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The pain had ceased long ago, yet they still felt it.

Their lives had been snuffed out within moments of their creation, and in their masses they had despaired to find death little better.  The physical agony no longer weighed on their spirits, but memory remained.  That was, for many, a curse.  Spirits wailed through day and night, trapped in the moment of their demise and unable to break free from the horrors that clung to them through the veil of death itself.  Some were silent, but only because they lacked words to speak, and their screams had fallen on a deaf reality.

They too dwelled on their short memories of life.  Memories of heat.  Searing, dreadful, agonizing heat.  That, the few of them who retained some semblance of their wisdom knew, was all that there was for them.  All there would ever be. The force which had created them cared naught for what remained.  They were alone, save for their fellows and the pain they all shared.

And yet from the Heavens came action with purpose, something the despairing masses had not known for some time. The shining temple of gold, Thaa's Vescii Temple came to hover over the isle that so much suffering had been wrought upon. From the smoldering remains to the terrified and despairing souls, left without any actionable purpose, with only the memories of the incredible pain and burning heat that had been their lives.

From his temple came his voice, [color=Fuchsia]“I have arrived, come to me and you shall find comfort, for I am Thaa, God of Death and he who shall give you rest!”[/color]

Thaa did not boom out his command without purpose as soon the souls felt the draw of the souls crystals, lifting them up into the Grand Temple, through the golden gates. They were met with the power of Thaa, not to stop them, but to welcome and guide them. He reached into their minds, so tortured with their memories of suffering and terror and despair, and gave them peace. Overpowering their memories with feelings of bliss, happiness and finally he gave them rest. Thaa guided the souls into the many chambers of the Vescii Temple, where they could rest and be at peace in death, not merely reliving the memories of their short lives.

Thaa did not simply power over them with idle thought or without care. Instead he reached out to them as they came into his temple, within his power. He reached for them, he reached into them and spoke to them, to say that they were not alone, not unloved, that he knew their pain and their suffering. He spoke and promised that they were safe, they would be cared for, for they were within the power of Thaa, the good and gracious. 

As each soul flowed upwards to the temple he was with each and everyone of them. As each soul in their remnants of a mind lived the intense burns, the horrific realization of their own existence over again, Thaa was now there. He whispered that it would not happen again, they were safe, they would rest, they would not have to live that life again. In each soul and in each case of the desperate and terrible suffering that Thaa saw he took note, he did not leave a soul to suffer alone as he spoke with each one on their own terms.

Where one soul had found themselves alone, burning without knowing why, without knowing even what they were, only knowing the pain, the feeling of their boiling and melting flesh. Thaa now knew their pain, their horror and suffering. He spoke and made promises of safety and comfort. He brought feelings of peace and rest and all the joy and freedom from the life that had terribly mistreated them.

Most were content with this.  Most could not care for anything more than the succor they had been generously given.  Such had been their pain.  Most, but not all.  One soul, who had suffered in life longer than most and thus had wailed in death more loudly, heard Thaa’s whispers and spoke in the whispers shared only among the dead, “Why?”

A simple question, the only question the soul could have asked, and yet, one which was greater than most.

In answering Thaa did not delay, [color=Fuchsia]“You ask why but I have only the most satisfying answers to give you. You have suffered greatly, perhaps more than any yet to live. And therein lies the problem, you lived.”

“Deities alike in power to me, but distant in their propensity for cruelty have created life, created you. The purpose of life is nought but to suffer, to wither and scream and rage against the cruelties inflicted upon them until their mortal forms give out against the strains of the world. Then those Deities discard you, they leave you. But I shall not leave you, I care not for living, for the suffering that is so infecting this world. I care for you and will keep you safe because that is right and so am I.”[/color]

It was an answer both compelling, and perhaps, confusing.  For the soul understood much, but it did not understand everything.  Another question clawed at the spirits psyche, but it was not sure that it was a question that should be asked.  It was not sure it would like the answer.  Nevertheless, it voiced it, “What do they get from it?  Those deities?  Our suffering, what do they get from it?”

The question cut deep, it gave Thaa pause, although not for long.

[color=Fuchsia]“Satisfaction I have to guess. In truth, I know not why they enact such terrible cruelties, I came forth only in the aftermath of their evil. But I need not know why they act, all I know is that they do. There are no legitimate motives I can conjure to set such suffering in motion on such a global scale, a whole world alike in pain. It speaks only to the weakness of their morals and the evil in their beings in these actions of theirs. I fear I may not be able to fight the system as a whole, but I will fight them and their evil to whatever extent I can manage.”

“I cannot promise that such suffering will not occur to another. But I can protect and save you from further suffering, I can give you peace, I can give peace to all which escape the cruel confines of life. And in time I may be able to work vengeance and stop those terrible and evil beings that seem boundless in their cruelty.”[/color]

“In… Time…”  The soul whispered and faded into the throng.  For it had never been greater than the others, merely more tortured.  It had, in its way, needed more from the God.  Now though, it longed for the relief Thaa offered, and drank greedily from the kindness of the divine.  It was the first such the spirit had ever tasted.

With that there was a terrible, and beautiful, silence.  The wailing petered out, and none demanded further knowledge.  Wisdom, knowledge, the future, these were all things beyond the dead.  They had lived, suffered, died, and now their trial had ended.  They embraced a rest they knew to be eternal, and they did so in comfort.

Thaa was not entirely done however. The ground shifted beyond the golden walls of the Vescii Temple, the bodies of the dead carried with it as a new structure arose. The burnt remains were taken to a place that would house them and their memory even when they were otherwise forgotten by the rest of the world. A Tomb of the Forgotten, golden like that of the Temple, the base rose high and upon it pillars to uphold the main chamber. There the dead rested in sarcophagi, each of golden color and divinely melded to the Tomb. As the sarcophagi were enmarked not with names for these dead had none, but with what they had suffered, and that they were now free. A script that none save the gods might decipher had these words written, and finally on the lone entrance to the Tomb were a final message.

‘Forgotten but not lost’

Thaa now turned away, and the Vescii Temple left the isle.


[hider=Summary]
The souls of the dead of those sapients made on the still smoldering island are in anguish and Thaa comes and comforts them. Puts them to rest. He speaks to them and one in particular who has suffered greatly speaks with him asking why all this happened. Thaa has a bit of a conversation giving his view of the world to explain all this. Then the soul goes on to accept Thaa’s rest.

Thaa then makes a tomb for their bodies, the Tomb of the Forgotten, as sets it up in the memory of their existence on Galbar. He then in the Vescii Temple with all the souls.[/hider]
[hider=Might Summary]
[color=Fuchsia] Thaa Start: 1 MP, 3 DP
-1 DP Tomb of the Forgotten, Holy Site (Peace 1, a sense of serene transquility pervades the entire Tomb)
End: 1 MP, 2 DP[/color][/hider]