Heleion Archives

27^th of June, 677 ASC. Abrarus, Dhaubhir Bay.

            On the eastern shore of the far south, between steep dunes rising almost as high as the dwarven mountains of the North, laid the golden alabaster city of Abrarus, a port city in the Dhaubhir Bay which got its name from the azure waters carrying a tint of golden during the long days of the south as searing light of the sun reflected from them in the fork shaped bay onto the brisk surface.

The city for many eons stood its ground against many invaders, including the Sultan’s brass-golden legions who sieged the city for three decades before they managed to penetrate its magical defenses. Dammed by the lush Rhamil Tree infested forest the city buried behind, as their splendorous golden and crimson foliage amplified the heat of the day to the point many a warrior or mage fell even as they washed themselves in spells battling the climate to keep their bodies temperate.

The other were the combination of what the golden and crimson shadows spread over, hid in their mesmerizing tint. Wild beasts like Umbral Panthers who could swim in the shadows, hunting their prey unseen; tokoleshes, small goblinoids with a ghastly form who lived in the hidden recesses of the forest; werehyenas who stalked their prey day and night; southern spriggans and nature spirits allied with the city who revered them as protectors; and lastly but not least the earth, sand itself which proved treacherous and perilous as it swallowed thousands if not millions since the first dawn.

Then there was of course the towering walls hewn from a mixture of limestone and sandstone altered, transmuted to bear a striking white and resplendent golden color by the viziers who also created the moat of sinking sand which then utilized the swallowed corpses, animating them to fight back against their former comrades, friends and maybe even family.

At the bay throughout the city stretched across the ages, laid further protections as the city’s sailors and navy tamed the colossal serpents of the sea to stalk and attack the unsuspecting enemy vessels approaching from the azure horizon.  If and when they reached though into the bay, the spires along the wall each were manned by three viziers who unleashed Amberfire, Cocytussian Frost or Bhahamuth’s Righteous Thunder upon them while bashing the wooden hulls by the tamed and raged waves of the bay.

Yet, in the end the city fell twice to conquerors. First to the Sultan of Shalaion’s Brass Army after thirty years of endless siege during which thousands fell on both sides to beasts, to spells, to elements, to blades and arrows. For thirty years, the city’s supplies dwindled while the Sultan’s grew as his other armies slowly swallowed the subservient towns and cities into his grand empire.

By the time he took the city, half the populace starved to death, died to disease as the Sultan’s preferred tactic was to hurl corpses into the city after its magical forcefield cracked here and there. In the end, the then stolid, unbroken ruler’s son drove a dagger into his heart and surrendered the city to the Sultan. For his actions he was rewarded to die first before his whole family was executed by the Sultan before he placed one of his loyal servants on the governing seat of the city.

A few centuries later – and just 75 years before the twenty-seventh of June – The Arghyrios Dynasty laid their eyes on the golden jewel that was the south after coming to an agreement with the northerners and the Hoshigawan Shogunate. With their numbers increased exponentially, they sent three of their largest legions reinforced by the northerners and the easterners from the sea and Abrarus was one of the first to fall.

Though the second time was even more vicious as the Naurdic Legion consisted of the northerners and the Luorhic Legion consisted of the easterners razed the city, and massacred half the populace while also raiding the riches amassed through the ages.

The governor whose family brutally inherited the city suffered the same fate as the former rulers, hung over the desolate remains of the palace, his spine ripped open, his lungs hanging to the horror of the survivors while the rest of his kin were drowned in the bay, or given to the sea serpents the viziers lost control over thanks to the aid of the Sisterhood of the Black Rose who accompanied the Naurdic Legion.

The city remained in its desolate state for many years while a small portion of the Naurdic Legion was left behind while the Luorhic brought over all kinds of folk to settle down, rebuild the city which now bore the striking imperial style of rigid and distinct geometrical accentuations and the various heroic and avian motifs, etchings including the marvelous sculptures of the Emperor and his dynasty. Though some of the more dull, asymmetrical structure of the cities past remained in the districts on the shore.

Whilst the city’s mixed populace lives in relative peace even as the war rages on, the number of patrolling legionaries increased in the past few months on the order of Legate Hecatirrion as he caught wind of a plot brewing in the tunnels beneath the vivid dunes of Shalaion, deep in the sandworm caved tunnels, brewed by none another then the Sakhrath-Ib-Anath, the southern cousins of the Sisterhood of the Black Rose.

A plot against the order of the city, a plot to incite uprising from the remnants of the city’s old tenants who while faked their subservience to their new overlords, remained tainted by grief and anger metered out against them unjustly by the Empire and its new allies, vassals. In the past weeks, many of these people openly wearing their grudges now decorated the city’s walls and edifices hanged by rope or by their altered intestines stretched and coiled around their neck.

Though it did nothing more than deepen the hatred and draw their attention away from feared nightblade of the Sakhrath-Ib-Anath, Zeyneb the Maiden of Destruction as they called her after obliterating a whole encampment around the capital’s walls, leading to the death of the Rhubyric Legion’s Legate even, to infiltrate the city undiscovered.

**

Sliced into many districts the stretching and cyclopean city, many of them towards the northerns flanks steepled precipitously with the buildings bathing the straightened streets in shadows in all hours of the day. Except for one singular district which belonged always to the highest echelons of the city’s populace, the palace district which also served as the living quarter of the stationed armies, protectors of the city’s peace and order.

That part of the city rose high from the sand dunes, which themselves were altered by the ancient viziers who came here first with their tribe, altered into a stiffer, durable earthly element akin to stone, malachite yet at the same time distinctively not. On top of it even the sand was altered and now grass and various flora and trees grew high over the now marbled edifices neatly lined besides each other with extensive gardens and even a folk made river coursing behind each side between the wall and the mansions, towers and the many headquarters of the Naurdic Legion.

Zeyneb sat on the rail of one such watchtower overlooking the bay and eastern flank of the city stretching towards the azure and golden tinted horizon, dangling her legs while maintaining the illusion spells wreathed over the tower’s top segment where most of the legionaries in their snow silvery segmented and heavy plate armors patrolled unaware that the gilded dragonkin volvaeth in the scanty type of their uniform was nothing more than a phantasmal image capable of speech and treachery whilst the real laid in its own pool of golden tinted blood.

She took a deep breath as the warm air breezed through the many colored shawls wrapped around her face, veiling it not just from eyes but from spells which could peak through it to see her alluring dusky visage of slight elvish accentuations, and measure her magical prowess. As it went through her and entered the palace district, the warmness gradually and hastily lessened until it matched the forced cold climate inhabiting the district which paired eerily well with the scorching rays of the setting sun.

“Well, time to move on.” She whispered to herself as she leapt back into the open confines of the tower and conjured ravenous shadows over the stalwart, vacant form laying in the corner behind the stairs. Within seconds they pulled the corpse of the dragonkin down in the nether realm and left no trace, be it mundane or aethereal whilst Zeyneb descended on the creaking, polished wooden stairs, her form draped in shapeless, scanty robes of dark shades slowly engulfed by gentler shadows as they brought her over to the unseen realm few could peer into.

**

Urwah watched as a small contingent of fellow legionaries trampled out the gates of the innermost section of the palace district whilst she relaxed with a heavy keg of honeyed mead before her, enjoying it beneath the sheeted cover of the tavern. A sigh escaped her fair amber lips with a tint of golden while her voluminous long hair of a dim olive shade cascaded down onto her own black leather tunic’s smooth, rustled shoulders as she leaned onto the round wooden table with a long, twisted leg ending in a whirlpool.

Before they disappeared behind the closing golden ornated gate, she marveled at the northern armor consisted of the round domed with an angular visor, metallic cheek bands, a ridge of distinct dragon scaled pattern with the lower ranked having only the wavy horns while their leader had mauve flail dancing to the tune of the wind and two dragon horns sprouting from the sides.

Their chest plate angular and segmented in an asymmetrical, elven style with the lower plates wider, the upper’s shorter and slanted inwards around the center decorative piece of a beaked dragon head with the horns stretching towards the shoulder pieces which larges parts also resembled a dragon’s head while the smaller slanting pieces may have been an artistic innuendo which was successful at least to Urwah.

On the top part, a collar rose from the chest plate covered by deep black fur which matched with the leather tunic worn beneath the armor, while at the nether areas where the tunics’ and the chest plates kilt meshed and wrestled with each other as they moved, they wore segmented greaves covering thigh and below.

The muscles of her svelte body still ached from the morning training, though the alcohol lessened them gradually. But they could still do nothing against the pain of her fists still aching from the impacts of her striking and shattering the practice golem’s stony body, and more importantly against the mental pain of the day still not being over as the dim shadows of dusk creeped over the courtyard.

When the shadows covered even the last inch of the district, she chugged the little still funneling at the bottom of the keg, grabbed her spear resting against the wooden pillar outside of the tavern’s right corner and rushed towards the armory on the opposite side where one of her fellow local auxiliaries, a dashing sraudornian stood guard, waiting to be relieved from his post by her.

The soft leathery textile of her tunic’s round, asymmetrical kilt tinged her bottom making her smile involuntarily as the alcohol amplified the sensation a bit even in her tipsy state. “Anything out of the ordinary?” She asked a bit hopeful that the nightly shift may bring something interesting, something out of the ordinary. The dashing man shook his head and offered a sympathetic smile before he walked away while Urwah knitted her hair into a long, pointed tail.

Before she entered to walk the beat within the confines of the oblong edifice that housed most of the armor and weapons of the auxiliaries and tribunes, magic crystals used to strengthen the spells of mages or feed the war beasts, she made her rounds around the buildings where shadows appeared ever dimmer, even for her elven eyes capable of seeing in the dark a bit more well than most of the other races.

She entered a bit dejected and bored, and dizzy – as she made her rounds hastily – through the simple, sturdy door of the armory, and placed the spear on the nearest rack standing proudly, nailed to the wall like the others adorning the entrance hall. Then she walked past the first three separated by armored mannequins and halted at the one nearest to the right door and picked down a short sword.

Amidst slipping it into her leather sheath, she heard the distinct noise of tumbling, falling crates from the room muffled by the thick wooden door. Feeling lucky in catching a possible intruder, she entered slowly, her hand prepared on the pommeled hilt of the blade and let the shadows swallow her svelte form. “Hmrh mm crnh!” In the vast room with her eyes sharpened, she walked further in and a pair of hands grabbed her from the temporary corridor between the stacks of crates.

Golden sand poured from the cold and soft palm of her captor, sticking together as if mixed with water while blocking the way of air in and out of her body while also pouring in sweet fumes that put a heavy weight on her lids, sapped the strength which with she tried to bend the other arm coiling around her torso, locking her arms to her sides with ursine strength.

“Sweet dreams.” Zeyneb whispered menacingly into the dagger long and slender ears of Urwah whose squirming came to a definite halt while her body slumped towards the floor. After a few more seconds spent in a palpable silence, Zeyneb released her hand from her mouth while the mushy golden sand dispersed into mana particles and slipped her arms under Urwah’s pits before she dragged her further back.

Footnotes: So hi there. First time speaking up here as I wanted to slowly catch up to my uploads on Deviantart and Pixiv [leaving out a few of the weaker stories, or well the weakest]. Just a bit of FYI here for now I wanted to add. Or well a history of my work.

I started writing this, Archives of Heleion/Chronicles of Heleion a year or two back now after I played around on AIDungeon and started saving down a few of the  stories where I got a bit degenerate. That was what I call now the first iteration of the story, where the timeline was a bit different, and I used DnD terms, mostly for races. Like stygians were tieflings [there were still elven ones as I wanted them to be more a corrupted form of races than a race on its own] and drow for the dark elves which now changed.

And lastly, the story was sliced into three arcs. There was the first I started out with focusing on Astrydril [Amalia previously] and Lyaldis [forgot her OG name] hunting down the Coven of the Forsaken across the north, a shady organization of witches who were either rejected by the Black Rose Order, or were simply expelled from the Order, from the Academy for heresy, for being psychos lacking in subtlety then shifted away from the two in what I called the Colonial War arc, a story a bit influenced by the American war for freedom where I focused on new set of characters, and minor ones as I wanted the story to be more anthology like, and use a mixture of tropes, Damsel-in-Distress + Red Shirt trope = Red Shirts In Distress. Which I used more in the Great War Arc where I used this trope of mine extensively while also featuring Astrydril, Lyaldis and a few more characters.

Which includes Zeyneb, who was a high ranking assassin of the Black Rose Orders' sister organization from the far-south, who in that iteration were called the Daughter of Arcane Sands. Though I featured them less than I originally intended. Which I now try to rectify. But more on that in the next chapter as this rambling already got a bit too long.

Thank you all for reading this and the story so far! Have a nice day or evening wherever you are. And keep to the shadows, stay hydrated!