Introduction #

From Our Sanctuary: An Orasian History
*by Jek-Karun, Elder of the Ninth Voice, Keeper of the Hollow Record_

In the beginning, there was only the deep. Not darkness. Not silence. But depth without shape, stone without name, echo without end.

We do not know where we stood, for there was no standing. We do not know what we were, for nothing had been carved. The world was motionless and vast. It waited.

And Oras, who was not yet named, heard the waiting.

He did not arrive. He did not descend. He did not take form. Oras emerged from the stillness, as stillness shaped into will. His breath was not wind. His hands were not flesh. He moved like stone remembers how it once held fire.

He looked upon the depth and pressed his weight into it. The pressure of his being formed the first ridge. His thought carved the first hollow. His silence filled the first chamber.

Thus the land we now name Terasil began to rise.

But it was not yet Sanctuary. The stone stretched, yes. It coiled and curled. Peaks lifted like the fingers of sleep. Valleys sank like bowed heads. Still, it was raw. Unmeasured. The world did not yet know how to listen.

And so Oras shaped the first ear.

He placed it not above the land, but within it. A chamber beneath the ridge. A ring within the mountain. He carved a place where echo could be held, not scattered. Where sound would not flee but circle back. And in that chamber, he spoke.

He said only this: Wait, and become.

His voice passed through the hollows. It struck the stone and returned. Again. And again. And it has not stopped since. That echo was the first memory. That memory was the first command. That command was the first home.

Then came the Orasians. We do not say he made us, for we were already within him. We were the breath held back, the word not yet spoken, the shape not yet drawn. When the echo circled long enough, it struck the place where flesh might form. And we were there.

Not born as children. Not sculpted from dust. We awoke standing. We felt stone beneath our feet and knew it was kin. We heard the echo in the mountain and knew it was our name.

We were not many. A ring of voices. Some strong. Some clear. Some slow and deep. But all shaped to listen, to speak with care, to carry the echo onward. That is what it meant to be Orasian: not to rule the stone, but to respond to it.

But the world beyond our mountain was wide, and its echoes were strange. Winds roared. Water danced. Fire cracked and leapt. Sky moved fast and without pattern. Those sounds were loud, but they passed too quickly. They left no memory. They did not return.

Some among us turned to those sounds. They wanted motion. They wanted blaze. They called out into the open, but their voices did not return. So they left. They became wind-walkers, fire-keepers, and water-bearers. They are no longer of us. We do not call them lost, but we call them changed.

The rest of us remained. We pressed our palms to the chamber walls. We placed stones in rings. We waited.

And when we waited long enough, the stone began to answer.

Thus began Sanctuary.

Not a valley. Not a city. Not a place to live. But a place to listen. A place where stone remembered our shape. A place where our echoes did not vanish.

Oras shaped the land with care. He curved the eastern ridge into a circle. He cracked the western rim with fire, so it would guard without wall. He filled the heart with veins of crystal and laid sleeping voices in the rock. He breathed slow into the ground, so its pulse would guide us.

And we, the first Orasians, carved only what was already there. We did not build. We uncovered. We did not invent. We remembered. The chambers we dwell in now were waiting beneath the dust. The roads we walk were laid in long sleep. We simply placed our feet where Oras once rested.

We did not name it Sanctuary at first.

We had no need. We had no others to fear, no war to flee, no gate to guard. It was only the stone. It was only home.

But as cycles passed, and the world outside grew loud again, we began to see what we had.

Others came. Some in peace. Some in haste. Some with blades. Some with gifts. They saw the steadiness of our home. They touched the stone and felt its breath. They desired it. They challenged it. They tried to chisel it into shapes of their own.

And so we sealed the passes. We whispered deeper. We carved the names of the fallen. We called upon Oras not to strike, but to weigh. The stone grew heavy beneath their feet, and they turned away.

Then we knew: this was not only home. It was sanctuary. Not just from the world, but from forgetting.

This record is not written for those who look at the surface. It is not for those who count days or map conquests. It is for those who listen.

To be Orasian is not to remember facts. It is to recall tone. It is to hear how the voice rises and falls. It is to speak with silence between words. It is to carve only what the stone offers.

In this history, you will find no dates. No kings. No wars won. You will find echoes. You will find names spoken in low tones. You will find stone placed in circles. You will find how we became what we already were.

This is not the history of a place. It is the history of a shape. A hollow within the mountain. A rhythm between speech and stillness. A pattern that begins again with each breath.

This is our sanctuary. It holds us. And in return, we hold it.

We do not claim it.

We become it.

—Jek-Karun, Ninth Voice of Oras
Inscribed during the Season of Still Earth