THE AGE OF IMMORTALS...
...and the ending of the Age of the Dead

Can you sympathize with an exploding star?"
~ Unknown

"Beyond, beyond, totally beyond, perfectly beyond: Awakening ..Yes!"
~ Heart Sutra



The voice of Anubis, the god of Order and Death, reached out across the planes. The whispers of the longing of the ages, moved out across time and space. The voice searched for one fallen to the darkness. The voice seeked out the only one who could remove the darkness. The voice spoke that no darkness is absolute. The voice said, there are things which need to be finished. The voice travelled, alongside planets and stars, suns and moons. The voice spoke of hope, hope for all. The voice traveled the stars and planets. The voice was longing, promising. The voice was the seeker. On one such planet, across the reaches of space, one of lava, fire, volcanos and a blackened sky, did the voice find a body of a broken god, laying atop a mountain, crushed by a comet.

But Anubis knew that he had not the soul of Kyuss in his collection. Anubis knew that Kyuss was else where, maybe even still in this body, broken and trapped, beneath the comet which pinned him to the mountain on this firey planet. Such was the agony of a god. The voice spoke, an ill word, one rarely spoken in all but whispers, a studied word, and the comet was blasted away to the other side of the planet.

The universe breathed once more, this legend, this treasure, the clay-forger, the world-shaper opens his eyes. He hears what the voice which sought him speaks. The memories return, the light in his mind opens up, unleashed, this firey thought. He screams, arms raised to the sky, tears upon his cheeks. The volcanos upon the planets surface all mutually exploded at this time. The Age of the Dead had ended.

The Forge Cycle Continues.

The universe moves in cycles. Ages of life, glory, death, rebirth, night, day, sleep, wake. Each new frontier, another dead dove. Peace, war. Love, loss, knowledge, thought, soul. Transcendance. Another chapter in a book so big, its an ant in size to the universe. Another breathe, another word, another illusion, another picture painted, another of the dead, sainted.

Somethings left behind, and circles back around; found again. A star, shifted, destroyed. New light in a black sky. New blackness in a once lit world. We are all strangers in a stranger land, this strangeland. Peril, Triumph, agony, deception, these are the things the universe was created to show us, to teach us.

This was the Forge Cycle, the universe, in all its grandeur and substance, this testament to glory. It spins, because thats what it does. When it is ones time, one cannot but accept the calling. When its anothers times, then that one shall fall.

All things in their own time. All songs to their own rhyme. This is the motion of creation. Eyes awaken. Not that he needs eyes. Consciousness.
He is.
He be.

It was again. Would good win this time, would bad win. Who won before that, who lost 10 times ago. In the blackness of death, no one really, truly cares. We, the living, care because we can. Sometimes, looking into the blackness is hypnotizing, it catches us, and draws us in, away from everything else. Other times we hide our eyes, to avoid seeing the calamity and tragedy. It dawned on him, that the last time, neither side won, as the scales were broken within the fight.
Dismally, the damage unfolds. The eyes open. The Oversoul connects again. We breathe. We cry. Who plays the changes, Jackie-O. Who lives for the journey; that eternal adventure. Rifts. Many, many rifts.

All things changed. Time to put the pieces back together again. He does not know where he is. Deep in the cosmos. The outer rim of all. He fades into the mists and disappears, he leaves the land of erupting volcanos with the night sky behind. A vain attempt to find a wormhole thats going where he wants to go. All that travel, just to get back to where he had been, so long ago.
He had a gnawing sense of fear. Wondering if his world still existed. He could see it now, pick it out of all the clutter. That fear though; over time his world had gained much in magic, and in turn, had glowed brighter and brighter. That brightness had faded. The planet was still there. How ever, he feared much had changed. It was indeed, a Shadow of its former self.

He follows the lights, going where he needs, to get to where he needs to be. He is at one with the corpeal blackness which hosts the stars, travelling past them afar. But still this travel is to slow. He needs to keep going, accelerate it up.

The darkness finds you, as the light that binds you.

This is the cycle of the universe, in all its death, ressurection of glory, and liberty in life. Nothing could ever change or stop this process.

Closer now he creeped, seeing the once familiar stars as shadow on the foreground of the blackened skies. The Immortal who slept, broken, lifeless, now awake, races across the galaxies skies. Accepting life, for ever denied death's embrace. He knows what needs to be done.

He is headed home, or, rather, where his home used to be, and still is, even if it is but a nye shadow of what it ever was. The key, he knew, the hand, the heart, the soul.

The key, was to be.

But it wasnt the same was it. He knew it wasnt.

Traveling on, he pondered.

One thing had changed for sure. He could not hear the all too familiar arguiung between the Starfire Phoenix and Oscuro, the bastard godling. He feared for their fight, what had been torn asunder during the process of their deaths... That fight, which had lasted thousands of years, was now over. He felt sorry for the both of them, lost in the hatred, what had it brought them, and all those who lives around them. You get what you give, and you give what you get. Their hatred for each other, had doomed everyone, including the world. If a man has not a world, what has he. If a man has not his word, what has he. He has the word of a broken world. Kyuss flinched a bit at that thought.

This made him fear all the more. He could see his home star now, though the light was dim, he knew the world dead. Travel on he must, he flew on, a non-dieing soul to a dead world.

Even from here, in this maze of stars and astral gases, he could smell the ashes and the tears...without even realizing it, the God flew faster, he willed it to be, in some dark, lost part of his mind. He could feel the insinity building, the tears, the rage, the loathing. Unabashed, it be, and in his heart, he knew he could only accept it; it be. Deep in his soul, Kyuss knew there was no more struggle, No more scales, evil and good, both gone. Magic, power, nil, no more, the non absolute.

The Age of the Dead was gone, the Age of Night had ended; and he was sad, because he did not know what this Age would bring. In its wake, destruction, death, on such a scale, that even he, could barely comprehend. He had turned his eyes for a moment, just a moment, and was taken away. The world had died so many times, yet he wasnt allowed such a simple thing as death, he, the Clay-shaper, was sure the Universe might let him die one day, when it was through with him. Until then, he was not but a tool of forever, an echo, which created echoes. What this world once was, was bliss, beauty, darkness, happiness, sorrow; all things, all emotions.

A day of endless tomorrows. Tomorrow never comes, but some where along the line of time, that Tomorrow ended though, apparently, right when he turned his eyes. Even he fed the fire for the clay. He had bled for this world, his world. He was confident, he would do so again.

For, he knew, nothing truly of good, merit and righteousness, could ever truly die. As long as even any memory remained, it could be rekindled, a dieing flame. He shuddered, trying to grasp the goodness within him self, but, blind we are to our own ways. Apparently the universe thought more of him then he himself did. He also knew the Multiverse and the Oversoul had a funny sense of humor.

Though, it may never be the same, it could at least be.

These thoughts, and more, breeze in his minds eye, as he flew home. So fast does he fly, that a trail of purple flames raced out behind him, forgotten gases.

He was a creature of the clay. One by chance, and chance alone. But he knew, that no chance could have ever provided, except for the universe, and its willing way, one which willed him, even though he knew it not. One touched by the clay, can never go away, because the creature of the clay, would always end up back with the clay, molding, turning, world shaping, clay-changing. Now, more then any other, did the clay beckon. He could hear its call, Kyuss could feel the clay calling him, as if yearning. The clay lived, even as much as we. The clay yearned to change, the clay feared stagnation, but moreso, the clay feared not being molded, to be alone, to be in doubt. He had left it alone for far to long. He could feel the powers around him beckon, pleading to be unleashed on the world in an Orderly, yet Chaotic fashion. n

There were things to be done, and all things must change.

All things in their own time, all things in the universes own mind.

If you truly love something, it will come back to you. It will come crawling back out of the darkness which bound it, and crawl, bleeding across the floor, if need be. It might run through the light, fly through the night, it will race across the day, it will travel in its own way, but it will come back. All things, their own purpose.

It be. Can you dig it.

The Mesa of Martyrs

Even now, on a world he hadnt stepped foot on for four years now, he watched, in his minds eye, a single blade of white grass, grow, on top of a mesa, in the middle midst of a desert which consumed the entirety of the once lush planet, but now barren planet of broken dreams, shattered earth, burnt cinders of ash, bones; the remains of everything which lived, nothing more then a dead memory, remembered only by the dead souls, and he and Anubis.

Kyuss, the god of light, chaos and life, sought out Anubis, in his minds eye, did they speak across the planes. Kyuss smiled in success, as yet another blade of grass, though this one a bit blacker, did grow upon the top of that same mesa. Between the Two, did the roots of a tree take form and grow, bursting through the soil, rejuvenating.

Someplace, far to the west and east, the north and south, did a small thunder storm sprout, and unleash its rain upon the earth. The storm, tried to plot a course headed west, far to the west the cloud knew, was something which needed nourishing. Two blades of grass and a tree, a very special tree. One that would surely die, without the water and the clay, which make night and day. But how could it move, it was stuck right here, dispite its best efforts to move. The night would not wane, and the day would not gain. The cloud was perplexed and confused indeed, Kyuss sensed the clouds confusion, and frowned.

Anubis, the god of dark, order and death, also sensed this confusion. Anubis, who had feasted upon the souls of the entirety of the universal dead for years now, in the caverns of his own plane, knew it be, he felt it be. As righteous in life, as in death, Anubis did relinquish his hold upon his dead souls, so that they might reincarnate, for their own karma's purpose.

For the 1st time in four years, the planet moved, through the strength of the change between the pair of Gods. The wind blew through the mountains. The planet, which had been vaporized into an unmoving shadow, began to slowly spin around the sun. For the first time in years, the world moved on, and the universal multiverse with it. Someplace far beyond, the Oversoul smiled, a purpose possibly?

The cloud exhaled a sigh of wind and rain, a relief, as the winds of change blew the storm cell on a westward journey. The journey of the Souls started again, this Forge cycle incomplete, but moving on none the less. As grass and plants did they rekindle.

A second chance of a second chance, but a chance none the less.

Nothing happens by chance alone.

All things in their own time.



Life returned. Joyous was the Universe indeed.

Kyuss smiled. He stood on a small moon, which over looked the shadow of his own, old world. He grin was ever chaotic, as his fingers kneeded deep into the ball of clay on the pedestal before him.

The words of magic, not spoken for years, flowed easily from his mounth, each syntax a perfection, a beautiful harmony were his words, which rippled of a magical power, unattained by all but a few in the entire history of all worlds.

The clay changed shape and color, a response to his fingers probing

Yes, the universe moved on.

At the days end. Atop this mesa, the center of this once lush now barren world, which, covered by burned dirt, sand and dust, did a field of grass grow, the grass, all green except for a white blade, and 1 black, centered around, a giant oak tree. Over head, its purpose served, did a small rain cloud, drop down life nourshing rain atop the mesa, netting more life to the grass, and that tree. Some of the blades around the edges, frayed, and died. But these dead were hastily replenished by Anubis, who has an uncountable legion of souls in line, all ready to reincarnate into the realm of SoulMUD.



email: kell.sims@gmail.com 11/11/2008