[Anomaly]

Here, the cries of battle and the wails of the dying are but a whisper among many. The wraiths of times long past haunt these rooms of cavernous stone. Carved into the very rock by blood, magic, and pure burning rage, the history of The Masters speaks for itself. A crackling of electricity merges sweetly with the languid hiss of swirling magics. Energy ripples in waves over the dark interior, gently caressing stone busts of Masters of the past, the murals of their deeds, and the images of those they defeated in various poses of defeat, despair, and suffering.

Chanting of rituals of the past can still be heard vibrating through the walls, thumping like the beating of a gigan heart. There is no light but a dull background darkness provided by torches that blaze with darkness. At their core starlight flickers, lending a muted brilliance to soaring gables, buttresses, and support columns that reach high towards a ceiling shrouded in distant gloom. The grainy, infrequent light increases in intensity as the eye of the beholder travels closer to the center of this structure. Really, it's the only way to go...all paths lead to the central chamber. All paths lead to the Pillars.

This chamber, more than any other, is lit by the eldrich glow of science and sorcery in sinister duet. After images float in the air, long dead memories given shape if not flesh. Dancing about an arcane circle carved into the stone floor, these images shy away from the source of their creation. The lay lines of power within the octogram flare, each apex of the eight pointed star burning with its own unique light. A huge, uniquely carved column rises from within each of these eight sectors, thrumming with their own energy signatures that feed into a ninth Pillar. Wider than the others, it looms in the center of the circle.

At the base of each Pillar is an ornate throne that faces inwards, towards the central Pillar...the Pillar of Balance. All thrones are empty...save the largest, most ornate of all, bedecked in carvings of beasts and angels, inlaid with the skulls of both, dripping with old tallow from the black candles that burn perched on the many ancient bones. This is the throne of the Grand Master of the Masters. Anomaly sits in full armor, Arad's Corruption gleaming in the magical light, gauntleted hands folded on the pummel of his blood reaving sword. The eyes of the Reaver glow crimson in the semi-darkness and a harsh growl that might be a whisper issues from the blade.

"Yes...I know...It is time."

His eyes open, twin stars in this maelstrom of power. His helm is open so that you can see the distant, almost peaceful features of his pale face. His dark lips part into a cruel smile that is all needle sharp fangs. Here, at the seat of his power, the ebony halo gleams above his head a solid thing made of darkness, light, and the tears of slain angels. With a flick of his finger, he invokes one of his most powerful magics. The octogram flairs and the after images, ghosts of yesterday, flee for their half lives as those closest to the circle are sucked into the matrix of the growing spell. A dark portal opens just outside the Circle.

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ToroMor, the Dark Christ steps into the portal of darkness he himself has forged. As he arrives he is welcomed by the scent of blood and rotting flesh that haunts any battle field. A welcome sight, surely, his troops and his enemies locked in an immortal struggle that will have an all too mortal end. In the distance towers the Masters Keep, that collection of stones and mortar held together by the most subtle of spell work and technology. In the distance that babylonian tower, his goal, thrusts like a middle finger directed at the universe. Does a smile spread beneath the shadow of his helm? Does he notice the puddle of stars his portal has released him into?

The sky above is still the dull, gray of a day choked with the smoke of charred corpses...yet the puddle in which ToroMor stands shows a night sky swirling with distant stars. The dimensional rip into the X-zone widens just enough, allowing ToroMor to slip through. The Anomalists spell fades from the battlefield.

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Darkness parts before the Dark Christs eyes like a veil rent from a temple of nightmares. Flames of darkness flare into pillars of night at his arrival before collapsing into points of starlight that flee into the gloom above like children frightened to their very core. Whispers rise all around ToroMor; pleading with him, cursing him, laughing at him, crying to him, but just like the flames they are swiftly snuffed out. The only light that remains is the crimson light that spills from ToroMor's evil eyes.

Before those horrid eyes, a new light floods this cavernous chamber. It is a magical light that seems at first sourceless, before its source becomes all too plain. Nine pillars exude a light of power that blends to create an almost blinding flash, before it is subdued into a gentle pulsing of light...similar to the steady throb of power that permeates this vast chamber. On the distant walls all about the chamber can be seen certain...artworks...from times long past. Bodies embedded in the stone, sewn together, ripped apart, reshaped and meshed are strewn across the walls in a great mural to butchery, to immortality, to death, decay, and most of all to glorious, unyielding conquest. Laced through these cadavers, in various stages of preservation and decay, is circuitry and sacred runes that glow a gentle crimson. All leading in a cluster like earth born lightning back to the throbbing Circle.

At the center of that circle, the perfect and eternal loop, from a throne hung with skins, caked with blood, and the fat of the slain, rises the Anomalist. Unmasked, his eyes burn with an intensity not unlike the stars they resemble as he glares at the one his spell has summoned. A hushed silence decends in the chamber, as all of heaven, hell, fate, and chance eavesdrop on this single sublime moment. This calm before the perfect storm.