From afar the Wall looks like… a wall — high, smooth, blue-white, asymmetrical in height, and it moves in ever-shifting elevations. The Wall’s movement is gradual and appears fluid; people say it slithers, though its activity is soundless because the Entity’s changes, while visible, are not physical. The physical parts of the Wall consist of the original Stauberg Wall (now enclosed), the Gate of Transformation and its Guardians, and the Aidion. Much of the latter is underground and connects to the Asae Eranos, the Malyrdeon Serat.
Ergeiron, even pre-transformation, was temporally gifted and possessed Leur prescience. He chose to dwell and build at Stauberg so that he might observe and prevent harm from the energies of the Rift that lurked offshore of that city.
Transformation. Ergeiron was the first of The Three to transform. When he was still in bodily form, Ergeiron raised the Stauberg Wall from the surrounding native gray rock to protect his newly founded city, including the Asae Eranos, from attack by the Aryati, with which the new Highborn princes were at war. After many years and the rise of Iddolea in Gweroyen, the Aryati launched an arcane attack that Ergeiron foresaw would destroy the Stauberg Wall and lead to Highborn defeat. The Son of Amynas and Leur undertook to save the new young race and arm it against its enemies.
Ergeiron went to the Guardians Gate he had built in the Stauberg Wall, a structure he had designed with his father Amynas and his brothers Derlon and Amarantos to receive and transfigure his immortal flesh and spirit into more formidable form. There he bared his chest and removed his sternum, which he presented, still blood-filled, to his sons, and instructed them to visit him at the Hall of Foundation beneath the Asae Eranos. After this he turned to the city and his thousands of loyal followers.
“By these words I make my most solemn vow: Here I am and here my Might will stand for as long as any of Highborn blood dwell within this Wall.” With this Promise, Ergeiron transformed.
Being Leur and omnificent, Ergeiron created from his flesh and being a supraphysical temporal axis that penetrated the Creation and all its Time lattices, a new body that accessed and also stabilized the existent Leur temporal structures. The Guardians Gate transformed along with his body (becoming the luminous, eternally guarded Gate of the Transformation) and Ergeiron created the Aidion as an organ by which he could continue to communicate with mortals. The Stauberg Wall was not transformed but was sheathed by Ergeiron’s new body, which created itself to be taller, structurally impenetrable, and absorbent of all energies thrown against it. Stauberg’s new, immortal Wall could not be scaled, could not be undermined, and was invulnerable to any weapon. Like Derlon’s Armor, it simply absorbed and dispersed into harmlessness all energies directed against it.
Four of Ergeiron’s five sons — Telarion, Eudeos, Alphaeus, and Lakkon — sought the Hall of Foundation upon which the Asae Eranos had been raised and discovered the Aidion, which lay directly beneath not just the palace but also much of the city and the Gate. Mysterious patterns scrolled and unfurled in trails of color across the ceiling, floor, and cliff-like palisades of the vast structure. Upon treading on the patterns, the Sons of Ergeiron noted how the patterns would change and shift and, when Eudeos — who was holding his father’s sternum — stepped upon one of the created patterns, an image briefly burned of a lake and a crown and a sword. When King Telarion was later slain on the lesser shore of Ulan San and his father’s sword captured by the Aryati, his brother Eudeos — who by that death had become King — understood that the patterns embedded in the Aidion had foretold the event.
Eudeos took up his father’s sternum, now shaped and housed into the Wall Stone, and descended into the Aidion. For an entire year he did not emerge except to the entrance each night to partake of water and food and cleanse his body. Only when he had learned the secret of how to communicate with his transformed Father did he leave the Aidion to again take up his duties, but this time as Wall Lord. Alphaeus also having been slain by the Aryati, their remaining brother became King Lakkon I.
Walking the Wall. Communication with the Wall and observing the potential permutations along timelines are done through the Aidion and with aid of the Wall Stone. Temporally sensitive Malyrdeons can use the Wall Stone to guide them along timelines encrypted in the Aidion’s ever-shifting patterns. Deep immersion in Time glimpses can trap an adept, particularly one who is prone to panic, in a state where his mind is unable to find a way back into the current timestream. For this reason, most Wall adepts have spotters known as “Tethers” who can assist them in escaping patterns. It is possible for a Wall adept to become so temporally damaged he can no longer have contact with the Wall.
Not every Malyrdeon is temporally gifted enough to make full use of the Wall Stone or attempt to walk the Wall. Moderately gifted Malyrdeons often choose to work with the Archive, which is housed in the Aidion and serves as a textual map of known events and shadows of those events. The Archive is a deep source of history and predictive politics.
The most gifted and powerful Wall Lords can venture deep into the Second Creation’s timelines and foretell events or discern the truth about ongoing or past events. This skill is not limited to human events but includes all Second Creation events such as weather, seas, fires, Rift storms, and the best time to plant crops. Wall power is rightly considered to be subtle and vast.
Endurin Malyrdeon was the last Wall Avatar, an adept powerful enough to perform deep manipulation of timelines. His power was such that he was able to use the Wall to locate into which Archived Past of the First Creation his granddaughter had fled and that she had conceived and given birth to a son. He devised a way to bring his grown great-grandchild, Marc Frederick, through the Wall into the Aidion. He also employed Wall magic — using Ergeiron’s omnificence to amplify his own — to create a means by which Marc Frederick could wear and later wield The Leur’s Ring. After Endurin, the power of the Wall Lords diminished.
Stabilizing Temporal Structures. The Wall is a supraphysical Being that “walls off” Time in ways that ensure the Creation operates as Leur designed. The adage that “All things happen in the same moment” is, metaphysically, true. Physically, however, no two events occupy the same Time. Any given heartbeat does not occur in the same moment as the next heartbeat, or the one before it. On a much larger scale, Mulsor’s destruction happens at the same moment in the past as in the current timeline as a Rift event… but the Wall ensures that the event, while singular, remains so and does not actually occur in the future. In ages yet to come, when the Rift seals, the event will no longer occur outside of its own timeline.
Cognizance. Ergeiron remains self-aware in a way Derlon, due to his transformation into the Rill, no longer does. The Wall is completely self-created and Ergeiron continues to enjoy an immortal existence, though because he was not fully Leur his transformation is an eternal state. Though Ergeiron no longer takes an active role in mortal affairs, the Wall continues to be part of the Mind and experiences Highborn births and deaths. Indeed, though the Wall may reveal and anticipate mortal events, it may also conceal them.
Ergeiron is aware of other gods. He remains aware of and even communicates with his brothers. He is also aware of the Undying Crown and of Nammuor, and he has been active in alerting the Malyrdeons about the dangers that await. Unfortunately, as the Malyrdeon lineage becomes fewer, the Wall has lost a great deal of its ability to intervene in mortal affairs.
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