Those Who Set the Blaze (Patreon)

Remember that post apoc setting? I started tinkering at it while other things happen.

 

Those Who Set the Blaze

The memory of the great nations were becoming bitter dreams of the past. The griffons were laid low, their war on the elves an abject failure, taking many of their pony allies down with them. So many brave warriors, lost across the sea, in the hands of the elves who bore them no pity and no mercy.

The pony's empire fared no better. Their queen, Iliana, died. Some say it was old age, come to claim the seemingly unaging queen at last. Others speak of assassins. Her would-be heirs, those ponies she had instructed in the art of managing an empire, were quick to tear what she had built apart.

Each portion of the empire became ruled by each of them. On paper, they were unified, to stand as a collective whole against the world.

This didn't last.

Humans were and always will be opportunistic. I should be more specific. The halflings and gnomes, always in good relations with ponykind, were no problem. They were no great assistance either, but they did not turn against the ponies.

The dwarves displayed their backs. They shut the doors to their kingdom when the pony empire began to fracture. The Lightning Rail, the great construct built by both dwarves and ponies, together, as great allies, was allowed to run to a barred door. The dwarves left the surface dwellers to their own devices.

But then there is the race that literally named the others. We have the humans. We have the orcs, the goblins, the gnolls, and countless others. They descended upon our East, and the pony mountain citadels were put to the torch.

Where they had once warred among themselves, they came as a unified menace, and they found the fractured defense of the former empire sorely lacking. They pleaded with the griffons to help, but that assistance came slow. They rose up when the tide of humanity pushed into their precious mountains, and carried them along with it.

That crest of war picked them up and threw them down to join the ponies, washing the goats out with them. Westwards, always westward they were pushed. All the fey of Everglow were under attack. Except the purrsians. Clever cats, they faded away as once they had before. Their grandest city, Murrage, lived up to its name.

As the war, or perhaps better put, the purge, continued, people got desperate. Some took after the dwarves, trying to burrow away and not be seen. Others tried to bring the fight to the humans, launching daring raids deep behind enemy lines. It was dramatic and did little to change the unyielding tide.

Most huddled. The many races of Everglow were pinned into the few cities they had remaining. Some dared to call their homes outside those last walls, living instead in constant danger and fear. But those that were organized planned desperately.

In the end, it was firmly decided. They had lost.

They had lost the war.

They had lost the world.

They would lose everything.

The brightest future their leaders could see was being taken as slaves and put to work for the humans.

"Death before that," hissed the eldest griffon in the room. "We will fight to the last."

A goat raised a cloven hoof. "Why can't we… surrender peacefully? Surely we can work out our differences?"

The idea was shouted down by a dozen angry voices. A pony stepped forward. She glittered in the light, her red and orange crystals shining with the promise of kingdoms so old they were basically forgotten. "I have prayed long and hard," she said. "I have seen the future we can have, if we are willing to pay the price for it."

She would be remembered. Bloody Sunset was her name, and when she stood before the setting sun, her shadow gave easy recognition to how she had earned it. A devout follower of Blaze, she told them of her plan. They would grasp the fragile balance of elements that bound their world, and they would rip them asunder.

The destructive power unleashed would end the war. It would be so brutal that no human would dare to act against them ever again. It would be a lesson so vast their grandchildren would weep thinking about it.

It would be a grand victory, and it would destroy everything. It would be the very victory Blaze promises when she speaks directly. It won't be a defeat, and that was, perhaps, enough.

There was a final vote. They had expected resistance from the cloven, but he went along with the majority. It was a flutterpony that hesitated. She held her hoof back, her antenna twitching. "Is this the right way? Will we destroy all the color? Even… Even if they kill us, at least the color would still be there." She smiled gently. "Isn't that good enough?"

Even without her blessing, the motion was easily passed. As they prepared their final attack, some fled the city, bringing hurried words to other settlements, urging them to hide.

But where did one go to hide from the world coming apart at the seams?

The flutterpony's treachery in sharing the knowledge of their plan was met with deadly force. She was executed, her wings burnt to a sullen grey ash as a final insult to the flutter.

The rest followed not long after.

The plans proceeded swiftly, researching the specifics of the spell that would end it all. They gathered the exotic components and fought off the constant raids. The humans were relentless, but did not come in a truly threatening force until they were a mere week from completion.

The humans made it clear they knew what was coming, and that they would tear apart the city before it could be finished. They screamed for blood, and they crashed against the walls. The city was not sieged, that would have implied they waited. The attack was unending. Battering rams, siege towers, and other heavy weapons were brought in.

The cannons fired all through the night and day, denying any citizen of the city a moment of peace. The walls were breached several times, pushed back in frenzied, desperate, defensive actions. The city's defenders were winnowed away. By the end of the third day, the city sagged with defeat.

The spell was not yet ready.

They cast it anyway.

Now, in an ideal world, or at least one slightly more ideal, they would have kept the attackers at bay just a little longer. Bloody Sunset had made it clear. If they could complete the spell in its entirety, they would suffer, but would emerge the true victors.

With the spell in its sorry state, victory could still be assured, or at least, defeat could be avoided. It would do what they had set out to do, destroying their enemies. With no other option before them, they said the final invocations, and doomed the world.

The elemental forces that gave Everglow its name came undone. Sheets of fire, driving winds, boiling oceans of acid, and other exotic forces came loose from their precarious balance. It spread across the world at such a frightening speed that the guards on the tallest towers barely had time to shout a warning before entire cities were engulfed in the horror.

Over the destruction, the chaos, a bellowing, hissing, laughter followed behind. Apep celebrated the day that his will was done properly. With great burning the old age was ended with complete finality.

It was time for a new age.

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A prelude. Thoughts?