Something changed in the sky. Someone changed the sky.
At first, one could be forgiven for thinking it an eclipse. But no. No eclipse had ever looked the way this one did. The sun was covered in a disk of darkness that plunged the whole of the earth into shadow. Unlike the awe-inspiring and majestic visage of a divine messenger wreathed in a halo of light that usually accompanies the rare eclipse, this appeared as one crowned in a great wreath of dark red flames. Each tongue of fire burned around the hole in the sky where the sun used to be, leaving streaks of faint light in their wake. Long twisting bloody flames licked at the night sky, covering nearly a third of the heavens in the deep red glow of a dying ember.
This, by far, wasn't the strangest thing about this “eclipse”. During a normal eclipse the moon passes in front of the sun and plunges a relatively small swathe of the earth into shadow. This dark omen veiled the whole of the earth where the sun had so recently been shining. A great thing of darkness seemed to swallow up the sun. Even stranger yet, the same thing happened to the moon too. The whole of the globe went from half in light and half in darkness to being completely enshrouded by long twisting shadows cast by the two terrible halos of fire in the sky.
If only the strangeness had stopped there maybe the world could have moved on. Many would have said it was a sign from God or from the gods or from aliens or such. Life would have continued and people would have little more than a memory a few years later. But that wasn’t fated to be.
The eclipse lasted for twelve hours. One half-rotation of this sphere we call home. The fires burnt in the heavens and the world spun on its axis. And yet, in all of the earth only three living creatures noticed the flames. A [King], a [Prophet], and a [Dreamer]. Each of these had already awoken, had already spent twelve hours in the deep sleep of evolution. But for the rest of the world, in a single silent moment, every living thing fell asleep.
----------------------------------------
The best way to explain what happened to the world and all the inhabitants therein is to focus our gaze onto a humble fire ant mound. This mound could be found just outside of a small ranch south of Shiner Texas nestled among the low bushes that populated the clearing it called home. Just a moment before the skies lit up with fire, if you had been watching the anthill at all carefully, you would have seen movement and activity wherever you looked. But now, if you didn’t know any better, you might assume the whole anthill had died in a single moment. And, unfortunately for the ants, quite a few did.
Some were buried in a tunnel that collapsed on the workers who were so recently building it. Usually a worker would have no problem escaping from something like that. Due to their slumber, they perished. Some were caught in a small rain puddle and drowned. Again, usually an ant can swim to the edge of a puddle and suffer no harm. Due to their slumber, they perished as well. Some even died of thirst and hunger, all those who were caught already hungry or thirsty. Most did not, but twelve hours is a long time for an ant.
The majority of ants survived the first hours of their slumbers. However, after only a short time, something began to change. The ground began to bulge outwards and ants that had until just a moment ago been not much larger than a grain of rice burst from the ground growing at incredible rates.
Some grew faster than others, some began to grow before others. Either way, after a few hours the change had fully taken place. An observant eye might even have been able to record the changes that took place. Thankfully, I am such a person.
Before the eclipse there were approximately 650,000 sterile female worker ants, 200 winged female reproductive ants, 200 winged male reproductive ants, 100,000 eggs, 400,000 larva, 400,000 pupa, and three queens. Of this population, every single creature went through the awakening process.
Of the 650,000 workers, about 95% or 617,500 individuals decided to keep their species and class. Of the animals to go through the awakening process this is a very high percentage. This is probably due to an ant’s lack of individuality and their general contentedness with their lifestyle. As it is, few ants ever complain. However, this does leave 32,500 individuals that changed. Of these just under 32,000 chose to simply change their class. Most went from [Builder] to [Scavenger] or such, but some even took rarer classes like [Queen’s Guard] or [Hunter]. This still leaves over 500 individuals that went to sleep fire ants and woke up something else entirely.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Close to 350 became [Dire Fire Ants]. These creatures were about the size of a common house cat. Unfortunately for any housecat that might have met them, they could easily bite through a sapling, let alone a cat. This danger was exacerbated by the fact that each one could breath a gout of flame nearly twice their body length. Close to 100 of the flying ants became [Flying Dire Fire Ants]. Luckily for the growing hive, one of the queens became a [Dire Fire Ant Queen] the size of a large dog. A similar proportion of eggs, larvae, and pupa became [Dire Fire Ants], most of which were crushed by the growing adults.
About 150 of the workers became [Rare-Earth Ants]. These ants were about the size of a softball and were drawn to rare-earth metals and often would build a nest near rare-earth deposits, hence the name. We won’t go much more into this species as the entire population was wiped out within minutes by their much fiercer counterparts.
The only other evolutions of note were three worker ants and one winged male that grew and evolved into what soon became known as antmen or antinium as they began to call themselves. Vaguely humanoid with compound eyes, large thorax bodies, and two sets of arms, these antmen were just shy of seven feet tall and had hard black chitin for skin. A normal human might call them terrifying or monstrous. As it was, in this new world they were born into, monstrous was the new normal.
Time passed and there was almost a peace to it. Night turned to morning which turned to day as the ant hill which was once so busy experienced a moment of rest. This all changed as the world awoke.
Screeching, loud guttural sounds in the distance, a great shaking of the earth, and a large wyvern flying overhead that until a moment ago had only known itself to be a tree snake. All of these things were lost to those in the war that was playing out around what used to be a small fire ant hill just twelve hours past.
Gouts of flame from the [Dire Fire Ants] killed as many of their own kind as they killed enemies. Chaos ensued. A beast the size of a deer that bore little resemblance to the rabbit it had been a moment ago ran from a badger the size of a black bear who’s steps sent ripples through the earth like it was water. Birds of many colors swooped overhead and plucked off the freshly cooked [Rare-Earth Ants] and did their best to avoid bursts of fire while doing it. The [Dire Fire Ants] struggled to establish a perimeter, protect their queen, and begin building their mound in the rapidly devolving clearing where they had until recently had their home.
Death and chaos reigned supreme for that first day. It wasn’t until the sun set that the surviving ants had established a new mound and secured their new queen in it. The new mound was close to twenty feet tall and about ninety in radius made out of hard fire-baked clay. This species would be the controlling power in this clearing for close to one week before a herd of [King Halaboars] came and rooted them out of their nest with their four-foot long tusks.
All this took place in a clearing just off a main highway, a mere nine miles from what used to be a small human town of nearly 2200. After this same week the town still stood in some fashion. But where once there was a school there now was a crude barracks, where there was once a town park there was a slave pit dug into the ground fortified with stripped and pointed saplings. And where there had been a town of 2200 humans there was now a village of nearly 250 orcs.
And as for the ant men? Well, by the end of the first day the one make and one of the females had made camp in a small cave. The others had swiftly died. The female was binding burns and bites on the other ant with what little she could scavenge from the local flora. Magical or otherwise. By the end of their first night, she had earned the first level of her profession [Healer]. Early the next morning, both ants continued to trek north as carefully as they could. As much as they wanted to hunker down and wait for the world to stabilize around them, they knew they couldn’t. Their [Queen] called to them.
----------------------------------------
One other story must unfortunately be told to fully realize the effects of the eclipse. Sadly, this was not an uncommon or an abnormal sight in the first days after the awakening.
A young woman had just put her baby to bed finally after a long evening of rocking and cooing to get the baby to sleep. As soon as she turned from the crib to her own bed she was wondering if she would be able to sleep for more than two hours as she fell unconscious on the floor next to her already sleeping baby.
Twelve hours later a beautiful beast of a female orc shook the sleep from her head sitting up where the young woman had fallen asleep. Close to eight feet tall and covered in rippling muscles, a thick green-grey hide, and tatters of what was once a night gown, this orc was hungry. After her sleep she was confused but she knew she needed to find her tribe. While muddling her way through these thoughts she heard a soft, almost ethereal crying. It seemed the ancestors were smiling on her as somehow there was a baby elf wailing right near her head. Oh how orcs love the taste of elf. Especially one as young and tender as this.
If one were to be observing closely, as I have the habit of doing, they might have noticed a moment of hesitation in the orc’s movements, a moment of crazed desperation in it’s eyes. One might have even seen the tears mixed in with the blood left in the cradle as the orc picked its teeth and walked away.
Instincts are instincts, and it takes something divine to overcome them. Especially when they are so fresh and potent.
-The [Prophet]