EmperorWhenua

IC Yumiwak | Tactical Panda II

I heard what happened to Opal. 

What a shame.

So I chose judiciously not to send Marrow—loyal to the cause of anguish and revenge as he was—to take a swim as well and risk destruction. I had the opportunity to mold the world as I needed it to be and bring things back to the verdant history I so longed to see again and I wasn't going to take reckless chances anymore, so the mental command I gave was for the dragons specifically.

[Korio. Zai.]

[See the head in the sea? Immolate it.]

[Render the Matoran g*d to ash. But do not touch the water.]

 

IC Zai | The sky

I hissed in understanding. My Mistress gave her bidding. 

I see a head. It is ahead. 

I urge myself to propel through the air and slice through its emptiness of the heavens like a knife. What's a knife? I do not know. I only know what I am and what I must do. I hiss, for they are all the words I can speak. Hatred, vitriol, passion, agreement—they are all one word: Hiss. 

'Hiss,' will be said in history. 

OOC | Chronology is weird and Old Man Stan has a pretty wide quick-travel network. Done with CJ's ok.

IC Stannis | Kumu, again

Korruhn's shadow bled into the ground and intermingled with the darkness of the forbidden jungle of the Kumu temple complex, and with the subtlety of a whisper gently spoken in the quiet of a forest the Wanderer materialized at the far corner of the dark toa's penumbra an instant before the gauntlets had been gathered up in preparation to be thrown, and he took a steady step forward to reveal his presence to the others when Taja spoke her words. He stood in stark contrast to the world around him, and yet also completely enmeshed in it as though it he belonged in the liminal spaces nestled in dichotomy; the darkness blended with his greys and the occult lamplight with his browns, harmonizing just the same with the one man at the crux of it all. 

Gone was his great grey cape that Taja and Sidra were familiar with, the garment that covered his whole body and shared only his damnably grey eyes. Those silver eyes peered back with a pained expression as he fidgeted at a box at his side, jostling under the elegant cape that replaced his cloak. "Saving everyone... is my speciality, Sister Taja. Let me show you, and I promise... this will hurt you only... half as much as it will me."

He donned the Mask of Light, and all Understanding washed on those assembled. 

 

@Gecko Greavesy @Eyru @Crimson Jester

IC Stannis | Tobduk-Koro

"I have relinquished my hold on Aurax," he said honestly to the Mother Vakhi, "but even if I still could whisper to his ears it is not Aurax you ever had to fear. The Barraki scientist-king Ehlek has always been behind the enslavement of your kind, NU-8020S, and he... is a common enemy who i hope to deal with directly soon. If you wish to help, that can be arranged."

IC Stannis | Tobduk-Koro

The old toa braced himself on the haft of his polearm and grinned. Kanohi was asking the right questions; he wanted to know, and there was no harm in that. "There are bonds that bind and bonds that free. Some leaders, I admit freely, I have shackled to myself so that I may advise them more carefully or hold influence over their factions for the betterment of everyone... but the bonds you and I have shared are of friendship and trust, not magic or enthrallment.

"I believed in you because you remind me of who Toa Stannis, the real Toa Stannis, was loooong before any of this ever happened, and I believed in you because if you succeeded in making the world a better place for people of all kinds, then perhaps there was hope yet for the Builders to truly nurture a future we can look forward to."

IC Stannis | Tobduk-Koro

Kanohi turned to Stannis and swallowed. Shakily he said, “Wh-when I first met you, I was unfamiliar with other breeds of P-Protoderms. Everyone t-taller than me I assumed was a Toa,” he sighed, and asked, “Did I make that mistake again?”

The elder Aspect held the matoran's words close to his heart for a moment and let his answer linger on his tongue like sweet honey. Kanohi knew, or he had suspicions, that Stannis was not truly Stannis, and that was good. The times for deceptions and subterfuge were past, and Kanohi, despite all of his misgivings about himself, deserved the whole truth just as Knichou and friends had. 

"I am and have been many things, Kanohi—I am an Aspect of Makuta, a Wanderer, a wizard, a shaman, and a warrior—but in all my time with you... I have only ever tried to be your friend. If 'toa' is a title for your heroes, then that is what I hope I've been for you.

"You must judge me by what my actions have done for others, the same as how you must judge yourself."

@Harvali

IC Stannis | Metru Koro Ruins

"Everything works out, right?"

"That, as with the resolutions of all choices, remains to be found." The wizard stood straight and his cape fluttered animatedly in the sea breeze, evoking a familiar but less sinister image as his ancient cloak that seemed to have a shadow of its own. 

"Now go, chase the heavens to Mi-Kiri and tell me what you find. I know that Sorilax is there, as are several others, but I do not know to what end. I will send some others to Kini-Nui. And Aurax, I would bid you do me one favor more: In sublevel seven of the Onu-Metru Archives, under Ko-Metru's foundations, is my old lair. Find it and free the intelligence Hiripaki by telling her I sent you. She holds the collective knowledge of this last Cycle... and holds a key in fighting Ehlek and his machinations."

And then the Aspect simply vanished, as suddenly as he had appeared in the first place. 

Wizards. Always going where they were needed and not where they were always wanted.

 

IC Stannis | Tobduk-Koro

Time and space did not matter, the wizard traveled where the currents of Fate took him by the power of the Kanohi Haonga's strange magicks and he found himself before an old friend in yet another village cobbled together by Builders and refugees. 

"Hello again, Kanohi."

@Harvali

IC Stannis | Metru Koro Ruins

"Cool beans," the wizard said, echoing a slang term he heard circulated around lizards long ago in Po-Metru. "As you both wish." He slid the Avohkii into the box Knichou gave him and felt his aches fade and be replaced by just the usual geriatric pains, but also his dark powers returned in strength and the din of light was stowed away.

The ceremony was quick as he was not going to stand on ceremony. He said his prayers once, and then twice, and then when he was finished he had taken the shackles of Pridak's heartlight-turned-kraata from Aurax and bestowed it as a gift to Nale. 

 

54 minutes ago, Void Emissary said:

"Leklo!' they said, tucking the fragment into the shadows of their cloak. "It must have been many moons since you've last seen Korruhn. But I'll let you know that he's not the man you once knew. He's been touched by a power beyond comprehension, and is now little more than a puppet for greater powers. At this point, it would be a mercy for him to die."

IC Leklo | Kumu

"It has been one moon," Leklo said, "and you're wrong. All of you... Aspects... tell nothing but lies to get what you want. You and this Spiriah--and even Stannis."

 

IC Stannis | Metru Koro Ruins

"...take Aurax's Kraata, and grant one to me. [...] Grant me this. But not as a servant. As your friend."

"Always as my friend," Stannis said. "Answer me this first, though: What do you wish for, sister?" 

He also looked at Aurax, looking for assent for the king as well. It was his crown, his burden and desire, after all.

1 hour ago, BULiK said:

"Don't forget your Kraata, Aurax."

IC Stannis | Metru Koro Ruins

"And what would you choose then?" the wizard, now returned to his corporeal toa form, asked the group. 

He knew what they would choose, but he needed them to say it.

 

On 6/19/2021 at 4:46 PM, Toru Nui said:

 "I finally have something willing to help me! To give me straight answers about Korruhn! About this cursed thing in my arm! I will not be denied now by you and your 'Unity' KANE-RA MANURE!"

On 6/19/2021 at 7:36 PM, Void Emissary said:

So, cursing herself, [Irna] whispered to Leklo: "Please, not now, sir. Not like this. This, here, is not a fight that will do any of us any good."

IC Leklo | Kumu

"No!" Leklo once again adamantly punctuated, flatly nonplussed. A droplet of water rolled down his face, but he could not say whether it was a tear from desperation or a bead of sweat from stress. He looked at the others around him—Waveahk, Irna, and Ostrox in particular—and saw nothing but fear in their eyes. They were afraid of what would come next and of defying something they did not even seem to understand. Nobody seemed to understand what they were doing (except for Ostrox but he was a madman, apparently). 

He could feel the energies within him swell like a dammed stream, growing heavier by the moment as it had from the very beginning in increasing pressure to be released. He was not merely a toa anymore and had not been for some time now, he was a Toa NUVA Proxima, blessed with a fraction of Tren Krom's light, and he was more powerful than even he could fathom, yet all this time since becoming a toa his elemental energies simply pooled inside his body even as their strength had burgeoned as tributary upon tributary flowed into his reserves. He thought he could practice with the right mentor to access what he knew was within him, but none materialized who could help, not Sans, not Taja, not even Stannis or Korruhn, though they all tried in some ways. Over time he had attempted to coax his energies out by way of stress, trying to break past the mental barriers that he was sure were holding him back, and he almost succeeded once before when he was sure he was about to be murdered, though in the end they were all failures in experimentation. But now, at the eleventh hour of the universe, on the farthest reached of the islands, he was being tested one final time... And there was a spirit inside him that was ready to be hatched at last.

"There is never a good time for fighting but it is always a good time to do what is right," he retorted at Irna with passionate wise sardonicism. 

"You don't even know who he is! Korruhn is my friend, a toa, and a man of honor, and I will defend him accordingly. He has done nothing to deserve vitriol or ire from any of you. And least of all you mad f—r!" he said with an accusatory finger at the ghastly Spiriah.

IC Stannis | Metru Koro Ruins

Stannis' muscles and bones screamed with every movement he took, but even still the wizard painfully took a seat in the group to share in the memory of the Nynran's previous home-away-from-home. It was never their permanent home, but it was where their culture coalesced and their identities as engineers were nurtured, so in many ways that became the thing they would always call home. A chosen home, like a chosen family, was real. 

Without a sign of awkwardness on his face he took hold of both Nale and Aurax's hands. He was alien to them, and still the most familiar friend they could imagine—there was nothing to keep Stannis from embracing them wholeheartedly. Companions needed companionship. 

* * * *

In their dreamscape, Nale, Knichou, and Aurax beheld as a single ball of flame materialized in the air like a match coming alight. It was then joined by another, and another, until ten dozen such flames grew into a great ball of many fiery eyes. Wisps of smoke and tendrils danced and flicked to the sides like whiskers before they were given fullness and definition, manifesting as a multitude of wings that shimmered around the eyes like the petals of an enormous rose. The feathers of the wings appeared as lines of runic text, and their fluttering gave the illusion of the pages of an incredibly vast tome flicking by rapidly. It was clear to the others that this was Caedast as she truly was, free from the shackles of mortal body and coil.

"Fear not," it said in a rumbling voice like thunder a hundred miles away.

 

IC Leklo | Kumu

12 minutes ago, Unreliable Narrator said:

"You wish to destroy the void-touched nightmare named Korruhn. It will be like putting down a rabid kavinika for his transformation is nearly complete. I will tell you where he is to be found, but you must bind yourselves in worship to me and bring to me the dead matoran at Desecration Rock. I wish to use them as a surprise tool for later. You will find a little faith and goodwill is well worth the effort, for the end is near and my ascension is imminent. All I need from each of you is a little heart and a simple prayer in my name.”

"NO!" Leklo screamed suddenly, coming from the back and shoving everyone else in front of him out of his way as he drew his weapons. "No!" White-hot fire tinted the edges of his blades, but it was not as bright as the intensity in his eyes.

He would defend his friend no matter what even if it meant punching this dark god in the nuts himself. 

What are the chances of succeeding? he wondered.

What are the chances... of this being having nuts to punch?

IC Stannis | Metru Koro Ruins

”I can do this also,” he said. “But I need something else from you.” The aged wizard pointed at his Kanohi. “This… is giving my stage-four arthritis a run for its money.”

He futzed in his satchel for a moment with sinewy fingers that trembled with ever articulation. Finally he pulled out a pretty stone and handed it to Knichou but nodded to Aurax as well. “This is a gift… for both of you, engineers. I told you in Onu-Metru that I preserved the designs of Nynrah. Now, you have them as well. Among them is a box strong enough to contain a soul.” His lips quivered in pain as he waited for one of them to take the memory crystal from him. 

“Make it for me. Please.”

IC Stannis | Metru Koro Ruins

"Free my Brother of his curse."

“I shall do so,” Stannis acceded. “And what is the other thing you would ask of me?”

"You chose us?" Nale asked the Aspect, genuinely curious. "Us all meeting, coming together now...was never coincidence. Were you planning this even in Onu-Metru?"

He nodded to Nale with somber sagacity. “The choices you made… were always your own, but everything I have done was to bring us to this moment. It was the only way.”

IC Stannis | Metru Koro Ruins

The wizard looked at Aurax with sympathy as the king was overcome with conscience. He had been a thief and plunderer, but Aurax had been a victim of the Builder's intrinsic hubris all along. Some people had called Caedast and the other Aspects demons—and it was a fair comparison in many respects—but the truth had always been that they were just manifestations of the real demons within everyone's hearts. It was as Stannis had told to the Dark Hunter Vyarik what felt like a century earlier in the streets of Onu-Metru—it is very hard to fight when the true enemy is within. Conquering nations was child's play when compared to overcoming internalized biases and Aurax was finally coming to terms with himself. 

Good.

Knowledge always came at a price, and the further indebted one was in lies the harder it was to cough up the widgets to pay for knowledge.

Aurax looked up at Stannis in the wake of his revelation. "Okay, so you need to get to the Legend. Where is it?"

"I wish I knew," Stannis said with a sigh, "but that's how you can all help me. I chose each of you long ago to be my Companions in this final chapter because you possess the most influence among the Builders who still live and would amass your own fortunes of resources and power, as you indeed have. The two most likely places, the Mangaia and the Aqua Sphere, are beyond my current reach and I cannot explore both of them with the paltry time that we have left, but even the thinnest of columns cast a long shadow in the sunshine and once I know where to go I can be there. Be my tendrils to find what we need, and with your help we can still win."

 

@~Xemnas~ @BULiK @Tarn

IC Stannis | Ruins of Metru Koro

"So this is how we fix the world. And make sure the world doesn't have to be fixed again," Nale said.

Stannis nodded—she was right. "Yes," he explained, "once I attain completion of my Grand Wish I will become an instruction manual for the next generation. You won’t be affected by the ignorance of the past anymore, there will be no need to learn through trial and tribulation, you won’t have to touch the fire to know that it’s hot anymore and spare the suffering.  What is done is done, the cycle is set, but through me you can make everything we went through mean something."

"Is that why you aren't using your Makoki stone? Because you cannot free all of us from the horrors of Tren Krom's pawns if he is freed to reset his game board once again?"

"It is. Miserix wants to turn everything back to square one. Rebirth is her Wish, constant new beginnings in the same stale soil, and if it is allowed to transpire all we have done will be for naught yet again."

 

Musical Thematic

IC Stannis | Ruins of Metru Koro

"What is it you want?" Aurax asked.

"...and what would you have us do, then?" Nale inquired.

Knichou [breathed firmly]

They each wanted to know what was being asked of them before committing to a cause and pleaded from their hearts, minds, and consciences to understand what they were witnessing. Nothing was what they expected it to be anymore and the expectations each of the toa previously held were thoroughly defenestrated; a mentor had been turned to a pariah, a personal hero into a pretender, and a loathed enemy into a placating diplomat. Stannis had upended the story they told themselves and tossed it in their faces. He'd hoped to give example of his power and strength, but there had been another effect on those gathered: By revealing himself as he had he utterly invalidated all their greatest concerns. 

Most notably was Knichou, who had been thrust into a deep speechless list. The engineer had come prepared to deal with his supposed greatest enemy and was girded with an ill-prepared fraction of knowledge granted by the blathering Sorilax, but when Stannis revealed himself presently all his pride had melted like beeswax to a flame and the iconic villain image he'd imagined Aurax to be withered away to a pitiful pawn. It had not been Stannis' intention, but it was the result of their petty squabbles and the rose tinted lenses they saw the world through. They did not realize there was no such thing as good or evil, no such thing as heroes and villains, the Legend was not about them as individuals, and they were all the protagonists in a grander story? The world was not how they thought it was; the tapestry of time was woven with strings of Fate that bound them all together. They all had such immense powers of will... if they just shed their internalized dogma and worked as one.

If they just had... the right Knowledge...

"Friends, Once-friend, moments ago I would have told you once again to 'Wait, and one day I will tell you,' but that is the case no more. After all these years chasing this moment, it is now the time for me to give you answers."

The Kanohi Avohkii was the key to this moment that he needed, though he wished it were not so, for while the Avohkii had the power to spread understanding and spiritual empathy to the people around them it came at a great price to Stannis himself to wield. Had he been a lesser Aspect of Makuta he would have become overwhelmed by its power that counteracted his own nature and abilities, and it was only through his sheer dedication of single-minded will and personal strength of character that he could sustain its presence. Even so, his Shadow abilities were dwindled by the mask, and every inch of his battered and tormented body ached with the intensity of a thousand needles. He would have preferred to be stabbed ten score a thousand times by the Kestora of his alter ego's dimension in the Far Shore to the throbbing agony the Avohkii gave him now, but it was not a trade he could make. As it had been the case all his existence, so it remained then: Advancement in his quest was only able to be obtained by selfless sacrifice and incredible suffering. This was the same body that had struck at Toa Laryna at the cost of purity of purpose.

The body that stood on the broiler-hot shoresof Odina as the League's War began.
The body that had been flagellated by a hundred whips while in captivity under Kalmah.
The body that had been hurled off a cliff and left to rot on the rocky shores of the Southern Continent.
The body that had taken Warlord Pridak's sword so that others may deliver the finishing blow to the shark king.
The body that that had flung itself at problem after issue after malady to stave off other people's deaths and destruction.
The body that had stared into the corrosive darkness of Karzahni to liberate a group of insurgents struggling against Death.
The body that was torn to pieces by the energy hounds that guarded the Pit as he sought to uncover the hiding places of Mata-Nui.

He suffered so that there could be no more suffering, always and forever. And he did it for everyone... because it was what everyone wished for.  Their wishes made him need to succeed in a cycle of destiny he could not escape from alone. With the company of other Aspects of Change and Unbound Possibilities such as cousins Whisper and Parnassus he sought to end their collective connection to the cycles of Antidermis and whims of the Builder's wishes, but beyond that he hoped to be able to sever his dependency on the Matoran's superstitions, but even moreso it was his whole nature to end the mysteries of existence once and for all. 

He winced, the corners of his mouth quivered once, and a shaky hand trembled on the shaft of his spear for a second, and then he regained outward composure again, temporary though it was.  "I will... show you the truth..." he managed to say at last, "of how things are, and all that has been unknown will be known," he said. 

The light around everyone in the meeting began to brighten tenfold as the Avohkii's illuminating energies consumed the party. Like a burden lifted from their shoulders they sighed as one empathetic nucleus, and the worries and anxieties they once were banalized by simply dissolved, and in the wake of that they felt enlightened and clear of mind. Their cognitive dissonance was dissipated in an instant, preconceived notions about themselves, each other, and the wizard evaporated like dew in the sun, and the faith they had in any greater power was condensed to fact rather than embellished fiction. 

They saw the world and everything in it the way Stannis had, and then the way Caedast did, in all the labyrinthine complexity that only the Aspect of Knowledge and Control could provide but with crystalline clarity more intuitive than a memory crystal's databank. They saw the waxing and waning of the Legend as it passed from Cycle to Cycle and the torment of wars and peace that transpired over history. Conflict and disparity was fomented by superstitions and zealotry created by ignorance. Libraries were burned out of vitriolic desperation and institutions were torn to foundations from the Builder's ill-begotten desires. Aspects of various kinds came and went, assuming godhood and carving out their domains in Time, each one disintegrating eventually as all things inevitably returned to the Time Between Time until all that was left was a new beginning, right where everyone left off before. Cycle after cycle was rife with the same: With ignorance, iconoclasm, and superstition. 

And Caedast sought to stop it all.

Caedast was the deliverance they truly needed. 

Give Caedast the great Legend. Seize the Tapestry of Time. The Loom of Fates. Give Caedast the role of presiding at the cruz of all things past present and future, so that he could banish confusion and ensure that this cycle... was the last one with suffering and ignorance. 

No more whys or what happeneds. No more ignorance of the unknown. No more wars for Death's sake.

Deliverance. Control over their own futures. 

It was what everyone truly desired, and it was what Stannis offered. He prayed they didn't refuse.

The light died down, leaving another stunned silence over the group as they stood on the desolate former settlement's wasteland... and the wizard who stood trembling as every antidermis molecule in him screamed out of agonizing torment. 

@~Xemnas~ @BULiK @Tarn

1 hour ago, ~Xemnas~ said:

Aurax took a deep breath as he regained, no, was granted, control of his body once more. The Toa glared at Stannis. Wait, what had Knichou called him? Caedast? 

"I may be compelled to help you," he spat, "but just know that I will hate every second of it."

IC Stannis | Metru Koro Ruins

The Wanderer smiled thinly at the king and shrugged off the corrosive vitriol like a light rain in the summer. "You have abominated me from the very start, Once-friend, even though I have never so much as even detested you. The time has come for me to collect on your word to me—but this bond is of your own making, not of magic." 

IC Stannis | Aurax

— Musical Thematic —

"The how is simple to explain... however, it is difficult to understand," Stannis said through Aurax's lips. "The truth is, you already know how. I told you his oath to me was bound by cords of magic. Everything you suspected is true, everything you were told is real... but not all your fears are right. And yet, there is great fear about me. Isn't there, Brother Knichou?

He went on, saying, "I am and always have been beyond understanding, a mystery in the night, a puzzle in the day. I am nebulous and confounding, shrouded by secrets and shadows. People have given me a great many monikers by people of all walks of life and every faction. The stories about me in the Histories paint me as both a hero and villain, savior and jailer, magician and charlatan, and while the gossip people tell about me when I am not listening are not within my control, what I can control... are the things that I do.

"Have you ever wondered why I never provided a citation for my stories? Of course, you have questioned it. The legends I told of the Matoran Universe and of Mata Nui’s creation and all things were not tales handed down through oral history; I know those things to be true because I was there when they were done. I have born witness to your entire existence, observed as your societies crumbled, and watched Mata Nui’s corruption spread through the ranks of Builders like a virus in the blood. I preached on the deceitful nature of Shadow and you did not believe—nobody believed—because none could consider fathoming that all that time I was talking about me. I spoke with authority on matters of Shadow because I am from Shadow. And now you see it laid bare, the truth—my truth—so perhaps now you’ll understand what was not coherent before." It was a clear admission, though notably it was not a confession. Stannis admitted to no wrong, only that he was separate entirely from right and wrong, because morality was not a currency Stannis negotiated in, though he played with it on TV. 

"Darkness is not good or evil. Information is not good or evil. What matters is what you do with it. I have never once lied to you, Brother Knichou, Sister Nale—not even to Aurax—but I will not ask to be judged on the merits of my words and instead ask to be assessed by my actions. You know the stories of what I have done—you were there for some of them—and you should know that ever since I first came to exist on the Ark and admitted each of your names to memory my efforts have been directed at the singular task of guiding and preserving you and the Builders, over and over, with the knowledge that it would bring us... here, to the breaking point of the Multiverse and the crux of creation and destruction. The Cycle is almost completed, an ending is upon us, but even so I will fight what you cannot fight, always and forever... but for me to protect you I need your trust and assistance for 

One.

Last.

Time."

The League king’s shadow lengthened and then grew dimension as though something was materializing from its shallowness like a razor whale emerging from the sea. And then, without warning came an abrupt flash of light, an explosion of brightness that bathed them all in every color, and in the wake of it all there stood Stannis the Wanderer, as they all knew him, before them in the flesh, and he looked more spectacularly heroic than ever before to them, appearing almost ethereal and divine in his new guise  

His familiar cloak was gone and instead a simple black and grey cape hung from his shoulders and obscured only one arm, revealing his ancient armor marred with innumerable scars and marks of war. His old toa tool was slung on his back and in his hand was a pristine protosteel spear to replace one he had lost in his fight with Pridak. A dagger was stashed at his hip, previously unknown, and a worn satchel that looked almost professorial peeked from under the cape. But the most noticeable difference of all was the Kanohi he wore. They all knew what it was instantly, it was almost as much a legend as the wizard was himself.

The Mask of Light.

"Can I lean on you all this once, as you always have on me?"

 

@Tarn @BULiK @~Xemnas~ 

IC Stannis | ???? Aurax

King Aurax turned slightly to look at her and then his mouth twisted words that were not his. "Hello, Näl-eh." Stannis allowed a pause, allowing the others to realize Aurax had not officially met Nale yet. "Aurax can't come to the face right now. I thought this would be... safer, first. You all have questions, I know. I needed you to... know that I have answers... and I will give them. I have the... power to do so now." 

IC Stannis | ????

Aurax's eyes blinked once for what seemed to be longer than usual. His mouth quivered and then he spoke, but the words were not his own. This voice was an older one, far more eldritch, and yet unnervingly familiar to everyone present.

"Goooooood. You two finally have met again."

 

@~Xemnas~ @BULiK

9 hours ago, Gecko Greavesy said:

IC: Whisper – Uharaz’s Realm

The Aspect of Change – now christened in grim conviction and confirmation of purpose – didn’t linger to loot the ruins of the wistful warlord’s macabre museum.

She had all she needed. She had what she hadn’t ever expected to find here. She had the understanding she’d sought for so long. She had power. She had the truth. She had herself.

And she had much to do in the realm beyond this doomed world.

So she pushed through the marked door, and emerged back where she belonged.

IE Temple | IC Stannis | Kumu

Once Whisper and the others came from the fallen Aspect's domain they were greeted in the ominous antechamber of the temple. The massive, monolithic glowing door was behind them and ahead were all the tithing suva. They seemed to be malfunctioning, seeping energy streams like vents of steam. "The coffers are being emptied," Stannis said of them. "Without a god to receive the offerings they are being returned to the supplicants. Take what you wish and then leave."

The temple was still fragmenting as the foundations of the massive fortress shrine was gradually being weakened. The wizard wasted no time touching the little suva he had given his powers to and spent only enough time for two channels of energy to flow into him.

 

And then he was gone, vanished in the tenebrosity like a black cat in the night.

 

But in Whisper's neural system and Korruhn's skull his cryptic, ageless voice creaked forcefully.

[I will be back.]

Musical Interlude

 

OOC | Whisper, Korruhn, and Stannis receive the following bonus power ups from the completion and survival of the mission with the approval of Kughii:

Whatever they gave, they can receive twofold. Whisper surrendered an elemental power and can receive it, plus another element, or two entirely new elements. Korruhn surrendered a Kanohi, so he can receive it, plus another Kanohi of the allowable selection, or two entirely new Kanohi. Stannis surrendered his Makiuta kraata power, so he is receiving it, plus a new Kraata power of equal power. 

21 hours ago, Unreliable Narrator said:

“You have returned at last, as you swore you never would,” came the voice of Spiriah from the shadowy figure. The ground began to churn beneath the feet of those assembled with the younger aspect. They could feel vibrations from below, like a small earthquake or some great host digging relentlessly towards the surface.

“Welcome home, my wayward son. There is much work to be done.”

16 hours ago, Void Emissary said:

"M-Miserix," the Aspect [Parnassus] stammered out, "has returned within the vessel of a Matoran named Grime, joined by one who pretends to be an Aspect, Korruhn. Our prodigal cousin, Caedast, appears to be tracking the two -- er, three -- of them as we speak. And in his hunt, Caedast has informed me that the mighty Zivon has awoken in a hidden valley in the centre of the island -- and hungers for Aspects.

"I returned here, with these people," they continued, gesturing back to the haphazard crew of the Ambling Alp, "to our family home out of a hope that ... well, that if our kin were to come together against this threat...."

IC Leklo | Kumu

Korruhn claims to be an Aspect of Makuta? Leklo thought in surprise, and the short spike in enthusiasm that his friend was still around died into glum introspection. This was new for him, and it threw further confusion and concern for what had happened to his dear friend. Why would the Cartographer masquerade as a shadow being? What possible use was such subterfuge and deception? It felt like a denial of who he truly was, which worried Leklo even further and he hoped that Korruhn had not strayed too far, if he had indeed strayed at all. 

While Parnassus had a familial connection to this Miserix, Leklo had no such bond or understanding of the dark spectre and so did not feel afraid at first, but the churning of the ground concerned him greatly. He looked around at the earth in nervousness, one ear to the ground and the other listening to the conversation between the demons, and hoped his powers were ready for whatever happened next.

 

On 6/12/2021 at 12:36 AM, pokemonlover360 said:

IC Ysocla - Tactical Panda II:

She gave a nod to her liege and said, “Thank you for telling me. Having the knowledge of something tragic like that can weigh a person down. I’m happy to help take some of the load off you.” She glanced upwards as Korio flew past on his way to the Godhead before turning back to Lady Yumiwak. “I did have one more question while we’re heading off. I would’ve expected us to direct our vengeance upon the warskaks after they destroyed our home. Since when have our grievances been with the Matoran?”

IC Yumiwak | Panda, in the air

"Marrow has already seen to the Warskaks' destruction. Zai and Korio..." —I paused after saying their names, a moment of honor for the ascended friends— "went to check on him, and they've come back, which means the deed is done. If there is anything left of the Warskaks they are ashes on the dunes. But don't worry, if we find the other Tahtorak we will bring it to heel as well." I grinned.

"But until then, the next greatest thing to direct my ire towards is the head that fell from the sky. The Matoran have always had my ire. I have not forgotten my resentment or detestation for them. Let's see how well their 'Godhead' handles being extra crispy."

 

On 6/11/2021 at 10:35 PM, Tarn said:

IC: Korio, Kanohi Dragon of Loyalty - Mata Nui's Head

The serpentine form of Korio flew over the Panda, unaware of the conversation being had below about the events leading to his rebirth, continuing to spread his firestorm across Zakaz. Continuing on past the Tooth, and towards the skull of the god-corpse and the silvery waters around it. Once he was close enough he began to idly circle above, awaiting on the arrival of the others. He felt impatient--his base instincts made him want to crack it open and discover what was inside.

IC Zai | In the air

Zai the Dragon went swoosh swoosh, sleepily swooping with serendipitous swagger over the swales. 

Head to the Head, she heard, and with heedless haste in her harrowed hereafter she hurried thither. Oh, she hated that hotbreathed harasser.

The Bard is dead. Long live the Bard.

 

 

 

 

 

 

IC Stannis, Korruhn, Whisper, & Grime | Uhuraz' Plane

Whisper wasted no time in reaching down to tear the heartlight from Velox's chest. There was no sense in letting it go to waste.

Grime began to drag himself towards the walls Uhuraz spoke of in hushed tones. His vision spun. Could he even read? The shaking of the room urged him forward despite the pain, and a trail of his own silver blood stretched behind him. "Korruhn," Grime said. "Korruhn we don't have time. Lift me up."

"No!" Whisper's voice came out in a snarl as she struck her staff against the ground. "We heard your babbling. You're as much of a fanatic as these two were," she turned away and started moving towards the exit, addressing Caedast and Korruhn as she passed them by. "Leave him."

"I have no stake in your quarrels between Aspects. Grime is my friend, and he happens to be the only one who ever seems to let me know what the heII is going on," Korruhn said as he walked to Grime, and gently cradled him in one of the arms of the ACR. He walked to the wall, and quickly made mental note of as much as he could. The information could be useful, and it seemed Grime was interested in it was well. "Now, we need to get him medical attention."

"I can help him with the pain," Stannis offered and gestured for Korruhn to let the wizard have the matoran. "I have a healing spell."

"Wait," Korruhn said. "How do I know I can even trust you? Every other Aspect I've met was cloaked in deception, what makes you different? Your speech to Uhuraz but moments ago made me think this whole ordeal was some sort of hegemony-ensuring hit. All I know is my friend needs help, and my world needs to not blow up!"

Grime looked at the walls. He couldn't see much, not really, but some words and symbols remained. He reached towards them to touch, to try and tell with senses other than sight, but his wounds were too great to reach. He sensed them, and he hoped Miserix might be kind enough to forgive him in his failure. As Stannis spoke Grime began to panic. He knew what came next. No aspect let another's follower live forever. "Please Korruhn," Grime beseeched through gritted teeth as the ACR cradled his wounded body; "don't let them touch me. They don't understand. They don't understand. I do, Korruhn. You know I do. Let me make it right!"

But the wizard knew what Korruhn was saying, and despite Grime's protestations Stannis understood the little sycophant better than he realized. Blind faith in someone was just that: Blind, blind to the realities... blind to the irony. 

"You are wise to doubt me," he said simply, honestly, and shrugged. "Our kind is duplicitous and secret, and I am no exception to that. But I'll ask you this: How much has Miserix shared with you? What knowledge or cares has she given to you? Can you trust her?" He waited for an answer.

"How do we make this right, Grime?" Korruhn replied. "I don't trust your Aspect either. She has kept me in the metaphorical dark at every turn, and has conveniently left you in a situation where you've nearly been killed. Twice. To what end do we continue this cycle?"

The temple's shudders stilled for the moment somehow, a delay in delapidation that bought the visitors a small modicum of time. This was an important matter--Stannis feared what would happen if Miserix's allies and pawns were allowed to maintain their connections to her. And if they could be turned, all the better.

The Toa turned to Stannis. "I cannot trust anyone, Stannis. Not a single one of you have been frank with me, although some of you more forthcoming than others. HeII, Icarax seemed to be the most trustworthy of the lot of you. You each have your own view on how this is going to end, and you each have your own Ussal in the race in terms of surviving this. I just want my home back."

"And you shall have it," Stannis said sternly. "Miserix will assure that much if she has her way. But you will not be able to enjoy the fruits of your suffering because you and everyone else will be as ignorant of the past as Uhuraz was of the present. Knowledge provides you the power to make your choices, to remember the lessons learned, and to have all our losses mean something. I am the vector for the future, Korruhn, the answer to all those who beg god 'why' and 'what for.' I am the lamplight in the darkness and the shade under the trees, the hammer to your shackles and the books in your library. It is wise to mistrust me, but even so, I have never lied. You know I possess power and wisdom, and what's more... you know I share it willingly with you, because I have walked the shores of Ga-Metru, the jungles of the Southern Continent, the mountains of Odina, and the farthest reaches of the Southern Islands. I have felt pain and suffering just as you have, and I, more than any other Aspect of Makuta, understand what it is like to live and to die as a Builder. I do not wish to die anymore. And if you do not trust in my words, you can at least believe in my actions."

“Indeed, Stannis,” Korruhn returned, leaning down to pick up the ACR’s sword from the ground with his free hand, still drinking in all Stannis had just said. He still didn’t trust him, but Korruhn was in a position where he needed the help either way. He didn’t want Grime to die. “What’s your plan to fix him, then? He may have allegiance to Miserix, but he’s saved my life twice now. I owe him on principle; and even the calamity of war will not take my principles.”

“You care for your friend, I know,” Stannis intoned, remembering a kindness he once gave to another wartorn Toa long ago on Maru Nui. “You wish to keep his company?”

"I wish for him to walk alongside me as he has," Korruhn said, reflecting on the long road, nearly from one end of the island to the other, that he'd shared with Grime; their time among the Warskaks. The last time he'd seen Stannis. "I didn't nearly burn down Fort Nektann for him to go out like this."

“Some bonds should never be severed, I’ve learned, and there are many kinds of love that ought always be preserved. I had a brother who once asked for the same. He has never since been separated from his beloved. They shared the same roads ever since. I can give you the same kindness... if you’ll let me help with the pain. And you will see that there is no reason to feel the same aches ever again.”

"In Miserix... there is hope," Grime managed to say faintly, and then he fell unconscious from his wounds.

“Karzahni!” Korruhn cursed at the gods as the sands of time crashed around him. What he wouldn’t give for just another minute to make a decision. And yet, Korruhn had no choice from the start; he had no means to save Grime on his own, he had to rely on Stannis.

“Fine,” he relented. “Save his life so he may yet walk his path; nothing more.”

The old wizard bent down to the floor and came close to Grime's slumbering body. "Miserix cannot save you," he cooed under his breath. "I am sorry, Builder 'Grime,' that you were not given the knowledge to make your own choices." 

It was the closest he had ever come to Grime, to touching him, and he finally was able to appreciate the many tattoos and runes on his dirty body. He traced their symbols with his fingers with one hand to experience the memories embedded on Grime's armor to admit them into his own mind and rocked his reposed body gently with the other hand as if becalming a husi babe. 

“Please,” Oreius had said what felt like eons before. “There has to be something. Anything. I can’t lose him. I can’t…”
 
“No medpack or Leah’s balms can preserve what is already departed. This cycle is set, I am so sorry... but I can help in another way."

Some patterns never do change. 

Grime was old, old as Stannis, and had seen and recorded much of the world. He deserved to live and it was a great shame his Fate was a different path. Stannis could help soothe the pain, as he promised... but the pain was existence, nightmarish life was the disease. When Stannis spoke, it was anguished and musical, a final number for the bard. "Hello ♫," he sang low, "my fickle friend. ♫ You breathe, and laugh, and love. ♫ You glowing star. ♫ You shed... your light far above... Hello."

And in his hand was the bloated kraata, once of Miserix, now of Caedast, throbbing like a feasting grub. It was all there was left of Grime's material soul. "Your friend will walk your path with you. Take your friend, Korruhn."

... Grime's body shuddered once and then lay still. He was dead.

A great impassible lump formed in Korruhn's throat as his friend's spirit left his body before his eyes. When he had first met Grime, he was abandoned, forgotten in Fort Nektann. Korruhn helped him escape, or did he? Grime had survived time untold until he showed up. And now, he was dead before him.

Sheathing the odachi, he took the Kraata in his hand, and brought it to his face. This sickly, slimy, writhing little parasite held all that was left of his friend inside of it; the last vestige of the last vestige of his Matoran past. Was it even worth saving the world, if we couldn't even keep someone alive to inhabit it.

Suddenly, one of Korruhn's ACR-shrouded hands swung for the wall, in a wide outward arc from his chest. It impacted the wall with a significant force, one Korruhn was not used to yet, clearly. The wall crumbled and cracked where he collided with it in his rage.

"Alright, let's do this," he said begrudgingly, turning back to Stannis, and sticking the Kraata back out to him. Korruhn knew he had no choice in the matter; he needed Grime, and he clearly needed every power he could get for the fight ahead. "I need to kill something."

"It will not be in vain," Stannis mused. "Your wish shall be granted."

The wizard took the kraata and spoke the rite. "Goodbye," he began, saying a prayer over the kraata once again but this time with command. He was not coaxing it to unbind itself from a master but to bind again to a host. He sped through the rite but still spoke with care—this was a sacred act regardless of the context, and when he spoke the final "Goodbye," he passed pulled something from under his fading robe and passed the kraata to Korruhn for the last time. 

Both of them—Grime's and Velox's.

They wasted no time wriggling into his flesh, burrowing under his armor, dislodging muscle and metal as they latched into his tissues. Intuitively a bond between Korruhn and Caedast was created, stronger than the one he had to Miserix by twofold, and lore flowed into the Void-touched toa's head. He understood Stannis' machinations, his long torturous game of war and peace, his white lies and grey truths that were all equal measures fact and fiction, and the perspective of life Stannis had championed for so long. And finally, Korruhn realized he was bound by Fate to provide what Stannis so sorely wanted and needed, the visor plate on the ARC of Triumph: The Kanohi Avohkii. Stannis took it from the ARC without a word of protestation from either of the others, both of whom were pledged to help Stannis as he was to support them. "Power is a tool," he echoed his words to Uhuraz earlier, "like Order, and Knowledge, light and darkness, and to know it is to know me.

"Now come. There's an existence to preserve and we have each gotten what we came for."

The temple began to shudder again as it resumed its crumbling somehow. The trio had their final opportunities to take what they wanted from the warlord's relics and exit from whence they came through the door marked with a red EXIT sign.

IC Jam | Stannis, Korruhn, Whisper, Grime, Jural, Velox, & Uhuraz | Uhuraz' Plane

As soon as Whisper dropped her stasis field Jural activated his Matatu on her. First step: Picking her off the ground. Next step: Impaling her on the ARC's sword that nestled on a cradle by the power armor on the other end of the room. He hoped Velox could forgive him for the trespass.

As Whisper was flung through the air towards the sword, she projected a blast of air courtesy of her vacuum kraata to knock it from its cradle. The blade clattered to the ground at the same time as Whisper’s flailing form smacked into its stand, her staff flying from the grasp of her tethers and falling behind the ACR as she made impact. Heads spinning from the impact, Whisper dazedly dragged herself behind the leg of the immense ACR, hoping that using it as cover would force Jural to close the distance.

Jural's telekinetic focus shifted to the sword itself and he mentally picked it up. It floated for an instant as Jural decided how best to employ the weapon, and then it stabbed at the floor where Whisper was.

Whisper extended the tethers connecting her merged forms, dispersing herself around the sword as its point struck the floor where she'd been. She retaliated with the power of her vacuum kraata, attempting to use it to pull Jural's mask from his face.

The wind pulling at Jural's cloak was the first and only hint he needed. A scholar educated thoroughly on all the kraata powers, he knew the signs of vacuum abilities when he sensed its first whispers and he instinctively employed his element in defense. The sword clattered to the floor again, but instead of a Matatu all Whisper got for her efforts was an icy shield flung on her own powers. "We were whole, once!" he decried in response to Whisper's utterance a moment before. "Until you happened. But you don't remember the damage you did—to us, to Destiny!""

"You make that sound like a bad thing!" Whisper sneered back, remaining behind the ACR leg as the ice shattered against it. Her tethers seized both sword and staff and extended towards Jural as she leaned out of cover, "I embrace the changing cycles. You stagnate in a museum of your own misery."

"There is no entropy here, Changeling!" Jural bellowed in retort. "We've survived cycles here already and will continue to do the same—it is our duty. Your tendencies are destructive and righteous, just like your Builder sycophants made you. But they don't know what is best for them."

He stood up and in the open, exactly as Whisper wanted. In his hand he held his buckler and the crossbow, cocked and ready to fire. "Why have you come if not to insult us more?"

"I was just following my companions. They were the ones with an interest in this place," she replied. "But you've offered me a glimpse of my past, and for that I should thank you."

Instead of thanking Jural, however, her tendril flung the ACR sword in his direction, unleashing a blast of air to increase its speed as it spun haphazardly towards him.

Jural raised another defensive wall of thick, solid ice to stay the blade, but only just barely. The rapidly accelerated blade cut through the block with ease and nearly broke through before it came to a stop only after becoming literally frozen into place. 

The armourer looked around. Velox was occupied dueling the old wizard and his Lord was experiencing a euphoric epiphany while sparring with the Void-touched toa, leaving Jural to fend for himself against the thing he hated more than anything else in the planes. Whisper—the Changeling—the Aspect of Change—whatever manifestation she took, was the object of Jural's greatest upsets for her very nature. She was right even though he refused to believe it: Jural was stuck in a past that no longer existed and could not exist anymore, the great progress stymied by the ignorant comfort of Uhuraz' safe haven and prison. They had been living a life of exile, hoping their god could once again wield the power he had once before and take them along for a final crusade, but it was growing increasingly apparent an epoch was drawing to a close. At least, for him.

He shook his head in despair and gripped his buckler anxiously. "Poison is as poison does, whether it's yours or another's."

“Change isn’t poison, it’s progress,” Whisper said, as she scrambled fully out of hiding and began to scuttle slowly towards Jural. With her tendrils raising her Rahkshi staff over her heads, she looked every bit like a child’s chaotically colourful, comically incoherent collage of a scorpion.

“And you’re part of that process, even if you don’t realise it,” she continued. “After all, if your master emerges and brings order to the world, won’t he be changing it?”

"No..." Jural said incredulously. "Returning things to what they rightfully were before... is not change. It is fixing."

"There's no fixing this universe," she scoffed, recalling what a lizard had told her, not so long ago. "Not as long as They will the cycles to continue." 

A burst of air abruptly flung her up towards the ceiling, and she released a brief blast of laser vision as she flew, hoping to fire over Jural's ice wall.

The laser sliced through the ice block and seared Jural's shoulder. His cloak, once regally slung, now slipped off his back after being sliced off its clasps. He tossed the smoking cloth aside and stepped out from behind the meager protection of his ice barricade to fire his crossbow at Whisper and prepared for what he was sure would be his final stand alone.

Sprawling as her mismatched body awkwardly landed once more, Whisper was barely able to summon a vacuum blast swiftly enough to deflect the bolt before it could reach her. 

The tendrils gripping her rahkshi staff extended in length to increase her reach, and swept the weapon at Jural's legs.

In a last desperate attempt to stop Whisper the toa of ice focused on the staff with his Matatu and tried to force it back into her body as a spear. If he could not disarm her and use her weapon against her, however... he was wide open. The tendrils were too numerous to fight and he was running out of options.

As the staff whipped back towards her, Whisper was forced to release her grip and make a clumsy leap over it to avoid the bladed tines. Not waiting around for Jural to try using telekinesis on her or the staff again, she opted for her tried-and-true tactic of loosing more lasers at the Toa's face.

Jural brought up his shield to block the blistering beams, which also obscured his view of Whisper long enough for one of her tendrils to extend forward and lash around his leg. He yelped in surprise, tried to pull back his leg to shake her loose… only to find himself wobbling groggily as Whisper’s kraata powers of Sleep and Slow went to work. 

He drew his dagger and reached down to swipe at the tendril, only for another to ensnare his wrist. And another. And another, and more still until Whisper’s serpentine appendages were encircling him entirely. He drew upon his element, summoning spikes of ice from his armour that sliced through the tendrils, wringing cries of astonished agony from Whisper’s many months. But then the remaining tendrils became intensely hot to the touch as the power of Whisper’s Ice Resistance kraata was added to the mix, further weakening the Ko-Toa.

“If you can’t embrace change, then it seems I’m left with no choice but to embrace you,” Whisper’s voice taunted from amidst the tangle of teeming tendrils tapering around the Toa. 

“Unhand me, you hideous piece of filth!” He snarled. “You’re standing in the path of—arghk!” A tether pulled taut around his throat, cutting off the rest of his words as swiftly and surely as it did his oxygen supply. 

“I’ve heard enough.” 

As Jural desperately tried to inhale, he looked to Uharaz, wide eyes silently pleading for salvation as tether after tether twined and tightened around him. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. He’d fought so long to preserve the proper way of things, to prepare for the restoration of order, and for the powers of chaos and change to cut so cruelly, to the very heart of all that he held dear… Uharaz was meant to be stronger than this. 

Whisper hesitated. 

She’d killed before. She’d sent Skakdi to their deaths, and pitted others against one another to win her favour. She’s summoned insects and shadows to slay her prey. She’d throttled the life out of her victims with her tendrils. But back then, she’d been a being of cold metal and dispassionate apathy. This was different. This was personal. And she could feel it all. Jural’s fear and sorrow. The tremors of his weakening heartbeat. Her own elation at triumphing over him, holding his life in her grasp. 

For a moment, she considered sparing him. Not merely out of mercy, but cruelty as well. To defeat him, drag him into the open world and make him watch her prove his entire woeful worldview wrong… she could think of no more fitting fate for her foe. 

But she knew it wasn’t worth the risk. She couldn’t jeopardise her own existence just to bring a spark of spite to someone else’s. So she tensed her tethers tighter around Jural’s neck, and twisted until he ceased.

 

Goddammitgoddammit Korruhn muttered within his mind. Sure, the Shadow Hand had halted its approach, but truthfully, Korruhn was hoping for something a bit more devastating; Energized Protodermis wasn't easy to come by. Regardless, it afforded Korruhn a few more seconds than he had previously.

His eyes quickly scanned the room, looking for something, anything to aid in his fight. His raw elemental power clearly wasn't going to cut it. His Staff was removed from him, and Whisper had tossed the nearby ACR sword at Jural, putting them far out of Korruhn's reach. As well, he had used up his energized protodermis, and foolishly given his mask power to this dang Uhuraz. His luck was running short, and he needed a plan fast.

The nearby display cases contained a plethora of items, and of course the ACR across the room caught his attention. He needed to pick one, and fast. He didn't want to have to resort to the Far Shore to get out of here; but he would if he had to.

Grime let out a barbaric scream as he threw himself upon Uhuraz in his moment of enlightenment. 

"Go!" He shouted at Korruhn; "put the armor on!"

“Grime!” Korruhn shouted aloud. Why he shouted was beyond him, for nothing he could do could stop Grime’s charge, except take the opportunity presented to him. Korruhn charged toward Uhuraz’ armour, hoping to reach it before he took notice, or injured Grime.

The old king was still too engrossed by the sudden wash of understanding that he didn't witness Jural's final moments against the Aspect of Change. Instead, the first major reckoning he had was that Grime was running up to him in a frenzy. 

Uhuraz smirked. He could smell the fat and powerful kraata in the matoran's chest doubtlessly attached to some other powerful Aspect in the outside world, and Uhuraz twirled his finger in a spiral just as Grime collided with his body. 

What makes you tick, little Builder?

Aspect Uhuraz of Order had been learning a great many things all at once, and while that was to be expected in the wake of the specific visitors' arrival to his place of refuge and hibernation what surprised him was the scope of awareness these people were giving him. It seemed even the lowliest of them were linked to inconceivably broad swaths of destiny and fate. 

What obsession makes you plow forward like a madman? he wondered as he peered into Grime's character, feeling out the flaws that muddled in his noggin. It came to him instantly. "Miserix."

The aspect coalesced a wisp-thin tendril of shadow into a blade from the darkness of the auditorium and plunged it into Grime.

Meanwhile, Korruhn ran up to the power armor. It was old but shiny, polished to pristine condition despite, or because of, its obvious disuse. It was taller than Korruhn was and painted all red and black, ornate and regal, though Korruhn noticed that it was missing a power source. He knew from the brief time he spent with the refugees and then the Warskaks that ARCs needed to be fueled by a soul, typically a heartlight, adding to the macabre and poetic tragedy that even machines need the sacrifice of life to even serve a function to others. This armor was a relic of an ancient world, a cycle long-vanished in memories, and relegated to an adornment without the necessary heartlight, but there was the allure of incredible power if it were reactivated. This was the armor Uhuraz used to bend an entire reality nearly to his will. Korruhn wanted power, but what was he willing to do to get it?

Korruhn growled in frustration. He wanted to end this, now. He wanted to grab whatever was here, kill Uhuraz and his minions, and get back to his task: stopping the world outside of here from completely annihilating itself. He needed a heartlight. Grime again sacrificed for his opportunity as the blade plunged into him, and Korruhn's grimace morphed into a scowl of pure, flowing rage.

To his left, Whisper strangled the last life from Jural; Korruhn's best shot at getting this war machine going. He focused his gravitational control over himself, slightly lowering the effect of gravity and adjusting his center to maximize his efficiency, and his chances of returning to the rig. He dashed with all of his might, at the limit of his physiological capacity, and shoved his arms right underneath the tendrils of the Aspect, until he found Jural's heartlight.

The life was draining from Jural's eyes and he cursed in his mind. It was almost a shame, he admitted, that Whisper could not peer into his brain to bear witness to the multitude of articulate curses he thought about her, how much he loathed the Aspect of Change and despised every part of her blasphemous existence, and particularly the caustic vitriol he contained that the last thing he would see in life before it all went dark was her horrific visage. 

He didn't get the chance to eke any of his thoughts out from his lips before he felt something carve in to his body and remove his heartlight and soul from his chest.  And then Armourer's eyes went dark.

 

Grime spat blood into Uhuraz's masked face and sneered as they tumbled across the ground rolling and punching. Each slicing cut of Uhuraz's powers over shadow damaged the little matoran further, and their rolling began to make him feel the need to puke as the world spun around them, but he held onto life with the desperation of a zealot. He screamed in the face of the aspect; "You're a two bit piece of history, you know that? Nobody sings your praises. Nobody tells your stories. No one cares about you. You're nothing like Miserix. The powerful whisper her name. She is on the lips of those who have faith. She will ascend where you have failed. She will save us where you have betrayed us. She is the one world that will be born, and you are nothing but a hello from the dark."

Grime's words meant nothing to him; he remembered the name Miserix, but it bore no weight to him; she was another one of her kind who needed a stern talking to. But then Uhuraz looked to the side and saw Whisper choke the life out of his Armourer and it filled the warlord with terror. He saw Velox and the other toa Stannis fight and then they disappeared from his view. He repulsed Grime with a kick but the little Builder clung on to him like a leech which  could not be removed, making Uhuraz even more desparate. 

"No!" he shrieked. "The world has forgotten! But they will remember!!!" There was dreadful fright in his eyes, anguish as he witnessed his most faithful protectors and custodians being whittled down by these enemies. Uhuraz veered from anger to anguish when Korruhn disemboweled the heartlight from Jural. "Nooo!" This was not how the prophesy was supposed to happen! This was wrong, all wrong!!

Uhuraz experienced a glimmer of hope when he saw Velox's feet come running up—surely his prowess had prevailed against the feeble old priest and he was come to turn the tide and tear the matoran from him once and for all.

But Velox did no such thing. Controlled entirely by Stannis' shadow puppetry the Swordbearer took his dagger of poison and shoved it at the two rolling beings as though they were one, striving to plunge it through both their chests and deliver the lethal poison.

Whisper felt a momentary pang of legitimate disappointment when Jural's final moments were ripped from her grasp. She withdrew some of her tethers and let his cooling corpse flop to the floor. 

And then she fixed her irritated gazes on Korruhn. "Why? He was already finished."

Grime hurled as his nausea violently accelerated. Something crushed through his abdomen, cutting through his carapace and corroding the tubes and flesh inside. His vision doubled as the broken rahkshi spear of poison pushed through the front of his stomach. His grip tightened on Uhuraz, and the adrenaline of combat kept him barely conscious as shock began to take hold.

"I'm," Grime stuttered between ragged gasps and clots of silver blood. "I'm..."

"Because," came Korruhn's reply as he plunged the heartlight into the rig. He continued to stare at the Aspect as he climbed into the rig and enclosed it around himself. The suit was snug, but felt unencumbering for its massive size and, presumably, weight. He knew the next part from seeing the Warskaks do it, and he really wasn't looking forward to it. 

Grasping the plug base of the spinal tap that hung from a cable behind him, the Toa plunged it into his spine, not far from the Kraata. It went deep, and the pain was excruciating. Korruhn gasped, trying to draw deep breaths and slow his heart so he could operate this rig. It came to life with a groan, as though it hadn't moved in millennia. Dust shook free as it lumbered to match Korruhn's movement. 

He looked back at the Aspect again, "It's time to end this."

"It looks over to me," she replied, one of her tethers gesturing to where Velox had just run through both Grime and Uharaz.

The broken staff of poison had penetrated his body as well and found itself lodged in his chest. Green ooze dripped to the floor like slime while his antidermis seeped out like viridian smoke. Uhuraz's eyes were wide as saucers when he realized the betrayal and when Velox spoke the Aspect knew the words were not his own. They belonged to another being powerful enough to corrupt the mind of the most ardent bannerman the former warlord ever was honored to keep, and Uhuraz frantically tried to extricate himself from Grime while searching the room for the unseen enemy. 
 
"Order is a lot like Knowledge," the priest Velox said, "it is like Darkness—it is not good, evil, or misunderstood, it just... is. A means to an end. A tool to be used. People's dreams Change, Uhuraz. People's wishes shift. Order is a weapon, but to what end? What would you do when you have palaces of perfect geometry in the battlefields of chaos? Nothing." 

Out of the corner of the Aspect's eyes the old wizard materialized, the kraata in one hand and the chestplate in the other, both totems of Uhuraz' power and past. He handed the chestplate to Whisper gently, like offering delicate china to a guest, and waited until the tentacled Aspect took it, and then he held a hand up at Korruhn. "Your aspirations always did lack imagination," Stannis said, this time from his own mouth.  He clicked his tongue. 

Uhuraz struggled under the weight of Grime as if he had a choice in the matter. "Who are you?" he demanded between wet and raspy gasps. 

"You knew me once as Stannis, the Builder who designed your tithing suva and a faithful subject of yours. I programmed the codes in your temple long before you were defeated the first time. But that Stannis is dead and has been for a long time now, all that is left of him are the memories he shared with me that I have tried to relive. Now I am Caedast, I answer the Builder's prayers for knowledge of the past and future and the control to make choices. I have the creativity you lacked, and the support of Change to make it happen."

The wizard paused midstep before continuing. “Did you know, dear Uhuraz, that long ago… I revered you? I thought you were ‘the isht.’ Much of what I learned of war came from the things you did and feats you performed, and after so much knowledge from just one being how else was I to regard you than truly one of my greatest teachers? My respect for you was manifold and I carried the lessons in my head for all the days I fought in wars afterward.”

Uhuraz grunted. “I didn’t know you… I had no idea you existed, 'Caedast.' You are never mentioned in the histories I’ve collected, but what you say must be true because just like how you have, Vorex and Jural speak of my deeds, too, and they’re riddled everywhere in this place. I can… I can hear the frescoes on the walls whisper of my legends — Ahhhhhh! they cry out, the crowd of them, Ahhhhh! There goes the king! There goes the general! They remember, but I do not remember. Do you?”

“Indeed," Stannis said sadly, "I do.”

“Teach me, then, help me restore myself so that I can become as I was before. I cannot bear to stay here another eon and slumber while thee cycles wax and wane outside. Help me!” he pleaded, scared of losing his existence.

“No.”

“Why?” Uhuraz asked, pleadingly.

“Because the things I learned from you were because we were foes in battle, and while Whisper finally destroyed you it was by my own strategy. As it was, it is.”

“… Then this is the end for me, isn’t it? All these timeless periods, whiling away, wasting away… for this. Nobody prays for me anymore, I am all but forgotten and this will truly be my last death.”

“Take heart in that.”

The ARC revved up behind them; Korruhn had taken control of   one of the last vestiges of Uhuraz' legacy, and the Aspect ceased stirring in sorrow.

“Stop crying, you sniveling as. Stop your nonsense. You’re nothing but an afterthought… but none will think of you.”

And then Toa Velox took the other half of his poison staff, against his will he placed the tip of the weapon's blade on his own chin, and shoved it into his skull with a sickening crunch.

"For whatever it's worth..." striding over on six-foot tethers, the spongy clump of creatures that was Whisper stopped to look down at Uharaz, "...someday, they might wish for Order again, as they did for Change."

The warlord was like a child, then, simpering in puddles of blood and antidermis and vomit and bodies, crying for want of any other feeling. He had once been the most powerful Aspect in an eon, but that was long ago, in a different cycle, in another life, and since then he had been fed stories of the past without the context of the future. All he was was the amalgamation of lore, but then even the loremasters were dead.

"This... does not... spark joy..."

They rested on their knees: the dark general of Order and the small matoran of hope. Grime held tight, and the spear through his gut kept them skewered together. So long as it remained, there was hope. Grime's mask rested on Uhuraz's shoulder, as if hugging the wailing aspect as it realized it's own ineptitude. Quietly, Grime realized two things. One, Uhuraz would cease to exist as his story was extinguished. Two, Grime was a bard.

"Tell me your story," Grime whispered as blood slipped past his chin. "Tell me how you lived. One. Last. Time. And I will tell you mine."

"It's in the walls, Grime," he said and coughed. "It's all been... in the walls..."

Before the beleaguered Aspect could say anymore, the red metal fist of his own ACR collided with--and nearly went through--his head. The Void Toa let out a roar of anger before following up with his other fist.

"My world is dying!" Korruhn shouted at the Aspect, his voice rough as though choking on the curdled blood of all of those who had fallen. His fists continued to pummel Uhuraz.

"And you drag me here for some accursed plot to reclaim your glory? Pathetic!" The enraged Toa smashed, and continued to smash, blind to the carnage and the aerosolized blood.

"Allow me to carry you into legends and history books, where you belong, King of Nothing." Korruhn slammed both fists down onto what was left of the corporeal vessel of the Aspect. The sudden wash of silence that peeled away the calamity that had enveloped the room was most rewarding; Korruhn breathed it in with great vigor.

"As I believe I stated earlier, I prefer temples when it's clergy is dead."

Whisper took up her Staff of Mind Reading with one of her tethers, drawing upon its power in an effort to sense whether any vestige of Uharaz still remained. Aspects normally endured beyond the destruction of their physical forms, after all.

Grime stared at the space where moments before an aspect existed in the guise of a builder. Now oil and blood floated through the air, as a rushing of wind past his face brushed whatever ichor might be left away. Korruhn's rage knew no bounds. Grime fell on his side, agony finding its mark as the strains of battle took hold and the poison that lingered in the broken staff seeped deeper into his body.

Silence reigned afterwards. The silence of memory that quickly faded to obscurity.

And then the temple began to shake. In the absence of its master the domain was starting to unravel. They needed to leave, and quickly.