Death of the Devourer

Era beginning/end

Irrin the Eternal slays the Devourer, last and greatest of the dark lords, and ends the Second Flowering.

Irrin is the model of what a paladin should be. Indeed, she was the very first! Never before had the gods chosen a mortal champion. Never before had a flesh and blood warrior been empowered with the glory and purpose of a god. She was the first.   She was born in the last years of the Second Flowering, for she herself brought that age to an end. She battled against the last and some say greatest of the dark lords who ruled Valbara in those days. She battled and slew eighty of the dark lord's generals and summoned fiends, wielding a different weapon and wearing a different suit of armor each time. She knew even then that her holy purpose and deeds would bless those items with power, and she wished to leave as many as possible to help her followers and descendents.   Her eighty first battle was with the dark lord himself. For this battle she wore a suit of mirrored silver. The weapon she weilded was a sword-spear carved by a blind sage out of a crystal said to have fallen from the stars. When asked the weapon's name, the sage simply put a finger to his lips, and it is said that all sound in the world, from the marching of armies to the lapping of waves, fell to a hush for the space of six heartbeats. For this, the weapon was named Silence.   The dark lord had no armies, for Irrin had slain all of his commanders. Yet he was named the Devourer of Souls, and he was an army unto himself. He had no fortresses, for Irrin had razed them all, so he met her at a simple stone shrine to a forgotten god. They met at dawn and fought until the next dawn. When the Devourer tired or weakened, he would simply consume a soul from his grim collection, and be renewed. When Irrin tired, a beam of light would reinvigorate her, or a cool breeze would freshen her, for these were the gifts of the gods. Nevertheless, in spite of those gifts, in the end she was merely mortal, and in the darkest hours before the dawn she became exhausted. However, as the Devourer moved to slay her, dawn came, and Irrin burst into glorious light and flame. It was as if Pelor himself, clad in the heart of a star, walked the earth. The Devourer looked upon her, and fear and dismay overcame him, and he fell against one of the stone columns of the shrine. Irrin raised Silence, and in his terror the Devourer reached and and grasped her soul in his cold hands. For another six heartbeats the world fell silent. The Devourer's claw cooled the holy fire that shrouded Irrin, and she knew that soon her soul would be his, and his victory would be absolute and eternal. So on the sixth heartbeat she swung her weapon, cutting through both the Devourer's neck and the stone column behind him, collapsing the roof of the shrine. Thus the Devourer perished, and Irrin's soul was wrested from his grasp, though she died herself in the collapse.