Raziel: (VO) Even as I emerged from the Time-Streaming chamber, I suspected treachery. I mean, anyone with half a brain would have realised that Moebius was going to trick them and screw around with them. What was I thinking, allowing him to just cast me into the Time-stream like that? Obviously, my jaw and abdomen weren't the only things that were burned away in the abyss - my brain was probably with them in the next life. Maybe they were having a party, all of Raziel's body parts getting together in a sunny field for a nice picnic. My tongue would be happily guzzling down a bowl of ice cream, while my rib bones would be snacking on sandwiches...and I'd just gotten to my pelvis when I started to wonder what in the world I was doing fantasising about a picnic for my non-existant body parts for. I really needed that therapy. Perhaps I should go back in time to a point when Nupraptor, the Guardian of the Mind, was alive and hire him as a psychiatrist. Then again, considering how he turned out, perhaps I should just concentrate on getting through the game. Anyway, the point is that the Stronghold was vacant, derelict, abandoned. Either the Sarafan had just had a really wild night, with alcohol, gambling, and a couple of visits to the brothels of Nosgoth (and why does Nosgoth have so many brothels? There were at least ten seen in Blood Omen, and how many schools or hospitals were there? Was Nosgoth populated by a load of school dropouts with big libidos? Although that might explain why someone as supposedly wise as Nupraptor would be dating the only girl in Nosgoth who's idea of make-up was to polish her skull...but I digress), or that little git Moebius had sent me to a far off future where chaos and demons roamed...
Suddenly, a pair of demons appear in front of Raziel.
Demon: Raziel...
Raziel: Yes?
The demons start attacking Raziel, who ducks and dodges while taking care to keep his umbrella up.
Raziel: I can't hear you! What do you want? Don't try to take my head off when you're asking a question!
The demons spit a poisonous mist towards Raziel. Still clueless, he jumps back and continues to speak.
Raziel: If you're looking for the library, it's in Willendorf, a couple of hundred years in the past...
The demons, frustrated to insanity by Raziel's ramblings, decide that their best bet is just to put themselves out of their misery. A few seconds, and two suicidal demons later, Raziel shrugs and walks off through the ruins. He takes a few steps, then sees a pile of rubble, a couple of them being vaguely cube-shaped. Raziel screams, and cowers behind his umbrella. A few moments pass, then Raziel carefully looks at the blocks. He touches them gently, then looks around. He breathes a sigh of relief as he realises that they are just blocks, not block puzzles. Eventually, he comes to a large room with a statue of Moebius, heroically holding up the head of Vorador. Raziel takes a few seconds to draw a curled moustache on the statue, and a pair of glasses, then steps back to consider his situation.
Raziel: (VO) If I had any doubts about the era I now occupied, then a calendar would eliminate them. I had fond memories of my days as the head of the Razelim, each year getting the latest "Vampire Chicks in Velvet Calendar". I'd just gotten the calendar for 53473KD (Kain Domini) when I was chucked into the Lake of the Dead. But even without the calendar, this statue was a pointer. For here was Moebius, lionised and viatified as the martyred leader of his bloodthirsty crusade, holding the severed head of Vorador, and all signs of his teddy bear missing. It was a disgrace. The marble had clearly been imported from Dark Eden, cheaper yes, but of a far less quality than home-quarried stone. What's more, Moebius had obviously sent me into Nosgoth's future, not the past. It really annoyed me, but there was little I could do - he'd pretty much stranded me. I decided to make my way to the area that Janos Audron had once lived, to see if he'd left me any clues as to where I could get a hold of this coin I kept hearing about. Maybe, if it was such a special coin, I could use it to catch a taxi back to the past.
Raziel saunters along, until suprise suprise, he runs into Moebius' ghost, hanging around and playing cat's cradle. On seeing Raziel, Moebius throws the string away and starts to speak.
Moebius: Raziel...
Raziel: Oh, what now? Can't you leave me in peace?
Moebius: I need to speak to you.
Raziel: I don't want to speak to you. You left me in the future, you creep!
Moebius: I am truly sorry, Raziel, but it was necessary. Consider it the last valiant act of a doomed man. You have strayed from your purpose, and now behold the result - gaze upon the wasteland you and Kain authored together!
Raziel: It wasn't me! An older Vampire told me to do it!
Moebius: You spared Kain! And by doing so, you have released a multitude of horrors upon this world.
Raziel: The block puzzles are back?
Moebius: I can accept that Kain has murdered me, Raziel. As the Time Guardian, I forsaw that incident long before it occurred. And I take some small comfort in the fact that Kain remains the sole survivor of his vile breed. But you have single-handedly made...Raziel? What is that?
Raziel: It's an umbrella! I made it to stop the rain dripping on my hair!
Moebius: You've slain warriors, vampires, monsters, and survived death twice, and you're worrying about rain?
Raziel: I like my hair! It took me ages to gel it enough to stop a thousand years burning in the abyss from messing it up!
Moebius: But that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard!
Raziel: I don't think this has anything to do with my umbrella. I think you're simply afraid - because you don't know what Kain's up to. He's a wild-card, isn't he, and you don't want his influence in your game. Which is why you wanted me to eliminate him.
Moebius: Well, he does always cheat in Cluedo, but that's not why I want him dead! Now go! Leave my spirit in peace!
Raziel: If you are really a spirit. Remember, I have a way to tell for certain...
Raziel reaches up to grab his cowl, then realises he's using it as an umbrella. He snatches it off the spear, wraps it around the lower half of his face, then pulls it down slightly, like he does when devouring souls. Moebius jumps out a nearby window. We hear a scream and a splash from several floors down, where the moat is. Raziel chuckles, and leaves the stronghold. He scoots through Nosgoth for a while, killing some demons and a few humans (who don't seem to bow down and worship himlike in the first game - that was a real ego-boost!). Eventually, he reaches the Pillars. Ariel is milling around, speaking mournfully.
Ariel: Forever am I bound, hope abandoned, my spirit tethered to this place. What destroyed the Circle could not touch me, for I was newly dead, and beyond harm's reach. I alone was spared the descent into madness, and Kain alone was spared the pain of death. When Nupraptor's poison seized Kain even in the safety of the womb, much more than just his destiny was lost. All of Nosgoth lost Balance. Consider us now, both of us less than we once were. I, pure but insubstantial; and Kain, terribly real, but corrupted.
Raziel: Ariel...
Ariel: Hmmm? Sorry, I've got company. I'll call you back.
Ariel turns off her mobile phone and looks down at Raziel.
Raziel: You keep going on and on about Kain, but we both know that he's not the thing keeping you here, don't we now?
Ariel: I don't know about you, but I do think that. If I didn't, I wouldn't have spent about 400 years droning on about it over the phone!
Raziel: Hey, none of this would have happened if you and the rest of that freak show circus that called themselves the Circle of Nine hadn't invited those dark forces in the first place. I mean, what were you thinking???
Ariel: OK, so we screwed up, but Kain didn't help, choosing the Damn Nosgoth Card like that!
Raziel: Perhaps you shouldn't have brought up both the cards like that.
Ariel: I had to. 90% of the Legacy of Kain fans wouldn't have been happy with a nice, Good Happy Ending.
Raziel: But...
Ariel: Why are you defending him, anyway? I thought you and he hated each other.
Raziel: How do you know that? You didn't even know who I was in a couple of millenia from now!
Ariel: Er...I...um...
Ariel quickly fades into the Sprectral Plane. Raziel tuts irritably, then follows, suprising Ariel.
Ariel: Oh, crap. You're more persistant than a bunch of Jehovah's Witnesses! Show me some mercy!
Raziel: Like the mercy Kain showed me when he tore off my wings? Or the mercy he showed me when he threw me into the abyss? Or the mercy Moebius showed me when he stranded me in the future?
Ariel: Er...if you want to prove a point, shouldn't you be talking about the bad things I've done?
Raziel: Look, sister, this is MY game, I'M the hero! People play Soul Reaver for Raziel, not some half-faced ghost with psychiatric problems!
Ariel: You are cruel. Why do you torment me?
Raziel: Fine, I'll go make fun of someone else. But know this about you, and your little purgatory - you're only at the threshold...
Ariel: What are you going to do? Throw block puzzles at me?
Raziel gets angry at Ariel's insult, and he swipes at her with the Reaver, only to have her disappear while blowing a raspberry at him. Raziel storms off, eventually walking into the chamber under the Pillars yet again. This time, the Elder God's tentacles are reaching up to the top of the chamber, around the ruined Pillars, and he has wrecked the murals that were there before.
Elder God: Raziel, the failed assassin. You had Kain at your mercy but lacked the courage to fulfill the act. And now you see the wasteland wrought by the tryrant's hand. By his selfish decision to preserve his own life, even when it meant sacrificing the whole world. This is the fate of Nosgoth, as long as Kain remains alive.
Raziel: An ironic condemnation, given this guilty scene. One would think you'd torn down the Pillars single-handedly. What are you trying to obliterate as you drag your loathesome body through this chamber?
Elder God: Nothing. It was just a heavy night's drinking with a couple of friends.
Raziel: Friends?! Who'd be your drinking buddy??? Sharkey and George? Ecco the Dolphin? the cast of the Little Mermaid?
Elder God: Do not test my patience, Raziel. I made you, and I will unmake you if I become so inclined.
Raziel: Duh! I can't die any more, can I? You should know that already!
Elder God: There are fates worse than death, Raziel.
Raziel: Unless you're going to force me to give you a sponge bath, I'm far from worried.
Elder God: Go now. Play out your pitiful rebellion, and take your place among the destroyed, the used and the damned. But know this - you are mine for eternity. You have always been, and will always be, my Soul Reaver.
Raziel: Even when I was Kain's Vampire son?
Elder God: Er...
Raziel: Or now, when I'm disobeying you?
Elder God: Um...
Raziel: Or when I was just a human?
Elder God: Oh, get lost, will you?
Raziel leaves the chamber, sauntering off into the swamp in the Termogent Forest again. He spies the broken-yet-standing door he saw in the earlier time.
Raziel: (VO) Beyond this edifice lay my sole hope of escaping this demon-infested wasteland. The Time Streaming device contained therin offered my only prospect of journeying back into Nosgoth's early history.
Unless I discovered some means of breaking this seal, I was condemned to be stranded here eternally, as I was obviously too dumb to just pull down a couple of trees to fashion a battering ram. Sure, it'd probably take some time, but Janos wasn't about to go anywhere, was he?
Raziel makes his way north into the mountains, and comes across the quaint hamlet of Uschtenheim, abandoned and ruined, where legend claimed that Janos Audron terrorised its villagers until the Sarafan hunters ferreted him out and destroyed him.
Raziel: (VO) I came across the quaint hamlet of Uschtenheim, abandoned and ruined, where legend claimed that Janos Audron terrorised its villagers until the Sarafan hunters ferreted him out and destroyed him...
Hey!!! Quit copying!
Raziel: (VO) Sorry, but in the last few weeks, I've been resurrected from being destroyed, sent spiralling through time, forced to go through a load of block puzzles, killed more times than I can count, played to death by a small army of Legacy of Kain fans, and now shoved into a parody of the Soul Reaver 2 script by some jackass with no life and too much time on his hands...
A large metal weight with a label saying "10 tons" falls on Raziel's head.
Raziel: (VO) OWWWWW! Owowowow...damn it! Oh, very mature.
Raziel is suddenly wearing a pink tutu and a red ribbon bow around his head, and has a t-shirt saying "I was killed by Kain, resurrected by a giant squid, and sent hurtling through time, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt".
Raziel: (VO) OK, I'm sorry!!!
Suddenly, Raziel is looking his old self again. Relieved, he walks off to Janos Audron's stronghold. It is wrecked, and obviously too late to provide any help to poor Raziel. Raziel is just considering his next move when he senses a presence behind him. He spins around.
Raziel: Oh no. Every time you turn up something monumental and terrible happens. I don't think I have the stomach for it.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: It does? Like what?
Raziel: Like an episode of your stupid TV show!
Raziel launches at Buffy and murders her horribly, an act that has no significance other than to show just how much Buffy gets on the nerves of the author. Raziel nods in satisfaction at a job well done, turns around, and walks right into Kain.
Raziel: What the..? Oh no, not you too!
Kain: Hey, Raz. Enjoying yourself?
Raziel: Not really. What about you? Still waiting for your coin to land?
Kain: Are you still fixtated over that stupid metaphor?
Raziel: Metaphor? Isn't that a type of motorbike?
Kain: Changing the subject, I see Moebius has played a little trick on you.
Raziel: Yes. Either he doesn't want me to meet Janos Audron, or he's just jealous because I'm getting more lines than he is in this game - again!
Kain: Or maybe he merely hoped that it would harden your heart against me to see this wasteland which I single-handedly authored.
Raziel: I don't think I have a heart. It burned away in the abyss...
Kain: Janos is indeed the key to your destiny, but you'll need to find your own way back into Nosgoth's past. Make no mistake though, Raziel - you and I are now in great danger. We are irritants here - malevolent forces are being marshalled to eliminate us.
Raziel: Well, they're certainly trying to eliminate you, Kain, there can be no doubt of that. I am assulted relentlessly with demands for your demise. As for me, I suspect they made a grave error when they allowed my unique resurrection.
Kain: You musn't underest...
Raziel: Give me my unique resurrection! First he takes my wings, then he takes my unique resurrection! The man has no pity!
Kain: Can't you stop copying from other people?
Raziel: What? Michael Bell said that, and he's my voice actor!
Kain: Raziel, Michael Bell is a talented voice actor, while you are a fictional character. Worse, you're a fictional character in a parody based on a fictional character in a video game! So don't be so proud of a line from an out take reel.
Raziel: We already did the whole "Breaking the Fourth Wall" joke, Kain. I got hit on the head with a ten ton weight.
Kain: I'm sick of all this. I'm sick of you, with your stupid bath towel wrapped around your head. I'm sick of looking like a cross between Vorador and an extra in a 1960s Greek Mythology movie. And I'm sick of playing second fiddle to you! This series is Legacy of KAIN! I'm the main character! I'm the most powerful Vampire Lord in Nosgoth! I'm voiced by Simon "I have the best evil laugh in the world" Templeman! And look at me now! Stuck in a stupid, unoriginal parody script by some loser with a twisted sense of humour!
Kain suddenly finds himself wearing a straw hat, a pair of bermuda shorts and a leather jacket with a big love heart on the back, while he grows a curly French moustache.
Kain: See?!
Raziel: Why so angry, Kain?
Kain: I can't take this anymore! I swear, I'm going insane!
Raziel: Aww, poor boy! Come on, give us a cuddle!
Kain gapes at Raziel, then runs away screaming, with Raziel chasing after him shouting "Just one hug! And maybe some Tom Jones music too!" Thankfully for Kain, Blood Omen 2 has just come out, distracting the author from thinking up new ways to torture him.