They are the priests of Dawn. They welcome the return of the Sun, the end of Twilight.

We don’t worship the Sun, or welcome it. We don’t seek the end of Twilight. All things end, be they peace or war. So will the Twilight. It is not the question when the Dawn will rise, the question is when.

In reality, only one thing is certain.

Changing of times. Change in the world. Time defeates everything and everybody. From highest immortals to lowest mortals, they all succumb to the march of time. Time wears on all things and it is only a matter how much time it is going to take.

Fools of Sun, of Dawn don’t realize it, but time wears on them as well. Does it matter that you conquered your monsters if you became a monster in their place?

Is anything worth that price? Is anything worth that price even though there are plenty of other options to try? Why pay the highest possible price and lose yourself and your people? For what?

Time wears on them and they change, they grow more savage, more bloodthirsty, more revenge prone.

They are no longer the light of the past. No longer lofty and immaculate, now they are down in the mud and tainted by dark.

They are losing themself. Their light. Overstepping.

When Twilight ends, will they still be the same people that rose to fight it first? In spirit?

But, I relent. That is the nature of the living. Change. Heart.

The living dead …

There are many types of undead. And each is different, each seeks a different thing, but I core they seem to share one thing, advancement. Or maybe that’s just me.

Zombies, skeletons, liches, ghosts and many more, countless more. As many as they were nations and the people among the living. Each Different, but alike in want to take the next step in death. Next step in change? In truth we aren’t that much different from the living.

One might even speculate that we are the same.

oH, what a horrendous thought

I wonder how they would take it, both the living and the living dead, if someone told them they are the same?

“huhehe huhehe huhehehehe”

“Master! Stop your creepy laughter, you are scaring the acolytes”

With a thought disappear and reappear at the highest point of the temple. I look down on the world in ruins below me, I look up at the Ash above.

Red is the color of blood, and blood is a thing of life. Spill enough blood and it becomes black, black as death. Life and death. That’s us, the opposite side of the eternal battlefield, the living dead.

Masters of Doom looked down on the world from this very temple and made their desires reality with schemes and plots. They did what their hearts desired, they often fought each other. For the benefit of a fight if not others ultimate death.

Now they stand with singular desires, but they take different measures for different purposes. They still fight, each other and the enemy. They still have different goals, but they are all concaving at the point of defending their home.

The Temple of Doom is ancient, older even than the Fall Church of the Sun. It is the world's first religion. Doom of others and yourself. As such, there is a certain legacy left behind every generation.

The Temple of Doom houses countless screaming souls. Countless ‘thinking heads’ , and now they, now we look up and plot, plan and scheme, we strategize the end of our enemies. The world’s enemies.

Now we all look up.

We look and see the world and it’s cracks. We see the world and its invaders. Foreigners, bringing death and distraction, strangers to this land bringing change and dragging others with them with force or influence.

The elementals taking the extreme places even more extreme, the void gnawing at the world itself, looking for a place to spill from. Strangers taking over living and dead, taking their place in the world and usurping their fate.

And that thing high above. Above then tallest halls, above then highest peaks, beyond the Ash of the sky and moon now seldom seen. Above all that in the coldness of space, it feeds on our warmth, on our Sun.

A Cosims Horror. Even now, sight of it puts terror in my bones, chills run down my marrow and my phalanges grow cold.

That’s my body, my soul burns with hate.

I will end that thing. I will show it the march of time. It has been alive since time itself began, since before the first dust of this world gathered, it has been alive for so long it has rarely met someone who could end it.

Who wants and can end it. For there is always a price to be paid. A cost to anything we do. Eclipse paid one when Sun fell, the world is paying one right now for what happened after.

There will be a price, but there will also be revenge.

That’s my Doom’s oath. That’s my promise.