OWP-0067 - Chapter Three

Esecutore

Welcome back to this place between scenes: the Intermission. This time I have a treat for you: I am going to read you a story.

Esecutore

I could just give you a copy of Eternals: A History, but being Eternals that is a very large book. So, without further ado: selected excerpts from Eternals: A History, Volume Nine Hundred and Three, Tales of The Eternal War, as written by yours truly.

Chapter III: Life of an Eternal

One may ask what, in fact, an Eternal is. To put it simply: an Eternal is what an Eternal does. Eternals, unlike mortal races, do not live for their own sake. In fact, it cannot be said for sure that they “live” at all in the same sense. Instead, they embody the function they exist for. One of the most famous, Infinel, is also known as The Messenger. Their perview is that of contact with mortal races and existences. As such, they became a god, of sorts, to those whom were contacted. Most other Eternals were known of only through their Messages, which form the basis of the old Messengite Church’s doctrine. Compared to the New Messengite denomination, which takes much of it’s teachings from first hand experience, the Old Church was full of apocrypha and hearsay as much as it was about the truths directly heard from Infinel. In fact, Infinel only directly interacted a handful of times: enough to allow the church itself to exist, and for knowledge of the Eternals and their artifacts to be disseminated as legends.

However, there were many more Eternals than just Infinel, even more than the few that have had influence in the stories of both Karn’s adventure and his father’s. Eternals followed a strict hierarchy: the leader, Maxima Termis, their four council members, and each of their four Lesser Eternals, and so on. The Lesser Eternals took on related tasks to each council member, both through delegation of responsibilities and through merely having a related, but less important role to play. This is important because nobody, aside from the still-living Eternals themselves, are quite sure how many Eternals there actually are, or in fact, were before the War.

The War was exceptionally bloody (ignoring, for a moment, that Eternals lack blood in any traditional sense), and played across multiple worlds and layers. It is only through the perseverance and sacrifice of many that the concept of existence from the perspective of mortals did not face apocalyptic calamity.