The sounds of violently mashing the keyboards, wires being hooked up, lasers cutting into metal and various banging sounds were ringing throughout the apartment complex. Although multiple people had complained about the noise that has gone on for an entire week, the sounds only got louder and more frequent.
At the end of the hellish week, a large screech wailed out, making babies and elderly people cry. Then suddenly when the residents had given up all hope for a good night’s sleep all sound ceased and a great silence ensued.
‘YEESSS, I’ve done it! I’ve succeeded at last!’ Screamed a man in joy that could only be expressed by the look on his face and the tears dripping down his cheeks. His hair had all fallen out as he had worked too much.
The noisy resident of the apartment had finally succeeded in his latest experiment. It was the culmination of his life’s work, the closest anyone had ever got to artificial life. In the past few years he had discovered a type of energy in another dimension that he could not really understand or control.
By using a multitude of various techniques he managed to gather energy from the source and convert it into kinetic energy for his robot. The robot was made of mostly of rock and mud due to its great ability to draw in this energy which he deemed as ‘mana’ due to his fondness for video games.
He finally put all the parts together and all that was left was to turn it on. He suffered from sleepiness and it was a losing battle. His vision started to darken as he made his way to the lounge, tripping over several times on the way.
‘Finally’ he thought as his eyes closed and his mind entered a deep slumber. The eyes of the robot started to glow a deep green as it charged.
He begun dreaming, dreaming about the following day of when his creature would begin it’s life. He dreamed of gaining prestige and recognition as someone of great accomplishment. He dreamed of many pleasant things.
The flames of a gas explosion quickly entered through his apartment as he was still in a deep sleep. The heat melted through his body his dream came to a halt. He felt an excruciating pain as his soul was ripped out of his body. He could see all of his apartment melting as he had lived close to the center of the explosion.
As his soul begun being pulled into the dimensional sea, he started to reflect on his life. He died at thirty years old, he had no friends or family. His only joy in life was the experiments he did.
In his life he had worked countless boring and what he deemed as meaningless jobs.
His dream was to create robots closer to nature. He lacked both the time and money for this, but had designed many different ones. Not all were made for function, some he made just for fun with strange and exotic designs.
His latest robot, he deemed as ‘Mud Golem’ was a bit of a fluke. He made some substitutions of expensive materials with parts he found in nature and the local garbage dump.
His only regret was living a poor life since his parents died when he was young. They were bombed in World War 3 as they worked as scientists for the military. He had to spend his life working himself to the bones to live on food scraps in a tiny cage that was his home. Of course his spending on parts for his robots didn’t help.
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As his soul drifted, he dreamt, a dream that felt he would never wake up from. A dream that started off pleasant and serene, walking through a forest for a long time. As time went on the trees started burning, the fire getting closer and closer. Until finally the fire reached him and pain surged throughout his entire body, a burning pain like everything was bursting apart to nothingness. It felt like his time was stuck in a loop.
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A deep darkness enveloped him. There was no more forest anymore, no more anything. As someone with a logical mind, he thought about his circumstances. Perhaps he was in a coma, his body connected up to a machine keeping him alive. Or perhaps someone has preserved his brains in a tank and revived his consciousness as a futuristic processor.
Time went on, as it does, seemingly endless. He noticed for long periods of time his being was sleeping. There were also times where he was able to think, although his thoughts were not quite coherent.
Many minutes had passed, many hours, many weeks if they even counted here. Wherever here even is, he wasn’t sure. He could only see blackness all around him. However one day he started to see floating little wisps of bright white light pass him by. Then suddenly a crack broke open in the black endless sea. An enormous pulling force was exerted on his being, hauling him through the dimensional rift.
He was sucked through the rift like a train ride, he could only see the light at the end. Afterwards he saw more and more light as he moved through the sky, seeing all kinds of clouds.
The colours of clouds were so unnatural that he found them to be unnerving. Below he could see thousands of trees, rivers and wildlife.
After flying over a dozen mountains he finally saw a flock of small lumber buildings. He saw a dozen of these until he finally came to a big stone wall surrounding many more metal looking houses.
His journey continued under the ground at the center of the city, underneath a large manor. He then traveled into a large cavern where he was floating above a woman. Time stopped for only a moment until he was squeezed into her stomach.
His consciousness started hurting, he started to feel pain, like more of his memories were being ripped apart. His everything was being molded anew. After some time the pain stopped and he started to feel very sleepy. He closed what he felt like his eyes, if he had any, as his awareness grew to nothingness again.
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The sounds of ominous chanting echoed throughout the stone walls of the basement. A dozen robed men gathered around a woman and a man. Each equally spaced apart at three feet. Each holding an elegant wooden staff with beautiful carvings of mysterious meaning engraved onto them. Each of them containing a shiny gemstone rooted into the tops of them.
The gemstones emitted small specs of light that dance in the air rhythmically as the men chanted in a heavy tone. After each line of chanting they would smash their staves down onto the ground as the energy in the gems burst outwards into the air.
The energy gathered into a stream flowing down the wood into the stone carvings that were placed all over the ground. The carving itself was vastly complex, holding many mysterious symbols and patterns.
The carvings all led to the middle of the room, centred directly below the woman who was laying on the bed. The energy itself concentrates inside the woman's inflated stomach, feeding the growing creature living inside her.
As the chants proceed, so does the loudness of the woman’s cries. The woman screams the loudest as the man yanks his hand into her stomach and pulls a youngin out. A baby is held by the man for only a second before he places it into the middle of the rune.
Increasing amounts of energy flowed from the surroundings into staves of the hooded men and then flooding violently through the carvings into the baby placed on the altar in from of the woman.
After a while the chanting stops and a small symbol glows a strong golden light on the belly of the baby. The symbol itself means vitality, but the baby would not discover it until fate has decided it. The rune fades away as the baby is given to the mother to hold.
The mother Zaya, a lady in her early 20s smiles widely as she holds her baby. The lady has tired purple eyes and messed dark green hair. The man Zed, who appears to be the father, comes over and hugs them. He looks like a giant compared to them and has a great big black beard and long plaited hair.
The father holds the baby up and says ‘I will name you Zel after the God of Vitality, you shall never be weakened like the seer has foreseen’.’ Zaya responds by saying ‘He has black eyes and my green hair. The god of fertility has truly blessed us.’
The people of Zoldron were all merry after the birth of their lords new son. Zed had been a generous ruler and under his rule the people’s wealth increased by great leaps due to the introduction of new farming techniques and military outposts. The monsters that surrounded the city were always a threat so a strong leader meant the people can be more prosperous.