The warm wind was sweeping the land and the grove of the forest hut. The leaves already had some yellowish-greenish color and the scent of late summer filled the air. The hut had a mossy roof and the crosswisely stacked joists which made up the walls a greenish taint. To the left there was a flowerbed with some sort of red flowers which resembled corn poppies. On the glade grew lupines and cornflowers. In a small, but well maintained and very proper looking garden right beside the hut grew vegetables: tomatoes, green beans, potatoes, carrots. On a pile of compost in a corner mosquitos were dancing in the late sunlight. Around the entrance to the hut was a wooden veranda with a large stein filled with clear water which served as a washing stand. A little wooden staircase led down to the meadow on the glade. On the right side of the veranda stood a rocking chair and at the walls leant a meerschaum pipe with an arm-long shaft. The interior of the hut was frugal: a bed, a chest, a table, two chairs, an armoire and a small rack.
There were two windows: One which allowed the morning sun to come in and one which allowed the evening sun to leave. When the door stood open at noon, the room was bright and light-flooded.
Nobody seemed to live in the hut. No personal belongings could be found and it looked like a prepared guest house waiting for the guests to arrive. Everything was clean. The bed was prepared and on the table was a tablet with a wooden bowl with some white bread, cheese and fruits and a jug with fresh water.
And then there was that old wooden writing pult with a thick book on it, bound in reddishly dyed leather. It was closed. A quill, an inkpot and blotting paper indicated, that there still someone was writing into the book. On the cover a symbol was imprinted: A star made from eight lines which connected the eight corners in a way that always two corners were skipped. The tips of the star were connected to an enclosing octagon which stood on a corner. Inside the star, the lines formed another smaller octagon which enlosed a blue gem. Above the star The title was imprinted in gold foil: "Arcanima".
This kept being so for countless ages - an eternity.
The hut always kept being tidy, the food on the table always fresh. No dust was sitting down anywhere. No cobwebs. Late summer never ended. It became evening, night and day again - for many aeons.
It was an afternoon when the warm wind changed and a breeze sprung up when something unusual happened:
The evening window sprung open and a gust of wind entered the hut directly into the book that was lying on the pult and the quill turned a pirouette in its jar. The wind opened the book, flipped through the pages and then faded until a page laid open. A slightly gob odor, like pitch or sulphur appeared but vanished immediately with the next gust of wind.
The writer stood up and closed the open window. Then he took the quill, dipped it into the inkwell and continued writing where the wind had opened the book, as if he never had done anything different. When it became evening he ate a little and rested until morning.
The hut had a guest.
He woke up when the sun shone through the morning window. Calm and easy he stood up, went in front of the hut and washed himself at the water stein. He dried himself. Then he went into the hut, ate some white bread and fruits and drunk some sips of fresh water from the jar that stood ready. Then he sat at the pult and started writing. He made no breaks and wrote continuously, speedy but without haste, word for word, phrase after phrase. page for page.
He spoke no word and left the hut only in the morning to wash himself or to visit that even smaller hut behind - that one with the sawn out heart in the door. Rarely he went for a little walk around the glade. But that was on really rare occasions. He was writing all the time from dawn to dusk. At night he rested. When he had written for a long period he went up and moved a little. Then he sat down and continued writing.
The hut stayed tidy like all the time before he had arrived. Food and water were always fresh. The writer followed his rhythm and wrote into the book.
And the warm wind was sweeping over the glade.
At the beginning, the Writer set up the pillars of the four cosmic origins: The wet, dry, hot and cold corners of the world. And from each pillar the origins started to interact with their neighbours. Between each two origins, elemental realms rised and started being the source of their respective element. And each of these original elements had two properties:
- Hot and Dry = Fire
- Cold and Dry = Earth
- Hot and Wet = Air
- Cold and Wet = Water
Fire, Water, Earth and Air became the original or primal elements which were there first. And the world moved clockwise in the realm of time. And from the four elemental realms the raw primal elements naturally moved into the center, the heart of Arcanima. The more the original elements moved to the centre, the more they interacted with each other and formed the materials, energies, lifeforms and other miracles of the world. And with their interaction they formed an additional element which has several names, depending on the author: aether, fifth element, mind, the godly element, love, quintessence, void, lapis philosophorum and many more. And with the creation of the Quintessence the sentient beings -mortal and immortal- came into existence.
The Creation of the Quintessence caused an impulse or a shockwave which turned back the great wheel of Arcanima and the primal elements interacted with the aspect lying in counter-clockwise temporal direction:
This created the child elements:
- Lightning as a child element of Air when it touched the hot corner
- Wood as a child element of Fire when it touched the dry corner
- Metal as a child element of Earth when it touched the cold corner
- Acid as a child element of Water when it touched the wet corner
And finally eight elemental realms were formed that way:
- The elemental realm of AIR, which is wet and hot,
- The elemental realm of LIGHTNING, which is primarily hot and secondarily wet,
- The elemental realm of FIRE, which is hot and dry,
- The elemental realm of WOOD, which is a primarily dry and secondarily hot,
- The elemental realm of EARTH, which is dry and cold,
- The elemental realm of METAL, which is primarily cold and secondarily dry,
- The elemental realm of WATER which is cold and wet,
- The elemental realm of ACID, which is primarily wet and secondarily cold.
In this time the Avatars came to life who reigned over the respective elements:
- Ariel, the Avatar of the primal essence of Air
- Lektro, the Avatar of the primal essence of Lightning
- Ignis, the Avatar of the primal essence of Fire
- Zhol, the Avatar of the primal essence of Wood
- Gaia, the Avatar of the primal essence of Earth
- Tallon, the Avatar of the primal essence of Metal
- Sirina, the Avatar of the primal essence of Water
- Solvete, the Avatar of the primal essence of Acid
When time recovered from the shock it went forward again a little faster for a while -like an oscillation- and this made the primal elements touch the other corners and four additional elements were created:
- The element of Blood, which is primarily wet and secondarily hot
- The element of Sunlight, which is primarily hot and secondarily dry
- The element of Dust, which is primarily dry and secondarily cold
- The element of Moonstone which is primarily cold and secondarily wet
And the Quintessence together with the element of blood created life, and when life died it returned to dust and so the cycle of life and death was created from the impulse of the Quintessence.
And the impulse of the Quintessence together with the sun created day and with the the moon it created night and they were were kicked out into distant space by the impulse and they formed the cycle of day and night.
And together with the four new elements the Quintessence created the four Avatars representing them:
- Moka, the Avatar of the primal essence of Blood
- Sulvip, the Avatar of the primal essence of Dust
- Nomo, the Avatar of the primal essence of Moonstone
- Isolhe, the Avatar of the primal essence of Sunlight
And the writer reviewed his work and he was content. And he rested for a while and watched his creation developing on its own. After aeons of time he could see many lifeforms populating the world of Arcanima. Through the the blue gem he saw the world he had created. He saw the rise and fall of the Ancients. He saw the rhythm of the seasons. He saw empires come and go. And he saw the sentient beings living, working, loving and proliferating.
And after a while the writer recognized something new to him. It was something in his body. Or was it his soul? He couldn't understand what it was, but it happened while he was watching a fishermans family in their daily life, children growing and playing and living their happy lives. He had this inner picture of a female writer, a perfect being, intelligent, creative, lively and full of spirit. And he started writing into the book of Arcanima her description and when he was almost done he went to sleep. Using the power of the words he had given her the gift of writing just like him. Every aspect of her was recorded and written down, like the whole world of Arcanima had been written down by him over the course of time. It had taken quite a while until he had described her and finished the description. And there was only one day or so left to finish her. He had spared the best of her for the last day of writing: Her true heart and character. That's why he needed rest - he wanted to make her perfect.
In the evening he was very exhausted and went to bed just like every day, maybe just a little bit earlier.
Humans would have known what had happened to the writer if any had been around - it was known as loneliness in the human lands . The writer was lonesome. Though in his world everything was provided and he could just be what he was and write - still something was missing.
In this very night the warm wind somehow came to a standstill. It was more quiet than usually and even the cicadas seemed to be elsewhere or quiet. The book laid open with her description visible when a sudden smell of pitch and brimstone could be sensed.
And she looked around and saw the writer sleeping soundly in his bed. She read the book and suddenly was shocked: She understood who she was and why she was there, since she was gifted. The female writer had come to life. And due to the powers he had given her, she could leave the book and see what had happened and how she had come into existence. And she became enraged as she saw the reason for her creation, that she was the result of the vain desires of the writer, as she felt. And humiliated and enraged as she felt she developed her desire for revenge. She tore the the page of her creation out of the book together with some empty sheets. And from now on she did everything, yes everything to disturb and destroy the perfect harmony of the world of Arcanima of which the writer was so proud of and which she completely disdained.
Silently she opened the door and vanished into the night. She needed to be for herself and far away from the writer's home she fled.
Her name was Nemesis.
In the morning , when the writer awoke, he sensed that awkward gob odour.
He saw the last pages of the book missing.
Then he became pale because he understood.
Very.
He realized what he had done and what just had happened.
And the first thing she did was to split the Quintessence in the heart of the world of Arcanima into two halves: she pulled all the powers she could grab from the element and concentrated them in the deepest and furthest pit she could find: and it was called "HELL". It were the powers of destruction she got, since she lacked the ability to grab the powers of love and creation. And she swallowed the darkest and most evil part of the Quintessence and became the Avatar of Evil and destruction.