Echoes of Power, Part XI: Cosmic Renewal
For more than eight months, the Council of Duiran had toiled in the name of the Verdant Totem; its desires made known to them previously to call the Aureliana its home, where it belonged. Week in and week out were the memories of the island of Ulangi pulled free from the soil, its wellspring of grief an unending font that they tapped with unrelenting fervour. Over three thousand charms dangled from the Verdant Totem, each carved with care like the thick pelt of a prodigious beast. Thrumming with memories of old, the trinkets empowered the magic of a journeying songline. Each charm, etched with care by the solemn hand of a councillor, was soon settled to decorate the landmark’s prodigious bulk, their combined investment empowering the magic of Shamanic songlines – a spell promising a journey yet to come.
It was upon the early morning of the 13th of Lleian that Runemaster Olto called the council of Duiran to join him upon Ulangi, having communed with the spirits of Dia’ruis during this time in efforts to find how best to set the far end of the Verdant Totem’s songline journey from the petrified forest of Ulangi to its desired resting place, the heart of the Aureliana. Here, the Runemaster explained what was to come: an outpouring of memory and struggle to connect the two locations, building the songline’s terminus in tandem. Explaining with gestures as he went, he told the councillors to grab a piece of petrified deadfall from the nearby land and bring it with them on their journey toward the Aureliana. Once under the eaves of the distant forest, they would carve into this deadfall and build a totem to serve, embedding within it a simple charm that contained a memory to bind the two disparate pieces of land together. Like buzzing bees set loose to conquer spring’s bounty, the nearly two dozen individuals filtered out, following the words of the Runemaster and making their way toward the Aureliana to implant their carved totems at the heart of the wood, where the totem would hopefully come to reside.
Bound in their purpose by Shamanic magic and memory’s insight, each of the Council’s planted totems became a veritable swarm unto themselves, powerfully abuzz with the potential to call out to the Verdant Totem through song. Unique, they likewise contained the work of but a single individual – none would be enough to build that desired ending point on the songline’s journey, but as one they could do anything. With the final totem planted, the council appointed several watchmen and gathered together at the forest’s heart to conclude the Shamanic spell. Runemaster Olto and the rest of the council looked on in anticipation when the appointed hour was nigh as he enacted the ancient ritual’s magic, serenading the Aureliana with an ethereal song.
The deadfall totems trembled in unison as the songline found its tentative connection, the complex network of woven memory and souldeep song grown taut as its magic intensified. A song with no end looped into a song without beginning, began to circle seamlessly throughout the sandy heart of the Aureliana wood, all backed by a macabre clattering as the totems rattled in and out of sync. What followed was not quite an image but not quite merely sound; the works of Dia’ruian magic are never quite so simply categorised as researchers and librarians might so desire. Each totem sang its verse within this unceasing song, adding layer by layer to the call of the Verdant Totem on the far-distant isle. The last totem contained but a floating elderflower afloat on silken dark water, its placidity gently broken by something that stirred deep within.
What began as an unceasing song now claimed more members to its choir, the savage wailing of tribal Grook and chitter of elder Horkval both joining as a silhouette of the totem began to take shape within the space, erupting from beneath the fallow earth and wretched sand that had claimed the heart of the Aureliana. Prismatic cracks ran serpentine along the ground, up the towering arboreal titans and into their very boughs, a veritable network made visible to the mortal gaze, and likewise did it run deep into the soil, expanding as a predator’s hungry maw.
‘Ia! Ia! Ia!’ screeched the long-gone Grookish bonecasters.
‘Tkreee! Tkree!’ chittered the dead Horkvali shamans.
The storm of power and song converged upon a singular individual: Sitai the Wanderer. Whisked away the power of a guardian’s manifest might and ancient prowess, the mortal tumbled through the thin veil betwixt Prime and Life, summoned to meet some unknown demand ‘neath Dia’ruian eaves. The Grand Library has not been able to verify the facts of what transpired upon the plane at this time, though rumour has it that the Shaman acted as a focal point for the Verdant Totem’s connection to become one with the land – and then Dia’ruis soon after. When he returned to the Prime Material, Sitai had become one of the sacred Tiarna an-Kiar, an ascendant sworn forevermore to Aetolia’s lirathyar.
With the newly anointed ascendant came a brilliant eruption of cosmic brilliance, erupting from within the sacred heart of the Aureliana.
Trembling like a blossom straining to unfurl, the silhouette of the totem spewed sidereal fire across the firmament to celebrate its terrestrial binding. Held to the earth in truth and woven within the Aurelianan ley, the Verdant Totem eschewed its ethereality in favour of a physical form. Inch by inch, rune by rune, the cylindrical structure manifested in full as the land groaned and keened, its twin song echoing from Ulangi’s shores and Aureliana’s heart alike. Croaking, chittering madness cavorted as the Totem’s triumphant rhythm, the whistling kiss of the breeze against tree its exultant woodwinds. The Council erupted with cheers and excitement here, for they knew they had accomplished their goal: the Verdant Totem stood tall within the Aureliana, its journey at a triumphant end.
Seconds later, that brilliant network flared to life once more.
A rumbling coursed through the ley as the landmark exerted its willful influence, its immense power filtering through the forest like a flood dappled by myriad stars. This newfound connection facilitated communion betwixt the landmark and the growing plane of Dia’ruis, allowing the sum of the totem’s amassed energy from the planetary conjunction to trickle into the lirathyar itself as nourishment.
Dia’ruis drank deep of the cosmic bounty and hastened to express Her will.
What would have taken decades, centuries, ages to grow, die and be reborn happened then in passing seconds, as the will of Dia’ruis and the Verdant Totem saw to renewal in the auspicious month of Lleian there in the Aureliana. Hastened by fecund hypergenesis, new greenery and growth sprouted where none had previously, and those barren places found the wellspring of life’s cycle finally turn from the long cold of winter to the newfound beginning of spring in all forms. Soil and hill contorted under the outpouring of power, the land’s topography reimagined as if by a singular breath of Life. The woodlands of the revitalized area came to be as one with the surrounding landscape, the soil renewed, boughs tall and full, and its expanse pulled as far as the surrounding grasslands would rightfully allow.
Elsewhere, as the rumbling in the Aureliana ceased and all within it began to explore its new trails, the Satyr of Dia’ruis cheered with wild exultation. A long-imprisoned guardian known as Kaarn, corrupted in centuries past by the actions of selfish an-Kiar, experienced an unprecedented resurgence by some related providence. The Grand Library’s theologians speculate that the cosmic energies running through the Prime Material seeped through to the plane of Dia’ruis, allowing the growing plane of Life to direct the essence as necessary. Though many Dia’ruian cultists remain tightlipped about the proceedings, sources attest to an ever-increasing certainty of the guardian’s health and distance both as the stag spirit sought seclusion moments after his release from his bindings.
With one landmark depleted of its cosmic bounty, curious onlookers turned their attention toward the remaining six, wondering what great and mighty acts those who had claimed them planned to enacta
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Summary: Durian worked a powerful ritual within the Aureliana, bringing the Verdant Totem to its new home. The entirety of the cosmic power bequeathed to the landmark drained out into the forest, revitalising the surrounding area and bringing it new life and growth, as well as wiping clean the slate for an ancient guardian migrated from forsaken Dendara.
Penned by my hand on Tisday, the 25th of Lleian, in the year 11 AC.
