When the Night Gets Dark

[HistoryDude]

The secret was not complicated,
But it had been hidden very, very well
For no one liked what it dictated -
Rightly so, for it was sanity’s death knell.

Many suspected the secret’s contents,
But most refused to dwell on such dark thoughts.
The wise scholars consider the idea only in harmless fragments
Lest their brains be tied up in knots.

The secret that destroyed an empire was not, as many have suspected, of divinity’s cruelty.
No, it was of divinity’s indifference.
On that, there was no ambiguity -
No matter the words of some men with interests.

The secret broke Dristar’s mind
For one simple reason, and that was this:
The mad emperor had no faith in mankind -
He saw divinity as the only protection against a vast abyss.

To learn that there was no protection
Was more than he could bear.
It was an utter rejection
Of his entire worldview - a revelation of the uselessness of prayer.

The mad emperor’s mind was broken,
But it was far from useless.
It was no mere token
Whose fracture would make him toothless.

Enlightened Dristar could still act,
And he did - just in very strange ways.
Any kind deed was something that he had to retract
And destroy in a mighty blaze.

No divine intervention would save the empire from collapse,
Yet enlightened Dristar had no faith in men.
His power had been allowed to lapse
During his research, so he set about renewing it again.

Even so, he remained in his library and studied.
There was no divine intervention, so he would have to make some -
Even if it allowed his realm to be bloodied.
The Romano-Mongols needed a god to save them from the scum.

 

[coz1]

This really is amazing @HistoryDude and I'm pretty sure no one knows what to make of it. It is unique and so different from what anyone else is doing at the moment. Keep at it because it is outstanding!

 

[HistoryDude]

This really is amazing @HistoryDude and I'm pretty sure no one knows what to make of it. It is unique and so different from what anyone else is doing at the moment. Keep at it because it is outstanding!

Thanks! I'm planning on finishing it, no worries!

 

[HistoryDude]

The library had few useful texts,
But it was not devoid of divine wisdom,
Even if that was hidden within its depths.
He could still find a few nuggets of usefulness among the complexities of its system.

The most useful text was very much not mundane,
As it did not look to be a scroll at all.
Rather, it seemed to be made out of pure grain
That had been wrapped up into a ball.

This holder of knowledge spoke to him of how kings had once ascended -
How they had once placed themselves above their subjects.
To the mad emperor, that knowledge was splendid
Even the process might have unforeseen effects.

The bundle of grain did speak of failures -
Of men who were trapped in an eternal half-life
And of rulers who were condemned to be jailors
To unthinkable things that could drown the world in strife.

Even so, enlightened Dristar thought it would be worth the risk,
So he looked on the thing’s instructions on how to undergo an apotheosis
Even if he was briefly distracted by a section on a basilisk
Before he finally reached the section that detailed how to achieve gnosis.

The section was coated in the language of the old Romans
And had no references to Tengri, but Dristar cared not
Of its lists of strange omens.
All he cared about was how to undo what his pride had wrought.

To ascend, he had to begin with meditations,
Which was difficult to the emperor who thirsted for action
But he would do anything to save his nations -
Even become an unnatural abstraction.

After seven days and seven nights, Dristar was feeling extremely calm,
So he read on in the awkward bundle of grains
Before he was interrupted by a bomb.
He tried to leave the library, only to discover that he was bound in chains.

 

[HistoryDude]

His initial reaction was panic,
But that did nothing to aid his plight.
This briefly caused him to become manic,
As he thought that, without him, his people would not be alright.

He screamed and screamed,
But he eventually realized that there was no one there.
At this realization, he collapsed… and he dreamed -
He dreamed of a place with no air.

He dreamed of a place with no sky,
And the mysterious area also lacked a sea.
The place was bone-dry
And covered in debris.

A voice spoke unto him,
Saying that this was the palace of the gods.
He initially denied it, believing that a home of gods would not be this grim.
The voice pointed out the arthropods.

It said that they were why the once-mighty gods refused to care about creation.
It spoke of a cruel deicide -
And it warned that act had destabilized the universe’s foundation.
It also proclaimed that this had come about because Death wanted a bride.

Enlightened Dristar then rebuked the mouthless sound,
Asking why it dared to speak of such horrid things.
It replied that it was a god bound -
Indeed, it was the last of the gods who had once given blessings unto kings.

As the mad emperor opened his mouth to ask the being for more,
His slumber perished.
He winced in pain, for
The chains still bound him and kept him from what he cherished.

He thrashed, but the chains refused to answer his struggles.
Finally, he realized that such powerful binds could not be overcome with force,
Yet it took him heavily straining his knuckles,
And harming his voice through screaming coarse.

He resorted to searching for his sword,
Hoping to solve this like a Gordian Knot.
His ancestor had once been a great warlord,
And he appreciated Alexander’s thought.

He found the blade, but the chains bound his hands.
He could not wield it
Through those horrible bands.
It seemed that he would be forced to free himself with his wit.

 

[HistoryDude]

He strained against the chains, hoping to make them loosen,
But his efforts were for naught since they were unbreakable chains.
In desperation, he considered begging for absolution,
But he decided against such a course, even though his struggles only produced bloodstains.

The sight of his own blood sickened the madman,
But his resolve was not broken.
To quit in his quest would be to doom his clan
To the horrifying dustbin of history, and that would make him heartbroken.

Still, the horrific sight actually aided Dristar, who suddenly remembered a ritual
That the book which began his quest had spoken of.
The tome had whispered that entities spiritual
Remained on Terra, just a step away from ascending above.

These entities would still being willing to aid humanity,
But they were limited in what they could do - they could only aid when addressed.
After spewing off a tirade of profanity,
Enlightened Dristar finally swallowed his pride and called those beings that were once blessed.

For a few horrible moments, his plea went unanswered,
But, then, miraculously, the binding chains snapped.
His prayers had been answered,
But the entities spoke a warning to him, noting that it was easy to get trapped.

At first, Dristar didn’t understand, but he soon realized that they spoke of his quest -
They spoke of his quest for divinity.
Defensively, he defended his goals, and the entities told him that his answers lay in the west -
In the lands where they spoke of a Holy Trinity.

In exchange for this advice, enlightened Dristar had cut open his arm,
For the spiritual entities could only interact with this world through blood,
Which was why he did not initially call upon them to harm
His foes or to aid his quest - the consequences would be like a horrific flood.

His people needed a divine guide,
But that guide had to be benevolent and kind -
That was why he had initially put worshipping the spiritual entities aside.
They would not be good gods to mankind.

Enlightened Dristar thus exerted the cavern with more knowledge and more guilt.
He would do anything for his people, but he wouldn’t like his course of action
For it was like a blade without a hilt.
It was unkind and carried little attraction.

 

[HistoryDude]

The mad emperor was also paranoid,
So he did not initially trust the word of the spiritual entities.
He thought that such capricious entities might have been annoyed,
especially since he did not call them by name, as he had no clue about their identities

This was why he refused to go west immediately -
Instead, he resolved to continue the research
That he had been doing previously.
This was interrupted by the blazing of a torch.

Strangely, the fire refused to harm most of the tomes,
Which encouraged the mad emperor to continue ignoring the entities’s request.
This made them impatient, so they set ablaze a few Romano-Mongol homes,
But even this failed to convince Dristar to leave on his quest.

It was at this point that the spirits forsook subtlety entirely
And sent a massive flood to Dristar’s temporary residence.
Interestingly, this flood targeted no one except the emperor and quietly
Faded away from public memory despite its unexpectedness.

Thus enlightened Dristar set out for the west,
Crossing vast portions of the Steppe
And encountering nothing that could even be considered a pest.
Naturally, this brought him to a dangerous doorstep.

 

[HistoryDude]

The house was not even slightly visible from a distance,
But it was a massive structure that touched the clouds.
Dristar knew that the residents of such a strange place might be of assistance,
But he was worried that they might also talk him into leading his Tpeople to their shrouds.

Thus, he was weary when entering that unusual abode,
Aware that its residents could easily be powerful hostiles.
A hostile meeting would bode
Extremely poorly for his quest that could be the stuff of novels.

His entrance proceeded without fanfare,
As no one met him at the door, but a passage to the structure’s inside opened anyway.
It led directly to the very air,
Which caused Dristar a lot of dismay.

The mad emperor had walked a long distance,
And he had no desire to continue his trek further.
Still, the man possessed persistence,
If he had nothing else. He would continue to go farther.

When he finally reached his destination, he was shocked by the sight.
Above him stood only open sky,
And the entire area was bathed in pure light.
The place was beautiful, but Dristar was bone-dry.

All of the glories in the world couldn’t make a wise man forget about his need for water,
And Dristar had walked a long distance - he needed refreshment.
Above the clouds, it was even hotter
Than it was on the ground. The circumstances forced the man to make a new assessment.

Enlightened Dristar was not alone, you see -
The people who inhabited this glorious realm simply wanted to be acknowledged
Before they talked and shared knowledge of what they could foresee.
This was why Dristar had been guided here - the knowledge.

The mad emperor swallowed his pride and asked the unadorned residents
Of many things - he began by requesting water and food.
They gave him foods that increased his attentiveness,
So he could listen and conclude what they wanted him to conclude.

They spoke in riddles,
Never stating anything clearly.
When the mad emperor asked why, they simply responded with “fiddles”,
Which was a cryptic message, although one that he did not get sincerely.

 

[HistoryDude]

There were three riddles in all,
And none of them were simple.
The first dealt with a wall -
And a complex symbol.

It asked what a wall was a symbol of,
Which was a rather easy question.
A wall symbolized protection from threats below and above
To protect them from aggression.

The issue was that enlightened Dristar had no idea how this helped
Tell him where to go on his journey.
He quickly decided that it could be an attempt
At trickery and almost returned to his army.

The second riddle thus stopped him cold -
Since it indicated that there was more to the conversation.
It spoke of massive amounts of gold
That had once belonged to men of his station.

The mysterious beings then immediately spoke their third message -
That some things remained in the east.
They then ended with one final lesson,
Which was that all three messages were connected, as foods were at a feast.

Enlightened Dristar thus spent hours in an empty house above the clouds
With only a feast fit for a king and his mind for company.
There were no crowds
To distract him, but it still took him a while to figure out the meaning of the words of subtlety.

The message was simple - the spirits had spoken his destination as best they could.
He would find more answers further along his route…
At a city that had belonged to his ancestors when the world was in its childhood,
And those ancestors retained a lot of clout.

Yes, his new destination was to be the City of the World’s Desire -
The mighty Second Rome that had not fallen to his other ancestors.
First, though, he had things that he had to acquire
On his journey. It wasn’t like he would be stopped by protestors.

 

[HistoryDude]

He passed through the Steppes and reached the vast desert,
The heat of the sun attacked him in its anger,
So he attempted to retreat and shield himself by using his yurt
As an anchor.

His efforts were all for naught,
As the sun burned through his abode.
For a brief moment, he forgot
About his quest due to a heat episode.
Only the vast sands reminded him of his goal,
As they brought forth memories of his cold dream,
Which reminded him of the horrific state of the planet as a whole.
It also reinforced his esteem.

He decided that a clarification on his mysterious vision
Was necessary to his journey,
So he made a quick decision
To stay in the cruel sands that were as kind as they were thorny.

He knew not why
But he felt as though those angry sands hid that once-divine abode -
Something that indicated his next stop was nigh.
He did not doubt that someone bestowed

Much wisdom upon his glorious self.
Thus he removed sand from the ground
Like a man removing books from a bookshelf
Hoping to find the entrance to the place where spirits were crowned.

As he dug, day gave way to night,
And the sun stopped hindering his progress.
The benefits of Luna’s kindness were not slight
To enlightened Dristar, who was comforted by her caress.

Enlightened Dristar unearthed lost cities
That must have once belonged to glorious civilizations.
Meticulous records were visible, clearly having been engraved by committees.
While another might’ve been awed, the mad emperor cared not for these lost nations.

 

[HistoryDude]

His only concern was reaching the glorious city in his dreams -
The area that had once been the divine residence.
This singlemindedness was so great that he almost missed the streams
While he was roaming that desert, directionless.

In fact, he only noticed them because he walked right into them -
Walked straight into the water and almost drowned,
Which might have been more fortunate outcome
Than how the mad emperor was eventually uncrowned.

Indeed, enlightened Dristar was only saved from that fate
By a strange happenstance.
A man that looked similar to him - indeed, almost his alternate -
Grabbed him and threw him out with barely a glance.

Still, the streams proved to be a guide
To enlightened Dristar, who figured that they could feed the heights
That he, even now, tried
To reach - the heights that held those glorious lights.

Briefly, the mad emperor considered the possibility
That the highest heights could be reached from the lowest depths.
However, he quickly dismissed this idea - the world held no stability,
Yet natural logic still had to reign in the Steppes.

He did not know, as he would later learn -
That there was no logic left on Earth
After the gods refused to return
To the place of their birth.

He had his prejudices then,
As we today have ours.
He could not handle his worldview falling apart again -
Not under those stars.

In his vain pride, he continued his digging,
Ignoring both the ancient cities and the unnatural streams.
Only occasionally did he stop, digging
Into the streams for refreshment and courage - to ensure that he didn’t fall apart at the seams.

 

[Gawquon3]

Through harsh mysteries, toil and test
for him to crash evermore upon.
Oh, Dristar what more can you express?
To the bard I plead, spinneth on.

 

[HistoryDude]

His digging was fruitless, of course.
Only the ancient cities lay under those scorching sands.
No matter how deep he dug or how much force
He used, he found nothing more in those desert lands.

Finally, the sheer heat convinced him to seek another path,
And he attempted to leave the lands that the sun had blessed.
Unfortunately, this only provoked the spirits’s wrath,
Who determined that they should give him no rest.

His dreams were thus haunted by voices speaking to him
Of the glories of the desert - but they spoke in riddled tongues.
Their words were filled to the brim
With metaphors, and the ruler knew nothing of those devices formed from the lungs.

His dreams annoyed him, but they could not change his decision,
So the spirits took drastic and direct action.
They attacked his vision
With the blinding sun, hoping to elicit a reaction.

This provoked the mad emperor’s rage,
And he determined that attacking his guiding spirits was a wise course.
He would find his way to the remaining spirits and end their halls that lasted for an age.
It was at then that some spirits got fed up with him and resolved to knock him off his high horse.

And yet there is more than one faction among those highest of caring beings.
It was the faction of good governance that had been guiding him, but now a new sect
Took interest in him, intrigued by his angry feelings.
They held no interest in his goals - they would leave nothing except a shell wrecked.

What these new spirits saw in the mad emperor was his more negative emotions.
They saw his anger, rage, and madness, and they were attracted to him like raiders to gold.
Inside the mad emperor, they saw a lot of harsh things - in fact, they saw oceans
Of humanity’s dark side. They wanted nothing more than to - of it - grasp ahold.

 

[HistoryDude]

Through harsh mysteries, toil and test
for him to crash evermore upon.
Oh, Dristar what more can you express?
To the bard I plead, spinneth on.

I will! Dristar still has many adventures (even as his empire crumbles to dust around him, but that's the focus of Book 4, not Book 3).

 

[HistoryDude]

The dark spirits saw a useful pawn,
And they grasped their opportunity.
They contacted the mad emperor in his dreams before dawn
And suggested ways of reaching his guides and attacking them with impunity.

These ways were not lies,
But they were not outright true, either.
The malicious spirits had no wish to advise
Dristar and tell him how to gain his revenge or how to become wiser.

The mad emperor knew nothing of their goals or their identities,
So he took their advice and attempted to leave the desert.
When his way was blocked by the guardian entities,
He attacked them with the intent to hurt.

A great battle commenced,
And many of the spirits lost faith and simply left.
A few others were incensed
And resolved to leave the emperor bereft

Of all that he had.
A small amount reasoned with enlightened Dristar, hoping that he was not yet lost completely.
They were able to get him to stop attacking and were glad
For this fact - glad enough that they passed on vital information discreetly.

They spoke of how to reach the once-glorious palace -
Through the ancient cities and unnatural streams.
This temporarily broke the hold of malice
Upon enlightened Dristar, who had always been a man of extremes.

When enlightened Dristar wondered why they had initially spoke in metaphors,
Their response was that more information could be concealed in things that were not literal.
They then dragged his soul to metal doors
Which opened to a littoral.

They explained that this was also a part of his journey
That had been couched in those strange phrases -
Just like a thousand other situations thorny
That he would encounter while the moon moved through its phases.

 

[HistoryDude]

So Dristar returned to that cruel desert with a path forward.
He dug near the streams, looking for where they met with the ancient cities.
His digging quickly brought him into the streams, and he had to swim shoreward,
Where he found a small amount of kitties.

Enlightened Dristar saw the cats as a sign,
And he followed them, believing them to have been sent as his guides
Along the coastline
And as protection against the fury of the tides.

He was right that they were guides,
But they offered no protection except that provided by avoidance.
They were there to bridge the great divides -
Those between earth and sea, the mortal and the divine, acceptance and annoyance.

Only through their magic was enlightened Dristar able to reach the ruined Eternal City.
That was a shortcut, of course, but most of the spirits of enlightenment had abandoned the man
During his first moment of temptation by committee,
And a few had placed a cruel ban.

This ban forbade entrance to places of supernatural relevance
Through the ways of enlightenment,
Which prevented enlightened Dristar from using the paths of human excellence
That often relied on entitlement.

The magic of the cats was the loyal spirits’ way
Of subverting that annoying decree
And of holding imperial collapse at bay.
On this, the last loyal spirits could agree.

And so enlightened Dristar entered the Palace of Lost Glory,
And he immediately regretted that act.
The area had been removed from anything that fit into the category
Of glory - scrubbed clean by a sad pact.

While once light had illuminated a place of divinity,
Now it was almost entirely removed.
Something told the mad emperor that no one possessed affinity
With this horrible shell that was a moment in time unmoved.

 

[HistoryDude]

The monuments had lost their luster,
And Dristar couldn’t even feel the wind.
Around him, dirt gathered in a cluster
That covered the area and made him feel blind.

For a brief moment, enlightened Dristar wondered why he ever wanted to come
To a place that was so decrepit -
A place that was a mere crumb
Of its former glory before something had come to wreck it.

The place was an abandoned ruin
That served as nothing more than a reminder that the gods who had once aided humanity
Had vanished. He wondered why he was here and if anyone would give him a clue in
Those unholy halls to restore his confidence in his sanity.

Unfortunately, the Palace of Lost Glory remained silent except for the rustling of dust.
For a brief moment, enlightened Dristar considered the possibility
That the spirits had brought him there as a warning or as reassurance that he must
Complete his task, lest the interference be an exercise in futility.

Sighing, the mad emperor decided to move toward the center of the dirt cloud.
As he approached, his eyesight grew more and more useless, and he shut his red eyes.
He walked into the unknown with his eyesight blocked by a shroud,
And, for reassurance, he prayed to his erstwhile allies.

The silence refused to abate,
And enlightened Dristar hoped that was a good thing - a sign of approval.
The lack of his senses created a new spark of hate
In the great man, but he greeted that only with disapproval.

He was finally stopped by his sense of touch,
As his hands felt a blazing hot crate.
This encouraged him, and he dared to open his instruments of sight - far too much.
He forced his eyes to remain open, and, eventually his pain began to abate.




Thanks for the like Gawquon.

 

[HistoryDude]

The crate was filled with nothing except musty scrolls,
And the mad emperor hoped that these would be useful
In helping him achieve his goals.
He read them and found that they were, assuming they were truthful.

They spoke of what had happened in those once-hallowed halls -
Of how the palace’s glory had been lost -
Of how the opulence had faded from even the walls,
Which were now covered in frost.

They spoke of a great war betwixt the gods.
They spoke of great duels and horrific betrayals.
They spoke of things that were inevitable when gods were put at odds.
They spoke of divinity in angry portrayals.

Most of all, they spoke of why the gods had stopped caring about humanity.
They spoke of how humans had once encouraged the divine conflict for petty gain.
They spoke of men’s sheer vanity.
They spoke of divinity’s pain.

The mad emperor was captivated by the passages that described men and gods alike,
As he found things to admire about each of them.
He saw the men who dared to strike
Division amongst the gods as men to admire - and dreamt of knowing that hum.

The mad emperor also admired the power of the gods,
For he wished to achieve similar authority -
To have his loyal subjects praise him like dogs
And acknowledge their own inferiority.

In those scrolls, he found mentions of odd rituals,
And even some mentions of how they were done.
Looking for things that would aid in his ascension was becoming habitual -
He would need to do many before he succeeded in his quest, not one.

Enlightened Dristar eventually put the scrolls down
And looked back into the hot crate.
To his surprise, he found something besides the scrolls - a crown.
His temptation to pick it up was soon extremely great.
His temptation was, indeed, too great to be overcome,
So he picked it up.
Immediately, he blacked out and woke up next to a drum
And a glorious golden cup…

 

[HistoryDude]

He looked at his hands, but the crown was nowhere to be found,
So he figured that the object had moved him in some way
And looked around,
But he couldn’t find it by the light of day.

Soon, however, he was distracted by other matters,
As he heard the sound of swords clashing.
He found a few books in tatters,
Clearly having received a lashing.

Understanding that he was in a place beset by violence,
Enlightened Dristar looked for a weapon.
He found nothing, and a moment of doubt struck him, as he pondered the benefits of piousness.
The choice was soon taken from him because a mighty figure decided to step in.

The figure’s entrance to the room took the mad emperor by surprise,
But he quickly recovered and asked about his location.
The figure announced that he would only tell of where they were if they were allies.
Enlightened Dristar saw little choice and agreed but only to avert his quick damnation.

The figure then declared that they were in the great city of Alexandria,
Which was under threat by “the hostile gods”.
Enlightened Dristar, in his wisdom, soon realized that he must have been transported
To a time ere the gods ditched humanity because men failed to worship them against all odds.

The mad emperor wondered if this figure was a god, a human, or a spirit,
Since he wanted to know how he should react to their presence.
The signs that could answer that question were disparate -
Something that encouraged the temporal stranger to test the figure’s essence.

He questioned what his rescuer’s name was,
But the only response to that query was a denial to grant something that held such power
To a man who didn’t even know local laws.
Angered, the mad emperor shot his companion a glower.

Naturally, all this did was amuse the figure,
Who said that “mysterious figure” was a good enough identifier.
Briefly, the temporal stranger considered attempting to disfigure
His new ally, yet he was not allowed even this desire.

The being waved a long and sharp thing in his face
And warned him not to consider a betrayal.
The obvious nonhuman also told the temporal stranger that he had limited grace
For stupidity, regardless of his common portrayal.

 

[HistoryDude]

All of this angered the mad emperor,
But he managed to get his anger under control
Before he became an incessant pesterer.
Instead, he decided to see what information he could extoll.

He asked where their destination was,
And the answer shocked him - the figure said that they were going to the Library of Alexandria.
Indeed, it even temporarily caused Dristar to pause
And consider the merits of running to Italia.

The Library of Alexandria was the greatest library in the world,
But enlightened Dristar knew well what secrets it could hold -
Secrets about many things, such as the afterlife and the dreamworld.
Alone, even entering the building would be bold.

After all, enlightened Dristar knew well what the cost of knowledge could be.
Knowledge was the thing that had started his seemingly never-ending trek,
Even if he had embarked with glee,
The journey was still quickly making him a wreck.

Furthermore, the mad emperor knew that he was in a time where the gods were active -
Who knew what prices they put on places that stored their secrets?
He knew that the the Library of Alexandria was a divine abode - it was too attractive
Not to be - most defenses would even be needless!

His companion quickly derailed Dristar’s train of thought.
He spoke only a single phrase - “you’re a paranoid man”.
The temporal strange mentally cursed at getting caught.
He wanted to earn his companion’s trust, and he’d almost lost it before he even began.

The temporal stranger thus decided to engage his companion in conversation
About a variety of topics - and especially about their destination.
Enlightened Dristar made sure to remain polite in his queries… hoping to prevent the formation
Of a negative opinion, especially if the being was who he thought it was. He had no wish to be consigned to damnation.