The Fracture Shard 2

Blazing alight in the summer night a shard descends from the sky guided by the hand of fate. As sure as the shard is falling so to are many eyes upon it. Curious eyes seeking an explanation of the events of this as of yet, untold night. And so the shard falls as a burning beacon to the tent of a man amongst three other dwellings. All are awake and gaze in marvel as it burns through the tent and into the screams of the man within.

A man erupts from the tent screaming and holding his hand over his now searing eye. All attention is now on the screaming man, and no longer on the smoking hole in the tent. Standing awestruck by the scene before them four men gathered around the campfire and are slow to act as their friend runs frantic. Finally one of them shakes off the trance and moves to help his friend.

"Graven what the hell is wrong!"

"My eye! My eye is burning. By the hells it burns! Water! I need water!"

The older man opens his canteen as he pulls his friend to the ground. Pooring the entire contents of the vessel into Graven's smoking eye. The sizzle of the water evaporating is tangible as the heat from the shard cauterizes the wound where his eye once was. Slowly the smoke from the shard becomes steam and ultimately the water drips cool upon his face, and over the smooth metallic surface that has replaced his eye. Graven then drifts into unconsciousness...

Suddenly he is a bird soaring on muscular guided wings over a sea of subtle bliss. An ocean of mercurial primordial essence. The essence of all things in existence, he somehow knows. Deep within he feels a sorrow and deeper still a fear. The waters below grant him peace and yet he knows peace is no longer what he needs, nor wants. Soaring low near the gentle waves of the rolling silver sea the serenity begins to make him physically ill. Subtly upon the horizon an island is visible, centered by a large monolith. He is now filled with a renewed hope and the fear within begins to peak over the surface of his mind.

Arriving at the island he flies high only to perch upon the monolith. Sitting around the obelisk are four masks in cardinal directions to his perch. Each mask has a plaque beneath it. His eyes settle upon the first mask he sees. The mask of Order.

The Mask of Order: Keeper and Sentinel of the Spire. First of the two motivations it is responsible for all of the organized action to be set forth upon time. It holds all forms and actions deliberate for the goal of control and predictability. The voice of caution dwelling on fear of the unknown, but also as a positive force instilling purpose and guidance. From this need to guide it will obsessively seek out and quantify all variables, a savage desperate will set forth to seer. Encapsulating all that seems predictable for the guise of future sight. The idealistic catalogue of all action and events are locked inside of Order, filed away for all time. With fathomed charts and graphs of probability, it will long forever for the solace found in prophecy, but will not find it. Though a slave to linear time, it will gain affluence and influence through this esoteric education.

With the last word read the eyes blaze and Graven is ripped suddenly and forcibly from the dream.

"Graven! Graven! Are you alright?"

Graven awakens to being slapped lightly by the old man.

"Graven wake up damn you."

"I'm here. I'm here. I'm awake."
"Of course you're here what happened."

"I...I..."

Graven pauses as if trying to remember.

"I was asleep dreaming and I awoke to...to an intense pain in my left eye"

Suddenly all eyes turn to see the burning hole in the tent.

"What? Why are you all looking at the tent?"

Timidly, Aidan, one of Graven's friends begins to speak.

"Your tent...we watched a star fall from the sky only to hit your tent...and then you started screaming..."

"My eye. How is this possible. What is wrong with my eye."

The old man, Taeran, now speaks.

"Your eye is...it's gone Graven. Replaced by this [he says while tapping the metallic piece revealing itself where Graven's eye once was.]"

"That's impossible. My eye isn't gone. I can see you all perfectly. Better then perfectly."

"The lake. Come with me to the lake," said Taeran.

Aidan, Taeran and Graven make their way to the waterside. Graven walks forward and kneels before the water, looking into the mirrored reflection of the moon above. Slowly he moves his head above the rippled mirror and sees himself staring back. A solid opaque sphere where his eye once was. Standing up abruptly taken aback Graven runs his hand over his face to the metallic orb in his socket. His fingers touch the now cool metal and he falls once more into darkness.

After this near collapse into the river Taeran calls back to the other men for help to carry Graven to Iboga, the medicine man, of the village. It is night and the medicine man resides just outside the perimeter of the village where he plies his wares as magician and judge to the tribe. "Corrin take Mach and get a stretcher made and grab supplies for the trek to Iboga's; and Corrin, he pauses for a moment, get my bow."

"Taeran, what do you need the bow for?"
"There is no time to explain just grab the bow."

A stretcher is made from the discarded limbs of the forest strong and secure to carry Graven from the center of the village to the medicine man's domain in the event that he is unconsious the whole way. Twenty minutes go by and the crew is now ready to depart for the journey. The path is littered with light from the constellations and a near full moon. The men begin with an unconcious Graven placed carefully upon the makeshift stretcher. Graven finds himself in vision once more.


Again through the eyes of the crow as if no time at all had passed in this ethereal place, he is compelled to look to the next mask encircling the monolith.


The Mask of Forge: The Sword of Creation and Temperance. The furnace of all matter and energy, Forge takes the most basic of forms and expands upon them. Striving toward the perfection of stability and sparking the spire’s cultivation in the expanse of the abyss. It is the one force in existence that provokes the endurance of being and resists the hindering spurn of degradation. The vehemence of the Mask of Forge stokes the flames of existence to boil the molten thread that will be woven into the fabric of all things. It matters not the nature of a new idea or form. All corporeal or fleeting in nature are viciously torn into reality from nothingness then encouraged, cultured, and honed as equal components in its smelter.