Editing AC2:Announcements - 2005/05 - Legions (section)

== Teaser ==
{{AC2 Article
 |  Link = <nowiki>http://ac2.turbinegames.com/index.php?page_id=342</nowiki>
 | Title = Release
 |  Text = 
[[File:593.jpg|left]]
The last Empyrean breathed slowly, trying to calm her fears. There could be no danger in this place that she had avoided for so long. It was one of the best-hidden, best-protected centers of power on Auberean. Any invader with evil intent would be assailed by defenses more potent than Nalicana's own spells -- and she felt sure those defenses would have alerted her to any intrusion. The Tower's master had held her in high esteem. Higher, she knew, than she had ever deserved.
<br><br>
She turned the crude key over and over in her hands. Its dull color was something like iron and something like lead, with no luster at all. And it was strangely heavy, almost uncomfortable to hold. Were these natural properties of whatever stuff Asheron had used to fashion the key? Or was it enchanted to seem worthless to casual observers?
<br><br>
Nalicana thought of the insects that disguised themselves as sticks and leaves to hide themselves from predators. The Tower and the key were both disguised, she knew. She had always assumed this was meant to hide them from the Olthoi or the Shadow. As she cast her eyes towards the top of the Tower -- even now shimmering in her vision, so that it was a stony outcropping, and then a massive tree, and once again a blank-faced turret without doors or windows -- she did not feel like a predator. She felt like a stick-bug, praying that the Tower would not see through her own disguise. But what did she have to hide? She was only here to fulfill the Tower's purpose.
<br><br>
Grasping the key tightly, she spoke a word of transport. And then, whether predator or prey, she was inside.
<br><br>
<nowiki>* * *</nowiki>
<br><br>
Shi Honauri would not weep for Aun Tanua. While Tanua's breath had lingered, Honauri had been unashamed of his tears. The great warrior could neither see nor hear them. But now? Now, Tanua might inhabit any blade of grass, any stray breeze, any drop of rain. Now, Honauri would not offend the master's sensibilities with unwanted grief.
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And there was still one duty to perform before Honauri set out on his own final quest. In his bones, Honauri knew his slow life in this backwater had burned away on Tanua's pyre. Honauri felt the call of the animae again, just as he had been called in his youth. But how could an old and broken Tumerok answer such a call? Only by traveling to the same place Tanua had gone. Honauri would seek the great spirits one last time, but he felt sure he would not meet them in this world.
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He would die on his last journey. And for that, he was grateful. Better to depart this world softly and soundlessly, before its kings and charlatans could try to turn you into a hero.
<br><br>
But not yet. Not until Tanua's ashes were scattered. Honauri hobbled out of the old farmhouse, which before Tanua's battle had seemed haunted, and now was merely empty. Could these blasted fields ever bear fruit again, Honauri wondered? Had Tanua's sacrifice consecrated the land, or had the kemeroi's touch left it forever poisoned? The question was moot. No peasant family would dare to re-inhabit this homestead until its story had faded from local legend. By that time, the field would be a forest.
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Shi Honauri took up the weather-worn rake that leant against the farmhouse. Swallowing the last of his grief, he began clearing away the evidence of Aun Tanua's passing.
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<nowiki>* * *</nowiki>
<br><br>
Nalicana thought the Tower's interior would be lightless and suffocating. She imagined that even the rats must have died long ago, had any remained inside when Asheron sealed the Tower away from the world.
<br><br>
It was a shock to regain awareness at the Tower's peak and find the place bright and... alive? No, not alive, but sleeping. Breathing. And there were webs in the corners and tracks in the dust. So there must be cracks in the walls or in the foundation; some breach into which life could creep, ignoring all spells of illusion, as animals often did. Surprising, but not as surprising as the Tower's still-burning lights. Had the Servitors tended them across the silent years? She passed a few inert automatons as she descended into the Tower's core, but they did not acknowledge her presence.
<br><br>
Was that because she intended no harm? That must be it, she decided. The Tower's defenses did not care about her. She was only here to do what must be done: to set the key in its ethereal lock, to turn it, and probably to end this age of the world. For nothing would ever be the same, once Asheron's most incredible deed -- the salvation and imprisonment of his race -- had been undone.
<br><br>
And wasn't that for the best? Surely Asheron had not meant for the Sundering to last forever. If he had, why leave behind the Tower, the gate and the key? Why put to sleep what might better be left to die? Sticky webs clung to Nalicana's face as she descended past empty rooms, but she didn't notice them. Her thoughts were torn between her present fears of the strange, brutal, not-quite-Falatacot invaders on Knorr, and of her own memories of the past.
<br><br>
The Seaborne Empire of Yalain had been founded on the bones of the Falatacot. It had won dominion over Auberean by wresting it from the Undead, who were the misbegotten half-children of Falatacot blood magic. Without the Falatacot blasphemies, there would have been no Firstborn and no Geraine. And the Falatacot witches had been the first to cry out to the Shadow with welcoming voices -- a cry which Ilservian Palacost repeated in later days, and which transformed him into Bael'Zharon the Destroyer. If you traced Auberean's darkest monsters to their roots, too often you found the Falatacot witches and their lust for the dark. If the Falatacot had returned, the Empyreans must also rise again.
<br><br>
But hadn't Maila Realadain used a forbidden spell to save her son Asheron's life from Bael'Zharon's first doom? Had that, too, been an act of evil? Nalicana suddenly realized that Asheron had thought so. He'd always blamed himself for the Sundering and for everything that followed. He had never forgiven himself for surviving the blast that killed his mother and the noble Council. And he had never believed that the disaster of the Olthoi had been beyond his power to prevent.
<br><br>
Nalicana stood before the gate. She brandished the dull key and opened her mouth to recite the simple cantrip that would unite key, gate and Tower. The Sundered Lands would open themselves to Auberean, and the survivors of Yalain would sleep no more. Nalicana would be the last Empyrean no longer.
<br><br>
In a flash of insight, she knew it was all wrong.
<br><br>
Asheron had left the Empyreans caged because he had finally grasped the depths of their failure. They should have embodied perfection and Light. Instead, they had degenerated into inquisitors, emperors, merchants and fools. Asheron might have been Yalain's great protector, but his weakness had allowed the Olthoi to lay his people low. There was no place for such failures in the new world that Asheron had helped create, the world of the Humans, the Tumeroks and the Lugians. That was why Asheron had never released his people from bondage. And that was why Nalicana would never turn this key.
<br><br>
It was a simple thing to reverse the key, to hold it high above her head. Without hesitation, she began to chant a more potent spell, a spell of destruction. Raw force surged through her arms and hands. She channeled her energies into the ugly relic until it began to glow, to shiver, and to fracture....
<br><br>
And Nalicana's vision blazed as lightning leapt from half a dozen points around the gate, coursing into her unprotected body. The terrible assault blasted away everything that was not pain. Nalicana fell screaming to the ground, the key and her intentions forgotten. As her robes smoldered and burned, a corner of her disciplined mind warned that her heart and lungs were cooking within the Tower's terrible wrath, and that her brain would soon follow. Asheron's old defenses had seen through her disguise and found her purpose. She was an enemy of the Tower. It would kill her to save itself.
<br><br>
A dark shape flowed smoothly into the room. Ignoring Nalicana's writhing body, it swept up the heavy key and thrust it towards the gate. A harsh and grating voice intoned the words that Nalicana had refused to speak. A long-isolated bubble in portalspace shifted, distorted, and made contact with the surface of Auberean's reality. And nothing would ever be the same again.
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<nowiki>* * *</nowiki>
<br><br>
Shi Honauri crouched on his haunches, staring at the terrible thing in the ashes.
<br><br>
It was... not merely beautiful. It was perfect. Every rivet glittered like diamond, every strap glowed with the suppleness of strong leather. Where a deep crater had once welled with the life's-blood of immortal Tanua, there was nothing but proud and shining metal. Where it caught and reflected the dawn's light, it was brighter than the sun.
<br><br>
Shi Honauri reached out slowly, knowing and hating the loss of peace that must follow. But the animae would not let him flee into the forest, as he willed himself to do. Instead, he brushed the metal lightly with his fingertips.
<br><br>
And the breastplate of Aun Tanua sang to him. It sang of hope and resolve and power. It sang of regret and loss and despair. The armor's song was of a true heart, bound always to the struggle and glory of life.
<br><br>
There was no decision to be made. There were only a few more moments to savor the cool breeze, the rustling of the withered corn, and the first drops of an early-morning rain.
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<nowiki>* * *</nowiki>
<br><br>
Nalicana could not stay awake for long. Her pain was too great, her strength nearly spent. But one question would not wait for healing. She whispered through cracked lips, "Why did you turn the key?"
<br><br>
"We cannot refuse our destinies," Isin Dule replied, cloaked as always in half-shadow. "That is what I have learned from my long journey. Again and again, I have tried to stop chasing my lost soul. I have sought to embrace darkness, I have sought to flee from darkness, I have sought to bargain with darkness. But darkness is not my destiny. My destiny is my own. And so my search continues."
<br><br>
"What is my destiny, then?"
<br><br>
"Your people must be reborn. They will need you, Nalicana. Help them." 
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