Siege of Veldona

Military action

In their first major international action, agents of the Gateway unleashed 8 Elder Children in an effort to destroy the capital of the Sonovic Empire. Aided by Silena Rhaspor and The Hunt, all were destroyed before reaching the Viridian Citadel and the attack was fully eradicated.

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At dawn on the 6th of Vonsarin, the Day of Order in 2829, as the day's festivities began, three Elder Children emerged from the Linias Gorge 10 km east of the capital, followed by a sea of Elder Spawn. All head directly for Veldona. Minutes later, the city watch made visual contact, and the heavy guard and wall defenses were mobilized. Simultaneously, Silena Rhaspor notified The Hunt, and battalions were dispatched both to the walls (Battalion Aegis) and sent into the field (Battalion Equis) to directly confront the Elder Children. Artillery contact was made minutes later, and shortly thereafter first Hunt contact was made by the speartip squads of Equis. Two of the Children were felled in a half-hour excursion as the majority of the Spawn were eliminated by the wall defenses, assisted by the Flames, Arrows, and Pillars of Batallion Aegis. The last Child, however, was blessed by its cold masters. Barreling through Hunters and Heavy Imperial Guard alike, it smashed through the East Gate of Veldona, cleaning a path through panicking civilians and desperate defenders alike. Its Spawn quickly followed, and the majority of Aegis was forced to turn inwards to eradicate the threat before The Blight could take root.   Before this moment, the walls of Veldona had never been breached, not a single time in twenty-seven centuries. For such an unprecedented event, unprecedented measures must be taken. From the inner sanctum of the Viridian Citadel, the Imperator Primus authorized the High Council to do whatever they must to ensure the survival of Veldona and the Empire at large. Delving deep into the Citadel's most secret, secure layers of the Imperial Library, the lords of Veldona found their salvation.   But even as the secrets of the Library were exposed and Aegis left the walls to turn inwarda, a new threat was rising.   From Veldona's north, emerging from the Linias Foothills, three more Elder Children led a vast swarm of Spawn to the North Gate. Aegis and Equis split once again to stem the flow of assaulters, but even a casual observer could have seen at this point that the Hunt was overreaching and undermanned, and Silena Rhaspor ordered both battalions to retreat into the city and unify their efforts. Now, finally, she and the First Squad took to the field, bringing down the one Elder Child that had broken through the city defenses and scattering its brood of Spawn. Leaving the remaining cleanup and executions of Blight-touched to the Guard, they retreated to the defense of the second wall, though the besieged were losing hope by the minute as endless forces advanced.   Unbeknownst to the majority of them, their salvation was mere minutes away.   As defenders and Elders alike fell to each other, a new sun bloomed and died just as quickly in the shadow of the Viridian Citadel. The Womb Massacre was complete, and two great Blood Titans rose from the visceral remains of their births. Suda and Khuraes knelt their twelve-limbed towering forms before their Imperator Primus, and affirmed their duty in staggering Psiantic emissions.   Blood Titan Suda appeared moments later at the breach in the North second wall as the two surviving Elder Children moved in amongst their Spawn. Standing at a mere thirty and forty-five meters tall, they were no match for the two hundred meter frame of Suda, who effortlessly tore the the smaller of the two limb from limb before turning on the second and pummeling it into the solid stone ground.  

We were beginning to lose hope. Against such sheer numbers and awful power, everything I had dreamed of was falling to ashes around us. The first wave of Children we had managed, but by the Six, this was almost too much. The taller of these next two Children, even with sixteen limbs removed, smashed the second gate like it was nothing. Their power was exhausting, even for the Hunt.

But all at once, he was there.

I remember it so vividly. One moment I was diving for an eye as tall as me, flames Threading through my blades with Nia at my side. The next, the world shook as if imploding, and the eye was gone. In its place was a black tower, the Child beneath it reduced to an inky lake of Fey-sized piles of flesh and viscera. As I looked higher and higher, I realized all at once that this tower wasn't some sort of Threaded construction. It couldn't have been made by Fey hands at all. No, as the sun was blotted out by the mass of the thing the tower belonged to, I saw the truth of it.

It resembled an Elder Child, but somehow, impossibly, only superficially. Instead of the dead white flesh of Elder-things, its skin was a bloody violet-blue. Its body was dotted with eyes and mouths and bony protrusions, but in contrast to the insane, random nature of the Elders, they looked almost natural, as if placed by design, the same way we Fey and Moonchildren are shaped.

He looked down at me with half of his eyes, and amongst the varied colors I found my own amber shade reflected in a great many. We stood frozen, appraising each other for what felt like centuries. He was, without a doubt, the most terrible thing I have ever seen. To craft order out of chaos, to turn their unnatural talents against them in such a way...it was beautiful.

It changes everything.

From the journal of Master Huntress Silena Rhaspor, founder of the Hunt and First Vanguard of Battalion Aegis during the Siege of Veldona

  As if sensing the tides of battle turn, the Elder forces released one final, desperate wave: a stream of Spawn from south of the city, led by two Children. One was a poor, withered thing, hardly ten meters tall.   The other was much, much larger.   Later named Faath den Sovelis, or the Father of All Evil, it was an abomination, a great mass of screaming mouths and thrashing limbs that shook the world with every step it took on its dozens of misshapen legs. Its countless eyes shone with a true, knowing hatred unseen in the vast majority of its kin, and any single one of its river-sized tentacles could have obliterated the Viridian Citadel in a single, casual swing.   But Faath den Sovelis was too late. It never got the chance to even reach the South Gate, let alone the seat of Vönic power on Altemos. Khuraes fell upon it first, then Suda, and together the twin Titans tore apart the Father of All Evil with lashes of Vönic Thread, thunderous physical blows, and Elder energies beyond comprehension.