Incursion

Incursion is a book recovered from Fort Aytysos by Rynros Onyxblade.

## Description

Picked up by the adventurer Rynros Onyxblade owing to its seemed author - the spellcaster Elhorn - serving as an individual of particular interest for him, Incursion seems to be a book pertaining to the ingress of creatures from the Abyss, demons of all kinds that serve only to destroy, content on claiming dominion over crushed bone, mangled flesh and smouldering ash.

## Reading

### Completed by Rynros Onyxblade

When a colony of humanoids settles in a locale, they will shape the surrounding landscape to their wills and whims. Perhaps they select a spot by the riverside, with a small copse of trees nearby, grasslands of waist-high blooms forming roaming hills towards the horizon. In time they will seek fish and water from the river, claiming with net and pot that they cannot do so with but their hands, and to the forests and fields they will claim lumber to build houses, walls and equipment, cereal crops to eat themselves, or feed to livestock until fat and fit for the plate. Perhaps they will find steadfast stone beneath the soil, and traces of metal further still, lifting them from the dark to continue their transformation. In weeks, months, years, decades, centuries, the land around them may be a far cry from what it once was, turned to better serve its claimants, its masters, all routes feeding to the fledgling settlement at its core as it continues to grow. The creatures of the Abyss are no different in their goals, seeking to extend their dominion freely and create in their image and design - twisted, cruel and unusual as that may be. Each and every world will soon revolve around the demonic architect, commanding law and structure alike to forge their definition of perfection. The very presence of sufficiently powerful demons seem to aid this, their chaotic malleability serves as a substrate for change, their greatest strength, for where they pass, they leave a trail of the Abyss, encouraging further and further change at an ever-accelerating rate.

A demon marauding upon a plane other than that of the Infinite Layers of the Abyss may be uncommon, but it is certainly not unheard of. Most notably so, hordes of countless demons surge endlessly as a tide of flesh and bone and horn into the First Layer of the Hells, Avernus, engaging in the Blood War, an infinite stalemate between brutal logistical organisation and countless bodies for the eviscerating machine of bloodshed. Practitioners of the arcane are known to enlist the aid, or more commonly, dominate and manipulate demonic entities into servitude, but on scales insignificant compared to the scope of the aforementioned conflict. That said, a demon that remains in a place other than its home layer for a time serves to weaken the borders between itself and its origin, a rare occurrence given the proclivity of a demon to seek out destruction, rather than bid its time awaiting deterioration. In time however, the borders waver sufficiently so that allows the ingress of demons freely, turning their attention from their wanton destruction elsewhere to engage in the same in new surroundings. By the unnatural processes of this fledgling incursion, this portal ingress is prone to open in a random location within the Infinite Planes of the Abyss, and thus may prove to be far from any meaningful population of abyssal denizens, resulting in its eventual failure and collapse back into a state of separation, the barriers between the Abyss and the Prime steadfast and intact.

Should a portal be opened into an area of great demonic populace, whether in the depths of the layer of a Demon Prince, or the battle frenzy of a demonic horde besides the Styx, the ingress may become self-sustaining, drawing the attention of the individuals present and allowing them to travel freely, leaving their prior locales free of their presence in favour of a new playground of blighting. Doing so seems to only draw in further demons, seemingly by seeding levinous spores that are destined to become Alkiliths, a particular type of demon that specialises in such gateways. To any military general, losing such an army into a path to another world would be seen as devastating, for demons it is simply another place to engage in their destiny, their purpose. Opening a portal with such precision however is no doubt a baleful task, demanding an incantation and locale specifically prepared to facilitate the amalgamation and perversion of the School of Conjuration. Blood, gemstone wealth, a suitable tuning resonance and brazen confidence are amongst that demanded freely, though the exact formulation varies widely depending on the intended target, what may smell sweet to one Prince may be unpalatable to another, although the lattermost incident may prove just as likely to summon an entity - albeit it with further malintent in its heart.