Ethera: Tale Of A Legend

"I want you to see and know about the power of the essence of the dark matter. The very essence that gave birth to the universe, to me and to you, but all in a different way."

There was a short pause before the ent.i.ty gave a short sigh.

"Are you not going to ask me how? What I meant by all these?"

The questions caught already confused Ethera off-guard as she scrambled to recollect her thoughts before she slowly asked.

"How?"

"It"s good of you to ask and I will tell you. Listen carefully, young immortal. In a long forgotten time, there was only the timeless void. Before the void, there was no time and no existence, apart from the pure essence of matter of the void. This, you already knew, right? Good. Then, something happened with the essence of matter in the void. It started to change. And out of the void, an essence core was formed. This, you knew too. Right? Yes. The first creation. The Alphega.

"But this next one, you never knew. As the essence core began to form the universe, different divine crystals were formed from the condensed pure essence of matter. However, it"s only one of these crystals that we will be focusing on. A large dark silver crystal of extreme power. It was so powerful that after its creation it split into two. One black crystal and one white crystal. Where am I going with all these, you ask? The black crystal, was the heart and the core of the Crucible. The Fateless-Chains of Tartarus.

"What of the white crystal? The white crystal was the heart and core of the Crown. The Timeless-Pearl of Aether. And this is where it truly began with you, young immortal. When you were born, your scream caused a reaction that stirred the core of this Crown of Aether, the divine treasure of the realm of Aether in the Overworld. Now, pay close attention to this. After you caused a stir in the core of the Crown, the crystal resonated. And, only one other could it have resonated with. The Crucible.

"Why is all these of your concern, you asked? This is where your existence, my existence and that of all deities come in. As ent.i.ties of this universe, we all have traces of essence of dark matter in us that is connected to one of these divine crystals. This enables some of us to conjur minor essence of the divine treasures while a few others can conjur the full manifestations of the divine treasures. Since you are able to cause a stir in the core, it means you are one of the few. A future potential threat that must be eliminated.

"You are so fortunate to be alive till now. Probably because you didn"t cause a stir in the core of the Crucible which would have put you in danger immediately. Underworld deities are yet to locate you in connection to the resonance. If not, you"ll surely be dead by now. Which brought me to the first of me bringing you here. You must learn how to stay alive concerning the Crucible."

"How?"

Asked Ethera who was already overwhelmed with all these information she was recieving.

"You must not conjur any form of the essence of the Crucible until you are truly strong enough. There will be many instances that will tempt you to conjur this essence, you must stay clear of it, if you want to live long enough. If you try to, there will be a resonance due to your nature. This will be like a beacon of light on your head that will surely fall off your neck.

"To the second. As you already guessed, I"m not from the underworld. I"m from the Aether realm in the Overworld. What concerns you with overworld, you ask? You see, young immortal. Your father is from the Tartarus realm. This you already know. But, what of your mother?"

"What of her?"

"You don"t know much about her, do you? A pity my essence is running low, young immortal. I used most of my fading essence, to bring you here. After a time, I will be able to bring you here one last time before my essence finally fades away. What remains of my memories, I will tell you then. Only this, I can provide. At this point, I have to bid you farewell. If not, my life-essence essence would just fade away before I can tell you what remains. And you know what that means. Alright, farewell, young immortal."

Ethera woke up with a strong startle. It was an astral dream projection that was definitely of dreamy reality. What kind of astral dream could that be? Ethera couldn"t bring herself to believe the idea of the essence of a dying ent.i.ty could summon her and appeare to her in a dream. And an ent.i.ty from the overworld? It had to be an illuion of a dream.

Dreams!

Though, she was only ten deity years of age, she knew this could only be a mere astral dream of her subconscious self. Nonetheless, even if it was only a dream, could those crystal cores, somehow, exist? And, what was he talking about regarding her mother? Of course, she knew her mother was from the Aether realm in the Overworld. What else was there to know about her? Even if the dream projection was true, the ent.i.ty got it wrong that she didn"t know much about her mother.

Anyway, she wouldn"t allow herself to dwell on these things so as to affect her mind. Next morning was the Rite of Paths. She pushed the thoughts to the back of her mind while concentrating on the night. The night she had been preparing for, for so long, which had finally arrived. She knew she couldn"t afford a bad trial.

True, she was of the ruling clan but that didn"t mean much in the underworld. The realm-sovereign could be challenged or attack at any time and if he was to be killed, they would loose their rulership. If they were to loose their main protection which was lord Deggorath, they could be opened to annihilation in the hands of angry deities. And the first one to go, would be the weakest ones. This, she wouldn"t allow.

After recollecting herself, she sat down in a lotus position. She had woken up quite early from the induced sleep, hence, she decided to meditate a bit. Moments later, she cleaned herself and put on the new armored robe that her parents had bought for her for this glorious night. After preparing herself, she went looking for her parents and found them in the living chamber, deep in discussion. They were pretending as if they hadn"t been watching and expecting her. With their side to the entrance, they appeared to be lost in their conversation.

"Good morning, father, mother."

"Oh, Ethera! Good morning to you too."

Her parents replied in surprised pretense as they turned their attention to her.

"We didn"t see you come in. A bit early for you today, don"t you think? "

"And look at you, Twinesse. All dressed up and ooking lovely this morning."

"Is there any oca.s.sion for you today?"

"Huh?"

Ethera exclaimed in astonishment. What were they talking about? Could they have forgotten about her rite of path this morning?

She was still thinking about this when she caught sight of the large marble table at the corner of the chamber. On it were the required items she would be taking to the rite, carefully packed and arranged in order.

"Arrgh."

Screeched Ethera before smiling while shaking her head. She might be a young deity, but she knew the extent of her parent"s love for her. She knew they were even more concerned about the rite than her.

"Thank you, father, mother."

"It"s the least we could do, Twinence."

With faces full of smiles, they proceeded to check the prepared items together. Everything in order, it was time to head towards the Conjecture for the rite of paths. After checking the protective arrays of his small manor, lord Hargoven removed a seal from his dimensional s.p.a.ce and threw it into the air. The Darkfall portal seal. The seal that was delivered to them after their entrance payment and the confirmation of their daughter"s partic.i.p.ation.

Immediately, a portal opened and on the other side, they could see the Darkfall Conjecture in its mightiness.

Feeling a little apprehensive, Ethera glanced at her parents who nodded in a.s.sured confirmation.

"It"s all good."