Patron Wars

Many millennia ago, those who had reached patron status had come to an uneasy agreement in their battle for power in a universe where few were choosing the class of Warlock. Representation became a bidding war where the only benefactor was the one making the pact. Many had to give more than they could sustain to attempt to get a return on their investment in terms of power.

So many of these Warlocks became so hated because of their level of power and corruption that many planets outlawed the class altogether and placed bounties on the heads of those who made that selection. Ajax had been a patron for over five hundred years at this point and was not satisfied with the way some patrons would conduct themselves. He saw their compliance as something worthy of scorn, feeling that the restrictions and lengths one had to go to as unjust.

Seeing himself as a purveyor of justice, Ajax decided to take it upon himself to cleanse the universe of those he saw as the vilest in an attempt to enhance his ability to obtain followers. Ajax had originally come from a planet of powerful magic users. His species saw the world as completely black and white, with no room for grey judgment calls to exist.

He was the first of his kind to rise to the rank of patron. The Celestine, they are called. Most had looked at the Warlock patrons as vile creatures who were only looking for more power, and though this may be true in some cases, it is not how the majority operate. We have many rules that regulate what we can and cannot do, not to mention if the Warlock becomes too powerful, they might overthrow their patron.

We still don't know why Ajax decided to become a Warlock and then a patron, but once he had, he did not associate with the other patrons, choosing instead to distance himself from the rest of us in favor of scheming in secret. We became suspicious of him and attempted to find out what he was doing. We were too late, however.

Ajax had spent his time finding those he thought were righteous in their anger and bestowed on them gifts of immense power to destroy their enemies. While this doesn't seem like much of a difference from what a normal patron might be looking for, what he ended up with was a following of Warlocks hellbent on wiping out all who had wronged them. This led to a significant rise in his own power as his followers killed nearly indiscriminately, their fury being unleashed on whole populations.

It was said that one individual wiped out every other creature of its kind on its planet for the contempt they had treated them with, destroying every man, woman, and child in existence until he finally ended his own life after finding being the sole survivor of his race an intolerable loneliness. He had been a disfigured creature that was treated as a pariah, and Ajax felt that it was unjust that the others had allowed him to live just to be rejected by any he came in contact with.

For you see, Celestine believed that if one was not born whole, one's life was not worth living. So, they culled the weak and imperfect. Ajax was no different from his kind in this respect but believed that to allow one who was destined for that life had been wronged from their birth. He didn't see the mercy in still being allowed to have a life, such as it would be.

When he had amassed enough power, he began to enact his plan. The Warlock patrons have an annual gathering called Hathvartisk, where all the patrons gather to discuss the current affairs of the multiverse as well as the rules that regulate our abilities. The System is constantly adapting, so we have to make sure we are on top of all the latest changes.

We arrived and began our usual process of socializing before the meeting began. No one knew that Ajax was missing from this part of the assembly because he normally did not associate with the other patrons. When it came time for Hathvartisk to begin, five other patrons were unaccounted for during the roll call.

Once we noticed their absence, we looked for their life signatures. Four of them could not be found. One was found with Ajax's life signature as well, but as we watched, it was snuffed out before our very eyes. Enforcers were sent to find out what had happened. The scene they arrived at was one of visceral horror. They had been tortured before being killed, all of their power having been drained.

Such was the atrocity that the System created a quest to stop him at any cost. Ajax ran. He was able to elude most of the patrons for centuries, taking opportunities as they arose to kill others as well and take their power for his own.

Years passed as we continued to hunt him throughout the multiverse. We had almost captured him on several occasions, only to have him slip through our grasp. Each scene we would come upon would be more gruesome than the last. He tortured the patrons he saw as the vilest, taking his time during the process of draining their powers before dismembering them slowly. He kept them alive with healing magic during the process so that he could draw the process out over days or weeks.

He reveled in making these patrons suffer, reminding them of the deeds they had done in the name of power. Each time, he promised to use their magic for good rather than what he saw as evil. Some of the patrons he brutalized didn't have corporeal bodies anymore or never did, based on their species. He had found a way to contain them and created a process to pull them apart on a nearly molecular level.

All of our attempts to entrap him or find out where he might strike next failed miserably. He seemed to be one step ahead of us at every turn. It was Sylvanna who was first to discover that Ajax had corrupted one of the other patrons at some point. We still don't know how he did it. He may have had control over them, though we found no signs of that, or he might have threatened them into compliance. In either case, they had been feeding Ajax information on what we were doing so that he could stay ahead of our attempts to stop him.

Sylvanna became obsessed with stopping Ajax when he killed her mentor, Thillius. We arrived too late to help him, and he had been killed by Ajax. His only mercy was we had closed in faster than the others, so he hadn't had the same time to torture him before taking his life.

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I know what you are thinking, "Azroc, you said you could track his life signature; that's how you knew he had begun killing the others," and you would be right. But after the first attempt to capture him, he masked his life signature. It shouldn't be possible. Beings are given this specific signature by the System, and it is supposed to be immutable, but somehow Ajax found a way to duplicate the life signatures of other beings, and so, he stayed out of our reach.

Again, I foresee your question, and the answer is no; I have no idea how he did it. There is always the possibility that he found a way to access the System directly to change his signature, but that seems unlikely. It is forbidden to make that kind of change to the System. Only the Admins are allowed to do that. Yes, I can speak of them now that you know of their existence, though only in the capacity in which you already know them. But I digress.

When we learned that he could change his life signature, the Admins got involved. This is a group of people that you do not want to have after you. If things get too out of hand, they can just erase you from existence. However, they always try to avoid that option unless there is no other solution.

Working with the Admins, for what little information they would give us, we were able to track his movements more efficiently. Sylvanna was the one who had the idea to go after his followers to weaken his power. As we began to find them one by one on the planets they inhabited, we slowly chipped away at his power. His draining of the other patrons continued to make that slow progress though, and we were feeling like we didn't make much progress.

When we did find his followers, they were exceptionally powerful for mortal beings due to the gifts he bestowed on them. We had to use extreme caution when approaching them as they were also exceptionally devout to him for the powers, he gave them to exact their revenge. He had created a cult following of fanatics who were willing to do anything he asked.

They had begun to revere him as a god, which is not what we are. That title is reserved for beings who have transcended beyond even our level of power, of which there are precious few. They care little for the business of those below them, as even one as long-lived as a Warlock Patron has the lifespan of a moment in time by comparison, much less mortals, whose lives are but the blink of an eye.

For every ten followers we found and struck down, he killed another patron, gaining more power to replace what he lost. I was part of the team that was sent to hunt down these followers. Battles that shook the very planets they resided on raged between the patrons and Ajax Warlocks. He had told them his secrets, the ways he killed the patrons. This made them far more dangerous than we had first anticipated.

He played on the minds and desires of the new Warlocks. Their avarice was the key to his success in finding so many followers. It was these tactics that later led to the changing of the patron creed for how we are selected. It used to be that patrons could vie for the attention of Warlocks with promises of power or abilities. Then, beings could select based on what they felt most comfortable with or who offered the most power.

Now, the selection only lists the patrons who are taking on new Warlocks and sorts them based on their alignment. This eliminates the possibility that one patron can amass too many followers and create another multidimensional incident such as this one.

In one battle against one of the last holdouts of Ajax's followers, I was deployed along with several other patrons to kill them. We arrived on the planet to find it not much more than a smoldering husk of its former self. The Warlocks had scoured the surface of all life and holed up underground while they awaited our arrival.

When we finally managed to smoke them out of hiding, the battle we fought nearly broke the planet apart. Spells of unfathomable magnitude were deployed by both sides, and creatures out of mortal nightmares were summoned on both sides to destroy the others. When the smoke finally cleared, and Ajax's Warlocks lay dead, I received word that Sylvanna had gotten word of Ajax's location from the admins and had moved alone to finish him.

The fool. She charged headlong into danger, fully aware of what he was capable of but blinded by the rage of losing her mentor. Others were dispatched as soon as we found out. We raced across planes of existence to reinforce her. Despite all of our efforts, all methods of communication were shut off once she had finally engaged Ajax at the last location we had on them.

Once we finally reached the planet where they had been, all signs of either of their life signatures had vanished. We spent years tracking all forms of life signatures alongside the Admins, trying desperately to find some sign of where they might be, to no avail.

It was decided, after a decade of searching, that we would be forced to come to grips with the fact that it appeared Sylvanna and Ajax had killed each other in their final battle. Time passed, and the memory of Ajax faded from those who inhabited the multiverse. Changes were made to how we operate so as to avoid that situation.

I thought I would never hear that name uttered again. That it had been wiped mercifully from the annals of history. That is, until today. Seeing this statue brought back all of the rage that I felt at his actions. The desperation to find what had happened to Sylvanna.

As I inspect this area, I can see that Ajax must have been hiding on this planet during its infancy. When Sylvanna found him, they would have fought a battle unlike any ever witnessed before. She clearly gave her life to entomb him here with the hope that he would never be found. It was a fool's hope that he would never be found. Though, I can see why she would feel that way with the level of magic available on this planet, even after integration.

The amount of magic that would be needed to have sealed him here would only have been possible by a sacrifice of something as great as the life of a patron. Though he had been significantly weakened by the loss of his followers, the power he had gained has still made him a threat to our very existence.

So, now you know the tale of Ajax and how he came to be. I have a plan that will allow us to both teach him the error of his ways as well as give you aid in your fight to come. You will earn a powerful weapon, though it should only be used in the face of defeat.

I can only offer this to you now that your Charisma is over one hundred. Otherwise, you wouldn't stand a chance of controlling such a being. However, he will be limited in his power compared to before. But his power should be more than enough for what you are looking to do.

So, I ask you, Tom, are you willing to take this risk? To journey to the height of your summoning capabilities and hold strong to the leash that will bind Ajax?