Aedre and Isador crested a hull leaving the forgotten city and at the mouth of a tremendous, shallow crater. The land as far as the eye could see, stretching from the city bounds to the sea of frozen jade to the north, was ruined. Beyond the crater was a writhing ocean of crystalline amethyst, frozen in time. Although Aedre could not see them, phantoms of all nature were within this battleground. Primordial creatures, vast creatures, worms, an entire army of shadows. Somehow, despite the city being relatively untouched, this place had been a terrible battleground.
The communion was surely something she could sense, though, Isador noted. Aedre tensed significantly as they towards into the crater. The shadow world here was most scarred. Here the song was strong. A deep cello playing mournful chords in a ever faster rhythm, as if responding to Isador's every step. He rose Excellion, and tuned his communion to the song. He wished he hadn't. The impact of the memories was so potent it immediately overcame his senses, and he felt his sensations drift away as his mind was consumed by their embrace.
~
Blood of my blood.Isador was walking within a great structure forged of smooth stone, faintly reminiscent of sapphire but tinged by a dark violet backlight. Its vast interior was circular, comprised of dozens of enormous rib-like extrusions, encircling a platform in the center. From the ceiling descended a great spire, reaching down to this platform. Between the platform and the central spire was an orb of utter darkness whose surface cast an aura of violet light not unlike an eclipse.
Midnight.Words trickled through Isador's thoughts like water in a gentle stream. A resonating voice that spoke in scarcely a whisper. He felt it travel down his spine.
"Shadow demons are not of this world or even those distant," a new voice spoke, in haste and with concern. Isador had the passing impression it was a young god, now likely either dead or an esteemed elder. "They are elemental entities, without bone nor flesh nor thought. Their skin is in itself an enigma, a binding motion that contains their essence. That which you may compare to flesh is the light that comprises their entire essence. And this essence is without limit to how much it can devour. Whoever created them was a desparate fool, and for that we are damned."
Images flashed by Isador's thoughts. He was striding down this magnificent cathedral of stone not of his own will. He was reliving someone else's memories. Other memories, related he knew not, flooded past him as his eyes studied the immensity of the structure. He realized it was the structure he had seen in the song's words. The spire beyond the frozen sea.
"The Shadow God, Jhinheim, he who was born of midnight. Even now Jhinheim's nightmare is reaching outwards, consuming all in its path. Entire realms have been devoured, now forever a part of the shadow entity. To
fight this monster is folly."
Isador's eyes drifted across angular elevations in the citadel's chamber. The sounds of battle could be heard, now. And, as he drew ever closer to the center of the structure, a deep hum that sounded into his heart. The rocks of the citadel pulsed for a brief moment, illuminating the entire structure with immensely complicated tomes, scribed in the genetic memories of the Shadow Demons. Isador felt pain course through his body as he beheld their horrible words, falling to his knees. His body writhed in an ageless silence. This place had been a battlefield. The death throes of his kin had burned themselves into this ageless monument. He felt it all. The deaths of his forefathers, and their eternal sorrow.
"Kalkatha is losing this fight," Another voice spoke, clearly a fire demon. Isador scarcely recognized it. Loha, caretaker of the Huntsmen. "Even our father's strength, and the forming of the Huntsmen, could not alone bring an end to this madness. But fear not, my brothers... I have found a new strength. A guiding light that can bring us to the doorstep of the Shadow God."
"We will have but this one chance to save our worlds. The larger the shadow world grows, the more powerful Jhinheim becomes. Soon he will be entirely unstoppable. Many of us will surely fall this hour..."
More images flashed past him as he neared the orb. He could feel that it was once vast, as vast as the cathedral itself. The birthplace of Jhinheim. The seed of his father. Silhouettes were standing, circling the room, staring down at him. Beacons of light illuminated their heads - some scaled, some horned, some alight with beautiful manes of flowing hair. The Huntsmen. They had somehow found Jhinheim. That which was everywhere at once, but nowhere. And, from above, the fiery blade of Kalkatha came down singing a ringing metallic siren, striking the path in front of Isador with a resounding crack.
Isador realized the memories had ceased. He was standing here, on this lone path. Before him was the fiery blade of Kalkatha, a memory trapped in the past. And the Huntsmen, born of fire, guided by an unseen hand, glared down at him, as if to tear him apart with their very gaze. He could feel their penetrating stare, even if they were only memories. His body felt heavy, the communion much stronger than he had thought possible. The weight of Jhinheim's memories, and those of his sons, felt overwhelming. Kalkatha's sword towered over Isador, pulsing with sinister intent, its searing edge illuminating the cathedral of stone for miles beyond.
Isador stepped around the great blade, feeling its heat sear away his essence as he did so, and stepped further towards the Midnight orb. He realized now that it was not an orb at all. At least, not a solid object. It was an essence of pure and utter darkness. That which held no body. Born of shadows, Jhinheim
was the darkness.
"The Shadow demons are without number, without cause nor desire. Their hunger is their strength and their weakness," The thundering voice of Kalkatha spoke from behind. Isador turned around, witnessing the massive fire demon raise his sword to the shadows around him.
"Bound by blood," Kalkatha drew his own fiery blood with the blade from his free hand, "I bind thee domain and all thy sons to eternal slumber. That the realms of the fireborn may once again rule this universe, and that the shadows will be forgotten." Kalkatha raised his sword, and cast a searing beacon of light into the sky above. The shadows froze in motion, Kalkatha and the Huntsmen vanished, and the realm darkned to a deep violet. The sounds of battle dulled away, and the pain in Isador's thoughts numbed to darkness.
Isador turned around again. The orb of Midnight had changed. It shined with intent of its own. He stepped closer, and could see his own reflection. Was this what his father had meant? He was born of midnight...? Isador reached out, but as he touched the orb, the pain returned. The citadel flashed, brighter now. He felt his thoughts expand outwards. A thousand stars blinked in and out of existence, their lifespans but instant. He could see an image amongst the madness. Jhinheim, the father of the Shadows. His great, skeletal-like form hunched in some kind of sleep. He was surrounded by the midnight light. Its essence, like the light within Isador's own body, danced and parlayed an endless symphony. Bonding, separating, bonding, forming the essence of Jhinheim. And then, in an instant, the Shadow God was born. From his awakening cry, an eternal hunger. It pulled at Isador, tried to devour even him. Isador struggled to separate himself from the illusions, only to discover they were no illusion.
Blood of my blood, Jhinheim's terrible tongue uttered, glaring at him. Isador pulled one last time, pouring all of his strength into severing the connection. He felt himself fall back, away from the midnight orb, and collapse onto the path before it. His eyes glanced down - the orb was gone. The vision had ceased.
Immediately Isador realized something had changed. The vision had rewritten his genetic memories. The ones of what his father had said to him when he first awoke. He still remembered the first passage... but it had changed. How was this possible? He closed his eyes, and recalled the moment...
His father loomed overhead. Where there had once been much pain and sorrow there was now a great fear. But it was not the fear of his father. It was a distant fear. Whose? Kalkatha's? The then-young Gods'?
"... A shadowborn with no name. Blood of my blood. You are my brother, born of midnight eternal. With my crown you shall learn of my fall and reset the future to where it should be. The Fire Demons and the younger realms of divine providence are meek. Soon they will return to their old ways, content with the fall of my blood. But midnight, the darkness, that to which they are all bound by, cannot be destroyed without destroying themselves. They do not understand, nor care to, the primal elements of their world. So seek they would to grasp wildly at the highest bounds of godhood, to destroy that which their empires rest upon. In despair dreams thrive, but in dreams so does despair thrive. Thrive, Isador, in the dreams of the divine. Take from them the light the shadows gave. That they may fear the darkness again. Atash itash."Isador blinked. He had returned to the crater, with Aedre glancing at him in curiosity. Excellion had illuminated more than just shadows, but entire portions of terrain were hidden from sight.
Isador stood upon what was clearly once a great battlefield, drawn to the realm outside the citadel by Excellion's memories. Twistled bramble forests of crystal magneta surrounded this terrible warzone, more vast and exotic than those he could see previously. Craters of shining sapphire glass, oceans of twisting violet spires frozen in time rising from the jade sea. In the center, a crater large enough to fit all of Astron inside. Isador could feel the energy that had been released here, frozen in time by Jhinheim's fall. His father's grave was most befitting the terror he had incited. For miles beyond the shadow realm was forever twisted by this motion, and the phantom dreams trapped between imagination and reality spoke of his struggle.
"Something is wrong," Aedre murmured. She could sense the Shadow world's communion, if even faintly, and how it was changing. Isador had little time to consider how or why. The song was more potent yet, growing in complexity. The vision was merely one of a thousand trapped here. Could it be...?
At the center of the crater he could see something glowing, and upon approaching it he could once more hear the sounds of war. Screams of fire demons as their bodies were torn free of their life essence, the humming cries of the shadow beasts as their essence frayed. As Isador drew within proximity of the object he felt something tingle within his body. Instinctively, he rose Excellion, and tried to access the object from afar.
The ground pulsed as Excellion accessed the memories soaking its tormented rock. Isador fell to his knees, hit with the full impact of the battle as though it were all around him. Hallucinations were given life, forming an orchestra of shadows and lights, fighting an eternal struggle against an unseen foe. He forced himself to his feet, his eyes settling upon a pulsing orb of darkness, surrounded by an aurora of violet light.
"You have come, Isador," a whisper resonated to him. He recognized it immediately. "Like the chimes of an earnest morning the song of change has brought you to me..."
"Jhinheim...?" Isador whispered.
"I knew my faith in you was not misplaced..."
"But you died... I saw you die. I
felt your dying echo. The shadow world-"
"Fool!" The voice called out. All at once, the motion around Isador froze in time again. The ground shook lightly as the orb rose, then flashed, taking shape into the massive, bladed carapace of Jhinheim. The shadow God towered over Isador, but he seemed... diminished. As though he were not a God at all.
"Kalkatha took from me life, but what Shadow clings to life? Have you learned nothing from your forays!? Have my teachings been so abstract that you could not comprehend them? No!" The God's skin broiled with a faint, but clearly alive, violet light. Just like Isador, he bore no armor, no clothing, no organs or bones. But at the same time, he was much unlike Isador. His angular, bladed skull bore a thousand needle-thin violet teeth, and a mane of lengthy, tentacle-like hair comprised of glowing magneta that flowed with their own sense of motion. His eyes pierced into Isador, forcing him once more to his knees. Jhinheim's gaze turned to Aedre, who quickly drew her weapon, sensing danger. He gestured, and obsidian spires tore out from the ground, imprisoning her before she could react.
"I am not Jhinheim, not as he once was. But I
am Jhinheim, the echo of a lost world, and you were created by he so that you may reunite with I, to rebuild the whole," Jhinheim muttered, turning his eyes back to Isador. "You know this... it is why you were drawn back to this place... is it not? Or, perhaps, you have grown in ignorance... what is this tribute you offer to me? A creature born of element and mortal essence intwined? I wonder... what value such a thing would have for a Shadow..."
"She is more valuable than you know," Isador struggled. He could feel Jhinheim's gaze boring into him. The light within his body flickered. His communion told him something was wrong. Jhinheim was not simply staring at him. He was-
"The Shadow World sleeps and yet you still breathe, why have you not-"
"A dull vessel as it would be. Perfect to wade through the caverns of the naive Gods and the engorged Fireborn. How did it feel, brother of mine, to taste the waters of purity? For so brief a life it would be, no other would ever know what you are to become. And your pet, be if of value or not in your eyes, shall join my brood all the same."
Isador spun around - Jhinheim casually strode behind him, dancing between reality and nothingness. His shadows swept across the crater, consuming the transparent images and blanketing the terrain. Aedre and her prison vanished, but Isador could still feel her presence. Jhinheim was weakened... as though he were not whole. But there was no question in Isador's mind. Jhinheim lived. He had survived both Kalkatha, the Huntsmen, and whatever war they had brought upon him.
"Life, such a fireborn concept," Jhinheim hissed. He was back in the center of the crater. The Shadow God wove his bladed hands in the air helplessly. "I need not explain to you what you are, do I? Do you hear now the strings of fate's song, weaving our future taut and boundless?"
Isador momentarily wondered what purpose such a question could possibly possess. The song he heard spoke nothing of such madness. It spoke of a world lost in eternal sorrow, a world that sought freedom and retribution. It did not speak of echoes of dead fathers, trying to cling to life. It did not speak of Midnight... not as he would word it. But it made sense to Isador. The visions, the words of Jhinheim's echo, that which he had been told upon his creation.
"I am... Midnight... I am... a Shadow God-"
"No," Jhinheim corrected. Isador could feel the shadows around him gaining life. Violet eyes peered through their depths, gazing back at him. The world around him became close, as though Jhinheim was surrounding him. Isador's gut instincts forced his communion to keep the shadows at bay. They were not what they appeared to be!
"The Gods you revere are but shadows of doubt made manifest.
You are a vessel of Shadows. My vessel. You will bring me back into this world," Jhinheim's chittering laughted echoed through Isador's thoughts. "Midnight reborn anew, and so did the world weep. Surrender this immortal coil, Isador! Bring about the next shadow age!"
The shadows opened up. Tendrils of violet light shot out, rippling towards Isador like an ocean of writhing light. Jhinheim sought to devour him! To take from him his own essence!
"Never!" Isador reacted, raising Excellion, summoning his shadow shield. Jhinheim's tendrils bit into his barrier in a spray of magneta embers.
"What?! You would dare to resist me, blood of my blood? You
are me!"
Isador felt himself gaining motion. Jhinheim rose from the earth, hurling him up into the air with a glowing armblade of some kind. Searing pain rippled through his body as its blade bit into him, and the shadow fonts catapulted spires of light upwards, skewering him in the air. He could feel them draining him of his strength, but the hand controlling them was still weak. He forced his way between that hand and its elements with his thoughts, splitting the shadow spires and releasing himself.
The ground melted away into utter darkness as Isador fell, throwing him into a chasm of infinite nothingness.
"Do you not hear the Shadow world's song, Isador? Of course you do. You were created for this moment... in your heart burns with lust for change, just as mine does. You hunger, just as I do, just as the shadow world itself does! You
know what you must do... Come... let us destroy Kalkatha and the Gods beneath him! We shall forge the Hymn of Ruin!"
"I will destroy Kalkatha, and I will bring the shadow world to life again...," Isador sensed outwards. The darkness was an illusion. He could see between the seams of Jhinheim's mirrors. The Shadow God was, so to speak, scarcely a shadow of his former self. How he lived in destruction Isador knew not. But he did know exactly what he was created to do. "And I shall not die to do so! I am oathsworn!"
Isador sent out Phantom chains through the shadow realm, piercing the mirror's veil. The darkness ebbed away, and Isador was once again in the crater. His eyes glanced to Aedre's prison in the distance - she seemed safe, so long as Jhinheim's attention was focused on him.
"I gave you too much credit, Isador. I figured you would have seen the bigger picture. Like waves fruitlessly fighting the wind. Very well," Jhinheim lunged forward, raising his right arm. A pair of long, pulsing blades shot out from his elbow, folding outwards to his forearm, forming a single blade. Jhinheim's form leapt between shadows, closing the distance in the blink of an eye. Before Isador could react the blade pierced through his chest, raising him into the air above Jhinheim. Isador cried out as his essence tasted that of Midnight's shadow, and was drawn away. Isador reached up with both his hands, gripping Excellion, and thrusted down into Jhinheim's wrist. Jhinheim growled as the blade easily pierced his shadowy skin, but did not relent.
"Excellion is a tool, Isador. One you never had the proper mechanism to use. Allow me to demonstrate," The Shadow God muttered. He rose his free hand, and Isador felt a portion of him vanish. Excellion diminished from his grip, and reformed in Jhinheim's free hand. Its blade glistened and pulsed as it grew in size and complexity. Words in the Shadow tongue flashed across its surface. Isador could still
hear them. They uttered of madness and depravity. His own. Jhinheim's crystal eyes narrowed. Isador had but one option, and forced himself out of the shadow world.
Just as Isador picked himself off the dry dirt of an open field, however, Jhinheim appeared before him, stepping through the night as though it were an invisible door. His violet light shimmered across the land, soaking the life, consuming the moonlight. Excellion swept across the ground as the Shadow God swung upwards, sending a glittering crescent of light outwards. Isador tried to evade the attack, but it came too fast, picking him off his feet and hurling him backwards. Jhinheim rose his free arm, and the blades split once more, expelling a lance of magneta across the land and into Isador as he still flew.
Isador the impact of the attack, but he felt no pain. The shadow light travelled through him, then outside of him, leaving a glittering wound. But where it had hit - Esofar's scar - his essence had been weakened anyways. He suffered no damage, impacting the ground in a heap of dust and claws.
Once more Isador picked himself up off the ground. His communion had weakened with the loss of Excellion. His essence had been drained. He could not escape...
Jhinheim's eyes lowered as Isador drew forth Starscourge's hilt from his shadowy hide. The glistening golden hilt seemed to emit its own kind of light, even in this utter darkness. The shadow God stopped in his tracks, wristblade reforming, Excellion held at arm's length to his side.
Show them your butt, and when you do, slap it so it creates a sound akin to a chorus of screaming spider monkeys flogging a chime with cacti. Only then can you find your destiny at the tip of the shaft.