Ascendant — Roleplayer Guild

Mordukai

For millennia, if not hundreds or even thousands of millennia, the oversized ants that would become known as Mordukai simply dug their nests, laid and hatched their eggs, spread, and consumed mindlessly. Though their ancestors were much more diminutive both physically and mentally, they never grasped one of the most central tenets of sapience - self-awareness. The Nest, or the Hive, or simply the community of Mordukai, operated as much as any other nest of insects operated.

And for some reason, something changed one day.

A massive Soldier ant stood up on its hind legs at the mouth of the nest, surveying the land as far as it could see, ensuring no predators had a chance to even begin to threaten the Queen within. It collected sensations from both of its eyes, as well as its antenna which told it even more information about pheromones and smells in the airs, smells which often signalled predators before the ant people saw them as long as the ants were downwind.

Its eyes sent plenty of impulses to its brain, but there was no true life within them. At best, the Mordukai were biological machines, nothing more than animals.

Over the period of perhaps a quarter second, however, an indescribable and recognizable yet invisible light grew in those very eyes.

Where once stood an almost perfectly motionless ant, save for a head scanning from side to side slowly, was now an ant wildly swinging its limbs and head around, intensely surprised to simply... exist. It seemed utterly impossible. When one moment there seemed to have been nothing, and the next, this Mordukai existed in a way no Mordukai had before.

It slammed claws into the ground, ripped up grass and brought to its eyes, felt its own antennae. Bewilderment had become the Soldier.

A Worker emerged from the nest, tiny, barely two and a half feet tall compared to the Soldier's seven feet. Apparently drawn out by the noise, it was incredibly surprised when it found itself hanging upside down, a leg clutched in the Soldier's grip, eyes staring into eyes. Anger then flooded the Worker as it took a few swings at the Soldier, unable to communicate that it wanted down. The Soldier cared not, holding the hapless ant just far enough away as to avoid getting hit, moving its sibling this way and that, observing it.

Nonchalantly, the Soldier tossed the Worker at least ten feet and turned to enter the nest as its victim impacted the ground and began to return to its feet.

The nest itself was little more than a giant burrow in the middle of the side of a forested hill, leading first down, then up to avoid flooding, and then down once more to tap into the more consistent temperatures of the depths. The tunnel to the Queen's Chamber was intentionally just small enough to force the Soldier to crawl on all sixes.

In comparison to the tunnel, the Queen's Chamber was like a vast open cavern, though in reality it too was little more than an oblong dug-out hole perhaps six feet high at most with reinforced dirt walls. The Soldier had to rely entirely upon feeling the ground and its antennae to navigate since there was absolutely no light present. As it clambered deeper and deeper, it felt something else, a pounding that grew rapidly within its chest.

The pounding reached a crescendo as the Soldier's antennae made contact with the slim thorax and head of the Queen. Her own antennae danced with the Soldiers', and the feeling they shared would later become known as Love. The love of a Queen towards her children, and her children towards their mother.

Two sets of claws intertwiced as the Mordukai felt one another. The Queen, almost small for the most part at no more than four feet tall if she were able to stand, possessed an abdomen that must've weighed on the order of a thousand pounds. It was this abdomen that the Soldier began feeling, working its way backward, until it reached the end. There, the Soldier once more felt love as it discovered a set of eggs, deciding to pick one up and examine it more closely.

The egg itself seemed quite sturdy, and would be clearly brown if the Soldier could actually see the damn thing. No more than perhaps six inches in height, it was tiny in comparison to the Soldier.

Gently, the Soldier returned the egg to its place, the Worker from earlier rushing inside and swatting at the Soldier to get it to leave the eggs alone on instinct. The blows were nothing to the greater beast, which exited the nest promptly and took a good look around.

Typical pine trees covered the area, sunlight streaming down when it could pierce the thick needly canopy. It was clearly still close to dawn, though the Soldier was not quite aware of that fact just yet. All it knew was that there was light present. Songbirds flitted from branch to branch, spinning their tunes in the air which were picked up by filaments on the Soldier's antennae.

It was a tremendous experience, but the Soldier knew deep down it could not leave its post for the moment.

Hours passed as the beams of light changed direction, mystifying the Mordukai as it watched the environment for predators. It didn't take long to make the connection between light and the Sun shining above the ant, as holding up a leaf between the Sun and anything else produced a shadow, a shadow that moved given enough time. How exactly this occurred though, the ant hadn't the faintest clue.

Another Soldier approached, followed by four Workers carrying the bloodied, half-eaten corpse that resembled a deer. The pair appraised each other as the hunting party approached, a gut feeling of familiarity popping into their minds. The original Soldier ripped off the 'deer's' hindleg as its fellow took up post next to the entrance of the nest, the Workers travelling inside with the catch for the Queen.

Mandibles ripping and tearing at the meat, the Soldiers stared at one another. It seemed clear to them that the Workers were beneath Soldiers, but between Soldiers, it wasn't quite so obvious who was who, in a sense. It was a fledging concept that the original didn't bother with for long, walking into the forest to explore as it treated the hindleg much like a human would treat a lollipop.

Not far off, the forest cleared into a pleasant, rolling grassland with herds of some large animal grazing upon them. They must have been at least three or four times the weight of the deer creature from earlier, and the Mordukai wasn't particularly interested in getting much closer at that moment to get a better look.

By this point, the light was beginning to become more orange, giving the Soldier its first look at a brilliant sunset with firey hues dancing across the clouds, the great circle of life beginning to disappear behind a distant, tree-covered horizon. The Mordukai made note of the existence of this thing, a horizon, and returned back to the Nest.

Tossing the bones aside not far from the entrance, the Soldier sat next to its comrade, who was faithfully watching for enemies. A third Soldier appeared from within the nest, looked at the second Soldier, and then sat next to the original. This third was apparently the night's watch, having spent the day slumbering beneath the earth.

The trio sat and stood there, staring at one another, unsure of what to do. Perhaps out of sheer boredom and perhaps out of some kind of direction, the original picked up two pieces of wood and observed them closely. Deciding to rub one vigorously against the other, the pieces caught fire a few moments later, surpising the Soldier who dropped them unceremoniously on the ground. The other Soldiers also took a few steps back before slowly closing the distance again, waving their claws over the fire, prodding it, feeling its heat.

They sat there around the two small fires for some time before they began to die down, staring into the ever-moving tendrils of flame. The original felt some sadness as the fires died down before it decided to prod the pair closer together and add more wood, watching as the flames gained strength and spread along the new fuel slowly. As night fell, three Mordukai sat in complete silence around their first campfire.

The Mordukai gain their sense of self and discover both fire and basic tools. Various details of Morduikai primordial life are given.
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