Magus
Magus
My main character, ripped off from a game! The character of Magus was introduced in the old-school RPG Chrono Trigger, and I grew very fond of him, especially when I discovered Role Playing Games. I created Magus as an RP character somewhere around '99, having role played a character named Jade previously.
Why did I do it? Well, Magus was a very deep character with very little actually told about him. He was a vile Warlock who was later known to be more angsty than evil who was time-warped from his native ancient magical Kingdom (he was a prince) to the Middle Ages of the CT realm (I nicknamed that realm Guardia for the sake of the main Kingdom in the game.) where he was abducted by monsters known as Mystics (Basically your goblinoids and Orcs and other vile things) and eventually became known as Magus.
His childhood and life outside of seeking vengeance for Lavos was primarily unexplained, along with almost every plot attached to him. As a child, his only friend was his sister Schala, and a little cat named Alfador. Despite him being the Prince of Zeal, he showed no magical ability whatsoever - that evidently changed. After the alien creature known as Lavos destroyed his kingdom and sent Janus (his real name) into the future, the Mystics evidently raised him into what he became - and for those unaccounted for times I have my own personal back-story for his growth.
So, then, from '99 until Now, we have character growth, per se.
Magus' ongoing goal was to find his sister Schala, who had been missing since Lavos destroyed his world but was thought to be alive. His most cherished possession was an amulet Schala had given to him as a child, and he still wears it.
At some point after the game ends, Magus faced some sort of problematic situation, had acquired an item called the Gate Key (a small device that allowed Time Portals to be opened), and in desperation had opened a gate that traveled the realms as opposed to the time stream.
Of course, he ended up in Ayenee. A few miles outside of Capital City, as it went.
I will admit, much of Magus' life is rather blurry, but I'll send the basics.
During his first year or so, Magus ran into the Clan Darkness, and because his powers had no fully redeveloped themselves in Ayenee at that point, managed to acquire a position as a Dark Knight. His reasons for joining were two-fold, he wished to have some sort of link to the rest of the realm, and because he was sure he knew someone from his old realm in it - Nadia, otherwise known as Marle. Whether this was the actual princess of Guardia or not, he never found out.
Magus left Clan Darkness eventually and went traveling the realms. He eventually returned a few years later, and Nadia Darkness was nowhere to be found (she had moved up in rank during the time he was gone.) and Magus gave her up as lost to fate, not that he was all that worried about it anyway.
Before his return, Magus traveled with a number of other characters and even took a jaunt back to his home realm when something threatened it with destruction. After the unknown factor was removed, Magus returned to Ayenee, finding the possibilities of this new realm much more appealing. Besides, he knew his sister wasn't to be found in Guardia any longer.
By this time, Magus' strengths had returned and he began to understand how the Realm worked a bit more. He coined the term 'Conflux Realm' and established several theories on how Ayenee operated in regards to its own Multiverse and the greater Omniverse. These theories led him onwards in training, and he eventually grew quite knowledgeable in the planes and their workings. He manipulated the Gate Key and found that he could open Portals with it without much trouble.
Despite this, Magus stayed mainly on the Material Plane. He met a Ryuuzoku named Ara Mythril, a dragonwoman named by her race as the Eternal Dragon Warrior. Among their travels, he met a nemesis/friend of hers named Xellos, and a score of other characters.
During this saga, Magus had returned to clan Darkness, having found Steele disappeared and new owners. He kept more-or-less incognito within the clan, never rejoining but searching for news on the people he had known. This, and the possibility that the Prime Darkness could be harnessed for his own gains, prompted Magus to reach out for that terrible source of raw negativity. Unfortunately, such things have consequences.
When Magus touched the Darkness, something reacted within him. He had come a long way since his stint as Leader of the Mystics in Guardia, but that Primal Darkness drew all of his hate, his rage, his power and manifested it into a reflection of himself - a soulless thing made entirely out of Darkness. Something that allied itself Akuma Magus (which would be, Devil Mage, essentially), was 'born'.
Magus lost a lot of his memory after that, finding himself somewhere in southern Ayenee. He eventually caught back up with Ara Mythril and her friends, while Akuma generally caused desperate havoc around the realm, not the least of which included pestering Synful and Torrent Darkness from time to time.
Eventually, Akuma found his 'brother' and sought to torment him, using his current companions as playthings and resisting all forms of attack - Akuma was made primarily of Prime Darkness, and thus existed as something not quite tangible or effectible, but having a disastrous effect on living matter if he chose to will it so.
After struggles, the mazoku Xellos drew Akuma Magus into a confrontation and succeeded in destroying the Thing. As Akuma watched his own skin crack and splinter, he could only scream in rage at Janus Zeal.
Soon, Ara Mythril and Magus split ways, leaving Magus alone again to wander the realms. Many changes overcame the mage at this point, in his travels. He came across a country in the far North-West of the realm and met Sean, the ruler of the country and head of a clan called simply the 'Dark Knights', and the elite, the Black Dragons. It was coincidence, Magus felt at that time, that the Dark Knights and the old Darkness clan had some sort of animosity towards each other.
Regardless, Magus assumed heavy rank, becoming a General and training himself in the arts of the Dragon Knight (otherwise known as, Dragoon). This country had airships, and Magus eventually acquired his own ship and legion. These Dark Knights weren't evil, but they were territorial, and engaged in several clan wars with Magus taking part, including a route against Pendragon once.
Soon after a failing battle, Magus disappeared. He made no mention of his departure, but felt it was time to go. Rumors had surfaced of someone fitting the description of his sister, and Magus found his head back on track.
In his new travels, Magus met many others, including his first meeting with the Arcanoloth Saar'Tcheras, the lich Lim-Dul. Magus did a few jobs for the Fiend, and always remained on good terms, but soon another option presented itself.
Magus met a Drow named Kel'han Sarg'thlin and a necromancer of Starthra named Lasandir. These three, along with a few others, made the head of a new clan of Drow Elves and other vile creatures whose main goal was to exterminate the cult of Lolth in Ayenee. Magus was not evil, but he was, inside, always on the lookout for allies and sometimes friendship. Also, the power and resources of Clan Sarg'thlin were mighty. Still, he heard nothing more of his lost sister.
Another year or so passed, with Magus acting as Head Warlock for Kel'han, and this continued quite nicely until the Mage was separated from the rest of the clan in a catastrophe that shook Ayenee's upper Underdark. Dazed, confused and without recourse, Magus emerged from the caves in an entirely different part of the realm...
The Silent Forest! He met a few wanderers, and set up a hideout for himself there. Magus picked up exploring and mapmaking, and it was during one of these expeditions that he came upon something that would change Ayenee for the worse...
The tomb of the Vampire Lord, Azzumoth, nestled forgotten in the upper stretches of the Silent Forest, in a land of undead and necromantic urges. Magus knew only that this artifact, a vial of grave-dirt from the Tombs Lowest Chambers, was very valuable and powerful. He kept it with him, and left the region.
A few months later, Magus found himself at the Gateway Inn - cloistered little town deep in the forgotten wilderness of Ayenee. He had come upon the place quite suddenly, and was recounting the story of the Tomb of Azzumoth to a local, when something quite terrible occurred.
The hand of a thief and Magus hand to block it, and the Grave-dirt spilled onto the floor of the Inn. With it spilled out the spectral form of the mutant-Nosferatu, the terrible Azzumoth. The wraith howled in hunger and quickly vanished into Eona Valley, where it hunted and grew back its corporeal form.
It found itself a home in the Caves in Eona, allied itself with a Tanar'Ri named Zazel and set about creating the most horrific undead army the valley had ever seen.
Magus would have left, moved on as he had done, when he finally found his sister Schala.
She had arrived in Eona Valley, a paladin! The vile alien thing called Lavos had stolen her up after Janus had vanished from his homeland those long years ago, and though the entity was finally and errantly defeated, its essence remained merged with the young Sorceress. When Lavos, in a guide known as the Time Devourer, was brought down for the final time, Schala was released into the Void. Her strong soul would not be snuffed, and she found herself in the realm of Ayenee.
She struggled with the Lavos energy within her day after day, year after year, when she eventually came to Eona Valley and the Holy Sword Elsydion. A conflict of will ensued, and the demoniac-possessed Schala Zeal rid herself of the foul creature within her - at the same time losing her mighty magic, but instead became reborn as a Paladin.
At this time, Magus met his sister, but they had little time to catch up. Azzumoth had raised his undead forces, and backed by Tanar'Ri, set about to destroy the valley. Magus was only one part of the alliance that battled this force, but he was a mighty part. Brother and Sister, side by side, joined the alliance and beat back the horde enough for them and a few others to sneak into the Cavern of Shadow and face off against the Vampire Lord and Zazel. Surprisingly, Magus found Saar'Tcheras at a difficult point when he arrived, and the Fiend himself evened the odds.
As the forces outside battled the undead, which at this point included a terrible Nightwalker, the heroes inside beat back Azzumoth. Zazel, seeing their loss imminent, vanished back to the Abyss. Azzumoth transformed into something wholly chaotic, but Schalas sword, Elsydion, broke it finally with a blast of holy light - the calling of all the good creatures disgusted by the terror of the Vampire Lord, and struck the monster down. Unfortunately, as Azzumoth died, the caverns began to collapse.
Magus, who had been nearly killed in the fight and remained almost unconscious, could only just press the activation on his Gate Key. The influence of energy in the cave, however, disrupted the field, and the only thing seen as the cavern fell in upon itself was a flash.
As it turned out, the victorious heroes of that battle were flung across Ayenee. Magus and Schala were again separated, and Magus found himself again wandering alone.
A year or more passed. Magus traveled, at this point a bit more calmly. He visited the Western Republic and the surrounding regions, even put the Baatezu Lord Varsinax in his place, in the form of a Black Hole spell that entrapped him in the Negative Energy Plane, when the Devil tried to tempt his service.
He reunited with Kel'han, but the Drow soon departed and left Magus to his quests. All was looking good, if not a bit bland, for the mage, when something happened.
The sky exploded in a shower of red and blue. Red meteors streaked across Ayenee, and that was when it started. Things became out of whack, became -too- chaotic. Rumors starting flooding the realms of a great Horror to the East, where an entire region beneath the Black Fang Mountains had been sucked into some terrible nether-state.
Magus soon came upon one of the volatile Red Shards, but sensing its inborn Madness, quickly tossed it safely into his Bag of Holding. Not knowing where else to turn, and never having seen or felt anything quite like it, Magus decided to visit his old Arcanoloth 'friend', Saar'Tcheras. If that Fiend didn't know the source of something this Fiendish, no one did.
Unfortunately, Saar'Tcheras didn't, and Magus was stuck with the job of trying to collect more of the vile things. Magus set out, uneasily running across several shardholders and sometimes getting into lethal confrontations.
At some point, as Magus traveled East, he met a young girl named Mayu. She was a wanderer, and the Warlock found himself aiding her against a few foes. He discovered her to be something of an enigma, being filled with Wild Magic but unable to properly manifest it.
So they traveled together, finding out more about hose Red Shards.
Eventually, things turned grim. A run in with the Red Dragon Madrigal forced Magus to consider the seriousness of the situation, and things only got worse as the nights grew longer and more twisted.
It turned sour for Magus the night he realized they were being stalked. Something in the dark was following them, sniffing out the shards he held in his Bag. It all came together when the roof of a notable tavern was torn of its hinges, and Magus came face to face with the terrible Haunter of the Dark. Light was sucked away with Magus' sanity, and it took all of the willpower the Warlock had not to lose himself completely.
Mayu saved him though, when her wild magic sprung forth under severe stress. The resulting shockwave impacted the monstrous Haunter with enough concentrated light to banish it back into the bleak Infinity it had crawled from.
They ran, and it became clear that the Haunter, a vaguely dragon like monstrosity that held no light or physics-abiding form, was far from defeated. It chased them across Ayenee, until it cornered them on a hilltop near the Black Fangs. Magus stared directly into the horrific creature's Three-Lobed burning eye, and he knew no more. Again Mayu's outburst drove the thing off, this time possibly for good, but the destruction waged in Magus' mind was absolute.
For weeks Mayu took care of the Warlock, and for weeks he remained comatose. Inside his head, Janus Zeal drifted and drifted among terrible, polyphemous-like impressions of Madness. His own soul crushed in terror. Magus had feared nothing, until his mind broke at the revelations gleaned from within that eye.
Gradually, he made it back. The pendant of his sister drew him to consciousness again and Mayu nursed him back to sanity. He was never really right again in those travels. What came later was blurred.
Magus remembered the doomed city of Terevath and the horrible things within, remembered the name Dias Impervio and the chantings of something called 'Nyarlathotep', but as the days moved on, they merged together, mixing with terrible images and foggy, dreamy scenes.
Something terrible occurred, Magus knows now. The entire realm changed after his complete loss of memory. This apocalyptic notion was never clearly explained, for everyone he met couldn't rightly describe what had happened. Despite this, Magus noticed a lack of the populace in the realms, certain names and histories he remembered clearly now non-existent or faded from memory.
When Janus Zeal regained himself, he was laying unconscious in a grassy glade a few miles from Ayenee Capital City. He got up, brushed himself off, and found his memory from the time he entered the twisted town of Terevath almost completely gone.
He was humbled, and he realized his growing age. Adventuring had taken its toll on the Warlock, mostly in mind but a bit in body. He was reaching 40, not so old, but in his heart he felt ancient. For the first time in years, Magus reflected, and found the darkness in his heart absent.
The mage shed his old name as he entered a small town of humans and elves nestled into the mountains a few dozen miles from Ayenee Capital City and settled into a normal, if not reserved, life there. Janus' past had not followed him, but his abilities did - it took awhile for the town to trust him, but he gained his acceptance and now lives in a small cottage at the edge of town.
Janus sometimes takes the children exploring, and finds smiling comes easier now. He knows not where his sister is, but he knows she is alive. Janus' questions were answered, his wanderlust primarily sated.
Then, he felt something tug again at his senses. The image of a broken horn twisted his consciousness into turmoil for a few moments. Now, back in that town, Janus is having trouble sleeping. Visions have begun to plague him. What could this calling be?
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That was long. First time I've ever really explained most of his story. I left a good bit out, and my memory destroyed the rest.
If you actually read it, yay to you! Later,
Ibis