History/Ebb and Flow of Time
From Aalynor's Nexus
His fevered mind burned brighter than the dancing faerie fires which lit his room. Shining fingers clenching a stick of limestone flew across the immense slate tablet which made up this desk of his laboratory, making minor adjustments here and there, until with an almost audible click, he knew he had solved the equation, that he had created the right formula.
"Ah, Mistress Thelia would be so proud of me...after all, it isn't every day that a mortal mage touches the impossible..." he sneered to himself, as he crossed from his desk to the immense adamantine worktable in the center of the room. He looked down to the lone object that lay there, a simple rod of mithril, etched and engraved with symbols and patterns no mortal artisan could ever think to match.
"Perhaps mortal magic cannot affect time.... But that is why I have this..."
His velvet sleeve reached out toward the table, his metallic fingers closed over the mithril staff. A sneer graced his lips once more, as he willed away the shielding in his laboratory to send a telepathic cry of triumph...
"Immortality is mine..."
The heroes and people of Nexus shuddered as one, knowing only too well that voice, the voice of their greatest traitor, their greatest enemy. The words, and the triumph in his voice... This was no act of deception, this was all too real, and they knew it.
Banzai cursed aloud, the lines on her once young and vibrant face having deepened with each passing year. With an annoyed grunt, she pulled a large lock of her grey hair from her face and swore again.
"Tilnar take you, Astaroth, you wretch!" she exclaimed even as she thought of how she was getting too old to deal with him, too old to avenge the murder of her husband. Though she tried to fight against it, she felt the resentment at her age filling her, and at Wicked for having been gifted with youth by Tilnar.
"Immortality is mine..." echoed in her mind, and without thinking, Banzai hurled her Crystal Club at the wall of her home, feeling the red rage which had so long been her ally threatening to take her... She gritted her teeth, and let loose a long string of telepathic curses.
Astaroth's mouth tightened as Banzai's reply echoed to him, and he quickly spoke a word in the language of the Drow and magic flowed through him, through his arm, through the Staff of the Goddess he held, restoring the near-impenetrable bubble-shield which protected the laboratory of his tower.
"No time to dwell upon you, Banzai. A human fossil like you will be dead soon enough, in any case." He pushed telepathically as his shield formed, granting himself the last word.
Astaroth's left hand began tracing strange patterns in the air while he chanted in the tongue of the Ancient Daer'lin, slowly attempting to attune the Staff to himself. Slowly, as he chanted, the mercury of his arm flowed around the staff, wrapping it in metallic bands, slowly and gradually pulling it into place like a new bone for his artificial arm. With every inch it moved, Astaroth's smile increased as he felt what was left of Maana's power flowing into him, joining with him, his mortal essence mixing with the powers of the immortal...
Finally, a loud grinding noise echoed around him, and with a snap, he felt the mithril staff shattering within his arm. His robes and flesh were shredded by the shrapnel, the mithril shards hurling themselves free of his arm, and yet, somehow, the arm managed to hold its shape.... and the power, he cackled triumphantly as he saw the liquid metal darkenning, itself becoming like mithril and darksilver... Solidifying, he thought, annoyed for a moment, dissappointed in the loss of functionality, until he felt the power crackling through him, charging him with magicks beyond any mortal comprehension, beyond any mortal achievement.
He laughed, the power crackling through him an intoxicant. "I am so far beyond these fools. Inferno, for all his power, for all his years, for all his ego, is but a mite to me now. The Witch, for all her quiet arrogance, is a nothing which can be swept aside... None can stand against me, for I hold within the power of a God!"
In Nexus, many eyes were facing northwest, looking to the Tower carved into the Crystal Mountains. The tower was outlined clearly now, the Crystal of the tower having been darkened by the magicks within. Ariel looked down from her place in the Ivory Tower, her old eyes straining even through the thick spectacles she wore, attempting to see the dweomers radiating in and around Astaroth's workshop, cursing the strength of the barrier that surrounded him, and her own lack of endurance. More than ninety winters, now, come and gone, in which to gain knowledge and power, and yet in which her body's weakness would cancel out the benefits of her learning. She sighed with a sad smile. Still, she had led a full life, of friends, a husband, and happiness. If only this chill would free itself from her bones. With a smile, she heard Banzai's telepathic cries at Astaroth once again, obviously Astaroth had stopped listening even as Banzai's strain at the effort of telepathy was obvious. With another sad smile she thought of her husband, nearly as old as she, and yet his Dwarven blood keeping him young, still in the prime of his life. For a moment, she too felt resentment, if Astaroth's words were true, that an already Pandora-blessed Elf would find the means to increase his already ample lifespan... She sighed again, not realizing that her blurred vision was caused by the tears in her eyes and not the strain of looking off to the distance.
They did not have long to look, and all the magi screamed out as one as they felt powerful fingers ripping at the Weave as if with claws, as the most powerful shaper of spells cast the cursed Flight spell. As they recovered, one of the Tower's walls burst open with the force of a volcano, and a violet and grey missile streaked out toward them, the tattered remains of black robes clinging to him, his flesh pierced in a thousand places, yet none of these wounds either bleeding nor knitting.
His voice blasted louder than that of the Crystaldaemon's taunts in their heads as he hovered over Nexus. "There are scores to settle. You have ruined my life, taken my wife and child, taken my arm, taken the life of my double.... Even driven to death my poor lackey."
A string of curses followed his words, the female voice obviously straining, and yet too proud to allow herself to appear weak. "You betrayed us all, you killed my husband, reanimated him... Come, then, coward, and let us settle the score."
Banzai tried not to gape at the speed with which Astaroth moved, but it seemed she had but started her telepathic cry when he appeared before her. She gave the red rage which had been boiling within her free rein, the Crystal Club swinging almost of its own will, her attack with the speed of a woman half her age. And yet, somehow, the cursed Elf with no combat training sidestepped. His movements were a blur, making even Seoman's hasted speed seem a crawl by comparison... He struck her, physically, his metallic fist striking like a smith's hammer against an anvil. Each strike she could feel grinding her bones beneath his fist, shattering the blood vessels. His attack was a flurry which she could not even begin to dodge, for it was over even before she saw it coming, his metal hand smashing in and out without mercy until she found herself laying upon her back.
"Was that the best you could do, whore?" Astaroth sneered. "It seems that your age has slowed you down.... Pathetic. Maybe I made a mistake to ever think you could threaten my life.... But then, you always were a mistake, weren't you Banzai? Your whole existance was a mistake. And so, I shall undo it."
With that, Astaroth's metallic arm began to glow with an intense white, the power building up within it, and within him. "So long, bitch!" he snarled, and waves of white fire struck Banzai were she lay, each one erasing more of her existance, restoring her prime, her youth, her adolescance, her childhood, her infancy, and then, finally she was gone. Astaroth smirked, revelling in what he had just done, how he had erased someone completely, torn them from the Pattern of Life, from the Flows of Time.
The white energy continued to pulse where Banzai once sat, the temporal magicks flickering strangely, as if building up somehow. Suddenly, the ball of white power burst, throwing tendrils out in every direction, erasing the effects of Banzai's life from Flows of Time. Her name was lost from all memory, her house faded into naught, and all of Nexus, all of the history of the last seventy winters began to tear itself apart to right itself. Astaroth screamed as the power he released struck him, attempting to change him as it was everyone, and everything else. With a terrible shriek, and one conscious thought, he willed himself to undo whatever it was he had done - the memory of what it was already gone, the memory of having done anything already fading...
Suddenly, a second burst of white power appeared around him, its blinding intensity exploding, again, into tendrils as it reached out to reweave that which had been, or was being, undone... There was a terrible backlash of power, strange, flowing over everything, everyone, conflicting with itself, battling itself, as seventy years of history were done and undone and redone and undone again and the very Fabric of Reality woven by the Brothers began to unravel..
Tilnar felt himself scream as his body vanished from him, replaced instead with one of the corpses that he used to contain his essence, even as the black fires burst from his eyes and he felt Dilanis' life vanishing, returning, and vanishing again. With a terrible scream he extended his powers, the taint of his Darkness striping his reach, there one moment, gone in the next, as he touched the pattern. His anguished scream echoed through the Heavens and across the surface of Altin. With desperate strength, Tilnar gripped at the threads, attempting to stop their unravelling even as the Darkness within him bade him to pull with all his strength, and tear the pattern to naught...
His scream was heard, and a gentle touch was there in a moment, calming Tilnar, reassuring him, steadying him, and assisting him. Together, the Brothers once again wove Reality, gently coaxing the torn threads back together, hoping that the individual threads would heal as the pattern itself was restored....
Banzai opened her eyes, wondering what foolish form of attack Astaroth had used upon her, for she felt better than she had in years, despite the pounding she had taken... one feels no pain in the Red Rage. With a fierce battle-cry, she jumped to her feet, and smashed Astaroth's arm with the club. The Crystal weapon shattered instantly, its shards embedding themselves into his limb, tearing gashes in the arm. Power leaked from these wounds like blood, and Astaroth screamed as white bolts of Temporal Magicks lashed around him, without any control. In a moment, he was ancient, in the next he was young, time flowing and unravelling, the future, the past, infinity and oblivion.... He began to chant in the language of Magic, and with a flash brighter than the twin suns, he was gone.... Banzai stared for a moment, thinking it a trick, and then further thought that perhaps he was finally gone. She could not allow herself to believe either, and so she stood once again, and caught her reflection against her shield. Something strange had happened... She was... young.. Younger, in any case. Time had..... changed.
Ariel covered her eyes with her hands to shield herself from the bright flash of light, and when she did, she marvelled at her hand. She had changed, somehow. There was more vitality to her, and she removed the thick spectacles which had been obscuring her sight, looking down upon the city unassisted, with her own eyes, for the first time in decades. With a youthful chuckle, she decided that she would seek out her husband...
And all over Altin, the changes flowed, as the Threads of the Fabric of Reality readjusted themselves to the damage that was done, and how it was healed. For some, children vanished, without trace or memory, others' lost fortunes were regained, others' gained fortunes vanished, and the dead once more walked the land, alive, their deaths never having happened....
And so it was that time continued its flow....
