Incline 8: Valkinvar-Imdvarce Vapooliar

My right foot falls against the gilded stone tiles of the temple, freshly reweighed by the presence of my armour. All ten of my fingers go about my person, tightening up every strap and realigning each steel plate. Hands clasp my wrists and shaking them about, stopping as a satisfying click rings out the empty path. I get up fully, letting the armour settle into place with a few final shakes.

I put my sword away, sheathing it along my back. Coming out into the open, I leave the portico behind, my idle hand bidding its farewell to the carved stone. Flight takes over my instincts and I twist around to look at what I am leaving behind. A pillar, each with their own story, made of redstone but painted and carved in such a way as to tell a story. A story of each Valkinvar who has lived and died.

Passing on to Waionr so that they can live their lives in death as they prepared for in life.

"I wonder how many we have failed to make purely because... Too many of us have died in so short a time." I let out, struggling to speak it more so because my thoughts are selfish. Anyone can figure out the artistry and detail required is a lengthy affair. My thoughts do not even align with my words. I'm just wondering if they ever made one for me, after my defeat near Giant's Victory.

I never joined the war again for almost a decade after that. In my absence, did they consider me dead or did the thought never occur to them? They clearly knew I had left Giant's Victory, as a Valkinvar-Imdvarce by the name of Ogawa filled in for my posting. One she died at... No, butchered at.

"Or am I that unaccomplished as a Valkinvar that I am not even entitled to such a legacy?" I dare to doubt myself with as I lazily float away, the energy for something faster eluding me. A sigh comes on out, blowing me out into a spin and setting me on a proper course. I fly above the levels I am at and carry ongoing. The highest spires of the Chamber of Traitor's Judgement come into view and I reach for them.

My fingers curl at the first opportunity and my feet find their footing right after. I lean away, catching my limp body on the wind and swing around, glancing at what I can. Bafflement is certainly an odd sensation to pick up on the breeze. Yet it is here.

The skies are clear of Valkinvar, but I can also see beyond the walls and the magic shield covering more than just the city. Nothing has changed, more armies are returning that leaving. Almost all of them are going about it so strangely, as well. The Valkinvar are leaving the men behind, heading to the Parade Ground and then going off on their way. An uncharacteristic slowness to nearly everyone. 

Even the walls themselves, which should be teeming with 'punished' Valkinvar, are lacking. There's no sense of congregation, either. Not one of the walls, no matter how far ahead or back they are, is packed with troops. I know it shouldn't be at this time, but with everything that is happening, it somehow feels natural.

"Now's not the time to be on the defensive..." I remind myself as my magic propels me to a different angle. Sorrow weakens my grip and what is below pins and chains my eyes. The only place where the Valkinvar are gathered in any form of scale. And it's all to bring people into this very building so they can be tried for petty crimes, ones not even worth the slightest pomp.

A slap-on-the-wrist level of corporal, and yet, here they all are. There I once was. Going into the single most vile building for any Valkinvar to find herself or himself in. The Chamber of Traitor's Judgement... It's in the name. This place is for traitors, not rightful protest of benign orders and rulings.

My mouth tightens up and I fly away, not wanting to heat my temper any further. I keep on flying, going high above every single tower, peak and spire in the Grand Temple of the Four-Winded Valkinvar. My hand comes out, bashing me away from the magic shield so I don't crash into it. I drop down further, lingering in the air a safe distance from the powerful magic.

Despite its emerald source, the shield is a deep purple at its highest concentrations. A phenomena people struggle to grasp even to this day, but, the astronomers of the world believe they already get why. The World-Shield, the very thing that keeps All-That-Remains safe from the Nothing caused by the divine war of eons past. Magic, in its natural state, reduced to defensive wants, takes on this colour.

I look away from the sky and towards the ground, initially at the deep darkness that never seems to end. Thurn's Forge is the City that Spans Continents. The bridge between our homeland of Jherikra and the neighbouring deadlands of Thunlanann. Thurnmourer once crafted his finest weapons here. It is said that near here is where the first of humanity was first born, the first true mortals.

There is so much history to Thurn's Forge that even staring down at a bottomless canyon evokes awe and dread in equal measure. To say nothing of the grand city that came about as a result of our efforts. Thurn's Forge never used to be much, nothing more than a city in Thunlanann that was scared away during the Time of Liquid Mountains.

We helped the people spread out from their terror of the waves and flooding. We turned them into an empire, once the greatest in all of modern Jherikra history. A power not seen since the Ancient Jhermonikra who fought the world even without a breath of magic to their names and minds. And now we are back here again, founded by war, and dying by war. 

The ancestors of the oldest families of Thurn's Forge are watching us. Watching us go back to having but a toehold on the soil of Jherikra. Soil we've spilt rivers of blood for. Soil we've lit forests alight for, melting down mountains of steel, and the very earth has buckled to our mines and quarries.

All that power and might and we're here... Reduced to this by the unexplainable appearance of those damnable airships. The Valkinvar are some of the greatest witches on the continent, no doubt the globe. And yet, we're nothing more than a shadow these days to machines, of all things. Not the Seven-Peaks Union of Jherikra's own witches, but to machines. Pieces of steel and copper and more.

Science that we cannot grasp and has no place in this world if you've only ever been in this land...

I turn away from the city and look south, towards the lands of the Dual-Republic of Thrurstradtur-Suhurlodst. It's not just our great enemy, even they have technology beyond what exists in my home. Though we of the Valkinvar are powerful compared to so many, it just seems so odd that we would turn this blind. The Seventh Law of Waionr explicitly speaks of the dangers of arrogance and hubris.

It is, after all, how Waionr even became the way he is, from Savage War to the War of Armies. His own arrogance got the better of him, the belief that he, as War itself, could never lose a fight. And he lost to the boundaries of a conflict beyond him. Where he could only do so much before the God of Law and his supreme grasp of rules.

Our great enemy is a vast empire, far vaster than it was a decade ago. Even then, there's only so much land for them to do things in. The maps might seem overwhelming, but the truth is far stringier and more of a web that people would like to admit. All nations of this land are like that.

We don't consider the osibindah hives that have sealed off roads and pathways. Or the aelenvari flowers and their home Garden-Monts. Kelbalid tribes and their free roaming of the few plains we do have. Even migrants from other lands, so notably beneath the surface, in the Water-Veins alongside the hwardgon and so many more mortal races.

Still, the Seven-Peaks Union of Jherikra somehow did it. The whole rest of the world somehow did it. Waionr's Chosen Theocracy is the only nation in this entire land that never stayed in stride with modernity. The future might've been ours, once upon a time, back when gunpowder was youthful and the mere idea of guns was but a shattering barrel away from death and nightmare. Now it is not. We are to be of the past because we somehow never left it.

I don't understand it at all. I was educated, like all other Valkinvar in the art of war, the development of its technologies and the applications they would bring. Being outdone by invention and ingenuity is nothing new, but we always triumphed and fought our enemy back. So why is it now that we're so far out of scope that we cannot even grasp the difference between us...? 

Our enemy marches on us with magic-fed weaponry, ballistics that require no lead, brass or even simple stone. Machines move of their own will and the very Orbital-Halo is blotted out by the shadows of airships. It's not just them either... It's the whole world. Somehow my home is at a loss, as am I with how I have no answers for them at all in this conflict...

"We need to fight with all we can... Scream, kick and bite against the dying of our empire's imperial light. Not hide..." I sniffle, my eyes watering as an uncomfortable terror nearly shakes me out of the air. My magic gets back under control and I turn stiff with inaction.

A long breath escapes me, and I relax, my instincts taking over as my thoughts wander again. None of this makes sense. Nothing is making sense, just as it never did all those grand-cycles ago. The airships make no sense. The weapons make no sense and the Valkinvar's utter failure to so much as act respectable makes no sense.

Nothing makes sense!

"Well, if I am to be confined to the city on such pathetic charges. I might as well make the most of my right to patrol the city. From the highest points in the sky, to the furthest walls on Thunlanann itself. Even the underside of the Great Bridge if I need to." I tell myself, resolving to handle this mystery that exists so far beyond the scope of my life. Yet, with how I seemed to have been the first Valkinvar to fight against the airships and their soldiers, I feel compelled. Obligated. 

The gods and goddesses might not have intended for me to take this up, but I shall. Whatever is going on with the Valkinvar and this war, I want to find out. I need to, for the sake of my life and so many more. The contradiction of the Valkinvar must carry on for as long as I live and perhaps even longer.

Though we fight to prove our worth when we die, going off into Waionr's loving arms. We also fight for it is the want of all who live a life worth living. Death is to be something that happens to us, not a want we throw ourselves into with suicidal abandon. The Valkinvar must keep on living so we can die as we should, in glorious battle, worthy of the scars we cut under our left breasts, towards our hearts...

I may lack the sacred virginity all female Valkinvar should have, but I am not absolved of my responsibilities. It took a long decade for me to understand that. A long time that I spent out of the war that I need to make up for. I've lost too many friends, sisters and brothers for this to end like this. I will fight with all I have and more than the world ever gave me when I was born.

"If I am to not fight in this war as I should... I will figure out what is so wrong in this city and the Valkinvar. I must figure it out. I must..." I reassure myself with, muttering the thoughts without end as I descend to head back into my home. The Grand Temple of the Four-Winded Valkinvar.