Indigo Shadows

The Master

The Master is one of the surviving members of The Heros. He was married to another one of the heros, a female elf, whose name he will not repeat. The world sees what they did as a victory; tragic though it was. He does not. It was a defeat, an utter, crushing defeat. And worst of all, he no longer wanted to work with the Tower; he'd tried to leave, but his wife convinced him to stay.

To wake up, after the battle, only to be informed that your wife and friends are dead is a terrible experience. To then also be told, "And now you can never leave, and will serve me for the rest of a very unnaturally long life" is an unimaginable torture. He feels impossibly bitter about the way Veza handled that. In fact, if he hadn't had five hundred years to get to know her as a person, and not as some mythical figure, he probably would not be actually working to assist her; instead he'd be finding ways to subtly ruin her plans and destroy the world.

He's thought about it. He's pretty sure he could. For all her faults, Veza trusts him. And she definitely should not.

What He Wants

At the end of the day, all he wants for himself is to be allowed to fade. He doesn't want to die; he simply wants the option. Oh, if there were all the magic in the world, and all the possibilities in existence, he wants his wife and friends back. But Veza has explained that something about what happened makes that impossible. She will not explain further.

Because she's made a believer out of him, Zankas actually wants to fix the world. He doesn't believe the solution is a reunification, but allowing magic and life to flow between both worlds seems like a good start. He also, honestly, thinks Veza is making her own problems by not talking to Umumtu. There's a chance that the solution is the two of them working together, not apart. But Veza still isn't ready to hear that.

The Plan

Zankas has realized that Veza will never do what's required, asuming that what's required is confronting Umumtu and what happened with Yrdon. So he is lookging for the right group of Heros to help him make what needs to happen, happen.

At the same time, he's fully aware, now, of who The Assistants are. He knews they're Kivuli, and he understsands that the solution must invovle Kivuli and Humans reaching some sort of balance in themselves. He doesn't know what that is, but he knows it needs to happen.

Immediate Steps

It's time for another group of Heros. He will train them, and with Veza's help, will slowly introduce them to magic. Meanwhile, he will be thwarting Umumtu's current attempts at unifying Humans and Kivuli. He knows they're dangerous, cruel, and born of a singlemindedness that only a greving woman in love can manage.

Intermediate Steps

The Assistants are the key, he thinks. He needs them to work with the Heros more closely than previously, and allow them to become invested in their success. Unlike Umumtu's attempts, this will allow the Assistants to bond with the Heros in a natural way, and might spart some sort of change in one or the other.

Long Term Steps

The Tower must fall. It's inevitable, and is the only way Veza and Umumtu are going to talk. Regardless of fixing the world, the two of them need to be fixed before anything permanent can happen. To him, Humans and Kivuli are the embodiments of Veza and Umumtu's longing for each other. They've spent too long from each other, and have forgotten how to express that, so their creations are doing that for them, in a twisted way.