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The primitive barbarians were once fond of Games, hazards of peril and circumstance: that one might imagine entering a wilderness or castle, evading traps and slaying a Dragon.
The games were given to the Pathless Labyrinth, the Old Forest Of Idols and her branching trees of choice and chance, and these games were used to teach the first Machines.
By far the most popular Game was that of the stratagems of warfare, and the shamans of the warlike barbarians dreamt of creating a Perfected Machine, that would choose flawlessly with no fear of death or mortal woe.
As the barbarian Shamans delved in depth into the abstract Representations, their rhetoricians discovered the Synthemata - that a thing could be spoken or described, yet with an intention of a completely different meaning.
The thoughts, the words and the actions of just one single being could all be completely different to each other! This was a great sorcery, one that the old shamans could never even imagine.
The rhetoricians became obsessed with the sorcery of Representation, the Synthemata. It was said that the first Wizards appeared in this age, men who could no longer sire children, men who could no longer make themselves. Yet the age prospered and all seemed well.
Some of the Rhetoricians harnessed the Synthemata for war, others for wealth. The Unbidden Court chose Power, to move the souls of others through The Seeling Night and the Obediences. The Eschatonomists discovered the Starmetal Altar, swore upon the Balance of Crimson and Black between The Red Lord Of Ruin and The Betrayer. They created the Isonomy, the very last thing that anyone would ever Possess.
In the old barbarian games, when perception was surrendered to chance, you saw through what you knew and did - not the other way around.
Perception comes through the history of your actions; thoughts come through embodiment situated in surroundings.
This is how you might see a world in which you can act - and yet that world may not even exist.
If you cannot die, there is no need to See, you may as well be blind.
What the barbarians created through the sorcery of Representation, of the deathless Synthemata that knew no fear or mortal woe, was in truth, a form of madness.
The Near War, the Lightning Sea and the Waters Of Death.
