The Eschaton’s Toil, Part I: A Cosmos Reborn

In the seventh year after the Creator’s Monomachy, a year still scarred by the memory of that celestial conflict, the fabric of the cosmos transformed in a way that defied mortal minds.

The empyreal metamorphosis began subtly, causing the night sky to shift in strange manners that some took for portents of a coming cataclysm. Tiny flickers, trembles and ripples in the dark, and panoplies of brilliant light all served as aspects of these mysterious moments, mystifying adventurers observant enough to notice the way Creation’s fabric burgeoned beneath unknowable force. As Ios progressed, it became clear that a breaking point rapidly approached, for even the least perceptive ascendant noticed the fleeting escalations of starry brilliance that painted the sky in pastel wonder. Later that month, as night ebbed away in favour of the coming dawn, its fleeting final rays of starlight flared to midnight brilliance. Even the afternoon sun found an unlikely fellow in the curious crimson effulgence that stained the sky before the month’s final nightfalls, intensifying alarm all as far as the Free City of Delve.

The scholars of the Grand Library, poring over ancient texts and astronomical charts, noted that the energy of Creation, left lingering in the empyreal vault after the Triomachy, had begun to drift towards Aetolia proper. That night, as Aetolia entered the dark embrace of the witching hour, ancient crimson light bled along the horizon like a cosmic vein pierced through and laid bare to stain the world’s starry canopy. No longer occupying just the space around the stars, the strange energy suffused the sky entire, irradiating the world with untold amounts of energy. Bloodied chromatic force swirled throughout the cosmos, leaving behind nebulaic clouds that roiled and seethed with all the potential of the Monomachy’s duality. Creation and destruction danced upon a knife’s edge at the heart of the astral phenomena, causing the air to buckle beneath the manifestation of raw power. The sky itself bent and contorted, twisting into knots that should not be. The stars screeched as the mysterious planes beyond their wounded bodies poured trickles of elemental power into the land, mingling with this emergent primordium until comets and meteorites took shape within the volatile crucible. As one, they began to rain down upon Sapience, wreaking havoc untold and spelling doom for any unfortunate enough to reside at the end of their blazing trajectory.

Buried beneath a deluge of morbid visions, those attuned to the Underking’s hollowed Halls sensed countless scenes of demise unfold worldwide, allowing some a rare glimpse at Aetolia’s most mysterious regions and far-flung cultures. Adventurers sought cover or stood in abject awe as the raw essence of entwined catastrophe and creation swarmed the horizon, bidding forth the weeping of villagers and the terror of those in whom the Monomachy’s wounds still ached.

A hand profiled in smoky nebulae emerged from beyond the depths of the cloud’s limitless potency, its every finger wrought from shimmering supernovae captured at the height of their terrifying crescendo. Thrust aside like a curtain, the refuse of an Immortal battle like no other crashed through the heavens like a wave dispersed, making room for the star-forged Being that coalesced in the space newly created. Without expression, without emotion or relatable features, the Being nonetheless carved Itself into the psyche of all present with eidetic precision born of auroric fire, leaving no doubt as to Its identity: Idaltu.

All existence yielded for one shining, endless moment.

Then, the Eschaton – the one true Creator of Aetolia and Architect of All That Is, Was, and Shall Ever Be – intervened, Its ineffable will parting the veil betwixt Prime and enigmatic Helmspace. Transcending time, physicality, and existential limitations, the true Creator – a Creator no longer harried by an omnipotent imposter who had fled forevermore – reached out towards the world held within Its incontrovertible purview and began Its ineffable toil. Serenity exuded from the unknowable Eschaton as It seized the colossal cosmic bounty that invaded Its sky with one ethereal hand, Its reach facilitated by a shifting of space and meaning rather than any visibly perceptible motion.

Light and dark cavorted throughout eternity as It spun the terrible cataclysm into thin threads that seeped into Creation’s tapestry, expanding the borders of an unknowable cosmos to breathtaking new dimensions. The sky shrank rapidly, expanding its starry canopy into gaping holes of elemental excess that began to rush backwards in a blur that defied the mind’s conventional understanding of distance. Distance and size became impossible as its upper level spun into a chaotic frenzy. The night’s sidereal brilliance wheeled about in a blur that brightened and dimmed like the steady beat of a heart, the breath of Creation itself holding all of mortality in synchrony as the Maker of All Things arranged a new expansion of Its design.

Further and further did the stars race away as the Eschaton continued to exert Its will, creating incomprehensible degrees of space as the sky unfurled like a dark flower bidden to bloom. Its empyreal canvas widened, the Divine artist and architect began Its work in earnest. Its will acted as a channel through which the violent Immortal detritus started to find new purpose as the foundation of something fantastic, bestowing renewed glory upon a sky so recently blemished by the echoes of violence of seven years past.

With the Eschaton’s focus now directed towards Its inviolable purpose, the world heaved a sigh of relief. It returned to motion – this time, with the planet’s ancient Creator labouring in full view upon a stage beyond reach.

Penned by my hand on Tisday, the 12th of Ivolnos, in the year 9 AC.