Stephen Brightborn - Level 152 Champion of Light
“You must be mistaken! If this affliction is from the Pits then at least some of our people must be able to cure it.” Stephen said, slowly rubbing his temples.
His strong features and brilliant armor all seemed diminished in that sunbathed office at the top of the Tower of Light. Many beings of great power had cowed before his presence and he was a living legend in this Epoch. Even on Nephesh, where myths were common, the name of Stephen Brightborn evoked deep respect in his allies or shuddering fear in his enemies. He was the Champion of Light and his was the voice of the Church. Despite all this power, something deep within him quavered at the incoming reports.
This was one enemy he could not face. There was no army to fight, no great villain to slay.
“I'm sorry sir, We now have multiple reports across several Principalities. Even our spies in the more infernal aligned territories are sending in similar reports.”
“Light dammit!” Stephen cried, his fist slamming against his exquisite desk of divine marble. The spymaster did his best not to flinch as the impact was felt throughout the entire structure of the Great Tower.
“How is it that not even our High priestesses can cure this affliction!?” He demanded, unable to understand what he was hearing.
The spymaster grimaced and did his best to take a different tack.
“Your Radiance, they can cure it in its first form, one that sometimes presents as poison or plague. The vectors it travels are very diverse and difficult to track in this regard. Nevertheless, it is curable at that stage, just very resistant to our abilities. But at some point, as it advances with a host's body, those with high enough stats can partner with the invader and form some sort of covenant. They receive an increase in various stats, typically in exchange for a reduction in Wisdom. We believe it begins to behave something like an inborn ability at this point, entangling itself in the Mana Pathways of its host. Once such a level of bonding is achieved, it is only removable by the System or the Gods.” He reported quickly, hoping that in the continuous retelling, he was not earning the wrath of one of the most powerful unascended beings on Nephesh.
Stephen's cloudy expression of anger faded,
“Yes, I have spoken with Lady Light. Disturbingly, not only does she not have any guidance for us in this regard, but she hinted that they are experiencing a similar incursion in the divine and infernal spheres.”
This news came as a shock to the forgettable-looking man in servant's clothes.
“How can it be! Surely something like this is unable to threaten the combined powers of the heavens!”
“That is just it, Reginald… I believe that as more and more followers come under the sway of this ‘Corruption’ the Gods themselves are beginning to be influenced by its presence.”
“Gods above…” Reginald whispered, cowed by a threat so grand that it beggared any thought of defense or reprisal.
“Yes…Gods help us all.”
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Tim, Level ??? Time Lord, Epoch Traveler.
“Curious, very curious…” The Time Lord muttered to himself as he stood hovering above the mountain that had been radiating so much temporal dilation just minutes before.
The Weave running through the fabric of reality here was fascinating. At first glance, it was another incursion of this new extraplanar influence. Its rotting and breaking of the Weave, while unpleasant, was nothing new to Tim who had been observing it with mild disgust for decades.
He had always found the Weave to be astonishingly beautiful. The first time it had been revealed to him, he had lost years to its mesmerizing pattern. Yet this new influence, whatever it was, seemed to be intrinsically contrary to the nature of reality, twisting, breaking, and undoing the pattern wherever it appeared. While this did not yet affect Tim, he found it prudent to keep an eye on all new influences on the plane. All of this, while important, was not what tickled the back of Tim's awareness. Something else was going on here, something even deeper.
It wasn't the temporal energies, which while rare, were not unheard of. No, this incursion seemed to have met its end, something rarely accomplished in any of the other iterations. A force had opposed this Corruption with such subtlety that Tim had trouble identifying any traces of its presence at all.
The Time Lord adjusted his optic nerve through several spectrums of light and took another deep breath through his considerable nose. There it was again! Flickering just outside of his awareness.
This was something old, older even than Tim, which was quite a feat. If he wasn't mistaken, this was the scent of the First Epoch. Its earthy, primordial odor harkened back to a time of Predator and Prey when the only Concepts on the plane embodied ideas like Fear, Rage, and Authority.
It had been a truly long time since he had detected any of the First Epoch’s influence in this Realm and he was beginning to see the evidence of its working in the Underlayer of the Weave. Only a handful of beings even knew the Underlayer existed, let alone had the power and deftness to influence the plane through such an abstract vector.
Yet here it was, subtly pulling the underlayer in the places where it had been destroyed into a new and more solid structure. This new pattern astonishingly seemed to reinvigorate the original Weave, producing even greater beauty and complexity. The effect of such subtle interference was a considerable strengthening of this area's Fate.
Tim rotated through several optical-based abilities before shifting his observation to the interior of the mountain, where a Human knelt beside three primitive crossbred figments. Hardly any weight on the fabric at all. Truly distasteful creatures in Tim's opinion.
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Then, to Tim’s astonishment, a foreign energy signature revealed itself in their midst! A frown creased the Time Lord’s forehead as he flexed his will. The Weave of reality itself, marching forward inexorably towards some unknown conclusion, shuddered to a halt and then reversed under the influence of the Epoch Traveler. He then scanned the area again, this time replaying time slowly to watch the changes in the Weave, and the Underlayer.
The center of all that subtle change was this altar and its flame. That Temporal spike was more than just a cleansing and reworking of Corruption's influence. Something was altering the very destiny of the concepts these inconsequential creatures represented. Tim hesitated to approach a force outside of his understanding. He had not survived the last three Epoch Upheavals by being rash.
He flexed the interchange between time and space and was suddenly gone. Off to re-examine some of the other incursions to see if he could spot this other force at work there as well.
Change was coming.
And for the first time in a thousand years… Tim wasn't sure he knew what that meant.
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Titus Janus Marcellus Level 38 Quaestor
Titus flicked his hand in disgust, trying to remove the glob of spit mingled with blood that had lodged between his rings. When it would not immediately come free, he snapped his hand in irritation and one of his attendants leapt forward to offer a silk cloth in a trembling hand.
“Why must my family be plagued by weaklings!” He bemoaned, once again laying his spiteful gaze on the creature before him.
There, tied to a chair was a bloody and bruised lapin, its head lolling from the force of the backhand that had just shattered its jaw.
“Evander!” The young Quaestor snapped.
“Yes, your eminence!” A sharply dressed man stated crisply, stepping up from the crowd of attendants who had been made to watch the “educational session” the young master had chosen to display.
“This weakling obviously had no clue why his partner failed to send in reports for the last two weeks, and the distasteful problem of these creatures falls on me once again. My father is not to hear of this… am I clear?” He finished, his voice taking on such a sharp edge that the washerwoman in the back almost fainted.
“Perfectly, your eminence,” Evander answered smoothly. His frozen expression of disinterest was not shaken in the least by the display of cruelty being played out before him.
“The responsibility of teaching these pests their place has once again fallen to me, and everything was going perfectly well until we lost what I was told was a very reliable asset...” He said, leveling his gaze at Evander with enough petty cruelty that it would have broken a lesser servant.
“Sir, even the best of these creatures is but a pale and sickly shadow of one of our people, they can never be relied upon for any length of time,” Evander answered cooly, looking down but not cowed before his master's displeasure.
“Yes, well, as with anything of import, it seems I will have to go and handle this myself. Draft the papers for a teleport, and draw up some sort of grievance that will force that wrinkled old fool to return to the capital and give account. If the last reports are at all to be believed, his absence will spell an end to this farce, and we can throw him in jail along with the other upstarts.”
“Right away sir,” Evander pronounced with a perfectly monotone inflection, before turning and moving through the crowd.
Titus simply stared down at his captive, not seeming to notice the departure of his chief servant. Every other servant in the room stood frozen, hoping against hope that he would not notice them.
Suddenly, faster than a striking snake, his hand was around the unconscious lapin's neck, slowly constricting the airway until their chest began to spasm and their lidded eyes fluttered in a weak attempt to regain consciousness. The audience of servants averted their eyes in horror trying their best to be as small as possible. At that moment, if any had looked, they would have seen a manic gleam in the young man's eyes. Under the sleeve of the exquisitely trimmed jacket, something writhed in glee as the helpless captive weakly jerked a final time before going completely still
Then as if coming to himself, Titus Janus Marcellus stood straight and pulled down his jacket cuffs fixing some invisible wrinkle.
“For Pit’s sake, someone remove this trash.” He sighed wearily to himself and walked calmly out of the room, the crowd parting before him with unconscious cattle-like motions.
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Hiro- Level 52 Samurai Lord.
He stood sentinel at the wall this evening, just as he had for the past several weeks. His Endurance and Constitution made sleep all but unnecessary. Not that he would have slept, even if he had been able.
Last night, the infected beasts had not come. He had ridden out himself after several hours of waiting and found many bodies in varying states of death, all of them displaying very peculiar burn marks as if a fire had risen from inside their forms and vented through any opening it could find.
Upon his return, he had learned that the twenty-three villagers that had been afflicted with varying states of infection had all almost spontaneously recovered, after an intense period of fever and shaking.
Something had changed. His choice, made almost in anger at the plight of his people, had borne surprising fruit, but none of this gave him comfort. He had still lost his son, his last living link to his dear wife, and the legacy of his people. He had counseled caution when the reports had started coming in, but after losing the hunters, Ichiro had been beside himself with anger.
“We have run too many times. Our backs are against the wall. We can hide no longer.” He had whispered in fury in the council chamber in a rare show of lost self-control. Then Ichiro had left with his two retainers, some the last of our warriors…
Hiro had thought it was just to patrol, something to do to work through some of the frustrations of their seemingly hopeless situation. But they did not return from that outing. He sent people out the next day to search the lower reaches of the forest, even running a quick patrol himself in a large circle around the village...
They had found nothing.
He was the last of his line now, and the fate of his people had withered in his hands. He had hoped his son would be the one to deliver them out of these many centuries of bondage. The boy had all of his mother’s wisdom and all his father's strength. His only failing being an anger that led to rash action. Yes, he had been their hope, but in the end, Hiro lost him too.
This did not change the sudden upswing of his people's fate. The Abomination's influence had seemed to have been burned away. The attacks had stopped and the people, especially those who had received revived loved ones could not help but rejoice. They held a small but earnest celebration within the wall of the village, sensing their lord’s mood, but unable to contain the joy of surviving such a calamity.
Hiro alone stood vigil on the wall as the others left to celebrate. Their plans carefully laid over generations had taken a major blow and with none to carry on the work, Hiro was, for the first time, unsure how to proceed. Most of his people did not know the details, but without strong leadership in the days to come, he was not sure they would survive the transition.
And so, he stood watch, wondering if the human had survived and if his son had found rest.
Then in the distance, his supernaturally sharp hearing picked up a familiar drawling accent.
“Hey Nyuk, it sounds like they are having a party in the village... doesn't seem right to start without us.”