La'ridah Avatarim - Part III

Although the second-conscience of Sharil stayed invisible to Calus, it caused deluded suffering to the boy. Controlling his actions under absolute rule, Sharil attempted to break free from the child by breaking him. However, the boy only grew stronger with each attempt and with the help of the Magus, Tiberius Moongazer, he was able to understand the foreign entity within him.

As both Calus and Ganis grew aware of the child that had now become a beacon of sorts, La'ridah attempted to prevent a conspiracy from tearing fragile alliances asunder, only to watch races destroy each other to the brink of extinction. As war rages on throughout the lands, Sharil attempts to contact the boy through his dreams and reveal the land's past age to him. The near-annihilation of the world had happened once before, and it was destined to happen again.

It would happen, whether he would succeed or fail in uniting the lands, for no living creature could possibly prepare for the unforeseen danger looming over them. Despite this known knowledge, La'ridah and his growing band of companions quested to join major cities in hopes of ending a growing conflict.

Through time, Calus managed to find ways to contact the boy and direct him towards the suspected enemy, Ganis of Storms himself. His defeat was the key to unification, according to him. It was his ilk that had destroyed La'ridah's home and his will that continued to threaten the world.

Ultimately encountering the great elder Eonar lord, Ganis relentlessly assaulted the boy with all his strength but to no avail for the boy had grown more powerful. Eventually, he would be sealed within the Dark Core, a fragment of a powerful artifact but not without price. La'ridah's very youth and strength would be sapped, for he did not contain Ganis with proper countermeasure. Sharil could finally break free and take physical form as well, with all of La'ridah's former power. Broken down to be but a mortal man with no spirit nor strength, his hope waned. In a desperate act to destroy Sharil, who he realized to be the invisible threat, he pierced the Dark Core with Aurendil in order to gain strength. Infused with twilight essence of his own, he battled Sharil and defeated her.

For a creature who in the past, acted savagely and scornful to the very existence around him, she now pleaded for mercy, wanting to exist and be free of her former mistress. Granting her compassion, La'ridah ordered her to disappear and pronounced himself to be Calus' new magus and guardian of the land.

"Poor fool. You know so very little of yourself and your mechanistic ways. What is it you want most of all, do you even know?" The lord asked scornfully, a twisted visage upon his face.
"Your destruction, Ganis. For everything you have done to my people. To my father."
"I see the puppeteer has created a masterpiece of a story. Even I did not expect such an outcome. You blame me for your misery then?"
"My misery and the land's conflict, Storm Lord. You are the wheel to it all. A wheel that must never turn again."
"I see she has twisted you well, boy. So be it. If we are to deal with absolutes, our words are but whispers in the dark. But let this be my final warning to you, La'ridah Avatarim- if that is what you have accepted yourself to be." Like an explosion from a spark, Ganis' voice grew to a blinding roar as his very being grew under the guise of black shadow. It filled the chamber to the ceiling, a massive cloak of sheer penumbra, spreading far beyond the walls and surrounding La'ridah in nothing but a black realm of death.
"I have no plans to let this land be rid of me, but should you decide otherwise, you will have to face the consequences of your actions. Do not think me a haggard old man, boy. You face an elder lord of the Eonarii, the very principality of divine power!"
- - - - -
"I had thought my enemy to be him! I was blinded by hatred, and for that I have lost everything and everyone!" He screamed, Aurendil aimed for her very heart.
Pressed against the floor with the tip of the blade at her chest, Sharil silently stared at the withered figure, feeling Aurendil's metal sheen burn away at her life.
"You made me a monster. I was drunk with power! I followed voices and dreams like a madman, and for that, I lost my friends! I lost her!"
"No... no. I was never your enemy, La'ridah. I wanted to be your voice but like you, my heart is torn with rage and anger. I led you astray yes, but not towards this land's demise! Please, you must see that!"
"I cannot trust you."
"Yet I've protected you, despite what you thought of me." She tried to smile, a broken expression of defeat and sorrow conflicting with her ability to do so. "I just want to be left alone, La'ridah."
It seemed those words held enough in them to cause him to lower his sword. As the tip struck the ground, it appeared to release a dark liquid energy unto the floor, flowing back towards the pulsing core behind them.
"You have my mercy, Sharil. But not the freedom you so desire." He turned away towards the black machine and watched as the dark liquid touched the crystalline mechanism and disappeared, absorbed back from where it had come from.
"You will never return here nor speak of this place. You will disappear from these lands and never be seen or heard by me again. Do you understand?"
She stood up and looked at his back silently, backing away slowly anticipating his words of release to turn on her when least expected.
"A difficult bargain, but one I will take, La'ridah. Thank you."

La'ridah Avatarim - Part I

La'ridah of mortal being was born a child- or better said- created as a child, from a single hint of twilight-infused essence of La'ridah of Twilight Being. Forged in the citadel of Tier Shabbeth, Calus attempted to enfuse the essence with that of another Shafiri chosen- Sharil. Realizing that the Eonar, Ganis of Storms, had become a threat to her land, she was unable to face him directly due to ancient pacts.

After the falling of Arcos, Calus was alone once more. Set to finding a second herald, she chose another ancient native of Califran. Locating a lone isle within the southern shard of Facundas Fatum, Calus chose one for her cause. Unlike Arcos who had been formed to her will, Sharil had a sentience of her own- a conscience that Calus hoped would not be tainted, as had been the first of the fallen. Infused with Calus' own essence as one of the Shafirii, Sharil acted as Calus' herald for millenia.

Desperate for a champion that could stop him, she acted with impulse to infuse Sharil with the only remnant of the ancient Aegon, La'ridah. Hoping to empower her chosen with the strength of the Aegon with a promise to allow Sharil to return to her land, Calus acted quickly to fuse the two within the citadel of creation. However, her underestimation of the Aegon remnant led to unanticipated events.

She had not taken to account that her herald had already been infused with the essence of herself- an Eonar. To infuse yet another essence- especially one of greater ascent was to delve into the erratic and unknown. Instead of a familiar herald, Calus found a child- a baby boy at her feet. Sensing Sharil's essence within the child, she attempted to free her herald with a touch, only to fly back in pain, drained of strength and mind.

With what little strength remained, Calus managed to wrap the child with a cloth and set him adrift in the endless sea, pushing him north towards his destined lands. As he grew distant, Calus could no longer sense Sharil, as the child had taken a great deal of strength from her. Lost in the sea from all, the boy continued to float north, until he would land at the shores of Argorath.