The Immortal Deviator: Theater of Trapped Angels

Prologue

There was only a fraction of men trying hard to prep the stage. Some went for the lightings and the rest constructed the set. It would take ten more days until the annual festival takes place again, the day judgment is set upon us mortals.

Lights switching on and off kept stopping the play over and over. Our directors started arguing about how the story should end, and how it would please the audience. It's for sure that everything is turning out badly. Shouting people here and there, everywhere to tell that time is ticking on our impending doom.

This is life in Rondoure, where dramatic plays and spectacular musicals are at a stake role in our tradition. Everyone thinks it's cool, but it's actually a downer for our case. This world sets a wall dividing the mortals from the divine Archimages. They're not just great illusionists but actually real people with real magical powers.

Their physical features are very much the same compared to us mortals, except for their generic eyes that glow in the dark. Man, how cool for these sorcerers. I'm very much okay to live without powers though, but that isn't just life in this behemoth universe.

Once Archimages are born, they set to live a normal life outside the walls of Rondoure. They're free and open to do anything with their powers and walk beyond the North Pole without any turn in hand. The powerless humans are thrown into numerous theater houses set here in Rondoure. It's cold with frost and tagged with icicles forming on roof linings.

Rondoure's theaters are the home of newborn mortals who are believed to posses no magical ability. Inside these lifeless halls are powerless mortals, living in despair and hoping to escape. Escaping by revering pride and executing a performance well enough, that the Paramounts and their Archimage critics would set us mortals free and live the luxury beyond those great walls.

The Paramounts, they're the three elemental critiques and emperors of this world. These lords stand in the center of this triumvirate government, creating balance to nature and what it becomes with their gifted abilities. They comprise a powerful throne of triple-threat, namely the Elemental Fire, the Elemental Air, and the crowning Elemenal Earth. With that, one will never escape this prison so easily, even perhaps the world.

These three kings were the chosen judges for being leaders of a crumbling world of slavery. They made sure that the mortals were trapped and the other worthy ones were liberated. This took them to find an environment to create a fortress of impenetrability, and it only took them a while to locate a region at the edge of the planet.

Rondoure was the best place for them to imprison mortals in large theaters. It was high up the snow-capped mountains which froze anyone beyond its tracks. Powerless mortals had feet too little for a jailbreak and heads too low for a climb out. It was nearly impossible for us to survive, with only one year to plan another diversion for us to live.

Without further , it's dull and deathly as always in Theater Nine. I've been casted as the protagonist for the past years and there's nothing new in playing this crucial part. I'll always be the guy wearing the most pizazz outfit, waiting to save the day, fall to my so-called death and rise again as the world's greatest hero. Not that I'm immensely bothered about such, but frustration s gives in to the directors that suit me up.

Most of them were rotten flops. If not all, the rest were rookie theater directors either prepped for training or kinking up aesthetics. These directors have all been turned into stone by the Elemental Earth, their bodies taken to the backstage where they slowly decay to ashes. Sad for them unsuccessful, that's why they're considered as wee heroes dying for their beloved actors. Unless an actor of course, sucks. The rest who do a great job, are set free with their actors. If not, mortals spend an eternity entertaining the higher tier.

For me, I've been trapped in this theater for almost forever. Once I was sent in, I never saw the light of freedom outside the walls of Rondoure. I manage to get a glimpse of the great roadway during one time of the year, and this day comes during a hailed drama festival. The critics alike flock the town of Rondoure in France, and they come here yearly for the very same reason. The annual Rondoure d'Réjouissance.

Yes, by hearing just the name of the theater festival, it sounds fancy. But the definition of theater plays here are largely different, different from what plays are in the first place. Plays are considered the battles for Mount Olympus where life or death is on the bleak of creation. Our little stage drama is often executed with real events to seem real enough for everyone. That's where people are really slashed to their deaths or fatally wounded from deadly stunts. This is where I think acting is not acting anymore. We're not actors, but slaves butchered for injustice among the Archimages.

We human slaves are fed up with costumes and dangerous stunts just to survive. Thousands of us die every now and then just to delight the Paramounts and it's awfully menial crowd of Archimage critics. But for me, the indestructible warrior of all stage plays, I have been here wounded with scars and chosen to star roles that want me to stay here forever...

Just because of my talent.

I wanted to leave, I wanted to escape even if I knew I'd be killed. Because if I die, I'll be free from all this mistrust and burn away to liberation. This was the start of my year, the beginning to twist my fate and realize my purpose. I'm not going to be the hero coming to save the day. I'll be the hero that revolutionized my destiny and ran astray.