II. Drowned

[Zarsies 6795]

The deed was done. His goodbyes were said, his seeds were sown, and his gifts were given. People pontificate, ‘suicide is a coward’s act,’ but a true suicide is a paced, disciplined certainty. He had no ties to weigh him and no remorse to make for hesitation. It was over. His boy was gone and his pursuit to restore him cost him everything; this was the price he paid for power. Delving deep into the occult and black, from raising an art itself to peering across Ebrietaes day and night in search of a lone soul among the swimming droves he was driven mad. What his mind could do to salvage itself it did and thus Kozilek and Doviculus were borne of Uldrivt, a three headed viper swallowing itself whole. Anxiety, depression, and physical and spiritual anorexia manifested as three personalities which tore at and twisted the man. As he felt the cold rush in around him and the snow slide beneath his robed form he spiraled into blackness, an internal abyss swallowing his thoughts. He swam amongst the stars for what felt like ages before he was swept away to a familiar place. Like a drunken stupor he was taken away to a far away stretch close to his heart where starlight lit fields of pale specks which twinkled and his bodiless mind drifted. He was Inside.

 

He did not feel the blade puncture his scalp and penetrate his skull, he did not hear the cries of his apostle as he paled, and he did not taste the blood seep into his mouth as what he once wove through corpses and stagnated in metal wriggled out from beneath his skin and crept away like an assassin in the night. His woe was acute and there was no turning back; he was convinced. There is no reasoning with madness, no logic but disease, no choice to be made but to accept the inevitable. What awaited him was not a source of fear but of comfort; anything but to live, anything but to endure one more day locked in his body with his wretched mind to torture and agonize him; he knew Ebrietaes, its titans, and the fate that anticipated him but that was what he deserved, what wanted, and what he would meet.

 

There he would stay until called on by whispers.
 

 

Characters can’t live forever, especially when they become saturated with illness and dwell in the dark -- presently or in the past -- and fall to the prices they paid eventually. This was just the time to do it. Shoutout to @Swgrclan, @Geo, @TentoaTheStrained, and @The Fire Mind for investing so much time into this character as you lot did. He was the character I applied to LotC with in 2011 and because of all the development churned out through the years with you guys I can finally put the period of this sentence. There's too many other people to list but you know who you are; thank you for the RP.

 

[Geo 1415]

"Kozilek"  They all spoke, if fate decided that the news of his death would ever slither out of the trenches and reach them.  They could never quite agree on how they felt about him. 

 

"Good."  Thought Jynx. 

"His job as a catalyst is done, the realm of souls is open, and death is now all but an illusion; a second chance for the innocent, and the wicked."  After all, the chaos that could be wrought without his oversight may be unending. 

 

"How disappointing."  Chrodraeos mocked with spite. 

"Another Greater Undead fallen to the curse of madness, nothing but a small surge of progress in the cosmos and nothing more, just like that troubled boy of his."  Though truly Chrodraeos thinks himself above the curse of madness, whilst being entirely fueled by it. 

 

"A deep struck woe upon the descendants of the Four Brothers."  Naruntah mourned but did not weep. 

"Today, a star from the sky hath plummeted to the realm below.  A one of a kind mind wizened and visionary.  Ferryman of the lost, I hope someone too, looks after you in Ebrietaes. Farenwell, Kozilek, may your rock peacefully in your slumber, upon the ocean of sleepless dreams."  Whilst few would truly ever know, due to the nature of his works, the sunken father would stand out in history as a pariah of man, and the gentle shepherd of souls.

 

 

[TeaLulu 1783]

The figure took a drag on the long-stemmed pipe as she sat slumped against the slanted trunk of a sleeping tree in the cold dead of a snowy night. The fire burned only embers now, blackened husks of wood reminiscent of places best forgotten and better yet never having known. If it hadn't been for the biting cold she wouldn't have birthed the damnedable flames to begin with to better avoid the shadows past that stalked her so.

The shadows had crept in through the night and cast themselves from the flame, the welcome and the unwelcome, the dead and the living, together and separate. Some begged her attention while to others she was the beggar, forgiveness and grace always lacking. Some were old, some were new, but none of them were real, which was a thing oft forgot by a well-addled mind.

There in the dying embers another shadow crept out from the snow, leaving behind no trace of it's coming in the untrodden landscape. This one was small; Not terribly short, not like Armin, but not fully grown, and emancipated, mere skin and bones, if even that. It had pointed ears and darkened skin, and robed itself in dancing ash from the dying fire. It did not speak nor could it have, for it's mouth was sewn shut.

She scoffed, coughing out a mouthful of heavily scented smoke before speaking, her voice harsh and raw. "Huh. Well. Been a while since I've dreamed a dream of you, cub." She narrowed her eyes as the ashen figure gave a meek grin and danced over, sinking down into the snow besides her. She could have, and ought have, ignored the shadow, but turned her head instead to get a better view. It was a gaunt little figure and she didn't need to be told of it's suffering, knowing well enough some of which it had bore.

"So, what are you hear for?" She asked the mute shadow, which tilted it's face towards her in response. Dead, glassy eyes faded into amethyst ones full of life, and faded back again. "Guilt me? Another reminder of another soul failed to save, lost to the fire?" The figure did not respond in any way. "Haunt me? Give me nightmares?" Again, it did not respond. "Or is this something stupid about forgiveness and redemption, some nonsensical churl about it not being my responsibility?" Again, nothing.

She turned her head away from it then, and towards the dying embers of the fire, frowning. "Damned puzzling things." She muttered and gave a sigh. "I still wonder if you did me that kindness on purpose, or if you even knew it a kindness. You were with them, fully, and I'd dug my own grave by not being careful enough with you; By trying to have faith in you and those like you." She drew her lips inwards, biting down on them. "Yet I can't find it in me to blame you. You had reasons for turning; I know some small pittance of them. You had faith in something. Few do." She glanced towards the figure briefly, finding it glancing at the dying embers as well.

"I met your father, you know." It looked towards her, quizzically almost, like a curious child. "Took a great degree of self-control not to take his eyes out with my thumbs when I figured out who he was. I ought to have. If you be mute let he be blind, I thought." She chuckled darkly. "Ah, but...Orithur wouldn't've liked that. Not for the man being his associate, no; Orithur it was clear did not care for many of those who thought him an ally. A man after my own heart. But because of the violence, you see. I think he thought I was better, above that, or some such nonsense. Not a broken thing trying on masks."

Surprisingly, the figure knelt it's head onto her shoulder. She went tensely still for a moment before relaxing. "Were it not for you I would have lost my mind. My fight. My soul. I thought there no redemption left. Nothing. He'd taken my friends, my allies, broken my spirit. Very nearly. Did you do it on purpose? Did you know? Was it a kindness, or were you simply jealous, seeing too much attention paid to me and not enough to yourself?" She chuckled once more. "Either way....thank you. I never did get to say that. Thank you."

The figure stayed as the last light of the embers died and the place grew dark. She slept after a time and awoke to the sun glaring in her eyes, the fire dead and the landscape covered in a thin blanket of fresh snow. She looked to her side and there was nothing there; not even an indention in the snow from a visiting shadow that never did exist in the first place.

 

[Swgrclan 2682]

"Xion, our home ... ripped apart and put back together."

 

A slow, labored inhale of cold air precedes an old man's crestfallen, and now moreso lonesome ruminations.

"This wasn't the world we wanted ... but it was the one we found ourselves in."

[GDPR 014 48]

Reserved

[big narstie 1701]

reserved

[Angmarzku 1251]

"Ah, Kozilek. I'll miss that poor bugger." Murmured the wraith to itself.

[ToodIes 1575]

A wretched, Apparition-gnawed entity of the Stream finds a brief moment of acrimonious joy, before returning to rending agony.

 

A letter remains, buried in a frozen library on a faraway land. A second copy, for someone's files.

". . .You disgust me. Your lack of self-control, your rampant self-pity, your easily-swayed cowardice. I'm dead because of you. I hope to all hells that you follow suit. Join me in torment. If not by Akhortep's hand, by your own."

 

A vindictive Alnerok is vindicated.

 

[_Sug 2809]

Reserved

 

[The King Of The Moon 7016]

Amidst the maddening cackles and cries of the Barrowlord's interior comes a brief - though much appreciated - unified thought.

"The founder is dead, what he did find mustn't be lost."

At that the Toad found rationale. Steps were to be taken, his Synod would not fade like that which came before.

[gandalfo 1452]

Moved to The Great Library. It shall be sorted into the appropriate category shortly.

 

If you feel this is a mistake, please contact myself or any FM and we'll restore it.