EMPIRES SMP Fanfic - The Heavy Crown [Lost Empire]

[Four] The Antler of Aeor

CHAPTER FOUR

The Antler of Aeor

Point-Of-View: Scott, Rivendell Ruler

SOMETHING WOKE IN the slumbers deep in Scott's mind.

A sword bathed in light. The voice was high, booming and chilling. It cut through inside him like a bleeding sky. But hurt was not given, and instead rejuvenation. Gooseprickles embroidered his entire body in a matter of seconds. Light swallowed him and took him somewhere else, somewhere safe, somewhere familiar...

A sword. A stag-marked sword.

A long cord straightened in front of him, and it materalized into a glowing blade. It was bent in some places... bent like a stag's antler. It bled light, dappled with a glow so purifying. Like evil doesn't exist. Never existed in the first place.

My descendant, the voice called to him. Aeor Reborn. Your enemy, your brother, your kin. He has travelled down the forsaken road. Corrupted and corroded with vile and repugnancy.

Is something so purely dark that light cannot be siphoned from it?

"Aeor?" Scott felt himself say.

You are the Champion of Light. And you shall forge the sword to end it. To end him.

For when the Great stags clash once more, to a final duel of Light and Corruption, the realm of the Thirteen Empires will tremble.

He was suspended in a void of white, hollow and empty of sound, floating, facing one direction.

Put an end to Exor, my son. And let this brotherly clash go to rest.

"How?" He managed to say, through a hoarse voice.

The sword was rusted.

Lost in time, and age... corrupted.

"Sword?" Images whirled around him, revolving and giving light to the said words. A long steel, shaped into an antler, blackened and rusted with corruption. Its hilt bore faces of stags, eyes studded with white gems reflecting light. The hilt had a leathered grip, worn and frayed. Its pommel was a stag's head, confidently gazing at him.

Blade as dark as sin.

The golden gleam squeezed out. Drained by the forsaken kin.

Drained after the stags clashed.

Plunge it into the pool.

Pool composed of many melodies, like a song.

Fresh fruit from where the void is ubiquitous...

"The void... the End?" A state of shock came over him like he was struck by lightning. He thought the swung sword was aimed directly to his thumping heart, but it was plunged into fruit, reddish-purple. When it was crushed, juices flowed out and the roar of the defeated Ender Dragon came reverberating in his ears, crackling and hacking.

The broken crumbs from the shard of one-eyed warders...

The familiar face of LDShadowLady, the Queen of the Ocean, swam around him in a spiral.

The soft red... the dunes offer... they prick the eye.

The face winced, morphed and broke into another face.

The face of the Queen's husband. The King of Mezalea.

Skin that lets the mortal fall slow from the treacherous sky.

Phantoms shrieked in the distance, and one swooped down low and flawlessly tore at King Joel's head. Before it tore at him too...

The tendrils of fresh earth hung from a beautiful tree.

The phantom was shot, and it shrieked and squirmed and fell with a thump on the white, cold ground. It decayed and bloomed into a beautiful Azalea tree.

The new Champion of Light.

The tree grew more massive at every breath the champion took.

You, my champion.

The destroyer of the dawn.

The tree was ripped apart, an arm crushed at its center, making a hole. The arm was black as obsidian, streaked with cracks of purple and pink light. As the tree broke, the face of the forsaken... the enemy... his brother... the destroyer of the dawn... smiled at him. Like this job of his was just a joke.

The setter of the Sun.

The whiteness around him dimmed and he felt feverish, almost breaking into a sweat.

Save the wicked.

Save the poison.

Save the temples.

Save a friend.

The monstrous laugh of Joey Graceffa, the Emperor of the Lost Empire, came at him and blossomed like a wild thunder. The Ruler's face gleamed hard into the two unblinking, unmerciful eyes of Xornoth. The evil, satisfied smile of Ruler Joey's face was pure of joy and filled with mirth.

The one who wields the sword shall get the chance to swing.

But bit by bit.

Then that smile became unhinged. The strings that were pulling into a perfect smile were slowly cut. He wasn't smiling anymore. Some fuelled energy in his eyes got freed. He looked lost, like a little boy. Like his empire.

Will the chance come?

Like him and his brother in a past life. The occurrence that transpired all of this.

Time alone knows.

All of this.

Forge the sword. And let it bleed light.