Found On: IkassRaleris is my friend. He looks out for me like a father, but at times, he thinks far too highly of himself and the position he's appointed to himself. He is the Lorekeeper, but some of that lore he sequesters away, paranoid that its knowledge alone could lead to catastrophe. He doesn't keep things from people out of malice or jealousy, but out of arrogance. A surety that he alone is capable of weighing its burden.
And in that pride, Raleris might have doomed himself and others. It is something common to the Old Ones, but it is no less forgivable because they have walked as gods. They've been forced to accept their mortality again, but they are still blinded by the experiences, struck foolish by the ages in which they strode Dominia without limitations.
Raleris is not unique, but he is the one who has chosen to keep secrets from me, assuming the conceit to keep me safe and presume to dictate my actions. In the past, I've tried to tell him he's wrong, but he treats me like a child. He's an armchair historian, sitting in his library while I am walking the ruins of worlds. Yet in his lofty position, he humors me and doesn't listen to what I am truly saying because it is not written in his histories. There is one subject, in particular, which he will not listen to me about, and if I showed him where I've learned this from, he'd take them away from me and think he was doing so for my protection.
But he's not the only one that can keep a secret.
Raleris doesn't know what I found in the Deserts of Dellity. He would not approve either. He would say that I was dealing with forces beyond my capability to handle, and... he may be right, but it is not his place to tell me these things. I just wish he would listen better than I do about this...
Because he is mistaken, badly mistaken about Vasilias. He assumes that, like himself, like so many other Old Ones, Vasilias was a being who ruled by great magic and arcane dictate. Vasilias was unspeakably powerful, but he was not a mage.
Vasilias was a
warrior.The Scepter wrote:
The relic referenced as "The Scepter" is hardly that. It is a symbolic name for the massive double-handed morningstar that Vasilias used in battle. It is heavy, huge by even my standards, and I do not see how someone without a terrible inhuman strength could wield it. The spikes upon its head are so long that they could fully pierce a man and the sheer weight of it could crush an enemy beneath it like no more than an eggshell. The tremendous weight of it is more than merely physical though, because it weighs upon the soul as well, a hateful presence that speaks of the awful magics built into the thing.
I've seen similar magic before in
other relics in the past, but never before have I touched something capable of magic on the scale it must have been used on. Merely gazing upon the artifact could make others kneel, and even my not inconsiderable will is tested anytime I glance at it. I shudder to think of what it would do when fully roused. In the hands of its master, it must have forced hundreds, possibly even
thousands to fall before him at a time.
Vasilias's enemies had a name for it too, something far less elegant than what his own subjects called it. They knew it as "Willbreaker".
The weapon stands nearly as tall as a normal man, and the craftsmanship, even after all this time, is exquisite. It is made of some sort of ceramic, harder than steel and lighter too, though the size makes that nearly pointless. It is carved with the image of serene faces, bowed, and crowned with spikes. Spikes separate the faces as well, and atop it is the largest of them all. The haft is a darker color, some sort of metal carved with spiraling runes all the way down its length, and they glow when a hand touches them. The collar and cap are both gold, but the metal must be something else, because it is far harder than real gold.
The Crown wrote:
Once again, the name is more poetic than literal. The Crown is a battle helmet, though it at least does have a shape that would suggest a crown. The nosepiece continues up the face of the helm and sticks above the dome of the helmet. It is ringed with protrusions such as this, each of them that same gold material that adorns Willbreaker. Large stones of jade are set upon those protrusions, but other than that, there is little ornamentation to the helmet. The mask of the helmet is rimmed in the gold, and there are dark runes carved all over the surface in a script I don't recognize. Raleris could probably translate, but I've no curiosity strong enough to go to him with this discovery.
As with Willbreaker, the crown is more than it appears. To those who have bowed to the king's power, the crown seizes control of their wills and they become as puppets to the master's hands. It is one reason why Vasilias was so feared in battle, for his army was not merely soldiers and generals, but were like a very extension of himself, obeying his awful will without question or order.
The effect was more pernicious than that, as prolonged exposure to the crown would rob its victim of their own will completely.
Vasilias was a warrior king who never feared to take the field himself. He was once a titan among normal men, towering a head or more over his subjects. I can only imagine what it must have been like to see him stride the battlefield, wielding a weapon of such size and power, the awe and fear he must have inspired. This is what Raleris doesn't understand. He assumes because Vasilias could wield magic that he was an academic, biased by his own skills and experience.
Despite my secrecy, and Raleris's own misguided guidance, I found the tale of the battle Vasilias must have lost the weapons in the archives. It was the final battle before the siege of Ariva. The orcs of Dellity had gathered in massive numbers in the deserts beyond Ariva, a mere speck upon the horizon. As always, Vasilias took the battlefield, but... for all the terrible power he had commanded in the past, for all the people he had crushed beneath his boot, for all the horrible acts he had committed in the past... the Mending had come and even the might of his Arms had fled him. His will was weakened, his armies in disarray, and his enemies crashing against him. For perhaps the first time in his long life... Vasilias hesitated, and in that moment, he lost. His armies fell to blades and his own magic failed him. He fought, but it was for naught. Panic seized him, an alien and terrible presence for the mighty king. His breath would not come and he threw down his arms, his very crown pulled from his head and in terror, he fled. His spirit was shaken, nay shattered, by his defeat and the enemies of Ariva claimed a mighty victory that day, though it was only a precursor to the terrible events to come.
Ariva would vanish less than a month later.
In the deserts, hidden by the sand and the dead, the Arms of the Fallen King rested for years. When Raleris sent me to find the Key of Tongues, I abandoned that search when I discovered these instead. The Key is inconsequential next to these relics, though I never lied to Raleris about the fruitlessness of my search. I didn't find anything about the Key, but what I found was much more significant.
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