hey mr ceo, your store manager SUCKS

Helion snarled, a claw gripping its head again, filled with static and anger. "I...GET IT. Its a ROCK." Its head suddenly ripped up, watching where the owl had flown right through the other Collector, and turned to the one it had grabbed with the tentacle. That was the real one. Right there.

"You said you would help me channel a vision I desired - I desire a vision from the Creator, did you not hear my plea?! So WHAT vision do you intend to offer? Speak plainly already!" It pressed its mind forward, towards that one that it had already confirmed to be physical and made to open up his intentions. How much of this was a lie, if any. What vision he intended to show, whether he spoke it or not.

The magic lashed out, connected, and The Collector--winced. He seemed jolted, jarred, as though the blow of magic were a physical thing: one that sent him reeling for a moment.

Yet beneath that, the first thing Helion--no, V-Ruby-One, the pawn, unproven, unworthy--would feel... was power. The Collector was a wellspring of it, as much as--the same as?--a Master of the caves. Why? It roiled there, the creature before Helion growing taller, darker, ominous-

He wasn't lying. There was no sense of it. This was an idle diversion to him. V-Ruby-One-... no, Helion, it was Helion-... wasn't it? This was power but no Creator-... it should not be dwarfed this way--had drawn his interest. Like a great eye swinging to curiously watch.

He wanted to know what would happen.

He did not hate Helion. He did not desire to harm it, even. He was... interested. Curious to see how it would react, given another vision.

Yet he was not lying: this stone was a conduit, but one to madness. The Collector could offer a similar service, but it would be much the same: visions of the roles that ancient Valkhounds had once filled. There would be a shudder here, in the vision, as the Collector tried somehow to abort this before more of a vision was granted; but it came:

ancient creatures, storming a surface fortress soldiers

a monster coiling around a building at night, before bursting through the windows, tearing its inhabitants out through the shattered glass HUNTER

claws slamming down atop a small, imp-like beast, as others scattered, dropping tools OVERSEER

beasts dragging a prisoner between them, throwing him into a cell, a vision of spines and claws overlaid with cruel laughter hound

another seeking, hunting, gathering meat- HOUND

a beast visible as no more than glowing maw and a dozen eyes, prowling along the tramways HOUND!

-and it cut off, as Helion's spell ended. The Collector tipped his head, though the sense of massive size and power remained, a pulsing, oppressive threat. His voice came quiet, but with a thread of menace in it. "I see you have accepted my deal."

Clawed fingers snapped.

The dead owl shot into his hand.

He gestured with his other hand, and the tentacle fell away, withering, seeming almost to... scream. Dead.

"Find me in Canis if you wish to make another."

He turned to go, his impossibly large form sweeping toward the Hole's exit.

The vision had it halted. The sense of power from the Collector shocked it into silence for once and it froze as its will parted the veil and revealed...a Master? No, not a Master - Vargas was a Master, and it knew of who the others were...most of the others. But it was different here. Similar, in power and scale, but it could not be that of a Master...could it?

Its teeth grit as the true vision opened up. And it was more of the same. More of what it had seen from the Black Spire. More clear - it was not a nightmare or a corruption-driven hallucinations, but a vision of ancient times. Valkhounds, Overseers, the soldiers of Rrevalk waging war on alien worlds. The beast gorged on the vision, satisfied itself, but the Helion and the broken thing were quiet, suspicion clouding its mind.

It believed this to be a true vision - that alone had been revealed to it. But now its curiosity was on the Collector himself. Who are you? Oddly, as it pulled out of the vision, as the Collector snapped an end to it, it was quiet, slightly hunched, with almost no aggression left in its expression, something blank and vaguely confused left in its eyes. It stood before the Collector's size without cowering, but something like fear held it back from saying anything else. It simply nodded, glaring as he swept to leave, the claw that had been holding the owl closing tight.

WE DIDN'T GET WHAT WE CAME FOR!! But we got something else. The hellion nodded to itself, wordlessly. It stared at the withered tentacle that was slowly corroding into black oil, and waited for the Collector to fully leave and his presence to disappear from the Hole. A breath was released - one it didn't realize it had been holding - and it collected itself.

A glance at the Altar - how wasteful, then, to come here - and left without another word.

*exit