The ancient Cradle loomed like a gaping chasm in the heart of Laconian soil, its distinct verdant stones alive with the pulsing glow of runes known to have been scrawled by the Oduum acolytes.
Far above, the lofted high-meisters of the crowd concluded the lamenting, sanctifying spell to ward the holding sand pit below. Meant for sacrificing animals within, it would more than suffice for this evening’s pig.
Inky shadows danced across the ground as entities from across existence congealed, some prominent and pompous in promenade and pageantry, some that mortal eye couldn’t quite grasp what it was seeing and made one feel nauseas, deprived of nourishment or just the need to pronate.
There were shimmering projections of themselves formed by greed, ambition, or vengeance—some as radiant as suns, others dark as midnight’s edge. The air grew thick with power, the potent cocktail of rage and desire that hung in the silence like a tightening noose.
Adrestia, standing tall with a cold, predatory calm, scanned the gathering with an authoritative gaze, her eyes fierce and calculating. She held Amun’s dagger at his throat, the blade hidden just beneath the folds of her sleeve. Amun knelt beside her, subdued and wretched, his once-proud posture now hunched and broken, his eyes downcast in a display of utter subservience. He crawled forward, dragging himself with all the dignity of a whipped animal, letting out a low, despondent groan that echoed through the ancient space.
When Adrestia spoke, her voice cut through the simmering tension like a blade honed by centuries. “Esteemed guests,” she announced, her tone icy and confident, “we are here to settle debts long past due. I bring before you the one who once thought himself free from his promises, his responsibilities.” Her voice turned mocking as she looked down at Amun, her lips curling into a cruel smile and she knelt to look at the blindman face to face, so that he could sense her there. “But no more.”
She stroked the ragged, sigiled cheek on the man, almost seductively….reached for the long beard on her once dangerous quarry, now most valued trophy, and tugged the wirey-hair roughly, lifting his head to face the audience, the crowd of gods and patrons who glared down at him with expressions ranging from cruel amusement to ravenous hunger. An audible “crack” reverberated through the chamber. Amun collapsed in a heap from the action, still breathing, barely.
Ob Nixilus was the first to fade in from nothingness, the severed head just a phantom and a dim one at that. The grim wraith held a distinct expression; a mix of pain and something like affection. He cast a sidelong, almost wounded glance at Adrestia, the one who had challenged and ultimately smote him in single combat, the one who charged the ramparts and scaly militia and didn’t blemish a single part of her delicious armaments in her rampage. She was absolute bane to the likes of him and he both admired her and would flay her flesh into delicious hors d’oevres if he could.
Speaking in a tone tinged with old, rapidly eroding kinship, “Amun, my dear bondsman, you wounded me deeply. Was it truly necessary to avoid me at such a critical moment?” His voice softened, almost pleading. “You know I would have helped you, contract or no, had you summoned me to your side.
I, a lordling in the Great Asmoedon’s ranks, lowered my talon to the dust of my own smashed defenses, cowed my pride to scrawl that summoning circle to you! To call for your aid in my moment of dire need! I only wanted a… another fiend beside me, whether we bested the bitch or not.
You defied the summons. How? Why? It matters not and I am embarrassed for you and your reek. May your family dagger wilt and shatter. I will haunt your lineage, in the divine or the infernal plane, a floating head an eternal pursuer to remind them of your cowardice and empty fidelity.”
Amun cast a glance at him, his expression one of feigned misery, his lips trembling as he murmured, “I… Ob, I…” He faltered, letting the weight of disappointment hang in the air. Ob’s eyes shimmered, the old memories they’d shared evident in his face, before a smirk twisted his lips.
Ob looked around at the assembly, then spoke as if confiding in an audience of close friends, his words carrying a strangely tender undertone. “I don’t need blood or suffering. No, I want the covenant renewed. I want the alliance we once shared—under a new accord.” He grinned at Amun, his expression most wounded and malevolent. “You look good under leash. You’ll spend an eternity bound, at me heel on bloody hand and knee. Made to crawl like a scurrying thing. A coward.”
Before Ob could press his claim, a low, grating laugh echoed through the Cradle.
Asmoedon projected above the prostrated Amun. The duke of hell, cast from his prison, no longer entirely shackled by Amun’s absolute will.
The black and furry face a mask of disdain as he cast a contemptuous look at Ob. “Pathetic,” he sneered. “Friendship, brotherhood—what nonsense. He’s a tool, Ob, nothing more. And now… he is mine to befoul as I see fit.”
A cruel gleam danced in his eyes as he glared down at Amun, his voice a low, sinister rumble. “I’ll savor his entrails, plucked piece by piece while he hangs on an inverted cross. His essence will seep into my wastelands, his consciousness pinned to my barren lands as a living monument. Reborn, broken, and harvested again and again. A fitting tribute, wouldn’t you agree?” He chuckled, enjoying the horrified stares of the mortal assembly above, mocking their timid mortality. Asmoedon’s wink caused a feinting spell in a few.
The pantheon’s attention shifted to Loviatar, the Maiden of Pain, who stepped forward with a knowing smirk. She looked Amun over with an almost affectionate cruelty. “Exquisite,” she purred. “But Asmoedon’s methods lack finesse. I’d harvest his nerves, unraveling them thread by thread. Imagine his pain tied to my own pleasure, his every scream feeding my joy.” She tilted her head, offering Asmoedon a derisive look. “I have a more refined touch.”
Adrestia watched their squabbles with a barely-concealed smirk, her grip on the dagger tightening as she subtly pressed it closer to Amun’s neck, a reminder to the assembly that she alone controlled the fate of their precious pawn. The slightest motion would end him before they could lay claim, an insurance policy against any overreach. Her control over him was absolute, or so it seemed to the greedy eyes cast her way.
Hades, brooding and dark, spoke next, his deep voice rumbling Lacon itself. “Enough of this petty pain. He’ll serve me as a beacon in the underworld, his bones as torch fuel, lighting my domain.” He leveled a harsh gaze at Amun. “You’d be a reminder to the dead that none defy me without consequence. Each day, a new bone, a new flame.”
Aloft, the observing esteemed elders of the Choir lurked, murmured approval and horror in equal measure, for few had ever gazed upon such a grim gathering. Anubis, Lolth, Moloch, Hel—these were but a few to be witnessed on this eve, it was historic and the Laconian society garnered histories like a miser would be gluttonous over their coin. They would witness and record what was about to transpire. Each being would bid in cruelty, and plead their claim on the warlock, Amun more imaginative, each trying to outbid the one before, as was their way.
These beings, as a collective, this was challenging the psychic capacity of the Cradle. The purest continuum was to beacon here, not built to house such sinistry, not in this volume. The villainy would be a great beacon for one even greater to hone in on, the initiator of Carcosa. Hastur was a dread emissary and absolute harbinger ….and the trusted envoy.
Gaia and Mydiir had confirmed such secrets of the Oddum, that they were in fact most docile, the most dense in sloth when they fed. Hastur, their envoy would gesture like a dog wrangles cattle, they would gorge on what Carcosa would ravage. It would be an orgy, it would be a feast. With the Oduum in tow, quite satiated and lumbering; Hastur, his pet doomsday planet Carcosa and in a far lathargic distance the Oduum, dormant and distended.
The concentration of villainy here, in these lesser pawns that were so involved, so informed, so immersed in the Laconian perceptions and needs. They needed the fear of the mortals above and all. They desired for their belief. While they intimidated the Choir, most unconscious at this point (one was mere jelly of flesh and piss). The psychic terror attack emitting from the Cradle, all would be consumed as well in utter undifference. The Oduum cared for nothing, were motivated by almost nothing just the migration cycle that fed and sate them.
Without Hastur’s presence and armaments, Adrestia too would have melted. Timing and taking advantage of their collective hubris would be everything. She sensed this psychic attack like one could feel a depression in the weather before storms. Concerned with the plan, she extended this sensitivity to ensure that Amun was also persevering.
She nudged him, hard in the flank with her boot. With gritted jaw, he nodded in determination, an unsaid signal that he was holding steady, for now. She had to stop their barrage, to at least dampen it and turn it in on itself.
As Amun knelt, seeming to shrink with each dark promise, Adrestia’s voice cut through the air again, all was silent. “Parlay rules,” she warned, her gaze stern and unyielding. “He’s mine to deliver as I see fit. Any who overstep will answer to the Yellow King and the will of the Oduum!”
With an almost imperceptible shift, she allowed Amun’s head to fall forward, pressing her grip into his shoulder as if to secure him from further disgrace. The dagger, no longer concealed, remained a reminder, gleaming briefly as she adjusted her stance, its edge pressed dangerously close to his neck.
The pantheon of beings stopped the assault for the hunter, because she was the Oduum’s representation. A respect was being yielded, temporarily.
Adrestia’s eyes gleamed as she let her gaze wander over the patrons, each entity staring back with a mix of desire and caution. In the cold silence, she let her power speak louder than their threats, allowing them to stew in her control, each one seething beneath her command, yet unable to challenge her without risking their coveted prize. Their very intincts told them that their existance was at stake, their belief and fear that was their mana. This was nothing in comparison to the lumbering enormity that was named Oduum.
In that moment, something shifted. Amun’s eyes, lowered and unseeing, seemed to flicker with a strange, hidden gleam. Adrestia felt a subtle tug—a wordless message, a pulse of intention. He was ready, and so was she.
Abe’s voice, as if echoing from beyond, stirred in the back of her mind, guiding her with newfound clarity, each beat of her heart aligning with his will. The roles had reversed; her mind was free, her power hers alone. And yet, she moved forward in sync with the childe’s quiet, resolute command, the faint echo of their bond steadying her resolve.
She turned to the assembly, eyes narrowed. “The bidding begins. But know this—whatever payment you deem fit will only come with my permission, and only as I see fit.”
The icons shifted, visibly rattled by her certainty. Ob cast a searching look at Amun, his expression somewhere between concern and intrigue, as if sensing that this “auction” wasn’t quite what it seemed.
And as the first bids began, Amun’s faint smile grew—subtle, barely visible beneath his fallen gaze, yet potent enough to signal to Adrestia and Abe alike that the game had only just begun.
Asmoedon’s projection from Amun’s mind like a grotesque, living hologram. Amun’s cellar door flung open, unbound as a dark wellspring, with Asmoedon’s voice emerging from the depths as a ghostly, animated form, echoing the chilling malice he embodies.
---
Asmoedon chuckled darkly, the sound reverberating through the Cradle like a rusted blade dragged over stone. The infernal duke’s voice didn’t come from his lips or form, for he wasn’t physically there. Instead, Asmoedon’s image flickered out of Amun’s mind like a manifested nightmare, a projection of pure malevolence spiraling upward from Amun’s bowed head. Shadows rippled, twisted in sickly tones as Asmoedon’s form took shape—dark chains of spectral iron and embers floated, creating the silhouette of the Sovereign of Pandemonium himself. His laughter, laced with venomous amusement, filled the room, and his hollow, shimmering eyes bore down on Ob with cold disdain.
“Ob, always so sentimental,” he sneered, his voice dripping with contempt. “He’s not your ‘brother.’ He’s a tool, a mouthpiece. And I, personally, have grander plans.”
He leaned closer, his projected form shifting in the air until he loomed over Amun, a phantom presence whose very essence seemed to taint the ground beneath. His voice dropped to a guttural whisper, a tone so vile it clawed its way into the minds of all who listened.
“I will savor him as he dangles. I will mount him as a sign to all who dare follow him—a living monument of rot, his conscious remains pinned to my scorched plains.”
The words hung in the air, and Asmoedon’s ghostly form twisted, his mouth curling into a wicked smile as his chained hands extended toward Amun’s downcast figure. Slowly, they pressed against Amun’s shoulders as if to mark him for this fate, though his body remained untouched.
“The cycle will be endless,” he continued, his voice a whispered poison. “Reborn and reborn, only to be peeled and broken again. I will ravish him upon my prick as I please. Over and over. His orifices restored and made fresh for me as I please. He’ll never know rest again.”
His form flickered, as if delighting in its own darkness, chains writhing and rattling as his cruel promise hung in the room. The Cradle pulsed with Asmoedon’s projection, an invasive specter that dripped with resentment and power, darkening the air with its malice.
——
Loviatar, the Maiden of Pain, holds a history with Amun that’s steeped in both fascination and betrayal. Once, in a long-forgotten pact, Amun had served as an emissary for Loviatar’s rituals of torment, gathering knowledge of infernal pain magic and ancient forms of torture under her guidance. Loviatar saw potential in Amun—a rare mortal with a mind as twisted as her own, unafraid to venture into dark arts most would shun. Amun, however, had merely used her knowledge to strengthen his own power, parting ways with her after extracting the darkest secrets of suffering from her domain.
The betrayal left Loviatar feeling scorned, yet impressed by his audacity, which only fueled her sadistic fascination with the warlock. However, her hatred for Asmoedon runs deeper. He had once taken one of her prized acolytes to serve as his own torturer, wresting control over her through dark seduction and force. Loviatar has yearned for vengeance, and now, with Amun under her potential control, she sees a way to strike.
Sinister Loviatar steps forward, her form shimmering like silk spun from shadow, her eyes alight with a sadistic gleam as she drinks in the sight of Amun’s bent form. Her voice is smooth as honeyed poison, each word laced with a dark promise.
“Ah, Amun, a canvas for exquisite torment. How fitting, given the secrets you once stole from my hand…” Her voice trails off, allowing a thin smile to curve at her lips.
She lets her gaze flick briefly to Asmoedon, a flash of venom in her eyes. “And to think, you once served another. But no matter.” She turns back to Amun, her face alight with eager cruelty.
“I would harvest the nerves from your body one by one, stretching each to its limit, embedding them within my tapestry of suffering. Each thread, each strand would sing of you, Amun, carrying your agony through every layer of my realm.”
She steps closer, her eyes glittering, her voice turning softer, more intimate. “But this is only the beginning. I would tie your senses to my own—my pleasure, your pain. Every time I smile, every thrill I feel, would scorch through your flesh, as if you were burning alive from the inside.”
A low chuckle escapes her as she savors the image, her gaze cutting over to Asmoedon, her voice turning pointed.
“I would keep you alive, Amun, weaving your agony through eons. And in every smile I share with those who betrayed me, you’ll know… that I hold the reins, not some hollow ‘Lord of Chains, that sulks because it was defeated. Not I, even though I am certain to have been on your little ‘hit list’.”
Her final words linger, her threat clear—a sharp edge aimed at Asmoedon, reminding him that her vengeance, too, has depths he has yet to plumb. She smiles a little wider, her dark promise cast into the Cradle, and takes a step back, letting the implications simmer with her rivals.
——
Amun and Hades history is laced with a pact that transcends mortal ambition, touching on Hades’ dominion over the dead and Amun’s audacity to barter in souls. Years ago, in a desperate bid for knowledge and protection, Amun had struck a deal with Hades.
Hades twisted and contorted the terms of the arrangement, as one would suspect.
Amun received all asked and more, to have insights when they matter and called upon, to bridge gap and see…NO forsee the connections and framework, to be an Architect…
For this great boon and contract with Lord Hades...he offered the soul of his most beloved, Vanessa.
She, his one taste of true good, love of Amun, Vanessa had given everything to the childe become warlock, dedicating her life and spirit to his teachings. The teachings never ended, the day was nonstop because it was their way, they lived their practice. Love and affection was inevitable as the relationship unfurled. Yet, in one fateful moment of betrayal, Amun sacrificed her soul to Hades, her essence sealed in a small neck pouch filled with sand, as a reminder of the price paid. Amun hadn’t felt a single thing of good since then, Hades curse upon him, a slow trickle of blood Amun paid everyday…..for immortality.
That was second twist of the deal with Hades….to curse Amun with immortalty; to live, to fail often, to die horribly and to come back because you can break a deal with Hades. No.
Hades took her, binding her to his Underworld as a wraith tasked with tormenting souls that tried to rebel or otherwise escape his grasp. She would be in underworld, conscripted to be a Grim Reaper.
With this new bid, the Lord of the Underworld sees an opportunity not only to enforce Amun’s own torment but to make him answer for the betrayal that had condemned Vanessa.
---
Hades stepped forward, his form flickering with shadows and his presence chilling the very air, a palpable cold that reached deep into the bones of everyone gathered. His eyes, dark as a starless void, locked onto Amun with an intensity that made even the other gods pause. His voice was a low rumble, ancient and unyielding.
“The dead can always use more company, Amun. But you… I’d ensure you never truly join their ranks. No, I’d condemn you to wander the Asphodel Fields, where the scent of peace lingers, yet you’d never taste it.”
He took a step closer, his eyes gleaming with sinister promise.
“Your bones would serve as torch fuel, lighting the paths of my Underworld. Each day, they’d be stripped bare and reformed, your skin knit and torn anew, as you become a guide for the lost souls in my domain.”
There was a pause, his gaze steady and unforgiving. He lifted a hand to his neck, gesturing to a small pouch that hung there, filled with dust-like sand—the very sands of Vanessa’s essence, the residue of her sacrifice. A smirk played on his lips as he continued, voice dropping to an almost intimate whisper.
“And to ensure your suffering is… thorough, I would reclaim her. Your beloved, Vanessa, would be reborn—not to haunt you, but to haunt with you.”
He paused, savoring the effect of his words on the silent crowd. “She would beat the defiance from you day after day, reminding you of the price of betrayal. I can think of nothing sweeter.”
Amun’s face, though feigned in subservience, faltered slightly, the impact of Hades’ words sinking in as he imagined Vanessa turned against him, her loyalty twisted into relentless punishment. Hades tilted his head, dark amusement flickering in his eyes.
“You’ll become an eternal beacon in my realm, a reminder that no debt to death goes unpaid. She will remind you, every hour, every moment, of what you’ve lost.”
With a cold finality, Hades stepped back, his presence still lingering like frost in the Cradle as he gave a final, piercing look at Amun.
——
The roar of a sandstorm filled the Cradle, less a sound and more a force that tore through the air, stripping all else away. It ground against the assembled patrons, a relentless, scraping wind that left only the bare essence of things. In the swirling storm, a figure took shape—a tall, dark presence draped in shadows, yet with eyes that gleamed with ancient judgment. Anubis stood before them, her gaze fixed upon Amun, who knelt in feigned subservience. Her voice was like the sand itself, eroding all pretense, all resistance.
“Amun… you are not simply indebted to me. You have upset… the balance. That… is your trespass.”
Pressure in the ears, behind the eyes, making the bodily jelly bulge and almost beg to burst, the forsaken words settled over the room with a gravity, each phrase grinding against the spines, guts and foundations of all present.
“You sought my secrets but perverted them… to twist what is sacred.” Her voice was precise, her gaze unwavering. “I granted you knowledge of the veil, and yet you tore it to ribbons as you traveled the realms, scarred my realm with your transgressions. That dagger will be mine to smash to the sands, dear.” Eyes as dark and deep as the Void shot the threat to Adrestia, but the sanguine huntress held fast and matched the gaze.
Her eyes held no mercy, only the promise of retribution. Yet beneath her restraint lay something more—a personal contempt, a hunger to tip the scales of justice for her own satisfaction, to see Amun’s spirit crushed beneath her paw, free from the fairness that had always ruled her hand. Just this once, even if it stained her impeccable title.
“I would reclaim… what you have stolen. Every soul you cheated me of, every spirit twisted to your purpose. And this time, Amun…”
Her voice, heavy as a millstone, carried an unmistakable finality. She took a step forward, her presence pressing down upon him.
“…I will cheat you. I will weigh your heart against all you have taken, and if it tips not far enough, my paw will press it down.” Her lips, usually firm and neutral, curved ever so slightly in satisfaction.
“Not because of what you deserve… but because of what I desire.”
The Choir shifted uneasily, sensing the uncharacteristic hunger in her tone, the break in her centuries-long vow of fairness.
“I would strip you of spirit, bone by bone, sinew by sinew, until all that remains… is the echo of the suffering you have caused. The story would edify the walls of my tomb.”
And with a slow, deliberate motion, she extended her paw, pressing it down with invisible weight, as though already consigning him to his fate. Her voice, a whispered oath, grew quieter yet sharper, each word cutting into Amun’s soul.
“…And then I would leave you in the Hall of Ma’at, forced to plead your case for eternity, with me as judge, jury, and the weight upon the scale. A Prometheon turmoil for you. Forever.”
Amun’s head lowered further, a flicker of genuine apprehension rippling through his worn face. For the first time, he seemed to feel the inevitability of the judgment that awaited him.
The silence that followed was colder than death. For Anubis, fairness had once been absolute, her paw never tipping the scales. But this time, she would reclaim all that was lost by her own hand, with a satisfaction no god nor mortal could wrest from her grasp. The weight of her justice pressed into the room like the sands of a desert burying all it touched, leaving no doubt: Amun would be weighed and, for the first time, judged without mercy.
———
As a carpet of spiders unfurled across the stone, their spindly legs whispering like the softest silk, a dark presence descended upon the Cradle. Thousands of gleaming arachnids wove intricate, glistening patterns, heralding the approach of their Queen, unseen yet undeniably there—Lolth, the Demon Queen of Spiders. Shadows coiled around her unseen form, her voice slipping into the room like a venomous breeze, each syllable a silken thread wrapping tighter around the assembly.
She was a lovely monstrosity with lovely feminity, nude, but for carapace pauldrons of black chitin that matched her areola’s and her eyes, her mantis arms in the front ending in scythes, too many spider legs to move her in otherworldly grace and celerity, and a scorpion tail, very long, very poised and corrosive.
Her laugh—a smooth, indulgent sound—swept over Amun, her unseen gaze consuming him whole.
“Amun…”, she purred, her voice barely a whisper, yet every word resounded as if dripped from the ceiling, coiling around his mind. “Ah, our elusive prize… you’d look exquisite, bound within my threads, wouldn’t you agree?”
As her words floated out, spiderlings skittered forward, weaving a delicate trail, intricate patterns of web that shimmered in the dim light. Her unseen form hovered just out of reach, a silhouette in threads, her voice sinking deeper, intoxicating and relentless.
“Weaver as I am of the fates three, I would weave you into my tapestry, layer by layer, sinew by sinew. Your flesh stretched thin as gossamer, your nerves pulled excruciatingly taut… over miles of my endless web.”
She paused and closed her own eyes in rapture, her humanoid arms enveloping herself in the delicious vulgarity, savoring the thought, a low chuckle reverberating through the chamber. Her voice dripped with a seductive poison, each word a caress and a promise of agony.
“Imagine it, Amun, engorging as you’re being ravished, your skin a living canvas for my children to crawl upon. Every vibration, every touch, every winged creature that finds your frail sinews, drawn to your sweet decay. You would feel it all.”
Her dark laughter swelled as she drifted closer, her spindle and extensions weaving the air in slow, deliberate motions, almost as if crafting him before the eyes of the others.
“Ah, and as you rot, your body giving itself to my creation… your cries would be my music, echoing in the caverns, a lullaby as I spin.”
The audience seemed to shrink from her, but one of the meisters was too drawn to her dervish. She plucked him like a ready and plump fruit, a scythe foreleg separating the man’s head in a swift motion for the Queen to sup on. The juicy body dropped into the web and her children wrapped the meal for later.
The silken menace of her voice weaving itself through their minds. Amun knelt lower, caught in her web of words as if already bound, the weight of her twisted fantasy pressing upon him.
Between horrific crunching, she promised “And when you are nothing more than a memory, your story but a whisper trapped in every corner of my web, like so much stained glass, your pain will resonate through all I touch. You will remain immortal, in the way only suffering can grant.”
With a final, satisfied hiss, she withdrew slightly, her presence a lingering, sticky promise.
——
Bursting into the scene, Moloch, Prince of Hellfire, a figure known for his wrath and appetite for destruction, had been personally slighted by Amun in a way that left him in a perpetual state of furious indignation. Amun had once infiltrated Moloch’s arsenal, a fortress of incendiary weapons and infernal artillery unmatched across realms, to steal his kiln’s fire, a spell craft of immense destructive power, capable of incinerating all matter to an atomic level. The fire was the alpha and the omega, it purified all in its embrace. The recipe, a treasure of unmatched value, had been Moloch’s pride, a piece of his own essence imbued into it. To have it taken from him, and by a mere mortal, was a wound Moloch felt with every searing ember in his blazing core.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
Their “relationship” had never been cordial, and Moloch saw Amun not as a challenger, but as a pesky, opportunistic thief. The Prince’s ego could scarcely tolerate the theft, and his fury had grown exponentially over the years. Moloch believed he was above such proceedings and had, in his mind, agreed only to attend the auction to assert his dominance over the other patrons—and to send a brutal message to Amun that would echo across the cosmos.
---
The Cradle quaked as a thunderous, deafening sound filled the space, rolling like the crack of a thousand cannons. The air itself seemed to buckle, shivering under the force of Moloch’s voice, each syllable an explosion that sent visible shockwaves rippling through the gathering.
Glancing at the others, he bellowed, “PITIFUL CREATURES!” The very ground seemed to tremble beneath him, as though his words alone could split the stones underfoot. “You think to… TO CLAIM WHAT IS MINE?”
The crowd flinched, the sheer volume of his voice rattling through their skulls, each word a seismic boom that felt like a detonation inside their minds. Moloch’s form, towering and monumental, glowered down upon Amun, whose hunched posture and weary frame only emphasized the disparity between them.
“THIS WRETCHED ….THING!.... STOLE FROM ME!” His fists clenched, sending explosive plumes of fire into the air, scorching the stone beneath his feet as his words reverberated, echoing through the Cradle. “MY FORMULAE, MY MOST PRECIOUS TREASURE! A BLUEPRINT OF PURE DEVASTATION!”
He sneered, casting a scornful look around the assembled entities, his fiery eyes blazing with contempt. “AND YOU THINK YOUR CLAIMS, YOUR MEWLING THREATS… COULD EVER MATCH MY WRATH?”
The patrons shrank back, intimidated by the concussive force of his voice and the barely-contained rage flickering in his gaze.
“I AM THE PRINCE OF HELLFIRE! I COULD SEND EACH OF YOU… BACK TO YOUR MISERABLE, INSIGNIFICANT CORNERS OF EXISTENCE… IN ASHES!” He raised a hand, a colossal fist of molten flame, and clenched it into a fiery ball. The ground cracked beneath him, tremors rippling outward as if the land itself feared his power, it remembered the onslaught.
His gaze shifted back to Amun, and his sneer deepened, an almost palpable hatred radiating from him. “THIS CREATURE WILL BE MINE. I WILL BIND HIS SOUL TO THE GAUNTLET HE STOLE AND TURN HIS ESSENCE TO ASH, A FUEL THAT WILL BURN FOR ETERNITY!”
He let out a laugh—a booming, terrible sound that shook the walls of the Cradle, each peal an explosion that reverberated like cannon fire, sending waves of unease through the audience.
“AND LET NO ONE FORGET THIS DAY, THAT TO DEFY MOLOCH IS TO COURT OBLIVION!”
His hand shot out, as if daring any of the patrons to challenge him, his voice a final, concussive blast, like the last cannon shot after a battle. “THE REST OF YOU ARE NOTHING. PUNY BEINGS, LURKING IN SHADOWS, UNWORTHY OF EVEN HIS FLESH! I ALONE SHALL CLAIM WHAT IS MINE!”
And with that, Moloch did not recede back, he held his ground and waited to be challenged, his iron kettle form radiating blistering heat, his expression a mixture of derision and grim satisfaction as he dared anyone to outbid him.
———
As the room sat silent in the aftermath of Moloch’s furious declaration, a chilling presence swept over the gathered entities. From the shadows, Hel, the half-dead Queen of Niflheim, stepped forward. Her form flickered with a spectral light, one side of her face vibrant, almost beautiful, while the other was cold, deathly pale, skin tight to her skull like a mummified corpse. She moved slowly, her steps calculated, each one casting an aura of frigid calm that seemed to sink into the very bones of those present. She cast her gaze upon Moloch, a small, dark smile curving her lips.
“Moloch… child of fire, child of wrath.” Her voice, though barely above a whisper, carried effortlessly, seeping into every ear. “I was there at your beginning, you know. Every soul, every babe’s first breath, every mortal’s last gasp… they pass before me, and you, Moloch, you came screaming into this world in blood and fire.”
The assembled patrons exchanged glances, caught between awe and trepidation as Hel’s words drifted across the Cradle like an eerie lullaby, her tone equal parts maternal and condemning.
“And your fury,” she continued, her gaze unwavering, “is but a shadow of the anger you have always harbored… against yourself. For the shame of killing your matron as you tore yourself from her womb, for the torment you have since inflicted upon yourself. This rage of yours? It is your own punishment. I see it for what it truly is.”
The air grew thick with her words, a quiet but unyielding power threading through them. Moloch’s face twisted, the molten skin around his eyes tightening, his fists clenching as his rage flared. He took a menacing step forward, flames licking from his form as his fury crackled through the air.
“HOW DARE YOU…!” His voice was a volcanic eruption, each syllable a detonation that shook the room. But Hel’s calm remained unbroken, her expression a blend of pity and something deeper, colder.
“Oh, but I do dare, Prince of Hellfire. For I was there at your beginning… and I will be there at your end. As I will be there at the end of all things.”
She turned her gaze to Amun, as if only now deigning to acknowledge him, her tone cooling to an almost delicate chill.
“And you, Amun, owe me a debt as old as your sins… for you cheated me of a place upon my throne, evading the justice of Niflheim. You used your dark arts to linger in the world of the living long past your welcome.” Her voice softened, becoming almost tender, though a twisted cruelty lay beneath.
“I would reclaim what is rightfully mine. I would split your soul in two, leaving half alive, half rotting, a tethered corpse of a man—caught between life and death.” She paused, letting her words settle in like frost upon a blade. “Each step you take would be felt twice, once as pain, and once as decay. You would walk an existence in half-measures, your very spirit tearing, unraveling, until the agony severs you in two.”
Her words, steeped in chilling certainty, silenced even Moloch’s flames, leaving an oppressive, cold calm in the Cradle.
Moloch, however, seethed visibly, his pride wounded, his fingers twitching as though desperate to retaliate. The patrons began to sense the shifting tide. The dark gods, so intensely focused on Amun’s punishment, were turning their disdain toward one another, their rivalries and past grievances bubbling up like molten lava beneath a crust of decency on the Oduum’s behalf, but not for much longer.
In the pit, Amun observed with his new sight, head lowered but keenly aware of the shifting dynamic, of the ancient conflicts and wounded prides that now held the room captive. It was Hel’s chilling, calculated words that had begun toppling the dominoes. And the once tightly-woven focus on Amun had started to unravel, leaving a space for the warlock’s plan to stir in the hearts of the assembled gods, sowing the seeds of discord just as he had intended.
———
A profound silence settled in the Cradle, a weighted stillness that blanketed the room after the cacophony of threats and boasts. In the void left by the last bombastic declaration, an almost imperceptible hum began to fill the air, so subtle it was more felt than heard. The sensation grew, reverberating through the bones of those assembled, and then—without fanfare or proclamation—Vecna, the Whispered One, manifested. His presence defied comprehension, an arch-glamour warping sight and mind alike, twisting reality itself.
For those who dared look directly, Vecna’s form seemed to shift—sometimes a towering, skeletal figure cloaked in tattered robes, sometimes a swirling tempestial void where a body should be. His single, glinting eye held an unholy power, a point of focus that seemed to pierce through any who met its gaze, though none could ever quite look upon it for long. Those in the Cradle found themselves averting their gaze, half-seeing, half-feeling the chilling presence that demanded both awe and terror.
And then came the voice—a whisper that somehow echoed within the mind, bypassing ears entirely, as if every thought was being laced with a dark resonance that belonged to Vecna alone.
“Oh, Amun…” The words slipped into their consciousness, subtle as poison, layered with malice and intimacy. “This one… was authored by me. An anomaly to end the cycles, yes?”
The weight of his gaze fell upon Amun, whose own mind trembled under the oppressive, quiet fury contained within Vecna’s words. A faint, twisted grin spread across Vecna’s partially obscured face, his skeletal jaw shifting in what could only be described as dark amusement.
“I would let him have his knowledge, yes… every secret, every forbidden truth he has ever hungered for, yes? The drive, the need, the ravenous hunger that is never to be sated, yes?”
A whisper of dry laughter brushed through the crowd like dead leaves, each syllable a slight against the fabric of sanity itself. There was no source for it, it just was, everywhere and all at once.
“But the price, Amun…” he continued, his voice lingering like a venomous promise, “the price would be your mind, peeled away… sliver by sliver. With every revelation, your reason would crack, turn to dust, like brittle old parchment burned under the weight of what you seek to understand. All you have known and learned, all forgotten.”
As the full extent of Vecna’s bid sank in, the concept of knowledge so twisted and contorted it felt like a violation. There were many murmurs of affirmation and admiration of Vecna’s choice, to take everything given …that appeared to matter to the battered mage.
Vecna leaned forward—whether corporeal or incorporeal, none could say—and his single, gleaming eye bore into Amun. He spoke with a chilling calm, savoring each word, weaving every syllable into a tapestry of despair.
“I would make you wise beyond measure, a vessel brimming with the truths of the multiverse, every forbidden secret seared into your soul… but hopelessly broken. A fool. Knowledge will not be denied you, no, but neither will you be permitted the coherence to wield it. A raving lunatic wandering endlessly.”
He paused, the echo of his voice settling like a residue in the minds of all present. A faint hum lingered, a vibrational thrum that twisted within each thought, slowly eroding the borders of sanity. His voice dropped to an intimate whisper that bypassed all barriers, a susurrus that felt as if it were crawling into the recesses of Amun’s very being.
“Your family’s voice, Amun. The one you so dearly wield and distort… it belongs in its box. All truths must be contained… especially those that would reveal too much.”
A shiver passed through the Cradle, each patron feeling the weight of those last words as though it were their own secret condemned to rot in silence. The unseen smile on Vecna’s face grew, ever so slightly.
“Yes, I would allow him his wisdom. But let it splinter his mind into incoherent fragments, an endless stream of truths that no one would ever hear, no one would ever heed. He would be a prophet of secrets, with no followers, no voice… his mind shattered by his own ambition.”
The gods exchanged glances, a sense of unease winding through them like a dark current. Vecna’s bid did not promise punishment alone—it promised isolation, the maddening agony of bearing knowledge without the sanity to wield it. And as the weight of Vecna’s words settled, they began to turn from Amun, their focus coiling back upon each other, each patron sensing the subtle shift to an inevitable toppling point.
Amun, in his crouched position, felt the silent tremor ripple through the assembly. He knelt lower, humbled in appearance, yet within, a spark of satisfaction flickered as he sensed Vecna’s gambit had seeded the very discord he had sought to incite. The dreaded noose was tightening, but not just upon him—it was stretching, winding between each of his so-called judges, setting them against one another in an unseen but unmistakable rivalry, one that he could use.
Yet Vecna was false, a premonition of another deeper truth.
In the shadowed, resonant silence following Vecna’s final whisper, a darker force seeped into the Cradle. It was not a sound or a form but a pervading presence, a crawling awareness that slipped into every mind like a whispered secret, ancient and hungry. Vecna was gone, or rather, the name Vecna fell away, leaving only a sense of boundless, insatiable intelligence—a being who both held and was held by every forbidden truth, every unspeakable mystery in existence. In his place, the entity was now known by an eldritch name, a name that rippled through those present like a whispered curse from the void:
Mol Mora’ak, The Shrouded Maw, the Mouth of Secrets, the Keeper of the Endless Key.
This name spread across the minds in attendance with a palpable weight, a sense of dark revelation that seemed to dig into their very beings. The name was known to all, but none could speak it. It was seen in periphery, but never witnessed. The skin crawled and there was it breath on the back of your neck, this was Mol Mora’ak. The figure at the center of this presence—a twisting, shifting amalgam of shadow and eye, of endless tongues and clawed hands reaching through veils of black mist—was incomprehensible, shifting in and out of focus as if existence itself could not hold him steady.
The ancient knowledge and eldritch wisdom, Mol Mora’ak embodied the power of secrets unearthed, but not fully understood; of doors opened that should have remained locked. This entity, an embodiment of the doorway between sanity and the abyss, seemed to ooze out of every dark corner, his form slipping and sliding from one shadow to another, as if moving within the layers of the Cradle itself.
Another name for this was the Sole Voice Amidst the Discordant Chorus and Abe could not behold it, the boy looked away. Paralyzed, he could not spell, imagine or create in the presence of this thing.
All present felt it, a feeling as if the floor beneath them was somehow pulsing in sync with the hum that reverberated in their skulls. Then, with a voice that whispered from every direction at once, Mol Mora’ak spoke, his words slippery and dark, each one a concept that seemed to fold back in on itself, infinitely layered and drenched in sinister wisdom. All insightful, all threatening insanity in every syllable.
“Amun… my cherished one of my dark path…” The words slid into the minds of all present, oily and inexorable, reaching deep into Amun’s very spirit. “Spirit Eater, for years, you have sought knowledge—fragments of the unseen, pieces of the unfathomable… and yet, you understand nothing.”
Mol Mora’ak’s attention and focus, if such a gravity could be called a gaze, shifted to Amun—a vision of inhuman intellect, the accumulation of a thousand unknowable secrets, of minds shattered beneath the weight of hidden truths. Tentacles and limbs of mist extended from the figure, curling around Amun, not to restrain, but to possess and survey, probing his thoughts with unfiltered, merciless scrutiny.
“Your lineage have taken from me the Voice, the truth of your family, and in your arrogance, wielded it without understanding. Did you believe that your mortal coil could truly bear the weight of this knowledge?” The question was rhetorical, dripping with mocking curiosity.
A sigh, low and vibrant, echoed from the darkness. It carried a familiarity to those who had studied the occult, a resonance of innumerable tales of dread in folklore and whispers of ancient worlds long lost to the sands of time.
“I would give you what you seek, Amun. Every secret, every corner of the multiverse where truth sleeps… I would feed your thirst for knowledge. But…” His voice lingered, dripping with a singular truth, “…each fragment would leave you less than whole, peel your mind like ancient scrolls, leaving only tatters of your thoughts and dreams. You would be a vessel overflowing with the unspeakable, the ineffable… yet helplessly broken. A tattered thing to adorn Vecna’s den perhaps.”
There were uneasy glances, the nature of this bid chilling the entirety of them. For Mol Mora’ak promised something worse than death, worse than eternal punishment—he promised an unraveling, a fate as frayed and scattered as the pages of a cursed tome left to rot under the weight of countless damning revelations.
Mol Mora’ak permeated closer, a vaccuming presence somehow folding into itself, becoming darker, more dense. Amun’s family’s voice, the Thuum, was of particular interest to him, as it echoed through space and time with a power that transcended the mortal plane, a voice capable of reshaping reality itself when willed to do so. The being’s eye glinted, a deep, endless well of hunger and understanding.
“You have taken a weapon of creation, a song that moves through the layers of existence, and dared to wield it like a child swinging a blade too large for his hand. But understand this…” His tone darkened, deeper than any silence, darker than any shadow. “…your family’s voice was never your right. It is mine, Amun. Mine to give, and mine to reclaim.”
With a sudden, sickening hum, Mol Mora’ak’s shifting form seemed to grow, the Cradle gone and all hung in the presence of the living Void, an embodiment of the esoteric depths that might have appeared to those unfortunate enough to delve into his forbidden realm, Aapokrypha. The others could only exist and swallow back horror, their very souls quivering beneath the weight of his words. This was doom for them all.
“Yes, I would allow him his knowledge. But the cost…” He paused, savoring the notion, “…the cost would be his coherence, his mind crumbling under truths that no living soul was meant to hold. He would see, he would know… but he would not understand.”
There was a ripple, a vibration, that pulsed outward from Mol Mora’ak, and the very air itself seemed to fold and twist, reality warping under his influence. The hum returned, louder, vibrating the skulls and bones of those present until it felt as though it might break them from within.
“The truth, Amun… is a blade that cuts both ways. And if you would wield it, then know that it will slice through the fabric of your own mind, severing all ties to meaning.”
Amun just laid there, defeated but secretly pleased, feeling the undercurrent of discord building between the patrons. They were slowly coiling around one another, their dark rivalries rekindled, even as Mol Mora’ak’s words hung in the air, a promise of madness and knowledge in equal measure.
In the gathering silence, Mol Mora’ak’s last whisper slid into Amun’s mind alone, a whispered echo from realms beyond understanding, a last reminder from the Shrouded Maw himself:
“I am the Path and the Threshold, Amun. And I will always be waiting… for you to step through.”
——
As the weight of Mol Mora’ak’s final whisper echoed into silence, the final clandestine figure stepped forward, quiet and composed—a figure of somber gravity, as immovable as the final judgment itself. Kelemvor, Judge of the Damned, stood last, his presence a solemn and eternal stillness in stark contrast to the wrath, malice, and ambition that had rippled through the previous bidders. Where others had threatened torment, Kelemvor’s bid was emptier, colder, and perhaps the cruelest fate of all.
Amun looked up and groaned under the weight, unable to shake a sense of dread that grew not from fear but from the abyss of utter stillness that emanated from Kelemvor. The god’s gaze was one of absolute calm, neither compassionate nor cruel, but something more final, more all-encompassing—a stillness that even death would tremble to touch.
Kelemvor spoke, and his voice carried not the intensity of rage or the thrill of vengeance, but the somber weight of inevitability.
“Amun Jaro, you have evaded me long enough. Your life has been a mockery of my charge, an affront to the order of death.”
The vacuum and void recoiled, the Cradle returned uncomfortably cold as he continued, his words resonating with a stark, impartial authority that needed no flourish, no embellishment. Kelemvor’s decree was timeless, as if spoken in a language of ancient law that the very bones of those present understood on a primal level.
“In your hubris, you have defied judgment, cheated death, refused to cross the threshold when it was your time. You have stolen from us all it seems—your life continued long past its expiration, a life meant to rest in the quiet halls of my domain. Instead, you took it upon yourself to return, to disturb the order others uphold, to wield that which was not yours to wield. This has to end.”
Kelemvor's history with Amun was woven with Amun’s own defiance. Amun had stolen moments from Kelemvor’s domain, twisted threads of his own fate to evade the inevitable, to return to life, sometimes dragging others with him through forbidden rites. Amun could strategize perfectly always knowing another’s plan of attack. It was Amun who had once trespassed into the shadowed realms between life and death, who had glimpsed the halls of judgment and turned away, denying Kelemvor his rightful claim. However, Amun was able to wander there as much as he like, a trespasser to wonder at the paintings that decorated the Judge’s great manse; some in past and many forever in the future. With this knowledge and the mirror hung in the center of All, Amun could see whatever eventuality he wished and the outcomes that would lead him there.
Kelemvor had waited, patient as stone, knowing that no soul could escape his grasp forever.
Now, he leaned forward, his gaze more definite than death’s sentence.
“I do not offer you agony, nor do I promise you suffering. These are indulgences, reprieves from the true fate you deserve.”
He paused, letting the weight of his words settle like stones in the Cradle’s heavy silence.
“No, I would strip you of purpose, of destiny, of any semblance of meaning. You would wander the empty realms, cast out from all cycles, with no judgment to face, no rest to seek. A soul adrift, with no end, no closure, just an endless solitude—forever cursed to roam a barren afterlife, alone in a vast and silent void.”
The stillness grew, chilling even the most hardened of the patrons. His decree was not driven by anger, but by a force deeper than vengeance—a refusal to acknowledge Amun as anything worthy of even suffering. It was a punishment without finality, without anything that could be called an end. To be contained in a globe of nothingness and remain an ornament upon the Judge’s desk.
“There would be no audience to witness your despair, no cries for mercy to fill the void. Your spirit would wander, aimlessly, as lost and empty as the barren planes of my domain.”
Kelemvor’s gaze softened, though it was not warmth that softened it. It was a cold acknowledgment of the emptiness he would impart.
“You would seek justice, but there would be none for you. Only silence. A soul denied even the solace of suffering, too far from life to know it, too distant from death to embrace it.”
Unease at the enormity of what Kelemvor offered, each gestured quietly, acknowledging the sincere logic that drove his bid above all others. It was the utter negation of purpose—a fate so devoid of meaning that even agony seemed preferable. There would be no fury, no hate, only an unending quiet that would stretch for eternity.
And Amun understood. This was a punishment that could not be defied, evaded, or even suffered. It was the quiet mockery of all his ambitions, the end of his defiance, the erasure of his very identity in the yawning silence of eternity.
The other patrons looked from Kelemvor to Amun, their own bids beginning to feel like mere shadows in the face of such a final and empty decree. In that moment, Amun could feel the cold claws of inevitability closing around him, the realization that he stood on the precipice of a void darker and more barren than any hell.
With the regality that every lord that ever ruled or could have ruled would vie to emulate, Kelemvor cheats the auction. In an unexpected turn, as Kelemvor’s decree reverberated through the Cradle, his somber visage shifted ever so slightly.
Without warning, a powerful presence emerged from beneath his dark robe, as if summoned from the depths of another realm. A figure both fearsome and divine—a goddess of wrath, transformation, and death—stepped forward, her many arms poised in fluid, commanding motion. Kali, the goddess of destruction and rebirth, manifested in the Cradle, her eyes burning with fierce purpose and her smile one of defiant power. Each hand was an instrument of strength, some wielding weapons and others open in gestures of peace, a living paradox of creation and annihilation.
Her steps were slow, deliberate, her presence a shifting tempest of energies that Adrestia could feel thrumming in her core. Where Kelemvor had invoked the inevitability of judgment, Kali embodied the cyclical force of life and death, destruction as the path to transformation. Kali’s voice was rich with the promise of both violence and renewal, her tone calm yet edged with the thrill of an impending confrontation.
“Adrestia…” Her voice was like a rolling thundercloud, both a warning and an invitation. “You are no stranger to the power of destruction. But have you ever wielded it with purpose? With the knowledge that creation lies beyond it? Of your own accord, puppet?”
Kali’s eyes narrowed, her smile stretching wider, a glint of dangerous curiosity in her gaze. Her arms, each a symbol of her unrestrained power, extended outward like the petals of a terrible flower, each hand ready to act, to destroy or protect. She did not approach Amun—her gaze was locked on Adrestia, and in that stare, Adrestia sensed not just challenge, but recognition.
“I have watched you, a slave, a creature bound by wills not your own. You bear a blade, Adrestia, but have you ever wielded it as your own?” Her hands flicked, open palms revealing the myriad weapons she wielded, from curved scimitars to symbols of protection and renewal. “You stand here, blade poised at another’s throat, yet even this you have not earned. A pet to serve a master unseen, unwitnessed here. I would sever your silver collar, sunder you and allow Kelemvor’s decree above others.”
The goddess’s words hit like a thunderclap, and Adrestia felt weight of her own being, her identity, as if for the first time. The hesitation, the doubts that had surfaced in the astral plane, resurfaced with a vengeance. Kali, goddess of transformation, destruction, and rebirth, embodied both the terror and power of release—an end to servitude, a beckoning toward freedom.
Kali tilted her head, her eyes piercing, and with a graceful step, she slipped forward, one arm gently but firmly closing over Adrestia’s sword hand, arresting the motion with an ease that bordered on contempt.
“This blade you hold, bound to the service of others, can be yours in truth… if you choose it.” She leaned close, her voice a soft, almost seductive murmur, “But first, you must prove that it is worthy of you. Face me, Adrestia, and let us see if you fight as yourself—or as a pawn.”
Her smile broadened as her fingers tightened briefly on Adrestia’s wrist before releasing her, a silent invitation, her many arms shifting into battle-ready stances. Kali’s challenge was more than physical; it was spiritual, a test of purpose and identity, the kind of test that only a true warrior could comprehend. The battle she proposed was a duel not just of skill, but of willpower and self-ownership.
Adrestia, feeling the pulse of Kali’s conviction, sensed the deeper meaning woven into the goddess’s words. Kali was asking her to choose, to sever the ties that had bound her to others’ wills, to claim her own path, even if it meant facing down death itself. It was a confrontation that would decide not only her allegiance but her autonomy.
“Come now, show me if you are the goddess of your own fate,” Kali intoned, her many hands flexing with an eagerness that set the Cradle on edge. “Or do you still answer to unseen masters, wielding power that is not truly yours?”
Adrestia felt her grip tighten on her arsenal, but these were false, all of the Hastur’s will or Gaia’s grace. What did she wield of her own?
Abe suggested in her mind, the cinder and coals, the brush across canvas, create!
Adrestia’s gaze sharpening as she stared back at Kali. The goddess’s words had awakened something deep within her—a primal call to define herself, to break free of the chains woven by the hands of gods and cosmic forces. The stakes were clear: a duel not just for dominance, but for the right to truly wield her power as her own. And so, Adrestia stepped forward, Abe’s gift; a blade raised, ready to face Kali and, through her, the question of her own purpose and agency.
The gods in attendance prowled and paced, sensing bloodshed, feeling that this battle was more than an interlude an affront to the Oduum’s emissary; it was a confrontation that had the potential to reshape the fate of all present, a challenge of autonomy and purpose that resonated across the Cradle. For in defeating or being defeated by Kali, Adrestia would either claim her place in the pantheon as a true sovereign—or fall back into servitude, forever bound by the choices of others.
*****
The Cradle swelled with anticipation, the infernal chorus of divine whispers and vengeful promises rising to a crescendo as the scene escalated. Amun, crawling pitifully in the pit, little more than a pound of flesh to be squabbled over—yet each word, every threat woven from divine mouths, dripped with an ulterior motive. Hidden behind these threats and boasting, the grand deception lay coiled like a serpent, waiting for the true prey to emerge.
Vecna edge close, yet Anubis stood on the other side, waiting….guarding the quarry.
Kali, in on the ruse, sparred with Adrestia, her many arms moving in intricate patterns, each gesture like a blade of intention poised to strike. They clashed in a spectacle of force, Abe’s blade guided by Adrestia’s independence, met Kali’s many weapons in a dance of ferocious beauty and theatrical malice. Energy and spectral residue splashing off the slashes and blocks in hue’s of heliotrope and radiating emerald. Lightning waves flew with each clash, and most of the spectators watched, transfixed, their eyes filled with bloodlust and anticipation. The mortals in attendance, the high meisters of the Laconian spire, shivered as they witnessed the sheer might before them, feeling privileged and terrified in equal measure.
As the performance continued, Adrestia sensed sideways, a flicker of triumph in her eyes, she was confident that the trap was set. She was putting on this show not for her rivals but for someone far more elusive.
Hastur. Her former master. The true prize of this entire spectacle, this grand farce. If he could be lured into this plane, if he could be insulted enough to sever his distance, the ability to force his hand—this ruse would achieve its grand purpose.
Adrestia parried a blow from Kali, twisting to feign exhaustion and her blood shed only slightly on an unarmored leg, the subtle desperation in her movements a message in itself.
Come forth, her every action seemed to say, I defy you, I resist you, I draw your claim into question.
The Choir, acolytes of Hastur who had come to pray, felt it too—their hymns to Hastur grew louder, their chants desperate and fervent, a plea for their lord to come and assert his authority. Their voices rose, a maddening crescendo, an audible supplication all trilling like the cicada, warped fluting and strained vocal cords of the shrillest violin elevating well beyond E7. They were lost in the ecstasy of invocation, calling to the Yellow King, urging him to step into the Cradle and reclaim his servant, his warlock, his rightful influence.
And then, as though reality itself shuddered, a silence fell over the Cradle, vast and oppressive. The air grew dense, pregnant with an unseen weight that seemed to fill every breath, every space between thoughts. Each god, every being assembled, felt the sting of their severed ties, their powers momentarily stripped as though the very fabric of their connections to the world was being unraveled. A faint, otherworldly hum drifted in, vibrating through the bones of all present—a dreadful heralding of the arrival of something wholly other.
Hastur.
A dark presence filled the space, formless yet unbearable, a shadow that twisted the air into a sickly yellow haze. The Cradle, which had once held the powers of the infernal and divine in harmonious tension, was now overwhelmed by a sense of wrongness. This was not merely the arrival of a powerful being; this was the distortion of reality itself. Hastur’s influence seeped into the room, an infection of decay and madness, coiling through the minds of all present, filling them with existential dread.
The assembled gods and lords recoiled, their connection to their realms temporarily snapped like severed threads. They were stripped bare in Hastur’s presence, reduced to observers, unable to interfere, unable to resist. Even the High Meisters, who had watched in awe and fear, now clutched their temples, trembling as the weight of Hastur’s presence pressed into their mortal minds. One of them staggered forward, eyes wide and unfocused, a puppet to Hastur’s overwhelming will.
A haunting, rasping voice filled the Cradle, not from a mouth but from the very air itself, a sound that twisted through the minds of the patrons, planting seeds of madness in each syllable.
“Adrestia,” the voice breathed, more of an exhale of malice than speech. “You dare defy me. You presume to claim what is mine?”
The Yellow King’s presence bore down on her, a force of cosmic authority that could not be denied. Adrestia held her ground, though her body trembled from the sheer weight of it, her grip tightening on the blade, the only anchor to her sanity against the lash of entropy itself was Abe’s blade in her hand, a vorpal and instrument of the Architect. She lifted her chin, meeting the gaze of that unseen, all-encompassing presence with a defiance that burned bright.
“I’ve found a new patron,” she spat, her voice cutting through the silence. “I have no need for your hollow claims, Hastur. The warlock is mine now, and so is my will.”, Adrestia stood bloodied and glorious, her words her own.
The anarchal declaration hung in the air like a thrown gauntlet, and Hastur’s presence seemed to quake with a barely-contained rage. The gods watched, some with horror, others with grim satisfaction, as Adrestia confronted her former master, the very embodiment of decay and entropy, with open defiance. It was a declaration of war, a severance from his hold—and an invitation he could not ignore.
Hastur’s presence tightened, a psychic vice around her mind, pressing into her thoughts, trying to subjugate her once more. The Choir fell silent from strain, their cyanotic faces all death masks, twisted and being held from death’s reception for reverence bordering on madness, watching as their lord’s wrath descended upon the audacious servant who dared to challenge him. The pineal glands glowed, making the skulls all beam like so many candles from afar. Their God had come.
But Adrestia stood firm, the blade held steady. She could feel Hastur’s probing, the insidious whispers worming into her mind, seeking to reassert his control, but she pushed back with a force of will honed from years of servitude and suffering.
“All are nothing without me, and to nothing I return to all….” his voice seethed, a malignance that crawled through her veins. “I marked you. You exist only because I allow it. And this nagfly—he is mine to assail, again and for good, my claim.”
But Adrestia, braced by the silent alliance with Abe and the simmering fury of her newfound agency, smirked. She had made her way back to the pit while the greasy yellow God bellowed. With a slow, calculated motion, she revealed the dagger, still in her grasp, pressing it just a hair’s breadth deeper against Amun’s neck, letting Hastur see the unmistakable threat she wielded.
“You may have marked me, Hastur, but today I sever that bond with his blade. I belong to no one. Least of all you.”, Adrestia’s tone sincere, to whatever end.
The words struck like a blasphemy, a declaration of rebellion so bold that even Hastur’s influence seemed to falter. The Yellow King recoiled, his rage turning sharp, visceral, and the room grew colder, darker, as his wrath coiled around her in spectral tendrils of decay.
Suddenly, from behind Adrestia, Kali stepped forward, a silent acknowledgment of the ruse, yet her presence still fierce and intimidating. Her many arms held weapons poised, each one representing a symbol of utter endings and the promise new beginnings. She cast a defiant gaze into the formless shadow of Hastur’s presence, adding her power, her very essence, to Adrestia’s resistance.
“You may claim this realm, Hastur, but you do not hold dominion over all who tread here. Even entropy bows to the cycle of rebirth.” Her voice was a low rumble, resonant and primal. “We stand united, and we shall not yield.”
The patrons, stripped of their power in Hastur’s overwhelming presence, could only watch as the two entities, aligned in their defiance, dared to oppose the Harbinger of the Oduum that had cowed them all. The Cradle trembled as the clash of wills reached a breaking point, the oppressive silence taut with the imminent collision of powers.
And in the midst of it all, Amun remained, kneeling and trembling in submission, a wretched pawn whose fate had sparked this cosmic confrontation. But beneath the façade of fear, a glint of satisfaction flickered in his eyes. The bait had worked, the trap was sprung, and Hastur, drawn by insult and challenge, was here at last.
The stage was set for the final confrontation, and Adrestia, with Kali at her side, held the blade, poised not only to cut the warlock’s throat but to sever the very chains that had bound her to Hastur. And in that moment, with the Choir still murmuring, barely able to contain their feverish reverence, the entire gathering realized the auction was not merely for Amun’s soul. It was for Adrestia’s freedom, for the last threads of Hastur’s influence to be burned away in the fires of her defiance. To prove a God’s will false, what would be the consequence against such heresy?
Hastur’s rage manifested in a thunderous wail, a scream of cosmic fury that shattered the silence, reverberating through the Cradle as reality itself seemed to shiver. And in that darkness, Adrestia took a single, resolute step forward, her dagger held firm, her will unbreakable, daring Hastur to claim her—or be destroyed.
As the scene reaches its pitch, Hastur, the King in Yellow, hovers forward, his mere presence dampening the beacon energy of the Cradle. His shadow stretches long, fracturing into a thousand tendrils that seep into the stones, merging with the ancient runes of the Odium. The air grows thick, dense with anticipation, as Hastur’s eldritch aura swells, pulling the light from the room until all is cloaked in a stifling, suffocating obfuscate.
His loyal undead followers, begin their chant, their voices quivering with reverence as they ignite in sacrificial flames, their bodies melting into streams of black smoke that swirl around Hastur, feeding his growing power. The smell of burnt flesh mingles with the scent of ancient parchment, a bitter incense of death and knowledge. Hastur raises his hands, his gestures precise, almost clinical, as he prepares to cast away the illusion Abe has set. Cosmic Rejection, His voice, a deep and hollow resonance, cuts through the chant as he invokes an incantation in an ancient tongue—an incantation to unmask the facade of all things.
Hastur’s hands trace symbols in the air, each glyph hovering for a moment before burning into his skin like brands. These glyphs are ancient, twisted shapes known only in the far reaches of the Far Realm, symbols that no mortal mind could fully comprehend without descending into madness. The glyphs coalesce, weaving into a pulsing, greenish-yellow sigil—a Mark of Ultimate Denial (opposite, an inversion of the sigil on Cain’s threshold).
With one hand, he grips a twisted Elder Reed, a wand-like component harvested from the swampy shores of Carcosa itself. This whipping wand is wrapped in dried sinews and encrusted with yellow crystals that glint sickly even in the primordial dark. The other hand produces a translucent vial filled with the Blood of Nyarlathotep, a component whispered to be drawn from the Veil itself. As he pours this dark liquid over his open palm, his flesh absorbs it greedily, veins pulsing as his power swells.
He chants, his voice taking on a discordant harmony, a dual-toned resonance that reverberates with the Choir’s death-throes and the shadows that consume them. His words are not merely sounds; they are runes, tangible, like hooks digging into the fabric of reality itself. He pulls at these anchors, warping space around him, peeling away the illusion of form, of individuality, like flesh from bone.
“Aurum Ex Nihilo, Manus Umbra! Expulsus!”
His words explode with power, each syllable forcing reality itself to recoil. The Rejection unfolds, peeling away the veil of existence from each god, stripping them bare of their deceptions, their projections. They are reduced to mere shades, flickering echoes manipulated by Abe, the new Architect. The once-grand gods and infernal lords are shown to be hollow—fragments, illusions—reflections within a twisted, cosmic mirror. Kali and the others were nothing more than a great illusion to lure him here.
The charade had collapsed, the assembled specters of grim bidders dismissed, reality trembles, cleared of all but Hastur, Amun, and Adrestia. Now, Hastur prepares for his ultimate conjuration, the epic verdant gate to whisk them away to his realm and seat of power, Carcosa. He plunges his hand into the soil, fingers sinking deep into the stone of the Cradle. Dark veins snake outward from his grip, etching a complex, maddeningly intricate glyph of summoning across the ground—a sigil of his home that pulses with malign energy.
Hastur’s voice rises again, deeper, resonant with eldritch authority. He calls upon “Asht’Ra Ceth”, the “ DarkStar of Madness”, a component imbued with Carcosa’s essence, held close to his heart beneath his yellow robe. He pulls the star-shaped gem from his chest, and it writhes in his hand, leaking a cold, shimmering light that refracts across the chamber in bizarre, otherworldly colors.
Hastur’s foci are the reed and the star. He dips his finger into the ichor of the Choir’s remains, painting lines across the sigil of his domain, Carcosa,, binding it to the very fabric of his will. The Star of Madness gleams, projecting a dark, swirling vortex that hovers in the air, expanding like an abyssal maw. This vortex, this gateway, is no mere portal—it is an invitation to oblivion, a tear in the multiverse leading directly to Carcosa’s twisted reality.
As he completes the final somatic gesture, clawed fingers tearing a rift in the air itself, Hastur whispers the invocation of opening, each word sinking into the minds of Amun and Adrestia like dull psionic knives, chopping at their minds inelegantly with the will of his curse:
“Estai Carcosa, Domus Aeternum!”
The vortex widens, drawing the three of them forward. Adrestia feels a wrenching pull, a force dragging her spirit, mind, and body toward that yawning chasm. Carcosa’s shadows slither through the opening, tendrils of darkness licking out to wrap around her, drawing her ever closer.
The gate swells, its periphery seething with warped, shifting images of Carcosa—its cyclopean towers, its endless lakes of black, silent water, the sky that bleeds yellow like a festering wound. As the gate pulls them through, Hastur’s final words echo in their minds, a whisper from beyond time:
“Welcome back to my home… where all is stripped bare.”
In the final moment before they cross the threshold, Adrestia feels the lingering touch of Abe’s will, a fleeting reminder that even in this place of madness, the Architect’s presence shadows them still. And then they are gone, swallowed by the twisting void, leaving the Cradle silent and abandoned, a hollow shell.