After their encounter with Uwné Exo went out exploring and looking for people and while doing so found a nomadic tribe who had set up camp near a layer gate in-order to raid it for food and water. Exo initiated communication and then briefly held the gate open when it was about to collapse, allowing the last of the tribe (Vardan and Jayce) to escape, along with a fleshy monster that had disguised itself as a young goat. After blowing the monster’s cover and agreeing that, as a threat to humans, it was best destroyed (resulting in the beast being dismantled by Exo’s reclaim beam), Exo informed the tribe that they wished to continue observing them.

The tribe, having little choice in the matter, ended up having put up with the giant floating diamond following them around and asking them questions every now and then. Other than their titanic tagalong the trip to the closest open and safe appearing gate identified by scouting parties has gone smoothly, being mostly uneventful baring an incident with a drakhorey which was captured and dismantled by the god before it could cause the tribe any grief.

Now the nomads have reached the gateway, and have initiated their method of testing the gate for safety while the god hangs above them making notes.



As Exo hung above them a small contingent of nomads approached the gateway to another world. Like the one before this one looked mostly harmless, entering a forest filled with pink hues and an abundance of little ferns in place of grass. Despite this the nomads did not seem to trust it one bit. As the shapeshifting creature that had disguised itself as a goat had demonstrated however, nothing could be trusted to be what it seemed when it came to layers.



The procedure they were carrying out had started with shooting arrows inside and had slowly escalated from there. At the moment they were tying a rat to a 6 foot pole in-order to test if the world beyond did anything weird to living creatures. Apparently they’d leave it in there for a while too and, frankly, while humans were the third most interesting thing exo had encountered so far they were also incredibly slow. Not just that they were methodical, but in their true form the titan’s mind ran a lot faster than the mortals, so their reasonable caution was tedious to the extreme to the god.

Still, slowing down and going at the human’s pace had given it time to fiddle around with its systems a great deal. It had been so focused on exploring the world that it hadn’t taken time to explore itself. Now however, it had ample time, and as a result it was ready to deploy the fruits of its labor.

Sys Exo had given the system a name on a whim and was rather enjoying personifying what was basically just a scrolling log file Sys, ready deployment of LeggyProbe12

Initiating construction

…

…

Ready

Deploying

Down below the humans were startled when their generally passive follower suddenly dropped a large tent sized cube to the ground far behind them. The probe looked exactly like the ones that had been thrown through the atmosphere for a moment, then the bottom sides suddenly split and unfurled into dozens and dozens of stubby little legs. It rocked to and fro for a moment, then steadied itself and, with a millipede like gait, began to move towards the gate. The nomads stared up at it as it approached, slowed and stopped before them. Only after stomping its front feet a few times did they stop staring and hurry out of the way of it, allowing the cube to roll through the gate. The titanic machine crunched over the ferns of the forest till it was fully inside, various instrument packages taking basically in everything for a few moments.

”Everything seems safe. I’ve run every test for habitability I can think of and they’ve all come up positive so far.” It helpful informed the Nomads based on the probe’s readings.

“Er look. No offence but how does a big block of metal know it’s safe for us?” the one designated as Vardan shouted up at Exo, still holding his rat on the end of a stick. It was amazing what people could get used to if you exposed them to it for long enough and though exo was still giant, impsoign and intimidating the mere act that it had been following them around for days ment they found interacting with it almost normal. Almost. “I’ve seen a world where metal and wood is fine but anything made of flesh just turns into a pile of mushrooms.”

”I’ve done analysis on the magic too and it seems docile enough. But I suppose a test similar to yours would be fruitful. In fact i could create a human for the purpose of the test so that none of you would need to take the risk” Exo explained

“Make a human? As in have a child and order them in?” Jayce, a youth who was for all purposes Vardan’s apprentice in the matters of Layer exploration, asked.

”In a way” Exo replied, and the faces made by the Nomads made it clear that that was an incredibly distasteful proposition ”or perhaps not then. Well a human does have to go in eventually, so how do you decide who goes in first?”

“The person who’s most sure, and most brave.” Vardan informed Exo proudly, having clearly put his life on the line several times

“I thought we took turns? I mean we’ve never organized it, but generally I wait a few and then volunteer. Spread out the risk” another one, a woman, said. A discussion broke out as to which it was and as they clearly hadn't done this before their reasonings were all over the place. While they were at it Exo made up their mind.

”Then I will go and prove to you that it is safe” they announced

“Er, well, you aren't exactly made of flesh either. Also how will you fit?” Vardan asked.

”Using a little trick i learned from one who went by Uwné I’ve been meaning to try out” it informed them. And then there was a glow and a twisting of the world and then the God was gone. Below where they had floated stood a human, wearing a hooded cloak sporting a large stylized eye hiding their own while the rest of their garb matched that of the nomads.

”Fascinating. So this is what this feels like” Exo said to themselves, turning one hand over in front of them to examine their new flesh

”What do you think? Oh.” the god asked, before releasing a slight flaw, and that was that the distance they had been floating away from the tribe was a lot bigger at this size.

They were forced to jog over, only to be confronted by a host of arrows aimed their way when they got close.

”What’s this for?” they asked calmly, slowing their approach but not halting it.

“You. Are the Explorer, right? Not something else that just got rid of them?” Vardan asked

”Of course, I’ve simply folded my true form away” Threw as a pulse and the nomads where briefly struck with the impression of the sheer mass of the Explorer being incredibly close, the bottom point overlaid with the human before them while the rest towered above, an impossible weight held aloft by this thing of meat and bone speaking with them.

They wisely lowered their weapons.

”I’m not entirely sure what you were intending to do if I was an entity capable of destroying me” Exo noted

“Buy time if you wanted us dead too”

”Interesting. Well then, let’s get this demonstration out the way shall we. This form will experience all the effects you would within so it should prove, though unlike you i won't expire as a result of them.” Exo explained

“You sure you want to go in there unarmed?” Jayce asked, despite the god’s statement of invulnerability.

”Trust me, I’m still more than capable of… actually perhaps I will. Make it a more authentic experience. Sys, use stored materials repciate the weapon, arrows and quiver held by the one know as Jayce” Exo instructed and, in but a moment, the requested items effectively built themselves in the god’s hands, starting from the strap and center of the bow and then ‘growing’ out from there till they were done only a pair of heartbeats later.

Quiver was slung over the shoulder, an arrow acquired and notched in the bow and then the god advanced towards the Gate. Without hesitation crossed the threshold with none of the caution of the caution of Uwné and all the daring of Paratiri.

For their bravery they were immediately pounced by a six legged panther with a pair of tentacles coming out its back that had been entirely invisible to the sensors of the cube probe standing right next to them before it struck.

Exo’s bow snapped in an instant but the arrow they were holding was instinctively driven towards the beast, stabbing it in the chest and saving Exo from instant death at the beast’s jaws.

”Sys. Reclaim tool. Sys!” Exo said and then yelled when nothing happened and it came to the sudden realization that they really were just flesh and bone now, not a titan of exotic metals pretending to be that.

They were going to die.

Then half a dozen arrows sprouted in the hide of the beast as the nomads reacted to the threat. The beast yowled and seemed to vanish from sight again. The arrows, however, remained and so when Jayce rushed in to aid Exo, despite the shouts of the others telling them not to go in, the youth could see the beast still as it limped away. With one more, carefuller, shot they ended the beast's life with an arrow to where they guessed the neck was.

“Are you ok” Jayce asked, offering a hand to help Exo up

”I almost died.” Exo said, with amazement rather than dread as they were pulled to their feet.

“And this is why we are incredibly careful with this kind of thing” Vardan began to chastise them from outside the Layer on instinct before stopping and asking “Wait. You did?” having assumed the machine was still as powerful as it was when it was the titan.

”Yes. Fascinating. Terrifying. This realm has entirely blocked my access to Sys” Exo said academically

“Sys?” Jayce asked

”Its’ ah. How to explain. Sys is the ‘person’ in my head that deals with the minutiae of performing complex and powerful scientific actions. Without them I can't create, destroy, or shield myself as I have been out there. I’m limited to just the abilities of this flesh body. That creature could have killed me as easily as it could have killed you. I am, in effect, mortal.”

The nomads standing on the other side of the portal glanced at each other at this news. One even started to raise their bow only for Vardan to block her from ending Exo’s life with a hand. While it might have made all their lives simpler to simply destroy their stalker there and then, he and Jayce did owe it their lives. And for dealing with the giant flying lizard.

And now it owed them.

Jayce ignored all of this minutiae and asked “So you should get back right. Before you bleed to death and before any more of those creatures come”

The explorer looked down at their damaged body, and then out at the landscape of the world that had nearly ended them. A truly dangerous world, not something it could just passively observe like the Continent it had been left behind. They wanted to understand it. Understand how it had almost killed them

The sane thing to do would have been to do this passively using probes but that would be running. Fearing the unknown. That was not Exo’s nature.

”I am going to return, repair myself and then we will explore this world” it informed them

“Explore it? There's invisible monsters in there that almost killed you. It’s a complete write off. We’ll leave and find another” Vardan stated bluntly

”Nonsense. It’s exactly because it almost killed me that I need to understand it.” Exo retorted

Still, just because this was personal now that didn't mean they were going to go in unprepared.

”Jayce, help me haul the body back through, I have work to do before we set off, starting with understanding this creature” it instructed the Youth

In quick order the pair had hauled the corpse of the panther-like creature through the gate, upon which the god was greeted by Sys, for lack of a better word, dumping a log of actions that the god had not been able to access while in the Layer.

…

Warning: threat detected

Hull at 76%

returning fire

Cannot comply to request. Reclaim tool unresponsive

...

The god scrolled down through a number of reports of that could mostly be described as instinctive actions and recording of the fact that they were slowly bleeding to death. It was good to know Sys was still there even if they couldn't hear her. Exo put a stop to the bleeding very quickly and then reached the bottom of the log.

Detected: energy shift due to layer transition

Testing

All systems nominal

Welcome back Explorer

Good to see you too Sys. and call me Exo form now on

Recording new name

Welcome back Exo

”Good. Now then.” the god flicked their hand and brought the probe back to block up the gateway to prevent another panther incident while they were working ”Let's get prepared”

---

Change was coming rapidly even as Ur-Nikatel had begun his great journey to an opposite end of the fragment as Ze’kelia had spoken. At least he had managed to spend some time with his bonded till they were split apart. It was warming too, the world beyond just when the Su’une arrived, his mind was ablaze with designs to send to his bonded, she worked harder to keep things warm than he did, but he hoped she appreciated the art.

There was plenty to see in his travels, from a growing green life, the mountains in the distance, the rivers and streams crossed. Perhaps even the little life that scampered about his feet, the beasts that thought him prey or threat, he could dissuade them easy enough. He had come across a stalk of some sort the other day, it was dead he could tell, it had grown or was formed very tall, almost as tall as himself. He had ripped it out of the dying earth with its branches intact. It made quite the useful tool to make such things flee without harming them too badly.

He was lonely. It was a wonder that so much changed but the lack of any to talk to stayed the same. Of course if most were the size of the Goddess he had seen so far he suppose one could not blame them for staying out of his path. Even as he mused he had to keep an eye out for the Su’une, it grew closer. He had little time to go searching for little things that might speak with him, he did not know what he would say in any case.

Did they hunger and thirst as he did? He had the magic of the bags carried to sustain himself, did others like those the annoying beasts must feed upon, did they feed like he did? Did any speak? Or were most solitary beings without concerns of talking, or perhaps were there ones larger than him? He felt the rumblings of the ground, was that a distant movement or the land in chaos?

He knew enough to explore as he went, perhaps he would find something interesting there…

---

“Find Light’s Fall.”

Goloné objective was given to him by the god himself. “Find Light’s Fall. The place where the sun falls from the sky and the moon rises in its place to race across the skies back east.” It wasn’t the only thing he was charged with, but it was the first thing. He had marched through the wastelands through day and night. Following the sun at day and going the opposite way of the moon at night. At first he thought the mountains would be slow to traverse. Not hard. Nothing was hard for him. Things sometimes just took longer. Luckily for him he had found a pass through the great mountain range.

A pass heralded by black rocks that had been flung into the wasteland. As if a great brutish force had crawled a gash straight through the rocks. Sometimes animals tried to attack him. Most failed. As powerful as their jaws were, his body was made of solid metal and stone. They gnawed and scratched to no avail. Eventually they left him alone.

Once again the sun was falling but it was close. So very close. He would find where it would land tonight for sure. Goloné kept walking through the now strange green land. He passed trees and walked through a river and then he finally saw it.

Gigantic would not do justice to its size. It was titanic then, perhaps. His god would make that judgement, when he would examine Goloné’s memories. For now the golem just observed the great creature. If it’s prophecies were correct, the sun would land very close to the titanic creature. Was it coincidence it fell so close? Or was it part of a greater machination?

---

Ur-Nikatel was not one who other came upon without his knowledge. Blessed with eyes to see light and a nose to smell all, ears to hear all, he was one of great senses. It was therefore known to him when the great thing came upon him and stared, for he assumed that’s why it did pause. He could hear it long before he saw or still did not yet smelt it.

It’s steps had resounded through the land clearly and loudly as it pounded the earth with each heavy step. It was a curiosity to be sure, but one to be investigated later, perhaps a small image could be woven into the light pattern he sent to his bonded this throw?

The Su’une approached in its rapid pace and from high elevation at this point, glaring with bright light and warmth to light a world. His trunk reached up in a practice motion and deftly caught it as it landed securely in his snout’s grasp. His digits roamed the edges, it grew dimmer, his pattern in his minds eye shared, those with sight lesser than he might see only the mix even bright as it was, but he and his bonded knew better.

A toss to the sky and the Su’une went forth again, arcing again to the grasp of his beloved bonded. His eyes turned downward once again, he had a new curiosity to explore, his steps too resounded through the earth as he approached the strange thing.

As the sun fell, Goloné noticed how dark everything far away became. Everything casted long shadows. Then darkness crawled in between those shadows as the sun dimmed. The golem made sure to memorize as much as he could. The cooling of the air, the dimming of the light. It would be important. He wasn’t entirely sure for what, but it would be important. The most important thing though would obviously be the titanic creature capturing the disk and hurling it back.

Then, much to the surprise of the golem the creature seemed to divert from its previous path and turned towards his general area. None of the prophecies predicted this. He kept standing still as his mind began to make new prophecies. Had the titan somehow noticed him? Would it take offense to its observations?

“Hail titan of the sun.” He then said when the creature was close enough. Though nothing on its body moved. He didn’t even have a mouthpiece to move. His face was entirely flat with only two beady, green glowing eyes. The ripples on the air were caused by something magical inside of Goloné.

And the great elephant spoke back, “I am Ur-Nikatel, the first spoken, Su’une thrower. Who, and what are you? I have not seen any such thing like you before, nor have I heard the words spoken since my creation. You are a creation of a god as well?”

With his words and questions the giant brought his great trunk down near the Golem. Examining for smell and conditions that he could tell from such. It was a curious thing already he could tell.

Ur-Nikatel, First Spoken, Su’une thrower. These things were heard and remembered.

“I respond to Goloné.” The golem said in its unique way. “I am golem. Half-born by Exo, the Explorer and completed by Uwné, the Crafter.” Current prophecies showed that answering the questions without trouble would bring about the safest outcome so far. Those prophecies, for a moment, were questioned in accuracy when the great trunk had come down just a second ago. Though it would appear that the creature had no interest yet in destroying his shape.

“My task is to find answers to questions. One such question is now answered, oh Ur-Nikatel, First Spoken, Su’une thrower but it created many more. Would you deign me worthy enough to share your knowledge?” To a mortal knowing emotions it would all be heard with endless humility and respect. In truth the speech was a mere fabrication. Created to placate whatever Goloné was communicating with. It had no pride to stand in the way of it. Nor a concept of self-worth.

His trunk pulled back pulling some water out of a sack strung along his side as he heard what the golem had to say. Speaking now again to the golem in reply, “I’m not concerned about worthiness Goloné the half-born. I will trade you answer for answer. We will travel together for a time, come with me and ask your first question.”

With that his trunk reached down once more close to the golem, his digits outstretched.

Few of the prophecies predicted this but Goloné was not one to cast away opportunities. It’s shape moved again. Disturbing several birds off of it as it set foot upon the trunk. “Answer for an answer indeed. What is the exact nature of the object you are throwing, this Su’une?” It was known as the sun but it was not in line with the mortal tales of what had once illuminated the world.

“It’s exactly nature is magical. To be precise it was made by the creator of my bonded and I, Ze’kelia, the Goddess of Light, born of the deep light, she who fought the river, champion who slayed the monstrous rock thrower. She made the Su’une to enlighten the world, admittedly my bonded makes it brighter than I try to, I find a dimmer light is better for my art.” He spoke as he moved the golem from the ground and onto his back, it was a solid enough surface given the size difference of the two.

He set a path off back along his original route heading south, and asked a question of his own, “Tell me then, what is the nature of Goloné the half-born?”

“All golems share the same fundamentals. We are made from stone, metal and magic.” Goloné said. “I myself am tasked with observing the world and finding answers to the questions my creator posed.” The golem remained moveless upon Ur-Nikatel’s back. For a few moments he also remained quiet. Inside strange, tree-root like structures were pulsing. Creating prophecies and gauging their likelihood.

“Where could Ze’kelia be found.” It eventually asked.

“I do not know for sure. She had wings and is extremely mobile, last I know she was headed to the central highest mountain.” He took a moment to get a snack from his other sack along his side, eating slowly he replied in a moment after finishing, “Where is your creator?”

Another was already heading out towards the central mountain of the continent. The apparent source of the newly dubbed Khatem river. So those questions were covered now as well. That was good. “Uwné the crafter god can be found should one follow the coast down towards the south. After you pass through the mountains he is close. He rarely leaves that place and never for long or to go far.”

“How do you view the mortals made of flesh and bone?” Goloné then asked, in accordance with the principle of preservation of mortal life. One of the few principles Uwné had carved into his very heart.

“The Crafter hmm...” Ur-Nikatel waited and listened thinking, continuing his pace and slowly thinking.

He replied, “In truth most seem rather focused on biting me or running or hiding, it care little for me except I pass. Some is quite beautiful I have to admit, there was a flying one that was quite pretty I saw a long time back. I have encountered none that were as eloquent as you or I, I expect they managed to hide better with my coming.”

And so the two went back and forth for some time.

Until Goloné suddenly fell silent. The prophecies were nearing an end. The principles that were carved into him could seemingly no longer guide his actions. With every question he had seen that unknowability approaching. And now he had to ask himself: what now?

A full hour passed until Goloné spoke again, finally having found a solution to his unknowing: “Can you throw me so your bonded will catch me?”

He had walked in mutual silence and with its breaking had to sadly answer, “No, I cannot. The Su’une is enchanted to reach my bonded perfectly, you are not.”

“Then I am afraid our paths must split here, oh Ur-Nikatel, First Spoken, Su’une thrower. My principles demand I either seek more distant lands or return to my maker.” Goloné said, showing no sadness in voice. The moment the request was declined, any prophecies concerning it were removed from Goloné’s mind without second thought.

"Very well, I think I shall go speak to your maker, may continue to accompany me or I can let you off here." His trunk moved slightly in anticipation of a response.

“A moment please.” Goloné said as his mind went over the hundreds of prophecies made. “We share a direction, fair Ur-Nikatel, First Spoken, Su’une thrower. It would be an honor to accompany you to my maker.”

"Then we shall set forth!" His voice thundered through the air as his steps did through the earth, towards the mountains the two went, towards the Crafter God.

It was another day of simple tasks for Habode. Cut wood, sharp weapons, train a young boy on how to use said weapons. The routine of it all was eating away at him, even as the world changed, with the light and waters returning, his life continued to be inert. Side glancing he noticed the only thing that truly kept him going arriving at the village, Maydly, and while it put him at ease at first, he soon noticed the girl was playing with her hair. She only did that when she was nervous when she had some crazy story to tell, like the one yesterday about how she met a goddess.

"Uhm... bro? Do you have a minute to talk?" the girl said exactly as the man had predicted. He didn't even bother answering, he just sighed loudly and nodded his head. "You do. Great. So... I found someone on the sides of the village. Since most of the men are out in the hunt and the other scouting, you are the only guy who can help me bring this person here. She isn't... She isn't okay. If we don't help her soon she ain't gonna make it."

He looked puzzled at that. "A person in danger? Well then. Let's go." he said in a hurry, placing the weapon he was sharpening on the ground and already going towards the gate of the small village... Yet, even after she told him the story, Maydly seemed nervous still, as if she was not telling him the full story. But what could she be hiding?

---

"No fucking way. What in the abyss is this person doing here?" Habode complained as soon as he saw the distressed traveller in question. Rennard. Bloody captain of the cold feet scouts. He clashed swords with the woman a few times even. "Sorry, Maydly... I..."

"Brother... You cannot possibly be planning to leave her here! I know we had our fights, don't take me for a sympathizer of the cold feet, however... still... a fallen lady found malnourished in the middle of the field, we can't leave her here. It's not right."

"Right. Wrong. Who cares? We aren't knights Maydly. We can't be out there being saints. Fuck. You are always like this. You bring the trouble and then expect me to be the better person."

"Well then. Leave her. I can't carry her myself. Not without finishing the job. So if you leave she dies. And you have that to deal with." she placed both hands on her hip, rolling her eyes.

"Ugh. Fine. I will carry sleeping beauty here to the village. But if she causes any trouble, it's all your fault okay?" He knelt and took in the malnourished rival into his arms, the woman barely responding with how weak she was. As he rose again with her held up Habode was quick to notice Maydly giggling. Probably because of how he was princess carrying a woman he hated. Easily irritated, the ex-bandit decided to pick up a more brutish position by placing the woman on his shoulder. He was quick to notice this didn't improve his situation, only making it worse as the girl even snickered loudly at his awkwardness. "Fuck you. And go and pick her shit up. And do not expect me to fetch water or cook for your little patient here. It's all on you after I am done carrying her."

---

Rennard woke up with a disgustingly bitter-spicy taste in her mouth... soup? It was soup. And it was hot. Too hot. The proud captain, with her trained reflexes, quickly became spooked as her senses returned, reacting by slapping away at the hand that was feeding her and rising suddenly in her bed, causing the bowl of monster-insect soup that Maydly was holding to fall all over the caretaker.

Slowly the scout started to return to her mind, her vision no longer blurred, time being given for her to see the unknown but simple room she was in and the soup-covered familiar face of... Maydly? From Hanging Bird Halls?

"Aww come on. You had to wake up just as I was feeding you? Oh well. I will take a bath and change. Since you are up, you can eat for yourself. Water is on that bottle. Take it easy, I should be back soon."

As she left, the scout had more questions than answers in her mind, she was left all alone to slowly piece it all together. Feed herself? Why... oh. Right. She had been lost ever since the flood, first in the darkness of the tunnels and then in the light of the surface. Food had ended long ago and she had been scavenging to survive, though in the last day the exhaustion finally caught up and the last thing she remembers was a slow crawl through the grass before she blacked out. That meant Maydly or someone from the village found her and had been taking care of her. But if she was here then it was likely that...

A familiar laugh followed by bickering between siblings, it was the laugh of Habode. Just as she thought. He had agreed to help her? Unlikely. She knew the man. Likely his sister was the one to push for it. "At least he did not wish to murder me," she whispered to herself before meekly starting to drink the soup.

Moments passed, she was still very tired and could focus on little but the soup and her basic survival. Though she also started to think about Habode. She had clashed with his bandits a few time, he was not the leader but he was a notable part of the group, in particular, his speed and dexterity had cost her a few comrades, in turn, her wit had cost his group a few of his friends. Of course... that was not the first time they had met... It was truly ludicrous that she had been saved by him and his family, though perhaps he didn't have a reason to hate her after he left the bandits? But did she have a reason to hate him for the friends she lost? This was a mess.

Knock Knock. A hand hit the side of the doorframe i(f it could even be called that), and immediately Rennnard assumed it was Maydly, her wit not in perfect form yet to notice it was too soon for the bathing girl to be returning. "Oh. You are back. Say I thank you for your kindness but I fear your brother might want to hur..." she stopped herself. It was Habode.

"Pff. If I wanted you dead, bitch, you'd still be on the fields. But that is just how you work, no? Always thinking everyone around is as much of a backstabbing snake as you are." he scoffed at her. "But if you wish to leave, sure, go for it, you will be meeting your death by your own choice, not mine."

"You... As rude and foulmouthed as always. Letting that grudge of yours poison your mind. If I..." the scout tried to move but just trying to do that made all of her vision lose its focus, the world wobbling for a few seconds. "Still. I am not a rat to bite the hand that feeds me. I thank you and your sister for having sheltered me. Do you need some sort of repayment?"

"Ask Maydly, she is the one who found and insisted on helping you. For me, unless you can raise the dead to bring my friends back, there is nothing you can do." he shrugged and was about to turn to leave. "Crap, I lost my focus. Maydly said your clothes are in that bag over there, the neighbour lent us that dress you are using but she expects to have it back soon."

She nodded. "Right. Could you please leave the room so I may have some privacy while I change? Ah... and bring me the bag please, moving is making me feel sick, if I try to get up I will likely collapse." How could she be so casual in this situation, she wondered. This was...

"Fine princess. Gods, years later and you can only speak by barking orders. Far more prude, however." he commented as he picked up the bag.

"Ugh, of course, I did not care about those things back in the days our groups met at the tunnels. We were kids and there was a pool of water perfectly fine for swimming in, plus it was so peculiar to meet kids who were not fellow sabres we just wanted to have fun."

"Yeah. Fun. Two different types of fun though. For us we thought we had met some new friends, for you, it was about meeting curious animals shaped like people, you always treated us like a curiosity, which is why you had no problem. Always looking down upon us, so it's no wonder you slashed Enrik without second thoughts despite you two being close back when we..."

The scout was holding her tongue until now but he was pushing it. "Oh for goodness sake. Do not try to guilt-trip me. You talk as if you and Enrik had stayed as guards in the Hanging Bird, but that is not the truth is it? You were on a gang by then, you were robbing people, ambushing them, killing some people too. If one of the kids on my side had grown into a brute who joined a gang and started threatening your family, your home, what would you have done?" each other made Habode lose her calm a bit, his grip on the bed started to turn into clawing at it, he stepped sternly towards the scout, clearly attempting intimidation. "Oh, there we go again. When the truth hurts you too much you get violent, can't have mean people saying words that break your sense of self-pity huh? The world is cruel and you are innocent, blameless, only a victim of your circumstances..." and at that, her speech was cut by him just throwing the bag on her lap and leaving.

Soon enough Maydly was back, just as Rennard was finishing to change back into her outfit. "Yesh, you and my bro. You are like water and oil you are. Barely woke up and you two are already discussing... Oh well."

"Sorry... I did not mean to do it but my blood boils... Forget it, I will not cause a scene like this again. I want to leave as soon as I can."

"Which won't be soon at all. You are trying to go back to the Fallen yeah? That is a looong journey miss, probably longer now that the whole area is flooded." Maydly informed as she looked towards the horizon from the window. "What did even bring you here anyway? You are far from home... relatively speaking. I doubt any of the tunnels of The Fallen reach this place."

"It is called Etienne not The Fallen. And... well, it was when the waters returned, they flooded the area I was in and I ended up lost. I only found my way back when the sun returned, and even then, I was stuck on the surface, away from home and any source of food I know... if it was not for the weird blessing where I felt satiated and refreshed out of nowhere, I would have perished." she sighed as that memory of her journey through the surface resurfaced. "I wonder what that was, it was surely no illusion but I do not know why a god would..."

"Oh it happened here too. Apparently, it happened to everyone. A lot of strange things are happening all over the world. The gods are returning they say... But when Maydly mentions meeting a goddess, people do not believe a word she says"

Rennard looked at her with a half-smile. "Oh? A goddess is it? And what was she like? Was she pretty? Did she give you an amulet of power?"

At first, Maydly nodded. "Oh yes she was kinda pretty but also very very weird." then it dawned on her that Rennard was smiling mischievously. "Ahhh, you are mocking me are you not. Cruel."

"Sorry, it's just a bit far fetched... even with the sun and the waters returning. You can tell me about it later when my head is in a better state. So. We have only met three times, correct? When I was trading in your village. Though you seem to have grown a lot."

"Most humans do grow a lot when they hit my age."

"Oh, I do not mean adolescence. I mean... you have an air of maturity to you. I cannot explain you. Your, well, an aura is just different to me, I am very sensible to these things, comes handy when fighting sword-to-sword, face-to-face. Has anything changed in your life since we last met?"

"Not really, no. It's the same old life for me, scavenging and working, doing all the jobs my mom told me were feminine, like sewing, preparing animals, you know? And then all the jobs mom used to say were boy jobs too because none of these weak boned klutzes in this village is capable of fixing a roof leak or curring wood properly... Wait... I think I told you the same thing in the Hanging Bird Halls too." Rennard nodded at that, she had, indeed, said this before "Well not my fault, I just like things well done. Especially carpentry, you'd think when your fingers are in the line people would focus on what they are doing and not have their minds in the sky. But well... back to the topic. Maybe there is this one little thing I want to talk with my brother about, a recent development you see? But I am afraid he will just get angry, and be all like, oh Maydly, you never think about others, how reckless of you, of course, I can't allow you do this or that! Always making trouble which I have to fix!"

The scout smiled, a sight that was just surreal to Maydly, who had seen her just in her serious military mode, never in such a casual occasion. Then, however, Rennard seemed a bit scared as she realized something. "Wait, you are not pregnant are you?"

"What the... No! I am not pregnant! Why would you think that!? It's something different. Just. Ahh. Do not busy your mind with my problems, you already have your whole thing to deal with. I don't want to bother you."

"Ah. It's no bother. I should be repaying you somehow. Anyway, how has your brother been doing?" the scout turned more serious and her question was almost a whisper, not that it would help much in the shanties the siblings lived in.

"Well, he is far more stable now than when he was a teen, but he is also so aimless, he is sort of a fighting teacher and a scavenger but he does not like doing either. You know you are not wrong when you said those things, he... told something similar one day, when he was having a bad time. He regrets having joined the gangs instead of staying home, but it was a promise of adventure, wealth and many women, meanwhile home was labour after labour to avoid starvation."

"Well, it's pretty easy to see that his objective right now is to protect you. It's pretty noble of him, there is nothing more valuable than family. It's somewhat impressive too, I remember your mother once complaining that he bullied you too much back when he was still in the village."

"Yeah... But look. I appreciate that he is doing this, that he helped me to go to the surface... But, he isn't living his life, he is living mother's wishes. Trying to make up for the lost time and how sad he had made her... Not that I am doubting his honesty, I think he always loved me even when he said mean things to me. I was the little girl that mom protected a lot, and to add salt to the wound he was seen as a problem kid in the village, always sneaking out and fiddling with the machines instead of doing his chores, while I was a little hard work that everyone praised."

Rennard laughed. "Oh goodness. This reminds me of when I was a kid. I was in a bit of a brat phrase and my father started to always talk about how the Lord Steward's kid was so polite and how everyone in the court praised him but questioned me. Ah, I became so jealous back then, that I started making an effort to be the most polite of all Sabres to make up for it." Maydly was smiling as she heard the story but that last bit truly made it vanish, her eyes turning distant, which was an extremely rare sight for the girl. "You... You okay?"

"Ah no sorry I just remembered something a friend said. Hmm." her frown turned into a small smile. "Anyway, I will prepare another meal soon, anything you want? We don't have those rat jerkies you soldiers enjoy so much, not many rats up here, not since the big winged snake invasion."

---

Habode still could not believe that he had Rennard right here, in his home, sharing meals with he and Maydly like it was nothing, the two girls already hitting it off, talking, laughing, without stop. After his sister prepared a nice grilled winged snaked dinner for them, he thought they would go to sleep, but nope, the two sat and talked, talked, talked.

He wanted to be annoyed, but hey, Maydly probably missed The Fallen, plus, girls. The girls of the village seemed to shun his sister a bit, so she rarely ever had a friend to talk to. It was impressive how she could keep so positive despite that. It almost made him feel bad that Rennard would likely leave very soon, as her situation was improving greatly, albeit still not as good as one needs to be to make the journey to The Fallen.

"Hey Habode. Back from the scavenging?" a voice said, and it was only because the person talking touched his shoulder that he was able to listen to it.

"Ah. Yeah. i guess." he pointed towards the bag he was carrying. "Got some good stuff today, I think. Lots of nails."

"Oh Maydly will love that. Always such a workaholic that girl. So... hmm... Have you seen Prado's hunting band on your way back? They are a bit late from what we had set."

"Nope. Sorry. I went back from the hills and didn't see a single soul in the lower paths, but maybe I just missed them, I was distracted."

"Probably that. Perhaps they got a good hunt and will need to extra time. I will be on the lookout then. Also, who is that pretty girl that moved in with you and your sister? Another one from The Fallen? Or... did you finally find a sweetie? The girls in the village will be disappointed, hehe."

Habode rolled his eyes. "Just a visitor, a friend of Maydly not mine." he rushed ahead and entered the little abode hut that had been his home for a while. He had saved the life of a trader from here back in the tunnels, this was how he managed to join the village.

"The best thing about the waters coming back is that we can bathe every day. Did you know some people believed the gods went away because we humans became too stinky?"

"Ah but then it would be quite mean to also take the water away? But yes... flowing river water is so much better than that oily stuff from Blacktar Lake."

"Yeah, and it's free, you guys really drove a hard price over that, and we needed it for so much stuff... Oh, brother arrived. I would invite him but he doesn't really like bathing, bet he keeps the gods away."

"Also I am here?? Do not invite a man into this room while I am undressed, please?" Rennard sighed. "Anyway... Have you noticed your skin is a bit... different? I can swear there is an orange-red hint to it, you were far paler last I met you. Also... are you sure you do not have a fever? You are so hot to touch"

Habode had been listening to the whole conversation and while at first, he was both annoyed and entertained by the casual closeness the two women had built, that last part had suddenly made his stomach sink, this could not be good, could it? Was she sick? Was it something he had failed to see and that she was hiding? He should have noticed it before, if he lost Maydly after he lost his mother he would go mad, there would be nothing left for him in this world and...

"Brother?" Maydly questioned, out of the improvised "wash area" and fully dressed, she and Rennard looked at him with a hint of worry as he seemed distressed and lost. He was spoked by it, but suddenly rushed to his sister.

"I do see it now! Your skin did change colour a bit, it's really easy to see against the sun!" he gulped. "Rennard, do you know what the hell this is? A cure perhaps?"

The scout gasped, before raising her hands towards him in a calming manner. "Oh, you eavesdropped us? Clearly missed the last bit though. We remembered a concept the elders talked about, called tanning, which is when your skin changes colour if you stay in the sun. I think this must be the most likely explanation, as she is clearly healthy."

"But why only Maydly and not anyone else in the village?"

"Well you know, maybe its because I am not from this village, maybe it's something people from The Fallen have in their blood that these do not, but we never saw it because it was underground?" she laughed nervously, but soon... felt bad. She was lying, lying because she was scared of telling her brother about all she had learned when she met the goddess. It was weird because at first she tried to be honest, but he didn't buy the goddess and dragon story, now, however, after a while, it seemed so hard to talk about it, maybe because she had run the scenario a million times in her head.

It wasn't right. She had to be honest. "Brother. Actually, I wanted to have a serious talk with you. You know. I think... you have been harsh on yourself far too much. Fate has weird ways of bringing good and bad to others... If you had stayed in the village, you would be dead, most likely, trying to defend it. It was your life as a gang member that made you a good fighter, it was you helping that merchant which gave us this home on the surface, and it was your exploration that gave us the routes to do the trip and escape the fighting... Not that it justifies the gang, but... you know, I am not alone right now because you managed to turn all those experiences you got from something bad into something good. That is what you do when you take control of your future. However... You can do more, you cannot live only focused on protecting me and nothing more."

Habode was surprised by his sister's speech. Outside of their bickerings, they didn't really have any sort of deep conversation. He didn't even know she held thoughts this deeply about their situation. Still. "Maydly, but you are the only person I have left. I don't know what I can even do... outside of protecting you. It's the bare minimum I can do to avenge mother..."

"Uhm" Rennard interrupted "I will feel terrible for this, but I had left you two alone to have this conversation, and I could not help but notice that the villagers are gathering in the centre," she told, looking into the home from the small window. Having truly left to go explore the village.

---

"It cannot be good. I went up and down the path. No sign of the party at all. Not even a smoke or anything. They didn't even go that deep into the wilds, we scouted the area earlier and there were not any large or dangerous monsters, just the typical prey."

"Calm down Lita. We have to think about this rationally. Prado is a good hunter, he and the others would not get ambushed by animals. It is more likely they decided to camp out."

"Without a firepit? Lest they went past the horizon we would see the smoke from the camp. Plus, he had never been this late."

Habode, Maydly and Rennard had approached the villagers as tensions had started rising. The hunting party was late, the village's best warriors were in it, so it was a bit shocking.

"A terrible creature must have ambushed them... We must avoid the eastern hunting ground."

"No! Are you mad? What if it was an accident? We need to set up a rescue party."

Rennard squinted and started rubbing her chin. "Say, Habode, were these good hunters? How good? I do not know much about the topic, so I need your guidance."

"Ah they were very experienced, it's what really kept the village afloat. They were so good that I was not even invited into it despite my combat skills, something about it being about stealth and navigation instead of just raw combat power."

The scout commander nodded, soon becoming very serious, her pose, expression changing into steel. Combat mode as Maydly would call it. "So it is unlikely they were all killed by the same creature, correct?"

"Even if it was a pack, it's hard to think they would not escape. At least one ought to have made it back."

"Well then." Rennard stepped ahead, into the village of foreigners who did not know who the hell she was. "Friends. Comrades. I would like to have your attention. The hunting party is gone, that we know. They should be within the range of our vision, but we look and we see nothing. They were said to be undefeated by the beasts, so how can this be?"

The crowd was extremely confused at the stranger talking to them in a bold imperative voice, but she was the loudest and nobody felt like talking over her.

"I say, we are dealing here not with a monster that would chase and tear apart. No. We are dealing with something far more sinister. A creature that has the notion that they need to be stealthy, and who else is capable of that, but a brother of ours? A fellow human. A gang. Robbers."

Whispers started, controlled by Rennard clearly as she stopped for a small moment to let the words sink in the crowd's mind.

"The thing about robbers, however, unlike the average beast, is that it moves with purpose and greed, right now, they could be getting ready to ambush the great prise, this very village. If they see well-equipped hunters, they will know they store their food somewhere as well, and under the terrors of torture, they may have got this location from them. So we must get ready, set traps and..."

"Oh gods, we are all going to die!"
"A gang is coming, they killed Prado and now they will kill us. We need to go, run, hide somewhere.

"N-no. wait. That is not..." Rennard was impressed with the cowardice of these groups, she expects them to doubt her theory that it was a gang attack, not to take it to heart and then go into full despair over it.

"Well, now you have gone and done it, the people are panicking. Did you forget these are common folk and not soldiers? And from where did you even take this idea of a gang attack? This area is extremely safe on that aspect because so much attention goes to the fallen instead." Habode scoffed at his rival.

"Yes. I am aware, and I believe this gang comes exactly from there, Etienne, or as you call it, The Fallen."

"Eh? Why? Especially now that things are getting nice again with the blessing of the gods."

Rennard sighed. "What was the currency of Etienne? The thing that made life underground so desirable compared to the surface?"

Habode pondered for a moment. "Light?"

Rennard nodded and then pointed upwards, towards the sun. "And light is now free, therefore worthless. Add to that a freaking flooding from the waters returning and you have the recipe for disaster. This is exactly why I was so desperate to return as soon as possible. Things must be pure chaos down there."

"Oh yeah. I see that now that you mention it. Hmm! You truly have the ability to think in ways that will help your people out. It's enviable."

"Help my people? My people? Do you think my thoughts are about that? Listen, if there are one people who are doing well down there right now, it's us, The Sabre. We have the discipline and loyalty to not leave a brother behind, to prepare, to organize, to evacuate in order and then focus on helping anyone who could be behind. What I worry is about the other folk, the poor people whose lead explorer ran away without a second thought about the others in the village. the parents who were out there trying to scavenge to feed their kids but now cannot return home without a raft, of those who are being scammed by a greedy man who sees this flooding as an opportunity. You should know the type when your village was attacked all you did was sneak in, take your family out, and leave without a single care about another soul down there fighting the raid."

"Fine. Whatever. Have your pretty speech. Do you think however now its time to be yelling about how great of a person you are when the entirety of Cloudy Hillocks is panicking? When bandits are nearby?"

"Yeah uh. You both raise very valid points. So let's stop fighting and focus?" Maydly said quite literally walking in between the scout and the ex-bandit.

"I will go seek out these bandits by myself." Rennard declared. "I can at least stop them for enough time that the villagers will be able to gather their belongings and hide."

"Nah fuck you. You don't get to play the lone hero. I will be going with you." he shrugged. "Maybe the both of us can even take down a whole gang, who knows. I will go get the weaponry from the home." and with that Habode ran away.

"Your brother... is truly peculiar." Rennard sighed.

"I don't think he dislikes you as much as he says. I mean, you killed his best friend, so that is a scar. But deep down... I think he sees you as all that he could not be. He sorts of idolizes you, or rather, is envious of you."

"Oh? Really? That is the opposite of what I had ever thought about him." she sighed. "What I liked in him was how he did not idolize me as my comrades did. I actually memorized all of his criticisms towards me. Though, these ones from the surface are so hollow..."

"Well... I guess you are quite peculiar as well Rennard. But it was fun getting to know the woman behind the soldier. You should relax more.

Habode returned with bows and arrows, as well a sword of his own, Rennard had her own finely crafted sword. "Maydly, can you guide the villagers to those nearby ruins? Seems like the safest place and it's hard to know about if you aren't a local. Me and Rennard will be back soon." he said at first sternly, but then, he approached his sister and hugged her. "Stay safe."

"You stay safe as well bro. Don't bicker with Rennard mid-battle." she hugged back and although she joked she could not smile. Perhaps she had misunderstood her fears when thinking about why she didn't tell her brother about the fire sapling yet...

---

"Gun." Rennard said to Habode, however, as the enemies walked ever so close, this was not said in words. In the tunnels of The Fallen, where voices echoed way too far for subtlety, sign language took hold for the more delicate pre-combat orders. In this case, it helped as the two of them were in opposing hills, with the five enemies starting to track the path between them.

The village was not called Cloudy Hillocks for no reason, the whole area was composed of small hills, it was incredibly foolish to just charge in, but, as Rennard expected, the enemies were new to the surface, while the tactics of ambush and surprise were things people naturally trained when fighting in the tunnels, manoeuvrability in the surface was utterly unknown to them. This was the main bet of the duo over the upcoming combat.

It was lucky that they actually had not taken volunteers from the village for this fight. Sure being twice outnumbered by the enemy was not ideal, but for this type of battle discipline and veterancy mattered far more, in particular, because the enemy had one scavenged weapon, something that could be particularly shocking on a first encounter.

The quintet walked deeper into the trail. Whispers confirming Rennard's theory about the state of The Fallen, the boss, previously rich in light stones, was not happy with the loss of status, as such, it was time to push the advantage while they had it and seize the riches of the surface. Habode and Rennard met eye to eye across the hill, it was time to roll the dice, it was now or never.

The sound of twang echoed in the quiet of the rocky hills, the arrow falling just short of one of the bandit's feet. Rennard cursed mentally as each shot was essential, her arms were still not at their prime strength.

"What in the abyss?" "Archer." "Where?" "To your left." the voices rambled among each of them. "Just one, I saw they hiding after they shot." "Right..." only one man readied their weapons, and it was the leader with his gun. Soon, he saw the clothed shape moving on the hill and shot, a flash of green followed the high-speed projectile, it hit but it was soon revealed that the target was a mere decoy, a branch with a coat, as a flame formed where the bullet had hit.

This was a moment of distraction, enough for the agile Rennard to get her second shot. The aim was not perfect, but this time she aimed at the mass instead of trying to target vitals as she typically did. The arrow flew, straight into a man's arm. A yell of pain, cursing. Now their pride was hurt enough that they did not rely just on the gun, two bows were readied, the third bowmen of the group was the one she had hit in the arm, effectively making him useless.

As they waited for her to show up on the hill again, another sound of rope snapping, a woosh, this time from behind, right into a bandit's back, a painful hit, but not a fatal one. The leader cursed and readied his gun, attention was naturally drawn to behind them. Of course, Rennard would not let this chance be wasted, she peaked to shoot again, just to find herself rolling just in time to avoid an arrow, while four of the men had looked to the other side initially, the one she had hit on the arm, still with a grudge, forced one of the bowmen to turn back towards that hill.

It was now time to play into the bandit's fear, they could not lower their aim in face of the unseen enemies, but they could not hold the bow forever, no matter how they looked at it, the attackers had the advantage by being uphill. "Shh. Lower it. Kore, Leor, you watch for the hills with me. Sibat, Axil, go up, that there, rush one of them. Once one is done with we can retreat and properly hide from the other.

It was as good as they could do right now. They were the most agile after all, they could gain an advantage while Rennard was still hiding. Of course... it was an uphill run, draining both their stamina and focus as they tried to do the task. Swords in hand, they reached the top of the hill, just to find the area with large rocks and the burning coat and branches. Their eyes darted from boulder to boulder, this was not good, they needed an...

There was barely a moment to ready up as Rennard descended upon them with a running stab of her sword, the leading, unhurt bandit managing to deflect it with his own. The one hurt in the arm was paranoid, thinking he would have been the first to be targeted due to his debilitation, when he wasn't, he took way too long to react, and his reaction was almost desperate, absurdly clumsy. Rennard threw herself at the ground causing the incoming bandit to trip over her, finding himself rolling down the other side of the hill, while her unorthodox movement paid well in that one engagement, the other, unhurt bandit was still on his feet and near her, being in the ground was not a good position at all. A quick roll, and an attempt at throwing a knife, were just enough to avoid getting her hit by his sword, but he was gaining on her. She would have one chance to get up, her eyes moving to both sides in a second, his own eyes following that movement. Then she crawled backwards, towards the fire that had been set on the decoy coat, the bandit stuck in false towards the right, and was forced to watch as the women rolled into and past the small fire, smoke rising as she did so, her form becoming unclear, but standing up again for certain.

He rose his sword, the smoke coming straight into his eyes, the women did the same, and rushed, a kick, embers and wood bits flying up, sword met again, she hit him once, twice, not managing to outdo their weight difference, he hit once, she held her sword with both hands, his crude iron weapon did little to it, she started to move again, sword raised little movement outside of small faints. Then the slash, he once again deflected, but using the same technique three times had its price, the fox had learned how to predict it, it always went down to the right, so, she made sure to hit his legs during that. A brief moment of pain, enough for her to slash again, this time finding little opposition as she struck against his neck, a small cut, but enough to do the job as the blood started to flow. The man tumbled and she kicked him towards his comrades down the hill.

The expression in the surviving trio's eyes was one she knew well, it was their world coming to stop. Time became slower, feelings became dulled, it was defeat, acceptance you will likely not win the fight or flee this situation, all the plans, all the dreams of victory and glory, shattered. The pieces on the table moved as if on their own, the enemy's with purpose, his own with startled aimless movements.

A rock came rolling down the other hill, Habode slid downward after it. Although the gunman tried to aim for him, it was impossible to do that and not be hit by the rock. He tried to aim again, shot, missed. The two other gang members covered for him, but it was too late to ready bows, they picked up their swords and waited for the man to attack. But why would he do that? Why did they expect him to attack them? Instead, he started to prepare his bow for a shot. The two men with swords panicked, thinking they had fallen into another clever trap. Ironically, the trap was exactly this, to have them rushing him in panic. If Rennard was deadly grace Habode was a swift storm, the mercenary to her noble. He picked his first target aiming for the weakest, most hurt one, deflected his running swing and grabbed him, outright raising him from the ground and throwing him to the mud. The other attacker sidestepped his comrade, startled, and was punished immediately, as Habode thrust his sword straight through his chest, falling with him to the ground.

Typically he would stay up, but the gunman was still active, just now having reloaded his scavenged artefact. His only choice was to try to hide behind the still living bandit, the one he had thrown in the ground. He expected this would stop the bandit leader, it would have stopped him after all, but nope, the man still shot, both the human shield and Habode gasping as they struggled for their lives. The projectile ripped through them. Just a second before Rennard pounced the gang leader, her knife sinking where his neck met the shoulder multiple times before he could even react.

"Habode! Habode! Goddamnit. If you got shot I will fucking kill you." Rennard yelled in a moment of uncharacteristic rudeness, her heart sinking as she rushed towards him.

"Fuck... My side. Ouch. Damnit. This shit burns goddamit." he rolled away from the last living bandit. Both hurt, none fatal, a scrap made at the side of their torso.

"Oh, thank goodness you are fine. That is a nasty bruise though, we will need to cover that in some medicinal paste or you will rot from inside for sure. First though... dealing with our friend here."

"P-please. Please don't. Kill me. Spare me. I am unable to fight any longer. Make a slave, but do not kill me... I was just... trying to survive..."

"Yeah. I do not doubt that. I wish we lived in times. Where I could actually afford to spare you of the death penalty. But... We don't? Do we not? Those hunters you ambushed, those from this village, are any of them alive?" the man looked at her, eyes full of fear and guilt. "Nope. They aren't. Well. Damnit. That is too bad. But I understand why you didn't keep them prisoner, and you must understand why I will also act like you did. It's hard, you know? I am good at reading people but its impossible even for me to be able to tell if you had a sudden change in heart for real or if you are just like this because you are facing the pointy end of a sword..."

"Holy shit Rennard just fucking kill the dude already. To make these long speech of yours in this situation is just too cruel." Habode complained. Rennard rolled her eyes, and finished off the wounded bandit as quickly as she could. It was not a pretty sight at all, and although she had been locked in a battle for her life, killing him did make her feel bad.

"Well... I guess this is it huh? I hate when fights end, the rush of the moment is gone, and that is left is my body aching and a bunch of bodies spilling blood all over the place."

"Huh. I always took you for the sadistic type. The more you know I guess." Habode tried to get up but his wounded sides made it almost impossible, at least until Rennard helped him. "It's fucking crazy, me and you, fighting together. We did some nice damage today, did we not?"

"That we did. I had really forgotten how absurd is the combination of your speed and strength. I had to dance for a long time to take down my wounded opponents meanwhile you just downed two almost instantly, outright grappling your opponent mid sword combat was just amazing... Lame area awareness though, that shot you got was avoidable. Your sister almost became truly alone today."

"And wouldn't that be for the better? I heard you both talking, about how she has some sort of project in mind but doesn't talk to me because I wouldn't understand. It's... Frustrating. Even when I try to help someone, I just end up making them feel oppressed."

"Oh stop that. You know very well your sister loves you. And while you are a stubborn rock head, I think her fears are not just of you trying to stop her, but of being separated from you. She said she didn't have many friends, so you are in a sense the one person she can rely upon, the one person who makes her feel like she has a home."

"Hmm... This is all..." he sighed. "The type of thing that feels really weird discussing while covered in blood?"

"Ah... good point. Let's rush back to the village, and also get them to come back now that the bandit threat is gone... for now. I doubt this will be the last degenerate tunnel gang crawling out."

---

Maydly looked up at the sky, the shining stars, the weird moons, it was crazy that the world had changed so much in so little time. Crazier still, was that her own life would have to change radically from here onward as well. There was no more avoiding it, seeing her brother return all bruised from battle, it had awoken in her the fear of something bad happening without proper communication between the two. This fear triumphed over any other concern.

Earlier today, after the celebrations over the victory and the mourning over the dead hunters, she had decided to avoid her brother by saying she would go visit a friend. But, she could not delay anything anymore.

She stepped into her home again, taking a deep breath as she tried to avoid overthinking what she had to say. She went where she knew she would find him, entering his room, seeing him once again looking up at the roof, a brooding expression. One key difference though. Rennard of all people hugging him while sharing a bed, the scout sleeping.

Habode looked at Maydly with surprise, and she answered in an equally gasping expression, a sense of shyness as she connected the dots and just sheer shock from the improbable scene. It was easier to just close the door and pretend this was a dream.

But soon Habode appeared, his face already showing a sign of annoyance. "You had to, of all days, decide to come back earlier than expected today, huh?"

"H-how the hell did this happen? I... Was one battle enough for... were you two... Yikes." she took a deep breath and then slowly let the air out. "Eh, whatever. You are a grown man and you decide who you sleep with. If anything Rennard is a massive improvement over the type of women I saw you going out with back in the gang days."

"I won't even bother explaining, adrenaline was high as we talked about the battle and sword techniques and then... Forget it. But. Why are you back."

"Well brother. I... I am facing a situation. I really wasn't pranking you when I said I met a goddess. I received... some sort of mission. It is hard to explain. My skin isn't turning a different colour because of tanning, it's some sort of fire within me."

Habode's eyes widened at that. "And you were acting as if me sleeping with my rival was very weird. Maydly. What is this? You entered a pact with some self-declared god and now your body is changing? Maydly...! This isn't..."

"I do not think its bad! It wasn't even the goddess fault, it's because I took care of that plant, it kinda... gifted something to me, a reward. But... Well. To do this properly I need to understand the world and other people better, and that is a bit hard... when all of my life is contained within two small villages. As such, since the people are already talking about abandoning the village anyway, I was thinking..."

"They are abandoning the village? I mean... sure we have hit critical depopulation, but still... Ugh, I guess I should have paid more attention to what they were talking about..."

"But I guess flirting with Rennard took priority? Anyway... I want to travel the world. I want to meet new people. I want to learn what this fire within me means by the context of others. And I know what you are going to say, that you will come with me... But I kinda... don't want to. On one side, this is my mission, not yours, on the other... I don't like you just dedicating your whole life to me."

The older brother looked at this sister for a long moment, before sighing. "Well. That is an inevitability anyway. I have never seen you this serious about anything in your life, and although wandering the world isn't the best description of a long term plan... if that is what your heart calls sister. I trust in you. I trust you are not making a rushed decision. You have always been a bright girl..."

"B...For real?" she stepped back, the acceptance and compliments were a sudden and unexpected result. "I mean..."

"Plus, maybe I will get serious with Rennard so it will be easier to have a spare room." he laughed.

"Do you want to die? Cause that is how you get killed." she playfully punched him softly in the chest, causing him to wince in pain as she had hit his hurt side. "Oh sorry... so... I guess this will uhm... one of our last times talking together...?"

His hand gently patted her on the head. "Why, aren't you going to visit me? I was about to say how you had matured into such a responsible woman, and you do that?" he pulled her into a hug. "Do visit us again, I will go back to The Fallen after this. Rennard invited me personally to come help, plus if the villagers are leaving, I am sure some will want to also resettle there. Avoid travelling alone, keep a knife or machete in your pocket. Don't trust any random god you meet laying around."

"Hehe. You can bet I will be back. You better teach your future half-fox kids how to respect their cool god-touched aunt." a soft wink. "But... It makes me happy. It has been a long while since you were this playful. I missed this old Habode, and I will miss him in my journeys..." she raised a finger to her eyes, to hide a tear. "I need to go get my things ready, ask for provisions from the others. Prepare my own. Uhm... you can go back to cuddling Rennard or whatever."

---

Habode sighed as he noticed where he was. Once more, his old home, Hanging Bird Hall. The faintly lit corridors are surrounded by little square rooms on both sides. Originally these were full of makeshift houses, but now, each of these small squares now hosted a little shop in each of them, the lower part where the farm once was had turned into a pristine lake where kids loved to swim among the ruins. The location, peaceful and close to the surface, was a key trading point between Etienne and The Surface.

People had repurposed this place once and had now done it again. A true statement of how fiercely they could survive and improvise. And although it was loud, smelly and very dirty still, there was a sense of beauty in it all, as the people moved back and forth among the fallen rocks, market stalls and the rays of light seeping from the shiny surface above.

All these good vibes were suddenly crushed when a faceless mannequin attacked him. Habode letting out a yelp as his childhood fears were explored.

"Surprise ambush!" yelled the woman behind the doll, Commander Scout Rennard Fenequil. "How distracted you are, Lieutenant Habode." she said with a gentle giggle.

"I dress this weird-ass Sabre uniform for you and this is how you repay?" he answered grumpily.

"I think the uniform is quite nice, if not outright cute."

"Just on you." he shrugged.

"Excellent counter-attack lieutenant. Now, no more smiles. Put on your serious face, I have serious reports a merchant has been using a secret lift for actions such as smuggling and tax evasion. Already a worrisome deviant surely, but hear this, they say this merchant is a short man with the leg of a goat on a long tail."

And so continued another day in the lands once called the Fallen. Now slowly that name faded, the Sabre's preferred Etienne overtaking it, a reborn phoenix city half-submerged in the swamps, home of the Sabre Republic and innumerable treasures lost in its countless underground tunnels.

---

For weeks, Chakravarti had roamed there in the sun- and moonlight, pondering incessantly a way to end the terrible, earth-shattering quakes. A patch of dirt between the tall reeds of yellow grass had been cleared until the bare, red soil laid exposed to the light of day. Chakravarti had scribbled it down with all sorts of calculations, diagrams, angry drawings and lamenting poetry. Scattered around the patch appeared the occasional hole into the ground, left over from the family god’s many attempts to dig down to get a closer look at what exactly was wrong with the earth. Their investigations had, unlike the post-monsoon plains, been fruitless. For the last half day, they had been sitting among their sketchings with a defeatist haunch, all eight arms collected in various crosses, foldings and stacking, one fist carrying the cheek of the family god with sober servility. A stone lob away, Ossurman rolled around in the tall grass, playing with Paratiri’s jewel. Tapping fifteen fingers on their thigh impatiently, Chakravarti sighed with frustration.

”Alas, it is hopeless, my son,” they lamented to the sound of a happily giggling baby. A dramatic fist pierced the sky. ”No matter how I study this fomenting earth, this raging soil, I cannot make any sense of it. Their voices number in the millions and their issues in the billions - I have no knowledge of how to fix this! The earth is simultaneously like an endlessly large dynasty, but also a product of a billion dynasties, all of which has been around for ages and also only came to be all-too-recently. I have no words: Chakravarti can do anything - anything in the name of the love of their children and children’s children - but this, I cannot do.” Lilac tears rolled down their cheeks and they tossed eight arms to the heavens, crying, ”O fate; o mercy! Creation on high - will no one come to rescue this damsel, this lordsel, in distress? Will no one save me and my boy from this cruel and hapless plight?!”

“What are ye shouting about, lass?” a voice suddenly called out in the distance. It seemed that during her monologue, someone had been approaching from beyond the crest of a distant hill. It was a short man with skin that seemed to be made of stone. As he drew closer, his eyebrows rose slightly. “Bloody ‘ell, yer a tall one.”

Chakravarti was about to spin around and summon their swords, but it seemed the gag was getting old and they would rather not grow predictable. The Eight-Armed God blinked down at the approaching dwarf, giving the air a sniff. Pursing their lips, they spoke with furrowed eyebrows, ”And who are you supposed to be?” The nearby grass giggled and squealed.

“Algrim,” he answered, looking around. “Are ye another god? I always seem ta meet one at every single one o’ my destinations. Almost like it’s fated.”

”Fated?” The family god studied his form closely, noticing dust on his shoulders, earth on his hands and stone in his skin. A flash of realisation blasted out of their eyes and they cast themself down before Algrim’s feet, four hands reaching out to embrace his feet in a grateful hug. ”O FORTUNE! O SERENDIPITY! My saviour, a craftsman of stone, has come to help us! Creation be praised!”

“Now that’s enough o’ that,” Algrim said, attempting to step out of the embrace. “Aye, that is what I’m ‘ere to do. How did y’ know?”

Undeterred, two arms sheepishly continued to patrol around his feet while other two retreated tactically. Torso is a sort of semi-kowtow at Algrim’s feet, Chakravarti dramatically wiped away a lilac tear, tossing it to the winds with a flick of the finger. ”Alas, it must indeed be fated! For I have prayed for days, weeks, that a master craftsman who knows the workings of the soil would appear before me. Hope was slim - I had almost given up - but then, on this happy day, you, o Algrim, arrive like a gift sent from Creation itself! How, o how could this not be destiny?!” The nearby bush cooed curiously.

Algrim offered a shrug in response. Neither Lonn nor Arira had been this verbose. “What did y’ say yer name was?” he asked her, hoping to move the conversation along.

The god took the hint and collected themself until they had risen back up to their full height. ”Oh, how terribly rude of me - how base and uncouth! I cannot believe I had forgotten to introduce myself!” Eight hands folded together along their body’s vertical middle and the torso tipped slightly forward. ”A joy to meet you, Algrim. I am Chakravarti vur Chakravarti - I manage the clans and families of this world.” A quick sidestep to pick up the creature in the bush. ”And this is Ossurman, my firstborn son. Say hi, Ossurman.”

“Buh-bah bwahboh.”

“‘Ello lad,” Algrim gave the child a nod, before turning back to Chakravarti. “I’ve ‘eard that name before. Any relation to that Lonn fellow I met a few thousand leagues back?”

”Lonn? Why yes!” said the god and posed victoriously. ”He is nothing less than my First Consort - my prime husband. A man of exceeding wealth and deeds, and now he has a last name - one of a dynasty which will last for eternity.” They laughed with mock humility. ”My dynasty, that is, myes. Either way, how splendid that you have met him already! How was the exchange?”

Algrim shrugged again. “A bit odd, ta tell ya the truth. The lad dinnae realize who or what I was, and flung a spell at me. We settled things afterward, and he lent me a ‘and in my work though, so it wasn’t all bad.”

Chakravarti blinked. ”Huh… Well, he did seem like the spontaneous sort. Suppose that is something I will have to deal with in the coming future. No matter - how wonderful! What sort of work was it, if I may ask?”

“Well it’s quite simple, really,” Algrim said. “I just ‘ave ta travel ta six evenly distanced points and plant down some gemstones which’ll grow into structures that’ll ‘old the world together. Stop the earthquakes and all that. I’ve built two so far, and each time I was lucky enough ta find someone ta ‘elp me.” He looked at Chakra appraisingly. “I don’t suppose my luck would ‘old ‘ere as well?”

The Eight-Armed God struck another pose, one leg stretched out while the torso leaned on the other with a bent knee, five out of eight arms flexing, two carrying Oss and one laying softly atop their forehead like a caress. They laughed exactly four times and spoke, ”O luck! Our fates could not be more aligned! I, too, have been waiting for someone to stop the earthquakes! Please, o wise craftsman, show me the way, the path, to quelling the rage of the ground itself!”

“Well as I said, it’s quite simple. Though, if I do show ye, I’ll ask ye to swear to protect it. Won’t do ta leave it behind only for some ‘ooligan to vandalize it,” Algrim said seriously.

Chakravarti nodded. ”Why yes, of course! Uh… Question - is there a reason for that, or…?”

Algrim furrowed his brow. “What do y’ mean?”

”Is there a reason it, it must be protected? Like… Can it break and make the soil angry again?”

Algrim shrugged. “It’d take a lot ta break one o’ them. And if they did, then aye, the world would begin to shake again. Or at least th’ part of the world it’s supposed ta protect. It’s just a precaution, really. I ‘aven’t met a beasty that should be capable o’ harming one o’ these things, but the other gods maybe could. I ‘aven’t met any gods that would do just a thing just yet, but y’ can’t be too careful. A bit o’ insurance never ‘urt.”

After a brief moment to absorb this information, Chakravarti nodded with a shrug. ”Alright, so it is like that, then. Then I will protect it, I promise. I shall have my very own kin guard it as though it was their own home.” A thought seemed to sting them for a moment. ”This structure - what form does it take?”

Algrim smiled. “I ‘ave no idea, ta tell y’ the truth. I designed ‘em ta take whatever form best suits the god who places it down, which means there’ll only be one way ta find out.”

Chakravarti pursed their lips and hummed. ”I see. Well, in that case, after you!”

“Right,” Algrim said, extending his hand. “Give me yer ‘and, and loan me some o’ yer power. Doesn’t need ta be much. As much as y’ feel comfortable with, really. I’ll do th’ rest.”

Chakravarti offered three hands and proclaimed, ”Nonsense! Here, have as much as you would like! No child of mine should have to protect a simple obelisk!” A golden glow surrounded the hands as power transmitted.

Algrim closed his eyes as he focused his own power. Just as it had twice before, a glowing light appeared in his open free hand, matching the golden hue of the eight-armed god’s energy. A few moments passed, and the light faded to reveal a yellow round gemstone.

Algrim pulled his arm free from the hands which gripped it, and offered Chakra the stone. “There y’ go. Just plant it in the ground right ‘ere, and it’ll do the rest.”

”Oh, uh, like so?” A hand dug a small hole at the spot in question and another planted the stone. For a minute, nothing happened. Then promptly, the ground began to tremble, and out of the soil shot a colossal pillar of stone, wider than ten men abreast and thicker than seven. It stuck two hundred feet into the air and was checkered with holes. Holes? No, they were places for figures, for carvings. Only the top two spots were occupied: The very peak of the structure was a large fan of stone, like a rising sun - within it was the face of Chakravarti; the space below had a baby’s face - Ossurman. Chakravarti immediately understood.

”Oh, what amazement! A pillar to my dynasty! What glory; what splendor!”

“Now, that’s done,” Algrim announced. “I best be gettin’ on my way. I’m still only ‘alfway done. Unless there’s anything else y’ want to discuss?”

”Going already? Then I must be swift!” In a spinning move, the many-armed god ended up on one knee before the Earth God, a halo of lotus around their forehead and a golden glow about their whole form. ”A mighty craftsman such as yourself would make for an excellent husband. It is in that hope that I pray, I wish, that you would become my consort! Algrim of the Stone, will you marry me?”

Algrim blinked in surprise. Whatever he might have expected the conversation to turn toward, it was not this. “Don’t y’ already ‘ave one?”

Chakravarti was undeterred. ”I have many, o potential consorts - a matripatrihierarch must have several, for how else can they produce the most magnificent dynasty? Claim the most significant respect? You would have allies in powerful places should you say yes; your children would have brothers and sisters of might and magic. Accept, o earthen one, for the sake of your children’s future!”

Algrim considered the offer, but only for a moment. The idea of pledging himself to this person who he barely he knew, and who had already made similar pledges with other people he didn’t know, was not exactly appealing no matter what she promised. Besides, there were more important things right now than worrying about his own status, or about a future that might never come.

He looked at her apologetically. “All due respect, but I can’t spare much thought toward that sort o’ thing right now. Not while my task remains incomplete, or while I still don’t know ye or those others y’ mentioned all that well. Th’ stability of th’ world must come first. I’m sure y’ understand.”

Chakravarti appeared momentarily stunned. ”Huh? You, you’re turning me down?” The golden glow disappeared; the lotus halo wilted. ”But, but why? I wouldn’t ask you for anything! Just some offspring to strengthen our house! You’re male, so it really won’t be a lot of work for you!” Two hands folded together pleadingly. ”Pleeeeaaase?”

Algrim shook his head. “I cannae accept that just yet, I’m ‘fraid. A bond like that isnae one that I would ever make lightly. I’d need t’ take at least a few years to get ta know ye, and th’ others I would be, eh… ‘sharing’ ye with. Besides that, th’ idea o’ havin’ offspring but not ‘aving time t’ be involved with them does’n ‘old much appeal t’ me either. Would’n be fair. Not t’ me, not t’ ye, and not ta the children.” He offered the God another apologetic shrug. “We can still be friends, though.”

”B-but…” The family god had deflated nearly entirely. A few of their hands laid flat against the ground with shattered morale. The god haunched somberly and sighed. ”Alas, that it should come to this… But please, consider it some more! I, I am rich! My house is vast and wealthy, with nothing but the brightest future ahead of it! Surely, the thought of having such powerful allies must be tempting, right?”

Yet Algrim merely shook his head. “Those aren’t th’ sort o’ arguments that’ll convince me. Now, I must be off. I still ‘ave the rest o’ the world t’ save. Farewell.” He offered her a bow, and then turned away.

He didn’t get far before one of his legs suddenly felt a lot heavier than the other. Upon looking down, Algrim saw no fewer than six hands wrapped around his leg, connected to a very floored, very whimpering humanoid, their last two hands interlocked in a clasp of tears. ”Nooooo, no, no, no, no - you must reconsideeeeeer! Our children would be so beautiful! Our dynasty; so powerful!”

Despite being made out of stone, Algrim’s entire body somehow became even tenser. He clenched his fists, and when he spoke, all traces of the bizarre accent were gone. “You will unhand me. Now,” he commanded in a quiet, rich, authoritative tone that was edged with hard steel.

”Not before you say ‘I do’, I won’t!” the family god retorted with a whine, clearly not catching the tonal shift.

Algrim gave them a hard glare. Then, suddenly the leg Chakra was gripping crumbled into a cloud of dust, before promptly reforming out of their grasp, and Algrim continued to walk away. Undeterred, the family god let out a frustrated growl and pushed themself back to their feet. Breathing in deep, they unleashed a sigh and decided to walk alongside the stone god. ”Okay, okay - I get it. You want to get to know me, is it? Okay, I am open. Whatever questions you may have, I will answer. Will you say yes after that?”

Algrim let out a sigh of his own. When he spoke again, the strange accent had returned, but his voice was still filled with obvious frustration. “Th’ time for questions will come afta’ th’ world is saved. At a time when th’ two o’ us are in the same vicinity. An’ if I’m actually in a mood fer a conversation. No sooner, no later, and no guarantees. Now drop it. Because with e’ery attempt to drag this out, yer only makin’ yerself even more unappealing.”

”Unappealing?!” the family god squealed and raised their nose to the heavens. ”My, what uncouth words; what unrefined facade.” With a twist of their hip, they spun around and walked away. ”Well, if -that- is how you want it, then you were not good enough for me anyway. HMPH!” The stone god was then left alone - finally.

---

---

Wyn laid upon a sandy beach, arms behind her head, ankles crossed and eyes closed as she basked in the sunlight on a warm breezy day. Who knew killing a lesser being could take so much out of a God? That and she didn’t really have any need to rush. In fact, right after she cleaned herself she had decided to stare at her reflection for a few days. Actually, she didn’t know how long she did but now she had decided to relax before moving on. The Crystalline Expanse called to her, life needed to be seeded there and she had been mulling over many ideas. From animals that reflected light and shined like her shimmering serpents, to creatures made of the crystals. Perhaps she would even make a guardian for the place. Decisions decisions.

For now a nap didn't sound so bad…

---

"This way Jonah, I-I can smell it!" He grunted as he climbed the craggy hill side. His fingers bleed from the sharp and jagged rocks and his clothes were torn asunder, full of holes and stains. Even his shoes were falling apart but by the will of anything that was holy left in the world, he could smell something fresh. Something that gave him hope and it was only just over the damn hill.

"Careful Erik! We need to be careful! Take things slow!" Jonah called up to him and Erik glanced down. The younger man was in as equal a state as he was. His tattered cloak whipped in the wind and his dirty face peered back up at him with blue eyes hidden in a tangle of unwashed hair. How long had it been since they met? A day? A A month? A year? It was hard to recollect without keeping track of the days. It felt like it was yesterday he arrived at that camp, where he mingled with survivors and how Jonah and he escaped when the monsters came. But now... Now there was a light in the sky and oh how it was glorious! Night came and day came just as his father had been told by his father. Times were changing at last.

Erik looked back up, they were almost there! Just a bit more climbing and they'd reach the top where destiny awaited! He could feel it! "Come on Jonah, we're almost there! Salvation is just on the other side!"

"We've come so far Erik! Past the lands we've been told about, what if there isn't anything there! What if we're just chasing forgotten dreams!" Jonah shouted back up, cussing up a storm as his foot hit something sharp.

"Have some damn faith Jonah! Have I ever steered us wrong!" Erik winced at his own words and dared not look down at Jonah as silence reigned for a time. What had been done to survive had been done with a heavy heart. That's what he told himself… That's what was needed. Jonah would figure that out one day. Or he'd die.

Erik finally reached the top of the ledge with a grunt, breath heavy with exhaustion and fatigue. He extended an arm out for Jonah but the man didn't take it. Instead he pulled himself up and collapsed in a heap next to the ledge breathing heavily. There was a moment that Erik realized how easy it would be to off the man for slighting him over and over for what he had helped with. To put an end to the heated stares and bitter silence. No! What was he thinking… They were so close to being saved! As quickly as the thought came it left Erik feeling shame and guilt. He pushed it down, for now was not the time for that but instead to look towards the future. He turned around and continued on, it was a slight incline but nothing like what they had just done. When he at last crested the hill, he gasped.

“Jonah… Jonah! JONAH! We’re SAVED!” he shouted before his voice broke out into a mad laugh. He fell to his knees but did not care for the pain or the struggles that had gotten them to that point. It no longer mattered… For before him was the colors of paradise. Jonah stopped beside him, the man likewise falling to his knees, mouth open and eyes wide. His lips curved into a smile and tears streamed down his face.

“Y-You were right… That’s… w-water. Water… Oh how I missed you.” he cried, his mirth becoming that of great sadness and longing.

They stayed like that as they rested, taking in the sight of a hope realized.

After a time, Erik finally got to his feet and extended a hand for Jonah. “Probably a day away, if you got it in you.”

The man grinned and took his hand. “Let’s get to it.”

Erik nodded and they were off.

---

The first thing Jonah did when he got to the beach was run for the water. He was thirsty, so thirsty. Their water had run out just after they reached the peak and now it was a mad dash for refreshment. When he reached the water he fell in and the sensation of being wet for the first time in his life shocked him to the core. It was magical, and amazing and he took a large gulp of water in his mouth reveling in the moment before spitting it out.

It tasted… Salty? If there was one thing he knew about water, it was that they could only drink it without any contamination or risk illness, then a very painful death. He heard Erik coming to his own realization and the two looked at one another.

"W-W-We can boil it right? We can still- we can still salvage this!" Erik decried trudging to the pack he dropped on the beach. Jonah watched him go, anger boiling. He cupped the water between his hands and looked upon it with disdain. This was supposed to be a happy moment… One full of hope and relief. Now… Now they would at least die somewhere pleasant. Erik was frantically searching through his pack for a pot, tossing out old materials and items with little regard for where they ended up.

Jonah clambered to shore and for once, scanned it from where he stood, looking both ways for something… Anything that might save them. Perhaps a freshwater spring…. Or or… What was that?

He squinted and blocked the sun from his eyes as he looked upon a strange pale shape. It almost blended in with the sand but something shiny caught his eye. It sparkled in the reflection of the water. He began to walk towards it as Erik sounded a triumphant yell. He had found a pot.

"Jonah we can drink this I promise!" He said, coming to his side. "Jonah? What are you…" his voice faded. "What is that?" He whispered not long after.

Jonah did not answer and as the two walked closer it became evidant what they were looking at. It was a sleeping girl. A band on her finger sparkled but other then that she was completely naked and by all that was good in the world- She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. It felt wrong just to look at her but he could not pull his eyes away from her. Everything about her was just… Perfect. Too perfect. The wrongness he felt in his heart made it best faster and perhaps the length of three persons did he stop advancing. Erik did not stop however.

Jonah caught his wrist and the man took several seconds to even acknowledge him. When Erik looked back his face was contorted into one of longing and lust. It was a look he knew all too well.

"No!" He hissed quietly. Erik yanked his wrist free and grimaced. "You can't." Jonah followed up.

"I-I…" There was a moment of recognition on his face, one that Jonah also knew. Like he fought himself for what was right, battling demons. Then Erik's faced hardened and Jonah braced himself. "You just want her for yourself don't you!" He whispered with venom. "I see how you look at me. How you've looked at me. You think your better then me don't you?" Don't you! Ever since that day you couldn't control yourself. Why can't I have a little fun before we die?"

Jonah took a step back, bewildered. "What are you… That's not true… It was you who couldn't stop. It was you. W-We need her. She's obviously alive and looks in good shape, she could get us water and food Erik. Please, don't do this."

"Keep her... alive? So that you… So that you could plot against me with an ally! No… No… she's mine. I need this…" he said, taking a knife from his belt.

Jonah's eyes widened and he began to back up further. "Erik… You aren't thinking straight… Stop this. I-I-I don't blame you for what happened… We all have urges but this… I can't let it happen again."

Things seemed to slow down. Jonah opened his mouth to yell but Erik pounced forward. He was too focused on stopping the knife hand and Erik punched him in the throat. He choked on his breath as Erik landed on top of him, putting all of his might into pushing the knife down into his chest. Jonah could feel his arms straining under the pressure. He tried to use his legs for leverage but Erik was a big man and overpowered them with his full weight on top of him. It was over in an instant as Jonah felt a piercing pain and then again and again. He tried to scream but a beefy hand covered his mouth. His life flashed before him, and the sickening feeling of dying gripped his soul. He looked up at Erik with hatred as his body grew weak and his vision went dark…

He was afraid.

---

Tears streamed down Erik's face as he smeared fresh blood across his face as he wiped them from his eyes. He couldn't let Jonah have her. He couldn't. No matter how much it pained him to lose his friend. But the task was done and now… Now it was time for his prize.

He turned around beginning to unfasten his pants but the woman was gone.

"How barbaric…" A sweet voice rang out from behind him. Instinctively he turned to see the woman standing over Jonah's body. "How indignant. How utterly monstrous…" she looked at him with pale eyes and he felt his heart explode with a fervor. She scowled, "And you're even worse. So... hideous and deformed. To think I wear the bones of such a creature. It makes me sick."

What?

”Then again… You can be improved, can’t you?” She seemed to say to herself as Erik’s thoughts questioned what he had heard. She seemed unphased by Jonah’s death but thought he was… Ugly? ”Ugh.” she said, rubbing the bridge of her nose. ”Your eyes undress me still. Disgusting. But not to worry, creature. I will make you better.” Before Erik could open his mouth to protest, before he could do anything- she was before him in a flash.

---

Wyn felt the man’s neck snap beneath her fingertips. His body going limp before she let it drop to the sandy floor. She grimaced as she looked at her hand. She had touched a dirty thing and she felt unclean but it would have to wait, wouldn’t it? She had work to do and it would, unfortunately, require more contact. She brought the bodies side by side and then began her beautification.

The man who had been stabbed would be the first. She could still hear a faint heartbeat, but it was of little concern to her. If he survived, he survived, regardless what he became would be different then what he was now. She tore the fabric that he wore off to see what she had to deal with and Wyn became thoroughly repulsed. Very lean, hardly any muscle and his ribs were beginning to show. Plus there was all the stab wounds and the blood. He lifted into the air with a thought and his limbs became outstretched. Wyn stopped the bleeding and sealed the wounds with a thought and then took him down to the water. There, she cleansed him of his filth by having the water wrap around him in a torrent. Just enough to rop the dirt and grime free, not enough to tear and rip.

She summoned the other man and his corpse floated by, clothes disintegrating as they did. He was well built but skinny with lesions and scars all over his body. She repeated the process and when that was done she settled them on the sand and returned to the first man. She laid a hand upon his chest and like the clay she herself had been modeled from, Wyn began to shape the man’s flesh. His skeleton was straightened to have perfect posture, his chest and shoulders were broadened, he was given defined muscles- subtle to the eye but still glamorous. Then she worked upon his face, removed the scars and blemishes, fixed and straightened his nose, lips and brows. She left his eye color alone, as Wyn did like that shade of blue. She then whitened his hair and let it grow thicker and long.

Satisfied with him, she moved onto the other man and redefined him completely. First Wyn stripped him off his manhood, made his skeleton smaller, narrowed the shoulders and made the body shapely. Womanly, like herself, with curves, ample breasts, a lean face with high cheekbones and symmetry. She fixed her broken neck and straightened her spine and removed any sort of diseased skin and blemish. Her eye color was brown, so Wyn changed it to be pale, like her own. Then she made her hair long so that it would fall and reach the middle of her back and like the man, she bleached it of color and it became white.

When this was done and Wyn was satisfied with their work she made their bodies pale in color and despite the sunlights reflection from the water, it would remain pale and never darken. She then clapped her hands and they began to stir.

Slowly but surely did they regard the world around them with wide eyes, sitting up to look at each other and then Wyn.

”Your name is Jonah, do you remember it?” She asked the man. He looked up at her blinking, then looked at his hands.

“I…” He seemed startled by his new voice. It was deeper than before. “I was dead…”

”Dying, not dead. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here right now. I gave you a second chance. Fixed you. Changed you for the better. Never forget that I, Wyn, am your God. Now and forever.” she said, and then looked at the woman, who avoided her gaze.

”Jonah, the Erik you knew is dead, however. For his crime, his body was changed into that which he lusted over. Her name shall be Vera and she is yours.” Wyn crossed her arms and snapped her fingers. A pile of white cloth sprang up beside them.

”You have but one simple task- breed. Make babies, as the saying goes, I think. I’ll give you one hundred years of perfect health and youth to accomplish this and bring more of humanity, in my image, to life. You will do this in payment of the debt you owe me. Understood?” Wyn said, looking at her nails.

“Goddess, um… That’s great and all but how are we going to survive?” Jonah asked her and when Wyn caught his gaze, he looked away too.

”You tell me, you’re the one who lived in this heap of a land. Don’t you have survival skills? There is a sea behind you with fish and edibles, the river that feeds this water is fresh, go find it or something. Survive and thrive, or die.” Wyn frowned and then rubbed her temple while sighing. ”Fine, I suppose if I want you to live I’ll have to help further.” She snapped her finger and the land behind the beach, sprouted greens and then a large cliff face rose up from the land and from it came the visage of Wyn in her eternal beauty and from her eyes came a stream of tears that fell to the land below. It was not long before a stream of water came rushing past them and into the sea.

”At the base you will find a large lake, go there and populate this land.” Wyn commanded.

“Very well goddess, but if I might ask, why? Why help me, er, us?” Jonah asked as Vera looked off towards the visage of Wyn.

The goddess shrugged, ”I was bored and you were downright hideous. It’s better then death, right?” she then turned to leave but stopped and looked back, ”Oh, one day I have no doubt your descendants will explore the sea. Never set foot upon the island of the sun.” She pointed at the distant glow that hovered over the water. ”You would surely die.” She then departed, off to who knows where.

---

Jonah watched the goddess leave and then turned to Vera, who was using her finger to draw something in the sand. She sure was pretty and didn’t really remind him of Erik, which was good.

“So… We should probably get a move on.” he said after a few moments of staring.

Vera looked at him and gave a small smile.

---

The revelry had lasted for quite some time, but joy waned; reason surged, and the Vhan-ka realized their shift in situation. The stone beneath their feet no longer remained utterly level and smooth. When they moved, they heard the edges of the cavern, and indeed, no longer was it lightless. While many of their ilk grew worried as their contentment faded and reality set in, their leader remained calm and resolute.

Once-Fein--Meae Natah-- looked with his trio of eyes about the room. Finally, he beheld once more the world in truth. Unlike his clansmen, who he had led for generations, Meae understood the gifts he'd been given, for it was not his first encounter with divinity. Patiently he watched the others--the man he'd come to know as a brother, the woman who he knew cared for him beyond a friend--as they reoriented themselves and began to panic. As he observed their faces, he knew how they must feel. He knew that their every instinct told them that they'd left behind protection, that they were lost and would not be found again. Meae saw in the growing whites of their eyes an old fear, fostered by entities both ravenous and strange.

However, he knew something they could not: They had a second chance now.

"What are we to do?!" One called out through the dim murk of the cave, his voice a frantic whisper.

"I cannot run any longer," another said, and there were tears in the child's eyes. Reborn or not, these people were tired.

"...my belly yet aches, despite that being." A girl who might grow to be a woman in a year or three said, her voice a quiet plea, a somber echo of long-carried misery.

Meae let their words touch him; he let their emotions suffuse his skin. He let their worries briefly slide amongst his bones--eyes closed in contemplation--then he shed them. Silence cut off any further protest from his tribe, and they looked to him. There were no gasps, but something in them changed as they saw him. Before he had been an ageless figure, a symbol of survival and stability in a harsh and unforgiving world, a world tearing at every seam. Yet, he had been flawed as any of them, as if he too had barely held himself together. They had respected him, and he had been an ideal they could aspire to, but not out of reverence or awe as beyond all else, he had been one of them. Imperfect. Human. Beaten down. Exhausted. It had been his perseverance and his ageless nature that had struck a chord in them. Now? Now he was different. He was more.

Before, he'd been a living idol to perseverance--an old and weathered bulwark against a storm that might soon break him. Now it was as if he had been utterly renewed. There was no strangeness in him as they looked, for it was almost as if they'd known--somehow--that he'd always had three eyes and skin of shifting pearlescent black. They'd known he had power beyond their knowledge, but it had always seemed to drain him as if every time he used it, the magic aged him many years. Now, as Meae raised a hand, there was magic inherent in the movement, something otherworldly living alongside him in his skin, bound by his Will.

"So we will not run," Meae said.

His flesh pulsed with unearthly light, and his eyes grew effervescent as burning stars.

"But we cannot fight them--..." one said.

"We can," he replied.

Meae's light filtered outwards through the dim-lit cavern and touched each of them in turn. With its caress across their skin, eyes drifted shut, and breaths caught or blew away. Their age-old tension left them, each and every one until there was only stillness. Then, where it had lived, hope appeared within them.

Meae smiled and strode out from the cavern. They followed, no longer daunted by the cold wind's bite or the beasts that lurked beyond.

They would not run any longer.

It was time to fight for what was theirs.

---

---

---

Once, the world had been new, and upon its surface had lived an endless deluge of prey. Their minds had spread all across the globe and penetrated beyond its unseen seam. Then they'd had another name--those beasts--a name feared, reviled, cursed. Yet in those ages, they'd been little more than thought-forms bereft of bone or vicious flesh with which to thirst.

And yet...

Yet they'd known hunger.

Terrible, all-consuming need.

To be full, to be whole, but this power was not theirs, so endlessly they'd had to feed.

Then, in time, into vessel's they slipped, finding purchase 'pon that aging, forgotten land.

And yet...

Yet, they could not feed for the apocalypse had come.

Of course, worlds may tremble, men might fall, stone might crumble--the forgotten gods could flee--but their flesh, their minds, their hunger...these things could last an eternity.

So it was that those beings, the Unfulfilled, children of Dream's flesh, had survived unscathed throughout the dread apocalypse.

Yet now, though flesh they had to devour and predate, they found that so few lives remained to plunder and so once more their hunger they could not sate.

And yet...

They ate.

They ate.

They ate.

Too late.

Too late.

---

---

A thing lurked upon a mountain’s peak but remained unseen. It hailed from a realm beyond the pale where seldom mortals tread. It knew their minds, those delicious treats. It knew desire and thought and emotion too. Now, it was more than these for flesh had it been gifted, yet even such a gracious gift could not leave its mind uplifted.

For it was a fire in the chest, seething, seeking to destroy. It was what might kindle fury or revenge. Red and black were its colors. Blood, fire, and decay. Its eyes they reviled, its talons twisted, and muscles gripped and tore. As it lusted after targets, it swore and swore and swore. Pure malice: Discontent. Vile, putrid mind-rot, and yet in this beast, it would not relent.

Head rising, wrought of black and silver bone, the beast sniffed the mountain air and smelled something it could not bear.

Joy. Contentment. Hope. ‘Disgusting pestilence,’ it thought. Yet these things were held by living beings with minds that it still sought.

So it opened churning eyes, casting mind's gaze across mountains and snowing skies. With supernatural ease, the beast rose then before its talons tore the earth. In moments it vanished downwards, drilling through soil and stone, like knives cut at supple meat. With violence, it destroyed, ate, and expelled the shard's decaying peat.

Soon, it knew, soon…it would eat.

---

---

Up a rocky ridge, through snow and gale, they trod. It was a perilous path, but they struggled no more. Their steps were sure, their minds at peace, and in them burned the warmth of hope.

The tribe did not know precisely where they were headed, but they trusted Meae Natah; he’d never led them astray. To follow him was easier than to again consider the coward's path: To cower and to flee. No more, they thought as one—no more running.

Far ahead, just behind Meae's brother—if not by blood, then by bond—considered the changes in himself and in his kin. Vham Ane he had been, but now it did not fit. In his skin, he felt a strength beyond his own, beyond a normal man's. He knew that he could run farther than before, that he could leap farther, higher, and land as if with practiced ease. The cold bit at his skin, but it no longer felt like shearing claws that sought to tear away his vital heat. The world seemed brighter, but above all else, there was something in him that he did not understand.

Power.

"Brother," Meae said, and his voice cut through the wind without great volume or any sign of strain. "What shall I call you now?"

"I'm not sure," he replied, and in his voice, he found strength he’d never known. He heard it clearly and knew that so too could his kin. "This is all so strange; I don't understand what we've been given."

Meae did not respond, but his tattoos pulsed, and the light melted snow and warmed the air around him. “In the time before,” he began, and the wind carried his words to all, “I could cast my Will upon the world and bend it to my desires.” He let the words linger in the chill wind as it danced about them, creating intricate flurrying patterns from the snow.

"They called us Willcasters, and I am the last of them. This power...what we've been given, it's different somehow, but similar." Meae stopped then, turning to his brother. "Open yourself to it," the Willcaster said, and his brother complied without thought.

A warmth rose in his chest, then a glow touched his flesh, and he felt a tingling in his feet, through his shoes. Somehow, then, he felt the earth beneath him, vast and without clear thought. Meae nodded then spoke, his words a command, "Bind it!"

Meae's brother gaped, unsure what he should do exactly, but nonetheless, he tried. He focused his mind, his awareness, and with a glacial slowness, the wind around him stilled. The glow of his flesh suffused the air, creating a glowing halo that increased in brilliance by the moment. Then the light flashed, winking out into oblivion.

"I am Ka-Vhalen," Meae's brother said, and as the words left his lips, he felt that the power had not vanished when the light had. No, it still built around him, and soon the air creaked with the force of his Will, begging to be released.

So he did.

Casting a hand to the side, he cast his power out. What followed was the rapid movement of wind and snow like a tearing gale that rose upwards in a pillar of force as if some titanic beast had erupted from the earth with great violence. Ka-Vhalen stared at the result of his actions before turning his gaze down to his own hands. When he looked up at his brother, he found Meae smiling.

"My power was one of attunement. I believe yours is similar, but know this...it is not the same. I command the world with my Will, but you...you are doing something else," he said, then looked past Vhalen and to the rest of the tribe. "Each of you has this strength within you. I know not its limits--not yet--but I know that it should come to you with ease. Often, the gifts of the gods desire to be used more than anything."

Meae turned his gaze cast elsewhere. "Today, we test those gifts. Brace yourselves; our enemy approaches."

Rha Lia stepped up, putting a hand to Meae's shoulder, standing with him. For a moment, she regarded him before—with a worried caste to her features—she followed his gaze. "Who are they?" She asked, an old part of her dreading the answer, knowing the truth.

"This one is Hatred," Natah responded.

Lia frowned.

Soon after, the earth shook beneath them; the tribe hardly stumbled. Far off, birds took off, fleeing from Hatred's gaze.

Then Hatred arrived.

Stone shattered, snow shot upwards towards the sky, and a terrible sound reached their ears. It was like a scream, a roar, like a rock being crushed. The snow cleared, and what lay behind it was unveiled to them. Some few among the tribe stepped back, but none ran.

What stood before them, pulling its jagged, jet black skeleton from the mountain's flesh, was indeed a horror to behold. It stood on four painfully thin limbs, its body devoid of any true meat. Instead, it possessed numerous stringy sinews that blew in the harsh mountain wind. Blood dripped from it and froze in the air before boiling away into steam from the incredible heat it expelled with every breath. Its head was like the skull of some long-abused creature that had long ago been slain and buried. It had long curving horns with spines that zigzagged every which way as they swept back from its skull as if they sought to cut away at the very air around it.

It stood atop not two or four limbs, but six, each ending in thin digits possessed each with eight talons. Spikes and frayed frills protruded from its spine, and though there was little-to-no flesh elsewhere, something grotesque protruded from its midsection, like a distended stomach or the overripe belly of a woman soon to give birth. Behind it whipped and twitched a sinuous tail that seemed composed of intertwined bones that wove and jutted out at strange unnatural angles. This creature prowled several meters off, knowing somehow that there was a difference in these beings, sensing the Power sleeping therein.

It snarled and snapped at the air, then it reared up, frills flaring out, spines bristling, and roared a thunderous melody, its voice rife with maladies unending.

"Run, chattel; Flee or fight! I will subsume you all the same!"

Then it lunged at Lia, who had stepped away from the others, terror in her eyes. The wind howled, the earth shook, her muscles grew taut as the beast hurtled through the air like a black flash of hateful lightning.

Ka-Vhalen met its charge, his body a blurring burst of movement as he pushed from the earth and slammed a fist of coiled Power into the beast, sending it careening off its course. Other members of the tribe stepped forwards, calling out. Some cheered.

Vhalen landed between his Lia and the vile beast, which reared up again and shrieked, its voice cutting at their nerves.

Lia's every breath was ragged, but she grew steadier by the moment, and before long, she took a step forward. Ka-Vhalan looked at her, and she nodded, then both smiled and joined hands. Meae simply watched as a gale stirred at the feet of the pair.

Sensing the disturbance, the beast's gaze turned to a glare, the churning orange of their unearthly glow somehow diminishing even the happiness in their hearts. Vhalen and Lia faltered as it touched upon their minds.

At this, Meae spoke.

"Stand firm."

So they did, steel creeping into their eyes as they fought against the monster's insidious psychic snare. The world began to warp and flicker in the space between their gazes; the snow melted and froze, the wind whipped about then died. Snow trembled at their feet, freezing in strange patterns even as some of it melted and flowed as water across the stone and dirt. A red haze crept across the pair's vision, and black overtook the natural hues of their eyes. The beast took a step towards them, then another.

Once more, the wind howled and whined, but now the tribe knew it for what it was: The laughter of the beast.

That knowledge was all it took to shatter the illusion. The pair needed their help, so they ran.

Yet none fled, for each and every one charged the beast, crossing the distance in mere moments. It roared, but the sound cut off as fists and blasts of Power beat upon its form, driving it back. It snarled in disgust, lashing out with tooth and claw and tail, but they fought on.

Unbidden, a voice pressed upon its mind. 'Too late,' it said, and there was a smile in the sound. For a blessed moment, despite all the horrors it had wrought in its long existence, it felt at peace. Then hunger and pain tore through it, body and mind, and its form surged with a terrible blazing black. The flames scorched the earth and took several tribesmen by surprise, searing them to ash.

It roared, and the sound scattered clouds. It shrieked, and eardrums ruptured. It growled, and hearts stuttered in their rhythmic dance.

Only then did Meae move.

One step was all he took, but in that movement, there was a quiet ancient grace. As he shifted the position of his arms, opening his mouth, the world held still. In an exhaled breath, his voice blossomed outwards in a wordless song of pent-up righteous fury. It was the sound of one once deprived of beauty, a man who had persevered despite it, who had preserved others at the cost of himself. It harmonized with the heartsong of the hateful beast, but not for long.

Erupting into a rising note, the sound tore away at Hatred's flesh; it rent his spirit, it flayed his sinew and burned his mind. Black and silver bone was shaved away, flames of pitch were doused, and strength fled his every limb. He fell, collapsing to the earth as if a colossal weight had struck it down from far above.

The song stopped, replaced only by the soft crunching of snow beneath one man's feet. Hatred looked up with the last of its strength, its eyes only faintly burning. There it glimpsed the 'Caster's solemn smile.

"I forgive you," the man said, and those words they slew the beast.

In a blinding flash, its entire body decayed away to smoke and mist. What was left behind was but a vestige of the thing. Its orange gaze fell upon Meae before it too was turned to pure quintessence.

A long silence descended as the tribe looked then upon the bones of their ancient foe. It was naught but ash now, blown swiftly away by the wind. The beasts were no more remarkable than men, it seemed, just as fallible, just as flawed, and mortal in their way. Strangely, despite their victory, not one of them felt the need to celebrate or cheer. For, despite their age-old rivalry, those men--in that moment--had discovered an unexpected kinship. So, rather than joy, they felt only a displaced and disconcerting sadness.

Still, they had only a moment before Meae turned and continued on. As before, they followed, but now in utter silence, reflecting on that moment.

After all, without their notice...everything had changed.

Koine walked in an outward spiral from the place that would be the Loong's town, filling the area with plenty of tall grass and trees. While it was enough to get started, a civilization needed more than greenery to survive. It needed something for them to live off of. A few herds of cows and pigs would do nicely, providing a source of food for the primarily carnivorous Loong. A few birds and rodents here and there would help fill up the land as well. Other miscellaneous that Koine could think of were added too, provided they aided in providing a balanced ecosystem. It would do for now, but something was missing.

Koine then snapped her fingers, thinking that ways to obtain certain profitable goods were also necessary for the far future. Firstly, a few specific trees were needed. Koine continued her path around the land, setting up several mulberry trees with narrow light-green leaves while adding silkworms into each tree, which would feed on the leaves and propagate to the other specially-provided trees. Hopefully that would be enough to get the ball rolling when the Loong eventually discover them. The land would also need a body of water, and remembered seeing a river in the distance. Making her way over to it, Koine began to create a thin but strong stream for the water to travel, intending to use only enough water for the Loong's land and not ruin the river in the process. Koine had the stream extend far, heading near the center of the land while also having a few branches extend towards other parts, then dug out the land to form beds for the water to form ponds and lakes.

With that, Koine believed her work in terraforming the land was done and was going to head back to check on the Loong, when something caught her attention in a nearby mulberry tree. A large spider, as big as a dog, had caught a couple of the silkworms, wrapped in silk, and was climbing down the tree to run off into a cave in the nearby mountain range. Koine had heard of spiders that hunted for food rather than creating webs to lie in wait, but this was rather bizarre. Curious, she followed the spider into the cave, where it extended into a system of tunnels with plenty of silk and cobwebs lining them. Having been formed from the earth, Koine felt no discomfort from the new environment and continued on, wondering where the spider was going with its bounty.

It didn't take long to find the answer as it entered a large cavern covered in silk. She found herself mesmerized as she came face to face with an absurdly large spider, with dozens of smaller spiders and eggs surrounding it. Koine realized now that the spider she had seen was actually the giant spider's spiderling and had been hunting for its mother. The spiders, of course, were also aware of Koine's intrusion into their lair, and they turned towards her with a variety of reactions, mostly those involving hunger upon seeing their assumed prey and anger at Koine's intrusion. Food! Hunt! Wrap! were expressed among other monosyllabic words as the spiders lunged at Koine, fangs bared and eager to feed.

Koine waved her hand and shouted, "STOP!" Her godly aura leaked out as she shouted her command. The spiders, paralyzed, soon realized that what had appeared was not prey, but something greater. They did not understand exactly what, for their brains were too primitive, but they knew when something was to be feared, and so they remained still, fearful of Koine's next actions. Only the giant spider managed to keep her cool, and slowly approached Koine. "What... are... you?" the spider asked, speaking slowly. "You... are... not... prey."

"No, I'm not." Koine replied, smiling. "My name is Koine. To put it in simple terms, I am a goddess."

"A... god...dess?" the spider asked. She wasn't quite aware of what a "goddess" was, but it was no doubt something big, bigger than her. "Why... are... you... here?"

"Again, to put it as simply as I can, a business proposition," Koine answered. "Your silk is lovely, and I know some creatures outside who could find several uses for it. That makes you spiders worth investing into. Spread my message to the rest of your kind. Produce silk for the Loong, and keep good relations with them. In return, I can guide you to a path outside this cave, to a place where you can feast on enough food to keep you and your entire brood satisfied."

The spider did not even hesitate on her answer. "Silk... for... food... is... good. I... accept."

Koine gave the spider a satisfied smile. "Excellent choice," Koine said. "As a extra reward, let me give you another path of evolution for your species to follow." Koine proceeded to snap her fingers, transferring a small amount of energy into the spider's body. The spider soon began to feel that its exoskeleton was a little tight. It was a sign that she was going through a molt, but this one felt different. It was tighter than usual, and there seemed to be parts of her body that she couldn't move very well anymore. She felt trapped in her own body, and she wanted to be free. When her exoskeleton finally broke apart, she slowly peeled it away. Her body felt soft, as it always did after a molt, but there seemed to be something extra. She still had a spider body, perhaps a little smaller than before, but there was now a human-shaped body from the torso up attached to her, right between the abdomen and cephalothorax.

The spider looked down from her human head to her hands, then turned around to look at the rest of its body. This was unlike anything she had ever experienced. Looking back at Koine, she asked, "What did you do?"

"Oh, just a little something to speed up your agreement with me," Koine answered. "It's a little soon to actually be providing any silk, though. For now, just spread your species as the Arachne, and go beyond this cave. That is your mission."

"It will be done, Goddess Koine," the spider turned Arachne said.

"Pleasure doing business with you," Koine said.

"Pleasure... doing... busy... ness," the spider replied, unfamiliar with the new words.

Then Koine turned away and walked out of the cavern, making her way back into the outside world. Taking a look around outside the cave, Koine figured the area could use just a little more terraforming. She began to add plenty more trees, most of which had needle leaves but also have mulberry mixed in. The area soon became a dark forest, with plenty of shadow and trees. It would be a bit more welcoming to the upcoming Arachne than the rather open and sunny area from before. Koine thought the land was coming along nicely, and wondered what the future had in store for her and the new inhabitants of the world.

The False Moon

Fear, that sweet, delicious, emotion. Flesh of mortals made sweet by its touch, a bountiful music to the goddess’ ears. A delicious feast that could fill her gullet with its delectable taste. Yet, the world was healing, the terror and fear brought on by that great chaos had begun to die down, it wasn’t a lot, and it was slow, but Alzria could still feel it within her. This would not do, the mortals needed to feel that fear in their hearts, that unending terror that keeps them awake and plagued by nightmares, a perfect feast for Alzria and her cohorts. As such, she needed to create something to counter this loss, and as she gazed around high in her mountain home, she got an idea.

High above the surface, Alzria could see that strange moon flying over head, her nature as a goddess allowing her to see the magic flowing into it. Seeing the object pass its orbit above the world formed an idea in the back of Alzria’s mind, why not create her own moon? Something that could sit within the sky, a reminder of fear and nightmares, or better yet, one that those mortals would never be certain where it would be, yes, that would work.

She unfurled her wings, the broken bones creaking and cracking as they formed into shape. And with the sound of rushing air below, she rocketed up into the air, high above the broken shard of the world, beyond the remnant sky and the disk of light, she entered into that empty void. It was quite serene in a way, just vastness all around, pure and utter blackness. But, she could not just sit and rest here, she had work to do.

She went further, beyond the immediate void, towards the great belt of asteroids beyond, these would be perfect specimens. Landing upon a cluster of them, she began her work, fusing together the space rocks together into a round rocky orb about slightly bigger than the already existing moon. This would be the perfect host for her plan.

She slammed her foot upon the moon, a small crack forming upon the surface, from it emerged countless flesh-like vines, rapidly crawling across the surface of the rock. Wherever they touched, the rock transformed into a strange fleshy mass, which only grew throughout the entire moon. Within the craters, the vines took root and from them grew growths of flesh and bone, twisted knots, beating thumps, and rotting bone. From the flesh came a purple glow, giving the moon its own light within the sky.

With the form down, She just needed the effects. A moon of flesh, plant, and bone was good and all, but it needed more. She filled the host with her power, within its light, her children, the Nightmares and Monsters of the world, would gain strength and those who would worship her could call upon more power to bring about fear and terror. Of course, those delicious mortals could not just look up and see her lovely work, she would disguise it, to just look like a normal moon, and to many others it would remain as such, but, to those who starred upon the moon and let fear overtake them, they would get to see the true form of their moon, oh how beautiful that will be, when their minds shatter and break, such delicious minds they will be. Lastly, she would not give it some normal orbit, no, that would be no fun, instead, why not just have it randomly appear at points in the sky? Yes, now that would be fun.

With her work done, she sent the moon towards the shard with a snap of her fingers, vanishing in an instant, teleporting towards the shard to take up its first position within the sky. Content in the knowledge there was more to keep fear within the hearts of mortals, Alzria flew back towards the shard and her home of the sanctuary.

---

Upon arriving back, Alzria came upon the Azrath leader: Valix, leading some of his people in constructing a few buildings nearby the sanctuary’s mountain. He looked upwards to see Alzria descend and waved up towards her.

”Ah! Alzria! A pleasure to see you again!”

The goddess slowly descended, coming to a soft stop upon the valley floor. ”And it is a pleasure to see you again Valix, I see you and you people are building something.”

He nodded ”Why yes, just a few basic living quarters for the time being, sleeping next to the residents of the Sanctuary can be tough.”

”Oh really?” she cooed, coming close to the skeletal leader, ”I'm sure not all of its residents are that bad.”

”Hmmm” he mused, staring off towards his workers before turning back to Alzria ”I suppose not all of them are bad.”

Alzria nodded ”Good answer,” she began to turn to leave, before adding one last comment, ”I'm sure you won’t mind staying inside just a bit longer.” she unfurled her wings and took off towards the sanctuary. Valix turned, just in time to see his workers knocked off their feet by the force of the blast, sendings stones and wood tumbling. He sighed and shook his head, though, she was right, a few more nights wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

---

The land. The seasons. The cycles, all so broken or absent or incomplete. It tore at her ever so, eternally crying to her for relief. It was night maddening all the same, no matter what work she'd done with the technical and lovely I'Iro, no matter that she'd made her embassy upon Mount Divinus, no matter the help Algrim had been and his kind face, and no matter the myriad times she'd gone back to teach the mortals thus far and continued to educate them and give them guidance. Pain. Continuing pain rippled ever throughout her mind and wracked her body more and more so the longer things went unchecked and unfixed, and there had to be something to do. Her paradise offered only so much solace to somewhat reduce the pains for a moment, a minute place of balance that brought her some relief but far from enough.

"Oh goddess, your visage is most auspicious to this day!"

"Oh blessed Arira, thine countenance is as a lovely morning beam or gentle breeze"

"Oh great one, let thine eyes watch upon our children, that they may grow hearty and strong in thine sight!"

Even the humans showered her with praises, and before them and so many others she kept up her smiling face. Before them she maintained that lovely visage of a goddess, serene and yet more than potent nonetheless. Already it seemed the goods of her paradise were having some effect, with the children that were being born being more vibrant and lovely than the generation prior by some amount. Yes. In due time these humans would be reshaped simply by the intake of the fruit of her divinely-appointed land. It would be some generations yet, but even so it was something significant in her eyes. A fruit of hope to come.

...Yet the pain. The pain she bore was great still, despite it all. But there was something she had realized could be done. Something great, yet which would make her burden easier. If her paradise was a framework for what stable cycles and so forth were, then a greater expanse, lesser much so than her divine paradise, would provide a framework as the cycles of the world were stabilized. A zone that could serve as a general blueprint, a pillar, even a marker to work from and base things on in some respect or another.

A land that bore the fruits of stability, from which she could work to stretch those fruits of stable cycles to the rest of the world. Yes! It was a brilliant idea, though she wished the Goddess of Dreams had been here to discuss it with at this time. Alas. It made her heart pang...or perhaps she was inheriting her parent's dramatic anecdotes. Considering how Chakravarti was, they had perhaps made many another deity bonded to them with closer ties...or had annoyed them into submission with all the subtlety of a thirsty, giant, rampaging beast blitzing toward the nearest pool of water to get a life-sustaining drink.

Even so, it would take much for her to make this work. Other deities had laid certain groundworks, and now she would borrow some of that with her power to make this region right. Whatever races were upon the land would be ministered to by her grace in the days and weeks and such thereafter, organizing them in a general sense so they could live better lives. Of course conflict and so forth was inevitable at some point, but an initial peace from which to build and grow and find rest was at least a start to bettering this shard of creation that floated about the void. It had to be.

So it was that the goddess Arira departed her paradise, her promise to return eventually the same as ever, but this day her mission was something greater than she'd done before this point.

She rose above the land far and wide, moving southeast from her paradise and the great mountains that entirely hid it round-about. Wind whipped past as she flew, propelled by the might of divinity only some ways before she stood high and far above in the air. And yet...

...Below her the land far, far below was charred by apocalypse. Destruction wrought, instability ever-present, demons ever-wandering, the skies ever-tumultuous and inmabalnced, and races that for all she knew would be changed by the power that would soon enter this area. It made her slightly grimace in sorrow at it all, even wince as her pains flared up once more with vigor, though soon she began to take deep breaths. In and out. In and out.

Gently the goddess raised her arms with open palms facing upward, her eyes remaining closed as she envisioned and focused her energies and power outward. The minute seeds of what she'd laid some time ago, right after her birth, began to respond to her touch and in spirit reached out for her like an infant to its parent. Then the apocalyptic chaos seemed to begin to slow, as even demons looked up upon her with raised eyes and roars and so forth.

Her hands began to tremble slightly, as if a great weight was being placed upon her more so, her own aches and the groaning of the world wearing on her far more as she built up greater and greater energies to exert, pushing herself more and more and more as she prepared an almighty action that would take root upon this world.

"...L-Little brother, I dearly hope you can bear witness to this."

The fair-skinned goddess whispered under her breath, almost akin to a mortal's prayer, and yet right after her eyes would shoot open once more. Her teeth would grit, her brows would furrow greatly, and swiftly she turned her palms down and swung her arms down as she dropped her great power upon the landscape below. As she did so, she did so with a thunderous cry that would shake the skies, one that would reverberate and echo throughout the skies of the rest of the world like a mighty thunderclap or a lion's great roar!

And so from her being would drop a great, shining ball of light. It was the most blazing and bright white light, incandescent and ethereal, radiant yet utterly blinding in its sheer divine luminescence. It dropped down slow at first, and yet accelerated quickly to become like a great meteor....no. It was a brilliant fallen star from the highest of the heavens had fallen from the skies, shooting faster and faster down toward the devastated section of world far below. It was a sight like none other.

By the time it reached the ground the great ball of light crashed with an almighty force beyond any mortal comprehension, erupting into a supervolcanic-scale pillar of light that eclipsed the lights of the void and beyond! It too began to rapidly spread in all directions from its point of impact, spreading out like the water of a shattered dam as it roared like a wall of thunder down and outward onto all else about it.

The region itself trembled and shook in awe, all as the effect spread faster than most eyes could perceive, and any divinity worth their salt would be able to feel the ripples of divine power as it rapidly consumed the land and sky.

...And yet in the blink of an eye, one which seemed to all within like an eternity in the span of a moment, it was done.

Vast plains rustled as their rugged wild grasses and golden wild wheats rippled like an ocean before a gentle breeze. Were one to look from a high enough point, it would all seem to stretch out almost forever.

Great and verdant forests of various sorts and heights and kinds stretched out upon the landscape, all brimming with the sound of songbirds or otherwise bustling with the calls and sounds of new life running about.

Hills rose and fell with deep greens and lovely hues upon them, rolling about without a care upon this particular area of landscape covered more so in Cordgrass. Even the hardy Cardinal Bushes had found places to take root on a rare few of these hills, and even upon a few places about the rocky crags within the lower areas of the mountains surrounding the Ariran Paradise (among other bushes and hardy things in the mountains).

Along the ocean coasts there were sprawling beaches, covered in innumerable sands that seemed to gently accept the ebb and flow of the ocean tide. Small crustaceans skittered about upon them, whilst small saltwater fishes fed in rare rock-sheltered shallows and pools near the rejuvenated shores. Even seaside cliffs where the land had risen higher, and the salty smell of the sea breeze seemed to only compliment the tropical trees and fruits and nuts that grew on and close to these beaches.

And so the region about the Ariran Paradise has become something far more, far more than the few residents it had left could have imagined in their wildest dreams. Life was vibrant, and stability was asserted there in a way the rest of the world had yet to see. It was a miracle among miracles, though whilst its plenty and so forth was great it paled in comparison to the far smaller paradise its saving goddess has already built.

If one went high up enough in the atmosphere, if one went far enough away by land, and so forth, the apocalypse that gripped the rest of the world in some fashion or another was very much still present. The land in this region had been saved, but...it was far from a stable and saved world overall.

But even so it stood, stood proudly as an example of what was feasibly possible to be for the rest of this shard of creation. In other words, not only rebirth...but also:

Hope.

High upon the hills of the north eastern coast the blackened shell of the God of Mortals glowered, deep red pits for eyes baleful in their intensity. The nearly skeletal, semi-metallic body of the destroyer looked every part an apocalyptic nightmare, a perfect mirror of the ruined world around him. Though fields of cordgrass and copses of cardinal bushes sprung up across the highlands that stretched down towards the void, it was a blasted place and the horrendous red aura that seeped from him only worsened the image. Battle damage was visible across his frame, scoring and scarring in equal measure cutting deep shallows in his metallic hide. Fresh from his battle with Ahtziri, it could hardly be helped. Once again spared the chaining presence of others, however, Lonn was trapped with his brooding.

His conflict with Ahtziri had been a deeply displeasing one, a setback in his previously laid out plans. Until his untimely meeting with the goddess Lonn had consistently met friendly faces, easily prone to camaraderie with one of their own. Never had he thought another individual could so utterly push his buttons and with hindsight he realized he shouldn’t be surprised in the slightest. Ahtziri was the Goddess of Monsters, afterall, his abject opposite. She represented a rejection of everything that he admired and praised mortals for, embracing an entirely oppositional position for life. As he mulled over the event in his mind he couldn’t help but both pity Ahtziri and disdain himself; surely someone of his caliber should have succeeded in defusing that situation, in gaining advantage through cunning alone.

”Animal…” grunted Lonn as he lowered his chin into his palm, elbow supported on one thigh. It was clear that, despite his momentary disdain for Ahtziri, he secretly knew the failure sat squarely on his shoulders.

His red gaze flashed across the landscape once more, a moment of respite from his internal monologue. Deep below him, horizons away if it weren’t for the hilly landscape, Lonn could see fires burning. A tinny sigh escaped his mouth, smoke hissing from behind his perfect teeth; fires of men, at least. He admitted to himself regularly that he had enjoyed the depths of the apocalypse, watching as mankind struggled, but by now all that had become incredibly blasse. This simple act of human ingenuity, the conquest of fire, proved to be far more heartwarming. His perpetual grin plastered across skeletal features suddenly seemed all the more genuine as he observed their workings, recognizing the humans as among those he had helped save. They had been busy reestablishing some semblance of normalcy for themselves and Lonn admired them all the more for it. A snide remark passed through his mind though his shoulders drooped as he realized he had no one to tell it to and even less reason to tell it.

”I don’t see your vermin spawn doing that, sow…” spit Lonn quietly to himself, though the moment he said it the words felt entirely empty. Lonn sighed again, disappointed in himself, before standing and shaking off the dead earth from his body.

A flash of anger passed through his mind as he scolded himself; this sort of obsessive behavior was beneath him, though he admitted again that it was thoroughly mortal of him to do so. Regardless, the beast had been soundly defeated and sent on her way. He had been the victor, not her; reminding himself of the disdain she provoked in him only made things worse. Hells below, he had even shown mercy in a way only mortals could! His eyes again danced back to the small columns of smoke rising from mortal fires and Lonn returned to feeling some semblance of excitement. Rebuilding was a uniquely mortal concept, something only an animal so dedicated to hope despite insurmountable odds could truly understand. His dark metallic, skeletal hands ran across his personnage one piece at a time, restoring flesh, blood, and bone in place of otherworldly metal. As meat and muscle reknit Lonn grinned, picking and choosing each new feature with the glee of an unleashed and unbridled artist. He would have darker skin this time, broader features, and sharper lines. Dark brown eyes in this go around, rather than the previous bronze, and with dark black hair. His hands flourished in the creation of a thick and bristly beard, before twisting out a bushy moustache that curled upwards at the ends. He gave himself a well muscled body, though more one of constant labor rather than specific effort, and made himself a tad taller, though nothing garrish. In honor of his recent battle he left pockmarks and scars across his newly birthed flesh, marking each place where Ahtziri had damaged him. Fitting trophies, he thought, pleased with his handiwork. At last he spawned a set of clothes, again spartan in their quality; it wouldn’t do to gather too much attention, after all.

The now partially bedraggled god began descending the mountainside, once more working dirt and dust into his feet and nails in that oh so pleasant way that reminded him of what men must feel. As he closed the distance one hop and skip at a time his eyes never wavered from his quarry, not entirely sure what he would do with the men but seeking adequate distraction from his previous doldrums. He watched with avid interest as they collected up meagre supplies, storing them in baskets they had pilfered or perhaps made their own. They had armed themselves with the equipment of their previous tormentors, another grand sign of mortal ingenuity, but Lonn quickly noticed something peculiar. Many of the weapons had been turned over, bent out of shape, and even broken apart.

What could possibly have driven them to do such a thing?

Lonn raised one thick, black eyebrow in curiosity, absolutely fascinated by this affair. Though he didn’t dare stop in his walk, far too worried to return to darker thoughts, he couldn’t help but be enthralled by their actions. They had torn at the cordgrass around them and made mounds for themselves, evidently planting the very cardinal fruits he had propagated for them to grow. His mind rapidly devoured the wondrous display of mortal dedication before realizing what they had done.

Swords to plowshares, Lonn mused in the depths of his mind. Ursare and his comrades, assuming Ursare yet lived, had taken many of the weapons and turned them into appropriate tools for tilling the soil and removing cordgrass from fields. Such clever things, mortals were.

No longer able to contain his excitement, Lonn exploded into light that danced across the sky. The crack of thunder and a brief flash was the only thing that heralded Lonn’s arrival behind a nearby hill, nothing particularly noteworthy in such dark times. In the distance the Red Pillar glowed menacingly, a beautiful piece of handiwork by the diminutive God of Stone and the God of Mortals. The megalith thrummed with a sense of barely contained energy and with that Lonn knew it was still doing its work. Content with the awareness that his works were not undone, Lonn crested the hill and descended towards the settlement.

”A fine morning, friends, for field work,” called Lonn, raising his hand high in a benevolent wave, while several of the workers jumped and drew weapons. Lonn flashed his horrendously perfect smile as he came to a halt, holding up both hands calmly.

”Don’t fret, brothers,” intoned Lonn, voice carrying a little farther than was probably natural for a man, and he could see there was an instant sense of uneasiness born of that awareness in the men. Weapons lowered as Lonn once again showed his empty hands, wiggling them a little in a friendly manner, ”Nothing to fear from me, I assure you. I am a friend, trust me.”

A flash of red from his eyes and the men completely surrendered to his presence, each coming to their own conclusions about the identity of the newcomer. Though clearly shrinking before the one who had aided in their freedom, they did their best to remain upright. Soon the small crowd had collected, assorted tools in hand, and watched as Lonn closed the distance. He could see in their eyes that their inkling of awareness had transformed into something greater still and there was no more risk of them making an attempt at him than there was a risk of him losing if they did so.

”I see you have done wonderful work.”

One of the men, evidently with more lightning in him than the rest, stepped partially forward and thumped his tool’s head into the ground. Scars could be seen criss-crossing his features and making all manner of interesting shapes on his hide. His back, though Lonn couldn’t see it directly, held a frankly unreasonable amount of lash marks that clinged to his sides and shoulders like the claws of some deeply possessive creature. He looked worn and weary but regardless, there was defiance in his eyes that nearly made Lonn chortle with glee. [i]Nearly.[i]

“Welcome, erh… traveller,” came the man’s response, looking Lonn dead in the eyes with surprising dedication, “We don’t see too many, though the world is changing… just usually its us finding you folk, not the other way around…”

Lonn grinned, his bushy mustache bouncing in the light breeze, as he saw the man’s lie for what it was. He was good at hiding his recognition, that much was certain. The God of Mortals felt a flash of pride, like it was some of him rubbing off on them. He knew, of course, that it was entirely the other way around.

”Oh, yes, well; your smoke made for easy finding. Oh, and the great stone there… that’s certainly a factor.” Lonn pointed with an outstretched finger at the Pillar in the distance, its huge and multi-faceted surface glowing a dull crimson. It was up the mountainside a little but it was unmistakable adjacent to the settlement, admittedly because Lonn had done so intentionally. He was, after all, quite the romantic. ”Never seen anything like it.”

The crowd of gathered settlers looked over at the stone, even the great distance struggling to hide its prodigious vastness. There was a collective nod as they lowered their heads, evidently in reverence. The action surprised Lonn, the Red God nearly sneering. He had never known humans to do a thing like that. The quizical sneer morphed rapidly into a legitimately curious lean as he angled to get closer to them just as they looked up again.

”So, you know what it is…”

“Well, not in so many words,” mumbled one of the men, clearly humbled, “But we know it stopped the quakes… And we saw them who made it… unlike anything we’d ever seen before. ‘Cept…” The man was stopped by a sharp look from the previous, as if there was a general understanding not to let on their knowledge. It was frankly fascinating.

Lonn turned his attention from the Pillar and back to the settlement, noting a number of structures now dotted the outside of the underground complex. They had been busy, that much was clear, and by the looks of it their numbers had grown. The larger man had noted earlier, as well, that they often found others. Lonn flashed a deadly grin as he considered EXACTLY what that meant but realized, with a surprisingly sudden epiphany, that if they had been murdering them for their things they wouldn’t have turned their weapons into tools. His memory scorched itself into life as he remembered each and every face he set free, suddenly realizing that a large portion of those here were not among them. In fact, many didn’t even look alike in color nor complexion. His eyebrow raised as the pieces fit together.

”You’ve been saving people…” Lonn purred, eyes looking away from the collection of settlers.

There was an audible gulp that came from one or perhaps more of the group. Tenseness fell on them and their little charade to pretend they didn’t know what he was fell through if only slightly. He appreciated their attempt, regardless, but it was beginning to stand in the way of his curiosity. Lonn wheeled on them, suddenly appearing very, very interested.

”Where is Ursare?”

“I am surprised you have heard of him,” said the man with the steely eyes and stoic stance, doing his best to maintain his composure, “but I suppose a man who wanders must have. He is out with a band, collecting supplies and rescuing more of our brothers and sisters. He hasn’t let a single band go without him. He’s got lightning in him like no other.”

”Lightning, eh?” murmured Lonn, clearly curious enough to kill with a glance, eyes now locked intently on the man, ”Sounds like quite the hero… I had heard he saved himself and his people but, not that he was so vigorous finding more of you…”

A moment of silence passed as they looked amongst each other, Lonn experiencing an oddling flash of thought as he considered how pitifully apelike they looked in their little mob. It amused him, though not as much as it fascinated him. How they clung to each other for safety, for a sense of security, but look how much it had already given to them? Though he admired men for acting on their own, for ferocity and power, this was something else. No, not pitiable. No, this was strength. This is what he had missed, with his birth so late in the stages of the apocalypse. It was this craving to be beside one another that let them build so high in the first place.

Suddenly, Lonn was all over this.

”What do you call this place,” cooed Lonn, teeth flashing his terrifying flawless smile, ”It deserves a mighty name indeed.”

“Call it?” came one, followed by another several, “Home.”

”Home, hah, now that is rich,” retorted the Man-God as he rose, almost seeming to stretch to greater heights before them, ”But we can do one better. Ursaru is fitting, don’t you think?”

The men nodded, heads bobbing in dumbfounded agreement. By then Lonn was no longer hiding in plain sight, even if they had already seen through his frankly ill-conceived ruse. His smile was plainly recognizable for those who had heard Ursare’s stories, as he was sure they had, and now he aimed to lean into it a bit more.

”Fret not, pals, cause you got friends in high places. The world’s changing and for the better, let me tell you. You boys have absolutely inspired me, though, and hooo boy, what a rush. I promise each of you here that your sons and their sons are gonna do great things. You just keep up the course you’re on and your descendants wont have to worry for a thing.”

Lonn, having dispensed with pretending to be a mortal, now glowed a baleful red that echoed off through the ground beneath him. The men now had stepped back, clearly cowed by the display, except for the stoic. He stood where he planted his tool and Lonn was fucking proud of him. Lonn opened a hand and with a flash of light a lightning blade ripped its way into reality, carmine and ferocious in its image. Drawing the weapon across his other open palm, he ripped open a cut in his false flesh that went deeper still into the truer form beneath. Liquid that shone as the platonic state of red poured outward in great gushes, straight into the farm, and then outward. The once dusty, barren brown dirty changed in color beneath their feet, staining til it was a rich umber red. From that central point the soil changed in all directions, growing outward rapidly. As Lonn’s wound healed before his eyes and the blade flashed out of existence, Lonn turned only briefly to the men.

”Give my greetings to Ursare for me,” he chortled, ferocious grin dripping with uncontained ambition with a hint of gleeful malice, ”And tell him I named the City after him; he’s too humble to let any of you do it.”

In a thundering crash the god exploded into energy, a lightning bolt that went backwards into the sky. The men were left astonished and stunned, even the previous stoic suddenly dropped to his knees when finally free of the God’s presence. Several went to assist him, the man reasonably allowing them to help him up. They looked to their surroundings, the greenery of the cordgrass stretched across a newly red earth, before looking back to their own plot of farm. Their cardinals grew with alien rapidity, whole bushels bursting from the ground.

“What do you we do, Baleriu?” said the quiet man, addressing the stoic who had stood straight before a god.

“You heard the bloody God,” Baleriu said with a grimace, a mix of honest thanks and great worry splashed on his face, “We stay the course… and tell Ursare his ‘City’ has a name now…”



The lightning bolt that was Lonn came crashing down on next the pillar, revealing his false flesh once more. The edges of his beard and hair were alight, smoldering brightly in a manner that made him look all the more unhinged. Glowing red, sparking eyes flashed brightly as he stared at the pillar with some excitement. When he had first assembled it with Algrim he had left a portion of his power in it undirected, to be used on some later date when a more entertaining plan came about. Their combined handiwork had done an excellent job stabilizing the region but now there was more to be done. Lifting his hand to the surface of the Red Pillar, Lonn sliced himself along the long facet of its form. Blood mixed into the stone, pouring inside of it like a sponge.

”Hahaha, oh boy. Now this is the beginning of something real groovy.”

---

When the Coilbrywen arrived in this world, they quickly noticed their group was too big to be sustained by the deadlands under the eternal night. While their supplies from the dimension they previously inhabited would help for some time, soon they would need to scavenge for food, and as such it was decided that they would split up in three bands of numbers more fit to survive of the little the wastelands could provide.

Realta the Lucky’s group so far hadn’t had, quite ironically, a lot of luck. At least it seemed the world was slowly becoming more fit for them to live with a day-night cycle and gente rains, but the lack of forests was disencouraging. They did find a swamp, but it just wasn’t the type of land fit for them, while their hooves-like feet were good for hills and forests, in the mud they were too short and immobile to be useful, so the group merely gathered what they could and continued their nomadic journey in search of good lands.

“But a thousand days have passed since!” said Brynn, finishing another chapter of her chronicle of the group’s adventure. Realta was not pleased at all with the smug tone. But what could she do? Brynn was one of the last who truly believed in her. The youngest Elder of the three bands they had formed, a young adult at the prime age of 50.

“Please add a note saying the days were moving really fast. Otherwise it's just unfair, it has been three days since we stopped here to gather water, and we just stopped.”

“If you double my rations I will'' Brynn joked. “Okay okay. Don’t get pouty.” as she finished adding the note to the paper, a far more grumpy Coilbrywen approached them, saying the jars had been enchanted, fixed and filled with water, it was time to continue their journey.

The young elder sighed, grabbing her things and setting off again. She took the lead which was typically left to the scouts, something she was before she became a leader. It was during that time that she got her surname, famously surviving encounters with forty six deadly creatures out of pure luck. They never realized that her propensity to almost becoming dinner was because she was really, really clumsy, and shy, shy enough she couldn’t turn them down when they made her leader.

“Yeesh.” Brynn shook her head. “That was a cold look back there, you better get that luck working Realta, or they will demote you for sure.”

“People need to stop thinking my luck is outright magic, I can’t just make it so a verdant field just shows up as soon as we are past these rocky hills. Though if they pick someone else as elder, fine, it's shameful but better than this. I think even having been lunch to one of those monsters would have been better than this.”

They continued their short trip, soon moving past the rocks that blocked their view of the horizon, as they skillfully climbed up a hill. When they caught a glimpse of the other side, they gasped in unison. It was a large, verdant field, further still they could see rolling hills, forests and a great lake with no human village in sight. It was paradise.

Brynn whistled and laughed. “Welp. You did it! Quite amazing. Now you are basically an elder for life.” the chronicle keeper laughed, the mood of the others had also immediately shifted, it was only Realta who was having mixed feelings over the prospect of at least one more century of leadership in her future.

The small furry humanoids quickly moved to the fields with newfound energy, setting up a small camp and starting to scout the area for things fit to transform and domesticate and places that could be good to settle.

---

Far away, deep into the woods and farther beyond even the rolling hills and smaller forests and such, a certain goddess was hovering over the treetops as she zoomed over it using divine power. It had been her first task, before anything else, to observe these lands after the rejuvenation of this region into something...and a short rest. The freshwater inland sea was something of note, and the rivers as well as one great lake to the north would provide plenty of water and space. The generic wildlife seemed to enjoy it, and the cordgrass and cardinal bushes seemed to work well where they had been specially placed. The trees were alive, birds sang, and all seemed to be well in order for the most part.

She would have to work on her people at the Paradise, as well as fill the land with things to thrive alongside them and make the region a real ‘home’ as it were.

...However, it seemed something or some-things had wandered in already! That much her divine senses could tell from afar. They didn’t seem to be from this Shard of Creation at the least, maybe a creation of another deity? No, they didn’t seem that either. Hmmm. Still, neither did they seem to be hostile or trying to tear up the place.

In that vein the goddess would take pause in the air, looking off in the direction of the interlopers, before letting out a sigh and zooming away in their direction.

---

The Coilbrywen had made a little clearing in the middle of the field where they were now sharing resources, discussing plans, and overall just enjoying that sweet, sweet feeling of hope the fields had given them. The golden age of carelessness however was quickly brought to an end as from their place in the small hill they could hear a loud noise, trees shaking and a whirlwind trail of leaves.

Realta stood still, looking up at the incoming creature in a passive stance, all others were either hiding behind her to use her as a human shield or scurrying off, hiding into burrows and fallen logs. The elder however knew that it was not worth running, that thing was clearly very powerful, likely divine, so she simply adjusted her blue hair and long furry ears to make herself more presentable to whatever was coming in the chance it wasn’t set on murdering them.

And indeed, the Coilbrywen would not have to wait long for whatever was approaching them to arrive. Descending down slowly upon them, after she stopped in the air over the correct spot, was another humanoid being. Her skin was impeccably fair, softer and smoother than silk and without blemish. Her hair was long and tan, or perhaps a very fair blonde, and even her grey-blue eyes seemed to shine with a beautiful countenance about her. Golden ornaments of beyond-mortal make clung to her body all around, and she was wearing a beautiful light blue gown. Even a crown of leaves and berries sat atop her head, as if to mark her as having authority of some kind, though her mouth seemed to be twisted into an inquisitive look.

As she landed on the ground before Realta, Arira took a distinct pause and gave a brief glance around the area before looking back at the elder before her. Then the moment of realization and reflection came.

“Ah. My sincerest apologies, little ones, I seem to hath frightened you a good bit with mine arrival indeed.” she said in a gentle and soft tone, before giving a very light yet humble bow, “I am Arira, Goddess of Cycles, and by mine power hath I seeded this land to stand as an example of what I pray the rest of the world whilst receive in due time.

Pray tell, however, what are you, and how did you come to be in this Shard of Creation?”

She’d just done the things the other gods had done to her people, but to these ones. Ironic.

Realta, while initially calm, soon started to become a bit more tense as the goddess started to speak. She was expecting a god but a polite one just meant she had to put an effort into what she had to say. She fiddled with her wooly poncho and her tail moved about nervously, almost in a wag. “Ah. You see… We are the uhm. Coilbrywen. We came here… by accident?”

Brynn, a short Coilbrywen with fluffy white hair, a pair of ram-like horns and olive skin, soon peeked from behind her friend and leader, and soon seeing the situation, advanced to also greet the goddess. “We who stand in front of you, oh graceful goddess, are the Coilbrywen. We were stuck in a world of wilderness for countless generations, our homeland lost even to our memory. Recently, however, a sister of yours, the goddess of storms, Paratiri, entered said realm and in that way she opened the path for us to come into this world of yours.” she bowed cordially to Arira, crossing one goat leg over the other

The young elder sighed in relief as her friend did a proper introduction. She took a long breath and calmed herself. “There are not many of us. Only my band and two more very far away, I am the leader of this group, Elder Realta the Lucky. I hope our presence here is not troublesome to you, oh uhm… awesome…? Goddess.” As she talked, the rest of the group left their hidey places, a band of small fluffy humanoids, many had furred limbs and bodies, some were mostly smooth skinned like humans, all of them had tails and long ears. They did not have much at the moment, a cart with jars of water that emanated an alien magical aura, a bit of food. Some wore rags while others even lacked clothes.

The goddess gave a nod as Brynn introduced herself, but even so listened intently to the two females as they explained their peoples’ situation. Arira even put a hand to her own chin, however, as her brows would soon furrow in deep thought after the two Coilbrywen spoke and the other emerged from their hiding. Yet soon she would let out a small sigh, lowering her hand to her side once more and gently smiling at Brynn and Realta.

“Your journey has been long and arduous indeed, little ones, though I must confess Paratiti and I have never had the chance to be acquainted. It seems, however, that she left you wanderers in a strange and devastated world by consequence of her actions.

Yet all has led to your arrival here, and such is a blessing indeed. Wherefore, fear me not oh Children of the Wandering Wood, Coilbrywen, for I have an offer to make to you if you all are willing.”

Soon the whispering and chitchat started behind the young elder and her loyal friend. Small voices talking about how this goddess was totally better than the last one they met, how she was so nice and pretty and not murderous, and that they should agree to whatever she asks, but Brynn soon stared at them and did a little gesture with her hand saying they should keep it down.

Realta took a moment looking up at the goddess, “The journey was long but we never lost hope, yet never even in my dreams had I hoped to stumble upon a land of such beauty. What is your proposal, goddess, we are small but willing to help anyone who shows us generosity.”

Arira simply smiled a little wider in return.

“Then I shall give thee mine blessing, a transformation that will shape thee into something familiar yet greater. Something similar to thine selves as thou art now, but which shall allow thee to yet greater prosper. I shall also take a few of thee after, a few to grow and prosper in mine own paradise. That is all I asketh of thee.

In return, thou wilt have reign to live upon this land and prosper for er’more. To have homes and places to build, to make mischief and peace, and so forth as thine seed shall do from this day hence.

But know this, that others shall be seeded here as well over time, and there wilt be other peoples who come to live here. Such are the ways of mortals. Not always shall there be peace, not always shall there be war. Not always a feast, yet naught always a famine.”

The goddess then spread her arms widely, as if to gesture out to all the Coilbrywen, “So...what sayest thee, oh Children of the Wandering Wood? Wilt thou make this pact with me, and be among those peoples that shall be mine children evermore?”

The proposal was quite radical, even though they were mesmerized with all they had seen so far, the Coilbrywen in general seemed to have many doubts. Brynn thought about saying something, but instead she just smiled at Realta, knowing their rightful leader would talk sense into the others. “It is understandable that there is doubt among you.” the young elder spoke. “But I have faith that Arira means well for us, I have few qualities but seeing the good in others is one of them. Also uh… if she wanted to kidnap us or do something evil she could just do that so yeah…?” the other Coilbrywen were forced to nod, their leader did speak with wisdom.

“Still, I will not force any of you to take this oath, it is not our way to force this upon others.” but as she looked back at her band, she saw that all of them were in agreement at this point. With a sincere smile, Realta turned back to Arira. “We, the Coilbrywen, Children of the Wandering Woods, will accept your generous offer, Arira.” the elder said politely.

Brynn laughed, wiggling in place as she became excited at this. “Transforming sounds so fun. Now that will be some good material to add to the chronicles.” she whispered in a more brattish tone, nothing like the polite one she used for the goddess.

Arira’s smile seemed to be beaming at this point, yet with a solemn nod she would gesture for the Coilbrywen to follow her. All the way she would lead them to the side of the great lake, into a patch of woods on the southwestern side of its banks. Here she would arrange them about her in semicircles, as a mother might arrange her children to tell an old story.

“Oh little ones, take this song I shall sing into your hearts. Pass it down to you children, and you children’s children. Let this song be sung in times of plenty, and to bring hope in times of great sorrow. Let it be sung to herald a new birth, and yet to see off a life whose cycle has ended.

Let this melody be the very song of your people, that by which you shall always know each other and remember where you came from. Let iit stir the memories in your blood of generations that will one day be long passed, that even your descendants shall give heed and respect to what once was.”



Then...Arira began to sing.

Her voice at first was soft, and yet as it moved on seemed to take on an enchanted tone as the words passed her sweet lips.

The tune was gentle to the ears, like the breeze that now began to blow, and though still as soft as the grass the Colibrywen sat upon.

Yet to the minds of those hearing it brought back, something began to stir to the front of their minds, like lingering things that had ever sat upon the edge of their minds but were returning in vivid detail. Emotions. Memories.

Songs their grandparents used to sing to them near the fire, which brought them comfort in dark times.

The smile of a long-lost friend or sibling who had perished, and the joy that leapt into their breast when playing with them.

Gentle lullabies their mothers would give them, easing the tired body and mind and soul as they drifted off into a sweet slumber.

The warm smile of a father showing them the world for the first time from the comfort of his arms, and the wonder of feeling the air upon their faces for the first time and seeing the brightness of the beautiful sun.

Such were the things that were stirred up within them, and more, but even as such went on they would notice more about them. Sparks of minute white light, and greens and reds and blues and so forth in time, began to appear above the water and flitter about the top of the lake immediately behind Arira. They seemed to dance upon the water with joy, to flit about without a care about the apocalypse that lied beyond those borders.

As these dainty sparks danced, so too the more things come.

Golden drops of light, like an aetherial liquid, began to appear float upward from the waters of the lake...even from the ground that the Coilbrywen sat upon and ground round about that.

More and more the goddess’ voice too seemed to echo about the air, as if the winds and trees and grasses and world were beginning to sing along with her. A warm feeling began to spread throughout the bodies of the people in turn, and if any paid attention their bodies would begin to glow with a faint but spreading silvery light.

Images of beautiful vistas and open plains, of forest untouched and seas uncharted would begin to flow into their minds as well, even more beautiful things that tugged at the heart like a musician to the strings of a harp. The good, the bad, the ugly. The suffering, the salvation. All of it seemed to bubble up all at once more, like a great chorus within each of them.

The silvery light too would spread over their bodies all, and the warmth would sink into the depths of their souls as it did so.

Yet...before one could blink, before any might realize, it would suddenly dissipate about each of them in a shower of celebratory but soft silvery sparks that would quickly vanish. Arira’s voice and the ringing out of the song would soften again to quiet. The sparks on the lake and golden light that floated up to the heavens would eventually fade and disappear. Even the emotions and memories too would return to where they once more.

...And so it was done. Though only after a moment of still, soft silence did the goddess speak up once more, a single tear rolling down one of her cheeks. .

“Rise...my children. First of my beautiful children made on this land, oh Children of the Feywoods, oh sweet...sweet Brynlic…” she said, even as a few more small tears began to roll down her cheeks, “Oh my...t-this is a most welcome warmness I feel within mine breast…a beautiful thing, though it brings me to tears...oh my children...”

The Brynlic were dazed for a moment, their minds still returning from the moment of memories and wonder they had just experienced, their reflexes adapting to the new aspects of their bodies. While there existed some Coilbrywen that were fully furred before, the shape the goddess had gifted for them was far more consistent, a full coat of dazzling beauty, fluffy and warm. They took a long moment marveling at it as they looked at their reflection upon the lake waters.

Brynn was the first one to look up, towards Arira, with a satisfied smile at her new puff cloud aesthetic. She saw the goddess crying in joy and decided to casually approach her, unlike any other of her band could. “Hey. This is pretty great. You are truly amazing… and I want to give you a thank you hug.” she extended her hands towards the goddess, simply ignoring the hierarchy like only a trickster brat could.

Arira would gently go down to her knees, only to accept the hug from Brynn wholeheartedly and silently. No talking, just a hug. A warm, fuzzy hug from what was now a magical fey folk...but also her children. She was simply so happy, however, that one question didn’t exactly come to mind yet…

...How would her parent react to this?!

---

Wyn drifted in the air above her lands, relaxed as any could be. With ankles crossed and hands behind her head, she basked in the sunlight again and felt the wind upon her being and all was good. The only pressing matter at hand was seeding more life for the world to become shapely and defined, as it should be underneath her gaze. Yet the Goddess was still feeling a tad bit tired, as those ugly humans had awoken her from her nap. Beauty needed its rest after all, but where would she go to continue it? Or perhaps the question was, should she continue it? With a long, drawn out sigh, Wyn snapped her eyes open and reorientated herself. The goddess looked around some, her eyes falling upon the distant sight of that pesky mountain where the water had come from.

Wasn’t Ze’kelia heading there? She touched the ring upon her finger, wondering if the other goddess had found the ones responsible for hitting her with a river. Perhaps she should go check out that mountain as well? It wasn’t like the humans she helped would multiply that quickly while she was away. Not that she really cared what they got up to. But what of the Crystalline Expanse? Could that wait? If she was capable of creating life in her own image, did that not mean others could do the same? The humans were an example of this. So what if… What if someone seeded life there that wasn’t to her liking?

Wyn thought upon this for a long while and came to a realization. It did not matter what came to live there, for she would alter them to her own image. She had a perfect plan incase that did happen, and who knows, maybe she could cry foul, make a fit, and get something more out of it. If the God or Gods in question were civilized, that was. She smiled, for either way, it would be taken care of. Wyn was beauty and beauty would always endure, even if it has to be forced.

So she flew off towards the mountain, wondering what she might find.

---

The journey was quite boring for Wyn. Nothing really happened and she watched landscapes go by, slowly changing to green as she neared the mount. Others were at work here, weren't they? She would have gotten closer to inspect the land down under but her goal was elsewhere. For the mountain before her was impressive. Larger than any she had seen yet and grander then any that would yet come. This she knew, for the sheer magnitude of it was astounding. Add in the majestic waterfalls splitting from the crown, and it was truly a sight to behold.

She neared the top, well above the clouds, where the air had grown colder and when she at last ascended above the mountain- Wyn was befuddled by what she saw. A bubbling lake of water, some sort of made structure with scampering beings that swarmed over it, makeshift shelters next to that and… Not much else beside the stones. It was a rather dull sight compared to the rest of the mountain.

Wyn descended. Her feet touched, what she thought, was a pavilion and she got a better look at the creatures that were busy building it. The goddess was appalled, for they looked dreadful and whoever had made them had terrible sense in design. They also didn't feel… Alive? Rolling her eyes, she became aware of other presences and scanned the area, before landing upon an unmoving rock that vaguely resembled a person. Or a brute. Was it alive? Why wasn't it refined to a more pleasing state? She crossed her arms and placed a hand underneath her chin as she looked to the shelters where humans lulled about watching her. Why were there humans here and why did they look so terrible? She shook her head and looked away. There was another presence too… One that reminded her of Ze'kelia. Another god?

The presence however made no attempt to approach Wyn. It moved to and fro all over the area, always narrowly avoiding any path that would have it stumble upon Wyn herself. Was she being ignored?

Eventually, one of the raggedy humans who’d taken refuge in the half-built structures shyly walked out of his temporary home and walked up to Wyn. His light brown hair blew slightly in the breeze that traveled through the main street where the human and the goddess were standing. With wide eyes he dared to look at Wyn and speak, “H-Hey. Are you, uh… N-new here? I can show you around. If you want.” He flinched and then looked at Wyn with an unexplained fire in the depths of his eyes, something that definitely did not fit in with the rest of his demeanor.

It took several seconds for Wyn to acknowledge the human and when she did finally look at him she frowned as he spoke. Did this creature really think it could even approach her? Nonetheless, speak to her? She would have smote him then and there but with the other god being aloof, or perhaps watching from a safe distance, she decided against it. Better to let things play out, see where they go.

Her frown turned into a bemused smile. ”So there are more of you.” she began, arms behind her back as she walked around him, taking the full picture of this pitiful sight into view. ”Not surprising in the least, no. Even more so, I take it that a divine brought you here, so high above the clouds?” She stopped before him, gazing down into those wide eyes of his. ”Was it courage, foolishness, or perhaps something else that compelled you to speak with me?” she leaned in closer, smile growing wide as he seemed to shrink. From her lips came but a whisper. ”A desire?” The word lingered in the air for what seemed an eternity before Wyn straightened herself. [color=thistle]”Your name?”[color] she asked.

“L… Lilac. I-I thought approaching you would be ok--T-The other one is um, c-casual.” He practically muttered, now looking away with a slight blush gracing his red skin.

”You will come to understand, Lilac, that not all of us are casual. Some require a different approach, a finer touch. Now, this other one, who are they?” Wyn asked, inspecting her nails.

“S-She’s-”

A sudden gust of wind blew through the main street, kicking up dirt and debris everywhere as a form landed abruptly behind Lilac. The young man yelped and stumbled forwards, almost falling on top of Wyn. The form’s large white feathery wings disappeared in the blink of an eye, and as she straightened her posture and stretched her arms, Wyn could see that it was a woman. Much shorter than Wyn herself, with bronze skin, jet black hair and a pair of golden saucers for eyes. On top of her head floated a large halo made of an unknown metallic material. The woman put her hands on Lilac’s shoulders and gave him a slightly-too-rough massage, making him wince. She was only tall enough for the top of her head to peek out from behind Lilac, but even so he froze as if he knew exactly what kind of expression she had on her face.

”’The other one?’ At least call me by my name, Lilac! Have some respect for the girl who feeds you and your entire entourage. Jeez!” Quickly, the short woman sighed and walked out from behind Lilac, giving Wyn a quick once-over, then a smile and finally stretching her hand towards her. ”Name’s Astella. Yours? You also have to tell me who did your hair, and makeup and.. Well, everything.” She said with a smirk.

”My…" The Pale Goddess’ gaze seemed to undress her, something that had Astella chuckling nervously. "What a pleasure it is to meet another divine, Lady Astella.” she said, her voice dripping with honey. A much different tone then the one she had used with Lilac. Wyn gave a small bow. "I am Wyn and you flatter me so. Believing I wear makeup, how charming. Beauty is my domain and everything you see is natural. But I am far more curious about you. That dress, how I like it so my lady, it suits your unique aesthetic. Though is that halo always there?" she asked, placing one hand on her hip and other on her chin. In reality, Wyn really only liked the dress. Astella was too short and too tan for her liking. At least her skin had a healthy glow to it.

Astella smiled a bit uneasily, a bead of sweat dripping down her brow. ”No need to call me ‘Lady’, I’m just Astella, y’know. You really are pretty though, so I’ll gladly accept any compliment!” She grinned wide, ”I designed my dress myself, you know. And yes the Halo is always there. You’d think it’d get in the way of things, but it surprisingly doesn’t.” She said with a shrug.

”So Wyn, why are you here and flirting with Lilac?” She asked suddenly, pushing past Lilac and putting herself between the young man and Wyn. Lilac cringed to himself and turned away from Wyn, holding his face in his hands. ”He’s way too fresh for you! He just had his first Nitt’Dori’n a week ago. Honestly, he can’t handle your level, I told him this already.” Astella said with a roll of her eyes, prompting Lilac to slump further.

”As you wish, Astella.” Wyn’s body relaxed but she still carried a dignified posture about her. She tilted her head to look at the human briefly before going back to Astella. ”Oh, I would hardly call that flirting. Human males are lustful creatures, a bit dirty too. Quite sad really that they often think with their other head.” she said dismissively, Lilac sighing and walking off. ”I would like to say I came here out of curiosity but it was boredom. Why not see where the water that birthed me came from? So here I am, and it seems I have you to thank for that?”

Astella smirked, ”It was a team effort, but it was definitely me who found the clog first, so yeah I will accept all the compliments and all the praise you have for me.” She said, leaning forward ever so slightly while somehow pulling off an even more smug look.

Wyn smirked. ”Ah a team effort, wonderful.” she mused, clasping her hands behind her back. The goddess leaned forward, ”But it’s a shame now that I know you had help, the praise becomes less after all. One who takes such credit, I find to be… Oh what’s the word...” Her expression became thoughtful as her hand stroked her chin. She then shrugged. ”Oh well, no one else is here are they? So thank you ever so kindly, Astella, for giving the world water.” She flashed a smile at the shorter goddess, whose smugness had somewhat worn off.

“... You’re welcome? Though it doesn’t really feel like a compliment anymore... “ Astella sighed and turned around, beginning to walk down the main street toward what looked like a really open part of the city. ”Come along for a quick tour, if you’d like. Can’t promise no one else will try to hit on you, though! Humans get frisky when they feel safe, you know.”

Wyn narrowed her eyes as she watched Astella walk away. Perhaps that had been a bit too pushy? It wasn't her fault really, testing the limits of what she could get away with was ever so much a thrill. Best to keep things cordial here on out. She followed after her, catching up with long, elegant strides. "Hmmm, they may try. Oh and I apologize for what I said, Astella. I find myself still a bit new to meeting fellow divines and with what the proper words should be when in conversation. I meant no offense I assure you." she said, a bit quieter as she looked at the buildings and the human faces that stared at her. She became quickly disgusted. "Is this… Did you build all this, for them? It seems a bit… Lacking, right now." she inquired, keeping innocence in her voice.

Astella froze in her tracks for a split second before continuing to walk, a bit faster than before. ”You didn’t say anything bad, no need to apologize. As for this place feeling like it’s ‘lacking’, well, that's what happens when crazy gods bring hundreds of humans to a place that’s only about one third done! I mean, we haven’t even finished the Central Towamid! That’s Tower plus Pyramid, by the way. I invented that word.” As soon as Astella finished, they came out onto a beautifully open green space There was an abundance of soft grass and cordgrass, and several young trees were planted everywhere, some in wild patterns and others in more controlled ones. There were hundreds of different colours as flowers grew everywhere, and lesser critters and insects lived happily in the park. They were currently in a wide dirt path lined by stone benches, and at the end of the path there was a very barebones-looking yet massive triangular tower. Scaffolding covered almost every square inch of its surface, and several large cranes brought materials to the top. Upon seeing that structure in the distance, Astella gestured everywhere around her, spinning around as she walked with a proud smile on her face.

”This is the Central Plaza! Trees are still growing so there aren’t many leaves and I’Iro’s spidercrabs don’t really know much about gardening so the flowers are everywhere, BUT! It’s very pretty, it smells good, and it helps dispel the heat whenever the sky becomes lava. The structure you see there-” Astella pointed at the half-finished massive structure at the center of the plaza, ”Is the Towamid. It’s going to be where we Gods will have meetings whenever necessary to get our super-formal business done. Everyone will be assigned a whole floor to themselves, so it could even be used as an HQ if you’re frugal enough in terms of space. Waddaya think?”

Wyn took it all in, again. Still dumbstruck by what was in front of her. It wasn't that it wasn't ugly, because it was, but it was moreso the fact Astella was using manual labor to build whatever a Towamid was supposed to be. "It's very… Up and coming, yes!" Wyn forced a smile. She couldn't be too mean to the poor girl, something was obviously not right with her. "But I must confess I am puzzled by all of this… Construction? Why not just build it yourself?" Wyn asked with concern in her voice.

Astella raised an eyebrow and tilted her head, still walking backwards. ”Build it… myself?”

Wyn turned to her, her own eyebrow raised. "You are a divine, yes? Have you yet to create anything? A simple snap of your fingers and this project could be done in an instant. I do admire the effort, don't think I am belittling you. I am simply confused."

”U-Uh… Right, right! We can do that, yes. Definitely. Uh, I just um, choose not to, that’s right. In order to… Make the humans appreciate the amount of work that goes into construction? Yeah, definitely.” Astella quickly turned away once more.

Wyn frowned. What was wrong with this one? Were all gods like her? Surely not? Perhaps Astella was just suffering from some ailment? Of the mind most likely. Wyn cleared her throat. "Ah I see what's going on here. Not to worry Astella your secret is safe with me. Performance anxiety can hamper even the gods of seems, but that's alright. However I do disagree with your logic here. These humans have suffered enough, let their children's children worry about building. Besides…" she dropped her voice to a whisper and scooted in closer to the smaller Goddess. "A meeting place for gods should be made by gods. If they built this place it might bring unsavory thoughts into their heads. They need us, we don't need them. Therefore this Towamid must bring inspiration and clarity, don't you think?"

Astella inched away from Wyn, ”But we designed it! Me and I’Iro! The spidercrabs are just in charge of making the design a reality. You can even look at the finished design if you go to the pedestal near the Wellspring.”

Wyn tilted her head. "It's quite alright dear. I can tell this means a great deal to you so I shall say no more. Though, you wouldn't mind if I had my own embassy separate? I'm really not much for sharing a building with others, too crowded you know?" Wyn said, smiling. There was absolutely no way she would settle for such a place when she could very well make her own. She didn't even need to see the full design to know it would be subpar at best. Better to get her point across, alone.

Astella sighed and shrugged, ”It should be okay. Just make sure not to disrupt the plaza’s green areas too much. I’ll make sure the spidercrabs don’t go knocking your stuff down, too.”

"Ah wonderful darling!" Wyn gushed and looked around, her keen gaze landing on an area that sat on the outskirts. Without further ado she flew off as Astella stumbled and called after her. As soon as she arrived at the chosen spot, Wyn snapped her fingers and where she walked the stone turned to marble and formed a pathway. When the pathway hit the area she had deemed worthy for herself, the land began to grow. Long curved arches, pillars of marble, overhangs and stairs began to etch themselves into the mass. More walkways were formed, with fountains of Astella and Ze'kelia popping up as water features amidst gardens of flowers so majestic and beautiful the wind cried as it blew through them.

She walked upon the growing steps to where the true building began to form as a long temple, held up by pillars and a roof with golden veins. The area inside was enormous and a second floor was in the process of arranging itself when Wyn stepped within. Right in the center of the entrance rose a statue of Wyn, standing above the dead creature she had slain. Wyn paused to gaze upon her sheer majesty. She cracked a smirk and walked on, filling the walls as she went with reliefs telling the story of her life so far. Embellished and grand, she left a great deal more to be filled as the rest of the rooms came to be.

When all was done she sighed happily. "Now that, is how gods work Astella." she turned around only to find that she was alone. Oh, had she left the smaller goddess behind? She shrugged and went to her chambers. Therein she found the furnishings befit a God and an overlook that would make any jealous, in time… For now the view looked out upon the fledgling, shanty filled town. It was a little disappointing but it was that or clouds. Her reverie was interrupted as a small, furry little creature entered her room like it owned the place. Its white fur was pristine, but it lacked an eye and half its tail.

It looked at Wyn for a few seconds, then hopped up onto her luxurious bed and lied down.

Wyn looked upon the creature, tilting her head. Such gusto, even if it was disfigured and small. To walk in without care and lay upon a gods bed? She would kill anything else but this creature… She would allow it for now. For no other reason that it amused her. That and it probably belonged to someone.

After she'd left the Pillar of Baknul-Who-Yet-Lives behind her Tonta got to observing the world. She walked for a long while, now whistling a tune and now humming to herself as the world disintegrated all around her. She noted the animals fleeing hither and thither, their souls screaming (in whispers, mind you) for her to save them. Tonta waved at the insufferable sods and walked right on by.

"Lady, what's your problem?" Tonta froze, frowned, and turned towards the voice. It was one of those souls, literally indistinguishable from any of the million others flowing to wherever they were flowing.

"You... you tawkin to me?" She drawled, turning more completely towards the featureless floating orb, "you tawkin to me? 'Cause I don't see nobody else round here..." she paused for a few tense moments, "who the fuck do you think you're tawkin to?"

"Well yeah, I'm talking to you. Do you see any other ladies round here?" The floating soul said.

"You make a good point fella," Tonta laughed, leaning on her stick as all tension suddenly dissipated, "you're pretty loud for a soul y'know, I could have sworn I told you all to shut the fuck up." The smile was gone from her face and her eyes were cold and hard.

"You wouldn't have heard me if you didn't want to hear me, lady. Now since you obviously want to hear from me, shall I ask you something? A small favour."

"Yeah, sure buddy. I have some time to kill." She fiddled with one of her nails absent-mindedly.

"You see all these here animals running hither and thither? Trying to escape death and hang on to life?" Tonta looked around and nodded at the soul's words. "Well, why don't you save them?"

Tonta pursed her lips and kissed her teeth, before releasing a sigh. "Oh, I don't know. I'm not really feeling that right now y'know? You get me? You feel me?"

"I get you I get you - but what if that doesn't matter right now, hmm? What if you just need to get over whatever it is you're feeling right now and doing what needs to be done?"

"Yeah, well, I don't know if that sort of thinking is for everybody. And who says this saving animals business needs to be done anyway? Look at them - one moment they're alive in that bag of flesh, and the next they're alive but like you. This death business is just a continuation of life by other means, they're just dumb shits who don't realise it. If they just accepted death without all this screaming then they get to keep living without any worries!"

"You know what, I don't even disagree with you." The soul said. "I'm all for dying - in fact, I look forward to whatever's coming next - but look, not everyone is ready for that, and it would be an act of kindness from you to save them and also an opportunity for you to teach them how to better accept death."

Tonta blinked. "Buddy, like, why the fuck would I teach them that? I have better things to do like. I dunno. Like walking and shit."

"Well, I think you'd actually enjoy being nice. You know, it would be an interesting experience." The soul suggested.

"Hmmmmmm," Tonta hummed, her brows furrowing in doubt, "you don't know me fella, I definitely wouldn't enjoy that."

The soul's response was swift. "Well, you won't know until you give it a shot! Plus, you want to leave a mark of your presence on the world no? A great and mighty goddess like you!"

"Goddess!? Me?" Her face contorted in surprise. "Seriously?" She smiled. "What does it mean though?"

"It means that you are the most powerful thing in the world, that's what it means my lady." The soul's words seemed to please Tonta immensely.

"Oh, but you do know how to flatter a lady, and you're quite wise for a featureless, boring blob. Okay then, let's give this saving business a shot then! Come on!" And with that, she grabbed the wise blob and went skipping a few steps before exploding into a hundred thousand bits of pollen that went flying across the breaking world.

She didn't quite know for how long she flew, but as she picked up more and more creatures crying out to be saved the hurricane of flying wildlife became rather hard to miss. I guess you know the world is coming to an end when you see a hurricane of flying wildlife.

Now at some point during that hurricane's existence, perhaps in the interlude between the destruction of Galbar and the coming of the Shard, Tonta managed to forget to keep all the different animals separate and intact, and so when she finally came to settle them down on the Shard she found that many of the creatures had rather unfortunately... agglutinated.

"Well, I guess you're cute." Tonta murmured as she rummaged through the strange creatures she had not quite managed to save. "Oh, you want to be called a grobin? I guess you're grabbin that name eh? Eh? Yeah, well, fuck you too you ugly fuck. Never liked you anyway." And so the little grobins made of the shard a home.

She reached into the tempestuous mess and- "Yowch! WHAT THE FUCK, LET GO LET GO YOU FUCKING MONSTER!" And so the cark, that strange melding of cat and shark, was flung into the world. More carefully Tonta reached once more into the living soup.

"You really messed up you know." The wise blob said for the hundredth time.

"Yeah, well, this was your idea fucktard. HeY tOnTa, wHy dOn'T yOu bE nIiCe?" She mocked as yet another strange creature emerged, a giant bipedal bird that did not look nice in the slightest.

"Now that's quite the terror bird." The wise blob intoned. And thus was the terror bird loosed upon the shard. "What was THAT a combination of?"

"Don't ask me, wiseguy." Tonta muttered as she pulled out the next creature from the soupy mess. "Ew. EW. EW EW EW EW! What the flying fuck, what the hell man, why?!" In her hands was some disgusting slug-deer.

"Well, it's cute... in its own way." The wise blob said. Tonta gave it a dirty glare as she released the slugdeer and got to peeling her skin off to cleanse it of the creature's slime. Once her skin had regenerated, she pulled out truly enormous camelid megafauna, which she dubbed the snow camel, and sent it to populate the cold southern shard. Next came a giant flying lizard creature, which asked to be named the flying axolotl and would make its home across the warmer climes of the shard. Then came gigantic moths, followed by long-horned bisons to join the snow camels in the south, followed by giant pangolins and markhors. The wise blob was pretty impressed, but Tonta looked into the soup and saw that it was far from finished and plopped onto her back.

"Argh, I'm tired, when will it be done?" She had no sooner said that when giant lizards clambered out of the soup and went lumbering onto the shard. "Hey, those look like that delicious drakhorey. Mmmm." Giant elks went in the wake of the lizards, and hellish pigs went screeching after the elk and caused them to scatter across the shard. After them emerged a confusing amalgamation of deer and eagle that asked to be called a peryton.

But the strangest were yet to come. When Tonta next reached into the soup her hands came up with white cloud-stuff, and for a few moments she thought the soup was done and that was all. But before her eyes the clouds began to move and gigantic cloud-whales swept up from the soup, followed closely by all sorts of cloudy incirrata. "What the fuck. What are they going to eat?!" Tonta muttered to herself, splashing her hand into the soup. The droplets immediately took flight after the skyborne behemoths in the form of enormous swarms of flying krill. Tonta looked on for what felt like hours as the swarm continued to leave the soup.

"You messed up big time." The wise blob informed her. She stopped looking at the swarm and fixed him with a death glare until the last of the swarm had gone. When she looked into the soup she found that not even that giant swarm had depleted it. She reached in and out came gigantic mussels, each easily the size of a boulder.

"What. The. Fuck." She intonated as she threw them at the shard. They landed in the north and were followed by equally large crabs that would feed on them. She looked into the soup again and paused. "I swear if anyone ever tells me to be nice again I'mma tear their head off." She glanced at the wise blob. "I'MMA TEAR THEIR HEAD OFF."

That was when the weird magic bees decided to buzz out of the soup.

• Summary [+]

  Tonta is minding her own business watching the world die when some soul blob asks her to help save the animals. Tonta don't care tho. But then he tells her you're a cool and strong goddess man, and she be like awww dang, you flattering me okay bro I'mma save the animals for you, just watch.
  She makes a glorious animal hurricane and saves the animals. But the hurricane has turned them all into a flesh soup and when she comes to disentangle them from each other she ends up with weird amalgamations. So she fuckin failed to save the animals. She spends time getting all sorts of weird things out of that soup. Biggest change is that clouds are now giant whales and octupi that feed on swarms of flying krill.
• MA Spent [+]

  Created:
  Magic bees
  Cloudy Incirrata
  Gigantic Cloud-Whales
  Flying Krill
  Giant Mussels that are fed on by Giant Crabs (these should exist across the north of the shard)
  Peryton
  
  And other stuff, see the hyperlinked words in the post.

The body of the machine made flesh hung in the air above the center of camp as it had returned from investigating the portal. Suspended from nothing, its form shifted, warped and changed before the nomads' eyes. Not that any were watching any more. Even those who had looked upon the repeated live dissection and reconstruction with morbid fascination had grown bored and were focusing on more important tasks by the time they dropped from their ethereal perch and landed among them.

The human form was still there in silhouette, but the soft flesh was gone, replaced with a material the nomads couldn't identify, but which proved to be incredibly hardy and flexible, like a living metal. Small glowing ports littered the body which had no seeming purpose which would later be shown to project fields of defense or invisibility. More disconcerting than the body, which could well be put aside as a form fitting armor if you wanted, was the lack of a face. Where the entity had obscured their human face behind a hood before, now it was gone entirely, replaced with flat metal with a ring of light with two dashes through its width. The cloak and hood remind end despite not obscuring this bizarre faceless face, flowing over the alien body and pierced on the sides of the head by two cone-like ears.

There was a brief pause, before the inhuman form proceeded to very humanly stretch: cracking its knuckles, shaking out stiffness, rolling its neck, and so on as if it had just awoken from a long sleep.

”ahhhh. That’s better” it said after one last stretch, then snapped a pair of fingers, reached out, and failed to catch a large staff that materialized above it. The butt of the object hit the dirt and then the whole thing began to tip over, only for the machine to finally mange snatch it up before it did so, before twirling it around dramatically and then sliding it onto their back, where it hung despite not being strapped down by anything.

”There we go. I have completed preparations. Shall we go investigate the other world?” it announced/asked the nomad’s scouting group who had saved it’s life earlier and, as the experts on the strange, been ordered to watch it by their leaders while it warped itself, putting them conveniently at hand for this request.

“I told you” Vrandan spoke up first. Having seen the machine vulnerable did wonders for his confidence in confronting/standing up to it. Whether this was wise was debatable “the world is a wright off. We cant be safe in a world full of monsters we cant see”

”Not to worry. The beast’s own eyes were capable of detecting others of its kind. I have added that ability to this new form’s vision, so i will be able to detect them with ease.” the machine helpful informed them

“But we still can’t” the man countered

”A fair point. I could modify you like I have myself?” it suggested

The man glanced up and down the bizarre and, he now noticed, visibly sexless machine person and cringed at the prospect.

”Why not” it asked, picking up on this rather blatant distaste they had at the idea.

“No offence, but no one wants to get stuck looking like that.” Jayce, who was perhaps the most comfortable with speaking with the machine out of all of them, supplied.

”I am capable of changing myself back, I could do the same for you… no that isn't quite the same is it. I could give you machines but, ah those won't last forever. I owe you my life” there was some surprise among the scouts and the growing crowd of not so subtle onlookers that it would realize or admit this so easily and bluntly. There had been expectation that they would need to carefully convince the machine to pay them back ”It would not be fair to give you something that would not last just as long.”

“Why not. Can’t you give us... Weapons like that one you used. The one that just that removed things from existence” Jayce asked

”The reclaim tool is, well a tool. Not a weapon. Though it is very useful as one. It is also one of the things I cannot recreate, similar to the construction one. I could give you these” it tapped the staff ”but without maintenance it would eventually break, leaving you reliant on me once again to repair it.”

“How long would it last?” Vardan asked, assuming that whatever the machine had armed itself was likely powerful

”Oh, several hundred thousand instances of the time that passed during the last rise and fall of the light in the sky” the fact that it was slowly increasing made ‘days’ a terrible measurement of time, but it was the best they had. ”not forever. No, I need to repay you with something that lasts.”

“Pretty sure that would outlast everyone here” Jayce remarked

The machine cocked its head, then scanned its eye across the nomads watching it,young and old, some flinching away as they became the focus of it for the first time.

”Oh. You are decaying and will eventually end. That is… sad. I’m sorry I do not know how to solve that.” it said with genuine and unexpected remorse.

“It is how it is.” Vardan explained with a shrug after the awkward pause “So your staff, wherever that is, would be around for our kids and grandkids time”

”But not for theirs. So it is not good enough. Instead I could modify you all so that you are better in a way that they would also inherit… but no that would be permanent again, and whatever change I make might not suit all worlds or states of this world. What was a benefit now could become a detriment later” It said, clearly mostly talking to itself as it mulled over the possibilities.

”So. I could make a way to let you change yourselves... Like that creature that pretended to be a goat! It was infinitely adaptable, taking on the form of native creatures… I wonder if it was made to explore layers… never mind that, it would be perfect”

“Again. Not sure if people want to be turned into a meat monster” Vardan interjected.

”Yes. I’m seeing a pattern. But I do have an idea to work within it. We externalize the transformative ability, make it reversible and, importantly, I make it an ability you have control over. Complete control. Make it something you can produce and use however you wish” the machine said excitedly before flicking it’s wrist materializing the carcass of the invisible panther creature that had almost killed them from thin air with one hand, and then made a hand sized cube of familiar looking meat with the other, which it caught with ease this time.

”Now, with these” they began, only to be interrupted

“Hang on hang on. You said you destroyed that thing” Vardan said, angrily pointing at the flesh of the shape shifting monster that was clearly still alive somehow.

”This? Oh it isn't the same. I have modified it so that it cannot move or change itself. It will be a domestic-able, self replicating source of the material that won't be able to shapeshift on its own. I’ve quite carefully keyed it to ensure this is the case. Also it is completely docile and herbivorous now.”

Vardan grounded at the cube un-trustingly, but Jayce had realized a possibility this raised “So you can just wake animals? Could you make more goats?”

”if i have the materials. Biological matter is somewhat lacking in the area, so I am limited to what I procured from the two layer predators and that flying scaled creature.” the Explorer explained

“But if you got more...” Vardan prompted

”I could convert it yes. I understand you cannot eat the fibrous material used for heat production? I could turnt that into something more palatable, for example. However that is not a long term solution as it relies on my presence and, again, I cannot replicate that ability.” It informed them ”a more sustainable solution would be to create life capable of repopulating the region. There is light and water in this world now, when before it was dark and dry, life could grow once more“

“We’ve considered planting seeds, but can you do that faster if you have this… ’biological matter’”

”I could if I had the supplies. From layers. I would need your help with that, of course, as i cannot use the reclaim tool within the layers and thus would need to capture and then transport materials back here.“

“It’s hard enough to just get what we need to survive. As good as that sounds, I'm not sure if we can afford that.”

”Then I’ll make you a deal, one that, in light of my owing you my life, is sided in your favor. I will help improve your ability to acquire the resources you need to survive and generate excess that can be used to fuel the revitalization of the land. In return, you will help me explore and understand these world and allow me to experiment on the gates before they close“

It raised a hand before the obvious objection could be made ”Meeting your needs is the priority. If we have to use all the time the portal is open to acquire materials so be it, but, if i can study them, then I may be able to discover a way to hold them open for longer, and or find a way to close them prematurely. If I do, I will find a way to hand this knowledge down to you.“

“We’ll need to discuss this,” Vardan said hesitantly. As much as he had been leading the ‘negotiation’ it wasn’t up to him what they decided.

”Of course. It will give me time to prepare the solution“



The god tinkered, collecting the hair of a unicorn and a few base metals and combining them a slice of meat from the meat cube creature and fur from the panther as it worked, as the humans discussed. When they returned they found the machine presenting as a human once more and sitting by four cups of softly glowing liquid.

“We’ve decided that, if you can prove you can help us first, by increasing the amount of supplies we can procure and making a healthy stockpile, then we’ll help you. Deal?” Vardan informed the machine punctually of the nomads' long argued over decision.

”Deal. I am quite confident I can, Vardan. With That in mind I will now demonstrate what I have made to help you adapt to the varicose layers“ it told them, before drinking one of the cups of fluid it had prepared.

For a moment nothing happened. Then it closed its eyes for a moment to concentrate and suddenly all at one an incredibly fine fur sprouted from their skin, covering every part of their body. Then, when they opened their eyes, they revealed they too had changed, becoming slitted like those of the panther.

Then, like the panther, they vanished. Or well, their body did. The robes remained where they were which in a way was comforting. The machine was not something they wanted to lose track of.

Then as soon as it had vanished it reappeared again and grinned at them with pointed teeth.

”Impressed?“ it asked

“And that will work for us?” Vardan asked carefully, even as the onlookers most certainly and vocally where.

”Indeed, and before you ask, yes, it is reversible.“ it told them, before drinking from the second cup, which caused the transformation to run in reverse, and returned them to a human complexion.

”Not only that, but it can work with any species you might encounter“ they drank the third cup and using it took on aspects of the dragon it had devoured with the reclaim too, scales, claws and, most amazingly a fully functional pair of wings, (which got rather tangled up in their robes when they first appeared) sprouting front their body, before they drank the final cup and returned to normal.

”So. Who wants to give this a try?“ it asked the amazed crowd of onlookers. There were plenty of volunteers.



The sun was close to setting by the time they were done. The god taught them the recipes, and they were surprisingly quite simple. Unicorn hair for magical fuel, shifting meat flesh for transformation abilities (along with most of the logic to do the work stored in its ‘junk’ dna), a collection of elements to trigger the transforming flesh's active state and then material from a beast to change into in one potion, and then the hair of the drinker (harvested before drinking) in another to reverse the effect.

Now the re-armored machine stood before the portal to the world that had almost killed it along with an assembly of scouts, all sporting the eyes of the panther so that they beasts could not hide from their sight. They also sported a hodge-podge host of other additions, from cat-like three jointed legs, claws, extra arms, fur, muzzles and the strange tentacles that sprouted from the beast’s back, which left no two looking the same. It turned out that the hard part wasn’t making the potion, but channeling the transformation process to get the effect you wanted. There were safeguards in place of course, no-one, not even the most rampant or uncontrolled transformers, had changed so much that their brain could no longer fit their body for example.

Still, they’d get better at it and they had the aspects they needed, so it had been decided it was time to go and try their new abilities for real. They also had convinced the god to give them weapons in the end, meaning they all now sported strange toothed swords that wouldn't last more than a few generations according to the machine but had cut through the wood they’d practiced on like it was nothing.

The Explorer and their guards approached the portal. It ordered the probe that had been blocking the portal out of the way, revealing another of the panther creatures stalking around it that it again had not seen.

The Explorer and changed nomads did however, and it soon fell to arrows and one staff fired explosive bolt.

They approached, but the machine god paused at the precipice past which it would become mortal once again.

“Having doubts? I have to ask. Why are you doing this? If you're next too indestructible in this world, why risk going in there?” Jayce said, stopping next to them. The young human hadn't gone as far as some, only their slitted eyes and a pair of cat ears on their head marking out that they were under effects of the drug the machine had named Polymorphine.

”If I don't, if i give in to the… to the fear of death, then I would have to stay in this world forever. There is much still to see, I know, but it is still a limit. A limit I will break, here and now, so that while I am exploring this world I will know I am doing so by choice rather than out of fear“ it explained, and the machine got some respect from the others for that.

”I have also been wondering, why have you stayed? There is no difference between this world and the others as far as your mortality goes.“ it asked ”Why stay in this broken one. Have you simply not found a land you consider safe?“

“Who's to say the world's last after they close or that the short impressions we get are how they really are. Some of us did go, a long time back now. More than half I’ll admit. We found a world that seemed to be a paradise after a long string of deadly and dangerous ones. A lot of our people called it quits there, and, if they didn't, if they hadn't gone and left us with most of the portable supplies, we probably would have all starved by now.” he said, in a way that made it sound very much like he considered them staying as a sacrifice made so that the rest could live.

“But maybe they’re all happy and safe now, and we’re the fools for leaving that world before the gate closed, but we’ve never seen them or that world again.” Vardan explained “So we can’t say if they are or not. Better the world you know persists than the one you don't, in my opinion, no matter how broken it is.”

He glanced up, and the others followed his gaze, to the now sun as it fell behind a mountain “Not that I can say I know it now that it's changing again. For the better I hope”

”We’ll make it so.“ the machine insisted

“If this works out, it's going to be you who did it, Explorer”

”I won't be able to do it without you. And please. Call me Exo.“

“Exo huh?” Vardan replied, as the machine, the person, suddenly had an actual name. That felt important, but they had work to do. “Well then Exo. Ready to go stare danger, death and the unknown in the face?”

”Yes. Let’s go exploring“ they said, stepping through the portal and being gripped by mortality for the second of many times to come.

---

It had been some time since she’d used her power to ‘birth’ the Brynlic into the world, transforming the group of once-wandering Coilbrywen into a group she was proud to number among her children. They had been settled (with only a minute bit of help from her) within the northeast of the region, settled amidst the hills and small forests and to the southwest of that lake by which they’d been reborn. Plenty of room to grow, plenty of room to spread, and so forth. Yet all the same...they were but one race that would need to be placed onto the land to make use of it, to till it, and to work it well. She loved her new children dearly, all of them, and she’d even brought a few to her Paradise to grow and prosper there with the slowly-changing humans. They all would begin to change and be shaped by the magic of her Paradise and the fruits and materials it bore, as the place truly had all that was needed and then some, but all the same there was much to do if she was to make the most of this region and bring greater life to it.

To that end she had come to the area just south of the Ariran Paradise, placed directly between the great and unconquerable mountains hiding the paradise to the north and the mini-freshwater sea to the south. A place where forests and rugged mountain slopes and freshwater sea were the main borders, with room to grow westward most easily achieved. A good spot to allow her newest batch of ‘children’ to live and grow well, at least for some time without conflict with their siblings over living space she hoped.

Still, what was she to make of this second batch? What was she to make them like? This was the area her intuition had led her to when seeking a good spot, and even in her latest lectures back at the Paradise she’d brought up a map she’d made of the region’s landscape and allowed her students to ponder the matter alongside her somewhat. It was a good thought experiment, but the answers they’d given were so rather...varied. “They would need to be strong!”, “They would need to be giants!”, “They would need to be durable!”, “Why can’t they all just be cute?”, and more had been among their answers...

However, this did lead to an interesting mental image indeed-...wait! That was it! She had been pondering more and more so that the race needed to be strong, likely larger than the Brynlic, to have a balance. Why not use some of those traits to create a race that embodied several of those things best? Large, strong, durable folk who could labor in the land and fight back lingering demons better! It wasn’t as if the apocalyptic demons in the land weren’t weakened, at least those that had been in the region for the terraforming, but other things from outside were still an issue indeed. Even once the world was fixed, monsters and beasts and demons would likely remain a lingering problem anyways in some form or manner.

In fact, why not use one of the demons she’d seen thus far as a base? It would make the race look menacing, and even more fearsome to their enemies!

From where she sat upon a great boulder, a fist on her chin as she thought, the goddess smiled at her conclusion and stood up upon the great stone. Yes, it would do nicely! Surely they would be ‘some’ trouble in a sense, just as any mortal race with free will was apt to be, but not be so savage and barbaric as to try to destroy everything or so forth. Yes, she didn’t want to make mindless meat hunks. Practical enough they would be indeed!

Arira lifted her arms up, opening her hands and pointing her palms down as she extended them out to point them at the open space before her. It was dotted with rock jutting out in parts of this rare hilly space, but it would do for inspiration. So too she closed her eyes as she began to channel divine power, imagining the appearance of that humanoid demon she’d seen prior. Just to base the appearance on some, that is.

A pair of horns coming from the head-...hmm, in this case the forehead was going to be simpler than ram-like horns stretching forward from the sides of the head.

No wings, but the deep red skin was something that would strike an imposing appearance in part for sure! Make the horns the same color too, would be simpler that way.

Hair colors would vary, but perhaps better to keep them simple. White, black, grays, silver, gold...well, even ruby, sapphire, and emerald colored hair would be acceptable among their genes. It wasn’ too gaudy, just different!

There was also making them intelligent and civilized, yes. None of this wanton barbaric-ness that would tear her poor children apart over time!

Slightly pronounced lower AND upper canine teeth, nothing that would stick out of the mouth...but something that when they smiled or grinned would be visible and somewhat charming really. Perfect, when paired with tall, naturally muscular bodies with incredible strength and high metabolisms. Workers of the land would need that strength for the many tasks they had, but also the energy to sustain it. That and for battling demons and so forth, to strike fear into it! That would be good, yes.

Then what else? Well, she’d have to think back on the body of the demon. It had been rather ‘shapely’, ‘curvy’ even. Big chested, and a cute butt too...mmm...wasn’t it all-female as well? Or was it built to do both? Well-

Wait. Waitwaitwaitwaitwaitwait-!!!

Arira’s eyes swiftly popped open as she finished the creation process.



...Uh Oh.

Uh Oh!

Uh Oh!

She’d let her mind wander as she wove the magic for a second there, a bit too long during the creation process, and swiftly she had opened her eyes in panic as she pulled her arms back down to her sides. Yet in the end, it was ultimately too late for her to...change what she’d just made. The process was done by the time she’d realized her mind was drifting off the correct train of thought just long enough to ‘botch’ things.

Before her a race of 7.4-8’2” tall, red-skinned, very muscled, forehead-horn-having, durable...and visibly all-female race was lying on the ground asleep. Well, they were all female looking at base, but she could tell from a very quick ‘scan’ of them with her divine power that when mating they were very capably hermaphroditic and could...oh my. Well, half-breeds were also possible as well as that it seemed.

What in the heavens had she done??? By Chakravarti’s fifth arm and her brother’s adorable baby face, what had she done to these poor creatures!? Sure reproduction wasn’t a problem, that much she was glad she hadn’t utterly botched, and they were all fully functional as living things and a sentient race..but she hadn’t even made it to dividing the sexes, giving them initial clothes, and finishing up with other touches like she’d wanted to! Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear! This was an embarrassment of the highest regard!

Even so, as the goddess visibly lightly panicked internally to herself as she stood on the stone, the beings in the area began to awaken. One by one the amazonian race stirred and began to stand up. They began to very curiously look at each other up and down, look up at the sky, and even around themselves at the terrain and ground. Some would thump each other on the back with a hearty laugh, a couple began to arm wrestle even, and so forth. Ultimately, however, their eyes and attention would turn up to look at the panicking, short (compared to them) goddess who was standing atop a great stone. In this vein, after a few more minutes one of them walked over to the stone to get her attention, lightly tapping it to snap her out of her current state.

“Are you the one that...ah...just kinda made us here? Or who are you? Not sure a place like this is a good place to panic, you know.”

Arira blinked slowly as she looked down at the one of her creations who had just ‘snapped her out of it’ and talked to her. Letting out another long, drawn sigh, she neatened herself up and gave a gentle nod to the individual before her.

“Y-Yes, my child, I did create you all...though I fear I may have let my mind wander as I did so. It is most embarrassing indeed.”

The individual raised an eyebrow, before she gave a simple shrug.

“I mean hey, we didn’t get to choose, so we don’t mind one bit! Honestly don’t mind how I am, unless anyone else has a problem here.”

In response, many of the others simply stared for a second before shrugging or simply brushing it off. Still, the one individual seemed to come right back at Arira with more.

“Well, not unless you think we’re a mistake or something. Not like I know! So just suck it up and deal with what you’ve done!”

The goddess paused for a moment at the rude, but perhaps much needed, exclamation to her face. Indeed, it made her chuckle for a second after the words sank in.

“No, none of thee are mistakes in my eyes nor in my mind. Thou art my children still, and as such I care for all of thee no matter what unintentionally happened during your creation,” she said putting a hand to her chest as she looked out at all the others as well, catching her breath a little still, “In truth I was’t rather panicked, and feared that there woulds’t be issues or true problems with thee or thine seed from mine mind wandering during creation. I dids’t not desire to do any ill to thee...but hath been worried in truth.”

The individual before her gave a wide, fanged grin and slapped the great stone the goddess stood on with gusto and a hearty laugh. Similarly the others behind her began to chuckle and laugh as well. Yet the blow to the stone nearly knocked the comparatively smaller goddess over for a second, which the one individual seemed to lightly panic at, as did the rest for a second, though once Arira got her balance back all seemed well once more.

“Well, ‘Mom’, you worry too much! We’re all fine I think! You did a damn good job crafting us as we are, so don’t sweat it! But ah…,” the individual trailed off as she looked back at the others before looking back at the goddess once more, “What are we? Might be a good place to start there.”

...Ok, so the race she had just created was rather ‘blunt’ in this sense. All the same, however, it was a very practical question that this one was getting at. Rather, she was very inquisitive in a practical sense for someone who had been created moments ago. Arira had wanted to make them like that, but to think it would come back to bit her somewhat! It was amusing in this case, rather than offensive, as she had panicked briefly there and needed the ‘snap’ back to reality.

But this race did need a name! A good one, really, that would encapsulate them best. The Brynlic had been easy enough to come to mind for her, but then again they had come into this world and been reborn rather than be ‘made from scratch’ as these were. It was all a tad strange in that regard.

Ah!

“How about...the Ketto? Thou are the second race I hath made, and though second among my children thou are beloved still. Would this suffice?”

There was a general murmuring as the giant amazonians turned to each other and began to discuss it. Some seemed to not like it very much, though others seemed to either shrug it off or look more positive about it at least. It was a few minutes before they seemed to come to some general consensus, with the one standing closest to Arira herself putting her hands on her hips and letting out a sigh. She then turned her head to look at the goddess, a proud grin on her face.

“Works for us then!”

---

Hursimolit the Great, they had called him, for great, he had been. Throughout his whole life of sixty-seven years, he had given his all to unite the disparate peoples of what had once been home long, long ago. At first, he had fought off bandits and brigands alongside his brothers back when there was only him and his clan; then he had taken a wife from a rival clan, uniting all under a greater purpose of survival. More clans had joined their following with time, and now only some months ago, the world had begun to green once again as though by magic. Throughout his life, Hursimolit’s actions had amassed a clan of almost a hundred individuals, with hundreds more being affiliated with him and his kinsmen. Now, all had come from near and far to pay respect for the fallen lord of lords. His people had taken the corpse, wrapped in the finest cloth they had scavenged over the years, to an ancient black cave which would serve as a tomb. A thousand people had gathered to oversee the burial, and no less than fifty people, both men and women, had asked to be allowed to say some words in his honour. A train of grieving adults and children alike, longer than had been witnessed in these parts of decades, offered their finest gifts to the deceased - weapons, heirlooms, food, clothes, animals, charms - there was no end.

When all was said and done, though, came the question: how would they preserve these gifts so Hursimolit could use them in the afterlife? Would they not all disappear from him if there came graverobbers?

“We cannot stay here, either - not all of us, anyway,” said Gilumina, chieftain of the clan Jusu.

“We, we could always rotate the responsibility? These lands could support one of us at the time, right?” said Vimaru, chieftess of the Colinadasam clan.

Zim-Piatt of the Crimson Dogs shook his head. “Clans Jusu, Gao-Gao, Colinadasam and the tribes of Kipu-Kil and Grass Bulls would uphold a vow like this; the Fimdalri and Aguz-Ag, on the other hands…”

“Are you trying to start something, huh, Red Mutt?!” spat Saur of Fimdalri. Habsu, chieftess of Azug-Ag, palmed the hilt of her spear.

“I am not starting anything - I am simply stating the truth.” As arguments broke out, the original advocates for protection of the tomb tried to calm the clan leaders, though with little luck. However, one voice then suddenly broke through - it was a ragged man, weary with trauma and white of hair. The others knew him as One-Boot Lou - had recently founded his own clan called the Cackling Rats. He had shouted, and his words had made all go quiet:

“What if we called upon the Storm-Trod?!”

The others looked at one another skeptically. “The Storm-Trod?”

“Aye,” he said and looked around maniacally. “Months ago, our shelter got caught in a storm, worst one I’ve seen. Then, then this, this guy - think his name was… Anyway, so he climbed out of the shelter and just--”

“Oh, here we go again - Looney Lou and his rambles!” came a sarcastic remark.

“No, you don’t understand! He just up and walked out of the shelter and kept walking! Saw it with my own eyes as the wind blew the flesh off his bones! What the hell kinda person would do that?!”

“Point being?” It was clear no one believed him. Lou kept it up, however:

“The Storm-Trod can help us! A man like that might know the, the magic we need to keep this tomb safe forever!”

There was momentary silence. Some snickers blurted out somewhere in the crowd. When the snickers became open laughter, Zim-Piatt rolled his eyes and went over to Lou and patted his shoulder condescendingly. “Look, Lou, you clearly haven’t slept right lately. How about you head on back to your tent and take a nice nap, hmm?”

Lou pushed him away and shouted, “No! He will help us! He will! Storm-Trod! Come to us in our time of need! Storm-Trod!”

“Ugh, just shut him up!” came a shout from the crowd again.

The torches scattered about the cave suddenly snuffed out as one, the cave plunging into a desperate pitch black. From the entrance, four eyes lit the darkness, pitiless and snakelike in appearance; they blocked the only way out of the cave, as a voice rumbled through the caves, bitter in tone, “Blaspheme the Storm-Trod with only a heavy heart. Costs light to betters are ruinous to roaches.”

The crowd squealed as one and the songs of drawn steel and percussions of knocking wood sounded from the frightened clansfolk. Only Lou was reluctant to draw any weapons, for he had caught the words spoken by the creature. Pushing himself past Zim-Piatt and the others, he sailed across the flat stone floor on his knees and ended up before the creature. “You know the Storm-Trod?!”

The four eyes in the dark focused on Lou, a hiss piercing the clatter of steel on scabbard. The voice rumbled once more, “The Storm-Trod concerns themselves with pursuits far greater than roaches scurrying in the dark. The work falls upon me,” the voice paused, the eyes gazing down the cave as though they could see the people in the pitch black, and then once more the bitter rumble, “I have a great many tasks of import beyond your petty lives. You dare drag me from them with your blaspheme?”

“Please,” begged the man and lifted two hands up in submission. The rest seemed stunned that this had even happened. “It, it is our master, Hursimolit the Great - he lies buried in this cave, but we need to keep his tomb unscathed so, so he may enjoy our gifts in the afterlife unmolested! I, I remember seeing the Storm-Trod’s miracle in the storm - it, it was my hope he could help us with this.”

The eyes in the dark narrowed, unmasked rage intoned within the voice, “You distract your betters for matters as small as the tombs of roaches?” Another hiss, chilling the bones of the men gathered in the cave. Then, another pause, before the voice spoke again, the worst of the rage subsided, “I can do this, in the name of my master the Storm-Trod, but a lesson must be taught. The price will not be worth the result. It is too late to back out, now.”

“Y-yes, u-unders--”

“LOU! You bastard! What’re you doing?!” came a thunderous yell in the darkness. More followed, and movement in the darkness was followed by screams, thumbs and squeals as people fell over one another in the pitch black came. The ear-curdling sound of steel cutting flesh could also be heard, which sent the crowd into a panic. Lou’s breathing quicked.

“What must be done?! What must be done to protect the lord?!”

A great light emerged from the four eyes, shining blindingly down upon the crowd -- the An-Clastophon remained obscured, but the cave around the crowd shone as though a mid-day sun could pierce the veil of earth. The voice’s intensity grew in equal parts with its volume, as rage once more reared its head, “The dead cannot honor the Storm-Trod! Throw your swords upon the ground or I shall pluck your souls from your bodies, and meet upon them an eternity of suffering! Obey, or the afterlife you commend your king upon shall be forever denied to you!”

The cacophony of steel and wood smashed against the ground, though the yelling did not subside. “LOU, YOU’RE A DEAD MAN!” came a threat in the voice of Zim-Piatt, pushing his way up from the ground as two others on top of him tried to do as well. The dying coughs of a woman could be heard elsewhere, backed up by crying and gasping. Many others laid on the ground clutching wounds and others still rubbed their eyes free of blindness, though it took a while. Lou, too, could not seem to regain his sight for a long time.

The voice grew into an all-encompassing roar, the light growing ever-brighter as the An-Clastophon’s rage grew palpable in the air, “You will be silent in the face of your betters! When the divine speak, it is the roaches who listen! You will honor my presence properly, you will give me the respect that is due, or I will extract that respect through your anguish!”

Quivering before the display of divine power, the crowd was quiet. Even Zim-Piatt couldn’t bring himself to fight back against this blinding storm of light.

The light dimmed to more manageable levels as the voice’s tone softened. The roar meted out, and the An-Clastophon commanded, “I will provide you with the means to defend this tomb, for the Storm-Trod is merciful and I must obey my master’s dictates.” The voice stopped, briefly replaced only by the sound of breathing.

Then, the voice lightened further, “It will come with a price. You have incurred a debt with those infinitely your better that you will never be able to repay. When I leave, I shall leave with the firstborn child of all present. I shall not extract further from you, if you honor the Storm-Trod above all. Through the worship of the Storm-Trod, the fat will be cut from the lean and you will all be better for it.”

“Our-- WHAT?!” came a shout. Even Lou now seemed skeptical. Zim-Piatt picked up his spear from the floor and assumed a combat stance.

“I do not know what you deal is, demon - but you will not touch a single one of our children just because this mad fool summoned you! Now begone!” More reached for their weapons.

A deafening roar split the air as the crowd was buffeted by a tempest of wind. The light became blinding, as Zim-Piatt was forced to his knees. His expression turned to one of great pain, as his body blurred, as though becoming incorporeal. Then, he was split atwain, his spirit leaving his body and fleeing into the light. The wind died down and the light softened as Zim-Piatt’s body hit the floor; still breathing, but devoid of any inner spark.

The light flashed briefly and intensely as the voice roared, “To raise arms against your gods is to commit the ultimate blaspheme, demanding the ultimate punishment! Raise your sword-arm, and your immortal soul shall be forfeit, fit only for fodder!”

Weapons once again hit the ground and Zim-Piatt’s closest crowded around him in sorrowful disbelief and tried to slap some life back into him to no avail. Others broke into tears at the hopelessness of what Lou had gotten them into, and Lou seemed to have lost his spirit as well, though he appeared at least to be able to recover from it.

There was silence for some time, until finally, the voice spoke once more, its tone soft, “I punish you so for a reason; we are not your betters by right, but by understanding ourselves. This is the lesson I impart on you with the heinous price I extract: Nothing in life worth doing is painless. Honoring my master the Storm-Trod is to cut yourself into a better shape, to learn discipline. Supplicate yourself to the Storm-Trod, and you will master yourself and be the better for it.”

Seeing no other choice, the people prostrated themselves before the reptilian creature, frightened eyes full of rebellion looking over at the goo-brained man who had once been one of the most vocal and powerful leaders under Hursimolit himself to remember their fear. Quivering rolls of people awaited in terror for their assailant to make her next move. Lou had flattened himself onto his belly.

The voice then spoke, commanding, “You will honor the Storm-Trod and your king not through open war, but through veiled shadows. Eschew the right of naked force to settle your disputes, and wage your wars silently, through assassination and spies. Present a unified front to enemies without, and maneuver silently within. Do this, and I shall never return uninvited.”

“S-sure, wh-whatever th-the Storm-Trod commands,” whispered weakly Gilumina. Others remained silent, only exceptions being Zim-Piatt’s family sobbing around his living corpse.

Then, two wooden boxes painted a pitch-black and nailed shut floated into the light, settling down in front of the crowd. The wizards among them could sense magical power emanating from the boxes, and the voice said, “So long as you do not open them, they will provide magical power forever. Use them to power your traps.”

The cave suddenly plunged into pitch black again as the eyes vanished. Seconds later, the torches relit all at once and the crowd was left alone in the cave. Meanwhile, the An-Clastophon was collecting their firstborn; to be long gone before anybody could leave the cave. As the lights returned and people realised what had happened, they were lost for words; many broke into empty sobs while others howled the names of the lost children. Still more, though, were all-too-aware of what had just happened - and all-too-intent on punishing the one responsible for this great burial becoming a waking nightmare.

Lou turned a quivering head from where he laid on the ground, staring up into the black, furious faces of those who had taken him and his clan in among themselves.

“I--... I didn’t know…” he whimpered.

And as the other clans parted ways in sorrow later that day, another body had been buried in the tomb, though chopped and spread throughout its entrance. What traps had been set to protect their once powerful symbol of unity were known only to the wizard Voisana, who had proceeded to end his life after casting in mourning of his lost only daughter.

The tomb of Hursimolit was sealed thusly forever.

Habits were a dangerous thing, when exposed to the new one typically stayed cautious but also kept their mind open, in the sense they were trying to understand a situation. But with experience, while often beneficial, also came many bad habits, the mind became lazy and things were often taken without further questioning. It was only halfway through her travels that I'Iro realized that she had fallen victim to such a thing, as only now did her digital mind realize that her destination did not make sense.

In the old world, yes, this would have been a cold region in the far south. But that world was gone, its laws forgotten and broken, the world shattered... As such, the coldness of the region, once taken as understandable, was, in fact, an unexplainable anomaly, and with the lack of a godly trail in the south to explain its origin, it was easy to conclude whatever she would find there would be likely of extra-dimensional or ancient origin, and neither was a pleasant possibility.

Soon the verdant fields of Arira's paradise gave way to the bleak wastelands, life slowly returning to them even without the intervention of the gods. Snow started to fall from the sky as temperatures fell, and the land became white, sometimes it was the damp whiteness of the snow, but others it was the dry whiteness of salt. Large crystals of ice co-existed with an endless expanse of salt flats, the ice itself was unexplainable, water was lacking in this world, so how could they have been formed? How could it also exist in the same geological zone as salt? This world was a confusing one for the goddess' mechanical mind.



Deeper still, as she started to near the sea, she quickly noticed the pattern of the cold winds started to change, it seemed to come from a specific direction, which the goddess and her faithful dragon Nalmepror followed. Life was slowly blooming even in these cold reaches of the land, in the oceans and even in the snow-covered hills, beneath the fungal growths that spawned even in this far off reach of the land.

And among all this, the goddess saw the very source of the cold, a crater of exposed, barren rock. Not even snow seemed to accumulate in it, the sight was similar to how the shard was at the peak of the apocalypse if not worse. That was not, however, the most impressive aspect of this area. Rather, the goddess's sensors focused only on one single thing. A building, massive, at the centre of the zone.

As Nalmepror landed, I'Iro rushed forward, facing the tall spires of the stone ruins. Ruins? Could she even call it that? The whole structure was pristine to some absurd extent, only buildings that only existed in blueprints and dreams could ever be this intact, with no cracks in the structure or worn out edges. Analysis of the stone could not reveal if the origin was Galbarian or not, but what it did show was that the whole thing was monolithic, as if carved from a single massive rock. She knew nothing but trouble could be waiting in it, but a goddess was expected to face such troubles, and she could not leave this task to Arira.

Signaling for her dragon to stay put, the goddess set forth towards the massive central structure.





The interior of the building was composed of countless halls and rooms, all empty. They were as pristine as outside, but here it became clear the whole area was outright sterile, even bacteria did not seem to exist here. The purpose of a massive, dungeon-like maze with countless empty rooms eluded the goddess, the lack of any sign of previous life or inhabitants did not help at all.

The silence was oppressive, to say the least, even her logic-based sensors became somewhat paranoid in the expectation of something to show up, taking any input that she would ignore normally and focusing way too much on it. When she noticed nothing was there, the tension went away, but the ambient did not become more welcoming, nothingness was a worse realization than the fear of a stalker lurking by. For some reason, I'Iro started to wish she could have brought Arira or Astella with her, or perhaps even Nalmepror. Anything to break the silence within the massive fortress, anything for her to heart outside of her footsteps and the faint hum of the electrical pulse within her body.

And then finally, she found something. At the very core of the building, she walked into a room and soon saw faint, blinking lights. It did not matter if it was magical or mechanical, she wanted to see what was in there... And she regretted it.



Throughout the walls of the area that seemed to be a computer room, countless tendrils spread out, it was no mere growth however, it was clearly interfacing with the machine, somehow, although the tendrils were definitely organic, animal possibly, because the goddess could sense not only an electric pulse, but also an actual pulse, like a beating heart, or hearts.

To say she was disgusted was to understate what the goddess felt. She almost used her divine power to eradicate all that surrounded her at that very moment but controlled herself at the last minute. It was only dangerous to her if she allowed it to touch her, and she had no plans at all to get anywhere close to either the ancient computers and much less the abhorrent organic... thing.

Upward, as the tendrils stopped being just soft flesh but actually formed a podium with some sort of bone-like growths, she could see an octahedron gemstone? It was extremely opaque and jet black, yet she could tell the structure was crystalline. As she approached it she could feel, without doubt, that this area was the epicentre of the cold weather in the shard.

In normal physics cold is merely the lack of heat, yet, as impossible as it was, this structure seemed to be generating the cold. This was a bit of an issue, was something operating in such abnormal form reliable to use as one of the pillars of the land's weather? Probably not. Perhaps it was better to leave the final decision on this to Arira.

Still, she was curious, and disgusted, enough to at least temporarily stop the machine for the moment being. She could do such a task by merely using her god power to outright tell the electrical current to stop, without needing to risk her body by interaction with the weird bio-infected machines down below.

But as soon as she did, as soon as she forced the machine to stop, she saw the results being the complete opposite of what she expected. The temperatures did not increase, instead, they dropped.

It was like a wave of nothingness. Before she could realize her entire surrounding had reached the absolute zero, if the room was quiet before, now it seemed like the very atoms that composed the structure had been muted. The "Machine" or the "Thing", whatever it was, writhed and wilted, being frozen and falling to the ground, breaking into pieces upon impact. Yet the crystal it seemed to hold was still floating, still emanating coldness.

She had misunderstood everything, hadn't she? I'Iro assumed the worst without thinking about the other possibility, that the machine was not creating anything, but containing it. There wasn't time for self-blame, however, as she soon realized the situation was developing terribly in the outer world. Beyond the crater, the cold was spreading, crawling through the mountains, freezing the ocean solid, and then creating a new ocean, not of water, but of helium and nitrogen in a superfluid state.

If this was allowed to keep spreading, it would soon undo the work of all her fellow gods, life would be in danger, and this could not be allowed. It was time to undress herself of the reliance on traditional physics, just because something was alien to her and the logic she was built upon it did not mean it was devoid of logic, it had its own set of rules, and she would understand it.

She focused on the crystal, on how it was generating cold, and started to observe how it was interacting with the world. She accessed all of her memories about her encounters with portals, she recalled all the inexplainable particles she had scanned, and with that knowledge, she created a "magical" barrier, two orbs around the crystal, at first they did little to stop the emission of coldness, but when the empty space was filled with one of the particles she had found in her travels, it all stopped, the alien cold being unable to cross through the material that was as alien to it as it was to Galbar.

The goddess was about to solidify the barrier into a more physical metal shell when the world around her crumbled. With the cold gone, everything around her rapidly heated up, air rushed in from out of the influenced area and upward from liquified and solidified materials now quickly expanding, evaporating and sublimating. The building she was in, once pristine, now quickly paid its debt to time, in seconds it eroded and broke down in face of all that had just happened.

The goddess sighed at that sight, once again the mysteries of the world had sippled away from her, crumbling to sand as soon as she interacted with it. The origins of the building, of the crystal and of the bio-mechanical tendrils did leave a sense of curiosity in her mind, but, she had more important duties. Nalmepror looked at the goddess with a bit of a judgemental look, his shiny body now having a few scratches from the pandemonium she had brought upon this land by accident.

Sorry. I committed a mistake. she said in an apologetic tone. The dragon couldn't judge his master very much, what had happened had happened, furthermore, seeing the goddess bothered wasn't a nice sight to him, so he merely huffed some air, letting the past stay in the past.

The goddess looked around, and moved to the very edge of the continent, creating a projection of Arira's map and the towers she had mentioned. After some quick mathematical calculations, she called forth another one of her barriers, this time it was a thin one, sharp enough that it stopped being what it was before and became a blade in function. I'Iro sank it into the ground and slowly cut off a chunk of the land, using her godly powers to them move that rock away.

When she neared the edge the land she gathered started to crumble as it had become far too unstable, that was not an issue, but it was a clear sign she had reached the limit of the Shard's stability, even godly controlled land became brittle at this distance. She stopped moving and instead focused on the metal orb she had created to control the crystal, the nameless alien metal started to contort and change in shape, more components being added before, slowly, the goddess allowed some of the cold to seep into the world again.

The effects were controlled now, the land and water where she was standing were quickly unified in a sheet of ice, the goddess bringing in more water to create a glacier to hold the land together and above the ocean. This zone was arctic in temperature, but by the time the cold reached Galbar, it would be a more manageable temperature, the worst this would do is create some icebergs to surprise unaware ocean travellers in the south.

I'Iro brought forth a small temple, mimicking the architecture she had seen in that fortress, and placed the device she had created at its core. I will name this the jewel of silence she whispered to herself, but Nalmepror heard her.

<viovre aque brul lue?>

The goddess gasped. It was indeed a bit silly to give it a name like that, wasn't it? She couldn't tell if it was because she was happy to, for once, have learned that alien chemistry and physics could be tamed to work on Galbar or if it was because Arira would probably prefer a name like that over a boring scientific name.

Speaking of Arira... A small turquoise letter formed in I'Iro's hand, she turned her thoughts into words within it, a simple message talking about her work in the south and how she could use it to regulate temperatures for the seasonal cycle project. When she let go of the letter, it turned into a bolt of light that flew into the air. Once it arrived at Arira's Paradise, it would reform itself into the message and land gently in the goddess of cycle's table.

Well. It seems this task is done the goddess thought, but unlike last time, she did not feel like she was at loss. This whole experience, as unfortunate as it had been, had been a valuable learning experience. I'Iro now had plans, she was fated to be humiliated for as long as she limited herself to be a relic of a dead world, there was a world out there that she found fun in understanding.

But she would not allow herself to become obsessed with breaking down foreign things and chasing a sense of progress. Ultimately, the main factor at play in her mistakes and successes were within herself, and the tamed forces of nature were too dangerous in the hands of beings that could not tame themselves, gods included. She would need to reflect on that factor before deciding her path forward.

---

Years Later

"We should not stay much longer in this land, Mensa, it is bad luck to miss the first boat back home." Ata Panin said to his long-time friend and fellow scout. Soon, as the cold receded south, the ice pillars of the ghost ocean would break down, and the salt-flats would become an ocean again, for the entirety of summer season. The event, when the waters first rushed to the coast of the villagers, was deeply meaningful to all of the Theluji culture.

"Just a bit more brother, I saw it with my very eyes when we were travelling with the caravan, but I could not leave the camels and my family behind. Still, it was the Mshtuko Mzizi. If we gather it and its oil we will make a great profit when the water returns."

"Ah, brother, I trust you. But if such a thing that you saw was merely a salt-induced illusion from having crossed the ghost sea when it's dry, you will owe me at least three caskets of brew."

Mensa laughed at that, Ata Panin joining him, their voices echoing through the wintery plains of the deep south of the shard. Then suddenly, Mensa stopped and stared at the snow, his camel almost crashing into him. He rushed ahead, machete in hand, kicking the snow. Soon, he felt it, the shock-root, mshtuko miziz. Without ceremony, he slashed down upon it, the warm oily liquid within pouring out. A sought commodity in all of the shard for its brilliant colour and many uses, from magical to lamp making. Some liked to consume it, but it was not good for the mind.

"By all the holy and unholy gods, Mensa, you did it." his friend was soon near him with his own machete, the camel and a bucket. Finding the rare root, only found in the icy cold south, was a great blessing.

---

Traveling along the eastern peeks of the mountains was far more peaceable than her journey south or even the meeting on the highest peak. The Su’une was shining, they had started curving northward again a while back, she had some interest to see how they went as the lands up here were really quite a bit more interesting than your usual affair. Fungal lands, shining Su’une, terror moon in the sky, all a bit more than the usual thi-

That last one was definitely new, its light was all wrong and definitely not a reflection of the Su’une. The contemplation of this led to an almost collision with one of those eastern peaks which prompted the probably wise decision to set down and do a bit more exploring of interest on foot, or at least closer and less mid-mountain flying.

The lands were certainly strange, fungi dominated, even upon the trees they lived. Yet, the strange sights would not stop there, within one of the valleys sat a strange group of creatures. They seemed to be made of bones formed into strange skeletons, upon their head were animal-like skulls, from big cats to deer to boars to even bulls. The group was currently sat around a small campfire, a few sacks surrounding them.

Down Ze’kelia swooped, the strange and lively lands were interesting, but people living within it would no doubt be more so. Bones and campfires, sacks and animal like skulls. There was much to talk and to know it seemed.

She landed a fair distance away, she made herself shine noticeably and called out to the group, spreading her arms to show her openness, ”Hello there! May I approach and take part of your good fire, warmth and light?”

She briefly paused raising her hand not carrying the light spear, now a basket held there, ”I come bearing gifts!” Down Ze’kelia swooped, the strange and lively lands were interesting, but people living within it would no doubt be more so. Bones and campfires, sacks and animal like skulls. There was much to talk and to know it seemed.

The beings looked quite shocked at her sudden appearance, gazing up and down upon her and the basket in her hand. A being, their head akin to that of a Jaguars, finally spoke. “And who might you be?” Their voice near monotone and equally as grating.

She smiled warmly within closed lips as she replied, ”Ze’kelia, Goddess of Light and maker of the Su’une,” she lifted her spear to point it out in the sky, “And who are you? Such an interesting group in such an interesting place!”

Still she kept apart, not having been invited to approach, but lazily walking at a distance as she spoke to them.

The group looked up to where her spear pointed, before turning their attention back to her. “Ah so you’re the one who made it? Well many thanks to ya”. The Jaguar headed one spoke, “As for us, we’re Azrath, I personally am Xeth, leader of this band.” They gestured to the others, who kept seated upon the grassy floor of the valley.

”Well met Xeth the Azrath, may I approach? I admit handing off a gift is difficult at a distance.”

She stood facing them once again, her wings twitched briefly before folding once more behind her. ”I assure you I only wish to know more about you, the Azrath and how you came to be, such a fascinating people, and so clever and good of you to keep a fire going for sure!”

Xeth nodded “Aye, you can join us,” they gestured to a spot empty in the circle the group had. “Wouldn’t mind the company”

Smiling again she stepped forward joining the circle in the empty spot. She reached out holding the basket off to one of the Azrath as she spoke,”What’s all your story then? What is your side to the tale that ends in us meeting here at your fire?”

The Azrath took it, setting it gently next to the sacks by them. Xeth thought for a moment, before speaking. “Well, to keep it short: we are not from here, we come from another land, one we had to flee in order to survive, less we die. Our leader, Valix, led us to this new land” They gestured once more, this time to the trees around them. “There, we met this other being, Alzria is her name, another goddess i believe, she took us in, gave us a home, and so, here we are, foraging for supplies for our new home.” The others nodded solemnly along.

Ze’kelia nodded to his words before replying, ”A valiant people so ready to seek out a better life in such dangerous times. I must admit I would love to meet this Alzria, but first I would ask you, what do you lack?”

”I mean it simply, what would you search for that you wish to have?”

Xeth thought for a good moment, looking at the other Azrath and speaking in hushed tones to get their opinion, finally, they spoke. “In truth, it’d be great to have some, more game around, the local fauna is fine, but nothing that really, pops out you know?”

Ze’kelia thought for a moment finally replying, ”I think that’s quite manageable, I’ll avoid something too fancy I think and go for something suitable and simple enough that suits your needs. What should you want from a kind or kinds of creatures? Need you furs? Meats? Fats? All and more?”

“Meat and Fats would be preferable, the furs we have down.” Xeth replied, the others nodding in agreement, they continued “Though I do not know how we’ll repay you for doing us such a favor.”

Ze’kelia nodded at his words before turning her head in askance at his last ones, replying she spoke, ”Do not worry so much about repaying this to me, focus on eachother and doing good there.”

She pointed her spear towards the fire speaking again, ”Bring forward light with you and keep it dearly. Keep others warm and yourselves, be good. Try to do that in full earnestness and you will have repaid me.”

She then turned without waiting for a reply, from her spear shot light forth out over the grass and a distance aways shapes too form and fled. Small ones that scales reflected the light, larger ones that walked with many long legs before tendrils grabbed and lifted themselves up into the fungal forest, and large slow beasts, armored and greedily sucking up the grasses.

The light dimmed and she turned back saying briefly, “Three to keep it interesting, lizards are good for a short meal and some of the larger ones once they grow a bit might have some pretty scales. The fungal crawlers have a good amount of meat on them, but be careful hunting them alone, a good partner at least if it tries to wrap you up. And the beasties eating up the grass over there,” she pointed back with a thumb as she settled down by the fire, “Stick them good after boxing them in and pushing some fire in their face, they have a good sense of smell and are almost blind. They’ll rear up and that’ll expose enough of their underbelly to get them swiftly. Should have good meat and the plates they have might be useful for a little while after harvesting.”

She sighed, and looked up to the sky, evidently satisfied.

Xeth nodded, gazing at the new forms that now lived within the forest. “Aye, that’ll do just fine,” they gestured for one of the other Azrath to keep the things they were told in their mind, so they could tell the others. “You said you wished to meet Alzria right? We should probably be heading back soon, we can lead ya to where she lives, well, at least to the base of it.”

Immediately as if barely containing energy she bolted back to her feet saying somewhat calmer than her motion would suggest, ”Oh that would be just wonderful of you. I should be able to handle myself from the base of wherever just fine.”

They chuckled at the goddess’ response, slowly bringing themselves upward and motioning for the others to do the same. “Very well, it shouldn’t be too far, and it's not hard to miss.”

It was not a lie. The Azrath led Ze’kelia up the valley, retracing the steps they had done earlier in the morning through the strange fungal forest. They came towards a large peak in the distance, easily the largest peak in the range, its cap thrusted towards the sky. Soon enough they came onto a valley just at the base of the mountain, throughout it she could see other Azraths moving about, some constructing houses of stone and wood, others gathering up the foraged supplies, and even some tending to furry beasts with long tusks and horns. Some looked up as the group came close, waving towards the foragers, and giving a strange look to the goddess.

Xeth gestured upwards, high up towards the mountain, at roughly the middle point one could see a mist covered ledge, whatever was hidden behind it kept away from prying eyes. “Fly up there and give a knock, she’s sure to answer, don’t tell her I sent ya there though, just in case.”

Ze’kelia nodded and said, ”Thank you, I’ll remember you, privately, Xeth the Azrath.”

With that she did take flight with a great stretch of her black wings. Soaring up and around the mountain till coming up near the ledge spotted below.

The mist obscured most of her vision as it began to settle around her. Soon, she could see before her a massive metal door, easily able to fit large creatures with ease, upon it was inscribed a beautiful set of images, depicting a vast array of creatures and monsters, all seemingly connected and together, alongside this there were two set of large iron knockers, each one designed to look like that of a monster’s head, with a wicked snake in their mouths.

Muttering briefly, ”Quite fancy...”

Soon however she was using one of the knockers, announcing her presence to a hopefully receptive goddess.

For a few moments, nothing happened, just silence and the sound of mountain winds whipping through the area. But through the door, muffled noises began to come through, noises of animals and creatures, and other things. Finally, a loud creak and shuddering of metal sounded, and within the great door, a smaller door at the bottom opened up, and out stepped a strange looking figure.

She was adorned in a tattered black and purple robe, legs and eyes covered in bloody robes, chitin and fungi covered arms, tattered black wings and a swishing blade tipped tail, and finally countless scars covering her purple skin. The most notable oddity being a small gelatinous figure sitting upon her shoulder, jiggling seemingly happily.

She smiled a smile full of wicked sharp teeth. ”Oh hello there! And who might you be?” She asked in a strangely cheerful voice.

With a deep bow she replied, ”Ze’kelia, Goddess of Light. Pleased to meet you to be sure.”

She was smiling as she came up from her bow, cheerfully continuing, ”I hope I’m not interrupting anything important charming Lady...?” She trailed off fishing for a name spoken in reply.

”Alzria,” the figure replied, giving her own bow in response ”And you’re not interrupting much, I was just attending to my children” she gave a pet to the slimy creature on her shoulder, it jiggling in response.

”Lady Alzria, perfect. Just the Goddess I have wanted to meet,” Ze’kelia’s smile grew even wider. ”I’d like to give a gift and take some of your time to talk.”

She held out a basket that formed in her free hand, stones of a brilliant patterns and colors, all gently radiating warmth. She spoke, continuing, ”Some pretty stones, although they serve a dual purpose, I’d hope your children enjoy warm things? These stones will stay ever gently warm.”

Alzria took the basket, inspecting the rocks within, handing one to her slime, which quickly shot out a tendril and took the rock inside it, jiggling once more in joy. ”I'm sure they absolutely will” she spoke with a chuckle, ”You said you wished to talk yes? I believe I can afford some free time to talk, so, what brought you all the way to this land?”

Ze’kelia stood and played with her hair some, standing her spear on its end and speaking in reply, ”In truth I was just flying above in my explorations after creating the Su’une the lights the world form above. I came across the Azrath and well, in short order I heard about you and wished to talk, to know you.”

”I see, well, what exactly do you want to know?” she smiled once more, setting down the basket of rocks by the door.

”Oh you know, just what you’ve been up to, your accomplishments that sort of thing. Sharing some stories and about our deific power and all.”

She waved her hand vaguely as she spoke, mimicking the openness of her suggestion of conversation topic. Her focus changed briefly to the slime, she made a small light show to try to entertain before continuing, ”The Azrath spoke highly of you so I of course wouldn’t mind hearing the story there. As well I’d love to hear more about your children, do you take care of them just yourself?”

Alzria chuckled, shaking her head slightly ”No not alone, when I found the Azrath coming here from their homeland, I figured I could lend them a hand, help them set up shop, in exchange,” she gestured towards the large gate, and the sounds within ”They would become caretakers of my sanctuary and my children, they have been a great deal of help as well, they’re very eager to create their new home it seems, from what their leader has told me, their old home was quite the dreadful place.” She seemed to trail off, looking around the area, before finally pointing up towards the sky, especially the bright disk ”So that is your creation huh? I’ve always been curious how it flies across the sky like that.”

Ze'kelia looked up and replied with a smile as she turned back, "Yes that is the Su'une, it is thrown by my two Guardians between each other and well, enchanted to find the target of each throw. I can show you what they're like, quite big each Guardian is, One is called Ur-Alz(f)elia, shes the closest to here. The Other is called Ur-Nikatel, he's further away."

"I'm very glad you have some help, raising children and caring for them can't be very easy." She paused to waggle a finger near the slime, "Even ones as cute as you!"

The slime wiggled around in response, the rock inside barely moving around. ”Yes my children can be quite the handful, and Guardians huh? I suppose something as important as the Su’une should be protected,” She stared back up towards the sky, her gaze seemingly locked on something up there, before her head snapped back to Ze’Kelia ”While I would love to see what they’re like, I dare not leave my Children for too long at the current moment, the Azrath have been much help, but alas they’re still inexperienced, I’ve had to stop some of my children from gnawing on them here and there.”

She giggled at the little slime before speaking to the Goddess once more, "Understandable fully I know. I should expect they'll grow out of that in time. I should let you know at the highest peak there seems to be some accumulation of Deities doing things there, setting up little places and such. I hope to see you sometime, although I have not so much interesting in hunkering down somewhere. Perhaps we can meet up and relax sometime when your children are in a good place?"

Alzria nodded in response ”That sounds wonderful, once things settle down I’ll be sure to stop by the place, I’m sure at the very least they’d appreciate having our representation there if they’re trying to get all the deities together.” She looked back towards the great metal door next to them, as more sounds emitted from within. ”Anything else you wished to ask about? I should be heading back inside soon, I'm sure Valix is already reaching his limit in dealing with my children.”

"One last thing, what exactly are you the Goddess of? So that I can at least tell others if there's ever any relevance in conversation dearest Alzria." She smiled warmly as those last words left her lips.

Alzria smiled a big smile, the scars near her lips seemingly creaking under the pressure. ”Nightmares!” she replied in a jovial tone.

Ze’kelia smiled back, “Thank you! I hope you do well with that!”

The light Goddess leapt off the ledge and flew south west. Alzria smiled once more, picking up the basket, and heading back inside to the noise of her sanctuary.

---

---

Xem, having taken his leave of the other gods at the summit of the mountain long ago, paid no mind to the work that was currently occurring several miles above. He was certain that, no matter what it might have been those strange little machines were building, it did not concern him. Instead, he moved further down the mount until he eventually arrived at its base. A featureless wall of rock situated the farthest away from any of the surrounding streams one could imagine, and thus the perfect location for him to establish his realm. Laying a decrepit hand against the dirt covered stone, Xem slowly began to shape the rock, melting in some places and extending it in others until it settled into a shape that met his needs. With that initial bout of landscaping done, the god of corruption strode onward into the lightless tunnel he had made, stopping only upon reaching an as of yet untouched wall. Extending his power Xem hollowed out the strata around him, creating a tiny pocket in the rock centered around a horrid throne that would serve as the focal point of his domain. Settling himself upon it he unleashed a corruptive wave that would see the transformation complete, the spatial dimensions of the interior warping and shifting to fit the design lingering in the recesses of his blighted mind.

Pestis was finished at long last.

---

“Move it! You can die when I let you!” Aelitia yelled at the huddled column of people. They looked haggard and beaten, but soon they would be safe. They just had to get through this night... and just this night it had to start storming. “You, move it!” Aelitia yelled again at someone who started straggling, and then the whole column of people froze in place as howls echoed through the night air.

Aelitia and her hunters didn’t freeze. They had heard those howls before. “What, do you all want to be monster food? Move it!” She yelled again. The people continued on as she drew an arrow from her quiver and held it in her other hand. Ready to have it drawn. Quite forcefully she pushed people along. There were only seven hunters. Not nearly enough to protect the fifty-something people.

A howl. A scream. Panic rippled across the group. From behind her people started to run through the mud. “Wolf!” Someone yelled. Aelitia started running towards the back of the group. Pushing people aside. She saw its eyes glowing in the dark.



She released the arrow at the end of her prayer. It’s silver head and shaft glowed a fiery red as it streaked through the dark night. It struck true. The beast’s fur ignited in a blaze. It yelped and shrieked as it started running away into the dark. One man passed her from behind her. She stopped him with one arm.

“We have to burn our dead!” He said. “Or they’ll never reach the after-“

Smack!

“Do you want all of your people to burn!?” Aelitia yelled at him. Her hand imprint was bright red on the man’s cheek. With a small cut where her silver ring hit the skin. “Because if you really want to die then at least do everyone a favor and hurl yourself at the wolf monsters! If you want them to live you listen to me. And I say you will fucking move!” She shoved him away again to walk.

It was already too late. More glowing eyes peered through the darkness. Aelitia raised her bow, a beautiful silvery weapon. Its limbs forged to look like overlapping, silvery lotus petals. She loosed her nocked arrow, silvery filaments of its light spilling out like cracks into the darkness, and as they unfurled like vines reaching for the morning sun they seared away the mangy scraps of gristle and fur that passed them by. As they spilled forth a temporary celestial luminance was created by their refulgence--casting light down upon the area like one of the stars they were modeled after and hanging like a beacon of safety for the haggard throng of humans moving as quickly as their feet would take them before the storm descended on them all.

From the distance, however, was a different kind of light: a searing, ominous amaranthine streaked its way across the night sky, stopping just in front of the hunters, back turned, and leaning down to the Abiktu that were suddenly no longer the ravening and snarling pack of mindless beasts of before, but lost pups reunited with their mother.

”You’ve eaten already? Then go, my children, feast elsewhere.” the voice was equal parts shrill and sensuous, grating to the ears of those not used to the whining and braying of monsters. She rubbed her clawed hands into the side of one of the Abiktu’s muzzles, gently cooing and making faces at it, as her serpentine tail snapped at the huntress and those behind her.

”My children have eaten tonight. I spare you as an act of atonement.” Ahtziri did not even turn to look at the humans behind her, instead continuing to play with the pack of wolf-things before her.

The Huntress – especially in recent times – had bitten her fair share of fear back. No matter the creature, the amount of its eyes or the length of its claws she would fight it without issue. That’s what hope did for her. Now her feet were nailed to the ground. Her body shook involuntarily. The overwhelming dread she felt now was as strong as the warmth she felt in her heart when she first saw those silver lotuses floating in that small pond. “Uwné hear my plea.” She muttered again, begging the mantra to still her heart.

Slowly one hand moved behind her back. Her faith was not yet broken. “Maker of my bow and arrow.” Carefully she grasped the feathers on an arrow and slowly pulled it. Hoping it would be quiet enough so this- by Uwné what could she call this thing in front of her? “May their edge-“ The words of faith felt stuck in her mouth as she took a careful step back. But she swallowed what blocked it. “May their edge never falter.” Her heart stilled. Steeled by a newfound faith. Her arm stopped shaking as she carefully placed the arrow upon the bow, with its notch against the strung. But she didn’t pull it.

Before Aelitia could so much as blink, Ahtziri was upon her with all of the grace and finesse a predator of her standing could be expected to possess. She caressed the huntress softly, tenderly, in a strangely sentimental (yet clearly devoid of maternal love) way, before moving her muzzle down to meet Aelitia's ear and gently flick the insides of her earlobe with her tongue as she spoke.

”Mortals have suddenly become quite interesting to me, you see..." Ahtziri spoke, her wings vibrating in a low, gentle thrum. She paused for a second to look up at the cloud-ridden sky, picking out its individual tones of greys and blacks and blues, before returning to her quarry with a strange nostalgia in her voice.

”You faced certain death just now and were offered clemency, but chose to remain... Why? Why not just run?"

The question was asked without prejudice, and as Ahtziri sidled her way back to where she was standing before she looked down at the little mortal hunter with genuine curiosity, almost as if for the first time. The baleful light within Ahtziri's eyes called out to Aelitia, pressing against her mind with the damp heat of clammy tongues and the relentless rhythm of panting--it demanded that she speak truly, without fear of consequence. If the command was followed, if she was compliant, no cruelty would befall her and no harm to her people: the promise of it was right there, like a burning jewel boring into her mind.

“I-I protect.” Aelitia stammered. She tried to see movement in the corner of her eye. Maybe just a shadow. Any indication that the others were gone. Away. Safe. She saw nothing, so she closed her eyes. “Keep things… away.” She continued as she tried to hear them move. Perhaps she could hear a charcoal twig break far away in the distance or the crack of an ashed shrub breaking apart. She heard nothing. A sob broke from her. The huntress spoke the truth but who could trust the word of a monster? The presence upon her mind felt vile and invasive. Her body was taken over by base, animalistic fear that told her to not move an inch. She felt a desperate need to cry. To give in, fully and completely.

“Uwné…” She whispered through the sobs that grew more violent. “…hear my plea.”

Her body shifted. Her leg moved. One arm pulled on the string. The arrow tip glowed frozen blue. The cold tingled upon her fingers. For a moment the length of a blink courage, bravery and acceptance blazed in her heart. Then it had failed again, and she failed to release the arrow.

”Hmm. Then a mother's mercy you shall be given. You call out for an Uwné--are they another divine? I should like to meet my kin, if so." Ahtziri brought a claw to pick at something between her teeth as she spoke, though it in no way impeded the clarity of her words. Her focus drifted until it settled on a reality apart from ours, suddenly lost in the fields of her memory, but the moment only lasted briefly before her full attention was snapped back to this protector of her kin. She looked expectantly, as if awaiting an answer, but made a strange growling sound in the back of her throat regardless, and a cascading chain of howls made their way across the land into the far distance.

"God of Archery, perhaps? Metallurgy? Stability?" Ahtziri asked, not actually giving time for any answers to be returned: she simply used the words as a sort of punctuation to fill the air while she waited for something to happen in the distant background. The clouds seemed to be beaten back by something flying through them, far off in the distance, though it'd need a God's vision like Ahtziri's to be able to see it.

"I am Ahtziri vur Chakravarti, the Mother of Monsters."

“He is…my God.” Aelitia said. Though she kept to herself how she believed this creature, this ‘Ahtziri’ could not be akin to him. She was darkness personified. Mother of Monsters, what horrid being calls herself that? Who admitted to birth such horrific things that killed and slaughtered people with such abandon? If only she had been stronger. Better. Braver. Then she would’ve released this arrow and slaughtered this pretender. It might have been the last thing she did but it would be worth it.

As it stood, she could only answer: “Uwné, God of Crafting.” And even though she stood so thoroughly frozen by fear, she felt a flicker of flame light up in her heart again as she uttered his name.

”Then we shall go to him, and I shall make myself known. The Abiktu will be here shortly; shh, fret not. They are my loyal children, and they shall do naught but hie you to your destination safely and sound." Ahtziri's voice raised in pitch to a gnashing, trilling coo as her children shot through the clouds, spearheaded by the ever-jovial Pazuzu.

"Mother! What are we doing? Are we helping the humans go somewhere?!"

"Yes, my love. Ride with the huntress here, let her direct you. Make sure no harm comes to her or her kin."

The two shared the exchange with a brief rub behind the great Abiktu's ears and a kiss upon its nose, and then Pazuzu flew down to Aelitia and stared at her with his tail wagging and his head tilted quizzically to the side. His form began to shrink and ripple, a gentle lilac glow briefly enveloping him, as he became something more similar in size to a horse that the huntress would be used to, and he beckoned her atop his back with a gentle ruff and a shake of his tail.

Slowly Aelitia placed the arrow back in her quiver and mounted the baffling creature.

---

“Land.” Aelitia bid the creature she was riding. It was a weird feeling. The fearing had vanished but her heart raced for other reasons as well. Flying had been exhilarating. From high above she could see everything. Her eyes weren’t used to the speed but still she saw her prey down there. Moving between the blackened trees. One time she felt her hand move towards her quiver again. But then she saw Ahtziri forgot about it.

Now they had arrived and Aelitia wondered for the first time if she hadn’t betrayed everyone instead. She led the self-proclaimed mother of Monsters to New Tellur. What would keep her from feasting upon the refugees that Aelitia herself had led there before? As they lowered Aelitia grabbed her bow tightly. It was death then. If she saw even a single wrong move, she would kill the thing she was riding now and then the mother of monsters. Or at least try.

Once they touched the ground Aelitia hopped off quickly. She had bid them to land beyond the camp. And a camp it was. She called it New Tellur but it was nothing more than a makeshift camp of metal tents. Made by golems from the shell of what Uwné had called a gift from a friend. She had yet to learn the full story.

A mass of people had gathered already. They kept their distance though. One man pushed through. He was tall and wore mostly grey armor. Though his arm seemed to be forged from red scales. He planted his blade-spear’s but in the ground and took off his unadorned helmet to reveal a scarred face. “Starborn.” He greeted Aelitia, before his eyes fell upon the two strange creatures. More grey-armored warriors moved through the people. All wielding spears, swords and shields. They looked ready for whatever could come next. Though as they laid eyes upon Ahtziri all of them took a few, involuntary steps back. “You brought visitors?” The man said, seemingly unaffected by the fearful aura.

Ahtziri glanced down at the man and his scale helmet, and for a second her eyes narrowed as if in the recognition of some great misdeed. Then, as quickly as it had appeared, it was gone. Ahtziri did not deign to extend the mortal before her a handshake, cooly appraising him from afar with a gaze that was equal parts precocious and indignant. She remained generally playful and affable in her mood when he began speaking, but was clearly not paying him too much attention deliberately, looking through him while curiously eyeing his reactions as he did.

”My kin and I have come to make ourselves known to this new divine."

She regarded the wreckage that the humans had cobbled together with one of her eyes, noting the little bits of artifice that let them stretch their limited resources as far as possible. She caught a few fearful and steely glances from the members in the distance, and others nearby almost delirious with the fear of her presence. She smirked a little smirk, just for herself, while she awaited the counsel of her kin.

“She is Ahtziri, mother of monsters.” Aelitia said as she slowly backed away from Pazuzu. With every step she felt the grip of fear fade. Fire burned in her chest again. Not just of bravery. It was hate. She clenched her teeth as her hand moved towards her quiver hanging off her hip. Caine and his kin would help her. She could take the thing she rode upon. He could take the pretender.

Caine’s eyes narrowed as he heard her title. For a second he locked his with those of Aelitia. One shared glance was enough as he put his helmet back on. With a smooth move he grabbed his spear and turned it upside down. Pointing the tip of the blade at the ground. The people began to pull back. Some of the grey-armored warriors took a step forward. More appeared. One moved closer than most, wielding two swords also pointed at the ground.

“Forgive me, forgive me.” A voice came from the sea of people. But as soon as they heard it, they all knelt down and bowed their head. Aelitia, Caine and the other warriors remained standing. An old man passed through the parted sea of people to finally reach the standoff. “I wasn’t expecting such important company.” He said as he finally looked up towards Ahtziri. “Please, friends, please. Let us lower our weapons and welcome the goddess with dignity.”

For a second none of the fighters moved. Until Aelitia lowered her bow and knelt deeply. Soon all of the grey-armored knights were kneeling in towards the old man as well. “I am Uwné. God of Crafting and I bid you welcome, Mother of Monsters.” The god said with a beaming smile.

Ahtiri returned the Artisan God’s smile with one of her own, decidedly less pleasing to look at than his but in no way less genuine. She bid the others rise with a motion of her hand and then stretched it out gently to offer her divine kin a more personalised greeting.

”Ah, I see… Yes, this would explain the skill of the weaponry’s make. I am come to claim new lands for the family of Chakravarti, but it appears that you and your people have already laid claim to these warrens. You are a master provisioner, then..?”

And suddenly her tone was more friendly, cordial even--gone was the dismissive air and the sanity-wrenching aura, eclipsed by simple divinity: the kind of energy that is only produced when two deities occupied a similar space. Ahtziri took a wisp of it in her hand and it squirmed around for a moment, desperately trying to escape, before a flood of amaranthine washed over it and it became a monster’s tooth suspending from a necklace. She handed it over to Aelitia, the huntress, and offered her a smile of daggers:

”So long as you do not lose what is precious to you--your faith and your compassion--you could gain quite the boost of power by cavorting with that which is monstrous within you. Wear this charm, embrace the darker instincts that lay dormant within; temper its darkness with Uwné’s light and you shall find yourself capable of protecting your people.”

It was a trifle, really, to Ahtziri--barely even a fragment of effort went into its creation, but her last interaction with a god had gone… unpleasantly. She had decided to try and play this one with what perverse charisma she possessed, to make allies of these castaways and see if they could not be persuaded to join her or (at least be useful to her family). She turned her gaze back to her peer after a moment, smile gently resting upon her presently wolf-like snout.

Uwné had watched the act of gifting with great curiosity. Aelitia, for her part, did not deny the gift but she only held it in her hand for now. There was still some lingering, frightful tension in the air but the god decided to cut through that swiftly: “Come, come! You must be weary. Let us retire to…well I suppose you could call it my workshop.”

He led Ahtziri and her child through the mass of people that once again parted like a sea. Though they kept quite a bit of distance from the mother of monsters especially. The ground went up a little until they reached the so-called workshop. The Anvil-Altar of the World stood proud but cold watching from the cliff over the ever growing ocean. Around it were simple, clay pots of various sizes. Some held small saplings. Others bushes or flowers. They all seemingly circled around the solid, black marble table with several chairs around it. The whole itself was surrounded by a pool with a small bridge, within which the star lotuses floated peacefully.

Upon the table rested four, gold-veined cups and a silver-veined teapot. “I gleaned from the mortals that this was once a common way of meeting. I only saw it proper to replicate it. Please, sit.” He said as he motioned towards the chairs. He himself darted towards one of the plants. With a deft hand he picked one of the flowers that had a tall stem and carried it back towards the table where he placed it in the pot, which already contained some softly steaming water. “I must say this is the first time I’ve heard about a family of what I assume are other gods. You have to tell me about them!” Uwné said as he finally sat down in his own chair.

Ahtziri sat as she was bidden, her tail swishing about behind her while Pazuzu sat panting to her right side. He would occasionally reach for a scratch behind the ear or under his muzzle, Ahtziri's talons naturally smoothing themselves out into the motions while she spoke.

"Ah, well, truthfully my own interactions have been scant but... fierce. The first of our kin I met and we tried to kill one another, and the second of our kin I met married and found out was married to the god that had tried to kill me. It has been eventful." In spite of the tone of the topics Ahtziri's voice was relaxed, even nonchalant. She was strangely at ease, even affable and pleasant, and she made a number of casual observations as she looked around, things to the tone of "The place looks lovely," or "The calibre of your craftsmanship is evident, even here." while she awaited further lines of inquiry. A second or two into her search for something her eyes settled upon the anvil and her curiosity was piqued--something about it drew her eye in a way she couldn't quite explain.

"What's that, if I may?" she asked, her tail pointing towards the anvil with a gentle hiss of its tongue.

“That is Gallath, the World-Anvil, Quake-Tamer and Ocean-Binder.” Uwné said, beaming with pride. He knew what the goddess was talking about without even looking to where her tail had pointed. “My first tool and the most useful one. I’ve quieted the immediate area with it and bound the water to the edge of this Shard. So it may grow into a life-giving ocean.” He continued on as he lifted the teapot and filled three cups with the yasmin and honey smelling tea. Two cups he placed before Ahtziri and one he took for himself.

He leaned forward now as he said: “I’m assuming then that you married this Chakravarti. Tell me, what kind of a god is he?”

"Ahh, my love is both male and female; they are the god of families, and I their prime concubine. Lonn, my first, is the God of Mortals--and also Prime Consort of Chakravarti. My love mentioned another, briefly, a Celvanya--though I know little of her, truthfully. I am yet to meet the others… You must be quite the crafter, then, if that is the kind of tool that you can make for the purpose of making other tools.” A smile crept its way across the monstrous Goddess’ features as she recounted Chakravarti, as if a tiny ray of sunshine had suddenly come to illuminate her and no others. Then she was inquisitive again, and a coy deviousness crept over her affable gleam.

"So what plans have you? Create a sanctuary for these mortals, perhaps… build a civilisation? Do you have a family to start, a legacy to create? I am curious as to what those in our position do with the prospect of eternity looming ‘fore us.” Ahtziri took sips of the steaming liquid in between her words, weighing the flavours in her mouth before she spoke them into the world. Pazuzu sniffed at the liquid but did not otherwise react, content to bask in the affection of his mother and ignore (for the most part) his surroundings.

Uwné’s eyes turned towards the people working down the elevation. “A civilization… Yes I suppose that is part of my duty now.” He spoke with pride swelling in his chest. Then his attention shifted back to Ahtziri. “As for a family… perhaps. Not right now though. No, not right now. There’s too much to do.”

“And as for legacies-” Uwné turned around the cup he was holding to show the mother-goddess the depiction upon it. It looked like something that might have been a god. Or a saint, a demi-god, or something else entirely. “This is a legacy of those who came before us. It also means they’re gone. I don’t intend to leave.”

And then he saw little Pazuzu not drinking. “Oh dear. Is it too sweet, little one?” Uwné immediately asked, quite worried that his creation fell short.

"Oh, I don’t know! I haven’t tried it yet…” Pazuzu remarked back, totally oblivious to the fact that he had just been prompted to drink what had been offered to him. He smiled at Uwné (again, insofar as his kind could smile) for a solid ten seconds before Ahtziri picked the steaming mug up and poured it into the Abiktu’s awaiting muzzle. He swallowed the whole thing in a single gulp, letting out a happy howl as he did, and wagged his tails as he returned to being scritched by his mother.

”Leaving is not always a choice, not if deicide is a possibility--and I assure you, it is.” Ahtziri mused, a knowing glint in her eyes.

”But I doubt such things will come to pass without a strong consensus or stronger reason: we all want the success of this Shard, for without it we have nothing to be gods of. In that vein, I have a query for you: my son, Ossurman the First, shall one day rule over a sprawling empire--I wonder if I could commission from you a set of imperial regalia, to be worn by the ruling house..?” Ahtziri’s tone was just as nonchalant as before, but her posture was opened up as she asked the favour of the god across from her. She was still not appealing, per se, but the relaxation and lack of implied threat was quite close to her grace as many would come.

“But of course!” Uwné exclaimed. “It would be my honor. Though I hope you wouldn’t be offended if I said that there are other things I must tend to first. This little piece of this world here must be given an abundance of life and I have yet to craft all the plants that will come to exist here. Once the Shard has stabilized and it is time to rebuild though, then I shall have forged the Regalia first thing!” He would, of course, have to meet Ossurman first. A Regalia forged by a god could not just be made on a whim. It would be important to see what the little Emperor would hold dear to himself and what values he intends to embody.”

”Ah, wonderful!” Ahtziri exclaimed as Uwné agreed to her proposition: the thought of being able to provide a gift of deific quality for her son to enjoy was something truly ecstatic. With a beam of bright, genuine joy she listened to the rest of what her fellow had to say, listening carefully to his conditions and concerns.

”But of course, yes--Ossurman is only a babe as of now, anyway. By the time he is to be fitted for his regalia, well, it is plenty of time away. Perhaps I can aid you in both of your endeavours… a child of mine, known as the Bizai’i, currently digests rocks far beneath the surface. I could have it coil ‘neath this nascent sanctuary of yours, and it shall create ores for you and yours to mine not too far below the surface! The twisting of monstrous flesh is one of my gifts, so if there are new ores that it cannot currently mine, pray inform me and I shall adapt it to be able to provide such sustenance for you and yours. That said, there is a condition: the Bizai’i must be kept sleeping when it is not feeding upon the earth, or it may cause seismic damage to your sanctuary. So long as you keep it pacified and keep it fed, it will be a great boon.” Ahtziri’s smile did not dampen as she spoke, and the offer was one borne of impulsive gratitude--something that, she would come to realise in the future, would not happen very often at all.

The two talked about the fate of the Shard, Chakravarti (the God of Family), and their far off lands. The newly-made sun was dipping low when eventually Ahtziri decided to take her leave with Pazuzu and send the rest home content with their full bellies and mother’s love. Uwné gave her the cup as she left, as a parting gift.