Location: Across the flat earth from Atlantis to “Antarctica”
Timeline: Sixth Age, Winter 50 to Fall 51
Imagine, if you will, the God of Death—a being who once rode the solar winds of Illyria—huddled in the lightless, stinking bilge of a Phoenician merchant cog. Because that is precisely where I found myself after the “Leviathan Incident.”
This is the cost of my battle in sunken Atlantis – that Leviathan didn’t just go down; it took a significant chunk of hellfire with it. At the time of this part of the story I still needed that hellfire lifeforce to survive upon the flat earth. It was a precious, ever-dwindling gift from my “dear” master Lucifer. I’d just received a full supply less than a decade ago during my last trip to Ilusia and it was suppossed to last me 1000 years. Yet that ‘fire’ was currently less of a roaring furnace and more of a damp matchstick. Even still there was no way for me to return to Illusia and beg for more – Lucifer would discover my gambits and may well destroy me – and I didn’t want to give Lilith the satisfaction of that!
As a result, I was stuck on this flat pancake of a world, I had to make do as best I could.
Normally, a journey from the crumbling spires of Atlantis’ underworld to the southern ‘continent’ would be a matter of a few well-placed shadows and a single, elegant step through the void. But with my hellfire flickering like a cheap candle in the wind, such luxuries were closed to me. I was “grounded,” in the most literal and insulting sense of the word.
In short – I had to travel like a mortal!
I spent weeks drifting across the Great Sea in that merchant ship, siphoning tiny, pathetic droplets of life from the ship’s rats just to keep my hands from turning back into smoke. I endured the spray of salt water—which, I might add, is dreadfully corrosive to one’s dignity—and the incessant, off-key chanting of sailors who thought a wooden idol of some worthless sea god would save them from a storm. (I considered telling them their ‘god’ was actually the fallen lumenarc Oceanus I once knew in the Cosmic Soup, but I lacked the energy for the monologue.)
Things only got worse from there. My entire travels from Atlantis to the inner Ice Wall (that place you call modern day Antarctica) was so degrading I can’t even bring myself to chronicle it for you, but suffice it to say that by the time I reached the southern ice, I was more shadow than substance, my robes stiff with salt and my mood… well, “homicidal” would be a generous understatement.
But finally – there it was. The First Inner Ice Wall.
It is a monstrosity of Mylar engineering, a towering precipice of translucent cerulean that defied every law of “natural” formation. You see, the Mylars don’t just pile snow; they harmonized it. This wall of ice wasn’t carved; it was well…sung into existence. Its surface is as smooth as polished diamond, etched with microscopic geometric patterns that vibrate with a low-frequency hum—it functions as a de facto “keep out” sign written in the very language of the earth’s resonance.
This was of course the barricade they built for the first wave of Atlantean runaways—those who fled the destruction of their capital city by my Leviathan the first time around. I looked at it as a testament to the initial tremors of the Atlanteans’ sinking ego. Their Mylar comrades meant for this wall and the lands of the frozen wastes beyond to be a sanctuary for the little brothers to protect them from the ‘evil’ minions I’d unleashed during the era of the Hidden Histories. The wall a ring of frost to protect the “pure” from the chaos of the world I was so busily shaping at the time.
You mortals still believe this ‘continent’ is a natural formation of ice and snow at the bottom of your ‘globe’ world. How cute. In reality, this ‘Antarctica’ was a piece of civil engineering – the Mylars’ “gift” to the survivors of the first Great Fall of Atlantis—a massive, circular barrier designed to keep my riff-raff out and their “chosen” refugees in. It was built with Mylar precision, etched with harmonic runes that vibrated at a frequency designed to discourage anything with a heartbeat from lingering too long.
But I wasn’t interested in the Mylar’s Antarctic renovation. My eyes were looking further—past this wall, across the “No Man’s Land” of the tundra, toward the Second Inner Ice Wall. That one was (and still is) much larger, much older, and promised to be far more dangerous to me. That farther wall was the gateway to Lemuria and the Lands Beyond – where I hoped to find Dagaal.
[What’s beyond Lemuria you ask? Why the original Ice Wall. The Big One. The one Lucifer, Ze, and I hauled out of the primordial soup during the Week of Creation. That wall isn’t made of frozen water; it’s made of frozen intent. It’s the very edge of your snow globe world, the rim of the bowl, the barrier that keeps the Middle Dimension from spilling into the Great Nothing of the Cosmic Soup. I still remember the day we finished it—Ze was so proud It almost forgot to be jealous of A’H for five minutes. Almost.]
But I wasn’t in Lemuria yet. I was till stuck in front of the first (the innermost) ice wall. To the mortals that were left on the inside of the flat earth, this wall looked like an impassable cliff of ancient ice (and still looks that way to you). To me, it looked like a now very annoying lock that forever kept shut a giant – but quite hidden – magical door. I was far too tired to try my own magic to kick down that door. And was as yet another problem – did I mention the cold?
You see the air here didn’t just bite; it gnawed. Normally I wouldn’t have given that a second’s thought, but in my present debilitated condition that cold was getting to me. There I was, standing in the snow at the base of what looked like any other part of the ice Wall – with my boots sinking into the shifting white powder, I looked up at a jagged rampart of crystalline blue that stretched into the murky, perpetual twilight. It might as well have been three thousand feet of Mylar arrogance. I wanted to scream at the affront, yet I could literally feel my hellfire draining away.
“Ehad!” I gasped, realizing that my left hand was nearly invisible as the gray fog of The Void was creeping up my wrist. If I didn’t get past this wall soon and into the more “energetic” ley lines of The Lands Beyond, I wouldn’t just be cold. “I’d be extinct!”
There I was the God of Death, shivering from the cold and literally withering away. Can you imagine the indignity? I, who once stood amidst the celestial forges of Illyria, now fond my very essence reacting to… the weather?
I felt like my entire body flickered – my existence on this plane was still tied to that hellfire, and right now, that signal was dropping – fast. If I “faded” here, I wouldn’t die—not exactly. I’d just… unravel. I’d become a permanent part of The Middle Plane – a ghostly moan in the wind. It was time for action!
Luckily I had brought the key to the magic door for this wall – as I’m sure you’ll recall, while the Mylars had built this Ice Wall, I was the one who built the lock that sealed them and their friends inside ever since. That key was of course, The Shard of Varysha
I felt a sharp, icy pang in my chest as I searched in the folds of my robes and pulled out The Shard. It was a jagged sliver of obsidian-glass, pulsing with a faint, sickly violet light. You’ll recall that The Shard of Varysha was crafted by the fallen angel Varysha whilst Zebub, Lucifer, and I were busy first creating Terra (yes way back then!). Although I didn’t know anything about it at first, Varysha’s magical shard granted its bearer the ability to traverse hidden pathways within the world. It was a daughter of Eve named Debor who first discovered the Shard in a cave outside the lost Garden of Eden. It was I who later stole it from Debor after I murdered the girl – and I’ve had the Shard ever since. It’s really a useful little tool!
Quickly then I pressed the Shard against the magical door of the First Inner Wall. The Mylar runes began to hum, a high-pitched, vibrating protest that set my teeth on edge. Thankfully the magic worked – the ice didn’t melt; it realigned: molecules shifted, crystals groaned, and a narrow, shimmering fissure opened before me. I stepped through, expecting to give myself a moment of relief before embarking on what I knew was going to be a challenging journey to get to the next Ice Wall.
Unfortunately for me, the moment I stepped through the portal, I heard the sound of a horn—a deep, resonant blast that echoed off the ice like a physical blow.
Atlanteans!
Not the soggy, desperate ones I’d just left behind in the sinking city of Atlantis, but instead these were the Originals. The descendants of the refugees who had fled here millennia ago, who were themselves the descendants of the coupling of the first man Adam and the lumenarc Alyssa.
But how did they know I was coming? I wondered, my mind quickly coming up with three possible explanations, each more irritating than the last:
- A Harmonic Alarm? How could I forget that first Inner Ice Wall wasn’t just a pile of frozen water, but instead a Mylar-tuned musical instrument? It was constantly humming at a frequency that matched the “Vril” energy the Atlanteans used. The Shard of Varysha must have acted like a piece of pure discord – the moment I pressed that Shard against the ice, it didn’t just crack the magic of the wall; it must also have sent a massive, shivering “wrong note” through the entire Vril-lattice for miles. To the Atlantean guards, it was probably like someone had just smashed a window with a sledgehammer. They didn’t need to see me; they heard the universe screaming that an intruder was at the door.
- The Stench of the Void: Even with my hellfire running on empty, I was still… me. To these “Original” Atlanteans, who had spent millennia purifying themselves in the sterile, cold light of the South, a fallen Lumenarc of evil descent such as I must have smelled like a forest fire in a perfume shop. My very presence probably caused the local temperature to drop even further and the shadows to stretch…unnaturally. Their “Vril-Sensors”—little crystalline rods that glowed when something “unnatural” (meaning me) was nearby — were surely triggered. I was basically a walking lighthouse of dark energy in a sea of white.
- The Prophecy of the Fallen Star: These Atlanteans were always a superstitious lot. Dating back to the time of Elara and her infamous prophecies, they’d been babbling about me for ages, worried about a “Shadow-King” who would one day come to the ice to claim a weapon of bone. They’ve been on alert for thousands years, just waiting for someone like me to show up and prove their bedtime stories right – and today was their lucky day!
“I thought I was being clever,” I smiled wryly as I surveyed the scene of my enemies massing. All that hiding in the bilge of ships and siphoning rats. But the moment I stepped onto their ice and used a stolen god-key to open their door, I might as well have sent them a formal invitation with my signature at the bottom. “I suppose it’s the curse of being legendary, eh? It’s dreadfully hard to go anywhere unnoticed when the very ground you walk on remembers your name. Well, let’s get this over with.”
Through the haze of the blizzard, I saw them coming. They were mounted on Cryo-Striders—gigantic, six-legged insects with shells of reinforced chitin and breath that came out as literal spears of frost. The Atlantean scouts on their backs were clad in furs and shimmering brass armor, their eyes glowing with the pale blue light of their “Vril” energy – a testament to their advanced technology despite this time period of history.
“The Shadow King!” one of them shouted, his voice amplified by some unseen device. “He walks the wastes! For the Deep! For the Fallen!”
I groaned. “Honestly, the melodrama is exhausting. Can’t a god travel in peace?”
Forgetting my present shortcomings, I attempted to summon a wave of necrotic fire to incinerate the lead Strider. Sadly all I managed was a pathetic puff of black soot that the wind immediately whipped away.
“Well, that’s going to be a problem.” My heart hammered—a sensation I usually found quite exhilarating, but in this context, it was decidedly unwelcome. “By Lucifer, I’m…weak!”
I turned and ran. Me! Azazel! Running! If Lucifer or Lilith ever saw this, I’d never hear the end of it.
Thankfully my attackers were far enough away for me to scrambled towards a derelict transport—another piece of advanced technology that looked like kind of “Snow-Skiff.” It was half-buried in a nearby drift. Ripping it out of the snow, I saw a quasi-machine whose appearance was that of a flattened, golden beetle, its underside etched with levitation runes. I leaped onto the deck, my boots slipping on the rime.
By now the Atlanteans were closing in, their Striders leaping across the ice with terrifying agility.
I shoved the Shard of Varysha into the skiff’s mech – hoping the gambit might work. The skiff shuddered. A low, thrumming vibration rumbled beneath my feet – but it wasn’t enough. The runes were dim, starved for power. I looked at my own hands. My fingers were nearly invisible now, the “flicker” becoming a steady pulse of nothingness.
I needed a boost. Now.
That’s when I saw a trilobite and remembered something important. The Mylars hadn’t just built these ice walls; they also created tiny mech maintenance systems. Imagine small, translucent, creatures made of living crystal that scuttled along the base of the Ice Wall. Their purpose was to “clean” the ice by absorbing stray pockets of kinetic energy or atmospheric static. These were the trilobites.
I saw one clinging to a Vril-crystal close by. Since the crystal was essentially a biological capacitor overflowing with pure, raw energy, it was perfect for my needs. In a flash I had the trilobite in my hand, “Hello, my pretty.” I said as crushed it I crush it – instead of blood, it released a surge of golden “juice.” That juice was a form of “clean” energy and I lapped it up from my hands – the equivalent of a demon drinking holy water to stay alive—it burned like acid, but it gave my hellfire a desperate, violent jolt.
My hand solidified. My eyes blazed with a momentary, hellish light. I slammed my hand onto the skiff’s control console, funneled that stolen energy into the runes, and the craft screamed.
The Snow-Skiff lurched forward, its golden hull glowing as it sliced through the air just inches above the ice. I looked back to see the frustrated Atlantean scouts quickly disappearing into the white-out, their frost-horns sounding smaller and smaller in the distance. I knew they’d raise the alarm to others about my presence but I didn’t have time to worry about that now.
After escaping I found a nearby ice cavern and hid myself inside. Slumping against the cold walls, my chest heaved. I had escaped, for now. But the Second Inner Wall was still nearly a thousand miles away, and my “stolen” energy was already starting to dissipate.
I looked out of the cave – a blizzard was kicking up. Hopefully it would hide me for a time.
“Somewhere out there, the gateway to Lemuria waits for me.” I gave myself a pep talk, yet somewhere within me, the God of Death was starting to wonder if he’d finally bitten off more than he could chew.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Azazel,” I whispered to the wind. “You’ve survived the Fall. You’ve survived the Flood. You can survive a bit in a blizzard too.”
I pulled my robes tighter, realizing this was going to be a very long trip.
The Apocrypha of Azazel 