[center][b][h3]Saries[/h3][/b][/center]

[center][b]I[/b][/center]

One moment Saries had been stalking the Desert itself, chasing mirages and dunes made of glass and sea in order to strengthen its progeny once more.

The next, reality tore asunder. 

It was similar to the vision it had whilst fighting with the demon Sarhush – Only this time, it wasn’t violating Saries’ mind. This time it had a [i]scent[/i] to it, like that of the fur of a freshly-groomed pup.

The desert landscape changed. What had once been sand suddenly turned into dirt and rock and moss and grass and trees and birds and [i]nature[/i]. It was beautiful.

And suddenly, Nature made noise. 

“I am the Patron of Nature,” declared a voice like the morning spring breeze, coming from a hole in the ground. From that hole emerged a small, unassuming snake, a snake that slithered up Saries’ foreleg. “I have come to you in these Never-Known Lands, God-Beast of Nature, to warn you of the coming apocalypse.”

Saries shuddered. The snake’s slithering felt unpleasant on its skin. Still, it was curious. Saries had already attacked one Patron before, why would Nature risk its safety by appearing before It now? 

“The Beastbane, the one that is called Sarhush-” Saries growled at the mere mention of the name, a fire lighting in its chest. Nature recoiled at the violent rumbling, nearly dropping from its perch around Saries’ shoulder. “-means to empty the seas! Civilization countenanced this madness, Glory urged it, and Cataclysm exalted it! And even now, Sarhush conspires with another great demon!”

Saries perked up. The very idea was ridiculous – Sarhush wanted to drain the oceans? Why? How? When?! Did he have the faintest idea what such an act would result in? Just thinking about it made Saries sick. 

Nature continued, “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.”

Saries remembered the suffering it had felt when the forests burned, the unwarranted pain and loss of life had been nearly unbearable. This would be on a completely different level. It would be-

The vision distorted – The grass burned, the skies choked with smog and ash. Fire rained from above and rivers of flames devoured all there was. Animals ran, plants withered, and finally, the earth opened up below Saries and swallowed it whole. It closed in and crushed Saries with all its weight. Muscles tore, bones broke, eyes popped.

And suddenly it gasped and found itself in the desert again.

“Cataclysm thanks you, God-Beast Saries,” Spoke a voice like the breaking of glass, off in the distance, echoing in the mirages it had been chasing for what felt like a lifetime. The mirages which now were vanishing. Saries’ voice caught in its throat. Had it been misled? By one of these lesser Spirits? “Your Offspring will make for an enjoyable showing in the coming purge.”

Saries pounced with all its strength – shooting towards the Glass Dune in the distance – but when it reached it, it was only sand. Mundane, uninteresting sand. 

Saries paced for a moment, and then howled. It was a frustrated howl that echoed across the emptiness of the desert.

[center][b]II[/b][/center]

Saries wheezed. It was getting tired again, it could tell. It had taken on an avian form some time ago, after its canine form became too exhausted to run. Now, its wings started to shake and it was getting difficult to maintain altitude. 

It did not know how long it had been since it began the journey back. Hours, days? It did not want to endure so much death again – It couldn’t. So it moved as fast as its body could carry it, and switched into different forms as appropriate in order to minimise rest.

It was approaching familiar lands. In the distance, Saries could even see the shoreline where it had spilt Sarhush’s blood. 

And then it happened. It did not need to see it to know it had begun. It felt the panic and disorientation of thousands upon thousands of little lives at the bottom of the ocean. It felt how they had been swept away and how, desperate to cling to life, they struggled to find shelter or escape from the vortex that was taking all that they had known. Many died well before being taken into the Underworld, but some had the unfortunate fate of surviving long enough to be crushed by pressure, or to be impaled onto sharp stones in the caverns.

Saries’ heart skipped a beat every thousandth death. Then, its breathing became shallow and quick. And when the dizziness hit, it fell from the sky.

A creature of such a size does not fall gently or gracefully. It crashed through the treetops, crushing everything in its path and finally coming to a stop against a great boulder in the middle of a valley. 

Saries’ ichor coated the stone. Its joints bent the wrong way, bones jutted out from the skin, and blood flowed freely from its mouth. And then came the convulsions. Every wild spasm sent Saries’ blood splattering across the clearing, painting trees, grass, and watching animals with the sacred ichor.

A flock of birds, having watched their progenitor’s fall, rushed to it. Some of them were even brave enough to try and calm it down, either stomping on its chest or back or simply chirping loudly at it. This made no difference. The convulsions continued. Saries’ eyes, glazed over, could barely even see what was going on around it. It felt like every pore in its body was on fire. 

When the birds got tired, the mammals who had been watching switched with them and tried to comfort Saries in their own way. Then the reptiles, then the insects, even the plants seemed to stretch their branches towards it and grow more comfortable under it. 

For three days and three nights, Saries convulsed at the foot of the Boulder. And on the fourth day, it stopped moving. 

Little by little, the exhausted animals who remained at its side, approached and inspected it. It was alive – Wheezing, bleeding, badly injured, but alive. And before their very eyes, its wounds started to mend. 

Satisfied, the animals finally left to go back to their own lives, and allowed Saries its rest. 

But the Patrons remained, invisible but watching nonetheless. Nature, the snake, looked at the magnificent amount of God-Blood that had been spilt all over the Valley. And with a single bow of its head, the blood was consumed, and Nature left.

“I, in friendship, will strengthen your Offspring. Your blood will ensure a catastrophe of this size never happens again.”

[center][b]III[/b][/center]

Between caring for the God-Beast, foraging for food and medicinal herbs, and simply staying safe whilst the sky fell and the earth cracked, the youngest twins of the Accord of the Boulder had had a rough week. 

What had started as a pilgrimage to the Sacred Grove very quickly ended up with them not only meeting the God-Beast itself, but actually [i]caring[/i] for it. The twins – or more specifically, Sirele – had been hesitant to call the entity they’d found a God, of course, but there wasn’t much she could say when her twin brother, Jiva, pointed out how quickly the beast’s wounds were mending. Honestly, when you can clearly see bones rearrange and tissue stitch itself closed in front of your eyes, can you really doubt you’re in the presence of something greater than yourself? 

And so it had fallen to the Twins to protect and care for the God-Beast for as long as it needed them. 

It had now been quite some time since all its visible wounds healed. Not even bruises remained, and its breathing had become deeper and much calmer. 

It was a strange thing. Their father had always told them stories of the God-Beast ‘s majestic wolf-like appearance, as if it had descended from the night sky itself, but the creature that lay unconscious in front of Sirele right now looked like a gigantic hawk instead.

Curious, she poked the beast’s beak. 

It stirred. 

Wait, it stirred?!

“Jiva! JIVA!” Sirele shouted as she tripped and fell backwards onto her butt. Almost immediately, her brother Jiva came out of the woods, club in hand. Their eyes met.  “T- B. G-G-G…” When Sirele failed to make a sound beyond gagging on her words, she pointed at the stirring God.

“It’s waking up?!” Jiva dropped his club and ran to Sirele. He grabbed her by the shoulders and tried to stand her up, but her legs felt like blades of grass. “El, c’mon, give it space!” 

Sirele gulped and tried her best to simply scoot backwards, but then something caught her eye. 

“Wait! Look at it-” Sirele pointed at the God-Beast again. It continued to stir, eyes now blinking open. It looked around, wobbling as it did so. “Something’s wrong, it looks…”

“Lost?” The Twins spoke the word at the same time.

And so the God-Beast looked at them, and upon looking at them its eyes softened, and it lay its head back down without taking its eyes off them. To Sirele, it felt like it was trying to say something, she could almost [i]hear[/i] it.

Jiva, who earlier in the day had butchered their latest catch in preparation for meal time, turned his back on the God-Beast and grabbed the chunks of red meat off the stone he’d used as a worktop, and threw them closer to the God. The God-Beast watched intently, and after a few moments ate the offered flesh. 

It was after it ate the offering that the God-Beast’s form changed. It no longer was a grand hawk, and was now a wolf like in the stories that the Twins’ father loved to tell around the fire, with a pelt that glittered like the night sky and as tall as the trees.

Sirele watched, jaw agape, eyes transfixed on this otherworldly beast. She’d never seen anything like it before – Not even the Blue-Crested Tormentas back home – with their innate control of the weather and their ethereal, buzzing feathers – compared. 

It was clearly not a threat, Sirele realized. The God-Beast didn’t look angry. If anything, it looked pleased. Happy, even! She let a small smile show on her face and stood up on still-shaky legs. At the same time, her brother walked up to her side, just in time for the God-Beast to gently lower its head.

“I think it’s asking us to pet it.” Sirele whispered to her brother, who looked at her like she was insane.

“Did you take a dip in the Malefic? No way!”

“No, no. I’m pretty sure it is!” Sirele urged and started to reach for the top of Saries’ head, only for Jiva to grab her just before she made contact.

“No. Way.”

Just before Jiva pulled away, the God-Beast did a little jump forward and forced both their hands onto its head. And once their hands had made contact, there was no stopping.

Sirele nearly lost it right then – The fur felt like what she imagined clouds felt like, and the sparkling lights lingered on her hand in between each pet. But the more they pet the God-Beast, the more that the feeling of comfort spread. First it reached up to her elbow, and before she knew it, it felt like her entire right arm was engulfed in the gentle warmth of a bed on a rainy morning.

When she looked at the God-Beast’s eyes and saw them shut, she realized she’d been [i]glowing[/i], and so was her brother next to her. The light dissipated soon enough, but it left behind a gift – Along Sirele’s right arm, it left a marking spanning from the tips of her fingers all the way to her shoulder, consisting of spiraling lines and soft curves in a white hue. And along Jiva’s left arm, it left a similar marking, but with sharper, thicker lines.

The moment they withdrew their hands from the God-Beast’s head, a vision flickered in their minds. That of a man-God with a stern face and worn hands, with a stench that inspired nausea and a quickened heartbeat, with a voice that grated the ears. But suddenly, from amongst the garbled noise in the vision, a single word rang true.

[i]‘Saries’[/i]

“... So that’s your name? Saries, hah?” Sirele pat Saries’ head one more time, before it lifted it out of reach, and nodded. 

Sirele looked at Jiva, then back at Saries. The God-Beast tilted its head, it did not understand what the Twins were thinking. 

“Dad is gonna be [i]so[/i] mad!” Jiva sighed.

[center][b]IV[/b][/center]

Saries’ Ichor, which had been shed by the bucketful during its Fall, had painted vast swathes of the Valley of the Boulder, and most of that Ichor had been infused into the very ecosystem by the Patron of Nature. The plants, animals, insects, fungi, and any living thing that came into contact with that Ichor suddenly found itself more deeply connected to the world. It was as if a veil had been lifted, and suddenly they were able to do things that had been impossible before.

Nature, in its vast wisdom, had called upon all its nascent alliances with other Patrons and beseeched them, for it needed them to bless Saries’ progeny so that they may have a chance at surviving what was brewing under the surface. 

And so, hundreds of Patrons rushed to the Valley of the Boulder whilst the God-Beast was still unconscious, and infused some of its progeny with their blessings and in the process, changed them. 

Not all were changed, only some. And those that belonged to that minority soon found their bodies changing along with their spirits. Those blessed by the Patron of Water found new instincts related to water instilled into them and found themselves able to manipulate water within certain parameters. Those Blessed by Fire found themselves aflame and craving heat. Those Blessed by Shadow learned that they were able to hide from even the apex. And there were many, many Patrons who flocked to that Valley at that time, and the mark of the Patrons on the land, aided by Saries’ spilled ichor, spread.

[hider=Actions]
Saries finds itself out in the Never-Known Lands - these are lands so far away from anything that they will never be known by humanity. It is there because it has been hunting one of the Patrons that caught its attention, in an attempt to continue strengthening its Offspring.

Whilst it is trudging through a desert, chasing after mirages and echoes, Saries gets visited by the Patron of Nature, who warns it about the coming apocalypse orchestrated by Sarhush and Khthon. Before Nature can finish relaying information, however, Cataclysm interrupts and reveals that it was the one that Saries had been chasing - It had purposefully lead it far away from the Known Lands to prevent it from being able to return in time to stop the apocalypse. 

Saries rushes back as quickly as it can, but it takes days to even see familiar lands. At that point, the cataclysm begins. The moment the oceans start draining, Saries begins convulsing.

It falls from a great height whilst convulsing, breaking most of its bones and showering blood and gore all over the Valley where it fell. Even after it hits the ground and splatters against a Great Boulder in the center of the Valley, it continues convulsing for three days and three nights. During this time, animals care for Saries by physically comforting it or attempting to heal it, and bringing it food that goes uneaten. During this time, the Patron of Nature infuses Saries’ spilled Ichor into the living beings in the area, then calls forth many other Patrons to bless the creatures so that they may better survive the cataclysm. This results in a great number of animal species becoming intimately connected to Ideals, and thus being able to perform Ideals magic on some instinctual level, as dictated by their Patron.

On the fourth day, Saries stops convulsing, and soon after it is found by a pair of Pilgrims from the Accord of the Boulder, a nearby tribal society. 

The tribal Twins care for the unconscious Saries for days even whilst the sky falls apart and the earth splits. Eventually, Saries awakens and blesses the Twins with the Mark – A tattoo that manifested on their arms and allows them to communicate with Saries (and other beasts), and vice versa, via a kind of telepathy which allows each party to feel what the other feels, memories included.

The Twins learn Saries’ name, and then the post ends.

[center][h1]CONVICTION SPENDING:[/h1][/center]
Starting Conviction = 3

Saries spends 2 Conviction (Surreal, Extreme in-domain action - Divine Gift) to infuse a minority of all living beings (minus sapients) with a permanent link to a single Ideal, via a blessing granted by any one Patron at the request of the Patron of Nature. This permanent link results in new species evolving that have innate control in very specific ways over their Ideal, as dictated by their Patron. For example, a Shadow Bunny species could be innately able to hide in the shadows cast by tall grass, or a Fire Wolf species could be innately capable of controlled self-immolation in order to purge disease and foreign bodies. Of course, very rarely an exceptional animal could appear that would have more powerful abilities than normal after having caught the attention of their Patron. In a sense, this blessing simply allows animals permanent access to a wild type of Witchcraft.

Saries spends 0 Conviction (Lucid, In-Domain Actions - Divine Gift) to grant the Twins the Mark, which allows both parties to understand each other via a type of telepathy that relays feelings and memories. This Mark also allows the receiver to communicate to mundane and magical beasts in the same way.

Remaining conviction = 1
[/hider]