Falkovnia - Aerie

[Dread]

[Night has fallen over Falkovnia, yet the soldiers of the mighty Seelewald Fortress do not sleep; they instead maintain their silent vigil, their torchlights being the only thing to stave away the impenetrable dark. Suddenly, in an instant, there is a brilliant light... and it seems to be racing right towards them.

Then, before they can even react or respond, the fortress is destroyed, reduced to rubble, with most of that rubble reduced further to dust.  The soldiers that once saw it garrisoned, are either set ablaze or reduced to nothing but fine ash, with their shadows burned into the side of what few walls remain standing. The next day, what few survivors tell those in the nearby city of Aerie of what happened, claiming that the origin of the beam seemed to come from the west...]

"My hair was scorched by swirling flame;
My eyes grew dim, my eyes grew blind;
Death came and turned my bones to dust;
And that was scattered by the wind..."

- Nazim Hikmet "The Girl Child"