Spears agleam in the dying sun,
The blood is spilled, the battle's won,
From the icy throne of God-
King shall rule,
When nine stars kiss the moon o'er Ultima Thule.(OLD NORTHLANDER WAR-SONG,FOUND IN THE ANCIENT SCROLLS OF VOLMYR)THE FINAL PART OF VORYN HELMSMITER'SJOURNEY TO THE ICE REALM:
Blood drips from my frost-encased sword,forming a crimson blossom upon the ice...
My limbs cold, becoming as one with the massing snows...my eyes nearly frozen closed.
For how long had we travelled?
The memory grows dim, lost in the cruel, searing storm-winds.
And now, at last... our quest is at an end.
With the blessings of the elders we began our journeybeyond the great veil of shadowed glaciers...
They spoke of a prophecy foretold,an ancient and glorious legacy,A quest for the realm of legendry lost to mansince before even the Star-
Lords descended...
Now, only I survive, my blood spilling to the ice,turning to crimson crystal upon the deeply frozen earth.
Elder sorcery crackles and hums all about me,coursing through the sky, the snow...
As grim destiny approaches with the freezingboreal gales and this ancient prophecy unfolds...PREDICATION OF THE ELDERS:
Go, follow the witch-lights in the northern night sky,beyond the great silvern mountains...
Let the sacred moon-crystal be your guide,beware the sentinels at the Caverns of Eternal Mist...
Spears agleam in the dying sun,
The blood is spilled, the battle's won,
From the icy throne of God-
King shall rule,
When nine stars kiss the moon o'er Ultima Thule.
Swathed in moon-frosts, in icy winds our blazon flying,
Iron gleaming 'neath the stars, black skies ablaze with astral fire,
White wolves (like silent spirits) haunt us,ever northwards, the ice-gem leads us, glimmering,
Powerful spells entwine the shrine of legendry,mighty gates of frozen splendour looming,
When the moon and stars shine as one upon the snows,the ancient ice-gate opens, the prophecy is fulfilled!
Towering, ice-encrusted forms lumber forth from the freezing mist,(
Their eyes shimmering with a fiendish, eldritch malevolance...)
Our steel is raised against their weapons of gleaming crystal,
And the virgin snow is rendered crimsonby bloodshed in a searing storm of slaughter.(
Wounded, dying, my flesh rent by weapons no human everforged or wielded, I am beckoned forward by a strange,alluring force from beyond the veil of swirling mists...)
Shadows, images form in the glitteringrune-carved walls of this glacial chamber,
Secrets frozen within the timeless vaults of eternity...
The throne of the time-lost ice realm,entwined in the mantle of such searing star-born power...
This frozen, aeon-cloaked seat of immortal majesty...(of an empire forged long before the vast seas rose in devouring fury!)
What shimmering swords raised in combat once sangwith the glorious clamour of steel on steel?
What splendid banners, billowing in the icy gales,once heralded the march of these invincible silverclad legionsto the blood-swathed embrace of epic battle?
The glory of untold thousands of years past...this ethereal legacy of mighty Ultima Thule.
The frozen eyes of immortal kings watch me...such a dark splendour!THE GUARDIAN OF ICE AND SHADOW:
The grim Ice-
Gods sleep in these frost-bound tombs,illumined by the caress of lunar fire,
And the kiss of star-gleam from the stygian void...
All is now as was foretold in prophecy,written in the very ether of empyreal eternity...
The celestial alignment is night...the conjunction is at hand!
And nine stars illumine the northern heavens,a vast cosmic sigil with the silvern moon at its centre...
Blazing argent light fills the chamber,engulfing the hewn walls of elder ice,
These ancient carvings in a time-veiled tongue,(etched into the primeval ice countless aeons ago,now bathed in diaphonous incandescence by this stormof lucent stellar power, their mindsearing meaningat last becomes known to me...) their cosmic secrets unfold...
The ice-throne is encased by ashimmering wall of writhing cerulean flame,A lambent flame far colder thanthe frozen surface upon which it dances...???THE HERALD OF ENLIGHTENMENT:
And so, enrob'd by tendrils of starfireand the raiments of lunar mist,
The immortal liege whose sceptred empire is eternity,
Sits enthroned and brooding over his dark realm once more.
The last of my life's blood spills to the ice,(as star-wrought destiny is at last fulfilled.)
Swathed in freezing flame...
The mystic wolves of the frost-moon(slowly, silently) encircle me,
Their eyes are blazing azure,and their fur is whiter than the sublime snows.
Such power! I am the Chosen...the secrets of the earth and the stars are unlocked before me...I am destined to reign forever...to reign from the Ice-
Veiled Throne of Ultima Thule!
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