When the trees were still young, Up from the earth a shadow sprung. Fire rained from the sky. From the ash, did monsters rise. Powered by the spire, They would never tire, Until the land was covered in darkness. When the fields were still young, The earth quaked when Ispire sprung. The glass tower cracked the sky. From its roots the demons did fly. They flooded the fields with fire, And fed bodies to the pyre, Until the land was bathed in blood. When the rivers were still young, The banks flooded when the tower sprung. It washed away the charred remains, Of the civilization before the fiery rains, The rivers ran grew with ash with crimson swathes. They carried away knowledge of the days, And of the ages before Ispire ascended. When the mountains of steel glinted in the sun, Ispire grew from the rock under the Eldest One. Into the stars did sky ships fly, And doomed those left behind to die. From the tower sprang the chains, Which bound those who remained. The mountains crumbled and turned to ash under a setting sun. When blue smoke rose from the ruins of stone and steel, Demons crawled deep from under Ispire to steal, The young and old and those who would try, To resist their master’s beckoning cry. The prisoners made the march, over hill, and under shadow, Until they fell upon the roots of the tower’s ghostly glow. They built a city to house their new masters. When black stone walls rose around Ispire, Those that toiled had yet to learn fear. Mordrex communed with the Eldest One in the tower high. The night shook with lighting and fire that cracked the sky. The Blood King returned to rule the Mind Reapers below. They began torturing and sowing sorrow. The young and old were sacrificed to rear demonic brood. When screams echoed from the Dead City, An order trained under the oldest tree. They learned the Mind Reapers’ art, And consumed a demon’s heart. With weapons of stone and then of bronze, They fought back the horde against endless spawns. Until the long dark where the order dwindled. When only seven defenders remained, The Unbroken met with the kinds of the chained. They forged an alliance to foster defiance, And the hundred-year revolt started from a sentence: Throw off your bloody chains, And learn to stand up and walk again. Under charcoal skies and ashen rains, We march for freedom from the damned. When the chained marched on the walls of black, A fierce wind gnawed at their back. Beneath the snow, long ago, the Mind Reapers launched an attack. The ground quaked, the world slowed, and the sky began to crack. From a great fiery scar in the sky, Came a beast a mountain high, Who devoured the chained and masters alike. When the flesh mountain doled out its wrath, Hope faded to all who saw the bloodbath. From under the corpses piled high, Crawled a young man doomed to die. Blood crazed; Arlos charged the beast. It licked the blood from its lips, prepared to feast. A mighty hand stayed Arlos and carried him away. When the survivors limped away, They doubted they would see another day, It was said long ago, those from before built giants of steel, To fight mountainous beasts and bring them to heel. The Unbroken found one such giant buried in the waste. The Arlos climbed inside, and it rose with haste. He marched on the beast inside the Steel Giant. When the Steel Giant’s steps shook the land, The beast shrieked, paused its onslaught, and made a stand. They battled over icy hills, in ashen valleys, and on snowcapped mountains without tire. With a fatal blow, long ago, the young man felled the beast and cast it into the scar of fire. The Blood King surrendered the Black City to the young man, Who banished the Mind Reapers to it to never leave its gates again. Arlos returned to the hold of the unchained, riding the Steel Giant. When the steel giant and its rider arrived, The clouds opened and the people thrived. The Giant Rider was crowned the king of the unchained, Until the day he died, the sun shined and peace remained. His line failed from lack of heirs, The great houses divided shares, And the empire fractured into the seven kingdoms and three free territories When a rider masters the Steel Giant again, Once as before, over the land a king shall reign. The Eldest One in Ispire shall wake. From his tower, minds shall he take. The black gates will open wide, and demons will flood. Villages will burn and drown with blood. A second darkness will fall and bring an age of fire and ash and a last battle for all.
“The Long Dark” from the Song of the West. (An English translation by Archibald Brown, professor of anthropology at University of Oceanus on Clotho IV was obtained from the intersystem archives.)
