Chapter 338 - The coalition
It was one thing to hear of the wonders the Zuverian civilisation had wrought at the height of its power. Another entirely to witness their remnants with one’s own eyes.
Raimond walked at the centre of the procession, a convergence of figures from different walks of life, faith, and steel. Priests and adherents moved in robes adorned with the golden sunburst of Ittar’s graceful Followers. Mages and wizards bore the sigils and colours of their towers and orders, their flowing garments rippling in the lake-born breeze. The Solar Knights, clad in black and gold armour, marched with disciplined precision, swords at their sides. These groups, often divided by ideology and purpose, now moved as one — united by the gravity of this most momentous of moments.
The sheer scale of what surrounded them was enough to humble even the most stoic. The pristine white stone beneath their feet held carvings so intricate they seemed to shift under the eye, completely untouched by the passage of time or the decline of the ages. It stretched outwards in sprawling terraces, an expanse so vast that it could house a city and still leave room to spare.
Beld Thylelion. A name once nearly lost to the passages of history, now made real before them. The vestiges of a civilisation so far beyond their own that, even standing atop its ruins, they could barely comprehend what had once been. Raimond considered himself fortunate—privileged, even—to be among the first to set foot here in over a millennium. Like his fellow priests, he could not help but tread with a sense of reverence, weaving between towering colonnades and shadowed archways. He glimpsed quiet gestures from his brethren and sistren, fingers tracing signs of devotion as they muttered prayers to Ittar beneath their breath.
Their party of priests numbered nearly a dozen — handpicked by Raimond himself, though not without some interference. His dear colleague Ava had, with her usual stoic persistence, ensured that he did not depart without certain individuals. That would raise questions within the Quorum once word spread of today’s events, but that was a concern for another time.
Four Dawnbringers walked among them, trailing behind Raimond like immovable shadows. Their armour—masterfully forged in gleaming whites and golds, breastplates adorned with the radiant sun—shone with such brilliance it nearly eclipsed Raimond’s own dazzling presence. Their porcelain-white masks, sculpted with serene, closed golden eyes, evoked an air of divine contemplation.
Raimond liked to think he was doing a fairly admirable job of pretending they were truly there solely to guard him, rather than acting as his ever-watchful tenders.
Beyond them, knights, wizards and mages made up the rest of the expedition, their numbers nearly threefold that of the clergy — a testament to the mission’s significance. Raimond did not doubt that even the most jaded among them would struggle not to be awed by what lay before them.
He glanced down at the stone beneath his feet, eyes tracing the elaborate carvings etched into its surface, each line as if a master’s hand had painstakingly etched every detail, glowing slightly. What secrets lay buried beneath, he wondered?
When they had first uncovered Beld Thylelion’s location, Raimond had envisioned a citadel. A grand bastion of Zuverian knowledge rising above the waters of Rellaria, akin to the Rising Isle. Reality, however, had proven quite the opposite. The ruin did not rise above the waters. It descended beneath them, sprawling deep into the lake’s abyss, its greatest secrets buried where sunlight did not reach.
Turning slightly, Raimond peered through the colonnades toward the edge of the structure. In the distance, the great Dawnlight Palace and the rest of Elystead shimmered faintly, separated by a veil of golden light woven like gossamer threads.
The source of that barrier stood atop the lake: floating platforms of wood and metal, their forms arranged in geometric alignment around Beld Thylelion. Constructs of both arcane spells and sacred invocations, hidden from sight until the ruin revealed itself. The magic infused within them had been painstakingly prepared and constructed by a rare collaboration of the mage towers, the Ustrum Assembly, the Followers of Ittar, and the Rising Isle. A boundary wrought in less than a week to safeguard this place from unwelcome hands.