[centre][img]https://s12.postimg.io/ypa7sp98t/Victors.png[/img]

The Tale of the Fallen[/centre]

Upon the rock old Mora sat, a bear as old as Time itself and greatest of the Victors. In times before he had been known as Morarom Oramomaro, but the traditions of the Treeminds had eroded from him - for the eons and the ages erode great mountains, and they erode the most dearly held habits also, and even one's culture and ways, with none around to preserve them, go the way all things must finally go. Why, even their mighty god, who had sat upon the altar of Time and read it to all, had at last been grinded by that never-ceasing grinder. For it was not the Jvanic Flesh which had caused Vowzra to be slain, but Time itself which had willed and caused. That Jvanic Entity had been naught more than a vessel, and through it did the mysterious hand of Time seize the Lord of Time.

'You ask me about the Fallen,' the great bear finally said, looking down from where he sat, on that antique rock, upon the Victors who sat below, and the lay people of New Chronos, and the curious children who huddled close to their parents and stared at the great bear. And among them were Lifprasilians, and among them were Pronobii, and there were humans and there were hain, and there were ogres also and Treeminds, but no djinn. And to the side two other ancient bears stood, warrioresses unmatched, Zina and Sali who had, eons and ages ago, ascended with Mora to Chronos, and here had they all become Victors.

'It happened - and who can tell exactly how long ago it was - when the Celestial Above was yet amongst us. And it happened that a certain demigod was a deemed a foe by the Celestial Above. And it happened that the Celestial Above gathered the Victors, and our master the Bard also. And it happened that we were commanded to rid Galbar of the fiend. And it happened that we obeyed. 

'And we struck at the heart of Sin, brought low its greatest commanders and priests, laid bare the great halls of state it had filled, and we brought the fiend here. And within the Cube did the Celestial Above seal it, and it was deemed that therein shall the fiend forever remain. And the Celestial Above willed. And Fate willed. And the will of Fate was made Supreme. And the fiend broke free and for long rampaged throughout the land - but its power could do nothing here on Chronos.

'The spiders whisper of how it broke into the holiest of their caves and attempted to seize the life of their queen mother. Yet upon trying to do so its violence was put down by the might of Chronos and the will of the other gods - and the fiend fell unconscious. And it shook and spasmed there for long, and some thirty spiders were commanded to remove the creature from the cave. And those thirty never returned, for the corruption of the being seeped into them and dominated their individual minds. 

'For you see, alone we are weak and susceptible to the temptations and corruptions of the universe. Together, with the Celestial Above-made-manifest-in-Chronos at our backs, we are invincible. As an old Victor saying goes: [i]Alone; a youthful branch, Together; an unyielding stick[/i]. So it was that the fiend continued his rampage across the land, and though he could not corrupt the land and earth, he corrupted those who strode upon it and relied not upon the power of the Celestial Above-made-manifest-in-Chronos, but thought themselves self-sufficient and mighty. Such pride is not the way of the Victors. Such pride is what led them astray.

'For they came to me, those proud ones, and they told me of their anger at the passing of the Celestial Above. And they told me of the vengeance they wished to wreak upon the Jvanic Flesh. And they bid me command them march against it. But I commanded them stay and in silence and simmering resentment they walked away. And the seed of anger was planted, and with it a bloated pride. And when the snake came a-whispering, it was not into a vacuum that it whispered - for it found fertile ground. Time and again they would come to me, and time and again would I command them to remember all they had been taught. But weak were their hearts, and the whispers of the fiend grew within their breasts till they could hear nothing else. And they went away with it in the night, and they fell a most reprehensible fall.

'And in that way did the Fallen fall, in that way were the prideful followers of the fiend born. Little!- little do they realise that without the Celestial Above they are as nothing - their powers are but shadows of the truth, their strength but a humiliated glimmer of a true Victor's.'