Topic: Memories of Ice

Kanda Rhal

Date: 2013-07-27 16:20 EST
Memories of Ice, memories of fire and darkness. Above that, memories of nothing, thoughts of the eternal darkness that is the void.

In the forgotten spaces, Kanda existed. An age old force awoke the sleeping monster, and inside of him, he answered. The night of his arrival was fitting. On a night dark with clouds, on a night bright with the lightning, a storm cloud fell and blew the mage into this world. He stood upon the edge of a cliff, and stared down at the world below him. A man steeped in symbolism, this turned his lips up in a cruel grin. When had a world not been below him' When had he ever walked on level playing fields" Never.

He stood, wrapped in darkness and ignored the driving rain. Such things, such petty annoyances had long since been forgotten by the ascendant. Instead, his mind reached out with an effortless ease and sent probing thoughts to those who might answer. Always, he'd know the ground that he walked on. As a sorcerer, his order was red. An evoker he is, a powerful, dangerous one. Therein lies the secret, however. As a sorcerer, he holds tainted blood. Humanity waged war with an Elder Elemental, a creature of the void. Thus, psionics found a balance between magic. One hand, lazily, reached for the ground at his feet. He knelt and allowed his fingers to toy with the muddy soil. When he stood, he held his hand out before him and let the silt drain through his fingers. His hand, gradually, rose yet again. Though he had made contact only for a moment, the link had been established.

When his hand moved again, his left fell to his knee while his right started to slowly circle, almost as if he was drawing the residual power closer to him. He spoke, he began to offer sibilant hisses into the night. The inflection was always the same, the emphasis fell on the final syllable. At his feet, the very ground began to shake. At first, it was hardly noticeable, but slowly, a large fissure opened behind him. It grew and it grew, the seemingly limitless maw made of dirt began to consume the mud around him. He stood on an island amidst the gaping hope. Finally, he spared a glance down and smiled that chilled expression. Hidden behind the ancient mask, he laughed to himself. "And so the world consumes the world, and in death, we find new life, no?"

His island trembled, it shook and it rattled, though his feet never once shifted. Instead, his island began to grow. The dirt hardened and aged, as if a thousand years had passed with one blink of an eye. When it crumbled beneath him, he merely floated in space. The hem of his robes danced in the wind, the very manifestation of such eldritch power. With nary a motion, he began to hover higher and still higher. When he'd stopped, he stared down into the gaping hole he'd rent in the world's surface. Again, his hand lowered, and when he was pleased with the location, he balled his fingers into a tight fist. The fist slowly rose, and with it came a tower of ebony. The dark colored monstrosity began to rip itself from the bones of the world, and when it stood, it towered over the area around it. The ruined ground should not have been able to support the immense weight, but stand it did. It reached into the clouds, twin spires brushed the storm's primal calling. Lightning danced around the windowless obelisk, yet there it stood, an open challenge and a physical product of the Arts Arcane. Kanda's will alone held it in this world, this odd structure ripped from reality, yet displaced from his old home. Thay had come to Rhy'din, it would seem.

A set of jagged stairs extended over the rift, and when contact was made with the slick metal, a door formed. Kanda's feet touched the stone at the point, and the door, as so many had before, opened before him with no touch and no command. The door slid open on ethereal hinges, and though the tower was dark on the outside, Kanda stepped into a well lit room, a room with no walls. Each and every floor was circular, as was the tower, and each and every floor was the width of the structure itself. Slowly, his gaze panned across the room, and he nodded. The finely cut ends of his robes danced across the floor as he stalked towards the far end. Of all things, the floor was his masterwork. Under a layer of glass, molten rock had been frozen in place. To all who would see, it would appear as if the mage walked in jagged obsidian spikes, twisted and frozen flame itself. When the light caught the floor, it shined and glistened with an unholy glow. When, finally, he stopped, he sat at a desk carved from the same black stone, and his fingers lovingly caressed the ancient and archaic runes burned into the table. He glanced down into a cut out in the middle of the table and again, nodded. His hands rose slowly, and when they had found purchase on the sides of his mask, he removed the frozen face and placed it into the hollow. When it touched, the lights flickered and died, and a perverse chill spread through the room. From the mask itself, a glow originated in the eyes, and those flickering orbs glared up at the mage.

"My Herald, my Herald! What a joy it is to see you once more! Planeswalker, time stepped. He who walks through the gates of space and reality, is that not what they call you? Tell me of your new home, of our new home. Will you spread the Church of Chaos, or do you seek a new power, something that will turn Ascendant into Deity?" The mask spoke, an arcane voice that reaked of raw power. For this voice, men died and worlds fell upon bent knees.

"My Dread Lord, Liege, I think not. I think this place needs no preaching, at least, none that I can offer. I think this world needs little, but as always, where men stand, a puppet master pulls upon strings, does he not' Time will tell me these things, but at the very least, it is an entertaining place, do not doubt that, not for one second. We can find our pleasu-..."

The mask, the voice of a God, snickered. "Pleasure, Kanda" You have found a woman, and I am sure that she had her pleasure while thoughts of you rippled in her mind, I made myself quite sure of that. She is most beautiful, First Son of House Rhal, that she is. Most....amusing."

"I assure you, Lord, should you play a part in her life, I will ascend at the feet of your ruined body. You and I both know that I would destroy the cosmos themselves should we wage war upon each other, but do not doubt, Tel'ma, that I will ruin you should you lay your chill fingers on her body or her mind. Upon my Art, I swear this, before the Circle." Before, the mage had spoken with an easy tone that spoke of long companionship, but this time, with these words, his voice became the rattler's deadly hiss, the voice of death itself.

"You amuse me so, Kanda. You would lay your protection on this one, but deny me my amusement' Mortals are toys, Kanda. You would make an awful God, really. I thought I had taught you better, oh great one. Legendary battle mage, untouchable master of the arcane, and yet you would lay your magic at the altar of a mere mortal" You always surprise me, Herald." Even though the voice was that of a God, the intangible force knew that Kanda spoke no empty threats. Instead, it deferred and allowed the point to die, but not with a verbal jab or two.

"Recall this conversation, hold it within the depths of your infinite mind. You, at some point, will be replaced. Understand that." With a burst of mental power, Kanda severed the link and locked his Lord back into the mask. He stood, slowly, and began pacing through the room. With an annoyed gesture, he faded out of sight, only to surface again on the very highest level of his tower. From there, he surveyed the world below him. His eyes, always, were drawn back to one point, a certain house that had just been around the corner. There, and only there, did his amber gaze lost itself. "I surprise myself, Tel'ma

Kanda Rhal

Date: 2013-08-23 18:04 EST
Around him, lost within the folds of robes torn from the darkness itself, the light faded and died. It lived far apart, but never within this servant of the eternal. His arms folded, he stood, staring into nothing, yet within everything. Absently, he glanced here and there, around the murky shadows that coated the layers upon layers, the never ending reality that the slums posed. Shadows curled from corners, hiding the killers that dared not come close, steam rose from dirty grates, the breath of the masses, the life of the poor and the downtrodden, the weak.

With no need of the mask, Kanda opened his mind and drew close to the voice that ruled his life with a fist of iron, a will of steel. The voice became his life, the flow of pure and dangerous power that tore through his very soul. Addictive, toxic, heady and potent, the magic rippled around him in waves and waves that crashed along the liens of reality with a broken pattern. Something so dark, something so tainted, even in this world, should never have existed. Some secrets weren't meant for mortal ears, some glory not meant for mortal eyes. This was such a glory, such a feeling that invaded everything with chill fingers and taunting words.

"Tell me, my Herald, where do you stand" I see, I hear and I feel the masses, the weak and the downtrodden, they linger under the boot of tyranny, they dance to the tunes of another. Do you wish to subjugate them further?" The sound, the spine chilling sound, bounced off of the minds of his walls with the soothing touch of a father's pride, a patron's delight.

"No." His answer was singular, pointed and near silent in the hush of his focus. "I do not." That was all he offered, for now.

"What' Tell me this, Herald, why do you play such games" Why do you ignore me?" He pleaded and he cajoled, a battle he knew he would lose. At times, Gods lord over men and at times, mortals defy the power they can never understand with the power that can never be killed. Humanity adapts, it changes and it stands strong in the winter storm, it rests along the edges of a desert full of vague inequity, but it stands, alone and forgotten, tested and shattered, resolved yet broken. "You're going to do something strange, aren't you?" The voice seemed to sigh, resigned to it's wayward servant and his antics.

"Most likely. Watch, Lord. They need to be freed." With hardly a though, the sorcerer of legend ignored the mental link. For this, he needed his entire power.

One hand lowered, a gesture to the swirling steam, a call to the currents of air. His fist clenched, held tight and in place as his mind wandered to another source of power. Amber, his gaze flickered to the shadow, the dead reminder of what had once been. In shadow, ghosts run and phantoms play, wraiths live and spirits die. He drew upon this, upon all of those things with a steady call, a siren's demand spoken into the bed of another dead lover.

"Watch, Lord." Holding his thoughts, he projected his voice.

"Long have you languished under the yoke of tyrannically imposed complacency, fools. See me now as a messiah, a savior. You grovel in your warrens, you hide in the shadows, content with what you have because you understand not what you could gain, no?" He spoke to nothing, yet he spoke to the currents of hate and jealousy, inbred complacency and painful memories. The starved, the orphans, the damned and the convicted, the felon, the rapist and the arson, the murdered, the twisted and the demented. He spoke to them, children with no fathers, mothers with no sons left. "This is a cruel world, the sun is bright. It shows us the reality, it lights it's sarcastic face upon the truths we hide in the darkness. I ask not that you understand, for you won't. Not quite yet, but maybe in time. Competition breeds success, friends. Go now, show them that the ivory towers hold no power, not when they are rooted in the filth that they pour from seamless gutters. Be not afraid, for you are the gutter, the feet. Power is there for those who would take it."

He stopped, he whispered. "My church."

Both hands pushed forwards as his mind let go of the power he held. People, by now, had started to stare at this strange speaker, resplendent in the slums, glorious in the face of such misery. As he let the warrens unfold, in his mind, he layered spell upon spell, poured his energy into reality, another place it never should have lived. With a soft hiss, the air grew warm, it began to fold itself around him. The pressure applied from the darkness, the shadows and the denizens of such depth, pushed it away in a near volcanic eruption. Around him, buildings shattered, homes broke and the very street buckled. An entire neighborhood, within seconds, was a twisted mass of ruined ruins and broken dreams long since shattered. Amazingly enough, not a body was touched, not a human was harmed. Kanda turned in the face of his anger and began walking away.

"Come with me, friends. Let us show them the truth of this place. Gods walk and dragons fly, yet men have the ability to swallow pride and crawl. We seep into the cracks and pour into the forgotten spaces. They have cast you aside, I ask not for service. I ask only that you stand." His next words, the final words, he spoke into the silence of his thoughts, knowing his Lord would hear them, loud and clear.

"We have an army now, I think. Let us see where this goes, let us sit and watch the chaos we create."