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Story Hour
Shemeska's Planescape Storyhour - (Updated 14February2024)
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<blockquote data-quote="Shemeska" data-source="post: 8311077" data-attributes="member: 11697"><p>The following day, Tristol opened his eyes to find Nisha still there at his side, looking down at him with a smile.</p><p></p><p>“How are you?” Nisha asked, reaching out to stroke the wizard’s forehead.</p><p></p><p>“We did something terrible.” He looked away, unable to meet her stare. “And I feel even guiltier about it, because I keep trying to justify it for the knowledge that I gained. The Lie Weaver knew what it was doing when it sent us in the Clockmaker’s direction. It knew that I wouldn’t be able to refuse the opportunity for ancient knowledge that like; something that I’d never be able to gain by any other means, from any other source. For just a moment I felt like one of the ancient Netherese arcanists, delving into things forgotten or no longer even possible now.”</p><p></p><p>Tristol sighed. “And then, like Karsus, I found out the price of it all.”</p><p></p><p>Nisha nodded, “I know, and I trust that you think that what you gained was justified. We all knew that the bargain with the baern would be twisted and terrible.”</p><p></p><p>She paused and before Tristol could respond, she put a finger to his lips, “I’m sorry that I had to leave.”</p><p></p><p>“I don’t blame you at all.” He replied, now reaching up to brush his hand against her cheek. “You saved a life by doing so, and I wouldn’t have wanted you to witness what we did when we returned.”</p><p></p><p>She closed her eyes and nodded. “You can tell me about it. If you need to. When you’re ready.”</p><p></p><p>“Not now.” Tristol shook his head, “It’s too fresh, and honestly I’m not certain if I ever want to burden you with it. But if I do talk to anyone, it’ll be you first.”</p><p></p><p>Nisha wrapped her arms about him and kissed his forehead. Nothing more was said, but together they sat in intimate silence with one another for another two hours before finally venturing downstairs to meet back up with the others.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p style="text-align: center">****</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Since Clueless’s return to Sigil he’d tended bar in the Portal Jammer, trying to distract himself from the events of the past few days, though he’d been remarkably reserved when it came to talking to bar patrons. Anyone buying a drink from him would have sworn that the bladesinger looked haunted, and indeed he was.</p><p></p><p>Fyrehowl had already been there when Clueless, Tristol, and Florian had returned, and from the look of it, she’d been drinking for much of the time she’d been there. A bottle of Clueless’s private stock of fey wine sat next to her with a dozen empty shot glasses where she sat in the Jammer’s back room. She too said nothing, and in fact averted her eyes from direct contact. Despite her alienation from her own celestial race, verging on or flowing over into properly falling from good to neutrality, there was a look of shame in her countenance and her tail lay tucked tightly against her legs.</p><p></p><p>Quietly, one by one, they gathered together downstairs, with Clueless eventually leaving the bar and joining them. Toras was the last one to rejoin the party, and as he stepped into the room, he cast a withering gaze over the others but said nothing at first as he walked in, poured himself a drink, and took a seat.</p><p></p><p>And uncomfortable silence fell over the room and worried glances passed from person to person, all of them waiting for the fighter to say something.</p><p></p><p>“We should talk about this…” Fyrehowl began.</p><p></p><p>“No.” Toras was blunt and immediate. “We don’t.”</p><p></p><p>Nisha took a deep breath, her tail flitting anxiously behind her.</p><p></p><p>“This was traumatic for everyone and…” Clueless began, only to be cut off as Toras raised a hand.</p><p></p><p>“If you want to talk about it one on one with each other, go right ahead.” Toras explained, “But I neither want to nor need to know the specifics.”</p><p></p><p>Silence again as the others struggled to figure out how to approach the issue. The fighter’s divine patron was devoted to the protection of innocents, and particularly children: the entire episode had been an abject anathema to Toras, his faith, and his god. Somehow the rest of the party, especially the ones who had stayed to complete the Clockmaker’s task would need to come to terms with him over what they had done.</p><p></p><p>They would eventually, but it would not be today.</p><p></p><p>Toras had many, many things to say to each and every one of his companions. Despite his celestial heritage, a radiant hatred burned in his heart, and in communion with his deity, on his god’s home plane, he’d pledged his life to one day take righteous revenge on the Blind Clockmaker. It didn’t matter how long it took, and it didn’t matter if he ended up losing his own life in the process. However he managed it, one day he would make the baernaloth, that baernaloth in specific, pay for what it had done in the past, and for what it had made them do, no matter their own complicity in those horrors.</p><p></p><p>“Was it worth it?” Toras asked, looking directly at Tristol.</p><p></p><p>The aasimar blinked, took a deep breath, and swallowed hard as the fighter put him on the spot. The entire quest had been his idea in the first place. Everything from walking into the Lie Weaver’s lair to performing his poisoned tasks, and later to visit his so-called sibling and carry out the Clockmaker’s horrors from start to finish… it had been initiated at Tristol’s urging, following the clue’s laid out by Laughing Jane.</p><p></p><p>Tristol mulled over his words, his tail flitting uncomfortably behind him and drawing a soft bat from one of Nisha’s hands. Yes, ostensibly it all stemmed from Laughing Jane’s seeming hatred of the Oinoloth, and by virtue of that, a desire from all of them to pursue that lead if it could counter the Oinoloth’s designs in any way. But yet, beyond that, at the heart of it all, Tristol knew that he’d been greedy for knowledge. In the same way that the Ebon had tempted and manipulated Karsus down the path to oblivion for himself, all of Netheril, and a prior incarnation of Toril’s goddess of magic, Tristol realized that he’d fallen down the same path, walked in Karsus’s footsteps, and followed along with the lies of not one but two baernaloths.</p><p></p><p>Still, the price had been paid and knowledge gained. If he did nothing with that knowledge he’d gained, despite the terrible actions that it required, all of it would be for naught. He owed it to the ratatosks to see this through and make use of what they had paid for.</p><p></p><p>“Only if I put the knowledge gained to actual use.” Tristol said, meeting and keeping Toras’s stare. “Otherwise the hideous price we paid… we’ll have paid in vain.”</p><p></p><p>Toras looked into Tristol’s eyes long and hard, measuring what he’d said, and presumably balancing the wizard’s answer with the guidance that he’d himself gained in communion with his divine patron, “What do you intend to do?”</p><p></p><p>“I know how to read the Oblivion Compass now.” Tristol explained, “I can see it in my mind, and I can figure out what it’s ticking down to. I won’t necessarily know the meaning of those time points, but I’ll know when they’re supposed to happen, and we can hopefully act upon that.”</p><p></p><p>Toras looked down, paused in thought, and then he whispered a soft prayer. When he looked back up, he inclined his head towards Tristol in a motion of tacit approval. It was really the best that he could have hoped for.</p><p></p><p>“What do you need to do to scry that thing?” Clueless spoke, the first of the others to finally break the stillness.</p><p></p><p>Tristol smiled, “It shouldn’t be anything difficult at all. But I wanted us to have a chance to talk before I did anything. If I do this, I’d like to have everyone here to watch with me.”</p><p></p><p>Once again, as they had before, the group exchanged glances, but this time there was less apprehension than there was some fractional amount of hope. If something came from their experience, indeed it might soothe their spirits.</p><p></p><p>“I’ve been thinking about doing this for a while already.” Tristol said, smoothing his robes while, standing behind him, Nisha rubbed his ears in encouragement. “I’m ready whenever everyone else is.”</p><p></p><p>A short bit of group discussion and it was decided: whatever they had done, Tristol would use the knowledge that he’d gained. The table was cleared and they gathered together as Tristol gathered the necessary foci and reagents, and ten minutes later they were ready.</p><p></p><p>The wizard took a deep breath and incanted the words to a scrying spell. Abruptly the spell failed.</p><p></p><p>“What the…?” He muttered.</p><p></p><p>Florian raised an eyebrow, “Did you just whiff a spell?”</p><p></p><p>“No.” Tristol shook his head, “The spell failed. Someone doesn’t want that location scried.”</p><p></p><p>A look of determination on his face, Tristol began the spell again, but this time significantly empowered, and with a crackle of silverfire manifesting along his fingertips as he wove them through the air. A bead of sweat broke upon his forehead but finally the resistance broke and his spell succeeded, producing a wavering image above the table for the rest of his companions to view alongside of him.</p><p></p><p>There within the shallow, desolate valley that held the nightmare construct of the Oblivion Compass they could all see once more what they had experienced firsthand. As during their visit, the landscape perpetually shifted, with shadowy, ephemeral silhouettes of the landscape and things and creatures from alternate timelines and possible futures appearing for a moment before being snuffed back into the nothingness from which they emerged. Unlike during their brief visit to the Compass, this time at least, the device was far from unattended.</p><p></p><p>Looming over the primary cogwheel and dial, in fact seeming to bodily emerge from out of it, arms stretched wide and eyes luminous was a baernaloth, its body shimmering with a fluid skein of ever-shifting runes and sets of magical symbols. This one they had seen before in the Fortress of Pitiless when it had butchered the inventor of the Divinity Leech, Ghyris Vast: The Architect. It was not the only one of its ilk.</p><p></p><p>Atop one of the smaller spindles adorned with irrational clockwork gears that jutted from the ground sat a slender aasimar girl, her legs kicking idle in the air and her hands neatly folded atop the folds of her robes in her lap along with a crooked shepherd’s staff. Below her, moving about independent of her physical form, a monstrous shadow moved about in reflection of the Architect, aiding in whatever ritual it was in the midst of enacting.</p><p></p><p>The third baernaloth superficially resembled the basic forms of the Lie Weaver or the Blind Clockmaker, but its exposed throat was a savage mess of bleached white scar tissue. Like the Architect and Dire Shepherd, it too moved its limbs in the motions of a ritual casting, but unlike them its lips did not move with the intonations of verbalized speech.</p><p></p><p>The final member of the Demented present and obviously visible was yet more grotesque than the others, a flash of color against the desolate grey of the Waste. Its body smeared in and dripping a steady flow of blood, its teeth a predatory hunter’s fangs, and its fingers sprouting jagged claws, it silently watched the work of its siblings, pausing periodically to lash at its own flesh, seemingly savoring the self-inflicted pain.</p><p></p><p>All of that noticed in a fraction of a second as Tristol viewed the image provided by his spell, the following happened an instant later: The Architect looked up and through the scrying spell, taking immediate notice despite all of Tristol’s attempts to make their viewing of the Compass as stealthily and incognito as possible.</p><p></p><p>“Oh sh*t!” Tristol blurted out, his worry only partially relieved a moment later as the Architect looked back down to its work, seemingly uncaring at the mortals’ observation of it and its kindred’s work.</p><p></p><p>Able to see the patterns of active magic, even through his scrying, Tristol squinted and focused on minute, barely visible flashes of color in the air surrounding the Compass. Rather than side effects of the baernaloths’ work or the bizarre, time-bending afterimages that shed from the gears like shed and decaying skins of possible-serpents, the flickers of color were the telltale signs of manifested scry foci from others doing precisely the same as Tristol.</p><p></p><p>“We aren’t the only one’s watching this.” The wizard tilted his head, his ears twitching in curiosity.</p><p></p><p>Summoning a pen to his hand and paper to the table with a snap of his fingers, Tristol hurriedly began to draw the symbols present on the other scry foci that he’d seen. Almost invariably a mage’s scry foci were personalized, imbued with some essence of their creator’s nature, and intentional of not, they betrayed the identity of the caster to those who could recognize the symbols or nature of the focus.</p><p></p><p>The first symbol was obvious: the triquetrous symbol of the Oinoloth, Vorkannis the Ebon, combining the symbols of the three neutral evil Planes of Conflict.</p><p></p><p>“Well, no surprise there.” Toras rolled his eyes.</p><p></p><p>“Have to wonder what the relationship there is.” Clueless mused, taking a sip of ale and shrugging. “Seemingly no love lost.”</p><p></p><p>The next wasn’t recognized by Tristol, but by Fyrehowl, immediately so.</p><p></p><p>“That’s the symbol of Prince Talisid.”</p><p></p><p>Nisha’s tail quirked into a question mark shape, “Remind me who that is? Should I know?”</p><p></p><p>“One of the unique Guardinal Lords of Elysium,” The lupinal explained, “The Leonal Prince, greatest of our kind.”</p><p></p><p>“That…” Toras blinked, a smile spreading across his face, “That makes me genuinely happy to see. That’s the first f*cking time that we’ve seen absolutely any evidence that the upper planes are even aware of this sh*t the ‘loths are doing, much less actively planning to counter it.”</p><p></p><p>“It isn’t just Talisid.” Tristol added as he finished a third sketch, “This is the symbol of Queen Morwel of the Eladrin Court of Stars.”</p><p></p><p>Toras whistled, “These are some seriously big players here.”</p><p></p><p>A fourth foci then manifested in close proximity to that of the Oinoloth, itself a variation of his, though it contained only a version of the symbol of Carceri rather than the Oinoloth’s fusion of three: the symbol of the Overlord of Carceri, Shylara the Manged.</p><p></p><p>The fifth symbol came as a surprise. Rather than one of the other planar lords that might have been expected, the symbol was one that they’d seen up close, and seen the caster himself in person: Green Marvent of the Illuminated.</p><p></p><p>“What the…” Florian blinked. Neither she nor the others could have expected that particular individual to take an interest, let alone be aware of the Compass or the machinations of the baern.</p><p></p><p>They didn’t have much time to consider the ramifications of the myriad interested parties however.</p><p></p><p>While the Architect had noticed the scrying instantly, but had ignored the attempts to focus on the work that it and its kindred were in the act of performing, the Dire Shepherd eventually grew restless with the divinatory intrusions. Both her slender, mockingly aasimar in appearance physical form’s eyes and the eye-like holes in her independently moving shadow glanced at and followed the myriad of scry foci watching the ritual. She scowled and snapped her physical fingers, snuffing the scry foci of Talasid, then Morwel.</p><p></p><p>“Tristol hurry and read the values on the Compass!” Nisha tapped his shoulder nervously.</p><p></p><p>Moving from watching the other curious parties, the aasimar turned to the bizarre values present on the various faces and dials of the clockwork, his mind spinning with the knowledge he’d gained from the device’s co-creator, the Blind Clockmaker. Not saying a word, he took his pen and began jotting down a litany of numbers and figures as he read the nightmare device.</p><p></p><p>Scowling, the Dire Shepherd moved on, snuffing the scry foci of the Manged, and then of the Oinoloth himself, the latter seeming to require a greater effort on her part. Almost instantly the Oinoloth’s scry foci reappeared, conjured back into place, and this time drawing the attentions not only of the Shepherdess, but also the third baernaloth, whose name was yet unknown to them. This time when the Oinoloth’s foci was dismissed, it did not reappear, though it was up for debate if it was due to the actions of the Demented, or if the Ebon had simply given up with a shrug at the futility of a continued back and forth.</p><p></p><p>“Almost there!” Tristol announced as the Shepherdess looked not at his foci, largely uninterested in that of a mortal by comparison to the others.</p><p></p><p>A look, somewhere between curiosity and confusion passed over her face as she stared at Green Marvent’s scry foci, and rather than snuffing it, she actually paused to analyze it. Unlike the others dismissed by the baern, the self-titled Factol of the Illuminated dismissed his own scrying spell.</p><p></p><p>“Hurry hurry!” Nisha shouted as the Shepherdess turned to stare at Tristol’s foci, a snug look of contempt passing over her physical form’s face. As if she could stare back through the spell itself she locked eyes with the wizard and with only a modicum of effort, she collapsed the wizard’s spell, ending his scrying attempt.</p><p></p><p>All eyes moved to Tristol, hoping that he’d gotten the information that he needed. He stared down at his notes, a mixed and confusing expression crossing over his face. He put down his pen and looked up.</p><p></p><p>“The Oblivion Compass strikes 11 as the Clockmaker said, now 2 weeks, 1 day, 12 hours, 9 minutes and 5 seconds from now.” He paused, “And there are four additional demarcations of tolls of the clock after that, prior to it reaching its end. What that means however, I don’t know.”</p><p></p><p>“What do you mean, ‘The End’?” Florian asked, the concern in her voice echoed by the others’ expressions.</p><p></p><p>“I… don’t know.” Tristol shivered as he looked at the final number he’d written down, “But whatever is going to happen, the Compass is counting down to a final moment and it strikes a final hour, midnight, in 431 days, 19 hours, 2 minutes, and 37 seconds…”</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p style="text-align: center">*****</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Gone was the elegant, poised and fastidious fiend that had claimed the title of Oinoloth in sudden and startling fashion. No longer wrapped in velvet and silk, no longer well groomed with silky fur and gleaming white teeth, he strode through the ashen dust of the Waste naked and savage. Any pretense of civility or culture had been discarded when he summarily left Khin-Oin without warning and strode off into the hinterlands of the Waste, looking for something, or rather, someone.</p><p></p><p>Vorkannis wasn’t walking to his destination so much as bending the structure of Oinos itself, leagues flowing by in a dozen steps or so. There were quicker, immediate ways to venture there, but he wanted the time to allow his anger to fester and stew. He wanted to walk, his fingers feeling the plane flow and slide about him, supping on the collective misery absorbed by the soil over the eons like so much agonized rain devoured by a desolate and lifeless desert. He was preparing himself for what he would say and what he might need to do. He would have denied it, but a minuscule portion of his consciousness was in fact almost, <strong>almost</strong> apprehensive about what would occur when he got there.</p><p></p><p>Dozens of his fawning vassals, supplicants and would-be advisors had clamored to go with him, despite not having a clue where he intended to go. He’d had to kill one of them in a particularly spectacular fashion just to make it clear that they were not welcome. Still, it didn’t stop some from trying. The overlord of Carceri, Shylara the Manged, had gated into Khin-Oin and literally fallen to her knees and begged to accompany him. She, unlike the others, did in-fact know why he was going, though not where. Even she was only privy to so much.</p><p></p><p>Shylara… the ass kissing bitch. Not traditional words of endearment, but still, and most importantly, whatever words he applied to her, she was <strong>his</strong>. She had her charms, and as far as tools went, she was rather useful, and very much obedient. True, they were lovers in every way imaginable, but the very idea of love was a foreign, alien, and sickening concept for the Oinoloth. He simply had no grasp of it within his sphere of experience and understanding. The same went for the Manged as well, though she was not like him and might have actually had the capacity for a warped version of the emotion. He was incapable of it. She ‘loved’ him, as much as a yugoloth was capable of that emotion, though it was solidly grounded in greed, selfish desire, animal lust, and awe bordering on idolatrous worship. And for all of that, he was proud of her. A useful servant he’d created in her, and as close to a companion as he might conceivably find or create from amongst their kind, all of them still being simply his tools to use or discard notwithstanding.</p><p></p><p>He licked his muzzle as his mind wandered back for an idle moment to her kneeling naked and prostrate before him, pleading to travel with him into the hinterlands of Oinos. He smiled, and it was an open question whether his subsequent arousal was due to her nakedness in his mind or her supplication and worship.</p><p></p><p>Hours passed and the Oinoloth felt a magnetic sensation, a gentle tugging force of a river’s current flowing towards a hollow bowl or depression in the Waste where its despair and blind agony grew even more intense, a veritable gravity well of misery. The Ebon knew what it was, and he knew exactly where it was contained on the Waste. There were three of them in all, one upon each layer of the Waste, each of them unique and specific, each of them created by the thing that he sought.</p><p></p><p>As he walked, he witnessed tanar’ri and baatezu armies on the periphery of his vision. Imperfect beings fighting imperfect beings but feeding the Waste nonetheless in their pointless slaughter. Children all of them. He’d witnessed their birth. He’d even witnessed the emergence of those before them which they in turn had replaced. But there was a time to bear witness and a time to act, and the latter was what was needed.</p><p></p><p>The sprawling infinity of Oinos passed by him as he mumbled to himself, composing and recomposing what he might say, though the words were all iterations of things he had considered for eons, things which would inevitably need to be said. An infinite stretch of desolation held many things, but it was purely happenstance that the Oinoloth’s trek placed him in the proximity of another traveler upon the Waste.</p><p></p><p>His movement slowed and he looked with distaste at the lone figure in his path, a singular night hag, her pockets full of gold from the sale of her flock of captured souls and she on her way back to her coven to replenish those numbers and repeat ad nauseum, fueling the slaughter of the Blood War that went on and on about the first layer of the Waste.</p><p></p><p>The hag narrowed glowing yellow eyes as the Oinoloth approached her, the dust stirring at his feet, churned physically by the roiling shadows that licked like tongues of dark flame from his body, the omnipresent cloud of mock plague spores that marked his ascension to Oinoloth. Gingerly her fingers clutched her heartstone and her other hand flexed should the need arise. She knew more than most beings to never trust a yugoloth, especially the jackal-headed sorcerers of their kind.</p><p></p><p>“Do I know you…?” The night hag blinked, “Have I seen yer before…?” She glanced in the direction of the oncoming fiend as he strode towards the invisible presence of the Oinian Loadstone several miles beyond her.</p><p></p><p>She walked closer, squinting her eyes at the dirty, snarling jackal as he looked in her direction. Her moon-like luminous eyes met his, burning pinpricks of scarlet on an ebon field. She suddenly felt unimaginably cold at his attention. He was familiar, but she could not yet place his identity.</p><p></p><p>“Your presence is undesired…” He said in a language she had no way of understanding.</p><p></p><p>“Whotcher say there?” She scowled, “Speak up yer naked ‘loth.”</p><p></p><p>The visage of pinkish red eyes on darkness sneered, drawing back his lips over white fangs. He spoke in a language she could comprehend, “Larvae spawned sh*t.”</p><p></p><p>She would have responded to his statement, snarled at him for the insult, perhaps cursed at him in return, except that she couldn’t. Where the hag had stood there was now only a smear of carbon where she had been incinerated with barely a fleeting thought on the Oinoloth’s part.</p><p></p><p>“Return to that which births us…” He said with an almost religious tone as he flicked a bit of white ash off his hand.</p><p></p><p>He paused his walk and sunk his toes into the ground, the individual clawed digits blurring and indistinct against the ash and dirt, feeling the results of his action as the Waste fed on the hag’s obliteration. Piece by suffering piece the Waste ripped apart and digested her soulstuff, paring away consciousness and individuality, reducing it to base granules and absorbing it. The feeling was intimate to him and he cast his senses further afield, back in the direction from which he came, feeling in an instant as a mezzoloth emerged from the spawning pools beneath Khin-Oin in direct relation to the hag’s death, her spiritual essence feeding the plane and serving him to create another cog in the engine of his will.</p><p></p><p>He continued, and then he was there.</p><p></p><p>The Loadstone of Misery was massive, perhaps a story or two high, seemingly grown up out of the very soil of the Waste rather than having been built upon it; a cancerous boil upon the flesh of Evil. The Ebon strode up to the obelisk of ash gray stone and the hillock that it was built atop, reading the burning blue runes scrawled across every inch of the monolith’s surface area. He recognized them, he understood their meaning, and he knew perhaps more about it and its purpose than any other of his race.</p><p></p><p>“LAZARIUS!” The Ebon screamed, “Make yourself known!”</p><p></p><p>He snarled and addressed the monolith as if it was a living thing, almost seeming to speak –through– the stone, rather than to it. His words were filled with a burning hatred and they would have caused spontaneous bleeding and pain in the ears of any non-yugoloth that might have overheard it. That she had been snuffed from existence in a single, fleeting moment had probably spared the hag a longer period of painful, spasmodic agony.</p><p></p><p>He did not whisper, he screamed out the words with fury enough to send ripples through the dust and ash of the landscape around him.</p><p></p><p>“Arrogant son of a b*tch! You had your chance long ago and you abandoned it. What I do now is of no concern to you and yours.” The Ebon clenched his right fist tightly enough to draw blood by his own claws, causing the ground to bubble and sizzle from the errant drips running down his hand and wrist. “I will take what is mine and mine alone and do not even begin to presume that you have either the right, or the will to stop me!”</p><p></p><p>Silence met the Oinoloth’s outburst, a silence that only goaded the archfiend into a further tirade as his eyes flared with a livid, sickly pink radiance. Erupting from where he stood and extending outwards, inch by inch, second by second, the soil of the Waste stirred and frothed at the agitation of an unseen force, the ash and dust taking on the appearance of a carpet of magical runes and symbols spiraling out in ever more and more complex patterns: magic coaxed into being unconsciously by the Ebon’s fury.</p><p></p><p>“What? Do you think that I’ve not been aware of the attempts of the 13 to influence the actions of my servitors? You are not the only one waiting for the Compass to strike midnight. You are not the only ones aware of the signs and of the intent?” Vorkannis snarled savagely, “This is mine. You know this.”</p><p></p><p>Once again silence was the obelisk’s only reply, a response that only increased the Ebon’s fury. To one such as he, there was no greater insult than to be ignored.</p><p></p><p>“Ancient miserable wretches all bottled up in your own delusions and self-cannibalizing madness!” Vorkannis screamed, and now the ever-expanding field of boiling runes about him ignited, outlining the lines of magic is flickering pale blue flames to match the color of the trio of ioun stones that swirled about his head. “You rage against it silently and I hear you. You have sat back and done nothing for far too long, content to let the multiverse rot when it could have been yours already. You squander the power given to you, and now it seems that you resent those of us who dare to aspire to higher.”</p><p></p><p>The burning magic now changed color, blue igniting brighter than before and shedding a fiercely pink, albino radiance across the bleak and bleached landscape as if it were a window into the eyes of something far greater than the mere physical form of the Oinoloth standing there upon the Waste at the foot of the Loadstone.</p><p></p><p>“You and yours have become irrelevant Lazarius.” The Oinoloth said as the burning runes reached out and touched the base of the obelisk.</p><p></p><p>Finally then, the Ebon’s audience made its presence obvious as something stirred and seemed to focus its distant, powerful consciousness upon the Oinoloth. It was primordial, unfathomable, and terrible to behold, and for a brief moment, for perhaps the first time in his long, long existence, Vorkannis felt fractionally uncertain as that massive presence seemed to momentarily dwarf him, a foreign body casting an eclipse over his own dark and burning sun.</p><p></p><p>The detached presence of The Architect then focused on the Oinoloth and spoke, the words reverberating through the Loadstone and the surrounding landscape, curdling the air between them, “Have we Oinoloth?”</p><p></p><p>A spiraling field of symbols and warped, twisting formulae swirled across the face of the Loadstone, similar to that radiating out from the Oinoloth, reaching out inch by inch until it reached the flames and then it paused, not so much of its own accord, but at the faintest, incremental retreat of the Oinoloth own surrounding field of magic.</p><p></p><p>Vorkannis’s defiant glare directed at and through the Loadstone did not waver however.</p><p></p><p>“A conflict here and now between the two of us would be distinctly unwise.” Be it bravado or knowledge of something deeper, the Ebon’s lips curled into a sneer as he stood firm, “You and I both know this.”</p><p></p><p>The baernaloth did not answer him in so many words, but there was almost the hint of a beguiling, smug smile in the mental sensation of Lazarius’s presence. It didn’t need to respond in deep back and forth dialogue as the Ebon was there to threaten rather than act, despite his mockery of the Demented. For all he was, the Architect mentally chuckled at how little he knew, or perhaps how much he thought he knew of the great plan of the Demented forged in the earliest days of reality. Still, Lazarius would not answer him bluntly because there were still unknowns upon the board of their little ancient game and nothing, absolutely nothing was completely certain.</p><p></p><p>The planned future might be known, but it was not made until it was made, and at the present time, the future, a future, was something that very much desired something from Vorkannis himself. The one principle question lingering in the Architect’s vast mind was just how aware of the particular and precise intricacies of those steps and his place in those steps that the Oinoloth was. If he was, even partially so, then their hand was not so much a definite wager as it might have been. There was still too much to chance in their game, so much blind uncaring luck, and so many variables still open in their great experiment still unfolding.</p><p></p><p>“As you wish Oinoloth…” Lazarius’s voice spoke through the Loadstone, “Do as you will. It matters not.”</p><p></p><p>Silence blanketed the landscape and the fields of roiling magic from both the Loadstone and the Oinoloth retreated, flickered, and vanished back into quiescence, drawn back to their sources.</p><p></p><p>“Oh, I will.” Vorkannis whispered with a smirk, and for the briefest of moments something stared back at the Loadstone through the Ebon’s eyes, there and gone, a whisper and an echo of something utterly familiar.</p><p></p><p>In a last moment of defiance, the Oinoloth spat on the ground before turning his back on Lazarius and walking back into the desolation of the Waste, back to his throne atop the Wasting Tower. As he did so, as the presence behind his eyes withdrew, the ashes below his feet were frozen.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p style="text-align: center">****</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Shemeska, post: 8311077, member: 11697"] The following day, Tristol opened his eyes to find Nisha still there at his side, looking down at him with a smile. “How are you?” Nisha asked, reaching out to stroke the wizard’s forehead. “We did something terrible.” He looked away, unable to meet her stare. “And I feel even guiltier about it, because I keep trying to justify it for the knowledge that I gained. The Lie Weaver knew what it was doing when it sent us in the Clockmaker’s direction. It knew that I wouldn’t be able to refuse the opportunity for ancient knowledge that like; something that I’d never be able to gain by any other means, from any other source. For just a moment I felt like one of the ancient Netherese arcanists, delving into things forgotten or no longer even possible now.” Tristol sighed. “And then, like Karsus, I found out the price of it all.” Nisha nodded, “I know, and I trust that you think that what you gained was justified. We all knew that the bargain with the baern would be twisted and terrible.” She paused and before Tristol could respond, she put a finger to his lips, “I’m sorry that I had to leave.” “I don’t blame you at all.” He replied, now reaching up to brush his hand against her cheek. “You saved a life by doing so, and I wouldn’t have wanted you to witness what we did when we returned.” She closed her eyes and nodded. “You can tell me about it. If you need to. When you’re ready.” “Not now.” Tristol shook his head, “It’s too fresh, and honestly I’m not certain if I ever want to burden you with it. But if I do talk to anyone, it’ll be you first.” Nisha wrapped her arms about him and kissed his forehead. Nothing more was said, but together they sat in intimate silence with one another for another two hours before finally venturing downstairs to meet back up with the others. [center]****[/center] Since Clueless’s return to Sigil he’d tended bar in the Portal Jammer, trying to distract himself from the events of the past few days, though he’d been remarkably reserved when it came to talking to bar patrons. Anyone buying a drink from him would have sworn that the bladesinger looked haunted, and indeed he was. Fyrehowl had already been there when Clueless, Tristol, and Florian had returned, and from the look of it, she’d been drinking for much of the time she’d been there. A bottle of Clueless’s private stock of fey wine sat next to her with a dozen empty shot glasses where she sat in the Jammer’s back room. She too said nothing, and in fact averted her eyes from direct contact. Despite her alienation from her own celestial race, verging on or flowing over into properly falling from good to neutrality, there was a look of shame in her countenance and her tail lay tucked tightly against her legs. Quietly, one by one, they gathered together downstairs, with Clueless eventually leaving the bar and joining them. Toras was the last one to rejoin the party, and as he stepped into the room, he cast a withering gaze over the others but said nothing at first as he walked in, poured himself a drink, and took a seat. And uncomfortable silence fell over the room and worried glances passed from person to person, all of them waiting for the fighter to say something. “We should talk about this…” Fyrehowl began. “No.” Toras was blunt and immediate. “We don’t.” Nisha took a deep breath, her tail flitting anxiously behind her. “This was traumatic for everyone and…” Clueless began, only to be cut off as Toras raised a hand. “If you want to talk about it one on one with each other, go right ahead.” Toras explained, “But I neither want to nor need to know the specifics.” Silence again as the others struggled to figure out how to approach the issue. The fighter’s divine patron was devoted to the protection of innocents, and particularly children: the entire episode had been an abject anathema to Toras, his faith, and his god. Somehow the rest of the party, especially the ones who had stayed to complete the Clockmaker’s task would need to come to terms with him over what they had done. They would eventually, but it would not be today. Toras had many, many things to say to each and every one of his companions. Despite his celestial heritage, a radiant hatred burned in his heart, and in communion with his deity, on his god’s home plane, he’d pledged his life to one day take righteous revenge on the Blind Clockmaker. It didn’t matter how long it took, and it didn’t matter if he ended up losing his own life in the process. However he managed it, one day he would make the baernaloth, that baernaloth in specific, pay for what it had done in the past, and for what it had made them do, no matter their own complicity in those horrors. “Was it worth it?” Toras asked, looking directly at Tristol. The aasimar blinked, took a deep breath, and swallowed hard as the fighter put him on the spot. The entire quest had been his idea in the first place. Everything from walking into the Lie Weaver’s lair to performing his poisoned tasks, and later to visit his so-called sibling and carry out the Clockmaker’s horrors from start to finish… it had been initiated at Tristol’s urging, following the clue’s laid out by Laughing Jane. Tristol mulled over his words, his tail flitting uncomfortably behind him and drawing a soft bat from one of Nisha’s hands. Yes, ostensibly it all stemmed from Laughing Jane’s seeming hatred of the Oinoloth, and by virtue of that, a desire from all of them to pursue that lead if it could counter the Oinoloth’s designs in any way. But yet, beyond that, at the heart of it all, Tristol knew that he’d been greedy for knowledge. In the same way that the Ebon had tempted and manipulated Karsus down the path to oblivion for himself, all of Netheril, and a prior incarnation of Toril’s goddess of magic, Tristol realized that he’d fallen down the same path, walked in Karsus’s footsteps, and followed along with the lies of not one but two baernaloths. Still, the price had been paid and knowledge gained. If he did nothing with that knowledge he’d gained, despite the terrible actions that it required, all of it would be for naught. He owed it to the ratatosks to see this through and make use of what they had paid for. “Only if I put the knowledge gained to actual use.” Tristol said, meeting and keeping Toras’s stare. “Otherwise the hideous price we paid… we’ll have paid in vain.” Toras looked into Tristol’s eyes long and hard, measuring what he’d said, and presumably balancing the wizard’s answer with the guidance that he’d himself gained in communion with his divine patron, “What do you intend to do?” “I know how to read the Oblivion Compass now.” Tristol explained, “I can see it in my mind, and I can figure out what it’s ticking down to. I won’t necessarily know the meaning of those time points, but I’ll know when they’re supposed to happen, and we can hopefully act upon that.” Toras looked down, paused in thought, and then he whispered a soft prayer. When he looked back up, he inclined his head towards Tristol in a motion of tacit approval. It was really the best that he could have hoped for. “What do you need to do to scry that thing?” Clueless spoke, the first of the others to finally break the stillness. Tristol smiled, “It shouldn’t be anything difficult at all. But I wanted us to have a chance to talk before I did anything. If I do this, I’d like to have everyone here to watch with me.” Once again, as they had before, the group exchanged glances, but this time there was less apprehension than there was some fractional amount of hope. If something came from their experience, indeed it might soothe their spirits. “I’ve been thinking about doing this for a while already.” Tristol said, smoothing his robes while, standing behind him, Nisha rubbed his ears in encouragement. “I’m ready whenever everyone else is.” A short bit of group discussion and it was decided: whatever they had done, Tristol would use the knowledge that he’d gained. The table was cleared and they gathered together as Tristol gathered the necessary foci and reagents, and ten minutes later they were ready. The wizard took a deep breath and incanted the words to a scrying spell. Abruptly the spell failed. “What the…?” He muttered. Florian raised an eyebrow, “Did you just whiff a spell?” “No.” Tristol shook his head, “The spell failed. Someone doesn’t want that location scried.” A look of determination on his face, Tristol began the spell again, but this time significantly empowered, and with a crackle of silverfire manifesting along his fingertips as he wove them through the air. A bead of sweat broke upon his forehead but finally the resistance broke and his spell succeeded, producing a wavering image above the table for the rest of his companions to view alongside of him. There within the shallow, desolate valley that held the nightmare construct of the Oblivion Compass they could all see once more what they had experienced firsthand. As during their visit, the landscape perpetually shifted, with shadowy, ephemeral silhouettes of the landscape and things and creatures from alternate timelines and possible futures appearing for a moment before being snuffed back into the nothingness from which they emerged. Unlike during their brief visit to the Compass, this time at least, the device was far from unattended. Looming over the primary cogwheel and dial, in fact seeming to bodily emerge from out of it, arms stretched wide and eyes luminous was a baernaloth, its body shimmering with a fluid skein of ever-shifting runes and sets of magical symbols. This one they had seen before in the Fortress of Pitiless when it had butchered the inventor of the Divinity Leech, Ghyris Vast: The Architect. It was not the only one of its ilk. Atop one of the smaller spindles adorned with irrational clockwork gears that jutted from the ground sat a slender aasimar girl, her legs kicking idle in the air and her hands neatly folded atop the folds of her robes in her lap along with a crooked shepherd’s staff. Below her, moving about independent of her physical form, a monstrous shadow moved about in reflection of the Architect, aiding in whatever ritual it was in the midst of enacting. The third baernaloth superficially resembled the basic forms of the Lie Weaver or the Blind Clockmaker, but its exposed throat was a savage mess of bleached white scar tissue. Like the Architect and Dire Shepherd, it too moved its limbs in the motions of a ritual casting, but unlike them its lips did not move with the intonations of verbalized speech. The final member of the Demented present and obviously visible was yet more grotesque than the others, a flash of color against the desolate grey of the Waste. Its body smeared in and dripping a steady flow of blood, its teeth a predatory hunter’s fangs, and its fingers sprouting jagged claws, it silently watched the work of its siblings, pausing periodically to lash at its own flesh, seemingly savoring the self-inflicted pain. All of that noticed in a fraction of a second as Tristol viewed the image provided by his spell, the following happened an instant later: The Architect looked up and through the scrying spell, taking immediate notice despite all of Tristol’s attempts to make their viewing of the Compass as stealthily and incognito as possible. “Oh sh*t!” Tristol blurted out, his worry only partially relieved a moment later as the Architect looked back down to its work, seemingly uncaring at the mortals’ observation of it and its kindred’s work. Able to see the patterns of active magic, even through his scrying, Tristol squinted and focused on minute, barely visible flashes of color in the air surrounding the Compass. Rather than side effects of the baernaloths’ work or the bizarre, time-bending afterimages that shed from the gears like shed and decaying skins of possible-serpents, the flickers of color were the telltale signs of manifested scry foci from others doing precisely the same as Tristol. “We aren’t the only one’s watching this.” The wizard tilted his head, his ears twitching in curiosity. Summoning a pen to his hand and paper to the table with a snap of his fingers, Tristol hurriedly began to draw the symbols present on the other scry foci that he’d seen. Almost invariably a mage’s scry foci were personalized, imbued with some essence of their creator’s nature, and intentional of not, they betrayed the identity of the caster to those who could recognize the symbols or nature of the focus. The first symbol was obvious: the triquetrous symbol of the Oinoloth, Vorkannis the Ebon, combining the symbols of the three neutral evil Planes of Conflict. “Well, no surprise there.” Toras rolled his eyes. “Have to wonder what the relationship there is.” Clueless mused, taking a sip of ale and shrugging. “Seemingly no love lost.” The next wasn’t recognized by Tristol, but by Fyrehowl, immediately so. “That’s the symbol of Prince Talisid.” Nisha’s tail quirked into a question mark shape, “Remind me who that is? Should I know?” “One of the unique Guardinal Lords of Elysium,” The lupinal explained, “The Leonal Prince, greatest of our kind.” “That…” Toras blinked, a smile spreading across his face, “That makes me genuinely happy to see. That’s the first f*cking time that we’ve seen absolutely any evidence that the upper planes are even aware of this sh*t the ‘loths are doing, much less actively planning to counter it.” “It isn’t just Talisid.” Tristol added as he finished a third sketch, “This is the symbol of Queen Morwel of the Eladrin Court of Stars.” Toras whistled, “These are some seriously big players here.” A fourth foci then manifested in close proximity to that of the Oinoloth, itself a variation of his, though it contained only a version of the symbol of Carceri rather than the Oinoloth’s fusion of three: the symbol of the Overlord of Carceri, Shylara the Manged. The fifth symbol came as a surprise. Rather than one of the other planar lords that might have been expected, the symbol was one that they’d seen up close, and seen the caster himself in person: Green Marvent of the Illuminated. “What the…” Florian blinked. Neither she nor the others could have expected that particular individual to take an interest, let alone be aware of the Compass or the machinations of the baern. They didn’t have much time to consider the ramifications of the myriad interested parties however. While the Architect had noticed the scrying instantly, but had ignored the attempts to focus on the work that it and its kindred were in the act of performing, the Dire Shepherd eventually grew restless with the divinatory intrusions. Both her slender, mockingly aasimar in appearance physical form’s eyes and the eye-like holes in her independently moving shadow glanced at and followed the myriad of scry foci watching the ritual. She scowled and snapped her physical fingers, snuffing the scry foci of Talasid, then Morwel. “Tristol hurry and read the values on the Compass!” Nisha tapped his shoulder nervously. Moving from watching the other curious parties, the aasimar turned to the bizarre values present on the various faces and dials of the clockwork, his mind spinning with the knowledge he’d gained from the device’s co-creator, the Blind Clockmaker. Not saying a word, he took his pen and began jotting down a litany of numbers and figures as he read the nightmare device. Scowling, the Dire Shepherd moved on, snuffing the scry foci of the Manged, and then of the Oinoloth himself, the latter seeming to require a greater effort on her part. Almost instantly the Oinoloth’s scry foci reappeared, conjured back into place, and this time drawing the attentions not only of the Shepherdess, but also the third baernaloth, whose name was yet unknown to them. This time when the Oinoloth’s foci was dismissed, it did not reappear, though it was up for debate if it was due to the actions of the Demented, or if the Ebon had simply given up with a shrug at the futility of a continued back and forth. “Almost there!” Tristol announced as the Shepherdess looked not at his foci, largely uninterested in that of a mortal by comparison to the others. A look, somewhere between curiosity and confusion passed over her face as she stared at Green Marvent’s scry foci, and rather than snuffing it, she actually paused to analyze it. Unlike the others dismissed by the baern, the self-titled Factol of the Illuminated dismissed his own scrying spell. “Hurry hurry!” Nisha shouted as the Shepherdess turned to stare at Tristol’s foci, a snug look of contempt passing over her physical form’s face. As if she could stare back through the spell itself she locked eyes with the wizard and with only a modicum of effort, she collapsed the wizard’s spell, ending his scrying attempt. All eyes moved to Tristol, hoping that he’d gotten the information that he needed. He stared down at his notes, a mixed and confusing expression crossing over his face. He put down his pen and looked up. “The Oblivion Compass strikes 11 as the Clockmaker said, now 2 weeks, 1 day, 12 hours, 9 minutes and 5 seconds from now.” He paused, “And there are four additional demarcations of tolls of the clock after that, prior to it reaching its end. What that means however, I don’t know.” “What do you mean, ‘The End’?” Florian asked, the concern in her voice echoed by the others’ expressions. “I… don’t know.” Tristol shivered as he looked at the final number he’d written down, “But whatever is going to happen, the Compass is counting down to a final moment and it strikes a final hour, midnight, in 431 days, 19 hours, 2 minutes, and 37 seconds…” [center]*****[/center] Gone was the elegant, poised and fastidious fiend that had claimed the title of Oinoloth in sudden and startling fashion. No longer wrapped in velvet and silk, no longer well groomed with silky fur and gleaming white teeth, he strode through the ashen dust of the Waste naked and savage. Any pretense of civility or culture had been discarded when he summarily left Khin-Oin without warning and strode off into the hinterlands of the Waste, looking for something, or rather, someone. Vorkannis wasn’t walking to his destination so much as bending the structure of Oinos itself, leagues flowing by in a dozen steps or so. There were quicker, immediate ways to venture there, but he wanted the time to allow his anger to fester and stew. He wanted to walk, his fingers feeling the plane flow and slide about him, supping on the collective misery absorbed by the soil over the eons like so much agonized rain devoured by a desolate and lifeless desert. He was preparing himself for what he would say and what he might need to do. He would have denied it, but a minuscule portion of his consciousness was in fact almost, [b]almost[/b] apprehensive about what would occur when he got there. Dozens of his fawning vassals, supplicants and would-be advisors had clamored to go with him, despite not having a clue where he intended to go. He’d had to kill one of them in a particularly spectacular fashion just to make it clear that they were not welcome. Still, it didn’t stop some from trying. The overlord of Carceri, Shylara the Manged, had gated into Khin-Oin and literally fallen to her knees and begged to accompany him. She, unlike the others, did in-fact know why he was going, though not where. Even she was only privy to so much. Shylara… the ass kissing bitch. Not traditional words of endearment, but still, and most importantly, whatever words he applied to her, she was [b]his[/b]. She had her charms, and as far as tools went, she was rather useful, and very much obedient. True, they were lovers in every way imaginable, but the very idea of love was a foreign, alien, and sickening concept for the Oinoloth. He simply had no grasp of it within his sphere of experience and understanding. The same went for the Manged as well, though she was not like him and might have actually had the capacity for a warped version of the emotion. He was incapable of it. She ‘loved’ him, as much as a yugoloth was capable of that emotion, though it was solidly grounded in greed, selfish desire, animal lust, and awe bordering on idolatrous worship. And for all of that, he was proud of her. A useful servant he’d created in her, and as close to a companion as he might conceivably find or create from amongst their kind, all of them still being simply his tools to use or discard notwithstanding. He licked his muzzle as his mind wandered back for an idle moment to her kneeling naked and prostrate before him, pleading to travel with him into the hinterlands of Oinos. He smiled, and it was an open question whether his subsequent arousal was due to her nakedness in his mind or her supplication and worship. Hours passed and the Oinoloth felt a magnetic sensation, a gentle tugging force of a river’s current flowing towards a hollow bowl or depression in the Waste where its despair and blind agony grew even more intense, a veritable gravity well of misery. The Ebon knew what it was, and he knew exactly where it was contained on the Waste. There were three of them in all, one upon each layer of the Waste, each of them unique and specific, each of them created by the thing that he sought. As he walked, he witnessed tanar’ri and baatezu armies on the periphery of his vision. Imperfect beings fighting imperfect beings but feeding the Waste nonetheless in their pointless slaughter. Children all of them. He’d witnessed their birth. He’d even witnessed the emergence of those before them which they in turn had replaced. But there was a time to bear witness and a time to act, and the latter was what was needed. The sprawling infinity of Oinos passed by him as he mumbled to himself, composing and recomposing what he might say, though the words were all iterations of things he had considered for eons, things which would inevitably need to be said. An infinite stretch of desolation held many things, but it was purely happenstance that the Oinoloth’s trek placed him in the proximity of another traveler upon the Waste. His movement slowed and he looked with distaste at the lone figure in his path, a singular night hag, her pockets full of gold from the sale of her flock of captured souls and she on her way back to her coven to replenish those numbers and repeat ad nauseum, fueling the slaughter of the Blood War that went on and on about the first layer of the Waste. The hag narrowed glowing yellow eyes as the Oinoloth approached her, the dust stirring at his feet, churned physically by the roiling shadows that licked like tongues of dark flame from his body, the omnipresent cloud of mock plague spores that marked his ascension to Oinoloth. Gingerly her fingers clutched her heartstone and her other hand flexed should the need arise. She knew more than most beings to never trust a yugoloth, especially the jackal-headed sorcerers of their kind. “Do I know you…?” The night hag blinked, “Have I seen yer before…?” She glanced in the direction of the oncoming fiend as he strode towards the invisible presence of the Oinian Loadstone several miles beyond her. She walked closer, squinting her eyes at the dirty, snarling jackal as he looked in her direction. Her moon-like luminous eyes met his, burning pinpricks of scarlet on an ebon field. She suddenly felt unimaginably cold at his attention. He was familiar, but she could not yet place his identity. “Your presence is undesired…” He said in a language she had no way of understanding. “Whotcher say there?” She scowled, “Speak up yer naked ‘loth.” The visage of pinkish red eyes on darkness sneered, drawing back his lips over white fangs. He spoke in a language she could comprehend, “Larvae spawned sh*t.” She would have responded to his statement, snarled at him for the insult, perhaps cursed at him in return, except that she couldn’t. Where the hag had stood there was now only a smear of carbon where she had been incinerated with barely a fleeting thought on the Oinoloth’s part. “Return to that which births us…” He said with an almost religious tone as he flicked a bit of white ash off his hand. He paused his walk and sunk his toes into the ground, the individual clawed digits blurring and indistinct against the ash and dirt, feeling the results of his action as the Waste fed on the hag’s obliteration. Piece by suffering piece the Waste ripped apart and digested her soulstuff, paring away consciousness and individuality, reducing it to base granules and absorbing it. The feeling was intimate to him and he cast his senses further afield, back in the direction from which he came, feeling in an instant as a mezzoloth emerged from the spawning pools beneath Khin-Oin in direct relation to the hag’s death, her spiritual essence feeding the plane and serving him to create another cog in the engine of his will. He continued, and then he was there. The Loadstone of Misery was massive, perhaps a story or two high, seemingly grown up out of the very soil of the Waste rather than having been built upon it; a cancerous boil upon the flesh of Evil. The Ebon strode up to the obelisk of ash gray stone and the hillock that it was built atop, reading the burning blue runes scrawled across every inch of the monolith’s surface area. He recognized them, he understood their meaning, and he knew perhaps more about it and its purpose than any other of his race. “LAZARIUS!” The Ebon screamed, “Make yourself known!” He snarled and addressed the monolith as if it was a living thing, almost seeming to speak –through– the stone, rather than to it. His words were filled with a burning hatred and they would have caused spontaneous bleeding and pain in the ears of any non-yugoloth that might have overheard it. That she had been snuffed from existence in a single, fleeting moment had probably spared the hag a longer period of painful, spasmodic agony. He did not whisper, he screamed out the words with fury enough to send ripples through the dust and ash of the landscape around him. “Arrogant son of a b*tch! You had your chance long ago and you abandoned it. What I do now is of no concern to you and yours.” The Ebon clenched his right fist tightly enough to draw blood by his own claws, causing the ground to bubble and sizzle from the errant drips running down his hand and wrist. “I will take what is mine and mine alone and do not even begin to presume that you have either the right, or the will to stop me!” Silence met the Oinoloth’s outburst, a silence that only goaded the archfiend into a further tirade as his eyes flared with a livid, sickly pink radiance. Erupting from where he stood and extending outwards, inch by inch, second by second, the soil of the Waste stirred and frothed at the agitation of an unseen force, the ash and dust taking on the appearance of a carpet of magical runes and symbols spiraling out in ever more and more complex patterns: magic coaxed into being unconsciously by the Ebon’s fury. “What? Do you think that I’ve not been aware of the attempts of the 13 to influence the actions of my servitors? You are not the only one waiting for the Compass to strike midnight. You are not the only ones aware of the signs and of the intent?” Vorkannis snarled savagely, “This is mine. You know this.” Once again silence was the obelisk’s only reply, a response that only increased the Ebon’s fury. To one such as he, there was no greater insult than to be ignored. “Ancient miserable wretches all bottled up in your own delusions and self-cannibalizing madness!” Vorkannis screamed, and now the ever-expanding field of boiling runes about him ignited, outlining the lines of magic is flickering pale blue flames to match the color of the trio of ioun stones that swirled about his head. “You rage against it silently and I hear you. You have sat back and done nothing for far too long, content to let the multiverse rot when it could have been yours already. You squander the power given to you, and now it seems that you resent those of us who dare to aspire to higher.” The burning magic now changed color, blue igniting brighter than before and shedding a fiercely pink, albino radiance across the bleak and bleached landscape as if it were a window into the eyes of something far greater than the mere physical form of the Oinoloth standing there upon the Waste at the foot of the Loadstone. “You and yours have become irrelevant Lazarius.” The Oinoloth said as the burning runes reached out and touched the base of the obelisk. Finally then, the Ebon’s audience made its presence obvious as something stirred and seemed to focus its distant, powerful consciousness upon the Oinoloth. It was primordial, unfathomable, and terrible to behold, and for a brief moment, for perhaps the first time in his long, long existence, Vorkannis felt fractionally uncertain as that massive presence seemed to momentarily dwarf him, a foreign body casting an eclipse over his own dark and burning sun. The detached presence of The Architect then focused on the Oinoloth and spoke, the words reverberating through the Loadstone and the surrounding landscape, curdling the air between them, “Have we Oinoloth?” A spiraling field of symbols and warped, twisting formulae swirled across the face of the Loadstone, similar to that radiating out from the Oinoloth, reaching out inch by inch until it reached the flames and then it paused, not so much of its own accord, but at the faintest, incremental retreat of the Oinoloth own surrounding field of magic. Vorkannis’s defiant glare directed at and through the Loadstone did not waver however. “A conflict here and now between the two of us would be distinctly unwise.” Be it bravado or knowledge of something deeper, the Ebon’s lips curled into a sneer as he stood firm, “You and I both know this.” The baernaloth did not answer him in so many words, but there was almost the hint of a beguiling, smug smile in the mental sensation of Lazarius’s presence. It didn’t need to respond in deep back and forth dialogue as the Ebon was there to threaten rather than act, despite his mockery of the Demented. For all he was, the Architect mentally chuckled at how little he knew, or perhaps how much he thought he knew of the great plan of the Demented forged in the earliest days of reality. Still, Lazarius would not answer him bluntly because there were still unknowns upon the board of their little ancient game and nothing, absolutely nothing was completely certain. The planned future might be known, but it was not made until it was made, and at the present time, the future, a future, was something that very much desired something from Vorkannis himself. The one principle question lingering in the Architect’s vast mind was just how aware of the particular and precise intricacies of those steps and his place in those steps that the Oinoloth was. If he was, even partially so, then their hand was not so much a definite wager as it might have been. There was still too much to chance in their game, so much blind uncaring luck, and so many variables still open in their great experiment still unfolding. “As you wish Oinoloth…” Lazarius’s voice spoke through the Loadstone, “Do as you will. It matters not.” Silence blanketed the landscape and the fields of roiling magic from both the Loadstone and the Oinoloth retreated, flickered, and vanished back into quiescence, drawn back to their sources. “Oh, I will.” Vorkannis whispered with a smirk, and for the briefest of moments something stared back at the Loadstone through the Ebon’s eyes, there and gone, a whisper and an echo of something utterly familiar. In a last moment of defiance, the Oinoloth spat on the ground before turning his back on Lazarius and walking back into the desolation of the Waste, back to his throne atop the Wasting Tower. As he did so, as the presence behind his eyes withdrew, the ashes below his feet were frozen. [center]****[/center] [/QUOTE]
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Shemeska's Planescape Storyhour - (Updated 14February2024)
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