The Void Rift Crisis

by Visiden Visidane

The Atropal - Aureum Oculos

The Atropal? Speak not of that repugnant creature, colt! Why, the mere mention of its name carries an odor of rot for those of us who remember fighting it.

Very well, for the sake of posterity, I shall regale you of our fight against it.

That creature fought unlike the other two that the Agamanthion summoned. It considered wading into the fray as unseemly; a task it preferred to leave to the many underlings its disgusting necromancies spewed forth. More unsettling was that it was the only one among them that spoke.

Of course I haven't a clue as to what it said. Did you think that it would deign to learn and speak our language out of politeness? I've already given my testimony in the Hall of Records and the Empyrean Circle of Knowledge along with all the others that heard it. In time, I'm sure that our fine scholars will make sense of its words, though I believe they will discover that it was merely insulting us over and over.

We still don't know where it came from. We can place both the centimanus and the hagunemnon in Vestibulum, but this one did not fit the same mold. The Seekers surmise that there must be a dead plane out there, a world drowned by Un-life, where the Necromancer Queen plucked this thing from. Certainly, the artifacts that she left behind all exhibit a particular weave of necromantic spells that is alien to the Herd.

I can only imagine what kind of bleak, foul, ruined world could possibly spawn that wretched thing. It reeked of death. Its features...I cannot be entirely sure given how different its body shape was, but its large head, puny body, and severely underdeveloped limbs gave it an infantile look. Yes, it did look like an infant twice as big as an alicorn. If it truly was one, I would hate to encounter an adult.

The first of us who engaged did note fare so well, and illustrated a hole in our spell techniques. In Ida, it is rare to encounter an opponent skilled in that school of magic. Death wards are not part of the usual defenses we put up upon immediately entering a fight.

The first ones to fly in paid for this oversight dearly. The Un-life that creature exuded suppressed the life force of those careless enough to approach with no protection. They fell to the ground before they could close in, the strength leaving their wings. I saw the color drain from Finitor's face and the look in his eyes that spoke of a terrible mistake. That creature touched him once, and he collapsed into a moldering heap.

Let it not be said that we do not learn from our mistakes, or that we are completely defenseless against Necromancy. The second group, myself included, waded through the fetid magical aura safely. Relatively speaking, of course. It still fired rays of dreadful magic at us, the touch of its rotted, claw-like fingers spelled a quick demise, and more of its minions crawled out to engage.

I should speak of the monsters it created. The Eternal Herd does not leave dead bodies and restless spirits lying around as you might expect in Vestibulum or some other realm. The Undead do not form here whether by some accumulation of residual necromantic energy or the deliberate casting of such a spell. All the more to put my mind at ease. What a horrific thought it would be to imagine our diminished being manipulated while they are in a helpless state of near-nonexistence. Unthinkable!

So, where would these creatures come from then? I had asked the same question when I saw them. They were certainly corpse-like with their exposed entrails, bones, and rotting appendages, but they did not look like they had ever been alive to begin with. Some of the body parts did not match. Their joints did not lock in place for others. They looked hastily and poorly stitched together toys. We knew better than to underestimate them, however. They were tough despite their construction, and they possessed this ability to work extremely well in conjunction with their creator's attacks.

I am proud to admit that I may have the best theory for it, thanks to my keen sense of spell casting differences. The necromantic surges that creature used nearly disguised a very simple summoning conjuration. You might recognize it, colt, it's nothing more than the extradimensional space we utilize to store our personal effects that we would like to maintain at close reach. Here is the twist to it. Most of us maintain a space no bigger than a good-sized chest or the inside of a closet. Imagine such a space the size of an enormous tomb, a mausoleum. Now, fill that space with chopped up, partly rotten dead bodies, ready to provide raw material for your necromancy to piece together and animate. The size boggles the mind. Some of the creatures it brought forth towered above us. I remember a particular creature; a pillar of flailing skeletal arms and legs held together by sinew. I brought it down with a timely strike at its base. You should have seen the stroke of my blade. Exquisite! I'll be happy to demonstrate in Ida if you like.

Did we slay it? No. Ultimately, we couldn't. It was too secure behind its perpetually spawning walls of flesh and bone horrors, and the dread its direct attacks inspired left few willing to attack it. When the Agamanthion failed, it simply gated away without another word. That is another odd thing about it. It seemed resentful of having to fight us at all. I am sure that the centimanus and the hagunemnon were also forcibly plucked from what they had been doing, but they were all too glad to get into a fight. This one loathed every second of it.

Perhaps, in time, we might meet it again in its travels. However, I would like to think that it has gone to rest in its dead world. Without the Sixth to disturb it, we may never have to deal with it again.

Comments

[Emil]

Okay, so it's likely that even veteran alicorn soldiers of the rank-and-file don't have much more than 10 HD, given the effects of the atropal's aura.

[son_of_heaven176]

How did they know that the atropal hated having to fight?

[Follower of Chaos]

7857500 It was only using the minimum amount of effort needed to fight them, mostly using minions and ranged attacks. It also left immediately after the Agamanthion was destroyed without even having been injured like the Centimanus.

It also could have had an expressive face since Aureum keeps mentioning how annoyed it seemed to be.