The Old Night

Crelius paused as he stepped onto the obsidian-granite ground of the Reliquary. Amber hues from the magma floes served as the final sign and outpost to an endless darkness beyond. The breadth of the night was immense. One could instinctively feel its impossible enormity by standing so close to its border. His instincts told him to turn away, for just over the precipice was the spans and promises of a time before worlds.

The silhouette of an armored figure materialized from the shadows near the ledge. Ahhh the Reclusiarch, Crelius thought, the mortal guardian of the gate between this world and the depths.

“The faithful strive to make their pilgrimage to this sacred place for prayer and supplication. I fear I travel here for a different purpose,” Crelius spoke, his tone laced with firm certainty. He nodded to the figure as if he knew the guardian would understand what he desired.

“You could not choose a time of greater risk. I assume you have weighed the potentialities of what you seek,” The shadowed figure of the Reclusiarch tilted his head slightly.

“It is necessary, old friend, you know that as well as I. I hearken to a deeper calling. The master makes his will known to his followers as he must, but men such as I must take risks for enlightenment,” Crelius spoke to the figure as he stepped closer, into the glow of the fiery creeks.

“And if you do not return?” the Reclusiarch asked, taking a step towards Crelius and into the volcanic illumination.

“Then you will do what must be done, Lanival,” Crelius nodded assuredly before reaching into the seam of his robe and withdrawing a strange amulet.

“I understand,” spoke Lanival firmly.

“I will find those who were lost, and more,” The Dark Lord spoke as he draped the amulet around his neck and replaced his hood. He stepped past Lanival and moved near the edge of the rock overhang. The fiery glow of the chamber trailed him and cast an odd sheen on the blackened robe he wore over his armor.

He stood upon the precipice before the fathomless void below him. Reverently he reached his hand into a pouch at his side, withdrawing an intoxicatingly brilliant viridian jewel. He gazed into its eye for but an instant as he closed his grasp upon it.

Crelius looked into the deep, breathing steadily as he considered what awaited him below. He had been there once, and he had been one of the few to ever return. To attempt a second time was madness, but this was the path of the Dark Lord. A final measure in his lifetime of obedience.

He turned his hooded head over his shoulder for but an instant, “Farewell, Lanival.” And he stepped over the ledge.

And he fell. Leagues of darkness swept past him in his plummet. The ashen robes he wore whipped behind him wraithlike in his descent. Long was the distance of his fall, and deeper still was the darkness he descended.

Time was already lost to him, as he was prepared to relinquish it. Yet it did not seem long before the first vision assailed him.

[swarming black delirium animosity]

His eyes fluttered open in confusion. A cold panic had overtaken him of which he was hard set in suppressing. Sweat matted the inside of his robe, and his heart raced from a fear he did not know he could feel. He gripped his armored palms tightly and centered himself, stepping into the sanctum within himself.

Steadying his breath, he focused on his other senses. There was a chilling steady air about him, and he stood upon what felt to be solid ground. A silence like a dead god hung perilously wherever he was. With a crawl he opened his eyes.

He saw knee high azure mists that bobbed with the fluidity of a calm sea. An other worldly luminescence encompassed the fogs and contrasted the thick night above it. It was all that could be seen save a solitary figure. It moved towards him in great strides, and as the distance closed the personage of this being become clear to Crelius.

A monolith of a man, he stood nearly four hands taller than the Dark Lord. The stone like bullish features of the figure grimaced down upon Crelius. Long raven hair fell lengthy beneath an ivory wyrm skin headpiece. His ebony hair gave way to a sanctimoniously scarred bare chest.

The tree like arms of the man, bearing similar scars, lead to overly caliced and brutish hands which flexed open and closed. A horrible portion of the man’s lower side and torso seemed bitten off. Fresh blood flowed and steamed from the wound continuously in the icy realm.

“You should not be,” The elk statured man proclaimed with unearthly certainty. His words came from him as a bear howling into the wild.

The words caught Crelius, and a realization overcame him all too well.

“I have prayed for many years that this day would come, Haelgravuun,” Crelius glared, vengeful animosity hanging harmoniously with the malice of his words. He felt a terrible ire swell within him. Before him stood the spirit of the man that could have been his true father. An answer he has never known.

A savage roar of a laugh flew forth from the spirit of the barbarian. “You will never know the truth little Dark Tooth! It is as extinct as your mother, I made sure to that, and as extinct as I. A pity you did not die within her womb as I placed my spear through her heart,” A rumbling chuckle, wolf like in the frigid air.

“It is as it should be,” Crelius uttered malevolently as he leapt through the blue-white mists and towards the chieftain. He grasped the hulking neck of savage with the black-iron gauntlets and began to squeeze. A cold draft cast back his hood, and his murderous yet refined gaze bored into the barbarian.

“Extinct…,” the man escaped from his strangled voice box. His puffy countenance swelled and grew pink with the attack.

Abruptly and without warning the features his victim wavered and blurred. Within an instant the image of aquiline female face look up at him from his grasp.

“Crelus Atenum, my son, your curse upon our tribe will forever mark you….,” She gasped as Crelius held his grip tight.

“It is as it should be!” Crelius howled as he grasped the back of her head and chin, wrenching it like the turning of a ship’s wheel.

Crelius fell back upon his knees, his palms resting up upon his knees as he breathed wildly. Just then the body of his mother dispersed into a flock of ravens into the night. A hallowed laughter resounded and the chamber shook. The Darkness over took him.

[spinning vertigo malcontent darkness]

Back to the perilous plummet. His mind spun as did his body. Blackness rushed passed him. The falling air’s extreme heat and frigidness changed almost by the minute. The random shifts in temperature were madding in their abruptness and randomness. There was but one constant in his descent, and it was the darkness. He pondered what realms and strangeness he fell past as the stygian presence stirred within him once again.

[swirling ebony fire malice foreboding]

His mind and spirit felt assaulted. Hazily he gripped his hands into the ground he was now kneeling on. Sand. He coughed a dry cough and opened his eyes, rubbing them with the sleeve of his robe to clear his vision and his head. Little could prepare him for what he witnessed.

A bloody gray sky mired with the smoke and fires of conquest enveloped the horizons of the southern desert of Thalos. A host of corpses were outstretched on the blood dampened sands like a sanguine pathway. They led to a smoldering obsidian obelisk, its tabards and flags no longer displayed in pride as they should have been. Storm Keep, or what was left of it.

The Dark Lord released an incredulous sigh, and began to march along the trail of the fallen. He observed the bodies of who he guessed were the enemy. He noted their strange donning and markings. These were warriors he had never seen. They appeared mostly human, save for strange transfigured features that both perplexed him and disgusted him. He saw blades where arms should have been, two heads atop one body, contortions in the most chaotic and warlike ways. These abominations were bred for war, and by what or for what purpose he had a reluctant notion.

Crelius paused when he approached a swelled number of corpses that laid a tree length’s away from the broken gates of Storm Keep. At the center of the mass ring of transmogrified husks he spied the subtle and familiar armor of a Sanctum Knight.

With a sharp breath he strode quickly towards the fallen knight, and gave a grievous and prided sigh as he knelt beside him. It appeared that this man alone had volunteered to hold the outer gate. Stepping up to sacrifice himself with the knowing approach of utter defeat. He knew this one well, and last he had spoke with him he had yet to enter the sanctum of the Shadow Knights. It seems that Jazaren Maltese had earned his way after Crelius left. Something he knew would happen in time. The Dark Lord passed a hand over his face, closing his still open eyes and placing the fallen warrior’s hands over the holy symbol he wore about his neck.

Crelius stood and moved onward towards the wrecked gate. Shattered stone and a maelstrom of blood and limb greeted him as he passed through the archway. The courtyard was the scene of a mass slaughter. Upon the battlements the corpses of the warriors of Storm Keep hung from their very innards. The smell of ash and blood hung heavy in the air. Cautiously he made his way towards the inner confines of the keep.

Strangely the damage done to Storm Keep’s structure was enough to allow the light of day to seep through the cracked and shaken crevices of the ceiling. Grief overwhelmed him to see the world’s rays enter where they never have before. More so it grieved him to witness the illuminatation of the obliterated statue of the Lord Necrucifer. It was a rendition of the master that had always greeted him, and every knight, as they entered this fortress. Such desecration was unbelievable. Remnants of its blasted obsidian body scattered about the chamber.

A breath in the wind shook him from his grievance and he drew forth a blackened blade from a sheath at his side. His vision panned down towards the base of the statue. A broken and brutalized body slumped and buried in rubble and ash. A familiar face, he approached it swiftly.

Weakened breath escaped the knight’s mouth, and her glossed and near death eyes met his with both surprise and anger. “You….. you left us. Why are you here now? You are too late…You abandoned us and now we are in ruin. You have failed… we have failed,” Dae’ni spoke her final words.

“Dae’ni, I….,” Crelius attempted to speak as he saw the last wisps of life flee from her eyes. He growled in absolute contempt, grasping and sending a boulder into the darkened halls with rage. Suddenly a dire possibility entered his mind. The Sanctum… if they had made it this far they might have penetrated it, the secrets therein.

Atennim ran now through the bloodied shambles of his home towards the halls of Statuary and the gate of the inner most Sanctum.

What he found was what he had feared. He looked upon the desecrated chamber with loathing. Each statue from Shay to Falidor had been belittled and marked with strange symbols drawn in the blood of his knights.

He looked to the statues guarding the entrance to the Sanctum, the swords of both himself and Ihsan Madaur crossed as an archway. Both had been severed. Both statues had been marked with vandalism and heresy.

Crelius’ jaw fell even further when he looked upon the blue dragon scaled corpse of his son, Imrahith, and the feminine and lithe body of Krystlyn. Both of them dead in a final stand against this terrible host.

Crelius fell to his knees. What had he done in stepping upon this path during these perilous times? I must find my way through this abyss, and I must return. ..

His mind wandered with shame and a final thought came to him. What of Lanival? He rose to his feat and turned from the place of ultimate desecration. He made his way towards his own private chambers, that of the dark lord.

Atennim moved through eviscerated council chamber to the still standing ebony doorway of his confines. He noted with foreboding the omen of this entryway being intact. He grasped the iron handle and pushed open the door.

Within was a blasphemy beyond words. His ebony desk was torn asunder and in two places within the room. It parted way to a terrible standard of crude and barbaric construct. Circular wood cut into a large circle. It had bloodied beams connecting its center from eight points, and spear heads adorning the circumference of the symbol. Lanival, naked and ravaged, was crucified upon it.

Crelius lowered his head, removing his hood clenching his holy symbol about his neck. He uttered fervent prayers to his master, but found no comfort. After several moments he built the ire to look up towards his crucified friend. He did not die quickly. Wounds of all types riddled his body. Something though, was odd about his countenance. Crelius stood and looked closer upon his face. A crumpled piece of parchment was stuffed into his mouth.

Woefully Crelius withdrew the parchment, dead saliva and blood trailing in its wake. He unfolded it, drying it upon his robe and taking it into one of the small moats of light shining through the ceiling.

Day of the Sun, 34th of the Month of Long Night,

With the absence of Crelius Atennim the thought of Malachive’s threat within the great council dwindled to all but nothing. Our war was waged against the light, and we were very successful. Our battles were long and fierce, and with the coming of the avatars our victories were many.

It is not to say we did not have our losses. The angelic threat did arise eventually, and we were faced with a great challenge. Our battles were long and costly. Exactly as the god child had hoped.

When we had weakened ourselves Malachive struck. He was first upon us over an outpost fortified by Darkonin near the forbidden forests. After which his attacks spread like a candle to a page. Effortlessly he decimated our supplies, outposts, and troops. My reports told me of a similar thwart towards our opposition.

Many months have passed since his initial onslaught. We are broken. Verminasia, as well as the continent of Arkane lay in ruins. It is as if this force seeks simply to obliterate all life upon Algoron.

In this desperation Gareth’s and Storm Keep had formed a temporary truce, and had planned a final assault upon Malachive and his forces within the now besieged Althainia. He knew we were coming.

We were met by his Abhorrent host within New Thalos. All that was left of his knights were in battle. Quickly it was against us and I ordered the retreat to Storm Keep. Two Shadowknights were placed to stop their way to this stronghold. Abram Macneil and Rivka Edevane. May they forgive me and live forever.

They are now at our gates. I fear that I see the final moments of the order I helped manifest. All is lost…

Crelius dropped the parchment at his feet.

[searing red vengeance descent]

A sense of utter dread welled within him as he returned to consciousness and the perpetual descent through the void. The beings that lie within oblivion had violated his most personal thoughts. The Border dwellers were of the most ancient and primordial sort. They were strange and without form or purpose, yet they were of the wisdom and evil of a time before the gods. His visions thus far had racked his will and confidence towards this endeavor. Now more than ever he was unsure of what might become of him.

Darkness rushed ever onward as he gripped his old trinket of Necrucifer in his hand. After so many years and trials, he still possessed the haphazard fetish he had crafted in his beginning days within Eclipse. He focused upon it, guiding his thoughts towards the mortal memories of existence it brought to him. Gradually he began to chant, and attempted to enter the darken trance. With momentum his words began to take power. Soon he could feel the malignant and absolute presence of the god he called upon. The prayers he spoke with clarity, and they were for guidance.

The air he felt flying past began to swelter. He opened his eyes and could see the faint pin prick of amber light he was falling towards. The ruby jewel he now focused on grew ever so gradually as his plummet continued.

He could see it now, and he knew that the perils of his journey had just begun. The fires of the Infernus were nearing faster and faster. Again he centered his will towards the Sanctum within himself. The abjurations he invoked came effortlessly and potently. So close he was to his master in the realm he entered.

Its threshold was moments away, and with his penitence did black flames erupt around his being. The blistering heat of the domain he trespassed cooled to a tolerable discomfort. Necrucifer had answered his calling. A feral and devoted grin crossed the dark lord’s lips, his hood cast back in the sheer presence and movement of his fall. Like a black star he fell into the fires of hell.

Crelius entered the perilous domain of hell like a blackened comet. He plummeted head first, and grasped his makeshift periapt firmly over his chest. Uttering guttural and melodic chants, the ebon fires that protected him trailed behind like him boiled pitch. His path through the sky, however, was unremarkable when compared to the common state of affairs in this fiery realm.

Great crimson scaled dragons, twice the size of any he had ever witnessed upon Algoron, swooped through the air like great cats. They pounced through the sky at immeasurable lengths between victims, delivering doom to legions of smaller demonic prey. Realm shattering lightning parted incredible masses of smoke hued clouds. Fiery rocks the size of small islands arched through the blistering skies. They gathered their momentum from unknown and likely unspeakable sources.

As he fell his first encounter with the denizens of this dark realm were soon upon him. Small and jittering, a scattered group of goblinoid demons caught his presence. Winged and wretched they screeched damning and delightful cries at their mortal discovery. Crelius drew forth his sword from its sheath, and its blade ignited with the black fire of Necrucifer’s essence.

One swath, two, and a third. The petty demons were torn asunder in an eruption of purple black ruin. Primordial death cries sounded around him. Crelius drew his blade forth and continued his fiery plummet. The Dark Lord held his blade parallel to his legs as he descended, no longer sheathing it. His pace quickened as the damning flats of his destination drew very close.

His attention clear as well as his vision, he looked down upon the near approaching hellscape. A volcanic land contradicted with splotches of glacial stretches, and other flesh like anomalies. He saw blackened rivers and white flaming sloughs. Mountains of intestine like flesh rested with man sized carrion overseers, and strange barren realms containing nothing but emptiness and lifeless sand.

His view wavered as his descent rallied its momentum. He drew forth the last of the dark power his Master instilled within him to call forth his landing. Jet flames erupted around him in a shadowed fume. His visions was blinded as he cast a wide aura of darkness and landed upon the harrowed grounds of the Infernus. His feet sank.

As the field of Necrucifer’s gifted darkness slowly burned away, Crelius was aware of his footing. He’d have preferred a better place to rest down, as his boots were quickly sinking into what he could only guess. Before he could consider more the precariousness of his situation, a stench wrought of withered souls assailed him violently. So horrific and unnatural was the rank of this area that he instantly wretched through the hood of his robe. Grasping his periapt fiercely against his chest, he balanced his senses and attempted to defy what would be the beginning of hell’s assault against his mortality.

When the final wisps of the conjured night faded like his fleeting hopes, he beheld a place so otherworldly, so inhospitable, that it shook the Dark Lord to his very core. Bloody blackened water pooled around disconcerting saplings and fallen stumps beset with razor like edges. Greenish, flesh barked trees stood horrifically out of the ichor like mess of the swamp’s floor. Demons in their own right, the hallowed trees served as perverse pillars holding up a carrion maintained canopy of perpetual decay. Aberrations rose and fell ominously through the crimson black waters, and dog-size, mosquito like, demons swarmed in and out of the far stretches of his vision.

Crelius felt ill pressed to breath, the very air of the place humid with acidity and decay. Coughing harshly, he noted the blood that came with it on the sleeve of his robe. His footing had sunk a bit further now, and the forsaken waters soon breeched the crevices of his platemail. The irritation was slow at first, and began to carry momentum as the acidity took root, searing his flesh. Cursing, he took hold of a nearby branch. Gripping it, he attempted to pull himself from the maw of the mire. To his dismay, the branch he held animated in serpentine, and it hissed and snapped at his gauntlet.

Releasing it, he found himself further submerged in the lethal muck of the infernal mire. At his waist now, he gripped his periapt with painful conviction. He uttered the summoning words of his steed, and heard its baleful howl as its approach neared. So close to its source of power, the unholy steed approached unfettered by the swallowing mud.

It trotted as if upon solid ground, and its shadowed presence appeared far more potent then upon Algoron. It snapped itself into a rear, spinning the reigns down towards Crelius reach. He grabbed hold of them, and painfully pulled himself from the sanguine muck. Growls and hisses sounded from the mire, rather than the comforting sounds of broken suction. Finally, he secured himself upon the saddle.

“Take me out of this place,” Crelius coughed as more blood and spittle came from his ravaged lungs.

The steed reared and sent a piercing whinny of warning to the denizens of the mire. It bolted, fire igniting in its wake.

And he began his ride through hell.

His horse galloped with its own apparent intentions, and it led him through the mire like a determined bolt of fire and shadow. It galloped through with abyssal speed, cutting an ember laden swath in its path through the hell marsh. Crelius held the reigns tightly as they moved and kept his black robed head low and alert.

The denizens of this realm were sure to be aware of his presence, and he had heard how much of a stir mortal intruders can arouse. He must be swift, and he must be cunning.

The bloodied floor and hazardous humidity of the marsh began to thin, and the thickness of the acid ridden surroundings spread out as it rushed past him. Oh the horrors he witnessed in that sprinted push. So subtle they were in the gloomy ashen wetness, they seemed to intentionally play at his peripherals. Amorphous shapes lurching and yawning in his direction, casting stench filled plumes and malicious promises at him.

The horrid sounds of the infernal bog croaked and garbled with bass filled foreboding. Their murmurs seeming to be the very essence of hate. Crelius sighed slightly, but not too acceptingly, as he emerged from the mires.

Again he could see the sky. A crimson scarred mass of darkness and stirring elements. Lighting the likes of a god. Demons and dragons abounding in horrific games of cat and mouse. Other strange, and unspeakable, things stirred in the shadowy spans of the horizon he could not fully fathom.

Before him stood a land of cragged desolation. His steed bounded from perilous heights to and from red onyx slag and boulders. His ride felt far swifter then upon Algoron, as his mount guided through its natural terrain. Leveling out at last, he could see the feint glow of a pillar of emerald light reaching towards the sky.

It pierced the horizon like a warning to even the mightiest devil of this realm. His horse seemed drawn there, and it would not take long for him to reach it through this blasted and red hued land.

It was then that he felt the blow. He reeled through the air in a great arch, lifted effortlessly from his mount and knocked a giant’s height into the smoke tinged air. Crelius caught the brief image of his steed being ripped in half, hell fire erupting in its sunder, as he spun to the ground like a wounded crow. His platemail offered little comfort as he crashed to the amber dusted and graveled ground. He felt his aged bones break in too many places. Scowling in rage and pain, he managed to twist over to lay on his back. What stood over him was beyond word.

The torso of a man that didn’t belong to himself. Ooze soaked skin glistened horribly over his toned upper body. Features sharp, yet broken, gazed down at Crelius. His eyes burning with green fire and moved in an all too unnatural pattern. The man had a weltered blond shock of hair, and there was something about him he knew he recognized.

Crelius’ shock and pain was so great that it took him a moment to perceive the great amorphous mass that held the torso in symbiotic servitude. Oily jet black tentacles bored into the human host’s skull. The man’s lower half was blanketed in a sickening pocket of ebon tinged, lacquered, skin. It was attached to a hulking carapace.

The obelisk like obsidian body of the demon towered in contrast to the, small, man fleshed cadaver now inches above him. He saw only sheer and weirdly curved surfaces, and no apparent countenance other then the unfortunate puppet. Titanic mantis like legs held the devils’s bulbous abdomen-head aloft, and a parade of tentacles, both thin and giant, flew in a maelstrom from its form.

“Crelius Atennim,” the chattering demonic willed words escaped from the human mouth with sickening delight. He saw strange undulations moving along the length of its now crooked neck. Eyes of infernal green fire gazed down upon him with utter dominance.

“You will not…,” Crelius choked, blood escaping from his broken form.

“Yes, yes I believe I will. You’ve come at a most opportune time, and it has been too long since I’ve received a visitor,” the wretched and malicious tones of the puppeteered host spoke down to him.

Crelius heard a great whirl before a trunk sized tentacle slammed through his stomach and into the land. He gasped, vomit and blood flying from his mouth. His vision swooned at the impact, and hazily he became aware that his body was being lifted.

“Fear not little Shadowknight, I will ensure that your death is not quick,” the words reached him like locusts. He felt a hot and sickening sensation where the mandible had pierced him. He agonized breathlessly as he felt a sensation of tiny worms escaping into his wound. The shock deadened slightly, but the pain was absolute.

His body was craned into the air with one of many powerful and malevolent vestiges. He fancied an arm towards his back, with thoughts of tearing himself free. He found only that the appendages’ end had morphed to harness his body, and it blanketed his back and wound with a vile hardened substance.

“Such a blessing,” The encapsulated torso had moved somehow to face him as its master held Crelius in the air.

“I can already feel your Master’s presence within you,” The demon spoke as it sent a flared surge to the already malignant feeling he felt festering around his wound. Burning worm like pain scattered through the entirety of his surprisingly conscious being.

“You will make a much better toy then my last play thing,” The human mouth garbled as its body was released in a birth like swath. Electrified black tentacles withdrew from the man’s skull. A horrible slurping sound abounded as it was forced from its demon-pocket. It fell with some height to the acrid ground, and a mass of putrescent black vile followed it. The corpse landed with a spurt.

Crelius held to his consciousness barely as a slithering, inky, tentacle made its way into his mouth and into his mind.

“Now we will be uninterrupted, at last. It is in my interest to steal your thoughts and power, Crelius Atennim. The Infernus is in turmoil, rightly so. As the Avatars have left for Algoron, the outcast powers have begun to make their claims to dominance,” The mind worm spoke in absolute clarity.

“You tamper upon the incorruptible,” Crelius thought.

“Fool! I will have what I seek. The rights to Necrucifer’s dominion, you will be as if a torch to the path. I will harness that power and mold it to my own ends. Lord Necrucifer will be replaced by me! And I sense other gifts upon you as well, trinkets of some power. My trophy seer will do well in looking upon them,”

the mind larvae burned with its words.

“I will not yield,” Crelius thought, feeling the sanctity of his inner self intruded upon by the demonic presence.

“That I do not require, little captain,” The words ached through his soul. The tentacle probed mercilessly.

He felt his body rack, and his mind scream. There was

but one option he had left, and it was one he loathed considering. With what little power he had left within him, he manifested a name. Cepralus.

“You are bolder then I thought, Atennim. Worry not though, your wonderfully slow and hopeless death is still upon you. The avatar will not hear you, my power here is too great,” the demon laughed into his mind.

“Come now, let us take you to my spire and have the tainted seer look upon these potent magics I sense….,” an infernal snarl of a gasp flowed from the demon and into Crelius’ psyche.

Crelius, through his now partially controlled senses, felt a great rush as his tentacle speared body was whipped around in confusion. He felt the numb, bitter, sensation of the mind worm leaving his mouth. With sudden clarity he could perceive his surroundings. He looked down upon ichor laden tentacle piercing his stomach. It seemed to be fused to him, and it was as if he was now an extension of this land struck leviathan.

A great rumbling was abounding the infernal wastes. The crimson dusts of the land’s surface shook violently, and Crelius could see a quaking fissure forming fast in the near distance. A booming sound exploded from the earth, sending a great wave of force over the hellscape. Crelius’ hood drew back like a hiding cat, and his helmet flew from his head by the blast. A titanic explosion of smoldering rock erupted from the fissure, flying high into the blackened sky. It settled violently, and a gaunt silhouette, riddled with pulsing azure runes, stood in dread silence.

Crelius bobbed up and down like a stuck pig. His arms hung weakened at his side, and his head felt heavy. He battled his beaten weariness, and saw a darting mass of the writhing ebon appendages shoot forth and encompass the demon’s previous victim. They held the man aloft, and the infernal leviathan spoke through him.

“You will not quell what has been planned for a millennia, Avatar! Crelius is mine, leave now!” The mantis-squid fiend shook the corpse towards the stygian silhouette like a rag doll as it channeled its voice.

“Fatale has different plans, rogue devil,” Responded the Avatar. Its words pierced through the air like a wave of stilettos.

A bolt of black power shot forward with abyssal momentum. Crimson fire ignited all vision, and a torrential shower of bloody rain fell from the sky. Unearthly horrendous wails screeched into being with a banshee’s fortitude. Crelius felt the strong demonic tentacle within him growl and go slack. Foot by foot, he slowly crept to the ground.

His vision blurred as if whatever was keeping him alive had ceased its sustaining dominance. Eyes half shut, he could barely see the puppet husk slouching weakly as it addressed the shadowed form of Cepralus.

“If you kill me, Crelius dies as well,” He heard the fetid, chattering, words of the symbiote’s host speak in desperation.

“For one so reputably ancient you are offensively unwise,” the Avatar’s words hallowed into the infernal air with primordial and titanic absolution.

The star killing sound of the void welled around the shadow of Cepralus’ being in a vacuum. Reverberating twangs of darkness and murder manifest wounded the subconscious of the area. Dark blinding confusion filled Crelius’ mind, and he heard a sound so odd he could only compare it to an ocean drying up in an instant.

Crelius gripped his palms, and looked down upon his body. The lethal wound once made by a trunk sized tentacle was sealed. He moved a hand towards it, finding his mortal skin replaced by that of the hardened husk of the abyssal denizens.

‘You will bear that until your end. With the rogue devil’s essence did I seal your wound,” Cepralus stepped into view above Crelius. A lithe figure bearing rune riddled plate mail and grand, far reaching, tusks. His jet, dragon like, wings were outstretched above him.

“And I am in your debt,” Crelius uttered, feeling strong again and rising to his feet.

“That you are, mortal. It is a debt you will see fulfilled,” The demon spoke with knowing proclamation, eyes burning with hell fire.

“And if I wished to leave this place?” Crelius asked, gathering his helm from the ichor stained ground. His assaulter had been turned inside out, and its remains littered the hellscape as far as he could see.

“I can take you now, or you can travel there,” Cepralus turned his fiery crimson eyes to the distance, pointing an ivory talon to the northwest. The Avatar pointed away from the spire, to a place he thought he saw waves breaking.

“I’m afraid my time here is not yet over,” Crelius bowed his head after replacing his helm. He looked towards the stygian spire in the distance.

“Then I will call upon you when it is time to retrieve what is owed,” the Avatar nodded to Crelius in hellish understanding. Black fire abounded and the demon was gone.

Crelius stood alone once again upon the hell swept wastes. An infernal steppe marked by jagged red rock and emptiness. A single spire sat between him and the barren land, and for the first time on his journey a sense of assuredness overtook him. He had read once of an imprisoned seer taken into custody a millennia ago by a demonic force unknown to the chronicles of man. Upon his attack he had carefully goaded his tormentor by subtly revealing the objects of mystery and power upon his person. His dangerous ploy had revealed the confirmation he sought.

Removing his gauntlet, he placed a hand into the ravaged hole of torn metal on his armor. He felt where the demon had breached him, and where Cepralus has used its stolen essence to relieve his lethal wound. His fingers met an unnaturally hard and smooth surface, and he felt no sensation from the new skin of his stomach. More damage done to the chopping block that was his legacy, he smirked.

He began to march steadily towards the spire on foot. The Dark Lord knew it would be far too soon to attempt a summoning of his steed after an assault such as that. It would take some time for it to regain its substance. His thoughts stirred and settled within himself, and time seemed to fade away while he considered what awaited him within the approaching tower.

Soon he had reached its gate, and he looked upon it with full measure. A stygian tower indeed, it seemed aquatic in its own infernal way. It was conch like, yet corrupt with the malcontent of the Infernus. It spiraled up from the amber dusts of the land, and it towered like an obsidian mountain, piercing the sky. A azure-green pinnacle of light hovered at its peak, casting its glow vertically.

He began to wonder if this was the very shell of the being Cepralus had destroyed, and nodded to himself as he stepped through a thin opening at the tower’s base.

Strange points of azure energy circled up the inside of the conical tower, reflecting the prismatic walls that shined hypnotically throughout. The base of the tower seemed barren save the enthralling colors revealed by eyes of light. He saw a natural step that would mark his ascension, and he moved toward it.

As he set his foot upon it a tormented yet seemingly omnipotent voice echoed down into being.

“Dark Tooth. Crelus Atenum. Crelius Atennim. Vagabond of the tundra fox. Last to wield the Hammer of Eclipse. Avatar of Gaar Volen. Rider of the Storm. Vampire Lord. Dark Lord. At last you have come,” It echoed ethereally.

Crelius smirked at the announcement of his credentials. He knew his past, and hardly cared to hear them summarized. He ascended rapidly, and to his surprise met a wooden flat, of which he found a hatch to gain entrance. He pulled it down and entered the chamber warily.

Torches lined the chamber in odd humanity. A single wooden chair sat in the middle of an empty room, and a pedestal with an open tome sat beside it. It was not until Crelius took a step towards the chair and pedestal that he could see truly what it contained.

A semi celestial, naked man, phased in and out of existence. Bluish skin adorned with rending hooks manifested in and out with the being’s body. The evidence of torture was apparent differently each time the being shifted. Within the phasing his right arm appeared grafted to the pedestal and the tome resting upon it.

His bloodied eyes looked to Crelius in desperation.

“So you are the tainted Balanx,” Crelius announced.

“After so many thousand years my captor is slain, yet his prison still binds me,” The being spoke, his words reaching the air in sporadic pulses.

“Quite a predicament. It so happens I am not feeling merciful, and it is your knowledge I seek… of one thing,” Crelius reached his hand over a twine held amulet about his neck.

“Such things do not come freely, something you have surely learned in your time here, and it is not a question I would ask in any event. However this prison finally grows troublesome, and you alone might be able to free me from my bonds” The displaced being spoke.

“And how might I do that?” Crelius asked.

“The Pylon at the top of the tower channels my own energy to tie my bonds, break it down and I will be released,” Its words echoing in a strange, displaced, etherealness.

“Then you have my oath, give me the answer and I will free you

from this capture,” Crelius peered down at the phasing Balanx. He opened the seem of his robe, and let the amulet about his neck dangle within the vision of the entrapped balance. “Show me the method of utilizing this amulet, and I will destroy your confines,” Crelius spoke.

The being outstretched its free, phasing, palm towards Crelius. He noted the whitish threads of hair growing from its palm. He allowed it to place its there and not there hand upon his brow. A sharp instance of transference overcame the Dark Lord. His face was blank for an instant. A raven grin overtook his features.

“Alas, seer, allow me to free you from your bonds,” Crelius grinned wolfishly as he took the amulet from his neck and grasped it in his hands. A swirling mass of purple and ochre energy began to shake from the quaking amulet.

“Betrayer,” the Balanx spoke calmly, as its being was ripped from the strange shifting confines of its seat. Energy swarmed violently as the eternal historian fought to resist the pull of the stone. With a rushing quake its spirit was vacuumed into the gemmed amulet.

Crelius nodded malevolently as he dangled the now azure amulet within his vision. The tower began to quake.

With quickened speed he moved. He lurched to the chair that once held the being as the floor shifted and cracked. He picked up the large, and leather bound volume it had kept its history in. He noted the tell-tale manacle that was attached to the tome’s edge. Without a second thought he clasped the manacle to his wrist, swooped up the book and fled through the floor hatch.

With the power of its creator, and now the power of its occupant gone, the tower was breaking fast. The twinkling lights of the shell’s interior were blinking out one by one, and the iridescence was fading dimmer and dimmer. He rushed down the path as best he could, and made for the man sized crack in the base. Red light breached the crevice into to trembling tower, and as he ran towards it he thought of the irony.

Making it out he rushed onto the blasted steppe once again. The tower groaned and cracked, pieces of its obsidian like shell falling in great portions. Crelius paused as the tower fell behind him, and began to work a prayer. He knew it was a gamble, and it seemed his luck had run dry until he heard the sharp cry of his steed approach nearby. He thanked his master for restoring his horse and with a great leap he was upon its saddle. Whipping the reins he pointed his ride in the direction Cepralus had notioned, and like a shadowy arrow he was off.

Gripping the heavy tome that was chained to his wrist, he could not help but feel that this journey here was not all for naught. This may very well hold the chronicled history of the Infernus, and the answers he might find were too many to consider.

Without too much trouble he reached the shores of purple-black mass that stretched on for an eternity. Pitch thunder clouds roared and steam and bloody froth welled and moved violently. A sea? He thought to himself. The beach itself was riddled with bones and skulls both tiny and gargantuan. The corpses of demons that had met whatever some fate within the foreboding waters stretched before him.

He stopped upon the beach, and carefully opened the weighty tome he held. Of course it was a written in the language of the balanx, and was absolutely alien to him. What he needed was a map of sorts, and after a brief time he thought he found what he sought. An immaculately drawn thing, painted in great violet detail, he noted the spot where the tower may have been. Tracing a finger along the page, he followed the course he had taken. The beginning of the hell sea he found, and he further northwest he saw marked what appeared to be a great vortex. A strange symbol marked at its center.

“A cruel joke,” Crelius sighed as he realized what he would have to do. He closed the book and dismounted his horse, dismissing it. The hell steed growled a gout of flame and turned from its master.

As he approached the beach he saw a ram shackled canoe, bloodied and abandoned. He approached the thing, and looked upon what was a mass of dead and pestilent flesh. Some demon body was still inside, and he turned it over, spilling it upon jet black, skull laden beach. He inspected the bottom of the boat, nasty crustaceans and barnacles with flesh like eyes peered and reeled at him.

“This will have to do,” Crelius smirked, as he unclasped the manacle on his wrist. He noted the strange, almost mechanid, type engravings on the inside of the clasp. He checked the seal of the book once again and harnessed the clasp to his belt. He snickered at the apparent generosity of the boats previous inhabitants as he saw the two, charred oars resting inside the boat.

With a great push he shoved the boat into the black waters, jumping in as the boat became buoyant. He set the oars and began the drag through the tumultuous waters. In the distance he could see a place of focused peril. Lightning seemed to strike continuously over this point, and fiery black storm clouds turned in tempest like magnitude. That must be the place, he thought, as he sped his row.

Trying not to look into the waters, for a moment he accidentally cast a glance at its surface. Mutilated corpses struggled beneath the waves, reaching desperate hands through the surface here and there. They were pathetic attempts in a sea of endless torment.

Other, darker, things were surely beneath his rickety boat. He saw a great roll in the waters flanking him, and caught glimpse a midnight, leviathan, of a creature turning a single white eye towards him beneath the waves.

He pushed on, and it was not long before he no longer needed to row. The current of the coming whirl pool took his skiff surely, and he braced himself as the waters dragged him in. Lightning tore through the sky as he entered the maelstrom, and the rushing sound of the vortex screamed even greater than the diabolic thunder.

Soon he was over the edge, and the rushing water spun like an engine straight from hell. He gripped the sides of his boat, kneeling, before thrusting himself outward and down towards the center of the vortex. Demonic limbs and mouths reached out for him as he plummeted, and his boat was taken under the current.

Flying through the air towards the black point that was the whirl pools center, he grasped his periapt and prayed for passage. He hoped that Cepralus was right.

As he hit, an incredible force assailed him. Pieces of his armor tore off as he spun at the merciless hands of the hell current. Its waters were searing hot for but an instant.

Suddenly the force pulling him stopped, and he felt the water chill. He hung motionless in the depths, and tasted something familiar. It was salt, not blood, not bile, but salt. Gathering his bearings he began to push through the water. Holding his breath for longer than most men might, he struggled his strokes and swam in the direction he perceived as up.

Moments later, he breached the surface of chilling water with a great gasp. What he saw above relieved him: The constellations of Algoron shining familiarly in a clear night sky.