Far beneath the ocean surrounding the land in the endless dark; the One did awaken- the master fed by the black and rotten tendrils that creeped beneath the land, sensing; feeling; hunting. It existed- or didn't- in this 'far beneath' of everything, as something 'other' in this Deep realm, a concept like gravity or time held no meaning here, Unlike 'the Nowhere' this realm [i]was[/i] somewhere and yet it wasn't, inaccessible from the surface world except when the One willed it. To describe this realm and it's master would be to describe smoke, what form it took was at it's whim. Yet in this world of perpetual darkness it mattered little. It grew restless once again, stirred by a new idea... It schemed in the darkness and once it's scheming had reached a lifetime of volume, it made it's preparations. But first it would need it's most trusted servant... ---------------------------------------------------------------- In the bright sun of mid-day on the corner of the square in the city of Offtopic, the Speaker sat, powerless, dejected, begging for coin... his human eyes and scraggly black beard were faded and wild, as he stared into nothing, he took another swig from the bottle at his side, he was empty- without purpose, just another denizen of the city... a cardboard sign sat against the wall with the words "abandoned, any bit helps..." He had been like this for some time, he had been left alone by his former master; an ancient abomination that had gifted him wealth, fortune and a mere piece of its limitless dark power, in exchange for his servitude... but all of that had changed when he failed to do his master's bidding. The passerby's avoided straying to close to him, likely due to the intense smell that pervaded his area like a putrid aura; He had not bathed in weeks. The esteem he had held was gone, his abilities taken... and now he had nothing nothing once again. and then the whispers began... tbc