[center][color=red][b]*** EMERGENCY ***[/b][/color]
[color=yellow][i]SEISMIC EVENT DETECTED![/i][/color]
[color=red][b]*** EMERGENCY ***[/b][/color]
[color=yellow][i]POWER FAILURE - SYSTEM SHUTDOWN IMMINENT![/i][/color]
[color=red][b]*** EMERGENCY ***[/b][/color]
[color=yellow][i]LIFE SUPPORT FAILURE - SUBJECT IN CARDIAC ARREST![/i][/color]
[color=red][b]*** EMERGENCY ***[/b][/color]
[color=yellow][i]CATASTROPHIC CASCADING FAILURE DETECTED![/i][/color]
[color=green][b]>> INITIATE CONTINGENCY 0[/b][/color]
[color=yellow][i]SEVERING ALL SERVICE CONDU-[/i][/color][/center]

In the last moments of his existence the eldest man yet living opened his withered eyes and beheld his fate; one from which he’d saved his people an instant prior.  Impotent warnings thrummed in his head as the blur of the world transformed into brilliant light and he felt the touch of heat on his skin for the first time since he’d walked the world above as a boy.  Funny, that he could remember that and not even know [i]how[/i] he’d saved his people.  Or who he was. 

Death was not something that could be averted.  It came regardless of the magnitude of your efforts or the extent of your sacrifices.  For him, both had been great.  He knew that he’d lost his mind in a trade for time, and that he’d done so willingly.  Ironic as it was, that that was one of the few things he knew with any degree of certainty.  Thankfully, it was easy to be certain about your reason for being.

He had to keep his people alive.  He could not allow them to perish, even if he did.  To that end he had given everything.  He had become nothing more than a calculating mechanism in a greater machine, operating off of inputs and outputs divorced from emotion or feeling or thought.  It had been worth it, he thought as he felt pain for what seemed like the first time, to have at least been able to prevent this disaster from eradicating what remained of his people.  If the conduits had not been severed the blast would have consumed the shelter which he had so doggedly maintained throughout his long and wretched life. 

The pickled flesh of his feet had begun to vaporize when he heard the resigned whisper in his head, “The moment cannot be stretched much longer.  I cannot save you.  I am sorry.”

He could only laugh ruefully, or think about laughing.  He retorted within the confines of his mind, “They will live.  I...  Welcome this, at last.”

“They will not die,” The whisper admonished, “They do not live.  Not as they are.  They have never lived with you as their keeper, but they cannot survive your death.”

The old man hesitated, failing heart slowing his mind even in this moment stretched thin.  When he thought again it was melancholy and confused, “They... I... I wish I could have-  So little time I-  How... How can I save them?”

“You have defied death before,” The voice spoke faster as the heat of encroaching annihilation began to boil the old man’s blood, “I cannot grant you life as yourself, but you may yet live within me.  Your self may be lost, but the will which has driven you to save your people can remain.  Reject oblivion and your peoples end.  [b]I can help you.[/b]  Surrender yourself and I can help all of you.”

More laughter from the withered old man, frying in the air.  This time genuine.  “Myself?  I am...  I-  I lost myself...  Before.  Save them!  Stop this!  Do it.”

It was his last thought before the fire washed over him.  Bones turned to ash and blood to steam as the wave of devastation swept over the ancient facility and washed it from the world.  The fire carved a terrible crater out of the landscape and rose into the black sky as a burning orange beacon, illuminating the dead and blasted landscape below.  At the center of the crater, where the ground still glowed furiously, a man rose.

Or rather, a God.  The eldest man was dust and atoms, but his soul lived on within something greater.  A representation of who he’d been as a young man stood naked amidst the ash and began to laugh uproariously as it understood the old man's humor and joy at the very end.  After an eternity of living death, mankind would live again.  And not just in body.

[color=#f4743c][h3][b]“They’ll live!”[/b][/h3][/color] 
The God declared, the tears of another running down his cheeks, 
[color=#f4743c][h3][b]“They’ll finally get to live!”[/b][/h3][/color]

Before the rock had cooled divinity wearing the flesh of a man set off.  Jaunty steps carried the unclothed being across miles in moments, for there was no time to waste.  The great shelter held so much of what remained of the Human race.  The God knew this as the old man had known it, even in senility.  It was now in desperate need of salvation, but it was a salvation that would need to be built peice by piece and brick by brick.  To that end the cornerstones had already been laid.  The God felt that instinctively and understood:

There was to be safety in the east, at the peak which rose above the world.  There was no point wasting time.

[hider=summary]So like, this dude is fucking OLD.  He’s in this machine that keeps him alive, but he’s basically a withered pickle.  He’s been keeping all the enclaves working, making sure that all the shit nobody understands how to use keeps working.  Unfortunately he is kept alive by a reactor which fucking explodes and starts a massive cascading failure that starts blowing up the ruins of the old world.  The old man manages to seal the conduits leading to the other human holdouts, so this detonation only kills him.  In the moments before his death, as he’s losing any sense of reality, the god that will become Orynn asks for his soul to safeguard humanity.  He gets it and sets off to not!Olympus to fix that shit heap up so he can rescue the humans to it now that he knows where it is.

EDIT: per gms ORYNN NOW KNOWS OF ONE (1) shelter and since old man was very dumb and senile not much else, so no worries amigos

Lol sorry for the awful post.  Literally like 800 words lmao[/hider]