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Sleep, Grand Automaton, That We May Plunder...

Maasym Orbital Station, colloquially called ‘Mos,’ was more colorful than Mavriq anticipated. Even so, he considered it drab compared to Fenris, his verdant and almost exclusively agrarian birth-world. It was an impression he decided was best left internalized. Still, the station’s exterior certainly surprised him. Through the shuttle’s small oval window, he had watched the habitat engulf his field of vision. As it came into focus, it presented itself almost as an asteroid due to the thick layer of rocks that enveloped it in its entirety, added, he was certain, as a cost-effective buffer against cosmic rays; a necessary public work for any long-term stellar habitat. However, a vine-like growth, still green with life, unexpectedly enmeshed and transformed the jumble of rocks into a cohesive whole.

The shuttle, guided by a tensile laser array, docked within a shadow-darkened slit in the rock cluster, the vacuum seal hissed, and he with his troupe—thus far comprised of only himself and the Warrant Officer—passed through the telescopically-elongated gangway. Another vacuum seal protected Mos’ interior then, as the heavy door slid into the adjacent walls, customs came into view.

“We’ll follow the green line,” Feurtes informed him, “it is expedited for military personnel.”

Their optic RFID signatures were scanned by the automated system as they pushed their way through the turnstile. There they entered an enclosure and a young man in fatigues approached them with a wand. “Welcome back, Feurtes,” saluted the enlisted, “Please assume the position while I make sure you don’t have any contraband.”

“And if I did?” Feurtes taunted.

“Bad time for both of us, Sir,” replied the soldier as he finished with the Warrant Officer and moved on to Mavriq, “Please empty your pockets and put your bag on the conveyor belt, Lieutenant.”

“Sure,” Mavriq said, and filled several plastic bins with items. Of course, as soon as they passed into the tunnel they set off an alarm. Feurtes stepped in and explained, “Specialized scientific equipment. He is going down into the belly of the beast to see if he can learn what it is and where it came from. There should be a manifest of the items synced to his RFID signature.”

“Please wait here while I fetch some forms,” the soldier requested, then ran off, disappeared briefly around a corner, and moments later returned with a small contraption. “Sync complete. You both need to sign the equipment authorization form. Each of you press your thumb against the bio-analysis pad and you can be on your way.”

“Sure thing, Corporal Barnes,” Feurtes answered.

That bit of theater over and done with, Mavriq collected his equipment and followed Feurtes deeper into the station. After customs was a large transportation hub with electric trains and elevators. Of course, it was somewhat difficult to pick them out: the place looked like a bazaar, with lots of flashy signs, colorful textiles, and rainbows of fabric that rippled in the artificial breeze generated by the numerous ventilation shafts. He was so taken with the scene that he was only jarred back to reality when Feurtes shellacked a young hoodlum and said, “Pickpocket! Try that again and I’ll snap your scrawny neck!”—then, as he turned to Marviq, asked—“missing anything?”

As he collected himself, Mavriq openly wondered, “Are we going to have to go through this every time?”

“No. You’ll be able to take a shuttle from the Thunderclap down to Derelict. We’re just here to assemble your team. Ah, here we are,” Feurtes gestured toward an elevator. They rushed in to the crowded space, and Feurtes selected their destination. As they waited, the cramped space became less occupied until they were the only ones present. Finally, the door opened and they stepped out into an a-frame corridor with a low ceiling and bare metal walls.

“Quite the difference,” Mavriq remarked, then followed Feurtes forward until they reached a secure door.

“Try out your security card, make sure it works,” Feurtes offered.

Mavriq did and the door slid openly silently. He entered a large room with a wide variety of people within talking quietly amongst one another. Some defiantly lubricated unlit cigarettes in their mouth, others hung back in the shadows, and a few were playing a game of jacks.

“Officer on deck,” Feurtes shouted and, with that, the atmosphere transformed to one of anxious hush.

Sleep, Grand Automaton, That We May Plunder...

Thanks for the interest, @Moskau Spieluhr!

Sleep, Grand Automaton, That We May Plunder...

The lights were dim in Mavriq’s laboratory aboard the OSF-Thunderclap, one of three Apocalypse-class battleships of the Origin Stellar Fleet dispatched to monitor Derelict and associated affairs. It was a clue, oft ignored, to any who entered his domain that his mind was otherwise engaged. Reclined on a collapsible cot, conveniently built into the bulkhead, he considered the months of prior preparation for this mission even as he realized the cumulative experience of several human lifetimes was inadequate to the comprehension of what reports indicated was defunct product of alien superintelligence.

<< On approach to Maasym 4e geosynchronous orbit. >> intoned the shipwide intercom.

Mavriq stood, stretched until his shoulders popped, and drifted to the display that served as his window. In some ways, it was better than a physical aperture beyond his employment quarters, as it was readily programmable to any orientation around the ship. His long fingers danced over the interactive screen and in moments he saw the object of his mission: Maasym 4e, otherwise referred to as Derelict, at 0.73 Earth radii, glinted sanguine in the glare of Maasym’s red-tinged starlight as it emerged from orbit behind a tempestuous hyper-verge gas giant.

However well-armed the Thunderclap was, he felt rattled by the sight of the massive alien sphere and its array of towers, rifts, and surface variances. Even so, he was struck by how dead it appeared. Not a single light or indication of movement, beyond those of human origination, disrupted the tranquility of its surface. Not that it was his first sight, as first still images and shortly thereafter live footage flooded the transvacuum q-circuits within days of its discovery by the Terinhaul-Caskill Corporation’s exploratory vessel, Reind, Still, there was something different in, despite presentation on a digital screen, an observation that took place in the here and the now. As he zoomed in, soon Derelict’s orbital cloud—littered with numerous corporate habitat ships, scavenger corvettes, survey drones, and Maasym Orbital Station—sharpened to focus.

“Well, it is about time,” he judged the situation.

Moments later, his lab coat stuffed with gadgets and satchel in hand, he approached the door to his lair. Suddenly, without his prompt, it opened. A swarthy, hirsute, and broad form unexpectedly loomed before him in the form of his, for all intents and purposes, nanny. While the man’s official designation placed him in the military police, Mavriq suspected he was actually an intelligence officer.

“Lieutenant d’Agenais,” his military liaison, who appeared slightly winded and surprised to behold him in the midst of his departure, addressed him by his service rank, although, as a scientist, Mavriq held no authority in military matters, “I expect the profiles sent to your attention for analysis in anticipation of the assembly of a ground team are in order and you’re prepared to shuttle to MOS?”

“Moss?” Mavriq inquired. The man’s presence always frazzled him. As a nervous habit, his free hand unconsciously adjusted his deactivated spectral lenses. His mind, meanwhile, tried and failed to articulate the importance of the discovery of naturally-occurring flora in the region.

“Maasym Orbital Station, Lieutenant,” his liaison replied, “where we will interview the prospects.”

“Ah, yes. Of course. Lead the way, Warrant Officer Feurtes,” Mavriq assented.

Post-haste, they boarded a shuttle en-route to the MOS. Meanwhile, Feurtes reviewed the profiles collated by Mavriq. He claimed it was to familiarize himself with names, faces, and technical abilities, all while he babbled about minuscule details, such as the square footage Origin leased aboard MOS and converted to a secondary laboratory for non-classified affairs. It was, presumably, where Mavriq was to spend the bulk of his time, such as was expended on Derelict discounted, with his new team.

Glasslands: A Griot's Tale (Earth-F67X Chronicle)

Magogoe, Xanathan Proper

Clotted blood flowed sand-like through Digbo’s fingers. Cradled tightly, warmly into his broad chest was his cousin’s sun-scorched and bloated trunk. She was his boyhood playmate, forbidden puppy love, and advisor on the intricacies of courtship. Now he only identified her by the ceremonial scarification that undulated vine-like down both sides of her truncated neck and sensuously draped her shoulders. Wreckage, the remnants of her familial hut, smoldered around him, accentuated by a jumble of limbs, smashed heirlooms, and broken glass.

The rumor of reprisals was mere hours old when he, informed her village was amongst the razed, ran, apron in hand, from the produce aisle where he worked, borrowed without permission his stepfather’s Land Rover and sped north toward the arched columns of smoke that besmirched the horizon. Hours later, he found them. It was an incomprehensible and senseless massacre. These people were innocent, yet Xanathan treated them like props in a slasher film: bodies that merely existed to demonstrate the brutality and absolute authority of their regime. Totally unnecessary. Everyone understood Xanathan’s technological superiority. There was never any question that the corporation’s hold on the continent was absolute. As such, all this struck Digbo as pointless. Cruelty for cruelty’s sake. Words failed to articulate in his mind. Instead, he clutched her mangled corpse to his bosom, lifted his face toward the red-tinged sunset, and groaned.

. . .

Marange, Nyundo

“Much we do lose,” Ndakala agreed, “yet act we must, for if we do not our will to do so slowly perishes from a self-inflicted wound. That, too, is Gyele’s wisdom. And yet here, you—you are doing something, responsible for something, that I … I suppose matters little. We have never met, yet you see my past clearer than I. Who am I to quibble with a sorceress? It is for me to listen then choose.”

As he sat there in the soft glow of chemiluminescent cave moss, his knees hugged to his chest, he thought he saw a bemused arch of her brow. She glanced down at one of the pools, as though in deep thought. Or perhaps it was patience. A cue toward reflection. Thus, he aped her, and beheld himself in one of the pools. Half surprised that his own face that peered back at him, unexaggerated, old, and weary, he took the moment to look into his own eyes and let the emotions flow from his soul and into the water. The tumult of his mind readily calmed, he considered his life and the path that brought him to this place—to Marange. Many were his deeds, yet all felt so small with fruits difficult to see through the thick foliage of life’s minutia. Rare did he find occasion to revisit the villages and refugees whose needs he bridged to the generosity of philanthropists like Lydia Benson and advocacy groups like The Abditory, yet he imagined, on those occasions, he saw shoots bud from the germs of hope. Yet, as he sat before Ayanda, he realized that dynamic was no more and he was simply too old and weary to play a part in a war.

“Your decision?” Ayanda asked. It was as though she felt him move beyond the fork in his spiritual journey.

“Marange is not for me,” Ndakala slowly said and watched for a reaction from Ayanda. She merely nodded and he felt her acceptance. Yet, there was more, and after a pause he practically spat, “New Xanathan City is not for me. My people are not known for longevity and I wish to spend what time I have left in peace.”

. . .

Saudade, Glasslands – former Tripoli

The filthy churn of the tsunami crested at Nuberu’s ankles as he rushed, a third of the way to the radio control tower’s apex, back up the square flights of skeletal metal stairs, his plea to Ayanda unanswered—or answered too late. The Mediterranean encompassed his vision and its extent seemed limitless, but, even though the water no longer rose, he sensed its damage was far from over. Once it initially receded, the massive wave sloshed back and forth in the great basin with unimaginable hydrostatic pressure until its energy slowly, but steadily, ebbed away. Meanwhile, he was fated to wait. Day fell to night, morning imprisoned the darkness, and the cycle repeated. The rain that gathered in his plastic mug insufficient, thirst and delirium united as conjoined perils. Toxic saltwater seduced him, but he clung to hope. Then, finally, land; unimaginable destruction, toppled buildings, and bloated sea-life blighted the landscape; his ears yet rang from the clash of unleashed power; and, for whatever reason, the beam, albeit gone, still hung in his vision and drew him toward its landlance as assuredly as a fly is drawn to honey.

In the back of his mind, he felt he should have saved his last crystal token. Now, a man driven by an indelible desire, that the source of the radiance must be reached, he walked northwest.

. . .

Saudade, Glasslands – former Tunis

Disoriented, Reaex disentangled itself from the collapsed concrete beams of of the Tunis-Carthage International Airport, cycled its nanofillements, and gushed an omni-directional purge of the inundated contaminants. Urchins, plankton, and a bucket of salt further assailed the ravaged structure of what was once a grand terminal. No more were there arabesques plated in faux-gold, the large square beams, and lavish escalades; only ruin littered in a preponderance of rotten biomass. Most importantly, there was no sign of Allure City or its villainous sycophants.

“Свободен съм,” Reaex declared its freedom in its chime-like voice.

“Свободен съм!”

Then, struck by the truth of its words, the fruition of its long sought after goal, and a total loss of what to do now that its goal was achieved, it erupted in a laughter that sang, like the music of cathedral bells, and danced along the winds for miles.

Sleep, Grand Automaton, That We May Plunder...

Looking forward to this @Ashgan. Also, if anyone else stumbles across this and thinks it is interesting, feel free to express your interest! :)

Other Notes

FTL: Fastest FTL drives so far are Origin Navy's battleship drives, developed within the last year or so, which can traverse 100 ly in approximately 30 days. Assumption is that they are 2x as fast as commercial grade FTL available on most other ships in the setting.

Communication: there is a galactic internet that works on the basis of quantum entanglement between satellite pairs. Due to limitations with quantum entanglement, only 1-1 pairing is feasible. As a result, an infrastructure of planet-to-planet pairs has been introduced, with planets that contain multiple pairs (like Earth contains Earth-Mars, Earth-Titan, Earth-Centauri b) letting the satellites in orbit around the same planet communicate via line-of-sight lasers. Thus latency (via laser comm) is introduced and varies based on the number of hops. So, on Derelict, due to the number of pair-hops, it could take up to a day to send/receive information from Earth.

Sleep, Grand Automaton, That We May Plunder...

Mavriq d’Agenais

Name
> Mavriq d’Agenais

Physical Description
> Without his ultravinyl glossy white lab coat and polynylon satchel, both laden with an assortment of diagnostic devices, Mavriq would be difficult to pluck from a crowd. Short brown hair spirals from the pate of his his vaguely bulbous head, black square-rimmed spectacles pinch his nostrils and conceal his hazel eyes and thin brows, and his clean-shaven skin drifts between alabaster and tawny dependent on the place of and time since his last vacation. When he moves, it seems his lanky limbs scurry rather than stride, an image accentuated by his hunched posture that diminishes his otherwise average height.

Purpose
> While still a scientist, Mavriq is foremost a government employee. His focus is the defense of Earth, its Origin government, and the institutions thereof. Still, the gears of bureaucracy turned slowly, and his arrival in orbit around Derelict aboard a navy stellar-outrigger class battleship -- an enormous vessel unnecessarily complemented by a planet-cracking arsenal -- accompanied Origin’s course correction from containment to regulation. That hardly mattered to him. The transformation of Maasym’s star system from frontier to surveillance state was work suited to thugs and bean counters. As a scientist, his work was more important: namely, determine Derelict’s threat level to humanity and glean from it any useful data, particularly anything with potential military applications.

History:
> Origin was, in the context of human history, the only stable inter-planetary government institution. The planet Luyten c, colloquially known as Fenris, was a member. Such was true for nearly every planet colonized in the aftermath of humanity’s cosmic diaspora. Colonies occasionally rebelled, but eventually they crawled back to Origin’s economic security and stability: for good reason, as food and other natural resources came from planets closely guarded by Origin’s interstellar navy. Fortunately for Mavriq, Fenris, his birth planet, was bountiful in natural resources. Unfortunately, that almost always implied conscription.

Granted, there were benefits to service, even for a conscript. As long as he fulfilled his full term and was honorably discharged, full citizenship was guaranteed along the rights thereof: the rights to vote, run for public office, smoke in public, solicit licensed escorts, and so forth. Meanwhile, he was well-compensated, given opportunities to travel -- particularly to their almost legendary home-planet, Earth -- and continued his education in science; specifically, xenothropology.

Two decades into his research, it seemed his career path was futile. While he took pride in his research; pride in Origin’s bureaucracy that availed him shelter, stipend, and laboratory; and pride in his familial heritage of intelligence and lust for knowledge, there was no evidence that his labors would ever yield any fruit. Whispers became rumors, which morphed into paranoia, and he feared that Origin’s faith in him was as enervated as his faith in his own work. All this time, and not a single planet in a hundred light years of Earth, much less Fenris, hinted at any signs of alien intelligence. Then, finally, a breakthrough: the call he, in the twenty-two years since his matriculation eagerly awaited: a summons to investigate an alien megastructure: Derelict.

Into The Abyss - Suicidal Empires at the Ends of Time

I agree @ZAVAZggg, time to give this one it's last rites. Not really interested in a Discord RP.

Unsolicited Invasion (Earth-F67X Chronicle)

Allure City—In their penchant for the pseudo-anarchistic, Allure City’s citizens dubbed the lone hypermax security prison within city limits the D-Vault, an unnecessarily abbreviated subriquet where D implied Dread, Dead, Desolate, Detestable, Devastating, and so on. Just under three quarters of the city's radius southeast from the city’s center, near former Murcia, a number of residential towers twisted up over the faceless plastisteel edifice the prison presented as its sole public facade. Through and an unknown depth below the entrance was the primary complex that allegedly contained Allure’s most violent and socially disruptive citizens—most held in cells tailored to their specific gifts and physiology.

Amongst the prisoners was Reaex, a silicon-based entity from the planet Metallo guilty of prolific and wanton ferrous infrastructure destruction.

Locked in a cell deep in the D-Vault, where the electromagnetic force was utterly neutralized, Reaex spread across the floor, its actuators unable to synchronize with its distributed nervous system due to the environment. Amethyst arcs of violent energy and erratic crepitations disquieted the acid-charged and ice-flecked mist that obfuscated the cell’s interior surface of frozen helium-4. The very air corroded the senses. Therein, across the frigid floor in a digitized reinterpretation of the kalachakra mandala, was itself—a reflective gray soot centered on an iridescent bramble connected by a central knot like a horrid vitrified, petrified, and immobilized ratking.

Then power went out across the entire city.

The D-Vault’s generator ignitions clicked impotently. Without energy to maintain the environment, the helium-3 sublimated. Filled with steam, relative visibility in the cell was usurped by an utterly opaque wall of white.

Minutes later, a beam of strange energy struck the city’s center and radiated energy throughout the world.

Suddenly, the cell vibrated with a loud bang against the wall—as though a cannonball violently exploded against a concrete barricade. A second and third bang followed. Then silence. Almost an hour later, with the power finally restored and the helium-3 redisposed, sensors indicated the cell was empty, although there was something new: a large ugly hole in the plastisteel wall.

Meanwhile, Reaex, its actuators and nervous system resynchronized and the bramble covered by a shiny dark gray quadrupedal exoskeleton, ran south like a mad dog, reached the elevated edge of Allure City, and threw itself into the Mediterranean.

Unsolicited Invasion (Earth-F67X Chronicle)

Tel Aviv—Tristan tersely acknowledged General Millheiser’s instructions over the holographic relay.

“Yes, Sir. I’ll head out post-haste.”

Atypically hectic, Earth was on global high alert, all military leaves canceled and all operatives fielded. Abuzz with activity, the Tel Aviv station ran a frayed nerve away from professionalism’s descent into bedlam. As such, Tristan proved an unexpected and potentially fortuitous resource. Ad-hoc, command slated in his mission and indefinitely postponed his opsec reactivation interview—along with any vacation dispensation. The deprioritization surprised him, given he remained an unknown quantity and, as far as anyone—himself included—knew, a potential risk. Even so, given the circumstances, the two hour nap he received as medical validated his biosignature and scanned him for abnormalities, with him sedated as a safety precaution, stretched credulity as an ill-afforded luxury. Minutes after he awakened, he was back in his U-9 supersoldier armor and teleported to his destination.

Allure City—“Former Prime Minister Iedereen,” Tristan said just as his armor’s stealth deactivated in tandem with the thud of a handful of individuals who, unconscious, struck the floor of the broadcasting studio atop one of Allure City’s tallest buildings, “I’ve been commissioned by Earth’s government to be your security liaison. Think of me as the physical manifestation of President Amon’s figurative hand in your arse, eh.”

Margaret suddenly found herself alone with a seven-foot-tall suit of contoured matte black armor that loomed above her in a deliberately aggressive posture. An Aussie accent rudely emanated from a face plate and the thing leered through a small crystal disc set toward the top of a metallic dark gray lamella that vertically cleaved along its anterior segment.

“Former?” Margaret snapped out of her reverie and sprung up from beside her chaise lounge with an unnatural combination of rigidity and celerity, “I’m not accustomed to being escorted in this manner. At least tell me your name.”

“No name necessary, ma’am,” Tristan replied, “I’ll know when you’re addressing me. For now, you need to call an emergency session of Allure’s parliament. The spice must flow. Hah!”

The look she gave him would have withered anyone who empathized with her feelings. Of course, he knew that she couldn’t see the look of enjoyment he wore behind his mask. With a glance down at her wristwatch he saw her take a moment to assess her situation and then she pegged the question, “How soon?”

“As soon as possible,” Tristan answered, “That’s why it is called an emergency session. Unless you want our military to mistake civilians rioting in the streets for enemy combatants.”

Glasslands: A Griot's Tale (Earth-F67X Chronicle)

Ndakala trekked, cautious and momentarily alone, into the vast morel declivity. He sought insight, but movement into the marsh merely compounded his confusion. “Helmesi—surely a clone, but living or animated?” he murmured, perplexed as to whether its demise ought to be mourned. His former guide, Khethiwe, seemed unperturbed. The mystery remained just as unraveled as his journey’s ungrasped purpose. Even the environs, loud and variegated, colluded against comprehension he felt as he brushed a beetle off his brow, grunted, and trudged onward.

While lovely, the way was cumbersome. Every apprehensive footfall depressed another magenta cobble of his so-called path unevenly into a nigh-liquid bed of teal-striped clubmoss. The longer he followed it alongside the stream, the shallows of which were inundated with argent slivers of bioluminescent kelp, the more unsettled his equilibrium became. Humidity clung to his ebony skin like sap. Sweat-drenched and languished, he rolled up his sleeves and unbuttoned his khaki safari shirt, but the act assuaged none of the relentless heat or humidity.

Soaked to the shins from errant steps, he paused and inhaled the spore-rife atmosphere. How far was he from his destination? What even was his destination, this Kicahka Siri? Unsure, he peered through the milieu. Milky dandelion spores haphazardly waltzed alongside technicolor fireflies. Cicadas noisily and indefatigably chirped from hallows unknown. Beyond the din, a distant fall gushed from a fissure in the cavernous firmament. The pristine column cascaded violently onto a celadon spire, diverted to sundry pools and streams, then surged onward and sustained the subterranean refuge. Yet it was the crisp and mountainous stalagmite, a formation that vibrated supernaturally throughout his marrow, that captured his attention.

“That,” Ndakala panted, hands on his knees as he struggled to breathe, “must be the Kicahka Siri.”

Shirt abandoned and shoes and socks siphoned off by the viscous terrain, he collapsed. Shaded by an enormous shiitake’s cap, he heaved himself up and noticed his reflection in the stream. There a tired old fool of a pygmy scowled back, face as dark and wrinkled as a hippo’s ass, naked pate encircled by a terse piebald bramble, and eyes that longed for something he couldn’t articulate. Either a tear or bead of sweat dispelled the vision. In its stead manifested a wild kaleidescope of color. It reminded him of light twisted to a sheen by spilled oil.

Distraught, he tried to focus on something—anything. He failed. Even mundane meditation seemed, in this place, impossible.

He was thirsty, Ndakala thought, as he suddenly remembered the man in the water.

No, that isn’t right, realized Ndakala, I am thirsty.

Dehydrated, he cupped his hands, dipped them into the flow, and splashed his face and chest. Exhilarated by the shock and relief of the frigid moisture as it struck his flesh, he abandoned decorum and plunged his face like a wild animal into the tie-dyed slick of vitality. It was the purest water he ever drank, yet he remained parched—an addict for whom the fix never sufficed. Again he drank, even as his tongue swelled up to unbelievable proportions and his mouth became drier than a eucalyptus-stuffed husk. His head felt cloudy, insects buzzed hypnotically in swarms around him, and life pulsed tumescent to the beat of earthen drums. It was euphoric. Below, the soil undulated and rolled him around like a prismatic orb on a neon-striped concourse. Suddenly light-headed, he collapsed into the fetal position, eyes wide and pupils dilated. Above him, the shiitake loomed, its outline crisp. Black. Brushed over with sumi-e strokes. Suddenly its structure transformed to an enormous azobé tree. The thick and indomitable trunk challenged the clouds—the very sun above the canopy. There, near its apex, it stretched out its innumerable limbs, from which Ndakala saw, impossibly, the huts of his ancestors.

“Baba,” he crooned, fingers outstretched toward the silhouette of his grandfather.

From their tenuous vertiginous hovels asway on striated vines, his people celebrated life as they sang, clacked beads, gyrated shekeres, and blew into algaitas. They danced in a procession from hut to hut on bridges of braided xylem.

They were happy and at peace.

Then his symbolic grandfather, chieftain Gyele, caretaker of the tribe, looked down at him from his heights of glory, frowned, and chided, “Where are my descendants? What offspring offer you that brings life to the Tribe?”

Fire danced on Ndakala’s cheeks even as prurient images reeled through his mind fierce as a rhino charges—as Digbo, a naked juggernaut whose powerful stampede cratered mountains. He was shaken to his core—tossed about by the violent upheaval of earth.

Fire darkened their delight. It brought with it shadows. He no longer saw his ancestors. His cheeks burned. The rhino was gone. He refused to contemplate what else was absent. Now flames spiraled up the azobé trunk, as if it were assaulted by a furious nest of crimson pythons. Hulking hirsute forms, black as nightmares, swung from the limbs, juxtaposed against the livid glare. Their shrieks and howls terrified Ndakala, but his hands—he couldn’t find his hands to cover his ears and his eyelids were likewise absent. Unable to refuse the vision, he averted his gaze toward the tree’s mighty canopy, but instead of leaves and light he beheld Mount Diaba aglow with lethal radiation. Atop the mountain stood a man, a stranger whose body was haloed by green energy.

The man pulsed and coruscated like a toxic star.

He exploded.

Then all went dark.

A lifetime later, Ndakala felt the ground swell again beneath him, this time gently as it urged him onward. His cheek plopped on a soft bed of moss. His muscles ached. He rubbed his eyes, which seemed sealed shut ages ago by a mineral plaster.

“Wake, scion of Gyele. Shake loose the burden of the zijonge, sit, and listen,” spoke a woman’s voice in a tone that soothed yet yielded nothing. It was firm—solid as the vitreous formations that erupted from the walls around him. Ndakala blinked. No longer was his vision obfuscated by a monstrous shiitake, gargantuan azobé, or Mount Diaba’s awful profile. Instead, he was in a cave, just at the entrance. Within, small pools of water reflected the world perfectly back, and deeper he saw the woman. She, too, sat in a pool. The entire chamber resonated to a barely audible melody.

He knew he was at Kicahka Siri, but this woman—she he did not know.

“Who are you?” Ndakala pensively inquired.