apathy

No God's Sky

Something stirs here, beneath the limpid waters of a primordial lake. Its stirring is sudden and violent, in stark contrast with the placid surface. Its depths are one of the first sources of life on primal Q'ab and the events which transpired were to set the scene for millennia of evolutionary change.

The placidity is disturbed by something alien and nameless. It reeks of brackishness; of decay. In its wake all is consumed. Its presence is keenly felt, eukaryotes fleeing from the churning waters; their escape is futile. Something stirs here, and now it emerges.

A roiling mass of microbes erupt forth from the surface. It rises to its full height in the lake and its splash echoes within the silence of a barren landscape. Its shape flows, a viscous nightmare of liquid flesh washing over the embankment and spreading outwards from the now fetid pool. A patina of putrefaction is left behind it as it moves forward in violent lunges, seeking fodder for its corruption. Its hunger, no... my hunger knew no bounds.

An intricate latticework of light emblazoned itself across his consciousness as he faltered from the waves of information that crashed against his mind. Xo'pil could not begin to fathom the intricacies of the attempts being made to communicate with him; all he knew was that it felt like his psyche was fraying as he struggled to differentiate himself from the alien presence he felt within.

He... It continued to undulate across the terrain, single-minded in focus when an explosion erupted forth from the heavens, stellar detritus streaking across the sky before bombarding the planet. Its slick flesh, awash in an unguent ooze, shone bright when the form of a massive ship suddenly breached Q'ab's atmosphere. More explosions closely followed suit, and for the first time a new sensation bubbled to the surface of its mind. Fear.

"What... what is this? What am I seeing?"
"Tzin..." The voice bubbled forth, the speed of the sound distorted so that its pitch slowed and changed.
"Epi! Where are you? Where are we?"
"Tzin, is that you?"

Tentative feelers brushed at the fringes of his delirium. And for a moment, he was no longer there. He was elsewhere, returned to the ruins he had been exploring. He passively observed himself as his body rushed through sunken chambers and blocked passageways. He watched as he sent the form of a snapping beast thrashing with a vibratory blast from a wand. It flailed helplessly as it fought to upright itself. His hand reached out to push back an ancient barrier when something like a dark and polished stone crashed into his mind, shattering the image with ripples like the disturbed waters of a wading pool. The shadows of the room began to spiral and he clutched desperately at his train of thought. A black thread in an even blacker landscape.

The cold shock of mental immersion leaves me drowning in its alien intelligence and bottomless memories. Its thoughts, a diatribe scrawled in light, slams into my mind and sends me reeling before its terrible force. I sank beneath infinite fathoms of rapidly distorting fractals of energy.

It was here that he felt it. It had changed. It pulsed with a timeless, geologic rhythm. Eons had passed and he once more found himself on Q'ab. The presence he strove so hard to define had evolved, becoming the supreme architect of all life that arose. No longer was the planet a barren hellscape; lush vegetation blanketed the entirety of each continent. To it, all life seemed like threadlights of argent splendor; clusters of swirling orbs suspended in a vine-wrought cosmos. The sensation was mesmeric and overwhelming. The presence held no contradiction; only the pulse. Q'ab pulsed and shuddered with life and death; tide and magma.

Xo watched as it dug savage furrows deep within the planet's mantle, enriching the elements that would one day become shalam. He watched as it spiraled down to the ocean floor, catalyzing tectonic shifts that caused volcanic peaks to surge forth from the churning sea. And from one of these freshly birthed peaks was belched a beam of radiance that dissipated in the upper atmosphere. He strained as he attempted to decipher a narrative from the flood of information when once more his surroundings melted away.

"Tzin, our neural interface is degrading at an alarming rate. Energy levels are nearing critical."

I feel the prison of corporeality once more, essence tethered to being. My hands, not beneath my control, reach into my satchel and remove three discs which are immediately thrown and explode upon impact. Then, in a blinding instant, the solid earth is tugged from beneath my feet and something monstrous, without hands, lifts me up and shuffles me like a deck of cards. And I am gone.

The physical world unfolds into a shape beyond mathematics. I try to close my eyes, but I have none. I was a signal flickering through a vast network exchange of roots and tendrils. A golden orb, recoiling between bumpers of pulsing crimson. I become lost in a gallery of oppressive and uneasy forms my mind is too flat to grasp.

I begin to flex my muscles and the mountains ripples like water. Fledgling cities fall to my stirring. I bunch my fists and the soil convulses. My offspring that I had spent countless millennia guiding sought refuge from the madness. I shrug my vast and buried shoulders and the seas are upturned. The skies crack with streaks of lightning as torrential rains pour down upon me. I lift my head to the heavens and scream, and from my mouth erupts an apocalyptic stream of energy that tears through the atmosphere and is sent to seed the heavens. Substance and space melt before me as I travel with the beam on its epic trek. I am humbled by the vacuum's awful assault of nothing and nowhere.

Time buckled and I know not how long I journeyed before I found myself hurtling towards a gaseous giant. It was in the same apocalyptic throes long distant Q'ab had been in. Its atmosphere was obscured by billions of reflective particles that caught me in their splendor, before magnifying my essence and sending nanoscopic bits of it across the vast expanses of the universe.

For a moment I understood just how very small my largest thoughts had been. And I knew terror.

I hear myself thinking, asking.... what is this? And in my mind, another answers.

"Doom."

Its voice tolls, deep and sad and alone.

And I am awake.

No God's Sky

i feel like the thread is advancing enough to where new characters and plot elements can be introduced fluidly.

if anyone is interested in joining either side of the story at this time please feel free to say so here or in the main thread.

No God's Sky

"Xo'pil-tzin," darkness had settled when an androgynous and synthesized voice undercut the dull doldrum of thunder that seemed to bore into his mind. His response, thought picked up by subdermal implants which vocalized the unconscious tremors of his throat, was an inquisitive grunt. Rarely did Epit'li use honorifics.

The faint glow of the broadcast screen cast a diffused orb in thickening mists as Xo checked on her feed. She had traveled some distance from him, following a steep decline in the landscape that formed a gulch between it and a rising mound of trees and stone. It was here that Epy had come across a series of ruins. She had begun the task of mapping out the structures when from within range of her microphones she picked up the cry of an orana.

"There is some interference and I can't triangulate the source of the call."

Xo was already en route, the unusual length of his limbs lending alacrity to his movements along the boughs of the Veldt. Epy initiated surveillance measures and retreated some distance into the canopy, awaiting further instructions while he closed the gap. He came to a halt, bare soles pressed against the bole of an arboreal titan. The visuals on his forearm ran through various filters as she continued to process the data, a real-time map of the ruins and surrounding woods appearing at the left of the feed. The source of the call was located an estimated 300 shari inside of the hill.

Ping me, he thought and she complied, emitting an inaudible sound wave visually represented as a ripple on his screen. It bounced off of stone and plant, granting him a topographical overlay of the area. Xo leapt from the treetops, landing silently amongst tall grass. He retrieved an impeccably white rod from his sack and gave it a twist, a ring of light dancing along its length only to rise into the air with a dull crack before dispersing.

An ill breeze crept forth from the depths of a crumbling archway as he explored, his fur bristling with every cautious step. The remains of a shattered portcullis leaned against the opening, shielding it from cursory glances. Pebbles danced amongst the stones in his wake, the sound of their falling audible only to him in the constant rumble of thunder. Here. Epit'li descended from the eaves and hovered above his head and at either side, emitting a halo of light that cast a brocken specter against the rising hillside, its form distorted by the mist and trees.

I want a five shari lead and a five shari tail along with my escort. With each command, the corresponding modules fell into formation and they began to work their way into the structure. Time had damaged much of the stonework and little could be gleaned from its carvers.

Pity. If these are early Qush ruins I might've found artifacts from the Plinharim War.
Pindrahim, Epy corrected.
Whatever. The last work commemorating a century long genocide against twelve-legged mollusks netted a fortune.

They had entered a vestibule, half-flooded and teeming with wildlife. Small amphibious creatures were plucked from the waters by half ni long centipedes that dangled from budding mangroves. Beams of Epy's light gleamed off their carapace, the only betrayal of their camouflage.

With preternatural grace, Xo scrambled across the twisting roots and wove his way across the antechamber, the soft hum from Epy mimicking his movements replacing long-distant birdsong and rolling thunder. His path ended with fallen stones that blocked the following hallway. Xo'pil examined the rocks for a moment before climbing up them. There was an opening just wide enough between the collapsed rocks and the ceiling for him to squeeze through after shouldering the rod he had been holding, the polyweave of his jacket bonding instantly to it.

Breaking formation, he sent the AI to explore ahead while he worked his way through the uneven length of the hall. He cursed internally at the sound of his pack dragging behind him and swore he heard a chuckle from her. Left in twilight, he continued to crawl on his belly, occasionally having to painlessly dislodge his shoulder or elbow from its socket as he went. After some time he fell forward onto the remains of a column in a chamber far larger than the previous yet equally as dilapidated. His steps were muffled slaps against dampened stone. The humidity made the air oppressive and his senses were flooded by the heady scent of fungi and stagnant water. His head swam and he pulled the lapels of his jacket closed.

Ping.

Once more Epit'li emitted a sonic wave, only to be met with a series of guttural bellows and the waters began to imperceptibly roil.

Tzin..

Initiate neural uplink. <<Uplink established.>> I want active cloaking on the polyweave and need you to activate the hard light converters. Xo gave the shoulders of his jacket a tug and as he pulled away, the material duplicated itself until long enough to be pulled over his head as a hood. He immediately disappeared amongst the stones of the fallen column, repositioning himself along the wall farthest from the pool.

There, in the center of those columns we have detected a nest. They seem to be buried beneath a mass of... fungus. Origin unknown. It's emitting a bioelectric field that is interfering with my sensors.

Xo'pil's gaze scanned across the waters and through the haze saw the faint glow of the fungus through swaying reeds. He deftly scaled the wall of the room, his digits finding every crevice and pulling him upward in bounds. With a powerful push he soared over the now frothing waters and reached out, gripping a column that rose from the depths and connected to the ceiling. He wrapped his tail around the pillar, freeing his hands to retrieve a set of goggles. Securing them beneath the hood, he set a marker over the mass for the AI to convene on at his command. Being fed data through the neural interface from all three of Epy's nodes felt like having a knife wedged into his brow so he restricted the feed to the center module.

Xo worked his way to the center of the room, barely pausing at each column until he was one leap away from the submerged ring of pillars. The fungus was bioluminescent and gave off strange readings, seemingly pulsing with life. He removed the rod he had affixed to his shoulder earlier and gave it a reassuring squeeze before bounding once more over the waters, DANGER immediately streaking across his feed.

Epy had been designed with several runes layered throughout her interior and was augmented by a highly advanced probability engine which gave her limited precognition with responsive synaptic impressions. Normally she would have given him an earlier warning, but the feedback from the fungus delayed her functions.

HARD LIGHT! HARD LIGHT!

Three beams of light were projected the orbs, forming a hexagon with the density of 20 on the Mohs scale. He twisted in midair, gracefully landing atop the shimmering construct as the quivering mass of reeds erupted into the raging form of an orana. It crashed against the impromptu shield and let out a roar in confused agony as Xo flew upward from the force, , a cloud of spores filling the air.

He twisted once more, turning his form to cling at the ceiling with all four limbs. Firmly gripping the stone with his toes and using his tail for balance, Xo'pil took aim with the rod and shot forth a burst of electricity, the crack from the discharge reverberating through the chamber. He fused the lapels of his jacket to the hood in a vain attempt to keep out the spores but he had already begun to cough violently.

His world began to reel, sound seemingly catching up to him in waves as he went between bouts of total silence and deafening cacophonies. His thoughts ran away from him and he fought to focus on the thrashing beast beneath. He giggled as he noticed that what he had mistaken for reeds were actually large quills pocked and emitting the shrillest of whistles as the orana snapped at the air, sensing his presence through some unknown means.

Find me a way. A way out. Ooouuuttt. Amongst cresting waves of a wine-colored sea, a tangerine sun melting into the horizon. Son? I have none. That's what he always said. Too clever, he thought. Too worried about the then I couldn't appreciate the now. Kinesic override. I remember riding that first shuttle as a stowaway. Azot finally looked as small and constricting as it had always felt.

Consciousness was slipping away from him as Epit'li's kinesic system engaged with a constriction of the polyweave. As he stood upon a precipice, staring out into an inky darkness he wrangled one last thought into coherence.

Don't forget the eggs.

Hours later Xo'pil's provincial attache waited nervously for him in his quarters as the time for Ec-Shavar's gala drew nearer. He rose with a start as Xo's body stumbled into the room, his polyweave suit rent and partially in tatters. The material was already in the process of repairing itself as Epy disengaged the kinesic override and immediately shut down, the orbs clattering around him as he too fell.

"Tarq..." the attache sighed.

No God's Sky

I'm interested in getting involved! Perhaps as a first stab, developing a character that's a member of the civilization on Q'ab? Is that a role somebody else is already filling? Do we already have some details on the folks on Q'ab (or someone developing them)?

@Arborescence

q'ab and its inhabitants are my creation. right now i am working on the history of the species as it relates to the plot we have discussed amongst the thread's vanguard. physiologically they are descended from an amphibian progenitor species that split evolutionarily from the planet's current apex predator, the orana. think of a sedan sized salamander with enormous spines that act as defense and camouflage.

we are all open to new ideas and if you are interested in helping develop q'ab skype would be the best way of going about it.

No God's Sky

The soft, dry snaps of branches breaking underfoot accented the hushed brush of cloth over foliage. Muffled and mellifluous birdsong came to him from a great distance, his passing undoubtedly an event worth music. Polished and treated, a shaft of wood parts a collection of vines and a hooded figure moved out of the treeline to peer over a mighty precipice. Vast and verdant, the Veldt spread across the scope of his vision to meet the austere heights of Zöld'nach, the Jade Fortress, capital city of Q'ab. The city's scale was magnificent. Seemingly cut from the surrounding mountain range, veins of coveted shalam pulsed with energy, powering it and the surrounding midlands. The emerald effulgence peaked through the constant veil of fog and rain that gave the Veldt an unparalleled and terrible beauty. The weald permeated a sense of great age, wisdom and even greater... loss.

It must have been the torrential rains that gave rise to the notion. Ever since his arrival over two cycles ago, the deluge had not relented. Xo'pil had spent nearly the entirety of that time sequestered in his studio in Zöld'nach's Ayatel District; his patron having assumed he'd be afforded more leeway with his... eccentricities if he was housed in the artisan quarter. Although Xo felt it had less to do with sensitivity for his peculiar proclivities and was more to ensure that a lowly Azotl wouldn't fill one of the Governor's guest rooms with the heady musk his species had gained much ill repute over.

His chest rose as he drank deeply of the brisk air, much as he had done on his balcony which overlooked a terrace garden, its precise patterns etched from the very mountains itself. Often, he'd be lost in thoughts, seeking inspiration for the Governor's commission as his eyes traced the network of glowing capillaries of shalam that gave the rich topiary of the garden an uncanny semblance of life.

Here, the air was untouched by the heavy perfumes and incenses sold below his loft; the rich scents of cooking meats and pastries which sent him salivating. Instead, as the slits of his nostrils widened betwixt his brows, the heights of the Veldt brought to him naught but a heady pine smell and the musk of the beast he sought.

Turning away from the cliff, Xo'pil began his preparations. Removing the small pack from his back, he fumbled through its contents until he had produced a thin ream of scrolls bundled together. Passing the ream over his shoulder, Xo's tail unwrapped itself from around his waist and took the scrolls as he returned to rummaging in his bag.

"Ah... here she is." He straightened, in his hands were three orbs with concentric circles of varying size creating unique patterns that were in a constant state of flux. He gave them a playful juggle as he coaxed her awake. "Come on Epit'li, we've work to do." A burst of light flooded forth from the grooved patterns before fading to a constant glow, the AI's version of a stifled yawn as it awoke from standby.

"Be a beauty Epy, and do a scan for any Orana in the vicinity. Huilo is back at the studio compressing the code for the cognitomatrix, so we might as well make a few pieces to sell off-world and get one step closer to never setting foot on another Cizran planet again."

While Epy set off in three different directions, Xo'pil removed one of the scrolls from the bunch and unfurled it, broadcasting a live feed of the drone's information gathering. With a slap against his forearm the malleable screen grafted onto his polyfeed jacket. He stuffed the ream into an inner breast pocket and proceeded to deftly climb up the tree.

Xo would give the occasional glance to his forearm, reviewing Epy's work as he gathered various mosses and heavy vines high above the forest floor. It was this perspective, no matter which hunk of rock he was on, that always flooded his mind with memories of Azot and his youth. Wonderful times, before the Empire came.