Summoning The Guardians Of The Astral Gate

It is written in the ancient legends... that high amidst the moon-swathed

peaks of the great Mountain of Shadows, hides the aeon-weary threshold of the

Astral Gate... the portal from our world, to beyond... It is said that one who

holds the key and knows the empyreal incantation may stand within the ancient

ring of stones atop the mountain when the stars are correctly aligned, and

unlock the mystic gate, summoning its sidereal sentinels, thereby attaining

ultimate enlightenment and wisdom unparalleled...

[Part 1: THE INVOKING]

[The Aspirant Reaches The Summit]

Keepers of the cosmic threshold, my ascent has been fraught with terror,

deathsteeped, storm-hammered. (These grim mountains are strewn with the bones

of the ill-fortuned dead.) O' Guardians of the Astral Gate, the spheres blaze

at last in trine... I hold the Key! (The trinity of stars shall touch the

circle of stones once more...) The incantation of Xuk'ul is known to me, the

Orb of Summoning earned with bloodshed! (The crystalline key to the Outer

Realms and the arcane rite to empower it are at last mine, Seized at

swordpoint from the citadel of the Black Templars. Enlightenment awaits!)

Many years ago, the mystic Orb of Summoning was seized by the mysterious

Black Templars,a band of sombre, plunder seeking knights from the kingdoms to

the east of the Great Sea. They wrested the sorcerous gem from the ancient

shrine of Azaimedes, where i t had lain hidden for countless centuries, its

true power and purpose known only to the dour shamans who tended to the elder

place of worship. It is said that the tapestry of slaughter woven that day was

unparalleled in its ferocity, and that the marble walls of the ancient shrine

were, and still remain, stained vivid crimson with the spilled blood of the

Orb's keepers.

Ka-kur-ra, I summon thee,

Zul'tekh Azor Vol-thoth.

Mighty Xuk'ul arise,

Kur'oc Gul-Kor, come forth.

I hold aloft the pulsing orb, astral spheres, empower the mystic key.

Ring of elder stones entwined in prophecy, the Rite of Invocation enthralls

thine power. Replete from drinking deep of darkness, black shapes dancing

'twixt the stones, Lucent beams lancing forth from the gleaming, cepheid

stars, a creeping mist ensorcells my tongue...

A great stillness binds the moon-cloaked mountaintop in glooming

shackles... (High above, the myriad stars gleam bright against the night sky,

three more resplendently bedazzling than the others, their sidereal auras

engulfing the stones...) And the central stone of the ancient ebon ring begins

to pulsate with a darksome energy... A thunderous maelstrom ablaze with

writhing celestially spawned power then rends the stygian night... (A vast

shimmering aperture, a vortex of heliacal fire... the pathway to beyond

beckons!)

The Astral Gate is open...

The Guardians have awakened...

[XUK'UL:] Impudent mortal! You dare summon us? If 'tis elucidation you

seek, you shall have it!

Such searingly terrible stellar majesty... my sanity is lashed like a

vessel on a storm-wracked sea. What price this invocation? Shall the singing

stars claim my very mind?

To countless worlds we travel, riding the endless black seas 'twixt the

stars... the ebon oceans of infinity... flying through a thousand suns, then

watching their light fade, as if it were but a flickering candleflame snuffed

by the wind. As beings of p ure energy we become one with the vastness,

transcending the ethereal walls of time, spanning at once this celestial

eternity, and yet existing as no more than a mote of dust within the vista of

its endlessness... Journeying beyond...

The threshold looms, (the star-way between dimensions stretches before

me...) The Gate To That Which Lies Beyond yawns wide... Unspeakable forces

gibber and pulsate in the Outer Darkness... Elder horrors dwell here, things

which were ancient and revelled in sublime galactic malevolence when even

Xuk'ul was naught but a bloated cosmic maggot, writhing and suckling at the

breast o f its amorphous mother... They-Who-Lurk-And-Breed-In-Limbo... the

squamous sovereigns of the elder void!

Primal terror drags my essence screaming back from the threshold. The

ichor of pestilent tongues clings to me, tendrils probing, the ire of fiends!

The ravening black worms of madness are devouring the shredded remnants

of sanity as I return to my slumbering steel-clad body... but as the

dream-veil lifts, I feel my limbs transform, flesh becoming cold stone...

enshrouded by a dark mantle of obsidian . And the laughter of the Guardians

echoes, carries upon the winds of this spectral eve. Such is the price of

enlightenment. And so, a new brooding sentinel of stone joins the others on

the nighted mountain top... Standing silently in the ancient circle of truth,

standing... waiting, Beneath the stars.