The Creators Ch. 13

The Breytans looked at each other, then back at me, and offered a polite smattering of applause to their broken High Guard. I joined in the celebration of Jade's baptism, clapping along and beaming with pride. My smile slowly faltered when one sarcastic set of hands—one of which was horribly mutilated—clapped in opposite cadence to the group. Tera Autumnsong emerged from the flock, grinning sardonically and making a show of taunting me as she sauntered down the rows.

"Rejoice, rejoice," she chuckled, her black eyes leering at my throbbing cock, "the holy sister hath returned to serenade us with her preachy bullshit."

"Warriors of Breyta," I growled, "why did you bring me this bottom-feeding wretch?"

"Her Holiness, Diamond Gendian—" started one poor fool before I engulfed her in a black inferno. Her screeches filled the skies, and my cock rose higher with her soprano agony as the scent of her cooking meat filled my nostrils. I stared at Tera the whole time, but she didn't even flinch. She grinned at me mockingly from those black pits of eyes, those same eyes that I had. Oh, how it enraged me! I took a calming breath through my nose, and turned back to the Breytans.

"The next woman who deifies a false idol will be put to the cross and roasted alive until sundown," I said as though lecturing children. "I am Sister Julia. My daughter is Sister Diamond. That is all we are. I see that I am going to have to make you all prove your—"

"And on the five-billionth day, the Holy Mother did bless us with silence," Tera proclaimed loudly, "and Sister Julia did shut-eth the fuck-eth up, and all rejoiced. Amen."

I reeled on Tera, but she just giggled, and slapped my cock.

"Blessed are thee whom burn women alive for their pleasure," Tera teased, "for that is clearly what god wanted when she gave the famous precept, 'thou shalt not kill.'"

"I am the flame of god!" I growled. "I am bestowed with her eternal fire, and have been blessed with her sight!"

"Her... sight?" Tera cocked her head, and then exploded in laughter. "You mean Corruption?! You think... oh my god... you think that Corruption is the vision of God?! Well fuck me, Sister; I guess that makes me a prophet!"

"You are a parasitic whore!"

"Then why don't you burn me?" Tera grinned wickedly. "Just burn me up! Make me scream like a roasted pig on a spit!" She leaned in, and her grin turned absolutely evil. "You actually believe all the shit you're saying, don't you? But of course you do."

"The Holy Mother works in mysterious ways," I snarled. "Especially when it comes to my daughter. I don't know why God compelled her to give you the sight, but she did. Yes, Tera, you whore of whores, you are blessed, and therefore I cannot pass judgement upon you." I leaned until our brows were almost touching. "But if you speak one more word of blasphemy, I will forego God's permission for her forgiveness, and I will have you screaming for a week before you're finished!"

Tera's eyes flashed dangerously. "That's quite the claim, Sister. I've heard some men boast about how long they'd have me screaming for, but a week?" she glanced down at my crotch. "Lying is a sin, you know. You better be able to back it up."

"Keep your lechery away from me!"

"But why do you think God sent me here?" Tera whispered huskily, and wrapped her cool tender fingers around my raging shaft. I gasped like a virgin, and her grin widened. "Someone needs to get all of that sin out of you, Sister Julia."

Through my labored breaths, I managed to hiss, "do not ever attempt to interpret the will of God ever again. You are but her tool!"

"I kinda think I'm holding God's tool right now," Tera hissed, caressing me so sweetly. "Why don't you bless me with it? It doesn't count if you fuck me in the ass."

I closed my eyes, and bowed my head against my raging desire.

"What's the word, Sister?" Tera crooned, her fingertips sliding so wonderfully, so evilly. "You interpret God's will, so why did God send me to you?"

I took a deep shuddering breath, and found myself swaying into her touch. She beckoned me forward, her grip sliding up my throbbing length.

"I will seek your sacrament when the moon is high and my flock is asleep," I whispered, and glared at her. "Do not ever tempt me again before my followers, or I will remove your other hand!"

Tera giggled, and retracted her fingers, leaving their pleasure burning on my flesh. "You'll be thinking about me all day long. For a sadist, you make quite the masochist. But of course, I already knew that about you." She raised her brows, and whispered, "woof-woof," and my cock jolted with a shot of precum.

"Leave me!" I growled through gritted teeth.

"I'm sure I can find a whip and handcuffs around here somewhere," Tera mused, turning around to show me her impossibly juicy backside, her tail swinging teasingly behind her as she made her way to the camp. I forced my gaze away, and looked to the sky above.

"Do you tempt me, or do you reward me?" I asked the Holy Mother as Jade whimpered beneath me, already forgotten. "What am I to make of this sinner with your gift?"

Only the wind answered.

I nodded, and sighed. "Of course. I am sorry for assuming I would be the lone perspective of your vision. I will discern your message from her, whatever it may be. Thank you, oh Holy Mother. I am infinitely naive, and you are infinity wise."

Postlude: Astral Projection

CORRUPTION

Xaya's mind was ravenous for carnality, as I knew she would be. She had tortured herself for so long with abstractions that the simple had become unobtainable to her. Now that her mind had settled into a languor of hedonism and instinct, she rested contentedly upon the thorny foliage that had once been her realm, and busied herself with the simple predatory delights of plucking the limbs off a squealing bunny. She would be an excellent caretaker for this realm. I had chosen her for two reasons: one was her affinity for water, and the other was for her vastness. Though I had destroyed Wisdom, Xaya was still overbearingly powerful to anyone but I. I cautiously opened the gate of the combined realms, and stepped into the calm waters outside. The iron door on the box flexed, but it did not fling open. I took a deep breath, and lifted my other foot from Diamond's soil. The box trembled, the earth shook, great flocks of birds were sent skyward in panic. Xaya ceased her torture of the rabbit to glance over her shoulder at the iron monolith in the middle of her new realm. She snarled at it, punched her fist into the astral ground, and all was calmed. I let out the breath I'd been holding, and carefully set both feet into the water. Nothing happened. The door stayed shut, and my patterns remained on my flesh.

It took me a moment to notice the difference in the realm. None of the plants had changed, nor had the sky or walls of the realm. What had changed was quite subtle from such a distance. A slender red-haired woman stood blinking confusedly in the middle of the realm. She had black antlers on her head, and eyes of emerald and purple. It took me a second to realize what I was staring at. It took Diamond a second later to realize where she was. She pivoted on her heel, and dashed for the iron box.

"Get her!" I screamed.

Xaya leapt to her feet, and sprinted after Diamond. She closed the distance between them with lightning speed, then tackled my mother, and subdued her easily into a chokehold. Diamond struggled with all her might as I stared from the threshold, trying to rationalize why this had happened. I realized my mistake too late. Xaya was not melded to Diamond, and Diamond was untethered. Much like when she shared her body with Angela, all Diamond needed to astral travel was to have someone else occupy her garden. There was some part of her that felt that change, and immediately sought to free herself from me. The revelation tore my heart out. I was a parasite to her.

Diamond fought her futile battle with Xaya until her poor astral body was limp and mud-caked. Her purple and green eyes searched around frantically, then settled on me.

"You," she snarled, "what did you do?! WHAT DID YOU MAKE ME DO?!"

"I'm sorry," I whispered.

"Get out!" she screeched. "Never come back! I hate you! I HATE YOU!"

"I love you," I hissed to her, but she could not hear me. Past the threshold of her gate, there were no words that could be passed between us, no explanation, no comfort. I shut the gate, and wiped the tears from my cheek. "I'm so sorry, Mother."

Excerpt from Dr. Siam's thesis, The Broken Bridge, page one:

If you are reading this, then congratulations, you have cracked the first cypher, and can now read to the end of this page. Unfortunately, the next page requires another cypher to crack, and that cypher is five iterations more difficult than this one. By my calculations, it should take the average mind about five days to crack this cypher (if the average mind can be so dedicated), so if you absolutely have nothing better to do, enjoy spending the next twenty-five days attempting to read the next page. How about this, I'll save you the trouble. The next page is an overlong and overcomplicated recipe for a tuna fish sandwich. I have told you this because I have littered this thesis with overlong and overcomplicated recipes for overly simple food items. You will not know which page contains my research, or which one tells you how best to butter garlic bread. Oh, and each successive page is five times more difficult to decipher than the one previous, and you must decipher them successively, because each cypher builds upon the last. There are nine-hundred pages.

You might ask why I am being so cagy. "Doctor Siam, aren't you being a bit paranoid?" Well, you'd be paranoid too if a dogmatic GOD OF FIRE thought your research was the work of the devil. Who would've thought a three-foot tall cock-sucker would be so close-minded? Ah, but it's always the gay followers of the damnable Maternal Path who are the most overzealous. Far be it for me to judge when my breakfast consisted of egg salad and orc shlong, but as an incubus, I feel like my impropriety can be forgiven. I'm rambling. You will find that I ramble quite a lot. Since this paper will not be subject to peer review by the Scientific Board of Hektinar University, I will allow myself a little leeway. Those fucking self-serving bureaucrats don't know what science is anyway. If it weren't for Furok and Droktin, I would've had my tenure revoked decades ago, but this is the only place that this research can be conducted. Goddamn stupid fucking... deep breath, Doctor Siam. Look, I obviously have my qualms with the orc empire, but there is no doubt that orckind are the most progressive, intelligent and free-thinking of all the peoples, and so I will extend a note of gratitude to Hektinar University, and apologize now. Maybe I should just redact this whole paragraph. No, it stays!

Well, where to start. I guess from the beginning. First off, thanks to the testimony of Xaya Sitoria (who goes by Wisdom, the pretentious thot), we can get the small revelations out of the way on the first page. There is no god, the Maternal Path is a lie, and you're all a bunch of fucking inbred morons for believing it. Oh, you want proof? Cut your wrists and see if angels come down to finger your butthole or whatever it says in there. The self-proclaimed "Holy Mother" is nothing but an artifact of early mankind. Before Creators, there were Elementals, and Elementals were formed from the genesis of the astral plane, when mankind finally emerged from its ape cognizance. The astral plane and the physical plane were one, and so Elementals could coexist with their humanoid counterparts. There were two initially: Petranumen (New Earth) and Vitanimus (Moving Life). They eloped and made Joy, who was the Elemental of water, and later fire when she tried on a new dress or some bullshit.

Fast-forward a few eons, and mankind has finally reached the age of reason. The astral plane separated from the physical plane, which Petranumen thought was a total bummer. Some stuff happened, Petranumen managed to tame the astral plane for a thousand years, some more stuff happened, the planes split because Petranumen is an idiot who couldn't count to a thousand, some more stuff happened, Petranumen killed Vitanimus and proclaimed herself to be the Holy Mother, some more stuff happened, yada, yada, yada, and we're here.

This thesis does not deal in the mysteries of the astral plane. I do not care about Elementals, Sentients, Tethered Ones, or even the rare Untethered Ones, who are not as special as they like to think. No, this thesis deals with far more important concepts. Concepts of energy, of life, and of existence itself. The Holy Mother would have you believe that existence is predestined and dependent on your actions on earth. That same Holy Mother—Petranumen—actually believes that your earthly life has no true bearing, and that everlasting life in the astral plane is what's important. Needless to say, the Holy Mother has both wrong. The point of this thesis is to discuss the broken bridge. Vitanimus had made great strides in discovering the secrets of the broken bridge, but he stopped his research too soon.

What is the broken bridge? Well, the astral and physical planes were once one, and a connection between them still persists. Tethered and Untethered Ones go to and from the plane of cognizance, and Sentients can in some form, do the same. It is only logical to assume then, that there was once a connection between all three planes. That is what this thesis is about. This thesis is about discovering the secrets of the spiritual plane, the first plane of existence from which all energy in the universe derives. Why are the second and third planes transitable, but the first is a one-way road? The answer is, that it's not. The broken bridge isn't broken; we just don't know how to cross it.

And that is the end of the first page. See you in twenty-five days, dumbass.