**Deep Space**

In one of the few populated worlds at the galactic rim, far from the grand conflicts of interstellar empires, a terrible plight befell a simple people. The Joraga were a tribe of the earth, deeply attuned with their world and its natural processes. They lived in harmony with the cycles of their world, ebbing and flowing with the seasons, in perfect harmony with every natural being on their planet. However, what plagued them was most certainly not natural, nor of their planet.

Earthcaller Doria, a strong, well-respected tribesman, observed the destruction from his arboreal perch. In the distance was the most horrifying sight he had ever looked upon. A monstrosity of twisted flesh and distorted energy laid waste to the horizon; where there had once been a thick jungle, only a barren wasteland remained. The blue faded from the sky around it, and even the browns of the earth seemed to dull away to darkness. It hurt his head to even look at it, its shape bleeding and twisting before his eyes. Its mere footsteps wasted away all life around it and eroded the earth under it, leaving a trail of ruin in its wake. It was not moving in the direction of his village, but that was of little comfort. There were far more invaders than that particular one, and many of them were more terrifying that what he had seen.

Scrambling down from his vantage point, he ducked into a wooden cabin, where a concerned members of his tribe gathered worriedly around one of their elders. Her eyes had rolled back into her head as she seized and convulsed unnaturally, moaning and writhing in agony. Earthmother Naia had attempted to commune with the World Spirit, seeking a solution to this crisis, some hours ago. She had been in this state since then, and their fate had only seemed graver since then.

"Any news, Doria?" Asked one of the Earthmother's attendants.

"There is no word from the Skydancers. They may have run into a swarm of the Blight," Unable to find words in their tongue for such monsters, they euphemistically referred to the invaders as a disease. "The Seawalkers have been gone for a week without a sign from them, also. We may be the last Joraga left at this point."

Most in attendance had a grave look cross their face, accepting this news solemnly. Only one member of the gathering cried out, weeping bitter tears of anguish. They envied her in a way, able to express her grief so clearly. The rest were too confused over what they grieved for more: the world, or themselves.

An explosion sounded in the distance. Doria dashed back up to his perch to see what had happened. A distant mountain, known to be a dead volcano, had just exploded in a fiery rage. It was far enough that it posed no threat to the Joraga, much like the virulent giants that had been causing similar destruction, but Doria had a good view of it none the less. Ash poured into the sky and molten rock flowed down the mountain's sides in great, flaming waves. This was not what most bothered Doria, though. Another one of the invaders, this one larger than any that Doria had ever spied in the distance, climbed atop the mountain as a child might crawl atop the stump of a tree. Its many tendrils sunk into the molten caldera of the mountain, and seemed to suck the very lava from its depths. Doria watched in horror for some time, shocked by both the impossible size of this beast, and the fact that it drained the very volcano to a husk in the time it would take Doria to clean a fish. How could they possibly contend against such monsters?

Doria returned to the Earthmother's gathering, weighing heavily whether it was worth it to dishearten his tribesmen with such news. However, a more important occurrence was transpiring: the Earthmother was awake! Pale, hollow-faced, and her eyes dark and shrunken, she drank heavily from a waterskin as her attendants gathered close. Each questioned her with desperation in their voice, asking for any wisdom or solace that the World Spirit had to share.

Having drained the waterskin, the Earthmother stayed silent for a moment, before finally speaking in a dull, deadened tone. "The World Spirit is dying. As the Blight rapes and mutilates her, all things of this world are dying, too."

"What do we do, Earthmother?" Asked the Joraga that had cried earlier, now out of tears to shed.

"Your path is your own, child, but I shall pray." The Earthmother said, her voice now soothing as was more normal.

This change brought a spark to Doria's eyes. "For what, Earthmother? Salvation? Resurgence?"

The Earthmother looked back at him, all life and light gone from her eyes. "I pray for a quick death."

Such was the fate of many worlds in the outer rim. The Aeon Brood spread like a contagion, each ruined system birthing a nest of them triple the size of the last. Their kind spread across the galaxy like a horrifying stain, wiping away peoples, planets, stars, constellations, anything that crossed their path. In the heart of this, as always, was the Hellstar. As more and more systems fell to the Brood, it grew, a horrifying mass of the plundered mana of a thousand ruined worlds. As it grew, it advanced, the paradoxical thing flying through the empty space that had been picked clean by its Brood.

At the edges of the Brood's advance, Titans pulled their burgeoning masses through hyperspace. Despite being tucked away in a dimension of unreality, their intense metaphysical presence left a distortion on real space. Gravity wells grew and faded away, various space debris suddenly appeared or vanished, and space probes and unmanned craft shut down without warning. Every so often it would release scouts; smaller members of the Brood shunted out of hyperspace to detect nearby systems or worlds that the Titans were blind to while in the other dimension. How this information was relayed back to the Titan in hyperspace was a mystery, but none the less, the path of the Brood was altered slightly by the signs of starlight far away, and their diverted course now lead them deeper into the depths of the galaxy. Closer to the galactic core, the greatest wellspring of mana in the entire sector of space.