Burning Embers Part II: Conspiracy [Arc 6-10]

Arc 7 Chapter 2

Eleven years ago...

—Elen's Perspective—

Truly a nasty order of business.

A few months ago, the "demonic generals" of Wrath had received their latest mission: the destruction of the Del Roddea. For a long time, that clan of dragon-knights had been a thorn in Dagunland's side. Not only did they and their Templar ensure complete military superiority amongst the human nations, but they had also been pivotal during the Second Great War.

Wrath had, however, said that only two of them had to be there personally. Elen had excused herself immediately; such dirty jobs were not her style, and appointed Graeth to take command of the healing corps, even though he was an archmage himself, since Elevos would personally lead the mage corps. The only other general who had opted out was Clement, which was a surprise, though he cited he had already done his part.

This "part" that he had played would indeed be pivotal. There was no way they could march an army across to Almarck without being noticed, and teleporting such a massive amount of bodies was impossible for any amount of mages. However, in the most recently christened general Alseiv's quest to the Cove of Darkness, Clement (who had been accompanying him) had found some unique items of interest.

Below the altar where the Sword of Darkness was kept was a stash of ancient scrolls and tomes. Who wrote them, or where they came from, was unknown. What they did know was that the Swords of Light and Darkness were said to be created by the Goddess of Fate and the God of Chaos respectively, and as such were called "divine constructs". For there to be tomes and scrolls underneath the altar pointed to them being divine knowledge as well.

However, this was overall unlikely. They knew that the original elves who had landed on Feldranix had split up to explore the land. Those that had visited Dagunland were the ones who wrote down their findings on the Coves of Light and Darkness, and the respective weapons that were kept within. Back then, there were no dragons guarding the entrances, but when the elves had tried to revisit the locations much later on, the dragons had deterred their efforts.

It was a possibility, and a probable one, that these early elves had stashed away some of their most precious knowledge underneath the altars. What was special about all these tomes and scrolls was that they were related to the element of darkness and magic associated with it. They knew that the high-elves' religion thought of the use of the element as sacrilege, and that may have been the case when they first arrived on Feldranix as well.

As such, the ones who had hidden away these documents were likely elves who secretly practiced dark magic; elves like the current dark elves. Of course, just like their highborne brethren, the dark elves too worshipped Fate and rejected Chaos, but had a different ideology altogether. Them discovering this knowledge now was seen as a sign that Fate was on their side.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of knowledge on the scrolls, and spells engraved within the tomes, were...dark, to put it lightly. Other than a couple, they all required elaborate rituals, which in turn needed 'sacrifices' to fuel them. Wrath, of course, despised such an idea, and rejected it immediately, therefore ordering most of them be burnt without hesitation despite Clement's protests.

Before that, Elen had the privilege to thoroughly study all the knowledge within those documents. She had hoped to find any clues about Kotori's unique powers; if they did not know, perhaps their ancestors did, and had encountered it before. Alas, it was to no avail, as all the knowledge centred around dangerous rituals involving dark magic.

Dark magic in itself was not evil; a concept the high-elves had never understood, but their human successors, surprisingly, had. It had the most potential to do evil, as light magic was mostly associated with healing and defence, dark magic excelled at offence and destructive capability. However, it also led to a unique branch in alchemy the high-elves never considered, and said alchemy was able to produce the cure for a disease all other alchemy failed to cure.