The Kingdom of the Lost

by Panthers17nfl

The Codex which has kept the Old World rejuvenating as it has for the past eons becomes but an echo of the past as the Old World is created once more. Man destroys what it is given, given enough time has passed. If such is the cycle once more, the world becomes but oblivion for the final time, and existence of the mortal kind will end.

"In the final hours of the Old World, what the Good King had grown to know would invariably find itself ravaged by the hellish dominions of the Nether. No force could be mustered with enough notice or trained with enough patience to combat what would march straight to the White Gates almost at leisure. The sharpest Diamond blades could with enough agitation pierce the flesh of the lesser ones, but as the middle legions advanced through to the Overworld, the swords were better used for barricades and obstacles."

"Tell me again how it ends, this time?"

"It continues on, brother."

"No: you say yourself the White Gates come crashing down, the Good King perishes, the Old World vanishes."

"These events, dark fiery hours in the years of history, certainly, are but part of the cycle. It happens often as the sun rises in the east."

"And you are content with that."

"Should I be something else?"

"You let these beings harm themselves with their avarice. You let them bleed themselves with their bloodlust. You let them tamper with forces borne of rotten chaos and watch as they burn themselves with it."

"Such is their choice; we bother not to interfere with their choices, as they would then become ours."

"But surely you know what is right for their-"

"Curiosity is the plight of man, benevolence that of Us. You know this to be true. We can control our flaw."

"Had they been taught what mighty forces they could readily control, you would see your precious Kings atop the heaviest of thrones – neither pauper nor demon to be found."

His brother walked the paths of the White Kingdom as one would walk upon their looted vault; the precious treasures amassed through inconceivable effort, once intact and for granted, now destroyed or missing, and solemnly missed. No hope. No imagery of what could replace what is gone.

His brother was cunning. Where He would observe almost absently as if no entity could disrupt the cycle, His brother ached to tinker with the Old World. It was now but a burnt earth, a pile of ash. This for Him would satisfy until the Codex renewed and an Old World would be created again the coming millennia. In a past life, this would indeed satisfy Them both for eternity.

"It has been a thousand times since we had walked the plane of existence."

"I remember, brother."

"The First World was different, you remember."

"The First World was flawed."

"It was free. Free for them, free for Us. Now we are but desperate onlookers."

"We are the Craft, the Construct, the Design. We look on but do so as an engineer in the Old World marvels at his circuits."

"And when the engineer's circuits fail him, does he not repair?"

"The Old World returns, brother. It returns, it repairs itself."

"And it does so rather slowly."

There is a long pause before they speak again. They have reached the remains of the White Throne before He speaks again, "You have your final chance. They have their final chance."

"I know."

The Old World would come again as the Codex promises. It would return to Them and they would observe their people. "They are born shy," His brother would say, "then they grow strong, and then they become brave, confident, then arrogant, then finally they die of their own efforts. It always ends with death."

But for the final time, They walk upon the familiar remains of the Old World obliterated by the usual wars and dealings in the Nether. The Codex exists now only as an echo of a past promise. The game has changed. For the final time, the world will become the land of the living, the sanctuary of man, the Kingdom of the Lost.