King Johann Silas.
[Master Bard, School of Monarchs.]
[Prestige Warlock of the Eternal Champion, Paragon King.]
[Prestige Cleric of the Eternal Champion, Mana Domain.]
***
I had been told.
Time and time again, I had been told. This training would be the hardest thing I had and would ever have done. I believed them, even without understanding. But that- understanding- was impossible until one stepped foot inside the Darkroom. In there, I learned to suffer- we all did. And through that, we learned of triumph.
And so, we emerged from the Darkroom and toiled more as Brains until we reached the third step of our paths. Then, unlike the Legionaries afar, we returned here; the soldiers to their units and we of the council to our offices, empowered by magic and made more by classes. But it was said the others would move upwards to twice that high before reporting to their units.
Among us were a few who were already evolved. Rodin, Liam, and Myrtle Crow. Even though they went for the training, experience, and vast knowledge found within, their struggles saw them move down the paths on which they currently stood, allowing them to find greater paths. Not to mention, like me and many others, their arcane wells saw them capable of obtaining affinity cores.
Rodin got Armor magic and his son got Weapons Magic. Liam got Bolt magic, and old Myrtle got the all-encompassing Healing Magic. That said, Giorno and Letta were among the first to receive such a boon. As they weren't combatants, they didn't undergo their core awakening when Amun and the others did. He intended for them to wait until he returned with all the information from the Bodhi Tree.
Whether by design or not, the result of that saw them be granted better affinities than they otherwise would have. Amun's blessing by the Creator God gave Giorno affinities for Textile, Stitch, and Leather Magic, besides the Severing Magic he was born with. Letta, on the other hand, gained affinities for Gem, Gear, and Clockwork Magic, besides her Chain magic. Naturally, they became prestige artificers to boot; an ArcaTech Tailor and a Clockwork ArcaTech, respectively.
In the Darkroom, we mastered these abilities. And outside, we came to terms with what we became. I came to terms with what I became; not when I drank the sap of the divine tree and ate the fruit it produced, but when I summoned and subsequently sold my soul to the devil just over a year ago. But like many things, there was a catch.
I sold my soul before Amun was known as the Elven Devil, the World Weaver, or even the ArcaTech. So the only aspect of him left was the one he was born with. The Eternal Champion.
I was a Prestige Warlock. Undying, but not a Fiend like his troupe or the Fae like his family. I was the Paragon King, remolded in mind, body, spirit, and soul, to rule by the hands of my patron- my God-Emperor.
In my devotion, I empowered myself further, becoming a Prestige Cleric of the Eternal Champion, devoted to his Mana Domain. So too was I a Prestige Bard, studied in the Monarchical School, to learn the histories of a hundred nations, both of this universe and not. With these classes combined with my new affinity for Royal Magic, I returned to Maru and connected with our people in ways I could never even begin to fathom.
Naturally, the same was true from my second. The former Alderman, turned Mayor, and now Grand Duke Caleb Goss, was my opposite in persona, class, and ability, yet he was the same. Like me and the rest of the council- much less the nobles- he was a warlock to the Eternal Champion. He had been one long before he became a zealous follower of our Emperor, and his zeal only grew throughout the months until our descent into the Darkroom.
Thus, when we emerged, his zeal knew no bounds.
Like me, he became a Prestige Bard, only studied in the School of Eternal Faith to teach the masses of our God-Emperor's growing pantheon. So too was he devoted to the Eternal Champion, but as a Paladin, Oath'd to the God-Emperor. And through his oath, he became a Prestige Warlock- or perhaps his oath was a result of him becoming the Divine Duke.
He was my mirror, the same and yet opposite. Even his magic. Not centered on the external, as mine primarily was, his Sensory Magic was focused on the internal, connecting him with our citizens and infrastructure in ways even I couldn't.
Through these blessings and boons, perks and privileges, we connected every heart and mind in the Empire to the place we all emerged: a patch of land at the western edge of the plateau; the place where Amun first approached our meager Hill Base. Though they did not appear to gaze upon their council or the soldiers who protected them, they gathered to gaze upon our land from a distance and invoke the moment we'd all been striving towards- the moment of Maru's awakening.
It began as such. Subtly. A deep tremble breached the skies of our realm, groaning with the tone of an elder giant waking from its slumber. The birds fled, taking to the skies in great swarms that danced and flocked above our mountain. Meanwhile, deep in the bowels of the earth beneath our feet, a wave of indomitable nothingness ascended, breaching the surface to sever and separate our lands from Maru.
Then came our rise. A rise of song, of spirit and soul, percussed by timeless stone and sang by the fleeting youth of nature, our lands ascended. Yet, the song of nature did not last long before the sounds of civilization rang true.
The silence that came upon us as the plateau and the countless tons of compacted stone we toiled over for so long rose before our eyes, overshadowing the sprawling forest behind us with the face of stone that had never known the light, awakened by a sonorous voice that seemed to echo from the lands themselves.
They shouted with the ringed mountain's release, overshadowing the dry gust of tepid breath blowing over the verdant hills of Epethia for the first time in millennia. For the first time in several epochs, the radiance of dusk shone on that bowl of ancient stone made smooth, standing ready to embrace the precipitous bounty of the heavens. And for the first time in eons, a giant's stumped wrist could be seen breaching Maru's flesh, reaching high into the sky so as to overlook the realm in its entirety.
However, the song had yet to complete, for the four mountainous shards surrounding the giant's wrist started tilting, flipping to invert themselves, translate away from the Tree of Life, and reconnect the hollow mountain, facing its alpine jungles and winding rivers toward the Mortal Plane from an altitude of 22 kilometers.
Thus, our song- our ascension concluded; the tale of the beginning of the end: The Ascension of Imkeruram; The Death of Hill Fortress, .
Through darkness, light, wisdom, and might, we returned to our uplifted lands, or rather, we ascended to Eotrom's capital kingdom as her noble and royal Imkerrans. And though we celebrated, we also got to work immediately.
The great basin now formed around the Tree of Life was due to flood into a great lake. Thus, our geomancers got to work forming a wide mound around the trunk to create a vast island while our engineers and artificers took to constructing great bridges across the basin and yet made more to connect the now-distant mountains.
Through the collapsible thresholds and warp points installed in hidden caches throughout the surface, we resumed our efforts to contact those in poverty. From those great adamantine blast doors installed at the edge of our territory before the uplift, fleets of airships and flying augmented beasts poured, spreading into Marulean skies to chart and survey and investigate the countless worries that had been plaguing us since the mana began to rise.
From the eastern entrance, we witnessed a web of gold and silver roads reach through the skies to touch every land from Phaegrath to Odissi, opening our borders to the friends and families of our distant legionaries.
Only then was the work complete. For now, at least. And what great work it was; accomplished in less than two years with Amun's divine will.
With 15 kilometers of mountains and 485 kilometers of dirt, stone, and other materials pulled from the underground, the toroidal mortal capital of Eotrom claimed a diameter equal to around 1/12th of Maru's. An Earthen Donut, as the children called it, with verdant hills and a ringed peak facing the ground and what would become a vast kingdom city spread throughout the interior, with a smooth shell of engineered materials gazing up at the dark sky.
The grand design of the ArcaTech was complete. And yet, it wasn't; for now, it was time for us to gather and watch that long awaited point of multi-colored light grow to encompass the southern sky.