Deviation Actions
Literature Text
Vailes l’Veir - “The Prodigal Destroyer”
Gender: Born male; female from an unknown date
Race: Aija
Height: 5’7”
Weight: 95
Hair Color/Type: Grayish-white/Wavy, extends to lower back, unkempt
Eye Color: Scarlet
Skin Tone/Features: Ghostly pale, necrotized and rotting flesh on parts of body
Handedness: Unknown
Age: 270
Nationality: Altair
Occupation: Altairian Prince, Arcane Mage
Languages: Altairian, Rigelian; probable knowledge of other languages
Magic Type: Both Runic and Innate; full extent unknown
The last child of the l’Veir line and Grand Empress Miura’s sole offspring, to say that Vailes was born into odd circumstances would be an understatement. Though supplied with all the trappings and entitlement of royalty, and the otherwise brutal Empress lavished affection upon the boy and loved him deeply the child soon found himself stewing with a vast and pervasive resentment. Born greatly underweight, Vailes was a sickly and feeble child, and never more aware of that fact when in the company of his extremely powerful mother and other mages. As he aged the boy suspected that his mother kept him around merely as a prop to satisfy her own narcissistic tendencies, and by his teenage years he came to hate the Empire and Miura herself.
But Vailes’ worst enemy was his own body. Surrounded by a culture that viewed its men as little more than livestock and continually reminded of his own physical shortcomings, the youth developed an intense self-loathing. Unable to achieve the power that was his birthright—arguably the only thing he ever cared about—Vailes sought anything that would elevate him from his perceived uselessness. An avid scholar, he would spend many days within the Altairian archives in deep study looking for ways to unlock the gates of empire that stood before him.
His one truly aberrant characteristic was how he kept his intense antipathy hidden from the most advanced enchantrix alive. As powerful as Miura was, she could never read or infiltrate Vailes’ mind in any way. While this caused her some concern at first, she eventually believed that there was nothing to find because her child had nothing to hide from her—something she grew an inherent appreciation of, even though it was entirely mistaken. Other enchantrix had the same problem, and all their attempts to deduce the young l’Veir’s internal workings came up empty. He was a void to them.
Many mages expressed a sexual interest in the teenage Vailes, both curious about his mysterious nature and seeing his royal heritage as a potential benefit to their own bloodlines. Initially intimidated by the advances, the young man eventually began freely using the women for his own pleasure, barely disguising the contempt he felt for his conquests. Despite this some of the mages actually developed feelings of affection which drove Vailes deeper into disgust. Losing himself in hedonism and privilege, his mind started going to even darker places—and Miura began to question what was happening to the child she once saw as so innocent. Eventually vicious scorn for his overprotective mother came to a head, and in the misplaced allegiances the calculating son saw an opportunity.
Over time he consolidated his power within Altair’s higher circles, siring a number of children to different bloodlines—including the d’Hadar and var’Dorgen. As a number of the mothers secretly swore fealty and linked their own fortunes to the Empress’ ambitious descendant, Vailes set about his plans to overthrow Altair from within and become its first male regent. But killing Miura would not be easy. Even though his own mind was safe no one around him was likewise protected. He would have to launch a forceful assault while the Imperial Guard was indisposed, and keep himself as far away from the conflict as possible until the dust settled. Planning the coup for over four years, Vailes knew that this was going to be his only bid for power.
Yet very few opportunities would present themselves—until the Empress’ centennial ceremony. As the parade began to unfold before the palace, the unprotected Miura was set upon by eight would-be assassins; two of them among the strongest pyromancers in the realm. However the battle was soon decided in favor of the mighty Empress, who could anticipate their every move and pulverize their minds in an instant. After the skirmish, seven of Miura’s opponents lay dead, and she sustained only minor injuries in the scuffle.
Believing that Vailes was abducted by the cabal, a day after the ceremony Miura spent hours torturing the surviving assailant to death. To her shock, she slowly extracted evidence of her son’s elaborate treachery. Overwhelmed with bitter rage the Empress dispersed the Guard in a frenzied search to bring Vailes to her—dead if necessary. But her son was already a day’s ride away, having learned of the coup’s failure and taken flight for the northern border. Along with provisions he took a number of tomes from the archives with him, among them several maps of the Empire’s mountainous fringes.
A week later he was well outside Miura’s grasp, and many miles within the harsh terrain of the northern wastes he stumbled onto a deep basin containing a sprawling underground city. Vailes believed it was an ancient ashenaja settlement, built many millenia before the Empire’s founding and remarkably still intact. He spent several weeks investigating the place by torchlight for remains of the lost civilization’s magic. Of the items he found, one was a shimmering gemstone of unidentified make, weighing several pounds and seeming to crackle with an indescribable energy.
Curiously drawn to the stone, Vailes spent many days in close proximity and the essence it leeched started to affect his body at a rate too slow for him to immediately notice. What did not escape his eye, however, was the mechanism the odd stone was pressed into. He noticed five holes, all of similar size, and surmised that there had to be more of these stones to power the ancient device. As further scouring of the site proved fruitless Vailes attempted to transcribe the unidentifiable characters he found carved into the cavern city’s structures before leaving for the northern coasts, taking the strange artifact with him.
Searching far and wide for the mysterious gems over many decades, the man gradually became unrecognizable from his prior self. Vailes’ quest for absolute power not only further warped his personality into monomaniacal obsession and bilious hatred, but changed his physical form as well. No longer male due to the magic that had seeped into her body over time, the twisted l’Veir was finally able to realize her full potential. By seeking out remote ashenaja ruins within the subcontinent she was able to track down four of the five stones within her next century of life; in doing so her power ascended to immeasurable levels, able to cast illusions and manipulate minds just as other mages of her noble bloodline could. But believing this would not be enough to claim her birthright, she began to research other ways to channel the incredible potency. For the next fifty years, the mage adopted a policy of stealth and sought out everything she could about the Runic magic forbidden to Altair while she dwelt in the cities of lesser aija.
Slipping into Rigel and using glamours to mask herself as a genial and wise Runemaster, Vailes spent over thirty years inside the Crown Library absorbing countless texts—including the most arcane and forbidden dark arts—without even the Crown’s Enforcers catching on to her true nature. Directly connecting the strange characters engraved within the underground city to the Runic alphabet in common use outside Altair, the imposter soon divined their original purpose. Although knowing that she possessed enough power to easily make all of Rigel fall to its knees, she believed that such a feat was a waste of time. The rule of oblivious insects that would fight to the death over lines on a map was no concern of hers. Instead Vailes set her eyes to the east, where she still sensed her mother’s increasing strength.
With her newfound supremacy, Vailes still knew that she could not confront the Empire alone. The number of proficient mages within its borders had multiplied while she was away, and she still did not possess the fifth stone necessary to wake the ashenaja fortress from its millenia-old slumber—though she supposed it would indeed be found within Altair. Instead, the clever mage decided upon a diversionary tactic. Gradually perfecting an understanding of necromantic summoning and transfiguration of living creatures along with her inherited abilities as an enchantrix, Vailes believed that even the unrivaled innate mages of Altair would not be able to answer a swarm of such grotesque and mindless beings, and would fall in short order.
The buildup of energies grim beyond imagining soon drove every Seer within range of the subcontinent into states of agony and horror, their visions obscured with imagery of such hellish ferocity that some even went insane. The Order of the Starless Aeon likewise felt the shadow upon them, and though the warnings were numerous, their arrogant regent believed it to be nothing more than idle speculation. Meanwhile the rest of the world walked blindly on; too drawn in by conflict and intrigue to pay mind to the isolated wastes beyond their borders or the clairvoyant warnings of a “prodigal destroyer.”
Finally setting foot onto her homeland after more than two centuries, the near-omnipotent Vailes seized her moment. Persistently chanting a transfiguration spell she spent nearly a decade committing to memory, all the male slaves within her range collapsed in pain, twisting into increasingly monstrous forms until they were more animal than human. Those that did not die from the trauma of sudden transformation were compelled by horrible instinct to turn on their masters and rip them limb from limb—or worse. Meanwhile the mere presence of the foul mage’s mental influence was enough to render all but the most powerful Altairian women catatonic, instantly driving them oblivious and mad.
The gathering size of Vailes’ army was met by a mob of disorganized yet still very potent opposition. Outside the capital over two hundred pyromancers, many of them trained by the renowned Fleor d’Hadar, unleashed their impressive blazes on the horde and reduced multitudes of them to charred flesh and cinders. But it was not enough. Nearly all the exhausted mages met death at the snapping and tearing of canine jaws or the sheer destructive force of their leader’s depraved magic. Even with Altair mustering unprecedented effort to put an end to her, Vailes took less than a week to make the walk to the capital city—absorbing the latent energy of the enthralled Altairians to feed her strength all the while.
Finally within sight of the palace, the mage faced token resistance in the form of Miura’s Imperial Guard—competent soldiers mentally guided by the Empress but nothing more. After ten minutes, a legion’s worth of flayed and crushed corpses lay bleeding in the street and under rubble as Vailes opened the palace gates. Driven into a delusional mania with the knowledge that her “son” was returning home, the fallen Grand Empress madly rushed forward, dagger in hand to greet her apostate spawn—only to find her body rapidly withering away as the figure in black greedily consumed Miura’s power. As the beasts set upon the trail of lifeless bodies, the prodigal child usurped the dead mother’s throne whilst uttering a single command heard throughout the shambling and demented remains of Altair:
Kneel.
