"The time is upon us. A few moments from now and the Holy Sepulchre will have completed one entire cycle around the Siema Galaxy." A shadowy robed figure said with great weight in his voice.

He stood at the top of the hundred thousand stairs that led to the great tomb of Vol-Drung.

Standing in two lines besides the figure were a dozen other apostles of the hammer.

Their ancient, craggly, technologically prolonged faces looked barely human as they stood at the top of the antediluvian temple.

The apostle standing at the door to the temple raised his arms in an ostentatious and ritualistic manner.

In his hands he clasped an ancient horned metal helmet.

"My brothers, it is time! Time for us to reawaken our lord! So that he may, in his infinite wisdom and might, deliver this Galaxy from the perilous path in which it spirals. Come! My friends, let us enter this most sacred of places!" He said, again with devout zeal and passion before turning to the door.

"Halle Vol-Drung! King of kings!" Was the response from the dozen others.

The lead apostle put his right hand on the seal on the door and whispered in an ancient dialect.

"Uoco, Apertus…"

There was a low thud followed by silence for a moment.

"My lord… did you use the right tone?" The lead apostle shot a glance so hostile it seemed to slap the speaker's head down into his collar.

Suddenly the ground began to shake as the giant stone doors opened slowly.

Pushing away overgrown vines and leaves to reveal nothing but darkness.

A hot wind rushed from behind the group into the temple, making little pebbles echoe like boulders through the vast space inside.

The apostles all got to their knees in a tremble and gasp.

Spraying out prayers that echoed through the tomb.

As if responding to them, a dim violet light began to flicker in the air inside the chamber.

It flickered and sparked until it sustained itself as a purple flame, floating in mid air.

They all stared in awe.

"It's our master! He beckons us!" The lead apostle cried out, pointing to the flame that began to flash as if to agree.

He stumbled to his feet and began to follow the flame blindly into the darkness.

The rest of the congregation followed.

As they walked through the chamber more flames came alight on the top of old stone pillars.

Pillars that were ornamented by statues of demons screaming in rage and men cowering in fear.

They followed the hallway down for a fair while until it opened up into a big oval antechamber.

Flames sequentially came alight around the room to illuminate a pyramid of stairs leading up to a giant tomb.

It was no ordinary tomb for whatever was inside had to be as big as three men.

The lead apostle whispered a chant in awe before scrambling to the top of the pyramid.

The others caught up and encircled the ornamented tomb.

In a gasping and manic voice the lead apostle pulled out the helmet.

"Quickly! Bring the offering!" He ordered one of the others.

One of the others pulled out from under his robe a sleeping baby boy, born no longer than a week prior.

"Quickly give it to me!" He grabbed the baby, waking it and making it cry.

The apostle laid the bawling baby on the covering of the tomb and then slid the helmet that allowed them in onto the baby's head.

It was far too big and rather than muffling the desperate screeching it amplified it.

The apostles seemed to just ignore it as they all held hands and prayed silently for a full minute as the baby cried and cried.

Suddenly, as quick as lightning strikes, the lead apostle snatched a long curved knife from under his robe and plunged it into the baby's chest, and after a second the crying stopped as his blood began to pool under his limp body.

The apostles were silent as they watched on for a moment as nothing happened.

Suddenly, the blood began to fizzle, pop and boil.

The apostles jumped back in fear and awe, some even being knocked to the ground in a spiritual fit.

The blood seemed to animate itself and it engulfed the baby's figure, pouring back into the infant from the mouthpiece of the helmet.

Its little limbs jolted and shot about sporadically as if it was having a seizure.

The sound it made was as inhuman as any of the apostles had ever heard and then, silence.

Everything was still for a moment as they all got to their feet and surrounded the altar again.

After another few moments of silence and anticipation the thing sat up straight.

Its complexion was purple and sickly. It had two stubs poking out from under each of its armpits.

The eyepieces of the helmet glowed a deep, ominous purple from the void-like black surrounding them.

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"My Lord!" One of the apostles from behind the creature yelled in spiritual hysteria.

It turned its head slowly and lifted one of its tiny little arms to point to the man.

He gasped, and in an instant his vitality was sucked from his body before he dropped to the ground in a  pile of bones and dried flesh.

The baby instantly changed shape in another grotesque seizure, taking the stature of a feeble old man with two useless appendages dropping from under his arms.

It had absorbed the man's being in entirety.

The other apostles gasped, and began chanting and praying immediately.

"Timus!" The creature bellowed in a stifled rage.

"Yes my Lord!" The lead apostle presented himself.

"How long have I been asleep?" He asked in laboured breaths of speech.

"Ten thousand years my lord! I have come! Just as you asked! Just as was prophesied oh lord! We are here" He prostrated himself to the wretched creature now sitting on the edge of the tomb.

The creature put his hand out towards one of the other apostles again, the one that brought the baby.

In another instant his life was gone and the creature morphed into slightly better health, the two bits of flesh began to look like another set of arms that dropped to the side.

"Ten thousand years… felt like an eternity…" he said, with a little more strength in his voice.

He sucked the life out of another of his followers and spasmed into the shape of a malnourished corpse.

The other arms began to work and move as he tested his strength with movement.

The others all gasped, frozen in fear and apprehension.

"Lord the Galaxy is in need of you! We have spiralled into a black mass of sin and despair! Plagues, death and war are commonplace. Without our righteous and rightful god! It was cruel what they did to you all those years ago, lord cruel and foolish!" He prattled on but the being seemed not to be paying any attention to Timus.

He raised his arm again, this time his second right one and acquired the soul of another.

He grew this time a slight taller and stronger.

He was just able to stand before stumbling onto Timus' shoulder.

"Agghhh!" He let out a hellish yell.

"I am far too weak!" He said before sucking the souls of all but four of the apostles.

He was now able to stand and walk unaided.

"This will do for now… such feeble souls. Is this all that is left of my followers! Where is the covenant of the hammer! Where are my mighty righteous warriors! I needed all of them here! That's what I told you all of those years ago, Timus!" He yelled in a fury grabbing the old apostle by the collar and pulling him close to the burning purple pools that were his eyes.

"I'm sorry my lord! The covenant was outlawed and disbanded! We were persecuted and hunted! We are all that remains!" He said, fear pouring from his eyes.

The creature stood with the apostle in his arms for a moment.

He dropped him and began walking, the others followed behind him.

"No matter… Where is Dar-Guul? Where is my hammer?" He asked, rage palpable with every word that came from him.

"My lord… your hammer… w-we… it was lost through the ages… destroyed and its pieces scattered after your death." 

Vol-Drung turned his helmet to the apostle.

He lowered his head, knowing that his lord was dismayed.

"... that and this current pathetic form complicates things…. No matter, come my children." He said as he quickened his pace as much as he could, stumbling and limping down the stairs.

They reached bottom and walked back down the hallway a little before arriving at a circular, ornamented section of the floor.

The image carved into the old stone was that of a snake's jaw, spread wide open as if to eat whatever walked upon it.

The creature knelt down in the centre of it and said the words:

"Uoco Desceatos." Suddenly the circle of stone surrounding them began to shift and slither, spiralling down to reveal a cold stone staircase.

The 4 apostles huddled closer around their lord in the centre, avoiding a sudden drop and an abrupt stop.

The group walked in silence down the stairs for a long while.

They eventually found the bottom that had a giant stone archway.

Walking through it they found themselves in a vast, dark chamber. The air was cold and old and felt like it was sucking what little life the apostles had left out of their skin.

"Uoco Illimarè!" Vol-Drung's terrible, rageful voice echoed, and in response the chamber was illuminated.

The bright purple flames showed the immensity of the throne room, with a giant throm resting at the far end. Far too big to be made for any human royalty.

The apostles gasped, they had not seen their chamber of worship in thousands of years.

Whilst they were all gaping their mouths in awe of the ancient structure, their lord had walked to the centre of the room.

He dropped to his knees, exhausted from walking.

He roared in agony and so his apostles rushed to him in a panic.

One of them didn't make it though, he fell into a bag of bones as his master twitched and spasmed into a larger yet still feeble form.

"May your soul rest easy in the unfathomable splendour of my being."

The other apostles seemed appeased by this and agreed in chant.

"Silence!" He roared before lifting all four of his arms in the air in the centre of the chamber.

All of a sudden a giant purple flame flickered into a violent dance.

Within the flames, images emerged.

"You two!" He yelled to the two lesser apostles remaining.

"Yes M'Lord?" They knelt behind him.

"The pieces of my hammer are on these planets." Four different images of landscapes and solar systems emerged from the flames.

"Go there and bring them to me… begin the next phase here as well…" he ordered.

"Yes my lord! With haste!" The both of them said whilst still kneeling.

"Now!" They ran from the throne room in a manic hurry.

Vol-Drung stared into the flame for a moment longer before extinguishing it.

He walked to the throne and slumped down at its base, too weak and small to climb to the seat.

"My lord… is there any way I may be of service?" Timus meekly approached the god.

"I am weak Timus… I need to regain my strength. Begin my church anew in the outer edges, bring offerings so that I may regain my strength… there is much to do…" he said in an ominous grumble.

"Yes my lord!" He said and with the same haste as his underlings, he exited the temple.

Leaving Vol-Drung sitting at the foot of his throne.

"It's time this Galaxy was reminded… reminded of its fate…"