Years Since Creation: 3993

Location: Significance Plane, Space System, Furin

Sitting on a comfortable chair in the middle of the guest house library, with a nice calming yellow glow from a pair of candles illuminating the dark room, Darvon took the time to admire the Old One tome in front of him.

It was a work of art, with a leather cover depicting a Drak wrapped in chains in the front, an elaborate Z on the back to represent the Zhaber heraldry and fore-edge painting of a spiraling tree. Based solely on its looks it could already hold a good position in the Azeta treasury, yet what truly amazed Darvon was the astonishing Neutronium level of Impact which shone with the essences of secrets, betrayal, and obsession to his vision. The impact practically forced him to open the book and read the black ink intro.

Dear Reader,

I have written this textbook in order to provide future Zhaber’s with an understanding on how Old One’s think, and to have a final safety net in case my coming plan fails. Contained within is everything I have managed to discover about their culture and power, all acquired from a lifetime of risks and sacrifice.

I hope that through this tome you can learn how to manipulate and control Qrumin in the same manner that I did and use their power to further boost our illustrious name.

Good Luck,

Harvon Zhaber

Darvon’s breath caught as his hands started shaking at the realization that he was holding the final journal of the first Mythos of the plane. A journal that likely outlined parts of the plan that led to the fated curse and blessing of the Zhaber. A journal that detailed information on the most powerful creature on the plane. A journal that held enough secrets to catapult their family to the peak of multiple planes. A journal that could give him the path to become a Mythos himself!

“Calm down, calm down.” Darvon repeated to himself to no avail, his hands still shaking too hard for him to be able to even read the tome. It was only after reluctantly closing it and spending a few minutes in silent meditation with his focus on the twisting of the green strings of his Image that he could return to the book and read more.

Darvon turned the page from its messy introduction to show a complex diagram showing a four-branched tree made of flickering flesh and tentacles digging into a mountain of millions of different bodies piled up and clawing towards it. All around the drawing were dozens of similar mountains each piled with millions of mortals. On the opposite page were lines of text which Darvon only got around to reading once he spent a good minute admiring the beautiful art.

The Old One law is different from the common skill and ability laws of our plane and should instead be treated as an Extranar version of our hollow summoning. In the same way that all hollows are creations of the wasted energy of our plane, Old Ones are creatures who prey on the wasted meaning that mortals create all around the universe. They are not three-dimensional beings like us but instead they are creatures beyond time whose only constraint is their inability to directly use outside laws, and their constant competition between each other. Their law is made up of four distinct branches like ours, with each serving a unique purpose.

Knowledge Exchange: Where they exchange information for information, always at an unfair rate. The determination of the value of the offering is based on its importance to the offeree, so you can’t decide at the end of your life to sacrifice your law knowledge in exchange for something valuable. It has to be painful to lose, with the more valuable the sacrifice the more information you get.

The information they provide in return is usually in some cryptic form which you have to decipher, though you can pay more to lessen that effect. Also, important to note that they will take a deal even if they themselves don’t know the answer, so be careful to only stick to more basic things like information on laws or important news which their fourth dimensional aspect lets them know. (They don’t know the future but are very good at guessing based on nigh omniscient knowledge of the present within their local plane)

Power Exchange: In exchange for the permanent loss of something of personal value the Old One will give you an ability equal or lower in value to the sacrifice. (usually always lower)

From what I have been able to gather the way they give this power is through their deep understanding of an infinitude of laws due to their interplanar status, and through this they are able to gift abilities that work regardless of plane.

Contract: In exchange for a permanent boost in power as well as advantageous future bargains, a creature will go into the service of an Old One where they will have to follow their bidding. The powers given seem to be random and completely up to the preference of the Old One, though the amount of power can vary based on the usefulness of the creature.

My guess as to why such a powerful being relies on this is because it is a passive way to increase the amount of Quintessence (their energy) they have access to.

Curse: This is a more nebulas ability which I don’t really understand due to how rare it is for them to use it, but from what little I could gather they burn through a lot of energy to inflict some incredibly specific curse on a group or person.

I have heard of curses ranging from all right-handed people in a family having a limp to every member of a specific group weeping blood.

The book than went on to give specific examples for each of those abilities accompanied by dates and the person affected. There was the case of the master crafter who at the peak of his career sacrificed all his skill in exchange for a cure for his ill daughter, the story of a man who lost both of his arms but gained the ability to shoot lasers, the sad race of Drak who acquired mystical abilities after binding themselves to Qrumin, as well as a family which could only see out of the corner of their eye after angering an Old One.

Dozens of such pages flipped by as Darvon absorbed each example, and as he did so he slowly started developing an understanding about the Old One’s which terrified him even more than when he actually met one.

They were cruel.

It's such a simple concept that shouldn’t have surprised him after hearing about all the wars the Old One plane was subject to. But it still did. To know that at the bottom of these nigh all-powerful creatures nonexistent hears was no compassion was terrifying, for that meant that when Qrumin broke out, and he would, of that Darvon had no doubt, he would not leave the Zhaber alone to comfortably rot. No, he would likely curse them by turning the Zhaber into living flesh mats which could not move but could feel and think. Or switch their conscious mind with their unconscious one. Or make them unable to say no to anything anyone asks. Or turn them into senseless being’s blind to the world. There was a literal infinite amount of cruelty Qrumin could enact on them, and as Darvon ran through dozens more, he began hyperventilating in the middle of the quite library.

“Calm down Darvon, Calm down.” Darvon whispered to himself as he sank into his Image to stare at the glowing green lines in his Image which had rather suddenly acquired a much deeper meaning. “This just means that I have to strive for more than simply beating back Inspiration and bringing in a new law. I must reach break the curse holding back this family, reach Mythos and replace Qrumin.”

With that thought bouncing around in his mind Darvon dove back into the book, reading up on all of Harvon’s many theories while coming up with hundreds of his own. He would master this law, or he would die trying.

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A ray of sunlight poked through the shuttered windows of the library to land on Darvon’s face, sending him mumbling as he cracked bloodshot eyes to stare at the drool puddle sitting inches away from the most valuable text on the plane.

“Fuck!” Darvon said as he stood up and wiped the puddle down while making sure the book was alright. It was.

He then stood up and stretched his back while pulling out the spatial box to place the tome next to Maroc’s box, which Darvon promised himself he would get to later. After he completed a test that he had been theorizing about all of last night.

Leaving the library Darvon’s steps were light as they bounced down the silver black marble steps into the lab, and hopped over the pile of essences which matched the description of his list to sit down in the middle of the series of silver tables of the room.

Once sat down Darvon focused in on his Image, unspooled a single string from the index finger, had it hover in front of the Image, and began filling it with a stream of thoughts filled with intent.

He started by sending images of the hair follicles covering nearly every part of his body and the complex way they consumed nutrients to grow their product. He then sent images of the keratin that its creations were made of to begin shifting into the image of the supernatural indestructability of the Extranar void lions’ hair he had gotten the chance to study in the academy. He then expressed his intent for the hair covering his body to become like the latter image, which prompted the glowing stable strand to start rumbling and giving off the intent of his order. Darvon then held this strand still for a long minute as it tried to escape from his control, and only released it onto his image once the intent within solidified into a firm structure.

Within an instant Darvon was snapped out of his focus on his Image as a wave of itchiness covered his body. He wanted to scream and rip his hair out but held himself back, as he could feel every hair follicle shifting to match his desire, with the already existing hair changing into a new form. It was a torturous process that went on for a good fifteen minutes of violent itching, which once done left Darvon collapsed on the floor panting, his mind blank.

After a few minutes of slow breathing Darvon shakingly stood up from his collapsed position to stagger over to a table and pull up the sleeves of his grey robes to show a set of void black hair contrasting sharply with his grey skin. A wave of excitement kicked his tired mind and into gear and prompted him to spit out a steel bolt whose edge he selectively sacrificed to form a saw which he took to his hair to no results.

“It worked!” Darvon yelled out, his eyes shining in excitement, the itchiness already completely forgotten as his mind filled with more experiments he could do since he had this confirmed. He would have to double down on his enhanced brain to gather even more knowledge on esoteric knowledge to boost his body in all types of ways. “Next I’ll up my supernatural perception, all I need is a couple test subjects which Qrumin influenced, and I’ll have access to whatever I need. This is perfect!”

“What are you rambling about down there?” A voice said from up the stairs where Darvon could see Saria was standing and staring at him curiously. “Also, what’s wrong with your hair? Did you dye it?”

“There’s nothing wrong with it, I simply made it indestructible.” Darvon said with pride as he demonstrated his attempt at sawing it to Saria, before letting her try as well once she got closer.

“Did you do this through alchemy?” Saria said as she tried and failed even after using her own extremely sharp dagger.

“No, I did this through Quintessence!” Darvon said with excitement as he tucked his hair back behind ear. “I managed to imitate an extremely complex alchemy procedure which would have cost a fortune and required a mountain of expertise with a single strand of QE all within a mere thirty minutes!.”

Darvon’s eyes shone as he could already think of hundreds of different applications for this once he managed to master more esoteric abilities. Yet as he stared at Saria and expected her to look as amazed se he felt all he saw was her smiling a little at his exuberance.

“I’m going to be honest here and admit that I have no idea whether that is impressive or not, but I’ll take your word for it.” Saria said with a chuckle as she stowed her knife away. “Though I was under the impression that you only had the five strings, why would you waste one on something as boring as this?”

“It’s not a waste, this is a useful passive ability which should help me avoid death in a lot of cases.” Darvon defended himself with a small pout. He had spent the whole night brainstorming a useful power which wouldn’t also have risked his health if the experiment backfired in some crazy manner. “As for the strands I have a lot of ideas on how to acquire more, though I should probably save testing those for when I have Nilys and them to help me out.”

“Well than congratulations on your first step towards a new path.” Saria said with a smile before pointing towards the door. “How about we go grab breakfast to celebrate?

“Breakfast? I thought you were going to study the rest of the day away.” Darvon said as he packed away the piles of materials the Azeta had left into the spatial box before accompanying her up.

“Well, you do have Busari’s Spatial notes so I can’t really do much studying without them.” Saria said to which Darvon froze and with some embarrassment dug out the codex to hand to her. “I also wanted to talk to you about when we should finalize the oath between us, as well as that implant you mentioned you would give me at the dinner.”

“The oath! That completely slipped my mind.” Darvon said as he started patting his pockets for some paper but not finding any. “We can probably hire a binder for cheap from the Azeta and have them officiate once we determine a solid contract between us.”

“What about the implant?”

“The implant would be to give you an elemental binder like my own.” Darvon said as he summoned his grief elemental to hover next to them in his runed circular gate form.

“That does sound nice, would be a good boost to my abilities while I develop my own path.” Saria said as she stared at Vigil floating behind Darvon while they walked up the stairs and headed towards the kitchen.

“I’m sure, Vigil has helped me in so many areas. I can’t wait to get a command elemental along with whatever crazy variant Maroc promised me to expand my attack repertoire.” Darvon said as they walked into the kitchen and instructed the servants to cook a meal for them before sitting down at the table to wait. “I have felt quite lacking in the attack department after the last few battles.”

“Tell me about it. Maroc was able to casually hold back a sovereign as well defeat paragons with ease. Compared to him I feel like an ant.” Saria said while drumming her fingers on the table. “I hope that the Azeta can help me cover some of the gap.”

“I’m sure they will, the Azeta family has been known to produce paragons by the dozen every generation. They even have the claim to producing three peak paragons in their history which is more than most any other family.” Darvon said smiling as he saw the servants bringing in a plate full of bread and eggs to the table.

“I know Sol and Nilys are two, who’s the third?” Saria said as began piling up a piece of bread.

“Arana Azeta Zhaber.” Maroc’s voice said from the entrance as he walked in to sit at the table to get his own plate of food. “She was a Paragon of Magitech and Alchemy with a focus on destructive ordinance.”

“What happened to her?” Saria asked.

“She was a part of the Inspiration scouting mission.” Darvon said casually as he sipped from a glass of freshly squeezed fruit juice. “She’s the whole reason Maroc even knows the Azeta.”

“Someone had to tell them about their daughter’s death, and that job fell to me.” Maroc said with a sad tone as he stared out the window which looked out into Lake Hine. “It was a difficult conversation but once finished we became good friends who promised to help each other when we could.”

“Like giving you their decorator.” Darvon said with a cheeky smile.

“Shut up Darvon.” Maroc said with a smile, before waving towards his void black hair. “Changed your hair?”

“With QE, I’ve taken the first step on the path.”

“Excellent, hopefully Nilys should be able to help you finish whatever branch you choose to focus on before the competition.” Maroc said with a casual nod before turning to Saria, which Darvon admit hurt a little. “How about you, what’s your plan?”

“I will read through Busari’s codex and then ask Nilys and them to help teach me more about Spatial magic.” Saria said. “Though I might change my path depending on what I find out while here.”

“Perfectly valid, most Doyens flip flop between paths a couple dozen times before they narrow down on a specific one. It’s the whole reason that unless you are following a premade path than you always present yourself as following a path of your own making.” Maroc said with a comforting smile.

“What is your path?” Saria asked.

“It is called the Path of Awoken Blood, with a focus on controlling a blood elemental and wielding altered blood.” Maroc said as he summoned a wisp of blood filled with anger which shifted to become liquid pus with a pulse of abyssal. “It’s a fairly straightforward path which has led to many copying me, though they all lack the Zhaber ability which allows me to invest any blood I sacrifice with emotion and meaning.”

“I hope I can create a path as strong as yours.” Saria said with a worried frown, though she really had no reason to worry. Just based on her current Image it was clear that she was already well on her way.

“I’m sure you will.” Maroc said before turning to Darvon with a bloodthirsty smile which sent shivers down his back.

“Now let me tell you about the training plan I drafted for you with Sol and Nilys this morning. It’s filled with experimentation, infiltration, statecraft, live combat, and of course, diplomacy training.” Maroc said with a chuckle that had Darvon groaning. “You are going to have a busy few months.”