The Great Cataclysm (~3900–present)
- The last words of Thelonius the Scribe - Part V
After the death of Loïos, the world did not mourn. It began to fracture.
Loïos left no edict, no successor, no temple. Only silence. And in that silence, rot was revealed. Nearly every throne and altar had been claimed by corruption. Lords clothed in scripture, bishops perfumed in gold, aldermen preaching peace while bartering with demons. The Inquisition, once raised to resist such decay, saw only what it chose to see.
The first rebellion came from Anatolia. The kingdom had never been fully subdued by the Papacy. Its rivers, its deserts, its broken towers remembered too much. In the mountain holds of Pharos and the libraries of Damat, quiet circles formed. They did not worship Loïos, but kept the memory of his spirit.
From these rose new fellowships like the Covenant of the Last Ember, seekers who strive to rekindle knowledge from the Age of the Ancients and the Children of the Light, warrior-scholars who studied the sacred geometries of Armozel and reforged his designs in iron and purpose.
In Gallia, the spark of revolt was faint, but not extinguished. The old chants returned. Stone circles once abandoned by the Papacy were quietly restored by a half-secret fellowship of master builders known as the Gallian Compagnons. Officially, their path to mastery required a pilgrimage through the known world, each member completing a chef d’œuvre to earn their place. Unofficially, they gathered knowledge, exchanged techniques, and safeguarded the secrets of sacred architecture, continuing the legacy of Meirothea, Armozel, and Eleleth. I am certain their quiet labor was crucial in preserving the Pax Dei within the valleys.
In Gothia, thrones had fallen long before. But out of the fractured land rose the Sanctum Compact, a patchwork of herbalists, smiths, and wandering knights. They built shelters with old stones, mapped hidden paths, and taught children to remember the stars.
Iberia remained silent. Its zealots had long buried doubt.
In Axis Mundi, Pope Hamenel IV surrounded himself with coin, parchment, and ceremony. Beneath his feet, the Petra Dei began to crack.
What followed was later named the Last Crusade. It was no march of banners, no war of conquest. It was a defense of thresholds, of places too sacred to abandon. From the fellowships I have named, and many others now forgotten, the righteous rose quietly, across every land. They restored the teachings of the Redeemers. They carried light into caverns and ruins, into the broken mouths of old sanctuaries. They sealed corrupted wells. They wove wards from ash and honey. They carved sigils with their own blood and sometimes even surrendered their names to preserve the lives of others.
The Inquisition branded them heretics. Entire lineages were marked with the Seal of Condemnation, even those whose forebears had once stood honored in the Age of the Kingdoms. The House of Sunshield, the O'Mara bloodline, the Ulians, the Clan of Grayhawk, and the Knights of Valour, all condemned. Their names cast into fire. Yet it was their hands that held the last bastions of grace.
Among the scattered faithful, no crowns were raised, but new names were whispered and kept: the Luminari, the Bloodbrothers, the Magnus Lunae, the Storm Ravens, Sanctuary, the Black Company. Some still endure, guarding wells, relics, and one another.
But it was not enough. Once more, the demons rose.
Iberia was the first to falter. In Toledo, the catacombs rang with songs no living tongue confessed to singing. In Tomar, the fountains ran sweet and black, and children spoke with voices too old for breath. Yet this was no siege. The cities did not fall. They dissolved. The people changed. The bells tolled for things no longer sacred.
Corruption spread. It reached the highest fortresses of Gallia, the deepest forests of Gothia. Only the sanctuaries protected by the righteous held firm, and even then, only for a time. Villages turned. Bourgs fell. Cities followed. Where swords were not strong enough, the cultists came with smiles, with promises, with honeyed scripture. And when they met resistance, they broke it. The unyielding were tortured, their limbs scattered, their remains displayed like trophies, warnings etched in flesh and bone.
Soon, even the righteous were surrounded.
Then came the Cleansing.
The Divine opened a single eye.
Creation held its breath.
And then, it shattered.
Storms rose. Winds stripped forests to bone. Rain fell like iron. The sun stood for forty days, then vanished. Salt burned the soil. Rivers bled. Beasts twisted. Crops died without rot.
For more than a decade, there was no rhythm. No season. No balance.
Some endured through sacrifice. The Petra Dei dimmed. The Inquisition fractured. Holy places vanished into fog. In a few corners of the world, rituals were kept. Sometimes only in memories, always at the price of blood.
Then the strangers came.
They did not rise from tombs, nor fall from stars. They simply appeared. Full-grown. Quiet. Uncertain.
Some bore no name. Others spoke in tongues no living ear remembered. They returned to places they had never seen, and built with tools they never learned to use.
The druids, those who still whisper to the roots, call them Scions. Heirs to Creation’s sap, vessels of knowledge that was never written.
The Inquisition calls them blasphemies, to be silenced and unmade.
They fall, and yet they rise. They walk the ruins without fear, as if the stones remember them. They stare into the future with the gaze of those recalling a forgotten dream.
I do not know what they are. They are not like us, but they carry something we lost.
And if any thread still runs through the tattered tapestry of Creation, it may yet pass through their hands.
Thus ends my telling. I let the wind bear what remains and the light find what may still grow.
And if the Divine listens, I beg them to not yet close the book.
—Thelonius the Scribe