(This is actually the very first story I wrote about a COH character, way back before Issue 22 came out, as a way of exploring what the changes to Dark Astoria meant for the character Astorian Shade, who at the time was only level 20. Astorian Shade is the ghost of a teenage girl who was sacrificed when Astoria first went dark, originally emerging from the fog as a spirit of vengeance but gradually redeemed as a heroine with MAGI and Azuria's help. Her origin story's elaborated upon in the AE arc "Forsaken People: A Tale of Old Astoria." This story isn't what I would call a sequel to that arc, since it was more about Astoria itself, but it does continue her development as a character.
Because this was written before the Dark Astoria makeover and I didn't want to be spoiled on it, I kept the details of Mot's awakening to a minimum. I still haven't gotten Shade to level 50 to play through it, though apparently I lucked out in a few details lining up with how events unfolded according to the new exploration badges.
Journal of the Modern Arcane Guild of Investigation
Azuria's Report
March 5th
As of tonight, there's been a change in the being known as the Astorian Shade. I hesitate to write this entry so soon after the fact, but the need for as clear and detailed an account as possible must outweigh any emotional considerations. I've supplemented this report as needed with audio transcripts gleaned from the remote viewing sigils.
The situation in Astoria had been deteriorating for some time, and I had advised Astorian Shade against returning to the aid of her former home. Needless to say, she wasn't happy with such advice, but she did abide by it. She instead stayed behind in the MAGI office tonight to help me do research on a possible link between the Hellion's infernal masters and those of the Circle of Thorns. There are times when she could so easily be taken for a normal girl. She assumes human form for days at a time now, and the sight of her sitting at a table, idly kicking one leg against her chair while reading a book, can seem so disarmingly ordinary at times.
"The terms of the contracts sound similar," she'd said with a glance up from the book, while I was looking through the shelves for one of our confiscated Oranbega scrolls, "and there's no mistaking the demons they both summon. It could be a rival archdemon of the same order, trying to forge a new deal to usurp Lilitu's contract with... no... nononoNONO!"
I whirled around at that first panicked syllable, thinking she'd realized something awful about the research we were doing. But that wasn't it at all. Something had flung her off the floor to hover in a bobbing wind above the toppled desk, clutching her head in her hands and flashing with a subliminally quick, cold white light that seemed to cast monstrous shadows across the bookshelves. More than that, I could suddenly sense something else in the office, a psychic presence radiating from her in pulsing black waves, something monstrously evil.
That's all I needed to know to grab my cell phone and wake up the rest of MAGI.
"Gregor, this is Azuria. Something's happened to Astorian Shade: possession, maybe even an exorcism. I want a level 7 containment ward placed on City Hall right now. Get a team ready and prepare the marks. I'll stay here and try to counter the..."
The lights flickered and a silent shock wave rippled through the office as the hovering girl burst into flames with a raspy scream. That same scream flooded the sizzling phone for a moment and then it went silent, the receiver dead. I've only seen her true form a few times, a pale apparition in ashen clothes, blindfolded and horribly mutilated, and I've never actually witnessed her fiery transformation at all. Still, I knew enough about her to think I understood what was happening, that she'd simply lost her concentration and changed form.
"Astorian Shade," I said in a raised but calm, steady voice, trying to be an anchor of confidence against her thrashing turmoil, "listen to me. You're stronger than whatever's trying to control you. Focus on my voice and fight against it. Remember who you are."
"Astoria is burning," she winced through gritted teeth, her blindfolded face turned down as she convulsed against that inner struggle, "it's awake... it's consuming us!"
Then she burst into flames again, and changed into something entirely new.
Pale leathery wings beating the air to hold her aloft, her modest clothes transfiguring into leather and steel before my eyes, a face that had alternated between ethereal beauty and tragic grotesquery now just a blindfolded skull, despite the pale flesh of the rest of its body. She spoke again and each syllable rose in cadence with another, ominously whispering sound that swept around her like a whirlwind, an inhuman language I nonetheless instantly recognized. She was speaking Enochian, the language of the gods. The language of the Scroll of Tielekku.
"Semeroh emetgis i quasb. Teloch niiso bagle nonci-to."
Until that point, I'd vaguely assumed this sudden attempt at possession had something to do with the Circle of Thorns, a desperate effort to stop our research. But that was all just a coincidence, and the meaning of her Enochian words made the truth terribly clear.
The ancient seal is broken. Death comes for you all.
"Mot," I whispered to myself as I stared at the winged nightmare she'd become.
My next thought was the sickening realization that I'd made a horrible mistake. She's not stronger than the thing she's fighting now. Maybe she will be someday, but not yet, and telling her to fight this battle was just making her lose it all the faster. Now that I understood what she's up against, my mind raced to to think up a different strategy. And as I tried to think, she seemed to grow calmer, her struggles gradually ceasing as that inhuman voice spoke again.
"Pashs astel erm camascheth - nai chramsa efe galsuagath rudna."
Children playing with trinkets - I'll smash your precious vault to dust.
The first Enochian words she'd uttered might have been as blind and meaningless as a birth cry, but there could be no mistaking the implications of that statement. The thing wrestling with her for control was becoming aware of its surroundings now, learning enough about me and the MAGI department to threaten us. But in a way, that gave me hope: a god of death has no reason to make threats unless it can't immediately act on them. Despite the eerie stillness of her hovering form, she must still be inside, still fighting against it and holding it back.
"Shade, listen to me," I said firmly, practically holding my breath between each word to keep my voice from trembling, "you have to let go of Astoria. You can't save it.
"You can't save them," I repeated steadily, making myself stare calmly into the face of that blindfolded skull even as her hovering form continued to subtly shift and change, "they're like a whirlpool and if you don't let them go, they'll pull you all the way down with them. They don't have a choice, but you still do. I'm sorry, but you have to let Astoria go.
"You're not a spirit of vengeance," I continued amid the flapping gale of its wings, and I couldn't keep my voice from building into a quick rambling panic, "you're a hero of Paragon City. You're not bound to Astoria, this is your home. And if you don't let go, if you don't let Astoria fall, then you're going to fall too and everyone here will die! Nothing can save them anymore, but you can still save the rest of us. You're not bound to Astoria, Mot can't claim you!"
I don't know if I was trying to reach her, or bluff the eldritch thing trying to overtake her, or maybe just trying to convince myself. But it worked. Or rather, her time as a hero in Paragon City, saving lives, showing mercy to her enemies, reluctantly making friends with the people she'd met, that worked. It made her more than an echo of Astoria, more than its avenging ghost. She had grown into something that, in the end, Mot couldn't reach out of Astoria to snatch away. She gave a convulsive shudder, another, human cry of searing pain and suddenly collapsed onto the carpet, that skeletal phantasm instantly fading away into an auburn-haired girl once more.
And, as Gregor and the ragtag team of magic heroes he'd assembled scrambled down the stairs and into an office suddenly as calm and seemingly ordinary as ever, the Astorian Shade did something I'd never imagined from such a being. She started crying uncontrollably.
March 6th
Daybreak has only confirmed the terrible reality of what the events at City Hall last night seemed to herald. Mot has broken free, and Astoria is now lost to us. A landscape that had once seemed abandoned and shrouded in mist now seethes with demonic life, an otherworldly corruption that threatens to engulf the planet. The destruction is being held in check, for now, and the metaphysical effect on Astorian Shade has been thankfully minor. That deathly apparition she changed into seems to remain as a kind of scar, an unwanted link between Mot's power and herself that afflicts her during times of overwhelming stress, but she retains her free will even in that form. I am confident that she remains a steadfast hero and ally to the city.
The emotional toll of Astoria's fall, though, is another matter. Her existence as a spirit had been entwined with the rest of the ghosts in Astoria, of the people she knew in life, and she drew her strength from them. Though she still has a channeler's aura, she's confided to me that those ghosts seem to have vanished, that she can't hear their voices anymore. For the first time since the day she died, she feels completely alone. As cruelly ironic as it might seem given her spectral nature, she may be, in a painfully real sense, Astoria's sole survivor.
(This is actually the very first story I wrote about a COH character, way back before Issue 22 came out, as a way of exploring what the changes to Dark Astoria meant for the character Astorian Shade, who at the time was only level 20. Astorian Shade is the ghost of a teenage girl who was sacrificed when Astoria first went dark, originally emerging from the fog as a spirit of vengeance but gradually redeemed as a heroine with MAGI and Azuria's help. Her origin story's elaborated upon in the AE arc "Forsaken People: A Tale of Old Astoria." This story isn't what I would call a sequel to that arc, since it was more about Astoria itself, but it does continue her development as a character.
Because this was written before the Dark Astoria makeover and I didn't want to be spoiled on it, I kept the details of Mot's awakening to a minimum. I still haven't gotten Shade to level 50 to play through it, though apparently I lucked out in a few details lining up with how events unfolded according to the new exploration badges.
This story continues with "Astorian Shade: Survivor's Guilt," which takes place later that day.)
Journal of the Modern Arcane Guild of Investigation
Azuria's Report
March 5th
As of tonight, there's been a change in the being known as the Astorian Shade. I hesitate to write this entry so soon after the fact, but the need for as clear and detailed an account as possible must outweigh any emotional considerations. I've supplemented this report as needed with audio transcripts gleaned from the remote viewing sigils.
The situation in Astoria had been deteriorating for some time, and I had advised Astorian Shade against returning to the aid of her former home. Needless to say, she wasn't happy with such advice, but she did abide by it. She instead stayed behind in the MAGI office tonight to help me do research on a possible link between the Hellion's infernal masters and those of the Circle of Thorns. There are times when she could so easily be taken for a normal girl. She assumes human form for days at a time now, and the sight of her sitting at a table, idly kicking one leg against her chair while reading a book, can seem so disarmingly ordinary at times.
"The terms of the contracts sound similar," she'd said with a glance up from the book, while I was looking through the shelves for one of our confiscated Oranbega scrolls, "and there's no mistaking the demons they both summon. It could be a rival archdemon of the same order, trying to forge a new deal to usurp Lilitu's contract with... no... nononoNONO!"
I whirled around at that first panicked syllable, thinking she'd realized something awful about the research we were doing. But that wasn't it at all. Something had flung her off the floor to hover in a bobbing wind above the toppled desk, clutching her head in her hands and flashing with a subliminally quick, cold white light that seemed to cast monstrous shadows across the bookshelves. More than that, I could suddenly sense something else in the office, a psychic presence radiating from her in pulsing black waves, something monstrously evil.
That's all I needed to know to grab my cell phone and wake up the rest of MAGI.
"Gregor, this is Azuria. Something's happened to Astorian Shade: possession, maybe even an exorcism. I want a level 7 containment ward placed on City Hall right now. Get a team ready and prepare the marks. I'll stay here and try to counter the..."
The lights flickered and a silent shock wave rippled through the office as the hovering girl burst into flames with a raspy scream. That same scream flooded the sizzling phone for a moment and then it went silent, the receiver dead. I've only seen her true form a few times, a pale apparition in ashen clothes, blindfolded and horribly mutilated, and I've never actually witnessed her fiery transformation at all. Still, I knew enough about her to think I understood what was happening, that she'd simply lost her concentration and changed form.
"Astorian Shade," I said in a raised but calm, steady voice, trying to be an anchor of confidence against her thrashing turmoil, "listen to me. You're stronger than whatever's trying to control you. Focus on my voice and fight against it. Remember who you are."
"Astoria is burning," she winced through gritted teeth, her blindfolded face turned down as she convulsed against that inner struggle, "it's awake... it's consuming us!"
Then she burst into flames again, and changed into something entirely new.
Pale leathery wings beating the air to hold her aloft, her modest clothes transfiguring into leather and steel before my eyes, a face that had alternated between ethereal beauty and tragic grotesquery now just a blindfolded skull, despite the pale flesh of the rest of its body. She spoke again and each syllable rose in cadence with another, ominously whispering sound that swept around her like a whirlwind, an inhuman language I nonetheless instantly recognized. She was speaking Enochian, the language of the gods. The language of the Scroll of Tielekku.
"Semeroh emetgis i quasb. Teloch niiso bagle nonci-to."
Until that point, I'd vaguely assumed this sudden attempt at possession had something to do with the Circle of Thorns, a desperate effort to stop our research. But that was all just a coincidence, and the meaning of her Enochian words made the truth terribly clear.
The ancient seal is broken. Death comes for you all.
"Mot," I whispered to myself as I stared at the winged nightmare she'd become.
My next thought was the sickening realization that I'd made a horrible mistake. She's not stronger than the thing she's fighting now. Maybe she will be someday, but not yet, and telling her to fight this battle was just making her lose it all the faster. Now that I understood what she's up against, my mind raced to to think up a different strategy. And as I tried to think, she seemed to grow calmer, her struggles gradually ceasing as that inhuman voice spoke again.
"Pashs astel erm camascheth - nai chramsa efe galsuagath rudna."
Children playing with trinkets - I'll smash your precious vault to dust.
The first Enochian words she'd uttered might have been as blind and meaningless as a birth cry, but there could be no mistaking the implications of that statement. The thing wrestling with her for control was becoming aware of its surroundings now, learning enough about me and the MAGI department to threaten us. But in a way, that gave me hope: a god of death has no reason to make threats unless it can't immediately act on them. Despite the eerie stillness of her hovering form, she must still be inside, still fighting against it and holding it back.
"Shade, listen to me," I said firmly, practically holding my breath between each word to keep my voice from trembling, "you have to let go of Astoria. You can't save it.
"You can't save them," I repeated steadily, making myself stare calmly into the face of that blindfolded skull even as her hovering form continued to subtly shift and change, "they're like a whirlpool and if you don't let them go, they'll pull you all the way down with them. They don't have a choice, but you still do. I'm sorry, but you have to let Astoria go.
"You're not a spirit of vengeance," I continued amid the flapping gale of its wings, and I couldn't keep my voice from building into a quick rambling panic, "you're a hero of Paragon City. You're not bound to Astoria, this is your home. And if you don't let go, if you don't let Astoria fall, then you're going to fall too and everyone here will die! Nothing can save them anymore, but you can still save the rest of us. You're not bound to Astoria, Mot can't claim you!"
I don't know if I was trying to reach her, or bluff the eldritch thing trying to overtake her, or maybe just trying to convince myself. But it worked. Or rather, her time as a hero in Paragon City, saving lives, showing mercy to her enemies, reluctantly making friends with the people she'd met, that worked. It made her more than an echo of Astoria, more than its avenging ghost. She had grown into something that, in the end, Mot couldn't reach out of Astoria to snatch away. She gave a convulsive shudder, another, human cry of searing pain and suddenly collapsed onto the carpet, that skeletal phantasm instantly fading away into an auburn-haired girl once more.
And, as Gregor and the ragtag team of magic heroes he'd assembled scrambled down the stairs and into an office suddenly as calm and seemingly ordinary as ever, the Astorian Shade did something I'd never imagined from such a being. She started crying uncontrollably.
Daybreak has only confirmed the terrible reality of what the events at City Hall last night seemed to herald. Mot has broken free, and Astoria is now lost to us. A landscape that had once seemed abandoned and shrouded in mist now seethes with demonic life, an otherworldly corruption that threatens to engulf the planet. The destruction is being held in check, for now, and the metaphysical effect on Astorian Shade has been thankfully minor. That deathly apparition she changed into seems to remain as a kind of scar, an unwanted link between Mot's power and herself that afflicts her during times of overwhelming stress, but she retains her free will even in that form. I am confident that she remains a steadfast hero and ally to the city.
The emotional toll of Astoria's fall, though, is another matter. Her existence as a spirit had been entwined with the rest of the ghosts in Astoria, of the people she knew in life, and she drew her strength from them. Though she still has a channeler's aura, she's confided to me that those ghosts seem to have vanished, that she can't hear their voices anymore. For the first time since the day she died, she feels completely alone. As cruelly ironic as it might seem given her spectral nature, she may be, in a painfully real sense, Astoria's sole survivor.
"Now, I'm not saying this guy at Microsoft sees gamers as a bunch of rats in a Skinner box. I'm just saying that he illustrates his theory of game design using pictures of rats in a Skinner box."