#nadath

[actualaster]

Interestingly, Nadath was a trial run in more than one way.

First, in incarnation the kind of power needed to combat demons into a mortal form to hide from detection. It worked, the demon attack was coincidental, but it worked.

Second, as a trial run for creating an antidote to demonic poison that would become part of the normal order of the world, like how demons were created in an age long past by dark magic gone awry.

Powerful entities were over the millenia born into mortal form and ascended to become as gods.

But, sadly, all they could do was wipe out the current taint rather than change the nature of the world back the way it was.

And, in a way, that's what Hope became--the living incarnation of a new force of nature, a balance to demons. Demons may never be able to be eradicated but no longer would the cycle of darkness and salvation only to fall once more be the way of things.

Nadath was the first attempt, and though it was a failure it set the stage for much that came later.

[actualaster]

I like connecting things, and one such thing that amuses me is the link between Nadath and Atos.

Nadath died many years before Taso, who was the human incarnation of the soul of the world itself, was even born.

She died wiping out a horde of demons that destroyed her village, because she needed to protect an old man who alone held knowledge of the ancient legends--knowledge that could one day lead to the destruction of the great incarnation of evil that brought despair and ruination to all the world.

She was gravely wounded by a demon she well knew, one who lost his humanity years before and fled even as the curse of corruption consumed him. He had been her father and was poisoned while defender her and her mother.

Already gravely wounded, she reached for the thing that came to her in dreams and who's name she never remembered upon waking, calling it to her from the depth of her soul--and awakening as a powerful force of the world, a dragon: one of those rare beings revered as gods, the last of which had given their lives 5000 years ago to seal the evil away, though the seal had eventually worn thin and shattered.

Her burning gold and silver flames consumed her foes--those demons that were born of the darkness within human hearts were destroyed and those who were mortals warped and twisted were purified.

But she wasn't able to master that power, and none survived the purification. She herself died not long after, having pushed far beyond what her mind and body could endure in desperation. Had it been a few years, or possibly even months, later she may have survived. But forcing her Awakening before it's time was too much.

Years later, when Taso struck down the incarnation of evil and the remaining demons were purified, her father regained himself--but would remain haunted by the memories of his actions as a demon.

Unable to reconcile his guilt with the reality that he had not been in control of what had happened, he turned the blame to others--to Taso for not being incarnated sooner and stopping the demons before. (The blame truly rested with those who worked the dark magic that spawned them and changed the world forevermore from that night onwards, but they were millennia dead and out of reach of revenge...)

And so he slipped back into the grasp of demons, to a degree--he kept himself but made deals for their power. And sought Taso out.

Then, in retribution for a crime of which Taso was innocent, he struck him down.

The core of his power and soul was retrieved by his closest friend and most loyal subordinate, Zu'miru, and was taken away.

Zu forced an improper revival in the hope that the usual troubles such causes would mask his true identity, and as a result gave the name "Atos" to the amnesiac god, upon his resurrection.

And that man led the forces that sought to destroy the gods.

The seeds for the second arc were sown even before the first began, because connections like that are very fun~

[actualaster]