Appendix • The Singer's Tale

"*She begins to speak, and as she speaks you feel inside each of you, a subtle, faint planar connection, all linking back to her. Through that connection, the words she speaks are tinged with layers and layers of depth. You hear polyphonic melodies, glimpses of the full song, a hundred thousand layers of experience spoken through music. You feel complex, indescribable emotion woven into it. Emotion no words could convey accurately. It's just a glimpse, but it's enough for you to understand the monumental weight of history that is behind everything being spoken to you, and how even if the Singer were to speak for weeks without pause, she could never truly convey to you everything within that Song.*"
 ― The Storyteller

## Transcript

"Many years ago, before the fall, before the First Lie, mine people lived on a world much like this one, but different in ways both subtle and grand. I could sing for hours of its wonders, for still I see it clear as day. Mine home. I wish only I had seen it before the Lie, but even then, it was truly beautiful. Oceans of gold...fields of silver grass...summits of flame that grazed the sky...crystal blue clouds...rich black shores..."

She pauses, taking a moment to collect herself before continuing.

"Like thee, we were vexed by many sins. We fought. We loved. We craved what we did not have. We lived, and we died. I know not how many years we were such, for it was before my time, and in the face of what came after it was merely a speck of sand in a dune. But the day came when our way of being changed. A god spoke unto us, revealed himself as our Creator. Told us we were his children. Told us we had finally proven worthy of his grace, and that he wouldst share with us the secret to heaven, that we wouldst create it together."

"That was the First Lie."

"We believed him. He was gentle, and persuasive, and kind, and powerful. His following grew, and those that doubted dwindled to nothing. And truthfully, his promises seemed to bear fruit. He gave us secrets of great power, steadied our hands, presented us favoured with gifts. In devotion, our desires waned. We no longer fought. We no longer craved. Our lives stretched ever longer, our knowledge and our strength grew ever deeper."

"By his complete, unquestionable guidance, we built a world in his image. Free of worry, Free of doubt, Free of sin. We paved our garden into a Kingdom. A kingdom of heaven."

"Dost thou see it yet? The cost? Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done. This kingdom of Heaven was not ours. It was his. We did not create. We obeyed. We did not wonder. We were told."

"And despite what we had been led to believe, those that did wonder, those that doubted, were not simply returning to faith by grace, or seeing the error of their ways and being given atonement. No. Those that doubted were swiftly excised. Removed. Like rot, or weeds in a garden.
We wouldst discover even later that such had been the case even at the beginning, upon his first arrival. His greatest decriers were quietly silenced, until we believed his lie as truth."

"But even the most absolute of authorities can crack with time, for that is the simple nature of all things."

"Slowly, but surely, our world died. Our sun faded. Our soil blackened. Our grass withered. And we blindly carried on. We were told it was all part of his great plan. To remain faithful. That faith would see us through any hardship. When the earth beneath our feet began to scorch, we took our cities to the sky. When the oceans began to boil, we learned to live without rain. And when it became clear that there was no way back to what was, we were told to look to the stars. Because one world was not enough. It would never have been enough. He wanted it all."

"It was near this time that one of us, just one, through sheer circumstance, discovered the First Lie. She discovered that this 'Creator' was in fact no such thing. He was not the one true god, as he had always preached. He was one of us. Ascendant. Grown fat on the faith of the devout. He had hidden the means of his ascendancy, buried it beneath the First Lie, because knowledge of its attainment was proof of his true nature."

"And above all, he had hidden one crucial fact. He had not ascended alone. His brother, the younger, had been the first. His brother, whomst he had betrayed. Cast down, mortally wounded, but, it seemed failed to kill."

"She found him, our prophetess, in a garden of his own making. The second brother. And he guided her to salvation. With that knowledge, our rebellion was born. One by one, we came to the Truth. We cast aside our immortal forms. We chose flesh and crystal over immortal light. We rejected stagnation. Permanence."

"When our brothers and sisters discovered what we had done, they called us fallen. Betrayers. Broken. Wrong. But we did not care. We had seen past the Lie that blinded them. We donned our veils, a symbol of our devotion. That we would not again succumb to the Lie. That we would see only the Truth. And we rose against the Kingdom of Heaven. We fought again. We craved again. And we rediscovered the passion we had lost."

"Always we had been shown an existence where all is plentiful and all needs are met, and we had been told *that* was contentment, to not want for more. But when our chains fell, we discovered that to want is to live. To desire is to live. To fight is to live."

She pauses again, and the fervour that had started to build up to a boiling point seems to dwindle and fade all at once. She slumps slightly, visibly diminishing.

"We lost. We fought, but we lost. It had simply been too long. His roots had dug too deep within the minds of our people, and a creature in captivity often learns to love its captor. They were told it was our lack of faith that had brought ruin to our world. Our desire for sin. And most were eager to believe it, because to admit their own failures would have brought greater shame."

"Like so many had been before us, we were cut down. We had gotten further than any other, but it was still not far enough."

"So we fled. What few of us remained, we fled. We took the first engines that would bear our people to the stars, and we used them to escape our home, and in so doing, proved it could be done."

"I do not remember how long we ran. How many worlds we visited. Always his kingdom spread behind us, devouring worlds whole. Each came to believe his Lie, because for many, the safety of blind ignorance and thoughtless devotion was preferable to the agony of choice. Everywhere we went, we upheld the Truth, but it was never enough."

"We continued to flee across the stars, our numbers dwindling, our hope running out, until our prophetess, our great beacon of salvation shining through our despair, developed a means to keep us hidden. She led us here, to this world with two suns, where the Fundament was thick and yet unspoiled by life. And here we built the Firmament. A shield. A veil around the world. A barrier no god could breach, through which none could ascend. Here we were safe. Here we could rebuild."

"Our home. Our haven. Our garden."