Re: RP YGGDRASIL: The Shattered City of Alkan
The Destruction of Fort Seal;
Death of the Machine God;
Death of the Aspect of the Void;
The Flood is the crashing tempest of all magic that is drawn from the Realm Sorcerous, from the breast of Yggdrasil herself. Alkan was designed not as a city but as a filter, so that the wild sorcery would not burst forth from the Realm Sorcery and bring havoc across all worlds. It was designed so that enchantments might stay in the form that it was intended to, that spells might be learned by rote and remain fairly predictable, so that those who ride the spirits of air might not drop out of the sky and so that the demons and the spirits might be called without fear.
The Flood is known to the Alkanites as the Urge, for many cryptic reasons, but the most important is that while it is born of Yggdrasil, it cannot be controlled by Yggdrasil - it is nothing that the World-Tree can stop or manipulate. It is an uncontrollable Urge. Just as the World-Tree must bear fruit in the form of the worlds, must host life, magic must exist and flow freely.
It was originally filtered from the Spring of Majesty, through the Temple of the Urge (or the Flood) and through the Cyclopean Machanea of Victory which gave the Flood pattern, order, a limit so that it might be easily manipulated, channeled, by the sorcerers within Yggdrasil. There are millions - billions, really - of them. The amount of magical energy is immense. And yet.. Alkan was originally built to monitor the unstable Realm Sorcerous, to filter through the massive Machanea, through the Great Gates of Alkan. The hubris of the Sorcerer, once again, spelled doom. The magicians of Alkan fell slack in their task. The Machanea was left untended, broke down - a flaw in the engineering coupled with a flaw in attitude leading to the sealing of the great city.
For a thousand years the Urge has crashed against the Great Gates. Enough would be converted through the Gates lines of purification for the purposes of the witch, spilling on occasion to the dismay of sorcerers the world over. The Conclave, so often the antagonistic force, rose and built a tertiary system of its own, housed within Fort Seal. It did well. It wasn't perfect, but it was monitored with fascistic zeal and held enough of the Old Wisdom of the Alkanites to protect the World-Tree.
And now this system was threatened.
Chalybis, Tchal Habbis, the Machine God: the enemy. A seething mass of madness and steel, assaulting the feeble wards of Fort Seal, the tertiary filtration system. Master of time and space. The battle has raged on for hours, with neither side giving up any ground. Master of Time and Space. Able to manipulate and control portals of glimmering gears, able to transport strange energies as well as mundane objects.
Chalybis places one such portal within the Floods, behind the seals and protective glyphs of Fort Seal, knowing rightly that the Urge would happily use his massive physical being as a conduit to reach beyond the seals and the filtration lines. Many more glimmering portals appear above the wards of Fort Seal - wards not designed to combat the Flood, but instead to stop supernatural, magical and physical blows from reaching the fragile white stone of the place.
Chalybis feels the energy ripping through his very being - not his physical being, but the theoelectromagnetic field which allows him to control such portals. It is like being struck by lightning, like being hit by a train. No - it is like being hit by a tsunami, a massive flood which cannot be held back any longer. A billion different feelings, conflicting ideas, words, sounds, images, symbols, actions, intents, lusts, needs, saints, gods, spirits, languages, creatures - everything that was or ever would be magic flowed through Chalybis. Chalybis's dulled senses were a mercy. Any mortal might have been killed immediately by the crashing sensation; actual sorcerers wouldn't have stood a hope in the Abyss.
But Chalybis's seeming control was immaculate. He was, after all, a creature of pure logic - unlogic, even, since he was also one of the Mad. It flowed from him, projectile vomit of a sorcerous nature, through his many portals summoned above Alkan. The wards were not designed to contain the Urge, and did not even have to be broken - rather, they were persuaded, twisted, changed, no longer wards but a shining fluctuation of prismatic magic, energy in every colour perceived (and unperceived), shaking the stone walls of the fort incredibly violently.
It was then that the heroine, Maxilita, her energetic companion thankfully long dissipated, took her magnificent blade, the symbol of her hope and of her vengeance, and rose it to the sky in a single slash. One single gesture of ultimate defiance, of Good - for perhaps it does exist - over all that would bring ruin. With everything she had, she brought the blade to the sky and commanded the death of Chalybis.
Sunder.
Her blade, the Divine Master Sword, was said to command all metal, to command the winds and more. A single lash of wind was given entrance through the toiling Urge. It did no damage to Chalybis physically, but his theoelectromagnetic field, as tense as it was, had shaken. Max fell to the floor, exhausted, passed out, blade in hand. She knew that what she had done wasn't enough; but it was everything she had. The last thing she heard as she died was the chattering of a thousand voices, then silenced, and finally one: You are forgiven.
The Flood crashed down upon the Fort. Undefended, a hundred thousand would die. The chain was smashed as the men on the ramparts were consumed in a sea of chaos. None would survive. They could not stand the voices, the cackles, the feelings, the emotions - the agony. The chain was smashed, the mirrors were shattered and then twisted. The stone was turned to dust. Dust, what all things were once and what all would become in death.
Max died, his theoelectromagnetic field pulled and torn at without remorse, twisted into a hundred possible Gods - beings that were once Max, are at once Max, would forever be Max, would be Max.. but Max was asleep. The Divine Master Sword, perhaps convinced of Max, protected her from the horrific tensions. She died, but it was a painless death. She would awaken in Xi with her theoelectromagnetic field intact and her sword in hand.
The tempest continued as the Urge rushed through the Fort, a thousand whispers of damnation and enlightenment. wave upon wave of raw cosmic energy, raw magic, killing everything it touched. The sorcerers took it the worst - their training saw that it could take up to hours of agonized screaming and clawing at flesh before their demise. A hundred colours. A hundred hates.
Chalybis felt an unfamiliar strain upon him - it was barely noticeable when compared to the strain of raw, blind concentration, of his psychic exhaustion, of pain and of it all, but it was there, and it was heavy. It was Yggdrasil using her erratic and uncontrollable tool, the Urge, purging the unclean by forcing the Sorcery as hard as it would go.. for the Mother and Father of Chalybis wished for him to fail, wished for him to die. Perhaps, in time, it would break him - but it was not, at this moment, enough.
Balast never saw the Hieronymus machine, and the crazy old magician never saw his greatest creation in action. It was all gone, all taken by the splintered ultraterrestrial rainbow that took them all. The magician, to his credit, didn't scream or whimper; he simply took death. There was the sounds of deep bells, tolling for thee, and the smell of swamps and gunpowder. Balast did not immediately feel the Floods. He was protected by Nothing itself.. and the Urge feared it, skirted about it. It would take from him, yes, slowly. It would destroy him. It would be so powerfully painful that the screams of Balast would forever be etched on what was left.
Balast knew he could end his life now. Let the Flood take him, stop fighting; but no. There was a service. He needed to complete the surface. For Yggdrasil. And so met Balast with Final Death, the Third destruction, and he felt the cold of the Rivers beneath.. long later, when all that was left of Balast was a smear of blood lining the entire perimeter of the Fort, protecting Yggdrasil from the Urge for as long as possible, when this was finished and the Pavilion lay cold, shattered, bloody.
But Balast had not betrayed Yggdrasil, or worked against her in any way. He was what he was. He believed he was doing his World-Tree a service, the most valuable of service, and was pure of intention. He died protecting Yggdrasil. Perhaps.. there was a chance of Unearthing, of one last life. Perhaps. He would travel now to the Rivers to meet his destiny..
There was nothing left, now. The seething sea of steel above and the broiling ocean of sorcery below. Chalybis felt the pressure, and perhaps he panicked, now. He could not have stopped channeling the Urge even if he wished to. He saw, now, one last vision: an ancient enemy. The Lord of Sand, Sura, sneering as he held the scales of judgment in his hand. A spell - no, a Fate, softly spoken but just as binding. "Tchal Habbis will meet his death by my hand," rasped by a sand-filled throat. It was this last clause, Chalybis knew, 'Tchal Habbis will die', which struck him down. 'By my hand' - all it took was Sura determining the first clause. Magic. Treacherous magic..
As the Urge took below, it ripped across the entire infinite mass of Chalybis above, twisting and crashing, fighting and then destroying his theolectromagnetic field. There was never a chance. Chalybis met Final Death in agony, for he had betrayed Yggdrasil and she punished him sorely; there would be no Realm of Rivers for Chalybis, no second chance. Nothing.
Later - much later - steel crashed to the Pavillion, smashing it to pieces, and the Flood ripped against the Last Line of Balast.
And so ended the Cataclysm of Alkan.
