Twilight cast a dark shadow across the tall tower. It fought this shadow though, each stained window glowing brightly from the light within. Though half of the planet Gloom was asleep, those who worked and lived among the jagged length of the building were kept awake thanks to the madman who ruled the land.
His reflection was gleaming in the window, but the raindrops distorted his face. The man was dressed in the gold-emblazoned and armored ritualistic mage-garb. As he paced back and forth through his rotund chamber, each piece of the armor clinked silently and echoed through the room. It was a wide, circular throne room, high atop the spire. In the middle was a rigid, fixed throne with blinking holo-lights that outlined the headrest.
The man's long black hair was pulled into a tight bun. This was usually the case when he was ready to plug into the holo-nets; a series of web portals he and his underlings used to monitor the closed-circuit camera recordings. The other members would use a much simpler interface, such as the holo-glass desktops or their tele-comms. Zable Perishe had long since deemed these other, more primitive methods unworthy. He felt the need to be fully enveloped to truly monitor his people... To truly find any trace of the myth that was the Unender.
There was no hesitation and the man parted the few strands of hair that hung loosely away from the bun. Behind these strands was a small and circular metallic jack that had been implanted directly into the man's skull, and ultimately led directly into the man's brain. As he took his place on the throne, a small wire began to unravel itself from the headrest. On its own, as if guided by a magical force, it found the metal hole in the man's head and soon the man's vision had blurred out all of reality.
He found himself floating in pure darkness until a bright green, grid-like menu appeared before him. This menu prompted a login process. The man signed his name.
He felt a small pinch in the back of his head, as the wire took a DNA sample to confirm his identity. After a split-second, he was surrounded by a million different video feeds. They floated this way and that, some encircled him at a close distance while others had different colored borders to categorize their importance. Zable shuffled his way through the green, yellow, and red-bordered feeds in a matter of minutes. The Archender blinked and found a folder that contained all of the orange-bordered video feeds, these were what he was looking for.
Again, he shuffled through several feeds but an annoying error message popped into his view this time. The error disappeared but was replaced by a messaging system's log. A user named
Zable instantly became furious after reading this news. The message on screen made him scream out loud from his rage. He was tired of these so-called incidents of missing Demiphants. These were the members of his own personal army that mimicked the abilities of the mythical Unender. He thought he had chosen wisely of the children who had been given up to spare their parents' lives.
He tried to recall Toan, the Demiphant of Malor. The young boy had an ambition that reminded Zable of himself in his younger days as a scientist. Nothing else stood out in the Archender's mind, which tempted his rage even more. How could he have been so foolish as to pick such a simple individual to become a Demiphant? To wield such power? Perhaps the boy, despite his years of training, had lost control of these powers... Even worse, perhaps the boy had let his own power consume him, permanently sending his spirit into a realm where it's physical body did not exist. This is a fate that Zable’s own father had succumbed to, despite Zable’s warnings and guidance as a young man.
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Zable dismissed these thoughts and began to shuffle through pictures of other trainees. He decided not to pick one randomly this time, instead, Zable studied the profiles of a few who had been set higher on the priority list. He found a young man named Glenn that looked like a burly lumberjack. His rugged face and body had taken well to the Ayawhite serum. He selected this profile and attached it to the messenger log with his response.
Zable was alerted to a response almost immediately.
Zable did not even respond, for fear of rendering the messenger log to nothing but a thesaurus for swear words. He stood up so quickly that the holo-nets were still in his vision by the time he crossed the room. These impressions of the holo-nets faded and his own face came into view. The reflection of the stained glass peered back at him with twisted anger. His brown eyes looked black, his finely groomed facial hair was almost standing atop his wretched, gritting teeth.
He was even too angry for his lips to form a frown. He simply ground his teeth and stared deep into the mountainous range beyond the tower.
That little bitch, the Archender thought, Could she really think I would not find out of her disappearance? Did she run away to find her parents? I hope she has found their graves and realizes I've done away with them long ago. I never should have given her access to those files anyways.
Zable cursed the rogue Demiphant Emerlan. He had treated her almost like his own child... His own daughter. But here she has betrayed his trust for the last time. He knew well enough her reasoning for her multiple solo-missions. She was becoming less and less committed to Zable's plan to control the world. Now she abandoned it for the last time. Perhaps he could use her instability to his advantage. Zable logged back into the holo-nets for a quick moment to send another response.
Zable crossed the room again, returning to the same window as if it held a better view than the rest that encased the throne room. It's golden rim blended well into the frame of the walls which glimmered just as bright as the shimmering holo-lights of the throne. The Archender pondered his next moves here, planned each step along the edge of his tower, and he guided his thoughts towards defending all he and his father had built. Zable traced every inch of the walls with his eyes as if he were searching each crevice for the answers. He knew he would find no such things here. The man would only create these solutions within his convoluted mind.
The Archender rattled the innards of his skull until his nightly chambers began to blur in nearly the same fashion as the holo-nets had just moments ago. He tired of the world despite him controlling most of it. He tired of this mythical Unender, although he believed such a being did not exist.
The Archender, most of all, tired of those he had control of... And how they never followed his plans as perfectly as he would himself. He could not be everywhere and control everything, despite how efficiently he could do so if he were given that exact power.