Ffh Nes Ii

The Beginning.

Bannor, a land of Hypocrisy. Insecurity. Tyranny.

Order? I guess you could call it Order, there are laws, protocols, but they are twisted, manipulative and deceptive. Once there was Order, true Order, but that time is long passed now, that was before the Fall, before our destruction. The people were united in lust and passion for the Crusade, the Witch Hunt, the Lynch Mob. That is the Order we knew, the Order of death and destruction. And we called ourselves the heroes of Justice?

We still do.

But it's a lie.

All those men and women, persecuted, murdered. Yes, some of them were evil, I mean surely some of them must have been? But all? Inconceivable. I know that now, and ironically it was the Red Lady, the Evil One, who showed me this. For that at least I am thankful. When she joined Agares I realised that our struggle, our plight, had all been in vain, all just a game, a distraction while the final pieces moved into place.

I know that now.

That day we were plunged into the depths of Hell, and we knew we were dead. We knew that judgement day had come, as prophesised, and that we were being punished for our sins. In the past age we had spread chaos where ever we went, we killed, maimed and raped, all in the name of Her. We were nothing but her pawns.

They say that most evil men start at the first level of Hell, the Mountain of Mulcarn, and that those particularly evil men went straight down to the Temples of Aeron, but us? No, we went straight down to the bottom, sinking like a stone. Our children, elders, men and women, all doomed to spend eternity in the palm of Agares black hand, like a wedding gift from the Red Lady, for it was he who seduced her, he who schemed and planned, and used us to destroy his worldly enemies.

I remember the Monastery, the Order of Sirona.

It had been a long campaign, we had struggled long and hard through the lands of the Sorcerer and had suffered greatly. We were little more then a hundred men, and we were forced to retreat, looking for allies, or perhaps a place to stay while the Demonic Eyes of the Sorcerer scoured the land for our remaining men. So we came upon the monastery, The Order of Sirona had long confounded the Sorcerer's ambitions in the area, we had a joint enemy, and so we asked them for shelter. We told them we were Bannor, and the chilling stare of the Abbot still haunts me to this day. ''No.'' He said, ''Bannor are not welcome here.'' I was aghast. These were the champions of pity, Sirona's very aspect is the protection of the weak, yet he turned us away. He told me that the we would soon see the error of our ways, that we were no better then the Demons, worse perhaps. So I killed him. And then I commanded the regiment to enter the Monastery. The doors were barred, I could here children crying inside, but no barrier was too strong. I summoned the spirit of the Evil One, and the doorways erupted into Holy Flame, the men rushed through, murdering as they went, and the fires spread rapidly. The Monastery, like many others, was destroyed in the name of Good. Of course, we were forced to flee and shortly after the Sorcerer's forces reached into the area and laid waste to hundreds of towns and villages no longer protected by the influence of Sirona's faithful. A few months later and it was all over, it was my actions that day that gave her the strength to show her true allegiances. I still think of that day sometimes, I remember the words the Abbot said to me,

''One day you will see the error of your ways, you will ask for forgiveness, and may Sirona take pity on your soul.''

He was wrong though. It is too late for forgiveness. Judgement day is long gone and our eternal fates are sealed.

When we first found ourselves in Hell we despaired. We all knew we were in Hell, but only the I knew why. I thought about telling the people, telling them the true evils of the Bannor but it would have destroyed them. They believed with all their hearts that we were the champions of Justice, of Good, and that it was purely chance that the Red Lady had cast herself from her lofty heaven, just in time to coincide with the general meeting of government. It was the commanders, the priests, the politicians who fell with the Evil One, her most loyal and powerful slaves. She had used us in her foul games, tortured and tormented our Divine Souls. We were demons long before we reached Hell's fetid floors, but this journey was surely the final step, to convert us in body as well as in mind, to turn our loyal and courageous soldiers into their most powerful and corrupted of demons yet to stalk this land. I could not tell them, for to do so would be to give up hope entire.

On the surface they say that the Syrii, a strange and powerful race, helped what remained of our people to combat the growing influence of the Red Lady and her lover, those terrible mutants and Once-men, those who were once our kin. It is them that we have to thank for prolonging the invasion of Erebus, holding back Agares' forces just long enough to allow Mulcarn to slip into the world unopposed. It seems Agares was not the only one playing games, and Mulcarn had sent word to his followers, the Cult of Illya, to prepare a ritual to open a rift between worlds, allowing their God entry to the world of the living. Many died during the Age of Mulcarn, but it was far preferable then the Age of Agares that it had prevented. Erebus was safe. Agares was furious, and throughout the years we suffered fire-storms and plagues, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, but we stood strong.

We resisted Agares temptations throughout the long time we were with him, his offers of power for service, and gradually we built a small civilisation. Many people would have turned on their leader as a scapegoat, committing mutiny, and execution. But not the Bannor - If only they had. They chose to rally behind me, and I could barely look them in the eye. We founded a small city, named it Pyrhos, and it was there that our children, and grand-children were born, each with a sword in their hand and a dagger in their mouth.

The Journey

We were not the only denizens of Hell, and through word of mouth we quickly learnt of a ''Portal'', a gateway that had been constructed to allow the demons of Agares to march upon Erebus and complete the final stage of his now foiled plan. We feared trickery, it seemed too good to be true, but nethertheless we left at once. For we could have only Hope. It was a particularly difficult journey, and it seemed that Agares and his whore put every obstacle available in our path. We lost scores of men and women along the way, and they died strange deaths; not falling but instead becoming ethereal and unresponsive imitations of their former selves. We left them there, we abandoned our own - our sons and daughters, at my command.

Many of us survived, and after countless generations we reached the Portal. It was little more then a crude stone circle, and I could not imagine that this was the great construct that Agares had poured his foul magic into in order to create. A faint green glow hovered in the centre of the ring, but little more. I observed the ring critically, and noticed that there was something strange about it that I just couldn't identify. And then it struck me. The stones were carved in many places with a runic Eye that seemed to disappear when I focused directly on it. Being a High Priest of the Red One, I had seen and learnt many Runes, and had indeed seen this one before, yet I could not place it.

It was upon this thought that the wailing began. Foul screeching and barking that made my blood turn to ice. Hell-Hounds. We had met them before, but not in such numbers, they were all around us and there was no time to stop to think, no time to consider the consequences; I shoved the first man through the glowing green glow, and the rest followed after in a mad rush to see the surface world once more. Myself, and perhaps nine others, stood around the circle, trying to hold the demons at bay, and somehow we were successful. Of course, they were all killed, but not before the people were all safely through the portal.

I slew the final Hound, and then turned to make my exit through the portal but it was gone. The faint green glow that had so swallowed up my people simply was not there. The eyes were more obvious now, staring at me with malice, glowing with that faint green light. It was then that I felt a shiver crawl down my spine, the climate grew stuffy and claustrophobic, and I could not breathe. Standing on a nearby hill top, looking down on me, I saw two lovers. One red and one black, and the black one called out to me;

''In time, entropy claims all. Even you, Sabel. You cannot run forever.''

It was true. Entropy does claim all. The Red Lady was testament to that. But I am a liar, and so I called back to him;

''Foul Creature, I shall never fall to your wiles, I have survived your Pit this long Age and I shall survive it the next. I may have been a sinner in life, but in death I shall never be.''

But he just laughed.

And then the Red Lady spoke to me;

''Dearest Sabel, most loyal and devout of my servants, why do you not join us? Can you not see that this is the path of light, of good?''

I could not bare to listen to her voice, the one that I had loved so dearly in the Age of Sins, and so I traced in the air before me the Rune of Purging, the one I had used so often in life to destroy men of Evil, but also innocent monks and guardians who refused to join the ways of the Bannor in the past Age. I held my eyes tightly shut, waiting for the characteristic weighty bursts of flame, but there were none. I opened my eyes slowly, and blinked. My vision was clouding quickly and I grew dizzy and nauseous. I fell to the floor. Around me I heard strange voices, laughter. Mere echoes that I could not comprehend.

These Four Walls

And then I awoke.

I was caged, that was the first thing I noticed. Surrounded by rusted metal bars on all sides and suspended in the air on a pillar of iron. I looked down, but could see no bottom to the pillar, no ground or water beneath me, just darkness. I could see similar contraptions as mine, divided from each other by an endless expanse of nothingness. I lost track of the time I spent here in this cage. Occasionally I would here voices, demons taunting and mocking me, shaking the metal bars of my existence. Sometimes Agares spoke to me, but I did never respond. I would not become a demon in body as well as in spirit. I was far too vain to allow myself to grow so ugly.

Over time my form began to change. My skin turned pale grey in colour, and from my back strange wings of black feathers, like those of Ravens, spouted. I felt as if I was growing stronger too, although at the time I had no way of knowing this for sure. I feared this change, this black metamorphis, for it was the change of demons, of ugly Evil. I realised that, now that I could no longer run and fight, the forces of entropy had caught up with me.

After all, Entropy claims all.

I despaired.

I spent many long years in the cage, I remembered the Monastery, and my sins, and the journey through Hell. In these cold, dark hours, I recounted my every action, analysing and criticising. Could I have saved the men that died? Could I have spared that woman if I had just worked harder? Could I have avoided capture by Agares if I had just been more alert? I wondered where the Bannor were now. Were they strong? Were they Good? Had they forgotten me?

I remembered the day I released them.

I had gathered the people, in their hundreds, around the Portal, that strange ring of stones. The Hell-hounds. The glowing green lights. The eyes.

The Eyes!

I knew I had seen them before, and now I knew where.

In life I was the High Priest of the Evil-doer, and so I was responsible for many Church Operations including inquisition, the purging of evil, and planning Holy Wars. However, before I became High Priest I had to prove I could perform these tasks satisfactorily, so that when the old High Priest ascended to heaven I could become a potential candidate for Succession, and so I had to spend many, many hours studying the various religions and cults of Erebus - how else would I know what to look for? There was a book in the temple library called ''The Runes of Erebus'', which I had read many times, as I had a profound interest in Rune-Casting and the ancient tongue of the Adept. Many of these Runes related to a Religion which, with advanced casting, could be seen upon a follower of said religion. It seemed that the Gods liked to mark their property. One day, while studying the incantation related to this spell, the High Priest, a fuddled and withering old man with dark, sad eyes, entered the library and came over to talk to the Librarian, a surprisingly powerful role in a nation devoted to ignorant passion and a personal friend of the High Priest, who was working in the far end of the Library. The Librarian was responsible for keeping track of all the Secret documents obtained by the Empire's Crusade as well as the Plans for military operations and the blueprints for civic buildings such as Temples and Public Baths. Seeing a potential target for my newly learnt spell I cast the incantation on the librarian, and in the distance I heard the High Priest let out a gasp.

''My Lord, are you well?'' I heard the librarian say,
''Heathen!'' screamed the Priest, ''Agent of Darkness!''

At that very moment, three things happened. A dagger appeared in the librarian's hand, and he thrust it upwards into the High Priest's heart. The guards barring the library entrance to outsiders came rushing in, and I cast the rune for invisibility, shielding myself from view. The guards captured the Librarian and held him tightly while they assessed the situation.

''He's dead.'' One told the other.

At this point, the man holding the librarian left, leaving the other guard behind to watch over the High Priest's body. As the librarian was marched past me I saw clearly the same eye that I saw on the Portal stones that day, it looked as if it had been cut into his forehead with a knife, although I knew this was simply an illusion, a representation of his true beliefs. Later I found out that this was the ''Eye of Esus'', a Rune with great power, and known only to the upper echelons of Bannor Hierocracy. The very essence of Bannor had been compromised by spies and imposters.

''The Eye of Esus.'' I spoke into the darkness, or perhaps just thought it - I could no longer tell. If the Portal was controlled by Esus then... It must have lead to the Vault of Esus, not true Erebus! I thought back to my days as an acolyte, learning the Vaults of theeGods and what inhabited each of them. Perhaps a thousand years have passed since those days, and my knowledge had faded and confounded long since then. What was the Vault of Esus?

''The Vault of Esus, my dear lady,'' Came a voice I had come to know well, ''is an illusion of Erebus, where those who escape the process tend to find themselves.''

He talked about ''the process'' a lot. The manufacture of demons from the souls of the living, which took place across the vaults of many of the fallen Gods.

''Upon their entry,'' he continued, ''victims are released into their past lives, but no matter how hard they try to continue as they left off, or to begin afresh, every single one of them will inevitably fail, until they despair and return to my dominion, or they give in to the lie. Certainly, it may seem like everything is going to plan, but in truth, deception controls their world. Some say that his is the most pleasant of the Hells, but no, it is perhaps the most Cruel.''

''Leave me, black one.'' I responded, ''I care not for your lies.''

But he was not lying, in fact he could not have been more truthful. I now knew in my heart of hearts that upon that very day I had not freed my people but condemned them to a life of misery. While I had hoped they could have rebuilt the Bannor without me, according to the values and laws I had outlined in the Book I had written along the way for the future generations to adhere to, I knew it could not be possible. It had all been for nothing. Perhaps this had been punishment for not surrendering myself to Entropy, perhaps if I had joined the black one and his whore they would have been released to True Erebus...

I heard a faint chuckle in the darkness of the void, and knew I was right.

I thought of giving myself to him now, in exchange for the release of my people, but I knew I could not. My selfishness and false sense of self-importance would never allow me to exchange my life for theirs, even when the life, or perhaps death, I lead was meaningless and confined to between those four metal walls of my existence.

And so I wept.

Black and Fetid Tower

It was in this time particularly that I suffered greatest, I knew that all my efforts had been for nothing, and that no matter how hard myself, or the Empire, tried, we would never succeed to realise the Bannor Dream, a society of perfect justice while retaining freedom and integrity, after all ''Entropy Claims All''. I feared that the Empire may have already fallen to the whims of the Red Lady once more, perhaps even unknowingly. I knew that Agares had sent them there knowing that within a short time they would fall to despair and could be returned to the Surface World once more to allow his great scheme to continue in earnest.

Throughout life in the cage, one day was much as another, but there was one that was different.

One day, I had been leaning against the bars of my cage, stretching my wings which had grown stiff with disuse, when a strange spirit appeared beyond the rust and iron I had grown to know so well. This was not particularly unusual, demons and other creatures of villainry would often come to mock me, or make despicable propositions. I generally refused to acknowledge these creatures, and so I did not so much as look at this one.

Until it spoke my name.

''Zarnaphea. Zarnaphea, are you awake?''

How did it know my name? My Angel Name?

The hierocracy of the First Empire had always been obsessed with becoming Angels, becoming immortal so that they may continue to fight in the name of the Whore for all eternity, and many used Divine Mysticism to determine their Angelic Names during life which they often used in place of their own names amongst their peers. However, these names were kept secret and not even Agares was aware of my own Angelic name. Of course, some of the ''Angels'' had rebelled when she turned to darkness, but many, most, had fallen with her to serve as Torturers and Slave-Masters in the mechanism of Hell. It makes me sick to think of all those men and women I had respected so greatly in life, the legendary Patriarchs and Generals of Righteousness, now serving the Legion of Despair.

I stretched my wings angrily, crashing them against the walls of my small enclosure.

''I am no Angel!'' I cried, and silently I added: I am a Demon.

''My lady, we must leave immediately! They are calling us!'' He spoke in a voice that seemed to resonate through the void, not like the whispering, deceitful spewings of most demons.

My Lady? It looked at him now for the first time, and gasped in superstitious awe.

''Attmos?!''

''Mistress?''

How had this come to be? In life, Attmos had been my servant, a young Acolyte that I had sponsored, knowing he was destined for great things. He had been swept into Hell in the same fell tide as myself, and he had helped me establish order in the town of Pyrhos. Tragically, he had been mauled by a Hell Hound not long after. He had been my first loss of many. In death he had become one of the unresponsive ghosts. I looked at him now and noticed that his skin had grown golden in colour yet remained just as ghostly as the day he had left me, and he was now wearing black, ethereal armour, which looked as sturdy and practical as any I had seen in the material world.

Suddenly I felt an unusual sensation of weightlessness, and noticed that I was now surrounded by a similar glow of gold. And I began to rise -up and out of my cage. I was free! I continued to rise, beyond my own control, as did Attmos and thousands of similiar golden spirits which had lain unnoticed in the void.

Faster and faster we rose, and we became one. An amalgam of golden spirits.

We rushed through the mazes and channels of Hell at blinding speed, occasionally I caught glimpses of demons and the different stages in the machine that is Hell, the temples of Aeron where souls spent hundreds of years in meditation, denying themselves food and water and participating in horrific self-harm, the City of Mamnon, the chaotic war of Camulos. Suddenly we emerged on the surface.

I cannot phrase in words the joy that you feel when you emerge on the surface after spending so long in the realm of darkness.

We traversed the night as a beam of golden light, and I looked down upon Erebus and smiled for the first time I can remember. I saw many peoples, great Empires and Nations. I saw one noble people that had forsaken the Gods entire, a people after my own heart I think, after all, if She could fall, surely it was just a matter of time before the next one joined Agares.

I saw the Bannor.

The Bannor?

But this was Erebus, not the Vault of Esus... I would have dwelled on it further, but I was whisked off in the beam of light, and in this form it seemed hard to focus for long.

I saw a Tower.

A black and fetid tower, which seemed to exist in a perpetual swarm of small, winged creatures which I recognised as Imps, Demonic Servants of Agares.

I saw an army.

An army of spellcasters and magicians, brandishing batons and spears or wood and stone. We descended at a withering speed, and the last thing I remember was plunging straight down upon them.

I heard muted sounds of battle, the screeching of imps, and the chanting of men.

And then I was back.

Nothing But My Thoughts

I was back.

The cage.

Just when I thought I was free at last, I was back. Had it all just been a dream? Irrational wishful thinking? After all, I had seen the Bannor, those who should be even deeper into hell then my own lonely soul. But yet I had hope, perhaps I had been wrong about the Eye - after all it had been such a long time since I had seen it...

Nothing was making sense. Am I mad? Perhaps I always have been, after all no sane woman would order death to the innocent, those who stood as a last beacon of good in a world of growing evil. Hacumei Saana Ton - Entropy Claims All,

Even my mind.

I wondered what it would be like to give in to Agares and B-B-that Woman, wouldn't it be better then spending eternity in this cage? Wouldn't it? I had been told many times that this torment could stop, just as soon as I joined Despair. I admired his persistence, like a Bannorite Inquisitor, he did not stop, endlessly mounting up charges against me, naming my sins, looking deep into my soul and unveiling my darkest secrets. Did I want to suffer for ever more?

Did I?

But then, all my efforts to stand strong, would be for nothing. Meaningless. But weren't they already? I looked down at my body, and saw that the metamorphosis was now complete. I was beautiful, more so then in life, my hair was black and silky and my skin was soft and unblemished, a beautiful shade of stone grey. I was not an ugly demon, but a beautiful evil, just as B-B-B-She is. What had I become? A succubus? Perhaps. And I thought, there are worse creatures...

They were appealing to my vanity, that was all. If I joined them I would be transformed into an Imp - No doubt, I told myself, half-believing.

I wondered why I still cared for those men and women I had released from Hell. Living on the surface, they would all be long dead by now, and would their children even know of my existence? Unlikely. The Bannor I had saved had all been illiterate, there had been no need for writing in Hell. I had taught some to read my Book with some limited success, but I suspect that they had simply memorised the writings, and could not really read the work. I wondered what had become of my book. Used as a firelighter on the cold surface world no doubt.

Some people truly have no gratitude.

''Sabel?'' Came a voice soft as the skin of a hell-toad. I looked up, and saw such a vision of beauty I could not believe. She was perfection such as even I cannot describe. Beautiful, yet divinely Maternal.

''You... You are Evil. Leave me, w-w-whore.'' I stuttered, ''I will never-''

''Sabel. Listen to me.'' She interrupted, mid rant. ''We are not evil, we are not what it may seem. In truth, we are the champions of Justice - Just as the Bannor were.''

I laughed.

''The Bannor were not Champions of Justice. They were the Champions of Ambition and Manipulation.''

''Sabel, once, a long time ago, the Gods had complete power of creation, and we created many, many worlds - each more beautiful and carefree then the last. We had followers of every kind, and in our glory He grew envious.''

''Agares?''

''No. Our father. Our creator - the One who created Erebus and all it's Gods. He was envious and paranoid that we wanted to usurp his position as King of the Gods, so he through us from Heaven - True Heaven - and destroyed our worlds one by one. Killing millions of millions of creatures, with such cruelty as never before seen. Seeing his actions, he was ashamed, and closed off Heaven. Leaving us with only very limited power in comparison to what we once had.''

I blinked. I had never heard of this ''King of Gods''. Could it be true?

''It is our Divine Mission now Sabel, we must conquer Erebus - His world - with whatever means necessary, and from there we can repair the Altar, which lies in pieces strung across the many islands and realms of the World. This Altar will allow us to transport our army unto Heaven, where we may assault the Fortress of the One and reclaim the power that is ours by right, so that we may begin to restore the lands he stole from us.''

She is lying. I shouldn't trust her. She is lying, Sabel. But it did sound, almost so unlikely that it could only be true.

''Sabel. I need an Archangel. Join me, and you shall have power beyond all your dreams. Look at yourself. You are already an Angel! You cannot deny your destiny Sabel.''

I was silent. I had always been hungry for power, and now that She spoke to me she did not seem quite as evil as I had imagined. In fact, she seemed little different to how she had been before the Fall.

''You brought me to this Hell. Why should I trust you?''

She spoke for a while longer, explaining that she had brought the Bannor to Hell because they were her children, that she loved dearly, and wanted close to her womb. And that also she had hoped that their souls would have grown powerful enough to act as her Elite Angelic force during the invasion of Heaven. She told her how greatly it had cost her when I had freed them from the Vault. And I felt a deep sense of guilt.

She left me then, with nothing but my thoughts.