Chapter 3
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The Garden of Eden
“Leå, the Goddess of Life and Light, sacrificed a part of herself to create the fountain of youth - a crystal clear pool of water brimming with the power of life. She gave of herself so that life could bloom, so that the trees, the grass, the animals, and the foul could grow and so that the five races could live in the first haven - the Garden of Eden - where they were loved and cherished by all the Gods.” – The Book of the Divines 1:7
The pool Leå and Dem had been slaving over and focusing on constantly, looked like nothing more than a murky puddle. The others in the gathering had sat down on the bare stone and talked about what few things they knew as the pair worked. Makir, having made himself the leader, stayed apart from his peers and stood watching the water as it slowly filled with algae that died off and grew anew, over and over and over and over again. He asked what he could do to help and Dem requested he scrape off the dead scum. Apparently, it could be used as fertiliser when they evolved some plants that could grow on land.
By the time any change occurred, three days had passed and enthusiasm fled the group completely. Even Makir, who tried to keep a confident facade, had become as miserable as a drowned cat from days wading into the pond and dragging out dead plant matter. They were all caught off guard therefore, when Dem, a mostly morose and standoffish person, let out a yelp of delight. Makir asked what had happened and Dem explained, loudly enough for everyone to hear, that he and Leå made their first life form that could live outside of the water.
At first, everyone was excited, until they came over to see, on top of the massive pile of scum, a green mould growing. It didn’t look like much, so the bored and evermore frustrated gods returned to their discussions.
At some point, one of them suggested that they try going to sleep. All of them knew of the concept but none of them had felt the need. With nothing better to do, and the project to create life looking like it would be slow to achieve results, they all agreed. That was how Makir found himself lying on the flat, stone floor with his eyes closed trying to get to pass out.
He was just about to give up and declare it a useless endeavour when all of a sudden, everything went blank.
Makir was awoken by the sound of chirping. He rolled over, showing his belly to the warm sun as he scratched behind his own ear, completely content.
Wait… Chirping? He thought, his eyes shooting open. Above him, a small bird flew and his head followed it to the branch on which it landed. Makir got up, slowly and cautiously looking around. He hadn’t moved. He was in the same spot as before, near the edge of the pond.
Except, it looked completely different. The scum had been spread out and accompanied by a thin layer of leaves. Small tufts of marsh-grass were growing on the mixture in sporadic patterns. Interspersed every so often were stout trees with spider like roots that spread far through the inch thick nutritional layer.
Makir looked for the others but couldn’t see anyone. He listened but only heard the buzz of insects as they flew low over the water’s surface, to be eaten by a fish or bird. He smelled the wet swampy air and was confused. Before he was able to jump to any conclusions his sharp ears finally caught the sound of conversation and he began walking over the slippery stone to its source.
After a few minutes of travelling through more mangroves than could reasonably be expected to have grown overnight, Makir found himself at the entrance to a cave. Inside, he could make out the familiar sound of Visok arguing.
The Khati sighed as he entered but the sound of exasperation was quickly replaced by an exhalation of wonder. From the outside, this place had just looked like a crack in the rock but the second he stepped in his breath was taken away.
The walls were square, twenty feet apart and forty feet high. On them were engraved scenes, mostly of valent dwarves but there were alcoves in this entry chamber in which ten statues were lined up. One for each of their group, save two. Makir walked up to his own twenty foot tall image and found his ego swelling at the sight of the proud and noble Khati that loomed over him.
It was obvious who had done this, that’s why Makir wasn’t surprised that the Elf was missing a statue but he did expect Helka to make one of herself. His confusion was short lived however as, when he walked to the end of the corridor and pushed open the perfectly balanced stone doors, he found a massive chamber. It was illuminated by bricks made of some glowing mineral, and in the centre of the atrium was a giant statue of the Dwarf - fifty feet in height. She was made from gold and silver as opposed to the plain stone of the other figures.
Makir would have liked to take some time to admire the narcissistic work, art appreciation was in his blood after all, but his contemplations were cut short and his attention was drawn to the foot of the statue, where Visok was shouting.
“I don’t care, it needs to happen faster!” he yelled.
Makir had expected to find the target of his anger to be Helka, the Dwarf, given the history and the lack of any elven representation in this bastion, but that wasn’t the case.
“We have been working as long as we can, if we push any further without giving the plants time to recover, they may mutate and likely die - then we would have to start over and it would be even longer before there is a stable ecosystem on this island,” Dem explained calmly to the irritated Elf.
Makir stepped between them before Visok could find some issue with the skeleton’s words and asked a question:
“How long was I asleep?”
Visok seemed surprised to see the Khati; he clearly hadn’t noticed Makir pushing open the giant doors.
“Oh, I didn’t see you there Makir,” Visok said, greeting the man in question and reining in his anger. “What was your question?”
“How long was I asleep,” Makir repeated, his attention once more drawn to the statue at the centre of the room. The Elf’s eye twitched.
“Three days,” he replied.
“Three days?!” Makir asked in disbelief. His head snapping back to the pair.
“I’m sorry Makir, I was too busy to wake you,” Dem added in his neutral voice which revealed nothing of his emotions.
“How is that possible?” Makir asked, looking between the two - his own composure slipping.
It took some explaining on Dem’s part to elucidate the Khati. Apparently, life that could live out of water was a bigger milestone than he or the other gods had thought. It had quickly snowballed from mould to moss, from grass to garlic. According to the one with a power over death, each evolutionary branch was progressing at about the same pace but there were so many of them now that it looked like more work had been done than was representative of the truth.
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Makir inquired about why he had been left asleep for so long to which Visok was the one to answer. As it turned out, only the five with the power to create sentient races could sleep and they all slept for a different length of time. Elementa was the first to wake, after only about an hour of sleep.
With the others having found something to do, still asleep, or were actively working on the evolution of life (Leå and Dem), she decided to make herself useful. Elemeta created water sprites, however they were uncomfortable in the pool that was experiencing such a fast cycle of life and death so she moved some of the liquid into a new hole, dug by earth elementals.
– Elementals, in their infancy, are little more than extensions of the natural world and although Elementa can tell them to do things, they naturally do very little. It takes hundreds of years for an elemental to grow enough to be sentient. The baby water elementals will be content to purify and create more water from their current source. The earth elementals will move little bits of land around, very very slowly and sleep alot. The fire elementals, she made in a nearby volcano, will sit there and soak up the heat until disturbed. And the air elementals will circulate their element and prevent things from becoming stale.
The next to wake was both Helka and Visok simultaneously, apparently the amount of sleep their races respectively required was about equal - four hours. Neither of them wanted to spend any time around each other so they both immediately went their separate ways.
Helka came down into the caves and began building shelter and Visok went out into the fast growing shrubland and used his race’s natural connection to nature to speed up Leå and Dem’s efforts, now that life more closely resembled what he was used to - rather than a pool of green gunk. This was where the argument with Dem had its roots.
Leå had said they should stop for a day to let things settle. This was only an hour ago and already Visok was trying to get Dem to agree to keep going since he had failed to convince Leå.
When Makir expressed his shock at the speed they had already managed and asked why he was in such a hurry, Visok responded:
“How am I supposed to compete with this,” gesturing to the intricately carved room, “if I don’t have any proper trees to work with?”
Makir set aside the potential future issue this attitude may cause if they were to continue living on the same island and asked Visok when Homos had awoken and what he was doing.
The Human woke after about eight hours, when the first small animals had begun to grow. He had been working with Visok, Leå, and Dem training mammals and helping them develop in a manner that would be beneficial to humans. He had purportedly revealed that his goal was to evolve dogs; thus it might be concluded that what some say is true - dogs are a man’s best friend.
The reason Makir was the last to wake up was evident to him now, he had nothing more to thank than the innate laziness of his race. When he pressed Visok however and asked why no one had woken him up? He received a blush and a rather evasive answer about being busy only for Dem to correct him without a trace of a reaction. According to the dead one, the others had thought he looked too cute while he was sleeping which caused the Khati to blush in turn.
Visok proposed that the khati, when they were created, should live on the surface - in the accommodations he would make. In return, he would be content waiting for it to be safe to continue their eugenics without pestering the others. Makir reluctantly agreed, despite how grand and opulent the Dwarf’s structure appeared; he was prepared to make sacrifices to reduce the friction within the group.
Three more days passed; Makir went from project to project, to see what his peers were doing.
Leå, Dem, Visok, and Homos continued their work, creating life.
Helka was digging deeper and deeper into the earth to find the metals and minerals she required for the construction of, what was fast becoming, an underground civilisation sans people. There were individual, spacious apartments filled with the same white glowing mineral as was used in the atrium. Winding hallways created a maze of living spaces with numerous routes to: open areas for markets, underground roads, smithies, mines, fungal farms, subterranean aquifer, and much more. All of it carved and meticulously decorated by nothing but Helka’s own two hands.
Elementa began optimising certain regions for her children to live in. She poured her Essence into:
* A volcano - making it hotter and more stable,
* The earth - making it both firmer and more fluid,
* The growing pools of water scattered across the island - making them more pure and full of potential,
* The air - making it fresher and more biting.
Tempi was bored of waiting for something to happen and had slowed time for both himself and Vesti - who had started following him around constantly. They stood atop The Mountain, overlooking the island without a sea as it grew, to them, at impossible speed.
Magus, being a ghostly figure that could float about as he pleased, left to encapsulate the planet in a barrier that would prevent the harsh currents of mana the blue sun gave off from destroying the life the gods hoped to build. At first, Makir was unsure that Magus had been doing anything as there were no signs of his work. That was until the third night, when green lines - dancing far above - illuminated the edge of the barrier; the dispersal of a surge of mana which struck the protection.
Volta was busy creating an area filled with her conjured plants, a small alcove halfway up the monolith of a mountain. She hoped it to be a soothing and calming rest stop for anyone climbing the impossible peak. None of the mortal gods chose to tell the enthusiastic woman that there was so little air even at that half way point that none but the elementals would be able to reach it.
Athæ was an enigma to Makir. On the first of his wakefull days she didn’t stop following him around, begging for another staring contest. Makir refused after seeing how competitive the fiery haired woman had gotten when engaged in a “friendly” arm wrestle with the burly Dwarf.
Neither chose to yield when the boulder they were using as a table split in two and the ground cracked beneath it; creating a ravine in an as yet unterraformed area of the island. They only stopped when the group working on creating life sent Homos over to complain that they were upsetting their efforts and it was called a draw - to be settled later. It was the best Makir could get the pair to agree to.
This led to the twelve, who were swiftly coming to think of themselves as something approaching godhood, discovering how strong each of them were. Throughout the following days, changes to the landscape were made a number of times which most referred to as “accidents”. Even Makir, who publicly discouraged such reckless experimentation, had tested his own strength when no one was looking. He threw a tree up into the air and it never came down.
Over the next two days, Athæ was nowhere to be found. Each time Makir approached one of his peers, he would be told that she had just left but he was never able to catch sight of her and it made the Khati nervous. She had promised him that she wouldn’t try and insite conflict again but it was what gave her power, her Purpose. He knew, first hand, how hard it was to deny one’s nature.
After a total of nine days without any khati for him to protect, his Purpose was itching painfully inside him and he was desperate to create just one of his kin to relieve the pressure. Each time the urge arose he pushed it down, knowing it wouldn’t be right.
On the tenth day, everything was ready. The environment on their little island had completely changed. There were forests, swamps, grassy fields, mountains, and lakes - all stuffed with life, from animals to insects.
The twelve gathered together around the pond which was the start of it all. It had been filthy and filled with dead and decomposing organic matter but some of Elementa’s infant water elementals had made it crystal clear. Even with their efforts however, there was nothing that could be done for the lingering Life and Death Essence which swam in unseeable patterns in the liquid. Unseeable, that was, to all but the Divine who saw the intermingling motes of gold and black that never joined; constantly dancing but never merging. After their job was done, the elementals had to leave for their own safety.
Visok asked a day ago that this momentous event be delayed so that he could use these new forests to make a place rivalling the Dwarf’s but even he couldn’t hold out any longer by the time the dawn of the tenth day rolled around.
The five sentient gods, save Elementa who was fine, looked ill. They had sunken eyes, sweaty pallid skin, and stooped postures. Even Makir looked unproud as he struggled to hold himself back from fulfilling his Purpose.
So it was, with all the gods standing around that small pond in a now thriving woods, that the first of the elves, dwarfs, humans, and khati would be introduced to this universe. In my sleep, I smiled.