Ravalor IV

19.04.2026

Ravalor existed.

That he was at least tentatively sure of.

Somewhere in nothing, floating in a sea of light, he was aware. Right there he saw everything and felt nothing. And because he saw everything, all of it was reduced to light, as all colours were fused back into white.

Faintly there was a memory of his own body, but it didn't belong here. The absence of any physical sensation only intensified the light around him as it was the only thing there was. While impossible to truly comprehend, Ravalor instinctively knew that this light was not a quality of the space he existed in, but rather, the very fabric of what allowed him to even think about it. It felt neither welcoming or hostile, if anything his presence seemed as insignificant to it as a grain of sand would be to a tsunami.

The sensation in his mind was overwhelming and the memory of his own self felt like an anchor dragging him down. There was so much, but he couldn't understand any of it. Like a thundering waterfall crashing into a small drinking glass that was simply, physically incapable of holding even the smallest mentionable fraction of the deluge.

In a way he also understood that nothing of this was actually happening — at least not in the context of his physical self. Because he felt no time. No space. Just the ever more pressing awareness of something that saw him as he saw it. He wasn't alone. Within this something he felt trillions upon trillions of entities. But amongst them, in this timeless moment, there was only one that really saw him. He felt it. Him.

The light around him shifted, gently and hasteless. An idea, like a distant memory, fleeting and without form, embraced him in a warm golden glow, and almost he thought he heard the calling of birds. A low whisper of a river. A rustling of wind through flowing curtains. A memory of place that seemed utterly foreign to this space, pulling him softly into a context he could comprehend.

The being was there with him. It felt like they were close, just in reach, if he only could reach out he would be able to grasp them. But there was also nothing there, because it was just a feeling.

Then a gentle, slightly raspy voice spoke to him.

— Don't be afraid.

Outside the safe embrace he felt that onslaught of impression rushing past him and already by paying attention to it he felt himself dragged away from the sense of calm comfort. His mind shuddered as he glanced past the warmth, just within his peripheral feeling, and he felt like there was something else. Someone else, looming just outside of his awareness which was almost fully enveloped by the warm golden glow of the one that had spoken to him.

He struggled to think, let alone respond to the bodiless voice.

— Where am I? What is this? He finally managed to ask, but he had no voice to speak these words.

— This is us. The voice said softly, the word carrying the lightness of a smile. Reassuring, comforting. —You call it the void.

His mind felt like it was about to tear apart, like with every passing moment more and more threats unravelled and being whispered away by this overwhelming presence around and he tried as hard as he could to focus on the warm glow. But distress tore at every facet of his mind. If this was the void — he had died. Desperation, denial, grief, all welled up in his awareness. He needed to go back, this couldn't be it, he wanted to—

The soft, raspy voice brought him back into their embrace, gently but firmly holding his attention.

— You’re part of it now. Let it take you, the voice said. — Don’t fight it.

Ravalor wasn't sure he could have stopped it in the first place as he was dragged along, and as the fear finally settled in his overwhelmed mind, he understood that those words implied just an illusion of choice.

The voice grew distant as his mind was swept away in the current of light, sinking deeper and faster into the onslaught of impressions.

— I’ve waited for you.

He understood that the voice didn't really mean him. But someone like him. Someone who could make This happen. This had happened before. It would happen again.

But what This was, he still didn't understand.

His awareness started to flicker, light was replaced in jittering chunks with absolute darkness. He was drowning, dragged deeper into the void.

— Your body will be broken now. You need to share this burden.

The sentences oscillated into a high pitched ringing and back into silence.

— I’ll find you.

Then his mind finally shut down and Ravalor vanished into darkness.

*

Ravalor woke up.

Everything about that process was familiar. The place ( Zenozarax' bedroom), the circumstances (he had slipped away again), the people around him (Zenozarax, Moakatar) now in motion as he woke up, and the freezing cold in his body.

But everything was different.

Within the second of becoming aware his mind started racing, reducing reality to a slow crawl, every function on his body had slowed down or stopped outright as every available spark of energy was trying to process his thoughts, because…

He remembered.

He would shudder, but even that his body would no longer do, as he didn't breathe, didn't move, didn't blink. It was hard, near impossible, to find any sensible starting point of sorting what he now knew. Every time he tried to grasp a thought a thousand more came crashing into his awareness, drowning out any coherent recollection.

By the lords, he remembered.

He had taken the curse of Chaos into his mind. And he had expected it to be a dramatic change, something that would inevitably change his own perception, yes. But, he knew that what had happened to him wasn't normal.

Of course it wasn't, he would have laughed or cried over that realisation; he couldn't even do treason normally. He should have expected that.

He knew when he had taken the curse of chaos from Quadirymir something abnormal had happened, because he now remembered the first time he had willingly taken this curse:

After Atladin had taken Zenozarax and him hostage, and Zenozarax, he with the help of Demitalek had built a hell portal beneath Treva to banish the construct within Zenozarax to hell. And Ravalor had taken Zenozarax' hand, sharing his burden long enough to do that. He remembered the moment when reality around him had recontextualized within the framework of this curse, and he felt the same now. Back then Zenozarax had killed him to make sure Ravalor would not take this curse back to Mezchinhar. In a way he had assumed it would end not too differently this time.

(By the lords he felt pain)

But this was not the same.

He remembered.

He had taken Quadirymir’s wrist, just the same as he had seen Grandmaster Zenozarax do it before.

Now that he remembered, he understood how impossible it should be that he did. But he did remember, he did remember Zenozarax awakening him for the first time, the moment the wizard he was, Ravalor, had come into time. Long before he had been in the cold sterile walls of Mezchinhar. Grandmaster Zenozarax and the struggle of Funnix… and recognized himself and what he had become in every moment, and how it had driven him back to Zenozarax again, and again.

(He felt like drowning)

All of it was so much, too much, but it was what he could understand. Because those were his own memories.

But then there was Quadirymir.

Someone touched him on his shoulder, and finally his body resumed the most basic functions. He gasped. Blinked.

But dragged back into reality he suddenly was assaulted by a kind of pain he assumed had to be comparable to a human migraine. Just that in his case, with his decentralized neural system, the pain flared in every part of his body. He tried to raise up but couldn't even move for the longest time.

Then he finally met Zenozarax' eyes and the worry within them. The desire to just grasp his hand was now stronger than it had ever been during the last weeks, but faintly there was a puzzling awareness that even now, when a simple touch could do no more damage, the touch he had felt had been on his shoulder.

Ravalor tried to speak.

“What is happening to you?” Zenozarax asked intensely. How often had he asked already?

A shuddering gasp filled his lungs with shallow, desperate breaths. There were a thousand and one things he wanted to say, but how was he to even begin to explain that he remembered? That there was something there, in the void, after all. And that he had — for a moment — when he had grasped Quadirymir's wrist, seen all of that horrible wizard. Past any disconnection, past any blockages, past what even Quadirymir had ever forgotten in death. He had seen and remembered all of him.

Four Parts.

The old man. The young woman. The twins, two Part so dangerously similar to each other that they took each other's place frequently without anyone noticing, and both of whom he had seen in the battle of Funnix.

And all of them had been close to him. To Ravalor.

The Stargazer remembered the memories of his other parts, everything that had happened over the last months, but he also saw his Warrior's actions laid out before him as Quadirymir had watched him along the way ever since he had returned from the inter-dimensional dark earth. Every stop within the Twilight galaxy the Kingmaker called his home had brought him dangerously close to Quadirymir.

But that wasn't all. He knew of the war he had orchestrated, back in Aeven's home galaxy and now in the Twilight galaxy as well.

He remembered how Zenozarax had described Quadirymir as a wizard whose attention one does not want. It was doubtful even Zenozarax understood how right that statement was when Zenozarax himself was Quadirymir's sole focal point, in what only could be described as obsession.

That realisation was profound and unsettling. And some part of Ravalor found pity as he could, as an outside observer of other wizard's memories, see objectively how his mind had been twisted.

The moment when Quadirymir had found out about the Knife Izvi and created a plan to take it for himself was the moment Quadirymir had rewritten his own destiny. Funnix had been the turning point.

Because against all odds, Quadirymir had successfully taken the Knife from Grandmaster Zenozarax in that battle. And it had sent him down a path of mania Ravalor could, with an analytical calmness, identify as abnormal. He understood that not even Quadirymir himself had realised how over thousands of years, the influence of the Knife desperate to return to its owner had warped Quadirymir’s perception, his goals and ambition, till there had been only one goal, one person left: Zenozarax.

Everything that had happened, and everything that was happening right now, was just a consequence of it.

Quadirymir’s interest in Ravalor was only in the context of Zenozarax, that much was clear. But that made what Quadirymir knew no less startling as Ravalor realised the true danger to himself was not coming from Quadirymir. But from within the machinations of Mezchinhar itself.

He tried to say that, anything, but the only thing he finally managed was a shuddering gasp.

There was a sound. Zenozarax was beside him again. When had he even left? He was speaking. Ravalor could hear the tune of his words.

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