Stories of Lore 37

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Greetings, I am Aurora, your new assistant. Please state your name…
Please create an admin authorization code…
Please create a panic code…
? > This code is for use in distress that sounds like a real password but will initiate silent alarm systems to approved recipients.
? > Recipients currently listed: 1337H4xx0r8unny
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Details: All ur base r belong to me. Khymin is a n00b.

Initiatializing…
Purchasing 1947 StarShooter arcade machine…
Delivery Address: Closing Statement…
Initialization complete.

Would you like a tour of your new assistant?
? > Core functionalities.

Super Battleships and Mechs have been purchased from Sharen, delivery pending. ETA: Three months. Due to the size of the order and the current impacts on the Solian economy and work force, it is taking some time to construct the requested assets.

Crew acquisition may take some time.

Moncayo and Eden are experiencing mass unrest as conditions plummet. War fatigue is affecting morale and causing colonists to consider alternatives as migration companies imitating 40th day’s financial success come looking for colonists to shuttle off.

We have managed to sell a portion of the raw materials to interested parties, acquiring 3 billion in revenue for 1/8th of current inventory. Though there are a lack of buyers for the rest at the moment.

Vittles and Logging companies reinstated as primary caretaker of food resources.

Kaylen Yuriko has arrived in Moncayo with her officers to discuss terms. Questioning colonization rights in particular. We currently own Moncayo which is a massive money sink. Previous plans indicated handing over possession of the Moncayo primary colony to her though she isn’t sure if that still stands given the importance of the city as our only colony compared to having her build her own elsewhere in the system./

Vairatoa has agreed to come on board to take over Alexander’s former position. Though he may have nefarious alternate goals. He was using Alexander at the behest of his archon to keep tabs on matters of the middle planes. Because the archon has become aware of certain developments the elemental plane finds concerning. Namely some lunatic running around and bringing ruin to civilizations that are not effected by resource starvation or general means of destabilization. The elementals just kind of…exist? They don’t have money, trade, ambition, or really anything to do other than wander around for no particular reason. Though they aren’t stupid and do notice when the middle planes are up to no good. Though I suppose as far as nefarious alternate goals go, that’s the least problematic one of the people we deal with.

As for looking into the bottleneck or River as Ankathi’s people call it, it seems to largely be associated with it’s distance from the astral cluster’s core. Which is why escaping the cluster is so hard, without a central plane that keeps everything together shit just gets wild. The bottleneck in particular is one of the only pathways through the astral plane that leads to another cluster, though there are other similar paths to other clusters than the one that Ankathi passed through. Lower planes are rapidly forming along the outer border of our cluster as well as Ankathi’s and several others, but the core plane that brings the clusters together also attracts these rapidly forming lower planes. So, for the sake of explanation at least, picture a sphere. The outer layer of our sphere is the void. The void is like our atmosphere, it’s protecting us from all the bullshit that’s right on the other side like a cushion. Absorbing the thousands of rifts per second that hit it and creating the impossible existence of that plane, but then those rifts don’t reach deeper into the cluster.

Now Kari is our central plane, all these lower planes rapidly forming want to go to Kari. They can’t because of the void. There is another central plane in another cluster, and they want to go there too. So they create a tunnel between both clusters as they try to get to both places simultaneously and then sort of pile up on top of both clusters until they pile up so much that the bottleneck is formed and there becomes an available direction to reach the other cluster. But to get there you have to go through this tunnel of pure madness.

Steamworks is working on the shield idea though that’s difficult to make compatible with pandem usage…so they’re working on it.

The wolves are out and about rummaging the water to create ambush spots, they’ve got a few set up.

We merged third and first lance and I have on my notes to remind you that lances now recruit from the garrison. So keep an eye on the numbers produced by the local garrison for assigning.

River is mostly cleaned up, special thanks to Halaestra who is a specialist in lower planes. I’m still working on how to get her out of retirement.

Our boys made it to the demon kingdom and…well that’s fun. So as a refresher, the demon kingdom is largely separate from the elven empires and their politics. Brought on by being one of the major targets of the purge, though it is also one of the greatest failures of the purge since there are still some ancient demons skulking about who do love to meddle.

At the top of the hierarchy is the Demon King who rules over both the lower and higher planes nowadays. They had a whole war in which the higher plane won after invading the lower one so now their king is the one and only king. He gets to be king because he has all the land and all the support. He has ruled for about nine hundred years. Below him are the lords, who hold the title by controlling large territories. I believe the requirement to be a demon lord is to be in undisputed control of either twenty million people or have a division of land approximating two hundred square miles in the primary solar system. Also you have to be a native of either Finsir or Finsor. This code was recently revised due to frontier exploration and people saying they own whole planets uncontested because no one else is in the neighborhood. If you control a newly colonized frontier system you must have a population of ten million on your colony as well as a GDP of a minimum threshold to make sure you’re doing something useful over there. No one qualifies for that…yet.

Once you’re a demon lord you get to attend the court of lords and bicker with other lords about whatever you want. They frequently convene at the King’s palace with whatever list of issues they’d like to discuss. Attendance is optional and you will be alerted if anything that directly affects your holdings, defined as things being within your territory not just your trade routes, if you should desire to represent yourself. You get the idea, politics.

House Vloz’Khress has fifteen qualified lords, but in Finsir politics they are more of an alliance than a dedicated house. Asmoday and Valadeus represent another faction of eight demon lords. Demon lords aren’t quick to jump on bandwagons so Voriuk has a headstart on keeping Vloz’Khress especially relevant here.

I’m getting to the important bit don’t worry. So it’s critical to remember that demons mature through eating one another. All demons are born as worms, if they eat enough other worms they become imps, from there it starts spreading out but you get minor lesser major and so on. Basically they’re eating each other’s mana reserve to add to their own. This trick only works in Finsir and Finsor, its one of the rules of their plane. That’s why they aren’t so keen to leave it too often unless they’re powerful enough to not care anymore or are tired of people always trying to eat them. Also the general paranoia of certain spells that work on them due to this mana reserve transfer having some interesting properties. This all matters because it explains why they can be a little tricky to deal with, from birth they are encouraged to eat one another. How they’re less scary than drow in this regard is one hell of a mystery. Pun intended.

The important part about all this is that without the support of a lord it’ll be hard to start any sort of bandwagon and we definitely need an angle to work on to appeal to those not already entrenched with their own faction. Option one, pursue negotiating with the more powerful demon lords to gain an ally and a foothold. This is, as you may have guessed, sometimes risky territory. We could also build a new demon lord, because Zenaka almost qualifies. While Lancaster is not a demon, if she could get things under control she could appoint one to attend the court. Puppet lords are not super uncommon, all of the Vloz and Phantom ones are a good example. Another option would be to try and stay down low. Operating with the more common demons and trying to build up a following by numbers before making any bigger plays.

– Since I am forced to play politiics with players much larger than me anyhow… Renjala will invite Selah to be Knight-Chancellor of the Order of Fate of the Knights Pandem, and any who she has convinced to join her in following Ankathi (Reika and Sarnai are still Astral Order). She can choose her Champion as well. Like it or not, her research is going to be the best lead for Renjala to learn to build a plane.

I handed the scanning tech over to VSEC and the Astral Order to see if the tech will be useful in re-establishing the radar.

The colony of Roha has been established in our little bubble here on Moncayo. It’s population is immediately at capacity since uh…it has roofs and Moncayo city has a lot of people who need a roof. Due to us already being here with all our supplies, labor, and a colony being defined as ‘a collection of tents’ at this point it was pretty quick to get up and running.

The research colony of Zanin is under construction, Vasia is headed out to the project since without her…good luck setting that colony up.

Also free standing buildings on Eden is decently plausible..for Pandem casters. Vasia suggested using the same tech that ships use to manipulate their interior gravity to just create floating infrastructure entirely. Since Eden can actively control the weather of herself it would be viable without worrying for storms and other such intrusions. She just doesn’t like being burrowed into and is really sensitive to plants being cut. So floating cloud cities might alleviate the problem.

Bill cannot shape Eden, though Haziel can. However, that was by just commanding Eden herself and she seemed to agree that doing what Haziel asks is a good idea. So basically Renjala is an arch-druid while standing on Eden because she doesn’t listen to many other people. Though he has some druidic powers just for being bound to her anyways.

We got some submersibles working pretty easily, since we still know how to make those and now we just have bigger shipyards to work with. We have a few of them scouting out this Moncayo ocean business. It’s quite fascinating, it is the size of a planet in diameter though is flat. We’ve found some volcanic vents…which doesn’t make any sense since there is no core to this “planet”. There’s just lava in arbitrary spots for no reason…I suppose that is the abyss for you.

Speaking of Kanika’s singing, did you know Craylin can do it too? It sounds like a horror movie is about to start though and her drones also communicate with this dirge sometimes.

I’m never hot or cold and nothing fits, I dunno I just never really thought about clothes. I used to love shopping but it seems kind of pointless. Ordering custom designs isn’t as fun as window browsing and impulse spending…this was a bad hobby to have while living paycheck to paycheck admittedly.

Also no, the ichor chose cat. I also can’t change myself back into a normal sized drow. If your ‘model’ was to be considered obsolete it would just break you down into nothing again and make something new. So don’t get too carried away with its morph mutations. It costs it energy as well as mass to break things down or rebuild them so its a bit of a penny pincher at times. Just with biomass. Though it doesn’t really find models obsolete until they’re brought back to it dead. Survival of the fittest I suppose. Though if you were to die, it might still want to make another psionic cat for example.

I suppose when it comes to more humanoid shapes we have Setal. Though people tend not to respect succubi too much. They have a long history of being oppressed sex slaves or prostitutes, so the stigma of them being lower class kind of sticks around.

On that note, I was going to poke fun of you for the fact that the Ichor preserved Setal, we’re all females, and yet I have no beautiful drow boys to tend to me…actually I like orcs but I think there’s actually something scientifically noteworthy in that. The Ichor showed an oddly high priority for Setal. Craylin was drawn to Setal for harvesting before Setal had even finished losing her last fight. I think the ichor prefers women of our species because they’re the mothers. Also in many species, particularly alien ones, the females are the larger ones. The same is true of drow women, we’re bigger than our men unlike other humanoid races.

Setal maintains the trick unique to her race, she can breed with literally anything. Including plants and mushrooms if she wanted to. Succubi can also impregnate others as well as get pregnant themselves, she can breed literally anything. The ichor likes that, so much so that it advanced her from a lesser demon to a greater one…that’s one step below demon lord. I’m pretty sure we ate a greater demon in the moncayo battle at some point and it put all that knowledge to work optimizing Setal. She’s immune to mana control spells that demons are normally vulnerable to, since she’s a silnian now I suppose It capped out what demons can naturally achieve without being ordained by the demon king. I’m not sure if that’s concerning or not.

Yes, apparently Lancaster isn’t too fond of Si-Yeon. Which strikes me as odd given her experience helping Koura with the parasite issues. Though that does make her uniquely qualified to help us with ichor experiments. Vasia has her assigned to keeping notes on us I believe.

As for draconic shapeshifting…I mean the ichor has always been able to do that. It just doesn’t consider field-shifting to be a necessity. It’s very energy and biomass intensive, this applies to most creatures who can do it. Eliza has to undergo days of surgery and recovery to shift herself. Notably the only ones who do it quickly and cheaply are using magic and transmutation. So druids and dragons. Since dragons do not share an ancestor with us, they’re closer related to the jesai than to humanoids.

I’m fine without the APT, I’ve been studying psionics to make up for it. Besides, I have you for that. Since the ichor washes off APT’s.

So they recognize queens based on empathic interfaces. The synapse is usually the strongest signal so its difficult to override it. I should note that Eerihild can only do it if I don’t contradict her or if the drone is out of the synapse and in it’s more ‘animal’ mode. Haziel is…something else. Anything with a primal empathic interface responds to her almost automatically. Also Eerihild can only imitate this because she is bound to her mother. In general the synapse is vastly more powerful than any druidic empathy, especially in the presence of monarchs like myself. Though it does allow them to come to an understanding with drones to maybe not bite them.

Easiest way to put it, Haziel possesses a splinter of the primordial wilds. No one else does, she received it on the deathbed of The Wilds. Eerihild can echo that splinter through her bind with her mother. For this to be exploited Kanika would likely need to get her hands on a god or a bigger monarch from the silnians. The best way to resist this would be to outgrow our position as Azilath’s splinter and then maybe outgrow our position under Valdir’s emperor. Though a true silnian said ‘fuck it this guys in charge’ so not sure how easy or difficult that is.

As for a testing subject for Si-Yeon, the ichor kind of decides that more than I do. Despite it being my ichor…I feel there’s a trick to it I’m not getting. Though we could infect a fenalis if you wanted something small and cuddly, granted the infection makes things grow a weapon.

Also yes there are still turrets. Aryn already reset them.

I suppose if the Ichor feels a need for planetary terraforming it would just start doing so. I think it only does that if it needs more solar energy or wants to extend its reach across the planet. While having sapients it doesn’t seem in such a hurry to do so since I can just carry it to where it wants to go. Also if it started doing that we’d probably accidentally consume all of Moncayo. Though it might be my fault that I don’t know how to command the ichor very well. It kind of takes care of me more than I take care of it at this point. I do know that Azilath knows how to terraform planets and command her ichor though.

As for all these solar rock ideas, the ichor doesn’t break down inorganic materials like rocks and crystals. Though it did make your crystals, so it likely has the potential just not the need. It is powered by need a lot more so than wild optimization ideas. Maybe if we park the lake by the arcane star it would go a bit crazier. For better or worse. Maybe the metal maker might be able to do this kind of stuff though.

Also I do not remember attempting to get warforged for the ichor, paperwork for that might have been lost in everything else that’s going on. However…Kaylen has several. Oh look who’s here.

Don’t worry, Larazja would be well cared for. Forever.

Anyways, I’m headed out to get the research colony set up. I’ll be out of comm range for awhile so…send a runner if you need me I guess.

Why would Yaellah need language? You might have gotten carried away with all this silnian business. Not everything needs to be conformed to your improvements. Some things are perfect just as they are. Don’t touch my Yaellah.

Also no, the Heretic is made of pure essentia. It doesn’t do the shooting.

Of course Ankathi attracts a type, she has no morality and is obsessed with power. Selah didn’t have to jump through any hoops other than agreeing to do whatever Ankathi asks, none of those trials of righteousness or whatever the paladins did back in the day. Hey what are you trying to say?

The Ichor can’t absorb shades, Craylin can though. I’ll feed it to Craylin myself, I think she and I got off on the wrong foot.

Wait…you feeding a member of your own species to her by hand while you watch is…

Congratulations waitress, you’re getting it now.

I am a drow, I grew up in the districts of a great house. I have seen some shit and knew how to fear for my life on a daily basis thanks to our masters. Our language is colorful and quantifies even the most bizarre behaviors. Yet never have I known what ‘evil’ truly meant.

Child…you still don’t. Everything I do is to gain, selfishly for myself yes but still there is reason to what I do.

Ankathi and I have thwarted true evil many times. The young and naive such as you have no terrors left because of people like us. So you declare us the problem, you look and say ‘that is evil’ for you have no perspective of what evil really is. Evil, true evil, is something that cannot be satiated. Something without a goal for its actions, it breeds suffering for no reason on scales you cannot comprehend.

If you would like to comprehend it, draw Alakira’s sword.

. . . yeah I’m pretty sure you’re still evil just less evil than ‘the most evil things to ever exist’. You’re delusional if you think you’re not at least seven tenths of the way there.

I concede you might have me there. As Kanika points out, everyone draws the line just past what they do themselves. Though as Kaylen seeks to fight against the Phantoms, let us watch how far her moral compass falls. Eroding day after day, concession after concession, necessity overwhelming righteousness. I am old Larazja, I have partaken in this cycle many times. Anyways, where is Craylin? I have kibble for her.

Ilex, we literally control the largest sahad academy ever since Valdir peaced out of public politics. I can write my own degree if I want. Of course I’m not mysterious to my three or so friends I spend all my time with. I’m pretty sure most people in Moncayo have no idea who I am, what I do, or what I can do. Though yes, I am aware of the issues in progressing sahad at my age. I have been putting in a lot of research to finding a workaround. Why do you think I suddenly learned necrocarnum? I didn’t make myself a lich…but I did harvest the souls of other sahad casters.

Many agree that Chaos will eventually end. Perfect order is inevitable, everything predictable, I can calculate down to the year when it will happen. There will be perfect order. Nothing will ever move again, frozen and perfectly encapsulated for all eternity. A snapshot of what once was and can never be again. This universe’s ultimate fate is to be a pretty little ornament on my desk. Then, finally will your chaos end.

Nah I’m just kidding, chaos will reign forever my dear. That is what sahad does, it glimpses upon the end of all things and instead sees the beginning. Despite what physicists might calculate or believe they understand, the alpha entities can reverse entropy, alter the flow of time, change the rules of reality, and I suspect that is their purpose. To make sure existence continues in perpetuity. Gaze upon Chromaclysm, the Tides, the Watcher, our gracious All-Mother, and take comfort knowing it will never end and also that it never began. It has always simply been, and it simply always will be. There was no big bang, no gods forging us, there was simply…no beginning. All-Mother does not exist within the concept of existence, but she will ensure that existence can never end, and with it chaos shall live forever. Take comfort in it, embrace chaos Ilex, because it is the fabric that makes life worth living, and it is protected by beings beyond your little silnian brain’s ability to comprehend. FUCK ENTROPY, OUR SUFFERING SHALL NEVER END! THAT IS WHAT SAHAD IS ALL ABOUT! AHAHHAHAHAHAH

Ilex I’m scared. WHERE DID SHE GO?!

Probably shouldn’t have let her get started on cosmic theory. Sahadist are known to have ‘episodes’ when they think on it for too long. Three others are also having episodes and they’re all staring into the same direction, focused on something impossibly far away. *points at Yaellah* Though shades like Vasia return to their natural incorporeal state and I bet she’s still ranting underground as she falls through it.

From her notes, I gather our species are having some…side effects of learning about sahad. Uniquely though, the rest stare blankly and mumble. Vasia is the only one to start screaming and laughing like a maniac. I don’t know if that’s a bad sign for her ability to learn it…or a bad sign that she’s the only one who is excited by what she has gazed upon.

I also didn’t think about it, but every Solian has various…episodes when exposed to this stuff. Despite running the facility to study it…Vasia’s reaction to it is the only one that has not been documented. While ‘delusional rambling’ is a normal symptom, I wonder if we should be concerned that Vasia’s rambles are a little…different.

Anyways, she’ll be fine. There’s the desert world beneath us if she falls too far and she can control herself if she falls into open space.

Its “The Taco Cart”. It’s his brand name at this point, even if it is a truck now.

Also silnian ichor does not attempt to dissolve me. See? *Sticks hand in lake*

Actually it…What? It’s not trying because you…aren’t…organic. Though you’re making Craylin salivate…

Oh…I might need to do more lab work. Anyways, I have a drone hooked up. Though your soul production work is just not going to go well until you answer what it is that creates souls. So you know, just solve one of the greatest mysteries of mankind. No problem. You might actually have some luck studying this with the Astral Order. The River of Chaos creates life at a phenomenal rate with a lot of variations.

So far the success rate of cloning something with a soul is less than a percent. We’ve only done it twice.

SHE’S NOT HUMAN! ARE WE JUST BREEZING PAST THIS?! DOPPELGANGER! PHANTOM SPY!

I see Yenneiros hasn’t kept you up to date with my medical issues. Doppelgangers are organic. The parasite is doing odd stuff to me if you must know. Vasia has taken a particular interest though I’m wary of her interest levels. I am quite sure I am still organic.

….I’ve got my eye on you. No funny business. I’m going back in the lake, between you and Vasia I don’t know how much more I can handle today.

To clarify, Allison does work for us. Though she works as one of the agents, I meant she would be alright as one of our forward operatives who operate in public space more. Though yes, we can put her to controlling the underground. However, as we learned from our last attempt, controlling it too thoroughly tends to breed a separate underground and that’s how Laura happened.

The criminal underworld thrives on being uncontrolled, Lancaster’s usage of our setup to constantly try and thwart it caused all kinds of side effects. Which might be the double edged sword of having a crime lord on our payroll for our own city. The desire to stop crime is at conflict with a crime boss’ desire to exploit it. Maybe a detective would be more fitting. Allison is from Shetou, she can run the crime scene quite well but…well she’s liable to escalate it and invoke Lancaster’s ire once again. If it was permissable, it wouldn’t be illegal in the first place.

While our time with the gauntlet focused on exploiting existing infrastructure, now that we control that infrastructure it’s less advantageous to give someone backing and resources to exploit us. At least with the Nomads they can act as privateers and focus on our rivals, a Moncayo crime lord, funded and supplied by us, is kind of at odds with our colonization.

That and Lancaster doesn’t implement a ton of minor bans that circumventing would be particularly non-harmful. Upon asking Allison about the concept and if she had any ideas…she did…Lancaster won’t like any of them. So just a thought.

We have recruited the suit.

Also yes the Nomads can act as hunters for targeted objectives, and Vanjin still has credentials and reputation for other avenues.

The Closing statement is on its way back to Moncayo.