Archmage Alric

Archmage Alric

Архимаг Алрик was the leader of the Zamorakian magi at Dowdun Reach and a senior figure within the Children of Shadows. He served as Archmage to Lord Rasmodel until losing authority over the keep's dreaming stone in the wake of a closed-door confrontation. His covert efforts to circumvent that loss eventually allowed demons to bleed directly into the walls of the fortress.

History

Alric considered knowledge to be a precondition of power, and held that power's true purpose was not the control of others but the freedom of the self. The lectures he left for his apprentices set out a sequential discipline. The apprentice was first to know his own ignorance, then to seek a comprehension of the true nature of the world, and finally to put the resulting power to ambitious task, since power without purpose was a liability. Under his leadership the Zamorakian magi at Dowdun Reach were a noble order committed to chaos, demonology, and destruction. He maintained an unexplained standing order on the keep's ranged forces that the red, glowing ravens of Dowdun Reach were not to be shot, and to do so was an immediate dismissal.

Within the keep's command structure he answered to Lord Rasmodel, and his working relationship with the lord deteriorated over time. Alric had been quietly tracking the casualty rate of his magi for years before he brought his findings to Rasmodel one morning. The ledger accounted for one hundred and seventeen mage deaths drawn from one hundred and seventeen separate incidents, with no incident having claimed more than a single magus. The pattern was no coincidence. Rasmodel had given his Shadow Knights a covert standing order called the 'Demon's Share', under which one mage fatality per unruly demon incident was permitted as a measure for managing mage numbers. Alric's protest accomplished nothing. Rasmodel issued a fresh order the next day raising the per-incident allowance from one mage to two. The episode marked the limits of his authority within the keep.

Outside it, his hand was freer. At a routine trade meeting with an envoy of Imaru and Xikotal from Emberwood, the cleric who had been sent arrived dressed in mystic cloth, a fabric until then reserved for the Archmage and his council. Alric burned the contract she had brought and blasted her off the top of Dowdun Reach. When Rasmodel later sought a way to place eyes among the Moon Garou and could not find a human able to pass for one of them, Alric proposed using mystic cloth itself, on the grounds that its tendency to retain and repeat resonance could be turned to the work of surveillance.

Within the keep, the order's discipline held up less well. It broke down when an infernal demon materialised during a Shadow Knight training session and slaughtered the unarmed recruits. Alric and Rasmodel withdrew into the war room and barred the doors. What passed between them was never recorded, but the outcome was that authority over the dreaming stone and the power it generated passed solely to Rasmodel, with the demon portal placed under strict rationing. Alric and his magi found themselves stripped of their independent power.

Alric did not accept the new arrangement. His faithful began re-routing the Dreaming Stone's energy through the keep, threading it through and around residences and siphoning the Library, which had been built to ward against magical overflow. The flows that had once been arterial became a capillary network spread throughout the Reach, prone to overload, fire, and outbreak.

He paired this work with a new application of his theories of demonic possession. Having observed that demons were drawn to the company of other demons, he reasoned that an infernal gateway might be made self-sustaining if it could be infused with stored demon souls. The gateway gave a different result in practice. The souls intended to power it bled instead into the surrounding fortress until each brick whispered with the avernic, and demons began to summon themselves from any room without prompting. He framed the result, in the manner he had learned from observing Rasmodel, as having been his intention all along.

External events eventually drew his attention as well. He received an assessment of the necroseismic event later known as the Withering, addressed to him as Lord Alric, recommending that Dowdun Reach be sealed against intrusion and all pathways to Fellhollow severed.

In his later years he took his thinking to the maple groves of Dowdun Reach. As age made the walk a strain, he took to carrying a maple staff as a portable remnant of the grove. The staff served a second purpose as well. Inside the wood was rolled a defaulted demon pact in which the demon, rather than the human, had failed to keep their side, and Alric had bound the radiating power of that broken bargain into the subjugation staff. By his own account from this period, his sleep had stopped producing dreams of his own, his flesh felt alien to him, and the voices that surrounded him oscillated between addressing him with veneration and with contempt.

See also

• Lord Rasmodel
• Children of Shadows
• Dreaming stone
• Subjugation staff

References

1. ↑ Journal entry of Zamorak Hood, RuneScape: Dragonwilds. "their leader, Alric"
2. ↑ Journal entry of Alric's Notes, RuneScape: Dragonwilds. "the purpose of power is not to control others, but to set oneself free."
3. ↑ Journal entry of Alric's Notes, RuneScape: Dragonwilds. "Power must be put to task, or it is mere languid possibility, that none should seek."
4. ↑ Journal entry of Zamorak Hood, RuneScape: Dragonwilds. "They were once a noble order, committed to chaos, demonology and destruction."
5. ↑ Journal entry of Mithril Crossbow, RuneScape: Dragonwilds. "Shooting the red, glowing ravens was an immediate dismissal, however. Alric demanded they were protected, for reasons that he never expanded on."
6. ↑ Journal entry of Black Knight Platelegs, RuneScape: Dragonwilds. "His relationship with Alric, Archmage, deteriorated."
7. ↑ Journal entry of Shadow Body, RuneScape: Dragonwilds. "There were one-hundred and seventeen deaths, and they came from one-hundred and seventeen incidents. There was no single incident where more than one mage died."
8. ↑ Journal entry of Shadow Cowl, RuneScape: Dragonwilds. "The Shadow Knights would allow for the 'Demon's Share'. Should a demon become unruly, one single mage fatality was encouraged before the demon was to be put down. It was like the culling of rabbits. The mage numbers needed to be managed."
9. ↑ Journal entry of Shadow Body, RuneScape: Dragonwilds. "All Shadow Knights were to allow two magi to die with each incident."
10. ↑ Journal entry of Mystic Robes, RuneScape: Dragonwilds. "Alric burned the contract and blasted the envoy off the top of Dowdun Reach."
11. ↑ Journal entry of Mystic Robe Legs, RuneScape: Dragonwilds. "But, like a parrot, it could also retain resonance and repeat it. With work, the mystic cloth could surveil the Moon Garou."
12. ↑ Journal entry of Zamorak Hood, RuneScape: Dragonwilds. "An infernal demon materialised during a Shadow Knight training session. The recruits were memorising guard rotations, so only their teacher was armed. It was a massacre."
13. ↑ Journal entry of Zamorak Hood, RuneScape: Dragonwilds. "The Dreaming Stone, and the allocation of power that came from it, would be managed solely by Lord Rasmodel. The demon portal would have its power rationed."
14. ↑ Journal entry of Zamorak Hood, RuneScape: Dragonwilds. "Alric and his magi had their wings clipped."
15. ↑ Journal entry of Zamorak Robes, RuneScape: Dragonwilds. "Energy tethers from the Dreaming Stone passed through and round residences. The Library, which warded against magical overflows, had its power siphoned."
16. ↑ Journal entry of Zamorak Robes, RuneScape: Dragonwilds. "Where the Dreaming Stone's energy-flows were once arterial, they were now like capillaries. The energy spread everywhere, a webbing throughout the Reach."
17. ↑ Journal entry of Alric's Plan (Part 1), RuneScape: Dragonwilds. "If I could bottle and transpose the soul of a demon... could I infuse a demonic gateway? My theory, my hope, is that the gateway would enthrall others of their kind."
18. ↑ Journal entry of Alric's Plan (Part 2), RuneScape: Dragonwilds. "Each brick now whispers with the avernic. They are in the walls. Demons now summon themselves, at their own whims, from any room."
19. ↑ Journal entry of Alric's Plan (Part 2), RuneScape: Dragonwilds. "I do not run from this. It was my intention. I claim it."
20. ↑ Journal entry of A Report on the Withering, RuneScape: Dragonwilds. "Lord Alric, please find the group's assessment of the necroseismic event that the locals call 'The Withering'... It is our recommendation that all efforts are made to seal Dowdun Reach."
21. ↑ Journal entry of Maple Battlestaff, RuneScape: Dragonwilds. "Alric relished walking among the maple trees... But the maples were for thinking."
22. ↑ Journal entry of Maple Battlestaff, RuneScape: Dragonwilds. "In his twilight years, Alric carried a maple staff with him: the Subjugation Staff... a way to bring the grove with him."
23. ↑ Journal entry of Subjugation Staff, RuneScape: Dragonwilds. "It was a demon pact, but one that had been defaulted on. A demon, not a human, had failed to keep their side of the bargain... Alric captured that power within the staff."
24. ↑ Journal entry of Alric's Journal, RuneScape: Dragonwilds. "I cannot remember the last time I dreamed a dream of my own, and not that of... the other... All will come to respect me. All will come to despise me."