Location: Nektar’s Cauldron
Timeline: Spring, 47
The trouble with you mortals is their focus on all the wrong things. Like the characters in my tales, you obsess over petty quests for power or vengeance as you weave elaborate stories about love, loss, and the so-called “will of the gods” to explain your failures in life. It’s all so terribly tedious.
I’m sure by now you think you know the whole story of my Apocrypha, right? You think the fate of the my world rested on the shoulders of some insignificant boy or a few misguided goddesses. But you don’t see the full picture. You can’t. The most crucial battles, you see, were not fought on a field of blood and steel. They were fought in the minds of the gods, in the dark corners of the universe where I once dwelt.
My time as a mere narrator in this tale has grown tiresome. I have done my duty and allowed the mortal tale to unfold as a necessary, if boring, distraction. But now its time to remind you all that I am not just a storyteller, but the true protagonist of this great chronicle. My game is the real game. The quest that really matters is the one I was on.
And yet I am not infallible. And I am not too proud to admit my mistakes – to prove this to you I will give you a rare glimpse at glorious failure of a god…
I want to take you back to the spring of 47 – Kaoz had just left The Cauldron and was making his way through The Uxix Bogs and The Stax. I’d also released Ramssee to follow after him. I trusted that things would work out and they’d soon return with The Grim.
Meanwhile, I’d just come off my enjoyable experiment with the unfortunate Captain Gol wherein I discovered my new Formula 409 that allowed me to extend the lives of mortals indefinitely. Riding on that success I giddy to keep working on other, dare I say, even more important, projects.
I wonder. I thought to myself. Do I dare? Yes, I think it’s time. After all, it might work. And then I walked down into my most secret lab.
The Cauldron, you see, is not a singular place. It is a labyrinthine monument to my genius that I had developed over millennia – where every chamber and chasm of the volcano served a distinct purpose. The crude, outer laboratories, where I played with infusing Stellarone into the unfortunate souls of mortals, were for my mundane, day-to-day work. But occasionally I ventured into my Inner Sanctum of the Void. I didn’t come here often – the placed scared even me – but sometimes I got up the nerve to enter the laboratory where my most dangerous, my most beautiful, and my most secret work was done.
It was the only place in all of my domain where I dared to flirt with experiments so dangerous they risked even my total annihilation.
In most of my labs there was a scent of ozone and the sweet, cloying tang of raw stellarone. But here, in the Sanctum, the air also carried a hint of <The Nothing>, a chill that spoke of the space beyond all creation. The walls, not just of rock, were reinforced with plates of shimmering, condensed stellarone and etched with runes I had devised myself, their sole purpose was to contain the destructive energies I sought to command. The ceiling, far above, did not merely drip with volcanic magma; it was a pulsating, living firmament of my own design, its light a constant reminder of the real heavenly barrier that separate me from Illyria – my true home.
My current experiment, the harnessing of the negative aether, demanded this total isolation. I had sealed the doors with magical wards that would repel any lesser being and even warn me of another god’s approach. I needed no witnesses to this grand experiment, no audience to the moment I would finally transcend the limitations placed upon me by my miserable, self-righteous immortals. The very silence of the Sanctum was a sound in itself, broken only by the hum of my machinery and the rhythmic thrum of the cosmic energies I was drawing in.
As I worked I felt a desperate, frantic ambition. My shadow, long and distorted against the flickering light, danced like a mad thing on the cavern walls, a reflection of the beautiful, terrible madness that consumed me. The rhythmic clang of metal against stone from a thousand unseen mechanisms was a symphony, a hymn to my own genius. This was my grand stage, and the greatest act of my existence was about to begin.
As the experiment played out, I felt a promise of a future where I, Azazel, God of Death, would sit atop the cosmic throne, having finally outwitted every last one of the miserable little gods – including A’H Itself.
This will be a masterstroke that none of them saw coming! I was giddy with delight at my progress. The suspense is killing me; I hope it will last!
It’s pointless for me to try to explain the actual experiment because its so far beyond your understanding as to be comical, but suffice it to say that I’d come to the conclusion that a magnificent bit of ‘mad science’ could potentially bypass the need for any of that troublesome stellarones that were always causing me such problems. Instead I was attempting to tap into the very chaotic, untamed energies of the aether itself – more specifically the negative aether which I knew was what made the endless Void beyond the Firmament. If I could access the negative aether from the other side of The Firmament then surely I would gain a source of infinite power. It was a power that was free from the shackles of Ze and Lucifer. And more importantly it was a power that could put me on par perhaps with A’H! A truly brilliant idea, if I do say so myself.
At one point of the experiment, I hovered over a colossal, swirling crucible of shimmering energy, its light pulsing in time with my own racing thoughts. Around me, the walls of the Cauldron groaned with the strain of containing such a volatile force. But so far this was all just positive, living aether from my side of The Firmament. I needed to get to the negative aether.
“A little more, now!” I groaned, my voice a low, resonant hum as I encouraged myself. “Let the aether flow! Do not falter, This is for the greater good of… science.” I added the last word with a delicious bit of sarcasm. The truth was, this wasn’t for the good of anyone but me. It was for my escape, for my victory, for the moment when I would finally prove to Lucifer and Ze and even that insufferable goody-two-shoes A’H that they had chosen the wrong side in the great war of the gods.
The energies I was drawing from the aether were magnificent. They were raw, primal, and entirely unpredictable. I loved them. They were like me, wild and without a master. The crucible pulsed brighter, a sun trapped within my dark laboratory – and I knew I was close to accessing the negative aether. I could feel it. I was going to do it!
But then, a whisper. Not a whisper in the air, but a voice in my mind, a ghost of an old, familiar torment. It spoke of a “concoction of failure,” of a great plan that would come to naught. It was a taunt from distant memories, and I knew its source. The other gods – was it Inanna? Gwar? Mindos? They were always watching, always judging, always trying to thwart me.
“Silence!” I roared, the energy from the crucible lashing out like a whip all around me. Yet I ignored the pains and focused all my attention on the experiment and hastily pushed more energy into the crucible to try to break through The Firmament.
It was too much.
A ripple of unstable power, a dissonance I had not accounted for, shot through the aetheric conduits. The crucible began to hum, a deep, unsettling sound that had nothing to do with my spell. It was the song of something… unmaking. I saw it then, the fatal flaw in my brilliant design. The negative energies I was trying to harness were not just chaotic; they were actively hostile, designed to reject any form of ordered existence. I had built my spell on a lie, a fundamental misunderstanding of the aether’s and negative aether’s balance. I had gambled my existence, and I was about to lose.
The crucible exploded!
Not with a bang, but with a silent, blinding flash of white that consumed my form in an instant. The pain was beyond anything I had ever felt. It was an infinity of tiny, searing points of agony, each one a memory of a past torment made new. It wasn’t the pain of a god, but the pain of something lesser, something vulnerable. It felt… familiar. And then, as my very essence was torn asunder, the agony shifted.
I was no longer in my laboratory. I was back in the hellish expanse of Illusia, my body bound in chains forged of pure darkness. Before me stood Lucifer, a triumphant, terrible smile on the he-she of his Travesty face, and beside him, Lilith, her eyes filled with a cold, hateful joy. My consciousness, my essence, was being stretched and pulled, a cosmic rubber band about to snap. They had done this to me before, but the memory was always hazy, a nightmare so brutal I had buried it deep within the recesses of my mind where even I’d forgotten about it.
But this time, it was clear.
I could hear their laughter, their vile, perfect mockery as they held me captive.
“See, my dear?” Lilith purred, her voice a poisonous honey. “He writhes. The great Azazel, God of Schemes, reduced to a groveling dog. And yet, the fool doesn’t realize that he gave us the key, my dear. A piece of his own essence, a divine rib to unlock the gate.”
Lucifer’s smile widened, a chasm of cold cruelty that stretched across both the beautiful and grotesque sides of his two-faced head. “It’s perhaps the only key that can unmake A’H’s barrier. The Firmament itself trembles at the thought of a blade forged from the soul of a god. And yet we cannot wield it from this miserable pit. We cannot even touch it.”
My essence was a molten river of pain, but my mind, that part of me they could never truly break, latched onto their words. A divine rib. A key. Unmake the Firmament. They were talking about the Dagaal, of course, but the memory was still a jumbled mess of agony and insult.
Lilith continued, her voice a poisonous honey, “And that, my love, is the delicious part of the plan. It requires a hand on the other side. A hand perfectly attuned to the dagger’s unique power. A hand that will not be consumed by the weapon’s truth.” Her gaze fell upon me. “His hand.”
Lucifer chuckled, a dry, rasping sound. “Yes, something to make him suffer. He’ll search for it, believe he’s found a weapon of immense power. And in his arrogance, he will unleash it. He may well scour the whole of the flat earth, believing its power to be his alone, yet never realizing he is merely our pawn. He will find the Dagaal and break the Firmament for us. Should we command him to use it?”
“Too predictable,” Lilith countered, her tone a perfect imitation of my own maddening condescension. “That would leave too much to chance if he resists. It would make for a messy, chaotic end and risk our own escape. No, my love. Let us put it somewhere… somewhere more desolate. Somewhere its power can be contained. The perfect place to hide a weapon that was meant to kill gods. We’ll put it…”
But just then the vision began to fade. Try though I might to remember what Lilith said next I couldn’t make myself play her words back. All I ended up with was the laughter of Lucifer and Lilith as my dream turned into a distant echo. Even still, their words were a hammer blow to my consciousness. They had said it. They had revealed their plans for Dagaal. And I, in my agony, had not been lucid enough to comprehend. I had forgotten. But the knowledge was there—if only I could jog my memories again.
Sadly I was in no shape to do that now – for my failed experiment with The Firmament had nearly destroyed me. Thus it was that I was a prisoner within my mind as the cold, desolate darkness of Illusia began to give way to the comforting warmth of my Cauldron and I struggled for my very existence.
In time my form began to knit itself back together, piece by piece, returning to its rightful place. With my <true self> intact and my body back, eventually I was whole again and ready to leave the failures of his lab behind.
And yet, even as I left the Inner Sanctum, I could tell I was not the same.
The failed experiment had broken through my mental barriers, forcing me to confront a past I had chosen to forget. The humiliation was immense, but the revelation was even greater. Dagaal was more than just a weapon meant to kill me, it was instead a key
I stood in the mental wreckage outside my laboratory, my heart a cold, hard stone of a resolve. My concoction had been a failure, yes. It had not given me the power I sought, but it had given me something far more valuable: the truth.
And now, I had a new glorious gambit to attempt.
The Apocrypha of Azazel 