The Chamber of the Chronoplast

Raziel opens the doors to the time flow chamber and finds Kain…

Kain: At last. I must say, I’m disappointed in your progress. I imagined you would be here sooner. Tell me - did it trouble you to murder your brothers?

Raziel: Did it trouble you when you ordered me into the abyss?

Kain: No - I had faith in you. In your ability to hate. In your self-righteous indignation.

Raziel: Lies. You cannot have foreseen all of this.

Kain: Eternity is relentless, Raziel.

When I first stole into this chamber, centuries ago, I did not fathom the true power of knowledge. To know the future, Raziel… To see its paths and streams tracing out into the infinite… As a man, I could never have contained such forbidden truths…

But each of us is so much more than we once were… Gazing out across the planes of possibility, do you not feel with all your soul how we have become like gods? And as such, are we not indivisible? As long as a single one of us stands, we are legion…

That is why, when I must sacrifice my children to the void, I can do so with a clear heart…

Raziel: Very poetic, Kain - but in the end, you offer no more than a convenient rationalization for your crimes.

Kain: These chambers offer insight for those patient enough to look - in your haste to find me, perhaps you have not gazed deeply enough.

Our futures are predestined - Moebius foretold mine a millennium ago. We each play out the parts fate has written for us. We are compelled ineluctably down pre-ordained paths.

Free will is an illusion.

Raziel: I have been to the Tomb of Sarafan, Kain. Your dirty secret is exposed. How could you transform a Sarafan priest into a vampire?

Kain: How could I not? One must keep his friends close, Raziel - and his enemies even closer.

Can you grasp the absurd beauty of the paradox? We are the same - Sarafan and vampire. With our holy wars… our obsession with Nosgoth’s domination… Who better to serve me than those whose passion transcends all notions of good and evil?

Raziel: I will not applaud your clever blasphemy. The Sarafan were saviors, defending Nosgoth from the corruption that we represent. My eyes are opened, Kain - I find no nobility in the unlife you rudely forced on my unwilling corpse.

Kain: You may have uncovered your past, but you know nothing of it. You think the Sarafan were noble, altruistic? Don’t be simple. Their agenda was the same as ours.

Raziel: You are lost in a maze of moral relativism, Kain.

These apparitions and portents… what game are you playing now?

Kain: Destiny is a game, is it not? And now you await my latest move…

The battle begins. If Raziel is defeated and returns…

Kain: Have you returned to embrace your destiny, Raziel?

After hitting Kain three times…

Kain: You nearly had me, Raziel… But this is not where - or how - it ends. Fate promises more twists before this drama unfolds completely.

Kain crosses the time flow portal while laughing. Raziel prepares to follow him…

Elder god: Be warned, Raziel - once you cross this threshold, you are beyond my influence…

Raziel crosses the portal and appears in a room different. Moebius appears…

Moebius: Raziel… Redeemer and destroyer… pawn and messiah.

Welcome, time-spanned soul…

Welcome… to your destiny…

To be continued…

Moebius: Where time is but a loop, A loose stitch in the Universal Cloth, A Streamer might seize upon a chance, a fatal slip And plunge the fate of planets into chaos…