The Age of the Gods
1080 P.O.D. to 600 P.O.D.
One day, almost by chance, Avlis received a visitor that would shape its history forever to come. The Negerai, an evil entity from the depths of the Abyss, flew into the crystal sphere on a spelljamming vessel with nine human prisoners. Now this Negerai was extremely intelligent and twisted, like most specimens of his kind, and oddly enough, this individual had a great love for humanoid (especially human) psychology. His greatest fascination was the study of good, evil, and neutrality in humans. Even though he was a vile creature in every way, he still had interest in the mechanism that made people behave in alignment with a certain philosophy. He felt that if he could study these attitudes more in depth, he would be more apt at controlling large numbers of the creatures to do his bidding. Time was his greatest asset. So, during his travels, he captured nine human warriors of varying belief patterns from various other spheres he had journeyed through. Intending to run a study on how each of the nine individuals interact with the other eight, he searched for a secluded place where no outside influence could contaminate his experiment, and found Avlis.
Most of the experiments he had planned involved bringing two of the warriors together in order to monitor how they interacted. If his experiment were to work, each of the prisoners not in use at the time would have to be kept in isolation. So, just to make sure that no interaction would occur between prisoners who weren't being observed, the Negerai built a separate prison for each human. The nine prisons were scattered all over Avlis. Slave labor was needed for the construction, and he would need guards after the construction was complete. So, the Negerai imported various lesser Tanar'ri to do the work. These denizens would watch over the idle humans when he was elsewhere.
Now after the construction was done, the leftover lesser Tanar'ri who were not guarding prisoners were allowed to roam the planet to do anything they pleased. With hordes of lesser Tanar'ri roaming the planet, the order that the Supreme created was put into severe jeopardy. The dretches were multiplying and gating in larger demons who in turn gated in even larger demons... and so on. Eventually, things got really out of hand on Avlis and the lesser gods of nature were annihilated. So, in order to combat this problem, the Supreme created a Holy Sword made of pure Godmagic and power for each of the warriors. The swords had special powers, which were in accordance with the respective philosophies of the warriors. Late that night, the swords were magically sent down into the cells of the prisoners by the will of the Supreme. When the prisoners awoke, they found their respective swords hovering in the center of their cells.
With the great power given to them by their newfound weapons, the warriors easily escaped from their prisons, all having one thing in mind, the destruction of their captor, the Negerai - although in truth each had a different reason. The warrior Gorethar wanted to eliminate this evil for its own sake and impurity, whereas the warrior Maleki wanted nothing but good old-fashioned cold-blooded revenge. So, cutting through demon after demon along the way, each made the perilous journey separately to converge on the master of all the Avlissian demons.
When all nine of the warriors finally arrived at the Negerai's stronghold, catching him by surprise, they surrounded him. Each of the warriors was intent on destroying this Negerai, and each of them had the means to do it all by himself. All of the Holy Swords had a different invocation power that could cause serious damage, however, there was something that the nine warriors and even the Supreme didn't know about those powerful weapons. They contained so much godly essence that if a subject was hit with all nine invocation powers at the same time it would become instantly deified. So, it was very bewildering to the warriors when they all simultaneously unleashed their powers on the Negerai in order to destroy him, but turned him into a very powerful god instead! Now, with the Negerai thoroughly more powerful than the nine warriors, the only thing they could do was flee together to a place deep beneath the surface of Avlis.
After a long and treacherous journey to the center of the planet with the Negerai hot on their trail, they came across the Eternal Spark, which was one of the artifacts that the Supreme created and used to form the world. The magic of the Eternal Spark is beyond all magic ever seen in an artifact, for it has the power to create crystal spheres, and transform mortals into gods. Coming to this treasured secret artifact, the nine warriors began to squabble over it. The warrior Gorethar thought that the Spark should not be used by anyone because its power would most likely corrupt anyone who used it. However his friend, the warrior O'Ma, thought that the stone should be used only by the warriors who believed in justice and balance, and that the balance between good and evil could be helped by creating a force of good Gods through its use. Dru'El saw the merit in O'Ma's thinking, however he believed that the stone should only be used by whoever was Good and deserved to be made a god, whether they cared about balance or not. As for the others, the warrior Toran believed that anyone who would practice lawful principles of any kind in order to help balance the universe could use it, but Mikon disagreed and argued that anyone who would try to live in total balance between law and chaos, good and evil could use the Spark. By this point, the squabbling was becoming a little more heated, and this disturbed the warrior Forian who stopped the conversation with a wave of his hand and announced that perhaps they should all think of a number and that everyone who thought of an even number should use it. But no one took him seriously, for they learned on the journey down to the center of the planet that Forian was a bit odd. Valok, who was usually quiet and scheming, spoke up and said that everyone's ideas were well and decent, but he believed that only he should use it so he could conquer Avlis for himself and set up his own kingdom after he defeated the Negerai. Aarilax had a similar idea as well, although he didn't believe Valok had any claim. He thought that he should use it because he was the only one who could get the job done. Finally, Maleki also wanted the Spark all for himself so he could kill the miserable Negerai and then finish off the rest of the warriors. But, before any decision could be made, the Negerai god himself burst forth out of the rock ready to slay them all. So, in a quick reaction, all nine warriors grabbed the Eternal Spark at nearly the same time.
A grand fight ensued. The continents of Avlis were torn apart. Fire filled the skies and explosions rocked the planet's axis. But throughout all the grand battles and vicious attempts to slay the Negerai, no one could kill him or be killed by him. Eventually, the nine gods figured out that a greater god could not kill another greater god on Avlis. This troubled them very much because it was taking a great toll on the planet. However, in the nick of time the Negerai was mysteriously slain, though it was not slain by any of the nine warrior gods. Apparently, while the battle was raging on, a lowly Tanar'ri uncovered the counterpart artifact to the Eternal Spark, known as the Black Dagger. Upon grabbing the Black Dagger, the Tanar'ri became noncorporeal and struck a fatal blow at the Negerai. Immediately after, the Supreme recovered the Black Dagger from the Tanar'ri and hid it... a little more carefully this time.