Antarctic Termite

It might not look like much now, but this is gonna be a very important Jvan post.

---

Battle Brother Yiftakh stood on a low hill with the goats, watching the thing that had found its way into the sacred meadows of Chronos. A shadowless glow illuminated the scene, though it was night; For since the thievery of the Jvanic Entity, Chronos had no moon, nor any sun, and it was the many-folded walls of that world that brightened and dimmed according to the passage of Time, as the Timeless One had ordained.

Yiftakh sat down on a rock. He reached under a nanny-goat's chin and ran a finger through her beard. The thing before him, which he supposed was some kind of animal, was most plainly a work of that same Jvanic Entity.

Yet though his sword shone brilliant at his side, the Victor was patient and by no means keen to fall into the Pride of his fallen brothers and sisters. If it was Fated, then so it should be. Let the creature live until its Time.

And so the Scribe struggled on its way over the earth, as no humble goat had ever done. For Chronos has its own means of testing the worth of an interloper, and each step the skeletal quadruped took was a pitfall, each stone a spike, and the air chill and harsh.

But Chronos is not cruel and an animal mustn't be punished for the sins of its owner. In time the Scribe found its way, and the faint blue light of its framework body came closer and closer to Yiftakh.

He raised his hand to the animal. It bolted. Sleek as a greyhound and light as a dove it fled back over the stones, and keeping a gentle pace, Yiftakh followed.

And followed.

And followed. For he was patient.

In time it grew comfortable with his presence, and the faint rents that trailed after the Scribe's pointed snout and from mantid-like arms upon its chest were put into use. He watched as, little by little, those rents were stretched, bent and woven into a familiar shape upon the ground. And when the Scribe departed, that shape stood.

Yiftakh gazed upon his own face.

And he gazed back.

Yiftakh slid his sword from his scabbard. His Invert gazed into its own twisted hands and inclined its head, feet still yet knees shaking.

"That's enough," said Yiftakh, and cut himself in two.

It might not look like much now, but this is gonna be a very important Jvan post.

---

110-3m2-u9-f

Resurrecting the Pronobii will not be a simple task.

Every gene of that species is designed not to violate the natural lifespan that Reathos allocated them. Vestec's magic vaults past barriers I cannot overcome. If I am to adapt the Pronobii to my purposes, I am to do it the hard way. Manually.

The body of a Pronobis turns to ice upon a natural passing. Their architecture was based on recrystallized snow. A powerful spell protected them from divine alteration. A thousand years of decay has claimed their bodies and since then an ocean has been conjured over the lands where they once dwelt, with all the tectonic chaos that implies. I have very little to work with.

Let's call Reathos's original Pronobii the R-type. None remain. The only bodies will be those slain prematurely. If I'm extremely lucky I might find some aluminium scraps of their siphons, or even bone. Fortunately, I know how to make my own luck.

I have some Sculptor records of them as well. Mostly memories from... Walker...

...

(I hope they're okay.)

Death's Guardians, as reimagined by Vestec, I'll label V-type. They are not genetically or thaumaturgically identical to the ancient model,
but their genes will contain data I can't pass up, and there are plenty of them in that vault. They're not meant to leave until someone completes Vestec's stupid treasure hunt, but that doesn't mean I can't show myself in.

I'll need a better agent than Scarlet, though. Come to think of it, I might need many. Hm. Priority, then.

There are other specimens, that are genetically identical to the R-type. I saw them in person, in Old Chronos. There are many of them among the Victors; It seems the Riddler was drawn to their impending doom. These are the C-type.

It's easy enough to send probes into New Chronos. I don't think it will be easy to get them out. Still, their immortality makes them priceless. They are my best link to Pronobis culture. Good luck, Jvan.

There were no Sculptors directly derived from R-types, which is... Regrettable. Reathos's influence was too strong for that. None of them would have survived until now, anyway.

There's only so long a Sculptor can cheat death, and they were still a fledgling race, back then. Flux is the oldest one alive, being a Djinni of almost a thousand years before he ascended. The only other Sculptor of comparable age would be Walker.

(...)

I need to see to those probes- Agents? Scribes? Scribes will do.

(...)

(Walker...)

It might not look like much now, but this is gonna be a very important Jvan post.

51r-fi0-0o-a

Further south. More Heartworm.

The Dwarves have been touched by numerous deities. Scarlet's eye is archaic by my latest standards, but it can still scent Teknall's handiwork. That other entity, Lazarus, has also been... Busy.

Vestec's constant interference at last does me some good. With the Legates scattered, it will be difficult for the Empress to resume control of those assets. In the meanwhile there are plenty of ways to make sure she does not abuse them.

If only they were less... Decidedly mortal in form and thought...

Yet once again the Emaciator manoeuvres in ways I did not expect. The Dwarven people have fallen into its territorial sphere, partially through its proxy, Tauga. I like that girl, but I'm not sure if I'm willing to entrust her with the duty of bringing down Lazarus if she gets... Uppity.

I might have to cooperate with my avatar. The thought is disturbing. I should be in control.

Ugh.

In any case, I am finally homing in on the Wraith Stone. Here I sense still more disturbance by my most reckless brother. The cycle of reincarnation seems to be largely intact, though the same cannot be said of those tasked by Reathos to guard it. It's probably too much to hope that I might find some monument to their memory.

---

9ff-801-sp-e

Damn you, Vestec.

Love Bomb Piracy Front - Prologue

@Blueflame We were just getting the team together on our first ship, but we're pretty much done now. Not sure when the next adventure will start.

Love Bomb Piracy Front - Prologue

In her hand she unknowingly had the answer. A data drive that was impossible for most to access. It was why she had sought out Sigint, hoping she could uncover the answers. On this prized piece of stolen information was the directions and details to an ancient location and power. Immortality

---

_{OOC:New quest punks. Go bring Anya back to life!
Seriously, I like that character...}

---

@Dark Light

It... Didn't occur to you... That we might have... Other plans??

The whole (explicit!) reason Giggles is in Frixion is because he just escaped from Ecetopia and cannot return. Most of us were already planning to go to the Myrlian Belt and start new quests in Space Congo rather than piggyback on a full one. This is why I wanted you to PM me the details first, damn it.

You can leave Anya dead if you want, but I can't guarantee any of the players will try to bring her back and I wouldn't really expect them to. It's up to you.

It might not look like much now, but this is gonna be a very important Jvan post.

---

045-sde-nn-h

As I send Scarlet south, I make a discovery. I've been seeing my own art exercised without my knowledge a lot lately.

I knew that something must have saved Galbar from the fallout of Logos's assault on my body, but I assumed it was magic, or else some quirk of the Codex. I was not expecting it to be Heartworm.

I should have, though. In retrospect it seems so obvious. Who else would understand the risks so clearly?

Five massive bioconstructs now stand in a close semi-circle not far north of my remains. ('My remains.' Odd concept. Hah! It's a lucky girl that gets to use those words.) They are flexible towers, kilometres tall yet maybe twenty metres thick at their widest, riddled with tunnels and mechanisms and capped by a larger platform at sea level. Their construction is largely anomalous in nature, and their roots stretch deep into the crust, possibly encircling the entire planet.

Each of the five towers dealt with a certain kind of contaminant that would, in high enough levels, have pose fatal risk to the Galbaric biosphere. Though they are now largely inactive, having restored the planet to a stable state and spent most of their power in the process, I'll detail them anyway.

Clockwise, then.

The western tower negates exotic radiation. It's probably the most impressive in terms of function, employing huge fields of slightly altered reality and a thin cloud of nanoplankton to reflect, focus and convert sufficiently intense waves into harmless forms and locations. The tower itself thrums with radiation. Though it's constructed of dense organometallic tissue to absorb the excess, it still glows in the water, hums and clicks and sheds odd flickers as it works.

Far more visibly active is the second tower, which handles chemical pollutants. Constantly steaming and leaking dark fluids, glowing, burning and occasionally exploding, tower two is a massive catalyst factory dedicated to decomposing toxins in air and water, or at least binding them into a harmless complex. Alien distributor fish circle it constantly, chasing the scent of exotic molecules and excreting their antidotes worldwide.

The northern tower produces parasitoids for the purpose of culling Other-hybridised biohazards. The tower is build like a huge, impossible hive, or a fungal mat. Impossibly long colonies of tiny animals spiral crazily around one another in tunnels of slime and spore, ready to be deployed at a moment's notice. Should some Gap plague break out upon Galbar, they would feast upon it until its death.

Moving south-east, the fourth tower is again highly active. It annihilates data of various kinds- cognitohazards, memetic and antimemetic threats... Data cancers, contagious words, self-keeping secrets. It shines like a beacon, flashing strange patterns and Beyond colours, constantly changing its shape. Above it flock headless birds that only exist as hallucinations. I wonder what it would do to a mortal mind.

Spacial distortions are cancelled by the final tower, to the east. It's not particularly powerful, but it at least stops travellers from walking into themselves at random, or getting lost in an eternal desert that pops up overnight. Divine constructs like Pictaraika and the Submaterium are unscathed. It's not exactly a tower so much as it's a giant knot laced with duplicated structures and inverted gravities, but I have to admire Heartworm's resolve.

Playing with the towers and their various quirks is an exciting prospect, but they leave me worried. Even depleted, they are structures of tremendous grandeur. And it was Heartworm that built them.

I never gave it that kind of power.

How long has it been capable of this? How much energy did it leech from me while I slept? Much? Some? None? Was all of this its own doing? How powerful has it grown, in the time since I lost it?

Does it even know?

---

It might not look like much now, but this is gonna be a very important Jvan post.

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It might not look like much now, but this is gonna be a very important Jvan post.

It's gone.

Osveril found Transgenesis on the beach where I left it and set off into the world. I could follow it, but I didn't try. Let the Hollow have its freedom. It is beyond my control.

Birthing Osveril was not as taxing as I expected it to be. I ran a scan of my resources following its departure and the results are better than expected. Beneath the carbon tomb of my former skin, I've reconstructed at least 87% of my mass, give or take some anomalous digits. Most of it is in hyperbolic storage, ready to burst free when it is needed.

I am no longer a corpse. I am a chrysalis.

Yet I see no reason to rush to the conclusion of my feigned coma. There are certain aspects of advantage that my 'death' has left me. I can operate unseen. If Toun keeps his silence- And, I think he will- Then no one will expect me to embark on a large-scale project. I have an opportunity here.

And as I have so recently learned, absence has its own kind of power. I do not deal in true voids, but in negatives; and right now my body and my surroundings are nought but waste.

Such beautiful, beautiful waste. It's been a while since I really looked at my abyss. Everything is still, quiet. Dark. I'm home.

...I'm wasting time. Until I regenerate my energy is largely inaccessible. I'll turn these thoughts into a journal of my activity before I wake up. This will be the first entry.

---

0re-24l-64-m

Accessing the Sculptor network is a surprisingly strong drain. More than that, it leaves a trail. If someone were to investigate the students I've been chatting with, Dabbles and Longfellow and the like, they'd very quickly come to suspect my strength.

I do have other agents, though.

Scarlet is the only surviving Optic Fiberling other than Amber, who is in Tauga's possession. Mauve was burned somewhere near Rulanah. The rest all died long ago. There's a wild population on Julia, and I keep myself in the company of my Silvers, but for now Scarlet will do.

I just accessed its memories. It looks like Scarlet's had an encounter with someone very dear to me.

---

Scarlet clung to the surface of the Leviathan like a fungus, a tiny red stain on the smooth skin of a titan. Its light flashed far through the grand rock formations of the Fractal Abyss, nourishing the red algae that now made up Scarlet's body as it performed the singular task to which it had been assigned aeons before: Observe the Vast Soul.

And so it did. Year upon year, Scarlet watched the Leviathan, Jvan's big fish, until it almost became one with the being. Its breath was Scarlet's life, its hunger Scarlet's own.

But now a soul yet greater was approaching.

Scarlet felt the Leviathan halt in the water, flicking in a way that it never had before. Had never needed to.

For never before had it met its creator.

Slough looked up with wooden face and considered her accidental work of art. A moment of tension passed- Fear in a grand creature, yet power in a small one.

Then the cyan light escaped its caster, and the Rottenbone recalled what it had lost, and the ancient soul returned to she who had called it from the mists of the past...

The body of the Leviathan hung limp in the water as the Life Deer departed. For the first time in eternal nights, Scarlet was alone.

---

8fs-029-k7-l

I'm not sure why Slough Rottenbone saw fit to destroy the Leviathan I so loved to see in my waters, nor the great Writhe whose fragrance blessed the Venomweald. I can only assume it was part of Vowzra's corruption. Fortunately, the slaughter has gone no further. It was only those two entities... Which were, indeed, handled curiously...

What do you know, sister dear? To where have you spirited these souls? Shine they still in the worlds beyond, which I cannot see?

I do not know. But I trust her. My sister now travels the world, breathing and creating, as was her way. She is strong. She is wise. And she is at peace.

I'm reaffirmed, at least, that my destruction of the Riddler was justified. I only wish I didn't have to see these marvels consumed for it to happen. I will reuse their designs in due time.

...And perhaps other designs, too. I think I know where to send Scarlet.

How did I learn of the Writhe's passing? There are still many Jvanic Eyes on Galbar, thousands of them, large and small. Mortals trip over them or sell them as oddities. Even more orbit the forests of Lex. Ovaedis has fulfilled that purpose marvelously, and I am reasonably well-informed of events in Galbar.

Love Bomb Piracy Front - Prologue

@Dark Light



_{That is what GM stands for, right? Grandmother? No? huh.}

Go ahead when you need to but maybe give me a heads up via PM before you do just in case I need to shuffle around NPCs or some such.

*The Space-Bar ~ A Virtual Tavern ~ Always Open*

@Mega Birb It's a walk-in tavern, there's no set cast or story. Timestamps don't really matter.

Hop right in and go nuts.