Preamble to the “Erendar Chronicles” by Magister Llurien.
Here I have endeavored to assemble all accounts concerning the outworld
adventures of Irindai forebears’ that are known to us
Their chronicles go back many millennia, and the ancient scripts are
surprisingly well-preserved and detailed, but the matters they relate are of
highly sophisticated nature, challenging even for dedicated scholars such as
myself.
This preamble merely seeks to familiarize the reader with the relevant
facts of history, so it omits the mystifying details of ancient outworld life.
>>> Part I <<<
Our tale begins on Alarchion, a world that is later referred to as the
‘machine world’, a place where technology became so advanced that man had but
to think and the automata surrounding him would do his bidding.
For some, however, such advancement was a thing of dubious value - many
have begun to question the purpose of it, and whether it did not make them less
in what concerns their spirit.
Soon, the thoughts of existence’s meaninglessness started to haunt them
without mercy.
It is also said that these ideas were given further traction by the
‘whispers from the void’, which, I believe, refers to the insidious influence
of Sanguinos, the lord of the Crimson Moon.
Meanwhile, among the more practical and optimistic (if also
materialistic, one could add) people of Akalachri, great progress was being
made, and hopes were rising high.
An expedition was outfitted to look beyond the confines of the ‘machine
world’, orders of Mechanicum and Aetherium working together to create a small
fleet of vessels that could navigate the ‘strands of Aether’.
The matter was complicated however, and as the world’s channel was
opened for the pioneers’ vessels to go through, the spirit of the ‘whisperer’
entered.
Those Akalachrei who already felt resentful towards the machine-driven
life became incensed and began a crusade of destruction on all that they had
built over centuries.
By then, however, the machines were more than mere servants, and the
rampant violence eventually led to the creation of a new kind among them, one
that was independent of their original creators and knew to defend itself.
Despite initial disadvantage of numbers and initiative, it appears that
these conscious machines quickly matched and outmatched the destructive fury of
their erstwhile masters.
Whether out of some strange notion of mercy or a calculation we cannot
fathom, they reopened the gate to let the humans escape the war they had
started.
Embittered with defeat and humiliation, they were ripe for the taking
by Sanguinos’ power. Thus they became the Legion of the Damned,
and learned the arts of wars and destruction which, had they possessed
them, may have let them prevail over Akalarchi’s new masters.
It is remarkable - this evidence that Ardai and Iraendai trace their
origins to the same world, and indeed the same nation, is astonishing, for
today none would dare suggest such a notion, for the two are nothing if not
opposites.
While the future servants of the Archangel went on crusades of fire and
sword, using their Lord’s mastery over the Warp Strands, the pioneer ships
continued on their way through the Strands of Aether.
Their journey took them through the Inner World of Meteora, known as
the Tempest Moon, where the very laws of nature were strange and unstable.
Its lord, the Changing God met them with certain hospitality at first,
raptured at having finally found a worthwhile breed of mortals who knew how to
‘play with nature’.
Eager to bend the raw fury of the elements to practical purpose, they
installed the machines they had brought with them
But the power of the Changing God relied on the very force that the newcomers
sought to tame, as once he realized that, his fondness for them grew less,
until at last he bid them leave.
He did however point them in a direction of his favorite world,
secretly hoping, they later surmised, that it would prove too hard a nut to crack.
This is how they reached the world called Tormenta – a place of
unending tempests and sporadic cataclysms…
>>> End of part I <<<
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