Prologue: Igneous

Most crystal spheres contain planets. Darkforge contained a black hole and five large space stations in the same circular orbit exactly 72 degrees apart. The space stations were far closer to the event horizon than is remotely safe, but were protected by Spaghettification Compensators.

How do those work, you may ask? Extremely well.

Who built the stations is unknown. By the time I was born there, the place was run by an Omnisian order. They kept the stations maintained (despite not knowing how they worked) and used probability manipulation magic to influence the Hawking radiation. What cannot be manufactured can still emerge from the quantum vacuum, so we were the only known source of new darksteel. Each item was less than a micrometer in diameter and the shapes were random, but it was more than anyone else had. This had military applications, so there were constant goodwill tours given to visiting high-officials-turned-diplomats. But I digress...

I was the delight of my early teachers, especially in technology, and was allowed to enter the priesthood at age 14. In hindsight, this was a mistake. Sure, I was "devoted" to the Omnissiah, my devotion had faced no substantive tests, and my overall level of responsibility just wasn't.

It wasn't long before my disrespectful and emotional (that is, teenage) ways dropped me to devotion=3. I'm fortunate I have so few lingering curses from that time. Just my hideous visage. The Omnissiah had mercy on me for my youth.

But shortly after my 18th birthday, I'd had enough of depending on technology I didn't understand. I wanted to know how the Spaghetification Compensators worked. At the time, one of the five stations was abandoned due to atmosphere issues. I got a short-range SC and EVAd to the abandoned station. I found the station's SC and slowly began disassembling it. My intent was to understand its makeup, then reassemble it when I was done.

There were two major mistakes in this plan.

First, an intent to reassemble isn't enough for the Omnissiah. So far as He was concerned, this was a deliberate destruction of an ancient technology. The highest form of blasphemy.

Worse, I had assumed the five station SCs were independent. In fact, they formed a pentagram of abjuration. As soon as I broke this one, all five stations Spaghettiafied outside of core areas with redundant protections.

Over twenty thousand people died that day. Including fifty-some-odd dignitaries from twelve foreign governments. (Not including my parents, who were away on a purchasing mission -- which is why I was unsupervised enough to attempt this. They disowned me when they learned what I'd done.)

I probably would have died if Catastrophrei hadn't saved me. He was so impressed by my determination to know at all costs that he protected me from the Omnissiah's wrath and the usual dangers of changing religions.

There were a few spelljammers in system which came to pick up survivors. I got aboard one and taken to a nearby sphere, then got off that sphere aboard a smuggler all before anyone worked out what I'd done.

I do regret killing all those people, and I would employ better safety precautions if I did it today. But I stand by the core principle that led me to do it: we must understand.