010

Jeh’s Books

(Special #1)

Jeh found herself strolling through Vaughan’s library looking for books it would be fun to share with Ashen. She already had Races and Attributes of Ikyu under her arm, but felt like she might need some backups in case Ashen got bored or indignant. How to Read probably wouldn’t go over well—but there were other books Jeh knew of that were good fun. Major World Myths was a good one. She considered briefly swiping Vaughan’s star chart to show off, but he’d likely notice and care if that went missing.

Two books should be enough.

With the texts in her arms, she skipped out of the cabin, waving Blue goodbye. Blue waved back, but involuntarily shivered as a chill breeze passed through.

“Invest in warmer clothes!” Jeh called.

“I am not a filly!” Blue whinnied, followed by a coy smile. “Clothes come out with the snow, not a moment before.”

“Suuuure…”

Jeh continued on her trip, skipping into the forest. She took the usual path, but was not afraid to rummage around and explore little bits of the forest if they were interesting. In time, though, she forged the river and arrived at Ashen’s tree.

She didn’t look much different, though the crystal tendrils she was using to hold up her tree had gained a few more supports.

“Hi Ashen!” Jeh called, sitting down on her rock and unceremoniously dropping the very expensive books on the dirt ground. “Look what I’ve got!”

“Hmm…” Ashen paused for a moment, considering the titles before her. “Major World Myths. That… I’m curious.”

Jeh flipped open the book. Ashen purposefully used Jeh’s eyes to read the page, and they effectively went along together, reading all about the Myths collected by Edwin Huffman, a connoisseur of cultures the world over who had devoted his life to writing down stories from afar. His notes were sometimes helpful, sometimes not.

But the myths themselves…

~~~

Creation Myths

It is naturally best to start at the beginning. Unfortunately the prevalence of creation myths makes it rather difficult to determine what the beginning actually is. There is truth within these stories, I know it, but I do not pretend to know what that truth is.

My selection here was very intentional—I chose only the creation myths that didn’t fit into the standard pattern; that of a pantheon of very person-like gods creating the world and then fighting over it much like we have. Many of these such myths can be traced back to Crystalline Ones awakening or historical people with embellished stories. Furthermore, these smaller cultures are dying out, becoming replaced with the more dominant belief systems.

Each of the four stories here has something within that most creation myths do not.

If you wish to read about the creation myths of smaller cultures, I have an entire book dedicated to the subject: the Combined Creation Compendium. It is not as user-friendly as this volume, which is meant to encompass myths and tales to let the reader know of the world they inhabit. Ikyu is such a fascinating place and we cannot afford to ignore these ideas.

The Aware Creation Myth

The Aware, followers of Dia, have the most developed and widely accepted creation myth in their holy scriptures. There are little to no variations in the way it is told. What follows is more or less a direct excerpt from the Testament of Choice.

All that was before is renewed, and all by Dia’s hand. Before all that was, Dia is. And in our beginning, She had seven children. For these children, She created the world, giving it solid form and time. She then created the heavens, with the sun, moon, and stars.

The Seven children were given the first of Dia’s blessings, and the greatest: the command to go forth and create. They did as commanded, shaping the world to their desires, whims, and imaginations.

The Great Orange One took charge in this early era, finding that the rocks and seas bent to her will. She made beautiful mountains and ravines, filling the world with many grand structures. Her domain was that of form itself, and the given world was exactly what she wanted. Her pride swelled.

The Great Purple One acted with much less bravado; content to adjust the ways the light of the stars came to the world. Already her fondness for secrets and mysteries came forth, for she hid many enigmatic messages and objects in many different locations. She grew distant from the others, acting largely on her own thenceforth.

The Great Red One was not to be outdone by the large and clever creations of her sisters, so she brought fire. Volcanoes surged from the earth and charred lands were formed. Through her acts, she proved that destruction could be used to create. Glassed beaches and metallic lands come from her direct passionate influence.

The Great Green One did not always agree with the Great Red One’s destruction, and used her gift to restore much of what was destroyed. However, when she rebuilt, she improved. Since her domain was less related to creation, she relied on taking objects from other locations and adding them to the restored locations to improve them. Her resourcefulness exceeded that of all her sisters. Naturally, The Great Red One objected to her interference several times, creating a known divide between them.

The Great Magenta One found that she had a special place among the sisters, that of combination and connection. She weaved the spirits of her siblings to meld their creations together, creating even more impressive things. Rarely could she get her Red and Green siblings to cooperate, but every now and then brilliant bursts of eternally rejuvenating flame were created. The Great Magenta One worked as an artist with Colored paints. Permanence was of little concern to her—the combined works could last for eons or seconds.

Prior to the Great Magenta One investing in combination creations, the Great Blue One had been content to travel the world without creating anything herself, reveling in that which the others and Dia had made. She loved finding new things, but left little behind herself. However, if there was one thing that annoyed the Great Blue One, it was the time it took to do things. Thus, the first thing she did was work with Magenta and Orange to devise a method of even faster movement.

The Great Yellow One, at this time, seemed to have no domain. Her essence connected her to Dia and to her sisters, but nothing else so far as she could tell.

Dia came to the world from time to time to walk with her children, talking about what they had created and where they were going. Sometimes she would give them advice, and other times warnings: the Great Blue One’s cooperative creation had several unintended consequences no one else had thought of. The Great Crystalline Ones feared retribution at first. Dia told them otherwise. “Do not fear—this world is for your education, not your judgment.”

At other times, however, Dia would show them entirely new concepts. The biggest of these was life itself.

“Behold, my daughters, that which perpetuates itself with no input from you. I am sure there is much you can do with these tools.”

The Great Green One took the greatest liking to life, especially plants; but she also had a deep appreciation for cats. With assistance from the others, she was able to create thousands of new lifeforms, many of which were different variations of cats.

The others set out to see what they could do with life as well. Plants, animals, and funguses spread across the world, taking every shape and size. It was soon discovered that creating lifeforms as they thought of them led to ecosystem collapses, so they learned to be careful, to understand the dangers of creating that which can act on its own.

However, nothing could be infused with the power of the Seven without their constant attention. The Great Red One tried many times to create proper dragons, but found such a creature could not exist in an isolated situation. The others had similar experiences and learned to make do with the limitations of the world they’d been given.

The Great Yellow One, however, found her contributions lacking. She had no domain, no particular part of the world that was hers. She only offered ideas and added her power to group projects. Her influence greatly increased the effectiveness, for she was able to tie together even highly disparate colors such as Red and Green.

But even so, as time dragged on, the Great Yellow One wondered what her purpose was. So, one day, she asked Dia directly.

“All of the others have a domain, Mother. I do not. What is mine?”

“My child, your domain is the most important, but also the most dangerous. It is that of the spirit itself.”

“So my purpose is to connect the others together. Very well, Mother, I shall endeavor to fulfill it.”

“Not entirely. That is your purpose currently. But now, it will change.” Dia then revealed to her the idea of humanity. “These people also have spirits.”

“An animal can be like us…”

“It is not right to think of them as animals. Those who are spirited are something else entirely. They are your domain, my daughter. Your burden is heavier than the others, for these spirited are to be your people. Watch over them, guide them, and do not neglect them or the choices they make.”

“I will, Mother. Thank you for this, most spectacular of gifts.”

The Great Yellow One took Dia’s humans back to the world, showing them to the others. Immediately all of the others, including the Great Purple One, took an immediate interest. They began to make more spirited races from the humans, basing them off the other life that existed, creating an immense variety. It was also discovered that the spirited could use the power of the Seven, were it given to them.

The idea of spirited people was Dia’s last gift to the world. Her appearances to her children became less and less frequent, for the most part leaving the world in their hands.

However, this did not mean the Seven were done learning. Far from it.

The Seeker Creation Myth

The Seekers are a very diverse group that have many different myths and beliefs depending on what sect is being discussed. However, they ultimately share a few core beliefs, and as such they tend to agree on the general idea of creation. Since they lack the cohesive structure the Aware do, there are no official religious texts to take the story from. What follows is a synthesis of several creation myths spread across the Seekers.

The Essence of All Colors was, but was not to remain. The pure mixture of all sought change, and so divided Herself.

Then the Seven Colors knew eternity, and they knew each other. They were all that is and all that ever could be. However, their existence was conflict, for all Seven Colors sought different realities, realities that the others could not stand.

Red seeks a land of fire, power, and excitement.

Orange seeks a land of structure, monuments, and achievement.

Yellow seeks a land of peace, communication, and efficiency.

Green seeks a land of restoration, nature, and cats.

Blue seeks a land of internal satisfaction; unusual, opposed to the other Seven.

Purple seeks a land of mysteries, secrets, and intrigue.

Magenta seeks a land of understanding, experimentation, and beauty.

Each of these ideals could not overpower the others, but none of the Colors could stand to exist in the eternal stalemate. So the world was forged at the point where they all intersected, serving as a battleground by which a victor could finally be decided, be it through military conquest or cultural victory.

Each Color manifested in the world as a Great Crystalline One, and set to work building up their forces. Many battles were fought that tore and ripped at the landscape, creating many mountains, ravines, and unstable biomes.

The world was born in conflict.

Notably, the Seeker creation myth is much shorter than the Aware one, though this could be because it is a much simpler idea. There are Seven Colors that are fighting a spiritual and ideological war, and it is that war which defines the world.

However, it is also shorter because, beyond these basic details, the various Seeker sects do not agree. Even two different sects of the Red Seekers disagree on if the Great Red One was winning in their Era of War, or if she was near the bottom. There are many grand stories of battles and campaigns, but none can be verified.

It is also worth noting that Seekers disagree on the nature of the war. Few actually believe it should be fought like a normal war, and fixate more on pushing their ideals, trying to make them more universal.

The Gonal Creation Myth

Gonal is the third most prevalent religion on Ikyu, but it has much fewer adherents than the Aware or Seekers do. However, unlike Seekers, they have holy texts and specific doctrines. As such, their creation myth is a bit more in-depth.

Idea begets form, and the simplest idea is that of numbers. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven.

One is too simple. It cannot communicate, for it is alone. It cannot act, for there is nothing it can use. It cannot see and it cannot be seen.

Two is also too simple. While with two one could twist, dance, and spin, two still cannot be seen. Two may be able to act, but only involuntarily, and likely not at all.

Three, however, is not too simple. Three can create a triangle. And triangles can spread off to the endless edges of reality. But they can do more, so much more: craft pyramids, diamonds, and millions of other shapes. The strength of a triangle is unparalleled. It should be of no surprise that three becomes Dia in the ultimate sense, the grand goddess of love, purity, understanding, choice, truth, the color light blue, and of course triangles.

Four comes to the square, and the square to the cube, and the cube can just as the triangle and square spread out to all space. Four is the number of stability, of rigid structure, and of matter. The goddess of four is Cora, master of magic, the spirited, creativity, neutrality, thought, colorlessness, and of course squares. All Colored crystals flow from her very being; giving the spirited races the power of the goddesses.

Five cannot span the world in a sheet, but five can form solid objects with its pentagons. Pentagons are strange shapes that don’t behave well with others, so it is fitting that its goddess is largely a mystery. She has not seen it pertinent to reveal her name to us, so she is known as the Nameless. She is associated with mysteries, luck, compassion, the color pink, and of course pentagons.

Six is the most complex number that still has power. The almighty hexagon, unable to form solids, but perfect for spanning the space. Bees know the power of the hexagon, as do many other races. The goddess of six goes by many names, but her true title is Eyda. She is associated with darkness, destruction, power, corruption, the color yellow, and of course hexagons. The complexity of six led to a being of dark whims and violent tendencies. Eyda is not the source for all evil in the world, rather only most of it.

Seven and higher are too complex to be goddesses. They are not pure enough.

The four goddesses lived in the heavens among each other.

In her wisdom, Cora created a world and the Great Crystalline Ones, each serving as her fingers in shaping existence. Water, earth, and air were brought together to form the seas, land, and skies. Finding all three empty, she populated them with plants, animals, and funguses of all sorts.

Dia came to the world Cora had created and asked to add things herself. She brought to life humans, kissed with the gift of divinity. Cora took the humans and made many, many more from them, giving so much to the world. In those days, magic flowed freely, and the sky danced with impossibility.

Eyda, however, despised this world once she learned of it. All these happy creatures that adored all they were given. They needed to be shown what she felt inside—pain, anger, and horror. She collected herself and went into the world, tearing it to shreds with her very being.

Cora rushed to defend her world, but Eyda bested her, rising to the top. However, Dia took the opportunity to create a new world to protect all their creations, one where the aura of divinity did not lace the very sky. This world.

Eyda could not attack the new world directly given its separation from divinity, but this did not stop her from invading. She declared it her enemy and took great glee in bringing suffering to it. Dia, in her wisdom, determined that Eyda’s limited influence was acceptable.

The Gonal have many more detailed myths, naturally, and the Nameless appears in many of them. When I asked a Gonal if the Nameless had any role in creation, he just shrugged.

The Ch’eni’tho Creation Myth

This is a relatively unknown creation myth story, but it is quite different from most of the other less-common belief systems. The Ch’eni’tho are a people to the far East composed mostly of rigids. Their culture as a whole largely doesn’t concern itself with religious practice or observance, but they have a rich mythology all the same that is quite unlike anything I’ve found elsewhere.

One cannot grasp themselves ending. Therefore, one must not end. One must be eternal. The spirit lives on.

One cannot grasp the world ending. No destruction is absolute. Crystals reform. Mountains crumble into dust that becomes more mountains. Rain continues to fall. The dead return to the earth from which more life arises.

The world has always been and always will be.

Query: does eternity have a beginning?

Answer: paradoxical. The world is an endless loop, cycling ever onward, events leading into each other. All follows the flow. What is dead will return. What will live has already died. In this sense, reality has no beginning.

However, it is also known that every event has a cause that, without, the event cannot exist. A loop has no beginning, but every event must have come from somewhere. The world is too complex and nuanced to simply be self-existing. There must have been some driving force. So, in this sense, there is a beginning.

But the “beginning” of our world is not a “beginning” as we understand it. We, foolish beings that we are, assume time is natural.

Query: so time is not natural then?

Answer: time is not natural at all. Each moment in time is actually a physical slice of a non-changing, solid whole. Reality can be thought of as a large donut. Nothing ever actually changes, we are just able to “see” through the slices via the concept of time.

This clears up the annoying problem of the “beginning” quite easily. Time does not exist. Outside the world, there is a Timeless Realm from which it sprung. It is this realm where our spirits come from and go to. In fact, due to time not existing, our spirits are always there. What we experience as our spirit down here is but a fractional part of that which lies outside.

Thus, for some reason or other, we have been placed within this realm of “time” from without.

Query: what is the reason?

Answer: what purpose could a realm with time serve for a realm without time? Why, the potential for change. In a Timeless Realm, there is no change. But that which exists within can be brought from realms that experience change, as evidenced by our spirits. Whatever we are here for, it is to experience change.

The world was created for the purpose of change. Thus we experience, we develop, we progress. The world may be cyclic, but our lives have a beginning and an end. The change that overcomes us in our lives is the very reason for existence itself.

Or, put more simply, we are the purpose. We shall live how we wish to be in eternity.

~~~

“I wonder,” Ashen said. “Which of those is the right one?”

Jeh looked up from the book. “Eh?”

“They can’t all be true, they’re fundamentally contradictory. One says Dia created the Great Crystalline Ones, another says Cora did. Two don’t mention Dia at all. One doesn’t even claim there was a definite beginning to everything!”

“Oh. Hadn’t thought about it like that.” Jeh sat back. “I suppose it would have to be one or none of them. I always assumed the Aware—ugh that’s a dumb name I can see why we never use it—had it right since that’s what everyone around me assumed. And it kinda just felt right?” Jeh shrugged. “Maybe I was just remembering from before, I dunno.”

“You’re too laid back about this,” Ashen said. “Which one of these is true changes everything about the meaning of our lives. Am I really a manifestation of the Red, meant to face off against the other Colors in a spiritual war? Are my experiences all that are needed? Am I supposed to be learning for the Great Read One?”

Jeh blinked. “You’re thinking too big, I think.”

“I’m right though.”

Jeh scratched her head. “I mean, yes, I guess you’re right that it matters? But panicking about it can’t help you.”

“Hmm…”

“Plus, I suppose it’s possible none of them are true.” Jeh chuckled, but slowly a frown came across her face. “…I don’t like that thought.”

“Does that make it untrue?”

“I don’t know.” Jeh shrugged again. “I think I’ll ask about it later. Books can’t really be questioned and neither of us really know what we’re talking about.”

“I can recite the Red Seeker doctrine without even thinking.”

“Ah, but which sect is it?” Jeh held up the book. “The notes mention several.”

“I… have no idea.”

“See? Clueless, we two be.”

“Good point. Let me know what you find out.”

“Will do. But until then…” Jeh glanced at the other two books. “Which one next?”

“The Races one.”

“Okay, here goes…”

~~~

Selections from Races and Attributes of Ikyu

Humans

Humans are, by far, the most prevalent and successful race on Ikyu. Some may find this shocking because humans are essentially the simplest of the races. Mammals with two legs, two arms, hair on their heads, and other features essentially considered ‘the normal baseline.’ Furthermore, they have no attributes to speak of, only able to use magic in its crystalline form. Humans are usually colored with dull peaches and browns, but there do exist a minority of individuals with brightly colored hair, unusual eyes, or dramatic skin tones. This is largely considered Dia’s gift to humanity: they are the simplest, so they get the most internal variety.

Compared to the average animal in the animal kingdom, humans are amazing. Their stamina recharge is extreme and their coordination is unparalleled, not to mention the wide range of vocalizations they can make to produce language.

Unfortunately for humans, these traits that make them superior to most animals don’t go very far when compared to other spirited.

Humans are largely free from most stereotypes, since they are often viewed as “neutral” across most cultures. However, when humans are considered deeply, they do have a few traits that make them stand out. The first is their stubborn determination, and the other is their pride. Humans tend to be self-oriented or family-oriented.

It is often considered odd that they are able to be the most prevalent race. They are physically weak in comparison to many of the others, intellectually inferior to others still, and do not have a fast reproductive cycle. And yet, they are everywhere, and remain so. Theories as to why this is abound, but most think it has something to do with humans being the first spirited people and, as such, they had the most time to spread out.

Cats

Often cited as the second-most-prevalent spirited on Ikyu, this technically isn’t true, for there are actually several species of cat, and this doesn’t include the non-spirited varieties (though the non-spirited are significantly less common on Ikyu, largely due to intentional hunting).

Given the sheer number of cat species and their spread across the world, it is somewhat hard to navigate them or give any specific observations that apply to all of them. Each individual species has its own section on the following pages, but that doesn’t give a full overview of what a cat means when they say they are a cat. It’s also somewhat difficult for a non-cat to tell the difference between the various species, sometimes.

As a whole, though, all cats are furry quadruped mammals with big eyes and ears. A curiosity seems baked into every single one of them, driving them to look to the unknown. Wandering cats are not unusual at all. All cats have a very subtle night-vision attribute that allows them to see in anything but complete darkness, but they rarely need to rely on this since their eyes are so good to begin with. Some have never used it and, as such, don’t know how to.

Beyond this, it is hard to get into specifics without looking at the individual species. And considering how all the species call themselves cat in Karli, there is no official naming convention for the various species. So in the following list, I shall attempt to be descriptive in the titles.

Common Cat: seen everywhere, fur usually takes muted tones, has a lot of varied appearances. Appears identical to non-sapient cats sometimes kept as pets in distant lands. Micro Cat: Like Common Cat, but is small enough to fit into teacups. Maned Cat: a large, predatory, maned creature of usually dark coloration. Shadow Cat: always perfectly black except for the eyes, these cats have an attribute that allows them to flatten into shadows. Moss Cat: Like Common Cat, but grows soft moss instead of fur. Bounce Kitten: A round creature that is essentially just a cat head. Bounces around a lot. Razor Cat: a cat with an attribute to coat parts of itself in metal and…

Garilend (gari)

Since cats have so many different species, the second-most common race on Ikyu is actually the garilend, or gari, as they usually shorten it. Physically, gari are somewhat tall humanoid animals. Unlike humans, they lack noses (and with it a sense of smell), have no color in their sunburn-prone chalk-white skin, and have plastic.

Plastic, such an unusual material seemingly unique to plasts and related lifeforms. Every gari needs plastic, and as such, they prefer dining on plasts. It is possible for a gari to grow plastic from a standard human diet, but the process is much more taxing and exhausting on their bodies.

The plastic takes the form of armor-like coverings on gari forearms and lower legs, making gauntlets and greaves, respectively. Their hair is also made out of plastic, which can be heat-treated to make stupefying shapes. The vast majority of gari plastic is vibrantly colored with a single hue. Dual-hued gari are rare mutations, as are gray ones.

The color of a gari has no bearing on anything about them aside from visual appearance.

Gari are an attribute-less race, though they do seem to have slightly higher magic talent than humans on average. They rely more on their natural plastic armor and athletic build. Gari are naturally angular and quick with thin muscles.

Often, the gari race is considered a bit melodramatic. This is not without basis in fact: gari really are more prone to strong emotion than most races. Most gari cultures actually put emotions on a high pedestal—though what form this takes varies extremely from culture to culture. They’re also high-energy entities, which often makes them seem excitable.

Nekos

Nekos are visually human, except for the cat ears, tail, and thin pupils. Legends speak of a very, very large number of human-derivative races like the nekos, beings which were human with a few features added. The vast majority of these races no longer exist, likely having died out. The rest are rare and found only in pockets of Ikyu.

Then there are the nekos which are everywhere and very successful.

The joke is that they stole the success of the humans and the cats and put them into one package. This joke has turned into a rather unfair assumption that nekos are thieves, accomplishing feats only by underhanded means. As such, the history of humans, cats, and nekos has generally been very unpleasant, and the nekos are usually the ones who lose out.

Places where nekos are successful tend to lack humans, cats, or both.

Despite what many rather silly legends suggest, nekos are not an unholy halfbreed of cat and human—such a thing is impossible. Nekos themselves are incompatible with humans and cats and all other races. In fact, there are no races that can breed across species lines. The fact that this has to be specifically written is absurd and very telling of the level of education in Kroan these days.

Nekos have the same night-vision attribute as cats. Recent research suggests they also have another, subtle, but automatic attribute. No one knows exactly what it is for certain, but in highly precise magical work, the presence of a neko causes oddities in the readings, indicating an active minor attribute.

Some think this attribute is their supposedly legendary luck. Annoyingly, it is hard to determine if this is true or not.

Slimes

Most creatures on Ikyu can be categorized as animal, plant, fungus, plast, rigid, or (rarely) a combination.

The category of “other” is filled exclusively with spirited beings that rely on magic to live.

Slimes are the most common of these. They take the form of brightly colored blobs of acidic gel in a rubbery membrane. They have a large amount of control over their body, able to twist the membrane to virtually any shape they want so long as it doesn’t cause their innards to burst.

Slimes have no eyes, mouth, or any sensory organ. As such, they have to rely on their very sensitive membrane. Touch is their primary sense, and they can feel everything to a scale much smaller than most others. They “hear” by feeling vibrations in the air with amazing precision. They have no sight, but that “hearing” sense of theirs is beyond excellent. They can pick out people talking from half a kilometer away.

Such a shame that all this is bundled up with perhaps the lowest intelligence of any spirited race. There’s no hiding from it: slimes are stupid. This is one of the reasons they’re sometimes confused with wild creatures; most can’t talk or show signs of their spirited nature. Few are the slimes who realize they can use their membrane to talk, since slime language involves direct contact with another slime and a shared vibration.

As far as I know, slimes have no maximum size, they can keep growing forever so long as they are provided food. They are capable of eating basically everything by enveloping it and dissolving it, though not everything provides them nutrients. Size is no measure of maturity, though, as the slimes are capable of reproduction when the size of a human fist. They reproduce amazingly quickly.

Cutting a slime in half does not duplicate the slime. One of the halves will be the slime, the other will become a mindless creature that eats whatever it can. This is the other reason slimes are often confused with wild creatures. Slimes in the know can divide themselves on purpose and leave simple commands in their discarded pieces.

When jammed by Magenta, slimes survive for a few hours at most before wasting away into a lifeless bag. However, they are still capable of using their membrane (and talking) in this state. A similar thing happens to parts of the slime that get too far from the main slime: they will eventually start to decay and wilt.

So, what are the slime’s attributes?

First of all, there’s the attribute that allows them to survive. It is unknown precisely why slimes need magic or else they wither, but perhaps life that is not one of the normal classifications is inherently unstable and needs an attribute to support it.

Then there’s the secondary attribute, which varies wildly from individual slime to individual slime, akin to the variety between the various kinds of elementals. Except each kind of elemental is its own species, while there is only one species of slime. There are red slimes that burn with fire (or sometimes magma, or blood of all things). This secondary attribute always fixates on a single “concept” and bestows magic related to it to the slime. Generally, this isn’t very impressive: fire slimes are just on fire and can’t really do much about it, water slimes are constantly dripping, air slimes have a breeze blowing by them at all times, etc. But there are rarer versions of this attribute with some more interesting effects. Unfortunately, this has led to slime breeding programs that seek to produce the rarer attributes. This has actually been somewhat successful, if disturbing. A curious note: if a slime’s secondary attribute is related to a Color, such as fire for Red, they have a much easier time learning how to use that kind of magic.

Slimes rarely have places in societies. They are instead largely content with wandering wildernesses, eating what they find, and socializing with other slimes. Personality-wise, most slimes are aloof and easily distracted, unless you offer them food. They love food, especially food that tastes good. What their tastes are depends on the slime and could be anything from fine buttery seafood to chunks of sandstone.

I have it on good authority that there are both male and female slimes. I know of no way to discern this aside from asking them.

Xolotls

Xolotls are small amphibious quadrupeds that like to live in wet caves. Most are pink, but other colors occur as well. They are well known for the whiskers on their face that help them navigate in darkness or low-light settings. Since they live in caves, their eyes are not very good.

Their main mark on history is they are responsible for the language of Karli, due to a series of coincidences that led to one of their kingdoms existing underground with a dozen smaller kingdoms with different races above them. Everyone learned to talk to the xolotls that lived beneath their feet and found that the other neighbors knew how to do it as well. Thus, Karli became the language of communication. Every country* without a clear dominant population of one race over all others has Karli as their official language, Kroan included.

*Footnote of… the story which this note is being read in. That has to be confusing. Regardless, the author of Races and Attributes of Ikyu is making a rather foolhardy assumption here. That he knows of all the nations on Ikyu. Not only does he not, he’s never even been to every continent and everybody knows the maps aren’t fully complete.

The xolotl attribute is an odd one. They can, at will, make any part of their body extremely sticky. This allows them to hold tools, stay in place in the midst of earthquakes, or to stick to the face of humans they don’t like.

Xolotls are generally a quiet people who don’t take many risks.

Lesser unicorns

Lesser unicorns are a quadruped race about the size of a pony. Call them a pony at your own risk. Unlike mundane horses and the like, lesser unicorns have large forward-facing eyes and a horn on their heads. This horn fuels their dual attribute: light and telekinesis. The light function of the horn is a bit unfortunate: it provides light but it also shines right into the unicorn’s eyes. The telekinesis is much more helpful, allowing them impressive motor control. Practiced unicorns can manage dozens of objects at once.

Lesser unicorns come in virtually every color, but they have a tendency to be more brightly colored than greater unicorns. Lesser unicorns are also often considered cute by humanoid races, due to their large eyes and smooth features.

Riding a lesser unicorn is possible and can even be comfortable, but most unicorn cultures consider it a right only to be given to the most trusted of friends. Lesser unicorns are generally known to be friendly, hospitable, and empathetic. They tend to have greater skill at magic than most races.

They’re also herbivorous, though in their case eating meat is possible, just not preferred.

Due to their high stamina and carrying capacity, unicorns are often used as messengers, and in nations where there aren’t very many unicorns; such messengers are highly sought after.

Relations between lesser and greater unicorns are best described as “complicated.”

Greater unicorns

Greater unicorns share much of the same characteristics as lesser unicorns. Four legs, horn, magic attributes for light and telekinesis. However, greater unicorns are the size of a full-grown horse, have eyes on the sides of their head like a traditional horse, and have a horn that is naturally sharper than any lesser unicorn’s.

This sharpened horn leads to perhaps the most distinctive difference between greater unicorns and their cousins: the violent disposition. Lesser unicorns are generally harmless and helpful. Greater unicorns have a history of forming warrior cultures and stabbing people with those horns of theirs. Do not be taken in by their regal appearance: encountering a lone greater unicorn in the wilderness is likely a death sentence.

The greater unicorns that live among other races and cultures tend to not have as much of a violent nature, so there is no need to fear the greater unicorn neighbor who lives across the street.

Naturally, greater and lesser unicorns, having completely different dispositions, rarely form societies together. They generally need other races present to force them into similar living conditions. While there are an infinite variety of encounters on record, most seem to end with the lesser unicorn being afraid and the greater unicorn being insulted.

Historically, greater unicorns have been the most successful race at magical breakthroughs aside from humans, who just have the advantage of numbers.

Color-wise, greater unicorns tend to take more muted colors, but the variety of tones found in lesser unicorns are still available.

Call greater unicorns a horse at your own risk. Their responses tend to be more violent than those of lesser unicorns.

Qorvids

Qorvids are large birds that are essentially just upscaled ravens. Qorvids are always black, and have very little visible variation between the genders, much less individuals of the species.

As birds, qorvids have hollow bones and immaculate feathers. The hollow bones makes them much easier to injure, so qorvids are rarely seen in intense, dangerous labor. Most often they live as wanderers that fly, looking for anything that interests them. Somewhere deep within their spirit is an instinct to go to shiny objects and collect them. Qorvids often end up as hoarders due to this.

The only qorvid attribute is that of flight, as all larger flying spirited have. Despite their amazing wingspan it is not enough to achieve flight unaided, so the attribute provides the necessary lift to overcome it.

Dryads

Dryads are a plant race that has three stages in their life cycle: bud, humanoid, and tree.

The bud is simply a “baby” state: they exist as little flowery heads growing out of the ground. When they open their eyes they are ready to come out of the ground and walk around. In their humanoid stage, they appear as short creatures made out of large leaves. The leaves bundle around the head, forming a sort of “hair.” They also form around the waist, forming a large skirt of leaves—and this is true even for the males.

The shape of a dryad’s leaves has considerable variation, but they are always long, and they are always mostly green (with potentially some other colors in the veins). Dryad eyes are massive and filled almost entirely with the pupil, giving them the impression of black eyes. Despite this, they actually can’t see much better than an average human.

Once a dryad has reached a certain age, somewhere around four decades, they will mature into their tree form (unless they are not in a suitable location to lay down roots, in which case they have a few weeks to lay roots down or they become a “free leaf”). Once they develop into the tree, their motion is limited: it is still possible for them to move and take actions, but it goes at a much slower rate. If a dryad is not killed, it is believed they can live in this state for a thousand years.

The dryad’s attribute is simple, but very impressive: plants will grow as the dryad instructs them to. Experienced dryads have turned this into their own kind of magic, carrying seeds on them to be used on the spot in complex situations. However, the full extent of dryad magic is largely unknown, since the majority of dryads prefer seclusion from the busy life of the other races.

The secondary attribute is just as curious: if enough tree-dryads are in one location, they are able to tie their roots together and form what is called a Glen. Glens are able to communicate with other Glens through a sort of collective telepathy that is poorly understood—because tree-drayds never talk about their experiences.

Humanoid-dryads and “free leaves” do talk about their experiences, however, but they can never have been part of a Glen since they never reached the required maturity. Humanoid-drayds are rarely seen outside of Glens—the trees think of them as children and rear them up to join the Glen.

Rarely, very rarely, a dryad will become a “free leaf” and not be able to become a tree. They retain their humanoid form and continue growing a small amount, but lose their ability to ever put down roots in the process. Their lifespan goes down considerably—but chances are if you ever see a dryad it will be a “free leaf” dryad.

Anglers

Anglers are a race of fish that live in the deep oceans. They have never been able to talk to a surface-dweller directly since they cannot survive the nature of the air or even shallow waters. However, through the use of bottles with messages inside, weights, and lifts, communication has been established off the coast of Kroan. The Anglers speak of a fantastical, impressive world deep beneath the waves with floating cities and burning trenches. One I will never see, since only specialized divers are given clearance to attempt to go there, and there are unpleasant creatures in the sea that seek to interrupt such journeys from the surface to the depths.

So, unfortunately, all the information on Anglers we have is secondhand. We don’t even have a corpse to examine—they did try to send one up to us a few times. It was eaten.

From the diagrams we have received and the reports they’ve sent up, we know they are about the size of a sheep and consist almost entirely of terrifying, fanged mouths. Their skin is entirely black and their eyes are immense. Their fins are surprisingly adaptable and can be extended and retracted into their body, with enough control of motion to function similarly to hands. (The tail cannot be retracted).

Most curious of all is the lure organ they have dangling out of their forehead. This organ is similar to the unicorn’s horn in that it focuses a light-based attribute, but it is much better than the unicorn’s horn since it can display complex patterns of light. The lure is used both for attracting prey in the deep sea and communication with the other anglers.

They have their own Academy at the bottom of the ocean where they perform magical experiments in oppressive darkness, and occasionally tell us what they found. We do much the same. Though, it is worth noting that they contacted us first. They found many of our sunken artifacts over a century ago and learned of us from that.

Shroomers

Shroomers are the most common fungal race. They have three legs, three arms, and heads that look like toadstools (though it need not be red). They have tiny beady eyes under the “cap” and their mouths are on the bottoms of their feet.

They have a mild regeneration attribute that allows them to re-attach portions that have been cut off with ease. It’s no replacement for a proper application of Green.

Generally, shroomers are slow to think and slow to act. They prefer gradual change, and are capable of thinking about the big picture in a way most other races cannot. This may have something to do with the fact that they often eat carrion and decaying things. Since most other races find this uncomfortable, Shroomers in societies with others tend to avoid eating rotting things and stick to fresh, even though there’s no real difference to them.

J’loons

J’loons are balloon creatures with eight tentacles and a lot of eyes situated on their head. They are perpetually floating creatures, and this is not actually the work of an attribute, though how they do it is not understood. To them, the air is like water (up until a certain altitude), and they can swim through it freely. Despite being able to go to absurd elevations, they prefer to stick close to the ground where there are more things to interact with.

J’loons are actually fungal creatures, like shroomers. Unlike shroomers, J’loons are hunters that go after prey that doesn’t really know to look up for danger. Tribes of J’loons constantly move around to new hunting grounds so the animals never get any wiser about it.

Despite being predators, J’loons are known to be deep thinkers and philosophers. There are legends of a grand floating philosopher city atop the world’s tallest mountain inhabited almost entirely by J’loons.

Unfortunately, J’loons do not have a very large carrying capacity. It’s difficult for one to pick up a human child.

They do have an attribute, albeit a minor one. It allows them to see things outside the normal colors we do, though this is of limited use.

Dragons

Dragons are often thought of as creatures of legend with immense wisdom and power for their age. However, this only applies to the dragons that live long enough to get that big. In reality, dragons are about as varied in disposition as humans are, it’s just that their physical nature forces dragons to get wise or die.

Dragons start out as an egg that can fit in a human hand. These eggs take on colors and patterns based on where they are laid—snow eggs take on pale colors, while an egg laid near a volcano will become red and black with sharp patterns. This is actually an attribute: dragons that lived around the Magenta Crystalline One “Enigma” laid white, patternless eggs that produced gray dragons without a breath attribute.

Once hatched, dragons appear as tiny versions of their adult selves: four legs, two wings, a tail, and a head with two horns. The frills around the horns and jawline vary enough to serve as decent facial recognition. The most distinctive part of a dragon, though, is its scales: always metallic, but it can take several colors. Not bright colors, though: even red dragons are a duller red than what a gari would call red.

Baby dragons are the size of their egg. But dragons never stop growing. They grow at a constant rate until they die. They usually die violent deaths since they are creatures designed for predatory lifestyles and need a lot of sustenance. However, for those who live, at about three-thousand years old they become so big that their bodies collapse under their own weight.

Early in a dragon’s life, they only have one active attribute: the breath. Every dragon’s breath is different, depending entirely on the situations in which it was hatched. Red dragons breathe fire, light-blue have snowy breaths, etcetera. They are small enough at first to fly without attribute assistance, but this does not last very long. Since their bones are not hollow like birds, they quickly become too heavy and start developing an immensely powerful flight attribute that allows them to fly even when they reach huge sizes.

However, dragons that live to about two-thousand five-hundred years eventually get too big even for their attribute, becoming grounded, having to use the attribute to keep themselves from collapsing under their own weight. Eventually, even that is overcome.

Dragon reproductive cycles are actually decently quick, they can have one egg a year if they plan it right. But the race is so long-lived and has such a low reproductive drive that this rarely occurs. They take mates like every other gendered race and have children, it’s just that they don’t care as much about it.

Culturally, dragons are strange. Their need for sustenance and their ability to fly made it so they were the early explorers of Ikyu, covering large areas in short times. They actually had some culture of their own, creating dragon nesting sites where eggs were known to produce a certain kind of offspring, and thus they came into contact with many others of their kind. However, they are not driven together, so these societies are quite loose. Dragons mostly live in the wilds, hunting, occasionally talking to a passerby—most dragons learn to speak when they are young.

Dragons in society with other races are rare. Most often, young ones no larger than a horse are what you see, since they don’t destroy roads with their presence. (Though, a ‘young’ dragon could be anything below two hundred years.) As they get larger, though, they tend to disconnect with society and leave, unless they are part of a dragon-riding program. These are extremely rare, though. To have ridden a dragon is to be among the elite, or the lucky.

Or perhaps unlucky, if it was one of those unpleasant dragons.

In the end, dragons shape history, their great age allowing them a perspective on the world most of us lack.

Also they are absolutely excellent sources of information. I consulted several of the ancient ones when writing this book.

Kancathi

I know very little about the Kancathi unfortunately, as I have only ever seen the corpse of one, and they are not known to be an open people. Physiologically, they are large plasts with wings, two feet, and a somewhat dragon-like head with five eyes. Their feet are like suction cups and they have several pores on the back of their neck they can use to store things on their person.

Attribute-wise, they have some very impressive ones: their call and their tremors. When they call, they can manipulate the sound that comes out in many ways, able to resonate with enemies and break glass if trained enough. They are not able to speak with it, however, for reasons not understood. The tremors are activated through the suction-cup-feet, which are able to impart vibrations to the ground. This is almost exclusively used for intimidation.

They have a lesser attribute that allows them to produce colored lights on their bellies, which is how they communicate with each other.

Kancathi are encountered worldwide, but never more than one at a time. Yet, evidence suggests that they are all part of a single uniform culture that places great emphasis on physical prowess and cleverness. As such, they are usually encountered in battle.

Not much else is known.

Elementals

The physical body of an elemental is an icosahedron that a human could easily hold between the thumb and index finger. In their inert form, every elemental looks identical, despite being very different species in the end. The one thing every elemental shares with all the others is their physical form.

And for the most part, elementals are anything but physical form. They are, rather, composed almost entirely of magical phenomena. For instance, the great fire elementals exist as whirling torrents of burning flame surrounding the physical form. Thunder elementals are brilliant sparks of energy shooting out in every direction. Water elementals summon water to themselves and float around as a giant orb. Ice elementals cool the very air around them to form massive ice shards.

The list goes on. Each elemental type is its own species with the usual trappings of a race. Elementals are genderless, and as such are traditionally referred to as feminine.

Elementals are quite rare, and the reason is simple. They die immediately if their magic is jammed. They are magic; living, true magic, and any interference spells their doom. As such, despite being fully capable of doing so with extreme skill, virtually no elemental will ever touch a Colored crystal. The few that do still won’t go near Magenta. For us, the red of blood is associated with death. For them, it is Magenta.

Elementals will basically never be found anywhere with enough magic knowledge to have widespread arcane devices. The few that do live around such places have learned to be very careful—or have perished in the process.

I do not wish to paint the elementals as weak beings. Far from it, were it not for their dependency on magic, they would be among the strongest races on Ikyu. Fire elementals can burn forests, plant elementals can grow entire forests, and light elementals can outshine the sun hundreds of times over.

Elemental culture is largely unknown, since there are so few of them around. The average person holds them in an almost legendary light.

It would be unfair to try to single out specific attributes of Elementals, for each variety essentially is nothing more than several attributes tied together to a spirit. Many have drawn the comparison that they are on the completely opposite side of the scale from humans. Almost as far alien as a race could be.

Almost.

Crystalline Ones

The information gathered about Crystalline Ones could fill entire libraries and has been discussed at extreme length already. I shall try to be brief, but it may be difficult to do so.

When a Colored crystal reaches a certain size (at least that of a grown human) it has a chance of Awakening and becoming a Crystalline One. The larger the crystal, the more likely it is going to Awaken. A good tell-tale sign that an Awakening is about to occur is the Colored crystal releasing small, spontaneous spells without a wizard nearby. The presence of people appears to have some influence on the speed of Awakening, but little experimentation has been done on the subject given the often violent nature of Awakenings.

Crystalline Ones are born with a fully functioning mind that absorbs experiences from all nearby minds the instant it is formed. They lose this ability shortly thereafter, which is fortunate because otherwise, no one’s secrets would ever be safe from a Crystalline One.

The body of a Crystalline One is made entirely out of Colored crystals, making them unique among all races. In fact, they are generally the exception to every rule!

Crystalline Ones are one of the few genderless races (and so are traditionally referred to in the feminine, as usual). And they are the only race that does not reproduce. Every Crystalline One comes into existence from growing crystals—the concept of family only exists in their minds if they get it from the surroundings at Awakening.

Crystalline Ones cannot use magic—unless it is of their own Color. Other Colors are alien to them. However, they are able to twist their Color to extents far beyond what any normal wizard can do, performing feats that boggle the mind. They appear to get “inspiration” randomly on how to do impressive things, and fully admit that the procedures for casting the spells they get inspired with are unimaginably complicated. Sometimes, they even seem to break the rules of magic, but this could just be them using a concept modern wizardry is not aware of.

Crystalline Ones lack natural senses—for the first few moments after Awakening, they even lack a sense of physical location, sometimes being confused that the crystal thing they see in the memories of others is them. They lack motor control as well, but most eventually figure out that they can just cast magic to shuffle parts of themselves around. They are able to determine through the motion of themselves and their surfaces what is around them, giving them a sort of “touch” sense.

Other senses are a bit more difficult for them if there aren’t people nearby they can see out of. For a Crystalline one to “hear” they have to increase their “touch” sense to include vibrations in the air around them. Their “sight” is actually incapable of looking upon the physical world, for when they try to look with their own forms, they see magic itself instead; the flow of all seven Colors moving through every part of the world. Their “magic sense” is quite attuned, and much more developed than the minor attributes in other races.

Their most curious trait is the ability to see through the senses of others. At any moment, if there is a spirited entity of a different species near them (which, for big Crystalline Ones, could be miles away), the Crystalline One can choose to see what they see, taking in their sensations. The Crystalline One can also choose to send telepathic messages along this connection, should they desire, and it is the only way most Crystalline Ones communicate.

Crystalline Ones cannot be jammed. Magenta wizards have been known to confuse Crystalline Ones with their tricks, but ultimately a Crystalline One is always able to draw on its own power.

It is hard to get a single picture of what Crystalline Ones are like because they are so inherently varied and powerful. Many are worshipped as gods or created by the Seekers to be gods. Others still have developed in isolation in deep mines or forests, becoming ancient observers of the history of Ikyu.

They can, however, be killed. Shatter a Crystalline One until all the pieces are small enough, and it will die. Re-assembling the pieces will create a new Crystalline One with a new Awakening that will sometimes get “inspiration” in the form of memories of the previous Crystalline One popping up randomly.

Naturally, to be a Crystalline One in Kroan you need a lot of paperwork and documentation, and those found without it are destroyed. The few that do live here are generally forest-spirit types or are doing their best to keep a low profile. I got most of my information from the former category.

No matter what you believe, the Crystalline Ones are clearly different from the rest of us, and in a fundamental way that seems likely related to the ultimate questions about life itself. The only problem is the Crystalline Ones themselves don’t have the answer either. Or, if they do, it’s spread across numerous “inspiration” fragments.

~~~

“Do you get these inspirations?”

Ashen thought for a moment. “Once, when I was still on the mountain, I was given the idea of how to do something I had… nowhere near enough power for. I don’t understand it, but if I could do it, the destruction would be… unimaginable.”

Jeh blinked. “I wonder what that would feel like…”

“Endless burning, then nothing.”

Jeh shivered. “Reverse…”

Ashen flashed a few times. “Jeh? Are you…?”

Jeh stretched out her arms in a big yawn. “Oh… guess I’m tired.”

“Immortal, moreso than I according to that book, and yet you need sleep where I do not?”

“Yeah, well, you’re cheating with that thought-splitting thing of yours.” Jeh closed all the books and picked them up, looking at the setting sun on the horizon. A chill wind blew through the air.

“You know,” Jeh said. “I think the days are getting shorter.”

“Winter is not far off.”

“I’ll try to keep coming in the snow, but I think I froze until I passed out most winters, waking up in the spring.”

“That sounds unpleasant.”

“It’s more annoying than anything, makes me lose track of time.”

“…You should go home, Jeh. It’s warm.”

“You’re warm!”

“I am not home, though. Sleeping here would be very awkward.”

Jeh nodded, knowing how sleeping in random parts of the forest was. “Well… g’bye then. See you next time I get out here. I’ll see what else I can bring.”

“Thank you, Jeh.”

“Oh, it’s no problem!” Jeh let out a laugh and skipped away from Ashen, leaving her alone in the forest.

Alone with her thoughts.

~~~

SCIENCE SEGMENT

Yes, you can have a science segment on this! After all, the scientific view of the creation of our world has changed a lot over the time we’ve existed as humans. How was the world created as we understand it today?

The answer: The Big Bang.

That, naturally, is a very shortened answer, but it gets the idea across. There’s a reason basically everyone is taught it: the evidence for it is overwhelming. The universe as we know it started as an explosion that eventually cooled into what exists now.

But what was before the Big Bang? Well, we don’t exactly have a consensus on that. Some say nothing, some say some kind of fluctuating quantum fabric, some say endless empty space... Some even say it wouldn’t make sense to think of a “before” since there could be no time before the Big Bang created space.

Suffice it to say, we start with what is either nothing or might as well be nothing in a moment. Then, there is an explosion of such unimaginable magnitude that matter as we know it cannot remain cohesive and all is energy.

We know very little about this time period because we have to rely entirely on guesswork to figure it out—the signals furthest back in the universe’s history that we can see are called the “Cosmic Microwave Background” and they come from a time after the initial explosion.

In time, the universe cooled off, and the energy could become matter. There should have been an equal amount of antimatter and matter, but this doesn’t seem to be in the universe today, somehow matter won out. Then the large clouds of matter coalesced into tight pockets due to gravity, over time succumbing to internal pressure and lighting up into stars.

The stars lived and died, releasing higher elements into the universe that would then be used by the next generation of stars to make planets. Around a very calm but powerful main-sequence star, a series of planets formed with a series of curious coincidences. The third planet from the star collided with another body in just the right way to create a moon that would, soon, grow to eclipse the sun perfectly and control the very oceans themselves.

And so with its moon, the third planet churned. The fifth planet used its mass to keep the Earth safe, throwing many dangerous asteroids off course. The sun warmed the third planet perfectly, and over time water came over most of the world. In these waters, a miracle occurred. The simplest life formed in the seas.

It all exploded from there. Microbes became plants and animals and everything else and over millions of years shifted along until a certain species appeared, that of humans, that learned to look up and ask why we were here in the first place so everything above would be written down.

We also strongly suspect that the universe is going to expand for eternity until it embraces the heat death, where everything has decayed into energy. This might be wrong, but the alternatives are nearly as unpleasant with Big Crunches and Big Rips. It seems inevitable that the universe must end, so it seems inevitable that we should strive against it.

And I suppose that is the core foundation of the modern scientific creation myth, isn’t it? Strive against the end.

But let’s forget all that for a moment and turn the above understanding into something that could masquerade as the story of an ancient culture?

BONUS SCENE

A Creation Myth for Science

Before all, there was peace.

Then, there was conflict. The endless nothing erupted in a burst so intense that it created the very heavens themselves. For a moment, there was only one energy, one force, one way—the Fundamental Force. But this was unstable and was forced to collapse, bringing out the raw forces of nature. The pure elements of Light, Earth, Life, and Death raged amongst the purity and peace of the past, turning the universe into a raging fire.

As matter started to form, in their eternal rage the pure Elemental Gods fought each other by forming more matter out of themselves in a great war across all reality. Antimatter became scarce as a result, and chunks of gasses flew through the rapidly cooling universe.

It was through these gasses that the Elemental Gods found peace. It took all four of them to build the great cosmic nurseries. Life and Death ensured substance and time. Light gave it the will to interact. And Earth drew it all together to a point—and the Elemental Gods had created the first star, Methuselah.

Delighted, the Elemental Gods set to creating more nurseries so more and more stars could be created, bringing children beyond number into existence. These old stars mostly burned bright and hot, quickly shaping the world around them with their fire and dissipating in violent explosions.

At first, the Elemental Gods were horrified that their children had exploded, but then they saw what was left behind. White dwarves, neutron stars, black holes, beings of strange and mysterious power. The black holes in particular were of great concern, for they pointed to the existence of the Dark Ones. However, the other remnants were more cooperative and pointed out that the explosions of their old selves had left behind new materials for crafting further experiences.

The Elemental Gods watched in fascination as the stars took over the next tier of creation, working with their many relatives of different sizes, colors, and stages of life to create more and more. In the end, the troops led by black holes won out, for the central hole would consume extra matter to keep everyone tied to his power… eventually becoming galaxies.

One successful galaxy was run by a black hole named Sagis Aster, and within it, there were many stars and nebulas for new stars. Many of these stars had begun to form little creations to do things for them, called planets, that ran around and ordered a star’s system. With time, even these planets started to create servants of their own, known as moons.

It was around one sub-average yellow star named Sol that a planet by the name of Terra was born. In a battle with the Lost Planet, one of Terra’s arms was shaved off and it became Luna, her tiny sister that sat on her shoulder and whispered mysteries into her ear. Terra and Luna were quite odd by all standards, as most moons were so small as to barely register for the planets who had them. And so Terra and Luna had their own little world. What if, they thought, they went to create even more? What could they do?

Around this time, Sagis Aster was informed by a neutron star that the universe was expanding too fast to be stable. Sagis Aster wanted to solve this issue, but also knew to put the knowledge out there would invite other galaxies to hunt them down. Andromeda was already coming.

Sagis Aster put out a call for ideas among his secretive networks, and the suggestions that came back continued to be copouts, not actual solutions. So he pushed further, and further, and eventually came across the idea of “rising complexity” happening in a backwater system called Sol.

Sol knew very little about the situation with Terra and Luna, where the little moon whispered into the planet’s ears many ideas that the planet followed up on. They were messing with chemicals in Terra’s oceans, trying to make reactions that would do things all on their own in a way the celestials could not.

Sagis Aster gave them all they needed. Computational resources, assistance, suggestions to the other planets to make things more hospitable. Terra and Luna became the most protected place in the galaxy.

And it was on the surface of Terra that life erupted, under the watchful care of her sister Luna. From this grew beasts of the sea, then beasts of the land, then beasts of the sky. And, with time, the rising complexity produced Humanity on the surface of Terra.

Now, Humanity continues the tradition.

Humanity creates more, striving for eternity.