Dark is the day, as dawn has not yet come. Yet still there is one who toils beneath the earth. Atlas sits, poised on his desk, as he has the last thousand days. He waits for his challenge, his daily crucible to overcome, and let the world wake in safety. A dark, empty void creeps into his workroom, clenched between a golden apparatus of many rings, inlayed with markings of a time long-past. As quick as the void entered, so too it vanished, and in it’s wake a curious device sat. Dark, cold stone with veins of fire that permeate the surface, a paradoxical device with symbols etched in it’s surface. The symbols are of an ancient, chaotic realm, with little access to the world of man, only reached out to once a day with devices such as these.
Atlas begins to stir, finishing his drink and groaning. Atlas is a tall, gaunt, middle aged man, with the markings of a persistent, thoughtful, and aggravated expression etched into his skin. He spins the rings, and so to does the horrible device spin with them. After a quick examination a chant is made in a low husky voice, strained with equal parts exhaustion and apathy. At the end of the chant, the device loses all colour. The markings of that ancient realm are gone from it’s surface, and what remains is a cold, dark rock. Atlas grabs the rock from the machine, and throws it against the wall next to him. The rock shatters into pieces, and falls down the well underneath the wall into an endless abyss.
“You need be more cautious” a frail voice whispers across the room. A dark skinned old man, with many symbols etched in red ink on his skin stands in the entrance to the room. He is adorned with various trinkets of different art styles and materials. He is leaning against a cane crafted of charcoal, and inlayed with gold, rough in all places but the handle where time has worn down the bark. “I’m not so easily outwitted Coeus, return to your bed. You need rest” Atlas returned in response while sitting down with another mug of his drink. “You are exceptional in what you do, yet you need humility. Chaos is not so easily overcome, and the consequences of failure are dire” Coeus responded weakly. “I’m aware of the consequences, but it is my burden now, and I will hoist it as I see fit” Atlas responded.
The room is dim. The inner walls of the room are much more worn down. Atlas enters, himself now walking with a cane. His hands show the toil of time on him, slowly taking pieces of what’s left. Shuffling to the apparatus, the process begins again, another dawn, another device. Atlas drinks from his mug as approaches, looking up to inspect the latest device. A look of terror creeps across his face. The device is something new. Every device is new, but this device is of a different kind entirely. Atlas interrogated it’s form, looking around every inch of the device for anything his mind could latch onto. With bated breath he considers his words carefully before speaking them. The chant wavers as he completes it. The device goes dormant, the subtle low hum it was making before has vanished, and it is no longer doing anything. Relieved Atlas retrieves the device to get rid of it, the moment it reaches the air a horrible black smoke plumes from it’s surface. Atlas manages to get it back in the containment machine, but a large cloud of the smoke has already escaped, and make it’s way billowing past the door.
Screams reverberate in the room, Atlas’ face drops to a horrified look of shock. His mind racing, his heart pounding, and yet he lays on the floor, still, stuck in his regret. Millions taken by the smoke, it’s horror carved it’s legacy into the world above his head. Distraught, and isolated, Atlas knew it was time to find one to replace him. He was no longer in control, and could not bear the world to suffer the consequences. Once the device was dealt with, on each day he would search, beg, plead for another to take his place. He yelled at the limits of his lungs, begging for the reprieve of another to share his burden, none would accept. Decades past, and so to did Atlas. Alone, and faintly remembered, he slowly withered until his heart gave in to his fear, and beat it’s last.
It was a while before it was noticed. His Apparatus could hold more than 1 device, but eventually it had reached it’s limit. With no one to fight back the chaos, the apparatus burst, and several devices leapt into the world, and with them came plague, drought, superstition, conspiracy, hatred, and horrors without name. A ward was appointed by the people, not by choice. The burden was thrust upon her, not as it was with Atlas, not of her competency, instead of her misfortune. Watcher was her new name, and title.
Many died before she could unearth the secrets of Atlas’ mind. Even as she did her best, she was unable to reach his mastery. Atlas had the training of generations, Watcher was just a normal woman. The symbols of the ancient past were not of importance above ground, the world had since moved on, or so it thought. The knowledge of the workings were irrelevant to those who wished for bigger and better things. The history died with Atlas, and so to did it’s lessons. They would need to be re-learned, paid for in the blood of the victims of circumstance, as they were in the past. Every day they screamed, and every day she died more inside. She wished someone would take this burden, and let her be what she was before, but she knew it would never be. Not anymore.
Decades took their toll, Watcher began to fell apart more and more. She begged for another to take her place, warned of the dangers that lurked, but no one listened. Again she sat, alone beneath the earth, waiting for her time to die. After a few years of pleading, she was still alone, but one came to her outside the castle to heed her warning. He was tall, with jet-black hair, in a brown suede coat with gold inlayed. He looked to be a Nobel, beyond the reproach of someone as insignificant as Watcher. He seemed concerned over her worries, and before long he was helping to deal with the devices. Her anxiety waned, and with it so to did her health. Hermes was her savior, he set his mind to the task and excelled. He surpassed Watcher in only a few years, building upon the machine left by Atlas. Expanding it, improving it. During his tenure with Watcher, not one death came of the devices doing. Chaos was once again tamed.
In her wake Hermes was a capable heir to Watchers burden. The world continued to spin, and Hermes continued his work. A great man, and eventually a great father. One day, the unthinkable happened, more horrors seized upon the world. Puzzled, many assumed this was a new threat. Hermes has never wavered, why would this happen now? Then it was discovered that Hermes had not gone to his post that day. Thousands gone, with nothing to show for it. Upon hearing this the king was livid, he brought Hermes before the court to determine the cause. “Sleep” Hermes responded. Dumbfounded the council assumed he misspoke and asked again.
“Sleep, I was in need of it. You see, you provide me nothing for my service but a pittance. I acquire gold elsewhere on my own time. Time, I cannot refund. So, I pay for my gold with time, and in turn sleep, today the balance was too high.” He responded to the court. “You will pay for it in blood if you do not make well on your promise” the king responded. “No, you will pay for it in blood. I am the only one who bothered to learn the histories, I am the only one who can beat back the darkness. I bought and burned the old tomes, I spread lies of their contents, and I will take their secrets to my grave. If you wish to save your people, you will give me my worth” Hermes responded. “I will give you and your family the broadside of a blade if you dare speak to me as such again” the king responded. “Then you will be given the broadside of every horror that waits in the workshop. I am the only one who knows how to operate the machine, and it has kept dozens of devices. If I do not return to the workspace, they will be released by this evening. You will be the king of whatever ashes are left.” Hermes responded smugly.
Aghast, the council looked to the King, unsure of what to do about this revelation. “I see. A deal with one evil to beset another. How do I know you are truly the lesser of two evils?” The King asked, quiet and calm. “I am not. We don’t know of where these devices come, not really. But I assure you, I know how to wield them better than whatever animal sits on the other side of the gateway to our world. We call them chaos because they are ungoverned by reason, I am not. I could be a much stronger ally, or a much worse enemy. The consequences of the devices have been available for me to exploit, yet I’ve chosen not to, until it was necessary.” Hermes responded. “We will get you your gold, and you will take an apprentice. I will not be extorted indefinitely by one such as yourself. This is the only deal I offer, and if you chose not to take it I will have you hung and quartered with your family before you finish begging for another chance to accept.” The king responded. “Fine, but I choose the apprentice” Hermes responded. The king nodded with eyes clenched in fierce hatred for the man he was looking at.
“Autolycus, focus. I will not be known for having a half-wit son” Hermes voice echoed in the workshop. He bears the marks of age on his face, yet the workshop itself is renewed. Tiled in bright white, sterile, lifeless, and cold as the devices are. The apparatus unrecognizable from it’s former self, it sits with dozens of devices in it’s grasp. Hermes always kept them as insurance, and Autolycus would do the same. He did not share his father’s passion for work, but Autolycus recognized the power it brought the family to be the kings savior. With wealth as with tyranny, it’s stronger to be feared than loved.
Curators Notes
The world is both delicate, and resilient. There are many linchpins that hold it together. Often times these positions are not exciting, they are often complex, thankless, hapless burdens that must be bared by someone. They do not bring the crowds, or the excitement that simple solutions, and slogans do, yet they will leave deeper scars on the world than any of the popular causes will. People will watch them atrophy in apathy while those involved beg for a reprieve that will never come. Refusing to re-learn the necessary lessons of the past because they are not as exciting as the latest gossiping tripe.
They will complain when it’s gone, but pay no heed to the warnings that precede it, often mocking them, until it’s too late. Then at it’s worse, when the consequences come, you will not find them near except to complain, and ask why no one did anything about it. Such is the burden of an honest authority to do it’s job well that almost none will care. An irony that permeates everything that good leadership takes the foresight to do what is necessary before it is too late, and not after. To ensure the stability, sovereignty, and safety of their world before it they are threatened, and to do so often without thanks, or even worse, with hostility to the efforts you will make to do so.