December 25th, 2880 AD
The Seats of the Convocation
Four black robed figures sat upon their seats, masks obscuring their faces. Deudalaphon leaned forward in his chair, fingers laced together. “We are in agreement then?”
Nods all around, no objections remained.
“Very well, Emmerololth will take the lead.”
Cephiro
High up in the darkened skies of the world that was breaking apart, assailed by fierce gales and stormwinds, Azem peered into and through the sole source of light still to be found within Cephiro; the crystal that held the crystallized thoughts and prayers of Princess Aurea within it.
It was a beautiful thing, despite its sharp edges, made out of beautiful and pure prayers as it was.
But, much as she wanted to, she could not use it to save Cephiro, not yet. There were still remnants, splinters and shards of the souls of her people and of Etheirys that had not yet been fully wrested free of the world. And, Stars damn her, she would watch the world burn and boil and break apart in front and around her when she had the power to save it firmly in her grasp if that was what it took to save her people.
Finally, when even the stormwinds had died down and with numerous cracks and widening chasms in the sky, easily seen by the gifted sight so many of her people possessed, Azem saw the last bit of the shard be embraced by the coils of Deudalophon’s power and ushered unto Emmeroloth’s.
Free to do her part at long last, she relinquished her hold on the crystal even as she began to channel her aether in an act of Creation. The crystal gently floated in the air in front of her, bopping up and down, until the light inside it intensified and was released in a massive wave of light, quickly traveling until it encompassed all of what had once been Cephiro and would once again be Cephiro.
And there was light once more, and the spread of destruction halted, what little remained being saved. A wave after wave left the crystal as it pulsated and beat in the rhythm of the prayers of the kind Princess Aurea as it spread them all over Cephiro.
And, little by little, the land was rejuvenated. The water came back into being, its waves rolling gently, and the broken and lost lands were reshaped into being with their mountains and hills, woods forests and critters all. Finally, as the work of both Azem and the crystals neared its completion, the skies and the wind and the stars and the sun returned all, like they’d never been gone.
With a final pulse of light, far greater than the ones before, the crystal broke and Cephiro was whole once more. And this time, permanently so. No more would they need to have a Pillar to hold the world together. Cephiro had been returned from annihilation, and would forever remain.
But not the people. The countless lost in the cataclysm were not brought back to life, and would remain dead forevermore. It made her want to cry ugly unnumbered tears of grief and sorrow, but her eyes remained dry. As one of the architects of their death and destruction, she had not the right, it would have been naught but a mockery.
At least the survivors would be spared a bitter cold or deathly heatwaves or similar catastrophes that the other worlds had gone through. They, at least, could go on without a desperate and doomed struggle for survival.
Silently she hung her head, and disappeared from the world of Cephiro in a portal of darkness, never to return.
The rest was up to Pashtarot.
An inhale, an exhale. Pashtarot looked over first the wave of destruction and then the light that spread afterwards. His hands moved forward gently, this was work that needed to start before the conclusion of the last though the true gears were not yet in motion it was the preparation for that which was now stirring behind the scenes of reality.
It had been quite a while since he had needed to do something of this magnitude, it was exciting. A passion eroded by time flaring to the fore as the greatest pulse of light came. It was his turn now.
The sun and sky above became coated in a grim omen, the clinking of metal came from every corner of the land as out from the ground seemed to erupt chains of massive size. Wordlessly Pashtarot hovered above the sky itself as the chains linked, melding together as one as a coat of light followed afterwards.
There was a grunt from the man himself, there was a notable difference between stilling unruly beasts and men or capturing an entire land but still. He would play his part as the coat of light fully covered the sky, moving into the earth itself yet not cutting it the chains would vanish with them. Leaving naught to be seen of this mystical barrier for the moment.
Only a moment later, as the barrier completed forming beneath the ground was there a sheen. A dome had been formed, a prison one could say. Those within would never leave and those without never enter. Taxing, even for him to capture an entire nation. He took a moment to appreciate his work, a land that only wished for peace and civility, he could relate to such a plight.
Still they had taken their pound of flesh, so now they would have their paradise. To be interrupted by none but themselves. A black void appeared behind the floating man as he too left the scene like those before him.
The Source
The Rejoining shook the lands of Etheirys. Each rejoining had taught them something new. Once, a rejoining would have shaken heaven and earth, cracked stone and ice, tore down and built new mountains… But with so many previous rejoinings under their belts, there was a lessening of the effects. The quakes could be felt all across the planet. Some side effects were inevitable. Hell’s lid cracking and oozing, the Magna Glacias breaking and churning, waters recede and storm toward shore- but these too were manageable.
Ifrit appeared in a swirl of fire to quell the explosive reactions at Hell’s lid, limiting the damage while growing the isle. Titan tore itself from the ground, halting the massive boulders and shards of tumbling earth around Gyr Abania. Leviathan rose from the depths near La Noscea to shield the ocean state from the tidal waves that would have claimed it. Yes, many steps had been taken to protect beloved Etheirys from destruction, even if it’s denizens could not see it.
