Annaladhas a Sgail Agach (Chronicles of the Shadows War) Foreword Several Deochs ago, my wife Chloe published a journal of a Loures minister, a man named Beanlar, which chronicled the events of the "Forgetten Empire" leading up to the Shadows War in Danaan 3058. I too, desired to know of the hideousness of the war. My dark nature as a wizard drew me to it. My Luathas upbringing drove me to uncover the knowledge. All of these things circled through my mind as I made the trip to Loures. I knew exactly what my destination was: the Loures library. I knew the answers I sought were there, although I had no justification for it. I had prayed to Luathas several moons earlier, and in a dream, the images of the Shadows War came forth. They left me reeling on the brink of madness, and at one point, Chloe tied me down to prevent me from doing bodily harm to myself. These images were so disturbing, so twisted and horrifying, that even now I have desperate trouble guiding my hand to recall them in the perfect clarity with which I experienced them. Every moment I considered it the tingling of madness would tickle my consciousness...yet I knew that I had to go to Loures to read of the truth. Luathas had somehow guided me to the exact volumes and given me the keys to translating the macabre scrawling script, a script which was often in blood. I found it unusual that it was written in another language, but as I learned, it was written in a dead, twisted version of the script of today: a written language of the dubhaimid. Obscenely, the history had been written by a dark force. Why the dubhaimid would choose to record or even develop a language was completely beyond me. My cousin Cliona cast a sleeping spell on the mundane librarian, allowing me to scurry into the hidden passages and down into an abandoned and secret vault that Luathas had shown me in a dream. I did as I remembered from the dream: five paces from the Loures sigil. Turn right; ten paces. Turn left, three paces. I stopped, and stared. On an obsidian table among hundreds of volumes was a book of seemingly ancient composure. I read the title with foreboding: "Leabhar Dorchadas" - the Book of Darkness. It was a weathered, red-leather bound book with what appeared to be a Kasman-forged clasp. I gingerly opened the clasp, and began reading. The words flew off of the pages, and came towards me! I dropped the book and tried to ward away whatever was now present. Fear gripped me and my blood became ice. My resolve returned with the help of Luathas, and I once again returned to the book. I will warn you that I was shocked and disturbed by much of what I read. What you find below is a recollection of the events chronicled in the Leabhar. I lived all of these events as I wrote of them. I saw Ealagad, and Baidheil. I saw the horrors, as a detached third-party...a shade that merely observed. I saw everything that I had never wanted to. My knowledge had come at a price. Sometimes, late at night, I can feel the images bringing back the madness. The horror, the terrifying twisting images of blood and hideous screaming pain. I only hope that my foolish desire for knowledge will not drive me insane. -Kedian Ta'Null Royal Scholar of the Runic Terra Society ----------- Danaan 3065-67: The Fall of Loures and Ealagad During the Shadows war, Ealagad had tried to assault Dubhaim strongholds, in order to drive them out and reclaim upper Temuair. This assault was ingenious in terms of military planning, and succeded in driving the Dorchadas forces back. Ealagad launched assaults on Piet, Rucesion, and the fields of Ardmagh outside of Loures. At first, it seemed as though Ealagad couldn't be defeated...until the Dorchadas struck back with the most terrifying weapon that had ever been seen: the madness known as Dasachd yn Chennstyr - the Madness of the Ancients. Ealagad's forces crumbled as their worlds were twisted inside out. They turned against each other in battle, killed and mutilated innocents, and burned down their own villages. During this time, the time when the Dorchadas began to repulse Ealagad's forces...Here is where my memories become as clear as my own. I lived this moment. I coughed on the acrid stench on the battlefield and I felt Baidheil's horrible glee. It is these moments that stand out the most among all the others. Because of this, I have chronicled it as a story, as the events unfolded. I was helpless to prevent Ealagad's death. Even though I knew I was only reliving history...I screamed out when she died, wanting desperately to help her. My visions of Loures showed me a proud, upstanding kingdom - a kingdom of strength and tremendous power. I saw a castle much larger than what remains of Loures now, filled to the brim with Ealagad's fearless armies. I saw this fine castle ravaged by the Dorchadas, burnt to the ground as an act of spite. In this missive, I have chronicled the events that stand out the most. They are disturbing, terrifying events of cruelty and butchery...events whose imagery fills my heart with the darkest dread. ----------- Danaan 3065, Dudlachd (early winter) Plains of Ardmagh Sounds of men locked in deadly combat arose into the air. Screams of warriors, swords clanging, priests desperately chanting for salvation, mixed together in a cacophony of impossible volume. Horrible screams of women and children being beaten and mutilated could be heard from below. Denaran Baidheil, battle master of the Dorchadas, was a simple man. He liked making people suffer. It was a simple pleasure, and Baidheil achieved it in overwhelming numbers. He smiled as he watched women and children fall to the clish-clash blading of his men, grasping, reaching with hideous terror in their eyes, trying desperately to put their entrails back into their bodies. His warriors were impressive indeed; the heighth of what Dorcha had to offer. The pitiful wizards and priests trying desperately to remember how to invoke magick were no match for their Kasman-forged gladiuses. The swords were huge, almost the size of Baidheil himself, and yet the warriors with the red glow in their eyes and the black hair swung them as though they were sticks. All the priests could do was stare and gibber, hoping to awake some blind idiot god. Baidheil laughed as he watched one priest ripped in two, his prayer necklace ripped apart. He knew what they didn't - that darkness was the only true God. All the other gods were whores before his. Baidheil smiled as he heard the screams of yet another woman being horribly violated by his men. Life was simple, he thought: Crush the enemy. Break them and humiliate them. Erase their kind from the earth. Simple, simple, simple. No complexity in that. Yes, Baidheil reflected, this - this was the good life. Denaran was not a philosophical man by any means of the word, but for once, he took stock of what he saw. The once-beautiful sunny and grassy Ainmeal plains were now covered in blood. Dark, oily clouds raged in the sky as a hellacious downpour began. The warriors screamed their triumphant victory. The victory of the warriors of the shadows. The warriors of Darkness, of gibbering madness and everlasting Dark. Knowing nothing but overwhelming suffering and pain. He smiled. He was a simple man indeed, and he liked what he saw. He laughed out loud as he saw a group of the 5th Dorchadas regulars impaling the broken townspeople on iron pikes. The townspeople screamed horrible, incomprehensible sounds as the jagged, rusted iron ripped through their soft flesh, tearing through their bodies as if they were leaves. The soldiers, meanwhile, took bets on the time it would take for one old man to die as he feebly reached up with yellowed hands and begged for them to kill him. Baidheil grinned that horrible grin, and drank some more wine. The wizard's head that he used as a goblet could only look at him in a frozen horror. I shivered as I thought that perhaps the mage might be an ancestor of mine. Barely able to contain myself, I tried to walk away, only to find myself transfixed by that horrible, horrible grin. ------- Danaan 3066, Ceitein (early summer) Dorchadas Battle Encampments Loures City Limits Baidheil smiled again as news of his army's overwhelming victory came back to him. He had dominated lower Temuair and now was ready, plotting and planning a siege on Loures. The attack on Piet had been driven back, and the Loures regulars had paid the price. He had sworn to his master that he would bring him the head of Ealagad, and he meant to fulfill that promise. Their strike had been particularly vicious. Beginning with the fall of the plains, Baidheil had begun unleashing the "Madness of the Ancients", brought about by repugnant dark necromancers. The cthonic power that they unleashed roiled across Temuair. The Dorcha grew stronger each day as Ealagad's forces became less and less able to resist the madness. They were no match for the united dubhaim forces. The townspeople that did survive the madness merely sat in their homes and gibbered, or repeated strange phrases to themselves. The madness was corrupting everything that it touched. Even plants and animals began to be driven insane, twisting into horrendous shapes incomprehensible by any living mind. Scholars and philosophers ripped their eyes out rather than see the hideous twisting forms. Baidheil's troops had now moved their camp to a small city outside of Loures, and he laughed again as his troops raped and mutilated the villagers. He ordered one of his servants to bring him a young red-headed girl, and he began his terrible work. I screamed out as I saw Baidheil mutilate the girl with a vicious looking iron pike. He eviscerated her, laughing as she screamed a miserable, horrible death wail. I watched in transfixed horror as a Dorchadas Reiltagh Aile Niurin (Governor of Hellfire) used the girl's entrails in a hideous dark ritual to predict Baidheil's success in the coming campaigns. The girl gurgled and drooled blood as her entrails were ripped out and thrown onto a copper plate. The Reiltagh threw a mixture of small rocks engraved with twisting ruins and gold coins onto the plate, and lifted the plate into the air, chanting in a obscene, forgotten language. Baidheil, for once, looked worried as he stared at the Reiltagh performing his dark ministrations. The vile voice of the Reiltagh chilled my soul as he spelled out his predictions of coming victory for Baidheil. I felt nauseous as he pumped his mythril-clad fist into the air. Baidheil pressed the Reiltagh for more invocations...a prayer to some dark god that had not seen the light of existence in millenia. The Reiltagh unsheathed a wicked-looking dagger with a ruby in the hilt, and with one swift movement cut out the eyes of the girl. I could feel the bile rising to the top of my throat and I was sure that I was going to be ill, but then I felt a dark quiet come over me. Perhaps Luathas had heard my frantic mindset and had given me the courage to survive this trial. I watched in horror as he "read" the back of the girl's eyes. I could see the scarlet in them, once so beautiful, now used as fortune-telling aids. The Reiltagh spit, and threw the eyes into the dust. Baidheil listened as the Reiltagh swore that he would be successful, how he would crush Ealagad in the coming battle and take her head as Denaran had promised his master. I couldn't bear to watch any longer. I tried to run, but once again I was immobile. All I could see were the eyes of the little mundane girl staring out at me from their dusty grave. ------- Danaan 3067, Earrach (Spring) Ealagad's Chambers Loures Castle Ealagad fought. She fought with everything left in her, with all her strength and power, she battled Baidheil. Tears streamed from her eyes as she felt Baidheil's power overcoming her. This was the end. She could feel her once awesome strength draining under the relentless attack of Baidheil. She cursed him silently as she tried to keep up with him, and match his intensity. Ealagad was trying desperately to remember the training of her ancient master, a man named Teuncias. Baidheil wasn't giving Ealagad any respite as his giant battlesword crashed like a wave onto Ealagad's shield. It was all she could do to remain upright in the face of Denaran's crushing strength. Baidheil swung again, but this time, Ealagad feinted and struck home with her sword, Fendeilagh a Corcur Aingeal (Protector of the Crimson Angel). Her mighty blow was not enough to chew through Baidheil's dubhaim-strengthened black battle armor, and Baidheil followed up with a fierce sideways slash that Ealagad barely had time to block. The force of the blow knocked her across the room, and she slid into a stone wall. Ealagad looked up at the Dorchadas leader. Baidheil was laughing, grinning at her with horrible, twisted teeth. Around them lie the remains of court assistants, advisors, and ministers. It had taken the Dorchas mere hours to storm the castle. The cthonic madness that had been unleashed had besieged the Court and twisted all that it touched. The warriors swept through Loures like a tornado, leaving behind only blood and broken bodies in their path. Baidheil knew that Ealagad was doomed. He admired her for her courage, but in the end, he knew he would just have to rape and mutilate her anyways. After all - he was a simple man, he reflected. He had simple goals. Ealagad rose, whispering an oath to her god. She and Baidheil stood and evaluated each other for a moment, a deadly quiet descending on the scene. Baidheil was huge; nearly two heads taller than the Steel Swan. He was clad in the darkest battle armor Ealagad had ever seen, decorated with obscene cthonic runes and markings of the dubhaimid, and his rank in the Dorchadas. Ealagad was surprised to see he had a rather human face, which was criscrossed with scars. His eyes, however, were clearly not human. Staring into them, Ealagad was sure she could see Chadul himself gibbering and calling to her. Baidheil merely matched the empress's steel glaze, and evaluated his enemy. Rarely was Denaran struck with anything matching curiosity, but he had to admit a healty respect for an enemy that had managed to resist his attacks for this long. Ealagad's red hair was tied in a bun, held by an ivory clasp. Her Hy-Brasyl shield was shimmering in the moonlight, her gilded armor being the best to ever come out of Loures' forges. Her brilliant blue eyes stared back at Baidheil, and he saw no fear. For once in his simple life, Denaran Baidheil was truly surprised. Suddenly, with a hellish cry, Ealagad launched herself at Baidheil. Ealagad became a blur as her sword reached superhuman speeds. Baidheil was taken by surprise and stumbled back, blocking the blows with his Kasman shield. He saw an opening, and struck Ealagad back with a mighty blow. Denaran saw a weakness in Ealagad's defense, and exploited it. His sword struck with blinding speed, ripping into Ealagad's face. Ealagad fell to the ground screaming, making a hideous sound, bleeding profusely, blood streaming down her face from where Baidheil's strike had torn her flesh open and cut into her bone. Her Hybrasyl shield fell from her arm, clanging on the cold stone floor of the inner chambers. She looked up at Baidheil with one eye and the hideous remainder of the right side of her face. Baidheil, for once, was again truly surprised at the fact that she was still alive. Ealagad began to make a terrifying gurgling noise as she choked on the blood streaming from her wounds. She opened her mouth and tried to speak, bile dripping from her torn lips. Baidheil just watched and grinned his hideous grin. It was over. Loures had been crushed, and the end had come. He knew that the Reiltagh could not be wrong. All Ealagad could do was cry, wondering why her god had forsaken her. Her tears streamed from her remaining eye, falling silently onto her gilded knees. Baidheil, meanwhile, grabbed Ealagad's crimson hair, and prepared to fulfill his promise. All that could be heard was the clacking of the ivory clasp falling to the ground, and Ealagad's strangled gurgling. A deathly silence had engulfed the room. From the corner of the room, the Minister Beanlar watched, barely able to raise his head off of the ground. A keening wail arose from the minister as Baidheil tore Ealagad's head from her shoulders, blood spraying in a fine mist to cover the tapestries of Loures with a new type of ink. When he left, Baidheil made sure he crushed Beanlar's head under his Kasman boot. He heard a pleasing crunch, and went along his way. I could only look on in horror. I cried, screamed, and tried to move, but I was rooted to the spot by whatever hellish dark force had brought me here in the first place. I tried to move so that I could help Ealagad in some small way...but to no avail. I heard Baidheil's laughter and his boots echoing through the halls of the castle. I was finally able to step back. I felt a horrible warmth, and I realized I was standing in the collapsed head of the Minister. I screamed, but there was no sound...All I heard was a faint whisper of the wind. Baidheil merely laughed as he ordered the castle to be burnt to the ground. ----- Horribly, I can still hear the screaming of the mundanes locked in the basement of Loures as the fire incinerated them. It stays with me even now, as I write this. To think that anyone could burn a castle to the ground simply for spite...It shocks me. However, with Baidheil's promise having been fulfilled, Ealagad's empire lay broken. Loures, Piet, and all of lower Ardmagh was now in control of the Dorchadas forces. The townspeople that had the hideous fate of being in the occupied territories suffered terrible, grotesque deaths at the hands of Baidheil's jackals. Using the dark crypts of Piet as their fortress, they fanned out in waves across Temuair, slaying, raping, mutilating, and pillaging everything they found. Ealagad's once proud army was now split into mercenary bands, each fighting with each other for supremacy. Most of the tattered remnants of the once great Loursian forces withdrew to Mileth, risking their lives ascending the Kasmanium Mountains, just to escape the roving Dorchadas patrols. Little did they know that they were carrying the madness to Mileth, where it would sweep through the sleepy inland village like fire through a dry prarie.... -------- At this point, I must stop, and rest...My mind cannot comprehend the next parts, filled with so much blood and destruction, without reason or justification...filled with twisting shapes of incomprehensible construct and the never-ending laughing of Baidheil and his armies. The gibbering madness has infected my very being and threatens to drive me insane. I can barely control the hideous memories of so much death and destruction. Luathas help us if we ever relive those horrible days. I, for one, would rather be dead. I hope, one day, to be able to continue these chronicles in a history of the Shadows War. Until then, walk in the shadow of your god. May they keep you safe....I fear Luathas himself cannot prevent my madness. -Kedian