The Powers teach us that Paradise is an illusion, and that anything of such great beauty must have a hidden ugliness, and in our case, we brought it with us, though it would many years before we learned it. This is why we say that all that is gold does not glisten, nor all that glisters is gold. What appears noble and proper on the surface may be corrupted and vile beneath, much as the Imps have taken our fair lands and carved into them their warrens and homes, their shelters and tunnels.
So it was that upon a day unremarked, a young girl tossed through time and strife and her friends came upon a strange and peculiar crevice in the world, and they ventured into it, and when they emerged, they were changed, they were different, and though for long they strove to hide and disguise this they were nevertheless still found out, for children can rarely keep such things hidden from their parents. A lesson you would do well to remember, pupils.
Before the great council that ruled Ackyu in those days they were brought, and their discovery was laid bare, but they were not believed, and so it was that they were set to show the twenty-five members of the council what it was they had found and guide them into it. The day came, and the entire council, led by the chief among them, chosen for his nobility and his honor, his dignity and his generosity, the Commander Bill Lyle, and they descended into the earth and were gone for three days and three nights.
No one knows what happened within that time, but thought twenty-five went in, as holy and sacred a number as there can be, it was not twenty-five who came out, and none came out as they went in. It is said that afterwards some went mad, and others withdrew, that it caused rifts and divisions much like we still see today, but in the end, the survivors came together, and they argued, and they fought as we are all wont to do, and there were three factions.
The largest was composed of nine members, the second largest of seven, and the last of five, but the bonds and the deals and the contracts and agreements – as binding then as they are today, for what is honor without dignity, what is dignity without integrity, and what is integrity without commitment – set the five in power over the others, and chief among them was the one called Bill Lyle.
Forgive me, pupils, it sometimes becomes difficult to recall my old lessons, or whom I speak with, as I live now on Yrthe, and while much is the same, much is different, and like our mutual acquaintance Arabesque, I must struggle to recall against two histories.
It was then that the corruption began to be learned.
It is whispered that the change was not immediate, that it was not sudden, that many clamored for it and many tried to fight against it, but in the end the grand council became permanent, not chosen, and those in power began to tighten their grip or become unattached.
As Paramalus, Lyle became the Overlord, and he held firm to his grasp on not only the world, but on those others on the council. Only the children remained forever beyond his reach, and to this day, that is known is to still anger him, enrage him, though at the time he dismissed them as unimportant, and so gave to The Triplets the thread of his own unraveling, and the spur of his own downfall.
And so, the time of Age of the Gods ended, with Paramalus the greatest among equals, the Overlord of all Wyrlde.
