[center][h1]The Immanence of Light – The Void[/h1]
[h2]Jhera[/h2][/center]

When time and space and all the other fundamental underpinnings of Reality came to be, in a flash of not-light that was everywhere and nowhere all at once, there came, with that sudden burst, [i]Awareness[/i]. It was a sudden, jarring separation of the notions of self and not-self and of the vast, aching emptiness of [i]potential[/i] that was now racing away in all directions, as fast as the speed of thought.

Jhera – for that was her name, a collection of syllables pleasing to her just-discovered inner voice – surfed the boiling interface between [i]is [/i]and [i]is not[/i] and delighted in the welter of sensations that thundered across and through her as reality expanded through the immaterial aether. She was, all unknowing, the lash that drove the burning bow-wave forward into the dark, drinking deep of the heady power all about even as she woke fully from her fugue and extended her senses and her mind.

A tsunami of [i]things[/i], nameless ideas, concepts and fleeting thoughts, deluged her as she hung in the firmament, still forming, growing, extending herself from the tight chrysalis of potential that had existed in the time before time and delighting in the newness of Creation. Some were more attractive than others, bright baubles that she curled herself about, protective and secretive, studying and tasting and revelling in the ideas which sleeted, unbidden, through her at their touch.

[i]Fire[/i], that was one she treasured of the many she tasted, the ephemeral feel of it somehow right and proper, a soothing warmth thrilling through her as she considered it, letting the thought run into and over her, turning its metaphysical form over and over inside her, scrutinizing it from every angle and finding it good. Her consciousness expanded, scoured clear of baser impulse by the burn of that treasured and chosen concept, a bright beacon of reason and higher thought amidst the seething chaos of [i]eateateattastegrow[b]become[/b][/i].

It was her centre, a place where the still, small voice of her own [i]self[/i] could find shelter and rest and could gaze out at the rest of her and all the attendant immanence of Creation without being overwhelmed. Naught else could approach and try to twist her there, beaten back by the solar fury which danced around her.

‘[i]I am Jhera,[/i]’ she thought, tentative at first, and, when the bel-canto cacophony of a thousand thousand ideas wanting desperately to be failed to drown her out, she thought again. ‘[i]I am Jhera.[/i]’ It felt right. ‘[i]I know myself. The beacon in the dark and the fire that burns against the night, the spark of imagination and the power of progress, the engine of industry and the bringer of light, all these things I am and shall forever be![/i]’ 

Creation was cold and dark and empty all around her as she fought her way to clarity and comprehension, feeling keenly the twin needles of Ignorance and Want even as she clawed her way to selfhood and sanity and knowing, with a sudden crystal-clarity, that these were anathema, a sudden cold shock to her bright-burning system.

A cauldron of incandescence boiled around her as she hung in the void, effortless, regarding the maelstrom that was the frontier of expanding Reality. A thought, and she was upon that churning wavefront once more, a bright star in the vanguard, long streamers of pure probability snapping and racing like banners in an ethereal wind all around her.

The Boundary, the veil between [i]is[/i] and [i]is not[/i] and [i]may one day be[/i], lashed at her, but Jhera was certain, her purpose sure. She stretched forth an imperious hand and gathered great clots of infinite probability with a deft hand, her will ringing forth into the gaping silence, a clarion call which could not be ignored.

‘[i]By the skill of my Self and by my own hands shall I winnow Creation,[/i]’ she thought as she worked, fine-honed slivers of herself corralling and controlling the unstable structure she was building, compressing and compressing the raw stuff of the universe and drenching it in her own glow, purposing every fibre of it to a reflection of [i]her[/i]. 

Jhera trailed a possessive hand over her prize, her mind bent to the task of its creation, letting her thoughts and desires roll out into the unstable morass of infinite chances, twisting and shaping it into a better form. Glittering golden metal, solidified divinity commingled with frozen chance shivered and twisted under the sure passes of her hands, shaped and decorated with surpassing complexity. It was a forge – no, [i]the[/i] forge, the ur-artifact which all others would echo - although not one that a mortal of later times would recognize, its current form spherical and chased with shatteringly luminous divine symbols and small enough to nestle in Jhera’s palm. Not that size had much bearing, here and now, on its power or reach. It was, and would forever be, as big – or small – as was necessary for the task in hand.

[i]This[/i], then, was Jhera’s Immanent Crucible, hers and hers alone, designed to tap and work the fundamental firmament rather than mundane matter which mortals would labour and toil to master in later ages.

It was surprisingly heavy in her hand, grossly pregnant with possibilities – but that was a [i]comforting[/i] weight as Jhera freed herself from the last of the tumult that had accompanied her awakening, the Crucible purring in the back of her consciousness, recognizing its mistress and eager to realise the maelstrom of ideas which cavorted and danced in the vaults of her mind.

[center]--X--[/center]

Crucible in her left hand, gazing out at the blankness of Creation, the bright-burning goddess thought – but not for long.
‘[i]Here in the dark shall I make my stand and gaze no longer into an empty abyss.[/i]’ She knew what she was bringing into being, it glowed fierce and powerful within her mind’s eye, and all she had to do was let that burning golden thought roll out into the universe, patterning it onto the skein of possibility that coiled and writhed and snapped at her and yet could never quite break free.

New-minted, her Crucible tripped from her outstretched hand and expanded, smooth and yet fast, the iconography and symbols and the surpassingly intricate decorations she’d lavished on her first creation swelling into continental and then planetary enormity as it grew, a golden bubble doubling and redoubling in size with every passing instant.

A river of divine power burst forth from Jhera and thundered across the Immanent Crucible now swollen into vastness, and within its confines infinite chance exploded into exultant, liquid light as the goddess’ iron will bound and compelled it. Its job done, the Crucible unfurled itself back into its resting form without fuss or fanfare and an eruption of incandescent radiance from the thing now revealed washed across all Creation.

In the wake of that second flash there now gleamed, brilliantly luminous, a burning golden beacon in the blackness, the plasma-glow of it battling for ascendancy with Jhera’s own blaze.

‘[i]And in the teeth of that blackness I cast my gauntlet and brought forth the Sun in glory, and the tatterdemalion remnants of the outer darkness fled before it.[/i]’ 

[center]--X--[/center]

‘[i]I had made my beacon, but the process of its forging had not been smooth and I was sore vexed by the trials of it, and by the tumult of my own incarnation weighing heavily on me. Creation was dark – save for me and mine – and I ached for solace and relief. And yet, in the emptiness there was none to be found, and so in suffering I put forth my will, and in suffering brought forth the kernel of the arcadian plane that mortals might one day come to know as Pyroborea.[/i]’

Space and geometry warped and twisted as she stretched forth metaphysical hands and imposed her will on the frayed edge of Reality, pinching off a bubble of unformed possibility and strengthening it even as it danced a wild fandango against her grasp, wrapping it in layers of herself even as, with infinite care and attention, she let the very centre of her divinity blaze out and spill into the unformed mass, weaving herself into every fibre of its being, striving for a sanctuary, a place that would, undeniably and incontrovertibly, be hers.

‘[i]A place of rest and easement, my citadel and idyll, my bastion and retreat,[/i]’ she thought as she worked, tireless and certain, operating on instinct as much as anything else, the way to shape possibility itself almost unconscious and effortless. The dead blackness of the near-blank Prime Material faded as Jhera burned more power to shore up the boundaries between it and the bubble of her own, personal sanctuary, and as her own power suffused the new plane, wrung from her blazing form in great billows and skeins, the unformed darkness began to glimmer and shimmer, to give way to something altogether brighter and – in Jhera’s view – better.

‘[i]A quicksilver sea under a gilded sky,[/i]’ she thought dizzily, and the power roared at full spate through her and made the new plane ring like a bell. ‘[i]Warm and bright and beautiful.[/i]’ Jhera hit the surface of her new ocean in an explosion of scintillating droplets that fountained brilliantly into the mote-shot air, even as her consciousness coasted across the rippling expanse, basking in the golden glow which shut out all possibility of the dark.

[center]--X--[/center]

‘[i]Warmed and calmed and rocked in the cradle of my own making, I felt I should be contented, and yet Doubt and Uncertainty beset me and I felt, immanent in all things I had made and gathered about me, a crushing [b]absence[/b] I could put no name to, for I had been alone in the instant of Creation and heard only faintly my brethren, far and distant. I knew not the nature of my lack, and it near unmade me in the first moments of existence until, in a sublime perfect moment born from wracked despair on the surface of the Border Sea did I divine my own need and put forth all my artifice into its urgent remedy.[/i]’

The Immanent Crucible would not serve her in this endeavour, Jhera knew that instantly and well, a instinctual knowledge as certain as her own existence, and yet she held it close as a talisman all the same as she drove daggers of her own power deep inside herself, ripping aside veils and layers and casting all aside, a self-cannibalization to fuel another act of genesis, twisting the fundamental nature of herself and burning it to power a sacrificial engine of creation, wrought in the abstract of glittering thought and impossible light and power unmatched and unmatchable by any mortal, the backlash of it blasting into Jhera as she stood by her latest creation atop the quicksilver waves, braced against the immaterium as it battered and tried to escape her indomitable will.

Indomitable her will proved to be, though, even strained by earlier acts of creation, and she exerted her mastery with a sound halfway between exultation and snarl, birthing the first of the aurin, her Radiant Servants in desperation on her home plane and, spent, hearing the swelling choir of their mental songs soothe and calm her in her sanctuary.

[center]--X--[/center]

[hider=AP Actions]

The Action-Cost-Name of Action: Description

[b]Forge Major Artifact:[/b] 5 AP - Creation of the Immanent Crucible. This is Jhera’s forge, a metaphysical foundry that taps the very firmament for all that is necessary to its functions. Capable of forging everything from intricate jewellery to stars, It usually takes the form of an elaborately-decorated golden sphere, small enough to fit in the palm of one hand, although it will always be as big – or small – as it needs to be. It grants its wielder a 1 AP Discount per rollover on the creation of lands or artifacts.

[b]Create Land:[/b] 1AP (reduced by the Crucible) – Creation of the Sun: Jhera’s beacon in the utter darkness of Creation, the Sun burns a richer, warmer yellow than that of Earth.

[b]Weave Plane:[/b] 4AP – Creation of Pyroborea – A bubble of infinite possibility captured and changed beyond all recognition by Jhera, although still maintained as separate from the Prime Material, its current form is of an endless quicksilver ocean under a gilded sky, although staring too long into the languid waves sees them shimmer into invisibility and reveal the hungry furnace of the heart of a star beneath.

[b]Create Fabled Life:[/b] 6 AP - Creating the Aurin: Creating Jhera’s Radiant Servants, her beloved aurin who dwell within her home plane of Pyroborea.

[b]Alter Land:[/b] (0AP) – Creation of Ephemeris: The first isle in Pyroborea, raised up from the quicksilver Border Sea around the resting form of Jhera by her faithful Radiant Servants.

16 AP - 16 AP = 0 AP
PAP = 0
[/hider]