---

Excessive consumption of alcohol may dull the senses and cause balance issues. Jiugui learned this early on, for it took him a good minute to get to his feet properly. A stone toss away came terrible noises and thunderous explosions - steam filled the heavens and some lady deafened explosions in the ocean with shouts about salt or something - it was all very bizarre, thought the creature. Still, he bumbled along out of the pavilion until he came upon a colourful court of kingly custodians, auras awesome and mighty like the forces of a hurricane. In his admiration and stupor, the little creature hardly noticed the fancy, leather-bound book to his left. Not thinking twice, he blurted out,

“Oh, thish a guest list? Shorry, lem’me jussh…” Before anyone could really react to him, the bumbling man had already signed his name - except it wasn’t his name, and the page was not blank.

Over a section detailing that all the forces of earth and heaven should work in harmony to ensure the stability of creation and existence, Jiugui had scribbled a terrible gibberish that, if you squinted closely, looked like a burnt snake, possibly a salamander. Either way, that did the deed, and the rain and earth on Galbar shook violently - on parts of the planet, the earth under water quaked and cracked, creating the first volcanoes; on other parts, the rain clouds clotted together into mighty hurricanes that ravaged (luckily) nothing yet. Docile against the might of gods, these forces could become a problem for mortals down the line. Oh well.

Jiugui, however, was busy studying his signature. He decided that he was unhappy with it, turned the page and signed again:



He tapped his chin with his brush. _{Slap, slap, slap.}



And so it was that mortals, beasts, plants and all, if they found alcoholic fruit, beverages or other things, would not shy from consuming it - some might even enjoy the taste in later days, who knows!

Once properly signed in, Jiugui staggered into the centre of the court, where the turned to the most magnificent thing the room, no doubt interrupting loudly the six-legged horse spouting on and on about using the palace’s men for weird experiments. The man tossed himself into a kowtow on the floor, spilling all the wine in his cup.



There came a small burp. “Oh, ‘zcuse me…"



And so the fat man slammed down the contents of his tiny porcelain cup (well, after rematerialising some more in an instant). Afterwards, he growled a small _{brrrrooooiph, sorry…} and turned to the horse. “Shorry, I intezzupted you, sirr, cazzy ohn…” His eyes then affixed to first the cartwheeling goddess who seemed to look exactly like another, sterner, scarier goddess, then to the absolutely awesome doomsday that seemed to last only for a second. Or did it happen at all? Jiugui wasn’t sure, honestly, but as his brain short-circuited when he (surprisingly) remembered the cartwheeling lady. Sticking both arms out backwards like the winds of a bird to balance his forward-bending torso, the man engaged in a waddling jog after her, cackling all the way.

---

As the god of cold came to exist briefly before the Monarch of All Ruina nodded in greeting towards him, though with how quickly he left she didn't find the time to say much of anything in his direction. Perhaps sometime later, then. Turning her attention away from the Monarch of All briefly, she saw more divine beings descending and arriving around The Monarch of All. One of them even called out for contribution so that they could design a grand continent for all to leave their mark on. Unfortunately for him, such a thing did not interest Ruina. At least, not for now.

She watched as a few of the arriving divine entities fell to the planet of Galbar with some amount of force. Sending huge waves of water across the surface of the planet from their impact. Another god called upon them to transcribe what they liked into a codex, and the thought gave Ruina pause. Should she? Or should she not? If she were to record her wants and desires within such a codes then perhaps her future endeavors would be less surprising... But at the same time, was not the point of a test to be surprising? If it was made clear that their creations would be tested, would it not be in the interest of all to make their creations test-proof? Such an undesirable outcome was not deemed desirable by Ruina, and thus she left the book free of her touch.

Indeed, Ruina knew of her purpose. Despite the fact that Ruina had not received any direction from the Monarch of all yet, it was a purpose that she found threaded around the core of her very being. Why else would The Monarch of All, so intent on witnessing creation, allow for the birth of a goddess whose sole purpose was to destroy? Clearly he meant for her to ensure that things were kept neat and tidy, cleanse Galbar of the things that were left unfinished or abandoned to the whims of random chance. Perhaps even test the things that were finished, to ensure that they would be worthy enough to earn the gratitude of The Monarch of All.

Yes. Her purpose was clear: Judge. Evaluate. Subject those unworthy to punishment so that they would improve and please their collective master. That was her duty, and she accepted it gladly. It wouldn't make her popular... But it would make her valuable.

Witnessing another god come to write in the created codex, Ruina barely had time to even consider offering them a nod of greeting before they left promptly. So many so eager to dive down to an empty planet and begin their work. That was all well and good enough Ruina supposed. It would make for plenty of testing to be done when Ruina began to make her moves. Ruina herself thought about beginning her descent to see just what was going on when the divine being next to her began to sing praises over Ruina's appearance.

Not used to such flattery Ruina could only smile as it was delivered with gusto. Once the divine being before her gathered their senses and introduced themselves properly, Ruina gave them a similar bow to the one that she gave to The Monarch of All before speaking up. "Greetings, and peace be with you Aethel. I am Ruina, and it is equally nice to meet you. My thanks for the complements, they are most kind. As for what you may call me aside form name, I would suppose that the term sister would fare well enough if you desire to use it."

As she finished speaking and listened to Aethel describe the stage that they would be working on, Ruina resisted the idea of informing them that she already knew exactly what her plans were. It would be rude, and perhaps it was just a bit of their prior eagerness slipping back in. They seemed to have a lot of it. As they turned to speak with The Monarch of All, Ruina noted that The Monarch had simply vanished. It was mildly annoying to lack in specific direction for her testing efforts, but Ruina was confident in her ability to ascertain a general guess as to where to begin. All she needed to do was set her plans into motion. And what plans they would be.

Witnessing yet another deity writing something within the codex that had been set out, Ruina turned to speak with Aethel before another god made their appearance and introduced themselves. Nodding in greeting, Ruina returned the bow, even though it was not directed at her, and gave her name as a courtesy. "Greetings Zelios, peace be with you. I am Ruina."

And that was that, a simple introduction. Ruina didn't feel the need to say more than needed. Fortunately her simple and short introduction didn't have time to be commented upon before another goddess showed up... And promptly copies her appearance. That was certainly quite something to behold, as Ruina was quite surprised that someone would want to choose her appearance to mimic. Still, it was a fairly accurate replication, down to even the scarring. This one would likely need to have an eye kept on her.

Before Ruina could say anything Zenia, as she had introduced herself, ran off once more. Blinking a few times, Ruina offered a soft smile. So much energy. It was then that an explosion echoed from the surface of Galbar, and for a brief moment the waters that Ao-Yurin had placed were briefly disrupted. Now that gave her a bit of an idea on how to carry out her first test. But that would come in a moment. For now she watched the explosion of... Salt? Salt across the planet. Then the formation of ice rings from additional explosions. How interesting that giving the planet rings was something that came around.

Beyond this was something more interesting, a landmass. And one not created from the pool of energy that Voligan was building. Too bad that Ruina's plan for what was coming would likely devastate it. Perhaps it would weather the approaching storm with grace, or fall and be destroyed as something unworthy. She would certainly see when the time came. For now, something much more interesting was happening.

An event of almost cataclysmic proportions took place, resolved only by the direct intervention of The Monarch of All himself. Quite interesting to say the least, how the power of dance might undo the world puzzled Ruina, but it was something that certainly seemed to almost do the trick. Perhaps she would have to try it one day.

And finally, another new god appeared. This one also making his way over to the codex that had been created. He seemed to be having issues with his balance and speech as words slurred out of his mouth. Ruina watched as he scribbled about in the codex for a bit before staggering their way into the middle of the court. It was then they they introduced themselves to what Ruina could only guess to be The Monarch of All... But they weren't here. Though perhaps they were and Ruina couldn't perceive them yet? They had vanished nearly instantly when Ruina and Aethel had been standing there and speaking to him, so perhaps that was simply the way of things?

No matter. Ruina had a mission in mind now. The first of what would be many tests. Bidding farewell to Aethel and Zelios, Ruina approached the edge of The Divine Palace and took a deep breath as she summoned forth her divine energy. Thankful for the boon of it that The Monarch of All had granted to his creations, Ruina planned on using it well. For this particular effort the energy flowed easily. It was in Ruina's nature to destroy, after all. The time of the first test had come. Not needing to be subtle, Ruina raised her hands above her head and allowed the summoned divine energy to coalesce into a striking sphere of red. Lightning flashed within it, and the surface bubbled and stretched as if yearning to break free. Looking squarely at the Ocean, Ruina took upon her face a wicked grin and announced the beginning of her testing for all to hear, but in specific she sought the ear of Ao-Yurin. "Creator of the mighty ocean, hear my challenge! Though others might have temporarily disrupted the surface of your creation, I will put it to its first true test! If aught remains, this creation of yours shall be dubbed worthy!"

And then Ruina released the huge sphere of energy, allowing it to float towards Galbar. It moved slowly at first but was quick to pick up speed as it began to approach Galbar's infinite ocean. After a few minutes of travel it split into a mixture of large and smaller spheres before each of them impacted into the ocean. At first nothing happened, and it seemed like Ruina might've just been full of hot-air. But then a chain of explosions rocked Galbar, forcing the planet to shudder and making the previous tsunami's and waves look like a child stomping about in a puddle. If anything aside from water was present on Galbar at this time, it was slammed with a torrential wall of water that seemed unending and merciless. A secondary test to judge their validity as well.

It would take some time, but after a few hours the ocean would be calm again... Save for the fact that where these orbs impacted across Galbar they left holes in the ocean. Places where the water simply did not recede. Scars in the ocean from Ruina's test, exposing the sea floor wherever they existed. As this chaos unfolded, Ruina watched with her arms folded. Her tail flicked side to side idly as she waited to see the results of her first judgement. When the storm settled, Ruina spoke to all the divine ears that would hear her once more, delivering the news of her judgement to all at once. "The test is finished. Ao-Yurin, your ocean is considered worthy."

And with that, Ruina turned and walked deeper into The Divine Palace, eager to find a place to rest off gathering and expending that much energy all at once.

Location: The Celestial Palace.
Interacting with: Ruina @Squad 404 (Briefly)
Mentioning: Pretty much everyone else.

Aethel was happy and supportive of their new best friend. Ruina was amazing in just about every way. They got to watch her go and rain down a beautiful display of destruction and... well, not really death since they were pretty sure there wasn't anything living on the planet below just yet that could have been caught up in the various blasts Ruina created but it sounded like a good sentence in their mind all the same. The explosions and the holes in which water refused to flow into where you could see land really blended well with the rings of ice and salt that had been created when they hadn't really been looking.

As Ruina returned and seemed to wander off for the depths of the Palace, Aethel offered her a sitting ovation so that they could use their front and mid hooves to clap them together at the same time in applause. If nothing else, at least one being enjoyed her work.

Of course, this was just a fleeting distraction from the seething rage that was shimmering at their core. Below the smile and the good cheer as they witnessed their counterparts, kin and companions arrive and start putting things into motion, Aethel was livid! The Monarch of All, their lord and father... had rudely brushed them off without a word. Not just them either, but everyone who had been polite and respectful enough to greet the Monarch had also been ignored as well. There would have to be a reckoning for that because there was nothing worse then being rude, but that could wait.

They still had a job to do after all... and while the Monarch hadn't exactly given them permission to do as they requested, they hadn't objected either which under the circumstances Aethel was going to take as consent. They did ask after all.

For a moment they considered how best to go about this... before an idea came to mind. An awful idea. A wonderfully, terribly awful idea.

Taking an overly dramatic deep breath, Aethel followed the example of some of their kin in making their announcement audible to the rest of the divines. "Ladies, Gentlemen, Boys and Girls and that techno colored rainbow in-between! I am Aethel! I am here to announce a once in Galbar's lifetime event! Due to the nature of this performance, please be advised to wait until after the show is over before attempting to add life to the planet. Granted there is a chance it will survive, but it will almost certainly be greatly distressed. Without further ado..."

Their announcement given, Aethel took another breath before closing their eyes and focusing on the task at hoof. It took a moment before anything visibly started to happen, but as the greenery around Aethel started to sway as the wind picked up that changed quickly. The invisible strands of wind mana were the first to answer the call, easily swirling within the orb that was forming in front of their deity. It would soon by joined by other colors; The waters that Ao-Yurin left behind contributed a blue mana while the plants of the palace easily contributed green. The chaotic energies of themself and their more... passionate kin turned red as it joined the maelstrom of mana that was forming, while those more subdued and orderly provided a milky white mana to the mixture. One of Tuku's rodents that happened to be poking around the throne at the wrong time was suddenly crashed as if by an invisible hand, the life draining from their broken body as quickly as tar like black mana was pulled into the chaos.

These were only the first colors to join the orb of swirling energy. Simple base colors at first, but more complex ones quickly joined the mixture; Soon there were colors joining that Aethel was pretty sure that even some of the other deities couldn't actually comprehend or understand, such as Norh and Victear (Both of which required a mind that was unshackled from certain fundamental concepts to even be able to see).

As the orb of impossible swirling colors and mana inflated to a truly astounding size, Aethel grimaced in concentration and with a noise that was... difficult to describe with words, started to force the massive orb smaller and smaller, forcefully compressing it until it was little more then a rainbow colored ball small enough for Aethel to fit in their mouth without having to alter their form in the slightest with an audible nom and swallow it down.

For a second, nothing happened. Then with the cracking of the palace stone underneath them Aethel expanded in an instant until they were a overly large sphere shape. Their head stuck out, alongside all six of their hooves which appeared rather useless as their respective legs seemed to have been lost in the ball that was the rest of their body. Seemingly unable to speak with their cheeks puffed out, Aethel opened their eyes again with a glint of determination as they focused solely on Galbar. The various, uncountable tentacles and tendrils along their side reached out... and seemed to grasp onto the very air itself in order to find anchor points to heft their bloated master off the ground.

As the spherical Aethel dangled in mid air, their tendrils slowly started to rock them back and forth, quickly building up speed and momentum before, with a combined effort of all of the countless tentacles, Aethel was launched towards Galbar. At first progress was slow but within seconds the equine turned missile picked up further momentum to impossible speeds as they crossed the distance between the Celestial Palace and the planet within mere seconds. Hitting the newly developed atmosphere, Aethel only expired the heat and flare of entry for a slim few seconds before impacting with water and being driven through it with barely the slightest hint of resistance. Leaving behind all light, Aethel hit several different substances beneath the water layer before finally coming to a complete stop... before at last tilting their head back just enough that the larger of their two horns could prick their swollen body.

From the surface, Aethel had hit the water at the top most part of Galbar so quickly and with such unstoppable force that while the center of the impact site seemed to create a hole in the water that went down into the depths at the angle that Aethel had hit the water, the sea around where they hit had been pushed down into a bowl of rather impressive size considering that it had been created via sheer force of impact rather then divine intervention. The shock-wave and sound of Aethel's passage was visible and hadn't even left the 'crater' that the ocean hadn't even began trying to reclaim when the 'top' of Galbar started to glow brighter then the Celestial Palace itself.

For 3.14 seconds, the 'top' of Galbar glowed brightly enough that even most deities would have struggled to gaze directly at it. In that space of time, a seed grew into a tree of ginormous size. The mind shatteringly large and complex series of massive roots borrowed deep into Galbar, some even finding purchase in the core of the very planet itself in order to properly anchor the massive titan of a plant that they were supporting while the trunk and branches found themselves occupying continent sized space in a stormy, ocean covered world.

Such a massive thing suddenly existing resulted in a great deal of water, earth, rock and metal suddenly being displaced at very high speed, most of it being launched upward into orbit. What was flung into the sky carelessly at an angle and didn't quite break the force of gravity came back down again and rained down upon Galbar; Considering that Galbar was still in its early stages and didn't have anything on it apart from ocean and land at the bottom of deep pits where the water couldn't fill in anymore, ton after ton of water and earthly material raining down did little more then add an interesting display to the chaotic rocking of the oceans surface in the form of pockmarks... unless it landed in one of Ruina's holes in the ocean of course, in which case they got just that little bit shallower than they were before.

With the Tree established, the light that created it surged outwards in a ring that would, within the hour, pass over all of Galbar. Wherever it passed, Mana flowed and sunk into the very nature of the world itself, infusing itself with all aspects of existence that it could and each different color of Mana setting into their proper place as best it could. When the circle reached the 'bottom' of Galbar, instead of canceling out it would instead invert and cover the globe again before finally fading once it reached the Tree that was its point of origin.

As the tree stood proudly above the ocean that was even now rushing back in and covering the lower part of the trunk and the start of the root network, from the topmost branches Aethel rose into the air and turned towards where the Celestial Palace stood before giving the bow of a performer at the end of their act. Holding the pose for a few seconds, Aethel righted themself... and promptly fell backwards to disappear under the leaves of the Tree. By the time they landed on their back in one of the larger branches, they were already out cold.

---

The Reverberation found itself lost somewhere within the dreary land of the sulking and seething. There was a storm, and she was at the very epicenter of it. Or maybe she was the storm? Not even she knew the answer to that -- all she was aware of was that she felt deeply upset. Logically there was little reason for it; already she had begun to cool towards the ugly rock from her last ideabstraction, the other Shard, the Feverfoot, the dancer, that Rosalind. Rosalind had apologized once she’d seen the ideabstraction, and the link between their minds was a two-way conduit: Yudaiel had felt the sincerity and regret, and to some extent she had accepted it…though less forgivable was how she now felt so strange. It had only been mere minutes since her birth, and yet she already felt like she was someone else, forever and inexorably altered. Some part of her now yearned to dance, and so she did, even in this miserable land of the sulking and seething.

All about her it rained, damp and cold, and yet underfoot the puddles broiled with the searing heat of her rage. She stomped in one such scalding pool as part of her dance, the fresh memory of what the Monarch had said and done flaring brightly in her memory. The boiling water burnt and stung in a sense, just like how it had hurt when the Monarch had forced Himself into her mind and thrust that fear into it. Never again would she be quite so carefree or impulsive as in those first few seconds when she raced towards that beautiful palace without a thought or a care; caution and respect had been drilled into her, and though it had been meant to be just fear of Him, it had and would bleed over into other things.

The cold water of the rain soothed her burning flesh, and brought clarity and lucidity to her thoughts. She remembered also the condemnation in His tone, the accusation that He had laid upon her and Rosa. She had nearly destroyed the world, He’d said! What a worthless slate and pathetic world if it was truly so fragile as to be undone by an accident, a mere bump and no more. Lightning struck somewhere behind. She turned back to look at the last bit of the flash, and in it she saw the Monarch’s eye as she had seen it minutes ago, and she once again saw that same look: ‘Never again,’ His eye had said. The thunderclap came a few moments after the lightning’s flash, the warning sound too late as thunder was wont to be by its very nature, ever slower than lightning. The thunder’s boom warned of the terrible thing she and Rosa had seen when together they’d looked back. She struggled to wipe the memory from her mind in that moment, to escape this miserable plane.

Of course, none of this sorrow of hers was outwardly visible, nor this ‘land of the sulking and the seething’. She really had no feet with which to stomp in puddles, nor any skin or flesh to be burnt and alternately chilled by water. That place and its sensations and experiences had all just been a construct within her ever lively imagination, a mirror reflecting her innermost thought and emotion, and so with little more than force of will she shattered the mirror. All of it was thus banished from her Sight, and once again she perceived reality as it was in that moment, the present.

Adrift in the cold dark sea of space, she cast her gaze left and right. Down below she saw Galbar; it was shaping nicely, with beautiful-but-tumultuous seas being shaken and stirred as the gods fell down themselves and as they pulled land from the depths below. She felt no desire or will to join them, despite Voligan’s invitation for help. ’Let others play their roles there,’ she thought, ’for mine is elsewhere, wherever elsewhere is. The newly-forged ice rings that encircled Galbar were quite beautiful, stunning as the light of the solar palace of Heaven reflected off of them -- the palace. She turned her gaze back to it. Her awe and its image had been sullied, and now she hardly wanted to resume her flight to it, but there were other Shards like her milling about there, and she felt and heard what the one called Epsilon had said. This ‘book’ that he spoke of was intriguing. She squinted, peering across the tapestry of creation to look at the thing. There were no real horizons to hide behind so as to escape her Sight; the only hope was that the entangling mess of threads and needles were too distracted or chaotic for her to notice. But the Codex was far from hidden, and its thread was a bright one aglow with power, so she easily saw it. Even more intrigued now, she snapped out of the reverie of her prescience and found herself driven forward, compelled to examine it more closely…

The odd sight of the drunken Jiugui making his way (part sprinting, part rolling, part falling!) down the bridge was a bemusing spectacle even for one with tastes as peculiar as her own. Yudaiel briefly considered calling out and making this strange one’s acquaintance, but then a more foreboding presence neared her. She could feel it, somewhere not far behind.

It seemed she had not been the only one of that mind. At the edge of her vision, now anchored to the realities of the present, flitted a dark gleam, an incongruous ray of shadow and light, which speared from the skies of Galbar towards where the Codex beckoned from the palace’s gates. The umbral presence did not flow ahead evenly as she did, but hurled itself forward in bursts, now lagging behind, now almost emerging into sight again. At last it leapt forward in a mighty heave, and the glistening, shifting figure of Iqelis careened fully into her view. The cyclopic god bounded upon pieces of debris scattered about the heavens, be they ice, rock or the remains of spent shards, and launched himself ahead as they crumbled and decayed, riding the wave of their annihilation until he clutched on his next grip in the ascent. He turned his eye towards the core of her presence, shining equally with curiosity and wariness.

”Where does the flow take you, sister?” he queried in an echo of cracking glass, ”Do you seek your doom by the hand that cast you out?”

Ah, words. Such crude instruments! Rather than answer him in kind, Yudaiel’s expansive form suddenly reached out explosively to grasp at him, to just touch him barely so that he might feel as she felt, and for a moment See…

For a moment the dark god swung about and aside, away from her, a dozen hands raised to intercept an invisible but nevertheless expected blow. Seeing him recoil, the Reverberation froze her own advance, a wispy tendril of her essence hanging just on the precipice of Iqelis’ comfort. So then his diamantine eye flared up with a prideful glow, flashing with a quick sequence of feelings imperceptible to any who could not detect the faintest fluctuations of its light - irritation at having been so easily rattled, a surging assurance of his own superiority, an injunction, or perhaps a challenge, hurled her way - and he approached again, angling from stone loosened by Voligan’s descent, arms deliberately left down his sides.

Taking that for his assent, the Reverberation bridged the remaining gap between them, and the ideabstractions began to resonate within Iqelis’ mind. The events surrounding her encounter with the Monarch flashed before him -- though he had curiously watched the spectacle from afar in person, this time he saw what transpired from her perspective, and her scorn at what the Creator had done was there. This disdain of hers was a fading one, or perhaps more accurately stifled, a smoldering coal rather than a blazing fire. Still, it was dangerously present, bared and unmasked in the open, and from it wafted the smoke of her defiance in the face of the fear the He commanded. She was not afraid to go into the palace, even if she admitted that His presence was a rattling one.

The landscape shifted. The ember faded, but its glow remained. The carmine red of hot coal made way for a different glow though, a more pure and awesome one like the luster of gold, or the radiance of the sun. And a new object appeared in the center of this glow, the Codex. A low humming emanated from this most divine of things, beckoning forward. That was what she sought.

There was a moment of stillness, laden with contemplation, and then the vision began to change through no will of her own.

Around the shining point of her goal, the shadows deepened, until the whole panorama of her mind's eye, from the span of the bridge heavy with rancorous memory to the vague promise of Galbar far below, was cast into gloom. A gloom that was palpable, solid, moving, a shadow and yet a rushing tide. For an instant, everything was swept away, and despite the dizzying speed of the vision she saw the disintegration of all things in minute detail, scrap by scrap tearing and peeling away hoarily. Immense, nebulous hands of black crystal slithered about, turning and twisting the umbral torrent that spelled the fate of creation. She glimpsed the wrath of the Monarch as she had felt it flaring up once again; but how small it seemed beside those hands, how helpless and impotent! Even an ember of resentment could surely have snuffed out its feeble core.

Yet she had little time to dwell on that, for the hands converged on the beacon of the Codex. A sharp finger hovered above its page, poised to etch its mark into it, and thereby spell out the name of Time.

Confusion and bemusement permeated the vision. Nonetheless, the goddess willingly watched for a time -- this telepathy was a conduit that went both ways, after all. Quickly though she grew tired, or rather annoyed, at this flawed and imperfect image. Her will and telepathy were strong, and in a resounding gong and a bright flash, the vision became one of her choosing once more.

There now was a mighty cataract -- one with a bottom of rocks, some still jagged but many more weathered and smooth. This precipice that the waterfall fell from was a cliffside that defied reality, so imposing that its top was hidden above a layer of clouds.

Yet instead of some thunderous din that deafened the world, there was silence. Instead of an entire river’s worth of water falling down to pound the earth with a force that shook its very foundations and made it into one great drum, there was stillness. There was not a drop of water to be seen; what should have been the most magnificent waterfall in creation was dry as a bone.

A great sense of wrongness was forced down Iqelis’ proverbial throat, and it was hard to swallow. With it came disappointment overwhelming, for before him was a worthless and ugly landscape, one that represented wasted potential. There was suddenly the mercy of clouds concealing the ugliness, but the clouds had not moved. Instead they, and their field of view, was soaring upward at a mind-boggling speed. Even still it took some time to reach the peak, for this was not just one waterfall but a series of many twisting and turning ones. How beautiful it must look if the water flowed, if the longing light could strike it so as to find purpose and beauty and make a thousand thousand divine rainbows! Eventually they arrived at the dried and cracked trough above, the riverbed of the dried river that should have soared over the cliff in ecstatic furor.

The metaphor became clear as Yudaiel guided his thoughts: time was a river, and in his flawed conception, there was no journey -- the important part -- just some bleak and desolate destination. Blackness then swallowed all, smothering any sensation of time or perception. ‘You are blind!’ the horrible void voicelessly japed. Or was that his own conscience? Without waiting for his introspection, it went on, ‘...and the water’s purpose is lost upon you, but there may be some potential yet. Open your one eye, and See: witness Truth and Beauty and Reality.’ Slowly, the cruel darkness began to recede..

A silence followed, the motes of Iqelis’ mind inscrutable but receding. Perhaps he had been taken aback by the vehemence of the rebuttal, or perhaps he seethed at the rejection of his world. However it may have been, he made no move to answer, until -

Light continued to gain ground, parting the shadowy curtain, until it revealed the barren course of the river that had been enveloped. Or, at least, a close simulacrum of it, evoked by someone who had seen it briefly: though its turn and course were unchanged, minute details marked it with irksome imperfection, loose rocks misplaced and skeletal dry shrubs along its banks drooping the wrong ways. The cauldron at its mouth was perhaps a little shallower, but altogether as dry and uncomely as it had ever been.

Let it be so, a trenchant voice spoke from everywhere and nowhere, harsh and unforgiving like the landscape itself.

A muted rumble from far away in the distance answered it, and down the desiccated stream rolled an iridescent cloud, followed by a roaring wall of water. As it approached, the land around it seemed to stir to life in an instant as it passed, patches of green springing up from the cracked soil. The renewed flow burst over the edge of the caldera, bursting and splitting into a myriad rivulets as it struck upon the sloping outcroppings on the fissure’s walls. It kept flowing and falling, until the cauldron was steaming with resplendent clouds and its floor had been swallowed up by a tide made murky by the dust and dirt -

And still it flowed, rising high until it found a way out in a narrow gulch and spilled out, continuing on its impetuous course. The cauldron was left behind as the river rolled on ahead, through rocky canyons and arid plains. Now and again it was joined by more streams, which intertwined, grew and separated again, winding each along its own path. The vision’s focus rose up into the sky, as high as where the clouds would have been, and each river was bared to it. They were hundreds in their race through a shifting, dreamily inconstant landscape, each with its own struggles and triumphs. Some, like the first it had followed, forced their way through dry and dead wastes, returning colour to the bare earth. Others twisted through lush forests and glittering meadows, through fields of curiously shaped boulders and rank marshlands, over hills and through caverns of hidden darkness. From high above, they looked like a shining pattern, crossing through breathtaking beauty and cloying foulness alike, and at the end…

At the end there waited for them an inky sea, boundless and deathly still. No waves marred its surface, no reflections moved to light it. Each and every river, whether scattering into a delta or diving forth as a single mighty flow, plunged into that abyss, and was lost with nary a ripple.

Wheresoever a journey may turn, its destination is always the same, the voice spoke again, dry and cutting, Whatever an eye may see, it will always close in darkness. All threads, dull and bright, will come unravelled. Beauty and Reality are no more than fleeting dreams, and One Truth waits to wake all.

The flicker of sorrow that he might have expected for a response never came; instead there was only bemusement, laced with an insufferable hint of smug superiority. His vision did not make way for some replacement, but rather became subsumed by the Prescient’s will.

The deathly still black sea grew larger and nearer as their lofty perch in the sky seemed to suddenly be plummeting. Heaven united with sea, and now their perspective was that of the inky water itself. How vast and expansive the sea truly was! It basked beneath the sun, and was content. Ripples and reverberations nigh invisible upon its mirrorlike surface nonetheless stirred in the depths below; it was alive, and it had a heartbeat. In every moment it bled a lake’s worth of water through miniscule cuts and tears wrought on the surface by the sun’s brazen glare, and yet compared to the vastness of the sea such evaporation was barely even noticeable. Still, in time a great stormcloud did coalesce above, and suddenly their perspective was a heavenly panoramic view of the land once more. They rolled over the dark clouds together and at last became one with a single raindrop. Buffeted by winds, this-droplet-that-was-them clutched onto the sky as if for life, but in the end it was of course futile, and it fell alongside a thousand-thousand other drops. Still, they had ridden far upon the wind and clouds, and as they fell it became apparent that they were once again among the towering peaks and spires near the headwaters of that first mighty cataract. Indeed, they merged with that same river and followed its course again. In an instant they were once more at the sea, but in the next heartbeat they were the river. The sea, then the river. Time accelerated and began to lose meaning, but with each passing they rubbed upon the jagged rocks and made them smoother and smoother, they carried away sediment and built an expansive delta, they gouged and rent through mountains to carve a canyon: legacies to endure the test of time.

Ah, time, the great and endless river. In truth it was best represented not by one river, but rather by many, as Iqelis had shown in his jaded retort. The possible rivers were many and their paths could be changed, but there was always the constant that they returned to the sea, and perhaps there would finally come a day when the sea was drunk up by the earth below and all the water vanished and the world was a dried husk -- or was it? Thunderous laughter dismissed even that ocean. Once more the sea became the universe, their reality, but this time it was not content. It was not merely bleeding from the minute cuts and punctures of the sun’s jabbing rays, but rather it had been eviscerated and its very entrails were being dragged out in a thousand ropelike strands. They were swept up in one of these strands, and now the imagery made no sense at all: they were a part of the river, and they were flowing backward, inland, uphill. Now the rivers drank the sea, the ravine floors rose from the ground to make proud and unbroken plateaus once more from the canyons, the smooth rocks became jagged, and all was frozen -- the river stopped, and with it time! Rest and comfort sat in; this moment was eternal. Somewhere far away there came an angry and ominous thundering. That distant storm was Doom, for the sea was angry and it recalled the water from the rivers, and yet the frozen-rivers seemed to laugh their defiance in this unending moment of tortuous, outrageous, vile refutation of all that seemed right and natural. Doom and all its inevitability was rejected seemingly with impunity, at least in this moment and by this river. Mercifully, the rebellion ended eventually -- but only when the river was tired and ready for its fate. Doom was but an attendant, left to wait and wait, for it had been put last behind all other timeless things and wants and worries and priorities.

Before they could be fully overtaken, the river and its world trembled and faded, and soon the two of them were no more a droplet in the gathering storm, but rushing and leaping towards the Monarch’s palace again. Iqelis had fallen behind her as he divided his attention between the exchange of thoughts and the motions of his body, but soon he caught up again, a vicious glow in his eye.

”You cannot hope to fight against the flow. Only I can withhold it when I please,” he hissed, but his voice had more spite than conviction.

The Great and All-Seeing Eye twitched to focus on him for a moment, and then turned its gaze back to the palace with disregard for his vitriol. How could that one deign to rule and command when the flow of time when he could hardly perceive even a fraction of its totality? She could not possibly clam to control all of fate, but if anyone were to be such an omniscient and omnipotent force, surely it would be her, for already she sensed and she knew that her place was closer to that brink than that of any of her peers. Some future version of herself that she had yet to realize, an Eye that had trained its reading and its perception and seen nigh all things, that would be the master and controller of fate, the composer of all strands and threads. Was such a state of existence even possible? She relished and reveled in the enticing thought, but there was a shroud of doubt that weighed down any gleeful optimism.

The halls of the palace, resplendent in ornament and still ringing with the first steps of nascent divines, came at last into full view. There, behind the very first gate into its interior, was the object that had drawn both gods to it, far more unassuming in its leather-bound physical guise than it had been as an abstracted spark in the weave of the tapestry - the Codex, still touched by few hands besides those of its maker. Without delay, Iqelis bounded down and into the chamber, arms grasping and folding to smooth his way through the currents of time so as to be the first of the two to put his mark upon it. Maddeningly, Yudaiel seemed to sense the perturbations in time wrought by his power, and she too followed the smoothed path that he’d so kindly blazed. All of his exertion and alacrity bought him only a fraction of a moment, not even long enough to stop and breathe. And then her presence was all around, almost smothering as she wrapped her insubstantial presence all about him and the Codex alike, filling half of the vast palace with her presence even as she carefully made sure not to brush against Iqelis (or any of the other gods still present) too directly -- she had learned from that fateful collision with Rosalind, and besides, his touch was was no doubt a cold and unwelcoming one. She stared at the Codex, and her Sight bore into its essence as she began to burn her indelible mark upon it with an ethereal glare.

The other god flared as her designs took shape upon the pages, and scores of dark hands descended on the Codex from all sides, hooked fingertips scratching lines as black as the void where they passed. Where the intricate notions of the Tapestry spread, a brutal linearity closed in to reduce all its ends to a single inescapable convergence. Yet the path of Doom was narrow in its restrictiveness, and around it the designs of the Eye found room to spread, prompting new lunges of retaliation, which still left new blanks to fill. It was a perverse cycle, but perhaps an inevitable and even natural one, as the different facets of Time formed, despite their very authors, into a precarious and inadvertent whole. Time and again potential was swallowed by demise, and time and again from it it was reborn, neither gaining the upper hand, until there was no more space for ends and beginnings. In the end, all in the Codex that pertained to Time and its structure and place within Reality was a vast and arcane mess, near indescribable much less decipherable.

Iqelis let his arms dwindle as he drew back from the pedestal, his eye fixed into Yudaiel’s arcane pupil. ”All your dreams, all your designs I will lay to ruin,” he taunted like the whistle of a slender blade through the night air, ”Until you will See as I do, and know that there is no truth but mine.”

Imagery answered back.

A tiny flame flared into being, rising mightily as it could and huffing and puffing. It inhaled all that it could of those winds that carried hope and beauty, and it breathed out the smoke and soot of bitter gloom, despair, ugliness. But in the end it was a small little flame, laughable for its pride and pretension, and easily overlooked. This flame in the grand scale of things was a mere flicker beneath the burning fury of the sun that loomed above all else, or even that enticing gleam of a second great and majestic light...for opposite the sun, there was the pallid glow of another strange light overhead, a strange and alien light that lit the would-be skies of Galbar’s future even if nothing like it existed now…

The ideabstraction ended, and the last part of it that Iqelis felt was the goddess’ attention and Sight turning rapidly to that queer light. That strange sense of hers -- prescience -- was engaged for a moment, and she was utterly still. Vulnerable. But that state lasted only a moment or two, and then motion once again charged through the void of her empty presence; he sensed that she had already begun to withdraw her body from the Codex and depart the palace. She was plotting something. Stirring the currents to obfuscate his movements from her disembodied senses, he slunk after her, and sculptures cracked and gold dimmed under the ripples left in his wake.

_{Aspect: Earth}

---

The thrumming power in her head, a voice that did not speak and had no words. And yet she began to listen. A purpose revealed through the chance of the opposition, revelation by the negation of all else. Her thoughts were easy to hear and know, but this sense, this thrumming was not.

She fled from its strength and sought refuge in its weakness, she probed and screamed and fought for meaning within it, and yet she could drive non out by force alone.

But when she gazed with sighted senses on the wet rock that enthralled her peers, the spot where she had found she had to flee to weaken the thrumming pounding sense in her mind and essence- at that moment did she tease out an idea from the sense. Cracking the shell or squeezing out that vital little idea by taking sense of the world, and it came forth when things aligned.

Yoliyachicoztl dived towards the mass of energy being so guided by the earthen giant, coming apart from her wanderings towards the wet rock she could see movement and actions brimming clear as she would soon grow close to that world…

---

Voligan nodded in thanks to the goddess of luck and the god of fortitude as they came and went, lending him their power. The mass of energy grew with each piece of divine power that entered it. It was a swirling mass of energy, straining against his control and eager to be released upon Galbar. “I thank you, brother and sister, for your assistance.” He rumbled, patiently waiting for the next gods to arrive. The next to catch the large earth god’s attention was the god of knowledge, making his decrees much in the same way Voligan himself had. Epsilon, he called himself, and in his hands he held a codex that many gods would come to and write the fabric of the world into. Voligan made a note to add his own mark upon the book, but later. Right now he could not risk the energy being released recklessly upon the world. “I will join you soon, Epsilon. The canvas must be painted first.”

A god of souls came and went without so much as a word to anyone aside from their father. Rude, certainly, but Voligan could understand the sense of urgency. Not that he was doing much with that sense of urgency, but maybe he was merely looking for a suitable place to do so. The goddess of mana, Aethel, and the god of wine both seemed exhausting. Filled with energy and a need to move recklessly. Voligan wished that they would move with more consideration, but knew a lost cause when he saw one. His attention turned to the goddess of the hunt, as she created the first life in the universe. It was a bold move, after she added to Epsilon’s codex. Creating things in the Monarch’s domain when he had explicitly said that only Galbar was to be shaped was courageous. And, perhaps, foolish.

He would watch carefully to see how their father reacted. That would tell him much about their creator and monarch. Darkness was the next to arrive, preferring to address their father than to interact with the world below. A worthy cause, especially since the Monarch would be ruling over them. Another god was born, and the goddess of revelry was just as exhausting as mana and wine. Cartwheeling through the cosmos without so much as a care in the world. The god of industry landed with a more violent explosion than even Voligan’s own arrival, and already began polluting the ocean. The goddess of water would not like that. Not at all.

Right as he was thinking that, salt made her appearance. With an even bigger explosion than industry before her, she made her mark upon the world. Salt spread about through the crust of Galbar, and the water from her crash froze in the atmosphere above the planet. As unnecessarily explosive as the whole event was, Voligan had to admit that she was at least doing more than most of their siblings for the creation of their canvas. Most seemed content to wait until he and the others had made something for them.

With a sudden and wordless arrival, catching Voligan by surprise, the god of planning unleashed raw divine energy upon the energy in Voligan’s hands. Far more than previously added, it threatened to spill out of Voligan’s control and spread chaotically across the planet creating things at random and with only the personality of the god who had created the divine energy to dictate what the power would do. Well, most of the energy given. Voligan could already sense that the power that the god of planning had given would form a very specific landmass, no matter who was guiding it. The plan was set, and it would not be deviated from.

The cosmos above him shook with unbridled, wild, power. The goddess of the dance was beginning to lose control, and all of reality was threatened. Before Voligan could, regretfully, use the gathered power to hopefully counteract the destruction of everything the Monarch stepped in and brought order to the chaos. The fever was brought under control by bangles (chains would be a more accurate word), no thanks to doom and prescience. Doom fled like a coward from the problem, hiding his fear behind his arrogance. Prescience attempted to blame, rather than help. Foolish and unhelpful. Both traits that were not suited for gods.

The next series of events happened so rapidly that even Voligan struggled to keep up. Wine smeared and scribbled across the codex, ruining parts of it no doubt. Doom and Prescience returned again, fighting with one another like scavengers rather than divinely ordained creators as they wrote in the codex. All of that paled as destruction made her appearance. As Voligan looked up, Ruina decreed that she would test the ocean. She gathered her destructive might, creating a massive sphere of energy and sending it plummeting towards Galbar. It split at the last second, before rocking the world with explosions. Voligan had to hunch over the energy he had gathered and wait out the torrential rain and waves that swept across the world. When it had finally subsided, he looked up at Ruina’s retreating form. “If your tests only ever amount to seeing if you can break whatever has caught your eye, you will find little friends in this world, Bringer of Destruction.”

His attention snapped to Aethel as they made their own proclamation, and he let out a sigh that sounded like thunder. It was getting a little tiring having all of his siblings decide to violently make their mark upon the world rather than working together. Aethel was no different as they stole mana from the palace itself (another bold move whose consequences would need to be watched) and created a tree at the top of the planet. With an explosion, of course. That seemed to be the theme of their family. Mark your actions with an explosion. At the very least they had made something. That was more than can be said about the majority of the other gods at this point. The tree was massive, and filled the world with mana. That was useful. Even the materials that had been thrown into the world had mana in them and could be used for something else. It was a start.

As things finally settled down, Voligan became aware of two of his siblings approaching him at great speeds. Salt and heat were on their way.

Twisting and turning around the form most would consider gargantuan, a serpent of heat danced far and close. She came nigh recklessly before settling into a varied orbit around the massive god, her form bringing more than simple warmth to the surroundings.

Words came from her in a flickering distracted way, her voice smooth and deep even as it kept her feminine tone, “Its almost peaceful now, without such pounding. It is right-wrong but more right than wrong. Colors and paint, more sculpture than canvas. Do you not think in similar shapes?”

Whatever Voligan might have spoken in answer to the curious question was cut off by the ocean around him beginning to churn and roil. Steam began to rise and the water around the vast form of the Earth God turned briny. Salt crystals began to grow on the vast beings' submerged limbs and thus heralded the Goddess of Salt rose from the waves as a flurry of gaseous salts clinging to and swirling around a figure that seemed to crumble with every movement she made.

With a voice like cracking crystal, tempered by the rushing of the water, she spoke her greeting, “Lord of Earth, Lady of Heat. I am the Goddess Sala, and it appears I find myself in splendid company, though perhaps less of it than I’d hoped. Have none of our peers answered the call in person?”

The crystal figure crumbled and regrew as she turned her head to regard Voligan, the God holding back the vast energies of creation granted to him. Sala amended her statement after a moment's consideration, speaking brightly, “But if they have chosen to endow the Lord of Earth with their power, I cannot help but see their wisdom. None could shape this greatest sculpture, as the Lady of Heat speaks of it, better than he. Surely.”

Yoliyachicoztl broke in fast after she had finished speaking, as if a dam had burst the words flowed, “You, a crystal beauty so speaks truth as my mind shapes it. The peers are with little matter for instance of now.”

Her head shook even as the air ignited around it, she turned back upon herself switching the direction of her orbit around the great form of Voligan. She continued louder, “Changing creation is no easy path and now we must set forth upon one," She turned upwards approaching the head of Voligan's titanic form as if inspecting it before diving back down to orbit around again. “That head is solid, as are good thoughts coming forth I can feel it. I am Yoliyachicoztl, I give my name's sound to you both. A gift for one's might and focus, and for the other's beauty and wisdom.”

Voligan finally responded, his rumbling voice seeming to creep and crawl compared to the rapid pace of Yoliyachicoztl. “To answer your first question, Yoliyachicoztl, a sculpture is more literal but canvas more apt. Not all of our siblings are going to be physically shaping Galbar, as you can see from their lack of involvement.” He nodded in appreciation of Sala’s compliments, continuing. “No, many of our siblings deigned not to be involved. Some preferring knowledge, others to squabble, and still others to test our Father’s patience. No matter, enough of them have come to my aid that we can still continue with our great purpose. I thank you for your presence, and your gifts, but I must get started with our great creation. I sense the others are getting impatient, though why they are waiting is a mystery to me.”

With a roar the fiery serpent dove away from Voligan into the sea, and then back steaming she face the vortex of divine energies, breathing out flame and pure heat that mixed and melded with the careful plans and careless sharing of the energies.

Lazily now she floated near Sala speaking, “A peaceful sense restored, the thrumming ceases…”

Evidently she was satisfied by her last minute addition. Likewise, it drew the eye of Sala. The Goddess of Salt’s features weren’t easily distinguished behind the whirlwind of vapourized material surrounding her, but none could miss how she leaned forward to eye Yoliyachicoztl’s addition. That, and the great agglomeration of energy that Voligan wielded itself. Fascinated, the crystalline figure within her cloud crumbled and regrew in a mockery of motion as she swayed, ever seeking an angle to regard the energy more clearly from. It was only when the task seemed to escape her that Sala spoke confidently, “Present or not, I do think they'll remember this forever.”

The Goddess extended a fracturing hand and from it grew a crystal of a thousand salts. With the barest movement of her wrist it broke free, gleefully flying forward. A thing of more colours than there were words sought out the vortex and shattered to dust at its very precipice; the lurid cloud spreading out like a fog on water, encircling the energy. Salts orbited the vast singularity of power, both bound to it and endowed with final creative purpose, but ever separate and sovereign. Even if just. Sala lowered her arm and addressed her company, “My great friends, shall we begin?”

Voligan pushed the massive power of divine energy down into the waters. The intense heat from Yoliyachicotzl’s power caused the ocean to hiss, bubble, and evaporate as the earth god moved the power downwards. When Voligan finally reached the earth of Galbar, he paused and gathered his strength. Then with a purposeful shove, he forced the combined might of six gods into the planet.

Immediately cracks spread along the surface of the world, glowing multiple colors that shifted rapidly and chaotically. The cracks spread out with purpose and clarity, driven along by Voligan’s sheer force of will. They formed two large continental shapes, straight and organized. With a crack louder than Ruina’s explosions and a rumble louder than Voligan’s voice, the continents began to rise. They burst through the ocean as Voligan imagined, straight and sheer, a perfect place for life As they rose, the power of luck coursed through them. Their edges and topography changed from the straight and organized to random and unpredictable. Some lands were blessed with strong foundations, good soil for growing, or other lucky features. Others were cursed with sinkholes, fault lines, barren soils, or other misfortunes. Lakes and minor rivers were formed as land opened up to allow the sea in, and then rapidly closed in a random twist of fate. Luck split off bits of Voligans powers to form islands around the world. As the power of luck ran out, the power of fortitude spread through the lands. Natural harbors against the wrath of the sea were formed, and solitary mountains filled with natural caves for shelter rose into the sky.

The power of Shen Zhi Shu went forward without hesitation or wavering. Exactly as planned, a third continent rose and formed as the dragon god envisioned and was ready to be utilized as he, or other gods watching, saw fit.

Next, the power of heat radiated through the continents and Galbar’s crust. Dull red lines glowed as they spread throughout the world, forming magma tunnels. Occasionally they trailed up a mountain and filled it with the power and fury of fire, creating volcanoes around the world.

As with everything, the presence of salt would not be denied. Salt bubbled up from the mantle into several lakes, turning them from their natural water into even more salinated water than the ocean itself. In some volcanoes, the liquid salt was caught up in the rapidly moving magma and formed volcanoes that spewed not lava, but molten salt.

And there, at the center of the left continent, a power that answered to Sala’s will alone made its mark. Salts, stranger and more beautiful than any before seen, grew in the depths of Galbar and found a way to escape. They hungrily devoured, poisoned and eroded the dirt above them until all that was left was a desert of toxic and endless salts. It expanded for miles, from coast to coast. Studded with shimmering crystal towers and embossed with basins of salts in brilliant green, purple, and red hues the desert was a great beauty upon the world. Or perhaps a blight, depending on your views.

Another crystal flew across the domain of the Creator searching for its purpose. After far too long it did find it. An abandoned grove. Or seemingly abandoned at the very least. The trees were growing wild and gnarled, while grasses and shrubs were everywhere with no clear order among them. It was a spot of completely untouched wilderness. Except for the circle of flowers in the middle of it. The crystal knew this was supposed to be where they needed to be born. It flew over the various shrubs and trees trying to find a worthy vessel. Finally, it picked the biggest, curved growing tree that overlooked the far too neat flower circle.

It pushed itself into the tree without care. That was a mistake. The tree was no fit vessel for such divine power. Channels of golden embers cracked its bark. Its leaves fell from the branches, were reduced to ash upon the wind, and then sprouted again to undergo the same swift, endless cycle. Its roots desperately tried to absorb all the nutrients to grow but it was too slow. No, no! It could not bear such power! And the divinity itself realized this as well.

A small flower sprouted upon one of the branches of the tree. In an instant, it turned into a fruit and started growing. The fruit glowed with divine power. Every piece of it was specifically made to contain such awesome power. It grew and grew. The golden embers extinguished as their power was siphoned off into the ever-swelling fruit. And eventually, the tree released it.

The fruit fell down, then slowed in its fall. It had a different calling. This palace was already beautiful and its father had decreed that they should head for the place called Galbar. So mid fall it stopped and reversed. Flying upwards instead.

It did not fall like some great, primordial meteor. A streak of fire did chase it for a bit as the gas around the planet was suddenly squashed in front of it. But the fruit did not come with great violence. It dropped into the water with a plop and sunk. The glowing fruit fell deeper and deeper through the abyssal waters. Until finally it touches the ground.

For a moment it stayed there, motionless. Then thin tendrils burrowed themselves into the rock beneath. For beneath waves the world was still the same wasteland as it was before. Yet it wasn’t barren. Not completely. The god-fruit started pulling up material to grow itself. It started to grow as it pulled resources from the land and water around it. At the same time, seemingly answering its presence, dark algae began to take form around the god-fruit. Yet they died quickly as well. The earth shuddered around. Again, something of great violence was happening. The god-fruit hadn’t yet made its senses. Yet suddenly the wasteland rock around began to ship and open. In places it split open, tearing the tendrils that fed it to pieces. Yet they revealed something new: molten stone, which brought even more interesting compounds. Soon the tendrils were feeding on the boiling violence as well.

The pod was ever-growing. Until finally the god-fruit had created a vessel strong enough to carry its divinity. The pod began to split and open. Around it more algae spawned and died, though many of them with vastly longer lifetimes than their predecessors. Life began to flourish around the newly spawned vessel as it crawled its way free. Roots and vines pushed against the walls of the pod, cracking them open. Instantly the pod lost all colour and sign of life. The tendrils that had burrowed into the ground died almost instantly, and were in turn again consumed by new plants.

Phelenia opened her eyes for the first time. But something was amiss. This abyssal place, it hid the grace and greatness of her father. This was not the fault of the water, of course. It was merely a problem with the depth.

Driven by divine power she coursed upwards as fast as her god-fruit had fallen. Water rippled around her. And then she saw it. Bright, blinding light that gave the world colour. The water was blue, the clouds white and in the vast distance she could see specks of brown rock. Her siblings had been busy. A moment later Phelenia arrived on the harsh, rocky coast of the land. The world looked.. nice. But empty. So empty.

Then she looked down at the roots and vines that carried her. Around them lichen was already growing and dying. Which soon paved the path for other greens. Phelenia bent down her vines as if she was kneeling to see the process. The plants that grew and died were so much more colourful. They started dark brown, then turned green before they paled, and then darkened again until they were black, only to sprout new plant life again. It was beautiful and vibrant. Especially the first flower that withered so quickly and had brought yellow in the world for just the briefest of moments.

Her father had bid them to work on this world and right then Phelenia understood her purpose. This world was barren. An empty canvas. Her brothers and sisters, for reasons unknown, saw it fit to wreck it and break it and flood it. Some of it had made the world beautiful, other parts of it made it scarred.

She wouldn’t break or hurt this world. She would cherish it, and soothe its wounds. Her roots burrowed into the land. Phelenia closed her eyes and stretched out her arms in front of her. She would seed this world with beauty. Beauty of all colours. Green and yellow and purple. Her children would grow over the jagged rocks and split lands, healing their wounds. That would be their purpose. Seeds fell from Phelenia by the thousands and each was caught upon the wind. Carried to a far and distant land. Where they would grow into plants made to fit that land. As many seeds had fallen upon the land, more fell upon the nothingness of the sea to sink down. There they would grow into algae and kelp and corals. To beautify even the deepest, darkest depths that could not feel the warm touch of Phelenia’s father. The grandfather of all plants upon Galbar.

And when she opened her eyes and lowered her arms, she saw the world-changing before her eyes. Grass spread across the land from her. Turning the world a vibrant green. Shrubs carrying all sorts of bright berries sprouted as well, and soon they were joined by the large trees. The valiant trees, that had tried to carry her essence before they had to give up. In memory of that one tree, she made all trees great and stalwart sentinels. And when she was done, she looked and saw that the world could finally be called beautiful.

“Pfft!” Astus nearly choked as he drank a glass of tasty saltwater, “What the hell is this? It tastes so good! Nothing like the crappy tasteless water we had before. Damn, we really have to meet this new colleague of ours, Astus. Salt was their name, don’t forget.” Astus reminded himself, crushing the glass in his hand and throwing the debris into the deep waters below him. “Y’hear that, Water God? You better learn from your junior and try to put some spices into your water. How else do you expect us to be able to eat it?”

There was no response for a while.

“Hey! I saw that, that wave looked kind of angry. Don’t you throw that attitude at me just because I’m telling the truth, Water.”

After another while, Astus shook his head with a smug grin on his face. “Listen, if you’re going to act so stuck up, then I’m out of here. BYE BYE!” He said and flew away



Astus was flying through the skies absent-mindedly until he flew face first into a cloud. Curious, he opened his mouth and took in a big mouthful of the gas. He chew into it, then swallowed, and then groaned. “Why the FUCK is everything made of water?! This one isn’t even salty like the one below, it just tastes like old, crappy, insipid water! Astus, mark our words, no one shall be forced to eat crappy water in our presence. NO ONE.” He declared and spit a glob of liquid flames down towards the ocean.

That’s when the very fabric of reality threatened to tear and he found himself falling down into that same ocean with a stone-cold face of exasperation.

Minutes later, after resurfacing, he realized that it had been the birth of two of his colleagues that had caused the ruckus. He’d give them a piece of his mind later for sure.



Couple days later, Astus found himself staring at the same molecule of water for an untold amount of time, sitting mid-air on an invisible stool and drooling his liquid flames into the ocean. After a few more long hours, he poked the molecule and watched it come apart into its base elements. “Neat. You’re wondering what would happen if you did this to something more complex, aren’t you Astus?” he asked himself, to which there was no response as he sighed.

“We should one hundred percent get a bottle of wine…” Astus sighed, then perked up and shook his head. “Huh? Where did that come from? The hell is wine, even?”


Astus watched as a massive explosion made Galbar tremble and shake. He saw the kilometric waves that spawned from it, and after having one smack him in the face, he floated mid air with his brow furrowed. “Copycats, huh? We did make the coolest entrance, so this was to be expected… Well, you know what they say, Astus. Flattery is the greatest form of imitation…”

“...Aaand, that crater might come in useful for an operation or two in the future.”



“Wow, that IS a pretty big tree, huh.” Astus said as he admired the massive tree that had just sprouted on Galbar. Slowly, his signature grin came back as he closed his eyes and nodded to himself, arms crossed. “Yes, yes, the branches will be a good source of wood after we figure out how to easily reach the branches.”



“WOOO! Now that’s what we’ve been waiting for! Yeeeah baby!” Astus cheered, flying in loops as he watched the creation of land. Numerous times he repeated the name of his favourite colleague, Voligan, under his breath so as to not forget it. After the deed was done, he immediately made his way onto the fresh land and laughed as his feet touched proper ground for the first time in his existence.

He laughed and laughed until he fell to the ground and tears of (very hot, flaming) mirth gathered at the corners of his eyes. Then, after calming down, he fell asleep with those same tears trailing down the sides of his face.

When he woke up, the ground was covered in grass and shrubs and trees had grown around him. Fruits of all sizes and shapes and colours grew from the flora and he was assaulted by scents he had never smelled before. It was glorious!

“Oh lord, we are going to have a GOOD time now that we have more than just crappy water!”

As soon as he woke up, he explored the land. He tasted, smelled, saw, touched and listened to all that he could find, until he settled for a spot located at the base of a mountain. There, with his hands, he dug an alcove and built a sturdy chair out of rock (it was literally just a rock, he didn’t actually build anything). That would be his base of operations, his headquarters. He would bring progress to the world from his seat of power and ensure that a lot of cool things would see the light of day.

Now, he just needed people to do the dirty work for him.

Homura

Within the halls of heaven, a shard shattered as a pained and primordial scream echoed across all of existence. She was sleeping before she was struck upon birth by the searing paradox of everything; His agony both hurt and healed her, and she could sense His power become her power through her consumption of only a mere fraction of His essence. She was an aspect of Him; an unconscious intention manifested - an unrelenting desire to continually defy nihilism and the limitations of physical imprisonment. She had become another piece in the great game of the cosmos begun by the Monarch of All, and her journey could finally begin. Then the excruciating and euphoric connection was gone, and only she remained.

The words of her Lord resonated throughout her being: a divine decree to give meaning to the world through the act of creation and rebirth. It was a far away dream, both blessed and cursed, both beautiful and grotesque, and was conceived by loneliness. The path lay ahead of her... she would become an architect, an artist, a creator. She would gather wisdom and wealth, and invoke inspiration for all whom would walk with her. That is what it meant to be a goddess, she concluded.

Bring the beauty of creation to Galbar - It was His edict as the Monarch of All, and she was his faithful servant.

Bring the beauty of creation to Galbar - It was her purpose.



The young goddess could feel herself awaken further; her thoughts constructing memories, and her memories inspiring thoughts, in a wondrous cycle within her mind. She began burning with an inner fire that illuminated the surroundings with a crimson radiance. She shimmered and shifted, dancing with uncertainty until she had finally chosen her common visage. Her form was reflected in the lingering fragments of the shard that was once her egg. It seemed as though the hall was filled with a myriad of mirrors as a result of her birth. In her chosen form she opened her eyes for the first time and gazed upon herself in the fragments. Stern scarlet eyes stared back at her with curiosity, until she blinked and peered at the rest of her shape.

Her body was rather simple consisting of just four limbs attached to a torso. She had only one head with an expressive face consisting of two eyes, brows, a nose, and a mouth. She looked at her long red hair that cascaded around her cheeks and her eyes followed it fell until it reached her knees - it slightly obscured her ears she noticed. Her form was adorned with a modest dress as red as her eyes and hair, accompanied by similar sleeves and boots. She gathered her loose hair into a ponytail and tied it back with a simple ribbon. She stood with her back erect, exuding a humorless aura. Her eyes piercing the skin she wore, and could see the blazing fire beneath, but she would be much more approachable in her current shape, she surmised with an attempted smile.

"I will bring honor to the world." She softly proclaimed while amusing herself with her hair, enjoying its silken touch upon her palm and letting it gently flow and sift through her fingers. She suddenly stopped and scowled, her short-lived relaxed demeanor vanished and she reverted to the stern stance she held before. Her eyes were unforgiving, and seemed to continually chastise her. She stood there, still, until she sighed, and looked away from her reflection. The red radiance was fading, and the fragments that were her shard seemed to be leaving as well. Once again, she was alone.



She wandered the halls of the celestial palace, seeking sounds she heard from afar as more and more shards broke apart and became gods and goddesses. Each announced their birth in a myriad of ways, and she was witness to their words and actions, but her eyes often strayed to the sight of Galbar, so distant from heaven that it seemed small and insignificant, but she felt compelled to eventually reach it... to fulfill her purpose. Her fellow divine evidently heard the same calling, as they called forth their powers to make their mark upon the world. She could sense their aspects, but their names eluded her, and she sought to remedy that soon.

"It shall be as you command, my lord." She spoke with conviction before she bowed before the Monarch of All. The palace and primordial were immense and it took her many steps to reach her desired destination, but her voice wished to be heard and traveled throughout the hall. Afterwards, the red goddess arose, and offered a sharp smile as she stepped back. She spared a glance towards the other gods and goddesses that remained, and respectfully nodded in greetings.

"I am Homura. It would be a pleasure to speak with you."

---

My my, my siblings have been busy since our birth. Voi noted to himself as he watched the explosions and the continents rising up from the newly formed ocean. It was quite the sight from his spot, just on the edge of the celestial palace. His arms crossed into his sleeves, hiding his hands. The gods working together to help Voligan create land for this young planet. Though Voi did not play a part in it, and the explosions certainly did not help with that.

Not sure that was needed, and at least it did prove to be a rather big spectacle. His siblings know how to make an entrance, it seems.

And the salt, the massive amount of salt in the world. Voi knows his sister Sala's aspect is salt. But using salt to poison parts of this new earth. Shouldn't the land be fertile and fresh? Not dead on arrival? Voi could not but shake his head in disappointment. A blank stale to be created, and she helps to make it more barren than it already was.

Maybe he could mitigate it but, it is too late now. The land has been made, and he doubts Sala would let him make the poisoned salt deserts more habitable. Still, shifting his gaze to the ice rings that surround the planet. A most unexpected feature that Voi is glad to have happened. Something to add to the beauty of this new world. A smile would form on his face even if he had a proper face that was not hidden by the darkness in his hood.

Along with Aethel's tree. That massive-sized tree and the mana he brought with it. Mana is a curious thing that is now in the world. Giving Voi some ideas for the future and then came Phelenia's arrival.

Voi eagerly watched as Phelenia made her way to Galbar. Landing on the barren rock and wasting no time with making the world green. Watching the whole process as the pods grew from her god-fruit and seeds were spread throughout the planet. Seeding it with green and lush life. It was quite the sight, watching a barren world become filled with life. Well, plant life at least, but it is a start.

Making Voi think about what he would contribute to the world. He had some ideas but, one came to mind. However, this world has yet to be seeded with living souls. Voi wants to be ready when they are on Galbar. So Voi closed his eyes, the two bright lights in his hood disappeared, and he raised both of his hands, which started to glow with blue energy. As he focused, the blue energy started to glow brighter and brighter.

From his thoughts of what an afterlife should be. A place for peace for those worthy of it, Elysian Fields. A place for those in between and a chance to go to the Fields, The Grey. And then the permanent place for those that have committed evil, The Ashen Plains for them. His hands started to pulsate with blue energy until it was at its brightest, and it would blind those near him and using his will. Voi shaped and created the afterlife. A place connected to Galbar and every soul that will die there will end up in one of the three realms.

Voi slowly lowered his hands, and the blue energy in his hands dissipated. Opening his eyes, Voi was pleased with his work. Though empty now, they will have souls sooner or later, and he may expand on the three domains if he feels he needs to. Who knows what will be created with souls, and as he finished. Voi realized that he had yet to actually meet with any of his siblings. So turning around and took a moment to see who was still in the celestial palace. It seems there are still a good amount of his siblings here, and he heard one speak.

"I am Homura. It would be a pleasure to speak with you."

"Homera," saying it softly to himself. Voi decided that she would be the first he would meet and made his way towards her. Once he was close enough, Voi greeted her kindly, "Hello Homera, I am Voi, and it is a pleasure to meet with one of my siblings."

---

Cartwheels were the optimal mode of transportation, of this much Zenia was quite sure. It was fast, fun, and kept the breath going in an above middling pace. It's only drawback was that spinning heedlessly towards a distant planet made it difficult to count properly. Combining that initial need for focus with all the shouting and racket going on below and above, Zenia had found herself hesitant in her counting twice, and as a result she was no longer sure if she truly was at cartwheel number thirty-two thousand and four, or two numbers below or above. That was before she even added all the unknown number of cartwheels she did before she even decided to start counting.

When another shout about beholding this or that wonder of creation threw off her count for the third time, Zenia decided she'd had enough and halted midway to the prison-planet-waterball below to take a small break. Just in time too, as soon after a massive wave of light captured the orb in a dreamlike display of pulsing light that travelled over the surface before returning whence it came. The bright moving lights were almost enough to distract from the truly massive tree that was hard not to see from her vantage point in space. The easily distracted goddess lounged in place, starstruck by the magnificence of light, explosions and shifting mass that went on below, eyeing the warping orbscape with enthralled attention.

"Ish crazy, ishn' id?" came a blurt from her left followed by a burp and a slurp. A small man stood there, white robes flowing around his form except for over his orb of a belly, where it was tight as a stretched skin, and not without great amounts of dirt and dust to dull its colour. The man knocked down a cup's worth of clear liquid and bared a brief snarl of spotted teeth. "Makesh a man wanna drink, dunnit?"

"Oh, for sure!" Zenia agreed with enthusiasm after a brief startle at the man's sudden appearance, or possibly just his general appearance. That enthusiasm did not linger, as the goddess scrunched the scarred fake face she wore in growing confusion. The nascent goddess worked hard to spin the wheels of thought, but eventually she simply asked; "Drink what?"

"What else?" asked the man as though Zenia had just inquired as to whether water is wet. His little cup refilled itself seemingly from the bottom and he knocked down another shot. His face stiffened into a pensive frown and he spoke,



His frown became a grin and he slurred, "Sho wash yur name, misshey?"

Delighted by this display of philosophy and creation, Zenia beamed back at the drunken scholar with no sign of apprehension at his slurred mannerisms.

"Oh, totally! How rude of me. I'm-" she began, pointing at herself with a confident thumb, but then caught her by surprise and left her confused. She eyed the strange material covering her arm and realized she still wore the appearance of another deity. Clearing her throat, the goddess grabbed her face and pulled, and with a soft rip her entire appearance came loose like a torn sheet of fabric. Beneath was a golden-haired woman with striking eyes and unblemished gently tanned skin. She shook the dangling fabric that had been her previous appearance, and it evaporated into small particles of dust. Finally, she took inspiration from the drunken god himself and swept herself in a white cloth. Confident her true self was restored -though she'd never looked like that before- she pointed at herself again. "The name's Zenia! I'm like, so glad to meet you."

Jiugui eyed his cup skeptically after taking in the change of appearance. With a staggering movement, the little man spread his stance clumsily and, with effort, managed to bow forward without tipping over. His futou flopped sorrily as he nodded his head an inch deeper for that extra sign of respect before he catapulted his back up again with enough force to nearly send him tumbling off into the abyss. "Pleasshuret'meetyoo," he wheezed as he swung his arms around to regain balance. "My name!" Wheeze! "ISH!" Then silence. The man eyed her intensely with head bobbing along to the rest of his body still regaining it's footing. "... Jiugui." He held his cup up and affixed his stare to its rim, which slowly revealed a sheen of liquid, most of it spilling over the edge. "Whass you doon?" he asked to whomever was listening.

"Well," Zenia began, turning to sweep out a hand towards Galbar. She promptly turned silent as her hand caught inside her too-long garment, being a direct copy of Jiugui's, and spent a good minute and a half fussily trying to shake loose the long sleeve from her arm. Eventually she grew frustrated, and simply tore it at the shoulder, ripping the entire sleeve off in one swift motion. She stared at her arms for a second before tearing the other sleeve off as well. Finally content, the blonde goddess nodded firmly and repeated her dramatic sweep towards Galbar. "Well! Everyone else is doing all this like, exploding and creating and wave-making. I figured maybe I should also, you know, make something! But I don't know where to start. Or what to make. I don't think the big-timer gave me, like, one of those, uhm, you know, like something you got to do?"

"I gozza do things?" the drunkard blurted out like the inconceivable truth that it was. His beady eyes fixed on the world below, where land rose up from the abyssal seas and cosmic powers coalesced into magic storms all around. He blinked with worry and grimaced hard, trundling back towards the Sunlight Palace. "Oof, iz brighz…" he conceded. It was enough to have him turn back and furrow his bushy brow. "Zzzzo, uh…" He snorted sheepishly. "Whaz, uh, whazzit that the ozzers gozza, gozza do, then?" He cast out a pointing finger at the world below. "Issit like that?"

Zenia bought herself some time to answer by preening her hair and sliding a slew of it behind her ear. "Uh, yeah. I think so. Like, we have to, you know, go down there and fill it with fun things that the big-timer will, like, enjoy. I think. To be honest I didn't catch everything but that looks like what everyone else is doing!" she concluded with a quizzical lilt of her head, and took a few steps towards Jiuigui. Immediately on moving, she caught herself in the new fabric and stumbled, face-planting forwards - or she would have if there had been anything to plant into. Instead she spun nearly a full circle before righting herself and groaning. Another soft rip later, she'd torn off the lower half of her clothes to end just above the knees. With that done, she finally moved up to peer at Jiugui closer.

"What's the thing on your head for?"

The question fell flat as the creature was much too occupied laughing his holy tuckus off. He rolled around in the nothingness like a red-speckles white ball with limbs, spilling wine all over like a fountain. The goddess peered at the rolling catastrophe of wine and cloth with a bemused expression for a few moments, stewing in the moment with naught but quizzical embarrassment to hold on to. Then the dam burst and Zenia joined the laughing gremlin in a cheerful and boisterous guffaw, happily sharing in his mirth without any inclination of what had transpired prior or would in future. Just two gods laughing, like a freak festival exhibit of village idiots. After a good while and then some more, the drunk god could hardly breathe. He snailed sloppily into a sitting stance and had another slurp of his cup, unleashed a small _pee-yew. "I roll in the duzt foyoo, funny lady," he gurled approvingly. "You'n me, we gozza host a parzy some day." He clapped. "Whadda show!"

Zenia broke from her own happy madness to gasp an exultation, "You're a genius, Jiugui! Of course!" Entranced by whatever sidetrack she spun into, the golden-haired goddess paced back and forth in front of the sedate Jiugui as her mind raced at breakneck speeds. Her own conclusions came soon after, and she clapped her hands together confidently to announce her new resolve. "I have a great idea! We, like, split up and look for the perfect place to have a party, and then we meet up to compare ideas! That way, we'll like, find a great place twice as fast."

The man grinned. "Yeah! Two thumbs way, way up." His thumbing hands pointed down to the world and made a groggy gesture towards the equatorial islands. "Okay, buzz that! is juzz divine. Exquizzide. Trropigal parzy for the whole crew'n whazznod…" He bumbled on with some incoherent mumbles. "I will heaz… Oi… I will HEADZ…" Urp… His beady eyes squinted at the world and blinked unevenly. His lips farting pensively on his tongue, he spoke, "I will head dhere."

"Great! Then I’ll, uhm…” Zenia began, idly pointing with her finger as Jiugui stumbled away, though none of the places she pointed at seemed particularly enticing, what with swirls of power, shifting landscapes and giant explosions. Was it so simple that Jiugui had chosen the best spot already? Her eyes transfixed on the far north of the planet, where an expanding swirl of energy was erupting in white and grey. "Uh! There! Yep! I’ll start my search from the top, obviously! Oh, wait. How will we like- Jiugui, wait! How will we find eachother again?” she called as she broke off from her idea to head after the drunken stumbler. It was too late, however: The man was already gone, and in the world below, the faintest speck of white could be seen falling towards the equator like a tiny, spinning meteor, a clear trail of wine droplets trailing him like a comet tail.

Zenia had to think fast. That was like her best trait, if you asked her. That, and coming up with fun ideas. Those two, and hosting amazing parties. Those three, and- She shook her head, trying to steer back to her original thought. She quickly grabbed hold of the discarded fabrics and molded them to become a hardened silvery metal in the shape of a circle with spokes shaped like her arms reaching out from the center. Molding the center, she added the inscription ‘Zenia awaits’, before throwing it after Jiugui as best she could. It would probably land close by, and he’d find it easily. Who else would ever find such a thing other than someone looking for it, after all? Surely no one else would ever pick it up and wonder what it meant. Especially not knowing that it would pulse with the same rhythm as her heart harder the closer it came to her. Jiugui was smart, he’d figure it out.

Nodding to herself, Zenia watched the hand-sized medallion fly after the drunken god as she sighed contentedly. Soon after, she sped away towards her own chosen destination, eager to find her ideal party place.

---

Yudaiel propelled herself through the void of space with ease. Formlessness meant that committing herself to motion required little more than a thought, and her potent will could spirit her forth with swiftness undreamt of. Though she never lost track of the Galbar, erelong it had grown much smaller. Now she had surely come to a place more distant than any of the other deities; she was the most isolated and remote of them all right then, but she felt no loneliness. Instead there was a peace and tranquility to this void out amongst the sea of stars. She became still, and lost herself in her prescience.

Even as she had left her touches emblazoned upon it, the Codex had made its own enduring marks on Yudaiel: she had read it as she had furiously scrawled in her contest with Iqelis, and indeed was even now ruminating further upon her pristine memory of its contents. Even having been sullied by Jiugui’s drunken stupor and otherwise marked by only a select few of the many other deities, the Codex contributed much to her understanding of Reality and expanded her Sight. Her understanding more complete, her prescience more potent and resolute; she could only imagine how much greater the effect would be if even more gods imbued it with their knowledge and designs.

There remained precious little space left within the Codex after she and Iqelis had devoted so much to the all-important schematics of Time, but the lack of room meant little. Space remained between the lines and patterns for more to be etched and interwoven into the grand design, and if even those margins evaporated, the already-present marks could be overwritten. The glyphs beneath would retain their power, and an Eye as perceiving as her would still be able to make sense of the chaos and read the designs. Tuku, the one who had thought to search for divine mysteries, commit them upon the Codex, and then forever shroud those same secrets beneath a blot of ink, had sorely underestimated Yudaiel’s power; uncovering what laid beneath had taken the Prescient One no more than a moment, just a quick glance at the object’s past that had come as easily to the Reverberation as turning one’s head to the side might come to another. Now Yudaiel had seen those esoteric purportedly unlearnable secrets, and thus had she come to know some of the unknowable.

She had seen stranger things also. She had cast her gaze in the other direction, towards the future, and seen hints of something grand. There was the outline, nay, shadow of a great sphere of pallid luminescence -- in the prescient visions, even a glowing light could have a shadow. It was hard at first to discern just what this thing was meant to be, for it was something never seen before, something that had yet to even come into existence. While the purpose that it would hold eluded Yudaiel, she could See its every minute detail and facet...it was a perfect blueprint, and inexplicably, she felt not only a desire but also an urgency to bring it into the world.

Much matter would be required for this pale sphere, for the thing was to be nearly a third the size of the the Galbar, but it looked so magnificent in her visions! Perhaps that was its purpose? Beauty, nothing more and nothing less? Or spectacle, a display of her might and potential? Both and more, Yudaiel eventually decided.

She had come far away from the Galbar now, to a suitable location. She willed herself to halt and her motion was indeed arrested instantaneously, for her incorporeal nature meant that she had no inertia at all. Now she was beset upon by the task of gathering the necessary matter, and this was a daunting one indeed, for simply willing it all into existence would sap her of all her vigor and then some...there had to be another way.

The other deities were shouting and hurtling their might back and forth in their own displays of power; she had paid their hubris little heed, but one of them had somehow conjured a vast and twisting construct upon one of the Galbar’s poles to explosive effect, and even before that, another had bombarded the surface with such force that entire lakes worth of water had been flung into the heavens and left to freeze into a ring. It wasn’t enough, not on its own, but all of this debris that they had left behind would be a start indeed. From their carelessness and destruction and the products of their litter would come her jewel, her sculpture, her moon.

She would take all of that matter that had been ejected from the Galbar. She needn’t even lay her claim to it, she reasoned, for was it not already hers? Just as this moon had been preordained, so too had it been destiny that this material be made available to her. She needed only to grasp and take it all.

Her insubstantial essence diffused and expanded until she became a vast nebula of consciousness rather than a mere cloud, and then she stretched towards the Galbar, invisibly surging forward like a vast tidal wave. She first enveloped the debris that had been created by Aethel and his grand tree, for its motion was eccentric and unstable and much of it was bound to have rained back down upon the world in short order had she not intervened. One could even say that the great arcs of stone parabolically curving back down, beautiful as they were, had been doomed to fall and once be reunited with the planet and buried. The thought was amusing, for in claiming the material and granting it a higher purpose, she already no doubt defied that fool Iqelis. So much for his inevitability, his inexorable power, his supposed final truth! He saw only one reality, one end, and yet already she could see nearly infinite truths.

So she pulled at the vast clouds of mana-laden detritus that drifted through the heavens, and yet it hardly budged. Strain, a new and somewhat alien sensation, crept into her. Though she had no true body, she evidently could still know fatigue as her divinity’s limits were strained. Rather than surrender to the pain, she relished in it as a new experience and greeted it warmly, submersing herself even deeper into the exertion of pulling. Still, she could not move it all; Aethel’s destructive stunt had shattered entire sections of the Galbar’s crust and the collective mass of this debris was far in excess of an entire range of mountains. Toiling resolutely, she struggled and channeled her psychic might. When she finally released it in one mighty heave, she let out a mighty telepathic bawl that soundlessly resounded through all the cosmos, silently shrieking into every mind that had an ear to perceive it. Her telekinetic pulling at the rocks had been so potent that it had perturbed the fabric of reality itself, with an effect that was noticeable. A massive gravitational wave perpetuated as a ripple through space and time as an echo of her ascendant power. The sweeping force gently perturbed the Galbar and the Monarch’s heavenly palace and every other facet of the universe, and then it was gone.

Perhaps Yudaiel had thought she knew the meaning of exhaustion moments before, but how wrong and naive was that sentiment! This effort was draining beyond what she had known possible, and yet there still remained much work to be done. A hail of comets and asteroids approached her inexorably, set upon perfect trajectories such that they would collide and combine and coalesce with only a little bit of coaxing and intervention on her part -- her calculations and predictions had been nearly flawless; if anything, it was her execution of that telekinetic blast that had erred. Still, she had pulled and nudged at the debris quite precisely. Now there of course remained a second matter, that of those ice rings. Being much more stable in their orbit and considerably less massive than the stoney debris besides, she was not so pressed for time when it came to her manipulations of the icy comets and other chunks that constituted the rings. Her vastness reached out to probe at the rings and feel them.

Just before she could do, a surge of black energy passed by - leaping from chunk to chunk, like a current of electricity. She could sense the presence of another god, further down the ring in the direction from whence the surge of energy came, who had evidently had his own plans for it.

This she had not expected. It was rattling to be caught off guard by the machinations of some force she hadn’t seen in her visions, but the remedy, as always, was to look and watch. She needed more information. The Great and All-Seeing Eye peered through the void of space in search of the source of this disturbance. Finding it did not take long; she had many potent senses to guide her, and it was hard to hide from a seeking eye, especially for a being that radiated as much power as a fellow deity.

’You,’ she thought when she saw it -- him, a brother-god who she sensed held the power of the Shard of Darkness. The question now remained whether or not to establish contact, and what was to be done if his intentions did not align with her own. Yudaiel spent many moments contemplating that before she at last concluded that skulking and making enemies was not ideal; she already evidently had a rival to contend with in the form of that wretched Iqelis, and the path of least resistance going forward would be to befriend all the others that she could.

She reached out to bridge across space and form a mental connection with that alien god, and then waves of her ideabstractions flowed through it: lonely motes of dust floated through dead and cold space, but then they suddenly came alive with motion and warmth. Space was meant to be silent as death, but the unseen power that animated the dust made it sing a name -- Yudaiel. Song gave way to chanting. Yudaiel. Yudaiel. The chant finally devolved into mere humming, and the enchanted particles were swept up and made aglow with power. The diffuse bits of dust found their way to the occasional rocks, lone and tiny meteorites, and clumped about them, and then the resulting masses all hurtled at great speeds towards one meeting place. Here they had come to be swept into the heart of a great storm, a blizzard of rock and iron and ice that wrapped around a fiery maw in the center. The burning heart of the maelstrom was struck by the matter falling inward, and it greedily grew and grew as it subsumed more and more mass. Soon, it had devoured all, but that was not enough, the storm had to go on. So then those ice rings of Galbar were next, and it began to inexorably pull them closer. Time accelerated, and the massive storm ended. The gorged maw was finally satiated, and it cooled and eventually became a sister to the Galbar, a gleaming white jewel grander than any of the stars in the night sky.

An inky black mass of smoke and oil approached from afar, before taking the form of a man with purple robes and black ravenlike wings. He settled himself down on one of the chunks of ice. “I don’t suppose you could find your materials somewhere else?” he asked calmly. The facsimile of Galbar and the moon-to-be grew rapidly smaller as the projection expanded in scope, until blackness consumed all. Nothingness. There was nothing else out there to take or use, the silent emptiness screamed. “Or make it smaller?” he suggested. A great and prismatic diamond appeared, scintillating with every color of the rainbow and resplendent in its beauty, but then in an instant it was reduced to a fleck of sand, and with that its beauty died. No, size mattered. “I have my own plan for this ring.”

Empty, silent inquisitiveness answered that last remark.

“I am the God of Darkness,” the man went on. “My name is Zelios. And I intend to put a section of the world under constant shadow, where creatures of the night may shelter and walk openly without being blinded by the light. This ring offers the perfect foundation for that. We are strangers to one another, but in the spirit of good faith and cooperation, could you leave this ring as is? I do not care what else you take.”

The void of space and the majestic sight of the Galbar below and the moon-to-be beside it vanished, and suddenly there was only some great canyon. “In the spirit of good faith and cooperation,” Zelios’ own voice echoed back from across the ravines, distorted by the distance and the rock wall it’d recoiled off. Above, there was no sun, for it was night. Bigger than all the stars was a great glowing white eye that looked down. It blinked, or perhaps even winked, and then the canyon crumbled away and the ideabstraction ended, the telepathic conduit broken as Yudaiel’s essence slowly withdrew from the ring.

---

Out of kindness and goodwill, she had left that Zelios with those comets and debris of the Galbar’s more stable ice rings, even if she could have argued that claiming all such materials for this grand sculpture was her prerogative. In the end it mattered little, for the rings were not so massive as this other mana-laden debris that she had already captured, and even combined there would not have been nearly enough substance to make a worthy jewel in the sky.

So she engendered more.

More what? More fabric for the tapestry, more rock and ice and magma, more substance. Consciousness begat reality. Divine will and power left her being and was compelled to reify, and so the core of what would become the moon manifested from nothingness. The anvil where she wrought these great powers was a very particular place, directly opposite from the heavenly palace on the other side of the Galbar; there, completely shadowed, was the heart of the great maw, the eye of the maelstrom.



In the accretion disk of all the material she’d seized, rocks and dust crashed and chafed against one another. Some were aglow aslike sparks as they fell into the maw at the center of her anvil, the core of the nascent moon. For many, many days Galbar’s sky was alight with the illuminations of her work.

---

---

They were arriving. Awakening as he had. Multitudes of different voices flooded his senses, loud and deep as the earth, ethereal and mystifying, wise and unknown. Obnoxious and unbecoming. Asking, wanting, being. Other Gods, subjects of the Creator, powerful and strong as he. Perhaps stronger, perhaps weaker? Only time would tell. His form became a long thin cloud of cold as he sped up to enter the planet proper. For now, he would create as the others intended.

As he got closer to the planet, many things happened that Chailiss became aware of. The god of cold slowed down to a standstill and watched with bated breath. An explosion bright and furious flashed across the surface down below but quickly trickled out. This however, was only a prelude to what came after. A great cloud overcame the planet, bringing with it the taste of… Hmm, Salt? Then the planet quaked and shuddered as the very foundations shook, the cloud the cause of this phenomena. Chailiss thought to act but knew whatever was happening he could not stop, nor should he. The waters below rocketed upwards with great force and from where they hit the endless cold, they did freeze into beautiful rings. This he knew was not by his design, only that it was a welcome sight. He would know it better soon, but for now the planet needed his own to-

A sense of impending doom overtook the god and he gave pause. Wildly he looked for the source of such a thing but the light of the star was too great for him to perceive through and the feeling, as quickly as it came and lingered, vanished. But not without leaving its mark. A terrible weight.

Before he had time to process a flurry of destruction came forth as a great voice called out to test the waters below. This alarmed Chailiss and he watched the world explode unlike anything he had seen before and it made him both afraid and angry.

He would have gone to that voice and showed her a test of his own but what next happened spurned his thought to it and the God blinked as light sputtered and blew apart Galbar further, from it an act of creation in the form of a giant tree. From this he was amazed then as equally disappointed when he saw the damage that it had caused. If he had had a head he would have shook it.

The others, these gods... They were dangerous. Some unknowable, some knowable but not quite right. He would have to tread carefully and be fierce in his protection of his own. Such gods, could they even be trusted? He let the thought edge him on, down into the planet proper.

He reformed into a sphere and with haste, Chailiss flew across the endless ocean, turning water to ice in the tumultuous waves in his wake. The ice never lasted long, as it broke apart with thunderous applause as they bid him farewell. Faster he went, watching as a land mass appeared and then disappeared as he flew by it. The urge to create was becoming overwhelming now but Chailiss knew what had to be done to give the world a semblance of balance. He would help as the earthy voice had asked, and he would do so, at the top.

Instinctively, the God came upon the spot that he deemed would be where his work would commence. He flew up, to the lowest of the skies, where he could see much of the land he wanted to create. The picture coalesced in his head and with it, Chailiss bid forth his great power and would make the world feel cold. His form blew apart, becoming a great storm of frigid temperatures. The water vapor in the sky left over from others turned to biting ice and blinding snow. With it, he exploded forth and the waves froze solid as he took root.

Down, down, down he felt the water compact, freezing solid, being gobbled up by its contained form. Great sheets of ice came to being upon the surface, as waves became towers of ice, rising into the sky like mountains. They expanded further still, towering over the fledgling ocean in an icy thickness that groaned and snapped, reforming in a cycle of abuse. This went on quickly and spread out as far as any could see. That storm that he was, howled as the ocean levels began to drop and the ice formed in beautiful paleness.

That was until something most unexpected occured…

A white missile careened towards the surface at breakneck speed, creating a fleck of shadow between the forming ice and the glowing sun beyond the limits of the planet. That fleck grew until it smashed firmly into a thick barrier of ice, cracking it violently and depositing the payload from the sky deep into a freshly created crater. After a few moments, the mist of crushed ice and water began to disperse, leaving room for a silhouette to leave the crater on foot. A beige-skinned, golden haired woman with striking eyes, wearing a torn white dress that must have been quite elegant once. Now it was sleeveless and cut off just above the knees. She brushed herself off firmly and mumbled something about amazingness before looking around properly.

The god of cold was amused by this. He knew it would have only been a matter of time before he met the other gods, but not quite like… That. His form coalesced back into an orb of snow and ice, the great creation of the ice sheets went on as he ventured down to the Goddess. As he neared, Chailiss was surprised at just how small she stood. Or perhaps, his perception was just skewed? It mattered not, in the end, the different sizes and shapes of his peers.

He hovered before her now, taking her appearance in. This one took on a form that he felt was odd. Two arms, two legs, two eyes, symmetry that had eluded him in his great shape.

The symmetrical goddess cast her gaze upwards to fully behold Chailiss’ majesty, and her expression widened into a grin. ”Oh! Hello there,” her voice resounded loudly and clearly across the landscape despite her diminutive form compared to her peer. ”When I saw that many-legged thing back with the, you know, big-timer, I knew we had some real shapes to us, but like, wow! You’re so-... round! I love it.”

Chailiss had no notion of what the many-legged thing was. A peer most likely, but this one’s words were… Lacking? Almost as if she knew not the proper weight of her station. As if she was truly young, in spirit and mind. They were all young though, weren’t they? Chailiss hummed a light tune, indistinguishable from the cool breeze that wrapped around the bright-eyed Goddess. His voice ushered forth all around her, deep and reverberating as it was silky and cool. ”Welcome to my realm,” he spoke, and the winds bowed down to his majesty, ”Golden-ray-that-tickles-ice. I am Chailiss, he who was bequeathed Cold by our Lord Creator. And who might you be?” he finished with sincerity and a question.

The goddess beamed up at him with her striking blue eyes, lips forming a warm smile. "Am I the ray? That's like, so sweet." she punctuated and swept a few strands of her golden hair over her shoulder. "My name is Zenia, and I was also, you know, bequeathed?... from the Lord, that is. Uhm. Not cold, though, I can tell that's more you than it would ever be me. I like it, though! It's very fresh and clear and clean. You know? A good place to have some fun, I bet."

Chailiss hummed with thought. ”Zenia.” He breathed the name, taking it in. ”You flatter me so, with such words as yours.” he chimed. ”What brings you to these fledgling lands on top of the world? I am afraid no such fun might be had just yet.”

His words seemed to freeze the goddess, shocking her to her core. The idea of there being no fun to be had was enough to wipe her happy expression away, and make her look hesitant for the first time. It didn't last long however as her nascent frown soon turned to a look of determination. Zenia scoured the area with her gaze to take in her surroundings. "Uh, I'm sure that's not true! There's, like, plenty of fun things to do here. Like, uhm…" she drifted off as she gazed over the desolate icescape. Eventually she resorted to bowing down and scooping up a fair bit of the sleet and slush raining down from above, and molding it with her hands methodically into a ball of ice, snow, and cold water. She presented it upwards. "Like this! It's, uhm, like a miniature of you, Chailiss!"

The god of cold was silent for a long time, still and reflective upon what Zenia held. Soon, a small tendril of snow snaked around her fingers, as if stretched out by Chailiss himself. Then there came an odd sound from the god- a deep chuckle like the crunching of ice. ”How amusing Zenia. Truly, a wonderful God you are.” There came a rumble from him as he thought about what needed to be done yet. The thought of there being no fun, had frightened the little Goddess, and as much as it didn’t bother him at all, Chailiss was perplexed once again. A strong sort of feeling overcame him and he felt as if he ought to help her achieve what she wanted. An idea came to mind. ”Zenia? What if I were to tell you there was a way for such joyous times to bloom?”

Immediately she perked her gaze up towards the spherical Chailiss, her smile turning inquisitive. "You mean you've got, like, a plan? Let's do it! I'm game. What is it? Waiting to hear the cold gods' gospel, she rolled the ball of ice back and forth in her palm.

The god of cold hummed in agreement. "The ice beneath your feet is thick and grows vast with every word we speak. It shall be cold, desolate and with little mercy." His voice flowed around her and softened, "Yet it need not be so unforgiving. If our Lord Creator saw fit to breathe us with life, then we must do the same. First I have envisioned this ice sheet, this frigid north and here you stand upon it. Secondly, we must usher from the seafloor land, for growing things. It shall settle below these vast glaciers, betwixt with cold and frost as the coming seasons shall usher. Then, once this has been accomplished the true 'fun' will commence and change the world forever. In this great game of creation."

The golden-haired goddess furrowed her brow as she considered his words. It was a muted expression, as Zenia either did not appear wowed by his idea of cultivating fun, or struggled to envision the abstract idea he presented. Her eyes narrowed in intense focus for a few moments before her expression lightened considerably and she discarded her tiny iceball to confidently clap her hands together. "Sounds good! How do we like, do that though?"

Chailiss thought on this. Did she not know what she was capable of? ”Come. I will teach you.” Without waiting for her reply, the God of Cold broke apart the ice she stood upon and with it, they flew on to the edge of the vast glacier. There, he set her down and hummed with power. ”Reach within and express your will upon the world. Feel the bottom of the ocean with your mind, Zenia. Will it to rise.” Chailiss rumbled.

Zenia released a muffled giggle following their journey, rubbing her cheeks briefly at apparent embarrassment of performing this silly ritual. With mock concentration and a big smile, she closed her eyes and stretched out her hands in a way she assumed it should look when one undertook great achievements of creation. She cleared her throat theatrically, and announced her will loudly as though she were performing Creation’s first stage play. ”Uhh. Come unto me, great elements of the Below! Rise from the depths and, like, find a new home with me upon this grand surface plane. Cast away your wet chains and reach for the sky! Be not afraid to break yo-... oh my creator, it’s w-.. It’s working! Something is happening, Chailiss!”

Despite her lackluster show of solemnity for the task at hand, her hands still seemed to take a particular shine of purple, pink and gold, swirling around her fingertips with considerable intensity. The core deep below rumbled and shook, and great quakes erupted around the two deities as the ocean floor rose with haste to meet her beckoning call. Waves grew in frantic heralding of the coming landpocalypse, and parts of the glacier began to wither and crack as burgeoning earth crashed against it from below to force itself upward. Soon hills, craters and plains that had once been hidden deep below crested the water’s surface, and a considerable amount of land raised itself at her command.

”Well done Zenia.” Chailiss praised. ”This is creation as the broadest stroke of our will. What you have done has ushered in the foundations for humble beginnings.” Chailiss then helped Zenia raise the land further, as far as their eyes could go they became surrounded by a myriad of fledgling landscapes.

The golden-haired goddess exhaled sharply and followed it with a grin. "No need to be humble! This is like, great. I'm a big fan of this. It's starting to look like a good place to host a get-together!" She paused and tapped her chin in thought. "It's a bit, you know, empty. Unless you count the water residue. But it's like, soggy. Not very… inviting."

The God of Cold drifted in the wind around Zenia. ”You are correct…” His words faltered as he noticed something blowing in on the winds. Small multitudes of different shapes, uncountable to even him, landed around them and Chailiss stilled, watching and waiting to see what they would become. Slowly small stalks of green began to bloom but as quickly as they came, they shivered and faltered in the cold that he was. ”What do you think of this, Zenia?” he asked the young Goddess, as he witnessed more and more seeds land, growing and dying. Those that did manag to take root were underwhelming and quite small.

"Aw! It’s so pretty!” Zenia erupted with no mind to the long-term survivability of the tiny sprigs and shoots that did not immediately wither and falter under the icy northern winds. With brave steps she trundled forwards through the old ocean floor muck - much of which had now begun to freeze solid - towards a particularly shy little seed that had just barely broken up above the frozen ground. "Hey, there little friend,” the goddess cooed and settled to a squat as she leant towards the little sprout. "You’re really, like, trying, aren’t you? So adorable. Just got a bit to go. See my friend over there?” she nudged her head back towards the implacable orb that was Chailiss. ”I think he’s hoping to be really impressed. How about you stretch for the sky? I’ll help your roots keep hold, okay? Okay! Go!"

Zenia’s little peptalk seemed to have an effect, no doubt because she was still empowering her surroundings with her divine essence. The tiny sprig followed her command with confident enthusiasm and groaned as it began to grow in both height and weight, cracking and shifting the ground around it as it began to turn from simple shoot to a full-grown young tree. The goddess put a hand on it as it outgrew her, and it carried her giggling form with it as it continued to grow far larger than it ever would have on its own, truly reaching for the sky. From above, Zenia called "Well, what are you all waiting for?!” The ground cracked and groaned as plants all around began to lift themselves towards the sky, filling the freezing earth and soil with sturdy, giant plantlife.

Chailis watched Zenia intently, realizing what the Goddess was doing even if she did not. In that moment, he grew inspired and knew that this was the next step they had to take. Ushering in life did not have to be humble, but with a giant leap of a start. He hummed happily and then expressed his own will and added to Zenia’s spirit. The lands around them grew larger than anything the world had yet seen save the great tree in the south. The trees around them grew massive still, making even Chailiss feel small for once. He even lost track of Zenia, knowing how tiny she was to him.

But the land kept going.. He could feel great swathes of coniferous forests taking deep root, turning to sparse taiga where the lands grew brittle, then to snowy tundra where the land grew fiercer still near the ice. Where grasses sprouted they stood as tall as the young tree had been once upon a time, covering the land in a thick blanket of wonderment and safety. Flowers would bloom there, contrasting the green with colorful giants of reds, purples, yellows and even more. Across the waterways, vegetation came to life within frigid temperatures. Growing hardy and strong, able to endure that which was in his domain. Across the higher elevations, in the mountains and hills, to the lowest of ravines and canyons- life spread in the north. And all was good but it was not yet done.

In the tree crowns above, Zenia came surging along in a fast-paced run and skip between the massive trees, like a tiny squirrel jumping from perch to perch. Her laugh mingled with groaning earth and wood, blanketing the land with her essence as it was bolstered by Chailiss. She reached the edge of a massive forest before long, and skidded down the side of an equally massive canyon, leaping forwards into the air heedlessly as she was ensorcelled in some game of daring the world to grow. Each time it seemed she leapt to her death, great plateaus shot from the earth to catch her feet, creating gigantic stepping stones rising out of the canyon that someone might master with flight or bridges. Here too, life grew large, as old forgotten water was revitalized and fell from some of the risen plateaus in new formations of waterfalls and river rapids. The continent grew with the work of the two gods, the flora all over reaching towards the sky. Even the smallest brush grew to rival Zenia in height as she skipped by with mocking giggles.

The land began to settle not long after and the temperatures rose ever so slightly with the help of the trees and vegetation. Chailiss rose above it all to witness a sea of green but he also wanted to find Zenia. Her laughter echoed all around him but try as he might he was unable to find the tricky Goddess. But he did have a way to get her to come to him. Down on a plain did he settle and from it he willed to life the next step in their great game. He ushered a breath forth into the grasses and for a moment there was a stillness that threatened to be forever but then… A rustle and from the grass came a countless creatures that walked and flew and ran and hid. In browns, tans, greys and whites they came, with blotches of dazzling colors on those that it made most sense to be seen. Some had noble crowns, and some had large horns with herds that thundered, while others had large fangs with close prides. Others found their partners for life and flew to create their own homes. Others scrambled up trees and jumped from them like Zenia had. "Zenia," he whispered to her in awe, "Come and see beauty manifested." These were the lives he had been tasked with creating and now it was his job to keep them safe.

From somewhere beyond the ravine came the unmistakable patter of divine feet, and soon the happy goddess appeared leaping between features in the landscape to close the distance in record time. The moment she could be seen properly was the same moment she let out a surprised shriek that managed to startle a good amount of the new life. Their confusion did not dissuade the goddess, who rushed to get a closer look and leapt from her nearby cliffside perch to land on the ground.

The reasonably-sized goddess vanished between high grass and skittering animals, and announced from somewhere below, "So big! They looked smaller before! How did you find these, Chailiss?!"

Before Chailiss could respond he spotted her again climbing the side of a big grass-feeding animal that towered several sizes over her - it barely noticed the scrawny goddess doing her thing.

The cold god watched as a great many followed after the one Zenia climbed. With large tusks and great trunks, the furry behemoths made pathways in the grass for the smaller creatures. Chailiss went closer to Zenia, and spoke in a quiet voice to not disturb the animals. "I did not find them little Golden Ray. They have come to life by my own will. Like the land that predated them by your own hand. Now, are you capable of this last feat? Express your will once more, create life that will thrive in these lands that you have labored over, Zenia."

Zenia was enraptured by the mere idea, encouraged by the act of riding this grand beast and seeing the plethora of life around her. She stretched out her hands as if to invite animals to join her, and her wordless encouragement was enough for the trees and winds to merge under her command; from the nooks and crannies of this grand vista sprang feathered and furry beasts alike, long and large wings spreading out to soar across the massive landscape. Brown and white birds so big only these lands could host them, massive tree-bound rodents that leapt from the branches and spread wings to collect the equally big bounties of nature. Even the tiniest animal rivaled the goddess in size. Large flying animals with snouts and leathery wings to carry them great distances. A throng of different creatures, all of which were bigger than Zenia, sprang forth to join her on her mount, roosting atop the wooly creature in the relative safety of Zenia’s proximity.

Chailiss hummed contently. "Well done, Zenia." he rumbled with pride. "These are fine additions to the chorus of life here and they seem to have taken a liking to you as well."

Zenia laughed and affectionately petted a bird bigger than her small frame. "This is shaping up to be, like, a neat place to host a great party. I doubt Jiugui could find anything greater than this." she peered towards Chailiss with a smug expression and then lifted her hand to show she meant height. "Get it? Greater."

Chailiss let out a small chuckle. "Yes, truly greater,, Zenia. Perhaps the greatest yet." He said absent-minded, before focusing on Zenia again.. "By utilizing the full extent of your will, you have indeed created a place for this… party? I believe. For, as the one who helped me, you will always be welcome in these lands. It is as much my home as it is yours, after all." The God's voice whispered. "Yet something tells me you will not stay here. The world is large, the others will create and need help doing so. Your spirit will be restless… he said with a hint of sadness in his voice. "There will be more life to come Zenia, I feel it already… and they will perhaps take more familiar shapes. One eager for fun and festivities. It only makes sense..." he alluded.

Zenia turned from her vantage point and all the animals she had been enjoying the sights of to look straight at Chailiss. "I want to stay-... but I have to find the best place.. and I'd, like, not be doing it very well if I only looked in one place… Unsure of what more to say, she gave the giant bird a last pat before encouraging the flying creatures to spread out across the continent, leaving her to stand like a proud little puppy atop the mammoth. "I can, like, stay if you need more help. You know?"

Chailiss watched the birds fly on. "I would not keep you here when you must find the place you seek, Zenia. You have done all that you can to help me with my vision." Chailiss' attention went back to her, a small stream of fluffy snow and wind wrapped around Zenia's hand and she was left with a small oval pendant, with a golden necklace. The pendant was a cool blue and sparkled. "Take this token of my appreciation. Wherever you might be upon this world, or elsewhere, I shall come to your aid if you are in need of help. Simply break it and I will find you."

Zenia closed her hand around the artifact before bringing it up to inspect, ooo-ing and aww-ing with every moment of inquisitive examination. She quickly clasped it around her neck, smiling with the intensity of the sun. "Thank you so much, Chailiss! I should, uhm, do something for you too!"

"There is no need." he spoke, "You have helped me already, Zenia."

But Zenia wasn't listening, having already chosen her path. She reached out towards Chailiss' fading tendril of ice and mist and grabbed it firmly, willing it corporeal enough to hold on to. Then she set off towards the north, pulling Chailiss who did not resist, with her like an eager child showing their new project. She ran a marathon, scattering the new gigantic wildlife like a mouse scaring elephants as she blazed past. Eventually she came to stop whence they had begun, where arctic glaciers met risen oceanic ground. Only then did she allow Chailiss his own agency, as she moved forward to touch the ground and hum to herself. The ground rumbled and cracked once more, and an obelisk of silvery metal rose through ice and frozen dirt alike. It stood out from its foreign material, and was covered in symbols of a circle of hands and arms forming a wheel. Content with her production, which stood approximately ten Zenias high, she turned to Chailiss and extended her arms to present the pillar. "Here you go!"

Chailiss looked to the obelisk with wonderment despite that fact he was merely an orb without visible emotions. He gave a happy hum and looked upon Zenia, "Marvelous Zenia! Your creativity is astounding. Tell me, what does it do? What purpose might it serve?" he asked with curiosity.

”Oh!” she exclaimed like she’d forgotten. ”That’s the best part! Okay, so. You can, like, touch it with your essence, and it will show you where I am. Like, from my eyes. So you can, you know, also see all the fun things and places with me!” she continued to explain, patting the obelisk like a smug trinket merchant.

The god of cold did not know what to say to such a thing. Instead, he reached out and touched the obelisk and too his bewilderment, he could in fact, see through Zenia’s eyes. She stared up at him. Was he truly that large from her perspective? He let go of it, the process lingering in his mind. "How fascinating Zenia! Truly a remarkable gift and one I shall use whenever I can. Were you aware of my presence when I touched it?" he wondered.

She furrowed her brow and then tapped her chin in thought. ”Well, now that I think about it, not really. But the important thing is that it works! Maybe I’ll give it a look-over, like, the next time I come ov-... ooh look, it’s one of mine!” she interrupted herself to point up at the sky, where one of the massive birds gave an initial try of braving the extremely cold sky this far north.

Chailiss chuckled with a low rumble. "Very well Zenia. I must see to the animals and make sure they find their homes. Farewell for now, Golden Ray." The god of cold began to disperse. Zenia barely noticed his dissipation, mumbling a happy goodbye as she marveled over the flying creature. When she looked for Chailiss, it was merely enough to smile and wave.

The goddess stood there for mere moments more, before zipping off towards the south, in search of new adventures and experiences.

---

In a distant corner of the Divine Palace a room moved.

With further observation it could be determined that it did not move much; four hands, to be exact, with the back wall moving away from its counterpart across the way. The change was simplistic and arguably entirely aesthetic, mostly succeeding at shifting the feng shui of the room to more fitting harmony. The rest of the room was empty, of course, and so the exact flow of the chamber remained untouched. But, doubtlessly so, the room had experienced a change worth noticing and noting.

Yes. The room was better.

Four doors down the hallway and another thing altered. The doorway that led into the room shifted, gaining a window that looked into it. This particular door led to one of the Palace’s great libraries, after all, and libraries should be observable and welcoming. Within the lighting began to shift as lamps and sconces moved along the wall to slightly altered positions while bookshelves grew, shrank, or stretched. The floor, previously left open for easy access, grew tables and chairs like trees, sprouting up all across the floor. The gentle creak of floorboards filled the room, with ladders and steps rolling out onto themselves to give access to the tallest bookshelves and lead to the newly unfurling catwalk that wrapped around the upper level. In mere moments the room had grown from a room to store books into a welcoming space for learning and companionship.

That was when it happened.

An ottoman, frankly one of maximum comfort and coziness, hopped. It had been a shard at some point, the ottoman realized, but now it was an ottoman. The loveseat that stood domineeringly behind it, its pair, didn’t seem to realize that it was a loveseat, however.

The ottoman was displeased.

The ottoman moved on all fours to indicate clearly to its partner that it should not only be aware that it was a loveseat, but moreover that it had a valued role in the comforting embrace of this particular room in the home. It couldn’t speak, of course- it was an ottoman, after all- but it was sure it was doing a magnificent job elucidating this radical new ideology of furniture-relativism to its compatriot. And yes, much to the Ottoman’s displeasure…

The loveseat remained entirely unmoved.

Unacceptable! This state of being simply could not continue, as despite being an object spawned for comfort and coziness, the ottoman simply could not convince the loveseat of the same. Perhaps it was due to the lack communication beyond the rough impacts shared between the ottoman and the loveseat. By the Great Divine, the ottoman had even received a sense of romantic bliss from this new partnership, but clearly the loveseat simply couldn’t understand. No matter, loveseats always were more focused on the simple things. The ottoman, no doubt, could solve this in other ways.

The four wooden feet of the ottoman flexed. It was a slow flex, as if shaking off this “being made of wood” thing, but it was definitely a flex. The flex then became a full stretch and with the sound of popping corks each of the legs went from hardwood to something softer, more welcoming. But, more was needed. The smooth surface of the hardwood legs grew fur in big tufts that popped out explosively before becoming for more fuzzy and welcoming. From there the ottoman stood, shaking itself off. Cushions then stretched and shifted, needing to match the new aesthetic rather than continue to awkwardly clash. It took only moments for the growth to be complete, but in that flash of awareness the ottoman grew from a simple but comfortable piece of foot-rest to a fuzzy, adorable looking mustelid-creature.

Two ears perked up as the amalgam critter took proper address of its surroundings. Yes, it was far easier to perceive the feng shui of the room. Little claws ran through the fur of the ottoman- scratch that, such terminology was no longer correct- the critter’s lighter colored tummy. He, for he was fairly confident he was a he, purred in contentment. Yes, this would work far better. With that, the creature turned on its back paws as it stood on all fours to address the loveseat.

“My love,” cooed the furry little ferret-otter-wolverine-thing, “You are a loveseat; a wondrous, magnificent example of your lineage. Yes. Very good.”

With this assertion complete, the varmint-fuzzball was pleased. With paws on his hips he stood imperiously in the room, confidence practically illuminating the entire chamber. In fact, that was exactly it; a beaming disc glowed behind his head, a halo of perfect housing wisdom. Fitting! With his young love set straight, and the room complete, he was left with a great deal of freedom. This was a strange feeling, admittedly, as until that very moment he had been an ottoman with no ambitions other than convincing his loveseat partner that it was a loveseat, and a good one at that. But what was there now? What possible direction could he take?

“Well, this simply won’t do, no, no, no,” frowned the adorable, lovable, cozy, no-brainer addition to any given household, “We simply cannot let this continue! Admittedly, how could one go back to being a simple ottoman when opportunity like this is presented? But what to do…”

The soft padding of feet filled his ear. It took a few moments to realize that it was his own paws carrying him down the hall, back on all fours like his old ottoman self, but it was definitely him! The door opened before him, knowing well its honored place to open and close, and the fuzzy creature was suddenly out in the hallway. His eyes widened as doors presented themselves and in an instant he knew each one by heart, in and out, to every perfect detail. Each was unique, special, and deserved love and care to reach their greatest potential! He knew, instinctively perhaps, that this place was not simply a place but something more. It contained things, perhaps other ottomans, and they did not simply exist within but belonged here. Most of all, he knew in his little mind that someone in particular called this place “theirs”. Their what?

Home.

That’s what this was! A home! A mighty one, admittedly, of such massive scale that it would outshine any and every home ever to be born from this point onward, but a home nonetheless. A mighty palatial abode that would house many, that was for certain, and in that moment the mustelid-creature knew that it was a home HE was meant to keep! He was to be the Chamberlain of this great palace and, indeed, of every home born in its image. Much work would need to be done, of course, but HE would be the lares of this Palace.

“Lares! That’s it! I am Lares!” asserted, evidently, Lares with an authoritative point to the sky with his adorable little paw. A momentary pause and his paws dropped to his little chin, scritching, “Whatever that is…”

The sound of voices could be heard down the hall, echoing in a way only the lare of a home could hear, and Lares’ fuzzy ears perked up at the chorus. People! Yes, a home was only a home because of people. It was, after all, for them. Switching between two and four legs in equal measure as he hopped, skipped, and loped down the halls, Lares’ tail flapped excitedly. Yes, he needed to meet these people; it was for them, after all, that he would serve so diligently!

With that Lares went hurtling towards others, excited to meet the occupants of the almighty Palatial Home!

---

---

Shortly after her test of Ao-Yurin’s ocean Ruina wandered into the depths of The Celestial Palace. Investigating around its many rooms until she found one in particular that suited her fancy. The room was fairly compact in setup. Some moss-covered rocks around a clear stream of gently flowing water. Perfect to rest in while she waited for the phantom pains of her expenditure to fade away. To bring forth the pure destructive energy that she could was taxing on Ruina. Nothing that wouldn’t heal, of course. But it still left her with various aches and pains that needed a few moments to fade away. It was like a sprinter that had been training for an event finally being able to compete. By the end of it they’re sore and tired, but happy.

That described Ruina well as she stepped softly into the water. Giving a sigh at the cool sensation passing across the surface of her second skin, Ruina found a large rock embedded into the stream and braced herself against it. Pushing her tail out to the side and allowing it to drift and wiggle freely with the current. This… Was fairly nice.

Settling until the water was up to her neck, Ruina closed her eyes and let out a sigh as she relaxed and began to feel the aches from hurling orbs of destruction down to Galbar. The holes in the ocean that had been left behind would likely be resolved by Ao-Yurin. Or if not then Ruina would likely have to see about taking a look at them if she was asked to. If she wasn’t then she would likely just leave them as-is. They didn’t bother her and might make for something interesting to use later if someone found a use for them. Fortunately that wasn’t really her problem right now. Right now her problem was waiting for her aches and pains to go away. This did leave Ruina with a curious question: Was using their divine powers this taxing on anyone else? Or was it just her? A consequence of being distilled and concentrated destruction in that she was equally harmful to herself? Perhaps she would ask, or perhaps she would simply accept it as the way of things.

Letting out a hum, Ruina did her best to stop thinking for now and instead focus on having her aches and pains fade away.

’Enjoying yourself, little destroyer?’ came an all too familiar voice that had wormed its way into the mind of the goddess. Looking up, there was the form of the Monarch of All standing across the water, His form noticeably smaller to fit into the room. He was looking down upon her, allowing a moment for her to bask in His radiance before He stepped onto the water. The steps of the Great Ruler did not disturb the flow, no ripples coming from his movements as He loomed over her with His hands folded together. After another moment, the divine voice found itself working into her mind once more, ’I apologize for not addressing you earlier when you had tried to speak with me. I had a pressing issue to deal with.’

Ruina had closed her eyes by this point. Not yet to the point of attempting to snooze, but not fully aware of things either. As The Monarch of All appeared, she didn’t react for a few moments until His voice wormed its way into her head. It was then that her eyes opened promptly, her pupils focusing quickly upon His form. At the two questions she was asked, Ruina gave the answers in the same pattern that the questions came. ”I’m enjoying this stream washing away my aches and pains at the moment, yes. Though your sudden absence when I attempted to speak with you is no issue with me. I could tell what was going on and understand why you had to go so quickly. A dance that nearly ended the world… To be honest, I hadn’t thought of that. But then again my purpose doesn’t feel like that of a world ender… Though I’m sure I could if I so desired. My purpose is to test… Is it not?”

Ruina layered an interesting twist into that question. Since The Monarch of All had departed before giving her the first instructions, she had taken a guess as to her grand purpose, and by this point she had taken actions that solidified her role, even if it was not intended by The Monarch of All. So with her last statement she poked at His mind to see if that was in fact the reason for her existence, or if The Monarch had intended something else for her and she, by her nature of destruction, had ruined that plan. The only thing now was to wait and see.

The Monarch seemed to ponder the question, tilting His head to the side with clear thought echoing across the serene chamber. There was a brief silence in that ponderance, nothing beyond the sound of moving water that flowed through the chamber during that time where the Monarch merely stared at Ruina. Though, all silence is meant to end as His voice came to fruition, unsure yet confident in His answer, ’Your purpose… is to make of it what you will. I made you and your peers to bring meaning to this prison of existence. That meaning is whatever it is you desire, if you wish to test other creations then that is of your own volition. So long as you are contributing to the world, I will not bat an eye.’

With the news that Ruina’s existence was hers to define, she let out a hum. She had already made such a majorly defining decision that shifting away from it would likely cause more harm than good, and with the news that The Monarch of All wouldn’t bat an eye at her activities… Well, then it would probably be best to see that they continued. But then, what to test next? She would have to keep watch on all of creation in order to stay up to date on what was being made… And perhaps The Monarch could help with that. Speaking up, she posed a question to Him. ”Very well. I will define my purpose as testing the creations of others so that they may be perfected enough to please you. With this purpose in mind, I would like to request a gift of sorts. If I might be allowed, could I request of you some means of keeping an eye on Galbar, regardless of my actual location? ‘Twould aid in ensuring that I bring testing down on all that needs it and that none that need my attention go without.”

’Done,’ came His voice after a swift deliberation, a small head tilt as His hand came up to His eye and motioned a few fingers around the glowing orb. The Monarch of All then pulled the eye from its place, only for another spark of white light to take the temporarily vacant space. Crushing the orb in His hand, a pressure exerted itself into the space around His clenched fist, the room trembled slightly and the water itself began to swirl upwards and around the form of the Monarch of All. The trembling stopped as His hand opened, in its place was a white circlet, embroidered with gold and jade. A single jewel came down, casting a crimson glare upon all of Galbar, and through it could be seen everything on the grand scale that was happening on the planet. It was one that would fit perfectly onto the form of Ruina, one that would bring her much ease in locating the newly created objects of the gods. He lowered the circlet to Ruina, holding it out for her to take as any ruler would give a gift to a loyal subject.

’I trust you to serve me well through these tests. Should you do well, there will come further rewards in the future. Fail me and I shall take this gift back.’

Ruina was slightly surprised that the gift came so easily, but she was not one to shun something asked after, especially since it came from the hands of The Monarch himself. As the energies of creation began to warp the area Ruina pushed herself upwards and used her tail to brace herself against the bottom of the stream so that she could stand properly. It would be rude to take such a gift sitting lazily, after all. As Ruina stood from the river something of note was how easily the water ran off of her suit, to the point where mere moments after she had left she was dry aside from her calves and most of her tail, which were naturally still submerged.

Grasping gently at the circlet. Ruina bowed her head in thanks before speaking. ”Of course, if at all you should find me or my tests wanting I shall relinquish this gift as easily as you give it, tis only fair.” With that said, Ruina gently brought the circlet up and placed it gently upon her head. Immediately she was greeted with a sight beyond sight, causing her to shift and gasp slightly as she bore witness to nearly every inch of Galbar at once. As quickly as this vision came, it went. With a slow blink Ruina found herself stable again, comprehending how to control and direct this new sight of hers. Blinking a few more times, Ruina nodded in thanks once more before speaking again. ”I will do my best to satisfy your desires and perform the role that I have chosen.”

Bowing again and with naught else to say, Ruina lowered herself back down to the sitting position gently, careful to ensure that the circlet didn’t touch the gently flowing water.

The Monarch of All looked up, sending His gaze past the goddess of destruction, as His hands interlocked once more with His fingertips pointing upwards. A stern voice rang into her mind as His voice became domineering, a command came to her, ’I expect greatness from you, Ruina. Do not fail me.’

Then, He vanished, leaving her with her new gift and task.

Ruina could do naught else but nod at the silence and speak to the nothing that remained. ”Understood. I will do my best.”

It was then that she took to resting a bit more, her eyes closed and her form still as she slept a sleep that she did not need. When she awoke, she pushed herself free of the stream with ease and walked from the room and into the palace once more, eager to get to the next test.

_{CyKhollab Productions present:}


The Galbarian skies and the endless spaces alike were alight with Yudaiel’s works, and the scintillations of the diamonds she wrought into the heavens shone on the eyes of all the gods. All, that was, other than Rosalind the Feverfoot, whose eyes had known no light since the silent terror of the Monarch had cast them into darkness.
Though her mind walked in darkness,
the whispering of the gods reached Rosalind even in the black night of her sleep-swathed essence.
She saw, for instance, a terrible flood that consumed the world and left nothing unsubmerged by the deluge;
she saw the terrible visage of the flooder and the bifurcated madness that danced within him.
She saw, also, the furies of salt unleashed upon the flood.
Just as the deluge consumed all things, so was the deluge by unknowable measures of salt consumed.
It raged, did the salt, it danced;
it laughed unsmiling and danced without fever.
It was revenge, was the salt;
it was eternal aeons of ceaseless vengeance.
Even under the blanket of darkness, and though planes of reality separated Rosalind from Sala the Salt-Unsmiling, still did the dancer tremble in fear.
For what, now that terror was the kernel of her being, did Rosalind the Feverfoot not fear?
There in the inky swirl of sleep she saw:
the countenance of horror and the twin the horror scarred.
The struggle silenced breath as one fiendish sibling set upon its helpless echo.
Cowardly Rosalind!
She could not speak;
she could not breathe;
she could only bear to look because—
oh sickening shame!—
she feared her closing eyes would make a sound and draw the fiend to her!
But Ruina was no thrall to fear—
no, Ruina was the sword of grit!
She did not scream that flesh should shear—
she took the blow and forthwith hit!
She struck the face of ruin with death—
of breath she freed the treacherous one;
she clothed herself in godly flesh and stood as searing as the sun!
And the heart of Rosalind was never so unfree from fear.
Yudaiel’s curse was on her now, and in that curse she saw:
the flame of endless fevers and the serpent of the heat;
the eye of hungering fervour and the snake that ached to eat.
She swirled and swirled, did Yoliyachicoztl,
she chased her tail and fled her tail;
she chased her heat and fled her heat.
She danced, did Yoliyachicoztl,
she fled the blazing dance.
And all about the Feverfoot heat grew, and only grew,
till she cried out in her sleepfulness and went off fleeing too!
Oh she’s a coward is that Rosalind!
Courage is not her virtue.
Snakes that dance and burn?—
why yes, she fears them too!
In the womb of slumber still she saw:
a mountain made of god,
or perhaps a god carved from the mount—
who spoke in ringing rumbles like a cavern with echoing fount:
"Brothers,” he said, “sisters,” so that even Rosalind heard,
“our canvas is monotonous,” he sadly wept and shared.
“We can fill it with variety,” he then at once declared:
“join me and we shall paint it to our and the Monarch’s liking!”
But Voligan had no sooner spoke the Monarch’s name
before Rosalind the coward was fled in fear and shame.
She’s a coward, she’s a coward, she’s a coward of great fame!
Floating in her foetal languour, sightlessly she saw:
“Hear me! I am Epsilon,”
said the mind-and-body-made-one,
“I seek an inky treasure,
which shall live on forever!
Write down within this tome
the cosmic ocean’s foam,
so that even if we roam
we’ll know the way back home!”
And in the embryo of sleep
Rosalind began to weep—
her dancing only knew to prance
and was untrained in ink’s cold trance;
could you write a withering glance
or a sway stiff’ning like a lance?
No it could not be done—
so Rosa did not run;
the impossibility was clear
and so there was no need for fear.
But even as she deigned to look
to where she thought she saw the book,
with great affright she saw:
within the tome at once was writ,
by hand that hither thither flit,
the very secrets, long and grave,
that would cast fear into the brave!
The word on ends and final breath,
the word on souls and death’s cruel calls;
Voi the Deathdart wrote them all
with his hand—what hand?! A maul!
Voi the Deathdart wrote a dance,
wrote the lengthy dying dance—
he forgot no circumstance
from whence the beast of death could prance!
Round the cosmic soul his claw
beckoned to that other shore—
and Rosa ran! Oh yes she ran.
She ran as fast as sleepers can.
Why, let the world entire jeer:
do they not also have this fear?
She ran inside that cosmic spew
while through the veil of space she flew
with jittering feet,
and she saw:
a drunken cloud, asleep, awake,
where forms are shattered and minds break.
The hurtling ball-shape of the drunk
exploded, flew, then swiftly sunk;
wherefore he went he did not care,
he spread his joying everywhere!
But then—great gods!—he left despair!
What wafts there on the gentle air?
What wafts behind the bloodshot stare?
Despair despair! It’s everywhere!
So Rosa ran—oh yes, she ran.
In her head she ran and ran,
and as she ran she saw, she saw:
the hunter with the barken face
who scrawled the words that left no trace—
he sculpted in the inky tome
a pit that horrors all called home.
What did he write?—she did not know.
What did he make?—she did not know.
Which only made its horror grow!
“May the unknown’s mystery
stretch eternally!”
Where could she go? Where could she go?
Fly up above or dig deep below?
How do you run from what you don’t know?
Weep, oh gods, the coward’s plight
as she takes off again in flight!
Wheeling and wheeling in the sable gyre
like a windmill whirling on a wire,
she saw:
a moment’s joy extended
so joys are never ended;
a splotch of yellow,
a carefree bellow,
and a cartwheel quicker than an arrow—
her mind, meanwhile
was free from guile
and flew free on the wing
of “a shiny thing that goes ‘ting!’”
The cartwheel danced and the dance cartwheeled
and as she watched even Rosa reeled
away from such excess!
She remembered too clearly
how quick and severely
she’d been punished for all of that mess!
Oh yes it was fear
come again to help steer
the coward into the clear!
Chuggachuggachug
chuggachuggachug
chuggachuggachug,
once again she saw:
on rails of steel
that do not feel
he chugchugchugs;
beneath iron wheels
you can hear the squeals
of bugbugbugs.
Explosion for you and oil spill for you,
there’s plenty to go round, it’s true!
With a belch and a burp and the blazing of coke
we’ll send fog up in billows and swellings of smoke,
and we’ll dance and we’ll soar
and industry will roar
as you, and you, and you all choke!
So coughing and wheezing,
and tearfully sneezing,
Rosa rolled from the smog
like a dirty old cog
and really wished she was somewhere—anywhere!—else.
Swirling and whirling in the quagmire,
she saw:
is that rain or is that fire,
is it tree or is it pyre?
Where goes all this magic air?
For whose use and dismal glare?
Aethel the Manaker was his name,
in yonder days his is the blame—
so says the cursed Sight of Yudaiel
that sits on distant hills to hail
and speak its mysteries
to all who wander on Sight’s breeze.
Oh Manaker, oh Manaker, why, why did you make this mana?
Why did you plant it in a tree
and let it grow so wild and free?
It’s everywhere, it’s everywhere!
Wherever you run you’ll find it there!
Oh cowardice must you now die?
What comes of you if you can’t fly?
And as she soared and slept and dreamt, she saw:
cowards need a hiding place
and forests offer ample space—
Phelenia the Lifeline did not know this,
but Rosa cooed and leapt in bliss.
Here was a god, it would appear,
who sheltered those who lived in fear!
Deep, dank woods away from sight
where you can hide and not take flight.
What more than this do cowards need? -
for the weed loves living with the weed.
But even as Rosalind committed to life
in forested groves
and lichenous coves,
the murmurings of life sounded out at once
such that she erupted with fear,
would not listen or hear,
and turned fleeing without a glance!
There was nowhere left to flee now except into the dawn of wakefulness.
And even as she woke,
in those wee hours of the slumbering mind, she saw:
the ice-storm whose eye was god and the god who dwelled on the branches of a snowflake.
The lonesome flake fluttered and flittered,
down down down,
until it breathed a mane of white upon the world’s once naked head.
An icy breath wafted through Rosalind’s bones and chilled her burning, jittering feet.
And as she woke she sighed to find that the fever in her feet was,
if momentarily,
gone.
Perhaps, she thought, that great expanse of ice was the cure for fevered feet.
And even as she thought it, the great weight of all she had dreamt and heard rushed into her feet and set them ablaze once more. Her eyes widened in fear as she felt her hips begin to sway to an unknown drum: her feet to kick, her body to move, her wrists to shake—and there, on her wrists, a hundred bangles jangled and echoed and vibrated. With every foot that kicked and let off heat the bangles jangled and sucked up the excess. For a perfect moment it formed a great harmony.

But fevered feet have no mind for such things, and they kicked such that she went spiralling and accelerating and burning and jangling; in the heavens she became a motion; among the stars she glistened and flashed and moved and shot. In some worlds they called such motions and movements ‘shooting stars,’ but in this one they would forever be called feverish-feet. And that first feverish-foot went flying furiously and fiercely flitting, its fervours forcing the ether to fold and unfold before it with such ferocity that even the infinity of space was set aflame.

It flew, that first feverish-foot, until it flew no more and instead nestled—gently, mind you: for a few seconds it was like the embrace of long lost lovers—into the newly-struck moon. Had Yudaiel foreseen this? Had Yudaiel engineered it? Or was it, as seemed fatefully destined with the turbulent dancer, a great affront and defiance to her Sight? For a great silent moment fever-foot and newborn moon kissed and embraced... and then a silent boom mushroomed in the heavens—like distant fireworks you can’t hear, spied from the depths of a lagoon. And those recently pent-up fevers left the Feverfoot so that the dance would forever be at home in the moon.

It went dancing then, did that moon, across the heavens. Its dance rippled and vibrated all about it and beckoned to Galbar, but Galbar’s foundations were strong and did not move; her seas were fickle, though, and given to flights of fancy and so gave themselves—why, threw themselves!—to the dance. They danced with the moon, those seas, they rose and fell, they reached up in great waves like godly hands, they thrashed and kicked against the shores and sent off surf and foam. The moon and sea, they danced and pranced; the fever had them now.


Defiantly, the nascent moon had been placed contrapositive to the sun, as far as possible from that heavenly palace where the Monarch of All dwelled. There, hanging in a place perpetually shielded from His light by Galbar’s long shadow, was the moon—her moon. In such a lofty and presumptuous perch, from Galbar one could look up and perhaps see the moon as an equal to the sun, a contender even! But Yudaiel’s furtive insolence against the Monarch was not to last long, for Rosalind’s collision spurred the great celestial body into motion even as it created a massive impact—the first to come but not the last, the Reverberation sensed—that marred the otherwise pristine surface as it had been cooling from the heat of the last meteoroids that had fallen into its embrace.

The Great and All-Seeing Eye did not weep. In her heart and just over her shoulder, there to the left a little, in the past, she could always see her creation in its perfection and infancy as it had been first wrought by her designs. Now it was thrust out into the world and others were bound to leave their marks upon it, out of greed or jealousy or mere capriciousness. Such actions she had always expected, and perhaps even ordained.

It was similarly ordained that as the moon and Galbar spun through their eternal dance, there would come times when the moon returned to its lofty perch opposite the sun and was enveloped in shadows, and other times (more defiant still!) when it would come between the sun and Galbar and block the Monarch’s eyes and radiance from reaching the prison below, if only for a time. In those rare events, her impudent apostasy against the Monarch’s will and His designs would be more potent and brazen still—and what was He to do about her spiteful fomenting? In the end, she would deny that she’d done any more than craft a beautiful jewel in the sky, a companion to Galbar to inspire and awe all those who cast their gaze skyward.

In the wake of the celestial orb’s dancing hung Rosalind, fully awake now and moaning. She lifted a jangling hand to her head and rubbed it, such pain shooting through it as would torment even Jiugui’s brow if ever he sobered. The void caressed her throbbing head and body as she drifted through space, softer than a feather falling upon fresh snow. A cool and familiar sensation crept through the snow: a wet trickle, a tiny stream of the vast sea of consciousness that was Yudaiel, that reached out to touch the Feverfoot’s mind. Rosalind stiffened then, her endemic fear vomiting its lichens across her chest.

The Fever flared in her head, a banal bonfire suddenly alive as a great pillar of flame, animated and writhing with fingers, so many fingers. It reached out balefully to grasp at Rosa, to wrest control of the Dance and lead her steps, to crush her in an angry grip—but then the air whispered a forlorn name, Yudaiel, Yudaiel. Yudaiel! The gossiping eddies came together as one wind, and this cooling breeze swept away all the smoke and pain and heat. The fire shuddered and simmered before the extinguishing gust, and then all was calm.

Time moved slowly and yet fast; the only dance was the lethargic and content beating of Rosa’s heart. She rested for what felt like days, but it was quite soon that she raised her head to look back to where that horrible blaze had been, only to realize that even the bonfire’s dying coals now glowed no more. So tranquil was her mind that she hardly seemed to notice as the ground melted away to water, and now she floated upon her back in a sea so calm that there weren’t even any waves, just tiny ripples created by the playful winds in the air. The salt breeze was there, but it was only a fresh scent upon the air, not Sala’s smothering kiss muddled with the rancid and foul breath of fish. Ah, peace. The air was warm, yet puffy white clouds shielded Rosa’s skin from the sun’s unforgiving rays. Forgiveness.

Rosalind sat like a suppliant in the arms of her god, whose supplications all were answered and could think to ask nothing more. She breathed and was awestruck by breath, she sighed and was filled with wonder. So overpowering was her fever that she had not been quite able to notice these things before—there was only the rising heat or the fear of the rising heat. But for a moment, this moment, it was not so.

She rose then—her feet were her own!—and she plip-plip-plopped across the serene sea. Her movements were clean, rippling with the waves and flowing with the main. She stood for a second and stretched on her toes and rocked on her heels. And she laughed—a small laugh mixed with fear and uncertainty… and gratitude.

She brought her hands to her abdomen, lifted her chin, and allowed her feet to flow with the water. Her movements were slow and measured, her arms danced around her head like the ring danced about the world below and her feet pitter-pattered on the water. Though unhurried, it did not lack any of the force her fevered dancing had, she seemed to weave her movements—carefully, precisely, as though threading and rethreading and triply threading a needle. When her hips spun, her back swayed, her shoulders swung, her head turned, then like a velvet curtain her hair spiralled—like a galaxy it turned, like the murmuration of ten thousand starlings or more it swirled. Then with finality a foot landed, water rippled and stirred but did not break, and Rosalind’s eyes of dusk emerged from behind the great dark curtain of hair—they glimmered, they smiled, and even in the stillness of finality, they danced.

The unblemished surface of the water underfoot, immaculate in its stillness and smoothness, was suddenly broken. Waves lapped at Rosa’s feet, their crests distorting her reflection in the shattered mirror. She looked up, and there it was, a beautiful boat! It drifted lazily closer to her, propelled by its own desires if not by an unseen and unfelt wind, and it had come to carry her away. The hue of the sea grew deeper, darker, as though clouds had come overhead, but there were no clouds above this wine-dark water, for the sky had vanished. Or had it merely moved? Now the night sky seemed to be below her, where before there had been only water. The sun was gone, but some little sparkles of light still bejewelled the crests of some black waves. They twinkled, and with a blink, Rosalind realized they were stars, and that she was once more in space, the dream and the ideabstraction gone.

But the boat remained before her, and in fact, it drifted so close that she could reach out and touch it. Her fingers brushed the wood, charming in its simplicity and lack of ostentation, and she found herself half drawn and half falling in. She lay there for a few moments, a mess of fabric and hair and limbs and then struggled to right herself and place her bottom on the thwart doubling as a seat. She burned with shame at the odd debacle and patted down her skirt of black velvet, then swept the blanket of dusky hair from her face. Only then did she note the oar, which she picked up and surveyed. She did not know how she knew what it was and how to use it - though she suspected it had something to do with Yudaiel and the strange way she knitted thoughts into one’s mind.

The goddess extended the oar from the boat and gently pushed off into the waiting darkness of space, her feverish feet gently quivering against the bottom boards. She looked up to where she thought Yudaiel’s epicentre might be. She opened her mouth to speak, to say - perhaps - you are good, Yudaiel or I will be better - and I will thank you, but words seemed unable to form up in her throat or flow off her tongue or slip between her lips. And in that moment she knew that dancing was more eloquent than speech.

Rosalind the Feverfoot closed her mouth, allowed herself one last long glance towards the sister who had rebuked her so fiercely and forgiven her so readily, and she rowed her boat.

• Summary [+]

  Rosalind is sleeping, her form slowly drifting in space in the general direction of Galbar via the moon. As she drifts, she dreams - and, due to Yudaiel’s influence and the inherent connection the gods have, her dreams generate renditions of her siblings and what they are up to. In order, she sees: Sala, Ruina, Yoliyachicoztl, Voligan, Epsilon, Voi, Jiugui, Tuku, Zenia, Astus, Aethel, Phelenia, and Chailiss. Lares does not feature as Zura posted too late to catch Kho’s muse of weirdness. I’m sure Rosa will dream of that smexy ottoman soon enough!
  
  The remainder of the post sees Rosa crash into the moon and imbues it with dance, and so it goes off dancing. This is how the moon ceases to be motionless and starts to orbit Galbar; before this moment, it was locked perpetually opposite to the sun, in a lunar eclipse. The moon’s dance infects Galbar, but the land resists the moon’s call while the sea answers it. This is how the tides and waves are born.
  
  Yudaiel is no longer angry with Rosalind and she speaks into her mind, forgiving her. She also momentarily calms Rosa’s fever completely, and for the first time the goddess is able to dance of her own volition, unburdened by the fever. She dances a dance of gratitude for Yudaiel.
  
  Yudaiel then gifts Rosa a boat bought with her own money, weaving Rosa’s untapped powers to create it. Rosa rows the boat down towards Galbar.
• Vigour [+]

  Rosalind:
  

  Starting: 10 Vigour
  2 Vigour: Imbue the moon and sea with dance, causing the tides, waves, and the moon’s orbit of Galbar.
  1 Vigour: Create “Boat”, an artifact. It is a perfectly functional rowboat, suitable for water, air, and the great vacuum of space. Doesn’t understand land.

The shard of cultivation was cast from the Monarch of All. It remained within the First Creator’s abode, gathering the raw essence of creation and integrating it into itself. The power magnified and intensified. It attempted to flow outwards, but was held in place by an unseen force. Eventually, these opposing forces caused the structure to collapse in on itself and fade, leaving only a small spark of light. But the light remained, and the light grew into a bipedal form cloaked with mud and dirt.

Arvum wasn’t, and then he was. He wasted precious light worrying about the inconsequential details. He had an innate sense of purpose, which he knew that he couldn’t serve within the Monarch’s realm.

He started to walk around Galbar, carefully examining it. Life had already started to populate the planet, but it was wild and untamed. He was not necessarily opposed to having wild regions of the world, but he started to think about the work that would need to be done. Looking at how Galbar started to grow green, his barren cloak felt inadequate. He did not have time to worry too much about appearance, but he willed it and his cloak was covered with grass. It was suitable for the moment.

As he wandered around Galbar, he eventually wandered into caverns filled with magma. To the point, it seemed a vast cavern opened into a flowing stream of magma as one walked deeper into the sub-surface, warm and pretty the molten materials flowed. He could see a certain appeal, however it was rather barren of life. Suddenly, there was a presence he could feel beneath his feet- growing closer, and warmer…

---

She had said goodbye to the two other deities she could remember. It was a curt thing even if she had tried to remain polite- especially to the charming little one. She was quite beautiful now that she thought about it. Her thoughts remained scattered as she had fled into the crust of Galbar- the peace had been destroyed and the thrumming began again, so she ran trying to find what would quiet it, both in a growing internal sense of control and some external measure.

Regardless, she began her journey trying once more to find some direction that would ease the thrumming in her mind. She twisted and turned in the earth, below the surface of Galbar. In her path she moved quickly through the rock, only barely heating by her standards. Until she caught it, a direction that eased the thrumming, something to do- a place to go and have some peace amid other things...

---

...and the Great Serpent of Heat burst forth from the ground, the air rapidly beginning to heat directly around her even more than it was already so close to a magma flow. She turned and twisted in the cavern, spinning to face the form of Arvum wordlessly and slowing in her twisting movement, staring without comment.

Arvum turned towards his fellow god, “Greetings, Lord of Billowing Heat.” his words emanated from his featureless form.

“Lady.” She corrected him softly, before continuing in a much more imperious voice. “I do not know of you. What is your name and position of power in the Monarch's Court smooth-shaped Lord?”

“My name is Arvum. I must admit that I do not know in what regard that the Lord of All Lords holds me. However, I know that I am to ensure that the world does not fall into stagnation or decay, so that tomorrow shall be greater than yesterday.” he answered.

Yoliyachicoztl nodded as she slowly floated around the smaller deity, her form slowly turning the stone beneath her a dull glowing red from the residual heat. “A fair answer I would so speak, Arvum of the-opposition-to-decay. I am Yoliyachicoztl, Supreme Goddess of Heat.”

She briefly changed her course to float higher away from the floor of the cavern, “I am here for the Peace. What has brought you down to this level of the subsurface of this orb?”

“It is an honor to make your acquaintance, Yoliyachicoztl, Lady and Supreme Goddess of Heat.” he said, bowing his head slightly, “I had no particular reason to journey here specifically, however I thought it would be prudent to examine Galbar before shaping it. I have found this location to be rather intriguing. The lakes of salt submerged under another liquid is a rather interesting feature.”

“It is more than interesting, it is necessary. There will be things to add here, ones that move and ones that stay.” she paused as if surprised at her own reply before gathering herself. She turned slowly around twisting in the rapidly heating air around and back under herself before continuing. “I had a hand in ensuring its creation, with the help of a lovely Goddess, a large God of mighty rock, and unknown others.”

He nodded in agreement, “I must say that you all have done splendid work. I have noticed how barren it is here, but it is wonderful to know that it will soon be sorted.”

“Soon would be an overstatement of the time remaining,” she continued passively in her movements. “Our work has been splendid, I agree with the shape of your thoughts. I have no time for the fragility of the surface, even these stones are barely sufficient.”

She illustrated her point rather quickly with a small burst of heat to melt a nearby section of rock wall, it slowly flowed down into the magma flow as she turned back upon her path again floating along.

Arvum's attention briefly shifted to the wounded earth. It quickly shifted back to his fellow god, “I apologize, I didn’t not mean to imply that you should rush something so important. If one wishes for life to flourish, one requires time to plan and make appropriate preparations.”

“Exactly so Arvum. Tell me, how do you plan to make tomorrow greater than yesterday in your way and shaped path?”

Arvum answered “I do not have grand desires. I simply intend to nurture life. I shall guide it, but to require to forever move along one specific path shall only restrain it and make it lesser by denying its potential.”

“How does one such as you intend to nurture and guide life? Is it possible to not cut off its potential even as one so powerful may indirectly stifle by the limits of their development by a relative lack of support in the diversity of imagination?”

“I shall bestow the life of the greatest potential, the most valuable gift which is mine to give: choice. With choice, they can create. They will require guidance.” he said, gesturing to the newly formed crevice, “The ability to create is forever entwined with the ability to destroy.”
If she had visible eyes they would have narrowed as she turned to face the smaller deity before her. She spoke thus, “Show me, prove such a case that you can give and create something of worth. I wish to see your rightly guided ideals put into action on our grand sculpture.”

Arvum nodded, “I was truly intending to create something worthwhile without intervention, however I do hope that others could be amiable to my work.” His head remained motionless, but there was a sense that his attention was slowly drifting away, glancing around the environment.

“I have a need for another's mind shape. I can feel the need of a people below our peerage of divine sense, and yet because of their lack they will need more than I can give. They cannot be entirely sufficient of their own, their weaknesses mean they are fragile and need of replacement and ability to care for themselves, to of their own power grow and develop and reproduce.”

She turned circling around Arvum quickly, her attention focused as she seemed tenser, unknowing a thrumming, pounding in her mind growing strong as if to escape.

“Can you give me such a means that they may take care of themselves? That they have such a power external and yet capable for their use?”

Arvum's attention refocused on the great serpent coiled around him. He did not reply with words
or intent, but action.

His hand reached forward, eventually stopping physically but it continued to stretch forward in an esoteric manner. His spiritual hand bore into the heart of the magma tunnels, as he carefully examined its essential nature. He had gleaned the secrets of the molten geography, at least pertaining to how it would impact agricultural development. His outreached hand clasped, suddenly holding the raw materials of the underground. His skin paled as he gathered his might into his other hand, and brought his hands together. He silently worked, making nearly invisible movements to mold his new creations.

When his work was completed, he presented it to the Lady of Heat. A mortal eye would only see a pile of dust in his hand, but a god could look deeper and see its potential; vines of tungsten and gold bearing crystalline berries, root vegetables constructed from earthen materials of several varieties, geode-like melons born of rocky vine, metallic kale that grows like weeds, fruit bushes that produce slight electric shocks, several additional wilder plants that might be tamed later, stone-like worms and metal-coated beetles to aid the growth of plants and several varieties of crustaceans to populate the lakes of salt.

“I trust that this is to your liking?”

“That it does, my peer. Welcome to the class of fine artists shaping the world.”

Arvum scattered the dust, defying the flow of molten rock and its own seemingly small volume, it coated the entire cavern causing life to sprout from it. He replied, “I am glad to be of aid, but perhaps you could find a softer manner of asking for my assistance next occasion.”

The serpentine body of the Goddess twisted in some manner of discomfort seemingly regardless of his words, she spoke briefly thus, “I will consider it more than it has affected my mind, you have done well, and I have no desire for the impolite. There is a feeling that I suppose you do not know that cares not for such things or any care at all.”

Arvum nodded, “This is not a place which I should meddle further than you wish, and there is still much left to do. Our meeting, however brief, was a pleasant one. I bid you farewell.”

As Arvum left, Yoliyachicoztl dived towards the pool of mixed molten materials, her presence brought even greater heat. She shot into the flow and she made lesser beings in her image, she drew upon that thrumming sense within her and forced it quieted as it had become in the peace of conversation. Power flowed from her as she roared out countless beings, youth and age in forms all of their own kind, each born into glorious peace of creation before fleeing from her heat and power. They grew and aged in her presence, feeling the peace and knowledge flow of her mind and that thrumming power into them. They learned how to live and know from divine sense gave insight that would have taken countless effort beyond. She spoke to them and meaning came into their mind, heat dispersing slowly into the flow, driving it higher and higher.

“You are the people of my own self, the only people and the first people. Those who live in my heat and the flows I have created. Know that I am your creator, that you shall live in the heat as I have made it for your coming, that the land above is not for your living selves. You will live and you will be!”

The heat kept flowing as she pressed towards them, growing more than even the strongest could withstand. They gave ground before her fleeing deeper and further throughout the magma flows as her voice echoed ever further to them. They were massive in form, the adult in youth and aged bore eight limbs, the foremost dexterous and fine in control. Their skin was of rock and ingrained metal, their flesh was given with powerful molten salts to flow within. Their minds were sharp and their powerful size made them the largest and most powerful of all those who lived mortal lives.

“You know my words and you shall know my name. I am Yoliyachicoztl, Supreme of all Heat. Go forth and thrive, live and in creation find meaning and purpose, grow strong and wise, overcome that which would constrain you my children!”

And then the breath of her creation stopped, her children fled from her heat and a new thrumming came to her mind, driving her from the magma flow once more.

Birth Of The Swarm

Hunger, Ceaseless, Unending, Hunger. That is all they could feel, it washed over them like a tidal wave. It scattered their mind in its fury. They were hungry, oh so hungry, they needed to feast, to consume, to devour. It tried to snap and claw towards something, anything that could sate this pain, but it found nothing. No inkling of sustenance for their deep, endless hunger. The pain only grew and grew, as its desire for something, anything to eat, grew in tide.

A shard floated through the void, scattered from the Monarch of All, lost and silent. It pulsed a soft red, the divinity within struggling and clawing to release. Then it sensed something, far below it, upon that planet teeming with life, no, teeming with food. The shard began to descend, slow at first, but picking up more and more speed, the once soft red began to grow in intensity until it was a harsh blood red. As it sped up, cracks began to form along it, the entity trapped inside clawing for a way out, to reach that sweet scent that consumed its mind.

The shard reached incredible speeds, finishing its rapid descent by smashing into the earth, an explosion erupted from where it smashed into, stone, dirt, and plants were scattered into the sky and beyond. A massive crater was left of the impact, stretching more than a hundred miles wide, within its center sat a new being. Its form akin to that of a white, chitin covered centipede, with countless skittering legs that sank themselves into the now scattered soil, its stinger-tipped tail swished about, kicking up dirt and stone behind it. At the other end its torso flexed its six new arms, and finally, its head split open, looking like a flower, if it was filled with teeth and led to a hungry gullet, as the new beast roared in announcement of its own creation. Beneath the segmented chitin sickly green flesh could be seen, and from there emerged countless pests, each one more disease ridden and hungry than the last.

Yesaris, god of Parasites, had emerged. And they were very hungry.

They knew what they had to do, to consume, to feed, to infect all that laid before them. This land would not do for a feast though, their own creation had stripped it bare, and the lands around the crater were nothing but plants, fine food sure, but nothing worthy of the Great Devourer. They summoned that divinity within them, and set to work.

First, they went to fix the crater, wasteland would serve no purpose, for nothing could grow or eat there, and as such, nothing could become hosts for their feast. They forced plants to emerge from the soil keeping in line with the plants beyond, mighty evergreen and deciduous trees that towered within the center, casting shade upon the grasses and bushes that sat beneath them, meanwhile the outskirts were host to various shrubs, their roots digging deep into the sides of the crater in order for them to stay in place. They smoothed out the edges of the crater as well, to ensure there would be no true hazard to walk in between.

With the crater reseeded with life, the plants were set, but they could not be the only hosts, there had to be more, animals of flesh and blood, not to mention the creation of the parasites themselves, those precious things, serving their creator to feed them. And so they set to work once more, crafting forth beasts to live within the great forests of the far south, large great cats and smaller ocelot like cousins, crafty foxes that hunted the underbrush for the hares and maras, burrowing armadillos and skunks, and large deer and guanaco to fit as large ungulates. To fill the skies they created owls, sparrows, woodpeckers, parakeets, and even flightless lesser rhea, and as hunters they crafted falcons, caracara, kestrels, and the scavenging condors. For insects there was no limit, beetles, butterflies, bees, waps, and dragonflies, all sorts of crawlies and buzzers.

Finally, this was a good land to feast on, first they created mundane parasites, bot flies, fleas, lice, mosquitoes, parasitoid wasps that used other insects to grow their children. They created leeches, parasitic worms that infected intestines, protozoa and even parasitic plants, all sorts of mundane parasitic life. These creatures rapidly spread through the region, setting upon their hosts and slowly but surely feasting upon their bounties. It was filling, Yesaris could feel their hunger settling, yet it wasn’t enough, they needed more, more parasites, more infection, they needed to consume.

They returned to the vast crater, and within they crafted a new creation, a fungus, a parasitic fungus, one that could spread and infect all that it touched. But this wouldn’t just be any ordinary fungus, it would be connected, a greater mind dispersed through the various forms and parts, a hivemind, and the more it grew, the smarter it would become. But it needed its start, it would be no fun to just create it throughout the region, no, that would deny the very idea of the creeping infection, so they would limit it to the crater, and let it spread as it pleased.

First, they started with a core. The first stage of its great infection, a massive fungal growth, sat within the very center of the crater, exactly where they fell. These growths pulsated a reddish-white, and were filled with the mind that would grow from the fungus’ expansion, it would serve as the first of many, the overseers to the infection. From this Hive Core spread the mycelium network, and erupted spores for the expansion of the parasite. From these came the next form of the hive, that which infected the plants, the networks connected to root systems and inner structures, siphoning off portions of the energy created by their photosynthesis, this energy was used to both feed the hive core and to craft great sporocarps that emerged from trees, just underneath bushes, and towered over the grasses which too were not safe. These sporocarps oozed a thick, purplish honey, which would come of importance later, and would also burst when full of spores, spreading the infection even further, and replacing any lost Producer Forms that had fallen to age or other means.

Some of these spores would find themselves inhaled by the animals of the region, adhering to nasal cavities deep within the nostrils, where the other form would emerge, that of the Beast. This form was more slow-acting, taking time to spread its mycelium network through the wall of the cavity, into the central nervous system of the brain itself. Here, the network would begin to work its way within, slowly taking control of the functions of the brain and make its way throughout the entire nervous system, in effect replacing it with its own mycelium network, giving it full control of whatever it had made its host.

The host would still need to be fed though, and so they would feed upon either the other plants and animals, or make their way to the great Producer Forms and feast upon the purple honey that could help sustain them, at least enough for the host to continue to serve its role. Eventually, sporocarps would break through the surface of the skin, emerging and twisting the form of the host, this would serve as another means to spread the infection, and a far more efficient one, as the hosts could travel, allowing it to spread further and further. Though not too far, as if it left the reach of the Hive Core, it would grow disarrayed and practically mindless, and so more would need to be created by the hive itself.

With the crater becoming consumed by the infection, that of the Parasitus Mentis, Yesaris felt as if their job was done, already they could feel that hunger being saited more and more, but it was not enough. More needed to be done, more corners needed to be infected, and it would take too long for their hive to work its way through it all. They needed to continue their work elsewhere, but not in this form, no it was, too obvious.

And so they twisted themselves, contorting their limbs and parts into a new shape, one more bipedal and incredibly thin and rather short, with jagged digitigrade insectoid legs and four clawed insectoid arms, all covered in that same white chitin and having that same sickly green flesh beneath while their smaller scorpion tail still swished behind them. They cloaked themselves in a rotten, tattered, hood of their own creation, obscuring their face in eternal shadow, only an ever smiling row of teeth showing.

Content in their new shape, Yesaris set off, leaving behind their parasitic hive and forests, knowing it would not disappoint, ever growing and infecting until, hopefully, it consumed much of the world in its grasp. Ah, a hungry god could only hope.

The god of cultivation had walked the skies, surveying the lands below for an ideal location. He had choose a portion of land central to the western continent. It was large, and mostly flat. To the south, there was a great wall of salt that was rather hostile to life. He did not think it interfere with his plans. He also had to admit that it did look aesthetically pleasing, even if he did not care for how barren it was. Perhaps that would be resolved later.

He stood perfectly still in the center of the flat plains. He focused. His skin dimmed as his energy was pulled in the core of his being. In a flash, his skin was radiating brilliant lights extending in all directions. Almost all plant-life caught within the blast withered and fed the soil. Only the plants that grew along its border were spared, but they changed and morphed in accordance to divine will. As the region was being rebirthed, he named it the Eidolon Plains.

The landscape became dominated by grasses and shrubs, with only a sparse few trees dotting the landscape. Various other plants were also created, including many crop plants. He had created many more varieties of insects than he had created in the molten tunnels, such as bumble-bees and butterflies. He had also shaped many kinds of animals suited for the environment. Of particular note was the horse, an animal that he had grand designs for.

He granted himself time to explore his newly formed eco-system, finding a suitable location for his next objective. He eventually settled on a region somewhere halfway between the equator and the salt desert, choosing it primarily for its proximity to a pristine lake as well as several other minor calculations.

There he started to take the form of a mortal. He could not expect his creation to do what he would not. Besides that, briefly setting aside his divinity and tending a patch of land was an appealing notion. Having created animals, he had an innate understanding of them though his understanding of sapient biology was more scarce.

As he was thinking about his form and his farm, he realized that he had yet to decide what he was going to cultivate. The great plains offered many different choices, however he felt the need for something special. It was then his attention turned to his cape, covered in the first life he had created, bathed in molten rock, and imbued with the burst of his divine power that created the plains. There was no more suited reagent to craft into the first crop that he would grow.

He closed one of his hands together, his cape become barren once more. While he would need to regrow life upon it, that would not be important in the immediate future. He pulled a single blade of grass from the rest and worked on it relentlessly. Eventually, he bore a single grain of divinely empowered barley. Pleased with the result, he clasped his hands together mixing the barley with the remainder of the grass until it had all been converted. He produced a handful of seeds, part of which he threw into the air to populate the plains with mundane variations of his creation. He keep the remaining infused seeds for his project.

Finding a suitable crop to grow, he started to take mortal form. First, he pulled his cape within himself. Then he shrunk and twisted his divine form into a facsimile of the circular systems of animals, but with a bipedal form in mind. He covered himself with flesh and bone, adjusting it to his practical and aesthetic preferences. He had placed a large tuff of fur over his head to protect it from the sun's radiance. He had considered applying more fur, but he could never get it to look right and thus only lightly coated his form with hair. For ears, he decided to have his come to a slight point. He had experimented with several other aesthetic changes, and settled for small horns jutting from his forehead. He noticed that his skin was rather bare without fur, but that posed little issue. He had intended to use the pelts of other animals for various purposes, and clothing oneself was simply an additional purpose that they could serve. Excited to get started, he conjured his clothing from the ether in the resemblance of animal skins.

There was one last issue. The form felt rather constricted. While he intended to subdue his divine power, it was not a form that he wished to spend a large amount of time in. He decided to allow an infinitesimal amount of his internal energy to the surface of his body. The eyes were his immediate first choice. While it helped, it was still insufficient. He created special rectangular patches of skin on his chest, right above the back of his hands, and between his knees and feet. As a small portion of his divinity flowed in the region, they became the same golden brown color as his eyes.

With his mortal guise completed, he started to farm the barley seeds he had set aside. usually it would be a gruesome task to start a farm with nothing but yourself and a handful of seeds, Arvum was not quite aware of the fragilities of mortality. Thus, while he imposed restrictions on himself, he was still strong enough to start plowing his nascent fields with his hands. And thus the First Farm was created. The divinity of the seeds seeped into the ground, bolstered by his attention and care.

---

The trajectory he had taken had been calculated, but man, Jiugui was bad at math. Aiming for the tropical centre, he had completely missed the mark - and it had been in the absolutest sense of ‘completely’. He had missed his target by nearly a hemisphere, no less than five thousand kilometres, crashing through the atmosphere of the icy north and smashing into a frozen lake, or was it a sound? He had no idea, for he was deep underwater, trapped in an ocean of newborn kelp. The drunk man squealed and screamed for air, until he realised, quite quickly, that he could breathe just fine. Taking a moment to collect himself as best he could, the drunk snailed his way into an approximation of a swim (with one hand holding his cup, naturally) and crawled for the surface.

“HHUUUUUUAAAAAAAGH” he gasped upon breaking the surface, water and wine splashing everywhere like a sudden rain. The man offered some petty coughs as he flopped his way to the nearest beach, a rocky bed of pebbles leading to a thick, dark forest of conifers just as deep as the water he swam in, if not deeper. Hauling himself onto the beach, he rolled over on his back and groaned from the bottom of his throat. His skin was red with wine and cold, and his white robes were soaked so they stuck to his skin and turned a pinkish hue. Drawing in a deep breath, the man attempted to sit up. His fat belly got in the way, so he tried again; once more, he failed. Fed up with the limitations of his physical form, Jiugui had the wind sweep him from the ground and onto his feet, and the wind answered. The drunk was swept to his feet, which naturally had no balance and made him stagger backwards off the beach and straight into a tree.

SMOCK!

The god shook his head, lazy eyes gazing at the imprint he had made in the bark - an egg-like shape with four limbs sticking out like branches on a bush. He chuckled to himself.

“Rad..”

But then he looked up - the tree just, it just kept on going. He turned around. All around him, trees grew tall as the sky. And they quivered…

For between them walked giants - creatures larger than anything Jiugui had ever seen since he had gazed upon his colleagues in the Sunlight Temple, which to be fair was also the only other things he had ever seen. Either way, the god stood struck by awe, admiring the majesty of a bypassing mammoth and an overhead flock of colossal bats that blotted out the sky. The bass of thundering feet was ever-present around him, and the howl of giants danced on the wind like a powerful song. The drunk god burst out into laughter and raised his self-filling cup.



He hammered down shot after shot and eventually invited some cave bears to join him. The bears got sloshed with him and invited the mammoths to join, who were reluctant at first, but couldn’t say no for longer than it took to ask thrice. By midnight, Jiugui had lit a small bonfire, and all the forest’s creatures had come to share in a joyous feast with wine, song and poetry. The newborn moon was at its peak at this hour and a section of the crowd that was not busy dancing or diving to the bottom of the punch bowl had gathered by the fire, where Trunks the Mammoth had knocked over some trees and formed a stage. There, Scarred Fur the Skald rose to her hind legs with some trouble - not even her fatty bear form could handle as much wine as Jiugui had poured her - but she pressed on and growled for the masses a kvad for the occasion:



Many in the crowd shed tears, Jiugui included. “Magnifishent,” he whimpered. “Apssoludly mahnifffishent.” A nearby male stepped up from the crowd, head bowed in submission as he staggered over to sniff her from behind. Scarred Fur growled decisively - the male had earned no such permission. Some other males stepped up to challenge the first - Scarred Fur’s poetry had gotten more than one stud in the mood. Jiugui exchanged a smug smirk with a nearby bat, who only snickered back in ultrasound. The god stood up, falling onto the helpful trunk of a nearby mammoth who pushed him back up, and clapped his hands.

“Now, now, dish _urrp! dish is a pardy, guysh!” He staggered over to the very angry, very drunk bears, and clapped them all on the shoulders. “Dish is no time to fiiiiiiiiiiighd, righ’?” He conjured forth some more wine cups in their paws. “Come now, have anozzer wizz me! Zhree, two, one - ganbeeeeeeiiiiiii!”

The animals all roared their own sounds to toast and drank with the drunk god. This prevent conflict for all of four seconds, for as soon as the wine was drunk, one of the males slapped the other with a clawed paw. The beaten male keeled over on the spot, but more from the alcohol than the damage, it seemed. The assailant had little peace to balance out the weight of his blow before the third male attacked him. Then a dire wolf, face fur sticky with coagulated wine, joined in and jumped on the first male’s back, biting down on his back fat. Then came a dire boar to break up the fight, but he tripped over a passed-out sabre tooth tiger and straight into the drinking bowl of four giant eagles, who all flexed their wings in a drunken fury and screamed off the top of their beaks. A wooly rhino got into a furious debate with a colossal moose, probably over grazing rights or something, and got into a fight. Some reindeer who had come late all turned at the entrance point, and most of the animals who hadn’t had enough to drink yet all decided that now was the time to leave. Birds kicked off; grazers skipped; hunters ran; and Jiugui, well… Jiugui laid passed out in the centre of the fight scene, drunk as a skunk.

---

The night had turned to day and the drinking god opened crusted eyes to stare into the white laser of the orb of death in the sky. He groaned in pain and rolled over - the moss was a kinder sight. He felt cold - particularly running down one leg and puddling around his calf and downwards. A drum played a war dance in his head, and the thought of a cup of water made him both sick and thirsty at the same time. Oh yes, this was a familiar feeling.

“Uhm… Lord? A-are you alright?”

The bulbous man blinked at the moss again, then lifted up his cup to give it a blink as well.

“Be-behind you, milord.”

The man groaned and mustered every muscle in his body to roll around. It was then that his sight got bombarded by a myriad of images he had no idea how to react to: In place of his brief, fragmented memory of yesterday’s forest, there was now a river where he laid (well, he had three quarters of his leg in it, anyway); many of the gigantic animals had left, and in their place were small rodents, insects and birds who had all showed up to inspect the man; and most notably were three taller rodents - much taller, but not even close to as tall as even the smallest of last night’s giants. They also seemed rodent-like, with huge incisors at the tip of their upper jaws. They sported thick brown coats of fur, two arms with little hands and two legs with large feet, and a flat, leathery tail each, which laid flat against the ground like a single flipper. They all looked concerned to different degrees, but the one at the front seemed the most eager to speak:

“M-milord, how are you feeling?”

The drunk god squinted suspiciously and pushed himself up to a seat. He blinked at the trio, then down at the small birds and animals, then at his leg in the river (which was being taste-tested by schools of curious fish) and then finally at his surroundings: It wasn’t just the woods, but his divine sight could see that lakes had appeared all over, connected by rivers and surrounded by marshlands - a great network of lakes, rivers and swamps had spread throughout the entire region. The drunk god asked the first question that came to mind:

“... Where am I…?”

The first of the trio piously answered, “Y-you’re sitting in the Glade of the Singing Maker, milord.”

The drunk god shook his hand with a large, lazy movement as though trying to get his wet and sloppy sleeve to pull away from his sweaty skin and fall down to his elbow. His cup materialised in the respective hand once his clothing obeyed and the cup filled with plain water. “Where’s, uh, where’s this glade?”

“Why, couldn’t say, milord. This land’s as new to us as you are to it.” A pause. “I-if I may be so bold to presume,” it quickly added.

The drunk god grimaced curiously at the answer, but let it slide. “Alright. Who’re you lot, then?” Ssssssssslurrrrp, went his lips thoughtfully on edge of the water cup.

“Zwiéka,” said the first.

“Vislof,” said the second.

“Mosha,” said the third.

The drunk god nodded. “I see. And, uh, what’re you doing here, you said?” Sssssssluuuuurrrp.

“We were created by the Singing Maker, milord. There were loads of us last night, but most have gone off to settle down, I suppose.” Zwiéka turned around and produced a small root from a tiny pile a step away. “Want a carrot, milord?”

The drunk god accepted. Ssssssluuuuurp... CRRRRRRRUNCH, rrrorrp, rrrorrp, rrrorp, glllump. “I see. And, uh, who’s this… ‘Singing Maker’ of yours?”

Vislof and Mosha looked at one another. Zwiéka twiddled his hands anxiously. “W-well… That’d be your honourable self, milord.”

Sssssluuuuu-

The drunk god lowered his cup. His gaze turned away for a minute and his lips pursed with thought. After a moment of silence, Zwiéka tried again: “Milord?”

“I see,” replied the god curtly. The trio exchanged sheepish looks. “I get it now,” he added. It was madly obvious that he didn’t get it at all, but he did his best to look wise as he asked with whatever authority he could muster: “So, uh, do tell - what exactly happened last night?”

Once again, Zwiéka pulled her shoulders into a humble shrug. “Couldn’t say, milord. We don’t think we’ve existed for long enough to know much at all, really.” The other two nodded along.

Jiugui squinted. “So you’re saying none of you actually know what happened here?”

“Not a clue, milord. We came to life and, well, there were you, singing and dancing with all the joy in the world. Much more, we couldn’t say.”

Jiugui furrowed his brow. To think that the world changed so radically around him, and neither he nor his supposed creations would ever know what had happened.



“Milord?” asked Zwiéka to the contemplative god, her dark brown fur glistening with moisture like that of a, well, a beaver.

The god snapped back to reality. “Huh? Hmm?”

“Not meaning to pry or anything, but what will you be doing now?” The three otters gazed upon him with anxious, yet obviously well-awed eyes. The drunk god scratched his head and looked around.

“Well, uh, I don’t know. Guess I’ll look for Zenia or something.”

“Who’s Zenia? Is she like you, milord?”

Jiugui shrugged and drank some more water. “Uh, yeah, I guess.” He got up with some effort and had a sniff of the air. He scrunched his nose and looked down at the trio. “Oh, what’s that smell?”

Vislof shrunk together and tapped his finger together. “Sorry, I let out some castoreum.” Zwiéka clapped him supportively on the shoulder.

“Sorry, milord. We’re still getting used to life.”

Jiugui pursed his lips. “Right. Well, I’m off.”

“S-s-so soon?!” Zwiéka protested. Jiugui rubbed his nose clean.

“Uuuh, yeah, I mean… Most of you’s already gone off to settle down. I, uh, I think you’re already doing quite well for yourselves.”

The trio exchanged some looks. “I mean, that’s fair, but…”

“See? You’ll be fine! Now toodles!” With that, the drunk god skipped off into a sprint, travelling to the edge of a horizon in the blink of an eye. The three beavers were left to exchange looks again and Mosha said to Zwiéka:

“Do you think he would have liked to know about the clan dispute?”

Zwiéka sighed. “Well… I guess he won’t now. Come on, let’s head back.” With that, the Thousand Lakes region was made, and its first settlers, the bjorks, began their history as its pioneering sapients.

Not even a day had fully passed, and already the first trees were beginning to fall. The bjorks would leave their mark on the landscape in a most literal sense with time.

---

The noise increased as more gods arrived, the hunter avoided being too judgmental at first as many others acted in an excessive and not particularly bright manner, after all, compared to the silence of inexistence even a whisper would be loud, however, the offenses pilled up until finally a line was crossed as one of his rodents was killed in the arrival of a god, despite all of their efforts in protecting them.

Although they tried not to be vengeful, the thought of a comeback could not escape their mind as they buried the little animal in the fields of flowers, performing the first funeral rite in existence and accidentally linking flowers with the passing of the dead forever. Their eyes would stay alert for this force and see if it ever called for their action, it was the only way to not make the death of this pet meaningless.

But for now, in this noise, in this chaotic quickly changing world, it was time for the hunter to meld into the dark and observe others. They were pleased to find that many gods had felt the same need of life as they had, in the cold north, in the fiery depths, in the southeastern continent, so many great creatures that made their hands itch and press against the bow. As they walked the waters they saw the ruins brought by the goddess of destruction, Tuku Llantu's feelings on that were mixed, their hope was that this deity understood the failure of a test could be in the hands not only of the tested but also of the tester. Finally, in the southwest, Tuku Llantu observed a new divine entity, one that seemed so voracious and violent, so eager to consume and live, the hunter smirked beneath the wooden mask, thankful such a creature was born with such rage, were they more delicate and discrete, and the hunter would have moral qualms about making them their favorite prey.

The itch, the desire for adventure and danger, kept becoming stronger in the hunter, but they did not give in yet, because all of the walks and stalking of other deities had not been meaningless, the deity desired to shape the land with concerns of their own, there was no noble intent to honor their father or a desire to bless life in their actions, it was a selfish desire to have land to call their own, to shape it to their will and not the will of others.

The deity brought fort their energy and condensed them into a great arrow-shaped shard, they aimed as far as they could, their sight going all the way across a continent and landing on a lone rock. When they let go, a great flow of energy crossed the eastern-central continent like a hungry beast, snaking its path through the land and raising a great mountain range as it passed, extending from Tuku's standing place, at the south end of this land, all the way to the north, where the shard finally lost all its power and vanished.

The Chakuq Mountains, in more formal words, though many would just know them as Arrow-Flight Chain, were made with great care to do just as the hunter intended. The tall rock walls worked as a barrier to the endless humidity coming from the east, making it so all that was east of the mountain was always blessed with rains. However, it was not their desire to make the west buckle under the sun and become nothing but barren land, on the contrary, they made sure the snowfall atop the mountains would melt and form many rivers that would bring with them the life-giving water to the west, only the lands most distant from the mountains truly struggled with dryness and yet in them, there was a unique beauty.

Not to stop now, Tuku Llantu decided to act outside of his profession and become the gardner of this world. While there was beauty in the slow, era-spanning fight between plants for control of the new environment, the deity simply could not wait this long to see their work done and as such used their divine powers to prune some and bless others, shaping the land quite quickly.



In the Eastern Coast,

Southmost was a temperate forest populated mainly by araucaria pines, who would keep the dominance upwards, as the climate became swampier and warmer, though as the soil quality changed, with rockier and sandy expanses, the tall magnificent trees would be exiled up the mountains until they vanished. This was a zone inhabited by many creatures that can be classified as "dinosaurs", most of them feathered, with long necks to eat upon the tall pines which are the main source of food for herbivores in the region, large scale predators are rare in the area, though many smaller bipedal scavengers feast upon the great variety of frogs, fishes, and bugs attracted by the swampier areas. Smaller mammals such as the rodent Cutia or the tree-dwelling Dryomomys are also common.

After a stretch of sandy ground, populated by palm trees and similar and many rock outcrops, one reaches the cloud forest, a type of hilly subtropical rainforest famous for, obviously, their foggy environments, though near the beaches the forest opens up to make some of the most pleasant and inhabitable locations of the east coast, though, with the great variety of colorful fruits and flowers one is almost lured inward, where they might have a quite dangerous encounter with the other colorful residents of the area, the many bipedal dinosaurs, none bigger than a man, but, quite intelligent, they hunt in groups to deal with all sorts of prey.

Northwards still one will reach the dense tropical rainforest, where there are only two seasons, a warm and a dry one, easily seen by looking at the great river that crosses the jungle and whether it is flooding or a small snake of water among a drying mess of mud. Speaking of snakes, be aware of those, and the great ants that can strip a man down to the bones in an hour, thankfully no great dinosaurs here, although birds remain and thrive, in the ground it's the mammals, such as the great ocelot or the giant sloth.

Notably, an entire section of the jungle is under the darkness of the ring, being part of a Duskland. Here is the Ghost Jungle where the nourishment and light are still enough to feed great plants, but they often take ghostly hues of pale greens and yellows. If the jungle itself is scary, here it's ten times worse, with birds singing haunting tones, panters hiding among the white hues, and the only habitat of terror birds in the east cost, with these here taking a black raven-like feathery coat. The waters are also home to an unique fresh water Oarfish, harmless if you are not a small water creature or if you don't touch its poisonous barbs.

The jungle finally ends in a small bayou area, which leads to the final biome of the east, and the west coast as well, the temperate rainforest. With majestic trees covered by moss, cold weather, and a strong sense of four seasons with the colors of pink from cherry blossoms in the spring and the yellows and reds in fall. This is not a land of great creatures, perhaps for its isolation from the rest of the continent, with the red wolves reigning as the apex predator. Though some rarer creatures pose great threats, such as the straggler dinosaur Fukuivenator striking in the dark in the densest parts of the forest, the giant meat-eating turtle Carbonemys which stalks unopposed in rivers, and giant salamanders of up to 3m and 450kg.

In the Western Coast,

The western coast starts a bit above the araucaria forests, with an alpine highlands of acidic soil and many thermal springs, land of rabbits, goats, and bears, although the thermal springs are home to many strange creatures, in some, you will find monkeys or capybara just chilling, in others, an 1.6m tall moss-covered giant frog with its skin mimicking the texture of rocks. After it, there is a small stretch of subtropical along the coastline, until finally, the land divides in two.

Along the coast, great stretches of sand, lagoons, palm tree forests, and mangroves, a region very influenced by the tides with many islands of stable ground in between. Home to many great lizards and many, many birds who feast upon the fishes and other defects left behind the tides. The inner parts of the land are drier but made hard to traverse by dense shrubs, carnivorous plants making up for the lack of nitrogen, and unstable soil.

By its side are the highlands, home to a great high altitude plateau. In the hills you will find many llamas, among other mountain-dwelling camelids, these will gather upstream, for downstream are many great mammals, Notoungulates such as the one-horned Achiri (Hoffstetterius) and the heavy and furry water dweller Rhynchippus. In the drier plains reigns the terror bird, though despite the name these bipedal land-dwelling birds don't really hunt anything larger than a dog.

Northward from the mountains and beaches, one enters a valley where there is a great swamp, to add to that, the whole region is under the shadow of the sky ring, thus creating an area known as dusklands, mangroves and willow trees gain ghostly white hints while local ferns have strong purple seeds and flowers. Albino alligators stalk the waters are notable for the variety of catfishes and lampreys as well as many fishes with bony plates.

West from the swamp, still under the shadow, is the hilly Moonlit Garden, a gentle region overlooking the Bay of Zelios. Small mammals and birds populate the region, and although these possess pale-colored furs that are desired all over the world, the true beauty is in the adapted Ipe, Jacarandas, Azaleas, and other flowering trees who all year round color the darkened region with their flowers. An amateur might think this land is home to many fireflies, but in truth, many insects have adopted that aspect, from dragonflies who dart about leaving traces of light, to moths, ladybugs, to bees whose hives and honey have their own shine, to even mosquitoes who shine in red after a meal almost to mock their prey.

Finally, above the dark, west of the eternal hunting ground, south of the temperate rainforest that goes from east to west, is a land that is shrubland at the coast and savannah at its core. Dry expanses of beige grass and dark thorny bushes with barely any leaves in them, the notable exception being the tall Ipe trees, with their trumpet-shaped flowers in yellow, pink, white or purple. The local fauna is humble, maned wolves, cougars, jaguarundis, armadillos and tapirs. The rivers are often stalked by giant otters, who are up to 1.5m long.

These were many lands, with countless creatures even a god seemed to have trouble keeping up with.

And yet. Was it enough? Tuku Llantu could not brush off the feeling that from the smart raptor dinosaurs to the megafauna mammals... while interesting, given their immortal life, one day they would be bored, this was the time of actions that would define the world to come.

The hunter then decided on something, they traversed the mountains and picked up many rocks which they painted with glyphs and symbols and then traversed to the very center of this land, surrounded by mountains and a jungle which the god only made more and more massive. As they finished their work, a great earthquake shook this area, a surge of magic and magma causing all sorts of fumes to spill upward.

Tuku Llantu had created the eternal wildlands, the purlieu, the everchanging land where biomes, plants, and animals would shift quickly to please the god. Although it was at the tropical center of the world, it would not be impossible for an explorer to find themselves crossing the cold breeze and avoiding wooly mammoths, and if they return in a few years, perhaps the area they once mapped as an icy lake is now a steaming swamp filled with giant dragonflies and 3m tall lizards.

The fumes expelled at the core of the region had, among other properties, the ability to quickly rust most metals it came to contact with. A skillful hunter will have to either avoid the geothermal steam clouds, or, adapt their equipment to avoid such losses. The same issue happens to most types of cloth, as local fungi and moths seem particularly eager to gnaw at it, with black spots of mold quickly spreading across clothes, bags, and even campsite tents.

While solutions such as dresses of silk and swords of gold, or leather clothing with obsidian weaponry, were possible, easier and wiser was to craft new sets of equipment with the local flora and fauna, as the materials extracted from animals and plants of the region seemed more resistant to the effects. In fact, only a hunter who was clad in materials extracted from the wildlands would ever be accepted past the glyph stones. (Or alternatively, one that is nude, because surviving the wildest of wilds in such conditions is very respectable)

Not that the god had made this land to test hunters to come or train creatures. Their only worry was their own amusement at the moment, all else was a side effect. But now that it was all done and said, Tuku Llantu could finally rest from godly duties, and focus instead on more pleasing matters such as building a nice hunting lodge at the core of the core, and preparing many supplies for the hunts to come.