His men stood aside, a choir of observant angels. All in absolute readiness. They donned their own ivory helms, golden lights alighting in a dozen sets of angelic eyelets. They stood their vigil without moving. Without speaking. Gaze on the combatants and Saint Commander's honor guard, white helms swiveling to watch as their counterparts altered formation.

Apollyon strode forward, lowering his blade to his side: point to the earth. Silver tip skating along the ground. It hummed, tracing a thin and shallow line of grey along the ebony surface of the palace's stone floor of rippled black marble. Each of his footsteps echoed, heavy with incalculable weight: each bringing Apollyon further along a treacherous course. One that might change the fate of billions.

When Apollyon spoke, it was with only one voice. One, amongst a chorus of opposing thousands. Still, the angel's voice demanded to be heard. Rising above untold others. "... Words." His luminous eyes, gleaming with azure light, latched onto Valruz' bloodied mien - softly glowing orbs silent in their appraisal of the scarlet streaming down the Commander's golden mask.

"Too many words." They stood in opposite: a figure of gold, wrapped in trappings of nobility and purity. A Living Saint, beloved of the Unity Council... And a warrior all of silver and white, trailing a cloak of scarlet: born of war and tempered by Megiddo. The aristocrat and the exile, carried on heady tides of fate towards the inevitable.

"Let your blade sing its own hymn!" Apollyon demanded, vox-enhanced voice booming. His free hand, his left, leapt to his shoulder: grabbing hold of his blood-red cloak's clasped edge and tearing it free. The warrior tossed the cloak aside, scarlet tumbing through the air... Floating on vespers as Apollyon pressed forward, unrelenting.

Apollyon's muscles tensed, his breath caught, as he closed those final meters. Bearing down on the Saint Commander. Slow, methodical, and full of glowering purpose. The alabaster giant tore his sword from the obsidian stone, guiding it forward along an arc that ascended towards the heavens. Towards Valruz, towards his resplendently armored legs.
This message was last edited by the player at 11:44, Thu 07 Aug 2014.

The Living Saint was fast, fast as any man alive. Retribution came up in a swift arc that would have severed a lesser man groin to sternum, but the Sanctified paladin pivoted to his right, pulling his left leg back until he brought himself perpendicular to Apollyon, in the same twisting motion, his left hand, up to taunt, caught your shoulder, pulling you forward off balance as his own weapon, The Fangs of Leviathan sang hungrily into your shoulder from behind, teeth ripping and fraying skin and muscle, showering the floor in sparks and gore.

The agony consumed your arm like fire, burning away and making your left arm weak, useless. You managed to curl into a roll, tumbling away from the vicious bite of the chainsword and it seemed to cry out in frustration as you freed yourself from it's caress.

Valruz himself begin to sing. His voice, joined with itself in vox choir, rings with the words of "Sviatïy Bozhe." His tempo is that of a battle hymn, in time with his movements and the pace of single combat. He raises his bloody weapon above his head in an high guard.

A lesser man would have screamed. Apollyon roared, like an embattled lion. His ARKANGELOS did nothing: they did not turn away, did not intercede, but only watched silently. A dozen angels, standing in judgment. Quiet, as these two men battled for the soul of the Crusade. For the soul of the Brotherhood.

Apollyon rolled away, left arm limp at his side as he came to his feet - torn and sundered by the Fang's bitter teeth. Agony coursed through him, like a fire in his flesh. Agony as he had not known, not since Byzanthine. Not since Kpyo. Still, he stepped forward, silent and resolute: eyelets burning with terrible untempered ferocity. Blue fire, stolen from the stars, like shining sapphires set into his helm of ivory and silver. Blood splattered across his ragged shoulder, draping it in a wing of scarlet: rivulets winding their way down his back, delicate streams like feathers of blood.

Apollyon's left hand twitched, fingers slowly clenching in sullen defiance. Though his arm hung ruined, he would not be knelt so easily. Not now. Not after he had come through fire. Through void. Through blood. This Saint Commander was faster than him. He was better, his hand trained to the sword - a lifetime, Apollyon guessed, of tempering to draw on. He should win. If all things were equal, he would.

But they were not: Apollyon's will was iron.

He did not care if the Saint Commander had held a sword every day since his birth. Did not care if he was raised to glory, while Apollyon had been parented by ignominy. Valruz sang, voice beautiful and terrible: a hymn, glorying Yehovah Three-In-One.. But Apollyon said nothing, wading into combat again. Footsteps heavy as he swung his blade high, bringing it crashing down towards the other man with terrific force... As if he meant to cleave the golden warrior root and stem. His legs tensed behind him and Apollyon surged forward with the force of the blow. Towards Valruz. Towards the precipice of the Garnet Palace's Thousand-And-One steps.

The Saint sang on, glorifying Yehovah, the Most High, his voice drowning out even the call of the Fangs and echoing throughout Angelspire that all might hear the voice of TEMPLAR.

He was still swift, stepping easily aside from your errant blow, as it was slowed by the burning pain. He begin to circle you, chainsword still above his own head, unmoved. Not attacking just yet, careful in his footwork and keeping his painted gaze upon you from behind the face of the dead. An odd movement with his left hand and his sword came down to his side, held out just above the palace floor with sharp teeth nicking hungrily at the stone.

His other arm flexes out towards the ground between you and even as his voice continued unabated, a holographic image appeared on the ground, aligned to your view.


Why do you continue to fight? I could slay you now, but the LORD has use for you yet.

Thus read the words, their glow projected before you. In this way, he could speak to you and sing to the heavens.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:34, Thu 07 Aug 2014.

You are right, brother. He does.

"...Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death..." Apollyon whispered into the lonely confines of his helm, head bowed as the TEMPLAR circled around him - resplendent and triumphant, his haunting voice glorying the Majesty of Yehovah. Redemption hung loosely in his hand, its glorious edge murmuring in silent approval as his hand tightened around it's synth-leather. Plasteel finger plates biting, deeper, holding tighter... Refusing to surrender the sacred blade. His arm screamed in silent agony, torn flesh and shattered bone protesting the tightening of his shoulders.

Apollyon felt the warm blood trickle down his arm within his armor, pooling in his deadened fingertips. Through the din, he heard it dripping from his ivory gauntlets: spilling across the ebony hollow of the Garnet Palace. He felt the coldness growing in his body, as blood loss took its toll. Felt the lightness of his head, the clouding of his vision, and the inferno of pain as it lanced across his side.

With dutiful solemnity, Apollyon's cerulean-starred helm rose. Slowly, inch by inch, til its gaze met the bleeding Emperor's mien. "I SHALL FEAR NO EVIL." He spoke, in resolute answer, his vox-enhanced speech echoing through the palace's columns and out into Angelspire's streets. Redemption ascended from its place at his side, shining tip toward the Saint Commander as he held the flat of its blade parallel to the ground. Outstretched, challenging his foe once more - reaching out in abject defiance, from his one hale arm.

"FOR THOU ART WITH ME." He stepped forward, a single blue eyelet flickering for a moment before coming to life again, rerouting power from a damaged cell and burning all the brighter.

"THY ROD AND THY STAFF, THEY COMFORT ME." He leapt forward, blade bared - slashing for the Fang of Leviathan. Catching it by its toothed edge, and holding it there as Apollyon pressed in closer.. Baring down upon the Saint Commander with all his strength, pressing him back and downward with but a single arm. Then he batted the blade aside, drawing back Redemption and laying into the Saint Commander with fury like a storm - hacking and slashing, steel biting and tearing as it hummed: seeking some exposed vulnerability. Some mistake. Some slip.

"THE BELLS, BROTHER." He intoned, all steel and wrath, his shining armor splayed across its side and back with his still wet lifeblood. The bells of the Unity Chapels rang out, their cries sharp against the furious din - distant, but piercing. "DO YOU HEAR THEM? ARE THEY THE SAME?"
This message was last edited by the player at 02:58, Fri 08 Aug 2014.

To his credit, the Saint Commander only faltered in his song as your blade struck him, the vibro-edge slicing through the ornate breastplate, marring the once beautiful imagery with blood and oil, slicing a shallow but vicious wound into the left pectoral muscle of the Living Saint.

Blood wept from his eyes and chest now, falling to the obsidian floor in quickening droplets. A sweep of his leg and a twist of his torso turned your own might against you, sending you stumbling towards the iron chair off balance.

He leaped after you, song renewed, but the pain put edge to his notes and verse. He lunged, Fangs screeching with rage and missing easily, the wound ruining his chance at a graceful counter attack.

Readying himself, he begins to circle again, song thrumming in the evening air. Upon the floor, his words resolve for your eyes.

I know thy works: behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it: for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept His word, and hast not denied His name.

"DO MEN BREAK THIS EASY? WITH BUT A PUSH AND A WORD?" Apollyon demanded, raising his blade before his visor: it's edge perfectly perpendicular to the ground. Blood, freshly drawn, gleamed along the murmuring sabre's length. "... BUT WE ARE NOT MEN." He declared, swinging Redemption's pale steel to his side, its bleeding edge poised down and out in his right hand. His other hand, his left, still hung useless at his side. Though the alabaster fingers there tensed and clenched, refusing stillness.

As before, the ARKANGELOS came on: heedless and unafraid. Each step echoing with finality, like the ringing of bells. A dirge.

Then he swung his blade, forward and upward: rising, like Abraham unto heaven. Probing, nibbling where before he had bit savagely. "THE LORD IS MY LIGHT AND SALVATION; WHO SHALL I FEAR?" He intoned, thunderous voice inhuman as it crashed through the palace. Again the blade came, its length a flash of silver in the gloom. Fire dancing in the pale reflective ivory and silver of Apollyon's armor. He strode ahead, momentum growing. He did not circle, but came on, a hungry lion loosed on a lamb.

Though, the lamb had teeth too.

"THE LORD IS THE STRENGTH OF MY LIFE; OF WHOM SHALL I BE AFRAID?" He shouted to the heavens, voice raised in praise to Yehovah as he bore down on the false priests' champion. His blade cut to the quick, toward the Saint Commander's leg - to its side, towards the man's hamstrings. To still his leg, and leave him stranded and hobbling. Perhaps.

"YOU NEED ONLY EMBRACE ME AS YOUR BROTHER, AND THIS WILL END." Apollyon promised, echoing the sentiment of Valruz's own offer.

He also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.


His voice faltered again at the resounding steel of your words, the singing became disjointed and quickly was terminated, leaving only silence now, the clash of steel and the heavy breathing of warriors engaged in mortal combat.

The Fangs of Leviathan swung wide, easily parried by Redemption. He was getting sloppy, tired; he was wounded and it was costing him in reflexes and timing.

Redemption came down like a bolt of lighting, and were it not for Valruz's sudden reaction, deploying a gauntlet shield which was shorn in twain by the vibro-sword, his arm would have been severed cleanly at the elbow and the fight would have been over.
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:02, Fri 22 May 2015.

Apollyon's blade bit into the gauntlet shield, sundering it and casting the bulwark aside in a shower of sparks and torn gold-leafed steel. His eyes of ghostlight coming to rest again on Valruz' mask, where blood and oil had soiled in celestial countenance: splotches of red and black smeared across its edging.  Redemption murmured in agonized anticipation then, its length coursing with latent strength. Apollyon felt it in his fingers, his arms, and his heart. He felt the blade's spirit, calling him; to wade forward, amid spark and fire, and cast their foe down.

The ARKANGELOS fed on the tiring of his foe, on his weakening step, though his own ragged wound sapped his body all the same. He felt the battle-lust take him. The deafening roar of life and pounding of adrenaline coursing its way through his veins: the need to live. To triumph. To conquer.

He had not climbed from the hell of City 04 to fail here... Had not marched through Megiddo, waist-deep in ash, blood and snow... To break here. To damn his Legion back to infamy. To let them be relegated to slaves, bound to the wills of their betters.

Apollyon brought his sword in again, its tip crashing forward: dancing with Valruz's guard. Humming vibro-blade clatter against roaring chainsword. Seeking an opening. A chance to still him. A riposte to the Commander's devastating opening attack.

Apollyon's shoulder throbbed, and his vision swam, but still his sword came.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:12, Fri 08 Aug 2014.

Something in the Living Saint reignited, anger, fury, pride. He stood up for all the galaxy looking like a giant towering over Apollyon and all other men, cold eyes surveying his prey as it leaped in for the kill.

His blade met with the Redemption, tearing into it, scarring its edge with ripping teeth. With a twist he sent Redemption clattering to the floor and surged in. With a mailed fist, he struck the Son of Apollyon in the face, cracking helm with a stunning strike, forcing you back as he raised his blade again to the heavens, roaring in anticipation of the flesh-feast to come.


"YOU HAVE TURNED YOURSELF AGAINST YOUR BETTERS, AGAINST THE CHOSEN OF THE LORD OF LIGHT! RENDER UNDER CAESAR THAT WHICH IS CAESAR'S!"
His voice was thunder, his eyes lightening and his weapon the promise of a swift death.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:06, Fri 22 May 2015.

Apollyon reeled back, his angelic visage shedding sparks and silver shards of debris as he tumbled backward. His blade, it was gone, he realized: the emptiness in his hand more painful than any wound he had ever known. My sword, his mind screamed in protest I NEED MY SWORD. His feet found their place beneath him, skidding to a stop as his body came to a crouch: one fist extended below him, knuckles biting into the black stone of the Garnet Palace's floor. He looked up, towards the towering figure of the Saint Commander, his helm's eyelets flickering as the blue light in them slowly died. Sparks shot from his sundered mask, sputtering servos working desperately and with great futility against their ruination.

"CAESAR WAS A CONQUEROR." Apollyon pronounced, voice damning. "I SEE NO CAESAR." His vox-enhancements failed, voice twisting and corrupting itself as systems faltered. His voice came out more metallic than man. Inhuman. It's synthesizers rising and falling chaotically.

Even if I die, you will fail, the thought burned through his mind. Scion of destiny and child of prosperity, you are not the 'Destroyer'.

Apollyon's one good hand splayed out, fingers spreading from his clenched fist on the floor. The muscles in his weary arm tensed, and his legs found their own strength beneath him. His thighs burned with fire... And Apollyon ran. He ran towards Valruz, counting on the sudden and unexpected nature of his attack to buy him a hair of a chance. He prayed, silently, that Yehovah saw - that the Three-In-One God rushed forward with him.

But he did not strike the other man. He clasped him, gripping his alabaster and silver arms as tightly about the Saint Commander as he could... Tortured sinew screaming in his left. He fought, desperately. Intent on activating his flightpack's engines, and taking the two of them heavenward.

To both their deaths, if necessary.
This message was last edited by the player at 13:48, Sat 09 Aug 2014.

Apollyon's hands found purchase on the Saint Commander's golden armor, one set of ivory fingers gripped tightly about his gilt pauldrons as the ARKANGELOS' other hand held back the Fang's bitter bite with a tight grip on the other man's wrist. Halcyon steel bent under the pressure of his grip, gold and silver figures struggling amidst smooth-hewn ebony columns of garnet. Gone were the songs of glory. Gone the sacred words of divinity and the pledges of purity. Now two men, not titans, struggled against one another. Booted heels shifted, seeking leverage, as Valruz's golden arms struggled against Apollyon as he attempted to free himself. He fought, like a man against an unrelenting tide, as Apollyon pushed him further and further toward the precipice. The fire that had awoken in him surged against Apollyon, trying to hold the Legatos at bay...

... But it was not to be. Apollyon's arms, bound tightly with bitterly earned muscle and possessed of equally desperate purpose, overcame him. His white-armored arms wrapped tightly about the Saint Commander. Crushing, squeezing, but this was not Apollyon's aim. He did not intend to crush the life from Valruz.

"BROther," Apollyon began, his voice's volume rising and falling as his synthesizer failed "I told YOU, you would EMBRace ME!" The ARKANGELOS pronounced, bright sparks dancing from his crushed helm from flickering lenses of dying blue ghostlight. In the distance, heavenly bells cried mournfully: so distant, so far away. There was a brief moment, where the Legatos said nothing - where the bells rang, and his choir of silent angels only looked on in inscrutable silence. It dragged on, longer than it ought to have: a single breath that seemed an eternity.

... And then... "broTHER," Apollyon spoke, his voice a whisper though even here it crested and plummeted uncontrollably "FLY with ME." As the words left Apollyon's lips, echoing metallically from his ivory visage, his flightpack roared: bright crimson and ochre flame dancing at his back, thundering like a tempest come to life. The fire grew at his back, propelled from angelic golden wings.... And then they were headed heavenward, rocketing upward. Apollyon's helm cracked and sputtered, under sudden and terrific force as he soared. Wind tore at them, battering against the Saint Commander's battered form - reopening the bout's wounds, and biting at exposed flesh with fangs of ice.

Low-hanging clouds licked at their armor, as they pierced the heavens like an ascendant spear. On the distant horizon, Anatoli's pale orange sun hung in a miasma of deepening violet and red - saying its final goodbye to Angelspire as it slowly disappeared. All about them, on every side, the metropolis of Angelspire sprawled out. Ziggurats and highrises superstructures buttressed against tenements and canals. Glittering and black, shining in the dying sun.

Then Apollyon simply let go. The arms that had secured Valruz released him as they rushed above the gap between two massive ziggurats. Many hundreds of feet below, men marveled: who were these radiant figures? What purpose did they have to cut through the skies so? Valruz's grip weakened. How long could he hold on? To fall was to die. To perish. The pitiless angel he clung to cared not.

His golden fingers slipped farther. "THe bells, BROTHer, the BELLS." Apollyon intoned, voice barely audible above the howling wind. "ARE THEY THE SAME?"

They were, and the Saint Commander fell.

Saint Commander Valruz did not scream, not did he cry out. He struggled, wrestling with the larger stronger man, his weapon long since fallen to the streets below. Struggling for his pistols, he could not free them from their ornate holsters and his fists could not halt Apollyon's ascent. He held on for as long as he could, but his body was wounded, weary and he did not have wings.

His vox-amp sung to life and he spoke once more, one last time in response to your lilting words over the sound of the bells and the winds. "For God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell!"

With that, he let go, and even Living Saints cannot fly.

But angels? Angels can. From above clouds the world of Anatoli was laid bare to you and the stars and moons above seemed to beckon, to call to you. Too long have angels dwelt with their feet on the ground. Too long had their flaming swords been sheathed. Too long has wickedness gone unpunished in the galaxy.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------


They never found his body. No doubt it was dragged into some hole by rebellious locals looking for any victory they might have over the Brotherhood. By the time you returned, the other TEMPLAR were gone. Their shuttle carrying them back to their now silent ships. They refused to speak to any but the presbyters council on Anatoli and that communication was now done in secret.

The bells rang all day and all night in Angelspire and all knew the name of Apollyon.
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:46, Thu 21 May 2015.

The wind sung through the ruined husk of Apollyon's helm, shattered plasteel shaking beneath the force of the gale. It howled and bit. Like a ravenous demon of ice, its brutal caress tearing at his skin. Broken wires danced and sparked, cast asunder and severed by the shattering of his mask. His face had begun to sting long ago, the beginnings of frostbite nipping at his exposed and torn flesh... But it mattered not. Apollyon had seen the Living Saint fall. Had seen his golden form tumble and flail, helpless against the unyielding pull of gravity... Had seen it twist as it landed, contorted and unnatural, his broken golden carapace sundered and broken.

Behind him, Apollyon's jetpack thundered - wings of scarlet fire propelling him forward. Toward the Garnet Palace, where his men awaited him, over ziggurats as ancient as time. Heathen towers built in the shadow of heathen gods... Though now the flag of Yehovah flew over them. Pure ivory and gold, fluttering in the same wind that seemed intent on rending Apollyon's already torn and bloody face. He approached the Garnet Palace directly, his body turning from horizontal to vertical as his jetpack bled off its heat... Til he had nearly crashed down to earth, plasteel greaves and boots extended beneath bent legs of shining blood-stained silver. Positioned to bear the tremendous force of his landing, as his jetpack released one more triumphant blast of searing and thunderous force. Buffering his landing as plasteel boots slammed into ebony granite and marble at the top of the Thousand-And-One steps.

The stone shook beneath him with the weight of his landing, legs buckling with near bone-breaking force. His armor's compensators filtered and redirected it, though the strain was still great - it took all of Apollyon's last reservoir of strength to keep from falling to his knees. His already torn body, bloody and ragged from Leviathan's keen edge, stood on the precipice of the Garnet Palace with all of Angelspire laid out behind him. His plasteel armored fingers climbed to his ragged helm, taking hold of it and ripping it from his shoulders with a tearing of wires and screeching of broken plasteel. He tossed it to his side, spider web-cracked glass and plasteel fragments scattering out as it spun and rattled to a stop... empty eyelets staring outward as Apollyon's alabaster boots started forward. He reclaimed his blade, Redemption, where the Saint Commander had tossed it aside and set it in its place at his waist. Having first wiped it clean on his discarded scarlet cloak.

"ARKANGELOS," he intoned, voice blanched of passion and pain both as he took his seat on the Throne of Cold Iron "We are betrayed by those we named brother. They have forsaken Him who is called I Am, while still cloaking themselves in his sacred vestments... And there are none more wretched in His eyes than the Pharisee and false believer. There is no greater threat to his church." With great effort, and some assistance from his other hand, Apollyon raised his broken and limp arm to lay across the armrest of his throne. Thin rivulets of ruby red droplets of blood coursed down his arm, freed from the reopened and ragged tear across his shoulder. Dripping down the Throne of Cold Iron to the ebony dais below.

"There is much work to be done, to make safe the faithful..." He continued. "And there will be more blood, before the end."
This message was last edited by the player at 20:26, Sat 23 May 2015.

Hearing I ask                        from the holy races,
From Heimdalls sons,        both high and low;
Thou wilt, Valfather,                 that well I relate
Old tales I remember                of men long ago.

I remember yet                the giants of yore,
Who gave me bread                in the days gone by;
Nine worlds I knew,                 the nine in the Tree
With mighty roots                 beneath the mold.

Of old was the age                when Ymir lived;
Sea nor cool waves                nor sand there were;
Earth had not been,                 nor heaven above,
But a yawning gap,                 and grass nowhere

The Revelation of Yeshua Kristos, which Yehovah gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant Ionnes:

Who bare record of the word of Yehovah, and of the testimony of Yeshua Kristos, and of all things that he saw.

Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.






After your orders are given, the light fades from your vision and only darkness remains for what seems like an eternity. You hear voices you cannot understand or make out, like whispers in a crowded room.

You also dream:

         In your dream, a tall figure with a golden mask greeted you, saying, "There are many rooms in the house of the Master. Be easy, for from the hands of your enemies I have delivered you." It seemed you had died and could see yourself laid upon a table lit by candles. But with your hands you touched the figure, and the figure drew breath, opened eyes, and rose from the table. Then the room was gone, and the world filled with light, and you awoke.

You awake to the faces of the Presbyters



Hooded and masked as in ceremony, icons and symbols of faith and worldly authority dangling from their necks and belts. Your body still burns with pain and you look down upon your naked form and see the blows rent upon your body by the weapon Leviathan

You know from your time as a medic that you should have received treatment long ago. Your flesh already begins to blacken with rot and the agony of the injury is almost unbearable.

A presbyter with the face of a cherubim leans down close to you and you find that you are bound to the table. Candles burn around you and the air is thick with incense. The sweet voice of the presbyter sounds softly in your ear: "Apollyon, you have not kept the Faith. It is not for the Servants to question the Masters, but only to Obey. The wages of Sin are Death, child. But we are merciful, as Yehovah is merciful. Be thankful and rejoice: We offer redemption through suffering." With that, he gestures towards one of the others.

A tall presbyter with the face of a bronze lion reaches out his sleeved arm over you and with a twisting gestured and a murmuring your flesh begins to twist and bubble, erupting into boils, lumps and pus. The pain is unthinkable.

There are no words to describe that feeling as the Presbyters use the Divine power of Yahovah to torture you for what seems like days. They ask no questions, nor respond to your questions or scream of agony. They only speak benedictions and prayers as the Lion-headed one warps your body into a mass of quivering agonized flesh.

Many times you pray for death, but Yehovah does not answer you.

After what seems like forever, the Lion-headed one leaves and the first one, with the Cerub face stands in his place. Raising his bare hands above you, he chants over and over in the sacred tongue: "In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti."

Though you do not understand his words, you begin to feel something within you. Your flesh no longer boils or swells unnaturally, you no longer bleed onto the table and floor. Instead, your boils and welts are cleansed supernaturally, your wounds mended as if they had never been struck. The pain vanishes too after a while and you finally lapse into sleep once more to dream...

         You dreamed that a tall figure with a golden mask spoke to you, but you understood not a word. He smiled, and seemed pleasant, but when he reached to touch you, it terrified you, and you tried to escape, but you couldn't move. you tried to cry out, but you couldn't make a sound. The figure kept smiling and talking, but you felt sure he was trying to cast some sort of spell on you. When you woke, you couldn't recall how the dream ended.

You awaken again, lying unbound in a bed. The orangish sky of Anatoli shining in through the windows and the poised figure of Raphael stands at attention by your door, as if guarding you. His eyes widen as you stir.

"My Lord?"
This message was last edited by the GM at 05:15, Wed 01 July 2015.

The torture felt eternal. Agony seared into his flesh by unnatural means. Boils and rot gnawed at his mortal form, and Apollyon knew pain. His mind danced with fever and delirium, as cherubs and lions hovered at his bedside - hungry and vicious, their tongues barbed and their touch clawed. Apollyon did not understand. Could not. His wordless screams prayed for his brother's arrival. For the first Apollyon to rescue him from this torture... but he did not come. How could he? His soul wandered the aether above now, amongst the heavens at Yehovah's side. His death had saved the man who now called himself Apollyon. Had torn him from the blood and fire of Megiddo.

... But was this him? In the mask of shining gold? Why did the figure terrify him so much as the Presbyters fled the room. What power did he possess that even his touch held such dread? Apollyon did not know. Did not understand... And somehow, that was worse still....

... Apollyon's unnaturally pale blue eyes awoke from the dream slowly and seamlessly. So much so that he did not understand at first if this was just one more of a mosaic of nightmares, or the end of them. The warrior's hands stirred at his side, the back of his hands quivering in sudden effort as fingers clenched tightly. His shoulder ached with dull and faraway pain where Leviathan had bit into his flesh, tearing with its serrated fangs of steel. So many other pains greeted him - a thousand and one aches and searing lightning-borne twinges dancing through his tattered flesh.

Slowly, his head rose, eyes falling first upon his limbs. They were not blackened with living death, as he had dreamed, Yehovah be praised. That he was intact at all, he supposed, was more than a minor miracle.

Raphael stood beside him, as always, his unswerving loyalty as remarkable now in recovery as it had ever been in conquest. Apollyon put one heavily-muscled arm behind him, using it to push his tattered and scarred body upright to sit where he had once lain. Flesh protested, fire burning through newly knit tendon and mended bone. The dappled orange of Anatoli's sky shone through painstakingly wrought black iron window frames, casting patches of his pale skin in ochre as he paused to reflect. Silence held reign for a few minutes, hesitantly dripping by with a slowness born of sudden and blinding realization. He had succumbed to the darkness, following his bout with the Saint-Commander. He had lain idle while their enemies maneuvered to supplant him and his brothers. While they sought to brand the ARKANGELOS as traitors.

"How long have I slept," Apollyon spoke finally "And what have I missed, brother?" A new scar, little more than a line of red bridged by black stitching, ran a half circle beneath his left eye. As he spoke, it twinged in freshly reawakened pain.

"We only found you a few days ago, my Lord." His eyes are filled with sorrow as he speaks to you. "You were... left upon the steps of the palace. We feared you were dead."

He offers you a golden cup, filled to the brim with water, holding it to your lips that you might drink. Raphael gestures to another ARKANGELOS in the hallway who runs off for fetch something.

"We will bring you food, my Lord. You can eat and return to strength." He seems hesitant to tell you what has happened, but once you seem insistent...

"My Lord... I... we have been cast out of the ARKANGELOS. We are now... the Presbyters call us FALLEN. We are now merely shocktroops under the command of the TEMPLAR and thus, the Presbyters. We... we no longer have command authority, my Lord. Even the LEGION is above us in the hierarchy..." He looks down in shame, unable to meet your piercing gaze.
This message was lightly edited by the player at 03:19, Thu 02 July 2015.

Apollyon was still, his voice silent. The warrior's scarred face locked in place - frozen and inscrutable. His bright cerulean eyes stared ahead as if focused on a distant fixed point. "So," he began, his voice quiet "It was not a dream." Then his eyes fell, to his newly ruined flesh - spiderwebbed as it was with fresh scars and burns. The unimaginable agony, racing through his body. The masked presbyters, arrogant and merciless. Blood. Fire. So much pain. So much. He had prayed for death, a hushed whisper begging for mercy... But it had not come. Only more suffering.

It had been... real?

There was a part of Apollyon that could not reconcile it. As if the torment has been so great that he had only half-known it. Had watched another body suffer, rather than his own... But the scars did not lie. He inhaled deeply... feeling cool, wet, and dirty air fill his lungs.

"What of Tribuni Camael, and the 2,700 brothers who crusade to Gatharta?" Apollyon asked, his eyes rising to meet Raphael's. The other FALLEN's gaze did not, however, dare to lock with his own. It darted away, ashamed, recoiling like a beaten dog. It pained him more than he could describe - to see his brothers, victorious conquerors all, reduced to this by the men who ought to thank them. Ought to revel in their victories... Ought to walk beside them as brothers.

But no, that would never be - Apollyon saw that now. The Presbyters saw them only as slaves. Less than slaves. Deplorable, unworthy, and ultimately expendable. The Saint-Commander had made that clear. That Yehovah's will was carried out in the desolation of his most faithful and capable servants was unthinkable. Apollyon knew that this was a failing of men. One he would correct.

"Where lies the next battlefield?" He asked, pushing himself off the bed and making an attempt to stand.

Sekundus Raphael's voice trembled like never before.

"It... it was an ambush. The entire 4th Fleet was waiting there at the edge of the system and they emerged right into their guns. Tribuni Camael was able to assault one of their cruisers and destroy it from the inside, over-loading their main drives. He attempted to ram it into the Havenspire, but was unable to carry out his plan. The rest of our attack fleet was destroyed and everyone aboard perished. Only one ship escaped. Barely more than 100 of our brothers survived. They have been... taken into questioning by the High Presbyter for their failure in this mission."

He sees the pain in your eyes holds up a hand placatingly. "Wait, there's more... the remaining ARK-"he stops himself "FALLEN have been reorganized into our new formations. We... have been stripped of our armor and weapons. Judgement and Redemption have been taken from us. Our replacement equipment arrived this morning but I have yet to see it... no doubt it will not equal our former weapons and armor."

"As for where we go next... your ruse to their Home system is underway. The Presbyters could not stop that, so they instead prepare us for Gryphon... it falls to us to be the tip of the spear. To open the way for the TEMPLAR. They will sacrifice us as shocktroops against the heathens."
This message was last edited by the player at 03:39, Sat 11 July 2015.

"Camael..." Apollyon's voice grew quiet, a hushed whisper barely audible - like a thin wind, dancing the obsidian eaves of Angelspire, forgotten the moment it was gone. Apollyon's scarred hands rose to his face, cradling his forehead as it bowed low. His shoulders hung low, hunched as the mighty warrior hid his face... And his pain. For every ARKANGELOS that had escaped Megiddo, a dozen recruits or perhaps a hundred had perished. It had taken all of those deaths to temper them. To make them into the warriors they were. Peerless, without fear, and merciless. They carried those dead boys with them, each and every brother of the ARKANGELOS - together, they bore the weight of hundreds of thousands of ghosts. For two thousand of his brothers to perish was to Apollyon as if twenty or two hundred thousand had fallen all in a single stroke.

His imprisonment. His punishment. It was all predictable, if not bitter all the same... But this fresh wound... It was too much. They had taken everything from him. His command. His brothers. Everything.

"I should have been there." He muttered to himself quietly, as his hands finally released his head. Guilt traced its way through each word like venom. Apollyon's fiercely blue eyes stared ahead, an errant eyelid twitching of its own volition. "I could have turned the tide. Somehow... somehow, if I had only seen.." He trailed off, to nothing.

"Damn them all... Damn them all to the depths of hell!" Apollyon roared suddenly, his voice that of a lion as he rose like a storm from his bed - though all his tortured body screamed its protest. "They'd bleed us and remind us of our chains before they'd face the heathen... The cowards hide behind us even now, a shield to stymie their own bloodletting..." He was rage given form: his wrath pouring from every inch of his being, his indignation, his hate, his sense of betrayal. He felt laid bare by the knife. After the Presbyters had pulled it from his back, ofcourse... And when had they lost their way? When had they abandoned their faith?.. Becoming more wretched than even those whose lips had never known Yehovah's name. Apollyon's heavily muscled form made its way across the room, his face a thunderhead.

He dressed, simply, in whatever had been left for him. He had never been a material man... and he expected that they would leave less than the finest for him, especially now.

"Well, let us see it then: the funeral costume they've prepared for us." He suggested, intending to survey their arms and armor. Then, he supposed, to see what more he could assess of their situation... Which seemed more dire by the moment.
This message was last edited by the player at 14:22, Sun 12 July 2015.

Raphael leads you down into the depth of the ziggurat. There, one of the old hanging gardens have been converted into a landing platform and hangar. A half dozen Unified Brotherhood shuttles await, cold and glittering in the pale ochre morning sun.

There, you see the remnants of your brothers, aligned in rank and file for you. They have not forgotten you, and despite their newfound shame, they look upon you with pride. Each and everyone one of the ARK- no.. the FALLEN look up to you. As a brother, a father, a leader, a commander. Not a one has abandoned you, not a one turns his eyes to the ground or averts his gaze. They all look to you for the next step.

Around the edges of the disciplined block of FALLEN, dozens of Brotherhood technicians flit about, carrying gear or weapons, inspecting armor and equipment. They seem nervous, though they try not to show it.

Your men... nay, your brothers, wait for you to speak. They seem anxious or perhaps eager that you might address them and say something.

Apollyon walked to the fore, a slight hitch in his step - masked nearly entirely, through an exertion of extreme effort, but present all the same. Even so he stepped lightly, unburdened, his strides purposeful and deliberate. The warrior's scarred face bore no sign of pain. No disquieted uncertainty. A funeral mask, somber and unreadable, its eyes ablaze with hot blue cinders of angel's fire. He took his rightful place there without question, arriving coolly as if by happenstance: his gaze turning to meet the assembled formation a moment before the rest of his body did the same.

One of the scarred warrior's brows raised itself questioningly. "Brothers... Who was it that climbed from Megiddo and ascended to the heavens?" Apollyon asked of the assembled. There was quiet, for a moment, as row after row of FALLEN looked on stoically.

"THE ARKANGELOS!" Apollyon returned, voice low and fire in his belly. "... And who brought the Sword of The Martyr against the heathens?.." He continued, his eyes straying to the Brotherhood's technicians as they scurried beside his brothers like rats. Apollyon saw them. He knew he ought not hate them, but they were not his blood. They knew only the Presbyters' will.

This time, they knew the answer all: "THE ARKANGELOS!" They shouted, the reverberating voices of thousands of men made one echoing across the desolated garden. The place shook with the weight of their passion. Each and every man's voice joined the chorus, the same voice that had been stolen from them on Holy Byzanthine at Camp Mikael. The same fire that had refused to be extinguished there: not with the burning heat of the desert, not with the biting chill of the snow plains, and not in the devil-spawned depths of the jungle.

"WHO SUNDERED THE HAVENSPIRE WITH FIRE AND BLOOD? WHO BROUGHT THE BLACK GOD-KING OF NERGAL TO HIS KNEES?" Apollyon roared.

"THE ARKANGELOS!" Came the chorus.

"WHO RAISED UP THE PEOPLE OF ANGELSPIRE FROM PAGANISM? WHO SPARED THEM FROM THE PYRES?" He spoke, the dull thrum of interstellar engines a distant storm behind him. Obsidian ziggurats and burning orange skies at his back beyond even them. A planet of souls. Souls they had brought to Yehovah's light.

"THE ARKANGELOS!"

He turned to Raphael, his eyes intense - the pain he had shared earlier with his Sekondus gone. This was the Apollyon who had done battle with the Saint-Commander. Who had led them from the purgatory of Byzanthine. "WHO REAVED TOASAA? WHO SPILLED THEIR BLOOD FOR THE FAITH IN THE HEAVENS ABOVE GATHARTA?"

"THE ARKANGELOS!"

"And we are named FALLEN! Dishonored! Slaves! Betrayed and discarded by those we would name brother!" He continued, pacing now in front of the formation like a prowling mountain cat. Apollyon's hands clenched at his side, his knuckles bone-white, as his eyes looked ahead to the sprawling jet cityscape beyond. Then he turned back to them, stepping forward suddenly and aggressively - righteous indignation and rage pouring from his lips. "I AM NOT DISHONORED! I AM NOT A SLAVE! I AM A CONQUEROR - A CRUSADER!" Roars of agreement met him, a wave of zeal that threatened to bring the garden shaking to its foundations. "I CARRY THE CROSS!... AND IF I HAVE FALLEN, IT WAS ONLY TO WREST IT FROM WHERE THE PHARISEES DISCARDED IT!"

"I will resecure the tenets of the Faith in His name... I will remember our fallen; I will fight for the living - til there are no more slaves, no more pharisees, and no more pyres." The hardened warrior intoned, his oath unbending steel. "No matter how they burn my flesh, no matter what dishonors are heaped upon me, the Great Enemy's servants will not endure where men of Faith and angels tread! I will burn the stars away and paint their systems red, til the unfaithful have no rock left to hide beneath!"

Somewhere, in the distance, bells sang - tolling low and mournfully.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:16, Thu 23 July 2015.

The ARKANGELOS - The FALLEN watch enraptured at your speech, their words, echoing yours. Remiel steps forward by the end of your speech and shouts "DEUS VULT!"

The other thousands of the FALLEN echo him in kind. The angelic choir of thousands of angels resounds through in the massive hanger and the minions of the Presbyters seem to recoil in fear from the voice of resolve that holds dominion over this dark and heathen place.

Another FALLEN shouts out "RETRIBUTION!" and there is a roar, a cry from the angels, from the men of the ARKANGELOS, the FALLEN.

They turn upon the technicians and the scribes. With huge hands and rippling muscles they grab, throttle and tear at the hapless subjects of the Presbyters. Brought here from a distant world, only to die at the hands of their own. The FALLEN let no man or woman escape. Each and every one is choked out of their life, or crushed beneath a blunt object. The thousands of your warriors have no difficulty asserting themselves to be the rightful masters of this domain.

However, in the blood and broken flesh that follows, that is not the only conflict as the loose end is tied up. Remiel steps up onto the platform with you. A light spray of blood covering his face and naked chest. He too is scared and burned from battle. You remember him from before, one of the battle leaders of your ARKANGELOS. His hair is long now, discipline flagging.

"Come now, Ah-Polly-UHN... you do not think you can rule them without challenge? I want this for myself." He clenches his fists and bares his teeth at you.

Apollyon looked on, his body still in anithesis of the chaos that swarmed around him. A relentless battering tide, rolling in with storm and frightful intensity against a resolute plinth of stone that refused to bend or break. The FALLEN laid into their loyalist counterparts - slaying them where they stood. Blood decorated the Garnet Palace's obsidian halls, not for the first time since the ARKANGELOS had fallen from the heavens. Women screamed and men died. Apollyon looked above it - above the din and the melee, his cyan eyes raised to the aether. Eyes of inhuman ghostlight lost themselves in the skies above, his features still and impassive. The engines throbbed and roared in the distance, like the ceaseless hungering mining extractors of his homeworld. Apollyon shut them all out and listened. For the whisper of Him Who Was. For the voice of his dearest brother, whom had gone to walk beside Yehovah. For direction. For confirmation.

For vindication... but all was silent.



Apollyon's hands, crisscrossed with scars and broken a half a dozen times over, felt soaked in blood. Heavy with it, against his side. Even as his brothers smote the infidel at his command. Even as they freed themselves from the yoke of the Pharisees... His soul shook with the burden of command... His heart quaked at the cost of freedom. Were it only so that his brother had lived and not him. Apollyon wished now that he had gone to that long sleep instead, wrapped in a cloak of faith and sacrifice as the light in his eternally-damned Kyp eyes died. Had Apollyon, the first Apollyon - the one who had been Elias, had he seen this? The way he had so many other things?

"Brother," Apollyon's voice whispered, cracked lips harsh with thirst but hushed against the din of battle "If only this cup could pass to another..."

... But it could not...

Even as he looked to the beyond Remiel rose from the ranks, awash with blood and bare-chested. His hair was long - matted with the same drying scarlet that painted his skin. His snarled words shook Apollyon from his reverie, bringing the Centurion's eyes down from the heavens to terra firma. To bloody Nergal. Angelspire. Gardens of man, cast in ebony by heathen hands, newly streaked with the blood of the lost. His ears heard Remiel's challenge. His mind processed the meaning... But it floated ephemeral, unsubstantial, and Apollyon had difficulty grasping it. The venerated warrior's brow furrowed, his face marred with fire and blade now cast in a mask of doubt. It was a shattering of ties, of faith and loyalty, that threatened to send Apollyon reeling. His brothers were his blood, his home, and his purpose... He had given them everything.

At his side Raphael, ever dutiful, bristled. He felt the warrior move to intercede, before ever his feet stirred. Apollyon raised a hand, open palm placating, to urge him to patient stillness. "Sekondus Raphael, take as many men as you need to secure our equipment and our transports... This, I will see to."

And then, unto Remiel: "... That desire is why it cannot be you, brother." The words came unbidden, flowing from his lips as naturally as water flowed to the sea. Apollyon almost felt as if they were not his words. As if they came from a different man. A stronger one. A warrior, unmarred by doubt. They were thunder, echoing from the mountains. He found clarity in them: the answer to his own inner turmoils. This was why it had had to be him. This was why he carried this weight, and not another.

"You would cut your way across the galaxy and bathe in blood. You would call it righteous... But vengeance for vengeance, blood for blood, and hate for hate is not righteous. No divine purpose can be anchored solely in hate." He explained, as if his words were meant for a mischievous son... rather than a traitor. "We are more than that. We always were, though we never gave it breath. Dead sons of forgotten fathers. We were meant for more."

"We will find it again," he promised "And you can remain at my side when we do, if you would but step back down. Do not force my hand, brother. I beg it of you." Apollyon braced himself though - his muscles tightened in anticipation. His arms ached with the dull fire of distant triumphs and remembered torture. His lungs burned with the caustic blue of Kpyo, as they always did, tingling with the wet beautiful filth of real air. "... But I will not let you keep me from it, brother. I have spilled so much blood for our brothers already, and I have gone too far for regret."
This message was last edited by the player at 03:40, Wed 29 July 2015.

In the Great Work it is written: "Some men are Lions, and some men are not. He who is a Lion may roar and his voice gives Truth to his being. He who is not a Lion may only speak and Truth is not within him."

Apollyon is a Lion, Remiel, despite his prowess in battle, is not. At your words and countenance he balks, his shoulders slump and he steps back away from you, unsteady, unsure. Caught up in blood-lust and desire, he had been so certain in the moment, that he would descend upon you as a lion upon a lamb, but to hear your roar he realizes that it is he who is the lamb.

The others watch, enraptured, silent as you speak and silent still after. Hundreds of eyes see this, Appollyon winning a battle with but a few words at a steely look in his blue eyes. Remiel kneels before, head hung in submission at your feet. In unison, the rest of the Fallen kneel before you in pools of blood, in silent veneration of your might and the unending respect they have for you, Apollyon, who could bring life or take it with his hands. Who could command beasts and men with a few words.

They wait for your leave to stand...