Chapter 1 - Age of Faithless

[DraconigenaArma]

"Not when the dog and kill you...but you're right." Alder grumbles. Then John speaks about his failed divination. "But the gods grant you magic, and you're still doing that now aren't you?" Alder asks. "It's not like they are gone all of sudden."

[dr green]

"I think something much larger than we think is going on here. When Life was in Shadow he said that something was drastically wrong there. I'm sure most of you here wouldn't mind if Ner's hometown is in shambles, but that definitely has grim portents for the firmness of the firmament," Magus Necris trying to instill a sense of danger in his compatriots. He knew that there was nothing serious going on yet upon their plane, but if Shadow was in as much disarray as Life had warned, then it was only a matter of time till that shockwave hit them. "We all know that Ner has been the only deity that has had their hands directly in mortal affairs for a while now. Perhaps this was just the rest of them yanking Her back to wherever the rest have gone? Is anyone capable of contacting any of the higher planes of good? Perhaps an archon may be able to go there in our stead and relay if anything has changed there as drastically as in Shadow?"

[Admin Sedracus]

"No. I just learned how to do those things the arcane way." John corrects Alder. "Magus? some of your spells are granted by the divine, are they not?" He asks. "I am capable of such feats."

[DraconigenaArma]

"Let me try something." Alder rubs his hands together and stands up. Rolling his shoulders a bit he takes a deep breath.

"Wish me luck." And with that Alder starts to blink about and lose his place in the world, like a bad reel to reel that falls off alignment, before vanishing.

[dirkoth]

Darlith, do you have insight? Are you thinking there may be a third player in this race, that both the gods and we have an enemy, unknown to either?

Mouse looks at the man curiously, her mind working furiously. If so, an enemy of Ner? or ally?

[RonarsCorruption]

Alder vanishes, off to one of the fringe planes where the gods stayed their times. They were close to the material plane, though the nature of the planes saw that even such closeness was a strange thing.

As mouse asks her question, "Do, I do not think that is the case. I mean that we are assuming Ner's attack on us is a very specific wrong - and that our assault on her's avatar was considered in the same short strokes. With Shadow in disarray, and the gods failing to respond to summons... But, I am curious as to Alder's results. I will reveal my hypothesis when he returns."


Travelling the multiverse was much like passing through sheets of paper on a book. The layers themselves were thin, insubstantial things in one direction, but impossibly vast in all the others. And each one had two sides - for the material, there was shadow, for the plane of air, there was the plane of earth, and for the plane of water - there was fire. Of course, this was still not a perfect metaphor, for all the planes were in the same space at the same time, but it would do for the moment.

The gods were powerful, but they still needed a physical space to exist in, even the space between spaces was a physical space in some ways. Alder punched through a dozen layers, towards the center of the 'book' where the gods frequented most, one of the lesser planes, existing solely for the gods to reside in.

And he landed in the Astral plane. The Astral plane was the absolute core of the multiverse, it took up all the space left over when the other spaces were complete. If the planes all collapsed into one, it might be the astral or the material they would converge with, but it would not be any of the others. Regardless, Alder should not be there, he was in the right planar space - he tried again with the same result. The planes the gods existed on were simply gone - or at least beyond his considerable power to travel to or locate.

Once Alder was done realizing something was wrong, he took the opportunity to look around, and notice that more than a few things were wrong. The terrain around him was devestated, literally torn asunder. He hadn't spent much time in the astral plane, but it's terrain normally matched closely to that of the material. Now, it matched more closely to a pile of broken glass. It was a good thing no races were known to make their home on the plane - though, with few mages able to visit there at all, they were still mostly a mystery.

[DraconigenaArma]

Alder again re-appears, this time off balance and falling, luckily into his chair. He covers his eyes with his hands for a bit and then takes a deep breath.

"Well that was dizzying." Alder mutters, before collecting himself further. "So I decided to go to a godly plane and...well, there isn't one. They've...disappeared or they've fallen into the Astral plane, which is like a pile of mirror shards and chaos. The gods have to have planes of existence for themselves to be, they need a home. There is no home for them. They are gone."

[Admin Sedracus]

John looks thoroughly disturbed, as he ponders: "You couldn't find any trace of them, or their corpses, should they have died? Gods don't just.. up and vanish?"

[Aosaw]

"Sure they do," said Haiga. "Apparently, they just did."

He looked around the table. "Magus, turn my water into wine."

Sawtooth stared at him. "Master, I hardly think this is the time to be drinking--"

"Quiet, Sawtooth. It's an experiment. Magus; if you draw your power from a god, let us see if you've any power left." He looked at the other members of the group. "Certainly, that should tell us a little bit more about what we're dealing with."

[dirkoth]

The gods are gone? now? is this the result of this newness of powers, or not at all related? Can they even be gone? Not dead though, not all...

Don't know, Mudd answers quietly in her mind.

I know you don't. I don't either. this is far beyond either of us, eh? nothing to stalk, nothing to kill, nothing to capture or carry. She feels Mudd's location, just beneath the huge stones of the fireplace, enjoying the remnants of the previous fire's warmth, still trapped in the stone.

Best leave this to the brains, and just prepare your arms.

Wise advice, my earthen friend. very wise advice indeed.

[DraconigenaArma]

Alder shakes his heads. "The entire astral plane looked like a broken glass factory. It was in shatters. If anything did live there it'd be having a miserable time. If it's true Shadow is in disarray then perhaps that quake wasn't of an earthly nature...No godly plane I thought of or went to took me anywhere but the broken remains of the core of the planes. It's like...you have a table and you jump on it but land on the floor with splinters all over it. Sure, if the table was there you'd have landed on it...but there's no table."

[RonarsCorruption]

"The Astral plane is decimated?" Darlith asks, amazed, "I was going to suppose that the gods took offense to mortals striking up against them - but I never expected that. Inconceivable..." His pipe, which he would normally put back in his mouth, he simply holds in his hand - stunned. "Although that would explain John's inability to contact them. If they are gone... dead or otherwise, then that certainly would explain the feeling present - the lack of the divine energy that naturally flows around us."

[dr green]

"I'm sure had my powers been affected we would all know instantly, given the fact that the Sins would be hewing down a good deal of undead creations in the basement currently, as they fell outside of my control. But if it would assuage your fears," Magus Necris snapped his fingers creating a globe of light that shone with a supernatural intensity. This low-level spell the necromancer would usually use to cow lesser undead, but it worked well for their experimental purposes. With a wave of his hand the light disappeared. "As far I am concerned this is a great thing. I've never had much love for any of the gods and I think you are all aware of my personal vendetta against Ner, the great black bitch of pain. Good riddance to them all, my powers remain, Ner is seemingly gone, and there are only those few of her followers left for me to eat," The slip-up passed unbeknownst from the necromancer's lips.

However, Veronica noticed instantly and her eyes lit up, fangs elongating. However much the vampire wanted to help her master achieve his goals, she was quite aware of the darkness that lay within the young man. She savored it greatly, and although he struggled mightily against it, day after day, she awaited the moment he would slip up, and fall to it, becoming a true creature of darkness rather than it's unwilling master.

[RonarsCorruption]

OODM I feel the need to clairify - Ner is the goddess of suffering. Paio is the goddess of death.

[GeoAvanti]

"So the gods have abandoned us, Darlith?" Garagras' voice interrupts as he makes his return, now fully armed and ready for combat. Obviously, he overheard the last bits of what has been said, but that doesn't mean he understands any of it.

"So they are gone. What does it matter? It just means that their own cronies and minions will be easier to hunt down," it doesn't seem to be too much of a stretch to imagine that Garagras is agreeing with Necris' own sentiments. While their own internal conflicts are not of the same nature, it seems that both of them hover dangerously close to a bottomless crevasse that seems quite eager to devour them should it get the chance to.

"The gods gave us magic, but we still have it after they have left. What does it matter if they are gone? It just means that they can no longer meddle in our affairs."

And, maddeningly, that any faint hope to restore Miraud through Intervention by the gods is impossible now. It will probably take some time for this thought to completely sink into the dense Unofotine.

"Normally I am not very eager to agree with Gar, Natani says, having just finished hiding the Scythe. "But he did say something that I think is important-- what does this mean? If the gods have actually left us, then should we care? We can't stop them, and I doubt we could find them now, so why should we care so much? Aside from a small quake, the world still seems to be intact-- demons are not popping out of the ground and fire is not raining from the sky. Maybe this was the sound of them slamming the door behind them, nothing more?"