Entry #13: The Cycle and the Snakes
Whether or not we persist, there will always be two constants to this universe: That which begets Life and that which begets Death; Order and Chaos, Beginning and End. These two unknowables are constants, laws that cannot be overthrown or circumvented. They shall be dubbed the Stravaigneth and Eusuroth respectively.
The Stravaigneth – The Wandering Path. The Pale Fog which surrounds our scholarly haven when its twin consumes the earth. It seeks to create, so it shall weave together whatever it desires into something new. I could never fathom a guess as to how or where it spurs its ideas, yet one thing is for certain. It thinks, and it borrows from sources outside of our scope of reality. How ironic, the very thing which should boast originality offers nothing unique.
Unearthings have discovered countless artifacts, presumed drained of any power, without any clear purpose. Tools in odd shapes and configurations with a certain design intent, but absent of the problems they seek to address. Some predate us by eons, others are surmised to have barely existed for a few generations.
There is no rhyme nor reason to it, for whatever it creates and blesses us with comes with no indication. No signs, no symptoms. It simply… becomes. The same logic applies to our kind: The Realmseeker. Stravaigneth seems to even be keen upon claiming its hold upon the mortal coil, no matter how mundane or unique. It bears with it a true constant: while memories remain, it strips them of what they once were. A fresh slate, without whatever made them unique in the first place.
The Eusuroth – The Esurient Mists. The unmaker, the quiet flame, likely even Death itself. While the Path seeks to guide, the Mists seek to conceal. Anything forged is destined to be forgotten. Like its sibling, it too is an unfathomable mind with only one clear goal: to annihilate existence as we know it. That which ventures into the Mists never return - there is no more certain law to this world.
There have been countless expeditions, countless good men and women who sought to uncover its truth… We were all too foolish to see it right in front of our faces. It is a mere opposite to the Path, a consumer of all things with no discrimination. They weave and spread almost without a purpose, without an awareness to itself. Despite this, what it lacks in awareness it makes up for in its ferocity of totality. There is no metal, no mortal magic, no living flesh which has proven itself to escape its clutches.
It’s quite eerie, how I find it to be a rather… comforting thing? Never was there a recorded case of agony or despair upon one’s disappearance. Quiet, it was always quiet, nothing left behind but silence and an endless sea of opaque gray. Only I can hold onto this question, as it is my duty to approach all with an open mind, not one of fear: is it truly malicious? What is so evil about cattle grazing fields to consume untold measures of grass? What is so evil about the vulture dining on forgotten remains of flesh which would otherwise rot? Just as I hesitate to declare the Path truly and wholly good, in twain I hesitate to consider the Mists naught but a paragon of distilled evil.
I thank the unseen heavens above for what our ancestors have left behind, to bless us with the mere ability to study and record such dictating forces.