The Tale of Xynthin, Wyrden Glory
Unveiled, the Ascended God Xynthin began to answer questions as quickly as He could, ever keeping His perceptions outwards, cautiously searching. Shocked silence and stunned faces looked upon Him, though as His tail unwound, Ragniliff and Xenthos began to realize and piece together more and more. And so the sad story of Xynthin was told.
In Juliary of 327, the Ascendant of Nature, Xynthin, chanced upon a temporal tear caused by the Wheel of the Goloths. Such were not entirely uncommon, for they occurred and unoccurred more and more rapidly the longer the Wheel spun. Passing through the tear, the Ascendant found himself in a day and era long past. The Basin of Life was torn by war and disease. New Celest had seen Soll Peulus master the Staff of Ascension, the first to do so, and rise – reborn in the Immanidivinus – as Ayridion, the White Flame. The Dread Lord of Contagion had lead many assaults against the Basin of Life, Shellma Natharian was slain in her attempt to claim the Pool of Stars and Ascend. And as Xynthin stepped into that age, the Dread Lord, avatar of the Great Muud, had set upon the nine seals themselves, causing them to slowly rot and decay.
Xynthin knew what was to come – the Ascended God Ayridion was to sacrifice himself, purging the Nine Seals and creating the Threshold Abyss – the very reason Xynthin could not himself ascend in his own era. He acted to stop Ayridion, believing that the ascension of another god would empower the seals and stop the Dread Lord, and he intended to be that god. He was half right – though the Domotheos of Nature rebuked him, Xenthos still possessed the Seal of Life from a prior trial, and the Domotheos of Life was rife with energy, having not long ago raised Ayridion into godhood. Riding the currents of the undamaged domoths into the Immanidivinus, Xynthin the True Ascendant was reborn as Xynthin, the Ascended God. Glomdoring crowed triumphantly – here they had a god born of the Wyrd, imbibed with the pure energies of the Domotheos of Life and the Immanidivinus. He was, in Glomdoring’s eyes, the Wyrd given flesh and form.
Their victory was short-lived. No matter what was done from that point forward, the Elder and Ascended Gods could not save the Seals. The damage done was too far along – they cracked and shattered. The Avenger Himself perished in the cataclysm that followed, and the Soulless Gods, asleep for thousands of years, awoke. Reality shuddered as it careened towards its inevitable unexistence until Estarra the Eternal came forth and destroyed all of reality. All that was was not, all that could be could not be, and all that existed perished in an infinitisimal moment that none would ever have perceived, save perhaps the Gods and Soulless Themselves.
Shifting to the point in time moments before Xynthin would have found the rift, Estarra lashed out. The impudence of one to so meddle in time and bring about the end of reality had shocked even Her, and from Xynthin she stripped his name as a True Ascendant, defaming and cursing his existence for what he would do. Though he retained much of his power, there was an indefinable loss, something forever denied to him. He was once more Xenthos An’Ryshe of the Glomdoring.
With the divergent timeline destroyed and Xenthos denied the opportunity to become Xynthin the God, Estarra the Eternal had set right the direction of time, marching onwards towards its fate, whatever it may be. It was irrelevant to Her that Xynthin the God had somehow survived, kept alive by His connection to the Immanidivinus – he was adrift in the unending nothingness left behind by the destruction of reality, barely existing, a shadow of what once was the Glomdoring, Wyrd and barely a memory of a sliver of what was the First World. His existence was a continued anomaly, but with nothing to effect, it was an almost suitable punishment – to cause the decay of Reality, and in turn forever exist alone.
Then came the Wheel of the Goloths. Mother Night, in all her veiled and shadowed glory, knew much that few could see. And so, when the opportunity arose, she used the Wheel of the Goloths to draw forth the Ascended God Xynthin. It was a struggle at first – He had become accepting of His lack of existence, and being drawn into reality once more was an almost unsettling proposition. It was His service to the Wyrd, He later remarked, that drew Him forth. Night had called on Him to bring the Wyrd to glory and triumph over the First World, and He would answer the call. And it was then that Xynthin, Wyrden Glory came into the First World as the Veiled God, tentative and uncertain as to what He would discover.
His tale coming to its end, Estarra the Eternal Herself descended, both intrigued and amused by the turn of events. Her gaze shifted from Xenthos to Xynthin as She remarked on the rippling effects of decisions, wondering aloud what would come of it all. Remarking that they were lucky She had not simply annihilated them both from every existence, Estarra the Eternal departed, Xynthin not long after. And as Xenthos returned to hunting the remnants of undead invaders, Tacita Shee-Slaugh realized the torn nature of her feelings – and remembered the whispered warning she had once been given.
And like a river, time flows on in an inexorable march, flowing and crashing about obstructions and obstacles while dragging everything else along with it. Though it may be redirected and divergent paths forged, it flows onwards until it reaches its end, refusing to be stopped before it is ready. And, chilled by more than the cold of Mother Night, Xenthos An’Ryshe was discovering what it meant to be an obstruction in the way of Time.
