| On a recent trip to the Archives of Zequan I found a curious page, obviously
ripped from one book and stuck in another. It was a page from the journal of
Duiker, and I have reproduced it exactly here:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Later that night I met with Rimbol. He was still waiting for Calistarius to
finish his tasks, and, as he was wont to do, summoned a bottle of liquor. He
never told me where the bottles came from, preferring to answer my questions
with a wink, but the night after a good bender left many publicans scratching
their head the next day at vanishing stock.
Rimbol was a tight-lipped man, already a demigod at this point and immensely
powerful. But for some reason that night, whether because of the booze or his
boredom, he told me a story. The Warlord, it turned out, was messing with a
power fairly well understood to Rimbol. It was the power to Ascend. This is the
power to leave behind your mortal body and achieve true immortality, to gain
powers beyond belief. The problem, he explained, was that Ascending is the power
of the Elder Gods. Rimbol said Siva didn't care much about mortals, but if Smote
were to find new Ascendants his wrath would be extraordinary. At this point
Rimbol passed out. He left very little in the bottle for me.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is the end of the pages left in that book. I will continue to try and find
more.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Once more I found myself in the Archives looking through books. This, however,
was no idle search. I had read something most amazing, a page of Duiker's
journal that wasn't in any of the formal collections. I endeavored to find more
of these pages, and last night, near dawn really, I did:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was some years after the Breaking and I was working with Ranald on his little
village. I thought his idea of naming it "Bastion" silly, seeing as it was just
a couple of sticks in the mud to protect against barbarians. Ranalad always did
have delusions of grandeur, but his heart was in the right place. We had just
finished laying a stone in the center of the village, and scaffolding had gone
up for a building there. Ranald invited me to dinner, but I wasn't hungry. I
went to my home to sleep.
Later that night I heard a creaking through the floorboards of my residence, and
got up. There, pacing back and forth was Rimbol, who I hadn't seen since that
breaking. He was muttering to himself, but when he looked up and saw me, a wide
smile came across his face. I hated that smile.
"Where have you been?" I asked. "Duiker, do you remember several years ago? We
were talking about what the Warlord's ritual was really about," he responded.
I did remember, but I wasn't about to give him the satisfaction of a
straightforward response. Instead I offered him a drink. What he said next
stunned me to my very core.
"No."
I never did see Ranald again. Shame about that.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Once again I am left with more questions than answers. I will continue to look
for more pages.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What a glorious day! I have found two pages of Duiker's journal, but I fear
these might be the last, at least of those contained in the Archives.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We has just finished traveling out to the ocean. Rimbol hired a boat, and we
rowed out to the middle. I say we, but of course he made me do all the work. As
I was setting up the lines, getting ready to catch our dinner Rimbol coughed,
smiled and said, "I did it."
"Did what? I asked. "Became Ascended. I am part of the Pantheon now."
I only grunted, unsure of what one says to a new God.
"I made him take me. I forced Smote's hand." I only nodded in reply. This, it
turns out, is how you get Rimbol to talk - say nothing. "I am the most powerful
being in this land."
I couldn't stay quiet anymore. "What of Calistarius?" I asked. Rimbol sneered,
but I knew I upset him. I had heard something of his transformation, and I knew
him "forcing" Smote's hand was all bravado. Calistarius and Rimbol were playing
with powers they couldn't possibly control. He left then, only the sound of air
rushing into the space his body occupied giving any hint of him having been
there at all.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some years after the walls went up around Bastion, while sitting in my usual
chair at the Blind Tiger I heard a commotion outside. Being the inquisitive type
I decided to go and see what was happening. A man stood on a box in the Palace
Square laughing. I asked someone who had been standing there what was going on.
He told me the man had been howling for nearly half an hour. Siva was dead, I
was told, and this man was worshiping a new god in the manner proscribed.
At first I thought nothing of it. Cults were nothing new, although they had been
springing up with increasing frequency. How the masses found out about Siva was
perplexing. I thought that news would take longer to reach Bastion. I had been
back less than a week.
Still, that laughing man seemed very earnest. When I made my way to the front,
to talk to the man, he stopped his manic giggling. He looked me in the eyes and
pointed north. Then, breaking eye contact, continued his cackle.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Once, a long time ago in the Library of Bastion, Nog told me a curious thing. He
said that it was only after a fire can new things grow in a forest. The trees,
he continued, block the sunlight from reaching the smaller plants, and they grab
all the nutrients.
If there was one unintended consequence of the death of Siva it was that. His
war on magic hoarded those nutrients, and his physical presence crowded all the
other Immortals out, even Smote.
One could look at this as from the point of view of the gardener. The gardener
is the master of his domain, a god unto the ground. When he tills the soil he
imparts his will to it. But what takes hold in freshly prepared soil? Without
directions from the gardener it is the weed. That pernicious brute that consumes
all the nutrients so that it might live, uncaring that it does so at the expense
of the other plants.
When Siva died he scoured the soil, creating new opportunities. But what took
his place was not the monolithic being that Siva was. Instead it was the weeds,
the new Immortals. An entirely new pantheon was created.
When I came to this island it was governed through the forces of Order and
Chaos, Creation and Destruction. Smote and Siva. When Mephiston and Rimbol
ascended, they upset that balance.
I suppose it was inevitable that Siva died. With new players on the stage he
couldn't be balanced, counteracted. What took his place, the new Immortals, they
also couldn't be controlled. But, like the weed, their insidious growth chokes
out the life from established, benign plantings. The new Immortals strangled the
life from their Elders. The weed doesn't care for the tree, but then again, the
fire cares for neither.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I was sleeping in my cabin outside of Bastion, having returned after another
successful adventure when I heard the pitter-patter of feet, as if a child were
running up and down my hallway. As I got up to investigate the lanterns and
fireplace in my room flared to life and there was Rimbol sitting above my floor.
I say "above" because he although his legs were crossed under him, he was
floating a good meter above my floor.
"The new Immortals have gone too far Duiker," Rimbol said.
"Get out," I responded.
Rimbol smiled and said, "Duiker, your adventures are known throughout this land.
We need you to become Ascendant and fight those who would upset the balance in
the Pantheon."
This time I said nothing. Rimbol sighed and did his disappearing act again.
Two nights later, asleep again, I was awoken by a deep, booming voice. Standing
in my room, was a tall, simply dressed man, who I knew to be Smote from the
friezes in his temple. I had never met him, and was humbled that he would visit
me.
"What is it with you Elders? Can't you let a man sleep?" I asked.
Humbled, but still angry to have been woken up in the middle of the night. Smote
smiled, and asked me to become Ascendant, just as Rimbol had.
"Why would I want to become like Rimbol or Mephiston?
"That power is long gone, used up. And good riddance, for it caused the
breaking. What you will become is not an Elder God, but instead an Ascendant
Warrior, a champion for the Elders," Smote answered.
Smote laid out his case honestly, and if I had reservations about helping
Rimbol, well, Smote seemed to be an Elder I could trust, that I could follow. He
spent the night telling me what I was to do to enter his service as an Ascendant
Warrior.
I decided then I could not let the new Immortals choke the life from the Elders,
|
