Ieros was intrigued but none of that showed on his face, only gently taking the teapot and with precision and grace, poured himself another cup. He then placed it back down and began to sip once more, finally saying,

“Very well, I shall create this statue. But I do require the secret first. I assure you, I will not break my word.”

She was wary, she could read people very well but he was the one man that had remained a mystery to her. But, she also believed him, he would not break his promise once given.

So, she took a breath and said, “Well…”

She hesitated and then looked at the teacup, grabbing it and downing it all in one go before placing it back on the table.

Her nerves calmed somewhat, she continued, “The secret is of something that the Luxian Church is hiding, they knew something about the Dark Ages but they hid it from the world and I know what and why.”

She then stopped and looked around furtively, Ieros settling her fears by saying, “You may speak in safety, from the moment we sat to tea I have sealed this place from the rest of the world, none shall be able to hear of this conversation.”

She sighed in relief and finally divulged, “There is… a relic from an age that was before the Dark Ages, before the Enlightenment and even before the first records of history, a book. It is written in a language that no one can translate and is made of a material that is invincible, even the paper itself is impossible to rip or cut. This relic has been kept a secret by the Pope and the nine Archbishops who wish to hide the fact that there was a once time before Man as we know it, hiding the truth of perhaps an even greater race that once ruled Agleon.”

Ieros was amused, to think that humans knew about their ancient past and even tried to hide it, how laughable. But, he supposed he could understand, the Luxian Theocracy revolved around the fact that modern man had been created by Light, and to some extent, they were right. Light had helped in the creation of Man but not modern Man and she was not the creator either, Darkness was. But he kept quiet about what he knew, it seemed that Izahn—the girl—still had something to say. But she still waited, looking at him expectantly. Ieros approved of her action, she only gave out a part of the secret, intending to give out the rest once he built it.

He then stood and said, “As I promised, I will create a statue for you. But as it appears that there is more to this secret, I look forward to another talk.”

But before he left, Izahn asked, “May I see the creation of the statue? For security sake, I do not want a stolen statue.”

Ieros turned to her, “I do not steal but if it will ease the suspicion in your heart, then I suppose it wouldn’t matter. Please, follow me.”

Ieros then turned away from her, a gate opening in front of him. He stepped through but the gate remained open. Of course, wary as ever, Izahn made her way to the door, hesitating just before it. She then took a deep breath and then stepped through, appearing at Ieros’s floating garden. She looked around in awe at her surroundings, beautiful flowers that glowed in the ethereal light, some of which she had only heard of through legend.

Finally, she stood before the Rose of Stars, gazing at its glowing white petals, her breath taken away by the sheer beauty of it. But she brought back to the real world by Ieros’s words,

“I thought that you needed a statue, not to see flowers.”

She quickly turned her attention from the flowers, her face flushed. Ieros then created a chair and table for her to use while he stood in a clear section of the floating garden, thinking of how he would go about creating Light. Then he remembered Darkness’s first memory of her, the weak light in a sea of black. But of course, he would have to make her more human, for humans believed that they were created in Light’s image. Of course, this was the other way around, because of their belief of her, she had taken up their appearance. If it had been any other race that became the most intelligent animals of Agelon like pigs, for example, she would have looked like a pig as they would have thought of her that way.

But enough of that, he had to create her. However, instead of the beautiful, mature and pure lady that she was often portrayed as, he decided to create the statue of her in the likeness of a young girl, around the age of five. And so he set about creating it, his left hand, glowing with light, painting large swathes of light which his right hand, covered in darkness, began to give shape to the light, accentuating it. But the light that came forth from his left hand was solid, almost crystalline although it didn’t have sharp edges. He continued to paint with these two materials, finally ending up with a statue of a small girl, sitting on the floor with her legs folded on each side of her, her arms out in front with her palms on the floor.

She had a look of childish innocence and curiosity, gazing at the darkness around her. She was clad in clothes that were similar to a Roman toga, her right shoulder and both arms exposed along with some of her legs but the sensitive parts were covered by the toga. That combined with her long flowing hair made for a rather innocent, peaceful image. Also, there were varying degrees of color used to create her, her toga was a brilliant silver that was in direct contrast to the gold of her hair. Her eyes shone like white stars while her skin was a white that was slightly colored with gold, emanating warm light. The statue also wasn’t too bright to look at, Ieros had intentionally done this, adding a thin layer of darkness around the statue so that you could appreciate the finer details but also realize that it was still emanating light.

It seemed to take forever in the eyes of Izahn but in reality, it only took an hour for Ieros to finish the statue from beginning to end. He placed it on an obsidian pedestal and affixed the statue in place. He then waved his hand over it and it shrunk a size that would fit comfortably in your palm. He then procured a small pouch to put it in and handed it to Izahn.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

He instructed, “Once you reach the Luxian Church, you only need to place it where you feel it would be best to do so. Once the base touches the ground, it will grow after five seconds. Please be careful with the positioning for once placed you will be unable to remove it.”

He then opened a gate and gestured for her to walk through.

But before she did so, she asked, “Do you not want to know the rest of the secret?”

Ieros shook his head, “We will have a talk once more but for today, I need rest. I will contact you once I desire to know the rest of the story. Also, please keep the fact that I created this silent. I do not wish to attract the attention of the Luxian Theocracy even further."

With that clear dismissal, Izahn left through the gate. She would keep silent about the creator of this statue, for she felt that if she did otherwise, her life and everyone’s life related to her would be forfeit. Of course, that gut feeling of hers was right, if she dared to go against Ieros’s wishes he would wipe all traces of her existence from history, including her family and friends. In fact, he had planted that “gut feeling” in her mind, to ensure that she would not betray his secret.

He then continued to rest, his body resting while the Surveyor stopped using the personality of Ieros. The Surveyor meanwhile began to access shadows all over the world, using them as his eyes as he viewed the world, knowing in more detail of the stirrings of ancient beings. He gained knowledge of all the happenings around the world and became aware of the planned monster invasion of Athera’s East Coast. But knowing it he still did nothing, he had only been commanded to obey the orders of the Royal Family, not to warn. Besides, he knew that no matter what, he would be assigned to defend the East as the majority of Athera’s forces would be a part of the invasion force.

So it would wait, wait to see how these events would unfold without its direct intervention. It, of course, knew that many humans were going to die because of its actions but it did not care in the slightest, their deaths wouldn’t affect it at all. Morning came once more and Ieros awoke, the Surveyor taking the persona of Ieros once more. Once more it decided to review the memories of the observers, taking in the knowledge of tens of thousands of soldiers that participated in the war.

This process took over a few weeks to fully assimilate all the data, the end of which Ieros looked at the world with different eyes. He then realized the folly of his earlier decision to destroy Ieros. He had lost quite a valuable chance there, but of course, he himself couldn’t risk it. So, he came up with the next best thing, he would create a copy of himself, allow this copy to have emotions but be careful to make it separate from himself. Once this was done he would let it live on Agleon, living its life as an immortal who became human. Then it would watch from afar, killing it’s copy once its human life was over and rinse and repeat.

But of course, it wouldn’t start right away, once the lifetime of Ieros was over, it would commence creating another clone. Right now was not the time, it still wished for itself to experience human life, no matter how limited it was. Besides, it would do so later, well, a copy of itself would. Of course, this may seem rather late in its mission but Time is relative. The Surveyor is a being whose life is infinite unless it comes to an artificial end, Time is nothing to it. A thousand years is but a blink of an eye, well, if it had an eye. So a mere hundred years was nothing to it. But, it decided that at least, for its first experiment, it was best to do so by itself rather than to rely on a proxy. For proxies, no matter how similar or how exact you make them, will always be different than the original.

But it could learn, learn from its copies who would become more human with each generation until the two cannot be called different yet not the same. But it would remain safe, safe from emotion. Truly a simple solution but it had to see it for it had interpreted its mission quite differently, that it itself had to learn. But of course, after using the observers, it realized that it did not have to, that it could just create a copy to live as a human, to allow it to foster emotions and end it once its “lifetime” as a human was done.

But with the passage of the few weeks, the army was prepared and Ieros withdrew his shadows from the North as the invasion force marched to Seris. He did not wish for the Crown to know of the vast resources at his command. But those three weeks was also sufficient time for the pirates to begin their raids on the East Coast and for word to reach the capital of these raids. Ieros was summoned by the King to defend the East. Ieros, of course, accepted this command, immediately setting out.

He created a gate and stepped through, dismissing the King’s offer of an army of a thousand men. He did not need such forces for his armies of stone would serve him much better, although at a much more manageable number of four thousand. But the moment he stepped through, he was engulfed in chaos, fires burning houses and monsters chasing down helpless women and children while the men were cut down trying to defend themselves. Ieros did not like the commotion so with a wave of his hand, the monsters were immobilized by black chains, their mouths sealed shut by black hands and the fires on buildings were suffocated by a blanket of darkness which disappeared once the fire did.

Ieros then waved his hand in front of his nose, in an attempt to ward away the smell of smoke and burned corpses, “What an unpleasant odor .”

He then snapped his fingers and in an instant, all but one of the monster pirates were killed, impaled either through the back or the chest by spears of darkness. He then peered into the mind of the monster, learning of the locations that the other pirates planned to raid. So he opened ten gates and separated his army into four hundred, sending them through to each of the designated locations, his armies of stone defeating the poorly armed pirates with ease. He also personally stopped by each village, healing the wounded and rebuilding what would have taken months in the span of a few minutes.

Word began to spread about a mysterious savior who commanded an army of stone and the people’s hearts were at ease, with such a powerful guardian, they could live in peace. Once the villages were secure, each guarded by a troop of four hundred stone golems, he then spread the word that he, Ieros, would be protecting the East Coast. He even constructed a wizard’s tower at the coast where he could see pirate ships before they could even land. And so the East was safe, for now. Of course, Ieros foresaw the great pirate fleet that was heading to the East Coast, the pirate kings had made a coalition to raid and conquer Athera.

Ieros looked forward to their arrival, after all, he didn’t have many records of sea battles and was very curious as to how this particular battle would go. He would have to limit himself, of course, he wouldn’t learn anything if he defeated them with ease. So he prepared the coast fortifications, having stone giants posted at the ramparts where they could throw boulders upon the enemy. He also made some ships as well, taking the knowledge of sailing from the minds of pirates and imparting it to his stone sailors. Thus prepared for battle, Ieros waited, although he did give an evacuation notice to the local population, it wouldn’t do for the King’s faith in him to decrease because of his incompetence.