Champion Azalith: Voices of the Fallen

The Voices of the Fallen

At Champion Azalith, Aranx says Azalith and her vanguard are already advancing. He plans to sap their energy while the Hero takes them on. He remembers that he and Azalith were family, and wonders whether her fall was a fault of character or the fated purpose of the Archangel of Fortitude. What if it had been him instead? He catches himself and returns to the immediate need: defense.

Aranx says he is leading the forces without Arthelyn and wonders whether he once knew the fallen Maah-na and Akh-a. He sees Azalith's advance as brave rather than rash, remembers her protecting their family's garden, and questions whether he and Arthelyn could have done more to prevent her fall.

For a Hero caught unaware by these circumstances, Aranx offers a journey to the Celestial Past, where younger versions of the siblings can reveal how they came to be. He calls the rivers of time dangerous and apologizes for forcing the Hero through them. He wants to go along, but refuses to give in to that temptation.

Evangeline, the Celestial Lorekeeper, says the coming battle may decide the fate of Celestials and Infernals and attract the Bright One's gaze. Aranx has asked her to help prepare the Hero for Azalith. She proposes learning about the enemy by hunting Infernals and sealing their voices and histories in the ink of Celestial Tears. Her four scroll investigations form their own chain of preparation.

Aranx's two field requests support the defense. Head Hunters sends the Hero after Maah-na and Akh-a; Azalith's Ambition seeks Azalith's Eye and aims to cast her back down. Aranx fears that his sister will not stop until she reaches the Bright One or they destroy her for good.

The Infernal Warlord

The first scroll quest sends the Hero to the Lost Ruins to confront the Infernal Warlord. Its prompt describes a being that yearned for the light it had been ignored by, and says the scroll will capture its voice and history.

In her completion note, Evangeline calls this Warlord pitiable and says the Bright One's light remains in its blood but not its mind. The scroll gives a wider account: the original Infernal once protected the Celestial Realm, and the Realm was its home before its fall.

The scroll presents memory and yearning for home as difficult to erase. Beneath the Infernals' ambition and greed, it says, is a desire to return to a lost time, a wish that haunts even those created from ashes and venom. It also claims they outnumber Celestials because they found an unspeakable way to mimic the Bright One's creative power. The children born by that method have never seen the Celestial Realm, yet still hear its call.

A path of decay

The second scroll quest takes the Hero to the Lost Ruins War for the Diabolical Warlord, a transformation Evangeline describes as born from decay rather than growth. Its scroll says the original Infernal began slowly dying when she turned against her brethren, and describes all Infernals as falling toward oblivion. A Celestial gains wings and eyes as it draws closer to the Bright One; an Infernal sprouts horns and extra limbs as its end approaches.

Evangeline says an Infernal's sense of self decays as more horns appear. The scroll likens their might to the final flash of a dying star: new strength comes at the cost of selfhood. It warns that they will become nothing before reaching the bottom of their fall and aim to take everyone with them. Its account declares the decline irreversible: a black hole cannot become a star again, and there is no way back.

Bargains and competing origins

The Malxas scroll quest leads to the Infernal Spire to confront the Living Infernal Stronghold. Evangeline says mortals have used texts to summon Malxas for wishes, and warns that it accepts offerings but has never kept a promise. The scroll describes Infernals as more willing than Celestials to entertain mortals' selfish wishes of grandeur and greed, with tomes and scrolls facilitating contact with beings such as Malxas.

The scroll describes Malxas building monuments for Lords and Warlocks. Pact-bearers were promised that fortresses built on sacrificed bones would never fall, yet rubble piled like mountains along nameless roads testifies against those promises. Malxas accepts even the smallest deals and offerings. Its fellow Infernals would not mock its strength, the scroll says, but even they scorn its failure to keep its word.

The final scroll task sends the Hero to the Infernal Arena to defeat Na'al and become its new Champion. Evangeline says his title, Lord of the Scarred Barrens, predates his place as the arena's first Champion. She is disturbed to learn that the Barrens are on Lore and that a town now stands there; its people, she warns, should move.

The scroll says even Na'al has forgotten which origin is true. One tale has him crush a Celestial's heart as they both fall into Lore; another says he was born in a quiet inn, and fire spread from his cradle until it reduced a city to dust. Both tales end in a barren wasteland. A new town was built over those ashes, the scroll says, where thousands live unaware of Na'al's lingering evil. The town is unnamed, and neither origin is chosen as the truth.