The First Night

It was midday when the world shook. The birds flew from the trees. The sheep and the oxen mewed and scuttled around in distress. Dragons, of which there were plenty, took due note of the quake, and those that were in the know took to flight. The island had many villages (six to be precise) and those that lived in the villages were still. This event was new to them, and no one was quite sure what to do. The world was changing, and it would be some time before it was ever the same again.

A burly, heavly-robbed man hurried down an icy village road. His visage included a big, fluffy beard under oversized goggles. His robes looked like they hid an entire museum. The villagers of the mountain tribe saw this man often -he was an important man to them- but today they knew he ran with urgent purpose.

A villager came to another villager on the side of the road, and asked "Do you think we'll know his opinion soon?"

"I do not know. He has worked well with the Prophet before..."

"I pray so. The Prophet has guided us so well in our lives. He will guide us well now."

"Don't fear, brother. Our Great Wyrm still dwells aside the temple. As long as he is here, our tribe is safe."

The first man nodded and paused. There was truth in what the second man said. The Great Wyrm was their protector, and as long as they had their Wyrm the had little to fear. The first man then gazed at the sky.

"Do you think something has happened in the heavens?"

The second man responded quickly, as if to hush the first man up so he could not tempt the fates further with his worrying.

"I don't know, my brother. The Gods have kept our world fair for so long, and we have praised them. They have no reason to be displeased… Let us get back to our work."

The first man nodded but kept his eyes on the sky. He was, like many other men and women of the villages, still anxious. In the legends, earthquakes always preceded great chaos. The people of the island knew this, and they were afraid.

The burly, robed man passed under the Prophet’s archway. The room he entered was hexagonal and each wall was covered in an ancient text that continued to change. Letters and symbols would occasionally morph into new ones, and it was from these texts the Prophet would read. He, the Prophet, now stood at the end of the room, opposite the archway. His brow was furrowed. He was reading the scripts but they were changing rapidly, so fast in fact that it seemed impossible that he could be making any sense of it. The burly man came to a halt at the center of the room.

“Tiensein Sir, I have the readings from the base of the mountain. It’s not good."

The Prophet mumbled, and continued pouring over his wall.

“Sir? The mountain has cracked at its base. I have no clue how it has occurred, but I believe it is going to split the mountain in half if left unchecked. How should we proceed?"

The Prophet was quiet, but as he heard the news, his head dropped down to the floor, and his hand ceased to float over the surface of the wall.

After a period of silence, the Prophet leaned over his shoulder to look at the burly man, and proclaimed. “The crack will separate the mountain at first Sunfall. We have till then to provide safety for our people and to warn the others.”

“Sunfall?” asked the burly man. “Tiensein Sir, I am not sure of what you mean…”

Tiensein turned around completely. He was tall and pale, and he seemed to resemble a walking icicle rather than a vise old man. His visage was grim as he explained his prophecy.

“Metivus Sir, in 12 Hours the Sun will sink below the horizon, and Darkness will descend onto Aomrin.

“Bless the Three, what could cause such a horror??” The man now known as Metivus gasped

“I don’t know…” Tiensein passed Metivus to begin a transmission to the rest of the Titans who ruled the villages. “But I would not be so hasty to give the Three our blessing after this, Metivus Sir. I fear the heavens are about to fall at our feet."


Many miles away, crystal blue men and women gathered at the water’s edge on a rocky shore. Two beautiful women were standing at the head of the assembly, and many questions and statements were being thrown at them. The women appeared swamped with the interrogation of their people, but as the people asked their questions, the two women engaged in mental communication to speak clearly to each other.

A villager asked, “Do you think we’ve experienced an earthquake?”
One women, the taller one, responded “We do not know, but we are in communication with the other villages, we will know soon.
Then she asked her sister “Have you heard from anybody?"
The sister responded “Revilkhan asked if we are all in the same situation. Murkant, Calt, Barbaris, and Vetris Niewn have responded. Pycide has told me that Jex… is convinced it was the most fantastic kick in Koko Ball he’s ever seen. We’re waiting for more people to check in, but I’m confident it hit the whole island. I am waiting for a message from Metivus or Tiensein… or possibly Lady Ghan. "

Another villager stepped up. "Should we summon our earth and fire brethren for protection?”
The taller woman spoke out again, saying “No! We are safe and strong on our own. I am going to call an audience with Zirina. We will know much more then. Please remain calm. It is imperative someone reals in our nets and gets our sea horses undershore and away from the tide.”
A few villagers scuttled off in response to the Titan’s bidding.
The sister asked her taller kin “Will she answer? What if something has happened in Avalocke?"
“Look to the sky, Lilu Lady. The Sun is falling. None have noticed it yet but when they do they will panic. See to it that they continue on and do not loose focus."
“But Diyaeta Lady, you have not answered my question?"
“That’s because an answer is currently not for available for your question. See to it what I asked of you, and I shall let you know as I know."

With this, Lady Diyaeta turned on her heal and marched into a tall, grass-leaf hut. Lady Lilu looked hopeless as she returned her gaze to the villagers. They had all taken arms to work as their Lady Diyaeta had suggested, but fear stuck to all of their faces, and Lilu felt assured that their anxiety was well put.

Screaming and shouting harmonized together to make the well-light, well-like cavern a cacophony of turmoil. Elevators shot up and down, carrying dark, dirt covered men and women who carried an assortment of tools, from light crystals to pick-axes, from shovels to backpacks, etc. etc.. Many large, worm-looking beasts were being herded close to the hole that was the mineshaft. They carried large slabs of grey, smooth material, and as they deposited their quarry by the shaft, the workers would appear like clockwork, clicking off slabs of the mailable slates and taking them down the mineshaft. It was a beehive of earthwork.

Below, in the bowels of the hole, stood two armored miners. Lights shown from their eyes like powerful floodlights, and the light crystals above them provided ample ambient light. They stood on a circular bed of dusty rock, staring at where the other floodlights shone, at the middle of the bed. There, standing out like a broken bone out of skin, was a crack. It measured 15 meters in length, 5 meters in width, and looked like it reached maybe 30 to 40 meters down. The dust-covered miners that were skirting up and down the walls of the mineshaft we're bringing grey-slate material down into stacks around the bed, and if you stopped them in their busy skuttle, you would see that they had the same worried expressions as the armored minors that stood at the center of the operation.

One of the armored miners was clad in dark colors, similar to the walls of earth around them. The other was colored in a lighter grey color that seemed to shine like soot-covered silver. This miner glanced back up and around at the work of the smaller minors around them, and finally spoke up to his partner.

"Metivus has not returned with word from Tiensein... I'm not sure I'm comfortable with us preceding until we know for sure what we're dealing with."

"Sssh Aranos. This procedure won't make the crack worse. Only us waiting to hear what our fancy "Prophet" has to say will do that. Look, there it goes again."

The dark armored miner, known as Omnos, pointed at the crack. At first, it seemed the confident Titan was making a fool of himself. But, after a few seconds passed, the crack split open another half meter into the bedrock, true to the Titan's word.

"See? This shit's only getting worse." he said as he shifted his focus to the grey-slates. "Help me get these slabs in place."

Aranos was not convinced; however, and walked into Omnos's way to catch his peer's attention.

"Look brother, this isn't natural. We can agree on that. But Tiensein isn't a false prophet as you may think he is. His advice is worth hearing. Especially with this," Aranos gestured to the fissure "whatever this is."

"Ok, ok. I hear you. Look don't get me wrong, I like Tiensein. I do. It's just that this is our territory, Aranos. I don't wanna wait and hear what that old icicle has to say about our problem. I wanna plug this hole and see what happens, take the problem from there."
Omnos had pushed past Aranos and was leaning on the grey-slate stack now. Yet he did not push forward, as he honestly wanted to have Aranos help him.

Aranos stood perplexed, glad to hear Omnos appraisal, yet still unsure of what he felt.

"Come on, we've built Onukoth with our bare hands, the two of us! Pycide can faf about with his sculptures all day, but we are the true artists, because we get things done!"

"Why can we not just wait to see what Metivus comes back with? I'm sure he won't be long now."

Omnos grunted, expressing his displeasure that Aranos still stood in his way.

"If you really must insist, help me set these up, and we'll wait to set them into the ground until we hear from up top."

"Thank you Omnos, I think this is for the best."

"Yeah, yeah."

So, with brother Titans working together again, the small, dark villagers took to setting up the smaller patterns of grey-slate around the outside of the bed rock while the Miner Titans moved the big slates around at the center. Soon, they had an elaborate web of grey-slates standing tall at the bottom of this monumental mineshaft.

Omnos stood back and clapped the dirt off his hands. "And now, hard working men and women, we wait."

Aranos glared at Omnos, trying to turn the people against him wasn't as chivalrous as he was hoping his brother was going to be, but to Omnos's dismay the people took little notice of the delay. They were drawn by a group feeling of fear and anxiety to stay focused on the fissure. Even as the minutes ticked by, and the assembly had to move the slates several times as the crack grew, the villagers stayed vigilant and high strung. They knew that the Titans and Gods would fix this if enough time passed, they were just going to make sure nothing came out of the hole while they waited.

Then, from up above, commotion struck.