[center][img]http://www.painting-analysis.com/Triptych_of_Garden_of_Earthly_Delights1500_300.jpg[/img] Hieronymus Bosch, [i]The Garden of Earthly Delights[/i]. circa 1490-1510.[/center] When Aroesus cried his final cry, realizing in that searing moment as the poison invaded him, obliterated him, the world stood still, paused pregnantly for a moment. Birds stopped midflight, a woman giving birth suddenly stopped contracting. An old man dying held there, that last breath half drawn. A flame in Caesilinus held steady, the waves froze in their motion. Nasan Falls stopped falling. Shining Krona, the palace that sprung from the very center of Lake Miphas, was a place of wide arches and soaring towers, of columns forged from the rarest of materials, a place of slick perfection in engineering unknown to the inhabitants of Lymaeus who strove in futility to erect something similar, half seen in hallucinogenic visions in the smoke or otherwise related to them from other sources. Almost all the architecture on Lymaeus was done in imitation of something on Hevas -- a deity might send instructions on how a shrine was to be built, or otherwise prod their followers in such a direction. The Gods strove among each other to build greater and more beautiful temples, many of them anyway. Aroesus' temple in Caesilinus was the greatest of them all, but it was a drop of water in the ocean compared to the vision of Krona that inspired it. The temples fell away and were rebuilt, but Krona was eternal, unchanging and perfect. Aroesus fell dead, and the world survived the spasm of the moment, though every being that experienced that moment knew that something had happened. Mortals were unable to discern it, the animal world unable to understand it, but the gods? They knew. And in that moment, they knew that something fundamental had changed in Krona. Some, older deities, knew that it was the passing of another age, the pantheon was once more up for grabs. Younger gods, who had never seen the mantle pass thus, had to work on the word given to them from their servitors or the rumors that flew soon thereafter. Or, the perceptive among them would know this; Krona was eternal, unchanging and perfect, until the moment when the universe stopped, when everything else fell and the first roof tile fell from the top of Krona and splashed into Lake Miphas with a discordant crash that was heard across the planes. In the weeks to come, Lymaeus was wracked in chaos as the order of things decayed along with Krona itself -- small cracks widened into fissures, and the discordant calls of doom-criers engulfed the City of Aroesus as factions fought among themselves, followers of various deities proclaiming their god the next one ascendant. Cudgel, blade, garrotte, poison, flame, and the rulers of Caesilinus, the forum and the priests, were paralyzed by an uncharacteristic inaction – they were too busy debauching themselves with alcohol, women and other men, or they were fighting amongst each other, or they were simply throwing themselves off the highest place they could find -- and that was just the leadership. The fires started in the second week and smoldered at times, but never quite went out – no one cared to put them out, it seemed. The defenders of the city were gone at this point, and there was no real possibility that the citizenry, busily drinking, fighting and fucking their way into whatever dissolute oblivion they were seeking, would put up any resistance. But Caesilinus, however bloodied, battered, burned and rudderless, was still a prize among prizes, even to the Gods above and below who watched the proceedings unfold. Caesilinus was not Krona, but it was the most densely populated city in Lymaeus, a place of incalculable power whose prayers helped buttress the power of Aroesus. And that power lay waiting for the power grab. ---- The Isles of Kaeus were balmy; lush orange and lemon groves, people that fished for much of their sustenance. They were, except for the main island of Cycander, thinly populated. Cycander itself lay in the shadow of Mount Nynos, the largest known volcano in the world, and the rumored resting place of the sleeping flame deity, Sileon, brother of Aroesus, who was patron of the islands chain. Cycander was not a large city, but it had a certain beauty to it, perhaps inspired, unwittingly, by the primal being whose influence reigned – it was a city of minarets and spires, domes and arches that tapered to a point, of gleaming limestone, standstone and red clay brick, of priests in orange robes and braziers lit by night. It was a city of dance and hedonism, of resting meditation, all in honor of the patron of the city. Other religions flourished there, and even had temples, but the people had a special place in their heart for the sleeping Dancer. They venerated him even though they knew that one day, the mountain, his mountain, would destroy them all. The people of Kaeus lived with the possibility of death every day of their lives, but felt, for they were of a deeply philosophical bent even if they were considered simple in their tastes and pleasures, that the danger added spice to their lives. Despite the veneration of the people, there was no temple to Sileon anywhere in the city itself. Rather, it sat at the foot of Mount Nynos, well outside the city. It was a cavelike thing carved of volcanic rock into the side of the mountain itself, with bowels extending deeper into the natural rock, where the heat of the mountain made a person sweat, and where the gasses…well, it was said those gasses gave visions, often jumbling, disconnected insights that were among the most esoteric and free-associative prophecies of them all. And yet, the scholars claimed, the Thysian, the Oracle of Mount Nynos was the most accurate of prophets. It was also known that when she gave a keening cry, when the gasses that sent her the visions changed a certain way to produce that cry, it was the Dancer rising from his slumber again. Every few centuries, never more than once in a human lifetime that was known, Sileon would unfurl his fiery wings as a great bird of terrible beauty and ascend to Krona to hear the will of his brother and then deliver it to those that would spurn a messenger that was less potent, less terrible, than the Dancer himself. Now the Thysian wailed from the depths of her cavern-complex; the entire island, in honor of the rising of Sileon, lit massive fires to light the night sky.