Methaphoras

14 THE INFORMATOR

Agny sent Oric Chontranate back for the time being to keep his eyes and ears open at the court of the ladies of dawn. This kept them informed about Brymirs' position and the well-being of Urantium which should not be compromised. If Mito lost his patience and decided to send the two eliminators to them because of Brymir's puzzling behavior, everything could be irretrievably lost. After all, too much potential was still waiting in their universe and so much had yet to blossom for the first time. He promised Oric an unlimited supply of snuff and a permit so that he could come anywhere in Urantium as an envoy of the fire lord.

Intiëll, Agny, and Chontranate alternated to guide the cultivated tribes, ignoring all annoying ecological concerns. Everything was subordinate to procreation and constant worship. Their methods certainly contradicted what the dawn teachers taught because they only intended to produce as many prayers as possible. Actually, Agny did not do anything new with his breeding plans because he used Di'aull itself as an example. Trillions of beings lived and died for millions of years in equally or more universes for no other reason than to form new ones. The bred species of Agny's worlds even contributed to the cycle of Di'aull because they filled Acheron after their death. The production of his derived product was thus fully integrated within the endless cycle of life.

Repeatedly disguised as a small black spectacled Varanus, Agny never showed his true form when he mingled among the tribes of his little descendants. Regularly he made prophetic statements and alluded to the "Exalted" who would surely come soon to get them out of their misery. If they beheld his true self, they would, of course, never cultivate their own god and would put their hopes upon him. These intelligent beings constantly lived in agony and kept searching feverishly for peace of mind. In addition, to speed up the course of events, he placed them in a solar system, revolving around a black hole. By risking himself several times into the relentless attraction as deep as he dared he repeated Brymir's experiment with the Chyons from Ardor's concept. After all, in this way time went much faster for his evolving people than for himself. In the meantime, Intiëll replaced him in an excellent way, causing Agny to say that his charioteer might become a worthy lord of the fire.

In contrast to Intiëll, Chontranate found the manipulation of information about the meaning of life rather questionable, as was the persistent agony in which these peoples had to survive. If he himself would breed creatures, they would serve for the pleasure of the hunt or the taste of their flesh and otherwise the survival of the species or sometimes the revival of a vanished race. His objections, on the other hand, were not of gnawing nature either, and he could just as easily smother them in a snuff prayer as a candle flame that extinguished in the wind.

The three became skilled in the various development stages of a nature god and at the right time, they intervened. The moment a deified figure arose and a cult of worship became installed, the three conspirators sought the best way to make the prayers smoothly flow. On this search, they found that they had to abruptly interrupt a short period of relative calm, after which they had to install a twice as long span of fear and disaster. Through unwavering worship, the adored one came into the possibility of catching an extra e-onn, which in natural circumstances, only very rarely happened. With such unpredictable parameters, their enterprise depended on good fortune or thorough probability calculation, but now the three manipulated all circumstances. Once the being possessed two e-onns, Agny and Intiëll taught it how to deal with that so that it reached a grade of immortality. From that moment on and without further interference, the god creature could evolve more and more powerfully through the flood of prayers. The divine one could, after some time, bring about healings and by strengthening the raw magic of the nation even perform supernatural acts. Further worship caused directed visions by which it could after a while even look into the future.

Agny kept a close eye on the process. He did not let it get that far for, after the immortal phase and the appearance of a characteristic halo, he started extracting the prayers to make his snuff. In this way, he prevented the gods from accumulating too much power and getting to the point where they could pose a threat. On the Moranes cultivation planet, Agny made sure that he stayed nearby during Lizzarn's awakening as a nature god. He kidnapped the golden monitor varanoid and isolated him from his followers after which he showed himself in his true power shape. For the premature god, the black, fire-breathing giant varanid seemed to be a supernatural entity from a much higher level than himself. Therefore, Agny did not have to make a great effort to convince him of donating his prayers for a higher purpose. Although the golden lizard and his adepts were wrought to the image of Agny, after all, the Lord of Flames made a far greater impression on the newly sprung, nature phenomenon than vice versa.