Elizar really needs a new DA account

[Evangeline]

Cool!

[elizar]

Now waiting until I will have to get to work. Dwarf Fortress seems to be yet again denying me Hematite.

---

---

Tanya allowed herself a breather as she lied down in the high grass. It had been a taxing race today, and only halfway done. She hadn't been first, but she was still smiling, as she had gotten ahead of her friend. They had bet a mead at the tavern.

She felt the heavy footsteps and then heard a snort behind her.

"I haven't forgotten about you Rakash." She said and stood up. She stretched before stroking her bull's muzzle and neck with her racing gloves, made from the last shedding of Rakash.

Rakash looked up in the sky, and a moment later Tanya heard what he sensed. A dragon cow, Sera, was roaring as she flew downwards to the pair. Rakash was trained well enough so he didn't get ready to breed, but Tanya still held fast onto the halter. As the cow landed, she quickly lied down to allow her rider to step off, then she quickly socialized with Rakash. She wasn't in heat, but she was in the early stages of pregnancy, and Rakash was the father.

"You're late Daniel." Tanya said to the rider.

"I know, but I can't join you at the tavern." Daniel said and adjusted the blindfold on his eyes while checking his two powered artifacts, bracelet which protected him from any attempts to get to his mind, and a necklace to allow him to see.

"There's an Agent at the tavern, just heard it in the air from other riders." The bracelet was from the Shadows, and the Agents worked for them. It had been almost a year since the Shadows had taken him. All he gathered was that they wanted people like him, with strong mental defenses, but the drawback had been combated with the bracelet.

"They just can't let it go." Tanya sighed. "Come on, lets go to the kennels." She snapped the lead rope on Rakash and he followed diligently. Daniel did the same with Sera, but reached into his pocket and picked up few cooper coins.

"Here, for the mead, buy some meal for me as well." He said as handing it over to her.

Tanya accepted it. "Where will you stay?" She asked.

"With the stable boys." Daniel said. "It isn't like I've done it before."

"Come on, the stable boys are nothing but slaves, you really want to let others think you are one as well?" Tanya asked frustrated. She wanted a warm bed, and a warm body share it with her.

"How many slaves can afford this?" Daniel said and held out the necklace. "Those I know that are blind from dragon accidents usually don't have this."

Tanya chose not to answer as they reached the kennels, a man-made cave which reminded Daniel too much of Ash Mountain. Inside were several corrals, and Daniel quickly moved Sera to the cow section while Tanya led Rakash away from the cows in heat and to the bull section. It was made of better metal than any other corrals in the kennels, and had large enough space to accommodate either cow with hatchling, or the more frustrated bulls.

Tanya went back to the entrance and saw Daniel look around in his unorthodox manners. While he was blind, the necklace allowed him to see to some extend, and widen his other senses. She remembered when she saw him first, imprisoned by raiders who had attacked a small Shadow camp. He had been blind when she saw him then, but she managed to scrounge up enough coin in racing to buy him the artifact. He got very interested in the dragons, and told his own stories about how he used something like the knights were on the battle dragons. But he described it more as a bird of prey, a falcon, than a dragon. He seemed to pick up the training fast enough to start racing, and so he did in order to provide for himself. Tanya never accepted anything from him unless it was from a bet like the one they had.

"I know this look." She said.

"Deja Vu." Daniel said. "I spent my last five years in a cave like this."

"But you told me that you had been recently kidnapped by the Shadows when I found you." Tanya said.

"I was a refugee, and our only port in a storm was a cave." He said.

"Come on, let's try to find a hostel in the town." Tanya said.

"I won't risk it." Daniel replied. "Like the local racers said, there might be an Agent in the tavern."

"Then we go to another tavern, there are more than one in the town." Tanya insisted.

Daniel shook his head. "No. I'm already too obvious. The Shadows don't like dragons, so I am safe here tonight."

"Why do you do this?" Tanya asked. "You know what I want, but why won't you let it just happen?"

"I have a wife, a son and a daughter back home." Daniel said. "It's only a matter of time until Julian or Elena come."

"It's been over a year." Tanya grabbed his shoulder gently. "I know you told me about the time difference, but would you really believe that one day there equals a year here?"

"I got to." Daniel said.

"I once believed you were full of it, an insane guy. But when the Shadows brought the other creatures, and the rumor of a metallic dragon in the north which has never been told about before, I started to believe you, and what the Shadows are capable of.

"It's time to let it go. They are the past, the future is here."

Daniel was silent for a moment. "Go to the tavern, buy us some venison and mead and come back here." He said.

Tanya made her way to the town and entered the tavern. She couldn't see any Agent there, but in the murmur she detected the word few times. It was enough to tell her that he had been there. She got some cooked venison meat and two closed small kegs, and made her way back to the kennels.

But as she arrived, she didn't see Daniel by the entrance.

"This isn't funny Daniel." She said as she walked in. The smell of the roasted meat was enough to make some of the more hungrier dragons snort and howl, but she ignored it.

"Where are you?" She called as she made her way inside. Some of the stable boys tried not to look, characterized by the collars they wore, marking their own fates. While she looked like a racer, it was possible she was of royal blood, and on slave was allowed to look at any royalty for long. So most avoided looking at all at strangers.

After walking around a bit, she realized something. Sera was not in the kennels. She went over to the cow section, but didn't see any goldenrod cow with black socks.

It couldn't have been Agents, they wouldn't have taken a dragon with them. She couldn't ask the slaves, as it was not their business to know who took what dragon. And if they did pay attention, most of them were punished for it.

Tanya made her way to Rakash's corral and sat down, drinking her mead and eating the venison meat. After she had gotten her fill, she gave the rest to Rakash, even though he was quite full already.

"Where did you go Daniel?" She asked to no one in particular.

[Evangeline]

Hmmm... leather from shed skins? Neat idea. If you want to use any other chars of mine, feel free.

[elizar]

Like I said in the first post, this is more of a random spur-of-the-moment type of writing. I'm fairly certain I am not the first one taking the shedded skin as leather thing. Maybe it comes from Broken Sky, it is the most memorable story with dragons in it that I remember.

As for the figlet, I based this one on a dream. Daniel being blinded for some reason, wearing blindfold, and it had those Shadows in it trying to get him to fight in their war against Amberians. I really should start reading the story about those. But still, this is probably not going to be continued. Depends on what kind of mood strikes me.

[elizar]

Oliver ran along the corridor in his environmental suit. While at any other time, the suit would be just a hindrance, he knew that it was the only thing that could save his life. The safe room was still very far away and Oliver cursed whoever decided that a one kilometer long hauler would be the perfect for the upcoming job.

Oliver felt one of them running alongside him in the corridor, hiding between the atoms in the wall or something. No one knew what Technids were, and only people dubbed the Feelers could sense them. Oliver was the only Feeler on board. They were that rare that only the most important ships had them.

Something told Oliver to duck. The moment he did so, a metal spike seemed to just appear from the wall where the Technid was, seemingly intent on killing him. Oliver couldn't really think about it, only to stand up and run again. He grabbed the capsule he had dropped, and hoped that it was still in one piece.

The relationship between Technids and humans had started innocently enough. No one even knew they were around until the ship Tremors had been too close to an asteroid belt and several microfractures and impacts graced the ship. Then the structural failure happened, and a section of the hull bent in, creating explosive decompression. But in moments, the hull sealed. The microfractures had also disappeared. The Technids were saving the ship. They spread like a virus, but seemed to have a symbiotic relationship and didn't harm humans, only mended their ships and structures, even external implants.

But as of two years ago, they suddenly turned against the humans, intend on killing them.

Oliver was though aware that killing wasn't the only thing they sought, they had also simply tortured the humans. There had never been any sort of communication between Technids and humans, and only Technid-free ships were the only thing safe in the galaxy.

Thukker, the hauler Oliver was on had been Technid-free. But something had infected it, but no one knew what exactly.

Oliver stepped in the tent made out of king's ransom load of plant fiber cloth. It seemed that only thing that stopped Technids was organic material. Thus internal implants had never been infected by Technids, and whatever that was built and kept inside plant fiber cloth tent was always Technid free.

"Dear lord tell me you have it." Sheridan said and took the capsule.

"It's the battery." Oliver said. "I can't believe that we were supplied with a defective one for the TK."

"Are you injured?" Sheridan asked.

"I almost got hit by a spike, but I survived." Oliver said. "Just start the TK so we can be rid of the Technids in this sector."

"It takes a moment. Where are the nearest Technids?" Sheridan asked.

Oliver took a deep breath to help focus. "They are over thirty feet away from us in every direction." He said. "They can't stand the cloth, while they can get close to us in every case."

"Good. I know they said they made this cloth from the plants in the T15 system, but you can never be sure. I've been stiffed several times by the government." Sheridan said.

"I remember when they distributed those fiber bullet-proof vests. They were supposed to have everything to prevent shock and death when hit, such as plasma blood, adrenaline and whatnot. Stopped working in ten years." Oliver said.

"And that's the only thing that reached the news." Sheridan said. "When all this is over, I'll tell you few secrets."

TK hummed to life, ready to pulse out. The radiation was harmless to humans, but it was proven to kill Technids.

"There, we're ready." Sheridan said and began the starting sequence. While nothing was heard or seen, all Technids in the Thukker simply died and vanished. It spread to the rest of the system.

"Great, all that is left is to jump to other regions and clean them." Oliver said, then felt his legs getting wobbly. It wasn't the only thing, as he stopped feeling his right arm. Then his right leg. "Sheri -" He said numbly and fell down.

"Oliver!" Sheridan ran over to him, then turned to look at the rest of the crew inside the tent. "Hand me the medkit!"

[elizar]

Dear lord it escaped! The Technid story is continuing!

---

Oliver woke up. He saw an IV sticking in his arm, and some old scars around the area as well. It was strange. He didn't feel if some time had passed. The last thing he remembered was handing over the battery to Sheridan.

The room was quite plain, and while it had the basic appearance of a hospital room, it was more spartan, and no one else was around. He turned around, but felt quite weak, as if he hadn't used his muscles in a while. Above his bed was a design with three circles all connected to each other. Sisters of Terra.

"What the?" He said to himself. Sisters of Terra only took in near-lost cases, controlled plagues and diseases. He figured he wasn't sick, so he had been near death and no one else had wanted to take care of him.

A man in a uniform of the Sisters walked in. "You're awake?" He asked almost amazed. "Do you remember your name?" He asked.

"Yeah." Oliver said. "Oliver Gareth. I was aboard Thukker - ."

"My name is Mark Ross." The man said, appearently a doctor. "You came to us three years ago." He read from a chart that had been put up on a wall in the room and he wrote on it. "Some captain, he didn't want to say his name, came with you in a sustain pod. He said he found you drifting in it."

"Three years?" Oliver asked. "But I don't feel like it has been."

"You could have been longer." Mark said. "I've heard of the Thukker before, where was that?"

"We were activating a TK to clear the Angus system of Technids. That's the last thing I remembered." Oliver said.

"That's well over five years ago." Mark said. "Your brainwaves told us that something of your mind was left, but you simply never woke up. Up until now that is."

"Alright, I'm awake, I've been given some muscle strengthener, and I certainly have sanity. I don't qualify longer for Sisters care, do I?" Oliver asked.

"Not entirely." Mark said. "We can give you a ride to the nearest space port and get a space for you in a capsule hotel for a week. That should be enough for you to contact those you knew in the past, and maybe even collect some money from your old bank accounts. We will also give you few change of clothes."

"Yeah, the last part is something I definitely need." Oliver said. He barely knew where to start. At least Mark had given him some clue. He had to get to the bank and check his balance, it wouldn't be that hard at least, his internal implants would verify his identity. He even had a pin in his left left from a nasty break. If the implants had failed for five years, the serial number on the pin would help him, though it could take some time.

"I'll get things going." Mark said. "Just ring if you need anything. I'll set up our system to accept signals from your room.

Oliver looked at Mark leaving, until he noticed a metallic part sticking out of his neck. An external implant. "Before you go, what happened to the Technids?" He asked. "You got some external on you, that was a death sentence the last time I remembered."

"Oh, the Technids are dead. We haven't had any since five years ago." Mark answered, then left.

Oliver stood up to get some feel in his legs and how to walk. Things had been laid on him rather quickly, but he had no idea where to go. He tried to reach out. There was no plant fiber cloth present, nor were any Technids. They were dead, at least in the system he was in. He had more questions than answers. But at least he could go hunting for some at the space station.

Oliver looked around. He looked forward to spend some time in a capsule hotel. While the Sisters were sponsored quite well, he felt he was wasting precious space, a feeling he had grown up with, being born and raised on a spaceship.

[Evangeline]

Nice touch about the spacer's anxiety about "area issues".

[elizar]

Christ Oliver is a sucky name, I wish I had found a better for him when writing this.

---

"That's odd." The security officer said as reading from Oliver's implants and compare them to his database.

"I told you Officer." Oliver said. "I've been with the sisters for three years or so, so it is probable that I may not be in your database. And I've never been in this system before."

"No, you're in here, but so is your death certificate."

Oliver sighed. "Now look, I'm pretty much alive as you can see. You could make a request for my DNA profile to verify that I'm me. Whoever that did die may have cloned my implants." He said.

"Well, I won't be turning you away." The officer said. "The Sisters got you a room at the Motif Hotel."

"I hope you mean a capsule." Oliver said.

"Yeah, a capsule." The officer smiled. "Anyway. I'll issue you a short-term ID which you can use to get around the station. But if it is an identity theft, I recommend you get your insurance and bank affairs in orders today. Contact any family and friend that may help identify you."

"I have someone in mind already." Oliver said.

"Here you go." The officer said as handing over to him a card with a magnetic strip. "It's linked with you name and SSN. Pretty much every establishment here know the cards and our co-operation with the Sisters of Terra. We don't get many returns from them, but when we do, we try to make them feel comfortable here until they leave."

"Thank you." Oliver said and took his duffel bag. First thing first was to check in at the hotel and store his bag. Then it would be time for the banks, a bar, insurance, then send a message to Sheridan. He even had some money to help him out from the Sisters.

---

If there was always one thing someone needed on board space stations, was a map. Even with the smallest stations, the complexity and arrangement was something that was universally confusing. It was like if they had a contest of who could make the most obscure and seemingly impractical design. But Oliver had been in several stations to see that the designs were not impractical at all. From one end to another, there was the hotels, grocery stores, social areas (including greenery if present, but not in that space station) business places and bazaars.

Then it split up slightly. Before coming to the docks, you usually had three corridors. The royal section, adult section, and black section. The royal section was misnomer, as it was usually a place where people with kids could go without exposing them to the other sections. Adult section usually was a bar. It was expensive as hell to buy it, but once you had it, no one ever let go unless forced to or death being a bitch. But it was just a bar, sometimes showed some tapes of past sport games, such as grav-ball. The black section was where the peddlers were. Regular people came there out of pity, caring for the people that couldn't afford a ride to a better place or establishment. There, one could also get few things that you weren't supposed to, illegal drugs, prostitutes, or something still illegal. The black section was also called 'the other bazaar.

Oliver made his way to the bank outlet. It was just a machine, but sophisticated enough to comply with his requests. The temporary ID flagged in front of it made the machine prompt him for name and SSN. He had to smile, the machine had been made specifically for the station. But after few minutes of inquires and banging on the keyboard in rage, he found out that whoever that had stolen his ID, and promptly got himself killed, had drained his accounts. It was supposed to be hard to clone implants, but during the war, no one had bothered to do it, since it exposed them to Technids.

Oliver shuddered as he remembered the declaration of war. Every single implant infected had branched out and struck their owners in lethal places; brain, spine, heart...

It was a short walk to the Adult section. Oliver quickly found the cramped bar and took a seat that wasn't already in use.

"What would you like?" The bartender asked. At least he was human.

"I need to send a message, could I use the bar's system address for it?" Oliver asked.

"Costs five hundred and a reasonable explanation." The bartender said as picking up a datapad.

Oliver put the money on the table, but the hand covering it didn't move. "Identity theft, I'm legally dead. My death certificate is in the ship database."

The bartender looked at him, then swooped the datapad over the covered hand. Already it chimed in response. He looked at it and nodded.

"Second time I've seen a dead man walking." He said and handed the pad over to him. Oliver took his hand back but left the money. It was two thousand.

"I'll take something for fifteen hundred. And what was the first time?" He asked.

"My brother had an accident with an reactor. Isotopes screwed him to hell. Doctors called it the "Dead man Walking Stage"."

"Sorry to hear that."

"Nah, don't be, he was a bastard."

Oliver smiled softly and looked up an address in his contact book. He quickly asked the database for updated figures on the contact and the information attached, and hoped that his message would come through. The database told him it was four months since the information had been updated. He began tapping on the keyboard.

'Hello Sheridan, you told me you had some secrets to tell me when the war was over. I would like to hear them soon - '

[elizar]

"Are you Oliver?" Someone called half an hour after the message had been sent. It wasn't only ships that went FTL, but most mail went FTL, and reached it destination usually ten minutes after it was sent if the receptive was online.

Oliver was slightly nervous. He had been told that every Feeler had been killed when the TKers had been activated, so he wasn't sure about confirming his identity.

"I see." The man said. "Sheridan anticipated this. So he told me to remind you of those bullet-resistant vests that failed."

Oliver turned around. It was someone he didn't know. He was middle-aged, didn't show any scars but clothes usually hid those. His hands were calloused, which meant that he was an engineer or a dock worker.

"Alright." Oliver said. "What's your name?"

"Samuel Nicco." He said. "I work as the handyman aboard the Sunset. Call me Sam."

"Is your capt okay with this?" Oliver asked?

"We're hauling cargo to the Yggas System, where Sheridan wants you is in the way." Samuel said. "I owe Sheridan a favor, and the capt owes me one."

"When will you leave?" Oliver asked.

"In half an hour." Samuel said. "Get your belongings together."

[Evangeline]

Cool. I like how this is developing.

[elizar]

Now I am actually back to doing what I was going to do with the thread, writing while waiting between classes. Knowing my luck, the next class will be just an introductionary class, or the teacher is not around and it has not been announced yet.

And that keyboard is shit. Too bulky to actually have the sliding board all the way in and type like I want to. I blindtype.

Anyway, trying to add on the disappointingly short last update on the Technid thing. I may decide to just finish it soon, even though my creativity wants to make it as long as possible. You will notice spelling errors, since this comp does not have Firefox.

---

Oliver entered the ship with Samuel. Even though he had not seen it, he knew right away it was a Hauler class. They were usually small, accomidated around five man crew. They had the best engines around, just to haul cargo modules strapped on the 'front'.

"So, how do you know Sheridan?" Samuel asked.

Oliver paused a bit, it was appearent he didn't know he was a Feeler, and that all Feeler but him were dead.

"I was a navigator for him." Oliver answered.

"Oh bloddy hell!" Samuel exclaimed. "Have you thrown that around the space station?"

"No?" Oliver asked confused.

"I'm sorry kid." Samuel asked. "Sheridan told me to expect you being a little confused of what is going around. That you told him you just woke up. Tell me, what's the last time you remember?"

"We were activating a TKer." Oliver said. "Third run I think."

"Darn shame, you've lost a lot." Samuel said. They were now inside a cramped messhall, but no one was around. Oliver guessed that the captain and the rest of the crew were busy strapping on the cargo module, probably to help ease his own transition to the ship.

"What have I lost exactly? And what's wrong with being a navigator now?" Oliver asked.

"Navigators from the pre-Technid are rare, and valuable." Samuel said. "If I were someone else, who didn't owe Sheridan that much, I would simply get the capt to hire you on the spot." Samuel said. "Or if you would refuse, we would probably strap you in the chair anyway."

"I don't quite get it." Oliver took a seat. He had the feeling that the importance of navigators was not the only thing changed.

"During the second run of TKers, the TKers found another way to hurt us badly." Samuel said. "They soon came to realize that whatever data we did have was stored. And they were mostly made of metal, or the methods of storing it had some metal in it. They killed our databases."

"What about the CONCORD moon?" Oliver asked. He remembered the tales about it, a large facility that was fully automated, and received information from the FTL data-streams.

"CONCORD only stored official government stuff. IDs and that. They couldn't store much of the 'useless' stuff that had to be accessed right away." Samuel said.

It dawned on Oliver. "Come on, they also didn't store system's locations?"

"Only gates' co-cordinations." Samuel answered. "And you know how that ended."

Oliver sighed. The gates, used to fly ships without FTL capabilities, had been attacked right at the start of the war. "So, the information is lost?"

"Only pre-Technid navigators knew where it was, and it was also stored in their implants." Samuel said. "Unfortunately, they jumped the Technid bandwagon and got themselves infected in order to keep their implants up and running."

"What more did the Technid's do?" Oliver asked.

"Technologically, we've been thrown back about a century or so." Samuel answered. "Several plants and smelting facilities were ruined by the technids. Now we got to haul unprocessed ore across a dozen systems to a smelting facility that works. We've lost locations of several planets, colonies and space stations, and what we're hauling right now is gate components. I mean the raw components."

Oliver was silent for a while. Samuel caught on it and left to get them some food. He must have given a signal as well because shortly after, three people entered.

"Ah, so this is your friend's friend." A tall man of mixed hertiage, mostly african, sat down besides Oliver.

"I hope I will not bother you." Oliver said.

"None at all, we have an extra capsule, we just have to remove the shared porn out of it."

"And where would we put that?" Another man said. Oliver quickly saw that it was all male crew in the Sunset. The other man was caucasian, but seemed to show characteristics of a Therian colonization effect. People that had lived there for a while had begun to show more hair. They had been nicknamed the Wolves.

"Probably in your capsule, since you use it the most." Samuel replied, giving some round of laughs in the messhall. Oliver laughed as well. He was getting more used to being there, back in familiar territory. Small corridors, capsules, and the jokes of shipmates that had been at space for a long time together.

"Alright, a round of introductions!" The captain bellowed, even though it was not needed in the small ship. Oliver figured it could even be heard outside.

"This is Oliver Gareth." He said to the crew. "My name is Tomas Scheifer, the captain of the Sunset. You already met Samuel, and the rest is Brian and Reicher." Reicher had been the Wolf, Brian had been uncharacteristically silent the whole time.

"We eat some synth on board, no meat, but not foodstuffs." Tomas said. "But after this run and the next, we may afford something processed from a living being, be it from flora or fauna." He said to the crew. "But first, we will have to drop this one off halfway through. Got any problems, feel free to went to Samuel. But he can't do anything about it, so it is no use."

[elizar]

Daran and Riva were in an inner sanctum of the Order located in Traeli. So far they had been undetected, with the aid of artifacts created by some of their friends.

Daran looked over to his companion. It was sometimes hard to realize that his old childhood friend was a different person now. With the fusion of an otherplane creature and him, it had created a blend of the both. But the fusion was still young, and Riva had not yet grown his horns, or his wings.

Riva looked back and nodded. The way was clear to the library. Daran was not the best student, but that’s why Riva was with him. While fused with a young man, the creature itself had memories and experience of several others. Daran had never asked how many, though he imagined they had been few for the last few hundred years.

“Well?” Daran whispered anxiously to Riva. “Where do you think it is?”

“I haven’t been here before.” Riva hissed back. “Zealots do not play nice. Give me some time.”

Daran sighed. His old friend would have just shushed him gently. “Well, where do you think the book is?”

“If you find something about courts or apprehension, let me know.” Riva said. “And I don’t have to tell you just how important this is.”
“As if I haven’t heard it before.” Daran muttered as the two split up. There were five stacks in the room, and Daran had never seen so many books together. He had even gone into the main library at Warsek castle, and it didn’t have so many books. It made him even sad that most inner sanctums would have that many books, while those fighting for the Deronas had not nearly as much as the Order.

In the past five hundred years or so, perhaps even longer, the Order had hunted down Deronas fusions. But it was mostly of no use as the spirit would just return to its plane of existence and wait for someone else who was willing to be fused.

But in the last five years, there had been a change. It started with one lost Deronas that lost to the Order. Then more became ‘lost’. The word epidemic didn’t really reach until two years ago. Then the cause was found.

Within the Order, the Zealots had figured out a way to seal the Deronas, barring them from rebirthing and fusion. This went against everything that everyone knew. No one could just seal up a soul. There would always be something left. While some forms of magic used the soul as a power source, no one could simply gobble up a complete soul and seal it in a Powerstone.

“I have it!” Riva said and ran to Daran, holding up a new leatherbound book. “It’s written in code, but I know some of it. It has to have the Sealing.”

Daran smiled. “Doesn’t matter. Enam will be able to read it.” He said.

And then he noticed something. It wasn’t with sight, smell, hearing or even touch. He snapped to attention as he recognized the feeling.

“Sealer!” He cried out in a warning and whoever that was under the veil decided that it was time to come out of hiding.

Riva pushed the book in Daran’s hands. “Go, get out.” He said as he looked at the figure. He couldn’t see anything of him, draped in a grey cloak with white cloth over its face. He couldn’t even distinguish if it were a man or a human, until it spoke.

“Demon.” The figure spoke, revealing a human voice. It was to be expected, women were not accepted in the Order, though there were few rumors around about the opposite. “No longer shall you enjoy your freedom.”

Daran was terrified. Riva and he had grown up, his father a tanner and Riva’s a smith. He quickly focused with his palm open in front of him. Hovering an inch above it was a light blue stone forming. But it was small. Daran quivered under the pressure, drawing energy from his own soul to do this. And it hadn’t been long ago since he had drawn last time. The link snapped and he gasped. The stone dropped in his palm.

“Riva, I only have enough charge for one of us.” He called.

“Then go!” Riva said. “I’ll meet you later.” He drew out a dagger and held it. The Sealer chanted and held out an artifact of his own, a wooden spear with a gem at the hilts.

Daran hesitated a moment, then put the stone in his gauntlet. He made a fist and whispered in it. The next moment, he had disappeared from the library.

[elizar]

Bored, thought of this couple of days ago, decided to write it down.

---

---

One thing to note about Astrobiology is that things can be very extreme, different, and surprisingly enough, quite alien. This subject is about Evolution. While we are used to the small chances over hundreds of years to better oneself in other environments, or specifically bred for some special trait, there are other types of evolutions. Ours is called Generational, meaning that evolution occurs from melding DNA from two or more of the species and creating new members of the species.

Even in Generation Evolution, things can be quite extreme. The Extremities are found by seeking what animal lives the shortest and has the most need to change, while the other end is from who lives the longest, but knows how to adapt to different circumstances.

Let’s check the species that can live the longest.

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The Devourer is a species that can be found everywhere in the galaxy. It is believed it came from some other galaxy after taking it down in its endless hunger. It lives for millions or even billions of years, and has many different lifecycles.

It starts out in space, after being birthed in an explosion of energy. There it sends out FTL beam of energy, seeking others of its species. It does not seek out any of its littermates. The way it accomplishes that is that the beam will tell its DNA, and if it is too similar, any prospective mates will not reply.

When two individual of the species have managed to communicate, they travel to each other. That travel can take several years if not millenniums. When they meet, they begin to meld together. The two individuals become one, and begin the next stage of the lifecycle.

From there the new individual seeks out a planet. It can be any planet as long as it is circling a star, and has an atmosphere. When it has found the star, it will enter the atmosphere and explode into spores. Most of the spores hang in the atmosphere. If the planet is a gas planet, the spores will adapt and begin changing into airborne beings that devour the gas for energy. If the planet is solid, it will make eventual landfall, and then plant itself there. From there the spores will germinate and sprout tendrils that will go deep into the earth. The difference between those tendrils and the root system in Flora species is that the tendrils will always dig down, deeper and deeper. It will be able to digest the basic minerals for energy.

On the surface the organism really shapes up. It becomes a flower. But it will grow bigger and bigger. With the energy from the star, and minerals from the earth, it will never stop growing. When it connects with the other sprouts, it will become one. It spreads all over the planet. Should it encounter a sea, it will just cover it.

If the planet has a biomass, the spores will ignore bacterium, but when it encounters a multi-celled organism, it will sprout the tendrils to kill it and begin growing mobile, becoming a hunter. When the multi-celled organisms will be no longer, it will join the flowering parts.

It will eventually encompass the whole planet, draining the seas. It will form almost a gelatinous mass covering every surface, and then dive down to the core, seeking the materials it needs for the next stage. It builds a rudimentary bomb, big enough to spread them all over the star system. From there, it is large enough to accomplish a bigger task. It will then take on the star. That part takes millions of years, eating the energy in a rudimentary Dyson Sphere. It takes in the energy of the star, even attacking it from the inside to speed up the process of consuming its fuel.

When the star runs out and begins the dying cycle, the organism, a whole now, will use the energy to explode again. But it will produce more of its kind, more new individuals of the species.

[Evangeline]

That's one scary organism... nightmare fuel for sure.

[elizar]

Yeah. And I didn't write the opposite of the Devour because it would just end up being a complete ripoff of Fragment Instead of one island, the description would be of a whole planet like in Fragment.