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Old 04-02-2004, 04:16 PM   #1
the_logos
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recently witnessed the birth of a new Goddess. What follows is the story leading up to her creation, which wrapped up the final elements of an event that began about 5 rl years ago.

The Birth of Makali, Goddess of Destruction

The Jester named Paine Mendacis could not figure out why Apollonia, the Oracle of the Mannaseh, would not respond to his queries. "Please," he begged the silent young woman. "I need your help."

His wife Nawtika, guildmistress of the Jesters, was not too impressed. Her husband had dragged her all the way out to this smelly swamp, and for what? This filthy young trollop in a mud shack, who looked as if she had been smoking cactus weed all day?

Suddenly, Apollonia's eyes flickered open wide. The pale blue irises of the Oracle's eyes disappeared, as her eyes rolled back into her head. She began to sway gently, murmuring beneath her breath.

"A trance!" Paine exclaimed delightedly. This was starting to look more interesting. Nawtika looked bored. What was with her husband's interest in this swamp wench anyway?

Apollonia, the Oracle of the Mannaseh murmured softly, "The fire... the flames... the sky... in the sky..."

Ah, ####. Riddles. Paine took some stabs in the dark. "The morning star returns? Are you stuck in another age? Where does the fire come from? Noxtra?"

Apollonia, the Oracle of the Mannaseh murmured softly, "I can see her..."

Paine pulled out a pipe and a sprig of cactus weed. He filled the pipe and lit it. "Maybe I can understand her better in a state of mind closer to hers," he said, puffing with a happy sigh.

The Jester, who had been the first to hear the whispers that would soon blow into an uproar across the lands, had no idea then how close his first guess came. Over the rest of that Mayan in the year 359, certain inhabitants of Sapience all throughout the realm began to act strangely, those of a sensitive nature entering trances. Especially noted were the wizards Hycanthus, Maklak, and the witch Haag, gathering together furtively for hushed meetings, though not unseen by the sharp eyes of Achaeans on alert. Blu, the Guardian Dragon of Cyrene, seemed unusually wary as well.

Sir Gladius, Mitran Knight, when questioned about a possible comet retorted that of course there was a comet headed towards Sapience. The comet dubbed Ethian, for which Ethian's Crossing was named, passed close to Sapience every year around Sarapin, as had been documented by erudite astrologers for many years.

Several, making the connection between Ethian's Crossing and the conclave wizards' sealing of the landmarks years past, journeyed to visit with the conclave wizards and query them of recent murmurings, but gained little information.

Mayan quickly passed, and with it, the year 359. Then came Sarapin, three hundred and sixty years after the fall of the Selucarian Empire. Sarapin, the time of year called Ethian's Crossing, when once not too many years past, the landmarks had regularly become responsive to being altered through the toil of mortalkind, although perhaps few had thought to question the reason why.

In early Sarapin this year, more questions would be raised. First came the puzzling shouts of Haag, the Swamp Witch: "Begone, foul sisters! Warn the others! Warn the conclave!" Xephlite Traike Lucoster, first to reach Haag's cottage, found her dead upon the ground with her heart ripped out. Two dark-cloaked women, one Atavian and the other Tsol'aa hastened out of the cottage, pursued by Xephlite and others, but disappeared from sight.

Maklak, O'ising and Hycanthus were found, similarly dead and eviscerated, and two other dark-cloaked human women found hovering over Hycanthus's body. When discovered, they uttered a chant which lifted them into the sky and away towards Polyargos.

Many Achaeans pursued them to Polyargos, Arae Windsong, Kitt Xanatov-Jinx, Brandilar Weltsdown, Valaria Arnor-Jaydde, Carmell Jaydde-Stormcrow, Josalyn Alexandrian, Skye Demaxx-De'Le'Vec, and others among them. They quickly found the women at the overgrown garden where lay the fetid pool that had once been the Mirror landmark, sealed by the now-dead conclave wizards years before. The women quickly uttered a spell to protect themselves from aggression from their pursuers. Their safety from interference assured, they initiated a ritual using the hearts of the conclave wizards, using the power stored within each of the mages' hearts to break the seal they had placed over the Mirror.

Once the seal was broken, one of the human women proceeded to disrobe, her nude body and face entirely spidered with crimson tattoos. She waded into the center of the pool, quickly followed by the other human woman, the second woman still fully dressed. But she drew back the hood of her cloak, revealing that the two now within the pool were twins, mirror images of each other.

Then, as the other women continued their ritual chants, the twin who had disrobed willingly gave her life to the blade of her sister, and her body fell limp into the pool.

For a moment, all was still, though it was but the proverbial calm before the storm.

One by one, beginning with the Mirror, then the Tree, then all the rest remaining landmarks, each of the landmarks was completely destroyed by the power of the ritual performed by the women at the Mirror, and
focused through the Mirror. But instead of their energies from the destruction dispersing, they instead each coalesced into a spiralling vortex of energy, and arced into the sky over Polyargos.

Then a great howling was heard as a winged red dragon, none other than the dragon Yudhishthira, raced towards the meeting point of the vortices. Weaving through them faster than the eye could see, somehow manipulating them, he forced the energy into a great white sphere. And within the sphere a small black figure was spinning, dancing, growing larger and larger until...

With a deafening clap of thunder, the sphere of white light exploded into countless shimmering shards of light, which rained down upon the land from above only to vanish before meeting the ground.

And thus was born the Goddess Makali, the conscious Divine embodiment of the principle of Destruction, born from the melding of the consciousness of a human witch-priestess of Destruction, and the immense force released from the destruction of the landmarks, those strange edifices that had been steeped in destructive power both ancient and new.

By the grace of Lord Sarapis, the heretoforth mysterious origin of the landmarks, the comet Ethian, and the involvement of the red dragon of Polyargos has been brought to light within another forum and included below.



The History of the Landmarks
What follows is an account of the backstory of the birth of Makali, as presented by the Logos in a rare appearance on the public news:

"The arrival of Makali has puzzled many of you. I would like to share with you what really happened, as elsewise I do not believe it will be discovered. You want to read this. Where to begin, where to begin….

I’m sure you remember the destruction of the Landmarks. They’re chronicled in events post #115 and #116. The short version is that a Conclave of powerful mystics, including O’ising – the shaman of the Yriluawe, the swamp witch Haag, the reclusive sorcerer Hycanthus, and the ice wizard Maklak, hinted that they were trying to destroy the Angel/Demon Mirror Landmark to prevent another powerful member of their group from doing something they chose not to reveal. The resulting destruction of many of the Landmarks was welcome by much of the population of Sapience, but still troubling was the lack of knowledge regarding why the Conclave did this. And more importantly, who is the other Conclave member that they now opposed? To answer this, we have to go way back...152 years back, in fact, to the coming of the Morningstar.

The Morningstar, as some of you will remember, was scourged the planet of life, killing all on it, and resulting in the creation of two new Gods – Aurora, Goddess of Light, and Apollyon, the Malefactor – and the re-awakening of Vastar, the Skylord, who cleansed the atmosphere of the Morningstar's deadly waste. This was caused by the meeting of two great heavenly bodies; one, a sightless, dark behemoth consuming all around it, even light, called Abaddon. The other, a star to outshine Lady Sol herself. The meeting of these resulted in the tremendous burst of energy that was the death of so many, for Abaddon could not contain the star, and consumed until its very essence burst with the power taken unto itself.

Now, the star that collided with Abaddon was called Ethian. This star was not merely a desolate, burning heavenly figure, rotating in the ethereal timeless space outside the world, but home to a race of beings..of dragons. Different from both the Greater and lesser Dragons known to Sapience, these lived in the heart of Ethian. After the meeting of Ethian and Abbadon, only a hardened, cold core remained. The dragons abided, and through the last century, the remains of Ethian settled near to our planet, crossing very near its path every year, during the month of Sarapin.

As Ethian hurled through the multiplicities of realities, it shed great chunks of itself, pregnant with energy beyond ken. Some of the dragons living on Ethian traveled here with those chunks. You know them, and for good reason: Yudhishthira and Geh’shya, among others. Those of you old enough may remember that the sudden discovery of the isle of Polyargos occurred soon before the creation of the Landmarks. The energies that these segments of Ethian unleashed solidified into what became known as the nine Landmarks: The Angel/Demon Mirror, the Celestial/Blood Falls, the Pillars of Maya/Fist of Sartan, the Sapphire/Ruby Sphinx, the Great Oak/Thoth's Bough, the Garden of Rapture/Midnight, the Living/Stygian Totem, and the Radiant/Shadow Valley, each with their dual aspects. And thus it came to be that during Ethian’s Crossing, the Landmarks became volatile, and subject to a change in aspect.

But how is this related to the creation of the Goddess of Destruction? That is now easily answered: The fifth member of the Conclave was none other than the dragon Yudhishthira. You see, the constant death and rebirth as your factions battled over control of the Landmarks fed their immense energy until the material of Ethian weakened further and further. Finally, the bloodshed reached a point where Yudhishthira and his witch-priestesses planned to use the great power of the rest of the Conclave to release the energy of the Landmarks in a great ritual and channel it into the birth/awakening of a Goddess of Destruction. Their plan backfired when the other Conclave members realized they were being duped, and sealed the Mirror to prevent Yudhishthira from completing the ritual. As the Mirror was the most powerful of Ethian’s Landmarks, Yudhishthira and his witch-priestesses were weakened along with the Landmarks themselves. Time, though, was on their side, for eventually the seal that the Conclave put on the Mirror would decay.

And now it has happened. On the most recent crossing of Ethian, the great heavenly body came closer to our planet than any crossing before. The great pull of the former star drew the power of the Landmarks like poison from a wound, and this time, Yudhishthira and his followers would not bother with deception. Instead, they would slay the Conclave members and use their hearts to amplify the power of the ritual they would
perform.

And so began the story of a new Goddess. What happened this day will be recorded in the Events archives, but know that what I’ve penned is true and necessary for understanding the significance of today’s revelations. And finally, all hail Makali, Goddess of Destruction!"
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Old 04-02-2004, 05:02 PM   #2
Yui Unifex
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Question

Achaea has such colorful jargon that I thought we should play some the_logos madlibs.

A Word About Poke - from the Vic20 user's guide:

Anyone else want to try some madlibs with the zillions of fantasy names we are assaulted with in the parent post? It should be a requirement that you use the zonky name 'Yudhishthira' at least once in every madlib.
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Old 04-03-2004, 06:04 AM   #3
Valaria
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*cry* that's me! *bounce*
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