Post by avarice on Aug 29, 2005 20:33:43 GMT -5
Name: Avarice
Nicknames: The end-all, dark firebrand, and recently: the demagogue of penitence.
Height: 6’0” exactly
Weight: 180 lbs.
Hair: White
Eyes: Grey
Gender: Male
Race: Appears human.
// Appearance \\
For one of such heritage, a material form is no more than a utility -- a product of one’s own ambitions set against what is demanded of present reality.
On earth, the end-all has assumed a mortal guise to better suit his purposes. It is, however, no more vital to him than the air he vents through him merely for sake of keeping up appearances. This, in fact, turns out to be a recurrent theme. Such that, outwardly, Avarice’s chosen shape is an antithesis unto itself.
He is of a brand both soft and angular, disarming but severe, orthodox yet still so otherworldly -- a vision verily tailored to arouse a deep-seated confusion in whomever may be perceptive enough to take it all in. Those others to whom the entirety of interlaced undertones remains elusive will most often find a single feature strike out to them with more prominence than can be borne, or alternately all the subtle magnetism of a rough diamond among a mound of coal.
Whether beguiled by the blithe smile clouding over sharp features, or affrighted by the rancorous sneer this face crowned with spun streaks of white is equally home to, Avarice is a sight most lesser beings find difficult to pass over. His falcon stare alone has enslaved masses, and while his lean frame strikes a frail impression and his tone is oft soft-spoken, both are tempered of a mighty steel.
Though he is known to don a wide variety of attires, a single distinguishing feature always makes its presence known; an adornment of some sort, be it a pendant, pin or what else have you, host to an exquisite gem that is burnished in eerie black. He totes it as a trophy, for all to see.
Some say, if you peer into it carefully enough, a dark light shines from within.
// Personality \\
Alignment: Neutral Evil
Alignment: Neutral Evil
Appearing from nowhere, as ever he does, he set foot upon the multiverse, displaying a vested interest in the course taken by its inhabitants, particularly that of the raw and destructive creatures that roamed just beyond reality. Though not a Sliver pur sang, he is severed from Gaia by virtue of his extradimensional origins and make-up and thus can be classified as one.
Either way, it’s not as if this could have deterred him from taking charge of the Slivers, fashioning himself an enigmatic, calculating leader – most decidedly unlike what one would expect from the ruthless fiends.
In more than one sense, the way he conducts himself is counterpart to the form he has taken. He is manifest to all manners of emotion; at any given time, his wont can be to methodically stalk through a number of sensations or to erupt all at once with equal comfort. There is little present to narrow down, for distinct lack of patterns or anything other one could typify him by.
What is left to say is only that, even when speaking against himself, there is the unshakable feeling that, above all, he is always in control -- always one step ahead of all else.
// History \\
‘No heart it takes to throb with an anguish of longing, nor voice to echo of remorse’s manifold laments.
Forget you not what forces bind us together, day-bringer….‘
<><><><><>
We speak in the second phase of the sixty-fifth passing of Chronos, teller of time.
Our age is one fraught with uncertainties. Barely upright, one foot hanging limply in the grave, and the other tentatively touching on new, promising shores, we are as yet unable to rid ourselves of this cavernous void that pervades us.
Shadows loom wherever we cast our light.
It is our fate.
<><><><><>
Much there is to be said about my exploits, and yet, very little.
Before the advent of lesser sentience in my system, my only care was over a small host of satellites. A task easily enough performed, as it happened; I had but exert my superior mass and they would follow meekly in elliptical trajectory. Until recently, they were husks of molten rock and, more rarely, gasses. Then, the third began to suffer extensive changes to its climate, and myriad life sprung from the oceans and unto the dirt. The sum of its ecology flourished under my uniform presence. Those that defer to me as Sol, the Sun -- giver of life --, are content with merely my existence. They don’t ask for much else, even as they wither away, generations at a time.
I suppose it can be accredited to ignorance. They don’t know any better. Or is it…. because they can’t know -- they mustn’t know. Never must we meddle in the affairs of satellites, much less the entities that dwell it, so say the elders.
All the stars in the sky swear to their bidding unquestioningly.
It is our edict.
So the matter inevitably leads back to source, bites itself in the tail, and I ask of myself:
Is what I have done, what I could have done?
Certainly, I am not the first to pose that question. In all time, it is cause for much tribulation.
For I have watched, I have waited, and resolutely I have remained.
Silent.
Many are the revolutions that I have drifted along my solemn path, without sleep, without dreams. Galaxies have indeed shaped and reshaped in my waking.
For far too long….
Many have been the ages that the intrusive void of space has peeled at my sweltering skin, my light contesting eternally its dark, as my warmth to its chill -- parallax.
And yet….
However much I have borne witness to, and no matter how greatly I have endured, I can number few -- if any -- sagas as epic as that chronicled under the epigraph ‘Avarice, the scion gestalt’. In the eyes of many, it features as a lexicon to concepts of intrigue, tenacity, and ultimately deviation. I can say, at this point in time, that in me, it has inspired one thing and one alone: the abject fear that it has not yet come to an end.
Still, I do wander from the topic at hand. Now is no time befitting a distrust in apparent closure, for that is yet too far ahead of us. Trust that I will strike upon it, in due time.
What I hereby relate shall begin at a beginning, as all things truly must come to terms with their origins.
<><><><><>
Once there was a people, and I attach to them this genera only for sake of easier reference, for their essence will not brook confinement to whatever classification. Theirs was a grander calling -- a purer conception. And such was their import, the gravity concerned with their being, that they would not suffer the orbit of that which they dwarfed, and defied the drawing of what did them…. if ever there could be such.
Where and how their roots uncoiled, I can not say. When the first of us were but stellar dust collapsing towards a common center, they were there. Before any star ever knew dawn, they were there, carving the very cornerstones of creation in their likeness.
A cycling of seasons measured as nothing to them; they knew the meaning of forever.
Perhaps that is why they ultimately brought about their own destruction.
Let it be known that even minds of cosmic scale can be slowly chipped away by the metronomical swinging of pendulums.
Her name spelled Eon, in the archaic tongue of the oldest. She was hailed as the greatest amongst them, her dominion time itself. But as she wound it about her fingertips, she also felt it her bonded curse. It led her to a haunted hankering for a path to strike from time’s unbending march.
History would come to bethink her journey as ‘the great unhinging’.
Those who lived through it, will only remember it as a tragedy.
In her flight across the universe, the spools of time she left in decided disarray. We could only look on, helpless in our nascent state, as planets were devoured by the ancient terrors she evoked to new life, and whole systems were simply whisked out of the present – to past, future, or utter oblivion.
The universe was hurled into a pandemonium to match her own.
What little remained of its inhabitants made attempts to thwart her, but amounted to little more than their own erasure. For a moment, all the vastness of space grew silent. At the conclusion of which, her brethren finally decided to take matters into their own hands. They confronted her in what would escalate into a war for the ages, waged from one side of the cosmos to another, and fully obliterating every last vestige of resistance from either side remaining.
As the ending drew near, the only forces left extant for light-years in whichever direction, were Eon and one other – the last of her kind, who appeared every bit at the end of his endurance. Though remarkably, she did not strike him down, but listened, carefully, to what words we can only guess at. He must have spoken in golden tones, for she did not lift a finger against him. In stead, she threw apart her arms, and tears flowed freely from her, as he relinquished her feverish seize on time, and all became as normal once more.
I believe what he offered her….. was peace.
He presented her the comfort of nevermore.
We will never truly know, but fact was that she embraced him, this man who called himself Avarice, but who is better known as the savior of our era; she became part of him, and with her all of their race.
And his first exertion of this nigh endless potency -- his first act as the sole embodiment of the ancients’ pantheon, veritably a God incarnate, was to seal himself, and the threat his people had posed, away.
Without a semblance of hesitation, he became Aspex, the eternally bound.
But as great as his sacrifice had been, his hopes to ward the cosmos from all his facets turned to be in vain.
<><><><><>
Epochs passed by as pages turning under the gentle passing of peace’s wind. The hapless survivors of the great unhinging had gradually tended to their wounds, restored their empires, and as it is with such things -- generations coming and going -- most of the universal populace held nothing but the most vague recollections of what had transpired. By now, the stars had grown into a considerable influence, and our senses stretched into all but the most remote of reaches.
Most likely, we were the first to note his coming -- or should I say, his return?
The initial signs to reach us were those of ill portents and bleak omens. They came in many variations, ranging from most inferred to almost absurd. The former was comprised mostly of sightings that would be prelude to the latter. Though we never possessed a complete account of his original appearance, and we did not immediately realize, there could be little confusion; hair of spun silver thread about angular features, stark white skin strung to slender frame, with eyes like sapphires. Also, he would never fail to liken his appearance to that of some fictive idol.
For what reason I am unsure; he needed no such likeness to be replete of a presence beyond most mortals to grasp. And whenever he was met with residents, he would address them with the full extent of his flowery vocabulary, and mannerism both distant and awkwardly amicable. And it did seem that, for the brief moments that he exposed himself so, those who grew from dirt were wont to seek it out at his beckons.
Not once, however, was there any indication of his true power -- nothing at all to implicate him. Yet, wherever he at one point turned up, aberrant occurrences were bound to follow suit. For instance, nations with centuries of armistice between them would with all suddenness encroach on their pacts and dispute until none on one or either side were left alive. By the same token, factions endlessly at war would make peace, and share home and hearth as if bebrothered.
All this, and no motif to divulge from it. If even he had one, it was beyond us by far. Though the matter was slowly and secretly working its way up to our supreme council, our code forbade us to take action directly; the records will state that his partaking of these incidents is too insubstantial, and the level of their effects too minute.
We can not interfere.
It is our edict.
But then, just as we edged towards desperation, the impossible took place, and he came to one of us.
Polaris Alpha.
The young sentinel to my own Earth, possessed of as much gusto as ever, thought to test his mettle with that of this paltry fleshling, who had introduced himself to him an acclaimed legend; now, Aspex. The first avatar of the Polaris dual-star found himself swiftly and summarily humbled. Blanched by the other’s bared might, and unwitting to the recent ongoings surrounding him, Polaris was all-too quick to oblige when Aspex proposed the star’s induction into his fold.
As the startling news of who this being they were observing for this time might be, the council was in a state of upheaval.
Still, after much discussion, they resolved to do nothing.
But by this point, they thought to have in Polaris Alpha the perfect informant, albeit unknowingly, and things took again their course.
At Aspex’s charge, the star scoured the galaxies, seeking out specific targets, and eliminating them. Now, it has been revealed that these creatures, to the very last, were separate parts of the elder God, if in slightly different form -- and in all cases, many times weaker. To Polaris, the legendary savior had divulged these others who shared his countenance were planning to overthrow him, and they had no intention of barring their power.
The most wizened scholars within our host have since subscribed to the theory that Aspex, in order to better contain his power, distributed it among individuals resident to this plane. A theory that agrees with what was disclosed to Polaris.
That is…
Save for one, grave detail; the usurper was none other than the one who, in his deceit, claimed to be Aspex. He was the one who plotted against the original and, in destroying all other vessels to the God’s power, the totality of it was fast being served to him.
Polaris, often seen as the brightest star in the sky, had been played a fool, and all of us with him. However, by some stroke of luck, he uncovered the imposter’s scheme. Enraged, infuriated, and fuming like never afore, the avatar flared for the false God’s last known position, and braved his now exponentially augmented power. It was a hopeless endeavor, and soon Polaris’ outlook seemed limited to his own death.
Much to his fortune, it was then that the council of stars finally decided to intervene. I was elected as one of the many who were to put a full stop to this man’s ambitions.
We laid waste to him with enough force to despoil an entire solar-system, and he laughed. How he laughed. Even mighty Betelgeuse, Epsilon Aurigae, and all of Orion’s belt were as if bothersome gnats before him. He lashed at all who neared him with gouts of dark flame which stopped us dead in our tracks, or shot us radically in everywhich direction. In all truth, our fate was his to decide. And the most frightening thing was that, no matter which way we turned, or how many times our mode of offense was entirely overhauled, he always seemed to predict it perfectly. As if all we did, had done, and could ever hope to do, was playing exactly into his hands. Though we finally stood as a united front against the threat we had left unattended from bud to blossom, there was no hope for victory -- no chance to rectify our mistakes.
Our guardedness had cost us dearly.
There was no hope left for us.
Until…
The most startling sight graced our midst, accompanied with a recollection of bygone days. There was an unfurling of light -- brightness that made all else look pallid in comparison, and had darkness cowering fearfully.
While we shielded our vision, we could not evade the feeling it instilled. I doubt any of us stars would have, were the choice present. All at once, they who felt lost, were safe.
This was no mere apparition. No imposter.
This was the savior.
It might have been a moment, or an eternity, but he was with us, momentarily, declaring only our nemesis’ banishment -- and I can never forget how the words tolled like bells within me, resounding even to this day.
“Avarice….. You are never again to walk this plane.”
And with that, it was over.
….. or so we believed.
<><><><><>
After we at long last mustered our wits about us, we went to evaluate our losses and attend to those in need of care. Polaris was the worst off out of us all, we knew, but as we uncovered his softly pulsing form, we saw his avatar comatose.
Alarmed, all our senses sped across the interstellar causeways, and we were loath to find that the star -- the gigantic sphere of particles that was his true form -- was missing from its regular perch! We had no explanation, but that Avarice had somehow eluded his destruction at the hands of his liege, and escaped with Polaris in tow. Mayhap, he now serves as the source to his power, but that is only conjecture.
My personal persuasion is that it is not too far a jump in logic to assume that everything up to this point was all part of an intricate ploy.
After deliberate debate over countless revolutions, the council has yet to declare a firm assessment of the situation. Even though one of our own is absent, and undoubtedly in a precarious predicament, they are indecisive.
It is not our place to get involved directly.
That is our edict.
And again, this hesitance will invariably be the doom of many.
Will we never learn?
// Powers \\
After his downfall and banishment at the hands of the All-father, Avarice was rendered a mere husk of his former, deific glory. No longer can he challenge the skies or do battle with constellations on even terms. Some say it is fitting, for he was never one to rely on mere might alone. Much rather he takes to the darkness, manipulating and scheming at the basest levels, subtly leading a small, seemingly insignificant piece towards a grander destiny.
By all appearances, he has found a new, albeit lesser, source to draw from the power he wields as such in the jet jewel. Word is that it houses the essence of an inverted star, a truly mighty artifact.
That said, Avarice only truly boasts one power, which is not to say that he is at a disadvantage against those who foster many.
For his is a most impressive gift.
Coupled to a nearly divine spatial awareness, he has the ability to transcend time. The past is unveiled before his penetrating gaze, and forearmed with this knowledge, he can compose a rendition of the future that might be limited, but can be very accurate on a small scale.
The inner workings of this power are beyond mortal comprehension, but it is based on the principle that all particles maintain a record of what once was and, their direction determined by this given, a prediction of what once will be.
This, on itself, is enough to give many an aspirant deity pause, but to reshape the face of time, more is needed. To that end, he employs the enigmatic flame known only as ‘the light of the eclipse.’ Alight, but not afire, this black swath enables him to rewrite the collective memory of reality’s fundamental elements by force. Unlike any before him, he wields it with the utmost precision.
Mountains arise where once they crumbled, as shattered boulders are resurrected to a former glory. Likewise, the tallest structures of man topple as their foundations become sodden, their skeletons brittle. The dead are born again from their ashes, and weapons raised against him turn to raw ores.
The possibilities are endless -- the only limits his imagination, and the extent of his power.
Which means very little at all.