“Power, unshaped, does not sleep. It seethes.”
— Final transcript of Archglyph Ennar Valis, prior to dissolution
The Lattice Before the Fall
Long before Hexarion fractured — before Glyphexes shimmered with bound will, before CE was counted like coin — the world pulsed with raw order.
At the heart of this balance were the Arcanodes — six monumental constructs that anchored the very laws of existence: shaping energy, life, motion, memory, matter, and perception. They were not worshipped. They were understood — in the way scholars understand stars or tides.
But understanding can curdle into hunger.
The Glyphsmith Ambition
What began as curiosity among the ancient Glyphsmith guilds soon became a race. Glyph-princes carved deeper and deeper channels into the Arcanodes, seeking to imprint their will upon reality itself.
They did not know that the lattice was alive in its own way.
The first signs were subtle:
- Spells began to stutter
- Memories failed
- Entire cities flickered between planes of existence like drifting echoes
Then came the Collapse.
The Glyphfire Storm
It began at Vorthar Spire, the original seat of the Mind Arcanode. On what should have been a silent dusk, the sky cracked open with a spiraling helix of white flame.
Glyphfire, unbound and lawless, surged into every leyline. Glyphexes shattered midcast. Unstable resonance tore Hexmasters apart in the middle of thought. Some were left echoing, trapped in temporal bleed. Others exploded into fractal glyphshards. Entire Orders vanished in less than a breath.
Core Energy no longer obeyed command — it bled, wild and red, into the soil. The Arcanodes, once silent stewards, howled.
Some say the Fracture happened that day. Others believe it was already happening — and the Collapse was simply the moment humanity heard it scream.
The First Survivors
In the Collapse’s wake, a few Hexmasters survived — most maimed in spirit, if not in form. Some lost their attunements entirely. Others found their Glyphexes humming with new, unstable edicts. The rules were different. Reality had re-written the glyphs.
These survivors formed the earliest Hexbound Orders, vowing never again to twist the Arcanodes for ambition. But the damage was already done.
- The Arcanodes still beat, but they no longer agreed
- CE became both resource and relic
- And Hexarion would never be whole again
