Iphaldrins Prophet
Sheared Mountains & the Plains, Lore
Author: Synticfaye // Beta: Lastalda // version2
A long, long time ago, the world was younger. In an age when the Gods had only just descended and no one had started to record time, Iphaldrin was known as Kheels greatest.
She had lived for so long that everyone believed her to be of their homeland, connected to their family. And maybe she was, for once there was a time when all the people were one.
And so Iphaldrin was known to be of the people.
A warrior shimmering with light and magic that belonged to them all. She was the most capable of the leaders. The Faye followed her into battle to return with the glow of shimmering victory over and over again. Until one day when they didn’t. This was the time when the God Vhoris had begun to create his creatures, but knew them to be imperfect. So he tried again and again, flooding the lands with his creations in his quest for perfection. These beings, discards of his never ending efforts, roamed the land and laid claim to all life it contained.
They devoured it with a hunger none of us will ever feel, for it was a piece in their very soul that was missing, and nothing could ever fill its place. When they reached the foothills of the Sheared Mountains, it fell to Iphaldrin and her army to bring an end to them. The plains witnessed a battle like none before it. Iphaldrin and the Faye piled creatures' bodies high until bloody heaps rose from the ground, but they would not stop coming. Like water in a river will not cease to flow, however much of it might pour into the sea.
The Faye fought bravely. But those who fell were devoured as well, never to return to life. This sparked a fear into hearts like they had not known before, as they saw their brothers fall into the endless black.
Distraught, Iphaldrin rose far above the battlefield. And looking down upon it, she saw clearly for the first time. Nothing but grief and pain bloomed in this bloodshed. The only end fate offered them here was their own. So she called her people back to flee into the mountains, surrendering the lands and everyone in it to the monsters.
They couldn’t even bring back the dead to be revived, for their bodies had been devoured. So instead of a friend, Iphaldrin brought one of Vhoris’ dead creatures with her.
She took the beast beneath the mountain to the God himself.
“My God of the first and the second life! Grant this one mercy, so it will carry its meaning to his fellow brothers who do not know it. For it is only mercy that can still save us from here.” The God Kheel, though, was angry at her. She had abandoned the lands and their protection, and doomed all the helpless to die, forever lost. They would all find a death of endless black. Never to return. And here stood Iphaldrin with one of the very things that had brought this woe upon them, pleading for its life.
“I will not bestow a new life upon this creature before the ones you doomed to die have come back first” he said angrily, knowing it to be impossible.
“Then give it mine” Iphaldrin answered.
And because she was one of his greatest, he granted her wish. Kheel gave her second life and her freedom to the creature and left it to wander back to the plains.
Not one of his, nor one of Vhoris’ any longer.
It passed the fleeing people on its way back to the battle. Yet it did not strike them, for it suffered no more hunger. A creature now glowing with the light of Kheel’s greatest, the people who heard of what had happened named it “Iphaldrin's Prophet“.
As the Prophet reached the flood of creatures that devoured all people, all life and the lands, it was as if a lightless sun had risen. For his presence was felt by all over the foothills and the plains and beyond them.
They stopped and saw Iphaldrins mercy molten into the core of their brother, the first of them that no longer bore a hole in its soul.
This was when they discovered their hearts, feeling a yearning deep inside, realizing their hunger was not for blood but for life itself. Devouring would never be enough. And so, without a voice but with their hearts no less vocal, they vowed to serve the people, that the emptiness in their souls might, too, be filled by mercy.
Vhoris’ creatures returned, and with the people of Vhor they built a great kingdom. The two Gods Vhoris and Kheel made a peace that still holds fast to this day. And on the border between the two lands, Iphaldrin’s Prophet still wanders, his shining light a reminder of how her mercy saved us all.
Authors note:
This is written as a Legend, as it appears in the Given World. As it is with all Legends, they hold a piece of thruth, tightly spun in a cocoon of forgotten details and embelishment.