Return of the Lord

Zaros surveyed the scene from the walls of his palace. Somehow, they had got within the gates of Senntisten, and that itself was alarming.

They had managed to get inside…

They had managed to strike deep within the huge city, which spanned several kingdoms, and were now on their way to confront him, Zaros, the almighty. To say the least, Zaros was displeased by this. He spread his mind into the ether, and tried to identify the assailants of his fine city, but found a large shadow had fallen over the surrounding areas. There was only one object that possessed that power, and the thought of it slowly filled Zaros with an unfamiliar feeling. Dread.

Unable to identify how such a large army had got so close, and who had led them here, Zaros decided to think about it a little more intellectually.

They were inside, so either they were here already, or I was betrayed…

Zaros cast out his power once again, and once more, was met by a defiant shadow. However, its power was limited, and Zaros pushed through its shroud to identify the armies fighting below, and was filled with annoyance.

Mahjarrat!

If Zaros had been thinking out loud, he would have surely snarled.

Do the fools not realise that there is no one more powerful than myself?

This was not strictly true, as in the corners of his mind, he could feel an entity within Gielinor hidden deep away, inside the very fabric of the realm. It was powerful, but luckily for Zaros, it was also dormant. Focusing his mind back to his contemplations, he resumed his analysis once more.

So, they managed to get a whole army inside, and obviously had followers within the city, so there is no doubt I was betrayed.

Zaros searched the ether once more, and identified Saradomin elsewhere, attending to pathetic mortal behaviours. Suddenly, a thought came over him. He decided to search Gielinor for his favoured general, but found no trace, then casually probed and the shadow, cloaking magical interference with abyssal energies.

Zaros smiled.

Zamorak, friend. The Mahjarrat would only follow the strongest, and only your lust for violence is so great, that such a warlike race would be easily persuaded to believe you could be more potent than I.

As if answering his previous master’s summons, the doors to the tower from which he observed were flung open, and Zamorak marched in flanked by two fearsome Mahjarrat. In his hands, was the staff of Armadyl.

“Zaros,” Zamorak proclaimed in a confident voice, “feeling lucky?”

Zamorak grinned. No one could challenge him whilst he held the staff! Stories had reached even Freneskae of all powerful gods being vanquished by the staff’s awesome power.

Doubts were soon cast across Zamorak’s mind, however, as his two guards were engulfed by choking shadows, which smothered the surrounding area, forcing Zamorak to his knees. Zamorak had very little connection to either the ether or the abyss, and had very little natural magic talent, unlike other Mahjarrat. He instead relied on his crushing strength and unparalleled charisma. Even despite his lack of magical ability, however, he could feel power emanating out from Zaros, and he could sense space-time starting to bend and crack within the palace confines.

Zaros smiled. Zamorak was no real threat. No, the real enemy was the staff in his hands. Zaros had often pondered whether Armadyl could be classed as a god, for he had very little natural power. Instead, he was completely immortal, and invincible, as no form of damage could harm him – even Jas could not remove Armadyl if he tried.

Armadyl, however, had little power extended beyond that, although within his mind was contained a soul capable of exacting the truest judgement, regardless of situation, within split seconds. This, Zaros almost respected.

The final interesting thing about Armadyl was his unbreakable connection to the staff. The staff only went where Armadyl wanted it to, so he was obviously rather pissed at that aviansie patrol that Zaros’s forces had taken out earlier in the year.

Back to his original ponderings however, lay the heart of this battle – The staff itself was a sentient being, and would carve through any armour as if it was air, and dispel any enchantment, even god-granted, as if it was just mumbo jumbo make believe. This wasn’t the limit of the staff’s power, however. It had cast a shadow throughout the surrounding realms, one that prevented any magical use. Of course, Zaros was a god, and now that he was inside the shadow, it did little to hinder his near omnipotence, but it had certainly cloaked its approach.

It wasn’t these things that worried Zaros, however. The spear itself acts as a conduit, able of transferring power and life-force. Since Zaros was just an entity in space-time, he technically had no physical form, but as he could tell, the staff had a presence which had somehow bound him to his physical form, preventing any escape from his body. He tested at it, trying to dissolve his physical from and translocate to another realm, but he felt massive resistance, and he could swear the staff almost grinned at him. A malicious, predatory grin.

Zamorak groaned as he once more rose to his feet. To his surprise, Zaros had been simply observing him.

Now’s my time to strike!

Suddenly, however, Zamorak shivered as he felt a foreign entity invading his mind, which he knew not to be Zaros.

Fool…

Zamorak recoiled in fear. What? Suddenly, he felt him losing control of his arms, and he impaled himself with the staff. Zaros grimaced, he had been expecting this, and his sharp mind cut through the shadow, more like a hammer than a knife, and started to charge up a coalescence of smoke and ice within his hands.

Zamorak spluttered blood onto the floor, and panicked uncontrollably as he lost control of the rest of his body and was forced to stand up.

What is happening?!

Zaros watched with a faint sense of pity as his once favoured general was manipulated cruelly by the staff’s foul powers.

He readied his spell, but a missile from a siege engine, presumably stolen from the siege-works, slammed into the tower and caused the floor to crumble. Zaros dissipated his spells and panicked as he fell off the now vertical floor and into the room below. He tried to separate himself from his body, and escape, but once again the chains of reality imposed by the staff forced him to stay physical.

The staff!

His realisation was too late and looked below him to see a stricken Zamorak, and too late, as he fell atop him and was also impaled.

As soon as he impacted, he felt another bind being cast, preventing him from removing the spear.

Even gods must die…

Zaros was angered by the staff's certainty about his fate, but in the back of his mind he know it was probably right.

I’d like to see you try!

The staff reacted to the challenge almost immediately, as he felt an arcane force split apart his mind and begin to drain his power at an alarming rate.

As you wish…

Zaros tried to hold on to his power as the spear transferred it into Zamorak, causing Zamorak to scream and twist. Zaros’s attempts were about as foolish, however, as a new-born child trying to prevent its mother being torn apart by an enraged grizzly bear on steroids.

The staff, at the moment, was working on a simple method of diffusion. In terms of power and knowledge, Zaros’s mind was about as full as a neutron star, stuffed to its metaphysical brim with unfathomable amounts of knowledge, and endless power. Zamorak’s, on the other hand, was so empty, that if you moved his mind into space, it would implode, as the vacuum of the void contained more magical prowess than he did.

Suddenly, Zaros had an idea. The staff was draining his power, but it was not powerful enough to stop him using it.

Zamorak writhed in agony as his mind was seared into an incoherent mess. The staff was filling him with Zaros’s power, yet his body was only a physical construct, and was not designed to hold such power. He could feel his body, his whole existence, expanding and threatening to explode.

As he tried to focus, Zamorak was finally struck by the grim reality of the situation.

The staff will kill us both!

Suddenly, due to the power flowing through him, he could feel a disturbance in space-time. The sensation was new, but he felt as if he had always known how to use it. He suddenly saw the reason for the disturbance. To his eyes, it looked like Zaros was being enveloped by pure blackness, but as he reached into the ether, he could feel that the whole palace was enveloped in… nothing.

Zaros smiled gently as the staff redoubled its efforts.

What have you done? I will see you wither and die, scoured from existence!

The staff’s ramblings fell on deaf ears as Zaros increased the size of the puncture he’d created in the space-time equilibrium. The staff’s magical was so powerful it held his body in place, despite the fact the palace and city surrounding them was being hungrily devoured by the fractured rift. Luckily, the staff is bound to Armadyl, who was far away, prevented it from leaving Gielinor, and it could not follow Zaros into the rift.

The sheer suction of its existence removed the shadow, and Zaros used what little of his power was left to curse those who had led the staff into Zamorak’s possession.

Even in your final moments, you would spite those who brought you to this fate, even if it means abandoning all hope of escape? Truly, Zaros, you are a fool!

Zaros smiled gently, aware the staff had not yet realised the implications of his previous spell.

My ethereal existence is already beyond the event horizon, your boasts are meaningless.

True enough, Zaros felt his mind being torn from his body, and the staff was desperately attempting to prevent him from being enveloped by the temporal fracture. The staff failed in it's attempts, however, and Zaros felt his physical body dissolve and seperate from his being. Taking a final look at Zamorak, he let go of reality, as the rift tore him from Gielinor, and into an unknown realm. He had been maintaining the rift, however, so as soon as he left the realm, the spatial anomaly ceased to exist, and closed, leaving Senntisten in ruins.

As soon as his link with Zaros was broken, the staff removed itself from them, and Zamorak fell to his knees and screamed.

The staff hastily teleported away, but not before it granted him with a vision of him experiencing a similar fate, and at the hands of another Mahjarrat, also wielding the staff.

Zaros trusted you. Justice will be served…

He could feel Zaros’s power leaking from him uncontrollably, and only now did he realise his old master’s true power.

He glanced skywards and smiled, as he felt a small residue of Zaros’s power remain within him.

Burn!

Mumbling… could he hear mumbling?

No, a ritual!

“Azzanadra… Have I found my Faithful?”

“My Lord Zaros! The link is finally restored!”

Zaros would have smiled, but he soon realised he was drifting in an unknown realm, in ethereal form, with no physical body.

“I did not… doubt your… dedication. What of… your brothers?”

Zaros was hesitant. He could still feel the scars of the staff as if it was yesterday. Well, according to his internal timeline, it was yesterday, but he could sense from the power coming through the communion portal that a great deal of time had passed in Gielinor.

How long was I in statis?

Azzanadra continued to talk to him for a while, telling him of his scattered brothers, and Zamorak’s tyrannical rule.

Sure enough, however, the portal closed, and Zaros was left floating in metaphysical space. Reaching out with his mind, he became almost omnipresent throughout the realm, searching for a place to assume physical from, and spend a couple of thousand years regaining power, before he could re-enter Gielinor and assume his rightful position of rule.

Suddenly he felt like his mind was smashed into by a freight train. As he was searching, almost every star was dead and forgotten, but suddenly his mind had swept across a world pulsating energy.

Intrigued, he swept closer and drew his mind back into him. The world almost seemed to emit magic, and not only that, but a stranger force to. Zaros examined this new force that he could feel coming from the world.

Friendship?

Zaros was slightly confused, but descended into the world’s aura. He could sense two deities close by, but they were even weaker than gods such as Saradomin or Bandos. No, these gods would be no trouble, and if it came to war, his victory was inevitable.

Briefly, Zaros was reminded of the day he claimed the mahjarrat from Itchlarin, one of the weak gods of the Menaphite pantheon.

Returning to the matter currently at hand, Zaros quickly found a suitable place to coalesce – it was a thick forest, and it almost seemed to be made of magic.

The death place of a bygone deity, perhaps?

Regardless, a place so full of power would undoubtedly hasten his revival.

Zaros quickly scanned life forms in a nearby town, and chose a suitable form to base himself off of. He thoroughly investigated the physical features of every entity, before making an informed decision. Quickly, he delved onto a couple of their minds, and gathered some basic knowledge to help him along. He then used the inherent magic in the forest’s aura to easily build himself a new body, and filled it with his mind, tucking it snugly into the equine body’s skull.

Healing is always more effective in a concentrated physical form.

Zaros now stood as a tall, slender Pegasus pony with a white coat and purple mane and tail. His eyes were harsh, and anypony who looked into them would tell you they seemed inherently empty. On his flank was emblazoned a religious Zarosian symbol, a circle with a cross inside, and the edges of the cross on the exterior at 45 degrees.

Might as well stay in character, it always makes this more fun.

Curbing his godly powers, Zaros walked towards the nearest settlement, for the thick tree cover prevented use of his wings. He then began to think of an appropriate name a pony would adopt, calling on the knowledge he'd gathered earlier. Suddenly, he drew to a halt, and smiled.

Midnight Feather.

Zamorak stared into nothing.

Banished, then banished again?

Sure, he had got all the other gods banished to, but his incarceration was starting to annoy him. Testing, he pushed at the boundaries of the realm, but they stayed firm.

For the first time in a thousand years, he thought of Zaros. Gielinor was now in the fifth age, and Zamorak was trapped.

He started to wonder what would have happened if he had stayed with Zaros. If he had conquered the rest of Gielinor with him, and had anything he desired, for earthly pleasure were foreign to Zaros. His own thoughts were all he needed.

The Empty Lord

Zamorak had caused the death of millions, but perhaps with Zaros, they would have united millions, and maybe even managed to overthrow Guthix.

What have I done?