The Flames of Retribution, Pt. I

A general forum for all in-character posts as they relate to Act VI: Absolution, the characters that inhabit the world at large, and the events that help shape both.
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The Broken Sword
Posts: 120
Character: Alaric

The Flames of Retribution, Pt. I

Post by The Broken Sword » July 3rd, 2021, 9:21 pm

Flames unfurled hungrily across the field, devouring the pale grass and churning the clear sky with dark smoke. The helmet did little to filter out the smell of burning flesh. Behind the heavy visor, a pair of amber depths swept across the jarring sight. He could taste the bile in his mouth already, churning from his gut as the pile of blackened bodies grew. A tempest of emotion raged within, hidden by the featureless metal mask of dark gray steel that reflected the luminous tendrils of flame that would continue to gut that once lush vale. It was a fitting analogy for the fire burning within. A fire that Alaric von Folkvar dared not show the world. He turned away, a cloak as black as the darkest of hours, billowing from his shoulders, marking the man among the victors -- this scene could have been any of hundreds that spanned the life of the Teramerian; but it was not. This was the First Province, and the war he had left behind in the Blacklands had followed him here.


Witchkin, Dae, Throne-Worshippers, Pagans, Cannibals, and Cultists.



The First Province was a cauldron filled to the rim with the vile depravations of the faithless. Those that sheltered the heretical and blasphemous were no better than the monsters that savaged the First Coast with fang and claw. Ripping through the metaphysical barriers between the realms of Heaven, Eden, and Hel, and profaning the word of the Holy with their own sinful manifestations of avarice, lust, and gluttony. They fooled themselves into thinking they had obtained some mote of power, some shadow of knowledge, but all they did was drive the world deeper into the dark abyss. And, there was nothing to do put to purge these apostates and their willing slaves from the face of Eden. It was his calling. And, nothing else mattered.

Still, he could feel the cold satisfaction that came from plunging the steel blade between the woman's ribs, piercing vital organs. In truth, he did not see her as a woman anymore, but rather, a twisted abomination that had diminished and perverted the spark of the Eternal Flame which had given her life. She was not human, but rather, an ill-born beast, a cancerous tumor to be removed from the world, to bring their war that much closer toward a culminating battle. Foolishly, the Witchkin had attacked first, unprovoked -- and that was her fatal mistake. In mere moments, the miserable cultist was on the ground and the Lion's claws were rending her flesh with practiced ease as the Vigil prepared to extract from Anslem's tomb. No doubt saving the lives of the "crafters" that continued their vain battle against a spirit that would simply rise again. But, they did not wait. No gratitude was needed. The Vigil had done their job.

She struggled, multiple times, crushed under the militant heel of the Witchhunters, as she continued to bleed out from the mortal wound, and Alaric dragged her through the dark hallways of the accursed Monastery. Eventually, she scrambled away from their towering forms, bleeding profusely from her wounds as she managed to somehow call upon her profane art to escape the Hunters, no doubt to die as some wretched beast gutted by a hunter's blade, forgotten in the brush of this forsaken place. Little did they know that this same night, their brethren would be Martyr'd by the hands of a coward, unequipped to face the Vigil in honorable battle, which only seemed to drive home the ever-growing need to purge this valley with holy fire and steel.

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