Lore/Story The revenge of the forgiver

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Lari chased bak’al through the portal. He wouldn’t get away this time, not with all that he had done. This was the last time, the last chance, to make right her commitment to Orphion. As she moved through portal, to portal, Bak’al kept managing to evade her, until finally, he managed to trick her by opening up two portals. She had to make a choice, and she chose the left portal. If only she could have known what this choice would lead to.

As lari exited the portal, it suddenly shut behind her. She was in a massive library, the likes of which she had never seen before. She attempted to open a portal, but it shut long before she ever had the chance to step through it. This filled her with a sense of immense panic, where was she that had magic strong enough to close portals from the plane of light. She observed her surroundings, hoping to find anything that would alert her as to where actually she was.

All she could see was shelves filled with books. They seemed to stretch for miles, long outside of the range of even her elven vision. She attempted to read a few of the books, but they seemed to be written in any number of languages, none of which she could read and, for that matter, none of which she could even recognize. She figured she would be here a while, so she began attempting to look for food and water. After several hours of searching, she realized she wasn’t hungry or thirsty. After even more hours of searching, she still realized she wasn’t hungry or thirsty, and figured it must be an enchantment of some sort. She began going from shelf to shelf, trying to figure out if there was anything here in a language she could read.

After a week or so of searching, she found books written in high Gavelian. There seemed to be thousands of them, perhaps hundreds of thousands. She recognized some of these books, they had been written in her lifetime, but others were completely foreign, seemingly random collections of writings from people's lives. Other books were far more organized, but far predating her, sometimes by over a thousand years. As far as Lari could tell, there was no means to tell what book belonged where. She began searching for something, anything to help her out of here, surely something in these books that would tell her where she was and how to leave.

A few more weeks passed, or at least she felt like it was only a few weeks, there was no way to tell. There were no windows here, no sunlight, everything somehow just stayed at the same light level with no visible sources of light. She had no means to tell how long she had been here. She had finally found something though, a book written by someone who had found their way here by accident and seemingly found a way out. It was another creature of light nonetheless, but one she had never actually heard of. But this book, it contained information even more useful, even more powerful.

Whoever wrote this book wasn’t confident they would be able to escape, so they wrote a great deal of knowledge, knowledge that had long been lost to the servants of light. A way to convert darkness into something… else. The book wasn’t exactly clear on what, other than the darkness would cease to be, well, dark. Lari could only assume that because this was written by a creature of light, the darkness would be converted to light. This could change the tide of the war, this could allow lari to create a light parasite. Lari had to think long and carefully about what to do with this information.

After a few hours of thinking, Lari had decided what to do. She would turn the tide of the war the same way the darkness had. This was only fair, the darkness had done it before, and surely what she was doing was no different. She had seen the toll the war had taken on gavel, she knew she could be the one to end this war. She had to be. There was no other choice that would be correct for the people of gavel and wynn, the people she cherished so much. She conjured up a portal to the realm of light, knowing what she must do next.

As she arrived in the realm of light, everything seemed… different. Brighter than the last time she was here, as if a heavy weight had been lifted from this peaceful realm. The creatures no longer seemed angry, the flora seemed to be blooming where once it was wilting. She made her way to the nexus of light, and that's when she felt it. Rather, she felt a lack of it. The parasite was gone, she could feel the full glory of the light seep through her. Maybe she didn’t need to end this war, maybe this would be… the thought struck her.

The wynn soldier killed the parasite, not her. The wynn soldier who happened to be a human. Humans have such short lifespans. She had decided to chase bak’al instead, and nearly got trapped in some unknown dimension because of it. This human would not be around forever, who would save her next time the darkness decided to invade. She hadn’t stopped one invasion, what made her so sure she could stop the next. She needed to end this war, before the darkness got the upper hand yet again. Her inaction had caused this problem, and her action needed to be what would solve it. She began the work.

As she finished the seed that would become the parasite, she sent it off to the silent expanse. She knew it would feed off of the darkness there, becoming stronger, until eventually, it would burrow into the dern beast itself. She knew this was an extreme choice, but what other choice did she have, she knew what needed to be done to finally end the war that predated the oldest of her relatives that history could remember. She just hoped that Orphion could forgive her for what she had done. It was at this moment she felt a calling, it was Orphion himself summoning her.

She arrived at the deepest part of the nexus of light, Orphion’s inner sanctum. “My light, were you successful in capturing or defeating Bak’al. I have not seen you in two “human” months, and this worries me greatly” the booming voice she found so calming asked her. “No, my lord, he tricked me and I was unable to capture him. I was trapped in a strange dimension and only recently made it back” she said, her voice small and feeble compared to the massive presence of Orphion. Orphion paused for a moment, and Lari was certain she was about to be punished for her inability to get anything right.

“My light, that is okay. I was worried about you. I am glad you are okay. We can discuss this further at a later date, for now, please tend to the realm in the ways I have shown you. After you are finished, do whatever you need to then return to me” The booming voice said, yet somehow it felt… softer than usual. Lari was grateful, but also A little bit surprised. She had expected to be punished, and yet her teacher, the master of light himself, had nothing to say other than he was glad she was safe. In some ways this made her feel good, but in other ways, it made her nervous. Did he know what she had done? Was he waiting for her to tell him? She contemplated this as she tended to the realm of light, and the creatures inside of it.

She came to the realization he almost certainly knew. How could he not, he was so immensely powerful, what chance did she have of hiding a secret from him. She realized she needed to tell him, but before she did this she had unfinished business. She realized there was a very good chance Orphion would disavow her, so she needed to tend to her last worry before she lost her powers of light for good. She made her way to kander forest, she knew exactly what she must do.

As she arrived at Dullahan’s castle, she made her way through all the traps and tricks he had set to detour people from coming into his domain. These might be enough to deter a villager, but they posed absolutely no challenge for her. She saw all the paintings Dullahan had made, of all the memories they had together. She wished she could go back, she could change it all, she could take back what she had done. She had been selfish, she wanted the world to bend to her rules, not the other way around. She approached the room she had locked him in, and made her way through the seal.

“Ah. Finally, come to finish me off then, have you Lari” Dullahan said, not even turning around to face her “I should warn you, I’ve grown much stronger in the time since we last saw each other. The time you betrayed me and turned me into this monster”. “Dullahan. It is time I fix my error, I am going to bring you back into the light. I have figured out a way to restore you, a way to change you from what I made you, I can-” as lari was saying this, she barely had time to prepare a shield as Dullahan threw a blast of dark energy directly at her.

“You assume I want to come back to the light. The same light that caused the very situation I’m in right now. No. I fear this will be the last anyone hears from you” he said, preparing a barrage of dark energy. “Dullahan please, it doesn’t have to end with violence, we can make this right,” Lari’s pleading voice said. “You chose peace once before, and how did that treat you. Your peace cost the lives of your best friend, and countless amounts of innocent civilian lives. Peace might have been the way once upon a time, but not anymore. The time for peace is over” after finishing his speech, Dullahan began filling the room with the energy of dern. He knew, even at his current power, he could not take Lari on. His best hope was taking himself AND her out.

Suddenly, his power stopped. He had been trapped in one of her accursed shields. He struggled against the power she held him in, but it was no use. She had him firmly in a spelllock, and he knew there was no way out of it this time. “You can lock me here for as long as you want, but eventually I will escape, and I assure you, I will not let this happen a second-time” Dullahan taunted her. “I know. Which is why I’m bringing you back to the light” she said, pulling out the book from the strange dimension and beginning the spell.

A few hours of taunts later and Lari was close to completing the spell. As she approached the climax of the magical flux that was required for the spell, something changed about Dullahan. “LARI. You do not know what you are doing, stop this at once. I will come back to the light, you cannot complete this spell please I beg of you” he cried. “I will not fall for such a simple trick Dullahan, you know me better than this” Lari calmly replied. “Please, this magic, it is not-” he was cut off by the spell finishing.


Magic surged through Dullahan’s body, and he began to glow in strange, white magic. “Lari… I… forgive you” Dullahan said, before the magic finished flowing through his body. Lari was horrified, this wasn’t a creature of light. She had only seen this magic once before… this was the magic of the meteors. Dullahan, upon reaching his new form, instantly teleported from the room, bypassing the century-old seal Lari had put in place as if it was nothing. Lari needed time to contemplate what happened.

She searched around for any trace of Dullahan, but the castle was entirely empty. No trace of the corrupted magic he had been using remained, as if it had never existed. She asked the surrounding villagers if they had seen anything strange, and several of them reported seeing a meteor flying UP through the sky, into the unknown. As lari was conducting her search, a thought crept through her head. She collapsed and began crying, shaking, and otherwise in a state of absolute dread.

This was the magic she used to make the seed of light.

 

Imma save this to read after, too long

 

Are you French?

 

not last time I checked

 

I was legitmately convinced this was a Bak'al X Lari fanfic upon first seeing who wrote this, glad I changed my mind

 

Honestly I would probably assume that too if I saw myself post on the forums

 

this is truly a bump moment

 

bump moment