Irinika, Neneria, Iniri. Darkness, Death, Nature. The three eldest Divines that still stand. I have talked with all three when writing the Archive, although that was before the Great War. Now, I only have access to Iniri. Neneria has disappeared and causes no trouble, Irinika was seen entering a Dwarven Hold with Malam before the Great War ended. As much as Allasaria wishes to, none will chase the Goddess of Darkness down there. She may go herself, if she wishes to, although she won’t. Instead, she will just complain to us about not assisting her capture her arch-nemesis.

  Yet to get away from Irinika, the woman herself, her abilities, her character, does not interest me so much time as the time she comes from. The Archive of Arda is obviously heavily weighted towards contemporary history, as for that, I can serve as my own primary source. Worldbreaking had enough survivors, Divine and mortal, to be well documented to the point that we have a clear picture. At this point, I am certain that the century of cataclysm was caused by the death of Paramethus although I refuse to accept that he was killed by Maisara. She may have supported and secretly wished for his assassination but relations between “Classicalist” Divinities and the “Heroists” of Arascus and Paramethus had been brewing cold for a long time. Maisara and Fortia, the main cause two beings that stood against Arascus at the time and who rallied against him, were simply not geographically present. They lack hard alibis, although Arascus, if he is to believed, can recount Paramethus’ death to the time of day. It happened in the morning, Year X+1476 of the Elassan Calendar, a week after the summer solstice. Maisara and Fortia simply could not have travelled such distances, especially through lands of heroism, without being seen to account for their appearances before and after.

  I am able to piece history together backwards from that event. The first hero came about roughly in the Year X+1360, (Source: Arascus), the Magocracy toppled Divine Tyranny roughly around the Year X+930, (Source: Maisara, Fortia, Arascus confirmed, although reports differ as no formal calendar was instituted). Maisara herself must have appeared some time around the Founding of the Tyrannies, which happened after the Concordats and we know that Arascus and Fortia both state those lasted roughly four hundred years, putting Maisara somewhere around Year X+560.

  Yet that is where the trail goes cold. The other Divines of that Era, the major Forces, had no intention to track time. Alkom did not even know that the First Concordat, led by Arascus and Fortia, was signed when it happened apparently, although whether that is true is questionable. Neither Arascus nor Fortia have a high opinion of him. Likewise, I have no incarnation date of Paramethus, Arascus simply says that the God “always was.”

  So I can only go back to Year X+0 as I mark it down myself. That is the planting of Iniri’s first garden along the river Pheres. Although that garden does not exist anymore, that is the “first event” of my recorded history. Apparently, it was a refuge from beasts of shadow. Immediately, this places it in the Age of Monsters. We know that Love & Hatred were the main Divines in finally joining humanity, and we know that Helenna appeared roughly around that area. Suspicion leads me to believe that it was the safety of Iniri’s refuge that gave rise to bonds strong enough for Helenna to appear in the first place. Likewise Malam operates on a Hatred primordial and almost na?ve compared to our modern forms. It would make sense if she was a construct of Ancient humanity’s fear of outsiders.

  And so, I go back to Irinika, Neneria and Iniri herself. None speak of what happened in the years prior to that. When the Age of Gaia ended, I do not know. It is in left unwritten in the Archive on Arda, save for the fact that I know it shall be written as Year X-Y.

  Neneria is infamously difficult to probe into, her intellectualisms bring even me to boredom. Irinika is concerned little with the times of the past, saying that they are stories that children are blessed not to know. Iniri, I am certain, knows, yet the most she states is that it was a time from when Nature was wild.

  Thus, Arda’s history can only be written in the form of Year X+-Y, for those who know simply refuse to share. The Elassan Calendar, I do not even bother propagating. I know that it will be refused simply because it came from my mind and we typically restart the count whenever a new epoch is declared. Already, the Pantheon has declared that history be wiped away and we treat Year 0 as beginning the day after the Great War ended.

  Ultimately, I can only see two conclusions. One, we shall never truly know all History or two: creatures from Ages that no longer exist will once again rear their heads.

  - Excerpt from “Musings on Musings.” Written by Goddess Elassa, of Magic.

  Kassandora stood besides Kavaa in the very centre of Levhen’s roads. From here, they could see the Eastern, the Western and the Northern Gate. The army within the Hold had settled down into the hum of normalcy for the past week. That normalcy had been ripped away an hour ago when metal began to shriek and wail with the cries of a sobbing banshee. Now, the entire hold stared towards the Eastern Gate in shocked silence. The idle chatter of dreams and hopes between the soldiers, their off-colour jokes and tales of grand victories in battle, in drink, in women, had ceased.

  A silence so crushingly present that Kassandora could feel it try to press down on her shoulders as if the entire landmass above them was beginning to cave in. By Kassandora’s side, Kavaa stood in silence. The time for moping and for tears had passed. Both Goddesses had been in the Great War, both Goddesses knew exactly what it meant to stand in battle. Flat expressions overtook the two of them, a pair of grey eyes and a pair of red, framed by hair of the same colours and topped off by black caps, stared at the massive crease in the Eastern Gate. “So here it is.” Kavaa said, her tone cold and sturdy.

  “So here it is.” Kassandora replied. Fitting words. She found her lips curling upwards at them. Kavaa took a deep breath, her shoulders rolling along with her body to it.

  “Until Suns shine again.” Kavaa said. Above the two Goddesses, one of Levhen’s massive suns stood hung embedded from the ceiling above them. An orb of countless runes that had laid cold and silent for a thousand years.

  “However long it takes.” Kassandora replied. “Until the Suns shine again.” She repeated. There was nothing else to add. They would stand and hold or they would stand and die. She had been in this situation before, no matter how many times she tried to avoid it. Kavaa had been in it on almost daily basis during the Great War. The only reason she was still here was because Leona had managed to make sure that the Goddess of Health would always avoid any of Kassandora’s sisters.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Once again the ram smashed forwards. Finally the beams that had been installed to support the gate buckled. They did not break or shatter, they dug deeper into the stone as a faint crack of light emerged from between the doors. The glow of orange and red flame that Tartarus would use to make the temperature warm enough for their own kind. “I love you.” Kavaa repeated again.

  “Mmh.” Kassandora said. “Until it’s over, I’ll be by your side.” That was the most she could say at this time. It was childish, Kassandora knew it was. She shoved the thought into the back of her mind and took a deep breath at the triumph. So she could still do it. It had to be in real battle true, but it could still be done. So Kavaa had not dulled her mind.

  “Thank you.”

  “No.” Kassandora said. “Thank you.” She repeated. “Because I would not be stood here right now if it wasn’t it for you.”

  Kavaa chuckled. The ram hit again. The light from outside grew thicker. Flames began to whisk through it as if they were dogs. Tartarus would not be able to dislodge those massive chunks of metal from the outside. They would have to push them from the outside. The supports dug further in. Behind them, the floor was smattered with automatons that had been scattered about to prevent any charges. Behind that was the first line of defenders: the dwarven animated skeletons in a tight formation. They lowered their pikes and spears and brought the shields up to interlink with each other. Then the humans and dwarves. The vehicles. Clerics. Magicians were preparing, their wands and rings and staffs beginning to glow as they caught onto to magic. “I don’t believe that.” Kavaa said.

  “I would still be stood here.” Kassandora said. “But it would not be the me that is stood here right now.”

  “That is the most precious thing I have ever heard from you.”

  Kassandora smiled at the compliment. “Then I am I could offer it.” Neither Goddess moved closer to each other, they didn’t even bother glancing to the side. Eyes were fixed straight ahead. Kassandora wished she could be this open in times of peace.

  The slam came again. The flames from that gap got larger. Kassandora finally saw movement on the other side. Just some demon flying from behind one gate to the other. They were singing their cursed little sieging song, that was the rhythm setter. Kassandora had seen this play out from the outside in the past. It was a low melody, the sort that would be heard in factories. Malam had once translated the words, it wasn’t a cheerful soldier’s song that talked of imminent death but some rancid tune about glory instead.

  That had always left a bad taste in Kassandora’s mouth.

  The next slam came and Kassandora called upon her Orchestra. The grand piano of the director began to sound in her mind. Kavaa joined first, almost immediately once the bell that began it had sounded in everyone’s heads. This time, she was a grand set of pipe organs that slowly bellowed from the back and matched Kassandora’s piano beat by beat. Kassandora took one deep breath. What a terrible woman she was, she could hear the longing in those high-pitched whines of the organ. To think that Kavaa hadn’t just said it already.

  Kassandora grabbed Kavaa’s hand and felt the Goddess of Health’s finger immediately wrap around her palm. That was the entire movement, nothing needed to be said. Kassandora could hear the organ and Kavaa could hear the piano. And the Orchestra expanded. The magicians brought in their ever-bombastic percussion that wanted to scream over everything else. Kassandora dulled them into the background, there was no point expending their energies yet. The hundreds shining gems watching the entrance suddenly went out. Brass and winds and strings joined, each man another adding set of notes that quietly listened to the piano and kept the tune.

  And just as Kassandora played with them, she played through them. Levhen fell so silent it could have been dead, only the sound of faintly rumbling engines and generators that provided power to the spotlights pointed at the gates remained. Yet inside everyone’s mind, they heard that rising tune that kept their fingers on the trigger and their eyes ahead. Men shuffled around into more comfortable positions, the last of Kassandora’s tiny adjustments. Snipers moved from windows. A few men moved before the armoured vehicles, there was no risk of friendly crushing when Kassandora when they fell in line to the tune.

  For as they fell in line to the tune, Kassandora fell in line with them. She saw through their eyes. The gate suddenly could be spotted through a thousand angles. The spear wall at the start, in a V-shape with the centre closest to the gate to force as many demons off the bridge as possible could be seen through the eyes of men higher up. They held their breathes. Kavaa’s Clerics joined the choir, their harps cold. Immediately they got to moving. Not the healing of wounds, but the healing of fatigue that the soldiers did not know they had. Kavaa just stood and stared. Her power was too much to great to waste this early.

  Once again, that ram smashed into the gate. And once again, the doors moved. They were battering the wall apart, not down. The crease in the middle of the metal grew by another inch. This would be the kill zone. If Tartarus was charge through, it would be open season on the humans. Even ancient legionnaires, trained to fight in melee, would struggle against demons ever just slightly taller and slightly stronger. In their armour, then there was no way to touch them.

  Men deeper in the hold, behold to the Orchestra, began to walk around through corridors that had been explored yet were unlit. Kassandora had her general strategy of retreating deeper in but there was no scouting or report-giving that could give the same confidence as War’s music. Dwarven runemasters masters cut apart their little bags of metal shards they could speak to in unison, each one making the exact same motion as they grabbed a fistful and held it close to them.

  All beholden to the music. All within the Orchestra. None without it.

  Kassandora raised her hand into the air. The firm weight of Joyeuse materialized within it. War’s Greatsword, the blade whose mere shadow would make armies break and flee. Not today though. The tearing of stone drowned out the Orchestra the two impossibly large doors that made up the gate shifted once again. Fire leapt from the gap between and ash and soot. A small demon, unarmoured and holding only a shortsword in his hand squeezed through the gap. He turned, closed his eyes against the blinding spotlamps, he raised the blade and he charged forwards another monster behind him immediately tried to step through. Through the eyes of men above, Kassandora recalibrated the barrels.

  Kassandora swung her conductor’s baton down. Joyeuse no sound as it softly fell through the air, but inside, Kassandora’s piano slammed down all its keys. A single bullet sounded from a soldier who was nothing more but the tiny string on a harp. Guided by Kassandora, the bullet crashed directly into the demon’s head. One tank fired a single shell of high-explosive through the gap, directly into the battering ram.

  Not one shot wasted.

  The ram slammed down again. Kassandora watched through the eyes of a man as the soldier next to him pulled back a lever and ejected the shell. Through that man’s eyes, she saw another shell be slid up into the barrel. It was not her own hand that pushed the lever back, but she saw the inside of that cabin as she saw the inside of every cabin that had men inside.

  Outside, there was a roar. Their little chant had died under the fury of being hit past the gates. Inside, the Orchestra got louder as Kassandora watched through the eyes of a man who held his finger on the trigger of a cannon.

  The ram battering slammed into Levhen’s eastern gate once again as demons began to pour through.

  Not one shot wasted.