[center][h1]Reaching the Heavens[/h1][/center]

Allianthé had been pacing around the Tree of Life. She stopped at the few shrines that inhabited it as she wordlessly asked her peers for guidance. The taint of death kept creeping up. All her fingers on her right hand had turned blackened. Beyond the Tree, more people were dying, more plants where chopped and more animals were being butchered. Of course she could help some. Maybe even most, but even as a goddess she had limits. How could she reconcile the existence of death and its taint upon her with the fact that it was an abhorrent part of reality?

What would Sylla do? The craft-goddess was ever only concerned with her own things to be sure, but her gifts were beautiful. The forge, divinium, allianthium and the other manifestations would help out Galbar for the rest of its existence. She didn’t see the different, imbued parts of divinium as tainted or wrong. Should she herself be more understanding too?

On the other side was Roisin Magnolia. The little goddess, who so purely saw Allianthé. She was young but she already shone with such adoration for life, and such regret for causing death. Roisin liked it as much as Allianthé it would seem, and she was the Ever-Beauty. What did that mean for Death if the most beautiful creation in the world abhorred it?

Then there was the shrine of Galaxor. Boisterous, loud, demanding, and ever in motion. Oh how simple his existence must be. Allianthé grew jealous but reminded herself that each had a different charge. Galaxor fostered heroism, in all of its aspects. She had a more fundamental role in existence. For without life, what was there to be heroic? Or - as she realized - what would there be to slay or adore?

So many questions.  Then her eyes turned towards the stoney cocoon of the Khodex. It never gave answers. Even though Allianthé had already begged and pleaded it to give her something. A sign, a mark, anything to tell her whether death should be accepted or rejected. “Just a sign.” She whispered as she took a cautious step towards the center of creation. “I cannot decide this for my own.” She pleaded as she took another step. To her surprise something happened now.

The Khodex within started to radiate its energy for the second time since it had entombed itself. Now it wasn’t already marked energy, like what was unleashed with Roisin Magnolia’s birth. This was something purer. Something more primordial. Pure potential, akin to what the Khodex offered [i]before[/i] creation! Allianthé stepped closer as she reached out. “Yes! Please! Show me! Please let me know and understand!” She begged as happy tears started to swell in her eyes. The literal weight of the world began to lift from her shoulders. She was being unburdened as she began to siphon the pure, primordial energy from the Khodex and let it flow through her. It was forming something on her and she let it. A majestic halo flickered into existence behind her.

Then the Khodex’s cocoon cracked.

Wrathful power emanated from the Khodex as creation suddenly fought back. It rejected Allianthé in a sudden turn. For a split second Allianthé didn’t allow it. Despite the sudden turn  she gripped the primordial energy she was still siphoning and pulled harder. She had earned it with her suffering! The Khodex responded more fiercly. It pulled back all the rejecting power and converged it into something else: pure creation focused against her.

Waves of life, heroism, fire, art, space, cycles, water, trickery, earth, civilization, violence and more unleashed upon her. A myriad of fundamentals and concepts assaulted her, as if the Khodex was trying to throw her away from it! She fought back, wrenched the dominion of life away from the Khodex and bend it against its assault of fundamental forces. Then the halo, that source of new understanding, came to her aid, as let her detach herself from the world and the concepts that directed its existence. She became detached from such petty ideas that would wage endless conflict with each other.

In a flash the violence that wracked the core of the Tree of Life stopped. Void-black wood grew through the floor and encased the Khodex fully, when it was finished, its bare branches bore kaleidoscopic leaves and its bark bore glimmering dots akin to stars. Allianthé looked around. The Shrines remained untouched, as if the Khodex did not wish to mar the other divine. Yet the rest of the inside of the Tree of Life was not so spared. Roaring, endless flames wretched one side, strange porcelain tiles had appeared in another. Another had turned into an unmarked, blank, canvas-like wasteland where truly there was nothing. It would require work and adaptation to make the tree, and the shrines within, accessible to mortalkind again and Allianthé would dedicate her powers to doing so. Except.. not now.

There was something else she needed to do. The halo had given her glimmers of something she could not yet understand, but it had also shown her how she could start understanding. In her hands she formed a hundred seeds, some of them were shimmering with light. Others were dull but robust looking. She formed them to fulfill what the halo needed her to make. Once down, she released the seed-structure that looked like a pinecone.

Like a falling star it flew out of the Tree of Life. It didn’t need to go far. The people of Arbor looked up as they saw the strange creation streak over them from the Tree of Life. It landed in a small forest not too far away from the Living City. In an instant, a hundred trees sprouted and grew. The core ones were slender, iridescent and grew the fastest. More like snakes these trees slithered upwards, towards the skies. As they went up they began to coil around each other. They pushed and held each other as they kept gonig upwards. Higher and higher. Soon though, the gripping laws of reality and gravity would demand them to bend and eventually break. The slithering slowed as the very forces of reality required them to stop or be sundered. Now the outer, broader-based, rougher, dark-barked trees started to grow. They twisted around the slender core and encased them in something that protected them from the demands of the world. The slender core started growing again, reaching higher and higher, until it easily towered over the tallest mountain in the world. Then it kept going, piercing and breaking the clouds. The dark, armouring trees kept on growing around it, slower but sturdier.

Eventually the slender core broke through the gaseous cover of the world but kept going further. Here no life should exist. It was inhospitable but the new trees cared little. They kept pushing, and eventually the twisted core unfurled itself.

Each tree shot away from the other and sprouted beautiful, purple leaves. The form of the canopy was unlike any other tree though. Great hollow parts, and wide branches akin to walkways formed. Great hollows in the canopies formed as well, like wombs awaiting creation to be formed within. Great halls formed from twisted boughs, ready to receive whoever would appear here. Within this grand canopy gravity held little sway anymore. Yet the very branches held a pocket of breathable air, so that life could freely exist here.

This grand tree had done what none before could: it had pierced the skies and the heavens, and it offered access to what was beyond. All those who gazed upon it knew its name: the Tree of the Firmaments.

Allianthé had watched with her divine senses and smiled. With this new Tree, she would attain the understanding she required. The people of Arbor could join her in this new understanding as well. For she knew, with certainty, that mortalkind was as necessary as divinity for this journey. She would direct them, bless them, help them. For as long as she needed to. But the halo, in that very moment, also told her of the sacrifices. The necessity of sacrifice. She spoke of that with Galaxor before but now… she truly understood why it might be necessary.

[hider=Summary]Allianthé is pondering upon the necessity of death. Is it required in the world and should she ease up about it? Or should she not suffer its existence. She had pleaded with the Khodex for an answer but never received an answer. Until now. The khodex began to radiate primordial energy. Allianthé saw it as an answer offered so she began to siphon the energy. Which formed a halo behind her.

Then the cocoon of the Khodex cracked and the Khodex began to fight back. Allianthé wrestled the parts of creation she had dominion over and protected herself from the fundamental forces. Meanwhile the halo allowed her to detatch herself from the concepts of creation. The assault stopped and Allianthé encased the Khodex in a tree akin to a starry heaven. The inside of the Tree of Life is marred by chaotic creation, parts of it burning, submerged or just tiled with porcelain. The shrines are all okay though.

Allianthé then goes to work with the knowledge offered by the halo. She creates the Tree of the Firmaments: a titanic superstructure tree that reaches space. It contains galleries, halls, rooms, and even space docks. Allianthé saw this and realized that the journey for more understanding would require mortalkind and its sacrifice.[/hider]

[hider=MP Summary]
[b]Allianthé Start:[/b] 12 MP
- 0MP: Attain the domain of the Firmaments (gifted as Transendental Quest Reward)
- 8MP: Transcendental Action - Create Superstructure: “Tree of the Firmaments” - A titanic tree located near Arbor. It reaches space. Below at the base it has several trees that would allow those willing to be teleported up to its canopy. At the core at the base is a great hall over which the core trees twist. Things places here will also be teleported up, so resources can reach the top easily and in high quantity. Above there are a myriad of galleys, halls, rooms and infrastructure for a space dock. The tree defies traditional laws of gravity. Mortals who would look down or around from the canopy are often gripped with a distinct sense of beauty for the world but also a detachment from it. It makes them realize that there is more to existence. A visit to the canopy often inspires mortals to elevate themselves. Both literally and mentally. (Boosted by Life & Firmaments Domains)
[b]Allianthé End:[/b] 4 MP
[/hider]

[hider=Domain “The Firmaments”]The domain creates a theological suggestion of a framework of existence that had not yet been considered. The Firmaments would define the second layer of a plane of understanding. Where the first is the earthly, life-filled Galbar. Firmaments defines itself as ‘the heavens’ or ‘the skies’. The first point of removal from the galbarian ways. It also implies that there are layers above the Firmaments. Could one of them be the residence of the Outer Gods?

Blessings of the Firmaments would have a myriad of boons. The most obvious would be the power of flight. Not through wings or the manipulation of air currents. One simply learns to detachment themselves from Galbar as a whole. This would even work deep within the void away from Galbar.

It offers more than simple detachment though. Flashes of impossible insight might drive a person into obsession, leading into new discoveries, new unities and new applications of magic and technology. Those blessed are set upon a journey to figure out how they themselves can attain a state of higher being and higher understanding. ‘To be among the Firmament’.

Upon Allianthé it would also have a profound effect. For her entire admitingly short life as a divine she only thought about Galbar, without ever imaging a bigger picture. There is so much more if she released her galbarian tethers. More chances to attain a metaphysical greatness that a divine like her yearns for.[/hider]