They called it the Age of Gold—when the skies bore the weight of a thousand wings, and the voices of gods rolled across mountains like thunderclaps. The world pulsed with divinity then, a world where prayers were power, and belief sculpted reality. Temples bled incense into the winds, and mortals bowed not to kings, but to the unseen beings that cradled the stars.
Among them, he stood apart—not for strength, but for thought.
Elarion.
The god of knowledge, foresight, and subtlety. His domain was not fire or storm, but understanding—the terrifying clarity of seeing threads of time twist and tangle. Where others ruled through wrath or worship, he ruled through contemplation.
When the whispers came—of disbelief, of the rise of machines, of a humanity that would no longer need gods—he listened. When temples crumbled in foreign lands and offerings thinned, he calculated.
But he did not despair.
He planned.
"This world will forget us," said Vireth, his closest aide and the Seer of Branching Paths. Her eyes, like shattered moonlight, watched futures unfurl and wither with each blink. "In a thousand years, you will be nothing but stories etched into crumbling stones."
Elarion said nothing for a long while. His gaze lingered over the mortal world from the Celestial Bastion—a palace carved in the firmament, built from the bones of stars and the breath of ancient titans.
Finally, he replied, "Then let story be survival."
In the waning glow of the gods' dominion, Elarion forged a plan no other divine dared consider. While others waged fruitless wars against the tide of disbelief, he created a vessel—a safeguard against extinction. A prison, a promise, a paradox.
An egg.
Forged from Eshkaris, a material unknown to both gods and men, found in the deep rift where reality cracked and bled out silence. It was neither metal nor stone, neither living nor dead. It pulsed with a quiet breath, like something that had chosen to sleep but could awaken in wrath.
Into it, Elarion poured himself—not his body, not his soul, but his power. Raw, unfiltered essence: knowledge, strength, foresight, the echo of immortality itself. Every whisper of prayer he'd ever received, every spark of divine intuition, every forbidden truth carved in the hollows of creation—all entombed within that small, perfect shell.
Seven seals were woven into the egg. Not with magic, but with logic, with puzzles so complex that even gods might hesitate. Around it, he built a vault, hidden somewhere in the mortal world, guarded not by force but by understanding—an inheritance that could only be claimed by one worthy of it.
But there was a final twist: the egg would never yield to Elarion himself again. Once sealed, its return could only occur if held in the hands of another—a bearer who completes the final puzzle, unlocking its secrets with wit, not war.
"Why such a cost?" Vireth asked. "Why not keep it for yourself?"
"Because in the age to come," he said, "no one will believe in gods. But they will believe in discovery."
And then, silence.
The old gods fell—some in battle, some in madness, most in slow forgetfulness. Temples became libraries, then ruins. Offerings became taxes. Gods became metaphors.
And Elarion?
He descended.
Slipping into flesh, hiding within a humble form. A man. A face forgettable. A grocer in a quiet corner of the world, conjuring vegetables and bread under flickering lights, trading power for pennies. He waited. Not for glory. Not for revenge.
But for the event—a cataclysm he foresaw only in fragments.
And somewhere across the world, Vireth vanished—fleeing before the fall, her mind a storm of futures. She alone remembered the egg. She alone might seek it.
But Elarion knew: the path to the egg was no longer divine.
It belonged to humanity now.