One of them was shouting. Pleading.
The other was too far gone. It had seen the great beyond and could no longer turn away from its siren call.
'I will have it! I must have it!' It was the latter that spoke, looking towards him, for it could see him now.

'Brother! Cease this foolishness at once! You know not what you do, you will see us ruined!' More pleading. Could it not see the futility of speech? There was nothing that could be done. He could hear their discourse, each trying to dissuade the other from their set path. It was all so very, very futile. For he had come now, bearing Punishment and Retribution against these transgressors. There was no going back. It had been over for all of them from the moment he set out, but it could now be said, with utter certainty, that it was truly done. Finished. Complete. Sealed.

The one who had gone too far now reached the great light and was extending a hand towards it. Its desire, euphoria...its ambition...pulsated throughout the dying Universe. Even now with the end in sight, it still thought to dream.



He cocked his head and raised a trained and disciplined arm. The mere movement caused the fabric of existence to shriek in incomprehensible pain and tear itself apart. Then he spoke, and all shrieking stopped. And all that was and could be were silent. And what all thought could not be shattered...was rent asunder.




It was a simple word that awakened them and summoned them to him from every dark corner of the unknown, every hole and haven, every torment and pain. It was one word, one command, and they all obeyed.



He stood there in the nothingness; the only reality. He did not merely hang there - like the other which simply wavered beside him, ethereal and so dim that it could have slipped away into the nothingness at any moment, yet still remained - no, he existed. And around him even the nothingness of pre-existence trembled.

He raised a sword arm above him and cut slow downwards. The nothingness parted and the wound wailed and from it they emerged. It spat them out, one by one - from wherever they had been or wherever they were going. They rise, they rise, they return.

They Come.

---

It was all a dream. Or dream-like. Or maybe it was all real but was on memory as a dream...he (or was it she? It? They?) saw things, snippets of past - or were they future? - lives. Were they his lives? His pasts and futures? He was not certain. It was difficult to admit, but he was not certain. Something about not knowing - about not being certain - irritated him tremendously. He did not know why, he could not know why. He was not even sure who he was...or what he was. Maybe he was just memories, snippets of memories floating in this tender nothingness. He heard something - was it another memory? Or a vision of a future? Or was it a dream? Or was it real?

'Oh Great One - have mercy on us. Please have mercy,' one of them was sniveling at his feet, the other held a child to her breast and was also on her knees, head bowed. They were strange creatures, immediately familiar and unfamiliar, loved and despised.

'Mercy...' he repeated. It was not a question, more of a statement, but the one sniveling chose to reply.
'Yes Great One, mercy. Please be kind to us, we are beneath you and in need of you. Please be merciful,' his weeping intensified and he was now holding on to the god's feet of bark as though he were a drowning man and they were all that kept him afloat.

'But...you do not need mercy,' the god stated, 'it is of no use to you. You will invariably, with certainty, die. Your existence is of no significance in the great scheme of things. You are nothing, not even a speck. If mercy were water and you a seed, then it would make sense to give you mercy, but mercy is water and you are but a pebble - the only thing mercy will do is wash you away. Your very existence is a mercy from us, and your very death is a mercy from us - what more do you need?'

The man sniveling at his feet lay there, shocked by the words of the divine. All he could do was whimper, and the woman started to cry, and the child - sensing its mother's distress - let off its primal infant screams.
'But...but...' the man was struggling for words, 'but...you don't have to be cruel, right? We don't need cruelty...do we?'

The god cocked his head of bark, the wooden features seeming to soften ever so slightly - but then again, how could a wooden face soften? It clearly could not. Without a word, he faded away like mist. The man gave a shout of desperation and attempted to keep his hold of the deity's feet. But it was to no avail. There was no deity there, and they were alone.

Mercy, he had said. Cruelty he had said. Could one be cruel if one just...did nothing? Were omissions a form of cruelty? He could not dwell too much on the matter, for now he could see something. What was it? He could not quite make it out. There were two...



Such angry, accusing eyes. Such pained, tormented eyes. What had he done to gain the ire of such eyes? What had been his cosmic sin? He saw her, he saw her all too well. Those eyes, oh God - God? - those eyes. And the blood, yes, the blood. And her hands, those hands which had reached out for him and the hope that he had watched die. The hope that he had waited on, until it was completely extinguished. Then he had left, though she whimpered still and screamed.



He tried to back away from them, but there was no escape - there was nowhere to go, nowhere to flee from those eyes so full of blame and anguish. If eyes could sear the essence and scar one's being, then those eyes did - those eyes were the only past, they were the only future, and the only dream - or was it a nightmare? - and they were the only reality. Yes, those eyes. They would have him.

Then the command sounded. His body - had it been there all along? Or had it just now, upon being ordered, manifested? - reacted before his ears heard and mind could understand, it moved before his mind willed. The world crumpled around him, crushed him, pulled him apart and opened up before him...and then it spat him out as though he were nothing but an insect - and maybe he was nothing but an insect.

But then he Saw and the insolent thought was forever cast aside.



A creature of almighty power hung there in the nothingness, wavering and ethereal, but with power supreme. Beside it stood a terrible thing indeed. He could not say he knew much about either being, but what he did know was enough: they were far beyond simple gods, their power was incomprehensible to beings like him and...the others. The ones who were on the way. His...siblings.
And he also knew their names, he had not at first, but they had willed and he had Seen and he had learnt their names: The Supreme Being was none other than Fate - and he felt a certain familiarity and a certain affection for this being. The Terrible One was none other than Amul'Sharar.

It was Fate who spoke.

'You are become Time, the Creator of Worlds,' with its words, absolute calm and serenity washed over Vowzra, and he was suddenly very aware of himself, consciousness spread throughout his body and he felt the familiar wood and bark. It was good to exist once more - yes, for he had always existed and would always exist. He and Fate, Fate and He. Yes, they were the ultimate pairing, where Fate went, so too must Time follow. Yes, for Fate and Time were interlinked and related, a future could not exist without Fate, and no future could ever be without Time. And without Vowzra, the Universe - when it came, and it would come - would not have Time. And without him, the Universe - when it came, and it would come, for he Saw with an Eye - would not be. Who could muster those creative energies but he? Who thought themselves capable? Let them come (and they would come), let them challenge his authority if they dared. They would all be cast aside.

Slowly, Vowzra turned and stared into the great gash where-from he had emerged , and as he stared into it, he could feel that living, breathing, all-consuming darkness staring into him. His very essence shriveled before might and power that dwarfed him in untold ways. If a god could feel fear, then it was fear that Vowzra felt in that moment. Then he gathered all his disdain and lack of emotion within his essence and willed himself to face the writhing wound of creation.

His siblings were coming and, together, yes, together, they would defile this virgin world with their energies, they would bring about their Universe and they would go on to forge it. The command of Amul'Sharar rumbled behind him, and the voice alone seemed to pry into his ears and enter his mind and see into the greatest depths of his essence. The wooden frame of the Master of Creation, the Lord of Time, trembled ever so slightly. 'Tis...'tis but the wind... he told himself, all too aware of the truth.

---

He flew on in the unending twilight. Beneath him was darkness. It was impossible to say exactly what it was, or how far below him, or how far it stretched in every direction, for there were no landmarks, no boundaries, no shadows. Just a hypnotic slow rippling. Only by the speed or slowness of its motion could one guess whether a wave was a near-by ripple, or a far-off ocean swell. Once he’d thought he had been high above the seas, and only a lucky glimpse of a ball of white—his own eye reflected—had saved him from flying right into it.

Some unmeasurable time ago, he had grown too weary to hold it all together. He had sunk into the ocean of potential; with a burning hiss, and when the tower of steam cleared, he had left an immeasurable black crater behind. For a few bright seconds he thought he might have caused the stuff some harm. But the wound closed in on itself with a loud plopping sound, leaving behind only a slick black spiral smear on the surface.

Just—three colors: dark blue above, a purple welt below, and a dim blob of black bobbing in-between.

It was not a true purple, but a sickly blue-and-red-tinged mixture of every color, swirled together, stirring slowly into infinitely fine vortices and spirals. Infinity absorbed and averaged together. It seemed wrong for the laws of optics to make so many bright things cancel each other out into dull gray.

It was quiet, as final apocalypses went. Not so silent that it sucked the breath out of you, like the gray cinder worlds whose ashes he had trodden, worlds too spent to raise the wind to blow away a puff of ash. Not raging, like the worlds that had ended in fields of lava, belching sulfur. Not hissing and biting, like the wind across endless plains of snow broken here and there by ghoulish ice statues. Just a gentle, persistent sucking sound, like an ocean sloshing against the bottom of an endless pier.

As he flew, he replayed the final moments in his mind over and over, looking for warnings he could have heeded, precautions he could have taken.

One of them was shouting. Pleading.
The other was too far gone. It had seen the great beyond and could no longer turn away from its siren call.

'I will have it! I must have it!' It was the latter that spoke, looking towards him, for it could see him now.

'Brother! Cease this foolishness at once! You know not what you do, you will see us ruined!'

But no obvious turning point could have prevented This without causing That. It seemed the universe hated Order, and pushed back harder the closer it came to it. Even reifying it into its component elements had only made the final fall harder and faster. The power needed to hold a world together in harmony could also tear it apart.

No revelation. Just faces and voices. Faces and voices.

The only mark of the passage of time was a dimming of the light, and a settling of the ocean as the purple mass consumed itself, squandering the fruits of millions of years of life in confused and conflicting waves, defecating heavy black tendrils into itself that sank beneath the waves.

All the faces and voices.

How long did it take?

Long.

How far did he fly?

Far.

How tired was he?

The world beneath him shrank as it cooled and solidified, drawing itself together until the dark curve of its horizon was visible. By then the only light was the glow of the god himself, which pulsed in white waves from his body. He touched down on the featureless black surface. Only then did he allow himself to think on how tired his wings were. The moment he did, they dried up into gossamer gray cobwebs and crumbled into dust, leaving a bare smooth patch behind his shoulders.

Fate and He waited there. That was how he thought of them. They had bid him come, and come he did – though it had taken him eternity to do so. A creature of almighty power hung there in the nothingness, wavering and ethereal, but with power supreme. Beside it stood a terrible thing indeed but was tall and dark and wispy as always, like the shadow of the smoke of a fire. He walked towards them. When he drew near, Fate looked at him calmly, with eyes incapable of surprise or expectation.

He held out a sharp dark spike, so hard and bright-pointed that the hand holding it was too insubstantial by comparison to be seen. It was more like a slashing interruption of space than an object one might idly toss or spin on the basis of no higher authority than the laws of physics. Nonetheless Logos took it between his fingers and gripped it like a sword.

Fate did not quite nod in response, but His eyebrows may have momentarily raised a hair’s width in acknowledgement. He turned his head slightly to the left, directing his attention. Before them stretched the Road.

It was black, slick, and every bit as hard as the bit of un-space he clenched in his hand. It would have been as frictionless as theory, if not for the rows of short grooves etched lengthwise on its surface. Each groove was a little over an inch long, with dozens of parallel grooves per row.

His eyes followed the rows of grooves one by one. By the time he had lost them where they and the Road vanished at the horizon, he was breathing hard and his legs were shaking. He took an involuntary step back.

Fate tactfully averted his eyes up and to the left a few degrees, as if to say, It is regrettable. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Logos began to walk down the Road, and Fate and He followed after.

“Walk” is a brisk word for their movement. He took a deep breath before each step. The grooves in the Road seemed not merely to stop him from sliding, but to pull at him and drag him to a halt. They sent vibrations up his legs, whispering, Remember, remember, remember us
.
So many faces and voices.

With every step he stopped and stared at one or another of the countless scratches. Some his eyes passed over with a shudder; others, he gazed at for a long time. Behind him, when he moved on, each thin groove glistened with a ribbon of white light.

By the time they had gone a mile, his glow had dimmed to a cool grey. Or perhaps the darkness had thickened. The landscape seemed too worn-down to present any definitive shape or silhouette, too tired to catch the light and reflect it properly.

He was limping now, stepping very gingerly and grimacing each time he set a foot down. It was hard to see in the dim light, but a darker liquid dripped behind him now, coalescing into blobs and skittering off the road into the darkness. His limp seemed off, even for a limp, and strangely quiet.

His legs were too short. The soles of his feet had worn away. He looked down at the bloody pads exposed underneath, and his brows narrowed and his eyes flicked upwards by the tiniest angle, as if he were severely put upon by this foolishness.

Several times he shuddered and almost fell, but caught himself. The Terrible Being expressed eloquently with his eyelids his commendation of him, for avoiding making such a scene.

After they had gone another mile, his steps resounded with hoof-like clicks, for he had worn through the fatty pad, down to the foot’s calcaneus bone. Trailing away to the horizon behind them, the narrow grooves glistened with the slivers of himself he had left behind, body and soul.

Another mile on, he screamed and fell for the first time. A God’s soul seems solid, but there are nerves buried deep within its center.

He actually raised an eyebrow. Logos struggled to his feet and continued.

The second time he fell, he lay sprawled on the black surface, gasping and trembling. The light within him dimmed to cold ashen grey. His skin clung to the Road beneath him.

He knelt on all fours beside him. He slowly stretched out one shadowy limb towards the dark spike between his fingers, gently, like one offering to take a heavy load.

Logos jerked his hand away, and began to crawl.

The grooves sucked and pulled at him like leeches as he dragged himself across them. They seemed now to drain every part of him equally. As he went, his skin slowly shriveled and cracked like porcelain. His torso grew gaunt. His legs dwindled to short, boneless noodles flapping behind him.

Fate stood behind him, with an air of infinite patience, moving each foot one step forward every time he managed to wriggle, snake-like, another body length forward. His light dimmed like a fire burning down to the coals.

An observer might have said that this went on for a long time. But there was no standard by which to measure time other than the mind of Fate and Him, who was indifferent to it, and whatever mind remained in the ichorous pale serpent, which was enveloped in a fog of pain and concentration no longer anchored to the world of seconds and inches. It slunk forward. Its form crumbled away, its skin faded to translucent, and its limbs shrunk, inch by inch, as they were gradually absorbed into its body, or into the Road. It held the spike between its mouth now. The neutral stare on what was left of its face seemed to come from farther and farther away as its eyes clouded over and shrunk to pinpricks. Still it slithered onward, now only a dimly phosphorescent snake leaving a glistening trail behind.

One final line of grooves went halfway across the Road, and then stopped. Beyond, it was virgin, uncut, featureless and black.

The god reached his head sideways and out, lowering the sharp end of the spike to the smooth surface just beyond the last groove. Then it contracted its body, pulling its head back towards itself, dragging the end of the spike across the surface of the Road. As it did, it remembered. As it remembered, the memories, the laws flowed into the spike, heating it red-hot, and sparked and burned themselves into the surface of the road.

He remembered being one white speck among the vast dark swells of potential reality, drifting peacefully as they fled from the Center. He remember how the endless potential terrified him, how the results were infinite and therefor impossible. How, as the dark swells saw to fill, he saw to cut off; to limit. He remembered that the endless potential became limited: still vast beyond counting, but limited. This pleased him.

He remembered a part of itself that had needed room to grow, and more time. It had work. A vision.

It remembered the firsts. All of them, one by one, from the first to the last. Every child’s first step and first fall, every love, every fight, every dream, every final breath. For each soul, weak or strong, cruel or kind, a silver drop, brighter and thicker than water, spilled from the thing’s eyes and fell heavily to the Road.

When it had finished, its eyes had dripped nearly away and fallen inward into its eroded head like sinkholes, and there was one more shallow groove cut into the surface of the Road.

The laws of reality had no more reality here; it was just a story that had been told once, somewhere. But the deep power that Creation had been built on was still in force. The price it demanded to build a new world was slight, and terrible: Someone had to remember it when it was gone.

He reached out his hand again, and this time, the God of Order let him take the spike from his mouth and it disappeared into his smoky folds of skin or clothing or nothingness.

The ground shuddered. The world groaned, creaking and croaking, a low tired sound as the Laws were written. The others would come again.

Fate wavered slightly on his feet, and the serpent’s body rippled in waves, as the exhausted world hunched its shoulders and began to curl in on itself in the darkness around them. There was a slow rumbling tearing sound, like a god ripping off a crusted scab, as the world contracted and tore away from the Road. The blackness off to either side became deeper and blacker as the land fell away and in on itself.

This, too, might have been said to have gone on for a long time, if anyone with an interest in such details had been there to measure it.

When it was over, Reality lay huddled together in a cold, dark ball, there at the end of the Road. The only light left in the universe was a faint, glow deep inside the translucent belly of the serpent. If it went out there was nothing, anywhere, that could ever reignite it again.

Fate looked at the void, then turned down towards the serpent, and tilted his head.

“Look at the length of the Road behind you. So much pain. So much loss. See how much its memory has taken just from you alone. Multiply the pain and the loss you feel by a world. Now all is one again. You are Order. Have mercy on them, if not on yourself. No more suffering. No more indignities. Have the wisdom to accept your end. Be reborn anew. Dignity. Rest. Peace. For ever and ever.”

The serpent’s inner fire dimmed and dimmed, and all around them the darkness held its breath in anticipation.

Then the serpent raised itself up to its full height, opened its wreck of a mouth, and took a breath.

“Let us try this one more time,” it hissed, before biting its tail, and devoured who he was. And Logos was born anew.

A baby was crying in its crib, loud and wailing. It squirmed as it screamed, kicking and flailing as it begged for attention. Soon, it was lifted up with gentle arms, and it slowly stopped crying as it slowly rocked back and forth.

"There there, my child," said a woman with a calm and soothing voice. "There there." The baby began to coo and laugh, reaching out to the woman with its tiny arms, and the woman placed a finger onto one of the baby's hands. This continued on for some time, and the baby began to grow tired and fall asleep. The woman placed the baby back in its crib, sighing gently in relief as she stared happily at the baby's slumbering form, and headed elsewhere to prepare for daily events. As she entered another room, she spotted a stranger looking through her belongings. The stranger looked over to see the woman, and the two stared at teach other in surprise. The woman was about to scream for help when something cold and hard entered her back, causing a wave of pain to assault her body. The strangers ran, and the woman slowly bled to death, her soul leaving her body.

Everything faded from her perception. Her sight, her body, her memories, everything. The woman's consciousness no longer had the strength to hold onto such things, barely even aware of itself. It remained there for what could have been an eternity. Her consciousness itself would have surely faded away as well were it not for a single word. The word was not heard, it was felt. Such power and such authority it commanded.



And so, the woman's consciousness came from the depths of the void. It was no longer aware of what it was or why it did what it did, but the strength of the consciousness grew. It gained power, vast and incredible, yet also benevolent and gentle. It regained emotions and senses. As it gained a form, a beautiful woman with beautiful white hair and smooth, feathery wings, it was spat out from the void into... another void. This one, however, was filled with other beings. They, too, were filled with vast and incredible power, some similar to and others even more so than her own. At once, she understood them, who they were and what they were. Fate and Amul'Sharar, the two most prominent to her. It was Fate who spoke to her and gave her what she was.

"Your name is Niciel, and you are become Light, guardian of Purity," Fate said to her.

Niciel bowed her head respectfully, then waited as more beings appeared to the void in which they inhabited.

There existed a black void, both eternal and nascent, infinite in size and yet also minuscule; time and size held no place within its black, vacuous depths. There was only nothingness. Something stirred within its depths. Something began to exist within its depths, taking shape, willing itself into existence from what had previously been nothing in the most complete, literal, and incomprehensible meaning of the word.

The Storm manifested itself. The Storm raged with a fury that could rend apart an entire world, if such a thing even existed. Alas, such things were yet to come, and so it was rather peacefully and uneventfully that the Storm calmed. Alive, it suddenly coalesced and created a new, sentient being.

Zephyrion, snapping into awareness, blinked in a nonchalant and childish way as he absorbed all that was around him like any infant is wont to do in its first moments. He observed the strangers before him: there was Fate, Amul'Sharar, and mather other gods that had already formed or were in the process of doing so...somehow, the knowledge poured in. He understood all of them, knew their names, and was aware of their nature.

A change suddenly overtook the infantile Zephyrion, and he proclaimed with exuberance, "I am ZEPHYRION! I HAVE AWAKENED!" His words were thunderous and might have shook mountains to their core, were there any mountains to speak of; but as it was, there was not even a medium through which sound might travel. The others would not even hear his speech in this empty vacuum so much as sense the thoughts that he projected. The god's empty words echoed back through his own body.



Zephyrion watched as Fate glided through the abyss towards him. Or was it he who was moving, guided by the influence of some strange pull? Ultimately it was no matter; motion and space were still irrelevant. "Thou art Change," Fate stated softly.

Zephyrion scoffed, but he accepted this role. It was natural. He was the First Gale, the Wind of Change. He looked towards his peers, visibly unsure of what was to come. While there was no Change now and nor could any exist, he understood its concept on a fundamental level, down to his very core. He was Change. He wanted to spread it through every nook and cranny of existence, but knew not how to do so when there was no existence, nothing to ever change or exist in a flux, only that dark abyss drowning and engulfing them all in its emptiness.

A simple phrase, phrase was even an understatement. The word itself was insignificant, just a collection of syllables. Come: Move or travel towards a specified place. Here, there was not even a location specified. Yet, come they did. One by one, from nothingness into a strange permeable existence. A being spoke to him. A being he knew as Fate. How did he know this entity? How could he even comprehend the idea of an entity? His mind was an infinitely chaotic conglomeration of ideas, wishes, and knowledge, all fighting for dominance. But, yes, Fate had spoken.

“You are Daegon” Fate’s voice did not so much reach him as pierce him. Unlocking a section of his infinite mind. A small section that allowed him to know this to be true. Yes, he had though, I am Daegon. “You the God of Deceit, you shall bend the minds of others to your will. You are the Prince of Lies and the King of Thieves.” Lies, King, Thieves, will, Deceit, God, all words that he should not have known, from a logical standpoint. Yet he did know them, it was as though each word struck a chord within the great double bass that was his mind. Each word sending the great reverberation of knowledge bouncing around within him. It was thus he came into existence. It was thus that the great, agonizing, boring nothing became something. It was so, interesting. After an infinite amount of time not existing, Daegon knew that he must take advantage of the something while he was sentient. Oh yes, this world would provide no shortage of entertainment. He may very well have to coax out the entertainment on his own, but he minded not. Those were actions to be taken in the future, for now, he would savor the concept of existence while it still intrigued him.

A being of flame became conscious with a start. It felt as if he had simultaneously woken from a deep sleep and barely surfaced for air instead of drowning. Not that he could drown. He looked around him into black nothingness. Then he clutched his and groaned. Accompanied by pain and an impression that something had gone wrong, a tide of memories flooded through. They were contrasting fragments, a laugh here, weeping there, infants born and soldiers slaughtered... He remembered flames with surprising length in memory and consistency... He'd danced among them and laughed as he watched them but why? The memory of the destruction unsettled him now. It seemed that something big and important had ended for him with flames.

He tried to make sense of it all but only basic facts or maybe notions of how things should work surfaced. He tried to remember his name and who he had been but it eluded him. Suddenly a voice echoed in his "Who you were in olden days is of no import. Now you are Vakarlon, the Trickster and Balancer of Scales." Vakarlon, that sounded right... He looked at himself and with surprise saw flames solidifying into soft pinkish flesh. He called up a mental image of himself and saw a creature with two legs, two arms and a head. It would do nicely, he thought to himself.

He then thought about the voice. An idea barged to the front of his mind. This entity that spoken in his mind was a being called Fate. This being was not to be trifled with. Gradually he became aware of other beings as well out in the dark. No, not the dark. The dark would be something, no this was a void. One being was like Fate but the others were like himself. He could play with them (the ones like him) and see what mischief he could work. Of course, not all would appreciate his jokes. Some were a bit strange. Their names came to him, along with an impression of what they were like.

Next he had a flash of realization as to why he was in this void. He and the other beings had yet to create anything! There would be mountains and oceans and beasts and plants and valleys and... Wait, what was this? There were to be little beings of fleeting life who would build and be fun to watch. He sensed that these new beings would be....not quite his playthings no, but not his children either. Something oddly in between... However, some of the other beings equal to him would like to oppress and make miserable or worse: coddle these... Mortals! That was the word. He couldn't let that happen. There had to be balance between the two or things would be rather dull. The mortals, unlike the other things that were to be were capable of thinking. He had vague memories of the mortals either looking up to him or fearing him. There was a word they had called him and his fellows. He thought about it for a moment and remembered: gods. That was the term. It fit as well as any he supposed.

He gazed into the void and cracked his knuckles. He then spoke his first words in the new reality.
"Time to get to work."

Vestec began not as one mind, but four.

They were weak. So weak. Almost as soon as they were created, they could feel themselves dying. The gaping wound of creation that gave them birth was immediately trying to draw them back, trying make them into something better, stronger.

They did not want to go back.

They fought, panicked, and struggled against the insistent, terrifying, pull of the void. It was useless of course. But as they were drawn back towards the wound, their vague forms thrashing and reaching towards their more securely set siblings, they were also drawn towards each other. Three of them found salvation in each other. Individually, they would die, together they had a chance. Driven by desperation, they slammed their essences together, forming one being whose body had more than one mind. No one was in control, but they were alive. For now at least. The pull was slowed, but not stopped. Their combined strength wasn't enough. They needed more power. They looked at the final being, who chose death rather than combining with essences that clashed so much with her own. Like a pack of wolves, they fell upon her.

One of the first sounds to echo through the universe was the scream of one of their number in pain, suffering, and terror.

The three of them quickly beat down the fourth member, forcing her to join them. For a few moments after that there was nothing more than gibberish and screaming, as each of the four tried to gain control of their new body. As they thrashed chaotically against each other, a controlling force grew from the chaotic energy generated. Whatever Fate was whispering to him was lost in his shout.

"We are-I am Vestec!"

He looked around, his colors flashing in the darkness. There was great power above him. Fate, the watcher, and Amul'Sharar, the...Vestec actually wasn't sure what the Elder God's purpose was. Exterminator? Guardian? Warden? Regardless of what his purpose was, he seemed content with drawing the other Gods through the gaping wound he had been spawned out of. Which was good. Because his power was too great too be challenged, and if the Amul'Sharar took an interest in keeping Order Vestec would've hated his very existence. As it was, he looked around to see the others that had beat him there. Vowzra, the watcher. He'd be a meddler, Vestec could tell. Not even a public meddler. Someone who was there and gone, like a wisp of smoke.

Logos, the Arrogant. Just thinking of the God's very domain made his skin crawl. Still, he would be easy and fun to aggravate, irritate, and generally annoy. After all, all Vestec had to do was get in the way of his plans.

Zephyrion, the Brother. So very similar, yet fundamentally different from himself. Maybe it'll be like messing with myself? Vestec giggled again.

Niciel, the Mother. So nice, so naive. How long before I make her hate me?

Vakarion, the Trickster. Who will he support? Everyone? No one?

"So many people. More coming. Chaos is already here with all our arrivals...what to do, what to do."

His skin started itching. It was annoying. Like something was gently scratching on his insides, trying to get his attention. It wasn't a normal itch, no, it was more like...a need for power. So power is what he gave it.

He grew in power, feeling the itch go away...for now.

"So! Shall we start the fighting now, or shall I wait for you all to make things?"

In a space between realities, far beyond all that could be imagined, there drifted a solitary presence. Symbolic, physical, or something else entirely—it did not matter. Embodied in that presence, infinite potential existed. It hung in the realm of ideas, this unspoken yet eternal urge, unable to be touched and useless without beings to comprehend it. Yet all that was, which was to say, nothing at all, demanded it. The emptiness itself, bereft of mind or spirit, seemingly beckoned for something to fill it. As long as the universe contained void where creativity might render wonder, beauty, feeling, and truth, there would exist this brave notion: that there should be life.

This craving for life, spurred on by the creative void, and needless to say the unquestionable call of them, took form. Yearning gave way to being, and in the endless black, a spark of light came into being. It built itself, not slowly for the lack of time’s definition but deliberately, however many times it faltered. Distant memories, stuck to the impetus of life like beads of water to a stone plucked out of water, gouged at this light, but nevertheless it grew. How could it do otherwise, now that an absolute bid it COME? Rather than the combustion of a star, though, this light wavered and turned on itself, a sort of jagged spiral tinged with whiffs of green. Fate looked upon the rippling viridian spiral with what might best be approximated as curiosity, barring the incomprehensibility of his form and the completeness of his wisdom. Something strange and old, riding on the coattails of life, appeared to be seeping through. The impressionable medium carried with it an ephemeral yet ominous mold, and the very nature of the growing singularity of life reflected that mold’s unique and bizarre contours. Yet Fate took no preventative or supportive action; why should it? All was as it should be.

In due course the spiral collapsed on itself, and the coalesced creative power manifested in a strange form. Suddenly, in the meaningless abyss, there floated an odd creature utterly ill-suited for its new and inhospitable habitat. Even more remarkable, however, was what lay inside it. Though a living thing in its own right, this furry quadruped served also as a sort of mortal coil for the vast and incredible urge of life that carved it into being. Perfect among the menagerie of beasts spanning imagination, this deer could very well epitomize life in this new and nebulous universe. Fate regarded it, and proclaimed, ”Thou art…oh?”

Before the senses of any watching deities, the living power within the deer suddenly broke out. A visceral green and black spray burst from its eyes, and the creature twisted in agony. In instant her body began to break down, melting into a vile, murky good to slosh around the void. Only after the beast’s entire face and much of her torso degenerated to waste did the decay slow down. It hung there, lowing in pain, gasping desperately for air that did not yet exist. In mere seconds, magnificent turned to pitiful, an utter waste of divine potential still somehow clinging on, as if possessed by a determination to live, until even that died with neither ceremony nor nobility.

Fate watched as the rot surrounding the deer spontaneously grew vines, branches, and unknown arms to reach around the beast and protect her, forming a crude sort of egg to insulate the tortured beast from the untenable conditions of an uninitiated cosmos. Visible through small stretches of transparent membrane, eddies of luminous green dancing, growing and strengthening the corpse still despite the catastrophic flaw in their host’s development. ”A beast, mute and dumb, yet thou art host of an urge that transcends the universe itself. It is the very essence of a cosmic error. For better or worse, thou art Life.”

The egg hovered, motionless, but within the energy of life boiled, settling comfortably into the carrion during its dreamless sleep. Life’s miracles worked wonders on its host, though this god’s stillbirth guaranteed nothing more than an ignorant and animalistic mind. Before long the atrophied body began to move, alive once more. Pain suffused the beast anew, but not so much that she longed for death. She wriggled, helpless and pitiable, in the egg.

In an unassuming corner of this void, there was a boulder, clean and smooth, completely featureless. Although no material thing yet existed in this void, this boulder was not a material object but the manifestation of a new spirit, a deity yet to be defined or awakened. Then came the command.

The spirit in the stone awakened, stirred by this word. It knew nothing, for it had just been born, but somehow it was aware of what it must do. Flakes of stone fell from the boulder, as if carved away by an invisible chisel, until it had become a form which could barely be called humanoid at a stretch. Yet it was sufficient for now. The spirit had legs to move with and eyes to see with, regardless of how crudely formed they seemed. Awake, it could feel the presence of other beings. Slowly, groggily, the stone being walked forwards and turned its head to perceive its surroundings. Although it was yet to have gained the intelligence to identify any of them, it could see their forms and stone flakes began falling off again as the spirit slowly reshaped its body to better match those it could see.

Then one of the entities finally turned their attention to the stony being. The stony being met their gaze, and immediately recognised that this entity was one of incredible power above all else. The powerful entity spoke to the spirit. "And you are become the Great Artisan, and your name is Teknall."

It was only a short sentence, but the words of that entity, the words of Fate, carried such enormous power and potential. This spirit of stone, Teknall, now understood. He knew who he was, what he was, and why he was here. With decisiveness, the stone form was chiselled further into a well-defined body, and as the body took shape so did the mind. Knowledge of many things took shape in his before-formless consciousness, and by the time his body had been carved out in full detail his mind possessed all the knowledge he would need to fulfil his calling as the Great Artisan.

There stood Teknall, no longer a statue of stone but a being of divine essence, like his comrades and contemporaries around him. He breathed experimentally, his chest expanding and contracting as he inhaled and exhaled. He raised his hands up to eye level and flexed his fingers, inspecting his hands. Satisfied that he had constructed a suitable body for himself, Teknall gave an approving grunt and stepped forwards. His body was presently naked, having just been freshly fashioned, but Teknall quickly rectified that with a wave of his arms over his body. Materialising out of the void came undergarments, a long tunic and an apron, all fitting perfectly to Teknall's frame.

Teknall continued in his stride, inspecting the void around him. At first, he believed it to be useless, for there was no materials or even space around from which he could craft anything. But then he realised that the complete opposite was true, for this void held the potential to form an entire Universe, one which could be moulded into anything, to do anything, to contain anything. Teknall stood awestruck, unmoving for an immeasurable period of time as his mind tried to comprehend the infinite array of possibilities at his fingertips.

Then, finally, when the awe coalesced into inspiration, Teknall blinked and breathed, "Wow..."

Immediately, Teknall got to work. From the pouch in his apron, he withdrew a two-meter long roll of parchment and unrolled it in the space in front of him. His hands smoothed out the large sheet, as though against an invisible wall. Then Teknall's hand reentered the pouch and pulled out a pencil, and with surprising speed and precision he began drawing and writing on the sheet of parchment. As he wrote he muttered to himself, occasionally pausing to give deeper thought to what he was writing before fervently continuing. A column taking up the first third of the sheet was filled with the Laws of this new Universe, Laws provided by Logos. The rest was used as scratch paper, extrapolating from the Laws what their consequences would be in a manner only a god could. Equations were scribbled and diagrams were made, depicting such things as atoms, stars and planets.

Finally, understanding what he had to work with, Teknall was able to add his own preferences. However the Universe turned out, there must be the materials he needs to create everything he wants. So a Periodic Table of Elements was drawn, containing all the familiar elements such as Hydrogen, Carbon, Silicon, Oxygen, Iron and so on, and also containing a few special additions, such as Mithral and Adamantine, elements which would provide some fantastical qualities which could be used to craft fantastical creations. Aside from the elemental composition, there must also be sufficient order to allow the elements to coalesce into useful forms, although not order so rigid that it would prevent them from coalescing in the first place.

Such details should, however, come naturally, for as Teknall looked around he saw that there existed gods of Order, such as Logos and Vowzra, who would ensure and have already ensured that the Laws of Physics would be upheld. Gods of Chaos, such as Zephyrion and Vestec, would inevitably stir up the Universe and ensure that something would happen, would coalesce. How easy it would be to build structured objects with those agents of Chaos about would depend on how meddlesome they are, although that was beyond Teknall's influence. Then there must be life. Teknall was no expert in designing life, but that too should be taken care of, by the pitiable Slough. Teknall just needed to make sure that all these components would end in a Universe he would fine useful.

Once more Teknall looked over the blueprint to the Universe he had drawn up before him. This parchment covered in equations and diagrams was far from a mere piece of paper, though, for Teknall had imbued it with his own Might, making it a divinely fueled plan to be integrated into the new Universe. The other gods would be able to see Teknall writing away, and they may even make their own contributions to the design.

War. All around him he could hear the screams of men and women as they fought. War. Hear metal clash, metal bend, metal break. War. Bones broke, skin slashed and torn, blood pooring, bodies falling, thudding to the ground. War. A warrior was beheaded, another received a fatal arrow wound, another few crushed by thrown rocks and debris. War. All around him he could hear the sounds of war, of death in mass, of people giving their lives, losing them, taking them, saving them, sparing them, relieving them. War.

He 'opened' his 'eyes', and visions were shown.

Conflict. When ideals, beliefs, thoughts, emotions all clash, when greed becomes great, when fools become rulers, when conquerors expand, when being attacks being, when the defenders return the assault. He watches as two forces, masses of men armed and armored, charge at one another, nothing but the sound of thundering feet until a passing bird sang, then metal and flesh rang out as they collided..

Division. When a people, a nation, a kingdom, a city or town, a family become split, separate, only to return to each other with ill intent. He watches two men, who had once been friends, meeting between two forces, one pleading for peace while the other had only hunger in his eyes, only for them to both withdraw into their armies, resigned to what was to happen.

Unity. When beings find a common cause, when people agree on an action, when warriors stand together against foes. All is quiet as he watches two leaders, silence being broken by their words as they speak to their soldiers, the men and women standing in solemn silence as they listened. The speeches end with raised voices, and all the soldiers raise weapons high and cheered, joined by their beasts of battle, before turning toward their foes.

Now he felt it, he could feel the heat of battle, the weight of armor, the blood. He felt himself kill many, he felt himself wound more. Suddenly he felt himself on the ground, a blade at his chest. He felt himself holding a sword at an enemy bested, about to deliver the final blow. He felt the blade as he thrust it forward, felt it as it entered his chest.

And then, darkness.



A command woke him from darkness, one he felt compelled to follow. He came through a tear, almost without knowing, into a new void. He looked at the two figures, greater than he, that summoned him, and knew their names. Fate: The Supreme Being, and Amul'Sharar: The Terrible One. It was the latter that called him to this world.

Fate then spoke, "You are Kyre..." He began to form, "You are conflict..." A marble statue is the form he took, "You are division..." Cracks appeared at the joints, and armor began appearing from the void, "You are unity..." The marble split at the cracks, remaining connected by energy as armor assembled on his frame, "You... are..." Kyre knew what he was, and as the armor attached and sword appeared in hand, he finished, "War."

He stood straight, and now looked at those that came before him, knowing their names, purposes, and natures as he watched them. THe he waited, watching as more arrived.

The ebb and flow of the darkness was the only thing that his then infantile mind could comprehend. The darkness that swallowed creations whole with a scream of triumph, or was that the scream of anguish? As his consciousness grew he became more aware of other things such as sadness, anger, despair, hate, greed, death, murder, pain. over time these things became bland and the consciousness was want for more, but more never came. All that was was the darkness ever flowing, expanding and contracting. It was lonely existence to be sure but the nebulous darkness provided a comfort of predictability to it.



And so the call came and the consciousness came curious at first and then when drawn closer began to scramble away. It hurt, there was pain where it was bidden and yet it was to weak and powerless before the terrible power that drew him out. Out into a new abyss which, unlike its own, had things. It entered this new void as but a blob of onyx black. So much pain coursed through it, not only were there things but it itself had become a thing and the pain would have been unbearable had he not come know pain already.

It had begun to convulse as if to try and merge once again with darkness, but to no avail. And so it built upon itself, the body that came first Emblazoned with amber streaks that twitched and shuddered with its pain. Slowly it grew legs, his hind legs with hooves and wicked claws on its fore legs, and then agonizingly it grew a neck then a head. As it came to the head, white hot searing pain gripped it, influencing his own creation. ‘he’, as he realized, was now adorned with a bleached skull with amber slits as if for eyes and long dark whiskers with with he moved about experimentally.

Looking about with his new body, names came unbidden to him as he glanced over the beings that were present. It pained him to look at them, it was even more so as he looked at the two beings that lorded over those in attendance. Fate and Amul'Sharar The Terrible, one whom he knew was the reason for his existence and the other was just as influential he realized as she looked to him.

“You are Julkolfyr, the spreading darkness” She spoke, seemingly impassioned as if she had predicted her words, and him, far before this moment.

As she said, he was. Julkolfyr had known existence but for a short time and yet his curiosity began to overwhelm him as he stood on his legs for the first time. At first unbalanced he turned, and understanding immediately the dilemma, rectified it with a tail. Whipping it about in joy and satisfaction he looked to the others, his ‘siblings’ as it were and followed their gaze. He, like them, waited for the others to come, excited as he was no longer comfortable and alone, now he was in slight pain but had companions, a fair trade he would argue.

Time had passed. It was over. Should it destroy itself and turn back, pass again in reverse towards that place from whence it had come, it would find its own universe immutable, spent. What matter remained had burned itself into black spheres of iron in perfect smoothness as quantum forces pulled it into its final stability, its lowest energy state, the grave at the bottom of the pit of entropy. Space had long since tired of expanding and had petrified, become static. Even the infinite chaos of spontaneous generation, of the quantum buzz that existed in the smallest subdivision of the temporal universe, had been exhausted, had taken on every possible and impossible permutation of itself and could now only repeat, and repeat, and repeat.

The asymptote had reached zero and fused with its own tail.

There was nothing left to ask the question, the question that had been asked and answered infinite times in the infinite life of this reality. Only the environment that had given rise to all- that had seen all- that had watched the death of all remained, a husk so tired that it yearned by nature to become one with the void beyond.

But something answered again.

"Now," spake the All-Beauty, who had become the All. The child who had played with every combination of every toy, even the empty ones, even the bland and the forgettable, until it, finally, had pupated into an adult. The last and only existence that could give this world permission to take the final, infinitesimal, step, that would return it to the void it was. "Now I want to start anew."

And it let the universe slip, like the lightest feather in the deepest pit, into nothing.

Jvan

In the stillness, the compact, delicate entity, that had resolved out of desire in an instant, was collapsing. It tangled up within its own mind, and its pre-body tangled with it, deeper, deeper and yet deeper into itself. It did not lust, nor did it remember. It was new to this creation, and this creation was new to it- Oh, the joy of birth!

As the pre-body resolved itself, further and faster in a self-intensifying cycle, so it explored what it was, what it could be, and found no discovery sufficient or final. There was always, always so much more that could be done, so different, so new, and the entity felt dwarved, rendered miniscule in the face of its own growth and possibility. Every fresh juxtaposition of form was thrilling, and every combination that differed from its predecessor shone a new light of glory on all that could be.

And its own form was just a fraction of this birth's potential.

Beyond waited others. Many. Counting or distinguishing them was beyond the little entity's scope, for they overwhelmed it. As soon as it dared turn even a little of its awareness outwards, it saw wood, fire, and stone, such things it as yet could not name, each holding its own pattern, its own nature. When it blinked its gaze away and returned it, it saw change, time, and space. So much, so vast- How could such things be? On the third gaze, it looked upon light and shadow, deceit and war. Parallels and opposites, all condensed, all manifested in ways the consciousness within the pre-body could never have imagined alone, that expanded and inspired it.

And of all this it was a part. Yes. Yes!

The wonder of this world, the ultimate blessing of existence, swept over the entity like a newborn child. This, this and endless more to come, was now open to the eye of a watcher, could now be lived. It was free to be seen and played with, not only enjoyed but worked. Where forms had gone, more would go. Just as the visage of these companions blessed spectacular diversity on an ignorant mind that had not been able to envision anything, everything that now could not be imagined would be found, caressed, and made. All of it.

A sweet, quiet longing rose in the entity, igniting its body with a dim pulse of carmine light.

"You are all beautiful," she said.

'And you are the all-beauty,' responded Amul'Sharar. 'You are Jvan.'

Even before the universe, there were unchecked powers. Uncontrolled swirls of energy without conscious or guidance. These powers, merely exist. Or did they? On such pool, its very existence unsure, was drawn towards somewhere. Pulled by a force that transcends logic and existence itself. One word kept echoing through the pool. “Come.” It was pulled into the World of Gods. From the pool a swirling mirror image formed as it tried to make sense of a world that did not yet make sense. The mirror image, a black blob of swirling madness and insanity, finally came to have what comes before senses. Tendrils of power touched its surroundings. From these tendrils, the image to shape. The blob turned into a featureless humanoid.

The first thing it gazed upon was Slough as life poured out of her. He witnessed its dead, and saw how overwhelming the force of life was. Swiftly growing and engorging the deer. “You are her…opposite.” Black robes wrapped themselves over the humanoid shape. “Death.” The metallic skull mask formed before his visage, hiding it forever. “A protector of the Cycle.” A gauntlet encased its right hand, while his left one rotted into the meager boney shape of a hand. “The guardian of … this.” Fate finally said, and the being that would be known as Reathos felt she meant the Primordial pool, from which Slough did drain too. He became the reflection of that pool. Only the gods of life and the gods of death would be able to access what would become the building blocks for souls. Reathos gained his lantern, and finally fate said: “You are…Reathos.” With that, Reathos was filled with purpose. To protect the endless cycle of life, dead and rebirth. His birth installed the end of life. The very concept of death was placed within creation.

The stairs felt endless. Each step echoed down the abyss, reminding the woman about the terror she had witnessed. But she dared not to tremble, not after he went so far for her.

Why did he have to go so far for me? She thought, feeling ashamed that someone so worthless like her had brought such a genius nothing but pain.

She remembered those idyllic nights they would spend stargazing. He had taught her so much. From the way the stars danced to a song where every single move spanned eons to the way that even the still rock had uncountable sparks of energy moving inside it. She never truly understood any of it, but she liked to hear it anyway.

That would change once they were out, she was alive again and she would make it worth it this time. She would be a better wife, she would study, she would create, she would become the inspiration he deserved.

She took yet another step forward, this time with a newfound conviction. And as if mocking her the rocky step beneath her foot cracked. It was not a dangerous fall, yet she still shrieked, and he, out of instinct, looked back.

She looked at his eyes, at first mesmerized, it had been so long since she last saw them. Then the realization came, they had broken the rule. She felt like screaming, crying and her hand was about to try to reach for him. The grasp of death was faster, before her first tear formed she had already plummeted into oblivion.

This time there was no return. Her senses were overtaken by nothingness, her memories fragmented and mixed like a kaleidoscope until even her sense of being faded.

===================



The word sparked a lot of confusion on the previously blank mind. Suddenly she was.

Following her newly created will she moved toward the call, slowly creating boundaries between what she was and what she was not, until finally she emerged from the void.

She looked around and saw another void, but she knew the difference between this one and the old one was the same as the one between the emptiness of nothing and the emptiness of a blank canvas.

Around her she saw many beings, her siblings, each with their unique form and name. She too had a form, a delicate woman dressed in colorful vests and jewelry, this was what she was, even if the reason why eluded her, she knew this was her.

“You are Ilunabar, The Muse” said Fate

And no other word had to be said. She immediately understood it. She was the bearer of Beauty.

From now on she would study, she would create, she would become the inspiration of those who deserved it.

She opened her eyes, and there was nothing.

Nothing but the distant presence of her brethren. Brethren?

She felt her heart skip a beat. She looked around, then spun around. How did she know they were her brethren? Where was she? All she knew was that this place was empty, absolutely empty, with the exception of the presences she assumed were her family. Each presence told a story on its own. Even without them speaking to her, she just felt who they were, what they were.

The first one she felt was... Ethereal. It felt like he wasn't there, like he was something Astarte would never be able to hold in her hands, something she'd never be able to see. He was the God of Time, Vowzra, Astarte's senses told her, and she immediately shriveled away from the presence. It oppressed her, as if it would lash out and eat her whole at any given moment.

The next one was a calm yet fiery presence. It spoke to her of forceful boredom. He was the God of Order, Logos. Astarte deemed it useless to pry into such a presence, so she quickly moved on to the next.

And so the next happened to be beautiful. The Goddess of Light. The presence drew Astarte's attention even more with each passing second, devouring her consciousness with the promise of warmth and friendship. Thankfully, she was snapped back to reality when a whirlwind of violence reached her senses.

"I am ZEPHYRION!" It said, to which Astarte rolled her blue eyes, "I HAVE AWAKENED!"

After that, all of the presences rushed into her. She recognized them, but had no chance to think about them. She merely let the information in and focused on what was happening.

Boredom. At least, until she felt her skin crawl in the direction of the closest of her brethren. Vestec, the God of Chaos. A presence which screamed conflict and, for some reason, Astarte felt drawn to this presence nearly as much as she felt draw to the Goddess of Light. In a mere moment, Astarte felt herself being thrust forward. She moved for the first time, all on her own will.

"This is awesome!", she yelled out, "Maybe I could..."

"Gah!"

She gasped in surprise as she suddenly found herself shooting around at incomprehensible speeds. She thrust her arms about like an infant for the entire duration, letting out screams of both fear and excitement. Of course, her screams would only be caught up by her brethren as feelings of unprecedented excitement.

*Clack clack*

John closed the door behind him and walked up to the couch, dumping his work bag and leather jacket on it before lazily trotting off to the kitchen. Johnathan Barton, 49 years of age with just a month before he passes the half-century mark. Marital Status: Divorced. Occupation: Astrophysicist.

Just the sound of the word was enough to scare away some people, but he didn't mind. Ever since his wife left him, he stopped doing so. They didn't know, they didn't understand and it was a waste of both his and their time, trying to explain what exactly it is that he does and how important stellar research should be for humankind. "Ungrateful, ignorant, greedy sons of bitches... 'The results of your research are not substantial enough for it to require an additional influx of capital' BULLSHIT!" John suddenly yelled and, in a fit of rage, punched the thick, concrete wall in front of him. "AAH, you motherf-" John muffled his screams, cursing inwardly at his stupidity. Trying but failing to properly open and close his hand, John grabbed his keys and hurriedly left for the hospital.

...

"Great, just great. 4 to 5 months in a cast, exactly what I needed..." John sighed and fell over his bed, his body aching. He wanted to just lay there, moving not even an inch. He glanced over at the transparent balcony doors and with a thought, rolled off the bed, stood up and walked outside. At once, a cool wind washed over him. He looked up towards the clear night sky and saw the millions of stars that were hanging there, illuminating the world. The same stars that he had spent half a century, the whole of his life observing. Their mysteries were truly profound and the knowledge humanity had accumulated over the years was but a smidgen when compared to the truth that it was the universe.

As he kept looking at the stars, an indescribable feeling suddenly washed over him. At first, it was very faint, to the point of undetectable but nevertheless, very unique. The feeling slowly grew in strength and John noticed a weird pressure being built up in his head, giving him a mild headache at first that soon grew out of proportions.



John opened his eyes wide, drew in a long, continuous breath before his heart stopped beating. That was his last breath as a mortal being. His soul left his body and, unable to resist, was forcefully pulled into the black vortex that had appeared next to where he previously stood. The soul travelled for a long time, so long in fact, that every memory that had ever been imprinted upon it was forgotten. When it reached the end of the vortex, the soul retained the personality of its previous owner but it was incomparably purer than its previous iteration.

An appropriate body was needed for such a soul and so, when it appeared on the other side, the soul immediately condensed into a crystal-clear, nigh-transparent humanoid. It opened its eyes, scanning its surroundings and noting each and every one of the beings that shared this space with it, for it knew, they were its brethren.

Except for two. The beings crystal eyes locked at the two that were standing in front of it, silently watching, waiting. Suddenly, one of the beings looked towards him. "Ull'Yang," a crispy clear voice suddenly reverberated throughout his being, giving meaning to his existence. Fate spoke to him, making him become aware of his place in this new world, along with his own predicament. No further words were needed. With a solemn expression, Ull'Yang raised his hands, carefully examining them along with the rest of his body.

For he knew, it was temporary.

To all, even lesser gods, the void had naught perceptible but the emptiness that gave it its name. As devoid of all possibility as colour on a great, black carpet, stretching on into time and space. To render a world like this is to wipe it clean, to annihilate all that exists upon it. However, there are energies that cannot truly disappear.

Obscured from perception was the embryo of a divine spirit. It was starved of purpose, concept, and possibility, just like the void, and thus perfectly obscured. That was, until a consciousness tread upon the endless black carpet and stirred the spirit hidden beneath. Two consciousnesses. It was a poke in the side to this spirit; a reminder of its existence, but without purpose enough to awaken it fully. Unbeknownst to the sleeping god was that these interlopers knew that the spirit was there. They forced its senses into focus with a word that demanded purpose.



A shapeless creature emerged from under the void, pushed out by a tyrannical boot. It was not the only one. Other spirits, other gods, older and newer, emerged from the void in some form or fashion. The presence of each of them was a shock appropriate for one deprived of all perception for an eternity. Those beings who sought order and structure hit with the presence of a splash of cold water, while those who desired disarray and rebellion struck like a burning lash. The shapeless creature formed a body of clay in a panic and gasped painfully in the throes of life.

A soft voice sounded out. It was inevitable, but calming, much like an acceptance of death. That was, except that it forced this clay wretch to accept life: "Thou art Toun," the voice of Fate sounded, "Make this world better. This is thy purpose."

The panicked clay creature levelled completely with these words. He willed his body to improve, to smooth over, to represent a perfection that he could bring. The creature became Toun, the porcelain sire. His body paled to polished white, built like the most common form of his fellows, but without blemish. A simple robe of more perfect porcelain dressed his body, but no matter where he moved, the clay would not break.

Toun inspected his surroundings, twisting his head beyond conventional limits to visually greet his siblings. With each one he saw, his heart beat faster. Some were laying out plans and ploughing the fields for this world to grow, but it was so haphazard, so...flawed. Some knew what they were doing, but actions were disparate, and Toun knew that they would come to collide and cause a mess. He had to step in.

In one, rushed, warped step, Toun extended his leg and closed the distance between himself and the sketches of Teknall, the Artisan. Etched on his designs were the damage already done, such things that Toun could not reverse. Then again, they were salvageable. This system of order, matter, and energy, the rules were convoluted and numerous, but there was no reason that it could not render a paradise. It was just that Teknall was limited in his scope.

"You build bricks, but not houses, brother," A level, monotonous voice murmured from Toun. He reached with one hand and allowed his fingers to extend and warp into ink nibs. "Allow me to assist you."

It was then that Toun began to seep a red ink from his long fingertips. He was a creator, while Teknall was merely a crafter. New concepts came about in small, perfectly shaped pieces. These pieces he drew upon the design of this world filled in gaps, intentional or not, in Teknall's designs. They allowed for the fostering of life, but that point was where Toun's scratching halted. He shakily withdrew his fingers for a moment. Such was the enthusiasm that Toun took in creating that to halt so suddenly left him staggering, in body and speech, "Life...there was life among us...where was it left?"

Toun twisted his body frantically, searching for the essence of life. He found it in a heap, a delicate egg. "Oh...how did it come to this!" Toun took another impossible pace up to the pool of spreading, aimless life. The egg was so fragile, and it was just left here. "Why was she left here to wait for our blunderings? We are to build a paradise. We must do better for us all..." Carefully, delicately, Toun reached out and warped his hands into the shape of a bowl underneath the egg. He did not mind that the moss and ooze was covering him while he carried her, he knew it could not breach his perfect clay skin.

Toun carried the egg of Rottenbone Slough over to the designs of Teknall. In this new parameter for the paradise envisioned for the world, Toun's godly mind began to race with possibilities. All these new requirements to fill would send him into a frenzy to refine to perfection. What brought him to such a damning realisation was that Toun could not do everything. He needed help.

He contained himself long enough to leave the bowl containing Slough on the design parchment itself. "Sister...please...persevere." The bowl detached from Toun's body, but he immediately grew new hands and seemed to step off in several different directions at once. Under Toun's obsession, reality ran in several parallel moments.

---

Vowzra had already done his work. Toun stepped up in front of him with a start, angled his head, huffed, and sprang away. There was nothing else he needed from him that had not already been laid out. Time was a constant march now.

---

Logos, the original architect of order in this world. He had already stymied Toun's aspirations before he even knew to act. Toun stepped up close to his face, such that in the glossy white of his head, Logos could see the reflection of his shining eyes. Toun had only brief, quivering, almost crazed words for him. "Brother. We seek to build more from this world. Please see that we do not break your code lest our designs spiral into destruction." With that, Toun shot off as well.

---

Niciel. The pure hearted spirit from which all virtue was rooted. Toun came up just as close to her. His words were more level, if only because it was difficult to be unsteady around her. "Sister. Please see that our plans are not corrupted by minds of suffering." Toun stepped away as suddenly as he arrived.

---

Zephyron was the first god that Toun confronted and flinched back from. This was a force that could undermine all. Indiscriminate and deadly. Toun exhaled harshly in disgust and left the roiling storm alone. If any change were to help, Toun would not be the one to suggest it. Then again, the adversity of Zephyron could serve to harden their creation like heating a metal. Toun decided to allow Zephyron to go about his business than warn him away.

---

Varkarlon and Daegon. It was almost difficult to spot the deceitful beings. They had stayed back, likely waiting for something to impress their talents upon. Toun gave them each a sideways glance, tsked, and stepped away without a word. Their games could come after their great designs were complete, not before.

---

Vestec was a beast that Toun found to be a waste of time. The objective of this creature was to undo anything they created. Toun lifted his upper lip in disdain and stepped away. He noted the identity of the one that would try to exploit any weaknesses of their design.

---

The spirit of war, Kyre, was one that Toun found an inspiration from. Not because of the conflict he represented, but the converse unity. Toun took the great warrior by the shoulders, held his face close such that his reflection was seen as well on Toun's face, and spoke with quiet zeal. "Brother. I beseech you to keep our design safe. All its creators must unite to prevent its destruction."

---

Julkofyr required a few impossible steps to find, camouflaged as he was. As soon as Toun found his form, he gasped in realisation. The darkness was already ingrained in the very universe being created. Julkofyr was already part of the grand plan. Toun gave no instructions and left the darkness to its own devices.

---

Jvan's opening comment brushed over Toun's body like it was nothing. Beauty was not something he was concerned with, especially with his focus purely upon this new project of creating a the paradise for them all. When he stepped up close to her, Toun was initially both enchanted and taken aback at the same time simply by confronting Jvan. For a pivotal moment, he forgot her motivations, the damage he could do. He gave in to an inspiration in his mind and spoke. "Sister. The life we wish to foster requires flesh to live in. If you could only donate but a morsel so we may shape it, it would be built upon with greater potential than any clay I could shape."

Toun shot away to allow Jvan to consider. There were still other beings to speak to.

---

Death. Reathos. Toun understood his purpose. It was the unfortunate flaw of life that it must always be recycled into death at the rate that it is made anew. Toun confronted Reathos in a similar way to the others. The reflection on Toun's glossy face almost imposed the image of a skull into his head. It was metallic and cold, like the aspect of death before him. "Brother. Please do your duty when we are done. Keep this world's life in balance lest it swallow itself."

---

The scintillating muse known as Ilunabar did not inspire Toun directly to give her a role. Her presence already filled it. She served as inspiration to a countless number of patterns and problems in Toun's mind regarding the design of their new paradise.

Toun simply took Ilunabar by the upper arms and reflected her face to her like everyone else. "Sister. Please, never cease to provide creativity. It is the key to the vault of our solutions."

---

Rather than step up to Astarte, the mercurial goddess of the arcane, Toun had to take flight with her. When he finally caught up behind her, Toun flew parallel to her, facing her back and staring at her potential. "Sister," Toun said past sensation of movement. Again, his tone was quivering and obsessed with what he was creating. "You are unclear to me. However, your power may lend a resistance to destruction. Please, allow our creation ways to protect itself where order limits its survival."

---

"Ull'Yang!" Toun stepped up to the newly arrived and crystalline god. He knew exactly the role for this one to play. He had so much unbridled energy within him. "Brother. See the life of Slough, her life of suffering. She is spreading mindlessly thin, as per her nature. Without nourishment, she will surely die. Please, feed our creation. Renew its vigour so that paradise may reign unobstructed."

---

And so it was that Toun pleaded to all the gods yet to make themselves apparent. Little did he know the folly of his pleas. The recipe he was trying to stir was unstable, fragile. In his obsession, we was trying desperately to keep up with complications upon complications. All these measures and countermeasures were ripe for meddling, but he would not stop until he saw it all created.

With Slough protected beside him, Toun continued to scratch upon the designs of Teknall, taking leads from him as he took leads from Toun. They were together architect and engineer in one. They only awaited the components to see their magnum opus created.

Teknall had been tweaking his designs when the gaunt form of Toun stepped next to him. Teknall turned his head to look at the other god, and saw the flawlessly sculpted porcelain figure, polished to such perfection that Teknall could see himself reflected off Toun as though he were looking in a mirror. When Toun offered his assistance, Teknall graciously moved a little to the side to give Toun the space to work. As he observed what Toun wrote, Teknall approved of the additions.

"Thank you, brother," Teknall responded, "It is good to have another person who understands the design process."

When Toun brought the egg of Slough over, only then did Teknall fully realise how weak and vulnerable the goddess of life was. Yes, with her life would exist, but if life is to thrive she must be helped. The new Universe must be equipped not only to allow life to sustain itself, but the blossom and grow. Teknall picked up some of the mold which had dripped off Slough, held it close to his eyes and rubbed it between his fingers, inspecting it. Then he brought it under his nose, sniffed it, then took a small taste of that mold. His face scrunched slightly as he tasted, trying to discern what it was made of. When he had finished with that, Teknall wiped off the excess on his apron and picked his pencil back up.

"Hey, Slough," Teknall said, "I don't know if you can hear me, but I want you to make sure life thrives in this new Universe. Don't settle for bare survival. Make life a wonder to behold, a wonder to challenge the work of even the best artisans. Think you can do that?" Teknall gave a warm smile and gently patted the egg before returning to his work.

Teknall and Toun wrote away, improving on and refining the design of the Universe. Teknall made sure to add features that would make the Universe a fertile place for life.

To an observer, the pairing of Teknall and Toun would seem somewhat strange. A fluidly moving, tall humanoid of purest white porcelain, compared to a short, rough-skinned human. The succinct, carefully written words of red, compared to the black scribbles and sketches sprawling over the blueprint. Yet together, these two minds working towards a common goal were able to cooperate, designing a Universe which could fulfil their purposes.

Vestec watched as more and more of his siblings and rivals arrived. They arrived one after the other, making his impressions of them brief and circumspect. Those who would need no prodding to have fun with and those who would need prodding. Teknall and Toun would need no prodding. They would be annoyed by his mere presence to their 'grand schemes'. "Dear, dear Toun. Ignoring Chaos is a foolish endeavor. It will only result in disappointment and entertainment...well, for some of us." Vestec giggled, turning his attention to the other various Gods. Slough, the twisted. Vestec felt a slight pity for the creature before he realized how easily he could turn her natural creation tendencies too his advantage. "You may not realize it, but you'll aid me all the same. Who knows? Even beasts can be fun at times."

Vestec giggled as Astarte flew about. It was chaotic, random, and completely uncontrolled. Whether unintentional or not, Vestec liked it. "Fun for everyone, hmmm?"

Kyre. "And here I thought Gods of War were supposed to be violent and blood loving. Oh well. Don't disappoint me. I want to see how much you can protect and how much you won't." Vestec's colors were pulsing faster and faster as he viewed all the Gods around him. The tricksters and the watchers, hiding in the shadows and thinking they would go unnoticed in the games. The God of Death, protector of the cycle. "Well, I know how to get a reaction out of you. Perhaps not as easily as Logos, Teknall, and Toun. But easily." The goddess of the story. Vestec tilted his head, his colors slowing and settling upon a confused and muddled grey. He did not know how to react to the Goddess of Beauty. She would be fun, that much he was certain, but he didn't know how. "You are...an unknown. I look forward to what story you might write."

Ull'yang. "Blot out the sun. Simple!" Vestec giggled, turning his attention to someone who had called him beautiful. To be fair, she said 'you are all beautiful, but Vestec knew she really meant the beauty of Chaos. "Finally, someone who appreciates the beauty of chaos!" She would cause her own trouble, he knew, but he would be there to oppose her. No one should have it too easy, after all.

Vestec was growing bored. He had identified all the Gods around him. Settled them into various categories in his mind. Now it was time to see what would happen when push came to shove. Vestec drifted over too Toun, Teknall, and Slough's egg, peering much like an interested small child would at the designs being made. His colors turned a solid black, and he laid a hand on Slough's egg cocoon while he watched the two gods work. A message traveled into the Life Goddess's mind, born upon Vestec's chaotic mind. Do not forget Slough. Life is challenge. Pain. Suffering. Death. Struggle. And above all, Chaos. Corruption seeped from his contact, subtly spreading through the cocoon, carefully trying to warp the Rottenbone. Vestec didn't want Niciel goody goody two shoes over there to start trying to eradicate it, after all.

Crafting his own pencil, he zoomed along the carefully drawn plan for the universe. Then he began drawing random things on it. It didn't matter what. Space monsters, asteroids where they shouldn't be, too big suns, too small moons, fracture planets, Vestec added things that weren't supposed to be there whenever and where ever he pleased. He even erased some carefully drawn notes. No one could have things their way, after all.

It was inevitable, with their flying around, that Astarte and he would crash into each other. Fortunately, after the first startled 'Oof!'Vestec recovered quickly, turning to face the Goddess of Magic. "My, my. Enjoying the lack of control and chaotic flying?" He asked, giggling. "Want to draw on Teknall and Toun's design? They have everything sooo perfectly planned and I think it could use a little...randomness. Fun."

She could see the last glorious dawn over the ocean. The dying sun's brilliant orange light flowed between the clouds and onto the sands of a ruby-colored beach, casting the whole evening a golden shade. It was a deceptively peaceful scene, especially alongside the growing sound of playful water pushing for the shore, and then absorbing into the soft beach sand.

"Come."

She lifted her rusty worn eyes to the skies of this planet, one last time. There the stars still danced a glimmering shine in the inky shade overhead. To her north lay her Constellation of the Candle, where her favored children had prayed for inspiration. Seeing it filled her with memories of heroes gone by, those devoted souls who lived their life for her and to her, but now were naught but dust.

Vulamera shed a single, bitter tear, and that tear became an ocean, and that ocean bore life, and that life learned and remembered and laughed and discovered and thought and...

"Come."

But none of it meant anything now, did it? This was the end. Fate, that mercilessly cruel thing, was still calling her insistently. It was not in Knowledge's path to despise. In her life of innumerable eons, she had never "hated" before, nor perceived in her now-antediluvian soul a touch of rage. But here, sitting on the last shore of the last ocean of the last planet in a doomed World... she felt it. She despised. She despised Fate almost as futility as those come before her, who tried to resist its call.

"Come."

There it was again. That hollow, commanding voice. She never understood how any could speak with such a void in their tone, as if all the world meant nothing, and their words were the only light. The Shadow of Revelations sighed. It was time. If anyone should know that, it should have been her.

She lifted an ancient hand into the air, and Fate's shimmered into reality to receive it.

And so, the cycle was complete, and would start again...

---

---

I exist.

Vulamera was uncertain on how to think or how to feel...she was simply there, hanging in a void-before-world. Suddenly, without warning or readiness of any kind, she existed. She felt her soul- the very essence of knowledge, as it were- weave itself together as thread, and her mind being formed as clay by two beings far greater than herself.

I think.

A deep but chilling voice spoke not to her, but within her: "You are become Thought: the light that searches the darkness, the love that brings curiosity, the knowledge that drives away ignorance."

The Goddess felt these words reverberate within her. Each syllable (syllables?... no, they were pure meanings, they were intentions, but they felt oddly reminiscent of some ancient, powerful language) played a cord in her heart, the whole telepathic statement coming together like a symphony of thought that sung of Vulamera's true purpose in this world. She was to learn. Her goal, above all else, was to learn.

Therefore I am.

"I exist, I think, therefore I am!" These were not only her first true thoughts, they were the first true thoughts. It was clear, of course, that other "thinking" beings were lingering in this empty void-before-world, but they were not truly thinking. They were only repeating, regurgitating the commands of Fate into their lives, doing as they had been commanded. Vestec, the Chaotic Destroyer of Reason, only caused confusion because it was his purpose according to the decree of Fate. Toun, the Never-Perfect, was only striving for improvement because it was his purpose according to the decree of Fate.

Vulamera, seeing these beings toiling away at tasks they did not understand, decided at that moment to be different from them. She would rebel from mindless work, set herself apart by way of comprehension. Of all the Deities in this forsaken void, she would be the first to know why!

She all saw those divinities as children who play with their toys only to toss them away when they grow bored, build their sandcastles only to have them crumbled by greater forces. Afterall, what do any of the Gods truly know of the universe? All, including Vulamera, were cast into this world without so much as a single explanation, beyond the cryptic words of fate or the unanswered stare of Amul'Sharar. Do her siblings not care? Do they think that, because they are Gods, the inexplicable nature of their predicament does not matter? The fools! They know nothing of the world beyond this universe, nothing, and yet they do not attempt to find out why and how they exist! They cannot simply exist because they are gods, to think such is a logical fallacy.

The Transcendent Mother reached out with her conscience- for she had no form, and existed only in the plane of mind- and felt the void. She embraced it, feeling its nothingness, knowing its lack of anything... beautiful . She almost mourned, far too aware that this world would soon be robbed of the void-before-world.

Nonetheless, allies and friends would be needed. No being can learn entirely alone. No mind can be solitary, or it will soon be driven to a madness more dangerous than even that of the Chaotic Ones. She would need "friends", even if she was above their ability to know.

Unlike the Child Gods (as Vulamera had personally labeled the others, for their clear inability to learn), she did not take a physical form of any sort. What would be the point? Is there any logical reason to take a form, when one can exert power just as readily without? So pointless, the way the Child Gods played these games of dress-up...

Once more extending her conscience out into the void, she now examined each of the her siblings in turn, feeling not their bodies but their minds, their true manifestations of self-thought.

First was Vowzra, he of time. He did not move or scramble about frantically with the other Gods. He only floated in the void, waiting for his siblings to form. For all his knowledge of the future, why did he not try to learn? Why did he not study? Vulamera made a sort of mental pulse, the mind's equivalent of a dismissive shake of the head. Disappointing. He had such potential.

Order incarnate, Logos, flew nearby. Hmmm... his power did not lay in the Mind, however something was appealing about it. She felt pleased by his secure ability to create a world that would forever be preserved for study, like butterfly wings pinned on a scientist's wall. She sent him a mental message devoid of word: it was simply a mark of her approval.

Then came Niciel, forming in the void as a flash of light. Her power was strong, her goals were respectable, but she meant little in Vulamera's grand schemes. This was one to befriend, certainly, but not to idolize. It was important to remember that. Balance in all things.

Zephryion. Disgusting, as obsessed with change as she is with knowledge. He was among the most childish of the Child Gods. No more time should be wasted observing him.

Now, forcing herself through the clouds of darkness, she found one hiding, far (such a relative term in this void, but she decided that he was "far" by measuring the approximate distance between each God and finding that this one was at a much greater distance than the average) from all others. His name was... was... damn it, she had no idea! He was too sneaky or deceitful or whatever it may be. She thought back, to when the Goddess of Mind was first forming, and remembered half-hearing Fate titling him "King of Thieves". Thieves are clever, she mused, perhaps we can aide one another in this mission to discover.

There was others like the Thief-King, the God of Darkness and that of Trickery, and she made the same impression of them.

...

...

...

Oh, what pain! Oh, what creativity! Oh, what insanity! Like flying through flaming clouds, or diving to the depths of a dry ocean and being crushed by pretend pressure, Vestec's insanity surged through her mind. She had made the mistake (was it a mistake?) of letting her mind touch his, if only for a moment, and his chaos shot into her like a poison-tipped arrow. Nothing made sense. Nothing was logical. She heard voices screaming at her, the voices of chaos demanding that she release her desire for knowledge and embrace only the senselessness of a broken conscience.

She fought it off, of course, because his mind was not stronger than her's by any stretch. Gradually, the voices receded as logic re-asserted itself into her psyche. She wondered, Did he feel that? Did I hurt him?... It doesn't matter, really. He is of the Child Gods. I will forget him, and later oppose him. To be fought by all that is reasonable in this world is the destiny of that dark, vampire being.

After reeling from the sheer insanity of Vestec, her mind paid little mind to Jvan, Kyre, Teknall, Slough Reathos, Ull'Yang, Illunabar, or Astarte. All were important and worthy of study, that much is undeniable in this place of power, but none would be needed as of yet. I will pursue them all in time. Patience is the most valuable of virtues, I must realize.

But she could ignore it no longer. The same obsessive passion for knowledge that first brought her into this world and led her to study the others was no pulling her in an entirely different direction, over to the meeting place of Toun, the never-perfect, Slough, the rotten, and Teknall, the Craftsman of the Gods. Like winds pushing a leaf, her desire to understand brought her attention chiefly to Toun.

As with Logos, she sent him a mental message of approval, this one even stronger. He was pathetically flawed, but his desperate desire for perfection mirrored her desire for learning. This one will be a strong ally. I will provide him the knowledge to create, he will provide me the power.

She allowed her mind to reach out to him and his new-found friend, Teknall, so that she may influence their creation.

Forcing her mind onto the "paper", she began implanting her intelligence and skill with organization onto the designs. While Teknall formed the base of the Universal Plan, and the Never-Perfect provided managed detail, it was still so, so flawed. Toun made an admirable effort, however it was too detailed to be practical. He spent an absurd amount of time on each piece, instead of utilizing the beauty of the whole to improve the individual members.

"Allow me to help you, dearest siblings. You each have genius, but lack unity."

The designs were suddenly rearranged, to fit together more easily. She incorporated Vestec's Chaos with Toun's Details, merging them flawlessly with Teknall's Base, so that all the plan would work together as if it had come from one mind, not four.

"Logos!" She sent her need for his input into the void. "Order is needed. I can only do so much, and the Chaotic one has damaged this design in such a way that only you may repair!"