Xolatoyac's Smile
Author's Note: Enjoy the story and R&R.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything related to or of Magic: The Gathering.
Summary:
Drown with a smile.
Remember that weird salamander thing we found in the jungle stream? I think we just met its god.
—Carella, quartermaster of the Windshark, recovered log fragment
…
Remember that weird salamander wurm-thing we met in the cave that we thought was the god of the weird salamander thing we found in the jungle stream? Yes, we just met its god!
—Carella, quartermaster of the Windshark, restored log fragment, water-damaged
Descend further down until you've reached a fathomless descent into the world-within-the-world. Through cavernous maws and echoing deeps. Through hidden lands forgotten and volatile. Courtyard. Cataract. Necropolis. Volcano. Nursery.
Behind the Great Door, Matzalantli. The golden gates into the staggering vastness of the Core.
When you glimpse the Core, you are struck by what you discover. You have followed the map on the winds guiding you to your entrance via temple or cenote. Explored the lost caverns of Ixalan, adventuring twists and turns sinuous as a river.
The tools you've crafted chart your ascent to archaeomancer while you descend.
You are in the presence of ages. A grand heritage below Ixalan's surface. A paradise inside a broken world, whose story is tracked on The Millennium Calendar.
Whose because it is a living, breathing thing.
Whose because it is a living ancestor.
The Millennium Calendar crackles with cosmium. The cycles end on an end date: doomsday. Or rather doomsdays.
The fall of civilizations.
A star of extinction.
Invasion.
Invasions.
Giants. The Fomori.
Something different entirely. Fountains…of ichor sworn to be probably nothing.
Malicious eclipses.
Floods.
The Deep Gods reside here. One, a usurper. The Betrayer, shunned like the sun he shunned.
The story of Ixalan is a worn tapestry of stories. Of sunlight sought and suns stolen. Inner. Immortal.
War waged around the Riven Star.
Struggle for control of true eternal life, national identity, riches, and a useless sphinx's riddle.
Xolatoyac swims here. Ancient glyphs attached to his dermis. Symbols – a language – braided together like a net into a quipu of zoetic writings.
The floodwaters rise. They are Xolatoyac himself, smiling with a frilled, pink face. The same twists and turns you took to get here, sinuous as a river.
Stacks of little (but big) hands.
You choke, in stasis. Out of air.
Unnatural rain is churned by distortions in the waves. Fountains of water quicken, plunging the city under.
You'd walk over islands to experience his vivid joy.
He accords you your wish.
Die happy. Drown with a smile.
Crushed by the Smiling Flood.