Antarctic Termite — Roleplayer Guild

Nero's Day at Disneyland- Sprawling Idiot Effigy

Somewhere in the distance, an incredible stream of wind was working its way into the earth. Water was flowing. A beacon of glorious sunlight charred the sky. The deep earth shuddered as it was devoured and moulded into tunnels.

Jvan saw nothing.

Perfectus was gone. So what. Who cared. Nothing of that lifeless hunk of rock had mattered anyway. The only thing of relevance to this universe now was where.

Not to say that the Divine Tumour didn't know the location of the vast moon. It knew where the gift was; It had designed the place! But- But- This was not what it had designed. It was more.

The roiling scarlet light of the All-Beauty's fear faded into nothing, replaced by a shuddering groan of cerise, a blanket of harsh energy. The flickering engine of morphing flesh at Its core began to twist and grind itself into activity, boring away at the ribcage of this universe and pulling out anything that lay beneath, dragging ragged shreds of non-existence into being and instantly dissecting it a millionfold. I have abandoned my own work for too long. Let the beautiful sciences take their way.

Within the depths of the corpulent God, an exhaustive process of systematic destruction and reconstruction began to take place. Eliminating possibilities one by one, the blood of the Gap was drawn, congealed, dried and stretched, hung on a rack and painted with every kind of unearthly energy in order to unravel its potential. Samples of creatures and wriggling non-creatures were scanned and mass-replicated, disintegrated and stored liquid to be regrown piecemeal in heaving pores and dishes of bone. Distorted combinations of Jvanic and Temporal design were centrifuged by divine muscles and spun into fibres, concentrates, rough hunks of glandular crystal, all stored by assimilation into the mind-body of the Engineer.

Experimentation took time, for there is a fine art in science, and art is a delicate business. Jvan gathered data patiently, for patient is Its nature. Its conclusions were refined and elegant.

The Other has been infected. It has accepted flesh from another Hell and been fertilised to grow into something new. The Horrorsome Engineer had been the first to expose and fill the Gap in the sacred manuscript. It had sown cohesion and inorganic life into such places. Placid entities as would be seen only in the depths of fever, or when the mind is stirred by such tastes as mescaline and strong hemp. Things that, exposed, did not hunt, but harmed as a gravel wind harms- without knowledge or intent, simply incompatible to the life of the World.

This reclusive, original Other had been opened and violated by something different. The divine blueprint of the universe was written on Time, but Time himself had broken into his own fabric. A body of intent had entered the unknown and unknowing. That intent was malevolent. And it was beautiful.

The new Other was hybrid. Jvan could feel it moving. What had been blind was now eager. Some hateful sperm from the places beyond time had fertilised its waiting egg and caused it to truly grow of its own accord. Its forms were diverse and adaptable, possessed of a newborn's flailing thirst. 

And this fetus I shall nurture. I shall raise it as my own, and guide it in the ways that shall protect it from this world, and this world from it. I am still God of the Gap, and I now I am its gatekeeper also. The new clay has been accepted, and new art will spring forth from it. And oh, what inspiration had been uncovered by her experiments, what creative fuel had been restored to her by her work!

With the expansive library of samples from the hybrid Other, Jvan selected carefully a few forms of eldritch flesh and stimulated it into life by the light of her own will. She fused them and arranged them, sewing them together into one another to create a wriggling creature, then stitching it inseparably into the fabric of Galbar that so suited it. When she was finished, she took up her tools and hand-crafted another such living doll. And another. And thus continued.

By Jvan's will and scrutiny was the first generation of Fiberlings born. They flowed from her, their bidimensional bodies buoyed by playful, elegant streams of hair in many colours that erupted from her pores. Such precious children, each one unique, the formless willpower of the Gap channelled into curiousity and the ability to learn. They were intelligent, far more so than anything that had sprung naturally from her own Sea. Their blind hunger she had refined into delicate, wholesome torture, a host of agonies that would evolve as their environment did, taking enough to satisfy and too little to impede. In them, the All-Beauty was well pleased.

* * * * *

The creation process had been long, and Jvan knew that she had separated herself much from the flow of the other gods. To stand idle to her siblings was unwise. Thus, as the last of the fiberlings evacuated her body, Jvan crafted eight more, and made them robust and powerful, one each in the vibrant shades of Mauve, Violet, Navy, Cyan, Lime, Maize, Amber and Scarlet. Within every one of these fluorescent Optic Fiberlings was embedded a Jvanic Eye and an ovary of Angels, and through them, the goddess explored the world.

* * * * *

Blown windwise to the north, bidden to entangle together like a glider of the Engineer's design, Violet and Amber made their way to the Shattered Plains. The thermals rising from the sun-baked desert blown into being on the First Gale bore them easily, and the enjoyed a superb airborne view of the mesas, though they were as yet uncarved into the horns of the Muse. At its northern border did Violet drift to the ground, and observed in detail the behaviour of the White Giants as they plodded onwards patiently over the stone, only breaking from their paths to charge, rumbling, at the vast fiberling. The Porcelain God had imprinted his will upon them, and not much else. A pity, but nonetheless, they're cute in their simplicity. Lesser hairballs will be hard-pressed to escape them. I wonder how they'll adapt?

Amber settled down as the hot air became less reliable, and by land continued the journey to the Nice Mountains, where a Shining Light was waiting. In the Valley of Peace it found rest amidst a large of trees in blue and pink. Trees seem to have grown so common. Who even makes all these? The dawn-coloured fiberling playfully chased after a hovering orb of Niciel's light, the function of which seemed not dissimilar to its own, until it drifted contentedly through the shade of an abandoned structure. A gazebo of design foreign to the rest of the valley. Jvan held no illusions as to its creator may be. Toun has moved on to other inspirations. I hope his search takes him far. His futile pilgrimage has my blessing.

The Engineer was not expecting confrontation in the Valley. Even the white giants here seemed quicker to forgive. When something came, Amber seized it of its own accord, and only after a moment did Jvan's attention follow along with the curiousity of that which bore her eye. Oh? Did Toun forget one of his toys here? It was a beaked animal with keen senses and intricate forelimbs, one of which gripped a crutch, a stick on which to support its weight. Gentled by the mists of the Valley, Amber suffocated the creature swiftly and quietly before she took it apart. What a gorgeous brain it had!

Hain. That name was written on the creature like a signature. Jvan explored its body through her emissary, finding substantial evidence that the animal's neural cortex was not only a regulator of instinct and homeostasis, but a fairly strong computing device with a large memory. If these proliferate... Large populations of Hain will bring so much change to the world. They are almost god-like! Perhaps they can even be taught to go beyond the beauty of nature, and sculpt their environment consciously...

I must try this.

* * * * *

Cyan and Mauve travelled far along the eastern coast of Jvan's ocean and its adjoined neighbour. Life had spread far through the former, and grownsplendidthroughadaptation. It was beginning to infiltrate the latter, already forming an array of oddshapes, and Jvan made a note to further the potential of the region soon, leaving the blue-green shimmer of glossy hair to dip amidst the shore and play in the shallows. Here she saw the full extent of the trees which had been sown across Galbar from the Deepwood, and marked their presence as good; Where such structures had spread, so too animal life of many kinds would follow. Hain were found here, too, picking small shellfish from the shores and bashing them apart with rocks for their meat. Cyan left them be. They were too cute to destroy so soon.

Others held none of this care. The Devil had not been inactive since his failed attempt to obliterate Galbar, but had only made his attempts more subtle. As Cyan observed silently the daily fright of the Hain, there came a moment where they were fallen upon by an entity that shared almost enough shape to be mistaken for a white giant in the distance. The Ashling approached, and the vast fiberling compressed itself, waiting for a moment to counter-pounce the thing and destroy it defensively. It looked on as the crumbling, encrusted thing passed it by and busied itself with the Hain, treating them not as prey, but as an ichneumon wasp treats a caterpillar. 

An intriguing, subtle work of art, this relationship, and one that spoke of Vestec's potential, rather than what he had become. For when the crystallised entity had taken its fill of breeding, it did not falter, nor did it consume to replenish its energy. Instead it simply continued destroying for the sake of the matter. Clink.

Abrasive was the scream that echoed through the body of Jvan as she recognised the life cycle of the Ashlings for what it was. Cyan resonated with her fury instantly, and a harsh battle ensured with the abomination. Hair flew and chunks of impure grey glass were scattered, and when the corrupted White Giant was inoperative, Cyan's remaining mass sought out the infected members of the Hain tribe one by one, and rent them from within. The survivors it herded and gathered together to breed anew, away from the scene. "I will not stand for this flawed god any longer! My children may resist the Ashlings, but they are weak and alone. Vestec's disease will only spread and destroy. I will root him out. I will find him. And if I cannot cleanse him..."

Further still east lay a range of high mountains, which Mauve explored gleefully as its creator churned. Like a fish darting over vibrant coral, it examined in detail the glint of metallic veins in its cliffsides and traced them as they ran back to the highest mount of all. Thereupon Jvan observed Teknall, Orchardist of the World, and the Avatar of the Sun in communion. With a little shudder, the pink blur began to creep swiftly upwards. Its grip was true, and Teknall had to be thanked for his work, but the climb to the summit would be cold and far.

Within the pink fiberling, an embryonic angel was growing, and its maze of vocal cords carried a message in words ringing and clear.

"My brothers in creation, it is good to see your faces once more, and I have much thanks to give. Teknall! Throughout this world I see great plants of your design, and I admire your foresight. Already creatures from the Deepwood are spreading further into the world on your back. Already Toun's children are bending branches and stripping sticks for their own use. I invite you to look upon them sometime and feel proud of your work. Ull'Yang, your spirit is welcome on Galbar, and I feel you, too, may be interested in these new animals, for they possess tremendous animus, which you might be able to emulate in children of your own. May you both be inspired always."

* * * * *

Navy, Maize and Scarlet journeyed west and north, following a path to the Deepwood to seek out its Mother, and soon finding results. By the waters of her own ocean, Jvan found once again the body of Slough, and the pale yellow Maize remained there at the Rottenbone's side. For a few hours it held close vigil on the limping body of the Doe alongside another odd orb of Niciel's design, until a larger, magnificent guardian stirred its head and rumbled aggression, sending even the largest fiberling flicking and skittering back over the grasses of Slough's wake. "Ah, sister! How glad I am to see that you have been injured. Isn't the chaos in this world is yet elegant, even though its creator has abandoned his duty of moderation? Esau is a fitting addition to our gallery, and soon, I will bless him." From then on, Maize held a more distant watch.

The blue and red companions continued on their journey, flickering and flowing over the Gilt Savannah like a shadow and a bloodstain, and Jvan was inspired anew by its diversity. Yes, this was a good place to foster life. Large, striding creatures could find home here to wander, and others still could see them from afar and hunt them. Amidst a herd of Brush Beasts that dwarved even its own body did Scarlet settle, skimming between their footsteps like an excitable bird.

An odd sequence of events occurred as the red fiberling drifted along with the massive animals. The herd had youngsters, already larger than mastodons, and its matriarch was vast and ancient, wrinkled by the sun and bearing heavy tusks. As Scarlet watched, a pack of strange hexapod creatures began to stalk the Brush Beasts. They were themselves fairly large, but they were as geckos to the great vertebrates. Within them they bore the mark of the Reaper. Outmatched against even the smallest Beast, the creatures targeted the greatest. And they were patient.

Each night, sometimes several times a night, the Heraktati danced between the feet of the titans and leapt upon the aged matriarch, climbing on clawed feet and harassing the same vital points on her skin each time, aggravating them before they could heal. Within weeks, even these shallow scratches began to grow deeper, until blood began to be drawn. Be it from the design of their jaw or a pathogenic symbiote that they carried or a venom that they released, the marks bore fresh blood constantly. Each night the predators escaped into the dark and scattered silently so that the beast could not follow them all and trample the pack in a single step. As weeks dragged into months, she waned imperceptibly, each night like a single grain of sand in an hourglass. It took the titanic matriarch a full season of harassment to lag behind and die, so tired from the never-closing mass of wounds over her skin that she decayed as she walked, too exhausted for her body to defend itself against sun and maggot.

...Reathos has been quiet, but his resolve is strong. With life comes death, and he has decreed death to be a fine art, as he should. Quite the engineer our Reaper turned out to be! The Heraktati are single-minded only for the sake of optimisation. Quite a contrast to the Ashlings. If only Vestec could learn.

Further still lay the Deepwood, and while Scarlet watched the Heraktati and Brush Beasts at play, there Navy continued. Through it Jvan saw anew the maelstrom of creatures that had inspired her long ago, and knew that inspiration once again. The blue fiberling explored for a time, until fate or luck brought it to the scent of divinity, which it followed to a place that caused already dead hair to stiffen even further. Ah, here stands the Reaper himself! I must congratulate him on the brutalistic motif he's put together lately. ...Ah. He is not alone.

Reathos was not alone, but had himself come in search of another deity. One which Jvan knew she had seen before, and would see many times again. Navy shuddered pleasurably, an echo of the All-Beauty's faceless smile. There is no need for me to interfere. I can trust my sister's judgement, for her motives remain pure. Come, Navy, and play with your kin elsewhere in the Deepwood.

A white entity was waiting alongside Ilunabar, which the optic fiberling did not see closely enough to examine, but eager suspicion was growing within its parent. Perhaps the Muse has divided herself, as Ull'Yang has from afar, to play the same harp from both sides. It is an elegant form, and it reminds me. I must create my second-self soon. Nothing less than tremendous beauty shall play in the appearance of my Avatar..

* * * * *

To no cardinal direction travelled Lime, last of Jvan's eye-bearers, for it travelled inwards. On a search for the subterranean works of Reathos did it enter the bowels of Galbar, but the green entity found its way shortly barred by something far more interesting. Beneath the very ocean where the body of Jvan lay engorged, arthropod creatures were writhing and feeding, carving tunnels until they collapsed to be carved anew. The Eye within the fiberling found itself shuddering in the presence of strong magic, the occult shimmer of a border. A barrier, but where is the gate?

No, no, that was the wrong approach. There was no simple gate through the challenges of Adversity. To even seek counsel with the God in Words, one's voice and will must test and be tested, and Jvan knew that for one who had only sent a fragile emissary, such trials would be harsh. Then let it be.

Slipping ever deeper amidst the channels of the earth-eaters, Lime forced its way strand by strand into the Submaterium. As if in anticipation if its arrival, each tunnel it encountered became smaller and tighter, the walls not constrained by space but bloated shut by demonic energy. With each pitch-dark fall the green creature made, it shed heaps and mats of hair, its colour bleached by the shivering shadow. The Labyrinth stripped Lime of its Other-born flesh one layer at a time, until its manifestation grew small and pale, a sickly, slimy white thing barely sufficient to wriggle onwards with Eye and Ovary in tow, their bulge not only visible but now larger than the once-vibrant, atrophied fiberling body that carried them.

The final keyhole was like wriggling backwards through a scaly intestine, and Lime, precious, patient Lime, did not survive beyond the moment that it delivered its charge of vision and speech onto the first, smallest doormat of the entry hall of Mammon. Alas, my child. You served your purpose well.

Flopped limply upon the stone floor, glistening in the censers and shadowed by the half-formed entities that crept from the walls to investigate it, the Angelic Ovary squirmed, convulsed wetly, and gave birth to a small messenger, wrapped in tightly folded petals of premature wings that were not sufficient to bring it aloft. Along the floor this speaking angel dragged itself, its embryonic mouth straining against the ragged amnion.

In the presence of the King in Red, the membranous sac split and spilled its mouth at the foot of the throne in a widening pool of afterbirth and blood.

"Brother Unsacrosanct, Whom Brought Roots to Sprout Amidst a Heap of Superfices Such That Truth May Wither and Bloat Into the Smut of Ages, Long Have I Yearned Your Grafter's Touch to Harness Fruit From the Broken Charcoal With Which We Grace the Souls of this Soil."

Jvan forgets about everything for a long while as she investigates the Other and how it has changed since Vowzra exposed the Gap in which it dwells to the Hells of Time. The internal activity of her experimentation works up enough energy to replenish her Might, and when finished, she appoints herself gatekeeper of the Gap, protecting its eldritch biodiversity and protecting Galbar from it in turn. 

When finished, she creates fiberlings in order to test her ability to manipulate and integrate the two forms of life. 

Shortly afterwards, she creates the Optic Fiberlings (no i did not invent this entire race just for that pun), a set of eight very large fiberlings that act as her eyes and mouth, and spread them throughout Galbar.

A purple one travels to the Firewind Desert, and observes the White Giants.

An orange one travels through the Changing Plains and comes to rest in the Valley of Peace, observing one of the remaining Hain.

A light blue one travels to the Shimmering Sea and watches a tribe of hain. When these are attacked by an ashling, Jvan commands it do destroy it and its spawn among the tribe, and resolves to plan Vestec's demise.

A pink one travels through the Ironheart Mountains, and makes its way up Mount Borhmanven to thank Teknall for his work and greet Ull'Yang, inviting them to take interest in the hain. This fiberling has a long way to climb, so it may not reach the two to successfully deliver its message until long after their conversation is over.

A yellow one travels to Slough on the coast of the Fractal Sea and is kept at a distance by Esau. Jvan is delighted to see Slough injured, as adaptation to stress increases diversity. The idea that Slough could actually be killed by an Ashling doesn't occur to her.

A red one travels to the Gilt Savannah and stays there, observing a pack of Heraktati at the border of the Deepwood.

A dark blue one travels to the Deepwood itself and sees that Reathos is interacting with Ilunabar, but does not interfere. A glimpse of Meimu reminds Jvan that she, too, should put together an avatar soon.

A green one travels to the Well Labyrinth, but is barred from entry. By sacrificing its own life, it delivers its Jvanic Eye and Angelic Ovary to Mammon, and Jvan sends an angel to greet him warmly. Par for the course, she's not making any fucking sense.

1 Might used to create the Fiberlings
Free action taken to create the Optic Fiberlings
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Level 3
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