The Archmage in his initial appearance
The man known only as the Archmage is a client of the Devils, and a high-ranking Dark Master.
History and Description[]
The Archmage after being empowered by the Keys to Power and the Devils
Little is known of the past history of the Archmage, but what is known is that he was once the court wizard of Prince Malcolm, plotting to rule Scotland by overthrowing him. Already gifted in knowledge of Natural Magic, the Archmage desired even more power, and so used a ritual to contact the Devils of Tartarus, making a deal with them to learn Dark Magic and the knowledge of where to find artifacts of great power to amp his considerable magical arsenal.
From his deal with the Devils, the Archmage learned that by combining an ancient spellbook known as the Grimorum Arcanorum with two Fair Folk artifacts: the Eye of Odin and the Phoenix Gate, he would be able to evolve to his magical pinnacle and rule over all as a god. So, he began gathering followers to help him acquire the artifacts from all over Scotland and slay all those who would attempt to stop them, the kills his apprentices made in his name counting as paying off his debt.
When his search led to a dead end and the artifacts seemingly forever out of his reach, the Archmage impatiently decided to act now and attempt to overthrow Prince Malcolm. Instead, after a battle with Goliath, Demona, and Hudson ended poorly in his favor, the Archmage seemingly fell to his doom off a chasm in his cavern lair. But the game was not over yet for him; the Devils, still seeing potential in the Archmage to do better with his talents, sent an unnamed agent to save him before he struck the bottom of the chasm and safely transported him away to a place beyond time itself, the Keep of Time (also known as the place where Young Xehanort had his battle with Riku in Kingdom Hearts 3D).
There, the Devils scolded the Archmage for his lack of control ruining his plans, but told him they were willing to give him a second chance if he followed their instructions carefully on how to achieve it. The Keep of Time, they explained, was the center point of time immemorial, allowing for time travellers to go back and forth between various moments in time, and it was here, they said, where the Fair Folk first forged the Phoenix Gate as a safety valve for the Time Stream. Here, an observer would be able to see any moment in time at their own choosing, and make the decision to intervene in it or not. The Devils told the Archmage that the rules of the timestream acted differently on his world than it would for others, so while they would help him get started on his second chance, it would be up to him alone to make the difference. They pointed to him the various moments in time where he would have to get in involved, who he would have to ally himself with, and how to get the three artifacts of power. First, he would have to go to 995 to seduce the Weird Sisters to his side to have them recover the three artifacts for him, then to 1020 to select Demona and Macbeth as his intended puppets, and finally to 1995 to launch an assault on Avalon to use as his base of operations after being empowered by the Keys to Power. Desiring vengeance on Goliath for his ruined plans and wishing to conquer the Gargoyles world as a show of his power, the Archmage readily agreed to the plan, and was promptly accompanied by the Devils' agent to the intended moments in time for the first run of his time-hopping, where he learned his script for the time-loop from hearing the Devils' agent say them first.
After the Weird Sisters gave him the three artifacts as instructed, the Archmage no longer needed the Devils' agent to be able to travel through time, and so took that as the initiative to head back to 984 about 10 seconds before the Devils could rescue his past self so he could do the job himself and enact a changed timeloop as per his world's rules of time travel by instructing his past self everything the Devils had taught him first, though with an added detail of actually launching the initial attack on the Avalon Clan so that afterwards the past self would go back in time about 10 milliseconds before the initial version of the Archmage did the first time and begin the time loop all over again.
Now that his survival was secured by his own hand, the Archmage led another attack on the Avalon Clan, but his impatience and anger led to his final defeat: he foolishly made his assault during the night instead of waiting for morning when the Avalon gargoyles would be stone, and also, when he faced Goliath head on, instead of immediately destroying him, merely contented himself with magically torturing him just to make Goliath suffer. This oversight gave Goliath the opportunity to finally snatch the Eye of Odin from the Archmage's brow. Once the Archmage lost the Eye, he could no longer contain the Grimorum's energies inside him, and was destroyed in the ensuing magical conflagration, alongside the Grimorum itself.
After the Archmage's death, his soul descended into the Underworld, where he was confronted by the Devils in full court. Though they were pleased by his ability to initiate the time loop and secure his alliances, they were more than disappointed at him for letting his anger get the better of him yet again when he should have learned better by then. As punishment, his intended seat on the Inner Circle that they had reserved for him was revoked, and he was demoted to the rank of a Dark Master, which he serves as to this day, still bearing his grudge against Goliath.