Bastion

01/10/293 AS

Over three hundred and fifty years ago, Simon cleaved space and time from void to see if he could learn and grow and eventually found himself lonely. He gifted half of his Mind to the universe in hopes it would use his gifts of substance and light and creation made Bastion. Time and space reveled in the creation alongside Simon until it learned that the god still held another half of Mind. Jealous that Simon made it share its half while he had one all to his own, creation hid Simon's gift from him, calling it Bastion's Mind. Simon cried and his tears melted away half of the world they had created and threatened to wash the hidden half of Mind out of existence, leaving only its northern hemisphere remaining.   Creation pleaded with Simon to save their planetary child to which Simon dried his eyes and compressed substance and light into Bastion's core, a firmament on which it could hold itself upon with . However, Simon left Bastion's mind hanging at the bottom of creation by a thread of land as a reminder of what they almost lost. Simon then looked upon Bastion and made preparations for the day that Bastion's Mind would fall out of creation entirely. He planted twelve mighty Rocks of the most varied metals on the planet and carved one human from each of them, calling them his firstborn and the Anointed. Simon raised the Anointed in his light for twenty years before he tasked them with populating Bastion with new life, both human and beast, and gave them sacred relics to accomplish that.   Simon left his work to his children's hands and ascended atop his own half-mind to watch his creation multiply. The Anointed made 100,000 humans at each of their Rocks and raised them as their father did them and all was peaceful until those first 1,200,000 came to age. The Anointed of Seventh Rock, Uche, saw that his children could get sick, grow old, and die and such pained him. He argued with his eldest sibling, Caitlin of First Rock, to use Simon's relics to make their children like the Anointed, ageless beings able to use all the gifts that Simon had left them. Caitlin admonished Uche and told him that Simon instructed them to fill Bastion with humanity. She insisted that humans were creatures that aged, loved, reproduced, and died. To deny them their mortality was to turn their back on their father's sole directive.   Uche could not accept this decision, took the relic known as Simon's Heart, and squeezed from it sacred blood. He took his own firstborn, Lorentz, to Seventh Rock's apex and had him drink of the blood, granting the mortal agelessness and the ability to use whatever relic he could obtain. Such gifts, as attractive as they are, could hardly be contained to that solitary summit. Before long, half of Bastion clamored for the gift Uche bestowed and Lorentz found he could spread it to others with the consumption of his own blood. Caitlin was furious that Uche would defy her as Simon very first child and threatened to execute Lorentz. Uche gave Lorentz a number of relics and told him to raise an army against Caitlin, forming a mighty struggle that brought Bastion's first humans to the brink of extinction.   Caitlin and the Anointed that stood by her named themselves the Church of Simon and selected twelve of the most pious humans to be granted the ability to use one particular relic each. She named them her Inquisitors and they led her armies against Lorentz, using mighty weapons to reshape Bastion's surface as their war claimed the lives of all but Uche and Caitlin from the Anointed. Their struggle continued until Caitlin used a relic of her own to create a mighty scar in Bastion's surface, plunging millions of hectares of land and rebels by the tens of thousands into the inferno of Bastion's core. She captured Lorentz and just before he could be put to death, Simon descended from his mind and put a stop to the conflict. He demanded a compromise between Caitlin and Uche and held their relics and bay with only a flick of his wrist until they came to one.   Lorentz's followers lost their immortality and Lorentz was forced to live atop of Bastion's only mountain for the rest of his days. Caitlin could keep her Church but was forbidden from harming Lorentz or his students ever again. Faced with the inevitability of his children's deaths, Uche asked Simon to bring him to the the Bottom of Creation where Simon's Mind slept so that he would be spared the sight of their demise where he has lived in exile. Lorentz allowed himself to age out of respect for his mortal siblings but his own immortality was something that Simon refused to take from him. Instead, he was taken, whole and alive, up to Simon's Mind, where he could learn from Bastion's god and one day return to his students.   The Monk of Mount Lorentz was their title and they passed it on to their sole apprentice. They toured the Rocks on their ascension, much like their founder did in their ancient war, to find their successor and compile Bastion's history for the Church. Seven students turned to seven teachers passed until Apprentice Geiger saw her mentor, Maxwell, descend from the mountain and tell her that she is to be the last Monk of Mount Lorentz.