Leethuria

The skyline of Leethuria

### Inhabitants

Silchia, Kahpé, Mythic Demon, Pelakau, Stahton, Ghora, Æruhart, Vei, Mesotolt, Tehngaa, Angel, Ent, Whispered, Fallen, Tharinam, +more

Leethuria is a massive continent floating in the Expanse, populated by a massive variety of creatures, and is the main setting of RISE.

## Geography

Leethuria is a wildly diverse location, displaying a huge variety of different biomes arising from the natural constallite present in the area.

### Kaldærif

Kaldærif is a hot region to the north of Leethuria, dominated primarily by two volcanoes by the names of the Oiprocs Crucible, and Chorecht's Fissure. The further away from the centre of Leethuria one goes, the more volcanic the region becomes. Eastern areas become filled with swamps and forests, fading into grassland, whilst southern ones become steadily more and more desertified.

Kaldærif is populated by species adapted to live in extreme heats, though is dominated by the two breeds of Demons, centring in the Oiprocs Crucible, the larger of the two volcanoes; and the Pelakau, with various territories, operated by the three queens.

### Lehrion

Beneath the ground of Kaldærif, massive magma chambers exist, drained of the oiprocs constallite that used to exist within them. When the Morphos Blight was first grown, it needed to be contained as rapidly as possible to avoid it consuming all of Leethuria. As a result, the chambers were modified to manifest constallite from a synthetic barrier within the main body of the Oiprocs Crucible, only passable via a pulley system elevator. The entropic nature of the oiprocs polarity allows the barrier to fight off the mutated flesh as quickly as it can grow.

In the darkness, new life flourished, producing a hellish ecosystem of bloodied biomass. The underground cave network is now completely filled by an entirely separate evolutionary tree spawned from the morphos seed. Mingling with the remaining dregs of distilled entropy, and the prisoners contained down there, Lehrion has become a hell of Leethuria's own making.

Lehrion has become a location in which Leethuria imprisons things that would prove too dangerous to place in an ordinary vault due to a chaotic, unpredictable nature, including both the fallen angels, and the Tharinam which broke free of the Haven project, unable to be quelled, and too dangerous to return to the Glimpse. In recognition of this horrendous, yet sickly beautiful place, Kaldærif has become the name of the surface specifically, with the whole region becoming known as Leh-Ærif.

### Nohynakk Jjib

Nesovakzib is a mountainous region to the south east of Leethuria, dominated by a central mountain, the name of which is often used to refer to the whole region. The primary species of the location is the Stahton - beings made of sand and stone. The natural polarity of the region, Recnac, lends power to the land itself, as its carried with the concept of time.

Vast megastructures were constructed by the Stahton, built to submerge themselves in the sand at a moment's notice to defend from attacks, and bound in cloth to provide them power from the runic language of constallite. Nohynakk Jjib was the main home of the timeless coven before their corruption into necree during the events of RISE: Elementals.

The central mountain contains a huge college built directly into the stone, within which new sorcerers, alchemists, thaumaturgists, scientists, and scholars would be trained. Through direct partnership with the towers of Nahvehy, this college would be paramount to propelling Leethuria to a new age of research. At the peak of the mountain, a chamber exists containing the mythic Void, the eternal warden of the multiverse, constantly maintaining a countless number of universes within themselves to contain the Tharinam.

### Rethnew D'Naglé

Rethnew D'Naglé is the southern region of Leethuria, primarily composed of dark stone and volcanic glass silicates. This region is intrinsically connected to the concept of separation and division, or Tharus, as it's known. Æruhart mainly populate the region, inhabiting the many towers, and also the ascension altars, performing the essential service of dividing souls from their bodies. Before this ritual, Leethuria had become steadily infested with whispered - semi-sentient, animalistic manifestations of constallite that acted as a constant threat to any living being they encountered. The æruhart determined, alongside the mythic Tyrok, that these creatures were arising from corpses, and were in fact the continued existence of a soul after death, acting as an afterimage of the individual's consciousness, bound to a rotting body until it had decayed enough to free them.

Noticing this, The æruhart constructed the ascension altars, designed to sever ties to the body, such as unmet desires, which resulted in the manifestation becoming a completely uncorrupted collection of concepts representing the individual. This mass of ideas would rapidly move upwards with the current of constallite, no longer tethered. As this mass moved upwards, it would build in power and mass, eventually reaching a critical point, upon which it had gained enough conceptual mass to remain stationary in the air as a brightly glowing mass of magic, imbuing all of Leethuria with a fragment of the person that it used to represent.

These ascension altars are reminiscent of large, ebony churches with a vast pool of water in their hearts, and can be found occasionally throughout the region.

### Cratnah Dloch

The south west of Leethuria is partly filled with pockets of large beaches, with elements of grassland and light woods, though mainly features an immense lake populated by water-faring Silchia aboard large floating villages and the submerged metal cities of the mesotolt. The Mesotolt have constructed a vast network of buildings, constructed out of water, converted into a metallic substance through the natural spread of their physical bodies into surrounding water. The native polarity of Sor, representing flow, lends the environment to have a shining, windswept appearance.

### Nahvehyeh

Nahvehyeh is a region of shattered islands to the north of Leethuria, appearing as though a chunk of the island itself was broken apart and flung away from the mainland. Angels populate the region, mainly making use of a humanoid form, though occasionally returning to their natural, sporelike shapes. The angels have built massive research towers atop these islands, within which the most advanced technology in Leethuria can be found through direct partnership with the mountain scholars and the mythic Tyrok.

On the edge of the mainland near Nahvehyeh on one of the small, unshattered areas, the Guild of Trisec has placed its main encampment.

## History

### The Age of Creation

Leethuria was first created when Arkhateth attempted to invade the Expanse, as a result of the greaminds of the barolith destroying the first machine, and manifesting both matter and energy to lock down the approaching glithrix. This weakened the greatminds substantially, however, and thus they were forced to enter a state of hibernation, otherwise the barolith would eventually die. To begin the process of healing, they built three islands, hidden from the rest of reality, by a satellite orbiting the mainland, and engineered a wealth of life across the landscape. By pulling on threads of the present constallite that remained from the machine, they also constructed eight bodies, with each one representing a polarity of the surrounding primordial matter., radiating from the heart of the continent. Finally, they divided themselves amongst the new environment. Their memories and understanding of paradox space would be encoded into the primordial matter on the islands, as they were sealed off from the rest of existence; their minds were splintered and mixed into the bodies of eight specially engineered creatures, who would awaken without memory, and would act to maintain the flow of constallite; and the bodies of their avatars were bonded into a single sun, sent to orbit Leethuria and periodically illuminate it with the power of one of the greatminds. With only one avatar burning power at a time, they would be able to gradually restore themselves, until they could return to rebuild the machine. But until then, sentient life would act to keep the machine working, and the barolith alive.

On the awakening of the kahpé, they were able to recognise their own power, and who they were, but beyond this they knew nothing. They each bonded themselves to a part of the land, to represent its constallic polarity, and gave both themselves, and their polarities names: Satarath of Oiprocs, representing entropy; Vvalcotnecom of Recnac, representing age; Zahlthon of Tharus, representing separation; Fhrossakk of Sor, representing flow; Ergol of Nahvehy, representing direction; Vahlcor of Inev, representing possibility; Deimor of Lah-Tseerc, representing order; and Suraut of Geretsae, representing constallite. In their regions, the kahpé felt the presence of other life within the primordial matter, fully charged and waiting to be awakened. Whilst animals and plant life existed upon the awakening of the kahpé, spurred on by their completion, they were the only conscious beings in existence. But by reaching into the flowing constallite, they could bring a small smattering of a species to sapient life, enough to ensure that it would grow into much larger prevalence as time progressed. These creatures would be formed with an aura of constallite around them that built over time, which would much later in history become known as a soul. Through this, they became leaders of new regions, and began to build a civilisation across the continent.

### The Age of Earth

As the kahpé brought more life into being, and the charge they felt faded until no more was present, several belief systems arose to explain existence, as the kahpé were clearly not deities, simply beings with an intensely powerful connection to the surrounding environment, and they knew as much as the other groups did. The greatminds became deified by the many groups who arose on the continent, becoming known as the elder gods to some, who believed in their existence. Others, however, would refer to them as a single whole, with no clear unified understanding of how everything came to be. With this, cultures grew, and housing, temples, and more were built in each region. The time before society had truly, fully, formed, would become known as the age of creation, whereas the new environment would become the age of earth. The kahpé were found to be incapable of aging, as well as capable of adjusting their physical form into that of the Silchia and Tharinam - two twin species both made of the same, neutral constallite, one with a soul capable of varying between any polarity, and the other born without any soul at all. The endless life of the kahpé would allow them to always maintain the environment, and to continue building the society springing to life around them.

The north-eastern section of Leethuria, dominated centrally by two large volcanoes filled with pure oiprocs constallite, would become known as Kaldærif. The larger of the two volcanoes, Valchtari, would become a vast forge and blacksmithery populated by demons and pmnicsum, fed by a constant swell of underground caverns emitting potent entropy, whilst the other, Serblistia, would become the home of the first pelakau tribes, led by the first queen - Chorecht Schotrazia. These volcanoes over time would become known as the Oiprocs Crucible, and Chorecht's Fissure, as time passed. Kahpé Satarath would rule this region.

To the south of Kaldærif, a vast, stony landscape of sand, rock, and mountain lay, named Noraldir, where Kahpé Vvalcotnecom would stake his claim. The highest peak in Leethuria could be found here - Nesovakzib, into which an immense citadel was hand-carved by the stahton, running deep into the rock, as the youth of the populus did not permit them access to the manipulation of Recnac constallite - they were simply not old enough to be bound strongly to the concept of age. Over time, Nesovakzib would become the name of the entire region, until some began to merge both the old and new names together, forming the region of Nohynakk Jjib.

At the southernmost point of Leethuria, a cold region of earth, plant life, and crystal lay. The æruhart who resided there were at first divided into different orders, occupying the two areas of Arethnew and Tarnoaglé, however they soon merged into one singular group with the assistance of Kahpé Zahlthon under the unified name of Rethnew D'naglé. This area is now populated by a variety of towers and obelisks, honouring their elder gods and the Kahpé who brought the region into unison.

The south west of Leethuria held an immense basin of water, brimming with Sor constallite. The mesotolt found their home here with Kahpé Frossakk, who assisted in orchestrating the creation of a grand, silver city of flowing spires, built from water transformed into metal. The lake would eternally empty into the endless abyss below, though would always fill itself up at the same rate. This ocean would become known as Crahtnah Dloch.

The natural, sporelike form of the angels made the shattered land of Nahvehyeh comparatively easy to travel, where many others could not. Kahpé Ergol would work alongside them to construct towering brass and marble structures atop the many islands and asteroids, capable of housing anyone who could make it to the region. The air in Nahvehyeh constantly bristled with the concept of direction, propelling it into a new state of structure and order, with many towers eventually becoming research outposts, designed to study the perceived magic in Leethuria.

The north of Leethuria had a far higher potential for the formation of life, and filled itself with the immense Seroph jungles. Forests and trees densely populate the region, making traversal difficult for most, aside from those attuned to the constalite of Kahpé Vahlcor. Under her eye, the people of the Seroph region would build large stone cities and temples amidst the wildlife, cultivating a spectacular display of biodiversity.

To the west of the Leethurian mainland, Kahpé Deimor took refuge upon the isles of Lah-Tseerc - vast geometric plates in freespace, made in the majority of highly ordered, crystalline material, rather than simple earth and stone. The thilorid would join in the construction of vast fortresses across the fractal landscape, with particular attention to the shape of their internal corridors. These fortresses would sing as wind blew through them, ringing with an etherial music, with the feature becoming known as a resolite corridor.

Mirroring the isles of Lah-Tseerc, a curious oddity could be found to the east of Leethuria - a collective of islands that appeared to belong to no identified polarity, a neutral zone. Many Silchia congregated here, building many different villages. To the north of this region, an enormous library was created within the wood of an anomalously large tree, with more villages being built amidst its branches - the tree becoming known as Asteria. This region would become known as the isles of Avanis, named after the the first oel, which made the journey to the mainland unassisted, and presented an opportunity to more easily reach the region.

Lastly, in the heart of Leethuria, a grassland existed, bristling with unpolarised constallite. Here, Kahpé Suraut, and a collective of Silchia who chose to not leave or the isles of Avanis. A modest village would be built here, with Suraut existing amongst them. This village would expand over time to fill the entire at Leethuria's heart before meeting the other regions, and would become known as Esaisidia.

### The Northern War

As the various civilisations on Leethuria began to grow in size, conflicts began to occur. In particular, the demons of what was known at the time as the Valchtari Crucible, and the pelakau encountered territorial disputes surrounding the construction of a foundry in the Loch of Entropy. As the pelakau civilisation grew, they divided into three clades, each led by a queen - the irertians, who branched into the Crimson Plains, becoming more focused on improving their technology; the d'valium, spreading into the aforementioned loch due to the discovery of a tyrus named D'valstach in the constallite, which they believed to be of great religious significance to the elder gods; and the purist fidalius, who remained within the original founding site of Chorecht's fissure.

As the D'valium were claiming the Loch of Entropy, the demons began moving in from the opposite end, seeking to construct a foundry in this region to assist in the forging capacity of their central volcano forge. They believed they could use the vast quantities of oiprocs magic condensing into the lava-like substance in the lake to further fuel both their own main foundry, and to expand their capabilities of production, advancing Leethuria as a whole. The d'valium, however, saw this as a threat to the now deified tyrus within it's bowels. They believed this creature to be a link between them and the elder gods, on account of their formation process being completely disconnected from the kahpé, and it being the only one existing on Leethuria. Where they saw this creature as a protector of nature and shining example of divine influence, however, the kahpé saw it as a scientific anomaly, and made the decision to avoid harming it, though to try to keep it away from the body of the forge.

The pelakau saw this as a threat, not just to the tyrus they sought to protect from possible harm, but also to the environment they believed it to be protecting, possibly angering it and causing massive damage brought on by angering their creators. The pelakau, as a result of the unification of the three queens, threatened the destruction of the foundry should the demons begin to construct it, however under the orders of the kahpé, they continued anyway. Satarath issued this order, on account of his ability to innately feel things directly created by the elder gods on a much deeper level than that which was not (unbeknownst to him and the rest of the populus, this was on account of the eight kahpé each being a combination of the three interwoven greatmind avatars, with manifested sapience), and how he couldn't feel D'valstach, beyond through constallic flow. Satarath knew that the tyrus were merely animals like the other, and that D'valstach was simply an occurrence of one forming within the intense constallite of the loch.

As the kahpé refused to heed the warnings of the pelakau, their forge was attacked, eventually resulting in the destruction of what had been built, with a loss on the side of the demons. The pelakau treat strength and indomitability as a key component of their culture, and thus they had already been producing weaponry for a long time beforehand, whereas the demons were forced to quickly switch production of building materials to offensive tools, or to use basic manufacturing equipment to defend themselves. this, plus the martial skill of the pelakau, resulted in an easy win on their side.

The result of this conflict was the severance of the two volcanic territories. The demons agreed to never interfere with pelakau territory, whilst they agreed to never spread beyond the territory they had already claimed. This triggered a chain reaction, as other groups and regions began to amass their own weaponry and defences should the same situation ever arise for them as with what happened to those sided with Satarath.

The war had further fallout than just between demons and pelakau, however, in that some people began to distrust in the leadership of the kahpé. Whilst most life remained connected to the Iris, and thus held a different relationship with their leaders, many silchia, who were unconnected to a particular leader, decided to renounce constallite use altogether, so as to differentiate themselves from their former status as living under their rule. Nobody in particular thought badly of the kahpé, as popular consensus amongst the Leethurians was that Satarath was correct, however many thought their handling of the situation was poor at best, and thus some of the splintered silchia began to look for a higher level of authority. In honour of the success of the pelakau in defending D'valstach's territory, these silchia began studying the elder gods more closely, with the aim to gain their own power, separate from their old leaders. This group took on the name of the Guild of Trisec, and appointed various priests and knights into different positions of power, led by one high priest.

The Guild gained its first high priest when one individual named Alcath Rot'inovon located deposits of untouched autria in Nahvehyeh, immediately discovering its unique ability to transmute itself into any other matter that it touches, fusing things together. Through exposing this matter to the sunlight, and trying to interface with the resultant glow as he would with constallite, he found himself connected to something completely other to the ordinary magic he was used to. By delving into this, he eventually saw a vision of three enormous bodies, one watching him directly, with the others in the background, seemingly dormant. What he had seen was the state of consciousness that the greatminds were in - two fully dormant, and one directing its power to illuminate the land. By interfacing directly with concentrated sunlight through the medium of ora, it gave the appearance of being looked at by the elder god directly.

The Guild of Trisec formed a separatist base around where the samples were originally discovered, and with the help of several new priests, managed to distill three polarities of constallite, each directly corresponding to the influence of a greatmind. Using this, they produced a variety of tools, weapons, and armour, unique to the rest of Leethuria, and began to reject most outsiders. Their souls were repressed by the priests, who became researchers for the group, and their guardians became knights. Using their unique magic, they produced scarlet subtonium - a metal highly conductive to elder polarities of constallite, which they built their imposing, spiked armours from. They would also adopt the symbol of three suns channeling power downwards to a single point below in an almost treelike pattern.

### The Age of Gold

Whilst the echoes conflict of the Northern War still held fast, the angels began to convert their research towers into fully fledged laboratories, manned not just by the angels, but also by the newly designed rhetsorf drones. These towers were modified from their original, almost woven, pattern of crossing, hollow corridors into ones more structured for land based life, allowing for new partnerships and understanding. The angels also began to curl up their petals into a more bipedal form at this time, taking on the appearance of a humanoid, billowing with fabric behind them, in order to more easily move through their new environment. The research done here would be taken to Nohynakk Jjib, where the hollow mountain temple had become a vast college where applications and alternate theories would be accrued. These findings would be taken to be stored in the Asteria tree, and any living thing could access them. The result was a series of leaps and bounds in understanding of thaumaturgy, alchemy, biology, and all other physical sciences of the age.

These discoveries would propel Leethuria forward, with the discovery of the soul, and its interaction with constallite; of xavei, and the resultant formation of the Vei tribes of Nohynakk Jjib; and the means necessary for the Kahpé to create the first mythic, built to be an intellect of immense proportions - Tyrok. After a long process of trial and error, a ritual was devised that would allow for the creation of a living being via the use of an insectoid husk, grown in the northern region of Seroph, and an ampitheature was constructed amongst their many living structures to quell and redirect the high power constallic waves that would be emitted by the process. After several hours of constant monitoring by the kahpé, the first mythic woke up, however the ampitheatre was destroyed in the process.

Once Tyrok had become acquainted with his new reality, he moved to Nohynakk Jjib to begin perorming his purpose as a researcher of constallite. Tyrok's introduction to the halls of the mountain college provided Leethuria with even greater momentum, as he was responsible both for designing the irst ever constallic runes and the ritual of the passing, and also assisted in many different archaeological projects, such as creating the original schematics for the Sor Array and (theoretically) the original maridox gate. Not all theories and plans were successes, however, as he was also responsible for the creation of the morphos blight whilst trying to cure the tharinam of what was seen as their disability, and was also the lead researcher in the tridivinium project, both of which led to the creation of Lehrion, and the eventual combined region name from Kaldærif, to Leh-Ærif.

Tyrok's most important endeavor during this time was to propose the creation of a second mythic containing an endless series of alternate realities, within which new plans and projects could be tested before being brought to light in Leethuria, in order to prevent future situations such as those which had gone wrong in the past. Repeating the ritual under Tyrok's direction, the kahpé were able to produce a new mythic with no damage to any of the surrounding area - Void.

Using Void's capacity for the engineering of realities within itself, Tyrok would continue exploring the very nature of reality within the Verdus spaces that they could create, and would eventually discover an anomaly within the depths of Void. As Tyrok moved deeper, a new form of constallite could be felt, much more chaotic and powerful than what could be found on Leethuria. By Void opening a fissure between two verdus spaces bonded by their physical laws, Tyrok found himself beyond even his fellow mythic's reach. It would appear from his perspective that he had stepped into an alien version of Leethuria, constantly tearing itself apart on energy tendrils, with no sentient nor animal life beyond one immense dragon visible in the fog of the sky above. Void was unable to interface with this reality, and thus it was discovered that Tyrok had somehow fallen through the normal bounds of what existed into what he began to refer to as the rift, after the fissure he walked through.

Searching for the signs of rift energy on Leethuria, Tyrok found he could still detect its presence running below constallite, as though geretsae constallite in its purest form was a more controlled rift energy. From this, he hypothesised that the expanse existed in a calm point, like the eye of a storm, and around them, more turbulent forms of reality existed. Tyrok began to work on studying the rift, though never made any headway with it.

Esaisidia would grow and grow during the age of gold, becoming an expansive city of shining spires. This would become a hive of constallic activity and research, and as the beating heart of Leethuria, would become the default meeting place of the kahpé, now named the city of Negamer fo Esaisid.

### The Age of Onyx (The Glithrix Defection)

*Main article: The Glithrix Defection*

Tyrok's studies would unknowingly lead to the largest and most devastating war in Leethuria's history, ultimately leading to its collapse. Tyrok had hypothesised that, whilst glithrix was lethally acrid to most Leethurian life, to that which was not bound to constallite, it would remain neutral. One brave group of tharinam explorers volunteered to test this theory in order to study the inaccessible lands beyond. There was much deliberation over if these tests should even occur, as it could lead to the deaths of those who explored what lay beyond the abyss, however eventually it was decided that those who chose to go would be allowed to.

This group of researchers, headed by the tharinam tactician Parazgohl Kazmur, left from the Isles of Lah-Tseerc, and were (to their honest surprise) completely unharmed on their arrival on the noxious shores of the Dusklands. On top of this, they descovered that Tyrok had been more correct than originally theorised, and that strange, alien life had grown on its own out of the glithrix, such as the Coroquithe - a creature similar to a horse, though with three pupils per eye, and a nest of sharpened horns protruding from their skulls; or the Aquavor Ergras - carnivorous plant life protruding from water, similar in appearance to a mass of hands, connecting below the surface to a large body.

Exploring further, the tharinam encountered new minerals, such as styklius, which once refined from its ore, would become capable of reinforcing iron after being forged into an alloy to become far stronger than any steel they had produced. The constant new discoveries spurred them on to trek further into the Glimpse, eventually crossing into the Blacklands.

The first "night" spent in the Blacklands, one tharinam burnt themselves on the campfire they were using, and found that their wound healed much faster than normal, with a deep red glow emanating from the wound. This shocked the explorers, as they found that once injured, the one who was burnt could generate light shimmers in the air for as long as they felt the pain. They had discovered that glithrix exhibited polarities, similar to constallite. The group would begin to experiment with this, and found that even pain resulting from tensing muscles with intent to cause injury to the self could manifest the light.

This polarity manifestation wasn't on account of the tharinam having innate control of glithrix, as they had believed, but rather that within the primordial matter, Arkhateth's avatar had continued to live. Whilst its body in paradox space had been fully destroyed, its avatar had already been fully transferred and integrated into the marachol web of the barolith. When the first machine was destroyed, the avatar was torn apart, though not erased. Arkhateth had deliberately introduced weaknesses into itself, forcing those sections to be torn apart by the blast, but allowing it to control exactly how it was blown apart, despite not being able to prevent the detonation. As a result, these fragments would over time be able to grow back together. To ensure this, the glithrix carried into the marachol web had encoded itself to produce life, much like the constallite of Leethuria. This meant that the marachol could be partially reprogrammed to allow for the regrowth of the greatmind.

When the tharinam - living, conscious beings capable of interacting with both forms of matter - entered the Glimpse for the first time, Arkhateth recognised their capacity for interaction with its own due to the lack of constallite crystals within their brains, instead with white magnetite. This was built as such by the barolith in the event that Arkhateth would attack whilst it recuperated, in order for there to be something capable of more than just defending the iris, but also reaching directly for the heart of the greatmind itself. Arkhateth exploited this by bringing forth a glithrix polarity designed to interact with the concept of "form", or "body". This meant that by damaging themselves, the tharinam could restore their form using the glithrix, and by manipulating their form would be highly capable of controlling that form of primordial matter. This made the polarity highly attractive to the tharinam, and also made the tharinam highly attractive to it. This would sow the seeds of the Glithrix Defection, and would begin the process of undoing everything that the barolith had built to keep itself alive. The act of doing this tore the shreds apart again, but this would not eternally keep them apart.

For the remainder of their expedition, the group would use this new magic to move more confidently through the environment. On their return to the safety of the Leethurian shores, the magic remained for a couple of days, though eventually became subdued by the surrounding constallite. Many discussions broke out over this revalation, and it was eventually decided that the tharinam would be aided in returning to the Glimpse, in order for them to learn to use glithrix in the same ways that the other Leethurians could.

Not everyone was pleased with this result, as many thought that assisting in giving the tharinam access to a power that could wipe out all of Leethuria was a bad choice that could lead to their undoing. The Guild of Trisec in particular were against this - whilst they respected the choice to leave the old leaders to study their own strength as they once did, they also recognised the possible threat to all life that this posed. Some silchia not connected to the Guild, however, elected to form defences in case of invasion, becoming known as the Ghora after a leethurian myth surrounding a many limbed creature that supposedly lived in the mountains of Nohynakk Jjib, who would hurl spears at anyone invading its territory.

The Ghora would move to Nohynakk Jjib, and would begin to alter their own souls and biology, becoming spiritually unrecogniseable as Silchia. These modifications would sharpen their vision to unprecedented levels; would increase their physical strength; and would give them a blend of both unmatched spatial awareness, and massively enhanced respiratory systems. They would also develop the Ghorundum Clasp - a form of arm mounted ranged weapon that would propel lances of metal and crystal at extremely high velocities, the Leethurian equivalent of a firearm. This particular weapon would earn the Ghora great esteem with the pelakau, som of whom would begin to integrate forms of their equipment into their own armour and spears - a great honour in the pelakau culture.

As more and more tharinam moved to the glimpse, they began to further study the peculiarities of glithrix, coming to name the first polarity dohlb, of form. This act of study to attempt to increase their own power caused the rise of a second polarity, inoc, of desire. This would cause a turning point in the tharinam, who would begin to find this new polarity, and as they used it, would want to learn more. The more they used glithrix, the more they could accomplish, and the more they wanted it the stronger they would become. More and more tharinam would begin to flee to the Glimpse in a mass exodus, leaving very few behind.

This turn in the tharinam was noted by the kahpé, who felt greater tensions forming between the Leethurians and their former allies. The tharinam kept asking for more and more of the Leethurians in assisting in giving them power, and it had reached a point at which their requests could no longer be met. From the perspective of the tharinam, however, they were merely requesting the same things they always had, and the Leethurians were beginning to withdraw from them - abandoning them more and more as they became stronger in the use of glithrix. This was not as simple as a change in perspective, but was representative of a much bigger problem. The inoc polarity was intensifying their need to use glithrix, creating an addiction, and bending their minds gradually towards helping themselves more than anyone else. They couldn't see their requests turning into demands, just the amicable relationships decaying around them.

Where the Leethurians were mostly concerned for their former brethren, the tharinam saw them as jealous and afraid, and thus began to build fortifications and weapons in case of an attack by the Leethurians, as if constallite ever reached them, it would weaken them again, rendering them soulless once more. The Leethurians became more concerned when word reached them of a potential pre-emptive strike to prevent an attack that would never have occurred, as the tharinam kept fleeing Leethuria, until only five remained behind. These five had felt the pull of the glithrix calling to them, but had also felt a new pull in the opposing direction. They could see the effect that the acrid magic was having on their old kind, and so chose to follow the new light. In secret, they continued trying to master the use of constallite under the personal watch of the kahpé, per their own request to make sure they could never be taken.

As they worked and learned, trying method after method, they began to feel the light growing stronger, and a new polarity began to form within them. The fewer tharinam there were, the more important those who remained became, and the act of struggling against the pull of the Glimpse in combination with this drew the ninth polarity to them, which would become known as negel, of myths. The remaining five rose from their halls new beings, the only five in existence capable of binding to this magic - without kahpé. It was thanks to these five - Kalyvon Garatil, Remagen Vvalno, Salyrus Horan, Kajrifth Kazmur, and Xzeriud Jo'naril, that it was discovered that the tharinam could bind t constallite, through associating their journey with a struggle against odds, making it an ancestral story, binding to the previously unknown polarity of myths.

The new group, known as the Eriphmac, would be kept hidden from the tharinam, who had become fully convinced that the Leethurians were going to attempt to take their power, so as to avoid them believing this to be their first move to convert them. This would prove to be in vain, however, as the tharinam would begin to construct weaponry within the view of the Dusklands, prompting Leethuria to raise its own defences in case of an attack. This would be the breaking point that triggered the completely consumed tharinam to attack Leethuria, causing the war to begin.

All tharinam, combat trained or not, would be used to determine the best ways to use glithrix as a weapon. They would soon discover that if the body were to be torn to shreds using dohlb, the pain would in turn polarise more glithrix to become dohlb, enhancing the weilder. At the same time, they would find that inoc manifested similarly to a plague, explaining how it spread so quickly between members of the tharinam. They would be able to weaponise this as a way to induce massive sickness beyond ordinary glithrix poisoning in anyone exposed to it.

The Leethurians didn't want to inflict any harm upon the tharinam, and so the first attacks were repelled with the intent to avoid hurting anyone. Further angering the tharinam that they weren't being taken seriously, they appointed their own "dark kahpé" within their ranks to represent each polarity, giving rise to kahpé Parazgohl of dohlb; and to kahpé Jaquestia of inoc. Jaquestia Voru was originally a mountain scholar, specialising in giving the tharinam access to constallite. Her desire to help her people, combined with access to glithrix power, rendered her the most powerful weilder of inoc power in the Glimpse.

Whilst at first the Leethurians could repel the tharinam, gradually they became more and more powerful as their mastery quickly grew, bringing them to the same level of power as the Leethurians. Scouts sent out to observe the dusklands saw a fog beginning to grow throughout the Glimpse, realising that fear had now manifested as a polarity, manifesting as darkness. This new polarity made the tharinam completely irredeemable by normal means, as the closer they came to losing their power, the more afraid of it they became, and the stronger they were, the more they wanted to hold onto their strength, making their power now a permanent part of them, forming a stunted, but definitely present, soul. These new souls would hold them to the glithrix, and would never let them go.

In spite of the Leethurians becoming less powerful than the tharinam at this point, they never stopped trying to save them from themselves, with the Eriphmac Kajrifth Kazmur pushing hard for this, due to his brother being one of the leaders of the enemy armies. Providing similar motivation, Parazgohl had searched amongst their ranks for Kajrifth, however upon not finding him, he accepted that the Leethurians must have executed him out of fear, or held him prisoner where Parazgohl couldn't reach. Due to this, he swore a deep seated revenge against them.

This revenge led to poor planning on Parazgohl's part when performing a raid on Nohynakk Jjib, leading to most of the soldiers during the raid being captured by the Leethurians. They were able, however, to recover three documents from the mountain. One was deemed waste, as it was research on an orbital anomaly, however the other two would prove very useful to the tharinam. The first document explained exactly to where their captured allies had been taken - the Haven project; whereas the second described the exact system by which a mythic could be produced. Here, they learned that a mythic would be created with a deep emotional investment into their purpose, with a number of souls combining their power to make empower the husk. The created mythic would work tirelessly on their purpose and would not stop under any circumstance. A love for their work, so to speak. As a result, the two dark kahpé, and a third named Sathvar Kjorakt, who had proven themselves to be highly adept in the use of the polarity senkar, of fear, assembled the ritual, and channeled in not just their own souls, but the power of every single soul in the Glimpse.

Unlike previous mythics, this one was formed with no explosion, but rather a calm, slow depression into space. Once bonded with the husk, this would become the glithrix mythic, Mutavor. On seeing Mutavor, Sathvar and Jaquestia both immediately ended their own lives, whilst Parazgohl cloaked them in shadow, before trying to end his own. It is believed that the fear created by seeing Mutavor's actual appearance was great enough to cleanse them of all other glithrix corruption, and in that moment of clarity, they chose to end themselves before anyone else could see it. Parazgohl choosing to wait would prove to be a mistake, however, as this gave Mutavor enough time to become conscious, and immediately bond with him, placing a shard of his soul within the tharinam. This turned him into a puppet for Mutavor to control.

With Parazgohl at his side, Mutavor rapidly advanced the Tharinam front, quickly surpassing Leethurian weaponry and defences. As Mutavor was born with the singular undying will to both place and keep its people in power, it was a natural strategist in terms of this. One of the more notable things Mutavor built were pain farms - hives of glithrix activity. In these farms, tharinam of lesser glithrix capability would be worked tirelessly to near death, exposed to horrendous experimentation, and put through unimaginable torment. The tormentors were the more powerful wielders of glithrix, who were gifted with positions of power in Mutavor's favour should they produce sufficiently inhumane conditions, measured by the constant production of dohlb glithrix pouring from the farms. This reward would entice them to inflict more pain, and would naturally set in inoc polarities in their minds, driving them to commit these atrocities. Constant torture with no escape would eventually inevitably numb the captives, as they began to just accept it, and so to avoid this and to constantly create a stable flow of senkar polarised glithrix, if any of the guards, wardens, or other tharinam in charge of running a farm were to be attacked by a prisoner and lose, then Mutavor would personally ensure that they switched places. This meant the prisoner had become more powerful, and was ready to leave the farms.

As a result of the pain farm project, the tharinam experienced a massive influx in power, with their entire species getting stronger by the day. This led to the discovery of unusually active pockets of glithrix in the farther reaches of the Blacklands which were studied extensively by the mythic and its puppet kahpé. Using these complex fragments, now named axions, new living weapons were built - massive, artificial tyrus borne of darkness, quite literally made of the suffering of a nation. With these, the tharinam quickly and efficiently turned the tide of the war against Leethuria, who were now taking more and more strikes, and suffering more and more casualties.

In a desperate last bid for survival, the kahpé, the timeless coven, and Tyrok formulated an attack strategy. A new mythic would be formed, named Hiritu. Hiritu would be a mythic engineered to convert glithrix into constallite. As the war had progressed, the leethurians had found a way to enter the lands of their enemy by shielding themselves from ambient magic. These implants, designed by the angels and the ghora, would be embedded into the temples of soldiers, who would make use of them to expand space in a thin layer around them, generating an atmospheric haze that would greatly slow the progression of harmful substances from reaching them, be they primordial matter, which would take far longer to get to them; or ordinary matter, which would burn up in the shielding like a comet.

Using technology derived from these implants, Hiritu would ideally be able to reverse attacks thrown at them, however this plan would prove catastrophic, as they did not have the time, nor the resources to build an amphitheatre, and thus were required to do it in a region of Kaldærif named Elukuia - a region densely populated with a breed of redwood tree, uniquely efficient at absorbing entropic constallite as part of its growth process, chosen as the wood from these trees was used in the construction of the original chambers. This ritual would wipe out the entire region of Elukuia, turning it from unique woods into sulphur plains - a Venusian biome, incapable of sustaining most unspecialised life. Elukuia would, as a result of this, become known as the Plate of Desolation.

Hiritu would be initially successful in staving off the assault from the Tharinam, though would be soon captured by Mutavor, who would study and operate on the still living wolf to learn of its capabilities and methods of primordial matter conversion. Driving the beast mad with pain, Mutavor would eventually keep it as its personal pet, and would grant himself the ability to reverse the process - transforming constallite into glithrix.

The loss of Hiritu was a devastating blow to Leethuria, which at this point was merely holding out against the inevitable. It was only due to the actions of the eriphmac that Leethuria was able to survive. By this point, the negel constallite they controlled was understood to a far greater extent, and they came to the Kahpé with a plan, and after much deliberation, it was realised that this would be their singular shot at survival. The eriphmac entered the Glimpse alone, with no guards, no protection, and no oversight. On their capture, they were brought before the dark mythic, and explained that they were tharinam who had been held captive since the beginning of the war. They had never had a connection to glithrix, but were kept imprisoned within the heart of Negamer fo Esaisid. Escaping their bonds due to a mistake from their guards, they found a hidden passage that led out of the city, letting them flee to the rest of their people. They had memorised the patrol routes, and knew that if Mutavor were to follow the passage, that it could reach the centre of Leethuria, and could bring about its end.

Mutavor's connection to the glithrix of the tharinam souls meant that ordinarily, it could read the internal thoughts of individuals, but in the case of the eriphmac, they were isolated from this effect, rendering them immediately suspicious in its eyes. They tried to explain this away by referring to their imprisonment as leaving constallic traces running through them, and only a minuscule quantity of glithrix having ever reached them in the first place. Mutavor tentatively elected to perform a strike on the city, wary of the seemingly too good to be true opportunity that had presented itself. Assembling a small platoon of tharinam knights, they, alongside the eriphmac, crept into the passageway, Mutavor shrinking in size to allow for its large form to fit. reaching an antechamber, the kahpé sprung their trap.

Each revealed themselves from the large archways in their silchia forms, nearest their own polarities to maximise their strength. Transfiguring into their larger forms, the Kahpé conducted massive constallic flow into the centre of the room, occupied by the mythic and its soldiers. Joined by the eriphmac, and the unified gaze of the mass of stars in the sky focusing on a single point, the kahpé obliterated the enemy soldiers in an instant, though the mythic was harder to fell. Mutavor systematically hurled lacerating waves of glithrix into the remaining tharinam, detonating them into swarms of carbon fabric one by one.

Despite its retaliation, Mutavor eventually perished in the fires, leaving only one eriphmac alive - Remagen Vvalno. All that was left of the tyrant was a mass of darkened malformed bones, originating from the husk used to awaken it. This ended the war, finally saving Leethuria from the threat that the tharinam posed. Mutavor's corpse was deemed too dangerous to keep on Leethuria, as it was still passively, if gradually, transfiguring constallite into glithrix. Because of this, it was carried back into the largest pain farm ever built to act as a monument to those who suffered there, some of whom were Leethurian themselves.

This wouldn't be the end of Mutavor, however, as one detail was missing from the plan of the Leethurians. Parazgohl had never returned to Leethuria, and was still stained with the mythic's soul. Making the journey to the body, Parazgohl uttered an incantation, sending a tiny piece of the creature back into the husk, which began the process of absorbing the ambient dark magic latent to the Glimpse, concentrated on the dark history of the place it was held. Mutavor would not return to full strength for millennia, however, and would descend into mythical status, becoming the Leethurian equivalent of the bogeyman, intended to scare children into behaving.

### The Age of Steel

With the fall of Mutavor and the near destruction of Leethuria, the age of onyx was over. The remaining tharinam in the Glimpse were captured and brought back to Leethuria, where it was realised that they were too far gone to be uncorrupted from the glithrix. The best way to remove the corruption would be to isolate them from all primordial matter, and to contain them in such a way as to ensure they couldn't break free. This would lead to the particles of glithrix being gradually being disseminated amongst the population, diluting until they become inert.

In order to contain the tharinam, Void generated an enumerable quantity of verdus spaces within themselves, arranging them into the form of a hollow sphere, and placing one in their dead centre. Each of these realities simulated a reality in them, borne without primordial matter, designed to be infinite internally. Time was accelerated rapidly in these realities so as to cause the formation of planets, with matter and energy poured in in just the right ways to allow for the formation of life without any form of primordial matter being present. Many life forms arose across the cosmos of these realities, with one planet, known by distant civilisations as planet C of the Therolex system, being chosen as the inception point for the tharinam.

The timelines of the tharinam were broken apart, and placed into these verdus spaces, allowing them to live on these instances of Therolex C. These planets were also formed with a church placed randomly, somewhere on their surface. This church would have a basement built in, with a unique type of doorway at its end. This door was to be constructed with specifications exact to the recently rediscovered blueprints for the marachol gates used to perfectly contain dangerous relics, with the chamber containing a spatial well leading to the central universe. Using these churches, the corrupted glithrix used by the tharinam was funnelled into the heart space, alongside the living weapons built by Mutavor that were successfully captured. This reality was then submerged in a vast ocean, with paradoxically infinite depth, now accessible only through an immense storm raging atop its surface - the Adrasil typhoon. On opening the church door, the universe in question would be brought into the eye of the storm, able to send the glithrix down into the verdus space, now known as the Bleak. This way, not enough glithrix would be introduced into the realities with tharinam for them to use it to attack back. Any verdus space which Void predicted would allow for the tharinam to escape was disseminated and obfuscated, with the probabilities being redistributed amongst the rest of the spaces. This, in combination with the lack of any and all primordial matter, ensured that the tharinam, alongside the rest of the life in those realities, would follow a completely deterministic timeline, with no free will - merely the illusion of it.

With the tharinam isolated in their own realities, they would eventually over time forget their origins on Leethuria, as it naturally descended into myth, distorting over time until it became unrecognisable, with nobody remembering their origins, and the bonded glithrix being slowly separated amongst the people, until they became almost, but never quite, purified. Eventually, the tharinam would be discovered by the Voidborne species that inhabited their new realm, and they would become known as the Therran. The creation of these species was intended to inspire the tharinam that they originated there too, once they moved past myths and legends into science, however in the end, it was the animals of Therolex C, that formed this idea, as the Voidborne universally refused to approach this planet. All species capable of finding this far away planet recognised the presence of unique primordial matter, and chose to steer clear out of fear for what the denizens of this planet, now known through the rest of their realities as the therran, could be capable of.

Due to this universal fear, the old siblings of the Silchia wouldn't encounter additional life off of their own world for aeons, forgetting their old identity as the tharinam of Leethuria; never encountering their new one as the therran of Therolex C; instead forming their own, referring to themselves instead as the humans of Earth. And it was as this happened, with the remaining ties to their old brethren severed, that Leethuria could begin to rebuild.

As Leethuria was woefully unprepared for a threat of such magnitude as Mutavor, only defeating them through attacking them with something they hadn't predicted, they began to replenish their forces and start to engineer new weapons and technologies to combat future threats. Eventually, with the help of the eight Kahpé and Tyrok, Leethuria picked itself up again back to its former glory, spurring itself forwards into a new era of science, herded by the memory of what had happened before. One result of said progress was the Time Crystal produced by Tyrok. This crystal was a large shard of luminous matter, esentially acting as a communications stone between points in time. To make use of the stone, one would only need to bring it to a location of importance to the individual using it. For example, to commune with a dead loved one, it would be impossible to do so at just any time, but if the stone was to be brought to the location where the two people in question met, then the mind of the intended recipient of the message from when they met could be brought forwards in time to occupy the body of the present individual. Temporarily, they would be able to see into the future, before being returned to their own time, carrying the memories of their future companion like a vision. The method of use, location where it would be used, and possible points of time where communication could be achieved are thus very specific and always in flux, depending on the end goal of the user. This did not, however, restrict it from possibly being useable to devastate the timeline.

The Kahpé did consider using the crystal to warn themselves ahead of time of Mutavor, however they realised that this could have dire consequences for the timeline itself, as it was only due to Mutavor's death that they were able to engineer it in the first place. It was thus decided that they would accept their present, and then hide the crystal in such a way that neither they, nor anyone else could never be tempted to access it again. In trying to find a way to do this, they stumbled across some blueprints that they had never seen before. A design for a vault that would erase the memory of anyone who tried to perceive it. This vault would work by allowing access through only one door, which when shut would activate a series of runes along the rim of the door, and also the entire interior. These rules would funnel constallite towards anyone nearby, triggering the instantaneous removal of the vault's memory from the minds of everyone at once. This would be constantly active for as long as the door remained closed, causing anyone not immediately looking at it to forget both it and the whereabouts of the item inside it, and anyone looking at the vault door to be unable to comprehend what they were looking at, on account of the memory being edited out before their brains could process it. The same would occur to any living being inside the vault, who would become incapable of comprehending their surroundings, becoming lost despite being in a relatively small room. The secondary function of the vault was to reflect constallite via the use of a battery core array, meaning there was no physical way to escape the chamber, be it by clawing at the walls, or blasting it with magic. Such a vault was constructed inside the centre of Negamer fo Esaisid, and Suraut agreed to move it into the chamber himself, alongside Tyrok.

On affixing the stone to the central platform, Suraut was pulled towards the stone, whereupon he found himself in a war room of sorts, being shouted at by Tyrok. Suraut realised that Tyrok was asking if something had worked, before the doors of the war room burst in, and soldiers poured through. On returning to consciousness, only a second had passed, but new memories had formed that hadn't happened yet, gradually resurfacing. Recalling how the time crystal worked, Suraut connected that the war room appeared eerily similar to the maridox gate, and realised that it had been used on him, by his future self. Mutavor had returned after aeons, and had returned in force. With no preparation from Leethuria, and centuries of the Glimpse's own, they were swarmed, with each Kahpé eliminated and having had their souls absorbed by the maddened Mythic. Suraut only survived due to going into hiding, with Tyrok re-engineering a far weaker time crystal to use on realising that Leethuria had no chance of surviving. They had used the war room as their location of activation, as it was built inside the long deactivated maridox gate, using the importance of the gate's first activation to transmit the message.

Suraut had managed to send himself a message across the aeons to prepare for a dire future, and confided it immediately with Tyrok. After much discussion, they came to the realisation that if Mutavor's body stayed in Leethuria, it would eventually corrupt the iris itself, but if left in the Glimpse, would return to full power. The only option would be to attempt to prevent Mutavor from ever forming, by sending a message backwards through time once more, further than before with the strength of a fully formed time crystal behind it. The plan was to send this information back to the Kahpé at the moment of their conception, to awaken Suraut with all of his previous memories from the old timeline, in an attempt to prevent the return of the Mythic, preparing them all, never allowing the tharinam to defect to the Glimpse in the first place.

Using the stone, Suraut reached out to his past self, sending the story of Leethuria's history backwards, hoping to be reborn in a new world.

### The second epoch

At the beginning of Leethuria, the Kahpé lay asleep, ready to be awoken by the greatminds that gave them life to protect and feed the barolith whilst it healed. As their essences were separated from that of the greatminds, and constallite first lensed into the cardioid iris across Leethuria, an anomaly arose. The pure central constallite, in the process of blossoming out into each polarity, was interfered with by a force generated from something other than the greatminds. Encoded energy from a timeline that hadn't yet happened was leaking into existence, caused by Suraut in the first epoch, after having learned that Mutavor would return. What the Kahpé hadn't realised was that they weren't borne in physical form, but rather that their body was distilled from pure primordial matter. As a result, sending that message backwards in time didn't pass the knowledge to their past self, but rather infused it with the constallite that formed them. No events had happened in history at that point, meaning this was the only story to exist - the oldest, and true first myth. This triggered a reaction in the constallite, polarising it, spawning a ninth polarity that was hurled outwards to the east, forming a ninth kahpé - Lejjed Ohmeth.

## Trivia

* The constant updraft of constallite on Leethuria is known as the Iris, on account of its similarity to the shape of an eye.
* The Guild of Trisec is strongly implied to be a Leethurian equivalent to christianity, originating from dissatisfaction with leadership, choosing to turn to the higher power that created them, and adopting a variant of a crucifix as their main religious symbol.
* Tyrok's name is a portmanteau of "Time" and "Rock", referring to his most important role in RISE's story, with the creation of the time crystal.
* Unbeknownst to Tyrok, when moving into the rift, he was actually stepping into an aldæm, and the storm he had hypothesised was an adequate, if not wholly accurate, descriptor of the axial barrier. The rift energy he had detected was ora, which was why it was felt running through constallite.
* Gravity on Leethuria would ordinarily not work in any way similarly to how it does in our universe. The explanation for this is that the updraft of constallite and the downdraft of glithrix results in a force being applied that works similarly to gravity - constallite provides an updraft to the earth of Leethuria itself, whereas the downward flow of glithrix persistently introduces turbulence with force equivalent to that of our planet. This act both sustains Leethuria's flight, and also pulls other matter downwards.
* Elukuia is derived from the Hawaiian "e lukuia", meaning "to be destroyed"