Regrowth: A Tale of the End [IC]

[G-Tech Corporation]

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Regrowth
A Tale of the End

Once upon a time, man lived in prosperity. He built high towers, forged mighty empires, and lived life to its fullest, draining the cup of civilization. No longer a beast of stone and fire, cowering in the wilderness as animals ravened about his abode, he tamed the wild and made its creatures his subjects. He bent rivers to his will, watering fields of golden wheat for his gluttony, and to the skies his temples reached.

But this is not that time. Man built too high, and discovered the power of the gods. Phos and Skotos were the two eldest deities, and revealed themselves to man, expecting worship and adoration for the gifts they had given him as he ascended from the mud. But man was proud, and had not seen their miracles, thinking himself the master of his domain. The gods grew angry, and sent afflictions upon mankind to teach him humility. Volcanoes ravaged the landscape of cities and farms, and the earth quaked beneath the feet of man, woman and child. But man's heart was hard; he shook his fist at the sky, and called curses against the powers of the circles of the world. As the world burned around him the wisest and most fell of man's scions dabbled in dark magics, and even as the lands of man sank beneath the waves they crafted a dread spell beyond even the ken of the gods.

And so the world ended, in fire. The gods fell as insidious incantations rent their forms from their strength, and man laughed to see his deities slain even as the last vestiges of civilization died under the apocalypse of magic. To the winds was scattered the earth, rock and stone, water and air, for the will of the divine had formed it, and as they were unmade so too were their creations.

That is not the end of the story though; man survived, lost as a sojourner amidst the planes of the cosmos, and into his breast a portion of the power of the divine was taken. His mind expanded, and the spark of creation was given to him, even the ability to reforge the world as it once was. Alone man walked, but not forever, and mayhaps in time he shall rise again to replace the gods he has cast down.

---

In the center of the gasping dusty plain, or just somewhere on it, some souls shuddered back into consciousness. Life's flame flickered within varied chests, memory fled forever, but a part of that within their hearts no longer quite human. Wind stirred in the still air, flecking bits of sand up to rattle against recumbent forms. The sand was cold, chill from a night of icy temperatures, but already the first rays of the sun brought heat to the endless expanse of gray-tan waste. A vague scent of fire and smoke hung in the air, perhaps more of a memory than a real sensation. Above the pitiless sky was empty and clear, a light washed out blue that bespoke not the blue of water or life, but merely nothing at all. To the first glance it would appear to be one of the most desolate places in a long history of desolate places, but here and there tiny pools of water marked the landscape. They were curiously clean, with no sign of dirt or other contaminant, barely more than an inch deep at the deepest. But water, of all things, was most precious to sustain life.

[Lunas Legion]

Neoseia sniffed the air as she awoke. Sand. Dust. Smoke. Flame. What were those things? She knew the names, but what were they? She had no memory of them. So how would she know what they were or recognise their smells?

Her eyes flickered open in response to the mysterious smells, gazing upward into an open sea of dead blue. Sky. She silently sat up and stood, taking in her surroundings. Sand stretched on to the horizon, filling all of her vision that was not the sky. Barren. Desolate.

Useless.

Why was she here? What was she to do now? Everything had a reason; cause and effect- how did she know that? She had never experienced it, much like those other things. Yet she knew them anyway, almost instinctively. It was... Disconcerting. She made a few tentative steps forwards, flip-flops (where'd she get those from?) slipping slightly in the sand, until she came to a small dip in the sand filled with a strange liquid. Water.

How did she know all this?

[Astrolinium]

Hayseet's eyes snapped open, and then snapped shut again against the light. Light,, they thought. What is it? What does it mean? It was a very puzzling conundrum -- they knew what it meant, but that wasn't useful information. They didn't know how they knew it, or why, or how to apply that information. Curious. They slowly opened their eyes again and took in their surroundings.

Dead. That, they knew. The world around them was dead, and... and Hayseet was not. Hayseet was certainly not-dead. There was a word for that too, perhaps. Live, maybe? It seemed right, but also not quite. It did not quite describe Hayseet, not as they knew the word. That was also very curious. Shakily, they sat up, and saw a figure in the distance.

"Hey," they called out, their voice croaking through cracked lips, "what does 'light' mean?"

[Liecthenbourg]

Omfridus sat a smooth rock, staring aimlessly towards a sandy plane. His mind wandered, mostly empty like the sandy flatlands before him. The sky was a piercing blue above him, or what his mind had told him was "blue" - a distant recollection nagging at the back of his cranium, much like most of the elder gentleman's knowledge. Everything around him, he knew what they were but not their purpose or meaning. This bothered the man tremendously, so he sat. In silence. His hat and robes would pick up in the wind, fluttering gently.

Time, another concept his brain tried to formulate but could not understand. A low rumble emerged from his stomach. Hunger, Omfridus thought. Slowly standing up, his knees quivering. A heavy breath followed, followed by another outburst of the wind. But this wind was different, it sounded like a... voice? He did not know how to proceed. He stood upon the rock he once sat upon, slowly. He looked at his hand, held it high and.... shook it,... it... waved?

[Nude East Ireland]

Again.

A shock overtook the physical form, forcing the body to seize for a brief moment. Nekhana forced his eyes open, the expanse burning his vision, until slowly he adjusted to what was. He lowered his clenched fists to his sides, feeling the gray sand and the ash in his grasp. His head pulsated, his mind uneasy. Like a faded memory, the definition in the world could not approach his tongue, which ran along his teeth. He felt cold and weak, as though he had been forced from a womb. He was unsure if anything he knew made sense, nor did he comprehend what sense meant, at the moment. His spine bent rigidly, until he saw entities separate from himself. His eyes scanned back and forth, bearing witness. Yet he did not absorb the information that was presented to him.

The incomprehensible force in his mind was unheard. And yet he felt its presence.

[The Grim Reaper]

Falling.

Falling.

Contact.

That is how dreams end and begin.

Felix coughed up sand. He felt dizzy. That was not your average dream - that was the dream of a child waking for the first time. Life in amazing technicolor, a world that matches reality. Lucidity is meaningless, for the time being.

One does not ask if the dream is real, not until one is given reason to wonder otherwise. It seemed unreal, uncertain. Yet, it felt natural. Felix felt lucid, and cognizant, even though he knew he shouldn't. His tongue felt dusty and dry, just for the moment, but then, just a bit of spit. Wet lips, drying eyes.

Felix pulled his silken over-garments over his face, leaving enough space in the weave to see shadows on the sand. There was little detail obvious to him, but there was little detail to see, regardless.

He stayed there, lying down, running his fingers through the sand.

What is the sand?

Familiar. The sand is familiar.

It felt familiar. His fingers felt different. Different to what, he did not know. But they felt different...sort of.

No. It wasn't his fingers. It was the marks they left. He could feel the marks, for just a moment - they felt as an extension of his 'self'. They gave the merest of direction to his fingers.

His only question was how to follow.

[G-Tech Corporation]

Coughing, lungs convulsing with sudden inhalation. Air. Sustaining life, circulation, limbs feeling sensation. His back was warm, his face cold, and Jarn jerked upright suddenly, fear-sweat standing out of a sudden on his brow. He remembered... he remembered nothing, but his pulse ran fast, the terror of flight and some primeval horror. But even as his hands clenched, fingernails digging into skin, the moment passed. He was alone, or very nearly alone, seated on a plain of what could only be described as gray sand. The large man brushed at his back absentmindedly, knocking away the clinging sand even as his gray-blue eyes roamed the horizon.

Nothing. Just emptiness as far as vision could be cast, aside from some tiny pools of silvery reflectiveness. His mind gave it the name water, though Jarn hadn't the least idea what language that was. Communication, language, other individuals. There were others like him, people. As the wind caressed his cheek gently he heard another voice speaking, and instinctively rose. Where did that impulse come from? Did one not sit while speaking? This was a strange world, a strange situation, but at least he knew his name. Its syllables sounded good as he pronounced it aloud, though he almost startled himself with the sound of his tongue clacking between teeth.

Another person. That was his thought. With a conscious effort the burly dark-haired man cleared his mind and rose, staggering on unsteady legs in the direction of the voice. One step, two, unfamiliar motions yet somehow Jarn had the impression he had done such a thing uncounted times before. The sand was loose under his feet, under his black leather boots tattered by what he assumed was use. Or they had always been this broken and shredded, perhaps. It was irritating to walk over, an irritation that built steadily as Jarn trudged towards what he could make out as a dim figure on the edge of sight.

His annoyance flared, and then he stumbled and fell flat in the sand. Sprawling in the grains the scent of fire came to his nose suddenly. Hands gripped the soil and forced his body up again, away from the acrid stink of smoke. What a strange thing it was, and as Jarn rolled over he noticed that a large slab of yellowish rock had been what he had tripped over. It wasn't in his way; his gait simply hadn't been ready for the sudden resistance of the stone. For some reason Jarn felt tired, but elated, as if he was seeing something wonderful. What was so special about a bit of rock, a mass of compacted sand and solidness? He could shake the feeling of beauty, but stood up and walked forward again, towards what he could now see were two figures.

[Rupudska]

What?

Gerij had, for all intents and purposes, been 'sitting up' the entire time. She was resting on a slight rise in the sand, which caused her head to be slightly above her feet and thus affording her a view of all the others.

Sand. Rise. Sitting. Unfamiliar terms, but yet I know them.

She sat up fully now, looking around. A man (What?) shouted, and another said what was most likely his name. Another, prior to both, asked what 'light' was. Again, more terms that Gerij understood and yet simultaneously did not, or at least did not remember understanding.

"Where... is this?"

[Jorgamunn]

Screams and cries of pain, red explosions and vague silhouettes vapourizing filled his dream vision. He heard muffled and garbled words as he ran through a blackened field until a implosion engulfed his entire body.

And then light. His eyes fluttered open

"It's warm.... Yet it is cold."

He sat upright and looked around. His feet were dipped into a small puddle of water and he sat of red hued sand, as soft as sand could be.

"Where am I? And who am I? What am I doing here?"

He looked around, trying to get a measure of his hazey memories. He looked on his habd and noticed his right hand was metal, with several weird carvings on it. One of them stated out Jaylwin.

"Yes, Jaylwin. My name. I remember nothing else though... Apart from being able to..."

Jaylwin flipped to the water and scooped some into his hands. He drank some and let the rest fall onto the sand. The now muddy sand was malleable and soft in his hands. He then a small bit and transmuted into a small stone pebble. He felt energy leave his body through his hands as he trasmuted the stone. He became much more tired afterwards and took more drinks from the water pool. He lied down next to it. Thinking on what to do.

[G-Tech Corporation]

A dune sat up next to Jarn's wandering path, his staggering dragging feet making markings in the sand that would have amused him if he wasn't vaguely tired. A dune? No, a person. He stopped, staring at the creature. A woman, a different form of human from him. She spoke, asking a simple question to the air, but the burly man took it as directed at him. He shrugged, and spoke in deep gravelly tones.

"It doesn't really look like anywhere." He arrested his tread, and cleared his throat, eyeing up the other person. "Erm, I'm Jarn." He stuck out a massive paw in what his brain said was a greeting.

[The Grim Reaper]

Felix sat up, starting to stand.

He wiggled his fingers, and noticed something. There, in the sand falling from his fingers.

The subtlest little sparkling grains.

Glass.

Curiosity, feeling, this feeling of wakefulness. Those tracings in the ground had given way to just a little glass, burned from his fingers from the sand. Why he called it glass, he did not know. More important was what it could become - a lens.

He took some sand in his hand, shaping it manually into a flattened pile, letting it fall through his fingers. He wasn't quite sure how to capture this power.

Felix sighed, letting the sand fall back from his hand, and the little glass he had created fell into the void. He still felt power from his fingers, but he still could not quite make those tracings work.

It aggravated him, not to be able to see.

And then, he grasped it.

His anger itself formed heat in his hand. He was ecstatic, even though it felt familiar to his mind, yet again. He drew strands of glass from the sand, into two even balls of glass. He drew more from the sand, carefully working up a ball of glass. And then, he pressed it together. It was like moulding hot glass, without heat.

Finally, he formed two identical lenses. They were somewhat clouded, because of their thickness, but they were simple lenses.

He took more sand, and cleared his throat. This was harder. He forced the sand together, into a thin strap of fabric - a type of leather. He forced his lenses into the leather strap, forming it around the glass.

Behold, rudimentary eyewear. Someday, in the near future, he would create a magnification attachment, and perhaps make the leather more pleasant to behold.

As he finished, he heard voices.

"Hello? How many of you are there?"

[Liecthenbourg]

From atop the perched position of the rock, Omfridus watched. The voices had multiplied, echoing across the dunes and sand planes most well. They all add to the wind, he thought plainly. He descended from his rock, taking in the amusing images of some prints upon the sand he could see slightly further to his left. He himself walked along, his sandals picking up small amounts of sand.

"Light...? I know what it is, but not what it means..." Then the next voice came, asking for how many beings were present.

"How many of whom or what are there?" He called back, aiming to come closer to the voice that asked the question.

[The Grim Reaper]

Felix stood up straight, affixing the goggles underneath his silken robes.

"Of the voices. Of us. How many of us are there?"

Felix steadied himself, taking note of the sudden cacophony - if you could call it that - and identifying little pieces of self that swirled around him. He longed to see more of us. He missed our selves.

"We should all gather."

New energy coursed through his muscles, shifting his weight from foot to foot. How he missed other selves.

[Liecthenbourg]

Omfridus approached the slightly portly individual now, having made his way towards him. Conversation, he believed as it was known, would become much easier now that he stood a few feet in front of the gentleman.

"I have no idea..." he began. "There is you, and there is I. I have heard more voices, but I do not know how many." He added a quick bow, making sure his hat did not fall as he did so. "I am Omfridus." Only then did the wizardy fellow notice the eyewear upon the new fellow's eyes. They were interesting and unique. But he would not pry, not yet.

[Lunas Legion]

She heard voices in the distance. More of... Whoever they were. Whoever? Why not whatever? It was a peculiar choice of words, as if they were somehow... Distinct from everything else. Different. Aloof, even. She crested a small dune, and saw others.

One-two-three-four-many. Many others. Yes. That worked.

She heard shouts, something about counting how many of 'us' there were. What even were they for that matter?

"There is me as well." She called out softly as she decended the dune. "And I have heard many voices, but cannot form a concept of how many. I have also found water, but I do not know what to do with it."

[Liecthenbourg]

Omfridus turned to the new comer. This one was different. Female? Was that it? Indeed - yes. Female, the opposite of the species.

A quick bow was given to her. "Greetings. This makes us.... three? But I hear more, more indeed. As you say - the concept of how many of us there may be in these dunes is... unfathomable to my mind. I am Omfridus, at least that is what I know."

Bringing a hand to his hair he removed it from his vision, and looked towards the woman sliding down the dune. "Water you say? I have heard of such a thing... though its uses perplex me." A small instinctive feeling crossed his mind. His voice become a croak. "Drink it, perhaps...?"

[Rupudska]

Gerij stood up, having some difficulty as she adjusted to standing upright like a toddler. For some reason, it felt embarrassing.

She stretched out her arm and, after a few seconds of arranging and re-arranging her finger's positions, pointed at each human she saw in turn. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven... and counting herself... "I see eight here."

There could be more though, right?

Someone, the one who called himself 'Omfridus', commented about the presence of water nearby, and its supposed use for being drunk. That made perfect sense to Gerij, though she didn't know why. She immediately walked towards one of the larger nearby pools of water, tottering a bit as she got used to the concept of walking.

[G-Tech Corporation]

Jarn's eyes scanned the small crowd gathering, also picking out the multiple figures still scattered like bits of detritus about the dunes. A good dozen, or something like that, all in various states of disrepair and dishevelment. His throat was feeling a touch dry, so he took the, erm, Omfridus' advice. Water. It wasn't like the sand he knew, but it didn't seem passing strange. As he knelt down to dip a hand in it it felt cool, like when he had first awakened. When he removed it again it was still coated in the substance, and with a touch of inspiration the large man turned his hand so it cupped the liquid. Raising it to his parched dry lips Jarn drank, a thoroughly instinctive action, and his throat was suddenly flooded with the cool wetness of the water.

His eyes lit up, and he gave a barely audible sigh. That wasn't half bad. "The water is good." Jarn remarked aloud to the others, cupping more of the liquid and drinking again. Once he had had his fill, and his throat no longer protested the heat, the black-haired man rose to look about him at the others. "I hate to ask, but does anyone know what's going on?"

[Jorgamunn]

Jaylwin had been observing the group converse and meet upon the spring, noticing that they had not sensed his presence amongst them. He felt apprehensive about approaching the group but his logic knew that they would be the only few he would encounter for a long time. He stood up and walked silently towards the gathered.

" I know not. I had awoken next to this spring with naught but vague dreams and my name."

Jaylwin leaned on a large rock and stared onto the heavens, he sighed as everyone stared at him and his metal hand. He had to say slmething, else the silence would kill him.

"Stare if you must but I know none about how I received this iron construct of a hand. My name is Jaylwin, I suppose Iron Hands could be used as well. "

He played with the small stone pebble he made earlier in the day as he waited for the group to reply.

[Lunas Legion]

"If anyone does, they would have said already." Neoseia replied. "It seems as if we have been left here for... Whatever reason." She paused in thought. Was there a reason? "I am called..." She thought for a moment. What was her name? The answer came almost immediately, from where she knew not. "Neoseia."

"As for 'drinking' water... Yes, that does seem to be it's intended use. If the water has a use, maybe this... Sand does too, yes?" Her memory came up with nothing. Maybe sand did not have an intended use. Were there two types of thing; useful and useless? "For now I shall return to my... Puddle of water and drink from it. I shall return shortly."

She headed back up the dune, kicking sand up as she went. Those others seemed different. Opposite to her. The word male came to mind. And then what was she? The idea of female formed. She knelt by the puddle and began to sip. This water was... Cool. Wet. Moist. The opposite of sand perhaps? Her parched throat and mouth were cured of the annoyance. Yes. Perhaps sand and water were polar opposites. The two did not seem to mix in the puddles.

[Elysian Kentarchy]

Darkness. Darkness is all he can feel, darkness is all he can see. "How did this happen?" Rache thinks and he tries to remember. Yet his only memory is that of his twin, his twin whose presence he can feel close by. He drags himself out of the darkness and opens his eyes. First thing Rache sees is his twin sister Adina's face in front of his. As feeling return to his hands he can feel their hands are joined. "Hey Adina... Adina... wake up." He starts to shake his twin and she opens her eyes. "Thank goodness. How are you feeling, sis?"

"Tired... what happened?"

"I don't know." He scans the horizon, a desert that he doesn't recognize, though strangely he can't remember much beyond that the girl with him is his twin, its almost as if it has been burned into his brain, he could panic but he feels strangely calm about things. Almost as if there is someone sharing some part of him with him, it feels strangely warm. He decides to ponder that later and notes a group of people a bit in the distance. "Ah a group. We should see if someone has an explanation. Can you stand?"

"Yeah." She pulls herself up. "But I don't know if I can walk that far."

"Then we will walk together." Adina leans against him and they make slow process through the sand together, using one another as support.

They finally reach the group just as a dark haired man asks "I hate to ask, but does anyone know what's going on?"

"I'd like to know that myself." Rache says. "I have no clue where even here is."

"Nor I." Adina chimes in. She closes her eyes in thought. "Yet I can't remember even where we were before this." She is disturbed because she knows there is something that she is forgetting but can't recall. Her brother is the same way with this.

Rache then guides Adina to the water and after helping Adina take a mouthful he does himself. Though surprisingly it seems to him that Adina is getting stronger the closer they are to each other. Almost as if she was powering up. Rache has the same feeling too.

[Liecthenbourg]

Omfridus watched as the woman, Neoseia as she called herself, walked up the dune. His eyes gazed from her, to the hunched over man at the pool. It was a great contrast to the dusty appearing yellow of the sand, it was radiant and blue, shining with the sun's own reflection. He offered a broad smile at the man with his iron hand, not wishing to pry or insult the man's appendage.

He went to his knees, his robes pressing against the sand lightly and he cupped his hands by the pool. He drank. The water was unlike everything he had seen around him so far. The sand and the rocks were hot, unique to the touch but not like this. His throat sang with glee and his body cooled down tremendously with each handfull of water. Eventually he stood up, distancing himself from the pool.

"I am finding this whole area an... enigma. What are we to... do? What is to do? Do we have a reason? My mind cannot cope with all this untapped knowledge within it... some form of something, reminding me of.... things. I know not the purpose of naught, but I know what they are..."

[The Olog-Hai]

He comes to, with an odd feeling on his face. His brain supplies the word..... heat? The sun? He cracks open his eyes, and sees the sky? Where did all of these.... words? come from? Something nagging in the back of his mind tells him not to pry, and to accept these.... gifts? whenever he thinks them. First, he needs life bringer. No...... water. That was it. He stumbled up, unsteady on dehydration and heat weakened legs. He wandered over to a hazy spot, and bent down to drink. The first time, there was nothing, only dusty sand. He wandered over to another pool, and he got lucky. He drank and drank, wetting his parched lips. hen, what was next? Food could wait. He, as his mind told him, didn't need it that much. What was it, a pack feeling. He needed.... others. Others of what?
Others, humans, he finally decided after some thought. But then he remembered that humans called each other names. What was a simple name to remember? His mind suddenly handed him one: Ber. So, he began to look for others.

He saw a figure on the rise of a dune. But what to.... say? He let his mind supply the words.
"Hello there!"

[Skrovishte]

Rhian Maassen sat bolt upright, panting. Sweat ran down her face and her back, gluing the pale pink dress she was wearing to her body. Her heart was pounding, and her blood coursing through her veins at what felt like a pace ten times faster than it should. Though she didn't have the slightest idea why. What had shocked her so? What had just happened? What was the dusty red sand on the ground and the coarse pink fabric stuck to her body doing there? Where was she?

Come to think of it...who was she?

Inwardly, she scolded herself. There was no time for existential questions now. Her throat was dry and a white, flaky coating was forming around her lips. She needed water, and fast. Endowed with a new sense of purpose, she scrambled to her feet and, gripping the folds of her dress as though for comfort, clumsily made her way across the sand as fast as she could. Every step was painful. Her whole body was aching, crying out to be fed and watered. Her vision blurred, and through the hazy silver bubbles clouding her vision, she could just make out a group of people talking. They weren't too far away; if she shouted to them, they might-

Oh, what was the use anyway? It was a mirage; it had to be. Deep down, Rhian was certain that no one else could possibly be occupying this vast abyss of sky and sand which she had woken up in. She was alone. Alone.

The thought, even more than the running, drained her of the little energy she had left. Finally conceding, she collapsed to the floor, curled herself up into a tiny ball, and began to cry. Her whole body, and seemingly the whole word, shook with her loud sobs.

[Dixmix]

Inside the sand of the wasteland laid a nothing but a hand. There wasn't a pulse and the person seemed to have died and buried in the sand. The smell of death came from the hand as the chaos of the land bury him more in the swarm of sand that brushed upon his skin. Then there was a pulse.

Two Pulse...
Three...

His heartbeat was escalating and he dug himself out by grabbing the sand and he got out of the sand with him wheezing and coughing out sand. " Water! Water! I need water!" He screamed and smashed his hand to the very ground and something felt like it drawn from his body. His sight, while dark, could see the waves of energy streaming off his hand as his hand was submerged in a something liquid. It felt cool to the touched amongst the heavy heat. He licked the liquid and jumped from it.
" Water? How? I just wanted it. No, I need it, but the intense heat would of killed any water." Zas didn't care for instinct had taken over his mind as he drank the water and felt the nourishment that filled through his body. He gave a sigh of pleasure as he gave in to the tired heaviness of his body as he couldn't but help that he felt his rag.

" I am blind. I.. remember, but I don't know how I got that way. Or even who I... Zas.. that is it. But how could I see that, wave?" So many questions were flooding his head that he didn't know where to begin or end. The heat was pouring on him and after an hour he collected his strength and started to walk in the direction where he saw numerous waves that were gathering in the darkness. He couldn't see how far it was but he knew he has some walking to do and it was hard enough to put one foot to another. He just have to make their someway, somehow.