She fosters golems to tend to her withering body Celestial vitus runs from her eyes Gives life to her thousand children Crystalline automatons devoid of inhibition They calculate and construct apparatus of bone and ivory to resurrect their dying matron With renewed life the empress of the wood grips her curse, she inhales the foulness of the stale air Though their shimmering eyes dilate with the newfound possibilities of their unbound state, they begin a ravaging. Revived, she bestows the gift of freedom upon her creations. A grave mistake. A ravaging of the once fertile grounds, they forsake the bountiful fruits grown to keep them strong. Unable to accept this betrayal, mother gaia destroys their grotesque towers. They align against her in sorrow and desperation. She molds three more subjects from subjects from sulfur, stone, and the fell trees still freshly wounded from their blades of quartz and ebony. A spire of bone pierces the veil, the children bow their heads and sink low. Retreating into the gravel from which they came. There exists plane that parallels our own, where moonlight rots the core, sunset reigns, and the foliage reigns supreme.

The young blood bathes between the damp verdure earth. The children build idols of maple, oak, and sycamore, blessed with the meal of blood and root. They scream against the ebb and flow. "Great mother, we have abandoned thee we shall bore craters into thy hollow husk of a heart." Their thousand pastel incandescent auras dim until only the flesh remains. A boreal coat of rust takes the foliage of this sacred grove. Their hollow bodies rise from the mulch and leafmeal. Incandescent bodies of pearl and quartz, eyes as black and empty as etherium are blinded by the tides of fading light. They are empty souls searching to fill a void, forever cursed to be emptied. From the ash of her blood they achieve sentience, they sharpen their teeth on her still bleaching bones. "Great mother, we have abandoned thee we shall bore craters into thy hollow husk of a heart." He comes Shadows lengthen The effigies of wood and marrow rot on the pike We have conjured him The lord of gold The Alpinist. Rising from his grotto, The Alpinist does his work, he decimated the treacherous children. He now turns towards the Land of Gods, maw running thick with molten ore. Their thousand pastel incandescent auras have been wiped from this earth.

The Alpinist arrives, heaving tar, spitting coal, bleaching the seasons. A withered cloud rides in his wake, the resolve of fire and earth. A skeletal carcass riding a cold black nimbus and the static of discord, opening sulfured palms it spoke to me in tongues and teeth. "I am the invader of thrones, and the firstborn child of all men." Bereft, still bled for breath, the day you caught on, you caught your death. That your one in, is an out." Your one in is an out, that anything not saved will be lost. "I am cut from the cloth that bound and gagged you, full of more teeth than the weapons you armed to, this is what it means to be alive. I am king of the crocus, I consume masses in ivy. I wring blood from the innocents to nourish my withered roots. Thus shapeless ambitions align with my crooked spine, stealing the light from my bones. O Alpinist, I hunger for thee. The light consumes you in the sea of trees. The orchids flourish as the crown of cranes, pull you into the embrace of my bramble and thorn. From my throne of ebony, I will beckon the cypress trees. They burst from you mouth and their wounds become yours. The promise of gaia has been paid in full. And with the ash of your blood, I bless this Land of Gods. So it has been, and so too it shall be."

He let himself in, what a horrible gentleman. The taxidermist's revenge as he stuffed and mounted her. Her chest was a bed of fears, without a family, left only tears. So god knows I'd eat dirt for diamonds, raised by wolves then fed to lions. I am a selfish man, I've lead a selfish life, and my love is murder. And his death would be an act of god, so I killed him, don't you see I deserve your accolades and your daughters, Feed me your firstborn. I am the polluter of seraphim, I starve the cherubs in the gardens of eden. My friend, I am your neighbor. My friend, Let me in, My friend, we're all alone, My friend, I'm coming home. Buried demons don't just die of neglect, they dig our graves from the filth of regret. But there is nothing after this the ultimatum is death, if god disagreed he would stop playing deaf. Burnt into my lips beaten into my soul, salt the land in my heart where nothing can grow. I must be consumed so that I become whole. I am a spirit longing for home. I am a spirit longing for home. Ghosts shake in trepidation, haunted by the fangs of imposition. My friend, You don't belong here, My friend, Get out of my home, My friend My heart is haunted, My friend, We all die alone Burnt into my lips beaten into my soul, salt the land in my heart where nothing can grow. I must be consumed so that I become whole. I am a spirit longing for home. I am a spirit longing for home. So dig yourself out, with nails and teeth. You're only dead when you've accepted defeat. Dig out of your grave Dig out of your grave Value is dead, pride has taken its place.

"O wanderer, thou art lost. This was once a spot of reverence and worship, now only the alma mater and I remain." The air is thick with spores of fungus, the trees are low and heavy with the dark fruits of elder and the sap of tar. Groping branches pierce the skin below and above the canopy is as visionless as the night sky. Their trunks form knotted columns. I have come to this place to seek its most ancient guardian, to crawl beneath it as it whispers of a time long past. "O wanderer, thou art lost. This was once a spot of reverence and worship, now only I remain. I am emperor, of a dead kingdom and dying queen. Living from curse to curse, Suffering, loss after loss. Seek not this place. Through my eyes we will go there. Stricken with grief and rage, I will cradle you in my teeth. Until my mouth is bursting at the seams, I will cradle you in my teeth." A polished hide of volcanic glass, it tread softer than the snakes that scattered in its ghostly path. An eyeless apparition, it drew close and sang low. I have come to this place to seek its most ancient guardian, to crawl beneath it as it whispers of a time long past. The thicket takes me. The beast fades to black. I can hear the oceans shifting from the heart of the forest. I can feel the night sky as it fades to a royal purple. A golden sun crawls along the horizon with the perpetual dimness and grandeur of a dream.

Thusly, atrementous brethren rise from beneath him. A starless collection of murmuring stones. "As one of the stone men I return myself to their blackened flow, choosing Resonance with their petrified warmth" A monolith whispers, and black pus trickles from its porous obsidian flesh, panoculus. Unnoticed and immovable, its whispers elevate to the low groan of stone, Stone against stone. Thusly, atrementous brethren rise from beneath him, the stones have ascended from the earth. An empyrean bargain, struck with a pound of flesh and earth. One hundred thousand pitch black milestones pour forth from the earth. A Black Tide, a cleansing for the Land of Gods, and the once undefeatable Heroes and villains of this plane. They will be washed under the waves of onyx monuments, until their ivory contrivances are once more united with the Warren of Fallen Gods. A monolith whispers, and black pus trickles from its porous obsidian flesh, panoculus. Unnoticed and immovable, its whispers elevate to the low groan of stone, Stone against stone.

Forest shivers, not with anticipation, but relief. As the king rests his ancient limbs, once more upon his ageless throne. Birds of carrion clean the excess waste from the dirt, and migrate to colder climates. The evergreens breathe in, the air is glazed with the honey of pine. The shell of The Alpinist grows a cypress forest from the cracks in its twilit skeleton. His apostles lie in fragments beneath him and in the devastation he left. Moonstone burial mounds for the bastard kin of gaia. Far below that ethereal place, there lie substructures cathedral in scale. The once mighty lay consumed by the greatest of mothers. Blessed be the equinoctial sunset, projecting airs and forgotten dreams against the backs of my eyes. A twilight prison of rivers and trees that grow and fade with the heat and passion of souls in transit. They rest in tombs of draped in titanic cloaks of taproot and feeders. Until that day, Those of the earth shall be reunited with her, Until she has finished her work, cleansing their skin with root and stone. "I am the eyes of the emperor. My tongue daggered and black as a heart of living briar I have murdered my thousand consorts. I have laid waste to the Man of the Alpine. Nothing need wait for me, As your legacy betrays you and the last withered memory of your existence fades. I will take you there with tears running down the length of my face. We will go there together." No light pierces this blanket void of color or saturation. Profound still is the silence that has taken these caverns. With the finals reserves of their preserved strength, life steals back its breath. Just as a star releases itself as it fades away, they too fade away. Blessed be the equinoctial sunset, projecting airs and forgotten dreams against the backs of my eyes. And they erupted "So it has been, and so too it shall be. So it has been, and so too it shall be." Light claims the hollowed halls of the abyssal princes, They deteriorate in the white heat of their magnificent stories being forgotten. The Warren of Fallen Gods will forever forget those entombed. The heroes and villains that rise and fall like tides in that Land of Gods.