matt_doyle (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
matt_doyle) wrote2012-05-29 02:50 pm
matt_doyle) wrote2012-05-29 02:50 pm
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Narrer's End.
In the kingdom of Antarion, known to the vulgar-minded as The Allotment, in the Barony of Endworld, there is an island that once was called the Marrows, or perhaps (because only a shallow strait separates in from the mainland) the Narrows. Little more than a rocky promontory, it never held any importance until Narerrant, gens-lord of the Ligurian gens Nar, decided to build himself a second castle there.
Narerrant's family was small and unimportant, as the lineages of mage-lords are counted, but Narerrant himself was a potent sorceror. His staff, it was said, was so full of spells of wariness, vigilance, and warning that it could sense threats hidden in the hearts of men, and react before its master to defend him. This was the greatest of his accomplishments, but it was only one of many. He laid the foundations for his castle himself, a substantial feat of earth-magery, and directed its construction according to strange and exacting standards. Then, he shut himself in it, and none but his family and his servants saw or heard any trace of him for many months.
Secretly (but not so secretly), Narerrant was a wicked mage. His powers of command and conjuration, his skill at crafting, all of these he derived by a subtle mastery of necromancy unlike any other magus of his Age. He knew, of course, that he was an evil soul, and that he had strayed far from the path to apotheosis the Winged Ones dictate -- the path that leads noble souls safely through the Misty Hells and ushers them into Radiant Glory, where they may collect the prayers of their descendants until they join the Winged Ones as one of their number. The sins that weighed on his soul would draw him astray, lure him into false paths, mire him, maze him, and lose him forever in the Hells.
As no sane man would wish this, and Narerrant was, perhaps, still sane, he sought a terrible alternative. Beneath the foundations of his castle -- wrought of Mist-stone, the very substance of the Hells conjured into our world and persuaded to pretend that it was mere rock -- Narerrant built himself a model of Hell. He summoned and imprisoned demons; he drew Mist through portals, he consulted dark texts and cast sinister spells, until under his home was a very near replica of the Misty Hells. By studying this model and interrogating its damned inhabitants, Narerrant hoped to gather enough information on the dangers of his passage through the afterlife, so that even without virtue he could dodge the dangers of the Hells after death and worm his way into a reward not intended for souls such as he.
It was a clever plan, and a devious one, and perhaps it would have worked. But while he spent day after day under the earth, someone in his castle grew nervous. They had learned that Narerrant could open the Gates of the Hells; they knew he was obsesses with building something, and from this they drew a fearful and misguided conclusion: that Narerrant was building a door to Hell, one which he intended to throw open once it was complete, and rule all Antarion with powers devised from warlockery and demonology, subjugating the living with minions ripped straight from the torments of the damned and the dead.
When word of this was brought to the Queen, along with some small proofs of necromancy, she wasted no time, but assembled her armies, her pyromancers and storm mages, her artificers with their siege-lightnings and silverbolts. Straight to the coast of Endworld they rode, and rained devastation over the strait, crashing Narerrant's great castle down upon its foundations in a single blazing hour of spellwork.
Of Narrerant, his underground works, and his staff, no trace was ever found. It is recounted as a bitter irony that he could have stopped any threat in the world from touching him with his wondrous staff; but he was so concerned with matters of the next world, so immersed in them, that his staff was too distant to sense the oncoming army and give him warning.
Now the island is called Narrer's End, and none live there.
But some two centuries after Narrer's demise, a princess, an apostate, and a renegade band of Royal Guards, concerned more with justice than with law, are seeking the staff once again, and if their luck runs terribly awry, it is possible they may find it.
Narerrant's family was small and unimportant, as the lineages of mage-lords are counted, but Narerrant himself was a potent sorceror. His staff, it was said, was so full of spells of wariness, vigilance, and warning that it could sense threats hidden in the hearts of men, and react before its master to defend him. This was the greatest of his accomplishments, but it was only one of many. He laid the foundations for his castle himself, a substantial feat of earth-magery, and directed its construction according to strange and exacting standards. Then, he shut himself in it, and none but his family and his servants saw or heard any trace of him for many months.
Secretly (but not so secretly), Narerrant was a wicked mage. His powers of command and conjuration, his skill at crafting, all of these he derived by a subtle mastery of necromancy unlike any other magus of his Age. He knew, of course, that he was an evil soul, and that he had strayed far from the path to apotheosis the Winged Ones dictate -- the path that leads noble souls safely through the Misty Hells and ushers them into Radiant Glory, where they may collect the prayers of their descendants until they join the Winged Ones as one of their number. The sins that weighed on his soul would draw him astray, lure him into false paths, mire him, maze him, and lose him forever in the Hells.
As no sane man would wish this, and Narerrant was, perhaps, still sane, he sought a terrible alternative. Beneath the foundations of his castle -- wrought of Mist-stone, the very substance of the Hells conjured into our world and persuaded to pretend that it was mere rock -- Narerrant built himself a model of Hell. He summoned and imprisoned demons; he drew Mist through portals, he consulted dark texts and cast sinister spells, until under his home was a very near replica of the Misty Hells. By studying this model and interrogating its damned inhabitants, Narerrant hoped to gather enough information on the dangers of his passage through the afterlife, so that even without virtue he could dodge the dangers of the Hells after death and worm his way into a reward not intended for souls such as he.
It was a clever plan, and a devious one, and perhaps it would have worked. But while he spent day after day under the earth, someone in his castle grew nervous. They had learned that Narerrant could open the Gates of the Hells; they knew he was obsesses with building something, and from this they drew a fearful and misguided conclusion: that Narerrant was building a door to Hell, one which he intended to throw open once it was complete, and rule all Antarion with powers devised from warlockery and demonology, subjugating the living with minions ripped straight from the torments of the damned and the dead.
When word of this was brought to the Queen, along with some small proofs of necromancy, she wasted no time, but assembled her armies, her pyromancers and storm mages, her artificers with their siege-lightnings and silverbolts. Straight to the coast of Endworld they rode, and rained devastation over the strait, crashing Narerrant's great castle down upon its foundations in a single blazing hour of spellwork.
Of Narrerant, his underground works, and his staff, no trace was ever found. It is recounted as a bitter irony that he could have stopped any threat in the world from touching him with his wondrous staff; but he was so concerned with matters of the next world, so immersed in them, that his staff was too distant to sense the oncoming army and give him warning.
Now the island is called Narrer's End, and none live there.
But some two centuries after Narrer's demise, a princess, an apostate, and a renegade band of Royal Guards, concerned more with justice than with law, are seeking the staff once again, and if their luck runs terribly awry, it is possible they may find it.