How We Came To Be

Azarias, Sage (Foreword by Brother Wardein of the Imperial College)

Upon reading Varieties of Faith in the Empire as well as the Annotated Anuad and Words of Clan Mother Ahnissi to her Favored Daughter, my Echmer colleague Azarias questioned me about the creation myths of the various races of Tamriel. I told him that they were tales linking us to the Divines who created our world, chronicling how we all came to be. He frowned, wondering why one would want to connect themselves to the ATEDA (et’ada) in such a fashion; sometimes its very easy to forget Azarias has grown skeptical in his old age. Naturally, I asked him if the bat-elves had a creation myth of their own but he dismissed the notion as foolish.

‘My race doesn’t need a creation myth,’ he said defiantly. ‘We know where we come from all too well.’

However, when I informed that the races of Tamriel was interested in their origins and how the Echmer came to be, he quietly walked out of the room and didn’t contact me for several days. When I was finally growing worried that I offended the old bat elf he finally reappeared at the door of my college, holding two manuscripts. Azarias told me that he convened with the Council of Dull Chimes, and they gave him permission to write a ‘creation myth of sorts’ (whatever that means). He handed the documents too me, and I blinked at the titles of them.

‘HOW WE CAME TO BE.’ I turned to look at my friend, who did that endearingly yet suspicious smile the Echmer are known for.

And people say that the bat elves don’t like jokes.

####The World’s World

The Aurbis that we know of exists of several cycles not recorded, that stretch back into times immemorial that have ceased to exist. Our Aurbis, the current one, is nothing but the machinations of an even greater Aurbis that no longer exists but we are a subset of it despite that. Even we do not truly understand what this means, but we know of it.

The Greater Aurbis and Our Aurbis is separated by the nothingness which is the VOID which in itself was nothing. VOID is VOID unto itself and it will continue to be so. In this VOID a world, like but unlike ours, arose and life flourished. Eventually two beings on this world came to become concepts and recognized themselves as part of the VOID, and renamed themselves IS and IS NOT as they ventured throughout it. Once again the VOID was filled, and in their wanderings IS and IS NOT discovered another: MAYBE. As common of beings of their sort, both IS and IS NOT were intrigued by MAYBE. Eventually, IS and MAYBE joined and IS NOT was forced to redraw into the VOID. But IS NOT returned, destroying MAYBE but only after she birthed twelve new concepts that became worlds separate from their own. IS expelled IS NOT from the VOID before drawing into himself, becoming his own world.

For many years the Twelve Worlds flourished until IS NOT found a way to reenter the VOID, where he smashed the Twelve Worlds into almost nonexistence. IS unmade himself as a world, and fought IS NOT until both of them were permanently expelled from the VOID for all time where IS created of himself a new broken world. Two of the surviving Twelve Worlds, HST and EHNFY, are drawn into this broken world. Our Aurbis, the Current One, begins in the broken world.

OUR IS (PSJJJJ) and OUR IS NOT (HHMMM), subsets of the original IS and IS NOT, become the Outer Realms known as OUR VOID and AETHERIUS. From these Realms come forth the ATEDA. Those that sing the kinesis of PSJJJJ and find themselves residing in it become the DRA and those that sing the stasis of HHMMM and find themselves inside of it become the AEDR; these are roles that are interchangeable, for they are imperfect beings and do not know their own role.

On ATEDA, ALORKH, learns of the Greater Aurbis but specifically MAYBE by looking on Our Aurbis from the Side, learning MAYBE and becoming consumed by MAYBE. Thus he decides to rebuild MAYBE, for every Aurbis that has, is, and will exist must have MAYBE in it. He asks his fellow ATEDA for help; it is no secret that some do and some don’t, for these are fickle beings and do not know their own minds.

GANUS and the GE begin construction on MAYBE, which was envisioned by ALORKH, and TOSH presides over the endeavor. The DRA decide not to help, become enraptured by MAYBE when it is completed. The AEDR are left to build MAYBE, which they do. Some of them become the frame of the HEART OF MAYBE, which is then settled with parts of the HST and EHNFY. The AEDR are tied to MAYBE and the HEART OF MAYBE forevermore, which is not always so.

NRN is the HEART OF MAYBE and those that know the true meaning of this, which is Three, can be truly gone from this world.

This is HOW WE CAME TO BE. And IT REPEATS.

MAYBE.

####From The Bowels of Nirn’s Womb

We do not know when we were created or why we were created, but we do know that our kind has dwelled beneath the surface of our isles in total darkness since before the final echoes of time stopped shaking the milieu. It was in this darkness that we first began using the weakest form of reflected sound, which allowed us to see in only two tones of color we came to call ‘the black’ and ‘the white’.

And then one day the Begetters came and entered our tunnels and caverns with great instruments of noise. Back then our people were very small and were frightened by the Begetters and their contrivances. The Begetters themselves seemed fascinated by us, and especially liked our use of reflected sound. But they were largely unconcerned about us, and we were ignored during those times while they focused on other pursuits.

Right now you are probably wondering how we were able to understand their speech, for we had never communicated with other creatures of their ilk before. Our scholars believe that is because our ears are able to hear and discern levels of sounds that other creatures can’t. I believe that too. But as the Begetters began to build into our dark home, our ancient elders decided that we would learn from them. The Begetters were still not concerned by us and so they let our people fly amongst them as they created new contraptions. Soon, some of our people were able to learn and speak their language, which surprised the Begetters. After that, things changed. We became the Begetters servants and workers, bringing them such objects as metal and ore to help them in their research and in return they taught us how to read and write and how to perform calculations.

But most importantly, they taught us about sounds.

Small sounds. Big sounds. Loud and quiet sounds. Sounds that went dead when struck and sounds that reverberated throughout the air. We liked the sounds, not only because they helped us see but also because they helped us learn more. We liked the sounds. They made us comfortable in our simple existence.

Our masters also talked about greater beings, who they scorned for reasons that piqued our interest. When we felt we could get away with it, we would read their notes about them and wonder why they held such hatred for these beings, but we never learned the answer. To this very day we have still yet to learn the answer.

And then everything changed for us again, because one day we awoke to melt the ore and start on our calculations when we noticed something.

The Begetters were gone. Vanished into thin air.

We continued working on the tasks they left for us, of course. They did not like it when we slacked off in our work and we had all thought that they were simply discussing more ideas in the Atrium, for that was one of several areas we were not allowed to enter when the Begetters were alive. But then the following day rose again to meet us and they still had not returned. And the next. And the next.

Months went by.

Years.

Eventually, our people grew lost. We did not know what to do anymore. But then our ancient elders spoke to us that we should forget the Begetters and claim their cities and contraptions as our own. They told us that our masters had left to continue research that they did not need us for, and at those words our people became saddened because we were once again the useless creatures we were before the Begetters came. But then they said that now we could research our own things now; we could read the notes that our masters did not want us to read, and improve on them. Essentially, we would become the masters. And so we did.

At least we tried too. We were not used to working together without supervision, and soon descended into bloody war. Many of our people died during those violent times, and to this day we do not crave violence because of them. Eventually, we stopped our fighting and united as one race. Together, we finally began to do what we had to do to make our people great.

We first melted down all of the Begetters constructs and remade them into other images we preferred. Then we began rebuilding all of the cities on our isles, making them more like the caverns and open spaces for flight. We destroyed most of the Begetters light sources for we did not need them due to our use of reflected sound. We made excursions to the surface to get more ore and materials and created our own written and spoken language. We even used the race of goblins above as a workforce, similar to how the Begetters used us so many years ago.

We noticed that our work had changed us, both physically and mentally. No longer were we the small, flying, furry creatures we were born as. We were something…different…now. We had started to wear clothing like our Begetters used to. We had created a government, replacing our ancient elders with the Troika and High Hypothesians, among other titles. Sound had become the very essence of our being, but it was no longer similar to the sound of the old masters. One of our own even ascended into immortality, becoming sound and tying our race permanently to the concept. All threats that came to us, we defeated.

And then one day you came.

There were a multitude of you. Tall ones. Ones with pointy ears only dwarfed by our own and with a multitude of different skin tones. Ones covered in a lot of fur or a little fur and ones covered in smooth ridges. You scared us, surprised us. And when we attempted to talk to you, like we did the Begetters so long ago…you attacked us. Once again our people was forced to fight, this time for our very survival. At the one day, the fighting stopped. Our once quiet and small world had now become large, because we were now a part of you too. And one day your leader asked us who we were. And we responded.

We are the Echmer.

And this is our story.