Novels

How long had it been?

Days? Years? What was time to the dead? There was no now, only then. The dead had no future, only a past full of pain and best forgotten.

Then, a point of light. He woke. The cold grip of life closed over his heart as the aches and pains of the burning air settled over him.

“Master Yebidesh, can you open your eyes?”

The voice was soft and gentle, a sharp needle in his ears through the rushing sound of blood and screams. He tried to open his eyes, stopping when the effort drained him. Nearby, the sounds of a medical monitor beeped at him, faint…too faint. He couldn’t fall asleep while he was holding a soldier’s heart in his hands. He needed to know what his patient was feeling. He reached out to adjust the monitor’s volume.

“Don’t try to move, just rest.”

To discuss the Myriad Worlds is too to discuss the Aeolam. While as a people they are far from the most populous, the Aeolam are more directly connected to the Worlds of the Velvet than any other folk.

As such, any discussion of the Aeolam as a people must include a frank discussion of the land in which they live, as the Aeolam possess an incredibly morphous physiology. Highly sensitive by nature, Aeolam are directly influenced by the climate, geology, and biosphere of their environment through a system as yet not understood by scholars. The process is gradual, but easily observable, taking less than a week for an Aeolam to completely restructure their behavior and biology, in accordance with the Aeolam’s “Resonance.” Resonance, which is a clumsy translation of the original Aeolam term ‘Waanii,’ is the natural influence an environment has on individual and collective Aeolam.

The Gilbrim are a diverse and adaptive species of beings who have achieved a level of ubiquity among the Myriad Worlds. Humanoid in shape and stature, Gilbrim vary widely in size, far more so than compared to the other people of the Myriad Worlds. Heights range from the average person’s hips to a head above the average person’s head, width from rail-thin to balloon bulbousness.

Skin-tone is often a shade of green, though darker yellows and blues have been found in disparate communities. Noses tend to be long and thin, as do ears. Hair is thin and whispy, sometimes absent. Facial hair exists on both male and female Gilbrim, though females never get hair on the front of their chins or jaws, only on the bottom of their chins and neck. Hair colors range from black to light brown to dark blue, never red or blonde.

Sen turned the corner, when a sudden sound made him stop in his tracks.

“Hey!” the call was from deep in the bunker. “Hey, is anyone here?”

Reinforcements!

Sen tried to run, but could only shamble forward like a broken toy. He wanted to shout and cry for help. He wanted to scream and bring his fellow soldiers running to his side. Safety! Warmth! Life!

No!

His legs wouldn’t listen, so with a surge of desperation, Sen pulled his body aside, crashing into the wall to stop his shambling run. They were dreams he shouted at his spasming body. Illusions. Hallucinations of a past or future that never happened.

The voice called from nearby, “my name is Captain Bellon of the Hyan Heavy Infantry, Third Echelon. We won’t hurt you.”

Perhaps unique among the people of the Myriad Worlds, Ogres are massive forms of metal and muscle, awkwardly shaped according the standards of most myriad folk.

While many folk have varying standards in regards to shape and size, Ogres are almost exacting in their similarities to each other. There are unavoidable differences, of course — differing numbers of eyes, fingers, or similar — but in other ways they are precisely the same. For example, I have studied the many Ogres who reside near my domicile, and have not found half a span of difference in their heights: a full nine feet tall to a one of them.

Another land frequented by tourism, the Principality of Gramphank on the world of Wepsanik houses one of the most oft traveled to regions in the entire Velvet, the City of Speer.

I will not, however, advise first-time-travelers to visit the City of Speer. Not for any practical or pragmatic reason, simply because everyone travels to the City of Speer at some point in their lives, and as such it has become a city devoted to the cloying and pleading services of tourism.

Instead, first-time-travelers should consider traveling to a small province on the edge of the Principality called Hellebrach Hills.

Sen’s eyes snapped open.

“Bad dream?” the Base Girl asked, her thick off-world accent tickling his ear. He curled up next to her, muttering platitudes as weeping wounds and bleeding eyes bubbled up from his nightmares.

She was cold; as cold as a corpse.

Struggling to surface from the torrent of dreams that pulled at him, Sen opened his eyes again.

His lungs hurt. They burned when he breathed in, they ached when he didn’t. His face was stuck to a metal floor, his mouth dry and cracked. He carefully tried to move, feeling his muscles resist, protesting in pain. With a sickening noise, he pulled his hands off the metal floor, feeling scraps of skin remaining behind. The pain cut through his confusion.

Pain. This was now.

Twice as tall as many people of the Myriad Worlds, the Uumphoun are an ancient culture. Historically, ancient texts and stories of the Uumphoun tell of an old Uumphounian empire called KuuThoorrDaaWoo, translated literally as “The Second Risen Place.” This is considered by most scholars to be evidence that the Uumphoun are either the second oldest people, or the first culture to rise after some previous dominant species collapsed.

They have short stubby trunks for noses, half the length of an arm. They are thick bodied, though short-legged, with four fingers on each hand. They have thick pads for feet, with four nails for toes. Small tusks jut outwards from both the top and lower jaws.

Travel through the Velvet has a long and rich history. While much is still unknown to us, the earliest travelers of the Velvet appear to be the Zyth, as some of the oldest ruins on multiple worlds appear to be Zyth in origin. As such, most histories of travel begin with the earliest constructs of Zyth origin. It is generally believed that if the Zyth were not the first travelers of the Velvet, those who were operated along similar principles.

“Sen?”

Sixty three, sixty-four, sixty five…

Sen of House Yebidesh, filial to House Hyan, burst into a sprint through the dark corridors of the underground bunker, his tiny bag tightly strapped to his back. Footfalls echoed like bullets, ricocheting through the metal halls and back to his ears. Stealth didn’t matter now; speed was what counted. If he was lucky, he would reach the other end of the hallway in time. He wouldn’t have to use the ChillPatch.

“Ho there, slow down! What’s going on?”

Frantically, Sen dodged the grasping hand. It wasn’t there. He kept moving, closing his eyes to the darkness, counting to himself in his head.

Without warning, his left leg, tired and worn from exertion, refused to clear the small lip through the central hatch.

Sen fell.