For a mortal world to exist, then there has to be something above it. Something in the sky that no mortal can ever ascend. A sky painted blue and crimson for eternity.
A sky that has existed for millennia before the earth was formed and will exist a millennia after.
A sky with galaxies and stars scattered across its midst like the sand on a beach.
The forever sky.
All-sky.
Now, it would be prudent to mention that All-sky is not in fact in the sky, or at least not in the sense of altitude… For no mountain, cloud, or star could ever be allowed audience with the deity that frequented the space.
Authority governed All-sky, and light and dark, time and space, were all forced to bend the knee to that authority.
All-sky was… is, and always will be the realm in which divinity governs the wider observable—and unobservable—universe.
All-sky is a dimension parallel to Earth, but without the restrictions that govern the mortal realm.
It is not a place one can visit. It is a place one is called to, summoned to.
And it is here in this ethereal space that thought and speech happen at once, that intent and action occur in unison. And disagreements—when they happen—are decided before space and time are given the permission to move forward once more.
So, it begs the question then. With all this… infinity… then why?
Oh, why did it happen that, on a day as unremarkable as this—a winter as prolonged and severe as the gods had supposedly crafted—the deity that frequented this space, and sat royally at the Septacrest Table, gathered at this moment in disagreement. Time and space given freedom to do as they pleased as their masters argued the fate of one but small and insignificant continent: Avaricia.
That, of course, and the actions of a young, foolish king.
The deities that sat at the Septacrest Table did not in fact sit.
For there was no floor.
No thrones for a higher power.
And no sky beyond the ceiling of this enclosure.
Instead, they hovered in place, ethereal, asserting their dominance by burning through the dimensions they came in close proximity with.
So while to the naked eye, some of them would appear as mirages—vague silhouettes with blurred edges that suggested the fabric of reality was incapable of making heads or tails of what it witnessed—others manifested as conceptual ideas made visible: heat in the presence of no flame, shadow existing without darkness to enshroud, and sounds… with frequency but no vibration to speak of.
A quarter of the seven that sat at this proverbial table chose to manifest and adopt more recognisable forms—faces, limbs, crowns—but the truth behind this choice was ego, borne from forms worshipped by mere mortals in their failure to grasp their creators' real forms.
The centre of their gathering housed a single sigil. Burning and warping about the space, it was ancient. Immutable. And older than the idea of the gods themselves.
It was fate.
And within it reflected a living projection of the mortal realm. Of Avaricia.
A continent that lay beneath a long winter, frost and chilly howling winds stretching from coast to coast. The Riverian Sea crawling sluggishly beneath ice.
Avaricia's cities glimmered faintly beneath the enshrouding ice and darkness—stubborn points of light from all races: dwarves, elves, and demon-kin refusing to be extinguished. And as the storms rolled endlessly across the land like a punishment without a verdict, for a long moment, no deity saw fit to speak.
Then—
"When shall we all agree that the experiment on Avaricia has borne us no fruit? And that this endeavour has been pointless?"
The voice was sharp, echoing through All-sky like glass shattering against a pristine tile floor.
The entities in the space shifted uneasily.
"When?" came the measured reply of another. "When the grounds have been razed of all life, of course."
"Must it really come to that?" the first posited, its form flaring brighter.
Is that anger?
"The continent's ruler hides behind boyhood and indulgence while his ministers devour the land prepared by their ancestors. Surely his meddling in divine secrets is reason, consequence, of the continent's deplorable state."
A third presence stirred, vast and heavy, its words slow and deliberate.
"He is not the first to punish a people through curiosity."
"Yes," snapped another, colder voice, "but they have not always invited it."
The ancient symbol at their fore pulsed again, drawing attention. Images flickered—empty granaries, frostbitten hands, soldiers turning on civilians, prayers unanswered.
"Avaricia has been warned," one god intoned. "More than once."
"And yet no revolt, no action against the plight they collectively share," replied another.
A pregnant pause. Silence given permission to chair the meeting.
Emotion was then displaced from the space. Replacing it? Objectivity.
An objective truth that signalled consensus among beings of higher power.
A signal of inevitability.
It was at this moment that a voice spoke from the periphery—quiet, ancient, and final.
"Sound the Seven Horns."
The ether itself seemed to recoil at the command.
Those who had argued moments before fell still.
The Seven Horns were not a punishment. Nor were they a judgment.
They were a declaration.
Once sounded, they would force pause—not in time, but in acknowledgment.
You will obey. You will feel. You will not necessarily hear them, but you will know them.
So, as the deities of the Septacrest Table decided now was the time to remind creation that it still belonged to them, one by one the presences inclined—not in agreement, but in acceptance—giving their permission as the sigil flared.
And the end of times was now upon the oblivious mortal realm.
This was not the first time Atreus visited this mountain.
In fact, this wasn't even a mountain at all.
It was a long dormant volcano. Mount Kendo—the volcano 'Kendosyssis.'
But to be fair to him, very few knew this truth.
Mount Kendo—if it could still be called a mountain—had long since been dismissed as dormant, centuries before the current generation, so that knowledge of its volcanic state was now lost.
The volcano's slopes were gentle now, its peak broken and hollowed into a series of winding caverns that vented faint warmth into the frozen air above. Snow never quite settled there the way it did elsewhere, melting just enough to keep the ground slick and treacherous—but also hidden behind Mother Nature's dirty little secret.
As such, this became Mount Kendo, a name lost in time, and the locals took to calling the caverns 'the Kendo Caves.'
I reiterate: Atreus had been here before.
With practised ease and fur crunching softly against the earth beneath him, Atreus moved through the tunnels. The air grew warmer as steam rose in thin veils, making him question if this truly was a harsh winter. His boots laboured against the earth as he ventured forth before he stopped.
Pausing beneath a wide cavern chamber with a blue hue, he glanced upward.
There.
Melt flowers.
Clinging to the ceiling in small clusters, pale blue petals glowing faintly against the dark cavern stone. A rarity of nature—they grew upside down, roots embedded deep in the rock, nourished by warm mineral vapour from the volcanic breath below.
Strange things, these melt flowers.
Thriving where heat met cold and steam condensed and froze in cycles, when crushed and brewed by the right hands, they held within their midst the power of a salve potent enough to reverse frostbite inflicted by arctic serpents and cave-dwelling arachnids—creatures whose venomous cold could kill a limb long before it shut down an adult mammoth.
Hanna prized them dearly.
As did any pro-life advocate in the biting and overbearing winter.
Atreus loosened the satchel strapped across his back and pulled out a climber's pickaxe, testing it on the rock above him. With a practiced swing, he lodged the blade into a narrow crack, forcing stone to scatter about the space.
He tried leaning off it, testing its hold before committing his full body weight.
Satisfied, he climbed.
Like a professional climber lodging both fingers and pickaxe into rock and crevice to scale the ceiling of the cavern.
The heat intensified as he ascended, sweat beading along his brow despite the chill lingering in the stone, reminding him of the harsh winter outside. He braced himself, hooked one arm around the axe handle, and reached out carefully, plucking at the upside-down blue flower that was now but a breath away.
One by one the flowers came free with a soft snap. He lowered them into the satchel on his back, careful not to bruise the petals, repeating the process until the bag was comfortably full.
"That should be enough."
He thought to himself as he wiped his brow, glancing toward the faint light in the direction of the tunnel's exit.
"Should I…" he muttered, "…should I pass through the village on the way back?"
The thought sat poorly with him.
Frowning, he adjusted the satchel strap on his shoulder. He had his reasons for hating the village folk, and despite his mother's big heart, there was no logical or humane reason that would change his mind about Barley.
Just thinking about it made his stomach curl with unease.
The thought lingered.
"I guess I kinda have to," he murmured, turning toward the exit.
It was at that moment that the world stood still.
Not froze.
Not shattered.
Still.
A distant blare was heard as the first horn sounded.
Low. Vast. And both everywhere and nowhere at all times.
It did not echo through the caves so much as exist within them, vibrating through Atreus' bones, through the stone, the foliage outside, and through the air itself.
A second followed soon after, higher, sharper.
Then a third.
Across Avaricia, farmers paused mid-step. Soldiers froze mid-breath. Birds hung motionless in the sky. Waves halted in their endless march against the shore, as all of reality obeyed the command.
Time did not cease.
It obeyed a royal decree.
By the seventh horn, silence had claimed everything.
And in that perfect, terrible stillness, the gods looked down upon their creation.
And decided what would remain.