[centre][img]https://s12.postimg.io/ypa7sp98t/Victors.png[/img] [hider=Summary]Old Mora sits upon his rock, and this time tells the tale of how the Treeminds left their home and came to New Chronos He speaks of their corruption by Vestec, and how it was the presence of the Solitary Mount that prevented the corruption from overpowering them all With its destruction by Jvan, the one thing keeping them sane was gone and they went chaos-crazy Then the Pack-Minds hunts became even worse and the many Treemind tribes/factions met up to see how to deal with it At this meeting, Oradin-Thulemiz showed up and scared them even more The Treeminds then ran away to Chronos and were purified of Vestec's corruption there, and are now normal again Khookies: (9,825 Characters; 4 Khookies Base + 3 Khookies Kharacter Bonus = 7 Khookies for post) 7 Khookies to Oradin-Thulemiz, 22 Khookies Total. [/hider] Exodus[/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 Exodus of the Treeminds,' 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, who knows how long ago, (for, unlike the Cube, the mind wanes and forgets even though it lived when all that I relay to you came about) that the Treeminds - yes all of them, for there were not more than fifty of them in those days - one day took up the journey from their dwelling place in the shade of Old Bark-Skin to a land which was better for them, and they better for it. For as you all well know, the Treeminds had gone through many a great tragedy after the coming of the strange Orb-from-the-Sky. 'First, we have been told by sources most trustworthy, they were taken away by the Great Chaotic Entity. And it did hellish things to them before returning them home. And thereafter, there appeared the menace of the Pack-Minds who preyed upon the Treeminds with a vengeance and appeared to target none but them. And the Treeminds were always few in number, and they became even more so with the appearance of these predators. 'And then, the Jvanic Entity landed upon the sacred Solitary Mount and blew it into unknowable smithereens - though, perhaps, the exact number lies hidden within the Cube! And what tragedy was that for the broken-hearted Treeminds. For they had been so greatly traumatised by the Great Chaotic Entity, which had placed within them urges most evil and unnatural, that the only thing which maintained their sanity and former dignity was the sight of the holy Mount ever on the horizon. And with its going went much of their resistance to what it was that the Great Chaotic Entity put into them. And what misery! What woe! What horror! 'tis too weighty and burdensome a thing to even utter, but I shall say it here that none shall ever forget. 'For brother ate the flesh of his brother, and the father took his daughter in the night - and greater horror yet, neither would be trained in the sacred Treemind love arts - and there was discord and division, and Treeminds battled for leadership and power over others, and there was tyranny, and there was manifest injustice. And all was Chaos. 'But it was not this that drove them to fly from the shade of Old Bark-Skin. For, shrouded in the darkness of chaos, and blinded by the horrors which the Great Chaotic Entity had unleashed within their minds and breasts, they saw nothing within what they had become which warranted flight. Nay, it was the coming of a darkness far greater than anything they could ever be, or imagine to be, that awakened the wise amongst them. And they realised the horror of what came their way. And fear gripped them. And where light could not pierce the manifest darkness into which they had fallen, fear could. 'And even then, 'twas not easy to unite the divided, deluded ones - for their darkness feared the one escape route from the coming terror. For the one escape was to venture into the light. To come here, to Chronos land of safety, Chronos land of peace, Chronos heart of eternal life and youth and bliss. Yea, they feared to venture here much as they feared what ventured towards them, but one fears less what they can choose to go to than that which comes to them against their will. And they all lined up, on that fated morning, and they bid their cursed holy home farewell. And Chronos welcomed them. 'But it welcomed not the darkness that came with them. And we saw it clearly, we who had for long dwelled here. And we took them to the Pond of Purity, from which grows the cherry tree I have told you about many times before. And therein did we throw them, one by one and lo! watch, you who were not there that you might see, how the darkness hissed and fumed and bubbled with malignant furies and designs. But the furies of darkness - and dark designs - can ne'er outmatch the furies of Chronos and the overpowering will of it. And they were cleansed and purified, and here they are: the Treeminds whom the Celestial Above fashioned with his own hands and blessed. Here they are, these descendants of those antique bears who birthed the Celestial Above and his first love and the mother of our master Belvast. Here they are, the fathers and mothers of gods. Yea, here they are - but fall not prostrate before them, for they who birthed gods are not themselves gods. 'But you ask me of that fearsome darkness which drove the Treeminds from their home. And that is a question none but the insightful would ask - for none ask it but those who understand the gravity of the existence of darknesses such as these in the world beyond Chronos. Darknesses like the fiend who once marauded here on Chronos, and darknesses like the Jvanic Entity which wrought unknown destruction upon us. 'Now it is not known to me what this mighty terror which wakened the Treeminds from their darkness was, but I shall recount to you some of what it wreaked upon those ancient Treeminds locked in dark ignorance. And this is as told to me by one who lived through that terror, and one who was, even before ascending to Chronos, deemed wise and good by all, and whose light was never overcome by the darkness of the Great Chaotic Entity. 'Said he to me as I sat with him one day: "It was a thing not from this world, and of that I have no doubt. It was a creature whose darkness was as to ours what the abyss of the night is to the blinding light of that glowing orb in the sky, that sun. Why, we were as saints before it though we were indeed the most wretched of the earth's creatures then. '"And it came at us through the Pack-Minds, those horrors that preyed upon us just as we preyed upon the deer - but nay! they hunted us for delight and entertainment, whereas we hunted only out of necessity. And what being is there but has a right to the flesh of another that it may itself survive. Why, if the deer had not us to hunt them, they would grow so fat and so many that they would eat the earth and all that is in it. But as I say, these Pack-Minds hunted us not out of necessity and not to keep some greater balance, they hunted us simply because they so enjoyed it. '"But we learned to live with the ever-present danger of these things, and our own blood had grown so cheap in our own eyes that it did not disturb us greatly to see it shed by others, nor did it disturb them greatly that they shed blood which we also willingly shed. Indeed, our own blood had grown cheap in our eyes so that all others attached no great significance to its shedding either. What darkness! What wretchedness! '"But there came upon us a time when the Pack-Minds grew even more savage in hunting us, and they caught us in places we thought ourselves safe, and they hunted us where they had never before ventured. And great was our loss, and many more were the Treeminds who perished. And it worried us greatly, this matter, and the many self-proclaimed leaders of the many self-proclaimed Treemind tribes met to talk on the matter, and it availed to nothing. '"But it was during that meeting, and I was there, that the terror made itself manifest to us. It was cloaked in black and we saw little of it, but in the darkness of its hood, I saw two eery lights of yellow-green where the eyes may well have been. And it spoke thus: [centre][b][color=black]'""My name is Oradin-Thulemiz, Death Made Manifest Look on your lives, ye miserable ones, as they decay For dust must at last to dust, and clay too must to clay But when it is I that sieze you, never shall ye rest."[/color][/b][/centre] '"And how can I speak of the horrors which thereafter struck us? Not Pack-Minds alone, but creatures which had for eons rested in the earth. And even those Treeminds who perished returned again and attacked those in whom life still survived, as though jealous of those who had avoided that terrible enslavement and hung on to the chains of life and the prison of flesh. What terrors were they that we lived, what hells were they that came upon us?- or perhaps, that we brought upon ourselves." 'And that is what I was told, and no reason have I to doubt the truth of it or to question the integrity of him who told it me. So know this well, oh you whose curiosity drives them to wander beyond the boundaries of our paradise home: Out there are monsters that prey on the lonely, Out there are beasts which slaughter the unprepared, Out there are horrors which even the greatest Victor cannot alone withstand. Seek the protection of the Celestial Above, keep its crest ever near, and venture not into the wildlands where the wild things are.'