Silence was a welcome comfort, something she'd not known in quite some time. It had been weeks since the conquest of her people at the taloned-hand of Ec-Shavar. They posed no real threat, their budding civilzation being nowhere near as advanced as the Cizran empire that had brought monolithic reckoning to the Ganaxavorrian capital. Normalcy, or a semblance of it, had returned after the chieftains had sworn fealty to the governor and "trade agreements" had been solidified. 

Loi-Ara Alak's skiv skittered across pools of bubbling selenium, the contents of its belches harmlessly sliding off its hull. She had a late start, spending most of the morning navigating the latest addendums to the scavenging manifestos, and was eager to fill her cargo bay. She scanned the feed from her skiv's radar when the quills on her back bristled abruptly. A peal of lightning tore across the sky and with it the ground before her crumbled into an ever-widening cavern; she cursed beneath her breath, yanking the controls in an attempt to save herself.

The gulch that had swallowed Loi-Ara had begun to flood with steaming selenium, its surface a violent roil. Deep tremors spread across the landscape, causing further fissures to erupt from the craggy ground. Plumes of poisonous gases were sent skyward, their cores pyroclasts of molten silica. What had started as a tenorous bubbling, within moments had built up enough pressure to breach Ganaxavorii's upper atmosphere.. Swept up in swirling currents of thickening air, the skies ashened as the planet choked, a portent of Ua's nearing.

***

Nothing. I am nothing. Or.. I was nothing. 

For so long I knew nothing but absence. The absence of everything. It was... comfortable. Now I know no such comfort. I am aware. Of darkness. Of cold. I can feel.. something. It grows nearer. And with it my dread grows. I cannot recall why I feel this way, but I do. I notice a light,  microscopic in dimension. But it begins to grow, and with it does my awareness. I feel... I feel pain. A burning pain. It is all-consuming. I am pain.

I am alive once more.

Sensation is a strange concept as my faculties return. Or a simulacra of them. As awareness fills me, memories too begin to trickle across the retina of my mind's eye. This heat is familiar. I had wielded it, or something akin to it long ago. I had worked a forge, and within it I had crafted... The details escape me as darkness abates. The light which had been so faint before has now engulfed my vision. Its intensity and the pain I feel are tantamount. 

Have I been brought back only to suffer? The thought has barely formed when I hear a response, within the cavernous depths that is my being. The voice is cold, colder than the womb of non-existence that had enveloped me for so long. Where one had been indifferent, this voice was malice incarnate. 

"Your suffering is essential, and quite satisfying. It's part of our last great work.. You never did quite have the vision necessary, but there was no other craftsman as skilled as you."

I attempt to formulate a response, when I can no longer bear the excruciating pain. Through tyranny of will, I am able to focus on the source of the pain; the light; and see that it is me. A wound, grievous in nature, pulsates and with each quiver is expelled a molten crystal. The core that imprisons me fills with the substance, and I lose myself once more. 

***

Its tiresome voyage was at an end, and with it Ua would be free of this loathsome plane of existence. It conceded that a small pleasure was to be had in torturing an old mentor. Mun had sculpted many magnificent artifacts in his time, and even laid claim to having crafted many stars in his forge, but never could he have been masterful enough to craft the engine, nor ingenious enough to have a part in its design. 

The prison Ua had created for its predecessor was encased within Ganaxavorii; Mun was buried within the planet's core. And the invocations it had envoked had accomplished their duty. The wound Ua had given him so long ago, that had taken his life, had been cursed to bleed at Ua's presence. Through the machinations of its art, Ua had manipulated his mentor's form to excrete an endless stream of an element it had carefully selected. It would act as a reagent in the overall effect of the engine. 

Ua manifested itself outside of Ganaxavorii's orbit, having undergone another metamorphosis. It now resembled a gargantuan briollete, easily dwarfing the planet it orbited. It was made from a substance heretofore unknown in this universe; a translucent mineral from which vivid visions emanated. The sudden appearance of something so mighty wreaked further havoc on the planet that convulsed in evolutionary pangs. Ganaxavorii's surface was no longer visible, having been smothered in particulates. 

The beam that Ua had broadcast from Q'ab had also completed its journey and it passed through the shimmering form Ua had taken. Energy filtered through every crystalline capillary; the last part of the Rite being completed. Passing through the spiritual medium that was the eldritch horror, the beam had been altered as it met with the reflective silica that had supplanted Ganaxavorii's atmosphere. And the universe shook upon its foundations at such a display of power as beams were transmitted across the cosmos.

***

"How much do you remember about what happened in the Veldt ruins?" The artist's voice was equal measures relieved and inquisitive. Apotheosis had nearly come to the two when their minds met within the psyche of that... being.. that oversaw so much of what had transpired on Q'ab through the ages. 

"There are gaps in my logs, due to the extreme fluctuations of the psychic tether, but I do recall being aware, or at least a semblance of awareness. It was like passing through solar wind, a level of distortion in my environment I had never experienced before."

"Do you recall speaking with it, Epi?" Xo'pil paced the length of his accomodations, racking his brain for theories as to what they experienced. "I would think it had been nothing more than a drastic reaction between the toxins of that symbiotic fungus and my accelerated immune system. But that doesn't account for your experience. Could  I truly have found  evi-"

<< Alert. Alert. The ship has prematurely exited superluminal travel mode and is on inertial propulsion. Maintenance underway. Support vessels in region notified. Please remain calm. >>

His words hung in the air as the Vepsis Dol's emergency notification continued on a loop. The lighiting system within his quarters flickered as the sound of crashes deep within the interstellar freighter. Xo'pil gave pause before curiosity took hold. Retrieving a small object from his belongings, Xo'pil affixed a modular portable lighting system to the polymorph weave that covered his shoulder. 

Crossing the room towards the security panel that kept him sequestered from the rest of the ship's passengers, he clucked the tip of his tongue against the back of teeth to a jovial tune. His dexterous fingers slipped betwixt the hull and the panel's edges. With a forceful tug he removed the panel and set it to one side. Xo'pil regarded the layout of the circuitry before him and could barely contain a scoff. "This tech is at least five centuries old."

From within a minuscule aperture in the lining of his lapel, Xo'pil removed two tapered metallic rods that gleamed coldly in the artificial light. He gave another soft cluck of his tongue as he made minor adjustments to the control panel's parameters. A brief sound of triumph was elicited as the door slid open with an ominous whoosh. The lights outside of his quarters were now flickering at a heavier rate. Turning the luminous halo towards the darkened hallway, he took notice of colored bands leading away from the passenger quarters and made the decision to move towards the Vepsis Dol's massive cargo bays. 

***

The regular hiss of a respiratory filter underscored the incessant drips and creaks that echoed throughout Gereza's cooling and sewage systems. The garish neon of Ophidian's hide pants were muddled in a knee-high viscous fluid that flowed through a deep channel he was in the process of traversing. The scintilla of short-circuiting hoverdrones cast a sinister shadow down the vast chamber's length, its edges undulating in the coolant's current. The thick husk of his skin tingled against the caustic vapors that surrounded him.

"Sure is spacious. This seems like very poor prison design." Ophidian mumbled as the HUD projected against his eye-patch shifted to that of a map of the area he had salvaged from one of the hoverdrone's memory units. A highly detailed simulation of his immediate surroundings was beamed into the sensory nerve cluster deep within his cyclopean eye. A ping appeared on the map, highlighting a point of interest.

"I am discovering many irregularities in the management and construction of Gereza." Lars responded, and would have continued if not for several distress prompts that was relayed to both infiltrator and overwatch thanks to the surveillance measures Lars had taken upon entering Gereza's orbit. "Sir, alerts incoming from across the empire.   One from an ultrafreighter in some backwater system. Many more from the GRID."

Ophidian let loose a short whistle. Something trying to breach the GRID was a fool's errand. "Keep me updated. Going silent on my end." The shadow that had been cast faded as the form of Ophidian sank beneath the surface, followed by a stream of bubbles.

***

His journey towards the cargo hold was a silent and cautious one. The Cizran were notorious for delegating most tasks to the ranks of beings they subjugated and it would do little to further his knowledge if he were to bumble across a kukul assigned to security or some poor soul burdened with one of the fetters devised during millenia of maurading the universe. The modular light responded to his thoughts and would frequently extinguish at the slightest sound. 

In the silence that was becoming oppressive, he hesitated when he was able to distinguish a pattern: deep repetitious rumbling somewhere ahead. The distance was impossible to determine due to the cavernous surroundings. Moving towards is source, Xo'pil picked up a brief exchange of words, only able to make out "wrong with the transport".

As he approached, he saw a chamber softly lit in shalam's glow. It had taken him a moment to determine it was actually shalam, as its tell-tale emerald had been replaced with a sparkling sapphire. 

"Hold on a se-"  exclaimed a diminutive silhouette as the mass of minerals became animated. Xo'pil's beam of light cut through the dim chamber, three forms caught in its halo. 

I need a break, Xo thought to himself.