I've made a new build for
Infinite Morning, after receiving access to a certain entity's Favor.
Therefore, Karalrir.
---
Extinction Itself
[ ] Naroch Clarash
[ ] Hamartia (+1 ember) - In glory of the Architect-Who-Sleeps, I'll elect Wrath.
[ ] Blatant Beckoning (+1 ember) - Let them know.
[ ] Third Impact (+2 embers, requires Blatant) - Let them fear.
[ ] Uriah's Malediction (
+2 +1 ember) - Karalrir.
[ ] Thaumiel (+3 embers) - Too scared? Fine. Take flight, before I finish what
He started.
[ ] Ark's Golden Gloom (+2 embers) - Insufficient red-colored drawbacks, and the worm fled in fear, but I'll take what few victims I can get.
[ ] Self-Fortification (1 ember)
[ ] Nine Sun Style (2 embers)
[ ] Favor of the First (4 embers)
[ ] Heroic Destiny (1 ember)
[ ] Chosen One (2 embers) - Nine Sun Style -> Red Sun Style
---
It started a season ago, rumors and reports from scouts and concerned citizens: the Hungering Dark was announced gone overnight, as was a terrifying wedge of the western Arranorian border and its counties; overnight, innumerable men, women, and children were dead, and countless others without any home to return to.
Accordingly, the Fingers mobilized, as had the clerics of the Ogdoad - entrance into Arranor was barred over the crisis, although with the developments happening on the basis of hours, it was difficult to control and lock everything down. Soon, more reports were coming in, and the soothsayers spoke of an ill force in the west; omens and portents bent inexorably to configurations of violence and blood, bones cast to divine the future cracking with hairline fractures as if smashed; at night, princelings and counts dreamt of a sky overflowing with the black feathers of carrion birds, and a single man with a blade of red sunlight standing beneath a swollen red solar mass in zenith.
It didn't take beyond half a day for Denlah to call in the expert augurs of the court, and in front the court, in front of everyone, they performed a divination of letters: an Essentially enriched board of birch was soon laid out, its cardinal and ordinal corners consecrated with gemstones considered sacred to the Ogdoad. A golden puck containing a sliver of purified salts was laid out, and the augurs carried it over the letters, divining the meaning of the so-called Beckoned Terror.
And so moved the puck: K, then A, then R, then A...
A messenger had suddenly burst into the room, announcing the western sky was burning red.
L, then R again, then I, and then R.
And on its horizon stood a man with eyes devoid of empathy.
KARALRIR, said the message, its meaning unknown, provenance indecipherable.
From there started a war. An army the strength of a single man stood opposed to the Flame of Arranor, and mighty indeed did stand the armies of His Majesty, the elementals of wind launching down tornadoes of cutting force to shred apart the invader only for him to parry their efforts or evade them, and respond in kind, but twice as forcefully; the mightiest Fortified of the Slayer Corps dying within eyeblinks as they came into range of sight, regiments undone in seconds with exhalations of torrential flame that left behind mere dust and scraps of heated slag, sharp lines of cutting crimson energy that bisected orichalcum-clad flesh as effortlessly as scissors did paper from across leagues.
Indeed, strong and powerful were His Majesty's proudest servants.
And yet, none of them could've ever sufficed. One does not fight a force of nature.
The King authorized the unsealing of contingencies meant for the direst situations: spells of contained apocalypticism and eldritch war-beasts wielded on loose strings of Goetic root. All were annulled or felled in moments of deployment, clever evasion or sheer murderous power serving to destroy their efforts. In a couple of more esoteric cases, the Terror proved capable of treacherous cunning, denying distant spells of promised death and the alteration of fate, all seemingly parried with swift movements of the wrist. It went on until most of the kingdom was a refugee state, gone beyond the borders of Meritria, its citizens maybe never to return home.
His advance east continued almost unimpeded, Arranor's greatest efforts no more meaningful than a stiff, hot wind against his resolute step.
Attempts at diplomacy failed miserably within seconds of being attempted. The stranger spoke fluently, although he seemed to have no interest in peace, and utilized words as weapons: to strike fear into hearts, to callously shatter psyches. Soon, even Meritria and the other nations of the world realized the scope and gravity of the threat and its unceasing devotion to ending everything. An alliance was formed, loose, with insufficient time for complex treaties and pacts. Facing Extinction Itself, the world came together as one in valiant hopes of defying it. He'd ceased his movements east as if sensing the approaching counter-attack.
Instead, he reportedly stood on top of a barren hill, sharpening his ephemeral blade on a whetstone made of human bone. It was clear, somehow, through a mixture of divinations and sheer projective instinct, what the Terror was doing: he graced them with the honor of the first strike.
Soon, the battle started, with a bombardment of divine magics and demolition unseen since the First Theomachy, and in history's rolls, it became known as the Battle of Returning Flame, for its sheer destructivity scorched everything in western Arranor into a second Heath. As horrific as it was, it was also glorious.
Even the Fingers, for their own inscrutable reasons, mobilized and attempted to stop the intercessor. He brutally strangled and destroyed them by the dozens, often all at once, until they decided to switch tactics to mere attrition and slowing him down, and then eventually stopped trying once he adapted to their novel magics and tactics; recovering from strikes dealt with Demarcation like a man healing papercuts, defending against Fulminant discharge with stoic resolve, and enduring the smiting of Lemrasil and Sovarus combined. He'd not even moved from the hill after the opening strikes, merely choosing to weather and endure.
His counter, in turn, ruined any hopes of victory. The Beckoned Terror had prevailed and won.
In the aftermath, he strode into the capital of Arranor. And Denlah stood before him, humbled.
"I don't understand," he said, kneeling, knowing even his secret magics would simply be swatted aside like an insect's buzzing. A hundred questions pressed themselves to his mind: what are you, why are you doing this, where have you come from? And yet, only one seemed truly pertinent, at heart. "What is Karalrir?"
The Terror only smiled. It was a cold, frightful smile, devoid of anything fundamentally human.
"Karalrir," he said, voice like a cold hammering of iron on stone, "It means 'strife reigns.' Understand, King Denlah, I bear no grudge, and yet, violence is inescapable. There are much worse things that could've happened to you. And words are wasted on the ears of the dead."
For a second, hope seemed to alight in Denlah's heart.
The stranger raised a red-streaked sword. "Yet, this once, I found myself sentimental. Mercy and honor to you, of Arranor King." The blade's edge bent with purpose, and then a mage's corpse toppled to the floor.
---
