Location: The Ruins of Atlantis
Timeline: Winter 48 to Winter 49
The Ghost of Kaelin hovered before me. I remember the fool. Long ago he was an Atlantean, tall, proud, and strong, yet his ghost before me now was not of flesh and bone. It is a weeping tapestry of sorrow, a living manifestation of despair. His form was a shimmering, unsteady column of light, a translucent silhouette that constantly bled and re-formed, as if dissolving into the very water he so foolishly once worshiped.
His garments, which in life were robes of fine silk, were now tattered echoes of what they once were, like ribbons of light that drifted away in the current. But I noticed with delight that his face was… haunting. His eyes were like twin voids of despair, and his mouth was a gaping, silent scream. It was a face that had watched its entire world crumble, a mind that had been tormented for millennia by the memory of his failure to save his people – and all because of me!
And from this swirling, pathetic spectacle, the echoes of his voice came – full of despair. Kaelin’s voice didn’t sound exactly how I remembered it in life, but I chalked that up to this being his ghost and he was talking under water so perhaps that was why it sounded off . Meanwhile, the voice grew stronger and soon turned out to be not just a single voice, but a chorus of a thousand sorrows, a weeping tapestry of regret woven from the lost souls of Atlantis. Most of the annoying drivel were lamentations about the loss of their kingdom, a pathetic, endless litany of grief over their drowned city, their lost lives, and the tragic fate of their people who had fled beyond the Ice Wall.
I felt no sympathy for their plight – in fact this all just confirmed that I was right to have destroyed them in the first place.
Their whining grated on my immortal intellect, but just as I was ready to dismiss Kaelin’s ghost and his people’s noise and move away, my mind suddenly deciphered another thread – a deeper, more calculated voice hidden behind the veil of this Atlantean lament. It was not of sorrow or loss, but instead of a…secret. More importantly, this new voice was exactly how I remember the real Kaelin sounding. I focused my mind only on Kaelin’s voice – his whisper was indeed on a different frequency, and my divine senses were quick to eliminate all other noise. That’s when I heard it – Kaelin spoke about Dagaal!
“I knew it! Its here!” I felt a surge of triumph so profound it threatened to burst my ethereal form. Hidden behind the lamentations and grief of his people, Kaelin spoke of a path that lay “beyond” these ruins, of magical crystals, of hidden pathways, and of the way to find the bone dagger. I reached out with my mind, trying to fully understand his ramblings, to make sense of the secrets from the Kaelin’s fragile essence. Yet even as I was listening, even as I was on the verge of gathering the knowledge that would change my destiny, the Echo of Kaelin’s true voice faltered – the cold, hidden thread of truth went silent. And all the rest of the Atlanteans’ lamentations ceased as well.
The ethereal form of Kaelin began to flicker, its light dissolving into the dark waters as if it were a candle in a gale. He was pulling the information back, withdrawing from my grasp. I roared, a silent, furious command that boiled the water around me. I tried to hold Kaelin in place. I willed him to remain, to stay, to yield to my will.
It didn’t work – without another word, without another sound, Kaelin and his Echo were beyond my reach. His light vanished.
“What? Wait! No!” I commanded. My triumphant smirk vanished, replaced by a scowl of pure, incandescent frustration. My mind reached out, grasping for even a remnant of Kaelin, a wisp of his essence. Yet…Nothing. Kaelin and his echo were indeed gone.
I had been on the precipice of a revelation, a hint of where the Dagaal truly lay, and it had been ripped from my grasp by the fickle nature of a dead spirit. Yet I would not be so easily thwarted. I had just crushed Jaelin’s pathetic ambush; I was not about to be outwitted by a ghost. I began to chant, my voice a low, commanding rumble in the water, weaving spells of scrying and binding. I called upon the tortured stellarones at my command to bring Kaelin back to me.
Nothing.
I tried retracing my steps, moving back to the heart of the Leviathan’s remains, casting spell after spell to find Kaelin’s Echo. I willed the spiritual residue to reform, to take shape, to speak again. I scoured the entire chasm and then the ruins of the city, sifting through the ambient stellarone aura for any trace of the Echo’s unique signature anywhere.
Again nothing.
My magic, which had so effortlessly unmade the Proto-Atlanteans, failed me. The ghost was somehow beyond my reach. The humiliation was a hot, bitter taste in my mouth and I could not accept that I had lost.
But I wasn’t about to give up yet.
The Rite of the Stolen Light
It was then that I made a bold decision – one born of equal parts desperation and arrogance. If I could not summon Kaelin’s Echo by my everyday magical abilities, then I would try something more…sinister. Kaelin spoke of “a path that lay “beyond” these ruins, of magical crystals, of hidden pathways, and of the way to find the bone dagger.” Well, I was going to find that path!
Since my normal magic came to naught against a force that was deliberately concealing itself, I had to assume I was not dealing with merely the mortal Kaelin’s ghost, but instead with the construct of a rival god – one who sought to keep the secrets of Atlantis for themselves. It didn’t matter if it was Alyssa, Pan, Rhokki, or even Lucifer. What mattered is that I knew another immortal was conspiring against me and when you are dealing with a lock forged by a deity, a simple pick will not suffice – you must bring a hammer!
My hammer was The Rite of the Stolen Light – a spell powerful enough to open a pathway to anywhere on the flat earth. The only problem was that it required massive amounts of energy – the likes of which I had not dealt with since Lucifer and I first created this plane-t. It was so dangerous that the rite was forbidden to all lumenarcs – for it was a brutal act of cosmic vandalism.
For a moment I wondered, Could my actions trigger a return of Michael the Mighty to punish me? I still remembered how the Illuminated One tore through the heavens to punish Lucifer’s abuse of Eve. And later when he threatened our Convention of Lumenarcs with his great sword that was imbibed with <The Power of A’H> . His very presence was overwhelming, a living testament to the might of A’H – and I didn’t want to see him again any time soon.
But Dagaal is worth the risk. I surmised, as I continued making my preparations. There’s no turning back now!
You want to know about The Rite of the Stolen Light? Hah. Those few who may even know of it won’t speak of it. It’s not a spell you’d find in dusty grimoires or whispered in a forgotten tongues. It was an act of cosmological violence, a direct assault on the fundamental fabric of reality of the flat earth – and it wasn’t without Its risk – if it failed, the backlash was as likely to unmake the spellcaster [me] as it was to succeed.
I had plenty of time to ponder if I was making the correct decision, because The Rite required months of soul-crushing preparation as I meticulously gathered and arranged the necessary materials for the ritual. I scoured the ruins of Atlantis, collecting their purified crystals that the Atlanteans had once used to power their city. They were the perfect conduit, capable of withstanding the immense energy I was going to siphon from the flat earth. Then I arranged them in a massive, circular array around the central chasm that my Leviathan caused when it wrecked Kaelin’s Celestial Observatory. I laid out the crystals so they would form a silent, menacing constellation of stolen light that would focus my will to find Kaelin’s ghost and if possible open the portal to Dagaal – at least that was the theory.
The process was slow and a year of my immortal life was quickly spent on the task. But the tedium was a crucible for me – instead of questioning if I was taking the right path, the time spent honed my resolve, solidified my purpose. Every crystal I placed, every line I drew, was a testament to my determination to get to the truth.
Why did the ritual’s set up take so long? Because The Rite of the Stolen Light was not so simple as a mere theft of basic energy. Instead the energy I was after would come from the tormented essence of Gaia – the lumenarc that Lucifer and I had trapped within the magnetic ‘north’ pole of the flat earth in order to bring life to your world. [Oh that’s a tale that never gets old – poor Gaia, she’d given her lumenarc life to create life on earth – you should be grateful to her!]. And now I was going to take more of her essence for my ritual – for my magic was going to cause the crystals of the Atlantean nexus to act as a siphon, a drill meant to pierce the very core of Gaia at the plane-t’s center.
It wasn’t going to be pretty – the rite was not a gentle siphoning of energy, but a violent, destructive act against Gaia and your world. My intent was to channel Gaia’s energy in to the surrounding waters, forcing it into the array and then directing that combined energy in to my nexus. My theory was simple: the Echo of Kaelin did not just vanish. It retreated…somewhere. The information I needed about Dagaal might not be with the ghost itself, but I was sure the secret to the portal was here – secured by the same immortal power that had created Kaelin’s Echo.
But two can play at that game. I laughed to myself as I worked. I’ve yet to meet the god who can outwit me!
If I was correct and another immortal’s work was blocking me, then my goal was to use the surge of Gaia’s energy to bypass whatever immortal lock was preventing me from getting what I wanted – I vowed to shatter the crystal nexus of energy if need be and force the secrets here back into the open to reveal everything—Dagaal, the Echo’s true master, and any other hidden clues that lay hidden within Atlantis’ heart. It was the only way to get the knowledge that I had been so cruelly denied.
I would be pulling at the cosmic sinew, the very threads of life that held this world together. The risk was absolute, a magnificent gamble that filled my heart with a thrilling, cold resolve. On the one hand, I might very well destabilize the world. The mountains could crumble, the oceans could evaporate, and pretty much everything on this flat rock could be consumed in a cataclysmic implosion.
On the other hand, I might acquire the Dagaal.
It was a beautiful choice, a perfect reflection of my character. I was risking the destruction of every mortal on the plane-it, but I was gaining the potential to destroy every one of my rival gods. Their lives were a fair price to pay for my ultimate triumph to become the Great God of All!
Finally, a year of my divine existence spent toiling like a common mortal, the array was complete, a beautiful, deadly testament to my resolve. I took my place in the center, my hands raised to the constellations I knew were far away beyond The Firmament, and I began the rite…
Gaia Rebels
I had been working The Rite of the Stolen Light for months – I’d successfully opened the energy channel that tapped into Gaia’s life force and the crystals of my nexus were siphoning that energy. In the beginning, the Atlantean crystals, once mere conduits, had glowed with a faint, blue light, a testament to their inherent power. But as the months dragged on and the flow of energy intensified, they began to burn with a blinding, incandescent fury. They were no longer crystals; they were like captured stars, screaming in silent protest as they were forced to channel a power beyond their comprehension.
The world around me did not take kindly to my intrusion. It screamed in protest. The chasm of Atlantis shuddered under the immense pressure, the very tectonic plates of the flat earth groaning and shifting. The seas, once a docile grave, now raged with a fury that mirrored my own. Yet it was working!
The cataclysms all around were a symphony of my success. With the power now coming into me from the rite, I was more powerful than any lumenarc had ever been. I was becoming a singularity of pure, unchecked power. My senses, already a hundred times sharper than any mortal’s, were now hyper-aware, able to perceive the very threads of creation and destruction that wove this reality. I could feel the pulse of every living thing on the planet-it, every thought, every heartbeat, every single, pathetic moment of despair. It was all a feast for my senses and I felt like THE God!
As the rite reached its climax, I spoke the final, forgotten words of the spell, and the array flared with a light that seemed to tear at the very fabric of the world. It was no longer a simple light; it was an act of creation and destruction, a key that would unlock a truth that had been hidden from me for millennia. The ground beneath me shattered. The chasm walls tore apart.
I had done it – I had unlocked the fabric of the flat earth!
I didn’t see a portal yet, but I felt…something powerful.
I had to be Dagaal – it’s close.
I rejoiced. But where?
I quickly realized that the vortex I had created was a chaotic maelstrom of light and energy and it was nigh impossible to locate anything here, yet for a moment I was sure I could see the Dagaal. It was just a glimpse – a shimmer of a bone blade in the chaos but it was surely my prize!
I paused the rite as I reached out my hands for the blade, a triumphant smile on my face. It seemed like it was right in front of me—sadly that was not the case. The Atlantean water’s refracting effect on the image had fooled me – Dagaal was farther than I had anticipated. I tried using my immortal powers to extend my form to grasp the blade, but it was too late.
The moment I had paused my ritual, the moment I had taken my attention off the swirling energies of the cosmos, another immortal force tore into the void I’d left.
It was Rhokki – a very angry, very powerful Rhokki. The lover boy defender of Gaia roared with a sound of pure, unadulterated fury that ripped through the fabric of my senses, berating me for my abuse of Gaia.
“You will not have her!” he screamed as he redirected Gaia’s energy against my control – using his own brute force power over the magnetic forces of the plane-it.
Things happened faster than I was ready for them. With myself still stuck in the midst of the rite, I wasn’t able to focus myself to battle against Rhokki. Any portal that may have led to the Dagaal was gone. My crystal nexus, the focus of my entire year’s worth of work, instantly crumbled. I lost control of the energy from Gaia. And the torrent I had been siphoning from the core of the world now surged outward.
Rhokki, with a cruel, triumphant smirk, used his own magical abilities to use that energy against me. He raised a pillar of magnetic force from the seabed, its light a sickening, pulsing green and then bound me to it with a series of pulsing, crackling, invisible cords stellarone cords.
Suddenly I was a prisoner – my own power now turned against me
But Rhokki was not done with me yet. Next my rival redirected the stolen energy into something that had been sleeping for millennia in the depths of the ocean. The ground began to shake, not with the tremors of my rite, but with a living, roaring malice. A shadow, larger than any mountain, rose from the depths, its massive, skeletal form covered in flesh and scales. It was my beloved Leviathan.
It was no longer a corpse; it was a living, breathing creature, its eyes burning with a hellish, furious light. And it was intent on destroying me.
As if this day could get any worse!
The Apocrypha of Azazel 