Kyzock

<--- change this line to say =

You might want to take the underlining out if you decide to make the proper editing changes. Also, not gonna sit here and point out all the typos; just saying there are some, they're not many and can be quickly changed with a read-through on your part.


Also: If you want, I'm always available to proofread stuff before you, or anyone else wants to post a story. I'm no English teacher, but damn am I good at spotting errors.

Present Day Kalderi: This once war ravaged planet, engulfed in struggle after struggle from many numerous wars beyond comprehension, has endured nearly two millenia of peace. The Kalderian humans have made numerous technological, scientific, medical, and various other advances during both times of war and peace. Now, the people strive for vastly superior technological discoveries as they take advantage of one of the longest periods of peace in the planet's history. Each and every race of the planet, however, does not deny the existence of the ancient Gods that once fought for utmost control over this one planet and the very galaxy it resides within. The Kalderian Gods once imposed many strange, bizarre beliefs in the populace of the planet, but long ago unchained themselves from the need for such things as "worship" and "belief". Many High Priests of Kalderi have even claimed the Gods never needed such things from their creations: they simply were and would always be.

These divine powers even knew of the "Builders" - their existence in the universe but a mere cosmic blip like so many other vastly superior races that have come and gone within the span of time & space. What they didn't know was the Builders' project, the "Patchwork World", would have such an immense impact on many civiliations throughout the universe. Sure, they were able to shield their own galaxy from this creation, but after time nearly forgot about the very presence of such a place. The Dark Gods stirred once again, themselves weary of peace and "good-will" towards their Celestial counterparts.

Unknown to both sides to of this divine pantheon, however, was how one of the "divinely-protected prisons" of the essence of Graxus lost its protective barrier, the evil within actively attracting one of the threads from "Patches"...the tiny pebble of a prison, chosen for its size and holding an unknowingly mixture of the essence of Graxus with a dark shred of personality of the being Shortoth (all these prisons hold these mixed prisoners - it was near impossible to seperate the essence of Graxus without also extracting some personality of Shortoth - each incarnation, once unleashed, holds vastly different and sometimes contrasting powersets from the next. Each of these prisoners also hold differing names - none of them have the same name.)

Patches:
Another thread, another strand, had extended itself away from the convoluted mass known as Patches to its inhabitants. This thread was far different from all the rest: it seemed to be the only one of its kind to extend itself further away from the Patchwork World than others that were pulling in pieces of the universe from the same dimension Paragon City resided in. Sure, there were perhaps other threads that had ventured further back in time, or across seemingly infinite other dimensions; however, this one seemed to just travel futher than any other across normal space. The thread latched onto the very first thing that it was allowed to: a tiny pebble, itself consisting of material found on Primal Earth itself. After all, this tiny pebble seemed to hold no significance whatsoever that would give away its origins. Also as mentioned previously, the Kalderian Pantheon knew of these threads from the Patchwork World - for many millenia they would actively destroy these threads from tearing apart anything within their own realm of control. Yet, after time they forgot - the threads from Patches had seemed to stop venturing so deeply out into space. So, when this new thread appeared, the Celestial God of Kalderian Time & Space decided to allow the thread to take the pebble. Unwittingly sending an imprisoned piece of one of the most ancient, darkest Gods ever in existence, along with a slice of the soul it inhabitated which just so happened brought about one of the darkest periods in the human-populated world of Kalderi that the Celestials created and defended, straight to a world that seemed tailor-made for such a being to take control of.

That pebble was just now entering the atmosphere of the Patchwork World, itself protected by the darkest of magics from the overbearing heat of atmospheric entry. The tiny pebble thudded into the ground, the dark barriers preventing the pebble from becoming buried under debris and lodged within the earth, which in turn would prevent the pebble from being hidden for countless more eons. The prisoner inside would not stay imprisoned much longer.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Another thread, another planet elsewhere:
The ebon-skinned demon had seen his fair share of oddities before. As his massive, protruded, hellish claws buried themselves deeply within his latest victim, his eyes did not take in the glory of this recent kill - no, rather, they were focused on the strange, seemingly near invisible thread that had suddenly and violently penetrated the earth beneath the feet of the two vast armies locked in eternal combat on this sad, desolate rock of a planet. Many of his fellow demonic brethern also noticed the anomaly. What happened next brought both armies to a standstill. The very soil beneath their feet rumbled. For a while, it seemed the entire planet shook, caught in the throes of a planet-wide quake, no doubt some divine trick to bring both supernatural armies to a standstill.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" the ebon-skinned demonic warrior, himself appearing to be dressed in simple Earth apparel (although it was merely an illusion of being clothed as such!) howled at the top of what would've been his lungs had he any. "I will not be denied a victory here! Not like this!" The demon threw his bloodied hand into the air, blood still flowing down the protruded claws, over his tightly clenched fist.

The divine host across from the demonic legions were as bewildered as the ebon-skinned demon, and the angelic captain of the host held its sword aloft, high in the air. "Seems our heavenly father has other plans today!" he shouted back to his host.

The black-skinned demon thrust his clawed, bloodied hand forward, extending his index finger at the angels. "ATTACK!!!!!!!!!!!" the demon screamed at his legion, "Kill ALL of them! We'll have roast angel for dinner tonight!"

As the thread retracted this chunk of earth, the opposing armies once again clashed with each other.

As it had been for many eons beforehand, such clashed between heavenly hosts and demonic legions came down to one, almost stoic battle between the divine captain and the hellish Legate. (It was of no coincidence the Romans adopted this ranking structure, after all!) Nearing its final destination, the chunk of earthern sod where the two armies had fought was now littered with the fallen, dead bodies of angel and demon alike.

Negative Rise strode forward, walking amongst the bodies with ease, as he had once inhabited a portion of Hell similarily decorated. As the angelic captain extended his wings, hovering over the mass of bodies while slowly, steadily advancing towards the demon, Negative Rise thrust his left hand out, dark energies flowing around it as it smashed in the skull of what seemed to be a recuperating angel. Then, he shook his bruised and lacerated left fist forward, the unbloodied claws within his left arm being revealed for this final confrontation. Then, the two divinities rushed toward one another -

The thread retracted into the confines of the Patchwork World. The chunk of the barren world thudded into a desolate, decaying city portion of the planet. Negative Rise had leapt up, launching himself towards the angel, his dark shields resounding as the divine sword struck into them - as he wrapped his massive, muscular arms around the host captain, the two suddenly found themselves plummeting a bit further than either of them expected: an unexpected result of aerial combat for the demon, and a near-mortal wound for the angel has Negative Rise managed to use the sucker as a cushion upon impact.

"You're dead," Negative Rise rasped out, his clawed left hand swiftly, efficiently penetrating, bashing and crushing through the skull of the angel.

The demon stood up. Thrusting both hands downward, still-wet blood dripped off the furocious claws, staining the corpse of the angelic captain for a brief moment before the body started to rapidly decay and disintegrate into nothingness, as had the many bodies of both armies done just as the chunk of the alien world thudded into Patches just mere moments ago.

"Now," Negative Rise looked around, surveying the very strange, discombobulated surroundings, "where in the Nine Hells am I?"

A 20 minute buff isn't very permanent to me.

Besides, spirit world, netherworld, heaven, hell, sure - there's differences, but they all pretty much have one thing in common: Only the dead dwell in these places. And, according to the lack of links, I think the devs are all rewriting, or just haven't gotten around to re-posting, the histories of a lot of the places in Paragon and the Rogue Isles.

So why not just go with Astoria being a nexus point, which just so happens to be the entrance to the Netherworld? Would FINALLY give me, and quite possibly a bunch of YOU OTHER PLAYERS, reason to frequent the zone again.

It would also conveniently explain why Astoria went pretty much unscathed during the Rikti invasion (which I am basing on info about the zone found on the paragon wiki at wiki.cohtitan.com).