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[Lokii]

"Well I would like to thank you for allowing me to... erm..." The library-god had become engrossed in some map, leaving Màquines in a bit of an awkward situation. She turned to the dim shadow that was Elegáns. "Shall we look for a history book then?"

[ed boy]

The two halves of the planet drifted slowly apart as Chara approached. As the gap slowly widened, the innards of the planet were laid bare... and vulnerble. A colony of cultists, worshipping Asta'ath. Vast pools, containing demonic spawn. And at the centre of it all, Astra'ath itself, a pulsating mass of godly flesh.

A ripple acted along Chara's shell. Its normally smooth surface was disrupted. Great lengths of the metal were extruded, forming crude limbs. These limbs shot into the gap and thrashed around wildly, both pulverising the network of caves and driving the two halves of the planet apart. The blows rained down, the debris filling the space between the two hemispheres.

Once the gap was big enough, Chara moved in. At this point it was not very different from Astra'ath in appearance - they were both writhing masses of tentacles. Astra'ath, however was much smaller, the size of a moon, as opposed to Chara, the size of a sun. Additionally, Astra'ath's bulk was a dark, shapeless mass whereas Chara's shell was a bright, gleaming red.

This did not last long, though. Chara's shell shimmered, and... disappeared. Clearer than the finest of glass, It had turned invivible to all mortal eyes. Unseen, but certainly not unfelt, its limbs rained down blows on the body of Astra'ath.

[Karnewarrior]

The Mad entered Dragnars library. Millions of madmen had entered Dragnars Fortress', but only a thousand remained. The rest had built a safe pathway for mortals with their cooling bodies. They crowded in the entrance hall, babbling, sobbing, toying with various parts of their (or others) anatomy. One man, disheveled and terrified, stumbles away from the rest, and presses himself to Dragnar, pulling on his sleeve.

"Please, Please, Don't make me go with them! I'm not crazy, I'm not like them! I head the call the beautiful call, but I'm not crazy! I'm sane! I am! You have to trust me! Please, please, please, please..."

The man collapsed, sobbing, at Dragnars foot, clinging to his boots, kissing them, pleading. One of the more sane madmen dragged him back to the group. At long last, the room fell silent, and an old human woman made her way to the forefront of the Mad. Her eyes were as milky white as her hair, her nose was hooked and crooked, as if it had been broken, and never properly reset. Another man stepped forward and extended a hand, in which the old woman placed her own claw-like appendage.
 
The Man translated:
 
I am Diria Abelle. I was born 50 years ago beneath the sign of the Seven Eyes. My eyes live a life 50 years in the future, in a time when I am long dead. I have foreseen many battles, so much bloodshed. I have foreseen the fate of this universe, a fate of Oblivion. And so, I dedicate my life to preventing the mistakes of the future. Because of how I live, I have no concept of time. To others, I am a mad woman. I accept this, and so have dedicated my life to Mania. Dragnar, we are not supposed to be here. Perhaps we will alter the future through our presence. Perhaps not. Perhaps it has already come to pass. Yes, I belive that to be the answer. It is not the future, but the past.
 
Do not repeat your mistake Dragnar. Do not detain the --"
 
The woman collapsed, clutching at her breast. Two men ran to her, one muttering about healing, one drooling and salivating. But by the time they got to her, she was already dead. Both walked back into the crowd wearing the same face of dejection. The man who was translating for the woman looked at Dragnar expectantly, like a child.

[dragnar]

Dragnar sends a command to a group of librarians to begin the task of removing the bodies from the fortresses. He had not expected the mad to be so... mad. Not stopping even after many had died... he was glad the librarians did not actually have a physical form or senses.

"*sigh* well I cannot turn you away, but at least a few among you will understand why I do not want you all wandering the library... I will create a separate wing for you to live in, but you must not try to enter the rest of the building unless you can convince a librarian you will not harm anything."

Dragnar creates a wing for the madmen, separate from the rest of his library.

[Humaan]

Death.

In a sudden burst, many lives have fallen. Hundreds. Millions. Impossibly large numbers. Who could have done such... such an atrocity? Aarrook would not allow it. No god, no matter how powerful, has the right to do such genocide. Such power was to be used lightly, and only by gods of death. He had left the Well, for preparations not of this, but the event called for him to alter his intentions.

"All the souls of the fallen insects, do not give up fate! Gather around me, and I shall prepare to return you. Your death may have happened, not of fate, nor blade, but Genocide. So, may you gather, and ready yourselves for paradise!"


Aarrook calls out to the souls of the dead insects to gather around him outside the Well of Souls.

[HailFire]

Elzeru pulled closed the rift in the shadows and dusted himself off, satisfied. Lacking the physical strength to install the decoy where he'd stolen Astra'ath's tome from, he had had to reverse the flow of gravity in the closet, causing the book to "fall" up to the ceiling, where he could push it onto the top shelf and finesse it into position.

Now that he had his tracks covered came the hard part; actually transporting his prize out of the Library without attracting the notice of the Librarians- or worse, Dragnar himself. Despite being born from the blood of a God, he knew better than to think that his illusions could fool one, least of all the god of knowledge.

He prepared to reach out telepathically to his nearest comrade; a cute lass who had just rotated in from Natus, or so he'd heard... He'd never met her before, but he could use a hand here, and maybe they could get to know each other afterwards...

A touch on his mind shook him out of his reverie; it seemed she'd contacted him before he could. Something about a new god at the library, and...

"...A horde of screaming lunatics, you say?"

"Yes! Armed, too. They just barged in over the librarians, gibbering and frothing!"

"Gibbering AND frothing, eh? ...Wait, aren't there, like, whole fortresses full of monsters and deathtraps between us and them to prevent things like this happening?"

"Depends on how many bodies you throw at them; most of them are torn up pretty bad. ...They're really making a mess out there, though. Some of them have been subdued, but..."

Hmm. This could be useful... What better chance to slip away unnoticed than an asylum throwing up on the library?

"See if you can foil the librarians for a while, I needed a diversion anyway."

There was a short pause.

"Alright, but you owe me one."

"Fair deal."

Now just to attract the attention of one of the intruders...

Crashing and shouting jolted him out of his thoughts, and he severed the connection. 'Madness must've made them bloody fast,' he thought, peering around the corner of the bookcase to see a few of them charging up the corridor towards and past him.

"Heyguvcouldjaspareamomen-"

"Heyyouholdupasec-"


Elzeru frowned. Time for Plan B. He wove together arcane magics, crafting a barrier of invisible force that he swung out into the corridor to catch the next oncoming madman.

clopclopclopclopclopclopclopCLOPCLOPCLOPKRAK _thud.

It appeared to be a dwarf that had shattered the barrier with it's head- or at least, something related to a dwarf; it was shorter than most mortals, and it's face was lost in a mass of hair, blood, and spittle, save for it's beady eyes. It clutched the two halves of some sort of large brown nut in it's hands with a white-knuckled death-grip.

The Fey bent down over the edge of the shelf, summoning a morsel to his hand.

"Hey, you! I have candy~!"

Quickly, he leapt back as the dwarf sprang to it's feet, gnashing it's teeth and frothing just inches from him.

"Bloody hell." he muttered, eying the creature warily. He'd heard that the dwarves were particularly susceptible to Fey magic after one of his brothers had inadvertently driven a craftsman into a gibbering frenzy, but he'd never seen the effects firsthand.

No time to reflect on that, though; it would serve the purpose. He tossed the sweet into the gaping maw and waited as the dwarf slowly mellowed, falling under his spell, before pushing the tome off the shelf, where it bounced it off the dwarf's head, and secured it to it's back.

Elzeru settled on the mad dwarf's shoulder, and gave a sweeping gesture forward to his hypnotized servant. "Onward, Concord!"


clopclopclopclopclopclopclopclopclop

[forsaken1111]

The universe had gone mad... and it was glorious. Galactic entropy had risen to heights greater than ever before.

Now if only this demigod star... thing would stop hitting Us.

Astra'ath's outer flesh hardened beneath the blows, mass shifted outwards from non-euclidean dimensions. The hammerblows sent ripples through its flesh and shook the very foundations of the planet's core. Tentacles stab out in all directions, barbs embed in the surrounding stone and titanic musculature flexes. Uncaring now of those on the surface, or even those in the caverns, Astra'ath heaves with all it's divine might. Ichor fills the space around it, wounds from Chara's blows bleeding for only a few seconds before healing over, but long enough and numerous enough to let escape hundreds of gallons of divine blood.

None of them understand, We are a force of the universe. We are older than time.

Tentacles vibrate with power as more mass shifts out, reinforcing muscles. Monumental stresses begin cracking the planet's inner surface as the two halves are arrested in their drift, then reversed swiftly, then slammed viciously into Chara like some massive bludgeon. More tentacles form, gathering up the Spawning Pools and every cultists not yet slain in the chaos and pulling them deep within Its body, to a safe space within.

From above, Starspawn ships add their fire to the stations around the planet. Ineffectual as it seemed, it may buy Us some time.

[ed boy]

Across the universe, Frandor recoiled in an approximation of pain. It started to drop, but stopped before it hit the ground.
Unacceptable. Destruction, danger: death. Emergency:devote all possible resources

Drifting slowly away from Astra'ath was Chara. The blow had had some devestating consuquences. About a third of the shell was missing - broken up into chunks ranging over all sizes. These shards of metal intermingled with the remains of the planet, forming a cloud of cosmic debris that pervaded the local space. Chara drifted backwards through this cloud, the divine life in it fading.

Then Frandor acted. It could not let Chara die, that would be to let itself die. It must act, though no doubt it woulb be overextending itself, and damned be the consequences. One way or another, this would end here, now. That was for certain. Either Astra'ath or it would die in this battle.

Frandor invests acts in reforming Chara's shell

From the ether, new material sprung. It joined with what remained of Chara's shell, extending it and surrounding Chara once more. But it was different. Where previously the shell had been a sphere, now it was teardrop-shaped. A solid spike of metal, ending in a point finer than a single atom, pointing at Astra'ath.

It sped through space now, gathering more momentum than was thought possible. It impacted with Astra'ath.

[Karnewarrior]

Madness? Entropy? The two do not equate!

Madness is creation! Creation of worlds and senses, creation of arts and deaths, the creation of all things boils down a a bit of madness.

I am Madness. I am inevitable as well. When I am free, We shall see which is the stronger.

Creation? Or destruction?

Is not the world of the Raving beautiful? Is not the melancholy of the artist what gives rise to his paintings?

I am Mania. I am creation. I AM SUPERIOR!


Within their own wing of the library, the mad begin to write. Every man, woman, child. Every dwarf and halfling, every elf and every demon. They all begin to write. These were not the non-fiction books currently filling the library. This was the birth of fiction, the birth of imagination.
 
The mad begin to write fiction books in Dragnars Library. They will fill the Wing of the Mad with them.

[Ghazkull]

It was so refreshing.

So much death!

Quôth had nearly forgotten how great the feeling of  a million rotting corpses felt. Even as his fleet was still scavenging the remains of the battlefield he felt the cries of the Lost, the battle between Chara and Astra'ath which propably killed the whole population of the planet, the cultists shattered by Charas tentacles, the maniacs rotting in the traps of dragnars fortresses and finally the blood of the Gods.
He could smell it even here light years away, like a crow would somehow know where a battle was happening.

Godly Essence, Godly Blood, Godly Ichor,

it he barely managed to constrain himself from warping to the place of battle. It as too dangerous, the corpses were to fresh, the combatants still there. But there were other targets which seemed much easier. Quôth warped himsel into the entrance hall of the library ignoring the shamebling crazed people, the busy librarians and what seemed like a fey riding on a dwarf. Finally he found Dragnar amidst the center of the chaos.

Dragnar! Finally i meet the god of knowledge myself. I don't want to disturb you but i couldn't but be overhelmed by the death of so many people. Your fortresses must be flooded by these...maniacs. But i am here to offer you help. Your librarians are surely busy keeping the library and those maniacs under control. And i think you have no place to dispose of the corpses and the other gods would surely object to find giant heaps of rotting flesh on their planets. If you turn off the traps inside your fortresses my people will solve the problem for you...

[dragnar]

Dragnar turns away from his map for a moment to answer the corpse god.

"I have no use for the dead, and the traps are non-functional anyway. I will tell my librarians to disable the traps until you are done."

Within the fortresses the librarians stop removing corpses and work to disable all of the myriad traps lying within.

[Caesar]

Frandor's voice boomed into Chara's mind, as it had done many times before. It was the same, felt the same, and the metallic voice was devoid of emotion. Chara's weakened form resonated with the words.

Retreat. Danger. End of Battle.

Frandor's senses could not comprehend or even notice the spoken words, instead hearing Chara's melodic voice.


This battle has gone out of control. We are leaving, we can not continue. Together fight, together fall.


<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>


Illiath knew exactly where to move, and move he did. His wings pushed away the very essence itself, propelling him forward at an immense speed.

A crash, a thud, a crack. His feet made contact with the rock that was Satae's Throne in the universe.
He held his sword in one hand, low, cautious, before hurling the spear bearing the head of his slain enemy into the void again, where it pierced the emptiness...

I am Illiath..

His voice was like a whisper, traveling like a breeze over the empty surface of the asteroid.

Speak with me, Satae, Goddess of trickery.


The Traitor has chosen you as his first..

[Knave]

The insects were dead. All... dead.

The attack had happened in an instant, Natus knew what had happened, even before he received the message from Galt. Anger began to boil within Natus, for once the cold that suffocated him seemed to disappear. There would be time for conflict, time for revenge later, but first, he must save what he can.

Focusing deeply, Natus, god of all Animals pierced the essence and searched the void, around his world. All around him, he saw the spirits of insects leaving his world. Quick as can be, Father Nature uses his power to pull the souls back towards Natus, back towards their home, back to their bodies. Insects were a vital part of nature and their destruction would not last forever as planned.

By the Well of Souls, Natus spotted Aarrook, appearing nearby, the god of Nature bowed his head thankfully.

“Aarrook, you have saved my creations from unnatural death. I am in your debt truly. Please consider this a favour given. A favour I shall return to you in the future when you decide it is time.”

All insects on Natus, Ka'a'ree, War Beetles, even Galt's bugs, began to breathe with new life as Natus slowly pulled their souls back.  Though many souls had already travelled too far for him to retrieve, the vast majority of bugs on Natus looked to be saved from Astra'ath's uncalled for attack. Astra'ath had proven himself to be powerful, but Natus was not without his own power.

Now Natus could turn to the defense of his world.

ACT 1: Natus searches the void and begins to pull back the souls of the deceased insects back to Natus thanks to Aarrook. Though many souls seem out of reach to him, the vast majority are saved.

[Blargityblarg]

Galt saw Natus' actions, and saw Their creations, mistaken cast upon His world, return to their feet, despite the blight they were upon that world. Galt knew gratitude.

Brother, fear not for the Bugs' appetites. They are not entirely dumb beasts, and they know when to show thanks.

Galt reined in the surviving Bugs' hunger, and removed their urge to return their population to its previous might.

Galt reduce the appetites of the revived Bugs on Natus, significantly so.

[ed boy]

End. Retreat. Victory impossible
We cannot continue. We must retreat:our part in this battle is over

Chara's movement slowed, stopped and reversed. silently, it sped away through the expanse of the void, to recover from its wounds.

Frandor and Chara entered into deep discussion, analysing the events that had happened, going over what had happened and resolving not to repeat them.

1-They had entered the battle alone - in future, wait for others to be ready before attacking
2-They had not sufficient resources - The bugs had been intended for use as an enery source, but they had not adapted to their removal
3-Frandor had tried to execute its plan - the plan was still too risky to execute.

From this, new short-term plans were established - they would wait, recuperate and gather resources. When that was done, they would wait for the others to be ready before acting. Then, and only then, could they be victorious.