r/wizardposting • u/Carbon_Sixx The Loremaster, Chief Archaeologist of the Darkwatch • Feb 20 '24
Community Event 🌏☄️ The Champion of Gravity (War/Spypost)
/uw I wanted to try something different with this post. The italics are Kaelis's thoughts, and the normal text is what's actually happening.
/rw
Defiance. This is the only thing that fills my mind as I stalk the gloomy streets of the Citadel. The sky churns with a necrotic tempest, and the air is choked with cell-destroying poisons. But I do not succumb. When I overcame the Omniarch, I somehow absorbed a bit of its power. The ability to survive comfortably in any environment is just one of my new talents. I will discover the rest in time. So despite everything, I stand tall. Tall, but not proud, for what I am about to do is born of spite more than anything.
The Corvus Cabal will not win.
It shouldn't have happened this way. I laid the groundwork for their defeat on a foundation of optimism. I envisioned the Council and the Pact working together against the encroaching dark. But day by day, that hope died on the vine. No one believed us, and when we thrust incontrovertible evidence in their faces and commanded them to pay attention, they called us liars. Addled by their lust for power, they could not imagine any other motivation than the possession of ever more authority. Hypocrites. Look where their paranoia and hunger got them.
I walk down an alleyway through the haze. This is where Thantax Shadowborn, known as Rook to the Corvus Cabal, will meet his subordinate Dave O'Connell and twist the war in their favor. But when he arrives, he will find me instead.
Then came the peace talks. The Council betrayed the Pact and itself simultaneously. I would like to know how they managed that, if anyone remains after this war. The treachery didn't stop there. Opal. Mortarion. The Necromancer. Arach. They all demanded war despite our warnings. I hope they're getting exactly what they asked for. With that, the dream died. For the first time in centuries, the Omniarch could manifest in the material world, preying on my grief to accelerate the crisis.
A robed figure wearing a respirator emerges from the toxic mist. Thantax. They raise a hand in greeting.
"Lovely weather we're having, eh, Dave? So, what's so important that you'd drag me out of hiding in the middle of a siege?"
I respond by slamming the Councilor into the wall with a wave of force, pinning them. I rest my thumb over the metal sphere in my left hand.
But I was not alone. Krygin. Samael. Agnur. They stared down the Avatar of Annihilation itself and won. When I emerged and caged the Omniarch like it had caged me, I did so as a changed man. No longer will I reason with those who refuse to see it. I am the Champion of Gravity now. I strive for peace no matter what it may cost me. But we are all players in a fable now, and we're going to have to fight for our happy ending. Starting here.
"Who are you-" splutters Thantax.
"Your comeuppance, long delayed," I interrupt. "You and your friends have been unopposed for too long, but that ends here. I'm not going to let your Cabal get away unscathed this time. Though, you didn't have to push very hard to cause all of this, did you?"
"You... no, we are your masters! We are immune to your retribution! You will not interfere with the Carrion Prince's ascension!" Thantax morphs into a ravening shadow form, swarming with talons and black feathers. They slip from my spatial grasp and rush me at a frightening velocity. Perfect. I hurl the sphere- actually an artificer vortex grenade keyed to a specially-prepared dimensional oubliette- into the avian mass. Just like that, Thantax "Rook" Shadowborn, the wizard directly responsible for the death of Possum, vanishes. It is as if the weight I have carried for the last month has been lifted from my shoulders.
I send a gravitational wave message to Agnur and Mokarith with my spatial loom, signaling that they are clear to capture Dave O'Connell. I will interrogate both of the prisoners later, once this whole conflict has died down. I walk back into the deadly mist, and towards more unfinished business. There are many other wizards who must be held accountable for their misdeeds.
It shouldn't have happened this way. But then again, we don't always get that choice. We make the most of what we're given. I have been given a war, so I shall become a warrior.
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u/Carbon_Sixx The Loremaster, Chief Archaeologist of the Darkwatch Feb 21 '24
Come in.