Tartarus washes over our world likes a plague. Ash spills over Arda once again. Apocalypse stares down upon us. So we stand.

Once come, once went. The Empire a fortress. The fortress surrounded, the fortress sieged, the fortress sacked. In ruin it lay. In ruin springing with blood and covered in ash.

The fortress rebuilt. End times rear their maw once again. The fortress standing taller than it had ever done. By blood, by fire, by steel, by magic, by sorcery, by Divinity, the fortress shall hold.

The debt of defeat will be repaid with victory total and victory annihilating. End times hath come indeed.

- The Fortress, published in Imperial Papers, author unknown.

Klavdiv Hold, the mightiest city under Arda, some would say the mightiest city on Arda. A metropolis of stone, a chain amalgamated from smaller holds. A central shaft that spanned wide enough for towns to be layered within it. And towns were layered within it, bridges connected to each other or plunged into darkness like some crazed spider's mad web as they spanned the entire width of the borehole to the centre of the world. Each one had upon a city's worth of homes tightly wound together although now they were little more than endless mausoleums to a race that was clinging on for survival. Great temples and churches, their bells having not rung in a millennia, armouries still filled with gleaming weapons fashioned from unrusting dwarven alloy. Beds of stone and steel now inhabited only by skeletons that had not been yet made to move.

And through that dominion over the planet, long untouched and covered in nothing save dust, life was slowly beginning to return. Imperial food brought in from the surface had lifted the population controls. They were only reclaiming their uppermost levels for now but this deep below, imperial scientists and engineers were working to reforge Klavdiv's road to the world-core. Huge steel cables to carry electricity and signal hung from their great holdings as they hummed with the power of an entire continent flowing through them. Every floor had a camp and every camp had a dozen men and dwarves who worked tirelessly too remake maps that had long been forgotten.

Old doors of stone were being knocked down as everything was being recorded. From the journals documenting the endless night that had set in once the suns under the surface had set, to dwarves that had laid down on their beds and simply waited for starvation to take them. Skeletons half the size of a man clutching skeletons a quarter the size of one to skeletons laying with knives plunged into their ribs. Their flesh had long been devoured by insect or germ, and eventually even insect and germ had succumbed to the bountiless stone around it. The only signs of unrest were the granaries that had been ransacked. Golems still stood their posts, without the energy of Arda's Core to power them, they had become little more than statues outlined in dust.

And yet, the men recording still travelled. To the endless mines that spiralled further from the sides of Klavdiv's central shaft and to the refineries that now sat with minerals ready to be molten the moment that they felt heat once again. Aqueducts to carry water now saw only dust whereas the lavaways had cooled bore only a dark stone that looked as if it had been bubbling. So the explorers of eras long gone travelled. They returned to the camp. And from those camps shone lights. Lone beacons, mere parodies of the suns that had once illuminated everything here, yet beacons nonetheless.

And from the top to the bottom, a signal was sent. A spotlight tinged green flickered on and off for a second. A camp saw it below it and flickered their own lamp. And another. Another. Yet another. A chain of beacons sending the final message for Iniri that she needed to hear.

We have made it to the top. Begin.

Iniri had prepared somewhat already. From her green dress of interlaced with living wood had sprouted branches and vines that clawed their way through the tunnel. Great oaks hooked the roots around bridges and stabbed into branches into stone. They thicker and thicker, until they themselves could their own oaks. The mad spider's web of stone above her was nothing compared to the infinitely repeating pattern of Gaia that she saw through. And every of those oaks spiralled into a dozen more, which spiralled even further. Trees for backup should the main oaks fall, and then yet more for backup of the backup. A forest so thick it could be likened to the largest swallowing brambling bush to have ever been grown. More bark than open air. And in the middle of it all, stood Iniri.

Goddess of Nature. Humanity's oldest foe. Long defeated. So pitied they had made her the Goddess of Food & Bounty for a thousand years. A Goddess that had a thousand titles, yet needed only one. Her grandest. The original.

Goddess of Nature.

Iniri looked at the lone acorn in between her fingers. Thin growth had sprouted to it and grown into and through her and then into the roots.

And suddenly, Iniri was at the same set of bridges from a thousand different angles. The trees began to sway as if they had been taken by breeze. Their leaves hardened and grew large. They became harder than steel or stone or whatever other little things humanity could build. Vines to trees like ropes and pulled everything together, then they themselves solidified to grow bark one would use a pick on rather than an axe. Iniri saw it all. Iniri saw Klavdiv above her. Iniri saw the flickering beacons of lamps that were being used, for Olephia's curse would surely destroy the power lines. Iniri saw the Goddess of Chaos below her. Iniri saw that black miasma that carried all the poisons Klavdiv could spill into it.

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Iniri saw the acorn in her fingers.

All that was needed was a single seed that managed to outlast a moment of uncreation. Iniri put the acorn to her chest and held on with everything she had ever stood for.

Olephia looked up at the barrier above her. The sunflower that had slithered down a stray vine to her side swayed as if it was touched by the gentle breeze of afternoon. And the sunflower made a gentle sound, one that sounded very much like the loving whisper of a partner awakening from sleep. "I am ready."

So was Olephia. She turned to the waters. And Uncreation spoke. "Start."

At the very bottom of Klavdiv hold. One word rang out. One word of uncreation.

For single instant, a sun once again shone under the surface. A sun that devoured and tore and annihilated all it touched save for its creator.

Iniri felt her sunflower be wiped away by the endless heat and tensed. Her fingers wrapped tighter around that tiny seedling in her grasp. Her brows creased, her eyes were shut so tight they began to hurt. The muscles in her arms began to flex and grow stiff. Her core grew upright and tight. Her thigh and calves all tensed. The roots spiralling from her stopped shifting and prepared for impacted. The closest vines straightened through the air, or began the stone they were wrapped around. The roots to great oaks hooked and curled as they made one final push. The trees themselves stopped moving once again. Cracks ran through stone and dust settled upon the thick canopy.

Iniri, the forest that held the grandest city in the world, tensed.

The heat came first. Like a terrible hammer blow that been swung into her, a hammer that burned and incinerated and devoured. A hammer that shattered stone into rubble and burned root to ash. A hammer that could felt as if it could split the entire world apart if it tried. A heat so terrible it burned hotter even than Alkom's summoned suns and with a flame so raging it immediately devoured the oxygen that it fed upon. A flame so terrible it cried with all the terror of countless razed souls.

Iniri felt herself be burned away.

And Iniri grasped her acorn tighter. Bark was regrown in flames of uncreation. Roots reached into the flames to push them back. The forest began to shift as it spiralled downwards. Woods once again spiralled deeper, a phalanx against the onslaught of heat coming from below. A phalanx upon which that heat crashed upon. A phalanx that had manpower countless and eternal. A phalanx that held even as humanity had conquered the world and would hold long after humanity left it. A barrage of air, no longer burning but just simmering as it rolled under the temperature slammed itself upon Iniri's forest.

And even though Iniri had been pushed back, Iniri had held.

She felt her acorn. One seed was enough.

The shockwave came second.

Bark cracked and crumbled, leaves were torn apart by the sheer power of Olephia's sun, vines twisted and ripped tiny particles ripped through them. Stone held up by her roots began to crack and crumble. Another hammer again, one that knocked over fortresses as if they were mere paper cards. One that left not even a single sliver of life as it lurched forwards. One that would devour all until it left nothing but a field of broken rocks in its wake, not even ash.

Iniri felt Chaos try to rip her apart.

And Iniri gave way. Her heart beat, she let out a breath as she felt the shockwave brought on by Olephia travel through into her roots. As had been done, so would be done now. Where stone was brittle and unbending, where stone cracked, branch moved and oak swayed as what felt like lightning travelled down her forest. Bark chipped away to give way to fresh, young material that flexed and moved. Iniri's heart beat faster as yet more trees grew to replace the bridges that had been lost. Branches swayed, leaves gave way and they gently circled down below as they were replaced again. Sap poured from openings in Iniri to seal her wounds, vines that had been wrapped tight now gave slack and whipped through the air as they rocked back and forth. A single instant of the most powerful force on Arda. It was a bullet that crashed into non-resistant water, and it made it no more than a quarter through Iniri's forest before it exhausted itself.

And even though Iniri had been pushed back, Iniri had held.

She felt her acorn. One seed was enough.

The illness of radiation that had once been called Olephia's Curse was next.

The deadliest of Olephia's effects, an invisible poison that killed and maimed and turned men bathed in it bright red. That shut down organ and forced cells out of control, or just tore them apart down to their smallest building blocks. The repugnant, invisible miasma Olephia expelled whenever she forced the atom apart with the sound of her speech. It crashed into Iniri's forest like a million different needles, all pointed in different directions yet each a spear that stabbed on for eternity. A final thrust that came as the aftershock of Olephia's power, and the one Iniri had been dreading the most.

Iniri felt the ever-present poison of the universe try to unroot her.

And Iniri reformed. Leaves shrivelled and turned brown and then gave way as they were pushed out by fresh buds that immediately began to spiral back into the same shape. Vine snaked down vine as it devoured its poisoned kin. Trees moved to swallow trees which buckled as they lost strength. Iniri felt blood run down her nose, and then her own Divine regeneration close the wound. Her forest shifted as it replaced itself, devouring the material of old growths to fuel the new. A million spears had impaled themselves into Iniri and a million spears were swallowed as new life grew to step in to take the place of the old.

And even though Iniri had been pushed back, Iniri had held.

She felt her acorn. One seed was enough.

And Iniri regrew.

And then, nothing came.

A single moment of annihilation against a single seed from which all Gaia sprouted.

It was done.

Olephia stared down at the ocean now a full floor below her. It bubbled and released toxic miasma but that mattered little. Uncreation's hum broke down the toxic gases into tiny little atoms that bounced away from her. She had managed to wipe a good deal of it away. Of course, she had no clue how much of the toxic depths there were to actually wipe away but this was a good pace.

Olephia looked up to see Iniri's forest had already reformed. It stabbed into the stone walls and clung to bridge and to itself, a brick of Gaia that had taken the first the full might of her speech and managed to withstand it. A vine descended down from it. A sunflower beautiful sunflower, the most colourful Olephia had ever seen sprouted from it.

Olephia smiled at the sunflower. And just like last time, the sunflower spoke in the blessed, definite tone of Divinity. "Again. Klavdiv will hold."

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