@darkwolf687 Do you want to do a collab with me? I'm thinking Gremju shares the secret of his crystals that I don't think anyone else will know. Also he'd like to make a race with Orfai that has his lust for knowledge and has Gremju's love of having fun/existing.
Also er I have a plan to set a great challenge if Kiko's feast is going to be a thing so I hope Gremju is invited :V. of course Gremju hasn't done any planning for it IC yet as that would be metagaming and metagaming is bad
Yeah sure I'd be fine with doing a collab, though I'm not sure to what extent Orfai would be interested in making another race just yet- though such a race does sound like it would be amusing. Depends on the pitch I imagine.
I will have a post coming soon too, most likely. I've been wondering whether I should have the Faliargun just arrive at the islands, or whether I should go full on exodus and have them make their way slowly there guided by a hero over the course of a few posts, facing trials and tribulations along the way. Maybe that's something Gremju would want to get in on too if I do go with that, given he's the challenge master lol.
Definitely should. And for shits and giggles, it would include even the most irrelevant and minor of conversations between the gods, but super purple prosed.
Examplus ask "Ah, what's your name sister?"
becoming
And verily the lord Examplus did say unto the newly birthed Goddess Exemplaria "Tell your name to me, dearest sister, that I might know you better, for I am the salt and earth of the world and the architecture of speech itself!"
i may or may not be making Lei's first species a marine one
And lo MATER LEI fashioned beings of the ocean from the sand of the sea floor, and breathed life into them that they might inhabit the waters of the world as wise folk.
ORFAI surely was offended at this. From the black depths of an ocean trench rose forth the KEEPER and his wroth was terrible that man did tremble and fish did flee! Aghast and furious, the KEEPER said unto LEI "NO MY DEEP DARK SECRET OCEANS FUCK OFF REEEEEEEEE."
And verily, LEI doth mock the impotent KEEPER's screeching, and so it is recorded in the tales of old that the KEEPER ran off in a huff.
Orfai turned his attention towards 'Him' and they nodded to each other. Wordlessly, Orfai swept out from the beach again and disappeared into the waters of the ocean, flowing across the world back towards Mater Lei's structure. 'He' watched the Nerai break from the grasp of Rytia to join it's kindred, then watched Rytia swoop through the air and towards the centre of the islands. 'He' swam down through the waters, bringing the oddity with him, to examine the tunnels and caves that the goddess carved.
The Faliargun would definitely be able to settle here and expand, Rytia was a good and careful architect. She had avoided compromising her own design but had all the same produced large caverns and tunnels for them, that crept around beneath the corals and through the rocks of the island as an expansive network.
"Excellent, I am most grateful." 'He' said when they were finished. Then 'He' paused for a moment before holding up the vault oddity to show her it again. The crab still hung around within it, clearly very shocked at having been relocated halfway across the ocean. "There is the question of where we put this..."
***
Orfai flowed up to the Faliargun and looked upon them, judging them each in turn. The Faliargun approached him cautiously, and he reached out his arms to them.
"Do not be afraid," Orfai said, and the Faliargun tilting their heads to regard him "For I have seen the affliction of my creations at the hand of those of the Corrupter. I know their sorrows; And I am come to deliver them out of the jaws of the Goldari and the Halls of the Mater, and to bring them up unto the waves and across the seas, unto waters flowing with pearls and coral, unto the place of the Nerai."
Orfai flowed closer to the Faliargun and reached out to touch one of them. There was a slight glow as he placed the location directly into their minds, that they might know the way to go. And once more Orfai became aware of the acute need they had for communication, and the lack of capability they had for this.
And yet Orfai could not give them speech, for as much as he thought about how this might be done and as much as he desired to do it, he could find no way for such to happen. Indeed, it seemed there was no way for himself to do so, that such knowledge was a secret even to him and lay within the domain of another.
Yet- he paused and he thought to himself for a moment. There were other ways to communicate- Rytia's Nerai had shown a more visual form of expression, making it easy to tell how they were feeling even without words. Yet he wanted something more comprehensive than that. No, there were other ways, and perhaps more efficient ways besides. For in truth, the more he thought on it, the more he realised that fully fledged audio communication within the water would be- inefficient to say the least.
So the Keeper of Secrets imparted to them a great gift; with a wave of his hand and the shadowy trails of his divinity once again flowing around them, he granted them a magic innate to their being; that they might from birth communicate mentally with each other; their bodies changed slightly as his divinity flowed through them, altering the fabric of their being. The section of the frontal lobe usually responsible for speech was now the source of telepathy, a telepathic organelle if one would. In short, his Faliargun would become a species of telepaths or empaths, capable of communicating with each other without the need for audio or visual stimulus. It was over short distances, true, but then what forms of communication were not hampered by distance, especially within the water where audio would suffer, and where in the deepest depths of its darkness the visual might no longer serve effectively either?
But they would need to communicate with more of the world than just each other, for they were to share this world with other creations and the gods themselves. Thus, the Keeper ensured that their newfound telepathy would allow them to send telepathic messages to any living things that had a mind, thus allowing them an avenue of communication with the other mortal races. It would be crucial for them to be able to communicate ideas to the Nerai and to the other races of the world, even if the way those beings communicated back would be very different indeed.
But he was acutely aware of how this might affect his fondness for secrets and mysteries, and so made sure that sending telepathic messages was voluntary. The Faliargun could pass memories and thoughts to each other, communicate concepts with but a glance- yet they could not read each others thoughts or minds without invitation, only those ideas that they wanted to flow to the other would flow. Such pruning of awkwardness went on for a while, as the Keeper carved out this ability with the utmost care.
And after several hours, the Keeper looked upon the result and was satisfied. Already he could hear the buzz of communication between his Faliargun, as they 'spoke' to each other- and to him. They would speak the purest language of knowledge that could exist; there would be no degradation of oral tales, no miscommunications or misunderstandings from imperfect speech. The Keeper applauded his own ingenuity and cunning.
"Does this please you, Faliargun?" Orfai smirked as he 'spoke' within their minds... The thoughts flowed back to him, in the affirmative. They did not yet have any language with which to call their concepts, but their thoughts let him know their feelings- and oh how they felt so giddy now! How they better understood each other! They were still so primitive and their minds so lacking in knowledge, they had not even a proto-civilisation nor so much as a tribe. They were merely a- a school of Faliargun, as though they were the bestial fish that they were made from. Yet this ability to commune would greatly improve their coordination and thus their chances of both surviving in the world and making their way to the islands which would be their new home. In time, perhaps, they would become something more.
"These are surely the first of many bestowments, should you impress myself and the gods. And yet for now, this is my last gift to you. You, My Faliargun, shall make your way to the islands of the Nerai, whose location I have imparted unto you. There we shall commune again."
'He' remains with Rytia, nodding approvingly and then asking her where in the world he can put the broken vault oddity.
Orfai meanwhile goes to the Faliargun to send them off on their merry way to the islands, being deliberately flowery simply for the fun of it. However, to increase their suitability along the way he decides they need to have some way to communicate with each other, in order to use their survival advantage of intelligence properly. Being unable to give them language or speech as these lie within another gods portfolio, he thinks outside the box and effectively says 'Bollocks to it' and makes them telepaths so they are able to share each others thoughts, feelings and ideas.
Might Bank 1 Miracle - Making the Faliargun Telepathic
Orfai watched the Goddess work with a cocked brow; her creations were beautiful and ethereal, and had great empathy. Even without words (and without relying too much on his divine senses) he could tell what they were feeling and doing. But he noted too that they bore gills and webbing for the movement through water. That could be good or bad, as it meant that it might not be such an easy sell to get his Faliargun settled in the waters here as he had hoped. He'd find out. "You forget I am too in the business of knowledge and it's proliferation as well as the keeping of secrets. Something of a dual nature. But our vision doesn't have to match perfectly for what I will propose-"
'He' flowed through the waters as a shadow and swept up over the oceans, appearing out of the water on the beach behind Orfai and swirling around to come up to him, so that the two shadow figures stood side by side. The broken machine and the record were placed down onto the beach, stuck in the same part of the musicless music of time as it would be forever.
"Ah, wonderful." One of the two shadow beings said (It was rather difficult to tell which one had said what, as they spoke in the same voice and had no lips to move, nor did the sound seem to come directly from either one) as Orfai motioned to it with his shadowy hand. "This is what's left of what the Mater used to freeze time before- I'm sure you too will find it most interesting, and agree it makes quite the prize even if it doesn't function anymore."
"Hold on, this is going to get a little awkward." One of the pair said with amusement. For the sake of everyone's sanity, Orfai reconstituted into the form of a large Faliargun once again, brilliant bronze scales covering his body.
"Problem solved." The Keeper of Secrets declared as he nodded to his avatar, turning his attention back towards the Goddess. "This is 'He'. Me. A fragment of me rather, my avatar."
"It gets a bit complicated." 'He' said with a small grin, looking out over the islands and then to the waters around them with a slight nod of approval. "I see what I meant."
"Indeed. See, Rytia, I have a minor problem. I created an aquatic race, the Faliargun- you see them now in my form. I thought to leave them to multiply in the safety of the waters I had created- and then Larwen happened. The Corrupter decided it would be a wonderful idea to create the Goldari, that is to say to inject some powerful predators into the same waters. The Faliargun are too few in numbers to sustain any attrition from that, and they have little knowledge. They exist for now as little more than intelligent beasts, primitives. Now, usually I would be inclined to let things play out on their own, to leave it up in the air and see what happens. But there are so few thinking beings in the world at current that I'm not willing to let that happen. Can you imagine how difficult it is to be the god of secrets when there are no secrets? Knowledge when there is so little knowledge? It's quite infuriating, really." The God paused to prevent himself going too far on a tangent, returning to the topic at hand. "Anyway, the Mater has graciously given them refuge - and she made clear that it was temporary refuge- within the confines of her building. So I am searching for a more long term solution for them."
"Within this archipelago, there is safety for the Faliargun to retreat to should one of these Goldari show up, or to lose them amongst the islands. Here, they can catch fish and gather flora easy enough and in time, they could cultivate plants beneath the calm central waters for food. It could be suitable refuge while they grow in number, and they should not cause difficult for your people. Although they can temporarily walk- well, in a manner of speaking - on the land, they are most comfortable in the waters. If anything it should even be mutually beneficial, at least in these early stages- there is safety in numbers after all, and there is potential for the future." 'He' said, concluding the thoughts of Orfai himself.
"So what say you?" Orfai asked with a pleasant smile spreading across the face of his form.
"Creation yes, but far from anything great. Just fish and algae. Plan, no. I don't have any plans, not yet." Orfai replied simply as he looked around; the land here was still barren. Perhaps he should lend a helping hand of sorts... "Secrets? Oh I can help with that- for I am the Keeper of Secrets and the Lord of Knowledge itself- but aside, if it is to support beings, it will need more than this. I shall help with this."
Orfai raised a shadowy hand out towards the island behind them, raising his voice and singing a chorus of notes; from the ground sprouted several large deciduous trees; they rose some 40 feet into the air and had many large long swirly branches from which hung fan-like leaves. Through the acceleration of Orfai's magic, these trees emerged not only fully grown but already with fruit in the form of large, soft and juicy red fruit for Rytia's birds to eat - and in doing so spread the seeds across the islands.
And then he reached out with his mind across to 'Him'. It was a strange feeling to convene with himself even across this distance- and it wasn't easy, at least not yet. But he managed to send 'Him' a message of sorts, a beacon with which to follow.
"So Rytia, what will these people of yours be?" Orfai said as he turned away from the sprouting trees and folded his shadowy arms again. "For I may yet have a request to make of you."
***
And 'He' did follow it. With the broken gramophone and the strange record carefully in his shadowy embrace, 'He' followed across the oceans towards his master. As useless as the oddity was now (And indeed, quite probably as useless as it was forever), it was strange and wonderful enough that he wanted it. Perhaps in time he or a servant of his might learnt something from it, however small, or perhaps it would remain completely useless forevermore and exist no more as a curious museum piece of cumbersome tableweight. 'He' didn't particularly care, for They were collectors.
Orfai decides to just add a bunch of trees to the Goddesses island. Oh boy, this could earn him a slap!
Orfai grunted and turned away from Gremju. Oddly enough, the answer the being had gave did not reassure him in the slightest as to the merits of this idea. Regardless for now, he would see to other matters for something else stirred in the world; he could hear and sense the rush of water from the oceans splashing against the side of Lei's construct- another disturbance, someone else had been playing at building islands.
Orfai's shadow broke its form again and collapsed in on itself, vanishing as it teleported beyond the walls of the construct and out above the oceans before sweeping over towards a spiral of islands in the distance now. New islands, raised from the depths of the ocean.
The shadow swirled around her for a moment before coming to rest upon the sand. It took a vaguely humanoid shape and paced along the beach for a moment, looking out to the other islands. He could hear the waves crashing upon the rocks, sending echoes through the island on which he stood. The winds caught in the caverns and was instead turned from a soft breeze into a whistle, like air passed through a flute. His eyes narrowed as he considered it, it was almost as if the islands themselves were large instruments rather than islands...
"Well, this is interesting." The figure spoke, looking to the vague spiral of islands. She could easily have taken any piece of land or any of the existing islands, why raise so many here? Was it to do with the construction ratehr than the location? The noises created were perhaps not random, for he sensed intuitively that this goddess had creativity to her that might have given rise to such a design; perhaps they truly were large instruments rather than mere islands; Perhaps in time it was intended to be the beginings of a holy site of some description, a place of worship? Or would be populated with creations of her own, a sanctuary far from the mainland and for now perhaps even safe from the Corrupter (not that he imagined that would last for long, not once something living was placed on the island. Lawren, it seemed, was very diligent when it came to corrupting just about anything he could get his hands on, from fish to swamp to worm...) "What is it, then?"
Orfai investigates the newest disturbance to the waves. @Amethyst
'He' moved around the machine, examining it. It turned not to any earthly source of energy but rather by the planets far above (now accompanied by stars that burst into being, beautiful yet obscured too much by the ocean waters for him to truly admire at this time), an odd feature that he couldn't quite work out the significance of... yet what a beautiful construction, now broken and lost forever - repurposed into the home for a primitive creature that lacked the awareness to ever grasp what it was that had drew it to this ethereal device. It had played the music of time and now, it's song was done.
No. Not done. Paused. Stuck. Frozen. Locked at that point despite time continuing to progress away from it. A perfect record then, a perfect capturing of that moment of time from the greatest to the smallest detail. Delightful.
'He' yet had no where to place this, yet he sought to keep it for his own, hidden away from the prying eyes above the world and indeed from the mortals itself. 'He' made a mental note of the location and looked around carefully- off in the distance, 'He' saw yet another new creation, small fishlike creatures with razor sharp teeth. But 'He' turned his attention back to the strange device and reached out for it, cautiously placing his hands upon the machinery and the record and attempting to lift it carefully, seeing if it were possible to move it without disaster. Broken though it may be, it was certainly of interest to him and deserved more than to be left out in a random part of the ocean...
***
Orfai drifted among the gods aimlessly for a while, regarding them each in turn. This talk of 'perfection' caught his attention and Lawren's denigration of creation irked him slightly, and he knew that this would cause trouble further down the line; he for one at least did not mind alterations upon his work, in whatever form they came. Such was just the natural course of life and creation, and he welcomed creation.
Still, he felt that this Lawren would cause him difficulty in the future, if not directly then through conflict with some of the other gods. The attitude of this perfecting god left little room for anything but conflict. Seihdhara had responded to the Corrupter with a threat and set about reducing the number of his creations already, not that the Corrupter seemed to pay it much mind at all but brushed it off with a suitably demeaning reply.
He watched the Corrupter slink away, off to change more of the world, most likely. Orfai watched each of the gods who had been left for a moment; Seihdhara moved on swiftly away- then Aella skulked away towards the forest clearing, having muttered something to herself. Orfai's shadowy figure glided after her to see what she was up to; after a while she came upon a clearing, where she set about crafting flowers and creatures, imbuing the world with life; pretty and beautiful life, with the utility set up for it to reproduce. Simple but elegant.
She had avoided the corrupted lands, and had walked away from the group. There was something buried within her mind, something that she was hiding from, or pushing it away from her at least. And she was not new; several of these beings were not new, they had come from elsewhere. What had driven them away from their original planes? The shadowy figure almost moved forwards- but then turned again, gliding away through the trues. Something called to him, a change. A mark. Some... mark of madness, or another.
He swept out and towards the altered fungi and looked upon Gremju with concern; Had he been playing with the minds of the mortals? That- that could be problematic. Perhaps this could provide some amusement or interesting effects, but it could just as easily be deleterious and damaging. This mark would doubtless harm the mortals and Orfai very much doubted it's value. True, it was potentially the case that some forms of this madness could provide a source of inspiration or innovation, but he had his suspicions that this would be far, far outside the norm. And to claim that sanity was merely 'one dull way of thinking' made him think that Gremju had somewhat missed the point of sanity entirely. The mind was the most vital part of any thinking organism for it held the subjects memories and knowledge and secrets and thoughts, the very fabric of a being. A bunch of mortals running around with fractured mind wasn't a particularly appealing idea to him, as amusing and interesting as some of the eccentricities might be. He supposed it depended just how far this madness went and how much of a detriment it was.
"What precisely do you mean by this, Gremju?" He asked.
While 'He' examines the strange oddity, Orfai himself listens to the exchange between the Corrupter and the other gods. He then follows Aella and is about to ask her about the world she comes from but then Gremju's mark catches his attention and draws him away. Being a god of knowledge and feeling that the mind is rather important, he's not convinced that randomly handing out insanity is a good idea.
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