Far far away, in a time not so long ago... a spiteful being of intense emotion, with magicks equal in magnitude had crumbled. Erected around the dark serpentine corpse was once a Cathedral... formed of flesh formed of stone and earth. Within in it coursed the bloody drippage of Balagoth's lips, the product of his Genocide. The fluid seemed to seep to the ground, but in a repulsive nature abound above it, sliding across the rotting soil where a war-like slug had finally been laid to rest among the ruins of his ghastly purpose... but there had been many a time that the demonic possessor had been laid to rest, only to sleep restlessly as if awake.
A creeping cold was the only feeling presence within the pervading darkness that had clouded this newest tomb, wrapping around the short monstrous limbs of the best in layers of this self-embalming malevolence... mummifying a corpse now absent from the Eye of Sargon. The Artifact, as it called itself, rested now within the tendrilled grip of its creator. Recognizing the exhausting feat of its own existence, the Artifact comforted the sleep of its dear maker... issuing it dreams, nightmares, and visions of all kinds... all the kinds that it needed and desired.
In the first vision, it came as a dream... that in any other mind was a nightmare. The dream was of simple times, when thoughts and piety were such quaint things in the naive love of a murderous child... the Warlord before it was a Prophet. It dreamed of the delightful parting of flesh from muscle, muscle from bone, bone from marrow, blood from vein... the coppery taste of pleasant friends and dears... but none like the taste of Dearest. It was [member="Mishk"] of course, the Jawa who had ripped from his heart its beat, and placed it into his own. Like some Frankenstein monster the demented love intertwined with one another, gyrating in that sick notion of providing them each pleasure for one another. The thoughts of the slain beast were pleasant, but the imagery was horrific, fitting for the pain indulgent slug.
Then there was fire. A pillar as deep as hell, as high above as Nogras, and what had been delight transformed into true terror. The scream of the Jawa cannibal screeched through his skull as dark lightning struck through his flailing form and banished his visage in a burning ball of smoke... smothering the fire and choking life into the dreaming corpse. When finally... cutting through the ashes... a shadow was left behind, and it was the Slayer. Ajihad.
His quavering mind clutched at that most hated image, that dastardly instrument of Balagoth's ephemeral will. A vision of the future poured into the myriad thoughts of the dead prophet's mind... many dark shadows encircled the grayish smoke that encompassed his most hated ally. These shadows were sharp, they were many, and the cloud that had encompassed Ajihad... shredded away into ethereal mists. The slayer was slain, and not by his own hand... but perhaps with the ever reaching grasp of his mind's labyrinthian tendrils, his heavy sway with the L'ans of Zodou could curse the ronin soul to a vision of his own when they day did come that the Assassin would meet his end.
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Distance between two places for [member="Lord Ajihad"] became a hazy matter, as time flow no longer in a single direction, but many. Small eddies would form that would give one the sense of place, a spherical segment of reality that encompassed all things surrounded his soul, yet he saw only the palace gates upon his own recognition of self. Identity was crucial in an ethereal place as this... lose it, and a chance to pass back through the Unseen Rift would be lost.
Once grounded in the new reality Ajihad created, before him he saw a vast assortment of all his vanquished foes, accepted into the Aetherealm. With looks of indifference towards the petty assassin, these visions disappeared and melded together forming a thick burning shadow guarding the gates into what seemed to be the Palace of the Dead.
Underneath this shade of immeasurable size, a create rift had formed, where souls seemed to fall endless to a single point... a singularity of death. The enormous face-like shadow opened up as a maw, seeming ready to swallow Ajihad whole. On the cusp of engulfing him however, it froze, roiling in its place as a palpable power not like anything the Assassin had ever known. A voice emanated from behind Ajihad.
"Bow to the culmination of your punishments... this, is manifest all that has consumed you. What say you, of it?"
The voice in a whispering thunder reverberated within the purplish skies and darkening clouds, infected by a hateful smoke that penetrate all that appeared innocent and sane... twisting it until it too twisted itself. As if the culmination of boiling ocean, the realm writhed in a pain like motion to every syllable of the Unknown's words... a hiss so powerful its utterance could momentarily halt the advance of time. Something, for Ajihad, had gone quite terribly wrong...
