Of Spirits and Spheres
On the one-hundred-and-seventy-fifth day of the Creators’ Monomachy, nightmarish Omei called upon two of Her loyal servants to attend Her in the depths of ruined Huanezedha. Meeting them within the defunct Needle of Balance, She instructed Eaku and Bhalwyn to forge for Her a chain capable of capturing an entire kingdom within Her Astral Realm. The two swiftly set to work, combining myriad metallurgical masteries and mysterious ingots acquired by Immortal Instinct into an intricately etched chain. Firing the forge Herself, Omei stoked its heat with an eldritch essence whose original She was reticent to explain. Sealing the ritual with the blood sacrifice of Sekeres, Her trusted Oracle of Midnight, the virtuous Goddess bound Her realm yet another step closer to the Prime Material.
All was calm until the one-hundred-and-eighty-first day of the almighty duel on high, when the council of Duiran gathered before the totem of the Fury in an attempt to honour one of the eight guardian spirits associated with the continent of Albedos. Led by a Jalajan mystic known as Senvet, the council made offerings of kaladite, beseeched Dia’ruian notice via affirmative chant, and sacrificed an old sailor to the haatun spirit known as the Wanderer. Ancient Taulrik answered their plea with neither portent nor omen, opting instead to draw them into the young Plane of Life so that they might meet them in the flesh and journey together through the plane’s untamed reaches.
All throughout their journey, the archetypal haatun bestowed primal wisdom and long-forgotten history upon them. The guardian spirit explained to those Duirani walking at his side that Dendara, the plane that once served the same purpose as Dia’ruis, had operated upon a different truth. Taulrik told the council that life had always meant to come to an end, but there had been no cycle of rebirth when the dawn of time touched upon the prior lirathyar. He informed them that all things simply found oblivion at their appointed time and life and death struggled as hated foes rather than symbiotic partners.
Taulrik went on to explain that the Heartwood’s six guardians adopted Sapience’s Cycle, as they saw it as a much needed influx of power in their quest to hold the line against the rot that riddled the plane. This waxing strength, the haatun emphasised, was what allowed the Valley of Ancients to stand strong even as Dendara’s ailing state grew more and more bleak. The primordial spirit explained that the Celestine’s efforts included binding each and every spirit to the same process, ensuring that Dia’ruis would far outlive its predecessor. The Wanderer claimed that such a state of affairs pleased the guardians, for the Cycle provided additional strength to each of them with each moment of its ceaseless turn.
When asked about distant places not yet accessible with Dia’ruis, Taulrik looked to the west and to the north in equal parts before utilising a nearby stream as a metaphor to explain Dia’ruian geography. Stressing that the plane was a mirror of the Prime Material, he told curious councilors that pieces of the great plane awaited connection to the Basin of Life and that he often spent time warding those remote locations in the council’s stead. Before he disappeared into the wildlands of the newborn lirathyar once more, he offered a cryptic promise:
“WE RECALL WHEN THREE GREAT ONES SPLIT US AWAY FROM TWO THIRDS OF THE WORLD. WITH SPACE, WE GREW. WITH TIME, DENDARA FLOURISHED. WITH TIME, DIA’RUIS SHALL FLOURISH.”
Even as the councilors departed back to the Prime Material to puzzle over the Wanderer’s sage advice, two empires prepared to see to their daring machinations…
Penned by my hand on Kinsday, the 24th of Haernos, in the year 511 MA.
