The Beginning of the End

Scene 1: Chapter 1: The Twins

Kovar's notes: From now on I'll be taking over this story as Ekon pointed out in the beginning of his prologue. Ekon was also right in saying that the rest of this story wont be in chronological order. This next story actually takes place 10 years before the one Ekon just told. For now we'll abbreviate it 10 BG for 10 years before godhood.

Also on a side note these stories are going to start jumping to different characters, but I assure you it will eventually make sense so just pull through with me because I really don't want to write this either but it is necessary for you the reader so please try to enjoy, no ones paying you enough not to.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kovars notes 2: I originally asked Aric to right this story but he told me that Reco was the one most affected by its events and that he would be the better person to ask. This is a transcript of his re-telling of the story.

The first thing I remember was that awful dripping sound, the one that annoys you late at night because you left the faucet partially open, that constant drip, drip, drip. Yeah to bad the dripping wasn't from water, it was blood no doubt. Dripping from the top of the cavern where me and my clan had lived for years. The second was the intense pain I was in, it only hurt when I moved though it was just soreness. But it was the worst soreness I had ever felt, it was as if I had ran as far as I could, fell down, got back up, done pull ups till I barfed, got back up and did it again. I could barely move and it hurt, it hurt a lot.

I looked around me and saw nothing but destruction, destruction that I could only guess that I caused, but how I did it I had no idea. I remember seeing bodies everywhere, all of them dead, some of them mangled beyond recognition, but I recognized some of them. They where all members of my clan, they where all people I knew, some of them I even loved, all of them dead. I slowly made my way to the one place I knew would be safe, the temple to Mother in the middle of the cavern, the last place I remember Aric being. Maybe he'd still be there, maybe he'd know what to do.

I don't know how long it took me to get there, but I think it was somewhere around an hour and a half. Well that's not including the at least three hours it took me to climb up the stairs. They were the worst thing ever, each stair was a little adventure within itself. Each step only half a foot tall felt like it was eight to climb over it, all 150 of them. I eventually got a rhythm going so I could get up the stairs in a relatively faster manner, it was still arduous and took a lot of motivation on my part to not just give up and wait to die. I still remember the rhythm; climb the stair, pause and take a breath, try to motivate myself, take another breath, berate myself, and then finally move up the next stair.

I started to feel less sore about half-way up, enough that I could at least stand up rather than crawl up the stairs or try leaning on the rail and crawling up that way. I tried to grab the rail with my right hand so I wouldn't lose balance but all I heard was a clank, like rock hitting metal. And for some reason even though I knew I was wrapping my hand around the rail I couldn't feel the rail. I slowly turned my head to see not my hand but a chunk of blackish rock the shape of my hand and part of my arm holding the rail. To this day I still don't know if my real hand is still in there and this is only a gauntlet, or if this is a new hand Mother gave me for whatever reason, at that time though all I knew was that mother was either blessing me or cursing me, and this time unfortunately it was both.

Now I feel that normally I might be freaked out by something like this, but I was to tired and to sore to really comprehend it. No, what interested me the most was the material that it was made of, it looked a lot like the same material that the doors to Mothers temple were made of and that was a material no Elemental could manipulate. I put it out of my mind and focused back on trying to get up the rest of the stairs, hopefully Aric would have an answer.