The last words of Thelonius the Scribe - Part II (en anglais)

The Age of the Ancients – Meirothea (~350 to ~500)

As we emerged from the dying echoes of Paradise, we were little more than wanderers, mute and directionless, stumbling through a world of frightening wonder. The waters had receded and so had our innocence. Where once only summer reigned, the world had changed. The sun no longer lingered forever in the sky. Night had come, and in the fulfillment of time, Winter. Not as punishment, but as a reflection of our loss.

Yet we found that Winter carries grace.

It was then that the Divine, in Their mercy, sent Meirothea, a Second Redeemer. A Cherubim of flowing voice and luminous form, she descended and taught us how to endure the cold, the silence, the night. She gave us language that we might name what we feared. She gave us song, to remember what we loved. And she gave us symbols, to preserve what we learned. From her gifts came memory.

Before her arrival, we possessed no speech, no stories, no ability to shape thought into legacy. With her gifts, we crossed the threshold from survival to culture. And the world itself seemed to reply. Forests echoed with chant, rivers whispered with verse, and it is said that in her presence vines would grow, curling toward her voice like flowers to sunlight.

The birds, too, came in her time, or returned. Some say they were not born here, but slipped through from the old worlds of Heaven and Fay, drawn by the sound of Meirothea’s voice. They circled above her and nested near her glades, reminders of the divine chorus no longer allowed to walk the earth. Their songs, in her shadow, became sacred.

Her sanctuaries were not of stone, but of earth and moonlight, waterfalls, twilight glades and caves, where by the fire, reflections danced to ancient rhythms.

But as ever, light draws shadow.

Moloch, born of Wrath and shaped by divine fury, rose from the deep wilds to oppose her. His beasts tore at what she nurtured. A war began, unseen by most, but felt in the shivers of the wind and by growls in the dark. But Meirothea did not fight alone. Beside her stood our ancestors, the first to wield magic through dance and voice. And beside them walked beings older still, strange, luminous, half-remembered. We would later call them the Fay.

Also the wolves abandoned the wild and were drawn to her. Under her gaze they howled not in rage, but in reverence. They became her silent allies, not servants, but spirits of understanding and strength.

To guide us through the darkness, Meirothea placed the Moon into the sky. Legends speak of her tearing a silvered slab from the mountains of Gallia, raising it into the heavens not only as a lantern, but as a mirror, to reflect what must be seen. Beneath its light, the beasts of Wrath were unmasked. And ever since, those twisted by fury can no longer hide under its glow.

Winter returned each year, but under Meirothea it was given meaning. It became a season of reflection, a time to remember and prepare, not to mourn. Death was no longer a void. It became a passage, and memory its light.

But not all sought remembrance.

Lucifer and Leviathan, spirits of Pride and Envy, moved in secret. They sought not to destroy Meirothea, but to turn her. What happened remains debated even among the wise. Some say Pride nearly tempted her to abandon her path. Others say Envy struck first to prevent a defection. What is certain is this: both were cast back into the abyss, and Meirothea, wounded in spirit, returned to the heavens.

She left behind no temple, no crown, no empire.

She left the Moon. She left Stories and Songs. And through them, we remember her.

By every winter fire, in every sacred song, her presence lingers. The Moon still watches. And beneath its glow, we are not haunted by the darkness, but reminded of the one who first taught us how to walk through it.

—Thelonius the Scribe

The Age of the Ancients – Demira (876 to ~1050)

In the centuries that followed Meirothea’s departure, humanity did not fall into silence again. Her precious gifts endured.

With speech, we named the rivers and skies. With song, we remembered. And with symbols, we began to mark time and events. Our people wandered still, but no longer as beasts. We tamed the wilds in small ways. We learned to track, to gather, to hunt with intention rather than desperation. The first sages appeared, those who spoke to the wind and fire. In caves and on stones, we carved our thoughts, painted our stories. The first druids enlightened the glades, and the first shamans listened to the stars.

Yet knowledge alone could not feed the hungry and memory would not warm a child.

So the Divine, in Their endless mercy, sent us Demira, the Third Redeemer.

Where Meirothea had given voice to the soul, Demira gave strength to the body and gentleness to the hand. She came not with radiance or spectacle, but with seeds, with tools, and with care. She walked among the humble and the weary, clad in green, her staff in hand with awned ears of wheat woven into her hair.

Demira brought three great gifts to mankind, Agriculture, Care, and Craft. She taught us to till the earth, to plant and reap, to tend to beasts not for domination but companionship. Yet her greatest gift was Care itself, a virtue that flowed into every act of tending, healing, and nurturing, be it child or soil, lamb or elder. Under her guidance, we learned to build homes, raise herds, and create the first true communities.

Her breath brought the Spring, and her tears, the first Autumn rains. For before her, there was only Summer, endless sun without rest or renewal, and Winter, a time for silence and slumber. Demira completed the cycle, giving the world Spring for birth and Autumn for harvest and reflection. The seasons became spokes on the wheel of time, and life began to turn.

But as always, sin follows the seed.

With harvest came abundance, and from abundance, indulgence. With craftsmanship came wealth, and with wealth; envy and hoarding. With communities came rumors and suspicions towards ones neighbors, as for when one man thrives, another seeks to prove him unworthy. Thus, the peace she nurtured began to crack. The sins of Gluttony, Greed, and Wrath stirred again. Their Princes, Zeb, Mammon, and Moloch, returned with armies of corruption, cloaked in hunger and fire.

Demira, foreseeing the storm, allied once more with the Fay and created what are now the Ancient Stela, monoliths rooted in the Ley Lines of Creation. With sacred inscriptions and divine resonance, they sheltered the faithful and stood as beacons against the encroaching darkness.

But the tide of sin would not relent.

The Divine, in grief and fury, resolved to cleanse the world in flood, but Demira, in sorrow and out of love, pleaded for the innocent. The Divine offered a choice, to save mankind, she must sacrifice everything.

And she did.

Demira fashioned not a wooden ark, but a spiritual sanctuary woven from her very being. With her Shepherds, she sought out the worthy. As the waters rose and the world drowned, she held fast. And when the deluge reached its ultimate height, she sacrificed herself, cursing Zeb, Mammon, and Moloch with eternal torment. They would hunger and never be sated, desire and never be fulfilled, rage and never be calmed.

From that day forward, they bore a shard of her spirit like burning iron in the soul. Where once they took joy in their sins, now they only found suffering.

Her body, untouched by decay, was seen floating above Axis Mundi, and dissolving into droplets of grace, falling onto what remained of Protennoia’s Tree. Her essence flowed into the Ley Lines, weaving a great network of life, memory, and power. The Pax Dei, fragile but enduring, grew from her roots.

To this day, when the Autumn rains fall cold and sudden, the old say it is Demira weeping, not for those she saved, but for those she could not.

—Thelonius the Scribe

The Elysium Age (~1050 to ~1930)

The flood had passed and the waters receded. Demira’s sacrifice still echoed in the Ley Lines, and the survivors, cradled in her spirit, stepped once more into the world.

But no Divine guidance was forthcoming.

For nearly a thousand years, we stood alone, without angels, without voice from the heavens. The Divine watched in silence. The Fay faded into their hidden groves. And so entered the Age of Man.

With time, the survivors spread and multiplied. They crossed rivers and climbed ridges, built with stone, tilled the land, and remembered. From them rose four great civilizations, each touched by the gifts of the Redeemers, but shaped by mortal will.

In the West, Atlantis rose like a dream recalled. Built upon old memories and older magic, its cities gleamed with water-threaded towers, mirror-like streets, and archives of living crystal. There, sages claimed to read fate from reflections and weather from sound. They perfected artifice and alchemy. It is said they once forged a replica of the sun beneath the sea.

In the North, the highlands of Thule bred hard people. Tribes that narrated the howling of wolves and remembered the war-chants of the Wild Firsts. They bound themselves to ancestral oaths, carved stones with blood and bone, and wove sorcery into song. Their chiefs ruled not by crown, but by trial, and their shamans spoke to spirits still lingering from Meirothea’s time. In their defiance, there was strength. In their unity, wisdom.

To the East rose Helios, a kingdom of light and law. Seven golden cities, each ruled by a council of philosopher-kings, gleamed beneath towering pyramids of sunstone. Their knowledge rivaled Atlantis, but their pride was deeper. The priests of Helios believed themselves custodians of divine memory. They bent light to their will and claimed their shadows were clean.

But it was Carpathia that gleamed most falsely.

Set in the heartlands of the old world, Carpathia was a kingdom of gardens and mirrors, marble and incense. Its rulers spoke of peace and beauty, but behind the veils stood a Prince of Hell, cloaked in glory, robed in charm. He whispered of unity, of purity, of ascent. He built a throne that touched the stars, and men followed willingly.

Each of the Four bore greatness. And each, a flaw.

Atlantis, in its thirst to preserve knowledge, forgot humility. Thule, in its reverence for strength, sowed seeds of endless retaliation. Helios, in its worship of order, cast out compassion. Carpathia, in its desire for perfection, gave pride a crown.

The sins returned, not as monsters, but as policies. As architecture. As ritual.

And the deeper these civilizations dug their roots, the more they opened cracks in the gates beneath the world. Forgotten ruins stirred. Old bones awoke. And Hell, no longer content to whisper, began to breathe again.

The world braced for calamity.

And it came.

—Thelonius the Scribe

Credits, paintings: The Age of the Ancients – Meirothea - Mucha, Winter, 1896 The Age of the Ancients – Demira - Mucha, Spring, 1896 The Elysium Age - Thomas Cole, The Course of Empire, Destruction, 1836