31. First Avatar

Avatar.

A word that meant many yet so little things depending on the context. For many mortals, it meant nothing, a vague term used to explain what is not understood by implicating false creation in physical phenomena such as lightning.

But there were exceptions, and that was where the true meaning lay. It was a principle using countless methods for being generally unable to interact with Realspace. A physical representation of their power is in fragments, taking a simplified version of their true form.

I created such things in the war by the hundreds and the same for the others in the pantheon using our blood, bones, and the like as the central piece of sculpture of the highest quality wraithbone that were then blessed and infused with our power.

But their uses had lessened to a point they disappeared with the rising intensity of the war, rendering them obsolete. They couldn't contend with the powerful C'tan remaining and ever-increasing Necron firepower. But at that point, they had served their purpose. They existed only for lesser battles across the cosmos, to thin out the enemies' number and resources with minimal risk to ourselves if it were a trap or something of the like.

And what I desired to do was something of a similar nature; remaining in my prison and plotting by using my followers was shameful, irritating, and unproductive. And I couldn't eat, the absence of the biological requirement to do so not changing my unnatural love for sweets and pastries.

Though what I had in mind wouldn't let me do such frivolous things, first and foremost, I needed a versatile tool capable of stealth, defense, support, fighting, and travel. My little bats could only do so much alone with my guidance through words and visions or even voluntary possession.

Aeldari had more than psychic power, pointy ears, and long lives. They were the sapient mortals race the most attuned to this energy of soul and emotions. It was more. It was a state of existence that let them exist beyond their meat suits.

To put it into simple terms, the Khraves could not craft an Avatar equal to the Aeldari, even if both crafters were of equal talent and experience. It wasn't fair; nurture couldn't beat nature at every step. But that wasn't their fault. You don't judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, more so when the squirrel was artificially biologically engineered to be the most efficient at doing that.

It would have been a waste, to begin with; I could only use a fraction of a fraction of my power outside the bottle due to the limited worship. The many constraints on my person led to a more modest solution tied to the gathering of one of my rings, a key ingredient for what had been made.

If I had more, I could do bigger, but I only had one at this moment, so I did with what was in my claws.

My ring will be my focus, a point for me to project corded strands of telepathy. This will be the core of a puppet, the power source of the Warp itself in its undiluted but purified form. Pure psychic energy for me to mold as I saw fit.

It was a simple puppet, one of two colors, one of brilliant bronze and the other of shining teal, a humanoid with six smooth limbs, sword-like legs, and four tentacled arms. All body parts were malleable into different forms, granting different advantages at the cost of other weaknesses.

The design was heavily inspired by one of my memories from the same game where a monster was akin to my body. The complete name eluded me, but I knew it had a 'd' and 'x.' As such, its name was Danxama, an etymology in Aeldari that would be related to death and memory, meaning the forgotten or the elusive killer.

I was at this very instant piloting it, moving into R'lyeh, the immense city stretching across the range of star systems in a five-dimensional plane intricately tethered to the lower crust of Yuggoth. Its ethereal beauty and ever-moving activities were gone, replaced by an endless void that never ceased to grow the deeper one would get.

And the source of this void was me. The Flask of Sealing was not foolproof, and while it blockaded me, it didn't do so for everything. It was made for me, but its creator died before it was perfected. My awakening had led to this, a dark pressure muting all senses, and each step taken to me became increasingly harder, physically and mentally.

Psychic power and technology will wane and malfunction, landmarks will shift height and direction will change, and time will lose its meaning.

Then, when a certain point is reached, the visitors would find themselves unable to move, and if they decided to do so before this point of no return, they would find themselves lost in the infinite underground citadel.

Though it would be without me guiding them in all cases to reach me, and even then, strength and resilience were required in immense quantities. Only the greatest could hope to come. I could reduce this fog, but it would give the Flask of Sealing time of respite. The seal has weakened in the millennia since my awakening, proving my effort.

In fact, it was going faster than my estimate; still, I didn't count on that to free me any time soon. However, it would let myself use more and more power and authority.

None of this mattered to Danxama. Maybe if it was to get into the Great Council where I lay, but that wasn't the case and I wouldn't be able to use it to open the bottle if I had all the rings. It would just not open; I was forbidden from doing so by design.

I moved the puppet in its speed form, body thinned and head in a recurved star. I advanced within the sunken city and arrived at my objective in under five minutes.

Halting its movement with a thought, all the kinetic energy was pushed in an immense shockwave capable of shattering mountains. Still, to the massive black door of immaculate craftsmanship in front of it, the result was as expected. Nothing, and it wasn't designed to sustain attack. Like most of everything here, it wasn't made with the possibility of enemies penetrating the outer defense.

And this philosophy was spread across all Old Ones' creations. For them, it was an impossibility, and as beings operating by the percentage of success and failure with an unhealthy amount of sycophant pride, their choices were heavily debatable.

The only defense for the Hall of Command was a psychotactile biometric reader requiring the handprints and psychic signature of any Great Old Ones. The problem was that it didn't consider that both could ever be falsified, for all the supposed genius they were lacking.

And so I morphed the hands of Danxama into the one of my sweet and loving mother, twelve digits counting four thumbs, two on each hand and one on each side. Then, I activated a complex illusory spellwork that turned purified psychic essence into mimicking Cthylla's presence.

Runes lit up, and with an earthshaking clack, the doors opened up and down, letting my puppet enter the place that housed the Celestial Wheel. And it had the same security as the door, and I directly took control of it. The device was a multidimensional map combining the Labyrinthine Dimension, Milky Ways, and the old Seas of Souls with the Well of Eternity as the heart and Yuggoth put into evidence.

Pushing my will into it, I reshaped the part about the Sea of Souls, making it roughly up to date with my current knowledge. Three realms appeared corresponding to the contradictory birdbrain, the diseased slug, and the rageful paraplegic, Yuggoth deep into the first.

That was to change today; an invisible energy ripple spread across the ancient planet, and its orbit changed under my command. The final destination was unknown to me, for there was none. From then on, the Wandering Planet was born.

Exiting the Hall of Command, I ordered Danxama to go to the bottom of the city to access and restart the Blackstone Foundry. Though for the latter, I would have to make the Khrave mine the exotic elements necessary, some in blackhole, others in dead stars, and others in the Warp.

There was much to do, and with what I had discovered in the mind of the twisted Aeldari child, there was little time to waste. I would have to forgo discretion in most of what I had planned.

Little were the words that could explain the folly that is the Aeldari Empire falling in. Hedonism, vice, excess of all kinds, senseless violence, and that at all levels of society, there were exceptions, pockets of sanity remaining. Still, they were not the majority, and Eölim was part of the gentler side of the madness.

It was grave, horrifically so. And what I said to Majun was true. It was 'boredom,' but saying only that would be egregious simplification and veiled truth.

After the war was won, the Aeldari were supposed to be guided by both Gods and Old Ones, with my little self being sealed away for future destruction along the line. Of course, because I didn't want to die and was petty, it didn't happen, and the toads died instead, and I still got sealed.

To that point, I didn't see any problem outside of my calculation. The curse aside, I didn't fear one of the Young Races falling; my brothers and sisters were still there as guides. I had been what I would usually think of Isha: too idealistic. I was too human at times.

Eölim was cultured, but she lacked information about a lot of things. However, there was enough to know that Khaine rampaged two times. The first was after my betrayal, and his blind rage was aimed at not only my followers but anything living; the second event was far more recent, dating two million years back, and that date was significant.

For what reason it happened, I didn't know. Still, it appeared to be of a genocidal nature, a classic of his if the records of thousands of worlds with billions of inhabitants being ripped apart to their souls on each was any indication.

My psychotic brother failed, and from then, worship that wasn't in the best of shape already unsurprisingly began to decline further. It also correlated to the reinforcement of the barrier in the Labyrinthine Dimension. I could deduce that it wasn't only to protect Realspace from the Warp but from Khaine's second bloody crusade on our people.

I wasn't surprised or angry, just extremely disappointed. He didn't seem to have changed, only gotten worse. The religion in Aeldari society began its eternal downfall, and the Empire culture, with it, both connected and increased one another in a vicious cycle.

Though there were pockets of reclusive groups that Eölim was aware of, but didn't see purpose in learning more. They were only 'cultists'; as such, I lacked information, but from what I got, it was either Isha, Kurnous, Lileath, or Cegorach, likely the four. There likely were others, like the little groups, trying to connect to me, but for them, I was working on taking them in with the higher castes of Khraves.

The actual danger, however, was that we were made to be powered by the worship of the Aeldari, me less than my brethren, for I had other alternatives.

Worship was a conscious effort, an act that was aimed and filled with deep purpose and meaning. Specific actions and emotions, no matter what will increase our strength, but without a focus it will be nearly meaningless, more so for complex ones.

And those actions were a source of power, and I didn't like to depend on them. It was wavering and could go down faster than it went up. I fear it's the case for the Pantheon, and why Asuryan wasn't acting didn't reassure me. He should know and understand what it means.

Then, the second source of worry, the worship absent meant all those emotions and actions went somewhere else, and most didn't go to Nurgle, Khorne, and Tzeentch; the bulk of the current Aeldari psychic emanation didn't fall into their repertoire of activities.

There were parallels, such as lust for battle and sex or schemes to torture victims and eliminate rivals or diseases for the same reasons, but that stopped there. Most didn't go to them, didn't power them in any meaningful ways.

There was something else, and by the nature of this realm, it could mean anything and nothing at the same time, a paradox without answers, the damage done to the Well of Eternity by the lizard bitch to get my soul only worsening things. Fuck her and her kind. I truly regret not having to make her suffer more.

What was certain was that these emotions went somewhere, fueling something that was hidden, coalescing and growing hidden from my sight. If it was by the three psychic tumors' wills, I couldn't confirm it or by the fourth itself.

The time streams of the Warp were disorganized, and portions of the Warp from sister realities were pouring in so it could both be here and not simultaneously. It would also explain the strength of the three others. There were what they embodied in the Milky Way, but not enough for them to be that strong.

Morai-Heg should be able to tell me more, however. Talking to her would be the hard part if she didn't foresee it to be.

Another point of certainty was that they were at play in what was happening, at least Tzeentch had with the proverbial fourth. Many hints in Eölim mind pointed to indirect external influence. The ephemeral and legendary Dark Muses, for one, she didn't know who or even what they were, but words had spread of their inspirational exploits.

I can't anthropomorphize them, but if change is what Tzeentch wants, then the destruction of the Aeldari Empire and a new brother or sister or whatever new abomination would grant just that. The same was true for the two others; they didn't have sapience in the same way others did, nor free will, but they had desires, their growth, and spread, and would act toward that.

I had lacked knowledge and understanding after my rebirth… My first impression of those 'Chaos Gods' was horrifically wrong. They threatened my existence; they couldn't exist, mustn't exist, and it had become a pressing matter. The damages to reality were a second thought at best.

I wasn't going to watch the psychic cataclysm unfold while twirling my non-existent thumb of my six talons. Risk would need to be taken, a new Master would be crafted under my guidance, and so much more.

Though I wasn't going with haste, I didn't desire to get lost on my path by blinding myself in my hubris.

•••••

Washing upon the sand of a magnificent beach was the pure salty water of a sea that would be called many names but most widely known as the Mediterranean Sea, one of the most prolific basins of Humanity civilization.

Walking upon the sand of such a place was a young female Homo Sapiens barely past her nine Summer. She hummed a melody in an ancient language as she happily hopped alongside the calm waves, the dying lodos wind moving her hair softly.

Her eyes were darting around in search of those strange, funny, and shiny objects from the great depth of the water. They were for her mother, and she was attentively looking for them, and not any of them. She wanted the most beautiful, and she had found the equivalent of five fingers that were in her pouch made of stitched scrap animal hide.

Then her mouth fell agape, and her iris dilated, poking from the moisture sand and unearthed by the calm waves, was the most beautiful object she ever saw. No, it was far beyond beautiful, the golden shine akin to the Sun and the Moon while the blue gemstone encompassed the bewitching beauty of the night sky and ocean.

Falling on her knees, she extended her trembling hand toward the divine artifact, for there was no other explanation. It was a gift of the gods, spirits, and nature in all their grand magnanimousness.

Shakily grabbing it, her breath hitched as if it would break and the wrath of creation on herself and her family. Her heart almost stopped as it shifted to be handled by her, then she gasped, a voice echoed in her mind. The voice of a being above the divine, and it was musical and exquisite to hear, like a heavenly melody.

-Oh, who might you be, little girl, a new older Holder of the Key or a Prophet of the Fall?-

*

My P@treon is up to chap 39 if you are interested.

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