Incline 43: Valkinvar-Imdvarce Vapooliar

Emerald flashes again and again. It disrupts the moonlight, shattering it across my fading vision. It keeps ongoing and going, a splatter of black arcing about. The flashes turn desperate, and a figure leaps forward, its reaching claws going through redstone.

The light stops.

The shadow-covered animal approaches. Its paws land in the blood around me. Though they are bloodied by someone else's, not soaking in mine. I've no choice but to stare at the animal in my last moments.

I don't even have the strength to beg for it to kill me as I am now. I can only hope that this beast will do just that. Kill me... Kill me now!

It comes down, putting its maw into view as it seals shut. The beast's aggression slips away, and it nuzzles against my chest. Right by my heart. It pulls away, rocking its head around to throw its mane out fully. I close my eyes as it wanders about.

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My eyes open again, revealing a brightly lit day in a dark alley. I stumble to my feet, unable to grasp why I can't properly feel anything. I keep ongoing until I'm in the open, only to find the city's dead all over the place.

On the market stalls and in the streets. Dangling from windows and against cracked walls. All of them are armed, all of them are dead by means of weapons. I keep on walking, still not able to feel my steps, but I'm moving, anyway.

I look around the streets, unaffected by the destruction and the death soaking the streets. Pretty flower vases still shine brightly with blossomed colour. But a thick glue of blood is trying its best to seal it all away. Joy is not allowed. Happiness is to be murdered.

My next blink comes along, taking the city away from me and putting me in the dark.

My body bobbles from side-to-side, my legs tightly secured on the animal. I look one way and then another, feeling so hollow in my lower half. My lungs burn, my heart spasms. The want for life is there, but the means to commit to it are not.

I can't really lift my eyelids, and somehow, I can't really close them either. It's so strange. I've no strength to move, but the strength to just... Fall asleep is somehow not there, either.

All there really is, is the warmth of this animal's fur...

I can feel it so clearly. The muscles underneath as they move along. One forward leg and a back, then the other side and corner repeats. I can hear its breath swell its lungs and smell such a familiar smell of blood. Not mine, though.

Not mine... A warlike scent of smoke and sweat and mud...

I close my eyes, finding an odd, soothing sensation to the beast.

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My eyes open, revealing a grand temple to me. The Grand Temple of the Valkinvar. Filled with not a mass this time, but a ceremony. A ceremony for me.

I look around, turning about to face the halolight as it shines on through the peaceful city. Thurnmourer-Jherikra is alive with petals and decorative banners. A Valkinvar is to be made. A Valkinvar called Vapooliar.

Me.

My induction cycle?

This happened so long ago... Too long ago.

I turn back towards the temple, my eyes going further than my head. I find corpses at the doorsteps, bodies lining the aisles. Armoured bodies of fuzzy but still clear shape. The bodies of Valkinvar.

My legs carry me ahead, offering no sense or feeling to the rest of my body with each footfall. Though blurry armour decorates my limbs, chest and more. My footsteps offer no echoes, no noise. The temple should be bustling with noise anyway, and it is.

Immediate noise, celebratory noise. Instruments of metal and string are playing. There are cheers... No, this is the sound of blades clashing. The sound of spells firing. Roars of pain and roars of despair.

"Traitor..."

"Traitor."

"Traitor!"

All around the temple is the same.

I look up at the higher up seats in the boxes and frown. My senseless legs continue their stride down the centre aisle, bringing me ever closer to a standing figure. I stop before her, my Point of a Compass. Sister Aimaboryim. 

She's dead, but upright. Not clearly defined as dead, but she shares so much with the other bodies here. I somehow manage a step back, kneeling towards the ceremonial blood sink. Though no knife is in my hands, it continues to fill with blood.

Blood rushing down my front, through my armour and everything. I reach for the blood, unable to feel a single thing about it other than that it's there. A feeling of simply knowing that it is my blood and no one else's. My blood. 

My soaked hand comes closer to my face, and my eyes close.

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My eyes flutter open, the dark of night no longer anywhere near me. A candle flickers by, a splatter of blood arcing about it. The beast continues to walk ahead, somehow only finding the remnants of battle. It keeps ongoing and going, keeping the walls moving as my legs fail to do anything. 

It turns one way and then another, revealing a line of disturbed treasures. Mangled steel is among them. And the beast takes only a few more steps to reveal the far more grim entanglement of someone's flesh. The mark of a temple guard barely clear among the wreckage.

Somehow, I find myself snuggling up against the beast's mane. I watch globs of water run down them, catching between the hairs and splitting up as gravity takes its toll. So close to my eyes, they can only be mine. But, I feel no pain. I feel nothing.

I'm surprised my eyes are even able to see. That I am able to take in any details from the world around me and consider it all. It's all a surprise. A welcome one...? I'm not sure I can say that at all.

The sights are only getting worse and I feel useless. Whatever this vision is meant to be, I want no part of it anymore. It scares me. It scares me to feel like this, to see my home like this...

I don't want to see it and I don't understand it. Why is a vision showing me all this death in such a strange way? Why am I waning between one world and another? Why is it always too far ahead or behind...?

My mind aches, and I somehow flinch, closing my eyes.

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The thundering volley of guns snaps me to attention.

Clear, defined noises. Death on one side, the fire of the guns on another. My hand covers my eyes and then comes away from them. The world turns clear and I look around my small, isolated tower. I blink and turn my head about, finding my feet moving in such an oddly nostalgic way. My hand touches the door, pushing it ahead and revealing a thunderous sight.

Dead men man the walls, their guns tightly in hand. Some even fall at just a convenient time. On my left, an army keeps on approaching, the enemy army from Giant's Victory. Not the Blood Tax Penals or whatever they were like, it actually was that cycle. It's the actual soldiers of the Royal Army of the Jhermonikra.

The shadow-faced men with orange dot eyes. Armour the colour of mountain stone and sheets of emerald fabric between. Their weapons' fire away, avoiding me and never really coming my way. Only for the dead manning the walls.

Bodies fizzle away, taking a bolt of alien magic and then becoming nothing. I keep ongoing, going and going with a turn of my neck. The city of Giant's Victory is fine. Silent beyond the echoes elsewhere, but fine. A strange light kicks in, fizzling in and out until...

The city is burning. Falling apart and taken. Troops march the streets and I'm barely on enough wall to support my weight. It crumbles away, taking me with it. I land, managing to stay upright the whole time.

It does not disturb the enemy, it catches none of their attention. They're all firing away, aiming for the shimmer in the sky. It catches still for a moment, a skin made up of sweat and grime flying away spectacularly. My mouth opens wide, like a smile. An alive-

They turn this way, rocketing ahead and crashing into the nearby temple. Somehow, I run ahead and skid to a halt. I stare ahead at the corpse of a fallen Valkinvar and move ever closer.

Sister Ogawa?

I turn around, finding the city simmering in smoke and occupation. Troops around me on all sides. A blade somehow comes into my hand, my body moving to attack. A gun spins to meet me, its barrel lighting up and forcing me to blink.

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My eyes burst open, a painful stagger sending me all over the tight stone hall. I keep ongoing, rushing for the light and the stairs. I meet more than a dozen dead Valkinvar. Mostly Ordoar Imdvarce like I am, but one Brother of the Ordoar Ammimpaurst and... No one of the Ordoar Staguiffmani as the echoes of gunfire deafen the familiar sight.

I'm at the Long Battery Fort, somehow. 

The enemy are approaching, the enemy is coming and the guns are dead. The Mountain Cracker has literally fallen, its battlements taken along with it. However, the open field ahead is not littered with dead and wrecks. The enemy is marching ahead with all they have. An emerald light takes over, blinding the sky of all its fire-touched orange.

It keeps on glowing, spreading across the world as another shadow comes into view. A wall of steel holding the windows to a thousand guns. My hand tightens its grip on my sword, a distinct feeling that is awfully furry. I double check my blade and see its edge shattered, just like it was when I crippled that airship.

My body moves senselessly ahead, carrying me to the limits of the ruined fortress. The mountain in the distance moves. Another mountain bobbling about, a shell of much danger and warning. A beast leaps into view, becoming so clear as to evoke only a simple name.

Mobile Fortress.

I find no sisters at my side, not even a single brother. I step over the battlements and fly ahead, somehow ready to do battle, even against so many. Nothing runs through my heart of mind. I'm just there. Ready to fight.

A Mach cone builds up, bursting with such fury as to knock me aside.

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My eyes open again, revealing a dark, ornate tunnel. I cling tightly to the beast as it bounces about. I feel so tired. So cold. So... Unalive.

I blink again, struggling to keep my eyes from staying shut forever. My eyes twitch, going to the art along the walls, the sparse candlelight and everything else about me. For once, there is no blood. There is peace. The animal is purring, even... Purring... Lovingly? Familiarity?

I can't really tell. I don't know. I know this tunnel, though. It's the...

The beast turns around, bringing the side I am leaning on into view. It's almost glowing, the sight it wants me to see. So clearly defined to me as if it's calling my name. A beautiful song that wants me to speak-

"The Crown of Conceptual War..." I somehow manage to get out into the open, even with my lungs having nothing inside of them. It hurts, and I know I'm croaking. I can only hear myself in my head. I can only...

The beast comes around, sliding to me in place at the base of the divine artefact. My eyes linger on the hallway at the end. A Valkinvar-Staguiffmani walks about there, her weapon alight with power. She twists my way, suspicion no doubt on her mind. She comes down the hallway, picking up speed as I no longer feel the warmth of the beast.

Only the back-and-forth shaking of the pedestal. The treasure atop it rattles, singing so beautifully with each ting. Every pat and every tap. The stone collapses, slumping my body only slightly. Entirely perfectly.

The Crown of Conceptual War lands on me, sliding into place as my eyes close again.