The Song of Longing (Credit: H.A Matos)
Excerpts from the three-episode documentary series “The Call of the Almighty”, narrated by Sophian (Lidercian) [1] journalist Dávid Katona: Light Elf [2], Phase-Shifter [3]; which premiered on the Asbeel Group’s [4] streaming service AO-AO on Khamael 30, 1798, Late Third Age of the Gnostic Era in the Epigenetic Aeon.
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Episode I
“OBSESSION”, with voiceover by Dávid Katona. First aired on Khamael 30, 1798, Late Third Age of the Gnostic Era in the Epigenetic Aeon; at 21:19.
Dávid Katona (Credit: H.A Matos)
Part One: The Traveler
Scene: an occult diagram representing the four layers of reality in the Kenomitian Cosmology: the Augoeides (the physical universe, known as Yesh; the plethora of ethereal, fairy-infested and conceptual realms of Tikun; the psychopomp-staffed afterlives of Tohu; and the isolated and sacrosanct Godhead, the source of souls and home of the Demiurge); carved on the bark of a blood-splattered elm, in a snowy forest. A flock of banshee birds, flapping their black wings and keening through their bat-like maws, can be glimpsed fluttering around it; and classical music plays in the background, creating a blend of whimsical and eerie ambiences.
A representation of Kenomitian Cosmology (Credit: H.A Matos)
We’ve all heard it at least once in our lives: an otherworldly piece of music that “embraced” us on a cellular level, burrowing into our minds from across dimensions and filling us with a mixture of dread and yearning for the unknown and the sublime; and a desire to reach its source and bear witness to whoever or whatever is playing it. It came from the Tikunian realm of Chokhmah: the stormy and hieratic land that serves as a metaphysical “lighthouse” for all realities; and it was the Call of Da’at: the last barrier between them and the abode of Abraxas Leontoeides; the Aetheric Demiurge: Creator of all sapient species, inventor of Magic, administrator of the cosmos and willful hermit. Most of us ignored it, slaking our thirst for the transcendent with mundane pilgrimages; but some of us found it irresistible, and ended up grasping at the tantalizing Supernal.
Scenes:
(1) A snowy forest village, completely ablaze as a jellyfish-shaped airship silently lifts off from it; whilst the crackling of electricity can be heard everywhere.
Credit: H.A Matos
(2) A two-headed calf languorously grazes on a nearly-barren plain, chewing on bioluminescent moss under a blood-red twilight sky.
Credit: H.A Matos
I fell prey to it back in the winter of ’97, whilst I was covering (for the Asbeel Group) a slave revolt in the Termaganti [5] colony of Aisa in Tikun, amongst the cold shadows of The Mirkwood: the dark forest lodged between dimensions yet set apart from stable gateways to further realms. It captivated me, pulling me away from the gunshots echoing through the streets and the blood on the snow; and compelling me to scramble to the nearest portal, carrying my recording equipment with me as I crossed over into the wastes of Eretz Tachtit (the definitive amalgam of all post-apocalyptic settings) in the realm of Sheireil: the symbolic abode of entropy. I wandered through the plains for about an hour before coming to my senses thanks to… something I can only describe as an epiphany: the absolute certainty that I had to broadcast my journey to the world!!
However, I soon realized that such content, on its own, wouldn’t convey the Creator’s radiance, nor the glorious accomplishments of my predecessors; for an Archmage’s sorcery and his/her artificial portals are always available for the right price, and I have enough donors to get them easily. That’s why I decided to “enhance” my trip by chronicling the exploits of six of the colonists, freaks and luminaries that traversed Tikun’s many realms, lured by the Call
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Scene: thousands of gravestones, monuments and mausoleums stand in a blizzard surrounding a crescent-shaped mass of still shadows; whilst a subpar cover of the Call can be heard in the background, as if performed by a manic violinist, and bright searchlights prod around the landscape. An armored ghost (encased in a violet and chitinous carapace) approaches the camera, with its face opened like a fleshy and frostbitten flower.
Credit: H.A Matos
In order to undertake my journey to the “literal border of the universe”, I purchased the services of the Malebranche Society of Arcanists (MSA): an international organization supported by all megacorporations and most Yeshite and Tikunian governments; and dedicated to developing and facilitating colonization, transportation and exploration across different realities. They provided me with an AI-operated and atomic-powered airship (resembling a floating cyclops head), and a map of the best shortcuts and the more predictable portals (which would’ve expedited my travel time to the point of mundanity, if it wasn’t for the myriad of alien vistas I beheld). As I approached Da’at, I witnessed its splendor through the ship’s eye-like and sound-proofed windows, and its sublime and multi-faceted nature soon became apparent:
It wasn’t a material object, but an array of concepts. Not a literal wall that separated me from the Creator; but the separation ITSELF. To my biological senses, it mostly appeared as an impene-trable mass of darkness, an invisible force field and an instinctually scary “thing”; and my magical senses interpreted it as purely abstract intuitions. From East to West, it was comprised of the wispy conceptualizations of: razor-sharp shards of metal, salt, flowers, music, happiness, enlightenment, love, hate, stories, colors, gemstones, shadows, fluorescent lights, glass, delicious foodstuffs, soda, thorny vines, charred wood, ice, screaming fungi, plastic, electrified wire, pulsating and rotting flesh, diseases, suffering, depravity, radiation, bone, gaseous and liquid pollution, black stone, gasoline, dying stars, explosives, burning coal, sacrificed juveniles, animal heads and mystic nails dipped in the blood of the Supernal. Even the ship’s sensors failed to catch a glimpse of it, perceiving it as a blurry distortion. The only “ordinary” constants I could glean from it were the eternal blizzard that surrounded it and the “music” it emitted.
Barely managing to avert my eyes from such a captivating view, and listening in to the wind chimes that the AI employed to indicate a landing, my predecessors’ feats popped-up before me on holographic and tri-dimensional “bubbles”, in stark contrast with the utter banality of my voyage:
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To be continued in Episode 2…
Notes extracted from the Kenomitian Compendium
[1] Holiest Principality of Sophia: a decadent and monarchist alliance between five Gothic Punk governorates: the Empire of Lidérc, the Dynastic Republic of Lubia, United Kulshedra, the Kingdom of Stihi and the Free State of Lugat, the Banate of Zduhać (Sophia’s extra-planetary colonies) and the Dragùa Confederacy (Sophia’s extra-dimensional colonies). Its society functions as a cult of personality around the nobility, and hematophagy is as common as wine-drinking there.
A glimpse into the Holiest Principality of Sophia (Credit: Kenomitian)
[2] Light Elves: a subspecies of the Eliite race. They are tall and amphibious humanoids with pointy ears, long fingers and toes, inhumanely thin and angular faces, two sharp-fanged mouths, an array of skin tones including all colors, and eyes completely bathed in lighter colors.
[3] Phase-Shifting: a form of advanced Mesmerism that grants the power to deceive people, erase physical traces, create illusions and attain intangibility.
[4] Asbeel Group: a Teslapunk megacorporation, prominent in the fields of financial services, shipping, otherworldly exploration, heavy industry, environmental technology, insurance, e-commerce, cloud computing, digital streaming and slave trading. All of its high-level executives rule remotely from extra-dimensional demesnes in Tikun, under the stewardship of mundane AI caretakers that enjoy the same rights as mortals.
A glimpse into the Asbeel Group (Credit: Kenomitian)
[5] United Provinces of Termagant: a Raygun Gothic matriarchy located to the East of the Sea of Zoë, ruled by three mysterious figures known only as the Moirae, who enforce a policy of elaborate masking/ headdressing/ plastic surgery/ biological augmentations on female bureaucrats and government officials; and encourage the tattooing of males according to their function in society. It gleefully engages in the oppression and slavery of males (treating freemen as second-class citizens), and constantly has to put down egalitarian/ misogynistic rebellions.
A glimpse into the United Provinces of Termagant.
