Keberon the Underflame

‘Ho, beast! So I’m to claim your shell, eh? Would you perhaps like to give it me now, and spare yourself a thrashing?Ah, but what sport would that be?’ – Keberon, taunting the Kostomian De vii-Crab during his fifth trial of the One Below The mighty Keberon was once a Pyrenei who served the Acolytes of the Slither. He was not a priest, but a holy warrior — devoted to the mystical cult of flame, lava, smoke, and Darkness, showing his faith through battle, training, and adventure rather than ritual and contemplation. The more erudite Acolytes originally accepted his boisterous presence because he was a strong and loyal defender who could keep hostile factions at bay. Years ago in his youth, while roaming through lava tubes beneath a dormant volcano questing for new holy sites, Keberon came upon a set of ancient steles bearing inscriptions of Pyrenei origin. These standing stones indicated a series of trials designed to test the faith and prowess of a pilgrim seeking to become the champion of a mysterious chthonic entity – the ‘One Below’, the ‘Watcher-in-Gloom’, the ‘King of the Dead’, and more. Keberon consulted with Acolyte sages, but only the eldest and most learned recognized the titles as belonging to a powerful Aethereal of old, one who had separated himself from his peers to pursue the mysteries of the inner world alone. They bade Keberon attempt the trials, which could only be completed on specific remote islands across the Argolades, indicated by maps and text inscribed on the steles. Keberon’s adventures completing the trials, which numbered eleven in all, became the stuff of legend. On the isle of Aegemon he battled the Aegemonic Behemoth, a shaggy beast said to be as large as a mountain. He journeyed to the island of the Stone Sages, who challenged him to a contest of philosophy and rhetoric. After the living statues ran rings around his oratory and mocked him, Keberon responded by smashing them to pieces until their leader surrendered the debate and declared Keberon the winner. He also met with a being of living flame who dwelt in a volcanic caldera, and survived its searing embrace to gain its blessing. After some nine years of struggle, Keberon returned to the steles in triumph. The Acolytes had created a shrine there to study and worship the ancient texts, and received Keberon as a hero. Possessed by supernatural certainty and insight as though guided by destiny, Keberon descended even further into the sweltering, sulfurous roots of the mountain, to receive his audience with the primordial one below, as though following a call that only he could hear. When Keberon returned, his eyes glowed with flame, and a three-headed canine beast followed obediently at his heel. He could not say precisely what had happened, but could only mutter that an ecstatic frenzy of Darkness had overtaken him and his memories were fractured. He was changed — deeper of voice and sterner of aspect, his youthful exuberance given way to a powerful maturity and poise. No longer a servant of the Acolytes, but now a figure of reverence, Keberon set forth on a journey to return to the sites of his trials. He was determined to create a new set of arduous challenges, so that the tradition would not end with him.