For too long the ties that bind had lain broken.

Thus agreed Imyrr Rousseau, Archon Ascendant of Ashtan and the Ruinous Intercessor of Interplanar Dominion. His station made him the supreme mortal authority on Chaos in Sapience, but it was not his office which formed his opinion on the matter. It was his long career as an Occultist that led him to understand one basic truth: the Living Book of Eschaton was the source of his kind's power.

He was not the only one, of course. Amunet Viatrix, Katalyst Rozzan, Jinsun Ze'Dekiah, and Morro Viatrix all undertook similar paths, and all felt just as strongly about what was, to the uninitiated, merely an odd tome. Where others saw a curiosity they saw a long-afflicted friend, one that needed urgent care.

So it was that all of Ashtan gathered on one unsuspecting Aeguary for a group hunt. They were to slay the Greater Dragon Yudhishthira, though their true reasons for doing so remained a mystery for most citizens. Perhaps three recently-returned traitors saw their redemption, or perhaps it was a building of building of camaraderie that is, as always, so valuable to cities and organisations in general. But when Bainz Moliuvia landed the final blow, the Occultists quickly claimed the true prize as the Greater Dragon fell on Ashtan's first attempt: the Gem of Creation.

While the Gem's deeper nature remains unknown to much of Sapience, to a practitioner of the Occult it is something far more: energy, power to fuel their Chaos-wrought arcanum. They gathered all of Ashtan's hunting party deep within the Seat of Chaos, directing the Gem's karma into the Living Book of Eschaton. Though the true workings of their ritual remain captured beneath shrouded obfuscation to the uninitiated, the effects would be felt all over Sapience and, indeed, Achaea itself.

Immediately, and most noticeably, the ritualists disappeared entirely from our world or, more accurately, time. Something had gone very wrong (or very right), and the five, along with Ezekial himself, were swallowed into a sudden temporal rift created by the Eschaton. More puzzling was the fact that the Living Book swallowed itself, as well, leaving Ashtan not only without a city leader, but also without one of its most prized relics.

There was little time to be confused, however, for the temporal anomaly was felt throughout the realm by those knowldgeable in such things. Only Pandora's reminder that mortal matters must be solved by mortal hands saved the Seat of Chaos from being smote by Tlalaiad, the Genesis, who found meddling with time all the more insulting now that Aeon, its guardian embodiment, was gone. Instead, the Tsol'teth deity declared: make ready Their Weapons.

Memories of the Black Wave struck the dwellers of Tezlari-tarin, the world above, and a smirking Ashtani commented that they had repelled the Tsol'teth before. But this time was different, as Penwize Baker recognised. This time it was Bain'maal.

Though it may have bent the rule of "mortal problems" no less than the Genesis' decree, Ashtan's patron passed to Akri that which would buy the Seat of Chaos, and their lost Occultists, the time they so desperately needed. Once again the Spawn of the Unnamable Horror would be loosed upon an unknowing Sapience.

Knowingly or not - for who can tell with such a thing - the Spawn undulated and oozed its way toward Achaea's Underrealm, nesting within the heart of the abandoned Pash Valley fortress as the alien being found itself naught less than a locus around which battle raged with a surfeit of abandon. Targossian, Ashtani, and Hashani alike hurled their foes into the Finality's halls as the Spawn continued its advance, daring to assault Raia'dalam itself. There it was met by Bain'maal in single combat, and there did it fall beneath the reaping scythe of the Dark Earth in ways little different to dragon, dala'myrr, and all the unknown horrors lurking beneath Achaea's earth before it.

Yet in the past, the Occultists remained unaware of what transpired in the present. Whatever they did, whenever they landed, the world at large can only guess. The rift was sealed, and they all returned safely... all seven of them. Only formalities remained to finalise the Second Great Work, and the Eschaton was, after over two centuries, finally healed. Satisfied by stabilised time, the Genesis decreed the withdrawal of the Tsol'teth force.

It was one lone curiosity that remained: returning with them came a perfectly mundane book, yet one that - bizarrely - spoke of events and knowledge that did not, or should not, exist. In a perfectly Occultic fashion the knowledge was fed to the Eschaton, and the Living Book stirred. Now it was ready to teach once more, to reveal a thing entirely new as it unveiled experiments that would create mortal horrors like which the world had perhaps never before seen.

~~~~~

Summary: After a botched (successful) ritual involving Yudhisthira's Gem of Creation and the Living Book of Eschaton, Ashtan created a temporal rift that swallowed up their ritualists and the Eschaton itself. Decreeing that an anomaly of Time was Forbidden, Tlalaiad sent the Dark Earth, Bain'maal of the Main Line Five, to deal with the problem. In response Ashtan unleashed the Spawn of the Unnamable Horror, its death in the subsequent battle buying their lost ritualists the time needed to return to the present, repair the Eschaton, and unlock the knowledge of a new class: the Unnamable.

Penned by My hand on the 10th of Miraman, in the year 870 AF.