[center][h1]Epsilon[/h1][/center][hr]

A blinding light dominated Epsilon’s vision. He could not tell how long he had been unconscious, nor how long he had been awake. The whole world and all of creation was a single moment, crystallized; a beginning and an end all in one. His entire being ached, his divine shard burned and his form held together by the loosest of threads. More than anything, Epsilon wished to just keep laying there, to succumb to his exhaustion and permit the long sleep until the wheel turned again and the universe was remade.

There would be no such mercy. Even battered as he was, the Academician still had duties and obligations to both creation and the Monarch. Slowly, with a pained effort, Epsilon sat up in the crater he had left in the dirt and the rock. His sight returned, revealing with intense clarity the world around him; he had been staring up at the sun in the sky. The moon was nowhere in sight, giving him some clue to how long he had been unaware.

With a wince, Epsilon stood up fully. His form was still wavy, the exhaustion in his mind making it difficult to maintain his physical body. The Codex, he noticed, was clutched in his arms. At least he had accomplished what he set out to do, though his failure to save the goddess of luck left a bitter taste. His sight stretched out across the land, and he took full stock of his surroundings. He had landed, perhaps somewhat luckily, on an uninhabited island off the coast of the northern continent.

The land around him could best be described as arboreal; something the Bjorks he could dimly see at the edges of his sight would be familiar with. His grip tightened on the Codex, as he considered his prospects of defending it in his current state; he was too weak alone to protect it, as exhausted as he was. Only a moment’s consideration was required before the solution came to him.

Alone, he was not enough, especially in his current state: it was too risky to try and keep the Codex on his person at all times -- unless he could remain in a fortress of his choosing. But to remain in a fortress, he would be surrendering all influence on the world around him. The solution came from the creations of other gods. If he could only create his own mortals, he could enslave their will to him and have them be his eyes, his ears, and his hands.

He was weak, but he still had time, power, and the will to use both. It would hurt dearly, but he was a god; stopping in the face of pain would not befit his stature and would leave a bad example for the mortals to come. Carefully, he measured the world around him, telling the earth and the air not what it was, but what it [i]should[/i] be. Dirt transformed to marble; air morphed into gold and deep sapphire. Each piece took form individually, connecting to create a greater whole.

[hider=The Academy, the Grand Archives]
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It was over almost unceremoniously quickly. Where once there had been nothing but pines and foothills, now stood a grand building of gold, marble, and sapphire. Great white walls, polished to high sheen, layered with gold filigree and capped by solid gemstone, shaped in a manner impossible for mortal hands to accomplish. There were no great blasts, no thunderous movement of earth; he had told the Grand Archives that they existed, and so they existed.

But the building was the easy part.

Epsilon cast his gaze and his thoughts to his servants-to-be. He flipped through the Codex, realizing only then that nobody had ever provided anything for him to work off of. The workings of mortals were, at this stage, beyond him. He would have to improvise their forms and biology. He considered his options, and settled on the familiar; they would sustain themselves off of knowledge and experience, in a form they animated by telling the world that they existed.

With a pained whisper, he began to create the bodies he would give will to. First, he created [url=https://i.pinimg.com/originals/36/2c/e0/362ce09f3bf8a52d0afb8e776b5912e6.jpg]great suits of steely armor[/url], possessed of no space for a living body to fit inside; a core of wood instead filling the space under the plates. Each was eight feet tall, weighing hundreds of pounds. They would serve as his guards, to protect his fledgling Academy.

An academy was nothing without scholars. To that end, he created his next set of bodies. They were more comparable to a human size, and [url=https://www.gamesoup.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/ybWtHvdUpMz8WoPq3JWECk-1200-80.jpg]constituted little more than cloth.[/url] When he created their minds, he would animate the cloth, letting pure magic cover in the gaps. But for now, they simply hovered in the air, held up by Epsilon’s divine powers.

And finally, he created a set of bodies that were a mixture between the previous two, to serve as his vanguard in the world about him; [url=https://i.pinimg.com/474x/05/42/4e/05424eb1a806b162d92408b3e1a24c30.jpg]they were clad in both cloth and metal[/url], wrapped around a wooden core, for solidity. He would use them to scout out the world, and face the dangers left behind by the gods and other mortals.

Finally, it was time for the hardest part of his endeavour. It would take Epsilon great effort to animate these empty bodies, and greater effort still to enslave them to his will. His measurements would have to be incredibly precise; the slightest error could doom the mortals he was bringing to life to an early grave. His mind screamed at the effort, so soon after the abuse it was given by Yudaiel. His entire form begged him to stop, but he continued on, powering through the pain.

The birth of the Kynikos was just as unceremonious as the creation of the Grand Archives. One moment they did not exist, the next moment they did. A creation of an invisible, complex math only presented by Epsilon’s mind, measuring the world and giving meaning to it in turn. His form wavered as he spoke, in his divine tongue, “Welcome, my servants, to the Academy.”

They stared at him silently. They waited for direction; enslaved utterly to his will. He turned about, heading up the steps of the Grand Archive into the building proper, motioning the Kynikos to follow him. They did so without question, and the inside of the building was revealed. The roof was hundreds of feet into the air, rows of bookcases stuffed into every available space, minus sparse nooks with desks for study. There were no books, but room for millions of them.

Epsilon motioned to the Kynikos with a grand gesture, “Scholars, begin studying the world around you! Create great epics, and profound manifests! Guards, keep these archives safe! Suffer no abuses! Rangers, map the world and its inhabitants!”

The Kynikos stared at him silently for a moment afterwards, as if trying to interpret his orders. Then, they began to mill about in a confused matter. It was no matter to Epsilon: in time, they would work it out. As for him, he had to place the Codex he still clutched in a safe place and take a long-deserved rest. Leaving the Kynikos behind, he stepped past a pair of grand gates built into the back of the building, walking into a private section. Here he would store his personal belongings; safe from both god and man.

The private section was much more humble than the main library, a set of desks placed in the center of the room, and smaller bookshelves lining the walls. Towards the back wall sat a prominent pedestal, sized for the Codex. Epsilon placed it down and then walked to the center of the room, collapsing into a chair. His exhausted mind succumbed to unconsciousness once more as it tended to its wounds.

His dreams were troubled. He faded in and out, at some points delirious and some points lucid. Some of it was pleasant, others torture; he relived his battle on the moon many times over. When he awoke, he startled from his chair onto the floor. His form was more solid; his mind less exhausted. It was not restful, but the sleep did him well. Everything hurt less, the aches were starting to go away. A glance back confirmed the Codex had not been stolen in the meantime.

He stepped out of the private section into the main hall. It was emptier than it should have been; the guards had found positions, watching over the halls and the bookcases, while the scholars had begun primitive experiments. The rangers were all gone, as was expected, but their number alone did not account for how empty the hall looked. The sun was down; he could tell by the light. No sunlight streamed in the windows, the Grand Archives lit only by its lamps.

Epsilon threw open the main doors, and the answer to the conundrum was immediately apparent. Kynikos of all three castes were scattered across the landscape, standing still and looking up to the sky. Epsilon’s gaze moved upwards to see what they were looking at, and what he saw sickened him. His aches grew in intensity with the stress; all of them were staring at the moon. His form wavered, and he fled back into the Grand Archives. Thoughts whirled through his mind, coalescing into one question, [i]Have they been corrupted by Yudaiel?[/i]

[hider=Summary]
Epsilon wakes up on the bay island on the northern continent, clutching the codex. He sees Bjorks building dams and shit at the edge of his sight, and decides to copy their ideas. He makes the first building of the Academy, the Grand Archives. It consists of a fuckhuge public library and a smaller, more secure private section for his personal possessions.

Then, he makes a bunch of bodies for the future Kynikos to inhabit. The three castes are Guard, Scholar, and Ranger. These castes aren’t important for the Kynikos or required or the sorts; they’re just how Epsilon made them. In practice when the Kynikos diaspora, you don’t have to use castes at all. He gives them a vague set of orders, and leaves them to figure it out.

He has some really bad sleep in the private section to heal himself, and while it works, it’s not really restful. And his condition only worsens when he goes outside to find that it’s night and half of his Kynikos are staring up at the moon. He blames Yudaiel even though it was his own magic that did it.
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[hider=Vigor Expenditure]
Epsilon - 13 Vigor
- 3 vigor to make the Grand Archives. It’s a super fancy place of marble and sapphire and shit, but it’s otherwise fairly mundane. If you attack it, you’ll be fought by an angry god though.
- 4 vigor to make the first Kynikos. Tl;dr, they feed themselves with new experiences and knowledge, and generally can have any body made out of inorganic materials. Wood, metal, cloth, magic, etc. is all free game, but they can’t have flesh. No meat golems, sorry. A more fleshed out explanation of Kynikos will probably come in the next post. Ping me on discord if you need more information in the meantime.
Epsilon - 6 Vigor
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