Sebastian
Sebastian is the original Avatar of Darkness and ruler of the Twilight Throne, a calculating figure who commands demonic and death magic and prefers manipulation and proxies to direct confrontation. Analytical, suspicious, and slower to anger than his peers, he probes the schemes of those around him with patient scrutiny before committing to open conflict. His path repeatedly intersects with Cady and later Jason, drawing him from cautious observer into a central adversary whose confidence is tested as events spiral beyond his control.
Book 7: Timeless
Sebastian’s presence is first felt indirectly: he creates a Bone Garden nest and alters the memories of the brigand leader known as The Boulder to conceal a large undead force guarding a silver mine, working through proxies and manipulated memory rather than direct action. When he later confronts Cady and the other avatars in person, he dismisses the human threat as a problem to be solved through elimination, mocking diplomatic discussion, but is visibly shaken when his death magic fails against her, having underestimated her after her resurrection.
Suspicious that Cady is manipulating the avatars, Sebastian interrogates her directly, arguing that power comes from effort rather than chance and pressing to expose what he sees as her deception. He reveals that his placement of undead at the crystal mines was itself a test of her strength and alliances, and that he had previously killed her once before to gauge her resurrection ability; he admits he had misjudged her as a weak, pliable ruler. His suspicion escalates into open confrontation in the palace, where he uses his necromantic senses to detect the undead tied to Cady’s operation, exposes her deception before the assembled avatars, and moves to capture and permanently imprison her to stop her timeline manipulation, coldly threatening to turn her into one of his servants.
Status: A distant, unseen threat, working through the Bone Garden and altered memories to guard the silver mine → Openly confronting Cady in the palace, having exposed her deception and moving to capture and imprison her
Cady: Moves from covertly testing her strength through hidden undead and a prior killing to open suspicion, interrogation, and finally an attempt to expose and imprison her before the other avatars.
Key quote: “Truth can also be misleading. I had thought you a weak ruler. Ineffective. Pliable.”
Book 8: Crucible
Sebastian approaches the Empress under a flag of truce, bringing intelligence about Alex gathered by planting a wraith in Alex’s shadow and puppeting travelers’ UIs to study them. More analytical and cautious than the Empress, he argues for keeping travelers alive to study rather than killing them outright, and counsels patience with the campaign timeline. He is immediately suspicious of Alex, noting that Alex’s resilience under torture suggests he was already damaged before the Empress began, a suspicion later validated when Alex reveals he tipped off the Nephilim, catching Sebastian by surprise despite his usual caution.
Sebastian marches a growing legion of feral undead, raised from over a million killed players, toward Jason’s dungeon in coordination with Nephilim forces, using darkness fog to protect and conceal his troops while the Nephilim bombard from outside. More careful than the Empress in his positioning, he is nonetheless outmaneuvered when the Mile High Club’s tornado strips away his protective fog, exposing his elite forces to sunlight and turning his own feral undead against them; the Empress’s help keeps his forces from being overrun. He leads the direct assault on Jason’s cathedral stronghold alongside her, and during the confrontation quickly deduces that killing Jason will reveal the dungeon core’s location. He shows an odd familiarity with Jason, recognizing that both made similar sacrifices for power, and avoids looking at the statue of the dark god, suggesting discomfort with his own path. As the scope of Jason’s plan becomes clear and his city burns, Sebastian’s stoic confidence gives way to visible desperation.
Status: Original Avatar of Darkness and ruler of the Twilight Throne, forming a tenuous alliance with the Empress to recover his stolen relic and destroy Jason’s dungeon → Co-leading a losing siege against Jason, his forces exposed and turned against him, reduced to harried desperation as his city burns
Alex: Moves from confidently surveilling Alex through a planted wraith and puppet control to being deceived by him, showing rare surprise when Alex reveals he tipped off the Nephilim.
Jason: Confronts Jason as a strategic target but recognizes an odd shared history with him, both having made similar sacrifices for power, even as Jason’s tactics strip his forces of their protective darkness and trap them.
The Empress: Forms a tenuous alliance of convenience that becomes a co-equal but tension-marked partnership, one where her forces end up saving his from being overrun by feral undead.
Key quote: “Ahh, that’s only one way, but the Old Man didn’t explain, did he? If we slay the boss, the core’s location will be revealed. So, we really just need to kill you.”