[center][color=6ecff6][h2]Ixhun[/h2][/color][/center]

The midday sun stood perfectly aligned above the massive pyramid of obsidian and limestone, the blazing ball of light and power reflecting dazzlingly off the massive edifice, the center of life in the city-state of Ocotepec. 

The temple itself was an imposing pyramid made of finely hewn obsidian and limestone, the work of three generations of laborers and the finest artisans in recent memory. The obsidian stones were shining a deep purple in the glow of the afternoon sun, the dazzling effect serving only to highlight the great disparity between the color of the pyramid's finely carved four faces and that of its hazardously steep central staircase. An ominous streak of rusted brown wound its way down the white limestone steps from the flat top of the temple to the plaza below where it ended in stained stone.

“Our allies to the west leave us for dead!”

The wails of thousands of people washed over the plaza like a wave, an entire city mourning the words of their High Priest as he lamented atop the Temple of the Sun. Their cries were amplified in the plaza, the sounds bouncing off the surrounding lesser temples and structures before flowing out of the plaza into the greater sprawl of Ocotepec as a tumultuous wave of noise.

The sobbing masses ceased their lamentations at the wave of a hand from their High Priest, a single movement enough to sway the thousands in the plaza out of their distress and into utter silence. The High Priest stood, his elaborate headpiece of brightly colored feathers swaying in the soft breeze atop the pyramid’s top with the masses utterly enthralled by his gaze as he stood reticent before them.

“They believe us already lost! They believe that the Easterners will crest our walls and take out every last one of us to the blade!”

The crowd took up a furious howl at the horrible revelation they were being made to understand; that their allies had abandoned them.

“But they are wrong! For Ocotopec, for all of you, are stronger than they could ever understand!” the High Priest raised his hands in a sweeping motion across the crowd beneath him, “Our allies to the west do not understand our struggle! To them, the Easterners are a problem far from their walls! But to us! To us it is real!”

The crowd began to quiet as around them the shadows began to grow long. The dazzling intensity of the pyramid began to dull, the light dancing around as the Sun seemed to waver. Whispers began to pass through the crowd, a growing discontent at the sudden waning of the Sun.

The High Priest brought his hands up above him, reaching out toward the Sun with open palms, “Our Lord will protect us!” he began as the shadow of the moon began to cross in front of the blazing star, “He is always with us! He has not abandoned us!”

The crowd began to wail once more as the Sun’s light shined weaker and weaker, before plunging the whole of Ocotopec in twilight. 

“Do not fear! He shall deliver us!” the Priest called out to the crowd as he brought a hand down to his heart in a dramatic display of emotion for the holy man.

The crowd had been quiet up until this point, but began now to call out in surprise as around them the world shifted from darkness to something far more sinister than the night. The obsidian pyramid, dark as the abyss began to glow a scarlet hue, the sickly red casting out from the pyramid in ever more vibrant reflections across the crowd as the source of the light seemed to grow in intensity.

There was a yell from one of the High Priest’s assistants atop the pyramid, and the retinue of holy men and soothsayers turned as one to face the source of the assistant’s distress.

Above the pyramid the moon seemed as though it had been split asunder by the appearance of a streaking red comet. The light from the pyramid glowed ever brighter as the comet seemed to creep across the sky of Ixhun, growing larger as it fell from the heavens.

The holy man attempted to take up some chant at his place atop the pyramid, a hymn of protection or deliverance perhaps, but his words were drowned out by the crowd as they called out in horror as the red comet streaked across the sky above them and disappeared over the eastern horizon. 


As the comet disappeared the pyramid seemed to glow its brightest, almost too bright to look upon. It cast the entire city in scarlet, as if the heavens themselves had rained blood upon all the land.

There was quiet once the comet was lost over the tops of the trees, the shocked milling of thousands of people the only noise as they all kept their eyes focused on that unseen object. Above them the moon began to slip its position in front of the sun, and slowly the bloody mess of Ocotopec became the shining city once more, the Sun creeping its touch into every corner of the land as it once again became the dominant force in the sky.