[Spookhouse]

"HIEROPHANT. Stand aside before you lead us, so that we might discard this old trinket of a man, this man named Merlin, who impedes our...."

The god's voice was silenced when his helmet crested the door frame. He stared at Death, and the searing maul lost its glow and heat. It hardened in to a mound of coal on the end of a stick before snapping in two. Justice followed in shortly after. His sword crumbled to dust and water, flowing down his armor and staining it with black, sodden ash.

"You were outcast and terminated from the order aeons ago. You hold no power here, Death. Nothing will come of your existence but chaos and disor...." Chariot's skin was stretching, aging, hardening until it cracked at the bends of his muscles and he was on his knees. His lips and teeth rotted until his tongue fell to the stone floor, detached from his mouth, and he could speak no longer. Justice collapsed, gasping for breath, the snowy white skin of his complexion melting away like acid as blackness devoured him from the inside out.

The iron walls of the Hermit's prison collapsed with a great and heavy thundering of tangling metal. The card-master limped behind Death, whose scythe waved over the helmets of the soldiers as he made his way down the center aisle of spears on either side. Their hardened, military discipline quickly evaporated as Death's contagion overtook their spirits. Soon, they were mangled and decrepit versions of themselves, their armor rusted and dilapidated as if worn and battered by centuries of warfare in the rain and elements. And yet, their spearheads still glistened perfectly.

Sariah and her Emperor stared at the monstrosity that was now Death. He did not remember her, nor did she remember him, and now the only connection that existed between them was a primal and elemental one ---- they were star-crossed, and destined to clash as any Empress or Death would. The mother of life and earth, and her antithesis, met for the briefest of moments before the legion of soldiers turned on their heel to salute their new master.

Death's blade sang with the faint breeze of the black dome as it separated the Emperor's head from his body. The rest of them knew they were helpless. Over fifteen hundred years of manipulation, and Fate had finally resorted to its last bastion to preserve the natural order of things. Death himself.

The Nexus crumbled in to fragments of obsidian, but not before Death gave the Hermit an honorable service. The old man had served his cause in bringing about the revolution of nativity, and to this day, unknown to man, his casket floats about in the cosmos, listless and peaceful.

Fate decided that using the elements of the Order was too risky, and so Death remained. The Nexus would never be reconstructed, but without its existence, man embraced free will.

Now, Death sleeps. He watches, waiting with vigilance. Death will not allow man to play God and twist the whims of fate as the Order did before. He is the last remaining of the tarot, and the only with a true purpose left.

This cycle has repeated itself three times. Each time, Death has risen from his slumber and granted a new chance at the request of Fate for man. Three times, man has destroyed itself. Nuclear warfare. Wasted resources. A manufactured sickness that brought mankind to its knees. Each time, time was rewinded, and the soldiers and their spears were brought forth to purge the earth and begin a cycle anew.

It has been seven hundred and thirty years. Soon, Death will return and grant his final rebirth. Then, man will be left alone for eternity.

It is only then, when the Tarot leaves us to our own devices, that we might see what our future holds for us.