[DonCorazon]

Turn 19

Clodomir, The Last Days of Ulm

Ulm’s proud keeps rose from the peaks above the fertile grasslands; impregnable and majestic – they had stood for hundreds of thousands of years: the Black Keep of Bithyne, Lord Ulthur’s Stone Hall at Omicria, and the mightiest of all, the Citadel on the Horn.

I was but a child when the dark seas boiled and the beasts emerged. I lived at the Black Keep and was their when it fell and our goddess trampled into the dust. The Illithid led by the feared General Tr’goth had breached our walls with the help from the traitors of Eribon. Tr’goth had arrayed his troops with two cadres of Illithid mindflayers on his rear flanks a mass of metorite guards and light infantry at the center, and behind them monstrous beasts out of a nightmare – towering hundreds of feet in the air, swirling masses of screaming souls.

The High Order of Smiths unleashed wave after wave of evocations of magma, blade, and iron that shredded the center ranks. The sea spawn were ill-equipped to deal with the black iron of Ulm; their flesh was soft and weak from life under the water. Ulmish iron ripped through their bodies like they were wineskins. I remember. But it meant little to the illithid overlords. Their slave warriors never ceased their assualt despite horrendous casualties. The master smiths summoned forth the power of the earth, making the air come alive with jagged blades that ripped through the R’lyehn hordes. But the losses meant nothing. Shambler thralls with both arms ripped off, roared in rage and pressed forward to trample the defenders of Ulm. We thought perhaps the day was won when the left rear of mindflayers broke and fled the field after several punishing onslaughts of iron. Yet the Hooded Stranger sang a song of might and the center advanced shielding the horrors behind them from the bulk of the sorcerous assault. A few brave black plate infantry rushed forward to hold the gate, but the formless spawn crushed them into pulp and absorbed them into their amorphous mass.

The strength of Ulm was always in its faith in steel and disdain for the supernatural. But this was their downfall for they were ill-prepared for the horror that exists in the universe. Eventually even the master smiths were paralyzed with terror as they witnessed a glimpse of the darkness beyond. Gibbering in fear and drained of energy, the sorcerous waves whimpered to a halt just as the horrific beasts of R’lyeh smashed through the gates.

I managed to hide in an overturned wagon and witnessed my goddess crushed underneath the enormous swirling mass of void and with it, my faith in Ulm and black steel and all that is good died.