It's interesting how, despite the many negative things that he has done, what Sauron is saying has caused some good to come of all this. Namely, his heresies have, in addition to breeding other heresy, which is less than ideal, also caused some people to seek to explore beyond the knowledge that we had before.

Never before have I seen our people consider ideas so radical as these. There are people out there hypothesizing everything from the idea that our world is not actually flat to the idea that this world is all but a dream of Eru's. It is as though some crazy spirit of philosophy has descended upon this island.

In one startling case, there are people who insist that this world is without meaning in its present state and seek to find some meaning to it in other forms. While most people who believe this tend to be artists and the like, seeking to find beauty in this world, there do exist a far more extreme group of people.

These people experiment with all manner of chemicals, finding a way to try to "free their minds of this world." Most others deride them and call them "Delusionals". Still, there is a part of me that wonders: is there something to what they are doing?

Regardless, this isn't really a thing I should be letting myself be distracted by; right now, Ar-Pharazôn needs my help more than I need help, no matter what I feel. The poor man grows looser and looser with each day. Our King must be happy, even if it is at my cost.

-From the Abridged Journals of Arnuzîr

Altariel, Sam, and the orcs were making much faster progress now that they were being led by Taburz, who actually knew where he was going. In addition, not having to fight orcs every step of the way greatly sped up their progress.

Occasionally, they did run into a group of orcs that had fallen under the influence of IT. However, these orcs behaved erratically, not really understanding the circumstances they were up against. Altariel and Taburz were able to neutralize them easily.

At last, they had made it into the center of the ruined city. By this point, the snow had finally stopped falling. However, the snow that had fallen was quite thick and was getting to be difficult to navigate through.

"What exactly are we looking for?" asked Altariel.

"I believe that IT is hiding directly underneath the center of the city, manipulating the orcs that it has been able to sway to its control. From there, it has planned all of its assaults. From here, I also believe it had an influence over the Witch-king himself."

"What makes you say that?"

"In the last few days of his time spent here, before Sauron called him to Mordor, his behavior was strange, even for him. I think that may be why Sauron called him back before he asked any of the others to return; he was beginning to slip under IT's influence, something even Sauron was worried about."

Taburz was about to say something else, when that same telepathic shrill sounded across the city again. I KNOW THAT YOU SEEK ME. I KNOW THAT YOU WISH TO KILL ME. YOUR DREAMS ARE WEAK. I SHALL NOT LET YOU OVERCOME.

At once, the world around them was warped into some dark reflection of what it once was. They were still in a ruined city, but there was no longer any light around them. All was shrouded in darkness. In addition, where there had once just been Altariel, Sam, Taburz, and the other orcs, Altariel could make out the horrifying outline of some terrifying abominations in the distance.

"What in the Iron Hells?" roared Taburz in terrified confusion.

An ugly, creeping laugh spread through his mind. He put his hands over his ears, but it did nothing to stop the sound.

WELCOME TO MY WORLD. IF YOU CAN DEFEAT MY FRIENDS, THEN YOU WILL FACE ME.

As soon as this message ended, the abominations turned on the orcs and began attacking. Taburz stood frozen in terror. Never in his life, not even in the most horrifying nightmares brought on by living in Carn Dûm, had he ever imagined that something like this would happen. All around him, his men were being destroyed by the terrors if this darkened city, and he felt powerless to stop it from happening. To him, unlike so many others, this city had been a home. However, he now felt it turning against him.

Altariel saw that horror was beginning to paralyze her companion and did the first thing that came to mind: she slapped him. Terror was replaced by shock in the look of Taburz as his mental functions began coming back online. "What the hell was that fer?" he asked angrily.

Altariel pointed towards the orcs. "Your people are fighting against those monsters and you were standing still and letting them die. Now is not the time to feel, take it from me. Go out there and help them!"

Taburz nodded, not trusting himself to talk, and ran off to aid those fighting. Satisfied that she had accomplished her first goal, Altariel cast about, looking for Sam. She saw him busy engaging one of the smaller terrors and ran over to him, quickly finishing it off with some thrusts from her sword.

"How are you feeling?" she asked.

Sam gave a nervous smile. "After Cirith Ungol and Mordor, I'm not sure there is a thing that makes me scared. Mister Frodo, in his own way, really prepared me for this adventure."

"Well, I'm glad that you're still functioning well. I feel like I'm going to need your support in the time to come."

"Oh, I hope not. I just want this to be all over so I can get back to the Shire!"

"You and me both," Altariel sighed.

She ran over to the closest of the monsters. These things were like nothing she had ever seen before. They were vaguely humanoid, but had no real facial features. In addition, instead of actual hands and feet their limbs just ended, as though they were a thought best left unfinished.

The monsters seemed not to react in the same way that normal, living beings would. Instead of falling over their wounds, they pretty much had to be shredded in order to actually fall. It was not enough to cripple them, they had to be destroyed.

Another strange thing about the monsters was that they had no blood. Altariel wasn't sure why, but that factor frightened her almost as much as their appearance. Though, admittedly, not nearly as much as that voice. Altariel was almost certain that, even when they were done here, that voice would be featuring prominently in here nightmares.

They had almost defeated all of the terrors, when a new one showed up. At its presence, all of the remaining creatures began heading toward it, as though they were trying to defend it. The creature raised its hand and lighting began to rain from it, hitting a wide spread of the orcs. Cursing, Altariel ran in, darting between the normal monsters.

She struck at the being with her sword, but the thing was strong, ready to withstand an insane amount of damage. It zapped down at her, but luckily she was able to dodge out of the way in time. With its attention focused on her, the orcs were able to advance on the remaining ones without drawing its ire.

Unfortunately, this meant that the total focus of its rage was focused on Altariel. She gulped, and the quickly began pushing her attack. Unfortunately, it appeared to have almost no effect. Maybe if she continued to her assault for hours, the monster would finally be worn down to the ground, but that sort of time was a luxury she did not currently possess.

The creature zapped out again. This time, Altariel was not lucky enough to fully dodge out of its way and it struck her leg. Off-balance, she couldn't dodge its next attack either. She closed her eyes, expecting a rather electrifying end. However, for some reason fortune smiled upon her that day.

The being missed, instead accidently vaporizing one of its guards. Altariel lost no time in getting up and renewing her assault, vowing to be more careful next time. Thankfully, there was no need. The orcs finally pushed through the ring of lesser beasts and came to her aid. The thing could not use its wide-spread lightning field at such a close range and was overcome by all the orcs stabbing at it.

It was soon replaced by another similar monster, but without all of its grunts surrounding it, it proved to be rather ineffective. Breathing hard, Taburz looked up into the dark sky. "Well, that was fun!" he called, though by his voice it didn't sound very fun at all. Altariel looked around and saw all of the dead orcs, slain fighting IT's minions. She knew that their deaths weighed as heavily on him as the deaths back in the Shire weighed on her.

"What's next?" he continued "Do we get to face you now? Or is there some other bloody monstrous challenge for us?" he screamed into the air.

He got back another terrifying laugh, followed by another chilling statement. YES, I BELIEVE THAT NOW IT IS TIME I REVEAL MY TRUE SHAPE TO YOUR HAPPLES KIND.

At once, they were brought back to the city as it normally was. The corpses of the monsters vanished, though the orcs remained behind. A portal formed in the center of the city; a monstrous gateway into the swirling darkness of the mad realm of IT. And, out of that portal, a figure stepped.

Mermacil rode his men hard, trying to get to Faramir before the orcs back in Gorgoroth realized that they needed to seal up the passage way to Minas Ithil. Or, before they skipped that step and attacked Minas Ithil itself.

He knew it would take them at least a couple of days to make it back to the pass, based on the length of time it had taken them to reach Drakarator on foot. However, he hadn't anticipated how quickly the horses they had been given would move through the desert. These animals were made for desert travel, and galloped across Nurn faster than Mermacil would have thought possible from any living thing.

After they left the site of the battle, they were able to cover a good bit of distance. However, because they had left sometime after noon had already passed, it was definitely nowhere near a full day's travel, even with these horses. They still had quite a bit ahead of them.

The next day, on the other hand, they made excellent progress. It was growing colder, partially because they were heading north and partially, Mermacil felt, because of the influence of the lieutenant that was summoning all those orcs in the first place. Regardless, the cooler weather allowed them to travel faster in the sun, and meant that they stopped less. By the end of the second day of their journey, they had covered around half of the total distance they needed to go.

However, Mermacil could see that everyone was clearly exhausted by the day's journey, especially the horses. Unfortunately, there was no way he could easy on them the next day either. It was vital that they get back to Faramir in time, or else the battle at the Vale would have been in vain.

Thus, even though he was still feeling the pain of sitting in a saddle for the whole day, once Mermacil's body felt that he had gotten enough sleep, he woke up straightaway and made sure that everyone else had as well. The sun had only just barely begun to rise at the edge of the horizon, but that didn't bother him. Mermacil knew with every inch of his body that all that mattered was his getting the message to Minas Ithil. In the end, that was it.

Today felt even colder than the previous day, though Mermacil was no longer sure whether that was actually because of the weather or if he simply just felt that things were that way. The others did not say anything, but that was most likely because they sensed that complaining or talking about the weather would not have made an impact on him one way or another. In addition, talking wasted further energy that didn't really need to be wasted.'

Mermacil considered it a miracle that they did not encounter any scouting tribes of orcs. The last thing that he needed in this case was an attack by orcs, but it seemed as though they no longer cared about maintaining their secrecy. To be fair, it was unlikely that the Maia felt that anything posed a threat to him. As far as he knew, by the time that the might of Gondor could be rallied, he would have invaded Nurn already. Mermacil dearly hoped to prove him wrong.

Still, Mermacil considered with some distaste, there was also the chance that Haihatur simply didn't see Gondor as a threat either way. That worried him a little. Although he knew that the numbers of the orcs on Gorgoroth were vast, he hadn't really gotten a precise count. If he was off by even the smallest magnitude, it could have dire impacts on the resulting confrontation.

Eläre briefly wondered about the fate of the men fighting the battle at the Vale. She, unlike Mermacil, had been watching the fate of each one closely, and her sharp eyesight had made her more than aware of what had befallen the men on the front lines. Savaged by the initial onslaught of the orcs, which even their formations could not totally protect against, they were also hit by the second assault, and there were even some people that were unfortunate enough to be struck by the arrows.

She hoped that the people of Drakarator recovered well. She resolved to find some way to make it up to them afterwards. After all, these people had risked their lives in order to protect her and her friends, going so far as to shelter them, defeat the orcs, and speed them on their way to Gondor.

Kith'tar was buried even deeper into introspection than was normal for him. Even the most empathetic of people would have had difficulty reading his mood and guessing what he felt. Often grim and laconic by nature, being back and Nurn had not done wonders for his personality, nor had talking with the Drakatorim.

Those who were skilled in reading people and knew something of Kith'tar would have had a few guesses about what he felt. Some, undoubtedly, would have surmised that he felt reminded of the circumstances of his leaving and felt ashamed. Others would have guessed that he felt glad to be rid of Nurn, but somewhat saddened to feel that way. The especially perceptive may have thought that he was saddened to see how little both he and the land had changed. But in the end, all these conjectures were but guesses.

Lt. Samnon was troubled. He had wanted to participate in battle, but had been held in the reserves and had been sent off before anything exciting could truly happen. He couldn't help but wonder if the denying of action had been some sort of bizarre punishment for something he had done, but he couldn't think of any justification. All he knew was that he had better get some action when they went and fought the main body of the orcs.

Hannish, looking back on the days they had spent in Nurn, felt happy. Although he didn't often talk about it, he often wondered how other parts of the world fared now that Sauron had been desiccated. Deep down inside, sometimes he wondered how much the victory of the Free Peoples so many years ago had actually changed. However, it seemed that Nurn was doing much better than the elders of that region reported it had been. Of all five, Hannish was the only one truly happy with how things worked out.

At the end of the day, the team had made amazing progress towards Minas Ithil. Mermacil could see the tower of Cirith Ungol close by, perhaps only a few miles in the distance. For the first time in many hours, he spoke.

"Good work, everyone. I feel strongly that after a good rest tonight, tomorrow will be the last leg of our journey. Tomorrow, we report directly to our Lord Faramir, and sleep in our own beds"

"Thank goodness," said Eläre. Mermacil could detect real relief in her joking comment.

The others, too tired to talk, contented themselves with bedding down for the night. Each of them was too tired to even remember their dreams. Perhaps it was for the best that they didn't. With the Maia so close by, their dreams would have been on par with what Altariel experienced. Though, nowhere near as bad as what Liriel was going through.

The sun was over the horizon this time when Mermacil finally awoke. He cursed himself for his laziness and then quickly got up, rousing everyone faster than he had before. Although Mermacil was driven in spirit, there was only so much his human body, unused to field work for so long, could take.

They rode to the tower. Thankfully, the orcs had not yet thought to occupy the tower, or else Mermacil's mission may have come to a rather depressing end. As it was, Mermacil thought that the orcs may have pulled further away from the Ephel Dúath. If their intention was to hide from detection, he though grimly, they were far too late.

Before they could ascend to the level of the tower and then through the pass, they were forced to abandon their horses. Though efforts had been made in the past decades to make Cirith Ungol more inviting, many things had stopped them.

First, funding for such a project was always being diverted elsewhere. After all, the only thing the pass really was used for were projects like Mermacil's, which wasn't the largest concern of the Sceptre, except for in dire situations like this. Second, the various stairs had been carved by either ancient Gondorian craft or some skill of the Enemy, as was extremely difficult to work. Third, and most concerning, although Samwise Gamgee had wounded Shelob, no one was quite certain what had happened to her. And, no one was really very keen to find out. Thus, horses were still unable to make it through the pass.

Mermacil was somewhat concerned that the horses would be discovered by the orcs and would tip them off. However, it was more likely that the horses, being intelligent, would either find their way back to Nurn, or the orcs, being unintelligent, would misinterpret what their presence meant.

The five began the last leg of their journey, heading through what was once Shelob's lair. The passage of several decades meant that now it was at least a little wider, somewhat less covered in cobwebs, and even had a few torches stored at the entrance that could be lit by Hannish's fire kit. Through that place they passed quickly, and thankfully without incident. To say the least, today was a bad day to verify that the legends of Shelob were true.

They quickly ran down the stairs, though they had to be careful. Mermacil tried to go faster than on their way in, reasoning that it was easier to descend the stairs than to claim them. However, in truth, it was more effort-inducing to control their descent and prevent themselves from falling down the stairs, which would have been a most unfortunate end to the mission.

By the time they came to the end of the stairs, while the sun had not fully gone down, the moon and the first stars were present in the night sky. Now, all they had to do was pass through the vale and get to Minas Ithil.

That simple stretch was, by far, the hardest distance that Mermacil had walked in his entire life. It seemed so simple compared to the awful angle of the stairs, but somehow the short walk through sapped him of all energy. Maybe the awful toll of the past week had finally caught up to him. Perhaps the sadistic energies left over from when this place was still called Morgul Vale were working against him. Either way, Eläre, several times, was forced to come over and find some way to motivate him into moving once again.

The wind, which had contented itself to breezing along lightly while they struggled down the steps, now picked up to great intensity, chilling the party to the bone. Mermacil finally felt himself collapse, simply unable to pick himself up and carry on. And Eläre found that she couldn't bring herself to encourage life into him. There, they would have ended for the day, so close to their goal and yet lacking the conviction to reach it. However, fortune seemed to smile upon them.

Mermacil heard, far off as though separated by a much greater distance, the beating of horse hooves coming closer to them. "Who's there?" called a voice. Getting no response, they rode closer, shining a lamp over them.

"Blessed Valar, it's Mermacil's group!" called another man.

"Quickly, get them back to the city immediately!" called a third voice, this one a woman.

Mermacil felt himself be put on the back of a horse, though he still was not quite aware to actually participate. The next thing he was really aware of, he was in a warm room. If he had the mental strength he would have surmised that he was back in tower, but as it was he had only one concern.

"Lord Faramir…" he managed to get out. "Where?"

"I am over here, my faithful servant. It looks as though you have journeyed hard to get back here. I must admit, I am very curious to know what you have been doing to require such haste," Faramir said.

Mermacil found himself invigorated by Faramir's voice. He was able to turn his head toward that sound, and observed that he had been laid on a makeshift bed in front of a fire in one of Faramir's rooms.

"My lord, my apologies for the state of my arrival," he began.

Faramir waved him off. "Any other time, I would be a little disappointed. However, I can see that you had something of clear importance that was hard to get to me. Please, speak freely about what you need to."

Mermacil took a deep breath. Already, between the fire and Faramir's calm yet strong voice, he was beginning to return to normal. "When we came up the pass into Gorgoroth, we discovered that a massive host of orcs had gathered there. It was difficult to judge the precise amount of orcs, as they were spread across what I could see, but I would say that there were at least 100,000 of them.

"From there, we decided to figure out what those orcs were doing there before reporting back to you. Infiltrating the camp was unfortunately not possible, so we elected to head into Nurn to find what information we could. We discovered that the orcs had been summoned by a former lieutenant Maia of Sauron's named Haihatur. He had called them there in an attempt to fill the power vacuum left by Sauron.

"Unfortunately, while on the way to Nurn we attracted the attention of the orcs, who sent a small force of a few hundred after us. The Drakatorim were able to defeat them in a rather skilled battle, and then sent us on our way."

Faramir sat back, his face ashen. "That's a lot to take in," was his eventual response. But he was taking to no one. Mermacil had finally collapsed, his energy completely spent. Faramir signaled to a messenger who was standing nearby. "Elessar will want to hear of this, I am sure," he sighed.

A few days had passed since Parthekos had told the first tale of the grand mythos he planned to teach to the orcs. He had decided to not spend those next few days telling more tales, reasoning that spacing out his stories would give his audience enough time to not want to hurt him after he told each story and also possibly heighten the suspense of what came next.

In that time, he spent his mornings helping Wilazûrûzj with writing down the tales of the tribe. Some of the tales he had heard in that time were genuinely interesting and he wondered at their origin in the tribe. Some tales, he noted with great personal amusement (for he didn't dare tell Wilazûrûzj this) were clearly based on tales told in Gondor. Some were even based on elven tales.

Unfortunately, most of the tales were just really boring. Some of that had morals that didn't really apply to the orcs anymore, and hadn't applied to them in a long time. Others were based on joked that were probably old when Barad-dûr was built. Some were theoretical tragedies, but since orcs had trouble determining real life from tragedy they were ridiculously over the top. Some were just downright nonsensical.

In the evening, when he was no longer being made to copy, he spent his time writing down the stories that he was going to be reading to the entire group. He had a feeling that having it written down would come in handy, especially if something was to happen to him.

However, tonight Parthekos decided that it was time for him to tell the next story. Although he had promised to talk about the creation of the Cælestis, he had remembered a story that he considered a little more interesting, even if it meant jumping around a little in the chronology. He opened the same way he had the night before: banging two platters together. Once he felt that a significant amount of attention had been garnered from the orcs, he began.

When the universe was first created, life was extraordinarily dangerous. Zau would try to make life flourish everywhere she could, but it was usually destroyed in some struggle between M'lat and N'zogu. Heizdi began feeling overworked, and though she usually opposed Zau in everything she did, for once she felt that something needed to be done.

At first, she tried to meet with N'zogu, hoping that he would see reason and that his constant warring was doing as much harm as good. However, N'zogu was nothing if set into routine, and refused to believe that any more Life would come from deviating from his path. In vain, she tried to convince him that Chaos did not need to be battled everywhere, but she failed. Even one of his one of his few children could not move him.

Next, both Heizdi and Zau went to Dupri to see if she could broker some sort of compromise. However, Dupri told them that if she tried to prevent them from fighting, it would definitely imbalance the delicate system that had been created by Croqi, and that was not something that Dupri intended to mess with. Also, it would probably result in just as much death.

The best that Dupri could offer was to attempt a compromise with M'lat. However, M'lat had, over the course of the eons in which the gods fought, grown more erratic. While N'zogu had grown more set in his ways, M'lat had become steadily less stable (and there's a greater reason for this, but that is something to worry about later). He refused to listen to Dupri, and in fact may not have been able to understand her at all in the first place.

Heizdi was now rather upset. She was the most powerful of all primordials, to the point that all the other gods, even the Timely Ones, had reason to fear her. However, in this struggle she felt powerless. The stress of her role weighs heavily upon Heizdi at all times, which is why she does not always react rationally and can be prone to outbursts. It is dangerous work, being a priest of Heizdi.

Heizdi had her first famous breakdown as a part of this tale. Made so despondent by her failure to reach a solution, she drifted through the vastness of Dupri, no longer caring to work against Zau. As you can imagine, the fact that Death had decided to depart caused many problems, especially for N'zogu.

Although Zau's creations were being destroyed in the many battles of the universe, without someone there to take their soul, the spirits of the dead would linger on long past their proper times. These ghosts soon became a large problem, as they spread with no control over them, inhabiting world after world.

Now, Heizdi did not entirely abandon her care of the dead. In the end, she was a daughter of Order and could not so easily abandon its strictures. In the end, this was not good for her though. Her break down caused her most lawful part to split from her, in a most painful schism. The entire universe still reverberates from her sobs.

The part of her that split off became their own god, Idruz, the god of ghosts. Owing to them, Heizdi herself is no longer quite as powerful as she used to be. However, when she and Idruz team together, there are few who can actually stop them. Idruz was the first of the Ancients, that third generation of gods, and is generally accorded with the most respect, even if not the most power.

Idruz gave the ghosts order and control, but there was only so much that they could do. In the end, the very existence of ghosts was a problem in most cases, and all of the gods, even the crazed M'lat and the solid N'zogu, agreed that a solution must be reached. Zau, remembering that this was in part the fault of how Heizdi had tried to help her, was the most invested in reaching a solution.

Meanwhile, in addition to neglecting her duty, Heizdi was also disrupting an important part of the balancing act between order and chaos. Besides the fact that she had an individual duty as a goddess to perform a job, she was also a valuable lieutenant in the fight against M'lat. During ordinary times, she was fierce rivals with Rizif, the goddess of mystery, and bitter enemies of Bedao, the god of passion. However, in her absence these two were able to do largely as they pleased, causing greater problems.

Further, Heizdi had always been a dangerous goddess to be around. And now, broken by her failure, hurt by the loss of Idruz, and generally uncaring, she cared not for those in her path. Everywhere she wandered was either rent apart by the deadly rage that followed in her path, or consumed in the same madness she bore. Ironically, she could not have opposed her original cause in a greater fashion.

Now, some context must be given. At this point in history, our comfortable little world did not yet exist. Azao, Latao, and Sermri, gods of the sun, moon, and earth respectively, at this time represented every sun and moon and every planet that exists within Dupri. Thus, it was that they did not have the special hosts they would one day be given and were, for now, content still to wonder about the universe (but that is, alas, a story for another day).

At this time, with Heizdi incapacitated, the Timely Ones, as usual unwilling to act, and Croqi having retreated back to the shadow after having created the Cælestis, those same Cælestis were the most powerful option left to Zau and the other gods. As neutral entities, they were the most able to intervene without compromising the Great Balance. Azao and Latao agreed to try to bring reason back to Heizdi.

Finding her was easy enough; following the trail of despair was a simple task for anyone, let alone a god. However, actually talking to Heizdi proved to be more of a challenge. First, getting her attention proved to be a problem. She, still grieving, was so introspective that the gods found themselves unable to commune with her. That left the option of entering into the aura of destruction and madness that surrounded her to directly speak.

The Cælestis experienced an unusual feeling as they entered the aura: fear. The forces about Heizdi were far more powerful than they had been expecting. They were assaulted down to their core, battered by what would feel like a physical gale as well as the overwhelming depression of Heizdi's mind. It took all of their strength to protect themselves and not break.

Finally, they got through the swirling maelstrom and approached Heizdi directly. However, Heizdi was not rather enthused to see them. At this point in time, the gods would still fight physical battles directly, rather than relying on intermediaries or confining their fights to the mental realm. Each god had their own particular weapon that they would wield in these confrontations.

As you can well imagine, Heizdi wielded a scythe. The minute that Azao and Latao approached her, her scythe materialized and she swung at them. Latao luckily reacted in time, blocking the attack with her ranseur, or else the world we live in might be a rather different one. Imagine this place with no Sun or Moon; it's not easy is it?

Azao then made his flamberge and quickly counterattacked. At first, Latao and he attacked only to subdue Heizdi, but soon they were fighting for their lives. Between the fact that Heizdi had no such compunction over taking their lives, and that they were forced to devote a significant amount of energy to ward off the attack of the dark energies of Heizdi, they simply could not afford to spend the extra effort of attacking to not kill.

At this time, no god had ever died, nor indeed had a god ever killed another god. It was uncertain to all except save for, perhaps, Croqi what the consequences of such a calamitous action would be. The devastation wrecked by Heizdi's abandonment of her post was awful enough, no one wished to imagine what would happen if she was killed. Would something come to replace her? Would another god come to replace her? Or would their problems only become permanent?

The three battling gods fought long and at great length. However, no matter how they tried, Azao and Latao could not gain the upper hand over Heizdi. Though this has since changed, her power was individually greater than either of them, and together they were barely enough for her and her madness. After what seemed to be an eternity of struggle, the two gods were forced to pull back. They could no longer keep out the madness, and there was no way they could ever risk being lost to it. The effect of losing the three most powerful of the primordials would possibly have doomed all of creation.

The Cælestis realized that in the end, there was only one way to resolve this conflict. Utilizing a last-resort ability that Croqi had given them when they were created, they summoned all of the gods. Even Croqi herself, had been see but once since the creation of the Timely Ones, was dragged away from her slumber to attend this great godsmoot.

Croqi was greatly angered to be forced to intervene, and quickly forced a solution down upon the other gods. Through some great ability of hers, she created two new goddesses from nothingness. These goddess were Junian, the goddess of age, and Luoyan, the goddess of control.

To Junian was given the task of defending Zau and all of life. She was forever commanded to, whenever a fight would break out that put lives in danger, to intervene and do what she could to prevent unnecessary death. She also was responsible for slowly leading living beings from Zau to Heizdi and, when they actually died, to ferry them into Heizdi's realm. She served as an intermediary for those two, who never got along quite as well as they used to.

Luoyan had only one job: to prevent something like what happened to Heizdi from ever occurring again. She would shadow the other gods and actively work to prevent them from breaking down in the same way. Owing to the fact that she does her best to know everything about the mental state of all the gods, she is opposed by Rizif and Tyriq.

The first thing that Luoyan did was to approach Heizdi and force her back to sanity. Although no one is quite sure how she did it, owing to the massive differences in power between the two goddess, somehow Luoyan succeeded and restored the world to normal.

Before receding back into the darkness, aware of what had almost happened in the three-way confrontation between Azao, Latao, and Heizdi, Croqi laid down some rules regarding what would happen if a god killed another god. She said that a new god would appear to replace the old god, but there would be differences between those gods, although they ruled over the same domains. She also declared that anyone found guilty of murdering another god would be subjected to a punishment, but she was not more specific than that.

Lastly, before hiding away again, Croqi left behind something so that the law she had declared would be followed. She said that the job of the thing was to enforce the laws she made and that these laws were applicable to all. Although technically not a god, it was given the name Gouji and is considered a part of the pantheon.

And so, in the end, four new gods were created, Heizdi was returned to normal, and Croqi briefly returned to arbitrate over the gods for one of the last times in the life of this universe.

This time, after he had finished, Parthekos had more orcs that had stayed throughout the entirety of his lecture, and even a few that were showing quite a large amount of attention considering that they were orcs. When all the other orcs had gotten up and left, undoubtedly to take care of business before retiring to bed, five orcs stayed behind, as well as Bolozji, the young orc who had spoken with him the last time he talked.

The six orcs were all rather young; they must have been in their twenties at best. From what he recalled of the various roles of orcs in the camp, they all came from different jobs within the camp, which was a rather interesting statistic. The orcs bombarded him with questions about various gods, laws of the universe, and about a few hints for other stories that Parthekos had left. He didn't say anything, overwhelmed and a little amused by the attention that they were giving him.

Finally, however, he grew a little tired of their nonstop nonsense and held up a hand. "Do not worry. All your questions will eventually be answered, one way or another. The most important thing right now is that you understand that patience is a virtue. Now, tell me your names, and who you are, so that I do not forget my first converts." He spoke softly, but within he was withholding a little irritation.

"I am Drazgat," one of the men said. "I work under the shaman Azinologa."

Parthekos stiffened slightly, surprised that one who followed shamanistic teachings would listen to him. He resolved to talk to Azinologa at a later date.

"I'm Wornuzj," the other man said. "I am one of the warriors that guard the borders."

"I'm Silizj and she's Akrûz," a girl said, pointing to a rather similar looking orc. "We're twins," she explained helpfully. "We both work with the apothecaries."

"I am Brakdug," said the last one, another girl. "I'm the oldest of us," she added proudly. "I'm not often here, because I work as a conduit with the other clans."

Parthekos nodded. "Thank you for telling me. I plan to tell another story tomorrow, so be prepared for then." Without sticking around to see their response, Parthekos walked back to his tent, resolving to write some more stories down.