RP:Intersection in Real Time, Part I: The Fall

Part of the What You Leave Behind Arc

Summary: Esche reflects on his past. Arc-spanning secrets are revealed. Revelations abound.

The One Who Is Torn Apart

Memories. Tragic and grand. Millennia have passed and yet my mind is still rife with memories. Among humans, there is a tendency to remember things subjectively. The passage of time distorts their pictures, such that any artist’s rendering proves unreliable. Among the Ishaarite elves, recollections have always been flawless. If we can remember something, we remember it in full. It remains as vivid as freshest paint on the canvas.

I remember in full that I am the last Ishaarite elf in the world.

Ishaara, Before the Fall

“You’re late,” Nyrene scolded playfully.

Behind her was the glory of the Ishaarite Empire, its glistening towers and magical veins of electricity which provided society with its many splendors. The manufactured mana stones were but a small price to pay in the minds of the majority. The elves had long ceased to view spirits as equals. With the passage of time, the two races’ long-ago friendship had faded for all but the eldest on either side. Where once the elves lived in harmony with nature, their wooden shacks stretching across verdant forest canopies, they now occupied ethereal structures that scraped the sky built where gorgeous flowers once bloomed upon the limbs of a veritable sea of trees. The stones made this possible. The spirits that were slaughtered, distilled into a pure mineral and suffering a sickening afterlife trapped inside those stones, made this possible. A war had erupted between the spirits and the elves, and the elves were by all reasonable estimates utterly victorious. They harnessed the spirits’ own powers and used those powers against them. They, unlike their enemies, stopped at nothing to achieve their goals. By the time the spirits learned to fight back on the elves’ immortal terms, they had been reduced to a piteous band of small-time terrorists. Only a handful of Ishaarite elves dared to stand against their Empire to protect the last free spirits and free the many who had been imprisoned to extract their powers.

Esche Connail Falon was one of those elves.

“I am merely following the course of history,” Esche replied to Nyrene with a smirk. “After all, I have always been late. Who am I to challenge tradition?” The question was tongue-in-cheek, of course. Nyrene and Esche, top-ranking scientists within the Imperial Ministry of Progress, lived covert double lives as criminals rebelling against the emperor in a bid to save the Ishaarite spirits from extinction. The tradition of their genocide was as deeply-set in elven society as the rising of the sun. “Tell me, my love, what is the news of the day?”

“Nothing holy,” Nyrene said, suddenly serious. “The emperor has deployed his personal guard to Shevat and Adar. Once both cities fall, our power base will have eroded completely. None will be left to stand for the spirits. Relene and Levant and Halycanos and the rest of them, they will all be killed. And us with them, although I fear this little and less with each passing day.”

“Our failures do not guarantee defeat.” Esche straightened his jade green robe and fixed his beautiful emerald eyes on his wife, gently wrapping his arms around her. “Even should Shevat fall, Adar’s walls are laced with the self-same spiritual magic that the Empire has at its disposal. Our allies can hold out there for months while we put the finishing touches on the project.”

“The project, the project, the project.” Nyrene pulled away from Esche’s embrace. “Relene is dying, Esche. Her water magics are all but drained for our project. We are killing the very spirits we swore to defend.”

Esche sighed his way into a chair made of processed metals. “I know,” he said solemnly. “I feel her weakening with every subsequent test. But she is giving her life freely for the survival of her species. She can walk away at any time. We both know she will not. There is a difference between what we are doing and what the Empire has done for centuries. Do not forget that, Nyrene. Please.”

It was a hollow response and Esche knew it as soon as he said it. He was fighting a battle to convince the both of them that the project was still worth the cost, and he was losing that battle. Dozens of spirits had died during the construction of the Rubedo. Even now, Esche, Nyrene, and their colleagues in the Ministry and abroad weren’t sure if the Rubedo would be successful. To permanently sever the link between the elves and stones -- to transform the entirety of the Ishaarite Empire in a flash by removing the reason for spirit genocide -- was as daring a plan as any elf had ever dreamed. The consequences of malfunction were all but unfathomable. The Rubedo could simply fail to do anything, but its blast would still spread across the country, alerting authorities to the secretive resistance and ensuring their deaths. Far worse was the potential for the Rubedo to obliterate Ishaara. If the attunement was even slightly misaligned with the stars, if a comet should unexpectedly cross the night sky, if a single spell was miscast, the experiment could end all life in the realm. It was not something the resistance wished to remember, but as Ishaarite elves they could not forget it.

“I worry for Halycanos, too,” Nyrene went on undaunted. “As a fire spirit, he has always had a certain disposition toward passion, and he has watched too many of his friends perish recently. He is less cooperative this week than the last, and less cooperative last week than the week before it. Others on the team are considering… rebranding him.”

“You mean removing his memories,” Esche growled. “Destroying his identity. Leaving him fractured and lost. No. That cannot be. Once we cross such ethical lines we become no better than those we seek to dethrone.”

“I cannot take another failure.” Nyrene was cold, distant. She stepped briskly toward the huge prismatic cylinder at the center of the room and basked in the pulsing white light it contained. The Rubedo was almost finished. Levant and Halycanos swirled inside it, streaks of pearl and crimson dancing within the light as they tested its resonance. Other spirits, their colors as varied as a rainbow’s, swirled along with them. Another scientist entered the room, scribbled a few things down on parchment while observing the Rubedo, and exited.

“Losing Nibel was hard on us all,” Esche said, “but none of us can know the extent of your pain. I am so sorry, Nyrene. Your family is…” He almost completed the cliche. ‘A better place.’ He decided not to indulge in the easy path. Nyrene deserved more than platitudes. “...will never be forgotten. Nibel’s population was almost completely unaffiliated with the resistance, and yet the Empire burned them all. We will not forgive this. We will succeed.”

Nyrene turned away from the Rubedo and grasped Esche with sudden vigor. And yet it was not she who cried in his arms, but he who cried holding her. Her strength was in her ability to remain collected even in the darkest of times. Esche harbored no such power. “Enastal enasazi,” Nyrene soothed him.

Enastal Enasazi

There is no truly accurate translation of enastal enasazi from Ishaarite elven to the common tongue. The closest comparison I can think of is to say that the dead will never be forgotten and the deaths to come will be just as poignant in the pursuit of a noble cause. Since coming ashore to Lithrydel, I have muttered these words to my partner, the surviving spirit Levant, nearly every evening. As Kahran’s war has waged, I have found further and further reason for enastal enasazi with each passing report of casualties on the allied side and among innocents.

I am responsible for these deaths. I will continue to be responsible for the many deaths to come. And when I have punished Kahran for the very massacres I have given him the means to commit, and when Lithrydel’s magical energies are tapped into, and that storied land is vanquished for the resurrection of my beloved Ishaara, I do not believe I will live to smile once more upon Ishaarite shores. I am not yet sure how I will end myself, but end myself I will. I do not deserve to live in the world I have sinned to summon, and no amount of platitudes from Levant will convince me otherwise. My ancient morals have faded and decayed. I will stop at nothing to fix my mistake, and then I will fix my final mistake -- my sins -- through suicide.

After I am gone, after the Lithrydelians’ minds are wiped, their personalities and identities destroyed, their bodies inhabited by the elves and spirits I mean to revive, the world will know peace. Having experienced the Fall, the revived elves will understand the price of their own sins. Many among those I have chosen to return will be my colleagues in the resistance, but I cannot allow other perspectives to vanish forever. I will bring back the peoples of frontier villages, and cities like Nibel and Shevat and Adar, and they can decide for themselves how to treat the spirits. If they choose poorly, if they wish to assert their dominance through greed, I have every confidence Levant will set them to rights.

The Sealing of Halycanos

“Your anger burns brightly, but you must cling to your sanity, my friend. You must.” Esche pleaded, his thin arms sprawled across the Rubedo’s cylinder in despair. Halycanos did not stay inside for long. The elf jumped back in surprise when the spirit left the cylinder and assumed its beastly form before him. Its horns were black and its eyes were blood red. Even its muscles were more chiseled than the last time Esche had seen them. Everything about Halycanos had changed.

A rolling ball of fire formed in Halycanos’ clawed clutches. Several scientists fled in anguish, remembering all too keenly what Halycanos had done to the scientist who had checked up on it earlier that morning. Esche stepped closer to the wrathful spirit instead, flanked by Levant’s luminescent form.

“They are going to rebrand you,” Esche warned. “The resistance has voted and a decision has been made. Our allies are no longer as conscionable as they once were, and Nyrene and I are not so great in number as to stop them. Your only recourse is to run. I beg of you, Halycanos, do not do this. Do not go on the offensive. Do not murder another elf. Just run.”

“Your mortal impudence no longer amuses me,” Halycanos bellowed, the fire in its fist expanding. “You mortals are no longer friends. You have become tools. And I will use you as tools. I will murder you all. And once I am finished here, I will kill the primitives in all the other realms, from Vanshelle to Tseng-Wu to the emerald hills of Catal. You are despicable. -I- will rebrand -you.-”

“It’s too dangerous,” one of the frightened scientists shouted while shivering. “Forget rebranding. Stone it!”

“You monsters!” Esche ran straight past Halycanos’ ball of fire en route to his peers, his staff held high and a bolt of lightning beginning to form upon its crest. “You will do no such thing!”

Esche’s world went bright and dizzying. He was struck by Halycanos’ flame, and only a nigh-instinctual protective spell saved him from being burned to a crisp. The spell was not enough to keep him conscious. As his vision dulled and his body twirled into a crumple, the last thing he saw was Halycanos ripping two scientists to shreds while the rest of them ruthlessly drew the vengeful spirit into a stone, sealing it perhaps forever.

The Dulling Vision

I was naive. My own friends had betrayed me. It felt to me as though Nyrene and I were the last two elves who truly believed in our cause. The resistance remained, but its moral compass was long past broken. And as their attacks grew more deadly, their members were steadily snuffed out, and it was not long before my own role was discovered and I was ousted from the Ministry, a death mark on my head. If it weren’t for Levant’s intervention, my love and I would surely have perished the moment we were approached by the Emperor’s servants.

We ran. We ran through the cities and into the trees. We hid. We hid until we came upon Adar. With Shevat fallen, Adar was the final resistance stronghold, and the home of many surviving spirits. But as the resistance had changed, so too did its local leaders.

Nyrene's Promise

“Surrender is our only remaining option,” Meru Falon declared. Her council nodded almost unanimously. The only elf to shake his head was Esche. Her son.

“You have all of you surrendered already,” Esche shouted. His voice was filled with pain. He spat upon the flames of the well-stoked fire pit and exited into the cold of night. Outside on the red-bricked road he espied Nyrene seated cross-legged in prayer. Esche knew not to whom she prayed, for the Ishaarite elves had refused to believe in gods beyond themselves many centuries before either of them were born. He could have asked her, but he didn’t. He didn’t wish to disturb her in the least.

But Nyrene was nevertheless disturbed. Seeing Esche, she smiled a false smile and stood upright. “They have voted,” she surmised. She didn’t need to ask the outcome. It seemed to Esche that whatever his current expression, it was more than enough to inform her in full.

“Adar will open its gates at dawn. And the woman who gave me life will offer us up to the Empire for death.”

“You once told me that no one could know the extent of my pain when we lost Nibel.” Nyrene quietly approached him, wrapping her arms around him as she always did before saying something bold. “It wasn’t for the slaughter of my village that I was struck hardest. It was a difficult blow, to be sure. But it was my father’s surrender that knocked the breath from my lungs. Everything my family stood for became ashes in my mouth. Father had written to me days before surrendering, detailing how and why he was willing to cast aside our ideals to save our skin. In time, I learned to appreciate his stance. But I can never forgive him. I do not know if it is truth that your mother will turn us over, but I know it does not matter. When Nibel opened her gates, my father and all the rest of them were put to the sword and spell. Whatever the Emperor’s terms may be, that will assuredly occur here tomorrow at dawn.” She paused, breathing in his scent. “Now you know the extent of my pain, Esche. Share this with me.”

“Your final hours should not be spent in sorrow,” Levant said, appearing out of thin air beside them. His voice was as gentle as a serene wind.

“Our final hours?” Nyrene bristled, detaching herself from Esche’s arms to his chagrin. “I do not intend to die, Levant. And I will not allow either of you to die in my stead. I cannot take further failure. We will succeed,” she told Esche pointedly.

“In case you haven’t noticed, my love, we are trapped inside a city which means to offer itself up to imperial justice.”

“Your observational sense has always been your keenest trait besides your jawline, but tonight you are a dullard,” Nyrene retorted. She paced back and forth, her eyes steely with determination. “Levant, your ancestors knew the artistry of holy teleportation. You will tap into this long-dormant ability and return us to the Rubedo. We will do battle with the Emperor’s forces, even just the three of us, if necessary. We will complete… the experiment.”

Levant shimmered but shook, his ethereal form distorting in shame. “The abilities of my ancestors do not coincide with my own, Nyrene. That ‘artistry’ is not mine own.”

“I will not accept that and neither will Esche.” Esche didn’t mind her speaking for him. When Nyrene spoke for him, she was wrong about his thoughts as often as she was right, but whenever she was wrong he soon realized that he was the one in error. She had always renewed his sense of purpose. Tonight was no different. He steadied himself and nodded diligently.

“Elven tenacity,” Levant murmured. “Mortal determination. I admire your resolve. I will endeavor to fulfill your request, though it may take us until dawn at best for me to do so.”

“Then you will begin at once,” Nyrene ordered.

Hubris

I was naive.

The Fall

Elven dead lined the spartan white halls of the Ministry of Progress on every floor. Elven soldiers, defending their Empire as they believed they must. Elven scientists who did the same. A few of Adar’s rebels had heard Nyrene’s proclamation and joined in her cause. They, too, were dead.

But Esche, Nyrene, and Levant had only fought a few of the men and women whose corpses lay splattered across the floors. For the surviving spirits of Ishaara had heard of Halycanos’ sealing and the deaths of many of his brethren by the machinations of the Rubedo, and they had come to destroy it before Esche and Nyrene could activate it.

Levant had fought gallantly to protect his elven comrades. For every elf his holy magics slew he was forced to slay three of his own kind. Now the spirit lay grievously wounded beside the Rubedo as Nyrene plugged away at the machine’s runic inputs. More vengeful spirits shoved their way through the vast chamber’s multiple entryways, and Esche and Levant were all but spent. In fact, in a turn of irony, the only people now standing between them and annihilation were the Ministry’s last remaining soldiers and scientists, who had begun to inadvertently shelter them in their desperate struggle to survive the onslaught.

Emperor Verioch’s angry red face appeared upon a runic viewing portal, oversized and with elven ears twitching. Ishaarite technology at its finest -- the Emperor could “broadcast” himself anywhere throughout the Empire on the turn of a silver coin. Tonight, he had every reason in the world to tap into that technology. “This is your final warning,” his regal voice echoed across the chamber. “All spirits, as well as the renegades Esche Connail Faron and Nyrene Kiros, will cease hostilities and turn yourselves over to the armed forces gathered around the Ministry. Failure to comply will result in the destruction of the Ministry and an end to all your miserable lives. In the name of the Holy Ishaarite Empire, so help me all-seeing ancestors, I will personally give the order.”

“That man is vile,” Levant muttered between shallow breaths. “He only issues warning so that my kind can be enslaved. He only tempts them with life so that their lives can be snuffed out like candles in due time. Don’t surrender, Esche. Pray, do not surrender.”

Esche’s decision was easy because it simply didn’t exist. Even if he had wanted to surrender, the three of them were trapped between rows of spirits who would never allow them to pass. It seemed in that purest of moments that their deaths were guaranteed regardless, and that they lived now only to activate the Rubedo. Even so, he would not have given up faith in their ideals if he had the chance. He remained silent, but gripped his staff all the more tightly, his lips trembling with hatred for the Emperor.

“This is it.” Nyrene stroked her thumb across the last runic symbols. The Rubedo stirred, its prismatic cylinder threatening to shatter in seconds. The elven soldiers made the fatal mistake of turning to face the Rubedo in horror, and the spirits carved through them like butter. Nyrene gasped and fell to the floor as the Rubedo erupted in scorching white-hot embers, shooting its considerable magics through the Ministry’s roof and into the night sky. The stars were precisely where they needed to be. No comet trails interrupted. Everything was perfectly-aligned.

Esche closed his eyes and smiled. Even as the spirits came upon him, even as they prepared to rip him apart, he knew that his life had meaning. He would save their species and restore balance to Ishaara. He had never felt prouder.

When he awoke, the pain nearly consumed him. His back was broken. His ribs were shattered. His legs were… gone. Smoke and screams filled the chamber. With all the strength he could muster he turned his head a few scant centimeters and witnessed Nyrene’s final breath. Blood gushed from her lips and her lifeless eyes stared back at him. They appeared to Esche to have reflected his own confusion.

If it weren’t for Levant’s teleportation spell, Esche would have perished when the stone pillar came down upon him. Instead he vanished, and as his friend scrambled to bring him to a golden shore far from the carnage of the scene, he witnessed in a blurred flash the complete and utter destruction of Ishaara. Every city, exploded. Every forest, ashes. Every elf, a corpse. Every spirit, a cold, dead stone. Somehow Esche Connail Faron saw the blank stares of millions of dead before him. And in that moment, and for every moment to come, Esche felt every bit as dead as the rest of them.

The Rubedo had failed.

Awakening