2.4|Starlight Spawn of Eris Everlasting

 

2.4|Starlight Spawn of Eris Everlasting

 

It'd been almost a full week since Protlyn had arrived in Marchwood, she ate lunch in the courtyard. The silken worms they'd fried with soil-paste and spices were beginning to grow on her, but she still hadn't been able to think about anything more than staying alive lately. The coffee here, made from the roots of the silicate trees grinded up did have a strong kick to it, enough to keep her awake atleast. A figure waved from the far end of the terrace, the emerald green hair unmistakable.

"Miss Protlyn!" They ran forward, a steaming device along their backpack

controlling three additional mechanical limbs.

"Hello, dear." Protlyn relied, trying to force a hint of sincerity. "You were

back quite a while."

Byte raised her goggles. "Check it out, I found some cool berries! I was out in the wastelands for a while, but the trains were too slow for my liking so I spent a day or two tweaking the tracks. But then I met someone, c'mon look!"

A group of individuals followed behind Amity.

They were all in rags, skin covered in soot and dirt.

"A small group had been traveling the tracks, and even though they were on the outskirts of the city. Seemingly the primitives of this land, the Oohts call them 'Oohtlets', they're basically nomads. Check out what I taught them!" She turned to them and raised her hand, clutching the air as if groping and wanting something.

Every one of the Oohtlets followed suit.

"What'd you do to them, Byte?" Protlyn asked curious.

"I taught them the Sandra Sisterhood allegiance salute! Now they're all

honorary followers of the Grand Magus, she'll be so thrilled once I bring them

to her!"

The flashbacks turned in Protlyn's head, Novus's words to bring Sandra back faintly recalling. "I see.." She sipped her brew. "You really do love Sandra don't you? Why is that?"

Amity folded her arms. "She set up all of Xi! The perfect system. My mother's stupid company tried to double cross them and got put in their place, and I got an opportunity to run away once XU put them under investigation. You don't get it, the Grand Magus' empire was so vast, so expansive, it's so big there's so much more than people. There were endless possibilities, so much wealth to be had. I wanted to be just like the Grand Magus!" She said, grooming some of the primitives behind them with her backpack's limbs. "She created you didn't she? Or, half of you? Shouldn't you be thanking her?"

Protlyn shrugged. "I'll write her a postcard." She examined the Oohtlets carefully, going up to them, each stepping back out of fear.

"Why do they stalk the tracks?" She asked.

"Oh them?" Amity folded her arms. "There's coal and fuel they steal to burn at their camps. It's a power source, Miss Protlyn, an organic power source. And I talked to the Rail operator here! They want to be helpers, to work, and in exchange they get free food, clothing, and shelter, no more hunger."

"Employment you say?" Protlyn felt one's beard, and another's naked bare breast. "But some might say what you're describing is a form of slavery."

"Nuh uh!" Amity insisted. "You don't understand how the Oohtlets live!" Amity took a deep breath, and then she started to speak in a strange fashion. "They live in groups of around a hundred, each group has to share a single camp. Each camp is home to a group of ten, who are divided in teams of five. This camp is two teams. They split off into two groups and fight until someone's dead. Sometimes, a member from the winning team is captured, to act as food for the next camp. If someone wins and isn't captured, they get to live a life of glory, the most powerful, the leader."

"That sounds.. brutal." Protlyn turned away from the pack.

"Maybe, but it is PRETTY COOL! It's the kind of thing I know Sandra would approve of, that's what makes her so sweet."

Protlyn rolled her eyes.

"You can't stop us, Miss Protlyn!”

"I never intended to." Protlyn pushed through the crowd and kept walking up a marble set of stairs around the outskirts of a circular building, up into a technicolor glass door. "Where are you going?" Amity asked.

"Church. I'd like to learn a little about this world we've landed in."

Protlyn stepped inside, and a familiar, sweet sound reverberated. Amity soon followed behind her, and walked around ring-like proscenium stages 3 stories high. The two watched from above.

The church was made of polished marble, the walls lined with wooden and silver columns. In the center of the room, where it would have made a perfect circle, there was a dais, inlaid with polished marble, on which sat a figure. From where Protlyn and Amity watched, it looked like an ancient god, and was made of gold. An Ooht marched forward and took centerstage, standing atop the dias. They began their sermon.

"Hello my children, you've come to see the great god, the god of all religions. The grand divinity you think is all but forgotten. The way the world was meant to be! We have so much to do, but you must first sit with me so you may learn all that you can about the faith , and all that you may do to better yourself !" They then lowered their gaze to the floor, and started to speak in a low whispering voice.

"What are they talking about?"

"Sssh, listen!" Protlyn insisted.

"Once upon a tale foretold from old times, the sugary sacrilege of the ever honest fielded a bless upon the horizon. Trisight eternal, from the free heart the gentle souls tended to their flock, while we as dignified ancients wandered the stars, be-sheer our satellite. O our folly, the snollygostering peril was very real from the lunar shaft, Aerodite Domiglustra cometh, her hunger like no broodwrench before. Upon her.."

"I don't get it!" Protlyn yelled, waving her arms about, a few attendees looking

back.

"Glitter Kiss." Amity

"Glitter kiss?"

"Yeah." Amity scrolled on her comm. "I scanned and connected to their mainframe when I got here and went thru their databanks. Glitter Kiss is the name of the organization that ruled this world before them. They were a celestial race.. pretty."

Protlyn leaned over and looked at the imagery of girls in jewelry and pastel

colored skirts. "

"I've seen some of this." She sipped her coffee.

 "They used to exist in Xi as well, but they had to flee because of Llavalite

territory expansion. They had so much to offer."

"Where did they come from?" Protlyn pressed closer over Amity's shoulder.

She tapped a few buttons, showing the Grand Magus gifting girls with jewels.

"Sandra?" Protlyn's eyes widened.

"My girl! She ain't the best for nothing." Amity did the groping salute. "Originally she gifted these powers to a patrol to stop.. space leeches and shit? But that later extended to weird mutated birds that harvested organs, and after Llavalites. The Llavalites in Xi.. committed genocide. So the patrol is no more."

"What are they doing in this universe?" Protlyn asked.

"Dunno. Maybe they had access to interdimensional travel. They apparently operated on this planet from what they called 'Feyslayer Capital', until some aliens arrived beset with some mystery illness that devastated them, landing on this world. They were.." She looked over the congregation. "Aliens? The Oohts actually."

"Where did they come from?" Protlyn folded her arms.

"Their home planet was destroyed, so they wandered the stars for eons, but some, species or infestation appeared before them. It came from a giant meteor or giant mass, 'Aerodite Domiglustra.' This creature has a name, it was titled the Vexia Seed. It travels through this universe going from world to world, much like how Llavalites do back in XU, or Xi to you I guess." They watched the diagrams of the owl's ship attacked by a meteorite wrangling with pincers, breasts and tentacles.

"Giant bug lady..”

"Extremely giant. The Oohts blew themselves up to fuck off, and those that escaped in survival pods, numbering only a few thousand landed on this world, many sick. Glitter Kiss was happy to share the land at first, but the illness made them lose themselves and go on a rampage. Eventually, accepting some cultures are different, they fled to the moon where Feyslayer Capital is today."

"Hm.." Protlyn paced back and forth. "Biometric data of the Aerodite Vexia Seed on hand?"

She asked.

Amity flipped through the databanks abit. "Still available."

"Contrast it to Llavalite genomic sequencing."

"One second.." Byte tapped and clicked into the comm like a bored teen

browses through texts. "98.7% genetic match."

"Hm... Any samples of this 'illness' remaining?"

"Better than that actually. There's whole infectees still kept incarcerated. I

guess we know where to go next..?"

She watched the proselytizing Ooht go on, and looked the other way.

"Let's go check back with the prison facility."