Legacy of Kain: Defiance
2003 video game
Legacy of Kain: Defiance is a 2003 action video game by Crystal Dynamics and the last game of the Legacy of Kain franchise.
Dialogue
edit- Elder God: Surrender, Raziel. Abandon this petty rebellion. It was I who made you. Your life had played out, and in my grace, I spared you. You are my reaper of souls. You have no other purpose, no higher destiny - just this. Accept your calling, Raziel. Let go of these vain hopes. Relinquish your will... and feed.
- Raziel: (Weak, but defiant) ... No.
- Elder God: What do you profit from this defiance?
- Raziel: There's some grim satisfaction in infuriating you.
- Elder God: My patience is eternal, Raziel. How many eons can you bear to languish here? The Wheel of Fate must turn. All are redeemed in the cleansing agony of birth, death and rebirth. This is the engine of life, the purifying rhythm of the universe to which all souls are irresistibly drawn. Yours is a necessary and noble function, Raziel.
- Raziel: Enough of your sermonizing! Are you trying to bore me into submission? Why must this game go on? We both know what you are. You're no better than the vampires you so despise. A voracious parasite, cloaking its appetite in a shroud of righteousness... I refuse to do your will.
- Elder God: I can see into your heart, Raziel. It is not your will, but cowardice that keeps you here.
- Raziel: How so?
- Elder God: You know what fate awaits you when you leave the underworld. That phantom weapon you bear is a constant reminder, isn't it? The sword is waiting for you out there somewhere, and you tarry so as not to meet it.
- Raziel: (Narrating) I could not deny it. As long as I lingered here, defying my captor, I was able to postpone what I feared was my inevitable doom: to become the ravenous spirit imprisoned in the Reaver blade. But that sentence was no worse than the stalemate I now endured. Better to face one's destiny than cower from it.
- Elder God: Harvester of souls I created you, and to this function, my angel of death, you will return.
- Raziel: Enough! ... Yes. I submit.
- Elder God Very good. Indulge your hunger.
- (A lost soul materializes in front of Raziel, and he opens his cowl and devours it to restore his strength)
- Elder God: Yes... Embrace your calling, Raziel. You will find that just as defiance has its price, so obedience has its rewards.
- Raziel: And submission is not always what it seems...
- Moebius: Here you are at last. I see you found a fragment of the Balance Emblem. This will be of even further use to you, if you can find the other three. Now, shall we--?
- (Kain telekinetically tears Moebius' staff from his hand and lifts him off his feet)
- Kain: Yes. Let us continue our conversation - but on a somewhat different footing. Now, what do you have to tell me, Moebius?
- Moebius: (Clutching at his own throat) You cannot kill me! We both know that this is not how or when I die!
- Kain: Death is not the only possible outcome. (Flexes his hand)
- Moebius: (Groans in pain) Your delusions of fulfilling the vampires' foolish prophecies have badly distorted your judgment! And Raziel is not what you think.
- Kain: You dare imagine what I think?! (Throws him against a wall)
- Moebius: So, you prevented Raziel's soul from entering the Reaver. Do you believe for a moment that by this you have averted your fate, or his, or that of Nosgoth itself? Your manipulations are pathetic!
- Kain: Yet Raziel retains his free will. And that's what frightens you, isn't it, Moebius? You cannot see his path, and so you cannot control it.
- Moebius: And neither can you! Yes, Raziel is shrouded from us, but we see the ripples of his potential actions, and every path he might choose leads to the same outcome. He will kill you, Kain. In sparing Raziel, you have written your own death sentence!
- Kain: You still have not answered the question I came to ask. (Throws him to the floor) Where is Raziel?
- Moebius: He is not, in a true sense, here. Not now.
- Kain: Don't try my patience, Moebius. What have you done with him?
- Moebius (Picking himself up) He is contained. In time, it may be safe to release him. His destiny must be completed. He will enter the sword. But until that time, he is dangerous - far more dangerous than you could understand.
- Kain: And your incontrovertible evidence?
- Moebius: The answers are plain, if you know where to look. Go west of the Pillars. There you will find a testament written in stone. (Vanishes)
- Kain: But stones, too, can lie...
- Elder God: Do you see? However far you stray, you will always return to me. Surrender, Raziel.
- Raziel: Never! (slashes the Elder God with the Soul Reaver, but it has no effect)
- Elder God: (laughs) Your efforts are wasted, Raziel! That weapon you bear, however endowed, remains only a wraith blade. It cannot touch me.
- Raziel: I will not be your prisoner--
- Elder God: You have no choice. Your task is fulfilled. Kain has been cleared from the board, and this chamber made ready for my more malleable servants. There is nothing more for you to do.
- Raziel: I refuse to bend my will--
- Elder God: It has always been my will you have satisfied, never your own!
- Raziel: You parasitic fraud! You are forced to imprison me because I possess free will!
- Elder God: You possess nothing! As you are undying, your soul cannot be returned to the Wheel. But it may console you to abide here in eternity, with me.
- Kain: (Narrating) And it was then... I saw.
- Elder God: So, I am revealed to you at last.
- Kain: (shocked) What in the hell...?!
- Elder God: I am the origin of life, the devourer of death. I am the hub of the Wheel, the purifying cycle to which all souls must be drawn.
- Kain: (Narrating) Had I condemned Raziel to this nightmare when I cast him into the abyss?
- (The Citadel shakes)
- Elder God: You may ponder the futility of your ambitions, as you spend a deathless eternity beneath a mountain of rubble. You and your Soul Reaver will go equally mad as the eons pass. The Citadel of the Apostates will become your living tomb.
- Kain: Your words are heartening... (suddenly slashes at the Elder God's tentacles) for you would not fear us unless we could truly do you harm!
- Elder God: (enraged) No! You are nothing!
- Kain: (continues to attack) False god! This is the end - the final turn of your Wheel!
- Elder God: You cannot destroy me, Kain. I am the engine of life itself. The Wheel will turn, the plague of your kind will be purged from this world, and on that inevitable day, your wretched, stagnant soul will finally be mine!
- Kain: In the meantime, you'd best burrow deep.
- Kain: (Narrating) Now, at last, the masks had fallen away. The strings of the puppets had become visible, and the hands of the prime mover exposed. Most ironic of all was the last gift that Raziel had given me, more powerful than the sword that now held his soul, more acute even than the vision his sacrifice had accorded me. The first bitter taste of that terrible illusion: hope.
Voice Cast
edit- Simon Templeman as Kain
- Michael Bell as Raziel
- Tony Jay as the Elder God
