For the five bearers of Lady Sunna’s Word, the winter hadn’t been an overly pleasant experience. Sure, Lorgar was able to keep the worst of the weather away from them, the powers bestowed upon him by his Lady enough to accomplish that, but there was a vast difference between allowing them to endure the weather and preventing the weather from making them miserable.
His Lady had guided the fivesome down, out of the mountains, after encountering the strange valley filled with mist and monsters, though they had culled a considerable number of those monsters. But with the mist allowing the monsters to replenish their numbers seemingly at will, a conquest of the valley was impossible. Lorgar himself had repeatedly cursed his own weakness, his inability to burn away the mist with Lady Sunna’s light, forcing them to abandon the cleansing of this den of filth and misery. He was weak, his flesh was weak, and yet, the glorious Lady Sunna granted him the path to shed that weakness. All it took was devotion to Her, to follow Her path and, eventually, he would be reborn, stronger and greater than ever before. Strong enough to be Lady Sunna’s hand on Terra.
Alas, for now, the only thing they could do was follow Lady Sunna’s guidance, as they always would. Out of the mountains and into the seemingly endless plains, ignoring the cold wind and continuing on their travel north, taking shelter when needed and otherwise moving north until the cold and snow made travelling prohibitively difficult. Once again, Lorgar could only curse his own weakness and flagellate himself for failing Lady Sunna; nothing else would suffice. And so, the fivesome spent what felt like endless months in the ruins of a small town after cleansing the place from the few Shattered and Undead lingering there.
Strangely, some of those Shattered were weird, their actions not as aggressive as Shattered usually were, though Lorgar felt their aggression was only muted because they didn’t dare to go against Lady Sunna, feeling that the muted aggression was evidence of his continued ascension to becoming a beacon of Lady Sunna’s light in the world. He was confident that, eventually, his mere presence would be enough to drive away the darkness and allow the world to bask in Lady Sunna’s light.
Unrelated to the strangely passive Shattered and annoying Undead, the party of five spent their time of confinement in training. Training to become stronger, praying to wield the Light of Lady Sunna, training so they would be able to drive away the darkness and restore civilisation to this battered world. Theirs was a seemingly impossible task and it was only their faith that allowed them to even contemplate it. Otherwise, they would see the impossible task ahead of them and despair, their light snuffed out like a candle in the endless void of space.
Luckily, just like every night had to end and make way for Lady Sunna’s glorious light, the winter ended, allowing them to travel once more. Now unable to follow the trail of corruption left by the passage of the evil, jaded witch Morgana, they had to rely on Lady Sunna’s guidance exclusively. Not that the change made a real difference, even before they had followed Lady Sunna’s light to track the corruption, so cutting out the need to follow might allow them to get ahead of the evil creature and cut her off. And cut off her head in the process, bringing endless glory to Lady Sunna and allowing Her light to illuminate the world.
Alas, even after slogging through the muck and mud for almost a month, they hadn’t managed to catch up with the foul creature. What they had noticed during their trek north was that the changes the world had undergone were even more severe and strange than they had anticipated. Towns getting suddenly cut off in ways that were obviously caused by the apocalypse were one thing, towns and buildings getting shifted around in inexplicable ways without any rhyme or reason were another way but, at the end of the day, none of it could be explained by any of them nor did any of it truly matter. They had their task, their sworn duty, and they would prevail. There was no option for failure; their duty was clear, and Lady Sunna’s light would continue to guide them through this darkened time.
Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.
Their travels continued somewhat amicably, without any great sources of excitement, just a few more Shattered, Undead and a fair variety of strange beasts trying to impede their relentless march until one evening. Just as dusk was about to fall and the Sun started to set behind the mountains in the west, slowly taking Lady Sunna’s light from the world and pitching it into darkness, Lorgar saw it.
The heresy, the greatest insult to Lady Sunna he had ever conceived, even from the vast distance, the blasphemous audacity managed to boil his blood the instant he beheld the heretical construct. He didn’t need to commune with Lady Sunna; just a peek of an orange orb sitting above the hills in an eternal mockery of the setting sun told him everything he needed to know. The evil witch had taken the image of dusk, of the Sun’s natural progression through the sky and its connection to Lady Sunna’s glorious light and made a mockery of it. An eternally setting sun, even if it looked like a strange eyeball, sitting above some dark construction, mocking Lady Sunna and the fact that the Sun couldn’t stay in the sky, that the shadow of Terra got in the way. It could not be borne, people had to know that the shadows of Terra could be overcome, and thus, this heretical image had to be shattered. Broken and cast down in some way to make sure Lady Sunna’s light would never be mocked again. Maybe they could find the heretic, it had to be the evil witch they were hunting, and bind her to a barren cliff face, forcing her to eternally watch the Sun as Lady Sunna’s glorious light slowly purified her.
Alas, this blasphemy needed to be dealt with before the witch could be hunted further. Undoubtedly, its corrupting influence had spread into the surrounding areas, causing untold destruction, both overtly and by subverting the good people living here. Of which there had to be many, as far as any of the fivesome could tell. The entire city was impossible by the old standards, as it wasn’t just one city but multiple. There were signs indicating they were in one place, while landmarks supposedly dozens of miles apart were all within an area of a few square miles. It didn’t make sense, though, given what they had seen since the apocalypse; many things didn’t make sense. But this stank of a subversive plot, a plan to allow the evil witch to corrupt as many good people as possible to her jaded arcane ways by showing them this abominable mockery she had made of Lady Sunna’s glorious light.
It took mere moments to decide that the abomination had to be dealt with first. Cleansing the people here of corruption while a literal beacon of that corruption remained, spreading its filth to the surroundings would be an utterly foolish idea, so the group of five continued on, making their way through the city, remarking that some parts of it were strangely coherent even if they really shouldn’t be. One house fit together neatly, but when looking at the house’s structure, it was fairly obvious that it had been two houses. More to the point, it also had two driveways and the wrecked cars sitting on them indicated that one house used to be in Denver, the other in Colorado Springs.
Despite the strangeness of the town, there were only a fairly limited number of enemies present. A few Shattered and Undead, some beasts, nothing serious nor interesting, at least when it came to enemies. The obvious hints of human presence were a lot more useful but were quickly relegated to a lower priority on their path to the abomination and what was now obviously a tower holding it up.
Eventually, they managed to make their way through the forest and could approach the tower, only to realise that the entire environment here was suffused with darkness. Even just approaching the tower made them all feel lightheaded, the vile presence strong enough to push away Lady Sunna’s light and weaken their bodies. That alone made them realise this wouldn’t be something they could deal with quickly.
This wasn’t just an abomination against Lady Sunna; it was so much more. It was darkness incarnate, a shrine to evil. But purging it would take time, even with Lady Sunna’s guidance. But Her light would shine eternally and banish this darkness.
