THIS IS THE COOLEST EVIL XISUMA EVER - Tumblr Posts

Day 19: Favorite "Alt" Hermit [Evil Xisuma, Last Avatar of the First Memory]

today, i've got a drawing and a short piece of writing containing a bit of my Xisuma lore!

warning for... death and the existential horror of knowing you're the last of your kind?

Xisuma emerged from the portal like a bolt, hurtling into the Nascent with enough force to fire them into the opposite wall—that is, until their boot caught on a fabricator, wrenching its delicate cage out of shape and pitching them into the stairs face-first.

Their Avatar caught himself early, slipping into the ethereal so as not to meet their Arbiter’s fate. He steeled himself for the pain as he took a cautious look around—ouch!—and saw…

Ruins. The outpost was shattered, ceiling bowing, bricks fallen out of the walls or covered with algae where water leaked in, illuminated only by the molten rock flowing through the portal chamber.

He had just enough time to take in his surroundings before a wave of psychic torment brought him to his knees.

Xisuma’s Arbiter clumsily hefted himself to his feet, silently thanking the Slayer that he had his helmet on. Shaking off the dizziness of portal travel and the additional disorientation of their unpleasant egress, he turned around to check on their Avatar.

In that moment, the Avatar let him in.

A crushing wave of confusion and horror overwhelmed Xisuma: the desperate wail of the entire Memory. There were no words, only a stampeding nightmare, raging, overwhelming, a boiling surge of loss. They sifted through the feedback to find any dregs of connection, any sense in the caterwaul, but only fell deeper into the abyss.

The barrage carved a truth out of their mind with the precision of a sculptor and the violence of a siltstorm. This was it. This was the dying howl of their people. 

But… why? How?

Reuniting as one, they dragged themselves, prone, to the edge of the portal. It was sparking, flashing in and out; the foci were rattling in the frame. They had to go back. They had to do something—this couldn’t be it. 

The waves of horror were physical, something they had to fight with every fibre in their bodies. They reached out to the surface of the portal, like boiling ink—boiling sky—and reached through.

A surge of searing pain shot through their Arbiter’s right arm as the foci shattered, severing the connection between worlds. They were left dangling over the roiling lava, arm spasming from dimension shock, buffeted by heated air that was now as trapped as they were.

Not even seconds after the portal broke, the entire outpost shook, tremors from deep within the earth further fracturing the brickwork.

With the tremors, the Memory hushed, as if witnessing this with rapt horror. Xisuma was alone, and if they died here, the Archonate died with them.

They rolled over and looked at the ceiling, taking quick stock of the fractures thereupon—they had to get out of this room. Clambering to their feet with the help of their good arms, they stayed low as they scrambled out of the portal chamber. A cacophony of clattering rock behind them confirmed their worst suspicions. 

Only able to move on their hands and knees, and even then only barely, they dragged themselves into the corner of the next room and huddled there. Their Avatar petrified his arms and folded them over the back of their head as their Arbiter clutched his wounded arm close to his chest.

The world shook around them for some time, and the cold panic did not subside even in the stillest of moments. They sat there through the rest of the quake, and through the worst of the aftershocks, paralyzed by fear.

Their Avatar stirred first, reaching out into the Memory alone. The prior silence had since been fogged by the hushed weeping of the dead—the grief of minds that knew themselves to have become but hollow simulacra.

Grimly, they hailed him: Knight-Regent of the Nascent, Xisúma, scion of Aquhúo.

The Arbiter started at the thin sound of their Avatar’s joyless chuckle—punctuated by a pained keening.

“They promoted us. We’ve been promoted…”