Chapter One
I guess I'll need a name
In a hole in the ground, there lived a rock. Not a nice hole, with warm lighting and good food, and a door on the front for guests to come in. Not a carefully carved hole shaped by generations of hole dwellers. No, it was just a hole, straight down about six feet, at the bottom of a deep depression that might someday become a lake. A very ugly hole, on the whole. The rock, however, was magnificent.
Not only was it magnificent, but it was waking up.
“Ow, my head. Wait... where's my head? Oh gosh I can't find my... hold up, what is a head?”
The rock was confused.
It had ideas. Where did the ideas come from? That was a question, wasn't it? How do I have questions when I'm a rock? I haven't even figured out where the ideas come from and now I have questions too, but where do they come from? Do they just come out of nowhere? It's talking to itself and running in circles. I'm talking to myself. Should I be talking in the first or the third person? What's a person? Why is... this is getting nowhere.
Slowly, the rock... Slowly I started putting my thoughts in order. Let's start with the basics. I think, therefore I am, I think. That seems important. I have a sense of self, which is good, but I can also see myself. That seems strange. I'm also very pretty. Slightly over two feet long, a skinny crystal as clear as glass with jagged edges. Bright, glowing colors waved along my edges, flickering in and out like a dying fire. Inside, a dark red stain waved about slowly. My thoughts seem to come from nowhere, which makes them a pretty suspect source, but it's about all I have to go on for right now so let's just roll with it. I'm clearly alive, which means I should have some degree of autonomy. Even plants can do some things, like pump water around. Wait, what are... let's not get sidetracked. What can rocks normally do? Nothing, as far as I'm aware, but I'm clearly not a normal rock, so let's try some things.
The rock spent a long time examining itself and trying to do something. It took a while for the initial panic of suddenly being alive to wear off, but eventually it calmed down and started making progress. It could look around, if it concentrated. It's vision didn't seem to be based on light, but rather it could see everything within it's sphere of awareness, which was growing very slowly out from itself. Currently, this only covered the space around two inches away from its surface, so all the rock could see was some dirt and gravel.
“I should be able to do something to this dirt, somehow.” The rock was finally having coherent thoughts not prompted by the void, and was very proud of itself. It's knowledge base was still patchy and of dubious origins, but at least the rock was taking some control.
“I don't have hands, but I have a mind. I guess I'll just think at the dirt really hard. Think dirty, think dirty, think dirty...”
Nothing happened.
“Okay, try this.”
Imagining itself to have hands, it imagined scooping the dirt up and pushing it around. It tried talking to the dirt, ignoring the dirt, picturing the dirt in various shades of color, but nothing it could think had any effect.
“Well, it kinda sucks to have less power than some boring old soil, but I'll figure something out. Eventually.”
The rock didn't know how right it was.
---
Eventually, the rock had a breakthrough. Time had passed, but who knew how long it had been. Perhaps hours, perhaps eons. Certainly long enough for the helpless, bored rock to go a little stir crazy.
“You, Mr. pebble, yes you! This hole ain't big enough for the two of us! I'm gonna have to ask you to go... out to lunch!”
Out of boredom more than anything else, the rock Ate the pebble. It took a god five minutes to realize that this had actually worked.
“What, that's all it took? All this time and I just had to get a little hungry? Well if that isn't just... you know what, I'm not gonna question it.”
Gleefully, the rock began eating all the dirt around it. In the past days, it's area of influence had grown quite a bit, to the point where it had a spherical space to work with near four times its own length in diameter. As it ate the dirt and stone surrounding it, it began to feel full of something. No, not dirt, that would be the obvious and boring answer. It felt powerful, like it was filling a reservoir of strength it hadn't known it had. After eating out the space around itself, it had fallen to the floor but it's sphere hadn't moved at all. With a flex of this new strength, it lifted the dirt that remained in the sphere. Success!
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“I can move things! Oh this is so much better than before!”
The world was suddenly full of opportunity, and experiments that had previously failed were now working. The dirt could be shaped, shoved, eaten and recreated. It could be morphed into other materials like water, gold, and any treasure the rock could imagine. But it didn't want treasure. It wanted someone to talk to. Could it do that? The Rock hesitated.
“Do I want to create life? I get the feeling it's a bad thing. Like it's a taboo. But I also feel called to try it, like it's a natural thing to do. What's wrong with these stupid thoughts?”
Putting aside the continued frustration at its pieced together, inconsistent memories and thoughts, the rock decided to tread carefully for now, but it was definitely going to need someone to talk to eventually, or the insanity would come back. If it couldn't find someone else, then it would eventually make someone. But for now, it would make this home look a little nicer.
“I guess, if I meet someone else, I would like my home here to look presentable. Wouldn't want them to see the floor so dirty. Hmm. If I meet someone, I'd have to introduce myself. I can't just call myself “Rock” or “Crystal,” can I? What if they're a crystal too? I guess I'll need a name.”
---
Meanwhile, not even five miles away, another crystal was having much less trouble. It had found its name days ago, it's thoughts were clear, and it even had people to talk to. People to command. It had subjects.
In a carefully constructed bunker of stone, a square, foggy red crystal hovered over the floor and gave mental orders to its minions. There were two of them, and failures by all accounts, but they got the job done. The earlier attempts to produce workers were met with unforeseen troubles. The first one died horribly, suffocating within minutes. The next was small, and required little oxygen, but it was poorly designed and couldn't move well. The third was the model that these were loosely based on, but when it had been sent out to scout, it hadn't returned.
Light green foliage covered the floor of the bunker, roughly octagonal and six feet to a side, with vines trailing the walls. The ceiling was made of thick glass panes that revealed a cloudy grey sky, and there was a tunnel leading out through one side with a sealed entryway that had to be opened manually by consuming and then replacing the stone. The oxygen levels were steadily rising inside the chamber, and the minions were taking deep breaths, recovering from the last foray. They could hold their breath for a solid half hour, but they moved slowly and so couldn't go too far yet. Slightly smaller than the crystal, with many short legs and a large rounded shell, they had been leaving the bunker as often as possible to forage for mana dense materials that the crystal could consume. It was also possible to see their memories once they returned, but that was difficult so far and it was easier to just talk to them mentally. They were stupid, but functional.
“Tell me what you saw this time,” commanded Emperor Phoenix I.
“Land West, same East” came the reply. “Mud. Ash. Hills. Bones.”
“Were there any plants growing in that direction?”
“Some.”
This was a conundrum to be sure. Plants meant life. Life was bad. Life should be destroyed. But it was also useful. You couldn't destroy life without minions to do the destroying. It was a careful balance that must be maintained. But where to draw the line? Would the Emperor have to create enough life to cover the planet, just to ensure that there was nowhere else for life to hide? Maybe there was an alternative. As he thought, the headache returned. The voices were battling again.
“Destroy.”
“Stop.”
“Destroy.”
“Grow.”
“Destroy.”
“Wait.”
“Destroy.”
Emperor Phoenix I felt himself lose control again, as the flames raged in the chamber. The minions curled into their shells to hide, but it was no use. He cried in wordless rage as what little he had accomplished was burned away to nothing, while the stronger voice inside his mind ran rampant with is mana. He focused all he had on containing it again, sealing it away inside himself. After what felt like hours, all was calm. The red glow inside his crystal body had faded, and there was a light green shine to one of his corners.
This wasn't good. The life in this room had been his. It had been good. It had been his empire! But loss is good too. It is natural that good things come to an end. Nothing is eternal. Surveying his throne room, he consumed the ashes and started building the empire again.
---
On the hard ground, Jonas stirred from sleep. He felt stiff. His limbs were heavy and his eyes refused to open.
“Grhbghbrblgb.”
Speaking was hard. His throat felt like gravel. Trying to roll over was too much work, so he lay there for a while, getting his bearings.
He remembered the fires. He hadn't seen them. The smoke was too thick and heavy. But he'd seen their glow and felt their heat from across the city. Had the city been saved? He remembered stumbling out from the gates, looking for a place the smoke hadn't reached. Gasping for fresh air. He was sure he should have died, but this couldn't be the afterlife, could it? Someone must have rescued him, yes. He was lying in a corner in some hospital tent, one of many survivors, surely. If that was the case, he couldn't stay here any longer. He was a priest of the great god of Life, and his healing magic would be sorely needed. He couldn't speak, but he hadn't needed to chant to cast spells for a long time. He reached for his god and tried to invoke a healing spell.
Nothing happened.
Confused, He tried again. Again, there was no response from his god. No rush of holy magic infusing his bones with vitality, no flash of light, no comforting voice. Urgently now, he tried to sit up again, and lifted a heavy hand to force his eyes open.
All around him was destruction.
He tried to sob but couldn't as he saw crumbled walls of the city in the distance, looking like they had been abandoned for long decades. The only sign of life was some odd lichen growing on the crumbling towers. In the dirty fields there were some weeds growing, and through the haze he could just make out the remains of a forest, charred and blackened, in the distant west. The mountain tops looked much like how he remembered them, in a long range to the east, but there was no white gleam of snow on the top. Trying to cry, he couldn't. Trying to breathe, to plead for help, he heard nothing. Looking down, he saw his hands, and his panicked thoughts almost came to a halt.
“What in the name of Life has happened to me?”