The Doctrine of Shadow

Story written by Erich.

The ascetics leave their meditations. They gather beneath the realms above, in caverns and sewers, below the light of Morning's star, below the light of Twilight's stone and all stars gazing beyond Azeroth's firmament. Forsaken honor the Cult on blackened nights, brought closer still to the empty places.

Gongs are sounded, ebon robes shuffle. In the pitch air, they sit in rings. Shadow consumes these bygone halls, each crypt and cave, swathing the hooded monks in the stuff of their endless focus. The droning of their mantras begin, and the truths are spoken...

All things are constructions.

A building is brick, is timber and mortar.

A brick is earth and water, dried and shaped.

A length of timber is naught but the tree's fibrous flesh, strand by strand.

A handful of mortar is earth and water; poured, dried and shaped.

The earth is but the gathering of dusts and salts, the strand of flesh a tough, lengthy thread. The water bears its components, much too small for Man's eye to see.

Further still, to the air itself, through the air itself, the energy that binds. The forceful patterns gather mass, gather mass, gather mass... Matter, then, is the construction, the infinite structure to its finite base. Existence, or non-being. The zero, the one, merely condensed, slowed, bound and formed.

All things are constructions. This is that which Shadow teaches.

The willful hand, the truth of being, knows this. All things are bound by energy, made of being itself. Energy, the essence Of, on every surface, through the surface, beyond and below, above and throughout, the earth that makes the mortar, the brick, that feeds the timber and provides support. The energy that is this fabric upon which all reality dwells.

All things are based upon this energy's pattern. This is that which Shadow teaches.

Thou who Knows holds the spool, the thread, the needle and the shears. Thread and needle will mend the Fabric, give support to the structures by Light. Thou who Knows will take up the shears, will shape the Fabric to Balance. Balance must be maintained, Balance must be maintained. In Destruction, the Fabric will unravel, yet loose threads and frayed edges must be cut.

The Fabric must be maintained with Spool and Shears. This is that which Shadow teaches.

That We are first born of Being, that We are thrust unto Shadow's bosom, changed and purified in its truths; that We are enlightened, trascendant and that Our eyes are opened, as we rise above life, as we rise above death and as we rise above Matter itself, the stewards of Creation.

That We are holy, in Shadow's truths. This is that which Shadow teaches.