Give Ferrous 1 Creation Right. For... whatever he's working on.
A wide and wild grin breaks across Ferrous' face.
Perhaps you could still see chunks of eggshell in his teeth.My thanks to you, Spearmaiden! I assure you, the Domicile for your most excellent Engineers shall be a glorious one. Let us begin.Three Rights of Creation in hand, Ferrous sets about the construction of a World - though one far different from what he had once been. The first Right was laid out and hammered flat, the better to construct the nascent World's shell with. The sheet is carefully hammered into a hollow spire, simple for Ferrous to grasp, yet mortals could have spent days or even weeks walking its diameter. Then, the center two-thirds of the spire was heated to a yellow glow, and Ferrous pushed down on the spire's upper end, extruding the middle out into an extensive disk. Quickly, before it cooled, Ferrous took his tongs to shape the disk - pulling out an extrusion here, opening a section there, until the spire was connected to an outlying ring by four primary spokes and a web of additional connectors - all unoccupied. Before Ferrous moved on, however, the central spire was capped off and closed, each end tapered into an elegant point.
The second Right was taken more delicately, unwoven into its conceptual components for the purposes of raw
creation. The lower end of the central spire is lined with balconies and bridges, tight enough together to be navigated like a dense jungle; cables of indeterminate function hang from a myriad edges, permitting those who are agile or great of upper body strength an fascinating method of mobility. High above, in contrast, the upper end of the spire is filled with free-floating platforms, drifting over time, full of opportunity for those who can make the leap or learn to direct the platforms' flight; a set of spiral staircases also lines the walls of this region.
The spokes and rim, meanwhile, already comparatively restrained in space, are filled with a more substantial weaving. One has its walls lined with broken aquaponics gardens, where cuprous overgrowth revels in overflowing nickel-enhanced mercury, and silver blooms precede golden fruits and lead tubers. In another, matter fabrication stations are simplicity to find, yet there is not one instruction manual in the entire locale. A third is filled with the chatter of lost Computers, yet the very signal that they are present in such numbers obfuscates the position of any one. The fourth and final is a mess of production lines; where they end is unclear, and any attempt to ride them down is wont to end in death, but even a half-made construction may give hints to its purpose. And even then, Ferrous was not done, seeding small amounts of each spoke into the others - a production line cut through and was obstructed by overgrowth, half-built Computers lay across a line, fabricators produced works according to the strange whims of a Computer, overgrowth fed on a fabricator perpetually spawning sodium soil. It was a strange system that sprouted within the station of Ferrous' construction.
And he was not done.
The web of connections was yet unfurnished - but it would not be so much longer. In contrast to his prior care, Ferrous tore the remaining Right to pieces, scattering its power with reckless abandon into the tangle of metal strands. There was no direction here, no order, only chaos, as the strings began to twist and shift and cut and make connections all their own. Geometries twisted with the torn magic given unto them, and strange workings of nonsensical functionality spawned within the mad labyrinth of the secondary webbings. Mechanisms that should not exist, that could not exist, gleefully defied any such decrees, working strange magics in the depths of the station.
Yes. It was complete.
you may not like it but this is what peak performance looks likeThe
Acropolis Argyros.
I certainly hope your Engineers are ready for a new home, Spearmaiden, for it is most certainly ready for them.Name: Acropolis Argyros
Description: An enormous space station-World consisting of six "primary" regions - two in the two halves of its central spire, the other four each relegated to a spoke and the rim quarter in closest proximity to it - as well as multiple regions' worth of "deep", essentially random dungeons of chaotic architecture, strange technology and magic, and unknowable hazards.
Qualities Regions:
--Note: All primary regions contain elements of the other primary regions at dramatically-reduced rates.
--Note: All spoke regions have connections to the Deep scattered about them.
-The Iron Jungle [Lower Spire]: A tangled space of walkways and balconies, primarily intended for residence.
-The Drift [Upper Spire]: A vast array of floating platforms, primarily intended for residence and travel.
-Mercurous Wilds [Spoke]: A swampy region flooded with mercury and overgrown with assorted metal flora, primarily intended for food production.
-Halls of Creation [Spoke]: A region filled with potentially-malfunctioning replicator devices which require thorough experimentation to identify how to use effectively, primarily intended for resource production.
-The Speaking Place [Spoke]: A region where Computers are clearly plentiful yet difficult to locate, and seemingly operating upon strange directives. Primarily intended for, well, Computer things.
-Making [Spoke]: A space thoroughly saturated with production lines, though they are almost all found at partway-stages of construction, and the intended final product is rarely obvious. Primarily intended for advanced item production and scientific encouragement.
-The Deep: Less a singular region and more a categorization for what are basically random dungeons constantly being generated and reconfigured within the non-spoke connectors. Full of really weird shit that could potentially be useful or very very dangerous.
Noticing the lack of...
oomph, behind the overgrowth and Deep, Ferrous looks at his remaining two Rights and tosses them after the rest of his creation, granting life to the Acropolis.
Species Name: Overgrowth
Description: Hypothetically a vast collection of various plants all growing within and between each other, in practice, this is largely-undifferentiated metal plantlife that will grow assorted unprocessed plant-based foodstuffs, flowers, thorns, and basically any other plant-based product that can be conceived of.
Traits:
-Metal: Self-explanatory. Also obviously superior.
-Rapid growth: it's called "overgrowth" for a reason.
-Universal producer: This "one plant" (if it can be called that, really) is capable of producing any plant material (well, a metal version of it). This is done in the standard method. Be careful not to eat poisonous berries, rub up against poison ivy-adjacent leaves, or get eaten by a pitcher. Don't worry, though, there's only so many types of things, and it's consistent about which do what.
Species Name: Deep Things
Description: There's no universal description for these weirdos, but they're spawned from the strange shiftings of the Deep.
Traits:
-Random: No, really. They're very random, though they all maintain some level of basic functionality.
-Random: Seriously. They- you can't place any other universal traits on them. They're random. No, they're not even universally made of metal.
Species Name: Computers
Description: To quote Alice, "Physical 'thinking' (but not conscious/willed) machines built from conductive and insulative metals. Some are built into other machines in order to manage said machines, while a few are small handheld devices called 'phones', intended to be a single being's companion. Computers may also communicate with one another via radio or metal wires." Yeah, they're a species now. They've received some sort of instructions after their stint of nonexistence, but they're nigh-incomprehensible.
Traits:
-Metal: I mean, it says so in their description.
-Think quickly: Computers may complete thousands of calculations in mere moments.
-No creativity: These machines perform exactly the tasks they are instructed to, and as such the coder's mistakes will likely manifest in the form of bugs.
-Alien instructions: Something has given many of them strange instructions, and they follow them to the letter as they were made to.
Species Name: Cyusies yes it's a quality control pun, sue me
Description: Strange denizens of Making, these monkey-like metal creatures look over things coming down the assembly lines, tossing items off them according to some strange standard - and not one necessarily universal to all cyusies. It's not uncommon to see "gangs" of cyusies get into wars over whether or not some item should be removed.
Traits:
-Metal: Duh.
-Quality sense: They can, in some capacity, identify if an item is "up to snuff".
-Factionalism: Not every cyusie's "quality sense" senses the same thing, and they frequently tend to group up with others whose sense lines up more with their own.
Species Name: Boltzmir strandbeests
Description: Odd contraptions occasionally spontaneously spawned by fabricators, boltzmir strandbeests straddle the line between living thing and work of strange art - they don't appear to have any mind, being directed almost entirely by the minute fluctuations of gravity, yet their structures are wont to consume living things that they happen to blunder across.
Traits:
-Spontaneous generation: Sometimes, a fabricator will just pop one of these things out for no reason. They can be made of almost any material, though the rigid ones tend to stick around longer.
-Masticating: Their myriad parts tend to pulp objects they come across. Don't get caught, and be glad they don't deliberately chase.
-Mindless: Yeah, they're... they're strandbeests. You've heard of those things, right? They don't actually have any intrinsic motivation.
Species Name: Floats
Description: Seemingly bubble-like creatures, they are capable of latching onto the hovering platforms of the Drift, as well as some limited self-propulsion; as platforms that they remain near for a while tend to slowly lose more elevation than the average, it would appear that they feed on the buoyancy to some degree. However, they are the most reliable early method of directing a platform's motion.
Traits:
-Metal: Ferrous made them, guys.
-Spherical: I want you to imagine a steel-type Wailmer. Yes, the ball-shaped whale pokemon. That's what these dudes look like.
-Docile: They're really very chill.
-Durable: The above is partially because there is no way in hell that you're popping them.
Species Name: Crawlers
Description: 1. Take a centipede. 2. Make it out of metal. 3. Upscale it to the point that you could comfortably ride on its back. 4. Liberally scatter across the Iron Jungle. 5. ? ? ? 6. Profit.
Traits:
-Metal: Do I really need to keep saying this?
-Perpetual motion: They don't actually stop moving. Like, ever. Why? Why not?
-Floors on the walls: Crawlers can adeptly crawl across any surface, no matter the orientation.
-Hitch a ride: Many of their segments have handles that can be grabbed, allowing one to be carried along on a Crawler's path. Just don't let go while they're upside-down.
Ferrous looked across his works, and he was pleased.
But he knew what had happened to the Computers. Such would not be permitted.
Let it be known! I, Ferrous, God of Metal, intend to protect the Acropolis Argyros! So it is Declared, and so it shall be!
I shall not allow that which I have dominion over to be harmed where such may be prevented.
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Topic: Divine Hosts: Titans of Recreation (Read 5495 times)