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[@ClocktowerEchos]

The Church of Ouroboros was founded at least ten thousand years ago, according to the records they diligently maintain. Ten thousand years of war, and the Lords of the Ouroboros have made little to show for it. Cyclically, they have destroyed themselves and their worlds, barely surviving each self-produced cataclysm. As the earth is blasted, more and more of it burns and turns to glass. As they run out of vaguely safe living space, they move on, finding new worlds to wage their wars from. Over ten thousand years, the Lords have burned and blasted the planets of perhaps a dozen star systems, leaving their burning surfaces to smolder in their wake. Each generation of Lords, with few individual exceptions, has taken the Church for granted. They use it to build casus bellis, justifying their destruction and borrowing blueprints that they can use to ensure the wars can continue after near total annihilation.

The Church, however, exists for a totally different reason. It exists to observe, to remember, and to save. It is God's will that the people of the Ouroboros survive each cataclysm, though they could easily have been left to die after the first. Without fail, the Lords of the Ouroboros have been genetically flawed, wired for jealousy and violence, spiteful to the core. God's creatures are flawed, for there is no part of them that is even vaguely part of It. 

The Lords serve their purpose, however, as the archives show. Over the last ten thousand years, there have been threats to the Ouroboros that only the Lords could remove. Xenos, wretched and filled with more Godless hate than the Lords themselves, have been recorded in the Church's archives. Each time, the Lords band together just long enough to push the xenos back, only to return to their quarrels and destroy themselves. But it is only through the violence committed by the Lords that the Ouroboros has survived the genocide of the xenos.

The Mon'hali were one such xeno threat, driven by a malice and hatred that had never been seen before or since. The Church incited the first strike, urging the Lords to go on the offensive before the Mon'hali could. Though the initial assault was effective, it was hard won and was only to be the beginning of a long war. No Ophisian alive today can remember the Mon'hali. However, though the records of the war hold little detail, the archives of the Church have not forgotten the Mon'hali or their tongue. So when a chapter of the Church is sent to explore a region of space that the Ouroboros has left behind, and they encounter xenos bearing the traces of that wicked tongue, the cathedral itself is struck by fear.

---

Met-Um was kneeling, heads raised in prayer and reverence. Somewhere ahead of her in the darkness, ЯЅДЩ lurked. It knew what she came to know, but Met-Um hadn't yet asked the right question. So it waited patiently, satisfied to feed off the phylactery until Met-Um left in frustration or discovered what she was looking for.

"I beg your cooperation, ЯЅДЩ. Have you knowledge of these xenos?"

It remained silent. Nutrients and amphetamines steadily pumped into its form, its first feast in nearly a decade.

Met-Um tried again. "The archivists are working to translate the message of the xenos. They have found similarities to another tongue, but the matches are tenuous."

It could not be coaxed. She still had not asked the right question.

"Are they Mon'hali?"

Silence.

"Should we make haste back to Ouroboros space?"

"No." The answer came among a cacophony of gurgling and shrieking. Perhaps a hundred worms had replied, though at least a thousand more were unintelligible. Met-Um was struck silent.

"Learn the fate of God's enemy. God will guide you from that point."

Met-Um uttered a prayer and left ЯЅДЩ's chamber. Some minutes after she left, the phylactery's power was lowered. Soon, it would leave its low-power state. Or never again.

---

Met-Um drifted into the command deck of the /𝑹𝑨𝑫𝑰𝑨𝑵𝑻 𝑺𝑻𝑶𝑹𝑴 𝑨𝑪𝑪𝑼𝑺𝑬𝑺 𝑻𝑯𝑬 𝑾𝑰𝑪𝑲𝑬𝑫/. Her crew was waiting for a command.

"Hail them. The archivists will tell you how."

The message was sent not long after, a computerized vocalization of the Mon'hali tongue.

:: WHO COMES FORTH AND SPEAKS IN THE LANGUAGE OF THE DEAD? BE YOU REVENANTS, COME TO AVENGE YOUR DEATH? OR BE YOU REFUGEES, LEFT BEHIND BY THOSE WHO HAVE PASSED ON? ::

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