Into the Dust Descend (intermission stories)
-slightly weird paranormal postmodern story of the narrator, a homeless backpacker named Sindy, as she talks directly to the reader.
-Contains one fight scene, which I feel kinda proud of, some goodly jokes and extended religious references. The whole book uses its own distorted Christian mythology throughout.

The Tails of God (chapters 1, 2 and 3)
-Historical fantasy story about a traveller who uses the technology available to her to fight those with magical relics.
-There's a lot of combat. Some of it cheesy. There's also a fair amount of dialogue, though, and general exploring and surviving.
-Worldbuilding is just a minimally modified western Eurasia in an unspecified medieval-y time period, likely the early Renaissance. still managed some blocks of text though
-I feel like I did good on this one, not gonna lie

The Human (chapters 1, 2)
-Science fiction, dark comedy, crime story, lots of dumb worldbuilding-related jokes, just lots of dumb jokes in general
-Main characters are a min-wage worker and his friend who gets him into petty crime, sort of a coming-of-age mentor dynamic
-Secretly a fanfiction of another artist's work, though I ran away with the world and did my own thing
-I sent it to him to read and he didn't reply, which makes sense, because there's a lot of cussing and the whole thing is just super undignified
-if you ever ever doubt that I am trash, read this

Sharp Teeth
-failed sci-fi romance snippet
-tried writing for a prompt, didn't work
-i'm not proud of this one
-there's nothing wrong with it i'm just
-not

The Brass-Smiths and the Watchmaker
-The most depressing bedtime story ever
-has mermaids

???
-untitled stream of consciousness dreamscape story
-super personal stuff idk man idk

How Sindy [title is spoilers]
-flashback by the narrator, Sindy
-really trashy extended combat scene
-description of heaven is useful for other stories though

A Day in the Life of a Tyrant
-comedy, turns into slice-of-life drama abruptly halfway through
-just a lighthearted thing i guess i was losing steam at this point

The Angel Heart
-A story about angels and visions of the past. Closes the novel.
-personally I'd say it's one of the better stories here, mostly thanks to not being written at 2 in the morning
-very closely linked to the main stories, though.

Description: The land bridge stretching between the mouth of the Mahd and the region south of the Shimmering Sea brought great frustration to Jvan, as it put a barrier between her ocean and its neighbour, disrupting ecosystems and blocking trade. Though it had been raised by natural tectonic displacement following the creation of the Southern Ocean, Jvan destroyed it in a much stranger way: by creating a continent-sized worm-like creature to ram into it and consume it. The remains of both it and the land bridge now form a series of islands between the Fractal and Shimmering oceans, densely encrusted by its massive progeny.

Appearance: A string of islands, some barely a hundred metres across, all made of the calcareous tubular bones of giant worms. Some of the tubes and rings composing the islands are barely large enough to fit a human hand, and many can be walked through and explored. The largest, relics of the original great worm, are arc-shaped islands in their own right.

The region continues to be tectonically active, and volcanic basalt lies under the encrusting worm-tubes. Some of the islands are active and dangerous. Even so, Jvan is strange, and the natural eruptive processes of the region are no longer quite so natural: living things creep through the magma, and their tunnels direct its blast and flow so as to nourish the life that resides in the archipelago.

This gives rise to an odd phenomenon in which the sound of tide, wind, explosions and quakes resonate through the tubes on their way up, making a kind of booming natural music. The djinni of the region enjoy this immensely, and frequent music warns of impending eruptions.

Few mineral resources are available in the island, but the waters are intensely fertile. Food of every kind and colour can be caught here, much of it filled with odd Jvanic flavors, and the reef products can be used as rare spices. Biogenic materials are also available for harvest, including the skin of large mammals, scales, mineralised shells, sulphur, coral and sponge.

Life: Much of the life of the islands is similar to that of its surrounding oceans. Jvan's evolutionary influence has accelerated the speed at which species diversify on each isolated island, and the place would make good studying for any naturalist or jvanographer.

The descendants of the original worm still live here, and polychaetes of every imaginable shape, size and lifestyle thrive. They form the bulk of the regional biodiversity. Some continue to contribute to the islands, rebuilding them as the hollow tubes are eroded. Many live in or on the magma. Some have adapted to land, and lie in wait to snare passing seabirds, or crawl between the tubes. Most, of course, still flourish in the water, swimming and playing and flaring their vivid gills.

Description: The Voice of the Painter has prophesied that a city will be given unto the people of the Composer, and that it will be taken away again, ruined by war, gods, and anarchy. This prophesy was fulfilled by Jvan in exchange for Chiral Phi's abstinence from her affairs. Self-constructed by the rain of warped space upon the ash cloud of Mount Bormahven, harvesting the volcanic energy of that cataclysm, it is a gigantic, mobile construct capable of feeding and sheltering the Meteran people until their prophesied end. Phi's signals control its many active processes.

Appearance: The city of Sky appears to float upon the coastal waters. In fact it is walking on three colossal tentacles. Made of the same deep grey basalts as the rest of the city, they are segmented and, though slow-moving, tremendously strong. Each is over a kilometre long, but typically coiled over itself, and by steady rotational movement the whole city can travel with barely a tremor felt by the people above. All three tentacles are hollow. Two are filled with water, one siphoning up and the other spilling down. The third is empty, and when the city walks on land, it transports men and goods and beasts.

Upon the tentacles sits a vast and shallow bowl. Like the lower twelfth of a sphere perfectly severed, it is filled with water and the boats and gondolas of Metera, as well as their euryhaline aquaculture. Waterfalls spill down into the bowl from the city, and water also flows up from the bowl into the myriad channels and aqueducts that turn its mills and transport its goods (and wastes). Channels are everywhere in Sky City, and most of the city's water is flowing to or from the bowl. The rest is still- reservoirs of caught rainwater.

It may not look it, but this bowl is actually a sphere- it is the petrified lower tip of an atmospheric bubble maintaining a relatively constant gradient of temperature and pressure. The city's inhabitants could theoretically survive should the city be ejected into outer space, as there is a lower limit of air conditions that the sphere will permit. On Galbar, the bubble is barely noticeable and about as permeable as any other air.

The city itself is vast and grand. It is larger than any city of its age ever needs to be, and much of its interior is abandoned or even derelict, though Sky is quite resistant to erosion and as such will not be a ruin any time soon. Somewhat similar in design to naturally occurring clusters of basalt pillars, the Sky City is divided into many many rooms and halls and towers, temples and shrines and baths and channels. Despite its size it is surprisingly airy. Gaps between the towers permit light, and even parts of its interior are kept lit through other means.

The distortion did not end when Sky City was finished, and it remains a site of tremendous warp. Gravity pulls every way imaginable, such that one thoroughfare may be on the floor and another floating in a canal on the ceiling. Other puddles of gravity have formed permanent singularities, and, fed by streams of water, illuminate large rooms with halos of sunlight.

Non-gravitational anomalies are less common and substantially less dangerous than those in the Submaterium, but may still catch a foreigner unawares. Most are three-dimensional translations of shapes that can only be possible in two-dimensional space, such as Escher stairs. The city's shadow tunnels open mostly into Penrose triangles.

Life: Metera is a garden city. Many of its roofs and walls are suitable for agriculture and utilised as such. Trees grow gladly in niches all over the city, as do weeds and flowers. While the food output is not great, it is helpful for sustaining the population.

Even more lively are the waters of the bowl. Aquatic produce of every kind is grown here. Shoals of fish flourish in the shallow water, as do molluscs and crustaceans. Beds of seagrass abound, and edible seaweeds are a staple.

Yaks, horses and llamas are common livestock in the city, all used to carry goods, though grazing is obviously impossible and as such fodder must be imported constantly. Chickens and pigeons are somewhat easier to keep, although the mobile nature of the city makes pigeon post impossible, and stray cats tend to do well for themselves (as always). As Metera's influence grows, new animals will make their appearance.

A handful of djinni live in the city, and are given their own temples. Chief among them is Mysa, a firedjinn who is kept fed with coal at all times, who warms much of the inside of the city and knows many recipes. Others include Syokoy, the water guardian, who may be seen anywhere in the city's million water-channels and always where he is least expected (mostly to tease women), and Lumikki, the forgetful and melancholic bringer of snow. Several sons of Phlegethon live here also.

Other spirits, smaller ones, tend to pop up and attempt to instate themselves. These poltergeists, as they have come to be known, must be dealt with respectfully but prudently if the peace is to be preserved.

Three Bludgeons, the survivors of the quartet lost by Tauga at the battle of Xerxes, have been caught in Chiral Phi's song. They shine high above the city and protect it. Meterans venerate the ophan colony as a noble spirit.

Dust Crawlers: Species (animal, vegetal, semi-sentient).

Lifespan: 7-10 years on average.

Description: As the first of Osveril’s major creation, the Dust Crawlers perfectly embody the principle of utility driving its every action. Everything in them, from the minutest part of their bodies to the unnatural energies that give them life, is directed towards a clear and simple purpose, and no variety or deviation is allowed to interfere with that mandate.

The Crawlers’ function is both straightforward and monumental at once. They must rid the surface of Galbar of all material irregularities, including but not limited to geological formations, bodies of liquid and redundant inhabitants, so that their maker may build its vision of an ideal world over the resulting desolation. While the execution of this task could, in principle, be construed as simple enough not to require overly complex instruments, the amount of sheer force necessary is immense, and all the greater in proportion with the tools’ simplicity. Osveril saw life as the best way to achieving its end, being a relatively familiar, primitive element with the potential to increase in strength exponentially, and this vision it embodied in its servants: crude, unrefined beings of raw power that grow as they unmake in a flawless cycle.

Though it drew upon already existing creatures in creating them, the Hollow One only selected the traits it found useful to its purpose from among them, leading to entities that only distantly resemble Galbaric life. While most of their genetic code is derived from invertebrate animals of various sorts, which in itself leads to such oddities as vaguely mollusk-like beings having an exoskeleton and motory limbs, the addition of some vegetal traits improving features such as structural integrity and growth potential renders Crawlers impossible to define in terms of either realm of life. At the same time, this hybridization, while caused by a Jvanic artifact, is itself not strictly magical in nature, and the Crawlers’ organisms are perfectly functional in their own right.

However, Osveril did not consider this sufficient, and further empowered the creatures with its ruinous boons. Thanks to its touch, all Dust Crawlers are born and live in strange mutilation. While the interior of their bodies is otherwise complete with all necessary organs, they lack a digestive tract beyond their mouths and an internally armoured channel leading to where their stomach would be. In its stead, they have a void, made unstable by being defined in size, mobility and, to a certain extent, shape. Thus, while they are able to ingest physical objects, they cannot process them by means other than exposing them to the peripheral zone of the emptiness. This process does not fully annihilate matter, but distorts it to the extent that, whichever shape it might have had, it is reduced to a thin, almost fluid grey dust, whose aberrant atomic structure appears, if examined, to bear traces of Gap-like binding energies. The dust is then expelled by the means of an excretory system joined to the Crawlers’ breathing apparatus, which directs exhaled air and waste into “vent” openings on their backs.

Since a construct incapable of sustaining itself like this one would not have been optimal for its intended function, Osveril imbued its creations with the more dynamic force of Hunger. Besides giving them a monstrous, insatiable appetite for anything they can perceive that does not bear the Hollow’s mark, this infusion altered their metabolic capabilities to a surreal extent. The mere act of eating something causes Crawler bodies to spontaneously generate energy, propagating from what seem to be specialised neural clusters. It is unclear what exactly are the conditions for this process to occur, but it appears that perception of the object being ingested is necessary, though the ingestion itself may not be directly caused by the Crawler’s actions. The energy obtained can be readily converted into matter, allowing the Crawler body to sustain itself and directing any excess into proliferation.

Dust Crawlers reproduce asexually, writing their own genetic code, which thus remains identical in all individuals, onto cells of flexible design in a curious form of self-impregnation. Once these ovules develop into eggs, they are carried externally, typically on the parent’s hind legs, though they still rely on their host for nutrition. The eggs hatch after slightly over a week, at which point the larval Crawlers that emerge from them begin to feed their developing voids on the easily processed dust that is exhaled by their host. The final stage of their growth, following between two and three weeks after the larval one, is more similar to the development of crustacean zoea, with the growing creatures shedding their membranous skin to reveal the shell underneath. There are no further occurrences of molting in a Crawler’s life cycle, with their carapaces stratifying as they grow and the lower layers being consumed by the expanding void until they reach their adult size. At that point, they will not undergo further transformations until their vital systems give way at the end of their lifespan. Both this and critically damaging the fleshy membranes underneath a Crawler’s exoskeleton will cause its void to briefly pulse outwards and collapse, killing it if it was still alive.

While Crawlers possess a rudimentary form of partial sentience, insofar as they are capable of perceiving external stimuli and adjusting their behaviour in response, they have no true consciousness to speak of, and operate on a crude, though fairly complex, system of physiological feedback. They are capable of limited communication among themselves, using the motions of their tentacles and pheromone signals to alert each other of threats and obstacles. This allows for a surprising degree of coordination in their actions, allowing vast swarms to converge on dangerous prey or adapt their movement speed and paths as the terrain requires; however, the fact remains that Dust Crawlers are no more than mindless biological machines of destruction that cannot be stopped by anything short of their death.

Appearance: With their replicated genetic code and overall small possible variation in development, Dust Crawlers are virtually identical to one another in even the most minute details. Like all things touched by Osveril, they share a uniform grey hue and an entirely angular form, with only the most elastic parts of their anatomy having anything resembling a smooth, recurve shape.

Fully grown Crawlers have swollen, ponderous-looking bodies about twice as large as a violet slug, shaped like truncated octagonal prisms. They are covered by a segmented chitinous exoskeleton formed by interlocking grey plates. Their shapes are such that ridges and lines of a faceted, symmetrical geometric design appear to run smoothly from one to the other, though, on closer inspection, there are visible gaps for dust ejection between their edges. Unless an adult Crawler has been injured, there will never be either more or less than twelve segments in their carapace, not counting the head. Their shells are tough and rigid, and their consistency is more similar to that of tree bark hardened with chitin than normal insect or crustacean exoskeletons. The underside is smooth and more thinly armoured. While it protects the drooping, fluid mass inside the carapace from sharp objects, it is flexible enough to sag down and drag along the ground under its weight.

In their overall body structure, Crawlers are highly abnormal among arthropod-like beings, as they lack a recognisable thorax and most of their body appears to be formed by an oversized abdomen. They move on six thick, evenly spaced segmented legs, which, like their bodies, have angular prismoid shapes, and taper to sharp, yet balanced tips. An eighth, bulkier pair of limbs, located directly under the head plate, ends instead in powerful angled pincers, capable of crushing rock and bone alike.

What passes for a Crawler’s head is little more than a flat surface. Two bulging black eyes are partly lodged in small cavities in it, flanking an ample mouth-cavity surrounded by two circles of inwards-facing mandibles, the inner one smaller than the outer. While they each resemble those of an ant, they are much larger, being proportionate to the Crawlers’ size, and are used as much for propelling prey into their mouth as for crushing it. Near the four corners of the plate, the exoskeleton is interrupted by an equal number of short, but stocky tentacular limbs, one in each point, emerging from under it. These tentacles, having oddly rectangular sides despite their flexibility, end in long barbed stingers, lined with small horizontal slits near their base.

Often, a Crawler’s hindmost limbs will be covered in the small prisms of eggs clutching to it, or its shell will be covered in slug-like larvae clustered around the dust vents.

Appearance: An urteverm, or slater, is a creature very similar to Urtelem in composition yet more like an insect in shape and intellect. Much like urtelem, they are capable of curling into a stone ball, although verm balls are both smaller and smoother, almost polished. A curled verm is marble-sized as a larva, and reaches maturity at a comfortably palm-filling size and weight. Substantially older individuals can approach the size of dogs when unfurled, though the true limit of a slater's growth is not known. Stories, of course, are told.

Unfurled, a slater resembles a long isopod, or woodlouse. Wild-type urteverm are however much more jagged than a pillbug, and touching them should follow the same protocol as touching a porcupine or especially nasty cactus. Domestic breeds are much smoother. Both have a line of crystals down their back, one per segment, that have peculiar radiation- and telepathy-amplifying properties, and may fluoresce in a variety of colours. The colour sequence is useful in identifying individuals.

Slaters have anywhere from six to sixteen limbs or more, which are slightly finned. They bear short antennae and small black eyes.

Life Cycle: Verms lead simple lives. Adults mate by fusion, much like urtelem, and after the split each parent carries a number of live young. These grow under the armour segments of their parents for some weeks before being birthed live in litters of four to twelve, depending on the size of the parent. Most of the youngsters inevitably die, as juveniles will rapidly cannibalise one another if not separated.

The primary barrier to verm growth is acquiring the minerals needed to produce its crystals, which are retained across moults. A poorly fed urteverm will still mate and bear young, but the offspring will be stillborn. A slater requires both igneous stone and some organic matter to grow, which it grinds with glass-sharp corundum teeth.

An urteverm grows by moulting. Its geomancy is substantially weaker than an urtelem, and as such both changing its shape and protecting itself from wear by weather and its own subtle radiation is difficult. As such much of its body must be shed and replaced often. It takes about six instars over one year to reach maturity. After this moulting slows down exponentially.

Moulting is an active process. A submerged slater in moult produces enough heat to boil water easily. The radiation it emits during this time, about a day or so, will make its crystals shine brightly and also poses something of a cancer risk.

Description: Urteverm are notable animals in that they are a source of elemental magic, which allows them to swim through stone and gain energy from consuming it. That this magic is constantly leaking in the form of radiation and shed shells means that they can function as primary producers even in pitch darkness.

Upon their creation Heartworm blessed these insects with a variety of pseudofungal parasites and symbionts. The symbionts mostly take the form of lichenous growths which feed readily on the high-energy stone of the slater shell, and can turn a smooth ball into a mass of colourful organic growths. These can grow quite large if the verm is restricted from tunnelling,
and bred into edible cultivars. Such lichens will happily continue to grow on the shed exoskeleton for some time, and swiftly recolonise a freshly moulted verm.

The parasites, on the other hand, function much like the cordyceps fungus. Secreting acids to burrow deep into the verm's brain, it guides its motions towards the signals given off by other verms and causes the dying victim to infect others until the population in the region is restored to normal levels. A well-kept farm will usually be safe so long as wild verms are kept out and infected ones are removed. The larger the farm, however, the greater the risk of plague.

Like urtelem, verms are empathic. However, their animal intelligence makes this ability largely useless for anything beyond simple communication through stone. They mimic signals of fear or satisfaction among others of their species to avoid danger and seek food and mates.

Around mortals, this leads to some odd interactions, especially with wild-types, who are smarter and more sensitive. Wild-types will be drawn to those feeling strong emotions, and can sometimes be seen playing harmlessly with happy children. They will sulk and curl around mourners and skitter away from the afraid. Be careful not to get lost in a verm tunnel when you are suppressing rage or self-hatred. The creatures will be drawn to your violence, and by the time they begin to feed your fear may not be enough to drive away the swarm.

Parasite urteverm are even stranger wielders of this power. The parasitised brain must by necessity be smart enough to outwit its healthy prey, and as they latch on to emotional signals, the parasite swarms have been known to make mistakes. Beware the chains of light that shine brightly in the dark. Beware the beam of emotion that has learned to flow both ways. Beware the dreadful urge to throw yourself into the depths to escape the misery beneath your feet and chase the bliss that lies below.