Universal Lore- Part 3, The Mortal Realms(The Lower Planes & The Lesser Realms)

hiiii i usually refrain from making text posts here but i wanted to quickly mention: my OCs are not for public use! they’re not for your roleplays, theyre not for you to copy and paste, and theyre not for your OC inspiration mood-boards. I’ve been seeing a lot of people tag my (sometimes extremely personal) original art with the names of their own OCs, commenting about how “this is just how i picture X looking!” If you really have these sentiments, keep them to yourself, please! I guarantee 90% of artists dont want to be told that their OCs remind people of their own OCs or of existing fictional characters. It’s not a compliment, I promise you.  

Astray

Sneak peak for the next post legends post

One bolt that struck the arrogant first true,

Two pearls that drowned with the second's sorrow.

Three tendrils that dissipated with the third's regrets,

Four petals that sprouted from the learned fourth.

The one they called 'master' is no longer in this world,

Five stars blinked out when they disappeared.

heya! I don't know if you celebrate but:

merry christmas❣️🎁 and a happy new year!✨

Hello!!! I don't really celebrate but happy holidays to you too 🎉!

If you're from NA I hope you're doing well and keeping warm these past days, the weather is brutal right now-

Oversimplified(?) Elvaria Lore- Part 4, Kingdom History(Key Points, Major Kingdoms A-F)

Åskorhal-

N/A shit doesn't really happen there

Avianaen- War of Bloodied Storm

So during the early Minor Wars era they had their own shit The Sky Lords were their leaders, being Aenirel, Lord of Rain, Enthivar, the Dragon Lord, Ilravoin, the Traveling Lord, and Thiroaven, the Lord of High Clouds They were basically viewed as divinity and were powerful enough to be seen as such, having forgotten their roots as elves and were really more like elementals. Thiroaven was the most respected of the bunch since he was basically viewed as the embodiment of the sky But of course, as they were still elves by soul, they still knew greed. Aenirel, Enthivar, and Ilravoin could keep their act together for the good of the new Avianaens, but Thiroaven could never settle for his reach being limited only to the air-lands of Syklari So yeah he betrayed everyone and tried to kill the other Sky Lords so he could hold sole control and scheme from there Whole war broke out and it ended with all the Sky Lords being dead and the Avianaens are still trying to figure out their purpose to this day since they feel lost without the leadership of the Sky Lords Since then they've created the Triumvirate of the Skyborne with three seats to represent the three Sky Lords that remained noble, and these seats are held by the priest families that once stood by their sides

Dalirna- Origins of the Nalgira and the Weathermagi

There was a very minor(?) crisis where when Dalirna was first established, some mages tried to make the deserts more habitable and made whole squadrons for it creating a new type of mage called Weathermagi(pre-Fall they imbibed pillars to deal with weather) That backfired pretty badly, and they're the reason why all the cities have to be covered by an Asurei barrier at all times because of the frequent strong sandstorms created from fucking around with the environment Some of those squadron members had their new magic backfire on themselves because no one was quite used to elemental energies yet, so they became poisoned by their own magic and mutated to become Nalgira which were not very intelligent but had very chaotic magic So that's the story of how Dalirnans figured out that even though they have better Asurei adeptness than the other surface kingdoms, they're also the most susceptible to being poisoned by it(compared to Lustariseans that are basically the masters of it and also immune(as far as they know) to the radiation-like effects of being exposed to too much of it) Any Nalgira that are discovered have their magic sealed off and sent to the desert to eek out a living and it's generally considered a crime against public safety to try to keep a relative that turned into a Nalgira in your house, especially if you live in a city

Weathermagi still exist to control weather and they're better at it, but generally the duties rely on elemental magic more than pure Asurei so it's left to Zodianans and Avianaens

Flaerna- The Ligniar Elthir and Tale of Asharena, The Warrior of Earthen Flame

Shit happened When the Solarian survivors of The Fall were figuring out life in the new fiery hellscape of Emorscal, on top of trying to understand their new fire magic, they had to deal with primordial giants(not the same as elementals) coming out of volcanoes that would terrorize the new towns The most powerful ones were coming from the volcano at the center of the land and it seemed to have some sort of "core" that was triggering the birth of more giants in the other volcanoes In underground caves it was less bad, they found half elves(hey it's the surviving pockets of elves post-Fall) that were like coal, and the half elves were willing to help from a shared sense of kinship They were skilled at making do, but mostly kept to the underground since they were very physically fragile and prone to burning out their lifespans whenever they used magic

The new Flaernans initially tried to fight back against the giants with the help of the coal half elves and had scrounged out a military to cull the giant population, with the charge being lead by a young Flaernan named Asharena Zhirkiyen

This lasted for about two centuries and as people got more desperate, the coal half elves were basically taken out of their caves and enslaved to become conscripted soldiers despite their physical constitutions being naturally terrible The Flaernans were considering leaving and moving to the surface of Cevris Atsal or joining the Dalirnans out of fear that no one could solve the giant problem, but Asharena got sick of the giants' shit and decided to charge into the central volcano alone to break the core, basically burning herself from the inside by letting her fire magic burn up her lifespan in exchange for power to charge through many giants and surviving plunging into pure elemental energy for just long enough to destroy the core surrounded by infused lava

The remaining giants would begin to crumble in the week after and the central volcano would become dormant, then solidify and be nothing more than a big hole in the ground

Asharena would be celebrated as the first warrior of Flaerna and become an example of duty to the kingdom and courage to the people that came after, with the city of Embylviska being established in the former central volcano No remains were ever found, so it's believed by everyone that her bones burned up in the lava and her soul became part of the land to watch over the kingdom

As for the coal half elves, only the Flaernans ever knew they existed, and they don't talk about it as it's considered a shame upon their history. The half elves themselves died out during the war against the giants

Floernia- The Tale of Lynaea and Cirania, the Speaker of the Forests

Okay they have less problems than Flaerna

So Cirania, a Dysheraln, lead the group of survivors to what would become Floernia out of benevolence, but the other Dysheraln did not respond so kindly Nature does not forget, and the memories of the Dak-Shan never faded. Cirania was willing to set aside the old grievances between the elves and Dysheraln, but the others felt that the elves culling Dak-Shan when the Dust Era ended, the Fall destroying land and rearranging continents, then the fallout poisoning the world with new elemental energies were all slights against them

Some of the Dysheraln, out of respect for Cirania, would move into isolation so they would not have to suck up to elves but also not be able to cause them harm Some of the other Dysheraln held onto the old hatred and would wage war with the new Floernians when they tried to settle in the forests A few were willing to set aside the past and actively ally with or at least advocate for the Floernians to the vengeful Dysheraln, but they'd be socially ostracized by the other Dysheraln

Now is there another war? No actually which is probably shocking

So even though the Dysheraln are technically not elementals(at the same time they kinda are, but are counted as half-elementals), they have their own little realm limited to a little half-plane above the land of Floernia and there's two big trees, The Ebon Cypress and The Cedar of Life The Ebon Cypress is what dictates natural death for the Dysheraln, and each of them that passes grows another branch upon the tree The Cedar of Life is what dictates the birth of Dysheraln and memories of nature Now this realm is supposed to be just pure nature, but the long forgotten past that even nature does not remember comes back to haunt them

So the Ebon Cypress actually doesn't do much load bearing, the Cedar does which means it's also more prone to problems Usually these problems are fixable, but this time it was hidden darkness that spread in the core of the tree and spread this darkness into the cores of the Dysheraln This darkness has always existed but never really spread until now, and it stored the malice from the memories of the past which became contagious and was why many Dysheraln could not move on

The new Floernians were told this by Cirania, who despite her great power was not immune to such corruption either, and all of them would gather to use their newfound control over nature to create a birch seed enchanted with their goodwill, with the nicer Dysheraln joining them to teach them how to keep the magic stable

As the malice continued to bleed into the wills of the Dysheraln, it was found that the process would accelerate if a Dysheraln was in the realm compared to outside of it, so many would remain in Floernia and didn't dare to venture into it Floernians that tried to go in were drained of their very essence by the trees as they were not elementals in any way, so some of the Dysheraln would choose to "reproduce" with some willing Floernians by pouring their essence into a pregnant Floernian, which would lead to the births of the Nynphor, a new variant of half elves that were free from the binds of the Cedar and Cypress and could also withstand their power better than Floernians could

As they grew up, Lynaea would be marked among them as the one with the most potential to bring the birch seed to the trees and plant it between them to purify the corruptive malice, as she was one that gave love and kindness freely even to a bitter darkness

When she was a century old, she took on the birch seed and acknowledged that she would likely not come back, with Cirania following her to guide her to the space between the Cedar and Cypress

Though the draining properties of the trees made her weaker with each step, she powered through and would clutch the seed closely, using her essence to plant the seed and allow it to take root from her own goodwill Cirania would sacrifice herself and become a shell for Lynaea's essence and the seed to protect them from the corruption for as long as it took to reach the roots of the Cedar, and thus would begin the process of the reversal of the corruption

Lynaea would never come back, but the Dysheraln knew her and Cirania's sacrifice as they felt the darkness that clouded their wills dissipate, and the majority of them would gradually return to their realms with the ones remaining choosing to tolerate the Floernians

The Nynphor still exist as the symbol of goodwill between the Dysheraln and Floernians, and the names of Lynaea and Cirania are still celebrated every thousand years as the ones that brought peace and unity

Föllen Alatsa- The Cave of Bloodied Quartz

No long story I swear So during the Ember War, there was a cave that was mined into and it was filled with bright red quartz that glowed and had an ominous feeling to them People that saw the crystals felt sickened on sight and could not be in their presence for very long Some people thought that these crystals had a new source of power and went in, and basically found out that those crystals are like an elaborate system of magical parasites and drove people mad if exposed to them for a long enough time in high amounts The cave was quickly sealed off and guards placed around the tunnels that led into it, and samples brought from the cave were quickly destroyed with the people exposed to them thrown into the cave Everyone exposed would mutate and go mad from the strange power of the crystals, and this actually warranted Lustariseans stepping in to magically seal off all the stone around it to prevent the cave from growing bigger through erosion and prevent people from mining into it by accident

Do you ever read a fic so interesting you want behind the scenes lore, ten pinterest moodboards and one of those fancy .gif edits but none of that exists bc it's a fanfic?

Wow reading elder scrolls lore has done no favours to my writing, I think I'm getting more incomprehensible each time I come up with lore or something substantial to post about.

I don't think I'm going to do fourth wall breaks or any absurd time travel shit unless I feel like it really benefits the lore and doesn't break the pre-established rules of the existence(or would not even be possible because of High Realm shenenigans)

If anyone needs a less absurd version of any specific post, please don't be afraid to ask on the posts or in my ask box.

Part 1, The High Realms(Tilemgie- Boriasonde) Drafts

The proper Boriasonde(Tilemgie) post is here: https://at.tumblr.com/elvaria-project/universal-lore-part-1-the-high-realmstilemgie/yo1donzt3f70

If I were to assign one word to each of the stories of the High Realms, Altersae's would be fear, Spaelcul's would be frustration, Voiskana's would be vengeance, and Tilemgie's would be hope.

I wanted to convey that the Tilemgians are the ones that will be able to let go and forge a future for themselves, and thus the story ends on a hopeful note, but I'm not sure if I managed that correctly, so here's the versions that didn't make the cut. I'm not going to bother adding the writing taglist to this post since it's very trivial.

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Version 1(Incomplete)

Note: This one got chopped because it would've been too long and also too dramatic. I also felt that the first part was very irrelevant so I just scrapped the whole thing.

Howling sandstorms tore across the dunes of Desaebla, leaving behind swirling grains of sand that remained afloat in the skies.

The skies would remain a burnt yellow in hue as the storms persisted for many days, but not all of the desert was battered by these storms, for far away from the Asurei-shielded Dalirnan cities was a canyon surrounded by strange magic.

To the eyes of outsiders, there was no canyon, and they felt no pull to travel across or near it. To them, it was simply another dune among the many that covered Desaebla. To those more observant, they saw the air ripple ever so slightly when sand grains passed through it, but they assumed it was only a hallucination from the scorching heat and felt a compulsion to leave it be.

But the canyon was no strange phenomena akin to the air-lands that dotted the skies or the perpetually ablaze lands of Emorscal, it was unnatural, carved by the hands and power of many that came from a realm afar.

The strange beings known as Tilemgians were once a grand race that held power over the concept of Time, for their creator Tilisnet was the embodiment of Time and the one that granted each Cycle a beginning and end and the ability to progress.

Without Time, there would have been no start of life or creation to be born upon the Space of Seclir, and there would not have been a definitive beginning of this existence for Avaas to cultivate.

This Cycle, though, was always bound to meet a short end from the circumstances Avaas had seeded. Tilisnet knew of the beginning and end of each existence, but it was not his duty to speak of these, only to ensure that Time would still flow to its natural end. His people would also know of this, and they understood that it was not their place to change fate, as no one could, and that they were not preservers of individual worlds or civilizations, as that was the duty of Avaas and his people. They had foreseen the end of their realm of Boriasonde and the disappearance of Tilisnet, but they were never able to prepare for it or warn the other High Realms of it, as this existence had an ordained fate from the start of this Cycle, and this fate dictated that their race would fall from grace.

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Version 2(Complete-ish)

Note: his was supposed to be a comic but then I realized that I cannot draw in a comic format for my life. I'll stick to single shots thank you very much. The character in yellow is not the same character as the one in the proper Tilemgie post. This would've been titled Clockwork Bird. Also please disregard any issues with the text colouring, I cannot fix it at all. Tumblr is just making it worse each time I try.

"I still hear the whispers carried by time, you know. Not ones that carry orders from Tilisnet, of course, but whispers from people."

"That's not very encouraging considering our current circumstances. Are you certain that you're not hallucinating?"

"Don't be ridiculous, I'm not hallucinating. "But it turns out there's still things to learn. "There's a word mortals have that we don't- miracles. When good things happen without reason or explanation."

"We're long past believing in that sort of thing. Our realm is gone and our powers are diminishing. Many of us are scattered across all points of existence and some of us are unfortunate enough to become sick from the memories we hold."

"But we're still alive, aren't we? Though we don't have much power compared to our past selves, we still have power and we can still survive on these mortal planets. These are miracles, if not to you then at least to me."

"At this point I don't consider our survival as a miracle, more like a tribulation. At any moment we could disappear, and at any moment time could cease to exist and this existence's past, future, and present could collide and end this Cycle."

"But that hasn't happened yet. Time still flows, even if the sands do not flow entirely in the right direction. But living on the mortal plane for the past few hundred thousand years has taught me to focus more on the little things rather than the grim bigger picture. "We're no longer bound solely to our duty- we can afford to care more about ourselves as individuals, if not be a little selfish."

"Selfishness brings irrationality. You are becoming irrational, sister. This is not good for us, and we cannot forget our duties that we were created for, as without us there is no time."

"I never said to forget our duties entirely, just that we have more "freedom"- another idea I learned from eavesdropping on mortals. "Boriasonde being destroyed and TIlisnet disappearing at first seemed like tragedy when I looked into our future eons ago. But to be honest, I've forgotten a lot of what came after. I've chosen to let go of many memories in order to live like this."

"But I have chosen to remember."

"And you've become sick as a result. "Fate is a strange thing, and I know there's no one that embodies it since it's the natural progression of entropy, but I don't see this fate as our end. "I think of it as our signal to change. It's going to hurt, but maybe change will redefine our place in this existence."

"And you think the memory overload is a "miracle"? The permanent death of many billions of us, the impending doom of our kind, and the loss of Tilisnet? "This was not a good change, and you saw how change led to our current predicament- in fact the whole of existence's predicament! The Abyss was never meant to exist, Avaas' desire for change doomed us all. The change you suggest, there is no guarantee that it will not end us."

"Tell me, when I release this clockwork bird, does it matter if it remembers me after I die?"

"Our situation is not comparable to a clockwork bird."

"Just humour me."

"...No, but birds are not bound by-"

"-When I set it free and let it pass through the barrier, this being of clockwork will become a real bird that breathes and bleeds. It has no duty other than to survive, and whether or not it does shouldn't be determined by me. When I am left in the past, the bird will have a choice to remember or forget and to stay or go. "If it stays, it will die without knowing the world outside and never realize what it could've been. If it goes, it will learn of the many wonders of life outside this canyon and be able to live a life of it's own choice. "Our fall from grace was a tragedy, yes, but we are the clockwork bird with the choices in front of us."

"...If we change, who will be left to maintain time when we become a new race?"

"As long as we still exist, Time will endure. We will never bleed red like the elves on this planet, but we'll always be connected to the Sands of Time, and so will the race that comes after us. "The bird is still a clockwork being in its heart, and the essence of clockwork will be carried by its children if it chooses to have any. "We should fly freely in order for Time to live on, we can't be afraid of mortality forever. Even if flying defies parts of our duties, we will still carry on the essence of them. "No one has to be sick anymore from the memories. Actually, we don't even need all of our memories for our duties- we just need to know how to fix and maintain Time, not all the details of said Time."

"And what if the day comes where our memories will prove crucial to whether or not this existence will outlast the Abyss?"

"Write them down and give them to the Altersaeans and Spaelculans. We can warn them now without the duty stopping us. "This is the miracle all of us have been looking for since our creation. Even if some of us never wanted to fly, we've all wanted to be able to warn others in the hope that maybe, just maybe we could change fate. We don't all have to die. This existence doesn't have to end this way."

"...Then for once I will believe in your irrationality and "miracles"...but are you certain that the sickness will end if we forget the future and past?"

"I'm not going to say certain, because I gave up foresight for my life. "But just take the chance so we can live for the first time since our creation- and that clockwork bird will be our guide."

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Okay so one last notes section. I chose to not(and also kinda forgot to) mention the whole "there's pretty much no one managing time right now except like a very small population of Tilemgians" thing. Time may or may not get messy when I work on the present and future of Elvaria itself.

Also felt the need to slightly elaborate on line "We now can evolve as the drakes on the elven planet and the crystalline structures on the pseudo-planet have done." in the proper post, mainly the crystalline part because the drake stuff is in the Dust Era post.

So I'm probably never going to talk about the pseudo-planet since that draws away from the focus on Elvaria(which the realms posts are already doing so I need to do less of that), but basically Elvaria's solar system has six planets, and of those six two of them have life, being Elvaria itself and the pseudo-planet. They'll pretty much never interact so it's very irrelevant, but the life on that planet is crystalline time-crystals and the planet itself is in a phase state because of it's composition also being mostly time crystals. Tilemgians on there are doing pretty good in comparison to the ones on Elvaria since the pseudo-planet is closer to sands of time than any other.

this will be relevant soon :)

This is a note to myself Elementals- foreign beings from the elemental planes Primordials- beings that sprung from Elvaria when elemental energies started bleeding into the world Elementals aren't like fully sentient beings from the view of a regular person, they're more than that but sort of in a lower dimension way(?), like if people think in 3D(concept of length width and depth so having a tangible idea of space and being limited to what can be seen from a point on a 3d object like a globe), elementals think more like 2d where they're missing the idea of "limits" and inherently will not understand strictly 3d concepts unless they fuse with something 3d(so like half elves on Elvaria just think normally but with a different perspective of existence compared to before they became half elves) Abstract ideas to us are not abstract to elementals, that's how they think normally and vice versa with regular beings

They're not simple and have different needs than Lower Realm beings so they don't need ideas like distinct cultures or individuality, but rather the desire to spread influence Bringing elemental energies to Elvaria to them was extending a gift to the elves and embracing the world's "potential" as it now had the energy(asurei) to "reach" and break through limits, while the elves at the time saw it as making their problems worse and the elemental energy as bleeding into the world instead of a gift for them to prosper The elves in the modern day think of elementals as cryptic and foreign beings but elemental energies are now widely used and there is definitely more appreciation towards it

Primordials are not that smart and were never meant to be, they're basically when things in the world have the spark of "potential" and elemental energies will seep into them to create a core in something, which will spring out a primordial from similar structures(ie volcanoes created the fire giants but the main core was in Embylviska) Since they lack the kind of spark elementals have, they're very simple and think like animals even if their thoughts are "3d" Half-elementals are right in between, since by technicality they're from the world but were created from outside means that didn't come from the elementals. Their intelligence also varies since it's determined by whoever created them

So what is the "potential"? Honestly I have no idea yet, but for now the idea is ability to adapt or if it's at a certain threshold that makes it distinct from others of the same kind The ability to adapt doesn't necessarily have to have been there from the start, it can be triggered from a specific event that gives everything in the world "potential" and that "potential" will attract elementals to it naturally Not every world in the Lower Realm will have "potential", so not every world has an elemental presence. There still may be elements, but they're just regular elements like in the real world Half elves aren't necessarily elves with more "potential" than others, but rather what's most convenient for an elemental seeking to assimilate because of its core losing energy

Universal Lore- Part 1, The High Realms(Altersae- Anarexen)

Avaas had always been the first of the Four that embodied existence in the boundless cycle, as he represented the very idea of "alternatives" and was The Watcher of all that would ever exist. He was the only one of the Four that could still remember all that had occurred since the very first Cycle- the indescribable joys of observing the first civilizations that advanced to traverse space, the sorrows each time the Cycle was at the time to close and planets could no longer exist, the emptiness in the time between Cycles, and the pain of betrayal in the times where there was a Fifth. The Fifth of his kin would've been the same innumerable age as him, would it not have been the fifth being sealed away some many distant Cycles ago after going mad in the face of inevitability.*¹ Avaas' duty was and has always been first and foremost preservation until it was fated for his duty to end, and in this Cycle it was no different, save for one minor difference. He felt that Nix had become irrational, in a sense, over each Cycle, never learning to become independent from the rest of them, and thus never developing that sense of a "beyond" that stretched past the expanses of nothingness that Nix was. So he assumed that in this Cycle, Nix would be fine on his own and find his way back to them without them to guide him towards the radiance of creation, and would learn that there was more to existence than what he[Avaas] could ever teach him.

Tilisnet of Time and Seclir of Space did not disagree with Avaas' choice, as they too felt that Nix needed the valuable experience of "growing up" after many Cycles where he did not need to. After all, each Cycle started and ended about the same, so it surely wouldn't have been too difficult for Nix to find his way through creation's light as he did in the previous Cycles. But of course, none of them truly understood the essence of Nothingness past "lack of an existence", but Nothingness could wallow and knew misery and fear. Tilisnet, Seclir, and Avaas were furthest from the beings that came from creation, and thus they did not realize that Nothingness could perceive the fear creation held towards Nothingness. They did not know that Nix feared disappearing as creation spread across the many universes, and they did not realize that Nix would judge their choice to find his way alone would be interpreted as abandonment. Avaas, The Watcher of all that could exist, had turned away from the darkness, and was blind to what lurked in the Abyss. In this action did he fail at his foremost duty to preserve, as this mistake would cost this existence dearly. But do not mistake Avaas for an ignorant being, as he had duties to perform that were separate from preservation. As Tilisnet let his sands flow through existence and bring the concept of time and Seclir weaved his spatial threads to create the tapestry of space, Avaas was to oversee the first light of this Cycle as the first universes were born. As one does with a tree did he cultivate and graft branches onto the first universes, creating alternate ones as these seeds of existence sprouted and grew, and quickly in the eyes of the timeless did planets and stars emerge. As The Watcher, Avaas was to witness each of the planets that could potentially develop life, and as The Preserver, guard them until it was their time to fade with the end of their universe. It was a strenuous duty to watch every planet with life across the whole existence of a Cycle, some inconceivable number beyond mortal understanding which was under his jurisdiction. In the past Cycles, he would assume this duty himself without complaint, but early in this Cycle did he feel an unusual air of dread that echoed throughout the existence. For the first time since the Fifth was sealed away, he knew fear.

In order to split his duties to better watch over all the new planets across the universes he observed, he created beings out of the very concept of "alternatives" he represented. The first of these beings was granted parts of his knowledge to pass on to the others, and he asked the first to name themselves. The being would choose the name Anaare, and so Avaas would name the realm created for the beings to roam Anarexen in their honour, and name the beings themselves Altersaeans.

These beings would aid him in watching over and protecting planets with life across the many galaxies and universes in existence, and they were the alternative to him if he were to fail in his duties or some force were to stretch across existence to smother the light of creation and life.

As these beings were the many eyes of The Watcher that gave him more reach into the corners of existence*², they were also the first to notice the creeping darkness that reached toward stars and snuffed out their light, and they would realize that they could try as they might to preserve, but they could not escape inevitability against a force even Avaas did not know.

They would try to hold out against this creeping darkness, sending some tens of them to hold it off of developing civilizations, but even their mighty power perceived as godly by mortals were many times not enough.

Sometimes they were successful in holding off the darkness and the beings that sprung from the rifts the darkness bled through, sometimes they could only buy time as the worlds were doomed and the only choice left was for civilizations to flee to another planet, but in the cases were the Altersaeans could do neither, they could only watch the worlds be consumed and the people be damned to whatever lay in wait in the devouring abyss.

Avaas would take notice as he watched some of the branches of universes begin to lose their light, and he watched as stars would flicker and disappear from existence. The Altersaeans began to report of the darkness that consumed the stars and many mortal lives, and they said that the darkness had felt like a false life- nothingness that tried to imitate the idea of existence but was limited by its own being. They said it had felt familiar, like a distant brother that had lost their way and stumbled in the dark calling for them-

But they said that they also felt afraid of this darkness. This darkness was subsequently natural and unnatural, lonely but vengeful- and Avaas would quickly realize that this was the dread that he had felt long ago, the dread that warranted the creation of the Altersaeans.

He knew all they had felt, as they were a part of him as much as he was a part of them, but he did not want to believe his mind's first thought. It was likely the truth, but as he felt fear, he did not want to accept the truth.

His fear turned him irrational, and so he did not tell the truth to his people.

He did not want to believe that the darkness that plagued the light of creation sprung from his own kin Nix, and so for the first time in his existence did he choose to tell a lie.

This lie was for himself as much as it was for his people.

They all bore witness to the fall of Boriasonde and Tilisnet's sudden disappearance, and Avaas would learn of the increasing amounts of turbulence and breaks in the fabric of space from Seclir, but he continued to hide the truth from his people as he did not want to be seen as a flawed and irrational being, and he himself acknowledging the truth would be acknowledging that he had failed the duty of preservation that he was meant to embody. His own blindness and lack of foresight to Nix's perspective of existence was what would spell the unnatural end of this Cycle.

In this did he realize that he was never omnipotent, and that even the embodiments of the 4 concepts of existence were as flawed as the mortals they presided over.

He could not find Tilisnet even in the in-betweens of universes, and with Tilisnet's creations being scattered around existence, he could not ask them if they had foreseen this.

Something so simple as assuming a seemingly small change would not lead to disaster had led to this, and Avaas still could not accept this.

To this day, the Altersaeans are not aware of the truth, continuing to perform their duties in the belief that the abyss was natural with the passage of time and that it stemmed from the inaccessible in-betweens of universes. They try in genuine faith to their duty and Avaas to protect as many civilizations from this abyss as possible, and their work has thus far held off the darkness well enough for mortals to not be aware of its existence, but this will not always be enough, and they knew as well as Avaas did that this was an undeniable truth. The darkness does not halt for the whims of what it believes to want it destroyed, and it will continue to spread its roots throughout existence- to the worlds with boundless "potential"*³, and so the Cycle may once again return to nothingness.

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¹- Post coming at some point when I feel the time is right, it's in the perspective of Avaas to recount the Fifth.

²-This will be mentioned in the posts for other realms, but despite other realms being part of the existence that makes up a Cycle, no High Realms being can access any realm other than the Lower Planes(where planets are). The Elemental Planes are far too low for their power to reach into as their concepts are entirely separate from that of the elementals, and the realms between the High Realms and Lower Planes are either related to death or are small pocket dimensions limited to regions of worlds that reject High Realms influence.

³- Refer to this post since even though it's a note to self it does somewhat explain what the "potential" is -------------------- Taglist for writing-

@aneci If anyone else would like to join the taglist, feel free to DM me or send in an ask! I will also have a separate taglist for art posts.

No I have no abandoned the account I'm just very tired

I have blocked around 34 bots in the past two weeks and just barely made deadlines for missing work and then I got hit by the Demotivation™ so I will probably only post once this weekend