Dungeon Master 
Join Date: March 15, 2003
Location: Castle Aden
Age: 43
Posts: 68
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now here is the prologue for everyone to see:
Quote:
In then darkness, there was a mind.
The mind was alone in the darkness, because the darkness was, itself, almost perfect loneliness. The mind had no body. It had no eyes with which to see that there was nothing around it to see. It had no mouth to scream and no hands to claw pointlessly for release.
It was thought and memory, alone, without even the distraction of physical agony.
Time was meaningless in the darkness. For the first span of time, the mind raged against its imprisonment. It did not know how long it raged. It could have been five minutes. It could have been five thousand years.
After its rage was exhausted, the mind grieved. Once it had lived in a world of sunshine and apples and bright colored birds. Fish had darted, trees had grown, clouds had carved poetry in skies lit by sunrise. The mind had been named Hasmed. He had served with honor and distinction; he hand loved his duties and rejoiced to perform them. He had possessed a body, he'd had friends, and he'd known love.
Now he had nothing. Not even pain or hope. For all Hasmed knew, the world was as lost, as broken, as annihilated as himself.
After grieving, Hasmed despaired. He wondered if this void, this torment, was what the Maker of All had felt before Creation. Surely no other suffering could lead a perfect being to create a flaed world. But the maddening silence --- silence that was not merely the loss of sound, but its impossibility --- surely that, and the dark beyond darkness, and the crushing, numbing terror of being all there was, of being a universe unto oneself... that could drive even an infinite entity mad.
And for an infinite entity, any madness would be infinite as well.
The fears filled Hasmed's mind, which was all that remained of him. The cosmos was doomed from the start. All of it --- the glory, the corruption, the hope, the horror, the pride of defiance and the brutality of War on Earth as in Heaven --- all had been preordained. The ending was cut in stone before the first word was breathed.
Hasmed was mired in this despair when he heard the voice.
The voice was one he knew, one from the world. In ages past (or perhaps, only moments), that voice had belonged to Vodantu, a being like Hasmed. Like Hasmed, Vodantu had been condemned. Like Hasmed, Vodantu was trapped in a private nullity. But unlike Hasmed, Vodantu was still strong enough to communicate.
Beings of their type --- once called Elohim --- had been the rulers of Creation, and their essence was infused in every far corner of the cosmos. Even the void in which they were confined touched upon something other than itself, some space that was not nothing. Even though they were fallen, some were strong enough to shake their cages with thought alone, sending vibration of their will coursing out to make faint reedy contact with their fellows.
HASMED, said Vodantu's voice, ATTEND.
Hasmed ignored it.
I HAVE NEED OF YOU, HASMED. I HAVE A TASK.
Still, the imprisoned Elohim did not reply.
Then Vodantu spoke the true language of reality, and Hasmed could not ignore it --- for the word Vodantu spoke was Hasmed himself, written on the book of existence. Vodantu knew Hasmed's True Name, and by this Hasmed was compeeled.
What would you have of me? Hasmed sullenly asked.
THE WALLS OF OUR ISOLATION ARE CRACKING, Vodantu replied. ALREADY SOME OF OUR LESSER FELLOWS SLIP THROUGH AND RETURN TO THE PHYSICAL REALM.
AND YOUR THINK I COULD ESCAPE AS WELL?
Though once mighty, I know you were greatly reduced in the War. You might escape. I bid you try.
To what end? Our cause was doomed when the world was young. Now the cosmo is surely aged and decayed, broken by the curse of The Ancient of Days. What can we gain by esacpe?
ASK NOT WHAT WE CAN GAIN, BUT WHAT WE CAN LOSE, Vodantu replied. BY WORKING OUR WILL ON THE WORLD OF MEN, WE CAN HASTEN THE WORLD'S DEMISE. IS THAT NOT WHAT CURSED AHRIMAL FORESAW SO LONG AGO? AND WITH THE WORLD DESTROYED, WHAT CAN KEEP US SEALED? WITHOUT A BOUNDARY OF EXISTENCE, OUR REALM OF VOID COLLAPSE. WITH EVEN THE VOID DESTROYED, WITH NO PLACE TO HOLD US, NO FIELD IN WHICH WE CAN BE CONTAINED, SURELY THE CURSE OF OUR CONSCIOUSNESS WILL FALL AS WELL. WHEN CREATION IS ANNULLED, WE WILL BE ANNULLED AS WELL. WE CAN FINALLY CEASE TO EXIST. WE CAN FINALLY BE FREE OF THE BURDEN OF OURSELVES.
I dont believe it. The Allmaker is too spitefull. The One Above would find some way to torture us still, even past the end of the world.
I DO NOT ASK YOUR OPINION, HASMED. I COMPELL YOUR OBEDIENCE.
Send someone else. Send Joriel. Send Rabbadun. Send someone who still cares enough about the world to destroy it.
THEY ARE SENT, AND NOW YOU ARE SENT AS WELL.
Hasmed fought, but against the call of his own true nature, he could not win. Silently screaming, damned Hasmed was torn from his lightless prison and flung once more into the storm of existence.
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[ 04-08-2003, 01:20 AM: Message edited by: Ken Rauhl ]
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04-08-2003, 12:31 AM
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