[center][img]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/893273948526108742/904564647347232818/CHICOMOZTOC.png[/img]

[h3]The Path of Tonauac[/h3][/center]

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These stones were engraved by I, the [abbr=King; literally ‘the one who speaks’][i]Tlatotoque[/i][/abbr] [b]Teotl[/b], who is also called the [abbr=A poetic way of describing obsidian][i]Smoking Mirror[/i][/abbr]. You will have heard of my infamy, I am sure, even if I have fallen; eternal victory -- though within my grasp -- no longer seems so certain.

Few remain that have heard and remember all of the ancient tales, and fewer still who have Seen the beginning of time. I shall record all, in defiance of my supposed lord, so that even if I cannot seize immortality then I might still best him by enduring through legend.

Morality and the sentiment of others do not concern me, so I shall write plainly and tell only the truth, as all things began and happened and ended. My glory is already evident; still, this is a dark tale. I am no hero, and know further that I think little of those ‘heroes’ whose tales I recount for context; they were fools and in the end they did not endure.

[center][h1] . . . . .[/h1][/center]

The legends begin long ago, harkening back to a time before the gods. A hundred myths exist to explain the coming of the first Tlatotoque, but I have looked into the stone lenses and seen the truth of it: when the Shards were ripped from the Great One’s breast and cast out across the sky, their flights were sporadic. A few collided, and when they merged the lesser Shard’s divinity was oft subsumed by that of the greater, and two became one. But there was one small Shard of divinity that instead was deflected off another and only partly drained, cracked but not broken.

This sliver of godly might was left to fall down upon Galbar. As an egg too weak to hatch, it was inert, little more than a stone. In time it came to rest deep below the ground, in the warm bowels of the Galbar, and when Yoliyachicoztl eventually stirred the magma to life, this Shard found its way into the heart of one nascent [abbr=A word that refers to the mythical first lava lizards that were born][i]Achtotlaca[/i][/abbr] who would rise from the life-bearing magma pools alongside the other progenitors of my kind, and this most auspicious of ancestors was named [abbr=meaning ‘light of dawn’][b]Tlanextic[/b][/abbr].

But ‘Great’ Tlanextic, for all his might and beauty and claims of divinity, was not the first who had been birthed from the liquid flame -- he was the last to be born of magma and stone, or at least the last born in such a manner to rise up from the infernal depths. Perhaps he meditated within the warmth for a long time and there came to See, but that is neither he nor there. Know only that for a time, the Achtotlaca survived -- nay, thrived -- even without [i]his[/i] ordination.

In the deep-caverns and lava tubes many Achtotlaca already skittered back and forth in the earliest of days. They were in the dark and without purpose, until one called [abbr=meaning ‘one who possesses light’][b]Tonauac[/b][/abbr] gathered the rest together and assumed leadership. Under his guidance, they explored and mapped the black subterranean depths; they found that tribes of others just like themselves had similarly arisen in connected magma chambers, that there were seven such great chambers and lineages within the subterranean realm that would come to be called [abbr=meaning ‘cave of seven niches’][i]Chicomoztoc[/i][/abbr], and that the [abbr=lava crabs, created by Arvum][i]tetlacuicitli[/i][/abbr] could be hunted or even domesticated for sustenance, and that the [abbr=fire melon]comohuacen[/abbr] and other plants could similarly be cultivated for nourishment.

Still, they were not without worries in those times. There came a time when the whole of the Galbar seemed to tremble: the black and tellurian bowels of the world churned, and from the infernal sea deeper still came disturbances. The increased volcanism saw parts of the depths flooded by fire. The tunnels collapsed in many other places, and in this mayhem and din, a once-dormant [b][i]calamity[/i][/b] was stirred.

Nameless this horror was, and faceless too. It devoured effulgence, and about it the shadows came to life. It was darkness and flame wrapped together into some aberrant and abominable corporeal form, anathema to all life, a being of black fire that emanated no warmth and no light, only clouds of black smoke that choked out away life and light.

This was an evil that had been called into existence long ago, alongside the rest of its kindred, to scourge and hate and mutilate all that it saw, and so it did. Mighty are we [abbr=Literally ‘little fires,’ a more poetic and humble word for the species of lava lizards][i]Tletzintli[/i][/abbr], but powerless were we before its wrath. When it struck it left none in its path alive, delighting in the cruelty and indiscriminate slaughter. The horror’s onslaught could not be contained by any number of brave warriors; all were eviscerated by its countless claws or ripped asunder by its horrific maw, and their screams and wails echoed all through the caverns. And those that tried to hide met with no luck either, for they say it could smell life itself. Corridor by corridor, chamber by chamber, it brought forth darkness and extinguished all that it could find.

Tonauac did not lead the fighters into battle with the beast, as would be expected a warchief or [i]Tlatotoque[/i]. Do not doubt that he was wise indeed, for he was instead the first to flee, to lead his followers as far away from the horror as they could go. Few tales even deign to mention [abbr=Name meaning ‘warrior’]Tupoc,[/abbr] the hero whose brave last stand against the beast bought the Tletzintli a whole hour and doubtless saved hundreds. Alas, that great hero died a horrible death and no doubt spent his last moments despairing at his people’s apparent doom: for in that time the tunnels were not so vast and far-reaching as today, and the last of the Tletzintli there reached the end of their world. They came to be trapped deep within the Galbar’s entrails. With the darkness behind them and only a pool of the world’s molten blood ahead, they could only cast their eyes down into the inferno, or else turn back and face the oncoming apocalypse with as much bravery as they could muster.

[hider=Ripples in the Sacred Blood of the Galbar]
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[i]And as a desperate Tonauac gazed into the magma pool’s depths and sought to behold the future, to divine the way that the Achtotlaca might find their salvation, instead he witnessed the birth of his lord.[/i][/center][/hider]
Perhaps they had contemplated trying to dive into the depths, to swim and swim and hope to find an opening somewhere where they might emerge again. In all likelihood they would have succumbed to the heat; their husks would have sank and been melted and made one with the Galbar once more.

But instead, their deliverance came as Tlanextic erupted forth from the depths. He was like no other Achtotlaca that they had seen, or that has ever been seen since: amorphous and ever-changing was his form, like coruscating flames, and he had no legs upon which to walk, for his body was borne forth by a rising tide of magma. He was aural too, with a golden radiance that was unimaginably bright, more blinding than anything any Achtotlaca had ever seen, until the first of them would later feel the cold air above the Galbar and behold the Great One’s sun. And this hideous and beautiful and awesome and terrible being -- Tlanextic -- was alight with smokeless fire.

Tonauac and all the others immediately worshiped him as a god, begging and pleading their great savior to smite the darkness that hunted them -- I did not understand how this could have been, not for a long time, but a mere hint of divinity is all one needs to cow mortals… I am sure that it also did not hurt that they were so desperate and afraid. “Save us and we will marvel at your brilliance, baske in your warmth, and obey your commands until the end of days,” the tales would have you believe Tonauac intoned. And they say that Tlanextic retorted only, “Swear it.”

Bowing their heads, all did, and so he clambered further from the pool from whence he had been spawned, advancing towards the darkened tunnel where the horror approached. Before his light, that abomination was made to feel trepidation. Before his commanding voice, that which decreed the aberration submit, the demon was made to feel pain. A dozen hands and arms erupted from Tlanextic, and he surged forward, riding a tide of magma. The darkness fled before him and he seized the writhing horror, and even blinded the thing clawed and gnashed and gouged at its adversary, but Tlanextic’s searing form could suffer no injury.

Tlanextic threw his nemesis down into the scoria, and banished him to the most forsaken of magmatic depths -- but he could not truly kill that monstrosity. I shall not begrudge him that, for neither could I.

[hider=Summary]
Some hubristic and possibly malevolent lava lizard named Teotl, who seemingly rules Chicomoztoc at some point in the future, is recording the history and legends of his people -- the origins of Chicomoztoc.

He begins the story by recounting a tale of Tonauac, who led the fire lizards (at least those in this part of the world) at first. They are happy and thriving for some time, until the earth shakes and some monstrous and mythical being attacks them. Many die, but they are saved when Tlanextic -- their first living god and a being that is apparently genuinely divine, emerged from the magma to defeat and banish the demon.[/hider][hider=Vigor Expenditures]
0 vigor spent. Tlanextic is divine and [i]almost[/i] a demigod, but not quite, so no vigor. He also won’t be in the picture for long so no need for spirit or anything else like that.[/hider]