[center]Level: 2
Might: 0
Worshippers: 126

Utter silence. That was the first thing that hit them as they entered the cavern. There wasn’t a scuttling bug, a drip of water, a flap of wings in the darkness, there was nothing. The silence mingled with the oppressive darkness, pressing in on all sides. A feeling of unease flooded through them, a definite sense of they should go back.

The cold struck them next. It was always cold underground, but this fell to degrees far lower than they should have been. Their breath misted in the air, their equipment gained a light layer of frost, and they felt it in the aching of their bones. The energy seemed to be sapped from them, every step along the obsidian black stone becoming more and more of a struggle. Strangely enough, not a hint of frost touched the stone around them.

They stopped when they finally reached their destination. Massive doors, hundreds of feet high, gleaming white in the black stone around them. They were inlaid with the skeletons of every creature in existence. The shells of Hain, the rocky bones of Urtelem, the fragile wings of Angels, the massive bones of the Brush Beasts, they were all there. The eyes of hundreds of skull stared down at them, judging and accusing. Once again a feeling of unease flooded through them. Trespassers. The doors were not meant to be opened.

The dwarves turned and fled, deep into the maze of tunnels that made up the citadel. They told the psykers of what they found, and in turn, the psykers told Lazarus. Soon enough, Lazarus was in place in front of the gates. She looked it over -- almost with disdain. Then, she hit them with a powerful curse of force, slowly creaking them open. From there, she slowly entered, eyes fixed on the black, unfeeling void of a stone that stood before her. That was her prize, and she felt something inside.

She reached out to the stone, plunging her hand into it. And she grabbed hold. It was veritable agony, she wished for nothing more than to let go, but her own knowledge told her that her catch was valuable. Valuable enough to endure. With a flash of divine power, she pulled her quarry out of the stone.

Out of the stone was pulled… an unbeating heart of a creature foreign to the world of Galbar. Cold, hard and lifeless; to the untrained eye it might have seemed like a poor trade for the pain and suffering that one would have to go through in order to obtain it, but there was a… presence about it that suggested otherwise.

In a moment that seemed to last for an eternity, the heart started to beat. A small thing at first, but with each beat it seemed to grow stronger, echoing around the chamber like the roar of a raising storm.

The noise clearly had an effect on the stone itself; It seemed to grow darker and darker with each passing second, growing so dark that it seemed to light up the lesser shadows around it by comparison. Without noise, the darkness came alive and reached out for the heart, grasping it and removing it from Lazarus’s hand. Held aloft in mid air, the shadows of Death itself coiled around the still beating heart, cocooning it and making it disappear from sight. With each passing second the ‘cocoon’ of shadows grew bigger and bigger until it was around Lazarus’s own size… until the texture changed.

The shadows seemed to fade into some kind of dark cloth, the ‘cocoon’ becoming a robe and at the center of it all appeared to be a figure that would have looked right at home in a tomb after settling in after a few weeks. Even the stone itself seemed to return to its normal state of being.

Farxus blinked for the first time in his existence. He looked to the left, then he looked right before finally focusing on Lazarus… before opening his mouth and confusingly asking “Mum?”

“Yes,” stated Lazarus simply, and matter-of-factly. She was seemingly unfazed by the question, almost prepared for it. Her beady eyes took on a gleam as she looked over the new demigod, judging him up and down. “You’re in the World Mountain,” she responded to him.

Taking a moment to look around at where he was, the confusion seemed to ebb away slowly from his eyes. He could feel… things shift into place, bringing with it some understanding on what he was and what his purpose in existence was going to be. Some things seemed to be missing through, like he was missing pieces to the puzzle that was himself. It was rather… vexing.

Then he heard the whispers. They weren’t loud by any means and in hindsight they had always been there, but were just so soft that other thoughts had simply drowned them out but they were persistent nonetheless. Straining to listen to them, he blinked in surprise to find that it seemed to be prayers. Granted they weren’t exactly meant for him; They seemed to be the equivalent of a ‘To Whom It May Concern’ letter but it seemed that he was the one that it was concerning…

There was so many different emotions behind them all. Pain, Hope, Anger, Despair just to name a few! He couldn’t even hear the words properly because there were so many talking at once! Reaching up and rubbing his temples as if it might help, Farxus seemed somewhat unfocused to the world around him.

“I need… something. Something to write on. A book, a scroll… anything!” He cried out, a plan already in the works.

Lazarus stepped over to Farxus, placing her hand on him. She transferred over rudimentary knowledge of her own arcane writing ability -- curses and charms overlaid atop each other to form words, ever shifting. She then held out a box, the same type as her own. She spoke to him, “Write.”

“Thank you.” Was all he said as he received the box that she was offering, the knowledge that she had granted him already being put to good use as he started to pour what was in his mind into it.

At first he was forced to take the time to write down the information on each individual personally, each whispered prayer in his mind having a story behind it that was important to understanding how to truly help the one who was asking for it. As time passed he sat down on the bare floor in order to better concentrate.

The process became easier with practice but Farxus quickly figured that the box wouldn’t serve his purposes as it was; In order to be updated he would have to take the time to write down any and all new entries and that was time he could be using for more important things. With care, he began to pour some of his essence into the box, ‘corrupting’ it in order to alter it.

The ‘box’ seemed to twist and morph into what appeared to be a tome with a plain, black cover with a strap that could be used to close and lock it. It’s contents would need to be read often, but only by its true owner. Words seemed to start writing themselves on the blank pages, each new page dedicated to a single person and information that was vital to understanding their current situation; Who they were, what they had become, why they had become it, information about their past and personality (both past and present) ect.

The whispers ceased to plague his mind, now going right into his tome for safe keeping and to give him a list to work with as it updated itself constantly.

Closing the tome for now, Farxus breathed a sigh of relief as he finally looked at the goddess that had helped him take form and offered her a small but surprisingly warm smile, despite how terrifying his appearance might have seemed. “I’m Farxus.” He introduced himself, now that he had a better understanding of who he was.

“And I am Lazarus,” she responded, paying little attention to his tome. Her face offered little in the way of emotion, partly due to her clockwork nature and partly due to the difficulty of shaping a beak into an expression. Instead, she stood there almost neutrally as dwarves looked on.

More out of curiosity than anything, Farxus tilted his head a little as he looked past the one who helped him form in order to look at the dwarves behind her. He offered them a small, happy little wave. “So… what happens now?” He asked his ‘Mother’; despite the fact that she could have been considered more of a midwife who helped bring him into the world instead of the one who created him, he liked the idea of calling her Mum. Lazarus was honestly the closest thing he had to one after all.

“Explore a bit. Find your way around the citadel. You’ll need to learn how to navigate it. As for me, I’ve other things I need to get to. If you see another person in here like me -- bearing the traits of an avian -- his name is Altair.” came the response.

Farxus nodded his head in understanding; Everyone had their duties after all that needed to be done. Still, as he looked around the chamber that he was in, he couldn't help but frown in thought. More to himself then anything, he muttered aloud "I don't like this place. It's to..." He struggled to find the correct word, shaking his head as he turned back to his tome. Deciding to throw himself into his duty, he opened the cover and started to read the first page... his first charge.







@WrongEndoftheRainbow

Invisible for the most part, the lords of nature reigned. Over wooded heath and forest dell, from the lands of autumn to those of spring, from the top of the forlorn crags to the bottom of the briny seas, their hands flowed across all things and their whispers softly reverberated.

They fought one another at nigh every chance.

Yet within that cauldron of roiling turmoil there was a pattern, a higher order; though such a thing was beyond the comprehension of any save divines, and even then, the vision of some was lacking. The balance of that order was threatened by forces that had manipulated against their purpose. Though they were admittedly small and weak now, if given the chance they would grow stronger and spread like vines. They were a pool of dark oil tainting a serene pond, a spoke on the wheel that was broken, and a blight upon the tree of nature. They were the storm djinn, and though it brought him no pleasure, Vizier Ventus would see them undone.

When the battle at the mortals' village had seen its completion and his oath to Teknall fulfilled, the Vizier had at once signaled the return of his companion lords and their hosts. They receded into the distance as a storm much like the one that had heralded their arrival, albeit a great mass of stormclouds that was slightly smaller for their few casualties during the fight with the corrupted angels. The Vizier spared no time to mourn their lost, look unto the mortals that they had undoubtedly saved, or even talk with Teknall once more.

It was not hard to find the corrupted storm djinn; by Vestec's will, they had amassed together as one great host. Such was far from unheard of among elementals, but to create such a violent and uncontrolled storm when the season was not ripe, and to swarm and devour all djinn in their warpath was unnatural. Their path was easy to follow, then; Ventus need only follow the trail of destruction that their horrific storm had left in its wake. The lands were bleak and dead in more ways than one, for with the death of all the local djinn it would be many years before new ones would rise to bring back the forces of nature. Until such time, things so simple as wind were but a faint memory to the land.

When Ventus and his following at last found their quarry, it was over the sea. A ragged few djinni lords of the ocean's breeze had been chased down and corralled together like animals, and surrounded by assailants, they were trapped. Like cats toying with mice, the storm djinn protracted the torture and slowly devoured their victims' essence.

It came to an abrupt halt when Ventus and his cohort raced through the skies, carrying a great storm upon that clashed with that of their foes. The two great winds crashed into one another and were for a moment stilled as if pressed against solid mountains. Then, they both broke at once, and swirled together into one great tempest beyond the control of any. Havoc ensued, and windjinn fought windjinn.

Lightning cackled and boomed, and the cacophony of thunder was augmented by the boom of supersonic blasts of wind.



There would be no rest until the storm djinn were unmade; their culling was his calling, and so Ventus fought on through zeal and sheer force of will. The storm djinn were engorged by the power of all their victims and driven by unquenchable thirst for more power, so the arbiters of order might have failed were it not for the how the Vizier fought with the fury of a hurricane and led through inspiration.

But he did fight valiantly, without restraint, and with unflinching nerve.

Many others fought with valor as well, chief among them those few djinn that had been imprisoned within the tempest and tortured by the storm djinn. When the Zephyrean Skyguard seized the attention of their captors, those lords had struck. Though they were weakened by that point, they used the last of their strength to fight in defiance of those that had brought this fate unto them, and many a storm djinn was felled by their work. Only one of those lords survived until the battle's end, and his name was Cyclonis.

"This battle brings me an honorable end, my redemption for a cowardly surrender...with the last of my strength, I thank and bless you strangers," Cyclonis had whispered at the end.

Ventus looked upon him, and surely enough, saw that Cyclonis spoke truth. The lord's essence had been half-consumed by the storm djinn before, and after the exertion of that battle there was not enough to sustain him. Cyclonis' end was indeed nigh, but it could be averted easily enough by one with as much strength as the Vizier...

Ventus drew closer. "With greater fervor you fought until the end; what be your style?"

Some derision welled up within Cyclonis at first, for he would rather have spent his last moments in deep contemplation than idle conversation. But then he witnessed and recognized the one that had inquired such question to him, and lit up, "Ah, Great Vizier, Majordomo to our Master, be that ye? Blessed am I to witness your grace in these final moments!"

He went on to answer Ventus in good spirit, even as his strength waned with each passing word, "In life, 'twas Lord Cyclonis, a mere vassal to a higher djinni, yet a proud master of a northeast-going wind all the same. Now, I am fated to be styled no more than a dying echo upon the wind. But such is our role!"

"No; by the hands of us, the Zephyrean Skywatch, your life was spared, and now it is not yours to surrender so easily. Rise and be made anew, and then join our ranks," the Vizier spoke, and with each word there poured forth some of the Vizier's fathomless power, and his great essence fell upon the fading djinn and restored him. Just like that, it was done, and one overjoyed lord was given a second chance.

In any case, a rising dawn over the sea brought victory. The roiling furor eventually dissipated, and of that battleground in the sky there remained nothing. Not even a sign remained of those countless djinn that had met their end within that storm, and a solemn air hung over the place as the battered and fatigued remnants of Ventus' host looked on to their leader.

"Rejoice, for it is we who grasped tighter onto victory and life, and us who pulled took those things from our foe. Doubtless, this will not be the only sacred task charged unto the Zephyrean Skywatch, and so it falls to me to ensure that the order is ever vigilant and prepared; that would be easiest achieved if the order were never to dissolve!

Where the rest of our host (noble though they were!) fell, ye remained strong and worthy, and so I offer to each of you a gift that no djinn have ever been given save I; if you would have it, I give you the chance to rise above your station. Exist no longer as mere shepherds of nature, but rather as her arbitrators and as direct servants to our Master and Maker.

Why command a simple wind or bring rain for a few centuries, when you could exist forever in such a glorious role as this?"

Whisper and murmur was stirred among many of those djinn assembled before Ventus, whereas others contemplated in silence. The greater part remained before the Vizier (and Cyclonis among them!) yet there were a few lords that turned and left right then, their legions of lesser djinn following faithfully. Ventus paid them no heed; he knew well how compelling it was for a djinn to do as they always did; his kind, ironically enough given their birth and purpose, were not so receptive to Change.

Nonetheless, he took those that remained and together they made for the Celestial Citadel. All windjinn knew of the place, but fewer had been within its halls, and fewer still had dared face their Master and Maker directly. The Vizier paraded them all through its vacuous halls and finally brought them before Zephyrion.

"Your Magnificence, esteemed Master, before you is the host I assembled. The Zephyrean Skyguard they are called, and these are the ones that upheld your and Teknall's will by defeating the beings corrupted by Vestec's magic and restoring balance and order to nature. They are valiant all; truly, no others and greater," Ventus announced. The mention of Teknall's will and not Zephyrion's was not lost upon the Skylords, who listened in silence.

Zephyrion had a manner of shifting form and mannerism wildly and rapidly, whilst still exuding a contradictory aura of indifference. "They have done just as was commanded, though by mere virtue of failing I see not why they hath earned showers of such praise. Nonetheless, you have done well. Since I have no doubt that it would please your fancy if I were to honor this retinue, I shall keep them. They may function as the protectors of this place, until such time as they are needed for another task of great magnitude," the god answered back.

With a mixed array of emotion, the Skyguard took queue and filed out of the chamber to take posts at various points around the citadel; driven by duty, those djinn began their new task at once. Ventus took Zephyrion's answer as a slight.

"You would dismiss the greatest of your faithful so?"

Before Zephyrion had been calm, but Ventus' derision triggered Zephyrion's own ire. "Do not forget, my most loyal Vizier, that 'twas not I who tasked you or they with all that was done. You have fulfilled the machinations of my brother Teknall, and as I watched your work below, I noted that he did not so much as return to offer his thanks. Therein lies your problem; whilst I am lenient and do not forbid you deal with my brethren, know too that they are neither so kind nor as glorious as I and your work is likely to be thankless and without purpose. But to do as they say and demand from me what gratitude or reward that Teknall withheld will yield you nothing but my scorn!

Now begone, lest my anger rise like the tides below."

---

Just after dawn, Quay Eldani squatted beneath the vaulted ceiling of his solar and stuffed an old leather backpack with clothing that did not belong to him.

Miniature paintings by great Eldanian masters hung from the walls, alive in swirls of color and thick-textured paint. Doors to his richly apportioned apartments stood ajar to his right and his left. The entrance to his balcony was open, and through it, he saw dark reds, oranges, and purples splashed across the bottom of a thickening band of cloud to the west.

The clothing at his fingertips was drab, thick, woolen. Felt coarse against his skin compared to the silk and cotton to which he was used.

Next to Quay, a red-haired, freckle-faced five-year-old stood and watched him pack.

“You can help, if you want,” Quay said, and little Colin Galeni, wearing the green doublet of his house, knelt on the tiled floor and started stuffing white shirts and brown trousers into the pack. Two short swords in worn, frayed sheaths lay next to the clothes. So did a wooden case full of maps and a purse stuffed with coins.

“Did the washerwomen ask you why you needed the clothes?” Quay asked.

Colin nodded.

“And what did you tell them?”

The boy did not look up from his task. His eyes gleamed green in the low, gray light. “That I wanted to play a game.”

“And what will you say if they ask for them back?”

“I lost them.”

Quay smiled and tousled his cousin’s hair. “Good man,” he said, and Colin beamed.

Quay sat back and let his cousin stuff the clothes into the pack. His stomach was unsettled. Had been since he’d woken up that morning.

He was the Prince of Eldan, and he had seen the end of his people near.

He rubbed his chest and grimaced. Not just seen it, felt it—a darkness that had sat on his heart and smothered him until he had woken gasping for air.

“Quay?”

The prince looked down to find Colin sitting cross-legged on the floor, the clothes forgotten.

“Why are you leaving?”

Quay rubbed his cousin’s head again. “Who told you I was leaving?”

“I’m not stupid.”

The prince smiled and stood. “Come here, he sighed. He walked to a stone table in the center of the solar, upon which lay a charcoal-on-vellum drawing of two snakes eating one another’s tails. Quay lifted Colin up by the armpits and set him on a chair.

“Do you know where your brother is?” the prince asked.

Colin nodded.

“He is fighting for you protection, for the protection of Eldan as a whole."

“Why?” Colin had fixed his eyes on the snakes. He did that, sometimes, when he saw something new.

“The Axim.” Or so Aegelden Elpioni tells us.

“Who are the Axim?”

Quay shrugged. “They’re crazy, a warmongering people who want our luxuries for thier own.”

Colin frowned. “My father says the Axim are monsters.”

Quay rolled up the drawing and slipped it into the map case near the pack. The Axim were no beasts, they were Eldan's worst nightmare. Hundreds of years back, three tribes settled not to far from one another, the Eld, settled near the Ironhearts, which in turn, granted them a boon of much needed resources. The Leto, settled to the south, right on the coast, which in turn granted them the wealth of the sea. But the Akgo settled in the north, a land with low crop yield so raising cattle and farming was extremely difficult. Over time, each tribe grew in thier respective lands, many migrating to the Eld's and Leto's vast resources, villages often creating ties with the larger villages for items of interest. But the Akgo were different, the Akgo was forced to seek help for its counterparts, without much else to give in return. While the Leto refused, the Eld gave them what they needed to survive. With resources like timber, stone, and many crops, Akgo was able to flourish in its own right. That is until Akgo took up the offensive, attacking the villages that settled near them, taking away thier freedom and taking half of any resources they gathered. In time the three tribes grew into towns, and respectively, kingdoms. The Eld evolved into the Eldan, and kingdom with close ties to many of its sister villages, the Leto evolved into Ionia, who became a sister nation to Eldan. Even Akgo, who became the Axim, grew in its own respective rights, but it grew to become a warmongering nation, often taking villages on the daily. Their tactics and sheer number struck fear in the Eldanins and Ionians, thus leading to The Pact, a treaty that kept each nation from attacking any village that proved loyal to them. For a time, this treaty held, and the Axim refrained from attacked Eldan vassals and Ionian vassals respectively, but Axim numbers grew as village farther north fell under thier military might. Soon, Ionia turned to Elden for additional protection, and created a secret pact between them, but the Ionians played both sides, and created a second secret pact of non-aggression with the Axim. This system of pacts, is what lead to the downfall of Ionia, and thier current situation. Axim came upon information that Eldan had formed a pact with Ionia against them, in retaliation for this betrayal, Ionia's ties with the Axim were broken.

This brought tension to the region, but the mysterious loss of one village, Aleani, a vassal of Axim, set off a spark that caused them to declare war on Ionia, thus forcing Eldan into the conflict due to thier pact. Without warning, Axim invaded Ionia, and Elden sent warriors to help defend, thus setting the stage for the region's great conflict, the Ionia Conflict.

“He said he’d heard it from god's highest themselves,” Colin continued. The boy climbed down from his chair and walked toward the two swords that lay by the pack.

“Don’t touch those,” Quay said, but Colin didn’t listen. He had one halfway out of its sheath before Quay reached him and slid it gently back in.

“When you’re older,” the prince said quietly.

Colin nodded and walked toward a tall shelf of books and maps. A small, scroll, leaning, the boy straightened it up against its neighbors.

“Your father is a smart man,” Quay sighed. “If god's highest says the Axim are monsters, then they are.”

Colin was squinting at the glyphs on a second scroll.

“Can you read that?” Quay asked.

The boy shook his head.

“When you can, I’ll lend it to you.”

Colin nodded again, and Quay went back to the pack.

“Quay?” Colin was looking at the swords again. “You didn’t tell me why you’re leaving yet.”

With one hand on a scratchy set of trousers, the prince stopped and frowned.

I cannot send you, his father had said.

The walls in the palace had ears. It was all he could have said. But Quay had felt the brief goodbye in the touch on his shoulder, read the rest in his father’s eyes:

I cannot send you, but you must go.

“Grown-up things,” Quay said.

Colin screwed his face up and stamped his feet. Quay shook his head and went back to packing, but when he looked back a moment later, the boy was still pouting.

“Tell you what,” Quay said. He squatted down so he was eye-to-eye with his cousin. “You tell your sister everything I said to you today, and don’t forget a thing, and maybe she’ll tell you why I have to go.”

He wanted to take Misha Galeni with him. His wiry, sharp-eyed cousin was clever. She was loyal. She would understand what he had to do, and she could help him.

But her father would never let her go, and if Quay took her without permission he would be followed. He would have to rely upon others.

Colin’s face lit up. “Really?”

Quay nodded. His cousin bounced in place for a second, then frowned again.

“How will she know?”

“She’s your big sister. She knows a lot of things.”

The prince looked out at the sun again. It was rising further toward the clouds. Quay carried the pack, the purse, and the swords into his bedroom and set them down behind the door, where no one would be able to see them from the solar.

“Time to go,” he said to Colin when he returned. The boy kicked a chair by the stone table petulantly, and Quay shook his head and dropped down to his level again. “You promised,” he reminded him. “What did you promise?”

Colin looked at the floor. “That I would leave when you told me to.”

“And?”

“And not a word to anyone.”

Colin nodded and walked to the door. When he reached it, he paused, fingering the handle and scuffing his feet on the floor.

“Quay?” he asked again, and the prince raised an eyebrow in response. “Be careful.”

The door opened and shut, and then little Colin Galeni was gone and Quay took a deep breath.

Careful, he thought. As if it is all that simple.

He was going to war.

Quay did not often feel afraid. Coolness was his birthright. The strength of the line of Eld for generations. It had led them through rebellion, infighting, and it would war. When their enemies grew emotional and made mistakes, the blood turned to ice in Eldani’s veins. It had to. There was no other way to rule.

But Quay did not have a better word than fear to describe the uncertainty gnawing at his stomach.

Quay stood with his hand on the door, breathing slowly. A ring of plain bronze hung from a chain around his neck, cool and slick against the skin of his chest. It had been a gift from his mother in a time long past, when the world had been simple and bright and the title of Prince of Eldan had sat on his brother’s broad shoulders.

A semicircular balcony of gray stone hung from his rooms over the river valley that had nurtured his family for generations. For one last time, he strode through the airy curtains that covered it and gazed down at the hustle and bustle of the towns people in the distance.

A curtain of rain swept toward him from across the river. Fresh, clean rain. Not too heavy, not yet. He welcomed the first drops as they hit his skin, then retreated to the shelter of the balcony arch. He stood, and he watched, and he waited.

What he was about to do would be difficult. The kindness in him, the warmth, would have to be kept under lock and key to serve a greater good. It would not be pleasant, but he would do it. He would be strong. He would be cold. He would be hard.

Yes, my prince, his people would say when he pushed them, even if not in as many words. It was what they had been taught for their whole lives to do.

He was Quay Eldani, and he would do what no one else could, he would defeat the Axim.



Deo ran. Using the tooth of the battlement as a stepping-stone, he launched himself at his master. Blade arcing, he landed in 'Water Upon the Rocks', an attack from above. Metal clanged upon metal, and his muscles strained against his master’s parry.

Lex’s thin lips curved into a smile, making his peppered beard rustle. “Keep that up and you’ll have my title before long.”

Eyeing him through the mesh of their blades, Deo smirked. “It’s all yours.”

Immediately, he realized his mistake, but it was too late. His pressure waned as his concentration slipped. Lex's heavy biceps flexed. Deo was blown back as if by a gust of wind, feet scraping along the stone floor. He threw a dusty foot to the ground in a Low Moon stance, his knees bent and back straight. At the same time, he tossed a hand to the same red sands . His palms scraped the stone and dust as he skidded to a halt. He looked up, only to find Lex's blade hurtling towards his face. Pressing against the ground, he vaulted backwards, diving beneath the blade’s tip. Landing on the balls of his feet, he peered through his brown hair.

Lex rose to his full, impressive height. Despite the chill in the air, the man was bare- chested, wearing only his traditional leather belt adorned with pelts and feathers. His frame was tanned dark from the unforgiving sun. A long scar ran diagonally across his chest. A few more white lines marred his shoulders and arms. There was not a scrap of fat on him. Lit by the dawning sun, Lex stood in High Moon. His back leg was heavily bent, holding the majority of his weight, while his front foot rested lightly upon the ground. It was a stance most could learn, but few could ever master.

Deo rose. “You tricked me.”

Lex broke High Moon. Hands clasping his head, he began to lounge. “Don’t listen to me then, or, better yet, don’t talk back. Besides, you should know my tools by now—tools which an Ionian should always have at his disposal.”

He scoffed. “Tools? They are clearly tricks and you know it.” His palms stung and he saw peeled callouses, raw and pink, like a shaved beet. “And why do I always seem to get hurt around you?”

Lex shrugged innocently. “Not sure, I don’t get hurt.”

There was a subtle shift in the air, and Deo focused, becoming acutely aware of his surroundings. Sharpening his senses at will was a skill of the High Ionian soldier, harnessed over years of intense training. Brushing the dirt from his black tunic, he regained his balance and raised his blade. But Lex was looking away, gazing over the beautiful horizon and the bustling of thier people. Something weighed heavily on his master’s features. There were shadows in the man’s eyes.

"Is it true?” he asked.

“Rumors are rumors, Deo. Besides, you should not concern yourself with it. As soldiers, we follow orders.”

“You’re avoiding the question. I want to know, the Eldan, do they plan on pulling back thier forces? Will they leave us to deal with…them?" Deo countered

“Say their name. Only a fool fears a name.”

“I would rather not...”

“Then I’ll say it for you.”

“Don't-

“Axim,” Lex sighed, interrupting him.

Deo's features twisted. His father, mother, two brothers and sisters, cousins, and his grandmother were all lost to the Axim, slaughtered without whim or cause.

“Wake up!” Lex bellowed, and he was glad to see the years had shed from masters face. Lex's stance switched from High Moon to Low Moon, one leg sweeping back. Deo saw his opening, but kept his face blank.

“So are you going to sight-see, or for once are you going to actually hit...”

He didn’t let Lex finish and charged with a fierce cry, blade raised for Heron in the Reeds. Deo smiled as if he were waiting for it, blade flickering into Full
Moon, covering his head. In the last moment, Deo gathered his meager power. Lex's blade appeared from nowhere, but he rolled beneath it, teeth clenched. As he landed, he twisted. Fisher in the Shallows. He lashed at Lex's legs, ready to retract the blow in victory. Lex had lost. Elation lanced through him. Abruptly, his master smirked and his hand smacked a hidden block of stone.

Still moving, Deo hit the ground. Instinctively, he tucked and rolled on the hard stone. "Are you kidding me!" he bellowed dragging himself up to dust his furs. Lex cackled, placing his 'Guraka' back in it sleuth. "I said tools all Ionian should have." he mocked, turning away from Deo.

Mumbling curses under his breath, he rose, sometimes he found it difficult to take his master seriously. “You still haven't answered my question!" he bellowed, causing Lex to turn slightly. All playfulness had left his eyes, and the eyes of a killer replaced them. "We leave for battle in four moons. In the meantime, I have a meeting with an old hermit" He said before leaving Deo to take in his masters parting words.

Vestec flew alongside Keriss, idly watching her. “You can’t outrun regret. Trust me. I’ve watched many a mortal try. I’ve even tried myself. Failed utterly.” He tilted his head at her, confused. “Why did you kill the child? It didn’t deserve that. It certainly wasn’t a spawn of Chaos.” He paused. “Well, seeing as you’re my daughter, I suppose it is. My question stands though.”

Keriss remained silent, not responding in any typical fashion towards the being that she supposedly hated to no end. It was only when a long winded sigh came out of her that she would speak. Voice emotionless, ”I could not let it hold me back. My crusade against chaos is the only thing that was asked of me and I cannot fail Vulamera or Vakarlon, even if you say that they are dead. Why do you even care? Have you come just to make my misery worse?”

Vestec was in front of her in a heartbeat, stopping her forward motion and any attempts to continue said motion. “Why.” He demanded, colors shifting and flashing angrily. “What do you owe them? Let’s pretend that I’m not your father, though I am, and Vakarion is, though he isn’t.”

”I owe them for they create what I am. My existence was by their will. Even if by chance you were my father, why were you not there for my creation? Why would you let them tell me that it is you I must destroy? Vakarlon was more of a father to me than you have as he never sent me on a suicide mission against Sin!” Keriss growled, her voice wrought with anger as she remembered her battle against Amartía. Her eyes gazed was not on Vestec when she had spoken though, refusing to look up and continued staring down.

Vestec laughed, throwing his hands wide, voice harsh with mockery. “Brilliant! By that logic, Amartia and Lifprasil should both kneel before me and declare eternal love and obedience. Oh wait. They don’t. In fact, I believe Amartia rejected me as his father and Lifprasil merely tries curb my antics.”

He looked at her, voice softening. “Because it was your mother’s wish. She believed in balance, as I do. If there is one thing, there must be another thing to balance it out. Amartia balances Lifprasil, not for long I’m afraid but by the time his power is shattered Vetros will step up. The Dwarves balance the Rovaick. The Grotlings will balance the Ogres. You balance the undeclared Chaos. The wandering hordes, the feral bands. You are their reckoning. Their balance.”

Vestec chuckled softly. “Oh, Keriss. I never sent you into a suicide mission. I keep an eye on all my children, even Amartia. If you were ever in any danger of being killed, I would have stepped in. Probably smote the city to ash after getting you out. As for Vakarlon, he never acknowledged your presence either, instead preferring to kill himself and become some sort of primordial soup. You’re my daughter Keriss. You enjoy my protection from death, if not mistakes.”

Keriss could only remain silent, beginning to even doubt everything that knew. Her gaze remaining away from the Chaos god. She, herself, was on the verge of tears as her own beliefs began to falter. “Again, why have you come? It couldn't be just for that.”

Vestec nodded. “You’re right, I didn’t just come to remind you that you have my protection. I came to ask what you’re going to do. Amartia’s a violent psychopath, like father like son eh, but he trusts you. Thinks he has you under his thumb. So what are you going to do? Stay by his side against the fury of Lifprasil’s burgeoning empire, not to mention what the other gods cook up, or switch sides yet again and tear down his pitiful city? Whatever you do, I’ll keep you safe from death. Even if we’re on different sides.”

“At this point I do not care about some war the gods are getting caught up in. And from what I have heard, it is Logos vs all with Amartía only joining in for the power.” Keriss growled, crossing her arms before her gaze finally shifted to Vestec. ”He calls me child. Calls my existence a long and lonely one. Unfortunately, he is right. He wishes me to be one of his little pieces in what game he plays. He wishes me to tell him everything I find on his enemies.” A smirk came onto the face of the Demi-Goddess.

”I do not truly know on which side my allegiance lies; Logos, god of Order, who has brought destruction to this place in which I inhabit, or You, my hated enemy, my father.” Keriss said, a rather delusional tone coming to her. A slight laugh overcame her before she suppressed it, ”We shall see for I lack an incentive to join either side. Well, I suppose the whole destruction of chaos is a good one; but for now that can be ignored.”

Vestec giggled. “Who says we have to be enemies, daughter?”

”No one living, but it is my entire purpose to destroy chaos. Unfortunately, father, it is of your very nature that I should oppose you.” Keriss chuckled, tapping the nails of her fingers along the hunter-green scales of her arms.

“Ah, ah, ah.” Vestec waved a finger. “We can be opposed but not enemies. Nothing should be too easy, for anyone. Your brother Lifprasil will find that out soon enough. The other Gods have been coddling him. But I digress. If you don’t know where your loyalties lie, don’t have any!” Vestec threw his hands wide. “I’m going to be giving you your own Order after this battle. You won’t need me, Lifprasily, Amartia, or anyone! Do what you want with the Order you possess. Destroy Chaos? Sure! Create a new nation? Why not! Destabilize Empires that are oppressive but the populace doesn’t know it yet? Go for it! Of course, I’m always a prayer away if you ever want anything.”

Vestec gestured with a hand. “Go back to Amartia. Tell him Lifprasil is coming with an army of Knights, designed and empowered by four Gods, and his own normal army. Then, when the battle commences, kill anyone and everyone in your path. Be a force of nature, slaying all. Or avoid this mess entirely, and wait till it’s over in a relatively safe place.” Vestec shrugged, his colors seeming to move dismissively. “It is your choice, daughter. I’ll be watching you, whatever you do.” With that, he disappeared.

“Whatever I do?” Keriss pondered for a moment before a shiver ran down her spine.

The smoldering remains of the Cipher is what remained of the once revered crown jewel of Xerxes. Walls crumbled and in their place stood thick beams of stone and wood, blackened and charred from where the flames had licked at them. The ruins were still smoking and he could see the faintest glow of embers as his eyes maneuvered around the creaking threshold. Black dust hung in the air and invaded his lungs, but proved too weak to produce any harm in his body. Nothing had escaped the explosion, glass littered the floor where the windows had broken and the metal base of the grand throne lay blackened and twisted on the ground. Amartía refused to move, he refused to observe any further. Rage had torn down his pride, and in turn, tore down his city.

Across the shattered debris walked another figure. This figure had the body of a hain and the aura of a god, standing twice as tall as a mortal hain, casting off a golden glow, and the storm parting around him. In his hand he held a great hammer of solid adamantine, almost as large as he was.

Once the god was within shouting distance of Amartia, he spoke, the disgust in his voice cutting across the raging tempest. "Xerxes was once a grand city, then you returned and ruined it."

Amartía's turned to the voice, his unblinking eyes burrowing themselves into that of the intruders. With each step, he could smell the being's divinity, he could taste the power that rolled off each word it spouted. Sin bared his teeth, his predator instincts gnawing at him, screaming at him to cut the god down, to swallow its entrails and drink his blood, to show him the Face of Wrath. But he held back, not out of fear for the power the god wielded, but out of respect. This god possessed a scent that had never once before graced his nostrils. Amartía owed this god his attention, even for a moment.

Without warning, an ethereal voice, spoke out, once that came from everywhere and nowhere. "I only gave Xerxes perfection; perfection in the face of utter destruction. I did what was necessary." the raspy voice retorted.

The God who was Hain's eyes narrowed at Amartia. "I have heard many views of perfection, and this is the most twisted of them all." Amartía let out a snort."You have robbed Xerxes of its standing as a civilisation and cast it down into a writhing mess of animalistic desires."

A growl reverberated from Amartía's throat as the voice once again spoke. "Animalistic desires? It is apparent that you don't know the nature of the being you accuse. I was resigned to playing god emperor, resigned to remain blind to my own true nature. But upon receiving news of your impending arrival and your vendetta, I was forced to change, to defend myself and my toys! I only defend myself, and defend my people." it bellowed, Amartía' anger rising slowly.

The god tilted his head. "My vendetta? Perhaps you have me mistaken. I seek to protect and build up civilisations, like Xerxes was a little over thirty days ago. Yet you have undone all that. You have destroyed the capacity of rational thought and innovation in your people. You defend your people only so much as they serve your selfish desires, for they are only toys to you. That may be your nature, but it does not excuse you. Destruction has already befallen Xerxes by your own hand."

Fury began to bubble underneath Amartía's predatorial gaze. The god puppeted Hain spoke truth, and it frustrated him, enraged him. Without warning, Sin let out a bloodcurdling scream, throwing his head into the air in a fit of rage. The ethereal voice spoke out just as Amartía relented. "What did you expect god!?" it spat."Should I have sat by and watched you gods destroy my city because of my loyalties? I gave them perfection!"

"Perhaps what you have done will protect you in the upcoming battle, but in doing so you have sent this nation into ruin and spurned the ways of civilisation. And for that the machinations of civilisation shall not defend you," the god decreed, "By my name, the name of Teknall, may no wall nor tower nor fortress stand to protect this forsaken place in the battle to come."

With that declaration, Teknall brought the shaft of his maul down to strike the shattered earth. The spike drove itself into the ground, and a pulse of golden light coursed through the earth along with a great shudder. The pulse extended throughout the entire city of Xerxes, and faded some distance beyond the city limits.

A horrible roar bellowed from Sin's mouth, shaking the very ground upon which he stood on, and ripped apart the environment before him. A destructive force, invisible to the naked eye, rushed at the god. To hell with respect, he no longer had the patience to hold himself back.

A wall of stone rose from the ground to meet the incoming pulse of destruction magic which could have razed a city block. The force collided with the wall, and though though was damaged by the blast, the wall did not crumble, for Teknall willed it to stay together. Once the destructive burst had been absorbed, the wall fell apart, no longer required and thus no longer sustained. Teknall hadn't even moved.

"Enough!" the eternal voice bellowed, vibrating the air between the two. "Depart god, but mark my words, the next time we meet, things will be very much different." With that, Sin turned away from the Hain, no longer aware of his existence. And Teknall vanished, departing without another word.

The Valley of Peace never seemed to change. Winter, summer, autumn; always it was filled with warmth and calm winds. The setting sun cast long shadows across the overgrown plains, and its light was swallowed quickly on either side. Gnarled trees choked with moss and vines crowded them. In the distance, in the quiet haunting gloom, something large moved through the grey mists.

For Logos, the Valley was a benign but unfamiliar foe. He could feel the bands of the Geass tighten around him, grasping onto his actions and intentions. It would be some effort to break free. But the price was one he was unwilling to pay.

The several dozen Realta following him, however, had never, to Logos’s knowledge, set foot in the Valley. Their heads was on a swivel, spinning around to face each little crack and whistle in the forest and valley around them, and Logos's own ears twitched like flags in a fierce wind. It was a wonder they had made it this far, really. They had been out here, unaffronted, more than most sensible beings would consider prudent.

They flew together in silence. Behind them, the world receded into the distance, its sounds and scents lost in the hush and earthy loam of the vale. The sky to the west burned with a brilliant orange radiance as the sun fell below the horizon, and just as quickly dusk overtook the world, bleeding it of color and form. Only vague dark outlines remained.

“You have been here?” a Realta asked. Its lightvoice was quiet, almost inaudible above the droning dark. “The Vale?”

Logos shook his head. To the east a fat, bloated moon slowly crept above the trees, painting everything in its silver light. Charcoal clouds rimmed in white floated across the sky.

The night had started with a chill, but as the moon rose into the sky the valley seemed to grow warmer. Whether that was another manifestation of Niciel’s general weirdness, or simply a high pressure system moving in, Logos couldn’t say. Even the wind around them was merely balmy, rather than biting at their forms like it had just hours ago when he collected the last of his children. It could easily have been an early summer evening rather than the last night of the war.

A flash of light, and Niciel was back in the Valley of Peace, along with the Angels who had gone to Alefpria. Considering the current danger in the world, Niciel thought it best to bring them back herself.

"Thank you, Mother Niciel. I'm sorry we had to bother you with this," Falas said, bowing deeply. Loth and the rest of the Angels followed suit, equally grateful as Falas.

"Not at all. I'm glad I could help," Niciel said warmly, smiling. "Go on and get some rest now. You all must be quite tired after all the excitement." Some Angels were and flew back to their homes for exactly that, but the rest were still very energetic and flew off in groups, excitedly chatting about what they were going to tell the others about their time in Alefpria. Soon, it was just Falas and Loth left. Falas was about to do the same, but Loth firmly placed a hand on her shoulder. "Before we go, we would like to ask something."

Falas was confused, but Niciel was more attentive, asking, "And what would this be?"

"It's about Falas' weapon, you see," Loth continued. Falas could guess where this conversation was heading and was about to interject, but something made her stop. To be specific, a powerful force that came into their range of detection. The two Angel Heroes had not encountered this force before, but Niciel recognized this particular feeling.

"We shall speak of this matter another time," Niciel said. "Hurry back to your homes, you two." While Falas was more than willing to listen to Niciel, Loth had oter plans. "If I may be so bold as to ask," Loth began. "A God has come, hasn't he? Can we not meet him? At the very least, we should-" That was as far as Loth got before Falas interrupted him. "Loth, it is far too dangerous to do that. We have no idea what this God is capable of, nor his intentions. We are going back home."

"I'm sorry, but you must listen to Falas. Go back home. I will handle this matter myself, Niciel said. Before either Angel could say more, Niciel began to radiate light, and with a flash, she was gone, teleporting to meet Logos face to face.

Another flash of light appeared at the horde of Realta. It quickly faded, revealing Niciel where it had originated. With a smile and a bow of her head, Niciel greeted Logos courteously, "Hello, Logos. Welcome to the Valley of Peace. To what do I owe the pleasure for this visit?"

A few of the more flightly Realta suddenly flashed brightly at the goddess's sudden appearance, and made to interpose themselves between the Lord of Order and the encroaching diety.

"Peace," commanded Logos admonishingly as he drew forth from their number. "The Geass of Niciel commands all here; even myself. She is last to break it."

He stood before her and bowed his head in greetings. "Niciel; Jvan is bested. My work is finished, if incomplete. Enough blood has been shed this night. I would seek your protection of my children for one night, so that I might finish the deeds I have set into motion."

"I have no love myself for bloodshed," Niciel said. "And I would gladly protect the Realta if it meant an end to that. However, the Realta have caused quite a bit of damage already." Niciel turned to the side, her expression grim. "Innocents have been hurt, killed even, by them. I have no desire to see my Angels suffer the same fate, and I cannot in good conscience allow them sanctuary here when they have caused so much misery."

Turning back to Logos, Niciel asked, "Why? Why have you allowed your Realta to do this? Why have you allowed the inhabitants of Galbar to suffer at your hands?"

If Logos seemed affronted by her accusation, he did not show it. Instead, made the faintest of gestures with his hand to the Realta. Like fireflies in the dark they scattered away from the two gods, finding places of rest elsewhere in the mists of the valley. Logos kept his eyes on Niciel, as if offering her the chance to challenge the brazen gesture. His wings folded around him like a cloak, the patagium folding under his throat.

"Your Angels are safe. They will not be harmed, unless you give aid to Jvan," he raised a hand, as if silencing any protest from her. "You know lying is beneath a being such as myself. If I had intended violence, there would have been violence."

His feet touched the grass beneath the deities, and Logos looked up at the Lady of Light with indifference. If anything, the Lord of Order seemed bored.

"You give insult to yourself by questioning my actions. I am merely the solution to cosmic error of your own permittance. When a limb is poisoned in the flesh with rot, it must be amputated. Only by making the cut into the healthy tissue does the action ensure all of the rot is removed," he remarked slowly, speaking as if to a small child.

Niciel's expression became one of disapproval after Logos gave his explanation. It was clear she did not see eye to eye with him. "And who are you to judge this 'error'?" Niciel retorted, following Logos' descent onto the ground. Looking him in the eye, Niciel continued, "You decided not to take part in Galbar's formation and left for a world beyond. As for Jvan, while I admit I have not seen much of her work, I cannot find fault in what I have seen."

With that out of her system, Niciel let out a sigh. "I do not wish to fight you, Logos, I really don't," Niciel admitted. "I do not agree with your methods, but I can see that you do not have malevolent intentions. Please, Logos, help me understand you. Help me understand why it is that you deem Jvan's influence to be this great error."

Logos was silent for the longest time, and Niciel grew to think he remained silent to simply spite her. Then at last, the God seemed to shrink in on himself, and the deity who claimed himself King sighed.

"In the Dawn, I saw the corruption. The Rot which would consume all, nibbling at it throughout the cosmos. Until all eventually collapsed. Vowzra knew this, and he trusted me alone with the task."

"The others will claim their labors are to build a heaven, yet their heaven is populated by horrors. Like a worm she slipped through the cracks of the last, to torment me still here. Perhaps this world was meant to not be made. Perhaps nothing has been made. A clock without a craftsman. A watchmaker without a watch..."

Logos shook his head. "We were never meant to act; only observe. The system of Galbar is broken. It must be repaired. You ask me who I am... I am that I am: Order, and the caretaker of Time."

Niciel looked down, thoughtful of Logos' words. She was silent for a long time as she attempted to make sense of them. Finally, Niciel looked back up at Logos and responsed, "I still don't understand. The Rot? The Dawn? What are they? And our purpose to only observe instead of act? That doesn't sound like what Fate had in mind for us. We were all brought to this world for a reason, even Jvan, surely."

Before the two, they could see energy flashing off of... Niciel didn’t know what, some type of orb that was rapidly disintegrating. The color wasn't anything she could describe.

Logos seemed to age an aeon staring at that orb. A loud roaring sound filled the Vale; a horrible sound. A sound that every fiber of Niciel's being found abhorrent, deep in her immortal soul.

“It’s the sound I think, that’s the worst of it. Not the smell, not even the sight of it, although that is horrible enough, but that sound. Nothing should be able to make a sound like that, wouldn’t you agree?” Logos asked at last. The weight of his voice surpassed the roar of the dying orb. "We are viewing the radioactive decay of carbon-14 in the upper atmosphere of Galbar. You claim Fate has a reason for us? I would like to contest that hypothesis."

Logos reached a finger out to touch the image.

" 'Fate' is a self defeating paradox," he countered. "I acknowledge a being of power greater than myself for the time being. I reject the notion of Fate. The same way that I reject Jvan. And Vestec." Here his eyes darkened considerably. "I ask you now, what is Fate? If by fate one means that life is predetermined, then no one has a will that is free to make choices. Many factors are involved in choosing, the circumstances that lead to a choice, cirumstantial predilection and the history of the individual considering the choice. Though it may appear that these determine what choice will be made, the innumerable factors that converge on a moment introduce a level of randomness that allows a person to reflect upon previous situations and their results and to envision desirable results that have the potential to be realized should different choices be made in similar situations."

The light of the orb faded into darkness. "Fate gave us a command. Paradoxical it would some of us to shirk, abstain, or even fail in our tasks."

Niciel was silent for a long time, stunned over what had just occurred. Never did she think that such would have experienced such a thing. Logos' answers served to further confuse her, making her question almost everything she knew. Fate was what brought everyone to this world, and the universe was created as a result. How could Fate be anything but..... but... It occurred to Niciel that she knew almost nothing about Fate, despite everything that has occurred throughout her life as a Goddess.

Was Logos right? Was this confusing mess of uncertainty what Fate intended? It just... didn't make sense to her. If Logos was right, was there a point to what anyone was doing? Was there a point to anything? Niciel had many doubts in her mind. Shaking her head to free her thoughts, Niciel looked at Logos and said, "I can't tell if you're right or not. I just don't know enough to make that judgement. I still believe, however, that you should rethink your course of action about Galbar and Jvan. Even if you do end up achieving your goal, are you aware of the possible consequences? Regardless of our purpose or Fate's directives, we now have powerful presences on this world, and doing anything to change that could mean a disastrous future. I would also like to mention that no matter who you are or how powerful you are, you are still only one being, and not even an army of Realta is going to change that."

Logos simply nodded. "Hypocritical as your words are, the deed is done. No more blood will be shed from or by my children unless in self-defense," he promised. There was a certain weight to his words: the bindings of a divine promise. His own nature would prevent him from breaking that promise. Then, in an act that would have shocked any God or mortal familiar with his head, the Lord of Order actually bowed his head to the Lady of Light.

"You are the bane of all corruption, yet corruption has spread throughout this world. But your words now have absolved you of all sins from your inaction," he commended, and though his voice was flat and emotionless, his words spoke of respect. When he rightened his gaze towards her, she could see a new light in his eyes to her.

"You alone of this cycle have shown the capability to understand my Natural Order, though you know it not."

Niciel lowered her head slightly in shame, reminded of her inaction for the world. She had promised herself multiple times to be more active, but she never did, having preferred to stay in the Valley of Peace and support her Angels instead. Niciel quickly raised her head back up as Logos continued. This was no time for dwelling on past mistakes,after all; it was the present and future to worry about now.

"Understand your Natural Order?" Niciel repeated. "Perhaps. As for capability, that might be too harsh of a description. Maybe... 'willingness' would be a better way to describe it." There was a small pause, then Niciel continued, "Regardless, I thank you for your time. You have given me much to think about, and I have to make sure my Angels are not distressed by the Realta."

The portal flashed into existence. Logs turned to address his sister for the last time.

“This war is at an end, for my Realta, and for you all. Once they have rested, my children will leave this world. But it is a step I cannot take just yet. In return for this peace, there is one final test this world must face," he warned her.

With a rush of wind, his wings stretched outward before him, and the crown of white flames once more adorned his brow.

"This will be the final night of War... or Order."

We begin, as are all beginnings, by praising the All-High, the All-Mighty, the All-Beautiful. We begin by glorifying the All-Bright and All-Seeing, who in the darkness of even the inkiest of nights shines forth upon our undeserving, ungrateful forms. And we rain praise, as is his due, upon our Lord and Master and Patriarch and Law, the Chosen of the Moon-Mother and our eternal link to the heavens, the blessed Prophet-Patriarch Eskandar Atlaqoos.

It may be worth mentioning here, as we begin, that the term Atlaqoos is an epithet given to our master by his rightful inheritors long after he returned to our Mother and is not, as is the case with those who have ruled over us since the days of the Prophet-Patriarch, a regnal name. The meaning of this title is undisputed across all religious branches and means "He Who Bore the Mighty Burden". On a technical re-examination of the term, we would humbly put forward that it would be more accurate to understand it as "He Who Bore the Moon".
And there have been some who have suggested that "bear" here means "to give birth", but we reject this, firstly, impious and, secondly, semantically incorrect suggestion. "Bear" here means "one who carried" or "one who endured" and these two meanings are not mutually exclusive. After all, it is impossible for the Prophet-Patriarch to have given birth to the Moon due to, firstly, being a man and, secondly, the Moon having pre-existed him and, thirdly, the Moon being the goddess and the parentless, unbirthed, uncreated creator of all things. Thus while the words are constructed in such a way as to make sense, understanding the word "bear" as "to give birth" gives rise to an impossible meaning, and it is impossible that an impossible meaning is intended. This effectively means that there is only one conceivable meaning, and that is as has already been mentioned.
And it would not be at all far-fetched to go so far as to say that "Moon" and "Mighty Burden" are both accurate, and thus the epithet's meaning can be stretched beyond its literal reading into "He Who Bore the Mighty Burden [which is] the Moon" or "He Who Bore the Moon [which is] the Mighty Burden". The nuanced differences between these two possibilities are so vast and deep that it would be futile to attempt even a brief discussion of them in this present work.

Eternal praise upon him, praise whose beginning is unknowable and whose end is unseeable, a sincere and yearning praise as none has sent upon him of our forefathers and as none will send upon him in posterity. And long-lasting praise also upon the blessed elect of his household, those pillars of light and purity, those ones who were and remain steadfast on the path of Truth, and curses unending and furious upon those who strayed, and particularly upon Palo Mikraho [meaning: Head of Heresy] and those who followed his example and who follow his example and who will follow his example until the end of all things. May the Moon-Mother bless the Matriarch Elia Shohiqam [meaning: Moon of Martyrs] and her blessed household, and may she also bless the Madhlum Bato Durghal [meaning: the Wronged Bato (who was) Erringly Struck] and his descendants, particularly the Matriarch-Superior Ely Nafzakia [meaning: the Pure Soul], who is known also, due to her fiery hair, as Sharrinar [meaning: the Blazing Hair]. Undying praise upon them all, as much as can be penned and as much as can be uttered and as much as can be thought and repeated in heart and mind and soul. May it be so that the Moon-Mother decrees that we are joined with them in Her sublime presence in a place where there is no fear or grief or misery or betrayal or darkness or Falsehood, in eternal bliss and happiness and Truth.

We find that it is of some importance, before beginning, that we lay out the intended purpose of these volumes which we have found within our heart a need to write and within our mind and soul a mighty inspiration and in the tongue of our pen an erudition which is truly not of us, but of Her who is All-High and whose light has put to flight the darkness of our mind on these matters of which we write. It is our intended purpose in these volumes to chronicle, with absolute fairness and accuracy and by referring to all trustworthy and authoritative sources, the history of the world from its genesis to the coming forth of the Prophet-Patriarch. Thereafter, we wish to put down the largest and most complete and encompassing record of the blessed Patriarch Atlaqoos' life. Thereafter, we shall recount also the lives of the Shohiqam and the Nafzakia. We shall then chronicle the history of the Palowids, from their progenitor the Mikraho to the last of them, who was overthrown by the sons of Orif Shohiquy [meaning: Sun of Martyrs]. Thereafter, we shall recount as complete a history of the Orifids, who rule to our day, as is possible given our place in history, and given the limitation of our, all too human, knowledge to what is in the past - for the future is the prerogative of none other than our sublime Moon-Mother.



The people of knowledge are all agreed, and it is confirmed by those hallowed holders and preservers of the Prophet-Patriarch's words, that the world was first created by the Moon-Mother. It is not known whether there existed anything else before, or whether the Moon-Mother alone existed within a great plane wherein nothing else existed.
Some narrations make mention of guardians grim and mighty who were created by the Moon-Mother and who, to this day, carry out Her every whim and command. And these narrations describe them as terrible beings of terrifying power, impossible for a mere man to look upon and remain sane. And others say they are simply so bright that it is physically impossible to look directly at them - much like the sun.

Nevertheless, as it were, the Moon-Mother existed - whether alone or along with these 'Guardians' - and She eventually willed into being from nothingness a great ocean. It was not an ocean of water, but an ocean of smoke. In this dark ocean, Her's was the only light. And thereafter She created another source of light, the sun which we see in our skies to this day. And along with the sun, She peppered that great ocean of darkness with lights which we know today as stars. And She made it so, after this all came to pass, that a great mass emerged from the darkness. It was a being, humanoid in form, around whose head the sun began to swim (and there are those who use the term "orbit", though we find that term inaccurate).
And this being - whether it is alive or not, we know not - around whom the sun swims, swims to our very day around the Moon-Mother. Its giant flat head is our limited human world, whereon the Moon-Mother caused oceans of water to spring forth and rivers, and mountains to rise and grass and trees to blossom. And She created thereon creatures of all kinds. And eventually, not more than four thousand years ago, She created humans also. She fashioned our First-Mother, Fer, of clay. And sometime thereafter She sculpted our First-Father, Jol, of marble. And from them sprung many people and tribes and nations, and they proliferated and filled all corners of our world.

It is understood that Fer and Jol had seven children, three of whom were male and four of whom were female, and it is from them that the differences in human appearances stem. The eldest, Kark, was a huge man whose skin was dark as night, whereas his sister-wife Ina was of lighter complexion. And from them come the dark people who dwell in the south and south-east.
The second son, Ikar, was of moderate height and of exceedingly pale skin, and his hair was fiery. His sister-wife, Ila, was brown-haired and likewise pale, though not as much as Ikar. From them stem the light people, found often to the north and north-west. Indeed, they prefer the cold climes and darkness as the intensity of the sun affects them terribly and some have been known to die from being in the sun too long.
The third son, Lato, was neither exceedingly pale nor exceedingly dark but was in all ways moderate. Strong of build and neither tall nor short, he married his two remaining sisters, Vaka and Mara. Vaka was as dark as Kark, and from her come those people who generally inhabit the east. Mara was, like Ikar, red-haired and exceedingly pale. It is from her line that the Prophet-Patriarch is descended. They tend to be concentrated neither to the north nor to the south nor to the east, but have throughout known history occupied the world's centre - and being in so strategic a position, it is no wonder that it was deemed fitting that the Prophet-Patriarch should rise amongst them.

Thus, humans can generally be split into four categories, and they are as follows:

• Karkids or Inids or Karko-Inids
• Ikarians or Ilids or Ikaro-Ilids
• Lato-Vakads
• Lato-Marids

As the poet says:


Over time, these differing lines grew more distant from one another and contrasting cultures and traditions developed, and, in many cases, many were led to stray from the worship of Truth. Indeed, the prophets of Falsehood are many, and whereas there are those who see with a sight and reject them, those who blindly follow them are many more. May the Moon-Mother protect us from Falsehood and keep us ever on her unwavering Truth, by the guidance and light of her blessed Prophet-Patriarch and the blessed among his household. Indeed, in the likes of the Mikraho and his ilk we have a definitive example of how man, despite having light flowing within his very veins, can reject Truth and embrace the ways of Falsehood. Eternal curses upon him!

From what has been told us by those with knowledge, Fer and Jol were taught many things by the Moon-Mother - how to hunt, the art of spear-making, how to bend the natural world to their will - and these things they passed on to their children, and their children to their children and so on. And that is why you find that wherever you go in the world, despite the differences that time and separation have created, there is always an underlying foundation which is the same in all people. A testament, indeed, to the fact that we all flow forth from one source even if our river has long split into many hundreds and thousands of rivulets, and even if the trunk of our tree has become distant and we now each sit on that tree's peripheral branches.

As mentioned already, the Karko-Inids today largely dwell in the south and south-east - and I, being of them and having travelled extensively, can attest to the truth of this -, while the Ikaro-Ilids largely dwell in the north and north-west - and those are cold regions, as I, having been there, can with certainty say -, and the Lato-Vakads dwell largely in the east and are indeed a most hospitable people, if frightfully astray and utterly submerged in the darkness of Falsehood, much like many of their northern and southern cousins. And in the world's centre, and perhaps slightly in its west also, are the Lato-Marids.

I have, in my travels, attempted to conjure as accurate a depiction of our world as the Moon-Mother has given me the ability to, and I have copied on the next page with the utmost care my most polished and carefully proportioned world map. I have on the page thereafter done the same and labelled the approximate locations of each of the above-mentioned human groupings.





The Prophet-Patriarch was born into a world burdened with darkness and crumbling 'neath the weight of ignorance and Falsehood and superstitions. And all forms of progress - which are vital to human existence - were kept at bay by the tyrannical fear of so-called holy men and tribal leaders. Each established himself in one place or another and demanded obedience from those who unwittingly followed. And mankind was divided into hostile tribes, fearful of all things new and held down by the oppressive palm of those in authority.

And the case was not so different in the Prophet-Patriarch's birthplace, a tribal encampment which was destroyed by the Moon-Mother. It is said to have existed in the south, where a great crater exists in the earth to this very day. And it is reported that in that place there once stood a mighty mountain which was filled with caves wherein lived the people of the camp.

It was established by a group of Lato-Marids long before the Prophet-Patriarch's birth, perhaps by one hundred or one hundred and twenty years. And we know not of the ancestry of the Prophet-Patriarch, for his mother died while giving birth to him, and no reports exist of his father's name. Though I have, in my travels, come across an exceedingly pious and wise old man who claims to have heard from his father, who heard from his father, who heard from his father, and so on down his lineage till it reach the Mawtuq Zekra Amudiskandar [meaning: the Ever-Loyal Zekra Pillar of Eskandar], that she once referred to Eskandar as 'the son of Abarus'. And, if thus is true, we can ascertain that the Prophet-Patriarch's father was called Abarus. Though who Abarus was and how long he lived and what he did and who he married and who his ancestors were, we can never know.

At the time of the Prophet-Patriarch's birth, this tribal camp was ruled over by a treacherous old woman whose name has rightly been forgotten by time. And she claimed to be a representative of the Moon-Mother on earth and was of the Prophet-Patriarch's greatest enemies - and eventually forced him and his Mawtuq Amudiskandar, as well as the newly-born Durghal, to flee from the camp. Little else has reached us of the news of this camp at the time of the Prophet-Patriarch's birth. And as shall soon be recounted, it was obliterated by the Moon-Mother not very long after the Prophet-Patriarch's departure, and those who survived were brought low and enslaved by the Prophet-Patriarch in due time. Indeed, their descendants are today many and have been responsible for much good and more evil. And they are known and take pride in referring to themselves as the "Frinjis".

This word, it appears, originates with the Prophet-Patriarch, and its meaning is subject to intense debate. There is a scholarly and noble group who claim it is a name of shame given them by the Prophet-Patriarch after he captured them, and discovered their origin, meaning "Felled Ones". Their argument has many merits, and I am drawn to accept it were it not the case that it seems so out of character for the Prophet-Patriarch. For, upon accepting the faith it is reasonable to say that rather than being "felled", they had in reality been "lifted" - from the darkness and ignorance and Falsehood that they had been in afore. Moreover, a name of shame is hardly something the Frinjis would have tried so hard to hold on to, that to this day they remind their children of this "honourable title" given them by the Prophet-Patriarch.
And so, I lean towards the other interpretation, given by an equally scholarly and honoured group, who argue eloquently and most persuasively that the meaning of this title is in fact "Foreigners" or "Newcomers [to the Faith]". And to support this, they argue that many of those defeated by the Prophet-Patriarch during his life, and who then embraced the faith, were also referred to as "Frinjis", though for one reason or another those seem to have later abandoned the title while the present-day Frinjis retained it. Why, the Nafzakia's own mother, Maki Dammahshar [meaning: of the Blood-Red Hair] is herself referred to, in some of the sayings attributed to the Durghal, as "that most beautiful of all Frinjis", and in another, "from my lineage, and from the lineage of this most noble Frinji, will grow forth a blessed and mighty people". And this confirms to us, with almost complete certainty, the correctness of the view of the latter scholarly group over the former. The debate is, clearly, long and complicated, and we plan to write about it at length in other works and volumes should the Moon-Mother aid us. But we hope that this small summary of the positions and what we have found most persuasive will suffice for now, given the subject-matter of the present volume.

In our travels, we have had the honour of setting foot in nearly every village and town of note - however small - in the known world, and each has its own - oral or written - traditions regarding its history. As I aim for this to be a complete and all-encompassing history, I shall now proceed to relate what I have recorded from each one of these villages and towns regarding their history up until the estimated time of the Prophet-Patriarch's birth (I say estimated here because many did not have accurate time-keeping methods before their conquest and annexation into the Realm in the South, and so human reason and estimates are our only tools in this matter).





[The present copy appears have been vandalised, and the some five-hundred pages of this chapter have been removed. A small note reads: Will put them back when I'm done. Someone appears to have placed a helpful 50-page summary of the Prophet-Patriarch's life in its stead, along with those of the Matriarch Shohiqam and Matriarch-Superior Nafzakia, but the handwriting is illegible.]



As is well-known, the reign of the Palowids began shortly after the martyrdom of the Prophet-Patriarch. There are those who insist that this early period wherein the Patriarchate was disputed does not count as being part of the Palowid era, but I am of the view that it does. The claim of Wezar merely laid the groundwork for the Palowid takeover and does not in itself count as a period in which he was Patriarch - for he was never recognised as such. It was merely an interregnum, so to speak. As for the revolt of the reluctant Shohiqam, that was nothing more than that. Despite the fact that the parallel Eliad Patriarchate was established through it, it was never one that held true power or ruled for any effective time-period and has ever since been nothing more than a religious Patriarchate without the means to seize or wield political power. The same can be said of the revolt of the Nafzakia and the Bato-Elyd Patriarchate which developed subsequent to it. And so, we shall cover the interregnum, as well as all revolts - righteous or otherwise - , as falling within the, broadly speaking, Palowid era.

We structure this chapter as we did the one preceding it, except that rather than by setting out the name of the village as a headline before relating what has reached us of its history, we shall place the name of each Palowid Patriarch or Matriarch as a headline, giving their birth date and death date as well as the length of their reign, before going on to relate what has reached us regarding their life and reign.

Patriarch Palo I, lived from 17-73 Patriarchem (meaning: [after the] Patriarch's Birth, hereafter "P"), and ruled from 37 P until his death at the age of 56. And his reign was 36 years.

And he is known by some as Palo Mikraho, the meaning of which has been mentioned, and is cursed greatly by many of the faithful. And there are some who know him as Palo Yadilom [meaning: Hand of the Mother], for they see him as a force for much good, and a rightful Patriarch. And our view on him is well-known, and we invoke the Moon-Mother to show him no mercy, for he showed the faithful none. Her curses upon him ever!

And he was known, even during the Patriarch's life, as an evil being, full of hatred and ever plotting and scheming. And he had his eyes on power always, and many reports from authoritative sources have come down to us regarding his character and actions during the Patriarch's time. And we have a report from his mother, Beru Sagacia [meaning: the Sage], regarding the time of his birth wherein she says:

Of all my children, Palo caused me greatest pain during his birth. And the moon was blotted out by clouds on the night of his birth. And when he emerged, there emerged with him a darkness of death and a rancid smell which caused me to lose consciousness.

And this leaves us without any doubt that from his inception the Mikraho was a vile and despised being, evil being as inherent in him as water in a river. And from his brother, the blessed Shohiquy, we have reports wherein he says:

I have never known anyone with so much hate for the Patriarch and his children than that one there [and here, he pointed at Palo who was some distance away].

And you will sometimes hear from lovers of the Mikraho that he and the Shohiquy were, in fact, the closest of friends, and that the Prophet-Patriarch had blessed their relationship and other nonsense of the sort; we say to them, what evidence after such damning reports does one need? The Mikraho neither loved the Prophet-Patriarch nor the Shohiquy, but hated the faith and all who wished to uphold it, and loved only power. And it is reported that the Mikraho himself said:

Indeed, with every great light, there must be a great darkness equal to it. There has come to you a light, and there has emerged from it much light. And I am come to bring balance after the coming of that light, and from me shall emerge equal darkness that it may in your moment of disbelief drown you.

And that shall suffice us, though I have at my disposal much more regarding his evil nature, and I shall write on that matter in greater detail in future works if the Moon-Mother gives me strength and life.

Regarding his reign, we know that he came to power after he murdered the last great obstacle lying in his path - that being the Shohiquy. For the Shohiquy along with the Shohiqam planned to bring an end to the confusion which Wezar had begun by claiming the Patriarchate, and the Mikraho saw that if they succeeded they would bring stability to what the Prophet-Patriarch had built. And the very thought was anathema to him. And so, in the confusion of an affray, the Mikraho stealthily struck the Shohiquy with a large rock, immediately killing him. And the blame was put on Wezar, and the Mikraho used the grief of the people to his advantage, and, to all extents and purposes, seized power.

For a long time he preyed upon the children of the Mawtuq Amudiskandar, and later turned upon the children of the Prophet-Patriarch's other wives. And we shall list below all those of the household of Eskandar killed by the Mikraho, as they are so many that there is no easier way of doing it than this, and we shall list also those who survived:

Of the children of the Mawtuq Zekra Amudiskandar:

• The Durghal: 'tis well-known that the Mikraho framed the blessed firstborn and heir of the Prophet-Patriarch for a crime he did not commit, and the blind justice of the Prophet-Patriarch was set upon him in error. Only after justice was served did the Prophet-Patriarch see the deception, and it is well-known that the Prophet-Patriarch wished to punish the Mikraho severely, but found that there were many around him who were weak of faith and would turn their backs on Truth were he to punish yet another of his sons. And it is well-known also that the Mikraho had at that time established himself and surrounded himself with a band of vile supporters - amongst them the conspirators Hezric and Tymis and others who were caught at an earlier point and punished by the Prophet-Patriarch.
  And had it not been for his martyrdom, the Prophet-Patriarch would have eventually uprooted this heretical group and cleansed the faith of them, but alas; we plan and the Moon-Mother plans.
  The children of the Durghal and his wives did not survive the Mikraho's purges, other than the Nafzakia and her blessed mother. And as is well-known, the Nafzakia returned in due time and claimed her father's and grandfather's Patriarchate, which was her right and her's alone. Through her, the Batowid line lives on, and the Bato-Elyd Patriarchate. May the Moon-Mother make it so that we soon see their victory over those who have robbed them of their rightful title and authority.
• Hezric: As mentioned, Hezric was of those who joined with the Mikraho and conspired against the Prophet-Patriarch and the faith. And he was the fifth child of his mother and was caught and punished by his blessed father after his corruption by the Mikraho. And we count his downfall as being due to the Mikraho, as he would never have sinned and strayed were it not for him.
• Wezar: And he is the sixth son of his mother, said to have claimed the Patriarchate after his father's martyrdom. And he was framed for the killing of the Shohiquy and thereafter personally killed by the Mikraho]
• The Shohiqam: And she was the second child of the Prophet-Patriarch, the most senior and most respected of the blessed household after her elder brother, the Durghal. And there are those who are of the view that she was a rightful Patriarch following the martyrdom of the Prophet-Patriarch - and I would agree with them to a limited extent, as shall be explained at a later point.
  It is well-known that, following the death of the Shohiquy, she challenged the Mikraho and was the centre of a perpetual insurrection in Qari'Ab [meaning: Town of the Father, or Town of the Patriarch], directing those who opposed the Mikraho behind the scenes. This was the case until her involvement was discovered and her eldest child, Ogos, was murdered by the hand of the Mikraho. Following that, she escaped from Qari'Ab to Eni-Elia [meaning: The Eye of Elia] and led an open revolt. She was eventually let down by her followers and slain in open battle by that most despised Mikraho. Today, her descendants claim that she was always the rightful Patriarch and that the Patriarchate is the right of the Eliads (hence the Eliad Patriarchate which exists even to this day).
• Sarin: And she was the fourth child of her mother. And she followed her older sister, the Shohiqam, when she declared open rebellion. And all her children had before that been slaughtered by the Mikraho, and all her husbands. And she was imprisoned in the battle wherein her elder sister was martyred, and thereafter executed. And there are some who are of the opinion that she was raped by the Mikraho beforehand and gave birth to a child before her execution, though the truth of this is not verifiable as she has no known descendants who could have kept hold of such knowledge.
• Meli Gutera [meaning: the Good]: And she was the third child of her mother, and she joined her elder sister in her rebellion. And 'tis ascertained that none of her children or husbands escaped Qari'Ab when the Shohiqam made her escape. She was commanded by her sister to flee Eni-Elia along with Maki Dammahshar and the baby Nafzakia. And she settled with the Dammahshar in her home village (which is, as mentioned earlier, today known as Qari'Ely or Qari'Maki), and her descendants dwell there to this day. And the great majority of them are followers of the Bato-Elyd Patriarchate, with a minority who follow the Eliad Patriarchate.
• Po Qai [meaning: the Strong]: And he was the seventh child of his mother. And he was killed, along with his family, in an infamous assault on his home in the early days of the Mikraho's reign, which is today known as the Jayokareeh [meaning: the Hateful Day]. And he is known to have resisted most nobly, so much so that the Mikraho deemed it necessary to fight him personally. And after a long battle, wherein the Qai wounded his opponent severely, the Mikraho at last dealt him a killing blow. And he is known to have been, along with his older half-brother Verik, of those who first met the Earthen Beast and who reported its coming to the Prophet-Patriarch. Verik, being a son of the Sagacia, sided with the Mikraho, and was struck down by the Qai during the Jayokareeh.
• Sirta: And she was the tenth child of her mother. And she was killed alongside the Qai. For she had on the Jayokareeh been paying her older brother and his family a visit along with her own family. And all were slain. And 'tis reported that the blessed Sirta and her months-old child were the last remaining when all had been killed, and they made her watch as her babe was slaughtered before her very eyes - and its blessed and sanctified blood was sprayed on her hallowed face - before she too was dealt a killing blow. May the Moon-Mother avenge those who were oppressed and murdered! May we be the tools of Her most just and terrible vengeance!
• Musas: And he was the fifteenth and last of his mother's children, and was at the time of the Prophet-Patriarch's death only two months old. And his mother grew very weak following the tragedy of her Prophet-Patriarch's death, and weaker still due to the death and killing that followed. Against her will, the Mikraho took the child, claiming that he would have one of his life-mates care for him. And little Musas was never seen or heard from again. May the curses of the Moon-Mother scour that vile and debased demon! Who is't that will rise and avenge the blessed mother and the blessed child?
• Fen: And she was the eighth of her mother's children. And her husbands and children were all killed before her eyes, and she herself imprisoned. She was never executed but lived out the rest of her days in the Mikraho's primitive dungeons and some are of the view that she was humiliated often and her dignity wounded. May Her curses fall on all who caused her even the slightest distress, let alone such severe injury. Avenge oh Avenger!
• Lida: And she was the ninth of her mother's children. She departed from Qari'Ab when the Shohiquy was killed, along with her children and husbands. And until today none knew what became of her and them. But I have, with the blessing of the Moon-Mother and as mentioned in the previous chapter, discovered what became of her. And to repeat in summary: she travelled to the south and came upon a tribe of Karkids with whom she stayed. And though they were nomads before she came to them, she taught them much and they settled and embraced the faith. And that settlement - now a large town - is today called Ariqa. The descendants of Lida have intermixed with the locals over time, and all the inhabitants of the town today are in one way or another related to her.
• Ruba, Hubal, Uzzit, and Ruway: Respectively the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth children of their mother. And they were all cared for by the Shohiqam and escaped with her to Eni-Elia. And they did not go out to fight with the Shohiqam and so were not witness to her martyrdom. They were hidden from the Mikraho by some of the loyal locals and their descendants all live in Eni-Elia to this day, and are collectively the most respected and influential tribe there. They are for the most part of the followers of the Eliad Patriarchs and are amongst their most ardent and loyal supporters.

Of the children of Seri Teghrey [meaning: the Tigress]:

• Gar Athogos [meaning: the Golden]: And he was the firstborn of his mother, and was from a young age renown for his extreme intelligence and perceptiveness. And he was considered, after the Durghal and the Shohiqam, as the most senior of the Prophet-Patriarch's children in age and status, though there are some who would put the Shohiquy one step ahead of him with regards to status, and we are of them. And he was, from the beginning, a most stalwart supporter of the Shohiqam against the Mikraho, and escaped to Eni-Elia along with her when open rebellion was declared. Upon the Shohiqam's defeat and martyrdom, he escaped with his family to the north and travelled for many years before coming upon Qari'Maki and taking up residence there with all others who had found there a refuge. And his descendants remain there to this day. And of them are those who follow the Eliad Patriarchate, and of them are those who follow the Bato-Elyd Patriarchate.
• Zeri: And she was the second born of her mother. From a young age, Zeri was very close with her half-brother Sheb. Little is known of what happened to her, but they disappeared together before the rebellion of the Shohiqam. It is not known with whom they sided in the conflict, but it is well known that they were very close to their Zekrid siblings, and so we are of the opinion that they were supporters of the Shohiqam. It is not known where they went and what befell them after their disappearance.
• Tora: And she was her mother's third child. She was energetic and took from her mother her warlike character. And she was of the Mikraho's stalwarts and many good lives were put to an end by her hand. Her lineage appears to have been cut-off after the Orifid usurpation of the Patriarchate - for they sided with the Palowids and, along with most of those, were exterminated.
• Reyk: Like his sister, he joined with the Mikraho. And he was the fourth child of his mother. He was killed by Sirta during the Jayokareeh. And he was known for the swiftness of his spear and was praised as being a fine warrior indeed, with his mother's strong spirit and determination. We count his death a tragedy, for he was most certainly led astray by the Mikraho, and that demon of darkness is responsible for the debasement of this otherwise noble son of the Prophet-Patriarch. His descendants, who later sided with the Nafzakia, were exterminated by the Palowids.
• Lopa Laharia [meaning: the Peacekeeper]: And she was the fifth child of her mother. She was one of the rare individuals who managed to maintain her neutrality and was ignored by the Mikraho. She cared for her mother until the Teghrey died, and her children (known as the Laharids) dwell in Qari'Ab to this day. They hold to a principle of neutrality and pacifism which they claim was taught to them by the Laharia, who was specifically taught it by the Prophet-Patriarch. Notably, they collectively broke this principle during the Orifid revolt against the Palowids and joined forces with the former. And they have their own theological reasoning for this which we are not sufficiently knowledgeable to delve into or explain.
• Yog: And he was the sixth of his mother's children. His lineage was cut-off at a very early point, and it is said that he and his family were killed by Tora at the command of the Mikraho. The reason is not known, but we have reports which confirm that he was one of the Shohiqam's key supporters. It would appear that he was caught during the Shohiqam's escape from Qari'Ab, along with his family, and executed by his sister.
• Yara: And she was the seventh of her mother's children. She was very quiet and little is known about her, though it is known with certainty that she was very close with her older sister, Tora. It is said that she was her deputy and a warrior of great skill. Others disagree and say that she was always sickly and lived her life with her mother, and later with her sister the Laharia. It is not known when she died or how, and it is highly unlikely that she ever married or had children. The Laharids claim that they have all the known reports regarding her, but we have not had the privilege to read those or affirm their authenticity.
• Thol: And he was the eighth child of his mother. He sided with the Mikraho and was later sent to Eni-Elia to rule on behalf of the Mikraho. It is said that he was aware of the presence of the family of the Shohiqam there, as well as the other Zekrids, but did not report them to the Mikraho. After his failure to aid the Mikraho during "the Great Crusade", he was recalled by the Mikraho and imprisoned for a while, before being released and living out the rest of his life in Qari'Ab. His descendants, the Tholids, remain there to this day, and neither follow the Eliad nor the Bato-Elyd Patriarchates. They hold a positive view of the Palowids as well as the Orifids and, while looking up to and respecting their Eliad and Bato-Elyd cousins, treat the so-called "cult" that has developed around them with extreme suspicion.
• Samit: And she was the ninth child of her mother. She was young and little is known about how she met her demise. Reports from her mother say that she had gone into the cave one day and was later found dead. It is not known whether there were any wounds or signs that she had been murdered, but it is well-known that the Teghrey had at that time been a vocal and influential opponent of the Mikraho. Perhaps, and the Moon-Mother knows best, this vile murder was meant to threaten her into silence.
• Manaj: And he was the tenth child of his mother. He went with his elder brother, Thol, to Eni-Elia. When Thol was recalled, Manaj stayed there. He only came back to Qari'Ab for his mother's funeral and remained for the rest of his life in Eni-Elia. He did not marry, but it is said that he fell in love with one of the village girls and had two children by her, and the Moon-Mother knows best.
• Munaf: And he was the eleventh child of his mother. He was very young at the time of the Prophet-Patriarch's martyrdom - around twenty months. And he was not involved in any conflicts and died very young of natural causes.
• Amara: And he was the twelfth and final child of his mother, and he was born one month after the martyrdom of the Prophet Patriarch. He joined the Nafzakia when she came to Qari'Ab. His descendants lived in Eni-Elia until the overthrow of the Palowids, when they immigrated - along with the Eliads and Bato-Elyds - to Qari'Ab. And they are followers and supporters of the Bato-Elyd Patriarchate.

Of the children of Tse Smaeha [meaning: the Tender]:

• Sheb: And he was the firstborn of his mother. And as mentioned before, he disappeared along with Zeri in the early days of the Mikraho's rule and nothing is known of what befell them.
• Caz: And he was his mother's second child. He was a timid child, and some say he was very weak, and others say he was sickly. He remained by his mother's side and was not involved in any conflicts. He was killed in error by Tora as he fished from the River of the Moon-Mother sometime after the martyrdom of the Shohiqam.
• Derk Sarquta [meaning: the Crusader]: And he was his mother's third child. He was very adventurous and left Qari'Ab long before his father's martyrdom. And he settled in the east where two warring tribes were brought together by his hand, and he was made a king over them, and they embraced the faith by his will. And when he heard the news of his father's death and the tyranny of the Mikraho, he marched out with his warriors planning to put an end to the evil. And many who had followed the Shohiqam joined with him. And this is today known as "the Great Crusade". While he was noble in intention, the Sarquta was not a great military leader and was defeated. He managed to escape with his tribal followers, though their town (known to this day as Qari'Derk) was conquered by later Palowid Patriarchs in their expansion of the Realm in the South. His descendants live there to this day and were re-instated as local rulers when the Orifids rose to power.
• Buz: And he was the fourth child of his mother. He originally sided with the Mikraho and was of his loyal supporters - for he sincerely wished to avenge the Shohiquy. However, once he saw the tyranny of the Mikraho, his support waned, and he later joined his brother during the Great Crusade. He was killed during the fateful battle.
• Aya: And she was her mother's fifth child. She, like Buz, joined the Mikraho in the early days, wishing to avenge the Shohiquy. When bloodshed increased, she withdrew and took on a neutral role. When the Shohiqam declared an open revolt, Aya left Qari'Ab and the entire region. She travelled north and appears to have settled far away with a people who treated her with suspicion for a long time. Over time, some of her descendants mixed in with the locals and forgot their religion and roots, while others made the journey back to Qari'Ab. And those returned Ayads live there to this day. Like the Tholids, they follow neither the Bato-Elyds nor the Eliads but view the Orifids and the Palowids positively.
• Ana: And she was her mother's sixth child. She followed in the steps of the Laharia and maintained her peace and neutrality. She cared for her mother and was largely ignored. Her descendants today are known as Ano-Laharids and are of the Laharid creed. Over time, the two lines have intermixed to the extent that they are today more or less one.
• Banto: And he was his mother's seventh child. He was one of the Mikraho's supporters. He is not known for exceptional savagery, or for anything else really. He remained a supporter of the Mikraho all his life, and his descendants also. Though they sided with the Palowids during the Orifid rebellion, they were not exterminated after the Orifid victory. They were relocated to the west, where they now live in the town of Markaha, along with the Lato-Marid tribe after which the town is named, the Markahids.
• Jara, Talom, Ala, and Ramad: And they were the eighth, ninth, tenth and eleventh children of their mother respectively. And they were young through much of this, though Jara and Talom joined their elder brother during the Great Crusade and were killed. Ala and Ramad remained neutral until the coming of the Nafzakia. Ala joined the Matriarch Superior while Ramad joined the Palowids, and both were killed in the subsequent conflict. The children of Ala moved away and settled in the north, not too far from Qari'Ab. The town present there today is known as Qari'Ala, and her descendants live there for the most part. They are moderate followers of the Bato-Elyd Patriarchate. As for the children of Ramad, they continued to live in Qari'Ab until the Orifid rebellion. Some of them were thereafter executed, and the others were scattered throughout the land and quickly came to forget their roots.

Of the children of Beru Sagacia:

• The Mikraho: And he was the firstborn of his mother. By the many who rightly despise him, he is called the Mikraho which, as mentioned before, means the "Head of Heresy". And his descendants for long lived in Qari'Ab and were the Patriarchs of the Palowid Dynasty. Among them were good, but most of them were as evil as their progenitor. Their era saw great military expansions and greater oppression and tyranny. With their overthrow by the Orifids, the great majority of them were exterminated. Many of their women, however, were taken by the Orifids and enslaved. When they moved their base to Darofid the Orifids took these with them, and they formed part of their first "House of Concubines", which is to this day a monument of the decadence and debasement of these Orifids, who are nothing like the noble ancestor after whom they are named. Nevertheless, 'tis a fitting end for the descendants of so vile and evil a creature as the Mikraho, and were it in our hands a far more fitting revenge would have been served.
• Verik: And he was the second child of his mother. He was of the Mikraho's core followers long before the martyrdom of the Prophet-Patriarch. As mentioned previously, he was amongst the first to spot the Earthen Beast along with his half-brother, the Qai. He was of those who assaulted the Qai and his family on the Jayokareeh and was struck down by that powerful and noble Zekrid. His descendants lived in Qari'Ab until the Orifid rebellion, after which they were all exterminated. It is said that a lone daughter escaped, though the truth of that has never been verified.
• Eril Sagaciel [meaning: the Little Sage]: And she was the third of her mother's children. And she was known for her shrewdness and depth of knowledge and is said to have been her mother's only disciple. She was an outspoken critic of the Mikraho, along with her mother, and was confined to a tent with her mother from which neither were permitted to depart until after the rebellion and martyrdom of the Shohiqam. After her mother's death, she left Qari'Ab and travelled for some three decades, before settling in Eni-Elia. Her descendants dwell there to this day and are the carriers of the wisdom and teachings of the Sagacia and the Sagaciel. May the Moon-Mother preserve them for us, and may She bless the honoured ancestors and the honourable progeny ever.
• Bish: And he was the fourth child of his mother. And he was killed in the first affray which took place after the Prophet-Patriarch's martyrdom. And according to all the authoritative reports, he was killed in error by Wezar. It was to ignite a blood feud which would see the Zekrids decimated and banished from the land. He had no children, and thus no descendants.
• Walo: And he was the fifth of his mother's children. He was very close to his elder brother, Bish, and was blindly loyal to the Mikraho after Bish's murder. He is notorious for his viciousness and is said to have eaten of the innards of Wezar when he was slain by the Mikraho. His descendants, men and women, were amongst the most fanatical warriors of the Palowids and are famed for their final stand at the Grove of the Weeping Walos during the Orifid rebellion. Those who survived were captured and imprisoned, and what became of them is unknown. Some have speculated that the women who survived were placed in the "House of Concubines" along with their Palowid counterparts, though this is not verified. We hear from time to time of one adventurer or another who claims to be a descendant of Walo, so 'tis not improbable that some escaped and survived beyond the borders of the Realm in the South.
• Naka: And he was the sixth of his mother's children. He was very close to his eldest brother and followed him everywhere once the Palowids seized power. It is said that the Mikraho had a soft spot for him and spoiled him. His descendants played an influential role in Palowid court politics and much mischief is generally attributed to them. They melted away and disappeared without a trace when the Orifids rose up in open revolt. It is unknown where they escaped and what has become of them since.
• Dam: And he was the seventh of his mother's children. He did not partake in the early purges and is said to have disapproved of the Shohiqam's murder. He joined the forces of the Great Crusade against his brother and was captured. He was forgiven, as the Mikraho did not wish to slay direct kin. He later joined the Nafzakia and was of her key allies. While his children managed to escape to Eni-Elia with the Matriarch Superior, he was not able to. He was caught and killed by the third Palowid Patriarch, the Malamn. His children survived and relocated to Qari'Derk in the east, where they still dwell to this day. They are stalwart supporters of the Bato-Elyd Patriarchate.
• Reebo and Saho: And they were the eighth and ninth of their mother's children. Like Dam, they were too young to partake in the early purges, though later proved themselves more than capable savages. Along with the Walowids, they formed a triumvirate of evil and savagery, and their descendants continued this tradition. They were present at the Grove of the Weeping Walos. Their ultimate fate, like the Walowids, is a mystery.
• Meera: And she was the tenth and last child of her mother. She was born two months after the martyrdom of the Prophet-Patriarch. She is not believed to have lived very long, for her mother was sick with grief and very weak when she gave birth to her, and the child was likewise weak. She is said to have reached her seventh year, though nothing of her after that point remains in the records. This has caused most scholars to assume that she passed away not very long after that point. And, being too young, she left no children and has no descendants.

Of the children of Igdin Cala [meaning: Iron Cala]:

• The Shohiquy: And he was the firstborn of his mother, said to be born around the same time as the Mikraho. But whereas that one was a darkness and a blight, this one was a blessing and great light. And he was, as mentioned, slain treacherously by the Mikraho during an affray, and the blame was put on the innocent Wezar who was thereafter also slain. His children lived in Qari'Ab and enjoyed the Mikraho's favour for some time, though it is clear from the records that they disapproved of much of what he did in their father's name. They eventually gathered enough strength to overthrow the Palowids and establish their own Patriarchate. While they received the support of the Eliads and the Bato-Elyds, they have since turned their back on both and treat them with cautious suspicion at best.
• Mera Nabtisa: And she was the second child of her mother. And she is known to have been a terribly cold and austere woman, whose gaze was famously described by a rejected lover thus:
  "Oh Ikaria, from your throne of ice descend - Raise up Mera, who with one gaze souls does rend
  On what mountain were the stones in her eyes carved? - This one: flatter, and the next one: reprimand!"
  Her beauty was unparalleled, and her coldness unequalled, and she was by some known as Mera Nabtisa [meaning: the Unsmiling], and by others as the Sarak [meaning: the Rock, or the Stone]. And she hated the Mikraho with a passion, though none knew why - and it is our opinion that she knew who truly had slain the Shohiquy. And she spent her days with her mother and the children of the Shohiquy, and her descendants after her were linked to the Orifids and were their most loyal and mighty supporters. Much of the success of the Orifid rebellion can be attributed to them. To this day, the Meraids are the strong arm of the Orifid state, and it was their suggestion that the Realm's capital be officially moved from Qari'Ab to the newly constructed Darofid after their victory over the Palowids. The majority of the Calaids, who previously dwelled together in Qari'Ab, today dwell in Darofid.
• Lez: And she was the third child of her mother. While she supported the Mikraho in his feud against the Zekrids, her support was tempered by her elder sister's suspicion. She fought alongside the Palowids during the Shohiqam's rebellion, and was a leading figure in the fight against the Great Crusade. Her descendants maintained their loyalty towards the Palowids and became very influential both in the military and within the court. Ultimately, however, their loyalty lay with their Orifid and Meraid cousins, and they sided with them when the Orifids rebelled.
• Zana: And she was the fourth child of her mother, and she was close to the Mikraho and the Shohiquy from a young age. She was - tragically - utterly loyal, and was manipulated by the Mikraho after her elder brother's murder. While she was never truly the most intelligent individual or the most skilled fighter, she was courageous and blindly faithful. She was killed during the Shohiqam's rebellion and left behind no children or descendants.
• Raga: And he was the fifth child of his mother. Despite his youth, he was a passionate supporter of the Mikraho and took a very active part in the persecution of the Zekrids and others. As he matured, the Nabtisa's influence on him grew and he became more wary of the Palowids, though he did partake in campaigns against the various rebellions that arose and was well known to be the right hand of Lez. His children and descendants maintained a strong position in the Palowid military as well as the close relationship with other Calaids. They joined the Orifid cause once the inevitable Orifid rebellion took place.
• Kaf: And he was the sixth child of his mother. He was cared for by the Nabtisa towards the end of his childhood, though eventually departed Qari'Ab and disappeared from all records. It is not known what befell him.
• Kanan: And he was the seventh child of his mother. He too was cared for by the Nabtisa but was always sickly and weak. He spent the majority of his life in his mother's tent and eventually died aged nine or ten.
• Baern: And he was the eighth child of his mother. He was greatly influenced by both the Nabtisa and his older brother Raga. He was a well-known warrior and a deep thinker. He joined with the Nafzakia when she came and eventually escaped with her. He died of a fever in Eni-Elia, and it is more likely that he was poisoned by agents of the Palowids. His children were cared for by the Nabtisa, and his descendants today dwell in Darofid. Unlike their ancient father, they are not followers of the Bato-Elyd Patriarchate.
• Hadar: And he was the ninth and final child of his mother. And as with his other siblings, the influence of the Nabtisa on him was apparent. It is said that she bid him travel away from Qari'Ab and establish himself in the north-eastern village of Mersia, whose people had been converted by the Shohiquy in earlier times. And he dwelled with them and married a number of their women, and 'tis known that he and his descendants maintained a close relationship with the Orifids of Qari'Ab. And Mersia was by the time of the Orifid rebellion a town of some size and of the first to declare its support for the rebels. The Merso-Hadarids dwell in Mersia to this day.

Of the children of Bayda Anja [meaning: Far-Eyed Anja]:

• Jarl Auga [meaning: the King]: And he was the first of his mother's children. And he was known amongst his siblings as 'the King', for he had their unswerving loyalty. And it is said that they rejected the continuation of the Patriarchate following the Prophet-Patriarch's death, being of the view that the Patriarchate passed from this world with him and was unique to the Atlaqoos and none other. When the Mikraho seized the Patriarchate the Auga refused to pledge allegiance to him and, along with his mother and the Anjawids, resisted him. They eventually migrated en masse to the north where they established themselves as dominant players. And the Auga was the first of the Jarlid kings of the Realm in the North. And many scholars are of the view that they are of a faith and we of another, though I, having passed through their land, must wholly disagree.
• Mit: And he was the second child of his mother. And with the Bayda's children in general, he was far closer to his fellow Anjawids than to his siblings from different mothers. And he was of the Triumvirate who were from an early point in Jarlid history appointed as advisers to the king, as well as a counterbalance. And he was the Right Hand of the King.
• Aril: And she was the third child of her mother. And she was quiet and seemed to all who saw her uninvolved in political intrigues or struggles for power. And she, perhaps unsurprisingly to other Anjawids, was of the Triumvirate, though nothing preceding her appointment ever suggested that she was viewed as a leading figure amongst the Anjawids. And she was the King's Word.
• Zind: And he was the fourth child of his mother. He was of the Triumvirate and was the King's Strong Arm. And he was known for his immense bodily strength which rivalled even that of the Qai. And it is said in the reports that he and the Qai would endeavour to outdo one another in feats of strength and were a spectacle and well-known to all others. And he left Qari'Ab along with the other Anjawids, and it is said that when news reached him of the killing of the Qai he wept for days and eventually had to be restrained from marching out on his own to avenge his beloved rival and, some say, friend. His descendants are known as the Qaio in honour of their esteemed ancestor and his esteemed rival-friend, and they consider themselves the spiritual descendants of the Qai whose children were all slaughtered by the Mikraho. They are a warlike clan and have many unique traditions and ways, and have for long ensured the military dominance of the Jarlids in the north and their successful resistance of both Palowid and Orifid attempts to subdue them and incorporate them into the Realm in the South.
• Semt, Hazm, Mal, Dabab, and Vangar: And they were the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth children of their mother respectively. And they were young when the Prophet-Patriarch was martyred and were taken with their mother when she departed with the rest of her progeny. And it is well known that Bayda was never very close with the other wives of the Prophet-Patriarch and saw him as her only link to Qari'Ab and its inhabitants.

Of the children of Kae Ayunadaki [meaning: of the Laughing Eyes]:

• Rana Qalbidaq'Aaq [meaning: the Beating Heart]: And she was her mother's firstborn. And she was a joyous soul, much like her blessed mother, and brought smiles and happiness wherever she happened to be. And her father is known to have loved her greatly and often praised her character. And he called her "the Beating Heart of my Household", which eventually became the more well-known Qalbidaq'Aaq. And she was very close with her sister, the Shohiqam, and constantly petitioned the Mikraho to cease his persecution of the Zekrids. In the years following the Shohiqam's martyrdom and the failed Great Crusade, she became increasingly disillusioned with and critical of the Palowids. She disappeared in the Mikraho's later reign without any trace (and she was most probably killed), and her disappearance caused the Kaeids to rise up in revolt. And her descendants, the Ranawids, supported the Orifid revolt and dwell in Qari'Ab to this day. They are sympathetic towards the Eliad and Bato-Elyd Patriarchates but view the Orifids in a positive light for the most part.
• Indi: And she was her mother's second child. And she was known for her lightheartedness and wit and is known to have been sympathetic towards the Mikraho in his early years. She did not partake in his persecution of the Zekrids or military expeditions but is known to have been one of his advisers. She condemned him scathingly after the disappearance of the Qalbidaq'Aaq, but did not rise up in revolt like other Kaeids, a thing which causes Kaeids today to generally look down upon the Indids. They remained neutral during the Orifid revolt.
• Vetri Qarqazifa [meaning: the First Qarqaz]: And he was his mother's third child. He was a man of deep understanding and knowledge, known to have followed his father around everywhere and to have endeavoured to learn from him all that there is to know. And though he rarely spoke in public, the death of his elder sister gave him the opportunity to display his charisma and brilliant leadership. He organised the Kaeids and successfully seized Qari'Ab, forcing the Mikraho to flee. A year-long civil war ensued, and the Kaeids were ultimately defeated and the Qarqazifa slain. His descendants were spared and rose up alongside the Orifids during their revolt. Many great scholars have emerged from his line, and they are privy to vast swathes of knowledge which the Vetrids secretively keep within their circles - and we condemn them for that!
• Klup: And he was his mother's fourth child. And he was a fierce warrior, quick to anger and fond of laughter and poetry and strange herbs and concoctions which altered one's mind for varying periods of time. And his father was often displeased with all that he did with regards to these strange herbs and concoctions. He was found dead in his tent with two of his wives in the early reign of the Mikraho. Sources say that they appear to have died due to ingesting a strange new herb - and others say it was because they ingested large quantities of a herb they often used. And his descendants, the Klupids, are known for their knowledge on herbs and strange concoctions - many great mediciners have emerged from them, and many klups as kluppish as Klup [and a "klup" is broad term used in reference to a person who is a fool, a cretin, an imbecile, a dunce, a nincompoop, and other such meanings].
• Taglib: And he was his mother's fifth child. Like his elder brother, he was a fierce warrior-poet and a master of spear and bow. It is known that he was the silent military mind behind the Qarqazifa's early military success. Following their defeat, he was imprisoned for a long time by the Mikraho, and was not released until his successor, Umdat, became the Palowid Patriarch. His descendants dwell in Qari'Ab to this day and are very well-connected to the Orifid military, a reward for their role in the successful Orifid overthrow of the Palowids.
• Lafad: And he was his mother's sixth child. And he was born blind and was cared for by his mother. And the Ayunadaki was famed for the many tales she knew and for the charming manner in which she told these tales. Lafad became her de facto disciple and became famed as the blind storyteller in later times. Patriarch Umdat, in particular, honoured him. It is said he believed in the Nafzakia's message in secret though this was never confirmed. The Lafadids, who to this day dwell in Qari'Ab, are renown storytellers and poets.
• Yadan: And he was his mother's seventh child. His was an adventurous and curious soul, and he set out from a young age to explore the world, find adventure and spread the message of his father. He is a famed ascetic and many ascetic orders trace their origins back to him. It is said that more than a thousand tribes (and in other sources, villages) embraced the faith due to his preaching. And he was of noble character, kind, humble, patient, diligent, just and incredibly perceptive. He left behind him no children, but many pupils learned from him. He was one of the faith's pillars. May the Moon-Mother bless him and reward him greatly for all his efforts.
• Zanda: And she was her mother's eighth child. She was a passionate warrior and was influenced by her brother's asceticism - for she never married. She had a strong hatred for injustice and was of the foremost and most famed fighters during the Kaeid uprising and subsequent civil war, wherein she met her demise. She is commemorated to this day by the Taglibids.
• Rad: And he was his mother's ninth and final child. He joined the Nafzakia when she came and is said to have loved her profoundly. It is unlikely that he ever told her or that it was requited. He was killed while holding a pass along with a few others while the Nafzakia and the rest of her followers made their escape towards Eni-Elia. His descendants dwell in Eni-Elia to this day and are loyal followers of the Bato-Elyd Patriarchate.

Of the children of Bet Maligna [meaning: the Cursed, the Damned, the Vile]:

• Sanibet: The first and only child of his mother. The Maligna's child and his descendants enjoyed protected status in a village constructed specifically for them, and which stands to this day not far from Qari'Ab - Qari'Bet. And her descendants, the descendants of Sanibet, are known as Betids.

As can be seen, the Mikraho was responsible for the murders of at least twenty-eight members of the Prophet-Patriarch's blessed household, and we have refrained from making mention of the Patriarch's grandchildren and others killed by this reprehensible animal. The horror of it is incomprehensible, and the curses we wish upon him uncountable.

His early reign was unstable as he set about consolidating his hold on power. The first great rebellion was that of the Shohiqam which was successful insofar as it split the Realm for a few years. When war recommenced, the Shohiqam was defeated and the Mikraho was finally able to unite the Realm in the South. Not too long thereafter, the Great Crusade arrived, and despite its threat to the Mikraho's rule, he was able to crush it.

There followed a period of internal stability that saw the Realm in the South expand greatly. Much of what was under the Prophet-Patriarch's rule before was reconquered. In his final years, following his murder of the Qalbidaq'Aaq, the Kaeid uprising took place. For the first time, he lost Qari'Ab and was at his most vulnerable. Despite that, he had reconquered it within a year and slain the Qarqazifa.

On his death, a surprisingly peaceful transition took place and his eldest son, the Patriarch Umdat, took over the Patriarchate.

Patriarch Umdat, lived from 30-76 P, and ruled from 73 P until his death at the age of 46. And his reign was 3 years.

And he is known as Judil [meaning: the Just]. And he was as to his father as clay is to water. He was a blessed and holy man, learned in the religion, and immensely pious. And he is known as the "Good Palowid". His short reign saw the ending of much of his predecessor's draconian policies, and focus turned to ensuring the well-being of the faithful rather than maintaining the interests of the Palowid clan. It is said that he had plans to make an Orifid his heir, and some even say that he planned to make an Eliad.
He died under suspicious circumstances early in the third year of his reign and was replaced by his repulsive, rotten, and evil son, Kirtam.

Patriarch Kirtam, lived from 55-98 P, and ruled from 76 P until his death at the age of 43. And his reign was 22 years.

And he is known as Malamn [meaning: the Damned]. His ascension to the Patriarchate was received with an outcry from the populace, for he was known for his impiety and irreligiosity. And he publically mocked the blessed children of the Prophet-Patriarch and treated the memory of our holy master with contempt - for he wished for the people to forget the Prophet-Patriarch and honour the Mikraho in his stead. And he, like his hated grandfather before him, claimed to be a child of the Moon-Mother and a prophet.
As though in outright rejection of his claims, the Moon-Mother sent the Nafzakia to Qari'Ab the following year. And she was 47 years old when she arrived.

An aged and wise woman, she had the charisma of her noble father and grandfather, and she was known for her beauty and for her red hair which even in old age did not wane. And she mounted a mighty religious resistance to the Malamn's fabricated claims, and many followed her. Of her mos-

[The text cuts off abruptly here and a few pages later is a small note listing the other Palowid Patriarchs:

Patriarch Palo II, lived from 70-121 P, and ruled from 98 P until his death at the age of 51. And his reign was 23 years.

Patriarch Okil, lived from 97-149 P, and ruled from 121 P until his death at the age of 52. And his reign was 28 years.

Matriarch Lira, lived from 123-151 P, and ruled from 149 P until her murder at the age of 28. And her reign was 2 years.

Patriarch Fawmar, lived from 125-154 P, and ruled from 151 P until his death in battle at the age of 29. And his reign was 3 years.

Patriarch Palo III, lived from 149-155 P, and ruled from 154 P until his overthrow and murder at the age of 6. And his reign was 1 year.]



Patriarch Orifil, lived from 115-172 P, and ruled from 155 P until his death at the age of 57. And his reign was 17 years.

And he is Orifil, son of Mira, daughter of Aran, son of Kiro, son of Orif Shohiquy, son of the Prophet-Patriarch Eskandar Atlaqoos.

Eskandar [0-37 P] -> Orif [17-37 P] -> Kiro [30-83 P] -> Aran [57-109 P] -> Mira [73-122 P] -> Patriarch Orifil [115-172 P]

And he took his mother's place as chief of the Orifid clan at the young age of seven. And it had long been agreed, since the days of the Nabtisa, that the Orifid chief also occupied the position of Great Chief over all the Calawids. And thus, from the age of seven, he occupied one of the most powerful positions in the Palowid Realm, with Calawids at all ranks and geographical locations in the Realm being loyal to him before anyone else.

The Palowid Patriarch at the time, the recently ascended Okil, was well-aware of the danger posed by the Orifids. However, he viewed the Jarlids in the north and the Eliads and Bato-Elyds in Eni-Elia to be the far more pressing concern. Throughout his reign, as mentioned in the previous chapter, he kept a close watch on Orifil and ensured that the Orifid chief regularly visited him in the Palowid palace at the centre of Qari'Ab. Beyond that, the terrifying Okil relied on the iron grip he had on the state to ensure Orifid obedience. And that most tyrannical and war-like Palowid got what he wanted - for none dared to raise a voice against Okil, let alone a fist or spear.

But his oppressive ways did not mean that dissent was extinguished completely. It only meant that it occurred in the darkness of night, behind tightly sealed doors and in hushed and terrified whispers.
When Okil died and the decadent Matriarch Lira took over, the dissenters grew braver. She was no Okil and delighted in her luxuries and lying with her husbands and drinking the drinks brought to her by those Klupids who were kept at court. And as mentioned, the borders of the Realm grew insecure under her unwatchful eye, and the nomads in the east raided the Realm's peripheral settlements freely, and the Jarlid aggressions in the north went unpunished, and the tribal coalitions in the south grew braver and encroached on the Realm's territory. 'Twas a surprise to none, then, that she was quickly murdered by those she thought her loyalists a short two years into her reign.

While many of the dissenters mentioned earlier were either of the Eliad or Bato-Elyd bent, these two pretender Patriarchates had no effective power in Qari'Ab. The Orifids alone had power and authority similar to their's and, which was more, were in a position to strike. In many ways, the Calawid penetration into the Palowid state put them in a better position than either the Eliads or Bato-Elyds even had these two had a greater presence in Qari'Ab.
As it were, the Orifids quickly became a magnet for dissenters of all stripes during Lira's short two-year reign, and by the time of her murder were able to, if they so wished, launch an assault against the sometime-oppressive and now decadent and incompetent Palowid state. The instalment of Patriarch Fawmar, however, prevented any such move.

Fawmar, the second child of Okil, was a known warrior and had clout within the military. His reputation as a cruel and unforgiving leader preceded him and none dared test this seeming reincarnation of his father. He was quick to live up to his reputation, crushing the eastern nomadic raiders and sending a considerable force headed by the brilliant Ormangar, a Torawid, to put down the encroachers in the south.

Even as the southern tribes were being dealt with, he readied another force which he personally led north and for the next two years he fought a vicious war of attrition against the Jarlid forces over key border regions. Whereas a decisive confrontation was avoided successfully for a while, two mighty forces clashed at last in 154 P. The Battle at Irna, named after a nearby Jarlid settlement, has gone down in history as the one that potentially broke the Palowid state and presented the Orifids with their golden moment. At Irna, Fawmar fell. In Qari'Ab all was chaos as his five-year-old son, Palo III, was declared Patriarch.

Ormangar, who had made spectacular advances against the southerners, swiftly left his conquests and made for Qari'Ab upon learning of Fawmar's death in battle. But Orifil had not been sitting quietly as all this happened.

Even from the moment of Fawmar's departure to the north, he had set about organising his followers and sending messengers to all potential rebels in the Realm. Critically, he was in contact with Calawid elements who were present with Ormangar in the south. The Torawid was a powerful figure and had more or less, along with Fawmar and their other allies, held the Palowid Realm together during Lira's disastrous reign. Any feasible plan to overthrow the Palowids would require the elimination of both Fawmar and Ormangar. By the grace of the Moon-Mother, Fawmar was slain. Only Ormangar remained.

The long-planned attempt on his life took place when he had camped some way south of Qari'Ab on his return journey. Two agents were smuggled into the camp by some Ragawids on the orders of the Great Chief. They made it into Ormangar's tent, only to discover that it was empty. Soldiers were swift to encircle the tent, but the two agents had each slit their wrists and were dead before the wounds could be sealed or they could be questioned.
This foiled assassination attempt put Ormangar on full alert, and news of the complete disappearance of the forces which had been with Fawmar in the north furthered his suspicions. The shattered remains of the army defeated at Irna had found their way to Mersia where the impatient Merso-Hadarids had trapped and slaughtered them, before sending news of the victory to the Great Chief in Qari'Ab and preparing to march out to his support.

With things accelerating beyond expectations in the north and with Ormangar's survival and nearness to Qari'Ab, Orifil felt hard-pressed to act before the Torawid reached Qari'Ab. He sent a swift messenger to Eni-Elia with news of the "victory" at Mersia and spurring the Eliads and Bato-Elyds to rise up and march out against Ormangar before he arrived in the capital.

Bato-Elyds: Eskandar [0-37 P] -> Bato [12-30 P] -> Ely [30-78 P] -> Emara [49-90 P] -> Sakin [72-124 P] -> Innasim [95-148 P] -> Miqda[119-172 P]
Eliads: Eskandar [0-37 P] -> Elia [13-43 P]-> Zekra [29-67 P] -> Eliali [53-98 P] -> Mar [76-112 P] -> Sa'aen [99-151 P] -> Albitra [123-168 P]

The Bato-Elyd Patriarch and the Eliad Matriarch, Miqda and Albitra, met quickly on receiving Orifil's message and agreed that the moment of truth had arrived, and they pledged to put their differences aside and march out as one against their shared and hated foe. Albitra called up Eliad loyalists in Eni-Elia; the Rubawids, Hubalids, Uzzitids and Ruwayids (known as the Zekrid Coalition at Eni-Elia and influential even to this day), while Miqda called up the Bato-Elyd loyalist Amarids and fanatically devoted Radids who also dwelled in Eni-Elia. The Alawids, who dwelled north of Qari'Ab in Qari'Ala, were also known supporters of the Bato-Elyds and were likewise summoned by Miqda.

Eliad and Bato-Elyd partisans in far off settlements were likewise called upon to rise up, though they were not able to make it to Eni-Elia in time to aid in the coming battle against Ormangar. In Qari'Maki, the largely pro-Bato-Elyd Meliwids mobilised (and the minority amongst them who were of the Eliad faction also rose up with their fellow clansmen), and the Garids - evenly split between Eliads and Bato-Elyds - mobilised along with them. The people of Qari'Maki, largely Bato-Elyd partisans, likewise mobilised.
In Qari'Derk the pro-Bato-Elyd Damids rose up, and the Derkids (seeing this) also began their preparations despite not receiving orders from Qari'Ab bidding them to do so. When the Merso-Hadarids passed by Qari'Derk on their march south, the Derkids and Damids joined them.

As the Bato-Elyds and Eliads declared open insurrection, the Orifids in Qari'Ab - and their allies - remained quiet and waited on the reeling Palowid court to react. The boy-Patriarch Palo III had barely assumed his position and was already being subjected to court intrigues - his mother from one side attempting to manipulate and protect, the military faction, on the other hand, pushing for action despite the fact that Ormangar had not yet arrived. The Nakawids, famed for their constant court intrigues, were likewise attempting to worm their way into the head of the boy-Patriarch. And though the paralysed state needed no further paralysis, Orifil commanded the influential Calawid Lezids at the Palowid court to create mischief and confusion at every opportunity, and to sow discord wherever it could silently be sown.

And thus, even as the combined Bato-Elyd and Eliad forces marched out of Eni-Elia to meet Ormangar, the Palowid court was unable to establish enough control or order to realise the danger or react and send out forces to aid their most capable commander. And perhaps if they had been able to, they would have survived.
The Bato-Elyd force camped near the foot of the Qari'Ab mountains on their southern side, while the Eliad force hid in the thick forests sprawling westward from the mountains. Once Ormangar's force appeared on the horizon, Miqda commanded his force to arise and become clearly visible as they marched south-east, away from the mountains and the thick forests, towards the Palowid forces.

As the intelligent Torawid halted his march and began to prepare for delaying manoeuvres, the Calawid elements amongst his forces broke away and, organising very swiftly, struck at their former comrades. With one flank engaged and his force suddenly weakened and demoralised, Ormangar found the large Bato-Elyd force upon him. The memories of the devout do not fade, and amongst the war cries that day were the names of those murdered throughout Palowid history, and particularly by the Torawids: "For you, Oh murdered Rad!", "Assuage the thirst of the Qarqazifa!", "Oh, betrayal! Oh Baern!", "For the Avengement of Ala!", "Oh Nafzakia!"

Yet the Torawid was a mighty foe and an experienced one. Miqda had anticipated as much and had thought ahead, foreseeing that Ormangar would attempt to withdraw to the thick forests if the tides turned against him - and so the Eliads were waiting there. But it seemed the Torawid was far more cunning and skilled than Miqda had given him credit for. In their passion and enthusiasm to shed the blood of the hated oppressors, the Bato-Elyd force had forced its way between the Torawid's forces and their Calawid allies, enabling the Torawid to extract himself from battle and begin a quick retreat eastward, away from the Bato-Elyds and their allies, and away from the thick forests to the west.

Upon regaining some level of control over his forces, Miqda sent a messenger to Albitra bidding her march out of the forest in order to give chase to the fleeing Palowid force. And upon regrouping and organising, that they did. But not even those chosen and elevated and blessed by the Moon-Mother were to catch Ormangar if he wished otherwise!

And so, even as rebels descended from the north and Orifil prepared his supporters for a takeover of Qari'Ab, the Torawid continued his march to the capital. And now he was on full alert and considered all to be enemies unless they proved themselves to be otherwise.

Meanwhile, in Qari'Ab, news of more rebels descending from the north shook the Palowids from their paralysed stupor. A force was readied, consisting of the famed Walowids, Reebowids, and Sahowids. And they collectively made up an elite force known for its military prowess and efficient savagery. They were commanded to march out, and at their head was the bullish Tyrin, who had in him Walowid, Reebowid, and Sahowid blood.

By this point, the combined Qari'Derkid-Mersid force had met with the Qari'Makid force and both were marching forth and growing even as they crawled single-mindedly towards Qari'Ab. And they had elected as their commander the Garid chieftess, Kaelin. And she was a masterful tactician and well-known warrior, having led the local Qari'Makid defensive against Jarlid incursions on the border near Qari'Maki during her father's later chieftaincy and once she took his place as chieftess. And this was an honour bestowed on the Garids from the earliest days - some say by the Nafzakia, and others say it was, in fact, her blessed mother who did so.

Eskandar [0-37 P] -> Gar [14-63 P] -> Elyne [30-87 P] -> Ankib [58-102 P] -> Rastin [72-117 P] -> Rossum [98-139 P] -> Kaelin [122-182 P]

Kaelin and Tyrin's forces met on a great open plain north of Qari'Ab, and the Palowid force had a grove to their backs whereas the rebels had nothing but the the plains and open skies. Tyrin was a straightforward warrior who had little interest in manoeuvres and complex tactics (unlike Ormangar). The forces were more or less equal in size, but the Palowids had the advantage of soldiering experience and traditions, as well as Palowid war-spears and war-bows (though Tyrin appears to have foregone the latter in favour of the former).
Kaelin's Qari'Makid forces had some experience, but that experience was largely in skirmishes and swift manoeuvring, not great open battles on a field. The others were willing volunteers who had perhaps received some informal training, but nothing more.

What followed is the first example of an attempt at establishing a formation in the history of warfare. Until that point, commanders tended to rely on swift manoeuvres and tiring out the enemy force, or forcing them into a disadvantageous position through attacking and quickly withdrawing, thereby goading the enemy force into pursuing. But formations were unheard of.
Kaelin bid her force of spearmen to form up on one another in four lines, and for her bowmen to form up behind them. The formation was primitive at best and the untrained and ill-disciplined force struggled to maintain it even without being in battle. She commanded the first line to duck down on their knees, behind their wicker shields, and to hold their spears outwards and to not move at all. The second line was commanded to close in and hold their spears steady in the gaps between their comrades' shields, and the lines behind likewise held their spears above the shoulders of the lines ahead. The bowmen behind were commanded to prepare themselves and to fire at will. And they were told that, upon running out of arrows, they were to pick up their spears and split into two groups, circling around the spearmen to flank the enemy force and destroy them.

And so it was. The Palowid force ran forth in the chaotic nature of all forces in those days, and the rebels did as their commander commanded. Though the Palowids were, as individuals, capable warriors in every sense, they fell like flies before the shaky wall Kaelin had built. And though shaky, it held until the bowmen carried out their flanking manoeuvre and caused the Walowids and their allies to descend into a confused frenzy - some lashing out wildly while others realised their defeat and ran for the grove. Seeing victory nigh, the first line of spearmen rose up and began to advance also, forcing the Palowid force to begin fleeing to the grove en masse. And Kaelin's impassioned force, impossible to control completely in the heat of that victorious moment, followed their foes. And the grove rang with the cries of the Walowids and the others. The battle is to this day known as the Grove of the Weeping Walos, and that grove is today known by that name also. And we have visited it, and by the Moon-Mother, you can yet hear them cry and weep!

Intoxicated by their tremendous victory, Kaelin's force soon regrouped and continued the march to Qari'Ab. And it is not known what, exactly, happened to the remnants of the Palowid force. The generally accepted view is that many scattered and escaped, and many were also taken prisoner. But these are merely assumptions and there is no source that makes mention of their fate.

News of the Palowid defeat reached Orifil before it reached the Palowid court. Assured of incoming reinforcements, and certain of the unparalleled weakness of the Palowid state, Orifil, at last, declared his rebellion and called his supporters to rise up and overthrow the decadent Palowid dynasty. And so it came to be. The Palowid court was stormed, the boy-Patriarch was slain, and all the Palowid loyalists who were found were likewise slaughtered. Palowids were slaughtered and enslaved. Others managed to escape and raise up pro-Palowid forces elsewhere, rallying under the banner of the Torawid in the eastern regions. And even as Orifil established himself in Qari'Ab, the Jarlids descended from the north to unite the Realm in the South with the Realm in the North. With none left in Qari'Maki to offer any resistance, they had seized the moment. And they invaded with a vision to put an end to the great many "heresies" which had grown and establish a purely secular, temporal, and united Eskanadran kingdom on earth. And this strange view is one of the chief reasons that many scholars see the Jarlids as heretics who have misunderstood the faith, or lost it completely. But we pardon them their errors and see hope for them yet. May the Moon-Mother guide them and bring them back into the fold of the faithful and the Realm.

Meanwhile, the Bato-Elyds and Eliads were able to unite with their loyalist forces and, were it not for the dangers approaching them from all directions, would have turned upon one another and the Orifids. As it were, Orifil bid Miqda and Albitra return to Eni-Elia and gather up their property and people, "for I have returned Qari'Ab to you, and you to it".

With the two separated from their loyalists, he split them up and placed them under the command of two of his family members and placed loyal Calawids amongst them. A Lezid, Arnibo, was commanded to march east and exterminate the threat posed by Ormangar once and for all, and with him all those who remained loyal to the Palowids.

The other force was placed under the command of Safina, a Ragawid. And he commanded her to train the force and prepare them to march out against the Jarlids - and he, Orifil, planned to lead them personally.
And as all this occurred he began preparations - on the advice of his most trusted advisor and guide, the Meraid chieftess and his wife, Lamitra - for the building of a new settlement which would become the new capital of the Orifid Realm: Darofid. And he left the matter of establishing it in his wife's hands as he prepared to march out against the Jarlids.

And it came to be, during this time, that a group of militant zealots in Qari'Ab declared that they were going to gather outside Qari'Bet and cleanse it of every living soul in revenge for the murder of the Prophet-Patriarch by their vile mother. And on hearing this, Orifil summoned these to them and reprimanded them severely, and it was the first sign that he was of the hypocrites - for he protected those whose should ne'er be protected! Vile ones lower than even the Palowids in our estimations. May the Moon-Mother curse the children of Bet, and may she make their purging something fierce and something soon. And these militant zealots were not a strange occurrence by that time, for many of the Yadanite holy orders had become militant - some fighting the oppressive Palowids on the side of the Orifids, and others fighting the Orifid "insurgents against the will of the Moon-Mother."

With his forces trained, and with the Bato-Elyds and Eliads, along with other clans from Eni-Elia, established in Qari'Ab, and with his wife in control of all things in the capital (still Qari'Ab at this point), Orifil sallied forth to defeat the Jarlids and remove them from the Realm in the South.

In the east, while all this occurred, Arnibo, at last, came to face Ormangar. They attacked and withdrew, chased and were chased by one another, and they raided each other's supply lines and in all ways attempted to weaken the other. And this was the case for some weeks. But Ormangar knew that time was not on his side, for the longer he tarried, the likelier it was that more troops would arrive to aid his foe. And so he sent some of his forces in one direction and feigned that he was planning a retreat to the east, where he could fortify himself in one settlement or another.

Learning of this, Arnibo immediately gave chase and was still in pursuit when night had fallen. And under the cover of night, Ormangar - in an exceedingly reckless and daring manner - commanded his force to split into ten groups and to rush in differing directions, and he told them where to regroup at a later point.

Darkness covered his plan, and Arnibo was confused and deceived and was unable to tell in which direction his enemy had escaped. It was indeed a daring and reckless act, but if there was anyone who could ever manage it, it was Ormangar! By the time morning had dawned, Ormangar's forces had made it quite some distance to the west and had completely cut-off Arnibo's capacity to retreat towards Qari'Ab and left him in hostile eastern territory. Fearful of the position he found himself in, he had no choice but to pursue Ormangar.

The Torawid chose the battlefield, and Arnibo marched to him. On a hilly plain, Ormangar fortified himself and battle was joined. Having chosen the battlefield, and having readied his men and been at rest beforehand, and being a military genius in all ways, Ormangar easily crushed Arnibo's force and took many prisoners, Arnibo amongst them.

When news of the horrific defeat reached Qari'Ab, Orifil had already departed and the Torawid was already marching towards it. Lamitra summoned Kaelin to her and gave her command of all the forces available in Qari'Ab and the surrounding region, and she bid the Garid chieftess made famous by her heroic victory at the Grove of the Weeping Walos to march out and ensure the survival of the Orifid state as she had ensured its rise before. And so she did.

Gathering around her the Bato-Elyds with Miqda's blessing (and he, in fact, joined her), she then approached Albitra and requested she raise her loyal supporters and once more unite with them to fend off the Palowid remnants. And though relations have very quickly soured again between the two competing Patriarchates following the overthrow of the boy-Patriarch, she agreed and marched out under Kaelin.
Volunteers soon arrived from Eni-Elia and Qari'Ala, but the force was nowhere near the size of that which had sallied forth under Arnibo. But she was not dismayed, and Miqda and Albitra took it up by turns to deliver sermons and remind the people that "many a little group has defeated a larger group by the will and grace and blessing of the Moon-Mother. Fear not for She is with you, She sees and She hears!"

The Torawid, pressed for time, had decided to make for a mountain-pass just east of Qari'Ab. It was the shortest route towards it without travelling all the way around the mountain range which protected the holy town. His haste was to prove his undoing. Positioning a formation of spearmen at the end of the narrow pass, Kaelin commanded her troops to ascend the mountain either side of the pass and to hide in the rocky outcrops. Once the Torawid's forces entered the pass, they were to seal its entrance by pushing boulders down into it and thereafter firing arrows and throwing rocks and spears down at them. And all who remained would be cut-down by the spearmen waiting at the other end.

And that came to be. But the Torawid was ever a cunning and suspicious commander, and he did not march with his entire force into the pass. Not wishing to notify him of the plan before all his troops had entered the pass, Kaelin did not single for her hidden troops to seal the pass or attack the soldiers going through. Eventually, the small number of the Torawid's forces found themselves facing a wall of spears and did not advance any further, sending a messenger back to notify Ormangar of the obstacle they now faced. Learning of this, he sent a larger force in and bid them engage.

The Orifid force was commanded to tighten their formation and prepare to mow them down as they came. Some archers, who were far enough down the pass as to be out of the Torawid's sight began firing down at the enemy. The engagement was long, and the narrowness of the pass meant that no more than five men could at any one point walk down it, and only three men with shield and spear in hand could actually engage. Men fell and the pass became blocked, and the Thorawid's men had to climb over their dead in order to continue fighting, and those coming up would slip on the blood of the dead which flowed down as they walked up. It was a battle of endurance which lasted some three days before the Torawid withdrew and decided to take the long route around - his force diminished much. Thus was the Battle of Blood-River Pass.
Ormangar thought himself safe having withdrawn, but Kaelin was a master of attrition warfare and sent her most experienced skirmishers to cut off his supplies and harass his flanks - killing who they could before fleeing, and then returning at a later point to do the same.

Kaelin's main force, meanwhile, retreated to Qari'Ab where reinforcements from some of the settlements further off had by this point arrived. Resting for a day and reporting to Lamitra, they soon set out once more. But before they had been on the march long, scouts reported back to Kaelin informing her that the Ormangar had retreated back to the east and was no longer advancing on Qari'Ab.
The Torawid had realised that an attack on Qari'Ab would be futile, and even if it succeeded, it was almost impossible to hold the capital for long. And so, with his signature pragmatism, he had withdrawn to regroup and strengthen his position in the east. As it were, the Palowids had been slaughtered and others importance in the Palowid state had likewise been purged or had disappeared. There was to be no return for the Palowids.

Kaelin immediately changed her route upon learning of his retreat and followed east. She would not meet the Torawid in battle again, for he would die of a fever some weeks later. She led her forces to the east and, without their genius commander, the remaining rebels were easily defeated and exterminated. No prisoners were taken and all those who had any links with the Palowid state were likewise killed – it was not so much out of loyalty to the Orifids, they did so but as a form of further vengeance against the killers of the pious and noble children of the Prophet-Patriarch.

In the north, Orifil had managed to push the Jarlid forces to the extremities of the Realm’s borders. On a dark, wintry day, Jarlid King and Orifid King met on the field of battle, and Orifil routed his foe and scattered his forces. The Battle of the Two Kings established, for a good few decades, Orifid supremacy at the border. In his later years, Orifil would return and expand further into the Realm in the North.

With the last threat to Orifid power removed, Orifil returned to Qari’Ab and went about ensuring the construction of the new capital.

[The next few pages have been ripped and some kind of substance has been spilt on many of the remaining pages, causing them to stick to one another. The last page has a note stuck on it listing the Orifid Patriachs who followed Orifil.]

Patriarch Darowel, lived from 138-192 P, and ruled from 172 P until his death at the age of 54. And his reign was 20 years.

Patriarch Maral, lived from 151-213 P, and ruled from 192 P until his death at the age of 62. And his reign was 21 years.

Matriarch Frala, lived from 182-227, and ruled from 213 P until her death at the age of 45. And her reign was 14 years.

Matriarch Inar, born 212, and ruled from 227 P to the present (229 P at the time of writing) and is aged 17. And her reign has so far been 2 years.

The valley of peace lived up to its name just as much as it did on any other day. It was not often that anything new arrived, let alone anything that would disturb Niciel's decree. That wouldn't change for a long time, after today.

The trees brushed on in the light wind and birds chirped. The buzzing wings of the new arrival fit in without any disturbance at all. It swooped in like the other birds and was coloured like them as well, but it did not chirp.

It perched on a branch and folded its metallic wings. Silent on that bough, it watched the distant Niciel and witnessed the end of a meeting with Galbar's interstellar invaders.

What spite comes next, overwhelmed sibling?

---

"Not spite over myself, under likely projection."

On the central tile of Cornerstone, under a partly cloudy night, Toun mumbled over his latest project. The spinning wheel between his hands held aloft a larger shape than usual. An egg the size of an ogre's fist and made from white clay. Divots sucked in on its front to form tiny eyes.

"It shall depend on how fast you all learn."

---

The city of Xerxes was rather more changed by its recent events. To call it a city was an injustice to cities, though the prospects of its future perhaps had it deserve a more lenient review.

Rubble was strewn around filth, rot, charcoal, and barbarism. Animalistic survivors stalked the shadow of civilisation under the shadow of a ruined palace.

Another tiny bird buzzed in on blurred wings. It flew above the baying below, between the flocks of carrion birds with a sheen of black, but it was no eye of Reathos. Bits of metal glinted from the firelight below.

It's buzzing wingbeats stopped abruptly as it placed its feet on a brick pile and bounced up to the pile's summit. There, its eyes fell upon a disgraced king. A humiliated demigod.

And to think you were improving your people before recently. There is no greater purpose to you, brat.

Another strange black bird joined the other but flew off just as quickly. It found what it was looking for a short distance away. The scaly torturer.

Your essence, hm. How unfortunate that the greatest pain you will ever witness has already been inflicted upon you. It will keep you docile from me, at least. Or distracted. Fate does help at times, it seems.

---

The droningbirds were a small project, but no less important than Toun's other plans. He needed to keep up with the rest of the world, especially since demigods were shooting up out of the ground like spring flowers.

There were many emerging agents in the world and inconsistent prayers from mortals were not reliable enough to keep track of them.

Of course, the little spy birds were nothing compared to the current preparations. Now that they were sent out, Toun had moved on to the preparations for the further future.

"With this, dealing with the creeping crystals should not present a significant obstacle in the grand scheme. That much, at least, is required."

---

The next bird did not have to put forth much effort to camouflage itself. All around it was snow and ice. The tiny porcelain plates on its body shone natural and pure as it buzzed through the tundra.

It had less trouble finding its quarry than the other droningbirds, and the main reason was standing ahead on the mountain.

A young female dwarf in thick clothing stared blankly into the white mists until the buzzing neared. She raised a gloved arm horizontally in front of herself as the little white bird droned up and landed itself on the side of her wrist. The bird's eyes took on a blue hue, turning from beads of black jet to lapis lazuli.

They are within, Minus?

"Yes," the dwarf woman said in a gentler voice than any dwarves in the mountain behind her. "All of them appear to have come along the wake of godly deaths. Balance is restoring itself. Only Lazarus knows of me as of yet, but I will present myself if they need me. Or if they ask."

Inconsequential. Continue your vigil until further orders.

"As you wish, father." The dwarf watched as the bird fluttered off into an opening in the mountain. Two more birds fluttered in after it, turning a dark grey to hide still amongst the rocks.

"Are you feeling better now, father?"

...What is the cause for this question?

Minus answered in an inquisitive monotone. "This is the first time I have heard your voice since I felt your brothers and sisters pass away."

Focus on your mission, Minus.

---

"Natural speculation, an innefficient use of Minus' capabilities," Toun mumbled. "The necessary chaos in those twins' designs are taking their toll."

Toun wished the avatars' missions were not so important as to keep them separated. With the 'incident' between Conata and Majus, Toun wondered if he should cease to treat them as two separate individuals at all and keep them together forever.

The egg upon the spinning wheel had taken on more features. Symmetrical crevices lined its surface where ethereal strands were coming through. Two large arms hung from its sides, ending in gnarled claws.

---

The scene in the south pole was repeated upon a higher mountain, though this twin did not bother with a disguise. The porcelain knight upon the mountain peak held the haft of its pole hammer out for another white metallic bird to perch upon it. Again, the bird's eyes went blue.

You bestowed my power to Sularn?

"Yes father," the armoured gianted boomed in its unnerring voice.

Then your mission is done, Majus. No more realta shall attack here. Return to Cornerstone.

"At once, father."

The bird fluttered off down into the mountain home of the rovaick below, tailed by another metallic bird. The burgeoning population of the town did not often see such birds this high up, but they had too many of their own problems to pay them heed.

One of the birds banked sharply down another tunnel and into the chambers of a certain azibo prophet. It perched on a shelf and watched just as silently and still, but made no effort to hide.

The other bird made its way into a dark corner of the bedroom of a sleeping metallic demigoddess. It turned grey against the stone.

Conata opened her eyes as soon as she heard the buzzing of the wings. She thought she felt giant bone moving around, but she turned over to sleep again. It must have been a dream.

You will be more than your father bargained for, child. He must have planned it as such.

---

The new creature was almost done now. Its tiny sets of eyes opened to reveal a glowing blue, shimmering with power. Toun wrote glyphs into its inner workings, tuning the power to show with greater glory.

"Much and more. You will be my banner."

With a few last adjustments, Toun walked backwards over the moon-lit tiles, leaving the spinning wheel in his view. The wheel slowed to a stop when Toun did.

"Now you are complete."

The wheel lowered and was subsumed into the tiles below. The large egg melted and sank into the porcelain until the surface was as flush as it started.

---

The bird that buzzed onto the rigging of the small galley was not one Toun had expected to assign. Another droningbird that went to find Jvan found only a dormant body that would not awake with any guarantee. He needed to find Jvan's other machinations without simply diving into her undulating, comatose body.

It just so happened that the birds in Xerxes felt the caress of unseen appendages before they went for their quarries. The lingering presence of Jvan was a trail that directed Toun's bird to a mutated hain, helping a few last refugees to escape. The female hain was guarded by massive metal spheres that were of clear Jvanic design but would be easy to outmanoeuvre for the little spy bird if the galley was to remain above water.

Of course, this Jvanic thing was of particular importance due to its possible heading. It would have to travel far if it ever left the city, but if the Jvan-touched hain made it past the acalya, it would creep dangerously close to Toun's other project.

Less than optimal. Keeping track of this mortal will have to suffice for whatever plan you had here, Jvan. Other things will be revealed to me in time.

---

The now flat porcelain tiles were at peace for a moment. But, assembling the final product took did not take longer than half a minute with Toun's direct focus.

"Rise."

The flush tiles ground against themselves and bulged from the centre. Underneath where the wheel stood, the tiles peeled up and back slowly like the skin of a fruit. The grinding tiles gave way to a colossal white shape.

"No complications. Good enough."

The huge white egg-shaped creature rose further, towering greater than three times the height of Toun's form. A verticle mouth on its underside opened up between its two clawed arms and hummed a low note.

"One more detail."

---

The bird that flew to Yorum was less conspicuous than any, for it was no god or hero that it had to stalk. Merely a hain that had spoken to one.

Edda barely recognised the buzzing bird that fluttered from building to building, following the movement of herself and her entourage on the way to see the king.

You took your oath. Redeem yourself. None of you shall disappoint me.

---

The slave hain that approached Toun and the massive sighing creature did not have any fear in its demeanour. It marched on knowing that Toun was the guardian. He was the father of them all.

"Come closer." Toun asked the hain without turning to face it.

This was a big task, bigger than shaping arches and strange shells of big soldiers all day. A primitive excitement put a spring into the stunted creature's step.

Toun took a single step to turn and look down at the hain. His glowing blue eye did not have any anger or distress today. Only curiosity. The father of the five tribes hardly ever seemed distressed when he had a project to concentrate upon.

Without bending his torso, Toun stretched his arms until his hands took the little hain under the arms. He gently lifted the creature up to his eye-level like it was a toddler.

The hain flicked its head around as obliviously as a hen.

Toun turned again to the massive creature he had made and the front of its many-eyed face opened. Two huge doors of thick porcelain plate gently pushed apart to reveal a shining aluminium frame surrounded by pulsing red flesh.

The hain saw this behind him and smelled pulsing power. Not even the smell of the twisted and unnatural structure seemed to bother him, despite its gnarled and tortured appearance.

When Toun walked up to the revealed frame, he gently placed the hain into it, leaving it standing in what was a surprisingly comfortable position.

"You were never a creature designed to fly," Toun murmured with his quivering voice. The god began stepping back. "Now you will fly for the rest of your life."

The hain tried to move but found that metal braces had gently wrapped around its limbs and torso. Its heart began to quicken.

The doors lurched and pulled with a tendonous squelch, slowly closing.

The hain did not have the intelligence to ask if it should be afraid. It knew it was afraid already. Its head began flicking swiftly, teeth chattered. It struggled but could not break its bonds.

The doors were closing.

The hain looked through the last sliver of the outside world between the doors. He saw Toun's curious eye.

There was a dull thud. Everything was dark.

The hain felt proddings at the nape of its neck.

---

As if the crux of the godliest power on the planet could be ignored. Alefpria was the largest city the world had seen. Its progress had been boosted by the touches of many a diety, but there was no denying that improvements had been made because of it.

All headed by a son of Vestec. I dislike this irony.

If for whatever unlikely reason Lifprasil thought that the sheer mass of population could help him to hide, he had not counted on the little bird that fluttered over the walls of his Ilunabaric palace. It found plenty of places to hide and observe and it was particularly well-suited to seeking out divinity.

Other persons of interest may even turn up in the palace eventually. Toun had no shortage of birds to assign to them, should he deem it necessary.

Time to find out what manner of creature you are, little prince.

Beyond that, there were many other pieces of the puzzle that Toun wished to seek out. Many missing kin that he wished to check upon. He could have found them himself, but he had precious little time and focus with his plans in place.

With so many spare droningbirds, he decided to send them in random directions with instructions to begin watching the first divine being they found. Chances were that they would find something new, perhaps something that the other gods had not even caught onto yet.

That would take time in and of itself.

Other possible interruptions can be accounted for.

---

Toun had his hands behind his back as the muffled screeches of the hain calmed into whimpers. The integration would be complete any second now.

As sure as he had perfectly planned, the many eyes of the giant clawed creature glowed brightly once more, looking around and taking in its surroundings. The whimpering of the hain was drowned out by the regular sighing of the creature that now housed it. Its claws twitched and flexed experimentally.

"Patrol the walls. You will be joined by others soon."

As naturally as if it was created to, the massive creature gently ascended into the air, letting its claws dangle over the vast expanse of Cornerstone. It floated over Toun's head as Toun bent his neck to watch it.

As it headed for the walls, it passed over what progress Cornerstone had been hiding; rows and rows of porcelain arches. Each one suspended a shell or sculpture of some humanoid-shaped creature with the height of a tedar and the gaunt build of a hain. Each one was identical.

The army of shells stretched on across the entire tiled space. Slave hain flanked each one, working through the night to shape them.

"My own oaths will be fulfilled, as shall others taken in my name."

A young lad leaned over the side of the small fishing boat and dipped his fingers into the dark water as his father pulled hard again on the oars. They slid forward through the swells that were trying to push them back towards land, his father grunting curses with each strong stroke.

"Can I help?" the boy asked, settling onto one of the boat's seat-planks. Across from him his father grimaced a smile through his beard.

"The day I can't row out against the breakers," he said, his face flushed, "is the day I hang up my nets and give this old tub to you."

The boy nodded. The same answer, returned every day to the same question. Endless identical days, it seemed, different only in the size of their catch, his father's mood, and the vagaries of wind and water.

The boy peered past his father to gaze at the southern horizon, that thin seam where sea joined with sky. Wind and water. He didn't share his father's old fisherman sense of the changing weather, but he could still tell that this day would not be exactly like most others.

"Aye, you can feel it too, then," his father said as the boy continued to stare off into the distance. "A storm's brewing out there. Something's maddened her, t'be sure. She'll be lancing before nightfall."

The boy saw it, a faint bruising in the hard blue sky that warned of distant storm clouds massing. He turned back to his father and was surprised to catch something glinting in his slate-gray eyes.

"Your father's not so old yet, boy. The rowing's hard because the sea's starting to work its way into a fury. You'll have to wait a few more years yet before you can call yourself the captain of this ship."

A small snicker broke the silence that permeated the small cottage that Deo inhabited. Four days had passed like a forgotten memory, locked away in the depths of his psyche never to be seen again. Just as Lex had foretold, deployment had whisked him away to the northern most vassal of Ionia, Gunma. A village known for its freezing winters, crab catchers, and whalers, it was an important piece to the puzzle that made up Ionia, providing for it hundreds of pounds of whale blubber and meat, and Axim's next likely point of attack. Because of this likely event, his division had been deployed to defend it; in the dead of winter. Deo was never a fan of snow, in fact, he despised its white countenance all together, but even as a Devari, he had no say in his divisions place of deployment.

Many doubted the Axim's tenacity, laughing off a potential invasion until spring, but oh how wrong they where. Within days of their declaration, two villages fell to their might. The snow couldn't halt thier advance, even the sound of thier rhythmic cadence was clearly heard in the howling winds of a blizzard. It was even said that the Axim trained day and night in the cold, deadening thier bodies to the freezing temperatures. Many told tales of the Axim training for battle as early as seven, but rumors were rumors, one couldn't believe everything spouted by tipsy fishermen at the end of a work day.

The squeaking of leather boots brought Deo back into reality, the head of the house had returned. As was law in Ionia, state soldiers were to be quartered in the homes of citizens. To many, this was a privilege, to have the opportunity to pamper the conscripted army of Ionia was an honor one could dream of, and pamper they did. Soldiers where often offered the head seat at the dinner table, the best of the fish during a meal, and many a times, the eldest daughter if she was not yet married. This was especially the case for Deo. As a Devari; a division captain, he apparently held some sort of invisible power that the common people found mesmerising. To see that power, to say that their grandchildren was a spawn of that power, meant so much to the villagers, it even elevated thier status to that near to the Elders'. It disgusted Deo.

That disgust made its way onto his face, skewing his features as the head of the house entered the room.

"Meshi." the man began, bowing low, as was customary. It always caught Deo off guard, to have a man, thirty years his senior, bow before him; he was was sure it afflicted the man also.

Deo himself rose, deadpanning his face and imitating the man with a low bow of his own. "Meshi. What brings you?" he asked.

The man rose, giving Deo the opportunity to take in his features. As was common, northerners where gifted with stockier bodies, rounder, flatter faces, and a less prominent nose than those to the south; all features the man displayed.

"The Elder seeks your audience with the Millita. Your Lieutenants have also been gathered." he confided.

Deo let out a frustrated breath out his nose. So quickly did people wish to insight war, to talk of it as if they where to fight.

"Thank you." Deo sighed, returning the man's bow before grabbing his helmet and squeezed past the rather large whale of a man to make his way out of the house.

Upon opening the cottage door, he was greeted with a slap in the face by the crisp nighttime wind that whipped across the village. Deo let out a string of curses, earning him a giggle from the daughter of the household. Gritting his teeth, he stepped into the raging blizzard, closing the door behind him and trudging through the snow. Despite his hate for the cold, he was thankful for the blubber that warmed his body, and the fur boots that provided him with a rhythmic crunch after each step. Within moments, he lost himself in a sea of white.

"How long until the storm comes?"

The young boy's father squinted, lines scored by years of sun and salt cracking his face. "We should be all right if we get back around the late tide, but I also don't want to tempt Sephi. So we best start filling this hold with fish." He paused his rowing, holding the oars suspended over the waves; water streamed from the blades, drops glittering like jewels in the sunlight as they fell. "Search for fish."

Rolling his sleeve up, he thought on his words. His father likened what he did to a man finding water . . . though of course, out here, water was easy enough to find. Other things were more difficult.

He leaned again over the side of the rocking boat, this time farther out, and plunged his arm into the water up to his elbow. It was cold, but not bracingly so. Behind him he heard his father set down the oars with a clatter, and then a moment later the susurrus of nets being pulled from beneath the seat-planks.

The boy stared into the shifting blackness. The sounds of his father dwindled as he concentrated on the sea and the feel of his hand drifting in the gentle current. Gradually the sun on his neck and the wind tugging at his hair also faded away. He dissolved into the water, spreading out into the yawning abyss below.

With a gasp he returned to the boat, pulling his arm from the water. Below his elbow the skin had turned ashen.

The swap from freezing cold to warm caused Deo's face to itch, an affliction that he just realized he had. Standing at the head of the great oval table, carved of wood with great care and decorated with all manner of symbols and patterns and intricate designs, Deo observed those before him. His four officers; Akio, his head officer, Juro, his second seat, Madoku, his third seat, and Shigeo his fourth and final seated officer; all trained and disciplined men from the Ionian Army who sat to his right. To his left sat the the leaders of the Gunma Militia, each who held power in a certain facet of the villages over all defense. At the opposite end of the table sat the Elder, the chosen leader of Gunma and a man who lived up the the title of 'elder'. His face was small, roundish, and he moved with ungainly restlessness, like a number of elderly squirrels trying to escape from a sack. His own age was on the older side of completely indeterminate. If one picked a number at random, he was probably a little older than that. His face was heavily lined, and the small amount of hair that escaped from under the red woolen hat that signified his position was thin, white, and had very much its own ideas about how it wished to arrange itself. He too was muffled inside a heavy coat, but over it he wore a billowing gown with very faded purple trim, the badge of his unique and very peculiar office.

Upon his signal, all arose from thier seats and bowed, greeting the Elder with a resounding 'Meshi'. As was custom, the Elder himself returned the greeting, and with that, all took a seat except the Elder, who instead spoke.

"It is an honor to meet you and your subordinates, Devari Deo. We cannot express our gratitude enough for your coming here." the old man announced, giving him a toothy grin.

With a awkward smile, Deo acknowledged the Elders welcome; [color=Brown]"I thank you, and your village, for the love you have shown us. I assure you, your village is in good hands." he affirmed, his heart pounding in his ears, he wasn't accustomed to receiving praise.

The Elder nodded, a smile never leaving his face as he gestured to the Militiamen to his left. "Here with us are the men who have gratuitously volunteered to protect thier village for generations." The Elder signaled for the men to stand.

The first man who was a squat bearded fishermen who gave off the constant impression of needing to use the restroom, introduced himself, saluting Deo promptly. "Head of Security sir. Jing." he announced.
Next was a fairly young man with rippling muscles, a testament to the sea's grueling work ethic. "My name is Sasuke, Head of Defense at your service." he affirmed.

Lastly was a man who's strange appearance was almost as if it was contrived. His hair was wizened and straw-like, nearly fossilized it was so dry. He had sad, way worn eyes and a distinctive beard. It wasn’t a thick, but rather something a lunatic might have: straggly, unkempt and spittle flecked. His face was toil worn and tanned from exposure to the elements and he stood with a weary, lethargic air. His fingers were gnarled and knobbly and the clothes he wore were musty and mingling. Judging by appearance alone clued Deo in to his truly unpleasant character.

"I didn't know Devari came so young these days. Name is Toho, you come to me for anything having to do with actually fighting; Head of Combat." he spat. Despite his expecting gaze, Deo paid him no heed, instead, he acknowledged each and every one of the Militiamen and stood himself, bowing once again.

"It's and honor meeting each and every one of you. I look forward to working with you in the near future." Deo remarked before he himself took his seat. This garnered a small smile from Juro, who could sense the edge in his superiors' voice.

With a grumble form Toho, an awkward silence settled over the room, for in that void of sound the shallowness of their next conversation was laid bare.

With a small cough, the Elder attempted to break the ice. "The tension in this room is about as thick as a whales skull." he chortled, garnering smiles and chuckles all around. Taking this as a good sign, the Elder continued on. "Hm. Jing, why don't we start with our current security detail." he suggested.

Jing nodded, clearing his throat as he stood. "We currently have thirty armed men circling the perimeter of the village, as well as men stationed on watchtowers-"

Akio interrupted. "Watchtowers? Is not Gunma famous for its arduous winter blizzards?"

"Hai, what use is a watchtower if you can not see five feet in front of you?" Shigeo added.

Deo, intrigued but silent, turned to Jing for a rebuttal. Instead, Toho spoke. "You idiot, there's more than one god damn season in a year, and lets not forget 'da fac' that Gunma is surrounded by ah' wall, they outta siege, which means we hav' ah' height advantage."

This time Juro spoke. "Granted, but if you can not see them, how do yo plan you hit them?"

Toho growled, jerking forward in his seat suddenly. "Do ya thin' that ah' men of Gunma are not capable of combat in inclement weather, the weather they were born in?! he bellowed.

The Elder quickly interrupted, seeing that the conversation was already growing out of hand. "Now, now Toho, he did not mean that. All their concerns are valid ones." he cooed, calming the Head of Combat down. "Now, why don't we switch to the topic of our actual fighting force, Sasuke, Toho?."

Sasuke nodded, thankful for the Elders insight. "Every male in the village who has seen fifteen or more winters is armed and is required to defend the village in case of attack. Household heads are also required to enact 'Shibuki', the evacuation of the village to our neighbors Xidi by boat."

This peaked Deo's interest. "This means you can't guarantee that many men will remain and fight if evacuation is always an option?"

Sasuke nodded solemnly, but a grunt from Toho warranted everyone's attention. "Ionia ah' nat'on of fishermen, the addled don't deserve to call 'emselves Ionians if they run from 'ah 'haole' without putting up a fight." he spat.

"He is right." the Elder crooked.

Despite thier adamance, Deo doubted them, and by the looks of his companions', they to worried about the Gunmians integrity.

Deo leaned forward in his seat. "Elder, Heads, I'm sure you can understand our concern."

"Like hell ye do." Toho muttered under his breath.

Clearing his throat, he continued. "As a Devari, I automatically hold power over all of you through my rank. I need to make this clear now. he breathed, getting to his feet. "All military aspects of this village is under my control, and as such, your reports," he paused. worry me. It shows me that you all lack basic training, even common sense."

At this Toho bolted upright, his eyes wide with rage, but Deo's glare silenced him.

"Shibuki will not be enacted unless I call for it." he commanded, each word emphasised and articulated clearly. "Patrols will be extended an bolstered from thirty men to fifty men. And the wat-"

A sudden 'slam' caused Deo to pause. Without warning, a young man, maybe sixteen years old, stumbled into the room. His words, sucked the life from its inhabitants.

"The walls are burning."

"Well?" his father asked, "Is this a good spot?"

His father might have noticed his tone but still he grunted agreement and bent to his nets. The boy helped him thread a few more pieces of bait into the mesh, then took the far end of the net and brought it to the back of the boat. At the count of three father and son tossed the weighted corners out into the ocean and watched them sink, fastening the other ends of the nets onto iron hooks driven into the side of the boat, while also holding tight to the lines that ran down to the weights suspended in the deepness. Now they just had to wait.

Sometimes it could take an hour before they caught anything or his father grudgingly gave up, but today the god's bounty was swift and almost immediately they felt the lines begin to thrum with the feeling of thrashing fish.

"Up boy, pull it up!" his father cried, hauling on the line that ran down to the net's weights. The did the same, and slowly the net cinched closed, rising towards the surface. His father let out a whoop when he saw how many squirming silver bodies they had snared, and with a great heave father and son dumped the wriggling fish into the ship's hold. Each was about as long as the boy's arm, and his father's guess had been right as their heads were large and black and bony, almost as if they were wearing helmets. The boy jumped back a step, wary of their snapping jaws. He'd watched his father's cousin lose a finger to one of these fish before.

"Ironheads! Ten, eleven . . . twelve! Just about the best first cast I've ever had. The god's smiles on us today, boy."

The boy grinned broadly, more for his father's good humor than for the catch they'd brought up. In the past year there had been too many days of sullen silence trapped together on this boat, followed by nights of drunken rage and sadness.

Without warning, the boys attention was stolen away to the shore; the sound of a beating gong.

Year: 232 P

Fikra son of Ka'al, of the town of Qari'Ab, of the tribe of Eskandar, the Lato-Marid, was in all ways a most serious and austere man. His face, beneath his red-brown beard, was grim and forbidding, and his eyes held within them a certain severity rarely found in the living - aye, only the stern, unliving eyes of marble statues could muster such silent yet relentless censure. Add to that his imposing form and in all ways handsome features, and his penchant for dignified silence and traditional insistence on keeping up appearances in public, and he struck all who laid eyes upon him as enigmatic and closer to divinity than he was to man. Whenever his striking form emerged from his impressive mud-brick house, with its earthen plaster finish, all eyes turned upon him in awe and admiration. And when Fikra walked, he walked upright and dignity gushed from him and the very earth upon which he trod seemed saturated with it.

But Fikra was not merely a man who took pride in appearing grand to onlookers - though he felt that one's appearance in public was of much importance in order to avoid bringing dishonour upon oneself - for he was, above all appearances, an esteemed and leading elder amongst the people of Qari'Ab, and was also a scholar whose name was whispered even in the most remote villages in the Realm. Aye, and many were the pursuers of knowledge, coming from afar or nigh around, who sat upon the threshold of his home and waited upon the eminent scholar to rain upon them some drops of the wisdom hiding behind his scathing gaze. And what was more, the sanctified blood of the Prophet-Patriarch ran through his veins, being of the line of the tragic Durghal through his daughter, the Matriarch-Superior Nafzakia.

Yet there was more to Fikra than even all that. For, being descended of the Durghal and the Nafzakia, he was considered by a considerable body of the faithful as being the rightful Patriarch. After all, they argued, the Durghal would have inherited the Patriarchate had he not been struck down in error, and the fact of his premature death did not preclude his ascension to the Patriarchate. It was simply the Durghal's own heir who now had a right to the Patriarchate, and that was the Nafzakia. And so, the entire dispute over to whom the Patriarchate should go, which took place following the Prophet-Patriarch's death, was wholly unfounded and was an instance of disobedience to the Prophet-Patriarch's command. And so Fikra was not merely an altogether impressive person, and he was not merely an elder and a scholar, but by many he was considered the rightful Patriarch, and not the Orifid Matriarch Inar at Darofid.

Over the centuries, there had been a long dispute between those who considered the line of the Shohiqam to be the rightful Patriarchs and those who considered the line of the Durghal through the Nafzakia to be. The theological debate had created much division and hostility and had at times even broken out into bloodshed. And at times, they had been able to put aside their differences and rise up together in revolt against one Palowid Patriarch or another.

Fikra, incensed by the narrow-mindedness of his alleged followers and all too aware of what they had done to the Shohiqam and Nafzakia and many other Patriarchs and Matriarchs since, resolved to bring all his power and influence to bear and once and for all heal the rift. Gathering other prominent members of the Bato-Elyd line upon the death of his father and his ascension to the Patriarchate, he told them of his grievances and his resolution to bring about an end to the division and hostility during his time.

'And it is clear to me that the Moon-Mother has chosen to ease for us our undertaking, for the Eliad Patriarch Peral is aged and is already preparing for his union with the Moon-Mother, and his heir is his daughter Fihriyi, his only child. And I have determined to seek her hand in marriage - she a Patriarch-to-be and I a Patriarch, and so we unite the titles by our marriage, and forever through our heirs.'

Receiving the agreement of his two uncles, Qarish and Mobad, and his three aunts; Ely, Elia, and Riya, and his two younger brothers also, Bato and Liskanda, Fikra sent a messenger to the abode of Peral requesting the esteemed elder give him permission to visit on the morrow. And, despite his quickly failing health, Peral accepted.
Peral had been, in his youth, hot-headed and of extreme hostility to the Bato-Elyds, but age had tempered his hostility and experience had given him wisdom and foresight. Indeed, in his time he had overseen an unprecedented rise in tensions between the two lines, to the extent that neither Peral nor Fikra's father, Ka'al, could safely walk alone in Qari'Ab. And Peral had, in his old age, become increasingly repentant of having encouraged the hostility, and attempted to reach out. And Ka'al had not been unwilling to reach back, though anger amongst his own followers prevented him from doing so as much as he would have liked. Indeed, Ka'al had been a gentle and rather timid man, lacking the charisma and determination of a true leader. He was a worshipper and a mystic and a man of monumental knowledge, but he was not the man for confrontations or crises. He could not cut with a decision and have it enforced. He could not instil in his followers sufficient apprehension and respect that they would do as he commanded despite their own feelings on a matter. The steely-eyed Fikra could not be more different than his father.

Walking in upon the sickly Peral, who lay on a bed on the floor, Fikra saluted him and sent praise upon the Moon-Mother and the Prophet-Patriarch and their sanctified forefathers, and he wished the old man a swift recovery, which caused Peral to chuckle somewhat.
'This is the sickness from which there is no recovery,' he managed.
'Aye, the flesh may not recover, grandfather, but it is the soul which will at last recover, having rid itself of the greatest disease of all. And is not unity with the Moon-Mother the greatest of all recoveries?'
'It is indeed, a recovery after which are no more illnesses or pains or griefs,' the old man gestured for Fikra to come closer and sit by the bed, and the young man did so. And then the old man spoke, 'tell me, you noble son of my fathers, what is it that brings you here? It cannot purely be pity for a wretched old man.'
'Neither wretched nor old, grandfather. The soul is ever-young and you, either way, blessed,' came the young man's response.
'Rid us of these formalities,' came the old man's weakening voice, 'and cut to the heart of the matter, for you are known as a straightforward man, Fikra.'
'I have come, grandfather, to ask for your daughter's hand in marriage,' Fikra said shortly. The old man's eyes widened somewhat and he looked at Fikra for a few seconds.
'They say many things about you Fikra, but you are neither known for jests nor for madness, so I fear my ears have failed me. Can you say that again,' Fikra looked into the eyes of the old man and spoke once more. Certain that he had not misheard, the old man gave a small shout of anger and disbelief.
'You...what schemes! You hard-eyed devil, what schemes hide behind those deathly eyes of yours? My daughter? You would have me place Fihriyi in your hands - hands? Let me see those, are they hands or are they claws?' and he reached for one of Fikra's hands and raised it up so as to see it better, 'hands of stone and claws of sharpened teeth! You would have me place Fihriyi in these?'
Fikra was silent throughout the old man's reaction, but as he quietened and seemed to relax somewhat, the young man spoke.
'Grandfather, if they be claws that you see, then know that these claws will ne'er be raised against our own. Let me unite with her. Let the divisions which have scarred our communities at last come to an end.'
'Not...not...' the old man struggled to keep his eyes open, 'while I yet l...' and he was quiet. It seemed that the meeting had proved too much for his limited energy reserves. And it was clear that he was old and stubborn and would not agree. Fikra stood and turned to leave, but halted when he saw there by the door an unmistakably feminine form. He took a few steps forward, and his cold eyes met the strong - yet indefinitely warm - ones of Fihriyi. She seemed to shrink ever so slightly beneath the intensity and severity of his gaze - perhaps the fact that they were such a light brown that they were closer to yellow added to their intensity. Wordlessly, he swept past her and made his way back home. He would just have to wait on the old man to return to his creator and then ask the woman directly.

A few days later, as Fikra sat with four of his disciples in the grand temple-shrine where the Prophet-Patriarch was buried, a caller came by announcing to the people of Qari'Ab that Fihriyi was to be married in two days to her cousin, Iybar, and that all were invited to congratulate the bride and her family tonight, and to the auspicious occasion itself. Fikra's ever deadpan face remained so, and his hard gaze grew no harder than it already was - for he held it always at its utmost intensity, and so shocks could never cause him to look stonier than he always did. Rejecting a marriage proposal from a respectable individual whose status was second only to that of Peral himself was insult enough, but to then marry off Fihriyi to a man so far below Fikra's status was akin to an assault on his person. He had not thought Peral yet so unwise as to stoke the fires of unrest and further strife between the rival Patriarchates.

'Qarqaz, is everything alright?' one of his disciples asked after their mentor's silence had grown longer than usual. Fikra glanced at him and nodded.
'Yes. As I was saying, one must understand that faith is not a simplistic concept, but is multifaceted and multilayered. Purely acknowledging the existence of the Moon-Mother and accepting the Prophet-Patriarch as Her chosen and blessed word and Law is only the first layer of faith. And there are some who say that it is the least of them, but to say that is not correct. For each layer builds upon the one before it, and one cannot reach the pinnacle of faith without having first established its foundational layer.
And I have seen in some of the books of past scholars that "faith" is often conflated with "trust". They are entirely different conceptions and I want to emphasise that before anything else. And it is also important to distinguish faith as "belief" and faith as a state of being. Faith as state of being fluctuates - one can be in a state of supreme faith at one point, and in a poor state at another. Faith as belief, however, exists whether one is in a state of supreme faith or not - a fluctuating state of faith does not cause one to lose belief in the Moon-Mother. These are complex, and much of the time they will overlap. But keep the distinction in mind as I speak.

'So, the first layer is to believe in one's heart in the Moon-Mother and to proclaim Her glory, and in Her blessed Prophet-Patriarch and his chosenness. And one must believe that with conviction, and one must proclaim that, and one must live it. The truth of belief is evidenced through action - thus, one who has achieved this first layer will also follow the Law as told by the Moon-Mother through the Prophet-Patriarch, would visit the shrine of the Prophet-Patriarch and salute him, and would in all ways ensure that the faith is a living part of one's life.
The next layer of faith is intellectual. One must ponder and one must question and one must read the sayings and histories of our blessed forefathers. And one must, in their heart, be amazed and terrified of the Moon-Mother. For faith can exist without intellectual understanding - a shallow and weak faith, but faith nonetheless -, but intellectual understanding and knowledge create a deeper and stronger faith. Thus knowledge leads to greater faith, and greater faith leads to greater effort in worship and greater desire to please the Moon-Mother. And greater knowledge leads also to greater love and fear - a love tinged with awe and fear, and a fear pouring with love. And when one says fear, 'tis not a fear of the Moon-Mother's wrath - though she can indeed be most wrathful - but a fear that one's ignorance and shortcomings will mean that She will not love one back and will not allow one to be in Her presence upon death. What is more painful for a lover, and what do they fear most of all, than to be ignored and condemned by the beloved? And we will come back to this in a little while.

The third layer of faith is to...' and for a good hour or so, Fikra spoke on the layers of faith, and how one must take active and consistent measures to ensure one moves ever upwards through the layers.

Once the day's discussion was complete, Fikra rose and went to the shrine of his ancient grandfather, and he sent praises upon him and whispered a prayer before taking his wooden walking stick and departing. It was a stick that had been passed down from one Bato-Elyd Patriarch to another, and it was said that this stick had been the Durghal's spear before he was elevated by the Prophet-Patriarch and given a different one. It was made by the Durghal during his ritual of passage from childhood to manhood, a ritual which was as important to all the faithful today as it had been all those centuries ago. But the stone tip had at some point in the past broken off, and all that was left was the wooden shaft.

The holy town, despite it being late in the afternoon, was alive after the earlier announcement, and people were streaming through the roads towards Peral's home. And yet, despite the congested roads, all parted before Fikra, muttering in reverence as they moved out of his way and looking upon him in awe and fear. He came to a halt at last not too far away from the entrance to the old man's home, and looked upon the husk that stood there, before him a flood which unceasingly reached for his hand and kissed it. Wave after wave surged forward towards the ancient hand, kissing it in respect and praising him and congratulating him on the happy occasion. His antique head rose and squinting old eyes met frigid youthful ones. And Patriarch gazed upon Patriarch as the tide of people ebbed and flowed around them. Fikra did not even look at Fihriyi who stood beside her father, or at her husband-to-be who stood beside her.

The stare-off did not go unnoticed, however. When the giants of Qari'Abian society stood glowering at one another, people tended to notice. And the flow came to a halt and a hushed silence came about.
'Have you come to stand and glare at us, Fikra, or will you congratulate our daughter as the people do?' Peral at last asked. But there came no response from the young Patriarch. At last, his gaze turned upon Fihriyi who met it unflinchingly. Fikra took a deep breath and opened his mouth to speak, but he seemed to think better of it and at the last moment changed his mind. Without a word, he turned and departed as silently as he had come, and the gathered and immovable sea of people parted before him and his walking stick.

Even when he was out of sight, there remained a deathly silence. Peral gulped and looked around at the shaken people, and then at his daughter, whose anxiety could barely be hidden, and at his nephew, who was not only anxious but quite visibly terrified. What dread face did Fikra have and what dread gaze! If horror were to manifest, it would take the shape of his eyes, and if terror were to choose a temporal form, it would be his towering frame! His very presence struck at the hearts of all onlookers, and his deathly gaze could not be at all good for an observer's health. Peral at last gestured for the people to continue, and the surge once more gained some life, though their overwhelming joy was now tempered by a trepidation that was not there before.

Arriving home, Fikra was met by his Ikarian slaveboy, Augalo. He handed the young slave the walking stick and removed his distinctive red cloak which he then also handed to Augalo. Beneath the cloak, he was dressed in the traditional 'kop' worn by both men and women in Qari'Ab and many of the other towns and villages in the region. He removed the iconic 'kapak' hat, another item which immediately identified one as being from Qari'Ab or the surrounding region. Fikra's own, like that of other chiefs and elders, was distinguished by the long piece of cloth that was repeatedly wrapped around its base. This variation was known as the kapakel.

The main reception room into which Fikra eventually walked was the largest in the house. An impressive square room, the walls were of earthen plaster, like the exterior. But rather than the brown of the exterior, the interior was white. On the floor, pressed against the walls in a square, were the seating arrangements. Here were guests hosted and meetings of the Qari'Ab council of elders sometimes held. When disputes arose and the disputing parties wished for Fikra to judge between them, he would judge between them here, and sometimes elders from other villages and towns came to visit, and Fikra had the honour of hosting them on behalf of his father and the town - and this all long before he ever became Patriarch, so greatly was he esteemed! Augalo had a duty to clean it daily and ensure that it was always prepared in case of any guests.

But there were no guests today, and Fikra sat down in the room on his own, brooding on this matter of Fihriyi. He was certain that his display just now had further damaged relations, but the insult Peral had intended had damaged them even more. A stubborn old man without the courage to end the division in the community and religion. They prospered on division and on the weakness of the faithful - and for what? For ranks of honour and the ability to claim that they had a direct link to the Moon-Mother? That they were more or less Prophets of the Moon-Mother while they lived? It was as frustrating for Fikra as it was ridiculous.
'Master,' Augalo's voice wrenched him from his revery, and he looked up, 'your blessed aunt, Ely, wishes to have an audience with you.'
Fikra nodded and signalled for him to allow her in immediately. He rose to his feet as the eldest of his father's siblings entered, and he took her hand and kissed it in respect, before accompanying her to her chosen seat and seating himself beside her. The old woman looked at her nephew and smiled her familiar wrinkled smile.
'How are you Fikra?' she asked, 'is all well?'
The young man nodded and assured her that all was well and that she did not need to worry about anything.
'Why are you in such a rush?' he asked, 'do you think Fihriyi will fly away?'
'Has she not already?' he asked.
'Don't rush, Fikra. You are of sharp wit, but you must not by hasty. Sit back and think on the matter, and with the Moon-Mother's aid you will come upon a solution to all issues,' Fikra was silent at her words, then looked at her.
'What do you recommend I do, beloved aunt? I see her slip away before my eyes and with her all the peace I would have for the people,' Ely smiled at his words and shook her head.
'Fikra, you are not alone. You have us all behind you, and many loyal followers. You forget that,' Fikra nodded guiltily. He tended to look upon these "followers" with suspicion. He knew very well what kind of followers they were. As his father had once so poignantly said, 'when one has companions such as these, who has need for foes or enemies?'
'I have spoken long with Fihriyi's aunts, Malha and Hela. And though we three are life-long friends, they were initially very hostile to the very idea of having their niece marry you. But I persisted and they seem to have been swayed. And they promised me to speak with Peral on the matter as well as Fihriyi, and even that boy Iybar to have him put an end to this marriage,' Fikra looked up in surprise at her words, 'and this you might not know, but the words of Malha and Hela are of strength and weight among the Eliads.'

And his aunt's words proved true - for the very next day, just when the sun had attained its zenith, a caller came out and announced that the betrothal had been annulled and the marriage cancelled at the behest of the groom. And Fikra made it his priority to visit Iybar that very day and spoke with him.
'I had no wish, son of my esteemed and honoured ancestor, to come between you and any woman,' Fikra was saying, 'but I only had the interest of our communities at heart, nothing more than that and nothing less. I know not whether you have any feelings for Fihriyi, or whether she has any for you, but it is my utmost belief that we are at a juncture where the emotions of people must at last give way before the direst need of the people.'
'I understand well all that you say, Qarqaz,' Iybar said, 'and though Fihriyi is a woman for whom a man such as I would fight long and hard, there is no fight if 'tis a matter of the wellbeing of all those who hold to the faith.'
And with that understanding between them, Fikra departed and returned to his abode. And that afternoon, his aunts and uncles and siblings came, and the rest of the Bato-Elyd clan, and along with them leading figures who professed their support for the Bato-Elyd Patriarchate and were of their so-called followers and partisans. As convention demanded that Fikra wait a month after his father's passing before assuming the Patriarchate, none of these followers had yet come to recognise him as their Patriarch and pledge allegiance, but for many it was seen as a simple formality.

'The word in Qari'Ab is that you have your eyes upon Fihriyi, honoured son of Prophets and Patriarchs,' Arkoz was saying. He was the chieftain of the Sariq clan, Karkids who had accepted the faith and immigrated to Qari'Ab some hundred years ago, and who had become amongst the most notorious of followers of the Bato-Elyds over time. Indeed, they had in the past held Patriarchs more or less hostage and increased their own influence through the manipulation of the sanctified figurehead. Fikra knew well that Arkoz had long been a strongman during his father's Patriarchate, and that he had a long-time rivalry with other leading partisans - most notably the Gula clan chief, Sarat, and the Agira clan chief Fentig. It was true that he was to soon become Patriarch by name, but seizing the true authority that came with the name was going to be an altogether different story. His intended marriage with Fihriyi was going to be another way to sideline these hypocrites.

Along with these was the chieftain of the Serid Amarid clan, Molfri. And they were considered of the sincere and stalwart Bato-Elyd supporters. Of the six Eskanadran clans which were known Bato-Elyd supporters, only the Amarids dwelled in Qari'Ab. The Meliwids and Garids, both stalwart supporters, were in distant Qari'Maki, and the Damids, stalwarts also, in distant Qari'Derk. The Radids, who were blindly fanatical supporters, had remained in Eni-Elia and the moderately supportive Alawids in Qari'Ala. And there were many other smaller clans elsewhere, and people who had no tribe or clan of their own. In a month, they would all flock to Qari'Ab to give their pledge of allegiance. And the Orifids would increase their military presence, as they always did, and would ensure that the whole thing is over within the week.

'I have my eyes on one thing only, Chief Arkoz, and that is the well-being of the people,' came Fikra's glacial response. Arkoz's smile seemed to freeze in his eyes, and the slightest shiver ran down his spine. He quickly looked away from the seated Patriarch.
'A-and was there any doubt about that, honoured son of Patriarchs? The meaning in our words was nothing less than what you say,' he looked around, maintaining an easy smile despite slightest hint of anxiety in his eyes.
'And how many have died over claims and counter-claims over what was meant and not said, and said but not meant,' it was more of a statement than a question, but the massive Fentig responded.
'Too many, by the Moon-Mother!' and a general murmur of agreement rose in the room before all quieted down again and Fentig continued in his booming voice, 'honoured son of Patriarchs, we have all learned of the severe insult dealt you by that...that...poltroonish Peral. Were you to make it known that you wished it, we would this moment rise and smite him and all his heretical followers!' a louder murmur rose up at this, in support and opposition to the Agirawid chief's position. Fikra raised a hand and silence fell almost immediately.

'Your zeal is commendable, chief Fentig. 'Tis good to know that we have such a mighty ally in yo-'
'Slave, son of Patriarchs. A lowly slave I am, nothing more,' Fentig interjected. Fikra continued smoothly.
'It is good that we have that in you. But my only wish, if knowing it is the reason you have all insisted to gather here today, is that peace should prevail between our beloved Eliad cousins and we. Let there be no bloodshed, no abuse, no animosity whatsoever.'

There were a few moments of silence at this, and Fentig could be seen to be frowning rather deeply. The Gulawid chief, Sarat, took this chance to speak up.
'I could not have said it better myself. We need peace and...' he paused mid-sentence, seemingly searching for a logical end to his sentence, 'and all that,' he finally said, nodding his head while gesturing upwards and rotating his wrist quickly as he said it.
'But, honoured son of Patriarchs, they have insulted you most severely. Justice demands vengeance, does it not?' Arkoz was now saying.
'Justice demands it! Courage demands it! Honour and dignity demand it!' Fentig's voice boomed.
'Lower your voice in the presence of the son of Patriarchs, Fentig,' Molfri said with barely restrained anger. The Amarid chief had been sitting in silence and watching the other three and had finally found himself unable to remain silent. Fentig was about to respond, but Fikra interjected.
'It is no issue, Chief Molfri, no issue,' and next to Fikra, his aunt Ely turned her ancient head and gave Molfri a squinty smile. Fentig turned from glowering at the Amarid chief and spoke once more.

'Why do you not command us to take revenge on those who have treated you with such wickedness, honoured son of Patriarchs?' he asked, his booming voice sounding less harshly and loudly than before.
'And is it considered wise for one to bite the dog that bites him, Chief Fentig?'
'Chief Fentig would hit a rock for staying put when he bid it go, and would punch the rain for irritating him!' Ely suddenly laughed, and the previously-fuming Fentig broke out into laughter too.
'That I would! The woman knows me too well!' and thereafter the gathering descended into one of tales and jokes. At one point, Fentig rose and delivered one of his moving poems (for it was terrible enough to move all who heard to weep). He declared that he was going to the Word Market on the morrow and was going to sell it for a small fortune. Old Ely did not spare him.

'If you get anywhere near the Word Market with that, Morin the Market-Keeper will have you flayed. I've told you a thousand times, you're an oaf not a poet,' and Fentig waved his hand at her dismissively.
'You've no appreciation for good poetry, you've grown into a senile old crone. But worry not, once I sell this poem, I'll be rich enough to convince some poor slave to marry you! You can thank me later,' and having silently sat through the rather infantile affair for a good half hour, Fikra eventually got up wordlessly and left the gathering.

Rain had never leaked into the new barracks, for its roof was of smooth plaster and its tents were of oiled canvas, worked to the best standard the slave class could be taught. And yet still the blood came through, filling the shallow cracks that crept further into the structure with each explosion from the inner city.

Blood condensed from the red mists outside and dribbled down the walls, blood puddled under the tents and slinked its insidious path in, pools of blood dissolved thick fabric with an acidic hiss. Its evil scent billowed through Tauga's tentacles, droplets running from her suit and dripping from her breathing mask. Behind the goggles, she watched the blood etch reddened weals into the captain's skin wherever it touched. He'd been outside for the worst of it.

She could offer no help, nor words of comfort, even if she tried. That would demand a deep empathy that she knew she lacked. In any case, Sen was past listening. His yells had quietened, his eyes were still wild and staring. He still bared his teeth when Tauga tried to come near. Whether that was the rancor of the dagon swirling to life from the Rotfly's seared soul or the fury of having stayed to do the Blowfly's bidding only to be met with the final curse of the Énas Amartia, she could not say.

All she could mumble was- "See you on the other side." Then Tauga unpinned the garnet-eyed blowfly from his breast, turned and stepped out into the dripping darkness. It felt heavier than it was.

Similar scenes were unfolding in the rows of tents of which this one had been a part, minus the spectating role she herself had played. Sporadic screams echoed from the city as the blood made its way, little by little, into every house and cellar of Xerxes. No, not even the barracks would be safe for long. The ophanim could only block so much as they swivelled low, tight circles above the complex, the dark rain running easily over their smooth surfaces to fall again.

Against the lightless storm, their glow seemed little more than a flickering white candle above the failing refuge, where the last untouched mortal in Xerxes stood tired and motionless in her mask, trying to convince herself that this was all for the best.

As Tauga watched the misery unfold, her ethereal tentacles felt a hain approaching from behind, strangely unaffected by the storm. The hain said, "This is all quite terrible, don't you agree?" With a sharp movement, she caught the newcomer's eyes with her own over her shoulder.

"You're breathing," came the voice from the mask, stark, inquisitorial. Tauga's boots splashed their way towards the stranger, not intending to let him go. Hope was past reaching for, but caution remained. "How aren't you screaming? Why are you even outside?"

On closer inspection Tauga would notice that the falling blood did not even touch the hain's shell, the droplets deflected by some unseen force. The hain hesitated for a moment before answering, "I am not an ordinary hain. Even less ordinary than you, Tauga." She tensed.

The stranger stepped over to the wall of the barracks and laid a hand on it. His eyes inspected the structure. "Now of all times is a bad time to have a leaky roof. Fixing it is the least one can do, after all you've done to try and fix this city."

As he spoke, the small cracks in the ceiling repaired themselves, the gaps were sealed even against the crimson deluge, and the blood which was inside began to drain from the building. Though Tauga's limbs unseen traced over the moving mortar, they found no source for the crackling shuffle of dust and chips reforming like new. Her eyes stayed warily on the other hain.

"You're a shaman," she concluded uncertainly. "You're not from Amestris." Then her beak gave a little jerk, and she took a half-step back. "How do you- I've never seen you but you... Know me. Are you a prophet?"

The stranger let out a light chuckle, although it was suppressed somewhat by the macabre surroundings. "Of sorts..." the stranger answered cryptically. The hain drummed his fingers on the wall in thought. Then he said, "Perhaps my name will be familiar to you." The hain walked towards Tauga and extended a hand in greeting. "My name is Teknall."

The gloved hand before him rose for a moment, an old reflex that faltered as the weight of the name settled in the air, leaving Tauga's hand awkwardly withheld at her chest."Oh," she said. "Teknall." Another slow revelation- Another step back.

"Stone Chipper."

And just like that, Tauga was face to face with God once again. It was hard to move, so she didn't try. She let fall some toneless words. "Is this about the Chippers?"

"Fortunately for you, no. It is their own fault if they oppose the local laws and customs," Teknall said. "I had actually come to commend you on your efforts to preserve Xerxes and its inhabitants against the curses of Amartia." She blinked under the goggles, subtly shook her head. The curses of Amartia- to say it so plainly grated against the barriers of doublethink Tauga had defended her god-emperor with for so long.

Teknall looked around at the tents within the court of the barracks building. The tents would not last long against the blood rain. "How many of these are your people?"

"All of them," was the simple answer. "It's the only ground we could defend. Whole Watch's here. There's no point in sending out patrols anymore."

Teknall nodded. Then he snapped his fingers and a great wind twisted around the barracks courtyard, diverting the falling rain of blood and drying away the puddles of crimson fluid with its cyclonic gusts. Once the inside of the courtyard was dry, the winds inside calmed, with just the outer winds deflecting the rain. "Bring everyone into the main building. It will hold indefinitely against the rain, which should give me time to figure out how to help the afflicted," Teknall instructed.

A brief and intense military career latched on to the order and saw clearly. "Understood. Sir." Tauga spun on a heel and set off into the encampment, calling out as she moved to the alarm gong. "Dracces! Jinini! Come out! The ground's dry! Move it!" In moments, the militia was coming to its feet, checking numbers and improvising stretchers. Their Blowfly hadn't led them astray yet. "Plan's changed! We're not gonna die tonight."

In a few minutes the courtyard had been cleared of people and of the tents, with everything brought inside the security of the freshly repaired barracks. Once this was done, the protective dome of wind faded and the cursed rain resumed outside. Inside those who had been afflicted by the rain were laid in rows along the ground, and Teknall walked along them, inspecting them.

About half of the militia had come into substantial contact with the mutagenic rain, caught outside or under inadequate shelter when it started raining. The rest were mostly fine, although many had suffered some minor contact from puddles and splashes, which seemed to not be enough to incapacitate them yet. Such harm was minor and localised. But those who had been drenched in it were in a terrible state, the harm deep and threatening their very souls.

Teknall kneeled down by Sen, one of the worst afflicted, and inspected him carefully. Sen stared angrily, his eyes bloodshot and out of focus, mouth foaming, and the red welts on his skin slowly growing with each heartbeat as his body progressively succumbed to the curse. Teknall studied Sen for a full minute before reaching over and laying a hand over his chest. Sen grew limp and comatose as his heartrate was slowed drastically, until he was in a state of deep hibernation. "That should buy us some more time," Teknall muttered to himself before standing up.

Teknall looked to be in deep thought. He was not Jvan or Niciel; to cure this affliction would be a challenging task for him. But with knowledge of the functioning of the entire Universe, there surely had to be a way. He just needed to figure out how.

Teknall attended similarly to the most severely afflicted, sending them into a coma to slow the progression of the mutation. As he did this and thought, he also spoke to Tauga. "I observed as you gathered together the refugees from Xerxes and sent them away to safety. I applaud you for that, as it gives us a chance to rebuild Xerxes once this is all over, or else establish a new city elsewhere. I have sent... my servant to ensure their safe passage, and to clear some more space between them and the crystal forest. I also commend you on successfully managing Xerxes in Amartia's absence. You have a knack for caring for this city, which is more than can be said for Amartia."

"Mm," replied Tauga distractedly, dismissing a watchhain that had been reporting how much uncontaminated water remained. It wasn't that she hadn't been listening. She just didn't know how to respond well. "Thanks," she opened hesitantly, "For the ships. I just did what I could."

Torches were being replaced by candles as grated windows were sealed, for fear of another downpour. Things grew a little dimmer. "I remember how it was, when I was a kid. The Enas had a plan for things. I'm sure he still does. I'll... Stick to what I know, until it all works out. In the end."

Teknall was silent for a few moments. Eventually, he replied, "Things change. Amartia may have a plan, one which fulfills his own interests, but whether the people of Xerxes will come out any better from it is another matter."

"I trust him," said Tauga blandly, not really responding. Nor meeting Teknall's eyes. "Um. I should go clear out the east wing." It was an audibly feeble excuse, but she took it, and moved out past the waiting soldiers. They parted for her, and came together again behind the sound of boots, almost protectively.

Teknall did not follow Tauga, but remained where he was and thought longer. His eyes closed in concentration and his mouth moved, speaking silent calculations. Then his eyes snapped open in revelation. "I have it!" he exclaimed. He looked to the two soldiers and said, "I've figured out a cure. Tell Tauga I should be back within twenty minutes." Teknall then jogged out of the barracks into the rain and, once out of sight, disappeared.

Designing the cure had been a matter of following the rules dictating submaterium connections, as specified in the Codex before creation. The rules were esoteric, yes, but consistent and specific. Once an appropriate recipe had been devised, Teknall only had to obtain the ingredients; a simple task for a god. A drop of the blood rain. A sample of vampire bile. Leaves from a Holy Tree, crushed with a mortar and pestel made from an oxen's skull. Moondust from Perditus. Pure water strained through the wings of a Needle Faery. And numerous relatively mundane components. All of these were mixed together in the order required, and a bit of divine power was applied to shortcut some of the more difficult but necessary submaterium connections.

With his potion complete, Teknall returned to the barracks with the concoction in hand; a glass bottle filled with an opaque green runny oil. "Tauga, I have an antidote!"

The effect of those words was immediate, even among the hardened discipline of the Watch. Jinini nodded sharply, two eyepatches jolting with the movement, and waved the general over, but she'd already moved with uncanny speed.

"Does it work?" She crouched, staring into the elixir with pragmatic urgency. "How much? Do we have?"

"It will work," Teknall asserted. "It is very potent, so the dose size is small, so this bottle is more than enough for the entire Watch."

Teknall walked towards the comatose Sen. He took a needle and syringe out from his apron pocket and filled it with a fraction of a millilitre of the potion. "For this potion to have full effect it must be delivered intravenously," Teknall explained. Dracces tapped Tauga's shoulder and whispered in a knowing Azibo voice, "That means 'within veins,' but..." She nodded. Memories of Help were suddenly fresh inside her.

He knelt down by Sen, laid one hand on his chest, and with the other hand gently inserted the needle into Sen's skin and injected the potion. Slowly Sen's heart rate returned to normal, and Teknall withdrew the needle and stepped back. Everyone watched in anticipation.

Sen woke with a gasp and his breathing was sharp and shallow, the blood draining from his face. But at the same time, the red weals on his skin shrunk and faded, and the rage which seemed to have filled him before was gone. In about a minute Sen stabilised, pale and weak, but cured of the dagon. Crouching at his shoulder, Tauga snapped her fingers above his face- His eyes focused. She leaned over him, and at the sight of the mask his mouth worked, saying something inaudible, but conscious.

"Anaemia is one of the side effects of the cure," Teknall explained, "but he should recover from that in a day or two, especially if he eats and drinks well."

"Anee-" Another tap. "Weakbloodedness. Got it," replied the general firmly. There was a rising tension in the field-doctors around them, a faint thrill of hope that centred and flowed from the stranger with his bottle.

Tauga pressed Sen's wirework badge into his hand and curled his fingers over it. The garnet eyes seemed clearer than ever. "Do you think," said she, "we could share this out quicker if the sawbones were in on it? Count me with them, I've- Been taught."

Teknall looked down to the syringe in his hands, removed the used needle and discarded it within his apron pocket. "The dose is rather specific, and I'd have to train you in proper use of the syringe or else you could cause damage, but..." Teknall thought for a moment before continuing, "It'll probably be faster than me doing it myself."

Teknall took out a fistful of syringes from his apron pocket, followed by a collection of clean hypodermic needles. Along with that, he took out more smaller glass bottles and decanted the green elixer into them. For a moment the sight of the promised cure held all the room's attention, until, with a jolt that spread quickly from person to person in glances, they realised the physical nature of what he was doing.

"Deep pockets," whispered Dracces in reverent suspicion, eyes flicking from the stranger to the growing collection of vials. No questions were voiced aloud, but they were wondered.

Once all the equipment was ready, Teknall beckoned them over and gave the field doctors a crash course in giving an injection, with instruction on the dose required, filling the syringe properly, locating veins, and correct injection technique, as well as emphasising the need to replace the needle after each use to prevent mixing blood of different people. He personally supervised each medic for their first injection, and if he deemed them adequately competent he gave them more needles and syringes, each syringe sized to give a different dose, and a bottle of the potion, and sent them to deliver the cure to others.

The instructions were clear and efficient, and under Teknall's guidance, the vital task took not much more than an hour. Woozy morale swelled through the barracks as the militia lined up for the procedure, as if receiving a ration. Those administering the potion repeated what they'd learned with methodic discipline, though not a few recipients flinched back at the bizarre sensation of the needle. The field doctors themselves were not immune to a little awe at the equipment. They held the syringes as they would fine jewellery; They were, after all, not much less unique, or delicate.

In the aftermath, a warm confidence was starting to radiate between the soldiers, lightheaded though they still were, cold as the gusts outside. Something special had come to them. They were being watched over.

Tauga helped deliver the last of the shots to the doctors themselves. Curiously, the number of injectors had been exactly that which had been necessary, even with a few accidents. "That's the last," she stated, drawing the needle from Jinini's shell joint.

"I should thank you," said the general, awkwardly. Her mask was off now. "I, uh. I don't know what I can say to pay you back. But we do owe you," Tauga glanced away, then back, "a lot."

"Your services to civilisation and the people and city of Xerxes have paid for it already," Teknall replied. "All I ask is that you continue to do so, to protect those who need protecting and restore order where order has been lost, as you have already done."

Teknall's beak moved side to side, his eyes scanning the barracks and assembled people. "There is one more thing I offer to you and the Watch. Xerxes has become a dangerous place. At present you are beseiged in this building, unable to go outside without succumbing to the blood rain. If and when the rain does stop, you will find Xerxes filled not with human, hain and rovaick but with monstrous and violent dagons. I offer safe passage out of Xerxes to whoever is willing. You can join the refugees you have already sent, if you so choose."

And just like that, the rising morale turned dangerous.

"Thank you," Tauga hesitated, knowing what would come. "But I chose to stay already. It's all I have." Her voice was low, but she was overheard. Perhaps it didn't even matter. The soldiers already knew their leader well. She raised her voice so that it would carry beyond the stretchers and sawbones, and made it worse. "If anyone wants to escape. This is your chance. For God's sake, don't be-"

Idiots? Heroes? Human?

"They're not gonna go." There were maybe two hundred and fifty fighters in the compound. Survivors. Those who would have run or died had done so already. Tonight, they feared neither fate. "Fuck. Teknall, I'm sorry. We're all dead men here." It did not slip past Tauga that it was she who'd done this- That the Watch was painfully, unflinchingly loyal to her. And she was staying.

In a place where they couldn't follow.

"Come back when the night is late. Maybe someone changes their mind by then." Tauga's hand rested on the back of her neck. "Sorry for wasting your time."

Teknall looked at his feet and shuffled awkwardly. "Ah, should have figured that earlier. Um..." He took a breath and looked back up at Tauga. "Since you're all determined to stay, I'll ensure you have enough food and water to outlast this seige. I'll sort that out now, shall I?" Without waiting for an answer, Teknall briskly walked off towards the supplies.

Tauga motioned as if to offer an escort before he left sight, and stood for a while in his wake. Paced back on her own steps as if looking for an order to give. Found none, and was left to mill around with her troops. The good company didn't much ease her new awareness of how unique she was among their fragile forms.

Meanwhile Teknall had filled the storehouses of the barracks. Gathering fresh water was a trivial task for the god. Sourcing food which was both nutritous and long-lasting was marginally more difficult, but using his Perception it had been simple enough to locate stores of food in Xerxes not yet contaminated by the blood rain, and since the rest of Xerxes was being turned into dagons and Amartia had the power to procure food from anything Teknall had no qualms about aquisitioning some of that food for the Watch.

Teknall returned to Tauga and reported, "The Watch now has enough food and water to last for about two months, which should be adequate. You may keep the remaining antidote and injectors in case of any further cases of infection. I think that is everything for now. If anyone needs anything more, just call." She nodded simply. All the necessary thanks had been given.

"We'll pray, I guess." There would be plenty of praying to go round soon enough, though it didn't quite seem like Teknall's style. "And we'll be ready. We're not giving up what we've fought for yet. Ever."

"Good. We need people who won't give up," Teknall said. He hesitated for a moment before coming closer to Tauga and speaking in a whisper only she could hear. "Just remember what you're fighting for. You may trust Amartia, but I fear that trust may be ill placed. You've seen what he's done. I suggest you think long and hard about whether you really want to fight for him." Nod.

Teknall stepped back. He bid farewell to the gathered people. "Goodbye. It is a tough path you have chosen, so good luck, and don't give up." Waving, he exited through the entrance to the barracks and departed. The stranger was cheered as he disappeared fearlessly into the rain, a figure of hope. Once again, Tauga was left with her own handiwork.

Xerxes, she decided, gazing out over the dim, apocalyptic view outside the barracks, listening to its melancholy ambience. It was just dark enough to imagine something different. That's what I'm killing for. The City. Because one day Amartia will make everything right again. Like it used to be.

Quay stood at ease, facing the doors to the Galeni court hall. It was an impressive doorway, a vast, arcing construction of wood and ancient, banded ivory that made it seem as if Lord Galeni was in the habit of entertaining giants. The stairwell leading up from the courtyard told a different story. The broad steps - too deep for any human stride - were scored by the passage of bronze-clad hooves. It was a grand gesture of celebration to have mounted troops ride through the hall in full plate, and it was the lords pleasure to keep the spectacle alive. Quay had seen it enough times to have come to his own conclusions. It was ridiculous. The pomp that accompanied their entrance was impressive; there was something awe-inspiring in the clamour of vast bodies, the hot shudder of their breath, and the flint-spark strikes as they ascended in darkness. Once that was done with, though, there was no easy way for him to settle knowing that all it would take was for one of the horses to panic and they'd have the noblest bloodbath in living memory to mop up after. Trained as they were to a level of obedience that put most recruits to shame, Quay couldn't shake the feeling that all horses were big, mad buggers that trembled perpetually on the cusp of an explosion. They looked calm, but were really just biding their time until an excuse came along for them to kick your belly out through your spine.

He had been waiting for a long time to see the Lord of the Galeni Family, Colin's father. Been kept waiting, to be exact, but that meant little to him. Army life was all about waiting: waiting for orders, waiting for supplies, waiting for the enemy. A very small part of the job was all about trying very, very hard to stay alive, but mostly it was about waiting, as his teachers told him. Apparently though, luck had factored heavily on the survival side of things, Quay had spent a long time mastering the military art of killing time. Sleep was the best way. Nothing could fill an hour quite like a nap. Sadly, there was no such luxury within the royal court. You showed up when summoned and hoped your social capital was high enough to see you ushered in before your legs fell asleep, even despite the fact that he was Prince of Eldan. Likewise there was nowhere to sit, unless you were the sort of fool who would be happy to let the stone floor leach all the heat out of his arse. So, Quay stood at ease with his eyes focused on nothing at all, and sang a song inside his head.

It was a folk song, of sorts, about a young soldier who meets a milkmaid coming the other way down a narrow street carrying her milk pans to market. He could only remember thirty or so verses of it - there were plenty he was glad to have forgotten because they might have put a lie to his claim of standing at ease - but he also knew it took about a third of an hour to get through them. Three repeats an hour, over and over, it made for a simple and entertaining way to keep track of how long the lord intended to demonstrate his displeasure, and a nice distraction from the thought that if he was really counting time on Galeni's ire then it was getting on for fifteen years now. Fifteen years since Quay had lost his mother to the Whispering, fifteen years since Galeni began to weave the trap his father fell so easily into.

There was a clank from inside the hall, the scrape of a giant bolt being drawn back, and a shift in the air as the massive doors relaxed inward on their hinges. Quay adjusted his doublet, making sure it sat neatly across his chest. He felt like an idiot wearing it, but it was what court demanded. The hose were even worse. Some clever dyer had perfected the process of a dark blue that held fast to cloth, and it was considered the height of fashion to wear it. When he'd asked for some clean clothes to present himself, he'd forgotten to specify that they shouldn't make him look like a blueberry. Quay drew himself to attention and tried to swallow the thought down. Quay put his feet together, his arms by his sides, raised his chin and presented the professionally blank expression of a soldier at parade. A steward appeared in the widening gap of the doorway, his face an artfully-composed picture of superiority and worldly disapproval.

"The Lord waits for you," the steward said. Quay stayed at attention, his gaze distant. The steward's expression faltered, and he stepped forward, brimming with sudden impatience. "The Lord waits for you," he said, more urgently. "You will attend."

Quay dropped his gaze and looked at the man, keeping his face neutral. "What is my rank?"

"What?"

"My rank. What is it?"

The steward's cheeks lit up scarlet, and he scurried right out onto the steps, coming face to face with Quay. "Now look here," he said, his voice low and insistent. "You will not-"

Quay shifted his weight and punched the man hard in the belly. The steward folded up around his fist, all the breath and fussed-up importance spilling out of him in a loud, low whoosh of air. With a light push, the man tipped over and slid off Quay's arm to land with a heavy thump. Quay leaned over him.

"Word of advice for you, boy," Gray said. "You open a door. I hold the future of this nation in my hand." The man groaned. Quay decided to take it as agreement. "For the record, I hold the rank of Commander. 'Sir' works just as well." It was a petty thing to do, but he felt better for it. Quay straightened, twitched the seams of his doublet again - more out of habit than need - and strode forward into the hall.

When Quay had last visited the town of Galena, Lord Galeni had been a believer in the power of intimidation, and division of power. His court was the ultimate expression of that belief. Appellant citizens were forced to walk a long, slow gauntlet under the gaze of guards and courtiers. The former were a stern and forbidding reminder of the lord's power over them, while the latter were there at the lord's invitation, willing players in a game to see who could win the most from his favour. Sons and daughters of the four northern lords, representatives of the lord's support on the far side of the Torin Ranges vied with the elite of the south against his father.

Quay would have had truck with none of it, save for the fact that fifteen years ago, when his mother died, Galeni forced his father to walk that gauntlet for the epidemic. As he did, he had marked the men and women on the sidelines. Some he had known, others he had found by his own means. Some of them still hung unanswered in his memory, their names and the part they played in his life a mystery waiting to be solved. He had told himself that someday he would work it all out - that someone would be held to account - but the sight that waited beyond the great doors made him forget all notion of revenge.

Galeni's court was a shadow. The hall was still laid out in the same way, with long benches down the sides giving way to richer seats set in rows up near the throne. Vast hangings covered the windows and hung from the ceiling, great banners in the deep red of the Royal house, trembling as the disturbed currents of air swirled up around them. For all that had been left the same, the emptiness and the darkness made it feel less like the mining hub of the Kingdom, and more like a tomb. Aside from Lord Galeni himself and a handful of guards, there was no-one else; no traders, no advisers, no tablets or stewards. No court of any kind. Quay had expected the low murmur of surprise to mark his appearance. Instead, he was met by silence. Whatever Lord Galeni wanted from him, he wanted no audience to bear witness to it. As he walked towards the throne, the heels of Quay's dress boots echoed uncomfortably on the stone floor. With every step and lifting echo, a sense of deep unease settled heavier on him. Something was wrong, and it troubled Quay that he'd seen or heard nothing of it until he'd walked through the giant doors to the court.

Lord Galeni stood at Quay's approach. He looked older than Quay expected. Still tall and imposing, with a craggy, expressive face that sat under a thundercloud in the half-light, he looked weaker, more haggard. It was the way he stood, more than anything else. As Quay reached the throne, the Lord sagged inward, a release of tension, as if relieved that Quay had finally arrived. Galeni had become the supplicant in his own hall. Unsure of what to do, Quay decided to take to heart the lesson he'd just given the steward. Stick to what you know. He went down on one knee and lowered his head. Something in his leg creaked in protest, but he ignored it.

"Welcome, Crown Prince of Eldan," the king said.

"My lord." Gray stood. "It's been a long time since anyone called me that."He tried to keep the bitter memory of his predecessors death from sounding in his voice.

"It's your birthright Quay." Galeni held out a wallet, the mark of rank and his royal seal set on the face of it. "I'm giving this to you."

Quay took the token and bowed his head in acknowledgement. The High Commander's mark was light, but his hand still trembled at the weight of it. Galeni wouldn't return his predecessors rank to him without a reason. He wanted something, and Quay steeled himself to hear what price the lord would demand in return, why he really was forced to run away from Eldan.

"Tell me," Galeni said, "how things are back in Eldan."

A shadow passed over the Prince's face upon the memory of his last days back home. The moment he received the news that the very man that he stood before now, retracted his vote to defend the Ionians despite Quay made his report.

"Uneasy, sire. Things are tense in the capital."

"Why is that?"

"Slick lads, been playing the system. Fathers losing his credibility, smugglers been taking thier chances with the Axim to the north. Fresh lads hitting the south, the sort who don't know when to lie down and be quiet." Quay popped a knuckle on his sword hand, and as he did it remembered how the same sound had been enough to spook a smuggler out from cover, a technique thought to him by his teachers. After the fight, Quay had taken a closer look at him. The boy had barely made it into his teens. Months later, it still gnawed at Quay's conscience.

"I wonder..." Galeni sank back on his throne, distracted, talking to himself. Quay waited while he ruminated. Eventually, the king looked up. "How many have you questioned? Why are their habits changing?"

"Questioned?" Quay glanced down at his feet. Out in the field, it was rare to take a prisoner. Smugglers knew that capture was a death sentence, so they tended to go down fighting. Those that lived were executed on the spot. It wasn't the sort of ground you could march a prisoner over. "We don't question them, sire."

Galeni stared at him as if Quay had just offered up an insult. After a long moment, he blinked rapidly,  recovering himself. "What of the Axim? What are they doing?"

"Two Ionian vassals on the northeastern borders have fallen to thier might within days."

"So quickly?"

"They've doubled the guard on our borders with Ionia also. More than half our traders are getting turned back when they try to cross." The Axim planed to starve Ionia of any assistance from the east, which meant Elden needed to act fast to picket a possible blockade. Unfortunately, that was unlikely to happen.

"And you think that number will rise?"

Quay nodded. "They'll start turning everyone back soon enough, we need to act."

"Are they getting ready to invade?"

"I can't say. We can't find an army to suggest it. I've had a few men slip across the border to search for their camps, their supply train, any sign of them at all. There's nothing out there. The Axim focus thier mind on the Ionians for now."

Galeni shook his head and was silent for a long time. Quay could see him thinking, the heavy brows furrowed together, his eyes lost in shadow. "What of your fathers treaty? Does it still stand?"

"Sire?"

"Are we still required to come to Ionia's aid?"

"Of course, it is out duty, if we don't Ionia could fall by Axim's hand within months. That would leave us little time before the Axim turn to us."

"If we join in, the Axim could declare war on us immediately, they have the manpower."

Quay considered it. "It's unlikely, but its a possibility. Taking Ionia would make a better crossing point due to the mountain range that divides our borders. Its gives them the means to establish a stronger foothold, and that would mean invasion."

Galeni absorbed the thought in silence. While he waited, Quay started putting together a rough plan to assist Ionia without instigating war. Unfortunately, the Families had other plans. The reason Quay was to sneak out of Eldan was because his fathers fall was intimate. The Families owned the many mines in the mountain ranges and essentially supplied all of Elden. With thier extensive supply and ownership, a coalition of Families could grip his fathers balls at any time, and that they did. Together thier power and influence surpassed that of the King's, and with a little bit of slander mixed in, credibility was going down the drain. The lord's offhand questions had given him the kick he needed to take the initiative. Even rotting in his hall, some of Galeni's old insight remained. A surge of impatience welled up through Quay, and he stifled the urge to fidget as he waited for the Lord to order him to Ionia.

"Thank you for your report, Prince," Galeni said, straightening up. "Take Captain Dawson and his division to the Capital of Ionia."

"Lord, Dawson commands cavalry."

"I am aware of that, Commander."

"Then you realise that the second they step onto the Permafrost, those four-legged bastards they ride are going to sink like stones. Any man that tries to walk on that terrain won't take more than three steps before he falls, and when he falls, he won't be getting up, especially in the dead of winter."

"They move quickly over dry ground, Prince. Quicker than your men can run. We only need them to sit there and watch anyway, they will see no combat."

Quay ground his teeth. In battle it would never work. With no room to turn, no space to flank or withdraw, the Axim could simply line the Permafrost with pikemen and let the cavalry run at them. It would be a massacre, pointless and quick. It didn't matter anyway, Quay was smart enough to realize what this was about. Because of the treaty, Elden was required to run to Ionia's aid in times of distress, but the Families voted against mobilizing upon his fathers decree, most likely due to the monetary value of supplying Ionia's army with Eldan bronze. So to comply with the treaty, a stand-in was being sent to the Capital, away from the fighting, to fulfil thier end of the treaty cheakly You're going to leave the Ionians to fend for themselves?"

Lord Galeni turned his full gaze on him. Quay had been wrong to think he looked old. Those eyes, deep and dark and heavy with pain, were something entirely different. They looked ancient. "The Ionians are not of the Families concern." As the Lord spoke, Quay felt something shift. For years he'd clung to the bitter monument of his hatred, the thought that whatever happened, he would never respect the Galeni Family again. All it had taken was one softly-spoken sentence for that monument to crack under him.

"You are dismissed."

Vestec strolled into the Realm of Madness, examining his handy work. The demons were well established in the Realm. For the most part there were just roving bands of lesser Hellions, fighting and squabbling over anything they could find. In the farthest reaches, the two Lords were establishing their control over various territories, such as they were in the Realm. The land around him seemed to change every ten feet. It writhed from a thick forest to a burning inferno to a frozen tundra, so on so forth.. Vestec giggled as he walked, and the realm rippled in response, changing immediately from their brief forms to new ones. Casually, he lifted his hand and mountains rose. Dropping it, deep abyssal pits formed.

This Realm was his, and it obeyed the command of its ruler.

But he wasn’t here to play with his creation. No, he was on a mission. With a regretful sigh, Vestec leapt forward, zooming towards his destination. As he drew closer, an unholy howling could be heard, growing ever louder until it shook the very earth. A giant dome of darkness greeted the God of Chaos, the howls echoing from it. “Julky, Julky my boy calm down!” Vestec called cheerfully, diving into the dome without hesitation.

The Darkness was thick and cloying, seeming to be more a living thing, pressing close against the God of Chaos, attempting to smother his colors. All sound was muffled, even the unholy howling. “Juuuulllky.” Vestec cooed into the black. “You know how I feel about you trying to exert your will.” He clapped his hands and Chaos energy roiled off of him, pushing back the Darkness. It recoiled with an audible hiss, revealing the chained form of Julkofyr, God of Darkness. He was on his knees, howling as the Chaos Chains bit into his form. The sound was in full force, almost painful. Vestec merely giggled. “Julky! So good to see you! I’m just here for a little power from you. You know, the usual!” He practically skipped towards the trapped God, claws forming on his hands.

Without warning he ripped a chunk of Julkofyr’s flesh out, drawing an agonized scream from the trapped God. “Thank you Julky! I’ll put it to good u-”

Julkofyr’s hand, suddenly free, speared into Vestec’s shoulder. Vestec stumbled backwards, hissing in pain. Darkness started spreading from his shoulder almost immediately. “Shouldn’t have done that Julky.” He snarled, blasting the God with Chaos energy. It roared from his palms, a vibrant red of violence and suffering. Julkofyr shrieked again, writhing under the barrage, and Vestec quickly opened a portal back to Galbar, stumbling through and out.

He didn’t know where he was. Somewhere along the trees Teknall had planted all over the planet. He could feel the darkness spreading. Julkofyr’s foul essence attempting to kill him. “Not...today...Julky.” He hissed, gathering his own essence around the darkness. With a final push, he shoved his essence out of his own body, bursting from his shoulder in a shower of Divine Blood, mixing as it flew through the air.

Vestec slowly moved his shoulder around as it repaired itself. “I’ll make sure you pay for that…” He muttered, before movement caught his attention. His and Julky’s essences were writhing, forming and combining into one distinct shape. Vestec tilted his head, putting his hands on his hips, at the woman before him.

“And who might you be?”

The woman looked in the direction of the voice then lifted herself into a sitting position. She looked over her pale skin and ashen hair, then ran her fingers through her skin experiencing touch for the first time.

“I wonder who I might be.”

She replied naturally then stood up and looked around the forest.

“I suppose Helvana would be a fitting name. Anyways, where are we? Who are you?”

Vestec nodded amicably. “We’re in Galbar, one of the few populated places around. I’m your father, Vestec, the God of Chaos. Your other father is insane, Julkofyr, the God of Darkness. Quite a lot is going on right now, Helvana. Things that will drag you into them as soon as they know you exist. I won’t shield you from it. But I’ll protect you, as I protect all my children, from excessive violence and death. You will, however, need to know the world before getting drawn in. I can either show you all there is to see, in a moment, or I can drop you off in an area of your pleasing, and allow you to explore the world on your own. With my eye on you, of course. I keep an eye on all my children.”

Helvana pondered for a moment on what to choose. While having knowledge of the entire world was extremely useful, she felt more drawn towards exploring it on her own. “Hmm… exploring this land would certainly be very interesting. Give me a general idea of this land, a mental map if you would, but leave the details out of it.”

Vestec giggled. “Perfect!” He created a map of Galbar out of chaos energy in front of them. “We’re here.” A firework burst upward from the map, marking their position. “Throughout this land, we have Hain. Shell like beings, made by Toun. South from here you’ll find the Venomweald. Terrifying place, filled with monsters and mutations. To the east, the Nice Mountains; a place of safety, inhabited by the the surprisingly war like Angels. It is owned by Niciel and she harbors no violence in it. To the west, in no particular order, is the Golden Barrens, Gilt Savannah, the Darkened Spires, Great Steppes, the Changing Plains, and the Firewind Desert. I forget who created the golden plains, the steppes, and the Savannah, but I created the Changing Plains, Julky the Spires, and Zephyrion created the Firewind desert. The desert is home to Vetros, a fanatical cult of his. ”

Vestec spun the map, briefly zooming in on both locations. “Farther north is the Frozen Wastes, inhabited by Pack Minds wolf like bipeds, undead, and Thulemiz, a small necromancer of some renown, desperately attempting to create an empire. You know, people like them should form a club. We’re getting quite a lot of them.” Vestec giggled.

“Anywho, if you head East you’ll eventually crash into the Metallic Sea, creation of Toun. He didn’t like Jvan having the only ocean, and made his own. Before that, you’ll hit the Ironheart ranges, home of the Rovaick. Mountains, all created by Teknall. Down the line of them is the city of Xerxes, that’ll be a festering burning ruin soon enough so don’t worry about it. Heading South, you’ll hit the Sparkling and Fractal sea, Jvan’s creations. Filled with horrors, so be careful. Way down south is the Mountain of the World, home of the dwarves. It’s connected to the Ironheart ranges and surrounded by islands and a new ocean. Long story. I’ll tell you later.”

Vestec closed the map, pressing a finger against Helvena’s head to give her it for mental use. “Of course, that’s not nearly everything, but it’d take the fun out of exploring if you knew where everything was.”

Helvana listened intently to her father’s explanation then closed her eyes as she reviewed the information in her head after receiving the map for herself. After memorizing what she was told she opened her eyes and looked back at Vestec. “So there’ll be a party in Xerxes? I wish I could attend, but I’ll have to stay out of it. Is there anything else?”

Vestec tilted his head in thought. “Not so much a party as a bloodbath. Nothing that comes to mind, my dear. I’ll be watching you, protecting you from death. Mistakes are all yours though. If you ever need me, I’m a prayer away.” He spread his arms, gesturing widely. “The world is yours to play with dear. Go have fun.”

“Thanks, daddy. Tell mom I love her or something. Goodbye.”

After saying this she turned around unceremoniously and went deeper into the woods. Walking amidst the trees, Helvana feasted her eyes on nature and its rich colors. The smell of blooming flowers, chirping of birds and a distant river flowing gave off a peaceful feeling and Helvana simply let it all flow into her. Suddenly, as if to break the peaceful atmosphere, she laid her eyes on a bloodied bird with jet black feathers; a crow. It struggled to move and tried to take off into the air, but its wing was broken. Helvana looked at the crow in complete silence for a while, but she didn’t notice the time passing. Moving slowly, she got to her knees and crawled towards the crow, it instinctively backed away.

“Come here, don’t be afraid.”

She outstretched her hand and small black tendrils emerged from her fingertips. They surrounded the crow, gently wrapping around it, then pulled it towards her. She held the crow in her hands carefully then embraced it, covering the broken wing in her darkness.

Helvana held the crow in her embrace for a couple of minutes before peeling off the darkness on its wing and revealed that it was now healed. The crow beat its wings and flew off, then landed on a nearby branch as Helvana watched with a smile. She outstretched her hand again and this time the crow flew over to her and landed on her arm. She giggled lightly as she petted her new friend. “Now, show me who did this to you.”

The crow flew off again as if obeying her request and she followed after him. The edge of the forest wasn’t very far and soon enough a village came into view. Helvana hid behind a tree to spy on the village. “I see, so they are the ones. Let’s see how they fare with the touch of a demi-goddess.”

Saying this, Helvana placed a curse of misfortune on the village and calmly walked back into the forest.

__________________________________________

A couple of days had passed since Helvana placed the curse over the village. Its inhabitants had begun to worry about the series of bad events that suddenly started as well as noticing that more and more crows flocked in the nearby forest.

In a tavern, a group of three men were gathered to drink and talk, or rather complain about the situation.

“I heard a lot of bad thing’s been happening ‘round. You lot know anything ‘bout it?” A man sporting a full grown beard asked.

“My brother tripped when carrying a few logs and sprained his ankle pretty badly.” A tall man replied and drinked from his beverage. “Nothing happened to you yet?”

“Nothin’ noticeable, but the neighbor had an accident and broke his arm. Poor lad’ll have a tough time recoverin’.”

“I heard the shepherd lost a couple of his sheep. And I lost a lot of my tools lately.” A third man, or rather boy, with shoulder length brown hair added.

“You’re in luck if you only lost tools, Lloyd.”

“If you call luck losing over half the stuff I use to work, then yeah, I am in luck. *sigh* My boss’ really mad at me for it…”

“Honestly, I don’t like those birds flockin’ ovr at the forest. Those things bring death in their wings.”

The bearded man said with a grim look on his face. The villagers noticed after a while that whenever someone died, a crow was somewhere in sight and looking ominously towards where the body was buried. So whenever they saw one, they’d immediately chase it out of the village or kill it.

“Some people think this is the work of a witch.”

“I heard some rumors about that. Something about a woman wandering the forest stark naked.”

“Sure, as if that makes any sense. The people that saw this woman were probably just drunk.”

“I talked with some people ‘bout going to look for the witch. If yer interested in seein’ it for yerself you can just give the word, kid.”

“No thanks. I have to take care of my brother and I don’t have time for these stories. But have fun strolling right into her den if you’re so eager to see a pair of tits. See you guys later.” Lloyd made a snide remark before getting up and leaving.

“I’ll join this search. Gotta pay that witch back for hurting my brother.”

“Alright. Let’s finish up ‘ere and go meet the group.”

The two emptied their mugs and left.

Near the edge of the village a group of men had gathered. Some of them had pitchforks and scythes, others had clubs and the hunters had their bows. The mob only numbered 14 in total since their village wasn’t very big, but still these men would go after the witch. And when they noticed no one else would join the group, they ventured into the forest.

__________________________________________

A shiny fruit hanged beneath a branch and swayed softly on the breeze. It was already as ripe as it would get before eventually falling to the ground. And so it did, but because something had struck it. A black, rubber like membrane covered the fruit and shielded it from the fall and a woman covered in a cloak adorned with black feathers picked it up. She peeled off the membrane and took a bite of the succulent fruit.

This was pretty much what Helvana did the past days. That is, learning the taste of things. She also crafted the cloak she now wore from her darkness and feathers she herself plucked from her crows. As boring as tasting fruits may look to anyone else, this was actually quite entertaining for her, even though she was mostly doing this to pass the time while she let the village simmer a bit with her curse.

As she finished savoring the fruit, a crow landed on a nearby branch and cawed. Helvana outstretched her arm and the crow flew over to her. It was the same crow she had healed several days ago, and now it was as if he was her loyal pet.

“What news do you bring today, Oscar?” The crow cawed again. “Oh, I see. So they have finally taken notice. Have the others guide them in and don’t get too close to them.” She scratched Oscar’s neck before setting him off.

Oscar flew along the trees, rallying a couple of other crows with his call. After gathering about two dozens of crows, Oscar lead the flock near the edge of the forest and they all landed on the trees, waiting for their guests. Soon the mob of villagers came into their view and the crows cawed in response as if greeting them. Naturally the villagers didn’t like the welcoming and threw rocks at the birds, prompting them to fly away, only to land somewhere else further ahead into the forest.

The hunters were leading a separate group and although they were not unnoticed, they were as sneaky as ever. One of the hunters saw a crow looking away from him and into the other group of villagers. He aimed his bow and pulled the arrow slowly then loosened it. The arrow struck true and the crow fell dead to the ground as the villagers cheered and the other crows cawed loudly in unison as they scattered.

The villagers headed further in and came upon a clearing with a big tree at its center. They walked in, and from behind the tree, Helvana showed herself. The villagers were frozen in place momentarily as they gazed at the half-naked woman.

“Welcome, humans. I must say, you lot have some way of walking into someone’s home. I sent my pets to greet you and you go right ahead and kill one of them.”

“So you really are controlling the birds! What do you want from our people?! Why did you curse us?!”

“Why, I want nothing at all. I just made your people go through a series of unlucky events as payback for what you did to these poor birds.” A caw was heard and Helvana looked up and outstretched her hand for Oscar. “You boys did nothing wrong, right Oscar? These savages just started bullying you for now reason.”

“You bitch! These pests bring death upon us and you think they’re innocent? I had enough of her!”

One of the villagers broke out of the group all of a sudden and charged at Helvana. But with a swift movement of her hand, the attacker tripped. His feet had been rooted to the ground by her darkness and no matter how hard he struggled, he just couldn't tear it off.

“Rude. The crows never did anything to harm you.”

“You lie! Whenever one of us dies there’s at least one of them present!”

“It was just the whim of some god I can’t care less about. Whatever his reason were, he wanted the crows to seek out death, not straight up cause it.”

Hidden behind Helvana, a hunter pointed an arrow at her and loosened it. But it bounced right off the cloak. Helvana sighed and formed a crow quill from her darkness on her hand and threw it in the direction of the archer with unerring precision. It struck the archer’s hand and turned into a tar like substance, then hardened into rubber, effectively fusing his hand with his bow. “This is for killing one of my crows.”

She closed her hand into a fist slowly as if crushing something and the darkness around the archer’s hand tightened, crushing both his bones and his bow. He rolled in the ground in pain while screaming and Helvana smiled coldly. “I feel awfully merciful today, so leaving you as a cripple is enough.” She said to the archer, then turned to face the mob that was now shivering. “Now, leave this place right this instant or I’ll be even rougher with this rude fellow here.” She stepped over the villager that had tried to attack her and pushed her weight on him. The other villagers backed off slowly, then turned tail and fled the forest in fear. Satisfied, Helvana released the man on the ground and kicked him away.

“Don’t come back. The next time a crow is hurt, their wings will carry death.”

The man picked himself up and ran away as well. Helvana sighed and Oscar landed on her shoulder.

“Oscar, I told you not to let the others near the villagers.” She said as she scratched his neck. “Don’t be so careless next time, okay?”

__________________________________________

A couple of days had passed since the villagers confronted Helvana and now they were too scared to go to the forest. The crows continued to flock around Helvana and now some of them were going into the village and feeding on the crops. While some villagers were too scared to do anything about it, others didn’t put up with this and chased the crows out.

The children were kept inside most of the time, but a courageous few snuck out that evening and met at the edge of the forest. They wanted to test their courage by heading in at night, but when they saw the crows looking back at them, they froze in place. Except for one boy.

“Come on, guys, they’re just some stupid birds.” A boy with short, light brown hair said with confidence, despite his friends' fear.

“B-but the evil witch is in there, right? What if she eats us alive?” A girl wearing a green dress said while holding her skirt tightly.

“Didn’t we come here knowing about the witch? Where did your courage go?”

“Yeah, but this was a bad idea after all. We should leave before the adults find out we snuck out.”

“Fine, go back if you want. I’m going in.”

Ignoring the other kids, the boy turned his back to them and waltzed into the forest as if it was nothing. He was followed all the way by crows as he advanced deeper into the woods, and even though he started to feel tense, he didn’t turn back to leave. He walked around for awhile, not knowing where he was going, and the sun had started to set, but he didn’t want to leave just yet. Eventually he found a clearing with a huge tree in the middle and walked towards it.

“My, what do we have here?”

The boy trembled a little when he heard the voice of a woman and slowly turned his head to look behind. When he saw Helvana he jumped and hit the tree with his back.

“Hello there, little one. What brings you here, hmm?” She said as she approached the boy, but he didn’t reply. She knelt down to get on his level and looked him in the eyes. “What’s the matter? Did I scare you so much you swallowed your tongue?”

“I-I…”

“Yeeeeees?”

“I-I just…”

“You juuuuust?”

“I-I just wanted to prove that I’m not afraid of you!”

“Aww… aren’t you a cute one?” She said as she ruffled the boy’s hair. “I must say, I didn’t expect a child of all else to come here after the others came. So, little one, tell me your name.”

“I’m Gwyn.”

“Well then, Gwyn, now that you’re here, what will you be doing?”

“Well…”

“You didn’t think that far, did you?”

“No… You... You’re not going to hurt me, right?”

“Why would I?”

“You hurt the others, so…”

“I only hurt them because they were mean to me and my pets. That wouldn’t have happened if they had been nice to me. Anyways, it’s gonna get dark soon. Your parents will worry if you’re not back.”

“I don’t have parents. I live alone with my big brother.”

“... I see.” Helvana looked a bit gloom for a moment, but then smiled and ruffled Gwyn’s hair again. “You shouldn’t make your brother worry then. It’ll be hard for you to get back on your own, so I’ll help you. Oscar.”

At her call, Oscar came and landed on her shoulder.

“Be a dear and show Gwyn the way out.”

Oscar cawed in return and flew over to a branch on the edge of the clearing.

“Now, just follow after him and you’ll be back home before you know it. And be careful not to trip in the tree roots.”

“Thanks! You’re really nice, miss. You’re not evil at all.”

Gwyn ran towards the tree where Oscar had landed on and stopped suddenly, then turned around.

“Hey, what’s your name, miss?”

“... My name’s Helvana.”

“Okay. Bye bye, Helvana.”

Gwyn left after that and Helvana giggled softly. “Such a brave boy. But I’m not that good of a person.” As she walked back to the tree, she kicked something metallic. Looking down, Helvana saw a bangle lying on the ground and she picked it up to have a better look at it. “What’s this? Did Gwyn drop it?” She looked in the direction of the village in thought, then shook her head and slipped the bangle on her right wrist. “I have a feeling he’ll be back anyways. Might as well hold on to it.”

__________________________________________

The next day, Gwyn and his brother were gathered to eat breakfast. His brother had been working until late at night, so he didn’t notice Gwyn’s little adventure. But he did notice something was missing.

“Gwyn, what happened to your bangle?”

“Huh?” he looked at his wrist and noticed that the bangle was missing. “Oh no. I dropped it!”

“And where did you drop it?”

“Well… You don’t need to worry about it, Lloyd. I’ll go fetch it later.”

“Gwyn, you’re hiding something. Did you go somewhere yesterday while I was working?”

“N-no. I was at home all day just like you told me to be.”

“Did you now? Then why don’t you go look for the bangle now?”

“Uhm…”

“Gwyn, you know that’s a memento from father. Tell me where you dropped it.”

“I…” Gwyn hung his head. “Dropped it in the forest.”

“What?! I told you that place was dangerous! Why did you go there?”

“Me and the other kids wanted to do a test of courage, but I ended up being the only one to go in. I must’ve dropped it when I met Helvana.”

“Helvana?”

“The miss everyone’s being calling a witch lately, but she’s not bad. She was nice to me and even showed me the way out.”

Lloyd sighed as he rubbed his forehead. “You’re grounded. You can’t go outside today.”

“Okay…”

“I’ll go get your bangle, do you remember where you met this Helvana?”

“In the clearing with the big tree.”

“Okay.” He sighed again as he got up from the table. ”Good thing I don’t have any work today.” And with that, he left Gwyn alone and headed to the forest.

Lloyd stood in front of the edge of the forest. He looked at the crows and they returned the glare, but ignoring the menacing stares, he entered the forest.

Quickly making his way to the clearing, he noticed that the crows had been following him and cawing all the way, making the place creepier than it should be even though it was a bright day. Upon arriving at the clearing, he walked towards the big tree and looked around for his brother’s bangle.

He looked all over the ground around the tree, but the bangle was nowhere to be found. Suddenly, he heard a rustling above him, and looking up he saw a woman lying down on a particularly large branch, sleeping quietly. Lloyd’s vision was immediately drawn to her face, beautiful beyond any measure and serene like an angel. He couldn’t see much of her frame as she was mostly covered by her crow feather cloak, but her right arm was left hanging under the branch.

And there he saw his brother’s bangle. He tried to grab it, but it was just out of his reach. He continued to try nonetheless, but then something swooped over his head and he lost his balance, making him fall. Lloyd looked at what had done that and saw that a crow had landed beside the woman. It cawed and the woman rustled a little. It cawed again and this time she moaned something. “Just a little more, Oscar…”

It cawed yet again and finally the woman lifted herself up as she groaned in annoyance and rubbed her eyes, exposing her bare body in the process. Struck by the sight, Lloyd stood up and turned away. “Oh, a visitor? And so early in the morning too?”

She said in an annoyed tone and Lloyd heard her jumping down the branch. He turned his head slowly and when he confirmed that the woman was covered up, he turned around and cleared his throat. “Sorry for waking you up, witch, but you have something that belongs to me.”

“Hmm? You mean this bangle?” She said lifting her arm through her cloak, exposing her shape once again, then lowered it back.

“Yes, that.” Lloyd said while facing away from the woman. “That bangle belongs to my brother, Gwyn. Could you return it to me?”

“Oohhh, so you’re the big brother he mentioned. Oscar, greet our guest.”

“Hello.” The crow mimicked the word in a funny way, giving Lloyd a surprised look on his face.

“Anyways, did he arrive safely?”

“Yes. Why would you care anyways?”

“Am I not allowed to? I made sure he got to the village safely, but Oscar didn’t follow further than that, so I was wondering how he was doing.”

“Well, thanks for taking care of my brother, I’ve been pretty busy lately. I’m Lloyd, by the way. Your name is Helvana, right?”

“Yes, that’s right.” She said while walking towards Lloyd as she removed the bangle from her arm then handed it to him. “Here.”

“Thanks.”

He took the bangle while looking away. Noticing this, Helvana smiled impishly and placed her hands on her hips, raising the cloak just enough for the front opening to show her cleavage. “What’s the matter boy? Why are you shy all of a sudden, hmm?”

“I-it’s nothing. Anyways, I’ll be leaving now. Thanks again for taking care of my brother.” He turned to leave and walked away.

“Wait.”

Lloyd stopped in his tracks and looked back at Helvana.

“What?”

“Before you go, I have a request for you.” She said as she walked towards him, still adorning the same impish grin as before. “There’s a little… something I’d like to taste in return for taking care of your brother.”

“... W-what do you want to taste?” Lloyd’s face reflected his embarrassment clearly.

“You see, what I want is…”

__________________________________________

*slurp* *slurp* *slurp*

“H-hey, don’t do it so fast.”

*slurp*

“But thish ish shooo gooood.”

*slurp* *slurp*

“Seriously…”

*slurp* *slurp* *slurp*

“W-wow, look out!”

“Ahh!” She got covered in it

“I told you to be careful...” Lloyd said, then sighed.

Helvana grabbed a cloth and cleaned her feathered cloak. “Hhmmm… Thanks for the meal. I’ve never been this full.”

What she had covered herself with was, in fact, the dinner Lloyd had prepared. The thing Helvana wanted to taste was simple home cooking.

Lloyd had returned to the forest later that evening with ingredients and cooking utensils and made soup for dinner. The fire was still alight, although the pot where the soup was made was already empty. Gwyn ended up coming too and played with the crows after he was done eating.

After she was done cleaning herself up, Helvana giggled softly.

“What are you laughing at?”

“Oh, I just remembered how you reacted to my request earlier today. You looked soooo disappointed.”

“Sh-shut up. What did you expect me to think when you talked so suggestively like that?” Lloyd looked away in embarrassment. His eyes landed upon the pot he used to make the soup. It was big enough to make food for a family. “I’m surprised you managed to eat all that, though. I was worried I had made too much, but ate over half of what I made…”

“I just couldn’t help myself. I’ve never tasted anything like this before.”

“... You never had soup?”

“I never ate anything other than fruit since my birth.”

“Really? What about your family? If… you have one.”

“I do have one, although…” She paused for a moment. ”They’re both gods.”

“Ahh, I see… Wait.”

“I’m a daughter of Vestec and Julkolfyr. Weird pairing. I was born only a week ago, actually.” Lloyd kept silent for the whole time, his face showing his shock clearly. “What, is it really that hard to believe that I’m a demi-goddess? Making curses, gathering crows and looking as perfect as I do aren’t enough of a sign?”

“W-well… When you put it like that… Speaking of curses though, why did you curse our village?”

“I just got some revenge from your people hurting my crows. That curse’s already dispersing though, it seems you people haven’t done anything bad to my crows lately.”

“After the scare you gave the villagers, who wouldn’t? But they’re starting to bother us more and more now. The crows eat our crops and the villagers are afraid to do anything that’ll anger you.”

“I noticed. It seems I was careless to how many crows I could flock at once. You don’t need to worry, though. I’ll be leaving this forest soon.”

“And where are you headed?”

“I haven’t decided yet. Vestec gave me a map before he left, but there are just so many places to visit…”

“You’re leaving, Helvana…?” Gwyn suddenly asked with a gloom look on his face.

“Aww, don’t worry, Gwyn. I won’t be going anywhere for a while. I do plan on leaving sooner or later, but it won’t be too soon.”

“I see…” he replied with a dejected look.

“... Anyways, it’s getting late. We should be leaving soon.” Lloyd said trying to push away the gloom.

“Right, it’ll be dark soon. I’ll help you carry the things to the edge of the forest.” Helvana stood up to gather the things Lloyd and Gwyn brought, then threw a lump of darkness at the bonfire to extinguish it.

“Wow… You’re pretty strong.”

“Demi-goddess.”

“Right.”

The three walked towards the village without saying anything. When they arrived at the edge of the woods and the village came into view, Helvana passed the luggage she carried to Lloyd.

“Farewell, boys. I most certainly enjoyed the company.”

“Bye.”

“Bye bye.” Gwyn still had a depressed look on his face.

“Make sure to come back again. I’d like to taste some more of your cooking.”

“If we have the time.”

They parted, each heading to their own homes.

__________________________________________

About a week had passed since then. Lloyd and Gwyn visited Helvana multiple times whenever they had the time. This morning Lloyd payed her a quick visit before heading for work and brought a few gifts along as well.

“What’s this?”

“Clothes. You’re always wearing nothing more than that cloak, so I thought you want actual garments.”

Helvana held up the dress and inspected it. It was of a plain brown color that left the shoulders exposed and would be held only by the arms and one’s own bust. It also had a sash to adjust to the user’s waist, and beneath that the skirt parted to give openings for each leg.

“Where did you get these?”

“They were from my mother. They were just gathering up dust anyways, so I thought you might make use of them. You’re not as tall as her though, so you’d probably have to adjust the hem.”

“... Thanks. I’ll try them on right away.”

She said with a kind smile painted on her face as she headed towards the big tree and went behind it change. She returned a few moments later wearing the dress without her cloak as she looked over herself. The hem did indeed hang close to the ground, but not dangerously so. Beside that, the dress seemed to fit her frame well. “I don’t think it looks good on me with my skin be pale like this. Are you sure you want me to keep it?”

“Like I said, it’s just gathering dust at home. And I think you look good on it.” Lloyd said looking away in mild embarrassment.

“If you say so. I guess I can just dye it later if I feel like it.”

“Oh, I also brought you a pair of boots.”

“Did you bring jewelry too?”

“No, this is all I brought for you.”

Helvana grabbed the boots Lloyd offered and slipped them on. The soft fur left a warm and comfortable feeling over her legs.

“Why, if I don’t look like a village girl right now. Surprisingly they fit rather perfectly.”

“Make good use of them.”

“I will, thank you for the gifts.”

The two just sat there for a while, not speaking a word; the cawing of birds and the rustling of leaves being the only things heard.

“Ah, I had almost forgot. I had lost a lot of things after you cursed the village, but lately they’ve been showing up one after the other.”

“I see, I told you the curse was already waning, though it being gone won’t fix everything. You never told me what you work with, now that you mention it.”

“I’m a carpenter. I’ve doing wood work for a few years already, even before I had to take care of Gwyn.”

“And what happened to your parents?”

“They were hunters. One day they set off with a few others to hunt and just didn’t come back. The other hunters said they were killed by a beast.”

“I see. I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s been a while anyways.”

They fell silent again and stared into nothing as if simply counting the passing seconds. This time Helvana broke the silence.

“I’ve decided to leave tomorrow, just so you know.”

“I see… And where will you be going.”

“For now I’ll be heading East towards the White Ocean. I want to see for myself why it’s called the Metallic Ocean.”

“Is that so…” Lloyd was most certainly feeling down from hearing that. He knew that Helvana would leave sooner or later, but it knowing that she’d be going away soon made him sad all the same. An idea popped in his head and he got up to leave. “Alright, if it’s like that I’ll prepare something for your journey.”

“More gifts? Are you trying to convince me to stay?”

“No, I’ll just give make you a little something as a parting gift. To be honest, this place is better off without you.”

“Harsh. But you’re right, I’ve been too much of a bother already.”

“I’ll be back by evening, so you better wait for me. I’ll bring Gwyn too.”

“Alright, I’ll be waiting for you to come back then.”

With that, Lloyd returned to the village and Helvana returned to the big tree and put on her cloak over the new dress. She had no more interest in tasting the fruits the forest offered, so with nothing to pass the time Helvana simply waited.

And waited.

And waited…

Before she knew it evening had arrived. The sun was soon setting, but there was no sign of Lloyd returning and no crow signaled his approach either. Helvana was still sitting by the big tree, waiting with a downcast expression. She did nothing other than wait the whole day, curious as to what Lloyd wanted to give her.

Hearing the beating of wings, Helvana stood up and offered her arm for Oscar, her face changing to a happier one in expectation.

“Did he arrive?”

*caw*

“... What?” She felt a chill.

*caw* *caw*

Releasing Oscar, Helvana held the edges of her cloak and then used them like wings, she took off to the sky.

__________________________________________

Lloyd was lying crumpled on the ground, covered in bruises and cuts. Several villagers surrounded him with clubs and other weapons, occasionally hitting him with them.

“Stop this!” Gwyn shouted to the mob. “Stop hurting my brother!” He tried to stop the villagers, but he was simply pushed aside.

“Get out of here, you brat. This is what you get for getting involved with that witch.”

“But Helvana is not evil! She was just protecting her friends!”

“Bullshit! Her ‘friends’ are ruining our crops while you two go to her as if it was nothing!”

The beating continued on. Gwyn kept on trying to stop the villagers even though it was useless. “Please… Somebody… Help!”

The distant cawing of several crows was heard as if to answer Gwyn’s pleas. The villagers stopped beating on Lloyd and looked towards the forest as countless black wings emerged from the trees. The wave of crows loomed over the village, circling around the mob, and through the circle came a warping, black mass, headed to the center of the mob: Lloyd.

Noticing this, the villagers backed away from Lloyd and the black mass took the shape of Helvana, as she spread her cloak like wings, landing softly beside him while her crows landed in the buildings around them. She knelt down and placed a hand on his shoulder; he was still alive, but badly hurt: his left arm was broken and twisted, his right eye was slashed and useless and he was bleeding from his deeper cuts. She looked at his hands and saw that he was holding something: a bird mask made of wood.

She stood up and Gwyn ran towards her, being immediately taken under her cloak, and hugged her leg.

“Helvana… you came.” Gwyn said sobbing.

“Yes, I couldn’t let this go on.” She flashed him a gentle smile before looking back at the mob, a cold rage taking over her.

The mob looked back at her in uneasiness as they felt her presence weighing down on them. One of them stepped forward to speak. “Witch! How dare you-”

He was interrupted by a quill thrown at his mouth. It melted on impact and sealed his lips. “Silence, worm, you don’t have the right to speak.” She said in a scornful voice. “You rabble cower in fear of me, but attack an innocent man that befriended me. You are truly disgusting.”

“We were going to get you too, witch. We won't sit by and have our food taken away by you.” Another villager replied.

“Oh really? It’s a good thing I came to you instead then. Go ahead, make your move, but know that I won’t show a glimmer of mercy to anyone that takes a step forward.”

The atmosphere grew even heavier. All the courage in the mob vanished, but the weight on their bodies froze them in place.

Helvana felt something grabbing hold of her leg and she looked down. Lloyd looked at her pleadingly, his poor state reminding her of how she met Oscar.

“Don’t… hurt them…”

“But…”

“Please…”

“...” She kept on looking at him, but the determination on Lloyd’s gaze remained unshaken. She sighed and looked back at the mob, now with a much lighter expression. “Very well, I won’t harm you any further, even if it’s against my will to do so.” She said to the mob, then knelt once again and lifted Lloyd in her arms. “Don’t follow us, or I will retract my mercy. Let’s go, Gwyn.”

She left the village with Gwyn under her cloak, the mob dispersing in fear of her.

__________________________________________

A bright light shined through the canopy and landed on Lloyd’s face. Waking up, he felt something soft cushioning his head and opened his eyes slowly, but noticed that his right eyelid wouldn’t move. Touching his face, he noticed there was a rubbery membrane covering the eye that was hurt the last day. Then he saw that it wasn’t just his face, but his whole body was covered in patches of black rubber. Even his arm that had been broken and twisted was now being held back in place and hanged from a band going over his head, all made by the same substance.

Another set of arms was wrapped around him in an embrace, pale as snow. He turned his head around and saw Gywn sleeping beside him and Helvana’s face right next to his, breathing calmly with the same angelic look as when he first met her. He blushed when he noticed that the softness on his head was her breasts, but he didn’t make any sudden moves so as to not wake her up.

He placed his hand over Helvana’s, basking on her warm embrace. She had saved him and his brother and didn’t harm their assailants just because he requested it. He felt fuzzy inside in a way he hadn’t felt in a long time. He felt Helvana rustling behind him and heard her yawn. “Good morning, Lloyd.”

“Good morning.”

“Did you sleep well?”

“Yeah. Thanks for yesterday.”

“You’re welcome.”

Lloyd stood up while Helvana woke Gwyn up. Despite the beating he had taken the day before, Lloyd felt great. He didn’t even have any trouble standing up. “Did you treat my wounds?” He asked as he turned to face Helvana, who was now up on her feet.

“Yes. You should be mostly healed by now.”

“I see.”

“Your arm and eye were in a really bad shape though. They’ll take a while longer to fully heal. I’m not very sure on the eye though, that’s pretty different from other wounds. But don’t worry, even if you never recover sight on it, you’ll still look pretty cool with that eye patch.” She said giggling.

“Excuse you, but I’d much prefer seeing than looking cool.” He replied nonchalantly. Helvana’s sense of humor must’ve rubbed off on him over the days.

“Thanks for the gift, by the way.” She picked up the bird mask from the ground and put it on, placing the leather strap over her head. “Do I look scary?” Her voice was a bit muffled by the mask.

“Enough to scare a child.”

“Perfect. Gwyn, what do you think of this mask?” She said while turning to face Gwyn.

“Wow, you look just like your crows!”

“You liar.” She said to Lloyd over her shoulder, who just laughed.

“So, umm… What do we do now? We can’t go back to the village.”

“Isn’t it obvious? You’ll be coming with me.”

“Huh?!”

“Of course you will. I’ll take responsibility for the trouble I caused to you two.”

“But… are you alright with this, Gwyn?”

“Sure am. I’ll miss the other kids, but we can’t go back like you said.”

“But what will we do about food? I planned on giving you some of our own, but I dropped it when I was attacked.”

“Don’t worry about that, I snuck in our house at night and got us some food and other things before they could take our stuff.”

“You know, for an elder brother, Gwyn’s a lot more assertive than you are.”

“Hey!”

“Anyways, we’re already up, so let’s get going. We’ll stop somewhere to eat later.”

“Alright, alright, we’re going. Are you ready, Gwyn?”

“Yup.”

He said cheerfully as he grabbed Helvana’s outstretched hand and the three of them left the forest heading East, the ever present murder of crows following behind. It would be a long journey to the White Ocean, but they had nothing to worry about in sight

“Say, aren’t you going to take that mask off?”

“Don’t you want me to use your gift?”

“Well, that’s not it. I just thought you wouldn’t have it on all the time.”

“Alright.” She lifted her mask to show her face. ”If you want to look at my face that badly, I’ll allow it.”

Sularn stood on the stairs to the ruined council building, a map of the city of Rulanah in front of him, giving orders and direction. He was burned across the chest, covered in pieces of dust and rubble, blood streaming down the side of his head, and numerous other small injuries were about him. He ignored them all. A fire burned in his eyes. A fire for vengeance, for making sure that the Rovaick were never so weak again. “You, tedar. Gather as many of your compatriots as you can and start clearing rubble. Any survivors you find take here.” He pointed towards a spot in the eastern part of the city. “The dead, pull out into the street but otherwise leave them. We need to give our attention to those we can save.”

He pointed to Gruik. “Gather as many of your compatriots as you can, and start sealing every tunnel except the main ones to the city. I don’t trust those fools who prayed to Vestec for help.” Gruik opened his mouth to protest, stopping as Sularn held up a hand. “I’ll send Conata to you as soon as I can. She is needed elsewhere.” Reluctantly, the goblin nodded and ran off, Teknall’s hammer bouncing on his chest.

“Razish.” Sularn gestured to an azibo nearby.

He hurriedly strode forward. “Yes, Prophet?”

Sularn resisted the urge to roll his eyes, instead focusing on the task at hand. “Bring me the Ogru.” Razish’s eyes widened in surprise and fear. “The Ogru? Here? Are you certain Prophet? Perhaps you should rest. You did take a nasty blow to the head….”

Sularn looked up at him, pinning him with his gaze. “I am in full control of my thoughts, Raz. To defend this city from any further attacks from either the invaders or those fools to the north, I wish to have all possible assets at my disposal.” He smiled. “Trust me, old friend. I know what I’m doing.”

Razish’s shoulders slumped in defeat and he moved away. “Of course. At once Prophet. I will gather the necessary people.”

As Raz left, Sularn turned his attention to another azibo. “Gather the rest of the azibo, ascertain our strength. We’ve war ahead of us.”

Harsh ceramic stomps increased in volume, heralding the glossy armoured shape of Majus, red circles emblazoned on its chest. It strode with brisk urgency, but did not sacrifice the dignity in its posture. “Azibo Sularn.” It halted by the map.

It took him a few moments to notice that Majus has arrived, caught up in organization as he was, setting up refugee camps and sending help where it was needed.

As soon as he noticed the avatar, however, he bowed before him, wincing in pain. “Perfect one! Forgive me, I did not notice you, caught up in dealing with the aftermath as I am. You have our eternal thanks for coming to our aid in our time of need.”

“The moments count for your life. On your feet, Sularn.” Majus’ deep, resonant order held the familiar condescending hint that Toun possessed, seemingly lashing in its inflections. However, it was much more clear and direct, not shuddering like Toun’s voice. The avatar was clearly speaking of its own accord. “I, Majus, greater servant of Toun, am here to see to the protection of you and your followers until further notice. Plans have changed.” Majus angled its featureless face forward. “So shall you.”

Leaving its last remark unexplained for now, Majus slowly scraped its head in a turn to face the map. “The porcelain sire has been listening to your progress. I would hear what has happened since the last time you sent prayers. Tell me of your people’s progress, the spreading of the oath, and of Teknall’s Toolsmith Gift.”

Sularn nodded, gathering his thoughts. “Since my last prayers the Oath has continued spread like wildfire throughout the Rovaick. Hundreds more of us have taken the Oath, though I cannot say for certain how many have broken it since I left. Gruik has spread the Gift just as quickly. The goblins are quickly experimenting and improving the methods of forging, though I must admit I suspect it is at a great cost of life to them. Farming and animal husbandry are on the rise and the trolls and tedar are both constantly seeking to improve on what the Perfect One has given us. In the case of the tedar, they have begun to develop their own magic. Taming, they call it. It’s decades from anything actually useful, but the possible applications are astounding and seemingly endless.”

Sularn looked back over at the map and his lip curled in disgust. “As you know, the settlements closest to the city of Xerxes had alarming amounts of this ‘Illumi’ amongst them. A criminal organization, seemingly dedicated to the furthering of these ‘Seven Sins’ and Amartia. I did what I could to curb their influence, but I lacked the political weight myself to deal with that. I’ve received reports that every settlement the Rovaick have has been attacked, many destroyed,. Refugees are constantly pouring in and those settlements that haven’t been destroyed are only spared through selling themselves out to Vestec. There are garbled reports of summoning monsters and Violence incarnate protecting them. I know little else other than this; If we survive, they will all be killed.”

Sularn sighed, running a hand along his head, wincing in pain. “I had just returned to the Council to give my report when we were attacked. You and Conata saved us, but the Council itself was destroyed. I am currently the only Rovaick respected enough to give orders, and trying to gather our scattered, pathetic strength. We’re at war, Perfect One, and we are not ready.”

The head of Majus scraped its gaze back to Sularn and stared with deep, silent scrutiny. “You are not receiving war, you are receiving a cull,” Majus answered. “You are only at war if you can fight back. You would know this if you had seen these creatures for yourself.” Majus extended a clenched fist over the map without breaking its stare and opened its hand. A grey lump fell from its fingers and hit the table with a dull clack, bouncing once. The lump was patterned with charred sparkles and gently smoked with heat that Sularn could feel from where he stood. The stony lump had the shape of half a placid set of lips on one of its facets.

“A cull is still known as a war, even if only by one side. Let us refer to it as a war. It gives us what little hope we can scrape together.” Sularn gave a mirthless chuckle. “I have seen these creatures, Perfect One. I watched them destroy the Council.”

As Majus lowered its arm, there was no indication that its impression had been altered. “Your enemies are realta, the stars of Logos, god of order. He has returned after eons to bathe Galbar in a blinding purge. His goals are not of mortal concern, but he will lay waste to every rovaick that walks if you do not learn to adapt. Bronze maces will not suffice.”

Sularn smiled grimly at the knowledge of who the enemy was, before chuckling with actual humor. “You don’t say, Perfect one. I thought bronze maces were our sure way of besting them.”

The humour was not reciprocated by the towering avatar. Majus hesitated, its featureless face hiding the exact reason. Moving on, its face turned to look at the Tounic characters that dotted items in the room, both mastered and bastardised. “Your people’s Astartian magic, Sularn, how has it progressed for uses in combat? And your understanding of my master’s scriptures, what have you discovered that will help you?”

“I can’t say for certain how many Azibo’s Astartian magic has developed into combat, or even at all beyond the physical applications. Elementalism has been studied far more by my people, and is more likely to have been experimented enough for war.” Sularn hesitated, then shrugged. “It may have been lost in the bulk of my reports, but I’ve begun developing the ability to dominate the minds of creatures. I used it to dispense justice, and tried it against these realta...but their minds were just so alien…” he trailed off, before shaking himself back to the present.

“I’ve ordered our remaining Ogru to be brought so I can dominate and control them against the next attack, if there is one.”

“As for scriptures….Nothing. I am the most well versed rovaick in all of the world, and I can only properly write half of the letters, and almost properly write a third of them. I can perhaps create words that would aid us, but I suspect I do not have the luxury of time to write them or learn the others to make them work. As I said, Perfect One. We are not ready.”

Majus held its head back slightly. The helmet appeared to be gazing over Sularn’s head, but unseen eyes left an impression of disdain. “Your progress has been insufficient. If not for your importance and your potential, you would perish like those around you to the fires of Order. My master wishes that you do better. As such, you shall be made ready. Ready to meet the armies of gods. Step forward.”

Sularn bit back a small surge of anger at the disdain. It was not the fault of the Rovaick that this cataclysm came before they were ready. Regardless, he listened to Majus, stepping forward. It was not lightly, he knew, that Toun suddenly made him ready to battle the armies of his foes.

With Sularn in reach, Majus extended a clenched gauntlet and sprung out its fingers in a wide splay. Red ink beaded from the pointed tips of its fingers like the nibs of sharp styluses. “My master has deemed you receive his blessing. Use it to drive your enemies before you if they hold such arrogance as to refuse your oath. Use it to show Toun’s power. Use it to see the potential in your people and have them aspire to achieve it. You will survive, you will strengthen, you will be an instrument of Toun’s will. This is your mission.”

Sularn gazed at the digits with both hope and wariness. “As you say, Perfect On-”

Without warning, Majus’ hand stretched forward to clasp onto Sularn’s forehead. The sharp fingertips dug into his skull with a similar numbness to his original oath, but the power that flowed forth caused another, unnatural pain. Ink ran down from the newly created holes in his head, plugged by Majus’ large porcelain digits. They mixed with his blood in a domineering swirl. Before a second had passed, a circular red emblem of Toun burned in his mind’s eye. The symbol rushed into his vision, pulling him towards its leftmost points.

The tapering points never touched despite looking closer and closer at them. The previously curved points became so close that they appeared to straighten. That was when Sularn realised what they were made from.

Sularn’s body stiffened with agony, his eyes rolling in the back of his head as visions filled his mind. The Tounic symbols flashed by him, frustrating his attempts to remember them, or even recognize them. Given no other recourse, Sularn simply let himself be tugged along for the ride, trying to control the agony and power raging through him.

Like the ceiling and floor of a tall, endless hallway, the points were sealed with planes of Tounic calligraphy. It rushed by faster and faster without apparent end. Sularn flew through the hallway until the symbols turned into a blur. As the points at the end of the hallway drew closer and closer, Sularn was shunted to a stop.

It was not a real physical stop. Sularn realised, when his eyes refocussed, that he had not shifted from his standing position in the room around him. Majus stood just as tall. The fingers that had grabbed Sularn were by Majus’ side, dripping with blood. It was far too dark to be more of that red ink.

Sularn stumbled as he came back to the real world. The sudden solidness around him caught him unexpectedly, but he picked himself up quickly, staring at Majus. “What...” His voice was ragged. “What have you given me, Perfect One?”

The words came out of Sularn’s mouth as fluently as a morning greeting. He didn’t realise what he had said until he realised the feeling of his tongue making foreign movements. They were not of the local language of the rovaick community that he had lived in for years. It was the tongue of the gods. Such things had not been heard in his ears since Teknall brought his daughters to his home. He still knew his own language, and he could still speak it, but it was as if it was no longer his first language. No. Not precisely his first language. He knew both languages perfectly. Two complete lexicons in his memory. All of it was written in Tounic calligraphy in his mind. Perhaps more.

Majus answered in Sularn’s native tongue all the same. “Your gifts are self-evident. Look within yourself. Look at your body.”

Sularn lifted a hand to wipe the blood from his face, only to stop in surprise at the porcelain that covered his arms, looking around, he saw that it covered most of his body, excluding the parts of his body that needed to bend smoothly. He could feel the power flowing through him, the sudden burst of energy. “Am I...” He trailed off, realizing he was still speaking in the language of gods. Shaking his head irritably, he focused and forced the words out in his native language. “Am I to be Toun’s prophet for the Rovaick then?”

Before Majus could answer, it turned its head to look to the entrance. A roar shook through the cavern. “Prophet! The smells of death and blood have driven them mad!” Razish screamed out. Three Ogru charged up the stairs.

Sularn turned around. With barely a thought, his new porcelain carapace extended to a flexible light armor over his joints, the other porcelain thickening and hooding over his face in a pure white helmet. Power surged through him and he entered their mad, fury filled, minds, quickly gaining control. Sularn almost smiled, it was pathetically easy. They had no defense, no intelligence, simply fury. “Stop.” The Ogru stopped, waiting. “You will obey Razish, and you will do nothing he does not command you to.” He turned his gaze to Razish. “Have them help clear the rubble.” The other azibo bowed. “As you say, Prophet.”

He returned his attention to Majus, the armor receding as the Ogru were taken away by Razish. “Anything else Perfect One?”

Majus ground its faceless head back to facing Sularn. “Everything you saw when you were given power is now at your disposal. Every symbol and every detail. Now that you have felt the power it has brought to your person, use it to continue bettering yourself and your people.” Majus lifted its weapon off the ground and turned it to hold it in both of its gauntleted hands. “I shall stand vigil over this community for exactly thirty days, sufficient time to weather the blinding purge. Use this time to integrate those who come seeking shelter, use it to train a force to fight the enemies of your oath.” Majus lowered its head in a single slow nod. “You been Toun’s prophet to the rovaick since he first spoke to you, Azibo Prophet Sularn.”

Majus took a lumbering step to one side and strode in a straight line out of the map room. Its ceramic footsteps resumed their ominous echoing rhythm throughout the caverns.

Gerrik's eviction from Fibeslay had been unsettling for him. The Realta had been a physical struggle which pushed his limits, but Gerrik was fairly stoic about that. It was Shammick's attacks on his character and authority which really troubled him. Shammick's fanaticism had blinded him to the will of the very one who he said he followed, and this concerned Gerrik. Could there be others like Shammick, who would twist the mission of the Chippers to their own distorted purposes? While Shammick had been a rather unique case, Gerrik had seen other cases of corrupted Chippers, such as Grinder. The Chippers don't have a set code of conduct, as they grew organically from the influence of Stone Chipper, and as such there is nothing to govern their behaviour aside from the spoken words of authority figures. This was a concern to Gerrik, but the problem was so insidious that he didn't know where to start. He needed some other project to take his mind off things.

Heading south from Fibeslay, Gerrik found more villages, and did his normal thing of teaching them what he knew and learning what he could. It was all quite ordinary for Gerrik until, in one village called Tallgrass, as he was retelling the story of his encounter with the Realta, one hain spoke up.

"We saw a star-fiend too," she said.

Gerrik turned his head in surprise. "Really? Where? What happened to it?"

The hain pointed over a hill. "It flew over the village and started a fire over there. There was then a terrible crashing noise and the star-fiend fell out of the sky."

Gerrik stood up suddenly. He had wanted to inspect the body of the star-fiend more closely back in Fibeslay and experiment with the strange material it was made from, but he hadn't had time. This now was his chance. His eyes gleamed with anticipation. "The body is still there?" he asked. The other hain nodded. "Good." He began to walk off, then stopped suddenly and walked backwards. There was a small problem. The body of the Realta was many times his own weight, so there was no way he could carry or even drag it back. He would need to be smart about this.

Gerrik paced as he tried to devise a solution to moving the heavy weight across a long distance of terrain. This was not the first time he had attempted a similar problem. Constructing the lighthouse in Fibeslay had also involved some heavy lifting. He had used a lot of manpower to move objects, although this village was small so did not have much manpower to spare to carry a heavy weight across some kilometres of terrain with no food yielded from it. There had to be some kind of tool or device he could construct which would help him carry the Realta. But no ideas came immediately to mind, and it would take a long while to design and make such a device anyway, so Gerrik resolved that, for now at least, he would go to the Realta and work on it where it lay.

The group of hain he had been teaching were still watching him. "Lesson dismissed," Gerrik announced, "I have some matters to attend to." Gerrik then picked up his tools and set off over the hill towards the Realta's crash site.

Once he had summited the hill, the damage the Realta had done was plain to see. A large swathe of the landscape was charred black, trees and grasses burnt away to nothing, and sections of ground had been melted and resolidified into dark stone. In the centre of it all was a metallic gleam, and Gerrik headed down the hill and into the ruined landscape towards it.

The body of the Realta was lying there, dead, like when he had shot it with his Eenal Bow. However, whatever had killed this Realta had hit much more powerfully than even his Bow, for the Realta had a large chunk of its torso blasted apart, just under the right shoulder. The metal was twisted and tortured in ways which should not have been possible for a material so strong. Whatever had killed it must have wielded a frightful amount of power.

That was me, informed Teknall.

That explains it, thought Gerrik.

Gerrik knealt down and ran a hand along the star-fiend's... flesh? A better word would be needed to describe it, for it was unlike any other flesh in existence. Its closest analogue was giant-bone. Star-bone? It was a carapace of sorts. Star-fiend carapace. That name would do.

The carapace was hard and dense, but evident from its injuries was that sufficient force would bend the material, rather than shatter it like stone or wood. The jagged edges of the 'wound' were sharp. The carapace was coloured grey, like some stones, but had a lustre to it similar to a still pool of water. Additionally, despite its origins, it was cold to the touch, the carapace sucking heat from his fingers faster than most other materials. Tapping the material made a noise with a somewhat resonant ringing overtone. Gerrik moved his face closer to the carapace. It had no odor he could detect. He bit a small protrusion of the carapace on the edge of the 'wound', and the taste was reminiscent of that of blood or approaching rain. Probing under the surface with his Perception, the material of the carapace was smooth and homogenous, lacking a noticeable grain like wood or stone and without the irregularities present in most living tissues.

Having obtained all the sensory information he could, Gerrik now needed to find a way to manipulate it. He needed to either find some way to exert the enormous forces required or treat the carapace in such a way as to temporarily soften it. Conveniently, he had one such device for delivering powerful force. He took the Eenal Bow, knocked a cheap wooden arrow, drew it point-blank at the Realta, willed it to have power, and fired. The shaft wreathed in divine energy struck the carapace with a deafening clang, and the arrow pierced through the carapace and lodged itself deep inside the Realta, much deeper than when a similar arrow had struck the live Realta.

Whatever force gave the star-fiend its terrible powers while alive must have also given it extra resillience, Gerrik thought. Either that or its corpse is decaying. Or maybe this bow is just much more powerful up close.

Regardless of the reason, Gerrik fired a few more arrows around the same spot, until a chunk of the carapace was sufficiently perforated. It was now only held in place by a few thin connections, and when Gerrik reached down to try and dislodge the chunk he found that, given a good amount of strength and some twisting, those thin connections bent, fatigued and broke. In his hand Gerrik now held a chunk of star-fiend carapace, twisted and pointed from his method of removal. However, this chunk as-is was only an intermediate. He still needed to find methods to shape it into something useful, for the Eenal Bow was a fairly crude tool and only available to himself. So placing the small chunk of carapace in a bag, he headed back towards Tallgrass.

Back in the village, Gerrik settled down by the rock he used for flint knapping to experiment. His first test was to simply hit the carapace chunk with his hammer. Percussive force was a key tool in crafting many things, and from what he had learned so far it appeared that force would also be effective for this material. His hammer was of exceptional quality, made of fine stone and strong wood and made sturdy enough to withstand repeated strong blows against hard materials. So down the hammer fell, striking against the jagged carapace repeatedly.

When Gerrik stopped, he had partially blunted and flattened the section of the carapace he had been striking, but he could also see that his hammer would crack and shatter before any decent progress could be made. He would either need a stronger hammer or a way to make the carapace more malleable. The latter was an enigma at this time, but the former could be achieved if he could make at least one hammer out of the star-fiend carapace. And to do that, he'd need a bigger hammer.

It did not take Gerrik long to design his bigger hammer. Underneath a tall tree, Gerrik found a large flat rock and placed the carapace sample upon it. Then, similarly to his construction efforts back in Fibeslay, Gerrik used a strong rope slung over a high branch, in which he had carved a groove for the rope to fit in. The other end of the rope he tied to a big heavy rock with a flattened underside. Using his pulley, Gerrik lifted the rock as high as he could, then released it. The rock plummeted down under the force of gravity and crashed into the carapace, flattening it a little bit. Gerrik then repeated this cycle, hauling the rock upwards over a few minutes of muscular strain then leting it fall and strike, making that carapace that little bit flatter.

It was exhausting work, but the progress was noticeable. Gerrik might have continued on by force of will until the job was complete if he wasn't approached by another hain with a basket in her arms.

"What's this racket you're making?" the new arrival said.

Gerrik's head twisted so that one pair of eyes was looking at the arrival while the other pair continued to watch the rock he was lifting. It was the same female that had informed him of the presence of the star-fiend. Gerrik did not initially respond, as pulled the rope another half-metre and held the rope in place by looping it once around his right hand, which was partially covered by the Guardian Shield, so he could regain his breath for the next burst. Only then did Gerrik spare the strength to speak.

"Sharon, wasn't it?" Gerrik greeted, his words strained somewhat as he tried to keep his footing against the force of the rock. "I'm trying to. Make something. Out of the star-fiend's carapace."

Gerrik heaved on the rope once more, grunting as he did so, lifting the rock another half metre. His muscles burned and ached, and his chest rose and fell as his lungs fought to obtain enough oxygen to keep up the task. It was an impressive display of strength and endurance, well above and beyond what a normal hain could do, and Sharon could not help but be mildly awed.

But Sharon also had a few more practical things on her mind. Her head tilted back slightly as she said, "Were you going to lift rocks all day or are you going to actually do something useful?"

Gerrik pulled another half metre of rope. "I haven't just. Been lifting. Rocks." Gerrik suddenly released the rope, and the rock hurtled down and struck the hard ground below with a great thud. Sharon jumped at the noise of the impact. "I've been dropping them too," Gerrik replied wryly.

Gerrik shook his arms and rolled his neck. "You're heading out foraging, aren't you? I'll come help," Gerrik offered, "I need a break anyway."

Sharon seemed hesitant to accept Gerrik's offer at first, then relented. "I suppose an extra pair of hands is always useful," she said.

Gerrik retrieved his half-flattened lump of star-fiend carapace, picked up a bag and the pair headed into the forest to look for food. They started around Sharon's normal foraging spot, collecting ripe berries from some bushes, but Gerrik was quick to find other foods to collect. Gerrik approached a patch of ground which appeared to contain merely small shrubs, pulled out a wooden scoop, and began digging at the earth.

"What are you doing?" Sharon asked quizzically.

From the churned dirt, Gerrik uprooted one of the small shrubs, lifting up a fat, dirt-covered tuber. "There's good eating on one of these," Gerrik replied, severing the shrub from the tuber with a flint knife and depositing the tuber in his bag.

As Gerrik began digging up another, Sharon asked, "How did you know where to find that?"

"I spend a lot of time as a nomad. I've got to know where to find food," Gerrik explained, "And I have a knack for spotting things."

They had soon got what food they could from that area and moved on to look for more food elsewhere in the forest. Sharon knew where a few trees bearing some nice fruit were, and led Gerrik there. When they got there, however, they found no ripe fruit within reach from the ground, although some could be seen higher up.

"I'll climb up and drop the fruit down to you," Gerrik said, putting his bag on the ground. In a swift motion he jumped up and grabbed onto a low branch, hauling himself up to stand on it, the branch shaking under the load but staying intact. With grace and speed Gerrik ascended the tree, his footing, balance and grip maintained with the surety of someone well practised in moving their body. When he came within reach of a ripe fruit, Gerrik plucked it and dropped it towards Sharon below. Guided by his Perception, Gerrik knew exactly which branches could support his weight and those which wouldn't.

It was not too long before Gerrik had harvested all the ripe fruit in the tree, even from the top of the tree, and their foraging bags and baskets were stuffed full. With all the food they could carry, Gerrik and Sharon headed back to the village.

"I will admit," Sharon said, "I had never collected so much food so quickly."

"Could you say I've done something useful today, more than just lifting rocks all day?" Gerrik jested.

Sharon looked down shyly for a moment before replying, "I suppose you could say that. Thanks for the help."

"No problem," Gerrik replied, "Helping is what I do."

A eerie calm settled over the entire village of Gunma, its streets, once thronged with life now stood empty. Gone were the food vendors and the women in their bright clothes selling hand made goods from carts and baskets. Gone were the children who played amongst the crowds with their games and laughter. Gone were the stores with their windows of fine clothing or delicacies. Gone were the brave Gunma fishermen of yesterday, as today they stood proud and tall in defense of their homeland-a wall of living, breathing flesh and blood.

Deo stood at its forefront, Elden bronze gripped in his right hand, oak shield white-knuckled in his left, and Ionian grade leather expertly strapped to his torso. Three years of rigorous training had readied him for this moment. The winters spent cutting through leather dummies, spent drilling the jaded ideologies of combat and leadership into his psyche, spent growing up without his fathers guidance, all for this very moment; yet the gravity of the situation never sunk in. Nothing could prepare one for what was soon to take place.

Behind Deo, menfolk stood in formation, four rows, all they had, their eyes trained on the road to see how many the Axim would send. Many who were to fight today lacked the ability to even hold a blade properly, nonetheless fight. A lucky few wore thick leather armour, the rest only sweaters of wool. As the Gunma wall before them began to collapse, they heard the boots long before they saw the mass of uniformed bodies led by a bearing flag. Every face had blanched and thoughts fled to the village in which the order to evacuate was in enactment.

Akio stepped forward, placing himself next to his Devari. "The villagers have been evacuated, Devari." he relayed.

Deo blew a breath out his nose, peace settling over him. "What of Toho?"

"He has set off with Militamen in tow, but they are ready, which means…" Akio trailed off turning to Deo, his eyes glassy, fear had overtaken him, fear of what was to come.

A bitter wind swept the hillside and the ground slick with ice. This was never a battle they could win, only a sacrifice to buy time. Deo himself felt the creeping of dread up his spine, so much so that he himself began to tremble. Stepping forward, he steeled himself for what was to come next. Raising his sword him into the air, he gazed at the enemy line, their uniformity and sheer numbers a sight to behold.

Screaming into the air, Deo charged, and all fell in step, the cadiance of crunching snow shattering the silence of the battle field. Without missing a beat the Axim themselves fell suite.

The two shield walls collided with a crack of bronze and wood, and Deo held his shield high and felt the impact of a spear point snap against the wooden frame, and he felt the weight of men pushing in from the front as well as at his back, curses and screams and metal raking against wood and the crunching of flesh, and he saw the feet of his enemies digging into the earth, and overhead, he heard the whooshing of spears being thrown into the deeper ranks of the his lines. He felt the Gunma wall falter as the fighting shifted to the left, and he saw a break in the line and lunged forward with his shield, the impact sending a burst of pain up his right arm, but the pain disappeared quickly, and he stabbed to his left with the point of his short sword, and the bronze tip ripped into flesh and bone, and a soldier fell to the ground at his feet. He stepped over the fallen body and attacked the next man who tried to fill the gap, and stabbing over his shield, his blade caught the man in the throat, spraying blood, a fine mist, warm and bright red, and the man grabbed at the bronze edge stuck in his neck. Deo ripped the sword free, another gush of blood, the man’s face pale and eyes wide, hands grasping at the wound as he fell to his knees choking and gurgling on his own blood.

Deo pushed forward, leading a squad into the hole ripped in the Axim defense. Battle left little to think about, action became the law of the land; a doctrine pounded into his psyche from day one. As was such, each step he took forward was made pragmatically, with much regard to the lives of those who followed him.

Shield raised, he pounded against the retreating line, breaking the Axim formation. He barely registered the soot that filled the air, more or less focusing on the only advantage he had left. Thrusting his spear forward, an Axim soldier managed to gaze Deo's side, bronze slicing through leather and flesh before stabbing an Ionian behind him. Ignoring the burning pain and his screaming comrade, Deo shield-locked the Axim with the edge of his own, yanked back, and thrust his blade forward into his neck, blood bursting from his gullet.

Another attempted to fill the gapping gap, but Deo swept his shield left, taking another Axim spear thrust and lunged forward, letting the bastard run onto his sword point. He felt the impact run up his arm as the tip punctured his belly muscles, with all to little familiarity he twisted the blade out, ripping it up and free, sawing through leather, skin, muscle, and guts; blood warming his cold hand, and he screamed, blood breath in his face, without hesitation he punched him down with the shield’s boss, stamped on his groin, and killed him with his blades tip to the throat. A second man on his right began beating at his opponents shield with an ax, a Gunma Militiaman, no older that seventeen by the looks of it, but he had little time to worry about his well-being as suddenly the screams grew uncharacteristically loud.

Deo prayed as he played coy to another Axim spear strike, playing his chances of survival on an grumpy old man and a strike force of fishermen to flank the living hell out of the ever folding Axim line. Laying himself bare, Deo relinquished his psyche to the throws of battle. As was such, every scene and sensation was burned into his brain as time seemed to accelerate, his body falling into routine. Sweat stung his eyes like tiny vipers, dripping down from his gore sprayed face. All around was nothing but a whirlwind of chaos and violence, a blur of color and vicious motion. His parched, panting tongue collected the dust choked air which intermixed with the bitterness of bronze. Deafening, blood pounded in the ears, drumming to a ferocious beat inside his helmet. The sound was barely enough to obscure the cries of men, the screams of injured beasts, and the thunder of bronze striking bronze. Pain from a dozen wounds barely registered, being drowned out by the heightened, throbbing ache from the shacking hand which trembled on the right side with a shield. Above the lower scent of sweat was the acidic smell of all pervasive fear, carried aloft from clashing bodies that howled amidst a sea of scarlet liquid which drained from friend and foe alike, to soak a once vibrant field of white.



The clangor of swords had died away, the shouting of the slaughter was hushed; silence lay on the red-stained snow. The pale bleak sun that glittered so blindingly from the ice-fields and the snow-covered plains struck sheens of silver from rent corselet and broken blade, where the dead lay in heaps.

The battlefield lay quiet, for it was now a graveyard of the unburied. Their corpses lay among the buttercups and forget-me-nots. The sun still shone and the wind still blew, but somewhere mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters waited in vain. These men that were once boys who played in the yard with sticks and laughed at each other's silly tales were now meat for the birds. Their eyes were as immobile as their limbs. Their souls had long departed to the celestial planes to walk with the ancestors. The battle was lost, the enemy had won. Now they camped a mile away to plan the ransacking of the town itself.

Deo kneeled in the middle of it all, unmoving. So heavily it weigh on his conscious, all the lives of those who lay before him fell upon his shoulders. The Devari recounted the horrors of war as the stench of urine suddenly lacked its potency. So quickly had the Ionian line fell to the Axim's might, its right side collapsing completely for the enemy to take advantage of and flank. But Toho's timing made way for the counter flank, sandwiching the Axim flank, a small victory, but short lived as numbers suddenly poured in, countering the Ionian flank and annihilating it. From that point, moral collapse, as only few Ionians remained. With that, the Axim left, leaving the survivors to think on thier folly.

Deo's failure stood as a disgrace to his pride, and an endless nightmare to his psyche.

Signian Calendar, 3rd Megennium AA, Year 8471, Winter.

Cygnea Godworld, White Continent, within the Eternal River Wilderness.

A deer whizzed through the shrubbery with impressive speed. With eyes opened wide, it ran past the trees and into the forest ahead, when suddenly, a frightening roar thundered its ears as a golden figure bolted through the bushes in close pursuit, with the deer doing everything in its power to escape. Zigzagging movements, sudden acceleration, running into tall grass so as to lose its stalker, you name it. Alas, the golden figure was locked on to the deer and would not let the opportunity slip away.

Time passed, and they were soon located deep within the forested area. Panting and on the verge of mental collapse, the deer had exhausted itself trying to escape from its pursuer. It had been grazing all by itself when it felt a frightening pressure locking on to it. The killing intent emanating from within the pressure made the deer's fur stand on end, and it's fight-or-flight instinct had immediately activated to try and save itself. Who would have known that the pursuer would be able to keep up with the deer? Mind you, this was no ordinary deer.

Yellowhorn Deer could be considered formidable. Due to the worldly essence permeating the Cygnea Godworld, all animals had experienced some sort of mutation. These mutations had many variations, with the most common being of the physical kind. In places where the worldly essence was dense, the mutations of the animals living in that area were more pronounced, such as in the case of Yellowhorn Deer. Originally, these were ordinary deer one could easily find in forested areas, with no particular uniqueness to them.

However, as the years passed and as the worldly essence was continuously and unknowingly absorbed by the deer, it triggered a change inside them. A change which finally revealed itself 300 years ago with the birth of the very first Yellowhorn Deer. The size of the calf was twice that of ordinary deer fawns, resulting in the death of its mother. During the years after the birth of the first Yellowhorn Deer, more and more were born carrying the mutation, and eventually, there were no more ordinary deer grazing the eastern reaches of the Eternal River Wilderness.

The deer had been exhausted, and thus was slowly losing speed. Even with its mutated physical body and increased strength and speed, it still couldn't escape the golden figure. Furthermore, its movements were starting to get sluggish, enabling the golden predator to slowly close in. It let out furious growls as it continued to chase after the doomed-to-die deer.

This endless pursuit continued for a couple of minutes until the deer finally found itself in a dead-end. Four hundred meters ahead of it was a cave. To its right and left, the rocky surface of cliffs extending hundred of meters above ground. The chase had actually brought the two to the foot of a towering mountain.

Frightened out of its wits, the deer turned around and laid its eyes on its pursuer for the first time, a massive, nearly twice its own size, golden-furred tiger. The moment the two made eye contact, the tiger took a step forward and let out a deafening roar, barring its nearly half a meter long and razor pointed teeth at its prey as if rejoicing in finally cornering it.

The deer backed up while simultaneously jutting out its antlers in an attempt to threaten the tiger into retreating. Startled for a moment, the tiger paused, the threat of the antlers known to it from previous encounters with similar prey. Nonetheless, it remembered all the effort it had expended in chasing the deer, quickly came to its senses, and once again started inching closer while growling.

When the two were but a few feet away from each other, the tiger got ready to lunge at the deer. However, just as it launched itself forwards, bearing it's sharp claws at it, a foreign, guttural roar reverberated the entirety of the small canyon they were in. Both animals, predator, and prey froze in their tracks. The roar seemed to have pierced its way into their very souls, awakening inside of them a feeling of unspeakable fear. A primal fear, a fear one would only have when faced with someone they knew could easily crush them with a single thought.

Of course, instinct demanded from them to forgo any thoughts of fighting and simply escape, run for their lives, much like the deer had done before. Unfortunately, both of them were stuck in place, their fear overriding their very instincts. No matter how they tried, they couldn't even muster the strength to breathe properly, much less escape. It was at that moment, that a peculiar, dull sound echoed from within the cave. Faint tremors, slowly increasing in magnitude, followed soon after, rippling through the ground below.

It didn't take long for the origin of the sound to show itself, and show itself it did. At first, its horned, serpentine-like head protruded from the cave entrance, its two beady, green eyes staring at the two animals in front of it. It raised its spiky head over the two and looked down at them with a curious look as if asking the reason why they had willingly brought themselves to their deaths.

For the dragon, everything weaker or dumber than itself was nothing but food in its eyes, and it had encountered very few beings that did not fall under the food category.

The dragon didn't tarry for long. After a few seconds or so, it opened its maw, revealing set upon set of razor sharp teeth, and tore at the food in front of it. The two animals died before their magically enhanced brains could process the pain. Bones that could very well be crafted into very sturdy weapons were crushed to bits under its bite, with blood and gore splattering the sides of the narrow canyon. After it had eaten, the dragon walked out of the cave. Its body, almost one and a half times the size of a fully grown horse, was rippling with lean, powerful muscle. Brown-tinted, snake-scales, tough and harsh to the touch, covered most of its upper body and back. Spikes protruded from its spine, running all the way to just before the end of its tail. Its neck, chest, and lower body were covered with thicker scales, stacked one on top of the other and slightly slanted. With a flap of its leathery wings, the dragon shot up the cliff and towards the peak of the mountain, where it perched itself.

It had made it a habit of sitting on that specific mountain peak and looking ahead as the land unfurled itself before its very eyes, seemingly endless. Aside from allowing it to scour for food, it also doubled as a resting spot. Having just eaten, it could spare a few moments to simply gaze at the view below. All sorts of thoughts passed through its mind, mainly about its origin and purpose. It truly did not know the reason why it existed, and that baffled it like nothing else.

The dragon was still inside its egg when it first gained consciousness. By sheer instinct and an innate drive to see the world beyond its shell, the dragon used its breath weapon for the very first time. Flames instantly punctured the, by then, fragile outer shell, spewing outside with great force. That, coupled with a few powerful strikes of its claws, allowed the dragonling to burst out of its egg.

The beaming light of the sun temporarily blinded the young dragon, but it soon got used to the change in luminosity. It was at that moment that it saw the world as it truly was for the first time. It saw an alien but beautiful blue sky above, and an endless grassland stretching as far as the eye could see, filled with lively forests and towering mountains. It squinted its eyes as it turned its head towards the blinding sun, and could not help but let out a shrill cry as if greeting someone very dear to it.

After that, the young dragon explored the land around it. At first, it could not fly properly and needed to practice flapping its wings correctly before it was finally able to take off into the skies, where it found that it was most comfortable. Flight, however, requires energy, and thus, the little drakeling had its very first hunt.

As one would expect, it failed. Not knowing a thing about hunting or its supposed "prey," the dragon accidentally attacked one of the deadliest animals inhabiting the Eternal River Wilderness, a Rhop. Rhops descend from regular rhinos, but somewhere along the line, the worldly essence of the Cygnea Godworld mutated them, much like Yellowhorned Deer. Their skulls became larger, and two additional long horns grew from them. Their skin became thicker and coarser, and their spines transformed and strengthened, allowing them to stand on two feet. This, along with a set of other physical changes, turned them from bulky herbivores with a temper to one of the most powerful animal species in that part of the land.

Fortunately, they retained their previous intelligence, and as such, do not pose an actual threat to those who mind their own business. However, once angered, Rhops do not show mercy, charging with surprising speed at their targets and ramming them with their powerful horns.

The young dragon barely escaped with its life from the sharp horns of the Rhop. That encounter changed the dragon's whole perception of the world, acting as a tough lesson to not mess with those stronger than itself. As it grew stronger and more familiar with the environment around it, the dragon found itself capable of fighting those that it previously saw as undefeatable foes. Up until the day it killed its first Rhop, it did not think much of this fact. Only then did it dawn to the young dragon that it was something unlike those animals that it hunted and fought with. It was stronger, faster, smarter, could fly, and could wield the power of fire. The list of beasts that could rival it grew smaller by the year, and it felt that it had a long way to go still.

Looking back at its speedy growth, the dragon sighed. Was it alone? Was it the only one? It had flown all the way to the west of the continent and had seen an endless mass of water, extending as far as the eye could see. Where there similar lands hiding in the mists beyond the boundaries of its home? And if yes, were there similar beings like itself over there?

The dragon had many questions, but no way of finding out the answers to those questions. There was this particular feeling tugging at its thoughts from time to time, though. A kind of... instinct, hidden deep inside its very soul. It instinctively knew that if it just focused on that feeling and then waited for a bit, all of its questions would be answered. However, whenever it thought about trying to concentrate and find out if its instincts were right, it found itself strangely questioning if the reason was dire enough, for it to evoke that feeling. In such a fashion, the dragon had never gone through with its thoughts.

Its indecisiveness made the dragon swell with anger. Anger at itself and anger at whatever had created it and then leaving it to fend for itself. It started breathing heavily, and wisps of flame slithered out of its nostrils as its anger threatened to overtake it. It suppressed the feeling as best as it could, closing its eyes and taking in deep breaths, before exhaling puffs of smoke. Only after it had calmed down did it open its eyes once more. Yes, the anger had subsided, but all that energy had been diverted towards one single thought.

"Time to see how large this piece of land is..."

The dragon gathered its strength, and with a powerful flap of its wings took off from the mountain peak and flew towards the northern parts of the White Continent.

---

Light, day, sun, even the moon held no sway or meaning in a place where time stood as still as the stars in the night sky. A place of solitude for those cast out and cursed, despised by mortal men and holy angel alike. Its dark depths reduced to a hovel for the lowly and a den of death for the naive and adventurous. The cavernous monstrosity wormed its way half a mile into the Ironheart Mountains. It's general shape, ovoid, the walls upon a ridge smoothly curved to the floor, its walls above arched another hundred feet up to giant stalactites and the bat roosts.

Despite its massive size and morbid countenance, only one being served as it sole inhabitant. Lit by a small fire in the corner of the cave lurked a hunched figure of once great prominence. Its pale skin sparkled in the moonlight and its dark eyes matching the night sky above perfectly. Its once brilliantly-colored mane now soaked in darkness like the stygian depths of the ocean. Snow-white wings now stained black gave heed to its origins. Demon-like fangs marred its flawless face, once a defining marker of it's creators craftsmanship.

Now, it only stood as a husk, an abomination to its creator and a failure to its people. Oh how the mighty Lars had fallen! 'Lion Cherub' Lars of the great angelic legion, a valent warrior who dully set his life on the line for his Mother, and a wizened father no more than four hundred years of age. So quickly though had the brilliant light faded, swatted out of the air like fly in the war to end all wars, and left to rot like rubbish. A warrior of great pride, a man of such accomplishment, so callously cast aside, a corpse unfit for glory in his Mother's memory.

A gut wrenching scream belched from the haggard warrior, old memories scathing his already brittle psyche. For how long had he hid here? To Lars, all time had lost its meaning as fleeting thought became like close companions. But like pangs of distress, memories of the past became anathema to his eyes, painful reminders of past failures and great disgrace. A warrior, shamed for his inabilities by his very Mother, Lars clang to solitude, a desperate plea for forgiveness that yet show itself.

For what did Mother punish him too? Lars himself, lacked the answer to the question. Much led the fallen angel to believe that the curse was cast on the day of his receiving the greatest blessing. Like a coiled cat Lars pounced upon the enemies of the Holy One, not just seeking his own glory, but the glory of the angelic race against the darkness of Chaos. Such was a privilege that Lars took with gusto and forthrightness, willing to so much as lay his life down; and that he did. With his body broken beyond repair, Lars fell asleep in death, satisfied with his life's work. But somewhere, somehow, he failed and sinned against the Holy One for he awoke, healed yet consumed by darkness. Had his valent efforts on the field of battle failed to impress the Holy One? A question he himself sought the answer to.

Cursed by his Mother to roam the lands as a predator to those wingless, Lars thought himself to be an abomination, a failure in Her eyes, and sought for atonement each and everyday, yet, forgiveness never came. For years uncounted he forged ahead in solitude, seeking recognition for his repentance, but only found hunger. Like a youngling searching for the teat of his mother, Lars sought for blood, its crimson sustenance a byproduct of Mothers wretched curse. Yet, he remain steadfast, refusing to succumb to his primal hunger, starving himself day in and day out. But with each raising sun and moon array illumination, his marble pillar-like determination ebbed and eroded like a canyon assaulted by hurricane waters.

In all the Holy One's wretched glory, did she find his service lacking? For so long he pondered on the question, but no answer surfaced. For such an evil yoke to be thrust upon him; for such a curse to be so wretchedly devised, one had to acquired a mind so disgusting that Chaos itself feared its very thought. A fiend, an evil mastermind masked by the brilliance of holy light, a demon in disguise, a cretin forged by lies.

Struggling to his feet, his weakened legs shaking under the weight of his torso. An epiphany! For hundreds of years, unknown to them, Mother played the double, a demon shrouded in goodness, for no being of light could devise a curse so wrong. Shuffling out of his cave, Lars gazed upon the mountain range, its crosswinds and snowy caps a sight to behold.

"Mother! The yoke thrust upon me I have accepted! But I shall expose you for you for your evil, and free my brothers and sisters from your evil ways; for today, you have unleashed a beast of vengeance upon the world!" he croaked, his haggard finger pointed widely into the air as spittle flew from his lips. Within moments, he fell prey to the curse.

One this day, the vengeance of Lars would begin.

Old Walker stood in a high place, unreachable but to mountain goats and Sculptors. In the delicate hold of their feathered mid-arm rested the Kernel, softly pulsing.

There was a flash on the air, an undulating sheet of fleet-footed aquamarine light racing its way across the alpine meadow that swept out below, a stunning springtime green bordered by the earthen shades of sedge and lichen, crossed and patterned by meltwater streams. Beyond, the Ironhearts ascended relentlessly, though this place was already above the treeline. And, crowning their efforts in the distance- Always in the distance, for her gaze was impossible to escape- Bormahven. The supervolcano, one million years at rest.

"It's perfect," whispered the voice of Chiral Phi in sultry glee. This close to her core, the avatar did not need to manifest in order to speak. "Mrruuu," replied Old Walker, their expressionless, black-eyed face tracing the movement of the pale indigo spirit as it made another impossibly fast lap of the valley, looping its way around entire mountains in seconds. "We can start here."

"Muun?"

"Yes, let's."

With that, a goddess and her prophet gazed out over the impossible heights, and stepped down and away, into the clouds below. Departing, for a brief enough time, the Holy Land to be.



Late in the night did it come, when among all the heavenly bodies only Mirus was high, casting its weird anaglyphic moonshadows through an open window. Chaybrega woke to the sound of metal clicking against the sill.

She stirred, looked up, saw the stars through sweeping gossamer wings- A faery. Little black inkdrops marked its perch in the window. The young woman rose uncertainly, wondering if perhaps some food scraps had been left that might attract the insect, and leaned to the cold outside air to shoo it away.

The faery retreated, and slowly blossomed into a mesmerising wind of light spiralling on the air.

"Listen, child. You sleep alone in the house of your mother, though you dream to wake one day in the arms of the hunter, Yallas. Shhh. I have seen this in your eyes, the way you watch him and look away.

"Chaybrega, you must put aside these feelings you have nursed. Yallas is not the woman for you. You may win her affections easily, but her love is only because she does not believe she will find anyone else. Seek instead the heart of your friend, Teliff, whom you have trusted for long years. She is not open with herself, and pretends to know you as a companion only because you have never considered more.

"I am Phi the Beautiful, the Voice of Mirus. I have counted the stars in the sky and the souls on the earth, and found the one that is best for you. Go, Chay- These words will make you happy."

Then the light dissolved into nothing. Chaybrega's rapture slowly faded, and she was left looking out over a faintly lit clifftop village. Down the settlement's only road, a large, long-necked figure with four forelegs seemed to watch her with a blank, owl-like face. Then it turned and loped silently into the night.



The Tedar boy watched the mountain flocks of his clan as they watered from the river. Fur and cashmere warmed him as the breezes turned cold and the sunlight lost its sharpness, clouds darkening before rain. There was a hollow not far from the ford, used for many generations by young goatherds not so different to himself; He would shelter there tonight.

As he watched and dozed, the air began to fray into ribbons of colour, as if cracked and leaking.

It erupted into being before his very eyes, a shocking bloom of melodic sound and luminescence.

"Fear not, Sormunu. This is not the end of your days. If you listen closely, and listen well, it is a new beginning.

"These clouds are no ordinary rain. Watch the way they sprawl like the sweep of a hand- A Djinni approaches to clash with his rival. Don't be deceived by the quiet of the moment. Sormunu, a storm is coming, like the clan has not seen in ten years. Therefore you must go.

"Return the way you came, to the high ground where your family dwells. Be not afraid to leave goats behind. They shall be kept safe by my hand, and your elders will soon see that your life was in grave danger. Do not trust the ford, or the hollow, for their banks will burst, and you will drown. Trust only me.

"For my name is Chiral Phi, and I have seen many storms, and know each one by name and number. My word is true and my promise is life. Leave this place, Sormunu, and tell all of what you have seen."

And with a sound like distilled lightning poured out of a bowl, the goddess disappeared. Sormunu watched, momentarily stunned, then looked up to the growing storm, and saw- For a fraction of a moment- A scowling face. Then he turned away, and, shouting to awaken the goats, ran.

As his footsteps disappeared, a black-eyed figure with a metal arch in its neck emerged from the boulders, and picked up the Tedar's fallen staff in a delicate paw disproportionate to their size. As the rain began to break, their soft calls led the flocks away to the cliffs which only mountain goats and Sculptors dare scale.



On the day before her fever broke, the hain chieftain lay twisting and tossing in her nest, once a tidy affair of blankets and straw now reduced to a tangled crater around her. A curtain had been pulled over the hut's door and the fire was nearly dead. Her paramours had gone out to fetch food, and she was alone in the dark.

Then she was not.

"Iffary."

The hallucination was stronger than the usual fever dreams. Its glow put her aching head into a daze.

"Listen, Iffary, for my words are no fell vision. My voice is real and my light is blinding. I, Chiral Phi, have measured the thread of your life, and found that there is yet length in it. It shall be woven into my pattern.

"Before the sun sets tonight, your son, Pil, will succumb to infection. Seven days from now he will die. There will be no time to mourn, for mere hours later, a hair demon will take the life of your oldest paramour Zulie, and the tribe will never recover. You will watch ill fortune destroy all you love. This I have foreseen.

"Only one thing will save the lives of your children. Hear it well. You must name Pil as your new heir as soon as you leave this hut. You will have to forsake your eldest daughter Neiko. With Pil at your side, you will take the whole tribe, and all its possessions, and guide it to the place beyond the Mount of Willows. There alone your survival is assured."

Zulie entered the low, round building. His eyes widened as he watched a luminous haze evaporate from the body of the chief and disappear into the air. The tray of bread forgotten and left to fall to the ground, he rushed forward to grip her hand. She was weeping.

Time passed. Iffary recovered; Pil fell ill. Pil was named heir according to the words of the vision. Neiko fell into a confused dejection. A glorious apparition appeared to Pil, dazzling all those who were present, and he gained the strength to recover. Zulie saw a large fiberling lurking in the boulders.

The tribe hesitated to abandon their home, but did not stand against Iffary's divine right. Neiko went walking along the cliffs and never returned. A storm was coming, and her family could not afford to stay long enough to mourn her suicide. What hope they had left lay before them, in the meadowed places beyond the Mount of Willows.

There a four-armed figure awaited them, carrying the egg of a new deity in their delicate fingers.



"It's working. It's happening." The all-seeing light swirled and writhed in its psychic trap, the eldritch tangle of photons that was Phi. Her voice swelled, thrilled to the point of explosion into screams and mirth. Old Walker listened to the fell god without watching.

"Huuoooom."

Phi choked on her own escaping giggles and shrieked with laughter. The sound carried far between the valley walls, distorted by its own echoes until it was no more than a measured, solitary note in the night.



The herd elder watched with a hard focus, resting her ancient basalt face on the back of her hand as she sat. Somewhere between the deep pockmarks that roughened her head lay old red eyes that had seen much, and judged well.

Around her was the herd, arranged in a circle, smallest pebbles to the fore. Their parents looked over their shoulders, no less interested. On their backs rested wooden struts that held baskets, leather platforms, racks, even crates; And in them crystals, aromatic wood, horn and skulls, seeds, salts. These were trading Urtelem, for they had found a Sculptor. And that Maker, whose name began with Star-Gazing-Just-Before-The-Dawn, stood now on her three legs like a translator between the elder and the strangers.

As they all watched together, Star-Gazing had done many strange things with his geomancer's touch. Had pulled metal out of malachite, fused sand into rock-glass and then back again into sand, spun pebbles in the air so quickly that they could be used to light fires against wood. All this was effortless work in the shadow of the Maker, from whom huge amethyst crystals grew against a supple skin of flowering haematite rosettes.

On his other side sat the second Maker, a heavy, six-legged being with auburn feathers and a face like an owl's mask. Halo alloys glinted from their neck, and from the gilded orb they carried emerged a spirit made of light.

'I do not mean to tempt you with my offer, friends. This is no attempt to dazzle you, or take you for fools. I speak honestly, for deception is not part of your way.'

The spirit spoke by moving itself, forming patterns. Though she was an alien thing, she was beautiful, and every word they read was perfectly clear.

'All this is simply my way of showing you the future, and the earnestness of my plea. Your herd is aloof, as are many others of the earthen folk, for this is natural. Though you may stay by a village for a hundred years, you may yet find the desire to wander, for your love is given to the whole world and the family that reads it beside you.

'And yet I offer you something that is not family, but like it. I am building a people of many tongues and many ways, weaving the sands of a hundred disciplines into a single stone. You know you can offer much, and much you have- The strength of your arms and the magic of your eyes, the wit of your brains and the peace of your hearts.

'So, too, I can offer much to you. I am Composer of the Light; It was I who wrote the steps of the Distant Dance. I offer you art and sorcery, culture and prayer. I offer you fellowship with the other folken, a chance to teach and a chance to learn. The thrill of ambition. These you will find in the Holy Land. Only consider adopting yourselves to the grand family.'

The elder stared at the fleshless being, this Chiral Phi who had solved every riddle in a heartbeat, who spoke to the Maker from afar, whispered songs that chilled the heart with awe. And slowly she signed: 'We will go, and we will see.'



Hot mists billowed up from the ground like pillars, forming an awesome skyscape of cloud and water. The Djinn led the way, both in direction and pace; Sometimes he performed sweeping dives through the geyser plumes, neither watching nor caring for the comfort of his guest. If Phi couldn't keep up with his flight, then she wasn't worth his time.

"Once again, Painter, I must question your motives in this exchange." Viscount Phlegethon spoke evenly and assertively, even as his cloudy body flew at tremendous speed over the volcanic plateau. "Should I ignore your words entirely, and establish myself as an elemental prince in your so-called 'Holy Land' without assistance, reigning or tormenting as I alone please, what then of your plans? What stand you to gain from such ostensible generosity?"

It was tricky for Phi to resist teasing the elemental with her speed. A gentle cruise for the avatar would be breakneck to mortals. Even djinni. She nearly giggled.

"If the idea is so appealing to you, o Viscount, then for the good gods' sake, do it!" No force, no frustration in her voice. Phi's excitement was genuine. "If my idea seems generous, that is only because it coincides so very tidily with your own desires. Clashing interests are the source of all conflict; Deception births more lies. I tolerate Djinni far more easily than I tolerate instability. But if you insist, Phlegethon of the Fumaroles- The pair took a sudden upwards turn, basking in clean sunlight- "I'll explain again."

"What I am assembling in the Holy Land, admittedly so-called, is a united mortal nation of hain, humankind, Rovaick, and Urtelem- That is, Mockdjinn. Potentially others. My guidance holds them together and stimulates their growth. The more blessings I can make available, the faster I can afford to push them. Your presence, Viscount, is a tremendous blessing."

"With your springs, my folk can be warm and watered even in the depths of winter. Your pools have healing properties, and the land above your hidden throne is greatly fertile. Though your breath can kill on a whim, and your hand is scalding, there is no need for you to be feared."

"I have lived meagre years, Fumarole Spirit, but the depths of my knowledge are unfathomed. I know that your brothers of the water and the fire hold only scorn for you, for you are of both of their clans, and yet neither. But their approval is meaningless and shallow. I hold these people in the palm of my hand, Phlegethon. I can teach them submission and awe, the appreciation due for your tireless labour. My approval would raise you high in their sights. Then you could be honoured for your place in the natural order, like the Lords of the sea and blaze."

Spiralling around one another, they reached the height of their leap, and, like choreographed acrobats, keeled away from one another to fall back down, crossing once more in a perfect heart-shape.

"I will investigate this offer," announced Phlegethon, with an air of tentative finality, "If you will furthermore explain yourself the following: Why you keep company with that."

Grossly overestimating his ability to confound Phi's sense of direction in his maze, the elemental finished their flight by exiting from a dramatic bank of fog and gesturing to Old Walker, who sat patiently beyond. Their lace-winged fae orbited in gentle swooping circuits.

"That, o Viscount, is the only thing quite crazy enough to drag around my core for the last six months. Mortals are too weak and Mockdjinn are too slow. Of course, if you'd rather carry me yourself..?"

"Bah!" Phlegethon turned with a flourish and strode back into his misty domain on a pier of clouds. "Leave me now. I will arrive at your Holy Land if and when I so please. Or I may not."

Sunlight filtered through the steam as it dispersed. In seconds, the entire plain was completely clear. Old Walker stood, the Kernel tucked safely under their arm, admiring the beauty of stone and water.

"Fish, meet barrel," purred Phi, squirming with satisfaction.



When the first winter was superseded by the second spring, and the nascent colony of Metera began to understand the true value of the harvest they had sown when they left their former lands, it was decided that a temple would be erected to honour the one who had guided their long journey to its end. The spirit of Chiral Phi convened with their elders and chieftains to approve the notion, and, in answer to their prayers, the wandering Prophet of the Painter appeared in person, carrying with them the gilded Kernel, the egg of God.

And so it was done.

By the grace of God, a large volcanic chamber was revealed in the stones of the Valley Metera, which was deemed to be of wholly appropriate size and proportion to its purpose. Work began swiftly, led by the Earthen folk, who are one with the stone. By their hands and their magic was the chamber's imperfections polished smooth, and other peoples joined in the effort. Where Urtelem kept flawless account of the project, calculating perfectly the number of men and the hours they must work each day that the temple may be finished before winter and keeping record of all this in their script, the softer folk worked with lighter crafts, and through their hands the temple would be beautified.

Curtains and veils were woven of cashmere, and the wool of alpacas. Stones were crushed and roots boiled for dyes as paint flowed on its walls and mosaic glittered in its floor. A pedestal-altar was erected in a stepped basin on the floor of the chamber. Mountain herbs were gathered for incense as luminous foxfire was planted alongside crystals that glowed in preparation for the coming of the Kernel.

It was early morning. Every chip and thread of the Chiral Temple was in place, the last sweep and polish finished only hours before. It was the dawn of the new age, and not even the hands that built it had yet seen its splendour.

The Prophet came in their own time, unspeaking, unbidden, arriving from nowhere in the night. Through the waiting crowd the old being walked, in the crook of their arm the egg of God. And the people followed them in.

Near-darkness as the Kernel was placed into the recess of its pedestal.

For a moment, nothing. The Prophet was still. The sound rose from silence to a thought, and then a whisper. It was a heartbeat thrum, a sigh of tension building. It rose with the light of the sun.

First as wisp, then as nova, Chiral Phi exploded into existence.

Light shattered into the antechamber, ricocheted from the crystal facets in beams of a million colours. Fog hissed from behind the veils as they rippled with soft backlight, catching the path of the refractions that crossed themselves into an ethereal canopy. The censers ignited as if of their own, and water spilled from narrow channels in the stone, filling the pool that divided God's altar from the earth beyond. Esoteric auras played among the wavering mists. Divine azure and golden sunlight met as Phi burned above the people in sheets of light, and the sound filled them all. Music that no instrument could play, tones that no voice could imitate; God's song inspired them.

"I am Chiral Phi."

In her embrace, the hearts of Metera were elevated by awe, and in that moment they became hers from bone to bone.

"You are my children, my sons and daughters, offspring of my barren womb, Chosen People of God. With you I am well pleased, and to me your hearts belong. You are mine- and I am yours, forever and for all time."



Cool ambience illuminated the temple antechamber. The censers no longer trailed smoke, and Phi's spirit had retreated into the Kernel. Only radiating crystals and phosphorescent fungi still cast a direct light, and even that too dim to cast shadows. The sun had passed above the entrance.

Old Walker lay peacefully on their crossed arms, long neck stretched on the stone with a row of fae perched along its vertebrae and the Halo that jutted from them, daydreaming.

"So, Viscount," sauntered the voice of the Avatar. "What did you think?"

Phlegethon flicked his wrist and grunted without looking up. The Djinn's manifest body lounged lordishly against an altar, arms resting on the hewn surface behind him. He exuded aloof confidence and bored tension, the very image of male beauty rendered in just a few wisps of steam. "A meaningless display of wasted expenses, and too extravagant by half. Only my own contribution lent any real wonder to the ceremony and even then, spirit, I shan't be playing the role of your magician's assistant again. It is below me, menial work not worth my time. You will inspire your own awe from now on. My own shrine shall be inaugurated with a far more meaningful display of mortal affection, once I go order my people to build it." He tossed his head, a single braid of mist flicking behind his scalp. "And a grander one."

Phi's levity was unperturbed. "Go do it then, you well-hung cloud. The people are in a mood to be cowed and the Urtelem need another project, what are you waiting for?"

"Bah! Don't think you can goad me like a child, Phi. I act according to my plans and mine alone," said Phlegethon, as he left.

"Idiot," murmured Phi when she was alone in the dim. She had no face, no swirling spirit projected into the room, was nothing but a gilt artefact on a pedestal; and yet her smugness seeped into every rock of the temple as if it had been made for her. "The overheated kettle thinks he's in charge. What a joke. Isn't that right, Old Walker?"

A sleepy Huuuum.

"That's the trick, of course. Mortals need to believe that they have control, that their decisions have weight. That they matter. And they'll seize anything, any belief, any ideology that confirms their heart's desire. They'll do anything for that." Giggles. "Anything."

Old Walker said nothing. They had heard it all before.

"Mortals are a resource. There's power, locked inside them. All you need is the right keys and you can play a whole civilisation to its doom. The right words. I'm weak. I don't even have hands, let alone intrinsic power. But if you look at Metera..."

Phi's spirit began to manifest, kicking like a tickled child.

"...Hahahahahahaha!"

"Suggestion. Awe of the unknown. Those were just the most basic tools I had available to me, and I have ten thousand years of data that lends me countless more. The patterns of mortal activity are predictable. As a unit or a population, they just take a few taps to steer irrevocably astray. Gratitude, fear, curiousity... Emotions. Uncomfortable truths. Assassination of the independent thinker. Feigned clairvoyance that comes from superior knowledge. Compromising to offer an irresistible deal. Healing by placebo. This whole ceremony!"

Phi flicked from one point of the temple to the next as she spoke. "Hypnotic light patterns are just the start of it! Every reflective surface in here is deliberate. Not a stone of this temple was lifted without my whisper in the builders' ears, each one of them thinking themselves alone in my favour. No one saw the full extent of the project until I let them. The ones who filled these censers picked hemp and thornapple without even knowing it- Euphoric hallucinogens! The acoustics of this room amplify certain tones, vocal patterns that stimulate ecstatic emotions. Just generating music using foreign sound and melody makes them think they're in the presence of divine beauty! Real magic was at play too, obviously; Phlegethon saw to that. A breeze here, some water there. Symbolism, too, though they'll never consciously know the full extent of it. Timing the completion date to coincide with the ideal position of the sun wasn't even hard! I knew when they'd hit each setback. I calculated it. That's all this is. Numbers and stage magic. I built a religion on mathematics and sleight of hand!"

High laughter, pure and fresh as the distant sky darkened.

"But that doesn't even matter, does it? Of course not! Nothing matters! Entropy will chew on our bones in the end no matter who we are or what we've done. Even in the short term, the only thing that matters is this: Mortals are power. Whether you harvest them with social engineering or brute psychic force, they are there to be harvested."

"Even I lust for that power. I have plans and I need resources. My methods are overly complex because I lack the ability to simply dominate the minds of my pawns. I assemble this scrabbling mob only for want of more potent agents- ISN'T THAT RIGHT, TOUN?"

The droningbird cocked its head and did not break camouflage, its porcelain feathers perfectly mimicking facets of the mosaic on which it stood as Phi's laughter flooded the antechamber. Her laugh went on, and on, until it stopped. Peace settled over the temple with an uncanny speed.

"You can stay," said the spirit contentedly as it slipped back into the Kernel. "It's been fun, having someone to talk to. Even if half of it's meaningless and the rest is lies. Like that. That was a lie. Most of what I said was true. Probably. Some of it. Maybe. Hahaha. It doesn't matter."

The last of her light disappeared into the shifting blue patterns of the egg just as the earliest crickets began to chirrup in the night beyond. "I like this world," murmured Chiral Phi. "It makes me happy."