This next piece, I was very intent on finishing, and in some ways I still am, but it has a story far too enormous for me to convey effectively. More so, I don't feel I can give my idea enough justice. Therefore it ends up here as my most recent story, I worked on it for just over a week and it covered 5.5 A5 pages. I bring to you, my most prized work ever undertaken, The Trinitarium: The First Compendium.
The Trinitarium
The First Compendium
Aidan Wallace
I
For all of man’s achievments, perhaps the Seven Codices were the greatest. In a time of instability, the Brotherhood of Knowledge, a seemingly omnipresent and omniscient organisation, took it upon themselves to catalogue all of human kind’s knowledge. All major subjects were listed as well as sacred texts, and the knowledge of the occult; spells and witchery only known by the Warlocks, a mysterious and mystic order of ancients, some of whome had prolonged their lives for millenia. Once the Seven Codices (or ‘Heptade Scriptus’ in the arcane language the series was written in) were completed, the Brotherhood realised the awesome power the volumes held, and so they created seven new holy orders tasked to defend the codices. Sworn never to replicate the knowledge they guarded, the sentinels, many of whom were drafted from Brotherhood monasteries were split as follows:
Ordo Trium Scentifa: The Order of the Three Sciences
Ordo Hestorum: The Order of Past Knowledge
Ordo Lingvm I Mitos: The Order of Language & Math
Ordo Haerus: The Order of Sin
Ordo Cultias: The Order of the Occult
Ordo Purificus I Vome: The Order of Religion & Worship
PX Prime Decumiri: The First Keepers of All Orders
Of all the chapters, it was the seventh and final, PX Prime Decumiri, or simply ‘Order Inqum’ that held the most power. They rooted out taint and neglect with eagle vision, soon, all came to fear their awesome power. As the coming Dark Age approached, so to did its heralds. The first sign was the death of many of the Warlocks, the only link between man and the immaterial realm of the gods, ‘the Null’ faded and man fell more susceptible to the taint of evil. Secondly, the Brotherhood, a noble organisation with intent only to aid humanity, was weakened by the countries it inhabited. Specifically the state of Purgos which saw the creation of the Heptade Scriptus as an abomination and that so much knowledge could bring only evil and damnation. The state was not wrong.
The Dark Age, while having been predicted to an approximate date, had not been given a reason. The Warlocks, the only humans left with the power to forsee future events, had declined to offer their services, explaining that such a powerful epiphany would drive the seeker insane. In frustration, many of the Warlocks were tortured by the kingdoms to try and force their spirits to make the terrible journey through the Null into the future, but none would break their act of silence. And then they began to die, no spells could save them, no medecine was powerful enough. For the first time, humanity was very much alone, left to fend for itself like a small child without its parents. The coming of doom presented itself three years after the death of the first and greatest Warlock, the Ordo Haerus began replicating its knowledge, against the prime directive, the power of the book was bestowed upon all the sentinels who guarded it in the monastery fortress: Singuinum, by the Custodian himself, the highest authority and the leader of the entire chapter: Menros Aesilur. The Order Inqum was quick to mobilise its forces to reach the source of such danger and reached the fortress within days, but when they requested entry into the keep, the defenders refused. Rather than assault the fortress and damage the sacred relics inside, a squad of mounted knights rode to the capital of the province Singuinum stood in, the great city of Maveroch, the most notherly major settlement touched by man, gripped by constant winter and bitter cold. The council parliament was reluctant to even speak to the contingent of riders but after heavy persistence and the thread of a full blown inquisition, they gave in and granted them a meeting.
What became of it is not known for either no one who was there still lives or they vow complete silence. But when the knights returned to the main army who had camped outside the monastery fortress, the whole force left to return further south back to their own citadel:Ferrubus. And so the Ordo Haerus continued to scribe more copies of its texts until a whole library was filled with the arcane knowledge. In the following months Maveroch, and Echas: the province, underwent sudden changes. The kingdom banner was lowered and replaced with the Order’s. Rumour had it that the codex of sin had entered the public domain and swathes of supporters joined Aesilur’s cause, whatever it was. Finally, the Order Inqum could stand by no longer and a march against one of its own brother chapters was taken up. A full fighting force, hundreds of thousands of men, complimented by the orders Hestorum and Cultias embarked upon a crusade north, arriving within three weeks. But when they reached the province, their nightmares were revealed. Foul energy pulsated across the skyline, seemingly eminating from Singuinum itself. The sky itself had turned dark blue with flecks of red spitting across the vile back drop, where the energy manifested most potently, green lightning strikes arced and ebbed, trying to clutch the ground and pull it up towards the atmosphere. It was as if the very earth before them was twisting and convulsing. Many men that had been called up from other provinces fled, for they were not from the chapters, merely levies with no heart for what they saw. The battleforce wearily marched on across the border, serverly reduced in number. And so began The Fall, the catalyst for the Dark Ages. A series of bloody skirmishes exploded through the country. Always the Order Inqus pushed forward, their losses slowly mounting. They had been in battle with no more than petty rabbles however, cultists armed with daggers and pistols, their armour hand crafted, nothing against the mighty swords of the pure legions, but what disturbed the warriors was the mark that every enemy bore, it was the emblem of of the Ordo Haerus. Messengers rode back to Ferrubus, confirming that the whole chapter had turned to taint. It was then that finally, the greatest and most powerful Custodian of all, Leciber the Harbinger himself rode north to join his crusaders and personally route out the source of this heresy.
Before he could reach his armies however, they pushed into a city notorious as the first sighting of the true enemy leading the cultists from the shadows. Sentinels numbering in the thousands, lead by an aspiring chapter commander by the name of Callice Morn, poured from the city to fight through the street blocks. The tight formations of the Ordo Inqus disintegrated and for the first time, they were pushed back significantly, losing not only their ground but their foot hold. Never had there been such a display of power that could rival and even surpass the strongest of all chapters. The losses on both sides were heavy but it seemed that the damned legion always had reserves to throw at the crusaders. Soon enough the whole province ran red with blood. And that was when the portals opened.
Callice Morn had proved a master tactician and shortly before Leciber’s arrival, he orchestrated the biggest slaughter so far, an enormous number were slain but it seemed his insatiable blood lust could not be satisfied with the death of his enemies, in a turn of events, his sentinels turned on the cultists which had rallied under his banner and slew them too, then the blood was directed into the centre of the city. It was allowed to stagnate and fester for days while the armies of light recovered, it was then that Morn began the incantations to boil the blood and cause it turn black, fire ripped through the unholy chamber he had sealed himself in and foul whispers seemed to eminate from inside. All attempts to muster an offense against this gruesome display were repelled by both the sentinels and cultists who had reformed seemingly unphased by the deaths of their own at the hands of their allies. With the arrival of Leciber, an enormous explosion erupted from within the chamber and when Morn finally returned from his parley with the dark gods, he was flanked by three monstrous demons, one appeared to carry the plague and was deformed, covered in a sea of flies. The next was rock like and stood on bony hooves, a serpents tongue rolled from its mouth and all across its body, fire erupted outwards. The final monstrosity was swift and feminine looking, it wielded no weapons but seemed to flow with liquidity across the city courts and its hands glowed blue with some distorted orbs of raw energy. This trio of evil were no taller than a normal man but yet they carried the force of the most powerful siege machine. Leciber’s scouts reported their findings directly to him, and suddenly he had a terrible realisation, these dark arts were not written in the Codex of Sin but the Codex of the Occult. They were fighting two whole orders it seemed.
The armies of light were hopelessly outnumbered yet they valiantly carried on, Leciber himself lead every charge and in a fury of blood and betrayal against his men, he slew hundreds, almost singlehandedly turning the tides of battle. But even this remarkable feat of heroism could not slake the numbers of deaths that whittled away his army until it was no more than three thousand strong.
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Oh yeah, fair point. Maybe he was just tortured until he lost consciousness.
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