This Ancient is to never be sold once it is owned. No one is allowed to try and offer any sort of payment for it, if they do offer please refer them to the rules and give them a warning! Once an Ancient belongs to someone it is their's alone, and while comments are appreciated, offering payment is not. Believe me, no one else could offer what these people pay for their Ancients so try to be considerate of one of our main rules!
Commander Shepard wrote:The Story of The Summoner Who Tamed Chaos.
"It was in a battle with the Cutters when we found this Stone. I'm not even sure I remember what brought us into the museum, just that it was the only place we were able to fight. In the struggle, several displays were wrecked, some broken, and when we regrouped somewhere safe we found that someone's Rune dragon had carried the rock with them. It was an unremarkable thing, slate gray with a worn marking that looked like nothing more than a streak of dried mud... or perhaps, blood. It was Thorn who first identified the stone as one that summoned an Ancient Rune dragon. If she was correct, it would be none less than the Ancient of Chaos.
"It was the greatest breakthrough we could have asked for. Our intelligence, at the time, had indicated this foul beast to be the driving force behind the current government upheaval, and now we had a chance to confront it! The only obstacle was its name-- we had many guesses, but no real indication as to what would be right. Worse still, we all seemed to... sense, for lack of a better word, the aura of menace and unknown dread that the stone exuded. Not even Ashlyn could keep the nightmares it inspired away, the only thing we could do to possibly end the fear was try to summon the creature. There were already a few among us bonded to an Ancient though, and even then... no one really wanted to try. It would be summoning the worst of all monsters after all, the embodiment of all madness and uncertainty, and whoever summoned it would be expected to bond with it... if they didn't die of fright or something else beforehand.
"So the stone sat. We continued our raids, trying to save as many as possible, but the unrest simply grew and grew. Even with the great Ancients we had on our side, it wasn't enough to undo everything; and there was the distinct risk that it would all start up again."
Gabriella sighed, closing the journal she had been writing in. She looked over at her bag, where the Chaos stone sat amongst her tools and the other things she had gathered over time. For the past few nights she'd kept it beside her in order to try and give the others some peace and rest. And... oddly enough, it helped her think. The more she focused on the dread that came from the stone, the more she could... identify it. It was that same dread that came with any new undertaking, the same dread she had felt back when entering the forest for the first time, when she jumped into the fight to help Adrian... and had she not conquered those fears, for the greater good?
Perhaps it was simply the lack of sleep getting to her, but in that moment, Gabriella's fear gave way to a resolute determination. Someone had to at least try ending this, right? She wanted peace, there was a possible way to get that peace, so why was she just letting it sit there? Even if she failed to summon the beast, she could at least show some courage and try! Without another thought, Gabby dumped the bag and snatched up the stone, holding it so tightly her knuckles grew white with the tension. The woman silently crept out of the cottage and stood alone outside. Things were calm, the air still and the trees standing tall and strong in the moonlight, there was barely even a cloud to darken the stars.
Gabriella closed her eyes, holding the stone to her chest as she ran through every name she had ever heard for this creature. Chaos, Hubris, Unknown, Pandora, Discord, so many more... but she kept finding herself coming back to one name.
"Nyarlathotep! I demand you show yourself, I summon you to answer for your heinous actions!" she shouted, raising her head and staring up at the sky. For several long moments, nothing happened. Not even a breath of wind to stir the leaves, the stone was unchanged, and Gabriella simply felt like a fool. But then... then, the world simply vanished, crumbled away and swallowed up in a great, silent void. That silence was broken moments later though, by what sounded like a thousand voices in one, echoing and surrounding her yet so soft and close, it could simply be a whisper in her ear.
"You demand my presence, girl? Then you shall have it!"
In that moment, as if from some unseen doorway, the Ancient of Chaos appeared; his enormous body casting a dull, blood-red glow. He seemed at once solid and gaseous, the back of his neck and tail barely more than wisps of matter flickering in and out of existence. He fixed his great yellow eyes on Gabriella's dark ones, his lips drawn back in a snarl.
"Well, human? Will you speak? Or did you summon me just to waste your time?" the dragon said in that thousand-fold voice. Gabriella simply stood (floated? Nothing felt solid, yet she felt upright...) there, her heart in her throat and her mind stunned by the creature's presence. After only seconds-- or perhaps minutes, hours, years-- she found her voice and finally managed to stammer out one word.
"Why?!"
The Ancient gave a low snort, striding closer to Gabriella and seeming to shrink with every step, until he stood right in front of her, eyes level with hers.
"Why what??"
"Why this... war? This pain and suffering? You're a creature of magic, aren't you? Why would you demand to have it purged, why would you make Runes and humans suffer like this?"
"Suffer?" Nyarlathotep said in a harsh, grating tone that Gabriella eventually realized was a laugh. "Perhaps it is suffering, to you... but you are mortal. A human. A young human, how could you even dream of understanding the nature of the universe?"
"Try me," Gabriella said, crossing her arms.
bar
The Ancient seemed to flicker, and in an instant took the form of a small child, no more than eight or nine, with fair skin and scruffy red hair. "I exist in all time and space. I see all worlds, all galaxies, all at once and what do I see? Stagnation. What you call stability, I and my kind know only was waste. No growth, no change, nothing but a waste of the universe's energy and matter."
"We're a waste just because we want to survive?" she said coldly.
"No. It is only a waste when there is no change. Tell me girl, how has your kind advanced in the past year? The past ten, twenty, hundred? Barely at all! There are worlds younger than yours who have accepted my presence and they have reached the stars, while you have only just mastered zeppelins." The Ancient flickered again as he spoke, becoming something that seemed like a mockery of her bonded Rune, Adrian, though he seemed more red and with only a broken star on his wings.
"So? We were happy! We were thriving, there was peace, there was--"
"Nothing!" Nyarlathotep roared, returning to his initial shape, towering above Gabriella, who cowered at the multitude of enraged voices. "You have not even explored your entire planet, barely explored your continent! You grew complacent, content with mediocrity and it all came back to the bond. Magic was supposed to be our gift to your world, the world we favored above all others, and what do you do with it? Waste it. In a thousand years you have barely changed, and it was high time I fixed that."
"Y... so you break our bonds? Do you know what that does to people? You've let so many die or become broken and soulless, is that really the change you wanted? How is that supposed to make things better?" Gabriella said in a challenging tone. To her surprise, the Ancient shifted again, taking the form of an olive-skinned man with dark hair. Stranger still, he wore an expression of... regret? Sorrow?
"I never said I would make things 'better', certainly not in your terms," he said, the voices little more than a whisper. "But yes, this is the change I wanted. You relied too much on magic, on the bond between humans and Runes. I do not enjoy seeing my young kin in such pain, but that is the only way sometimes," he said, fixing Gabriella with a cold stare. "Think for a moment. What would happen if nothing changed? If you continued at your snail's pace? Think if there was no death, no disaster or hardship... what would life be?"
Gabriella opened her mouth to speak, but at those last words, a thought entered her mind. Her first instinct was to respond with 'perfect'- no death, no suffering, it would be paradise! There would be peace and love and...
And what more? Would it be so perfect, if it were all the time? Yes, it... it hurt to imagine loved ones dying, to be left alone. But then there were the good times, all the better because of what one had to overcome in order to reach them. She looked back up at Nyarlathotep, who wore a cold smile.
"Perhaps you're smarter than I gave you credit for," he said softly. "There is also the matter of you summoning me-- in all of time and space, you are the first to have ever been courageous enough to call upon me. I have seen this stone fall into many hands, some who even knew my name, but they never summoned me. Why did you?"
"I want to see this fighting end," Gabriella said. "I don't want to see anyone else shattered. I don't want to see others die or be hurt and lost..."
"And that was worth the risk?" he asked. "I could kill you. Erase your existence from all time and space if I wanted, go change things so you were never born. You could have gone mad just from seeing me... yet you still summoned me."
"I didn't-- I don't-- care. What's one person's fate weighed against that of the rest of the world?"
The Ancient returned to his normal shape, walking around Gabriella though it seemed as if his head never moved. "You wish this to end so badly?" he said, a cold smile forming on his snout. "I can't undo what I've already done... but I can stop it from growing too much worse. The cost will be... great, though."
"I don't care. If you can stop this, then I'll do whatever you want!"
The Ancient smirked, coiling his tail around Gabriella's arm. "Then you shall be mine. I grow tired of having to try and direct my presence into the mortal realm. You will be my... avatar, shall we say. My emissary to any world grown too complacent and tired. You will commit countless atrocities through countless worlds and times... but you will understand, in time. It is a necessity."
Gabriella paled and began to tremble slightly, but she had come too far to give up now. "I... ... if that's what it takes," she whispered.
The Ancient growled and squeezed her arm. Gabriella screamed with pain, her entire body feeling as if it were on fire, and she had no idea how long it was until it finally began to fade. She looked at her arm, and through her tears, saw the jagged red mark of his Rune on her left shoulder, the rest of her arm covered in a trailing red mark similar to the one on his right foreleg. A second wave of pain coursed through her, one that hurt even worse and brought the woman to her knees, so powerful she couldn't even begin to cry. It felt as if her soul were being torn in two, and for a moment, she felt hollow and empty, and her mind flashed to those poor people cut away from their bonded Runes. Slowly though, very slowly, that pain faded, the hollowness filled with a new presence and with that, she finally broke down and sobbed. The void faded, and though it would take some time for her to notice, Gabriella was outside of the cottage once more. The sun began to rise, and as her sobbing finally started end, she heard a voice in the back of her mind.
"I am not without mercy though, my dear. Your existence will not be an easy one, not by any means... but why would I curse you with being static, like my brother did with poor dear Thorn? True, when I call you by my side, you will remember. You will know every moment of every life you will lead, every war and death and horror and beauty you cause for my will.
"But I can promise you this-- you will never be alone. My voice will guide you, will direct you to your purpose... but you will not remember your old lives then. You will be countless people under countless names. You will live as man, woman, child, dragon, aliens the likes of which you could never in a thousand years dream! You will know pain and suffering the likes of which no one else ever will, yes... but I can promise, you will also know that level of comfort and love. You will live."
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.:Summoner's Name:.
Commander Shepard
.:Ancient's 'True' Name:.
~
.:Gender:.
Male
Commander Shepard
.:Ancient's 'True' Name:.
~
.:Gender:.
Male
