More years passed, and the march of progress trudged on. More men and women than ever were opting to be operated upon so as to receive the new power. They began referring to themselves as “conductors”. With more and more machinations being raised around them, it was not necessary to spend as much time in labor, and so many took to pursuits of arts and sciences. Books and works of art were created, as well as new inventions and technology. For the security of their future generations, mankind had learned to cope with giving up on some of their more grandiose ambitions.

In the hills, however, there existed a faction whose goal was to convince a small party of men and women to venture out into the world beyond and begin building towns and colonies there. They were peaceful. They did not intend to bring any harm to the Capitol or anyone in it; just to go and experience the vastness of the world around them, and to be a part of it. Colonizers tested their friends and acquaintances in conversation, gauging their potential support of such an endeavor. Under cover of night, word would spread from house to house ever so cautiously. The campaign went undetected by the eyes of the Sitters, but the archetypes were not so easily kept in the dark. They knew what was growing in the minds of the people around them, and they planned to intervene. They wanted only to prevent the humans from being the cause of their own demise.

Korah, however, was not fully convinced of this in his mind. He found himself sympathizing with the humans and their desire to expand their dominion, and frankly, he was annoyed that the others seemed so set on holding the humans back from their fullest potential. He could not have kept these feelings secret from the other archetypes even if he had wanted to. Devon, Basil, Jasper, and their wives were all perplexed and the slightest bit resentful toward him for harboring these thoughts. Since before the foundation of the world, he had been the more difficult brother to understand. They had tried to relate to him, but his heart seemed the most alien of all of them. It had been his ideas that brought about all of the destruction in the world. His digging into the earth at the first times had been the birth of volcanoes whose violent eruptions had harmed the earth ever since. His invention of predation had been the beginning of suffering itself. His brothers strongly preferred not to see his ideas lead to yet another permanent disruption of the harmony of creation. Andora was disheartened to see her husband so ill-regarded by the others. Frustration was growing on Korah’s end as well. He knew he had always been the outcast of the lot. His disruptive actions had earned him his share of scorn from the beginning, but perhaps that was his place. Perhaps that was why he had been made.

It was clear to them all what would necessarily follow. They would not try to force or convince him otherwise or try to hold him back. They were not even totally sure that he was wrong. After all, men such as Ganon the Just and Salus the Wise had arisen from their numbers. Men had quelled a rebellion without their intervention. The archetypes would have liked to imagine that men only grew and prospered because of their guidance, but who could know what men would have made of themselves had the archetypes continued to rest for long ages? Korah raised his head as if in pride of having secured some sort of victory or validity in the eyes of his brothers at long last. He made public his alignment with the faction of colonizers, and his plans to lead them, along with Andora, to a new country where they could build their dominion. Over night, the movement boomed, and thousands of others jumped at the opportunity to venture farther into the world, discover its beauty, and lay claim to its riches. Word went out by assembly, by rider, and by pigeon; and their ranks swelled. Within five days, a third of the men of the Capitol and its surrounding regions had cast in their lot to go with him.

On the morning that they were set out for their great migration, the air was crisp and the sky was bright. At dawn, the sun’s refulgent rays exploded off of the metallic tops and edges of the wonders of the Capitol. Korah wondered to himself, for the last time, if it was a mistake to be walking away from such a place. His eyes shifted from the concerned and saddened faces of his brothers and sisters, to the faces of the people — packed up and assembled, their faces bright with excitement for what might lie ahead. The western gate on the outer wall opened. Andora bid farewell to those they were leaving behind, but Korah remained silent, and led the convoy away from the city. Men, women, children, horses, livestock, and wagons slowly poured through the gate, leaving the city noticeably emptier than usual. Korah never looked back — not at the Capitol that was vanishing in the distance, not at the masses following him to wherever he would take them, and not at his wife who he had known was following him despite her own sense of trepidation and unease.

They pushed northwest at first. They followed the river that cut through the valley until they came to a forest that had marked the end of the Capitol’s territory. Korah’s imposing footsteps cut a trail through the woods wide enough for them to follow. Once they made it past the edge of the mountain range that fenced their route, they turned west. They spent scores of days passing through the vast, open plains, circling their wagons at night, and sleeping under the ever-watchful eyes of their chief and his queen. With these as their sentinels, they feared for nothing. In time, they came to the edge of a great desert. They traced its northern border until it eventually led them to the gnarled foothills of the mountains of the West. Ahead of them lay sheer grey peaks that split the sky like blades, with seemingly no way past. Korah remembered this place. It was here that he had retreated when the four had gone their separate ways long ago — when the first sight of bloodshed had led them to push their creatures to greater lengths of attack and defense. The land had taken on the sense of him as he rested there, and had not changed much since that time. A bit of green had found a grip in the hills, and birds could be seen flying high in the distance, but there was not much living to be seen here.

Korah led them north, where he knew a river to flow out of these mountains. When the people cornered their way around the northern end of the range, they looked into an endless and beautiful valley with mountains on either side far taller than anything they had ever seen before. The land was lush and green, and far in the distance they saw mountains with smoke rising from their tapered peaks — the first that any of them had ever known of volcanoes, apart from stories taken from the journals of Edrelle the Brave and her crew. Flowers, trees, and grasses grew here that none of them had ever seen before, and animals made this land their home that had been the things of their story-books. It was a marvelous land, easily several times larger than the valleys that had contained the Capitol and its territory. They had found their new home, and the best part was that they were free to set out even further whenever they desired. They would build a city here that would be great — one that would rival the greatness of the Capitol itself. They had plenty of workers, and many of the conductors had come along to see what new wonders they would be able to achieve without many of the regulations that had been put on them by Devon, Basil, and Jasper. Resources were plentiful here, and more importantly, they had all of the time in the world to make what they would imagine.

The humans set to work almost immediately, unloading equipment and supplies from their wagons, setting up tents, tilling land, felling trees, raising houses, barns, and a town center. The mountains were rich with ore, waiting to be extracted and put to work for them. A social order emerged almost unintentionally that resembled the freedom and equality of the Capitol, but with slightly more of an emphasis on achievement. It would not be long before they had a genuine, functioning city on their hands, even if not as grand as the land they had left. That was not surprising. The Capitol had over a millennium of progress behind it, and they were just starting out. Time would tell what they would become under their trusted leaders. To mirror that sentiment, they decided to name the new city Providence.

Korah had his own ambitions, however. He had no desire to linger around to watch these early stages of civil development unfold a second time; he was feeling creative. Ever since observing the humans, he had noted things about them that he could have implemented whenever designing one of his own creatures: their social propensities, their craftiness, their ability to communicate and coordinate so well. Surely his power to alter creatures had not fully waned. Surely the created order had not fully set into unalterable rigidity. Surely he still had the power for one last great creation before it was all gone. He dug himself deep into the mountains, leaving behind Andora and the others, and went to work.