Reforged!

Floastone, The Citadel of Calidor

The Citadel of Calidor, the home of the old Avalonian gods. Katalina’s cathedral had been remodeled with stunning white marble with black streaks laying through the stone. Gone were the mosaic tiles of torture and horrors. Katalina, standing over the red beating crystal altar, touched the smooth surface with her hand lovingly. She felt her power coursing through the crystal stone, just a link to her domain and all of its glory.

In the past these altars she would have her faithful provide sacrifices of blood and perform dark rituals to please her. Now, this was one of the last lifelines of her power, most of these altars had been destroyed over the years. One by one the young gods had removed evidence of her existence, reducing the chance of someone worshiping her. She remembers the cries of pain when an innocent was made a sacrifice to her, this used to bring her such joy. Now, with age, it is a very hollow feeling much like the rest of her existence.

Katalina had been inside her Ka’Azalin’s mind studying the inner workings of her avatar’s personality, it was a fragile thing. Her Ka’Azalin was insecure and lonely mostly because of her own personality. Katalina noted that Andrea avoided people not wanting to get attached or emotionally involved. She was going to have to break down her mind and rebuild her personality to suit the upcoming life changes. If she was going to need to train this mortal into a goddess, her Hand will need to learn about how her new body works. As a god, she will have numerous different bodies, learning how they work will be important and none more important than this one.

Normally if her Hand had any emotions such as love or mercy, Katalina would teach the avatar that these are weaknesses to purge and rid themselves of. She would have broken her Hand emotionally then have the Hand cut the ties with the family by torturing to death the family members who had the strongest ties to the Ka’Azalin. This time she would not have to, the Hand would only be attached until she was ready to take on the responsibilities of the Immortal Bane, the hunter of the gods.

Katalina was not looking forward to these emotions from her Hand. She had wanted to suppress these feelings herself, for the longest time because of an old wound of her own heart that never had healed. Andrea had a mind of her own, any being shared can not completely cut off the other’s mind. Katalina could feel, see, and experience what her hand was going through at every moment. This brought a bit of entertainment to her, but at the same time added extra emotions she did not want or desire.

Though, Katalina wondered why they chose such a weak-willed mind and created a demon body in the form of a succubus. She knew the answer, that was the choice Erien made, he wanted to make this as painfully annoying as possible for Katalina, he was the demon responsible for choosing both Andrea and Katalina’s forms in this incarnation. The other reason was that the demon could hold souls, and she knew that the Council of 8 had given the ability to Ka’Azalin to hold the essence of a god. Katalina was going to change her celestial body out as soon as she had gathered enough grace to do so, but she still could use this form to instill fear and demand respect among the mortals living in Avalon.

The Soul Stones had wanted her to train her Hand to be their new Immortal Bane and Katalina to be the Warden of Avalon. Malice the Soul Stone of Evil had found her some suitable candidates to be Ka’Azalin’s partner, ones who had been touched by darkness. Out of the ones she had reviewed, she found Oliver Martin to be just right. He could still care, but had been seeded by something dark, he would fully understand what her Hand is and how best to control her.

She would have to prepare both her vessel and this mortal for the upcoming task. As a god, Katalina could create dreams for mortals was something that they could do. All gods could do this simple trick, bypass mental defenses and spells, this allowed the god to show their will to the mortals. Katalina was going to merge the two minds together when they dreamed, provide some narrative, some changes, and mixing of characters and locations from their own past for the story and let the two share experiences in this dreamscape. Katalina would set the stage and let the two dreamers play out their own interactions in the provided story.

Katalina thought to create a bond like this was so much of a hassle, much easier to dominate and force control over the mortals. Allowing these souls to have a say in the matter was irritating, to say the least, but she thinks that this will provide her with some needed entertainment. For she will not see the end result ahead of time.