Post by Hyperion on Jan 2, 2008 22:39:01 GMT -5
I have examined the ring handed to me by Omni at his defeat. Upon it was inscribed "A story told by the Finite: The 5th age of exploration", but no story seems to accompany it. I had little success, but that did not deter me. Finally, only this morning, I managed to discover its secret while fiddling with it. With only a slight spin, as I did with coins when I was a child, the ring seems to speak in a woman's voice! After each idea, the ring seems to flip over. I have numbered the rotations, as the ring did when it described the flips of other coins. This is indeed a remarkable source of information! It speaks of a strange world, in another plain removed from ours. This place is filled with curved worlds, travels among stars, and possibly an explanation for how the Travelars came to the Omni desert.
-Exodus 997 AA, 66th day of Nyre harvest
From the 2nd ring of Omni (the 5th explorer)
(Encryption: A story told by the Finite: The 5th age of exploration)
1. Age of Arc
1 ?Away from the world we know, in another time and place, in another realm, removed from ours, existed a drifting city.
2 It was a city of hopes and dreams, of those who are lost, and those who are found. For in this new yet ancient realm all was lost and unknown, and the beings of mortality huddled together, unconsciously preparing for another time that would not come. The end of exploration. One will never know the infinite to be finite, and discoveries of the nature of the world will be far from the end of understanding it.
3 These people lived within the mist of the silver spires of their city, hiding from the unknown, clinging to their limited reality. They lived not of the harsh waters threatening to cast their small world asunder into depths of darkness, but of hop. Hope of what, though? They were truly lost, frightened of what could be.
4 This was the Age of the Arc, the 5th age of exploration. The gate of creation came to these people, but it would be better to say that they came to the gate. It was an opening, an invitation out into the very mist they were fearful of. It was their redemption. A gate into the universe was its promise. An end of nothing, a beginning to build from.
5 The 5th humanity began to build!
6 Living out entire lives without beginning or end was tiring, and the gate was palpable, proof that the mist was not of darkness, but of the lack of light.
7 Glass archways were built along their shores, and Gata?s moon finally shone upon the city for the first time in millennia. Its blue light casting a new reality over the people, the moon?s silver ring of ice glittered with the stars of a thousand worlds.
8 The people were humbled by this vision, and looked upon the stars for guidance. They say their future, themselves, gazing back down upon them.
9 With little ceremony and much solemnity, the gate of creation was opened.
10 The silver ring reflected the faces full of expectation back upon them, making the reality the reflection. It slowly rose from the rough-hewn platform upon which it was gingerly placed, for the fear of breaking the artifact. Those present saw now the truth; come the end of the finite, the infinite would remain. The gate was an incarnation of the mist, the mist that would stay even with a world?s destruction!
11 As it spun its holy tone, and chimed out reality as its broken tune, it gracefully expanded and gyrated amongst the center of all things. Stars weren?t seen within, the stars were without, and the city ceased to exist upon a rigid location, for it too, had become one of the infinite.
12 That is how the people of the Arc came upon the Gata, or rather Gata came upon them. For they were not of Gata.
13 They had traveled long, and in the brief time of the gate they saw the whole of their voyage, and of the vast distance they had yet to travel.
14 Leaving their place of birth, five explorers stepped into the unknown. For a brief time they lived forever.
15 The immobile city was gone of their presence when the Gate of Creation rendered them without movement, the movement of the absolute. It seemed as if the very ground began to move as the motion of the world became their own, and they were brought to the speed of day. And so, all was gone.
16 The past, the present, the future. All and nothing, with only exploration within them. Suns and worlds, sources and outcomes, lights and substance. Nothing was not.
17 Speed of day, speed of gyration. The 4th age of exploration had reached an outcome. Humanity had returned to Gata.
From the ring of Akelí (The 3rd explorer):
(Encryption: Hope)
1 ?From nothing comes everything.
2 Finite to infinite.
3 But so all must return.
4 All must.
5 The circle, the ring,
6 The 5th rotation of time.
7 May it not all be in vain.?
18 The first place they came to was a broken city, similar to the one they had left. The people had found their way to the ruins of what could have been, and what was now an omen of what may be. They had arrived within a silver moss-grown temple to the Gate of Peace, with statures cast around it, having failed in their duty to remind the very people who had created them the ways of the gate. A silent lamentation of the broken quiet the ancient land had now achieved rang through the ears of the explorers. The land was tired of humanity, of the lost battles that were fought over the gate averse to war. The travelers could not see, but the temple they had set foot upon was covered not just in blood, but in deaths innumerable. Selenity had forgotten the ways of life and death, so ingrained within itself that it began to lose its own reality.
19 The land was a false paradise, recovering in the here and now, but suffering from its hidden history. It was a wounded realm, with injuries that time would only make worse. Despite the arguments from their city leaders, the explorers only needed to show them the ruins to convince them to leave it alone. Humanity was not yet welcome there.
20 And so the city of Selenity was left to heal, and the time began for another realm to be found. The explorers began their journey through the gate to another place, not far from Selenity.
21 From peace to war, and back again. Through the silver gate fall. And so the realms await the travelar.
22 The second was not that of Selenity, despite the minute distance between the two. It was dark, without light, and utterly lifeless. Whereas Selenity threatened to be consumed by the unhampered growth of forestry enclosing it, this black realm devoured any life that dared to threaten it.
23 The Gate of War was among the Rift, but not within it, and the five of the city found themselves underneath the ground, not the sky. Looking outward from the gate, they say that sky was beneath them, and ground existed only in the walls, like two similar worlds brought together. It was a chasm, a rift into void; a gorge without end. They were in the jagged edge of this break, inside a small hollow wherein the gate was precariously perched, ready at any disturbance to fall into the void. The realm had split asunder, and nothing remained but War, ready to bring the 5th humanity to its ways.
24 But alas, the five had no means beside the Gate of War to escape the Rift, and so they were not yet ready. Here was a battleground, an exploration of dark secrets, but humanity was not fully in Gata. Rift does not serve as a place of training, and so the five left through the Gate, determined to find a place for their city.
From the ring of Agicus (The 2nd explorer):
(Encryption: Thought)
1 ?What falls into Rift?
2 Does it not return?
3 Will others again return to Gata?
4 Or will they fall into void?
5 At least they have a choice.
6 Do we??
25 Within the drifting city, the 5th humanity was in turmoil. There were those who wished only to explore, those who wished to conquer, and those who wished only to survive. They did not agree on what to do with Selenity, and war was soon corrupting the peace they had held for millennia. The rift between factions expanded, and within one gyration of Gata?s moon, their holy council had become a pit of seething fire and debate. As the drifting city tumbled into the void of chaos, a third group arose from those who whished dominion or salvation for the gate of peace. These deceivers condemned the gate of creation, and commanded it closed.
26 Few of the city, wise enough to sense the changing tide, escaped through the gate before the deceivers cast it out into the mist from whence it came. They were forced to conquer the very city they meant to save, living in the ruins, waiting for the five to return.
27 The deceivers now had the drifting city within their tenacious grasp, forcing it once again to wander the sea of space and time. They were called by many names. The Iodei. The commonwealth. The bloodthirsty.
28 But it was not yet time for the 6th humanity to reign. The five were still exploring, searching for a place suitable enough for a people that were already lost to them. The city would soon drift back to the shores of Gata, as it had done many eons before. Those of the 5th humanity were not used to the thoughts of war and rebellion. They would learn.
29 From peace and war comes choice, and with choice the found believe, the lost only know. Peace begat War, War begat Wisdom and Consequence. Back again through Gate of Creation.
From the ring of Mechana (The 4th explorer):
(Encryption: Knowledge)
1 ?The loss of Gata,
2 The loss of self:
3 No longer strong
4 Nor secure.
5 But to be free,
6 Is to be strong!
7 And thus,
8 Gata is gone.?
30 Stop Story. Rethink. Remake. Begin:
31 Oh Selenity! How the realm shunned the traveler. The five of the city saw it whole yet broken. A place of ruin, a place of growth. The shores could not be seen upon Selenity, but they could be heard from the echoing towers that still stood tall against the sky. The five were within Selenity?s center, upon a rough-hewn platform. A disturbed garden, awakened yet again.
32 Arach the first, Agicus the savior, Akelí the thoughtful, Mechana the wise, and Omni last. All five, with naught but all and nothing between them. Thus the five travel through the rings within the mist. Two would live forever. Three would end, thus free.
33 Oh Rift! How the realm makes the traveler. For there were decisions made. The realm was broken, but the void remained strong. The Gate of War revealed two paths. First two to belief, last three to wisdom. Back again through Gate of Creation."
34 Rethought. Remade. Continue.
2.Last Discoveries
35 Once more through Gate of Peace and War, to Consequence. For the five of the city, the rightful, the chosen. For the decisions they would made, and thus were already made. The first and the savior, both wise, be brought to Belief. Those who defy that even, to Wisdom they fly.
36 Thus it is in Gata.
37 Oh, travelers! O, great explorers! In light of stars they fly! To their seperate ways fall! To their last end die!
38 Thus it is in life. In Creation thus. And so, the juncture creates the traveler.
39 Two were shown light. For the rest, in-between. Last only saw what he sees. Darkness for the All-seer! Death to the lands that come and go! For his eyes were once shut forever. It is only through sand that the last of the blind could see.
40 Those in the light of stars saw the beauty of Belief. Of the palpable illusion of truth. To believe is to be at peace. But the first explorer wished not for security, but for freedom.
41 Freedom first, above all else. Righteousness comes second, but often follows suit. Like day and night they are intertwined. Light and dark, Arach and Omni, one hidden behind the other.
42 Arach saw the light, and feared it. It is a dark realm that explorers fear. Freedom is for the traveler, and Arach saw the loss of freedom within a realm stopped in time.
43 Oh, savior! How the freedom can be decieved. How righteousness becomes oppression. And how oppression gives rise to its originator. Amid the crystalline structures, he fell in awe and blessed the ground, and did not percieved his companion's doubt. For doubt had no place in Belief, and the savior can only do right. In justice the prophets steal freedom, and leave only hope behind. But it is a dark savior that does not heal, or love. Although frozen in time, the prophet keeps the heart. But the mind is for the traveler.
44 The belief without a name is truth, but truth betitled is something more, perhaps even better. Arana, the island left behind, a cold and beautiful place, knew this. It kept its people, stayed its hand, and drove the wheel of Gata. But beneath the ice, the water, and the air, lied only ash. Ash and dust for the savior, and water purified by fire.
45 Humanity knew belief, but did not understand its place. Arana, home of beauty, keeper of disputes, spawned the original argument for the fifth time. The first explorer battled the second, and neither were triumphant.
From the ring of the archives (1st Argument):
(Encryption: Purpose)
1 Arach/"No more fire for thee.
2 Nay, only ice can stay thy brow.
3 Time is harsh, space is far harsher,
4 And nothing can be found from it."
5 Agicus/"You mistake Arach for Gata,
6 Gata is Arach.
7 No longer free, but secure.
8 For light is better than death.
9 Hope is better than death."
10 Arach/"See not what your Gods bring!
11 I bring my own thought."
-Exodus 997 AA, 66th day of Nyre harvest
From the 2nd ring of Omni (the 5th explorer)
(Encryption: A story told by the Finite: The 5th age of exploration)
1. Age of Arc
1 ?Away from the world we know, in another time and place, in another realm, removed from ours, existed a drifting city.
2 It was a city of hopes and dreams, of those who are lost, and those who are found. For in this new yet ancient realm all was lost and unknown, and the beings of mortality huddled together, unconsciously preparing for another time that would not come. The end of exploration. One will never know the infinite to be finite, and discoveries of the nature of the world will be far from the end of understanding it.
3 These people lived within the mist of the silver spires of their city, hiding from the unknown, clinging to their limited reality. They lived not of the harsh waters threatening to cast their small world asunder into depths of darkness, but of hop. Hope of what, though? They were truly lost, frightened of what could be.
4 This was the Age of the Arc, the 5th age of exploration. The gate of creation came to these people, but it would be better to say that they came to the gate. It was an opening, an invitation out into the very mist they were fearful of. It was their redemption. A gate into the universe was its promise. An end of nothing, a beginning to build from.
5 The 5th humanity began to build!
6 Living out entire lives without beginning or end was tiring, and the gate was palpable, proof that the mist was not of darkness, but of the lack of light.
7 Glass archways were built along their shores, and Gata?s moon finally shone upon the city for the first time in millennia. Its blue light casting a new reality over the people, the moon?s silver ring of ice glittered with the stars of a thousand worlds.
8 The people were humbled by this vision, and looked upon the stars for guidance. They say their future, themselves, gazing back down upon them.
9 With little ceremony and much solemnity, the gate of creation was opened.
10 The silver ring reflected the faces full of expectation back upon them, making the reality the reflection. It slowly rose from the rough-hewn platform upon which it was gingerly placed, for the fear of breaking the artifact. Those present saw now the truth; come the end of the finite, the infinite would remain. The gate was an incarnation of the mist, the mist that would stay even with a world?s destruction!
11 As it spun its holy tone, and chimed out reality as its broken tune, it gracefully expanded and gyrated amongst the center of all things. Stars weren?t seen within, the stars were without, and the city ceased to exist upon a rigid location, for it too, had become one of the infinite.
12 That is how the people of the Arc came upon the Gata, or rather Gata came upon them. For they were not of Gata.
13 They had traveled long, and in the brief time of the gate they saw the whole of their voyage, and of the vast distance they had yet to travel.
14 Leaving their place of birth, five explorers stepped into the unknown. For a brief time they lived forever.
15 The immobile city was gone of their presence when the Gate of Creation rendered them without movement, the movement of the absolute. It seemed as if the very ground began to move as the motion of the world became their own, and they were brought to the speed of day. And so, all was gone.
16 The past, the present, the future. All and nothing, with only exploration within them. Suns and worlds, sources and outcomes, lights and substance. Nothing was not.
17 Speed of day, speed of gyration. The 4th age of exploration had reached an outcome. Humanity had returned to Gata.
From the ring of Akelí (The 3rd explorer):
(Encryption: Hope)
1 ?From nothing comes everything.
2 Finite to infinite.
3 But so all must return.
4 All must.
5 The circle, the ring,
6 The 5th rotation of time.
7 May it not all be in vain.?
18 The first place they came to was a broken city, similar to the one they had left. The people had found their way to the ruins of what could have been, and what was now an omen of what may be. They had arrived within a silver moss-grown temple to the Gate of Peace, with statures cast around it, having failed in their duty to remind the very people who had created them the ways of the gate. A silent lamentation of the broken quiet the ancient land had now achieved rang through the ears of the explorers. The land was tired of humanity, of the lost battles that were fought over the gate averse to war. The travelers could not see, but the temple they had set foot upon was covered not just in blood, but in deaths innumerable. Selenity had forgotten the ways of life and death, so ingrained within itself that it began to lose its own reality.
19 The land was a false paradise, recovering in the here and now, but suffering from its hidden history. It was a wounded realm, with injuries that time would only make worse. Despite the arguments from their city leaders, the explorers only needed to show them the ruins to convince them to leave it alone. Humanity was not yet welcome there.
20 And so the city of Selenity was left to heal, and the time began for another realm to be found. The explorers began their journey through the gate to another place, not far from Selenity.
21 From peace to war, and back again. Through the silver gate fall. And so the realms await the travelar.
22 The second was not that of Selenity, despite the minute distance between the two. It was dark, without light, and utterly lifeless. Whereas Selenity threatened to be consumed by the unhampered growth of forestry enclosing it, this black realm devoured any life that dared to threaten it.
23 The Gate of War was among the Rift, but not within it, and the five of the city found themselves underneath the ground, not the sky. Looking outward from the gate, they say that sky was beneath them, and ground existed only in the walls, like two similar worlds brought together. It was a chasm, a rift into void; a gorge without end. They were in the jagged edge of this break, inside a small hollow wherein the gate was precariously perched, ready at any disturbance to fall into the void. The realm had split asunder, and nothing remained but War, ready to bring the 5th humanity to its ways.
24 But alas, the five had no means beside the Gate of War to escape the Rift, and so they were not yet ready. Here was a battleground, an exploration of dark secrets, but humanity was not fully in Gata. Rift does not serve as a place of training, and so the five left through the Gate, determined to find a place for their city.
From the ring of Agicus (The 2nd explorer):
(Encryption: Thought)
1 ?What falls into Rift?
2 Does it not return?
3 Will others again return to Gata?
4 Or will they fall into void?
5 At least they have a choice.
6 Do we??
25 Within the drifting city, the 5th humanity was in turmoil. There were those who wished only to explore, those who wished to conquer, and those who wished only to survive. They did not agree on what to do with Selenity, and war was soon corrupting the peace they had held for millennia. The rift between factions expanded, and within one gyration of Gata?s moon, their holy council had become a pit of seething fire and debate. As the drifting city tumbled into the void of chaos, a third group arose from those who whished dominion or salvation for the gate of peace. These deceivers condemned the gate of creation, and commanded it closed.
26 Few of the city, wise enough to sense the changing tide, escaped through the gate before the deceivers cast it out into the mist from whence it came. They were forced to conquer the very city they meant to save, living in the ruins, waiting for the five to return.
27 The deceivers now had the drifting city within their tenacious grasp, forcing it once again to wander the sea of space and time. They were called by many names. The Iodei. The commonwealth. The bloodthirsty.
28 But it was not yet time for the 6th humanity to reign. The five were still exploring, searching for a place suitable enough for a people that were already lost to them. The city would soon drift back to the shores of Gata, as it had done many eons before. Those of the 5th humanity were not used to the thoughts of war and rebellion. They would learn.
29 From peace and war comes choice, and with choice the found believe, the lost only know. Peace begat War, War begat Wisdom and Consequence. Back again through Gate of Creation.
From the ring of Mechana (The 4th explorer):
(Encryption: Knowledge)
1 ?The loss of Gata,
2 The loss of self:
3 No longer strong
4 Nor secure.
5 But to be free,
6 Is to be strong!
7 And thus,
8 Gata is gone.?
30 Stop Story. Rethink. Remake. Begin:
31 Oh Selenity! How the realm shunned the traveler. The five of the city saw it whole yet broken. A place of ruin, a place of growth. The shores could not be seen upon Selenity, but they could be heard from the echoing towers that still stood tall against the sky. The five were within Selenity?s center, upon a rough-hewn platform. A disturbed garden, awakened yet again.
32 Arach the first, Agicus the savior, Akelí the thoughtful, Mechana the wise, and Omni last. All five, with naught but all and nothing between them. Thus the five travel through the rings within the mist. Two would live forever. Three would end, thus free.
33 Oh Rift! How the realm makes the traveler. For there were decisions made. The realm was broken, but the void remained strong. The Gate of War revealed two paths. First two to belief, last three to wisdom. Back again through Gate of Creation."
34 Rethought. Remade. Continue.
2.Last Discoveries
35 Once more through Gate of Peace and War, to Consequence. For the five of the city, the rightful, the chosen. For the decisions they would made, and thus were already made. The first and the savior, both wise, be brought to Belief. Those who defy that even, to Wisdom they fly.
36 Thus it is in Gata.
37 Oh, travelers! O, great explorers! In light of stars they fly! To their seperate ways fall! To their last end die!
38 Thus it is in life. In Creation thus. And so, the juncture creates the traveler.
39 Two were shown light. For the rest, in-between. Last only saw what he sees. Darkness for the All-seer! Death to the lands that come and go! For his eyes were once shut forever. It is only through sand that the last of the blind could see.
40 Those in the light of stars saw the beauty of Belief. Of the palpable illusion of truth. To believe is to be at peace. But the first explorer wished not for security, but for freedom.
41 Freedom first, above all else. Righteousness comes second, but often follows suit. Like day and night they are intertwined. Light and dark, Arach and Omni, one hidden behind the other.
42 Arach saw the light, and feared it. It is a dark realm that explorers fear. Freedom is for the traveler, and Arach saw the loss of freedom within a realm stopped in time.
43 Oh, savior! How the freedom can be decieved. How righteousness becomes oppression. And how oppression gives rise to its originator. Amid the crystalline structures, he fell in awe and blessed the ground, and did not percieved his companion's doubt. For doubt had no place in Belief, and the savior can only do right. In justice the prophets steal freedom, and leave only hope behind. But it is a dark savior that does not heal, or love. Although frozen in time, the prophet keeps the heart. But the mind is for the traveler.
44 The belief without a name is truth, but truth betitled is something more, perhaps even better. Arana, the island left behind, a cold and beautiful place, knew this. It kept its people, stayed its hand, and drove the wheel of Gata. But beneath the ice, the water, and the air, lied only ash. Ash and dust for the savior, and water purified by fire.
45 Humanity knew belief, but did not understand its place. Arana, home of beauty, keeper of disputes, spawned the original argument for the fifth time. The first explorer battled the second, and neither were triumphant.
From the ring of the archives (1st Argument):
(Encryption: Purpose)
1 Arach/"No more fire for thee.
2 Nay, only ice can stay thy brow.
3 Time is harsh, space is far harsher,
4 And nothing can be found from it."
5 Agicus/"You mistake Arach for Gata,
6 Gata is Arach.
7 No longer free, but secure.
8 For light is better than death.
9 Hope is better than death."
10 Arach/"See not what your Gods bring!
11 I bring my own thought."
