Götterdämmerung

[Renita_Serafim]

<p><strong>Prologue-An Omen</strong></p><p><strong></strong>Atzila Kol'Olmin awoke in a cold sweat, breathing heavily as her chi senses rang with a sensation much like the high pitched sound of static in her eyes combined with the blazing heat of the harshest desert that she had ever traveled across. It was a sensation that Atzila was well acquainted with. She had felt it when the entity known as the Phage first arrived on Norrath just prior to stealing the Thespian's identity. After that point when the Phage had been weakened, Atzila had felt a dulled version of the same sensation whenever the Phage was nearby. Feeling the full experience again now meant only one thing, the Phage had reached full power once more and was in the process of manifesting in corporeal existance here on Norrath.It was only a matter of time. The Seer Alphega, whose visions were correct 99.9% of the time, had said that it would not be long before the Phage re-emerged once again and even without Alphega's confirmation, Atzila had done the math and calculated that with the rate at which the Phage's formally bewedded spoke her name (or portions thereof) and looked back in fond recollection, the Phage would regenerate in no time.The Phage was an eldritch being who drew it's power from the act of recollection on the part of others. Every time that someone referred to it by name, even if it was just a surname or a portion thereof that was shared by marriage, the Phage grew in strength. This was why Atzila never spoke of the Phage directly by name. The Phage was an anthropomorphic entity, an embodiment of evil itself, it's sole purpose having only ever been to erase everything that ever was or ever will be.Except that in order to manifest in corporeal existance, the Phage requires an identity that has been stolen from another. As evil is the negation of self, the Phage has no self of her own, she has to take one in order to exist outside of the Eldritch Realms. Her current shell is formed from the stolen identity of the Thespian, she who could be thought of as Renita Prime, held together in a singular form by the ethereal glue of another eldritch entity whom the Phage had defeated in the recent past. Just prior to the Thespian's demise, Atzila had blessed her with a chi seal on the back of neck that had been designed specifically as a defense against the Phage, something that Atzila called the Seal of Eternity. While it failed to save the Thespian's life, the Seal had created a backlash that served to shatter the Phage from within and fragmented her into four disparate vessels that shared her psyche, a hive mind that was greatly deminished in strength. Following this event, the Phage has sought to spread her legend in order to provide the force of recollection needed to regain the strength that she had lost. Using her third vessel, she took a wife in order to gain what was perhaps the most potent form of cognitive energy that existed, except that the soulbond ritual had damaged damaged thevessel in a way that she had not anticipated. While the Phage had no soul to speak of, the veil surrounding each of her vessels served to create the illusion of one, enough to suffice for a soulbond. However, the soulbond ritual in question had splintered the veil and caused it to undergo a process of degeneration that could not be prevented. Thus, she had discarded the third vessel by having her persona go through the motions of taking it's own life, only to find that her co-collaborator in that performance intended to doublecross her. The Jester, another eldritch entity, had aided the Phage with the intent of substituting the Phage's third vessel with a simulacrum that could be used to leech the cognitive energy that would otherwise have belonged to the Phage. While the simulacrum did not remain operation for long before being destroyed, the fact that the Jester had even done this had angered the Phage like nothing ever had before and as a result, she hunted the Jester down and killed him in a manner that was more agonizing than anything that any other being in the whole of creation had ever experienced before. After the Jester's demise, the Phage assimilated what was left of his ethereal essence and used it to clue the shattered shards of her being back into a singular whole. The exercise had cost her a great deal of strength, yet the cognitive force of her formally bewedded's recollection would ensure that she would not have to wait long before regaining her full power, especially since the wife in question had retained her surname prefix.Once the Phage manifested, Atzila knew that she would be targeted first. Ever since the Phage had first shattered into multiple vessels, she had saught to replace her fragmented identity with a new one and Atzila fit the bill of what she needed from a veil. In fact, Atzila could almost guarantee that the Phage would manifest at her exact location. This in mind, Atzila set off in search of an uninhabited area. The ensuing battle was likely to be devestating and Atzila did not wish for anyone else to be hurt in the process.</p><p>--</p>

[Renita_Serafim]

<p><strong>I-"And Behold, I Shall Be A Blight Across The Land..."</strong></p><p>By noon, Atzila had arrived at her destination, an uninhabited island located somewhere in-between the continents of Karan and D'Lere, several miles in diameter. Not even animal life existed there anymore, long since dead due to a lack of prey.Atzila Kol'Olmin is a diminutive High Elven woman of a pale complexion, her flowing waist-length hair being the colour of pearls and her narrow slit-like eyes a vivid shade of teal. She dresses in faux-regal indigo attire made from expensive velvet. She spoke in a soft and silken drawl.After almost an hour of waiting, the Phage finally manifested before Atzila's eyes whilst she sat upon a rock, forming into a physical existance from a burst of dark crimson smoke.Like she always did now, the Phage wore the visage of the Peppermint Thespian. The Phage therefore appeared to be a petite Koada'Dal woman clad in a black longcoat with two grey leather belts stitched either side of her shoulders below the collar, her stature similar to Atzila's own. She had a cream complexion and silken waist-length hair that was a light shade of azure, eyes of a bright jade hue. She spoke in a posh, upper-class accent that contrasted with her casual, albeit still theatrical mode of speech.Her arms outstretched, almost as if welcoming Atzila into a hug, the Phage greeted mockingly as the plantlife withered and died around the area in which she stood."Good to see you again!", the Phage proclaimed, "Such a wonderful day!""Quite", Atzila replied sarcastically as she got up from the rock and stood ready to fight."I see you've chosen an uninhabited battlefield....", the Phage observed as she took in her surroundings, "Allow me to dissuade you of any doubt you may have of my ability to take innocent lives from here. You know the island closest to this one, has this harbour town there?"Atzila could see where this was going. She took a deep breath and nodded with a heavy heart as she answered, "Yes, I know of it."As she spoke, Atzila watched in the direction of the harbour town in question. The Phage clicked her fingers and there was suddenly a collosal explosion of dark crimson energy far off in the distance, the exact spot where the other island was located. The sound of the devestation could be heard from the spot where Atzila and the Phage were stood, albeit faintly.Atzila clenched her fist, her jaw gritted as she maintained her composure. The Phage merely smirked."Nice try," the Phage spoke, "But as you'll soon come to realize, it has been in vain. I can take as many lives as I please, even from here. I am now at the same level of power that I was back when I fought the woman from whom I took this identity. All that remains now is for me to take your identity in order to replace this splintered one. Then once the battle is done, I shall bring this world a gift of death.""Can we simply get on with this, please?", Atzila asked wearily, hoping that she could minimize the casualities by keeping the Phage focused on herself."Very well...", the Phage shrugged casually before she gathered a sphere of eldritch power into the palm of her hand, crimson as always, hurling it in Atzila's direction.As Atzila moved to dodge the blast, two more came flying toward her almost as soon as the Phage had fired the first. A torrent of eldritch beams began hurtling in Atzila's path, testing her evasive capabilites to their very limit. She was unsure how she was even going to be able to land a single blow when even making it to where the Phage was standing could prove impossible. Even if she could fire a chi attack in the Phage's direction, Atzila doubted that it would have any effect when the Phage's power now ecilpsed her own. When she got right down to it, Atzila was not even sure that she could win. But she had to try.As soon as Atzila had become solidly focused on evasion, the Phage launched in her direction and attempted to land a strike upon her forehead. Before the Phage could do so, however, Atzila's body surged with pure spiritual energy and she caught the Phage's wrist with her right hand."Banshou, Zero-Point-Zero-One Percent", Atzila uttered as she activated said technique, the cause of the aura now surrounding her body.The Banshou technique enables the user to tap the very source of spiritual energy and channel it through oneself, albeit at the cost of great physical and mental strain while the technique is in use. 0.01% was the total amount that Atzila could safely harness at present, the merest fraction of that reservoir. Any more and she would risk burning her body to a cinder and losing control of the energy that has been summoned. It was an ability that Atzila had learnt at the end of her visit to the place of pure thought known as the Lucid Realm. Among other things, the Banshou technique could prevent the Phage's physical essence from piercing her flesh so long as the aura was intact.As the Phage winced and yanked her hand free of Atzila's grip, she smirked once again and leapt back several feet, the plantlife within a meter of where she stood dying whenever she touched the ground."It seems that I'm going to have to stop holding back", the Phage commented."Oh?", Atzila inquired, raising an eyebrow with an awful sense of foreboding."Do you remember how I went along with that relationship in order to regenerate my power as quickly as I have? How recollection and recognition fueled by love can provide me with more energy than any other kind can?", the Phage asked in turn."Yes, I do recall", Atzila responded, waiting for the explaination."That was only half of why I went along with the relationship, actually. This is the other half," the Phage elaborated, "A person's love toward me also enables me to transform into a superior state with far increased power. That is, when my power in this default form of mine is at it's full. The stronger the love, the more power I recieve as a result. I realized back when I first targeted you in the wake of my injuries from the Seal of Eternity that I might not be able to defeat you, even in this state, let alone in the fragmented state of being that I suffered previously. It had <em>never</em> been my intent to use this splintered identity indefinately. I decided upon replacing it from the moment that the injury occured and you were a suitable replacement for She Who Was Renita, you being who you are. Before I doomed this world, I always intended to claim your identity first. That was always the plan. Are you beginning to understand?""Please, go on...", Atzila replied, although beginning to see what the Phage was trying to get at already."This is all about you!", the Phage proclaimed theatrically, arms outstreched again, "It has always been about you! <strong>All that I have done in this identity has all been toward the singular purpose of defeating you and claiming your identity as my own!</strong> Now, on with the show!"</p><p>--</p>

[Renita_Serafim]

<p><strong>II-The True Face of Renita Lux'Kall</strong></p><p>Atzila had possessed an inkling that the Phage intended to target her from the beginning, yet she had not suspected before that the entirety of the creature's operations on Norrath had been toward that sole purpose. Nontheless, it made a great deal of sense, though there were still questions that Atzila wished to have answered and she reasoned that she could use those to buy herself time to strategize if she kept the Phage talking after her transformation sequence was complete.As the Phage gathered her strength, swirls of crimson energy began to spiral around her, causing the plantlife within a whole meter-wide radius to decay as she initiated the transformation. Her visage appeared to take upon a slithering liquid state as it slid away from her lower level of body tissue and converged upon her right hand, forming into a glistening cyan claw with a texture that was almost metalic in appearance, reflecting what light there was as the sky surrounding the island grew overcast. The sun was all but blocked out by the clouds and thunder began to roar as a raging storm began. The air tinged with electricity.As for the Phage herself, the layer of tissue below her Koada'Dal appearance was composed of a slick black substance with a crimson hue. She was now in possession of four eyes, each a shade of blazing ruby in colour, her mouth a fanged maw. Her flowing mane of hair was pitch black, almost like smoke. Her sole article of clothing was the gauntlet formed from the veil that she had shed moments ago. The Phage's muscle tone swelled somewhat, granting her a more imposing figure. Eight tendrils sprouted from the back of her spine, yet this time connected by a web-like substance that allowed them to double as a pair of wings. As she spoke, the Phage's voice reverberated, echoing just slightly out of sync with her words."So...I hope you're not disappointed...", the Phage said, chuckling to herself with a sound almost like crunching bone.Atzila was honestly terrified. Not of the Phage's physical appearance, she had faced plently of monstrous foes before and some that had been far more gruesome than the Phage was now. No, what she was frightened of was the immense aura of eldritch power that the Phage generated in this transformed state. It was easily higher than any energy reading that she had ever sensed before. Atzila's own chi paled into insignificance in comparison. Whilst Atzila had doubted her ability to defeat the Phage before, she now felt as if her chances of victory were a certain zero. However, she maintained her composure regardless and resolved simply to keep the Phage talking for as long as possible in order to give herself time to think."This is fueled by the power of your formally bewedded's love, correct?", Atzila inquired, concealing her true fear behind a pretense of flippancy."Yeah, what of it?", the Phage responded, having hoped to see more terror visibly register on Atzila's face."If you've gained the power to do this so quickly, what happened to the wellspring of energy that you no doubt gathered in the Sanctuary timeline?", Atzila asked, seeming as casual as possible."That was your fault," the Phage answered, eyes narrowing, "Sanctuary was the product of your mind and to exist inside it's bounds required me to constantly expend energy in order to maintain my physical form. In fact, without the love energy that I was deriving from my ''formally bewedded'', I probably wouldn't have been able to survive in physical form for the full sixteen years at all. So far from charging energy, I was struggling to simply keep my levels steady. It was even worse when the time came when I had to synthesize a band of chronoshades to serve as void invaders on-board Sanctuary, that actually caused me to come out worse than I had been when I entered Sanctuary in the first place. If I had allowed the true Void to attack, Nihilanix may have grown wise to my plans and interfered, so when the time came to send that daughter of mine into the past, I had to spent even more power simply to keep the real Void out of things. The only reason why I even kept Sanctuary active and went to all the trouble of sending the child back in time was because the act of breaking causality and forming a paradox would have created a quantum flux explosion that I was not yet strong enough to withstand. Only now am I now strong enough to endure such a force.""I see," Atzila nodded as she replied, her suspicions coming close to the truth so far, "And what about the Jester?""Vengeance against him was an unforseen necessity," the Phage explained, "I could have been hunting you down sooner than now if not for that, except that I could not suffer the Jester to live after he saught to usurp my image. He had to die before anyone else did."Atzila struggled to think of any further questions that she could ask and she had not managed to figure out any kind of strategy for defeating the Phage either."Aw, has your ploy to buy time run short?", the Phage asked mockingly, having now seen through Atzila's stalling tactic.Atzila sighed wearily, a hint of bitterness in her voice as she answered, "Yes, you have seen through my cunning plan.""Well then, in that case, allow me to demonstrate the true power of this form...", the Phage replied, a clear glass-like bauble growing on the end of each of her tendrils as the sound of wailing began to echo throughout the region, the air filled with the feeling of incalculable despair. Even before the Phage went on to explain, Atzila had already deduced what she was doing from what her chi senses were detecting all around her.<em>"Oh no!"</em>, Atzila thought, horrified by what she knew was about transpire.A surge of crimson power ran through the Phage's body as each of the baubles glowed with a bright ruby light, the wailing becoming almost deafening."For each of these spheres on my wings,", the Phage explained, "I can purge a reality out of existance from the moment of it's inception to the moment of it's ''end of time'', extinguishing all of the lives contained within that space of time. As long as the reality isn't the one that I'm standing on, it's as effortless as breathing."Atzila's rage almost eclipsed her fear as she felt the countless trillions of lives be destroyed by the effect of the Phage's new ability. She trembled with pure unbridled fury at what the Phage had just done."And what more, my power increases expotentially for each dimension I wipe out of existance. Allow me to demonstrate..." the Phage continued, enjoying the visible anger that she was stirring in Atzila. The Phage used her wings to lift herself into the air, pointing her right hand talon down toward Atzila and firing an immense burst of shining crimson energy. Atzila dodged swiftly, sensing the eldritch blast from above as it narrowly missed her, creating a massive crater in the ground as it crashed into it with a loud explosion. Not letting up, the Phage continued to rain eldritch beams down toward Atzila, waiting for just one to make contact.<em>"Wait, how am I supposed to reach her from all the way up there?!"</em>, Atzila thought to herself as she dashed across the battlefield, never once stopping as she evaded the Phage's blasts."Oh, and one more thing!", the Phage bellowed from above, "Every two and a half minutes, I can generate another eight baubles! And you know what that means!"Once again, the area permeated with the terror of another eight realities about to blink out of existance, the sound of wailing hightening once more. Glancing upward, Atzila saw that the Phage's wings now possessed eight ruby baubles on either side, sixteen in total. The creature's energy levels skyrocketed and Atzila's chances of victory felt even smaller to her now than they had before, difficult as she found that to believe.<em>"[Removed for Content] you!"</em>, Atzila thought as she continued to dodge the oncoming beams from on high, <em>"Another couple of minutes and she'll be able to take another eight dimensions worth of lives using the power of someone else's love and recollection! What more, there isn't anything I can do to stop her!"</em>Another two minutes passed and the Phage's lunatic cackling resounded across the island as another eight baubles appeared upon her wings, twenty four in total, glowing with ruby light as another eight realities were collapsed by the Phage's power. By this point, all plaintlife on the island was dead, leaving only a barren wasteland that was scarred by craters.As Atzila continued to dash across the island, dodging the Phage's fire, she continued to think to herself.<em>"If lives weren't at stake here, this would be almost comical! The energy yield being thrown at me is laughable! This gives all new meaning to the word ''overkill''!"</em>, Atzila thought, <em>"She could have defeated me with the merest fraction of this power! For that matter, why was she so eager to fly out of physical reach? During our past encounters, she relied almost entirely on physical attacks. None of her energy based attacks ever worked. Wait! They never worked! Not even once! Even in her fragmented state, she still had a higher power reading than other enemies who have been able to weaken or injure me with energy attacks, so why was she unable to land even a single successful hit with one? If it wasn't the energy yield, she should have no reason for using energy atacks now, regardless of the power behind them. But from what she said, the sole point of that relationship of hers was to gain this form and be able to use this new worldbreaker ability. So if whatever unknown attribute of her energy attacks that enabled me to block them in the past remains unchanged, what is to prevent me from withstanding them now?"</em>There was a moment as Atzila evaded the rain of eldritch blasts from above and then the epiphany came.<em>"Nothing,"</em> Atzila realized, <em>"The only difference is that I've been doubting my ability to block her attacks. Which means...there's a psionic component! My willpower is first class, that is why I was able to resist her energy blasts in the past! Yes, there is an actual energy component, visibly so, yet in regard to sentient beings, there's a psionic barrier that must first be bypassed before the energy aspect can land any damage! It makes sense, she's a conceptual entity who is fueled primarily by thought! Whilst her worldbreaker allows her to collapse entire universes with eldritch magic alone, the implimentation of the energy that she harvests from those realities requires a psionic channel before the energy yield can connect! That's it! If I cease to believe that these eldritch blasts can cause damage, I won't take damage even if I'm caught in the blast radius, no matter how strong these beams become! And while she would be able to assimilate my identity if I were caught in the snare of the eldritch component of the blast, that cannot happen unless I first succumb to the psionic component, which I have no difficulty resisting! That's it! I can win!"</em>Atzila looked up at the Phage again, smiling faintly to herself as she gathered her thoughts.<em>"She remains airborne because she's afraid of what might happen if I land a physical attack. Yet there is logically only one attack in my entire arsenal that could even theoretically kill her stone dead and even I was not certain of that until just now. The Seal of Eternity. She is not afraid of assimilating my identity and all of my thoughts, that has been her goal all along, my temporal state only hinders her while it remains outside of her snare. If I were to fall to her attacks, that would cease to be a problem to her, so it's not my spiritual essence by itself that is of risk. It's the application of it. Given the nature of both her veil and what lay beneath it, I was sure that placing a Seal of Eternity onto her would fail to have any effect, given the alchemic component, yet now I'm certain that it will work. Before, I believed that she could only be caught in the snare of a Seal of Eternity applied to someone she had herself caught in her snare, yet now I know better. She has no other reason to avoid engaging me in physical combat when it's been her primary mode of attack in the past. The only reason why she used it before was because energy attacks wouldn't work and she believes that they will work now because she still thinks that I am unaware of the psionic component, meaning that the disproportionate energy yield will create the necessary belief in my inevitable defeat to allow the psionic connection upon impact. Her targeting me is about more than simply replacing the Thespian's identity. While that is part of the reason, she also wishes to eliminate me as a threat, since I'm the only person with the ability to create a Seal of Eternity. She's hoping that she can defeat me before I figure out her weakness, but it's too late for that! I have the answer! All I need is one clean strike!"</em></p><p>--</p>

[Renita_Serafim]

<div><strong>III-One Clean Strike</strong></div><div>Another two minutes and thirty seconds had passed and so the Phage gained another eight ruby baubles upon her wings, signifying the death of another eight realities. As the sound of wailing filled the air, Atzila scowled as she focused on dodging the rain of eldritch beams from the Phage up above.<em>"If my body can take the strain, if only for a few seconds, I could gain the force to propell myself high enough to reach her by pushing the Banshou technique up to Zero-Point-Zero-Three Percent. I should be able to muster the willpower to sustain Zero-Point-Zero-Three for at least long enough to leap into the air,"</em> Atzila thought as she continued to strategize, <em>"After that, it should be safe to power down to merely Zero-Point-Zero-One, that should be enough to withstand any of her physical attacks without falling into her snare. So long as the Banshou remains active, she can't pierce my flesh, so I'll be safe at least long enough to administer the Seal of Eternity."</em>Even at 0.01% percent, the Banshou technique felt like a tremendous weight upon one's shoulders and required an iron-will to even sustain. It was testament to Atzila's strength of will that she could even master the Banshou in the first place. 0.03% would be truely agonizing and simply grabbing ahold of the Phage would be basically all that Atzila's body would be capable of after initiating that level of Banshou, the rest being up to Atzila's mastery of chi.Atzila paused beneath where the Phage was standing and spoke out aloud, "Banshou, Zero-Point-Zero-Three Percent!"Even for the brief seconds that Banshou remained at 0.0.3%, every fibre of Atzila's body felt as if it was being scorched from the inside, the excrutiating level of pain proving nigh unbearable. But it was enough. Atzila leapt into the air, hurtling toward the Phage at almost breakneck speed. Even as the Phage began to aim eldritch blasts with perfect accuracy, the beams simply passed right through Atzila whilst leaving her unharmed.The Phage looked on with horror, realizing now that Atzila had seen through the weakness in her attack. She only hoped that Atzila had not also deduced the key to her destruction as well.As Atzila neared the Phage, she reached a hand upward, ready to grab ahold of the Phage upon impact. However, the Phage caught her by that very hand at the last possible second, squeezing tightly, even as her flesh began to bubble and boil from contact with the Banshou field."Gotcha!", the Phage spoke triumphantly as she hung Atzila in mid-air.Even before Atzila had learnt Banshou, she had been able to block the Phage's physical snare through application of chi in the traditional sense, this was what Atzila realized had been the Phage's impetus for seeking this new love-fueled worldbreaker form with it's elevated levels of power. If energy attacks failed and physical snares could be blocked through chi, the key was to find an energy attack that was strong enough for Atzila to doubt her ability to withstand against it. This was what had first led the Phage to begin that relationship with her now formally bewedded back during the months immediately following the rediscovery of Neriak and also what had caused her to undergo those marital vows in the days immediately preceeding Anashti Sul's return to the Norrathian realm. This new Banshou technique of Atzila's was simply an additional obstacle in the Phage's way and all she would need to do now is hold Atzila still long enough for her strength to deplete and then the Banshou field would fade, leaving her wide open for a physical snare with no power left for a traditional chi defense either."Not quite!", Atzila grinned as she lowered her hand around the Phage's wrist, focusing her chi in such a way as to form a Seal of Eternity, channeling all of her remaining spiritual strength into this one technique. After a few seconds longer, it was done. The Phage's grip loosened and she recoiled, screaming in agony as the infinity symbol on her wrist glowed with shining white light, causing her entire body to begin splintering from the inside. Atzila fell slowly toward the ground using her innate Safe Fall ability of Mind over Matter, watching upward.With a massive explosion of light in mid-air, the Phage's shimmering claw fell loose, reverting to it's original veil form that carried the visage stolen from the Thespian, plumeting to the ground to the ground with a thud. It was one of only two aspects of the Phage's body to survive the explosion, those remains partially coated in a thick oily residue that was dark crimson in hue.The other aspect of the Phage's body to withstand the blast were the thirty ruby baubles that represented the thirty universes which had been destroyed by her power, each falling to the ground with a loud clatter in the area surrounding the veil.As Atzila herself landed upon the ground, she inspected both the body that the veil had coalesced into and the baubles directly surrounding it. Both seemed to be devoid of any consciousness, merely remnants of the Phage's being.Satisfied in the knowledge that the Phage was now dead, Atzila lowered the Banshou field and fell to her knees, utterly exhausted. Now that the battle was over and composure was no longer required, she allowed herself the luxury of weeping for the deaths that the Phage had caused this day. Quietely, she mourned, knowing that she had time to do so before the inevitable boats belonging to the Qeynosian Guard and the press arrived on the coastline to investigate the devestation. This island was in Qeynosian territory, so it was their jurestiction. Though her craft had no doubt been destroyed during the battle, Atzila could have teleported back to the mainland if she was that way inclined. However, she felt that she should remain for the time being in order to explain what had happened, at least what parts that the Guard or the news reporters would believe, that is.But first, there was time to mourn.--<span></span></div>

[Renita_Serafim]

<strong>Epilogue-Pyrric Victory</strong><p>So, Atzila thought to herself, the Phage is dead. Both the Qeynos Guard and the journalists had indeed asked a great deal of questions before finally departing the island. Each of those two parties had both arrived at the conclusion that the corpse on the ground had belonged to Renita <em>Lux'Kall</em> specifically, since the 1st Renita that Norrath knew of had been saturated in Void essence and the 2nd that had been known as Viperidae was a fully fledged voidling. As for the 4th Renita, she was of an entirely different height and build with a faint and yet noticably different face from the others. That left only the 3rd Renita, whose vital status had been in question from the moment that she appeared to die, both times, seeing as the Jester's short lived golem had fooled a number of people into thinking that it was Renita Lux'Kall before it was destroyed in the midsts of conflict.All of this was a moot point to Atzila, however, who knew for a fact that all of the above mentioned women wearing the name of Renita with the sole exception of the golem were all a singular entity which had for a time been a hive consciousness prior to assimilating the Jester's eldritch essence to glue herself her shattered form back into a unified whole again. Atzila did not spend a great deal of time argueing the fine detail with the press, however, who desired a singular face to pin the blame for that day's atrocity onto. As the Phage's Renita Lux'Kall persona matched her physical appearance at the time of death, the press chose that face out of the four. Atzila would prefer that they not speak any of the Phage's names, just in case there was enough left of the Phage's consciousness somewhere to regenerate from the recollection of others. The press, however, did not care about the potential risk and simply went ahead with their article regardless. Atzila had sighed.But for the most part, it seemed as if the Phage was finally no more. Atzila had not put up an arguement when the Qeynos Guard asked for possession of the Phage's corpse and the Concordium had asked for a number of the ruby baubles for study. Atzila herself had taken a vial of the oily residue that had been on the Phage's body and three of the baubles for the purposes of her own private research. In the end, Atzila had requested that the other baubles be left behind, so that visitors could learn from the visions that the artifacts gave and learn what had taken place there, a testament to the Phage's evil.Yet somehow, Atzila did not feel much like celebrating. The Phage had claimed trillions of lives before finally dying and Atzila's hope that those whom the Phage had stolen identities from would be revived with their identities restored had ultimately been in vain. While the Thespian would have undoubtedly had to contend with the fact that the name of Renita was now synonymous with evil of the highest order imaginable, at least she would have been alive again. But alas, restoring the Phage's victims to life would be a great deal more difficult than that, it would seem. But someday, once she had that power in her possession, Atzila vowed that she would do so, no matter how long it took.Of all the victories that Atzila had achieved, this was by far the most bittersweet.</p>