Location: Nektar’s Cauldron, Kra
Timeline: Sixth Age, 46th Year, Late Autumn to Winter
Here’s an especially delightful part of the story. You’ve seen how I set the stage and how I moved a few pawns into their preordained positions. Now, you shall see the true power of Azazel.
The myz, Kaoz, was delivered to my doorstep like a freshly-slaughtered boar. After I’d immobilized Kaoz back at Outpost 69, my slaves then wrapped the unconscious body in thick ropes. They then followed my directions to administer to Kaoz was a concoction of my own devious design. It was a potion called The Quiet Dream.
It wasn’t a particularly brutish poison or a simple sleeping draught. That would be so… common. The Quiet Dream was a more elegant solution. It was a clear, shimmering liquid that, when administered, would induce a state of suspended animation. The body would become as hard as stone, the skin taking on the texture of polished marble. All biological functions would cease—no heartbeat, no breathing, no need for sustenance. The subject would appear, for all intents and purposes, dead.
But within that crystalline shell, the mind was very much alive. It would be plunged into a fantastical, endless dream world, a silent theater where I could project my visions. The subject would experience a dream of utter serenity, a blissful void of nothingness. They would be completely detached from their own bodies, unaware of the journey they were taking or the hands that were dragging them through the muck.
This served two purposes, you see. First, it made Kaoz a perfect, inanimate cargo. He was light, unmoving, and no physical harm would come to him during the long trek. His body would be as hard as stone, impervious to the scrapes and bruises of the journey. Second, and far more importantly, it was a subtle test of his will. The myz, for all their strength, are simple creatures. I knew Kaoz would be so desperate to escape the serenity of the dream that his subconscious mind would begin to fight back, a small act of defiance. This would allow me to observe Kaoz’ will, his resolve, and his mental fortitude from afar. The more he struggled, the more I knew his potential for a glorious new purpose.
At the peril of destruction, my derkka goblins carefully gave Kaoz my potion through a special bone needle I equipped them with – it was inserted into the still unconscious Kaoz via a quick, almost painless jab to the back of the neck. Kaoz went limp immediately, and the transformation thus began. Within a minute, his skin would turn to a translucent, gray stone, his muscles and bones locked in place, his mind trapped within the endless serenity of the Quiet Dream.
This allowed my slaves to transport Kaoz through the Dim Wood and to my Cauldron without a single struggle, without a single sound. They brought him straight to the entrance of my palace and laid my prize at my feet.
With a flick of my hand, I dismissed the slaves “Go. Feast on your newfound glory. Your true reward is yet to come.” And my minions left, believing they had served their god well – which they did. So I let them live – for now.
Meanwhile, it was time for me to work with Kaoz…
I had other slaves bring Kaoz to my Life Labs.
You remember The Life Labs, right? It’s where I stripped away mortal life and reshaped it into a new, more perfect forms. The labs were located deep within the volcanic heart of my palace, and the air was thick with the sulfurous scent of my genius. The walls throbbed with the rhythmic pulse of the earth’s magma, a symphony of fire and raw power.
Then it was time for Kaoz and I to spend some really quality time together…
A cold, steel table. Leather straps. A perfect combination. And then something even more delightful. I’d brought Koaz specifically to Life Lab #13 because this room has a particularly sinister worktable – with Kaoz unable to move or speak, I had him suspended at a work station that was itself hovering above a glowing pools of stellarones – those raw, tortured souls that I have so painstakingly collected. And with the souls writhing below him, although Kaoz could not see them, he surely felt their pain.
I did however allow Kaoz to see one thing – ME!
I stood over him, my true form revealed, a towering bestial figure wreathed in shadows and fire. My green eyes then burned into Kaoz’s soul like a consuming flame. And then it was that the myz finally knew FEAR.
My presence alone, a subtle and silent manifestation of my power, was enough to break his myz-mind’s defenses. So terrifying was the look I flashed him that it forced his mind to black out. He wasn’t unconscious, you understand. His consciousness simply fled from his body, leaving his senses wide open to my influence. It was his pathetic last gasp of a defense mechanism, yet it only succeeded in pushing Kaoz’s psyche down a path of subconscious nightmares—visions of all the horrors what my alter ego god Baal would inflict upon him if he failed to worship that deity as his God.
Now you may recall that the Myz worshipped Zar (aka Gwar) as their ‘father’ God, me as The Shaitan (an evil helper of Zar), and Syn (aka Inanna) as Zar’s mistress, but their mythology also had another figure in it – a god so terrifying (even to a myz) that he was rarely ever talked about. That god was Baal – one of my made up personas. You can read more about Baal in The Hidden Histories, but for now just know that Baal was a giant whose form was a grotesque amalgamation of human and beast. With a body covered in matted black fur thick and coarse like the pelt of a wild beast, Baal’s muscular frame, twisted and deformed, exuded a raw primal power with bulging veins that pulsed with a dark energy. Massive horns, twisted and gnarled like ancient tree roots, jutted out from my god’s skull, their tips sharp and menacing. Baal’s raw power and size were perfect for keeping the myz in line over the years. But I never played that hand too often – saving it for just the right occasion – like this one.
And yet, I didn’t use Baal here to frighten Kaoz. That would be so… crude. I am an artist. The myz’s mind, so disciplined and so brittle, was my new canvas. The torture I inflicted was not simply physical. It was a deconstruction of his very essence. I used shards of my stellarones to burrow into his mind, to sever the connections that made him Kaoz. The loyalty to Keldar, the ambition to be an Overlord, the memories of his past life—all of it, gone. I wiped his slate clean, a beautiful erasure.
It’s beyond the scope of this book for me to try to explain all the things I did to Kaoz (even if I wanted to tell you), yet neither he nor you will ever know all the gruesome things I did to change him during that horrible winter of 46. Suffice it to say that Kaoz was hypnotized, fantasized, dramatized, and even lobotomized in those labs. I even got a chance to use my wonderful little invention called The Psyk-Drill, a delightful tool I crafted myself. With the Pysk-Drill I burrowed into Kaoz’ skull, not to destroy, but to rearrange. I rearranged his memories, his loyalties, and his very sense of self.
He was no longer a myz loyal to Keldar. He was a servant capable only of serving Baal and viewing his Shaitan as his loving protector. I implanted a new mission, a new purpose. A new obsession – find The Grim at Akka and deliver it to The Shaitan and Baal to prove his worth. In return the gods would help him overthrow Keldar and become The Supreme Overlord himself.
I left a handful of select memories in the forefront of the knight’s mind—to ensure he wouldn’t forget about his time with me—and the thought of just having his head impaled on a stake at Keldar’s court surely seemed like ambrosia compared to the punishments Kaoz knew Baal would inflict upon him if he failed in his NEW mission. The fear was now his motivator, his guiding star. A far more effective tool than ambition, wouldn’t you agree?
After I was finished, I released him by putting him back on the path he had been traveling, a few miles north of Outpost 69, his rucksack magically refilled, his sword cleaned and sharpened. He was a new man, a creature of my own design. He felt no pain, only purpose. The memory of his ordeal was a burning scar in his mind, a constant reminder of the price of failure.
Later that evening, in my great library, surrounded by the arcane scrolls and ancient texts I have collected over the eons, I found myself in a moment of quiet reflection. I had done my work. Kaoz was a perfect weapon. And yet, a sliver of doubt, a little serpent of anxiety, gnawed at me.
Lucifer and Ze, trapped in Illusia, were no fools. I know that somehow, despite my best attempts, it was possible they had a way of sensing my… side projects. Even now they might be waiting for me to fail, to return to them without a solution to their own little predicament. The pressure on me to succeed was growing immense. And the other godlings, the ones still running around your little world—Alyssa, Rhokki, Pan, Inanna, and Gwar—they were all threats to me. They had their own pawns, their own plots. Could one of them interfere with my beautiful plan? Well, anything was possible – especially for the ever conniving Inanna.
I paced the room, my boots echoing on the obsidian floor. The plan with Kaoz was flawless. He would seek The Grim, the dagger that could kill a god, believing Baal would make him the next Myz Overlord. He would deliver the weapon to me, and I would then finally have the tool I need to kill my rivals and get one step closer towards taking my rightful place as the High God.
It was a simple, brilliant scheme.
And yet… I poured myself a chalice of cold, red wine, the blood of some long-dead king I had the pleasure of draining myself. What if Kaoz failed like all the rest? What if some unseen force, some meddling mortal or arrogant godling, stopped him? I could not afford a misstep. Not now. My very existence hung in the balance.
No. I am Azazel. I reminded myself. I do not fail. The myz is but a pawn, but a crucial one. His success must be assured.
A slow, confident smile spread across my face as the solution to this tiny problem emerged – I would simply have to send a… companion. Someone to watch over Kaoz. Someone to ensure that my beautiful little monster stayed on the path I laid out for him. Another loyal servant, another piece on the board.
I raised my chalice to the swirling magma below, a toast to my own genius. Kaoz was now on his way to Akka, the city where The Grim awaited him. He believed he was on a mission of his own making. How wonderfully, gloriously wrong he was…
The Apocrypha of Azazel 