirs.

In the south, on the edge of Aldengrove, they witnessed Davnir’s vibrant lifeforce leak through a smothering horde like sap between sheets of bark.

Across the ruins of Valahai, jagged lines of lightning burned through the mass of ravenirs that encased Yvor. For a moment, Zyggy saw the Ancient’s true face, roaring with thunder, the eyes of its storm roiling with rage.

The Seeress placed her hand on Zyggy’s uninjured arm. Tears welled to blur eyes that had been clear and prescient for as long as they’d known her. When they came, each word bore the weight of fatalism. “Use everything you have left. Protect the keep. Save what you can.”

Zyggy mustered the last reserves of their strength. Lightning flowed through them and outward. Every fiber of their being strained with the effort as the lightning spread out to envelop the keep. They drove the flow to the very edge of their tolerance, trembling as arcs met and formed a static shield around their final refuge.

At once, the three visions in Zyggy’s mind converged into one. Zyggy felt their intent, Yvor, Davnir, and Galcia resonating with a singular, fateful purpose. There was a moment of silence, then the three Ancients detonated.

The Auric Keep quaked under the cataclysmic force of Yvor’s blast. Zyggy screamed as blood poured from their nose, eyes, and ears. Every nerve ending burned with aetheric agony. They held on to consciousness with every tortured fiber of their being, willing their shield to last just a little longer.

And then… nothing.

Zyggy started awake. They were alive. They were alive?! Yet they could see nothing.

“Lie still, Zyggy, please,” Astrea said. “You’ve been badly hurt.”

“I can… hear,” croaked Zyggy, who found themselves even more surprised that they could talk.

Zyggy felt Astrea press his hand to their chest. Shards of blue, pink, and purple energy sparked in their eyes. The seen world returned, though blurred beyond recognition.

“You almost died,” explained Astrea. “You should have died, but this place… the density of aether here is like nothing I’ve experienced before. It’s the only way I was able to save you.”

“What do you mean?” Zyggy asked.

Astrea offered Zyggy his hand. “Let me help you up.”

Zyggy instinctively reached up to accept it, then their eyes snapped back into focus. Their hand. Their hand was not their hand. Their hand was-

“Crystal,” Astrea acknowledged. “Your body was shredded at the infinitesimal level. As I worked to heal you, the aether here changed my work, changed your body… all our bodies.”

The Astrea that helped Zyggy to their feet was not the Astrea they’d last seen before Yvor’s detonation. This Astrea had a new, statuesque body that seemed carved from glistening stone.

“And the Seeress?” asked Zyggy.

Astrea solemnly shook his head. “She is gone.”

Zyggy looked to where they had been with the Seeress, out on the balcony. The platform and archway were no more, ripped away to reveal a night sky like none they had ever beheld.

“Where are we?”

“Only time will tell. From what little I have learned, your transfiguration is incomplete. For now, you must rest.”

Zyggy mustered a little of their flair, putting on a show, if only to encourage Astrea. “Anything my darling surgeon says. I’ll find a quiet spot.”

They took the stairs downward, slowly, and marveled at the startling spectacle of the altered keep and its strange new surroundings: astral geometries, glistening runes, and glimmering spectrums more brilliant and diverse than anything they had once witnessed in Enion.

Zyggy stepped out into the atrium and stood beneath the great oak tree. It had been a gift from Aldengrove. What had once been living wood and foliage was now crystal, the leaves shimmering with rainbow hues.

They sat, back against the trunk, forearms resting on their knees. The bandage that Wendryn had wrapped around their wound was gone. The wound, too… gone. Their skin was smooth as stone, perfectly rendered in crystal. No scars to remind them of what they had lost. Zyggy finally allowed a tear to roll down their cheek. It fell as crystal to the floor, landing with a gentle tink.