thomas.berubeg
Wandering the World
The Nivian College:
When the Zirrafim Host smote down the Khthonic lords, the screaming earth itself was rent asunder. Nivial, He of the Thousand Arms, Conductor of the Great Minor Chorus, Wise-Magi of the Kthonians, and Lieutenant to Apollyon-Kotet himself was torn from his Ice throne by Mammoun, Golden Helmed Captain of the Zirraf. Their struggle lasted for both an age and an hour, and boiled the frozen seas around them. Thrice The Thousand-handed one pinned his aggressor against the cold stone, and Thrice Mammoun’s flaming blade clove through the arms holding him. Nine-hundred and ninety eight cleft arms stewed in the steaming brine, and finally Mammoun turned the tide, flipping the Kthonian over and pressing his gasping maw under the waves until even the once mighty lord could not will his life on. Raising the body of his fallen foe once in triumph, The Zirraf’s burning sword consumed the fallen in a great conflageration, till nothing remained of the one who had held nearly a quarter of the Algid Earth in his grasp, nothing but a whispered echo in the winds above the ocean, a murmur of ancient strife in the crash of the waves.
Onyx haired Mammoun, Glancing about him at the devastation wrought by the fallen wise-man, wrought by their righteous struggle, swore upon the very foundations of the earth never to speak to any of the site of the struggle. He cast the broken Ice throne deep into a chasm of the living earth, and with it his fallen foe’s raging army. With the force born of his golden purpose, Mammoun smote the Chasm closed, so that none may ever find it.
An age passed, and not once did he return to the location of the titanic struggle. Even when The Shining Captain finished his work and smote down the Nivias Rozier, forsaking the Algid Earth upon the death of his General, he refused to give his fallen foe undeserved respect in memory.
The Great Magician Nale, though wise and knowledgeable of many secrets and stories, had never heard that of the battle between his fallen master’s father and his slayer. And so, when he fled the Mage-strife with his followers and led them far north, to the broken shores of the sea, he knew not the import of the location. He and many of the followers of Nale heard the echo in the wind and the sorrow in the crash of the waves, and understood the power of this place. Delving deep into the skin of the earth, they quarried stone to raise the great city of Ath, it’s shining towers of white marble girded with seven strong walls.
And, when the most talented among them found themselves drawn to the tunnels from which the stone had been drawn, it seemed only natural to furnish them, to use them as a place within which to study their sacred art. The rough hewn corridors were polished by thousands of steps of use, and as the ranks of the Magi grew, so did the lengths of the tunnels. Deeper and deeper, wending down, the Nivian college was formed. those with talent travelled the world over to learn of the secrets locked within the ever shifting passageways. Rumor tells of what wonders are hidden in it’s deepest recesses, what horrors lurk in the darkest aisles of the library, what Kthonian artifices are secreted in locked vaults. Some even speak of darker things, Mages losing themselves the the catacombs for what to them is a day and seventy years to the rest of the college, adventurous students disappearing with nothing to be heard of them but an echo of despair, bound to a shadowy place.
When the Zirrafim Host smote down the Khthonic lords, the screaming earth itself was rent asunder. Nivial, He of the Thousand Arms, Conductor of the Great Minor Chorus, Wise-Magi of the Kthonians, and Lieutenant to Apollyon-Kotet himself was torn from his Ice throne by Mammoun, Golden Helmed Captain of the Zirraf. Their struggle lasted for both an age and an hour, and boiled the frozen seas around them. Thrice The Thousand-handed one pinned his aggressor against the cold stone, and Thrice Mammoun’s flaming blade clove through the arms holding him. Nine-hundred and ninety eight cleft arms stewed in the steaming brine, and finally Mammoun turned the tide, flipping the Kthonian over and pressing his gasping maw under the waves until even the once mighty lord could not will his life on. Raising the body of his fallen foe once in triumph, The Zirraf’s burning sword consumed the fallen in a great conflageration, till nothing remained of the one who had held nearly a quarter of the Algid Earth in his grasp, nothing but a whispered echo in the winds above the ocean, a murmur of ancient strife in the crash of the waves.
Onyx haired Mammoun, Glancing about him at the devastation wrought by the fallen wise-man, wrought by their righteous struggle, swore upon the very foundations of the earth never to speak to any of the site of the struggle. He cast the broken Ice throne deep into a chasm of the living earth, and with it his fallen foe’s raging army. With the force born of his golden purpose, Mammoun smote the Chasm closed, so that none may ever find it.
An age passed, and not once did he return to the location of the titanic struggle. Even when The Shining Captain finished his work and smote down the Nivias Rozier, forsaking the Algid Earth upon the death of his General, he refused to give his fallen foe undeserved respect in memory.
The Great Magician Nale, though wise and knowledgeable of many secrets and stories, had never heard that of the battle between his fallen master’s father and his slayer. And so, when he fled the Mage-strife with his followers and led them far north, to the broken shores of the sea, he knew not the import of the location. He and many of the followers of Nale heard the echo in the wind and the sorrow in the crash of the waves, and understood the power of this place. Delving deep into the skin of the earth, they quarried stone to raise the great city of Ath, it’s shining towers of white marble girded with seven strong walls.
And, when the most talented among them found themselves drawn to the tunnels from which the stone had been drawn, it seemed only natural to furnish them, to use them as a place within which to study their sacred art. The rough hewn corridors were polished by thousands of steps of use, and as the ranks of the Magi grew, so did the lengths of the tunnels. Deeper and deeper, wending down, the Nivian college was formed. those with talent travelled the world over to learn of the secrets locked within the ever shifting passageways. Rumor tells of what wonders are hidden in it’s deepest recesses, what horrors lurk in the darkest aisles of the library, what Kthonian artifices are secreted in locked vaults. Some even speak of darker things, Mages losing themselves the the catacombs for what to them is a day and seventy years to the rest of the college, adventurous students disappearing with nothing to be heard of them but an echo of despair, bound to a shadowy place.
