The Doom had come like a storm in the night; sudden, nameless, and terrible with the promise of its fury. With its promise of an end. A promise... of the End.

Selvin had just celebrated his fourteenth birthday a week prior. He had lived a good life until then. And now it would be coming to an end.

As he stood there, with his father and mother, his siblings, and all the rest of his town scattered in the near distance, staring up in the heavens... that happiness, that celebration, seemed more distant than the dimming-stars. The stars that were dimming, fading, before his very eyes.

Slowly, a hand appeared- a hand carved out of the gaps between specks of starlight, strewn across the ethereal black, arranging them into crystal lights that dazzled the darkness, made the heavens bow before it. Fingers etched of that night-spilled thread, moving, moving across the skies that spanned the whole World. Power that moved the very heavens, that alighted the horizon, every horizon, across all of Elcasia.

They became a grasping hand. And everyone below knew what it meant. Knew in their bones, in the very halls of their souls.

Words, like the voice of the wind- subtle, indistinct, toneless, barely perceptile, even- but still terrifyingly audible, understandable- whispery and cutting. Empty. Horror. True horror.

Let this world be the one to fall.

Lorasen, the Dawn World, had been slain a hundred years ago. There were many upon the World of Elcasia that had been alive at the time, or had parents and grandparents who had lived to witness it. Far away, across the heavens, they had seen their closest celestial neighbor, the warm light that had always shone on their distant horizons... disappear. As the hand grasped it. The dark hand, the hand of the Unnamed. The hand of the end. Messages had freely escaped even during its fall- and many on Elcasia, who had kin and friends upon the other Named World, heard and read their loved ones' dying words. Some had even spoken of the terror of the Unnamed, appearing in the heavens directly, as its power became absolute.

Nobody had stood against it. Nobody could. Some on Elcasia, and in other neighboring worlds, had went to die upon the planet with their families, even knowing that those who stepped foot upon a Doomed World would never again leave it alive.

Others still, devout members of the God-Named Hegemony, had gone to Lorasen, not to die, but to fight. Proud warriors of Aiena, the Named God, the alleged antithesis of the Unnamed, considered fighting its oppressive hand to be the greatest honor possible in any mortal life. They came from the God Worlds, the Worlds of the Named Places that produced the most powerful magicians and warriors imaginable, closer to Gods than mortal humans, the places where Aiena Himself had once dwelled in His mortal life.

And even their power was not enough. Never had been enough, on any of the Twelve Doomed Worlds in the history of the Named Places. The will of the Unnamed had yet to be truly contested. In the halls of the powerful, they worried, and wept, and wondered. And prayed that the Unnamed would never come to their planet, to their skies.

Selvin's father was right about one thing, even if others on Elcasia named him a heretic for it- the voices crying out had never been answered. Oh, some from the Named Places tried to help. The Warriors of Aiena did their best to try to assist each new world at the turn of every half-century, sending resources, fighters, trying in vain to halt the Unnamed’s advance…

They had not once succeeded. A dozen Worlds had been slain thus far- none in Selvin’s lifetime, but he had been raised on stories of the Fall of Anapeal, a neighboring world in the Named Places, from his father’s mouth. It was said you could see the burning fires on the world as it died. His father said he had felt their souls cry out one final time before being silenced.

The Unnamed had very simple tactics. It itself never came to the worlds he sought- for that would be impossible. Hopefully, blissfully impossible- for why else would it send surrogates and not come itself? It watched from across the void, and it could be seen- the dread records of long-dead worlds attested regularly to that. But he himself never came. The wretch was trapped, or held apart, or locked behind something that it could not pass. If Aiena did not directly aid them, then, at the very least, the gift He gave them was keeping the Unnamed apart from the Named Places itself.

It had many servants it directly controlled, servants that crossed the gaps between worlds and the void, the gaps it dwelled in, and arrived on the chosen planet. It was reported that anywhere from ten to a hundred million such creatures had come to Lorasen, darkening the skies like locusts. They scoured the surface clean in less than a month. Every human, torn to shreds, their Names of Power picked up from their slashed corpses and delivered en masse to their master. Every army, torn down and beaten into the dust. Every mighty fortress and magical fastness- its garrison rooted out and broken. The greatest champions of the Dawn World, blessed in the Arts of Light- slain in single combat by the most powerful of the Namless Hordes.

In the void, the Unnamed seemed to grow ever stronger; the gap between Dooms growing a little shorter each time. In the high councils of the powerful and immortal, in the God Worlds of the Named Places, the places the Nameless had never dared encroach upon- they feared that it would soon come to pass that the Anathema itself was strong enough to pass the barrier between worlds, between realities, and make war directly upon the God Immortals, the most powerful of the Named Places. That it would bring death unimagined to their pristine worlds.

Five hundred years ago, the Named Places had been beginning to enter a new era of prosperity, progress, and peace. The God-Named Hegemony had formed, and united the disparate nations across continents, separated by the different surfaces of different worlds, all in the name of the God Aiena, spoken for by the Named Prophet Falasain. The Unnamed’s arrival had shattered that. Many Worlds were now endlessly mired in new conflicts, either related to Its coming or simply as a side effect of the turmoil. Perfect for the Unnamed to swoop in on and slaughter the chosen target… Of course, the Doom pronouncements each world received well in advance- sometimes as much as ten years- should have given them ample time to prepare. But...

Their armies never stood a chance. Their magicians- each different on each disparate World, by whatever design of Aiena- had not been enough. The Unnamed sent always just enough, seemingly, to fell them down to the last warrior, until, even if strong enough to grapple with the Unnamed's channeled power, they dropped from exhaustion in the end anyway.

Of course, each world to fall had been what was called the Newly Named. Worlds relatively young in the scale of the cosmos. The Ancient Worlds, the God Worlds, had never once fallen- huge, advance bastion-worlds, worlds where most of their population possessed powerful, mastered, studied magic and technology. Worlds the Unnamed had not dared to assault yet.

Elcasia was considered to be on the verge of the title of Ancient. A powerful, old World, if still somewhat primitive. Now, it would die before it ever truly grew up. Selvin's father had lamented the notion time and time again.

They feared in the God Worlds that the Unnamed was growing ever stronger with each World it consumed, each of the billions of Names it took for itself. Perhaps… it was close to realizing a Name of his own.

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Of course, this was all just scholarly speculation. They could all be woefully wrong. Perhaps the Unnamed could come in its own person, such as it was, and it merely did not consider humanities worthy of its direct attention. Doom Speculation was a thriving subject in scholarship across the Named Places- for if they could just understand their foe, perhaps they could begin to overcome it.

And so Selvin watched as the prophesized, bespoken Doom, the Doom that had taken the lives of billions across the known universe... came to his World. To Elcasia, the World of his home, of his Father, his family and friends.

There had been much weeping on the Night of the Doom. Even from his Father, whom Selvin worshipped and loved more than anything- the strongest person, physically and metaphorically, that he knew. But as Selvin stared up at the heavens, there had been brief surprise in his heart.

And it was slowly replaced with fury.

And grim, grim determination.

His father said his Shroud had briefly burned brighter than anyone's in the village that night. His father had seen in him the same fire in his own soul. The will to fight. The will to win. To do the impossible- if only because it meant survival.

For Selvin, though, survival was a secondary thought. He didn't want to leave Elcasia. Its verdant meadows, wide, cool streams and rivers, and beautiful skies. The food he loved, and the music and art, and people. No. He wouldn't abandon them. If that had been his and his father's plan, they could've dedicated their efforts to spatial manipulation, to the Divine Attributes of Cosmic and Soul power, and punched a hole through the Unnamed's forced barrier upon the World. But that wasn't their plan.

They were going to save the world. And to do that, they had to fight the Unnamed directly.

"Sit with me for a moment, Selvin," his father said. Lithe and tall, his father towered over him even sitting at the dining table, his dark hair nearly covering his piercing eyes as he watched his one and only son. In the distance, through the window, a man was crying. Further, a woman was wailing. The Doom still rang in Selvin's ears, even then.

Let this world be the one to fall. Such cold contempt. Such casual, disdainful hatred. Selvin clenched his fist in his lap as he sat, eyes burning with tears of anger.

"Read my Shroud, as I taught you," his father said.

Selvin stared above his father's head, at the haze of gathered, colored mists- tinted largely crimson- that were the sum total of his magical strength, a signina of his metaphysical influence upon the physical world. For others, it would give a vague sense of impressions, that they would be able to determine as 'weak' or 'strong,' with little speculation between. For Selvin, after years of his father's tutelage, he was able to put specific numbers on specific attributes. And in his soul's eye, a hazy chart burned, in the precise art his father had taught him, handed down for generations:

[Father's Shroud:]

Strength: 7

Mind: 8

Soul: 3

Heart: 5

Elemental: 4

Cosmic: 4

Nameless: 0

Selvin’s breath came out in a hiss of shock. Father’s strength, for most of Selvin’s life, had been of the Fifth Tier- that of most common Speaker warriors, especially those who retired early on in their career to live normal lives. To reach the Eighth, seemingly out of nowhere… But it wasn’t the only shock. Essentially all of Father’s numbers, from Mind to Cosmic, soared to Selvin’s mental touch. Higher than he could’ve dreamed. His was a power that could easily place him in the Royal Halls of Onapar, the capital of the Kingdom they lived in. Maybe even higher. His Eight Tier, in Mind and Strength both… that made him a Warrior-Scholar, at the very least. Higher than all the mortal nobility and royalty on the known planet.

“Father… how did you…?” The words escaped Selvin, breathy and light, and he was barely conscious of them.

His father smiled humorlessly. “I’ve been busy. On the nights, the weeks, I said I’ve had to take care of… business, related to my enterprise.”

Selvin nodded suddenly in understanding. Of course. He had often wondered if his father had been lying to him about that.

“But regardless, that’s not all. Stop looking at my Shroud for a moment, Selvin.” His father paused. “In fact, close your eyes for me. For your own safety.”

Selvin did so. There was a murmur, like the sound of wind- eerily like the Unnamed's not-voice.

But Selvin’s eyes snapped open after only a few moments, without his father’s assent, as he felt like the sun had been placed in front of him. And what he saw dazzled him. Blinded him, just like the sun.

HIs father’s Attributes shone in front of him, so obvious that even an untrained eye might have been able to say exactly what they were.

Strength… a perfect ten. Flawless, exemplary strength, that could move mountains. That could reach the heavens and shake the stars.

Mind… another ten. The ability to plan, calculate, and execute strategies faster than a supercomputer. To juggle a dozen spells forged of Named-Power all at the same time, and then some. The mind of a Scholar-God.

Soul: 8. The level of a Soulmage, a master of the Soulistic Arts.

Elemental: 7. Highly proficient in worldly powers, able to move fire, air, earth and lightning, and more naturally occurring powers.

Heart: 9. Nearly impossible to kill, impossible to even scratch. Flesh like stone, bones like mountain rock.

Cosmic: 7. Able to read the movements of the stars and heavens, and see glimpses of the future in them. Incredible.

And… another Attribute, one that always fuzzed awareness, that his father had always told him to ignore- that shone too now, even with a strange, non-light, that made it impossible to ignore. Selvin had no obvious name for it, except… Nameless.

“I told you to close your eyes.”

“Father! Father!”

His father smiled. “Yes?”

Selvin was ashen. “First the Doom, and now… this. Am I dreaming?”

His father laughed. It sounded bitter, with a hint of sorrow. “I wish you were. But these two events in your life are not unrelated… in fact, they’re directly connected. One,” he said softly, “has led to the other.”

“How… How are you so powerful?”

“I spoke a Name.” His father said simply. “Just a Name.”

“Whose Name?” Selvin asked. “The Goddess-Queen’s?”

His father laughed again. “Like I’d know it. Or it would be much use to me, even if I did. No. No. You come from an ancient line, Selvin. I’ve said as much to you before. But I never told you… we possess an Ancestral Name. A Name of great power, that can, for a time, grant a Speaker untold passage through the Attributable Realms and beyond.”

“Beyond?” Selvin stared at his father in confusion.

“Beyond,” he said firmly. “Because I can tell you one thing for sure… the Unnamed is certainly well beyond them. Beyond the realm beyond that. Maybe even more.”

Selvin shook his head, trying to clear it. What he was hearing was starting to make less and less sense.

His father sighed, and rose from the kitchen table. “It’s a lot. I know. I hadn’t planned… to have to do this so soon. To tell you. To reveal my plans. But I suppose,” he said, “men’s plans matter little to those of the Gods.”

“Are we going to fight?” Selvin suddenly asked, hungrily. That meaning suddenly leaped out at him, out of the sea of powers beyond powers and mystical, esoteric knowledge he could scarcely understand.

His father looked at him for a moment, before nodding slowly. “Yes. Are you ready?”

“I’ve been ready,” Selvin said.