Ruin eyed Reidy's antics with a mixed bag of amusement and irritation. There was a reason she'd generally left the Sephirot's dealings with him to Binah or Netzah – he'd managed, somehow, to weaponise cheerfulness, combining it with a cheerful disregard for personal space into an altogether unsettling experience that sat uneasily with her. Particularly since, given his self-appointed cause, that simply couldn't be all there was to him. He'd have lasted five minutes, at best.
Surely.
So of course she'd struck back. He was a valuable player – certainly too valuable to PK – and thus her recourse had been to a litany of roleplayed rebuke, playing on the burning simplicity of a righteous angel with little patience for – or understanding of – the shades of grey of the real world. Shades into which Reidy was deeply dipped in the pursuit of his goals, a character made grubby by the metaphysical taint of a thousand shabby deals and scandal-dripping secret accords.
Small wonder, then, that in happier times the other members of the Sephirot had been quick to take up the task of dealing with him – and on the few occasions thereafter when their paths had crossed, the old routine was a comfortable and familiar thing.
That said, though, he wasn't being grumpy or just plain antisocial, which put him ahead of at least some of the players present. Why, exactly, you'd make your way to a player gathering in the last precious minutes of the world and then proceed to spend it grumbling in the corner or shunning other people was a mystery, and one she didn't particularly care to solve.
“I'm not a pinup model,” she protested, and sent a hot-eyed glare flashing at him, red and furious. “And if I find you've turned me into one, I'll come after you with a pair of rusty cleavers. Somehow.”
Even so, the others – and a few favoured NPCs - were getting into such poses as took their own fancies. Not wishing to be left out, or worse, obscured as a mere flash of wing at the back, she rose slightly into the air, behind and above the others, using a few of the purely visual cantrips to send golden light glimmering along the edges of her eight outstretched wings and bringing her intricate halo into better and brighter view. Arms half-stretched out to either side, facing resolutely forward, into the camera and the future, she waited out the long seconds of the contingency, counting down the precious time.
It was important, she felt, in some odd and ill-defined way, to have a record of such moments as this.
At the end, a flash of light released her – and the others – from the varied panoply of poses, and the distinctive ping of something landing in her inventory, more than likely the copy she'd asked for, quickly followed. Casting a glance at the timer on her HUD, she blanched – there wasn't long at all remaining. To any of them.
'I wonder if there'll be fireworks,' came the sudden thought, unbidden. It amused her, and with a smile curving her real lips she asked Grey. “Will there be fireworks? It's not a proper send-off without fireworks.”
@vancexentan, could you tell me a bit more about the head cleric, perchance? I might not use the info immediately, but I'm pretty sure post-shutdown she's going to want to have words with him :) .
Discord can be useful, so I certainly wouldn’t mind one. That said, we’re a fairly small group, so the OOC shouldn’t get too cluttered with people talking at cross-purposes :) .
Also, my sympathies on the jet-lag. Never a fun experience. Where were you flying to/from?
Not really much for me t'reply to :) . Guess we're waiting on Spiritzer to take his screenshot...then we can all go annoy talk to the loners in the corner!
@vancexentan I don't think I did? Unless I've misread your post, Bill is the one talking about the Vampire Edgelords, and therefore the one to whom RuinInRed is replying :) . I just described him as wearing robes and armour because, well, War Mage.
Ruin winced, the icon burning lurid orange between her and Grey. “Yes, I mean Max. Guess there’s not much point in roleplaying now, of all times.” A faint sigh, swallowed by the empty room in the real world. “I’m sorry to hear about his wife. I didn’t know him – outside the game, that is – but he was a good player. And a good roleplayer, too. Please, pass on my best to them both. If I ever find him in another game, it’d be my pleasure to play with him again. The same goes for you as well.”
Her attention was drawn, then, by one of the other players, another high-up in the Empire, a human with the sort of face that people described as ‘craggy’, or possibly ‘weathered’. Bulking large in splendid robes and plate, he was an imposing sight. BigArmedBillster, the tooltip handily told her, although shamefully she’d forgotten, for the moment, his character name. Or perhaps had never known it; she couldn’t recall having played with him before. He clearly knew exactly who she was, though, and something of the storied history of the Sephirot.
“Ha!” In the real world, Ruin’s lips twitched upwards in an involuntary smile, remembering the incidents, even as her avatar remained serenely passive. “Yes, I remember that.” At the time, being pipped to the win had been incredibly frustrating – and costly - but now…
“Personally, I think they were particularly sore losers.” She leaned forward conspiratorially. “We did flood their base of operations with holy water, after all. I’d wanted to use holy syrup, but we had a narrow window of opportunity and I didn’t manage to modify an Infinite Flask in time.” A shrug and a laugh. “Still worth it to see their sallow undead faces, particularly since the lake is still there. I went back earlier,” she explained. Doubtless many other players had been doing their own nostalgia tours in the final days and hours of the game. It had been oddly gratifying to see the sparkling waters of a sanctified lake gleaming in the sunlight, where once a sprawling vampiric lair had blighted the land.
She half-turned at the announcement of the Seven Scythes, a group that had been a thorn – more than a thorn, if she was being truthful; some of the clashes had been legendary - in the side of the Sephirot more than once in the past, almost diametrically opposed in their outlook. Quietly, she thanked the fact that her avatar couldn’t mimic facial expressions. Not that she really held much of a grudge, not now, but the death-and-decay fetish of the undead races had always faintly offended her sensibilities. There was just something slightly unsettlingly morbid about playing a corruption-riddled skeleton.
Still, there were probably people who detested the style of the angels, too, and there was no point in being antagonistic now.
He didn’t seem particularly social, casting an empty-eyed gaze across the room before making a beeline for one of the peripheral chairs, but before she – or anyone else – could offer more than the most perfunctory of greetings, Hurricane Reidy hit. It was a surprise to be grabbed so cavalierly, but this was a guildhall and the last hour to boot; Ruin let herself go the flow in a whirl of wings.
It was even a good idea, a screenshot preserving them forever – or as forever as digital media could get, anyway.
“You might regret it later if you don’t,” she called to Grey. “When you become an ‘old fart’-” the inverted commas dropped neatly around the phrase “-a picture helps keep the memories bright.” Turning towards Reidy – known to her group, of course, as he was to most heteromorph groups of any real longevity; information was power and he’d traded heavily in it – she added: “If you could send me a copy, I’d be grateful.”
The last, fading rays of the sun painted the sky in glory as Ruin coasted through a sea of clouds, the vapour curling away from her glorious and gently-glowing wings. Say what you like about the new hyper-real engines being used in the latest generation of games, Yggdrasil’s had stood the test of time well. Very well indeed, actually. Great barques of cloud blazed crimson with the light of the setting sun, moving with ponderous grace, and, off to the horizon, they darkened into the rich, dusky purple of twilight. Lambent sunlight glittered off the elaborate filigree ornamentation her armoured shell bore across every centimetre of its lustrious surface, golden decorations drawing the eye with every glitter and glow, turning her into a second sun through reflected glory.
Hovering effortlessly, high in the empyrean, Ruin drank it in one last time. There would be other games, other views, but Yggdrasil had been special, and she wanted to burn the memory into her brain. The very brightest stars were just beginning to glimmer into existence as the heavenly Seraph that was her vessel finally banked into a gentle curve, descending in lazy spirals through the glorious final sunset. As she came lower, the sea of clouds parted, revealing the great sweep of the landscape, dotted with tidy farms, bucolic villages, forests and lakes and mysterious ruins.
Most imposing of all, however, and her current destination, were the slender white spires and domes of the Arce Bellum. Immaculate and impressive – so many guild strongholds and old havens for the Sephirot had fallen into disrepair and decay as Yggdrasil aged and withered – and towering over the surrounding lands, it was a testament to the loyalty of its guildmembers through thick and thin. De Ordine Imperii – the Empire of Order – had been one of the first guilds founded, and longevity carried a weight and a respect all of its own. Oh, it had waxed and waned with the tides and seasons, but it had always been there, its brave knights and doughty clerics frequent allies to the Sephirot across many a raid instance and Guild conflict.
Very typical – and admirable – of them to throw their guild party open to everyone. Ruin had spent much of the day, one of her precious morsels of annual leave, revisiting old haunts and old memories, reliving past glories and triumphs, but with the sun low in the west and the time of shutdown drawing near, she felt the need to connect one last time with at least a handful of players, the scant few dedicated – devoted – enough to see the world through to its end.
Gold rang against marble as she touched down, her armoured form gleaming in the abundant light even as she moved with purpose between the twin lines of NPC guards, resplendent in their ornate silver plate. The palace’s imposing double doors were her destination, thrown open for the last party. She did not bother to greet the guild-bound soldiers, just this once; she was here for the real people, this time, and her map pinged a small collection of players up ahead, the air filling with the sound of clinking glasses and the low hum of background conversation as she entered the grand hall. Not much time left, but enough.
Ruin took a moment to drink in the sight, even as the master of ceremonies at the door announced her to the room, in what would have been boomingly stentorian tones. “Morningstar of the Sephirot!”
A splendid setting, if a little modish to her tastes, a little more restrained than her own favoured Belle Epoque, forming the impressive backdrop to a panoply of players rarely seen in one place. Many were guildmembers, of course, looking heroic and youthful and bedecked for the occasion with their finest items, but there were also a scattering of independents. Even a few undead-type players, looking almost comically out of place.
Unthinkable, save for the end of the world.
A faint frisson of shock crackled its electric way up and down her spine as she realized there was only one whom she so much as recognized – Greyedout, or - to be polite and proper - Lord Grey, looking pensive and mechanically eating the sumptuous feast spread before them all on the groaning tables.
Surely it hadn’t been that long since her last visit to the Arce Bellum? Apparently so – the calendar didn’t lie, and the evidence lay before her eyes.
“Good of you to open the doors to us few remaining independents, m’lord,” she said, drawing closer to the paladin. “It’s nice to see the fruits of everyone’s endeavours.” A pause, and a smile emoji hanging in the air between them, Morningstar’s Masque remaining as impassively serene as it always did. Left unsaid was the bitter knowledge that, all too soon, it would be wiped away as if it had never been, a summer mirage living on only in memory.
“Including yours.” Another pause, this one slightly more awkward, and longer. “Is His Majesty not joining the wake?” she asked delicately, unable to find his name in the lists.
Not that that meant he wasn’t present, perhaps just in an area that she, as a non-guildmember, couldn’t see.
A slight and slender creature wrapped entirely in an ornate white and gold metal shell, resplendent with eight shining white wings reaching far behind her, it is clear that Morningstar is not human. The intricate halo glowing behind her close-helmed head provides a further clue, should one be necessary, and golden light spills through the eye-holes of her Masque, as final punctuation. It is just possible to discern that Morningstar is - or prefers to be - female from appearance alone; some subtle shaping of the breastplate and the general impression of her Mask's impassive face are the only visual clues.
Her voice, however, is unusually resonant, particularly given her relatively small stature, rich and clear and undeniably female. It has an odd half-echo to it, and the perceptive might deduce that she uses a minor cantrip to alter the sounds in some way.
Should her armoured skin be broken, damaged enough that it fractures and peels away - or should Morningstar deem it expedient - what lies underneath fits very few people's idea of 'angelic'. The higher Morningstar levelled her racial classes, the more inhuman that inner form became, and now what lies beneath is a twisted mass of pulsing red-raw meat, tortuous purple arteries and organs of indeterminate function throbbing beneath straining membranes, baleful and lidless eyes glaring at everything and nothing, jewelled pins and golden rings driven at random through her flesh...all in all, a far cry from the 'divine' outer shell.
Fighting Style: A powerful angel and sorceress in her own right, Morningstar fights at range whenever possible, raining down divine and arcane fury from afar. A host of lesser angels attend her, sword and shield against enemies trying to close to melee range. She uses blessed items to aid her allies, and does her level best to remain aloof from the fray of combat. Morningstar can frequently be found flying serenely far above the battlefield, coolly choosing her targets whilst her host and her allies engage below.
Strengths: Powerful magic and puissant lesser angels at her command enable her to rain destruction from afar whilst keeping herself safe. As an angel, she bears innate protection from death magic and the forces of corruption, and requires neither food nor air for her continued existence.
Weaknesses: Focusing almost exclusively on arcane annihilation and divine conjury, Morningstar is incapable of using any physical abilities, and as a creature aligned with Law and Order, she takes a great deal of damage from the inimical energies of chaos.
Basic Items: Greater Healing Potions, Lesser Healing Potions, Greater Mana Potions, Lesser Mana Potions, Exchange Box
Name of Item: Sceptre of the Host Rank of Item: Legendary Appearance: A slender ivory field-marshal's baton, impressed with tiny glimmering golden laurel leaves and topped with an exquisite golden angel figure. Description of Item: Morningstar's favourite item, the sceptre bolsters divine authority and has a chance to rip control of enemy angels away from their summoners. The level of angels affected is contingent on the wielder's own, and the levels of their racial classes. Enchantments: Glow (40m, dispels magical darkness), Divine Law (chance to forcibly shift control of enemy angels to the wielder) Class/Racial Restrictions: Seraph (Angel) Downsides of Item: Restricted to angels; it cannot be wielded by mortals. Even then, command of the Host is reserved for the very highest Circle; whilst lesser angels may hold the sceptre, they will receive continuous damage as a rebuke for their hubris.
Name of Item: Distance-Hungry Ring Rank of Item: Legacy Appearance: A slender golden band set with eight burning diamonds Description of Item: The enchantment laid into the foundation of this item drains a portion of the mana purposed to enemy teleportation magics. The functional effect of this leeching is to force a slight delay on enemy teleportation powers, and a second enchantment provides warning to its wearer. Enchantments: Collapsing Distance Drain (five second delay to enemy teleportation powers, both incoming and outgoing), Silent Alarm (warns the wearer of its activation, without alerting anything else) Class/Racial Restrictions: None Downsides of Item: None
Name of Item: Infinite Flask Rank of Item: Low Appearance: An ivory-and-gold pitcher. Description of Item: Even the driest desert holds little fear for a holder of an Infinite Flask. This useful little artifact never empties, providing sweet spring water in perpetuity. Class/Racial Restrictions: None Downsides of Item: None.
Name of Item: Armour of the Herald Rank of Item: Legendary Appearance: A set of elaborate armour, designed to fuse with and modify the naturally-armoured forms of the angels. Morningstar has customised it heavily from its original, rather plain appearance, turning it into a glitteringly ornate riot of gold and white that draws the eye with its intricate filigree-work. Description of Item: The Herald's armour halves the chance that enemy attacks will disrupt its wearer's concentration when summoning angelic forces. It also cuts received physical damage by 20%. Class/Racial Restrictions: Angel/Holy Saint, only Lawful Good characters. Downsides of Item:If it is wielded by anyone other than a lawful Good angel or saint than it is useless.
Name of Item: Masque of the Herald Rank of Item: Low Appearance: Created by Morningstar, the Masque complements the Armour of the Herald. It is shaped in the form of a serene, youthful face in lustrous white and gold, merging seamlessly with Morningstar's armour. Description of Item: The Mask provides Morningstar with a small boost to her charisma. Post-Yggdrasil, this means that the mask replicates facial expressions consonant with her emotions and speech, although it is naturally very clear she is not human. Class/Racial Restrictions: None. Downsides of Item: Not particularly useful to any human or humanoid race.
Name: Call Upon the Second Circle (12/day) Racial Class Specialization: Seraph Effects of Skill: Summons an angel of the Second Circle to the side of the caster. Side Effects of skill: Alignment must be Good. Description of Skill: The side of the angels never fights alone. They may call upon their divine right to summon help to their side. With this skill, the caster is powerful and righteous enough to bring forth Dominions, Virtues and Authorities to aid in their endeavours. The maximum level summonable through use of this skill is 50.
Name: Call Upon the Third Circle (20/day) Racial Class Specialization: Dominion Effects of Skill: Summons an angel of the Third Circle to the side of the caster. Side Effects of skill: Alignment must be Good. Description of Skill: The side of the angels never fights alone. They may call upon their divine right to summon help to their side. With this skill, the caster is powerful and righteous enough to bring forth Angels, Archangels and Principalities to aid in their endeavours. The maximum level summonable through use of this skill is 30.
Name: Retribution Racial Class Specialization: Angel Effects of Skill: Enhances the damage done to evil and undead-type foes and raises allies' defences against evil magic. Side Effects of skill: If the caster is killed or knocked out, the backlash reverses the skill's effect. Alignment must be Good. Description of Skill: The good don't sit idly by whilst evil moves abroad. They prepare to defend, and they prepare to punish.
Name: Gate Job Class Specialization: Archmage Effects of Spell: The spell opens a stable rift in reality itself, joining two far-distant locations together. Side Effects of Spell: None, save for its significant mana cost. Description of Spell: The pinnacle of transportation magic, sitting at the Tenth Tier, Gates are reliable, quick and usable by others, undeterred by lesser disruption attempts, although they come at the cost of considerable magical expenditure – around 10MP.
Name: Water into Wine Racial Class Specialization: Angel Effects of Spell: Turns water into a wine of the caster's choice. Side Effects of Spell: Drunkenness from over-indulgence. Hangovers the next day. Description of Spell: Water into wine is a classical angelic miracle. Time and practice refines the spell, allowing the user to specify the wine's strength, character and vintage. It has no combat application and is part of the Zeroth Tier.
Name: White Lance Job Class Specialization: Wizard Effects of Spell: Conjures a coruscating beam of white light that inflicts Fire and Holy damage on the enemy. Side Effects of Spell: None. Description of Spell: A useful, rapidly-cast spell for killing low-level enemies. It is particularly well-suited to the extermination of the undead. It requires little mana, around 2MP, sitting at the Second Tier.
Name: Creation Job Class Specialization: Archmage Effects of Spell: It is a super-tier spell that could change the terrain itself. In Yggdrasil, it was used to guard against the heat of volcanoes or the cold of freezing lands, reshaping entire landscapes to the caster's will and whim. Side Effects of Spell: If interrupted, the spell goes awry and randomly changes the immediate surrounds, rather than affecting the caster's target or performing to the caster's design. Description of Spell: Powerful and wide-ranging in its effects, Creation has a sixty-second casting time which must not be interrupted. Part of the Super-Tier, at her current level Morningstar may only use it three times a day.
Name: Arcane Aegis (Specific) Job Class Specialization: War Wizard Effects of Spell: Protects the caster or their designated target from the specified weapon(s). Side Effects of Spell: None. Description of Spell: Manifesting as a rippling green dome (if on the ground) or sphere (if airborne), this powerful ward is a shining defence for whatever it is specified against. A Tier Five spell, mundane weapons are easily shattered, although magic weapons of a potency greater than the Aegis will break it instead. They may be layered.
Name: Greater Magic Seal Job Class Specialization: War Wizard Effects of Spell: Three magic circles appear, each one blasting thirty White Lances at the target(s). Side Effects of Spell: None. Description of Spell: Gleaming white magic circles scribe themselves in glittering light, oriented towards the targets, before unleashing a hail of white beams at the enemy. Once their volley has been fired, they dissipate harmlessly. A Tier Three spell.
Name: Panoptic Eye Job Class Specialization: Wizard Effects of Spell: The caster may survey areas far-distant to her current location, or focus on someone or something to which they have a connection. The Eye itself is completely invisible, and may move from its initial position at a rate of 20 miles/hour. Side-Effects of Spell: If disrupted, the Eye cannot be reformed for six hours. Description of Spell: A gleaming silver mirror pops into existence in front of the caster. It reflects distant people and places, and may be moved by the caster. Powerful anti-scrying defences, at a Tier higher than the spell itself cause the mirror to shatter and the Eye to discohere. A Tier Three spell. The Eye will only observe friendly or neutral entities and the area around them; any attempt to force a vision of an enemy results in immediate discoherence.
Name: The Thunder of Heaven Racial Class Specialization: Seraph Effects of Spell: Ten projectiles of incandescent plasma explode forth, splitting into innumerable smaller spheres and arcing to hit far-distant targets, immolating them - and the surrounding terrain - in explosions of solar fire. Side-Effects of Spell: None. Description of Spell: A powerful barrage from heavenly artillery, this spell calls down the thunder of heaven on the caster's enemies.
Name: Hallowed Ground Racial Class Specialization: Principality Effects of Spell: Consecrates an area - land, sea and air - to all that is Holy, Light and Good. Within this area, the dead are granted permanent rest and the undead suffer penalties to their attack, defence and resistances, whilst those fighting on the side of Good are purified and gain bonuses to the resistance and repudiation of all that is Evil, Dark and Undead. The area affected can be up to Level + 10 metres. Side-Effects of Spell: None. Description of Spell: The caster glows with holy light and beams of golden radiance pour out from them, bathing the area to be consecrated in the light of Heaven. This ability may also be used by clerics. Repeated devotary casting of Hallowed Ground, once a week for a year in the same place, renders the effect permanent.
How a normal human would view me: A normal human would feel awe and fear at the resplendent sight, inspiring and inhuman in one. If they saw her inner form, shorn of its glorious shell, then revulsion and disgust would wipe away any awe previously felt.
Personality: Driven and focused, Morningstar can come across as distant and cold. She cares, but her care is a calculating one, focused on institutions and ideals rather than individuals, in the main. Ruin tended to roleplay her as inscrutable, someone as far removed from mortal affairs as mortals are from the doings of ants. Ruin as a player liked to be the finger on the scales, tilting delicate situations one way or another for power, for favours, or perhaps even for her own amusement.
Since the change, in the post-game world, Morningstar has begun to focus more on the immediate and the individual. A modern, educated human's mind in a world more-or-less frozen in medieval stasis, everywhere she looks she sees ways and means of improvement, of the introduction and propagation of good order and safety to offer to friends and allies. She also sees - up close and personal, visceral in a way a game can never be - the darker side of life; the pirates and bandits, the slavers and brigands, all the unpalatable flavours of evil, and is quick to the crusade against these things wherever they rear their head.
Bio/Lore: Outside of the game, Ruin was a corporate engineer, specialising in arcology design and construction. The game provided an escape from her technically-demanding job, and allowed her to indulge her more creative impulses and flights of fancy, free from the spectre of the bottom line that ruled most corporate arcology designs.
An atheist in real life, she chose to be an angel in the game primarily on the basis of aesthetics, but now that the game world has become real, she is beginning to experience an inner conflict between the hard-science of what had once been the real world and the new - to her - forces of faith and divinity. Looking for God - whether to honour or supplant - may become more than a metaphor for her.
Her job was a demanding but very well-paid one, and whilst having less time than some to spend on the game and her character, she compensated for this with the liberal use of cash-only items, bolstering her gains and her powers during the times she was able to devote to the game.
Although angels were Good and Holy, the aberrant exception to most NPCs' revulsion of heteromorphic races, they were still counted amongst that number by the game itself, and thus were prime targets for many other players. Morningstar was no exception, particularly since, during her initial forays into the game, she preferred to play solo.
Angels, however, in particular the lower ranks, were never meant to fight alone, and after several abortive attempts to go solo, Morningstar caved to the game's system and found a small group of nine other angel players, banding together for mutual support - the clan that became known as the Sephirot, after the Judaic concept.
Whilst initially brought together by the hunts against them, the Sephirot members found a shared joy in the roleplaying aspect of the game. To be the divine envoys, the harbingers of light and hope the angels were portrayed as in the game's lore, however, the Sephirot first had to be strong, strong enough to counter the hunts.
Heteromorphs in general had several strategies for surviving in that time, but, like the Nine's Own Goal, the Sephirot focused on strength and knowledge - the one feeding into the other until, collectively, they were a very prickly proposition indeed. It was very hard to kill the Sephirot themselves whilst countering waves of lesser angels and a continual barrage of spells and powerful racial abilities.
The Sephirot never became an official guild, remaining at ten players, resonating nicely with the symbolism of their name and largely preventing factionalisation and splintering. They explored far and wide, and were generous with their coin and their favours in the field of information, holding fast to the belief that knowledge was power.
Over time, the various members specialised; Morningstar became the clan's artillerist, raining down divine and arcane doom from on high, and later their strategist, coordinating the lesser coterie of angels they controlled. Staying true to their roleplaying roots, the Sephirot campaigned as high-level leaders of the angelic Host, frequently in the vanguard against evil events and guilds, but always fading back from the limelight once the job was done - recalled to Heaven, in their own cant.
In truth, their more sporadic style of play was necessitated by their jobs; many of the original Sephirot were skilled employees, their talents in demand. To make up for their lack of playing time, the group was well-known to liberally use cash items, closing the gap and cutting - as much as possible - the wearying grind of levelling, combining this with copious information bought, found or traded into a lethal combination.
Time was the downfall of the Sephirot, and to a lesser extent the advent of the Guild system. Players were promoted in real life, or married, settled down, found other interests and hobbies and slowly drifted away, particularly since the Guilds both reduced the need for defenders of the weak and made outright conflict with many of them unwinnable for a small ten-member clan, stockpile of cash-only items or no. The Sephirot played the game for a long time - since they lacked the numbers to be a side on their own, they became the tipping points, the pressure which tilted events one way or another, but something of the wild freedom of the earlier days had gone and their choices seemed lesser.
Eventually, only Morningstar was left, a solitary Herald where once ten had stood, roaming the empyting worlds of Yggdrasil even unto the final night.
