Elric was roused from his nap by the ringing of the library's bell. He knew what this alarm meant; the day they had all been dreading had come. He sits up quickly, and begins pulling on his boots.
“Elric, wake yourself!” Elder Ferris calls, forgoing the formality of knocking, and letting himself into the younger man's bedchamber.
“I hear the alarm, Elder,” Elric says, rising from his bed, and grabbing the leather pack from the floor in front of the bedside table, “Is this it?”
“Yes, my child, Malifar's troops are at the border of Malliard now, the town guard will not hold them for long, they will be here shortly. Are you ready?”
“Yes, Elder.”
“You mustn't fail us, Elric, you mustn't let the contents of the library or the Krezzin fall into the hands of Malifar. He has taken the academy itself, and he must not be allowed to add the knowledge contained within these walls to what he already possesses. Better it be destroyed and lost to this world than given to him.”
“Do you truly think it will come to that? I mean, can we not fight them off?”
“We are skilled, but they are many. We must assume we will be overwhelmed, which is why you have been trained to be the Krezzin's keeper. Do you have it?”
Elric holds up the pack, “I have it here, elder.”
“Good, go to the restricted section and barricade yourself in. Do not open the door unless you are given the pass phrase. If you must, then use the Krezzin.”
“Yes, Elder.”
“Can you do it, Elric, can you use the Krezzin if it comes to it? Tell me truthfully, for if you have any doubt in your mind you must tell me now.”
“I will do my duty, Elder Ferris.”
“I know that you will, now go!”
After the dark wizard Malifar, thought to have been killed centuries ago, destroyed the Mage's Academy, the people of Kingsrealm took notice. Now calling himself Malifar the Inevitable, he began to retake lands he once ruled with an army that even the king's forces could only slow down.
Each town Malifar took, he had his forces secure the mage's libraries to allow him access to knowledge learned in his absence. The elders at the library of Malliard decided that they would not allow their library to be taken. They devised a plan to use an ancient artifact that was in their possession: the Krezzin.
They knew how to activate the Krezzin, but there were no records of what exactly it did, and none who had even seen it be used were alive to tell about what it did. They trained a small number of their younger mages to bring the device to life, and had them take turns keeping it with them at all times should the need to use it. The time now approaches, and Elric figures it is just his luck that the libraries final stand should come during his time as keeper of the Krezzin.
Elric hurries through the library's living quarters, dodging past mages rushing the other way; mages going to defend the library with their lives. He rushes down the stairs and into the central basement.
The basement of the library is a restricted area, only Elder Mages and specially selected others may even enter it. Elric had never been in the room alone before now. He wishes he had time to truly appreciate this privilege.
Underground, the room has no windows, and is lit only by magelights; candles would put the rare and powerful tomes stored here at unnecessary risk. The room is cold, but the air in it is kept dry to keep the books from being destroyed by molds or mildew.
Elric enters the library, and forces the thick wooden door shut behind him, sealing the only entrance to the room. He struggles the set the thick wooden crossbar in place, locking the rest of the world out.
Placing the leather pack on a table, Elric sits and waits, his leg jittering nervously. He quickly grows tired of sitting and begins to pace.
Outside the battle has begun. The thick stone walls muffle the noise, but Elric can still hear the clanging of swords, the screams of the injured, the yells of the attackers and the defenders. The air around him crackles with residual magic as the mages try to defend their home.
Footfalls on the floor above him. The defenses have been breached; Malifar's army is inside the library. The worst has come to pass. It is time.
Elric opens the leather pack, and takes out an object wrapped in cloth. He places it gently on the table, and unwraps it slowly to reveal what looks like a large, shiny, sky blue egg. He circles the table, inspecting the object he has been charged with protecting and using : the Krezzin.
Something slams against the door hard enough to rattle it in its frame; the noise causes Elric to jump, but the door holds. He steps back behind the table, his hands shaking uncontrollably.
“Brother,” calls a gruff, unfamiliar voice from the other side, “the battle is won, let me in.”
“Wh-wh-,” Elric takes a breath and steadies himself, conjuring up the most confidence he can, “What is the pass phrase?”
There is quiet, and then the voice calls, “Death to Malifar!”
“Incorrect!” Elric yells, and then defiantly, “You will not take this library!”
More quiet, and then, “Slag this!” followed by something slamming against the door.
At first, Elric thinks the invaders are trying to break the door down, a fool's effort, but then he realizes that they are hacking at the door with an axe or sword. The door is holding, but it is only a matter of time before they gain entry. Elric knows he must now do his final duty; to fail would be to disgrace his brother mages and dishonor their sacrifice.
“This doesn't... need to... be this... way,” the voice calls between attacks on the door, “let us... in and... we will... spare you.... You may... serve... the glory... of... Malifar... the Inevitable!”
Elric places his hands on the Krezzin, and starts softly chanting. More magic energy thickens the air.
“What are you fools doing?” A woman's voice asks from the other side of the door, “You will be at that all day!”
“What's the rush?” asks another male voice, this one sounds like it has something in its mouth,
“Malliard is ours!”
“Stand back!” commands the woman.
The Krezzin begins to hum softly, and three horizontal seams appear on it, each opening to about a finger's width revealing blackness inside the egg-shaped object. Elric steps back from it, his job finished. He waits, part of him afraid of his own destruction, part of him interested to see what will happen.
The door vibrates violently before a hole the size of a large dog explodes into the library, showering everything with splinters of wood. Elric is knocked off balance, and staggers back against a bookshelf before slumping to the floor, blood starting to flow from the places where wood has pierced his flesh.
An armoured arm reaches through the hole, lifts the cross bar, and drops it noisily to the floor. The door swings open revealing a large man with a scruffy beard wearing a chest plate and chain mail. There are two figures behind him in the stairway.
One of the figures pushes past the bearded man, an elven woman with flowing blond hair. She wears no armour, only a mage's robes, however hers differ from those of Academy trained mages as they, like the man's armour, are decorated with the sigil of the army of Malifar.
“You are the last one, boy,” the woman says in a commanding tone, “The library is ours; you may surrender or you may die like the others!”
Elric says nothing, only leans against the bookshelf watching as the mage comes further into the room. The bearded man and the third person, an orc in armour identical to the man's, step through the doorway and into the room.
“I know that you speak, boy, do so now or never again,” the mage commands.
“I have done all that I need to do.” Elric says, and smiles sadly, thinking about how his dreams of marriage and a family will never come true now, “I have done my duty, and so honoured my fellow mages.”
“That is good, be sure to tell the gods that when you mee-” the mage is cut off as a narrow beam of blue light, slightly brighter than the surface of the Krezzin's shell, flashes out of the the topmost gap of the artifact and hits her in the chest. She gasps and coughs, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth.
The beam of light continues through the mage and into the wall behind her, where the stone it strikes glow's red, and begins to trickle a thin stream of molten rock down the surface of the wall. She reflexively raises her right hand to the wound, and three of her fingers and her thumb drop off of her hand as they pass through the beam.
The light suddenly circles the room, following the opening in the shell of the Krezzin like a track. It happens so fast that the only way Elric can be sure it happened is the glowing stone and burning wood and paper that is left behind near the room's ceiling, marking a line just above the heads of the orc and the bearded man.
A moment later there is another way that Elric is sure that it happened. The elven mage's arms drop away from her body just above the elbows. No sooner do her arms hit the floor than her legs collapse. The beam cuts through the upper portion of her body as she falls, separating her left shoulder from the upper half of her chest, and leaving a scattering of seared meat wrapped in smoldering robes on the stone floor.
The room quickly fills with the smell of burning wood, paper, and meat.
The orc and bearded man's eyes go wide simultaneously, and they step back into the doorway. Before they can turn and retreat up the stairs, and beam appears out of the Krezzin's middle gap. The beam burns through the bearded man's chest plate like it were paper, entering through the front of his chest and exiting out the back of his neck. From there is drills its way through the orc's face and out the top of the back of his skull. Elric can see one of the tusks that had protruded from the orc soldier's lower jaw drop to the floor before its owner and the bearded man join it; steam rising from the paths burnt in their heads.
Both beams starts to rotate around the Krezzin now, cutting through wood, paper, and stone. As they rotate faster and faster, chunks of stone and wood crumble from the walls and ceiling all around Elric. He does not try to stand and run, he knows it will do no good, and he is too amazed at the sight to bother even trying.
A beam of light fires out of the bottom seam of the Krezzin, and a flash of blue light is the last thing Elric, one of the keepers of the Krezzin, sees in this world. A moment later the ceiling of the room collapses inward, burying Elric, Malifar's soldiers, and the Krezzin, but the Krezzin's beams continue to circle and spin, slicing through everything in their way like fire through ice.
The beams emanating from the Krezzin grow, burning through all they touch; furniture, walls, floors, ceilings, fallen mages, invading soldiers. Nothing is immune to the heat and power of the Krezzin's light. Soon the whole of the library collapses in on itself, even its wreckage being burned away as the spinning lights cut through it.
It takes three days for the site to cool enough to approach. While much of the town still stands, the fires of battle long extinguished, there is one place where the destruction is absolute. Where once stood the Library of Malliard there is now a thirty foot deep crater from which heat still bakes, making the air above it shimmer.
The sides of the crater are coated in brittle chunks of black rock from the stone and ground that had melted and cooled. Two figures gingerly make their way to the center of the crater, ignoring the heat as best they can.
“Malifar will not be pleased,” says one of the figures, a knightlord in blood red armour with a helmet that obscures his whole face.
“It is not our fault, Lord Cruoris, I have never even seen magics such as this,” the other figure, an Orc in chest plate and chain mail.
“You know that Malifar detests excuses, Haxis.”
“Yes, my lord.”
As the pair cross the pit, a spot of colour amongst the black catches the knightlord's eye. He walks to it, kicking away the rocks around it with the toe of his sabaton to reveal a large, blue egg-shaped object; the lone object to survive the energy maelstrom that consumed the library.
“Pick this up,” Cruoris orders.
Haxis kneels down to retrieve the egg. He touches it gingerly, expecting it to be hot like the rocks around it, but the egg is cool to the touch. He lifts it in both hands, holding it up before the knightlord, “What do you suppose it is, my lord?”
“I know not, but hopefully it is enough to allow you to keep your head. Return to Malifar immediately; I shall take direct command of your troops here.”
“Do you think it is important?”
“Do not burden me with your imbecilic questions any longer, Haxis. I do not know what that is, but to be the only object in the whole of the library to not be reduced to char it is either the cause of the destruction, or it is a powerful enough item to withstand what nothing else could. Either way, Malifar will want to see it. Now be on your way!”