Elegaius

The official chronicle of the Sacred Order positions the organization as wholly benevolent and just. According to its archives, its history is as pure as its duty to Lumaya – one that is free of scandal, corruption, or sedition. Anyone who has faced the terrifying zeal of a rogue Sacred Order purgation force would quarrel with this assessment. While many would point to any number of cruel and brutal recent incidents, there exists one tale in the Order's early history that suggests the turmoil within its ranks has existed longer than many realize. That is the tale of High Priestess Elegaius. A once pious priestess of the Sacred Order’s gleaming cathedral city, the Eternal Citadel, Elegaius became disillusioned with Lumaya. While Siroth's influence on the world was plain to see, the Arbiter and her Lightbringers seemed the only link Lumaya had left with the mortal world. There was no word from Lumaya despite all the Order’s adoring hymns, no sign of direct divine intervention from their loving deity, and no answer to their pleas. There was only suffering and pain as the followers of Siroth ran roughshod over each corner of the world. To Elegaius, Lumaya seemed to have abandoned her creation to the wolves. It was in this turmoil and despair that Siroth himself saw an opportunity. All it took was a mysterious black mask, which Elegaius found deep within the Eternal Citadel's reliquary. It whispered to Elegaius, speaking the truth of the world, of Lumaya’s abandonment of Teleria, and that it knew how to claw back the attention of the Goddess. Elegaius listened to the mask's every poisoned word. It called for a grand choir – something with a voice loud enough to reach wherever Lumaya had sequestered herself. Elegaius would lead the body and use the power of its volume to interrogate the Goddess, who had left her creations to suffer. Using her rank and title, Elegaius assembled a great mass within the depths of the Eternal Citadel, from where she knew its cacophonous song would feel as if it could reverberate across the whole world. Elegaius led the chorus in its singing of Lumaya's Light and Love. The congregation was brought to tears by the harmonies. It was then that the mask called out, begging Elegaius to wear it so they might call out to Lumaya together. After she donned the black mask, it bound itself to her face, and twisted into a horrifying visage. A great forked tongue lolled from its maw, while Elegaius’ voice grew guttural, strange, and eldritch. It became louder than the screams of the now horrified singers. It shook the very foundations of the Citadel, and the members of the choir writhed in agony. The melody had transformed into a hellish shriek, the force of it rending the very souls of its listeners from their bodies. A formless void manifested around Elegaius, drawing in the tortured souls of her choir. The earsplitting howl reached its crescendo until suddenly... there was silence. Elegaius' own body could not sustain the infernal magic and had collapsed, apparently now dead, under the weight of its power. But her corpse was not wholly inanimate. Where her life ended, her Undeath began. Leaving untold desecration behind her, Elegaius crawled away into the darkness before the Order discovered her sins, the souls of her damned choir trailing behind her. When priests and knights uncovered the devastation deep in the Eternal Citadel, and extracted confessions from the handful of survivors, they attempted to destroy all evidence of what happened. They then propagated word of a witch who had dared to breach the sanctity of the Citadel, who should be hunted down and watched for at all times. That was long ago, but Elegaius is still said to haunt Teleria, gathering strength to one day complete her black mass. Together with her choir of damned souls, she still aims to finally tear through the bounds of creation, and demand an answer from her creator.