Essa has rarely been a leader. The woman herself says she does not want to lead, I almost respect her for it. I would, but her reasoning is simply one of sloth and apathy rather than a real respect for power. Arcadia’s ma reveals Essa’s weakness, she is x to the extreme, only taking is i projects or fav a certain css to raise a geion ies. If Kassandora had never e along, then magis would still be stu that dismal, post-Worldbreaking state of simply being ever-wanderers and universal handymen for hire. Kassandora’s Militarization of Magic did in a few years what turies of Divine and Mortal pns could not: it made them useful to the state and it reied magis bato societies.

  Magis on one hand are cursed because their divine representative is someone like Essa, who is whimsical aional and rarely guides them. Yet the world as a whole is blessed that it is nguid Essa that represents them, and not the petence of Kassandora, Arascus, Maisara or Fortia, myself or even Irinika. The mundane poputions only got the ce to establish themselves as they are now because Essa simply is not ied in such things as managing poputions.

  - Excerpt from “Doting Divinity”, written by Goddess Alsaria, of Light.

  Kassandora looked up at the fmes above herself. Standio Essa on solid air, surrounded by the eighty-four sorcerers the Goddess was using as living catalysts to el her magic. Then further surrounded by yers upon yers of the blue astral glow of mana. That mana shot upwards as it called upon all heaven, and then it spiralled outwards as the day’s bright sky tore open. The pristine night-time desded upon Kassandora and the Jungle around her.

  Belts of stars started to cascade down as Essa’s ting ged into a slow hum. The sorcerers, under her and through Kassandora, ged their ting to a hum too. Everyo Kassandora pyed that apocalyptie in unison. An aurora from above touched the green Jungle as it slithered downwards. And its light shot out like lightning in all dire, the world below it shattered. A star slowly crashed down upon the Jungle’s closed teeth. They burst and shattered uhe seari. And as the Jungle from below screamed a alight, aar came down. A third, a fourth.

  Kassandora saw the world start to shake as Essa’s magic split it open. And Kassandora smiled at the marvellous dispy of raw power. There would be no Jungle left after this. Mountains in the distance, rown with vicious flora, started to crumble as a wave of fire swept turhe o of green into a ke of grey.

  Fire and ash burst upwards, guided around the party in the air by a magical shield set up by Essa. Kassandora only stood and watched. This was the end of the Recmation War. This, for on her life, was a victory total and beyond doubt: Annihition.

  Whilst most historians ascribe the Invasion of Kirinyaa as the end of the Pantheon Peace Era…

  The Snake looked around at the g red Jungle and blinked as it regained trol over itself. Over its own body and mind. There was no more creeping whispers, no more g souls begging for release. No false teags or fake prophecies to follow. It took a deep breath through its two huge nostrils and smelled the fresh air.

  No. The Jungle was not silent. It had merely lost its hold over the Snake’s mind. The Jungle was screaming in disbelieving rage as it simultaneously wept for its own demise. The Snake shook itself away as the trees, glowing crimson, started to vibrate. It perked its head up and stood as tall as a mountain, until its eyes were just below the clouds.

  And the Snake saw the horizon.

  A wall of burning bck ash ing from the tre of the Jungle, where it had inated. Something had happehere. Lightning suddenly split the sky, it left a trail of stars as the bright blue of the day suddenly tore and revealed a dark night. Stars aeors fell from it. The Surned and started to slither away as fast as it could. And the Sopped.

  The body of the mad woman. She had broken the curse the first time. She had helped before. The raised its head, the woman was lying in a red dress on the ground, bck hair spyed out over the ground like a around her head. Unscious, but obviously alive. Her fingers were twitg, she wore a terrible smile. Every now and then, she even chuckled and ughed.

  What a terrible woman. The Snake looked at that wall of ash. It would ie her. It took a deep breath. There was a duty to perform, a job to do and there were many sins to atone fuardian of the Jungle once, Guardian of the Jungle forever. To guide and lead and help, no matter whether the Jungle ce of nourishment a, or a crazed wood torn apart by madness and devoured by fme. The Snake slowly curled slowly and carefully curled around the mad woman, and closed its eyes to protect them from the fme. She should not die here.

  …I would argue that is wrong...

  “ you imagi? Ten thousand voices in choir? I was there and…” Fer’s voice lost itself as the Lion started to move. She squeaked and turo look at it. “Are you awake?” The Lioly bowed its head and purred. She uood. “Are you?” She made a silly expression and spun a finger close to her head. “ you still feel it?”

  The Lion purred again. It could hear the Jungle, but the monster’s grasp over its mind had shattered. Fer smiled and turned around. “And your friends?” The Vulture had stopped beating its wings into the ground, the crocodile was slowly standing up, blinking and looking around as if stuhe Lion purred. They too were fine. And Fer smiled and jumped up. “See! I told it’d be fine! Little Kassie is there.” Fer shouted excitedly. “She’s a handful, but if you want something done, you go to Little Kassie.” The Lion smiled at that open dispy of love as it stood up.

  It thought that the little Goddess on its nose would be scared, but she meekly looked around at the Juhat was afme with crimson magic. “That’s Anassa, that.” She said. “That’s her sorcery, she’s fighting it from the ihe Lion knew, it had heard the fight and the Jungle screaming at the mad woman to stop. And then it had heard the screaming at the people in the air.

  And now, as the Lion stood to the t height of a mountain. It could see further past the horizon before the edge of the world ran away again. But the increase in distance was enough. From the west, from the Jungle’s tre, a wall of ash and a sky dirtied with soot roag. As if it was the explosion of a volo, yet the ash of a volo should not reach up all the way to the clouds. Lightning fshed along it and fires raised away. Fer saw it too. She jumped from the Lion’s nose and into its mane. “Let’s get out of here Mister Lion.” The Little Goddess of Beasthood could not have been mht.

  As the Lion turhe world started to shake and the ground below screamed with the tearing of stone.

  …There was still a ce to salvage Pantheon Peace after the Invasion of Kirinyaa…

  Helenna turned and stopped looking at the window. There was no reason to keep looking at Ktulu. It was time tanize a retreat. Arascus had successfully pulled Alsaria further north of the city. That was good, she was rather generous with her beams of light, and more than a few had hit the troops. Ktulu, tentacles ed over his shoulders and around his head, as if they tried to make a mane of a , took aep. Now that he had stopped shrieking, the monster was starting to move faster.

  Damian Sokolowski’s troops had been pushed back to the western edge of the ringed city, and Uriamel was sending even more troops from the os. The huge crabs now came in packs of two or three, and the ons strapped to their backs had been ged to be smaller turrets that could swivel. Smaller, but far more dangerous, the first ons had simply been overkill. Pnes stantly came in to batter from the air, and Sokolowski’s artillery still dropped napalm from a distance, but numbers had shrunk, especially after the initial frontation with Ktulu. Fer had been correct, the war could be dragged out. As long as they had a rear, they could give up the front and pull Uriamel further onto the nd.

  Helenna fastened daggers to her belt and fiddled about with a pistol. At the end of the day, she was still a Goddess, and she was still a good-half again size of what a normal human stood at. Her finger simply did not fit. She took a step forwards and she heard the radio turn on. “Code G-1”

  Code Global-One. Kassandora had set it up for cases when encryption was not necessary, or when news was so important that it simply had to be transmitted to everyone, regardless of sides. Kassandora had given an example for when to use G-1, which was if the world was to stop turning. The radio repeated again. “Code G-1. I, captain Dougs of Raptor One, am announg a Code G-1. Under my own responsibility, even though I know I have no and, I advise all anders currently on the Recmation War front to order a full retreat. I repeat, my advice, at the highest priority, is to order a full retreat. You will probably die if you stay there.” Helenna blinked. Excuse me? She khat Kassandora, Anassa, Iniri, Fer and Kavaa had goo the Jungle, but what was this about?

  A few seds ter, the radio spoke again. “Code G-1. This is captain Erik, Raptor Two. I’ll say it in nicer way. If you’re he Jungle, drop what you’re doing ahe fuck out of there.”

  …instead, I would say that the point of urn…

  Mam, Goddess of Hatred, smiled a on humming to herself as she thought of what to do. Now it was simply a waiting game, so she had gone back to her own room without telling Irinika who she had taught. Irinika would want to e immediately, and then they’d have trouble, and then they’d end up getting nothing out of Kavaa and Iniri. Kavaa and Iniri were still asleep. That was annoying on one hand, but extremely satisfying oher. If she could do something like this to the Goddess of Health, then it meant the tricks Baalka had taught her and had not goo waste. Mam smiled, looked at herself in the mirror as she washed her fad pulled the white locks of hair away.

  The mirror cracked. Mam looked at it with an unsatisfied face. She wasn’t that ugly, was she? And then Mam felt the shaking. She ran out of her room and looked around at the Dwarven hold. No. The mirror had not beehe entire pce was shaking. Statues were falling over, tiny little dwarves were scurrying about as they tried to avoid getting hit from the ceiling falling down on them, every piece of gss fixed to anything had already shattered uhe strain of the world shifting. A bridge here and there was crumbling, leaving on the superstructure of metal, now bending and flexing, in its pce.

  Mam opened her mouth and tasted the air. It did taste like magic. Like Worldbreaking. But not quite. It was…

  Mam blinked in fusion.

  How could something be sweeter than Worldbreaking?

  …which awoke the whole world as to the fact that Divine politics weren’t a mere triviality…

  Premier-General Abakwa of Ausa once again sat in the Igos Crisis tre. Once agaiared into his coffee. Once again he listeo everyone dashing in a mad panice again he prepared for the worst. If there was ohing to be thankful for though, it wasn’t the Juhis time. Whatever it was, it seemed to be as bad for the Jungle as it would be for anyone caught in it.

  “Building One is fully locked down! Twenty pert above capacity in people, but it will be hold for a month if need be!” Abakwa listeo the reports. Buildings twh eight were the same. Everything was over capacity, but everything was doing rather fihe first Igos Crisis with Olephia had remihem that there was a o smoothen out these operations.

  Abakwa stared at the cloud of ash as it started to roll towards the Igos Firewall. The huge barrier that would be set alight twice a day to keep the Jungle from crawling over the city. This was far better than Olephia. Most of the city’s popution had beeo the city’s underground, or into the basements of goveral buildings or their skyscrapers. Igos had been built to withstand the Jungle’s advance. A cloud of ash?

  Even if that cloud did reach up from the nd all the way to the clouds. Even if that cloud was ing at them at tremendous speeds. Even if that cloud was hot enough to set the woods before alight, Abakwa was not worried this time. After all, there was nothing to worry about. Either they would survive it, or it would ie them immediately. Uhe Jungle’s slow crawl, this was almost a pleasah. He sipped his coffee and recalled when he had seen Kassandora decre the beginning of the Recmation War.

  If this was not the end of the Recmation War, he did not know what it was.

  …was Essa’s demonstration of force over Arika.…

  “Send an urgent dock order to all our ships.” King Richard VI sat and listeo his ministers as they ran around and gave orders. They were in the War-Room of Allia, for managing the Epan Logistics. With plenty of fancy ss and dispys and an army of bureaucrats and servants scurrying at frantic speeds, although today, there were no logistia was all hands-on deck with no one knowing what to do. He sat, his wife was holding a broadcast oelling everyoo stay calm and that the crisis would not hit Allia. Richard smiled to himself as leaned further onto his table and listeo the panicked voices: All-hands on ded yet no one knew what to do. After all, how could you prepare for something like this?

  “Submarines are rep sudden currents in the o!”

  “Satellite gives us nothing over Arika still, it’s just a cloud of ash!”

  “There’s no winds, it’s being pulled down!”

  “Initial reports have e back from the uies!”

  “And?”

  “Even lower levels are more than 600 cubic kilometres!”

  “The ti has shifted!”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “EIE stations in Arika are rep passes are fag in the wrong dire! The ti has shifted!”

  “Aittyopios station does not report that!”

  “GET ALL SHIPS OUT OF ALANKTYDA! AWAY FROM ARIKA AT THE VERY LEAST!” One man suddenly shouted. “Issue a full mayday! Waters are draining!”

  “Excuse me?”

  “THE WATERS ARE DRAINING!”

  “The deep ss from satellites are ready!”

  “Pull them up!”

  “DOCK THE ENTIRE FLEET NOW!”

  “Oh…”

  “Rancais is rep the tide retreating too.”

  “The UNN’s tide has reversed as well.”

  “Start evacuating the coasts, we may have tidal waves.”

  “Look at that!”

  “Where?”

  “Seonitor!”

  Richard looked to the seonitor a his breath catch. Arika was about to have a new sea.

  …That made the whole world realise they had to choose a side…

  Fortia could not peel her eyes away from the s. She khat the other side could not, nor could Maisara. The entire Epan War had e to a pause as they watched what was happening over Arika. Some had news, others i reports. Fortia had the White Pantheon’s satellites streaming video direct to her.

  And frankly, she wished she didn’t. Now was an excellent time to attack. She khat someone like Kassandora would be taking it, but Kassandora may very well be the only soul on Arda who was single-minded enough to ignore something like this. Since Fortia had id her eyes on it, she could not pull them away.

  The bck cloud of ash over tral Arika was settling. Or rather, it was being forced down. Essa’s work, it had to be, the woman would clear the sky to make sunny days in the same manner. But as the ash settled, Fortia’s eyes widened even further. She heard the Guardians in her a express shock with her: catches of breath and jaws dropping. They were all trained soldiers here, Fortia herself was the Goddess of Peace, she had fought through the Great War. She had thought she’d seehing the world had to offer.

  And now, the world offered aire new sea iral Arika, quickly filling up as the os came in to flood the gap… Could it be called a valley? A ravine? Fortia did not even know. The waters rushed in came to flood the gap in the middle of the ti.

  …it is hard to stay ral when a ti is cracked open.

  - Excerpt from “End of Days”, by Goddess Ciria, of Civilization