Prelude

Sing, my friends!" cried an ecstatic Llari, the resurrected Mad God. "Sing!" The masked god was overjoyed, once more given "flesh," or something akin to flesh. He stood upon a large pedestal that arose from the clouds of Chaos, the remnants of a powerful Primordial, waving a baton in a graceful, yet hurried manner. Llari wasn't like his siblings, for he was relatively small and didn't have a face. Slender and gaudy, the masked deity appeared no more than a jester wearing a black velvet doublet with silver stitching and a beret. His mask was made of mirror glass, always shifting expressions whenever he felt a peculiar emotion, and as of now, that emotion was ecstacy, of euphoria.

The astral realm that he resided in soon became full of music. At first, it was faint, nothing more than a distant echo. Then, it hit a tremendous crescendo, a thousand-voiced chant so melodic that it would make mortals weep in sorrow and despair, its funereal symphony glorious. The mournful euphony resonated within the star-lit emptiness as if it were chanting a spell of some sort... and it was. Languidly, yet gracefully, multi-colored ribbons of lifestuff appeared from the astral darkness, piercing the Chaos-stuff that, too, littered the infinity, seeking the heart of the Veil. Within moments, Llari began to laugh wildly, throwing back his head and waving his arms sporadically, lost in the music of the dirge that summoned the Lifeforce of All Worlds.

"Waken, Grande Mundus," Llari demanded as his laughter died, the mask he wore now shifting into a theatrical mask with a malevolent smile. An expression that held a sadistic sense of humor. The ribbons began to meld together, forming a swirling sphere of light, slowly expanding. "Time to summon my Lords!" Again that laughter escaped those hollow lips that never moved. The thousand-voiced god brought a trembling hand to his masked face, laughing maniacally, unable to stop.

"No, no, no, no, no!" He laughed, frustration seeking its way out of his insane euphoria. "Must concentrate! Must beckon Khlyrna'aarak!" Llari shouted, though unable to hear himself over the symphony of his disciples, who were now only souls contorted into horrific things, forever masked in shadow. Slowly, the Mad God regained his composure, shuddering. The mask warped again, this time revealing an enlightened face. With an excited chortle, Llari began to chant. At first, the arcane words were incoherent, only mingling as nonsense within the chorus of the funereal song. Eventually, the chant became louder, though the words were just alien. It wasn't in the language of the gods or the language of any known race... but it was in a language far beyond the grasp of any dimensional entity. Not even the Primordials, scatter-brained as they were, would know the language. At least, not off the top of their forming and unforming heads. The eldritch tongue, horrendous yet beautiful, soon hit its peak, its keen ululation capable of destroying any sanity a mortal or present immortal may have had.

Chanting still, Llari did not acknowledge the rapid change of the Veil. In fact, Llari the Mad God wasn't even conscious. The God of Madness and Mischief was lost in his chant, his trance eternal. Still did he mumble as Grande Mundus came to be. The skies black and covered with floating pink ribbons, scarlet cracks separating the flickering stars, and the white sun forever blotted out by the obsidian moon, the eclipse forever marring the newborn world in twilight. The ground was covered in black sand, rivers of blood appearing here and there, and oases forming with strange sakura trees with black blossoms and white-blue bark; the grass of the oases were sickly yellow and at whatever corner there was, often surrounding the eldritch trees, were red-leaved bushes with blue roses; in the heart of the oases were ponds, sometimes lakes, of blood. There was a gale, unlike any other, full of maddened screeches and demon-filled howling. Here, wind had a manifestation... of near-translucent ribbons, as thin as can possibly be, of blackness.

In the heart of onyx quicksand, forever he kneel, the Mad King of Trickery, in the Heart of Grande Mundus...