For someone whose ambitions had only grown more grandiose and tempestuous with time, the air about the Dread Lord was impressively passive this day. Here in the midst of his expansive, if not oppressively dreary subterranean palace of obsidian, he'd managed to find time to himself, replete in his withdrawal into his musings. Upon a throne of the vaunted crystal-rock did he settle himself, his chin comfortably situated upon its favorite knuckle-laden crutch. Its opposite counterpart flexed against the surface of the seat's requisite arm as the Overseer further retreated into his chaotic and unrelenting myriad of thoughts. Of those present, several revolved around his relationship with self-proclaimed future "Destroyer". He'd seen her true intentions via his True Perception, so why was he so unnerved by her" Her thought process was so very far removed from his own, and yet....so similar. His adoration for his old friend and the curiosity he'd held regarding her paradoxical nature were so poised at the forefront of his mind, that he wouldn't quite notice the burgeoning resonance within him.
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"Hmhm....How infuriatingly perplexing, that one. For one with sight so far-reaching, how is it that she renders me so....blind?" he began to speak prior to seizing up and clutching the chair's arm to the point of scouring the hallowed stone with his gauntlet. Reeling back in his chair, he hissed aloud. The advent of his hues's rings amalgamating into ponds of sheer, amber shimmer was enough to thrust him headlong into a different scene altogether. The dim murk of his sanctum was reduced to naught more than a night sky amid forest as far as even his glorified sight would permit him. Anxious in the wake of being rudely exhumed from self-imposed asylum, he would attempt to move only to find himself incapable. More suitably, he had no body with which to affect the world around him at all; he had been effectively disembodied for the experience. That having been said, he needn't the distraction. No sooner had he contented himself did two figures present themselves from the brush that had concealed them.
Cloud cover blanketed the sky, essentially barring the brightness of the sun from imposing upon the sights to come. A tall, human man clad in ceremonial robes that provided a high collar with which he could obscure the lower half of his features stood at one end of an expansive river, seemingly distracted by something that didn't necessarily have anything to do with the person before him. The other stood at a height comparable to him, clad in a cloak that served to protect his suit and tie from the steady rainfall. At once, he indignantly thrust his arm to the side, commanding the first man's attention forthwith.
"Shion! So, you were here. I knew it. What is the meaning of this"! Why....why would you run off and leave like that"!" Shion"....But that name belonged to....Nevertheless, The Mad Magus turned his attention to the curiously-adorned man, his imperceptible eyes widening as he glimpsed his own tri-color orbs in the youth! The Golden Verge of Darkness, The Vermilion Edge of Hatred, and the Azure Margin of Despair were all present, which meant, he must have borne witness to something absolutely dreadful. "You can tell me....We're....we're still friends, right' Allies" Why, just yesterday you....told..." He'd faltered" Another cursory observation would reveal why: the corpse of much older human male laid at this 'Shion's feet, dressed in subtly more ornate suit-garments than the unnamed man. "...L-lord Guneha?" He'd been impaled through the abdomen by a sword of some kind: likely imbued with enchantments to suit the whims of those who would wield it. Shion's attention fixed on the body, his own frame shifting so that he could clasp one of his hands around the hilt of the forsaken fell-sword and draw it free of its haggard confines. The tearing of fleshy sinew that resulted didn't appear to perturb this decidedly gloomy individual as it had the other. "So, you came, then..." Hnn. Here I'd thought you'd renounced your affections for me all that time ago. Tell me, dearest friend," this 'Shion' continued, a depraved and cynical melancholy slaked over his timbre. ", do you know what it means to know despair?" With each word, one of his arms had further risen so that his gloved palm would be drawn over his face, the thick sleeve sliding away. "Hnhn....I'd like to think so. No, with this development it's naught less than assured."
"...Why do you have that' It's forbidden....You know we were not meant to touch that blade! I....just don't..." The shock of the scene likely proved to be too much for the still-young man to properly cope with on his own. It took all of his control to prevent himself from doubling over and vomiting then and there. "So, that's it then, is it' The Immortal Render....You used it on the Archmagus. Lord Guneha....He was our teacher! You and your unhealthy obsession with that accursed sword resulted in this, did it' This is sick. Y-you just....What.....what have you done, Shion' With our mentor....with my friend" JUST WHO ARE YOU ANYMORE"!" the unknown man called aloud at the breach of his lungs. His desperate cries were left unanswered as an quiet laughter seemed to echo off of each and every single tree in the vicinity. The scholar's woe did nothing to stir this foul man's heart. Instead, it incited amusement in him. Shion's adversary adopted a stance befitting of one who presumed their encroaching conflict to be unavoidable now. His fists glimmered with hope, a direct clash with their dire situation. Tightly did the robed man grip his unholy blade as weapon and wielder became wreathed in energies best described as ghastly: an ethereal force almost completely drenched in malice and grief. "I'd pegged you for the intelligent sort. Despair is the truth of everything. I've merely reached it....obtained it; that's all there is to it. You of all people should understand what I've become. Hmph, what I'd been from the very start. Ever since I arrived here, I've been..." A somber pair of heels dug into the mush of the softened earth beneath them as both combatants launched themselves at one another. The holy magicks of the unnamed man's blessed cuff-links and the steely cesspool of ire that the blade drew from collided with a fierce discharge of mutual regret and misery. Deadened, hope-drained eyes met the determination of an avenger who sought to save both of them from the darkness that had wrested control of Shion's soul.
"...Broken!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Before he could even properly process the images he'd been presented, Lord Scionius jolted upright from his potent reverie. He'd been flanked by not one or two, but four of his other astral selves, cloaked in the ephemeral vacuousness of their dimension and thus rendered only transient in this Realm. "Do not worry yourselves over me....In truth, what just occurred was nothing short of an unexpected boon," he reassured them, dismissing them with a sidelong gesture of his hand. Arisen, he would begin his trek to the outside, coaxed once again into action with newly-acquired knowledge at his disposal. "With each of these visions, I learn more and more of who I was before I came to this sorry place.....What more will these eyes that see darkness so clearly reveal to me, I wonder?" Artificial limbs folded behind his back as he disappeared into the shadow of the lonely citadel beneath RhyDin. Who knew what that unquestionably morose display of sorrow portended for him' Perhaps not even he...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Hmhm....How infuriatingly perplexing, that one. For one with sight so far-reaching, how is it that she renders me so....blind?" he began to speak prior to seizing up and clutching the chair's arm to the point of scouring the hallowed stone with his gauntlet. Reeling back in his chair, he hissed aloud. The advent of his hues's rings amalgamating into ponds of sheer, amber shimmer was enough to thrust him headlong into a different scene altogether. The dim murk of his sanctum was reduced to naught more than a night sky amid forest as far as even his glorified sight would permit him. Anxious in the wake of being rudely exhumed from self-imposed asylum, he would attempt to move only to find himself incapable. More suitably, he had no body with which to affect the world around him at all; he had been effectively disembodied for the experience. That having been said, he needn't the distraction. No sooner had he contented himself did two figures present themselves from the brush that had concealed them.
Cloud cover blanketed the sky, essentially barring the brightness of the sun from imposing upon the sights to come. A tall, human man clad in ceremonial robes that provided a high collar with which he could obscure the lower half of his features stood at one end of an expansive river, seemingly distracted by something that didn't necessarily have anything to do with the person before him. The other stood at a height comparable to him, clad in a cloak that served to protect his suit and tie from the steady rainfall. At once, he indignantly thrust his arm to the side, commanding the first man's attention forthwith.
"Shion! So, you were here. I knew it. What is the meaning of this"! Why....why would you run off and leave like that"!" Shion"....But that name belonged to....Nevertheless, The Mad Magus turned his attention to the curiously-adorned man, his imperceptible eyes widening as he glimpsed his own tri-color orbs in the youth! The Golden Verge of Darkness, The Vermilion Edge of Hatred, and the Azure Margin of Despair were all present, which meant, he must have borne witness to something absolutely dreadful. "You can tell me....We're....we're still friends, right' Allies" Why, just yesterday you....told..." He'd faltered" Another cursory observation would reveal why: the corpse of much older human male laid at this 'Shion's feet, dressed in subtly more ornate suit-garments than the unnamed man. "...L-lord Guneha?" He'd been impaled through the abdomen by a sword of some kind: likely imbued with enchantments to suit the whims of those who would wield it. Shion's attention fixed on the body, his own frame shifting so that he could clasp one of his hands around the hilt of the forsaken fell-sword and draw it free of its haggard confines. The tearing of fleshy sinew that resulted didn't appear to perturb this decidedly gloomy individual as it had the other. "So, you came, then..." Hnn. Here I'd thought you'd renounced your affections for me all that time ago. Tell me, dearest friend," this 'Shion' continued, a depraved and cynical melancholy slaked over his timbre. ", do you know what it means to know despair?" With each word, one of his arms had further risen so that his gloved palm would be drawn over his face, the thick sleeve sliding away. "Hnhn....I'd like to think so. No, with this development it's naught less than assured."
"...Why do you have that' It's forbidden....You know we were not meant to touch that blade! I....just don't..." The shock of the scene likely proved to be too much for the still-young man to properly cope with on his own. It took all of his control to prevent himself from doubling over and vomiting then and there. "So, that's it then, is it' The Immortal Render....You used it on the Archmagus. Lord Guneha....He was our teacher! You and your unhealthy obsession with that accursed sword resulted in this, did it' This is sick. Y-you just....What.....what have you done, Shion' With our mentor....with my friend" JUST WHO ARE YOU ANYMORE"!" the unknown man called aloud at the breach of his lungs. His desperate cries were left unanswered as an quiet laughter seemed to echo off of each and every single tree in the vicinity. The scholar's woe did nothing to stir this foul man's heart. Instead, it incited amusement in him. Shion's adversary adopted a stance befitting of one who presumed their encroaching conflict to be unavoidable now. His fists glimmered with hope, a direct clash with their dire situation. Tightly did the robed man grip his unholy blade as weapon and wielder became wreathed in energies best described as ghastly: an ethereal force almost completely drenched in malice and grief. "I'd pegged you for the intelligent sort. Despair is the truth of everything. I've merely reached it....obtained it; that's all there is to it. You of all people should understand what I've become. Hmph, what I'd been from the very start. Ever since I arrived here, I've been..." A somber pair of heels dug into the mush of the softened earth beneath them as both combatants launched themselves at one another. The holy magicks of the unnamed man's blessed cuff-links and the steely cesspool of ire that the blade drew from collided with a fierce discharge of mutual regret and misery. Deadened, hope-drained eyes met the determination of an avenger who sought to save both of them from the darkness that had wrested control of Shion's soul.
"...Broken!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Before he could even properly process the images he'd been presented, Lord Scionius jolted upright from his potent reverie. He'd been flanked by not one or two, but four of his other astral selves, cloaked in the ephemeral vacuousness of their dimension and thus rendered only transient in this Realm. "Do not worry yourselves over me....In truth, what just occurred was nothing short of an unexpected boon," he reassured them, dismissing them with a sidelong gesture of his hand. Arisen, he would begin his trek to the outside, coaxed once again into action with newly-acquired knowledge at his disposal. "With each of these visions, I learn more and more of who I was before I came to this sorry place.....What more will these eyes that see darkness so clearly reveal to me, I wonder?" Artificial limbs folded behind his back as he disappeared into the shadow of the lonely citadel beneath RhyDin. Who knew what that unquestionably morose display of sorrow portended for him' Perhaps not even he...