Astral Sea

Creep

Sleep. Something almost all beings can relate to each other in having. Mortals use it to relieve the growing strain on their thoughts and gods use it to relay messages to mortals as well as a means to regenerate. Often times when a god or goddess uses up too much of their power or is damaged bad enough they need to rest until they have rejuvenated themselves.

Creep just used it to occasionally feel human.

He laid in the dusty old bedroom of a long abandoned inn. The threads that the sheets were woven from had frayed apart at the ends and for the most part had fallen to pieces from the damages the insects have inflicted over the years. Sixty long years he's spent sleeping in this room. It was a surprise the floor hadn't collapsed into the level below given how many termites now inhabited the walls of this old building.

The dim dismal sunlight crept along his oddly clean shaven face just as it had for numerous days before, only changing with the rotations of the sun. This was an auspicious day however. After sixty years who could tell just how long he planned on staying asleep. As the rays of light met his shut eyelids however he started to stir, much to his occupants surprise.


After what must of felt like hours he finally yawned, reaching a hand up to rub the tiredness from his eyes. Pulling his hat down to block out the light he rolled away from the window and shut his eyes again. He was a determined sleeper, that much was certain.

"Masteerr... The bell hassz been rung." The insectoid voice informed him inside his head. There was a slight grumble deep down in his throat. I wanna sleep... He complained in thought, a slight pang of annoying registering due to the mild disturbance. "Undeerrzstood. Our zsinceerrezst apologieezs masteerr."

Brain symbiotes were annoying like that. Always hearing everything he thinks and knowing everything he feels. They've always been careful enough to give the illusion of privacy to his thoughts so as to not raise his ire which was already pretty high as they were privy to something he had previously considered personal. He's never raised enough of a fuss to get rid of them, he's never truly understood the extent to which they know him. All he knows is that they are loyal beyond what most humans understand of loyalty. The queens would tolerate no less from company in this body they call their temple.


It was too late for him. Now that he heard of the news his mind was active, busy with thought. There was no way he was going to squeeze in some more sleep while he was distracted like this. Frustrated with himself more than anyone for this he slowly sat up, groaning before stretching his arms wide out. His back made a loud series of pops as he worked out the kinks. The bugs inside had long ago come to understand that their god occasionally does stuff like that, it's not something to be worried about.

But the motion and the results of said motion caused a stir within him. The entire population was active now that he was up. Before they were quite careful not to wake him but now that he was up they were free to wiggle about wherever they went. He could feel them inside him, always.

How long have I been asleep for? This place looks way older than it looked when I came in. He pondered in thought, knowing his thoughts were heard and a reply was in the making from his excessively close advisers. "Ourr anceezstorrzs have grrown up, grrown old and dieed many timeezs beeforre uzs" The head advisers answered back. So... Longer than a couple weeks then.


He couldn't expect them to keep a very precise track of the time. It was quite exemplary that they were as knowledgeable as they were, speaking to him as another human would though with a heavy accent as they struggled to duplicate all the same sounds. Vocal communication was not a large component of how insects communicated with each other. They had to learn how speaking actually conveyed information before they could even understand how to learn how to speak their god's language. Luckily for insects once a few insects learned the secrets of mammalian communication the queens only needed to eat their brains to receive the knowledge so they could pass it onto their offspring.

Not that Creep knew how they went about their business. He didn't really care to learn about it either. He wasn't much concerned with the affairs of insects unless it was a big problem. All he wanted to worry about was himself. He picked up each of his boots and tipped them upside-down, shaking out some stray bugs which were loitering inside before putting the boots on. Finally he stood up from the bed he had slept on for all these years. Miraculously it had never collapsed despite it's age, though it wasn't all that miraculous when taking into consideration the fact that the insects were more than a little encouraged to make sure their god was not roused from his sleep too early.

Out through the window he stared, gazing out into the rolling fields of golden wild grass littered with yellow and red leaves dropped from the nearby forest. Autumn, the transitory season marking the end of summer and the beginning of winter. To be put in more flowery terms, the end of life and the beginning of death.


He went over to the door, grasping the handle gingerly. Having spent a while around insects he's honed his already gentle approach to a fine art, able to move around without disrupting anything. It helped him get around unseen which was quite valuable given how often trouble sought him. Stepping into the old hallway the first thing he noted was that while old and absolutely covered in dust it was relatively intact. If the dust hadn't built up quite so much he might of believed he had only slept a couple days.

He stepped towards the wall opposite from his room, careful with his feet as to not step on any of his followers. While he was no larger than the common man unlike the other deities he was similarly large to the insects, capable of crushing them if he misstepped. He approached the old rusted dark iron torch holder, looking at it with an expression deep in contemplation. He could only wonder, drawing the tip of his right index finger down the side of the torch's metal frame, dust gathering under his finger. I wonder what became of that old innkeeper and that lovely daughter of his...


As he began down the stairs into the main room he could see that no one's been through there in a long time either. This place truly was abandoned, left to the wages of time. It was a strange feeling to Creep, trying to piece together the fate of a building which he had gone to sleep in in what felt like it was just yesterday. He could see the personal items which belonged to the owners were gone. The chairs and tables were all put away too. All signs seemed to point to similar fates. The old man and his daughter had closed the inn, taking everything and moving away. Obviously the young lady had kept her word about not disrupting his slumber.

At this point there was little to no reason for him to stay in this old empty building. He was at a crossroads, figuratively speaking. He knew he had received a summoning to attend a meeting at Raelenea however he wasn't sure he wanted to go. He leaned back against a wall, looking up as he debated with himself.

I don't want to go. I know they probably expect me to go but who would notice if I was gone? They hardly notice if I show up so I don't see why I should be obligated to appear. Any issues they might be discussing are matters I've little to nothing to say about anyways. Chances are they're just talking internal politics, stuff I couldn't care less about. Unless they're planning to off me I've little care whether they all kill each other or make friends. I don't think I've got anything important to say even it was something that mattered. I'm not qualified to make big world changing decisions, why should they hear from me?... Is it normal to talk to myself if it's just in my thoughts?


Ultimately he decided against going after a long obtuse period of internal dialogue. Instead he settled on going elsewhere in the shattered lands of Aettean and just doing what he usually did. With a goal in mind, no real direction but a goal, he stepped through the door out into the great outdoors. In front of him all along the trees he saw thousands of hives along the trees, all brimming with bees and wasps. No doubt the ground was no less populated with insects of every variety. So this's where they all stayed while I was asleep.

With an upward motion of his hand the earth in front of him opened up, revealing a massive hole leading downwards diagonally. Given his affinities to the elements of earth, air and water he was able to exert some command over them. He stepped in and began his long trek down into the winding tunnels below. He had little trouble finding his way in such darkness, his senses many and quite capable of leading him through most if not all environments day or night. Through these tunnels all sorts of insects traveled. Most of them were small. A number of them were as big as him and there were some that were larger than him by far. The remains of the world beneath the surface was an active one, a busy highway for those who dwelt beneath the dirt. A large population of those entities were insects of course.


Some time later...



He eventually emerged from the earthen tunnels, coming out from an old abandoned mine shaft. He squinted and held one hand out to keep the sun from his eyes as he exited the mouth of the mountain. A couple minutes later his eyes were adjusted enough to see just fine.

He continued walking down from the mountain and through the forest below until he came upon a river. He followed the river until he eventually came upon a lovely sight. A tall flowing waterfall, showers of water running down the rocky face into a small pond which emptied into another river. All of this was of course surrounded by an environment of pure natural beauty. He took a deep breath of the fresh air which of course went into his lungs and escaped through the holes out from his body, not leaving the way it came in. It was hard to capture that comforting sensation of being human when he didn't even need to breath as even if he did his body was quite different than it used to be so long ago.

He gave a sigh of disappointment but nonetheless drank in the smooth sensation of the cool wind on his skin. Leaning back in the crook of a tree trunk he rested. He closed his eyes and just listened to the calming sounds of nature. The rushing of the waterfall, the singing of the birds, the buzzing of the bees, the buzzing of the flies, the buzzing of the wasps. It was difficult to listen to anything without the sound of insect wings beating all around. Just another fact of his godhood he had to adapt to. There was no power in this universe so great that it would come without any drawbacks.

As Creep stood there near the waterfall, the scene's vibe began to shift. Mists darkened, sounds blurred, and all the colours around him dimmed. Instead of the gentle sounds of nature a voice reverberated on the wind. The god Xyr was on the move nearby. Shortly the source of his activity would become known. A billowing cloud of smoke would be visable for miles around coming out of the lower forests, being cast to one side by the wind. A small hunting cabin was burning.

Screams echoed out from the nearby woods, as a dark cloaked banshee unleashes its torment onto those around it. Xyr was in spectral form, standing within the burning cabin taking in the scene before him. Two human bodies were burning in front of him, one with a long slash across their torso. Xyr had watched the entire Scene unfold.

It was a father and daughter who lived alone in their cabin. But mistrust between them grew over the last few months. An addiction to her fathers tobacco led to theft and eventually escalated to verbal and physical violence. In a streak of bad luck, the father struck his daughter with his sword across the chest, knocking her into the lit lamp and starting the fire. The father, in a last attempt to take back what he had done, tried saving his girl but she was already dead and he only set himself ablaze to end up dead in his bed.

It was a simple yet satisfying tragedy for Xyr, but it was never enough for the God of Horror and tragedies. He left the banshee made from the girls soul to wander the world in her eternal torture, and drifted along the wind up the mountain. It wasn't long before he had found Creep. He was dust on the wind, drifting around Creep and whispering into his ear.

"Hoffngard has plenty of food for locasts. Why let the humans waste it?" The voice was barely audible, almost like a subliminal message. Creep might mistake it for another of the voices in his head, or he might sense the deity influencing him. To Xyr it was all the same, gods and mortals alike were means to an end. More tragedy.

Tick,Tock/ Rimus was in his realm, minding his realm's business whilst enjoying his realm's company. It was a empty shell of a realm, but he enjoyed it. It was the one spot where he could not be the divine god of time, but a simple fellow man relaxing. Of course, he had no proper time to be relaxing he was always on the watch. For someone who had perhaps defied the laws of time and he had to go lay down the enforcement or something that's stopping the flow of time like a wrench stuck inside a pipe of time. It was as if he was a dolphin, one part of his brain was relaxing whilst the other was constantly at work. Not that he had a brain, or perhaps he did he's never really dabbled too much in the creation of the god's and their physical property's. Maybe he could give himself one, but it'd be quite useless. No, he was being distracted it was time to get back on track, back on time.

After some hours, or perhaps year's in his realm, he managed to push himself up. What Rimus enjoyed was the finer foods, not that he needed to eat but he liked the taste of food. He liked the taste of something. Rimus began to change his form into that of the lush primrose dragon, as his limbs began to crunch and spread out and his armor had instead turned into a nice shade of pink. He was planning to travel to the world of man, which is why he had opened the wormhole their but instead of landing on nice soft soil he had instead found himself on Marble. Godly Marble.

Ah, yes this was the land of the gods a place he was o so familiar with. His body must've made it's own decision into coming here, and his body had also transformed him in between the wormhole. A complete mind of it's own. Up ahead of him he saw 2 other god's, one very lightly coloured, one not so coloured. Rimus decided to waste little time and immediately started walking to the council's center. He had very little idea what it was about but judging the way he came here it was important. Or so he assumed.

(please forgive failure of location post)

As the mist surrounded the area around his subjects and him a strange slew of messy colors and voices started emerging within this fog. He struggled to make sense of it as it was in bits and pieces. It seemed somebody wanted to relay information to him and was not very good at being direct.

"Consume... grow...!"


The voice urged strongly, sending a message not just to him but to his subjects. Creep himself just frowned, not at all pleased with being babbled at about some subject the gods were likely discussing.

"Enough! I'm sick of being talked to all strange-like. I'm outta here."


With that proclamation Creep started on his way, just picking a direction and walking towards it. He didn't care if the fog blocked his view, he was just going to walk until whatever god that was picking on him decided to leave him alone. Whatever issue it might of been trying to convey could go rot for all he cared.

Some time would pass, lest something tried to stop him of course. Where he ended up even he did not know. All he knew was that he was far from alone, like usual.

Shale listened to Hazarmaveth, and noted Edna's words, nodding in agreement. He felt somewhat rejected for being ignored, but was used to it as usual.

"I agree. A few more in the scouting party would make it that much more effective."

Sorry, two misstyped posts.

Shale listened to the rest of Hazermaventh's speech, contented by his more cheerful attitude, and simply nodded as he listed their qualities. "Hooray, an actually important meeting this time. I'm a busy god, you kno-" He began to say sarcastically.

He was somewhat surprised by the feather's sudden entrance onto the table, and just stared at it, while listening to Edna. Then he rolled his eyes in his mask, before sighing. "So, that backstabbing poet has joined the evil beast person." He sighed again. "Why can't anything be easy around here?"

((Please disregard.))

[I posted this in the wrong location. Anyone know how to change that?]

(Never mind me, just posting in the wrong area again.)

[Another accidental location post. Let's delete these.]

Wrong section, please delete.

Mistake, please delete.

Wrong post location

Mistake, please delete.

Shale could instantly recognize the aura encircling him. It was somewhat ancient, but not quite as godlike as Hazarmaveth. At once, the shadow of the tree shifted once more, back into the proper form of the object. Out of the shadow, Shale appeared. He decided to respond to the voice, rather than taking action like he would normally rather do.

"Without disease, the lives of everyone would be miserable. Overpopulation would reign, and many would be homeless. Better to make a select few suffer than to make all suffer."

Shale chuckled a bit after his last statement, mainly to annoy the strange being.

"Of course, something like you cares nothing for life, just your own entertainment."

Shale observes the woman thoroughly, and seems to stand there simply idle, plotting his next move. While it would be beneficial to him to simply run away, he supposed that he would be shamed for cowardice. He could fight, but there was simply nothing for him to fight at the moment. Finally, Shale spoke up, the swirling darkness increasing its rotation ever so quickly.

"Ever changing, always growing. That is a form you simply cannot take if you want to survive in the harsh environment that is life. Step down, or the sons of creation will be on your heels more quickly than you can prepare."

Tir'Ish Na-Ahn
________________

What the show, from the vantage point of above. The three adventurers seem to disregard the bug man/god, run into a forest, and encounter quite the gathering of deities. It may be a while yet until Kana can preform her experiment on the Ichor, but Tir'Ish is patient. No worries, no rush. It may yet be soon that either a new life form is created or a new weapon discovered. Either way, the results of this trip will be fascinating. If the Ichor responds well, Tir'Ish may yet have a new breed of children. If not, there would then be a way that the god of energy could actually die. Permanently.

Patience was a small matter with that in mind.

Remaining in his mist-form, he projected to the earth elemental that he was leaving for a time, and would be back before long. Then he proceeded in the direction of Shalom - a resting place for the dead. Not oblivious at all in respect to the chaos moving below, it was time to speak to a friend. Specifically, a champion who had aided the elementals many years past and fallen in event which shattered the world. Though not a patron of Tir'Ish, this champion used energy-style magic to enhance his abilities, giving him strength and stamina beyond that of most mortal men. Perhaps now, these many ages later, he would be willing to share his secrets.

Creep

"Of course we can see you Creep. Not often you come around the others. But I am pleased to see you doing well."

He breathed a sigh of relief.

"Phew, That's a relief. I was getting rather worried there since for a bit there it was like I was talking to trees. Well, not the talking kind I mean. You get the point."

He was certainly a bit surprised to see a goddess there. Well, he assumed it was a goddess. It had been a while since he last saw Edna, he hardly even remembered her name let alone what she looked like. Luckily his surprise was mostly painted over by the strange experience that gripped him just moments ago. When Carissa chimed in he looked over to her somewhat quizzically.


"If it counts, I can see you as well! Although if you were invisible then it would be difficult to talk to you."

He nodded in response.

"That's true. I guess I'm not so much invisible as forgettable then."

His sense of self deprecation leaked it's way into his words. He couldn't really help it as it colored a great deal of his thoughts. Despite what his subjects might attest he never saw much importance to himself. Despite all that the lady and the beast-kin both were looking at him with expressions of surprise.


"Wait, you... a god? Wait... Crrrreep? Ah... should I... rrreally call you that? I mean... if your name is Crreep then I suppose I wouldn't be actually calling you one."

He just sighed. "It's exactly what you think it means." He explained, putting his hands in his pockets as he paced a bit, looking down at his shoes while he spoke.

"I figured since most people'd just gonna call me that anyways I'd just cut out the middle man, make it easier for them."

After his brief explanation regarding the name he looked up to Edna, an eyebrow quirked in a quizzical manner.

"Say, it might not be my business but you lot don't come out frequently. Why're you having a..." He looked out, examining the scene before him. "Tea party out in these parts of the woods? Enjoying a change of scenery or is it anything to do with these fine ladies?"


He didn't want to be confrontational but he was quite curious as to why she'd come down and have a tea party right in front of where her worshiper was headed. Gods and goddesses were weird like that, setting up scenarios rather than just coming down and talking straight to them. Unless Edna really was just having a tea party. Seemed unlikely but it could happen.

Tir'Ish paused. The deity standing before her looked familiar.

"The one from the council. Yes, you know why I'm here. Unlike the other deities, I am composed entirely of energy. If this Black Ichor can destroy or corrupt that, I am very suddenly mortal. Since other deities are already playing their hand into the situation, I need to equip my followers to the best that I can.

She paused again, giving a sideways glance at the champion. This was already more than Tir'Ish had uttered for the past many years, preferring to operate quietly, in the background. Playing an active role in something was already strange enough. Usually, she was only focused on maintaining and enjoying order. Now, in a sense, she was trying to create it.

"Tell me, why do you say you're more related to this than you stated? Wasn't this....thing created by consequence?"

Pulling the ghostly form of a sword from the sheath on her back, and mimicking the gesture Hazarmaveth was giving with his staff, she added, "And trust me, I doubt either of our weapons will do any good against each other."

(Wrong Location)