A passage from Recreation, first section of the Book of Creation
It was in the end that the new beginning was formed. I was in the Tower of Aether, the magical focal point of the known world. Some said it was where the magic of the stars bled down into the very earth we lived on. The colors that swirled around the air had texture, the magic so thick that you could see thoughts if you looked the right way. Few magi are ever allowed even as close as to see the tower, but I… I was no mere Magi.
In those days I was called Mowitaran, and I was hailed as one of the Three Tonans, the magical keepers of the known natures. We were known as they who had conquered magic and become it, turning our bodies so attuned to the magics of the world that we had transcended mere mortality, and become something beyond men.
My two companions sought to pass on our teaching to the younger, less experienced magi that roamed the earths, to give them focus and tutelage and help reshape the world. I was... Perhaps more than a bit arrogant in my thoughts, more concerned with the literal reshaping of the world, and that pursuit is what took me to the Tower.
I had been weaving pure magical energy for over five and forty days, the power sustaining my basic needs of sustenance and rest. As I wove, I studied. I watched the way the waves of magic crashed into each other, how they fell together and tore apart. I was a conduit, and the magics of the world channeled through me. There were times when I felt as though I had lost my humanity, times when I thought the magic had ravaged my body beyond repair. But it was in these moments that I began to find new reasons to dig deeper, to reach out as the magics washed over me and touch, pull, and push. To shape.
I twisted and turned, ignoring time and life as it were in my pursuits. I wanted to shape and create. To form, to mold and make. Long ago the ways of conjuring fire and striking with lightning had been revealed to me. What I sought was a step beyond the manipulation of energy and nature. I wanted the power of a God. To tap into the magic of the very universe and shape at a level beyond even what I had become. To blossom a star with my mind, to twist the continents with my fingers, to tame the void with my voice.
Ours was a world rife with much discord. War, famine, kingdoms of liars, slavers, thieves... It was common for folk in misfortune to say that the Gods had abandoned them, and in truth, we have not felt the light of the Gods for centuries. But what if one came now? I wondered. What would a God do with this world so full of chaos and anger, such hate and wrath? I wondered still.
My quest was fruitful, but there was a cost. After watching and weaving for so long, the mysteries were revealing themselves. No longer did they escape my grasp, but they ran through my fingers. I could feel the fabrics of the physical world, and instantly I knew how to pull them, to achieve what I wanted. It was in that instance that all was lost.
I was a fool, and ignored that natural order of things. I bypassed the complex web that connects all things, the strings of being. I reached beyond and tugged at what I thought was my goal, and in doing so, I unraveled the very existence of the universe. In an instant, the whole of all things was shattered, dissolved as the connections severed. Life ceased to be, stars blinked out, air dissolved, and I nearly lost myself in the chaos that I had inadvertently created. My salvation was the position I had found myself in.
As I pulled and watched in horror at what my action had wrought, I fastened the web to… Myself. I became the center, the beacon, the only thing left. It almost became too much. Knowledge and power rushed through me as the universe itself became part of my body and soul. And in that cruel moment, I destroyed everything that had ever existed.
And I felt it.
I felt the pain of every life leading up to the sharp moments of death. I felt oceans boil, trees turn to dust, everything rip and tear itself into shreds upon shreds of what it was. It was the pain of a dying universe wracked what was left of my body for what seemed like hours, days. It was only as the pain subsided that I found myself feeling... but differently. I felt more than just what I was. I could feel life, death, and the void between.
As I felt the heartbeat of all of creation in my chest, I breathed a shaky breath, watching the vastness of space uncurl from my mouth. With a wave of my hand it was displaced, galaxies and nebulae swirling aloft like leaves in the wind. With a twitch of my fingers and a thought, they came together.
I wept then. For I knew that with the unlimited power I now held, anything was possible. As the vast nothingness stretched out before me I knew all that had been lost for my efforts, and my very soul felt the pain, echoed it endlessly. But mingled with the pain was something sweet. A thought. An idea. My journey. My quest. I wiped my eyes and saw not tears, but star dust, every color and more. I looked at my hand and saw not skin but stars, thousands if not millions of them, weaved together to make my body.
I was the Creator. I was everything, and everything was once me. I would use myself to rebuild what I had destroyed, and I would not abandon my creations like those before me. I looked out at the unending darkness around myself and smiled. It was a blank canvas, and I had every brush, every color of paint, and an endless well of creations to breathe life into.
It seems fitting that my first creation was a mistake. I had the power of a God, not yet the experience or foresight. But as I saw my infinity of tasks set out before me, the idea struck me as a genius one. And so, my first creation were The Creator Gods.