SSD 5.00 - Arc 5 - Seed of the World Tree

Sorry things took a bit, but going to post two things, a chapter and this, the intro to the Arc.

That looks like a tree, let's call it a tree,' said Coyote to Earthmaker at the beginning, and they walked around the rootdrinker patting their bellies.
―Jack Kerouac, The Scripture of the Golden Eternity

And there, the new world unfurling, Yamash considered. The heavens crashed against the ground, and the ground pierced the sky, whirling against one another like a grindstone. So, He stood, his feet stilling the ground, His hand the sky. However, the sky, when He took away His hand, started again its endless swirl, diving down to howl against the solid stone. The air moved, and the land was still, and it was balanced. Yet, even as He watched, the ground cast off dust to ride the air, each trying to conquer one another.

So He watched, and thought, and the next day, He took a bit of the ground, and a breathed in a bit of sky, and then cast out His breath upon the bit of earth. Then, with a stirring, the two melded to form a seed, which He planted. The first tree was born, linking the heavens with ground, and returning unto each, what they stole from the other.

-Excerpt from Tales of The Beginning, Unansonani Agimo, recovered from an excavated library.

==Arc 5 – Seed of the World Tree==

After the choking miasma settled, and the skies faded from black to merely gray, and that gray faded into snow, then rain, as the burning of Otga finally returned after years of nothing but black twisted ice, life grew within the ashen wastelands of the world.

Some of that life was the same, but much had been lost, and with countless dungeons lost beneath the ash, and the civilizations that delved them decayed to ruin, dungeon breaks had scattered out new life to reclaim it.

It was into this world, that new civilizations emerged from their hiding places. Whatever refuges sheltered them, and whatever magics had preserved and fed them, none could remain within forever.

And this then, sets the stage for the regrowth of the world.

The first generation after is a tale of endless tragedies, and sacrifices made heroically, and countless more who were buried in vain beneath the ash, those they sacrificed for failing to emerge into the new age, and buried with them.

For all the darkness, and struggle, humanity came together, rising up, each upon their scattered rafts in the endless ocean of ash, clinging to one another and to life. The Farmers, those of that noble power, had been prioritized in all shelters, in all places, for there was no future, without food. And so, as the light returned, the veil of darkness passing from the face of the world, the Farmers got to work growing food, seeds often entering the ground before hungry eyes, their hope sounding louder than their stomachs.

Agriculture returned to the world, and civilization began anew.

-From A History of Civilization, Dalk Vabim, IC 1485