Long before empires rose, long before the war with Rinnett stained the borders red, long before the Academy carved its name into the mountain's spine, Zues had only two guides:
The Flame. And the Night.
Both ancient.
Both sacred.
Both terrifying in their own ways.
No historian can prove which belief came first. No record survives to tell which doctrine grew from truth and which from fear. But every citizen of Rammaset learns their stories before they can speak.
Because where the Veins glow, faith grows teeth.
...
Echoes of Terra
Every child of Zues grows up hearing the same bedtime story.
Not of princesses.Not of heroes.
But of Terra—the First World.
They are told of a land beneath a blue sky, seas swirling with stormlight, forests older than mountains. A world humanity fled.
Not because of disaster.Not because of famine.
But because of dragons.
Not the wise, gentle creatures painted in old murals and romantic poems. Those stories came later—softened myths written by survivors desperate to believe their past had meaning.
The true dragons were nothing like that.
The oldest accounts describe their minds as alien, their bodies immense, their intelligence unfathomable, their power absolute. They came to Terra not for the guidance of human race, but domination.
Humanity survived beneath their shadow—obedient, fearful, and small.
All knowledge of the Fold—the ancient bridges between worlds—came from desperate attempts to escape them.
And escape humanity did. Time is powerful, it makes creatures forget things they should not.
But nothing escapes memory. The Veins, coiled deep beneath Zues, are said to remember everything.
When they pulsed, old stories resurfaced.Old fears returned.Old truths whispered beneath the ground.
...
The Flame — Keeper of Ascent
To the followers of the Flame, the world is a forge.
Zues, the Fold and Terra—all are stages in a single, endless refinement. Humanity must rise, again and again, until it becomes worthy of the First Light. The priests in orange robes preach that every Vein pulse is a blessing, proof that the Flame has not abandoned its creation.
Every Flame-temple carries the same mural.
A figure of fire reaching down, touching the brow of humankind.A hand of stone carved upward, lifting the world itself.A dragon beneath the horizon—wings broken, head bowed.
A symbolic lie. But a comforting one none the less.
The Flame teaches:
Fear not the dark.It is only the world before shaping.
It gives people a reason to wake each morning.It tells them their suffering has purpose.It promises that one day humanity will rise to a plane where war and plague hold no dominion, where Veins become rivers of light, where grief is transmuted into gold.
People cling to that promise. Especially in times like these.
...
The Night — Keeper of Remembrance
The followers of the Night do not preach.
They whisper.
They gather at dusk instead of dawn. They meditate in silence rather than chant. They believe the Flame is not a promise—but a wound.
The Night teaches that the Veins are scars left by Terra's fall. Not blessings, but evidence. Proof of power once unleashed, and never truly contained. The Night is not a goddess, nor a god—it is the memory of what was lost. The echo of Terra's agony. The shadow cast by a dead world that refuses to stay buried.
In Night scripture, dragons are not tyrants.
They are inevitabilities. Forces of nature wearing flesh.
The Night teaches:
The Veins remember.And one day, memory and world will become one again.
Their temples are simple—stone circles, water basins, quiet rooms where people confront the truths they would rather avoid. Night-priests wear black not as a symbol of death, but as a declaration that truth is rarely warm.
Children are told never to listen to them. Parents, in secret, sometimes do.
Because the Night never hides its most unsettling truth:
The Veins are not passive.The world beneath Zues is not quiet.And Terra's end may not have been an escape but postponement.
...
Where Faith Meets Fear
In the capital, the coexistence of the two faiths is fragile.
At sunrise, Flame-bells ring—calling worshippers to incense, bread, and prayers of protection.
At sunset, Night-chimes echo through narrow streets, where people kneel beside Vein-stones and touch them lightly, asking for guidance, wisdom, warning.
Most citizens believe in both, depending on the day.
Before decisions, they visit the Flame.Before funerals, they kneel to the Night.Before battle, they pray to both.
Rammaset is an empire built on contradiction just like these.
It teaches rationality, order, discipline—yet its foundations rest on myth older than its own name. Children memorize physics equations by day and whisper about dragons returning by night. Soldiers train with guns and blades, then knot Vein-charms into their boots before marching to war.
Even the Emperor is said to wear two rings: one etched with the Flame's sigil, the other carved from obsidian in tribute to the Night.
The Empire calls this balance.
Others call it hypocrisy.
But all agree on one truth:
Faith explains what the Empire cannot. And the Empire cannot explain the Veins, or maybe does not explain.
...
Pilgrims of Light
This morning, after the great blue pulse, the temples of the Flame overflowed.
Hundreds gathered in the Square of Radiance beneath arches strung with molten-light lanterns. Priests carried bowls of glowing ash, tracing sigils into the air.
Some knelt in gratitude, believing the pulse a sign of renewal.Others knelt in terror, sensing warning rather than blessing.
The High Flamekeeper—an elderly woman with hands scarred from decades near Vein-fire—raised her voice.
"Children of Zues, fear not. The Flame speaks only when necessary. Trust the Light. We were guided."
Her words were steady.Measured and Reassuring.
Her eyes were not.
She felt what others felt at that moment that the pulse had not been a blessing.
It had been a breath. A stirring underneath the surface.A reminder of something vast shifting beneath the empire.
And flame alone could not explain it.
...
Watchers in the Dark
At the same hour, the followers of the Night gathered in silence within a ruined courtyard marked by a single Vein-stone rising from the earth.
A Night-seer pressed her fingertips to the stone. It glowed faintly in response.
"Mourn not," she whispered. "The past trembles. Terra remembers. We must listen."
A man in the crowd spoke too loudly. "If Terra remembers, then the dragons..."
"Silence." Her eyes flashed. "Do not give name to what sleeps."
The Night never forbids questions.
Only fear.
Fear draws attention. Fear invites what is buried.
Still, whispers passed between them.
"What caused the pulse?""Was it an omen?""Was it meant for the Emperor?""Did something wake?"
The Night-seer lowered her gaze.
"No," she murmured. Not yet.
...
Unrest on the Streets
By midday, the capital churned with rumor.
Merchants argued in the markets."It's the Flame's blessing before harvest.""No, it's the Night shaking loose an old memory.""Blue pulses mean change. Everyone knows that."
Children ran between stalls, pretending to be dragons breathing fire until their parents scolded them for invoking dangerous names.
University students tried to measure the pulse with crude instruments and nearly set them aflame.
The military issued a statement:
The Vein pulse presents no threat. Citizens are advised to maintain calm.
Which convinced everyone there was a threat.
Nothing spreads faster than fear mixed with mystery. Nothing stokes rumour like silence from the Empire.
...
A Tremor Far Away
In the barracks of Outer District Twelve, the pulse reached faintly through the floorboards—dulled by distance, masked by creaking wood and exhaustion.
The soldiers did not gather in prayer. They did not debate theology. When someone has seen war, it's hard to debate on which religion is correct.
They were too tired. Most slept through it.
One stirred. Not fully awake neither fully aware.
Just a momentary flicker—a heartbeat out of rhythm.
A young man turned in his bunk.
His name had not yet entered history.
The Veins touched him without his knowing. Not enough to wake him. Not enough to warn him.
Just enough to mark the beginning of something he would not understand for months.
When the Veins pulsed, the world listened. But sometimes, they pulsed for one person alone.
This morning, that person did not notice.