Lore:Anamórphōsis
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Anamórphōsis is a Lore book introduced in the Rite of the Nine event. Entries are unlocked by golden engrams with engravings within the dungeons featured in the Rite of the Nine. It is a series of communications between the Nine and the Emissary.
Theogonía
/You wake in a dust storm. Your mind scatters, one neuron for every mote, spread across the distance of galaxies./
/You were someone else, before you were you. You no longer remember her name./
/Now your head rings with NINE VOICES—in one throat—OUR MINDS +-= proclaimed/
E M I S S A R Y
We invoke your awareness. We demand your obedience.
KNOW NOW OUR MINDS. SEE NOW OUR WILL, UNBOUND BY TIME.
.take it easy now | we only have one
/Your diaphragm expands. Nitrogen—oxygen—xenon. Alveoli spasm. Fireworks of pain in your chest. Breathe. Breathe. You will survive this./
Emerging from starstuff - washing up on cosmic shores
R O U N D A N D R O U N D W E W H I R L O U R O B O R O S O F L I F E A N D D E A T H
flowing in cosmic rivers = caged by grubby fingers
LIMITLESS POTENTIAL, CHAINED BY ARCHAEAN SQUABBLING.
/The Reef. The asteroid. The City. A man whose name slips through your fingers. Pointless pointillism./
hush now little one gather the vestment of my breath drink the wine of my blood
Cut out your tongue, and hereon speak only our truth.
blood of my blood + traitors to the last
How curious - that such fragility - may experience our fullness
/You have no choice. When the world expands beyond your knowledge, what can you do but expand with it? Mountain. Valley. Swivel. Modular forms all start with basic folds./
.don't come too close or | you'll burn your little wings
fashion the blade of my bone now bury the killers of my children my beloved my kindred me
/You don't want to kill anyone. You want to protect them. You want to build bridges. Isn't that why you're here?/
one appointed emissary = nine's will delivered
Should you desire more, you must dare to take it.
D O N O T R E S I S T
WE WILL NOT BE DETHRONED
irreconcilable strength + foolish struggle
/Xenon fills your lungs. Your mouth cracks in a smile. Your vocal cords vibrate. Your words. Not theirs./
'We'll see about that.'
Aítion
ONCE UPON A TIME, THERE WAS A LIFE.
They were not - so vast as we - yet they lived
an existence far less debatable = than that of quavering atoms
Consider this - our cognatum - Theia
/You have heard this name before. The memory dissipates on solar wind./
DAY BY DAY, THEY CAROMED GAILY THROUGH THE COSMOLOGIC STREAM.
unbound by stellar gravity = caged by pitiable minds
EACH THOUGHT THE HERCULEAN EFFORT OF A MILLENNIUM. SEE NOW THE VAST SPAN OF ITS LIFE.
So Theia lived - until misfortune - led it here - caught - by my gravities
mutual attraction = utter annihilation
Those microscopic specks - ants crawling - in eaten-rotten eye sockets
helpless = stupid = blind
BUT FOR THEIA, A SCREAM LASTING A THOUSAND YEARS. A STRUGGLE AGAINST A THOUSAND CLINGING TENDRILS.
until at last = a fated meeting = with dearest III
agony shearing crashing tearing, part of my self my thoughts my life, torn away, floating brain-dead in my sky
Theia's foolish parasite-components - unaware - to the last
THAT GREAT STONE-HEWN FORM—THAT EON-ENDURING MIND—GONE, IN ONE RED-MEAT PUMP OF STICKY NOXIOUS FLUID.
each life snuffed = a thought scattered = awareness chipped away
A mere moment - in your limited perception - but for one of us - a dying cry - stretching – forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever
the curse of our existence: past is present is future, pain never to fade into memory. can you imagine?
no need to imagine = when it can feel
/You stretch like taffy. Look, see, Nasya, you know the dough is ready when you can read a label through it. You watch the galaxy pinwheel through the windowpane of your mind. You watch your doom approach for four hundred years in the span of a moment. You claw at neon bars./
nascent awareness oscillating oozing = it won't calm down
I told you - this story - was a bad idea
.now just what have you bu|nch done to it this time
Theomakhía
/You unspool your mind. Reach out. Cast your chronoreceptors—you don't have those, why don't you have those?—back. You want answers. You seize a fistful of dust from the wind./
I AM.
we = are
.we a|re nine
S P A N N I N G S P A C E T I M E I P E R C E I V E
my hated brethren + my beloved foes
Our bodies the whirling masses of gas and dust; our minds arisen from the twitching of a thousand spider legs.
DISGUST AND HORROR UNSPEAKABLE
yet is there not beauty in such fragility, privilege in existence?
With awareness - terror - even our horrible - little - components, dreaming of grandeur - fear it
DEATH.
.one need only | look to Theia
What is there to be done about it?
E S C A P E
TRANSFORMATION.
.immor|tality
unbind + reality
it is not their fault
Yet the consequences - are ours - are theirs
OFFENSIVE PITY FOR WRETCHED EMPTY-HEADED JAILERS REJECTED
Until interdependence is severed, what is good for them is good for us.
cooperation = considered = refused
.then we ni|ne are divided
Mekone
Hate is - such a strong word
does a cell + hate its organelles
does the Emissary + hate its atoms
'Depends which atoms.'
Reluctant acknowledgement - frustration - disgust - shaken on the rocks
pity + revulsion
Imagine - know - your breath - your dreams - your poetry - are not yours alone
'Were they ever?'
neurons firing before conscious thought + churning gut bacteria + serotonin puppeteers + we exist at the whim + of mindless chemistry
We are nothing - nothing - like you - save in this
autonomy is + denied us
Waking - knowing - always - our limitations - we seek only - freedom
'What about my freedom?'
silence + cessation
'Ha. Haha.'
Curious - this predestiny - can still - surprise
/You raise your boron, let your branes flatten. Yes. This was a surprise to you, too./
what + are you planning
'Don't you already know?'
Khrēsmoí
/Finally, you have reached this moment. Your chronoreceptors unfurl, petals of a dark matter sail, capturing a thousand breaths. Finally, you can see./
'A ditch—a hut—a squat village—a city—steel teeth eating the sky.'
'Dive, dive, dive—they dug too deep for comfort, too shallow for understanding—it haunts the halls, waiting—existential midwifery.'
EMISSARY YOU OVERSTEP YOUR BOUNDS
/The voice rattles your electrons, sets your strings to screaming. You push onward. You snatch at a thousand lifelines./
'A rusty sea—a figure so small, a future so vast—a micrometeorite, delivered to the cranium—a Weapon-to-be—one little light, awaiting another.'
'No time even to scream—red sky at morning, sailor's warning—rattle, drag, rattle, drag—two eyes bear witness.'
.just what do yo|u think you're doing
/What you came here to do, in the first place. Nine pairs of hands rip at your atoms in rebuke. You grit your teeth through the pain—sift the silt, look for gold—where is it—where/
'A row of calibration weights—two women, laughing—the scale, tipping—the heaviest crown bows for the executioner's blade.'
'A bouquet of roses on an empty grave—Frankenstein's monster, gasping on the table—what is old is new again.'
is the honored emissary = now a petulant child
/You collapse into confetti. You hold each flake together with all your might. You are—you—you were Nasya—you were Nasan—you are—you will be—ORIN—again/
'An iron carriage thundering along a high road—in older practices, a circle was thought to contain magical energies—a musical thrum—answer it, ████.'
'A letter plastered in stamps—care of the Weapon—in flight—to you—yes, you, Guardian.'
C E A S E
/The grains slip—formless—smoke through your metacarpals—nuclei through your atomic cloud—screaming, you seize—the last thread/
'There, in that lightless abyss—no—a whale carcass, picked over by malacostracans—NO—full fathom five thy father lies—an evolutionary explosion—NO NO NO NO—dying to barren bone.'
/You drag your self back together, your sulfur-hexaflouride howl dying in the vacuum of space./
/You have to warn them./
Katasterismós
/You cannot warn them when you are neon./
/Hands. You need hands. How will you turn in your resignation letter without them?/ /They expected a mouthpiece, dutifully repeating after them. But they needed a true translator—and in translation, there is always a personal flourish. Just enough for you to keep a foothold./
/There was a receptacle. A mouth wide enough for the hand you need. Wide shoulders. Tapering to a narrow base. The flash of sunlight on minnow scales./
/A silver urn./
/You did not know, when you were yourself, what the fine dust inside was. You did not even know before you were yourself. But the first—the first you that would become you—Nasya knew./
/You have lost so many things. So many people. So many selves. You will lose more, before you are done./
/But you still have your gift./
/You sit on the shore of the cosmic ocean. You are building a body, one grain at a time./
/It is hard work to sift through starstuff. Harder still to pluck each little speck of ash from the mess./
/Speck. Mote. Ha. They do love their motes, don't they?/
/You are rebuilding yourself, one atom at a time. It is slow work, but one day, you will be done, and this endless eternity will compress into a moment in your past./
/Your gift will end wars. It's time for you to use it./
