Tale of Vethra Regama, the First Weapon

Long ago, during a time immemorial... 

Mnh'em Aggath and Shutha Ka'ggar teamed up to create a divine weapon - a spear of perfect balance between life and death. No other deity is quite sure what gave the Lord of Death and the Mother Goddess this idea, but they followed through with it flawlessly. Perhaps it was to prove a point - that life and death coexist in a way no one was sure was possible. 

Through magic tinkering and the expert work of divine smiths, a beautiful meraite spear was forged. Containing both pure and coated versions of the precious metal, its details were plated with gold and a pattern of brilliant crimson inscribed into the blade. But the weapon was dead, not ready. Mnh'em Aggath and Shutha Ka'ggar had only come halfway. This was to be a grand experiment - something never done before - a new kind of enchanted item. The spear was to be something... sentient. The two deities intended to breathe life into the weapon - which essentially meant assigning a magical being to it. Something to represent this spear, to teach and be taught, more than just a weapon. 

From the perfectly aligned geometrical shapes of the weapon's aura, Mnh'em Aggath and Shutha Ka'ggar formed... neither a human nor demon, though the creation looked like one. A tall man with skin like the red earth. His hair in swirling black and white was twirled around a pair of spiky horns. For now, his eyes were closed and his pointed ears did not move. But the deities quickly realized they couldn't simply leave their creation as is. Life and death being polar opposites, they largely rejected each other and refused to stay together inside the shape of a horned human. So, Mnh'em Aggath took to Limbo.

There, in the spirit realm, a different language had been formed. It had no sound but its intertwined letters connected with a line at the top were perfect chains that kept Limbo's souls contained - as they likely would contain the creation's energies. The god of death took the Silent Language with him, inscribing it upon the swarthy man's cheeks, shoulders, back and legs. It made a great difference that anybody that came close could feel - a whirl of chaotic magic slowly reshaping itself into an equally immaculate geometric shape as the weapon's aura. 

Now the creation was ready to open his eyes. Mnh'em Aggath was dismayed that he couldn't touch this creation - give him a pat on the shoulder, perchance - he looked terribly confused. Though the deities supposed they couldn't blame this man. He had just been brought into existence without any warning - he didn't even have a name yet. But it seemed like Shuta Ka'ggar had taken care of that.
She proposed they name him Dak'kara. In the language of the gods, it translated to "balanced." Quite a literal name. Their creation looked relieved upon recieving a name.

And so the millenia went. They scraped, dragged and made their way across the immortal lives of deities in the never-ending swirl of cosmos. The gods loved Dak'kara. Alas, he didn't love them very much. He didn't like being shoved around - even if the deities showered him in affection, dressed him in meraite and treated him all-around nicely.
Well, most of the time.

They had plenty of chores for Dak'kara. Most of them included monitoring the mortal world known as Lunae and.... pruning, as the deities called it. They considered the planet their graden, hence "pruning". Dak'kara was none too pleased with jobs of destruction, though. He had turned out a little more self-aware than Mnh'em Aggath and Shutha Ka'ggar had expected.
So, one day, their creation fled in protest of being used as a weapon.

Dak'kara found a  home among the ancient civilazations, their grimey narrow alleys and great ivory palaces were all the same to him. He gained favors of the street urchins, made friends with royals and danced with both as equals. Nobody seemed to question the avatar's appearance and the dormant spear of a foreign metal that he always carried around. But his name was no longer Dak'kara, as the peoples' scriptures described him as Vethra Regama. He tossed his former name away - perhaps a challenge to the deities? Vethra lived to see the rise and fall of empire upon empire, contributing as little as possible to the destruction. But the requests of deities overpowered his own will. Their voices still reached Vethra through the endless space.

They claimed it was time to bring about the end of these civilizations - to wipe it all and start anew. Naturally, the avatar resisted. Not even the all-powerful deities could make him destroy the civilizations he'd grown to love - or so Vethra at least told himself. The Silent inscriptions on him were forcibly released and he could no longer control his own power. Wherever he went, a whirlwind of chaos followed - affecting all there was around Vethra. Death, revival, death, revival, going around in a circle like a snake eats its tail. If this continued the delicate veil that keeps the horrors of the cosmos would rip and Lunae would be swallowed by the purest chaos from the depths where not even every deity has peered. Eldritch forces from the deepest corner of the universe would come rushing to claim a once lush garden - surely that wasn't what the deities intended. 

Vethra managed to lock his Silent inscriptions back in place, thus the destruction ceased. However, undoing any kind of damage now would be... difficult. Cities were turned to dust, bodies worn out by the constant swirl of life and death, plants returned to the earth and countries dead. The avatar swore he could hear his creators praising him somewhere in the corner of his head, but it didn't matter.
Vethra disappeared once again. Deep below the earth, he sought out a city of stone and curled up against a withered pillar in a crumbling temple. Surrounding him were now only the damp rock walls and timeless architecture, all exitways shut, protecting a sleep that would last for millenia to come.

Nothing would disturb that sleep. Vethra didn't dream, hear or move because he found that each time he closed his eyes he died. Each time he opened his golden eyes to see the world, he lived. But sorrow weighted heavier than life in an empty world. With the spear that was him as his only company, Vethra slumbered on the old altar in the old temple in the long-forgotten city that the universe had forsaken. Neither the sun, the moon or the meteor showers would reach him here. He was safe, without dreams, without light, without even a smidge of life in the forsaken city.

But the gods came to bother him again. However, waking a dead man is incredibly difficult and only after hundreds of years of struggle did they finally wake Vethra. Needless to say, the avatar wasn't pleased. How dared they intrude on the only place where he didn't feel torn?! And even call him by his old name?! Apparently they need one more favor. Vethra corrected them. It would be their last favor.

The ruler of Hrawa, or Hell, had gotten audacious. He threw the gods a challenge. They were supposed to find him somebody he couldn't beat - a worthy opponent or else he would stop taking care of wayward souls. According to the deities, Vethra was their only option.
Begrudginlgy, the avatar agreed in exchange for that the gods would cut all their ties with him and leave him alone.

The avatar headed to the designated meeting spot. A wasteland of dust and rock. Only the wind and his own steps could be heard in this vast wasteland. Vethra's challenger soon appeared. A tall demon with oversized horns, a flickering cape and a mask depicting a giant eye. Was this the absolute regent of Hrawa that the deities spoke of? The avatar knew this fight would be over far too quickly for the demon. They clashed for no more than a minute befire Vethra sent the demon home with bittersweet defeat. 

But the avatar felt miffed. He didn't like the way the gods had responded to the demon's challenge. It wasn't fair in any way, shape or form. Vethra wandered the now-restored planet for yet another thousand years before woving to right this challenge.

He ventured down to Hrawa, a place where even Vethra hadn't been in his very long life. It was foreign but familiar, looked like the old civilaztions but different, as if something had been swapped but Vethra couldn't put a finger on it. He ventured to the castle - a grand building of volcanic glass towering above the city which, Vethra learned, was called Tezera. At first the guards wouldn't let him in, but Vethra insisted that their ruler would recognize him. He did. The regent, Zeram, wasn't furious but rather salty as to why this victor of an unfair duel had shown up to his abode so many years later. Vethra explained it was precisely because of the unfairness that he came to Hrawa, hoping to somehow make amends.

Zeram's courtiers took exceptional offense to that. Did this creation of the gods come to give their lord a pity win? How audacious! But the demon lord shushed his subordinates and accepted Vethra's explanations.

It seemed Zeram expected the avatar to leave. But Vethra only shook his head and handed the demon the spear that was him and said:

"Wield me against the gods if it so may be, but I'm not intending to go back to the mortal world anytime soon." This triggered confusion. Anything like this hadn't happened before - nobody ever left anything to the regent of Hrawa willingly, especially not an avatar weapon - the only one at the time. But Zeram supposed he couldn't risk disappointing Vethra by declining the offer. Whether it was out of fear or mutual dislike for the deities, he never explained.

The regent of Hrawa and the first avatar spent a long time together, all the way up until present day. Vethra is safely kept from all cosmic voices and explanations to not let his hatred go cold, while in return Zeram has more advantage than he's ever had. A lot's happened in Hrawa and Lunae since then, but the tale of immemorial age and written by unknown hand in a forsaken language remains the same.