video; un: leavegodalone

[necrolord]

Is this thing on?

[ The camera opens on a man, but there is something horribly inhuman about his eyes: they are black from edge to edge, the iris burning with a ring of white light. He is flanked by two skeletons which stand at attention, each with a speck of glowing red in their shadowed eye sockets. ]

Been a while since I had to do this. Hey, hello, kia ora. You face the King Undying, the Necrolord Prime.

[ He claps his hands together. There is something wrong with them: the whites of his metacarpals are exposed, flesh crumbled away like so much ash. ]

But let's not stand on formality, right? I hear we're on a first-name basis, now. So: I'm Emperor John Gaius, creator of the Nine Houses, and also God. Not locally, mind, [ and he gestures vaguely upwards, ] here it's a more crowded playing field. I'll admit, it's been an adjustment. I tried to get a peek at my usual domain... turns out Mariana doesn't like to share.

Now, I get that I've made a few mistakes. [ He says this like funny understatement, hands splayed. It shows the bare red tendons in his palms. ] Let's clear up some misconceptions.

[ He stands accused of baby-killing, human sacrifice, and the destruction of whole planets. He riled Mariana into a deadly storm. But what he says, with all the gravity of a king, is: ]

My wife is that hot.

[ Fantastic. Amazing start. He leans in to regard the camera. ]

Look, I get it: I haven't made myself popular. I'll get a lot of kids at my door screaming log off. We're on, what, bloody retribution attempt six or seven? It's been a constant parade of death lasers and witches and kids with swords. And I see where you're coming from. I put a serious damper on everyone's fun vengeance beach party.

But it's getting a little old, so consider this a friendly warning to all my executioners: I will start losing patience. [ He quirks a smile that does not touch his eyes. ] Not to be all, I have over ten billion confirmed kills, but: maybe do not fuck with me.

Cheers.

[ The skeletons perform an ancient First House salute, and the feed cuts out. ]

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[necrolord]

[ But here's the thing: he likes Ford, ultimately. Death ray and all. So instead of fucking around and leaving it at that, he drums his fingers on his desk. The bare bone of his metacarpals goes tik tik tik on the wood. ]

Genuinely? Personal policy. I decided, a long time ago, to lay old ghosts to rest.

[ (It's one more piece of himself he buried with her.) ]

[cryptograms]

[ The worst part isn't that John makes the joke.

The worst part is that Ford actually laughs. Not enough, not even so much that it could be called a laugh instead of a snort, but enough that he can't deny it happened. Fucking hell, just once he'd like to meet an ancient eldritch megalomaniac that isn't also funny.

But look at that, John gave him a straight answer. ]

But not entirely at rest. Someone here knew it.

[ There's a change there's a classic Deerington-slash-Trench at fault for that, but Ford feels like John would be even more apocalyptically angry that he already is in that case. ]

[necrolord]

[ There is a fleeting, simple enjoyment to making Ford break for a moment. He crooks the edge of a smile, and this one comes a little closer to looking real.

But the slant of his mouth is still deeply wry when he says: ]

We've been having a bit of intra-Empire family drama.

[cryptograms]

[ Well, at least they're both somehow enjoying this conversation.

Though it's very strange, actually. Despite his comparatively long tenure in Deerington and Trench, Ford has never been in a position to murder and be murdered by someone and then manage to get along with them later. There had been his various run-ins with Bill, of course, but that was different. They had a long history, and couldn't be said to 'get along' even on their best days. And hey, speaking of... ]

Someone else tried something similar to what you just did, once. Picking a fight with the Pthumerians to try to wrest control from them.

His name was Bill.

[ Maybe when you're an immortal with a boring name it makes you more volatile. ]

[necrolord]

This one I haven't heard.

[ For all the Deerington stories he's collected, he wasn't aware of a Sleeper trying to unseat it all: it's always been Pthumerian vs. Pthumerian. ]

How did that go for him? I'll take notes.

[cryptograms]

He got a bunch of Sleepers kill, a different Sleeper killed him, and nothing changed. He didn't manage to reach Julia and he was stuck in the town until he disappeared by happenstance.

[ That last one Ford is, admittedly, not entirely sure of - but he's certain if Bill had managed to find a way out they all would have heard about it. Or at least, he would have. ]

He also had much more in common with the Pthumerians than he did any other Sleeper. He was inhuman, eldritch, billions of years old, typically only existed in the places between dimensions, and had the ability to invade dreams and warp reality.

[ He's not going to bother addressing the matter of whether Bill might have been stronger or smarter than John or anything like that. He doesn't think any of that is what actually matters. He's not the biggest fan of reminiscing about Bill, either. ]

Neither the town nor the Pthumerians are easily influenced by the actions of a single Sleeper, or even a small group of them working together, no matter how powerful they might be. I wouldn't expect a different result next time.

[ Because even if John says he's gotten the point, there's always a next time with people like him and Bill. ]

[necrolord]

[ So the other guy was gunning for Julia, the source of it all: that's interesting. Makes him wonder how it lines up with his fight to reach the ocean's currents and the River beyond.

The other guy sure does sound like something. ]

Well, I've gotten that message. I lost this one fair and square.

[ He is angry, and despairing, and trapped— but he is not, as a general rule, an idiot. ]

You think he's still down there, swimming around?