STARFIRE BURNING UPON THE ICE-VEILED THRONE OF ULTIMA THULE
Spears agleam in the dying sun,The blood is spilled, the battle's won,
From the icy throne of God-King shall rule,
When nine stars kiss the moon o'er Ultima Thule.
(Old Northlander war-song, found in the ancient scrolls of Volmyr)
The Final Part of Voryn Helmsmiter's Journey to the Ice Realm:
Blood drips from my frost-encased sword, forming a crimson blossom upon the ice...
My limbs cold, becoming as one with the massing snows... my eyes nearly frozen closed.
For how long had we travelled? The memory grows dim, lost in the cruel, searing storm-winds.
And now, at last... our quest is at an end.
With the blessings of the elders we began our journey beyond the great veil of shadowed glaciers...
They spoke of a prophecy foretold, an ancient and glorious legacy,
A quest for the realm of legendry lost to man since before even the Star-Lords descended...
Now, only I survive, my blood spilling to the ice, turning to crimson crystal upon the deeply frozen earth.
Elder sorcery crackles and hums all about me, coursing through the sky, the snow...
As grim destiny approaches with the freezing boreal gales and this ancient prophecy unfolds...
Predication of the Elders:
Go, follow the witch-lights in the northern night sky, beyond the great silvern mountains...
Let the sacred moon-crystal be your guide, beware the sentinels at the Caverns of Eternal Mist...
Spears agleam in the dying sun,The blood is spilled, the battle's won,
From the icy throne of God-King shall rule,
When nine stars kiss the moon o'er Ultima Thule.
Swathed in moon-frosts, in icy winds our blazon flying,
Iron gleaming 'neath the stars, black skies ablaze with astral fire,
White wolves (like silent spirits) haunt us, ever northwards, the ice-gem leads us, glimmering,
Powerful spells entwine the shrine of legendry, mighty gates of frozen splendour looming,
When the moon and stars shine as one upon the snows, the ancient ice-gate opens, the prophecy is fulfilled!
Towering, ice-encrusted forms lumber forth from the freezing mist,
(Their eyes shimmering with a fiendish, eldritch malevolance...)
Our steel is raised against their weapons of gleaming crystal,
And the virgin snow is rendered crimson by bloodshed in a searing storm of slaughter.
(Wounded, dying, my flesh rent by weapons no human ever forged or wielded, I am beckoned forward by a strange, alluring force from beyond the veil of swirling mists...)
Shadows, images form in the glittering rune-carved walls of this glacial chamber,
Secrets frozen within the timeless vaults of eternity...
The throne of the time-lost ice realm, entwined in the mantle of such searing star-born power...
This frozen, aeon-cloaked seat of immortal majesty... (of an empire forged long before the vast seas rose in devouring fury!)
What shimmering swords raised in combat once sang with the glorious clamour of steel on steel?
What splendid banners, billowing in the icy gales, once heralded the march of these invincible silverclad legions to the blood-swathed embrace of epic battle?
The glory of untold thousands of years past... this ethereal legacy of mighty Ultima Thule.
The frozen eyes of immortal kings watch me... such a dark splendour!
The Guardian of Ice and Shadow:
The grim Ice-Gods sleep in these frost-bound tombs, illumined by the caress of lunar fire,
And the kiss of star-gleam from the stygian void...
All is now as was foretold in prophecy, written in the very ether of empyreal eternity...
The celestial alignment is night... the conjunction is at hand!
And nine stars illumine the northern heavens, a vast cosmic sigil with the silvern moon at its centre...
Blazing argent light fills the chamber, engulfing the hewn walls of elder ice,
These ancient carvings in a time-veiled tongue, (etched into the primeval ice countless aeons ago, now bathed in diaphonous incandescence by this storm of lucent stellar power, their mindsearing meaning at last becomes known to me...) their cosmic secrets unfold...
The ice-throne is encased by a shimmering wall of writhing cerulean flame,
A lambent flame far colder than the frozen surface upon which it dances...
And then, enlightenment comes, gleaming down upon my consciousness as the bright moon gazes down upon this auroral vista... From my mind is lifted an obscuring veil, a veil induced by sorcerous arts, and I realize I have been merely a vassal of another's twisted will, a pawn in a game which is entwined in treachery and malign aspirations to thresholds of great power. Such a traitorous web has been spun! The elders of my kingdom bow in obeisance to the vile priests of Xothan'kur, and it is their diseased machinations which have urged me here, to the very heart of the far-fabled ice realm... for they seek to usurp the power of the Conjunction, stealing the vast energies of the Ice-Veiled throne and absorbing them into their own leprous, undead bodies, perpetuating the adoration of their abhorrent liege for countless ages, liberating his vile will and enslaving the realms of the world... Aye, for generations they have plotted their actions, and I was the key to this plot, chosen from birth for this fated journey... for the blood of the ancient kings of Ultima Thule runs strong in my veins, and only once in every aeon may one such as I stand before the throne during the great cosmic alignment, when the sorceries of the ancient Ice-Gods are at their peak, and rightfully wield this power unleashed... And yet I vow that the vile minions of Xothan'kur shall not prevail... Liberating the fettered power of the moon-crystal, I sever the tendrils of their dark conjurings, and their aspirations are at an end, their spells broken by the very power which they sought to usurp! The final vestiges of mortal life flee my body in crimson gouts, and at last I realize what the fates have spun for me, and what is carved in the very ice all about me... My destiny is at hand...
The Herald of Enlightenment:
And so, enrob'd by tendrils of starfire and the raiments of lunar mist,
The immortal liege whose sceptred empire is eternity,
Sits enthroned and brooding over his dark realm once more.
The last of my life's blood spills to the ice, (as star-wrought destiny is at last fulfilled.)
Swathed in freezing flame...
The mystic wolves of the frost-moon (slowly, silently) encircle me,
Their eyes are blazing azure, and their fur is whiter than the sublime snows.
Such power! I am the Chosen... the secrets of the earth and the stars are unlocked before me...
I am destined to reign forever... to reign from the Ice-Veiled Throne of Ultima Thule!