Ashfall: Prologue
#2 of Ashfall
Ashfall By Von Krieger
"Gods dammit!" the warrior snarled as she surveyed the towering fortress before her. There was only one way in for her today, heavily guarded, but totally wide open. She was familiar with the castle, having snuck in on several occasions, being actually invited several more, but tonight there was a whole new sort of danger that just made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.
"It's a damned dinner party, Ashe!" she scolded herself, "Lady Thanatos may be the most powerful necromancer you've ever heard of, a High Priestess of Arimus the Scythe, and had dealings in two plots that you managed to foil. But she's also the rightfully elected Arcane Protector of Haven City."
Ashe drew in another deep breath. Despite the fact that her outfit for this evening covered far more of her skin than her typical battle attire did, she felt utterly naked without her staff-spear and her usual assortment of spellbound trinkets. Despite her feelings of unease, Ashe was certain that Haven City's most powerful mage was not going to rip out her heart and devour it in front of a gathering of the city's most powerful and influential residents.
Warriors, wizards, merchants, and monsters alike had all been invited and everyone would be in their best attire and on their best behavior. Looking up out of her carriage at the roof of the now-truncated ex-skyscraper, Ashe could see the familiar green-and-black-scaled form of Calxethon seated atop what was one a helicopter landing pad. Even the great darkwyrm had left his remote mountain lair in order to attend.
Though every year there were occasional incidents, as one would expect when you brought mortal foes into close proximity, Ashe could see the sense in it. Up past the towering buildings of downtown Haven city was the black expanse of the sky, and the reasoning for tonight's gathering; the Shining Star had set beneath the horizon, while her sister the Corrupting Star shown down her cold green-blue light. Tonight the red moon Arimus would be directly overhead, the Smoking Moon's power over the summer sky above Haven City soon to wan in favor of Megatatheon, the Shining Star and brighter of the two suns in the sky.
Arimus embodied the Flame, the dark side of fire. He was of destruction, of rage, of unbridled appetites. When the world was broken and the pieces carried over into this new world it was Arimus that had taken the denizens of the Abyss and the undead under his burning wings. His worship was the acclimation of power by any means necessary. And in the midst of his 28 days as the ruling power over Haven City's skies the summoning of demons and the creation of undead would be the easiest they could possible be.
Especially with Megatatheon in Submission, the lower of the two stars in the sky. Her pure light was anathema to many of Arimus' preferred minions. Tonight was the night of the new world's two year cycle with the most potential for carnage and mayhem.
So it made sense for the Arcane Protector of Haven City to bring all the worst of the potential troublemakers under her eye, on a night where her own already incredible power would too be at its peak. The Lady's origins were unknown; she was not from the world Haven City came from, nor of the world whose people had come to call it home. Whispers told that she was a Goddess of Death from one of the many worlds whose pieces had been cast into the Void, snatched up by one of the Solar Goddesses and placed upon the strange world of Theon.
Ashe had almost grown used to the nearly empty, starless sky. The manifold points of brightness were long gone, however. They were replaced by the comforting red light of Psia, the Knowing Star, in the north and the flesh-warping purple light of Krygar, the Mutant Star in the south.
The two fixed points shone forever in the skies of Theon, the strange donut-shaped world to which Ashe and all the other residents of Haven City had been brought to. When one left the lights of the city behind, however, one could see that the night sky was not truly empty. The tiny, dim lights of comets and meteors could be seen. Ice, rock, and metal often used as tools of the Celestials. One such comet was the reason why the upper half of the skyscraper before her had been sheered off and sent toppling into other buildings.
Lailaxetheon, Ashe used her full, draconic name like most mages did, was not fond of the types of civilization and technology that her solar sister, Megatatheon, favored. She was fond of using her gathered comets to rain destruction down upon unoccupied bastions of high technology and her very light would on occasion cause metal to rust, erode, decay, or warp into another material entirely. She was least fond of iron and steel, and even her light could do little to gold, silver, and adamant. Of the Great Metals only Iron easily succumbed to Lailaxet's corruption.
Ashe's own staff-spear was tipped with an enchanted crystalline head and she found herself once more missing its familiar weight upon her back or in her hand. Lady Thanatos insisted upon no weaponry or spell-infused items being brought to her party. Any trouble that occurred would be fueled by physical power of a warrior and the inner mana reserve of a spellcaster, in most cases severely limiting the amount of destruction that could occur.
The summoner stood from her seat as her carriage moved forward, inching her closer to being the next in line to walk the red carpet into the building. Ashe sighed once more and began looking over her appearance in the full-length mirror that had been incorporated into the interior of the carriage. Likely it had been placed there for this exact purpose, each of the guest carriages was one of the Lady's and driven by one of her skeletal minions. They were well-dressed, nicely polished skeletal minions, but still uncomfortably undead creatures.
Despite feeling naked and unarmored in it, Ashe was actually rather fond of the outfit she had chosen for the party. It was of the latest style favored by the nobility in all of the Seventeen Kingdoms, crafted from one of the strange new fabrics of the technological world, called Latex.
It had actually been designed with some similarities to Ashe's usual battle garb, the lower portion of the dress was essentially a loincloth and a breechcloth, a weighted strip of fabric hanging down in front and in back, leaving Ashe's legs free and unhindered. Her top, however, was totally unlike the midriff-baring, simple tied off top that mages of her order wore.
The top of her dress was essentially a sort of jacket, albeit one that exposed a great deal of her cleavage. She supposed the combination in the heat of summer would be ill-advised for anyone else, especially in a crowded environment. But her magic, and most of her summons, were of an elemental ice and water in nature, and the flow of elemental strength through her kept her cool even in the heat of summer.
Ashe slowly turned and admired her dress, along with her thigh-high latex boots. Her combat instructor would have screamed her head off at the sight of them. Decidedly not practical for combat, but they added several inches to Ashe's already generous height and wearing them around did wonders to tighten up her rump.
Beauty was a weapon. None of her instructors had taught her that. It had taken a dire foe to teach that particular lesson. But it was one that Ashe found herself glad to have learned. Her self-admiration was helping to sooth her nerves and made her feel less twitchy without a weapon within arm's reach.
Almost unbidden the image of her foe slipped into her mind. Like many others the creature known as Dark Seraphim was a product of two worlds, half of her a feline demon known as a Rakshasa, the other half a common succubus. Summoning spells on the Faults, the areas between placed realms, was always risky. It had been made even moreso by taking place during Theon's equivalent to a full moon, when one of the twelve were directly overhead.
The Lorekeepers said that once only the two Solar Goddesses, Megatatheon and Lailaxetheon could slip between dimensions, seeking pieces of unwanted worlds cast adrift in the void, or sent their by cataclysmic spells or terrible doomsday weapons. But as time went on more of their children began to be able to do the same. Psia and Krygar, the Stellar Goddesses, had been the first to discover how. Then came the other two Comet Bearers, Xailon and Urdent, of chilling ice and living water.
The waters told their cousins and siblings of the Rains, and boastful Ursa the Storm told her fellow Warrior Moons. Soon after all knew the secret, and all sought out the means of their own amusement in the timeless emptiness between realities.
Dark Sera, as she'd come to be known, had become a disciple of Gerrig, the Lady of Lusts, and sought to aid her mistress by providing a focal point in which to bring succubi from the void to Theon.
Ashe had managed to put a stop to the summoning, disrupting it by knocking Sera into her own summoning circle. The result had not been pretty. Oh no. Sera was to pretty what the ocean was to wet. The striped succubus seemed to be the very embodiment of wicked beauty. It was almost bewitching at times.
Even now Ashe had to focus on aspects of the demon's body that she found repulsive, the hideous eyes upon her hands, her belly, her brow. Not merely satisfied with Gerrig's power, Sera had made deals with the minions of Krygar the Corruptor. The taint of the Void leaving its mark on her.
But still those deformities seemed to only add to Sera's beauty, blemishes that served to make her more real than the image of almost artificial perfection that she had been. Or more likely her beauty was merely some sort of spiritual echo left upon the souls of those she came into contact with.
Ashe found herself blushing as the carriage came to a stop, recalling the night the two of them had faced a common foe beneath Ursa the Stormbringer, hiding in the ruins together for mutual warmth and comfort. It had turned into more than comforting. If things had gone differently the two could have been something other than enemies, something deeper than friends. But Sera served the darkness, and Ashe the light. And so long as that was the case, they would be enemies.
The summoner drew a breath as she recalled the caress of perfectly smooth skin, the silken envelope of wings, the tickle of claws upon her bared skin...
She let out a growl and punched the side of the carriage, the pain focusing her as a skeletal attendant opened the door and beckoned her towards the gathering beyond. Ashe would likely have to spend the evening feigning politeness to old foes and verbally jousting with quick-tongue cowards whose remarks would otherwise net them a bludgeoning with the butt-end of her staff-spear.
Now was not a time to be distracted by what might have been if things had gone differently.
Just a little bit differently.
Such a small, tiny change.
Ashe would've been surprised to know just how very little it took to turn a foe into a friend, her bane into her beloved, the dark angel into a radiant demon.
It would be an even greater surprise to learn that it took even less to bring the opposite to pass.