The Four Harbingers

The Hall of Four

Aranx says the Four Harbingers have returned under the Bright One's control and are set on culling those who are not. He has trapped them before the Hall's doors, but warns their escape could destroy the Celestial Realm again. He calls the Hall of Four their birthplace and says the Bright One made them living embodiments of its will, as replacements for Dage's Horsemen after the Horsemen fell to Celestial light.

Aranx says rebuilding the realm is long and painful: the Bright One's loyalists resist his rebuilding efforts both physically and socially, and talk of Infernals can spark riots. He admits the struggle sometimes makes him want to give up, but says he made a promise to his sisters and intends to keep it. He hopes the survivors will one day choose where the light leads them.

The Harbingers' arrival makes Aranx suspect another power grab, yet he cannot detect Anethyx'o anywhere in the Celestial Realm. He wonders whether the creator is preoccupied or afraid to return. The latter possibility troubles him: if the Hero is not keeping the Bright One away, what is?

The first target is Halosis, Harbinger of Conquest. Aranx calls them the earliest to arrive when the Harbingers find a target and says the first seal is closest to breaking. He suggests a taunt comparing Halosis to the Legion's Conquest; after Halosis is defeated, he notices the Harbinger has no voice and guesses Anethyx'o feared Conquest's power to compel obedience.

After Halosis, the route turns to Bello, Harbinger of War, at the next weakest seal. Aranx says Bello's presence provokes rage in the Bright One's followers. When Bello falls, the others batter their doors harder; Aranx wonders whether Bello's power reached them, whether the Hero's presence angered them, or whether they sensed one of their own was downed. He says their cries sound like mourning, but does not settle why.

The Last Doors

Aranx next sends the Hero after Fames, Harbinger of Famine. He says scholars believe the scales on Fames contain Celestial and Infernal essence. He warns that contact with one could make a mindless servant and the other could kill, and forbids looking inside a third scale. After Fames is defeated, Aranx admits he both wanted to avoid and wanted to inspect it, and wonders whether even the Bright One knows what lies inside.

Mors, Harbinger of Death, is last among the original four. Aranx repeats a scholar's description of Mors appearing briefly to cull victims, along with a belief that victims may be reborn as followers of Anethyx'o. He says the Hero stood against death and lived; after the Harbinger falls, he thinks they may have been smiling. He then hears something deeper in the temple, despite believing the Harbingers dead and his own forces keeping everyone else out.

Aranx hears a terrifying, unintelligible sound behind the last barrier and concludes that Anethyx'o is watching. He interprets the creation within as a revenge plan prepared in case the Hero arrived. After the defeat of Anethyx'o's Absolution, he is startled by a fifth Harbinger that the other Celestials never mentioned. He wonders why it was made now and whether the Hero's arrival provoked it, then notices that the Hero seems distant. The reason for the creation remains uncertain.

Aranx asks the Hero to find six scrolls that might explain how the Harbingers came to be. Their apparent mourning made him question whether they were as brainwashed as the Bright One's other false Avatars. The recovered accounts turn from the temple's battles to the family the Harbingers once were.

The Quartet

The unnamed Celestial narrator begins with a story told about the Horsemen: before light, the Underworld was an empty abyss; four great beasts arose, found a master, and received four riders. The narrator says this is all Celestials are told about the Horsemen, so the origin remains a report rather than a witnessed history.

The narrator sets the Horsemen against Celestial teaching about souls returning to the Bright One. They wonder whether the Horsemen do not know of that promised ending or knowingly refuse it, and imagine the Bright One could have helped them rather than making a new kind of Horsemen. These are the narrator's doubts and beliefs, not an independent account of what happens to souls.

The narrator calls the new figures War, Conquest, Famine, and Death, and says the Bright One chose devoted followers to become the Four Harbingers. The narrator describes those chosen ones as former family, then admits to questioning whether this was the only way to carry light across Lore. The punishment, as remembered, was to watch the siblings receive their gifts.

The narrator remembers the siblings entering the Bright One's light one by one as their bodies were reshaped. The process was painful, but the narrator cannot tell whether their screams came from joy or pleasure; the siblings were said to smile through it, then emerge with stoic frowns and leave without farewell. Years later, none has returned home. The narrator misses them, interprets that ache as a possible message, and writes to remember who they were while urging readers to believe and follow.

Iter the Wanderer

The Wanderer scroll describes the spread of the Bright One's message, then asks whether that mission should reach still more kingdoms. Iter, the narrator's younger brother, dreamed of distant worlds and innocent souls to save.

Iter's journeys kept him away for months. He returned with stories and relics from unfamiliar lands, along with occasional reports of new believers. The narrator remembers the home filled with these relics and the ordinary worry that Iter might be late for daily worship.

The narrator says Iter's journeys were not always carefully planned: he entered dangerous places and returned through ingenuity and what the narrator calls divine favor. Even before contact with the Bright One, Iter wanted to reach the Underworld because the narrator says he saw it as most in need of healing. The narrator wonders whether that boldness drew the creator to him.

The narrator says the Harbinger's gift is salvation only for those who accept it willingly, yet wonders whether Iter's new journeys are truly his free choice. The narrator admits to missing Iter least—not for lack of love, but because repeated goodbyes become easier.

Pugna the Preacher

The Preacher scroll begins by describing Celestial wars as a way to bring light to those who resist it. Pugna, the narrator's oldest brother, believed the more important struggle was between mind and heart, and that understanding both mattered to understanding Celestial teaching.

The narrator remembers Pugna treating dissenters with respect. He taught that everyone faced inner opponents and tried to bring others closer to the Celestials through kindness and patience, rather than force.

Pugna's reasoning, as the narrator recalls it, was that only the Bright One knew what took place inside a soul and therefore only the creator had the right to judge it in the afterlife. Celestials, in his view, should turn their blades inward and address their own imperfections before attacking others for theirs.

The narrator's own mind and heart remain divided: one side loves the Bright One and is glad the siblings may have eternal life, while the other wishes they would give up their titles and return to the family. The narrator leaves unresolved which feeling belongs to which side.

These days, the narrator says, Pugna's war is mostly physical. The patient preacher now brings the Bright One's wrath to blasphemers with ceremonial maces. The narrator wonders whether this fits Pugna's beliefs and whether the old battle between mind and heart still rages inside his new shell.

Abundantia's Care and the Harbinger's Scales

The unnamed narrator remembers Abundantia as a surrogate mother to her siblings, having been told that Infernals killed their parents before the children were old enough to remember them. The narrator recalls her as kind and devoted to the Bright One, but says she helped people through good works regardless of whether they were humans, Elves, Horcs, or Infernals.

At shelters above and below the clouds, the family spoke to people who had strayed from the Bright One's light. Abundantia offered two barrels: one she called divine nectar for those who pledged loyalty, and one a lesser charity for doomed souls. The narrator says they sampled both and found them identical—sweet, nourishing, and as warm as their sister's heart.

The narrator describes the first of three scales on Abundantia's new body as honey-gold nectar reserved for Celestials, leaving them craving more and eager to obey the Bright One. The second holds repulsive black mud: the account says parasites consume its drinkers from within, including some forced to drink for blasphemy. The third bowl remains just out of reach. Its contents are unknown, and the narrator wonders whether even the Bright One knows what is sealed within.

Quies, the Innocent

The unnamed narrator remembers Quies as the youngest sibling, a child who slipped away from worship to creeks and groves. She believed the Bright One was present in palaces and among the Celestial trees, and spent her days walking forest paths, drawing with leaves and sticks, watching sunsets, and dancing with fireflies. The narrator calls it a simple, free life, perhaps more fulfilling than conquest in the Bright One's name.

The scroll says there were five siblings but four Harbingers to create. The narrator reports that the Bright One planned to begin with the eldest, leaving Quies as the fifth and final child who would be taken under its wing; the narrator imagines she would have lived in light and luxury if they had not failed in their duty. This plan and counterfactual come from the narrator's guilt-filled account.

Quies was afraid when the family saw the Bright One. The narrator remembers her being lifted into the air and warped from within, and describes a nearly overwhelming urge to save her. The creator blames the narrator for her fate. The memory leaves a lasting conviction: it could have been the narrator, and should have been.

Other Celestials tell the narrator that Quies rarely appears at the Bright One's revels and manifests to strike those who defy its will. Survivors describe graceful blade movements and distant humming. The narrator also hears her voice and glimpses the child they once knew; the shadow draws closer, and the happy melody becomes a funeral dirge. Whether this is a warning or another consequence of the narrator's supposed sin remains unanswered. Whatever her next visit may mean, the narrator anticipates it more than any encounter with the other siblings.

The Heretic's Plea

The unnamed narrator asks why the Bright One cares about the Underworld and why the Harbingers returned, admitting they still cannot answer the latter. The narrator says the Bright One told the siblings about its interest in the Underworld on the morning the family was divided, and now recounts that explanation a thousand years to the day. In the narrator's account, the Bright One created the Celestials on the highest peaks, while those in their paradise rarely considered what lay below.

The narrator describes the Underworld as a place the Bright One found sickening, where its inhabitants struggle over power. The narrator contrasts this with the Horsemen: their steeds predate the Lord of the Legion, choose their own hosts, and can enslave kingdoms or crush them. The text then presents the Harbingers as an attempt to improve on the Horsemen and argues that the Bright One's light makes its creations stronger and more significant. These are the narrator's judgments about the two powers.

After saying the Bright One spoke to the narrator again, the scroll describes an unknown presence deep in the abyss, glimpsed only briefly from its prison. The narrator wonders whether it is another Horseman or instead reveals a lack in the Harbingers, and says the Bright One seemed disturbed. The presence is never named, and the narrator does not settle what it is.

The narrator proposes that the Bright One create a presence of its own, then begs to be chosen and reshaped. They offer mind, body, and soul for a chance at redemption and reunion with their family. They envision a devoted being able to meet any task and Harbingers riding together across Lore and beyond, spreading the creator's will and absolution. Absolution, they decide, would be a fitting name for a being meant to surpass Death. The account ends with this plea rather than showing the creator's response.

After the Scrolls

After reading the gathered scrolls, Aranx lets out a low growl; his hands shake, and the eyes beneath his helmet glow red. He recognizes a loving family torn apart and connects Absolution's name with the fifth Harbinger's plea for forgiveness. He promises that they will bury all the bodies together.

In his post-Absolution dialogue, Aranx says he no longer detects Anethyx'o and concludes that the Bright One fled rather than face the Hero. He offers further challenges against copies he made from the Harbingers' residual energy, distinguishing them from the originals.

Aranx thanks his friend for saving them again and hopes his people will someday be strong enough to return the favor. Rebuilding and reconciliation remain unfinished, but his promise to his sisters gives him reason to keep working.