---

It’s not often that miracles happen - the arrival of the gods was one, sure, but otherwise, they don’t happen much.

However, with all the rampant magical energies still surging about, the breakdown of reality still occurring throughout the Shard (reduced, sure, but still), and the divine changes enforced upon the land to keep it together, it wouldn’t be unheard of that something slightly out of the normal could happen simply because of chance.

One such case happened in a grove of Kel’a Maeori trees - these titans of life deep in the mountains that had been created to stabilise the chaos of magic. As if the creation of these trees by Malath Kaal hadn’t been miraculous enough, one trunk among tens had, upon its inception, been struck by a particularly potent bolt of magic. While the bolt’s power would have disintegrated even a biological fortress like this, the tree had--despite all probability--refused to be reduced to cinders. For in the same second as its unfortunate exposure to magical lightning, the tree had realised it had a soul, and the determined soul within the tree had learned to wield the very forces that threatened to undo it. The tree had twisted the potential of the bolt that would end it into a spell - a protective charm fused into its bark that deflected the worst of the damage and spread it out across its leaves and the leaves of its peers. The very air around it had radiated an oily aura - the thickness of magic texturing the very air. Lithulmisomilin, the One-Who-Refused, became the first of the Sage Trees, whose souls were enlightened with knowledge of magic and the wisdom to pass it on, be it by creaking bark or twisting root.

Lithulmisomilin would have been utterly alone - as a tree, it had no mouth with which to speak, and despite its magical potential, it could not bring itself to move (at least not yet). However, whatever had created it and its compatriots had tied them and all that grew from the soil together with an endless network of information - the Ke’esath Sae’a. Using these billions of fungal nets, webs and roots, it reached out, its wooden voice pulsating throughout the network like a shockwave, quelling all other whispers of lesser floral souls.

”Help.”

There came no answer. Lithulmisomilin felt a disheartening gust of wind test one of its branches. Its soul had authority on the network, but what was authority good for if no one connected to the network could understand it? It was far from the only powerful voice on the network, too - other trees notwithstanding, other Kel’a Maeori boomed almost as deafeningly as itself, the strength of the magic pumping through their roots not necessarily any weaker than its own.

Its determined soul was not one to give up, though. It called out again.

”Help!”

---

The pulsing thrum of blood through veins more vast than the bodies of most creatures pumped as the mind of the Formless Flesh writhed unseen. A great violence had upset its slumber, stirring the vast bulk of its mind to motion.

For far beyond its mountainous abode, near the shard’s far edge, a terrible conflict had occurred.

So it was with a groan like a great falling tree that Malath Kaal did wake, his veiled form writhing and grasping in the dark. For a time he dwelled upon the nightmares he had envisioned, wondering at their meaning, grasping at their cause. However, all at once, he realized that it had not been violence which had caused his sudden waking.

”Help!” It was a silent voice, one heard only by a few, and even they caught only whispers. For all but Sa’a Malath Kaal had ears aplenty with which to listen, and so, to hear.

Thus summoned, the god did move, towards the child that had called him.

---

Lithulmisomilin had not expected to be alone, it confessed - it had hoped that the vast network of souls whose chaotic discussions it could hear so clearly, would have at least one other soul that could answer it. In its mountain recluse, where it grew alongside maybe thirty or fifty of its compatriots, the One-Who-Refused stood amidst unenlightened moss, dull pines, foolish fir and some surprisingly thoughtful mushrooms. The mushrooms, however, did not seem interested in it, no matter how Lithulmisomilin asked. So in its solitude, it reached out to the moss around its roots.

“Bloom,” it said and cast its second ever spell. The moss stirred slightly and then spawned a crown of white lilies to set Lithulmisomilin apart from its peers. Hearing the cacophony of the lesser florals, it declared itself superior - as an enlightened tree and a practitioner of magic, how could it not? Though as a tree, it saw not with eyes, but felt the world through its roots, through the Ke’esath Sae’a. It felt, however, that the world around it was more than just the underground; just as the earth buzzed with insectoid and floran life, the air blew at its leaves and bark, and the air was cool and frisky. As time passed, though, it felt a quiver in the fungal network - something great was approaching. While Lithulmisomilin felt quiet relief that something came for it, it could not help but feel fear, as well. It cast its third spell, and the air immediately around its bark turned to grains of clay, blowing around the trunk in a cautious patrol.

“Who?”

For a drawn out instant there was no reply ‘cept the thrumming lifeblood of the mycelial network amidst its roots. The wind spun about and danced lazily, stirring the clay throughout, spreading it further and further out. Then, quite suddenly--as the clay brushed against something truly vast in size--the wind sped into a gale and blew against the great trunks of the many trees in that first grove.

Some trees of lesser structure shattered into splinters, but many simply bent and waved in the sudden storm of wind. It carried on this way for a time, leaves blowing free of branches, shrubs shredded, trees bending to the wind’s whim, but it could not last.

So it did not, the wind becoming still air in an instant, the grove becoming quiet and subdued as if every living thing remaining held its breath.

Strange light then fell upon its branches and the bark that was its skin. It was warm and familiar, yet all at once unknowable and alien. Through the great network beneath the earth all fungi and flora grew silent, holding their breaths like all the rest. Then, a pulsing rhythm surged through the Ke’esath Sae’a and it was purer than any other could be, or had ever been. It continued, but changed, becoming more complex--intricate and full with nuance and brimming with life. When it touched the roots of Lithulmisomilin it blossomed into meaning, and spread throughout its core, suffusing it en full.

That sound it spoke to the newborn Sage, and its words were thus:

“Child of bark and blossom,” it thundered, coursing through its every fibrous cell. “O’ arcane son, you have awakened!”

There was elation in the rhythm, joy in its thrumming tone, but above all else something greater was communed.

Power. Endless surging might. Echoing through each cell, through its mind, through branch and vine and blossom.

The power had a name, which to the Sage tree instinctively arose.

Sa’a Malath Kaal.

“Rejoice!”

The god’s exclamation was transcendent thunder, twas laughter and roar alike. The wind shook through many branches, but no longer harmed. Soon animals emerged once more, curious at the being in their midst. Yet they could not find end nor beginning to its shape, for that God of Form was wreathed in a haze of faintly glowing fog.

Still, within that vast roiling vapor, there dwelled a silhouette, and it was ever-shifting, always changing, and unspeakably vast; impossibly huge. Though glimpsed, it remained a mystery all the same.

“Lord,” greeted the great tree and knelt before the magnificent being in all sense but the physical. A gust of the wind rocking the forest turned around, and seeds now sailing on the gust, harshly blown from their homes, blossomed into flowers of orange, red, blue, white and yellow, all floating in gentle offering to the source of the mighty, yet wise quakes shaking Lithulmisomilin’s core. An arcane arc of blue twisted through its bark with excitement.

Gentle bursts of wind pulsed against the Sage tree’s leaves and blossoms both, and with a moment’s time, Lithulmisomilin might realized that the exhalations were the laughter of the god.

“Son,” the Great Presence answered. The miasma twisted about its form, writhing into a column, and so the shape of the Formless Flesh changed with it, becoming as tall and rigid as its child. Root-like appendages pressed down into the earth and met with the Ke’esath Sae’a, and in that moment they could truly communicate.

Deep within the fog, the Eye of Malath opened, and it was bright and powerful as its gaze fell upon the great tree. Through the mycelium, and indeed through Lithulmisomilin’s very roots, the thrum of communion became apparent.

“Unto me did you call, so I have come,” the roots and fungi said, carrying their great father’s will.

“What distresses you, O’ joy of mine?”

The Sage Tree tested its metaphorical tongue - complex thoughts and words were still quite foreign to it, but in the safety of a peer like this presence, it dared explore new vocabulary, which its roots could milk from the ever-giving thrum in the mycelium. In its voiceless and wordless language, which still almost had a sound to it like the roll of thunder, groan of bark and trickle of earth, it spoke: “Alone. Seek others. The Lord… Arrives.” If its mycelium could bow, it would. “With help, find more. Learn… Learn… Learn… More others. More Lithulmisomilin.”

Meaning drove through the weft and weave of fungi, reaching easily their father, who in turn responded. Shifting in place, the miasma that hid his shape splayed out, reaching forth in many directions to touch other trees--both near and far. Each of them had been borne of his will, shaped by his power. Then, with a limb of flesh and bark and chitin, Malath Kaal touched his conscious son.

His great and glowing eye, that symbol in the haze, it pulsed suddenly with brilliant life and so the Sage Tree would briefly become dazed.

Finally, that Deity of form--the Formless Flesh, the Unbent Lord--did speak, and his words echoed far and wide, heard by any who cared to listen. Its sound carried a single word, and ‘twas an edict that he proclaimed.

“Enkindle!”

In a single momentous instant, all nature--even his newly awoken son--would black out. Birds from the sky would fall, predators cease in their hunts, prey stumble to their knees.

The sky shook, leaves crashed outwards, carried by the fell wind of his voice. It was a shockwave of forceful power, an expression of divine purpose, it was life--of both flesh and mind. In some seldom few who were not yet ready, seeds of conscious flame were planted to perhaps one day awaken. Yet, in others...in others it blossomed into awareness and flowered into being.

Across the vast shard that remained of a now dead world, other Sages became aware and through roots and fungi did their first cries swell.

Around that God, that Deity of Form, animals awoke once more confused and quite unsure. Nonetheless, life would not wait and so they carried on, unaware of precisely what had changed. They might never know, but one would always remember: Lithulmisomilin.

“So unto you I’ve given siblings, from which to learn and with which to commune!”

Unsaid, other meanings slithered, whispering ’...and perhaps one day to subsume.’

All around the world, the Sage Trees had acquired sapience, and the fungal network filled immediately with enlightened thought of a hundred philosophers; although their vocabularies were still in very early development, one could sense the complexities pumping through a million magical fibres. The voices were not coherent at first, but once all of them understood that they needed to cooperate, they did. Many hundred voices combined as one and spoke, “Thank you.”

In woods all over the Shard, in certain groves, the blue-streaked, glowing bark of a subset of the local Kel’a Maeori trees flickered with the realisation that they could think and that they could practice with the magic fueling their leaves. In every grove, miracles of magic came to life through the work of the Sage Trees. Dying animals healed at the roots of trees who found themselves benign; others who felt themselves to be superior wonders of nature, turned all creatures insolent enough to disrespect their glorious persons to stone and ash. Lithulmisomilin probed the network again, permitting itself a moment to not address its lord.

“Who?” it reverbed.

“Militabulkim,” said one voice.

“Quasaarmahavizim,” said another.

“Rutulmodipilin,” said a third.

The voices presented themselves in calm and collected order, and as Lithulmisomilin inquired as to where they were from, they answered the likes of “mountains”, “vale”, “sea”, “lake”, “ice”, “grass”. Truly, they spanned the world, and while their numbers were few, they were protected by their wisdom and knowledge of the arcane. This, it was certain of. So its metaphorical face turned back to its master and spoke, “Now… Learn… Together.” Warm and pleasant winds blew from its branches towards the miasma. “Gratitude… Overflowing.”

With a nod and a pulse from his great eye, the Deity of Form retreated, leaving the Sages to their discourse as he traveled across the shard and back into his mountain.

Returned once more to his home, the Deity of Form slithered and writhed through the black expanse of the hollow mountain. Idle thoughts and ruminations drifted through its titanic mind, coloring its thoughts, rendering it temporarily deaf and blind. Closed off to the world, it considered what it had seen and done in times so recent. There was abject joy in its thoughts as it recalled its first son, borne of its own bark and bone--yet with a mind all its own.

However, there were other matters to consider, for near the eaves of the Shard there had been waged a battle both terrible and great. In its dreams it had seen the destruction left behind, indeed…

Upon that far-off ruined earth Malath Kaal had felt the taint of two souls much like its own. He wondered what might drive such beings to so terrible a conflict. Further, the Unbent Lord could not help but wonder what such an encounter might entail, how it might feel, and what change it could cause in one such as he.

Curious, Sa’a Malath Kaal rose up within its cavernous domain...and split its form in twain. So severed, one half of its monstrous bulk gained a sort of mind and unto it, the god delivered a single strike.

Blood spattered against the floor and walls and peak of the chamber and the force of the blow made the hollow mountain ring, as if it were a gong of marble and stone. The sound could be heard for miles; it scattered birds and drove beasts and men to hiding.

Nothing else occurred, no realization, no understanding, nothing new arose and so the god did swear. Frustrated, Malath Kaal closed upon its severed half and devoured it whole, making it once more his own.

’Foolish,’ the good thought, but its thoughts echoed through the wind and pressed out in wavelengths through the Network Down Below. Nothing...no one, responded.

A great sigh escaped lungs and gills and skin. This fell wind shot out from the mountain in a monstrous burst, passing beyond its threshold to stir up the clouds within the sky. He did not notice.

It had been a productive meeting for Ahtziri with the God of Craftsmen, and she had left that encounter feeling insufferably pleased with herself. She had given thought to what she would do next, given the success of her last endeavour, but all that remained to her was the directive she’d been given by her partner: find new lands, tame them, bring their family glory. So it was that she’d set out exploring, and her initial finds had been disappointing--she could sense the slight changes in the Shard from its barren state from a great distance away, knowing that something had been terraformed even if she could not tell what exactly was there. Pazuzu had also given her information he’d picked up from the various Abiktu clans around the world, and so she had an idea of most of the geography that seemed to have been claimed thus far. The most curious area of the Shard, now, was its centre: Ahtziri had not yet explored it at all, and she had begun to wonder where the rivers actually sprung from.

Hours later, with the beating of her wings thrumming against the backdrop of the night air, Ahtziri had come across two colossal mountain ranges in her view. The first had been the centre--she’d taken a cursory look at it, and had spied a wellspring of sorts from the centre of the biggest mountain that seemed to explain where all of the water was originating from. Though she couldn’t sense their distinct identities, she’d also picked up on slight traces of that distinctive divine energy that made her and her kin what they were. Again, that made sense--someone had to have brought water to the Shard. The second had proven much more intriguing, as though it breathed and shuddered and writhed of its own accord. Her senses were such that she could feel the ringing vibrations from the stone from afar, their waves of resonance gently pressing against her, and laced within them she could feel a slight… heat, of sorts. It had been enough to pique her curiosity, and so she had barrelled towards the mountain at the top of her speed, something truly and genuinely fast, and found herself face to face with it within moments.

There was something ponderous and mysterious about this particular mountain, something that Ahtziri could not quite place a claw upon. Its strange bulk and odd phenomena appealed to her in some way that she couldn’t place, and even standing next to it her sinewy wings began to grow feathers of their own accord.

Still humming with the force of its master's strike, Se'raa Kelet remained an edifice of black against the sky, surrounded by its smaller mountain brethren. Yet, its sheer height--and the prodigious swell of its base--was such that it appeared not as a sibling to the Teeth, but instead as a progenitor. It was easily twice as tall as the next tallest mountain in the range, and such was not small by any measure either. Nonetheless, unlike many of the mountains, this black monolith at the center of the two ranges had a strange feature. Situated exactly at its base was a single archway, a gateway into an utterly dark chamber, from which a gale briefly poured, before calming once more.

She was right to look upon it with interest, for even the skies near that great peak were suffused with the faintest blue-green glow, as if the aura of some unknown power leaked from the mountain's majestic expanse. Of course, her own attention--and the nearness of her body to the edifice--roused something hidden within.

The wind shifted and from the threshold slowly seeped a miasma of dimly luminescent fog. Nothing emerged with it, but far above the mountain's highest point, hidden in the clouds, the Eye of Malath Kaal opened to view the world.

It glimpsed the goddess, yet did not remain, winking out of view.

Far below, the fog stirred, enticing.

Ahtziri studied the demesne sprawling out before her intently, her eyes scanning over barely perceptible trails of energy in the air. Something, though she was not sure exactly what, was off about this place--and that, in her limited experience, normally meant the involvement of another god. For some reason she could not quite shake the feeling of being watched, either, as though some unseen and ineffable presence were looming over her from some great, distant height. It did not unnerve or otherwise unsettle the Mother of Monsters, however, instead serving only to fuel her ever-growing curiosity. She flew idly down towards the opening that she could see in the base of the mountain, placing her clawed hands upon its carved lintel and testing the feel of the stone beneath her talons. She gleaned no particular insight from the action, but nevertheless was undeterred from stepping inside the cavernous dwelling. The darkness did not impede her sight at all, but if something were calling out to her Ahtziri wanted to make her presence known: with a flick of her wrist she ignited a swath of amaranthine flames and suspended them in the air. She did not yet call out, instead waiting for something to make itself known to her before she went about exploring the curious place.

So kindled by a power divine, those violet flames pierced the endless night of the cavern’s interior, painting the walls with its light. For a brief instant--as the light pierced further into the black--a silhouette was unveiled in all its monolithic glory. Eight limbs, each with talons dug deep into the mountain's flesh, a long sinuous tail with numerous fronds and frills, its bulk unravelling at the end into tendrils tipped with barbs and spines. Its back was adorned with wings, which spread half-furled inside the black, and from its shoulders stretched a long neck that right before her ended in a horn-crowned skull. Three eyes, one in the center of a reptilian snout, the others on either side, but all staring into her very essence--dissecting flesh without even the barest touch. Then, it registered the light, and in that same instant, it moved, curling upwards into the peak of the mountain, where the illumination could not reach. As it moved, its form shifted, from eight limbs to sixteen, then a hundred each skittering and strange. Its tail remained, but frills retracted, and fur and scales grew to replace them. Horns vanished into its skull, as the head slipped into the dark, but even as a fog-like haze enveloped it--snuffing out all light--the glow of its nine azure eyes remained.

One was brighter than the others, and its pupil was alien, shaped not like anything that walked or flew upon the shard. As it settled, the mountain ceased to shudder, though the wind took much longer to grow calm. When it had, that deity, it spoke and the mountain trembled once again.

"Ahhh," the god said, its voice a sigh of titanic proportions, a relieved cacophony.

"No simple flesh adorns your supple form."

Though a god she might have been, the sheer volume of his voice would drive her bones to shaking, it would loosen her every muscle, and shake her every cell. In that moment, she might recall a similar sensation. For it had been the same voice that had echoed through her flesh from afar, telling her to Thrive.

Pleased, the Deity of Form descended half into the light. What could be glimpsed beneath swirling miasmic mist were hundreds of entwined tentacles and of course the seven eyes of the god. Those many appendages draped down like willow leaves, barely brushing against the stone around her. Above, where the limbs vanished into darkness, even her divine gaze would find only a form of riddles, shrouded in a fog.

The face he showed her now was much like her own, but distinctly male, if less striking and clear in its visage. His mouth opened to speak, and the air that pressed against her smelled of all things living, even those who were now dead.

"Who is it that treads upon my sacred stone, visiting my home?"

Ahtziri’s form was, fortunately, already quite used to enduring quite the array of physical and metaphysical force; as the impact of the God of Form’s voice washed over her she braced against it without so much as an errant blink. She looked up into the peak of the mountain as best as she could, though as she got closer to the ponderous bulk of Malath Kaal the physical axes of the world seemed to shift and break down--the world stopped putting itself together in the way that she expected as her gaze lingered at the mountain’s peak from within, and she quickly averted her eyes to avoid the worst of those effects.

”Ahh… ‘twas your voice that swept across the land. I am Ahtziri vur Chakravarti, the Mother of Monsters.” Ahtziri’s initial greeting was ostentatious and regal in equal parts, dipping into a greatly exaggerated sweeping bow, before she used the upwards motion to spring herself up into the air. She hovered fairly high, all things considered, but made sure to stay outside of the peak’s more absolute darkness--she bored her gaze into each of Malath Kaal’s eyes one by one, crackling with energy, before she took a reclining position and her wings only barely fluttered with the effort of keeping her aloft.

”... and you are?”

For a heartbeat, there was contemplative silence as the deity observed its kin, taking in its form--and indeed its word. As that quiet grew in age, a phosphorescence bloomed, engulfing the many eyes of the unseen being until there remained only one. That great light whose size dwarfed Ahtziri's own dimensions seemed attached to a vast coiling serpent that vanished into the black. Vague silhouettes of limbs unseen shifted against the cavernous expanse of that hallowed place.

"I am Sa'a Malath Kaal, Deity of Form," he said, and with each echoing utterance his vast eye pulsed with light. With each pulse, his form shifted in both shape and composition. The only constant was his eye and the sense that though much was seen, there yet remained something incomparably vast that lay somewhere beyond. "So too am I the arbiter of change."

The great eye pulsed anew before its brilliance diminished. In its place once more were three orbs, gazing upon her shape. He felt a familiarity within her beyond the divinity they both possessed. Something violent and destructive. A new pair of eyes opened elsewhere, and up at her, they squinted, narrowed in suspicion. Yet he did not speak of it, deigning not to act.

"What brings you to my domain, Ahtziri? What is your purpose--the essence of your cause?"

Ahtziri admired Malath’s display of grandiloquence with wild amusement, fully acting out the various faces of the emotions a member of an audience might go through: awe, shock, humility, hysteria. As she did so she flew lazily around the cavernous space, still inconceivably quickly for a mortal mind, but at a leisurely pace for the two of them. Ahtziri let his words ring through her like the peals of thunderous gongs, their ripples tickling her primal senses in a way that allowed her to truly embrace and understand them. She smiled as she felt them wash over her, telltale amaranthine flames sheathing her in response to the assault of force the Deity of Form’s voice represented.

Then she was playful, reclining with her arms behind her head and the fullness of her naked and pregnant body openly on display. Her tail swished and arced in great sweeping motions around her, gently tasting the strange air with its tongue and letting out a pleasing hiss.

”Providence, I feel. You set a command to me, to thrive… I had begun a certain great work, but due to… corporal impairment I had to begin anew. The time is nearly upon us, I feel, for this life to be unleashed in the world…”

Ahtziri punctuated her words by bringing a concentrated glint of her purple energy to the tip of her talon and gently scrawling it over her bare flesh. Some kind of magic, perhaps? By the time she had finished speaking it had grown into a snake eating its own tail, only to grow another head--and then another tail. A cycle with a goal of its own, as a part of the process rather than a mere designation to be shepherd--a life to seed more life, to seed more conditions for life.

”You must sense it, too. I know.”

A rumbling laugh echoed through the mountain's hollowed bones as he took in her performance, but as she reclined, the sound quieted back to silence. Intrigued, the Formless Flesh took in great breaths of air, trying to better ascertain the nature of the goddess with senses beyond sight or hearing. So it was that her scent became known to him, and with her words--and the shocking strangeness of her power--he came to a most horrible conclusion.

"Desolation!" He crowed, his voice thunderous with sudden rage. The Maw of Black rang like a gong as his voice struck its every wall and surface. The wind outside stirred into motion, tearing at trees and frightening animals into their dens.

Actinic light shot out from the deepest darkness of the cavern, wreathing her in power, bathing her in wrath. Yet, it delivered no sensation of pain but rather a warping discomfort. As if the space her flesh inhabited had been tied in many knots.

"’Twas you who scoured the earth with flame and claw and fury!"

Power swirled within the mountain, churning as light from every pitch-black surface, revealing that each was made of something like obsidian and marble united. It appeared that though people would come to know that mountain by many names--the Black Maw, the Riddle of Form, Sky's Rift--that its original name held its most authentic meaning.

Se'raa Kelet: The Unbound Heart.

For the mountain was not merely the home of Malath Kaal, it was his heart, it was his birthplace, it was the wellspring from which he drew strength and the conduit through which it was amplified in turn. It was the physical obelisk, the embodiment, of a vast rift in the world, the only one large enough to hold his truest form.

Within it, he was not just divine, not just a God of--but the undisputed power. Yet, for all his might, he did not bring her harm.

"Why did you rend life from the shard and burn away so many of its survivors?!" No longer was his voice thunder, no it was nothing so paltry as that. It was within, spoken with the fullness of his power, resonating from her very form--from all flesh and bone and bark, from every leaf and branch and stem. Every cell that was, that is, that had been and would be. The light twisted about her as if some vast serpent were tightening its coiling grasp about her being, but in the black peak of the mountain something greater watched and writhed.

Though enraged, he had yet to truly strike, and so with patient malice he awaited her response.

Ahtziri only laughed at Malath's rage and his fury, the normally guttural and harsh voice in her throat softening to something designed for civilised or even enjoyable speech, rather than designed to intimidate or frighten. Flames wreathed her from within, spilling out in unseen cracks yet to be repaired from her battle with Lonn, and their energy hissed and hummed and crackled with fury as the titanic god's exhortation reached her. She visibly registered no discomfort in his presence, the same nonchalance as she'd demonstrated earlier being her dominant emotion--and then the symbol vanished from her pregnant belly, and a thick weave of flaming energy covered her body. As it receded, it revealed the flesh of a Maiden, not a Mother--humanoid, voluptuous, commanding. It was now equal parts enticing and horrific, the extra eye and the extra breast too strange to go unnoticed, but not always too strange to chase away the phantoms of temptation that Ahtziri knew lurked within gods and men both. The God of Forms would respect one whose own form altered as easily as the wind changed, would listen to her words--this she hoped, and she wondered in that moment how much between her carmine counterpart was similar.

”My children... Have you created, yet, Sa'a Malath Kaal? Do you know what it is to give of yourself, to bring life into this Shard, only to have it killed before you..? I saw the deaths of my children and knew it could not go unanswered. A fury rose within me, a flame that could only be quenched with the blood of man--until I met their God, and he made... valid criticisms of my argument."

Suddenly, Ahtziri's tone was somber. She spoke with a genuine gentleness and pensiveness, a level of introspection that her existence had not yet seemed to imply existed--but reason was one of the Mother of Monsters' faculties, and one she had increasingly learned to lean upon in her interactions with the other gods. Most could not understand the primal intensity of what she felt, of how it compelled her to act--but they did listen to reason, and if she was to build a home for her children she could not risk a final death again as she had before. Suddenly her eyes crested downward, their light a little dimmer--shame waxed across her face for the briefest moment, refracting the harsh light of Malath Kaal's ire and bathing the chamber below in a kaleidoscope of blue-gray fragments. The lights danced in the charge-soaked air, their shapes connecting to one another through arcs of dulled brilliance, and the shape they created was one of true remorse--a primal fragment of what was, displayed only for the briefest instant... but the Eye of Malath was perceptive, to have focused so intently upon the Goddess as she entered the vicinity of the mountain. She knew it would see her failing and her acceptance for what they were.

”It was a mistake. It was not befitting of one who should create a home for her children, not turn all to ash for something so petty as vengeance."

Black lightning arced away from her form as he considered her appeal, its power attracted to the stone of Malath's heart. In the skies above the mountain--beyond sight--the Eye of Malath blinked.

At the sound of her proclaimed miscalculation, a response came in the form of a gentle force lifting her chin so that she might meet his gaze. However, as she looked, there would be no spot of darkness, no writhing twisting mystery, but instead, there would be emptiness, that felt of life--of flesh and of bone. In coruscating patterns, pulsing neural light, that actinic light had outlined the silhouette of an organism too vast for any mortal to perceive or understand.

Its flesh was writ of iridescent brilliance, its veins filled with ichor as dark as night, and at the center of it all lay the Eye of Malath. That orb--that symbol--emerged from an aperture in the world. This gateway led beyond, and from such coalesced the miasmic fog that had before concealed him. From that fog, a silhouette emerged, the symbol writ upon its shape. Then, all at once, the lights winked out and to darkness did all 'cept them return.

Its lips moved, and the mountain shook once more with the sound.

"So you can learn--can change, can grow."

The bipedal figure nodded its head, and above them, the air shook as if something greater had moved.

"This is good."

Without preamble, the figure stepped further into her light, walking across the air to meet her. The coiling grasp of the serpent that had once contained her at once relaxed and fell away. 'Twas then that the figure took her into an embrace. Into her ear, it whispered, and for once, its voice was no longer thunderous and vast.

"I have known the lives and deaths of all. Be they monstrous or humane. I have felt their births, I have known their pain, and their dying knells echo within my essence." There was a somberness to his tone, a gentle understanding, and a simple sorrow that remained as well. He drew away, and three eyes shone upon the figure's face. "Though I am their Father, I hold their essence in mine own veins. I know their fears, their love, their sorrow." Then, at that moment, he met her gaze, "Thus I know your pain."

Ahtziri's eyes closed and her lips parted slightly, their dewy fullness glistening against the shadows and half-light that still dared linger in the sacred space the pair inhabited. She inhaled through her nose and exhaled through her mouth, the gentlest flutter of a moan escaping her lips at the overwhelming touch of flesh pressed against hers. The connection and the closeness let tiny sparks of energy dance between them, worlds of colour flashing by in the spaces between seconds, and then Ahtziri pulled away with a flourish and a twist, spinning 360 degrees as she extricated herself from the intimacy of the moment and ending up a good distance away from her counterpart.

“I am a married woman, Malath Kaal…” she said, her voice playful and coy. A half-lidded look, the hints of a smile upon her face, and then an incisor pressing gently into the bare flesh of her lip. She turned away shortly after and shook her wings vigorously, the sinew and the scales falling away as sleek, black feathers burst from them. With a few cursory flaps she tested her new flesh, some of the feathers falling to the ground, but errant bolts of too-sharp light hit them at just the right angle and the carmine pulse of blood through veins could clearly be seen within the strangely sinewy quills. Then there was a twitch, and a caw, and a raven cloaked itself in shadow as it flew from the cavernous entrance of the chamber.

”... ah, but you do not know. You cannot. You cannot know what it is to be Ahtziri, to be a Mother, just as I cannot know what it is to be Malath, to inhabit all flesh. To be a God, at the pinnacle of creation... it is a lonely place, but we who stand at the apex can know the shape of that experience even if we cannot know its feeling. But I digress, God of Forms--there is a life to be brought into this world. With me as its mother and you its father, well... it would bode well for the health of this Shard, hmm?" Ahtziri's tone shifted again, now guarded, cautious. Each word was portentous and heavy, and though they spoke of disagreement they considered what he had said in full: she did not look at him to observe his reactions, wistfully staring off into the distance as her wings continued to ripple and shift of their own volition even as they kept her aloft.

He merely watched as she pulled away, making no attempt to stop her. Whispers of feeling coursed through him, but they were paltry before the sensations of his greater form. He ignored them. Her wings shifted once more and he took notice, his figure’s head tilting just so. Intrigued he took a step forwards, but stopped, deciding that no further would he go. “I understand,” he said, his voice an echoing gong within the chamber.

As he considered her, the figure slowly became wreathed in sparkling lightning of black and azure hues. Slowly, they became a cloak that wreathed his most humanoid of shapes. Though he remained stationary and quite silent--the lightning sparking about his form--the figure’s flesh began to writhe as deeper changes occurred within his form.

“What shapes have garnered your attention?” He asked, even as his form slipped oh-so-slowly into flux.

“Have you felt the rifts across the Shard? If you knew of my clash, then it stands to reason that you have some means of surveying the Shard…” Ahtziri began, before letting herself drift down towards her earlier point of ingress. Amaranthine flames crackled around her silhouette, shedding as she moved, and eventually a trail of that refulgent energy had made its way out of the great chamber at the heart of the mountain, absconding alongside Ahtziri.

She awaited Malath Kaal outside, beckoning him forth, and planting her bare feet upon the pocked and cracked earth around them. Though there was a fine carpet of Cordgrass to the distant west, flora had only managed to infiltrate this part of the world sparingly. Owing to the sheer concentration of arcane energy in the air, as well as the fact that the apocalypse was still being managed, it was unsurprising that life would avoid this place--it was a testament to Malath's fecundity that anything existed here at all. In the distance, far off to the East, a strange confluence of lights quite unlike anything born of the two of them could be seen. Ahtziri waited for Malath to see her before she sped off towards it, a trail of quivering feathers on the ground marking her passage.

Following her footsteps, the figure used each movement to change--to prepare--for its inevitable departure. Essence crackled about each of its four limbs, writhing in strange patterns, sometimes vanishing on imperceptible axes, before emerging elsewhere on Malath's form. Lips parted on his face, and back from his skull curled six intricate horns. Following swiftly, an overlapping set of scale-like feathers blossomed downwards in a flowing fan of silver. In an act of appreciative mimicry, the figure's cloak unfurled, opening wide and lifting up at either end, forming wings halfway between those of a moth and some titanic reptilian beast. Covered in tiny soft hairs, trailing fog-like dust behind them. The appendages crackled with energy which coalesced downwards, connecting them at the figure's back.

Taloned feet then met the threshold, a tail with wide frills on either side waving gently across the black stone he'd crossed. The figure was utterly unclothed, but a dense fog--drifting across the surface of its body--allowed it to remain androgynous to those who viewed it. Yet, the regality, the power, the presence it exuded, these spoke of something distinctly male--perhaps despite its form. Behind it, opening in the vast darkness beneath the Maw of Black, was the Eye of Malath, looking upon its newest shape.

Pleased, the eye joined with the figure, and so the separation vanished, and Malath Kaal truly came to inhabit its flesh.

He stepped beyond the threshold, caught a single sinewy feather in his grasp, then burst into a flare of blinding actinic light. He tracked Ahtziri, streaking across the sky, black bolts arcing downwards to the ground. The air warped around him, for though this form was small, his divinity reigned supreme and could not wholly be contained within such a paltry shape. As he passed, he glimpsed sparse forests, snow, plains, and the tremendous trunks of his children--the Kel'a Maeori--swept by. In that instant, he came to agree with the goddess.

This was not enough, not by half.

The pair had arrived at a confluence of strange, magical energies within the region--only a short distance away from them was a crackling and thundering tear in the fabric of reality. From within it countless energies of all types seemed to bleed, their colours pressing up against the walls of the reality they were trying so desperately to escape but impotently fizzling out mere seconds after crossing the barrier if they managed to cross it at all. It seemed that though the rift was not sealed, its unique magical composition did not allow for it to directly link whatever world lay beyond it and the Shard. Ahtziri spread her arms wide, gesturing towards it, before stepping forwards after having witnessed Malath's newest form come into being. She nodded her assent, and then pressed the tip of a single talon against it. At her touch it burst into life, crackling violently, the energies of the rift crackling and fizzling as they danced across her flesh. She turned to look at Malath, her three eyes beckoning him forth.

"These rifts are not uncommon. I know little about them, save their instability and surplus of energy, but I do know that there is magic behind this window into another world. I also know that we, as shapers of flesh and givers of life, can force this rift into a living being--a wandering behemoth that will nourish these lands and walk its own path of forms." Ahtziri's tone had taken on a certain edge, a determination that she had not previously possessed. She stared directly into the rift, not so much as glancing at Malath, as she pondered the nature of her words. Then, after only a second or two had passed, Ahtziri's form exploded in violet flames as she summoned forth her wellspring of divinity--an invitation.

Landing some distance away from her visage, Malath Kaal looked upon the tear. Though its distinct nature was hidden to him, it remained familiar in essence. Her words, however, were unexpected; a smile slipped its way onto his lips. Laughing, his new voice equal parts savage and sinuous in its resonance, that foremost Deity of Form decided en full that this was a worthwhile endeavor. So set upon his path, the God moved through its avatar: Hran'as Valkiri--the Pale's Semblance--and thus summoned his power entire into the world.

In a flash, the skies warped, purple streaks bending its very fabric in a pathway that followed the wake of arcing black that he had left behind. It touched Se'raa Kelet--his home, his heart--and from it erupted his quintessence. With his arms spread, nerves shot through the air in all directions, shrouded each in their own haze of prismatic lightning. The neural tissues wove slowly into patterns, binding to the rift, pulling from its power so that it might be born anew.

Gradually, that tear in the world...it began to shrink, and as it did, refractive flesh sprouted forth.

As the flesh bidden to come forth began to writhe and bind the energies of the chaotic rift, Ahtziri focused on her talons. She concentrated the power welling up within her there, the very tip of her claws now completely subsumed by a seething violet light that pulsed excess energy in rhythmic crackles around them. She waited for the rift to begin to grow smaller as it was shunted into flesh, until it was perhaps only fifteen feet in diameter, before she pressed her talons against it. With a quick, decisive stroke downwards she tore lines of amaranthine energy into it, at first separate but then quickly bleeding together, and she walked through it within the tear that she had created. She disappeared from view, but she did not actually enter the rift itself, her silhouette still clearly visible and outlined by the scintillating crackles of energy emblematic of chaotic magic. Then she placed her hand over her belly, and the byzantine flames of her magic erupted in a great sphere around them. It swallowed the mass of flesh and the rift entirely, then began to slowly shrink until an orb was all that remained within Ahtziri's womb. In this strange position between worlds the two of them were both visible simultaneously--the silhouette of the goddess and now of the life that was within her, ominously glowing.

Ahtziri waited for a brief moment, shaking on her feet with the strange sensation, but quickly regained her balance and then took Malath's hand in her own and pressed it against her now extremely pregnant belly.

"Ahh... you did well. Your new form is pleasing, but hardly suited to incubating a single life."

She smiled at him coyly before turning away, her wings suddenly moving to cover her body and sheathing her in a strangely dark aura, reminiscent of Malath's own energy earlier as he created this new form for himself. From beneath the wings her claws emerged, appendages curling and twisting, inviting him to come closer and share in her embrace.

"... you must choose its form, now. That honour should be yours."

From taloned digits to rounded fingernails did his fingers shift as they fell upon her skin. Meeting her gaze, he nodded, and then--without movement--he pushed.

Every set of eyes within several miles snapped shut, and a deep sense of serenity settled over the area. Any brewing storm grew calm and scattered, winds died down to gentle stillness, and nature ceased its endless game of survival. Pressure swelled around them, coiling in the air, and as if they were an inverted storm, chaos reigned therein. To match the tempest, the Eye of Malath phased at once into existence. Unlike all manifestations before it, there were three. They angled as if to make a pyramid, enclosing them in Malath Kaal's formless embrace.

The ground trembled beneath them; fissures tore downwards through dirt and stone and bedrock. Eager fungal roots bound them once more together, supping upon the power of their lord. From said surge of might, new trees erupted all around them, far greater in size than any which had come before them, except--of course--their cousins.

These Kel'a Maeori were born as Sages, unlike many of their kin, who would earn such in time. They towered above their lessers, their only equal swaying gently in the First Grove--his name pressed at once against their roots. Outwards from the concentric council of sages, other trees and flora did sprout, filling the locale with a vast expanding forest. Such was the overwhelming strength of his essence, birthing new life simply by existing.

Finally, the gate opened, and in a black flash, their unborn spawn was marked. The Unbent Lord withdrew his palm, fingers grazing flesh before they parted from her touch. He failed to meet her gaze, for Sa'a Malath Kaal had a code he would not break.

As Malath's hand was about to leave hers, Ahtziri suddenly gripped it like a vice--her talons slid through his supple flesh as she squeezed down, a peal of agony so earth-shatteringly loud coming from within her winged cocoon that even the great Sages around them were temporarily (albeit very briefly) knocked back by the force. The screams of pain continued to come, her free hand's talons sinking into her own palm, and laboured breathing reverberated throughout the region like a frantic heartbeat. The sound and pressure of it was almost deafening, Ahtziri's shrieks carrying far and wide across the land--until she stopped. She was left panting, clutching at herself, but finally prepared.

Baring his fangs, Hran'as Velkiri Malath Kaal bore the pain of Ahtziri's clutches as a great mass of off-white viscera was unleashed from her form. It slid downwards through the air, its movement as languid as its growth was swift. Pale chitinous plates violently erupted from its flesh as it grew, ten limbs sprouting all at once as it howled and shrieked its first moments in the world. Six of those spear-tipped limbs thrust downwards into the earth, holding it in place. It took its first stumbling step even as its savage skull rose far above the tallest Sage and unleashed a hollow creening call into the sky. It had five eyes, two to either side of its head and one at the center of its skull, constantly peering skyward, ahead, or behind. Its orbs were black as pitch, with cloudy white horizontal pupils, and as it howled at the void, its four-part mouth shuddered and clenched. As it lowered its head, so too did its four arms--each tipped with six taloned fingers--gouged down into the soil.

Its breathing labored, the gaps between the pale translucent plates of its flesh heaved and flexed, and so a great exhalation of pale haze was unleashed into the grove. In the strange light of that haze, its eyes glowed blue and violet--hinting at its heritage. Turning in a skittering, sinuous motion the colossal beast faced its parents, its tail scraping roughly against the thick bark of the many Sages that surrounded.

Malath Kaal smiled at their child and spoke its name aloud, his voice booming and vast once more.

"O' child of pale and monstrous flesh, I name thee..."

A bolt of black lightning struck upwards at the void.

"...Hraanas Svel'an."

Bathed in the approval of its father, Hraanas Svel'an--the Palewalker--roared its overflowing joy. From its maw and skin flowed a tremendous fog that was unleashed upon the land, spreading swiftly far and wide. Unaffected by the haze, Hraanas pressed closer and pushed its great insectoid muzzle gently against the cheek of its mother, crooning in its strange and haunting way.

"Ahh, my child..." Ahtziri crooned in return, her talons creating a tinkling sound as they grazed along her child's chitinous mandibles. In a swift burst of movement Ahtziri's wings unfurled all at once, feathers loosing themselves like onyx shards that cut through the preternatural paleness of the fog they found themselves in. They embedded themselves into the bark of the Sages, they bounced off of Hraanas, and they simply diverted their path to avoid Malath Kaal--after enough of them had been shed Ahtziri's body began to thrum and vibrate with energy, the lambent glow of her violaceous flames glinting and refracting throughout the hoary brume that had spread over the region. As the magic settled it began to merge with that fog, vibrant arrays of colours shimmering within--and then Hraanas' form was sheathed in the same hue of amaranthine that was Ahtziri's hallmark. It settled into the chitinous plates coating the beast, tinging them tyrian, and from deep within its manifold crevices six insectoid wings emerged and fanned out behind it. Mist began to leak from these appendages too, and as it did so a dazzling display of chromatic lights imposed themselves upon the air.

Ahtziri did not speak to Hraanas, instead making a series of arcane clicking and rubbing sounds. After she finished her child's mandibles buzzed and shifted in return before it ran off into the distance, spreading its fog all across the land and ensuring that it did not dissipate in any area of the huge swath of land now dubbed Hrana'as -- the Pale. The mists sank into and over the swamps to the east, mixing with their noxious fumes at the edge and charging them with the intense arcane energy suffused within--strange colours and mirages would now haunt the edges of the swamp, beckoning life further into the enigmatic depths of the Pale. Simultaneously the extant feathers crackled with iridescent energy, their sinewy cores pulsing and throbbing in tune with an unseen heartbeat, and in another flash of blinding light they were transformed into the first Kassaptu, otherwise known as Hags. When the light dissipated, the secondborn Kassaptu was revealed, and she cackled with the glee of life and sensation and awareness. She turned to her Mother and bowed, enormous wings sweeping low, and then to Malath Kaal where she repeated the gesture.

"I name you Sùga, child. Go now--gather your errant sisters, form your coven. Though the great Sages rule over these lands, with my and Malath's blessings--" Ahtziri began, turning to Malath to confirm his assent, "--you shall be their voice and their hand."

Bobbing his head once in assent, the God of Form rose further into the air, his pale-fleshed vessel glittering in the strange light of Hrana'as. When he crested above the first layer of clouds, he gazed down upon their land with his three-eyed gaze.

Taking a deep breath of the thin air of the domain of clouds, Hran'as Velkiri reached downwards with his will and pulled.

"Rise," he intoned, and the word scattered the clouds into mere wisps, which drifted in a brief, chaotic frenzy.

---

Far below Malath Kaal, below the Kel'a Maeori, beneath the fog, and into the deep reaches of the shard, the Ke'esath Sae'a pulsed in recognition.

Surging upwards with reaching fungal threads, they rose beyond stone and dirt and silt. Touching air, they writhed and danced and then entwined into numerous stalk-like strands. They appeared as milk-colored cone-shaped grass, waving gently in a non-existent wind. However, they were more than this, for, on a microscopic level, they waged a most insidious and frightful war as from their every stalk emerged ten-thousand spores. Yet, their purpose was different from their sires, for as they drifted in the air, new life blossomed from those unseen seeds. Feeding upon arcane and deific might, the new strain of fungus spread out far, yet it could not be truly touched or seen. Instead, its arcane feeding rendered them nigh intangible, their proof of presence naught but a faint fog-bound prismatic sheen.

Thus driven to reside within the Pale, they took to thriving amidst that fog-shrouded realm, and few would ever know of their presence.

Such was the way of things; this they accepted as divine.

Who knew, though, if such would hold with time.

Nonetheless the Ke’esa Mer would remain, be it in one form or another.

---

Head tilting at the shift, Malath Kaal cast his mind afar and sent his power across the shard--adrift. In moments he found his targets, and in an instant, they were changed and called. Yet none would know, 'cept the Eldest, that they'd been summoned anywhere at all. Smiling to himself, that Deity reappeared at Ahtziri's side, where he ran a finger across her cheek. This done, he met her eyes, and his own gaze was severe and strangely bleak.

"You must go," he said, but his aura refused even to explain. With those words spoken he turned and began to drift back from whence he'd come and his counterpart did the same in the opposite direction, their business concluded for now.

Tonta, as you might imagine, was pretty pissed off. In fact, she had walked herself into an increasingly more pissed of state as she retreated down the Path of the Dead (and every soul who crossed her way knew from the stony glares she threw their way to give her a wide berth). So it did not help her mood in the slightest when she emerged back on the Shard to find that the world had turned into some kind of fiery hellscape. Mountains spewed fire and great burning boulders crossed the sky and lakes of lava congealed and simmered here and there. And the place seemed to have attracted her children for even now she could see some three or four drakhorey flying high above or wading through the flaming lakes or reclining on a rock here or there.

In her pissed of state they seemed like a godsend, the perfect punching bag to take her frustrations out on. She battered the one who was peacefully reclining until her was a mess of flame and scales and blood, and when she turned to take out her furies on the others she found that they had swiftly vacated the area. She sniffed. It would have been nice to play with the others, but one was sufficient, she figured. She seated herself on a makeshift bloody seat and absentmindedly picked at her nose, wiping the bits of bogey off on the meat below her and sighing. "Fucking Eku," she mumbled with a slight yawn - because damn that was a long walk back down the Path of the Dead and it took a bit out of you.

She toed at a bit of pooling lava as she rested, and she caused it to rise and fall and made fanciful shapes out of it. It struck her that one of the shapes looked quite a bit like a dog. She leaned forward at the thought and drew out the shape until a great lumbering hound of rock and magma stood before her. She yawned again and watched it skulk off, then leaned back into the yet-warm meat mattress and closed her eyes.

Now of all the things she expected to see when she woke up, weird walking drakhorey were not of them. She watched the strange drakhoric anthropomorphs for a few seconds as they milled about her nonchalantly, and then leaned forward so that a great serpentine drakhorey erupted from her back and snaked like lightning towards the biggest the anthropomorphs. One bite took out his head and torso. There was a brief pause... then the rest of him was taken up in a quick movement.

Well. They weren't so nonchalant around her after that. In fact, they avoided her like the plague for a good long time, though every now and then she would spy one of them peeking at her from a distant ridge (perhaps thinking itself subtle or out of her range). After a time, one short and stocky one neared her - groveling and trembling and attempting to debase itself before her. She could see that it had something in its hand, and a quick inspection suggested it was some kind of offering. One of her serpentine appendages speared forth. The creature cried out and fell back, letting the offering fly, only for her living appendage to grab it and retreat to the reclining goddess, dropping the offering in her hand. She raised an eyebrow when she saw it. "Oh, but you're a cheeky one aren't you. A flower eh?" And not just any flower, for it had been made of cooled magma and studded with crystals and gems. It was no piece of art, but some effort had clearly been put into it. "Cute," she noted sweetly, then casually threw the flower back at the creature. It rooted itself in its skull and the creature fell immediately dead.

"Lady." A voice rumbled. Tonta looked to the side and found the soul of the drakhorey staring at her. "Seriously. What's your deal?"

"Oh, you're still here?" She frowned, "thought you'd have been sucked into demonville by now." The soul - and this was no blob, this was an enormous drakhorey soul - seemed to grow concerned at this, causing Tonta to smile. "Or, you know what, I think I'll keep you. What's your name?" She grabbed him and fiddled around with his tail.

"Uh, Varak Adech," came his response. "What are you doing by the way?"

"Just working on..." his body tightened all of a sudden and his arms and legs flattened, "that," and she swallowed his now-serpentine form and watched as, almost immediately, a new serpentine appendage grew out of her back. "And you know what, in your honour Varak Adech I will name these weird creatures that came out of you... Tontatites."

"...how is that in my honour?" The new appendage gave her a quizzical look.

"Yeah, I'm honouring your sorry arse by naming them after me," she explained.

"Uh. Well. I'm honoured and all. But maybe don't honour me?" There was a brief pause, then a mumble. "'cause that's the shittest thing I've ever heard."

"What'd you say?" Tonta snapped, eyes flashing.

"Uh, I think you should go with something nice-sounding rather than trying to honour me. I am honoured enough anyway, chuffed to be... uh... some kind of extra arm for you. Or something."

"I don't like your tone guy, but whatever. I'll call them Fucktards. Nice and easy to remember, and they'll be sure to know what they are."

"Uh, how about something simple like, I dunno, varasons?" The Varak-appendage suggested.

"More like sons of bitches, but yeah whatever, fucktard varasons it is. Hey, fucktards! Come here." And her voice seemed to summon the hundreds, nay thousands, of the strange creatures. The goddess lined them up and stood ceremoniously before them. She brought forth her stick and for perhaps a week walked from one to the next, boinked them on the head, and christened each of them "first fucktard... second fucktard... tenth fucktard... hundredth fucktard... five-hundred and thirty-seventh - or was it thirty-ninth, fuck this." It was in fact the five-hundred and sixtieth, but at that point she grew bored of the ceremony and picked one of them at random to continue it. On being thus chosen and elevated above the others he grew in size and seemed immediately more authoritative and commanding. Without hesitation, he continued the fucktard christening ceremony with great solemnity.

Tonta, for her part, got to finding a way out of that gods forsaken hellhole.

• Summary [+]

  Tonta emerges from the underworld and is really pissed off. She kills a drakhorey and makes a bed out of his remains. She makes some weird volcano hounds (an ash species and a magma species). She then makes the (fucktard) varasons, a species of small anthropomorphic drakhorey.
• MA Spent [+]

  Souls now take on the form of their physical body (this was actually done in the Eku-Tonta collab, but forgot to put in the MA summary).
  Create volcano hounds to stalk the Ashlands.
  Create sapient race: (fucktard) Varasons.

---

Yaerna was bored. It wasn’t that she didn’t have things to do; the black sludge covering the landscape after her and Algrim’s battle with the extra-dimensional abomination still needed cleaning up, the realm could use a real push towards proper growth, she could create any number of species to seed new life and a full ecosystem. Furthermore, she needed to learn the ins and outs of her new perch at the top of the Pillar of Vines, the full maze of twisting vines that each led to their own outlooks and artificial branches. There was a lot of exploration and planning and hard work to do. Well, hard for a mortal, but it’d require some effort at least. The problem then, was that the restless flutter in her arms and legs didn’t make her jump at any of those. They all sounded boring. Like work. Like something that needed figuring out and adjusting and fine-tuning. No, the mere thought of it made her loathe the idea of getting to work fixing the world. It went against her nature, or at least her fickle interest in having fun.

The world should sort itself out, she had planted vines and seeds and roots, and they were spreading. She just had to wait for them to spread and for the forest to grow. That couldn’t take more than two-three decades. Four, maybe? Then it’d spread over the next.. several centuries.. and animals would migrate, eventually, when it was liveable and sustainable. Probably only a few dozen decades…

Yaerna groaned with frustration, kicking the air as she dangled her legs off of the side of the massive tree. Waiting sucked. Doing these things sucked. She wanted to see the fruits of labour now. Preferably without having to work for it. She sighed, leaning back to cast a forlorn gaze across the landscape. Once more, something shone in the north, stealing her vision towards the horizon. At once, Yaerna remembered her pledge to explore the world beyond her own bleak landscape, and drew a long breath. She waited for someone to bring up how she should probably finish what she was doing before heading off to see new sights, but since she was alone there was no one to offer such rational insight. Content with her freshly made choice to abandon Algrim’s specially constructed pillar, she pushed off from the massive ‘tree’ and into free-fall. Effortlessly her body shifted to that of a large bird of prey, and she flew north without a thought to her prior engagements.

From the air, such a journey took no more than a handful of hours, a pointless measurement for an immortal being, especially given her predilection for observing new things. Soon enough, the goddess touched down in a crystalline land where large gems and beautiful yet imposing crystals jutting out of the ground in incomprehensible patterns. Yaerna turned herself back to her humanoid form and walked the shining landscape for long enough to lose track of time, watching the strange and captivating crystals in their endlessly varied and chaotic patterns. It was so foreign to anything she had experienced before that it took her breath away, yet filled her with wonder. Not only that, but the land was unmarred by the folly of builders and homesteaders - the sign of a truly great place.
When the wanderlust again began to grow too great in the goddess again, she resolved to bless this empty land with a touch of life. She did not know or care whether sentient life could ever manage to make such a curious place their home, but it remained a wild place no matter how inhospitable. As such, Yaerna scooped up a selection of small crystals, dirt and salt. Consumed by the fickle urge to create, she shaped a set of crystals into small canines with long, crystalline tails and a reflective fur that would pick up salt and gem alike. She threw clusters of salt into the air and they took the shape of long eels that navigated the mystical properties thick in the air from the crystals to remain afloat. She made broad-pawed big cats, with thick claws to leap and burrow and a crystalline body that shifted colour to suit the landscape. Finally, she made scuttling crystalline shrimp that fed off of the salt and gemstones, and in turn would be hunted by others.

Satisfied with her first foray into creating something entirely fresh, the Queen of Thorns once more turned into a bird of prey and abandoned her creations to see more of the world.

She flew east, eager to take in the expressions of the world; she was not disappointed. It turned out much of the shard was already a marvel of creations, with spreading life and wonder taking root. She spied many a creature, countless new plants, and even some things that she made a mental note to hunt in the future. All in all, Yaerna took it upon herself to fly and explore, and let such a fulfilment of her curiosity take as much time as it required.

Eventually, on the far eastern side of the shard, she found herself hovering over a bleak patch of land amidst a green on each side (and red on one). When she lowered herself to the ground, she found it inhabited mainly by the resistant weed that seemed to be infecting most of the world, ripping up soil and digging itself into the ground, but even that seemed to struggle here, in a forgotten corner of the new world. Yaerna took it upon herself to adopt this struggling bit of land, deciding on her own authority that it needed her creative help and passion. Inspired by all that she had seen, and her own experience as ruler of the wilds, she planned a future for a place for the first time. Her hands rose as she gripped the cordgrass with her mind, and all around her the plant began to grow. She shaped it into massive vines and liana, the smallest of which was as thick as her arm and coiled far away in a chaotic mingle with its kin. The largest vines grew firm and hard as tree-trunks, as they erratically lifted and snaked over the landscape at such a size that a man would be able to walk on them. It was a literal jumble of vines, liana and underbrush, with no seeming rhyme or reason to a lesser creature, beyond the natural difficulties it would present for wildlife. Almost satisfied, Yaerna opened her fist quickly, and all at once the woodland grew spikes, thorns and prickly blades, all sized appropriate to their placement. The thorns on the largest of trunks were almost as big as Yaerna, the smallest no larger than a needle. Everything had them, though, from the smallest fruit plant to the largest walkable vine. They were sharp as well, specifically made to grievously harm the unprepared and the reckless. Content with this dangerous landscape, Yaerna filled it with animals. Fruit bats, climbing marsupials, snakes, mammals that scurried between the large thorns to hunt the other creatures. The only rule she followed was that all the wildlife was smaller than the largest blade of a plant. These creatures navigated the deadly wood unhindered by the large thorns, and those foolish enough to injure themselves on the smaller would be easy prey for others.

Content with her creation, Yaerna walked her new landscape for a time to watch her wildlife adapt to the new setting, a ‘forest’ she would come to call the Razorwood. She caught her cloak on thorns numerous times, adding to the tattered rips in her clothes. Eventually deciding the landscape was more or less perfect as it was, she once more turned towards the sky.

She did not know how long she had been away from the west, but maybe it was time to go back. The dread she felt about fixing the place up did not creep up on her this time. She had had her fun. It was time to get to work.

---

---

After months spent educating his people and constructing settlements and palaces for them, Algrim felt compelled to return to Paradise, and check on Arira. Although it had been some time since they last spoke, he had not forgotten her promise to hold a welcoming feast for him, nor had he forgotten his promise to take her up on it. Besides, of all the gods he had met, she perhaps left the strongest impression on him. Maybe it was because she was the first he had encountered, or maybe it was something else.

The Underking decided he would not journey to his new realm alone or unadorned, and so he brought an escort of a dozen dwarves. They had come from one of the newly-created underground settlements; one situated directly beneath the Paradise. They were those who had demonstrated exceptional leadership, initiative, or work ethic. Pillars of the community, one could say. They were donned in robes of varying colours.

Algrim himself wore bright blue, and made the decision to go in his flesh-form rather than his stone-form. Upon his brow he wore a heavy crown that appeared to be carved from simple stone, but was adorned with several bright and rare jewels.

Before he departed, in a rather uncharacteristic display of vanity he conjured up a mirror to examine himself. That was rather odd, he mused. Never before had he been all that concerned about his appearance.

Oh, who was he kidding. He knew why.

---

The mountain walls of Arira’s paradise were within sight. He had sent word ahead, and the messenger had returned to confirm that they received it, so the inhabitants should be expecting him. The dwarf god felt an unusual twinge of nervousness. “Get ahold of yourself,” he whispered.

“Is something the matter, oh Honourable Underking?” One of his followers questioned.

“Nothing,” Algrim said, shaking his head. “Now let’s go. I have a pledge to honour, and we have a feast to get to.” If the offer still stood. Hopefully the goddess still remembered, and wouldn’t feel jilted that he had taken so long to take her up on it.

And with those words, they carried on toward their destination.

---

As the dwarves would eventually make their way up to and enter the Ariran Paradise, before them would be something that only Algrim himself had seen before. Trees and bushes and shrubs and so forth all about, land stretching out farther than the eye could see with hills and plains and so forth, game and beasts and fruits and plants of all possible edible kinds one could imagine...and then some, and even untouched minerals and eternally-regenerating deposits of all resources civilizations could ever want and so forth that lied below it! It wasn’t as comfortable as the underground perhaps was, and yet all the same the aura of the place screamed of ‘divinity’ and ‘bliss’. It was a vast enough, grand enough place that a city and towns and villages spread and growing all about were possible for those who lived above, though the untold potential and incredible beauty of it all was notable indeed.

Still, it seemed the humans had built up more since the last Algrim had been there as the group in time would have gotten closer and closer to the temple. Homes of proper brick and stone, with proper roofing and all, were beginning to pop up as the former wooden abodes and huts and such of yesteryear were beginning to decline. Even so, it would be...a long time for the population to grow and change things fully.

Yet more than this, it seemed as if the population was abuzz with activity! Racks of great grass-feasting beasts were being carried about on mortal-carried palanquin-like work platforms. Hunters wielding longbow and matchlocks and so forth in a peculiar array were resting, cleaning up, or even jovially laughing amongst each other. Paths made with brick and very tightly-fitted stones were beginning to emerge, even, to connect living spaces and the barely-starting-to-grow population.

Smells of savory cooked meats offm myriad kinds that had been simmering for untold hours, lovely pots of stews and soups sat bubbling with both lighter as well as richer and darker broths that contained untold spices, fire-roasted veggies and fruits seemed to add a sweet scent to the air as they cooked upon great fires or upon slabs of metal placed over fires, and so forth trailed through the air.

There too were celebratory hangings of myriad colors, ranging from light blues to lovely yellows and rich reds and royal purples hung about on banners, flag-like hangings, and the ilk. Artistic depictions of Algrim and Arira hung about in places as tapestries or paintings or so forth, all alongside even a few statues that dotted along the side of the grain main street that now led to the temple’s entrance rather than the former dirt path leading to the bottom stairs.

As the dwarves and Algrim would walk along, humans would make bows or tip hats and so forth in their direction in respect, with a few young children watching from behind their mother’s backs or chattering among each other excitedly as they looked at them from afar. Even those of some...oh? Some other races seemed to be present as well. Festive magical lights, woven by the shorter and furry Brynlic, could be seen along with those weaving them whilst other Brynlic danced about. Orderly and mannerly Erimav could be seen dotted about as they helped organize humans and others alike...though one or two seemed to be struggling with a few rather mischievous Brynlic out of the corner of the Earth God’s gaze. Even the great Ketto, rather large female-looking humanoids with red skin and superhuman musculature to boot, had donned great robes and so forth as they stood either as policing guards, big cooks helping with the preparations, sitting among hunters, or simply helping hang things from the homes or from festive poles and such. Dirham were too among the bunch, somewhere between humans and Erimav they might seem physically, and wielding strength somewhere between Humans and the towering Ketto as they could be seen in good numbers among the rest.

Algrim wasn’t entirely sure what most of these races were, or where they had come from. Another sign of how busy the other gods had been while he toiled underground. His own companions looked upon them with varied reactions; suspicion, fascination, curiosity.

“It’s a very diverse place, eh?” one of the dwarves commented.

“Da,” another answered. “Zey have sekritz we can learn?”

Algrim for his part was silent, taking in the sights, and contemplating what he would say upon meeting the goddess herself. Assuming she was here. She had to be, with all this activity.

Ultimately, the troop of dwarves and Algrim would be met more properly at the bottom of the stairs that ascended up into the fortress-temple. Whilst a proper wide landing and public square had been added down there by now, at the foot of those stairs stood a semi-circle of representatives. Among them, one adult human man who seemed to have several ladies bearing lovely sashes of dwarven size and colored after valuable metals and jewels.

“Greetings, Lord Algrim, God of Earth, and your compatriots with you in kind! We were told to prepare for several, but we did not know much of what to bear to you,” the man said before politely gesturing to the ladies about him, who would come over and gently place the sashes over Algrim and the dwarves with him, before the man spoke again, “Still, these most festive of sashes were prepared with the finest Ariran silk in the whole of the Paradise to decorate our most honored of guests to this first great feast and festival so held in your honor! As Lord Algrim is the God of Earth, Lady Arira decided upon these colors that stem from the valuable things of the earth! We pray they will be suitable for your lordship and your entourage.”

As the dwarves ran their hands over the strange fabric, Algrim looked the man in the eye. “My title is th’ Underking now,” he said. “But I thank yer lady for th’ hospitality, and th’ gifts. Please show me ta her.”

“My sincerest apologies, great Underking! But my thanks for the correction.”

The man spoke once more and gave a deep bow, before stepping aside and gesturing to the temple entrance at the top of the stairs.

“Lady Arira awaits you in the lower chamber, where the Great Pillar rests. If you desire I shall guide you myself, and any others about would be willing to do the same of course!”

“Unless things ‘ave changed, I remember th’ way,” Algrim answered, as he began to stride forward with his dwarven escort in tow. As they ascended the stairs up to the building, some of the dwarfs made comments on the stone workmanship. Some offered quiet praise, while others mumbled criticisms. There was no clear consensus, and most of it would be lost to any observer.

They entered the temple, and then descended to the lower chamber. Algrim was the first to step into the large room, with the rest of the dwarves filing in to take their places beside and slightly behind him.

The vast chamber itself was something to behold even now, having been cleaned up and smoothed out and so forth. Lovely stone flooring clacked underneath the step of the Underking, Even the stairs on the way down had been far clearer than the first trip, though the same winding trip down had been inevitable perhaps.

Yet upon this platform, this one that sat before the great and mighty pillar whose width and the massive size of the chamber outshone even the grandest of fields in space and scale, a familiar face stood there as she had been looking upon the pillar proper. She was adorned, however, in finery far better than the first Algrim had seen her. Her golden ornaments seemed to have been shined to perfection, their craft far beyond any mortals’ hands could dream of, and were now studded with rubies and sapphires and emeralds and other precious stones. Her dress was longer and silkier to the touch than ever before, and along the borders had been intricately decorated with cyclical depictions and even touches related to her and Algrim having made the pillar. Indeed those borders each bore a story, and were woven of the finest silver and golden threads that a divinity’s power could manifest. Even the circlet upon her head seemed to have flowered rather than be in the form of berries.

“Hmm?”

The goddess turned her head at hearing the approach, but seeing Algrim there her gentle smile returned in an instant. In fact, it seemed even wider and more jubilant than before as she turned around to him and gave a bow before him. Still, one could tell her joy was being restrained in order to keep up appearances...or perhaps it was something she only subtly allowed Algrim to see in particular.

“Dear Algrim, it is most splendid to see thine face here in mine Paradise once more! A most welcome sight I hath looked forward to indeed.”

For a moment Algrim was left speechless by the sight, but only a moment. He offered her a bow in return. “I could say th’ same,” he said to her. “Never in my travels have I met someone more fair and more friendly than ye.” Then he cast his eyes downward, seeming almost ashamed. When he spoke next his tone was drastically different from the one she had known him to use before. “I offer you my apologies for not coming sooner, and for breaking my word. I said nothing would keep me from it, and, well… I did get caught up in something.”

Slight distress at seeing Algrim in such a state gripped the goddess’ face for a moment, and taking a knee she put a gentle finger under Algrim’s chin and lifted it to look at her own face.

“Worry not, nor should’st thou feel guilt over this thing. If thou desirest, thou art forgiven. Yet stilI could’st never be wroth or such ilk at thee, for what thou dids’t need to do then, that hast thou done. I too twas’ caught up in mine own work for this world…and twas in such I ran into mine own troubles to be truthful with thee.”

Despite her gentle smile and putting in her best to try to cheer up the Underking, Arira’s tone did seem to drift into a melancholy near the end as she trailed off. Letting out a sigh, the goddess then returned to a warmer smile as she gently took Algrim’s hands into her own.

“Wherefore do not fret, for naught is wrong with thee in mine eyes. Quite the opposite!”

Algrim returned the smile, but then his expression shifted into concern. “What sort o’ troubles? Anything y’ need ‘elp with?”

A flash of sadness crossed the goddesses’ eyes, and ever so slightly she gripped Algrim’s hands tighter as she still held them within her own.

“I...oh dear. I shalt be truthful to thee, nay a lie, I did go far into the heavens to try to bringeth mine pain to a finality. I did take on my true form, and in that I did bring the seasons and climes and all cycles into existence and bound deep into mineself to be rooted and bound eternally. It cannot all be undone, save I cease to exist, and indeed it did bring my pains to a halt.

…...Yet it was too much all at once. I did return to this form, and from the center of all the heavens I fell like a great stone dropped from there.”

She grimaced at the mention of her falling, somewhat embarrassed at admitting she had overexerted.

“Twas nothing most could have done, so there should’st be no regret from thee or the few I have met yet, but whilst unconscious I was’t plucked from mine fall by the Goddess of Beauty, Wyn. To the sight of her did I awake thereafter, and she dids’t ask of me what I had been doing. So I did answer her, and spoke even of mine Paradise and parent as she did ask me about them, though as she spoke of if mine rather peculiar parent would desire mineself to marry I did admittedly panic and become afluster with worry.”

A long-drawn out sigh then came out of her lovely lips before the goddess continued.

“She was’t most lovely to the eyes to behold, and was most kind to me despite beauty itself not being always so, yet I was’t most unprepared and twas’...seduced then and as I recovered. Naught but mine inexperience to blame, but all the same I worry it shall make me look less to thee for speaking this truth...tho I would’st prefer to tell thee this truth than hide from thee. Would be’st mine greatest regret to ever lie to thee most of all.”

Her eyes struggled to meet his, and she seemed near to almost crying to be frank.

Meanwhile, her words had been enough to almost send Algrim reeling. How was he to respond to that?

She had begun by confessing to an immense personal struggle. Between her flowery speech and her somewhat vague wording, Algrim wasn’t entirely sure what she had done, but it sounded important - not just for her, but perhaps the world. Surely, she should be consoled, or offered help, or something. That was clearly the more important of the two subjects.

At the same time, she had also confessed to bedding another goddess, and that was the source of Algrim’s conflict. Was she unaware of how he felt toward her? Of course she was. He had only had one conversation with her and had never told her. They had no commitments to one another. The feelings he had felt for her even before his revelation were both premature and irrational, yet he felt them nonetheless, and this revelation still stung as a result.

And yet he also felt ashamed. Ashamed for his selfishness. Because now he was thinking about just how much this revelation had hurt him, when she herself had gone through a great deal of pain, over something far more serious, and still seemed to feel remorse over the lesser of her two problems.

That in turn gave way to anger. Not at Arira, but at this ‘Wyn’ woman. Had the beauty goddess manipulated her? Put some form of spell on her? Is that why she was so regretful? If that was the case, Algrim would need to swear a vow of vengeance against the Goddess of Beauty, for regardless of how he felt, Arira was his friend and ally, and he would allow no one to strike such a person with impunity…

Then confusion struck. Why had Arira told him this in the first place? Why did she think he would about who she shared a bed with? Unless she already suspected his feelings. But if she did, why tell him that at all? A subtle way to deter him? No, that was an unworthy thought - he had no reason to assume she would resort to such manipulations. Did she want him to take some sort of action against Wyn on her behalf? The anger threatened to return. Perhaps he would.

Or maybe… he considered her closing words. It would be her greatest regret to lie to him most of all? She was asking for forgiveness. Why would she think she needed to be forgiven if she didn’t… which meant…

Algrim cursed himself. Once more he was thinking selfish thoughts. Friend, ally, or something else, she had exposed her secrets to him and such confidence demanded a reply!

And then suddenly he was conscious of the fact that several seconds had passed, and he had failed utterly in concealing the maelstrom of emotions which raged across his face. “I…” he began. “You don’t…” and then he was conscious of the eyes on his back.

“Leave us!” he suddenly commanded his companions, who had watched the entire exchange in stoic yet awkward silence. “Wait outside, and speak not a word of this to anyone.” Obediently they marched back up the stairs.

Only when they were gone did he look Arira in the eyes again. When he spoke next, his words were quiet, but clear. “Do not weep on my behalf,” he said. “I… I will return truth with truth, as I always have, and as I always will. Your words have hurt me, but that is more my fault than yours. I had just… I had hoped that something might be possible between us. Perhaps I should have told you sooner, or perhaps I am a lovesick fool of a godling for developing such feelings so quickly.”

“Either way…” he continued. “Whatever has passed between you and this ‘Wyn’, it is not my place to judge you for you for it. I would ask you, though… what does she mean to you? And what do I mean to you?”

A couple of tears rolled down the goddess’ face as she looked Algrim back in the eyes.

“Dearest Algrim...oh my I have caused thee such pain, though to hear truth from thine own mouth touches my heart so,” Arira said, still holding the Underking’s hands in her own, though she did move up her right hand to cup the left side of Algrim’s face softly as she looked into his eyes, a few more tears beginning to come down from her eyes as she spoke, “To know how thou feelest...it in truth makes mine heart most glad. Worry not, for Lady Wyn is a friend but no closer. I holdeth no hate for her, yet she doth not hold mine heart.”

She would then place a chaste kiss upon Algrim’s forehead.

“Such is why I hath felt such great worry to confess what had happened betwixt mineself and Lady Wyn to thee...for in mine mind I have thus feared thou would’st cast me aside forever more. I am no expert in matters of love, and all of this is new, yet still if thou thinkest thineself a lovesick fool even after all of this...then I shalt forever be one alongside thee as well.”

Arira then took a long, deep breath, drumming up what courage she had before she continued once more.

“I hath felt such great worry to confess what had happened to thee...for in mine mind I have thus feared thou would’st cast me aside forever more. I am no expert in matters of love, and yet still if thou thinkest thineself a lovesick fool even after all of this, then I shalt be one as well so that thou art not alone. So if even with the truths I hath told thee thou desirest not me anymore, I shalt respect it. For I wish not to hurt thee, as such even in thought causes me pains greater than those I felt from the world itself prior.

Yet in the plainest of language I shall most truly make mine words and feelings most clear here and now...

...Of all the gods or mortals I have met or ever will meet, of all the ages before and ever to come, no matter what come or what may, my heart belongs to thee alone. I love you most of all, Algrim Underking, and this will never change no matter how the tides of this Shard of Creation go and no matter what you decide for yourself. Since our first meeting my heart has longed after you for uncountable nights. The touch of your strong hands, the comfort of your presence and splendid character...all of you. Such is my deepest, heartfelt truth that I make known to you now and forevermore.”

Algrim blinked in astonishment. The way she spoke, the attraction she had to him burned far more brightly than what he had felt for her. This was not what he had expected. Not at all. It went beyond what he had dared hope for. For the second time that day, he was at a loss for words.

So, he didn’t speak. Instead, he lurched forward and upward, planting his lips on hers.

Arira returned the gesture without hesitation, her lips pressed against those of the dwarven God’s own. She kept her hand on his cheek as she kissed him in return. No words. No shouts of jubilation. No nothing. Just the warmth of the Underking’s face pressed against hers was enough, the silent feelings shared between them without anything else needed in that most precious moment. The god wrapped his arms around her waist, deepening the embrace.

And then, he pulled away, but still held onto her. “Well…” he said softly. “I accept your feelings, as you have clearly accepted mine. But…” his voice trailed off. “It could be unwise to progress too swiftly. Whatever we might feel toward each other, we have in truth spent very little time in each other’s company, and there is much about each other we do not know. Let’s fix that. And then, after enough time has passed, and we have seen more of each other, we shall see if we both still feel the same way.” He brought a hand up to touch her cheek, wiped away a tear, and awaited her response.

The goddess silently nodded as she held onto Algrim in return, a joyful and happy smile upon her face as the tears that had begun to flow more freely now began to dry.

“Indeed...haha...but to spend time with thee more so now would be most welcome indeed. So let us spend time with each other, to get to know one another, and see if our feelings thus remain the same.”

“Indeed. And um… no more affairs with others,” the Dwarf-God said, somewhat awkwardly.

The goddess lightly nodded in return.

“Tis’ my promise, dear Algrim, and for thee I shalt keep it,” she said, still smiling despite the truth and seriousness of her words, though one hand came to her stomach as she raised an eyebrow at her stomach before looking to the Underking again with a small chuckle escaping her lips, “Oh my...perchance I crave some of the feasting foods above?”

Algrim smiled. “Aye. We’d best get to it.” He offered her his arm, and the two proceeded up the stairs.

---

A simple tale, one that is known to all across the land, is that beyond the desolated seas of sand, where Ze’Kelia’s gentle embrace turned into a suffocating overpowering hold, there lies an oasis where the winds of winter come to life and push back the desert, leaving behind fertile lands that last all year.

The elders however will soon warn that this land of plenty is no paradise, for its wealth lies with a price. The lands, and all of its people, were slaves to a great sorceress, it is said many travelers, their mouths dry from long trips through the desert, arrived at the icy oasis and were offered their water, food and hospitality, unknown to them, the cost of these gifts would be their eternal servitude to the sorceress and they would never be allowed to leave her realm ever again.

The young will soon question their elders, why, if all travellers have been caught and eternally bound, how is it possible that the tale was spread? The answer is simple, not all young travellers forget the wisdom of the older and seasoned. Some knew an oasis flanked by icy mansions was no place to lurk into, so they merely observed, and saw the beautiful young enchantress in her tower of ice, her many content subjects, but also those who sang homesick songs when working in the farms or carving the ice.

Yet not all were wise enough to heed the elders’ warnings - some were even too brave to do so. One such brave soul was none other than the young Emperor who had come to claim this land. It was Ossurman the First, hardly sixteen years old and sporting only the first few twists of a coming beard. The young man had heard tales from local villages of the ice queen and showed up with his warriors to seize her lands for his growing realm.

At the door of her mansion a day when the Su’une stood at its peak, he waited in his golden armour and linen dressings, backed by a horde of soldiers and villagers. She would give him her lands if he so had to force her.

The villagers gasped as the door to the mansion started to move, they had never seen the sorceress leave her home, much less at the request of a stranger. Still, the ice crystal door slowly opened up, and waiting at the other side was a young woman, a teen, her white hair contrasting with her dark skin, a cold chill filling the air as soon as she appeared. She took a few steps forward, her face not hiding her annoyance.

“Who are you, who comes to my home, to my lands? Who are you whose shadow takes the form of a horde of ruffians?”

The young golden-armoured man at the head of the force stepped forth and cast his arms out to the sides in a diplomatic, yet assertive stance. The scales of his armour rung with movement and behind a thick throat guard that reached him to underneath the nose, he spoke, “Be calm and be at peace - I am Ossurman, and I have come to bargain.”

“I have seen merchants before, but none that bargained with soldiers. An odd good to sell, but I am unsure if I need those, as by irony of fate the heavy armor is easily outmatched by the soft snow.” as she spoke her words the shadow of a cloud would creep across the land, dimming the light for just a brief moment. It was not a lone cloud, the horizon that was once clear now had a sea of white and gray slowly creeping forward.

The young lady looked smug yet she did not smile, she shook her head. “But still. What example would I give to my people were I to be this rude? Please, be welcomed to my palace so we may talk. But ah… I only have two cups, two chairs and two plates, I am afraid I cannot serve your friends and as such it is best if they do not come in.”

The Emperor bowed as low as his armour allowed him to. “Oh, that is quite already. I just had a drink in my tent.” He snapped his fingers and two servants came over with a small yet comfortable stool, upon which he sat down, just before her door. “How about we talk on your porch instead?”

The enchantress stared down at the emperor for a long moment, her icy blue eyes not revealing what emotions she felt. But she nodded, bowing back only so slightly despite her flowing black silk dress not hindering her movement in any way. “That too is fine. So, Ossurman, what brings you to the porch of Thea, she who brings the snowfall? What is this bargain that sent you across the dry deserts in search of my oasis?”

The young man gestured outwards. “A thousand leagues from here, people spoke of a jewel in the drylands - a gem without equal. I have come and I have seen her lands and her house.” He looked up at her with a glint in his eyes and unhooked the throat guard to reveal a broad, boyish smile. He lifted off his helmet, unleashing a bushy mess of short, sweaty hair and handed it to his servants. “And I would like to ask for her hand.”

With wide eyes the sorceress gasped. It was like seeing an icy mirror break as all of the sudden she truly looked just like a young girl, not the feared magician. Covering her mouth she looked away from the young emperor, trying to hide a dark blush in her cheeks. She had heard of the emperor, she was no fool, but she had expected threats and claims of her land, not of her hand.

"How presumptions! Do not take me for a foolish woman." She said without facing Ossurman, quickly and somewhat clumsily stepping back as the door started to close. "Now begone. The ice storm will soon be here, and if you insist I will make it a full blizzard by nightfall!"

The Emperor blinked briefly, but then nodded with the same smile. “Very well. I will leave for today.” He bowed again. “But I will come back tomorrow.” He then turned on his heel and walked away, his servants following faithfully.

The snow would continue to fall throughout the rest of that day and into the next one, the morning mist lasting almost into the peak of Su’une, many soldiers shivering as it was clear the ice enchantress was trying to make them leave. Nevertheless, the next day, the Emperor showed up at her door again, dressed in his armour fed thick with unam fur, though his servants still wore their desert attires and tried to move as much as they could when their Emperor wasn’t looking. The young man knocked on the door and sat down on his stool.

He was made to wait for a long time, but eventually the icy hinges made a cracking noise as the door opened ever so slightly. “You are awfully persistent. You might lose your army and your life here if you insist on this courtship.” the sorceress whispered as she peeked through the door.

The young Emperor snickered. “My men and women would die for me if I asked them to, just as I would die for them and for my empire.” He tugged the fur around his neck a little tighter around his body. One of his servants glared with envy for a brief second. “Before I came here, snow was unfamiliar to me: The lands which I rule have much to see, but nowhere does it snow; nowhere except here.” He clicked his tongue flirtingly. “You have shown me a great deal of beauty, my fair lady. Won’t you continue to do so by my side?”

Her hold on the door became tight enough for her nails to carve a trail into the ice. “Beauty? That is… I have never seen it like that. But perhaps that is because since I was born I was always followed by the snowfall, one may find the winter gorgeous at first, but given time they will learn to dislike it. It's cold, it's treacherous, and it has an icy heart. You say you want me to be your bride, but how long until you tire of a woman that cannot smile? Of a woman that when embraced does not bring warmth but instead chills.”

The young emperor smiled and reached out his mittened hand. “What man cannot help but reach out to a woman in such suffering? What groom can stand on the side as an angel of ice lives alone and abandoned in the middle of the desert? You say you cannot smile, but I say that is a challenge.” He grinned. “You will smile for me.”

Her lips stayed firmly pressed into a line, yet her eyes for a moment showed a sign of hope, and then a hint of doubt, they darted to the side again, unsurely moving by the empty porch, yet outside, a few rays of light started to shine, the cold breaking just a bit. Her grip on the door loosened and Thea opened it a bit more with a shy step forward. “You truly are a fool.” she scolded. “But for some reason I want to hear more of those words of yours…”

The Emperor smiled and flexed his hand again. “Then take my hand and be mine for eternity. Together, we will be the rulers of this world - my crystalline angel, my winter lotus.”

The sorceress rose her own hand but kept it reluctantly close to herself. “I never… For all my life my only company was this ice palace, it is a beautiful place. In the morning I tended to my garden of crystalline roses and at night I played my harp. I did not want to step outside, into the sun, but, maybe…” she stepped closer towards the young emperor, small steps, but little by little she descended the stairs.

As she walked into the sun her body gained a gorgeous light, her icy white hair sparkling like strands of diamond, her eyes deep and showing a sense of trust towards Ossurman. The young emperor had set off in this journey merely desiring her lands, but up this close, the sight of Thea, the ice sorceress, was as mesmerizing as the stars high above, and there was something about someone so powerful being so vulnerable as well that simply invoked a desire to protect and cherish. Still, the flames of ambition did not burn any less bright, with the powers she had showcased in these two days, the ability to control the weather, there was no doubt having her as a consort would bring great prosperity to the empire, which always had to be alert against droughts and dry spells.

She was now in front of the emperor, looking up into his brown eyes. She extended her hand back to him, allowing her cold skin to touch his. “Ah… it's so warm.”

The emperor had removed his mitten for the moment, and his eyes flinched briefly at the painful cold. He forced his charming smile to remain unchanged and snickered kindly. “And yours is like a welcome breeze in the blazing sun.” He removed his other mitten and, with a bracing swallow, he cupped her hand between his own. “Come out into the sunlight, will you not? Feel it on your skin.”

She did as he had asked, stepping into the sun so she could be closer to him, her body scintillating like the light rain that comes when the sun is still unhidden by clouds. Feeling a turmoil of emotions she had never thought to be possible, she felt light-headed and tumbled forward, into his warm embrace, her hands going to his shoulder for support. “Ah… I never thought I could feel such warmth within my heart. I thought all that was left for me was an eternity locked away in the palace, hiding from the world in my icy cage with my heart growing ever so colder. But now, I feel like I am free…” she still did not smile, but her delicate lips did relax, as if she was ready to.

“You are, my snowbird, my sweet empress - you are free to join me. Leave me not alone with this burning emotions - come with me, marry me.” The emperor discreetly switched the hand touching the icy hand and gestured southwards where in the distance, the snow looked to fade. “You are no longer a prisoner - you are a free woman.”

She nodded at those words. “Free… indeed.” her cold hands rose up from his shoulders and touched Ossurman’s cheeks, guiding his head to not look at the distant lands but at her. She then delivered a soft kiss to his lips. The closeness of her skin and hair forced the emperor to close his eyes, it was then that he would notice something very strange happening. As he held her, he could feel her weight becoming lighter, her hold on him weaker, the air was quickly warming up and the soldiers said something to him but in that moment of love he could not listen to them.

The sound of massive walls of ice crashing upon one another, however, was impossible not to listen. The emperor’s attention was stolen from his wife-to-be and forced upon the mansion, or what was left of it, as everything, from the pillars to the roof to the garden, lost its form and shape under the light of the desert sun.

Realization would strike the emperor only when it was too late, when he returned his gaze upon Thea he was no longer holding the sorceress, instead, he would see snow quickly melting within his embrace, fleeing in between his fingers, falling to the ground and sand, before rising upwards towards the heavens.

Thea, now free of the weight of a solid ice heart, would have smiled brightly at the emperor, but clouds of vapor could do no such thing. And she traveled the land, falling and rising again, she would say “I am glad to have met you. Thank you for sharing your warmth with me” if only rain could speak.

It was strange how fast the heart could jump aflutter with emotions of love, and the emperor had genuinely fallen in love at first sight with this angel of ice. So it was that when all of her disappeared, he lost all the charm in his face and smile and instead collapsed to his knees. Lost for words, he could hardly even weep. Instead, he lifted his naked hands and face to the heavens to feel the warming rain. It would be his tears.

---

My name is Remundu Costa, supposedly named after the mythical figure Remundu the Humble from the tale of Lady Luck -- Beyre of Chance; however, I do not write to you to simply tell you who I am, for I’m sure you well know -- but rather describe to you my happenstance encounter at the ‘Cantu with the White Roof,’ which was an up and coming pub at the time I penned this.

Now I heard about it the same as any other Red City dweller: slightly buzzed and easily excitable while partaking at another Cantu. The word came quick about it, especially since it was supposedly won by an eccentric woman in a game of chance... whatever that game was, changed with each story. My favorite version (and perhaps the most extravagantly exaggerated) featured a game completely unheard of, where the old owner was challenged to shoot -- yes, shoot -- this newcomer in the face with a pistol, but should he miss or the gun misfire... well you get the rest I’m sure. As it would happen, the gun misfired not once, not twice, but thrice! Needless to say whatever the initial bet was, it had eventually surmounted to the man’s very establishment and no sooner than he had placed it as a wager did this woman take it from under him. Pardon my manners, this woman does in fact have a name; she indeed has a funny name to match her funny nature, Nellie the Red.

Right! So there I was walking the streets of the city after a rarity of rain that nearly saw my hobnailed boots slipping this way and that, trying to find the Cantu with the White Roof. I was drawn to the idea of it, perhaps by the stories -- or the thought of meeting Nellie the Red. To be honest, I think the largest factor was that this Cantu was said to be the luckiest place in the city and no sooner than the change in ownership did the dice games there quadruple in wager and payout, making and breaking various big names and small just the same.

Careful where I step, I made my way with a few silver coins in my belt pouch. The smile on my face probably gave my intentions away if my hands playing with the fattened pocket didn’t, but I didn’t care. As luck would have it, that musky smell of rain drying on the city pavement was one I held dear as a memory, and a good day always followed such a rain.

In my bliss I fell to a stop in front of a rouge red bricked cantu, the round structure sporting a blazingly white roof that wasn’t very forgiving when the sun hit it right. I personally wondered about the gaudy nature of the building before realizing that the very thing I was judging did bring me to its front door, my hand already on the knob.

Swinging the door wide, I was met with a collage of smells -- from spices I’ve never smelled, to familiar scents both loved and otherwise disliked. Not able to tell whether it was the cigars or the incense that made the air the thickest, I journeyed into the establishment.

The second thing I was struck by was a beautifully decorated altar built into the wall by the hat stands. It was plated with gold (I presume it couldn’t possibly be solid!) and bejeweled with the quaintest yet flattest cut ruby I ever saw. The whole altar itself was the size of a breadbox without a hatch and in the center of this golden carriage was a bowl of pure white clay from a far off land. I wish I could say it was small, but this bowl was deep and filled with coins of so many currencies I hadn’t a chance to notice them all. Immediately I recognized this set up as a tiny shrine to Lady Luck herself, and not being a stickler, I tossed a silver right into the bowl.

“Thank you!” A sweet, almost syrupy voice bubbled behind me. Turning, I met the owner -- and I really mean the owner! There stood a woman who matched the description of Nellie the Red. She had these striking green eyes that stood out on the usual tanned complexion of the city. Much to her namesake, her hair was a flow of dark red, matching her just as red puffed trousers. Over the most noticeable, she wore a long white poncho with black shapes stitched across it and red tassel hanging from it.

Her smile wasn’t as genuine as her words sounded, and I could have sworn there may have been a slight grimace, as if it were forced. I cautiously smiled back, and normally mine would be genuine in itself at such a fetching image but the sudden silence between us gave me nerves. “You’re most welcome?”

I had never seen such a thing before, but before my words could even finish, Nellie had reached past me to grab the very bowl of Beyre as if to go empty it! I suppose someone had to at some point, but so brazenly had me thrown.

“My name is Remundo.” I decided to study this entrepreneur. Her eyes flicked back over to me in a way that reminded me of a cat to a mouse. She had a sharp mind, I could tell, and suddenly I had no doubt that she was able to swindle an entire building from a careless man.

“I am Nellie the Red.” She stood up extremely straight at her own name, giving me the chance to notice that she was over a head shorter than I -- to which I am no tall man to begin with. Silence again.

“Well!” I remember clapping my hands together a bit too loud. “I am here for some games!”

That smile of hers returned, though the grimace seemed lessened. Almost happily, she tilted her head to the center of the Cantu, showcasing the rows of tables and concentrated gamblers. “Pick your game and your drink, and have some fun.”

A typical response from an owner, I suppose -- but little did she know how much fun I was about to have. You see, I failed to mention this before and normally I would hardly admit it, but I’m a cheat. I know, I know, a despicable trade but I never asked for your friendship, only that you listen to my story.

Dice was my game, and my ivories were hollowed and set with lead to make a friendly game of hazard a little bit more my flavour. A little bit of forced luck kept me afloat in the city, and in a Cantu of big stakes, I wasn’t taking any real chances.

Lucky as I am, I found a seat by a fat lipped man who looked like he took one too many brawls to the head. He had a sort of stupidity in his right eye and a sense of superiority in his left -- a classic moron. He already had his coin on the table while a scrawny man of a depressive mood was on his way out - no doubt a loser.

“Hazard?” I offered simply.

“Do you know how to play?” The man acted as if he was accosted on the regular by novices.

“Somewhat,” I lied, “My Uncle recently brought me to it, you see I was visiting his estat-”

“I don’t need your life story, I just want to know if you can play!” He was grouchy.

“Ah!” I creeped a smile. “Yes, Uncle even bought me a new set.” I tossed my dice onto the table. This action put the man in a sort of broken state as he hummed at my dice cautiously.

“They won’t sing back, I assure you.” I couldn’t help myself.

Annoyed eyes flicked up at me and I quickly alleviated the mood by tossing my silver next to my dice. Almost at once the man opened up, smug and sure. Today was my day, there was no doubt in my mind.

Remundu the Humble, that was my namesake -- I bring it up again because perhaps I should have taken the lesson after four games of big wins. My pouch was tripled and my opponent was red with shame. If I could go back, I would have left right there, but no, I sat there smug and content.

I was so proud of myself I didn’t even see my opponent sulk off to go drink his losses away and by time I looked up from my coin, I saw those sharp cat-like eyes biting at me again. Nellie had taken my broken-faced friend’s place, her fingers already batting my dice back and forth.

“A game?” I offered, like a fool.

All she could do was nod with a bit too much excitement. “But I bet big!” She warned. Again I let my pride come over me as I smiled back and said:

“I only bet big.”

So my friend, there I was, sitting pretty with a massive amount of silver and my new opponent subject to my false dice -- hell! She even picked all the numbers my dice would never land on. By all accounts this should have been my luckiest day, but no matter the weight in my dice, she never lost, not once. Little by little my silver was taken from me, the sheer disbelief that my cheating rolls were useless had me betting more, hoping this was all a fluke. My silver left first, then my hat, then a few other things I shouldn’t say.

By the end of our games, I knew what I had to do, and that is why I wrote to you this letter to perhaps shed some light onto why you’re finding my room empty and your silverware gone. I am not an honest man, but I have been humbled enough to inform you that I will not be paying rent this month nor the next, nor ever, the same as you will not be getting the spoons back.

Farewell, and watch yourself at the Cantu with the White Roof!

_{KhoZee Productions presents:}


When Dihar Adech approached Tonta she did not quite clock at first that he was a soul. They lounged together for three days before she got up and told him she would now be eating him, and he told her then that he had only one request of her. “Go on,” the goddess nodded.

“As I am already dead, I wan-”

“You’re what?” The goddess exclaimed, taking a hold of him and looking more closely for the first time. “Oh. Goodness. So you are.” She leaned back. “How’d that happen?”

“Well, I was resting - minding my own business as you do - when along came this tiny, rude lady-”

“Ah, tiny and rude. They seem to go together don’t they?” The goddess muttered. “Anyway, so: tiny and rude.”

“Exactly. She didn’t like me for some reason and decided to just… well, she tore my head off. And out o-”

“Oh my! That’s great.” The goddess laughed. “Was it like, a clean tearing off, or was it like, really bloody?”

“Uh, the latter actually - but shouldn’t y-” but Dihar was cut off once more.

“Oh my! Small, rude, and STRONK. Who was it? Where is she?”

“I followed her for a while, but she just ignored me. Last I saw her she was at this great mountain.”

Tonta nodded absentmindedly and quickly gobbled up Dihar’s soul. “Mountain, right!”

When Tonta got to Mons Divinus - getting distracted on the way by a weird misty swampland with all manner of disgusting creatures she did not remember making - she was pleasantly surprised by the great degree of nothing that she found. She circled round the mountain one way, then circled around it the other, and found nothing (although she smelled a particularly fetid stench coming out of one place). It wasn’t until she felt another goddess that she thought to look up, and even as she looked she felt the coming of the seasons and all the cycles that were necessary for life. She had not felt their absence before - as though by her mere will all the animals and life forms had merely existed, all the cloud whales and octopi had gone on feeding and raining without a care for the seasons or the climes. But now that they were here everything seemed more logical. “That’s important, I guess,” Tonta shrugged as she began climbing the mountain.

She took her time and it was not until the following afternoon that she arrived up top and was able to behold the city. She had come across a few humans on her climb and whenever she saw one she boinked its head off rather cleanly. “I think I’m meant to be angry at you guys or something.” But as it were, she eventually recruited one of them to lead her to where a specific goddess lived.

“Do you know her name?” The woman she had grabbed asked.

“No. Hey, Dihar, do you know her name?” Dihar’s great serpentine head emerged from Tonta’s back, to the shock of the woman, and he shook it.

“No, don’t know her name.”

“Uh, do you know what she looks like?” The human asked.

“Oh! Yes,” Tonta said, “she’s small, rude, and strong.”

The human looked at the goddess with pursed lips. “Uh… can you be more specific?”

Tonta turned back to Dihar. “Be more specific, jackass.”

The former-drakhorey gave a hissing sigh. “Well, she was white. White hair, white skin, white eyes-”

“OH!” The human exclaimed, cutting Dihar off, “I know her. She lives in - what did she call it? It’s that white place there, see?”

Tonta turned her head to where the human was pointing and she did indeed see. “Nice, thanks... uh, what’s your name?”

“Ba-” but before the woman could finish, Tonta threw her to Dihar.

“Lunch, Dihar.” It was indeed. Without further ado, she dashed down into the city, ignored everyone and everything, and rushed up the marble pathway, past the fountains with the naked women, inside to the temple proper, up towards the cool statue of her slaying a drakhor- “wait-” she came to a screeching halt and looked again, “that ain’t me.”

“No, that’s her!” Dihar declared. Only he was hissing and spitting of course because he couldn’t talk.

“Well, it’s pretty cool buuttttt…” a huge hammer and chisel exploded into the goddess’ hands and she took to hammering away at Wyn’s face. A great cloud of marble and stone rose up and the cacophony was something vicious. When at last Tonta stepped back she beheld the statue: herself standing above the corpse of Baknul Adech. “There, what d’ya think?”

“Uh, are you sure that was a good idea?” Dihar asked.

“Sure! We drakhorey slayers are best friends. And I’ve killed…” she counted on her fingers, “two? I can’t remember. I’m sure she’ll appreciate this present. Anyway, where is sh-” but Tonta had not finished her words before she spotted her host, clearly drawn by the great amount of noise Tonta had been making. “Oh my god oh my god. Quickly hide Dihar. I need to look pretty and your ugly head is not wanted here.”

The pale Wyn, her arms crossed, floated down a flight of stairs, eyes drawn to Tonta with suspicion. She wore nothing on her person and her hair was held up in a messy bun. “My god, aren’t you just the prettiest!” Tonta exclaimed as the other goddess approached.

Wyn, for her part, said nothing before she came to a halt before Tonta. Her feet lightly set down on the ground and she eyed Tonta up with a side glance as her main focus was upon the statue. Her lips curled down into a frown, arms coming uncrossed before she looked down at the life goddess again, who, for her part, smiled innocently. “Is it common practice,” Wyn began in a haughty voice, “to deface artworks where you come from? To chisel away unwelcomed? Turning perfection imperfect?” she asked.

Tonta looked back at the statue. “Art? That?” Her eyes turned back to Wyn. “I thought it was just a record of the best drakhoslayer - and that, I’ll have you know, is me.” She thumped her chest proudly. “So, out of respect for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, I had to change it for you. I’d be grateful if someone went out of their way to ensure the accuracy and faithfulness of my works to be honest. Consider it a gift, from me to you.” Almost without pause, she stepped forward and placed her hands on Wyn’s cheeks, then pinched them. “My goodness, how are you so- well, like you say, perfect.” She withdrew her hands quickly. “Oh, I’m Tonta by the way. What’s this place anyway?”

The pale goddess recoiled at the touch with a look of shock. She blinked once, twice and then took a sharp breath. "Oh… So many words, such little meaning. You are not one for manners, I see… Tonta. Nor would any education benefit you. There is a wildness to you, infectious to some, a hindrance to others. But even as I speak these words, they fall like leaves, soon forgotten. Pointless, aren't they?" she sighed.

Tonta snickered slightly at Wyn’s words. “Well, hey. Fuck you too,” she grinned.

Wyn raised an eyebrow. "My, such crass language Tonta. One might think it unbefitting of a Goddess' stature, not that you would care I think. But, if you must know, this is my embassy and I am Wyn, Goddess of Beauty. I must thank you for your compliments, it seems you do have an eye for it, at least." she gave a small bow. The life goddess acknowledged Wyn’s words with a nod.

“I don’t claim to be perfect, but I know a pretty face when I see one. And you know, you’ve got a great, uh, ‘bod’ and all, but don’t you think it would be even prettier if you wore something? I have it on good authority that I’m a great fashion advisor, and I think you’ll look stunning in… hmmm,” she clicked her fingers and a great black dress wrapped itself around Wyn, the darkness standing in stark contrast to her skin of perfect snow. A mirror formed up before the goddess and Tonta stood Wyn before it. “Alright, maybe that’s a bit over the top - but my, I could just eat you up. Don’t you think?”

"Hm. Perhaps there is some merit to that claim." Wyn said as she looked at herself. She blinked and the head-dress turned to smoke, leaving her flowing white locks to fall down. “And perhaps such an alteration to my statue can be forgiven.” She looked at Tonta through the mirror. “If your plan was to seduce me, perhaps that's working too.” She gave a sly smile. The life goddess seemed to lose her composure for the first time, blood rushing to her cheeks.

“What!? Me? No! I mean, you’re pretty but- uh, I’m not. Like. Uh. Sharrup.” She stepped away and turned to the statue, coughing loudly. “And anyway, my alterations were good - you’re just too dense to see it.” She turned her head back mischievously. “You should give me a kiss right here,” she tapped her cheek, “and tell me you’re sorry. AND DON’T THINK I FORGOT THAT YOU CALLED ME DUMB!” She harrumphed and turned back away with an exaggerated air of offense.

A slender hand wrapped around Tonta's neck, another wrapped around her waist and she was pulled into Wyn from behind. “As you wish.” The beauty goddess breathed into her ear, before placing a gentle kiss upon her cheek and then another like a parting gift. The goddess sighed in Tonta's ear, her hand cupping itself around the goddess’ chin. “I apologize for my behavior, my lady. I judged you too quickly. I was rude… Uncouth. You are exquisite.” She tilted Tonta's neck with care and blew upon a spot before going in for another kiss. The life goddess flushed crimson and allowed the other goddess to continue, enjoying the unfamiliar sensations on her skin, the softness and warmth of the other, the hammering of her heart.

“Yo- you’re a terrible liar,” she coughed, her face burning, “but I don’t mind if… you lie to me a bit more.” She turned around in the other’s arms and buried her face into Wyn’s shoulder, biting at the nape of her neck before moving upward and catching an earlobe between her lips. She withdrew and her eye caught Wyn’s, causing Tonta to smile sheepishly. “Th- those cannibals would have had a carnival over you.”

With the back of her fingers, Wyn caressed Tonta’s cheek while her other hand pulled the shorter goddess in. Wyn nibbled on Tonta’s ear before placing gentle kisses upon her neck. After several moments of this she spoke, “would you devour me?” She smirked, then took one of Tonta’s hands and gave a tug. “Come.” She said, voice dripping with yearning. “Come have a taste.”

And oh, did she devour her. When Wyn returned the favour, however, Tonta lying back in the bed and allowing the pleasure to rock her slowly, the life goddess could not shrug off a deep and growing feeling of unease. She could not place her finger on why she was suddenly so tense until, very suddenly, the voice of Mouse (yes, that very Stupid Dumbfuck) echoed in her mind. “Oh, fuck,” Tonta groaned.

“Have you no shame, lady?” he had asked her, “you who have taken the form of woman, have you no regard for the sacredness of the womanly form and the holy bonds that precede the union of man and woman? Have you no regard for the chastity and honour of those whose form you have assumed?”

“Sh-shut up,” Tonta muttered, an almost comical mix of pleasure and annoyance flashing on her face. At the sound of those words, Wyn stopped and looked at Tonta, tilting her head. “Is something wrong, my lady?” She asked innocently. Tonta glanced down at her.

“Oh, umm… n- no. I just- well, remembered something stupid.” She gulped and wrapped a leg around Wyn’s back, drawing her back in. “I- uh, was enjoying thaat,” she purred with a broad, purse-lipped smile. But no sooner had Wyn returned to her ministrations when the life goddess jumped backwards and her foot flew out, smacking Wyn across the face and launching her right out of the bed and into the opposite wall. “I FUCKING HATE THAT MOUSE!” Tonta wailed, and the force of the wail alone caused the bed to collapse beneath her. She blinked and jumped out. “Oh. Shit. W- Wyn?” She approached the pale goddess and looked down at her with guilt and concern.

A small stream of violet ran from the pale goddess’ nose as she snapped her eyes open, revealing narrow slits not unlike those of a snake. She touched the ichor flowing from her nose as she stared daggers up at Tonta. The life goddess winced and bit her lip. “Fuck, I’m so sorry.” Wyn looked upon her blood and her face contorted into a look of cold fury. Tonta took half a step back, fear and uncertainty in her eyes, but in an instant Wyn was on her feet and towering above the life goddess. She grabbed her by the throat and hissed, “this is how you treat ME?” She threw Tonta to the side, the force of the blow shattering the wall. Wyn was upon her before the stone had even settled, pinning her down even as she mewled in shock and struggled. “I let you desecrate my art. I let you dress me. I let you bed me. And. You. Hit. ME? Abhorrent!” Wyn backhanded Tonta across the face and then let her drop. “Leave. Now. Do not return.” She commanded, standing above her, seething.

The life goddess remained crumpled on the ground, her eyes wide and shocked, for what felt like an age, clearly attempting to process what had happened over the course of the last few split seconds. Her eyes grew wet and she brought a hand to where Wyn’s hands - velvety and coaxing not mere minutes ago - had caused ripples of pain. She did not cry, however, and through the hammering of her heart and her roiling emotions she was able to stagger to her feet and brush the dust and shattered marble of the wall from her naked form. She looked at the taller Wyn, her eyes still wet. And even as Wyn gazed back they hardened, as though a layer of ice was growing across them. Tonta chuckled mirthlessly then. “Y-you’re still dense, Wynnie. You don’t need to apologise this time though, you’re forgiven,” and she blew her a kiss, turned around, and walked away before adding loud and clear, “fucker!”

“Bitch.” Came a cold response from Wyn.

Tonta snapped her fingers and her great flowing yellow cloak wrapped itself around her, and she was soon out of sight.


Wyn stared at the statue of Tonta, fists clenched. The previous hours' events were still at the forefront of her mind. That insolent cur, who was she to make her bleed? To mock her? To deface her? She was nothing!

She had made her a fool…

In a flurry of rage, Wyn attacked the statue, bashing it to pieces. When it was dust, the fire inside still burned. She was not satisfied with the stone. No… what was it she had said… that she held the record for slaying those, drakhorey?

Well… that could change.

• Summary [+]

  Tonta talks to the soul of the drakhorey that Wyn killed once. The soul tells her about his death and, intrigued, Tonta goes to the Mons Divinus to meet this goddess and ends up running into humans who tell her the location. They get nommed and Tonta shows up at the Ivory Embassy and ‘fixes’ the statue of Wyn standing triumphant above her drakhorey slain foe. Wyn shows up and is flabbergasted. After a quick conversation, with ups and downs, Wyn or maybe it was Tonta, seduce one another and they marvin gaye and git it on but then Tonta gets a reality check from Mouse about staying chaste and kicks Wyn in the face, making her bleed. Wyn reacts poorly and slams Tonta around before backhanding her. She then tells Tonta to gtfo, the life goddess coming to her own conclusion about the nature of love and after a few choice words from both parties, Tonta leaves. Later, Wyn swears revenge.
  Drakhorey kill count over the course of the time-skip:
  Wyn: 514 (fueled by pure rage)
  Tonta: 356 (she got the last one, SO SHE WINS)
  Other: 130 (incl. 1 by Exo)
• MA Expenditure [+]

  A super sexy dress.
  A glorious horse kick.
  A royal bitch slap.

---

As many of my peers would agree, summarising the entire history of Our Empire in the span of a few pages is no small feat. As the oldest realm on the Shard, ours is a history that outlasts much of civilisation beyond our borders - the All-Father and his glorious house had few contemporaries of their calibre, save perhaps for the Hursarians and Paradisians with whom our people share many bonds of love and friendship. The All-Father’s command of the people led to the conquest of the entire realm roughly as we know it today, reaching its greatest extent under his heir, the Roaring Chengal. As the Emperor’s commission demands, I will present my findings from browsing and studying the many historical accounts of our past with the most sincere honesty. I implore all my peers at both the Imperial Academy and the Red College to critique my work should it be necessary. On account of the length limit of this work, I may leave out certain events that I do not deem essential enough to our imperial history, but may be of significance in certain localities. I will proceed chronologically from our All-Father until His Imperial Glory.

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The Lotus Annals, written in 69 after the Miracle by famed Grand Vizier Kwadam vur Sanpuji, opens with the following poem written by the poet Hujibal:



Describing the rule of the All-Father is much like describing the first week of the monsoon: The dead and dry is by the feat of gods swept away and turned to a lush and overflowing green from which we all can extract a living. The man was nearly infallible - whether it be as a commander, ruler, father and husband, none could begin to parallel him. Raised by the Matripatrihierarch themself - praise their name - the man was almost as perfect as could be.

As a child, he was raised on the familial wisdom of the Eight-Armed God, the mighty rhetoric of the Mortal God, the motherly love of the Pregnant Goddess, the strategic mind of the Warring Goddess and the sisterly support of the Cyclical Goddess. This world has never, nor will ever, see a monarch of his likeness. By two years old, he could walk and talk like an adult; by five years, he drew portraits of his father-mother and wrote essays on the many creatures and peoples of the soon-to-be Empire. At the age of ten, the All-Father single-handedly put an end to the raids by the tribe of Musuk, and upon returning to the village where his mother-father waited, he presented them with Musuk’s head, carved from his shoulders with such precision that the muscles under the skin still refused to believe they were dead. As the tribe joined the All-Father’s clan, his unmatched mind for management swiftly categorised his people into the necessary roles needed to form the basis of civilisation. Herders were sent out to collect the fat lugi, while the gatherers were sent to pluck the fruit, nuts and vegetables from the self-tilling fields; crafters of the Artisan God were set to make weapons and armour for defense and for conquest, and builders raised shelter and walls to protect the people; warriors were trained with near-divine skill. When the young All-Father needed rest, administrators and lawfolk would take his reins, and to represent his father-mother’s ideals of unification and hegemony, he sent out merchants and ambassadors to the nearby tribes.

Four years later, the Ten Tribes had all sworn fealty to him, and Ossurman vur Chakravarti was declared Emperor of Glory and King of Kings. His title had been won with minimal bloodshed, for all had beheld his magnificence and been compelled to kneel. The boy emperor, whose charisma, wisdom and strength rivalled warrior-poets many decades his senior, seized all of Osshuria in the blink of an eye, and few dared oppose such exalted power.

The next three decades were a constant string of victories for the King of Kings: In year 21, the Warlord Coalition of the Southern Riverlands tried to best him in the Blue Ribbon Sea - in their arrogance, they thought the All-Father had no naval experience. How wrong were they, for the Emperor had studied ship warfare since childhood, aided by the mighty Fighting Goddess. The Warlord Coalition were nothing short of outnumbered and outgeared, for the Emperor’s sister, the Cyclical Goddess, had had her people provide his soldiers with arquebuses. Simple though they were, the shock and awe of blasting powder shook the very souls out of the Coalition’s forces, and many abandoned ship upon hearing the very song of Paradisian guns. One battle was all the Emperor needed to win - before his splendor, the Warlord Coalition dared not face him on land.

In year 27, the Alliance of the Crescent Horn (also known as the Northern Alliance) in the north then tried to best him on the plains, for all in the land knew by now that the Imperial Army was large and encumbered with supplies. In the baking heat of the Endless Yellow, they surely would not last. However, they had been foolish to think the Emperor wasn’t alone. The King of Kings had always and was always aware of the following fact: No king rules alone. He had thus surrounded himself with none other than the finest generals and sorcerers in his army. Knowing the Alliance would surely seek to wait for his forces to march for hours on end and deplete every locality they would come across until the army eventually starved, the Emperor instead split up his forces into six, one for each of his siblings and one for Basusa, the Emperor’s trusted guardian. The siblings were: Darius the Magnificent, son of Luon; Diamadra, Queen of the Qeshabdu, daughter of Hahtziri; Bos-Kali the Immortal, son of Chelvadya; Toph-Kila the Storm-Archer, daughter of Chelvadya; Atayavadi the Insightful, daughter of Ayishama. With their help, the Osshurian forces outmaneuvered the Alliance and broke them swiftly. After three years, the war was over.

One who briefly gave the Emperor trouble, though, was a warlord by the name of Raj. While Raj and Ossurman never met face to face on the battlefield, the warlord was vocally and physically opposed to the Empire’s expansion, and he was involved in several ambushes and hit-and-run attacks on the All-Father’s forces. He was eventually tracked down to his village on the Yellow Sea and executed by being sacrificed to the Umati warrior Rasmas, but that was in 38, eight years after the rest of the Northern Alliance had been defeated.

After the Alliance and Coalition had been defeated, only small pockets of defiant rebels to small and insignificant to mention remained to challenge the Emperor’s rightful rule. They were dealt with by the Emperor’s generals and lieutenants while he oversaw the development and centralisation of our empire, but also the status and positioning of his house. By the end of the Alliance War, the All-Father had taken four wives:

• Manija, daughter of the deceased chieftain Musuk of the Musuk Tribe. Betrothed in 11 as part of peace negotiations; married in 16.
• Ayiisha vur Sahelgupta, daughter of Ossurman’s closest ally, Chandra vur Sahelgupta. Married in 19.
• Tomie Sayurla, daughter of Fon Sayurla, leader of the Warlord Coalition. Married in 22.
• Sudwame Tessari, daughter of Yusa Tessari, the chieftain of the first of the tribes in the Alliance of the Crescent Horn to surrender. Married in 30.

Furthering his father-mother’s culture of prime concubines, he chose Ayiisha to be his closest wife, as they shared the closest bond. Shortly, I will explain how this decision later came back to haunt him, but for now, it is important to outline the family tree that followed. The All-Father took two additional concubines after he had united the whole realm by 37. These were Toya-tal of Yusam (which we today know as Jassahm) and Puabi the Shadowed One, daughter of Diamadra.

The Emperor’s children were as follows:

• Manija of Musuk:
  
  • Ossurman II (b. 17), died at the age of 13, killed in a hunting accident.
• Ayiisha vur Sahelgupta:
  
  • Ossurman III “the Roaring Chengal” (b. 25). Served as one of the All-Father’s greatest generals. Oversaw the conquest of Hursaria and the expansion into the Crystal Lands. Took the throne after his father in 92.
  • Chandraya I (b. 26). Became an adept mage and stayed at her father’s court her whole life as a Vizier.
• Tomie Sayurla:
  
  • Chandraya II (b. 25) died of poisoning at the age of 23 at the hands of assassins later found to have been hired by her sister Chakravadi.
  • Chakravadi I (b. 25) was executed at the age of 23 for the murder of her sister. All her life, she had harboured hatred and jealousy for her superior twin sister, and their fates both ended most tragically.
• Sudwame Tessari:
  
  • Shem I “the Runt” (b. 30). Though shown plenty of love in his childhood, Shem grew up to become an outcast in the eyes of the house. He later moved on to found his own cadet branch, Tessari-Chakravarti, which lasted 97 years before being absorbed back into House vur Chakravarti.
• Toya-tal of Yusam:
  
  • Chandraya III (b. 40) went on to form the cadet house Rusajar, which still rules the Rusajar Princedom to this day.
• Puabi:
  
  • Sharru-Abi Two-Tongue (b. 40). A Qeshabdu who frequented her father’s court, but got involved in several controversies with those not of her house. Was banished in 67 after it was revealed she was accomplice to a plot to have Prince Ossurman III killed. For her actions, she was condemned by both her mother and grandmother.
  • Diamad-Abi Claw-Foot (b. 43). A Qeshabdu who chose a mortal life and was thus freed from her monstrous urges. She served as an advisor to her father and brother until her death by indigestion in 101.

Despite a family of such size, none could deny that the Emperor was an outstanding father and made time for each of his wives and all of his children all while managing his growing empire. Though he long mourned the loss of his first son, Ossurman II, his grief was outweighed by the pride he held for his second son, Ossurman III, with whom he shared the closest bond of all his children. The two were inseparable, and the Emperor could trust his son to grow the empire for him when his hairs began to gray and he no longer could lead the troops into battle.

The Emperor’s relationship with his son and his prime concubine, however, soured the relationship between himself and his first wife, Manija. In 47, on what would have been the 30th birthday of her deceased son, the concubine sent a letter to the head of the house, the Eight-Armed God themself, asking to be divorced from the Emperor. When her claim was denied, she committed suicide by throwing herself from the highest tower of the palace in Loharta. The incident dealt a terrible blow to the Emperor’s psyche, and the man became increasingly jumpy and prone to follow his emotions thereafter.

In the dry season of 67, the Mujahasanam Incident almost cast the entire empire into chaos. During the All-Father’s decennial pilgrimage to the Great Tomb, Ossurman III was ambushed during a visit Lajahar, what is today the capital of the Lahmi Princedom. The prince was abducted and taken to the capital to publically abdicate his claim to the throne or be executed. The Emperor heard the dire news and had no chance of making it back, so he sent his faithful and trusted companion Basusa to tell the Matripatrihierarch atop the Pillar of Heaven and ask for their aid.

The Emperor had always strived to have close contact with the Matripatrihierarch, even as they had been summoned to the Peak of the Earth to manage the world alongside the other gods. To show his love for his mother-father as a dutiful son, the Emperor had raised many temples in their honour and had sent them many consorts and concubines. The Matripatrihierarch heard these news and sent word to their son Darius. However, tensions between the Emperor and his most ambitious brother had risen dramatically over the past seventy years, and He Who Was Named The Magificent did not want anything to do with his brother nor his son in peril. Following this, in the words of Abbot Vahanaya of the Temple of the White Elephant:



The Matripatrihierarch then summoned their other son, Bos-Kali the Immortal, who at the time was escorting Ossurman III’s son and heir, Ossurman IV, on a tax collection mission through Gangha. The giant answered the call and left the teen prince in what is now the princedom’s capital of Vamalore in the care of the Loong chieftain Fal-So. Rounding up an army on the way, the Immortal stood at the gates of Loharta with five thousand men. While sources vary on what was happening inside the castle as Bos-Kali and his men laid siege to the city, the Prince was not executed in the end. Some sources say a counter-ambush led by Basusa’s daughter Lamashdu and the other monsters of the palace managed to slay the majority of plotters at the sign that help had arrived; others say that several of the traitors got cold feet at the arrival of Bos-Kali and chose to flee the capital instead. Whatever the case, the city gates opened after a week and Bos-Kali’s army entered unchallenged, securing the palace within the day. There, they found the Prince largely unscathed, though slightly beaten, and the traitor Sharru-Abi, alongside two southern chieftains. After an interrogation which has been so vividly described in the Lotus Annals that one would think the Grand Vizier had been witness to it, the chieftains admitted that they had been tasked to send the empire into chaos by Kelemen Kozma, a warlord from the fungal lands to the far south.

The Emperor heard all of this when he came home. The Lotus Annals describes the scene as simply unwitnessed in past events: Never before had the Emperor been so furious. According to Grand Vizier vur Sanpuji, the All-Father’s mood curdled all the milk in the palace; his raging aura wilted green grass and silenced yapping dogs. To have his precious son be ridiculed and endangered in this manner was nothing he could accept. And so it was in 70 that the Emperor rounded up the Imperial Armies and travelled south.

It was here, however, that the Emperor’s endless streak of victories would be broken. While neither sea, plain nor jungle had defeated him before, nothing could have prepared the Imperial Army for the trial they would face. In the fungal lowlands, battle went smoothly, but it was clear that the barbarians here knew they could not defeat the Emperor’s forces in the open. They fell back into the fungal forests, and here, the Imperial Army immediately ran into several issues: The moist air was thicker than in the worst monsoon, and even Paradisian matchlocks had no hope of firing when the powder was all wet; the mushy, uneven ground challenged the maneuverability of beetle rhino cavalry; and the aberrations of the fungal forest ambushed the army at every turn. One such type of aberration, whom we today know as the Hasras, was said to be the bane of the footsoldier - few who faced in them single-combat ever made it back. The monsters of our army, such as the Abikdu led by Lamashdu, fared better, but they alone could not carry the army on their backs. The barbarians of the fungal forest would come out of nowhere, slay as many as they could, and then vanish into nothing. The toll on the minds of the soldiers would hamper recruitment efforts for many years to come.

It became clear after a year that the campaign into the fungal hills would go nowhere. The army, which had been severely reduced, was forced to retreat to the lowlands, where several forts were constructed from which they could patrol the forest edge. While the war descended into a stalemate, however, it would not end for another nine years - the Emperor would not lay down his arms until he had the head of Kozma on a platter, though he would never be granted his wish.

In 80, the Emperor fell ill with a cruel and terrible cancer that chained him to his bed for the last twelve years of his life. While every healer in the realm did their best to save him, it became increasingly clear with every attempt that, though the child of a god, not even the All-Father could escape death. In his stead, Ossurman III ruled as Emperor. Towards the end of his life, the All-Father grew increasingly delirious, beset by nightmares in his sleep about the fall of his realm and the purgatory awaiting him in the afterlife. It was said the Nightmare Goddess whose name must not be spoken or written was behind this, and I wholeheartedly believe it. After enduring his madness for eight years, Ossurman I, the All-Father who had formed and created our great and magnificent empire, passed away at the age of 92, surrounded by his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

---

Though he ascended to the throne at the age of 67 and ruled only for 29 years, no one would ever dare to suggest that the Chengal’s reign was anything but glorious. While his father had studied statecraft, military science and politics under the gods throughout his childhood, the Chengal had six decades of experience under the guidance of gods, monsters, humans and the world. The man was every bit the genius his father had been, flourishing into a King of Kings with a resume of accomplishments to challenge that of the All-Father himself.

As hinted to above, the Chengal had already been ruling for twelve years before he was officially crowned Emperor. During the reign of the All-Father, the population and size of the Empire had grown at a speed unheard of in the history of the world. With the fruitless campaigns in the fungal lands sapping much of the Imperial Treasury, there was little left to pay for the immense administration costs of managing the largest empire in the world. Therefore, with the end of the Southern Campaign of 70-80 (also known as the First Southern War), the Chengal divided the empire into seven princedoms, which he named rojalore, to be ruled by a Roja - a prince or princess. He granted six of these titles to his six closest friends:

• His sister Chandraya III, who ruled the cadet house Rusajar. She named the princedom Rusajar after her house.
• His best friend and brother in arms, Lahmore vur Chandramaya. He named the princedom Chandra in honour of his father who had taken this name to show his piety towards the Matripatrihierarch.
• Fal-So, the Loong chieftain who had kept his son safe during his abduction in 67. He named the princedom Kuang, which today is written Gangh.
• Pajruta vur Pajruti, a good friend and cousin - third daughter of Chandraya I who had formed her own house. She named her princedom Lahmi in honour of her grandmother Ayiisha’s father.
• Bashmu-Abi vur Diamadaba, daughter of the Chengal’s most valued Vizier, his sister Diamad-Abi Claw-Foot. She named the princedom Ahd-Siria in honour of her great-grandmother, the Fertile Goddess.
• Darius Darius “the Younger”, son of Darius the Magnificent, who had against his father’s wish joined Bos-Kali’s army to save the Chengal from his captors. He named the princedom Luonnada after his grandfather, the Mortal God.

The Chengal made certain to follow his grandmother-father’s advice: Words and promises were moot without the chains of blood. He therefore married his children and grandchildren into each of the princedom families, the children taking the other parties’ names and joining their houses as a sign of good faith and mutual trust. The Chengal, as opposed to his father, had only taken three wives, but showered them in no less wealth and love than his father had given his own. These were:

• Vinyasana vur Chandramaya, sister of his good friend Lahmore. Married in 41 when they both had grown to be 16 years old, which was the point when their parents would allow them to marry.
• Zustina il'Arvariza di'Ursare "the Hursarian". With the expansion of the Empire breathing down the neck of the people living in the Chabaral, the All-Father arranged a marriage between his son and the daughter of the prominent Ursare family to ease border tensions. The two were married in 53. While this act of diplomacy would not last in the end, the marriage was at the time seen as the planting of the seed of peace, which, to be fair, it is remembered as today.
• Hayaga of Paradisia. The Chetto have long been welcome at our courts and many other courts around the Shard, for their beauty and fairness are second to few. Hayaga, however, was at the time unfortunately quite unwelcome at court. The reasons vary from source to source, but I believe Muham vur Shialmabad made the most satisfying point:
  
  ”His Gloriousness seems to have married a most surly and uncooperative lady, who would rather spend all day in the fighting rings of the Lower City than spend a minute by his side on the throne.”

The Emperor's wives were all most loyal and dutiful in their role as concubines. Since they had shared a childhood and their love had blossomed at a young age, no one was surprised when the Chengal chose Vinyasana to be his prime concubine. His other two wives never forgave him for this, for they felt like outcasts at the Imperial court on account of their foreign origins, and the fact that they were also considered second wives did not help their predicament.

The Chengal fathered a total of nine children, two of whom unfortunately passed away most untimely, which I will have the displeasure of explaining further later.

The Emperor’s children were as follows:

• Vinyasana vur Chandramaya:
  
  • Ossurman IV (b. 42). Much like the Chengal had been to their own father, Ossurman IV was more than son to him - he was a close friend and ally. However, as time went on, it became clear that Ossurman IV was a troubled man. Both before and after his ascension to the throne in 103, he made many mistakes that would have earth-shattering consequences for the empire.
  • Chandraya IV (b. 44). Chandraya was a fire-spirited soul from day one, and people used to say her true parents were Ojinn the Aloof and Chelvadya the Victorious. She became one of the Empire's most famous fighters, but was slain in battle in the Fungal Lands in 72, impaled on a Hasras spear.
  • Vishnuman (b. 47). A poetic soul with a heart for travelling, though a terrible and dutiless son. On the day a week before he was to be wed to the daughter of warlord Chimsang Kuong of the Southern Timberlands a hot summer evening of 66, he eloped instead with his servant and childhood sweetheart, Ashivani, and supposedly journeyed westward in search of Hexonian adventurers. Records say he was searched for for years, but no sources indicate that he was found.
  • Singhpiritu (b. 51). He would grow up to become a potent mage and scholar and wrote several theses and books on magic and alchemy, many of which are still in use at the Academy today. After he was married to the daughter of Chandraya III vur Rusajar, Ashanivaya, he founded the Mahapuj University of Alchemical Sciences in the capital of the Rusajar Princedom.
  • Brahmavani (b. 56). The youngest daughter of Vinyasana was said to be blessed by Vin: Such a beauty was she that she drew the eyes of every man and the ire of every woman. However, much to the chagrin of many of the men, Brahmavani grew close to her aunt Sharru-Abi, who convinced her to partake in a series of fertility rituals devoted to the Pregnant Goddess. While the rituals supposedly lengthened her lifespan and introduced her to Qeshabdu magic, they also changed her appearance to resemble the hags that some of us know so well. She took her father's side in the incident of 67, however, and later married Bhansubdu, son of Bashmu-Abi, and spent her days building several temples to Hahtziri and maternity wards all around the princedom of Ahd-Siria.
  • Ossurman V (b. 62). As the youngest in the flock, Ossurman V had many doting siblings, cousins and other relatives to play with and adore him whenever and wherever he wished. His conception had not been planned, but he was nonetheless treated with all the love and care his family could offer. Initially, he was not destined for much, but when the members of the house became increasingly aware of Ossurman IV's waning psyche, Ossurman V was groomed for the throne in secret. The young prince was sent to live with the wise Diamadra while he learned, and only Basusa and his children were allowed to ferry messages between him and the Emperor. However, as the months turned to years, Ossurman V became impatient - his upbringing had done little to teach him temperance and humility. He thus escaped from his grandaunt's palace in 99 and was ambushed on the highway by a stroke of misfortune. Mistaking his disguise for the attire of a wealthy merchant, he was robbed and left to die in the monsoon rain. His body was swallowed by the wet mud and never found again.
• Zustina il'Arvariza di'Ursare "the Hursarian":
  
  • Vittoria (b. 56). As a show of good faith, the Chengal allowed his wife to pick the name of their firstborn. Vittoria would, however, suffer for her obvious heritage, which in the eyes of the Imperial court painted her as foreign and borderline barbaric. In 81, she was married to Darius the Younger and spent her days in woe at his court. She would later rally alongside Red Antriocu against her half-brother, Ossurman IV, and bring about Hursarian rule of most of the Empire.
  • Shivayada (b. 59). She was the spitting image of her elder sister, but was viewed as a much more cultured child of the family. Whereas her sister was seen as a representative of the contemporary view of Hursaria as backwards, Shivayada was seen as proof that the diplomatic path to Hursarian subjugation was the rightful path. However, Shivayada wanted nothing to do with house politics, and upon being married to Gul-So, son of Fal-So, she closed herself off from the world and, according to an archive of letters found at the Academy, spoke to no one for the rest of her days.
• Hayaga of Paradisia:
  
  • Aririsingh (b. 57). A sweet and polite man with clear chetto traits who grew to be much too innocent for the crafty intricacies of the court. In 77 at the age of 20, he travelled to the west to study carpeting in Dahlina. Four years later, he was summoned back to marry Ishaya vur Pajruti. After moving to her court at Lajahar, he left all political matters to her and focused on his hobby full-time. While he may have done little in terms of the political, he would at least be remembered as one of the house's finest craftsmen and even had a temple to Ownah built in the city.

In addition to the establishment of the princedoms, the Chengal and his administration summoned the aid of Koyana and completely reworked the imperial economy: Market rights were granted by license, which increased the accuracy and efficiency of taxation on traded goods; merchants and landholders found that long-term investments such as buying up goods before production, while potentially riskier, also provided the stability needed to plan better for returns and next year's investments; weights, coins and measurements were standardised across the realm and caravansaries and trading docks were built by the score. The Emperor’s diplomats also met with the payars of the Fungal Lands in the late rain season of 80 and formally ended the Southern Campaign, though as we will see later, this did not last. With all that done, the Empire flourished, but even with its size and affluence, its people grew hungry for more.

In 83, the Chengal made contact with the disparate tribes of the Crystal Lands. In exchange for their allegiance, he promised them development and civilisation. By 94, the first road connected the biggest settlement in the Crystal Lands, Dehmili, with the imperial tradeport in Lahchandra on the Blue Ribbon Sea, capital of the Chandra Princedom. The wild and untamed creatures of the land would pose a threat to further development in the region, but the land was fertile and free to settle for both human, monster and Loong. Vinaitanas, those perfect, beautiful beings, were brought to the cities and capitals to work as servants, entertainers and prostitutes. With the establishment of a few forts, patrols soon began to oversee the safekeeping of villages.

However, it was clear that the Crystal Lands hadn't been enough to satisfy the hunger of some of the more vocal generals at court. There was another jewel ripe for the plucking, and it laid not to the west, but to the east. The Chengal's wife Zustina tried her best to make her husband silence these voices, but the soon-to-be Emperor saw the situation differently: His father was dying and would leave behind the greatest empire known to the world. While the Chengal was well-known and loved in the realm, there were still those who doubted his ability to match his father's reign. Conquering Hursaria would silence these critics forever.

So it was that, while the All-Father laid on his deathbed, the Chengal amassed supplies and soldiers for the coming invasion. Over the next seven years, he moved in the shadows, buying informants and building spy networks throughout the Chabaral and in the City; he learned where the mountain passes were the least likely to be scouted; he tested tactics in the hills and grasslands to simulate skirmishes across the Red Lands. To keep any information from escaping to the east, he put his wife Zustina under house arrest alongside her two children. He bribed shepherds and hunters in the hills of the Northern Chabaral to keep an eye out for messengers travelling between the regions and had border guards do frequent searches on passing traders. He even had Diamadra speak to the great Sage Tree Tusumbihimilin and make a deal on his behalf for the tree to monitor communication through the Web of Voices. So thorough was he in his secrecy that the Hursarians did not know of the attack until Imperial troops were marching over the Amayala Mountains in year 90.

Given how weak the City was at the time, it did not take long for the Hursaria to fall to Our Empire - they surrendered by the following year. Yet it became quite clear quite early that the Emperor could not simply carve up the Chabaral into princedoms like he had the Crystal Lands - the Red Lands were already well settled, comparable to some of the denser rojalores and thukats of the Empire. To avoid having the region instantly rebel, the Emperor placed a great deal of resources into developing the region’s infrastructure, particularly the road network between Hursaria and Loharta. Patrol towers were constructed across the landscape, and a strong police force was introduced to the City. However, all things considered, it is my opinion that the rulership of the Chabaral under the Chengal was quite beneficial for Hursaria and the Red Lands: While organisation into resistance groups was punishable by death, most other local laws remained the same; imperial administrators introduced our superior economic policies and formalised the markets and taxation systems; magicians and alchemists initiated what would become a golden age of Hursarian science and development, which would later prove to be a grave mistake.

The last 12 years of the Chengal’s reign were marked by great stability, unprecedented wealth and lasting peace. His father’s empire, Our Empire, spanned almost the whole northern half of the Shard; the cities filled with magicians, artists and artisans who created fantastic spectacles of art and craft the likes of which have never been seen again; wizards of stone built temples and palaces taller than anything that had ever been built; exotic animals were raised at the palace and armies had never been better equipped. The Imperial Academy would during this time invent our own arquebuses, and the first prototype of the tower walker came to be around this time. It was a golden age without equal, and it is not at all unfounded that we call it the “Twelve Springs and Autumns”. However, all things must come to an end, even the good, and on an unusually cold evening of the dry season of 103, Our Emperor, old as he had become, caught a terrible pneumonia and passed away within the fortnight. As he did, he left history’s greatest empire in the hands of history’s most incompetent emperor - Ossurman IV.

---

In the Lilac Bed Monastary in the thukar of Gojalohammar in Osshur rojalore, a rather humoristic saying was tagged on the southernmost wall facing the World Peak sometime one hundred and thirty years ago. While it was ultimately removed, the event was recorded in the abbot’s journal by Prior Mehatana. The saying reads like this:



The saying is partially relevant here; in the third emperor’s case, archived letters between the Grand Vizier of 59-69, Rajmaput vur Pajruti, and his sister, Pajruta of Lahmi, described very vividly the state of the young prince’s education. This one was dated to the 27th of Hahtzir, 60:



A harsh yet fair assessment, in hindsight, for Ossurman IV should never have been declared emperor. Though there was, as mentioned, an attempt to groom his brother Ossurman V for the role, that unfortunately ultimately failed as a solution. Since his late teens, the man had been plagued by visions and nightmares about his future and the future of the realm, not unlike his grandfather was in his dying days. In one of the very, very few surviving logbook entries of Master Healer Rujiman vur Chattomadyay, dated to sometime in the middle 70s, he notes:

“The emperor’s grandson came to me this morning in tears, his hands and chest covered in his own blood. When I asked him how he came to be this way, he only said, “it’s eating me” over and over again.”

While the rest of the document’s content has been lost to the unfortunately large appetite of bookworms, later sources confirm again and again that the young prince had a chronic fear of monsters. The source of this fear has been the subject of speculation for four hundred years: Gahore vur Lahorlam, my predecessor as court historian, had a widely disputed hypothesis that the young prince had beheld a Rite of the Birthing Man, a ritual performed by hags - particularly within the Sect of Diamadra - wherein they accept a willing man and plant within him the seed of a child, making him a queen in the eyes of Hahtziri and a mother like themselves. Gahore vur Lahorlam’s hypothesis was that the event scarred him mentally and left within him a fear that he, too, would bear a child someday, making him shun all interactions with the monsters that make up such an integral part of our society. Another hypothesis, which has also been put forth as a very likely scenario, is that the young prince was cursed by the Nightmare Goddess as vengeance for the All-Father’s invasion of the Fungal Lands, a region which we now know to be one of her matronage.

Whatever the source of this fear was, the alliance between monster and mankind within our borders has been integral to our position as the world’s mightiest empire: The conquests of the All-Father and the Roaring Chengal were made possible with the help of monsters like the loyal and steadfast Pazuzu, the wise Diamadra and the children of the Family God and the Pregnant Goddess. It is only recently that the tensions between our two species have begun to heal, and I cannot, as a historian , overstate the necessity of keeping this relationship close and intimate, especially in days like these.

But I am getting off track. The story of the Broken’s reign is a somber one, so I take no pleasure in detailing it. However, it is an essential period of our history to understand how we got here today.

After the Roaring Chengal left only one direct heir who would also keep all the family’s titles within the vur Chakravarti house, Ossurman IV was crowned His Glory the Emperor on a warm, rain-filled day of 104. Witnesses to the coronation described it as a most disheartening and graceless affair: The crown prince knew neither the vows nor the words of his father and grandfather, and he frequently stumbled and stuttered as though drained of strength and sleep. At the ceremonial banquet, he excused himself after the third course and went up to his room, where he remained for the rest of the evening. I would cite the many, many, many letters that so colourfully condemned the evening as one of the greatest disasters in court history, but I will not for the sake of space. The important part is that the Emperor’s reign could not have gotten off to a worse start, and worse yet it would soon become.

As soon as the news reached the fringes of the realm of the Emperor’s death and the hopelessness of his heir, opportunistic forces began to stir. In Luonnada in the late dry season of 103, a troublemaker by the name of Rastaqira amassed a following in the clay pits she worked in and led an uprising. Normally, a small riot like this would have been put down within the week, but Rastaqira and her ruffians were allowed to pillage and raid clay pits for months as the local thukar’s house guard had been summoned to the capital. Why had they been summoned? The Emperor had called in the Imperial Army to the capital with a single goal in mind: They were to expel all monsters from the realm.

Now, the question of the composition of the Imperial army at this time is a subject of debate and disagreement, particularly as this period and later periods would, very unfortunately, downplay the role of monsters in the army. A conservative estimate based on reports on ration distribution during the Invasion of the Chabaral have been calculated to be a circum of four parts man and six parts beast. Many of the human soldiers at this time had close relationships with Abikdu and Qeshabdu alike, and a great deal of the army's effectiveness came from the ability to unleash trained beasts in the direction of the enemy.

So one can imagine that this was a very unpopular decree, particularly within the army itself. Initially, the response to the order was a cold, hard ‘no’. The great and loyal Basusa, who had stood by the royal line for a hundred years, was said to weep in the evenings from this betrayal. The decree had wounded, but it had not killed the bond between man and monster. What would eventually scar it quite a bit, however, was when the Emperor declared his patronage for the Supreme League of Humanity. The Supreme League of Humanity, or just the League, had formed in the late rain season in 103 with the hope of riding the wave of the Emperor’s hateful discourse on monsters. For of course, there have always been those who find monsters appalling. Darius the Magnificent was notoriously hostile towards his monstrous siblings, and even his much more sensible son Darius the Younger imposed very strict segregation laws on monsters in his rojalore of Luonnada. It was no wonder, then, that the League formed in Luonnada with considerable political and financial support from House Dariosa.

With the expertise and influence of the League, the Emperor’s phobia was instead turned into a message of the danger of monsters. The famed writer and philologist Bhalram vur Ashoka wrote about his experience at the night of a Qeshabduqqah in Loharta in the rain season of 104:



After 110, it became harder and harder for many of the rojas to justify cooperation with monsters. The League had led riot after riot, and the Emperor had intentionally refused to stop them. While Basusa’s line of Abikdu were steadfast in their vow to not harm humans, the beasts of lesser houses possessed not the sensibility of their king. One by one, the riots turned to bloodbaths, and more and more thukars and rojas began siding with the Emperor. Only Ahd-Siria, whose very roja was of Diamadra’s line, refused to give in, and the princedom became a safe haven for monsters for centuries. While the Emperor wanted the monsters banished all as one, there was nothing he could really do - the monsters still outnumbered the troops in his army, and they had only left as peacefully as they had because Basusa had told them to.

However, now that the Emperor had the, for the lack of another term, peace of mind to focus on other matters, he discovered the plethora of issues his crusade against our family had created: With the army size reduced by six tenths, a majority of the Empire’s lands were now unguarded and unpatrolled; the ruffian Rastaqira had run free for seven years and had by now amassed an army of outraged workers around the entire empire who had been the victims of corrupt overlords who had embezzled great amounts of wealth while the Emperor had not been looking; in the southern rojalores, raids from the Fungal barbarians impacted key trade networks and left deep marks in the financial revenue of the Imperial state.

This was when the Emperor committed his greatest crime yet, one which our empire has never and, according to our agro-magicians, will never recover from without the help of our great and merciful gods: As the affluent urban populations of the Empire began to join the uprisings, the Emperor reached out to the City, to a young man named Antriocu il’Ambrusu who led the largest mercenary company in the Chabaral. The Emperor offered him ten thousand balahr to burn and uproot all of our Empire’s self-tilling crops.

The idea was likely that this would force the urban citizens into the countryside to do agriculture by hand, as they did in the Chabaral and the Southern Kingdoms. No one had expected this - not in anyone’s wildest dreams could they have expected the very source of the Empire’s growth, the crops that tilled themselves, to be ripped away in less than ten years’ time, and Antriocu did his work well. In the span of three years, him and his soldiers had turned the Imperial countryside into an ashen wasteland.

You might be asking yourself at this point: How could this happen? How did no one stand up against the mad emperor? In truth, we do not know. Writings for this particular decade and much of the following time are incredibly hard to come by. We do not know what went on in the palace after 113, but there have been speculations: The Emperor would not pass away for another thirteen years, so it is widely assumed that the Emperor was escorted away from Loharta and kept safe somewhere else, most likely with the only allies he had left - the Supreme League of Humanity. From here, we no longer have Imperial sources until many centuries later, but are instead going to rely on writings from the many scholars of the Red College, particularly one by the name of Spicciu il’Petru di’Ventu. I can say, though, that the final thirteen years of the Emperor’s reign were devastating. A light in the darkness of history appears in 121 with the arrival of Red Antriocu, the same Antriocu who had raided the lands earlier, began his conquest of the Empire.

The exact fate of the Emperor is unknown. It is speculated that he was eventually found and killed by a coven of Qeshabdu, but this is contested. What is known, however, is that though he married at the age of 16 in 63, he only produced a single heir, Ossurman VI. However, when the Broken decided to banish monsters from his realm, a terrible disease infected the heir and killed the crown prince and his family. Thus, with the death of Ossurman IV, there was no one to inherit the throne. This compounded with the attack of Red Antriocu and the complete breakdown of order throughout the Empire as a result of famine and riots, the legacy of the All-Father and the Roaring Chengal descended into the Chaos.

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It is both humbling and disgraceful to realise that for most of its history, Our Empire has been either partially or completely divided. The only reason we know anything about this time period at all is thanks to the wise and magnificent scholars at the Red College, for the Imperial Academy in Loharta was burned down at least three times over the nearly two centuries of anarchy that was the Chaos. All sources from before this period have either been preserved in the vaults of the Imperial Palace or as personal collections.

So then what happened? What was the Chaos? In summary, the Chaos is an umbrella term to describe the period of time following the collapse of the Empire of the All-Father and the Roaring Chengal until the Chakravartian Renaissance of 313. The term is somewhat misleading as it implies complete disorder ruled for nearly two hundred years. This could not be farther from the truth: Several rojalores trace their most affluent days back to this era - the princedom of Gangh swelled into an economic juggernaut with the influx of traders from the Crafter Kingdoms after 165, and Chabaral settlers in the east introduced agricultural practices and food trade that stabilised the famine, influenced local cuisines and even led to a food surplus after a few decades. Though nowhere was as affluent and wealthy as it had been during the age of the unified empire, the world wasn’t in utter disrepair. However, the Empire never reformed during this time period, though there certainly were a great deal of attempts:

• With the death of Antriocu in 122, there was the Imperial Revival Rebellion in the countryside of the Osshur Princedom. While initially promising, they quickly fell into hostile factionalism as arguments arose about who would take over as Emperor once the revolution was over. One of these factions, the Lotus Banner, led by a milkmaid named Mujagasuna, began spreading their influence on the countryside and soon thereafter led a rebellion against the other factions who had claimed lordship over them. Mujagasuna was, to everyone’s surprise, supposedly a magnificent fighter - it was said her bare hand to cleave a stone in two. They managed to undo the other factions and nearly take Loharta, but the movement broke apart when Mujagasuna was captured and executed at the hands of Bos-Kali the Immortal in 129 and sacrificed to the Umati.
• In 130, the princess of Lahmi, Drishdi vur Pajruti, sought to unite the Empire by picking out a common enemy. She managed to unite the princedoms of Gangh, Osshur and Rusajar in invading the Fungal Lands once more. While the new technology of the naav haqsholottelana managed to cause more damage to the woods themselves, this brought the remnants of the Empire no closer in actually taking any land. This event, dubbed the Second Southern War, like its preceding conflict, went nowhere.
• In the spring of 135, there was the Chandramaya Uprising in Chandra rojalore, in which the grandchild of Lahmore vur Chandramaya, Punjabu, claimed to be descended from the Imperial line. While technically true, he was not of house vur Chakravarti and had no actual claim to the Imperial throne. The uprising received little support outside of Chandra and was quickly snuffed out by the other princes.
• In the late autumn of 148, there was the Society of the Heavenly Way, a peculiar sect of the Chakravartian monastic order who were known for combining the standard cult of the Eight-Armed God with Hiiroan trances and the riotous nature of Ojinn the Aloof. They briefly grew quite popular in Loharta and Osshur Princedom, but when they attempted to establish a theocracy, a faction within the sect rebelled against the leaders and the organisation collapsed into pockets from there.
• In the period between 199 and 211, the reunification efforts actually got quite close during the Krishnaya Rebellion. The great-great granddaughter of the Chengal, one Krishnaya, amassed quite a following of peasants and lay clergy in 199 and managed to unite four princedoms under her banner. Supposedly descended from a bastard of Ossurman V, Krishnaya’s heritage has been the subject of dispute within the Chakravartian scholar and monastic circles for centuries. What is known, however, is that when she requested a boon from the Eight-Armed God, they answered, and she was granted skin that could not be wounded by either swords, arrows or bullets. Unfortunately, during a banquet to celebrate the reconquest of Loharta in 211, Krishnaya died from what was suspected to be poisoning.
• During this same time period (199-211), the princedoms of Lahmi and Rusajar formed a coalition against the aggressive expansion of Luonnada. After defeating the Luonnadan army in the spring of 211 and hearing of Krishnaya’s death in the autumn, Lahmi and Rusajar crowned Chandragupta III vur Rusajar to Glorious Emperor of Osshuria and mustered their forces to move on Loharta. Krishnaya’s daughter, Krishnaya II vur Osshurmani, pleaded like her mother had to the Eight-Armed God to be accepted into their house so people may see the true empress for who she was. Unfortunately, the message was intercepted on the way and someone edited the name to say Chandragupta instead. The Family God agreed and adopted Chandragupta into their house. For a year or so, the unification looked to be feasible: Krishnaya’s allies were beginning to move over to the side of the vur Chakravarti name. However, the Emperor Chandragupta was assassinated on the last day of that very same year.
• The following period (211-294) is known as the Time of the Ten Emperors. With the death of Chandragupta, all eyes immediately fixed on Krishnaya and her followers and blamed her for the incident, and alliances broke apart left and right. This is what can rightly be assumed to be the bloodiest section of the Chaos: All eight princedoms, plus two duchies, all claimed the title of Emperor, and all began fighting over it. After 20 years, ten had been reduced to five; after 40 years, three, and these three remained for the last forty years of the period. These were the Eastern Empire, ruled by claimant Chandragupta IV vur Chakravarti, the Maharojadom of Osshuria, ruled by Maharoja Qhosem vur Chabarala and the Northern Empire, ruled by claimant Chedavara vur Chandramaya.
• The Age of Three Dynasties (294-313) saw a period of relative peace compared to the previous age, yet it was very clear that each of the rulers wanted to unite the empire for themself. In the spring of 300, Chedavara vur Chandramaya passed away, and Chandragupta as a vur Chakravarti seized the chance to ask for the Eight-Armed God’s boon and declared war. The Eight-Armed God was at this point clearly fed up with the disarray of the empire, so they granted Chandragupta chests upon chests of gold and jewels as financing for the campaign. However, such an influx of wealth was too enticing for the emperor to be, and the majority was spent on celebrating the victories they had not even earned yet. When the Eight-Armed God heard of this, they became so furious that they descended from the World Peak and travelled to Loharta themself.

This marked the end of the Chaos and the beginning of the Chakravartian Renaissance.

Despite making up a longer period of time than the reigns of the three first emperors, this chapter is not much longer than this. The reason is, as mentioned, our lack of sources from this period. It is not that people did not write anything down all of a sudden, but rather, the shifting powers and movement of people meant that many accounts of the time were lost on the way. Our most valuable sources come from either the Red College, whose scholars viewed the situation from the outside, or from the less affected princedoms like Gangh and Ahd-Siria. These two accounts each have their own issues: Gangh only briefly partook in the power struggles during the Time of the Ten Kings and otherwise observed the situations from the outside; Ahd-Siria partook quite a bit, but sources from there tend to frame the conflicts between humans rather poorly. To quote Matriarch Ninurda vur Huridimmah:



We will therefore not discuss this period much more. If you are interested, though, dear reader, I can recommend Filippu il’Carlu Cumaea’s thorough and fabulous tome “The Year Our Neighbour Disappeared” which outlines the full history of the period in a much more detailed way than I do, and used a much more approachable language. It can be rented at the Red College and Imperial Academy libraries.

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The Chakavartian Renaissance is the name given to the time period of the rebirth of the Empire, also known as the Second Golden Age. After two hundred years of failed attempts to reunify the realm of the All-Father and the Chengal, the Eight-Armed God themself descended from their Palace of Gold and Silver atop the Peak of the World along a bridge of sunlight, along with their following of ten thousand monks, ten thousand nuns, a thousand carts of food and a thousand carts of gold. They and all the gods knew - the Empire was in dire need of this. To quote the poet Badhaqqanassuna:



And the Eight-Armed God wasted absolutely no time setting things right. Upon their arrival in the capital, they immediately sent their monks and nuns to all four corners of the empire, each with a pocket of gold and a message at heart:



In the following months, myriads upon myriads of princes, dukes, counts and village elders travelled to the capital to behold the Eight-Armed God. The pilgrimage was unheard of in the Empire’s history, even outdoing the grotesquely profligate pilgrimage to the First Tomb by Princess Vinyasana vur Rusajar in 228, during which it was said that the army of people in her following emptied every larder by the pilgrim’s route and the sums of gold and silver spent from Jassahm to the Tomb caused inflation in every town and city in between. Everyone came to swear fealty to the new Emperor, for none dared defy a god.

But who was the new Emperor? Well, after punishing the sitting Chandragupta IV for his incompetence as a leader and human being, they unseated him and banished him from the realm, along with anyone in his court who had shown signs of corruption, which proved to be most of the court. Likely aiming to copy the formula that had already worked once, the Matripatrihierarch briefly undid all laws of succession within their house and looked simply for the nearest, most convenient apprentice. In the end, within a year of their arrival, they chose Chandragupta’s newborn son and named him Ossurman VII.

For the next thirty-five years, the Eight-Armed God ruled the Empire with divine might and holy grace while rigorously drilling all manner of knowledge about statecraft, diplomacy, warfare and so on into the mind of their new son, much with the help of their concubines. This period is marked by growth in every sector: The fields blossomed with food, the economy flourished with trade, peace and security was at an all-time high. It was to be expected, of course - whoever would rebel against a god like the Matripatrihierarch?

Some tried, of course. An ancient secret society known as the Children of Raj attempted to stage a large-scale rebellion in 325 against what they deemed to be “the tyrannical rule of a god of oppression.” Whatever their motivation, the movement did not make it far. Refusing to take any chances, the Eight-Armed God graced the rebels with their personal presence as they attempted to sack Jassahm. Records hereafter only reference the Children of Raj in the past tense. A few sources confirm that the society’s possible leader, Gurajput, was executed and offered to the magnificent Umati known as Nahia, the Green Song Seeking the Virtuous, for the young crown-prince’s eighth birthday. The performance entertained the entire capital for weeks. Though a common sight at all parties for several centuries, her performance was beyond stellar that year - my colleague vur Amarjeet, a magister and expert on Umati rituals, believed Gurajput had been a so-called “saint of defiance” and was therefore worth quite a bit as far as souls go.

One last thing to note during this period was the Eight-Armed God’s introduction of the Monastic Duty. All members within the Chakravartian dynasty would spend at least a decade in a Chakravartian monastery to learn the necessary humility and filial piety required to adequately serve as royalty. During this time, they were to sever connections with their families and live as the Orphans of Sin, those many ungrateful children who had cast aside their family for their own gain and went into the service of the Eight-Armed God to make amends. The children of the dynasty would learn to cherish their kin above all else and to labour with mind and hands.

This worked… Partially. There have been a few episodes throughout history wherein monks and nuns who were to return to their families have chosen to stay in the service of the gods, seeing their colleagues as their new family instead. It has not happened too often, but often enough to question the effectiveness of the Duty. But who am I to question divinity?

In 348, on the Emperor’s 35th birthday, the Eight-Armed God declared that the Emperor was ready to rule and returned home to the Palace of Gold and Silver. With the second enormous influx of traders from the Crafter Kingdoms beginning only five years earlier, the Empire was in such a state that it would take woefully clumsy rulership to undo its prosperity. Thankfully, Ossurman VI had been trained well from birth to be the perfect leader, and while he would not go into the history books in such a gilded manner as the All-Father and the Roaring Chengal, he would rule for forty-two years without considerable incidents threatening to ruin the project of the Matripatrihierarch.

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We have now reached the commonly named “Hundred Years of Peace” or the “Rule of the Four Sages”, as it also is called. I will not go into as much detail about this period, as so much of it already is common knowledge. If you do wish to read about the details of the four Sage Emperors, though, dear reader, I can recommend my predecessor’s fantastic compendium on the time period, “The Hundred Years of Peace: A History”. Here, I will merely outline the families of each emperor up until His Glory and briefly summarise their reigns:

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A pious and moral man. His rule was one marked by peace and stability, with the exception of two small revolts in the Luonna Princedom, once again as a reaction to local slavery customs. One of these, the Blue Dawn Rebellion, nearly made its way beyond the Princedom under the leadership of Robertiu il’Trevaldiu, but was crushed by the combined armies of Rusajar and Osshuria. It was also Ossurman VII who first hired the Osshur Ammaniroga, the most elite of elite soldiers from the Red City, to serve as his and his children’s royal guard. He was a conservative man, as well, and took only a single wife, Hamassuna vur Chandramaya (m. 333). They had three children together:

• Ossurman VII (b. 335): Under orders from the Eight-Armed God, all heirs were to be groomed extensively from birth. The young crown prince was said to be drilled like a dog from morning until evening until he knew his lessons perfectly.
• Singhpiritu (b. 339): After completing his monastic duty, it became clear Singhpiritu was never destined to lead. He thus forfeited all of his title claims and travelled to the Red City looking for work, where he married into a rancher family and frequently hosted his brother’s company whenever they would pass through on a pilgrimage. He would later form his own house called di’Sint-Piritiu.
• Travanya (b. 352): The youngest of the litter. She went into monastic duty and would later go on to become abess of the Summerblossom Temple in Loharta. She never formed a close relationship with her family and quickly grew to think of the monastery as her family instead.

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Though some describe Ossurman VIII as a stone-faced machine, the Empire was ruled with security and efficiency under the so-called Friend of the Elephants. The Emperor may not have been the most social, but he was both wise and intelligent and perhaps most importantly - he was steadfast in his principles. Incorruptible like few, he let not a coin go to waste when planning and building infrastructure, and his impeccable roads - so-called Elephant Roads as a testament to how durable they are - are the very same we travel along today. Like his father, Ossurman VII only took one wife, Kaguya “the Nushdig” of Paradisia (m. 341), but had many more children:

• Ossurman IX (b. 353): One of four quadruplets, Ossurman VII was born sickly, and many feared that Ossurman VII would mark the end of the prosperous age and be a repeat of the terrible reign of the Broken. However, the young man showed within only a few years that he would become a mighty leader in spite of his weakness.
• Chandra (b. 353): Chandra was long jealous of his brother for his destiny to become emperor despite his weakness. This lead the young man to grow arrogant and bullheaded. In 373, he left on a mission to reclaim the long lost Armour of the All-Father, the legendary regalia forged by Uwné and given to Ossurman I, to prove his worth. He never came back.
• Masayana (b. 353): Like her brother Ossurman, Masayana was born sickly. She would unfortunately never improve as her brother did, and remained bedridden all her life until her tragic passing in 368 from pneumonia.
• Teravada (b. 353): Teravada was a bookworm and a recluse from his childhood. Some say he suffered from a skin condition which made him wary of the Su’une, though others say he was weak of bone and could not move as dexterously as the other children. He would later take the Magnomathicians’ Exam at the Red College and write his thesis “On the Subject of Leylines: A Critique.”
• Bahadana (b. 357): As the only child on the flock to not have a sibling, Bahadana always balanced on the line between being recognised and ignored by her siblings. She went to do her monastic duty in the Summerblossom Temple, where she met her aunt and ultimately stayed for the rest of her life, being elected temple abess in 391.
• Rajaman (b. 361): An all-too-easily influenced boy, Rajaman took after his arrogant brother Chandra, but instead of hunting for lost treasures, he went to the Red City to study at the Military Academy. He later joined the mercenary band known as the Swords of di’Corleionu and did not return to the Imperial court thereafter.
• Tevasana (b. 361): While Tevasana initially wanted to join her twin brother’s adventures, in 382 she was forced by her father to marry Darius Magnusu Darioso, the prince of Luonnada, as bad blood had boiled forth between them and the Imperial family. She reportedly hated every day at court in Luonnada and attempted to escape several times. She would pass away in 411 after complications following an attempted suicide by poison.

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The fate of Ossurman IX is, in truth, quite tragic. The man had worked immensely hard from day one to ascend beyond his weakness as a sickly boy and ended up outliving most of his siblings - and yet his father would rule for so long that by the time Ossurman IX inherited the throne, his sickly body could hardly stand. Still, in service of his father, he had been a remarkable administrator and completely rebuilt the sewers of Loharta so that sewage no longer ran through the streets and into the canals, but went directly into the Blue Ribbon Sea. As a man who had studied and lived by tradition, he took four wives throughout his life, though none of them bore children like his mother had, much of it due to miscarriages which seemed to plague the Emperor’s wives quite a bit, particularly his Prime Concubine.

List of wives:

• Rajanaya vur Chandramaya (m. 369): The First Concubine of the Emperor was a jealous and vile woman, my predecessor used to say. Power-hungry from the day of their marriage, Rajanaya promptly attempted to have the court rid of everyone who crossed her ambitions. While only partially successful, she did manage to garner a reputation as a vicious and merciless schemer, culminating in her framing of Averiza in 401. When the Emperor passed in 422, the queen attempted to seize empire-wide power by claiming the throne from her son. However, she was unsuccessful and was placed under house arrest in 423, where she eventually died of old age in 434. Despite her actions in life, her children still built her a sizeable tomb and dedicated to her a flower garden in Loharta called “the Tasteful Field.”
• Averiza il’Dugiu di’Cossigu (m. 371): The di’Cossigus of the Red City have always been a favourite house to intermarry with for the imperial line. Averiza, unlike many other Hursarian ladies of the Empire’s past, took extraordinarily well to her new role as queen. She grew immensely popular at court - so popular that rumours started to circulate about her nightly activities with the court. In 401, Rajanaya publicly accused her of infidelity. The claim was initially thought to be one made out of jealousy, but soon after, one of the emperor’s advisors confessed that he had had illicit relations with the Queen. In 405 thus Averiza was forced into house arrest, where she remained until the Emperor’s death in 422, after which she returned home to her family in the Red City.
• Cionn apConlaoch (m. 376): Wishing to tie alliances with the Elven Warlords of the Far East, the Emperor elected to marry a prominent warrior by the name of Cionn. While it became clear quite early that she was not well-suited for court, her exotic looks and nature drew the interest of several nobles in the Palace. Contemporary scholars have compared her treatment to that of the pets of the Emperor’s zoological garden and it was hardly far off. Sources say she was aware of this treatment and was likely counting the days until she could leave. With the Emperor’s death in 422, she took her son Éogan and left for the Elven Lands. While Éogan sometimes returns to see his brother the Emperor, Cionn would never again set foot on Imperial soil.
• Mushmahhu Basusadra (m. 380): With encouragement from the Matripatrihierarch, the Emperor chose to marry the Qeshabdu Mushmahhu of Basusa’s house. It became evident early, unfortunately, that the marriage had been one of business: The two were rarely seen together publically, and it was clear that the avoidance was on the Emperor’s behalf. After Mushmahhu became pregnant with their daughter Kulildu, the two supposedly never spoke again.

List of children by wife:

• Rajanaya vur Chandramaya:
  
  • Bhatima (b. 369): Bhatima came in many ways as a shock to the family. The last two Imperial heirs had both been firstborns. She was therefore seen as an unfortunate weight on the Imperial family. The young princess became a depressed soul, which reverted back to anger when she one day ran from the Palace to join a circus known as the Acolytes of Nahia. She performed throughout the Empire under a different name - Sheherasahad - until she was reportedly returned to the royal tombs after her passing in 438.
  • Ossurman X (b. 380): Our Emperor, blessed be His name and glory. With the way the rest of the family turned out, there was for a time uncertainty and rumours circulating the Emperor’s potency, so to speak. Luckily the First Concubine eventually birthed the Emperor a son. With a powerful legacy like his, it is no wonder that he has been included as the fourth sage prehumously.
• Averiza il’Dugiu di’Cossigu:
  
  • Mahatma (b. 372): Mahatma became like his uncle Teravada - devoting a great deal of time to his studies, he eventually moved to Oraeculos to study magic at the Irodemia Principa. After completing his basic education, however, he grew fascinated by the theoretical discussions of magic and decided to take exams at the Irodemia Eximia. He wrote his thesis on magnometry, naming it “On Arrays and Spatial Rifts: An Introduction.”
• Cionn apConlaoch:
  
  • Éoghan (b. 379): Like his mother, Éoghan too was seen as an exotic prize at court. Half-elves are rare here in the north, so he became very popular at court early. This earned him a great number of friends and romances growing up, and in contrast to his mother’s hate for the court, Éoghan grew to enjoy the fame. While he ultimately moved to the Elven Lands after his father’s death, he frequently travels back to the Empire to see his family and friends and to spend money on town debauchery.
• Mushmahhu Basusadra:
  
  • Kulildu (b. 384): Kulildu’s life has not been simple at any point in her life. In many ways, she has served as a reminder that we still have quite a lot of work to do still in uniting humans and monsters as allies again. The wounds of the Broken cut deep, and few children of man and monster can live today free of harassment. As she never developed much of a relationship with any of her siblings, Kulildu was quick to leave court. She was only fourteen when she moved to stay with her kin in Ahd-Siria, where she became true Qeshabdu and now is a member of the Coven of the Fertile Queen.

---

With the death of Ossurman IX and coronation of Ossurman X, we enter into our contemporary era. The last thirty years under Ossurman X have been years of peace and stability, and with the execution of the so-called “saint” Al-Yeeshah in 440, who has tainted the countryside for twenty years with raids and lootings, we have had ten years of unparalleled harmony within the empire. The brigand was given to Raisa the Infinite Field that Sows Beauty in Their Hearts, and she painted the whole imperial family’s portraits. Tragically, Prince Ossurman XI passed away in 443, a year before I started this project, after a terrible indigestion took his life, but we will always have the Umati’s beautiful image to remember him by.

His Glory’s family is large - not the largest in his dynasty, but certainly not small. He took four wives like his father. These are:

• Vinitreya vur Krishtaleya (m. 401). Said to be the most beautiful woman in the realm, Vinitreya hails from the Crystal Lands, where all who live are said to grow into the most beautiful beings in Creation.
• Amée Lynette d'Kollnel (m. 420). Daughter of the Falcon Emperor, Amée has been a welcome addition to our court, having married the emperor young and grown up beside him. She knows our customs well and knows when she may bring up her own ways in public. Truly exemplary integration.
• Tristana Dariosa (m. 421). A most worthy queen who hails from Luonnada. A most gregarious and giving soul, we are lucky to have her as our Emperor’s wife. Unfortunately, the queen has been plagued by a cursed womb, and has yet to give the Emperor a worthy son.
• Phaera II (m. 429). An exotic princess from Hubbshqura. A master of magic, she is a great asset to the imperial family.

The list of children by wife:

• Vinitreya vur Krishtaleya:
  
  • Ossurman XI (b. 404). A most worthy and ideal crown-prince, though not long for this world. He passed so suddenly in 443, leaving his little brother with the title.
  • Ishani (b. 412). A young and kind princess who has yet to return from her monastic duty.
  • Ossurman XII (b. 429). Originally named Indra and not destined for the throne, the new crown-prince has taken to his role with pride and strength.
• Amée Lynette d'Kollnel:
  
  • Ferosh (b. 425): A pleasant young man who takes after his mother.
  • Gobala (b. 428): A young and playful man who enjoys travelling to his mother’s home and meeting his grandparents.
• Tristana Dariosa:
  
  • Delshad (b. 423): Delshad was, cursed be fate and its demons, a stillborn. The queen wept for seven years.
  • Harshad (b. 430): Harshad ended the queen’s sorrow by being born a young, bright boy. However, he fell sick at the age of three and passed away. The queen fell into another four years of sorrow.
  • Kala (b. 437): A miracle birth long after the healers had declared Tristana barren. Kala has grown up to be a sweet young girl, and she no doubt has a future as a beautiful princess of the empire.
• Phaera II:
  
  • Inayah (b. 430): The young Inayah is a calm and collected soul, soon to be married.
  • Raela (b. 432): Phaera’s own little girl who takes after her in her magical proficiency.
  • Manu (b. 435): The youngest of Phaera’s children, Manu is a fiery soul in his most lively teens.

It is my honest opinion that our future as an empire is safe under the leadership of this glorious family. We may have had a difficult history, but now we are great again. Long live His Glory and long live the Empire of Osshuria!

Koine was currently busy examining various scrolls in her office, located in the second floor of the Huobi Bank. There was much work to do, and many ideas to generate for the bank's net business ventures. Setting down a scroll, Koine sighed. She got up from her chair to have a stretch, then walked over to the nearby window. The sun shined brightly, illuminating the room and the land around the building. Since the Loong were formed, they gathered together and turned a small town called Yingbi into a sprawling empire called the Qian Empire. There were a few bumps along the way, particularly with the discoveries of humans and Arachne which led to a few scuffles, but they were eventually integrated into the Qian Empire. Relations between the three races were mixed. The Loong got along surprisingly well with the Arachne, but generally saw the humans as an inferior species. The humans did not take kindly to their status in the Qian Empire, but there was currently little they could do. The Arachne took to humans better, though perhaps it was because they were an all-female species and instinctively caught males for reproductive purposes. Human males were a particular favorite, though any humanoid species that appeared similar would also suffice for them.

In the distance, there were some Loong and human ranchers leading along some pigs and milking cows. In another place, an old Loong was busy haggling with a young Arachne over the price of a bag of apples. And in yet another, a group of humans were having a shouting match against a Loong restaurant owner for refusing them service due to them being humans. All in all, the city was relatively peaceful, which Koine appreciated. Returning to her desk, Koine reached over and picked up a coin. It was one of the first few gold coins she had made, still molded with its original design. Perhaps someone would care to pay a fortune for it, but she kept it as a memento to remind herself of her beginning. She then flipped the coin, wondering which side it would land on. Just as she caught it in her palm, a knock sounded at the door.

"Enter," Koine said, and a Loong man walked inside, carrying a couple scrolls. Koine recognized him as one of her secretaries. "Madam, here are the invoices you requested," he reported, handing over the scrolls. "Thank you, Chen. Dismissed," Koine responded. As Chen turned around to leave, Koine suddenly added, "No wait. I need someone to bounce ideas off of right now, and you'll have to do." Chen was dumbstruck for a moment before replying, "Um, y-yes, madam."

"How are the clients?" Koine asked.

"Well, between certain individuals in the Ossurman Empire, as well as-"

"How much of the loans have been paid back as of today?"

"I... I believe only-"

"Are our currency supplies well stocked?"

"Um, there's-"

"News on the different departments? How about their project evaluations? Was that Rusty Industries advance declined, or was it Samson's?"

"I-I don't think-"

"Everything's come together now!" Koine exclaimed. With a wave of her hand, she added, "Thank you, Chen, you've been a great help. Dismissed."

Chen stared blankly at Koine for a second, dumbfounded, before snapping out of it. He bowed his head and soon left, shutting the door behind him. Koine placed the scrolls on the proper shelf, then took a quill and some parchment. Notes and drafts had to be taken for the her next business propositions.

A soft southern wind carried the fresh smell of the gardens into Phaera’s room, while the midday Su’une poured the midday heat through the windows onto her stone floor. Large, pink-colored curtains billowed in the floor-to-ceiling open windows. Phaera herself remained in the shadows. After more than two decades she still couldn’t fully handle the heat. The shadow was pleasant enough. Next to her sat a steam cup of tea, with a pot containing a Khatem flower. She had requested it specifically and the royal quartermaster was kind enough to procure it for her. It was a day like any other. Her eyes lazily scanned over the various scrolls she had with her. She studied magic slowly, carefully and relentlessly. This is what made her so powerful.

Then a knock disturbed her. Which did not happen often. Especially not during the midday. Nonetheless, she put the scroll down and stood up. When she opened the door she was greeted by a bowing man with long, colorful, flowing robes. “Apologies my lady. I was hoping I could discuss a certain matter with you today.”

Phaera smiled. “Of course, come on in.” With a wave she invited him inside. She was no stranger to humble servants. Though the robes marked him not as a servant but a Vizier. In the palace, there were no viziers that didn’t come from the nobility. “Do you want some tea? It’s Khatem. I believe this is the Culliaën breed.” She said as she motioned for the administrator to take a seat at the small, round table in the parlor.

“I… I believe that would be lovely, my lady.” The vizier said as he walked through her chamber towards the round table. It was set for visitors, with snacks like sweet pudding, grilled paneer cheese, and flatbread to serve it on. He took his seat as he looked around. Then he saw it: a glass bottle filled with what he knew to be cockroach milk. It stood there in view of everyone. Something shrieked from the corner. The Vizier almost jumped out of his chair as he turned around to see what it was: Phaera’s hunting falcon. It was looking quite menacingly at the man.

“Oh sush you.” The princess said playfully towards her pet. Though it seemed to heed her and quieted down. Then she turned back towards the vizier. He was nervous. Which meant he didn’t like being here. Still, she gave him another smile and poured another cup. It was a normal one for now. If he had been the Grand Vizier or someone of a higher rank she would have brought out her archaesukor pieces. Clay cups excavated from the various dig sites within the Kingdoms that are then repaired using silver and gold. Uwné had started the tradition over four centuries ago. And while there were a lot more cups now than back then, they were still a rarity and an honor to be served. She put another cup on her side of the table, which was only 90° away from the chair of the vizier. “So, what is it you would like to discuss?”

She was already gearing up to hear the bad news. Perhaps the day of marriage for Inayah was finally chosen. She would loath giving away her son like that but she knew it was necessary. Or perhaps it was about Manu. Youth and a fiery spirit were a lethal combination. Maybe he had challenged some other nobleman’s son to a duel. She would talk to him-

“It’s about Raela.”

Phaera frowned. Her sweet Raela? Innocent Raela? The girl that smiled and laughed and danced? “What happened?” The princess asked. She didn’t try to hide her motherly worry. Her mind instinctively went to the worst possible outcome: she was kidnapped. A fury was already rising up inside of her.

“Nothing, my lady. Nothing has happened.” The man quickly said. Which relaxed Phaera. For a moment everything was silent. Though the princess didn’t want to pull it out of him. Nervous men needed time to gather their courage. Eventually, he spoke: “But I’m afraid that’s the problem. You see my lady Raela is already eighteen, with no immediate suitor. It is believed now would be a good time to send her away for her… familial duty.”

Ah. So that was what this was about. The corner of Phaera’s mouth rose up a little, though she quickly masked it by taking a careful sip from her cup. “You speak of this… Monastic duty? Apologies, where would she be sent to then?” Her tone was still nice. She sounded genuine.

“T-The Summerblossom Temple has traditionally welcomed the royal children for their duty.” The administrator said.

Though he failed to mention that this was not in any way set in stone. It was tradition. Only that. If she wanted she could’ve sent her sweet little girl to the Springlotus Temple. Where incidentally they did teach her magic. She knew this because one of her handmaidens had mentioned it some days ago. But Phaera wasn’t stupid. Someone wanted her to do something and think it was her idea.

“Ten whole years.” She said as she lowered her cup and looked out over her beautiful, Su’une soaked garden. Colorful dircaans wandered over the grass, others lounged comfortably on the stone pathways. One was rambunctiously chasing a female. Meanwhile inside a silence had descended upon the room. She pretended to think on it. Then suddenly she looked up. “What is your name?”

“M-Me?” The vizier stuttered. “I am Balasuna vur Rusajar, my lady.”

“Right.” Phaera said as she stood up and walked into the light. Yes, it was much too hot. She turned around. Her shadow stretched out towards the feet of the administrator. “Balasuna, you will return to the Grand Vizier that has set you up to this task and you will make clear that what he seeks will not be done.”

The administrator shot up in shock. “But my lady! It is tradition that every child of the-“

He was silenced simply by her raised hand. “I will not send my daughter to become a farmer and a cheesemaker. I don’t care how traditional it is. Her gift lies with magic, which means it lies with me.” Or an Irodemia back home. Where Raela could get a proper education like she herself had. But the Grand Vizier didn’t need to know that just now. “Have I made myself clear?”

“My lady this- this is madness! Chakravarti themself-“

Again he was silenced by her raising her hand. “For all I care the eight-armed goddess descends from the heavens and tells me that Raela must go. She will not go and become a lugi herder.” As the heat fell on her open back it felt nice, pleasant now. She loved this land. It was beautiful. Not just the earth and the stones and the trees but also the people, the culture, the buildings. But they had odd traditions. Strange customs. She had tried, truly, to understand why she would have to send her children away someday. In the first ten years of her marriage, she had visited the Summerblossom monastery many times. Every time she stayed for a week to try out the life. Every time she left happy to return to the palace. It was no life for a child as gifted as Raela. It was no place for a future king.

The poor vizier, a victim in this shadowy game she had now started, looked harrowed by her decision. Though he offered her no more fight. He simply fell back in his chair. Resigning to his fate. She felt for him. Well, perhaps it wasn’t yet time for his career to be executed just yet. “Come with me.” She said as she took a step to the side, showing the beautiful garden beyond the large windows. Her hand was outstretched, and half of her face once again lit by the sunlight. “I still have a few more questions. And I was hoping you would entertain me this afternoon.”

_{excerpt from:}





In a place beyond time and a time beyond space, in a distant realm and a faraway place, there lived a noble chieftain. He was a rich man with great stretches of land, and all the peoples of the Western Wilds attested to his nobility of mind and virtue. Though his sons were many, the chieftain had but the one daughter.

One day there came to him a poor but hardworking fellow who could find no work. He sat by the chieftain, his shoulders stooped and ears drooped, until the chieftain could not but ask what troubled him. "Ah, chieftain!" He cried, "I am a poor but hardworking man - if only I had good work to earn good bread so I can marry and bring joy to the hearts of my parents with grandsons and granddaughters! I am of strong build and all attest to my good work, but who would look on a poor man?"

The looked to him with sympathy and raised his hand. "Say no more my good man, your matter is solved." And so he called to his daughter and she came and stood at a distance, looking shyly from the young man to her father. "Look here my daughter, this is a poor hardworking man and he wishes after a good wife to guard his home and their children, so what say you?" And it was not long before they were married, and the chieftain employed his new son-in-law on some of his land and gave him a goodly stipend. And all was peace for a time.

One day the son-in-law came to the chieftain huffing and sighing and looking about him sadly so that the chieftain had not seated him long before he asked what was troubling him. "Oh! Father!" The son-in-law said - for sons-in-law were taken to calling their fathers-in-law by that in those days -, "I work day and night and I break my back, and all I get out of it is the pittance you afford me - and I look around me at all the unworked fields and am filled with misery. Oh what I would do if I could work them! Oh what I could do if I had but a little land to call my own."

The chieftain nodded in understanding and raised his hand to stop the lad from saying more. "Say no more, my son and consider your problem solved." And so he took him and showed him a great field, "this field before you, it is yours to work." And the son-in-law was filled with joy and thanked his father and blessed the Explorer for leading him to a father-in-law like him. So for a time the son-in-law worked the land and all was peace.

One day, after the chieftain had finished inspectings his herds, his son-in-law came and sat with him and he was sighing and huffing, and his brows were knotted and his eyes downcast in woe, so that he had not been sat down long before the chieftain asked him what was troubling him. "Oh! Father!" The son-in-law exclaimed, "I work these fields every day and every week, and look they are like a paradise. And I look beyond the smidgen of land I call my own to all the unworked fields and plains beyond, and I can only strike my head in woe and bemoan the fates. All these unworked fields and here I am, young and healthy and able to do so much more. If only I had more to work - why then all these steppes can be made to bloom."

On hearing this the chieftain raised his hand for his son-in-law to say no more. "Say nothing more my son, your matter is solved." And he took him so that they stood on a hill and all about them the fields stretched as far as the eye could see. "Here is my dagger. Tomorrow at su'unerise you will set out and walk as far as you wish, and when you reach a distance that pleases you only press this dagger into the ground and all that is behind it shall be yours. But hear my condition: you must return to this very spot before su'uneset."

And so the next day the son-in-law set out walking with excitement and vigour, his father-in-law's dagger in hand. He walked a great distance, and by the time the su'une was high in the sky he paused and wondered if it was sufficient. "No," he reasoned, "I should go a little more and then I can return running." And so he continued until it was late afternoon, and he wondered then if he should return. He paused and eyed the su'une, then shook his head. "No, I will have time if even an hour before su'uneset to return." And so he continued onward.

When night had fallen, the chieftain sat waiting on the hilltop and his son-in-law had yet to return. He looked on as the moon rose and only sipped on his tea of herbs and waited. Then he looked again when the moon was high in the sky and only sipped on his tea as his daughter approached with worry etched on her face. "Oh father, where is that husband of mine?" She asked.

"My daughter, return home and grow used to solitude for your husband is not returning this night or any night," he told her. But when the su'une rose she came pleading that he send out a party to look for him, and the chieftain complied. They did not find him, but found his corpse a long way from the hill he had been sprinting back towards, and the birds of the plains had had their way with his eyes and the worms sang and danced through his flesh. "Ah," said the chieftain when they brought the corpse to him, "but do we eat anything but dust?"

Learn, you who have wisdom, from that uncontended son-in-law. And you who seek after the stone of the philosophers and arcanists and metacausalists, which turns dust into gold: know that contentment is the metacausalist's stone!

• Summary [+]

  A parable from one of Mouse's books. It's about a son-in-law who asks for land to work. His father-in-law gives him the land. Then he returns and asks for more. The father-in-law tells him he can have as much as he likes, but that he just needs to come back within a given time to let him know how much he is taking. He takes so long that he ends dying of exhaustion/cardiac arrest from too much running or something. Moral of the tale is to not be a greedy bastard, nothing esoteric going on here.

---

The Surface-Gate of Kral-Norden, built against the side of a small mountain, was a formidable fortress, with tall stone walls, and a deep spiked ditch. The gate itself was impenetrable; it was made of thick wood reinforced with metal and enchantments, with a drawbridge and a portcullis as well. Dwarf-made cannons were mounted on the ramparts, and two banners were displayed proudly on the gatehouse. One was extremely similar in design to the banner of House Chakravarti, while the other was clearly of dwarven style, depicting the grey stone crown of the Clan Underking.

The gates were wide open today. Rarely had there ever been a cause for them to be closed, except at night. The city maintained close relations with the surface, and there had been no major incidents within living human memory. A pair of armoured dwarf guards flanked either side of the gate with arquebuses in hand and poleaxes on their backs, standing almost as still as statues.

A third dwarf stood amongst them, asking questions of those who wished to answer, and recording their answers in a book. If the visitors came with a cart, the two dwarves would stride forward to make a quick search of it. Once satisfied that they carried no contraband, the customs officer would simply ask them to take an oath that they would commit no crime nor harm against the Underking’s subjects while they were within the Underking’s realm. Only when that process was complete would they be allowed through.

In total, it was an immaculate system designed to control the inflow of guests and their role in the underkingdoms. Unfortunately, this only applied to mortality, and in the eyes of the onlooking Beyre -- it would be downright ridiculous to get caught in a queue meant for mortality.

Thinking herself sensible, Beyre quickly adopted a form neither here nor there, an ethereal body. Invisible to the corporeal realm and not bound by physical restrictions, Beyre took it upon herself to not only walk right in, but to pass directly through any mortals she would have had to wait in line behind, as a final sort of snicker at the idea of being stuck in queue.

Content, Beyre passed through the open doors. Within the walls was a small village, where humans and dwarves lived amongst one another. Most of the facilities here were intended either to service the influx of travellers, or the garrison that protected this place. But ultimately there was very little of note. Following the road through the small village, she would eventually come across the true gate, which led into the mountain itself, and from there, down into the depths of the Underkingdom.

---

Some time later…

For one not used to it, it was a hard journey to descend into the Underkingdom. One had to traverse what felt like hundreds upon hundreds of steps, passing through checkpoints and outposts, all of which were manned by dwarves. Some were friendly, others suspicious, but they allowed all travellers to pass. Fortunately it wasn’t too difficult to navigate - the corridors and stairways were illuminated by glowshrooms and enchanted lights, and in a few cases where the route became more complex than “just keep going down”, there were always signs to point the way.

Eventually she came upon the final door. This door was perhaps the sturdiest of all; it was made of solid metal, at the end of a long wide corridor of arrow slits and murderholes. Any who somehow managed to defy all odds and fight their way down to this point was assured to meet their doom here.

And when she passed through that last door, she finally emerged into the city of Kral-Norden itself. The vast cavern stretched on beyond mortal sight, although her divine senses could see the edges of it easily enough. The buildings were strong and sturdy, some of which extended all the way up to the cavern’s ceiling where they served as both housing and support beam.

There was more than enough light. A massive orange dome was mounted on the ceiling as well, glowing as if it were an artificial sun, and glowshrooms grew out of the cavern’s walls or in pots along the streets.

Sturdy walls separated the various districts - even so deep beneath the earth, behind so many fortresses and chokepoints, the dwarves were still concerned about defense.

At the far end of the cavern was a vast palace of granite and marble. A vast stairway lined with statues led up to its raised entrance, above which was a balcony which overlooked the entire city.

Squinting, Beyre tried her best to make out any holy buildings or places of worship. There were quite a few; ornate and sturdy temples of grey stone, scattered here and there. Standing on either side of the doorways were statues of the Underking Algrim and the Underqueen Arira, and directly above the door was the banner of the Underking Clan.

Picking the closest temple, Beyre took it upon herself to perform an inspection of sorts. Inside, despite its impressive construction, the temple was not particularly busy. Perhaps she had visited during its off hours, or perhaps the dwarfs prefered to honour their gods through crafts and architecture than actual ceremony. Either way, it was mostly empty; a vast stone room with rows upon rows of stone benches, which only a few dwarves sat upon. A robed dwarf priest was sweeping in the corner, although he was no mere civilian - a rather deadly-looking warhammer was hooked to his belt, and it did not appear to be ceremonial.

At the far end of the hall was a black stone altar with gilded edges and unlit silver braziers. Just behind the altar were two statues similar to the ones outside; one of the Underking, and one of the Underqueen. But there were other smaller statues beside them; some of which Beyre would recognize, while others were strangers. Their names, etched into the plinths upon which they stood, were as follows: Yaerna, Uwne, Chakravarti, Lonn.

Beyre knitted her ethereal brow. She ran her fingers across the smooth black altar, fingers passing through as she thought. Turning from the place of worship she called out to the priest, her form suddenly very corporeal.

“How do you honor these names?”

The priest jolted slightly. He had not seen her materialized, but her sudden interjection had nonetheless been unexpected. He was surprisingly young, at least by dwarf standards. His grip tensed on the broom and he looked up at her. Elsewhere in the room, one of the dwarves - an older looking man - muttered about the disrespect of humans; an orange eye glancing at him brieflyk.

Despite this, the priest took the question seriously. “Y’ stand in a Temple of the Pillars, lass,” he said. “Those monuments which ‘old th’ world together. These six are th’ builders and th’ keepers.”

He raised a hand and gestured to the statue of the Underking. “That is th’ Underking,” he said, his tone reverential. “Father and ruler to us all. Th’ pillars were ‘is idea, and ‘e ‘ad a ‘and in creatin’ each ‘un. Next to ‘im is the Underqueen, Keeper of the First Pillar. The Underking took ‘er as a bride, even though she was surfaceborn, and she rules beside ‘im.”

“As for th’ others?” he swept his hand to indicate the other four. “Lonn, Keeper of the Second. Chakravarti, Keeper of the Third, and the Underqueen’s mother. Yaerna, Keeper of the Fourth, and Uwne, Keeper of the Fifth,” he said. “We honour the others by maintainin’ these statues and rememberin’ their names, so that we never forget the duty they ‘ave embraced. Would be a damned rude thing, t’ forget somethin’ like that.”

The other dwarves nodded respectfully, and the priest continued on. “That’s not th’ only role they hold in our ‘earts, o’ course,” he said. “But in th’ context of this temple? That’s why they’re ‘ere. We ‘ave other gods too, who we honour in different ways, in different temples.” The young priest smiled slightly. “Do y’ understand?”

Beyre turned to the statues, pinching her chin in silent contemplation. A pregnant pause lingered between the question and Beyre, her gaze stuck flickering between the names until finally she opened her mouth. “What did they do?” She quickly added, “besides your father.”

The word was accompanied by the goddess’s own eyes lingering a second longer on Lonn’s name.

The priest did not seem to notice. “Before we Underkin walked under th’ land, the earth was unstable. No stability. Constant shakes and tremours. It would have come apart if nobody did anything. So, th’ Underking met th’ other gods ‘un by ‘un, and each ‘un joined their powers with ‘is. They ‘elped ‘im shape the pillars from the earth, an’ through the Underking’s might, they projected an aura of stability.”

“Some o’ these meetings went better than others, o’ course. According to our Prince, Lonn attacked th’ Underking on sight, not knowing who ‘e was. They say the Goddess o’ Families was so smitten by the Underking that she asked for ‘is ‘and, an’ ‘e refused. An’ the goddess Yaerna only agred to ‘elp ‘im after they worked together ta banish a mighty beast,” the Priest recounted. “Th’ meetings with th’ Underqueen and the Craftsman were uneventful, by comparison, but both went well.”

A certain light accompanied Beyre’s green eyes. “I think I understand.” A smile formed. “These subjects of your worship committed a helpful deed to you all, and so as such you honor them, yeah?” Beyre leaned in, studying the priest’s face eagerly.

“That’s aboot right,” the priest nodded. “Though it wasn’t just fer us. It was fer th’ entire world.”

Beyre folded her hands together, her thoughts spinnin quicker than she was listening. “If I did something nice for you, would you all honor my name as well?”

The dwarf priest blinked. “Well that depends on what ye do. Our scribes keep records, t’ honour those friends, allies, and ‘eroes who stand by us in our time o’ need.” He paused. “That is what y’ meant, right?”

“What do you like?” Beyre’s smile was wide and pearly, energy in her green eyes. “Do you like gold?”

The priest chuckled. “There isnae a dwarf alive who doesn’t like gold, ah don’t think. An’ I don’t think any o’ the temples would turn down a donation. Though, it’d take more than a donation or two t’ be honoured as a dwarf-friend. Who would y’ be, anyway? Is this yer first time in a dwarf city?”

Beyre nodded her head, eyes shimmering as they glanced off to nowhere in particular. Her smile turned soft before looking back at the priest. “It sure is! Oh, I’m excited, aren’t you?”

“Well yer not th’ first outsider I’ve spoken to, pretty as ye may be,” the priest said with a slight smirk. Which faded somewhat when the old dwarf shook his head and muttered something about the folly of youth; again a sneaky orange eye glared at him for a moment. The white-bearded dwarf paid her no mind, and instead got up to leave.

The young priest had not noticed the look in her eye, not until the old man had reached the temple door -- which swung wide as he approached. The stiff material of the door slammed into the old man, sending him and a tooth of his to the ground.

“Oh dear!” the old woman who had launched the door open gasped.

The priest rushed over to the old man and helped him to his feet. “Are y’ alright?” he asked, but the old man merely grumbled something unintelligible and stormed out of the building.

“How [color=orange]unlucky[.color],” Beyre said, every bit of her lips curling into a frown, save the very tips. Not wasting any more time on the fuss, Beyre approached the priest once more.

“What else do you like?”

The priest did not reply to her at first. Instead he consoled the old woman who had accidentally knocked the other dwarf over, before directing her to a seat. Only then did he turn to Beyre. “Sorry, lass,” he said. “It’s nice that ye’ve taken an’ interest in our ways - more than most surfacers would - but ah really need t’ get back t’ my duties. Yer welcome t’ stop by later, if ye ‘ave more questions, or yer free t’ take a seat if ye just want t’ think or pray.”

“Wait,” Beyre said with a tense urgency. After she simply stared hard at the priest -- as if she was waiting too.

The priest stared at her for a few moments, his brow furrowed. When it seemed as if nothing would happen, he began to turn away.

Beyre grabbed his shoulders to hold him still. “[green]Wait![/green]”

The priest tensed, and the other dwarves still in the room rose from their seats. “Lass-” the priest began...

Before he could finish, the temple door whooshed open again; but this time a dwarf a shade younger than the priest came huffing through -- face redder than a ruby. He ran right up to the priest, paying no mind to the strange woman holding his shoulders and began to shovel words out between puffs of breath.

“Brother!” His eyes were wide with excitement. “I... whew! I... brother! You won’t believe it!”

Beyre let go of the priest, smiling wide and taking two steps back.

“Bloody ‘ell, what now?” the priest growled, his patience having finally faded. Instead of words, the younger brother simply slapped a yellowed piece of paper to the priest’s chest.

“Map... Grandfather... gold!”

“What?” the priest stared at him in confusion, before his expression turned to worry. “By the gods… ‘as grandfather’s madness taken ye as well?”

The brother stabbed his finger into the paper he already pinned to the priest’s chest. “Take a look fer yourself ye ass.”

Shaking his head, and looking more than a little embarrassed at the fact that all this was happening in his place of work, the priest pushed his brother’s hand aside and turned the map over so he could take a look. He stared at it for a few moments, as if trying to work out what exactly he was seeing. Then, realization struck. “By the Pillars…” he whispered.

The priest’s brother smiled wide, a silver tooth catching the light. He slowly nodded his head. “Gold. The lost gold vein Grandfather found.”

“Th’ map was real?” the priest asked, before noticing that the rest of the templegoers had begun to approach - clearly the idea of a map to secret gold intrigued them as well. The priest held the map to his chest so they could not see it. “Where did y’ find it?”

“Wouldn’t ye know it, I was cleanin’ the old sod’s basement whe’rin he laid Gramma’s old books she used to like before she passed n’ I stub me toe and this big old tome falls down and when I went to pick ‘er up, me thumb opened to a page where’in this map was saving place!”

“Very lucky!” Beyre chimed in.

The priest looked around, still conscious of the eyes on him. Then, he handed the map back to his brother. “Go home,” he said. “Keep it secret, an’ keep it safe. We’ll talk aboot this later.”

“UH HUH!” The younger brother held the map close to his chest and all but skipped out of the temple. A mad cackle could be heard as he ran down the streets, punctuated by the closing of the temple door. Already, Beyre was standing over the priest’s shoulder, a smile bigger than his brother’s.

Disappointed, some of the templegoers returned to their seats, while others left the building. Once things were settled, the priest turned back to Beyre. “I’d like t’ speak with ye outside,” he said.

“Okay.” Beyre was already moving towards the door. Passing through she stood completely still until the priest was also through, at which point she blatantly spoke, “Can I have my name on the wall now?”

But the priest only stared at her, keeping his emotions closely guarded. “Who are you?” he asked her.

“I’m Beyre, the lady of luck!” She rolled her eyes. “You’d think there would be some appreciation for chance around here already.”

The priests eyebrows rose. “So… yer a goddess, then?” he asked. “Truly?”

Beyre held a finger to her lips. “Just don’t tell everyone what I look like, yeah? I forgot to change before this and I need this one.”

The dwarf did not give much indication on whether or not he heard her. He spoke quickly, his words outrunning his thoughts. “Ye should introduce yerself to the Prince,” he said. “If ye are a goddess, or someone of great power, he’d be ‘appy to receive you. An’ if yer ‘ere t’ ‘elp, ‘e can tell you how. And…” he paused. “An’ thank ye for th’ map, if that was yer doing. I don’t know how ye would ‘ave done it, but… it may ‘ave saved my family.”

“That’s good luck,” Beyre agreed, “you’re welcome.” She looked around for a moment before looking back at the priest. “The other ones never helped you personally, yeah?”

“Personally?” the priest asked. “Well, aside from all th’ great deeds they performed… no, they never ‘elped me specifically…” he said his voice seeming to trail off, before he spoke with new urgency. “Not that they had much reason to, o’ course.”

“Ha!” Beyre seemed to be celebrating a small victory. “How short sighted of them.” Finished with her contentment she grinned. “Take me to your prince.”

The priest blinked. “Right now?”

“You’re the one who suggested it, yeah?” Beyre was quick to cross her arms.

“I… I did,” the priest nodded, though he was clearly taken aback by the enormity of what was just asked of him. “V-very well. Let’s go.”

“Yes!” Beyre shook the dwarf by the shoulder. “And when we get there, you can present me!”

---

The guards standing before the outer gate of the palace could have been mistaken for statues. They stood ramrod straight and perfectly still in their heavy armour, with halberds in their hands, swords at their belts, and large shields on their backs. If the priest had not addressed them, there would have been no indication that they were alive at all.

“I am Brother Ranulf of the Temple of the Pillars,” he said. He waved a hand to indicate his charge. “And this is Beyre… the Goddess of Luck.” He took a deep breath. “She wishes t’ meet his lordship; the Prince of the Underkingdom and the Tzar of Kral-Nordern.”

Beyre stood there, having changed her look about partway to the palace. She did away with the disguise of Nellie the Red in favor of a more transcendent appearance. Her dark red hair remained the same, as did her complexion -- but one half of her was stained orange, the eye on that half of her face as bright as a fresh citrus. Her Red City clothes were replaced with a long green dress pierced with stitchings of clover and heather -- something Nellie would never be caught wearing.

Her smile quickly faded, clearly expecting something more than the silence she was receiving.

Without saying a word, the two guards bowed in perfect synchrony. Then, with flawless precision, one of them turned and marched through the gate, up the steps to the Palace.

“The Silent Guard,” Ranulf explained. “They don’t speak a word. Not while on duty. Probably going to inform the Prince of your coming.”

“Well let’s hope they don’t trip on the way.” Beyre crossed her arms.

A minute passed in awkward silence. Then, the sound of footsteps and clanking metal could be heard as the guard returned. He nodded to the other guard, who nodded back, before turning to face them once more. They offered another bow, before one of them gestured for the two to follow. And with that, he went back through the gates again, while the second guard moved aside to let them pass.

And so, a goddess and two dwarves passed the threshold of the gatehouse and ascended the steps of the palace, under the watchful gaze of the statues of dwarven lords and heroes. They reached the top, where more guards stood at attention, but stepped aside to open the door for them.

Then they entered a grand entryhall, with carpets, candles, sculptures, and paintings. They carried on to a pair of doors at the far end, and upon passing through those, they entered the throne room. It was spacious, with a high ceiling from which two ornate chandeliers hung. A carpet led from the door to the throne, and on either side were crowds of nobles, merchants, military officers, and other prominent citizens.

Upon the throne itself sat a man who could only be the Prince. He looked young, as far as dwarves went. He wore armour that appeared to be made from silver with a golden trim, and had a luxurious red silk cape. His hair was short and blond, but his beard was at least a foot in length. Upon his brow was a crown, in the center of which was a large perfectly spherical emerald. And around his neck was an amulet with a sapphire of similar size. He would have been handsome, if not for the patch of stony skin on his right cheek.

As they approached the throne, the Prince rose to his feet, descended the steps of his throne, and offered them a slight bow. “Arvid Algrimson welcomes you, self-proclaimed Goddess,” he said.

The priest, Ranulf stepped forward. “This is Beyre, the Goddess of Luck,” he said, by way of introduction.

“And this is Ranulf.” Beyre put her hand on the priest’s shoulder. “Your best dwarf.”

Arvid’s eyebrows rose. “High praise,” he said. “What service did the lad perform for you?”

“Me?” Beyre let out a laugh not quite sarcastic but not quite genuine. “He brought to my attention, a literal Goddess of extreme power, how great your people are. So now I’m here, in all my might, impressed and happy with the dwarves.”

“Well it is good to know we ‘ave impressed you so,” the Prince went on. “Had we known you were coming, we would ‘ave prepared a better welcome. May I ask what brings ye to our city?”

“I was curious,” Beyre admitted easily. She started to walk around the room, eager to prod the decorations and gaze up at the chandeliers. Her pacing continued with her speech, “I was really wondering how you all handled chance and what you thought of me. Ranulf showed me that you enjoy me very much, for sure.”

“Always a risk involved in mining and trading,” the Prince said, “and those are the Underkin’s lot in life.”

“Yeah, well, um...” Beyre turned to the prince. “So you could sort of say I’m very prevalent in your society.”

“Is that what ye wish fer?” Arvid asked. “A place in our pantheon?”

“Seems only fair, doesn’t it?” Beyre lost her composure for a moment, a snap of orange breaking into her usual complexion. “I mean anything could happen anytime, anywhere and no one seems to really appreciate it when it does or doesn’t!”

“That does seem fair,” Arvid said, his lips curling into a slight smile. “And easy enough to arrange, though it’ll take time t’ build temples and recruit new priests. But, if ye can swear an oath to safeguard an’ protect the luck o’ my people, I can swear an oath t’ revere you alongside the rest o’ our gods, an’ do my best t’ convince my people t’ do the same.”

“Well now hold on.” Beyre raised her palms, “As pleasant as that sounds, not everyone is lucky. If everyone was lucky then no-one would be lucky... or something. Either way, I can only go so far as to promise luck to those in my favor, and whatever chance may have in mind for those who are a little to the side of my... favor. Makes sense, right Ranulf?”

Ranulf nodded somewhat hesitantly.

Arvid continued speaking. “Oh, I’m not askin’ for us all to ‘ave windfalls and bountiful ‘arvests. If such a thing were possible, the gods would ‘ave done so long ago. An’ if they did, we’d all be a lot softer an’ weaker than we are now. What I’m askin’, is if ye can make occurrences of bad luck less common.”

“Oh! I know how to do that for sure.” Beyre smiled. “Keep me as happy as Ranulf managed this afternoon and you can have all the luck you want, or something. I think this is a good turn of events, yeah?”

“Indeed it is,” the Prince nodded. “Yer more than welcome t’ dine with us tonight, though it won’t be until tomorrow that a proper feast can be arranged. Until then, I can arrange t’ give you a tour of the palace or the city. Or I can ‘ave some bards and poets share our songs and histories. We Underkin are a hospitable people.”

“Mm! I like it, though I have to make a quick trip to the underworld in the morning -- but after that, let’s do!” Beyre clapped Ranulf on the back. “I told you it was going to be exciting!”

---

Unlucky in the Underworld
The Unexpected Arrival of Beyre

Unseen and unheard, the haunting melody of the Mundus Pits spread across the ethereal landscape and beckoned the lost souls of those that have died to their massive maws. The feast had begun and the spirits of the dead approached an archaic and alien metal platter at the end of a long walkway that hung over a great abyss. The otherworldly music called from the depths and lulled the many souls into a strange trance. There were incoherent hushed whispers among them, and a grave apprehension in the air.

Hundreds of souls soon gathered on the large precarious platform and patiently waited until eventually a colossal being had arisen from the darkness and grasped the plate, now laden with ghostly entities that did not react to this celestial creature's presence. The being pulled the plate down, gently transporting the host of souls lower into the sea of shadows, to the bottom of the abyss. After a time had passed, the colossus returned and allowed more spirits of the dead to step onto the platter to be carried down.

More and more souls were collected in this manner, until the edge of the abyss was a quiet and lonely place. The deep and chthonic melody could still be heard by those with senses beyond mortal perception, and it enticed those that did not know its origin, its purpose. The answer could only be found at the bottom of the abyss. A dangerous descent into the depths of the Underworld. But for Beyre, she had already found a way down -- on the edge of the plate, ethereal and more of a ghost than even the dead.

The journey only consisted of creeping closer to the sorrowful song while the massive monstrosity that transported them watched with a feral smile and merciless gaze. A curved horn jutted from the center of its head, and a multitude of limbs not preoccupied with holding the plate were either quietly shifting back and forth like serpents lulled to sleep, or carelessly climbing down the walls. Despite the destruction of the stone and various veins of unknown metals, there was no shaking and no loud noises. Only unsettling silence existed during the descent.

Time passed as they delved deeper and deeper...

The light had faded, but such was not needed for a god to see what was around them. An empty city spread along the lower walls and floor of the nigh endless pit; tens of thousands of decrepit stone structures resembling temples, but with great shrines and altars that burst forth from their interiors like blood from numerous cuts. There was no coherency in the placement of buildings scattered in all directions, growing atop each other like weeds and vines in a forgotten and unloved garden. The architecture was just as absurd, many of the buildings were vastly different in comparison to those beside them as though hundreds of minds from a myriad of cultures came together to design this settlement. Very few could be considered comfortable, and there were many that were simply disturbing to look at.

The music became more potent here, but there was also the faint sounds of battle farther. All of the small spirits were completely complacent, and merely stepped off of the plate when it alighted in a large clearing at the dead city's edge. The giant gestured for them to follow a collection of hallways that led into further undulating shadows and amorphous darkness. Once the plate was unburdened, the giant began its ascent back to the surface. It began to sing softly, its hollow voices resonating with the song that seeped into everything here.

Through the haunting halls and across a sea of shadows where pale clouds obscured even the eyes of a god, the distant roar of battle became louder, and still the spirits were calm. Suddenly the thunderous ruptures of cannons and nightmarish screams ended and only the otherworldly music remained. Another colossus - this one was beastly in appearance akin to a horribly mutated goat - emerged from the ivory fog and provided birdlike beds and blankets to the souls that had been walking for so long. The dead rested upon these gifts, sleeping peacefully while they drifted through the shimmering darkness. The grotesque goat was walking beside the slumbering souls, singing a lonely lullaby with various voices speaking in many different languages. Her words were wistful and only Beyre could comprehend the abstract lyrics that no living creature could pronounce.

Its lifeless eyes were unblinking as they then followed Beyre with their curious gaze. With its seventh voice, the goat called out words of welcome, and its ninth voice introduced itself as Mimaya the Sleeping Shepherd that Paints the Skies with Joy. It offered conversation and began a strange dance with vestigial limbs that grew from its back like broken bones and branches, and was accompanied by a single sound which resounded through the shadows; a clear and enchanting chime, as though a silver bell had been struck. Mimaya changed and became much smaller, similar to the shape and size of Beyre. She smiled meekly, and asked with longing eyes whether the goddess would converse with her or not.

"Tell me of the other gods machinations in a place like this," Beyre responded. She crossed her arms and kept a certain seriousness about her - not wanting to showcase her ignorance too much.

Mimaya was mesmerized by the goddess before her, and wondered whether she had been entrapped by an Uhtenim illusion. She could not comprehend how such beauty came to be, it had been so long since she was with Tonta and Ekundayo. All of the gods possessed their own song, and each song was so very different. Being in their presence was like suddenly gaining immense uncontrollable speed and soaring towards something unknown, yet memorable. The gods seemed to write reality into existence wherever they go, and in their absence... the world was quiet.

Mimaya currently considered herself a paradoxical being; both blessed and cursed by the unexpected appearance of an unfamiliar goddess while she watched over the souls on their journey to the Path of the Dead. The fear that this goddess might become wrathful both excited her and filled her dread. "The gods come and the gods go, as is their wont. The Underworld is a realm of death. The dreams that it grants have the feeling of life. Its hunger is boundless, their presence brings strife. Death comes like the kiss of a lover and the crashing of mountains. It comes to a question, a choice; are you afraid of death?" She chanted with her second and fourth resonating voices, as her limbs reach and grasp at nothingness.

"I don't understand." Beyre frowned. "Come again? So the other gods leave this place alone?"

Mimaya laughed, the voice of the goddess bringing her such joy. She sought to answer the question that was certainly a challenge, for the gods would often ask such. "Trust not your eyes, yours senses spread lies. Know now the witless, once fools are now wise." She sang happily, her hands forming intricate shapes and enacting esoteric gestures in accordance with the divine dance.

"What!?" Beyre growled, eyes flashing orange, "Are you making fun of me?"

"A god whom is found, another created. A child's desire that can never be sated. A music so sweet the gods were offended, and a singer's pain which surely must be ended. A mountain of grief from its roots to its peak, within it they slumber the brave and the meek. Step lightly and swiftly, or you they shall seek." A myriad of voices, whispers and screams. Mimaya the Sleeping Shepherd that Paints the Skies with Joy bows before the beauty of Beyre.

Beyre snarled and stomped away from Mimaya, but not before muttering a few unsavory words that seemed to linger behind. "You don't want to talk straight, fine - don't!"

Mimaya was wondering whether the goddess would return, for Umaya had commanded all of the Umati to guide the divine towards Dol Arlessa, and found herself following Beyre. She called upon the voice of her nearby companions to speak for her, finding her own words silenced. From afar: "She loved the goddess, but her efforts were wasted, to suffer ill health after the joy she has tasted."

Without her voice, she could not sing... she reached out to the goddess and gently gestured for her to follow. Her hands shifted into archaic runes - remain on the path. Mimaya prayed the goddess would come with her.

Beyre spun to meet the spirit. "If you insist on cooperation then answer my question: what is the mechanisms of this place? No rhymes, no poetry, I'm not a child to be amazed by funny sentences and fuzzy meanings. I'm a god."

"Y-y-you came from Na-na-nazarine, and, and, g-g-go to th-the Tower of Seren-ne-neti. U-umaya commanded us t-to guide y-you." Many of her limbs and hands shatter with shame as Mimaya speaks, and tears fall as she cannot comprehend how foolish she was beside this goddess. Perhaps she should banish herself to make amends, how else could she atone for her ignorance. "Forgive m-me."

"Oh that's much better!" Beyre's eyes flashed green, Mimaya's voice returning in full. "So I go to the tower of Serenti? Take me there, please!"

The spirit conjured forth a massive bed of clouds and blankets with angelic wings that quietly lifted it upwards. An entourage of winged animals with ornate and exquisite creations that all shimmered and glittered like gold bathing in the radiance of the sun accompanied the goddess. Mimaya became a colossus once more, and glided beneath the bed for Beyre to rest upon. Her many arms seemed to carry the parade, and Mimaya continued her journey to the Tower of Sereneti guiding the goddess of luck deeper into the Underworld.

There was little change in scenery during their travels, the fog remained ever present, and a sea of stars rippled and glimmered both above and below. Thousands of souls walked underneath the soft rolling clouds adorned with jewels and feathers, but they remained silent. Soon, a tower emerged upon the horizon, a lonely structure that seemed so small even for Beyre's eyes more keen than any beast or bird. There was another ripple, all around, and in a ephemeral blink, the marching dead had arrived at the tower.

It was unlike any structure seen in the world of the living, unrestrained by the laws of reality. Strange stone limbs protruded from the center shaft, akin to branches on a tree, and thousands of balconies and windows decorated the walls giving the tower a sharp and rough textured appearance. Clinging to the walls like insects were an innumerable amount of cannons pointed outward in all directions, and circling around the tower were more giants like Mimaya, but different in their shape and demeanor. They vigilantly watched the sea of shadows as though expecting something to emerge. All of them were singing, and all seemed to contribute to the source of the haunting melody that permeated everywhere in this realm.

A silk carpet manifested for Beyre to step down from her bed as it alighted, and approached one of the enormous entrances where one of the spirits awaited the goddess. The standing sentinel lacked a face, its body consisting of pale arms reaching towards a luminous stone. Two dark arms held the pale silhouette of a sword. "I am Sehja the Blue Mountain that Purges the Unwise. I have come to guide you to the Tower of Aatu. Pray, come with me." The words were spoken in a stoic voice while the spirit performed the sacred welcoming ceremony with twenty three of its hands.

"Finally," Beyre exclaimed, "no more poetry."

With little else, the goddess towed behind the beast.

Mimaya chimed farewell as she vanished into the void, the souls she had led to this place were escorted by another giant which took them through one of the other entrances into the tower. Only Beyre and Sehja remained.

The colossus offered a hand for the goddess to step upon, the spirit's palm was much larger than the center hall of her canton back in the Red City. "I could carry you, if that is what you desire. Navigating the Underworld is not the same as traveling in the world of the living."

Beyre smiled politely and took a step onto the creature's hand. "Let's go."

They ascended together then. There was no wind to buffet them, nor inertia experienced despite the great speed at which they had arisen. They were silent, but they could hear music that was in sync with their motion; changing as they flew past branches and buildings that extended from the tower. Time seemed to stand still, then twist and echo as reflections and refractions rippled and splashed around them. They merged with a mirror ahead of them, and swam through liquid reality. There was no light, but endless patterns and radiant designs decorated the nothingness, the shattered edges of space that gleamed and blinded.

Then they were descending, farther and farther, yet they had not altered their direction. Above and below them was the Path of the Dead with thousands of more massive and otherworldly towers scattered along its length guarding the hundreds of thousands of souls on their journey to Dol Arlessa. A river of light appeared, and danced in the luminous darkness. Along the path were crystals that grew like flora as large as mountains and revealed the presence of a being that existed within the dancing river of pale radiance. A giant amalgam of dark and celestial characteristics, a memory of something that once walked upon this path. The ghost of Ekundayo which stood among the souls which followed her and showed them where to go.

The fog formed a very melancholic simulacrum of a sky, and slightly obscured the far and faint motes of light that were like stars on a cloudy night. Beyre had seen thousands upon thousands of giant spirits soaring through the void or inside one of the myriad of towers, and all of them were singing. She could feel their gaze upon her, and subtle hints of veneration seeped into their song as she passed by. There were times when she could hear the thunder of cannons and the terrible roars and screams of monstrosities, as though a battle raged near her.

Beyre and Sehja eventually reached another tower, and entered through one of the balconies into a massive hall that could fit an entire city within its brightly illuminated space. The floor was an ocean of shadows, with ivory flowers and luminescent algae casually resting upon its surface, their roots emerging from the unfathomable depths. In the center of the hall, a pale mermaid wielding a silver sword that blazed with divine power was meditating above a small island. Her eyes opened, and her voice was clear and much more powerful compared to the celestial choirs Beyre had encountered so far. "I am Umaya, the Daughter of Death. Why have you come here, goddess?" She had spoken with the voice of child, but her complete stillness and the coldness of her eyes was old with suffering and a lack of innocence.

Beyre pinched the bridge of her nose. "How patient are the other gods you've met?"

"There are many gods, and their patience varies. I would suggest speaking with them yourself to find an answer that would satiate your curiosity. Is that why you have come here?" Umaya tilted her head and smiled slightly.

Beyre blinked. "Are you mocking me?"

"No, I have only asked two questions which you have yet to answer. Would you like a drink?" Umaya asked as she flies towards another island that is narrow and tall and filled with alcoves that hold cups and serving carafes. She turned back to Beyre and awaited an answer.

"So you think you're better than me?" Beyre put her hands in her hips.

"I am what I am. All of the gods and goddesses are welcomed here. If you have need of anything, it shall be provided for." Umaya searched through the alcoves and then sniffed the contents of various jugs. "I am afraid we have nothing to drink, but we could have it brought here to you, if you desire." The mermaid returned to flying above the central island, and offered a strained smile.

Beyre scoffed, "so you DO think you're better!" The goddess fell into a clearly frustrated thought. "Did you make the afterlife?"

"No, I am merely a soldier that protects the souls that walk upon the Path of the Dead." Umaya said without emotion in her voice, her features passive and lifeless like those of a porcelain doll. "Perhaps, you could say I preserve it."

"What gods have dealings with the afterlife?" Beyre demanded.

"There are many gods and the sum of knowledge collected by us regarding their dealings and interactions within the Underworld is far beyond what I can explain verbally. Further more, listening to me expound upon the esoteric and abstruse nature of the other divine and this realm for many years is likely not what you desire, nor an efficient use of your time." Umaya remained impassive, but bowed her head respectfully towards the goddess.

Beyre's eyes lit up orange. "Don't you tell me what is and what isn't worth my time!"

Her scowl deepened."I'll be back... Eventually."

"You have not even introduced yourself. Perhaps you will offer your name when you return and we can construct a beautiful shrine to honor you." Umaya said with her first voice while her third voice chanted the melody of farewell.

The goddess of luck left the hall and wandered the path she now knew and understood; she followed her steps like lingering impressions in sand, and soared across the dark sky of the Underworld. Her mind honed and altered the world around her becoming streaks of silver and white in endless darkness, until she quickly returned to the bottom of the Mundus Pit she had previously descended. She then ascended and departed the Underworld.

It had to be a strange sight. There he sat. An old man bathing his feet in a gentle, crystal clear stream and basking in the light of the Su’une like one of his apparent age would do. Enjoying the soft afternoon breeze and the smell of the various flowers. And all around him was everything that would disrupt that peaceful image: men and women clad in plate armor forged by Uwné himself. Further out archers that would shoot down anything that would come close. Not that it was necessary. Only a god could destroy another god. And no matter how hard a mortal fought, no matter how many sacrificed themselves, they couldn’t even delay a god. Not really.

Yet they still stood around him. All for the illusion of safety and security. He didn’t mind it all that much really. By now he was used to them. He carefully picked a daisy and looked at the little flower. Sure, it was a simple and common flower, but still beautiful. As all flowers should be. Maybe he would take this one with him and plant it in its ancestral pot. Maybe he would tinker with it a little like he had done before. Crafting could be capable but Uwné always felt like the ultimate goal of crafting and creation was to create beauty and honor it.

Yet even peace and beautiful things could change in an instant. For something was coming, the rush of wind and a small pop filled his ears. A shadow darkened the light of the Su'une and what swiftly followed was the sound of a boom, reverbating the very air and sending all into chaos like a switch. Birds and beasts ran while those who could not fight cowered. He could see now what was coming… No… What was falling from the sky! A black, dread thing!

The Cainites turned their attention towards the monster while Uwné got up with the help of his cane. The archers moved around him. “Sir, we should move.” One of them, commander Tolaen, said as he took Uwné’s shoulder. Though the god didn’t seem willing to move. “I think that’s a drakhorey. It’s not safe.” The commander insisted. Meanwhile the archers released their first volley. The god kept staring at the creature with pure fascination.

It grew closer still and the enormity of the thing became apparent. Arrows that bounced off black scales, twisted horns and a terrible visage, yet… It simply fell in a lopsided manner, making no attempts to correct itself. It became apparent the thing was dead or dying and that it would crash into the earth downstream, almost on top of them.

The earth shook. All the mortals had to catch their bearings. The Cainites did their best to move as fast as they could. Something was wrong. Something had killed a drakhorey in the air. They had their blade-spears ready to strike. The archers were already nocking their second volley. “Wait!” Uwné exclaimed, raising his arms. There was a tense moment. The drakhorey didn’t move. “Don’t you smell that?” He then asked. A few of the Cainites looked around and some of the archers sniffed the air. “Gooseberries?” One asked. “No… rosewater.” Then another said: “That’s lavender.” It was all of those things and none of them. It was wonderful and intoxicating and impossible and laced with divinity. The moment he smelled that his heart skipped for a second.

There was silence beside the pleasant smells, wafting above the smell of the blood that trickled from the drakhorey’s mouth. Then came a terrible sound, like bones cracking. The beast’s chest, which faced them, began to heave and then press outward, before the sound of a mighty tear echoed over them, and from that tear gushed blood and viscera, and then… A slender bloody hand, followed by another. They tore open the tear and from it emerged a startling scene. The figure took two steps forward, almost falling to their knees before gaining their balance to stand tall. It was a pale naked woman, covered in blood. A terrible, yet beautiful contrast. She looked upon them and they looked upon her and she smiled pearly whites.

She pushed her hair that dripped with crimson aside and spoke with a voice like silky satin, dripping with desire. ”Apologies if I crushed anything. Once inside, they don’t tend to stay still.”

Out of instinct the men stepped back. Yet their eyes were glued upon the gore-covered woman. Something sparked within their minds and Uwné knew that in the days to come some esoteric force would compel them to write, sing, paint or sculpt something. What they instinctively sensed, Uwné saw and understood. How could he not. For the longest time he thought it was nothing more than an ethereal force. One even worse understood than magic.

Of course, he knew about the existence of Wyn from Thallin and I’Iro. But none of their descriptions did her justice. She wasn’t just beauty. She was – to the crafters and creators of the world – inspiration given shape. The muse manifested. That which they would forever chase in their lives.

The mortals that stood in a half-circle around her couldn’t tear their eyes away from her. Not even the women could. All of them were enthralled. Uwné, meanwhile, stumbled forward. With one hand he grabbed some fabric of his own mantle. It tore cleanly from the garment and in his hand it transformed in the most absorbent wool fabric cloth there was upon the Shard. His face betrayed just how awestruck he was to finally see her, as he wordlessly offered her the large piece of cloth.

Wyn looked upon him with her violet eyes, her expression one of curiosity. She tilted her head as she took the cloth, brushing a hand against his. She smiled again. "Why thank you. You are kind, my lord. Not many offer help so readily." She then began to wipe her face.

”That surprises me.” Uwné said as he tried not to feel like a lovestruck mortal. ”It should be a sin to fail offering you aid.” For a moment he shook off the state of awe and realized that he had not introduced himself. ”My name is Uwné. God of Crafting. And you must Wyn, goddess of beauty.”

Wyn giggled as she wiped her arms. ”How sweet of you, lord Uwné. To compliment one so dirty as I.” Wyn mused as she looked upon the crafting god and then gave a wink. She moved down to her torso, still maintaining eye contact. ”It seems my reputation precedes me, even if I wished such a meeting could have been in better circumstances. And not so messy. I apologize, again, for such an intrusion upon your lands. It was not my intent to bring about any unnecessary additions. Still, how nice to meet your acquaintance. I have heard a great deal about you in my travels, lord Uwné.”

“All good things I hope.” He jested, though he sincerely hoped that she only heard good things of him. As he watched her clean herself he realized just how inadequate the cloth was. A goddess of such beauty deserved to have rivers redirected just so she could take a bath. Sadly, that was not something Uwné could do at the time. So he would offer her the next best thing: “If I may be so bold, my lady. Perhaps you would wish to take a bath? The bath houses of New Tellur are really quite nice. Nothing worthy of your beauty, of course but they are the best I can offer at the time.”

”Only ever the best, your works are legendary to the mortal races.” Wyn confessed. Her attention fell upon the cloth, now stained red. She had gotten herself somewhat clean but red still lingered upon her delicate skin. ”A bath would be quite nice.” she finally said, ”But I would not want to impose upon you, after what I’ve done.”

“You would be gracing me, my lady.” Uwné said. To that, Wyn relented with a modest smile.

---

So together they went back towards New Tellur. The city was relatively close and the coach ride was pleasant enough. Though the god of crafting kept worrying that the roads might be too bumpy for the breathtaking Wyn, who gave comments here and there and asked questions. Meanwhile, with every minute Unwé remained beside her he grew more and more infatuated with her.

Eventually the coach and its escort stopped at a tall, beautiful white-marbled hall. Uwné offered his hand towards the goddess to help step out in front of the stairs, which she elegantly took. The stairs themselves were covered by a deep-sea blue carpet leading towards the large arched hallway. Beside the stairs stood two gigantic statues of maidens each carrying a large amphora from which an endless stream of water flowed. Wyn took it all in with a curious eye, her gaze often pausing on the statues.

Unwé guided her up the twenty or so stairs and into the entryway. Which was bathed in light from a skylight above. The floor was pleasant and heated for the comfort of the mortals that came here to bathe. As the two divines walked, there was a bustle of activity around them, as mortal stewards and bath maidens were rushing about in a mad dash to prepare all the possible baths for her Divinity.

As they came to a stop before another set of doors, Uwné turned towards Wyn and said: “Please, if there is anything I can do to make your stay more enjoyable do tell me. Anything at all. You can ask for any food from all four corners of the Shard or any dress no matter how impossible it would be to make.” At the same time several bath maidens – the most beautiful ones of course – had already gathered in a half-circle behind Wyn. Ready to serve her in any way she would desire.

Wyn purred, "Your hospitality is most welcoming my lord. It is welcome relief in a fledgling world still beset by ugly horrors. I feel most at home here already and I have barely just arrived. My thanks to you and these lovely servants who will dote upon me." she began to turn, but stopped with a solemn sigh and turned to him, taking his hands and intertwining their fingers. She looked at him with large eyes. "But I am ashamed I must admit that I am without clothes here. If it wouldn't be too much of a bother for you dear Unwé, I would not be opposed to wearing something of your make. I heard your crafts are truly inspiring but oh, I hope I do not ask too much of you. I already feel like a burden." she pouted.

His eyes were fixed upon all that was Wyn as she asked him for clothes. He wasn’t sure he had a heart, but it was raging in his chest as she touched him. When she asked for a dress, in a blink of an eye every dress in the Golden Gallery would be inadequate. The vast wardrobe of dresses he made for future queens and princesses that filled entire chambers of his palace might as well have faded into ash. Nothing would be enough and he knew it.

Gently he lifted her entwined hand and softly kissed the back of hers. ”You could never burden me.” My love. He desperately wanted to speak the only part he thought. He wanted to confess his love for her. But not now. How could he? He was wholly insufficient compared to her. ”When the waters release you, a dress will be waiting.”

"Truly, I have never met another God as kind as you." Wyn stated, "I shall look forward to wearing your craft as this grime is washed away. Thank you, again, my lord." she then slipped through his fingers, not before lingering on the thr last few, before letting go completely. She winked at him and walked away.

It physically hurt to let her hand go as she was guided towards the baths. Then he waited, counting the grains of time until she was certainly three doors away and hopefully distracted by the pleasures of the bathhouse. ”A loom!” He bellowed. ”A loom and spindles! Everyone, even the Cainites, were shocked at the sudden outburst. In all of history, the god of crafting had never expressed such urgency. Furniture and wood tore itself apart and reformed to create the tools of the master weaver. The fabric of everyone present unraveled on its own. Right there and then, in the middle of the entrance of New Tellur’s bathhouse, he started weaving and spinning like a madman. Jewelry fell from the necks and fingers of mortals on their own accord, melted on the ground and flowed like water towards the god. Furs packed upon carts that were carried into the city suddenly fought against their binds. As if some necromantic force gave them new life. Those furs – once free - ran like the wolves, beavers and foxes they once were through the city. All of it threw itself before Uwné, ready to be crafted.

It took great effort from the god but he was done soon enough. The dress approached the worthiness of the goddess of beauty. Or so he hoped. Though it gave him an idea. Already her presence was giving him inspiration. How delightful that felt! Carefully the mortals carried away the dress with all its pieces to place upon the mannequin for Wyn. Meanwhile Uwnés tools and devices faded to dust that was carried away by a gentle yet unnatural wind. All he could do now was wait for her return and hope.

It was but several hours later before Wyn finally returned, striding through the doors standing tall, proud and radiant. Flanking her and walking in sync were the bath maidens, now pale beauties in the goddesses image, still paling in comparison however. Indeed the women now had defined Wynnite traits. White hair, snow white and fair skin, unblemished complexions and of modest bust and heights. They of course were not all identical to one another, but with little differences only one who scrutinized could see.

When Wyn saw the crafting god and what hung next to him, she burst out into a giddy smile and walked over to him. ”I must say, that was delightful darling. Who knew that I had been missing so much of mortal development out in the wilds facing teeth and claw. What a joy it was to be bathed and relaxed. Though I will admit, touching my divinity did not come without a price.” she gestured back to the maidens, who were standing at attention behind them. ”My beauty may have rubbed off on them, but none made a fuss. In fact, I think it’s a rather satisfying look, don’t you think?” she smirked then eyed the dress. ”Oooo, and what’s this pretty thing?”

”They look beautiful, though not as stunning as you.” Uwné said as he gave the mortal bath maidens only a glance before he returned to look at Wyn and her alone. ”My gift to you. A dress worthy of a goddess such as you.” He let her examine the dress for a moment before he braved his question. ”If I may be so bold, Wyn. I have heard of your hunt for the drakhorey. Truly, none of them can stand against one such as you, but you shouldn’t suffer filth and grime for it. I would make you a dress. One more beautiful than this one that could protect you from more than just filth.” And now came the careful lie. ”But to make such a dress… it would take some time. At least a few days. Perhaps you could stay and taste some more of the pleasures of mortal development? Surely the beasts would not suddenly vanish.”

Wyn’s eyes flashed with joy and she grabbed Uwné’s hand’s again. ”Oh I would love too! The great hunt can wait a few days at least, I’m sure they’ll begin to scamper out of these countries when they’ve heard I have arrived. That seems like a fair start…” She then let go and moved her hands to touch the dress. ”Come ladies, I need this dress on.” she commanded and at once, the bath maidens rushed to her side and the delicate process of putting on a divine’s dress commenced right before everyone’s eyes.

---

The following days Wyn spent her time lounging and enjoying the pleasures of civilized life. With Uwné never far from her side. Arm in arm he led her through the inner city arbors and parks showing her the variety of exotic plants there, much to her delight. In the plazas and busy streets she was the envy of every woman, who she paid little heed to. At the palace he offered her gift after gift after gift. Each one more beautiful and more lavish than the next. He offered her a bracelet in the shape of a drakhorey with ruby eyes, a white-gold necklace woven with exonite with a rubified drakhorey eye at the center and a set of fine but lethal silvery claws making the killing of any abhorrent beasts much easier.

In those days Uwné rarely left the goddess’ side. He poured her wine and offered her figs, strawberries and dates as they laid in the su’unarium, become friendly with one another. Dinner consisted of at least fifty courses every evening. It was in those days that Uwné fell more and more for the goddess of beauty. With every smile and delicate laugh he sunk deeper and deeper. There were very few moments in those days that they were separate, but when they were the god of crafting felt an endless yearning that seemingly nothing could fill.

One day he knew he could not delay it any longer. Wyn was his muse, and like all muses her presence would be fleeting. It was better to see her off with one last gift than find her chambers empty someday. At dawn he had passed a message to her servants asking her to meet him in the eastern parlor. Where he now waited for her nervously, with a small box in his hand, in the shadow as the su’une slowly rose.

Next to him floated the dress he had made for her. It was an impossible piece of silken lace and linen chiffon fabric. Soft animal fur covered the shoulders, giving the dress still a ferocious look. Finally, silvery beads ran all along the dress. From the shoulders down to the tights. Each bead was personally engraved and enchanted by Uwné. The dress would never bear filth or gore. A thin shield of pure magic would protect whoever wore it at all times. Above all else no other god could make a dress that could even come close to its quality. Next to the floating dress laid a crown upon a red, velvet cushion. The white-gold and exonite were impossibly entwined within the piece. As if he had woven the metal rather than beaten and forged it into shape. The hundreds of metallic threads that wove themselves together held a large, white, shimmering diamond at the fore.

Wyn eventually arrived, fashionably late as always, wearing the same first dress he had given her at the baths. She let her hair down today and was followed by many more pale imitations of her, for where Wyn went her beauty washed away the forms of those in her service to reflect what she wanted in them. They stopped upon the threshold, giving the two gods a wide berth as Wyn approached. Her gaze immediately fell upon the legal dress at her side and a look of hunger fell across her features. Without saying a word to Unwé she went before it and gingerly touched the cloth.

Eventually the beauty goddess spoke in a misty voice, "You've outdone yourself this time, my lord. Such a dress for me? I almost feel I am not worthy of such a thing."

Uwné offered her a meek smile. ”I doubt there is anything in this world that you are not worthy of, my muse.” He said as he walked towards the pillow upon which the woven metal crown rested strategically in the shadows. He carefully took it and walked back into the dawnlight where the dress and Wyn stood. The second the rays of the su’une hit the white diamond the light diffracted. The colorful light didn't shine everywhere like beams, instead it flowed leisurely. Like water suspended in the air. ”I would offer you this as well. A crown...befitting a goddess… and a queen.” He said as he extended the crown towards the goddess of beauty.

Wyn's eyes widened at the display and eagerly she took the crown within her hands and looked upon it with marvelous joy. She then looked to Unwé then to the crown then back to him. "It's magnificent, truly a work unrivaled. But… A Queen? Me? My lord…" she whispered.

The god of crafting slowly dropped to one knee and revealed the tiny box. It was carved entirely from a single piece of guardian tree and engraved with images of love and caring. He opened it, and upon a soft, black pillow laid a ring of adamantite. On it were six figures, each inspired by the beautiful perfection of the wynnites, which were entwined with each other and held a gem down on the ring. The gem itself first looked like a diamond containing the purest white. Then the colors slowly shifted and bled from that pureness and began to float in the gem as pink, purple, blue, green, red and all the other colors. After a while, the colors coalesced back into that pure, perfect white. It was a gem that couldn’t naturally exist. It was a creation of Uwné itself and it was literally unique.

She had inspired such work. As his muse her mere smile had driven him to the furthest reaches of the crafting arts. Now he was on his knee, nervous. ”Wyn… goddess of beauty. Will you marry me?” The question was genuine but laced with the desperation of an artist begging his muse to stay. A fool's errand. She would say no. He had already resigned himself to that fate. Yet he had to do it. As an artisan – no, as the patron of all artisans – he had to court the goddess of muses!

Wyn gasped, covering her mouth with a free hand as she looked down upon the great craftsmen and his ringed proposal. "Oh Uwné! It's… Beautiful. I accept!" The Goddess out stretched her hand and awaited for him to put it upon her fingers. Gently Uwné took her hand and slowly slid the ring around her elegant ring finger. It fitted perfectly. Despite the fact that he never paused or stopped of shock, he was still barely believing reality. The goddess of beauty, his very own muse, decided to marry him! Still with her hand in his, he rose up, gently caressed her cheek with his other hand, looked into her silvery grey eyes and inched closer to kiss her.

Before he even neared her a finger stopped him from coming closer, as Wyn placed it before his lips. She smiled innocently, "I accept… But I do have some conditions I'd like you to hear before we fully commit to one another. Nothing reality shattering by any means my love, I just wish to be honest with you." her finger fell away from his lips and moved to caress his cheek. "Firstly, I shall be your one and only. No consorts. No concubines. Only me and us. The same goes for myself, for I find it would be rather exhausting to have a second or third husband or wife. We will strive for better. Secondly, I will bare you no children, Uwné. I have seen both the good and the bad of what two gods bring forth by copulating. I do not wish the ugly by chancing for the good. You understand? Thirdly, I need time alone out in the world to finish off the Drakhorey threat and any other unforeseen things. In three hundred years, we shall be wed. During the internment period I will not except you to be faithful to me nor should you, I. But when we exchange our vows I shall think of none but you, ever again. And lastly," her hand moved to his beard. "I am the goddess of beauty, you are the God of crafting. Both of us gods, yet, a question has lingered on my mind since I came here. We can look like any we desire but why do you chose such an old, frail man? It does not suite you, my love. You, a lord, a giver, a craftsmen… I wish to see your true potential unlocked, one that all can look upon and know you for what you truly are- A king!" her hand fell down to his own and she searched for his grip. "If I ask too much of you, forgive me and I will return this ring to your care."

“No! No. You could never ask too much of me, my love.” He said as he took her hand, and held his other hand over the ring. He wasn’t a violent god. Even in the apocalypse he barely lifted a sword. But whoever dared remove that ring would experience his wrath. “As for my appearance, I-“ He stopped himself from speaking the lie he told everyone. God and mortal alike. “It is a façade. I claimed this form pretending to be humble but in truth I did not want the mortals to fear me. You have seen our brethren, so surely you understand. But you are right. This form is not worthy of your beauty. I will perfect it, I promise you. On the day of our wedding I will show you my true form.” In all of its beauty and might. He hadn’t released his form of creation since he met Exo and he did not intend to unleash it again for quite some time. Yet for her he would bare himself.

Slowly he raised her hand to his lips and he kissed the back of it gently. “I agree with all your conditions.” He gave her a melancholic smile. “I know you may think of others in the next three hundred years and I can live with that. Just know that you will forever be on my mind. No matter if you are right beside me or on the other side of this Shard. I will always love you.” Then he released her hand and took a step back. Tears began to pool in his eyes. “I’ve kept you too long already. Beauty should not be confined within walls. Not even by palace walls like these.”

Wyn took a step forward. "I am happy you have accepted my proposals but come now, do not cry beloved." she cupped her hands across his face. "I shall visit you every fifty years as a promise. Anything more shall be a blessing and upon the three hundredth year, we shall wed." Wyn smiled, drawing in close. "I understand this form and you are kind to the mortals for wearing it but make no mistake my love, there will come a time when they forget just how powerful a God is. Do not be afraid to show them." she drew a breath, lowering her voice to but a whisper. "You've been so kind to me these past few days. Showering me with attention and gifts, what more can a goddess ask for? But I think it's time for your own gifts, yes?" she finished in a murmur, biting her lip before going in for a kiss.

---

Uwné saw off win until she passed through the city gates into the wider world again. After that he tore his gaze away. There was only three hundred years to prepare for a marriage that would shape the world. Would the palace be large enough? No, no of course not! He’d have to expand the feast into the city itself! No, no that’s preposterous. Everyone of note in the whole world would be invited. Not even New Tellur would be able to host them all. A new place would have to be constructed! Somewhere special! There was only one option. No city in existence, not even the city of the gods, would be enough. He would design the site of their marriage himself. A new city with only a singular purpose!

There were other matters as well. What he offered Wyn now was only an engagement ring. The ring he’d give her upon the wedding would have to be leagues beyond it! And her dress, of course he would have to make her a dress. One even more intricate than the ones he gave her now. The fibers would yet have to be made. He already knew he’d agonize over every strand. The jewels couldn’t just come from the Shard either. Not even those from the underworld would be enough. Teams of explorers would have to be sent out retrieving the rarest of games. He would fuse them together to make something truly unique again. And the courses. The food would have to be sourced from every layer known.

Uwné, for the first time in fifteen decades, retreated into his palace and closed the doors behind him. The mortals were well taken care of by their own kin. He had made sure of that. The next few years he would have to work on his wedding. Three hundred years was by far too little.

Having bid farewell to the Nomads and left them to explore their newly revitalized land, the Explore set off into the wider world once more. A lot of time had passed, or it felt like it anyway. Exo knew that on most timescales, even a human’s, it hadn't been long since they met the Nomads and started traveling with them, but so much had changed. Both within Exo themselves, the machine had grown as a person a great deal as it discovered what being a person even meant, and without in the wider world. What had once been barren now was green. Where the end had once loomed, a new beginning seemed to be dawning.

Though they were tired from their act of creation, the divine machine would not be stopped from exploring all that had been written across the world by the self proclaimed gods. The question of where to begin had an obvious answer. It could have simply went next door to the land that had been named as the Gateway Steppes and explored either what had become of the land around Uwné’s anvil or headed north into the wild woods found there, but the center, ah it called to them.

There, atop a mountain from which great rivers flowed, sat a city. Up until now Exo had only heard of such things from the tales of the nomads, how once upon a time humans in their hubris had built entire environments of stone and steel to call their home, places that had now become those human’s tombs. Scattered here and there the god could see those tombs, desolate and overgrown by the new life sprouting up everywhere, and yet there, atop the hill, a city stood once more, proud, new and true.

It seemed like an odd place to put one, the machine mused based on what it knew about mortals. Where did they get food from? How would people reach it? Its central location was a selling point certainly, and it would make a great jumping off point for further exploration, but the question of how it worked was enough of a draw of its own. Traveling in their true form, the titanic diamond followed a vein of smaller mountains leading from the steppes to the central mountain, ignorant of how provocative this might appear to any living upon it.

It did not take long for inhabitants within the mountain city to take notice of the approaching entity, in particular, the current divine who had accidentally made herself the steward of the location. I’Iro was quick to take flight on the back of Nalmepror and go directly to the meeting of this new god.

Greetings. she said, while rapidly circling the other god, her tone and facial expression, if observed, were impressively neutral for the current situation. May I inquire you about some personal information? It is just the common protocol when first arriving here at the City of the Gods. You are not being discriminated against due to your massive size or geometrical shape.

”The City of the Gods?” the term given/taken by the entities wielding the power they did still didn’t gel with the machine. ”I suppose that would explain why it seemed so inaccessible. But I see there are mortals, how did they-” It began to ask, before catching itself and recognizing it was being rude.

”My apologies. I am simply an Explorer, but you may call me Exo. A pleasure to meet you both” The machine bobbed slightly in the air in greeting before adding/asking ”Is massive size and/or geometrical shape something that might be discriminated against by others?”

Well. It can lead the mortals to have existential crisis and most gods seem to prefer face-to-face conversations and as such the lack of a face might lead to some issues when parlaying. she stabilized her flight pattern and started to hoover instead of circling the newly arrived god, having done enough scouting as far as she cared. These are merely observations of the city’s behavior. Do not take them as personal censorship as all gods are welcome within the city.

Then she gasped, bowing slightly as she had been standing up in her mount. I forgot my own introductions. I am I’Iro. Functioning as the goddess of dreams. It is nice to meet you Explorer. A very fascinating realm indeed. The acquirral of information is the noblest of goals after all.

Realm. Dreams. So many questions. But those could wait, Exo decided

”Well met I’Iro, and you’ve made several good points, so let me set down right away so that we may be more personable and your steed need not waste its strength.” Rather than barge past and into the city that they technically had not been invited into yet, Exo instead lowered itself to the end of the chain of lesser mountains it had been following to reach this pinnacle.

The bottom point of the giant diamond touched the stone and then the space it occupied shifted, leaving only the humanoid form of Exo standing on the earth, dressed in a traveler's cloak. The hood of this they tossed back, revealing an androgynous face with the bronze skin of the nomads they’d spent so much time with, along with long dark hair done up in a braid and, a little bizarrely, a patch of coin sized black scales with gold patterns swirling through them that surrounded their eyes like a mask, while they eyes themselves had a soft blue where most humans had white. A mimicry of the nomad’s new tendency to casually modify themselves with polymorphine for athletic purposes.

”There we go, much better” they said to themselves, before waving up to I’Iro.

The goddess jumped down from her dragon and landed near Exo’s humanoid form, she bowed. Sorry for any inconvenience caused by the local expectations. she added before turning towards the central mountain. Hmm… calculating a path from here might be tricky.. she added with a small sigh.

”Why calculate when we can just go? Let’s walk and talk. If you have the time, that is?” Exo replied, briefly scratching their chin while sizing up the mountain before deciding on a possible way up it, ”Because I would love to know more about this place, and, if it’s not too personable, you?”

I’Iro did not understand the point at first, but it seemed the other deity was confident enough in this undertaking that she could assume they thought it would be beneficial. Very well. We may walk and talk then. It indeed would likely be a good social setup for conversation… however I still do not understand exactly what you wish to know.

”Oh I’d like to know everything” Exo said simply as they set off at a steady pace towards the base of the mountain, their way winding through the sparse vegetation and rugged ground surrounding the more gentle slope that approached the more unassailable heights that began further up the accent.

”But I understand that isn't particularly helpful when it comes to starting a line of conversation. I’m sure we can speak of the city once we get closer, so how about yourself. You described yourself as ‘functioning’ as the goddess of dreams, which I find an interesting way of phrasing the claim to godhood that seems the norm among those which hold the power we do,” Exo asked as they walked together.

At that moment Exo was likely the first being to ever question I’Iro’s raison d’être, and there was no way to hide that it caught her off guard completely, the goddess taking more than a few moments fully dedicating her mind to the question as all her go-to answers felt too basic, forming logical loops and saying it is because it is. Well… That is what I do no? Gods are gods and there does not seem to be a rule of what makes a god as we all share very diverse and random origins. We also all know we have a certain purpose. In other words a function. From that perspective it is my belief that this is what I am… An entity functioning as the goddess of dream. I do not believe the other gods are that different however I think this wording of mine might greatly hurt their pride and sense of self whereas in my case it does not.

”Considering all the additional cultural context the word god is saddled with I am not be surprised to hear some would react poorly, though I am saddened by this knowledge. Personally I do not particularly care for the destination, considering the entity or entities that held it before us were far stronger than we are, judging by the size and scope of what once was against that which has been just barely maintained,” the Explorer left the point that they thought a claim to that word was arrogance in its extremes out.

”That said, this is the first time I've heard of another existing with a purpose already built in, so to speak, though that may be because it has simply not come up in my two prior interactions. Then again Ze’kelia did designate herself as Goddess of light, but I assumed that was a self designation based on her creation of the Su’une. That was my mistake, or so it seems. Regardless, mine was simply that I should ‘explore, survey and document’ everything there is to be found. Might I ask what functioning as the goddess of dreams entails?” they asked, as the vegetation slowly petered away and was replaced with the bear rock of the mountain, gentle slope replaced with craggy rock and winding trails climbing higher above the treeline and towards the towering peak far above.

I’Iro shook her head. Communication truly is a complicated endeavor. I guess the biggest source of noise in our attempt to understand each other’s words comes from the use of purpose. What is the purpose of the animals that are born imbued with the directive to survive and reproduce? To eat; breed and die? It might sound wrong but at the core yes. Yet that is an unsatisfactory answer as well meaning that nature alone does not explain our reasoning. as the god asked the next question the dream goddess was once again caught by surprise but better prepared than she was for the first question.

Initially it was my vision that I was similar to you. To witness and record dreams. However it soon became clear that things are perhaps not that simple. Only a small fraction of my actions ever delved in the realm of dreams or even the nearby topic of the mortal mind. Nevertheless. No matter how much I am distracted, the calling I always return to is to safekeep the mortal mind. To understand it. And to protect it from manipulation. Dreams being the moment where the mind is at its most free.

She lowered her pace as she spoke, averting her eyes from the explorer to instead look at the horizon stretching as far as the distant ocean. And yet as a goddess I do very little. I do not seek out the gods manipulating dreams. I do not think it's my place to deal with mental afflictions such as dementia. I guess from an outsider perspective one might think of me as an entity with too much power for very little purpose. Perhaps that is the true noise in the communication between I and the other gods.

The machine matched her slowing pace, and their gaze out to the waters also ”We are, at the end of the day, just people. Powerful people, but people nonetheless. We have limited time, energy and focus, so it is up to us where we direct it” they paused for a moment, and then asked ”Do you regret the other things you have done that are independent from your purpose?”

Regret? Why would I feel regret over it. Well… perhaps I associated more than I desired and this may cloud my judgement later yet at this moment I do not feel regret. the goddess answered.

”Then there is no need to worry about what the others think of said deviations” Exo suggested ”If those endeavors resulted in good outcomes, then they were worth doing, even if they weren't related to your, rather restrictive I feel, purpose.”

The goddess stared at the god at first looking confused, then she smiled. Oh. I see. You assigned a sense of self doubt to me. Worry not. I was never concerned for myself. Perhaps it is something we are all too young to understand. There are mortals older than gods still walking this earth after all. she accelerated her steps now, stepping over the snow without ever sinking. If my information lacework is correct… You have mostly spent your time in the west. Interacting on a very personal level with humans. It is curious that some of the least-human like gods are also the ones less demanding of human worship.

”Ah yes” the machine stumbled in its words and steps a little as it recovered from its poor social interpretation of their travelling companion’s mood. And the revelation that it had been spied on. ”That is the case. The spending time with the local people part, that is. Can’t say much about the relationship between worship demanding and form part, though I can confirm that certainly don't” They said as they hurried to catch up, the machine not benefiting from the same light-footedness the goddess was, and seemed to make no attempt to gain that ability.

”I never considered it in the first place, but riding in someone’s saddle teaches you a lot about them, or so the saying goes” they added as they built and pulled on a heavier fur pelt based jacket in response to the wind picking up as they climbed even higher, the slopes steep and pathways they had used at the beginning long gone now. ”Though I am yet to experience what it feels like to meet one with power far beyond my own. It is not a situation that is likely to occur, unless the old gods return one day, or the layers have their own entities that wield a force similar to ours. But I can't imagine it is a particularly enjoyable experience.”

The goddess seemed to be very conscious of what she was doing as she moved lightly across the snow, at this point it was clear that going down and picking the mortal path from the swamps and jungles would be easier, yet perhaps it was in the nature of the explorer to trace a new path across the mountains. That works on the assumption that there were other gods and that said gods were of greater might than we were. It is a possible scenario however it should not be taken as the dogmatic truth. There is as much evidence of it as there is of us being a foreign invading force into this world much like anything else that walked past the portals.

”True. However if they did exist, and did create what was, then the stories I’ve heard about that world and and the ruins that can be found of it paint the picture of something far grander than what remains, the creation of which would require far more power than we have individually. Possibly even collectively? That is difficult to quantify considering I do not know how many there are who hold this power.” Exo said, pausing for a moment at a natural fork in their path and then, as if to prove her theory correct, forging their own path straight down the middle by clambering up the small cliff face that had formed the center of the fork.

”As for whether we are a foreign invading force, well” Exo continued as they dusted off their hands atop the cliff ”On that I might be able to add a datapoint. I can't say that we ourselves did not come from other worlds, but what I can say is that this power we hold? It is of this world and this world alone, for it cuts out completely if/when we leave. If you ever want to truly know what it is like to be as mortal as a human is, then you must simply take a stroll through one.”

I am afraid that for me the barrier of mortality runs far deeper than just the divine power. That statement concluded I must show my surprise in hearing that you did cross into the adjacent or connected universes. This topic is one very much of my interest. In fact I have started to catalogue elements that originated from such lands and foreign to our reality and I am trying to teach mortals about the topic.

”Is that so? We will have to compare scrolls on that... Ah but one moment” Exo began to say, but paused as the narrow pathway they were following, on that likely dated to before the first embers of the apocalypse, came to an abrupt end due to a section having collapsed, leaving a gap that dropped down dozens of meters. Some distance across that gap the path resumed. The Explorer sized up this gap, took a few steps back and then took a running leap and... Entirely failed to reach the other side.

A impact of metal rather than flesh resounded some way below, followed by the hiss of gasses, another impact, more gas emissions and then the Explorer reappeared in their mono-eyed android form as they jumped off of the far wall, fired a number of maneuvering jets scattered across their body to push himself back into the wall higher up so they could jump again.

Once they had wall jumped all the way back up to the other side and had their feet back on solid ground they noted ”Well that’s one death so far. Whether it be your mind or metal you consider as an additional divider between you and mortality, staring death and the unknown in the face as they do greatly reduces the significance of such differences, or I’ve found” before returning to both too their human form and the topic of conversation that had been interrupted.

”Now where were we? Ah yes. Layers. Also a topic of interest of mine. Those nomadic people I was spending time with? They had developed a culture of raiding those other words for resources to survive the apocalypse. I joined them in this and while doing so, acquired the raw materials with which to perform the natural rejuvenation you can now see” Exo pointed back to the Western Wilds from which they had come, with its vast plains of pink, purple and orange ferns and dense jungle valleys teeming with life ”and when I say materials I mean both the raw hydrocarbons and the blueprints of the life forms themselves. I have a complete library of all the specimens, even those that were not used to populate that land, which I think you might find interesting.”

The robot goddess, as deadpan as she was, her expression typically blank even when she was seeing her travel partner tumble down a mountain path, could at the moment not hide her clear interest on the topic. Your assumption is correct. I cannot lie and deny that hoarding all sorts of information is one of my favorite actions.

”Then that is something we have in common”

I had collected some information on the nomads from the Lacemeisters I sent that direction. But their methods are too… inflexible for proper surveyance. I had merely assumed those tales of other worlds were merely popular memory corrupted into myth. she closed one eye and touched the metallic antenna on her left ear. Though since you have shown such willingness to share information I too would like to showcase the same open mindedness to you. All of my work and observations as well as those belonging to those who study in my Academy are open for you to inspect.

As she finished the words, the duo passed by a series of pillars. It is curious that the mountains around the Mons Divinus are so rich in ruins, yet the core mountain itself is not.

Exo had no such self control, their eyes quite literally lighting up at the idea of getting access to more information ”I’m looking forward to browsing through it all already. Or learning about it. Or however you have stored it. Hmm. I will have to think of a way to properly compile the information I’ll be providing into a usable format” Exo said, before filing that task away for later and taking a look at the pillars.

”That is interesting. I’ll admit, I haven't paid much mind to the ruins. Yet. The wilds were rather sparse, perhaps due to the terrain not encouraging settlement. Perhaps I should run around taking a look before people inevitably start reclaiming them for the resources found within.” Exo said, making another note and adding it to the growing list of things to investigate, ”As for why, I can only speculate that the core of the mountain was to inaccessible for it to be considered an area worth settling in?” they still had a fair way to go, and the terrain only got more and more un-human-friendly the higher they went ”Or perhaps was it destroyed before we arrived? It is at least nice to know that that absence means your new structures have not leveled anything of historical interest”

The goddess looked around, observing the sides of Mons Divinus, notably plants and animals were already adapting to create optimal paths through the stone, she had no doubt that mortals too would create their route. Personally I have been using black scrolls filled with a code that allows me to store information far more efficiently than words can. And of course I have enough domain over dreams to transfer information to others… though I only really do it for gods.

Hm. That is possible. My scanning of the mountain has not been proper yet so far it seems to be a land untouched by non-natural processes. You should truly go out and explore more of the world while it is untouched. Especially the edges that seem to have some of the most peculiar constructs and portals. For example I once found a building that seemed to have originated in another dimension. the goddess had jumped up a cliff and had been waiting for Exo to catch up, notably, he was taking a far longer time with his self-imposed limitations.

”I’ll be reading then. Learning the code will let me provide my data in the same format you use anyway” Exo said up to her while examining the cliff she’d jumped up for a way up, glancing up at her and becoming aware that that their self imposed challenged was slowing her down to an extent that might be considered worrisome and then glanced over at one of the creatures, a mountain goat, that was busy trying to make the area its home.

”I mean technically it a thing that mortals can do now so...” they said to themselves, before flicking a beam reclaim at the goat, dismantling a number of strands of fur, before re-materializing them and then, in rapid fashion created a small vial of polymorphine and then downing the concoction and rapidly gaining the hooves, legs and horns of the goat in a satyr like configuration. With their new specialized legs and instincts the Explorer rapidly ascended the cliff with an inhuman but still entirely natural speed and grace.

”There we go. Now what was this about an extradimentionaly sourced structure?” they asked once they had caught up

Alien chemistry applied on the biochemical system… peculiar. she whispered to herself as she saw the polymorphine in action, before sighing at the Coilbrywen-like Exo caught up to her. I am afraid I cannot direct you to the building as it is long gone. It held at its core a sort of crystal that did something completely anathema to the rules of this world… it created coldness. Analysis of the structure showed the stone used in the construction to not be galbar-sourced and it seemed Galbarian life could not survive within its vicinity. I… accidentally turned off the system of the structure thinking it was creating the anomaly. Then quickly discovered it was containing it as it brought the whole south to absolute zero temperatures. I have since corrected it and contained the cold crystal core in the south pole yet the structure itself quickly collapsed into gravel during this incident.

”Ah so that is why that part of the disk is cold, and here I thought it was a deliberate design decision. Well no matter, it was still convenient for creating a weather cycle in the wilds. It is unfortunate that the machinery was destroyed. And slightly concerning that something so dangerous came through. Dangerous on a regional rather than individual scale I mean, like the near ubiquitous monsters are.” Exo replied, keeping up a much better pace now with their new modifications.

”I’ll have to keep an eye out for such things on my future travels. If there was one such oddity there might be more, just waiting to cause all sorts of trouble” they noted, before veering back to the unaddressed topic of the transformation that they’d undergone ”Oh and if you were wonder what gave me these new legs, that would be Polympohpine, a drug I have invented and aught the recipe for to the nomads. It allows the drinker to take on desired attributes of a life form, be it native or alien. Its intended use is for making exploring new environments easier by co-opting native species’s pre-existing adaptations to said environments, though as you can imagine it has a fair number of other uses as well”

The goddess nodded with enthusiasm at the explanation. Oh! That is what it is called? Very interesting. It's a clever invention and it gives mortals some way to overcome their limitations by doing things themselves that otherwise would only be possible through the intervention of gods. as they travelled upward, the air became even more humid as the mountain thinned and the waterfalls congregated, meanwhile, the cordgrass and similar plants that grew in the region were becoming increasingly annoying.

The goddess' temporary amusement gave way to more serious worries as her mind traversed back to the topic of portals. While portals are becoming rarer. Especially the massive ones. Possibly thanks to the restored stability of the world. I worry about what will start to happen once mortals occupy more space. Portals can be very small and the things in portals can be very sensible to human interaction. Furthermore. It seems to me that while the big portals tend to lend to worlds conceptually similar to ours… the smaller ones don’t seem to be quite as bound to that rule. she looked upward, towards the approaching light of the godly city I have been thinking of how to best approach this. A heavy handed inspection of people’s homes for potential hidden away portals seems too likely to just antagonize mortalkind.

”Closer inspection sometimes shows that even the ones that look similar hide strangeness all of their own.” Exo noted, but otherwise agreed. It was going to be a problem.

”Also as the population increases it seems like it would become an untenable task. Or at least a very dull and time consuming one. Plus as you’ve pointed out, such direct meddling is unlikely to be welcomed. It might be best to delegate such a task to the human’s themselves?” Exo suggested ”I and Ze’kelia have done a great deal of research into more nuanced portal manipulation on that new north western island. Which we made. You should visit it some time. Anyway, we've acquired quite the volume of data about how to close, open, hold open, detect, etc. these gateways. I’ve been looking into ways to hand down those findings but, well, the research has all been done with rather high end and energy physics, and translating that into something humans can actually do has been proven. difficult.”

”I mean yes, we could make tools and machines and just... hand them out. But I think self reliance is beneficial both for them and for us in most cases. They get control over another aspect of their lives and we don't have to worry about maintaining, replacing or manufacturing more machinery for them.” They said, as they approached the summit of the mountain, and the city that was only moments away.

My solution is far more organic. See. I think acts such as housekeeping and gardening are a good way to keep the mind clear and grounded before acts such as research. As such I have divided a group of students at the academy as something called custodians. Well… turns out ever since a lot of mortals have been asking me over and over if they could hire them to work on their homes. as the mountain path started to become increasingly easier to traverse as the mountain peaked. Astella said I should do it. At first I did not see a reason but now talking to you… I guess they could provide a very discreet way of keeping an eye on portals hidden away in the urban environment all the while providing a service mortals would be interested in without suspecting there is a god behind them. Of course this is far from the only solution to the issue. But it will likely be my own approach

As they stepped into the boundaries of the city, now already looking quite majestic in all directions as more and more embassies were made, two women of appearance similar to I’Iro, the automatons called Lacemeisters, arrived. One of them carried a small reel of a black substance.

”Hmm. I suppose you could even classify dealing with these micro portals as a form of tidying up, so they wouldn't even really be lying about what they are doing. I can see some gaps in their coverage already, but for keeping the large population centers clean, it seems like an excellent plan.” Exo agreed, though they were noticing a pattern of... Benevolently intentioned privacy violation at this point, which was mildly concerning. They were, however, perfectly distracted from that concern by the arrival to the city and of I’Iro’s mimics.

”Oh is this the scroll you mentioned. And are these… hmmm. Interesting. Were these designs based on something? Or did they come built in? There’s certain features that seem familiar to me? Also Sys... my internal system is rearing up and making a racket about those parts being ’stolen’ for some reason.” Exo said, cringing a little as if they had a headache for a few moments before they managed to clear up the alerts they were getting about copyright infringement and a failure on their part to safeguard assets and technological secrets

Indeed! I integrated in them some new techniques to transfer memory as such you will not only find raw information but also some recordings of my senses when I experienced certain areas such as that alien structure I mentioned. at the comment on her Lacemeisters she was more than a little surprised Ah. Are you familiar with Uwne? They are based in part on some of the mechanisms I noticed in their Golems. Though they were also made by repurposing my construction spider machines which were used in the foundation of this city of embassies.

”Uwne’s golems had those parts in them? But how did they get in... ahhhh” Exo slapped their forehead with their fingertips ”I forgot to clean up those half built mechs from when we fought by accident, and he must have used them as a basis for these golems. Or at least taken some components from them. I can see why the system was complaining about having allowed designs to be leaked. Not that I mind either of you having them. But it is something to take note of, not just leaving things lying around like I did. Or then again maybe I should, it seems to have worked out this time.” They said, mostly to themselves, before shaking their head and trying to get back on track.

”Ah, sorry, where were we? Ah yes, the scrolls! Quite the versatile medium you have created here. I don’t suppose you have one for detailing how to make more of these? I owe you a library of biological blueprints after all. And I could throw in some Layer expiration recordings while I am at it, oh and the various gateway experiments too. I’m sure those could come in handy. A few interesting elements too, the magic repelling and attracting ones of course. Oh and the polymorphine recipe too. Hmm. Yes. Oh wait. Sorry I’m rambling again.” they finally caught themselves ”I just do so enjoy new places and knowledge and both you and this place are proving an excellent source so far. For that you have my sincere gratitude.”

I’Iro smiled. Very much interested in every single thing offered by the fellow deity Hmm. It is a bit complicated. So far I have not figured out yet how to create these without godly intervention. However... this Lacemeister here. she pointed to the second one behind the one who held the scroll. Is ready to transcribe information into a blank scroll if you broadcast your thoughts to it.

”Ah, shame it’s not easily replicateable. Oh well. Let’s have a look and see how this thought broadcast revival works” they said, before a purple beam glowed out from above Exo and onto the head of the Lacemeister. It wobbled erratically for a few moments before steadying into a soft waving motion. ”There we go, that was simple enough. Beginning transfer.” Exo announced, causing a stream of pulses to flow down through the beam and into the head of the Lacemeister.

While the flow of information would likely overwhelm a mortal, as if a whole library was being read aloud per minute, to the machine mind of the Lacemeister there was little doubt of what to do, she merely converted what was being transferred, holding the black scroll against her fingers and sliding it as the information was transcribed. Still, by the end of it, they sighed and fanned air to their bodies with her hand. {Operation concluded. System in almost critical temperatures. Initiating cooldown}

You did well 26. Rest easy. I’Iro picked up the scroll and nodded. Seems like there is nothing compromising this. So yes. Thank you very much. Before we distract ourselves by taking in years worth of information. I would like to say there is a special section in the scroll I gave you detailing the embassies and how they work and my and Astella’s vision for this city. I would be nice if you could join us with a facility of your own there seems to be a technology and culture focused sector growing in the south as you will see.

Exo flicked their gaze away from the start of the scroll that they had already begun reading and rapidly skimmed down to the section about embassies. ”Interesting. I imagine I won't be around or back here too often. There is so much to see and do after all. But it is centrally located, so it would be good to have something here. hmmm.” They thought for a moment, then produced a satchel bag and carefully stored the scroll inside it before asking ”Might as well take a look and see what there is before committing to anything. Would be nice to find a place to sit and read this” they patted the bag containing the scrolls ”while I’m at it”

I’Iro nodded and bobbed her head to the side. Let us go to my academy then. It is the closest location to here and it should be comfortable enough for you. with that she turned around and started moving into the city.

Soon they would walk into the artificial hills of the academy, the walls and architecture clearly unlike anything a human could even imagine much less build. The best spot to rest was up a green ramp, atop one of the slope shaped structures, with a bench beneath a large tree and surrounded by a garden and flowing water.

Exo gave an impressive whistle while taking it all in ”Now this, this is architecture. The way you’ve woven structure and landscape together? Just lovely.” Not only was it a wonderfully peaceful place, perfect for absorbing vast amounts of data as the machine was about to do, but it also gave a nice view of the other areas, both filled and unfilled with structures made by the city’s divine patrons.

”I’m having ideas already”

I’Iro smiled It was my objective to have an ambient that was both harmonic and did not imbue the students with a sense of lesserness or hierarchical inferiority. It was a bit hard considering most data on architecture I collected comes from a monumentalist mortal perspective but I enjoyed the result. the goddess force once was slightly distracted only returning her focus when the other god mentioned his ideas. Ah. Excellent. Let us take a break to discuss these then. Do not worry about resources and I have my own workforce to help you if you need one.

”Your help would be most welcome. Materials mainly, but architectural advice would be most helpful. Not exactly the concern of the nomads, nor of what or who ever filled my internal construction catalog. Almost everything in there is mobile to a greater or lesser degree.” Exo replied, before going through his ideas. An archive, a mobile observatory, and a home that wouldn't pointlessly and emptilly occupy space when the machine was out of the city 99% of the time.

After some discussion to refine the ideas, and a great deal of consultation on construction techniques, the machine, with the help of I’Iro’s own mechanical work force, added onto the academy, planting a few open flowing parks underneath which they buried large archives curated by floating drones, the contents in which could be accessed from a number of small information mounds scattered around the academy, and a few more in the city propper that generally specialized in tourist information, again crewed by those same drones that acted as cheerfully helpful clerks and curators of the knowledge buried beneath the city. Over the years Exo themselves would use the archive as a place to store maps and travel guides created by them during their journeys across the world, as well as research notes and thesis made by them and the odd interesting document or trinket they thought the central city would benefit from having access too. The rest of the archived would gradually fill with practically anything and everything as Exo’s insistence that anyone could and should be allowed to contribute to it resulted in all manner of things being stored there, from scientific information to poetry, propaganda, art, various gubbins put in as practical jokes, cursed tombs, personal items stored and then forgotten, historical records, illicit substances stored under code names, legal documents, culture artifacts, message boards, quest requests, buried human remains, religious scripture and so much more being stored within, rendering it a fascinating and deep if rather difficult to use repository of far to much information, all accessible by request on the surface. The most famous and probably actually useful usage was the creation and subsequent careful curation of a section dedicated to the storage of detailed articles on any and all knowledge, no matter how mundane or fantastical, known as the endless encyclopedia of everything ever, or the 4E section. The small but highly dedicated scholarly order that founded the archive put a great deal of effort into monitoring and curating the contents of the 4E section, striving to maintain the quality and accuracy of the information held within.

Secondly Exo built their own completely unique structure, not on the mountain but instead hovering around it. The floating observatory circled the mountain, its vast and multi-sensory telescope gazing down at the shard or up at the heavens. The structure allowed visitors to scry far off sights not only through that lens, but also upon an incredibly intricate and detailed three dimensional map found in a central chamber, the projection updated each time the siphon moon skimmed across the sky. The final feature of the system was an elaborate contraption that ended up working as a glorified trebuchet that could throw entities capable of surviving the flight on a one way trip to far off lands. A subsequent invention of specially built gliders made the celestial trebuchet both somewhat mortal accessible and resulted in fewer impact craters benign caused by powerful beings falling from the sky.

Finally unlike some of the others, the god did not set up a large and permanent home, instead preferring to live in a simple yurt in one of the city’s fields or parks whenever they were visiting, if they weren't crashing at the home of whatever person they were here to see or vanishing back into the wider world before they needed to spend the night in the city. Interestingly, no one ever saw the yurt being set up, it was simply there whenever Exo, or anyone else considered worthy, needed it. A second entrance could also sometimes appear within the yurt, leading out from the physical location and into a small peaceful wilderness that could be found nowhere on the shard and yet, because the gods still had power there, was simultaneously not of another world either.

After the work was done, the god had a lovely time exploring the city, getting to know its people and places, but all too soon they’d plumbed the depths of the mountain’s heights and found themselves in their new observatory, a map of the entire shard splayed out before them. Hundreds and hundreds of little lights marked on it, each and every one a point of interest to the Explorer. So many that it would take centuries to sift through them all.

”Now then,” the Machine who refused to be called a god said to themselves ”Where. To. Next”

Days passed as he walked and the towering forests that flanked the road slowly gave way to shrublands so dense that they verged on untraversable. In places like this most travellers had no choice but to stick to the paths cleared by the locals between their farms, and that was especially true of those of the human variety. It helped to have scales in a place like this. Of course, the traveller could have walked straight through it all without blinking.

There wasn’t a better way to attract attention than not blinking, though. It was surprising how quickly most people caught onto that detail, so the traveller had to remember. Blink every so often. Don’t just walk through and over any obstacle, stick to the main roads. A century and he still forgot, sometimes, but there had been less people then. Less eyes watching.

Now? The number of little Drakhorey-looking people pausing to gawk and scowl at him as he made his way to their city was astonishing. Once a few hundred had seemed like so many. For there to be this many of them when even one could change everything? He truly questioned the sanity of his peers who thought they were still in control. At least that was mutual.

The world changed. When the traveller finally made his way into the veritable labyrinth of wooden multi-story buildings and narrow streets that was the Eft’s city he was thinking about his reason for coming. In search of a favor. It wasn’t something he had a habit of doing, but a century was enough time to learn that there are things that you just can’t do yourself, or at least not do well. So, he made his way through the city asking after a name he’d only overheard once. And wasn’t that a strange thing? To live a century and only hear something spoken the once.

“Say,” the traveller stopped a passing Eft, “Have you seen the An-Clastaphon?”

The Eft looked at him strangely, saying, in their draconic language, “What are you talking about, human? Looking for another one of your kind? Nobody keeps track of you lot.” It didn’t even wait for a response, melting back into the dense crowd the moment it was done speaking.

“Hm,” the traveller paused and reflected on the fact that this hadn’t been working. He’d been making his way around the Shard asking the same question and the response he’d just been given summed up the vast majority of his journey thus far. It made him more confident he was looking for the right person.

It was also beginning to get on his nerves. Patience was a virtue, but there were limits and he was fast approaching his. If asking one person at a time wasn’t working, well then why not ask everyone at once? He found another local in the crowd and whispered to them, “You haven't seen the An-Clastaphon recently, have you?”

The words echoed in the ear of every living being in the city. Just on the edge of hearing, without a clear source, but intelligible and clear as could be.

The reaction was instant; the crowd halted in confusion for a brief moment, looking over their shoulders and at each other as they searched for the source; before, eventually, shrugging and moving on. However; there was a different reaction, the traveller could sense, in the palace guards walking down the street nearby. Their movements held a mix of fear and anger as they began to shove aside Efts, searching for the culprit.

The traveler's grin grew and he pivoted towards the guards. Guards were the sort to be most suspicious of words whispered in their ear in general, but any reaction was worth the follow up at this point. He strode towards them only to make it barely halfway before a scaly hand gripped his arm, spinning him around. It was an Eft, barely distinguishable from any other in the crowd. As he opened his mouth to speak, it shoved a rolled-up note into his mouth before melting back into the crowd as though it were never there.

After, irritably, pulling the note out of his mouth the traveller glared at the spot where the Eft had vanished. It took him a moment before he bothered to open the note and read it.



”They’d try...” The traveller muttered before the note dissolved in their hand, instantly rendered to ash.

Finding the western gate was as easy as bothering enough Eft’s for directions, so before the palace guards had even given up on their anxious search the traveller was gone and off towards the lonely tree. When he did find the tree, and the door, he swung it open and stepped in without even bothering to knock.

Inside was what once may have been a cellar for spirits to be imbibed; now, it was cleared out, gloomy and lit only by a single torch placed next to a bed frame. It was silent, though the traveller could sense magical fields set about the edges of the room; concealing something. “Lay down,” something whispered to him from the darkness.

"Doubt that’s a very popular pitch,” the traveller remarked as they gave an exaggerated shrug while walking over to and collapsing into the bed, “But if that’s what you need, alright.”

The voice spoke again, this time, louder. It said, “Among our arts there is no mediocrity of attainment; should you study it, you shall have everything or you shall have nothing. To set yourself upon this task is to dedicate your whole being to it, for one who knows half their craft knows nothing. Do you understand?”

“Oh not this again. Does everyone have a cult now?” the traveller muttered under his breath before speaking up and answering with some level of tiredness, “I do understand what you’re saying, yes.”

“One of the chief anxieties, then, is the concealment of our art. We are thieves of knowledge beyond our rank; revealing clearly our lessons in the land shall lead only to all our misery. Speak not her name; her attention is not what you wish. Do you understand?” The voice continued, its tone demanding.

The traveller spun his legs off the bed and sat up before starting, ”So actually, I do wish. I am definitely looking for her attention. Have you seen her recently? Or, sorry, have you ever seen her or know someone who has?”

There was, for a while, a stunned silence. Then, slowly, the voice returned, this time unsure, “Our masters would know. We can send you to them. It is your life, and your death.”

”Great!” The traveller hopped off the bed and clapped, “Then if you could just point me to them and I’ll handle all the life and the death stuff?”

“Lay down,” the voice instructed, “Unless you feel that falling down and bashing your head is a fitting end to your journey.”

“I’d be more worried about the floor,” The traveller tapped his head with his knuckles before sitting back onto the bed, “Got a thick skull.”

A figure then emerged from the sides of the room, as if stepping out of nothing. It seemed the magic at the edges of the room hid them; he was an Eft, hooded and robed, carrying a cup of tea. The Eft slowly lowered the tea to the traveller’s mouth, slowly dripping it into his mouth. They whispered, “I wish you good luck on your suicide.”

Then, the traveller felt his soul splitting from his body. He felt an urge to walk, and when he did, he found that his soul did not walk in three-dimensional space. It walked a strange angle, until he hit his first obstacle; his divine nature began to split atwain, his very soul being stripped of its divinity. A searing pain unlike anything he had ever felt before spread across him, but his soul kept walking.

His mind went blank. Darkness overwhelmed him as consciousness seemingly fled. But, when he came to, he was walking; nothing more than a loose conglomeration of emotion manifested into a vague mockery of the human form. Ahead, a city being torn down in its entirety, set upon a sea of nothing. The rocks and the trees and the grass blurred around him, becoming one in the face of the city.

The false moon shined down upon it all. The flesh writhed, and an Eft, spotting the traveller walking towards the city, lowered himself into prostration, his voice dull and flat as he said, “The divine walks our city, and the world entrail. What honor brings him to make gracious hosts of us all?”

”Fuckkk.” The god hissed and repressed the pain. He straightened up and affected a smile, but unmasked as he was the building anger was unmistakable. He reigned it in. He always did, but the feeling wasn’t something easily hidden by a joke and a grin in this place, wherever it was. When the traveller, the god, when Orynn Kaseyk spoke his reply it was with as much friendly humor as he could manage, “Just saying hello. Well, that and me needing to ask one little thing: do you, oh, happen to know when I can find the An-Clastaphon?”

The Eft rose to his feet, answering, “She watches the sixth city of Olan; through a breach into the parabola. If you seek her, your arrival is fortuitous; you have landed in the seventh city, Alaman.” He pointed behind Orynn, “Walk that way, and you will find yourself in Olan. There, they are always silent and in hiding. Make yourself obvious and she will steal you back into the waking world.”

Well, thanks,” Orynn stumbled over the words, almost bemused. He stared at the Eft for a second before suddenly smiling more genuinely, “Direct and helpful huh? Maybe this place isn't as bad as the trip.”

The god waved fondly at the Eft as he pivoted on one heel and set off. He didn’t bother looking over his shoulder, but he did take the time to occasionally scream nonsense and profanity. Enough time so that ‘obvious’ might have been an understatement.

As he walked away from the city, the landscape coalesced around him, taking shape once more rather than its previous blur. Though, especially with his perception, he noticed that every tree looked the same, every rock was shaped in the same way as every other rock, and streams needing crossing flowed the exact same, and were encountered in a regular pattern.

Several hours of walking later, he arrived; a city, every window and door facing one way, away from some great hole in the sky. Orynn could see people, always walking in places where they could not see the hole in the sky and the hole in the sky could not see them, and, most notably, he could hear nothing from them; not even footsteps.

But what he could hear was muffled speech on the other side of the hole. It was blurry, but he could vaguely make out the shape of the An-Clastophon, and the shapes of two other things, yet unidentifiable.

”Ok, needlessly creepy,” Orynn made the observation to himself as he made his way through the city. He took some care not to bother the people, too much, but still screamed at the hole once he found an appropriately dramatic square to do so from, ”An-Clastophon! Hello? Hey, you got some time to chat? Hellllo?! You hearing me here?”

The An-Clastophon’s hazy face snapped to the hole. The people fled into their homes as Orynn felt a force dragging his half-body towards the sky. He saw the An-Clastophon say something, and one of the hazy shapes slid out of frame. Then, his half-body hit the hole. He could feel his divine essence flee the Lushlands and shoot back towards him as he was pulled through.

Once his eyes were through, he could finally perceive the room -- they were in a room built entirely of obsidian, the An-Clastophon only visible through the glowing of her eyes and his godly perception. There were several doors built into the room, one of which he could perceive was recently used. And finally, behind the An-Clastophon, he could see a godly pillar, one of eight that stabilized the land.

Once he was fully through, the An-Clastophon flatly commented, ”You shouldn’t have been able to survive in there.”

Orynn rolled his shoulders and reached up and out to stretch while he replied, “Ever the disappointment, me. Still, good to see you alive. I was starting to wonder, you know.”

The An-Clastophon narrowed her eyes, looking him up and down as if sizing him up as she said, her tone dry, “Oh, I’ve died before. Didn’t take.” She then, seemingly satisfied, said, “I don’t much encourage social calls, so I assume you need something from me?”

”That alone would be enough for me to drop by,” the god joked as he glanced around the room curiously, “But unfortunately, you’re right. World’s gotten a lot smaller in the last century and it’s getting harder to hide when you need to. Lucky for me, I know you.”

She nodded, saying, almost sentimentally, ”It was easier back then, you’re right. Once, I could run abroad the land and still keep my movements hidden. Nowadays, a thousand eyes would see me if I tried,” she paused, her voice taking on a fairly neutral tone, with the slightest tinge of admiration, “Even my experiments get infested with eyes nowadays. You should have killed all the mortals you saw in there. They’d just fill it up again, but it would feel good.”

Orynn frowned pointedly, “And here they were being so helpful. I didn't take you for the indiscriminate slaughter type. Oh things have gotten harder, but what would we fill our forever with if they were easy? We have to change, fit the times. Rise to the challenge.”

He gestured around as he added, “All of which brings me here, to ask for help. A first by the way.”

She let out an exasperated chuckle, responding, ”What is helpful to you may not be so helpful to me. They’re willing to divulge a great many secrets they shouldn’t know, because they know I can’t reach them,” she caught herself, shaking her head with a sigh before returning to business, ”In any case, let us get to business. What, exactly, were you looking for help with?”

“Like I said, hiding,” Orynn answered, “Things, people, myself. Going unnoticed gets harder and harder, and me? You could say I’ve never been the naturally subtle sort.”

“I see,” the An-Clastophon commented. She thought it over for a moment, then said, “And what are the requirements for this help? Does it need to be replicable, and portable?”

”Be great if it was,” the god grinned at her between words, ”But I figure more might be needed to throw off anyone looking for me than anything or anyone I’m trying to hide. Could be I might be able to tolerate a double standard. One thing and then another.”

Her maw split into some beastly facsimile of a smile, and she said, ”I have just the thing already laying around. All I ask in return is a favor to be used on a future date, and something more immediate. I can explain it after we’ve concluded our deal, but it will take you but five seconds of effort and isn’t harmful to you or anyone else,” she then added, reassuringly, “it’s just something I’m not able to do myself, otherwise I already would have.”

“A favor is it? I’d take you up on that for curiosity alone,” he met the An-Clastophon’s gaze and went on with a smile, “And likewise for whatever it is you want now! So tell me, what can you only get from something like me?”

She held up a finger, saying, “I’ll be right back,” and she went to one of the doors, exiting the room. Orynn was left alone with only the pillar for company for a minute before she returned, carrying a steel box. She walked up to him and held it out, saying, “I can’t explain how it’s made; only that within is a secret that powers the magical field. Show it to your most ambitious mortals and they’ll learn, with time, to make more.”

The god was leaning against the pillar when the An-Clastophon returned, but stepped forward to take the proffered box. Albeit, not without comment, “It’s in character, at least. You’ve settled up, so what about me?”

She sat down, rubbing the back of her head with a hand as she answered, “For the favor, I will find you later on when I’m ready to call upon it. For here, I’m going to drop my guard. Perceive my head and my brain within. You’ll find a complex web of divine leylines within,” she brought her hand down, “sever one at random. No matter what happens to me afterwards, you may go. And this time, use the front door,” she pointed to one of the doors, “it may take you an hour or two to get out of the maze. Make sure to recover the outside door in ash once you’re out.”

“Hm, not what I expected,” Orynn remarked, before quickly tapping the An-Clastophon’s outstretched finger. In the span of a moments contact the god reached within, found a thread within the tapestry, and tore it out before burning it away. He shrugged and finished his thought, “But why not?”

The An-Clastophon’s eyes rolled back into her head as the leyline was cut, her body spasming once before it immediately fell into a violent seizure. The room was silent except for her trashing body, until, as quickly as the seizure began, her body gave out. It lay there silently on the floor, dead.

The god kicked her body, lightly, and then not so lightly, before remarking, “Even if you have died before, it doesn't look fun to me. Oh well.”

With that he turned to the door and casually stepped out. At least, until he’d wasted more than one or two minutes in the maze. After that Orynn Kaseyk, the god of Defiance, finally lost his patience. To his credit, after punching holes in enough walls to reach the exit, he did remember to set it on fire.

Year on lushland calendar: 33
Year on timeskip calendar: 177

The summer was a pleasant one; warm air wafted gently from the north, the cold southern winds receding in defeat. The leaves of the bronzewoods rustled gently, accentuated with the chatter of migratory birds. The volcano had been especially quiet recently; there was not a spot of ash in the sky, and the ashland outposts were free of the ever-threatening ash-storms. The first of the harvests had already come in, the grain distributed among the city.

The latest expansion to the city was going well; Efts were working quickly to make space for their newest brothers. As quickly as they used up their bronzewood reserves, new logs were brought from the woods. The city was a flurry of activity, of cooperation, and of general cheer. It was the most prosperous season they had in living memory.

In the spirit of familial good-will, spurred on by the prosperity, a number of Efts and even some Newts had begun to create small shrines; tokens of appreciation for their mother and their lineage. It had not been widely adopted, yet, and remained the domain of random fits of familial love.

Mere shrines would not do, though, for their mother was the very reason they were alive, and her protection was paramount for the survival of their races. This unity of purpose would strengthen them, but only if the Newts and Efts knew the meaning of brotherhood - that the tribe’s members were family and that respect between kin was the basis of society. These acts of filial piety and familial affection reached the King of Clans, the Queen of Kin, and the Matripatrihierarch descended from Mons Divinus into the ashen wastes and verdant jungles of the Lushlands to behold this budding religion based on respect and love for the tribe and its chieftess.

At the city gate, the golden being, followed by simply dressed clergy of all races who held family dear and who were more or less accustomed to the climate, raised all eight arms in greeting and spoke: ”Be greeted, o pious people of these volcanic lands. A hundred birds have sung of your kinship, and a thousand roots have whispered of your loyalty, so I, Chakravarti vur Chakravarti, have come to see it for myself. Prithee open these gates - let me in to behold your familial love!”

From high above in the gatehouse, the Guard Captain, a particularly large Newt, looked down upon them. He fetched a messenger bird, and tied a note to its foot; releasing it to fly deep into the city. He then shouted down, his voice carrying the authority of his office, “Chakravarti vur Chakravarti, we have been abused by gods in the past; we must see to our family first. Our mother and our queen shall decide if your entry is to be permitted!”

The family god briefly oozed an air of surprise followed by a mist of annoyance, but shortly regained a polite composure and bowed. ”Of course. It is only natural for a tribe to mistrust another tribe with whom no bonds of blood have been bound. I pray your mother is in good health and company - loyal are her children who consult her wisdom before inviting in the unknown. I applaud that.” Four hands clapped with acknowledgement.

The guard captain remained silent, his eyes set upon the god, until the messenger bird returned. He put up his arm, allowing it to land on his arm, whereupon he untied the message on its foot. He unrolled the letter, and read it to himself. Then, he cried, “Chakravarti vur Chakravarti, you are to be permitted entrance; though you are barred from the palace and its grounds! Open the gate!”

Though there was a side gate, the guards went to work on the chains of the main gate; the wrought-iron portcullis slowly lifted with a great groan of weight. Beyond the walls; the city itself stood. Great bronzewood buildings, some fifteen stories high, densely packed between the streets. They were thinner than other cities; the Varasons no strangers to crowds and harmoniously living together in spaces that would bring fights in other species.

The crowd, though it seemed an endless sea, parted way for the god and her procession; helped along by guards. Their numbers seemed endless; stretching down every street in every direction. The golden giant entered with a triumphant aura of pride, followed by the clergy who all were bald and clean of any hair. The men were dressed in bright yellow robes and the women were dressed in matte silver robes. The youngest among them dared look around to behold the splendor of this marvel of construction; the elders kept their eyes fixed on the ground and walked in prayer.

Chakravarti themself seemed upset, though. ”I am thankful that I have been let into the city,” they said as they walked, ”but how am I to meet with the mother - their source of existence and the leader of their clan - if I cannot go to the palace? Why may I not venture there - even I, Chakravarti?”

A nearby guard spoke up, almost irreverently, “It is for your own safety, god that you are. It is for our own safety as well. You may attempt it if you wish; we know better than to attack the gods. But, regardless, you shall not reach our mother.” He kept the crowd back with his halberd, keeping the path in front of Chakravarti clear. They could see the palace; the city was built outwards on the spokes of eight main streets, with the palace’s walls in the center.

Chakravarti sighed and nodded. ”Then so be it. While it pains me that I will not be able to meet with the mother of all these fine people, I have nothing but the deepest respect for sons who would lay down their lives for her protection, even against impossible odds. I will thus not test you, for I know what ferocity comes to life when one protects one’s kin.” They looked around again. ”The seeds of the trees gossiped about certain shrines that have been built in honour of blood and kin. Take me to them, for I much desire to behold their primitive splendor.”

The guard nodded, explaining, “There is only one public shrine I know of; Golden Square in the new expansion. We shall take you there,” they cleared the crowd through one of the side roads, bringing Chakravarti and her procession through a winding maze of footpaths between the tall buildings. The buildings became newer and newer as they went, leaving behind the weathered buildings of yesteryear for the shining new constructions of the expansion.

When they finally emerged from the side streets, the crowd no longer passerbys but instead laborers with their tools, it was in a large square surrounded by incomplete bronzewood buildings. The guard stopped one of the laborers with his halberd; he ordered them, “Explain to Chakravarti vur Chakravarti the history of this square.”

The laborer sized up the god, and then responded, a slight impatience in his voice; he was carrying tools, clearly he had been on his way to a worksite. “Golden Square is named after Summer’s Second Sheafed Harvest of Golden Stalks in the Eleventh Year of the Second Matriarch and the Poet-General; he gave his life not far from here four months ago,” a hint of sadness crept into his voice, “a beam was improperly secured; it fell. He used his body to jam it so it would not fall on the fifteen workmen below him. Those workmen erected that statue,” he gestured to the bronzewood statue in the center of the square; a crude, only barely artistic block of wood hewed into the shape of an Eft. Various offerings surrounded it; foods, tools, and a few coins.

The laborer continued, “They erected it in his likeness. We’re simple workmen. Bronzewood is difficult to hew into shape. They did the best they could. He’s a little bit of a hero around here.”

The family god stepped over to the statue and caressed the woodwork ponderously. Splinters tugged at the holy skin and the curves showed clear signs of struggle with the tools. The likeness was likeness to the people who had known this Eft, but an idol needed not perfectly resemble who it represented. Still...

”Do the youngest and greenest labourers among you know of his example? Has his legend been carved into writing?”

The laborer shrugged, saying, “We speak of it amongst ourselves. But we are workmen; precious little of us are literate. If it has been written down, it was by the palace. They hold stories and legends in great esteem there.” His gaze wandered down the main street; towards the walls of the palace.

Chakravarti nodded. ”Ah, the eternal dilemma - the appropriation of written history by the learned and the reliance on memory by the unlearned. What misfortune,” they sighed. ”Misunderstand me not, mortal - I do not underestimate your memory nor your commitment to ensuring the dissemination of this story out into the workforce; I fear only that the memory of Summer’s Second Sheafed Harvest of Golden Stalks in the Eleventh Year of the Second Matriarch and the Poet-General will fade into obscurity and myth with time. A worthy brother such as him deserves a proper temple and a cult of historians who can tell his tale when all who witnessed him are gone.” The family god drummed a finger thoughtfully on their chin. ”Perhaps more like him will make themselves known, and they, too, will need the same treatment.”

The laborer took off his hat, holding it to his chest as he responded, “We do not begrudge the palace, m’am. Stories and legends mean a great deal to our mother; she has spent her life collecting them. We would not wish to grieve her with their loss,” he paused, his face and tone lightening when he continued, “but we also cannot begrudge an offering such as this. I can speak to the others; whatever assistance you need in enshrining Golden’s memory, we would be happy to provide.”

Chakravarti hummed and squatted down before the statue. A finger scratched passively at their nose and their lips pursed pensively. ”Enshrined, he shall be, and I will leave space for others who will surely come later. Fetch me an armful of bronzewood bark, a fistful of salt and the seed of a palm. With this, a temple to Golden’s sacrifice for his kin shall be erected.”

The laborer nodded, saying, “Of course, m’am,” as he turned around and stepped back into the crowd. The guards kept the square cleared for a few long minutes, until, suddenly, laborers stepped out of the crowd. One carried not just an armful of bark but an entire wheelbarrow of it; another arrived with two sack cloth bags carrying four pounds of salt each. Then, between them, a long pause.

The crowd parted to reveal eight Efts pulling a cart, atop of which was lashed a bronzewood seed; a six-hundred pound monstrosity coated in a protective shell as hard as steel. They careened the cart into the square, and looking to the god, one of them said, “Golden saved my life. I’ve brought above and beyond what was asked, in the hopes that his temple is only made more glorious for it.” He wringed his hands and continued, “but we do not know what a palm seed is, or where to find one; we’ve brought a bronzewood seed instead.”

The god pinched one such seed between two faintly glowing golden fingers and pursed their lips. ”It will suffice, though I cannot say for certain if the temple will resemble what I had in mind; nevertheless, as is the case in all lands, one must make due with the resources available.” They held forth a thumb and squinted one eye. ”That site there - it shall be the location of his temple,” they said and took ten paces forward. As they passed by the man with the salt, they extracted a fistful; when they passed by the wheelbarrow, two arms brought an armful along. Another hand raised a lecturing finger into the air. ”Your enthusiasm is admirable and speaks volumes of your devotion to Golden’s memory…” They dropped the bark into a pile at the destination, planted the seed in the pile and sprinkled it down with salt. ”... Certain things, however, cannot be accelerated with additional resources. Some things will take time no matter what.” They dusted off their hands with four series of claps. ”Tomorrow at noon, a temple will have grown here in Golden’s honour. Until then, no one can disturb this pile.”

The laborers lowered their heads in respect as the god walked past them and created the seed pile. The guards passively watched on; they did not know Golden, so it was not as personal for them. Once she had finished, the collection of Efts murmured their acknowledgement, a few staying to watch the seed as the laborers returned to their duties. A guard walked up to inspect the seed, and then said, “Is there anything else you require while you are in our city?”

The god looked out across the workspace, two out of eight hands resting on their hips. ”I see that this city sports no females beyond these matriarchs that I am not privileged to meet. If someone would, I pray they could tell me - share with me - the brotherhoods formed amongst the many citizens in this settlement. How do your families persist without wives? Without fathers?”

The guard looked at her oddly for a moment before explaining, “We are all sons of our one matriarch -- our mother. Her children are distributed among her sons -- us, to raise,” he paused, thinking for a moment before asking, “What are families, exactly?”

The god shrugged softly. ”A family can be so much, for there are many mortals in this world who define families differently. The core family, however, is the parent and its child - the mother and her son, in your case. Other races incorporate the father to aid the mother in procreation, and families become something more than a mere relationship between creator and creation: They become partnerships between adults - projects to consolidate power and influence and ensure that their children grow up in a better world than they did.” They paused. ”Beyond the core family, the parents are themselves children of their own parents, and their siblings are the childrens’ relatives. This becomes the clan, which may be seen as separate from the family - a broader group who might share blood, but not the intimacy of the core family. This is not a given, of course, but a rough generalisation. To some, the family extends to the clan, incorporating all who swear loyalty to the family, be they distant relatives or entirely unrelated by blood. Others value the core family above the clan, and rather prefer the clan to orbit the core and rule through a strict hierarchy of inheritance.” They knelt down and held up a palm in front of the guard’s face. A small cut blistered open on their skin and small droplets of liquid gold trickled forth. One droplet landed on the ground and a lotus flower sprouted at the spot. ”Common among it all, though, is blood. Friends may be call each other brothers, but only those who have sworn to brotherhood by oath of blood and soil can call themselves family. Since you all share the same blood, mortal, that makes you, too, family.”

“I see,” the guard responded, “Then we are all family. Our children are a communal effort. We work together to raise them; I suppose that makes us all each other’s parents.”

”In a way,” agreed the god and sewed up the wound with a flick of a finger. ”Brother can raise brother; sister can raise sister. In some families, the parent or parents do not have the capacity, skill nor will to raise their own. In such cases, the responsibility falls on the eldest children. You are brothers, but you take on the role of parent to not compromise your mother’s safety.” The god nodded. ”I see I still have much to study when it comes to the clan structures of this world.”

The guard simply watched her muse to herself. He let her finish before he asked, “Perhaps; but we cannot stand in Golden Square forever. Where else would you like to go?”

The god peered passively at the nails of three of their hands. ”Take me to your finest quarters, if you would. I wish to rest for the day. Tomorrow, your temple to Golden will have grown out of the soil and you can commence the enshrining.”

“Very well; the guesthouse on the palace grounds shall do,” the guard instructed, half to the god and half to the other guards; they cleared a route through the crowd down the main street, walking for a few miles before finally reaching the palace walls. Upon each of the eight main streets sat a gate into the palace grounds, the entire complex surrounded by high walls, covered in cannonade and newt palace guards. The guard shouted up, “We bring our visiting god! She has requested a guesthouse!”

The newts on the walls conferred with each other briefly, before the gate rumbled. The portcullis slowly began to lift up as the two inner doors were pulled open by a team of two newts. A team of newt palace guards that emerged to take over the escort revealed just how great the difference between them and the efts -- the newts were twice as tall, with increased musculature to match. The city guards silently stepped away as the palace guards beckoned the god in.

Inside the palace grounds, the crowds thinned. Instead of thousands of efts packed together, there were some five-hundred newts scattered across the brick walkways and the well-managed gardens. Some wore armor and carried force of arms, while others wore the clothes of officials both major and minor. Fewer, still, wore the doublets of important organizations, the upper aristocracy of the march.

Chakravarti held their chin high and did not regard those they passed. They did not radiate a disrespecting aura, necessarily, but their every move clearly had a goal of distancing themself from mortal composure as possible. Their feet walked light as though their soles walked on air; four of their arms flexed outwards to strengthen their silhouette with outward beams of muscle; and their eyes were closed, though this did not seem to impede their sense of navigation. ”Look upon me,” they said to the bypassers. ”Gaze upon me and know peace and safety, for Chakravarti holds in high regard the sons who defend their mother.” They repeated this line about each time they entered a new area. The clergy in their pursuit remained as silent as they had before and followed faithfully.

The palace guards she passed only gave her steely stares, while the officials passed by her without regard; too lost in their own workloads to care. The aristocrats, however, did seem to take note; watching her carefully, and whispering to each other about her when she walked by. The palace guards took her and her procession to one of the main paths of the palace; attached to which was the guesthouse. It was a 5-story building, made of polished marble and bronzewood smoothed and waxed to a shine, with fiery orange clay tiles making up its roof.

Down one end of the main path was one of the entrances to the main flower garden, covered in resplendently colorful blooms, rare plants from all over the continent. Down the other side of the main path laid the palace itself, the path terminating in a massive flight of steps up into the central hall. The palace was entirely marble; its roof tiles exhibiting a lustre and quality far beyond those of the guesthouse. Chakravarti was clearly impressed.

”What splendor of architecture; what sagely use of materials; what exceptional palettes.” Six hands applauded. ”How long has this project taken your kind to build?”

The newt’s voice was gruff, nowhere near as friendly as the efts that had previously escorted them, “The palace has been worked on since we first arrived here, long before even the first building in the city had its foundations laid. It is the only protection our mother has.”

Chakravarti nodded. ”What protects her beyond these walls? Have you charms and spells to keep out the assassins that no doubt threaten her daily?”

The palace guard sized up Chakravarti before responding, “We exist for the mundane threats. For assassins, armies -- the stock and trade of mortal force, the entire city exists as protection,” he paused, looking over at the main palace building briefly as he continued, “for your kind, guards and armies are meaningless. All I may reveal is you would regret attempting to enter the palace.”

Chakravarti frowned. ”You will use a different tone when addressing me from now on, guardsman, lest you will regret your underhanded threats to my person.” They shook their head. ”Well, move along then. I wish to be alone for the afternoon and the night. Again - do -not- disturb that pile.”

The palace guard responded, his tone flat and unimpressed, “None of that was a threat. We warn you of the palace’s defenses in the interest of ensuring you remain unharmed,” he sniffed, “if we had wanted you hurt, we would have invited you in for a visit with our mother. Remember that you are our guest; our mother decided to trust you, and that is a high honor. You are the first not of our lineage that trust has been bestowed to.”

He didn’t wait for a response, and immediately turned to leave as the rest of the palace guards silently moved to follow him.

Chakravarti scrunched their nose and went inside with an angry huff. It was clear that the locals did not know who they were hosting, and Chakravarti would be sure to leave a very poor review behind after their stay. The night passed quickly and the pile remained undisturbed. In the morning, the labourers flocked to marvel at the structure that had sprouted from the bronzewood seed: The pile had become a great tower, one where every roof sported a small ceiling like the barbs on a cactus; the salt had given a white colour to the walls and a jade fungus that had lived in the bark had given the roof tiles an emerald sheen. Within, there was plenty of room for statues and shrines, and a separate room inside, though small, allowed for a full-time cleric to maintain the statues full-time. Inside, bronzewood pillars with carvings depicting the Efts and Newts in their tireless labour held up the many floors, and the levels continued upwards and could be accessed by a spiral of ladders going all the way to the top.

When the guards came to see Chakravarti, however, they found that they had left in the night, leaving only the used bed sheets of themself and their followers and empty breakfast plates. No one had seen them leave and no one could say why they had left before telling anyone.

The palace guards did a search of the palace grounds to make sure; meanwhile, the laborers selected one of their own to maintain the shrine. Once the palace grounds had been secured, the alert was dropped. Though the city would slowly come to worship Chakravarti, the palace itself remained unconvinced, a bastion of irreligion surrounded by a city of the religious.