The Eschaton’s Toil, Part III: Vanishing Into Night

In the following weeks, strange occurrences began to disturb Sapience’s newly won peace. Seemingly at random, mortals were observed walking off in the middle of the night, their eyes glowing like blazing moons, moving like shambling puppets enraptured in a trance-like state. Reports of a strange chiming sound drifting in on the wind accompanied these unsettling events, leaving many to wonder what could generate such a perfectly crystalline noise. As the incidents increased in intensity, a growing unease settled upon the cities of Sapience, as some of their trained guards abandoned their posts, their minds seemingly captivated by some of the same unseen forces that had swept through the outlying villages. These would later be ascribed as the first stirrings of Siderealists: those with a natural affinity to the cosmic arts. Awakened to their raw talent by the Eschaton’s grand act of Creation, their minds joined together in a cosmic consciousness that the world at large did not yet detect.

It was upon the twenty-eighth of Chakros, of the year 8 AC, that the world experienced yet another terrible disturbance. A loud thud resounded from the Fractal Bloom, followed by a crystalline note that spread cobalt radiance along the horizon, drawing a colossal crowd of adventurers to its mysterious reaches. As one, Sapience converged upon the Bloom and found a scene of unsettling stillness. Villagers and city guards alike stood transfixed, their eyes mirroring the radiance of a tremendous resonating crystal at the heart of the chamber. Their hands moved in graceful, unconscious patterns, oblivious to the growing crowd of onlookers who unknowingly beheld an act of grand cosmic sorcery.

As another, louder chime tolled, scintillating shafts of iridescence and ethereal music filled the air. The ground groaned as celestial energy swarmed underfoot, forcing the crystalline floor to yield and crack. The magical energy heightened to a glare before dispersing, leaving behind a sculpted staircase – a path seemingly created by the entranced individuals, though by what power, none could say.

Driven by a reckless curiosity or desire to intervene, some adventurers joined forces and shattered the resonant crystal. This proved a grave error, for a pillar of celestial energy erupted from the remains, forging a beacon of stellar force that pierced the overhanging crystal and reached the sky. In a blink, this terrible surge of magic awakened Sapience’s asterisms to a haunting radiance, filling the Fractal Bloom with the chill of dire power.

The consequences were immediate and catastrophic. The entranced individuals, their precarious focus shattered, fell to their knees and wailed in agony or howled in rage. An ominous light seeped from their veins, distorting their features. Screaming, pleading, they looked upon the adventurers with nebulae and cosmic dust in their gaze – a wordless plea for aid that came too late. The starfire in their veins unravelled their mortal forms, reducing them to twinkling dust and ekpyrotic ash, sidereal cinders, or brutal smears of light that impressed their twisted shadows upon the crystal floor. Each had sought to fill their meagre frames with the night sky’s newfound might but had neither the will nor wisdom to wield it and thus paid the ultimate price: a demise so utter as to scatter them across a freshly forged cosmos.

Drawn by the surfeit of empyreal essence, an invisible presence descended upon the scene. Gazing out from behind Sapience’s starswept legendarium, this entity, hungry for belief and power, began to feast upon the aetherial energies present. As it fed, it gained definition and physicality – a hideous amalgam of all that mortals offered unto constellar phenomena, a confused blurring of myth and reality. It loomed as a beast realised by fraught tales and heroic deeds alike, its boundaries rapidly expanding as it processed the energy bestowed upon it. This creature declared itself the monomyth, a crystalline manifestation born of the Mejevsavelnelian legends and the uncontrolled power of the nascent Siderealists.

Initially, the battle assumed a blistering pace. Adventurers found themselves struck down in the heat of battle, their energies constituting a feast for a greedy incarnation of myth and power, its newly formed body turning aside sword blows and raging incantations. One by one, Sapience’s constellations began to infuse the terrible beast, lending all the accumulated power of thousand-year tales to the foe that now faced down countless ascendants. As the fight raged on, it became evident how outmatched the realm’s finest were. Drawing strength from the glimmering night, the monomyth asserted its will upon the cosmic power saturating the Fractal Bloom and began to instrument terrible, all-encompassing spellcraft. An aurulent aurora emanated from its crystalline shell as it trapped its present foes within a prison of rigid facets, casting them within a crystal’s polished reflection. Reality fractured around them as cosmic forces coalesced into crystalline walls, their terrible surfaces refracting starlight in impossible patterns.

Within this prison, the adventurers’ perceptions blurred and shifted. Cosmic energies refracted through the crystalline walls, creating mesmerising patterns. They were granted visions of the newly created worlds – the Nascent Cradle with its striving empire and gruesome rituals; the Jungle World, teeming with untamed life and unseen predators; the Ocean World, dominated by turbulent seas and fierce naval battles; the Empty Canvas, a void of potential; the Gas Giant, a realm of floating islands and perpetual storms; and finally, the Mirror World, a haunting reflection of Aetolia, where they locked eyes with their malevolent doppelgangers.

These doppelgangers, driven by a desire to escape their world and replace their Aetolian counterparts, reached out through the cosmic connection forged by supernal bonds. Reality shivered as this forbidden convergence threatened to unravel the fabric of Creation, and wisps of cosmic energy instrumented the genesis of threatening simulacra. Soon, the doppelgangers materialised within the prison, crackling with malevolent stellar energy and prepared to visit doom upon their originators.

Awakened now to protect the sanctity of original Aetolia, the stellar patterns of Mejevsavelnel soon transcended the boundaries of the physical world. They reached into mortal minds to bestow their might upon those trapped in battle with their doppelgangers and the monomyth, eager to ignite bravery like unto mythical heroes of eld. A spiral of twelve stars swirled into existence – the constellation of Averroes, the Wise. Ancient starborn wisdom flowed into the adventurers’ minds, granting them insight into their twisted foes and the nature of their prison. Averroes explained that the doppelgangers could not be banished by their originators and that others would have to intervene – a strategy that would eventually defeat all but a few of the twisted copies that sought to infiltrate Aetolian society.

On the heels of this wise counsel, a square of four stars materialised. Within this simple sample, darkness pooled, leaving no doubt about the constellation’s identity: Umbrael, veiled upon the back of a starlit Minotaur. The ethereal Minotaur unfastened the stellar cloak and offered a shred of its legendary properties to those gathered, lending them a deceptive shield that hid them from their doubles long enough to enact their resistance plan.

Finally, five pale, greenish stars arranged themselves and unfurled to reveal the starry visage of Ulgar, the first Troll. Where Ulgar’s stars intersected, motes of cosmic light gathered into his famed hammer and chisel: tools of practical purpose, even in their sidereal form. These drifted towards the adventurers, accompanied by Averroes’s final words: “Use these gifts to carve your way through your crystal prison and gather the adventurers trapped alongside you. When you all stand within one place, the Mejevsavelnel shall once more lend its aid to break you free…”

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