1/16/05 Disclaimer: I don't have the right to write about Raziel, Kain and the Reaver. Major observations at the bottom.
Raziel trudged slowly down the middle of a stream. He had been mildly confused when instead of a graveyard, he had merely encountered some ancient ruins. Still, the shrines for both light and darkness had been there, but it was strange that Sarah did not know that the site would only become a cemetery some day in the future.
Raziel came to a waterfall and checked to see if it emptied into a lake that would require a dive, or simply a small pond that he could glide over. The latter proved to be true, but there was something else that caught Raziel's eye. A face was carved into the cliff above the pool, and above that floated a strange artifact.
Raziel glided to some rocks on the opposite side of the pool and gazed at the strange artifact. It seemed to be vampiric in design, but the wraith could not leap high enough to reach it. Raziel could feel his symbiotic weapon's constrained tingling, but it was only a mild interest. He guessed that the artifact wasn't meant for him.
His eyes fell on a doorway set into a cliff. It was marked with the elemental symbol for fire. With some difficulty, Raziel was able to clamber up to the ledge and go through the door.
A while later, Raziel emerged from the shrine with a new enhancement to his blade. He paused for a moment to reflect on what he had seen inside. Vorador hadn't mentioned that he had been the Reaver's maker.
Even more interesting was that the original pillar guardians had been entombed inside; they had thought that Raziel would be glad for death. Raziel supposed that if these guardians were anything like Ariel, they would be glad to find peace.
Raziel tried to continue, only to find his path blocked by a strange gate flanked by smoldering sconces. He was able to use the Reaver's new enhancement to open the gate. When he saw who was standing on the other side, he spat, "What are you doing here?"
Kain blinked in surprise and indicated the pillars behind him. "I am simply looking for the answers that Sarah indicated to me."
Raziel smugly leaned against the gate. He had sensed the weariness and frustration edging Kain's voice; not many creatures could pick up on it.
Kain, on the other hand, was very skilled in reading other's attitudes, and it wasn't as if Raziel was trying to hide what he was feeling. If the wraith were capable of grinning, he'd look like the cat that ate the canary. Kain decided that he wasn't in the mood for games, so he asked directly, "What have you found?"
"I believe that it is exactly what you're looking for," Raziel said. He didn't bother to step out of Kain's way. The master vampire was forced to edge past his ruined progeny.
With a grand gesture, Kain telekinetically pulled the carved face away from the cliff. Behind it was a switch that activated an extending ledge. The heavy vampire hauled himself up onto the ledge just as it retracted back into the cliff face. Fortunately, there was still enough space for Kain to stand and reach the artifact.
Kain stared at the artifact in his talons for a moment. He decided that it could fit the monolith that he saw earlier, but he also wondered if it was supposed to do anything else.
Both Kain and Raziel made their way across the pillars' clearing, though neither acted like they were traveling with the other. Both, however, gazed upwards to admire the pristine beauty of the pillars that they were both striving to restore.
Raziel paused to consider the high ledge to the north of the pillars. Now it had a small waterfall gurgling down its face. The wraith wasn't anxious for another soggy and cold walk, even though the discomfort was only in his mind. Even worse, Raziel was reluctant to pass through the chamber below the pillars and invite another censure from the resident squid.
Meanwhile, Kain misted through the sealed gate at the west edge of the pillars clearing. Raziel listened to the sounds of angry Sarafan and battle for a few moments, and then shed his physical form so that he could follow Kain through the gate. It wasn't as if there was a better direction to go.
There wasn't any conduit back to the physical realm directly on the other side of the gate. Raziel climbed onto a broken column and used it to leap onto the next level of the ruins. A conduit lay just beyond those ruins.
When he reappeared, Raziel was surrounded by Sarafan warriors. He reactively lashed out with the Reaver, hoping that he could kill enough of them before his blade turned on him. To Raziel's surprise, the Reaver did not try to feed off of him; instead it simply sated its hunger on the warriors.
Even without the Reaver's parasitic behavior to contend with, Raziel was still outnumbered, and he was sustaining numerous wounds. With an effort of will, Raziel was able to restrain the Reaver and take the Sarafan's soul for himself.
In a matter of minutes, it was over. Raziel voraciously leapt on the last swooning warrior and ripped his soul from his body. Exhausted, Raziel stood and surveyed the scene of carnage. It was then that Kain emerged from the back of the ruins and came walking down the uneven path to the cliff.
Ignoring Raziel, Kain placed the artifact against the monolith at the edge of the cliff. The vampire was rewarded with a glimpse of a place that he had never known existed. The citadel had been shrouded in mists; these were surely the wards that Janos had spoken about.
"Do you think that you'll find the answers you are looking for?" Raziel asked.
"I expect so," Kain said, though inwardly he was growing unsure. Seeing the pillars in their uncorrupted state had strengthened his resolve to return them to that condition, but it also reminded Kain of the damage that had already been done in his native timeline.
"Are you willing to share your insights once you have gained them?" Raziel demanded. "I'm not comfortable with the thought of you holding all of the cards."
Kain glanced over his shoulder at Raziel. He didn't want to hold any hope of regaining Raziel's trust after everything that had happened, but the confirmation that there wasn't any shred of possibility still chipped at his courage. "I will share with you anything that I think will be of use," Kain said before he dissolved into a cloud of bats.
Raziel glanced at the citadel just visible in the distance. He judged that Kain's teleportation spell must have a limited range, or else he would have used that. The wraith turned back in the direction he had come and noticed another entrance to a forge. Raziel twisted his torso in a back-cracking stretch before he entered the wind shrine.
All right, I think I should stop to explain some things here. Actually, I shouldn't have to explain, the writing should speak for itself, but it is a point of interest because I've examined this.
Raziel and Kain are both in the age of the Sarafan at this point. 500 years later, when Raziel is supposed to wander through the fire clearing, there is a climbable wall. In the age of the Sarafan, there is a statue of an angel blocking the way. I decided to "cheat" things a little bit to say that Raziel can reach the ledge from the rocks at the edge of the pool, especially since there's only a game-based collision wall that prevents him from even standing on the rocks that Kain needed to stand on to get to the dimension emblem. I'm pretty sure that an invisible collision wall is the only reason why Kain couldn't walk past the doorway to the fire shrine. If it was a physical reason, Raziel can jump farther than Kain. (I tested that at the door to the wind shrine.)
Another point, Kain doesn't have any other pieces of the balance emblem. I decided that none of the fragments would enhance the Reaver until Kain got the center emblem. Also, he wouldn't have been able to get through that gate without either Raziel's help or the fragment that he was supposed to get from the Stronghold.
Another note: that column that Kain knocks down to get to that cliff in the age of the Sarafan was somehow repaired 500 years later, which necessitated Raziel's need for a key. Since Kain has just knocked it down, it's still broken.
Since the disruption to time happened towards the end of Soul Reaver 2, many of the things that happened in the beginning of Defiance never got triggered. Raziel still has access to planer portals and fonts. (Though the fonts are slowly becoming unneeded because of the new enhancements.) Also, the scenery is slightly amalgamated.
Slightly related note that has nothing to do with this chunk: I decided that almost none of the doors in Vorador's mansion have Reaver-based locks, though a couple of the specialized doors still have their odd keys.