The Narrowing Star descended gradually during the Thousand Years of Silence, gliding down to Earth upon the Azure Beam. During that era, its purpose was unknown. At the end of the age, the Star grew so close to the Earth, so brilliant and blinding, that it provoked panic and frenzied worship, in different camps. Then, when the Star finally breached the atmosphere, parted the clouds, and divided itself into the Brilliant Autonomies, the Silence was broken by the return of Wind Magic. This later proved to be the first incarnation of True Physic, as it was called during the Age of Inquiry.

  That was, in many ways, the Star of our Epoch. There was a sweet fleeting sleet. Something narrow and sharp, but brilliant and ephemeral. It had all the qualities of hard-light, as the technology manifested during the Age of Stars. At that time, it glittered and flitted away from us, like a stairway begging us to climb higher, like sugar dissolving on our mouths. It promised us Heaven, while concealing the Portals. Within the cosmos, where the Wild Stars beckoned and frolicked, we saw numerous Gates, Passages to the Fey or Celestial worlds. But who would carry us away? When we attempted to set foot upon the Ephemeral Causeway, it crumbled away from us, gently returning our bodies to earth. We saw hints of a Proprietor, we hoped for an Emissary, but she lingered only at the periphery of our Vision and soon darted away, helpless. She wanted to help us, we knew, but she could not approach.

  When the World opened up to us, new Paths became available. Some Walked with abandon, some with passion, some with dignity. We diverged into the great expanses. Some built temples of sandstone and carved galleries into mesa caves. Some stacked stones atop each other and built clifftop citadels above the sea. Others plowed the ocean waves in rickety ships or glittering galleons. There were many who stayed in the forests and fields, working the land, communing with Spirits and Beasts. Those Spirits Walked their own Paths those days, and the Beasts grew powerful too.

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  The Celestial reflections of the flickering ice in the Cave of Reflections created refractions of so many Spirits that the fabric of the world could not hold. That was like a storm of hail and lightning. It ripped apart the Age of Wonders. Grassy hills and rich loam, dark in the storm-broil, tumbled into the sky. Riven Abysses, those vagrant cataclysms, slowly tore at all coherence and union. Without Paths and without roads, without even seas or Ley-currents, all civilizations shattered and crumbled. Their names are not remembered. Their heroes are not important.

  Everything ended in agony. Those Spirits that once united us in worship now turned against us like pure elemental forces. We remembered nothing. While once, perhaps, we had longed to return to the Age of Silence, we now tumbled into the silence of Death.

  Who could hear our cries? Who could endure our melancholy? Who could lift us up and redeem us? As the physical body of the Earth shattered and crumbled away, our Arbiter returned with her Celestial blessing, that long-deferred boon, which absolved our Sins and transported us to the Celestial Sanctuary. There we lived while the Earth roiled in turmoil. That was the beginning of the Celestial Age.

  When we returned, we found the Earth rebuilt from the jumbled blocks of the old world. We were wild and free again, but hungry, without limitation and without support. We had no guides, no sustenance, no civilizations and no cities. So long had we spent in the Celestial Sanctuary, so long had we been without bodies, without needs, so long had we been perfect, that we no longer remembered how to endure the exhaustion of striving. We recalled with sudden and sharp sorrow, the shame of poverty. We turned, therefore, to the depredations of piracy and banditry, kingship and empire. In spite of our enlightenment, our era of peace, we gave birth to Sin once again.

  - Elrouor Elshirouor, "First Scroll of Revelation"