Its not actually gonna rain Mayors. Its just a metaphor. I know, I'm very sorry to let you all down like that.
Just kidding, your disappointment only fuels my existence.
**************
[Unitopia, Eastern Continent]
The hunger in his belly was sated, for now. The chilling cold of the night had been replaced by the blinding heat of the sun. Its sharp blue rays beamed down on the battlefield, only accelerating its decay. The vultures had long since deemed it safe, coming down to feed on the corpses, entangled with steel machinery in a hideous mockery of a proper burial.
The man scoffed at the thought. What use had the dead for such things? They only worked to appease the worries of the living. But the dead around him were not silent. Far from it.
He could hear their murmurs, so faint as to be mistaken for blowing of wind. But they were there. He was far from understanding them, but he could feel their affinity with him.
'A new thing, this affinity. When had they first appeared, but after last night? That horde of spectral bodies adding their invisible weight to my proclamation against the Stars. Its fitting for a dead man living, their constant muttering serves as a reminder of my purpose.'
Even if he wanted to ignore them, in in the barely broken silence of that desolate place, there was nothing to drown out their sound. A loud shriek interrupted his thoughts, as though in a specific attempt to prove him wrong.
The vulture shrieked again, its voice tainted by fear and pain, but it was soon cut short, ending with a gurgling noise. A very familiar gurgling noise. Visions assaulted his minds. Friends, enemies, clutching at their throats with expressions of disbelief on their faces. Collapsing to the ground, convulsing, as they were left behind. Barely a backwards glance spared for the fallen comrade, so cheap the lives of men had become.
His heart began to race involuntarily as the fear overtook him. He closed his eyes tight, clenching his hands.
'It's not real. It's not real. It's all in the past. This is your mind. Are you really that weak to succumb to this?'
But it was not enough.
In the end, it was the ghostly voices that broke him from his flashback, cold and clammy sweat covering his body. For an instant, he relaxed, their murmurings washing over him like a healing balm for his soul. A sense of tranquility assaulted him, and he fell into its embrace, too tired to resist.
In that strange state, he felt his awareness expand until he felt...something. His brows furrowed until realisation dawned on his face.
His soul. He could sense it. It was an odd feeling, like suddenly being aware of a body part you always had, but without the dissonance such an experience should carry. Instead, it felt right. Like this was the way it had always been.
Perhaps, before, such a thing would have scared him. Or at least made him apprehensive. Now, he barely had the energy for such things. Instead, he was lost in the marvel of the new yet familiar sensation.
It was nothing like he had imagined. There was no glowing orb floating in his chest, or a green flame that flickered. Instead, it was as though there was another him overlapping his real body, yet not residing in the 'real' world. It occupied the same space as his physical body, but the two were unable to interact, as though they existed in two different planes.
His soul was firmly connected to his body, though. He could sense that immaterial tether and his intuition warned him against toying with it lightly. Though it did feel strangely malleable to him.
'Well, maybe toying with my soul minutes after discovering it's existence may not be the brightest of ideas'
A very sensible suggestion. I had begun to think that 'reason' had long since been burnt away from his psyche. You know, after the whole, 'I shall tear down the Stars' and all.
Anyways, in this state of heightened awareness, the ghostly whispers became clear, as though mud had been cleared from his ears. He could actually feel their effects, somehow strengthening his soul, filling it with an unseen power. Even though their voices were clear, he still could not understand them.
But he could hear their tone, at least.
It was far from the calm he had felt upon listening to it. It was an unholy resentment. A colossal fusion of fury, anger, pain, sorrow mixed to produce a concentration of negative emotion. Perhaps, had he not been there, it would have festered long enough to become an irreversible scar on the world.
But he was there. And that energy was flowing into him. He could sense a nascent intellect behind the whispers, but it possessed nothing beyond vague instinct. Instinct that guided it to his soul.
'For what? Was that vision real then, of those spectral bodies rising up with me? Not a conjuring of my addled mind? If so, then they did something to me, something to my soul.'
But answers were not forthcoming in that place. All he could do was to concentrate on that feeling. Sense the shape of his soul. Feel that subtle strengthening from the unintelligible whispers.
'No matter if I turn into some half-ghost abomination, I am already a dead man. Power is what I need most, after all. No matter the means.'
***
[Unitopia, Western Continent]
At that moment, on another continent entirely, a slightly different, yet no less confusing, situation was ongoing. Ziriothrax and Jeffbob had barely passed through the threshold of the town when they felt a marked difference. Well Ziriothrax noticed it at least, I'm still not fully sure Jeffbob has any clue what is going on.
With a shimmer, like a translucent satin veil being pulled back from his eyes, he found himself stood on a road, building either side of him. The town was clearly small, the tallest building being a three story spire tower he could see nearer the centre. There were no other buildings that competed with it, rendering the cricket's vision unobstructed.
Well, not that it was in the first place.
'They really thought that weak, pathetic scrap of a veil could obscure the vision of the me, The Dread Ziriothrax, Devourer of a Billion Souls, Origin of All Evil, Archon of Suffering, King in Crimson Cloth, He Who Lurks In The Dark, The Lord Below, The Plague of Exo Prime? Their underestimation shall be their inevitable doom, just as billion billion before them! It is their Fate to fall at my hands, and should Fate conspire against me, I shall abolish it all the same!'
Interrupting Ziriothrax's rambling thoughts was Jeffbob's deep voice.
"It appears we are about to have a visitor, little cricket. Brace yourself"
Barely a few seconds after that, Jeffbob and Ziriothrax both felt someone's gaze wash over them before receding just as quickly.
"Must be the Mayor that stupid rabbit was on about", Ziriothrax muttered in response. His mild words belied the scheming in his mind:
'So the border to his domain is the walls of the town then, which is where that pathetic illusion ends. But what about underground, or the air? How far does it extend, or can he extend his perception outside the borders and simply chooses not to? Well, I have a feeling we're about to find out soon enough.'
Ziriothrax's intuition was once again proved spot on as there was an explosion on the fourth story of that spire.
Amidst a cloud of billowing smoke, a glinting object was flung with great force in their direction. As it approached, streaming flames, its appearance could be discerned. It appeared to be a full suit of armour - the medieval kind, that is. It was unadorned and its surface, well the parts of it not on fire, were covered with ash and soot.
Its helmet was down, hiding the man within.
Soon enough, the kinetic energy the explosion granted it succumbed to its inevitable loss against gravity and it began plummeting down to the ground.
Jeffbob took several steps backwards languidly, watching with mild interest in his eyes. Ziriothrax hopped back as well, though his insect eyes barely hid his haughty disinterest.
With a great crash and a cloud of dust, the suit landed in an unseemly heap on the road in front of them. The street was empty, but one person poked an angry head out of the window at the loud sound shouting.
"Whose making such a racket this early in the devil-damned morning!"
Neither Jeffbob nor Ziriothrax responded, only looking slowly up at the yellow sun now at the zenith of midday, then back at the man who withdrew sheepishly.
Luckily, the suit of armour took that moment to struggle to its feet, a metallic voice sounding out from behind its visor.
"Sorry about that, Viktor. Just testing a new recipe"
"Oh yeah", the man named Viktor drawled. "How's that working out for ya"
The suit of armour let out a rich laugh and spread its arms.
"How does it look?"
Viktor was silent for a few seconds.
"You gotta oil your joints, old man. You're getting rusty".
Without waiting for a reply, or more likely fearful of one, he slammed the window closed and drew the blinds.
The suit of armour shook his head and turned to the two newcomers.
"Sorry about that, not exactly the best first impression for our first visitors in such a long time"
His metallic voice had a rich, magnetic tone. A strange majesty suffused its every syllable, not marred in the slightest by its ashen appearance nor the fact that his left pauldron was still on fire.
"Well then, perhaps introductions are in order:"
He inclined his head politely.
"I am Shade, Mayor of this humble town. Come, let's have a chat over some tea in my office. I have a feeling it'll take some time."
He paused as though forgetting something before creaking backwards, the spire still billowing black smoke into the sky. Angry shouts and cries reached them as the Mayor snapped his fingers.
"Oh yeah, forgot about that. Be right back"
In a burst of speed that Ziriothrax narrowed his eyes at, the Mayor disappeared.
"Well then, let's get a move on. We may be of help to this Mayor", Jeffbob spoke in a tone that brook no argument. With a deep purple glow of his lower horn, the two beings disappeared in a flash of light.