Alucroas

No God's Sky

For normal Kilamarans, the rippling waves of heat rising off the scorching sands would prove far too great a trial to pass, but for Kirri - a being some saw as being made of fire - it was as if he were a strong fish swimming through a powerful current. Compared to the volcanic inferno that was Deimobos, this barely qualified as a refreshing breeze, the smell of which had become gradually rife with the stench of his own rotting people. Through the Fire Stone embedded in his chest, he could feel their spirits crying out in agony, inciting a desperate amount of effort to accelerate beyond his usually controlled speed, the trail of glass he left behind becoming a small forest of of jagged towers in the process.

Approaching the edge of the desert, Kirri slowed himself atop a raised field of dunes dotted with palm trees. The stench of death violated his nostrils, forcing the entirety of his long face to cringe up, the curved spikes protruding from the sides pressed against the back of his skull, small dark spines lined together in a narrow squint over his pitch black eyes as he observed the skeletons with horrified disgust.

Kirri knew not the art of necromancy, this was his first time beholding of such a thing in action, however, it became plain through his concern for all Kilamarans that this magic lied at the interstice between the realms of the living and dead.

Then came the sudden explosion.

Pressing forwards once more, deep crimson flames spilled out of the Fire Stone in his chest, wrapping his body within its shielding embrace. The amber wave collided with his barrier hardened into its namesake shape, cutting through the blast, meanwhile Kirri's legs bent, pressure mounting in the glands situated at his joints. Beneath the armor, his spikes bristled, bloody tinge cracking their way up through bone and flesh alike, his insides undergoing a process of destruction and reconstruction. The split claws on his hands and feet split farther apart, sand being siphoned into his roiling interior.

Before the flames ceased their assault, Kirri released the pressure in his limbs, unleashing an explosion that rocketed him toward his corrupted Kilamarans, bringing a wave of tidal dunes with him. The constant vibration of unknown impacts against his crystal exoskeleton gave little information as to the context of how they were attacking him, and so he allowed the desert wave to consume him entirely, several feet of sand melting around his form as he passed the still-growing colossal skeletons. Breaking free from the wave, glowing yellow cords protruding from his split digits and extended back into the sand which he had partially buried the creatures within.

Kirri's armor then fell off, revealing his sliced and bruised skin and scorched innards, self-inflicted lesions on organs and muscle tissue which mattered for naught as he had ceased his existence as an organic being from the moment of his ascension. The spikes on coming out of his head grew in size, bristled once more, and Kirri let out a throaty hiss as he tugged on the cords.

Ignorant to these beings' levels of intelligence, the Redeemed Warrior saw little need to speak with what he perceived as minions; his roaring battle-cry breaking the grainy quiet of falling sand, voice still hissing with heat and molten saliva as the stinger on his back fully extended, stretching the full length of his body which at present was a mere sixteen feet long.

No God's Sky

In the eyes of those who had yet to evolve, space was irrelevant, meaningless, and for all intents and purposes, practically non-existent. Nobody knew, or had they heard mention of the word ‘canvas’--a mere metaphor used by more advanced races to describe the cosmos. Nobody knew of the vast emptiness separating the desert world of Kilamara from its volcanic moon Deimobos, nor did they know of the great nothingness between the other uncounted, unknown, and unnamed planets, let alone what lay beyond the star system they all inhabited.

Nobody knew and nobody cared, because they didn’t have to.

Those small, sweet, innocent insects crawling and frollicking in the forest were so fortunate when the radiation hit them--passing through their bodies and leaving their cells unchanged--left alone to continue living out their existence uninterrupted, and without the burden of sentience to bug or distract them. Unbothered, they wandered the world without sleep, hunted without sleep, mated without sleep, never once having suffered the strain of anxiety that those above them thought constantly of; thoughts of tomorrow’s next arduous journey that would determine whether they lived, or died and with the eternal blanket of sleep to cover them up.

Ignorance is Bliss.

For those who had evolved, space was not only relevant, it was crucial to the Kilamaran way of life: learning how to use the stars to navigate the forest at night, to cross the vast desert in search of a mate waiting for them on the other side, to hunt for beasts great enough satisfying their appetites, and proving their worth among fellow tribespeople. All these talents granted by their increased brain capacity came naturally to them already, albeit with a higher level of skill involved. The setting of traps, engaging in cooperative herding efforts to ensure a bountiful hunt and to manage their livestock as opposed to simply hiding in a burrow and waiting for a meal to come along, only to end up having to engage in a fight to the death with thieves and scavenger bugs. Not everything could be perfect though. The laws established by their chiefs prohibiting premarital interaction and visitation among members of the opposite sex created what was deemed an unbearable and more over, unneeded restriction for Kilamaros and Kilamari alike; in a world where there were other tribes scattered throughout the east and west sides of the continent constantly warring over territory, such seemingly arbitrary laws could not be given time to even consider. Free-minded spirits fled to places where authoritarian minds dared not tread, eeking out a living across the sands, and making all Kilamarans truly divided.

The advent of cultural segregation and its gradual evolution weakened the Kilamarans as a race if they were not weak already. Deimobos, it was said inspired fear, paranoia, and blood-lust--made people feel an unnatural revelry in the savagery of combat--mutilating the corpses of their adversaries, desecrating their lands by engaging in acts of cannibalism and defecating their remains all over the huts and pathways. The red and orange sphere in the sky became thought of taken as a second sun of evil, casting its maniacal light down onto those who were not of sound mind, and turning them to those ways of darkness and cruelty, fueling the hatred that managed to overcome all. Kidnappings occurred within the desert villages, ordered by forest chieftains who sought to replace the members they had lost through years of bloody conflict. More-often-than not these vicious kidnappings were thwarted by a superior experience in desert travel, however, whenever the warriors did manage to succeed in their mission, rumors would quickly spread of those who refused who to take up arms and “fight for their people”, being tortured or killed outright as punishment for their cowardice and treachery.

In the end, everybody knew, deep inside they knew, the suffering was caused by their own inability to handle the gift of sentience and the power it bestowed upon their souls.

Knowledge is Agony.

For the beings who had surpassed evolution, ascended into a higher form, space was a vast expanse of endless opportunity, cosmic terrain that had yet to be fully mapped out, and held great secrets which needed to be discovered. The negative emotions Deimobos supposedly conjured up within the tribespeople and desert villagers was merely a myth--baseless hearsay derived from their desire to explain away the petty conflicts they regularly engaged in. One day though, all bad thoughts would be purged by the Fire Stone Towers protruding from the dunes, and their incomplete bodies melted away by the molten rivers and oceans flowing throughout the Moon, forging them into something far better than their odd and inferior blend of anthropomorphic and arthropod forms.

Everything would be reforged, purified, and refined. Still, such ascension could not be achieved without the will to make it happen. Each Kilamaran who partook in the journey had to commit to the task of their own choosing, having to endure strange mixture of searing physical pain and mental dissolution on being transported from the Fire Stone Towers to Deimobos where they were stirred and churned within the cauldron of the moon’s superheated core, taking days to give birth to the newly Redeemed Warriors. Upon emerging from their fiery wombs, their heads were long, smooth flaming orange, three sets of pitch-red eyes planted on the very top, center, and below the jaw where their burning retractable mandibles lie, flanked by protected by a crown of blackish brown spikes growing out from the sides, curving upwards from chin to cranium. Lava poured over their chests, hardening into a crusted armor with a single glowing Fire Stone embedded within the sternum, the flow of magma visible within as it passed through ridges, gaps, and plates that allowed them to retain flexibility. Below the abdomen the Redeemed Warriors largely resembled a bloated praying mantis, their spread wings resembling firestained glass, exposing the yellow flow of Deimobos’ streaming blood beneath a soft and transparent layer of sub-skeletal flesh, accumulating into a large gland at the rear wrapped around a sharp stinger, carried upon strong piercing limbs more fitting to a crustacean than an insect.

From thereon out, their lives would change forever, as they were given the choice by those who ascended before them to either leave Kilamara in search of greater answers to their existence, return home and work toward ending the violence, or stay on Deimobos and train inside the temple they had built dedicated to the worship of Aredemos.

Presently, one of the Ascended Warriors was on a trek through the desert investigating the disappearance of Kilamaros and Kilamari. He was a diplomatic figure named Kirri who had burdened himself task of maintaining peace between the two gender exclusive east and west territories, having trained for years inside the Temple of Aredemos. He had returned to the desert to investigate the disappearances of numerous tribal leaders and commonfolk alike. It didn’t take long for him to find the victims corpses. “Punished” for the crime of premarital sexual activities, others the byproduct of zealots who found the mere existence of the villages dotted throughout the sands to be a blight and an insult to their way of life, genital mutilation serving as evidence and proof of their motive to the act of doling out “justice”.

An act like this would not be tolerated by Kirri, anger swelling in his chest as the stone embedded in the center began to glow, the exoskeletal plates along his legs splitting open and the gland wrapped around his stinger expanding as it became saturated with red fluid. Freedom from tyranny delivered by an ancient authority was something he would kill to protect, nor would he allow war to spread into the desert like it had throughout the forest. He had heard rumors that most of the murders took place near water, and given that Kilamarans were not afraid of venturing into the desert to kidnap “traitors”, he took off in an explosive eruption of volcanic matter from his legs and rear, the sound audible from hundreds of miles away, leaving behind only a trail of molten glass as he sped towards the nearest oasis.

No God's Sky

For those who have interest in the Kilamara and Deimobos, or joining their ranks just message me, as I am the one who wrote their profile.