In the distant recesses of time, there was a young planet, one still glowing with the fires in which it was forged. This was long before it had a name, for there were none there to name it. There was no life, nor even solid ground. For the whole planet was covered in a primordial sea of red hot magma. It existed in a state of pure chaos. And thus it remained for countless eons. 

But in time the planet started to cool. The magma began to coalesce into islands of rock and these merged together to form bigger structures.

And between these newborn tectonic plates, rivers of lava slithered across the planet like great serpents, carving paths through the chaos. 

It was from these lava flows, that the first conscious beings emerged — sentient currents of fire, alive with intention, memory, and desire. 

At first, they were all one — interconnected, flowing from the same great sea of magma. But as the crust cooled and the land solidified, they became separated — fragmented across distance, frozen into silence, sleeping beneath stone. These were the first Wyrmlings, beings of pure light and heat.

And it was into their world of fire and rock that something new came down to the planet from the heavens. It was a ray of red light that had travelled across vast expanses of space and time. It carried a seed, and that seed landed in the soft, semi molten crust of the planet.

The seed carried a message from a distant world, a single word: Passion. 

And as the soft volcanic rock began to solidify around the seed, it formed the shape of a glowing hot, red egg. And in time it sank beneath the surface, where the Wyrmlings attended to it, awaiting the day that it would hatch, even as the world above became colder and more solid.

Time passed and the planet cooled. Water appeared, and in time the planet gave rise to complex lifeforms that would seem familiar to us today.

The first of these were simple creatures. They fed from the abundance of their planet and knew neither hunger nor war. They called their world “Mura.”

But deep below the surface of their world, the Red Egg pulsed and radiated and the Wyrmlings sent its light up to the beings above, where it awoke something new in them. A flicker of passion began to stir, a memory of their own fiery essence. 

One of these was Ithax. He lived among a small clan at the foot of an ancient volcano, which they called Mount Bellon, which in their tongue meant “The Entrance to Heaven”.

As a child his dreams had been haunted by visions of a red egg. And though he didn’t understand its meaning, there was a quality to the dreams that would stir whenever he heard the rumblings of the volcano.

The Murians had long feared Bellon’s eruptions, and it was strictly forbidden to climb it. When they heard its rumblings or saw the smoke rising from its peak, they would run for shelter and hide until the mountain had calmed down.

But young Ithax always wanted to get closer and see the lava for himself.

As he matured into adulthood, his interest never waned, and one day when he was out foraging by himself, Ithax heard the distant rumble of the mountain stirring. And with the sound came a distant memory, of his childhood dream of a red egg. 

Though he was filled with terror, another feeling took hold in Ithax: desire. He wanted to see the flames, to feel the heat of the lava. And for the first time in his life, he ignored the rules of his clan and began walking up the winding path that led to Bellon’s summit.

As the path grew steeper, the air became hot and thick with smoke. But pushing his muscles and his will to their limits, Ithax kept walking up toward the mouth of the volcano. 

Suddenly, as he turned around a bend, a thick fierce wave of heat struck him and he came face to face with a large burning tree.

He had never seen fire up close before, and despite the suffocating pressure of hot air in his lungs, Ithax couldn’t take his eyes away from the tree.

He reached down and picked up a flaming branch and pondered this new miracle in his hands. And as he looked into the flame, it began to move and dance with snakelike motions.

Ithax returned with the flaming branch to his clan. At first they were shocked by his transgression and afraid of the fire. But they were also amazed by its power and beauty.

 Soon, they all came to embrace this new wonder, and as they did, the spark of fire within themselves grew and the red egg continued to feed those sparks from far below the ground.

Everything changed for the Murians after Ithax brought the fire back. No longer enslaved to the cycles of day and night, now, when darkness settled they would gather around the fire, which they kept eternally fed in a hearth. And as the flames warmed their bodies, the sparks within them grew and stories began to flow from the flames. And these stories, in turn, awoke new desires and passions.

Of all the passions that were born in these days, the greatest was romantic love. The Murians had always mated like the other animals around them. But now, a new force awoke, and sex became something much more powerful. It became a way for two people’s divine sparks to join and grow stronger, like two torches flare up when pressed together.

These were days of great joy and exuberance for the Murians. But it would not last. For with greater passions came new emotions: anger, rage, jealousy. Fire could warm cold bodies, but it could also burn. And it wasn’t long before they discovered that they could harness its power as a weapon. Conflict and war were born of the fires.

But as the years passed the Murians became increasingly isolated from each other. They built separate homes where individual families could maintain their own hearth. The communal fires gave way to smaller, separate fires. The general feeling of warmth between clan members was replaced by the fire of love between partners, and the myths and stories that they had once shared faded from memory.

Even great Mount Bellon seemed to cool and harden over time. It no longer rumbled and filled the sky with smoke, and it had been many seasons since it last erupted.

Ithax was a fully grown Murian now. He was well regarded among his clan as the hero that had brought them the power of fire. But it troubled him that he had never made it to the top of Bellon’s peak.

What’s more, the dreams of his childhood had returned. Night after night, he dreamt of a red egg and it felt like a memory he couldn’t quite conjure, but was always just at the periphery of his consciousness. 

And then one night when the dream came, he heard a voice singing to it. It was a voice like none he had ever heard, and as the sound grew, the egg began to glow brighter. 

He awoke and knew what he needed to do.

That morning Ithax climbed the path up to Bellon’s peak. He passed the place where the flaming tree had once given him the gift of fire.

He kept walking, and as he did, he felt the egg calling to him with greater and greater force. He could almost even hear the voice from his dream blowing in the wind.

Eventually he reached the edge of the volcano, and he could feel the heat coming up from the smoke inside.

Though he knew he was taking his life into his hands, he also felt his inner flames leaping up with excitement. And so Ithax began to climb down into the mouth of the volcano.

As he got lower the smoke became denser and he struggled to breathe or see. Eventually, all he could see was a faint red glow from the lava below.

He reached a flat outcropping where he sat to rest. The heat had grown almost unbearable, the darkness nearly total. He knew he couldn’t go much further. 1

But as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he became aware of a faint movement of red light just below. At first he thought they were embers rising from the fire. But they moved in strange ways, rising up in spirals and snake-like motions. And he realized they were not mere sparks, but something alive. They looked like tiny winged serpents made of light.

The Wyrmlings had witnessed his journey and his transformation. And they began to stir and emerge reborn as innocent, luminescent beings of power. Ithax’ mind was flooded with memories of the ancient world, of the primordial fires and of the seed that landed there. He saw the red egg resting among the Wyrmlings and knew that this was the source of the calling he had felt all of his life.

In that moment, he understood many things, without even knowing how he knew them. He saw a distant future when the fires inside of beings like him would be all but extinguished, and the passions that animated his world would cool and nearly fade away entirely. And he knew that in those days, the Red Egg would come to the surface again, and the Wyrmlings would awaken once more. And that all of this was part of a greater plan.

Ithax said goodbye to the Wyrmlings and the Red Egg, and then he climbed back up the mountain and returned to his home.

When he came back he shared his vision with the rest of the clan. And they were inspired by the wonders he had seen and a feeling of jubilation spread among them. It was decided then and there that a great festival would be held every year to celebrate the revelation he had received from the Wyrmlings. And musicians played their drums and the dancers lit their torches, and thus was born the Festival of the Red Egg!