[center][h1][color=00aeef]Chres[/color] [color=8493ca]The Being of Many Names (A.K.A. Bud)[/color][/h1][/center] Interactions with [@Jerkchicken] [hr] Bud smiled at Jen's comment. [color=8493ca]"My dear Dirty Bastard... wait- I'm sorry. That's right, you go by Jen now.-"[/color] Bud snapped his fingers. A copy of him appeared next to Jen and elbow nudged him on his wounded shoulder. [color=8493ca]"Look at you, switching names on us like that! Taking after your good ol' friend Bud, huh?"[/color] Bud snapped his fingers. The copy disappeared. [color=8493ca]"My dear Jen, if there was an easy answer to this problem, then I would have done it years ago. Alas, fixing myself has proven far more complicated. However, wiping out the cult might be a sure way to start."[/color] Bud said the last sentence more to himself then the others. [color=8493ca]"At one point I thought, that by isolating the cult to their Broken Islands would be enough to starve them of new members. Near the dawn of the current era, the world had turned against the cult and forced them to their current home. Resented by all, they were isolated for many a year. And while their power started to wane, I underestimated the cult's resiliency. "I figured that given time, their great All-Seeing Eye, wouldn't hesitate at the chance to turn its remaining followers into Sightless. It sustains him after all. Keeps him strong. What I didn't expect was his capacity to resist temptation. He resisted the urge to convert all his followers, and allowed them to build families on the isles. Generations of followers. Generations of Sightless. I thought that time would ultimately put an end to the cult. And while it might have eventually ended them, what I didn't expect was for time to turn enemy on me. As millennia passed, the people of Saencila began to forget their hatred of the cult. It started with trade, which turned into visitation, which eventually led to the acceptance of missionaries."[/color] Bud shook his head. [color=8493ca]"No, time doesn't work against the cult. It only makes them stronger."[/color] He looked to Jen. [color=8493ca]"In all honesty I'm not entirely sure how to proceed. It's something I'm still working on."[/color] Chres frowned as he tried to absorb he information Bud presented. There was context missing here. It seem Bud often like to omit context in his explanations. [color=8493ca]"You were spot on though."[/color] Bud continued after moment. A hint of amusement returning to his face. [color=8493ca]"Offerings and prayers won't help me. And as for faith?"[/color] Bud laughed. [color=8493ca]"Faith won't do any of us any good. It sustains neither me nor you."[/color] Chres narrowed his eyes. [color=00aeef]"So then... what does sustain you?"[/color] His attention turned on Chres. An uncomfortable frown appearing on his face. It made Chres uneasy. Bud didn't seem to like this question. [color=8493ca]"You know Chres, perhaps we-."[/color] [color=00aeef]"Answer the question."[/color] Chres pressed. Suspicion filled his voice. Bud shuffled his feet uncomfortably. [color=8493ca]"Your legacy."[/color] He sighed finally. Chres furrowed his brow. Their legacies? [color=8493ca]"The Unspoken Pact. You've heard the Sightless mention this term before."[/color] [color=00aeef]"They call us pactmakers."[/color] Chres nodded hesitantly. [color=8493ca]"Like with the Insight. Throwing in your lot with me comes with... conditions."[/color] [color=00aeef]"What kind of conditions."[/color] Chres asked. His question sounding like a growl. [color=8493ca]"The kind I wish... I didn't have to make."[/color] Bud said reluctantly. Chres stared Bud down. Waiting expectantly. [color=8493ca]"Upon your deaths, I take everything. Everything that you did in life. Everything that you were in life."[/color] Chres' felt his blood go cold. [color=8493ca]"Your names. Your memory. Your experiences. The memories others have of you. I take it all. Your legacies, Chres."[/color] Bud said somberly. [color=8493ca]"Aside from your fellow pactmakers, the world will not remember you... Any of you... Unspoken... forever more..."[/color] Bud hesitated. [color=8493ca]"I-I'm sorry."[/color] Chres felt his heart begin to race. Outrage filling his blood. Sorry? SORRY?! [color=00aeef]"Why?"[/color] Chres felt his voice trembling dangerously. [color=00aeef]"Why are we only hearing of this now?"[/color] Bud looked to Chres almost sorrowfully. [color=8493ca]"Because,"[/color] Bud started, his voice full of shame, [color=8493ca]"as I am right now, without a consistent flow of Pacts, I will die."[/color] [color=00aeef]"YOU will die? YOU?!"[/color] Chres barked out a dry laugh at the irony of the statement. An entity that lived off of the deaths and erasure of other people did so out of fear of his own mortality and erasure from memory. [color=8493ca]"This isn't a pact most would make if they knew the conditions ahead of time."[/color] Bud said. [color=8493ca]"And my death is the last thing you want."[/color] [color=00aeef]"Funny, because right now, your death is very close to my top ten."[/color] For a while, Bud said nothing. [color=8493ca]"If I die now. The entity that is me will vanish, but the power I control will not. It will live on and pass to another. And as of right now, the top candidate for taking my power is one the Sightless worship. Vi'daerus."[/color] Yet again, shadow fell upon the room when the name was spoken. This time though, it was accompanied by a sharp wind that began to blow through the room. Chres looked around, surprised by the sudden wind. [color=8493ca]"Mark my words."[/color] Bud continued. [color=8493ca]"You do not want Vi'daerus as the 'god' of this world."[/color] The room began to shudder with Vi'daerus's name uttered twice in quick succession. The wind began to roar and rage, as the ceiling of the cellar began the creak as if it were being pulled from its hinges. [color=8493ca]"Vi'daerus. The product of my sins."[/color] The winds turned into a cyclone and ripped the ceiling clean off. A red night sky appeared above, with bulbs of light that looked like stars but bigger. The red night sky cracked and shattered. A Sightless white eye appeared from beyond. [color=8493ca]"Speak his name and his eye will fall upon you. Wise, it would be, to fear the Discarded of Sight."[/color] Oily black tendrils shot from the cracks in the sky, reaching for Bud. Chres' mouth opened in awe and fear. Unable to comprehend what he was seeing. [color=8493ca]"Farewell, my friends. Until we meet again."[/color] Bud snapped his fingers as the tendrils rushed for him. The world blurred. Time rushed in on itself. The cellar returned to its normal, non-destroyed, state prior to the Being's appearance. The unseeing eye, he named Vi'daerus, gone. [color=00aeef][i]The Being...[/i][/color] Chres noted that he did not think of him as Bud anymore... Odd as it were, he didn't linger on the thought long. [color=00aeef]"That bastard..."[/color] Chres whispered. Fatigue, pain, anger and hopelessness washed over Chres as he lay on the ground, unable to pull himself to his feet with his broken leg. "Senses... Did we win?" Chres absently heard one of the touch soldiers ask. "We won! We did it! We killed the monster!" The soldiers let out a cheer. As they gathered their wits and set to work on tending to the pactmakers. One even heading back through the tunnel to get help. Chres lay there motionless, not saying a word. As help began to arrived, they tended to the pactmakers and lifted Chres to safety. Still he remained nothing but silent. Broken. He was going to take everything, The Being. His reason for living. His reason for dying. His ability to punish himself and tarnish his own reputation, should he learn that he indeed did deserve death. All of it, The Being has just made meaningless. [i]'You don’t understand.’[/i] His wife's voice rang again. [i]'You don’t understand!’[/i] What? What didn't he understand? The Being had forced Chres' hand. He had but one path left. One outcome to hope for. Learn the truth behind his wife's actions, and pray that what he learned did not justify self punishment. Chres felt his consciousness slip as he was carried away to the army makeshift infirmary. His wounds tended to by touch healers.