The Nine Rhymes

An Acadian born near the end of the Reckoning, Orion Roarkdn Andros Zenon was a gifted writer and poet. Near the end of his primary studies, he was among a handful of students chosen to go back in time, to complete their schooling under the revered teacher Mars Xidonis, through whom Orion developed an interest in incorporating Xilon history with studies of other cultures.

As a youth, Orion took a special interest in the history of the creation and development of many species across the universe. He received permission from The Council at a remarkably young age to look through the Book of Xilon, an experience during which he encountered his first bits of information regarding Origin, the one and only timeline that the Xilon could not and would not travel due to its extremely fragile nature. Considered a myth by most and impossible to find by those who did believe in it, Origin was said to be a special gateway to the dawn of all life forms. One wrong step could wipe out an entire species, change its course of evolution or bring into existence a race that was never meant to be.

The Book of Xilon also contained scraps of an ancient story about Origin, which said that entry to the timeline could be gained "at the end of a long and treacherous path," by the right individual. The tale claimed that those who had first discovered the gateway had considered it far too powerful, and to protect the existence of all life forms, had composed a mind-bending universal "maze" of nine rhymes leading the way. The story also said that anyone who solved the riddles and found their way to the end would have the sole privilege of discovering how the first of their kind had originated.

Excited by the idea, Orion begged the Council to tell him how to find the first rhyme. The elders declined to help, arguing that the endeavor was far too dangerous, but nearly two centuries later, the writer's interest had not faded. He pushed the Council relentlessly until they gave in and dug up a sequence from the ancient Book claiming that the first riddle could be found in the heart of the oldest ruins of Terra Firma.

Orion set out at once for what was left of the very first Xilon city from the Early Days. It took him weeks of digging through crumbled stone carvings before he finally uncovered the remains of an old sanctuary, and into one of the pillars was scratched a Jzesan rhyme:

Davra saen jarlae, naraa jaemar daen
Jzendar erra kraeden arnaux erafraen

The cryptic verse, meaning Brother and sister, two that made one, touched by the light of the fallen sun, had him stymied. Burning the words into a marble page of his own, Orion hurried to visit his younger brother. Upon hearing the rhyme, Zedre stared at him blankly. "What is it, part of an old kids' story?" he asked. "No, it's a riddle," Orion retorted. But his brother laughed. "It can't be a riddle, it's too obvious." Orion's eyes widened. "You think you know the answer?" Zedre snorted. "You're not serious, right? Kids just through the Andalasian Gate could figure it out!"

There was silence from his brother and Zedre raised his eyebrows. "It's Zenon," he said. "Brother and sister, that's Risaen and its moon. Two that made one...the moon broke down to form the rings around Risaen. And it all happened after coming into close contact with Geminius. The Fallen Sun is an archaic term. It's what they called Geminius back in the old days after it went nova during the Great Destruction." He paused for a moment. "But obviously you knew that, having finished your studies and all." Orion felt incredibly stupid, and Zedre's smug look didn't help his mood much. "What's this for anyway?" his brother asked. Orion mumbled something about a personal project and Zedre shrugged. "Well, whatever the 'riddle' is referencing, it's either on Zenon or somewhere in its rings."

Taking his brother's advice, Orion spent the next few centuries digging through every ruin on the water planet. He even dove under the surface and skimmed the submerged ground for miles, but found nothing. Just as he was starting to lose hope, Zedre's words came to him again - it's either on Zenon or somewhere in its rings. Since the rings were just a collection of rocks and dust, it didn't seem a likely hiding place, so he hadn't bothered to consider the possibility. But Orion was determined to push forward and was ready to try anything. He shot into space, flying so fast that the air shook violently as he broke atmo, and then he was cruising through the planet's dark red rings, dodging chunks of the old moon as he zipped hastily around the globe. But nothing stood out to him and, disappointed, he completed his orbit.

As he was turning to leave, a rock slammed into his head and he grabbed it, frustrated, ready to hurl it into deep space. But a thought suddenly came to him. What had he expected to find, flying through the rings at top speed like that? He would have to try again, this time slowly, carefully and paying enough attention to inspect each and every piece that he passed. So for three more centuries, Orion did nothing but jump between home and Zenon's rings, making his way around the planet at a crawl that had him nearly at wit's end by the time he picked up a crumbling red stone the size of his hand and found with a wave of excitement that there were indeed words carved into it:

Axedalenai xhet namok aradain
Arde lyrn rydk xhet khaia nymine

Orion went straight home and collapsed onto his bed, staring at the stone with wonder. The words roughly translated to Lost in time in a far-off land, it lies silently frozen in the screaming sand. Too tired to put more thought into it for the moment, he placed the rock on a night stand and fell into a deep sleep. The next morning, he paid a visit to Rydn Park and found his brother. Thrusting the stone into his face, he asked for Zedre's opinion, but the youth shrugged. "You're on your own with this one, brother. I have no idea what it means." Orion was disappointed but had been expecting as much. It was, after all, a puzzle designed to keep most explorers from finding Origin, not to lead them straight to it. Things, people and places were so often lost in time that the Xilon had a specific word for it, axedalenai. It could be referring to any number of things, anywhere in space and time. And Orion couldn't imagine what "screaming sand" meant, or how anything could be frozen within it.

It took him nearly four jothae to find the answer. Four thousand years of research, traveling across time to speak to Xilon historians and veteran explorers, following one clue after another, all leading to depressing dead ends. Then, his persistence finally paid off. Orion was visiting his brother at the Arjkss Social Center when someone sat down at the table with them. It was his old teacher, Mars.

"I don't know if you remember or even care anymore," said Mars. "But a long while back, you asked me about something that might be frozen in 'screaming sand.'" Orion felt his hearts jump as he nodded vigorously. Mars went on to explain that during one of his journeys, he had encountered a krtiyon who used to serve as a protector in the Alpha Chain. The planet that she'd been assigned to was in the Lost Galaxy, a dangerous warzone that, for the sake of neighboring galaxies, had been pushed into a small niche in time and hidden from the outside universe. More interestingly, one of the planets in that region, Shyloffian, was famous for its deadly quicksand bogs, which would suck down anything that touched the surface, emitting a shrill echo as the animal or object was pulled under.

Orion thanked his old teacher, said goodbye to his brother and left immediately for the Lost Galaxy. A few days of diving into the Shyloffian sand pits and sorting through years of accumulated junk produced an old piece of twisted metal, into which was scratched the third rhyme.

Nox xhedan alain xhenaxa saen lriff
Kraeden na jevvan ar jaemar ajzif

Orion thought this new clue over. When the mist converges dark and deep, the winter's light is ours to keep. He wasn't sure what it meant but felt that he would solve the riddle far faster than the last one. And he was right; it took only a century of determined research to find that the rhyme referred to the northern shadows of Lucian. Pleased that for the first time, he had deciphered one of the riddles entirely on his own, Orion journeyed to the north pole of the frozen star. By the end of the decade, he returned home with a large chunk of ice, the inside of which illuminated a fourth clue.

Jai ner rhet ardaxxus trelmaenym xhet saan
Malaine nai, ardyne nai, kemar nyken kahn

Orion felt that his skills as a writer would prove useful. Although he wasn't sure exactly what the riddle meant, his ability to interpret the deeper meaning of words gave him confidence that he would find the right path. From each home they come, marching into the ground. They see not, they hear not, they make not a sound, had to be referencing a sickness or epidemic on one of the less evolved worlds. This time, it only took him a few weeks of consulting with universal healers to be sure of what the rhyme referred to. Then it was just a matter of tracing the event to the right planet and era.

Three lyren later, Orion found himself on the savage world of Aurelian, in the heart of a village being cut down by the Red Death. It was a terrible plague that caused the locals to bleed profusely from the mouth, nose, eyes, ears and fingernails over the course of several days until there was nothing left inside of them. Comparable to the living dead, the infected would walk silently out of the house, straight to the cemeteries and lay down in the open graves that had been prepared for them, waiting to be buried. There was no way to stop or even delay the sickness, and the healthy couldn't bring themselves to find out whether or not the victims even passed on once they had been buried, or simply lay there, braindead and awake forever.

Having lived a somewhat sheltered life, it took Orion a moment to pull himself together before he found the nerve to jump into the fray of zombies, screaming families and traumatized gravediggers, illuminated in the night by blazing torches like a macabre festival of the dead. Feeling lightheaded, he stumbled into the madness, looking for anything that might indicate the presence of the next clue. But where in this nightmare village would something so precious be found? The answer hit him like a slap in the face and he suddenly wished that he could have remained ignorant.

Pulling together every scrap of willpower that he could manage, Orion circled around to the far end of the burial grounds and forced himself to he begin digging up the graves one by one, carefully inspecting the bodies before covering them back up. Weeks later, having grown increasingly sure that he'd been wrong, Orion finally found what he was looking for. The most recent body he had uncovered stared up at him from the ground below, a scrap of paper clenched tightly in its hand. Orion yanked the paper out and read it hurriedly in the soft light.

Jai braekna krystean amaira cajzeh
Amjai xhenax saen daenan arra jem leh

Indescribably thankful to have the ordeal over with, Orion filled the grave back up and disappeared in a flash. Later that week, after taking some time to recover from what he'd seen, he sat alone on a quiet hill in the Braekn Woods, studying the newest riddle. From the heart of a sickness that threatens a race comes the darkness and yet one more fear they will face. Orion knew at once that the sickness was hate. His kind considered there to be no greater or more poisonous threat in the universe than hatred, which indicated that the next clue must be on a world suffering from war and genocide. A thought came to him and after a moment of consideration, he was in the beautiful village of Aarnaxis on Terra Firma, knocking on the door of his favorite professor. Finding Mars out back in a meditation garden, Orion waited patiently until the elder had finished his routine and came over to greet him. The young writer then asked him about the krtiyon who had mentioned the Shyloffian bogs, and Mars directed him to Carthea Xhefr, whom he assured Orion had dealt with some of the most barbaric races throughout time and should have plenty of helpful suggestions in that department.

So Orion traveled even farther back into Terra Firma's past to find the infamous warrior. He read the riddle to her and watched anxiously as she sat lost in thought for a few minutes. Then she smacked her hand against the table, startling him, and leaned forward. "Zreda Minor," she said with absolute certainty. "I was there for a long time during my fighting days and we had an incident near the end of my term. One of the warring factions released a chemical that caused blindness. It was the final blow in that particular battle. Terrible thing." After promising Orion that the chemical didn't affect the Xilon, and telling him exactly what year to aim for, she wished him luck and he was off.

Orion found his way back to the Lost Galaxy and to Zreda Minor, arriving on the dystopian world in the midst of a raging battle. Doing his best to dodge the fight, he reached the chemical plant that Carthea had mentioned and slipped inside. It didn't take much time for him to stumble upon the heart of the operation. A massive, churning capsule, the horrific weapon, was hard to miss. As he searched around, trying to determine where an ancient piece of writing could possibly be hidden and starting to wonder if this was the right place after all, a deafening grinding sound erupted from the surrounding machines. The roof of the factory creaked opened and the capsule exploded with a shock that threw Orion clear across the room, blasting a wave of black smoke that swept through the battlefield and into the city beyond.

Once he felt that the immediate threat had passed, Orion staggered back to the remaining pieces of crumpled machinery. But a quick search of the factory's core revealed nothing. Disappointed and disgusted, Orion slowly ascended the steps. Maybe he was in the wrong place. Maybe a view from the roof would reveal another chemical plant in the distance. Then, without so much as a warning creak, the charred stairs beneath him gave way and he fell almost fifty feet to the foundations below. Using his body's energy to form a ball of light in his right hand like a torch, Orion swiveled around to look at his new surroundings. It looked like some sort of basement or storage space, long unused. The walls, like most of Zreda Minor, were dirty, broken and covered in graffiti. But something caught his eye; he saw among the Cepheid characters a series of faded, half-covered letters that looked a lot like Jzesan. Between the lack of light, the dull colors and the cracks in the wall, it took Orion a while to copy down the words, but he eventually left the factory satisfied that he'd recorded the rhyme correctly.

Lriff ney xhet ar xhenax ker xhen jaemar krae
Ardyne caest saen aln kyv meraejzyian thrae

After his recent surge in good luck, Orion hated to admit that he was once again stuck. For six months he researched dark locations on millions of worlds...caves, pits, anything that would be perpetually black yet contain life. But much to his disappointment, he found nothing. Years passed, and despite all efforts, the sixth riddle remained unsolved. Orion suspected that the elders might have an idea of where to start, but he knew that they would not help him a second time.

Nearly five lyren later, the Acadian had all but given up. He had sporadically kept up the search over time, never fully throwing the project aside, yet lacking the level of determination that he had maintained for so long. So many years of research had turned up nothing that fit the latest rhyme. After all that he'd been through, it was devastating to think that his efforts had been for nothing. Then, one day, a stranger walked through his door. She was young, he could tell immediately, probably still in primary studies. And he'd never seen her before. In spite of his foul mood, he stood up to greet her.

"My name is Aldera," she said. "My grandfather is on the Acadian Council and I am training to be a Watcher. I recently had a look through the Book of Xilon and something that I read felt familiar, but I wasn't sure why. Then I heard some people talking about you. You're searching for Origin?" Orion nodded and surpressed an urge to yell at her to get to the point. Aldera continued, "I understand that you've been stuck for some time on one particular riddle. Can you please read it to me?" Orion pulled out the faded marble page that he had used to jot down the words on Zreda Minor so long before. "Deep down in the blackness where night becomes day, listen carefully and heed what the wildebeasts say." He shrugged. "It's wrong, it doesn't make sense." Aldera smiled. "No, it's right. I was right too. I think it means the planet Nyarka. They rarely bother teaching it in universal geography but it's mentioned in the Book. It's a tiny planet about the size of a moon. The entire surface is covered with a substance like tar. The air of the planet is so thick, the tar just floats there like oil on top of water. The world below is pitch black, structured like an endless cave. And it's said that there are creatures down there who echo whispers of the past, but of course, it's just a myth."

Myth or not, it was the first potential lead that Orion had had in a long time. He thanked the young student profoundly and said that he would let her know what happened. Wasting no time, he told his brother where he was headed and took off without waiting for a response. When he reached Nyarka, his spirits fell slightly. Aldera had been right - the entire planet looked like a moon-sized ball of tar. Finding anything in those depths would be miraculous, but he had nothing else to go on. Speeding down towards the planet's surface, Orion shot like a bullet through the black layer surrounding the globe. Breaking through the thick substance and into open air, Orion touched down on what he imagined was a rocky surface. Xilon could normally see through anything, but something about this place was unusual and he could barely see beyond his own body light, the darkness was so oppressive.

From the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a distant glow. At first, Orion thought that his eyes were playing tricks on him but then he saw something else moving behind him. The glowing shape in front drew closer. There were more of them now, seeming to close in but then disappearing altogether, only to reappear somewhere else. The Wildebeasts? Orion couldn't imagine anything living down here, the air composition was so dense. But these things were clearly moving, glowing in the dark on and off like bizarre, animal-shaped optical illusions. Then, as if the scene wasn't already unsettling enough, he began to hear whispers, soft at first, growing louder, then fading away again like a vocal tide. As he watched the glowing beasts fade in and out in front of him, Orion suddenly thought he could make out traces of Jzesan amongst the whispered din. Lrif xhet...nai...dean... He strained to catch the words but the whisper died out too soon to make sense of it. Orion leaned his head back, keeping his ears open and his mind alert. There was no choice but to wait for the riddle to come again.

Devry lrif xhet cabraean terra firm malaine nai
Malan thalis arcaea dei dean nathrai

By the time he had the seventh rhyme clearly burned into his mind, almost nine lyren had passed. Orion emerged from the underworld bordering madness, nearly blinded by the light from which he'd been so long removed, and feeling exhausted and weakened from the lack of food and sleep. But he was back on his path and wearily returned home to write down the words. Hidden deep in a room that the world never sees, a sight that would bring even you to your knees. He had some ideas as to what this might mean, or at least who to ask about it, but was in no rush to run headlong into another torturous situation. So he collapsed into bed and put the latest riddle aside.

Later that year, rejuvenated and ready to press on, Orion took the words to the library and asked one of the veteran travelers for advice. The elder studied the rhyme and reluctantly gave him a list of places that it might be referring to, noting each of them as "best to avoid." But Orion had been through too much to avoid anything at that point, and spent the next century researching each of the places on the list, visiting them one by one. Finally, only one location remained: Pterorac in the Lyrian Core, a very distant part of the universe. Orion looked through the massive collection of books but found nothing other than a brief geographical mention, and a note that the Utopian planet was one giant machine. He approached the elder explorer and asked him why he had included a paradise planet on the list. What terrible sights could possibly be seen there?

The veteran told him that Pterorac was, in fact, his most likely option, but that he had placed it at the bottom of the list in the hopes that Orion would give up before reaching it. He explained that the heart of the machine was at the very center of the planet, and that if one could get that far, they might find the door to the Room of Reckoning. Orion pressed him for more information on the room, but the elder mumbled something about "bad, all just bad" and would not continue the conversation. Between the chilling words of the riddle and the traveler's attitude, Orion felt a brief wave of hesitation but it was soon discarded by his urgent need to follow through, to ensure that his hard work paid off. After all, seeking Origin had been his whole life...he couldn't stop now.

It took a bit of searching to locate Pterorac's current position along its huge orbit path but Orion found it. His first impression was that nothing shocking could possibly be found in a place like this. The entire planet was one massive high-tech city with artifically constructed parks and suburbs. It was the cleanest city that he had ever seen, not a smudge of dirt on the ground or a wisp of pollution in the air. The crowded streets revealed nothing but normal, happy, friendly people who seemed perfectly content in just about every way. What could be ominous about a place like this? It even gave the Xilon worlds a run for their money. But Orion's goal was not the planet's surface. He soon found an entrance to the underground and made his way deeper and deeper to the Pterorac's mechanical core. Yet the deeper he got, the more certain he was that nothing could be wrong here. Even the winding layers of machinery below were brightly lit, warm and welcoming. The corridors felt far from lonely, even so far removed from the bustle of the outside world.

When Orion reached the center of the small planet at last, he found himself in a large room. It was well lit, but he could not tell where the light was coming from. The walls were a light blue color and made from a metallic material. The floor was like a sheet of reflecting glass, smooth and cool against the soles of his feet. But aside from the door he had entered through, the room was completely bare; nothing on the walls, no machinery protruding from the floor, it was a strangely empty place. It was hard for him to imagine that this was the core of the planet. Walking slowly around the room, Orion began to trace his hand lightly against the wall as he moved. An electric field crackled against his fingers and he felt strangely drawn to it.

Without warning, there was an ear-splitting screech and a piece of the wall began to twist and turn until a large, circular gate was protruding from the previously flat surface. Just past the threshold, Orion could see three additional hatches swinging in opposite directions to reveal a hidden room within. Not sure that he wanted to see what was inside, Orion forced himself to climb through the hidden passageway. The moment that he crossed into the room, a sudden feeling of pain, agony and unimaginable despair hit him like a tidal wave. Leaning against one of the mechnical pieces to keep from falling over, he glanced to his left and in a moment, he understood. Frozen in a cryogenic cylinder was a young girl, maybe ten years old. Her mouth was open in an unheard, endless scream and an array of wires ran into the tube and straight through her body. She was the conductor of their Utopia. All of the planet's fear and inherent evil, every ounce of negative energy that might have been felt by the citizens of the world above for the past two thousand years were being sucked out of them and fed into her. A living sacrifice at the heart of the machine. The air was heavy with pain and Orion was overwhelmed by flashes of all the terrible thoughts and feelings that had ever crossed anyone's mind on the surface. It was unbearable, but he knew that the eighth rhyme was somewhere inside. With immense effort, he crawled across the floor towards the cryotube, forcing his mind to focus amidst the torturous barrage of terrifying images running through his head. Behind the cylinder, more words were scratched into the floor:

Forjeran sevynian malika saen zet
Dei kriff deannan ax naian themlin ar rhet

Holding his head as if it might explode, Orion quickly committed the words to memory and threw himself towards the door, back out into the core room. He lay there motionless for a few minutes, giving himself time to recover. He knew exactly what the next verse was referring to. Under a surface of silver and chrome, you'll find yourself lost, you may never get home. Chroma was a famous planet back in Chrysalian. The ninth rhyme would be the hardest to find because the planet was one big temporal rift. He could dive into the silver water and suddenly find himself billions of years in the past or future, on a distant planet in an alternate reality. Ironic, really, that this had been the easiest riddle to solve, yet would be the most difficult task to complete. If only he had known just how hard, Orion might have called an end to it and gone home then and there.

Nearly 6 lyren would pass before he reached his final goal. Every day was spent diving over and over into the planet's metallic water, zooming down to the ocean floor and cruising along the bottom for miles on end until he was suddenly flung into another time and place, only to go back and do it all over again. Zedre found him and begged him to stop, fearing that his brother would lose himself completely. But it was too late; there was no turning back now. Orion would not stop until he had accomplished his task. So Zedre left him alone, as did everyone else. They cared, but there was no reasoning with him as he repeated the maddening cycle again and again throughout the years, desperate to achieve the impossible, to look upon Origin and finish the job once and for all.

During his final dive into the eerie waters, Orion came across the remnants of a sunken city from the early days. The ruins were incredibly ancient, like nothing he'd ever seen. Exploring the stony remains, he swam into what looked like a small temple. There was just enough room to sit in the chair that rested in front of a decaying marble plaque. Rays of silvery light illuminated a faded inscription.

Jzen malaine calypse thal saen aln calypse thrakk
Zevrygaedn anjordn an kyrian lahk

Orion squinted and read it again. He who reads this last riddle and heeds the last sign shall be chosen to travel the forbidden line. The Acadian's eyes went wide with disbelief as an explosion of colorful light erupted in front of him, swirling into a cylindrical whirlwind between the plaque and where he sat. After so much time, there it was...Origin. Orion stood up and edged towards it, reaching out with only slight reluctance. It was overwhelming and terrifying, yet it drew him in. Not only was he able to view it, but he could step in and travel it himself. Just imagine what the elders would say!

Before he knew what was happening, Orion felt himself jerk forward and was sucked into the temporal cyclone. The universe flashed before his eyes; the life, evolution and death of every species to ever exist...the species that were destined to never exist...the possibilities and the endless choices, he could see each and every one. Then, as quickly as it began, it was over. Orion found himself lying on something soft. He could see little through the thick mist that surrounded him and, inexplicably, he felt chilled to the bone - an impossible sensation for a Xilon to experience. It bothered him deeply. He realized that his wings had somehow retracted. He tried to extract them but was unsuccessful, as if they weren't even there at all. Starting to feel very unsettled, Orion staggered to his feet and looked around. Again, just fog and clouds, and faded streaks of light. Upon trying to jump home, he found himself leaping only through nearby space. No matter what he did, he couldn't move through time and he couldn't move beyond this chilling fog. Something was very wrong.

In the distance, Orion could just make out the shape of a building. He stumbled towards it, disoriented and troubled. But the closer he got and the more he was able to make out, the more he wanted to run away, for what he was seeing was impossible. A giant marble archway with a silver gate, nestled into a niche in the endless clouds and radiating a soft white light loomed before him. As he drew near, the gates creaked open. It was the last thing he wanted to do, but Orion knew that he had no choice. Forcing one foot in front of the other, slowly but surely, he shuffled through the Andalasian Gate and into the world beyond. As he passed through the archway, there was a blinding flash of light, and then everything disappeared. Moments later, he was standing on the surface of a dismal, lonely world. The soft, clay-like surface was full of color, but so dark and barren that it was impossible to notice anything but the depressing lack of life. Looking up, Orion didn't recognize the configuration of stars, and there weren't any other planets in sight. All he could make out from where he stood was a dull swirl of color in the far distance.

Only then did the terrible truth dawn. Orion leaped across the blackness, appearing in a flash before the swirling colors that he immediately recognized as Daxxus. It seemed to be well in its early stages but very much unmistakable. Looking back across the empty space at the planet that he'd been standing on a moment before, Orion realized with a sinking feeling that it was his own orbit system...or what would someday become the Xilon worlds. The universe was still in the process of forming. He was at the very beginning of time, the Origins Era, before the Xilon had even come into existence. And he was stuck there, completely alone.

It is said that Orion remained stranded and alone for the rest of his life, slowly going mad from the vast emptiness that surrounded him until he could no longer take it and stabbed himself through the nkree, the middle heart, with a knife that he had fashioned from early Terran reeds. The action triggered bioreversal, but rather than dissipating, the resulting particles of light, reacting to the unstable prehistoric atmosphere, scattered across the developing galaxy and formed new Xilon everywhere. But they had been born from a violent, desperate death and came into the world angry, confused and vengeful, thus leading to the early centuries of savagery and brutal warfare that all Xilon accept as an important but shameful chapter of their history...their beginnings.

As for Orion, it is a fact that the young writer existed and well known that he searched for Origin. But all else is widely viewed as speculation. There is no proof to indicate that he ever succeeded in finding the mythic timeline, or that he traveled it to become the originator of the Xilon species. Most believe that he simply disappeared on Chroma, lost somewhere in the rifts of reality. But his story has been told unfailingly through the years and remains one of the most popular creation myths in the Xilon culture.