Fetzen
Frettzo
teenangstlife
Lord Zee
Neziul
Ariamis
rush99999
Simply Not Real
Shadowheart
Artifex realises he gon fucked up at just the wrong moment
”And that, children, is how to build and use a telescope”
“Don get it” the goblin said. The Mantarin sitting with them all agreed that such implements were far beyond their capacity for understanding.
”Ah. Well. Yes I suppose we’d need to work up to such a device technologically.” he said, before glancing up at his new moon and saying that ”I assure you, they are there however”
Artifex paused then, staring up at his creation and came to a horrifying realization at precisely the moment when the lifeblood decided to seal him away.
”No. NO! I NEED TO FIX IT!” Artifex screamed in rage and helplessness before he exploded into a thousand insects. The bugs all scattered to the winds in an attempt to flee the grip of the life blood, only for each and every one to fade from existence.
A stunned and horrified silence gripped the Mantarin, which was broken by the innocent question of “Where big Eyes go?”
Sadly for the goblin he did not get an answer, because instead the Mantarin began to panic, crying out for the father that the Lifeblood had stolen from them.
On the lanturn moon
“What iz that sister?” asked the young Vespian as she hovered at the entrance to her hive for the first time. She was about to embark upon her first hunt across the paper plains of their home, but the blue and green object hanging on the ceiling had caught her eye and refused to let her look away.
“It iz Galbar,” the older Vespid who had been assigned to mind the young one told her, the knowledge she relayed something she had known on the very day she had been made by Artifex a few months ago, “Iz where Artifex iz.”
“Artifex? Creator Artifex?“
“Yez”
“Oh. Hello Artifex!” she said, uncomprehending of the vast distances involved as she waved at the planet “I iz Zizantera, Iz nice to meet you.”
“No No Zizantera. It is too far. He can't hear you. You could fly up and up and Galbar would get no nearer” the older Vespid told her young sister, good naturally rubbing her silly head.
“Huh? Yeah he can. He’z talking back right now can't you hear?”
“What? Don’t be silly Zizantera. How can you talk to someone you can’t even see.” the minder asked, becoming concerned
“He sayz it iz because he iz a God.”
The minder opened her pincers, to object and then paused, unable to counter this logic at that very moment. So instead she asked “What else does he say?”
“That moon iz going to explode!” she said excitedly, before asking her horrified sister “What does explode mean?”
It was true. The moon Artifex had made in haste was unstable, for it devoured mana at a slightly faster rate than intended, building excess power and the ire of the mana itself. The core was swelling, roiling, pulsating and soon, oh so very soon, it would burst. Or, at least, soon in the eyes of a god. For the Vespian it was generations. Many trials and tribulations were overcome, ages of war and cooperation passed as Artifex attempted to remotely coral the mortals and their wild kin into enacting his plan to ensure their survival. First he tried to get them to fix the moon, but after a deadly expedition towards the core this proved to be beyond their mortal reach. So there was only one option left. To Run.
“Shhhhz mother. Shhhhz. Stay still. You must sleep. The cocoon while keep you safe” The prophet Aryiyata spoke softly to the irate form of her nests Queen as the giant creature was sealed into a large padded chamber within the ark. It had taken a long, long time to build the massive structure, carved from the paper earth itself and reinforced with metal stolen from the cage holding their world aloft. They had had to fight every step of the way against the will of the hive’s monstrous casts that could not comprehend why the Vespian were wasting their time building such a structure. Even now a fratricide battle was taking place at the entrances of the ark as the Vespain fought a war of tears against their mindless siblings who were attempting to reclaim the Queen from the treacherous free thinkers.
And yet even they did not fully understand the task they had undertaken. But they had their faith where other hives did not. God had spoken to the prophet Zizantera, who had spoken of the end of their world and the work that needed to be done to save their kind, to deliver them to the verdant and promised land of Galbar below. In the days where she had lived her words had reached only a few but as generations passed and their world grew hotter and hotter more had spoken to god and learned what must be done until that torch had been placed in Aryiyata’s hands.
Now the day was finally at hand. Across the world the Vespian, those who had believed the words of the prophets, sealed the entrances to the grand council structures they had built, leaving the dead bodies of their sisters strewn across the landscape. Inside they prayed, ate their final meals or attempted to console another and then entered the cocoons that would dissolve their bodies into a shock absorbent gel that would protect their nervous systems from the rigors of space travel. Upon reaching Galbar they would regrow into forms adapted to their new environment and emerge to meet their new world.
The lantern moon died when the excess mana building up in it’s core finally reached a tipping point and burst outwards, blasting the paper moon apart. Riding this wave of destruction where the Vespian Ships. Crude, powerless, unsteerable reentry vessels built by uncomprehending hands that were picked up by the blast and hurdled towards Galbar. Some failed to leave, their construction flawed by haste or inattention, or their outer layers damaged or occupants slaughtered by their monstrous kin.
Others missed Galbar entirely due to minute flaws in the earth works meant to angle them towards the world below. They were left to drift endlessly through space, or crashed onto lifeless moons or into the very stars themselves.
The remaining vessels hit Galbar’s atmosphere, layers and layers of heat shields burning away as they slowed, the last of their mass sloughing off revealing wings that folded out to catch the air and winds to bare them down to the earth below.
“Gasp. There it is. Just where mother said it would be!” Blossilia cried. She pointed at the giant orange vessel that had plowed its way through the trees, carving a deep groove in the woods before finally coming to stop at the base of a small hill. The group of Mantarin had emerged into this groove after several days of walking through the jungle and now started in awe at the craft and the carnage it had wrought. After a falling star had struck the forests near their home their mother and Queen had had one of her rare conversations with their heavenly father and though her they had been directed out into the wilds to find the crash site.
“I see it.” Manius said after the insectile explorers had drank their fill of the sight “Come siblings, let us go welcome the new arrivals”
Aryiyata had awoken to darkness. Her new body was tender and sore all over and she hadn’t had the will to move for what seemed like days. Now however she heard sounds from outside her cocoon. Heavy footfalls that did not sound Vespian. She panicked, wriggling around in her cocoon and hammering on the lid until at last it ruptured and she spilled out of it, flopping to the ground. Her wings fluttered uselessly, still needing to harden, so instead she pushed herself to her knees and in so doing caught sight of the intruders.
They stood surrounded by her kneeling sisters. Most were hunched sturdy creatures with vicious blades coming out of their elbows who clustered protectively around a singular tall and slim individual. All of their carapaces were able to change color, and were doing so rapidly in a display of surprise and alarm. Aryiyata and her sisters hissed at the intruders while baring their claws and mandibles in a threatening display, further rattling the group who had awoken the nest after carving their way inside. After a few moments it became clear to all however that the Vespain were unable to actually approach in anything but an awkward shuffle and so, after catching his nerve and breath, the lanky one spoke
“Our most sincere apologies for awakening you all” he said with forced calm as he fanned his vestigial wings, wafting a pleasing scent throughout the room “I am Manius. My sisters and I are Mantarin, and I assure you we mean you no harm”
He pushed past his sisters, much to their dismay, and approached Aryiyata, offering her a hand and saying “In the name of our divine father Artifex I welcome you to Gablar sister.”
She stared at him for a moment. Instinct told her that he was a threat, an invader that had broken into her home. Yet he spoke of god and he smelled. Safe. Aryiyata tentatively reached out and then grasped his hand, “I iz Aryiyata, prophet of Artifex. We iz Vespian.” she thought back to what her god had told her she should do when she arrived upon Galbar and finally, against the instincts many of her kind would embrace on this new world, added ”We come in peace”
In another realm Artifex slumped down on a chair in his workshop in relief as the prophet Aryiyata of the Vespian hive that had been welcomed by the Mantarin relayed their meeting to him. Baring the Vasepian queen's awakening and her foiled attempt to kill the entire delegation, first contact between the two insectile mortal races had gone well. The same could not be said for some of the other races first encounters with the alien species. The landing too, had gone smoothly by Artifex’s calculation, as only a small number of cocoons had been destroyed by the landing or invasive wildlife attempting to eat the Vespian during their week-long reformation period.
The same could not be said for the entire ordeal however. The loss of life was truly staggering even if it was, of course, lower than the utter extinction it would have been had he not intervened. It had, Artifex reflected, been immeasurably difficult to work indirectly via mortal hands on such an important project instead of simply crafting wonders on his own.
The Vespian project was not the only one he had had a hand in however, though all his other interventions were less direct. All across Galbar Artifex offered advice and guidance to builders and architects seeking to achieve greatness, resilience or perfection. The workshop he lived in was surrounded in layers and layers of prototypes where he had tested their designs for them, made on his own to offer as suggestions or that simply built for the simple joy of creation. This way of working Artifex much preferred, advising, suggesting and teaching instead of trying to fast track mortal kind into doing something far beyond their understanding. It was a fine way to pass the next 1400 years after the Vespian arrived. It could have been an eternity had he not found a door. A plain wooden door. Painted yellow.
He had not put it there, this he knew. Neither had any of the legions of insects that tended to his vast domain of layered architecture. So when he found the door Artifex stared at it for an age and a day until he did what had to be done. It was a door. So he opened it and stepped into Antiquity.
