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@this-is-not-an-alien

Good morning Cathy! 🙂

I so enjoy hearing your thoughts and reading your insights.  You have such a clear perception that you amaze me and I always look forward to reading what you say.

Thank you for responding to this section as well.  You are correct that there are several vagueries in this “Prologue” but there are deliberate reasons for them.

The descriptions I have included are spartan in that they are meant to provide a mere outline of their forms in silhouette.  They are, after all, shady characters…[See what I did there? 😉 ]…but there is more to it.  These are deliberately cloaked in vagueness so that when the unfolding story reveals them they will come as more of a suprise.

So far, all we know at this point is, one is in the form and body of a dead person being animated by something dwelling in her and making use of the old woman’s body to walk unnoticed among the peoples of the land and to be able to physically carry the “giant pearl” that she would not have been able to with no corporeal form of her own.  In the form of a beggar woman, who appears to be blind, the brutal Xarmnians, in which city she hid until they were accustomed to seeing and “not seeing” her.  Xarmnians tend not to notice anyone who doesn’t present strength or a threat.  The presence inside her is a creature of mercurial rages, but she holds herself in check, because she needs this crumbling old body until she can get another one.  The old woman’s person was once loved and respected when she had been living.  So ,when in the brief allusion, “Noadiah” says “I have done this before, only with some limited success. Those who knew the form I bear, eventually suspect.” She is referring to her previous attempt to masquerade in the human form as the original Noadiah among those who knew “the real Noadiah” as she had been in life, they began to suspect that there was something off about her.

The other “creature” is bulky and massive.  In the light, it appears as a massive translucent distortion, like a desert mirage.  But in the darkness, under half-light, it is visible and is a terrible sight to behold.

When “it” says to the Noadiah impersonator:  “Then, servant, you will be my eyes upon this land, for I move among the shadows and beneath it. The light of this world burns.”  Its statement is true.  It avoids the sunlight and is most at ease in darkness, which is why, upon crashing upon the shoreline of the beach, it proceeds immediately into the sea cave, where it will begin its tunneling underground.  This creature symbolizes a monstrous assault on “foundations”.  Later, it will attack a troop of Xarmnian soldiers, because it hungers and thirsts for human flesh and blood.  It literally opens up the ground beneath them and attacks all who fall into the resulting pit.  A whale does something similar when pursuing the massive amounts of krill it consumes.  It is called a bubble net effect, in that it swallows air, and releases it by opening its mouth forming a rising ring of bubbles that force the schooling krill into the center of the widening bubble as it rises out of the depths below.  The whale follows the bubble upward and scoops up the gathered krill trapped within the center column of the rising “bubble net”.

This creature is comprised of metallic spines, with a head the size of a utility van, and crushing flat and torquing teeth that twist each time it opens its jaws. I call it a “Dust Dragon”, and yes it does have an elusive biblical origin, like many of my character creations do.  This monstrous being is half-supernatural being and half a collection of scales, claws, bony plates, diamond pointed spines, and rocky plates that gouge and cut through the underground as it rams its way further and deeper into the land of the Mid-World, following the progress of the twenty-one Surface Worlders who have been brought out of time and gathered together to fulfill a quest and prophecy in this heartland country symbolic of a redeemed human soul.

The Dust Dragon is only one of the three total “Dragons” occupying the Mid-World, though the other one, A Leviathan (Job 41 & Isaiah 27:1), was killed in the prior failed quest that the MC (later called O’Brian) is called back to lead.  The earliest Dragon to enter the Mid-World is trapped and “sleeping” in the High Mountain range, a formidable and imposing wall of jagged stone towering to the sky. Only “the Ancients” of the Mid-World know of its existence and that it attempted to steal the massive golden Dominion Crown once atop The Marker Stone, from which the three virtue stones fell out of their settings as it attempted to fly off and ascend the crest of the massive Stone Walls, clutching its prized possession.  The Massive Stone Range has four cities that are built upon ledges and terraces in the arduous trek upward.  Each of the names of these cities begins with one of the following letters: S-E-L-F
Hence, the mountain range is called the Self Range.  [The multi-headed red dragon (Ephesians 2:2 & Rev. 12:3) is the same that appears in Revelations and the very same Serpent of Eden that crawled out of the forbidden guard and slinked away into an Occulus portal into the Mid-World before the eventual global flood of Noah reshaped the earth (Surface World) and obscured the old portals into the undiscovered country of the Mid-World lands.]

With the Dust Dragon, I am taking some creative license here, was once in the Surface World in biblical times during Korah’s rebellion against Moses and Aaron’s leadership in the desert. (Read Numbers 16:32)
It was used as an instrument of chaos fulfilling God’s purpose to punish Korah and Dothan, but its savage killing did not stop there, so it was banished and cast out into the Void, there is waited for centuries until “Noadiah” by attempting to cast the stolen “Pearl” (a Virtue Stone [the Faith stone, aka The Fidelis Stone]) out into the Mid-World’s eastern sea, instead opened the sky and this “beast” caught it in its mouth, allowing it to enter the Mid-World, just ahead of the beach arrival of “the Twenty-one” Surface Worlders.  The Virtue Stones are not of these worlds, they are from the land of Excavatia.  What the thing inside Noadiah’s body does not know is the Virtue Stones cannot be destroyed or entirely lost.

This passage (from the prior reading) also reveal some of that:

[Noadiah] “But the stone…I saw you consume it. We have disposed of the virtue stone needed to bring the prophecy about.”

[Dust Dragon] “We have only delayed it. The stone is embedded in me. I could not consume it, for its power would send me into Tartarus.”

[Noadiah] “You mean it is here still? Not out in The Void?”

[Dust Dragon] “It cannot be lost. The virtue stones are from the altar of The One. They can be contained only for a time, but they answer another’s call.”

[Noadiah] “So how are we to prevent the one who will lead another of the stone quests?”

This is their shared mission. To thwart and prevent a successful carrying out of the Third incursion of Surface Worlders meddling in the prophecies of The Mid-World in service to the Mysterious Marker Stone.

There also is a sinister connection between what Noadiah actually is (an elemental wind spirit [See Colossians 2:8 NET version]) and the way she gets a body by cooperating with a “dragon” who pulverizes rock and eats “dust”.  A saliva/plasma substance that encapsulates and incorporates both human blood and the rock and dust of the land into a golem form which shifts and takes on the visual aspect of the DNA characteristics of the person whose blood was taken to form it, but it lacks a soul and can only be animated by an elemental wind spirit to give it the semblance of life, if not the truth of it.

In my story, the wind spirits are evil consistent with Colossians 2:8, and they have a symbiotic relationship with dragons who have the special plasma that can give them a type of body.

As to your question about the Virtue stones, even though others believe differently (even the MC for a long time), these stones have no internal power of themselves. They are focusing stones that channel effects of supernatural power through the yielded Surface Worlder who bears them, only when the person yields to their calling by The One True God who equips them to do what must be done in pursuit of that calling.  The bearer cannot use them to conjure power or work these to serve their own selfish ends.  These only serve and channel the divine authority of The One who directs His instruments to surrender to His Will.

God does not lend His power to mortal men to serve themselves, but does work supernaturally through them when yield to Him and they ask according to His Will. (Matt. 18:19, John 5:20-21, John 14:13-14, 15:7 & 1 John 5:14)

Look up the term “quickening” in the Scripture, and you will see it is associated with miraculous accounts in both the OT and the NT.

My stories will incorporate a wide scope of biblical mystery because I take a holistic view of its scope in the same way that Jesus did. (See Luke 24:27 & 44, See also Psalms 40:7 & Hebrews 10:7)  From Genesis to Revelation, Jesus defines Himself as The Alpha and The Omega, The Beginning and The End, so if my work reflects Him, all is fair game.

1 Peter 3:15 [NIV] says:
But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect,

The scope of my story is a journey into the Redeemed Heart of Mankind, carrying out a mission bearing Faith (Fidelis), Hope (Praesporous), and Love (Cordis “The Heart”) in yieldedness to Christ as the Anchor Stone of our sure promise, to restore these gems to the stolen crown of Dominion, and by Faith move against the worldly strongholds that still influence the human soul in its pursuit of The Kingdom (Excavatia), that God calls us to seek. (Matthew 6:33)

Ephesians 6:12 says in “high places” we are called to contend with and wrestle against a pantheon of evil powers and principalities, that represent themselves are deceitful strongholds in our lives.  But we are made to be overcomers if we yield to His “finished” task and under that authority take back the lands which these have stolen and reclaim them and subject them under His Lordship.