Eredon Was True To His Word.
He Provided The Names Of The Divine. Pieces Of Their Fundamental Authority.
Felix watched as Eredon provided the Nym and Empyreans with a series of complex shapes etched into a vessel of pure, textureless black, as if all of the radiance of the world were scrawled against utter shadow. They were to inscriptions what a cube was to a square scratched into the dirt—even as he stared at them, Felix’s eyes slid away, refusing to focus.
Unseen Beholder!
WARNING!
Authority Is Insufficient!
The Compact wasn’t done, and his Skills were nothing more than noise. Felix bared his teeth, straining to see the details as the Names were laid out before the Empyreans. His eyes slipped over the details but he drove them back, sharpening his Intent against the whetstone of his Will. He could almost…
Unseen Beholder!
WARN—!
ERROR!
A hand fell on Felix’s shoulder, long and elegant. It yanked him back, hurling him from the chamber and into an expanse of pallid blue. The System stood behind him, looming. You Will Harm Yourself, Felix Nevarre.
Felix frowned, blinking away the afterimages that stained his retina. He wasn’t sure what could be done with these Names, but having them taken away was foul. “I can take it. Show me the Names.”
The System gestured, and the Memories marched onward.
The Names were secreted away now, but the Pathless still stood there among the Empyreans and suspicious Nym. He did not speak, and neither did the Empyreans, but understanding passed through their features nonetheless. Eredon placed a hand against his chest. Clouds parted, and the rising sun flooded his hand, congealing into a wavering Name.
His own.
Eredon Gave His Own Name To The Empyreans As Evidence Of His Convictions.
Not a chance. Felix didn’t believe the Coward In White for one second. This is a trick.
Yet the Name changed hands, and Eredon sagged for a moment as the Name was taken away. It was slight, a micro movement, but unmistakable. This had cost the Divine something—and it was permanent. Felix was certain of that in a way he couldn’t verify. This wasn't a batch of Mana or Essence that would regenerate over time. This was power cut away from the god himself.
Names Secured, The Empyreans Continued Their Work.
The Memory moved ahead, until Felix traversed the wide network of caverns behind the Empyreans as they wove new sigils into the Compact. It spread through thousands of city-sized caves, thousands of layers deep now and only a wavering working of shadow stopped the sheer radiance from blinding them all. They walked, working new details as they went with an ease that dropped Felix’s jaw.
Arrays that would beggar even Atar were simple as breathing to them, and he got lost in watching them all. Before he knew it, they had entered a new space, one he’d never seen. It was dark, lacking sigaldry save for the massive, repeated star inscribed into the very center of the chamber. Fitted with more points than Felix could count, the star flared as the procession made their way across it. They stopped, and only then did he spot the empty spaces in the shrinking star shapes. Nine of them.
The Empyreans held the Names, each shrouded by their hands, and set them into empty spaces around the star-form. The Nym and Geists trailed behind them, and they formed a secondary circle around the star. Felix waited for some rush of light or power, but the Names sat in their connected sections and merely pulsed.
“What must we do now?” a Nym asked.
A Geist spoke up. “We must empower it.”
Felix stared at the Names as the Empyreans said something, but it was lost as the Memory moved him away again. Brows drawn, he spun on the System. “How are they going to empower all of this? It’s massive.”
The System was there once again, the androgynous figure staring with their hands folded behind their back. The Compact Was More Complex Than Any Mortal Creation To Date. It Required A Great Deal Of Power.
“That’s what I said.”
It Was The Nym That Devised The Method. Tapping Into The Bonds Of Kinship Themselves, The Empyreans, Nym, Geist, And All The Allied Races Voluntarily Provided A Measure Of Their Might. To Do So, They Utilized The Intricate Etheric Technologies That The Empyreans Had Borne With Them From Beyond The Realms.
Their ships. Felix recalled them vividly. They were like the Manaships he knew, but beefed up and sleeker than even the ancient Nymean vessels. It appeared before him now, its vast shape now an empty husk as pieces of it were scavenged to forge the very heart of the Compact. Inscribed machinery was placed all around that central star and the Names of the nine, each piece modulating the Compact in ways that sent ripples throughout the endless caverns.
The Array Was Scrawled Into The Corporeal Realm, But It Only Lightly Touched The Void And Ethereal. It Was And Remains Limited, And Even Its Faint Impact On Those Realms Could Only Have Been Accomplished With The Aid Of The Nine Names.
The Memory swirled through occupied fortresses, each one containing tens of thousands. The people sagged, their eyes sunken and chests heaving for breath. Mana depletion, Felix noted. Every one of them is empty of Mana.
The Power Required To Sink Their Constructs Even A Span Into The Void And Ethereal Exhausted Many, But It Was Done. The Links Were Made, Encompassing All Who Yet Lived.
Felix saw them, brilliant braided bars of light, so vibrant that it was a physical force. Like the Links he held to his closest friends, these were powerful, potent conduits through which every allied Race sent a small portion of their power.
Together, They Chose.
Links thronged through a Continent and beyond, chased through the hearts of all those who suffered beneath the cruelty of the gods. A Bond of anger and fear, but also of hope. All at once, the conduits ignited and the Continent was set ablaze as the Compact began to spin together.
Yet Such An Event Was Not Missed. The Gods Discovered The Compact, But Far Too Late To Break The Bonds That Spanned The Corporeal. The Network Of Links Was Too Strong, Now That They Were Empowered, And Not Even The Gods Could Touch Them.
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Felix winced. He was back in the central chamber, the glow of the etheric machinery and sigaldry almost blinding. I’m sensing a but, here.
But The Compact Was Not Made Only Of Links.
The ceiling exploded. Rock fell upon the Empyreans and Nym that guarded the chamber, but their Authority soon marshaled beneath their Wills and hurled upward at the intruder.
It Is Unclear How Much The Gods Knew, But The Records Tell Us Many Things. The Order That The Compact Represented Was Anathema To Avet And Kept Him Away. Yyero Could Do Nothing To Rot The Inanimate. The Twins Were Too High-Handed To Act On Their Own, And Noctis Was Always A Creature Of Subterfuge.
This Task Was Left To Vellus.
Blood flooded the chamber, lit by a storm that seized the defenders in an iron grip. They screamed, eyes burning out of their skulls even as they threw their magic into Vellus’ wide grin. Etheric equipment shattered like glass, while arcs of gold and silver power spread in chaotic bursts, tearing apart constructs that seemed integral to the Compact.
Vellus was wreathed in boiling storm clouds as blood ran in rivers through her incomprehensible Body. Too many arms snatched at the burning wrackage, tearing deeper as lightning chased along her shoulders, outlining the faintest image of wings. Felix's Mind twitched, but he held fast. He’d seen far worse, even if this did make him want to puke.
But Even Gods Can Be Hurt.
Vellus screamed as her power touched upon something in the central star. Flashes of Memory scattered across Felix's eyes, offering a glimpse of things he couldn't understand. They burned at him, too swift to recall and too fierce to do more than shake his Aspects like a leaf on a limb, and he’d only gotten a glimpse.
Vellus got the full blast.
The Deepest Workings Of The Compact Were A Mystery To All But The Architect, And When Vellus Infiltrated The Heart Of It, She Touched Upon Something That Touched Her Back.
A blaze of pure, unfiltered white cut through the world, splitting it into a thousand fragments even as the river of power speared into the goddess. She screamed, and there was no sound save the shearing cry of Dissonance.
The Ethereal Poured Into Her Mind. The Confluence Of All Things.
She Fled, Terrified And Gibbering.
But She Had Succeeded. The Compact Was Greatly Damaged.
“She broke it?”
No.
The Compact around him blazed, the sigaldry burning deeper than what Felix could comprehend. Suddenly, he was in the sky, hovering amongst clouds as the lightning-shrouded bloodstorm ascended. Her dozen eyes were wide with a clear madness and her many hands tore at her own Body, as if she could cast away whatever plagued her. Without warning, she halted as chains bound her form with a gleaming, irrefutable song. She screamed, a voice of ten thousand agonized souls dripping from a throat that could swallow mountains. All at once, the chains tightened, and she was hurled away, pulled into a shattered sky, to a place of flattened earth and unmoving clouds, with the very air stale and the sun red and cold.
Felix swallowed. "The Deadlands.”
The Compact shuddered. Felix could feel it around him, a tremor in the air like heat and cold wafting across his skin. A sensation pulled at him. It was a familiar one. He felt it every time he'd overused Unite The Lost.
The Compact needed significance, or else it would collapse.
In a blur, he was back there, at the center of it all. Except now, where the shattered remnants of the central construct once was, there was only cleared earth and a simple, if strange, glyph. It had not yet been lit, infused with any power from the rest of the Compact. In fact, it was not even connected.
Standing upon it was Lascalium and thousands of Empyreans. Felix’s gut clenched. "What are they doing?"
The Compact Required Significance. The System merely gazed on, a deep sadness pulling at the edges of their face. There Is Little More Significant Than A Conscious Sacrifice.
Surrounding the Empyreans, filling the space of the vast cavern were hundreds of the allied Races. All of them were hurt, but worse, they were drained of Mana and Essence to the point of collapse. The Nym still stood, leaning against staffs and weaponry alongside the Geist, Minotaurs, Sylphaen, even Naiads and Nixies. Every one of them stared at the gathered Empyreans with unveiled horror and sorrow.
The Nymean woman bearing the Inheritor’s Will strode forward. She placed her hand to her heart, her sword crossing her chest. “Nothing I say will stop this, will it?”
Lascalium smiled at her, and it was a sad thing. “It cannot.”
She shuddered. “You will be remembered.”
Lascalium reached out, tracing her hand down the blade. "Serve your people, Magus. Be the guiding light and the shielding hand for those that would fall. Herald their rise."
“What the hell is this?” Felix demanded. “System. You’re not telling me—”
The Architect Knew What He Was Doing. With The Inner Machinery Broken, The Compact Needed A Mind To Stand Behind Its Might.
No One Creature Was Significant Enough.
Nine unnamed Empyreans reached out, and as one, they connected the glyph to the rest of the Compact's sigaldry. It blazed with light, flooding the entire chamber and forcing the allies to fall back.
The Empyreans vanished.
Consumed, the Beast whispered.
Ouranic Law Established.
Felix was once again in the sky, and chains fell from the heavens. The monstrous forms of the gods fled them, and for a moment, Felix thought they would succeed. Surely they were too strong, too quick, and too vast to be captured. Yet, one by one, the nine were seized and pulled bodily from the Continent. Mountain ranges shattered, and oceans boiled from their collective rage, but none could deny Ouranic Law.
The Compact And Ouranic Law Was To Bind Them In Truth. To Keep Them Separate In A Place Devoid Of All Else And Exhaust Their Powers In Fruitless Struggle.
Rifts opened, shattering the skies as the gods were hurled into the Deadlands. They sealed back up.
The Compact Succeeded…But The Empyreans Failed.
Images flickered by Felix, almost too fast to track. He saw bits of history unfolding before him, like someone had hit the fast forward button.
Limitations Existed When The Seals Were Once Impervious. A Result Of Vellus’ Initial Attack. From That Moment, Loopholes Were Made—Gaps Through Which The Gods Could Work Their Will.
Above him, the moons rose, reflections of their influence, even from within the Deadlands. Eight moons, one for each, including the strange red-haired god Felix still couldn't identify. All that was missing was the Pathless.
The Memory faded.
“Is that it?” Felix turned, helplessly suspended in the air. “There has to be more!”
But the Memory was whisking away, yanked from him like a platter of hot cookies pulled from the hands of an incautious child.
Show It All.
Something seized the Memory. Visions froze, flickered.
Show Him Everything.
That voice again. Lascalium.
The System reappeared beside Felix, and their impassive face was etched into a frown. Not of displeasure, but of discomfort.
The Loopholes Allowed The Gods To Affect The Realms By Proxy. Godslaves And Vessels Were Their Weapons, And They Were Mighty. They Empyreans Were Gone, And The Nine Saw Weakness To Exploit.
They Did Not Expect The Nym. Nor Did They Account For The Empyreans Handing Their Successors So Much Authority.
War Followed.
Visions of centuries of slaughter unfolded before Felix, some of which he had seen before. Others were strange and unfamiliar, as if he were peering into an alien landscape. Skies were burned, forests destroyed by the hands of godslaves and Vessels. Yet everywhere the Nine touched, the Nym stood in opposition.
Backed By The Allied Races, The Nym Worked Within The Compact To Develop Their Power. The Shattered Pieces Of The Original Compact Were Put To Use. Reforged, They Were Built Into Artifacts That Resounded With The Nym’s Authority. They Utilized The Seals To Bind The Corporeal Together, Cementing The Safety Of Their Lands Despite The Relentless Attacks By The Nines’ Forces.
The Void Was Too Unruly To Hold, And The Ethereal Was Beyond Even The Gods, But They Could Hold The Corporeal.
They Must.
They Failed.
