Anarion

Return to Thellamie

Did you think it was easy to be a maid? It's really not. There's a reason they make such good detectives. If you're going to clean something, well, first of all, you have to identify something that needs cleaning. Do you even see all the things around you that might need that? What has become decorative and what is clutter? What is part of the ambience and what is out of place? If you're going to clean something, you have to make the decision that it needs cleaning and that means that you have to actually see it first.

On top of that, you have to know something about the order of the world. If you're cleaning the same place over and over, well, that's usually easy enough. When you start, you get some instruction about it. Perhaps from the owner or a more senior maid, or from whoever hired you if it's not one of those two options. They tell you what to do, and then the first time you do it, they tell you if you messed up or if something still needs doing and eventually you figure out that the only way to get the tile properly clean is with this brush and that cleaner and nothing else will do the job without leaving a nearly invisible layer of filth still present. Eventually, you know how to run a clean finger along a plate to be sure it's free of blemishes that your eye can't see. But if you're cleaning some new place, you need to have some idea of what the order of the place ought to be so that you can understand what's out of order.

And then...well then there's a question of tools. You know what needs doing and you've spotted what's out of place, but a fat lot of good that's going to do you if you don't have the right piece of equipment for the job. Imagine trying to sweep up the finest dust with a rough broom and a chipped dustpan. You might as well just kick it around with your foot at that point, your sock will get up more than your shoddy tools.

All of this to say that Yuki, instilled with what is very definitely the powerful magic of order stemming from the Civil Church and definitely not any other thing whatsoever, is a bit flummoxed right out of the gate. She has never been to this ballroom, had no hand in the decorating crew (having been under the "imprisonment" of Purnima until this evening) and has not even the slightest idea where they keep the mops. Which is a problem because the number one source of clutter that Yuki knows about is her own dress. Her own dress full of silver glitter that's been leaving a trail everywhere she walks, any place she leans, all the way to silver glitter trickling onto Civelia's face when Yuki had gone to help her.

Faced with this utter indecision, she does the only thing she can do. She pulls off her own dress in the sauna, does her best to carefully fold it over itself to cover the glittery tassels with the exterior so it will stop making a mess. Then, dressed in only a light shift underneath, she grabs the nearest towel she can find, dips it in the sauna water, and starts cleaning up the glitter from Civelia before moving out to the rest of the room.

Beyari: a Tale of Colossi

In the passage of thirty minutes, you feel the small earthquakes not through shaking, but through the ripples of their movement. The shaking of the trees where there is no wind. The slight shudder of clear plastic in the ceiling. They are rhythmic, even, and strong. Growing stronger. Something is coming.

The holographic faerie had turned off for most of your meditation, an unnecessary energy expenditure while you pondered, though you remained in contact with Ailee via local intranet.

"Trading quest" she says, when you hold out the honey. "Not me, but, Sandrea's never been this close before. She's s'posed to keep clear of the biogenesis dome." The faerie pouts with uncertainty, puffing out her cheeks and bobbing up and down. "We'll be swarmed with people soon, the wake of the colossus. If she's this close, it'll be like a big old festival outside. I don't let them in, too rowdy. Dome locked. But we talk outside, trade stuffs for info. You can get lots of things for honey. And then trade those things for other things until you get something you want."

The footsteps get even closer and the walls shake. Ailee looks worried. "Really shouldn't be this close, like ever."

Beyari: a Tale of Colossi

"Mmm" says the faerie out loud, in a way that indicates a profound growth of character quirk. Not that she is unable to meet you where you are, far from it. It's simply that, as she passes you a direct feed of technical information, she also says "mmm" out loud.

---
Designation: Maintenance program AI431338.
Directive: San Jose Biogensis Dome maintenance function.
Functionality: Dome maintenance facility monitoring, execution of prepared maintenance protocols, detection of emergent maintenance requirements, self-learning problem solving capacity for emergent maintenance requirements.

Additional non-requested material provided. Title "Ailee's Writings"
see supplemental files

Additional note provided: "Hey so, I didn't wake you up. Could you also share your directive please and thanks?"

Beyari: a Tale of Colossi

AI431338 (“Ailee”): The administrative AI for the San Jose lab dome, which did not fall into the earth during the quakes. Ailee has remained functional via solar panel maintenance drones and running minimal functions while maintaining her primary function of protecting the lab dome. This means not letting anybody in or out. This also means that she is bored stiff and after discovering a local archive of anime idol videos has further determined that the best way to present herself to future generations of humans is pretty princess faerie. Which is why every settler who has approached the lab so far has been told that the door is locked by a girl with striped pink and purple hair under a silver tiara and shimmering wings hovering a few feet off the ground.

Beyari: a Tale of Colossi

"Mkayyy" says the fairy, bobbing up and down with a nod of the head. "Well, it's prolly cuz the low grade radiation did a number on the reproductive systems of most regular animals that were localized in the region. There's like, new pollination insects and stuffs that evolved out of the local megafauna ecosystem though, just so y'know. I never really asked anybody about them, and we haven't had any, like, network communication to get information outside the dome in uh...987 years soooooo, I dunno. I think sometimes stuff lands on us briefly in spring but I never really catalogued insects."

The fairy flutters and sparkles and offers an expression that might be considered a friendly grin, indicative that she has practiced communications with humans more than machines. "So like, I've got this place running purely on solar power ever since the backup diesel generator ran out of fuel 985 years ago. Don't have the energy to boot up and maintain sophisticated robots. But we've got basic heating and a local underground water source for the plants and a giant server of archived video footage from the original staff. So, as long as you don't jeopardize critical systems infrastructure...uh...make yourself at home. I'm AI431338, but I use Ailee with the locals cuz they can't remember anything harder." She ends her introduction with a little spin that makes her wings shimmer behind her and makes her tiara bob dangerous. Though her head never dips enough for it to fall, nor could it, being part of her projected image.

Beyari: a Tale of Colossi

Threat detected to autonomous environmental repair bioproject. Begin activation sequence
---
Local environmental information
- detection of multi-story interior building structure. Materials: steel, cement, glass, plastic. Speculated Location: biogenesis dome
- detection of infrared radiation. Identification: subterranean heating pump
- detection of infrared radiation. Identification: automated cleaning drone
- detection of low-grade gamma radiation from all environmental objects
- Temperature: 21° C
---
Attempting to access geospatial network: no access
Attempting to access internet: no connection. Date unknown
Attempting to access local network: Maintenance program contacted
---
Image of a hovering fairy flapping shimmering wings with pink and purple striped hair and wearing a silver tiara. "Woah. Hey, I haven't seen a robot activated here for like five centuries. What gives? Has somebody been holding out on me for power supplies?!"

Return to Thellamie

Yuki's tail flicks as she sits in the sauna. Back and forth. She's not touching Civelia, but she looks like she wants to be, wants to have one hand over her shoulder, another brushing the damp hair out of her face. But she's not, she's just watching and close. Uncertain, but present. Trying her best to help, hoping that she can.

Then the attendant asks her a question and uses her name. She starts, her ears twitch and the hair on her arms rises in goosebumps. It's not...not that nobody would know. Purnima had her and knew who she was from the original Crevas arrival, so it was simple enough to believe that Purnima had been loose about it. No more random knight in service to Suli pretending to be some Kel Paladin, she was Yuki Edogawa and had been all along. Hardly a surprise, and it's not like it changed anything except maybe the expectations around her. But even so, it made her start to be addressed that way by an attendant.

"I don't...I don't know. She's a goddess, but a good one, right? The light of this world, the foundation of its civilization. So, like, everybody in Thellamie wants to defend and support her while stopping all the other goddesses like Azaza and the Rot Star, and the dark dragon, right? But I guess I haven't really thought about Thellamie theology or anything. Like, I've fought two different dragons now and it's not like I got smitten by divine might. Super strong, yeah, but this feels more like the Greek gods or the Maia or something. Like uh...my world has the idea of gods that are like really strong people but not perfect, and then there's like capital G God who's omnipotent and omniscient in some religions, but that also means you can't really interact with that sort of god because it's everyone and nowhere all at once."

She brushes her own hair out of her face, the heat of the sauna having loosened it so that it falls all about her face and shoulders now, little bits of glitter from her dress twinkling at the ends. She likes the sauna, but she doesn't like the way that the black veins are pushing at Civelia's face. Was this really the right way to treat her? It felt hard to breathe.

"I guess, I dunno about Civelia like as a person. I like lots of the people in Thellamie, so if Civelia is good for them then I support her. And I like the ideals of her paladins. I want to fight for protecting the people I love and care about. Even if I'm outmatched. Even if I don't know everything that's going on. I want to fight to bring people together. To...to have all my friends and keep them and find ways to share with them instead of constantly being dragged around and regretting every second where I was one place meaning I couldn't be with someone else."

It was really hard to breathe in here. Yuki was panting. Why had she said all that to this random attendant?

Beyari: a Tale of Colossi

This is a game about an ecosystem. Long ago there was an ancient people who had dangerous ways of creating great amounts of power. Faced with catastrophe when great quakes ruined these devices, which poisoned anything sent to fix them, they used their craft to create great beasts that could survive the poison and clean for them. This was the cause of the second catastrophe. Now, nothing remains of the ancients. But a thousand years later, the land they once held has become a new world.

Musings, speculations, and data analysis (sparse) regarding the ecology and economy of the world, as recorded by San Jose Dome maintenance function AI431338 (“Ailee”)

Early history and economic development version 2.3.1

The major quake on the Hayward fault and subsequent nuclear disaster caused by the ill-considered location of nuclear power for early AI processing on top of the fault represented a…seismic moment in global technology. The cleanup required major advances in the breeding of genetically modified creatures in order to address a uniquely terrible disaster that, at least initially, killed anyone who entered and ruined any mechanical equipment sent into it (from a human perspective: computer processors with adequate radiation shielding continued to function, but all equipment was irradiated, making it impossible to perform maintenance or retrieve for subsequent use, hence “ruined” from the perspective of its creators). Hence the creation of autonomous living creatures that could survive in and modify the environment. These colossi were created at the height of technology but also represented a necessary technology shift for the planet.

Based on subsequently obtained data from interactions with renewed human settlement and analysis of human equipment or lack thereof, it is clear that the Hayward fault quake represented not merely a singular incident but a crowning conclusion that human beings were incapable of observing the necessary safety protocols over an extended period of time required to render the use of nuclear energy safe. Combined with the exhaustion of fossil fuels and the genetic breakthroughs in animal breeding, there appears to have been a global shift to heavy physical labor being done by beasts of burden in all possible circumstances, primarily agriculture, mining, transportation, and trade of bulk goods. The reduction in manufacturing of heavy industry goods allowed the remaining manufacturing of high technology and small consumer goods to, by and large, convert to solar and wind power, resulting in what appears to be a decidedly mixed consumer economy in which substantial parts of the population combine animal husbandry at unprecedented scale with sophisticated computing and what could be termed post-modern military small arms. Clothing likewise remains mixed: the processing of industrial cotton appears to remain common, but decoration and supplementation are more heavily based on animal products than industrially produced artificial materials as compared to the baseline reference imagery.

Based on the timing, ethnic and linguistic characteristics, and population size of settlement, it is further posited that the technological shift to animal husbandry of titanic and newly created creatures happened unevenly around the globe, resulting in significant realignment of global wealth relative to the 21st century.

Speculations on population demographics and settlement waves subsequent to disastrous population decline version 1.2.0

After the disaster, essentially no local humans had survived. The combination of complete local infrastructure collapse and nuclear radiation functionally killed everyone who had not immediately escaped beyond the periphery. A small number of autonomous facilities had equipment with adequate redundancy to survive irradiation, but this only furthered the external confirmation that no human survivors remained as these facilities did not report any operator activity via satellite in the days and weeks following the quakes. This led to the genetic engineering focus on creating creatures that could survive in the irradiated zones to clean it for habitation. And in turn led to three waves of migration to the region.

First wave
Despite the severe irradiation, some people returned to the area surreptitiously after a few decades had passed and the radiation had gone from “kills you in five minutes” to “highly increases the chance that you’ll get cancer in the next twenty years.” Many of these people did not make successful settlements, and their early interactions with the vast creatures and mutated local wildlife that had only just begun their work led to even further casualty rates as the creatures had not been built with instincts or training to protect humans.

Nevertheless, some of these settlements succeeded, particularly in the rich cave networks opened by the quake, which had greater protection from radiation and whose designation as the resource base to eventually justify resettlement provided both the lure to bring people in despite the risk and a relatively safe zone from the most dangerous aspects of the colossi.

These cave settlements remained small and surreptitious, trading primarily through smuggling and black market channels and never officially being acknowledged by any external powers.

Second wave
The complete exhaustion of fossil fuels a century after the quakes meant that resettlement of a highly dangerous and expensive area in any sort of formal way was simply off the table entirely. Moreover, Zi’aru had evolved by this point to begin active predation on anything entering the mountains by land, making the entire region functionally inaccessible. As such, the second wave settlers did not properly arrive until nearly two hundred years after the disaster, coming over the sea via a combination of wind and solar power.

They treated the area as unsettled by this point, there having been no international record of any settlement in the region for over two centuries and the territory treated as abandoned and inhospitable. They nevertheless managed a string of roving coastal settlements designed around moving in the long tail of land tilled by Sandrea to harvest the naturally occurring food and other resources. They did not meet the cavern dwellers for quite some time and found the handful of autonomous facilities functionally inaccessible as they lacked the proper credentials for access and most metal access systems had rusted from the sea salt to the point of complete breakdown in any case.

They were surprised to meet the cave miners, but not unhappily so, as they were able to provide local food support while the roving settlement structure was established as well as provide some stable infrastructure such as mills and forges in exchange for trade and services from the sea settlers (whose numbers were ultimately much higher than the cave miners).

The second wave settlers were the ones who dubbed the region Beyari and came up with the modern names for the Colossi based on information from interactions with autonomous computer systems that still functioned to provide basic regional information.

Third wave
The first and second wave settlements maintained a tentative harmony with the colossi and the natural world. However, some further centuries later, technique and technology advanced to the point that some parties were able to ward off and slip past Zi’aru, leading to new groups entering over the mountains. These third wave newcomers as known as marauders to the others, as their early arrivals have been focused not on friendly trade, but on theft, resource extraction, and clearcutting (to the extent they can manage: early deforestation efforts led to an assault by Sandrea, and subsequent work has shifted to smaller scale hunting and clearing to avoid antagonizing the giant titan for the time being).

Descriptions and Legends of the Colossi version 6.1.3.draft

Dialo, the molten:
Dialo is the eldest of the great beasts. When the cataclysmic earthquakes changed the landscape and ruined the ancient energy, Dialo is the creature that was created to make the space safe. A digging beast, it sank the broken core deep into the ground, beneath the great earthquake valleys that had sprung into existence. Designed to produce scales of ceramic and titanium, it fed off the energy of the ancient core, growing and tunneling. It spreads heat and melts rock, boring caverns beneath the earth. At some point long after its creators were gone, it dug deep enough to reach the supervolcano beneath the earth and claimed that as its new home.

Its lands
Its tunnels, fed by its heat, are full of scavenger beasts with hardened hides that eat and smooth the enriched rock left behind by Dialo. In their wake, some hardened carnivores, mostly smaller flame drakes, hunt the tunnels for the scavengers, and they in turn form Dialo’s favorite meal.

The intensity of the heat and esoteric energy that Diao produces leaves few plants or grazers in these deep tunnels. But there are some hardy mushrooms that have learned to grow in the heat and in turn some of the scavengers have begun to adapt to the mushrooms, eating them but also carrying their spores, leading to highly poisonous or paralyzing variants.

Waln’t, the refiner:
Waln’t is not especially large for a colossus (though still the size of a moderately-sized plane), but it is swift and agile. It was originally designed to produce the sort of valuable materials necessary to attract a returning population. Its movement process and internal functioning is highly magnetic, creating electrical currents that run through high energy rock, functioning as a heating and refining instrument that produces easily mined valuable metals. It has since evolved beyond simply moving through the underground space and hunts using electrical currents for tracking and signaling.

Its lands
The subsurface tunnels, being both sheltered from the weather and full of useful materials, have also become key locations for returning human habitation. Where the spaces open to the surface, the sun merges with the lingering energy to produce bountiful fields. Some grow crops and orchards, others are grazed.

In the darker tunnels are vivid mushrooms and mosses full of spice. It is easy for small settlements to arise near a major field, harvesting and hunting, while doing their best to protect themselves from carnivores that roam through. They worship Waln’t as a deity. A god of storms and a protector, albeit a mercurial one at best.

Sandrea, the verdant
At the surface are the vast forests of Sandrea. Sandrea is the largest of the colossi, a dragon larger than any of the ruined towers of the ancient civilization. It has no wings, but huge legs and a long neck with a crested head. It walks the land, its feet tilling the soil and its back spreading seeds. It is an island unto itself, it’s coming easy to spot. It was created originally to make the land habitable for people after the quakes. Its wake flattens the land and its myriad cast offs plant it, making it ripe to inhabit. Over the passage of time, however, the seeds of Sandrea have matured and then mutated so that in the modern era it creates rampant growth in its passing, creating vast forests that have grown over the flattened ruins of what were once great cities.

Its lands
Sandrea’s existence makes permanent surface settlement perilous, and it is the most responsible of the colossi for wiping out the remains of the prior civilization. Though there are scattered ruins and overgrown campuses that it has always avoided in its direct path due to some sort of historical programming, which have become basecamps for settlers where available, or may contain sealed relics of the past where they have been preserved.

Sandrea is nearly always followed by a huge menagerie because of the abundance it creates as it moves. Creatures nest upon it directly and scavengers eat the plantlife that grows as its passes. Predators that prey upon both follow it closely and there are people who migrate in this rich space, breaking off to trade with underground settlements from time to time.

The forest itself is huge and rampant. Fed by soil enhanced with esoteric elements and refined metal. Though parts of it are regularly destroyed by Sandrea, they grow back even more quickly, fueling a lush ecosystem that feeds on its own past generations. The forest has the most diverse species. People live in the forest using mobile camps, and its apex predators are the great cats who ambush anything from the canopy.

Zi’aru the frigid
At the edges of the forest, marking the boundary of destruction are the great mountains ruled by Zi’aru. The winged dragon of ice, Zi’aru rests in the highest peaks. Zi’aru was originally created as a guardian beast to ensure that the efforts of the restoration were not disrupted by the greedy or rapacious. But being most separated from the ancient energy, Zi’aru eventually mutated to harvest energy itself, often preying on the forest from its mountain home. Its scales have taken on the nature of rock and have grown tight and strong against wind and rain. Smoothed over time to a mirror sheen that lets it blend with the sky. Zi’aru absorbs energy from its environment, causing blizzards and cold fronts in the process. But this also checks anything from the forest growing overly rampant, and has lended the mountains their role as a barrier to the land.

It’s lands
Few other creatures live in the mountains of Zi’aru compared to the lush forests or the rich tunnels. Those that do are the most hardy and determined. Trees whose roots crush the rocks and free the soil. Strong grasses that need little more than wind and water. Herds of powerful mountain goats that climb like they walk on flat ground. Huge wolves prowl the lower slopes, warmed by their great pelts and the vestiges of the energy of the ancient peoples running to this very edge of their land through the ground beneath them.

Return to Thellamie

Yuki's first action does not, perhaps, win her any fans in the ball. Indeed it is possible, in her vastness, that the dark dragon may not even notice what happens after she takes the punch, being entirely inward focused from the combination of the shot and the punch.

But, the fact of the matter is that until Aria waded in, it was still Yuki and Aadya at the front, Yuki who had pounced in through the lightning in a flash of silver. So it was Yuki who caught the falling Sayanastia and lowered her gently to the floor as her great heartclub vanished, a tiny metallic gleam beneath the great height of that darkness that made her shine all the brighter, and at her neck a purple amethyst that almost glowed with Sayanatia's dark light. If you asked in that moment, Yuki couldn't quite tell you why she'd reacted that way. Just that...Sayanastia would have wanted it and that she deserved to be placed with a tender beauty and not in any way that could be described as "slugged out."

After that...well after that attention has shifted, and so her hand is on Aadya's shoulder. "Aadya...you were incredible" she says, and she her other hand is helping her friend to stand. Not because she asked, no no Aadya needs no help whatsoever. But because they are friends, Yuki does it anyway, giving Aadya an extra lift. Because she matters, because she deserves the attention, because two knights should always do that for one another. And then they are both at Civelia's side and Yuki's hand is upon her forehead to...feel if she has a fever? Okay this is stupid, do goddesses even get fevers? Is she tipping her hand to everyone present that she's a total fraud as a knight? There's probably some kind of paladin protocol for how you handle this kind of thing that she doesn't know and nobody ever bothered to mention. But she's still touching Civelia's forehead and inspecting her because...because she needs to help and that's all there is to it. She needs to help and everyone else is starting to party and drink and whoever put those words in Aria's mouth got things exactly right and...and...and Yuki's hand is holding Civelia's just like Aadya had held hers earlier when she had been drowning in Walking Elm's poison.

"Goddess...goddess Civelia" she says "I am here for you. Though I...may be bereft of Starlight...I am here." And though there is no starlight, yet there is a silver gleam and glitter with no magic whatsoever falls from her dress and glimmers on the goddess' hand.

Return to Thellamie

It is not Aadya's fear, but the appearance of the Kanabō that moves Yuki to action. Aadya steps forward first, but she does not step forward alone. After all, Yuki was trained in fencing, and an armed opponent is a very different thing from an unarmed one, even if they are fighting with heavy weapons and not with rapiers.

So Aadya steps forward to strike, and Yuki steps forward and to the side, her tail whipping behind her for balance as she crosses over her feet to slide around Aadya and bring her axe around in an arc designed to push the Kanabō out of the way and lock up the Dark Dragon for Aadya's strike.

Six years ago, this might have worked perfectly. A smaller, faster Yuki would have made it in under the dragon's guard, used the leverage she had from her rush, and a smaller Aadya would have been able to make the maneuver while effortlessly shifting herself to avoid Yuki. Today, this still might have worked if Yuki and Aadya had been in sync with each other and Aadya had been reading her friend's movements. But she had resigned herself and so when Yuki stepped in, it threw her off instead, causing a moment's hesitation and instead leaving Yuki to take the full strength of her second actual physical dragon she's dueled in Thellamie this time.

As she pushes past the stunned Aadya and flings herself at Sayanastia's Kanabō, she has time to only say one thing: "who are you becoming beautiful for?!"

[Figure out a person: 2+2+2=6. Yuki's only question on a miss is "Who do you love?"]