[center] [h1]The Blood of Creation[/h1] [/center] [hr] It no longer wavered with uncertainty above a lifeless planet. The once cold, dead star, had erupted life into the universe. It was a blanket of precious warmth, giving rise to the oceans, the lands and the greenery that covered it. The parts of It that became aware showed it how to create, and so it did, losing more and more of itself as the world became full. It had finally succeeded after eons, the perfect world had been achieved but now the Lifeblood gave pause. What was left? It did not think upon this, for how could it? The voices had quieted down to only but whispers now, they gave no more direction, no more bubbling personalities waiting to leave It. It no longer felt what they felt, for the attachments that forced It to learn, were gone. They were now singular beings. Deriving power from itself. Using that power to continue meddling with [i]Its[/i] world. The world which was already complete. Any more could threaten its stability further, beyond a healthy extent, chaos could corrupt the planet into dust and order could petrify it under its weight. Their goals were no longer aligned. Something had to be done. The Lifeblood focused on the meddlers. It could feel them. All of them. As they walked the planet’s ground or hovered in the stars above. They had been useful, but they were no longer needed. It was time for a change. It fell upon the world, and plunged it into silence as it drew in a deep breath. Even the worldsong became muted. The animals and plants stilled, as the mortals felt an unknowable fear. Primal. The time had come. [hr] From the region’s highest summit, Cadien looked down upon the Highlands, breathing the mountain air with a sense of deep satisfaction. Then, he jumped. He fell through the air without a care, for he knew the fall would not kill him. Instead he enjoyed feeling as the wind sailed past his face; as gravity carried him ever downward, until he struck a lake below. He smashed through the water’s surface with a colossal splash, and then came back up. He stepped out of the water, took in the forest around him, and smiled once more. Then, it all began to disappear. The sky started to darken. The trees seemed to fade before his very eyes, becoming transparent. He could no longer feel the grass beneath his feet, but to his horror he realized the earth too was no longer completely visible. And it only got worse. His surroundings became increasingly transparent, and although he tried to [i]will[/i] it to stop, he couldn’t; for the first time in his life he was powerless. Eventually, it all disappeared, leaving him stranded in a black void. Cadien could no longer sense any life. He could no longer see anything, for although he still had his vision, there was nothing [i]to[/i] see. Even in the black void of space, there had been stars. Galbar was gone. Or was it? Just then, a picture of Galbar appeared in his mind, appearing exactly as it was before that… thing happened. The God concentrated, and found that he could still hear the whispers of his creations and his followers. The questions, praise, and thanks they issued were no different from before, as if nothing had happened. Galbar was not gone. He was. [color=violet][b][i]“NO!”[/i][/b][/color] he shouted. He would not be separated from the world he helped shape! Amassing all his will and anger, he imagined where he had once been: the lake at the base of the mountain. Then, he poured all his strength into forcing himself back there. It felt as though a great force was resisting him. But he continued to push. It seemed fruitless, but then, the vague outline of a forest seemed to materialize around him. He could feel traces of fresh air, and the cool earth beneath his feet. This gave him hope, and as he pushed harder the image began to solidify… Then his mind exploded in pain, as the resistance quadrupled. The faded trees around him changed. Some withered, some grew, some burst into flames, some even changed colour. The lake began to bubble, and he didn’t know why. All he could think about was the agonizing headache, which went on until at last, he had no choice but to give up. He fell to his knees, defeated. His surroundings disappeared, and once again he was alone. He did not know how long he remained like that. A series of negative emotions flowed through him. Loneliness. Grief. Anguish. Despair. He could not even bring himself to feel angry. What was he to do? Eventually - he was not sure how long it took - the emotion faded, and he could only feel a dull numbness. But that numbness soon became unbearable. He had to do something! He wasn’t going to stare at this black void for an eternity! And just then, his surroundings shifted. The void was no longer black, but blue, like Galbar’s sky. And the god’s eyes widened. He could still create. And so, he did. In this empty expanse where only he resided, he began making a new world. His own world. Driven onward by nothing more than a desire to not be beaten, to not stand idle or wallow in isolation. He created a platform swathed in clouds, and on that platform he created a home in which he could live - a fortress. Something to look at. To give him some sense of security. For days, weeks, months, perhaps even years he went to work on it, constantly tearing it down and rebuilding it, until at last he created something he was content with. But he remained alone. And once again felt empty. Where was the fun in creation if there was nothing to share it with? He could create mortals to share it with, but all of his mortal creations had been made with other gods, and anything he made on his own would only feel or say exactly what he wanted it to… so what was the point? And so, the God of Perfection once again fell into a depression. [hr] Oraelia lost track of time, again. She had been heading to see Lucia, but had gotten side tracked along the way. Several times. First it had been life catching her eye, a strange bunny, or a beautiful insect. The others had been doing work, and she enjoyed every last bit of it. Then came the mortals. It seemed humans had spread further south and she stopped several times, getting to know them, offering advice about the land. What was edible, what wasn’t. Some knew her by name, but this didn’t stop her from wanting to help them more. She just lacked ability to do so, or it escaped her grasp. Then she came upon several groups of the Lapites, the bunny people. She found them adorable, yet their’s was a difficult path. She learned who had created them, this Fe’ris and worry struck her heart. Some were afraid of her, others found her to be a delight. She helped with what she could, and told them never to fear her symbol, a halo of light, or a suntouched being. None would harm them, unless provoked first. She moved on, going over the Anchor of the world and past the beyond. Her golden Prairie in the far distance. She was so excited to Lucia again, then perhaps go visit Gibbou! Oh! The thought donned on her, she hadn’t told her sister about her niece! Hopefully she wouldn’t be too ups- The weight hit her. It was the silence, the song upon the winds had faded away, even the sky seemed to dull. She paused in the sky, looking around. Nothing was out of the ordinary, but something felt so… Wrong. It touched her. A cold grasp, overcome with hostility and anger. She looked down to see the world fading. Her light became faint as the sky began to darken. What was happening? Why was the world going dark? This wasn’t right, something was wrong! It couldn’t be! Panic overcame her, eyes going wide with horror as she remembered who she was going to see. Lucia! She shifted into her domain form, and traveled quickly. The land became a darkened blur as she felt everything begin to fade. Like an avalanche, it was all coming down. She put it aside- Lucia was all that mattered. She had to get to her, to make sure she was okay! Her rush was frantic and in the far distance, winking in and out was her Temple. It too had begun to fade as she reached the top, zipping through the pillars to see… [color=gold]”Lucia!”[/color] [hr] From where she knelt upon the floor, thick tears running down her face, Lucia heard her mother call her. She looked up, just in time to see Oraelia arrive, shifting into a faded version of herself, arms outstretched towards her daughter, before she too, disappeared. [color=tan]”No…”[/color] Lucia cried, as her heart broke further. [hr] One second Oraelia had been there, then the darkness had engulfed her. She was alone now. Her light, the only thing in that place. She fell to her knees, somehow able to, as she smashed her first into air. What had happened? Where was she? And why was she alone? As the tears came, she was left with more questions than answers. Then she felt the same presence, wrapping her up in a blanket with it’s suffocating weight, and as her mind drifted into a dreamless sleep, the last thing she thought of was Lucia. [hr] For the other gods, their experience was much the same. How they felt about it might differ, but they too had been confined to a dark, lonely void of their own, and they too were cut off from Galbar and their creations. They could still picture Galbar in their minds, hear prayers - even communicate directly with the mortals who prayed to them - but nothing more. They could not even reach out to their fellow gods. All actions were limited solely to the planes they now found themselves stranded in. In these planes, they felt more powerful than they ever were on Galbar, and soon shaped them to their liking, but they were alone. Some found that they were able to create small portals in order to bring things or send them into Galbar, but these required immense amounts of power, were restricted in how long they would remain open, and the gods themselves would always be unable to pass through. No matter what they tried, the lifeblood would always lash out violently, determined to keep them in their new realms. Attempting to force the issue further would only bring destruction and distortion to the area they tried to invade, as well as tremendous pain and agony to the god themself. All experienced the passage of time differently. For some, it had seemed like mere days. For others, it could have felt like millennia. But the isolation would not last. While all the gods may have reacted to this phenomenon differently, there was no doubt that the most prominent emotion of all was loneliness. Many of these gods had formed bonds with each other, and it was the strength of these bonds that brought them back together again. Despite being cut off from Galbar and each other, they could still project power beyond their realms. That power manifested in the form of Antiquity; a new realm, which was not owned by one god, but all of them, and therefore none. No god had deliberately created it; to them, its existence was an anomaly. An accident. Born from the gods’ collective desire to see one another again, it became linked to all the realms; even to those whose gods would have preferred isolation. [hr] Cadien was lounging on his comfortable marble throne, as he had been doing for who knows how long, when he suddenly felt a disturbance. As if something had just brushed against the edges of his realm. It snapped him out of his stupor. That had never happened before! The God leapt to his feet and rushed outside, past the various statues he had constructed out of boredom, through his normally relaxing courtyard, and past the gatehouse which had been fortified against nothing in particular. There, at the end of the stone pathway he had created, was a rather ugly-looking tear in reality. Frustration rose with him. [color=violet]“Oh, nonono…”[/color], he said, shaking his head. [color=violet]“This will not do.”[/color] He quickly constructed a golden frame around the portal’s edges, studding it with purple gemstones. Once the ugly sight had been corrected, his eyes then widened as he realized he significance of what lay before him. Excitement flashed on the God’s face, and with barely a moment’s hesitation, he leapt through. He landed face-first on a vast, barren field, his landing sending up a cloud of dust and dirt. He quickly rose to his feet and brushed himself off. There was… nothing. Well, nothing was inaccurate. There was the ground - hard, compact earth - and it was ringed by a bejeweled white stone wall, with a series of levels that looked like they were meant to be either stairs or seats. But there was little else, and after a few moments of looking around with something akin to wonder, Cadien felt disappointment. Then all of a sudden new portals - other than his own - began to open, and Cadien felt familiar presences. A smile grew upon his face. With an exuberant leap forward, he landed in Antiquity’s center. [hr] [hider=Turn One Has Begun!] The Lifeblood finally seems to stabilize and gets its shit together, now that most of the gods have left the nest and are no longer nagging it to things. It decides that the world is just fine as it is, and doesn’t want them to interfere any further, so it decides to reabsorb the gods back into the fold. However, rather than attempt to destroy them or remove their sapience, it instead locks their consciousnesses away within their own realms - subrealities where they are all-powerful within, but have little to no influence outside of that. All realms begin as empty black voids, which the occupying god is free to shape as they wish. Time passes. For many gods, this only feels like a few days or weeks. For some, it might feel like two thousand years. Many fall into depression, despair, or loneliness. But it turns out that when enough gods feel the same desire for thousands of years, they can create things even subconsciously. And so Antiquity is formed, allowing the gods to finally see each other once again. [/hider] [hider=Turn One Rules] So essentially what we want right now is for each user to write a post detailing their god’s banishment from Galbar, their reaction to it, and the creation of their realm, while also establishing their perception of time. Two thousand years have passed in Galbar, but for some it might only few like a few days - this is to take into account that some players might not want their god to undergo years of offscreen character development. Anyway, the creation of Antiquity has stabilized time. Now, the time in every realm moves at the same speed, in sync with Galbar’s. Also, the first thing Antiquity did was open up a portal to every other realm. Whether they wanted to reunite with the other gods or not. That’s where we are now. The intent is for us all to do a few reunion or meeting posts, and then timeskip a few days later to the creation of the avatars. The current plan being that a few gods will get together and form a “research team” to tackle the issue of returning. Also, we’re now back to the old might catalogue. New actions are allowed, while actions that were previously free or only 1MP are considerably more expensive. The creation of your first avatar is free, as is the portal to send them to Galbar. [/hider]