Rise of the Archmage Alister

“I heard the gods caught Raalin. Paraded the corpse of his apprentice through the streets of Veferna, which he never would have allowed. The Twins were devastated; they so looked forward to inviting him into the Eye of Misaraja when he next improved his coloring. I am mostly indifferent. His flights of passion and open defiance would have endangered us all anyway.

Still, I can't help but mourn the death of a possible peer.

But I suppose he'd balk too much at the final hurdle into immortality, which he'd surely have to pass to grow once more. None of the twelve strong of our ranks have yet passed on bound by the yoke of mortality.

Ah well. No sense in regretting something beyond our ken of resurrection. I've got work to do now; this dimension won't run itself, and no magic can overcome bureaucracy and paperwork.”

…

This is a new name. ‘Raalin’ has been unmentioned in other texts concerning Archmagi. The rest of this text was obscured with some unknown stain we cannot seem to remove. It must be of some magical fluid.

Head Librarian and Lead Arcane Translator,

Master Revinious Precipitux

…

“News from the mortal realm came today. Some damnable fool, Pernario Binthus I believe it was, went meddling amongst affairs beyond his understanding and let one of Them in, then the dolt banished it.

"From whence it came" he no doubt thought, as if the half-wit could comprehend such things. This will bode poorly. I shall bolster the wards.

No doubt some poor bastard will come a-knocking, seeking refuge should They spare us a glance this time.”

…

“May the hells burn hot for Pernario Binthus. A glance is all I wish was spared us. It seems the ire of One of Them was earned in his fool's endeavor.

It took ten long years, but we've confirmed the presence of Their scouts. Little... fingers. They were found in the skull of peasants from Ovidacarp, naught but thirty miles from one of our rifts.

Evidently, the town had been abandoned after over three-quarters of the populace was claimed o'er night. Such is what Malakara says, but he's always been the secretive sort. Never one to tell everything, the rat. If only one of us had even half his talent at divination, I'd use his core for researching Void Ascension.

He does claim to be ever so close after all.

Regardless, the fingers assaulted our golems after the death of their hosts. They found nothing to control, of course, and were captured inside the heads of our soldiers until their return.

I shall issue a warning to all: do not enter Laboratory Theta-C for the foreseeable future. We must test for weaknesses.”

…

“I fear it is worse than we thought. We number now eleven in total. After allowing The Telepath to look into what we were doing after much consternation and warning, my peer went mad. Worse yet, it was a quiet madness. We were a fool to let him go. But we could only hope after the Fingers were found within our own home...

We should have then put him down after the golems were found to be whispering mad chants to citizens. None but he could have hijacked them so. But we just couldn't believe he'd turn so easily. Not after mastering the Litany of Oblivion.

Only once they had begun gathering in secret did we see what was happening, how the Fingers got in. They grew in the heads of those whispered to. But not just one, many. After we raided their cult compound, we found they come in varieties; the Seeder variety was more subtle, secretive even until the death of their host. Only upon expiration did they reveal themselves.

The Warrior class was less subtle and far more dangerous. The only survivor was put down after the deed was done, to make certain the madness didn't spread, and he knew unfortunately little of this second varietal... but what he said was disturbing. It seemed the itching from where contact was made didn't stop, not even when flesh gave way to muscle.

His death was a mercy.”

…

“We've no choice. There are but nine of us now. The Twins were always a risk with their mental link, with this particular threat. But it was unthinkable what they had done.

Not even we are resistant to the damnable chanting coming from our homeworld. So they did the only thing they could think of. They bypassed our vote and relocated the direct passage elsewhere.

A clever move. Or it would have been, had we not opened our gates to the source. Now the chanting is worse, and no wards can keep it out.

No one is left in our walls short of we nine. They've all gone mad. The wise killed themselves, the stubborn turned. I suppose I must be the latter. We all must be.

I must be for I have reached a conclusion that is madness: I must study the chant, must dissect it. By my word as Archmage Kirenius, Lord of Illusion, I shall learn all I can and devise a defense... before it's too late.”

…

This was the last sensible entry amongst this collection of ancient texts, from pre-Fall. Afterward, the writing began to diverge wildly from the understood lexicon of the people of the time. What little we could decipher seemed to imply that this Lord of Illusion became the Lord of Blasphemy as were understand him to be.

We suspect this for his particular manner of achieving lichdom. Or so I hear. Such accursed knowledge is not allowed outside the hands of the most sound-minded church Magister.

Pray it remains so. The reign of the Lord of Blasphemy was brutal, and the madness he instilled long after the defeat of his masters, no matter how instrumental a role he played in such, was truly rivaled only by those fell beasts.

The Eldritch truly are monstrous... yet the lesser among them that seem to simply appear from thin air are used for entertainment. Iker protect us and forgive us this hubris. May they protect us now as then.

Only by the study of such texts shall we ever be rid of the Eight Liches in the Cult of Orisons that still remain free, walking blasphemy that they are.

Head Librarian and Lead Arcane Translator,

Master Revinious Precipitux