The Fall of the Clock

This excerpt was found on a fragment of parchment from what appears to be a textbook found on a long forgotten shelf in the Library of Entropy on the Negative Energy Plane.  It details events that have not yet happened, horrible events that may or may not ever come to pass.  It is being disseminated as a warning to all of those who dwell on Mechanus and all those who value Law.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     "And all that was Law was laid barren and deserted, and in his tower the mighty Lord of Order fell..." - An eyewitness account of the 'Fall of the Clocks'. Mechanus the FallenIn long forgotten days, it was said that Mechanus was an infinite void of precise and perfect spinning gear works. The machinery of the plane was protected and watched by the beings called modrons; no chaos was allowed into the system. Chaos was not to be tolerated, and for eons this was the way of things. And then chaos began entering the system.The coming of Nemausus (the slide of the third layer of Arcadia) at first seemed to be a boon for the Lawful plane. With the annexation of an entire philosophical layer, Order had become stronger than ever. But the layer carried with it a ticking time bomb. The peaceful formians of Arcadia slid onto Mechanus along with their home layer and were warped by the plane's energies, becoming militaristic and belligerent. The formians immediately began a campaign of colonization that put them directly at odds with the modrons that maintained the Clockwork Nirvana. Their relatively small population caused the modrons to ignore the blossoming threat of the centaur-ants, an oversight that would later prove costly.Then catastrophe struck. Primus, the Lord and Master of all modrons, was slain by Tenebrous, the undead reincarnation of Orcus the Demon Prince. Tenebrous took the mantle of Primus for himself and immersed himself into the energy pool of Mechanus. The energy pool began influencing the chaotic evil undead deity and he eventually fled, fearing its lawful taint, but he left a legacy behind. The chaos that he caused in the modron hierarchy had a ripple effect, causing an influx of "chaotic" or "rogue" modrons. His tainted energy began to contaminate the pool, causing, among other things, the creation of the impossible and fundamentally-wrong negadrones. The new Primus and his aides attempted to intercede but the damage that had been done had created a weak spot in the uncontaminated Law of the modrons.So the rebuilding began and Primus and his minions were confident that the repairs could be completed with little interruption of the general plans of the modron race. Law was the only constant of the universe, that which fueled all else, after all, and it would be impossible to damage it for long.  Then the Formian hordes struck.Battle raged all throughout Regulus as the ant-beasts finally unleashed their master assault against the modron race. For months the battles continued; a struggle that threatened to rend the clockworks in twain. The modrons where inexhaustible, but the formians had sheer military prowess that the lawful exemplars lacked. The war seemed as if it would rage on for cycles and the faces of the gears began to become battle-scarred and pitted by war. It was said that some of the gears had stopped functioning due to neglect or damage or both, and talk of the war spreading to Acheron and Arcadia began to spread throughout the planes.The final blow that ended the war and forever ruined Nirvana came not from the formians or the modrons but from the parai. A race of entities so alien that their hive-like collective valued only sheer perfection, the parai used the massive distraction caused by the war to infiltrate Regulus. At the height of its concentration, its consciousness spread throughout every warrior drone in the army, Primus was caught unaware as the entities penetrated its inner sanctum. The parai, using their ability to engulf and absorb other beings into their collective, leapt upon the modron power and fused its essence into their own. Primus, every modron and rogue modron throughout the planes, and all the parai of the collective let out a horrid wail as the alien energies infected the modron energy pool. The ephemeral collective conscious of the Parai was extinguished in that act, shattered by direct connection to the infinite energy of the plane itself. Primus itself was destroyed in the blast and all modrons were suddenly alone and without a higher purpose. The very gears of Regulus lurched to a complete and soul-wrenching stop. 

For a moment the battle wavered, and the modrons froze in place with a look of abject horror painted on every exemplar's face. The formians, confused by the sudden halt in their opponents' defense, held their attacks momentarily. The silence persisted, the deafening sound of not a single creature moving echoed throughout the entire plane of Mechanus, and then the rumbling began. Turning in unison the modrons and formians all watched as a wall of water large enough to engulf most prime worlds roared towards them. The sludgy reddish waters of the Styx had never been known to wash through Mechanus, but with a thunderous roar they made their coming known. Both forces were washed off of the gears instantly, smashed into so much exoskeleton and clockwork by the tsunami.When the Styx water receded and Mechanus was once again dry, all that was left of the warring forces was a wasteland of destruction. In the Tower of Primus a pair of figures staggered out of the energy pool, their eyes wide as no true modron's eyes had ever been before. The two Secundi looked upon each other and knew that they were alone. The pool had been tainted and drained, Primus was no more. Gazing out from the tower, the Two saw the wheels begin to spin anew, their spins slow and erratic. Reaching into the pool the Secundi began anew the task of creating their race. This time the energies were weak, the modron populace depleted. Where once there were nine there were three. Where once there were twenty five only five remained. And where once there was One, an empty space was all that remained. 

 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -