Collaborative Post-by-Post Universe Game: Mark II

[Invictus]

The Pilgrimage of the Feast

Every some span of years the Starheart Court would announce the coming of a Pilgrimage of the Feast, so that in advance the Nine Spirals would be prepared to receive the AEON KHAN as He reviews the face of His dominion. Even as His numberless subjects celebrate His coming, the Galactic Courts throw themselves into Herculean feats of reorganization so as to present their best faces and their most glorious achievements for the Supreme Surpassing Sovereign's inspection. And at White Jade City, ancient vessels are assembled and hallowed to make up the pilgrimage gigafleet that will bear the AEON KHAN, who relinquishes all titles save for Pilgrim Apparent and undergoes His own unknowable rituals of ablution and remembrance; memorial-mausoleums in the inner orbits of White Jade City, normally silent and undisturbed, see their votives renewed. As the AEON KHAN moves to departures, a mortal Prime Counsul is appointed and groomed to rule in His stead, and such a regency may consume most of his or her natural lifespan before the Pilgrim Apparent returns to court.

The Pilgrimage of the Feast moves through all Nine Galaxies, in a pattern dictated half by ancient custom and half by the resolution of the Pilgrim Apparent. It is a ritual of remembrance and a reenactment of legend both, for the fleet will visit all major sites of His conquest in millennia past and He will perform symbolic acts that recall the grand ones that earned Him his Khanate. At the Second Spiral He will dwell for a time in the Celestial Gardens of the Conqueror, under a bower grown by the finest of the gardens' keepers for this very purpose, and marvel at the great bounty and beauty he had tamed from the wild domains of the Stellarbor. At the Fifth Spiral He will alight upon a barque of perfumed wood and take into His hands an oar of soapstone, and row Himself across the world-river of Myrkalis in a journey of silent contemplation where He will not be disturbed. At the Seventh Spiral He will pay his respects at the Reliquary of the Titan, and not leave its shadow until He has emptied a great pitted adamantine cup of fierce firewine, said to have been the personal drinking vessel of the mightiest of His vassals. At the Ninth Spiral He will step into the void and lay a hand on the black hole-enclosing jade tomb of the galaxy's former ruler, feeling the undying heat of its prisoner's rage. And so it is in the other Spirals for a thousand acts major and minor, so that the Nine Galaxies will remember and continue to remember the works of the AEON KHAN.

However, the purpose of the Pilgrimage is more than aggrandizement. As the Pilgrim Apparent travels through the Nine Spirals, His vast mobile entourage will swell with petitioners and supplicants chosen by the Godheads and the Galactic Courts by a variety of methods banal or arcane. The AEON KHAN will sup with them, and listen to their remonstrances, and grant them time for performances and presentations and whatever else they take pride in, and attend luxurious banquets thrown in His honor, and from this He will be assured that His rule has been just and His people are achieving their destined potential. For the lucky few ordinary citizens chosen for this honor, it will likely be the only time in their mortal lives to behold the AEON KHAN in person, and among the vast minority in the Nine Galaxies who can claim to have done so. All but blinded by such glory and honor, they will not notice the Knifehands and Underhands that move amongst them, ever vigilant of threats against the Pilgrim Apparent at His most unguarded.

But this year, the Knifehands are helpless. Though the Pilgrimage of the Feast has been announced in advance as is custom, the worsening condition of the AEON KHAN has thrown His departure into doubt. Across the Nine Spirals preparations falter as the mortal courtiers heed the latest rumors from the Heavenly Highways, and in White Jade City Artemesia El Xanadu frets in full and eager readiness of a regency yet to be conferred. Mayhaps the Khanate will survive a Pilgrimage publicly aborted for after all its actions are but mere symbols, but such would serve as another irrefutable sign in the narrative of His passing, growing beyond all suppression.

[speaker-to-trolls]

Legends of the Tenth Spiral

There are nine galaxies in the civilised universe, the Realm of the Supreme Surpassing Sovereign, His Ultimate Majesty, the AEON KHAN. Nine realms so vast as to confound the imaginations of mere mortals and beings who rest below the fourth level of existences. But there are legends, as there will be, of worlds beyond these.

It is only natural that men should ask about what might lie beyond the civilised universe. For beyond the borders of the Nine is the great void, stretching seemingly to infinity in all directions, with only stray wandering stars and the ghostly tracks of wraithlike other-beings to add any variety. However, the void is not truly infinite, for the greatest and most courageous of explorers, all beings of godlike wisdom and daring themselves, have voyaged for millennia, and brought back tales of the Darkness Beyond. What is this great barrier, which none may cross? Which tears ships apart and has made the boldest turn away, thinking they were not meant to cross it? No one knows.

Some say that beyond the Darkness Beyond, there lies another realm like that of the Nine, the Tenth Spiral.

Some say that the Tenth Spiral was through out beyond the Darkness in a cataclysm of unthinkable proportions, a terrible war which ended the aeon that came before that of the emperors who preceded the AEON KHAN. Some say that it was not this, but that the cosmic shock which began the Aeon of the Khan of Kings hurled the Tenth Galaxy out beyond the Darkness as the cosmos turned upon its axis. Some have claimed even stranger things, saying that, somehow, the Tenth Spiral expanded so that the black hole in its heard engulfed its brothers, and that the Darkness Beyond is its event horizon, so that all the Civilised Universe is as trapped as the ghostly emperor of the Ninth.Some say that the AEON KHAN Himself destroyed the Tenth Spiral, using its stars to build His throne of White Jade City.

Whatever the truth, only the AEON KHAN, and perhaps the eldest of beings, the Dragons, the Starrudas, the Tempengu and perhaps a few others, know for certain, and they have told noone if there truly is or ever was a tenth spiral.