So, some of you might have caught on that I am not feeling my usual self. I'm going to try to get somewhat back into the swing of things, and I thought that perhaps starting small like this might help.
Found On: PrymaOur kind are, by our very nature, intrepid, though perhaps it is only speaks to those whose paths I've crossed. Regardless, there are few places we, as a kind, fear to tread, but there are worlds out amongst the void that even the greatest of us pause to seek, places where even tyrants like Vasilias dare not intrude. Worlds so ancient and rooted that even upon the edge of oblivion, at the fringes of creation itself, they hang, forgotten. I have only traveled to such a world once, the longest walk I have ever made, a task which very nearly killed me.
It is the most ancient world I have seen, rivaling, I think, even the venerability of Equilor, a place the tomes claim to be the oldest world in existence. I do not know for certain, only to say that Pryma is ancient beyond any way that I can express. It is a world that is bereft of life, but to visit you cannot claim that it is dead. It is finished, done with everything, but some semblance of spirit yet lurks there.
I think it might have been the last remnants of what drew me to the world in the first place. An artifact which holds one of the greatest secrets I have ever even considered. The device simply known as the Aeon Clock, the only relic in all the realms of creation to tell the true age of Dominia itself.
Pryma was a frozen world, a gelid and awful place chilled as much with the void of the abyss as with the rime that coated the bones of the world. I could not tell you where I originally learned of the artifact or the world on which it resides, but regardless, I found myself utterly alone as I have never been before, battered by a cold I can scarcely describe. I know I was alone, and yet... the entire time I was on that world, I felt as if I was being watched. It took me some time to finally find my destination, but at last I reached it. The closest translation to the name I can find describes it simply as The Dark Vale.
What I found there stunned me. I have seen many things, but the mysteries of the Aeon Clock are matched by the stories of the Lord of the Vale and the Keeper of the Clock itself. I found myself staring up at his imposing visage, towering leagues into the sky, a tower or palace or temple, I cannot be sure, but the largest structure I have ever seen, a building carved into a statue that persists even upon a world as inhospitable as this.
The Harpy King, the Warden of the Aeon Clock wrote:
The stories of the Harpy King, whose true name is lost to the longest ages, were carved in stone within his visage, a temple citadel dedicated to an emperor of a forgotten world. In the earliest days, he was a conqueror, a being who swept across the lands of Pryma and brought them all under his dominion. He inspired as much as enslaved, and his armies numbered in the hundreds of thousands, made of people of all lands.
No land was out of his reach, but it was in the Dark Vale where he finally made his roost. Ancient even then, the Aeon Clock called to him.
Upon the immense device, the Harpy King built his rule, constructing a towering statue from where he would command, casting his grim gaze upon the Vale and all who would come seeking the secrets of Dominia's age. Even then, with only a fraction of understanding of what he guarded, what he supposedly ruled, he knew that secret was more powerful than anything else upon his world.
The epoch ticked by upon the clock, and the once proud warrior clad in shining armor and conquest grew twisted with age and madness. His feathered beard grew long, his brow heavy, and his body and wings hunched with the weight of too many years and a power too great. To hold a secret so powerful as that of the Multiverse is to hold power itself, but power always corrupts. Within all the years he ruled, the clock brought many of our kind to him and from them he wrenched yet more secrets and power. He became a power to rival even the greatness of the oldwalkers. But that power took its toll.
He cast out all but the most loyal of his guard, granting them the honor of protecting his aerie and the precious secret that lay within. He granted fewer and fewer audiences, fewer allowed entry as he grew more and more isolated from even those who dwelt in the tower statue with him.
And then one day, he was simply gone.
The Harpy King did not die, there was no body, no indication of what had happened. He had vanished without a trace. But his power remained, soaked into the walls and the thrall he had over those who had sworn to serve him. Within those halls he left a trove of artifacts, potent in their own right, and powerful enchantments whose ghosts still persisted as I tread those halls. The bones of his guards remained as well, loyal beyond death, still standing at their posts upon a world whose time was done.
In the quiet moments as I heard the whisper of the wind of Pryma, I thought I heard the voice of the mad king whose home I wandered. Even now, I think he might have outlived his world. I think he might have held one more secret, even from his kind.
I gazed upon the clock, hidden deep within that carven spire. It was, as all things I found on Pryma, beyond words. The complexity beggars any accomplishment I could ever aspire too. Vast turning mechanisms writ and engraved with glowing runes, all turning in patterns I can't fathom. I chose to leave the clock undisturbed, for fear of what I might upset, or even worse what I might learn. It reminded me of legends I have heard of terrible things, the likes of the
Apocalypse Chime or
the Chain Veil. I think only Raleris might be able to glean any truth from that monstrous thing.
I turned my attentions, hells, my scavenging since I might as well be honest, to the relics of the Harpy King. All that knowledge, wrested both from the clock and ancient 'walkers was evident in virtually everything. Soul Lanterns, Runestones, a hundred other things, but the prize I could carry was in the throne room. The dark hammer of the harpy king himself. It echoed with power, ringing with the secrets and might of the figure who wielded it. To hold it is to hear the whispers of the terrible knowledge that cast it, but it is a prize that I couldn't leave to weather on the world.
I've put it in the Armory, behind the wards that have held other things, but I wonder if, at times, it doesn't belong further below in the black vault.
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