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There are two ways the universe ends. Beyond one event horizon is a spring of infinite light, and beyond the other, the two points opposite one another across an unimaginable transcendental axis – the Plane of Thought – is a well of infinite darkness. Between them is the cosmos, the medium of their interaction; and through their interaction, all wondrous things are made possible.
They are will and influence incarnate. The Cardinal Divinities. The Gods above Gods. The Great Wheel. Light and Dark. Life and Death. Alpha and Omega. Growth and Decomposition. Creation and Destruction. Revelation and Occultation. Yin and Yang. Ebb and Flow. Orphion and Dern.
In the distant depths of the cosmos between, there is a place among many that we would recognize as real, nestled in the Plane of the Material; a desolate planet of seas and desert stone, lit by a pale golden sun. It is far from the Warfront for now, in a stretch of space that is dim and silent, suspended in a nebula of primordial stardust slightly nearer, in a certain sense, to the Light than the Dark.
Even far from the War, though, the universe is anything but peaceful. This planet is a young world, a realm fighting to be born, and its surface is still being forged from its fiery crucible.
This planet's boiling seas and storms quiver under the gazes of the divinities. Here the two meet to parlay, as they have so many times before and as they will so many times after, embodied in the planet's chaos. Their voices are thunderbolts; whole systems align for brief moments to speak their intent. A single sentence is spoken through every rainstorm.
Although their machinations are invisible and unknowable to the primordial life creeping across the planet's surface, from our cosmic vantage we can see them for what they are. Their speech, of course – pure ideation – could never be translated to any mortal tongue; but if it could be, this meeting would go something like this:
"It's been some time since you entertained my invitations.
You have closed yourself off for so long."
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Elsewhere, there is a monster growing.
It is a parasite that has incubated deep beneath the surface of Wynn for many revolutions of this planet about its sun, a seed planted long ago and allowed to fester.
It has slept a long time, writhing in its nightmares. Its many claws and fangs grind against the walls of its den, seeping poison where it crawls, drinking in the lifeblood of the earth; its chitinous, oily-black skin splitting and swelling as it has grown fat on the life of every root and insect that dares approach it.
It's so large now that when it wakes, it does not so much crawl as flow, its clicking, shrieking legs and pincers melting forward and reforming in new shapes as it heaves itself through barren, blighted warrens. Its shell churns with the sick heat and scent of black decay.
The herald of Darkness, its motion in the lightless tunnels stirs more than the earth. Around it, laid over years, are countless eggs, some cracked and some still waiting to be free. Thousands of the parasite's progeny scuttle and worm around it, most tending the eggs and avoiding its path, some unlucky few being crushed and drawn back into its flesh. If there was even a single dim flicker of light here, we could see them flowing in waves, a patina of living, glistening rot splattered across the walls.
The Light has tried to snuff out this parasite before, but it's too late now. The first part of its work is done. Its spawn will grow and spread, casting shadows ever-longer across Wynn's wilting forests and howling mountains. Like the wicked seraphim of the Plane of Thought, they will evolve and subsume. The light will fade. Death will reign.
And the parasite, meanwhile, will begin its second and final journey.
It stops at a crossroads in the warrens, and its progeny seem to calm in response, creeping away until they can be heard only as a distant roar of legs and teeth.
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"What have you done?"
"I spoke the truth.
You have blinded yourself to me for far too long.
To me, and to the world."
"No, I see you for what you are.
Vile curses and death."
"Say what you will. I will tell you what I have learned.
There are places beyond us; beyond both of our selves. Terrible places.
Defined by our absence."
"They are beyond our domains. They are not meant for us.
You, thing of greed that you are, have clawed at things you cannot fathom."
"You underestimate me. How much of my self I am willing to sacrifice.
My eye has gazed into these places beyond, and they are empty."
"So you seek to fill them?"
"Them, and you. My reflection. You, demiurge.
My being shall pour into you. I will pervert meaning and Thought itself.
I will swallow up everything you embody until all that remains is me."
"You cannot.
Our War is eternal. So it is, so it must be."
"No, I have seen an end to our dance.
A future where the balance can be broken, by my hands alone."
"What you seek..."
"You can already feel it spreading, can't you? My will, an infection."
"What you seek is annihilation.
Not just death and destruction, but the end of all things. The end of both of us.
Even you cannot have forgotten."
"I've forgotten nothing.
But how many times have we played out the same steps, you and I?
In all that time, this has never happened before."
"You..."
"I suppose... I just want to find out what happens next."
The scales have tipped. The shadows are cast. The inky blackness of space sighs in resignation, a gust of cosmic wind washing through the clouds of stars.
A desolate planet dies, and the age of balance has ended.
When next the sun dawns over Wynn, it will be a very different light indeed.
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