Pious Augustus

Pious Augustus
Pious, during his playable chapter
Chapter Year	26 BC
Other Appearance(s)	1150 AD, 1460 AD, 1485 AD, 1983 AD, 2000 AD, and a number of scenes at unknown dates
Location(s)	Forbidden City Angkor Thom Oublié Cathedral Ehn'gha
Occupation	Roman Centurian
Voiced by	Richard Doyle

"Face me, and you shall surely perish!" - Pious Augustus

Pious Augustus is a Roman Centurion in his late 20s, at war in Ancient Persia. His playable chapter occurs in 26 BC, but he has many other appearances between then and 2000 AD. He initially starts off as the protagonist of Chapter 1: The Chosen One, but becomes the antagonist for almost every other chapter in the game due to being corrupted by the Ancients.

Playable Chapter

In 26 BC, Pious first speaks to his fellow soldiers about how well their previous battle went. One of the soldiers praises Pious' tactics on the battlefield, which guaranteed an easy victory. Another soldier asks Pious about the artifact that the Emperor told them about, and Pious responds with confidence that they will bring the artifact to the Emperor. As the soldiers proceed to hunt for the artifacts, Pious starts hearing voices calling for him. Pious follows the voices and finds several strange spires in the desert, and upon doing so, he is transported into an ancient temple known as the Forbidden City. He fights his way through several Mantorok zombies, destroys a statue of himself (which then appears smashed in the room where the Tome of Eternal Darkness remains), and then finds three powerful artifacts, each representing one of the three Ancients. The power of the artifact he chooses turns Pious into a liche, and the chapter ends with him describing how much stronger or smarter he has become under the power of the Ancient whose artifact he has selected, and thus warns the reader that challenging him will surely result in them perishing at his hand.

As an antagonist

Pious is transformed into the Liche

Although he appears in various guises, such as a monk who supports the Inquisition, a collector of rare items in search of a temple in Cambodia, or even Edward Roivas' own ghost, the other main characters easily see through his disguises for whom he really is, most times just before being murdered by his loyal minions. He holds a deep respect towards the ancient whose artifact he has chosen, never referring to them by their name in their presence and instead opting for terms of royalty. He reports anything and everything to his Ancient, even if they are already in possession of the knowledge for themselves. He plays an active role in deterring the actions of the heroes, although he himself does not prefer to do the dirty work and instead summons the minions of his lord to finish the job for him. Even so, he does attempt to be humble and offers to put a bullet in the back of Lindsey's head, kill Luther when the Black Guardian is readily available to do so for him, and eventually attacks Alex Roivas herself when she appears to do battle. He also, at least initially, had some degree of compassion, as he was initially willing to let Ellia go without incident when she first encountered him even though he was clearly in a position to kill her for witnessing him. As demonstrated with a knight shortly before the eighth chapter, he also made the knight the foundation of the Pillar of Flesh due to being impressed at the knight seeing his true form.

Boss Battle

At the end of the game Alexandra Roivas collects all of the Ancients essences (except the Artifact Pious chose), takes them to Ehn'gha and prepares to do battle with Pious. When the fight starts, Pious absorbs his artifact into his body and begins slowly walking towards the player. As long as the artifact in intact Pious cannot be harmed. Instead players must hit the shield of Pious to get the artifact out of him. They must strike the artifact a few times with the Enchanted Gladius until their sanity is low, which will allow the spirits of main characters who died to possess Alexandra's body and harm Pious. The player must repeat this process with all characters except Edward Roivas until the artifact is smashed and Pious' shield is weakened. Now Pious can be attacked. Players must now destroy his shield and then attack Pious himself. Pious will retaliate with several magickal spells of his ancients alignment. As the battle progresses Pious uses higher tier spells up to 7-tier spells and ocassionaly summons Zombies and Horrors (Horror is very rare). He can also wack the player with his staff. As Pious is wounded he moves slower and his power gets weaker until he can only hurt Alex with the staff by swinging it at her in close combat. Pious has more health then the Black Guardian but can be beaten quicker. During the entirety of the battle the Ancient that Alex summoned and Pious' Ancient battle in space. Alex's Ancient will eventually win when Pious is defeated regardless of circumstances. After Pious falls Alex's Ancient kills Pious' Ancient and prepares to enslave Earth. Edward Roivas will appear at the top of one of the magickal towers as the player is tasked with finding the right rune to use in order to bind the Ancient. After all is said and done Alex's Ancient is sealed away (again) and the game ends with a good note.

Abilities

Pious Augustus, prior to being made an emissionary to one of the Ancients, was mentioned to have been an extremely skilled centurion, having managed to defeat an enemy in Persia with implied minimal casualties on the Romans' end, and was depicted as being efficient in killing his foes when transported to the Forbidden City. He was also shown to lack fear, presumably due to his status as a career soldier, being the only character in the game to lack a sanity bar.

After gaining one of the Ancients' artifacts and thus becoming their emissionary, his powers are increased exponentially, giving him the ability to practice the magick powered by the Ancient in question, including a powerful summoning spell, and is able to command all the forces of the Ancient. Depending on which Ancient artifact he took, he either had gained the power to not only invigorate his deceased body, but also the ability to level buildings, render the ground asunder, and wield power that mortals can only dream about with a mere touch (Chattur'gha); gained the ability to read people's minds and drive them mad with a mere suggestion (Xel'lotath); or gaining significant understanding of the multiverse to such an extent that there was neither a mountain too high for him nor was any city too far from his reach (Ulayoth). Regardless of which ancient he gained, he also gained enough power to bind and mortally wound Mantorok. He also had the ability to shapeshift, as evidenced by his disguises as Phillipe Augustine, Paul Augustine, and an unnamed warlord.

Trivia

• Pious Augustus's voice actor, Richard Doyle, would later voice Big Boss in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. Coincidentally, both characters were well-renowned and legendary soldiers who fell from grace and got involved with a cult, although the primary difference is that Big Boss fought against the cult while Augustus embraced it.
• Pious Augustus is the only playable character to actually narrate his chapter of Eternal Darkness (All the other playable characters' chapters, including Alexandra Roivas', were narrated by Edward Roivas), as well as one of only two characters (possibly three if one counts Edward's narration in the third ending's additional scene) to give an ending narration for their chapters (Alexandra Roivas narrates the ending to the game in all but the full third ending).
• Pious Augustus is also the only playable character to never actually gain the Tome of Eternal Darkness during his chapter, although it is implied that he eventually did manage to find it.
• Pious Augustus is the only playable character (not counting Anthony, for obvious reasons) whose game over does not mention that he died to the Eternal Darkness or that as a result humanity will surely be vanquished. Instead, the game over message states that Pious has perished following the Emperor's request, and that the Ancients' artifacts remain buried in the sands waiting to be discovered.