100,000 people were taken from their homes, and by the order of the Emperor, executed. Their heads were to be put on pikes to display outside his fortress.
100,000 lives, ended. The Prophets, their coffers full of the Emperors gold, turned the other way, while their flock was slaughtered. They prayed for better lives and power overwhelming, while their fellow people were drug out into the street. The Prophets believed in absolution and heaven, while they ignored the bloody murder occurring right under their very noses.
100,000 headless bodies were dumped into a pit, and covered with lime. Their skin left to the caustic effects of time and alchemy. The Emperor decreed that there would be no headstone for the villagers, that they would not have the honour of being remembered. The only bastion of their passing would be a blasted scar upon the land, where lime had met soil.
What had these people done to earn the Emperor's wrath? They had provided all their tributes, they had all praised the Emperor's name. What had they done wrong? In the middle of their village, was a statue. A statue of a little boy, holding a sword. The statue was a relic, from a fairytale story of a boy who had fought off brigands in the town's defence.
The Emperor had decreed that all statues be only of him, in his greatness, and his lasting impression upon the land. He ordered the boy's statue destroyed, and his effigy placed in it's stead. When the townspeople refused, well... you know what happened.
In the last act of defiance, the Guardian of the village etched something underneath the boy's statue. With his last breath, he shouted at the Imperial forces to look at the feet of the child hero, and learn the future.
"One man remembered for 100,000 years, 100,000 people forgotten in the span of an hour."
It was true. Within an hour of their execution, the sovereign kingdom of Ahlweria invaded the holdings of the Emperor. The Emperor, the Prophets, the Nobility. All were put to the axe. Their heads joined the villagers on the fortress walls. The library, archives, and bureaucracy were all burned. Villages and townships were razed to the ground, and their inhabitants were shuffled off back to the homeland. There they were forced to learn a new language, and a new culture. They quickly forgot the losses of their kin, and instead focused on suviving in a new home, a new world.
Over time, the people forgot of their old ways. The Prophets were largely forgotten, their betrayal was instead conglomerated into the Emperor, who was indeed remembered, but not as he had wished. His statues remained intact, but their purpose had changed. Every year, millions make the pilgrimage back to the razed villages to lay curses and "bad luck" at the Emperor's statues, in hopes that his damned soul will carry their ill fortunes back to hell where they belong. The name of the Emperor is commonly regarded as a curse, and even to those who are still supportive of the Empire, the Emperor is like a salted wound that will never heal, and never be forgotten.
- Eziekiel "The Owl" Foriander
Witness of the fall of the Empire, and Recorder of its History
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