Phase VI: Gaunt figures shrouded in maroon cloaks encircle a crackling bonfire. The sound of spitting embers is only obscured by low rumbling whispers amongst the hooded figures. The flames alone hinting at form in the darkness of the midnight woods. “Ye legion, lend me your ears! Ordo Sexangulae Novorum! Drinkers of worlds, defilers of cycle, beggars at the tower… The time has come to tell the tale once more!” “Saturnus nisi nos!” The group chants in response to the speaker as she holds up a dagger to glisten by the fire. “We have met, as we always have, to remember who we are, what we were, and when we shall be! I present Festucam! World splitter!” “Saturnus nisi nos!” “That which has bestowed the truest upon us! So I tell its tale as we may never forget or succumb to the bloat, evermore…” “Saturnus nisi nos!” The group responds once more as the speaker plunges the blade into her palm. Inky black muck begins to spew from the fresh wound. The hooded figure splashes droplets of the crude into the fire and green flames flare upward. The fire rages on as the resulting smoke engulfs the group and what little could be seen by the light of the flames now dissipates. Festucam Et Tempus: as recited by The Herald of the Ordo Sexangulae Novorum. Long ago, there existed time before time eventually forgotten. Ages before the banality of religion, long before the reset, far before the great fall. History before prehistoric creature or primordial soup. Impressive structures erected of stone and brick and iron and glass, now untraceable, littered the lands. These were hives, working in congruency, sheltering bodies and minds and civilization grew. Knowledge of why and what was known by all. Space and time held no more mysteries to be uncovered. Great understanding existed amongst all inhabitants and peace reigned. At least, that is what they presumed. One night, a storm overtook the sky. All that lived in the wilds of the world scattered. Even the great nephilim took shelter from the violent gusts. All of the philosophers and teachers and apprentices slumbered soundly in their overindulgent homes of brick, oblivious to the chaos just outside. Ice hailed down from the heavens and covered the realms in frost. Skeletal lightning fingered through the atmosphere and split treetops. The people slept still. Clouds swirled in unique forms with angular edges. Geometry amongst the chaos, form and malformation synonymous. All the while, the people slumbered still. Their shelters had been constructed too well. Brick and block impenetrable by the outside world. The people knew nothing of the chaos. Change is inevitable though, and chaos always finds its way. The Flycatcher, daughter of the huntress, was the only one to have been awakened by the storm. Many moons before she had rebelled against the science and technology of the society and retreated to an isolated cave system carved into ancient mountain faces. The Flycatcher rolled out from her nest of furs and forage and fled to the cave opening. Her eyes could barely process what she witnessed erupting from the heavens but she could feel the change she had been preparing for. She extended her mud covered hand out from the shelter of the rock to feel the chill of the ice pouring down from above. There was something unfamiliar within the frost. The Flycatcher had long ago abandoned language and held no words to describe the invasion to her epidermis. The feeling was understood nonetheless. Something old and wicked lingered amongst the frigid precipitation. Something true. Something to dismantle and reform. She drew her hand back within the grotto to see an inky black substance come alive as the warmth of her blood thawed the verglas. The Flycatcher stood tall and fearless as the ebony forms snaked their way through her pores and began to consume her from within. She could hear her heart thumping less and less with each passing second. She would soon perish, returning form back to the clay of its origin. The Flycatcher had accepted her fate, satisfied to be the solitary witness of glorious tumult from the heavens. She breathed in deeply one final gasp of air before she was interrupted by what we now know as The Calling. Her eyes opened wide and filled with the blackness of the cosmos as some incomprehensible utterance rose up from deep within stinking gut to perk frozen ears. An immense lightning bolt split the atmosphere, pushed past the frozen precipitation and cracked in the distance, piercing the land. The Flycatcher knew exactly what had to be done and began her traverse toward the location of the electrical assault. With each step through the frozen landscape the hermit could feel the poison of the alien affront pump through her body. Her skin burned and quaked but her impetus was unwavering with purpose. She carried on at an increasing pace, only motivated by the pain. She felt drunk with it. Foliage shriveled and retracted under the attack of frost from above as she passed. Bodies of animals stood like frozen mannequins stopped in time. The lands she had known so well were now unrecognizable. In spite of everything, she felt at ease as the events transpired. The Flycatcher pushed herself through a thicket of briars tearing open practically every inch of flesh, but the pouring blood gave no warming relief amongst the frost. Relief only came as she stepped through the brush and found herself at the edge of an immense, scorched crater. The lightning had hit and dug deep into the face of the earth and steam now sizzled up from the attack. The rocks around The Flycatcher felt like they were vibrating and without hesitation she dove into the void of the hollow. She slid down the ashen sides of the affliction and was painted coal black with the dust. Her feet bled as they met cinders and stone on the way down the cavity and her veins throbbed as poison moved through her body. The Flycatcher landed, finally, at the basin of the pocket in immeasurable pain. Poisoned and split, her body ached and begged her to stop but her will was interminable. The hermit stumbled to her shredded feet and gasped with each step as she approached the center of the form. The wounds on her body sizzled and cauterized from the heat of the crater. Something was glowing in the distance. As she got nearer to the luminescence penetrating the darkness of the void she could hear a gurgled lament echoing through the chamber. The first semblance of reluctance entered her since the inky substance from the sky landed on her hand. She was frightened but continued toward the moaning. Once close enough to peer through the smoke of the smoldering crater, The Flycatcher could see a heaving body with long brown fur impaled on a glowing shard struggling to breathe. As The Flycatcher drew near, fat legs began to kick and run in place above the ashen ground it was suspended above as blood pumped down from its wounded guts. The marionette display of gore startlingly excited the hermit and her brow scrunched each time the beast let out a groan of confusion. She placed a lean hand against the quivering side of the animal inspiring the blubbering head to whip toward her revealing two massive horns christening the top of its snout. The glow from the astral fragment seemed to have somehow seeped into the jagged excrescences of the quadruped. Light gleamed out from fractures traversing up the growths and illuminated the frightened black eyes of the dying animal. —RĘTRÎËVÉ THĖ ŠHÆRD— An ominous voice interjected the scene. The Flycatcher spun about in terror but all that could be seen was the billowing smoke. The Flycatcher understood then that the call was bubbling up from deep within. She knew precisely what had to be done without further instruction. The Flycatcher reached out and grabbed onto the horn of the creature. The injured hulk began to jerk and kick against the hermit. Her grip only tightened against the gnashing of the animal. She could see her reflection in the glistening orbitals of the creature but did not recognize her form any longer. The hardships of the voyage had transformed her. One last cry blurted out from the impaled body before The Flycatcher snapped the horn from its woolly visage and life exited the beast simultaneously. The hermit felt power course through poisoned veins as the luminescence of the horn trickled down her arms. The Flycatcher reborn! The shard retrieved! Festucam! World splitter! Saturnus nisi nos!