> “We’re all stories in the end. Just make it a good one.” - Matt Smith, Doctor Who
The end began with a prophecy:
The dragons will fly once more for the one who sings their song.
Brothers will be reconciled and life and death shall rise against the darkness.
The Survivor will be struck down, but a new power will rise in her place.
Child will fight Stone for the power of devils.
And the Everblossom will see the truth of all things,
For when the old gods awaken, the world will cease to be.
Since ancient times, the prophecy remained as mysterious as was expected of such things. The final line, however, remained an integral piece of Echistan’s mythology. The gods were ancient, powerful beings, but even they could not hold a candle to the ones who came before. The old gods slept in the darkest depths of space, where light could not reach, and every mortal, god, and force of nature dreaded the day that the old gods might awake and destroy all that was and might be.
Huli stared into the abyss and let the prophecy play through her mind just as she had a hundred times in the past week. She was one of only a few who knew that the events prophesied by the ancient seer had begun to occur. As one of the youngest of the gods, she had nevertheless been pulled into the conflicts that had overtaken much of the world. She had watched the dragons fly under Kali the Serpentcaller. She had brought the brothers Necros and Adalat together and mediated their centuries-long hatred. She had heard tell of the ancient goddess Marrow being killed, but not before Marrow’s own daughter had risen to godhood. And her own friend, Calyn, god of the stone, had fought against the child abomination, Caesura the Damned, for control of the 7 lords of hell.
All but the last two lines of the prophecy had been fulfilled, and now it was Huli’s turn. The goddess of love and family wore an elegant gown made of hundreds of strips of red and gold, with a light cloak of shimmering copper, her hood drawn up over piercing green eyes and red-tufted fox ears. Behind her, a bushy tail the color of purest flame twitched, leaving behind after-images of 8 additional tails. She was the Everblossom, and it was time for her to know the truth. If there was a way to save her world, she would find it..
Floating in the nether, Huli lifted her face and closed her eyes. She took a deep breath, then turned to the figure hovering next to her in bright orange robes. “Show me.”
The old man with long white hair twisted in a multitude of braids gave Huli a crooked grin, his black eyes clearly portraying the insanity that drove him. Though he wasn’t a god, per se, Prophet Khem had long since gained knowledge that no sentient creature - god or mortal - could comprehend. “Are you sure?” He asked with a manic grin, his voice high pitched and nearly hysterical. “You cannot unsee, and you will not survive the understanding.”
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“I will,” Huli insisted. “I must.”
A cackle, then Khem reached up and pressed a finger against Huli’s forehead. “Then see!”
Huli gasped as the abyss was pulled back with a violent tearing so loud that it left Huli momentarily deafened. The lights blinded her and she shielded her eyes with a sharp cry. When she could see again, Huli looked upon a vision that she found impossible to comprehend. Colors and shapes were merged with sounds and smells, all so huge and overwhelming that they nearly broke her mind. The shapes twisted in impossible ways and sounds rose into pitches so high that it made her ears bleed, then dropped so low that she couldn’t hear them so much as feel the thrumming in her very bones.
Huli had been broken by overwhelming power before, though, and her will was strong as the light she embodied. She let go of her physical form and allowed herself to become one with the vision, all the time holding tight to the core of her being, not to lose herself completely in the knowledge she sought.
It took hours, years, a fraction of a second, but eventually the light that was Huli came to comprehend the shapes and sounds that she saw. Six figures sat in a circle. Old gods. In one instant they were massive entities of incomprehensible power. In the next they were humans, sitting in a room around a single table. Papers lay strewn across the table and as Huli merged with the sunlight that filtered in through the nearby window, she took in the mysterious writing. Like the rest of the vision, it started as scribbles so alien that it hurt her mind, but she gripped her core hard and focused, and the writing shifted until she could read it:
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Huli, The Everblossom
Female Kitsune
Goddess of Light, Love, Family
Classes:
Bard (level 64)
Psychic healer (level 91)
Rogue (level 22)
Sorcerer (level 55)
Attributes:
Presence: 82
Mind: 104
Spirit: 96
Power: 50
Agility: 68
Endurance: 52
Skills:
…
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Deep in the light, Huli’s core shuddered in recognition, shock, fear. The old gods… knew her. Then she heard the voices. What had been screams and roars, she could now understand as speech. “...hears someone talking about someone talking. She sees her image on a piece of paper with her name, and many numbers. And she suddenly understands why Prophet Khem said the knowledge would break her. She knows the truth about the old gods, and about her world…”
Shaken to the very essence of her being, Huli’s thoughts rattled in her mind.
...we’re not real. This… this is just a story. I’m… a fictional character.
She almost lost herself then, but something caught her and she felt herself held close, deep inside the mind of one of the terrifying old gods. Yes… a voice whispered softly to her. But you are my character. This… is OUR story.