[center][img]https://i.postimg.cc/5y0S9RFg/imageedit-1-6859460295.png[/img][/center]
[quote][i]The first sighting came three days after the massacre.

A coastal settlement, small and struggling, built where the retreating ocean had left tide pools rich with stranded fish. The people there had learned to harvest what the gods' catastrophe had inadvertently provided. They were practical folk who asked few questions about divine will and focused instead on smoking enough fish to survive the next day.

The woman arrived at dusk, beautiful in a way that made eyes linger too long. Her skin was dark as charcoal, her movements fluid as water, and when she smiled, which she did often, her teeth caught the last light like polished bone. She carried nothing. She wore less. She claimed to be a refugee from inland, fleeing some unnamed disaster, and asked only for shelter until morning.

They let her in. Of course they did. Hospitality was sacred, even in hard times, and she seemed harmless enough. Hungry, certainly, but what refugee wasn't?

By dawn, three people were dead.

Not killed violently. Not torn apart or obviously murdered. They simply... didn't wake. Their bodies were cold, bloodless, faces locked in expressions that witnesses would later struggle to describe. Empty, some said. Hollow, others claimed. As though something vital had been drained away during the night, leaving only meat behind.

The woman was gone. The only trace she left was a single footprint in the ash outside the village, pressed so deep it looked as though she'd stood there for hours, watching. Waiting. Deciding.

Word spread slowly at first, carried by the few who'd glimpsed her in the night and lived to remember it. Then faster, as other settlements reported similar visitations. A woman with black skin and white eyes. A man who walked bent and wrong, too fast on all fours, too slow when upright. Sometimes together, sometimes alone, yet always hungry.

The people gave them names, as people do when confronted with the inexplicable. The Shadow-Drinker. The Bent One. The Twice-Cursed. Mothers began to tell their children new warnings at night: bar the doors, trust no strangers, and if you see someone beautiful who smiles with too many teeth, run.

But running, as some learned, was not always enough.[/i][/quote][hider=The Cursed Ones][b]SUMMARY:[/b] In the weeks following their transformation, the two cursed beings—one twisted into a bestial half-man capable of impossible regeneration, the other transformed into a blood-drinking predator with inhuman charm—have begun wandering the lands beyond their origin point. Unable to sustain themselves on normal food, they hunt mortals for sustenance. Alechior's gambling-curse modification manifests unpredictably: sometimes the creatures experience moments of lucidity and restraint, other times their hunger intensifies beyond all control. Their presence creates the world's first true "monsters"—beings that blur the line between mortal, beast, and curse.

[b]DIVINE ACTION:[/b] Saries - Curse two mortals with lycantropy/vampirism
[b]Action Type:[/b] Grant curse to mortals (permanent transformation)
[b]Tier:[/b] SURREAL - Extreme in-domain magical mutation
[b]Domain Alignment:[/b] In-Domain (Life/Nature)
[b]Conviction Cost:[/b] 2 (Lycanthropy) + 2 (Vampirism) = 4 Total

[b]DIVINE ACTION:[/b] Alechior - Modify existing divine curses (Lycanthropy, Vampirism)
[b]Action Type:[/b] Alter existing divine effect
[b]Tier:[/b] HAZY - Modification of another god's work
[b]Domain Alignment:[/b] In-Domain (Gambling/Merriment)
[b]Conviction Cost:[/b] 1 (Lycanthropy) + 1 (Vampirism) = 2 Total

[b]RIPPLE:[/b] Minor-to-Moderate - "The Twice-Cursed"[list]
[*]First true "monster" species created: beings that are neither mortal nor beast, requiring mortal prey for survival
[*]Cultural impact: settlements develop new myths, warnings, and protective rituals around strangers and night-time hospitality
[*]Supernatural spread: survivors who witnessed the cursing occasionally manifest temporary curse symptoms when gambling, suggesting the curse may have contagious elements tied to chance itself
[*]Hunter emergence: some mortals begin specializing in tracking/fighting the Cursed Ones, developing early monster-hunting traditions
[*]Divine attention: the dual-blessed nature of the creatures (bearing marks of both Saries and Alechior) makes them visible to divine senses across long distances[/list][/hider]
[quote][i]In the settlement that would one day bear the name Excelsium, magic ceased to be legend and became [b]curriculum[/b].

Aristel, the old man whose sanity had fractured beneath divine revelation, proved a surprisingly effective teacher once his students learned to separate useful instruction from incomprehensible rambling. He taught in the mornings, when his mind was clearest, and by afternoon would often be found drawing elaborate geometric patterns in the dirt, muttering formulae to audiences of confused chickens.

His students were fewer than expected. Many had watched his first successful demonstration—the walking tree trunk—and decided that such power was not worth the risk of paralysis, madness, or worse. But a handful remained, drawn by desperation, ambition, or simple curiosity.

The first principle Aristel taught was this: [b]precision matters more than power[/b].

A circle drawn carelessly would not hold. A word spoken with the wrong inflection would not call. An offering selected without understanding its symbolic resonance would not satisfy the Ideal being invoked. Magic, they learned, was less about commanding reality and more about [b]negotiating[/b] with it, using a language that predated words and would outlast them.

The second principle, learned through painful trial and error, was this: [b]the Ideals do not forgive mistakes[/b].

A young woman attempting to invoke Motion accidentally used honey instead of wax as her binding agent. The ritual succeeded—technically. Every object in her workshop began vibrating at a frequency just below audibility, rattling teeth and bones until she collapsed from nausea. It took three days for the effect to fade. She never attempted another ritual.

A middle-aged man, impatient with the slow progress of his studies, decided to invoke multiple Ideals simultaneously. His ambition was admirable. His preparation was not. The competing Ideals manifested briefly, recognized the impossibility of coexisting in the narrow confines of his ritual circle, and [b]departed with emphasis[/b]. The resulting backlash left him deaf in one ear and prone to sudden, involuntary tremors. He lived, but served as an effective cautionary tale.

Yet for all the dangers, for all the failures and setbacks and moments of genuine terror, progress was made. Slowly. Carefully. With the kind of methodical determination that characterized Excelsium itself.

Within weeks, three students could reliably animate small objects—bones, sticks, stones—for brief periods. Within a month, one had successfully created a working kiln that maintained perfect temperature through invocation of the Ideal of Heat. By the second day, Aristel's pupils numbered seven, and whispers of their work had begun to spread beyond Excelsium's borders.

The god who had forced Aristel's enlightenment watched from a distance, impassive. Whether pleased or disappointed by the pace of mortal discovery, that was only for him to know.[/i][/quote][hider=The Broken Genius][b]SUMMARY:[/b] Following Meris's forceful ignition of Aristel's Spark and the old scholar's successful demonstration of Magick, a small magical academy has formed organically in Excelsium. Seven students study under Aristel despite his deteriorating mental state, learning to invoke Ideals through precise ritual. The curriculum is brutal: mistakes result in paralysis, permanent injury, or death. 

Two students have already suffered lasting damage from failed invocations. However, three can now reliably animate small objects, one has created a self-regulating kiln through Heat invocation, and the fundamentals of "Weircraft" (Magick) are being systematically documented. The students learn that magic is less about power and more about negotiation with reality itself, using symbolic language to politely request rather than command. Knowledge spreads slowly beyond Excelsium's borders as graduates and failed students alike carry tales of the new art.

[b]DIVINE ACTION:[/b] Excelsis (through Meris) - Forced Spark Ignition on Aristel
[b]Action Type:[/b] Grant knowledge/forcefully ignite mortal potential
[b]Tier:[/b] HAZY - Direct divine intervention on individual mortal
[b]Domain Alignment:[/b] In-Domain (Discovery/Eminence)
[b]Conviction Cost:[/b] 1

[b]RIPPLE:[/b] Minor - "The Broken Genius"[list]
[*]Magical education formalized: first systematic approach to teaching magic emerges, creating reproducible techniques
[*]Acceptable casualties: Excelsium society develops tolerance for "mage mortality rate" as students die from backlash; becomes seen as necessary price for advancement
[*]Mental instability inheritance: forced enlightenment's damage proves partially hereditary to the teaching; some students show signs of dissociation, intrusive visions, and paranoia as side effects of rapid magical learning
[*]Knowledge leak: the Knowledge Golem's intervention created minor reality "weak spot"; in white saltflats, spontaneous minor magical phenomena occasionally manifest without mortal invocation
[*]Patron observation: several Ideal Patrons have noticed organized mortal magic and now watch Excelsium with varying intentions—some benevolent, others predatory[/list][/hider]
[quote][i]The place that had been a wild valley was becoming Kur-Laka, and Kur-Laka was becoming a [b]scar[/b].

The transformation did not happen overnight. Lykaon was many things—brutal, ambitious, pragmatic to the point of cruelty—but he was not hasty. He understood that the god who had reclaimed the Me of Cooking and bestowed new knowledge in its place expected results, not excuses. And so he set his people to work with the kind of methodical ruthlessness that would have impressed even Sarhush himself.

The first stones were cut within days of the god's departure. The Me of Masonry had shown them how: where to strike, how to split, which rocks would hold and which would crumble. The hillsides surrounding the valley bore fresh wounds where quarries had been opened, pale stone exposed to sunlight for the first time in epochs.

The work was hard. Brutally so. And it fell, as such work always does, upon those least able to refuse it.

The Me of Slavery had been taken by the god, but its lesson remained. Lykaon needed no divine artifact to understand the principle of [b]compulsion through force[/b]. Captives taken from weaker settlements found themselves collared with rough leather thongs, marked with ash and ochre, and driven to labor under the gaze of overseers who had once been their peers. Some went mad. Some died. Most simply learned to endure, because endurance was the only path that led anywhere but a cooking pot.

The first structure rose at the valley's center, where the god had stood in judgment. Not a dwelling but a [b]platform[/b], broad and flat, constructed from massive stone blocks fitted together with obsessive precision. It stood taller than two men and took thirty days to complete. Atop it, Lykaon placed a simple altar: a flat stone stained with the blood of the first worker to die during construction, whose body had been butchered and distributed among the laborers as encouragement.

Around this central platform, the settlement spread outward in rough concentric rings. Permanent structures replaced the sagging hide hovels—stone foundations supporting timber frames, roofed with thatch and clay. The new buildings were crude by any standard, but they were [b]deliberate[/b], constructed with intent rather than desperation. They would not collapse in the first strong wind. They would endure.

Pottery came more slowly. The Me had revealed the secret of shaping clay, but finding suitable clay deposits and constructing kilns capable of firing them proved challenging. The first dozen attempts produced nothing but cracked, useless vessels. The eleventh resulted in a kiln explosion that killed two people and burned a third so badly he would bear the scars until his last day.

But the thirteenth attempt succeeded. And the fourteenth. And soon the settlement boasted working kilns that produced storage vessels, cooking pots, and—at Lykaon's insistence—small clay tablets on which marks could be pressed and preserved. What those marks represented, none could yet say. But Lykaon understood, in the way that all would-be kings understand, that [b]memory[/b] was a form of power, and anything that could be recorded could be controlled.

By the time two days had passed since the god's visitation, Kur-Laka had transformed from a sprawling camp of savages into something that almost resembled a [b]settlement[/b]. Almost resembled [b]civilization[/b], if one squinted and ignored the screaming from the slave pens and the smoke from the cooking fires and the casual cruelty that greased every interaction like rendered fat.

Other tribes, seeing what Lykaon had built, reacted according to their nature. Some approached cautiously, offering tribute and alliance, hoping to share in the prosperity that divine favor had granted. Others attacked, seeking to claim the god's gift through force. Still others simply fled, recognizing that Kur-Laka's rise meant danger for any who stood in its shadow.

All would learn, in time, that Sarhush had not simply blessed a settlement but jumpstarted something that would bring insurmountable change unto the lives of Ashuru's inhabitants.[/i][/quote][hider=The Scar of Kur-Laka][b]SUMMARY:[/b] In the following days since Sarhush's visitation, Lykaon slowly transformed the cannibal camp into proto-civilization through brutal application of divine knowledge.
[list][*]Using the Me of Masonry's revelations, workers have quarried hillsides and constructed permanent stone structures including a massive central platform topped with a blood-stained altar.
[*]The Me of Pottery's teachings have produced working kilns after numerous fatal failures, now manufacturing storage vessels and primitive record-keeping tablets.
[*]Most significantly, the Me of Slavery's principles have been implemented without need for the artifact itself: captives from weaker settlements are collared, marked, and compelled to labor under threat of being butchered for food.[/list]
The settlement spreads in concentric rings from the central altar, replacing hide hovels with stone-and-timber structures built to endure. Surrounding tribes either offer alliance and tribute, attack to claim divine favor for themselves, or flee before Kur-Laka's expansion. Lykaon understands he is building not merely a settlement but the foundation of something greater.

[b]WORLD EVENT:[/b] Kur-Laka's Rise
[b]Event Type:[/b] Intended Consequence of Divine Interference
[b]Scale:[/b] Localized (Kur-Laka)
[b]Origin:[/b] Sarhush pushing Lycaon's tribe towards building a proper civilization

[b]EFFECT(s):[/b][list]
[*]Rapid deforestation and landscape scarring: quarrying and kiln-fuel demands strip surrounding hillsides bare, creating visible wounds in terrain
[*]Slavery institutionalized: divine endorsement makes forced labor metaphysically easier to maintain; enslaved people show signs of will suppression beyond physical coercion
[*]Regional destabilization: weaker tribes face choice between vassalization, destruction, or flight; migration patterns shift as refugees flee Kur-Laka's shadow
[*]Cultural revolution: permanent structures, pottery storage, and proto-writing create first true "urban" settlement; fundamentally different from nomadic/village existence
[*]Mortality rate: construction and kiln accidents kill dozens; bodies are butchered and distributed as "encouragement" to remaining workers, normalizing extreme brutality
[*]Tribal Chiefdom seed planted: Kur-Laka's success creates template other ambitious leaders will attempt to replicate[/list][/hider]
[quote][i]In the lands surrounding Radanu, the weather had become [b]wrong[/b].

Not violent. Not immediately catastrophic. Just... wrong. Predictable patterns dissolved into chaos. Rains that should have come in gentle afternoon showers arrived instead as week-long deluges that turned fields to swamps and swamps to lakes. Dry seasons stretched longer than memory permitted, until wells ran dry and livestock began to die of thirst.

The people affected did not understand what had changed. They knew only that the land no longer behaved as it should, that the signs their grandparents had taught them—the shape of clouds, the direction of winds, the behavior of birds—no longer predicted accurately. The world had become [b]unreadable[/b], and in its illegibility lay danger.

Some migrated toward Radanu, following rumors of a blessed region where the god of sky had tamed the heavens themselves. They found the rumors true: Radanu's skies were generous and measured, its fields lush, its people prosperous. But prosperity attracts, and soon the settlement swelled beyond its capacity to feed newcomers. Tensions rose. Resources strained. The blessing, it seemed, carried weight.

Meanwhile, Gamblerdise discovered that not all gifts arrive wrapped in obvious fortune.

The fortunite, beautiful and strange, had been received with appropriate celebration. The first jewelry pieces were cherished, their effects noted with wonder—some wearers found themselves consumed by creative urges, others experienced profound calm in a world that offered little peace. Both seemed blessings, and for a time they were.

But then the miners who had extracted the first stones attempted to dig deeper, seeking richer veins, and discovered that the mountain did not surrender its treasures lightly. Tunnels that seemed stable collapsed without warning. Air that had been breathable turned foul within hours. One miner vanished entirely, his tools found neatly stacked beside a shaft that showed no sign of his passage in or out.

The earth beneath Gamblerdise, it seemed, was paying attention. And it had [b]opinions[/b] about how quickly its gifts should be taken.[/i][/quote][hider=The Climate Drift][b]SUMMARY:[/b] Orranoth's weather regulation over Radanu and surrounding region has created unintended consequences in adjacent areas. Where divine intervention does not reach, weather patterns have become chaotic and unpredictable. Traditional signs—cloud formations, wind directions, animal behaviors—no longer reliably forecast conditions. Rains arrive as week-long floods or fail to come entirely, causing droughts. The people cannot read the land anymore; knowledge passed down through generations has become unreliable. Some migrate toward Radanu following rumors of blessed, predictable weather, but the settlement swells beyond capacity to feed newcomers. Radanu itself remains prosperous under controlled skies, but its blessing has become a magnet for desperate refugees, straining resources and creating social tensions. The regulated zone's stability contrasts sharply with surrounding chaos, making divine favor visibly unequal.

[b]DIVINE ACTION:[/b] Orranoth - Regional Weather Regulation
[b]Action Type:[/b] Permanent alteration of climate patterns
[b]Tier:[/b] SURREAL - Large-scale environmental manipulation
[b]Domain Alignment:[/b] In-Domain (Magic/Sky)
[b]Conviction Cost:[/b] 2

[b]RIPPLE:[/b] Moderate - "Climate Drift"[list]
[*]Weather chaos in unregulated areas: regulated zone creates pressure differentials causing extreme unpredictability in surrounding regions; droughts and floods intensify
[*]Knowledge obsolescence: traditional weather-reading skills become unreliable; generational knowledge fails, leaving people vulnerable to sudden changes
[*]Mass migration pressure: refugees flood toward Radanu seeking blessed stability; population swells beyond sustainable levels despite good weather
[*]Resource strain: even with divine weather control, Radanu cannot feed or house endless arrivals; social tensions rise between original inhabitants and newcomers
[*]Divine dependency: people within regulated zone lose instinct for weather adaptation, becoming reliant on continued divine intervention
[*]Inequality visible: stark contrast between blessed and unblessed regions creates resentment, potential for conflict as outsiders question why favor is not universal[/list][/hider]
[quote][i]Far from settlements and divine drama both, the world continued its slower transformations.

The plants, drunk on sudden sunlight, were beginning to learn [b]moderation[/b]. Not through conscious choice—they were plants, after all, incapable of thought in any recognizable sense—but through simple attrition. The species that grew too fast, too voraciously, depleted soil and died en masse. Their seeds lay dormant, waiting for conditions that might never return. The species that grew more slowly, that paced their consumption to match the sun's intensity, survived. Thrived, even.

Forests that had erupted into violent canopy wars were sorting themselves into new, more balanced formations. Shade-tolerant species reclaimed the forest floor. Sun-hungry trees stretched toward light without strangling their neighbors. Vines learned to climb rather than constrict. It was brutal education, written in countless small extinctions, but it was [b]education[/b] nonetheless.

The animals blessed with Beastcraft proved adaptable in ways their mundane cousins could not match. A blessed hawk could manipulate air currents to hunt in conditions that grounded normal raptors. A blessed rabbit could harden the earth beneath its burrow, creating warrens that would survive any predator's digging. The advantage was subtle but real, and over time, the blessed and unblessed populations began to diverge, not through conflict but through simple differential survival.

And high above it all, a cloud drifted lazily across the sky, golden-bright and utterly immovable, casting its shadow over a valley where dice clattered and laughter rang and a god smiled at the beautiful chaos of chance made manifest.

The world was changing, had changed, and would change again. Such was the way of things, when gods walked and mortals learned and the dream that contained them all continued its slow, inexorable unfurling toward some end that even the divine could not yet name.[/i][/quote][hider=Conviction Calculations 05/01/2026][b]Conviction Rewards:[/b]
+1 to all gods who posted at least once (Alechior, Excelsis, Khthon, Liute, Orranoth, Sarhush, Saries, Sirna)
+1 to all gods who posted 3+ times (Alechior)
+1 to all gods who posted 5+ times (Alechior)
+1 to all gods who advanced plot/created major content (Alechior, Excelsis, Khthon, Liute, Orranoth, Sarhush, Saries)
+1 to gods with active mortal worship/temples (Alechior, Excelsis, Orranoth, Sarhush)
+1 to (Alechior, Saries) for Collaborative Project (Creation of Lycanthropy, Vampirism)
+1 to (Alechior, Khthon) for Collaborative Project (Creation of Fortunite Ore)

[b]Conviction Expenditure (Other):[/b]
-5 to Alechior for:[list]
[*]HAZY Divine Action: Creation of an Avatar (In-Domain).
[*]HAZY Divine Action: Instant knowledge transfer of Mining to Gamblerdice population (Out-of-Domain).
[*]HAZY Divine Action: Instant knowledge transfer of Jewelry to Gamblerdice population (Out-of-Domain).
[*]SURREAL Divine Action: Creation of 'the Happy Cloud' (In-Domain).
[*]SURREAL Divine Action: Imbuing Fortunite Ore with its magical properties (Out-of-Domain).[/list]
-2 to Sarhush for:[list]
[*]HAZY Divine Action: Scrying for the scattered Mes (Out-of-Domain).
[*]HAZY Divine Action: Consecrate the location of Kur-Laka (Out-of-Domain).[/list]
-2 to Khthon for:[list]
[*]HAZY Divine Action: Enriching the depleted topsoil of Ashuru's surface (In-Domain).
[*]HAZY Divine Action: Creating the base for Fortunite Ore and spreading it over Ashuru (In-Domain).[/list]
[b]Turbulence Expenditure:[/b] None
[h2][color=gray]05/01/2026 CONVICTION TABLE[/color][/h2][hr][table=bordered][row]
[cell][center][b]DEITY[/b][/center][/cell][cell][center][b]STARTING[/b][/center][/cell][cell][center][b]SPENT[/b][/center][/cell][cell][center][b]AWARDS[/b][/center][/cell][cell][center][b]TURBULENCE[/b][/center][/cell][cell][center][b]FINAL[/b][/center][/cell]
[/row][row]
[cell]ADRIA[/cell][cell][center]7[/center][/cell][cell][center]0[/center][/cell][cell][center]0[/center][/cell][cell][center]0[/center][/cell][cell][center]7[/center][/cell]
[/row][row]
[cell]ALECHIOR[/cell][cell][center]10[/center][/cell][cell][center]7[/center][/cell][cell][center]7[/center][/cell][cell][center]0[/center][/cell][cell][center]10[/center][/cell]
[/row][row]
[cell]EXCELSIS[/cell][cell][center]6[/center][/cell][cell][center]1[/center][/cell][cell][center]3[/center][/cell][cell][center]0[/center][/cell][cell][center]8[/center][/cell]
[/row][row]
[cell]KHTHON[/cell][cell][center]8[/center][/cell][cell][center]2[/center][/cell][cell][center]2[/center][/cell][cell][center]0[/center][/cell][cell][center]8[/center][/cell]
[/row][row]
[cell]LIUTE[/cell][cell][center]5[/center][/cell][cell][center]0[/center][/cell][cell][center]2[/center][/cell][cell][center]0[/center][/cell][cell][center]7[/center][/cell]
[/row][row]
[cell]MOREN[/cell][cell][center]9[/center][/cell][cell][center]0[/center][/cell][cell][center]0[/center][/cell][cell][center]0[/center][/cell][cell][center]9[/center][/cell]
[/row][row]
[cell]ORRANOTH[/cell][cell][center]3[/center][/cell][cell][center]2[/center][/cell][cell][center]3[/center][/cell][cell][center]0[/center][/cell][cell][center]4[/center][/cell]
[/row][row]
[cell]SARHUSH[/cell][cell][center]10[/center][/cell][cell][center]2[/center][/cell][cell][center]3[/center][/cell][cell][center]0[/center][/cell][cell][center]10[/center][/cell]
[/row][row]
[cell]SARIES[/cell][cell][center]6[/center][/cell][cell][center]4[/center][/cell][cell][center]3[/center][/cell][cell][center]0[/center][/cell][cell][center]5[/center][/cell]
[/row][row]
[cell]SIRNA[/cell][cell][center]8[/center][/cell][cell][center]0[/center][/cell][cell][center]1[/center][/cell][cell][center]0[/center][/cell][cell][center]9[/center][/cell]
[/row][row]
[cell]YZECHR[/cell][cell][center]10[/center][/cell][cell][center]0[/center][/cell][cell][center]0[/center][/cell][cell][center]0[/center][/cell][cell][center]10[/center][/cell]
[/row][/table][/hider]
[i][quote]She walked through the broken land with the unhurried pace of someone who could not be late, because time itself waited on her presence rather than the reverse. The woman (though that word was insufficient, a label that fit poorly like borrowed clothes) moved through devastation with wonder rather than sorrow. 

Cracked earth fascinated her. She would stop, crouch, press her palms to fissures still radiating heat, and listen to what the stone remembered. The black rain that fell intermittently from ash-choked skies did not burn her skin; it evaporated before contact, hissing into steam that wreathed her form like reverent incense.

Where she walked, things responded. Not blooming, for that word suggested intention, purpose. No, the world simply remembered what it had been before the breaking, and for a few moments in her wake, it forgot to be ruined. Grass pushed through ash. Flowers opened in her footprints, confused by the season, confused by their own existence, wilting almost immediately as the reality of devastation reasserted itself. 

She did not mourn them. She watched with the same curious intensity she had given the apple, the same attention she had granted the small boy who had frozen at the sight of her. Everything was equally fascinating. Everything deserved examination.

The mountains in the distance still wept fire. She turned toward them, tilting her head, and the fissures in her bronze skin glowed brighter in response, as if greeting cousins. The molten light beneath her surface pulsed in rhythm with distant eruptions. Not synchronized, not controlled, but aware. Conversing in a language of pressure and heat and stone remembering its liquid birth.

She walked for days, though day and night held little meaning for her. The sun rose and set. She noticed it the way one might notice furniture in a familiar room: acknowledged, unremarkable. The sun had not existed long enough to be memory, not the way stone was memory, the way water was memory. The sun was new. An intrusion. Interesting but irrelevant to where she was going. And she was going somewhere, though she could not have said how she knew, or why it mattered. There was a pull, gentle but insistent, like the way rivers knew downhill even before flowing began.

The pull led her to a place where the earth had torn itself open with particular violence. The hill had been split like rotten fruit, cloven by a fissure so deep that standing at its edge, she could see magma flowing sluggishly far below, painting the chasm walls in wavering orange light. 

The air shimmered with heat. Noxious gases rose in lazy spirals, thick enough to be visible, toxic enough to kill any living thing that breathed them. She breathed them. They tasted of sulfur and copper and the deep earth's exhalation. She held the breath for a moment, considering the flavor, then released it in a long sigh that carried no judgment. This, too, was simply what was.

Atop the ruined hill, or rather atop the two halves of what had been a hill, sat the temple. It had collapsed inward, swallowed partially by the chasm that had opened beneath it. 

What remained jutted from broken stone at impossible angles, defying gravity through sheer stubbornness of whatever substance composed it. Not stone, not quite. Something that looked solid but felt uncertain when she focused her attention upon it, as though it existed in multiple states simultaneously and only settled into one form when directly observed. 

Walls had crumbled. The roof had caved in on one side, exposing the circular interior to ash-choked sky. Through gaps in the broken architecture, she could see magma flowing from a nearby volcanic vent, a river of molten rock that had invaded the sacred space, pooling in the temple's lower sections, filling cracks, claiming territory with the patient inevitability of water finding its level.

The woman who was not a woman stood at the chasm's edge, studying the ruin with the focused intensity she brought to all things. Then she stepped forward, onto nothing, and descended. 

Her bare feet found purchase on air, or perhaps the air solidified beneath her soles, or perhaps the distinction between solid and not-solid was less absolute than it appeared. She walked down the invisible path as casually as one might descend a familiar staircase, her translucent violet garment drifting around her like colored smoke, her hair floating in defiance of any wind.

The heat intensified as she descended. It would have been unbearable to mortal flesh. To her, it was attention: the deep earth noticing her passage, acknowledging kinship. The fissures in her bronze skin glowed brighter, orange-red light pulsing with each step, answering the magma's greeting. 

She reached the temple's broken entrance, a doorway without door, a threshold without definition, and crossed over.[/quote][/i]