Chapter Text

Book the First: Seasons of Hope, Seasons of Regret

In the two lands they speak your name with reverence and regret,
For none could claim our sorrows yet you the challenge met,
Under silken gaze, you fought, you learned, burdens were claimed,
A world you freed for bug and god by the darkness you tamed.
“Elegy for the Abyss”

The surface is empty, splaying outwards to infinity in a desolation of grey and blue. There are no landmarks; no hills, no valleys; no rivers, no vegetation. There are only the wind and darkness, the lone constants of eternity.

This is how the world above is: static in silence, broken only by the howling gusts.

But now, the silence is broken; the world has entered motion. Two beacons shine against the dark. Two kin, alike in the shade of their blazing light and the grand ambitions they pursue.

Their ambitions require a kingdom. A people.

One descends from above in a lunar dusk, bringing illumination to the black lands below; the other grinds through the earth, flooding the passages it carves with blinding lux. One arrives with its legion newly uplifted, with its warriors, priests, and advisors; the other, alone, in a continuation of its eternal solitude.

One comes as a Mother; the other, as a King.

Even separated by a sea of wastes, they feel each others’ presence. Enemy, their instincts say; no blazing kin. They would consume each other if given the chance.

But that time will come later; for now, they are far apart. For now, they sense other beings within the lands they have claimed. And they are ready to follow their instincts.

Three armies march against each other within the greatest cavern of this land; the field of battle yawns wide, ready to drink the coming sacrifices into its soil. This is a conquest by a warlike Order, charging into the lands without from their great tower; they bring their flood to places that have never known the water, never known the strength and order granted by the red crust.

At the head of this army is a King and Regent of the Eternal River, blessed with his dominion by a god that withdrew from mortal matters, dedicating itself to the creation of life-granting water until there was no god and only a River.

His name is Khann, steward of the Coral Gorge and all life and water within; he raised an army and shaped a tower from the land itself, building an order from the nature he inherited. But beyond the river, nature existed in disorder, curated by less controlling claws. So the conquest, and so this battle.

Khann shapes the field of war by his whims. He brings the coral with his army, a shifting carpet of crust across the ground. He raises fortifications, walls and trenches, spiked pits and lethal traps for the enemy, clearing battalions away with a single gesture as the coral follows the arc of his arm; it is order from chaos, raging knots of skirmishes arrayed into clean formations and neat phalanxes, not so different from the construction of the Coral Tower from raw crust. Victory should come easy for any general who can command not just his army, but the battlefield itself.

Yet victory does not come easy. Three dancers, two princes and a queen, cut their way through those of the Karak, followed by hosts of swift warriors and fierce hunters.

The princes stand proud, pausing for a moment above the ruin of war as they touch gore-soaked claws before they dash forward in beautiful geometries, granting death to all those within the lines they draw. Regal and tall, the rulers of Verdania shine with a pale light. That light tells their enemies: we have hunted the everchanging; we have given it purpose within us. They have just been marked to rule; they will not let Verdania and its people be taken by the Karak; not while they sit on the conjoined throne.

And the voice of all hunters, the victorious queen who won the fields below for her lineage–cutting down her sister monarchs one by one until there was only one mother and one family remaining–shapes the battlefield as much as Khann does, not with physical walls but the attention she demands with her song. Skarrsinger Karmelita takes the center stage. Everywhere she steps is made into a venue for her deadly performance, fluid beyond belief. She fights for her children, to keep her family’s place in these lands, so dearly won.

Countless die in the first few minutes. Khann solemnly entombs every one of his fallen so that their shells may be returned to the crust; every Verdanir’s death weakens the pale light that graces their rulers; through her song, the Skarrsinger feels the severance of every daughter that it once sustained.

Imbued with singular purpose, the beating hearts of these three kingdoms carve bloody paths to each other, ready to settle this conflict in a duel between champions rather than a massacre of the masses that they hope to spare–

And then the world shakes.

The three Hearts feel it. Others, too. In her pristine wood, a seed gazes upwards, and every bud within the forest is drawn tight with tension. High in the cold mountains, a fell beast rumbles and shifts.

Deep below, the darkness stirs.

Then the roof of the cavern cracks. Solid rock crumbles into dust, boulders, and debris, blasted forth by a powerful wind; the clamor of battle is replaced by the thunder of an earthquake, the howling of a cyclone, and the terrible groaning of a great beast. Through that hole emerges a many-pointed crown, placed on a ribbed maw that gapes endless. It pauses, slowly turning to survey the field of battle, littered with broken weapons and crushed shells.

The Hearts feel its gaze on them, tracing their souls to the lands they represent. They feel it searching through possibilities, and they feel it make a decision.

With that, the Hearts make their own decisions. The armies pour away from the cavern, even as the Wyrm pours inwards, impossibly long coils folding into the grand space as the beast curls in on itself, forming a circular citadel with its own body. It rests its head on the ground…

And dies, quietly.

The kingdom is silent. The armies do not stir, for their leaders remain still. The spiritual pressure upon the Hearts has not eased; it has merely shifted, no longer the earth-shaking weight of a destroyer, but a more familiar authority: the command of a King.

Some time later, a Pale figure walks from the dead maw.

Grand Mother Silk is proud of her children. They are truly beautiful creatures, what with the clever spells and contraptions they have already invented. It pleases her to see the Weavers finding such creative uses for her Silk; their birth was no wasteful act. She has her children and pantheon, her choir and army. What more could she ask for?

Ah, she is being distracted by the moment. She must not content herself with small ambitions; she can ask for far more, and she will receive it. She will receive a land, a people beyond her children, gathered from the common caste; a palace, a city, a Cradle to place her cocoon in.

That cocoon is guided by her silken thread to hover above a basin, perfectly featureless save for a small opening to the lands below, placed in the very center. The Grand Mother reaches out, unfurling unnumbered strands of Silk from the dense mass that encases the divine family; they wander outwards, languid in their motion and almost gentle in appearance. Yet the hard rock they meet slows their advance but little. Silk extends to every direction from her, forming a brilliant web across the surface,

The cocoon is anchored, but she is not done. There is more exploration to be done; even before the spinning of her web, the Grand Mother has sensed others. Strands continue to drill through the rock, questing for signs of life. They reach and contort, every vibration and scent detected reported back to the heart of the system.

And in the same moment, in three places across the kingdom, the strands break through into new domains. Instantly, Silk is assaulted with information. She sees exactly what the others are; she sees the lands they hold, the people they patronize, the forms they take, and the power they wield.

In the caverns to the west, blanketed in verdure and washed with acid, flush with winding vines and soft moss, there live a people born from the land itself, not quite bug or plant, but some imaginative fusion of the two. Deeper lies the god. Vast in presence both physical and spiritual, it slumbers lightly, caught in a long dream. The dream shapes the green, shapes both the land and kin of moss that inhabit it.

In the chambers deep below, hidden from unwanted light, fungus coats every surface. There is conflict within that fungus, a struggle over allegiance to the original hivemind. Something else reaches for claim over the mycelia. Deeper and deeper, and there are roots. Bright and pale, a system to rival the Grand Mother’s web. At its core is a god, another being touched pale. It grows, takes, and consumes, until all that remains is itself.

And in the peaks to the east, studded with crystal and well-paved with runes and stones, paths lined with attended graves, live a tribe of ragged creatures. In their minds, they share a dream. In that dream is a god, their light and warmth, their daybreak and sun eternal. Deeper in that realm of clouds and light, that Radiance rises, and pulls together the dreams and thoughts of all its people, so that all may know all others within the shared light.

Tearing herself from the places that she has found with an angry roar, Grand Mother Silk strings every strand of Silk in the kingdom taut; the Weavers scuttle into formation, awed by their mother's anger but eager to hear her commandments. For she has found her enemies.

My children bright and beautiful, she says, I have your first task.

Row upon row of six-eyed masks gaze upwards. They gaze at the divine: radiant Silk, vast web, dark face crowned with a two-pronged halo, eight titanic claws each grasping a tangle of threads, beauty and creation and terror and destruction; not just a mother, a monarch, not just a monarch, a god, not just a god, everything. That is what she is to her children, subjects, and devout. She knows this. This is what it must be. And so these tasks.

Others…claim the lands that we know to be ours. Images flash through the Silk, to the eager children below. Moss and acid. Pale roots and corrupted fungus. Ragged moths and bright dreams. See their false divinity. Hear their false songs. Know their light to be nothing to the illumination of my perfect Silk.

Children…Weavers. Born perfect. We have found our kingdom eternal, but we must cleanse it first. We must cut the impurities from our web.

She searches the crowd for her favored daughters. Each of them has their own spells, skills, and arts; each of them has claimed a role for themselves already, rising above their less creative kin. She will anoint them with their roles now, give them a title and place above the rest, with new responsibilities to match.

Keelal, she strums, sharp of claw and curious of mind; seek the east, and travel until the caves grow lush, until the foliage itself creeps towards you. Tell me of what you find. I name you Weaver of the Path, my daughter who will guide me across the way of green and in time, all lands.

Next…Camora. Piercing of wit and strong in thread; seek the deep nests and wastes; travel until the caves grow thick with spores, until you see foreign light to repel with your Silk. Tell me of what you find. I name you Weaver of Healing, my daughter who will ward off death itself for my kingdom eternal.

Of course, these two Weavers are among her favorites. Yet a mother’s preference is always for her first child, even among all her first children.

Alta. Murmurs spread through the crowd. The brightest and most beautiful of her choir. The others part to show her, standing tall, wrapped in an exquisitely woven dress created with skill that no others have yet developed. First of my daughters, prodigy in art and indomitable in battle; seek the peaks and grounds above, and travel until you find a road to follow, until the world grows bright with dreams. Tell me of what you find. I name you Weaver of Time, my daughter who will keep all of history within her Silk.

It pleases her to see the Weavers delight at their titles and tasks; sounds of celebration fill her Silk. But she is forgetting something. Of this, the Grand Mother has always known; of this, all gods must know. She must know now. And she knows what daughter must take this task.

Absolom, and the Silk falls silent. Descend. Descend until the rock grows black and twisted in shape, until the world comes to an end and all that sustains you is the Silk I gave.​​ Tell me of what you find. I name you Weaver of Insight, my daughter who will find and know the darkness below all things.

Now, my children…pluck a song for me, for our arrival in our kingdom. Ready your lyres, your silken strings, and play my melody.

She opens a gap in the cocoon, a ray of light spearing down to the surface, and the Weavers pour out, taking their places on the web splayed below. And by the direction of their mother, they begin to play in unison, plucking descending figures, three notes at a time. The cocoon itself resonates with the first of every figure, pulsing out a heartbeat: four notes, and on the last, a resounding vibration that shakes the kingdom.

All hear the song of Silk. The Grand Mother has arrived, and her daughters have begun their hunt.