Legends

The Legend of K'Syr the Black Truth - by T.A. Saunders ©2009 v1.2

Like ten thousand metal tears, the shards of Hazaad's Asyndi Runeblade scattered across the land as it shattered upon the weapon of an Underlord of Chaos. They scintillated in the dying sunlight and faded as the terrible ring of Divinium breaking faded into into silence. Then the Curse came as the Three Underlords brought Hazaad to his knees and mortally wounded the Champion, with him the fate of the Asyndi and the Astral Wyrms that followed his example was sealed.

The tale of Hazaad's fate is told elsewhere; herein resides the tale of Hazaad's mighty Asyndi Runeblade, once called Rizmyra, or Truth in the Common Tongue lain shattered across the battlefield, broken and forgotten by the Asyndi who wanted nothing more than to avenge their hero. Yet, there was one amongst the Asyndi who was not so willing to forget the powerful weapon. One who now walked amongst the bodies with lust in his eyes and plucked up each shard of the weapon he could find, even as the Lords of Chaos were driven back. One piece remained and was forgotten, missed under Hazaad's own prone form by the smith, whose greed and excitement had made him careless in his task.

At first, the legendary Asyndi smith K'Syr had thought to bring the shards before the Old Gods for their blessing to reconstruct Rizmyra. As he held the many shards in his hand and the blade-less hilt in the other, he knew no such blessing would ever be granted. The Old Gods knew their children were straying and would not grant such a boon as the reforging of the Champion's blade. K'Syr did not feel as though the Old Gods deserved the sacred weapon at all. No, he would remake the weapon himself and seek the Lords of Chaos if he must.

The Lords of Chaos were pleased with the notion that one of the mighty Asyndi had fallen so far that he would bring their greatest weapon before them, even as shattered remains. Access to the Xos Forge was given and with his great forging hammer, Aboras K'Syr reforged the shattered blade, corrupting the divine metal with the black touch of the Xosforge, mending the places where the blade had been broken. For many days, K'Syr labored over the forge to smooth out imperfections found in the steel, then many more days adding the intricate runes that returned the weapon's power.

Something was missing though, the Black Truth lacked the fire of magic the Old Gods brought it before and with the weapon's shattering, the faith that gave it potency was lost. K'Syr perplexed by this presented the unfinished blade to the Chaos Lords and sought their dark blessing for the new Corrupted DIvinium Runeblade. The Chaos Lords, who numbered Nine discussed this amongst themselves and smiled with the answer they divined.

One of the Dark Lords beckoned K'Syr for the unfinished blade and the fallen Asyndi smith relented, handing the incredibly crafted weapon to him. Indeed, the smith had outdone himself in every way; Black Truth was perhaps a greater weapon than the sword that was shattered. Yet, unfinished as it was, still hot from the Xosforge it would only ever be a finely crafted weapon. The sword craved life; it was a low, keening cry of dark birth that was answered by the Dark Lord, who drove the still-cooling weapon into K'Syr and let the weapon sup upon its creator's lifeblood. K'Syr the Betrayer had now been betrayed, his life spent to empower the very weapon he sought to command in the name of Chaos.

So it would always be the path of the blackened Runeblade, named after the one who forged it; forever would the sword crave blood and forever it would play slave to a master to gain it. When its hunger for blood grew great, the slave would become the master and force the hand that guided it. This pleased the Chaos Lords, for the blade would forever be given to their Champion and a ghoulish path of victory would be carved.

The sword had a will of its own however; so great was its craving for blood, that each dark hero it was given to would eventually find themselves impaled upon it, or driven to death for its macabre cause, forever seeking a more bloodthirsty master when the one that it served no longer cared to feed the weapon its due. Eventually the Lords of Chaos abandoned the Infernal sword upon the mortal realm, content that it would continue to kill Asyndi and others that would serve the light.

The Chaos Lords underestimated the Infernal sword; the weapon still remembered the blood of its birth and ever seeks to find its way back to the ones that tempered its blade in the life of its creator. K'Syr, the Black Truth seeks the destruction of the Nine Lords and with each death, each hero it corrupts, the closer to that goal it comes.

K'Syr was recently shattered upon the blade of Virsaya, Light of the Heavens in a tremendous battle in the Abyss between the Spirit of Decay, Khavos and the hero of Sundown, Dathon Edmiston. Khavos had claimed the Infernal sword not long after it had been cast into the Abyss by Dhamizad T'anas. The vile pieces of the twice-shattered blade were claimed by the Shar'Vaire Theocrat, Vexthanar Misrah at the end of the battle having purposefully stranded himself on the Abyssal Plane of Xos. For now, the hateful will of the weapon survives in the hilt, where its malevolent spirit is kept. Any threat it could pose however is for the moment left in the fate of the mad Shadowmancer who wishes to become the next Spirit of Decay.