The Apokolipz has Returned...For many weeks, months, the Apokolipz had been missing from the eyes of his Housemates. During this time, some of them had heard the stories of bloodshed that filtered throughout Neriak. Guards, assassins, even one of the Lodge?s masters had been accosted, yet would claim nothing. Most of Neriak?s dwellers did not make the connection; in fact, only few really would. And then, there were the horrors found throughout Norrath. Grizzly massacres of flesh and blood where once dwelled small villages and communities of the light-lovers, random victims of death who were unfortunate enough to fall into the notice of Innoruuk?s Chosen. The Karanas, Greater Feydark, Firiona Vie, Butcherblock, Misty Thicket... all felt the chaotic wrath of Death... all left as ashes and stains on the earth, examples to those who would think themselves safe in their light dwelling world...
The Apokolipz drifted in and out of his subconscious, his keen mind filtering through all of his newfound memories, searching them for any information he may have missed. The King and Queen assassinated his parents, he knew that. The assassin?s soul spoke much of it after his death, and Ambassador Rylan wisely explained all he knew rather than die to the hands of the Apokolipz. It seemed that Vladdik?s parents had both stumbled upon a plot, one that would rip apart the already unstable factions that ruled the city. A plot that even the Apokolipz almost finished.
His father was an officer in the Indigo Brotherhood; his mother was a necromancer in the Lodge of the Dead. These two organizations have never gotten along well for one major reason: the King of Neriak, Naythox Thex, is leader of the Indigo Brotherhood and the Queen, Cristianos Thex, rules the Lodge of the Dead... they are constantly trying to have each other assassinated so that the other would have total control of the city. Vladdik?s parents stumbled across one of these assassination attempts. Oddly, it was not by one or the other, but by the ruler of the cleric guild, Perrir Zexus, who was supposedly sworn and loyal to the King and also tied to the Queen through religion. This was during the time that Innoruuk had turned from the Teir?Dal and created another race on a distant shore. The Arch Priest knew that the King and Queen were part of the problem.
Vladdik's mother decided to warn the Queen, and his father warned the King. Each, the King and Queen, decided to prepare for the assassination attempt, but not to stop it from affecting the other, so the Queen protected herself but not the King and visa-versa. After the attempt totally failed, only the King, Queen, and Arch Priest Perrir Zexus knew about the attempts... well, and Vladdik's parents. Considering that they found out about it, from some means yet unknown, then they were somehow deemed a threat to the political system of Neriak, for they knew of a failed power struggle by the supposedly neutral priests of Innoruuk. In the aftermath, all seemed unchanged in Neriak's hierarchy of the 3 guilds, and the power is still publicly divided equally between the King and Queen, but Vladdik's parents were assassinated, their existence wiped from the records... and Vladdik's memory wiped of his past, threat neutralized... until now.
This information alone could cause a third faction to spring up in the political system of Neriak and possibly bring about Neriak's downfall through civil war, especially with the trolls living within the city looking for any weakness to prey upon within the political system of Neriak...
The Apokolipz also knew that these events were related to his rebirth. It was no mere coincidence that the son of these two was also the Chosen One, ?one whose heart had been tainted by True Love?. That was why the assassins let Vladdik live, in fact, ordered to let him live. The child of those who were most loyal, tainted by the feelings he had felt for... her...
The necromancer had ?awoken? days before, finally rising from his ?slumber?. The carnage of the past months had served several purposes. The deaths of the betrayers, the light-lovers, and the weak were only a part of it. An outlet of his wrath, fury, rage, and Hate was another. But, there was also another reason... The Apokolipz had learned many things from his newfound memories... yes, indeed...
He had left his quarters, which he had remained cloistered the past few days, and used one of the Keeps many portals to enter Neriak, all the while leaving a fresh trail of blood in his wake. The blood seemed to come from the bottom hem of his midnight black robes and of his charcoal gray cloak, blood, that if tasted, would have been noted to contain a mixture of five races: dwarven, halfling, human, and that of the wood and high elves?
And so this trail picked up again on the other side of the portal in Neriak, within the dark recesses of one of the many alleys in Neriak?s Third Gate district. From there, the Apokolipz strode through the once grand city of the Teir?Dal, seeking another portal of his House. As he walked, those who crossed his path averted their gazes and stepped aside or simply ran from his dark form. Death walked the streets of Neriak once again, and the souls of the damned followed him.
But, as he strode through the familiar streets of his births, his mind remembered visions of their creation. Memories not of Vladdik but of the many incarnations of the Apokolipz. His essence, his life-force, had existed for eons, nearly as long as the Teir?Dal race itself. The Apokolipz was not just a Teir?Dal... he knew that now. He knew everything his many lives knew, each of which with their own rebirth... but this was the first time he had known it all.
His determined stride paused and his head turned to the side to better focus on what had caught his attention. Coldly, his ice-blue eyes looked up to the window, her window, an action he had done dozens of times before. This time, there was no ?flashback?, no heart aching memory from the life of Vladdik. It was Nanarie?s old house, and it had changed yet again. The front door, which he, himself, had left in shambles, had been replaced, the once grimy and cracked windows had also been repaired and cleaned, and the top window, her window, now showed the dim light of some sort inside, possibly from a candle. The light seemed to move as he watched, as though carried, so the necromancer knew that someone was within, possibly a new occupant or some petty burglar, but, more than likely, it was her, the woman he owed for giving him back all of the Apokolipz?s lost knowledge...
Of all of the beings on Norrath, the Teir?Dal were his brethren. They were of His blood and therefore in His grace. Some were betrayers and would die for their actions, that much was a given, but most would follow the Will of Innoruuk. Of all of the Teir?Dal, there was one to whom he, the Apokolipz, now owed everything...
In a flitter of darkness and shadow, the Apokolipz stood at her door, a trail of fresh blood behind. With slow determination, he rapped upon the darkwood portal; three loud thumps, as slow as his heartbeat.....