Only a fool can say for certain where a tale begins, and in this story
of the return of the Dark and the creation of Nocturne's Reach only a
fool would try. Perhaps it began when a many-throated yell split the
silence of the night sky, proclaiming that "the Eye must be opened;"
perhaps it began centuries earlier when Dawn rose and the Eye of Proteus
slipped from mortal and Divine sight alike. Some of the wisest watched
Lord Twilight then and puzzled at His apparent cooperation with the
forces of the Church... Then again, perhaps this tale truly begins aeons
ago when Lady Miramar levied judgement upon the Twilight's most ancient
servants, the hounds Nightfall and Daybreak, and bound them in a prison
deep below the earth.

The end of the tale is more certain. It ends with Justice and Darkness
in open war, with the hounds once more let loose upon the world, with
confusion in the oceans as Twilight claims dominion in the western sea.
It ends with the Great Mother revealing Her presence to destroy, at
last, the Eye of Proteus and enforce an uneasy truce upon the warring
Garden.

What, then, of the meat of the tale? Even here, much remains shrouded in
mystery. Let us begin with two prophecies: one spoken by blind Justice,
revealing the place where Darkness's oldest servants were entombed...
the other hidden among the oblivious peoples of Sapience, to bring about
the reawakening of the Eye of Proteus. Then, just as Miramar was poised
to reveal the truth of these prophecies, a trap: the Goddess of Justice,
distracted by Dark machinations and bound by the Eye as retribution for
chaining the hounds of Darkness.

Despite His careful orchestration of events, not even Twilight Himself
could have predicted the cooperation of the order of Justice which
followed. Driven to recklessness by the loss of their Lady, the order
was deceived into releasing the hounds, and then willingly cooperated in
the sacrifice of the children of the Eye of Proteus, the lesser eidolons
of the six cities of Sapience, to appease the endless hunger of the Eye.
Cooper Ravenwind, tireless in his slaughter, surpassed even the efforts
of the Children of Darkness, much to the delight of the Lord of
Mysteries.

As the Eye of Proteus bristled with puissance, fed full by these
sacrifices, the Temple of the Eye was raised from the sea-bed and the
family of Darkness approached, guarded by the Pirates of Meropis and
their fell captain, Zulah Blackheart. Five times the Dark Father abjured
the power of His hated enemy, and five times the bonds between the ocean
and the God Neraeos creaked and strained until in one blink of the Eye,
it was done. The vast waters of the Sefyric Ocean churned, and a
fragment of its domain was sundered from the Ocean Lord and bound to
Twilight: Nocturne's Reach.

Lo, the heavens raged with fury. Freed from Her restraints, Miramar
bestrode the skies, beside Her the God of Valour, matching the Light
against the Dark. Twilight rose to meet Them, rousing Strife to His
side; a forbidden battle between the Gods seemed inescapable,
threatening to tear apart the world below.

Only with the intervention of the Great Mother did the Gods stay Their
hands. And as Maya summoned the Eye of Proteus to Her, destroying the
legendary artefact, great waves from the angered God of the Oceans swept
over the Temple of the Eye to shatter the risen island, bringing this
tale of the rising Dark to its end.

But perhaps the end of a tale is as hard to judge as its beginning, for
who believes that Miramar and Neraeos are content with the story's end?
Who believes that the machinations of the Dark are concluded? Who
believes that the open war stayed by the Great Mother's hand will not be
pursued by other means? Only a fool... only a fool.

Penned by My hand on the 20th of Daedalan, in the year 544 AF.