Relaquence and the Isles of Taerys

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Within the historic borders of Ish-Gahn, two elvan races have stood the test of time to remain in their homeland while a great many of their kin have expanded to call other parts of the diverse realm home. Among an estranged peace, they respect one another’s presence and revere their respective gods as fellow worshipers of both Angehlah and Siesmet, just in varying capacities. While the, as they see themselves, more refined and civilized high elves, worship the Dragon Goddess of Sentience Angehlah primarily, the free-spirited and rugged wood elves serve the Creation Goddess of Life and Nature, Siesmet. However, no amount of shared devotion to either of these deities could bridge the philosophical gaps drawn between these two peoples.

Early after the days of the Gift of Sentience, the wood elves flocked like crows to the Feathered Forest, west of the Life Glade and along the continent's northern coast to an area known as the Bordering Wood. It was here that these wild-hearted individuals explored, hunted, and lived hedonistic lives of passion, reveling in all the newfound wonders that came with the Gift. Thanks to this ambitious nature, Goddesses ascended from their people, representing vastly different ideals. Of these Goddesses, one still holds a great deal of almost fanatical worship among the wood elves of Ish-Gahn. She being The Huntress, Goddess of the Hunt, and Her devotion to the realm, and that of Her followers to Her, can not be questioned in the slightest.

Her ascension, gruesome, warranted, and expeditious as it was, was simple and not nearly as intricate as the focus of this tale, but is still a fascinating and pertinent subject for Rhyonis' history. In all truth, The Huntress was a renowned hunter who led accomplished hunting packs against corrupt forces opposed to the natural order of life and, most significantly, into battle against usurpers of the sacred Life Glade. Her influence has led to a militant sect of devotee warriors, mainly wood elves, known as the Murder Elves within the Feathered Forest that follow Her teachings to a tee and uphold the balance of the natural order. Their macabre lifestyle is the biggest wedge between the elven peoples of Ish-Gahn, though it was another wood elf maiden’s ascension to godhood that saw to the rise of a whole new culture apart from this elvan dichotomy.

This ascension, though more gradual, peaceful, and, arguably, impactful, presented new ways of thinking that would see countless flee Ish-Gahn, an affront and great disrespect to Angehlah, in the minds of Her most devoted servants. Plenty of the First People had wandered, seeing and hearing things they hadn't the ability to understand before the Gift, but this migration was almost heretical in the eyes of the high elves that believed the further one tread from Angehlah, the less reverence they had for Her. For the most part, this would see these wandering individuals come to an early and tragic demise as the world unfolded before them, but this was not the fate for all. A spare few would find safety, by sheer luck or the hands of the Creation Gods, exploring aimlessly, unharmed, until they found their purpose.

One curious soul managed to wander, without aid, without harm, and walk paths that even the wildly capable and intelligent dragons would dare not tread. A small wood elf girl, with deep sun-kissed skin, and long flowing pastel pink hair, traversed the world, almost assured in the mindless state she shared with the rest of the First People. Born directly from the Life Glade a hundred years before the Gift of Sentience, she would venture forth and take in all she could without a single ounce of awareness. Relaquence, was her name and she would find herself on the cusp of the greatest intellectual revolution to advance the realm of Rhyonis and she would pave the way for an entire society and varied ways of life to bloom forth as she did from the Life Glade. Though she had no Sentience of her own initially, there was an innate wisdom that spoke to her, an energy, a force, that drove her in a direction away from the Life Glade and the rest of the people to come in her wake.

Relaquence wandered for nearly three centuries, evading all the dangers that befell the world around her. Escaping sickness, assailants, natural disasters, wars, and all that could detract her from her path, all thanks to this guiding energy. Her path would see her walk all of Ish-Gahn and Qarte and even Theurgius before following the guidance back to the Life Glade where her story, and the rest of the realm's, began.

By the time her trek had found her return to her homeland, Angehlah had instilled the Gift of Sentience within the First People, and Relaquence began to contemplate and ponder all she had seen on her path. She grew curious of the force that had been within her this entire time, aware of it all along, but now consciously so. What was it? What did it want her to do? What was she for that matter? She'd not spoken a word, for all the life she'd lived, not a letter had left her lips, but now, all these words came to her mind and she knew not how to use them, but she thought them, ceaselessly, with each step. What? What? What?

The wind stirred her robes and soil painted the soles of her feet, hardened and calloused, as she stepped against the breeze. New words met her ears, real ones, from others, and not just the questions trapped within her mind though, still, she uttered nothing but thought everything. The greetings of calling forces would draw her across the land to lay just behind the billowing leaves of purple, silver, and green willow trees she'd found herself before. All Relaquence needed to do was continue those steps, continue thinking those questions, and, someday, she'd have answers. The force had guided her this far and she knew no reason to fight against it now.

At this forested crux of willow trees and wonder, the words melted into laughter, cackles, giggles, whispers, and then nothing but the wind rustling the needle-like leaves. Certain she had crossed the paths of others she would pose her questions to in these woods, with or without words, Relaquence found herself alone, but surrounded by the sounds she felt so compelled to be among. Here, hundreds of willows stood around her, dancing, waving their hand leaves in her direction to beckon her near them, all with a voice, a thought, a laughter all their own in the stirring breeze. She thought the word again, what, but there was no response apart from the ethereal giggles on the wind.

There was nothing but the energy within, the guiding force she had known her whole life, stirring those words like the rushing air in these willows. For the first time, certain the energy had finally led her astray and towards nothing, she thought to go against, to follow her own thoughts, to seek out someone to ask her Whats.

Closer. Another word caught her ear, or was this another she would ponder and pose a passer-by? She began to question and doubt, she had never felt such things before, and they stirred in her gut as these words swam through her mind; prickling, angry bees of static stinging letters. All the time she'd lived, with and without Sentience, she'd followed this pull without question, but now that she had this mental cognizance, it seemed to lead her further from answers and more towards confusion. Come on, closer.

The words were certainly not her own. They sounded different, older and colder, from something else within, apart from the guidance she had known so long that would buzz and convulsive in her thoughts. The more these words came to her, the more she focused on them, and less the guide in her core, the harder it fought within her, pulling more dire, more urgent, like a demand instead of the suggestions it had always given.

Relaquence fought against herself, all she was; the mind, the body, the pull, the words, the questions. She fought for an agency she never knew and could feel the energy combating every urge and compulsion she made. Her sense of self began to reel and her body was at war with itself among the Whispering Willows around her. These trees of weaving leaves spun and slapped down with vigorous intent as she reeled, howling in defiance until everything was silent.

The force within was gone. The words had stopped. The whispering hushed. The wind died. The questions were silenced. It was just Relaquence, by herself as she had always been, but for the first time, alone, collapsed and shouting above the sudden stillness.

With no warning, a violent bursting emergence from nothing, chaos, and terror rocked her mind and will with an insurmountable screaming pain. It was a roaring static that felt like a million forces losing blood-curdling wails of agony. She clutched her temples, yelled in protest against the pain, and tried all she could to drown out the searing spike radiating a psychic poison through her soul. She buckled, fell to a knee, then both, screaming all the while her face fell into the mud pools filling the forest floor, threatening to consume her if the growing tear in her throat didn't first.

An unknowable amount of time passed by Relaquence in this near fugue state of agonizing torment. She remained conscious through all of it, the howls threatening to rob her of sanity, as the rain fell harder and colder through the boughs of the Willows. Brackish water, multicolored leaves, and thick freezing mud rolled over her slight form like the muscles of a stomach breaking down and digesting her as a meal for the land. In this state, she wailed and twitched to resisted, her will proving to be far greater than this mysterious and devastating power.

After all she had left was the new thoughts of forfeit and submission and what would be of her fate, Relaquence felt the smallest heat of a distant light roll across her cheek, burning away the tears she shed. This light broiled with an all-encompassing vibrancy that swelled from somewhere beyond the Whispering Willows. As if it were a brush against a canvas, it painted unseen creatures into existence around her that, from her vantage, kneeled over her; their pale, fleshy, horrific visages twisted and sneered inches away, where she had seen naught before.

Ashen and smokey, ephemeral-like ghosts but solid enough to pin her fast, these creatures, nine in total, bore their deep purple claws into her temples, bucked their royal horns skyward, and poured their vaporous forms into her mind. She screamed at the terror and pain as they maniacally roared and cheered in triumph, coming to the victory of a one-sided battle. Atop the sheer fright, fighting for her focus, it felt like her very essence and consciousness were drawn out by the raucous chorus of her assailants'. The light was at once searing them, burning their blackened bodies into smoldering dust and driving them out of her mind, instantly calmed and soothed in the light that bathed her in a sense of safety.

Everything was over so quickly, but intensely traumatic to make it feel like an eternity. Whatever those creatures were, they were born into creation and destroyed all in a matter of moments, before her eyes, by the light. As abruptly as it exploded to brighten the whole of the Whispering Willows, it condensed to exist as a bead in a small space, just within reach of the exhausted elf and, once again, she felt the pull from within.

Illumination and Enlightenment will cast out the darkness of Madness, one must simply shine.

The words spoke in several, overlapping, radiating voices that reverberated a reality-warping sound, sending coiling shockwaves over the exhausted elf. Each syllable shook the realm as a whole and Relaquence pulled her chest to her knees; her palms planted firmly against her ears to keep what sense remained within.

Your intuition has led you this far, to this point, to face the prelude of a greater, looming threat. Seeds of a different time are emerging, planted within the foundation of the realm.

The words faded, echoing through the willows as the light recoiled to a single speck, for which she reached, her long petal pink hair twisted through her fingers like water tinged with blood. For all Relaquence had seen on her nomadic wanderings, for all she had experienced, nothing could compare to the crest and trough of tribulations she had just endured. This drop of light, lingering in the air, pulsed and beckoned to be embraced with the most ecstatic and joyous energy she'd ever known. She could feel it calling to her, and, somehow, she could feel that all would be right if she simply took it.

A stirring breeze, potentially the will of Lady Siesmet on the wind, swirled beneath her palm, lifting it, driving it forward to grasp the bead, and, as she did, the light fused with her. Without her volition or restraint, her body began to move on its own in a flurry of movements that struck against the leaves on the wind, casting them skyward. Her eyes closed like wilting petals and she stepped upon each falling crescent, climbing into the dour canopy of the Whispering Willows. Though her eyes shut and she made no movements herself, the light she now possessed guided her higher and higher until she found herself, awakened.

Several thousand yards away, also now floating above the Willows, new creatures like those who attacked her collected in a swarm of an untold number, writhing and screaming in a congealed ooze of flesh and horn.

These monsters were now cast in a light themselves. These once dark and shadowy purple and black flames, seemingly drained the willows of their vibrance as they too were stolen of their essence. Despite this force, Relaquence was unafraid as she knew that if she listened to her pulling sense, as she always had, she would continue on the path that led her here, and would continue to do so afterward. Instinctively, she opened her eyes and what once were bright blue irises of a knowing yet youthful face, now shone divine golden light, casting a dawn-like radiance over the night-fallen forest.

Your body will fight back this incursion while your will communes. It is time we speak, Relaquence.

Relaquence, the nomadic, pink-haired maiden, blinked twice against the forceful light battering her eyes. It was white, searing like flame, yet soothing as fresh spring rain. It was like the light of a new spring morning, it felt omnipresent, though nonexistent. She was in a haze, finding her surroundings to come into clarity as she grew accustomed to the intensity of all that was.

Roaring with the brilliance of ten million hearths, walls of luminous white flames crawled across the floor and ceiling. All this chaos blazed around her, yet it was calm and silent, more at peace than even the deepest slumber. Before her, set at the center of this strange dimensionless space encapsulated in fire, was a prismatic throne with rays of rainbow light casting a solid prism-like halo upon the throne's charge.

"Dear child, Relaquence." The throne sitter spoke in a voice that started as several before unifying into one. As if part of an innate understanding, she knew who she was being addressed by without asking or confirmation and kneeled before them as the voice became several.

Simply waving His hand, St. Nihaan, the Creation God of Light and Familial Devotion, summoned flaming aspects of three members of His family that addressed her as one. "Welcome to Balasar."

Relaquence couldn't bring herself to speak or look up by the sheer magnitude of her addressers; the Creation Gods. All of them but one stood before this lone mortal who set out from the Feathered Forest as a precocious child, and now faced four of the creators of the realm after hundreds of years of wandering as an awestruck woman.

"I am unworthy." They were a mere three words, but took the concerted effort of a full speech, in Their presence.

"We have called to you for who you are. You are not who you are because we called to you, know this, first and foremost, Ascending One." The central entity, radiant as the chamber itself, cast His words over her. He, nor His companions, made a move, but the immense pressure and power of St. Nihaan's force alone buckled her knees. "Even now, your will here, your body is eradicating one of the greatest forces to taint our creation."

St. Nihaan gestured to the three looming projections of power Relaquence knew to be the other Creation Gods; Siesmet, Malirica, and Alaxendaria. Though their appearances were blurred and abstract, their presence exuded an unmistakably, devastating essence like the gravity of several colossal stars threatening to consume one another.

"There are Remnants of Power, shattered remains of a fallen realm, emerging within Rhyonis; seeds of darkness from another Time have come to fruition and I'm sorry to say there is little we can do to confront the fruits of their growth. They threaten to send all of Rhyonis back into the darkened place of disorder and turmoil it was before the Gift of Sentience. There is a time and place for all things, Malirica has seen to that, but what none of even us could account for were these Remnants and the machinations they have begun to conspire to create. Reality and the Fixed Moment Timeline are in danger due to these uncertainties, and we have called you to inform you of your fated purpose.

"You'll have noticed our companion Kyah is not here. We Creation Gods cannot exist on the physical realm, lest we threaten to destroy it. As you may know, we all exist within our own Domain Realms, alongside, yet apart from, the Rhyonis in which you live. My realm being Balasar, where we find ourselves now, illuminates and warms the realm, but even its power is limited and must rest in the face of these dangers. Kyah's is deep beneath the Continental Sea where I have sealed Him, for the safety of the whole realm. I, heavy-heartedly, must tell you, my Rhyona, that your intuition will carry you across the sea, nearer the Abyssal Trench than I hope any may need tread. You have a force within you, an insight empowered by a tranquil, calm mind to guide you down the proper path. It will all become clear, in Time, and you will be the one to deliver countless to peace of clarity and understanding, as we could not. It is through this inner light that one can quell the chaos of madness and free themselves of the nightmares of uncertainty and darkness. Though you may not understand this, it is a greater gift than even that of Sentience. This energy is known as Ki and you alone will be able to harness it to its fullest potential."

The Father of the Realm waved a hand before her, eclipsing as it was, even His smallest finger twice her size, intensifying the light that seared the sight from her eyes, for but a moment. As she blinked, Relaquence awoke once more, levitating in a meditative position over the boughs of the Whispering Willows. Wispy tendrils of fading essence traced the air along the breeze that swept through the radiant pitons of dawn's first light and cast ashen remains through her floating petal-like hair.

She had no way of knowing just what she had done here, or that her meditative communion with the Creation Gods spanned a century. All that time, above the Whispering Willows as she was now, Relaquence had fought back countless of the fiendish hatchling remnants from the darkness the Gods spoke of. Not only that but as she felt a power unlike any she had known before, she ascended to the level of godhood herself. Descending on the leaves to the soft earth of the realm she once walked as Relaquence the Nomad; She now stood as Relaquence, the Goddess of Tranquility.

All the years She had wandered the realm, following the ethereal voice within Her like a compass rose, had been meant to deliver Her to this very moment. After all that time, She now walked as one with the intuition, falling into step just before it, where She used to always be three steps behind and She knew She had found Her purpose.

In tandem, with the newfound godly power pulsing through Her body, Relaquence crossed the surface of the Continental Sea to a sequestered archipelago, waves parting to fall at Her feet. Her path would see Her leave from Ish-Gahn's prismatic shore, the Sands of St. Nihaan, fragmented remains of the Day of Broken Light in which Balasar was created, and traverse the tumultuous crests of the Sea that wanted nothing but to destroy Her.

Though a deity Herself now, Kyah's rage beneath the waters proved a hardy task for the newly risen goddess. The trek was long and arduous, but roughly a full season spent crest-treading delivered Relaquence onto the first Isle of Taerys. This name came to Her by the voice of the intuition, or Ki, She had come to know it. This Energy was similar to that of Life Essence, which all living things also possess, but certain individuals could harness it through meditation. Her Ki, a Remnant of Power itself, began to speak to Her as an inner voice, a secondary Wisdom comparable to that of the Creation Gods, left by the Sun Seed She grasped, to aide in Her Divine Journey.

The Isles of Taerys, She would come to learn, were left by the Creation Gods, unspoiled by humanoid and draconic creatures, as a safe haven for animals and several magical creatures. Kyah's torrents inadvertently made it so that the Isles were completely inaccessible unless guided by an Essence greater than His own. Ki was the secret to circumventing the Sea's fury, and, as Relaquence would oversee from the central Isle of Taerys, those meant, and fit, to come to call the Isles home, would.

Relaquence's Tower formed itself directly from the small, circular landmass She would name the Isle of Relaquence that pulled in the other Isles like a neutron. The goddess only placed a toe upon the land and Her Ki manifested a one-hundred-story tower comprised of pure deific Life Essence and Ki Energy. It was from the peak of this tower that Relaquence would open Her perception to the entirety of the realm. Like a lighthouse, it pulsed, calling to the various blips of meditative focus resulting in concentrated Ki Energy across the world. From there, She would find these collectives in small monasteries that had already begun to tap into their Ki, calling to them and connecting their energy through the powerful bond between the scattered fragments of the Remnant of Power that was Ki within.

The Ki Energy of those that came to these monasteries spoke to them of the Nirvanist, the Goddess of Tranquility, who would come to teach them the ultimate secrets of Ki and achieve clarity among total tranquility, peace, and enlightenment. Each collective She addressed would prove their mastery over Ki and their ability to conquer the Seeds of Darkness were they to come to fruition. This was the course She took over the next century, traveling the realm in various guises to amass a force of Ki Warriors that would be the defense of Sentience and Tranquility.

In total, Relaquence aided in the founding of eight Great Monasteries apart from Her Tower of Relaquence that stands at their center. The scant archipelago that was Taerys in the earliest days of its founding consisted of only five islands. Those islands being Relaquence's central isle Relaquence, Conflux, Kilos, Vodin, and Oren. These original four lands would become home to the first four styles She assisted in mastering; The Four Elements with the Temple of Rising Tides, Open Hand with the Temple of the Candle Crane, Kensai with the Temple of the Steel Mantis, and Shadow with the Temple of the Slumberloom respectively. She saw it fit that each style had its own land to practice its style in seclusion to perfect it to the utmost degree. This shortage of islands became an issue for the goddess who welcomed more and more Ki Warriors, or monks, to Her ilk.

As vast and vibrant as the channelers of this Energy, so too did It take on just as many vast and vibrant styles. Since the founding of the original four monasteries across the islands that existed naturally, Relaquence would manifest new isles into existence with the power of Her Deific Life Essence and Ki Energy. Four new lands and four new traditions have formed monasteries with the guidance of Relaquence. Like an expectant mother, the goddess birthed the islands and fostered the new ideals Her children breathed into existence across these lands.

The Isle of Alax is home to the Temple of the Stone Stealers who practice the Long Death. The Isle of Alery boasts distilleries as well as monasteries that all serve the Temple of Cinnamon and perform the Drunken Fist. The Isle of Avias teaches the Way of the Falcon from their mountainous peaks and the Temple of the Rookery. Lastly, and most recently, after the disappearance of Frey-Uum, the God of Cleansing Fire, the Isle of Louke was created for the Temple of the Radiant Dragon and proudly practices the Sun Soul.

Across the shattered tethers of the Fixed Moment Timeline, post Malirica's Destruction, Relaquence has seen countless different forms of Ki Channeling, and just as many monasteries rise and fall either by their glory or the brilliance of another. These eight are the only ones to have remained connected to Her central Isle, though the hands and eyes of different masters would mold and see them rise across different timelines, in different lands. When new Isles and Monasteries do manifest and connect to the Fixed Moment Timeline, Relaquence welcomes them with open arms and ushers them into the centennial cyclical training She undergoes with all of Her disciples in Her Tower. This is a rare occurrence, but She gladdens when it does and the monks are empowered by Her joy.

Once every one hundred years, on the anniversary of Her Ascension, She welcomes the Grandmasters from each Isle to bring their two students with the most potential, for the opportunity to ascend to the level of Grandmaster themself. Through rigorous training in which only one of the candidates typically survives, Relaquence determines the most worthy successor of their Temple's highest title, as well as Her sacred Ki Channeling ability; Ki Weaving. It is only through this training or mastering all styles of Ki Channeling, that someone can obtain this power and it is coveted by all those who carry a refined Ki essence within them.

Despite the significance and consistency of this cycle, Relaquence has never disclosed its purpose, even to Her most long-lived and devoted Grandmasters. For in truth, She knew not of when their Time would come, but someday, the balance of Sentience and Order would be threatened by the remaining Remnants of Power. It was fated to Her, and Her children across the Isles of Taerys, to be a bastion of Tranquility when Rhyonis would face untold pandemonium.

Want to keep reading? Click here for Session Nine: The Wardens of Kyah!

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