[center][h3]Celestial Music[/h3]
[sub][i]Written with the help of Oraculum and Termite![/i][/sub][/center]

The veil was now many times pierced and restored, its surface rippling and folding with each disturbance like fine silk, like the surface of a still pond in the most starless of nights. Behind it the Hand of Mysteries rested at ease over the knee of Its master, who reclined in observation, a mere shadow of a silhouette, as if watching children at play.

The lake of warm gold sparkled and lapped gently at the surface of the world not yet born, shining in dappled beams through the black mist above. The mist grew ever thinner, blown this way and that by the whirling and weaving of the gods at the Scroll, such that it was now more like a fine curtain than some impenetrable wall. Still, when the First Rakshasa manifested, he did not trouble himself with what was above. He had looked about the golden lake all around with awe, and then shut his many eyes in long meditation, still bathing in the glowing warmth that pierced his eyelids. What perfection!

The Rakshasa was seated on a fine rug and dressed in the splendor of gold, his head-dress circling around his fanged visage in nested crowns studded with gold discs, such that it was not possible to say where the headdress ended and his furred face began. Around his chest were bands of gold pieces and fine garnets, spaced with scarlet furs, and the furs of his heavy golden cuff-bands were red and fine also.

Now the lake of gold had neither shore nor island within itself, so the seating place of the old Rakshasa lay on no dry soil, but on a wide and bright lily-pad that rested high above its surface, buoyed up by the light. And it had happened that from the Hand of Mysteries, a [i][b]flea[/b][/i] did jump, falling through the fading mists and blown this way and that by the winds of light that shone from the hatching gods, until at last it was blown onto that very lily-pad. There the Flea briefly rested, before turning to the large being before him. “Master,” he began, “forgive me, for I am only a flea, and know not where I am to-day. With whom do I have the honour to speak?”

The First Rakshasa, whose three eyes had been closed in meditation (for what was there to observe about this endless and most perfect golden lake?) sniffed. His third eye, set upon the middle of his brow, crept open and peered at the interlocutor. 

“Here was the sublimity of creation, a lake of purest majesty,” the Rakshasa rumbled, slowly at first as he found that he’d a voice, as he exercised that voice for the first time. “Yet now,” the words spilled out faster, “we have a defiled corpse!” 

The last syllable tumbled out with such vigor that it took form. It smacked flat against the lake’s surface, stretched out and sprawled, and there lay Corpse, gaping up at the ripples overhead. Though he had only just fallen from the Rakshasa’s lips, he looked very old and parched, because he was so close to the golden light and warmth. He was very still, so much so that one could barely see him, and only his eye looked on and blinked.

The Rakshasa leaped up in an instant, standing upon his lilypad where he had before been seated in serene meditation, and snarled at the Flea. He roared, “Your presence contaminates the perfection of being!”

The Flea quaked, and crossed its four arms about itself, and then swiftly fell down and prostrated before the frightening scowl of the sage. “Oh, splendid lord! Would that I could vanish into gold, so I would not offend your eyes! I did not know that I was trespassing. Which land is this, that I have had the fortune to step upon?”

The mighty Rakshsa snorted with indignation, and a foot snapped out to strike the Flea and knock it off the lilypad. It landed upon Corpse.

“This was no mere land,” the eldest Rakshasa preached, its two lower eyes opening now. “It was a beautiful chorus, and I a mere vessel, an ear, so that an appreciator would exist for that most perfect Song!”

And from his lips burst out another being, this one called Song. She also fell into the lake, but she rolled over her head and sat cross-legged there. All her mouths began humming to themselves, but some always ran ahead of the others, and she had to start the tune over before the chant became louder. So it was that she was never very loud.

Still, the First Rakshasa was not silent from his raving. “Now, the Celestial Music has been ruined by this discord; never again is there likely to be another note of such Perfection. But I will always remember it, so that there always be at least one Preserver.”

Out from his mouth came the two siblings, and they likewise landed in the lake of gold. Perfection rose up and looked at her reflection, and what she saw did not please her. So she took one of her arms and pulled until it was longer; then she pushed the sides of her head so that it was slimmer; then she stretched her foot; but the sight was never to her liking, and so she went on stretching and squeezing and pulling. Preserver saw this, and was displeased also, for it was not well to him that the lake should have a reflection. So he stirred the surface to chase it away; and he went on stirring.

It was in that time that the stammering Flea grew quiet, now understanding the gravity of its terrible offense of coming into being, at least in the three eyes of that dreadful tyrant of the First Rakshasa. But fortunately, that uppermost third eye of the black creature was now tilted upwards. The blackened mists had grown thinner yet, so now the enraged lord could peer through so as to gaze at the motions of the heavens yet to come. He beheld some lightshow where distant Galaxor battled a bull, and curled a lit in disgust. The Divine Chorus had been grander and more expansive than its devoted Ear had ever realized, and that made the Rakshsa feel pity and sorrow, for what job had he done if he, whose role was only to watch, and more importantly listen, had seen so little? When he hadn’t even heard so many Voices in the Chorus, before the Celestial Music had been forever marred by the din of that distant battling?


His sorrow begat another being, as the Rakshasa suddenly bellowed an ugly, wild, wordless howl of misery and frustration and anger. It grew so loud and heavy that it fell on its feet, still burning and quivering with Rage. Try as this being might, however, he could not spill it out, for he did not have a mouth. Thus he jumped and stamped in place, shaking his many fists, until his furious movements found a flow. Then he began to dance, eyes flashing with fury, and he never ceased because his Rage was overflowing.

Corpse looked at him, and blinked; then he looked up at the Flea. He said, “Haven’t you any other place to stand? If you stand on me like this and jump as you do, I will sink. If you have to go stand somewhere, go to-” But here his voice, which was a low and raspy whisper like rough hide on sand, tapered off to a mumble. The Flea looked about itself, and could see no place on Corpse to hide itself away from the furious Rakshasa with his crowns and furs. Nor did it want to jump onto Rage’s wild arms, for fear of sinking Corpse and making even more trouble. “Master Corpse, your throat is dusty like old bones, and I cannot hear you at all! Let me come a little closer, and then you can tell me where I can stand.”

“Come here close to my lips, so I can say it to your ear,” whispered Corpse. So the Flea hopped up his chin; but when it leaned in to listen, suddenly Corpse opened his mouth very wide, so wide that it cracked a little in the jaw, and he swallowed the Flea whole. Then he swelled up, and he looked full. Thus it was that vermin came to live inside of Corpse, swelling him when they sate his hunger, but since then his jaw has always hung a little loose, because he had snapped it in swallowing the Flea.

For the First Rakshasa–who would come to be called Rakshasaraja–the progenitor and lord of these five remaining lesser beings that had sprung from his maw, there was still no consolation. The noble being’s three eyes remained gazing upward, toward the great Void that was in many ways empty in that time, but which seemed bursting with life and vigor if only for the presence of the Khodex and those divinities flitting around it. The Rakshasaraja’s howling that had given birth to Rage quieted down, but did not fully cease. He was not becoming calm, merely expending all of the vigor of his lungs. His throat was hoarse. The feral cry faded into a grumbling stream of malformed words and curses, too twisted and odious to take shape as had some others.

All about, the Void buzzed with a tumult that offended the Ear. So he brought up his two hands and plugged his ears, trying to shut out the din of chaos so that he could remember the beauty of the Celestial Music that had once been Sublime. The self-absorbed five spawn of his scurried about, not much better than the Flea, and so he raised his other two hands and used them to cover his two lower eyes. The tips of his fingers stretched and reached, but they couldn’t quite cover the third eye upon his brow, and so he seethed, knowing that he would forevermore be unable to find the tranquility of his original meditation.

“Hrmgrlgarburhmmm,” he grunted incoherently, no longer poised or in control of his lips. He was animated by madness. He paused after a long time, just long enough to catch his breath, and then spat out two more nonsensical syllables: [b][i]“-Galbar-!”[/i][/b]

Enough vigor filled that word to give it form, and a great stone manifested in the Rakshasaraja’s throat. He sputtered, he coughed, and he hocked it up. He spat it out not into the glorious gilded depths below, where it would mar the perfect lake and take it ever further from Sublimity, but cast out the thing high and away, above into the void. The stone spun and spun, growing in size as it soared through the nothingness. A bit of saliva still clung to the rock, but the force of the stone’s tumbling journey pulled it all to one side, where it pooled together in a small depression of the otherwise near-spherical rock.

The Rakshasaraja’s rambling continued on, weaker and softer, until they became just mumbles. Then he collapsed in exhaustion and lay down upon his lilypad, surrounded by the clamor of his five children. Beyond the veil, the Hand of Mysteries grinned.











[hider=And that became the name of the World: Grlgarbur.]
At the lake of hot bright gold that represents Galbar’s future sun, a primordial being sits in timeless meditation, pondering perfection. This is the Rakshasaraja, the First Rakshasa, and he’s a really fancy big black ape of a primordial demon-thing, with robes and crowns and all sorts of regalia. In his own words, he is supposed to just chill and enjoy the show, so that the universe has someone to appreciate it!

It so happens that one Flea has fallen from the outer god that planted Itzal in the sun, and the Flea speaks to the Rakshasaraja, who explodes in great rage and wrath at the Flea for contaminating the perfect and divine song that the Rakshasaraja considers it his duty to listen to and appreciate. As the Rakshasaraja rants and rages, words tumbling from his mouth manifest as loosely humanoid beings: Corpse, Song, Perfection, Preserver, and Rage, whose appearance and behavior reflects their respective concepts.

Corpse tricks Flea into standing too close to his mouth, and then eats Flea, starting a trend of pests infesting carrion as it decomposes. The Rakshasaraja, spluttering in anger, at last coughs up a big stone which rolls out into the void, growing bigger. His inarticulate growling marks its name as [i]Galbar[/i], and spittle stuck to its surface forms a body of water. The outer god who caused this whole mess is quite entertained.

By the power and virtue of Cyclone, Galbar is created for 0 MP.[/hider]