Light to Darkness

From Light to Darkness: A Siren’s Tale

There are many races in the old world, who possessed extraordinary abilities. Many of these species drew their unique gifts from lesser creatures, such as wolves, cats and foxes. These bipedal folk, called furs, lived in a similar way to humanity. There were also creatures of unimaginable power and enchantment, known as the ancients or highborn, beings bestowed with magic and strength of incalculable measure. Of these many highborn, however, this story brings into light two warring factions…

Sirens: The Triad, and the Grand Elements

Towards the oceanic mattering of mountainous islands and grand cliffs, in the eastern reaches of a small southern continent, the mystically-adept race called the sirens, humanoid beings gifted with a magical voice, and capable of a variety of ethereal spells and mysterious enchantments. They held an affinity to the free sky, the vast sea, and the eternal sun. The siren people fell into three tribes, each devoting themselves to the care and worship of one of the three Grand Elements. These three sects of the siren population were known as the Solari, the Zephryn, and the Atlanteans.

The Solari Tribe was perhaps the most prominent of the triad, dedicating their magical research and religion to the warm, life-giving sun, and its numerous stars. They were the ones who discerned that the light of the glimmering stars and burning sun bestowed the innate healing prowess of the siren people. They also made it their sworn duty to uphold the purity of the light, and thus founded the Aether Knights to safeguard the siren people, as well as the lesser races, from those who would abuse or assault them. Solari were known to be of a fair complexion, with tanned and tall forms that gave them their regal visage of righteousness.

The Zephryn Tribe probably got along best with the outer races, being travelers and explorers of the siren world. Many of the Zephryn are distinguished as being the most average-built of the three, slender and lithe. The key identifying feature of any Zephryn is their general preference from birth to form a pair of wings befitting their study or duties. They also serve as messengers and errand folk for all the tribes, their mobility and ability to cover great distances in short time, which also serves the Aether Knights well, as numerous of the Zephryn sirens have volunteered as scouts and patrol, quickly able to raise alarm or intercept intruders.

Finally, the Atlantean Tribe is maybe the most seclusive and independent of the three siren peoples, but are by no means estranged from their airborne and sun-struck sister sects. Usually built of stockier and strong build than either the swift Zephryn or the majestic Solari, many Atlanteans have been seen beneath the Aether Knights’ banner, serving as footmen and sentinels. With a remarkable resistance to magical energies, coupled with their strong physical forms, hardened by survival in some of the less hospitable aquatic reaches of the world, the Atlanteans make for fine warriors and determined workers in the siren community.

All three tribes paid homage to a sole series of artifacts, said to have been granted to their protection by the very Elements themselves. Within their care was held three sacred gemstones, each empowered with the purest forms of the magical energies withdrawn from each element. Light, air and water glittered in the high temple of the siren capital, T’saria, one of some reflective white crystal of similar nature to quartz, one of a mysterious glass-like substance that seemed invisible to the naked eye, and one of sapphire so perfect, it appeared to be crafted of the eternal oceans.

Vampires: The Dark Sundering, and the Elemental Souls

Of course, not all powers of such magnificent grandeur were aligned in the protective sirens’ love for light. In particular, the nocturnal creatures known as vampires, a scattered network of sharp-fanged, leathery-winged carnivores, clashed several times upon the meeting of the two races. Where the sirens were enthralled and worshipful of the Sun’s light, the vampires were fearful of it, as their accursed peoples had such an allergy to the powerful rays, that their figures were reverted to ash after mere seconds in the open day. The Elemental Souls, the very gemstones the sirens had protected, had also been placed within the guardianship of the Children of the Night, who held sway over the Elements of Darkness, Fire and Storms. The souls were drawn to one another, like magnetic opposites… and like the opposites of matter and anti-matter, their keepers reacted violently against each other.

The vampires were not as unified at first appearance to the stalwart and proud siren population, seeming to be spread out in numerous clan houses, or covens. As such, they merely drove back the threatening darkness, and sometimes retaliated by destroying the aggressors’ coven itself. What the Children of Light did not count on was that the clan leaders possessed a strong telepathic link with each other and their respective broods. As such, after a time, the vampires all banded together into a massive army of the night, a dark horde of terror, gathered beneath the banner of the most powerful nocturnal of that era.

The cunning and ruthless vampire warlord, whose name has been lost to the ages, swiftly struck with all of his army’s vast strength against the Atlantean capital of Mirrorfall, and the sirens soon spread word of a terrible power the warlord possessed. The Dark Lord, as he was called, had indeed razed the Center of the Grand Blue Element, and those unfortunates that were not slain were forcibly cursed to serve as wraiths, similar in nature to the vampires, but of a lesser ilk. In bitter reprisal of the attack, hereafter named the Dark Sundering, the Solari Magocracy consulted with the Zephryn High Council, and agreed to perform a Summoning Ritual to bring sudden daylight.

Such an act required the joint efforts of all three peoples, as while the Atlanteans held the vampiric legion at bay, the Solari high priests would draw the sun’s light forth, whilst the Zephryn templars would work their magic to clear the ominous clouds that followed the undead armada. It was during the bloody battle, just as the Atlantean vanguard were forced to break and retreat, that the spell successfully cast. Sudden daylight poured into the cities, and those vampires who were not instantly immolated beneath its power were forced into swift hiding beneath the siren’s streets.

Eventually, the vampires who’d survived the Solari’s wrathful spell escaped back to their dark citadels and palaces to nurse their wounds and regain strength of numbers, too close to extinction to risk another open war with enemies capable of unleashing their great weakness.

The Proposed Balance, and the Trueborn Vampiric

As rulers and chieftains of both races came and went, eventually so an agreement was reached between the sirens and vampires. Though both mutually distrusted and were cautious of the other, the opposite populations agreed on a settling ritual between their kinds to keep the balance in check during the feud. These new arrangements ascribed that, every generation, a chosen champion from the vampires would meet a similar warrior of the sirens, and engage in combat until one was the victor. Then, the first would hold the fate of the other in their paw, and so the natural enmity between the two would be quenched.

So it was that, within every new birth cycle of their kind, as they were both similar in the growth and decline of their populations, the vampiric and siren chosen would lock themselves in unwavering battle against one another, until one could fight no more. In this way, neither side truly gained the upper hand, so the balance remained steady between light and darkness. They lived in a semi-truce with one another, only resuming their strife in a single decisive combat each generation.

Ten generations after the secretly waged war between siren and vampire kinds, word began to spread that a stronger darkness had been sired. As a rule and known fact, vampirics were known to be incapable of birth as others were. The ominous true birth of a dark child was of such rare happening that it appeared only to be myth. Hence, many sirens at first paid no mind to the forbidding rumors that had reached the ears of the Solari. Yet, within generations, a new champion for the nocturnal creatures began to appear, an ivory lupine of outstanding bearing, a truly dominating figure on the battlefront and a frightening hybrid of alluring aristocrat and ruthless warlord. As more and more Light champions rose to the challenge of the Balance, only to fall at the hands of this dark-haired child of the moon, that the sirens paid attention to the murmurs and whispers around them.

None knew his name, for none had survived encountering him in the sacred meeting place of the Balance. Nobody could identify the manner of his abilities, nor the way in which he fought. All that was known and agreed upon was that ‘The Trueborn’, to his title, was far stronger than any vampire had been in the Sundering. Now, the thought of the ritualistic conflict atop of the shattered plateau that was their designated middle-ground became a terrible burden, and a sentence of chilling terror that none but the bravest, and perhaps the most foolish, wished to take up.