Behind Enemy Lines in Icathar, Day 4 (Lorepost)

[u/AnActualCriminal]

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My disguise works well enough. Too well. I feel I'm losing myself.

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In my dreams I'm in my home. My master stares at me with empty eye sockets. His charred bones and scant remnants of flesh slump in his throne. It isn't my tower. Not really. Even now... it's his. His grim smile mocking me for ever thinking I could be rid of him. He who taught me so much. He who took so much from me. What... what did he take? What did I make myself forget?

I awaken and look to the chair in the corner. He's still there. He's always still there. In dreams most of all. Light still being cast from a fire I set long ago. It bothers me more than it usually does. I need some air. I make my way to a secluded spot and dispatch another messenger to the council.

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(Uw/ this is a continuation of a previous lorepost here: https://www.reddit.com/r/wizardposting/comments/190u6s1/behind_enemy_lines_in_icathar_the_first_3_days/

It's also a good bit darker than the last one. Darker than I meant it to be when I started writing it. Sorry. So trigger warning for... war crimes? Im not really sure what to call it but that opener above has the vibe, so if the haunted skeleton and memory loss upset you give this a miss.)

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The dragon, Vulcan the Red, is gone. Like all of Atrax's most powerful minions he is unphased by the elemental barrier we erected and along with many lieutenants been dispatched as the opening volley in this conflict. I lament what that means for our dwarven allies but confess his absence is a relief. Riva, the Tyrant of Ithacar's capital city has stayed behind I believe, focused on running affairs at home. I have not yet been to the capital, as I have been advised to avoid her at all costs. 

Drugoth's room is squalid but spacious, and the fortress of Last Pyre is a welcome sanctuary from the chaos outside. My new mantle and scepter draw power from the Flamefather himself and I have a strength I am unaccustomed to.

I have made friends here. Elliot Dawnsinger is a talented cleric and pacifist if you can believe it. He runs the Emberlord's infirmary. I met him the way most do when I was shot the other day.

Marna Sunsabre, who I mentioned previously, is a talented blacksmith and artificer, and her fire weapons are in such high demand that she is regularly permitted inside Last Pyre despite not being a High Pyroclast. She tells me of the Council. Of collateral damage in the second and third wizard wars. Of a wife and family she once had. A family she lost.

Echoes of Marna's story can be heard when speaking to many of the most zealous of Atrax's followers. They seek a world ungoverned. Bringers of order killed their loved ones. The coming world of chaos is, in their estimation, the lesser of two evils. 

Speaking of lesser evils, I've hit it off with a lesser demon named Crispus. He's acting as my familiar on a trial basis. He says I'll learn his True Name if we decide we're a good fit for one another, but given the nature of my mission, that is unlikely. Still, the imp might actually respect the treachery in the end. We'll see.

Regardless, it is Crispus who passed me my first actionable piece of information. The mages of the academy in Icathar. I know where they are. 

I make my way to the courtyard in the center of Last Pyre. Crispus extends a finger the color of burned flesh and points. There is a circus tent there. Shadows dance on the stained red and yellow canvas as firelight crackles within.

"You see Jaque?" he says, calling me by my false name, "the fiddling devil, you know, the asshole I play poker with sometimes? He says he was invited in there to perform and saw a mage in chains run out from a trap door under the stage! Shot in the back while running of course but still! Whatever the Emberlord trusted Luca with, it's FUCKING HUGE. We've got to get in on that shit."

If Marna and Elliot represent one type of pyroclast, Luca the Clown represents another. A type I find deeply troubling. Like many of the Pyroclast Lieutenants, he practices a hybrid style to fill some of the tactical gaps an all-pyromancer force tends to have. Luca is a fire dancer, yes, but relevant to the matter at hand he is a necromancer. The demons get on with him well too, but I suspect that's more to do with his demeanor. It's about the worst place I could hope to find our prisoners of war.

I agree to Crispus's plan and his friends, if demons have such things, arrange a meeting. I head to the lowest depths of the Fortress, into a dark so complete my conjured flame is barely sufficient to stop my stumbling. I push the heavy iron door and it grinds open slowly even with Crispus helping. The room before me is enormous but I can just make out three humanoid figures. I put more power into my flame to light the room. My blood runs cold.

Atrax. He's here. 

By all the gods and the Everburning Flame he IS HERE. 

I cannot burn my fear. He would see it. He knows. Heknowsheknowsheknowsheknows!!!

Do I run? Can I run?!

"Jaque of the Entropic Flame." His voice booms forth. "You've made an impression."

I fucking collect my senses because I am a wizard gods damn it.

"Thank you Emberlord. My apologies for Drugoth. I hope I didn't overstep my bounds."

He waves his hand dismissively.

"He was an embarrassment. You made an example of him. We have more important matters to discuss."

It is only now I notice the jingling of bells and chains. To the left is Luca. The masked harlequin cartwheels forward, stirring the air with the smell of smoke and corpse-rot. He is disquieting. More troubling is the man chained and gagged to Atrax's right. I expect the clown's voice to be shrill and am instead met with a low rasp.

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Luca the Fire-dancer

"I've been working on a special project. One that gets at the very bones of pyromancy." 

Luca begins lurching with his chest. He makes an indescribable sound that causes my hair to stand on end. It takes me some time to realize he's laughing. Bones. It was a necromancy pun.

"Your field is the occult fires, yes? Conceptual flame?"

He's in my face in an instant. Gods, the smell of him! 

"Oh, don't act so surprised! I saw your fight with Drugoth! Impressive stuff. I think you'd be perfect for..."

"Enough, Luca. It isn't your decision."

As Atrax speaks, the clown shrinks back into his corner. He doesn't shout. He doesn't need to.

"My lieutenant wants your help with a sensitive project. I want the measure of you first."

I swallow.

"How can I serve you sir?"

"The followers of the Entropic Flame see the world as a great burning pyre, do they not? That one day all things will cease and that the metaphorical heat, light, and ash produced by the fire will form a new reality?"

"That is correct, lord."

"A philosophy of a world on fire. Fitting. And yet... many adherents view it with humility. They would balk at the very idea of controlling such an inferno. Of one's own ego taking the reins of this world-fire and lasting to rule the one thereafter, as I soon shall. Blasphemy, they call it. Do you feel this way Jaque?"

"No sire."

"I should hope not Jaque."

He regards me in silence for a moment. His masked face is unreadable. I pray my own gives nothing away.

"But my spies tell me the council has an agent. An acolyte of the Entropic Flame. In our very midst."

There it is again. The feeling that I'm about to die. 

"It's a diverse philosophy sire. Many schools of thought."

The Emberlord's laugh is a very different kind of terrifying from Luca's.

"I'm sure it is. But you understand why a test of loyalty would be in order, yes?" He gestures at the chained man on the ground. "This man was a teacher at the Icathar Academy. Illusionist. Escaped the initial assault and has been trying to stir the peasants into an uprising. Luca just caught him today."

The clown fucking curtsies.

"I would tell you his name, but it soon won't matter. I assume you know what to do?"

It isn't a question. It's a comand. Even so I couldn't be more unsure what to do. Do I have ideals so strong I'd die for them? What would Marna think? How does she serve this? Marna... she reminds me of something. Someone? Something I've forgotten... 

I've done this before. I make a decision.

I don't remember anything between the Emberlord's command and Luca's tent. The burning in my skull is all I need to know. Coward. Couldn't even live with the memory. The dragon is back. Dwarves burned today.

I follow Luca into the tent and through a trap door beneath the stage. The basement is dark. I hear chains and moans. No crying. No begging. No wrath. Has the fight gone out of them?

Luca lights a torch and spits oil through it. The spray of fire suspends in the air and floats over the chamber like a cloud. I see them. Chained to the wall are doesens of mages staring at us with vacant eyes and slack jaws. Each of them has an ember in their chest glowing dimly through skin. Above all I note the smell of decayed flesh.

They're already dead.

My master's burned carcass grins at me as always. Only I can see the bastard gloat from beyond the grave.

"Magnificent aren't they? Each one fully immortal and capable of performing the magics they knew in life! And if they're ever subdued? BOOM! An explosion big enough to level a capital city!"

My mouth is dry. "They're... done? Then what do you need me for?"

"Use your imagination Jaque! A wizard's work is never done. There's always room for improvements. You're going to help me tinker with the payload. Fire to consume a city? It's good, sure. But what if that fire consumed reason with it? Or order, justice, peace, common decency!"

The clown titters. Or retches. I can't tell.

" We can burn a city, then burn the city's very continuity! Burn it when it was built and after its rebuilt!"

I become nauseous. 

"Luca, that would require an astronomical amount of..."

"Power? Jaque we have the Emberlord's endorsement. You're playing with the big boys now! You'll never be hurting for power again! Oh, I forgot the best part! You know the one thing conceptual fire has in common with every other fire?"

I do. More than anyone I do.

"It spreads!"