[center][img]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/893273948526108742/895548868941463633/RuinaTokenNormal.png[/img][/center]

[center][h1][i][color=#a6cb99]Ruin[/color] is put to the test[/i][/h1][/center]

[center]Location: The Celestial Palace. 
Interacting with: Iqelis ([@Oraculum]), [b]Literally everyone. Please check the bolded/italic text.[/b]
Mentions: Rosa[/center]
[hr]

It wasn’t too long after her resting period and meeting with The Monarch of All that Ruina found herself wandering The Celestial Palace and contemplating her next test. Through the gift that she had been given she took the time to observe the surface of Galbar and the creation that was taking place upon the blank canvas of a world. The many things being created at once all deserved their proper tests in time, but they all seemed so… Infantile for right now. To test them at this state would be akin to asking a child to lift a boulder. Doable, but not fair.

It was then that Ruina realized that perhaps she was focusing too much upon the surface of Galbar and paid too little heed to the creations that weren’t bound to the surface of the world. Perhaps she needed to look beyond… Closing her eyes to the vision that the artifact provided Ruina glanced upward and, with a few moments of consideration, found the target of her next test: The moon that now hovered around Galbar. With a flick of her tail, Ruina spoke with a divine voice that would reach the ears of all who wished to hear. [color=#a6cb99]”Creator of the moon, your creation shall be tested! Witness now if your creation will crumple or withstand!”[/color]

And with that, Ruina stopped walking in the main plaza of The Celestial palace before pointing upward towards the moon. Red energy began to gather and flow around her, spiraling upwards and gathering into a sphere that began to form just above her hooked fingertip. Soon it would be ready for fly towards the moon and deliver a wrathful blow to the surface to see if the moon would survive or shatter.

A sound of clinking, scraping footsteps approaching from behind momentarily drew the corner of her eye. The gleaming black figure of Iqelis had descended from the loose clouds of haphazard debris still drifting overhead and alighted in a series of leaps, clawed feet leaving gouges in the courtyard’s paving. He drew near, his gaunt shadow sweeping over her before being cast back by the sanguine glow of the coalescing destructive energies, and raised one hand of many to point up at the lunar sphere.

[color=778899]”That cosmic bauble, sister, is the doing of our dear Yudaiel, whose gift is foresight,”[/color] he crackled, [color=778899]”Already her ambition overreaches her bounds. With this toy, she yearns to place herself at the same height of exaltation as the Lord of All Things, perhaps to surpass him. Be sure to show her that the worth of her moon will not carry her that far. Do not hold back in your trial.”[/color]

The sound of an approaching onlooker did not, at first, draw much attention from Ruina. If they were there to observe, then let them observe and not be observed. The test did require keen focus, after all. But then the onlooker spoke, and those words brought a frown to her face. Someone who wished to stoke a personal conflict? That wouldn’t do. That wouldn’t do at all. Lowering her hand, the sphere of raw destructive energy remained unspent, and Ruina turned to affix her gaze upon the speaker.

Ruina’s eyes had taken on an intense glow, likely a byproduct of her holding onto such a magnitude of destructive energy condensed into a small sphere. At first the sphere hovered just beyond her grasp, but after a few moments Ruina reached forward to grasp it firmly. Was she worried about it being stolen, or merely diverting her focus away from keeping it where it was? It was difficult to say. Regardless, after a few moments Ruina would speak and address the onlooker. [color=#a6cb99]”You presume that I hold back in my trials? I will inform you that I do not. Regard the holes in Ao-Yurin’s ocean if you disbelieve me. But I would question something of you, why so eager to see the moon tested? The spectacle of them I cannot and will not deny, but your comments make me think that you have a different motive. If you wish to start a conflict with Yudaiel then I would have no part in it. My duty is to test. Nothing more, nothing less.”[/color]

With that said, Ruina would affix her gaze firmly upon Iqelis to await their answer.

[color=778899]”I would not expect you to care about our discordances of vision,”[/color] the dark god’s dozen arms spread out in nonchalant dismissal, [color=778899]”But this goes beyond any mere feud. There is an order to things. The more a masterwork is exalted by its maker, the harsher must judgement be to ensure its place in creation is deserved. Excellence must be earned. If that trinket is to stand beside the Monarch's own abode, its worthiness of such grandeur can only be proven by the sternest test of all, to exceed even what you have visited upon Galbar. Would you not agree, you who ought to know the ways of trial?"[/color]

As Iqelis began to speak and explain their reasoning for wanting her to do as she usually did Ruina remained silent. She kept a calm face and the orb of destructive power remained firmly grasped in her hand. But as Iqelis asked her if she agreed Ruina gained a distinct feeling of irritation. Iqelis was explaining things that Ruina already knew quite well, and perhaps Ruina needed to remind him that she was the master of the test, not he. [color=#a6cb99]”Listen well to my words Iqelis. I am the master of these tests, and I do not intend to give such a space to anyone else willingly. You stand before me, injecting your own agenda and your own beliefs into [i]my[/i] trials. This I will not be tolerating. I do not care if my tests will make you satisfied in some way by happenstance, but I do not and will never accept a mantel of pawnhood in the games of another. If you’ve an agenda you wish to pursue, pursue it alone or with another. I will have no part of it.”[/color]

As she spoke, Ruina’s face grew hard and her gaze became icy. Iqelis had tried to take command over Ruina’s role in the universe mere moments after she had decided it, and she was having no part of his agenda.

The One God drew himself up, and like a stretching shadow he seemed to grow longer and darker as he did. His faceted eye met her glare with a mocking gleam.

[color=778899]”Little fool,”[/color] he chuckled, the chilly sound of a saw biting into a glacier, [color=778899]”Did you think you ever were anything but a pawn? Since before your miscreated halves began to devour one another, you have been a pebble at the whims of the river of fate. I took pity on you and would have guided you through currents more favourable, but if you want to remain planted in the muck of time until you become one with it, so be it. Do as you will, and mourn when inevitably your designs will turn to dust in your hands.”[/color]

With those words, he stepped back, letting his four arms rest at his sides, but his unreadable stare remained fixed on Ruina - or, rather, the ominous force coalesced in her grasp.

Ruina’s eyes narrowed slightly as Iqelis taunted her. She knew that she wasn’t at full power, and he likely was. But even if she was at full power picking a fight with another god in single combat wasn’t something she was keen on doing. Tapping into the artifact that The Monarch of All had given her, Ruina scanned across Galbar and found a large swath of untouched land right in the middle of the created continents. This would do well enough to hide for a bit while she prepared for the repercussions of what she was about to do.

There was no fighting Iqelis. Not here, not alone. But to merely run wouldn’t do. She needed to be gone promptly. Setting her plan into motion, Ruina crushed the sphere she was holding, regaining the vigor that she had pumped into it and promptly vanished from the palace grounds with little more than a blur denoting her departure.

An instant later Ruina touched down upon the barren ground of the exposed sea floor in the center of the continents. Step one of her plan was complete, but now was the critical second step. Raising two fingers to the space between her eyebrows, Ruina closed her eyes and harnessed her divine connection to the other divine beings, including The Monarch himself, with a critical message. [color=#a6cb99][b][i]”Fellow divines, this is Ruina. I come bearing news which I find important. A god named Iqelis sought to attempt to dominate my plans, and likely intends to try and dominate more given time. I do not trust them, and I would advise caution in dealing with them. Yudaiel, your moon is spared from its test for now. I will not be a pawn in the games of another.”[/i][/b][/color]

Included with this message was a mental image of how Iqelis presented themselves, as well as the memory of how the conversation went so that all could be laid plain for everyone to see. Ruina was not going to willingly fall prey to the great games of another, no matter what they governed.

[hr]

In the Palace's courtyard, a diamantine eye turned to amusedly glance at Galbar's distant surface. It briefly tried to follow where Ruina had landed through the rippling patterns visible only to itself, then abandoned the attempt midway and swung back to the yet unblemished moon.

[color=778899]"How wretched,"[/color] Iqelis mused aloud, one hand moving up to trace an imaginary line along the pale silhouette overhead, [color=778899]"And to think that our would-be Master saw potential in this one, somehow. A poor servant, befitting her blind king!"[/color]

He strode to the spot left vacant by the departed goddess, arms splitting and multiplying as he moved, and when he came to a halt he raised a forest of clawed hands heavenward.

[color=778899]"The cravenness of another will not delay your doom."[/color]

The hands rose and spread like an obsidian flower, funneling the flow of time into a tight stream before leaving it free to burst out in a spreading tide. New scores of shadowy limbs continued to grow the intricacy of the figure, winding the root ever tighter while the mouth blossomed with ever greater force, and then there was a push -

Darkness seemed to sweep over the Palace's grounds for an instant, before rising like a noxious wave and rushing across the immensity of space to the moon, a small and helpless speck of white dimly glimpsed through the surge of gloom. The shadow crashed against it, immaterial yet terrible in might, for the entirety of the pale orb was now quivering and crumbling, its perfect shape coming apart into the primordial disorder into which it was fated to return. For a dreadful moment, it seemed that it was about to come undone. But then the darkness passed, and the moon was full and steady once again; yet, alas, never again beautiful.

Though the hand of doom had not torn her out of the sky, its touch had savagely scarred her face. Great cracks and ragged fissures raked across the once pristine visage, enveloping it in a hideous spiderweb that was all the more glaring against her brightness. Forevermore, the hours of the moon's greatest splendour would also be those of her greatest shame, for at her zenith every eye would behold the tracery of her looming demise etched into her skin as it was into the skein of destiny.

[color=778899]"Let all who see this mark remember the transience of all things, and be humbled as before a monument to mortality."[/color]

With nary another moment's delay, Iqelis leapt away, out of the courtyard and into the darkened Ring, and then he was lost among the stirring colours of the Galbar.

[hider=Summary]
Ruina, after having spoken with The Monarch of All and gotten a gift to look across all of Galbar with ease, is walking out to the main courtyard and contemplating what to test next. With everything being so infantile in creation she’s not sure what to put to a test at the moment, but then she looks away from Galbar and up to the moon and decides to test it. She begins to prep another destructive orb to fire at the moon when she’s interrupted by Iqelis. Iqelis tells her how to do her job, and Ruina tells him that she knows what she’s doing as the inventor of the tests. Iqelis calls her a fool and a pawn and Ruina decides that the best way to play the game is to not play at all. Teleporting to Galbar, Ruina sends a message to literally every god except Iqelis, including The Monarch of All, to not trust Iqelis. She also includes the conversation they had and what Iqelis looks like so people know not to blame Ruina and what to look out for. As Ruina dips out, Iqelis takes it upon himself to scar the moon, and promptly does just that before also leaving for Galbar.
[/hider]


[hider=Vigor]

[b]Ruina[/b]

[u]Starting:[/u] 13

Ruina spent 1 vigor to teleport a great distance instantly, and 1 vigor to send a message to all divine beings, save one.

[u]Ending:[/u] 11.

[b]Iqelis[/b]

[u]Starting:[/u] 16

Spent 4 to mar the moon's surface with a network of cracks and furrows, visible from Galbar on a clear night.

[u]Ending:[/u] 12

[/hider]