Ｔｈｅ Ｂｌａｃｋ Ｇｒｉｍｏｉｒｅ ｏｆ Ｈｅｌｌｉｓｄａｌｒ
Night has turned into day, and after darkness I hope for light.
|A ᴛʜᴇ ʀᴇᴍɴᴀɴᴛs ᴏғ ᴀ ᴊᴏᴜʀɴᴀʟғᴏʟᴅᴇᴅ ᴀɴᴅ ᴘʟᴀᴄᴇᴅ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ʜᴇᴀʀᴛ ᴏғ ᴛʜᴇ ʙᴏᴏᴋ ʙᴇᴀʀɪɴɢ ᴡᴏʟғ ᴇᴍʙʟᴇᴍ ɪɴ ᴀʀɢᴇɴᴛ ᴡᴀx|
(https://i.ibb.co/Ss3Vw0t/FE0-A551-A-9963-41-B2-82-CD-FD96-DE4-AF343.png)
What Dark God's have I indeed offended? What unknown atrocity have I committed that my tortured nights be thus accompanied by the fearful howling of fen-wolves? My time is short, this I know, and I must complete as much as I can before my soul is torn away by their hoarfrost envenomed maws. The sun's days are numbered upon the earth, and the stars, they shall turn black as light is forgotten. The heavens storm-crested by the obsidian wings of fiends; with no order and the spheres are unbalanced, wandering. The Abyss and its Kingdoms, a pit of pandemonium without rule, unfettered from lofty black mithril chains. The living shall be cast to the Tempest, and the Dead liberated to rule as Kings. I can hardly recognize my own voice. Standing here upon the thresholds of the earth and the Sea of Shadows, Oblivion yawns wide before me! The gates have been broken! And I fear that all I have seen is nothing compared to what is yet to come. Within these pages is all I have seen; I can only pray these scrolls reach safe hands. Time is of the essence.
Ezvan Caengurd, Shadow Mage and Soothsayer of the Hollowvales.
Iᴛ ɪs ᴛʜᴇ ɪɴɪϙᴜɪᴛʏ ᴏғ ᴍᴀɴ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ᴜʀɢᴇs ʜɪᴍ ᴛᴏ ᴛʜᴇsᴇ sʜᴀᴅᴏᴡʏ ɢᴀᴛᴇs﹐ sᴇᴇᴋɪɴɢ ᴏᴘɪᴀᴛᴇ ᴅʀᴇᴀᴍs ᴀɴᴅ ᴛʜᴇ ᴀᴘᴘᴇᴀʟɪɴɢ ᴇᴍʙʀᴀᴄᴇ ᴏғ ᴏʙʟɪᴠɪᴏɴ. Kɴᴏᴡ ᴛʜᴀᴛ I ᴀᴍ ɴᴏ Sᴀɪɴᴛ ғᴏʀ I ʜᴀᴠᴇ ᴄᴀᴠᴏʀᴛᴇᴅ ʙᴇɴᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴛʜᴇ ᴠᴏɪᴅɪᴄ ᴍᴏᴏɴ ᴡɪᴛʜ ʀᴇᴘᴇʟʟᴇɴᴛ ғɪᴇɴᴅs﹐ ᴀɴᴅ ʟɪʙᴇʀᴀᴛᴇᴅ ᴠɪʀɢɪɴs ғʀᴏᴍ ᴛʜᴇ ʙᴜʀᴅᴇɴ ᴏғ ᴛʜᴇɪʀ ᴍᴀɪᴅᴇɴʜᴏᴏᴅ. Aɴᴅ ʏᴇᴛ I ᴀᴍ ᴄᴏɴsɪᴅᴇʀᴇᴅ ᴀ ᴍᴀɴ.
In the flickering flame of candle, through the smoke of hemlock and nightshade shrines of loathsomeness, I have seen lands ravaged by evil conjurations and spells, scorched black by flame and burning embers that descend from the sky. Ash raining from the skies and panic among the people. Mother, Father, Mage and Priest must calm them, and take this scroll of which he must copy in the writing of his own hand, in his own blood and read the spells therein so that the people may not be harmed, for a great sword will appear in the sky, a signal to the dark ones. This will be the first omen, and great destruction will fall upon our cities, bequeathing them unto the embrace of shadows. The sun shall burn like soot, fire shall fall from the spheres- no plight will quell the uprising of the evil's dawn if these are not heeded. Watch well the stars, for the Spear of the Dark Gods shall strike the heart of Corvinus, causing the bloodshed of many sacrifices, not only of animals, but of men, woman and child. When the lance pierces the throat of Aztatha, there will be great difficulty in the houses of Kings and brother will rise up against brother... for war and blight ravages the lands. The night has now grown silent, the howling of wolves of Hellisdalr have grown quiet and scarcely heard- perhaps they searched for another? Fever has once again broken over my solemn brow and a shadow casts malevolent images over these pages as I write. A sign that my Gods are no longer with me let alone within these sacred walls, and my runes of protection hold no power over the ascending darkness. No longer do I dwell in the House of Norvergr, my books have lost light- they settle upon their shelves like forgotten lore, and I am sickened by what voices I hear in my head, the voices of my family and the voices of my brethren... screaming until their last breath. Did I not understand their untimely, unnatural death? Of course, it was my dagger that danced over their throats during the witching hour. Can these demons, who wait in the darkness, take on so viciously the human voices of souls my hands have severed? Precious and beloved necks snapped... eyes torn from sockets where I have placed gold coins so that perhaps the Underworld would welcome them, that they shall not have to be witness to the black sun and the arrival of darkness...and what death shall be wrought in his black ephemeral hands? Through the smoke of my delirium fog, the stars grow dim in their places, and the sun is eclipsed by the moon as though a veil were blown across its flame, what I now call the Black sun. The 'Great Wolf' has swallowed the solar sphere and no light dawns to dispel the creeping darkness. Fiends and demons approach the circumference of my threshold, strange shadows on my door and walls, and the light from the window grows increasingly dim. A wind has risen, its unfurling maws grinning with hatred, dark waters stir, and I am but a minion to this awakening Black God...a madman, a murderer, night incarnate. Again the wolves carry my name in their midnight speeches and that quiet, subtle voice summoning me from afar with unholy impatience. The weight of my soul will decide its final resting place, but not before I am judged for my deeds. Surely it is an illusion that stood before me only moon hours ago. An angel smiling and serenely reached out for my forehead, and I did attempt to flinch away from the touch of those fingers encompassed in a glow of silken gold. But he was too swift and his hand came to rest upon my fevered brow easing my soul but for the tiniest of moments. The words not gone, but hidden, buried in the hearts and souls of goodly men such as myself come unbidden to my mind, and I felt a wetness, realizing that tears fell from this celestial creature onto my raiment. I went to speak, and he shook his head stopping me-- then the terrible words I had not wished to hear fell upon my regretful ears. "Thou dost see the truth beloved child, record it accurately for it may be all that saves those who walk in the light." He vanished then, and again and I was left feeling alone, naked before this onslaught of misery. An angel in the utmost of cherished love had broken my fevered brow, and yet I cast his name into the pit of my damnation as more fevered visions engrave on my mind. I am now the wanderer in my solitary confinement. I pray the Gods that I am saved and not left to perish, but I did after all break the sacred vows of the Brotherhood, by seeking power over the realms for my King. No longer do I savour the dark hours nor the warmth of sun. The lines of my life have been obliterated by my wanderings in the Shade Lands, over the letters written in the heavens by the Gods. I fear for my flesh, but I fear for my spirit more. May the Gods be ever merciful unto me! May I escape the jaws of 'The Great Wolf', may the Gods grant me death before the true darkness rules Ayenee.But oh, she, the one he yearns for the most. My Dark Queen. I will not say her name, for my adoration for her shall keep her for myself. It is her breath and voice which easily coerce me out into the night; for she is the moon, the maiden of ice and blood. I have no hope to deny her, no control to stay myself from Death's darkly curtained halls when she beckons to me enter it with promises of salvation...of love... if I cannot turn from her, then how can I hope to have power over the fiends that plague the mind and body, screaming vile names into the air of the night? What comes on the storm in perfumed seduction can only be slain by him, who knows the storm; and what comes with the darkness can only be slain by him who knows this... darkness.Again the black sun crosses in deathly omen, a mocking temptress of war, whose blood should never be bequeathed; she rides the tempest bearing the mark of his betrothed. I must focus on my calling. All I can do is burn aglaophotis in the midnight hour, for the stars of the great night show the falcon is slain. Four spirits of the four spheres manifested- the first key, the Dead shall be summoned in the hour of an Emperor dethroned. It is he that takes of her blood shall be the second key of man's fall. The awakening.
Here in this Black Tome of the darkest rites, it is said:The shadows fall across the land
from where man shall take his last stand
when sun does fade and light does go
to where shall souls' life doth finally flow.
The angels weep for chaos walks
and souls of men eternally stalks
this doom shall rise from greed and pain
till light does shine on Ayenee again.
An King's heart shall reach for she
fruit of the furthest fallen be
and by her side firmly will stand
as she claims Ayenee's hallowed land.
His brethren's horn shall sound out loud
and death shall loosen from its shroud.
Far away in distant empire
a potent evil will aspire
comets move through darkened skies
the land is full of hate and lies.
The final touch a drop of blood
will break the bonds allowing flood
of hidden darkness to mortal plain
and that day shall see hope be slain.
I have read this filthy tome, and I wish to tear it to shreds but my hand is stopped. How much longer can this nightmare last? My voice sounding as if it comes from the very tomb, tries to scream to he who has been my strength, and eventually I somehow croak, "Why hast thou laid this burden upon my shoulders?" but I know that I cannot be answered, for the horn of Elrum is yet to heard, and the King of Kings to lead the charge against this corruption, with armies the like to which have never before seen.
Again I hear the haunted cries of my brethren, coins embedded in their eyes. Broken necks and skulls beaten in by the chapel's heavy golden candleholders, they too shall see what my eyes are cursed with. I had hoped they would be spared; they cannot even be buried for this soil is dank with black magic. I wish the carrion crows would peck at the remains; it would save my scent from the smell of rotting corpses. I have used the last of ink, and I have to resort to the use of blood- though it isn't mine.
No light of will raise our fallen sun, and we are already dead, because his light is gone. My light as well must dim for want of breath, yet enter: share our darkness, and our death. Again I scribe another scrap from hell's table, or verses of some hallucination from the foul spirit crouching inside like a poisonous toad, eating what little remains of my soul- there is nothing left, nothing to praise but the perfect universal dark where there is no need for light and there, we shall be made perfect in his image.
I had a dream. Or was it a hallucination? I am too exhausted to tell. A figure dressed in darkness with pallid arms held towards a swirling vortex of darkness:
"Rise to the darkness, reborn, and feathered in the colours of his Godly fire: For what was true at day is true as well at night, The universe is ever an immortal phoenix, whose death is but his birth. Nor is the earth an exile from his breast, where he spreads darkness in black wings across all space: where his radiance eclipses the very sun, there dwells all darkness by the moon. Flawed, fallen, mutable. Yet still immortal through eternity, dying never, yet no less the flesh from whence springs night. And where the light ceases. Where even one poor mote of dust, shall flaw the sphere of silence; there may grow some feigned sun, some earth, and fairest life. And I, the burning eyes of darkness, chaos and abyss, see all of these. Rise then with me. Rise to the immortal phoenix of darkness, I proclaim, and snuff that radiance in the hands of war."
All I could decipher from the dream before a brutal sickness took hold of me was that the chains of chaos swill bind sun and moon, and the darkness triumphs over light...the Black Sun, smothering the world in darkness for untold years. "Sol obscurus Mihi Potentiae tuae!" Those words still chant in my head, such a wretched, tormented spirit I am, feasting on the rotting flesh of my brothers, boiling skulls for nigromantic rites, bones for sortilege my divination tools. A red-rusted nail struck thrice won't save me, baneful influences and emanations now rule these vast halls coveted in blood and gore... lynched wind chimes of decaying hides and mutilated bodies. The last drop of blood spilled, shall be mine.
Hᴇ sʜᴀʟʟ ɢʟᴜᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ɪɴᴇғғᴀʙʟᴇ ᴇᴠɪʟ ᴡʜɪᴄʜ ʟᴜʀᴋs ғᴏʀᴇᴠᴇʀ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ʜᴇᴀʀᴛ ᴏғ Aʏᴇɴᴇᴇ﹐ ғᴏʀ sᴏ ɪᴛ ɪs ᴡʀɪᴛᴛᴇɴ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ Bʟᴀᴄᴋ Bᴏᴏᴋ ᴏғ Hᴇʟʟɪsᴅᴀʟʀ...
When those who carry darkness inside
shall walk the lands both far and wide
and blood be given and blood be stole.
Then darkness finds its dangerous goal
the wails pain and evil grows.
The suffering loss and mortal woes
on raven's wings shall death alight.
Throughout this woeful, dreadful plight
such lamentation and such pain
Doomsday melodious refrain.
With a groan I woke, lips chewed to a bloody pulp, the rasp of my breathing so loud that my brethren must come to see if I need aid, yet somehow, I feel them ignorant of my plight. Torn between heaven and hell, the potency of my sight's purpose. Doom's hand dragging my soul back and forth like a rabid hound at the hind of prey. Reality and nightmare leaving me adrift, amidst seas of temptations and terrors not made for the voyage of any man.My body trembled as a laugh escaped, the chuckling of a madman rattling bones to sorcery chants. What perversions of the spirit ware engaged in the decrepit husk of this broken man? Demons and phantoms assault me, pressing and parting my threshold of endurance, introducing me to a burlesque theatre of pain. Images taint my waking hours and I dare sleep to the tune of stagnant blood dripping, splashing over the clay-earthen floor. Do they see the darkness? Do they speak the names of darkness with tongueless maws? In clay urns I keep those tongues of speech in case the dead wish to speak. In the onyx-veils of night-tide, I hear the wolves howl my name.... does the scent of my brother's blood excite them as it does me? I wonder....Visions and dancing images drift, talons of smoke twisted to form vivid pictures when wraith gates open and evil walks the earth. The banners of Chaos flagging in the hot breath of grinning unfurled winds of hatred; life smothered by thousands of blood-drenched gleaming swords raised high against the Dragon. The moon crossing the sun in the golden hour, no longer shall that gilded chariot journey, bringing day to darkness. The Black Sun signifying the end of day, the coming of Dark Gods, the blade has fallen, severing the napes of Elders, extinction. Light that had ruled shall no more. Black Sun, Black Moon. Brooding over countries, realms and kingdom- the Imperial fall from thrones. A crown broken. Blood bequeathed and blood bestowed, talon and by thorn it shall spill-staining the lawless earth, in a sea of blood.
Doom, oh doom thy face I see
I know thou shalt ignore my plea
to save this world from thy disgrace.
I would give up souls hallowed place
but knowest deep within my heart
that souls shall be but ripped apart
in manifest ways of pain and woe.
Oh for death could I but go
the death of kings the death of men
the death of lovers, hopes and friends.
The dark of sky the sun hidden
dreams vanished harm unbidden.
Oh my soul doth scream in pain
I wish that I could just refrain
of watching babes and youth so torn
amidst the throes of doom reborn.
The blood, oceans of blood awash
the lands shall shine under the red gloss
the dead shall walk upon the land
and evils laughter oh so grand.
One drop of blood is all that waits
one drop of blood raises the stakes.
One sired by angel, mothered by doom
her blood shall fall and start the gloom.
On that day oh woe for all
that tiny drop of bloods long fall
onto the earth below its path
a shudder and a painful laugh.
The world will slip from lights strong sway
and love and hope shall fade away.
The dripping of blood from where sweat would does normally flow. My heart pounding violently in my chest, so hard is its pounding that I wonder if I shall die before I get to write all that must be said. I shudder and see that where I have cut myself, so that I have something to write with, has ceased its flow, I have to scratch at its surface until rich red blood appears again. I dip my quill into the thick liquid and continue this work of despair.My shadow lurks on the wall, an effigy of darkness produced by the overture of candle, the light I dare to privilege myself with. With each written word my burden weighs greater. Misery, there is no Lord, Gods or salvation in this House of Pain; hope imprisoned in that slime-crypt chest held in the grasp of a worthless Goddess. If I do not finish this task, what is there left to hold onto? Time is short and mankind does not know nor understand the evil that awaits it from every side, from every open gate, every broken barrier and from every mindless acolyte at the altars of madness. Let all who read this journal be warned that the habitation of men, are seen and surveyed from a time before time. It is they who need to be turned to, in the darkest hours.Beware those who seek revenge for that forgotten battle. Know then that I have trod the paths of the labyrinths, descending unto the foul places of night and eternal thirst- beyond the Shadowguard walls, of Blackheilm which was built in shadows in the days before the first Shadow Emperor. I have found fear in the hour past time. These secrets I give at the pain of my life and never to be revealed to the profane, banished, or the worshipper's who wrought darkness. All will be lost and my words written in vain, fruitless in attempt to warn. My dark hour grows darker still; I am no man without any soul... Cras mors hodie sol. Clavus ferreus malleus ferreus, ferrum rufulum ferrum nobilis!
*
Mʏ sʜᴀᴍᴇ ɪs ɴᴏᴡ ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴅ﹐ ᴛʜᴇ ʙʟᴀᴍᴇ ᴍʏ ʜᴀɴᴅ ᴀɴᴅ ᴛʜᴇ ʙʟɪɢʜᴛ ᴍʏ ʜᴇᴀʀᴛ.
Again they came in the night, and butchered several of my kin, the terrified who were marginally spared escaped with the first wan glow of dawn. The fiends seemed oddly an extension of the night, as if their warped forms were somehow created of the darkness and its hosts of ghastly shadows Even as I gazed directly at them, I found I could not truly focus on their hellish forms... their bodies appearing to flicker and shift like the ripples of a mirage-haze upon an arid desert.My ammunition, discharged in vain, is all but spent... and now, as night unfurls its wicked wings once more to enshroud this barren and abandoned place, I wait alone for the sunrise I fear I shall never see. The darkness masses about me, a strange miasma grips my mind in tenebrous tendrils, and I behold again that horrifying dread.It is all true, everything I feared, everything which I dared imagine only in the darkest embrace of narcotic malignity. I pray that no ill-fated soul ever again stumbles as close as I to those demons that wait between the incorporeal veils of light and shadow.I, Ezvan Caengurd, of the Hollowvale would offer up a prayer to the divinity which once I worshipped, but I know it would echo faintly through the nether reaches of the merciless cosmos. Here I scrawl this final entry in my journal, as the sun sinks with a chilling inevitability. I know the shadowy figures shall soon return to claim me in the endeavour to silence my visions. I can only fortify myself for the onset of the night, weary, weak with only my feeble wards to protect me. Even as I tremble, the quivering wake of fear that grips my cowardly heart... I know that Malice seeks my flesh and feeble soul to wear as a mantle for the treachery of my crimes.
With the pages of the blasphemous book I have placed this journal in the faith it will find righteous possession and my pain, madness and loss was not in vain. May the Gods bless you and keep you safe. OOC NOTE: This has been written for the means of story ideas, future plots and intrigue. Should you use it, mention it or implement it into your writing, please be use to quote reference. This does have a point and it will be presented in the roleplay yet to come. This is a written account of a Mage in the Brotherhood of the Hollowvales, an order of Holy Men that aided in the protective wards that were positioned all over Ayenee in the beginning years of Nesentra and the before the coronation of Varsinax.
The order itself was corrupted under possession that led to several tomes of sorcery and the Dark Arts, under the influence of Greater Demons and ArchDevils and ultimately ended with the execution of its last brothers. The tome holds all the rites and ceremonies to bring out Oblivion, infuse one with the greatest of diabolical powers and bring forth the greatest of their innermost desires. But with a price.
The Grimoire is said to be hidden in the massive library vaults of Castle Ayenee; this rumour however is untrue but its location is not entirely a secret within the halls of Blackheilm.