The Fall of Rembas

First Stripe

A great many years ago, long before the fight between Samjan and Tarmiz and even longer before the Queen began her dominion over these lands, one country existed. Legend says it took the northeastern part of the regions of Samara and cartered some of the greatest powers ever known to any existing creature. This land’s name was Rembas, derived from the first letter of each founder’s name. Rigel, Esahar, Moelin, Bascus, Aifel and Sarzat. A group of six sages who had achieved temporal immortality and wanted to share that with the people.

And thus, they began walking the wilds outside the walls of the few cities that then existed, those which now are mere ruins. It didn’t take them long to gather a group big enough to travel to the previously mentioned region, in the north east of these lands. A mountainous region, plagued with sharp peaks and caves filled with creatures each more dangerous than the last. However, to sages who have discovered immortality, those creatures were nothing but child’s play, so the whole group kept moving forward at a slow but steady rate. Eventually, they found a mesa, hidden between mountains in the deepest part of the region. That was the place the sages decided to settle in and in a few years, with help from the every single human both powerful and brave enough to try and reach that place, the city was completed. It’s name was The Pinacle, for being one of the highest points in the region was it not for the peaks.

In short time, the city was recognised as one of the greatest in these lands. Those who had seen it spoke wonders and those who hadn’t spoke even greater wonders. Rembas was definitely a magnificence, but the six founders of it began growing paranoid as time wasn’t able to hurt them, but living beings and disasters could. Still, after a brief meeting they agreed that their feelings were puny worries that in no way or form could come true…but one question remained in their minds, the one question that completely destroyed both the city and the region.

“What if…?”

Second Stripe

Many years had passed after the founding of The Pinnacle, years the founders spent resting, knowing their people didn’t need them. At least not until an army of a country outside of Samara attacked. When the citizens awoke the six sages and they got to see the result of the attack, they were petrified. Yes, the city has grown immense and astounding along the years, but that army was powerful and even after a crushing defeat, what they were able to do and what they wanted to do was clear. They wanted to conquer Samara, and Rembas was to be their first and greatest success.

The six founders decided to meet again, as their biggest fear had taken place. The discussion lasted more than a whole week and in the end, they decided to use Rembas itself to ward the invaders away. After that, in a matter of days every spellcaster in the region was working on it. Some were raising walls of earth and stone, some were teaching the mountains to see and to hear, some people were raising massive beasts of the minerals found in their caves, some others were training creatures to fight for them when the time came. Everyone was focused on turning Rembas into a weapon, even the six founders. However, they were not running around their lands talking with mounds of stone nor showing creatures how to be mounted. They were under the mesa, deep inside a mine, creating the engine that would make the region a living creature itself. Can you imagine? Rembas, with its thousands of peaks sharp as fangs, each grain of sand acting as a single eye, each mountain able to hear and to speak. A true living land.

The one thing they didn’t know…or rather they didn’t count on was that the lands of Samara are powerful, filled with power. Such a thing made Rembas a region rich in magic cultivated by wizards. However, how would the founders of Rembas know such a thing if even nowadays is still matter of discussion? Yes, since the very moment they decided to use the nature around them as their weapon, it was a plan doomed to fail. Now, how, and hear me out when I say how, would anyone have known that it all was going to end in such a horrible way? Their citizens turned into wandering ashes and the sages turned into deformed bits of ashen bones that feed the power of the one beast that is Rembas.

Third Stripe

Years went by, and thus, the time before Rembas was fully turned into a living being was shortening. The engine was now almost complete. The hills had eyes, the winds of Rembas had voice and ears and the creatures could communicate with the people. Travellers stopped coming to the region, as they were afraid of the land itself. The greatest persons in these lands broke contact with The Pinnacle, wary of them, because what could be done if the sages decided to wage war on Samara? What could mere people do against a whole land? Rembas became a land for itself and those who lived in it. Did that please it’s citizens? No, gods no, but they were too busy with other matters to even think about doing something against it and the founders took their lack of words as an indication of approval. To this day, some argue that, if those who stayed silent had spoken at the right time, Rembas wouldn’t be what it is now. Still, nothing but silence happened and the day of the fall was closer each day.

Once the time was right, the engine…or rather the heart of the massive beast that Rembas was to be, was completed, the sages returned to the surface and rose the heart of Rembas with them. It was a creature on itself, with glimpses of sentience. A monstrous compound of stones, earth and sand that displeased the populace the very second they saw it. “You have gone too far” said some. “This is not right” said others. “What will you do if it turns on us?” said the last ones. And even if someone would think that it had to please someone, they would be wrong. Only the sages seemed to defend their creation and even their conviction was starting to shatter. In the end, the founders saw their mistake and decided to take power away from the beast, but the damage was already done.

The six of them returned to the deepest part of Rembas and began siphoning power from the creature, but some of that power was not just the creature’s. Some of that power was the energy that Rembas itself had, and being sentient as it was, it felt in danger…so it reacted accordingly.

In the surface of the region, fire was the first thing that came. An intense, suffocating fire that burned down every plant, every building and turned many living beings into cinder. Then those cinders, as they were part of Rembas, arose creating dark, dense clouds of ashes that burned others from the inside. After that, the earth erupted with lava. The snows from the highest peaks melted, turning into waves of fluid mud drowning and destroying whatever they found. No creature or person remained in the whole surface. Only the sages were alive by then.

In the depths, where the founders absorbed the power of both the beast and Rembas, the floor below them began shattering. Bright lava began surrounding the heart while it began taking another shape. Then, in an instant, the tables turned. Rembas began draining the power from each of the six founders, incinerating them before they could realise the magnitude of the mistake they had made. After the demise of the last sage, the land above the newly shaped heart of Rembas opened as it came to the surface. By that time, it was all over. All the living beings in the region had been turned into ashes, that would later form the Red Legions, or had found their end in other ways. These last became creatures, undead, powered by flames, covered in thin layers of brimstone with lava running through their body. Imagine the sight, dark dragons flying through the skies and leaving a trail of lukewarm, ashen dust. Hunters whose body was pure black commanding hounds with eyes bright red.

Those were the creatures some claim to have seen. But what about the heart? What about the creature that is Rembas? Its shape is mostly unknown, except from some theories. The one most popular is it having a human shape with a draconic-like head, no mouth and something resembling of a horn over what would be the nose. Such things were written by an adventurer, famous for having travelled to places of legend. That adventurer gives the heart the name by which it’s mostly known today. the Tyrant of Rembas. Whether that would be the most accurate description of it, I do not know, but since there seems to be nothing better to describe it, then a tyrant it remains.

Closing Stripe

Now, there are so many things said about Rembas that is hard to tell truth from lie, but some of the most known and revered sayings about it indicate that the region began wandering after the Queen became interested and sent a group of explorers to tame it. That theory claims that they didn’t succeed, but weren’t far from it. Also, it seems the Red Legion always appears before Rembas to advise people of its proximity, so they can flee to safety. At some point, there are claims that the Tyrant of Rembas met its end long ago, but it doesn’t seem likely. Then, there are scholars claiming that the only way to enter Rembas is to make it lay down by damaging its legs, which is plainly ludicrous. Apart from that, the only other claims worth mentioning is some of the speculations about where Rembas lays to rest, which is not really known, and the claim that once Rembas disturbed the Primordial Dragon, engaging in a fight with him, which would be the reason Rembas can’t be seen in the southeast of these lands.