Fer' Ireth

"'My name is Fer' Ireth, Necrolord of all worlds: Look on my works, you mortals, and despair!'"

- Fer' Ireth

Fer’ Ireth, born Arliden' Ireth, was the Founding Necrolord of Immortues and the ‘creator’ of Ares Intempium and Mephiles Sol. Born during the Second Age in the Wushanko Isles, Fer emigrated with his brother, Firan’ Ireth, to Sentinsten to become a Necromancer. He would eventually garner the support of the Imperial Senate, founding Immortues and being honoured with the title of Necrolord. Betraying his fellow necromancer, Fer was able to perceiver for thousands of years until the Fifth Age, where he created Ares Intempium and Mephiles Sol as the main components for his “Final Experiment”; A spell capable enough to resurrect the dead with consequence, along with making them immortal.

However his past would catch up with him, with the Zeiro clan, imprisoning him back in his homeland for several years, being reincarnated as Sihrus Sicarus, until Ares reassembled him back into his original form. In Fer’s absence Mephiles broke free and desired revenge, who eventually was able to dismantle Immortues, and defeat his master by ascending to godhood. Restored again, but left powerless, Fer retreated in secret to lands unknown and has not been seen since.

Early Life
Fer’ Ireth was born during the Second Age, and had a younger and older brother, Firan Ireth and Sirus Ireth respectfully. Originally trained as a Blacksmith in the family trade, he felt disillusioned with the region’s primitive lifestyle compared to the mainlanders in the Zarosian Empire: especially with magic. He soon met Carceret, a woman from the empire who was on a diplomatic mission in the region. The two became quickly infatuated, and soon Carceret offered Fer the opportunity to come back with her to Sentisten as an apprentice of any magical art he desired. He agreed on one condition: that his brothers could come to study as well.

Following Carceret, he emigrated to Sentisten and gained an apprenticeship as a Necromancer. Sometime after completing his apprenticeship, his master died from natural causes, leaving him the honorary title of Fer and his journals, which provided him the knowledge to vastly extend his lifespan. But stricken with grief for his master, he vowed to defeat death and prevent the ones around him from dying. He became obsessed with his Necromancy to do this, turning him into a deceptive and heartless figure, hiding behind an intelligent and calm face. Sometime during this period, his relationship with his brother Firan decayed due to their differing morals, eventually having him implicated in an assassination plot of senators, and subsequently exiled. His relation with Sirus also deteriorated, but instead had he denied access to his future plans.

Forming Immortules
Using his influence from betraying Firan, he gained the support of the Senate to form an official Necromancy guild for the empire. Official known as the Necromancy Order for the Imperial Senate of Zaros, he christened it Immortues and became its Necrolord. Recruiting eight of the most powerful necromancers from the empire, they continued with their research. However his Master’s knowledge of extending his own lifespan began to fail, and soon focused his work in secret to find a way that would extend it by thousands of years. Needing to use the most of his remaining time, he severed all ties on the surface, including Carceret, moving the order into a secure sanctuary under the city. This sanctuary would allow them to survive the impending fall of the empire and the subsequent start of the God Wars.

Betrayal
Sometime during the final years of the Second Age, he eventually concluded that to extend his own life, he would have to sacrifice several powerful souls. But the years of isolation had removed his ability to feel compassion and friendship, and considering them decrepit, nominated his fellow Necromancers as the sacrifice. Just before executing the plan, Sephirot discovered it and attempted to warn the others, but was murdered by Fer before he could, at the cost of losing his soul for the ritual. Tricking them by conducting a ritual he had told the others that would extend their lifespans, he instead turned it against them and entrapped their souls, pouring their combined spiritual and magical energies into three artefacts: A staff containing all their raw power, a necklace containing their necromantic power, and a cloak to protect me against the overwhelming amounts of energy stored within these items. He left the remaining husks of their souls bound in the Sanctuary, so that Death or Itchlarin could not retrieve them. Not feeling anything, he returned to his prolonged studies in a now empty sanctuary.

Reestablishment
After continuing his work alone, Fer grew bored and interested again in how the empire had changed. Shattering the Sanctuary’s seal, he emerged in the Fourth Age, and quickly learned that not only that the Empire fell, but that all the gods had been banished by Guthix. Unshaken, he relocated to the ruins of Uzer, where he converted a former Senate safe house into his new abode and workplace, spending the Fourth Age as a time to rebuild his influence across the emerging human kingdoms and studding the newly rediscovered art of Runecrafting. Sometime during the Fourth Age, Fer re-established contact with Firan to a limited degree, but their relationship continued to decay.

Recreating Mind and Body
As the Fifth Age emerged, Fer realised he has abandoned his original pledge of destroying death, and vowed to return to it. Across the next 150 years, he recovered his research and begun the practical experiments, deploying primitive ghouls and ghosts to recover corpses from various sources across the continent, but they all failed due to their inferior flesh and spirit.

Sometime around Year 167 of the 5th Age, he gained possession of two unique corpses: A cunning thief and amateur spell caster from Varrock who had been executed for his crimes, and a Fremerrink Exile who had perished in the earliest explorations of Daemonheim. Unlike his previous experiments, they were resilient enough to withstand the resurrection process, and where reborn as Ares, an intelligent ghost, and Mephiles, a powerful Wight. To him, they would be the key to his Final Experiment: discovering a way to fully resurrect the dead without any flaws, and then extend their lifespan indefinitely.

Bound to him by a bond that provided them the life-force to sustain themselves, he trained each one separately. Ares became his personal apprentice, being taught Necromancy and the ways of the empire’s spellcasters, while Mephiles was trained as a devastating spellsword and tactician.

Fer disguised his intentions towards them, using them to enact acts against the current powers, such as the Zamorakian Legions who occupied Falador under the rule of “Emperor” Russia, as so to study their deployment and attributes. But as he begun to extend his influence into the public eye, old enemies who had also persevered the God Wars began to emerge.

When Sirus was killed by Ares, he berated both him and Mephiles for going behind his back with him, let alone killing him without permission.

Mars and Firan’s Interference
Firan, learning of his brother’s return and triumph of creating the Immortues Duo, allied himself with Mars Interpatrum to sabotage them. Locating them at their temporary hideout at the Draynor Manor, Mars used his brother’s knowledge against him and hijacked the mental bond between Mephiles and Fer, turning Mephiles against them. The skirmish lasted for a while, with Ares and Mephiles even matched despite their differencing purposes, until Fer could establish control again. Mars retreated soon after, leaving Immortues on a trail of ambushes and traps as they continued on their quest to recover ancient knowledge.

Eventually Fer grew tired of the inference, using his contacts to trick Mars about their next trip, and using it to trap him at Burg De Rott. Subsequently tortured, despite Ares’ protests, Mars confessed that he had been operating on Fran’s orders, along that he was operating from the Blood Altar, using the Abyss as his means of transportation to intersect their movements.

As Fer, Ares and Mephiles stormed through to the altar, Fer was suddenly incapacitated by a powerful snare that bypassed his powerful artefact’s protection. The snare left the duo weakened as they confronted Firan, along with a quickly recovered Mars, together in a destructive battle. Mephiles however was able to turn the tide against the duo, using his conductive form to absorb huge quantities of blood runic energy, then channelling it though himself and Ares to overcharge their spellcasting abilities. Ares slammed Firan against a pillar to disable him, but in doing so left Mephiles to grab Mars by the neck and without mercy, drowned him in the lake of blood. With Firan’s defeat, the snare was weakened, allowing Fer to break it and personally confront his brother. Standing proud for his triumphant creations, he condemned Firan’s irrational hate for necromancy, before dealing a killing blow and transporting the body to the Sanctuary to be stored away with the other husks.

Sicarus Reincarnation
With Firan’s death, Fer unwittingly triggered a contingency plan, alerting an ancient enemy of Fer: an eastern family of highly skilled necromancer-hunters called the Zeiro. Sensing them nearby, Fer'Ireth chose to bring the fight to them, instead of risking his apprentice and research should they find him in the manor. Because of this, Fer relinquished control of Mephiles to Ares.

So leaving for the eastern lands. Even as powerful as he was, he was defeated because of both the skill in fighting necromancers and the numerical advantage of the Zeiro. His spirit, however, was bound to a fallback phylactery at his old temple, and thus retreated there. With the limited power he had at the temple, he could only create a proxy, Sihrus Sicarus, to fulfil his goal, while the artefacts had been locked away.

After establishing contact with Ares, now fully resurrected thanks to the experiment so many years ago, he organised an expedition of several adventurers, including a few Sicarius, to Karamja. It was there that he, somehow, had located one of the missing artefacts: The Necklace. A man who had been driven mad by its power was using it to corrupt and take control of the karamjan spirits the natives worshipped. The expedition managed to locate and defeat the man with the help of a local shaman, after which Sihrus took the Necklace and revealed that he was, infact, Fer'Ireth. And thus it made sense he could open the Tome and sense where his artefacts were. Thanks to the recovery of the Necklace and the Tome, he could return, yet not at full power. He and Ares travelled to a temple hidden deep under present-day Varrock. But even the Zeiro could not resist the temptation to use the artefacts for long. And thus, several of them were corrupted by the power, making them leave the family with their artefact. The Tome had ended up in a cave, locked away by the people who defeated its last user. The Necklace had been used by a Zeiro on Karamja. The Staff's location was unknown, but the Cloak was in the hands of a Black Knight Commander, who was now in a mad quest for power and was seeking more powerful relics in the desert.

Fer and Ares agreed to set up a trap in one of the desert temples. In order to secure more aid, Ares went to Mephiles and told him he had a plan to kill Fer'ireth for good. That the temple contained a special sword that could completely negate Fer's spells. Mephiles believed that his friend had seen the truth, and decided to help him recover it, together with "Sihrus". As soon as they entered the temple, even before they could open "the coffin that held the sword", they were attacked by Black Knight forces. It was a harsh fight, for the Commander had many troops who were loyal to their deaths. And even after they had died, the Commander still stood, powered by the Cloak. Both Ares and Mephiles were exhausted. They were almost defeated, even. They were saved by Sihrus, who had been hiding during the entire fight, and who chose the Commander's moment of glory to backstab him, taking the Cloak.

With three of the four artefacts recovered, Fer'Ireth was powerful enough to summon the fourth one: the Staff. Ares then revealed to Mephiles that he had been working with Fer all along, and once again invited Mephiles to take his rightful place at Fer's side. But he refused. And so they left him in the ruins.

Finishing the Restoration
A few weeks later, another party of mercenaries was recruited. This time, their destination was a long lost temple in the Mort Myre swamp, thought to be a place of great power. To guide them there, Fer'Ireth had gained the help of an old ally, a vampyre he had worked with before the fall of the Empire. While most had forgotten about the temple, she, fortunately, remembered it as if it was yesterday. However, getting there was not as easy as navigating through the jungle. Ghasts, feral vampires, leeches, they were some of the things the party had to fend off. Especially the vampire ambushed proved to be quite the obstacle. But when the finally reached the temple, in their way stood yet another challenge: an ancient ghast, probably as old as the temple itself, prevented entry to the temple. This one, too, had to be defeated.

This trek was not purely about combat, though. Ares brought his research with him. Apart from studying the ghasts, he also tested his upgraded staff here. While the other party members, vampyre excluded, became more and more tired of the constant fighting, Ares found his staff could keep him supplied with energy from their fallen enemies. Even towards the end of the journey, he didn't feel tired at all. Once inside the temple, the party was greeted by massive, yet damaged statues. It was strange that the large halls had been abandoned so long ago, and that they weren't infested with all kinds of monsters. Looking at the walls, it was a miracle that the temple hadn't collapsed yet. The central room, the largest of them all, was not as empty. A large beam of blue magical energy stood in the middle, containing a vampyrised Carceret.

After Carceret pleaded with Fer to reunite with her, the group where ambushed by the temple’s guardian, who revealed that he entrapped Carceret during the God Wars for killing his own lover.

First, the party tried diplomacy, yet the ghost refused to listen. It began casting spells of tremendous power, fueled by the energy pillar. Ares and the vampyre were barely able to shield the party from their destructive effects. They fled into a corridor, where the magicks (and the ghost itself, as it appeared to be bound to the energy pillar) couldn't reach them. The corridor appeared to belong to some kind of administrative section of the temple, and thus our heroes began searching the ruins for a clue on what happened here exactly. Surely that would've given them a clue to defeat the spirit. Instead, they found something else. Among the corpses of priests and mages was one corpse that was not robed, but wearing... a dress. Through chance, the corpse of the lover was still there.

Ares was forced to reveal himself as a necromancer to the party, and using the corpse, managed to drag the woman's spirit back from the underworld. The enraged guardian sensed it, relinquishing his rage He allowed the party to bring her to him, where the party witnessed a beautiful reunification of long lost lovers.

That is, until Fer'Ireth teleported behind the two and destroyed both while the male ghost was weakened in the absence of unending rage and madness. Then began the ritual: a faster, perfected version of the very ritual that had given Ares his life. Using all the energy in the temple, Fer'Ireth fully resurrected himself while Ares shielded the area so that no-one, not the party, not Mephiles, could do anything to stop the ritual.

The Necrolord, now alive again, had paid a great price for this ritual though: permanent loss of his necromantic powers. Fortunately, he was also very skilled in other branches of magic, otherwise he'd been a very easy target for Mephiles. Now the energy pillar was depleted, the temple started to rumble. Soon, boulders started falling, and Fer'Ireth teleported the entire group away, delivering payment upon regrouping.

Dark Schism
Fer remained secluded for the majority of the Dark Schism, drawn into keeping his ‘assets’ secure from Mephiles and his Paradigm’s influence, deploying Ares and his Centurion creations instead. Secretly however, Fer has begun to regret the uneven treatment he had given to Ares, and how it had led to the Schism between Immortues and the Paradigm.

Fer focused his attentions to sabotaging the Necrovile forces because of Ares’ dismissing Centurion capabilities, capturing samples to reverse engineer the mental connection they had to Mephiles. Shortly after the Skirmish of White Wold Mountain, Fer realised that Mephiles had been using the same life-bond technique that he had used to control Mephiles before. Berating himself for the idiotic blindness, he soon reversed the polarity of the connection and discovered both the existence and the location of the Necrovitalia Cognito.

Together with Ares, the duo travelled to a secluded cavern beneath Eagle’s Peak, where the heart of the Necrovile races was exposed, along with the discovery of the small army that Mephiles had assembled around the World Gate. Unsure why Mephiles was moving his forces, they returned to directly attack the Necrovitalia Cognito. Despite the vasty superior numbers, Ares was able to summon a Centurion into the cave, commanding it to uproot the Main Stem. Torn from the tainted earth, it was butchered asunder by them, causing all but the Excubitor castes of the Necrovile race to turn feral.

Fer, realising with a stroke of brilliance that Mephiles’ mind would be overwhelmed as he languished from the pain of the dying stem, connected his own mind to it and once again penetrated Mephiles mind. Peering deep, he was horrified to discover that Mephiles, Ares and the remaining Kaledrake and Necrovile forces had arrived in Frenesake, and where approaching Mah’s Volcano.

Though the chaos, Fer and Ares fought to the World Gate and to Freneskae, perilously navigating the hazardous environment to the Sanctuary of Zaros, being ambushed by Viza, Mephiles lieutenant. Viza’s archery skills however where no match for the two powerful spellcasters, ultimately being forced back into the Nihil Chambers, where they were all surprisingly swarmed by the wild Nihil. But Fer used his magic to pull them to a safe ledge, where they saw Viza being torn apart, before moving to the summit.

Cautiously, Fer digressed that he might not be strong enough to defeat Mephiles alone, requesting that Ares relinquished the majority of the power that he had given him back when the order was not fractured. Ares obliged, greatly weakening himself to multiply Fer’s spell potency several times. Fer also demanded that Ares remained at the summit, but Ares protested strongly and stormed in ahead.

Confrontation at Freneskae
Confronting Mephiles within the Elder Halls of Freneskae, Fer personally confronted his creation with one last chance to relinquished his power and return to Immortues by his side. Mephiles declined, returning the offer with an ultimatum to Fer: Surrender his ambition to destroy death and the artefacts he had created, or perish.

At an impasse, the battle begun. Mephiles immediately enveloped himself with an impenetrable spell shield, commanding his nearby Excubitor Necroiles to swarm, while also dodging flailing bursts from Wightgrasp. But soon Fer turn the tables, exposing The Amulet that projected the spell and shattering it with a concentrated burst of miasmic energy.

Mephiles then attuned himself to the Anima well, commanding the wisps to dispel their energy into violent explosions at the duo, which also caused parts of the hall’s vaulted ceiling to crumble and fall atop them. However Ares was ingenior, batting them back to Mephiles, throwing him away from the Anima well.

Enraged, Mephiles consumed the reserves of power he had left to gain superhuman speed and agility, sprinting like a lightning bolt around the chamber’s walls while also firing off divine energy charges to cloud their vision with ash. In the confusion, Mephiles bludgeoned Ares on the head with Wightgrasp, and took advantage by conjuring Tainted Magic tendrils to subdue him to the scorched earth.

With his apprentice incapacitated, Fer and Mephiles entered blow upon blow with each other, both from magic and physical strikes from their staffs. Ancient Magic, curses, charms and raw power stuck against each other with fury and chaos without pause. However, Fer’s Arefacts again protected him from harm, and as Mephiles became exhausted, using magic to alter the gravity around the room. Mephiles was thrown around the volcano and its egg-chambers like a child’s ragdoll, haemorrhaging his last pints of the water from the Well of Life. His flesh failed to heal, leaving him broken in mid-air.

A pause emerged in battle, the two exchanging a final glare. “Pax Decum.” Mephiles hissed ironically, just before Fer threw him the well to disintegrate.

Fer however had unwittingly set up his own demise, as destroying Mephiles’ undead form had allowed him to transfer his immortal soul into the Simulacrum the ritual had been preparing him for. The newly ascendant Mephiles fired a massive steam of power from the well into Fer, destroying his Cloak of Protection and the Amulet of Souls instantly, along with sustaining massive injury.

Mephiles inflicted more torture onto Fer, clawing away at his flesh as his own grew back. He pulsed a major bust of divine power into his former master, causing Fer to drop his staff and the Tome of Knowledge. The pulse severed Fer’s connection to Ares, freeing him from the life-bond. Along with that, Mephiles destroyed the Tone of Knowledge by discarding it into the Anima Mundi.

Helpless, he turned silently to Ares, who had since untangled himself from the tendrils, trying to beg for help. Ares looked on with the same stare, hesitant for the first time since becoming a undead to assist his master. Mephiles then delivered a punishing blow to the skull with Wightgrasp, leaving him to bleed out.

“Death”
Having been fatally wounded by an Ascendant Mephiles, Ares recovered Fer’s staff and channelled any remaining power it had left within, along with the remaining power that Fer has granted him. But despite this, the damage inflicted by Mephiles was too great to restore him to a youthful state.

Fer was resurrected as an ancient, frail man that could barely see or hear anything. He himself attempted to restore his body, only to discover he had no magical ability left: Mephiles had ironically cursed Fer’s own soul to cut his own connection to the Anima Mundi, the source of all magic, in a similar way to how Fer cut Mephiles’ soul from the Afterlife. With this, his emotions eventually overwhelmed him, submerging him in grief and regret for the thousands of years he had squandered in the fear of death, and what it had cost him.

He turned to Ares and told to abandon him, bestowing him with the title of Necrolord. Sympathising to his former master, Ares ensured him with a home beyond Gilenor where he could ‘retire’, and left him for the final time. He continued to study alone, contemplating how his greatest creations would shape the world in his absence, until passing on. It is unknown if his soul could pass on onto the afterlife.

Personality
Fer is a cold, calculating and maniluaptive individual, who often sees people more as assets or potential candidates for his research. Patalogicaly terrified of death, Fer has purposefully conditioned himself to be striped of many of the emotions that make someone human, such as love, compassion and morality.

Despite his conditioning, he can perfectly emulate them, making him a brilliant deceiver, to the degree he can even create perfectly convincing personas, such as Sihrus Sicarus, forgetting who he truly is.

Fer had a very strict, almost fatherly relationship with Ares and Mephiles, though he considered the latter to be the so-called “black sheep of the family”, favouring Ares for his intellect and reasoning, over Mephiles’ headstrong and emotional outbursts. However he was equally fair to both of them, unwilling to let them suffer unreasonably and sacrificing much of his own time to better them both.

Powers
At the peak of his power, Fer’ Ireth was probably the most powerful Necromancer on Gilenior, excluding the Dreams of Mah, Sliske and Zemouregal.

He has the power to resurrect the dead enmass, without effort, and command them, using his sheer willpower alone. He also possessed the ability to conduct rituals to create much stronger, individual undead that retained their intelligence and power from their previous life, such as Mephiles and Ares.

The range of control he had on his personal creations was almost limitless, tormenting and contorting their own souls to bend to his will on both a mental and physical level, even to a degree he could override their own personalities to remove undesirable traits, or substitute them by infusing extracts of other souls that had the positive traits he desired.

Besides Necromancy, Fer has an extensive personal command of the elemental and ancient spheres of magic, though he had no particular affinity to a certain form, preferring to use the most effective for the current situation.

Ultimately however, the majority of his power comes from his personal artefacts, such as the staff and amulet, and therefore he could be massively weakened or incapacitated if they were damaged or removed from his control.

Beyond magical prowess, Fer had some limited skill in wielding a sword, but was physically frail from his millennials of extended lifespan.