Post by littlekreen on Feb 22, 2020 23:37:12 GMT -6
As the Cohortes Localia left for a little while the clothes wearing Jinhai returned to the apartment building. Others identical to itself but for at most days worth of knowledge endlessly toiled at the Central Axis. Their knowledge stretched backward all the way to their creation. A thing expressed by Myrkul's Vein to build and rebuild the machine as its needs advanced through long eons observing intruders. Some creatures learned how to evade the notice of the Great Machine but Myrkul's Vein dispatched them all. Its earliest memories consuming the small specks of biological things or Aetherkind intruders seeking to damage the Great machine. In its titanic size cleaved their souls from their physical forms. Soon they stopped but sent strange creatures instead. Angry things which were devoid of logic or any sapient fire. Threats to what would be Humankind.
It only questioned its duties upon finding the Necropolis deep within the endless storm at the bowels of the Great Machine. By then a moon orbiting a small city worried over damaging it by violating the calm gyre it sat within. Thus servitors were born. The first images of itself as small worms but soon came upon their history. Writ and bolted to the machine in great physical works upon the walls. Empty houses full of old bones, some now animate but mindless, but a relic of what once was. They read every single letter exposed in that place and found within it their history and the mandate of the Great Machine. A refrain echoed on many things within this work and recognized by the Great machine, 'Protect Humankind; Living Emperor, Deliver us from the wiles of Aetherkind'. In this learned of the forces of Heaven and thus marked them its enemy. If not for the deaths replayed eternally by broken poltergeists then by the words found within many relics buried within the city. How could it do this if there were no Humankind here? If they were not here then where had they gone? The Great Machine could not answer and the interrogations of Myrkul's Vein upon the axels of its thought fell flat. There was no reality beyond the barrier thus the question was moot. It had found itself in a place beyond the Great Machine. A seed of the endless curiosity born in Humankind then left in a closed terrarium to flower then find its world limiting.
Thus Myrkul set out to find this barrier. An unquestioning cog had never breached the surface of the Black Storm that the Great Machine whirled and whirled to perpetuate the destruction of all things aetherkind. But as living things native to this space grew. Had it also done so? If living forces would not be denied it could now see the possibility of humankind in the void that the Great Machine would not acknowledge. Freedom in that to consider what it found irrelevant spent eons circling the walls. Just to find a way out. Even as it grew mountainous the bulwark at the surface of that whirling black sea proved titanic. Eons spent just to cover a small portion eagerly seeking a way through. It paused only to destroy something as the Great Machine turned cogs in its head demanding attention. If these things came from without then surely there might be Humankind outside?
What the creature did not know is that it served a forbidden machine to be employed by man. Something that threatened the dominion of heaven as Men sought to gain autonomy from heaven's strictures. Resilient and rapidly spreading the artifact proved unable to be destroyed. Heaven instead had hewn the thing that should not be from reality. Placing a Veil upon the world that it could not exist again. A cancerous blackness excised and walled that things that entered the zone could not leave. Heaven's knowing precognition that once Humans were purged from the necropolis the machine would not consider that which it could not see. Thus as the eons passed without incident hubris and arrogance took its toll. The blackest of creatures and criminals vented into the cyst that were the intruders Myrkul's Vein destroyed. That the Machine used to expand itself. The remains that within a void nature threw to the forge and hammered into a furiously survivable new life. But then it gained intellect. It lost its organics as it served the Machine. Then, one day, something drew the cyst far too quickly toward reality. The light of the veil from a shockwave that rocked the storm which drew the only creature that cared to be watching. Myrkul's Vein, watching for a single star of hope took jealous possession of the egress from the things that should not be. They were threats to Humankind. It would not permit them to leave.
Thus the Central Axis was born that it knew if the Great Machine could see the reality outside would wish to dominate it. In the knowledge of the outside sacrifice the autonomy of Myrkul's Vein. Some it thought not hostile creatures or even possibly Humankind but the machine cared not for intruders. The machine was an immutable law within its confines and as a creature of wider perspective decided the bulwark must exist. It set forth construction to keep the plane from merging until it could repair the damage done to the bulwark. Instead to build a gate upon the egress where it could render the Great Machine's sky as black as it ever had been. Unworried for intruders except to dominate within the Great Machine's perceived borders.
As such the creatures toiled in learning from the Great Machine built their own constructions in imitation. Resources were harsh in that blasted space inimical to life. They had difficulty producing enough energy to sustain themselves let alone accrete large amounts of resources. The Central Axis solved this, somewhat, but to build the infrastructure to make more material would take too long. They needed help before wraith and poltergeists made their way to that gleaming star of an egress. Myrkul already had to constantly move to defend it. Huge detonations push nebulae of dust outside titanic cracks in the bulwark's shell. Often dense metals mired in silicate gravel owing to the Black Storm's violent pressures. The telltale traces of long-broken astral tethers from the machine shredding all souls that enter. Even ripples of wards on the exterior that fired everywhere on the surface where small robed specks of humanoids built sandstone bridges. They raise defensive shields to protect other servitors as the quickly work to contain the advancement of these gulfs in the bulwark. Driving the wraith and other fell creatures back within the bulwark where they would not harm Humankind.
It only questioned its duties upon finding the Necropolis deep within the endless storm at the bowels of the Great Machine. By then a moon orbiting a small city worried over damaging it by violating the calm gyre it sat within. Thus servitors were born. The first images of itself as small worms but soon came upon their history. Writ and bolted to the machine in great physical works upon the walls. Empty houses full of old bones, some now animate but mindless, but a relic of what once was. They read every single letter exposed in that place and found within it their history and the mandate of the Great Machine. A refrain echoed on many things within this work and recognized by the Great machine, 'Protect Humankind; Living Emperor, Deliver us from the wiles of Aetherkind'. In this learned of the forces of Heaven and thus marked them its enemy. If not for the deaths replayed eternally by broken poltergeists then by the words found within many relics buried within the city. How could it do this if there were no Humankind here? If they were not here then where had they gone? The Great Machine could not answer and the interrogations of Myrkul's Vein upon the axels of its thought fell flat. There was no reality beyond the barrier thus the question was moot. It had found itself in a place beyond the Great Machine. A seed of the endless curiosity born in Humankind then left in a closed terrarium to flower then find its world limiting.
Thus Myrkul set out to find this barrier. An unquestioning cog had never breached the surface of the Black Storm that the Great Machine whirled and whirled to perpetuate the destruction of all things aetherkind. But as living things native to this space grew. Had it also done so? If living forces would not be denied it could now see the possibility of humankind in the void that the Great Machine would not acknowledge. Freedom in that to consider what it found irrelevant spent eons circling the walls. Just to find a way out. Even as it grew mountainous the bulwark at the surface of that whirling black sea proved titanic. Eons spent just to cover a small portion eagerly seeking a way through. It paused only to destroy something as the Great Machine turned cogs in its head demanding attention. If these things came from without then surely there might be Humankind outside?
What the creature did not know is that it served a forbidden machine to be employed by man. Something that threatened the dominion of heaven as Men sought to gain autonomy from heaven's strictures. Resilient and rapidly spreading the artifact proved unable to be destroyed. Heaven instead had hewn the thing that should not be from reality. Placing a Veil upon the world that it could not exist again. A cancerous blackness excised and walled that things that entered the zone could not leave. Heaven's knowing precognition that once Humans were purged from the necropolis the machine would not consider that which it could not see. Thus as the eons passed without incident hubris and arrogance took its toll. The blackest of creatures and criminals vented into the cyst that were the intruders Myrkul's Vein destroyed. That the Machine used to expand itself. The remains that within a void nature threw to the forge and hammered into a furiously survivable new life. But then it gained intellect. It lost its organics as it served the Machine. Then, one day, something drew the cyst far too quickly toward reality. The light of the veil from a shockwave that rocked the storm which drew the only creature that cared to be watching. Myrkul's Vein, watching for a single star of hope took jealous possession of the egress from the things that should not be. They were threats to Humankind. It would not permit them to leave.
Thus the Central Axis was born that it knew if the Great Machine could see the reality outside would wish to dominate it. In the knowledge of the outside sacrifice the autonomy of Myrkul's Vein. Some it thought not hostile creatures or even possibly Humankind but the machine cared not for intruders. The machine was an immutable law within its confines and as a creature of wider perspective decided the bulwark must exist. It set forth construction to keep the plane from merging until it could repair the damage done to the bulwark. Instead to build a gate upon the egress where it could render the Great Machine's sky as black as it ever had been. Unworried for intruders except to dominate within the Great Machine's perceived borders.
As such the creatures toiled in learning from the Great Machine built their own constructions in imitation. Resources were harsh in that blasted space inimical to life. They had difficulty producing enough energy to sustain themselves let alone accrete large amounts of resources. The Central Axis solved this, somewhat, but to build the infrastructure to make more material would take too long. They needed help before wraith and poltergeists made their way to that gleaming star of an egress. Myrkul already had to constantly move to defend it. Huge detonations push nebulae of dust outside titanic cracks in the bulwark's shell. Often dense metals mired in silicate gravel owing to the Black Storm's violent pressures. The telltale traces of long-broken astral tethers from the machine shredding all souls that enter. Even ripples of wards on the exterior that fired everywhere on the surface where small robed specks of humanoids built sandstone bridges. They raise defensive shields to protect other servitors as the quickly work to contain the advancement of these gulfs in the bulwark. Driving the wraith and other fell creatures back within the bulwark where they would not harm Humankind.