ORIGIN

The tunnel was cold. A strange mist was in the air, and stained the bare walls with streaks of condensation. Even the cave lights seemed dim and flickering here. But the Voidseer carried on. Ever so slowly, a 17-foot cobra crawling at the pace of a snail. Even as dew collected on his horns, even as the instincts in his brain urged him to slither away, he kept going. It took him several days to get to this point and he was not turning back. This wasn't just an average tunnel trip, no: it was a pilgrimage. A show of devotion to the goddess he believed saved him. The goddess who, he prayed, will help him get Voidmother back.

The passageway came up just as Sunny described it: a deep, dark hole in the sides of the walls. Voidseer slowly turned down it and was near-immediately drenched in shadow. He kept on going. 'This is what it's supposed to be like. The Void is good,' the snake reaffirmed. The passage kept on going, darker and darker, and he slithered down it for what felt like an eternity. At first it was pure nothingness; then a slight, incomprehensible whispering started up, urging him deeper into the cave like a lure. He kept on going. And then, slowly, all the colors seemed to invert: black became a blinding white, his scales a distorted orange. The not-light poured out from a tiny room opening, revealing to him a pitch black (or was it pure white?) stone beyond. He was here.

The king cobra took a moment to admire it's strange beauty. He tried to think of an analogy, but found that there was nothing like it.

He rested his head, just a bit. A cold mind against cold stone. This was a longer journey than he ever took before, and the gem around his throat begged for a rest. But the altar was still so tantalizing, so the Voidseer reached out with his tail tip and touched it. Felt it's chill (or was it heat?), felt it's sides (or was it fluid, flowing all around him and beyond?) for just a moment.

"Heeelloo, Chaaaaoss," Voidseer hissed, reverence in his voice. "The Vooiidmoother told meee aaabouut yoouuu. Youuur ssuufferiiing." He remembered the snail's disappearance with a pang. He needed this guidance more than ever. "Pleeeasssse, graaaant me yooour wisssdom."

Briefly, he wondered if the shadowy forms in the background were catatonic bodies, entanced by the whispers. But that would be silly.

The cold of the long tunnel was as bitter ice, cutting edges lacing the cold-blooded serpent's travelling body with biting pain. The pilgrimage was not a kind one: it was a test, a trial all its own, to move so far down in the hidden, freezing dark.

Obsidian stars winked against the glint of void-light, a presence here resonating with all that the serpent was. A welcoming grasp, a brief and approving regard.

"A PREFERRED SHAPE," came a sudden whisper--near-silent, yet somehow deafening, engulfing all of the Voidseer's mind. Him. Black smoke plumed up from the altar, seeming to fill the air around--and within--the one once known as Binh. He breathed chaos, he inhaled it, held it in reptilian lungs; cold and painful it filled him, thrashing wild through his veins. Visions were gifted to his consciousness: his mind became a slideshow of war, of chaos, of fighting bodies and twisting dark, of cracking bones and the peerless triumph of savage bloodlust. Nothing could ever be as good as this, as this destruction, as this chaos, as delighting in slithering through ordered ranks and dissolving them with venom and serpentine cunning. Here and there he struck, rows of soldiers turned to crumbling statues all around him, and he above it all, curling higher and higher atop this throne of destruction, his eyes now glowing toxic green, his grin widening... ever-widening...

It was lovely, it was perfect, it was pure, this violence, this entropic black needle threaded through ordered tapestry and unwound to leave it all in tatters.

This was the purpose of this serpent: this was for what Binh--Voidseer--had been made.

A prophet, perhaps; but his forked tongue held a bite of its own. One that he could use... one that he should use... to set the wheels of Chaos churning into motion.

The hidden bite. The frothing poison of concepts, of ideas... How devious they could be.

The smoke receded, Binh's body left exhausted, for a time. He would need to rest: and yet he was newly-empowered.

Urges toward chaos, destruction, and death will now accompany Binh, along with a desire to infiltrate, to corrupt, to manipulate, to destroy, and a pleasure in doing all of these. The Voidseer's dreams will whisper of these things, and visions and whispers of them will twist always at the back of his awareness.

He has gained +3 Corruption from the Dark Altar.

@Voidseer

Well, that was probably a bad decision.

The moment the Voidseer made contact with the Altar, the icy air practically crushing down on him, he heard it. A whisper, and then a roar, jarring his mind and chilling him to the bone. Smoke poured out, poured into his lungs, and the serpent tried to pry away, to look away, but he couldn't. He made the decision to come down here, and now he was dealing with the beast at it's core.

He couldn't hold his breath for long. And when he let up, the smoke brought visions with them, visions of war and bloodshed while his lungs heaved. Of dark battlefields and massacres and bloodshed. It was so twisted, a perversion of all things Voidseer loved but at the same time... he felt happiness. He wanted to bathe in it, to sliter through the battlefields and bask in spilt blood. He was the perfect shape, the perfect vessel with death glinting from his talons. The cobra could bring it all crashing down. He could sit atop a throne of bones to view the carnage and laugh, and laugh, and laugh...

No.

Sunny wouldn't.... Sunny wouldn't be proud of him if he laid waste to the world, would she?

The snail was a good snail. She looked the beast infecting Chaos (at least, how he perceived the smoke before him to be) and said no. She said no to suffering, preached how true chaos was found inside kindness. And here he was, crawling back to their devil the moment she was gone? Welcoming it's corruption the second he was alone? What was he even thinking?

But he couldn't refuse it, either. He wasn't as strong as the Voidmother.

He lingered there for a long time, in limbo. Between the "good chaos" and the "bad chaos". Between supporting his family, and smashing it to the ground. Indecisive.

The smoke slipped away, but Binh stayed, exhausted. Nostrils flaring in a bid for some semblance of fresh air. ".... tthhhannk yooouuu," He wasn't actually that thankful, really, but it's important to be polite to shadow monsters. And with little extra fanfare, the top-heavy cobra dipped his head, turned around, and began the arduous journey back up the tunnel. Still in limbo.

He wasn't going to tell a soul about this.

Exit Voidseer.

Voidseer

Game Master Dark

Voidseer