The First Offering of Zantrayel

The dawn sky over Zantrayel pulsed with a strange, golden shimmer—as if the heavens themselves were watching.

A decree echoed through the sacred rivers and wind-carved cliffs: the first national sacrificial offering was to be made.

Every citizen of Zantrayel—man, woman, child—felt it in their bones. Not a command of fear, but of reverence. An instinct older than speech, tugging at their spirit. Each family brought forth a living animal as an offering, symbols of gratitude, survival, and unity.

Parents offered on behalf of their children. The warriors offered in silence, their bloodied hands trembling not from battle, but from awe. Even the elderly and the sick were assisted to the temple grounds, that none might be left out of this moment of divine convergence.

From the Temple of the Lwa, the priestesses—still absorbing the mysteries of the night before—stood watch. The Stone of 234 Names glowed faintly, warm with recent divine passage.

But none knew what had truly occurred the night before.

No one—not even the priestesses—understood the weight Zion bore now. His back burned with unseen fire as 234 sigils, each belonging to a Lwa, writhed beneath his skin, carving themselves deeper into his soul. The punishment for offering only to a few was not wrath—but overwhelming blessing.

Unseen by mortals, Bassòon stirred.

The sacrificial fires were not merely smoke—they were signals. Across the Beast-scarred lands, across the mountains that remember and the rivers that whisper, a divine pressure surged outward from Zantrayel like a wave. A signal flare of spirit.

And the world noticed.

The dormant gods of other tribes turned their heads. The Beast Gods, still licking wounds from war, snarled in their slumber. Even the hidden, cunning one who had slipped into Bassòon unnoticed paused to listen.

Zantrayel had not only survived—it had awakened.

And the world of Bassòon, ever alive and watching, would now prepare its response.