GamesOfDivinityStory/GoD005
Part 4 | Story Info Page | WBM Home Page | Part 6
by SandJack
Act III, Scene 4
The stage is dark.
CHORUS
I am Unconquered! All lesser beings shall bow before my might!
Hard Yellow White light up on stage left. The Chorus, composed only of the Celestial Incarnae, disperses until Luna, The Unconqured Sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Saturn stand around a table with seven chessboards on it, with chess pieces, dice, coins, warhammer figurines (original and 40k), half a deck of playing cards, and a few marbles placed all around.
LUNA
You left your Ministry of Rhubarb open to check.
Luna places a large marble she was holding in her hand on the board and flicks it into a pile of pieces, knocking several of them over. The lighting changes to a dimmer Silver White.
LUNA
Unconquer that.
UNCONQUERED SUN
Damn you and your progeny to a thousand burning hells!
LUNA
Sore loser. Anyway, it's Mercury's turn.
MERCURY
Alright. Umm, I invoke the five plateus of heaven.
Mercury moves a few of the chessboards around, rearraging the pieces into a new configuration. The light changes to Yellow White again.
MERCURY
Aww shoot!
UNCONQUERED SUN
I am Unconquered! All lesser beings shall bow before my might!
LUNA
Hush now, Sol. Let Venus take her turn.
Lights up on stage right, revealing Lytek. Action continues stage left, the lights change color periodically, but no sound is heard. Lytek stands by a rack of essences, and fingers an empty one.
LYTEK
Poor lost souls. Poor little lost solars. You were my children. I gave you your dreams, and set you loose into the world. I made you worthy of the title prince, and you bore the weight of office with dignity.
What good are my past efforts now? What good is the work of my life that now my own children are being turned loose against the world? I am a failure. I could have prevented this somehow. If I had the power, I could claim them back and trim away their pain. I would take it on myself if I could. But I do not have the power. I am but a weak servant of a witless master.
Perhaps my errant children have, in the end, chosen the right master. The world is dying. We live in an age of sorrow, and there is nothing any of us can do to prevent it.
Jupiter enters
LYTEK
Ah, milady, I see you have gotten my message.
JUPITER
Yes, though I wonder what business could be so pressing as to pull me away from the games. I believe my turn is coming up now -- my presence will be missed.
LYTEK
I am sorry that you will miss your game, milday, but it seems that something rather more important has come up.
JUPITER
Lytek, have you ever had opportunity to play the games of divinity?
LYTEK
No, milady. My duties are constant, and any moment away from my post could spell disaster.
JUPITER
Ah, yes that's right. That's why I had you made. Then I suppose you have not even stolen a glimpse through a dream stone?
LYTEK
No, milady. The delights of the game remain a complete mystery to your humble servant.
JUPITER
Ah, yes. Well, as much as I love a good mystery, I will tell you something of the games that your 'witless master' plays.
Once upon a time, there were only the Primordeals, Creation, and the games. The order in which these three came into being is hidden even from me but what is sure is that from these three, all else that we know began.
When the Primordeals were new, they were barely anything more than pure willpower. They did not have form in the sense that we know it now. They were simply being and hunger. But what seperated their hunger from the hunger of the fae who stood outside creation was that they did not hunger for dreams, or for corruption, or even for the peace of untroubled chaos. What they hungered for was power.
When creation was new, it was almost without form: there were only the five elements. A single room was creation, with a stone in the center, a tree in the east, a block of ice in the north, a fountain in the west, and a burning candle in the south. It was a curiosity. There was nothing in creation to be ruled over, because creation had no rules. It was barely better than the wyld that surrounded it.
And then there were the games. What creation lacked in interest, the games made up for. In the games the Primordeals found their true purpose. In a single move at the games, a Primordeal could gain power over his brothers, and when he lost power, he could eventually gain it once more. Whatever else there was about, the Primordeals realized, it was the games that they had been created to play because it was only the games in which their hunger for power could find any means of increasing itself. After all, each Primordeal was already undisputed master of his own strange slice of what creation was.
Whatever order the first three -- Creation, the Primordeals, and the games -- came into being, it was sure that each one of them depended on the others. Creation could not exist without the Primordeals, the Primordeals could not exist witout the games, and the games could not exist without Creation. But for this fact, the Primordeals would have let creation fall to the wyld long ago. But instead, they knew that they had to preserve it for if creation fell apart, there would no longer be any games, and without the games, the hunger of the primordeals would devour them from within.
So the Primordeals had to preserve Creation from the ravages of the wyld. Creation grew as the Primordeals reinforced it, to keep it safe. Myself and my siblings were brought into being to manage the larger creation, to allow the Primordeals more time to do what was their true purpose.
Of course, what happened afterwards is hardly a secret, so I will not bore you with the retelling. Besides, my point lies in what I have already told you. Creation exists to serve the games and, if you think on it, it will show. In creation, there is no real purpose. Every being in creation chases after something she was told would bring her happiness, but in the end, the desires of creation bring only pain. There is no one way to judge, in creation, whether one is succeeding or losing. There is only confusion, confusion and suffering.
But the games, the games are different. We play the games knowing that we will never win them, but only that from moment to moment we might have the glory and the bliss of dominating the sky. And we are content in that, for even to be on the losing side of the games is bliss. There is no suffering when you are playing the games, there is only pure being.
It is the purpose of creation to keep the games alive, Lytek, and creation has no other purpose. If creation is in danger, it is my duty to help you save it. But never forget that I preserve creation only to preserve the games. Otherwise I could not find it in my heart to preserve such a tool of pain. So tell me what it is, and be quick about it. I must get back to the games.
Lytek pauses for a moment
LYTEK
Mlady. Something has happened to the Lightbringer's inheritance.
JUPITER
But how can that be? His inheretance is only...
LYTEK
His past. His burden. Yes. Tell me, milady, what do you remember of these?
JUPITER
I remember every detail of his past, from the moment of Zael's exaltation in Battle for the Blessed Isle to his ...
LYTEK
Death. You don't remember his death, do you? Or when he accepted his burden, or for that matter, what his burden is. The second volume of Zael Lightbringer has been stolen, and all that was written within it has been hidden from us.
JUPITER
But who would do such a thing?
LYTEK
That is hidden from us as well. Though only those who stand outside of fate have the power, milady.
JUPITER
But if his history and his burden are hidden from us then not even he will remember them. Though I can remember the results well enough.
LYTEK
As can I. Mistress, I hate to impose but I fear I must say it. He will be unable to learn from his past. And as they say, those who do not learn from their mistakes...
Fade out on Jupiter and Lytek. The light stage left turns once again to Yellow White.
UNCONQUERED SUN
I am Unconquered! All lesser beings shall bow before my might!
ALL BUT UCS
Shut up!
END ACT III
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