A People Forgotten
Born about 3,345 years ago, Amankh was a member of a grand empire that stretched across the sands of the
Amol-Kalit desert, being a scholarly figure in what Amankh recalls to be an academy of sorts focusing on magic, although whether it was dark magic or sand magic he wasn't sure. Portions of his living years have vanished, having been lost to the sands of time as a part of the cost of the necromantic ritual he was put under. A great leader, known as the Pharaoh, ruled the empire from a gilded city. Every road had a sheen of gold to it, he recalled, as camels and
sand elves roamed the roads to wherever they needed to go.
He had taught at an academy about magic. He remembered he was skilled at it in living years, albeit less so compared to his now unliving status. He recalled days of working on dark magic to aid the Pharaoh, but in what specific way, he did not remember. Did he use animals as the cost? Or was it people? He doesn't remember, but whatever it was, he recalls he felt no ill will towards the practice.
When recalling his death, these gaps of memory become more frequent. He recalled sounds of combat, the grunting of soldiers... Or was it the panting of a sick and dying man? He also remembered running, gripping a hand tightly with his own. He remembered the whipping sands in his eyes, as he rode a camel across a wide stretch of empty desert. No... Was that far before his death or right before it? It surely wasn't after.
He knows he had a family, but whether that family consisted of children or if they were his parents, he did not know. Vague images of faces fill his memory, but names seem to escape him. All except the name, "Abtatu," the name of his god, and "Tira." Whatever that name used to mean to him, he does not remember any longer, but now, its utterance brings a sense of safety and sanity in a world unknown.
However, perhaps more pressing than the far past is the near present. This, Amankh could remember as well as any other person. He was raised by a necromancer, and a novice at that. The necromancer sought to reunite the Amol-Kalit, the same as many who came before her. She desired power, her greed overtaking her sense as she delved into territories of magic few understand. The cost of raising the dead is a great one, and such an exchange must be prepared unless one wants... An unsavory solution. However, she had no such preparations, and so her life was given in exchange for Amankh's to rise from his tomb. Now, brought to a world similar yet remarkably different, one which finds him to be a scourge on the earth or simply a walking compost pile in humanoid form, Amankh roams in search of memories and allies for whatever may come next.
Solace in Death
Around him, Amankh saw nothing but the long-forgotten ruins of his people. He saw a death that was not afforded to him, leaving him a lone wanderer in search of a family that had never known him. Among the Sand Elves, he was a grim reminder of their past. Among the
humans past his deserts, he was a messenger of death, to be struck down and buried. It seemed the only place he belonged was the sands beneath him, the ones that already served as graves to his civilization.
Light struck the sky, a beacon of purple magic that seemed to beckon him. Its appearance was sudden and without warning, yet it was the only companionship he knew. And so, for nights and for days, he traveled without rest or end, or even the need for it. Whatever had called that necromantic beacon into existence was
powerful, and they could be an ally.
On the night he found its source, he founded
the Eternum. As undead gathered under the violet light of the beacon, brought about by the undead Eilasandree, they gathered under a banner. An empire of the dead and of necromancers, and one he would help rule over. Though it would find its roots in the ice and not the sands of the Amol-Kalit, to Amankh it served as a testament to the will of the
Abtati, to the favored of Abtatu.
They marched. They marched across grassy plains, across the bloodied battlefield of Belgrath's siege, through the demon mists of
Pandemonium, across the bitter Blightlands, until all that stood in their wake was the sea.
Even Gods Can Kneel
The Eternum fleet surged across the sea, their decks brimming with the undead and the necromancer. Among the numerous horde, a few showed promise in the arcane. These few undead became Amankh's students, the Disciples. They were taught the ways of magic, how to tap within their bountiful mana and unleash it as the ancient
elves once did. As Amankh once did for his own students, millennia ago. Soon, the Disciples grew capable, the fledglings under the wing of Amankh becoming prominent mages and leaders within the Eternum's ranks.
As they sailed, a mage found them. A mage known as
Maho Sparhawk, the one who had laid waste to Belgrath, the one whose soul had been given up to the Fire of Lions, Imamu. Under the command of his patron, Maho attacked the fleet with bouts of
pyromancy that threatened to scorch the boats. The Disciples of Amankh shielded the
Eternals with their wards, able to hold off the pyromancer's magic for now.
The engagement took a turn for the unorthodox when, after being impacted by Eilasandree's magic, the sorcerer's soul departed from his body, leaving the demon Imamu as its sole resident. The possessed Maho invited the Eternum's leaders for a discussion on a distant island, seemingly willing to put off the battle that had begun only moments prior.
However, the Fire of Lions was nothing if not fickle. Imamu briefly mentioned his observation of Amankh in life, though his temper continued to rise as a result of
Steve, Will's Son until renewal of their battle seemed certain. The fight that ensued was intense, as scorching hot flames beat against the frigid and immovable ice conjured by Amankh and the Disciple's wards.
Eventually, the god was forced into submission by the Eternals, and Maho's spirit was once more placed within his body. Amankh and Steve each spoke to the traumatized sorcerer, past hostilities turning to a kind of reconciliation. The pyromancer's rage briefly struck out at the Eternum founders, accumulated trauma leaving the man without hope or a will to live. He spoke of his lost son, and as he did so he shouted and yelled at the decrepit mummy's lack of understanding.
"Hope? You think I cannot even hope to imagine what you had lost?" The grip around his staff tightened, shards of ice crystallizing at the touch. "I had a daughter! I had a wife! A family to care for, to protect and love. Students, students I wished to see grow to become colleagues. I had a people!" The words came out loud and declamatory, seething with a boiling anger. A moment of silence passed, as the word hung in the air, a wave of quiet rage bubbling within it.
This unexpected similarity seemingly calmed the sorcerer who, with the aid of the Eternum, was sent to the docks of
Elbion to serve as a teacher, dispelling his fiery past for one of peace.
However, peace never lasts as long as you expect it.
Rest for the Dead
As death struck the shores of the
Eretejva Tundra, the Eternals found their Sanctuary. Among the frigid, icy peaks, they founded their capital, an Eternal city that would never yield to the whipping of time like so many that fell before it. Amankh refused to have another people be forgotten, to have his students buried as he still lives.
Sanctuary prospered under its new reign, as desolate expanses of snow turned to towering monuments of stone. From the Great Hall, which stood atop the rocky cliffs, its founders ruled. Amankh served as the Eternum's Archmage, continuing to instruct the Disciples and mold them into a formidable force of arcane power. Together with
Magnan Smithson and Eternal soldiers, they slew the great broodmother
Sathirena, raising her as another member of their empire.
Construction of a college began, one made to rival that of Elbion. A repository of all knowledge, whether it be considered forbidden or not by the realm of mortals. Arcane knowledge would be stored there, coupled with the once-forgotten texts of ancient civilizations now only known amongst their last undead survivors.
However, this sense of lasting sanctuary grew weary, inviting memories of what once was. Of the golden towers of the Abtati, the spires which stretched far above the white sands and threatened to pierce the sky. Memories of his home, of his people. Visions of a life that was never afforded to him, of time spent with his daughter and wife, before it was so cruelly ripped away from him by fate.
As his longing for home lingered and festered within him, Amankh turned his gaze to the Amol-Kalit.
The Sands are Unforgiving
The Amol-Kalit is a land of ever-shifting boundaries and rulers. In the time since Amankh's death and his awakening, a thousand kings claimed the desert as their own and a thousand have died a failure. However, his return showed a vastly different story. A so-called King of Kings had painted swathes of the desert the color of his banner, an empire of his own creation which promised to be the rightful heirs to the Amol-Kalit. A man who held no Abtati blood in his veins. A man who had not been born in the scorching sands like the Sand Elves that kneeled under his banner. A man who claimed to be graced by a god he didn't believe in. Gerra.
And so, the wrath of Abtatu came.
"As sand turns to ice under footsteps long thought gone, there shall be a reckoning unlike any that has graced the Amol-Kalit before. Water drunk by traitors shall run dry, as all they have constructed shall return to the dunes from which they came. Walls shall turn to rubble as roads turn to sand; all shall know when flame and lava turns to dust and ash, and when ash and dust return to desert. The sands shall part under old footsteps, as a people once lost and disgraced returns to the grace of Abtatu, to impart His wrath and fury upon he who deceives His people."
- The Book of Sands
It was on that day that snow first fell upon the scorching sand of the Amol-Kalit, as thousands of undead flooded the walls of Ragash at the order of Amankh. At the coronation of the newly crowned King of Kings, the Eternum laid siege. Ice pierced the Domes as the undead broodmother Sathirena set devastation in her wake. The Disciples sent arcane fury to the traitors that foolishly followed their false prophet.
Fate is a cruel mistress, however.
The Eternum forces dwindled and, for all their endurance and will, they couldn't stand up to the soul magics employed by Gerra's mage,
Telenar. The students of Amankh, his pupils, crumbled before his eyes. Bone turned to ash under the dark magic, and those that couldn't escape had their very souls be ripped from their bodies and extinguished like candlelight. Amankh wasn't left unscathed either, parts of his own limbs needing to be repaired with ice.
Defeated and beaten, the Eternum were forced into a retreat. The people Amankh once thought of as his descendants were led astray, loyal to a false prophet in search of nothing but power. The people he had adopted as his own littered the sands with the ashes of their fallen, unable to ever return.
Perhaps Fate will come again, and perhaps Destiny is not finished with her game. For the story is still being written, and the undead have nothing if not time...
