the Mythologia Elyden - Part 4 (Patreon)

Part 3

“...Behold, the great spire of the Meniscus that pierces into the belly of the sky with its needle, ripping / through the clouds that even now do gather about it. Beyond that sky reposes the realm of the other / and its envoys of light and dark. Beneath that sky lays the closed sea, around which the seven nations / sleep, within which is cradled the great whore, Korachan. Using the dark with one hand as she pushes / away the light with the other, the whore, Korachan, is visited by nine-and-forty envoys…”

the Mythologia Elyden 5: 29–33

Their divorce from The Shaper had a great impact on the Demiurges. Like a litter of pups shorn of its mother, they were rudderless, weakened. They had been reduced to lesser simulacra of what they had once been.

Some were angered by their punishment. Others were sorrowed. Others wallowed in self-pity. Some saw justice in the actions of The Shaper. Whatever emotion they felt, the actions of the Demiurges were unique, with each of the Two-and-Twenty forging their own path ahead. It was at this time of mental anguish that the Demiurges learnt of the nature of the Atramenta and the Firmament - which the mortals came to call the Shadow and Helix - and devised methods to use and manipulate the two entities to achieve feats that had otherwise been denied them by their punishment.

Though the orb of Elyden lies within the Material Plane, it is separate from the Atramenta and the Firmament, which only touch the Material along a relatively minute point. This distance does not mean the Atramenta and Firmament are unreachable from Elyden.

The Demiurges used the Atramenta and the Firmament the same way an artist uses paints. These two elements were used in the shaping of the Material Plane, and in so-doing, the shaping of Elyden, and remnants of these primordial elements can still be felt in the Material Plane, effectively tethering the Orbs of Life to the Atramenta and the Firmament.

The Demiurges’ continued shaping of Elyden following their fall was the first evidence of the Atramenta and the Firmament to the mortals who looked on in awe as their lords worked.

The Firmament was a joy to manipulate, her near-invisible chromatic substance edging towards the Material with the slightest of behest or toil. Once part of the Material, she was forever a part of it, subsisting within everything, yet without at the same time. Where the Atramenta was a sledgehammer, the Firmament was a rapier, more refined, a more decisive, clinical force. The quiescent, passive side of the Sea of Chaos, she was difficult to truly understand and pinpoint, but her beauty was outstanding – the Firmament had truly become the soul of the Material. Her strengths lay in the mental, forces that were unseen by normal eyes, yet not unfelt. The warmth of the sun, the flight of birds, the cool breeze of a spring morning, the rustling of leaves in the wind, the raw emotion propagated by two lovers, the desires of jealousy; all these and more were under the sway of the Firmament and all could, with the right discipline and application of mental force, be manipulated and curved in ways to suit the shaper.

The Atramenta was a harder beast to tame, and great will was needed to lure it from beyond the Material into Elyden, but once it was there it would linger for aeons like a dormant canker. Once part of the Material, he was forever part of it, subsisting without everything, yet within everything at the same time. He was powerful, far more so than the Firmament, yet unruly, truly the active scion of the Sea of Chaos from which it was distilled by The Shaper. Where the Firmament was the soul of the Material, it could just as easily be said that the Atramenta was the body, the active, moving part of the Material. His strengths lay in the physical, forces that were all too obvious to untrained eyes. But there was far more subtlety involved in the Atramenta than opponents would admit to. The chill touch of ice, the force of an avalanche, the power of a wave striking shore, the fire tearing through a forest, the rage of a betrayed man; all these and more were under the sway of the Atramenta and all could so easily be controlled and directed by Atramentism. Yet the challenge lay in maintaining control of those forces.

Both entities had their spheres of influences, and while some Demiurges quickly came to favour the use of one above the other, many were those who recognised that the two forces were siblings at war – never joined, yet still inextricably linked somehow. Some, however, refused to touch the contrasting forces – seeing them as a dark temptation from their own past; contributors to their divorce from The Shaper. The Firmament, being a more subtle, rewarding entity to serve and use was generally used by the Demiurges who felt sorrow at their schism with The Shaper, while the Atramenta lent itself well to those whose thoughts festered upon despair and anguish. It could be said that the Firmament was the tool of good while the Atramenta was the tool of evil, though the former was and is not inherently good, and the latter is not inherently evil. More accurate would be to associate them with order and chaos, though this too is seen by many as a categorisation brought about by mortal anthropomorphization.

Of the Two-and-Twenty, it was Rachanael and Duruthilhotep who pioneered and spread the use of the Atramenta and the Firmament, respectively. Yet Rachanael quickly learnt the benefits of a monopoly over Atramentism, where Duruthilhotep shared knowledge of the Firmament – first with his sister Allaishada, and then with the rest of the siblings. The Atramenta was not an unknown force, yet it never became as widespread as Firmamentism due to Rachanael’s gatekeeping. Its secrets were meticulously dissected and scrutinised by Rachanael and his acolytes, leading to knowledge of the element that far surpassed anything ever learnt of the Firmament.

Though the secrets of the Shadow and Helix were not alone to be discovered by the intrepid Demiurges. There existed a few amongst the Two-and-Twenty siblings, who refuted the gifts of the Ananth, claiming that in their fall from grace they were not worthy of wielding such powers, claiming instead that they should concentrate on what resources were available in the Material. And so, alone amongst their siblings, Synchthonith and Nyarloth forsook the Atramenta and the Firmament and turned their attentions to reforging their skills of crafting, becoming the first true artificers and metallurgists amongst their siblings.

And so, the Demiurges became Shapers of the Material through the Atramenta and the Firmament. The twin elements out of which the Two-and-Twenty were created were forevermore the forces through which the Two-and-Twenty and their children would shape their world.

Two-and-Twenty’s history with the Atramenta and the Firmament were kept mostly secret from the mortals, who came to worship their creators (as they saw them, in the absence of knowledge of The Shaper) as living deities. The Demiurges became great rulers, religious leaders, warlords, scholars and sages amongst their given people. Some relished this attention, while others saw it as a punishment from The Shaper, undertaking their new roles begrudgingly. Others forsook their new existence and divorced themselves from their tribes, leaving their natural offspring (who were far more powerful than any mortal) as regents. But, as on one hand the mortals came to worship them as gods, on the other hand The Shaper had taken away part of their divinity – they were still Demiurges, granted the gift of shaping and crafting of the Material, and their deeds were still too magnificent for even the greatest of legends and sagas, but they were still less than what they once were.

The loss of the Great Shaper had manifested itself in something that no Demiurge, in a Perfect Realm, should have ever felt – mortality. No longer were they apart from the stream of time and corruption and rot. Like the mortals they led, so too were the Demiurges without life immortal. That was not to say that their lives were short in any way; for the Demiurges felt the passing of a thousand years as a mortal feels a week. They were truly gods amongst mortals, depicted as both giants and mortal-sized in different accounts, yet nothing in their power could prevent their inevitable deaths.

Their worshippers did not know or care for this – they were their creators, and as such, the Two-and-Twenty were divine in their eyes.

The Shaper observed the life on Elyden from its sanctuary, seeing the mortals expand and grow, led by its Children the Demiurges. Things were not as it had planned, yet, it saw what the Two-and-Twenty had done and saw a chance for growth, for a step towards the perfection it envisaged. Would one day envelop the Material Plane.

Already, the spirits of its mortals had become tainted by the imperfection of the Material. Only the purest of mortals, those whose spirits were immaculate, were destined to dwell in the envisioned perfect realm.

To all those with spirits, The Shaper did perform one final act of Shaping: at the time of death the vessel and spirit of mortals would separate – for until then the spirit remained upon the mortal plane following a mortal’s death; a sphere of growing pearlescent perfection in the wake of the rotting body. Following The Shaper’s act, the vessel would remain on the material as a worthless husk and the spirit would leave the Material, where the spirit would shine in the Empyrean sky like a star, easily visible in the skies of the Material.

Though mortals may look up to the skies and see in the multitude of stars the spirits of the dead and unborn, those spirits are not in repose together. From the Firmament, The Shaper shaped a realm where the spirits of the pure could wait in peaceful reverie until the end of measured time. From the Atramenta, The Shaper Shaped a realm where the spirits of the evil would wait in tortured wakefulness until the end of measured time. This act of shaping the Atramenta and the Firmament made them malleable to the minds and hands of mortals: yet another manner in which they would be tested.

The mortals did not live in ignorance of this change, for The Shaper had one last gift to bestow upon them.

To the Material Plane, The Shaper would send messengers to reveal the plan for Elyden and preach the message whereby ones’ actions in life might mirror its reward in death.

The purest of spirits, it gifted rekindled life, sending them to Elyden as messengers of good, their purpose to guide and encourage those mortals who yet lived, so that at the end of measured time their spirits might rise to enjoy the perfect realm. These messengers The Shaper called Illshaé – more commonly known to later mortals as Illithamé – and they were forevermore its right hand, the hand that feeds, that shows the way.

The most tainted of spirits, it cursed with renewed life, sending them to Elyden as messengers of evil, their purpose to confuse and torment those mortals who yet lived, so that at the end of measured time their spirits would be ignored by the perfect realm. These messengers, The Shaper called Dhæmae – more commonly known to later mortals as Aehari – and they were forevermore its left hand, the hand that denies, that bars the way.

Those spirits who, when the time of perfection arrived, had become Illshaé or were stars in the Otherworld of the Firmament, would inhabit the Perfect Realm, while the Dhæmae and those that had become the void between the stars would remain in the Otherworld of the Atramenta, destined to an eternity of torment and chaos.

This was The Shaper’s final act to try and shape Elyden in a mirror of its former self, preparing things for a time of perfection when all could be as one.

The first of the Illithamé and Æhari descended onto Elyden as the Demiurges began learning the secrets of the Atramenta and the Firmament. And as their masters perfected the art of the Onésimus and the Set, so too did their followers the mortals begin to unravel their secrets.

The Shaper’s shaping of the Atramenta and the Firmament in the creation of the Otherworld brought the two elements closer to the Material – by means of the mortals’ spirits. The practice of Firmamentism and Atramentism spread throughout The Island of Creation, gaining prestige or notoriety in different lands. The gift of shaping had been unlocked by the Demiurges and its key given to the mortals.

Nevermore would the act of shaping the Material be the talent of divine beings – mortals now held that power to use and abuse as they saw fit. Truly, the future of Elyden was in the hands of mortals.

And so, were born the first of the Onésimus and the Set, mortal shapers who forevermore came to worship the Demiurges as Deities, providers of their mystical arts.

Part 5