Introduction to Qyerath, told by a thousand eyes. WIP 1

You awaken within a starry expanse, nebulous clouds above and below you. There is nothing to stand on, and yet you stand just fine, able to walk up and down at will as if there were invisible stairs, but only when you wished for them. In the center of this strange place lay a being, it looked up at you and made a shrill noise. Panic set upon you for a second as the strange five-eyed quadrupedal creature continued its noise before tilting its head, turning into a little human girl right before your eyes with a beaming smile.

“Welcome back, seeker of secrets! Oh how I have missed you! … You don’t remember me? That is fine! I remember you and missed you so much! Come, come! What do you want to learn about today? I have many worlds within the Void Cloud to tell you about but remember your time here is short, so pick quickly!”  As the little girl talks, a dozen small planets form right before your eyes, the names of them glowing in a pearlescent light above them. Qyerath, Aerithill, Hestia’s Heart, Nuria, The Three Sisters, Terra Ultima… you point at the world Qyerath as the little girl’s smile stretches even wider. You firmly declare you want to learn about Qyerath.

“You wish to know the tales of the world its inhabitants call Qyerath? Ooh, that is one of my favorites! A world of monsters and magic, with quite the crazy amount of lewd things you humans enjoy, yet rife with love and war, hope and death, peace and sorrow! Well... let’s start from the beginning... Talk your ears off? No! I’ll skip some of the lesser details you don’t need to care about! And I’ll skip some of the fun details too. No fair you say? Eeheeheehe! But that’s the fun of it! How many people enjoy a puzzle already solved for you? The best kind of puzzle is one with a few obvious hints, that you can figure out with just a bit of help!” The Voidling looks at you with the smile of a little girl one moment, before a many-eyed monster rests before you the next as it continues speaking, its echoing voice never changing despite its multitude of forms as it finishes its cheerful introduction with the appearance of a male Kublier. Strangely, you aren’t scared of this strange shapeshifting being, it really does feel as if you are conversing with an old friend. One who doesn’t know how to stop talking when they have an ear held captive.

“You want to know how I know so much about the worlds within the Great Cloud of Corruption? Don’t be silly, I told you before, did I not? Or was that another human who came to me... Just kidding, I don’t forget faces, though I do forget names… Well, no matter! I am a Voidling as all the races of this universe call me, though some call me Realm Rotter, Vileblood, Breaker... but others call me hero, friend, some even call me a god! Though I am far from a god! That is what made my kind so hard to defeat when the Scar of Realms was formed if you recall… though I don’t expect you to know too much about a battle a few thousand years ago! In this dimension, we can be anywhere, in multiple places at once. Though as the first mages found, we do have a tether that binds all of us to one place, my tether is where you are now actually! While there are thousands of me all over the Galaxy, the true me is right here, learning and experiencing a thousand lives at once and having so much fun!” The Voidling smiles and tilts its head in the form of a species you have never seen before, a great spiky beast with gorgeous wings and what appears to be gold floating around its body in liquid form, it resembles a Dragon from games and movies… but more perfect… regal, hypnotic, with solid white scales, prismatic eyes and markings running down its body and all throughout its wings and frill atop its head. The colors are almost constantly pink, yellow, and green, though you do not know what that means.

“I can be in many places at once, observing all kinds of wonderful worlds, and sometimes I participate in the actions of those worlds... though the keepers of those worlds, the Gods of them, they don’t look too kindly about that, so I have to ‘fly under the radar’ as humans say. A few even killed me when they found my form in that world even though I am a good Voidling!” The great spiky beast seems a bit upset for a second, the colors flashing red and purple over and over in what must be a sign of anger, but soon the great beast turned into a large human woman, only with the lower half of a great brown fish, two long whiskers running down its face and spines raising on its back in agitation before as simply as that, it had switched back to happiness. “Still! I cannot fault them, even if I try not to meddle too much in the Worlds I visit, many of these keepers of their world have just been told ‘If you sense this energy, attack it at all costs’ and really, who can fault them for defending their worshipers and world? Even if I am harmless, they don’t know that and smite me when they find me… But they can’t stop me from watching their fun little worlds! Heeeheee! Now! Before I talk your skrike off, wait, wrong word... ears! Let’s begin the tale of Qyerath, full of holes and puzzles! Save your questions to the end please!”

And so the massive half-human’s tail slaps against the ground happily as she, it, makes a happy burbling noise and clears its throat, beginning a tale you are surprisingly excited for.

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When the Great Void cloud poured from the Scar of Realms, Qyerath was one of the millions of planets consumed by the cloud. Formerly known, and very boringly, as XR4552. It was a station world, orbiting a bright blue little beast of a star safely in the... goldilocks zone. Hundreds of species lived there alongside humans, though they were by far the most plentiful, you had the Rhe’Ghal, the Umpori, the Vetal, even a Pyrax! And plenty of large beasts in the world both natural and imported. It was a fertile world already.

When the Convergence began, the transformation of all things within the influence of the Void Cloud started. The ‘First Mage’, a Realm Weaver as your history codexes would call them, Zuthar, took over as Qyerath’s God of Order, as mountains burst from the ground, trees feasted on the energy, animals that had never been now roamed wild, and the Rhe’Ghal, Umpori, Vetal, and Humans were changed too. Humans have an extremely high tolerance to the effects of the void, and with the protective bubble now placed around Qyerath by Zuthar, humans flourished as they do in every world within the Void. It is no wonder your kind are so arrogant even if there are far more powerful beings! It is quite enjoyable!

The Rhe’Ghal too were unchanged, though the Umpori and Vetal were consumed. The Umpori, already a great warlike people, took on a more human appearance, though keeping their gorgeous wings and four eyes. They took the new name “Asorans”. The Vetal had quite an interesting change too! They became more humanlike as well of course, their gorgeous glowing horns changed from large curling skewers, and became... antlers! And their acidic blood faded away, instead, they gained strange powers tied to the poisonous essences around them, they even gained cute little flaming tails! I believe the people of Qyerath call them... Spirit Satyrs? Grove Satyrs? Saveshi? All three I think...

The lone Pyrax of the world also changed, but perhaps because the Pyrax are what you humans would call a Terrormorph, she lost her converter core but gained so much power from the void. Becoming what you humans call... a Dragon. The sole Pyrax became Greyoll, mother of Dragons, also called the Limitless One.

Yes I know, a Terrormorph! You humans are only a Terramorph! I love your little space suits and how you love to colonize worlds clearly not meant for a human and make them work anyways! How do I know about Terrormorphs? Did you think my knowledge was only of things in the Void Cloud? Don’t be silly friend! I know lots of things from all over the Galaxy! My range of observation is… hmm… I haven’t stretched myself out too much in a while… so probably only 5 Kiloparsecs at a time? So my knowledge of the greater galaxy is a bit foggy at times.

Anyways, I love the little classifications you all make! Ethramorphs, Stivamorphs, Terramorphs, Ubermorphs, and Terrormorphs! It is so impressive that Humans still fight wars even with Ubermorphs and Terrormorphs. You thought there was only one species of Terrormorph and didn’t know you were at war with them? What part of the Golden Belt are you from? The Southern part! OH! You don’t know what a Pyrax or Severa is! They are lovely creatures… though Severa have a nasty appetite! They’ve even a few hundred of my lives! You want to know what a Severa and Pyrax are? Well sorry but I can’t tell you that, you chose to ask about Qyerath not Terrormorphs! Now let’s get back to it!

So… where were we. Oh yes, sister species and the Saveshi and Asorans and stuff! Yes, these ‘Xenos’ now had a very human appearance, though with unique markings and all that fun stuff! But the bits and flags you humans love are there eehee! Like hair and noses and sex organs and all that.

Can humans breed with the new Asorans and Saveshi? Oh you are a Recckani! It means... a very fun thing. Yes, as with most worlds within the convergence. The ones who are consumed will take on the traits of the most dominant species, and will be... sister species as you would call them. So a child would be possible with an Asoran and a Human, though the Asoran would probably kill you before you could ever create life with them! Many a fool has tried to claim an Asoran as a lover only to be consumed by them instead. Though I have heard from those who successfully lived to mate with an Asoran woman, that their blazing light can be felt pumping between their breasts. I wish I could experience that eeheehee! But the last time I managed to get to their pocket world I got eaten by a Gryke! Terrible little beasties. What? Can you breed with a Dragon of Qyerath since they transformed too? Goodness, what a Recckani indeed! See a giant winged beast of immense power and want to stick your maleness inside it! What do you think, silly! Oh don’t be embarrassed, it’s perfectly fine!

Anyways! As the Convergence began to stabilize across the world, the first Gods had ascended, but others ascended too, called the Primal Beasts or the Primordial ones. They too were Gods, though not born from humanity or its sister species. As you can imagine, basically the strongest, smartest, or most feared of these creatures ascended to vast and mighty forms. They were given names and worshipped as well. There were dozens of Primal beasts such as the Silent Weaver, the Endless Serpent, the Eternal Strider, Sky Render, and more! I even had the pleasure of meeting with the Endless Strider once! He was very kind, even if he did kill me afterward.

And now we start getting to some of the good stuff!

As you can imagine, there was quite a lot of chaos as the world physically shifted and changed around everyone! As the void stabilized, some creatures changed forever and others became blessed with unique powers after surviving The Consumption, factions inevitably formed for control of this new world.

The ‘xenos’ as you humans always call them, the new Asorans, Saveshi, and dozens of lesser species that had been imported to the planet, became known as Plague Walkers and Plague Beasts, physically spreading their lost world and essences around them. Changing the life, plants, and animals, to become more like their home worlds. But this would not do! Imagine the fear that one day your home would suddenly be a great golden expanse, without trees and with many shining hollows full of chirping beetles, but if you stopped it, it would remain the wonderful farm you knew and loved! As you can imagine, the war for the very territory of the world began quickly even as Magic still developed freely.

The Primal Beasts, rulers of their domains and still struggling with the newfound grasp of sentience and raw power, sided with the first Gods, and fought against the Plague Walkers, their Gods, and their kin. As the world shook and changed by the day, the war known as the Great Divide raged and tore the heavens down to the earth so they too could be conquered. This war would be mostly lost to history, as well as embellished a little here and there, and would be known in Qyerath’s books of history and faith as the first Divine War.

With the Rhe’Ghal’s biomachines, the Asoran’s blazing light, the Saveshi’s toxic essence, the Illvari’s quick grasp of the new concept of Magic, the unmatched ferocity and hunger of the Eimmax, the Plague Walkers marched on day by day, changing the world around them as Qyerath still smoldered from the convergence. Losing all their golden age technology at once and being hurled into what you humans call... the stone age! Humans were struggling quite a lot in this war alongside their Gods, the humans did not understand magic yet, and were no match for the raw power of the Plague Walker’s abilities and remaining technology. Who are the Illvari? What does it matter eeheehee! They were all wiped out!

Now, the Gods were mighty indeed. Each day their power grew as the skies blazed, the ground tore itself apart, the oceans swirled, and Qyerath waited for its new masters, but it did not wait patiently. The world quaked and shook and tore at itself as if demanding its new masters be titled before there weren’t any left to enjoy it! All this new magic and power leaking out into the ether of the world would do some crazy things! Like infusing into minerals and making new metals, of COURSE the humans would call the craziest and strongest of the new metals Adamantium and Mithril based off their histories, but others were born too like Irithyll which does some pretty cool stuff. But you don’t wanna hear about metals, let’s get back to Gods!

One of these Gods, the Goddess of Death as she is called, Velex, was captured by the Rhe’Ghal, the most powerful species among the Plague Walkers. With their biomachines, they attempted to extract the power of Velex even as their allies, died around them. And they succeeded, much to their undoing. See, the power of a God is no small thing, even a newborn God. Velex’s power was torn from her body by the living weapons of the Rhe’Ghal, and her power flowed throughout the Rhe’Ghal’s people... and became a blight. Their powerful forms untouched by the convergence now experienced its gift from within, their bodies splitting apart and reforming in agonizing ways. Velex essence was given to them and fed upon them from within. The Rhe’Ghal gained power over death... or so they thought. Instead, Death had become a parasite within their bodies.

They transformed into what would now be called Revenants. Four armed beings of great stature, ten feet tall on average for your information. With scythe-like tails and hollow shells made of stony chitin, they became fusions of insect and mineral. The males lost their wonderous eyes, carapace consumed all of their heads besides their tooth-filled great jaws that could split into four to devour things as they devoured freely from Velex. The females lost their faces, their hypnotic many-eyed visages were changed into crystalline mirrors, though I argue that is even more beautiful and hypnotic. The Revenants lost their ability to speak and gained powerful telepathy. Already the strongest ‘Xenos’ besides Greyoll herself, they became equal with the Gods they battled in every way, though their power, their divinity, would be extremely short-lived. Death is not just some dreadful thing to fight against, or a pleasant friend greeting you after a long-lived life, Death is a fundamental part of the universe, there will always be Death, and fighting against it comes at a great cost.

Velex may not be the mightiest God, but perhaps you could say she is the strongest of them all. Even with her power drained, she was not defeated, and the parasitic power stolen from her would now come back to its mother. Velex was freed by an army of Gods, beasts, and men. They called themselves the Lost Ones, and sadly nearly all of them perished to free Death, the sole survivor was Sky Render, the Primal Beast born of the flying creatures you call birds! Once freed, Velex’s wrath was so great it rivaled the God of War. Hmm? Of course, there’s a God of War! You humans always have a God of War. I didn’t say it was bad!

So, Velex was free, and Death would not go quietly. She waited, as powerless as a mortal, till the first Revenant died in battle… and then the Revenants realized they had doomed themselves. When his beating core was plunged into by the sword of Zuthar, the parasitic essence of Velex latched onto the very soul of the slain Revenant, and his essence was consumed entirely by Velex. There would be no rebirth, no heaven, nothing but a void of its own. Hehe, get it? A void of its own? Oh, boooo that was funny!

So, Velex gained her power back from the slain Revenant, and with it, she made a declaration to the very heart of every Revenant in the world.

 “Your race will be forever lifeless, you are death walkers, and I will relish the extinguishing of every last one of your hollow kind. History will forget you, but I will treasure eating every one of your scourge.” Pretty amazing right? Now imagine that broadcast inside you and inside every other Revenant, after they had deemed themselves Deathless and now one was gone forever! The Revenants continued to wage war with their allies, but they had been struck a crippling blow… and then they realized they could no longer breed. Their species was a dead end, cursed by Velex’s power. Every loss of a Revenant was the loss of millennia of history, one death was catastrophic to their people. The Revenants quickly surrendered, begging for mercy from their enemies, and while Velex wished for every one of them to fill her belly, Zuthar, god of gods ordered mercy be given to their enemies.

What happened to God? That is a silly question! God is God! The… Abrahamic faiths mostly disappear in the worlds of the Void, but that does not mean their essence is gone! After all, when you have people who shape the very world around them, what else can you call them besides a God? The worship of the Supreme God is replaced, though it can never be erased or forgotten. Zuthar became the ‘God’ of Qyerath during the war. But the Abrahamic religions would continue on, their form also changed by the convergence. After all, when the world around you changes by the day, the sky is torn apart by a celestial war that shapes the world, and all golden age technology has been irreparably destroyed, with physical text being quite the rarity, it makes sense that so many things of culture and religion would change does it not? The worship of the one true creator and his great love stayed of course, but that worship took Zuthar as the new incarnation. Not that it would last forever… ah, spoilers sorry!

Back on track. The Great Divide still raged on, but without the Revenants and their Biomachines, the other Plague Walkers began to struggle against the fury of the rest of the world. Greyoll had begun doing what a lonely mother does best… birth wonderful life into the world! Her kin, the first Dragons were already powerful to begin with, but each new child Greyoll birthed was stronger than the last, and each death of her children boiled the Limitless One’s blood. The war raged on for a few more weeks, until Greyoll, fueled by a wrath almost as powerful as Velex’s, set alight the lands of the Illvari. Unlike Velex who obeyed Zuthar as a fellow God, Greyoll was unique in her kind. You could say she was the greatest Plague Walker of all. And every time she gave birth to another, her power grew. A strange way to gain power is it not? But that was why she was known as the Limitless One. She had another name, of course, the Goddess of Genesis.

With the Illvari wiped from history, and Greyoll resting from her many wounds and grieving the loss of many of her children, the Great Divide had begun tipping in the Gods’ favor. The Eimmax were next to fall, they were not wiped out of course! They just lost quite quickly as their ferocity could only be unleashed during the day, at night they were far too weak to battle the raging heavens. Next would be the Saveshi, the Spirit Satyrs as they now are, were strong, and with the might of poisons and life weaving they defended their lands. But fearing the fate of the Illvari and the Revenants, they surrendered as well, quite the wise decision honestly.

 Last of the Great Plague Walkers, the mighty Asorans. The Sun Conquerors. Even with their bodies changed, the Asorans’ very breath made the winds howl, and they hurled their blazing light, skewered dozens of mortals with every swing of their deadly wings, and feasted on the life essence of everything that died by their hands. I believe even before they were called Asorans, Humans called them Sun Vampires? It is a fitting name for them. But Rula, oh Rula warred against them as if she were the God of War! Using the Divine Relics that had- Who is Rula? What are Relics? Didn’t I already say that? Rula is SO important to this story! I forgot. Oh well excuse me, it’s hard filtering a story made from a thousand angles you know!

Relics are… solidified aspects of magic that formed over the course of the Great Divide, shaped by the world, the gods, and the Plague Walkers. Some relics are harmless, like a pen that spews infinite ink! But others are quite dangerous, like a tiny knife called Eavir, with one flick of Eavir, a wave would shoot out, slicing mountains in two. There were also relics that were once people or relics that desired to BE people, these are called living relics, and they are the most common ones to survive to this day. The Crucible, the ever-voracious Night Eater, the Singing Catalyst… oh I believe the people call her a Djinn now even though she can’t grant wishes. People are always so silly! But you get the point! There are some relics that are still born today in Qyerath! Though almost all of them are muuuuch weaker than the ones born in the Divine Wars. People have even begun making copies of some of the most helpful relics, there are so many “Endless Flow” relic copies out there for helpful water supplies! But the copies will eventually burn out unlike the real Relics made from the essence of the World, that and only a few skilled craftsmen are capable of making them, so an imitation relic still costs quite a bit!

And as for Rula… she was Zuthar’s wife, and his opposite. Zuthar was God of Order, of Technology, God of Heavens, the God of Progress you could say. Rula was Goddess of Chaos, of the Stars and Night, of the blackness and endless darkness. Rula was by far the strongest God. As nothing thrives more on Celestial War than Chaos herself. With the Stars and Darkness as her weapons, whenever Rula descended upon the world, the Plague Walkers suffered thousands of casualties. Oh whenever Rula descended it was beautiful… the way the world darkened around her, her hair of flowing night and stars, her fury, her grace, her hunger. The Mother of Monsters, as many beasts owe their call to Rula’s womb.

The Asorans kept the war going for several months just by themselves, truly remarkable when you think about it! But with the combined might of so many divine beings and the mortals who raged for extinction, the conquerors relinquished their blades as well. The first Divine War was officially over.

But more was still to be done! The world had still not settled properly, the Illvari’s empty lands for example cried out for the loss of it’s people. Becoming a wasteland of emptiness, large bubbles of airless passage flowed from the weeping grounds. The Gods knew the Plague Walkers and their power needed to be contained so the planet could properly stabilize and heal from her wounds. So the Treaty of Dynasties was signed, by Zuthar, Rula, Greyoll, each Primordial Beast, and the remaining Gods of the Plague Walkers as well as their rulers. Save the Revenants who had no god left. Their god was Truth, and they had killed him themselves in their pursuit of knowledge, of the limits of the universe. They conquered life, the heavens, anything they could and made it a tool to serve them, until they doomed themselves of course. So the Revenants elected a representative for their Species, the first Plague Lord Akhil’Krishzick. A harsh name? Yes, it is hahaha! With each of the Great Plague Walker species accounted for, the Treaty of Dynasties was enacted.

The Gods then took to the Phyra Range, the last stand of the Asorans, and using all their divine power, they split the world asunder. Raising massive mountains that acted as physical, and divine barriers to the new realm of the Plaguelands. The mortals would call these Mountains the Shadow Mountains, but they also go by the Barrier Mountains and Shadowlands too. With the Mountains reaching the skies in a massive ring around the world, the top of the world was sealed off and veiled by the Gods. The Plaguelands, cut off from the rest of the world entirely, became five small worlds within the world. Now, what was the treaty? Or what were the new worlds within the world? Treaty first? Okay!

The Treaty was as such. First the- Wait! Okay, I HAVE to tell you this, it is amazing!

So, Velex refused to sign the treaty, she wanted to devour every last Revenant as penance for the agony they inflicted on her. But when her sister Rula begged her, she vowed she would not hunt the Revenants to extinction, as much as she wanted to. It is said that when the Treaty was signed. The thousands of remaining Revenants begged for forgiveness for their crime in any way they could besides mass suicide, begging the Goddess of Death to remove her parasite from within them, even saying they would worship her as their sole God! And Velex, as gentle as she normally is, stared into the eyeless faces of the five thousand remaining Revenants… and she SNEERED! She laughed at them for minutes on end, despite how gentle and kind she is normally, Death loved their agony and wanted to repay it a thousandfold. Eventually, with the chitinous husks of the planet conquerors bowing to her, she finished laughing and she declared this.

“Take your Plague Lord and rule the lands we have given you, govern yourselves and embrace every day we let you live. Never set foot outside your new realm and I will forget you exist… You may spend eternity in the barren arms of your kind. But should any of your kind leave, I will hunt them… and when any of your kind dies, you will fill my belly wonderfully.”  And with that, she turned and left! It was such a sight to see, you could feel the sorrow, the shame, the begging for atonement of these God-Killers! You could practically taste it in the air!

With the Treaty signed, the Plague Walkers took to their new Realms and the Four Kings system was created. Though this would be renamed the Four Lords system in time when the Eimmax king and the Saveshi King were slain and replaced over and over. The Plague Walkers were quite furious as the children grew and wished to leave their lands, but finally, they stabilized. The Dayless Monk took control of the Eimmax and she has been Plague Lord of the Reversed World ever since. And while she is quite young, the title of Plague Lord was handed down to Gria of the Saveshi… two hundred years ago?

They aren’t allowed to leave? Well no they are, only the Revenants are absolutely forbidden from leaving… Oh you mean the Treaty and all that! Right I’m sorry.

So the Treaty of Dynasties was signed, I forgot all the exact details but it was basically this…

“The Plague Walkers and their beasts will remain in the Plaguelands, though they can leave with the Warden of the Barrier’s permission to explore the outside world. Within their realms, they can do as the Plague Lord allows of their species. Their wars, their gods, all of it will be managed by them. Though their Gods must obey the Supreme Gods. Each Realm of the Plaguelands must have a temple built for the Supreme Gods that must be maintained, as well as the history of the war lest they ever forget and try to break free.” And that was it I think? Who is the Warden of the Barriers? An extremely powerful individual in charge of monitoring the entire span of the Shadow Mountains! It is an extremely taxing job, so the role is usually shifted every hundred years or so. But the newest one… Ohh she is a fun one! She has been in charge for two hundred years and seems to have no inclination of quitting. And she is verrry efficient at her job! What’s her name? It’s quite cute just like she is! Her name is… Umm… Grkyesh I forgot! Oh sorry for the language! OH! It’s Shionne! Shionne… Shionne… I can’t remember her full name sorry, it’s really long. Most Vampires often take three or more names and it makes it so hard to remember! There are vampires in the world? Of course there are! But I’ll introduce them properly give me a minute!

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