The Worldeater Saga, Part XLII: Violescent Vengeance

Upon the six-hundred-and-nineteeth day of the Creators’ Monomachy, Omei called out to Her Court to perform one last ritual. Entrusting Aolin with the matter of chaining one final Astral sphere, the Goddess of Instinct requested that she perform the ceremony within the Morgun forest due to its nearness to the heart of Her power. The Nightmare was swift to arrange for the necessary esoteric trappings, Her empowered essence etching a luminous outline into the grove within which the final moments of Her scheme would come to pass.

Aolin called upon fellow courtier Bhalwyn to act as the necessary sacrifice in this expression of grand magic and set about her own preparations in short order. Garbed akin to the high ritualists of old, the loyal representative of Instinct’s priesthood daubed her living offering in violet paint and proceeded to speak words from the very depths of her heart. In an expression of the dark side of dreaming sorcery, she spoke elder incantations that soon struck the waiting Bhalwyn with the dreaded fae curse of inevitable, eternal slumber. Each string of syllables spoken by the Blossomer brought the man deeper and deeper into soul-wrenching torpor, its sorcerous energies feeding upon mundane memories in an attempt to break beyond the normal constraints of oneiromancy.

As Aolin consigned Bhalwyn to the ravages of Astral starlight, his form discorporated into the necessary energy to fuel the true intent of her ceremony: an act of grand oneiromancy unseen and unfelt since the height of Ka-la-kai’s immaculate prosperity.

Quick to act upon the resultant shift within Her realm, Omei left one final boon for Her Blossomer before sloughing away into a seething cloud of lepidopterans, Her essence conveyed to the forbidding reaches of the Violet sphere. There, She and Her hidden agents worked to bind the sphere to the Prime Material, resulting in a chaotic convergence never before felt within the realm of Sapience. With all of Her territory bound tight to the physicality of Sapience, the Goddess of Instinct made it clear to Her followers that She had reached the chromatic zenith of Her power – a fact that made Her confident in Her ability to battle Her Father.

As Her vassals celebrated Her newly increased might, the Nightmare privately instructed Eaku Redwood, Her loyal champion, to be prepared for a hunt the next week.

And so it came to pass that nightmarish Omei and Her Brute departed upon a dangerous hunt on the six-hundred-and-twenty-fifth day of the Creators’ Monomachy. Riding along within his consciousness with the promise of aid should he need it, Immortal Instinct guided Her warrior to the cliffs near to the city of Esterport. It was there that the proud warrior known as the Liberation Vanguard managed to breach through a lingering portal to the Astral and travel within the dark space connected to the sphere of Blue. The Goddess explained to Eaku that She had sensed something useful here in the moment of Kalena Emerson’s adherent ascension and that it was only now that She felt confident in sending one of Her representatives to collect it.

Though the tunnel initially proved harmless, it bludgeoned Eaku with the raw force of misery, solemnity, and sadness that is so essentially emblemized by blue within chromatic space. Tormenting him with visions of his scattered people, the fall of the blessed once-Aalen, and the failure to save even its withered heart from the ravages of Ohlsana’s deleterious shadowrot, the sphere stubbornly worked to repel him from the prize he sought in an act of rebellion borrowed from its Empress Herself. Relying upon the boundless hope that he had embraced and stood for as a member of Her Court, the Redwood Brute managed to reach the other side of the tunnel – and in so doing, stumbled upon a terror far more breathtaking than the demise of his ancestors: the shattered ruin of the horrifying kerrithrim.

Now back upon the Prime, Eaku felt the alien press of a hostile, maddened being that sought to wheedle into his mind and drown him in the horror of its infinite depravity. Rampant growth and brutal cancer threatened to manifest upon his ascended frame even as he drew nearer to the remains and tore off a small shard as instructed by his Goddess, who proceeded to explain that the kerrithrim had been born to slay gods and its mere touch was as anathema to those deities wrought by Sapience’s Creator. Upon contact with the chitinous scrap, however, the seething insanity pressed in further – willing him to union with its mysterious force and the sure end that he would find in its embrace.

Though his courage almost faltered, brave Eaku thrust a weapon into his own thigh to regain his composure and fled amidst the clarity of pain – an act that earned the praise of his Goddess.

Immediately after his return to the Seer’s Wood, Omei’s Brute set himself to the task of reforging the broken head of his Goddess’ glaive. With the aid of Her violescent flames, he grafted the shard equal parts prized and dreaded to its head and ensured an absolute fusion. After placing the weapon upon Her throne, the Goddess descended to personally collect this final implement of Her vengeance and assured Her loyal vassal that he had seen to the success of Her plans before discorporating once more to prepare for the final moments of the Monomachy.

Penned by my hand on Gosday, the 1st of Omeian, in the year 0 AC.