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The peace was not to last, however. Ever a free-spirit, the Great Serpent one day decided to explore [[Nowhere]], and did not return intact. What ''did'' return were two Hours; the Hour of the [[Snake Tail with Appendages]], a God-from-Nowhere, and the Hour of the Bright-Delver, a God-from-Blood. To the Snake-tail, reality itself was pain, and it sought only to destroy all that restricted it. To the Delver, reality was beautiful, and the world and the Glory should be available to all to make the world even nicer.
The disappearance of the Great Serpent was felt throughout the Mansus and the Histories. Some Hours felt that their ability to experiment with the world and steer the Histories in the direction they felt they ''should'' be going was restricted unduly by the Serpent, and were eager to "rectify" this perceived wrong with the 21st Hour now absent. [[The Anaconda]], which would now become the Hour of stealth, rose up ascended to take up the responsibilities of the Great Serpent and keep the peace.
Relationships between the gods became strained as the tensions mounted, particularly between the Hours of the Maker and the Anvil. The Maker had ever been dedicated to its work to find perfection in its creations, but this obsession deepened as time went on, to the point it no longer seemed to care for the ultimate well-being of those it modified. The Anvil however was dutiful and unyielding in its purpose, and grew disturbed by the lengths its friend seemed willing to go to in pursuit of perfecting its craft.
These tensions grew to a head when a dispute between the Snake-Tail and the Anaconda blossomed into a full-scale war as both Hours used the dispute as a excuse to vent their pent-up frustrations upon each other. The Hours that opposed the war and sought to maintain a sense of order took the names [[The Doors]], while those that sought an upset to the status-quo -by violent means if necessary- became known as [[The Keys]]. It is during this time a new Hour [[The Peacock]], emerged from hiding within the Wood and aligned itself with the Keys, for reasons the Snake-Tail and the bird kept to themselves.
For a time the Hours waged bloody war, greatly damaging the House and destroying many of the Gates through which both mortal and god accessed its halls. The battle only ended when the mortals the Snake-Tail and Anaconda had originally fought over were all killedsave one. The Hours put down their arms weapons and ceased their fighting, but the damage to both the Mansus and their relationships with each other had been done.
All was not well, however. The War of the Doors had damaged the fabric of reality, making navigation of the Lower House difficult if not impossible. These rifts shined like a beacon to Nowhere, and new Gods-from-Nowhere emerged. Among them was [[The Insidious]], which began to spread its malign influence throughout the Wood. Also FNORD.