Author: Marco Visconti
Character Diary from #Elysium
It all begun many years ago…
…to many years to remind them all… a mere mortal would call that length of time a aeon… but for the One Above’s (or whoever is the puppeteer behind all of this) sake, I’m no more a mortal, an I’ve been like this for the last 7000 years…
In the days of the Second City I was a scholar, a student of the ways of Saulot, one of the City’s masters: I was his on of most promising students, and one night, the night I turned 27, he gave me the Dark Kiss and Embraced me. And so I entered the realm of eternal night as one of the Salubri, the seventh and last childe of Saulot, and so I became fascinated in what I became and in the myths of my new Kind. And Saulot was a gentle Sire in this, that he always told me whatever I wanted to know.
But there were some things he did not want to tell me… and these things were the tales of his voyages in the Far East, the tales of how he reached the blessed state of Golconda through the teachings of a mythical being called Arhat Xue, but his most well-kept secret was the tale regarding his involvement in the falling of Enoch, the First City. He always told me to observe, and wait, that one day would come when all this mysteries would be disclosed. And that day came: he called for me, and for another of my brothers, Karesh, the mightiest of my kind. And he told us that the time for us to know finally arrived, and in a night I’ll never ever forget he told us about how left for the Land of Nod after the First City fell, and how wandering there he met strange new entities, led by the arhat Xue. And he told us how these beings was similar to us in many ways, but that they learned to fully comprehend their Beast, which they called P’O, by following a kind of code, called Dharma. And he told us that he was initiated by them to these Ways, and that he tamed his Beast by accepting its dark side…
Then he returned from the Land of Nod, bearing with him Golconda, and he found his way to the Second City: and he told us how his heart was full of joy when he saw again his Brothers and Sisters, and also their childer, the Clans…
But then his weary eyes saw how his Clan developed… and he did not see anything he expected: where he was looking for great warriors, he only found a small group of mere healers. And his grief was great, because the Way to Golconda he learned could not be taught to those not accustomed to the ways of the battle.
So he called for Samiel, his firstborn, and commanded him to raise an army, and pure Samiel did as he was told. But Zao-lat (this was his true name, I learned) soon saw how also these Warrior Salubri weren’t ready for his Way: they were too chivalric, pure as the great Kindred that called them together, and for it they did not qualify for the harsh standards required by the Way. But he told us he did not abandon his project, that he found another way, and that we were to trust him. And so we did.
Then terrible times fell upon us: one of Ashur’s childer, Shaitan, organized a rebellion, fueled by the foul Demonic Investments he acquired by selling his soul to the Entities from Beyond… many valorous Kindred met the Final Death in those nights, but in the end, some said thanks to the intervention of Caine himself, Shaitan and his 12 followers were driven out the Second City, and we all returned to our peaceful un-lives… Till the time that my very Sire called for the Council of the City, telling that the Shaitan’s menace was not ended, because the thrice-damned Kindred and his followers were organizing a stronghold in the city of Chorazin. Strife and desperation hit our hearts again, especially when Zao-lat declared in front of the other Antediluvians that he wanted to assault the dreaded Chorazin using his elite Warriors… us.
But we were soldiers, and we were to obey to the orders. So we prepared, and left the Second City, well knowing the horrors we were going to face ahead. We were 13, led by Karesh…
I won’t report here the horrors I witnessed in the four months I lived laying siege to Chorazin: but nothing, nothing of the vile things I’ve been subjected to during those nights could ever equal the sense of oppression I felt when it all ended… when I discovered the truth beyond all, when I finally understood which mean my "beloved" Sire used to spread the word of his Way. He decided to destroy us, his bloodline, his Clan, and replacing us with more promising individuals… Shaitan and his allies, the Shen of Ba’al. Our mission to Chorazin was a suicidal one, because Karesh received the precise order to betray us to the Infernal Masters that ruled the city, so that our Vitae could be used to fuel the new brethren of Zao-lat… the Baali. I still don’t know to this day how I managed to remain unseen and flee, when my great brothers fall one by one… Vekis, Madiel, Javaniel… all gone because of our Sire’s folly.
That day I swore my revenge on Zao-lat, and I’m still waiting to confront him on the battleground when the Final Nights will be upon us. I hunted him across the centuries, silently observing as he used the Baali to fight my Clan, rejoicing when I saw he himself betrayed by the children of the Demons (what a stupid – how could he ever think to fool a Demon), then worrying again when he found new pawns in the crazed mages of House Tremere, especially when I came to know that this time he took direct control of his third bloodline, by letting the mages’ leader to "diablerize" him. Finally, my hate grown to incredible heights when he used the Tremeres to declare a pogrom of my Clan.
As the years passed, I wandered the Earth gathering forces for my revenge, never saying anything about my past life to the allies I managed to gain during my endless voyages: for them, I was Azrael, childe of Veddartha of the Ventrue… the only other Antediluvian who knew the truth on Zao-lat, and the only one to whom I ever spoke about the terrible nights of Chorazin (maybe is this what hides behind the Ventrue’s firm believe in some sort of "Secret Masters" who threaten the very existence of the Kindred?). I searched long for those Kindred of the East that taught my damned Sire about the Way, to take my vengeance upon them also, but someway the roads to Asia has been always impervious to me… is their power so potent?
In those years, I spent the nights from a battlefield to another, always those who were connected someway with the treachery of Zao-lat: the Setites in Egypt, the Baali in Crete, and the many other Infernalists who craved only for personal power without caring about what they were bringing to this already scorched planet. I was among those who battled the demonic Baali in the island of Crete with the other warlords of the Kindred… I fought face to face Nergal himself, and I won… at a great price, however: to definitively destroy him, as Menele and my other allies were conjuring the power of the Earthshaker to sunk the nearby island of Thera, where Nergal was organizing another stronghold, I had to take on myself the weight of the demonic entity the Baali’s leader carried inside him. And I bear that weight to this day.
But one night I grow weary of the fighting, I grow tired of what I became… the "Angel of Death" of many myths and lores of the Kine. And it was in one of those nights that I was approached by a Kindred of extreme power, who called himself "Del-Roh"… she told me she was the leader of a sect I only heard whispered of, a sect called Tal’Mahe’Ra: she told me what their goals were, and she also invited me to join them. I thought about it long, and then I accepted: the year was the 475 B.C.
Among the Tal’Mahe’Ra I learned many secrets, and I greatly augmented my knowledge on the Kindred and the other Awakened… I was among those who pressed to start the Shadow Crusade against the Souleaters and Vicissitude, that, I came to know, just another Demonic manifestation – much like the Entity I keep deep inside myself. I also oversaw the creation of both the Sabbat and the Camarilla, and constantly schemed against the Tremeres, waiting for the day I will confront again Zao-lat/Tremere… the day of Gehenna.
Gehenna… this has been my hidden agenda thorough the millennia… to bring forth the Final Nights, so that I could avenge my lost brothers with the cursed Vitae of my Father. I know many things about the Final Nights… about the thirteen places of power that will see the ending slaughter… Rome, Constantinople, Stonehenge, Tara, Mecca, Uluru, Petra, Tenochtithlan, Poname, Tunguska, Haiti, San Francisco and one more still hidden… but these truths are yet best kept hidden.