Personal Log 12

Excelsian date 03/01/00

Estimated Earth date 23/02/2022

Research into the lives of sapiapods.

20:36

And so, it is time to move from the dwarves to sapiapods. A curious race. Despite my best attempts I fail to unearth Aomy’s inspiration for such a creation. Undoubtably, races of bugs exist across fiction, yet from my memory they are typically emphasised as alien and inhuman, or otherwise follow the standard fantasy trope of taking a real-world creature and anthropomorphising it.

These beings seem to fit neither category. When upright, they seem almost fully human (or, I suppose, fully dwarf given their short stature), with the notable exceptions being the mandibles, grey skin, carapace and insectile legs covering their front. While these deviations are notable, they are not any stranger than I would expect to see from mutated humans in a science-fiction or apocalypse story. In fact, off the top of my head, I could identify far more monstrously mutated humans from shows such as Professor When.

Their backs are fully straight, more bipedal than some anthropomorphised creatures such as the lizardfolk of trading card game, Sorcery Gathering. Their faces are incredibly familiar, not seeming to mimic any creature except humanity. Again, with mandibles exempted. I am, in fact, constantly surprised by how human they seem. Especially, after witnessing their second form.

Upon throwing themselves upon their fronts, their humanity is effectively hidden. All that is visible is the lumpy carapace upon their backs and the barest traces of their many small legs holding them above the ground. The change is almost as transformative as that of a lycanthrope, a feat extra impressive as their shifts in form typically require supernatural interference, while the change of the sapiapod is one hundred percent natural.

Another curiosity is their name. The prefix sapia clearly hails from the Latin “Sapiens” meaning wise, most likely inspired by the scientific name for “homo sapiens”. However, the suffix “pod”, Latin for “foot” or “feet” is also extremely relevant, owing to the wide-spread knowledge of the phylum “arthropoda”, of which beetles and centipedes, the two insects most easily identifiable in the sapiapod, are a member. One wonders if such a name is deliberate. After watching Naturum stumble blindly through Latin, I am inclined to believe it is a happy accident, but a man can dream. I suppose Latin is just like that.

I have already observed numerous cultural quirks forming amongst the sapiapods. Perhaps unsurprising is their nomadic nature. Owing to the frequency of avalanches caused by Naturum’s hunter wurms, sapiapods have learnt to gather necessary materials from a given oasis and then move on.

This is not an exclusive trait, however. While the temporary nature of any given geological feature in these caves don’t allow for permanent home construction, some sapiapods have decided to camp lightly in a given oasis and then pack up their few permanent possessions upon hearing the rumblings indicating a collapse. They will then wait in a nearby tunnel with the local fauna until a new oasis forms around them.

These particular groups of sapiapod are seen as strange by the nomadic sapiapods, who are already developing long caravans, packed with the possessions and pulled by large groups of people working together to traverse the caverns. These caravans also often meet in the tunnels and are beginning to form a shared culture. As many greet each other with tales of places travelled to, a hierarchy of respect is beginning to manifest, with the groups who’ve seen the most interesting things being offered a greater degree of respect.

The most important takeaway from these observations is that Aomy has learnt from her mistake with the dwarves (and to a lesser extent, hufolk) and has spawned her sapiapods in locations beneficial to their survival (in this instance, oases).

My favourite observation, however, are the more isolated and unique cultures forming far from this shared culture. For example, one group has intuited the powers of the foresight tortoise, and now huddle around it so they may never fall prey to rock falls or monsters. They have even ascribed religious significance to the creature, and have become staunch followers of Naturum, a rarity in this world that blames her for monsters.

I shall now more closely observe one specific caravan to gain a deeper insight into the specific lives of the sapiapods and perhaps ascertain specific information on their mental states, especially compared to the dwarves.

Dear Diary

Have you ever really really reeaaallllly wanted to talk to someone about something, but they were already there for that something, so they don’t want to listen to you yap on about said something, so you got no one to talk to?

I have! But we’ve all got these big juicy sources of knowledge in our heads for a reason, so I found a solution in them! I can record my feelings in a diary! The information on diaries is weird, and I don’t know why it specifies that you got to start an entry with Dear Diary, but who am I to question the gods? No one! I’ve had people tell me that more than once when I keep bringing up how trite some parts of the world are.

“Why are the hunter wurms so needlessly destructive?”

“Don’t question the gods, Krisish Karn.”

“Why are the names of Rizzelian Snikpopkaputiorthanks so hard to say and spell?”

“Don’t question the gods, Krisish Karn.”

“Damon’s supposed to be the leader of the gods, but what does he actually do?”

“SHUT. UP. KRISISH KARN.”

I think that one hurt them more than anything else cos they worship Damon, but they only do it cos he’s “the most important one”. If he’s actually the leader of the gods, that just makes him responsible for all their mistakes in my opinion.

Anyway, that’s you introduced to me, now I’ll introduce myself to you! The names Krisish Karn, and I’m a sapiapod woman just freshly born on this little rock we call Excelsior. Although actually we didn’t call it Excelsior. The gods did. I’m going to call it Chair World out of spite and worship the holy chair below us for shits and giggles. Why is that information even included in our heads? Why is a chair falling below us?!

Whatever. So yeah, I’m Krisish Karn from Chair World and for all I complain, life’s really been really swell. Our caravans just been passing through the tightest little cavern and everyone’s just so excited about it. Its crazy cramped, crazy dark, its like all our wildest dreams came true in an instant.

Bet we’ll end up the most respected caravan, possibly ever for this. There was a crack in the wall, right, that was sooooo thin, my finger got stuck. Held up the caravan for half an hour pulling it out but even the others admitted it was worth it. I think most were even jealous.

Only downside is it made Xanus Xarnu smug as shit. Tall bastard suggested we always take the route that goes up if possible, and for a while we just got boring shit and the other caravans flat out took the piss out of us, but it was worth it cos we all took the piss out of Xanus Xarnu. But it took us here, so I guess we can’t do that anymore.

Oh well. At least there was one moment where he fell off a wagon like he’d been hit by a stalactite, even though nothing was there. Anyway, Holy shit! Everyone’s going crazy! Apparently we’ve found something really reaalllly big! Get this. There’s light up ahead. “Like an oasis?” you might ask, but no, not like an oasis. The lights red. The only red thing in the underground is that hamster with the unbearably long name. Nothing glowing! We’ve hit something big! Ooh, I’m so excited!

21:12

Hmm. A number of revelations gleaned there. Most pertinent is I need to make myself intangible as well as invisible, lest I knock that young man off the wagon again by mistake. Fortunately, no sapiapods really questioned it, most likely as I have also made myself unobservable and uncontactable.

Other, less personal observations have also been fairly major. The instincts I installed a while back tell me that Krisish Karn will be important to the lore of Excelsior. She may even be close in importance to Clive and Morgrun, although, frankly, I do not see how. I can already see the two forging their respective paths ahead and Krisish Karn simply isn’t. Perhaps she shall change in time. We shall see.

The collective culture of the nomadic sapiapods seem not to have adopted the common naming practises included as a guideline within Aomy’s knowledge stores. Instead, they give themselves two names, one decided by their caravan, the other decided by themselves. Both typically alliterate.

As always, this trend is not universal, and there is something mildly amusing about finding a strange fantasy creature called simply, “John”, but regardless, it interests me. Are there more sapiapods within the nomadic culture which have similar anti-god sentiment to Krisish Karn? Or has their psychology been subconsciously influenced by Aomy?

I note that dwarves typically have more fantastical, rougher sounding names. Is this because this is what Aomy thinks dwarf naming conventions should be like and thus she accidentally created them to choose such names? Or has their influence in harsh conditions shaped what names they desire to choose? Perhaps in time I shall use my omniscience to learn the answer. I believe that future races introduced to Excelsior may prove one of my theories, so in the meantime, I shall continue investigating manually.

Now, as suspected by Krisish Karn, I believe this caravan has stumbled across something unusual, as to my knowledge they are right in assuming nothing glows red in the underground. I shall return to observing these sapiapods, now fully incorporeal.

Dear Diary

Okay, so Fucking, Xanus HUGE TRAUMA I don’t know how to start WHAT ABOVE THE CHAIR WAS THAT SHIT?!?!?!?! Yeah, that seems appropriate. We were right about finding something big. But the implications… Fuck.

Our caravan moved towards the red light, and we saw a crack in the walls of the tunnel leading out into chair knew what at the time. It was so thin we all had to dismount and squeeze through one at a time.

I was one of the last to go and already I’d heard shouts from the other side of the wall. Shouts of fear? Excitement? I couldn’t tell. I forced myself through the slit and in one moment I was within the tight comfort of the wall and the next I was in hell.

Gone was the reassuring tightness of the caverns. Gone too were the soft glows of torches and glowstone, and the reassuring cool light of the oases was nowhere to be found. Everything was vast. And bright. And red.

My caravan was huddled together, terrified, shrieking about a storm. I scanned the knowledge in my head for the definition of this strange word and found that we were definitely in a storm. But not any type of storm the gods deigned to warn us about.

What I learnt were clouds were a dark, dark red, bordering on black. From them came yellow rain that splashed against the rocks harmlessly but stung our skin and not 5 seconds went by before a blisteringly bright red flash of light filled our vision, constantly blinding us.

Most our troupe had flung themselves onto their fronts and hid, shells to the sky whimpering, but the rest of us saw it. A strange terrifying beauty. The impossible size of the mountain towering behind us, the great open emptiness that contained an alien sky and a seemingly infinite row of mountains like ours. It absolutely was terrifying. And I was scared. But, despite that, the scene was still stunning.

Then again, Xanus Xarnu looked as captivated as me, so it can’t be that great. He actually had the guts to run forward towards the edge of the plateau we stood on, but before he could make it to the edge and look out, a shockingly red bolt of lightning arced out the sky and struck him on the chest.

The light blinded us, and once we could see again, we were pretty much collectively snapped out our stormgazing. There was nothing but ash were Xanus Xarnu stood. Not even his shell remained, which I’ve yet to see anything damage.

Somebody, I don’t know who, ran towards him with a cry and immediately after crossing whatever threshold Xanus Xarnu had passed, the lightning once more smashed into him, leaving nothing but an even bigger pile of ash. Barely seconds passed before the howling winds blew their remains into the valley, leaving nothing left.

Needless to say, I was pretty shocked. Ha, shocked. Not as shocked as Xanus Xarnu, am I right? I heard the sound of people desperately scrambling into the cave, but I just continued staring at the spot those sapiapods once stood. Until I heard a collective gasp behind me. I turned, and standing there was Xanus Xarnu, completely undamaged. Next to him, the other guy was swiftly reforming from the ash.

Somehow the storm had reformed them. And while the others had their emotional reunion, I began to test shit, while ignoring their joyous cries. Chucking rocks around I found out that once the storm senses movement in a perimeter around the cave entrance it blasts it. Then, the blasted object returns back to its original position pre movement, in the state it was pre movement.

We all went back to the caravan after that. A lot of people didn’t care about my observations and told me to shut up like before. I think they’re just scared of the outside. Don’t want to think about what they’ve seen. But those of us who stared into the heart of the storm did listen. Because they knew what it meant. We’re trapped.

The caverns aren’t infinite. The gods have deigned to give us that information. One day, the caravans will run out of things to discover. I never really thought about that before. But now I know. There’s so much more to be seen, so much more to explore.

We’ve come to an agreement, mostly spearheaded by Xanus Xarnu. We’re going to find a way out, even if it means splitting our caravan. We’ll chip through the walls and find a place where the storm doesn’t endlessly rage. Fuck the gods for caging us here. We refuse to be trapped.

21:30

The hellstorm. One of Rizzleritchensteineonizziism’s more interesting contributions to the weather cycle. Designed as a test of strength, one who challenges the hellstorm must endure perpetual rains of a minor acid and avoid bolts of magically enhanced red lightning. If they reach the centre, they are granted an audience with the magic god, and he promises to grant one wish.

I do not believe the trial was intended to be this harsh. The storm was created to appear over the first area of uninhabitable land created, with the expectation being it would form over a small patch of desert where no life could live. However, due to the enthusiasm of Loma, the storm has instead formed over the majority of the mountain country, due to the fact that most mountains are too tall to support any life and the gods have not designed any life for them, as they have been understandably focused on the underground.

Thanks to the unexpected size of the storm, as well as the presence of the already tough to traverse mountains, the challenge has gone from merely difficult to something that the technologies of Earth would struggle to conquer.

This is bad news for Krisish Karn’s sapiapods. They could travel for days and not hit the edge of the storm. If they persevere it is of course possible to leave at the point where the mountains become smaller and more manageable, but for the time being, they are indeed trapped.

I will continue to follow them for a while, but I doubt I’ll stick around much longer. I will most likely be called to one of Damon’s meetings of the gods. Hopefully Rizzleritchensteineonizziism will be demonstrating magic and I do not wish to miss that. Besides, I doubt much will happen regarding Krisish Karn today.

Dear Diary

I was gonna start writing by saying something ominous like “Something strange just happened” or “Troubling news” but that shits for the rest of the caravan. Something strange did happen, and I guess its troubling, but I FUCKING CALLED IT! The gods are shit!

I shouldn’t gloat. But I will. Extensively. The caravan is finally giving me the respect I deserve, and you bet I’m abusing it. “But how did this happen?” I hear you ask. Well, I don’t. You’re a book. But it’s a good segue, okay?

We spent several hours chipping away at the rocks, much to the annoyance of the cowardly half of the caravan, but the storm seems to stretch genuinely endlessly. I was getting pretty depressed, when we all saw it. A strange new shape at the end of the tunnel.

It was roughly sapiapod shaped and kinda floaty, similar to those slime geists some caravan told us about, but unlike them it didn’t glow, and it seemed to be made of some kinda wood. Clutched in its hands were several books and carved into its chest were several shelves just lined in books.

It placed a tome at the end of a corridor before charging towards us. Like expected a huge old wurm came and gobbled it up before it could reach us, but the book it left behind remained where it was. Naturally, a lot of us were curious, so we headed over.

Jangrit Josan opened it first, despite my best efforts to claim it. Good thing too, he opened one page, read a bit, went bug-eyed and passed out. He did wake up later, albeit a little crazy. Hopefully he gets over that.

Now the others were cautious, but I wanted to know what was in that gods damned book, so I snuck a read in anyway. First few pages where some crazy eldritch truths mortals could never comprehend, so I just didn’t try and comprehend them, so they didn’t affect me much. Next few pages had some juicy tidbits stored away in them. Eldritch truths I could comprehend all too well.

Details on the gods incompetence, for instance. And my word, was their so much more than I could have ever expected. That storm, the wurms, Damon’s existence, all of it nothing in the grand scheme of their infinitely flawed world.

Although I suppose grand scheme gives them too much credit. The book even alleges they regularly commit acts of deliberate cruelty. The monsters made by Naturum. The evil dwarves made by Aomy which had to be purged of the underground. And the intended torture device of the hellstorm made by Rich. No doubt what we are trapped under.

Granted, the books not all good. It says to build a better world we have to burn the old one down, which is pretty extreme. I live in the old world, thank you very much, so I ripped that page out before showing it to the others.

Testing it on Xanus Xarnu first, I confirmed the others could read the truths without conking out and going cuckoo, and with the knowledge it was safe to do so, I shared the knowledge to my caravan. This seemed to convince them the gods are barmy, and now I think I’m leading them?

I got weirdly charismatic. Made a big speech about how I was gonna triumph over the gods, and damn their intentions, we’d seek out the lands of wide-open terror and piercing brightness that the gods think they can just bar us from.

And now, somehow that’s what we’re doing. Plus spreading the word to our fellow caravans so we can all work together to triumph over the gods. With me at the head! In all my hours of existence I could never have dreamed of such an occurrence.

Probably won’t need to write much in you anymore. And I’m probably gonna be too busy to. So, for now, I guess this is goodbye, Diary? See you around! (Mostly in whatever bookshelf I can persuade the others to give me.)

11:43

Worrying. Information presented as truths, which are in reality lies, and genuine facts twisted to rouse others to action. In other words, my domain corrupted to serve the whims of another. Eldritch truths indeed. Cursed knowledge.

If the others ask me of this, they will not be happy. I ponder my duty to tell them myself, but I promised myself to focus on data collection and not interfere. World building should be the responsibility of those with a better track record. I would rather like to not ruin another world.

The summons to the meeting have been blaring for a while but I did not notice I was so caught up in my obsessions. I hope I have not delayed my arrival long enough to miss out on the group activities we planned to do. That would be a great shame indeed.