Legend of Ransera

"And thus is the æternal Word of Aværys, Exacting Be His Will, made manifest. And thus is the æternal Word of Varvara, Severe Be Her Strictures, made sacrosanct. For Him we rise."

"Deus vult!" The crowd chanted.

"For Her we sacrifice."

"Sic domina imperat!"

"For Him we sweat!"

"Eos alit!"

"For Her we bleed!"

"Eos alit!"

"Laudandi conditores!"

"Laudandi conditores!"

Vrædyn gazed out over the genuflecting throngs arrayed before him on the floor of the Templum Solis Radiens. The crown-like Mark that rounded his wrist surged with an euphoric warmth that sent shivers through his slender form at the sight of such devoted deference. Smiling to himself, he stepped away from the pulpit.

"Approach." He instructed, as he sensed the anxious attention of a nearby courier. "A missive from the Umbrium?" He ascertained from the Symphony of the servant. He extended his long fingers and closed them about the communique, breaking the Phædryn seal and perusing the contents.

"I see." Vrædyn said, arching his brow and closing his fist around the parchment. An orange glow emanated from between his knuckles and, when he spread his fingers, it was only ash that fell from his pale palm.

"Send word that I will meet him at Red Rock in the chamber where our erstwhile accord was struck. I shall await him there at noontide, by the Sceptre's reckoning." Vrædyn knew Dæmon to be a capable Traverser, who could doubtless find his way back to the citadel he'd inhabited for no brief interval. It was a Sentinel facility from from the Luxium, where agents of the Solar Crown would quickly clock the presence of the realm's ancient enemy now that he was a known, rather than a theoretical entity.

At the appointed time, Vrædyn would be at the appointed place, his princely-papal vestments even more lustrous for their many enchantments both ostentatious and practical. An even more intricate web of ensorcellments than one might note in most military uniforms, for this was a prince, a pontiff and a paterfamilias.

"Ave, Dæmon, Princeps Kalzasi..." He inclined his head, before switching over to the Common tongue. "Wherefore am I graced with so... peculiar an audience?"

Vrædyn promptly averted his gaze from the lustrous entity before him, blinking away the blinding effects. Again he felt a surge of warmth at his crowned wrist, but this was not accompanied by the euphoria he'd felt at the obeisance of his flock.

The announcement about the faltering Sceptre was not news to him, and he found himself bemused at both the interest of Arcas as well as his approach to this encounter. It seemed oddly antagonistic, for someone with whom he'd had something of a working relationship, albeit never a warm one.

"I see..." He pursed his full lips, and stalked to the table. The room was empty, now. As if their meeting there was either unscheduled or so clandestine as to warrant complete privacy, even from the notoriously obedient guards and attendants who served in the Sentinel facility when they'd last met there. Arcas would know that other parts of the citadel were occupied, but that it was a skeleton crew compared to when he'd been relegated to dwelling the distant, desert fortress.

"You are an interesting deity. I have always found you thus..." He pulled out the high backed chair at the head of the table, and perched himself upon it. "This is not the first time you've come to treat with the mortal descendants of Those who hold greater stock in the matters you would address... You are a god and I am a mortal elf. Why dost thou condescend to come hither at my beck? Wherefore art thou bashful to broach your concerns with Them directly? Do you think this matter is beneath Their interest?" This was not the first time the Princeps Pontifex of Solunarium peppered Arcas with questions that intrigued him as a theologian. He was a curious and enthusiastic devotee of the Faith who knew more about foreign religions than most of his people, but struggled to comprehend certain themes that were aberrant to his own.

"Or perhaps..." Vrædyn paused, recalling that on a previous occasion he'd blacked out and found himself in the embrace of his Phædryn cousin whereupon he discovered that he had been a vessel for his Lord.

"...Perhaps you wish to use me to do just that. I do not know whether your Vastian hath improved since last we met, Arcas, but Pontifex is our word for 'Builder of Bridges'. Wouldst thou, lofty creature, use me for thy lodestone?" As he concluded his thought, he ran the tip of his tongue over the curling smirk that painted his upper lip. There was a golden glint in Vrædyn's silver eye that made it seem like Aværys' presence might already be sharing space with the willowy prince.

Vrædyn knitted his brow at the questions that answered his own. It didn't take a Grandmaster Mesmer to glean the belligerence in his delivery, but it was that much harder to miss for one so attuned to emotions. There was a time when he might have expected more austerity from a divine being, but having been graced by the presence of one, he was disabused of that notion.

"Do not take my curiosity for dismissal or dissuasion. I ask questions because I am a student of divinity and am fascinated by the subjects of my study. I leave the cross-examinations to my cousins of Gens Naxos. I do not know whether thou art accustomed to the overt displays of awe and obeisance that our Founders expect from Their devoted, but I cannot willingly offer those things to you without broaching apostasy... a fate worse than death to a true-hearted Solunarian, let alone the Keeper of the Faith."

He glanced down at the illusory invocation presented on the table between them, glimpsing his own figure with bemusement, at first, and then unveiled surprise when he realised the moment was a recollected reverie, rather than a fictional depiction.

"I wouldn't have taken Your Highness for a peeping Talon." He offered with a bit of a forced chuckle. He saw no purpose in feigning that he was stoical about or comfortable with this invasion. "But I can hardly begrudge you the gumption." He smoothed out the front of his robe, and crossed his legs, sitting back against his simulacrum of a throne as Arcas spoke on.

"Thou didst fain spy on me receiving my sovereign's order. Didst thou watch me on any other enlightening occasions? When I was bathing, perhaps..." A bit flirtatious, a bit facetious, Vrædyn's grin was impish.

"...Or perchance you observed all those opportunities I had to oblige Her Divine Radiance's lawless command. All of which I neglected to take." He may not have been altogether at ease, but he was one of the warmer figures amongst the Unbroken Line when it served him to be.

"My Faith is to a higher power than my Fealty. If ever the two be at odds, it is to Aværys higher crown I must needs defer. For her to ask that of me was, in a word, unconscionable."

"A lot changed on that fateful day of the jubilee: Arkænyn Princeps Platinum... Arvælyn Princeps Draconum... The Five emerged to stake their ancient claim, and I... found myself in a new, if not altogether unpredictable predicament. If you view me as an enemy because of my ostensible association to the Luxian Crown, know you this: I have been in regular correspondence with my Umbrian counterpart ever since the day we served as Their vessels. That day we both woke changed and touched by our Gods. Prince Arvælyn may be closer to She of the Scourge, but I..." He unclasped his hands to raise his wrist- the same one that had been bound to Phocion on that day when they were both possessed of the Founders. And that wrist was rounded by the same crown-like Emblem that now circled Finn's brow.

"...was chosen to walk the Radiant path. And even as we parley, Highness, He is with us. My eyes, ears and all of me are His." He smiled broadly, relishing the comfort he took in this religious truth.

"So, what is your plan and what is my place in it?"

Vrædyn Princeps Pontifex, spiritual leader of a magocracy with a noted penchant for the æsthetic over the ascetic, was no stranger to impressive displays of arcane Craft. Illusions, conjurations, evocations, summonings and more were things he saw daily in his roles as both priest and prince. In the upper echelons of their society, awe was imposed so often toward the lower that is was, for him, less awesome. To see the Lord of Light ply the subject of his demesne before him was, however, a novel phenomenon.

"Exquisite." He found himself muttering. So focused was he upon the divine diorama, that he didn't even notice Arcas was waxing pedantic until the winged peregrinus asked to be humoured for it. His response was a wry smile and a firm nod. Now he was attentive to the words as well as the magical ministrations.

Vrædyn considered what was being said. He still attended meetings of the Regium Consilium- more than Her Divine Radiance at this point- so he was aware of the draining effect. The exhaustion of ætheric resources was the reason it was faltering now- Not because Solunarium was ill-equipped to feed the black beast above, but because a divided Solunarium was disinclined to expend resources that might give advantage to their counterparts. Thalya IV was hoarding resources and shoring up defences, paranoid for the wellbeing of herself and those closest to her with less concern for the greater populace than she'd displayed throughout her long and stable reign. The Zalkyrians were focused upon the transition of the Umbrium and the coronation of their Rex Draconum... or so Phocion claimed. Even with all the slender Sentinel's wards in place, Vrædyn knew his Phædryn cousins well enough to recognise there was more to it. This was a power play. If Thalya abandoned her subjects to the darkness, they would turn to those who deigned to protect them- shifting their fealty from the Elven to the Draconic Crown. This had Cithæra written all over it. Even this queer solution that brought Arcas into his presence.

"I see..." Vrædyn winced, suddenly jerking his head to one side as his silvery eyes glowed gold for a flash of a moment and he heard something in a primal part of his mind. He repeated it aloud:

"'Make a path.'" He glanced to Arcas, his eyes their normal shade of pale once again. "Do these words mean aught to thee? I heard the voice of my Lord intone these words most ominously when you spoke of opening doors and unnatural imbalances..." He trailed off, his mind returning to the more comprehensible matters at hand.

"I am a Solunarian prince and, thus, suspicious by nature. Whilst I believe your scheme beareth merit, I can see whereas it might be a ploy for thou to evangelise Their devout into worshipping thee. They are famously averse to being undercut, but He doth not speak words of warning into mine ear and thus do I infer that you are being granted the benefit of the doubt. I know not what accord was struck 'twixt thee and They at Kaladon, but shouldst thou vex Them it is a battle beyond the bridge of my construction." He offered with a humble bow of his head in acknowledgement of his own mortality and unworthiness to treat in certain concerns.

"I will aid thee."

"I understand." Vrædyn nodded, "I am loath to admit we are delving into realms beyond my current ken, but I am keen to expand my wealth of knowledge in this process." Arcas' argument was sound and salient enough to ease down the pontiff's proverbial hackles.

At the gesture toward his Mark, Vrædyn flexed his long fingers as he turned his arm to view the underside of the symbol.

"There are two of us with His and two with Hers. I believe you are familiar with all of us, so that should make it an easier collaboration. Finn and I have been working together comparing notes as we glean insight into our new abilities. I understand Arvælyn and Phocion have a similar arrangement."

Then Arcas spoke of Kaladon and what he'd said there, which was unknown to Vrædyn. He'd been present at the behest of the Founders far below the mount at the new Aurisian temple than linked their two realms, but he hadn't been party to what happened to resolve the ancient feud. By and by, he realised that Arcas wasn't really speaking to him in that moment. It was a strange thing to realise he was serving as an interlocutor between two gods. In a way it felt less strange to be wholly possessed, even though he'd wholly blacked out and woken in the buff in the arms of his cousin. Still, it was a consolation to hear Arcas make his case, rather than letting the problem lay at the feet of Aværys at some later date when unforeseen issues came to the fore.

Vrædyn tipped his head back and guffawed, then looked to Arcas realising it may not have been an intentional jape.

"Oh, it's just... You said 'This is to be the first invocation of Hope's Archmagic' and that you... hope... it works. That struck me funny. Sorry." He cleared his throat, and got very business-like once more.

"No, actually and this is entirely coincidental, this citadel is very well situated to access the Sceptre. May this happy happenstance betoken fortune's favour."