Requiem of a Black Sun Volume I: The Ebony Shogunate

Chapter VIII: Aux Armes

Kveljastheim is rife with stories; whether spun by players or NPC lore, it is positively saturated with a rich background of people passing down the deeds and achievements of brave heroes, great thieves, and righteous kings and their domains.

Far outnumbering these stories created since the advent of SSO, the developers of the game had imbued a massive underlying archive of native history to each race in the world. However, now it was seeming as if the history had already existed and was simply collected and rewritten by the game's creators for the sake of the player. With my figuring out that Victoria was, in fact, a real girl, I was beginning to think this true more and more every day.

In the Hjaltsagen av der Sӕngen, written by the Demonic philosopher Thorsvald Miiren in the Era of Reclamation, there is an epic poem written about the history of the demons on the New Continent. There is a verse in it that rings true in the untamed lands west of the Broken Arrow Mountains, it is known only as "Der Leffenschtieg" or "The Rise of the West".

"Upon mountains, clothed in nothing but the growth of an age since past and a thick pelt of powderéd frost, indeed a people was born.

Nay, the reach of the Zwolfstammer kingdom could not clasp its muscled tendrils upon this rough gem, forged in the cold, of rebellious blood.

Fierce breath of unrest rippled through the fertile earth, bending, breaking, crushing any invader.

It was a spirit, like flowers breaking free of their frost-laden chains after a harsh winter, that penetrated the heart of every man.

The ire of the Zwolfstammen was great, burning deep within them, dwelling upon their pride, a burden bathed in greed.

Idril, King of Thorns, most Provident Liege to those banded nations of the Jutted Land called Skyreach arose from the cinders of a suff'ring kingdom.

An army, raised five hundred Vehrgruppe high, marched across the Plains of Ash, 100,000 boots, tearing through the rampant muck and undergrowth.

The white banner of the Zwolfestammen, a culmination of the myriad colors belonging to the Twelve Stammen, toiled through the biting exhalation of Great Winter, bending its knee before the cold.

On the 15th Moon of the expedition, the grand procession was stripped to only three hundred Vehrgruppe and was hungry, cold, shattered like glass.

For what were they to do in the hostile clutches of the Frost?

They marched northward, losing only more men per every treacherous footstep they laid upon the stiff ground.

The People of the West had built their resolve high like the spire of a sprawling basilica and awaited their foe from a village ahead of the Zwolfestammen's advance.

Upon the morn of the first contact betwixt the two factions, the sky grew quiet, waiting for its children to be delivered unto its distant brother, the ever-patient ground, in massive numbers.

When at last the last arrow was loosed and the final body was felled, the Western soldiers stood alone, watching the never ending field of white cloth and steel soiled by red blood.

In time, the lunar cycles passed like the throwing of pebbles into the pond of time.

Then, the day came when the Heiress of the Dragon sat upon her lofty throne, high above Demonkind, prepared to seek greatness.

And so was dispatched the Hunter of Kings to punish the West for their insolence.

Thus, they were vanquished once and for all, by a ruler untouched by the desires of Sanguine.