Ramiel

Chapter 2 (Research)

"Do you wish to feel alive?"

Those words now occupied much of the inside of his head. The words followed him around like a heavy cloud about to release a fierce outpour of rain. He couldn't deny the pleasure the words had given him when he heard them. The voices had proposed a possibility of getting back a semblance of the life which he once had lived. A life which he had been disappointingly deprived of through circumstances beyond his control.

The images of his life before Heaven decided to pull away from the rest of the world came to him as the sound of the voices replayed his head. When they came, he could almost even smell the rich perfumes on the Elven women of Banor he had once shared beds with. He could almost taste the sweet lips of the delicate fairies of Tamiti and touch the unique feel of the humans whom back then he did not seem to be able to get enough of. The memories of various other races and the exotic halflings he had along the way. The taste of the many wines he had been served, the feasts, the music, the dance, the flare, the cultures, the praises and worship he always got, the way the females reacted to him wherever he went and how he enjoyed seducing them.

 He recalled his biggest catch, the human Queen of Uzaro who at the time was unrivalled in beauty and grace. He had kept glancing toward her as he laughed wildly while drinking wine with her husband the King. Eventually their eyes met and from the electricity he was feeling and he was sure she was feeling too, he knew what she was thinking. She had excused herself and headed toward the garden. Before she went out of sight, she turned to give Ramiel a seductive look that sent a fresh jolt of electricity across his body. He had continued to make merry with the King but minutes later he was on his feet and joking about how he needed some air to be able to keep up with the King.

"You really are special, Your Majesty. I have met few people able to keep up with me as I drink wine, but you have surpassed them all. Permit me to get some air before you have a dead diplomat on your hand", he had said, acting a bit tipsy. The praise greatly pleased the plump King who signalled Ramiel could go as his whole body jiggled in laughter from his enjoyment of Ramiel's praise. 

He had made his way to the Garden and there he saw the Queen in all her splendour. There were little words exchanged before Ramiel passionately had her within the inner garden surrounded by walls composed of exotic flowers. He could smell the otherworldly scent which he inhaled as the Queen's royal scent and that of the garden mixed as he had her. The act was dangerous and foolish. It could have broken Heaven's relationship with the human Kingdom and gotten him removed from his position, but knowing how dangerous it was had added to his excitement at the time.All these memories came crashing down on Ramiel. Shortly after the thoughts came , a little sanity would soon follow.

Even amongst a species known for high intelligence, Ramiel was still one cunny fellow. He understood how a lot of things and people worked. His qualities had made him perfect for the role of Heaven's diplomat. He started small, but he kept securing diplomatic wins for Heaven which catapulted him into the high rank of Chief Diplomat pf Heaven There were few more adept at playing politics than Ramiel. He had an eye for recognizing the features of people and political systems and finding out their weaknesses. He knew getting into the Black Marble Door wouldn't be child's play. Whatever the voices were promising, he couldn't partake of if he couldn't get in. He would spend the next days thinking.

Ramiel took some of the time on the days after the voices had spoken to him to read up on all he could about the Black Marble Door. After swiftly performing his duties, he would head straight to the Spring of Knowledge. It was the most expansive library in heaven. It was an invaluable part of heaven containing history that stretched back millennia, of almost all cultures known to the world, present and extinct. In the Spring of Knowledge he was certain he could find something that talked about what to expect behind the Black Marble door, Hevean's most guarded prison as well as one of the most secretive parts of it.

Ramiel began performing his duties frighteningly fast in order to have the time and freedom to go to the Spring of Knowledge to find something useful on the Black Marble Door. Infact he was performing his duties so quickly that a very impressed Samael even started to throw one or two compliments.wrapped in a jab his way.

"Centuries it took. But it seems the virus is no longer in control, Ramiel. Welcome.back. Good to see you finally starting to set a great example again to the young ones after so many years." was Sameal's last insult-wrapped compliment and he had said it with a rare smile.

The library provided a lot of knowledge on the Black Marble Door. It listed a lot of artifacts, forbidden knowledge and criminals of different species housed inside. Some of them were extinct species which had plagued angels in their early years a long time ago. Perhaps it was this persecution that triggered a sort of evolution in angels who being weaker back then, had began to form smart ways to stay alive. They had developed greater intellect than their hunters and had gotten quite good at working together to overcome the elements and predators. It also helped immensely that along the way they also learned how to harvest natural energy to perform some amazing things. The natural energy was what the rest of the planet called magic. It had taken a long time, but angels eventually became a force to reckon with in the sky, and the land beneath it. It was only a matter of time before they exterminated their natural foes, the only proof of their existence was very few members of these species behind the Black Marble Door that were kept alive by their long life span or through Heaven's resources.

A lot of this information was generic. What Ramiel was after was knowledge about the many secrets of the prison which most angels could never find out. He came across a few pointers to what was inside and little known, like the amulet of Amuzari which had plagued the earth for a while. Knowledge available said the amulet was a weather changing artifact developed surprisingly by the Goblins of Amuzari. It had weather changing capabilities which the Goblins had used for their own benefit, and to the serious detriment of other species. According to the text about the artifact Ramiel was reading, it hadn't been too hard to figure out something was suspicious when most places were having irregular harmful weather while the goblins had unusually great weather as the other species suffered . Snow appearing at times of harvest, hurricanes in areas it was previously not known to occur in, strange tsunamis and a bunch of other similar happenings. The biggest pointer was the suspicious non stop rainfall in all Dwarven locations for weeks. The artifact had been creating an inbalance which greatly affected all the species and Heaven had to intervene.

Ramiel giggled at this point. He could recognize patronizing talk wrapped in fake righteousness. He would have used the same words if he were alive to write history when the amulet existed. From all he could gather, the Goblins had wisely decided to leave the angels out of their power trips with the amulet. This would never had dispelled heaven's concern over the capabilities of the amulet and its ability to shift the balance of power which existed. Ramiel could picture it all. The books talked about a coalition formed amongst a lot of species in order to capture the artifact, but he could see what really went down. Heaven had most likely secretly spread information about the artifact and its controllers and suggested the coalition be created to end the 'evil' taking place. The coalition had successfully attacked and retrieved the artifact. Heaven had it now because they would have insisted they were the only ones strong and impartial enough to never let it fall into bad hands again.

Ramiel had to go through a ton of books in order to find any information about the Black Marble Door. He came across The sword of pestilence, a scary creation which had the ability to inflict diseases and viruses. There was the stone of Ofa, which a vile human magician had created to steal and house souls. It could harvest a large amount of souls within a period and turn them into energy which could be used for various purposes. Even creations and forbidden knowledge by a few rogue angels in the earlier years were housed there.

It took many months of relentless research before Ramiel found enough uncommon information on the Crypt within the Black Marble Door. The little information he found on it described the Crypt as being the reason for the world's continuos existence. It was home to two living beings and 1 non living thing. The First thing he read about on the three occupants was about the non living occupant of the crypt. It was written that it was one piece of an old artifact which was written to be able to bring about the world's doom. A world breaker. It reminded Ramiel of a similar artifact which had caused for Heaven's disassociation with the rest of world. The Orb of Kar. An artifact which was capable of wiping out a sizable army quickly. The Dark Elves of Giru, the Fairies of Tadarok and the human Kingdom of Baroda had entered into a shocking alliance that had given birth to the dangerous artifact right under heaven's nose. They had successfully subdued a lot of places before Heaven intervened by forming an alliance with a lot of other races and taking on the alliance and their Orb. Heaven was far more advanced than other races and yet expected a few casualties. Heaven had not been prepared for the s*******r that had occured.

After securing a costly victory and destroying the orb, those at the top decided it was time Heaven stopped involving herself with the matters of the other races. Having already spent centuries building and designing the Floating fortress which was the size of a big nation, Heaven departed to the skies where it stayed out of the sight of other races and on its own while working hard and focusing only on her own advancement. Enough time passed and most of the rest of the world forget about them. Many even considered their existence a myth.

As for the two beings within the Crypt, the books mentioned one was a being which was a collection of darkness and was capable of granting unfathomable power. The being's purpose for existing was to create chaos. In the deepest and most secure part of the crypt was the second being who was written to be one of the oldest angels of Heaven. There was no information on a name, or offences committed.

Ramiel stopped his research when it started to seem like there was no longer much left for him to find out. He had so almost a year on research and had gotten enough of what he needed to know about the Black Marble Door and the Crypt.

After stopping his research, Ramiel activated his second phase of his plan which was securing entry into the Crypt.