The Worldeater Saga, Part XXVII: Bestowment of Truth

Upon the three-hundred-and-nineteenth day of the Creators’ Monomachy, the Lord of Truth gathered the Hammer of Dawn’s faithful upon the shores of Green Lake. There, He explained to them His suspicions and discoveries throughout the many prior weeks of wandering the realm in search of answers regarding the Albedi gods and Their imprisonment. After a brief conversation where He outlined His thoughts to Enorian at large, several of His followers guessed at His intent: to free an Albedi God.

Deciding that the time for words was over, Immortal Truth pushed forward with His plan.

The Unbound Lord’s usual stoicism melted away as He grit His teeth in a show of utmost concentration, fervour writ clear upon His rugged mien. Incandescent luminescence collated within His grasp as a lightwrought onslaught begging to come to the fore and scour away a lie only He could perceive. With a wordless roar, Truth set loose His mustered might amidst an ominous rumble akin to apocryphal thunder. Mortals across Sapience glimpsed flickers of alabaster light dancing along the horizon as Damariel manifested more of His power. For a moment, all was inexorable brilliance; it seared itself upon the land’s visual senses, reducing the world to a blurry ripple of light and dark representative of the dichotomy that Truth set Himself to the task of tearing asunder.

A keening cry resounded across the Green Lake’s shores, as if something faltered beneath the tempestuous force of Damariel’s Immortal magic. Tension mounted, thickening the air into a sweltering fugue of holy indignation. Existential space folded into a twisted knot, caught within a warped lens between truth and lie: a lake and yet not a lake, a mundane location and yet something oh so significant. The surrounding wilderness seethed, swirled, and blurred in desperate, pointless resistance of the Unbound Lord’s incontrovertible will, His revelatory illumination casting ancient Artifice aside like a mothbitten curtain. Space and matter buckled beneath His command, the lake’s sandy floor turning to rippling glass as divinity untrammelled seared across its surface like pallid wildfire.

Steam and lurid light arose in tandem from the scoured surface of the Green Lake, their passage leaving behind a glimpse of something new-yet-ancient: a set of smooth, symmetrical steps leading down into an underground cavern beneath its watery depths. What remained of the lake crashed against invisible walls that partitioned the passageway from further subversion. Aquatic life swarmed back into the waiting space, exploring the newly wrought boundaries with all the curiosity born of animal instinct. Gusts of aeonic antiquity escaped the gaping maw of this newly uncovered site, a musty exhalation of ancient times unknown to any mortal assembled there upon the lake’s shores. Mirthful laughter and insidious cackles entwined as a jarring, discordant symphony of lingering enchantment, its mysterious song drifting from the darkened mouth of the newly-unveiled prison.

Damariel withdrew His hand and stumped forward then, beckoning for Enorian to follow.

What they beheld at the end of the path, however, gave them pause: suspended in the air at the end of a long cavern was an ancient, shadow-scoured seal alike to the one they had seen upon Polyargos. Without delay, the Unbound set the city to the task of finding a way to weaken the seal and free Kaj – the Accordant God of Water imprisoned by Khepri, Goddess of Mirth and Morale. Urging the city to make haste with planning and preparation, Damariel’s deadline was but two weeks from the moment of the prison’s unveiling. The Hammer of Dawn rushed to begin their considerations shortly thereafter, with plenty of different theories sharing a common theme: the manipulation of elemental spirit.

When the three-hundred-and-thirtieth day of the brutal duel in the skies came to pass, the Lord of Truth once more conferred with the Hammer. The city outlined their plan to employ multiple bells of klaio bronze in hopes of stirring water elemental energy, alongside mass quantities of spirit for those bells to stir and direct, and a sermon to demonstrate unyielding faith. Damariel expressed approval for this plan and gave Enorian just four weeks to prepare before departing, stating that time was of the essence and that He too needed to ensure He was ready to carry out this work.

As one city stirred itself for the purposes of fervent prayer, another across the Emerald Ocean prepared to select a new leader…

Penned by my hand on Kinsday, the 25th of Chakros, in the year 512 MA.