Background

Wrath, Sloth, Gluttony, Greed, Lust, Envy, and Pride: these seven sins are common among many religions. They may go by different names or have differing levels of severity according to their religious dogma, but the pervasiveness by which these concepts infect other cultures is undeniably potent. The Sins spelled even my world's downfall in ages past, and they continue to be relevant to me no matter where I travel in the multiverse. Ultimately, they even became my naming scheme for different classes of Void juggernauts – the most dangerous and formidable of that place's inhabitants, colloquially referred to as "World Eaters."

Revaliir had been visited by one such juggernaut in the past, and, just like the others I had encountered before it, I gave it  a name based on the Sins. This monstrosity, who I deemed Wrath, was lured to Parvpora by the anger and resentment that its citizens felt for their deities long ago. It fed on their hatred, growing stronger and stronger until, finally, it was able to consume the Voice's sibling.

Only through great and concerted effort on the part of Revaliir's finest was that beast ever contained; and, even then, not without cost. Every Revaliir citizen knows the results of that ancient war. Parvpora lost its deities and the gods forever became weaker in the lands of the East. What most do not remember, however, was that Wrath had been an imminent threat during the course of the fighting and that he never actually died at its conclusion.

The conclave – or what remained of it after Wrath had been subdued – had been unable to kill the juggernaut during the course of the war. Instead, they sealed it away in an impenetrable vault at the lowest point of the Nyella Ocean: right next to where Skadi Night's former temple would one day rise.  They called this place the Eytellia Ziggurat: a giant, super-prison meant to be lost to the tides of time.

Over the years, the Voice erased the existence of that building even from the minds of the deities who had constructed it. It did this almost without exception, but spared those who were meant to maintain the prison's infrastructure. The seals, while potent, degraded over time, and they needed to be shored up on occasion.

I was among the selective group of architects tasked with the prison's upkeep as a deity, as was my successor Skadi Night. Together, the two of us helped maintain the prison: me with strengthening the barrier holding Wrath in check and Skadi with replenishing the leviathan population guarding Eytellia's border. We both did our parts during our respective eras, but, after we left, I don't know who was in charge of the ziggurat's maintenance.

'Perhaps no one,' was my thought when the Voice suddenly decided to expose its existence to the world once more.

The Approach

Wrath's stirring occurred with relative haste following the soldierless war between Naota and Xunatar. In fact, I had barely finished recovering from the return of my scar before Shiloh and Angela made their announcement. As such, it was no sooner than the bandages had come off that I found myself headed straight for Eytellia for the first time in decades; but not in the way most others went. Nay, rather than joining the crowd coming in from Sihajja, I departed in the Shadow Fox with Robin and Adel at my side.

Suicide, some might have called this chosen approach; yet, unlike them, I knew what I was doing. Leviathans were indeed dangerous - that is not in doubt. However, they also suffer from the same ailment that all large beasts with monolithic forms possess: sluggishness. Anything fast enough could evade their grasp, and that's where my ship came into play. The Shadow Fox had sacrificed power for speed in its design, and effectively so. No leviathan could catch it on a straight line, and it even had modifications to allow for deep sea diving so the trench pressure couldn't touch us either. With those traits, the ship was easily able to bypass the sea beast perimeter and arrive in the safety of the bubble corridor within seconds. Shortly thereafter, my crew landed safely on the seabed floor, and proceeded with the operation from there.

Of course, my group didn't immediately vacate the Shadow Fox upon arriving at the ziggurat's front gate. As was typical for operations like this, I had SAI apprise the crew of the current situation before disembarking.

"Give me a status update before we head out, SAI," I had asked her while the ship was still touching down, and she responded with a ship-wide broadcast.

"Currently a few adventurers have already arrived ahead of you. Both Shiloh and Angela are inside the ziggurat right now, and the seal recharging has begun. Unfortunately, however, the deities seem to be the least prepared of those currently beyond the gate." For a brief moment at that point, the status update ceased, but only so that a three-dimensional, scrying image could be shown to everyone on board. The picture, rather amusingly, was of Shiloh shaking Angela silly, and was meant entirely as a visual aid for SAI's follow-up remarks. "It seems that Shiloh.exe has stopped responding. I detect that her coping mechanisms have failed and, as a result, she is taking out her stress on Angela. Likewise, Angela.exe has stopped responding as well, likely due to brain damage brought on from Shiloh's shaking. I doubt you will be able to get through to either of them in this state, even if you tried."

So concluded SAI's summary, though obviously not without at least one occurrence of her tendency to append ".exe" to other people's names when they weren't functioning optimally. Obviously, however, that was the least of my concerns, given that the two people most capable of charging up the barrier again were, instead, panicking.

"Great," was all I could say once I realized Shiloh and Angela would be of little assistance in the matter at hand.  "So much for the Voice choosing the most capable people for the job… but I guess they make effective cheerleaders if nothing else." It always pained me to admit that fame was just as effective a tool as subterfuge in situations like the one with the ziggurat, but I would take all the help I could get no matter the form it took. Shiloh had the voice to implore action and Angela had the name recognition to draw crowds: both things that apparently the Voice saw merit. Either way, those two would be too busy to hear me, so I, along with Robin and Adel, didn't bother contacting them. Instead, we disembarked and finally travelled inside of Eytellia;  but not before locking and cloaking the Shadow Fox behind us.