The Eschaton’s Toil, Part II: To Forge Worlds

This state of affairs would remain unchanged until the sixteenth of Chakros that same year.

As night’s shroud draped the realm in secrecy, Creation once more halted to behold the indisputable glory of its true Creator. All that which thrived ‘neath the heavens merged into existential synchrony as the sidereal Eschaton lifted a hand from Its astral toil and reached out into the blackened expanse of Its freshly expanded canvas. This act tethered the Prime Material’s perception to an ethereal sojourn, plunging mortal minds into the cosmos once more.

The Monomachy’s billowing detritus churned as the unknowable Architect of All Things orchestrated it into innumerable shining channels, its gleaming mass surrounding It in an eternal halo of limitless possibility. As if bid by wordless command, those brilliant lines weaved through the nocturnal empty like an infinite spool of thread led by one nebulaic needle, stitching a narrow point into the etheric sprawl far beyond Aetolia.

A ripple expanded outward from the space beyond the world’s wounded stars, bending Creation around the planetary profile as rapidly as the shape itself expanded to settle into the place always meant for it within the Eschaton’s design. The nascent world trembled as the Albedi Creator looked on, its vast reaches swathed in dazzling streams of essence forged from the infinite will of its Maker. With contours engraved with detail adherent to divine providence, the planet soon teemed with life and experience altogether separate from what happened upon Aetolia’s triune continents.

Auroral effulgence spilt across the sky, banishing the night’s darkness in a fleeting rush of glory. Gilded supernovae exploded along the horizon as reality’s unchallenged Ruler continued Its effortless labour, Its focus held upon the freshly forged globe even as Its silhouette continued to sizzle away at the Prime Material’s meagre canvas.

Content to observe the result of Its work before proceeding any further, the Eschaton leaned forward to examine Its new fabrication with rapid interest and, in so doing, released the rest of Its purview from simultaneity’s geas. Free now from the shackles of the Being’s labours, individuality and autonomy seeped back through the souls of all who witnessed this – but the distant planetary body and Its attentive Maker remained in place, a constant fixture and blazing beacon.

Then, on the fourteenth of Celes, the Eschaton’s work resumed.

Streamers of pastel energy squirmed across the sky like snakes stirred to unrest, leaving behind nebulaic trails that stained its dark canvas in vivid hues. Bundling into gyres and twisting into knots, the enraptured essence danced to a tune unheard, its every note orchestrated by the ancient Creator toiling to expand Its purview. Once more, the Eschaton’s Creation stirred around It. The world shuddered in synchronous awe as the mysterious Albedi Creator set into motion the construction of new aspects within Its grand design, Its mere attention enough to spark existential fires within Its reality.

The light shed by shining planar stars swirled into confusing spirals that burst into catastrophic supernovae, laying the beginnings for new arrivals within the dark empty. Five distinct planetary outlines coalesced upon a stage swept clear, one and all opening up like flowers straining for dawn’s first light. Whilst the Architect of All Things gazed on in statued serenity, each of Its new realms rapidly gained light and personality that rendered them equally unique ‘neath the eye of their curious Creator.

When the Eschaton called upon all that constituted Its vast domain, the Spiral trembled as it surrendered control of the elemental forces occupying its wounded breadth. The energy necessary to lay the foundations for each planet’s charge through nascency pierced the Prime Material like a flood of glittering needles, dappling the desolate expanse with newborn stars. A flood of inexplicable musical harmony awakened the minds of those present to movements detached from spatial boundaries and temporal constraint, bidding their imaginations to extraplanar heights. Hazy images superimposed upon the perception of the Unquestionable Maker’s work, allowing a jumbled glimpse of an abyssal deity’s tandem toil. Once more called to action to ensure the preservation of Its charge, Odravh raced throughout the Spiral in a rippling wave of prismatic arcana. A Being of raw mana and magic, the Abyssal hurried to mitigate the damage caused by Its Master’s cosmic masonry and plied Its essence to fuel the act. With each new planet created, numerological experts swore in unison that the Song of the Spheres had altered to accommodate the possibilities of new worlds, throwing the occult practice into minor disarray.

Growing like a stalk that yearns for sunlight, the third of seven worlds draped itself in the unmitigated savagery of towering trees and humid jungles. Rendered a titan of awesome size, the solitary globe sprouted thick, black forests and jagged mountains that accentuated the deep, turbulent oceans that slaked its endless thirst. Satisfied with this new child’s explosive growth, the Eschaton released it from the spell of Its attention and looked toward its nascent siblings.

Trenches doomed to never sup upon the light of Sol Eos ran untamed across the face of the fourth world, carving a complex network of alien designs that soon filled with crashing tides and oceanic force. A sparse ring of land encircled the newborn realm like a belt cinched at the waist, its drowned face playing host to myriad tiny points of solid sanctuary. Pleased with the fourth world’s fathomless depths, the Maker of Worlds released the waterlogged realm from Its inspection and gazed upon the rest of Its work.

Bequeathed nothingness, the fifth world remained an empty canvas that could tempt any ambitious artist of suitable omnipotence. Bereft of civilisation, shorn of geological features and diverse biome, it remained a flat, vacant realm awaiting outside intervention. Unconcerned with this cosmic poverty, unmoved by the unfairness of its bald potential, the Eschaton dismissed Its fifth child and turned to gaze upon the final pair of freshly birthed domains.

Perilous peaks and monstrous mountains bulged across the sixth world’s newly wrought surface, rendering its physical form a swollen lump that infested the cosmos with its unwieldy size. Crackling lightning cascaded across the clouds that shrouded much of its surface from view, lighting its hidden valleys and gorges with flickers of etheric violet.

The final world in the Eschaton’s septenary array locked into place just as it ceased its rapid genesis. Possessed of eerily familiar faces and architecture, it hosted three landmasses that bred an eidetic itch within the psyche of observers as it strained to make sense of the new world’s strangely native shape. New stellar formations flared to life upon an expanded canvas, and old, familiar aetherial arrangements now embraced distant shapes that glowed with all the promise of life, existence, and potential growth. Crowded with new arrivals, the starswept vault of legendarium strained to contain constellations new and old, exerting influence anew upon a realm no longer unique in its lonesome existence. What little remained of the Eschaton’s celestial ink spilt across the sky in a glittering wave that conquered liminal space, subjugating it in the name of astral perfection. Gaseous nebulae blossomed into vain attempts at emulating the grace of their almighty Creator, and trembling asteroid belts and cometary clouds swarmed throughout the endless dark in an infinite race whose only point was to paint Creation aplenty with untold beauty.

Satisfied for now with this new arrangement of trophies captured at the end of a nigh-catastrophic triumph, Idaltu turned Its featureless visage toward Its beloved moon and reached – physically, visually – towards it. With one simple adjustment, the true Creator of Aetolia once more vanished from sight in a flash of starfire that streaked across the sky, Its form hidden behind Creation’s unknowable tapestry.

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