Chrysalis

Marvel. Wonder. Architectural triumph. One of the great achievements of the age. The Twin Cities have been described in such glowing terms for over a millennium and truly they are deserving of their reputation.

Situated on the same mountain, Mt Atraem, they can be seen many kilometres away, glittering like matched jewels in the distance.

Dressed in peerless Soul Silver, the lower city gleams like the finest polished swords. Home to several million citizens, the Silver City is the beating heart of a great and enduring empire. Its six walls and twelve towers are so heavily enchanted with wards and protections it can be painful to look at them with the naked eye.

As impregnable as it is beautiful, visitors have so many sights to take in, one simply cannot hope to catch them all.

Yet it is above that the true vision lies. Carved from pure Heart Gold, the Golden City glows radiant from the upper reaches of the mountain, a glimpse of a luminescent heaven.

Palace after palace, castle after castle, each one a peerless work of art such that the finest carvers and builders weep to look upon them. The Scholars’ tower, rising like a spear into the sky, a house of learning and knowledge unequalled in all the realms.

For those lucky few who are able to catch a glimpse, the Imperial Compound, home to the Child-Emperor himself, is a sight so rare, and so marvellous, as to be without equal in all Pangera.

The Twin Cities of Silver and Gold. Seat of the Emperor and Capital of the Atraem Empire. Truly a wonder of the modern age, may they stand forever.

from ‘Travelogue of the Fourth Stratum - Sights to See’

Odin Malum, and he had learned to be hard in return. Carving a bloody place in

Yet this world had been much like the last, only the veneer of civilization was different. Kill or be killed. Fight to live, surrender and die. These were rules that Odin understood, and so, for the second

he had thought that perhaps here, he might truly be free. Rather than kill for others, or to make himself useful, or defend that

that he had any alternative but to obey. It was normal, in a dog-eat-dog world, for someone to be the alpha.

so he had fallen, fallen into the power of a being so much older than he, and had been lost for a time. The lure of Arconidem was so seductive, so powerful. His demon body craved indulgence, it needed to kill, to revel in death and destruction. The Demon God

he was sure. The great demons had been with him at times,

Until now.

was that?! Some sort of

his second death. He could recall running along with the horde, but he had no idea what they’d been chasing. Then it had… appeared, booming into existence in front of him, a

ended. The howl of the wind, the groan of the earth, all things being drawn into the void, never

his mind out of the rut

new demon form, he would be dead, without a doubt. Lashing out with his blades, he’d latched into his own

could escape its pull, he’d been caught. In that terrible moment, he’d lifted into the air, losing his last grasp to the ground and began to fall

flickered and vanished before he’d come into