Vellump Part 1 (Patreon)

Hello everyone, sorry it took so long. This month has been strenuous, and I am still getting myself back together, but I have more planned before this month ends, and also for November.

STORY:

Vel'koz: Noun

Definition: Roughly translated to "to know by unmaking (ancient shuriman)

For centuries, Vel'koz has caused havoc everywhere he showed up. He has unmade countless people, and assimilated their thoughts, memories and lives into his own mass and knowledge. He is the void's thirst for knowledge incarnate. Or rather, he was, for a long time. He had no desire for anything, but obtaining as much knowledge as possible. Yet, he was now troubled.

In spite of his overwhelming power, and menacing form, Vel'koz was exceedingly conflicted. His endless thirst for knowledge still remained... but consuming Runeterra was becoming harder and harder for him. He was developing a conscious from all of the creatures he had unmade. With every creature he consumed, he saw how they all lived... thought, felt. And in each of them... there was something they had that he didn't.

Each of the creatures, however small, big or senseless, had senses. Not just sight, like him. They had taste... smell, touch... Hearing... he lacked all but sight. His armor was a psuedo body, merely designed to protect his eye; his true form. Whatever it touched, it disintegrated due to powerful void magic. It couldn't smell, or taste... it had no mouth. It had no heart. It was just a machine of organic void energy; a squid like shell that Vel'koz built up to protect himself. However, its design was archaic.

The void exobody was designed centuries before modern runeterra knew anything about the void. It was designed when the world was flooded, and the void opened up in the deep. At that time, 2 creatures took form from the essence they consumed. Belveth; a void mantaray, and Velkoz, a deep-sea squid. Their designs were merely built to give them the greatest possible tools to destroy reality; destroy Runeterra. However, Bel'veth betrayed the void, and grew obsessed with growing her own regime. The previously mindless mantaray felt the pain and pleasure of all she consumed, and wanted more... even if she had to attack Vel'koz for trying to defend the void's order.

Her attack came without notice, like a silent tsunami. over time, she had evolved and absorbed more tools for her regime. The tiny void mite she began as was now an eldritch-level monster nearly on par with a watcher... and unlike them, she was FULLY aware of how to use her tools. But she didn't plan on destroying Vel'koz's sea of knowledge when she attacked. No, when she clashed against him, she left him alive, and forced him to flee to the very place the watchers themselves were sealed into: The Freljord.

The icey tomb built by Lissandra was the only thing stopping those formless entities from destroying Runeterra, if not the solar system as well. They were on par with Aurelion Sol. Vel'koz served them blindly, even though he was a literal eye... and when Bel'veth shredded apart his armor, fed him alive to her minions and cast him out of her lavender sea, the first thing he saw was the truth.

The watchers lost. The Void's incursion was halted, and destroyed by the inside. On a fundamental level, the Watchers did not know what they were dealing with. They didn't even have physical bodies to see, hear, or understand what they were being attacked by. Now, without any bodies, any heat, any breathe, any magic, and separate from their source, the void, they were paralyzed in black ice indefinitely. The ravaged eye of the void crashed from a rift in space, before slamming into a high mountain that overlooked the Howling Abyss.

In his desperation, Velkoz left his exobody behind, and attempted to reach the watchers through the black ice. They were his masters. He was their servant. He was their eye... but it was useless. They had no ears to hear, and he had no mouth to call out to them. As it all sank in, Vel'koz realized that he himself... had been unmade.  He was stripped of his power... his knowledge was powerless against the cold ice. He had no power to do anything, but fade away in the blizzard of the Freljord.

The eye of the void felt something stir up within him. Something he had never faced before... anger. Deep seated anger toward his situation, and fear... a fear that began twisting his mindless mind away from its original plan. With no other option, Vel'koz did exactly as Bel'veth wanted him to... exactly as she planned. He used the centuries of attained knowledge for his own self, and slowly began to learn, similar to how she did before she betrayed the void. With great desperation, the lives of every creature began flashing across his mind, as he remembered how the many vikings he had felled fought the cold. Yes, that bit of information was very present in his mind. He realized that the Vikings used the bodies of animals to keep themselves warm. They used animals to make themselves stronger, where dead or alive. But as the lone eye contemplated this fact, he recalled that all animal of Runeterra are fierce, and deadly. They had something he didn't... instincts.

If he tried to take one over, it would surely tear him apart without his exobody, and he would see every agonizing fang sinking into his eye as they did it. The very thought brought forth something unprecedented onto the eye. An expression, in the form of a disgruntled shutter. It was the first expression he had produced other than the fear of seeing Bel'Veth attack him. No, he did not want to be torn apart AGAIN by another wild beast... but that was the exact power he needed to challenge her... or at least, save himself from this oblivion.

With desperation, Vel'koz levitated back to his exobody in an attempt to figure out a solution. The cold had not frozen him, thanks to the cold energy around him destroying heat itself. However, even the ageless energy of the void was starting to fade in this powerful blizzard. He knew that all animals of the Freljord needed fur of some sort to survive... and if he didn't figure out how to attain some, he would join the watchers when his magic eroded away. The situation was beginning to make the eye shutter in true fear, as its gaze darted around the barren landscape. To make matter worse, what his exobody was of no use, because it was entirely comprised of void energy. Without him being able to return to the void, it would disintegrate to dust due to a lack of energy.

This deadly situation had forced the eye to think in a way it never had before... that he never had before. In order to protect himself... he would have to understand what he is... and the only way he could do that, was to unmake himself. As he was now, he stood no chance to even the cold... He now knew he needed to become more self aware.

What was Vel'koz...  What was he? He didn't understand himself, only his role. It was a question that never came to his mind because he... was mindless.  He never thought because he never had to think; only do. Eyes do not think, they observe. So without the extensions of the void, he was powerless. What would he be now? What was he? What will he be?

Well, he was like the generals of armies he vanquished, so... he was a man. No, the eye grew puzzled, as he realized men have things he doesn't. No... rather, the only other trait he had, was that he was a male. If not for any other reason, than that females of species are not made to fight.

He was not a beast... he was an eye... and if the watchers in all of their might could not survive the howling abyss... no voidling could withstand the cold. Now, he needed to become more than an eye. He needed to become... a beast. So that was what he no decided to be. In throwing away the nothingness he embraced for centuries, he embraced the very things he sought to destroy; instincts... feelings... senses... thoughts... even feelings. The last bit of lingering void energy in his body, was just enough to do one last unmaking spell.

To anyone else, using his greatest weapon upon himself would be seen as an ironic end; one he deserved. He by all means should have been destroyed... but Vel'koz was too intelligent. Instead of destroying himself... he remade himself. He destroyed nothingness... and in doing so, he created himself. He gave himself life, by destroying everything he wasn't. The weakening and withering void energy around him became a dense magic plasma that was now part of his body. It protected him... shielded him from the blizzard of the freljord. Where the everlasting desire to consume used to be, now sat primal instincts to survive the loss of his status of eye of the void... and the rattle eye wasn't done rebuilding himself yet.

Now, determined to feed on magic, Vel'koz began to expand his plasma down the freezing mountain, so that it may spread across the Freljord. That way, it could absorb as much natural magic as possible, to both feed him and fuel his transformation.

As the magic plasma spread, and feasted, it also gave him enough power to perform the many spells he had learned over the years. Energy beams, stealth mode, and energy bullets were among the myriad of abilities Velkoz had learned and understood... but without an exobody, these abilities were much harder to focus and aim. Even still, he had the desire to learn more, but there was a solution to this problem; one that the eye had seen used before by other voidlings, and now he wanted to try it. With this ability, he could force a stronger beast to protect himself, and gain more power by controlling them. His final ability, was possession.

Now, the final step to his evolution was to find a beast powerful enough to possess, while he planned his revenge against Bel'Veth. There was only one species among the many in the Freljord, that Vel'koz was interested in for this purpose. Any would do, but only one was actually suitable with the resources he had now. The Freljordian Yeti. The magical race of Yeti were a race of creatures as old as Vel'Koz himself, and among some of the first creatures that he had attacked. Among all of the many creatures he had subdued, they lived the longest, were the strongest... and possessed a tenacious healing ability. With that kind of healing, the eye knew that he could rebuild if not grow himself rapidly with one under his control. Even though the Watchers caused a calamity that destroyed their civilization, Vel'koz knew that surely they were too tenacious to be destroyed.

For starters, the calamity the Watchers used was designed to destroy THE ENTIRE FRELJORD. Yet it couldn't even wipe out all of the Yeti. This was because the Watchers could not understand how runeterrans could be killed, and had no bodies to bring such to pass. For that reason, Vel'Koz was raised among the ranks of the voidborne in ancient times. Now, he would use that knowledge to draw out the last Yeti... possess him, and reverse engineer the Yeti he had previously destroyed to create an army that could stand against Bel'Veth, just as the Yeti stood against the very watchers that created her.

Vel'koz was crafty, and made sure to use the perfect lure to draw him out; an illusory spell of his best friend, who would play with him, and goad him up the mountain, straight into the eye's trap.

Vel'koz knew the plan would work... it had too. Even if it nearly killed him... survival was above all else now.