It has come to my attention that there are not nearly enough stories about the Desian Grand Cardinals. They are such great, albeit often inadvertently amusing, villains. To this end I have decided to write a short story about my favourite Cardinal Rodyle following his death. Also features Kvar and Magnius (sorry, LORD MAGNIUS!) I hope you enjoy, inferior beings though you may be :P
"I'll drag you down to hell with me!"
Rodyle almost burst into laughter. The threat was beyond absurd. The sheer amount of conviction in the man's eyes only served to make the emptiness of his threat all the more amusing.
Rodyle very nearly felt a pang of pity. After all being an inferior being must be so very confusing and restricting. The poor little things probably had no idea how ridiculously empty their endlessly pretentious speeches were.
"Take me to hell? You inferior beings and your silly jokes."
It satisfied him greatly to see the hatred and anger flash across the former president of the Lezerano Company's face. How this once great man had fallen.
No man, however great he may be, can maintain his grip on the world forever. The unfortunate Regal Bryant had discovered this and soon Yggdrasill and his puny Cruxis would also. How Rodyle would bask in his victory when that day arrived!
Yggdrasill had lied to him and all of the Desians, whom in reality he regarded as nothing but pawns. He had fed them an endless stream of empty promises about an Age of Half-Elves and Rodyle had been swept up in it for so long. Yggdrasill had fooled and deceived entire worlds so to deceive a group of desperate, persecuted half elves must have been no effort at all.
Rodyle was no one's fool.
Or so he thought.
His body convulsed in agony and blind panic gripped him as he realised it was literally disintegrating around him. The physical pain was beyond excruciating but the realisation he had been tricked hurt twice as much.
"Pronyma, you tricked me!" he howled in a voice that no longer sounded like his own.
Staggering away from the band of travelling fools that had defeated him he came to a halt on his beloved ranch's self-destruct device. He had lived a wicked and terrible life originally suffering at the hands of other and then devoted to inflicting as much pain as he could on others so why should his death be any different?
"But I won't die alone! I'm taking you all with me!"
His strength left him and his crumbling form collapsed over the console and he died.
To his utter bewilderment he suddenly realised he could still see.
Rodyle cautiously looked around him. All he could see was blackness and yet he was able to make out his own body perfectly fine as though a bright light was shining on him.
His body! It was normal again! He stood up and checked all over himself and found he was right. The monstrous body he had died in had completely reverted back to his usual form.
Something wasn't right though. His body seemed ethereal and at times almost transparent.
"It takes a bit of time to get used to it doesn't it?" A voice every bit as cruel and self-assured as its owner had been in life addressed him.
Rodyle wheeled round found himself gazing into the eyes of his dead comrade, Kvar.
Even though it was unmistakable, Rodyle still needed to confirm what he was seeing.
"Kvar?" he tentatively asked.
"I am he." Kvar replied. "This is a welcome surprise. I was hoping you'd die before I disappeared and it seems I'm in luck. Magnius will be pleased too."
"Magnius?" Rodyle blurted and sure enough the towering, redheaded Cardinal strode out of the darkness, every bit as tall and imposing as he had been in life.
"Well now it looks like you're the one who's been deceived eh Rodyle?"
Rodyle's gaze flipped back and forth between his two former colleagues.
"What's happened?" he asked.
Magnius let out a haunted laugh devoid of all emotion and Kvar's tone was laced with condescension.
"Come now Rodyle. For one who calls himself the most cunning of the Grand Cardinals I'd have thought it would be obvious!"
This statement confirmed Rodyle's suspicious "I'm dead then." He stated flatly.
Kvar sarcastically applauded this, "Oh bravo!" he mockingly congratulated.
Magnius' suddenly bellowing voice shattered the atmosphere, "Enough games, Kvar!" he snorted bullishly.
"You deceived me!" he snarled ferociously his wild eyes piercing into Rodyle's own.
Rodyle composed himself. Even in death, running rings around this imbecile would be easy.
"Your intelligence deficiency was such that you needed deceiving just to get you to do anything meaningful."
"What!" Magnius bellowed.
"Oh come on Magnius, if you'd been left to your own devices you'd have squandered your entire ranch's resources in a few days by bullying anyone who forgot to call you 'Lord'! It always was a sore point for you wasn't it Magnius? All you ever really had to offer was brute strength yet you wanted recognition for your leadership not just the fact you were a disposable killing machine."
Magnius' eyes lost none of their fire but he seemed to have had his ego deflated somewhat.
Kvar sidled forward like a viper sizing up its prey. "You are right Rodyle, Magnius is no Lord but you are no more than a cowardly thief."
Rodyle immediately saw where this line of attack was going to come from.
"Oh I see, your stolen research, yes?" Rodyle let out a malicious chuckle, "you spent so long hounding the Renegades and Pronyma about your missing data you never stopped to think it might have been me. Mind you, your unhealthy obsession with that Anna and her exsphere also clouded your thoughts. You didn't even recognise Kratos until he was plunging his sword through your feeble body."
Kvar's mouth was drawn in a taut line. "Pronyma outdid all of us though didn't she?"
It was Rodyle's turn to feel humiliated and all three Grand Cardinals stood in silence.
"It's funny isn't it?" Magnius suddenly piped up.
"What is?" Kvar asked and Rodyle could sense the irritation in Kvar's voice. He wondered to himself how long his colleagues must have been here. Wherever "here" was.
"The only thing in life we could agree on was that we hated that bitch Pronyma and would do anything we could to usurp her!"
Rodyle chuckled, "We could have made quite the team."
"And would have too if you hadn't been so interested in your own gain." Kvar dryly retorted.
Rodyle pushed his spectacles down his nose and looked at Kvar knowingly.
"Pray tell Kvar. Had we all succeeded in overthrowing Pronyma would you have just stood aside and let me or Magnius become the new leader of the Cardinals?"
Kvar contemplated this for a couple of seconds.
"No I guess not. I'd have had assassins ready to deal with both of you the second you'd outlived your usefulness."
Magnius laughed, "I'd have just snapped your necks myself!"
Rodyle then decided he'd ask them both a question he'd been wondering for a while now. "Why are we here?" he inquired.
Kvar lifted his hand and showed Rodyle his exsphere.
"There is your answer. We continue to linger on in our exspheres. Although I do believe our time is running out."
"Running out?" Rodyle inquired.
"Yes", Magnius replied, "Our exspheres can only hold our consciousness for so long before we are consumed completely and fade away."
"Unfortunately for you Rodyle you are going to be waiting rather longer than us," Kvar stated, "That fake Cruxis Crystal you equipped is a much more potent artefact than our exspheres. You will last for far longer than us. Probably a few hundred years or so."
Rodyle was for the first time in his existence rendered utterly speechless as endless despair crashed down upon him.
"Oh don't worry," Kvar said, sarcastically comforting his fellow Cardinal. His own form was getting more and more ghostly by the minute.
"I'm sure after the first century you will have utterly lost your mind. Then I'm sure the years will just fly by! You probably won't even realise when you've gone. Oh but there is a plus side, if you're lucky Pronyma will be passing through here before insanity takes you! Be sure to give her our regards."
"And you've finally got your wish", Magnius said, his body almost totally transparent. "You get to be a ruler after all. Ruler of all of this!" he gestured around the empty oblivion.
The two Cardinals threw back their heads and laughed long howling sounds of pain, sorrow, anger and, Rodyle sensed, relief at being released from this hell. The laughter continued long after they had disappeared into nothingness but eventually even their voices stopped. The heaviest of silences replaced them.
More faces came by which, Rodyle recognised as the captives he had drowned in his ranch. They said nothing to him but moaned pitiful sounds or cursed the cruel goddess who had made their world. The Renegade commander Botta also appeared and later so did Forcystus who was still futilely gabbling his empty hopes about an Age of Half Elves. "Weak, weak and pathetic." Rodyle thought to himself.
Rodyle said nothing to any of them. All of them soon faded and were virtually forgotten by him.
He had nothing to say to anyone. He'd never had anything to say to anyone. His life had been one spent alone and his afterlife was turning out to be no different.
Then one day Pronyma appeared. She was a pathetic sight. Crawling around on her hands and knees she kept babbling the name of Mithos over and over again. The sight of her pulled Rodyle out of his madness.
An eternity ago he had promised two people to give this vile witch their regards. He of course had his own debt to pay back to her. He sat down in front of her and turned her head up to gaze into his calculating, callous, soulless eyes.
To his utmost delight it seemed she too had been bestowed with some sort of demi-Cruxis Crystal. No doubt it had been given to her as a reward for her service to Yggdrasill and unlike his own which, had caused his demise, had a functioning Key Crest. She was going to be here a long time and he was going to make sure she enjoyed every minute!
"Hello Pronyma." He whispered. His voice filled with hellish venom.