The Memories of What Was Past

# The Memories of What Was Past {%hackmd @ZeWaka/dark-theme %} {%hackmd z-6kgRjMReiU-UOwlyZa9w %} ## I He awoke, sitting on something soft, leaning back against a wall of some sort. Alden opened his eyes, taking not two seconds before falling to the side, stumbling and rapidly scooting up against the wall again. His eyes wide open, his breathing quickly becomes rapid as the memories of that room come flooding back. Alden's mind starts racing, a chief thought being "was that really it?", as his right hand instinctively starts to move to his neck. Finding the rope of a very familiar necklace, he grabs hold of it tightly, his one constant anchor in this world. And then, the pain came flooding back into his body. It was strangely relieving, the dull throb of tortured bone and muscle, for he knew he wasn't truly dead. His left arm falls to the ground, the priest's breathing slowing as he sits there, tired. Simply looking at the wall, they attempt to recall what happened to get to this point. Alden ponders, the last thing they remember was... heat, no, fire. Straining to remember what happened, he opens his eyes, gaze dropping to the blue eye of the sea around their neck. His breath is stifled when he realizes that the eye is different. It had become... *green*, a fantastic mesh of the old and the new. Blinking a few times, he gazes into it, searching the depths of their mind for the *why* to everything of recent. The eye blinks back as everything fades away... ## II He sees it all, right from around his own neck. He feels the walls of his home shake, the very foundations shaking with an unearthly force. He *senses* the flow of the water around him as he swims towards Cirillo's domain. He hears the step of worn boots on an arcane wood, in a hall hardly traversed. He sees the blind man himself, that cursed, flaming eye held aloft in his arcane hands. Alden hears the threat to burn down the entire compound, knowing at once what he must do. He sees Nymmons's jetpack activate, flinging themselves forward at the heretic so long lost to the gods. He hears the Ebon's cry to leave, and the subsequent gust of wind as he himself dashes through the air to land behind the half-elf. He feels himself brace on the wooden floor, hefting his armament. He hears the whistling of sliced air as that trident of the sea creates a trinity of gashes across the heretic's side. He senses the increasing temperature of the room, not unlike the deserts he had once traversed. With a tug of his hand, the cool material of the trident comes flying back, a relief in the quickly-rising temperature of the mountain hall. He sees Cirillo get pulled to Nymmons, hears the screams of pain fill the air. He feels his arm fling forward as the sea's trident once again leaves his hand, finding its place, embedded in the back of the blind Justycian. He sees them collapse to the ground as the brass-armored Nymmons disengages, heading towards the door. Alden senses the temperature surpass boiling as he steps slowly, laboriously towards Cirillo as the wood around them chars and burns. He feels the cool prismarine of the trident as he grabs hold of it, everything darkening once more... ## III Alden sees... his original study, the one-room abode in which he first resided. Though it had been over a year since he had lived there, his memories of the place still lied in the forefront of his mind. Then, he realized, he wasn't looking through the eye, he was looking through... himself. In fact, as his memory went about his study, he realized this was prior to ever making contact with that ancient relic. No, this was no recent version of him. He saw a more youthful Hornfels, a stronger one, one not afflicted by a curse that he knew would one day kill him. Then, suddenly, he hears a distant rumble. No, not a rumble... gunshots. The priest stumbles, grabbing a blue spell book from their desk. Nearly kicking open the door, they rush upstairs, outside, and toward the house of Alexander Cirillo. As the priest watches himself enter the house through the broken-down door, he remembers, thinking he was already too late. Indeed, on the opposite end of the room, lay the half-elf, as full of hatred as the priest once was. Running to Cirillo's side, Alden mentally grimaces at the recollections of the violence and fighting that were soon to follow this fateful event. Not knowing what would come, a younger Hornfels closes their eyes, muttering healing incantations and prayers to those gods above. Seeing his own eyes worriedly gaze across the savaged body of one they could formerly call an acquaintance, Alden's mind filled with self-reproachment. All of this, he thought, could have been ended before it even began. And it's my fault. His thoughts trailed off as some of Cirillo's wounds begin to heal, before the priest shakes their head lightly. Lifting Cirillo onto their back with a strength that he no longer has, Alden begins to carry them out of the house of Alexander, and towards the compound. Outside, Alden looked up to the sky as the world vanished around him. ## IV Alden sees himself back in the hall of wood and stone, hand on a trident embedded so deeply in Cirillo's back. He hears the crackling of fire as the wood around them turns to char. He smells a terrible mix of blood, ash, and scorched flesh as the raging flames consume everything around the two. He hears an incantation in his voice, and then a great clap of thunder as lightning is channeled through the trident. He feels the electrical power now imbued into that weapon flow between the two of them, knocking them both to the ground with a shocking force. Then, a short jump of time occurs. He sees himself, weakly standing over Cirillo's limp body, yanking his trident out a squelch. He hears blood and flesh sizzle as the heat cauterizes the newly manufactured holes in the nearly-dead one's body. He hears the squelch of melted boots stumble across the burning floors. He feels his head spin as it gets harder and harder to think. He sees the hallway to the door get closer, and closer... And then he feels himself fall, collapsing face-first onto the floor, to be met with an immediate blackness. ## V The world dilates around Alden's focus, that eye, as he gasps, back in his body, on the floor of his bunker's study. The eye blinks once more, before becoming still. Tearing his vision off that green artifact, he pats himself, making sure that he's really, real. Upon feeling his burned clothing beneath his hands, he breathes a massive sigh of relief. Then, what he saw truly hits him. Falling forward, then scrambling on his hands and knees, he moves to his desk, rolling over on his back and putting his head on the floor, looking at the desk's underside. Alden reaches out, running a hand across the wooden bottom of his workstation. After a few seconds, he finds what he was looking for. Pushing a loose panel ajar, he reaches in, grabbing a worn book out of the desk's internals. He gets up urgently, setting the book on the desk. The title, Journal Accounts is visible for scarcely a second as he leafs through the book, finally finding page number 17. The contents of this page had haunted him since he had Seen them. Upon the lines, the fourth among them read: The Heirophant shall fall after claiming the life of another.