The Aftermath of Ordera

The Origin of Interrealmeus

By: Brianna Lee Hubler

Copyright © 2022 Brianna Lee Hubler. All rights reserved. Both the text and the images provided are the intellectual and creative property of Brianna Lee Hubler.

On Order and the Void:

Material life was an afterthought. Chaos existed first, but anarchy, antithetical to order, was unsustainable. All forms of life desire to continue living, growing, and expanding. Magic was no exception to instinctual self-preservation. Untamed magic was magenta in color and chaotic in nature. Chaos was ever-changing; changes took place when magic moved.

The red in magenta was strongest, but the blue was present and equally important. The two formed the trademark color of untamed magic. Was it surprising then that magic split into two opposing elements? Surprising at all that the blood-red element reigned supreme and the sapphire-blue element contended with him? It was not. It was surprisingly simple, so simple that even M (the protagonist of the Secrets of M series) laughed when he realized the long-forgotten name of the element he channeled to save his people from their chaotic overlord.

In the Void, nothing maintained permanent form. The most harrowing of phantoms manifested from the ever-shifting, ever-pulsing, ever-writhing bolts of untamed energy, which populated the otherwise empty expanse of untouched space. The phantoms maintained the chaotic form that birthed them. They were always in senseless motion, shrieking and striking at whatever they encountered as haphazardly as their bodies held together. There was great need for a superior, sentient being to command the senseless inhabitants of the Void. Patriarch Chaosis manifested from the blood-red, and Matriarch Ordera from the sapphire-blue, of untamed magic. Chaosis was first to take charge of the Void, though he proved a false king, too alike the beings of the Void to corral them, though he relished his control of them.

To combat the supremacy of Chaosis, the true Ruling Element drew from the energy around her and ordered Chaos through creation. She tamed and molded the chaotic bolts of energy and forced them to a sentient, material form. She placed her first children—known today as the Elders—in charge of continuing her work and carefully supervised from the Void. Through visions of the Ruling Element’s intent, and with the creativity she wrought within her first creations, Neuvadaimor (Interrealmeus) was formed and separated from the Void. The dimensions, the dimensional doors, the clusters of realms connected behind each shielded wall—In and Through Realms All—was birthed by the first machinations of Matriarch Ordera, the Element of Order.

On the Elders and Their Work:

The Void was a timeless expanse. Originally, when the Elders freely floated in the Void, the phantoms tormented them. As the imitators of their creator, the Elders longed for a place where life could thrive in place of death. They formed that safehouse with their own hands and then worked readily to expand it. Thus, the clock struck on the first day of eternity.

First, the Elders formed the dimensions, which barricaded space from the Void and attached to Core Interrealmeus (the Center of All Things) by way of mystic doors. Within the dimensions, they sectioned off and sculpted major realms. The Elders tended the major realms and grew the minor realms from them.

It might be helpful to imagine major realms as plants and minor realms as leaves. The leaves draw nutrients from the soil via the plants’ roots. Then the leaves convert harvested nutrients into usable energy for the continued growth of the plants and their leaves. Similarly, major realms are formed from the tamed energy contained within dimensions. As major realms developed, they fed off that energy and expanded. Minor realms branched from major realms, feeding much the same way to the benefit of both. However, realm sculptors—in this case, the Elders—generally halted the growth of clusters of realms whenever those clusters took the sculptors’ desired shape. Realm sculptors cut off the flow of creative energy to their finished sculptures (mature realm clusters) and attended only to the sculptures’ maintenance. Unlike plants, mature realm clusters were unlikely to wither and die when prevented from sapping the energy around them. Ceasing the growth of realm clusters at a specified point allowed the Elders to preserve some dimensional space for future projects.

The Elders populated each major realm with its first occupants: a Veilaterra and its Enethial tree. Veilaterras were the hearts of planets. Enethial trees were life-giving trees with a likeness to willow trees, but grown from and seeping pure Order. Symbiotically, the Veilaterras fed from their trees, grew themselves and their worlds, and tended their trees in turn.

Veilaterras carved the boundaries between lands and seas, separated continents, and raised mountains from valleys. They grew and tended glorious gardens within the landscapes and seascapes of the worlds the Elders entrusted to them. The Enethial trees advised and protected their Veilaterras. A single drop of liquid magic from an Enethial tree, fallen upon the head of a Veilaterra while she slept, could form within her womb a replacement Veilaterra in times of calamity, but rarely was this necessary in those early days. Veilaterras lacked the ability to create sentient beings and Enethial trees lacked the ability to create beings other than Veilaterras. The recipe for sentient, material life belonged to Ordera, and although the Elders knew it, they cherished it too deeply and jealously to share it with their first creations.

On the Manifestation of the Lost:

As the Elders brought more and more sentience into the multiverse, Ordera feared the outcome of her power placed in the hands of evil. The energy Ordera stole from Chaosis was like a wound, which healed over time. Empowered Chaosis raged against Ordera. Her creation disrupted what he perceived as perfection: the immaterial, ever-shifting existence of the Void and its inhabitants. Ordera feared it was only a matter of time before Chaosis managed to corrupt creation through the sickening disease of the lust for power, which all sentient creatures could potentially be afflicted by. Already her treasured children prevented her beloved grandchildren from directly tapping into her strength. Why had the Elders deprived their children of their inheritance?

Though material existence benefited from Ordera’s benevolence, she foresaw that someday, Chaosis’s malevolence would reach them and corrupt them. Ordera feared the ruin of all through the corruption of her power. Already Chaosis wandered through Interrealmeus, never directly interfering, but indirectly corrupting and always conniving against the safehouse Ordera and her children built and maintained. To combat the impending ruin of all, Ordera sealed Chaosis within Interrealmeus, prevented him from immediate escape to the Void. Next, she split herself into three persons—Legendroe, Mythrhis, and Fictionide—each containing one third of her power, and entirely unaware that their mother and they were together one in the same.

Ordera trusted this allotted the Norbayah (the Mantle of Form: Fire, Water, Earth, and Wind), the Ecliyar (the Crown of Alignment: Light and Dark), and the Imashteh (the Scepter of Sentience: Mind and Bond) time to safely and properly manifest, so any material beings to come would be spared immediate taint. Unfortunately, Legendroe, Mythrhis, and Fictionide suffered the bewilderment of their orphaning. They grew impatient with the emptiness of their home. They had yet to learn how to channel their mother’s power to populate Interrealmeus, and the beings of the Norbayah, the Ecliyar, and the Imashteh were long delayed in their arrival.

Guising himself as their elder brother, Chaosis reached out to them in their loneliness and convinced the Whole of Order to seal itself away. Chaosis promised to seal himself along with them. He promised that when the others manifested, the seal would shatter and would release them all into a more populated, more diverse world.

The best lies are told with a touch of truth. The only falsehood in Chaosis’s lie was his promise to seal himself away along with his brothers. He remained after them, prevented the Norbayah, the Ecliyar, and the Imashteh from manifesting in true sentience. They manifested imperfectly as living objects (referred to by the Katheermor as the Eternals), while the dreams of sleeping Order further populated Interrealmeus with the children of the Patriarchs and the children of their children’s children—the beings of now. Chaosis himself took to the creation of beings which might upend Ordera’s machinations. Save for the knowledge the Elders maintained, all knowledge of this history was lost with Ordera’s split, and the beings of now have not the inclination that Ordera reigns supreme.

Interrealmeus was so altered by Chaosis that the Elders would later take beings from the diverse dimensions and bestow them with the power to travel through dimensional doors (by way of a Realm Key) and bless them with the work of protecting the distinction of dimensions and staving off the encroaching Void. These chosen few are the Portal Jumpers of today.

On Ordera as Matriarch:

Ordera is referred to as female only because women are seen as the bearers and birthers of life. The rise of Legendroe, Mythrhis, and Fictionide as male entities begs the question of whether Ordera has any gender at all or whether she is both genders. She need not breed, since she forms life from chaotic energy, and it matters little whether she be male or female. Her drive to create through ordering is passed to all beings created after her by one of her first children or any of her three persons. Chaosis and the Elders are the only beings who may argue they have the answer to the appearance of Ordera fully manifested. The image of Ordera provided on this page is meant to emphasize her qualities as a bearer of new life. Thus, she appears female and is dressed in the colors of Spring.

(An exhaustive mythological crash course, huh? I understand if it is a lot to take in at once. You can always return to this post to clarify the details presented. Also, more details on the Patriarchs, the Eternals, the Portal Jumpers, etc. will later be added as separate lore posts to complement the short stories and poems posted to the Endlesslore Blog.)