Darkness lifted from twelve thousand warder’s eyes and a heavy male voice announced.
“Attention Recruit!”
The male voice, in a deep heavy tone began “Before the first words were spoken. Before we knew there was a darkness to fear there lived a peaceful aquatic creature. She was as large as the planet she was born on. The great mother, the waters of her world called her. She was just a babe. A mere five hundred and fifty years old when disaster befell her world.”
“Stop.” Ghost appeared in the darkness and said “Initiate private induction session.”
Sheetal appeared next Ghost with pursed lips.
Ghost frowned and looked down. Ash was clinging to Sheetal’s legs. His arms and feet were wrapped around her claves in a death grip.
“Let me go.” Sheetal snarled.
Ash pressed his forehead into Sheetal’s thigh and screeched “She! There is no ground.”
“I know.”
“I can’t fly you nerd.”
Sheetal looked up at Ghost “Talk to him please.”
Ghost sighed “Ash this is an experience left behind by the Khara to initiate their warders into their purpose. You are safe here.”
“Yeah, well there is no floor to be safe on.” Ash shot back.
Ghost took in a breath and ordered “Recalibrate experience to a two dimensional format inside a panoramic pictorium.”
The air under Sheetal shimmered and then there was a dark granite floor under Ash.
Ghost watched Ash slowly reach out one hand to touch the floor and comforted the boy “The khara are atmospheric creature. They are top heavy and don’t do so well on the ground. But you shouldn’t have worried. They do initiate bipedals into their purpose.”
Ash let go of Sheetal and climbed to his feet “What does that mena?”
“You would have just floated dumbo.” Sheetal growled and asked “Since when are you afraid of flying?”
Ash flinched. Sheetal didn’t get it. Whatever this place was. Wherever it was. It wasn’t right. There was no ground in this place except the planet in front of them.
Ash blinked. He was going about this the wrong way. He… He needed eyes here. He chuckled and focussed on looking. And in a blink, he was looking around with wide eyes at the large floor to ceiling screen in front of him.
“Well?” Sheetal asked.
“Eh… You smell nice?” Ash deflected.
Sheetal rolled her eyes and pointed at the screen “What is that five headed monstrosity on the screen Ghost?”
“That lady warder.” Ghost said warningly and continued “Is the depiction of the light from the kharas perspective. So be polite. We are in their zone of reality.”
“But it’s not the light, right?” Ash asked.
“No. That actually is the first khara of the light protected universes. As I said this is an induction experience designed to induct young warders. The khara anthropize the light in their own image for the young but they all know that the light is the light. Also this way, they can send their devotion to the light more effectively.”
“How young?” Sheetal asked.
Ash shook his head and murmured “That’s what you want to ask?”
“As young as eight.” Ghost replied and turned to Ash “What should she have asked Ash?”
“Zone of reality? Double U. T. What is that?”
Ghost bit his lip “You are too young for that. And it is anyway out of your area of purpose. You are breaker not a binder. Sheetal will need that knowledge later.” Ghost turned to Sheetal “When the time comes, call on me. I will be happy to direct you.”
“What about devotion… Actually, I don’t care.” Ash paused and cursed “Religion. Messy.”
Ghost waved his hand and this time a video began to play on the large screen.
The five headed khara, the handful of her kind reached the apex of her existence and announced her presence to all. And the broken and shattered solar system watched as a tetra headed octopus rose above a large deep blue planet and screamed out in victory under a strange blue sun’s light.
The narrator continued “Her planetary size ensured her dominance. And mortals and sentients rejoiced under the watch of their benevolent master. But she was a simple creature. She didn’t understand the concept of maleficence. Even before her story began, long before she had passed her fiftieth year her mother had communed with the spirit of the world she lived on. Through the planets guidance she had found a way to sustain their kind on primordial forces of the world.
The warders watched as the picture zoomed in on one of the octopus heads. It focussed onto the pulsing blue veins running through the planet and seeping into the octopus’s skin.
“Is that…” Sheetal began to ask.
Ghost nodded “Anathema.”
The narrator continued “To her it was just another normal day. Another day she had woken up from a deep slumber after digesting her meal. However, this time when the great mother lifted her tentacles and asked the world’s spirit for permission to drink from her viens, nothing happened. She was a patient creature, she waited. And after days asked again. And again. But she didn’t hear anything. She a simple creature didn’t know what to do. The world spirit was always there and had been there forever. It was the planet. In her moment of confusion, she almost missed her home planet exploding under her. Panicking, she dug in her tentacles and held the core of the planet in place.”
In front of the warder’s eyes formed an awestriking image of the planet almost exploding and then being held back by clusters of tentacles. Followed by a cry of loss from the great octopus.
“She, the great mother, the queen of endless waters didn’t understand what had happened. So she called out to the only being she could call an equal. She raised her head and asked the furious blue giant to explain. But the sun was gone too. Its energies were being sucked out towards something in the distance.”
Across the crumbling world five bulbous heads arose over the dissipating oceans of a large watery planet and looked at empty space. Tentacles moved frantically, to hold the planet together.
“The great mother tightened her hold on the planet and strained. She had to keep the planet together. She had to keep her clutch safe. For hundreds of years, she held on like that. Through the strength of her vast body, her planet domineering will and her mind, magically altering reality, she held on. Hundreds of year turned into thousands.”
In front of the warders the planet lost its colour. Then the rocks grow cold and iced over. The fires died out. Then the waters iced over. And began to fly off into space.
“The great mother tried everything, she consumed the rock to make her body heavier, she drank the magma to funnel heat through her body and she ate the core to keep the oceans in place. She held on and wept when her beautiful children turned to stone. She cried when the waters broke off from her skin and the last of her kin flew into the void with chunks of ice.”
The tentacles on the planet grew in length and width. Soon the planet was completely covered by overlapping tentacles.
“She didn’t know what to do, so she waited, and she began to eat. She mindlessly consumed the world. She ate and ate. She ate for so long that the surface rodents evolved inside her hollows and started referring to her as the planet. She could correct them but what was the point? Because she knew. She knew because she had never lowered her heads. Instead for uncountable years she had watched the stars go out.”
The great mother observed though her hundred eyes as one by one the stars were killed. Vicious black creatures. Anthemic parasites, sucked the star life forces and killed them cruelly. Rejoicing in the pain of the celestial entities. The great mother had grown in wisdom through her years. And now she knew. She had seen these parasites in her world too but ignored them as mindless beings. Only if she had known. Only if she had done something.”
Bugs like creatures buzzed around over her but they were too weak to even scratch her transmuted tentacles. These creatures, they didn’t have a mind. They were soulless spiders with black and red caspases. They banged their sucker-like protrusion on their bottom end into the stone like skin of the khara, until they broke their own bodies in droves.
“The great mother, she once thought she was the greatest being to swim in the blue giant’s glare. Now covered by trillions of these obnoxious beings while protecting the only few hundreds living things in her limbs, she realized the folly of her path. Long ago if she had just looked above the waters, she would have seen the danger and acted. What was the point of helping these snow rodents who didn’t even know what the stars were. With that though, for the first time in a thousand years she moved.”
Hundreds of tentacles suddenly shot out in various directions. Hitting, piercing and crushing every carapace creature in space. The great mother brought in her tentacles close to her bodies and churned the space next to her until it was covered with broken bodies and golden light. Then five kraken mouths appeared in the dark to suck in the debris and the golden light.
“When the great mother drank in this golden energy, she understood what these creatures were consuming. When she was young the spirit of her world had educated her on most forms of her energies. This was the energy she was supposed to stay away from. It was raw potentiality. Unlike when she was young when she consumed potentiality it didn’t burn. It empowered the mother. This energy was hers. It was what she was made from and created with every breath.”
The five headed octopus looked around with shining eyes and then coiled four of her heads around the weakest one and shot into another group of bunched enemies.
“The great mother wasn’t going to restrain herself anymore. Her compliance to her purpose of protecting had resulted in the death of her children, her friends, and her world. She decided to leave her dead world and only worry about one thing, her new peupose, revenge.”
Space shifted and the great mother grew. She flew through the void of space. Battling hordes of enemies and drinking their potentiality when she could. Other times she consumed remnants of planets and suns.
“The great mother, didn’t know why she had to feed constantly. She just knew that whenever she stopped, she fell into a starved daze. This is why, one day when she was following a ball of potentiality. She saw it unexpectedly veer off and get sucked into a dark place. She followed it and fought against the gravity trying to separate them. She screamed out in defiance and flew into the black hole. She did not for how long, she battled it but one day she finally killed it and consumed it.”
“Are you kidding me? Sheetal asked in disbelief.
Ash who was chewing on a bag of snacks took a sip of his drink and shushed Sheetal “Shh… Car chase scene.”
A horrific being. A being made out of pure darkness with tentacles protruding out of it at all angles chased a whizzing ball of darkness through an empty universe. The black hole flew through wandering monsters and sucked in all the insectoid creatures vaporising them. The former octopus drank up every wisp of the stream of light and grew.
“The great mother was a simple creature, she did not know what she had done or what she was doing. She didn’t understand the fact that she was consuming the universes first and last potentiality and all she knew was hunger and the fact that she wanted more. So, she lost herself in hunger once again and rejoiced when the first black hole smashed into another. And celebrated when it happened again and again. Until even the universe sized black hole couldn’t satiate her.”
In the dark dying universe, the largest and last cosmic storm lit up in form of thousands of tentacles. Large white kraken teeth hovered around seven large holes. And all the while this cosmic being screamed in hunger and anger. And brought her teeth down on the cosmic anomalies.
“The great mother was still a primeval creature back then. She did not have control over her emotions. She felt rage at losing her children. She felt anger at losing everything. And sadness at all the life around her disappearing. And hunger, all-consuming, ever-present hunger. But in all her travels she hadn’t forgotten her prey. Whatever was directing these simple-minded creatures to suck the potentiality out of everything. And it was going to pay.”
Scene changed and the universe sized khara moved in a blur.
“She flew through the void trying to find something to eat when she found a few golden wisps being carried away at something. It was a lure to catch a prey, but the great mother wasn’t prey. She was revenge incarnated. She attacked. Her attack was without warning and vicious.”
Tentacles made out of darkness hit a leech like being sucking in pure light. The leech looked stunned and before it could react its eyes had been gouged out. It opened its mouth to scream, and the octopus dug its tentacles into the opening. The great mother heaved the creature towards herself.
“If she would have been on a higher plane of existence, she would have been afraid. Then again, what did she have to live for. Maddened by revenge and hunger she attacked mercilessly not understanding that the creature in front of her was on a higher energy scale than her. Luckily the overconfident creature hadn’t taken precautions to defend itself.”
The black hole hidden in the tentacles pulsed and screamed. A ripple went through the space breaking down everything to its molecular origins and flew at and into the great mother. Parts of the large insectoid creature’s carapace followed the dust. The leech looked at the amalgamation of organic and stellar being in shock. It was so stunned that it didn’t move or stop sucking potentiality for a few seconds.
The great mother took those seconds to wrap the creature in her million miles long tentacles to prevent its escape and squeezed. The creature, no, a being bucked and tried to free itself. It tried to shift in and out of reality. But to the creature’s dismay the great mother had transformed after eating the remnants of the universe. She bent the reality back and continued to fight.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“In their fight, a moment came when both the devourer and the great mother understood the fact that their fight couldn’t last much longer. And they both prepared to end their struggles with one blow.”
The leech opened its mouth and light blossomed deep inside it. It shot out golden light that burnt and separated the great mother’s tentacles. The great mother in response angled her black holed at the light and shot out a pulse. A pulse that settled over the galaxy sized creature. The creature stopped it’s struggles for a crucial moment. In a swift move, the great mother swallowed the creature whole.
The insectoid creature trapped inside the black hole suddenly popped. The next moment potentiality worth an entire universe flooded into the kraken’s body. It burned her skin and vaporised it. It shattered planets and reformed them. It quenched the black holes and turned them into supernovas and finally it lit up her insides into a vortex of conflicting energies that slowly began to settle.
Ghost paused the video and looked at the two warders. Ash was sitting on the floor drinking cola and chewing on popcorn. Sheetal was looking wide eyed at the khara in front of her.
“Recognise the power?” Ghost asked.
“Did she bond reality before she consumed everything?” Sheetal asked.
“Yes. And became the first cosmic mage of her kind. A cosmic mage who was a bonder. Just like you.” Ghost smiled and looked at the boy “Kid, you are up next. Put the popcorn down and focus.”
“Where did you get the popcorn from anyway?” Sheetal asked.
Ash pointed a buttery long finger to the side with a filled cheek. Sheetal read the sign above the console.
Spirit Snacks.
Type – Snacks infused with spirituality for your soul.
Category – 1
Price – Free.
“Soul food?” Sheetal asked when Ghost popped a kernel in his mouth.
“In more ways than one.” Ghost grinned and motioned “Go get some.”
“No thanks.”
Ash swallowed and dusted his hand “Okay, you can unpause Ghost.”
“Resume. The correct word is resume.” Sheetal muttered.
“Oye. Floaty. Shut up and let me enjoy the movie.”
Ghost pointed at the screen and the video resumed.
The narrator continued as a galaxy of lights revolved around a scar in the fabric of the universe.
“No one knows how long the great mother rested there. Not because the great mother couldn’t count. She had long past gained complex thoughts. It was because this dark space no longer had a concept of time. She floated in that space and cried. For the first time in hundreds of thousands year she didn’t feel rage, ginger, or the hunger. In that timeless place she could finally find peace to think. She thought about everything she had gone through. All the things she had lost, all the hardships she had gone through and all the pain she had suffered in. And decided at that time to change her purpose again. She didn’t want any sentient being to go through the pain and loss she had suffered.”
The great mother transformed herself. Instead of black holes surrounded by tentacles, the being that arose was a vibrant cloud of cosmic energies churning peacefully. The energies spread itself outwards and stopped at a spot.
The narrator clarified “There she found it. A crack in reality that the creature now known as a greater phage had caused.”
The great mother studied the crack with her nebula eyes and finally understood these creatures. She now reality beyond the molecular level and above the cosmic level. She understood these beings. They were parasites introduced into the universe to kill everything and collect their potentiality.”
The cosmic storm flew into the crack. Every brush of her countless lights sealed grew the crack and every touch of dense matter healed it. The cosmic cloud disappeared and appeared in the inky black, and blue plane Ash floated to. She took in a deep breath and a vortex of anathemic matter flew into her lungs. She bellowed at the crack and it sealed behind her.
“No one knows how long she wandered in the anathemic lands. No one know how she conquered it. But let’s bow our heads and praise the day the great mother decided to follow the soulless and hunt them. Because that day, we found her and she found something she was missing for a long time, life.”
The cosmic storm darkened and reappeared on top of crack on an asteroid field.
“That day she realised she was not alone in her fight against anathema. That day she found us. Little creatures fighting against swarms of phages with kinetic projectiles and needle like rocks”
Spaceships and bunkers drilled into large asteroids fired massive beams to cut down a swarm of phages. Missiles followed the beams and exploded into nuclear explosions.
“Watching us mortals struggle, the great mother was surprised that we simple minded creatures didn’t consume the storm of potentiality left behind by the phages. She was so surprised that she reached out and swatted out at the vile creatures trying to consume the potentiality left behind and offered it to us. She underestimated her size and the tentacle she formed accidentally killed three or four million phages in one blow.”
That sudden act of aggression from a previously unknown creature stopped the space war suddenly. The phages could sense the creature, its massive presence and fled. The creatures hunkered down in the asteroid belt weren’t so sensitive or mobile.
One of the admirals, a green skinned man with a wooden sword and a chest plate made out of bark panicked. He didn’t know what he was dealing with and barked out an order. Suddenly two nuclear weapons launched out of the biggest bunker and headed towards the cosmic storm. The storm formed a dark blue tentacle from the energies within it. The tentacle curiously reached out and touched the missiles. They exploded in two plooms of nuclear energy.
In response, the cosmic storm turned from a fluorescent blue and then flashed red and pink in quick succession. The people on the spaceship held their breath until the storm turned back into its blue shade. But nobody did anything because in that moment when the storm had turned red, every creature in the armada had understood the vastness of the being in front of them. It wasn’t the size of a moon, planet, or a solar system. It was the size of hundreds of galaxies that was magically floating over their heads without exerting any gravitational pressure or pinging on their radars. And they had just fired at the creature.
“The beings on the spaceships and the asteroids might have been fearful but the great mother or the system as we call her now is a benevolent being. She later equated the feeling to being touched and was wondering if the usual form of greeting between the little creatures was tickling. And how exactly was she going to achieve that?”
Ash laughed.
Sheetal shook her head “Okay I give up. Just the gravitational forces from a galaxy would tear that fleet apart.”
“She. It’s a kid’s movie.” Ash chuckled and whined together.
Ghost snorted “Ash is right Sheetal. It is a media made for children.”
Sheetal stormed to the side and began pouring cola into a cup.
Ghost pointed at the screen and time progressed in the movie. Humans, bee-like creatures, aquatic creatures and sentient animals of all sizes approached the great mother one by one. They tried to speak to her. But the great mother did not understand the concept of language. They flashed lights at her but all she could do was replicate the lights. Then a few humans brought in a ten-foot-long tablet pc. One of them showed her how to use it and then waited.
The images on the slab interested her but the humming coming from it interested her more. She touched the field lightly and understood. She was light. And in an instant, she processed all the information inside it. She looked at outwards at the fleet and the light seen and hidden passing in between the ships and tapped into it.
“The great mother did not know that she had just hacked the human network and set off alarms by downloading millennia worth of knowledge in an instant. She was just thankful to the creatures in front of her for finding such a novel answer to the problem.”
Instead, she spoke “I am the storm of a fallen universe. I am here to repel what is anathema to us.”
“As she processed the information she had collected, she learnt that this was a fleet of ships belonging to a space alliance. Everyone, of these vessels contained the last of their kind. They had failed to contain the phage threat, and their scientist believed that the death of their universe was near.”
The great mother contemplated the situation while listening to the male diplomat assigned to speak to her.
He asked her “Ah… Cosmic storm, ma’am. Excuse, me. What are you?”
She really didn’t know the answer to that question herself, but she had to respond “I am the light. I have a purpose. It is protection. I will protect all you little ones.”
The human in front of her gulped and asked in a shaky voice “Does that mean you are a god?”
The celestial being looked at the tiny creature and asked “What is a god?” and then promptly tried to search for the term.
“No little one. I don’t wish for your devotion. You may keep those energies to yourself. I will just use them to do what I do. Protect life.”
Hundreds of years flew by. The great mother directed the little creatures to fights they could win and eliminated the bigger threats that came to challenge life. Then finally, one day she revealed her young. Small gentle looking pale creatures that she called khara.
She manifested in the council of representatives of the silver city and addressed the trillions of living creatures in front of her. She told them about her peaceful life with her recently born children, and the sudden death of everything around her. She recalled how she had killed what the Zeiry, the hermaphrodite bees classified as a class eight giant phage leech.
A council member rose to her feet shakily and asked “Goddess, could you do it again? Free our universe from the phage threat?”
She thought for a second and answered “No. This universe is too far gone. I can destroy the phages and consume what is left of it. It will do nothing but stall the threat from the other side. But saving your worlds, your stars, your black holes and the dark and light matter binding everything together is impossible. The infestation of phages is too major to save it.”
A six appendaged lizard creature, a Naga, stood up on its tail and asked “My lady, they say you have a universe inside you. Could you take us there and keep us safe?”
The narrator came back and explained “The thought hadn’t crossed the goddess mind until then. The last creatures she had protected had died due to her callousness and she regretted that now. With a thought she collapsed her reality and lit a spark.”
Something deep inside the goddess’s silhouette flashed a bright light and ripples flew outwards from the explosion and the great mother smiled.
“Now I can young one.”
The Naga gasped “How?”
The light replied “I just left your universe for a place where time doesn’t exist and created a universe for you to live in Krakush.”
The goddess sounded happy. She was happy. An unexpected development had brought her joy. When she had created the universe, she had given birth to a being. A being composed of the first light of the universe. The being was limited in sentience but insisted on fighting the creatures from the edge.”
Krakush bowed his head. A gesture of deep respect for the nagas and asked “My lady have you picked a name for yourself. I feel the need to address you formally.”
“Name? I have not.”
The naga smiled toothily and in a light hiss asked “How about Frazhaphazi. It roughly translates from our tongue to a divine being necessary for life.”
A human male dressed in gold stepped up. Unlike Karahush, the naga diplomat this was a human warrior. He ignored the naga and asked “How about necessity?”
She thought for a moment and answered “I prefer light. But you may call me whatever you want but be respectful.”
It was a happy time for the mother. When she took in the first creature and settled them inside her. The second miraculous thing happened. A snake formed around the edges of her universe. It began to chase its tail with its numerous heads. Necessity played with it and asked if it could understand her.
The snake replied “Yes, I can. I know you are my mother. But we’ll talk later mom. Right now I have to catch my tail.”
In happiness the great mother followed it with her eyes and asked “Don’t you want a name?”
The snake scoffed “I already have one. It is the sound the universe made to announce my presence. Vritra!”
Necessity looked at her newest child in disappointment. She tried to explain “That is the sound of energies collecting to make a universal being.
“Perplexed, at her new children’s strange behaviour the great mother returned to observe the migration of the creatures inside her. She learned about the many things these small sentient creatures did. How they lived. How they cared for each other. And how they fought. Watching them, observing their simple ways and simpler thoughts the first khara realised something, these were doomed if she did not do something.
Time passed once more, and the great mother appeared over the silver city. She was afraid that the people would scatter in fear, but they rejoiced and started a festival. Soon a council of sentient creatures gathered to listen to the mother.
The goddess floated over the city in space and announced “Listen, I will help you connect all these devices through space and time. I will help you learn how to use potentiality. I will help you grow your soul, and I will even allow you to communicate with each other but no bad language. That is just rude.”
“The simple creatures didn’t know what to say. They didn’t realise that the mother was continuing a conversation that the mother had been having with their progenitors.”
“Okay, stop. Stop. Stop.” Sheetal said with a grimace.
Ghost stopped and looked at Sheetal “You are telling me the reason we can’t curse is because the great mother doesn’t like it?”
“No, I am not telling you anything. This is story. A fairy tale for children.” Ghost said distractedly. Most of his attention was on Ash. The boy had gone still after he saw the break in the universe and was now lost with a thoughtful expression on his face.
“But…” Sheetal said sharply and then continued in a softer tone “Why can’t we curse? Srely it can’t be because the Light is a Karen.”
“I don’t know what that means Sheetal.”
“Ah!” Sheetal said in frustration and then shook Ash “Say something.”
Ash blinked and looked at Ghost “You said that the khara have warders that are eight years old. Are warders born or are they made like us?”
Ghost raised his eyebrows with an impressed look “Most warders you will meet will be born to other warders. They won’t be as powerful as you. A second-generation warder has twenty shards compared to your thirty. A fifth-generation warder has fifteen if they are lucky and ten if they are not. You are what we call a first-generation warder. You have many advantages that will make you powerful, but at the same time you have you will have to overcome a lot of stigmas.”
“Racism?” Sheetal asked.
“No.” Ghost shook his head “It’s known fact that the Light chooses “the crazies” to be its warders.”
“I am not crazy.” Sheetal and Ash said together.
“Of course you are not. You just like to nuke thing in your free time.” Ghost said to Sheetal and turned to Ash “And you boy. Just don’t.”
Ash raised his hand “One more question. I am not sure if I want to ask you this though.”
“Oh?”
“That break. After the Light observed it, the narrator said that there was no concept of time. Or something like that. Does that mean, that in that other place. In that higher plane thing. There is no time?”
Ghost leaned back and gave Ash a thoughtful look “Honestly Ash, I thought you would have decided to not slip through reality after the last time.”
Ash shrugged “You can’t give a woman a mobile phone and not expect her to play Candy Crush.”
“Hey.” Sheetal protested and added “I don’t play Candy Crush.”
“Yeah, but you are a nerd. You play Battlecraft.”
Sheetal opened her mouth and let it go “Point.”
Ghost took a moment to think about his answer “I don’t know. But I can theorise.”
Ash raised an eyebrow and asked, “You don’t know?”
“No. Ash I don’t. I am a creature of the light to created wander in her influence. No one that created to float outside it.”
“Okay, so tell me of great ripple what do you theorise?” Ash said sarcastically.
“I believe that the higher planes don’t have time. Or they have too much of it. In either case that shard was given to you so that you may fight in the higher planes on equal footing. How? I don’t know.” Ghost hesitated “And you are right. I don’t think you should tell me when you figure it out.”
Ash nodded and pointed at the video. Ghost resumed the video, and it started mid dialogue.
“Progenitors that had lived thousands of years ago. Nevertheless, this new council knelt and bowed their heads as the ground underneath them transformed to a shimmering silver.”
The great mother pointed, and a cosmos moved over the floating city. With a simple gesture, building appeared on the highest peak. Land reformed to create waterfall and magma ducts. And over everything a wide beam of light shot down burrowing a hole in the centre of the mountain.
“Here is the first beacon. Made of my essence. Guard it well until I send those who will use it to project my will.”
The narrator spoke after the great mother’s words “And with those words, the Light brought hope to the universes.”
Universe after universe flashed on the screen. Most looked normal. Galaxies spiralling in discs near each other. On the other hand, others ranged from angular to strange with triangular nebulas and arrowhead galaxies. One of the strangest ones was even made from cubes.
Sheetal dubbed that one the Minecraft world and brushed it aside.
The narrator continued “Under her blessing, while we lived in peace, a war of epic proportions was being raged. A war fought by the greatest creature the existence has ever known. The motherly goddess who destroyed phages by the thousands and broke down universes to returned them to life.”
A cloud of vibrant energies spread across a solar systems and galaxies driving away phages in droves and hunting them down.
“For all the while, we the different sentient creatures caught our breath and migrated into the goddess’s realm. She was fighting. Slowly spreading herself across the universe and killing billions of the soulless creatures every day. Universe after universe she cleansed and consumed. Not in hunger but in purpose. For in those falling realities she found what she was looking for. Individuals. The ones that couldn’t be broken. And she collected them.”
The scene warped and focussed on an asteroid covered in a shield. Thousands of pods opened and creatures from all sentient species walked out of them. Some of them picked up melee weapons, others picked up guns, and others picked up strange objects. They jumped into ships and fired at other asteroids. Phages flew out of the asteroid and started battling the people.
The video focussed on various individuals. A bear woman flying back from a blow. She lifted herself back to her feet in familiar glow and charged back at the enemy. A fox that yipped and fought with a whip. A large human shattering carapaces with a mace in a crowd of enemies.
“The first warders were born to battle. Created by shards from the mother herself they were mighty but few. To assist them, the mother shared pieces of other fallen warriors to us helping us ascend to assist in the fight.”
The scene shifted to the same bear woman holding up a hammer and charging at a tall spider. Behind her other bears trampled the ground. The spider brought a leg down upon the woman and she deflected with her hammer. It skittered leaving the spider unbalanced. In that momet the ascended behind the warder hammered into the enemy.
The fox man appeared with his ascended. They shot out whips to catch on foe after the other and tie them down. The fox warder brought his whip down in long swooshing arches cutting down the enemies with ease.
A large humanoid man cracked his neck, standing tall in front of a charging swarm. He unsheathed his sword and began to dance in between enemies. Meanwhile his ascended erupted out of hidden corners and shot volleys of streaking arrows at the swarm.
The stars moved and time flew on by centuries. The war still raged on but slowly the warders turned the tide. The simple asteroid field grew, and rocks drifted inwards. The cleansed region transformed to a familiar sight. The great mother appeared over it and this time she faced the warders. Wordlessly they all fell to one knee and bowed their head. Under them, once again the ground turned to silver. And a beam of light fell from the sky.
Reality jittered for a brief second. In that moment, two similar yet different cities Superimposed themselves a top of each other.
The narrator announced “Behold warder! The silver city. The city made of cities. The seat of all warder operations in all the Lights realities. A city not governed by kings, councils, guilds or politicians. A city governed by the Light.”
The camera flew into the city as more cities joined the first two. It’s silver ground shimmered and reflected the walls made from precious stone and adorned by brighter glittering gemstones.
“We welcome you warder to a life in service. To a purpose beyond all purposes. We welcome you follow in the Lights footsteps and carry out her will. Rise warder. Become strong. Travel the endless worlds. Help the sentients. Bathe in the mother’s light. And then come join us in the silver city. To join the real battle.”
“Was that place made of silver?” Sheetal asked in a whisper
“If Trump ever made a city… No, it would be worse.” Ash muttered back.
“So, why the heck did we watch this?” Sheetal asked Ghost.
“To see what you got from it.” Ghost responded eagerly.
“Oh, let me see. We are warders and we have to fight bugs.” Sheetal shivered.
“Yes…” Ghost began but was cut off by Ash.
“And we need to make a team of ascended to fight alongside.”
Ghost nodded and was stopped again.
“And we need to go to this city?” Sheetal grimaced.
“But that comes later. First, we need to fight and bathe in the light?”
“Will you both shut up for a second?” Ghost asked in annoyance.
The warders looked at him blankly and he explained “When I said to see what you got, I meant literally. Open your personal information and look at it.”
Sheetal’s mouthed opened in a silent, oh. Ash groaned. But they did as Ghost instructed.
Name – Sheetal
Class – 0
Type – Warder
Race – Undecided
Shards - 18-?
Type - Polar Forces, Wind, Matter, Gravity, Metal, Mental, Strength, Water, Stone, Cold, Density, Acid, Alkali. Plutonium, Polonium, Francium, Light, Order.
Class – 1
Congratulations
You have opened the merit bar.
Merit – Low
Congratulations.
You have completed the khara warder induction.
Rewards
2 warders storage slots (Shared)
5 Krecks
Smoke Shard.
Sheetal opened her mouth to ask what to do with a smoke shard when she heard Ghost growl at Ash.
“Did you just slot a shard in your head?”
Ash looked up and almost toppled over with “Woaw! Okay.”
“Answer me boy.”
“Huh? Oh. Yes. Yes, I did.”
Ghost took in a deep breath and in a restrained tones asked “What shard did you get?”
“Sense.” Ash answered while trying to get his bearing.
Ghost looked at Sheetal with a pained expression. Sheetal shrugged helplessly.
“Why?” Ghost asked in a helpless tone “Why did you use a sense shard again when I told you that you are a sensopath and don’t need to.”
Ash looked at Ghost and asked “Are my eyes red now?”
Name – Ash
Class – 0
Type – Warder
Race – Undecided
Shards - 18-30
Type – Speed* 4, Density*4, Channel*4, Sense*2, Power*2, Force*2
Class – 1
Congratulations
You have opened the merit bar.
Merit – Low
Congratulations.
You have completed the khara warder induction.
Rewards
2 warders storage slots (Shared)
5 Krecks
Sense Shard - Slotted
Ghost took a step with a clinched fist and stopped. He turned around and faced away from Ash.
“I think we should go back now. We van take a walk and all calm down” Sheetal tried to diffuse the tension by separating the squabbling men.
“We can’t.”
“Why?”
“Ghost turned around and looked at Sheetal accusingly “Didn’t I ask you not to try and bind the dreamscape? Didn’t I say that the fabric of the dreamscape is too weak for you to do that?”
“I… I did that?” Sheetal asked
“No, I destroyed it before you could.”
“Why?” Sheetal asked
“Because I don’t want to be a slave to you.” Ghost replied in anger.
“No. You want us to be the slaves.”
Ghost gave Ash a look “Did you just see the power scale you warders work on boy? Do you think I am stupid enough to try to ride a tiger?”
Ash squinted at Ghost "No, you are not crazy enough to do that." He smiled ferociously "But you are crazy enough to try and domesticate large cats."
Ghost clenched his jaw "Are you any different?
"Yes Ghost, I am. I am more of a kill the feline monsters and call myself evolution kind of guy." Ash went from snarling to grinning cutely "And don't you forget that, Ghosty."
Ghost rolled his eyes and turned back to Sheetal “Anyway, I ejected the seven and brought you here."
"But why?" Sheetal asked.
"Because I had very little time to act and if I would waited, yes you would have ensalved me but you would have enslaved Needles and JJ too. And I wanted to save them the indginity.”
Ash shook his head "Yeah save them the indignity? What are we? Rotten tomatoes?"
"Ash!" Sheetal hissed and with a plae face asked “Enslaved? How?”
“Your powers. The ones that bind” Ghost shook his head “They are akin to soul magic.”
"Soul magic?"
"Yes."
“But I don’t even believe in souls.”