The Vanumlli
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There exists in this world of super heroes and villains a pair of individuals that are uniquely suited to the phrase, two sides of the same coin. One is a hero that has been working behind the scenes for countless centuries. He is, what was once called, an avatar. More specifically, he was created an Avatar of Shadow. The name of the coven that spawned this hero is now lost to the mists of time.
The other side of the coin is a villain who was created at the same time as the hero. She to is an avatar, only not of shadow, or light, she is an Avatar of Night. Through the ages while the hero has been at work she has slept, held in check by the final shreds of power of the coven that created her. Now, however, she wakes, and with her a new threat.
In the room of the Avatar of Shadow, on a small desk speckled with candles that provide the sole source of light for the room, a journal resides. This journal contains the final thoughts of one of the coven members, and the only written record of the birth of Vanum and Ummli.
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If these words are now being read then the Avatar of Night has finally broken the seal that contained her. We, the members of my coven, spent the last of our life energy to contain the beast. We had hoped the seal would be able to draw power from the beast for all eternity, thus keeping her trapped. But as these words can now be read it is apparent that it was not enough for the spell that kept these words hidden were tied to the seal as well.
We were a proud coven; full of ourselves is more like it. We wished power and to that end began to research the old spells. We traveled around the known world secretly searching for any form of mystical power that we could bend to our will. Eventually we uncovered The Vanummli, an ancient text written when the gods still walked the earth. In its pages we found power unheard of for ages. Power enough, we thought, to rival the gods.
And so we studied this text, recalling the coven to concentrate our effort. Simply holding the book caused our most difficult spells to seem as childs play. In time we found a way to pierce the veil and draw on power none in our time had even heard of, the power of legends. This, more than anything, was the beginning of the end.
As with those new to the craft we craved to do more and more powerful magic. It was as if all our experience to the contrary simply vanished. We found warning after warning that the magic found in the book should only be attempted by those properly prepared for it. In our lust for power we searched the book for a way to conjure a being capable of crushing our enemies and placing ourselves in power. And find it we did.
Nearly a month from the end we gathered the requisite sacrifices and prepared the circle. The vessels to contain the power were a man and a woman, one an enemy and the other a member of our coven. We knew from our research into the spell that the man would be destroyed and the woman made unrecognizable, but we cared not.
As the time approached we bound both with magic, intending to keep the coming creature contained and able to be bent to our will. During the casting, however, something went wrong. The power of our enemy was greater than we thought and it threw off the spell. Between the two bound captives rose what can only be described as a living blackness. This blackness was supposed to enter the member of our coven while consuming our enemy, turning his light to darkness and using that converted power to breach the veil. This, of course, did not happen. The blackness instead split and entered both the man and the woman. Almost immediately they were both changed and the bonds that held the man in place broke. As he looked around his eyes finally fell on the bound woman and, at the exact moment their gazes met, a void began to build between them. When he noticed the void he quickly shrouded himself in shadows and left.
Being nearly drained of power we looked to the bound female and saw a bloodlust there that rivaled our own. At that point we knew that if she ever broke free our lives would be forfeit. Quickly we worked to reinforce the seals that bound the beast. We did not notice that as we worked the sky became black as night, even though it was still midday. Finally we managed to increase the strength of the bonds so much that her body turned to stone. We could still feel, however, great magic within the stone statue and knew that she could wake, given time. And so while the coven worked to create a seal in which to hide and bind this avatar for all time I wrote these pages so that the mistakes of the past would not be repeated.
In the end we used The Vanummli as the key to the seal, binding it to the seal and the seal to the statue of the beast. That, however, took the last of the covens power, and also their life. I alone was left to bind these words to the seal as a warning. Do not allow the avatars of shadow and night to meet. Should they meet no matter the strength of the avatar of shadow the night will devour him and make complete the creature we tried to summon. The night will grow more powerful than mere words could hope to explain. Have no doubt that she will consume the life essence of every last being on the earth, perhaps in time even the life essence of the planet itself. Should the Avatar of Night be allowed to consume the Avatar of Shadow it will be the end of all.
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The End
Day 1, Saturday August 8.