Character File: Solomon

Character File: Solomon

Solomon, along with Michael, was one of the first to realize the signs of impending doom. Solomon was able to detect the concerning increase in magic throughout the Devildom and the Celestial Realm, and the imbalance this created. With his knowledge of magic, he was able to predict from the magic he sensed that the Celestial Realm and the Devildom were in trouble. Such a disturbance in the magic balance wasn’t safe for anyone.

As such, Solomon reached out to check up on things and figure out what was going on. The first person he contacted was Michael. He and Michael had been familiar with each other since before the Great Celestial War, and had taken up a sort of work partnership over the past several centuries leading up to the Armageddon. As such, Solomon was extremely surprised when he got no response from Michael after reaching out. Now even more concerned by Michael’s silence, Solomon reached out to other angels to try to get an idea of what was going on in the Celestial Realm. They, too, gave no useful responses. The Devildom wasn’t cooperative, either. Many of the demons Solomon had pacts with perished in the early stages of the Armageddon, leaving him with few sources of intel.

Much like during the magic crisis in Season 2 of canon, Solomon worked tirelessly to get to the bottom of this and fix it. The more he researched, however, the more dire the situation seemed to get.

Eventually, Thirteen, having her own reasons to be worried about the Armageddon, reached out to Solomon for answers, only to find a very weary Solomon in a borderline panic pacing around his estate. The two frenemies agreed to team up and search for answers together.

Character File: Thirteen

Thirteen, as a reaper, had much more distance from the events than the other characters did. Though she did reside in the Devildom, her deep cave did shelter her from the effects that ravaged the rest of the realm. However, Thirteen had to get involved when the Armageddon interfered with her job. She took notice that her candles were burning out at an alarming rate, across all three races in all three realms. She was absolutely dumbfounded- she was an experienced reaper, she couldn’t have messed something up this badly; what was going on?

Given her hermit lifestyle, there were few people she could go to about the situation. Her older sister Candy was out of the question. As the situation grew more and more troubling, Thirteen eventually had no choice but to go to Solomon. She confronted him angrily, wanting to believe he’d just pulled some prank as part of their rivalry, only to find Solomon disheveled and disturbed.

After exchanging their knowledge of the situation, the two of them formed a begrudging alliance. Thirteen still very much held her grudge on Solomon, and she had no real emotional attachment to the wellbeing of the realms, but she understood that as a reaper she could not allow the situation to continue. Life and death was her domain, and it was her job to keep them in balance. A reaper could not be a reaper in a world with nothing left to die. As such, she fought fervently to end the war, Solomon at her side.

Within their duo, Thirteen was much more of the front-line fighter. As Solomon researched and attempted to form political allegiances, Thirteen focused on battle. She fought against the armies of Father and the Demon King, as well as rogue human looters. Due to her more rough-and-tumble approach, she needed clothing much more suited to battle. Her exposed midriff was a strong disadvantage in battle; even a reaper wasn’t immune to physical attack. Her crop top was replaced with a full-length plated breastplate made of unknown material that was off-white in color, looking like bone. In the middle of the chest was a black skull shape. Thirteen also donned a dark mauve-purple cloak, made of thick fabric to defend from attacks. The inside of the cloak was lined with rows of pockets for storing her various traps. Though she very much still relied on her traps, she also took up a melee weapon, a large black scythe. Later in the war, an incident would happen that left her missing her left eye. After this, she also wore a black eyepatch.

An Unexpected Visit

(Takes place between Lore VI and Lore VII. Major characters: Solomon and Thirteen. ~1200 words)

MICHAEL

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Solomon: [Michael?]

Solomon: [Michael?]

Solomon: [Michael?]

Solomon: [Michael?]

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It had been one hundred and eight days exactly since Solomon had sent his first mildly-panicked message to Michael. Exactly one hundred and eight days that Michael had ignored him. No, not ignored him. The messages didn’t show up as “read” like they had with Raphael. It had been at least one hundred and eight days of Michael not checking his messages.

No one else was responding to messages anymore, either. Solomon had tried reaching out to Simeon and Raphael again, only to be met with silence. He’d tried contacting Asmodeus, who he’d been sure would have called him immediately to explain everything, eager to talk to him again... only to be met with silence. Day in and day out, Solomon had been surrounded with silence.

Today was no exception. Once again, Solomon got no response.

Solomon sat at his desk, his drooping, tired head held up only by the hand obscuring half his face.

What is going on?

The words rattled in his head like an obsessive chant, holding him together just as much as they were destroying him. It was all he could think about anymore. It was shattering his brain and holding it together with weak glue.

It had started out with the power of the realms. Solomon had detected major disturbances in the power balance, disturbances that continued to fluctuate over the days. One day, it was the Devildom being more powerful than the Celestial Realm and throwing off the balance; the next day, it would be the Celestial Realm. At that point, Solomon had been worried, but not concerned.

He got concerned when the power jumped a tenfold. Then twenty-fold. Soon, thirty-fold. Before long, Solomon had to ask whether it was possible for either realm to sustain these power levels safely, even if they were in balance with each other.

The answer was no.

Every bit of research Solomon had done pointed to the obvious. The power levels he observed were not safe nor sustainable. Either his power estimates were innacurate- and his magical intuition had never been wrong in his two-thousand-year life- or something was very, very wrong.

Books littered the floor, pages dog-eared and spines cracked from books held open by the floor. Papers were strewn everywhere, a vast sea of white and aged beige leaving hardly a crack of wooden tile left. Sections of floor that were exposed bore large footprints, worn into the wood by countless hours of pacing.

None of it had gotten him anywhere. Well, nowhere useful. All of it gave him more and more reason to be concerned.

The sorcerer dug his nails into his face.

What now?

Crash.

The sound of shattering glass rang through the air.

Solomon froze up, considering the possibilities. Was it an aggressor? Was it some angel or demon, finally ready to give answers? Or some human looter taking advantage of the chaos?

It wasn’t long before a familiar voice rang through the hall.

“Solomon!” It was Thirteen. And she sounded none too happy.

Despite her angry tone, the sorcerer breathed a sigh of relief. If Thirteen was here for another game on his soul, perhaps he could get some sense of normalcy, even for a second. Maybe seeing Thirteen’s indignant pout of defeat could cheer him up, even just slightly.

“I’m in here.” He called out, standing up from his desk, pushing out his chair and turning to face the door.

Fast, light footsteps pattered down the hall, followed by the whoosh of sliding paper.

“Wha- AAAH!”

Thunk.

The reaper was sprawled out on her stomach on the floor, having slid on Solomon’s carpet of research papers. The wind was knocked out of her for a moment before she vigorously pushed herself up onto her hands and knees, and then to her feet.

“Hey!” She yelled, lunging herself forward a few steps in his direction. “What was that about?! Setting traps is my-” She paused, her green, lizardlike eyes widening as her head tilted slightly to the side. “You don’t look so good.”

She wasn’t wrong. The sorcerer’s eyes were sunken and weary, drooping into dark circles from countless sleepless nights. He’d lost weight- he’d forgotten to eat a fair few times while studying. The absolute mess that was his workspace certainly didn’t help.

“I guess not.” Solomon said with a frown, stepping away from his desk.

“Uh, anyway...” Thirteen said with an awkward blink, before her tone hardened once more. “I came here to ask you what the hell is going on.”

“If this is about what I think it’s about, I wish I knew.” The sorcerer said soberly, casting his eyes across the books and papers scattered around the room.

“All my candles are burning super fast now.” Thirteen said. “It’s insane. Usually they burn at a steady pace, but now I have candles that were nearly full the other day rapidly burning below halfway! The death rates have been ridiculous! Do you understand how hard it is to be a reaper, even when conditions are normal? Trying to keep up with all of this is so aggravating! What’s going on?! Is this some prank?!”

For a moment, Solomon just looked at her with wide eyes. Then, with a soft sigh, he lowered his head into his hand. The only thing the wise sorcerer could utter was, “Fuck.”

“What the hell kind of answer is that?! Tell me what’s going on, now!” Thirteen stepped toward him.

Solomon shook his head grimly, taking a step back and looking back up at Thirteen. “Something is seriously wrong with the power balance between the realms, and both the Celestial Realm and the Devildom appear to be launching attacks on the Human World.” He explained.

“Okay, the attacks explain the deaths. But what about the candles burning so weirdly? Usually, I’d know far in advance if something like this was going to happen!”

“Magic is woven so deeply into the three realms that any disruption of it can prove dangerous. With the magic of two of the three realms severely skewed, it’s likely they’re suffering immense consequences. With how high the Celestial Realm and the Devildom’s power are right now, I’m surprised either realm is even habitable; no being should be able to withstand that much power asides from God and the Demon King themselves. This power boost only started a few months ago and very likely wasn’t meant to happen, so it has severely interrupted the lifespans of angels and demons alike.”

Thirteen’s eyes widened.

“Now that I think about it, it was getting quite cold in my cave. I couldn’t help but feel something was off” She frowned. “I guess my cave was somewhat sheltered, and I hadn’t left it at all the past few months until I teleported to the human world to come get you.”

“I have to say, I’m flattered you came to me first.” Solomon said with a smile that immediately earned him a nasty glare from Thirteen.

“It’s not like that!” She protested. She took a deep breath and composed herself, “It’s just… you’re the most powerful sorcerer around, right? I figured that if this wasn’t just some prank by you to make my job harder, then you’d at the very least be knowledgeable enough to help.”

“Unfortunately, you may be disappointed.” Solomon replied with a bitter smile. “I’ve been researching this every since the first signs, and I haven’t made much progress. Everything I’ve read points to bad signs, and it doesn’t help that I can’t get any information out of anyone.”

Thirteen scoffed. “Well, you’d better find something soon, sorcerer.”

“Say, Thirteen...” Solomon cracked a smile. “How would you like to work together on this?”

Thirteen’s eyes widened, and for a long moment, she was silent. Eventually, she let out a soft sigh and stepped toward him.

“Fine.”

I’m excited to bring you guys the first new lore post! I’ve been doing a lot of tweaking to it over the past week, so hopefully it makes sense! 

Announcement

This is just a bit of a status update on the blog.

Due to real-life circumstances, I’m going to be a lot less active online starting the coming Tuesday, March 22nd. I plan to still update this blog as usual, as I’ve saved up weeks worth of content in my drafts. I still plan to pop onto my blog each weekend to click publish on something from my drafts. However, there is a slight chance I won’t have the internet access to even do that.

So, if this blog goes dead for a month or so, I promise it isn’t because I abandoned this project. No, I am still wholeheartedly invested in making content for this AU and seeing what I can inspire others to create. Know that I will come back as soon as I possibly can, and I have much more planned to come.

“Father will say I rebelled because I hate the Celestial Realm. That isn’t true. I rebelled because I love the Celestial Realm. I rebelled because I love my fellow angels, and because I believe they all deserve better.”

-Simeon