Vertinari118
Deity
The Darkness at the Heart of the Sun
The Golden Order of the Illuminating Sun is one of the most prevalent and powerful socerous societies in the city of Zambar and the entire kingdom. Its success largely comes from the fact that it exploits tribal beliefs to maximise their acceptance amongst all walks of life. On the surface they are a kind, charitable order that the common folk can depend on to aid them at prices undercutting those of other orders. Little do the commoners realise that the sorcerers tend to take their money and babble nonsense until they go away. This scamming is a problem but the order does also provide genuine services to paying clients and significant benefits to the kingdom. Rouge members are blamed and it is ignored. It’s not an ideal situation but one can hardly argue with an order of sorcerers who provide half the battle magic support for the Royal Army singlehandedly.
A tired looking man runs down the dark alley, by his dress and bearing he is a guard and one who is expecting trouble judging by the drawn sword. He reached the end of the alley and turned right to go down the main street. He ran this way about twenty feet before suddenly halting; stopped dead in the middle of the road with no obvious reason. A more observant observer (sadly for him there were no observers at all, yet alone ones who could actually observe) would have noticed a slightly darker patch of night in the road in front of the man. Its form is totally indistinctive but it does not feel good. Evil somehow emanates from it as though it were a rip into the fabric of the night leading into some hellish underworld. There is one problem with that theory. Rips in reality do not move and they certainly do not hunt down men. The shape started to move with uncanny and supernatural speed towards the man. The man turned tail and fled as though his life and soul depended solely now on his ability to keep ahead of the shape. Something shot out of the shape moving impossibly fast, no crossbow could fire a quarrel with that amount of force. It struck the man. The scream lasted for exactly ten seconds but it was so loud and the night so still it echoed for thirty. The guard would not report what he had just seen to his superior. Indeed he would report nothing at all every again.
“Sir another child has gone missing.”
“And? Orphan wretches disappear all the time. We probably only get reports of a tenth of the missing and of that tenth we probably only find a hundredth. What’s new?”
“Sir this is the fifth child this week alone and it wasn’t no orphan. She had a family, a poor family, but with honour and a proper place in life. They live on the riverside a mile or so from here. Should we pay them a visit?”
“What happened to Tareth?”
“What do you mean sir?”
“Did you think I had forgotten it was his watch last night not yours? Yet here you are giving his report. Are you covering for him again? It won’t make a difference if you are and you’ll be reprimanded as well. Probably a year’s bureaucracy to straighten out that lying tongue of yours.”
“Sir he hasn’t shown up at the barracks yet. With all the disappearances, I think something might have happened to him. “
“I presume you have performed a standard patrol route search to check this hunch of yours?”
“That would require your authorisation sir.”
“One of my guards could be dead and you have spent the last three hours polishing your boots and brass without even checking the local whorehouses and taverns yet alone his patrol route?! Are you trying to kill Tareth?!”
“Nnn . no sir ...”
“Go find him that’s an order and next time we have a missing guard do something about it. Even if its wake me up so I can shout at you and tell you to do the bloody obvious.”
They found Tareth. At least the sorcerer was fairly certain the heap of flesh and bones they found were the mortal remains of Guardsman Tareth. Normally such a sorcerer, who are employed by the guardsmen of Zambar in particular though increasingly in other cities as well to reliably identify remains, would be almost absolutely certain but this case was different. The mortal remains were so devastated it was difficult to reconstruct them accurately and the remains seemed to actively resist any form of physical or illusionary reconstruction. Eventually the sorcerer had tired of reconstructive techniques so he drew upon even more of his power and skill to pass through the barrier between worlds and seek the soul of Tareth in the lands of the recent dead. He lay ‘dead’ for several hours before finally returning to his body. The captain of the Zambar guardsmen, Kaliz, immediately asked the sorcerer.
“So is it my guardsman lying there? Damn who it is actually did they say who killed them?”
“No.”
“What do you mean no? We employ you and your apprentices for at a good rate. We do not expect nonsense for our money. Whoever that *points at the heap of flesh* was is dead. Dead souls pass to the in-between place thingy before going away completely. That died at some point this evening thus his-“
“Your knowledge is impressive but he is not there. His soul never passed from this world into the next. Not even for a single moment. In fact, as far as I can deduce, his soul never even left his body. There is no trace of it, no spiritual ‘footprints’ if you like, anywhere in the surrounding vicinity or in the lands of the recent dead. Whatever slew his mortal remains either captured his soul absolutely perfectly the very instant it left the protection of his mortal remains or it totally annihilated him body and soul. As I doubt the former is possible even to the most ancient and powerful beings of this world as no being is capable of instantaneous action I suppose the latter. This would also explain why the remains are very difficult to reconstruct. The essence of his being has been utterly wiped out.”
“But souls can’t be destroyed can they? What in the gods’ names could annihilate a soul?”
“Souls contrary to popular belief are not eternal or immortal. They appear as such because mundane men cannot harm them in any way and they are beyond the ravages of Time. Powerful spiritual beings will quite happily consume or otherwise destroy souls though. No sorcerer or mage of any race has reached sufficient power or depravity in the darkest arts of magic to carry out such an act, at least to my knowledge. A blood sacrifice could be used by a group of more powerful sorcerers to summon a being of shadow, known as a div, which might have sufficient power to utterly destroy a weak-souled man. Those of stronger, purer spirits would require a far more powerful being, known as a shayatin, but no-one not even a fool or a madman would deliberately summon a shayatin into our world. The ritual to summon would demand the blood of one hundred innocents, children being the typical choice, and would need constant feeding to keep it manageable. After a while in our world it would probably regain sufficient strength and coordination to throw off the shackles of the enchantments binding it to the commanding sorcerer, which would be disastrous for said sorcerer as the shayatin’s first act would be vengeance. One would need to gather several master necromancers of great skill and strength and the required number of innocents in a place where the barrier between worlds is already weakened to summon a creature that would require constant feeding and expenditure of magical energy for perhaps a week before it had to be banished again. “
“Do you know of any sorcerous orders in the kingdom which might have sufficient strength to summon either of these monstrosities?”
“One must remember that sorcerers, even amongst our people in whom I believe the inclination runs more deeply and who are skilled at drawing out and developing even slight gifts, are rare. If a hundredth of the population possess sorcerous talent of some sort that gives 17,000 sorcerers in total in the entire kingdom. A hundredth again of those sorcerers will possess a level of skill and power that begins to approach what might be called masterful. That leaves 170 sorcerers of the order of skill and strength required to carry out this act. Of that hundred and seventy the bulk will be found in the Golden Order of the Illuminating Sun or as leading members of other societies and orders. If I had to pick an order within the kingdom I would be forced to say the Golden Order of the Illuminating Sun. If I could be one from without as well as within I would say the Cult of Heras-Fel”
“Where have I heard that name before? The Cult of Heras-Fel”
“To the best of my knowledge they are an order that emerged from the Woodwall about a decade ago with terrifying powers raising a mighty horde of undead and spirits to dominate the north. Several great cities fell until the greatest power of that region, a vast nation of orcs, managed to halt their expansion. They would have the knowledge and power to summon any number of demons, including the two I mentioned.”
“Guardsman Kelan didn’t you say a group of four north men entered the city about a month ago?”
“Yes Captain. They looked a right strange bunch, definitely magic users of some sort. Cloaked and hooded bearing staffs of power they were, like they were order masters. Looked like they had been riding hard for a while as well. It’s strange I can’t really remember what they looked like. We got them to pull back their hoods, as regulations require, but all I remember is that they were north men nothing more. You could show me a line-up of all the north men in the city and I doubt I’d be able to remember enough about any of one of them to pick him out. They were definitely all men though. Said they had come from the far north representing an order up there who wished to treat with the Suns. We let them in as they didn’t seem malicious and they had business with the Suns, who we’re not meant to meddle with.”
“Four men would not be enough for the ritual Captain; at least ten would be needed. Six men of the Hanajj must have aided them if they summoned a shayatin. They could have summoned a div by themselves though.”
“Disappearing children, guards murdered by dark spirits, mysterious sorcerers from the north entering the city at the dead of night; something dark has taken hold of this city. Send word to the Ufallmur. We need a royal decree to search all the properties of the Order of the Illuminating Sun in this city. Send word to all the other city guards and tribes as well. Everyone in the kingdom needs to be on alert. We do not know what is going to happen but I doubt it will be good.”
Meanwhile deep in the bowels of the city another group of people met. All hooded and cloaked, throbbing with the sorcerous power that had made them great, they waited. One of them called out in an ancient and arcane tongue, incomprehensible and unpronounceable to those without magic in their blood. A shadow formed in front of them. It was like a rip in reality.
“The Shayatin did well. Its powers are growing and we have fifty div to accompany it. We also have a company of two hundred wnaga mercenaries and fifty Elvish bowmen. We are ready.”
“We are not ready. How many soldiers does the king have? How many sorcerers will join his army to crush us? We will not take Zambar this night.”
“You said yourself our dominion over the Master is failing. If he breaks our control before we act the Order of the Illuminating Sun will utterly destroy us before we can reveal their secret.”
“We cannot act too soon.”
“We must not act too late.”
“We will not overthrow Zambar this night. But we will overthrow it by the end of this week. I have arranged for more orc mercenaries to join us and goblins from the Akkal Ridge along with some of the more angry dwarves. At the end of this week we will have five hundred soldiers under our command and the spirits. We may even have corrupted more sorcerers to our side. We number fifteen which is enough for now but we will need more at some point.”
“Very well, are we all in agreement?”
They were. They went about their business casting various spells over the shayatin to keep it submissive and attended to other tasks. The sobbing of children echoed through the caves. A more plaintive sound could not be imagined.
OOC: Not an action story as much but a scene setter to explore a bit more of Hanajj culture, namely the prevalence of sorcerous cults of varying power and influence, and to create the seed of an interesting scenario to deal with. I'll write one or two more stories of this sort and them write out action stories dealing my responses, or rather Harrim's responses. This story does explore both necromancy and the idea of life after death and the soul in Sekai beyond what has been outlined in the lore. I believe it will all fit in though. Apologies for any typos and not writing more earlier but I've been busy with school and other things. You can expect, as general rule, longer stories such as this one to only emerage at weekends or in holidays. Oh checking in BTW!
The Golden Order of the Illuminating Sun is one of the most prevalent and powerful socerous societies in the city of Zambar and the entire kingdom. Its success largely comes from the fact that it exploits tribal beliefs to maximise their acceptance amongst all walks of life. On the surface they are a kind, charitable order that the common folk can depend on to aid them at prices undercutting those of other orders. Little do the commoners realise that the sorcerers tend to take their money and babble nonsense until they go away. This scamming is a problem but the order does also provide genuine services to paying clients and significant benefits to the kingdom. Rouge members are blamed and it is ignored. It’s not an ideal situation but one can hardly argue with an order of sorcerers who provide half the battle magic support for the Royal Army singlehandedly.
A tired looking man runs down the dark alley, by his dress and bearing he is a guard and one who is expecting trouble judging by the drawn sword. He reached the end of the alley and turned right to go down the main street. He ran this way about twenty feet before suddenly halting; stopped dead in the middle of the road with no obvious reason. A more observant observer (sadly for him there were no observers at all, yet alone ones who could actually observe) would have noticed a slightly darker patch of night in the road in front of the man. Its form is totally indistinctive but it does not feel good. Evil somehow emanates from it as though it were a rip into the fabric of the night leading into some hellish underworld. There is one problem with that theory. Rips in reality do not move and they certainly do not hunt down men. The shape started to move with uncanny and supernatural speed towards the man. The man turned tail and fled as though his life and soul depended solely now on his ability to keep ahead of the shape. Something shot out of the shape moving impossibly fast, no crossbow could fire a quarrel with that amount of force. It struck the man. The scream lasted for exactly ten seconds but it was so loud and the night so still it echoed for thirty. The guard would not report what he had just seen to his superior. Indeed he would report nothing at all every again.
“Sir another child has gone missing.”
“And? Orphan wretches disappear all the time. We probably only get reports of a tenth of the missing and of that tenth we probably only find a hundredth. What’s new?”
“Sir this is the fifth child this week alone and it wasn’t no orphan. She had a family, a poor family, but with honour and a proper place in life. They live on the riverside a mile or so from here. Should we pay them a visit?”
“What happened to Tareth?”
“What do you mean sir?”
“Did you think I had forgotten it was his watch last night not yours? Yet here you are giving his report. Are you covering for him again? It won’t make a difference if you are and you’ll be reprimanded as well. Probably a year’s bureaucracy to straighten out that lying tongue of yours.”
“Sir he hasn’t shown up at the barracks yet. With all the disappearances, I think something might have happened to him. “
“I presume you have performed a standard patrol route search to check this hunch of yours?”
“That would require your authorisation sir.”
“One of my guards could be dead and you have spent the last three hours polishing your boots and brass without even checking the local whorehouses and taverns yet alone his patrol route?! Are you trying to kill Tareth?!”
“Nnn . no sir ...”
“Go find him that’s an order and next time we have a missing guard do something about it. Even if its wake me up so I can shout at you and tell you to do the bloody obvious.”
They found Tareth. At least the sorcerer was fairly certain the heap of flesh and bones they found were the mortal remains of Guardsman Tareth. Normally such a sorcerer, who are employed by the guardsmen of Zambar in particular though increasingly in other cities as well to reliably identify remains, would be almost absolutely certain but this case was different. The mortal remains were so devastated it was difficult to reconstruct them accurately and the remains seemed to actively resist any form of physical or illusionary reconstruction. Eventually the sorcerer had tired of reconstructive techniques so he drew upon even more of his power and skill to pass through the barrier between worlds and seek the soul of Tareth in the lands of the recent dead. He lay ‘dead’ for several hours before finally returning to his body. The captain of the Zambar guardsmen, Kaliz, immediately asked the sorcerer.
“So is it my guardsman lying there? Damn who it is actually did they say who killed them?”
“No.”
“What do you mean no? We employ you and your apprentices for at a good rate. We do not expect nonsense for our money. Whoever that *points at the heap of flesh* was is dead. Dead souls pass to the in-between place thingy before going away completely. That died at some point this evening thus his-“
“Your knowledge is impressive but he is not there. His soul never passed from this world into the next. Not even for a single moment. In fact, as far as I can deduce, his soul never even left his body. There is no trace of it, no spiritual ‘footprints’ if you like, anywhere in the surrounding vicinity or in the lands of the recent dead. Whatever slew his mortal remains either captured his soul absolutely perfectly the very instant it left the protection of his mortal remains or it totally annihilated him body and soul. As I doubt the former is possible even to the most ancient and powerful beings of this world as no being is capable of instantaneous action I suppose the latter. This would also explain why the remains are very difficult to reconstruct. The essence of his being has been utterly wiped out.”
“But souls can’t be destroyed can they? What in the gods’ names could annihilate a soul?”
“Souls contrary to popular belief are not eternal or immortal. They appear as such because mundane men cannot harm them in any way and they are beyond the ravages of Time. Powerful spiritual beings will quite happily consume or otherwise destroy souls though. No sorcerer or mage of any race has reached sufficient power or depravity in the darkest arts of magic to carry out such an act, at least to my knowledge. A blood sacrifice could be used by a group of more powerful sorcerers to summon a being of shadow, known as a div, which might have sufficient power to utterly destroy a weak-souled man. Those of stronger, purer spirits would require a far more powerful being, known as a shayatin, but no-one not even a fool or a madman would deliberately summon a shayatin into our world. The ritual to summon would demand the blood of one hundred innocents, children being the typical choice, and would need constant feeding to keep it manageable. After a while in our world it would probably regain sufficient strength and coordination to throw off the shackles of the enchantments binding it to the commanding sorcerer, which would be disastrous for said sorcerer as the shayatin’s first act would be vengeance. One would need to gather several master necromancers of great skill and strength and the required number of innocents in a place where the barrier between worlds is already weakened to summon a creature that would require constant feeding and expenditure of magical energy for perhaps a week before it had to be banished again. “
“Do you know of any sorcerous orders in the kingdom which might have sufficient strength to summon either of these monstrosities?”
“One must remember that sorcerers, even amongst our people in whom I believe the inclination runs more deeply and who are skilled at drawing out and developing even slight gifts, are rare. If a hundredth of the population possess sorcerous talent of some sort that gives 17,000 sorcerers in total in the entire kingdom. A hundredth again of those sorcerers will possess a level of skill and power that begins to approach what might be called masterful. That leaves 170 sorcerers of the order of skill and strength required to carry out this act. Of that hundred and seventy the bulk will be found in the Golden Order of the Illuminating Sun or as leading members of other societies and orders. If I had to pick an order within the kingdom I would be forced to say the Golden Order of the Illuminating Sun. If I could be one from without as well as within I would say the Cult of Heras-Fel”
“Where have I heard that name before? The Cult of Heras-Fel”
“To the best of my knowledge they are an order that emerged from the Woodwall about a decade ago with terrifying powers raising a mighty horde of undead and spirits to dominate the north. Several great cities fell until the greatest power of that region, a vast nation of orcs, managed to halt their expansion. They would have the knowledge and power to summon any number of demons, including the two I mentioned.”
“Guardsman Kelan didn’t you say a group of four north men entered the city about a month ago?”
“Yes Captain. They looked a right strange bunch, definitely magic users of some sort. Cloaked and hooded bearing staffs of power they were, like they were order masters. Looked like they had been riding hard for a while as well. It’s strange I can’t really remember what they looked like. We got them to pull back their hoods, as regulations require, but all I remember is that they were north men nothing more. You could show me a line-up of all the north men in the city and I doubt I’d be able to remember enough about any of one of them to pick him out. They were definitely all men though. Said they had come from the far north representing an order up there who wished to treat with the Suns. We let them in as they didn’t seem malicious and they had business with the Suns, who we’re not meant to meddle with.”
“Four men would not be enough for the ritual Captain; at least ten would be needed. Six men of the Hanajj must have aided them if they summoned a shayatin. They could have summoned a div by themselves though.”
“Disappearing children, guards murdered by dark spirits, mysterious sorcerers from the north entering the city at the dead of night; something dark has taken hold of this city. Send word to the Ufallmur. We need a royal decree to search all the properties of the Order of the Illuminating Sun in this city. Send word to all the other city guards and tribes as well. Everyone in the kingdom needs to be on alert. We do not know what is going to happen but I doubt it will be good.”
Meanwhile deep in the bowels of the city another group of people met. All hooded and cloaked, throbbing with the sorcerous power that had made them great, they waited. One of them called out in an ancient and arcane tongue, incomprehensible and unpronounceable to those without magic in their blood. A shadow formed in front of them. It was like a rip in reality.
“The Shayatin did well. Its powers are growing and we have fifty div to accompany it. We also have a company of two hundred wnaga mercenaries and fifty Elvish bowmen. We are ready.”
“We are not ready. How many soldiers does the king have? How many sorcerers will join his army to crush us? We will not take Zambar this night.”
“You said yourself our dominion over the Master is failing. If he breaks our control before we act the Order of the Illuminating Sun will utterly destroy us before we can reveal their secret.”
“We cannot act too soon.”
“We must not act too late.”
“We will not overthrow Zambar this night. But we will overthrow it by the end of this week. I have arranged for more orc mercenaries to join us and goblins from the Akkal Ridge along with some of the more angry dwarves. At the end of this week we will have five hundred soldiers under our command and the spirits. We may even have corrupted more sorcerers to our side. We number fifteen which is enough for now but we will need more at some point.”
“Very well, are we all in agreement?”
They were. They went about their business casting various spells over the shayatin to keep it submissive and attended to other tasks. The sobbing of children echoed through the caves. A more plaintive sound could not be imagined.
OOC: Not an action story as much but a scene setter to explore a bit more of Hanajj culture, namely the prevalence of sorcerous cults of varying power and influence, and to create the seed of an interesting scenario to deal with. I'll write one or two more stories of this sort and them write out action stories dealing my responses, or rather Harrim's responses. This story does explore both necromancy and the idea of life after death and the soul in Sekai beyond what has been outlined in the lore. I believe it will all fit in though. Apologies for any typos and not writing more earlier but I've been busy with school and other things. You can expect, as general rule, longer stories such as this one to only emerage at weekends or in holidays. Oh checking in BTW!
