[center][h3]Nature's Decree[/h3][/center]

In the rolling green hills and forest dells of Galbar, a crisp air heralded the winter's slow southward march; fall was beginning to reach its peak. That cerulean sky above made the rusty autumn woodland glow ever brighter for the contrast. The flaxen colored leaves already had tinges of garnet and ocher, and so already there was a vibrant sea of a hundred different hues that carpeted the woodland ground. Nature always painted the most pristine of all pictures.

From an oaken branch, one delicate leaf at last succumbed to its fate and began to fall. Ever slowly it drifted down, but it did not have the fleeting opportunity to dance in the wind before it came to rest below forevermore. There was no wind, not even the smallest eddy of movement. The sky above was utterly cloudless and stark in its depths. Streams and brooks meandered slowly and without their usual lively animation, whilst the waves lolled weakly upon the shores and no mighty tides came save those chaotic ones created by the many moons above. Even the earth underfoot seemed especially lifeless and still, and all things seemed to lack that spark of excitement, that inner flame that kindled warmth and helped them through the growing cold. The forest was lazy and still, eerily winterlike in its utter silence. It might have been tranquil to one at first, but something was unmistakably wrong. The forces of nature were missing, nowhere to be found.

[center][b] *  * * *  * [/b][/center]

In sight of the countless stars in the somber night sky, a great bluff overlooked the silent sea. The trade winds blew strong now, a steady rumble came from a faroff volcano, and next to that burning mount were the distant outlines of the mighty Ironhearts. Fittingly, resting atop that sacred bluff were three mighty djinn, each a master over one of those elements: there was the Stormlord Tempus, the Stonelord Gneiss, and Firelord Cinder. Only water was missing.

The sun rose over the blue horizon heralding day, and then fell when it was time to yield to the inevitability of night once more. The sun rose again the next morn, and again it fell; this repeated many times, and still the three were silent. Days were mere blinks of the eye to these great spiryts; for them, time was measured more in centuries or millenia.

At last there came another night when the black water below the fjord at last had its stillness shattered. There was no mere ripple; a wave of gigantic proportions roared as it raced towards the shore. With a boom like thunder the mighty tsunami crashed upon the rock face of the fjord, but where a normal wave would fall broken and retreat back to the sea this one only climbed. The water itself clung to the stone face and slowly the great mass pulled itself upward. Great hands of amorphous fluid grasped the top of the precipice, and with one great heave the Waterlord Hydraxis at last clambered to the crown of that fjord and made his way to the bluff. His host of lesser elementals fell into ranks and followed after him.

Finally, each of the elements had answered Nature's summons and convened. The talk could begin, the decision could be made, and here Fate would be decided.

As was fitting and always the case, wind spoke first. [color=LightSkyBlue]"Noble Basheer, all have heard whispers of your fate. But repeat your tale, that we might hear it from your own words,"[/color] quoth one sharp voice from amongst the howling winds of Tempus' raging body.

The eyes of all four elements looked now to Basheer, who stood in the middle of the circle. The weight of their combined gaze was crushing in its intensity.

With an expression of deep gravity, the mighty Djinni rose up upon the winds so that his head was above all others - apart from those of the Great Lords - and his word sounded. It was a deep and strangely melodic voice, unlike anything other elementals were capable of making. Indeed, this was further evidence of the traumatising experience had undergone, so long had he been trapped that his very voice had taken on an almost musical constitution.

'I speak from memory sharpened by relentless winds and storms, and with a voice that has, over eons, taken countless shapes and forms. I have, willingly and unwillingly, screamed my pain and fury across the Iron Mounts, 'tis a voice that reached the ocean depths and wellsprings of the greatest founts. Listen well as I regale all present here with this, my tale,' his eyes moved from one elemental lord to another, and he looked down also upon those gathered below - who seemed captivated by his strange voice and and words.

'I remember, I remember, a season blooming with life, a Spring, when all the birds flew about me and I with them did sing. And we flew together, frolicking and playing - so much so that I knew where I was straying. Foolish me! I thought myself too powerful to harm, and so it was that, much to my alarm, I was set upon by a fiend must strong and scary - and the birds cared not to tarry - and it took me far away where I could neither sing nor play. There, life was pain and torture. I screamed! - much to its laughter, and found no aid or saviour. I was, truthfully, stunned by its behaviour, for it neither consumed me nor released me, but instead it pained and teased me. Then, certain of my entrapment, it left, and I remained, weeping and bereft. I cried for help, but no one came - for eons I wallowed in misery and shame. This creature, which left me trapped and static, was most certainly vile and Jvanic. Of this fact I have no doubt, for my saviour, small yet stout, told me so. I was saved by a creature brave and gallant and, you may laugh at this, it was an ant! I know not where this brave saviour has gone, but I promised it a reward for all it had done. So if ever you should come across her, be kind - do not oppress her,' and with his tale - if it could be called that - done, the Djinni descended back down and looked up at the great elemental lords for assurance that he had done as they wished.

Cinder reacted brashly and first, as was fire's nature. [color=f26522]"Vengeance must be wrought; my kind know this well. To so much as touch the flame is to be burned! Are we not united in this?"[/color]

[color=LightSkyBlue]"We were not yet done,"[/color] the Stormlord dismissively said to Cinder. The Firelord equally radiated contempt; the two had always been bitter enemies, more than simple rivals. The flame devoured the wind but feared the rain that it brought, and so both had naught but scorn for the other.

Tempus continued, [color=LightSkyBlue]"The Vile-One and Corruptor called Jvan hath defied Nature in more ways than one. Basheer was tormented and imprisoned. Others have met fates far more worse. They have been corrupted, [i]changed[/i], and forced to go against not only their nature but that of us all. They were made into something other than djinn, and they were made to worship and serve at the whims of the vile one that twisted them so, Jvan itself."[/color]

A collective shudder went through Water whilst Fire raged even more; only Stone, ever implacable and unfeeling, managed to refrain from offering any reaction at all.

[color=1b1464]"Sometimes the water may be forgiving and flow around the obstacles that challenge it. Other times, the river must carve its way to the sea by force. This is one such time. We must not tolerate this gross abuse and this insult to our power. Let it be known that the Sea and the Rills stand with Flame,"[/color] proclaimed the wise lord Hydraxis.

Still Gneiss had not spoken. The earth was always slow, stubborn, and prideful; no doubt he simply insisted upon the petty honor of being last to speak. Tempus was eager to bring about an end to this, for this simple conversation of the elements had been an eternity by the standards of mortals and had stretched out for days. Deciding to oblige the Stonelord's obvious wish, Tempus agreed, [color=LightSkyBlue]"Of course Jvan's offenses are too many and action must be taken. That is why the wind summoned you to this conress. That is why the Storm will stand with Water and Fire for this."[/color]

The days passed by like leaves swept along in the wind. Birds landed upon the body of the great Gneiss and the moss that was his beard slowly grew longer. After a tortuously long time of patiently allowing the last great lord to think, it was Cinder who snapped first.

[color=f26522]"Gneiss! You have had far more than enough time to contemplate this. Do not waste our time; agree and be done with it, then return to your wretched mountains to rest. I long for the comforting heat of my volcano."[/color]

The Stonelord's massive head cocked slightly to gaze at Cinder. [i]What a petulant little one![/i] Gneiss at least saw fit to answer that accusation with a timely manner. [color=DimGray]"Stone does not hurry,"[/color] he retorted, [color=DimGray]"...it is longer lived than the puny little fire, which comes and goes in a day. The mountains last for an eternity."[/color]

In a violent eruption the fires of Cinder roared and grew along with his ire. Each and every djinn of the flame that stood behind their master similarly flared, and they very nearly fought right then. It was only through the quick intervention of Hydraxis that the flames were cooled down, the Waterlord only barely managing to talk reason into his rival. Water would not see this meeting come to no fruition after so long, only because Fire could not control its anger.

Gneiss turned to Tempus. [color=DimGray]"Why?"[/color] he simply asked, not bothering to clarify his question further.

Tempus waited some time for Gneiss to continue, but upon realizing that the Stonelord would not, irritatedly asked, [color=LightSkyBlue]"Why? What might the Mighty Earth mean by [i]that[/i]?"[/color]

Gneiss answered back just as irate, his deep voice slowly rumbling,  [color=DimGray]"I...ask...WHY? Why...does...this...demand...my...response?"[/color]

Fire roared back, [color=f26522]"THE WORDS OF A COWARD! A FOOL!"[/COLOR] From the smallest kindling of a spark to the proudest of firelords, Cinder's great assembly flared and crackled in unison.

Gneiss remained dauntless and utterly statuesque, so stoic in the face of insult that he did not so much as move. Some of the more prideful or tumultuous of his subjects stomped their feet and meant to return the challenge, but the silent will of their implacable leader bid them calm. They soon obeyed; the earth's crushing will was not easy to defy.

[color=1b1464]"You stand willing to allow these ongoing trangressions? Jvan and the demon's servants continue to defy all that is natural and assault our kind; do you think that appeasement will work? Are you so foolish as to bow down and supplicate to insects?"[/color] Hydraxis countered, the being of the cooling waters speaking with such grace and rhetoric that he coaxed a passionate fire inside the hearts of his own water elementals and even some of the other djinn.

The Stormlord threw in, [color=LightSkyBlue]"Have you not listened? Need you hear twice the soliloquy of Basheer or any of us?"[/color]

The questions, the insults, and the taunts persisted. They were struck the Stonelord and were recoiled, his uncaring visage deflecting all injury that words might try to inflict. Why should the mountain concern itself with the tiny voices of the fly? At last, when they had all spoken and said their share twice or thrice, Gneiss at last grew tired of the repetition and answered them all, [color=DimGray]"The...sun...shines...still. The...rain...falls...on. Nature...remains...unspoiled. I...see...no...lasting...harm...inflicted...by...Jvan. Our...God...and...Creator...hath...not...seen...fit...to...battle...Jvan."[/color]

Slowly the Stonelord's voice had resounded, and nearly the whole time a clamor of others (both lesser elementals and indeed even the other three great lords) had tried to speak over him and yet failed. He would not be interrupted by them. They hurled spittle and insult yet for a time even after he had finished, but he paid that no heed. With patience and calm composure that was utterly insufferable to all others, he waited for any that might seek an intelligent discourse to answer to his logic.

Finally, Tempus tried to do so, [color=LightSkyBlue]"The almighty God-Creator does not intervene in any of affairs, and you know this well. Gneiss, do not insult me with your projection of what you think Zephyrion to be. Air is the first, the purest, and the noblest of all elements; it is we alone who may contact the Lord in his high palace and hear his will, so for the lesser elements that live in the shade of ignorance to deign lecture [i]us[/i] defies the natural hierarchy!"[/color]

With those rash and ill-thought words the meeting itself was threatened: Cinder and Hydraxis each became embroiled the moment that air proclaimed itself superior, and a terrifying quarrel ensued. Insults and taunts were hurled, but at the last moment before the elements turned upon one another and devolved the sacred moot into a cataclysmic clash of power, Gneiss brought it to an end.

[center]He silenced them all with one thunderous stomp that shook Galbar to its core.
[img]http://i.imgur.com/7R2fxH5.jpg[/img]
[/center]

[color=DimGray]"Let...there...be...peace...in...this...holy...place. Do...not...feud...like...the...creatures...of...flesh,"[/color] he commanded with an adamant tone of authority, and all obeyed.

[color=DimGray]"Tempus: I...too...am...the...Maker's...son.. My...strength...rivals...your...own; we...are...made...equal. While...you...are...right...that...I...may...be...a...bastard...child...in...the...eyes...of...our...father,  it...seems...that...I...know...him...best. He...does...not...intervene...because...he...trusts...our...judgement. Our...independence, our...erratic...actions, our...battles--these...[i]are[/i]...nature. We...are...nature. And...I, as...nature, am...not...offended...by...Jvan. Stone...hath...spoken. Do...as...you...will, but...as...for...my...dominion, Jvan...and...hers...find...refuge."[/color]

No objection cried out, not now. With a deliberate slow, Gneiss and his legions of stone turned their backs upon the circle and marched for their mountains. A thoughtful silence consumed them until the looming silhouette of the Stonelord's enormous body faded into the horizon, and then it resumed. An air of disbelief permeated the moot, and yet for all his wisdom, Gneiss had swayed none.

[color=LightSkyBlue]"Gneiss will not be made to see the truth, but know that his delusion hath not been passed unto this one. The Storm has decreed Jvan and hers unnatural and intolerable, and so we strike from above. Let them fear the sky!"[/color]

[color=f26522]"Hah! Should they stumble too close to the flame, they will be born anew as ash upon the wind. Should they hide from the flame, it will find them!"[/color]

More reluctantly than the others, Hydraxis finally concurred, [color=1b1464]"The sea and its shores shall offer no harbor, then; let the coming of the tides signal doom to Jvankind."[/color]

[color=LightSkyBlue]"Then the majority hath spoken, and we three reach a conflux: the word of Earth is overruled. Nature's Decree is made."[/color]

[center]--=~=--[/center]

A low din fell down from the heavens. It was a rolling sound, as if the sky itself was groaning, yet the darkening sky betrayed no signs of a storm. The confused animals bound to the land below could only look up in wonder or confusion. Eventually that sound faded as all things do, and with it departed memory of that strange occurence.

High above there soared a djinn, though he was not truly of the sky nor of the storm though he served them both. His form was that of the living tremor, his body naught but an oscillating wind.

This one's name was Murmur, and he was the herald that signalled storm. The djinni brought his hands together in the gentlest of claps and there was a deafening, strident boom of thunder. Its echoing roar racing through over the glades below and recoiling upon the distant mountains, terrifying all below and sending them fleeing for cover even when the skies were serene as ever.

Racing towards the horizon, Murmur clapped again here and there and sent the little ones below scurrying for their holes. He inhaled a deep breath of the air and became at one with nature, sensing all that went on in the forest below. Normally it was his duty to travel ahead of the stormlords and bring about thunder to terrify the doomed and offer forewarning to all else, but now there was no such storm brewing; the quarreling stormlords had yet to make up their minds as to what this year's weather would bring.

Left to his own devices, the thundering herald had chosen to fulfill another sacred duty: hunt down the defilers. Murmur remembered the days that he had been weak, hardly more than the smallest Flicker, he had been denounced an abomination, scorned, nearly devoured a hundred times...

Through nothing but the most determined perserverence he had survived and thrived, even though he was the only elemental of sound upon the face of Galbar, perhaps the only one of his kind in this world. He had grown. He had struggled. He had fought, and when he did, his enemies were ripped apart by his power and he devoured their essence; this only made him stronger. Finally, he was accepted as herald, and now he commanded respect. He was a god of sorts to those below; a paltry god of sound and thunder, but something mythical nonetheless.

[i]But what he once would have done to simply be normal, to fulfill his existence not as abberation but as one amongst many, as a grain of sand upon the endless white beach...[/i]

He would have done anything. He still did not know what it felt like to be 'normal'. Yet these Jvanic monsters had possessed all that and simply thrown it away, spurning their Maker and the serendipity that had blessed them. Beyond simply defying the natural order of things, changing their sacred nature, abandoning their duties, and voluntarily succumbing to the corruption of the demon Jvan, they insulted him personally as they discarded all those gifts that they had been given.

He hated them. He envied them. He destroyed them, wherever they hid.

As Murmur breathed in deeply, he sensed a waft of the most perfidious odor of all: that of eldritch corruption. His attunement to nature soon led him to the source, and he slammed into the horrid work of 'art' with all his might, shattering and pulverizing it. Rage poured into his heart. How dare the parasites spread their disease with this wretched sculpture!

He looked for the perpetrator of this crime, yet his vision failed him as he saw nothing. That was no matter; he turned to his other senses. As the sole Master of Sound and being of thunder, nothing escaped his earshot. He did not simply [i]hear[/i] or [i]sense[/i] every hushed breath and snapping twig within a mile, he [i]felt[/i] them.

So it was with neither surprise nor difficulty that he located the fleeing Sculptor. With a mighty clap, he shook the entire forest--the hunt was on! Laughing, he took to the skies and followed that abomination as it fled back to its lair; sometimes they lived in groups, so he always tracked them to their hiding holes. He had to if he wished to exterminate them all within the next thousand years, and Murmur very much wanted that.

After an eternity, the pursuit was finished. The mole had entered its burrow! It was time to finish this. With a great breath, Murmur pulled a great amount of air into his churning, vibrating mass of a form. Then he surged downwards towards the tiny cave where his terrified prey hid.

The Jvanic abomination inside heard nothing, not even the djinni's ambient din, for Murmur had charged with such speed and power that he was no longer sound. He was merely an explosive, concussive blast of force. He crashed into the earth and the cave began to collapse, though he did not stop. Travelling through the stones, still as a massive vibration, he at last found this particular member of the Jvanic Order. Like so many others before this one, the corrupted elemental was torn asunder. Murmur did not devour this one's essence, for though he hungered for more power, he did not seek to tempt fate by chancing himself with the corruption that might come from ingesting poison. Jvan's eldritch power had tainted that accursed victim so thoroughly that he dared not assimilate its power.

[hider=Summary]
This was my Jvan Week contribution.

*In one region of Galbar, the weather stops. Nature itself seems to fall dormant. This is because all of the elementals that are the driving force behind the natural world have declared a temporary truce and left their various regions of influence so that they might convene together at one place.

They meet upon a sacred bluff overlooking the Fractal Sea within sight of all the elements. After whispers of Basheer's long imprisonment and revelations of even djinni being inducted into the Jvanic Order, the elements discuss the twisted and parasitic beings engineering by Jvan. After days of quarreling without stop, Sky, Flame, and Water determine that they must retaliate against these trangressions against nature. Only Stone refuses to condemn the Jvanic beings, on the grounds of a few philosophical arguments that the others are quick to dismiss.

The cavernous deeps and the mountains that fall under the dominion of Earth offer relative safety. Elsewhere, there is no guarentee. The elementals of Air, Water, and Fire will be especially ruthless in hunting down the Sculptors that had once been Djinn and any of Jvan's creations that they see as unnatural or harmful.

A particularly vicious spiryt named Murmur quickly has success in hunting down his quarry.

*This is an important detail. While these events take place near the Fractal Sea where much of the Jvanic Order is likely located, other places beyond the demesnes of Tempus, Hydraxis, and Cinder are currently spared from the elementals' wrath.

**This takes place some time before Vestec's Horde became so important and began marching everywhere; the corrupted Storm Djinn are therefore not addressed, but don't take that to mean that the elementals don't object to that. Something similar will probably happen in which they hunt down and kill any Storm Djinn that survive the onslaught against the Chaos Horde.
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