Chapter 453: Holo
Unalla bit her lip, “If your friend really heard your call for help then shouldn’t they be here by now? If they really care about this war, about you, wouldn’t they already be here, even if they traveled through the dark-ways? And if they somehow couldn’t, why not just use the Ebon Tower right now?”
Holo smiled tiredly, “I never told you why they were called Champion, did I?”
“No, but why does that matter?”
“Because if anyone should understand why I sit here in the dark with Lyrae as a beacon, it should be the city’s only other orichalcum wielder.”
The serious tone in Holo’s voice struck a chord in Unalla. The young drow nodded reluctantly and sat down to listen.
Holo tapped her fingers on her knee thoughtfully, “Hm, where to begin…? Well, I guess I should start by saying my friend’s title wasn’t really Champion, it was Champion of Mortem.”
Unalla swallowed hard. “Champion of… Mortem? As in the Mortem Order?”
Holo smiled wryly. “Does that frighten you?”
Unalla licked her lips anxiously. “W-Well, wasn’t the Mortem Order the creators of the beast-kin? I heard they used some kind of dark magic to do it. The history books I’ve read all say they were one of the most dangerous circles of mages to have ever lived. And they destroyed all who dared oppose them.”
“First of all, dark magic? Hah! There is no such thing as ‘dark magics,’ nor ‘good magics’ for that matter. There is just magic, pure energy given corporeal form, nothing more.”
“So the Mortem Order wasn't dangerous?”
“Oh, no, the mages of the Mortem Order were incredibly dangerous, yes, but they were so much more than that. You see, it was not a circle of mages.”
“I don’t understand,” Unalla furrowed her brow.
“The Order wasn’t only for mages. It was a haven for free-thinking minds who dared question the traditional concepts of the world around us. The Order accepted people from all walks of life; it did not matter if you were the daughter of a king or the son of a beggar, or even if you came from somewhere else, like the Azure or Ashen Realms. In the Order, you were accepted for who you were, not what you were.”
Holo raised her hands excitedly, “The Order was a place where the brightest minds gathered. Scholars, philosophers, scientists, and yes, mages too. Ah,” she sighed, “You would have loved it.”
Unalla chuckled, “You almost sound like you were one of them.”
Holo glanced at her and smiled softly. “I was.”
Unalla’s blue eyes widened to saucers. “You…? You’re a Mortem!?”
“We never called ourselves that, but yes, I was. In fact, I was one of its founding members.”
“You founded the Mortem?”
“Well, I wasn’t the Founder, that idea came from another; a safe haven for the advancement and betterment of our world. I was there, however, when we officially founded the Order.”
Unalla’s expression grew more confused as Holo spoke.
“What is it?” Holo asked.
“Nothing, it’s just. The Mortem Order you’re describing, it isn’t the one I grew up hearing about.”
Holo’s smile fell. “Yes, well, I suppose it wouldn’t be. People only remember the nightmares we unleashed on the world, the scars we left behind. It was never what I wanted, or so many others for that matter. But I suppose I digress. Our little story starts many centuries ago. I had been tasked by the Order to find and recruit a particularly gifted individual, one who we had our eye on for some time, Nell.”
“Nell?”
“My friend… At the time, I was traveling to recruit Nell. I didn’t know much about Nell, save that they came from humble beginnings, an orphan born in the wreckage of a battle. I thought I was searching for a country bumpkin, a talented bumpkin, but a bumpkin nonetheless.”
Holo chuckled to herself. “But what I found was a mage with powers that already rivaled my own. I had always thought I was talented— special, a prodigy among my mageborn peers. But this, this stranger who I had only just met, made me question everything about my own self-worth as a mage.”
“You’re saying they were more talented than you?” Unalla asked, skeptical.
Holo grinned wryly, “In certain ways, yes. You’re a tri-manifold so perhaps you might understand it like this. There are certain colors and spell forms you are very skilled with. Compared to your peers, you must feel quite talented, yes?”
“Yeah…?” Unalla answered dubiously.
“Now imagine what it would have been like to have suddenly met Parathyan when he was just a simple man unknown to the world and not the greatest mage smith to have ever lived. How would you have felt comparing your brown enchantments against Parathyan, the living legend?”
“Terrible I imagine,” Unalla said dryly. “But Parathyan is dead and I’m still here. So perhaps not that bad.”
“True, Parathyan is dead, and yet he is still worshiped in the Bronze Realm as a god of the forge. A mortal man, whose forging abilities were envied even by gods. You see, Parathyan’s name lives on, the idea of what he was still inspires enchanters and blacksmiths to this day.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you? This Nell person was like Parathyan?” Unalla asked in a quiet, stunned voice.
“In some ways, the ways that counted, yes. Suffice it to say, I immediately recruited and brought Nell to the Mortem Order’s primary castle in the Scarlet Realm. Nell loved the Order, from the fellow-minded peers to the resources we offered. Nell quickly grew in power and as they did, so did their popularity and influence within the Order.”
“That must have made you envious,” Unalla noted sympathetically.
“Not at all. I was one of Nell’s greatest supporters, as was the rest of the Order’s council, especially the founder. They were the ones who gave Nell the honorary title of Champion of Mortem.”
Holo clasped her hands together and closed her eyes in reminiscence. “Everything was perfect back then, until one day, we finally succeeded in what the world had claimed was impossible. We created an entirely new species. We entwined multiple different bloodlines into a new being.”
“The beast-kin,” Unalla whispered.
Holo nodded lamentingly, “We were so excited by the accomplishment, I was so excited… that I was blind to what was really happening. We kept going, of course, pushing ourselves to the limits. At first, it was only one, then it was several of the same species, and eventually, we had created dozens of different beast-kin species.”
“A slave army,” Unalla muttered bitterly.
“No!” Holo shook her head vehemently. “It was a deterrent, a force meant to put a stop to all the endless fighting in the Scarlet Realm. After that, they would be free to live their lives in the era of peace we’d create. Don’t you see? We wanted to save lives, that was our mission. I believed in the plan. I believed in what we were doing.”
Holo stared at the ground, slumped her shoulders, and sighed sadly. “We were going to change the world… and we did change it, in all the ways I never wanted to. Nell discovered that an intricate sigil design had been forged into the very blood of the beast-kin. Nell told me that though we had managed to create ‘life’ we hadn’t been able to create a soul, a true soul. Nell said the beast-kin were akin to organic golems. I didn’t believe it; they were people, not some— construct! I didn’t believe it… not at first… and then the beast-kin began attacking villages, innocents who had wanted nothing to do with the Scarlet wars.”
Holo clasped her hands tightly to stop them from trembling. “I had friends among the beast-kin, people close to me, people whom I loved dearly. I went to talk to them, to reason with them. But when I got there… there was nothing in their eyes. The people they once were… were gone. They were just… Hollow.”
“What did you do?” Unalla asked worriedly.
She smiled bitterly. “...Nothing. I did nothing. I couldn’t accept it… I couldn’t accept that the beast-kin I had raised since birth, people who called me mother, the children I loved, were all gone.” Holo took a shaky breath, “I did nothing as they attacked and destroyed several more villages. It was only later I found out that this had always been the Order’s plan. Many of us felt betrayed, used, but the founder and the rest of the council tried convincing us that this was the only way to save the Scarlet Realm and all other Realms. Many of us believed in their words, the ones that didn’t, well, they were willing to talk, to figure out what could be done to avoid war altogether. All except for Nell.”
Holo gripped the shaft of her scythe, Lyrae, and hugged it close. “Nell believed what the council was doing was wrong. And so, Nell convinced many others to rebel against the Order altogether and launched a coup. I didn’t know what to do, if I should even involve myself. Until I saw Nell struck down by a fellow Champion. He was going to kill Nell, so I… I acted and I saved my best friend. After that… everything was a blur, war, death… After a while, you close your heart to the pain, you grow numb to it…”
Holo buried her face in the crook of her elbow, “I killed beast-kins who once called me mother and I killed fellow members of the Order I had once called family… In the end, the Order was ruined and the remaining beast-kin, lost and broken, ran away through the realm bridges and were scattered across the world.”
Unalla placed a comforting hand on Holo’s shoulder. “...I can’t imagine the sacrifices you made… but they weren’t in vain. You saved the Scarlet Realm, maybe even the entire world from the Mortem Order’s madness.”
“Saved?” Holo looked up at her with a frown. “The Order was the most advanced society of science and magic in the world, a literal treasure trove of knowledge. Centuries, no, millennia worth of knowledge, gone! We could have helped save hundreds of thousands of lives, millions! The Order did not need to be destroyed. There were other ways. They weren’t plagued by madness, they could have been reasoned with! We were friends, family!”
Blue flames crackled around Lyrae, running up the shaft of the scythe and blending with the ghostly light of the blade.
Unalla shrank away at Holo’s anger. “I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you. I just—”
Holo blinked and extinguished her azure flames. She turned away and lowered her head, “No… I am the one who is sorry. You did nothing wrong, you simply do not understand what was lost. You think we saved the world? We might have just doomed it. Look at us now. The dragonbane are unleashed upon the land and an ancient dark god comes to destroy us. If things had been different the Order could have come to our aid, but now, now we are alone.”
“Not all is lost, Lady Holo.” Unalla smiled gently, “We still have you. And Nell, right?”
“Right…” Holo returned the smile. “I’m sorry, little Noir, this should not be your burden to bear, but you are the only one who can wield an orichalcum blade.”
Unalla wrinkled her brow, “Lady Holo?”
“I will teach you how to use Votum as a beacon. Make sure to learn it well, in case anything happens.”
“In case of anything like what exactly?” Unalla asked suspiciously.
Holo looked up at the night sky and sighed in contentment, gone was the pain and stress in her eyes, all that was left was a deep exhaustion that seemed to sink into her bones. “...Sitting here, at the heart of my city, I consider myself lucky, Unalla. I have had the privilege to have walked these lands for many years. I have traveled to every corner of the Null Realms. I’ve witnessed and sometimes even influenced events as they unfolded. Believe me, I have made many mistakes during my travels, but I’ve also done good. I even made friends and enemies of gods, and do not ask me which was the mistake, I still do not know. All I really know,” she closed her eyes, “Is that I’m tired.”
Unalla frowned anxiously. “What are you saying?”
Holo smiled softly. “I have traveled enough. If this place is to be my last journey, I’m ready to let go.”
“No, you can’t give up, Lady Holo, not now, not when we need you most! Not when I need you!” Unalla yelled tearfully.
Holo pulled her in and hugged her close, “Oh, little Noir, so long as I draw breath I will not abandon you.”
Unalla stood to her feet and picked up Votum. “Then fight! Don’t give up, we haven’t lost yet!” Her bottom lip trembled, but the fire of courage burned in her eyes.
Holo couldn’t help but admire her bravery. “...I will try, it is all any of us can do.”
Frostbird
I will be taking the holiday weekend off and return on monday. Enjoy the holidays!
Chapter 453: Holo
Unalla bit her lip, “If your friend really heard your call for help then shouldn’t they be here by now? If they really care about this war, about you, wouldn’t they already be here, even if they traveled through the dark-ways? And if they somehow couldn’t, why not just use the Ebon Tower right now?”
Holo smiled tiredly, “I never told you why they were called Champion, did I?”
“No, but why does that matter?”
“Because if anyone should understand why I sit here in the dark with Lyrae as a beacon, it should be the city’s only other orichalcum wielder.”
The serious tone in Holo’s voice struck a chord in Unalla. The young drow nodded reluctantly and sat down to listen.
Holo tapped her fingers on her knee thoughtfully, “Hm, where to begin…? Well, I guess I should start by saying my friend’s title wasn’t really Champion, it was Champion of Mortem.”
Unalla swallowed hard. “Champion of… Mortem? As in the Mortem Order?”
Holo smiled wryly. “Does that frighten you?”
Unalla licked her lips anxiously. “W-Well, wasn’t the Mortem Order the creators of the beast-kin? I heard they used some kind of dark magic to do it. The history books I’ve read all say they were one of the most dangerous circles of mages to have ever lived. And they destroyed all who dared oppose them.”
“First of all, dark magic? Hah! There is no such thing as ‘dark magics,’ nor ‘good magics’ for that matter. There is just magic, pure energy given corporeal form, nothing more.”
“So the Mortem Order wasn't dangerous?”
“Oh, no, the mages of the Mortem Order were incredibly dangerous, yes, but they were so much more than that. You see, it was not a circle of mages.”
“I don’t understand,” Unalla furrowed her brow.
“The Order wasn’t only for mages. It was a haven for free-thinking minds who dared question the traditional concepts of the world around us. The Order accepted people from all walks of life; it did not matter if you were the daughter of a king or the son of a beggar, or even if you came from somewhere else, like the Azure or Ashen Realms. In the Order, you were accepted for who you were, not what you were.”
Holo raised her hands excitedly, “The Order was a place where the brightest minds gathered. Scholars, philosophers, scientists, and yes, mages too. Ah,” she sighed, “You would have loved it.”
Unalla chuckled, “You almost sound like you were one of them.”
Holo glanced at her and smiled softly. “I was.”
Unalla’s blue eyes widened to saucers. “You…? You’re a Mortem!?”
“We never called ourselves that, but yes, I was. In fact, I was one of its founding members.”
“You founded the Mortem?”
“Well, I wasn’t the Founder, that idea came from another; a safe haven for the advancement and betterment of our world. I was there, however, when we officially founded the Order.”
Unalla’s expression grew more confused as Holo spoke.
“What is it?” Holo asked.
“Nothing, it’s just. The Mortem Order you’re describing, it isn’t the one I grew up hearing about.”
Holo’s smile fell. “Yes, well, I suppose it wouldn’t be. People only remember the nightmares we unleashed on the world, the scars we left behind. It was never what I wanted, or so many others for that matter. But I suppose I digress. Our little story starts many centuries ago. I had been tasked by the Order to find and recruit a particularly gifted individual, one who we had our eye on for some time, Nell.”
“Nell?”
“My friend… At the time, I was traveling to recruit Nell. I didn’t know much about Nell, save that they came from humble beginnings, an orphan born in the wreckage of a battle. I thought I was searching for a country bumpkin, a talented bumpkin, but a bumpkin nonetheless.”
Holo chuckled to herself. “But what I found was a mage with powers that already rivaled my own. I had always thought I was talented— special, a prodigy among my mageborn peers. But this, this stranger who I had only just met, made me question everything about my own self-worth as a mage.”
“You’re saying they were more talented than you?” Unalla asked, skeptical.
Holo grinned wryly, “In certain ways, yes. You’re a tri-manifold so perhaps you might understand it like this. There are certain colors and spell forms you are very skilled with. Compared to your peers, you must feel quite talented, yes?”
“Yeah…?” Unalla answered dubiously.
“Now imagine what it would have been like to have suddenly met Parathyan when he was just a simple man unknown to the world and not the greatest mage smith to have ever lived. How would you have felt comparing your brown enchantments against Parathyan, the living legend?”
“Terrible I imagine,” Unalla said dryly. “But Parathyan is dead and I’m still here. So perhaps not that bad.”
“True, Parathyan is dead, and yet he is still worshiped in the Bronze Realm as a god of the forge. A mortal man, whose forging abilities were envied even by gods. You see, Parathyan’s name lives on, the idea of what he was still inspires enchanters and blacksmiths to this day.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you? This Nell person was like Parathyan?” Unalla asked in a quiet, stunned voice.
“In some ways, the ways that counted, yes. Suffice it to say, I immediately recruited and brought Nell to the Mortem Order’s primary castle in the Scarlet Realm. Nell loved the Order, from the fellow-minded peers to the resources we offered. Nell quickly grew in power and as they did, so did their popularity and influence within the Order.”
“That must have made you envious,” Unalla noted sympathetically.
“Not at all. I was one of Nell’s greatest supporters, as was the rest of the Order’s council, especially the founder. They were the ones who gave Nell the honorary title of Champion of Mortem.”
Holo clasped her hands together and closed her eyes in reminiscence. “Everything was perfect back then, until one day, we finally succeeded in what the world had claimed was impossible. We created an entirely new species. We entwined multiple different bloodlines into a new being.”
“The beast-kin,” Unalla whispered.
Holo nodded lamentingly, “We were so excited by the accomplishment, I was so excited… that I was blind to what was really happening. We kept going, of course, pushing ourselves to the limits. At first, it was only one, then it was several of the same species, and eventually, we had created dozens of different beast-kin species.”
“A slave army,” Unalla muttered bitterly.
“No!” Holo shook her head vehemently. “It was a deterrent, a force meant to put a stop to all the endless fighting in the Scarlet Realm. After that, they would be free to live their lives in the era of peace we’d create. Don’t you see? We wanted to save lives, that was our mission. I believed in the plan. I believed in what we were doing.”
Holo stared at the ground, slumped her shoulders, and sighed sadly. “We were going to change the world… and we did change it, in all the ways I never wanted to. Nell discovered that an intricate sigil design had been forged into the very blood of the beast-kin. Nell told me that though we had managed to create ‘life’ we hadn’t been able to create a soul, a true soul. Nell said the beast-kin were akin to organic golems. I didn’t believe it; they were people, not some— construct! I didn’t believe it… not at first… and then the beast-kin began attacking villages, innocents who had wanted nothing to do with the Scarlet wars.”
Holo clasped her hands tightly to stop them from trembling. “I had friends among the beast-kin, people close to me, people whom I loved dearly. I went to talk to them, to reason with them. But when I got there… there was nothing in their eyes. The people they once were… were gone. They were just… Hollow.”
“What did you do?” Unalla asked worriedly.
She smiled bitterly. “...Nothing. I did nothing. I couldn’t accept it… I couldn’t accept that the beast-kin I had raised since birth, people who called me mother, the children I loved, were all gone.” Holo took a shaky breath, “I did nothing as they attacked and destroyed several more villages. It was only later I found out that this had always been the Order’s plan. Many of us felt betrayed, used, but the founder and the rest of the council tried convincing us that this was the only way to save the Scarlet Realm and all other Realms. Many of us believed in their words, the ones that didn’t, well, they were willing to talk, to figure out what could be done to avoid war altogether. All except for Nell.”
Holo gripped the shaft of her scythe, Lyrae, and hugged it close. “Nell believed what the council was doing was wrong. And so, Nell convinced many others to rebel against the Order altogether and launched a coup. I didn’t know what to do, if I should even involve myself. Until I saw Nell struck down by a fellow Champion. He was going to kill Nell, so I… I acted and I saved my best friend. After that… everything was a blur, war, death… After a while, you close your heart to the pain, you grow numb to it…”
Holo buried her face in the crook of her elbow, “I killed beast-kins who once called me mother and I killed fellow members of the Order I had once called family… In the end, the Order was ruined and the remaining beast-kin, lost and broken, ran away through the realm bridges and were scattered across the world.”
Unalla placed a comforting hand on Holo’s shoulder. “...I can’t imagine the sacrifices you made… but they weren’t in vain. You saved the Scarlet Realm, maybe even the entire world from the Mortem Order’s madness.”
“Saved?” Holo looked up at her with a frown. “The Order was the most advanced society of science and magic in the world, a literal treasure trove of knowledge. Centuries, no, millennia worth of knowledge, gone! We could have helped save hundreds of thousands of lives, millions! The Order did not need to be destroyed. There were other ways. They weren’t plagued by madness, they could have been reasoned with! We were friends, family!”
Blue flames crackled around Lyrae, running up the shaft of the scythe and blending with the ghostly light of the blade.
Unalla shrank away at Holo’s anger. “I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you. I just—”
Holo blinked and extinguished her azure flames. She turned away and lowered her head, “No… I am the one who is sorry. You did nothing wrong, you simply do not understand what was lost. You think we saved the world? We might have just doomed it. Look at us now. The dragonbane are unleashed upon the land and an ancient dark god comes to destroy us. If things had been different the Order could have come to our aid, but now, now we are alone.”
“Not all is lost, Lady Holo.” Unalla smiled gently, “We still have you. And Nell, right?”
“Right…” Holo returned the smile. “I’m sorry, little Noir, this should not be your burden to bear, but you are the only one who can wield an orichalcum blade.”
Unalla wrinkled her brow, “Lady Holo?”
“I will teach you how to use Votum as a beacon. Make sure to learn it well, in case anything happens.”
“In case of anything like what exactly?” Unalla asked suspiciously.
Holo looked up at the night sky and sighed in contentment, gone was the pain and stress in her eyes, all that was left was a deep exhaustion that seemed to sink into her bones. “...Sitting here, at the heart of my city, I consider myself lucky, Unalla. I have had the privilege to have walked these lands for many years. I have traveled to every corner of the Null Realms. I’ve witnessed and sometimes even influenced events as they unfolded. Believe me, I have made many mistakes during my travels, but I’ve also done good. I even made friends and enemies of gods, and do not ask me which was the mistake, I still do not know. All I really know,” she closed her eyes, “Is that I’m tired.”
Unalla frowned anxiously. “What are you saying?”
Holo smiled softly. “I have traveled enough. If this place is to be my last journey, I’m ready to let go.”
“No, you can’t give up, Lady Holo, not now, not when we need you most! Not when I need you!” Unalla yelled tearfully.
Holo pulled her in and hugged her close, “Oh, little Noir, so long as I draw breath I will not abandon you.”
Unalla stood to her feet and picked up Votum. “Then fight! Don’t give up, we haven’t lost yet!” Her bottom lip trembled, but the fire of courage burned in her eyes.
Holo couldn’t help but admire her bravery. “...I will try, it is all any of us can do.”
Frostbird
I will be taking the holiday weekend off and return on monday. Enjoy the holidays!
