[TECHNICAL NOTE]

Make sure "Reader Preferences" allow Twig's formatting
Tables will sometimes be different colours, fair warning
Ninety Nine Percent of the tables will still be blue
But a couple of them will be different colours too

~

INTRODUCTION (READER'S GUIDE)

Welcome to the start of an adventure told in song
it's a format new to royal road but going strong
so let me introduce you to the rhythm of the rhymes
it's a rhythm used in song since very ancient times

First of all, each line has a strict syllable limit
and each line has thirteen spoken syllables in it
1 2 3 4, 1 2 3 4, 1 2 3 4, 1 x x x
the last 1's followed by 3 silent beats when it is done

Often there's a lead in syllable, like this next line:
but if you read it quick, I think you'll find the rhythm fine
think of it like any 4/4 beat you've heard before
it's a simple structure but it's one that I adore

~

PROLOGUE

“Have you ever seen a fate so twisted and so wrong?

How could any system let this go on for so long?

Are you sure there’s nothing you can do to help the child?

Shall us gods just sit back while his destiny’s defiled?”

“Calm yourself, you’re not the first to question what’s occurred

This has been the strangest story any god has heard

Never has an entity so foreign to the place

Made itself so known while hidden safely in some space”

“No god could be hidden from the rest of us you fool

All of us are equal here beneath the system’s rule

But if even our great system cannot stop this threat

We may not have seen the worst of what could happen yet…”

“Do you really think the system has control of this?

Is there really nothing that the great system could miss?”

“I don’t know, but god or not, I’m dropping this issue

Against the system, there’s nothing even old gods could do”

~