Malphaestus
Touched by the Apocalypse
PERMAFROST
A world frozen by the death of time
A world frozen by the death of time
- Quick Note: Permafrost is the creation of myself in a private roleplay, this introduction includes a character from another participant, the 'robed figure.'
- STORY -
Within the icy clutches of the caldera at the end of the world, bordering the vastness of the absence that goes beyond realities, and the unfanged peaks of what once were towering monuments to a greatness long forgotten, there was found a trio of heroes and the entourage of devout followers. Within their grasps, within the grasp of one more particular than any other, was the key to garner security and safety from a death too horrible to possibly be imagined.
For eons beyond counting, for time itself had long since felled to the clutches of the whims of ambitious Gods wanting for reason and the ever-fervering conflict ensued by the world serpent upon which this husk of existence now found itself stranded upon, a future was once more within reach. A divine artifact fashioned by no one with no intended reason or purpose had become to key to the next era, the key that would construct a new fate for the world of Permafrost unlike any other.
It was held by the hands of a warrior-king who claimed dominion over the first primordial force of true absence, the only power which could possibly rival true creation of which this divine artifact had been fashioned from.
The blackened hand of Wulfhart grasped tightly the artifact, and within a sudden flash too brief to comprehend, the world of Permafrost which had only known black skies found itself with a sun for the first time in forever. A sky fashioned of divine colours, as cool as the frozen eyes, yet far warmer than even the mightiest of blazes within the sanctum-halls of Gudrgraf where the Svartrhall would assemble for their regular governmental assemblies before the quest for the Godkey had taken its shape through action.
But just as the fascination of the one true heaven above their domes had set in, the natural forces pulled down upon them. Galdr, the Archwizard and true friend of Wulfhart quickly took to his cross-shaped greatsword by the blade and shoved its tip into the ice at their feet, casting a vast arcane construction to partially remove the fall from those around him, limiting the extent that gravity and inertia had dominion over those across all of Permafrost.
"Milord, you have broken the curse!" He screamed, as the ice itself thundered outward under the ruptuous decline. None could possibly imagine its destination, and only took to great relief at the conclusion of their grand and arduous quest. Halfr, the Shadow Jarl most closely aligned with the principles of his one true Shadow King Wulfhart, took to further enforce Galdr's support after having fallen back upon his icy footing due to briefly having been sent skyward, "Aye, our quest is done at long last! A heroes welcome you shall receive with most assured support from all denizens of Permafrost."
Their mighty Shadow King however, bore a mystical sense of incompletion. He had held the spawn of what could only be described as true reality, and it had been eaten by true absence in the utilization of it in the hand of absence. His mind was split, for he had truly accomplished his quest, but the power of which he communed with, a forbidden power, was yet more mighty than the divine power which ensured that he had managed to even pursue his quest. Was death, or even more particularly the void, the ultimate power after all? Was his world doomed from its inception? Is his life's quest only a contribution to a brief prolonging of Permafrost?
"I would not speak with such conviction, brothers. There are sinister forces at work now," spoke a robed man, entourage of Galdr and his more academically persuasive lesser sibling. Much like Halfr was of great administrative complexion, and Galdr was a warrior-wizard with none to contest his prowess, Siegulf was the inbetween. An oddity with a mix of all within his veins, and the bearer of bad news when they were best needed.
"Aye, I sense he speaks great truths," was all that Wulfhart could respond, his void-touched voice lingering through the air longer than what many would conceive pleasant. Its rasp and distant tone seemed nigh ethereal, distinctly different from his own form. Whilst the nature for which this circumstance may be clear, as a large portion of his body was merely the outlined surface of which nothing was present, but intermixed with his noble regalic war-armour specially fashioned to quell the powers of which no ordinary force held command upon, he gave off a nigh-saintly aura to those around him. As if he spoke for more realms and laws than most.
What felt like hours illuminated only by this strange new sky, these distant horizons beyond what had once been absolute blackness darker than shadow, and the cracking of the ice under this utterly unfamiliar surge of heat so miniscule yet so significant as to bring even the wartorn to tears. The silence of the company of legends was equally deafening in contribution.
But it was all brought to a sudden crawl as panic and chaos scoured the rank and file of these seasoned questing knights. With a thunderous roar so great that eardrums even a thousand leagues would find themselves ruptured all knights save for one were brought to their stomachs as the crashing continent at last reached landfall.
Wulfhart still stood, but at his feet the unbreakable ice had broken under the forces placed upon him. Undeterred he watched as the mighty unfanged peak crumbled upon itself in the distance, and its fellow siblings all across the mountain followed due suit, leveling the entirety of the mountain, spewing icy vapours into the sky and across all of Permafrost in a snowy fog.
"HAHAHA! WE HAVE FOUND OUR NEW HOME!" Roared Wulfhart, a laugh fashioned from eons of pain, sweat, and brute force contributed in a time beyond the death of time.
He gazed around him, his fellowship knocked out cold from the impact. A feat no less impressive than the collapsing mountains all around him. He gazed towards a boundless horizon, and at a two-armed sun amongst the heavens. But when next he saw the horizon with wanderlust so excited as to be confused with that of a boy of little age, he grew disheartened and returned to normalcy once more.
There was heat, in fact, it was so warm as to be painful, but it was exhilarating. But when he gazed towards the boundless horizon, the vast forests and crater-ridden landscape froze over as it deformed under the weight of the Permafrost's impact. Whilst mountains rose and joined his world into this newfound one, the frost itself also spread vast distances, connecting this world with his own.
He took two steps towards the edge of what had once been Permafrost, and gazed at the awe inspiring visage that had been the result of his toiling labour, briefly forgetting his infinite worries.
Triumphant, he raised his sword Annulment and shoved its world-cutting edge into the ice with the only hand of which he could consider his own.
The landscape without Permafrost was both one of desolate ruination - but also of untold grandeur. An existence that promised more than absolute cold - an existence that promised time. Whatever realm Permafrost had smote, it now rose as a plateau above the surrounding lands. Wulfhart surveyed the lands, his view unobstructed by nought but distance itself. Vast forests, riddled with massive lakes and mighty streams like veins, formed a bounteous tapestry. Mountain valleys rising and stretching away and out of sight, seeming to rise in a peculiar fashion as they approached the horizon, curving across and around the wilderness. The sight of distant villages and towns, walled with stonework of alien and yet simultaneously aching familiarity, dotted the traverse like jewels. Tall keeps and citadels towers hummed with hivelike activity, and Wulfhart could see open flame - wondrous even in its mere sight - filling distant apertures, the very notion of the foreign lights setting a fire across his form that burnt in ways that the cold never could. This new foreign land lay stretched out and bare before Wulfhart like a newfound lover, open and welcoming, overwhelming his senses with its mystique, its wonders, and the untold heat of great passions to be undertaken.
Not that this place was without its blemishes. Even as he looked on, the mythical chill of Permafrost's former universe seeped across the expanse, frost and ice spreading like fractal tumors across the landscape, running up the rivers like ice through blood. Moreso, closer to the towering ridge that was the new boundary between Permafrost and these new lands, craters and curious bonelike ruin carved up the earth. Curious material which Wulfhart knew not to be native to Permafrost itself littered and gleamed within the area surrounding the site of its landing, as if some other great ruin had been visited upon the land ever so briefly before the arrival of Wulfhart and his people. Jutting out from the sheer rise of the new plateau, a jagged length of brass-colored and wretchedly bent metal larger than most palaces shivered and shuddered as the stress of the cold caused the whole of its frame to quake and distort - and yet the substance did not crack and sunder as it surely should have. The keening, resonant echo of its pitched wails and cries stalked past Wulfhart in a fashion altogether too reminiscent of crumbling glaciers.
To anyone else, the unnerving, wracking sound of the tortured substance would have completely masked the light footfalls that Wulfhart sensed just behind him. Light footfalls unbecoming of the stature and power of his fellows. Footfalls of someone, or something not of his world.
That which he saw before him was surely of trembling likeliness, as if his own cities had been cast in the fall of his world upon this one, warped by powers and cultures beyond his reckoning into bastardized yet equally beautiful versions of his own homes, steads, and keeps. The beauty and pain of the mere sight of that which had not yet frozen brought him back to his childhood and touched an ember which he had long since forgotten within his steeled heart yet quelled it as rapidly as the absoluteness of cold wrought for naught but ice as it cascaded across its volumous surfaces. It was as if he looked upon the death of time once more, yet rejoice was had for he could feel the heat, however faint, and as even the distant castles, and vast constructs of incomprehensible origin found themselves stuck within the clutches of his own world's brutality, he bore a smile across his cheeks.
Surprise was had, however, as he gazed upon the carcass of great accomplishments not far from his own frame. A vast structural protrusion gave way from beneath his home of Permafrost, as if something buried within the world had been uncovered. He would not be quite surprised if it had come along with him if not from the fact of its immense strangeness. It behaved as if the winterworld was a strangeness to it, yet held firm as whilst it squealed and malformed, it remained adamant, reminiscent of his own wear and arms, yet far removed from it.
"You have quite a world to call your own, native," he called out. The steps and presence behind him obvious to his senses. Though Wulfhart himself would doubt the fact that his awareness had reached such great heights that he could even notice someone of his visitor's disposition whilst they desired to remain unnoticed. "You carry yourself much like myself, yet far removed from it. I sense familiarity and immense difference from you, so I reckon you must be someone of quite impressive hold upon the rules of these distant landscapes."
Wulfhart was a special man amongst what remained of Permafrost, intermingling with powers that could perhaps even contest the Gods during their great splendorous times. He had always thought it distasteful however, that they would seek individual pursuits at the cost of all those whom had put their faith upon them. Not to mention that the felling of the World Serpent had brought infinite damnation upon those that would make home of the ruins that they left behind.
But these were no times of reminiscence, no matter how powerful they might make him feel in his defiance of the fate upon which the Gods had brought upon him, and the denial of the absolute conclusion of which forces beyond any life's ability to combat had desired.
"May I know of what you are to these lands?" He finished, turning his head around over his shoulder, his voice almost flying away from his body and intermixing around the presence of this welcomer.
The native, if that was what they truly were, was perhaps somewhat disappointing in the manner of their presence, which served to make the faint tell-tale signs of their resilience all the more foreboding. They stood less than a full two heads smaller in height than Wulfhart himself, and their frame was slight, frailer than that of many of Permafrost's own maidens. They wore a simple darkened cloak over voluminous grey robes that obscured their gender - and they walked across the ice of Permafrost with bare feet. Their similarly bare hands, with long artisan's fingers, were smooth and untouched by age. The tone of their skin seemed pale at first, but on closer examination, seemed to simply be a lighter hue of the brasslike material that even now shuddered and heaved against the face of the plateau. The stranger's face was masked by a simple curved plate of porcelain, with a jet-colored circle and a single line drawn down across and through it adorning its surface, bordered by a manelike tangle of hair that fell to their waist which shone with the color of starlight beneath the light of the twin-armed illumination above. Their movements bespoke an effortlessness, an ineffable grace too whole and pure to be affected or bent by any material hazard.
"You shall come to know on your own." The figure's voice was androgynous - light, with the intonation of a young child despite clear evidence of the figure's maturation. It was impossible to discern whether they were male or female.
"I come to bid greeting to you. Yet I am here for but a moment. There is much to be done, for both of us." The stranger added, walking up beside Wulfhart to gaze stoically and with the pristine motionlessness of a statue at the lands as the cold seized upon them.
"I will answer what I can. I will tell why that I cannot."
Their scent struck Wulfhart like a physical blow.
The stranger had no scent.
No scent. Like a nothing of the void.
Wulfhart exhaled a quick chuckle, unwanting for his throat to be painted white by the canvas of the infinitely cold atmosphere that prevailed across all of Permafrost's peaks, flowing down to its deepest valleys. "You do indeed reek of a familiar unfamiliarity."
He gave way for the figure as he followed them with his own absent-coloured eyes. "I appreciate your frankness, it is an admirable trait seldom found even in these lands of which I have fashioned unto your own home that require utility before all others," He gripped his blade's hilt, still firmly embedded within the indomitable ice upon which the two of them now shared space.
"I will respect your busy schedule then, and be utmost direct with my inquiries:" he once more gazed at the distant horizon, and raised his void-riddened arm towards the boundless expanse, a wanting palm seeking towards the limitless rises beyond the edge of that which was seen. "Where have I made home? What is this land? What may I expect from those whom live upon it?"
He fell silent for moments, before adding, "Aiding me in these inquiries and providing me your knowledge and wisdom is a thing shall not forget. I promise you that." He once again turned towards the pale-white visage of this presence which he felt oddly drawn to, whether it be a sense of commonality or otherwise he could not yet make sense of, but no matter why, or what, aid will be reciprocated with aid, and fang with fang.
He seemed a king vying for dominion over the vast promises, but upon his dazed face was merely curiosity at a world so far alien from his own as to inspire something within him that had never been fed. A raging desire within him was unshackled and should this welcomer provide him what he desired, then he felt that even chivalry would pale in comparison to the dedication which he would put towards reciprocation.
"This realm is called Aion. It is bound within the surface of five spinning wheels, and two threads bridge the surface to the heart of the world." The masked figured raised an arm to gesture with an upturned palm towards the two-armed star hanging above them. The hem of their robe's sleeve fell slightly, revealing faint, hairless wrists, the curve of the bones underneath the surface readily evident.
"Expect nothing."
At the utterance of Wulfhart's gratitude, the smaller figure merely turned their masked gaze to stare silently onwards at the mythical king, and said nothing. The entire world seemed to still. Wulfhart's heart suddenly seemed to thunder like a wardrum in his body, but had also slowed to a creepingly familiar sense of motionlessness. As if every scant moment during which he did not speak was devoid of time.
"HAH! A good world!" He responded, gazing upwards at the transcelestial reality fashioned from the genius of an experienced maker. "A good maker, far better than the ones of mine."
"You do not seem the asking sort, so I will not attempt to pretend to entertain inquiries."
But his jubilation was cut short, indeed. Because as quickly as his fascination was readied and steeled by the adventurous foreboding, it was sunk by a dreadful nostalgia. A nostalgic premonition of absence. The death of time is the rallying cry for that which lurks beyond all realities, eating away at those which had died.
He could sense the nature of his existence alien to this reality more than merely culture, as if his own home before the activation of the Godkey was of a different manner of reality from this newfoundland. In direction continuation, assuming his colleague in conversation could comprehend his thoughts, "but I assume that is not why I sense the presence of powers which ought not to be displayed, is it?"
"Time is infinite here. It remains precious nonetheless. Every breath you draw is a gift."
Wulfhart realized that it was now the case that his heart had quite literally stopped beating, despite the sensation of blood rushing to his head.
Beyond the stranger's head, a dancing whorl of scattering ice shards hung suspended in the air.
"You speak words of reminiscence for me, but I have seen realms of infinite time felled before and I do not desire another quest to save my people from them," he retorted, his eyes slowly shifting upwards in response to the strange phenomena above.
They spoke that every breath is precious here, but his own life could barely be considered amongst them then. He needed neither breath nor blood, they were merely bygone portions of a life before ascending during the treacherous days of the dawn of the end of time. When he drowned in the blood of the world serpent he had gained portions of its powers and divinity, ascending beyond merely humans along with the rest of his siblings who did not die from the transformation.
"Seems like something akin to what the age of myth could conjure," he said motioning towards the event unfolding above him.
The stranger did not answer him.
He continued to gaze with unceasing resolve, even as he felt things within his body that he had not heard for so long. Things beating that he had long forgot their functions for, and pulsing surging through his otherwise comparably lifeless limbs. He was drawn back to what this slender presence had alluded to before, however, his wonderlust and excitement having calmed down ironically as his body surged to 'life.'
"You mentioned we would both find ourselves busy. That refers to?"
"Your realm is not the only one to become joined with Aion. Many others, even now, merge and join to it and each other by means." The robed and masked figure answered. "A new equilibrium must assert itself. All that rises must converge. The mere occurrence of the first joining unshelved the pinning for one of the three strings which bridged the surface of Aion to the heart of the world. This should not have been possible and reflects a mistake of design. Great adversaries and trials shall befall you here if you do not stride forth to meet with them."
The masked entity's tone did not noticeably rise or change in inflection as it spoke.
The normal demeanour of a leader out for the betterment of his people stepped in at the much needed information. "I see," he spoke, gripping tightly his sword and unsheathing it from the ice, pointing it towards the horizons in typical knightly ceremonious display, "then come what may, I shall vanquish it," he spoke, before pointing the blade of Annulment skyward at the two-armed sun, and continued, "I appreciate this time of clarity greatly, and I will owe you one favour in life for this wisdom you have imparted upon me."
He lowered his sword in a variety of seperate motions, acting out an old chivalric rite from the time where the skies had yet to darken with the thirst of the hungry ones who feasted upon the carcass-world of which he had ridden of its fate. "I do not need any further guidance. I have asked what I sought to know, and left much open for my own to explore and satiate my thirst."
"Whether you remember the favour I owe you is beyond my concern, but a favour I do owe you should I be called upon."
As he sheathed his blade in an odd, shoulder-strapped greatsword-mount with unexpected ease due to its otherwise unorthodox location, he motioned the presence onwards further, "You still do not seem to be of the asking persuasion, but if you desire knowledge of what I may know then I will abide."
As his motion was completed, he finished, "I will not keep you further. As you said, we are both busy, and I must tend to my hearth."
"Yes. If you or one of yours have need or opportunity to visit me later, you may find use for this." The masked figure reached out and handed to Wulfhart what seemed to be a small wood-cutting with a small brass token embedded in its center. They did not withdraw it from the folds of their robes or otherwise gesture to reveal it by some sleight of hand - as their grip met with Wulfhart's, as it left once more the item was simply in his grasp.
"We may yet find further use for each other when time is more permissive. Until then."
The masked figure was gone. The groaning, shrieking keen of distant, warping metal blasted across Wulfhart's ears once more, and he heard his allies beginning to stir.
Wulfhart had grasped hold of the item within his false hand, the act of which might hold hidden significance between the two of them. There were many uncertainties of which he found himself wanting for more information regarding, but time was of an utmost importance with an event such as this. He had crossed the gap, unlocked the seal placed upon his dimension and crossed the seas of realities, so it was no great strangeness that others would accomplish the same feat in times as crooked as these where continents fall from the heavens and the world deforms at their arrival.
"We head for Gudrgraf with utmost immediance!" He roared, as the waking men finally regained their conscience at the convenient departure of his newfound acquaintance in this new world. "There is much to be done, needless to say because of our arrival! But there is much I have to tell, which I will entertain the Shadow Jarls in the Svartrhall upon our return."
Wulfhart turned around, meeting with the bedazzled face of his men at the visage of this new world, "You will get your chance to appreciate the sight after our preparations have been made,"
His voice echoed then, across the mountains, almost throughout all of Permafrost with words of warning, "We must now rebuild and prepare, strange times are abound!"
RETURN
Wulfhart had returned. He sat silent upon his throne amidst vacant halls, or so he thought, within a palace, his own, once someone else's, free of doubt. In his hand is clenched an orb, an orb of the manifest unknown. An object of learning, which grants its wielder great wisdom so that they may uncover secrets and the hidden laws that govern and rule. Yet still so much more.
He had decreed upon his people to rebuild that which had been destroyed in the fall, and so his kin and subjects took upon them this task, as all others of Permafrost had done. Now he was left to his own devices, to contrive and conceive logic and reason in which he could find purpose in his acts and decisions.
Why had he took the quest? To resolve that which could not be resolved otherwise, naturally. His world was doomed, it could not survive, it could only prolong. He took upon himself the mantle of responsibility to rid Permafrost from its death sentence. He had slain that which could not be slain, and prolonged that which could not be prolonged for this single purpose. His quest for the Godkey, designed and constructed by no one for no reason, was solely for this purpose and this situation. By all laws and logics, he had been successful thus, and his quest had ended successfully.
But why was he malcontent yet thrilled by its completion? He had slain the unslayable absence by constructing a bridge of creation to gap the distance between that which could not be traveled and that which could not be visited. He had gapped the universes, the dimensions, and delivered his people to an unknowable land to prosper and engorge themselves with purpose.
He had granted greed upon that which knew only how to survive but not how to be joyful. He had experienced glee upon his completion, but had been shot down by his own doubt, for the absence still persists within him. He had met powers which were previously unknown to himself, powers which reeked of nothing yet smelled with creation, something which imitates the primordial forces of nothing and everything, and held a conversation with it.
Yet that power which could destroy and create, was still unsimilar from those powers which he had gazed his eyes upon millions of times over his many years of living. He had met Gods, bested some, defeated by others. Yet this entity gleaned enigmas and breathed mysteries.
Even with the overpowering wisdom of which the orb had granted him, he could seemingly not gleam the truth by which the axis of the universes turned, and the axis by which their end was designed. He could not transcend the boundaries by which universes were confined, but at least he could gleam and gloom at the boundaries by which Aion held itself accountable to.
Its systems of magic were clearly of a different nature to his own, artificial in its production. They did not uphold to the lore of myth and magic, but instead seemed to follow a different principle to some.
He rose.
He placed the Orb of the Manifest Unknown upon its altar.
He lowered his hands, letting them flail at his waist.
With a deep sigh he exclaimed, "do I perhaps have to conquer the lore of myth and magic to uncover that which could never be known."
Silence emanated the Svartrhall, place of which would normally host lavish debates and solve deep-rooted disputes.
He sighed once more, his voice echoing the expanse by which the Svartrhall emanated. Did he expect an answer, perhaps? Did he desire enlightenment at the hands of others? He could never know.
He reached for the Orb of the Manifest Unknown again, which was ceremoniously placed within the center of which the 8 thrones of the Black Court encircled. But he was interrupted by placid steps, taken by those who held enigmatic knowledge.
"You seem troubled, my Lord-King," spoke a familiar voice.
"Ah, have you come to ease my burden once more, ye olde scholar-brother?"
"Perhaps," they rebuked, "... Or perhaps to enlighten you to knowledge which exists beyond that which existed."
Wulfhart glanced upon the robed scholar-knight, walking the marbled stones with the aid of their sword held like mere walking sticks. The blade glowed with the enigmatic lore and the myths of magic. It radiated the otherwise darkness-veiled room with the enlightened blazes of light with each stone slab which it passed in its walk.
"Oh? Have you taken to the pursuits of the forbidden now, lesser-brother oathsworn," a sharp tone which accommodated well the pompous darkness which the regent of Gudrgraf had taken upon himself to properly represent his own realm and kingdom and peoples.
The scholar-knight scoffed, nigh accusatory, and the tenseness by which the two interacted was held in high fashion. "Haldr does not entertain mere muses when pursuing the yet unknown." He raised his sword-staff and plummeted it into the marbles, with its collision a wide formation of runes and signaturmata. "What is forbidden is merely forbidden for lesser minds cannot properly known that which is yet not known nor how to use it with proper fashion."
"Haldr, what have you fashioned now? To invade my sanctum halls and slay my privacy," Wulfhart paused authoritatively, to let the patient silence speak for his own impatience, "you best not speak poor wills unto me."
"My Black yet golden-hearted lord-king, I would never seek council with you over simple matters. Of this you know." The Archmage spoke, lesser-brother of Galdr the Legendary knight-wizard by which standard constraints need not abide, "I am Haldr, and this Haldr comes to you to fix your ailing mind."
"You come to me with wisdom? How to solve my hidden worries? Then for what reason have you placed the enigmatic runes of legends and signaturmata, signatures with which to invade the transcendental and allow that which otherwise cannot be?"
"Simple, my lord-king. Upon our quest to slay the unslain absence, the void which transcends the void, with the Godkey and deliver unto Permafrost a future which could otherwise not have been created, I have achieved a greater enlightenment that otherwise could never have been constructed."
He paused. Then continued.
"My brother, Galdr, gained insights unto his own magics, but I gained greater values through gazing upon your unsealing the world of Perma through the almighty Godkey. I gained glimpses into the void, and saw planes of which transcended even the first primordial force."
He paused again. And once more continued.
"I seek the Orb of the Manifest Unknown. To fashion not only an answer to your sickened heart, but to breach beyond the all-destroying, the all-creating, and glimpse at mysteries yet untold."
He knelt, and bowed his head, his sword-hand grasping indomitably around his runic sword.
"The creation by which I now marrow your halls is the formation by which I may deliver unto you an unknown truth, my lord-king. It is fashioned from the arcane formata by which God Munkë and God Porttaa first built their continents during the first age without time. The Twin-Gods from beyond the known realms of the Infinite Perma."
He glanced up, upon the intimidating silhouette of a King who had he willed it, could have conquered the Permafrost, but instead sought only to rid it of its curse. He could not penetrate the infinite veil which keeps his skin hidden from all curious gazes, but he could sense his interests. Thusly, he continued yet again, pushing the boundaries of his allowed interference.
"From my studies endured during our treck through the timeless snow, as before told, I have gained enlightenment that which Permafrost has never before been hold privilege to hold. With this formation, of both enigmaforma and signaturmata, I hold great pride in my foretelling, that I can deliver unto you the power of explanation, and deliver unto me, greater capacity of service."
He once more bowed his head, in tune with the dual-bow of ancient chivalric custom which Wulfhart had fashioned his kingdom upon. Taken from the teachings of not only timeless wandering through the age of myth where which time was blessed upon them. Galdr was a calculative and influencing sort, his actions deliberate and his treading of the rules and laws was legendary in and of themselves. He had known that Wulfhart could not retaliate upon him before the second bow, and he knew that Wulfhart could force that second bow upon him.
He also knew, from timeless eons of practice, of having bent the rules to speak his mind, that his voice had nurtured wisdom within the once excitable and youthfully aged knight-monarch, that he would be allowed to bow of his own accord, so long as he does not breach the trust by which the two of them place their oathsworn brotherhood.
"That is all," he finished, perhaps with great anticlimactic implications, but he had spoken his peace. He had breached the King's command, to rebuild the realm, and that knowledge had been exchanged between the two throughout his dialogue. The two of them knew each other well, but Haldr knew better how to act upon that knowledge.
With great silence, the Black King raised the Orb within his taken palm, and took seven great strides until his feet were now planted at the verge of Haldr's lowered gaze. The silence was interrupted by simple words of little intention, but they were clear nonetheless. "Then take it from me."
Haldr raised his eyes, and upon the black monarch's silhouette, and with every raised perspective, he crossed an ever intimidating visage. Until he finally gazed the Orb of the Manifest Unknown, and at the same time, upon the cursed gaze of his beloved king.
He was tested, for the gaze could petrify, yet he steeled his resolve, and grabbed the Orb. "You shall not be displeased."
"I best not be, my patience is dripping ever thinner. The ice may not yet melt, but my temper is scorching."
Wulfhart strode once more, past the Archmage who had sworn him his service at the same instance as his trusted champion had in the eons past, and exited the Svartrhall.
Archmage Haldr followed his short journey beyond the Svartrhall and outside its towering gate into the rest of the once Time-Loved Palace of God-King Ydir. Then, with the departure of his King, he returned his visage unto the Orb, and spoke reassurance unto himself, "Assuredly, I will not be consumed by the mysteries you hold within, Artifact."
