Foundations
~~~
If you go to work on your goals, your goals will go to work on you. If you go to work on your plan, your plan will go to work on you. Whatever good things we build end up building us. - Jim Rohn ~~~
Prelude
He slept, and in sleeping, dreamed.
Fire. Destruction. Ashes raining down, as steel shod feet broke cobbles, wood, and bone underfoot.
His mind was bored through by memories of a future that were now split into a dichotomy of fact and fantasy, as that future was gutted on the whim of a planeswalker and a young girl.
In every vast panorama of the mind, a Wall arose from the bones of the earth; it's silvered expanses reaching towards the clouds, he recognized the Wall as the Ark - and the Arc. The Vessel that kept those things within separate, and pure; and punished those without by virtue of their abandonment to the elements, and worse - the Children of Lillith, the lilin; Tiama, Ladon, Lotar, and so many others, Wyrm-spawn.
He sat up now, and though his eyes were open, they were unseeing - at least in regard to his immediate surroundings.
No, his eyes - those temporary orbs of lustrous chrome - saw something....else.
The vast island temple of his own Child, Hymach. Sprawling chrome perfection of order, and doing that which other divinities refrained from - giving aid to those who prayed for it....and increasingly every prayer was a request, no longer giving thanks or gratitude. But Hymach cared not, for Hymach was....machina.
As he sat unseeing, his fingers twisted into the sheets of his bed, knotting them within his grasp. Power manifesting as blue ribbons of energy burned within the grip of his right hand - converting or summoning - the form of a small, 4 pound maul, one side flat and blunt, the other tapered to an edge.
The Stormhammer, First Vessel of Bluefire.
A vast, featureless expanse spread before him - true Horizon - and from it's surface dozens of glowing lights surged up into a sky of abyssal darkness, and were devoured. And he knew somehow that the lights were those things given power by the faith and consensus of all living things, and they were the things he would call the Myriad, for they were many. And he saw the darkness that they were vanishing into, and knew that the name of the devouring darkness, the absence of faith, and of creation was called Oblivion.
And he knew the lure of Oblivion's call, for it had sounded to him in the past - or the future, for in the dream he could no longer say when or where he was, simply that he was.
An ribbon of energy lanced from the hammer he held to the walls of his abode in Mage House. No sound accompanied it, but its touch changed the nature of of the stone where it struck. As it began, the effect seemed random, but a pattern was beginning to grow as the ribbons of stone began to connect through repeated energy strikes.
What was once bare stone wall was now bare stone engraved with layer upon layer of complex glyphs, seeming inset letters, numbers, and pictographs wrought of platinum and orichalum.
Each wall bore several diagrams, schematics, for buildings, constructs, and items; each true named, and described in the short point form notation he used when inscribing things by hand - though he did so unconsciously now, and not by hand. Beyond mere description were the formulae, mathematical, architectural, metaphysical, and arcane which would lend the Crafted their power - and not necessarily something so fantastic, as merely the ability to function.
A voice intruded upon his dreams, if dreams they were.
"Sir..." Quietly at first....colorful orbs seemed to be staring into him in the darkness of his minds eye, flaring through a multi hued rainbow of light, as if choosing their color of their own accord...
"Sir....Sir..." More urgently. The eyes seemed to begin to settle on one color.
Mint green.
"...sir..." Quiet, urgent, and sorrowful sadness. All at once.
Bluefire's energy died away just before his eyes opened to the real world before him, but it had left it's marking upon his walls.
Oddly, it was the eyes that had his attention though he could no longer see them.
He laid back down, heart slowly hammering in his chest, and face turned towards the doors he knew that two of his Hounds slept outside.
"Good night," he paused, eyes closing again as he tried to settle himself back into what would hopefully be a dreamless sleep. Though he wouldn't call the person who's eyes he was sure he was dreaming of by her first name, not....yet, he spoke it in closing his final adieu of the night, though none would hear it, "Miranda."
The next day, he would begin to build, from the schematics upon the walls.
But as for this night, as soon as he found sleep again...
He began to dream.
~~~
If you go to work on your goals, your goals will go to work on you. If you go to work on your plan, your plan will go to work on you. Whatever good things we build end up building us. - Jim Rohn ~~~
Prelude
He slept, and in sleeping, dreamed.
Fire. Destruction. Ashes raining down, as steel shod feet broke cobbles, wood, and bone underfoot.
His mind was bored through by memories of a future that were now split into a dichotomy of fact and fantasy, as that future was gutted on the whim of a planeswalker and a young girl.
In every vast panorama of the mind, a Wall arose from the bones of the earth; it's silvered expanses reaching towards the clouds, he recognized the Wall as the Ark - and the Arc. The Vessel that kept those things within separate, and pure; and punished those without by virtue of their abandonment to the elements, and worse - the Children of Lillith, the lilin; Tiama, Ladon, Lotar, and so many others, Wyrm-spawn.
He sat up now, and though his eyes were open, they were unseeing - at least in regard to his immediate surroundings.
No, his eyes - those temporary orbs of lustrous chrome - saw something....else.
The vast island temple of his own Child, Hymach. Sprawling chrome perfection of order, and doing that which other divinities refrained from - giving aid to those who prayed for it....and increasingly every prayer was a request, no longer giving thanks or gratitude. But Hymach cared not, for Hymach was....machina.
As he sat unseeing, his fingers twisted into the sheets of his bed, knotting them within his grasp. Power manifesting as blue ribbons of energy burned within the grip of his right hand - converting or summoning - the form of a small, 4 pound maul, one side flat and blunt, the other tapered to an edge.
The Stormhammer, First Vessel of Bluefire.
A vast, featureless expanse spread before him - true Horizon - and from it's surface dozens of glowing lights surged up into a sky of abyssal darkness, and were devoured. And he knew somehow that the lights were those things given power by the faith and consensus of all living things, and they were the things he would call the Myriad, for they were many. And he saw the darkness that they were vanishing into, and knew that the name of the devouring darkness, the absence of faith, and of creation was called Oblivion.
And he knew the lure of Oblivion's call, for it had sounded to him in the past - or the future, for in the dream he could no longer say when or where he was, simply that he was.
An ribbon of energy lanced from the hammer he held to the walls of his abode in Mage House. No sound accompanied it, but its touch changed the nature of of the stone where it struck. As it began, the effect seemed random, but a pattern was beginning to grow as the ribbons of stone began to connect through repeated energy strikes.
What was once bare stone wall was now bare stone engraved with layer upon layer of complex glyphs, seeming inset letters, numbers, and pictographs wrought of platinum and orichalum.
Each wall bore several diagrams, schematics, for buildings, constructs, and items; each true named, and described in the short point form notation he used when inscribing things by hand - though he did so unconsciously now, and not by hand. Beyond mere description were the formulae, mathematical, architectural, metaphysical, and arcane which would lend the Crafted their power - and not necessarily something so fantastic, as merely the ability to function.
A voice intruded upon his dreams, if dreams they were.
"Sir..." Quietly at first....colorful orbs seemed to be staring into him in the darkness of his minds eye, flaring through a multi hued rainbow of light, as if choosing their color of their own accord...
"Sir....Sir..." More urgently. The eyes seemed to begin to settle on one color.
Mint green.
"...sir..." Quiet, urgent, and sorrowful sadness. All at once.
Bluefire's energy died away just before his eyes opened to the real world before him, but it had left it's marking upon his walls.
Oddly, it was the eyes that had his attention though he could no longer see them.
He laid back down, heart slowly hammering in his chest, and face turned towards the doors he knew that two of his Hounds slept outside.
"Good night," he paused, eyes closing again as he tried to settle himself back into what would hopefully be a dreamless sleep. Though he wouldn't call the person who's eyes he was sure he was dreaming of by her first name, not....yet, he spoke it in closing his final adieu of the night, though none would hear it, "Miranda."
The next day, he would begin to build, from the schematics upon the walls.
But as for this night, as soon as he found sleep again...
He began to dream.