Sukum felt anger.
It was an emotion it had not felt in a long time.
Long ages had passed since it and its siblings had been brought over, back when the place was surrounded by the air that burned and killed its kind. It had been kept in the beautiful darkness of a single room; its early existence punctuated by the times when bright, delicious, nourishing minds would be placed within the chamber that was its world. Many of those it was given made noises within the metal globes that enclosed their heads, loud noises that only increased their flavor, but in a short time most of his visitors would grow quiet, especially towards the end. Sukum had savored those minds, broke through their pathetic defenses, sucked on the nourishing tide of fear and pain and the substantial crunch of accumulated memories. Sometimes it was allowed to feed until there was nothing left to feed upon. Sometimes its food was taken from it before it had taken its fill.
Those were the times when it first felt the anger and the rage.
As time passed its hunger only grew, slowly building over the years and decades, barely satiated by the number of visitors it was given.
Many times, it had almost escaped its prison, many times it had eaten not only the minds of those that were brought but also those that brought them, but every time it tried to leave its confinement the light and the burning air drove it back, wailing, into the shelter of its cold, dark cell.
Then came the time of the darkness, when rumbling echoes shuddered through Sukum’s room, and the walls cracked, and then it was constrained no more.
Its first true meal had been one of its imprisoned siblings, one who called itself Avor, and the two of them had fought each other to the bitter end. For days the two of them had lashed out and bled, tearing at each other, devouring each other, until finally Sukum alone remained in the depths of the fortress that every other sentient creature had fled to escape. The act of feeding on its sibling’s life and mind changed Sukum at a fundamental level, and it evolved; for although the burning air was still unpleasant on its outermost skin layer, it could no longer inflict lasting harm.
When it finally recovered, Sukum had then made its way out of the only shelter it had ever known, stalking the Stage’s war-torn streets and under-layers for prey, driven by its ever-gnawing hunger for minds and aether, growing bigger and more self-aware as the years rolled by. Despite its considerable growth and evolution, Sukum still avoided exposing itself during the Stage’s artificial daytimes, since any kind of light was still inimical to its very being, and it was safe only within the cool darkness of the nights.
In time, when the prey had become scarce and other, more powerful creatures had taken residence in the crumbling, abandoned structures of the Stage, Sukum made its way into the lowest level of the building at the base of a Statue it could not see.
Following the scent of predatory pheromones and the mind-trace of hundreds of living creatures, Sukum at last arrived at the series of rooms that held the massive components of the aetheric engine that generated and maintained the atmosphere that protected and blanketed the Stage with a layer of air.
There, at the large chamber that held the pulsing heart of the machine, a singularly huge and powerful Sesang broodmother held court, beside whom had taken root the most vicious and cunning of her many daughters, last survivor of her clutch. Hundreds of Sesang drones attended the queen and the princess, all of which tried to stop the invading Oroghast as it made its slow, methodical way inside.
As they attacked Sukum feasted on the Sesang beasts, snacking on their simple, viciously one-track minds even as they tried to claw and bite at its yielding, rubbery flesh, the carcasses of those it engulfed dissolving within its viscous, gel-like interior as it rolled over those beasts that died under its psyche-scouring mind-blasts and bone-breaking pseudo-tendrils. With unhurried inevitability, the Oroghast made its way through the building’s large, cavernous rooms, digestive vesicles rising from its body and swelling outward to finally burst and expel noxious gases that poisoned the air and killed even more of the frenziedly attacking Sesang drones.
After hours of non-stop killing and feeding, Sukum grew large and bloated, its insides pushing at the constraints of its blood-red integument, its already sluggish pace slowed even further by its vastly increased bulk. When it finally entered the main chamber where the Sesang broodmother and her daughter had established themselves, only a few of the Sesang drones remained to contend against it.
Sukum took its time, delighting in the fury and despair of the broodmother and princess’ minds, feeding on their raw emotions with as much relish as it had feeding upon their children’s flesh. When it finally moved, its battle with the broodmother shook the ground and damaged the atmospheric machine, though none of the combatants noticed or cared what they had done. Despite its sessile nature, and the fate of its army of offspring the Sesang broodmother never surrendered, fighting against Sukum with everything she had, until finally, her gravid, engorged body was engulfed completely, her form dissolving within the now-gigantic Oroghast’s body.
The throes of evolution once more wracked Sukum’s distended bulk in the days following its mighty feast. Ripples of aetheric energy carved solidity within its jelly-like innards, forming a pulsing blood-red core, and new power infused the Oroghast’s body. It’s amorphous mind, now stronger and clearer than ever before, reached out and layered shackles of psychic control over the mind of the terrified Sesang princess who, because she had already rooted herself to the floor, had been unable to make an escape.
Mind-enslaved, the new Sesang broodmother became Sukum’s pet, producing Sesang drones that the Oroghast commanded to patrol and gather new victims for its hunger. For another long span of years the Oroghast remained the unchallenged master of the Quarter, calving meter-tall copies of itself to lead the Sesang drones as they patrolled the area. It was not the Master of the Stage, not yet, since the title was held by the insanely powerful Sun Wyrm that ruled from the Third Quarter. Yet Sukum was a power, one that was feared enough that few of the sentient beasts challenged it.
For nearly half a standard Imperial century, within the bounds of the First Quarter, its only rival and probable equal in strength and power was the Behemoth that ruled the fast-growing chitterer nest that had been established centerward from its lair. Unwilling to share, Sukum’s decades-long battle of attrition with the chitterers for prey and territory thinned its ranks of aging Sesang beasts and barely-sentient clones, neither side gaining an exploitable advantage.
Then came a time of fear and terror, as Sukum sensed a mighty beast with a sweeping indomitable will arrive and do battle with the Sun Wyrm that claimed control over the Stage entire. The world shook with the battle that ensued, many of the structures that had withstood ages leveled by their fury, until Sukum felt the mind-death of the ancient Wyrm. So terrible had been its fear that it had relaxed its age-long hold on the Sesang broodmother, allowing it to escape while Sukum had attempted to hide.
For a time afterwards Sukum cowered within its lair, an instinctive fear of being attacked by the Sun Wyrm’s killer making it hold back its forces. Then suddenly, the skitterer’s that it had always sensed patrolling just beyond its mind-sweep range disappeared seemingly overnight, and all sweeps detected only a few small pockets of the creatures remaining. Soon, Sukum’s clones began to report mechanical beasts entering its lair, moving through the rooms before being brought down by the bludgeoning tendrils of its mini-selves. Sukum tasted the change in the air, and sent out patrols of its last few enslaved Sesang beasts to investigate.
And yet, each time one went out, the patrol did not return.
Then they came, four creatures covered in carapaces of flexible, impenetrable metal, cutting and blasting their way into its stronghold, carving through its established defenses as Sukum once had through the broodmother’s army of drones. Unaffected by the thick, noxious fumes that the Oroghast Lord had been spewing for ages as a defensive measure, the creatures continued their rampage, fending off ambushes by the Sesang drones, as well as the mind-blasts and bludgeoning attacks of his guardian clones.
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Finally, the four creatures entered its lair-chamber.
Its anger rising, pulsing out from its pyramidal body in barely palpable waves, Sukum lashed at the intruders with its massively enlarged pseudo-tendrils, attempting to bludgeon the invaders to death. Dimly, its enhanced senses felt bursts of discharged aether and pulses of mental exertion, as the invaders defended themselves from his attacks.
One of them, clad in black and purple armor and wearing a blank-faced helm moved faster than the others, spinning and blocking with a black sword as it angled for an opening. In the darkness that was its natural environment, Sukum could sense each of its opponents’ heartbeats and exhalations, its four main tentacles jabbing and striking, waiting for an open strike.
The largest attacker shunted away a tentacle with an overlarge shield, then sliced downward with a huge sword. It struck the tentacle, but bounced off, its edge too blunt to cut through the Oroghast Lord’s tough hide. The attack, ineffective as it was, gave another of the attackers, this one in white and gold, enough time to tumble forward and slam a palm upon the floor. Snaking lines of aether appeared, thrumming with power, but Sukum rolled forward and smothered the building attack with its body, using its own aether to absorb that of its foe.
The attacker recoiled, and Sukum felt its shock as a psychic spike, before following up with a tentacle whip that flung the attacker away so hard that it slammed against the metal-sheathed walls, denting the paneling. Heartbeats quickened all around, the attacker’s sentient minds grappling with the rising fear and helplessness that their inability to damage Sukum was giving rise too. One of them, that had kept largely to the back, braced itself and leveled its weapon.
Aether rushed into the device in a torrent.
A moment later a streak of bright light erupted, so bright that Sukum recoiled instinctively, pulling all of its tentacles back into its pyramidal body, as the aether-driven shot punched into the middle of the Oroghast’s torso. Sukum, slithered back a few meters, its mid-section folding around the discharged energy, absorbing it, even as an intense pain, more from the light than the aether attack itself, played havoc on the Oroghast’s nervous system, rudimentary as it was.
Reeling, confused by the unfamiliar sensation of pain, Sukum retreated into itself for a moment, giving enough of an opening that the black armored attacker managed to draw close and strike at its side. Sukum’s pseudo-flesh shuddered as the aether-infused sword connected, viscous blood pouring out of the tear it created and splashing over the attacker’s forearm and hand. There was a sudden burst of steam and the attacker staggered back, its mind-waves scrambled by Sukum’s searing fluid.
Reflexively, Sukum released some of the aetheric energy it had absorbed as a mind-numbing bolt against the black one. Impossibly, the creature twisted at the last moment, its left hand splayed out. The bolt that Sukum had fired was absorbed in a flash of Hunger aether. A spell, the ancient Oroghast realized, a weak copy of its own devouring ability! Without pause, it followed up with a tentacle attack that forced the black one to skip away awkwardly. A ripple of annoyance shivered through Sukum’s entire gelatinous body.
The attackers were reeling, but they were also relentless.
For a few minutes the combatants traded blows, their back and forth battle characterized by flashes of light and hurried movement, swinging weapons and muffled explosive detonations. One of Sukum’s tentacles was sent flying, sliced in half when the biggest attacker found an angle that allowed its heavy sword’s edge to bite deep into the gelid integument of the appendage.
By then Sukum had been pushed back to the unmoving machine that encompassed the entire back wall of the chamber, and it had had enough.
It retracted all its tentacles and shuddered, before blasting out a mind-scrambling mental attack that sent every one of its attackers stumbling back. The one furthest back collapsed entirely, stunned, while the big one and the white and gold one clutched at their heads and scrabbled on their hands and knees. Only the black clad one remained upright, shaking its head.
It half turned to its stricken companions, and Sukum sensed some form of communication, and then the black one was lunging forward. The Oroghast used two tentacles to intercept the rush, amused as the attacker conjured aetheric tendrils that tried to grasp at its main body. The amusement was short-lived however, as a sudden weight on Sukum’s front dragged its body abruptly to the ground.
For the first time since the fight had begun, the Oroghast panicked, half of its body held immobile and pinned to the floor by some unknown weight. It straightened its tentacles in retaliation, slamming into the black one’s head and belly, and sending it back to slam painfully against the far wall.
Suddenly, another wave of aether came from the white and gold attacker, but this time, unexpectedly, the entire aether construct blazed brightly upward from the floor in fountains of burning, destroying light.
Sukum let loose a psychic scream as its blood-red flesh sizzled and boiled, large chunks of its body disintegrating completely under the blaze of deadly light. The big attacker, still writhing on the floor, was struck by the full force of Sukum’s scream, making it arch its back impossibly until only the back of its helmeted head and its armored heels were in contact with the chamber floor, the neurons in its brain firing away in bursts of fear and agony.
In the middle of the chamber the burning, disintegrating Sukum writhed and twisted, trying to escape somehow, somewhere away from the terrible searing light, psychically screaming into the nothingness of the void. In spite of its actions the light continued to intensify, pulsing with murderous intent, until the entire room was blindingly, eye-boilingly bright, before the world was abruptly plunged back into darkness as the gold-clad invader slammed face down onto the floor. But by then, all that was left was a pathetic, twitching, steaming pile of blood-red jelly where once a mighty Oroghast Lord had stood.
Eric was the first among them all to return to consciousness, a shooting pain running from his neck to his waist. He was slumped sideways against a metal wall, his limbs still spasming uncontrollably from the aftereffects of the slime creature’s psychic attack. Several windows danced before his vision, and he idly wondered why Pig had not removed them yet.
You have killed an Oroghast Lord
37,500 Gens points have been added to your total
Fantastic. Eric shunted that notification away and tried to get to his feet.
< Anyone… Everyone… report! >
The Net remained silent, and Eric, his fear rising, struggled harder to get up.
The room was now very dark, even to his enhanced eyesight, but from where he was Eric could see the collapsed bodies of his teammates scattered about the chamber floor. It had been a tough, grueling fight, and Eric feared the worst.
A sudden movement caught his attention, and Eric sagged with relief when it recognized the familiar shape of Luna’s hover-drone. More of Luna’s minions entered, filing in to examine the bodies that littered the room. One of the drones, a bigger model with wheeled tracks and huge, strong metallic arms attached to a small, cylindrical torso came towards Eric. With the drones help, Eric managed to get himself onto a sitting position. Pain and fatigue bore down on him then, and the last thing he saw before unconsciousness took him was a couple of drones dragging his comrades towards him.
And then there was darkness once again.
A few hours later the entire Stage shook as massive amounts of aether activated and began to course through long unused channels. At nine points along the outer circumference of the Stage, old machineries hummed back to life as ancient blast doors slammed shut to protect certain important rooms. The dust of ages fell from Nine great statues as different colored light shone from several sets of eyes carved into their impassive, heroic features.
For those who could see, massive cables of aether rose up from each of the vibrating statues and joined in a kilometers wide net across the entire Stage. The cables met, and intertwined, then joined together in a massive aetheric construct that sent a gigantic, pulsing shockwave outward from the Obsidian Moon.
The empty void five kilometers over the surface of the Stage shimmered for a moment, then finally solidified, presenting a pearly undersurface to everyone watching before once more becoming opaque and finally fully transparent. Anyone looking up would be hard-pressed to discern it was there against the backdrop of shimmering stars overhead.
In one area of the Stage, surrounded by a low white wall, a leafless Tree, long thought dead, stirred slightly, the few drops of living, mystic sap within it active for the first time in almost a thousand years.
Moments later, the clattering of small rocks dropping onto the deck resounded across the Stage, sounding for a moment like a sudden rain storm, as gravity was re-established across the entire Level. The crash of larger objects in the distance was punctuated by the bellows of the Beasts that now populated the ruins as they sensed the unexpected, and largely unwanted, change in their environment.
Wisps of vapor began to drift down from the mouths of the Nine Statues. Within a few days they would have expelled enough gases to make the air beneath the dome breathable again.
The void had been pushed back.
The Stage’s Atmospheric Envelop had been restored.