Song of Seven

Song 17: The Ritual

The ritual site stood before Axel and his companions, a nightmarish tableau of malevolence and despair carved into the earth itself. A massive pit, an abyss of unfathomable darkness, lay at the center, surrounded by a haunting ring of obsidian pillars, their cold, black surfaces gleaming with an eerie, otherworldly glow. The sky had turned dark and gray, signaling the coming winter storm that would complement the horrific scene before them.

Graylen, the elderly wizard, and the ghoulish cult leader stood at the pit's edge, their forms silhouetted against the ominous backdrop of the seemingly endless pit. In the center of the dreadful ritual site, bound in cold iron chains and mentally enslaved by the powerful magic of the elder Mayj, was Seven, her dreadlocked hair matted with snow and sweat and her once-vibrant eyes vacant, her essence subjugated by the dark powers that held her captive.

As Axel and his companions arrived just in time to bear witness to the unfolding horror, the Mayj, and the cult leader, their faces turned intently towards the pit, chanted foul incantations that seemed to seep into the very soil that rimmed the pit. The winter air was heavy with unbearable tension, the malevolence of their surroundings pressing down upon them like an invisible weight. Arcane energy crackled around Seven's purple tattoos, casting strange light into the pit and reflecting off the surface of each pillar.

Suddenly, from the depths of the pit, a haunting sight emerged—a ghastly legion of lifeless bodies, the free folk of the north, their ashen and charred forms rising from the abyss as if summoned from the very depths of despair. Torn from their mortal shells, their souls swirled in ethereal torment above the pit, a macabre dance of suffering and sacrifice.

Axel's heart sank, and his gaze locked onto Seven, whose eyes held no recognition of what she was doing, no trace of the vibrant woman he had sworn to help. She was once again a pawn in this dark ritual, her powers harnessed to fuel the malevolent designs of Graylen and the ghoulish cult leader. He watched as the bodies of men and women hovered in the air above the pit, their essence being drained to power the spell that would bring forth the dark entity deep within the pit. These were the sacrifices that the cult had made, these were the bodies from every burned settlement. The people of the north were reduced to nothing more than dry kindling for a fire that threatened to consume them all.

Percian, the enigmatic Mayj, stood aghast, his usually composed demeanor shattered by the magnitude of the evil before him. He whispered in disbelief, "We're too late. The ritual has begun. Karmos will rise." Even his vast arcane knowledge failed him as he witnessed the spell being weaved before his eyes, the Mayj had never imagined that the magical gifts that his order practiced could bring about something so foul, so unimaginably wrong.

The other Crown Hounds stood behind Axel, paralyzed in fear at the impossible sight before them all, Lara fell to her knees and mouthed a curse and a prayer to whatever god or goddess might hear her. Gavin stood motionless, his skills as a leader failing him at this moment. Elena simply wept, and she didn't know why. All of them had seen and committed horrors in their work as Empire dogs, but none of them could have pictured this. The sight of dozens, perhaps hundreds of innocent people being sacrificed in a singular moment was too much to bear.

Then Axel saw it, the whitewood staff that the Songpriest Andus had brought to the north. The staff that Seven had carried with her when she was free. The staff might be a holy artifact of Lyris, the Goddess of Song. The warrior wasn't sure what he believed, he had felt the power of Lyris through Seven. Though he wasn't a faithful man, now he was channeling any belief that he had into this moment. Graylen held the staff firmly in his hands, not seeming to notice the arrival of Axel and his companions. Axel needed to act now.

As fast as his legs could move, despite his healing injuries, Axel dashed between the pillars and ran full speed towards Graylen, fully committed to stripping the holy artifact from the Mayj's grip. Graylen noticed the man charging him a second too late and was thrown to the ground by the impact of the charging tackle. Axel's fingers wrapped around the smooth wooden staff, a desperate attempt to wrest it from the dangerous Mayj. There was a white flash of brilliant light as Axel touched the staff, and for the first time, he felt it. A strangely warming feeling moved through every nerve ending in Axel's body, the divine presence of Lyris momentarily filled his soul as he pulled hard at the whitewood staff.