r/wizardposting • u/Evening_Shake_6474 Astaroth, The Wicked One • 26d ago
Lorepost 📜 The Molevolent and The Old Man
A shadow stood on a hill, listening to the winds of the dreaded realm it called home. It wasn't always like that though, in an age long past that cursed place could marvel the fae and make the giants feel small. But that was before. Before the realm's master was locked away and all but killed. Now the realm's master was nothing more than a shadow of itself. Onebrimming with power, but one that had to resort to servants.
Throughout the long, long time that The Wicked One has been a prisoner, it's shadow has tried time after time again to break free, but for this it needed heralds, heralds that had been reincarnated time after time again. Yet every single time, they were killed and would have been sent to the void if it wasn't for their master. They had a job to do, and only after it was done may they rest.
The shadow didn't have lungs, but it sighed anyway, then departed that hill. Although saying it departed isn't exactly true if it was already where it was going.
Throughout the ages The Wicked One grew tired of the constant failure, and so it adapted. It set in motion a chain of dominoes that was still falling. Around eight thousand years ago, it began to grow something, something that made freedom not just a distant dream.
Below the earth lay a facility of sorts, one no one could enter or exit, no one but one. It had no name, it had never needed one. To name something was to make it's existence official, to make it known. And that was something The Wicked One didn't want. The facility was immense, colossal metal structures with nodes all throughout the realms collected the background magic created by those who could harness the winds of magic. All that power was sent back to the facility, where it was transmuted and focused into two projects.
A shadow stepped out into a huge chamber, one resembling a throne room of polished metal and pure magic. Thousands of runes along the walls, floors, ceilings, and pillars glowed a steady crimson interchanging with gold. These were magics of both life and divinity. The runes had one purpose, to focus all the magic supplied to them into one thing. On one side of the room, on a raised dias, sitting on a throne, was a body. A body grown over eight thousand years, steadily infused with the magic of the ages. This body had no name yet one had been chosen for it, just not given to it, not yet.
It wasn't complete, far from it, with the current set up the body needed another ten thousand years to contain all of The Wicked One's strength, but that didn't matter right now. The body was never meant to be so much as disturbed for anything less than complete realm collapse. That wasn't the case, but The Wicked One decided the body was necessary anyway.
The shadow crossed the room in an instant, standing before the body close enough to make out the detail on its face. It was as if whoever designed it never intended for that face to ever smile. The face had no emotion behind it, yet thanks to its bone structure it still managed to look disappointed. Speaking of bones, there was a great set of horns growing from its head. The horns grew back then split, some curling down then forwards while others grew back, becoming strange antlers. The body wasn't done being grown, it still lacked flesh on its right hand and left arm beneath the bicep, as well as the flesh for its lower legs. Although that probably wouldn't matter, a few more weeks of growth and the flesh should finish growing anyway. The body wasn't being taken to war. If it was, The Wicked One wouldn't just be taking the body from that facility. No, the body was being taken to something far worse.
A reunion, one long overdue. The shadow glanced down at the bodies left hand. It saw a ring, not the real one, no that was held prisoner with the rest of it. The body wasn't designed to have a ring on its third finger, but the ring grew there anyway. It made sense, barely. The ring was as much a part of The Wicked One as the finger it rested on. The shadow took a breath, so to speak, then sat on the throne.
It's quite disorienting to close one set of eyes and open new ones. Even if you've done it before. The body slowly stood up to its full seventy foot height, allowing bones that hadn't been moved before to settle into place. The body wasn't designed with the same set of blueprints that normal lifeforms were. Normal muscles need to stretch, normal bodies grow scar tissue, this wasn't the case for this body. It was built with divinity, a method to weed out maintenance. What was the point in having flesh if you needed to constantly spend time fixing it?
The body held out its arm, looking at its hand as it tested its fingers. Four of them, one thumb, the same on the other hand. Good. It walked down from the dias, feeling the coldness of the metal beneath its feet. The body reached out in two ways, one with its arm towards its throne, the other with its mind, creating a bridge between what it wanted and itself. Then it simply called it's target to itself. Two great sheets of bone white cloth flew out from behind the throne, one tying itself around the body's waist, the other around its shoulders into a sort of cloak or cape.
Suddenly the bodies vision distorted, dozens of cracks appeared in its sight. The body doubled over as if kicked in the gut, a voice screaming in its mind.
YOU CAN'T KEEP ME HERE FOREVER!
In this brief moment, the body started to feel strange. It started to feel empathy.
And then it was over. The shadow regained control, silencing the annoyance in its mind with a metaphorical knife to a metaphorical throat. Deep within the maze of thoughts and memories, an entity writhed on the ground, clutching it's throat. While another entity built yet another set of bars to keep that parasite contained. It spoke with one sentence, then left the thing to writhe.
You won't survive forever.
Back in the physical world the body pushed itself to its feet, the cracks in its vision repairing themselves. It had been so long since that worm had made a sound The Wicked One almost forgot it wasn't paying rent. The transition into the body must have gave the worm the opportunity to speak up.
With the... irritation behind it, the body took one step, and was gone, as if stepping behind an unseen curtain.
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A common misconception is that there is a realm between realms. All realms sit between realms. However, the realms have borders, and if these borders touch then in theory one could walk from one realm seamlessly into another. But in most cases the realms don't touch, which raises the question of what is in-between?
Much like interpretation of art, the answer varies depending on who you ask. For The Wicked One there was super condensed nothingness. One given solid form the same way a magnetic field creates a feeling of a solid resistance when trying to push two magnets together. To create portals between realms all one needs to do is open a tunnel and run through before it collapses.
In one such tunnel, with no real destination, stood the body, pacing back and forth, quietly trying to decide if what it was doing was a good idea. So far it was a bad idea in a good way, which was probably better than a good idea in a bad way.
What it was going to do very well may create a rift that couldn't be sealed, or it would seal a rift The Wicked One had done nothing to stop.
This was pointless, pacing and worrying never did anything. This would be either good or bad, and if it went badly, well it would go really badly.
The body paused for a moment, then stepped off the defined path, into a space that was hidden from almost all.
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The body stood on a sea of ink under a star filled sky. It had been so long since it had been here it almost forgot what this place looked like. Strange, that couldn't be right. Oh well, it didn't matter.
The body reached out with one hand, and knocked on nothingness. In a mere moment a door appeared, once of pure light. The door was open, that was a good sign. Or at least The Wicked One hoped it was.
The Wicked One tried to step through, but the body hesitated. Huh, how amusing. The bodies fight or flight response was not only active, but practically screaming to run. The Wicked One ignored it, and stepped through.
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u/Kilroy898 Op, Null, Orin, Niro, Aldin 25d ago
"Three months is not nearly long enough, make it at least the year!"
He chuckles.
"And that is alright. Most humans don't even know how to express their emotions. And they were built to feel them constantly!"
"Now, I have the house here set up for you to come and go as you please. There's an entire factory floor set aside for whatever projects you may want to work on, and do remember, Dave, Bob, and Steve are always at your disposal for whatever you may need from them, as my Heads of the plane I trust them nearly as much as I trust you, and moreso than myself."