2023-01-19: Agathos
- Cutscene: Agathos
- Cast: Seraph Harmaus, Georg Heldalf
- Where: Artorius's Throne
- Date: January 19, 2023
- Summary: Harmaus at last finds his Lord.
BGM: (Shadow Hearts: Covenant ~ Yoshitaka Hirota - Rasputin) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3wnxjtW1BM
He seeks not a god, but a destroyer.
So he had spoken to Elise, the Rose Queen upon his return to her Domain. Altered by his corruption -- though he would scarce call it such -- Harmaus had parted with her at long last and begun a lonely trek back to the Silver Star he had left behind.
He returned not to Spira or the old familiar grounds of Meribia, but the lands of Glenwood, where much had changed since he had last set foot in those lands.
Is it his will that draws him hither, or is it something far more primal? Still, like a moth to flame, he traveled slowly across a ruin of a swamp, no longer pulsing with Malevolence. He wandered across the remnants of a great battle, tasting the few vestiges of kin who had come and gone before him.
The Lord of Calamity is spoken of far more differently in Glenwood these days. None at all whisper rumors of a woman.
They speak instead of a man.
It is a seat that any can claim. That, Harmaus had learned: should one fail to claim it, there are others, others, who might still meet the qualifications. His Anitia shall not be reborn, but that failure does not mean that all is lost.
There was another. And he has claimed the mantle in earnest.
He knows where they are, he finds as he ventures forth, that sense that he is being beckoned growing ever greater as he travels across the signs of his lord's passage.
Another might have called it ugly. Or perhaps compared it to a painful throb, like an infected tooth. There is a purity in the pulse, to Harmaus' thinking -- a clarity of perfect pain that invites him towards where his master awaits.
He knows of it. Had known of it. Once, it might have been a magnificent castle. But time had been cruel: he had seen it from a distance once, twice before to date and each time it had seemed to him far worse than it had the last. A thousand years or more, give or take.
It had never before drawn his eye.
Now, though... now it is wondrous. There is beauty in these cracked and crumbling walls, illuminated by the Malevolence in which Artorius' Throne is now steeped.
The ruin itself seems to part before him. It is a simple matter to seek the chamber at its heart and supplicate himself before the Lord of Calamity.
The pain is, by now, exquisite. It shouldn't be long now.
"My... Lord," says the warped Seraph, his form already unmolding and warping to the shape more suited for this realm. "For centuries... seeks I you."
Harmaus kneels, holding his sword blade-down before him.
"I... gifts I you my service! I follows and serves as you desires! I asks this... only this..."
It shouldn't be long now, until he has seized the truth he has so long desired.
"...please, unmake 'Goddess' Althena!"
Heldalf, the Lord of Calamity regards his supplicant for a long, silent moment.
Then, he grins.