Willard
Throughout the hall, gods flew and glowed and hummed and wove. They clenched fists and grasped mists, snapped their jaws and stood up tall, cried 'ELEPHANTS' and mixed their plants and why, one even did a dance. Tail-blades stabbed and lightning sparked, Aphot spun secrets in the dark, confetti strings whizzed through the air and crystals fell from the witch's hair. Beast-gods and child-gods took their turns, molding spells for their domains—

—until at last, amidst them all, only one last god remained.

Through all of the colorful chaos, each divine display surpassing the last, Majesty only stood there in eerie silence. She watched, eyes moving this way at that. Her fingers intertwined, one thumb tapping out a quiet rhythm of anticipation. For a moment she met Ethros's gaze, and seemed to acknowledge him with the slightest tilt of her head, though any words would have surely been lost in all the din and clamor of a dozen magic schools being simultaneously etched into the fabric of the world.

Had the Archfiend exhausted herself, in opening that great wound? Or had she never planned a school of her own from the start? Those who did not watch, or pay attention, might find themselves wondering. Only the ones paranoid enough to keep an eye out, or simply mad enough to see things as they truly were, might remember a moment passing as though in a dream—

-

*There is a shadow as tall as the sky.*

*Its eyes are twin suns. Its mouth is a yawning slit, beyond which lies only a bottomless hole. It wears a crown of melded flesh that screams its name from a thousand mouths, countless faces half-buried in a squirming mass from which they can never be free. In its left hand is the hammer wrought of black stone, heavy as mountains, and in its right hand there is the sharpened stake, carved with rows of painful sigils and hissing with the red heat of frustrated avarice. Above hands the torn and bleeding edge of a mutilated world, flapping in an unseen wind that roars and rages about the shadow and its domain.*

*The monster reaches up. It drives the stake through the flap of loose flesh, and pulls it down, stretching, pulling it nearly to breaking point—until it presses flush against the hard edge of something else. Something with a texture like wood, old and lost in dreams even gods cannot reach.*

*The shadow holds the stake in place, its grip unyielding as iron. It brings down the hammer.*

*There is a wail of pain, a keening that echoes and spreads upon the raging winds. The boundary of the world cracks and snaps, twisting and blackening around the point of penetration. The crown and its thousand mouths are chanting now, howling with one voice, and the giant again swings its hammer down.*

*With every strike, the stake is driven deeper. With every strike, the world breaks a little more. The flap of ruined meat is pinned now, nailed to the surface of the real. A festering parasite that latches onto creation and cannot, will not be removed.*

*The deed is done.*

*She has brought hell unto them all—*

-

—the vision passed in the blink of an eye, and fell away into the depths of half-formed memory. Majesty's shoulders relaxed.

If it had ever been real, who could say? Those who had even caught a glimpse might have seen something wholly different, or simply wiped the horror of it from their minds. A lingering feeling of unease would probably be all that remained.

That, and a permanent and gaping exception to the rules surrounding what came and went from her Demiplane.

_ _
At long last, quiet fell over the hall, as the last flourishes of godly power faded away or reaching some kind of stability. The flow of magic was still there, now present as a kind of constant soft background noise, but no longer did it bubble and roil with untapped potential. There were rules now, systems, and every last god had played their part in bringing them into being.

As for what would come of it, who could say?

Majesty clapped her palms together, the sound echoing off the wooden walls. "It is done."

And then, louder, this time with a smile:

"It is done!"
Lee
The Wheatmother had been the first to rise, and now she was the first god to return from her position above. The goddess seemed serene as she floated down, her wheatlike appendages trailing behind her as she descended from on high. If she had seen the scene of the Tyrant Queen's cheating, she did not comment on it, all of her eyes closed to the world at the moment as her form lowered to the tree. Then, starting from the middle and spreading like a wave down her body, her eyes opened. The goddess' divine gaze lingered on Majesty, but only for a moment before they began to flit around the room. Traces of her divine power seemed to fall from her tendrils as she moved, leaving sprouts where the power touched the floor of the Hall.

After a long moment of silence following Majesty's proclamation, she finally spoke. "Indeed." Her form shifted once more, the tips of her limbs coiling in like rope as her body warped back into her more humanoid form. The vestiges of the power she had used from the ritual scattered all at once like a small shower of green around her, causing a small garden to sprout around her. Despite that, she did not seem all that tired, more dissatisfied than anything else. Whatever had displeased, her, though, she didn't give voice to, her narrowed gaze dancing from Mr. Bones to Majesty, than to Ethros, then up to the ceiling. 

Her issues with how the ritual had went would not be given voice, but she would be sure to remember them for dealings with some of the other gods in the future. For now, she would have to teach her Ceres how to properly use this magic. They had immense potential for it already, she had spent a great deal of essence creating them, so all they needed to do was harness that power. Even with their immense strength and durability, the realms of the other gods would be dangerous, especially if they were expected to travel out to other realms to spread the abundance and the harvest to the rest of the World Tree.
Daniel
Ah, so that was it, then? In a way, it felt somewhat anticlimactic, but then, when *Did* A ritual feel *Complete?* At the dream ritual, the end had come abruptly when the Unending had taken her. At the season ritual, they all kind of just sat down and had some sweets when all was said and done. And here, well... Vivienne let her antenna swing at the bat of Silly's hand, the smile on her face seeming almost permanent as the feathery appendage swung back and smacked the jester in the face, eliciting a sneeze from her.

"How would I describe it..." Ruminating on an answer to Silly's question, Vivienne slid the hat off her head with a free hand. Once again unconstrained from the confines of the fabric, her antennae sprung up, one of them *Again* Batting the smaller deity in the face on the way up. The jester sneezed, and the witch giggled. "Magic was... Likely inevitable. If Gaia made even *Me,* A deity of sleep and dreams, have an affinity for magic, then it was only a matter of time before enough like me banded together to do something like this. And, well..." She nodded towards the rest of the group, while taking this moment to pat some crystal dust off of her hat. "This was likely one of the better outcomes, when it comes to the accommodation of our mortals. On the other hand, though..." The witch trailed off. There had been a vague *Discomfort* Just below the surface. Between Majesty herself, the demiplane used, and even the shape of the power that spilled forth over the land. Hot, viscous, like a boiling blood or a bubbling magma. The intentions that a deity held shaped their power, and none were more suited to seeing those shapes than the magically-sensitive deity of divinations herself.

Her own power, rigid yet formless, capable of anything yet limited by her preconceptions. Silly's, the inverse of hers, chaotic and free, and yet almost choreographed at times. She, who knew better than everyone what her power could do and yet only using it for the performance. The beast's, abstract, ethereal and yet forceful at the same time. Something that those who dwelled in reality could not grasp. And finally, Majesty's. Was it a desire for dominance or was it desperation? Though her power reeked of subjugation, of destruction, it was not in the same way that the beast brought ruin. And yet perhaps far too similar.

In either case, what's done was done, and if some long-buried machinations were to spring up in the far future, well they'd have to worry about it then. Though she thought that to herself, she couldn't stop the guilt pricking at her heart. Had she judged wrong, then many would die, and she would have a hand in it. Yet could she even have stopped it if she tried? "... Will I look back upon this day with shame or pride?" Her voice was quiet, a statement intended only for her and Silly. Donning her hat again, she slowly rose to her feet, crystals in her legs cracking and Silly still in her arms, and spoke, directing her voice to the one who had brought them all together this day. "There's one last offer I'd like to make before all of us part ways. I do not want the joy of creating magic to be a privilege that only those of us fortunate enough to be here could partake in. Should another deity come along that wishes to create their own magic, I will lend my aid, help them weave it seamlessly into our current whole. That is all."

With her piece spoken, Vivienne gave a small bow, slowly turned on her heels and started making her way out of the hall. She took a few steps before stopping, realization dawning on her expression. She turned again, blank eyes quickly jumping about the assorted gods before finally stopping on two in particular. "Aphot, Wyrd, you're both friendly with Silly." After that abrupt statement, the witch snapped her fingers and a pair of letters materialized near them, both invitations to Silly's birthday party, and both well put together to the point that it was immediately obvious it was Vivienne's and not Silly's work. "The party will be soon. If you wish to attend, those letters will inform you of its starting. Not to mention it would be nice to get properly acquainted." 

Again, she bowed and turned for the exit. She took a step forward, and somewhere in the far recesses of her consciousness, something *Crumbled.* Her gait staggered ever so slightly, and she blinked, confused. She took another, and a small voice in the back of her mind whispered, a silent scream. She took another, and the small whisper erupted into a shout. A cry reverberating through every thread of consciousness and every speck of instinct, telling, *Demanding* Her to *Run.* Her eyes widened, her head turned to regard Silly for a moment, panic clear on her expression. If she was quick, she could get the both of them out there, before... She lashed out with her power, distorting space around her. Anywhere. They just needed to go anywhere but here, and...

*... There you are...*

Thoughts that weren't hers resonated in her head. Her expression contorted into a pained grimace, the weight of an entire god pressing against her mind. *Disgust. Malice. Pride. Resignation.* Emotions she knew of and yet didn't know the true *Depth* Of overwhelmed her. All thoughts thrown into turmoil, all feelings quashed beneath the unending tide of *Hate.* The deity's ethereal claws closed around her *Being* In its entirety, grasping, pulling. Her *Everything* Strained with a feeling she could not put into words, further and *Further* And ***Further*** Until...

***SNAP***

The empty vessel that was once 'her' collapsed lifelessly, like a marionette with its strings cut.
Mary
The vast amounts of energy that poured out of the demiplane torn asunder slowly subsided and settled into a few relatively stable, steady streams of magic. Onesifi finished their dance at the same moment as all other deities finished their own creations, some in a more violent manner, some in a more careful one; none quite like the performance that Onesifi gave. And sure enough, soon the world below seemed to fill itself with the sheer power, one created but uncontrolled by the divine directly; a toolkit for mortals to use as they please. It was... Exhilarating.

In their excitement, Onesifi failed to notice the momentary vision that some of the others may have received. Instead, they curtsied once more to the gathering of deities, a grin playing on their face. "Indeed, it is done! I believe I speak for everyone when I say that we had done a spectacular job in these halls, and it could not have happened the way it did without even a single one of us. For that, I thank every deity who decided to come here. I hope to see you once more some time later." With that, their short - by their measures - speech came to an end, and they started moving around the great hall, unwinding after the activity.

To their surprise, some of the deities seemed to be unnerved with the end of the ritual - a heavy atmosphere that Onesifi could not help but find themself subjected to as well. Her Majesty certainly had something to gain from this ritual, and, unfortunately, it was beyond their ability to guess what exactly it was that she gained here. They cursed their inexperience as they noted that they had to wait to see how it manifests in full.

But that was a concern for the future; for now, there was still something else the deity of ambition had to do here. Namely, the question of arranging a meeting with Vivienne. They noticed her giving out something to Wyrd and Aphot and tried to reach her before she truly left - shouting from the other end of the hall could potentially unnerve the goddess. But they did not manage to get too far before Vivienne spontaneously collapsed.

At this point, Onesifi had to teleport right to her. They called out to her quietly "Lady Vivienne?" No response. They waved their hand before her eyes. No response again. "Lady Vivienne?!" They shouted out again, louder. No. Response. And, as far as Onesifi could tell at this distance, her very divinity bled from her, as if she was a lacerated corpse.

Across the hall, a powerful shout rang out: "Blast it all to oblivion!" It was filled with equal parts fear and anger - both emotions that the Restless barely showed during any other time - except, perhaps, the panic that they felt when they first heard of the threat hunting the deities. The threat that, apparently, had managed to get the only source that had any amount of useful information that Onesifi desperately needed.

The threat was still around here, and Onesifi had to hide. A moment's notice - and they transported themself away. Damn building connections - the only connection they could build in the Hall of Gods at this moment was the inseparable ties that would bind them to the void if they were to stick around even a moment longer.
Cynthia
As Majesty announced the completion of the ritual, Ethros allowed himself to relax. He wasn't exactly sure why, but for a moment he was sincerely worried about her. She seemed to have been caught in a trance of some kind for a short while, and he wondered what it felt like having one's demiplane bleeding power like this. He himself had seen... Something, just a peek before the ritual had ended. Something that worried him, yet the memory was already faded, shading into the background.

Yet, there was something that felt like accomplishment in his mind, that he had participated in something that would benefit both himself and the mortals he had created. He allowed himself a small smile, and even kept it up when Vivienne stood up, crystals moving and breaking up. That looked painful, he noted, but she seemed able to deal with it just fine. Better not to involve himself and sound presumptuous. He nodded to her when she made her offer, as it seemed fair.

He allowed himself a chuckle, light and free and flowing, "Indeed, it is done. I hope our mortals can make something great with this gift."

He would have said something else, had a shout from Onesifi not echoed throughout the hall, the alarm in the other god's voice making the sky god whip his head around at a speed that would snap a mortal's neck. Then he noticed the corpse that Vivienne had once inhabited, and ignored Onesifi's teleporting away. He teleported to the body, noting the lack of anything divine. He looked around projecting part of his mind briefly to search for an interloper, then reabsorbed it when he found nothing.

"Has anyone seen anything like this before? Because I am at a loss as to how this happened." His voice came out jagged, the fury at something like this happening here, a gathering of deities, very evident. He sent out a part of himself to his realm, to create greater beings. After all, if there was danger, his realm would need greater protectors.
Josephine
At the sound of Onesifi's and Ethros's shouts, Calena quickly scanned the room to see the goddess called Vivienne laying on the floor of the Hall, her purple hat a few feet away from her. She raced over and knelt next to her sister, pushing through any of her siblings in her way. 

**"Don't touch her!"** Calena shouted. "I don't know what's going on. Anyone?!"

She held her hands over Vivienne, and pulling strength from her Mother around her, she worked to detect Vivienne's source of life. 

*C'mon c'mon c'mon, something, ANYTHING!*

Nothing.

No sign of divinity, of life, of anything in her. It was as if she was a wilted and brittle flower. The idea of Vivienne remained, but devoid of color and breath. Laying on the floor unmoving. A stream that had dried up, a forest that had been burned to a crisp. 

She had no idea what to do. Usually she was able to sense some remaining life in a person, a whisper of something, and then she could typically find some cure to lessen the symptoms, put them on a track back to recovery. But those were mortals, *This was a god*. 

*Would anything work? What could have done this? And right in the World Tree, right under our noses?*

**"Bones! Can you help? Can you sense anything? What's going on?"**
Joseph
So it was done. Mr Bones definitely felt the magic coursing through the tree, seeping into each and every land except his own. Something had happened in the blink of an eye just as the ritual reached its conclusion, a moment nearly imperceptible to even the gods. While it didn't necessarily fill Mr Bones with dread, it did remind him of just how little Majesty was to be trusted. She had an angle in all this, one that went beyond just bringing magic to mortals. As the skeletal god was mulling over what to do next, especially given his demigod's little expedition in Majesty's land, he heard a commotion. It seemed that Vivienne, or this piece of Vivienne, had simply just died. Mr Bones looked at Calena, shrugging. The first thing that was obvious to check was Vivienne's body. Twisting the corpse this way and that, Mr Bones came to the same conclusion that everyone else already had. "This fragment of Vivienne is dead. I couldn't quite say why or how though. Perhaps it was an extravagant way of leaving. I suppose I can check if she still exists elsewhere, if it would alleviate concerns."

First of all, Mr Bones plucked out the rib that had the ritual's participants on it. He reasoned that if any god that had signed it was dead, their name would either no longer appear or would look different. Vivienne's name was still there and so she was probably alive. That or her corpse was still beholden to the rules of the ritual, which seemed a bit more unlikely. Next, he slowly made his way to the hall's wall, a window forming as the god approached. Looking up into the void, Mr Bones attempted to make out the constellations that he had seen in the very first cycles of Gaia's existence If a god as old as Vivienne had died, then an essential part of the cosmos would have been extinguished. Luckily though it seemed that Vivienne's star was still there. Mr Bones looked back at the Calena, lazily pointed out of the window.

"Her star is still shining. Vivienne, for now, remains alive. As to what happened or why this piece of her decided to collapse, I'm still unsure."
Lee
She raised an eyebrow, not comprehending the panic of her siblings. "What is it that causes you fear?" She hummed, stepping forward to look down at her collapsed sister once more. "We all have our vessels. Is it so odd for one of our number to abandon hers with the meeting done?" As far as she was aware, Vivienne had just abandoned this body, having left to use one of her others. She had plenty of empty puppets back in her Valley, so she wasn't quite sure what all the fuss was about. She squinted at Calena and Ethros, her confusion and judgement clear in her expression. It was pretty apparent that she now thought them to be just a bit thick. Notably, she didn't seem at all worried for their sister, instead looking disinterested.

Triticea Genetrix, the Lord and the Motherlike aspect of the Wheatmother, considered the body and her siblings for a moment more before allowing it to slip into the back of her mind. If her sister and brother wished to fawn over one of their sisters' fallen puppets, she really had no place telling them not to do so. It might seem unbecoming to her, but she was not the authority on what was acceptable and what was not, so she chose to just leave them to their ridiculous panic. Besides, she had places to be now, so she might as well take her leave about now before her siblings began to freak out even more.

A wind blew through the room, the smell of freshly baked bread carried on its scent. The roiling breeze carried the goddess along with it, her form dissolving into grains that blew away on the wind back towards her realm. Her Ceres would need to be taught how to properly harness this magic, after all. She doubted it would be difficult for them to master, smart little things, but they would need that first push. Already, ideas on what to teach them whirled within her mind as she rode the gale down the World Tree back to her Valley of Abundance, leaving only a few grains of rice in her wake scattered across teh floor of the Hall of the Gods.
Sidney
The second god of divination's own intuition tingled with several warnings like a lit-up error console, but if he was any bit of concerned about it, he had quite a way of showing it. Aphot continued to play with the excess power that thickened the atmosphere, thoroughly entertained by the little threads he was tugging and weaving and...

And then it was all over, and he was back to lazing about as if nothing exciting had ever happened in his life.

He'd seen the vision clear as day, like a grotesque little cartoon; and like any sensibly demented child, he wanted to reach out, to tie that flesh into knots, to rearrange those teeth in a great big smile, vandalize that throne with its every antithesis- alas, it was but a vision. A fleeting vision that broadened a hollow smile on the trickster's unseen face, veiled gaze settled on Majesty like a snake watching an oblivious child.

His attention flickered over to Vivienne as the goddess addressed him. At the invitation's manifestation, Aphot inclined his head in thanks- and spoke his first words of the evening, eloquent and light: "Certainly. I look forward to it." He was never one to miss a party.

But then the air of levity he carried suddenly vanished.

An icy sliver of ill omen slid through his soul. The notion that something bad... Something *Wrong* Was about to happen, like the feeling of watching an unsteady vase finally fall, or a leaning chair leg giving out, or something... Something...

Aphot turned back to stare at Vivienne; and, stars above, he swore he could almost *Taste* It, as if he'd bitten into a necrotic corpse, as if maggots were ravaging his tongue. He watched, enthralled, as a scene replayed that he'd witnessed too many times now: before he could even act, the witch-goddess went down. *Dead.*

Aphot stilled. There he remained, statuesque, as his kin either rushed to the goddess's aid, couldn't be bothered, or ignorantly assumed this was an inconsequential incident and left. Some raised very valid questions, questions Aphot even had answers to, but they would go unheard.

He'd affirm that Mr Bones' was correct: Vivienne was not permanently extinguished just yet, as quickly became evident. Which was a good thing, for several reasons- especially now that, more than ever, curiosity burned in Aphot's chest like a brand to his heart. But he knew he would not find answers here, not at this time.

His gaze swept over what was left of the congregation once more, before he decided it was time to make his exit. And so like smoke, Aphot dissipated, leaving as quietly as he came.
Willard
Majesty wasn't surprised to see a god die. Given her plans, that much had been all but inevitable.

What surprised her was that it happened this early, and that *She* Hadn't been the one doing it.

Her shoes clacking against the floor, she slowly and calmly strode across the hall until she stood only a few feet away from the limp corpse that had once been a god. Voices mixed in the air around her, concern and confusion balanced by dismissive nonchalance. Vivienne was dead, and why? Vivienne was not truly dead, so did it even matter?

"She did not die of her own accord." Majesty's voice was hard as stone, her statement a concrete fact. Triticea had left too soon to hear her reply, but once again The Archfiend's words dug like hooks into the souls of the few gods who remained, pulling at their attention with an almost preternatural power. "We saw her before the end. Her eyes were frightened, confused. She did not *Leave,* She was *Taken* From us."

Her index pointed to the floor, and there in the grain of Gaia's wood a faint disturbance could be seen. The Hall was highly resistant to the powers of most gods, being of divine nature itself, but Vivienne's haphazard power had still managed to leave a visible mark. She'd been trying to defend herself, striking out at random against a foe she could not see—not that it had done her any good.

"We are glad that she is well. But this is a grave matter, not to be dismissed as mere coincidence or curiosity." Her fierce red eyes stared at each of the other gods in turn, alight with barely contained fury. *Could it have been any of them?* No, she would have sensed it. The implications, however... "Something was able to cut down a god in our very sanctuary, before the eyes of more than a dozen of her siblings. If *Any* Of you have an inkling of what may be behind this, however slight, then We urge you to say so now—for your own sake, if not for the rest of us."

It could be a flaw in Vivenne's being. It could be some natural occurrence, a quirk of the universe. But Majesty's intuition told her it was a threat. She was no god of divination, but she did rule over Tyranny, and tyrants were nothing if not paranoid.

*If someone was behind this, if someone murdered a sister in MY fucking Hall—I'll have their head. I'll have their entrails.*