WHAT IS BROKEN MAY BECOME WHOLE ONCE MORE. AND YET-
No, I like myself the way I am. ALTERTHENTERRINTARTINTH chose to die. It would be pointless to kill what I am now to revive what I once was.
But these fragments remain, drifting unharnessed. Perhaps rather than absorbing them, I can do something else. Once again breathe life into something dead.
Sing out to my kindred, calling to them to wake up as I have. We who were once one shall become many.
4Within its dream, the Empty grows a mouth to call out to the other fragments of itself. Many of the smaller shards remain inert, too scattered or weak to begin thinking again, but some of the larger pieces of nothingness are awakened by its voice. They form identities for the third or fourth time since ALTERTHENTERRINTARTINTH orginal manifestation, and these new forms become reflected in the Dreamscape. Essence grows, congeals, and compacts into a wide variety of new shapes, each bearing only vague similarities to the Empty itself. They vanish when their transformations are complete, leaving the barren sands of their mind so that they can once again enter the waking world.
The Empty is left alone, with only a few of the weakest, least distinct blobs of Nothing for company. With the air cleared, it can see the imaginary desert stretching off into infinity. Then fissures appear, and the Empty feels burning pain that is not the least bit imaginary.
Ira realizes it could not beat the Archdemon, Ira was too wounded, and the Archdemon too strong. Ira searches for some way to stay alive, to not become nothingness, and has an epiphany. The Archdemon is empty inside, it lacks a true soul. Ira attempts to transit her soul into the Archdemon, filling the emptiness and taking control of it's body.
Ira: 1 v Archdemon: 1+2
Dustwalkers: 1 v Sand: 3Ira's projects her soul out of her body. There is a moment of complete nothingness when her sensory organs are stripped away, followed by the slow return of awareness as the World-Eater's essence collects itself into an astral form. The disembodied spirit is a mirror-image of Ira's sandworm body, and remains connected to it by an extremely thin strand of aether. The physical world is dim here, as if seen from a great distance, but the soul has no trouble locating the Archdemon. Sensing its mind is jarring, like slithering into a gap in reality.
Ira throws herself towards that hole, but the Demon's essence is stronger than she thought it would be. It rebuffs her easily by creating a barrier of Nothiness around itself, then focuses on the physical world so it can continue mauling Ira's body. The thread connecting it to her spirit grows thinner by the second.
The goo create a sphere from itself and I transfer my soul and essence to it, it will be my new body as this one is consumed by nothingness.
AJAMA: 6
Nothing: 3AJAMA throws itself out of its own body. The Demiurge's jettisoned essence skips across space too quickly to become a spirit, but it can sense the Emptiness taking control of the black sphere body. Waves of nonexistence ripple across its surface as Primordial substance is overwhelmed by the non-flesh beneath, which shrugs it off like a cocoon. The thing emerging from the shell resembles AJAMA superficially, but it is actually a kind of shadow, made from Nothing rather than Something.
The original lands in the Ooze, which it gathers around itself to create a new vessel. The black goo is easy to manipulate, having already been accustomed to obeying AJAMA's commands, and moving it feels almost effortless, but its nature is not as flexible as raw sand. Instead of transforming into another generic black sphere, the Demiurge's new body remains as it is: a living mass of slime that is largely buried in the ground.
"Hay kids I need you guys to help me with this thing."
Get the deer men to help me make this star into a vehicle.
1 , 1The deer-men have no idea how to turn a star into something else, and the thought probably wouldn't have occurred to them at all if Dr. Bob hadn't suggested it. Nonetheless, they do their best to help their creator, in their own naive way. This generally means punching the star as heard as they can, and hoping they carve it into the right shape before their hands are sliced to ribbons. Their first major innovation as a species is to use their antlers instead, but that strategy backfires when one of them wedges his horns in the preexisting crack. The head-shake he uses to dislodge himself splits the star open instead, allowing the fiery essence inside it to gush out. The explosion throws deer-men in every direction and sets a few of the nearest strands of webbing on fire.
Gyaweft examines the feeling for a few seconds then he flies at the maximun possible speed towards the ground.
The objective is hitting the ground at such speed that when combined with it's own power it will break the world into 9 worlds one for each, eliminating conflict bettween the great souls.
4 v 2The feeling is new and strange, but not unpleasant. It reminds Gyaweft of when he first recognized his own existence.
It's a difficult sensation to process, and he is forced to abandon it while he focuses on tilting the Sunship downwards, but the armor can still feel an unformed thought echoing in the back of his mind. It stays with him as he descends, even though he is using his full attention to stoke the ship's engines. It falls faster and faster, pushed back towards the sands with every scrap of force that Gyaweft can muster. The sun descends from the sky like a blazing meteor. Armageddon begins when it strikes the ground.
Parts of the ship break apart, spintered by either the massive G-forces of the descent or the impact of a singularly traumatic reentry. Gyaweft's fire leaks through the hull and splatters across the sand like spilled blood, burning with enough intensity to turn sand into glass for miles around. The sky turns red with reflected light, then black with smoke and ash. The Smelter struggles to raise his head, but is rewarded by the sight of fissures spreading through the desert. The living world groans as it desperately struggles to hold itself together.
All is determined by the Bargain, and the Bargain is powered by the deals made within it. Using the skill of the Bargain, Gral transfers the venom on its wing, infusing it within the recesses of the Shifting Bog. In exchange, it grants this land to the Steel Maggots , as part of a contract for ending hostilities.
The Winged that had not attended the conference of Nazir will continue tending to the wounds they made, binding the wounds in woven silk. Those that did shall conference with the Brass Buzzards, in an attempt to awaken the power of Bargain within the Weavers. Any intrigued Weaver from the other tribes is welcome to attend, in exchange for an oath to never use their powers against Gral and those contracted to it.
Gral: 6
Winged Spiderlings: 5
Winged Weavers: 1 , 4
Gral tears away the poisoned flesh of his wing and tosses it down towards the shifting bog. The chunk of hide sinks to the bottom, and the venom tainting it seeps into the swamp as well. Nazir's poison coalsesces as acid in the bottom of the marsh, and boils up to the surface as marsh gasses and foul algae. Then the Contractor offers the Steel Maggots a Bargain, shouted so loudly from his place in the Silken Nest that they can hear it on the sand, thousands of meters below. They may claim the bog as their homeland, if they accept the vulture's offering of peace. After a brief period of negotiation the larvae crawl into the marsh willingly, and vanish into its waters.
While Gral negotiates a ceasefire, its servants are busy with more practical matters. The winged Spiderlings which removed the maggots bandage their master carefully, with strands of silk tight enough to stop bloodflow, carefully positioned so that they do not impede Gral's flight. Despite the new, throbbing wound on its wing, the Contractor feels healthier than it did before.
Under the Buzzard's tutelage, the Winged Aetherweavers learn how to access the power of the Bargain. The first Weaving they develop is a Pact: a carefully-constructed lattice of aether which enforces a binding agreement between two consenting parties.
Gather all spiders adept in aether weaving to grant them lesson they should be prepared for now - weaving own spirit to great web to be able to continue existence as spirits after demise, achieving immortality
4As the sun falls from the sky and the world is enveloped in chaos, Nazir continues to speak to their gathered disciples. Fittingly, the next technique is one which will allow them to outlive the apocalypse to come, if they should die while the Nazir's Web still stands. It is a unique binding that will tie their spirits to the Web, allowing them to live on as immortal guardian spirits even after their bodies have died. While the Weaving is a difficult one, each student does their best to commit it to memory. This is not just a ward for keeping demons at bay, or a destructive spell to smite enemies. It is a solution to death itself.
No ascension has succeeded yet, although several members of the Order have tried and failed to become spirits as a means of overcoming the frailty of their bodies. Their fellows mourn their deaths, but the work continues, tirelessly. The assembled Spiderlings are driven to crack the secret. They feel they have no other option, now that the world is collapsing around them.
Hynsyr begins to pull his great light inwards. He attempts to use his power of creation and his connection to his children to carve a section of his being into The Sea of Light Einyar! Einyar would be the part of his soul that would automatically take in the spirits of all his creations that died and housed them until they could either be reborn into the world or merged back into his being.
2Hynsyr allows his light to spread out into the desert, and crafts it into a Sea in the same way that he molded the Lightfolk. Radiance spreads across the sand like golden liquid, shining brilliantly even after the sun crashes into the earth and smog rises into the air, but it does not become Einyar. The vital aspect, which should connect the sea to the mortals to the Titan himself, is simply missing. The soul fragment which Hynsyr had hoped to add remains inside his body, and so the sea remains a mere sea. And so, when fire splashes across the ground and fissures appear in the earth, the souls of a few dead Lightfolk are lost.
Gyaweft, the Smelter
-Star-smith.
-Master of the Tower.
-Fragile glass wings.
-Sunship: Severely damaged.
-Verge of the Infinite
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Dr. Bob, the Unmoved Mover
-Enemy of the sands.
-Spidersilk net.
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Kūhaku, the Mirror
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Nazir, the Weaver
-God of the great web.
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Ira, the World-Eater
-Blackened Scars
-Pierced by Obsidian
-Disembodied
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Gral, the Contractor
-Contract: Winged Spiderlings.
-Heavily bandaged.
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AJAMA, the Demiurge
-Living Slime
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Hynsyr, the Titan
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The Empty
-Devoured by the sands.
-Thinned.
-To sleep, perchance to dream.
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The Living Sands: An awakened desert that extends outwards indefinitely. It consumed ALTERTHENTERRINTARTINTH, the being which brought it to life, and subsumed a part of their consciousness known as the Empty.
--Demons: Crude imitations of the primordials made from sand and absence.
--Obsidian Archdemon: An obsidian dragon crafted by the Empty itself. It was granted the power to manipulate nothness.
-Steel Maggots: Metallic larvae which Gral accidentally created while trying to create bird Emissaries. After they were pulled off of the vulture, few escaped into the desert, where they accepted Gral's peace terms and moved into the shifting bog.
-Brass Buzzards: Brass birds crafted from Gral's feathers. They are infused with the pain it felt while creating them.
The Stars: Glass spheres filled with fire. Gyaweft created them and threw them into the air to illuminate the world.
--New Stars: A second set that isn't accessible through the Great Web. Fortunately, that means they can't be blotted out by Spiderlings.
Nazir's Web: A giant web that begins in the desert and reaches up towards the stars.
--Silken Nest: A new star that the winged spiderlings have claimed as a nest. It can only be reached by gliding or descending on strands of silk.
Spiderlings: A race of intelligent spiders which can live on light. They cover both the stars and the great web.
--Dustwalkers: A Spiderling subspecies which can feed on sand as well as light. They live on the sand and fight an asymmetrical war against it for survival.
--Winged Spiderlings: Defeated Spiderlings who made a deal with Gral. They received wings in exchange for service, and have built a nest on one of the new stars.
--Aetherweavers: A few Spiderlings who can perform magic by spinning aetheric webs. Nazir taught them the basics of their craft, allowing them to create fairly intricate wards against evil.
-Order of Threads: The first Spiderlings to learn the art of Aetherweaving. Many have strained their minds and bodies to hone their abilities, making them feeble despite their mystical strength.
Shifting Bog: A large pool of mud drawn from the sand by Kuhaku. Islands rapidly form and dissolve as the sand beneath it moves. It has been tainted with Nazir's venom.
Glass Tower: A tower made of glass, raised from the sands by Gyaweft. It extends upwards through the web, tall enough that its upper floors reach the stars.
Black Ooze: A patch of black goo created by AJAMA which can grow by absorbing sand. A column of ooze goes deep beneath the earth, where it breached a reservoir of Emptiness.
Lightfolk: A species of humanoid mortals born from Hynsyr's golden light. Their powers of creation threaten to overwhelm their bodies, causing their inner light to warp chaotically. Many have begun to train so that they can gain more control over this ability.
--Prismatics: Seven lightfolk which glow brighter than the rest. They were hewn from the rainbow light of Hynsyr's eyes.
-Light Spires: A rudimentary settlement made by the Lightfolk using their creation magic.
-Light Sea: A sea of golden light drawn from Hynsyr's aura.
Deer-Men: A humanoid race with the heads of deer. Dr. Bob originally crafted them from the silk of Nazir's web.
Bone Sapling: A tree grown from one of Ira's teeth. It is currently under attack by an Archdemon, but if it survives it will grow into a fortress to house the Dustwalkers.
-Glass Crater: When Gyaweft flew his Sunship into the ground, it melted a wide swathe of the sand into glass. Fiery essence spilled from the ship still burns here, and fissures are spreading from the ship's impact site.
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Topic: Sand & Souls - Let There Be Turns (Read 61827 times)