章 1: The Mind of a Dreaming Man
"What are you?" A young man asked, blankly staring at the uncanny, inhuman, and unfathomable creature that gently sat within a plush sofa across from him. He too was seated in a comfortable chair, his leg bouncing up and down, hands tightly woven together in a display of nerves, although his face was nothing but stoic stone. Anxiety was easy to read on the human, a young man dressed in nightclothes; comfortable and loose.
"Opportunity." The creature sat before him stated, the thing's many eyes peering deeply into the man's own crystal blues. The thing forced him to look away, staring into the fathomless depths of white that this endless realm of limbo consisted of. It hurt to stare at one color for so long, burning his color-cones, but it was better than looking at the thing.
The man swallowed, "Well, get to it." He bit out.
The thing made a warbling sound, the young man cringing and regretting speaking out. It was laughing. A tear of blood leaked out of his nose, and he felt something wet on his cheek. 'I'm crying blood,' He distantly thought. No new fear surged within his rapidly beating heart, and instead he mysteriously calmed. He welcomed it, even if he associated it with the unnatural creature manipulating his very mind.
"A deal we present, if you are willing; Mortal." The creature utterly languidly.
The young man waved, urging the thing to get on with it.
"Leave behind this life." It stated, "Grant us your body. Let us in. And in turn, we shall grant you a great many things." The creature chittered in amusement.
The man licked his lips, "There are so many things wrong with that." He muttered, deciding to ignore the immediate moral consequences of taking that deal, and instead thought on trying to figure out where this was going immediately. For that, he thought deeply about what he wanted in this theoretical deal, and it didn't take him long to figure that out. "My family is dead, anything you can do about that?"
"A great many things, but your family is already gone." The creature said softly, falsifying a sense of empathy for the mortal. "Your realm hasn't an afterlife, hasn't a cycle of incarnation; the spirits of the dead simply…cease. I could obtain a copy from another multiverse; practically identical, but they wouldn't be yours."
"Ah." He wondered if it was lying but found he didn't care to verify its words; it either was, or it wasn't, and there was nothing he could do about it if it was. "Why do you want my body?" He asked next, deciding to figure out what exactly he was giving up; and what he could gain.
"A foothold." The creature had brewed for a moment to find those words, likely because the phrase applies to a very human mindset; as does English as a language. "You are a unique mortal. A dreamer, distant of thought, unique of mind and soul. As you sleep, we have established a link, even beyond the borders of your native Universe and its Cluster. An unfathomable distance has your thoughts reached, encountering one such as Us." The creature flared itself out, as if preening its fractal form; an aberration upon reality, and one that had his brain pulsating within his skull. "We dare say it possible for you to hold The Spark, for who else but a Planeswalker could dream such a dream? Your soul would be something of great value for Us, but Negotiating with an available Anchor by bartering with its Soul would circumvent trillions of years of plots in Invading a Virgin Cluster and its associated Multiversal Variants."
"…I'm not even autistic though." The young man muttered, shaking himself from being called special in fancy terms. He met the creature's many eyes and started to debate with himself.
'If there was a big red button that spelled the End of The Universe; would you push it?' The man wondered. 'To damn all of humanity; an unthinkable sin.' The man considered it for all a few seconds, then met the creature's patient gaze with a cavalier apathy of his own.
"What do you offer, creature?"
The thing chittered in excitement. His ears started to bleed, and he began to see colors that weren't real. "Our power is great, unfathomable. The untouched is valuable; we would grant you anything to obtain access to your local multiverse cluster."
'This thing is shit at negotiating. Always downplay how much you want something.' The man thought blankly, 'Maybe it's trying to get me to think that, or maybe its lying about all of this. Maybe, maybe, maybe. On one hand, I hold all the cards, and yet for however much I might believe that; it holds all the power. A game of cards might be won with a royal flush, but a handful of cards won't save you from the gun's barrel hidden under the table.' If he wanted to take this thing's deal, then it'd be best for them both to go on happy and separate paths. A compromise needn't be reached, for that only ends when both parties are grudgingly 'satisfied'.
But for now, negotiations.
"If I'm selling you my body and Uni-, er, Multiverse. I want new ones." The man grimaced, "Preferably a new human body, male, attractive to the opposite sex, physically able, healthy, potentially supernaturally so. And a Multiverse where there are other humans, with me being dropped safely onto a planet that could support human life."
"This is doable. There are many realms where We could establish a brief connection to deposit you. Humanity only exists in realms outside of those We have subsumed into Ourselves, thus it would be a realm outside our Influence. We will attempt to be subtle in your insertion, with our machinations upon your being; others will be unable to divine your connection to this deal." The thing chittered for a moment in thought, "We shall also be obscuring your fate, soul, and mind. Showing connection to one such as Us will hinder you, and this Sin will invite many an enemy to end your life."
The young mortal raised an eyebrow, "Generous." He noted.
"Standard practice for agents of Our will, but your Service goes beyond all others of Our Taint. Apostles, Worshippers, the fervent Zealots. None have granted Us such boons in their service. If you wish for freedom, and no further association, then who are We to argue?" It laughed in horrendous amusement.
The young man frowned briefly, eying the creature in deep thought. Then, another thought crossed his mind, and he nearly cracked into laughter. 'Ah, Kazuma…you brilliant bastard.' He found what he wanted, but he licked his lips. 'What if he could get more?'
The Eldrich creature before him glitched in his sight, before it started to cackle maddingly. "We would call you insane, but that would be hypocritical." The creature stated, its eyes open with great intensity. The man distantly noted it was reading his mind, but once again; it held all the power to do so. What was he going to do about it? He could only do nothing.
The creature continued in its foul speech, ignoring the man's unimpressed and annoyed gaze. "Our patronage is what you desire; and We shall gleefully grant it. No strings, no ifs, ands, or buts. We shall not rebuke Worship, nor the spreading of Our influence; but neither shall we encourage it as recompenses for Our patronage. And what great patronage have you earned!" The Eldritch creature undulated, its from shifting and warping in its utter excitement. Then it halted, freezing its amorphous form, speaking in a more sinister tone. "And yet you desire more."
The man met its frozen form with a deep frown of stubborn grit, an eye popping out of his socket and oozing out into a puddle of unthinkable colors. 'What are you?' He wondered, Wanting to know.
"Greed, such a mortal concept; and yet We feel such an Understanding. For we are Greedy too!"
The man who would sell everything grinned weakly. "Hold your horses," He uttered, a very slight southern drawl escaping his tone, echoes of a past he was giving away for a new chance. A new life. One where he could obtain anything he could ever desire. It was temptation incarnate; it was why he accepted. Yet, whispers in his mind wondered if this was a test. Some cosmic judgement that was testing to see if he was moral and good. But, the temptation, the drive of curiosity, the unknowable becoming known; and all it would take was to forget. To ignore his origins. His world. His nation. His distant relatives, his people, his race, and all life that he was dooming to this creature's machinations across the infinite Multiverse.
'I'll never truly forget.' He noted with apathy, 'Selfishness incarnate, tis' I.' His brief lull in attention snapped back towards the creature.
"And what will you offer to appease this mortal's Greed?" He questioned.
The creature squirmed in thought, "You would be Our Client. Not Cultist, Not Warlock. We would bestow upon ye' Fragments of Our power; sealed without your Shadow. As Our power Manifests through your shades, your shadow becomes the Conduit, pulsating with our energies." The mortal bowed his head as an example echoed throughout this endless realm of Limbo.
A sound of skittering, whispers of truth and reason, the otherworldly colors of fractal unreality; bending times, unthinkable ends and beginnings, horrible natures and the squirming paths of madness. The realm was tainted, his mind screamed in agony, and yet his soul yearned ever more for the Truth he was shown.
"We exist as Outsiders, as Unreality, as Abomination and Abnormality; thus, we cause Aberration. Bending reality, manipulating it as if putty. Probability bends to Our command, shaping, influencing, and inspiring events within the bounds of chance. The marbles of reality bounce to Our twisted minds, enabling the manifestation of phenomena that surpasses conventional understanding of the natural world." The realm of limbo shook, towering mountains of impossible crystal reaching up into the infinite skies, the mortal man's eyes glittering in their grand refraction of unknowable light.
"Our eyes exist on the Outside; glaring in and watching as the Universe weaves its skeins of Fate. We shall grant you perception and clairvoyance to guide and move these forces, skewing them entirely!" It laughed with glee, like an infant child giggling over destroying their sibling's sandcastle.
"If you so desire, embracing our Power into your Physical Shell shall cause you to become a Conduit itself; no longer limited to the amaterial Shadow and Shades. Your pathetic mortal self would normally be incapable of sustaining such power, but a still-human, yet altogether greater entity should easily handle our power's grand potential once we fashion your new shell."
"And such is merely the Patronage you give me." The mortal noted.
"Indeed." The eldritch entity agreed. "To appease your Greed, We shall grant you not one, but Two of our Grand powers. One taking the form of Knowledge. The other, a Title." The Thing giggled madly.
The mortal's last remaining eye popped, and seventeen fingers rose to brush off the residue from his face. "You have my attention." The mortal stated, now blind to an impossible reality.
"The Title is the most powerful that We grant you. Mortal, We are prepared to hand down Wardenship. We ask of you a great responsibility, and grant with it, great power."
"Those tend to come hand in hand." The man noted with a whimsy smile.
"We ask of ye' to become The Master of The Trapezohedron." The creature stated grandly, the mortal's sightless eyes twitching as his mind was bombarded with imagery; of notions so grand and horrible, that even his apathetic state of mild madness was broken to elicit a small grunt of pain.
"Apologies."
"Please, do go on." The wonder in the mortal's voice couldn't be unheard.
"Of great fortitude you are, mortal." The creature complemented idly, "We would've normally sheathed ourselves from your sight, but your lack of initial side effects intrigued Us to your fortitude. While your mind and soul balk and shudder at our presence, The Trapezohedron's Master shall be conceptually immune to mine kin and kine. Your mind shall expand to understand Truth, your soul shall become bulwark, and you shall become Incorruptible."
"This…" The mortal wanted this, even more so than he did becoming the thing's client. "Please, expand." He demanded.
The creature laughed wickedly, "Rejoice, then! You, mortal, have been chosen by The Shining Trapezohedron." And upon its utterance, a grand figment of imagination appeared within the realm, summoned by the creature. "To understand this title, know this; only one upon all creation can exist. The Trapezohedron came unto mine possession when its Holder attempted to seal me within, for the nature of this foul symbol, is that of a prison. I, once a mere Great One beholden to Lord Azathoth, long may he sleep, found through experimentation, entrance into the wider Omniverse. Upon it I have glutted, grown, and the paltry prison that has contained even the most powerful of Great Old Ones, Elder Gods, and Outer Gods alike failed to seal me within."
"And what…are you?" The mortal asked.
The thing was quiet, and his mind was painted with imagery once it spoke. "Once, I was known as Khaos, spawn of Azathoth's Song, Scion of Entropy. That has not changed, merely the scope, the breadth, the scale. Thus, I became Us. Across an infinite number of Multiverses, across an infinite number of Clusters; We, and I, Hunger. The closest representation that you, mortal, would have of Us, would be of figures of great myth. Chaoskampf, Jormungand, Apophis; we are the End, we are Chaos, and we feast on Universes. A delightful feast you bring us; for we feed upon Quantum Possibility, infinite altering paths, time itself, and we glut endlessly. We are the natural end to that which is Infinite, for we have imposed ourselves across all possibilities, and we have thus glutted ourselves on all aspects of the Multiversal Cluster we have access to. We are Chaos, and as Energy seeks Disorder, finding itself in a higher state of Entropy; we are its Arrow."
The mortal's sightless eyes widened, "That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons even death may die." He whispered, seeing again; his memories, burned by that damnable creature, unsure of what they were trying to understand. It was disorder, chaos without end, how profound a creature.
"Indeed. I grant to you this power, this Title of mastery over a Prison of the Eldritch; know it holds no power over the End. Through its power, you shall be capable of summoning its inhabitants into casual reality, bound to your orders, emerging from your Shadow, instilling maddening truth in all those who witness their writhing horrors. Once their orders have been fulfilled, they will retreat upon your Shadow, sealed once again, never free unless you allow it. Your Shadow itself, twisted by the Trapezohedron's power, becomes access to The Prison Realm; a realm of twisting dimensions, ranging from the ninth-hundredth, to the first. You are master of this realm, and if you so desire to force an eighth dimensional being to exist solely upon the third or second dimension; then you are truly a cruel, but worthy, Warden. You may enter your own shadow, controlling time itself, halting your age within the Prison Realm. There, you are Master, God, and Lord; and all within are at your utter command."
"Amazing…" The mortal uttered, wishing once again to have eyes to behold the unthinkable geometry of the Trapezohedron.
"Our own Patronage has its benefits too, Mortal. Our Power can be lent to the creatures within your Prison, empowering them, binding them to your will and mastery over them, and bolstering your dominion over Eldritch forces. Our Patronage shall grant you the chains to which drag your most unruly of cretins out of your shadow and bind them to your will."
Without even taking a moment to feel gratitude for the grand power, the mortal immediately jumped to the next topic, "And the Knowledge?" He asked.
"Eldritch Truth, spoken by the Mortal Tongue. Your words, if you choose to speak in this language, shall alter reality itself. You can speak Gods dead, turn the skies red, or twist a grand soliloquy that which alters the foundational principles of Reality. Skill, practice, and carefully spoken words and intent shall allow you to master this unfathomable ability. Now, I must ask, are you satisfied?"
The mortal chuckled, "Are you?"
The thing laughed, and the mortal's bones cracked and shattered; his flesh split and sundered, the ground fell out beneath him, and his mind shook as it was bombarded by unthinkable sounds of impossible sensation.
"SATISFIED!? NEVER!" The creature roared at the mortal, his shell's flesh flaking out into non-existence. His organs became nothingness under the creature's ire; he was rendered down to his base components, his atomic bonds shattered, the energy being stolen away, his mind froze, and soon all that was left…
Was his soul.
Existing under the ire and glare of an unthinkably powerful Elder Being, one who spat in the faces of The Company, that broke its pathetic 'Tiers' of classifications, one that sundered realities by merely existing, and was the natural bane and predator of any multiversal organization as it consumed the very possibilities they exploited…
And, under its gaze; the soul Sparked.
The realm realigned itself, the instinctual race towards a new realm; away from this creature, halted with hardly an exertion of effort.
The mortal soul that burned with the potential of the Multiverse, a creature that was its favored prey lurking right in front of its maw…
"I'll take the deal…" The mortal's will, not any sound or voice, spoke from the soul-stuff that was arrested in the creature's pensive gaze. "Under a condition." The man's spiritual will grew in strength, glaring back at the predator of possibility and quantum physics.
The beast growled. "What."
"The universes I visit…I will be leaving a trail. I know this, my visiting them, shall bring their doom. Every portal, every realm I enter, your attention shall be on them."
"…Perceptive." The creature grudgingly accepted.
"Temporary amnesty is what I ask. A fridge, emergency rationing; any rationality, any logical reason to not consume them. I want delays of time, billions of years into the future; of my perspective of time, until you decide to track my paths down and feast; each world, each reality, a million years between them. Rations." The soul stuttered out, practically begging the monster. "A single deal, a Virgin Multiversal Cluster, and uncountable numbers to come; for time, and power."
The creature chuffed and contemplated. "Acceptable." And without warning, the creature subsumed the Soul, and went to work.
The man screamed; agony befell him as the searing Trapezohedron was burnt into his soul. His mind expanded, his soul scarred and warped as the uncountable googolplexian Eldritch abominations assaulted their new Warden with begging cries, alluring whispers, and temptations beyond recount. The man screamed as his God reforged his soul, cutting off shedding's of his infinite form spread across all-creation and implanted them in this sparking soul. The man screamed as his mind was widened and forced to understand words and meanings; the Necronomicon, The Scroll of Eibon, and boundless voices entered his stretched mind; culling away that which was unneeded, to make room for the unfathomable complexities of Eldritch Truth.
From this realm of broken limbo, a man was forged.
A skeleton of gleaming white bone formed from nothingness. Unnatural was the bone's tint; a shade too pure, too bright, to be real. Tissue formed around it, tendon and ligament, stretching and binding with vessels of blood and strands of strange muscle; odd was the bloody red color of muscle, odd was the pigment of blood that squirmed with echoes of agony in the veins that writhed as if alive themselves. The shadow of these things was bound with eyes; eyes of the imprisoned creatures residing within the Trapezohedron, watching as the Wyrm of Endings wove a creature that would be their Warden.
They raged with jealous envy. A planswalker's soul, sent dreaming upon the edges of his reality; seen by mere chance. What luck, what providence, they cried! Yet, for the creature who ate such things, who eradicated any concept of Luck, for it was the creature who ate and consumed possibility itself, who was to say this meeting was not planned? Who was to say this meeting was not merely a carefully pruned possibility?
As the skin was woven and bound, as the hair sprouted and was carefully ordered; breath entered newly formed lungs, and eyes of fractal possibility stared up with utter comprehension at the being that was his Patron. There was no more pain, no more misunderstanding; no struggle to comprehend. He didn't see all, just as a mortal man could see the skin of another, so too did he see only the surface-level of this gargantuan creature that swallowed universes whole.
The mortal man gave the slightest bowings of the head, cocking his head as he did so, "Milord, might a greedy mortal ask one more thing of you?"
"Speak." The Wyrm uttered, searching deep, and radiating glee as it possessed the sleeping corpse without soul that was the mortal's former body. The mortal man felt the bond between his old body shatter, stolen, or rather traded to this malevolent creature.
"My soul has been scoured, and I find myself without a name." The man still remembered his life, but his name, many details of his personality; gone to the wind…
His remaking was not kind.
The Wyrm twirled within the infinite realm of limbo, swirling around in its fractal aberrations of reality. A deep groan echoed through the space, pensive and contemplative. "I name you Ebon. May you attribute great meaning to that name, Harbinger of The End."
The mortal-who-wasn't-mortal hummed, mentally tasting the name. "Many thanks, great one." He bowed one more time, "Enjoy your meal, I shan't delay you any longer."
The creature let out a reverberating lull that would've shattered his old soul. The mortal saw stars dying within the infinite fractal counts of aberration spreading through the space of limbo; a sight of such grandiosity, of such scale, no mind should be capable of understanding its scale. But he did. Much like how a craftsman could estimate an inch or foot, so too could he now grasp the unfathomable scales of the Universe. The distances between stars, between galaxies, and between their super-clusters were small within his perspective. The unfathomable speed of Light, unthinkably fast for a creature who experienced it as a constant of the Universe now felt slow to a mortal man who could understand and change such fragile laws of the universe.
The mortal turned his gaze, and with a deep intake of breath, he drew on the slight bit of gifted knowledge that his patron granted him. Its chittering fragment within his shadow whispering to him destinations; of realms and realities that its maw had yet to reach, unable to from divine protections, laws of their respective universes, or wards placed over entire continuums of time and space. These succulent realms were ripe for possibilities, endless as the imagination. They were barred to the creature, protected by multiversal organizations that could delay, halt, or hinder its unstoppable march for eons of time; potentially ripening the universe, or spoiling it.
Ebon took a deep breath, and with a languid sigh, he let himself fall. The chittering creature in his shadow joined him, and he careened into the Blind Eternities.
…
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