Lord Evergreen: A Memoir

*by Ketha'al*

The sound of dripping water, like an ocean inside the ear.

Dizziness and nausea sweep through me like a storm, memory tinged with corrupting truths. I retch, spilling the contents of my heart, in place of my absent stomach.

I have been a husk of my former self for far too long.

Once, I was called "Champion", "Lord", and a number of other titles.

They are of no concern now, meaningless whispers in reference to the golden age of Rokar. When the calamity came, order dissolved almost instantaneously.

It is quite a thing to say now, for how the Calamity appears as an event, from the outside...

From the inside, though, it was an endless torment, a spanning of days that slowly drew us all, beloved apostle and sinner both, into a hell of our own making.

A hell where life no longer contains the essence of living, where death goes unmourned, and the various afterlives promised by the faithful, proven false.

If you would listen to a mere shadow's folly, then I would pray that you listen to the end, and though I know it is more than any of us deserve, I ask it still.

I cannot guarantee the truth of these words, for they are only a single man's perspective. I ask it still.

The dissolution of Rokar came in stages, starting long before High King Oryndyr began his descent into madness, dragging the whole kingdom behind him.

It was a long, long time ago... A tale of the cursed and misunderstood Void Keepers, and their tragic failures, and heroism.

The Void Keepers were an organization, governed by one of the three High Seats themselves, tasked with their namesake.

But, we must go back even further to determine the truth of that, to begin properly.

The Gate to the Void itself was discovered by Magister Thron, that accursed and luckless saint, innocently turning the key to the door, leading the future of the kingdom to its doom.

In the beginning, it seemed so full of hope: A way to seek the source of all Aether, to achieve the "root", and garner a full understanding and control of the substance that was the cornerstone of our civilization. I remember hearing stories from my father, in my youth, of Thron, the excitement in the high court, and the amazing scientific advances that took place in the following few years.

Still, I wonder if he would have framed those stories with such hope and pride, had he known where we would end up.

It was approximately a decade after Thron's original discovery when things went truly awry. I was a young man, then, strong of limb and heart, but unwise and foolhardy. The experiments had continued all this time, the High King pouring endless amounts of manhours and resources into trying to pry open the Gate to no avail, and Thron slowly going mad... Losing the respect of the high court, becoming subject to ridicule, having his order defunded and stripped of their honors... I cannot say I blame him. It was an... untenable position.

The successes in accessing and controlling the void became more numerous, but these were no balm for the King's grandiose expectations, nor Thron's own obsession. The increasingly-limited access to new raw Aether, and the dissolution or loss of that which we did have access to, drove the high king to become more and more desperate for the salvation he sought in the void's potentially limitless Aether, even as the high court snapped at his heels like ungrateful hounds who would rather wolf down the scraps of our once-great kingdom even as everything crumbled around them. Though the Void Keepers had not so long ago held great renown, they too were made pariahs, absorbing the backlash of Thron's disgrace and eventual exile.

It was thus that Thron gambled with the future of all Rokar, and lost.

It was a time of turbulence already, and by the time Thron was decreed an exile from Rokar, I had become a knight. Considering the nature and status of my birth, and the schisms in the kingdom that likely forced Oryndyr's hand in his need for more loyal warriors, making me the youngest to ever attain knighthood since the Grandfather Yahua; though this was no mark of pride.

Within the study of his archive, Thron gathered his greatest disciples, those with the brightest minds and keenest hearts, and they committed themselves to a dire ritual, the means of which, none remain alive to describe the happenings of what occured inside that room. I can say, however, that I was assigned to enforce Thron's own exile, and it was in attempting to do so that I discovered the depth of catastrophe. I can still remember, arriving in the storm that surged outside, the depths of the study lit with an unearthly red light, shining from every window and porthole like a bloody sun, visible from miles away.

By the time we arrived, it was done. Whatever work had been attempted lay in ruin, the archives of the Void Keepers consumed in a sea of flame and aether spires, twisting and growing like roots seeking fertile soil to grow. As we investigated the ruins, we found no trace of Thron or his so-called heretical followers, and I would posit that they had been exiled already, or killed.

The high king bore down upon us for our failure, though I imagine it was the need of someone to blame, to redirect the seething anger and fear that were now resonating through the city. I was sentenced to be executed by the next sunrise. I did not understand, then, but I would soon.

It was in a cell in the high king's own prison tower, thus, that I sat to watch the end of the world, and watch the end of myself. From my window, I saw that the archive itself had ceased to be, instead, a blood-tinged mountain of crystal, jagged and unhospitable. Those of us who were exposed to the initial reaction were the first to change. Shards of Aether, fused with the skin, growing in size and number, like a crystalline scabbing over mortal flesh, eventually crumbling away, rotting away... Until all that is left is a husk, a cage for unformed aether, and thusly slave to the whim of the void which now threatens to consume us all.

I do not know if it is war, or malice, or merely survival from the void's perspective. Regardless, it pours into our world through that malignant spot, where Thron unleashed the means of shattering our entire way of life, our history, our pride, and our families.

I sat in that room unattended for a long time, and I do not doubt that if I were a mortal man still, I would have perished there. Instead, I unwillingly sacrificed my humanity, and all that was dear to me, to exist eternally in two cages.

I have watched those who would send me to death all fall before me, while laughing mirthlessly in my deathless grave.

I saw the funeral procession for Oryndyr himself winding its way through the capital, though I know not who became high king or queen after him, if there was indeed another. I heard the screams for so long, innocents and warriors, fighting an enemy that had no concept of honor or mercy...

I have long since lost my mind, even as I somehow begin to find it again after all this time... and to whomever finds me, I pray for you to send me to my final rest. There would be no greater mercy for a poor wretch like myself.

Signed,

(illegible)

Lord of Evergreen