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« on: June 05, 2010, 03:08:55 am »
This is something that I'll probably regret posting. You could say it's the story I want to tell; please read it from beginning to finish or not read it at all.
This character I've named after myself (and taken a random last name):
Nivm, a lemur that grew up on the outskirts of a dilapidated lemur village. Since before he can remember, he felt unnaturally guarded against religion, and used any sustainable trick to keep himself away from it. He heard nothing from the priests; for he covered his ears, and he steered himself clear of any gathering or "holy" ground. When he was in his teens, his trickery (almost like a xantos gambit) ceased to be sustainable, and his parents were horrified. He was soon forced to listen to everything that he had shunned, but he refused it. Although his ears heard the words, and his eyes read the text; little of it reached his mind, as he blanked it out. During this time, his general phobia was upgraded with a specific version; he feared the power of the gods. Not in the way one might tremble, or look on in awe, but the cold knowledge that, if a god were so inclined, it could destroy the lemur without any chance of resistance, or even his knowledge. If he were to fight other children, he could pull away or make some bruises. If he were to fight his parents, he could still escape them. If he were to fight the guards, he could struggle, claw and move with fear wrought speed, and even if it were futile; he could do something. No such things are possible with a god.
His vanishing memory, added to his own efforts, went to far with the words of religion. He ended up being ignorant of most common knowledge related to the subject. This is an ignorance he refused to rectify; surpassing the diaboli in his ability to leave the subject, often without anyone the wiser.
As he matured, he continued to be an odd worker of odd jobs, doing just a little bit of everything. From mining, woodcutting, and smithing, to cooking, herbalism, and magic. Despite all these and more, he made his real money in being a courier. Not that kind that just takes letters from here or there, but the kind that can tell when and where something will need to travel; regardless of what it is. He collected these funds from the smaller parts of the world, those less traveled, until he was ready to find a new base of operations, and perhaps stop walking so much.
Despite his self-imposed iron curtain and poor memory, he was always hungry for knowledge. He learned all he could from all of those he met on his journeys, listening to those who are rarely heard, and prying truth from those heard too much. Further, he thought about what he had learned, and thought carefully. He developed all of his own ideas about the world, and made an effort to shut out any bias that may distort them. His own or anyone else's.
His goal, when he leaves his home village for Hydlaa, was to collect enough funds to support the construction of his own home.
He continued his odd jobs, finding far more work than he knew what to do with in Hydlaa, Ojaveda, and Gugrontid, despite them being not much larger than the villages he worked in before. Through this work, he also learned far more than he did before. Besides supporting himself, he used his money to purchase instruction for his abundance of skills, but kept saving for his real goal.
(Planning↓)
Shortly, he found far too many people saying they owed him, or factions saying he aught to join or have honors. This disturbed and confused him greatly, as he had been completely unaware of the respect and gratitude he was earning along with his horde, or the good he had done. He had simply completed any jobs he could get, and turned down any jobs that would end poorly. A day in thought, somewhere in the forest between Hydlaa and Levrus' magic shop, was all he needed to rally himself, and understand he could use the connections he gained. He did so verily.
He began a business to organize all those incredibly odd jobs he had been doing, but were a common part of life. This business acted much like a mercenary troop, except combat was a very small part of it. The first section of it was the collectors; people who wore a distinctive symbol, and collected jobs. They all were *(low) level azure magicians, and stayed in contact with a level *(medium) azure magician. The moment a collector found a task, he would send it in. It would be analyzed, then given to the smaller section of organizers. They would figure out just who of the third section, the workers, should take the job, and contact them the same way the collectors are. Members of the business can have any of the positions at once, and are drilled with orders and policy to deal with everything in the most efficient way possible. Any job is meant to be taken care of within the minimum possible time, and to the greatest quality. If a cook is willing to pay to have some refrigerated cheese from halfway across the level brought to him within a day, it will be done.
(This is not as important to the RP I want to do, but it just evolved with it. If it got implemented in game, it would be a random quest generator that players could join up with. This would be the producer of useless fetch quests when the normal quests are upgraded to be interesting.)
As his business encroached upon the work of just about every other business in the top four tiers of Yliakum, he had to meet with other business owners and deal with their rage and cutthroat politics. When he wasn't, he had to deal with both near-invisible disasters and horribly obvious flaws in the business almost constantly. In his wearied ~eternity, he managed to merge his business with the normal couriers, and with most other businesses he was in conflict with. His own business drew a spider web of connections over much of Yliakum, but as it merged and changed, it lost the force it had that was able to do so much so quickly. Its members were not as ready or as efficient as time went on, although they still completed any reasonable job. The government finally took real notice of the business' value at this point, and made to commandeer it and its system. Nivm made a complicated contract that set the business up as a part of government, but left him being paid royalties, and with a running position if he should wish it. For the most part, he left the world of trade at this point, and finally got to making his...home.
On the third tier, at the edge of a forest on the end of a long road, he built his home. It began with a wall enclosing a garden (with statues), which then enclosed a little tower. It was an octagonal affair with little decoration, and a look like it was very old, even though it had been only weeks since its completion. Its walls extended underground down to the bedrock, at which point the stairs were carved deeper, and more rooms made (all walls were treated to prevent water seepage). The above ground levels had a kitchen, bedrooms, and the usual amenities of life. The lowers levels contained a library, and many rooms of experimentation and study. Here, Nivm worked, and he worked most importantly on magic. He knew the magic of the runes▬
(this part really depends on whether someone had gotten the fact that Talad made the runes to him yet)
▬, but that was not enough for him. They could do great things, but they always did certain things; if he wanted something else, he could never get it from them. Most of all he wanted power; the kind that could allow him to challenge a god. (? He was never going to get that from tools made by a god.) He needed to create his own way. His work with magic allowed him to glimpse its workings, and he wished to use these by themselves. Through great effort and practice, while alone, he one day managed to invoke a small power of fire. He used no rune, and it tired him in body; but a candle was lit. Looking into the flame, he realized he was still using the mechanisms of the rune, even though he wasn't using the rune or the crystal's light. He wasn't going in the right direction, regardless of the accomplishment. He walked to the top of his tower, in stereotypical heavy robes, and looked up towards the crystal. "I will use just you." He remembered what made up those mechanisms, although he understood little of it, and tried to discard the shapes while holding the material; the spark, the flare, the life in it. He then brought up the flare to the crystal's light...and failed. He saw shapes and mechanisms (wrought by Talad ?)(? not his own) blocking him from the energy, preventing him from using it how he wished. A spark appeared in front of him, momentarily forming the energy glyph before dissipating. He stomped down to his study to brood.
He thought about how one changes the world. To create something is to destroy something, to create one's own order, one must remove an order. For (Talad to make ?) the glyphs (? to have been made), an order must have been destroyed. A natural order. So the steps to use true magic, begin with breaking down the order in the universe; just a little. Then one may control that bit of universe. Then one may create a new order that they wish. He figured it was worth a shot.
He returned to the ritual room with the candle, now turned into a puddle. He sat down and stared at it, remembering his newest discoveries and attempting to use just a little of the spark, to make a greater spark. He thought about how the wax was now in a state of disorder, but that disorder was just another kind of order. He had to remove any order of any kind so he could create the order he wanted. To return the candle to its previous state; that before he lit it. He found the spark, the flame, and brought to the wax, the order, and imagined the first step he wanted; the dissolution of order. He concentrated, not just on the order he could see, but any hidden systems or orders within the wax; any at all.
That is how Nivm Manerey nearly ended the world.
He managed to create raw chaos; disorder incarnate. It was everything and nothing, all at once but never at the same time. To gaze upon it is to tempt madness, to understand it is to become mad, and to touch it is to be everything and nothing, all at once but never at the same time. The little quasi-puddle soon dissolved the floor, and the room below it. It dissolved the library, the labs, and the study. It dissolved the kitchen, the bedrooms, and all those little amenities of life. It dissolved the tower whole, and the garden, and the wall. It dissolved the forests edge, and the road. It soon dissolved the forest and town across the hills. It dissolved the bedrock, layer after layer, and it dissolved the air, layer after layer. It found its way into a great cave with a great lake, and poured into the expanse. It dissolved another town, and began dissolving a great cliff.
At this point the gods noticed (or took a double-take at) the impossible, unnatural horror eating away at the world. It could burn them, it could kill them, but they did not fear it. Each of those able drew upon their power to destroy, but it was already destroyed; it was everything and nothing. So they drew upon their power to contain, and they did so with all of their might. The crystal went dark for that time, as any source of power was used in the battle, no matter the danger. When light returned to Yliakum, a jagged circle covered an eighth of the third tier, and some of the second and fourth. The jagged sphere could be seen outside the Stalactite, and its tendrils reached towards the crystal. But it was safe now, held back and sealed within it's area.
This thing, now it was no longer ending the world, would prove to be a valuable resource, if anyone choose to look. Although Nivm did not suspect the dangers involved with such a small experiment, he was correct in his theory; once order was removed, it could be created. The raw chaos, or amorphia, was a mortal-created concept brought into reality (eating away at reality). It really could do anything, even breach the barrier, but it could also do nothing, being perfectly contained. Even reality near it (anywhere from ~1cm to ~50m) took on this vagueness, in which an object could exist in multiple places at once, and multiple objects could exist in the same place. If a person were to come to this barrier, the raw chaos would react to their presence, and their very thoughts. If this person would...come to understand chaos, they could create anything they wanted. Whatever is was they wanted at that point.
The gods, being greater than just a person, could use this force to an even greater degree, carefully forming it to their will like the caster at a blast furnace. They may not go mad, or meet a horrible end, but neither would they ever have complete control. Anything created would be distorted somehow; for ill more often, but also for good.
(I figure chaos would be able to create things both immune to further chaos, able to order chaos, and able to work with it better; but such things would only come from a ? in ∞ chance.)
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