Spears agleam in the dying sun,
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The blood is spilled, the battle's won,
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From the icy throne of God-King shall rule,
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When nine stars kiss the moon o'er Ultima Thule.
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[Old Northlander war-song, found in the ancient scrolls of Volmyr]
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The Final Part of Voryn Helmsmiter's Journey to the Ice Realm: Blood
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drips from my frost-encased sword, forming a crimson blossom upon the ice...
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My limbs cold, becoming as one with the massing snows... my eyes nearly frozen
|
closed. For how long had we travelled? The memory grows dim, lost in the
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cruel, searing storm-winds. And now, at last... our quest is at an end. With
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the blessings of the elders we began our journey beyond the great veil of
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shadowed glaciers... They spoke of a prophecy foretold, an ancient and
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glorious legacy, A quest for the realm of legendry lost to man since before
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even the Star-Lords descended... Now, only I survive, my blood spilling to the
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ice, turning to crimson crystal upon the deeply frozen earth. Elder sorcery
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crackles and hums all about me, coursing through the sky, the snow... As grim
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destiny approaches with the freezing boreal gales and this ancient prophecy
|
unfolds...
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|
[Predication of the Elders:]
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Go, follow the witch-lights in the northern night sky, beyond the great
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silvern mountains... Let the sacred moon-crystal be your guide, beware the
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sentinels at the Caverns of Eternal Mist...
|
|
Spears agleam in the dying sun,
|
The blood is spilled, the battle's won,
|
From the icy throne of God-King shall rule,
|
When nine stars kiss the moon o'er Ultima Thule.
|
|
Swathed in moon-frosts, in icy winds our blazon flying,
|
Iron gleaming 'neath the stars, black skies ablaze with astral fire,
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White wolves (like silent spirits) haunt us, ever northwards, the ice-gem
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leads us, glimmering,
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Powerful spells entwine the shrine of legendry, mighty gates of frozen
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splendour looming,
|
When the moon and stars shine as one upon the snows, the ancient ice-gate
|
opens, the prophecy is fulfilled!
|
|
Towering, ice-encrusted forms lumber forth from the freezing mist,
|
(Their eyes shimmering with a fiendish, eldritch malevolance...)
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Our steel is raised against their weapons of gleaming crystal,
|
And the virgin snow is rendered crimson by bloodshed in a searing storm of
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slaughter.
|
(Wounded, dying, my flesh rent by weapons no human ever forged or wielded, I
|
am beckoned forward by a strange, alluring force from beyond the veil of
|
swirling mists...)
|
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Shadows, images form in the glittering rune-carved walls of this glacial
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chamber,
|
Secrets frozen within the timeless vaults of eternity...
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The throne of the time-lost ice realm, entwined in the mantle of such searing
|
star-born power...
|
This frozen, aeon-cloaked seat of immortal majesty... (of an empire forged
|
long before the vast seas rose in devouring fury!)
|
|
What shimmering swords raised in combat once sang with the glorious clamour
|
of steel on steel?
|
What splendid banners, billowing in the icy gales, once heralded the march
|
of these invincible silverclad legions to the blood-swathed embrace of epic
|
battle?
|
The glory of untold thousands of years past... this ethereal legacy of
|
mighty Ultima Thule.
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The frozen eyes of immortal kings watch me... such a dark splendour!
|
|
The Guardian of Ice and Shadow:
|
The grim Ice-Gods sleep in these frost-bound tombs, illumined by the caress
|
of lunar fire,
|
And the kiss of star-gleam from the stygian void...
|
All is now as was foretold in prophecy, written in the very ether of empyreal
|
eternity...
|
The celestial alignment is night... the conjunction is at hand!
|
|
And nine stars illumine the northern heavens, a vast cosmic sigil with the
|
silvern moon at its centre...
|
Blazing argent light fills the chamber, engulfing the hewn walls of elder ice,
|
These ancient carvings in a time-veiled tongue, (etched into the primeval ice
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countless aeons ago, now bathed in diaphonous incandescence by this storm of
|
lucent stellar power, their mindsearing meaning at last becomes known to me...)
|
their cosmic secrets unfold...
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| The |
