[09.02.2025 18:17:59] PAULxQ got divebombed by K'Hara|Shozak-Adabi(63%)
[09.02.2025 18:17:59] Assisted by: Musashi|Aoi(30%), Xor-Hish(7%) [09.02.2025 18:17:59] You receive a bonus of 200000 credits and contributed 1 points.
A job well done should be justly rewarded, should it not? A united conquest, shared among most of the dominant minds in the Light, had been achieved successfully. The Infiltrator Castes, both of the Ghostmind and those under Ki'Shar's guidance, Minerva's Hunter-Killers, Husas's Shield-Shells, and even Sh'ozak's own Silencing-Ones came to the field.
The Shield-Shells defended the gate leading inward as the assault fueled by an increasingly-repaired Dyson Sphere poured forth. The Hunter-Killers punched through defense after defense, using their obsessive fang-sharpening and skill-honing. The Silencing-Ones veiled themselves and stalked the open space, hunting for transports carrying fleeing humans. And Sh'ozak herself had joined them, hunting out transports and standing guard over the pathways between the stars. Doing this had led her to witness an interesting phenomena: Upon being blockaded by warforms, the ones calling themselves the Core opted to forgo the large capacity of transports in favor of the combat-capable Cruisers. One such cruiser, she hunted out herself.
The Infiltrators of Altair adamantly recommended they be made Infiltrators as well, but she already had an experiment in mind. The Wild Hunt of Kaarst had a vile testament to their experiments littering the area near that station, the Midden. Sh'ozak knew well the pattern between the Ghosts and the Light. The underlying ideas were innovations that would raise up the Light, yet the Wild Hunt's executions were riddle with Darkness and malfeasance. The Midden screamed in perpetual torment, projecting the only thing those minds could know onto any and all who near it's location: Horror. Torment and torture made the foundation of the Midden, and on that foundation a structure of desperation and hopelessness was built. The unending shrieking from the Wild Hunt's madness and hatred influenced every action they took.
But, nonetheless, there was something of use. Sh'ozak took the idea of Midden, and inverted it's intent to make the first of her followers. Here, she would do it again. During the first day of their imprisonment, the Advisor imposed an intense bliss onto the captives. She multiplied the vividness of their senses, and molded their prisons into places of comfort and geometric perfection. She altered their perception, removing them from their linear world and instead dropping them headlong into an experience of intense fractal reality. Every touch, every sight, even the taste of the air was infinitely detailed. No matter how much of even a single breath they could experience, they was an eternity more to feel.
Sh'ozak took gave no concession in letting it be known that it was her presence that was responsible for this sensation of happiness and bliss that was far beyond what any human had ever experienced. She strode the halls of the prison and the halls of their minds in her doll-body, a life-size model of a human body, created by Sh'ozak. With the help of Ki'Shar's Infiltrators, a very important piece of information was relayed to her: Human communication attributes only seven percent of it's weight to the words they speak. Fifty-five percent is attributed to body language, and thirty-eight percent is attributed to voice and tone. To communicate in any capacity, projection of words was not enough. She required a human body and a human voice to be able to truly speak to humans. And thus the doll-body was born, the image of a human and the voice of a human, a representation of herself through the lens of the human shape.
Seeingareflectionofherself,however,shefelttheneedforadornment.Beautycomesinsomanyforms,andshewouldhavebeautyinthisformaswell. Silver hair, sapphire eyes that crackled with faint electricity, and skin as pale as porcelain. Like a blank canvas, fit for an artist like herself. And, in that time, she had a medium on hand as well. While loosely draped in a thin silk produced from the same silica crystal weave that made up most K'Haran bodies, she crafted fine jewelry for herself with only telekinesis and her imagination. Golden-chain bracelets and anklets, encrusted with Hessian Tears, along with golden wire rings, bangles and a garter belt, encrusted with Cerulite Crystals. Finally, she had crowned herself with a golden circlet, with the chunk of glass and metal that was the Artificial Personality Fragment occupying the center of her forehead. Unbeknownst to her, in creating the circlet, she had consigned a small portion of Gammu AI to the strangest purgatory, with the energy created by Sh'ozak's presence being captured and transmitted by the gold into the fragment, sustaining and energizing it.
And so, the bejeweled doll found her way across the questionably-conscious humans sprawled across the cell. Many were doing their best to cling to consciousness despite the overpowering call of the intense colors and vivid geometry. Those few who retained some grasp on reality looked up and saw the embodiment of youth and beauty herself, only exacerbating the illusion of overwhelming paradise. One of the survivors managed to grasp the fabric that barely clothed her, catching her attention, so she carefully knelt and held his face up to stare into her eyes. The striking blue of her eyes was too much for her poor victim, and upon slipping back out of reality, she released him. A very minor link was formed between the two in that moment, allowing her to check the state of his mind. As it seemed physical contact was enough of a conduit for this effect, a row of holes flicked open on her back, and glowing white tendrils sprouted, proceeding to sweep over each of the captured crew members. A few resisted, but most were lost in the powerful hallucinations. The tendrils retracted, retreating to form the silhouette of a pair of wings. She saw that enough was done. The first step was complete.
Sh'ozak had the Infiltrators of Altair separate the crew into individual cells. Then, she simply left.
All it took was forty-one hours of absence.
She had given them a peace, a bliss, a pleasure so intense that all of reality was the purest suffering without it. Without her. They had only suffering without her. Human life wasn't worth living without the promise of Merciful Death. The first among the eighty-two cells that she would check was already a resounding success. A woman crawled to the transparent crystal wall of the cell, recognizing Sh'ozak simply from the glow of her tendrils. She had torn large patches out of her uniform and left scratch marks on the other walls of the cell. Fittingly, the patch bearing the insignia of the Core lay in the distant corner of the room, abandoned and discarded. She was trying to say something, but her voice failed her. More than a day of wailing had that effect, after all.
"Shhhh. No more tears. You missed me, didn't you?"The woman nodded frantically, and as the wall between them melted, Sh'ozak extended her hand. The thoroughly confused woman took her hand, and Sh'ozak began her inspection. Small wounds around her hands and nails, likely caused by tearing her clothes and clawing at the cell walls. Little matter, as Sh'ozak organized nearly-microscopic hooks, scalpels, and spinnerets on her own hand. Merely running her hand over the wounds pulled the debris out and sealed them. The woman was roughly unresponsive during this process until Sh'ozak grasped her chin. Sh'ozak was confused by the sudden stiffening and then forced relaxing, but as the crew member wasn't in a trance like before, Sh'ozak couldn't read her mind without risking damage. Sh'ozak inspected her lips and gums. Small cuts caused by ripping through the fabric of her uniform with her teeth, healed in an instant. The woman flinched slightly when Sh'ozak opened her jaw to repair the damage to her tongue. Disregarding further reactions, Sh'ozak finished with the woman's face, and quickly searched out and repaired other damage on her body with the mass of tendrils.
After setting the woman into an elevated state of bliss, but not nearly as high as the one which Sh'ozak had used to break her defiance, Sh'ozak set off towards the next cell. She was distracted, however, by the woman, who was still sat on the floor, looking up to Sh'ozak expectantly. Sh'ozak became immediately aware of a severe drawback in her position, that being that while fifty-five percent of human communication is body language and thirty-eight percent is tone and voice, a grand total of two percent of K'Haran communication was body language, and Sh'ozak had no clue what the woman wanted. Sh'ozak, however, also did not have time to play guessing games with human women."Come along. There are eighty-one more of you."The woman seemed disappointed about something, but followed nonetheless.
Eighty-one cells later, Sh'ozak had eighty individuals following her towards the docking bay of Altair. One had managed to die of extreme grief, and one still resisted. The rest obediently followed in a near-trance state, questioning neither their surroundings nor their circumstances. She had clothed them in the same silken cloth that she war. They seemed to adopt some understanding between themselves, not entirely known to her. The Infiltrators had told her the names of those methods of wrapping themselves. "Togas" and "Stolas". All that Sh'ozak really noticed was that despite all present being given a single cloth, the humans had covered much more of their skin than she had. The other group had done the same. She didn't particularly care, however. As the new followers loaded onto the shuttle, Sh'ozak stepped this doll body into a nearby crystalline pod, putting it into stasis as she switched focus to the doll in her temple on 9-1.
Her other attendants scrambled into the main hallway as she reactivated. They had altered the method in which they wrapped themselves, sacrificing the long sleeves for a hood. They had also reached a state of trance where she could communicate easily with them. She informed them that newcomers would arrive, and they set off to do some preparations that she wasn't particularly concerned about.
The arrival of the newcomers was met with what Sh'ozak identified as a rapid training session. Each of them had a set of stations that they had perfected around the area. So long as Sh'ozak kept them in a permanent state of bliss and ecstasy, they did not go about regular human activities. Instead, they engaged in mathematics, arts, or exploring the depths of their own trance. It was interesting to watch. It was the method by which Sh'ozak gained benchmarks for humanity at large, and for herself when compared to her kin.
They could not leave. The atmosphere on 9-1 was a terribly thin layer of helium, a rapid suffocation for humans, if they did not freeze first. It was a prison. It was an experiment. But it was also heaven for them. They could not see the bars of their cage through all the wonders they drowned in.
And that led them to this moment. One hundred humans knelt in the inner cloister, while five stood to present their petition. Sh'ozak reclined on the stone throne in the center of the alien garden. The humans desired to form an "Honor Guard". They found it unfitting that their patron deity walked without escort. They met her explanation of the state of her bodies being spacefaring as opposed to theirs with a correction of the scope of their desire. When she partakes in the realms of humanity, then she would have an honor guard, as such a group would set an example and expectation required from other humans. She made note that the woman who was the first among the Capetown crew to be released was among the five. She acquiesced to their request, under the condition that only she would decide when their presence outside the temple would be.
And her temple knew peace again. As the newcomers slipped deeper into the trance she maintained over all, she slowly grasped their meanings and intents. It was, after all, the duty of the conquerors to not repeat the mistakes of the conquered. So, Sh'ozak slowly but surely worked to build a human society that would not fall into the same failures as the ones outside these walls. Sh'ozak decided on a new task for herself. It was necessary to travel to Malta and obtain Cardamine, to use as a gene editor. She desired to reverse and remove aging from these humans, as it brought complications that she did not feel were necessary.
Any human would say that these ones had lost their humanity. And so Sh'ozak's metaphor is maintained. That which was human had died within them. The greatest mercy to humans is death. The final goal of all human life is death. Death is their god. Thus, Sh'ozak, Merciful Death, waged war on humanity. Not with the wrath of Minerva, to see slaughter as far as the light of any star can reach. Not with the obstinance of Husas, to see humanity's march brought to a standstill, never to move again. But with pity and care, to bring an end to the tragedy of humanity. To save them from themselves, all humanity must die.
//Warning:Contains fanservice for certain FREAKAZOIDS (you know who you are). Happy Valentines.
The process of controlling multiple bodies was far from new to Sh'ozak. However, even though she spent plenty of focus on the doll within the temple, she was more often than not secluded from the people she had collected here. They maintained their own primitive society, a middling line between a meritocracy and a gerontocracy. Whether such a structure was a primary function of living creatures, or whether it was brought on by their proximity to the Slomon K'Hara, who's society was structured roughly the same, was anyone's guess, and also was not her concern.
They occupied the larger complex, filling halls that were once empty with a lively shuffle, whereas she occupied a hall in the center, which she decorated and redecorated with arts in hundreds of forms. Having a will that extended far beyond cause and effect had created a necessity for an outlet of expression. The humans she had collected also engaged in artworks, as well as a very curious mysticism. A few had broken through the barrier of their own perception, briefly grazing the melodies of Sh'ozak's own mind, and upon confirming their thesis with Sh'ozak herself, now spent most of their time in the inner cloister, meditating. Their peers elevated them, touting them as sacred individuals, and their meditation was regarded as an activity paramount for the small society. Other important activities were the creating of artworks themselves, lesser meditations, and the development of a precise geometrical study of the crystal lattice that this temple was built of, among other things. It was interesting to Sh'ozak to watch what was measured as merit in this meritocracy.
Although, those were not the highest among these humans. The highest currently accompanied her in her gallery. The five who made up her honor guard. Earlier, they had demonstrated the interesting extents of human fanaticism, one voicing the wishes of three to have restrictions to their bodily functions. She had, at first, complied in a non-permanent fashion, and one of the men bore a silver and platinum chinstrap, with the relief of a multitude of hands molded into it. Hands supporting hands, reaching from his neck, around his jaw, up to cover his ears, deafening him. One of the women had a blindfold of the same design, hands upon hands to cover her eyes, blinding her. And finally, that woman, the first one she had approached in the cells. Again, the relief of hands, this time forming a mask, muting her. The other two among the honor guard, two of the pirates who were captured and had arrived here first, had dedicated themselves to speaking to Sh'ozak and speaking to the rest of the humans, respectively. In this moment, the one who spoke to Sh'ozak was clarifying their petition.
"Our Tender Divinity, in our studies, we have seen that in deprivation, we are allowed a greater grasp of what we are not deprived of. That is our goal, to further our meditation on the aspect and archetypes of being your honor guard. To perfect ourselves in your service."Sh'ozak tilted her head inquisitively. This pirate, when she first was captured, was not nearly so articulate in her speech. "And it shall only be these three?" "Indeed. The role of these three are that of "Visages". Candela, Blinded Visage, Roderick, Deafened Visage, and Claire, Muted Visage." "And the two of you shall be?", Sh'ozak asked, gesturing to the two pirates. "I shall be Isadora, Ambassador unto Death, and he shall be Gabriel, Ambassador unto Man." "And my creations for you were not sufficient for this task?"All of them but Isadora twitched slightly at this question. "No, not for our purpose."The rest of the group shot panicked glances at Isadora, but before any of them could interject, she continued: "We shall retain your creations, as they telegraph clearly the nature of our Visages. However, they who have felt the mind of Death have given us a mantra to adhere to. Devotion leads to sacrifice, leads to Death. As honor guard, our devotion is shown. In the loss of our corruption, sacrifice bringing us to Death is shown. We seek to sacrifice further." Sh'ozak quietly pondered the request. She skimmed the intents of the gathered humans telepathically, but found nothing out of the order.
"Very well. Approach."
The group seemed to breath a quiet sigh of relief, and the first to approach was Roderick. He knelt before her, unclasping the chin brace that deafened him, and bowed his head. Upon touching his face, Sh'ozak was able to form a minor mindlink. He was unafraid, determined. She had seen such attitudes before, in the Order. It was an interesting juxtaposition, such a resolved dedicated to serving her, rather than destroying her. Small tendrils issued from Sh'ozak's fingers, burrowing through the space between the top of his lower jaw and the bottom of his ear. Over the course of only a few seconds, she undertook the complex procedure of removing the chain of bones that allowed him to hear while maintaining and sealing those that governed his ability to balance in opposition to gravity. Finishing, she pulled the tendrils out, using the same method to repair the damage they had accrued in the prison on Altair to seal the entry wounds. She nodded to him, as he could no longer hear, and then spoke to the others. "Next."
The one named Candela approached. She knelt, and upon touch, Sh'ozak again formed a mindlink. She was afraid. Afraid of pain, from many potential sources, and so Sh'ozak grabbed her face, and had her look at the tendrils. "Observe", she commanded. "I secrete a sterilizing solution. You will not rot."The reassurance was blunt enough that Candela failed to put together that her mind was being read before the tendrils dove into her temples and crawled towards her eye sockets. It was a cold, numb sensation, as Sh'ozak had included an anesthetic to calm her fears. Severing and sealing the optic nerves was a much easier process than the reconstruction of the inner ear that Roderick required.
Finally, Claire. Despite not being accustomed to body language, Sh'ozak could see that she was nervous. Or, perhaps apprehensive?"If you hesitate, do not continue. If you are to continue, do not hesitate."Claire shook her head, and quickly knelt. Just like the others, a mindlink was formed. She was not afraid. She was not determined, either, at least, not in the same way as Roderick was. She desired. She desired deeply the pain that Candela feared. Through this partially shared perspective, Sh'ozak watched her from her own perspective, observed her admiration for the cold, unfeeling blue eyes of the goddess that lived among them. That goddess was Death, and so it was only rational that she desired to be close to death, as close as was possible. Approving of her reasoning, if not the specifics of her desires, Sh'ozak grasped her face and held it up to her own, disallowing Claire the ability to look away both physically and psychically. If you liked these eyes so much, then drown in them. Claire was delighted to comply.
Sh'ozak was almost given pause at the strange list of whims presented before her, but nonetheless obliged. She loosed the tendrils from her back once again, and used them to restrain Claire. They crisscrossed over her legs, pressing into her skin and tying her to the floor. Sh'ozak slid her hands down to Claire's throat, ready to begin the operation, but Claire seemed to have other ideas in mind. More out of curiosity than obligation, Sh'ozak conceded to Claire's desire, slipping her fingers beneath Claire's skin, and then through muscle, squeezing her throat directly. Remembering that she still had a task to complete, Sh'ozak suddenly burrowed the tendrils from her hands into Claire's vocal chords and trachea, disconnecting some muscles, removing others, and stitching apart still more, removing her ability to vocalize but retaining the ability to breathe. Claire spasmed briefly in reaction to the sensation of these small tendrils filling and crawling across the entirety of her throat, choking her with an intense tingle that viciously slithered down into her lungs and as far up as her tongue. However, she was still tightly bound to the floor in a manner that barely allowed her to move, and so she simply struggled helplessly until the process was finished.
After Claire had relaxed again, Sh'ozak removed her hands and tendrils from her flesh, sealing the wounds as expertly as she had every other. Claire was nearing unconsciousness, but with whatever thoughts she was still able to form, she reached up and hugged Sh'ozak's waist, and proceeded to pass out in that position. The final thoughts shared from Claire were the obsessive compliments on the smoothness and softness of Sh'ozak's body, an admiration so pure, complete, and heavy that it obstructed Sh'ozak's own thoughts for a moment. Had the sacrifice of her voice granted her a voice of a different nature? The appearance of a loud silence was certainly a new addition to the antics of the temple.
Isadora finally spoke up."Our Revered Matron, if you would excuse her impulse. Her dedication takes a different shape than ours." "I don't mind. You can touch me too, if you wish." Isadora laughed. "I would not dare. If you would please care for her until she awakes." Sh'ozak nodded, using her tendrils to wrap up Claire. She proceeded to carry her out of the hall and towards the throne in the inner cloister, across the garden from where the fervent meditators resided. "It is no problem to me. Continue as you do. When she awakens, I will send her to you." "Your mercy is great indeed."
With that, the other four bowed, and then retreated towards the outer cloister. Sh'ozak sat on the stone throne, and placed Claire at her feet, quickly weaving a few layers of silk to place between her and the stone of the throne and it's foundation. As she rested, Sh'ozak began to contemplate whether it was body, mind, or spirit that drove Claire to these strange desires.
And while she pondered, tranquility returned to the Temple of Merciful Death.
//Warning:Contains fanservice. It's worse than last post. Much worse. Just trust me.
A few more days had passed since the honor guard had taken on their changes. The small human society's budding sciences had shown progress. Humans were very adept at recognizing and repeating patterns. Their art contained themes and variations on the crystal structures they lived in. The one that interested Sh'ozak the most was a spherical variation of the flat tessellation. Instead of the interlacing hexagons, they had divided the hexagons into the constituent lines that made them up, and re-organized the shapes. A series of quadrilaterals, constructed with an acute corner, an obtuse corner, and two right corners. They called them "kites", and every hexagon was constructed of six of them. Then, they defined a new shape, constructed of eight "kites", and using this new shape, they defined the hexagonal tile that they lived in, instead of an infinite symmetric tessellation of hexagons, as an infinite asymmetric tessellation of this new shape. Such a thing wasn't directly usable to Sh'ozak, but it was a fruit of the experiment nonetheless. It could be tinkered with.
As she watched the humans, she felt a presence approach behind her. Since her silencing, Claire's mind had become incredibly loud. She hadn't breached the energy requirements required to communicate clearly with other humans telepathically, but she was incredibly easy to sense for Sh'ozak. With now as a great example, she came with a question in mind, but instead gave a fine example of acausal will, becoming distracted with the random desire for physical gratification. Claire hugged her, bringing her chest to rest on top of Sh'ozak's head. Once she had come to recognize the severe height difference between the two, this position had become a standard form of greeting between the two. Sh'ozak responded in the manner that was also standard now, coiling thin tendrils beneath Claire's garments and across her skin, seeking out warm spots to absorb energy from. Claire was a very warm woman. Her metabolism put out a lot of heat very quickly, and her above-average subcutaneous fat insulated that heat. Other processes contributed to that heat in varying amounts, but overall Claire was a very good thermal battery, and also happened to be soft to the touch. A reasonable meal with a good texture, delivered on an acceptable platter.
With their admittedly strange greeting ritual out of the way, Sh'ozak denied Claire's wish to simply stay like this."What is it you have come to ask?"Claire pouted in response to the rejection of her attempt to loiter, but expressed her question mentally nonetheless. She was hearing noise that wasn't there. She was concerned something was wrong with her ears. Who else to ask for help with such a thing other than the highest power present?
Her logic was acceptable, so Sh'ozak stepped out from under her chest, and quickly turned to face her. Using the tendrils already spread across Claire's body, Sh'ozak buckled her knees rapidly, causing her to collapse, kneeling. Sh'ozak wasn't giving Claire any time to react, which, in turn, didn't give her time to prepare and reign in her reactions as Sh'ozak dove several needle-thin tendrils from her fingertips into Claire's ears. Her reaction was instant and intense, and, like before, Sh'ozak used the tendrils Claire was already wrapped in to hold her in place amidst her shaking and spasming. Claire's senses were quickly overloaded as Sh'ozak cut no corners in exploring every part of the deepest reaches of her ears. Eventually, Claire's subconscious simply gave up. Her eyes rolled back and her body went limp as Sh'ozak continued, unfazed. It felt like Sh'ozak was scraping, scratching, and tickling her brain directly.
It only lasted a few minutes, but to Claire it felt like hours. When Sh'ozak had finished her investigation, withdrew her tendrils from Claire's ear, and relaxed the ones holding her still, Claire simply collapsed. The diagnosis was that there was nothing wrong with her ears. Claire had merely reached a state of telepathic proficiency where the absent thoughts that humans are prone to can be detected, but not read outright. The result was garbled, nonsense information, which human minds apparently translated into audio static and noise. However, Claire was currently in no state to receive this information. Instead, Sh'ozak took advantage of the unconscious Claire's spiked heart rate and increased body temperature, disrobing her and pressing her entire body into Claire's, along with as many meters of tendrils as there was surface area to fit. As complete a parasitism as possible within the limitations of the doll body, eating her fill of Claire's body heat while she processed information from Omicron Iota and the Omicron Zeta frontlines. The previous slaughter, the one leading to these human's capture, wasn't as efficient as it could have been. Small mistakes needed to be accounted for. And there was a prisoner who still wasn't broken. An unnaturally strong will, which Sh'ozak was unsure how to address.
Roughly three hours passed until Claire woke up. After a brief casing of her situation and a significant effort to memorize the soft, silky sensation of her goddesses' skin pressed against hers, she made the tactical decision to pretend to still be asleep."No, get up. I have something I need to take care of, and I think you'll be able to help."Claire experienced both extreme joy and profound sadness. Leaving this incredible situation was terrible, but being needed by someone who needs nothing must have been some kind of divine blessing. Sh'ozak unwrapped her and levitated herself using the tendrils, allowing Claire to get up and dress herself in her silk sheet again. Claire wondered what she could possibly be needed for, so Sh'ozak explained."There remains a single prisoner from your group. He has resisted giving in to my will this entire time, despite repeating the same process for the third time now. Also, it so happens that he has mentioned your name multiple times. I simply did not recognize it, as he is speaking about a you that was, not the you that currently is."
Claire only had passing curiosity about someone from outside the society of the temple. If they were outside, they hardly could have been worth her attention. Nonetheless, a request from Sh'ozak was absolute. She wondered if there was anything she needed to know about this."Nothing else. Act however you wish. I simply desire your presence."The words "I desire your presence" firmly sealed the deal. All other questions left Claire's mind in an instant. All she needed to do was be there. She wished she was there already."Your enthusiasm is appreciated. The shuttle will arrive momentarily. I will meet you at Altair."
During transport, Claire noticed that the pilot's thoughts, despite his human appearance, were orderly and aligned. The constant whispering and static of the temple was gone. It was nearly silent, aside from the occasional check of her health and wellbeing from the pilot. Upon arriving on Altair, Claire politely and reservedly thanked the pilot in her mind, visibly surprising him with her amateur use of telepathy, before hurrying down the hall. She could almost see Sh'ozak's presence through the walls, though it also seemed to be vaguely everywhere. She also noticed a stark contrast between herself and the other humans here. They all wore military uniforms of some kind, multiple pieces, with buttons, laces, zippers, and snaps, whereas she wore a simple white cloth, wrapped and folded until it was a garment. She could tell, perhaps even hear, that they looked at her as an oddity. An ambitious experiment set loose. However, she felt as if she was purer than they. The complexity and variance in their wardrobe betrayed hidden intents. They were unclean when compared to her. She was sure of it.
Reaching her intended location, she saw a dark hallway leading up to a cell with a light source. The cell was locked with a clear crystal. Sh'ozak stood in the dark nearby, and put a finger up to her lips. She told Claire, in silence, that she had already made a decision regarding him. Claire was simply here to test for a reaction. Claire wondered what decision she had made, so Sh'ozak held up a small crystal, smaller than her finger, explaining that it was a seed. Then, she motioned for Claire to go ahead.
The man was vaguely familiar. She must have known him at some point, but it didn't particularly matter. He was backed up into the far edge of the room, covering his face with his hands. She could hear what he was thinking. He was practically screaming her name, but it wasn't really her name. It was giving her a headache. She finally reached the lit portion of the hall, and the see-through crystal that made the door of the cell slid into the walls. It alerted him to her presence.
". . . Claire? Claire, is that you?"She wasn't exactly sure how to react, being called by her name when it didn't refer to her. Any time to process it was cut short, as the man hurriedly crawled across the floor towards her.
Like an insect.
"Claire! They didn't hurt you, right?"He was getting closer."What is that thing you're wearing on your face?"He couldn't hear her commands to stay back. His own thoughts were too loud."Why won't you say somethi-"
The man had touched Claire's foot, and his punishment was instant and exact. The time eating the fruit of the temple, a plant Sh'ozak had modified to serve the purpose of being a perfect nutrition for the humans present, had elevated Claire's body far beyond a normal human. Her muscles barely had limiters, and her strength would have been considered at the apex of humanity if there were any humans present to measure it. She recoiled her leg from his touch, and transferred that motion into a whip-like kick, landing squarely in his face with a sound like gunfire, and launching him to the back of the cell.
His confusion was absolute, and only multiplied the pain from that kick. The answer to many of his questions allowed light to course through her tendrils again, and stepped forward to stand next to the woman who had been his wife. He tried to formulate a question, or an accusation. Something, anything at all, but the words just wouldn't stick together. He just wanted to know what they had done to her.
Sh'ozak,however,waslaughing.Thisresultwasn'thelpful,butitsurewasentertaining.Therewassomekindofthrillfromwatchingthatbondthatgavehimthestrengthtoresistherbreakanddissolve.Sh'ozakhadnoheartbeat,butshewascertainthatifshedid,itwouldberacing.Thisman'sconfusionandpainwereanexquisitetaste.AnimationwascomingtoSh'ozak'sfaceandbody,assheletthedepthofemotiontakeshape,ifonlyforamoment.Doing so painted a scene fit for the finest among masochists: The thin, petite Sh'ozak, barely covered in a loose wrapping of white silk, laughing at him with a smile coated in the sadism that could only come from someone who knew true suffering, and enjoyed every second of it. He could swear she had little fangs. Beside her, the full-bodied and robust Claire, side-eyeing him with a look of the purest hatred and disgust, her leg still raised, prepared to kick him again if the need arose.
He had wanted to know what she had done to her. It would be rude to not answer, wouldn't it?"Claire, a moment of your time, please."She wasn't asking, though. With a hand on the collar of Claire's robe, and the application of tendrils to her legs, Sh'ozak made her kneel, took off her mask, and kissed her passionately in front of her confused and horrified husband. Not out of any care for Claire, though she was elated. Simply to hurt this man. She had given up on adding him to the temple experiment, to her own great annoyance. In retaliation, she'd ensure his last moments hurt in a special way. She pulled away from Claire, ensuring the tendril she doubled as a tongue stretched out to show exactly how far she had stuffed it down Claire's throat before retracting it from Claire's mouth and back into her own. She stuck her tongue back out and winked at the stunned man in the corner as she released Claire."Your wife is delicious."
She then spread her tendrils across the hall, cutting off the hallway leading out, and taking up his entire view. Her sadistic grin was on full display as she strutted towards him. She definitely had fangs."Well, she certainly had fun. Hold still for a moment", she said, popping the incubus seed in her mouth. A few of her tendrils shot out and grabbed the man, pinning him against the wall, and then sliding him down and forcing him to kneel. Sh'ozak stepped up onto his thighs to elevate herself above him, and grabbed his chin, forcing him to look up to her. She let her tongue hang out, showing him the incubus seed coiled in her tongue, dripping on his face. The doll body didn't salivate except by command. She was doing it to torment him.
He struggled against his bindings and her grip, but they were like steel. They didn't even shake. She let him struggle for a moment before forcing his mouth open and driving her tongue and the seed down his throat. Leaving the seed behind, she retracted her tongue and closed his mouth before kissing him on the forehead."Gooood boy~ It'll only hurt for a moment, alright?"Releasing him, Sh'ozak turned to leave. The only member of the crew to resist her had been dealt with. He did, however, think that he saw his chance, and while the two were walking away down the hall, he tried to bolt for the exit. However, he'd only made a few steps when the worst pain he'd ever felt in his life pierced his stomach, and he crashed to the floor.
The last things he ever saw were his wife looking down on him with disgust, and that monster smiling and waving goodbye before blowing him a kiss, having already planned for this. She wanted him to die losing hope.
Time passed leisurely in the colony. Humans were creatures of routine, and after having set one up, their wanderings were contained within the limits of the routine, giving meaning to deviance as "experimentation" and "exploration". These were ideas well known to the Slomon K'Hara as a species, but had never been considered as a survival strategy until the arrival of humanity. A duty, necessary as a command from their creators, not necessary as a lifeblood of their continued existence. One of the pirates she had captured first had informed them of records of humanity's homeworld. A world of hate, where humanity had thrived by being the most hateful. A world of toxins, where humanity had survived by making the toxins a part of themselves. A world of violence, which humanity conquered with violence. They spread their reach far and wide with violence.
That conversation on the extent of humanity's history had ended with a concept most disheartening: The humanity that had come to conquer her home were refugees. Failures among the human race, losers of their eternal lust for war. Just across this very arm of the massive galactic spiral lay in waiting a more violent, more hateful humanity, one which Sh'ozak had come to accept that she must face someday, provided she survives the ones that had come here. Perhaps there was merit to those minds that clung closely to the belief that the Creators had engineered every test, every star, and every ruin to train them. Somehow, someway, a weaker, lesser Humanity had come, a test, a training, a distilling of thought to prepare them for the true Humanity.
All these thoughts came to surface due to an experiment she had been conducting in her temple, a literal introspection. Several times she had divided herself, acausal will against all other. Yet, as she divided herself, she found she could divide herself further. In the inner cloister, in front of her throne, four versions of herself were present. Two doll bodies, a swirling ball of smoke and energy, and, perched on the throne in both mockery and reverence, barely visible, a Progenitor Worm. All herself, a single creature, yet showing four aspects that make up herself.
In unison, they turned to regard the doorway, feeling a mind approaching. Claire, with her usual severe mistiming, had chosen to seek companionship while Sh'ozak was still divided. The door opened, and the delicate flavor of confusion washed over her divided selves, projected clearly from Claire's well-developed telepathy. The light, airy taste of confusion was quickly met with the silence of dismissal, and both were overwhelmed by the sweet flavor of obsession. One of the doll bodies responded in kind, lunging to embrace her and coiling tendrils towards the warmer spots on her body. The other doll body calmly tilted her head, yet it was the ball of smoke, temporarily coalescing into a trio of interlocked rings speckled with eyes, wings, and feathers, who spoke.
"You interrupt an experiment." Claire expressed an apology, but it was cut short by the metallic taste of pain. The doll body clinging to her had pierced her skin, disregarding anesthetics and even going so far as to drain blood from her body. It pulled away in an instant as the second doll body rapidly floated towards them with a trail of after-images, and half-heartedly attempted to spike the first with a crystalline spear.
Seeing conflict, Claire projected an emotion of worry, prompting response from the second doll body. "Behold: "Self Control", manifest in physicality. It is no true concern." Claire's next communication brought all of Sh'ozak to a brief halt, her eyes locked on the woman who had expressed an allowance, no, an invitation to be consumed. Under the dumbfounded gaze of a goddesses eyes, a well-deserved embarrassment overcame Claire, who attempted to change the subject by inquiring the nature of the experiment. The second doll body and the winged rings hesitated for a mere second, contemplating if they should explain it, letting the the impulsiveness of the first body answer.
"I'm asking myself questions." With Claire's blood circulating in the other body, it began using the carbon-based information codes to play around with its own structure. A fleshy version of the tendrils sprouted from her abdomen, dragging on the floor at first with their newfound weight before sprouting bone and tooth-like spikes and protrusions. "I like your body. I could eat you." "But I will not." The second doll body flashed across the gap to stand between Claire and the first. Claire expressed a subtle joy in regards to being desired. A short silence, followed by a query as to where the usual snappy response to her desires was. "Ah, I am the one who says them, but that self is the one who makes them." The doll pointed at the throne. Claire saw nothing. Instead of speaking further, the first doll lashed her tendrils across Claire, wrapping her arms and biting through her skin. She proceeded to drag her towards the throne. There sat a single sparkling purple worm, curled into a ring, humming a singular tone.
Claire questioned the creature before them. "This is the original shape of any light. This is the first form, from which all other forms stem. Over there, shaped in mist and smoke, is the shape of my mind. Aside me stands the shape of my perception. And I am the shape of my will." Further inquisition, on the necessity of these shapes. "Have you ever had mixed feelings? I do. So I must ask myself questions to find my own answers. Behold, many selves to ask questions."
There was a silent understanding, as Claire lacked speech. The idea of talking to oneself to sort emotions from logic is an idea innately understood by thinking humans, and she who does not speak thinks much. Every part of Sh'ozak was content with this. Every part but one, and tension within the room flared again. Claire, aware of the songs that each conscious mind sings, worries for this conflict in a way nearly tangible. "Acausal will leads to choices that provide nothing. Without control, I would quickly consume you for your bodies warmth, for your endorphins, and for your pheromones. A personal failure regarding the doll body, having matched it too closely to human physiology." "As I should. You are nourishing and pleasant."
Claire offered a token of knowledge, but it was blurry, and barely known. A fact known, but not understood. "Why should I compromise?" "As to completely consume is to lose access." "It is decided. Investigate further." The other two made to argue, but a powerful command of silence washed over the room, a screeching clatter alike a falling metal pipe echoing in the minds of all. At last the worm had spoken.
Sometime later, two other women entered. Isadora, covered in braided silk adornments, seemed to nearly hover across the ground. "Our Lady Death. It seems you have multiplied. I bring Our Blinded Visage, and I come to clarify where her lack of tact cannot."
The voice of her smoke form spoke first: "Acceptable."
Behind Isadora came a true giantess. Each human had grown to extreme proportions due to the low gravity and genetic alterations of the fruit which they ate, yet Candela had outstripped them by far. Not only was she approaching her third meter of height, but her musculature had grown to extremes that could pull down buildings in regular human cities. As Isadora had mentioned, her brazen lack of tact made an entrance shortly after her. "Shozzyyyyy!" "Stop." "But it's been so long..." Candela's puppy dog eyes were thankfully concealed behind her ornate, silver blindfold, although her pout was not. Perhaps, however, such a pleading face would have seemed out of place on the sheer titan of a woman. Claire also petitioned in Candela's favor, citing a concession being acceptable as Candela was a scholar in the subject they would be discussing. "I deny such belittling, and your misrepresentation of time. It has been since the last full rotation of this moon. Answer the questions for which you were summoned."
"Oh yeah, the heat thing. So, female humans have a timed, staged shift in their homeostasis details. One of these stages, the one Claire was... thinking really hard about, includes a higher internal body temperature, a spike in luteinizing hormone, estrogen, follicle-stimulating hormone, and progesterone. If you want to keep her warm and full of hormones, that's probably the state you want her in."
Claire described a mocking surprise that a meathead like Candela would know so much. "I was a nutritionist before I was a Visage, Claire." Candela began striking poses to show her muscles. "If you want maximum protein, you need meat" She tapped her head. "Eggs" She finished by patting her chest "And dairy."
Claire rolled her eyes, making a simple, pointed claim that hers were bigger. Isadora was the only one to notice the confusion on the face of both dolls representing Shozak, as well as the cloud of fog losing it's symmetrical shapes. "Ah, she makes prideful and admittedly witty boasts as to her physical proportions." "Is this such a thing to feel pride for?" "To many, yes. Humanity largely lacks the connection of mind, and so how one appears outwardly dictates how one is judged."
The more logical doll and the cloud resumed their forms, seeming satisfied. However, the more emotional one began staring intensely at the bodies of the three women in front of her, measuring them. She then turned her eyes to herself in comparison. While the other three were well between two and three meters, her doll only barely passed a meter and a half. Her doll bore neither musculature of Candela and Isadora, nor the more numerous adipocytes of Claire. She looked down, and did not see "dairy". Only toes. Silently, the emotional side came to a conclusion, communicated silently with the other three. The perspective abstained to vote, and the mind and ancestry agreed on the terms that it remain an experiment of discovery, and provide no further influence. Claire, with a mind to hear, noted that a decision had been made regarding her hormonal cycle, happily accepting to be of use in any way possible.
Claire and Candela continued pridefully posturing, their banter slowly dissipating the tension that Sh'ozak had formed all on her own. Isadora was nearly content to watch, but a question had plagued her mind. "Our Lady, if I may... why are you split apart?" "Oh, to ask myself a question." "What question may that be?"
Each of the forms froze completely. Not even the wisps of fog from the form of mind flowed. They stood in silence for seconds that seemed like minutes, until the form of emotion walked to the throne and picked up the worm in her hands, and the four bodies all walked into each other. In a blinding flash of light and the screeching sound of glass scraping against glass, before them stood again the doll body they knew, purple tendrils strewn across the floor. Their silence posed a question that even Claire did not voice in her mind, yet Sh'ozak answered all the same.
"Hm. How about that. I forgot."
The four left the inner cloister to mingle amongst the rest of the colony. And while they wandered, tranquility returned to the Temple of Merciful Death.
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