An Echo of Yesterday
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Seemingly following on the unclear storyline from the miracle of the tree wreathed river, a diary was found near those tomes which was somewhat more complete and written in Elven - it details the return to a city from which they were forced to flee weeks before, and how everything had changed. It would seem as though it is written from Vayan’s point of view - the general at the river. It has been translated for common viewing. Is it the truth of the world’s past, or just an ancient legend? We cannot know.
“The victory celebration was short lived. The groaning of the army’s sole remnant stays with me even as I pen this note, they are all tired, or injured, or nearly dead. How sardonically fitting that is, for their current locale. I write this for posterity’s sake, to inform our successors ten years, a hundred, or a thousand years hence, of the majesty that we lost to The Great Devil, should any survive this apocalypse to experience the fractured future. Even as the ten-mile marker to the Grand City mercifully came into view after our monstrous pilgrimage, I nevertheless naively expected to lovingly view the shimmering statues of Malin’s flawless form on the gleaming and sun-drenched horizon, as I had so many times before. His white and grey sculpted form looking over the landscape and their people so protectively raised my spirits even at the darkest time. His stonecrafted sword raised to the skies, as if to paint a target to the stars which the Elven people might have reached through brilliance. Maybe once, but no more. A flash in my wracked mind, and the beautiful memory faded, and I was left with a nightmare from which to wake was impossible. His masterfully crafted headstone sat blasted off, decapitated, and his blade which had pointed to our destiny, fittingly now had fallen to the ground on a backdrop of blackened soot and pus-filled corruption. I looked to the permanent sun then as I do now, red and ash-wreathed. What horrors had you seen?! Why did you not warn us?! We had no idea what was coming for us.
An amazing scene among my kin and followers beheld me as we came to the once grand entrance of our beloved home, pure silence among all the survivors. Perhaps it was their fatigue, but more likely the shock of what they were seeing had seized them. A ruined waste lay in front of them were before had been life aplenty. Beyond the gate lay the exchange district and its harbour, the heart of commerce in Our Place. Trade without peer between Dwarves selling their extracted gems and ores of Ferrum and Aurum and Emeralds and Lapis to the illustrious Elven smiths, with which they might fashion wonders. Men of an empire far away peddled their most luxurious foodstuffs, though of course they were always playfully mocked - for they could never best the quality of Malin’s folk’s delicacies. Our own kin sailed into the docks on glimmering white-sailed longships bearing treasures from the furthest lands… The ghost of that time in my mind seemed like the greatest injustice. Life that seemed a paradise mere weeks ago, now reeked of burning wood and rotten goods. A red, barren desert of a sea lay there now, stained by the baleful light of the cursed sun far above, the harbour filled with sunken and dead wooden leviathan; the engine of an age of prosperity now seemingly forever fallen. What seemed to me worse than this was the absence of those no doubt slain in this place, for I knew what had befallen them after we were driven away. Elfkin no more than babes with their mothers, the peaceful traders, the travellers, all brutally impaled, skewered or butchered without a moment's pity - before being stolen by that Great Devil for his nefarious ends.
The gauntlet continued as my men began to take refuge in the shattered remnant of what was once their glorious civilisation, through many of the houses had collapsed and their floors caved in. Many men sat alone and in tears as I passed. More sharply to my guilty psyche, many looked at me with malice in their eyes. I should not have blamed them if they had seen fit to end my life, for most of their families, wives, children and loved ones, had occupied this stone ghost as I had withdrawn the army. Should we have died with them, rather than pull away? Their gaze, and the now seemingly judgemental stare of the masked sun seemed to me to answer that question for me. The solitary walk to the Arboreum filled me with dread. A place I had walked with my family to many a time. Beautiful tall trees blossomed verdantly in the summer months, and the shrubbery beared their fruits for all passers by. In the Autumnal, amber leaves fell softly to the ground and created a bronzed scene rarely even seen in the most magnificent of nature’s grand designs. A sick mirror of that was all that remained - twisted stumps and branches, looming over me as if seeking to grab with terrifying spindly arms the man who had allowed their mutilators free reign. The malign, cracking spectres of those once beautiful things almost seemed to whisper “Coward.”, “Forsaken.”, “Beast” - as if they had watched the slaughter with horror, unable to act, only to see the malignance I did not have to.
Dragging my withered form the final steps, I had finally managed to reach the Grand Tower, now easily accessible. Through to my surprise, it was an empty shell, but for the remnants of its spiral staircase which lead dizzyingly to the summit. I shambled up, likely still in some form of shock at the loss of this place which mere days ago I had thought impenetrable, unassailable, permanent.
Sitting far above the devastation, the death and the destruction was somewhat of a relief to me, as if it all seemed far away. From the right angle, the sea seemed almost normal, aside from its crimson hue. There is no hope left for us now - for it seems this has happened everywhere. Nobody has heard anything from the Dwed of the mountains, or the Men of the plains. Are we the last to fall? The last to see the twilight of our world? How quickly it happened. It is at the top of this spire I pen this note, for whoever might read this, wherever or whenever that might be. Never forget that everything you know, each person you value, that seemingly invincible construct that is your world can crumble in but a moment. I will leave you now, goodbye.”
