Book 5 Chapter 20 - The Lady of the Arc (Draft)

(End has been added to this draft, and I will be soldiering on with the rest of the uploads, thank you for reading! ~squiggles)

The corrosive miasma dissipated at their feet as the Namegivers army crossed the threshold.

Jasmine held her breath as Rynard stepped over from the station into the mouthway, an apt description as they made their way deeper in. The walls were slimy, the air humid, stale and it stank of decay… the sickly sweet scent of tartar.

“Lights!” Jasmine ordered and instantly every council soldier turned on a bioluminescent flashlight. Imperial soldiers turned their swords to glow and held them up like torches to the cast the light, it revealed even more unsettling imagery.

The walls werent just slimy, they were throbbing, the red-tinged leathery texture of flesh, alive and well.

“I’ve seen this before,” Itsuki piped up, “the interior walls of Kyu-Kage station,”

Jasmine nodded,

“The ships alive, all their techs alive… including their ships,”

“It's been stiffed and immobile for [months]” Xant deliberated, “without proper maintenance and flushing the Rajava’s system would be stagnant, rotting even…” That would explain the smell, “Jasmines Freq-Bomb likely awoke its sensors and it began running its regular protocols,”

“You really think my pulse woke it up?”

“It ‘woke’ me up” Xant replied matter of factly, “and your ‘power ballad’ likely finished what the grief bomb started.”

“What about the Rajavan ‘lady’?” jasmine quired “was she only woken up with the ship? Staying in stasis like the rest of us?”

Xant sat quietly, a hand to his brow while clarifying the small miscommunication.

“It isn't just a ‘Rajavan ship’, the Rajava are their ships, the ‘Lady’ is the ship.” The melding of hivemind organic computers, shipbrains wasn't a misnomer, “this rajavan is different, the Enginer lord was unable to locate the shipbrain when they were dissecting the ship from the hull-wound and Rajavans don't usually have intact ‘personalities’. If its component properties are of human DNA then for it to have a sense of ‘self’ would not be the most surprising factor.”

The trio looked up once again at their surroundings and it only confirmed Xants hypothesis to be true. Arched beams looked like spinal columns, the ceiling of rib-like bones, veins of red and blue permeated the living walls.

It was very human.

A shudder of distaste shook Jasmine, as she pulled her limbs inward at the revelation.

Their forward marsh was halted when their feet touched steel floor, the end of the gangway met with a giant door. Its surface was embossed with a depiction of paradise, clouds and sunbeams, forests and rivers. A garden world.

Inscriptions carved all along the outside, glyphs and pictographs of dozens possibly a hundred different styles… some of which the humans recognised.

“What is it?” Rynard asked.

“Human,” Itsuki muttered unhappily, “different languages,”

“And they all say the same thing,” Jasmine added, her hand pointing to a set of glyphs, “‘Stairway to heaven’”

Reacting to her utterance of the phrase activated the door, her soldiers stood  on guard ready for anything on the other side.

Almost anything.

What greeted them was a macabre display, rows and rows of twisted amalgamations slumbering in incubation vats, each one more terrifying in size and scope.

A twisted mix of snake and crocodile?

“Leviathan”

Elephant and gorilla, with a single giant eye.

“Cyclops,”

“Werewolf, Chimera, Chupacabra, Bunyip, Qzetaquotal, Yeti…”

“They're literally making monsters…”

What was more morbid was that each vat was… decorated. Intricate silk banners and delicate metal work, beautiful flowers, tiny animals and Sculpted human-like statues, molded from marble and gold leaf presented each monster as though they too, were a work of art.

Xant described them as ‘human-like’ as no two statue was the same in appearance, some had horns, wings, tentacles, animal ears, tails, multiple limbs and none of them had faces, covered by veils or simply left blank and up to the viewers imagination.

The grotesque display continued down the hall, leading to the large and ornate set of stairs, leading up to another grand entrance. Only this time they had company waiting for them.

Humanoids, covered in black environmental suits, stood at the doors, each one holding the a handle, like butlers awaiting guests.

They felt empty and hollow.

But the door beyond them beckoned.

Jasmine felt herself being pulled up the stairs, to where she belonged.

She slid down Rynards back and addressed her army, sword in one hand.

“I want to thank you all for coming this far, for following me and my anger through this nightmare but i will force you no further. If you wish to turn back i will hold you no ill will, i do not know what lies beyond those doors but i do not foresee a peaceful outcome. If you wish to stay, we will be fighting, if you wish to leave and live your life as you had before, now is the time. The choice is yours.”

She closed her eyes and withdrew her presence as best she could, limiting her influence so make their decision easier.

Nobody moved a muscle.

When she opened herself again, she felt everyone there, ready to go, ready to fight.

She smiled.

“Right! Rynard, you cant fit through that door can you?”

The captain snorted,

“Nothing a little interior percussion couldn't fix,”

“Then you stay out here with the troops, if you sense anything,” she emphasized “anything other then my safety, especially if you cant feel me at all, i want you to raze this place to the ground.”

“Yes, Commander!” he replied with relish.

“Letu,” she commanded, “i need your protection, can you be my sword?”

The knight had his sword drawn at the ready, a crackle of lightning inside him she hadnt noticed before.

“Yes, commander,”

“Itsuki, Xant…” she looked towards her friends, “are you ready?”

The pair nodded, silent in agreement and curiosity, themselves feeling the invisible pull towards the door.

“Then lets meet this Lady,”

The grand door opened for them silently, opened into the nights sky, a vast window looking out into the vastness of space. The colours of the galaxy before them.

The room was cold and open, shaped like an amphitheatre, but chairs and glass work stations followed through the arch, and infront of the empty sky, holographic text dropped down from the open ceiling to the floor.

An illusion surely, holographs or screens to make it seem they were walking out in open space, the four stood their ground as they felt a swelling presence beneath their feet.

Bold, chaotic yet fragile, like coloured glass the floor opened up beneath them and the lady showed herself.

She was even more beautiful in person, etherial tendrils of silks, sweet soothing sigh of fresh air and floral scents and gave a whisper of etherial breath and opened her eyes.

Golden iris’s against black ink, just the sight made the others step back. Jasmine had to stand her ground.

Hands dripped in golden chains and jewelery, a crown of gold and diamonds upon her head, she smiled at her guests and bowed gracefully.

“My Charges, I am so happy to see you back safe and sound…” her voice echoed with several tones and freq-pulses, fragmented and overwhelming.

Jasmine said nothing as the lady made her way closer, hairs on the back of the humans stood on end, a widow drew closer to her prey.

“It must have been so scary,” the Lady outstretched a lower hand, to comfort the human before her, “to wake up all alone-”

Jasmine knocked her hand away, barely containing her scorn. The lady nodded her head sadly.

“Yes, I feel your pain, it was never meant to be this way-”

“Then why is it?!(you did this…)” Jasmine snapped, sharpening the barbs in her tone, “why is any of this happening at all?!(why did you bring us here!?)

The lady smiled warmly, excited to answer the questions.

“I brought you, humanity, here, to help save the galaxy!”

She raised her hands and the empty glass dome turned into a gigantic screen, holographic images transporting them from space to a idyllic, alien utopia…

“To usher in a new dynasty of unprecedented growth and prosperity, to reach beyond the immaterial to achieve complete perfection!”

“We, the Rajava, were designed to rule, to guide the living masses of the univrser to a better life, to shed the pain and toil of existence. We governed to bringforth that vision, one mind could not do it alone so we became many, a network of minds focused solely on the task at hand, to solve societies problems.”

A collection of alien suillottes stood in communion, discussing matters of state in a grand room.

“Logistics, trade, agriculture, economics, infrastructure, culture, laws, medicine, we devoted outselves to this cause. As the problems became more complex, we altered ourselves to better cope with the planetary scale of our governess. Our minds expanded, exalted, to calculate the trillions of equations to keep civilisation running,”

The council soon diminished in size, from many different beings to the large and swollen brains they were today.

“...and once we had reached our pinnacle, we decided to tackle the greatest of all problems…”

The lady looked to the group expectantly, a blind glee radiated from her entire being. Xant looked to his companions, the humans looking at her with an expression he charitibly considered tempered. Jasmine did not trust herself to answer, after the silence had gone on long past awkward and the lady had not relented, Itsuki spoke up.

“And what was that?”

The lady, oblivious to the atmosphere of the room, answered with resounding excitement

“The heat death of the universe of course!” she flicked all four of her wrists and a supernova appeared behind them, blasting bright light until fading to complete darkness…

“If we could solve that problem, how to exist once all the stars had burnt out, every other problem would fall inline after that!”

The darknes turned to a map of the galaxy, solar systems of the prosperity dynasty hovered like glittering jewels teeming with life and lights.

“It was a grand undertaking, one that would take millenia, no, pentillions to complete! So we needed to start as soon as possible, rearranging and using the resources of the entirety of civilization to save it from eventual suffocation…” she guided the trade routes from their planets, shifted asteroids from their orbit, created stations and population centres. Shaping the galaxy to her whims.

“Then, our efforts were rewarded with a great leap in technology, the ultimate translator, communication between species and had always slowed progress but now seamless understanding would only propel us closer to our goal! But… we were mistaken.”

The once orderly system fell into chaos, ships went as they pleased and stations moved from their locations.

“The population turned on us, with new understanding came new ideas and they did not see our grand vision as a priority. Even with new found longevity, they began focusing on the infatismal and fascisous… we tried to guide them back into the fold, but it only caused more conflict.”

Explosions, many of them, across the galaxy map disrupted the routes even further.

“We recalculated and continued our plan, mitigating undesirable outcomes where we could, and limiting the new population from the variations of the old with great success.”

Xant and jasmine had seen this part before, the systematic cleansing of the galaxy…

“But there was a variable we couldnt account for of course, a new species…”

The small fleet of council ships fleeing the rajavan oppression reached the edge of the know galaxy, and met the Arvas. The map suddenly expanded to reveal these new worlds, and millions of ships descended upon the ravaged council homeworlds.

“We were blindsided, our patterns and plans thrown into complete disarray, there was only one thing we could do to combat this of course, we had to integrate the new species into our systems and…”

The lady threw her hands over her face and gave out a painful, mourning cry, her chours of voices made it sound as though the entire world was crying out in pain.

“We understood… new emotions, new passions, ways of thinking we had edited out of our genetic criteria all came rushing back. All those years of calculating the outcomes we had forgotten why we were doing it in the first place. All those lives lost and destroyed with such calousness…” she gave a pitiful weep and turned away, as though she could not bear to have eyes on her.

“burdened with the knowledge of the suffering we had caused, we vowed to repent, we could not claim to know better when we had destroyed so much… we left our home galaxy willingly, to let civilisation continue on without us.”

The galaxy map faded from view, stars and darkness surrounded them as the rajava, shipsized beings, floated through space.

“We were aimless, consumed by our sorrow and guilt, unable to conceive of a way to repent. We wondered if we deserved redemption at all, how many had we snuffed from existence claiming to be of a higher understanding? We were despicable, detestable, diabolical!” the lady lashed out at the air, holding herself back and dramatically falling to her knees.

“We were so lost and hopeless until…”

From the darkness, a light, a small blue planet descended from the ceiling, the lady turned her body to the planet, holding out her hands to cradle it lovingly.

“Our salvation,”

She drew out her hands and magnified the planet, and xant was able to see the earth in all its glory.

“An untouched planet, teeming with life, alone in the universe… we knew better than to taint it with our touch, so we watched observed, and waited. When at last they ventured past their atmosphere, our enamourment and curiosity were too great and we incorporated their genes into our own, in hopes of finding a new perspective.”

“And our eyes were opened to beauty and majesty beyond… comprehension. Emotions now hold more intensity, interpretation, imagination, dreams… We were finally complete, no longer living machines chained with guilt, but a new species combining the best of what the universe had to offer. Qzetillian intelligence, Sulin durability, Zenthi comprehension, Arvas passion and Humanity’s everything…”

“We reshaped ourselves in your image, your ideals, took visions from the immaterial and now, that we have the answer, reveal it to the rest of the galaxy…” The hologram showed humanity standing side by side with the rest of the galaxy, a beautiful image but… it felt so wrong. “We owe humanity a huge debt, and we will pay that debt by giving them the stars they have desired for millennia!”

Neither Jasmine nor Itsuki made a move, the pair frozen in place by the revelation, but Xant felt to remain in silence was far more dangerous than to speak aloud.

“Humanity certainly is a species to admire,” he commented, hoping his admission would coax more from this erratic being.

“Oh yes,” she replied enthusiastically, “Their composition is wholly unique, millions of nerve endings so robust, yet malleable, the programs you can command into them is extensive, beyond what we could create during the prosperity dynasty! Every freq-pulse is distinctive, you understand, I know you do, I can feel you’ve been rewritten…” Suddenly her attention was completely on Xant, all her eyes and movements focused as she closed the gap between them, “we can fix you too, replant your brain into a more fitting body,”

Xants ears stood on end.

A better fitting body, the implications were there, his body was a cost-effective model, to be able to live his life in something more durable, something more…

he glanced over at Jasmine and between the lady… was it truly possible?

“You, you can do that?...”

“We are now capable of anything!” the lady twirled around in jubilation, “once you have been given the gift to alter reality to your will, not even death can stop you!”

“[confused/disgusted]What are you talking about?(nonsense/cant stop death)”

“But that is the answer… when the last sun fades, we will simply dream! Everyone will dream! The universe shall wake on the other side knowing that humanity granted them the gift of an existence beyond expiration! I have seen it in my own visions.”

“That's it?” Jasmine’s voice quivered with fury, “That's IT? You, you're insane, after everything you’ve been through, everything you’ve learned, you still decided to uproot and destroy thousands of lives for what?! A fucking dream?!” Jasmine shook her head, face in her hands and body shaking with her voice, “it can't be, that can't be the reason,” tears of disbelief overwhelmed her,

“The burden of destiny is great for one so young-”

“STOP!” Jasmine screamed at her, “Just stop! You have no idea how fucking ludicrous this all is! STOP NOW!”

The lady withdrew and the hologram faded to black.

“Stop…” she repeated her voices growing cold, “stop, stop stop… I… I know that command…I know your voice,”

The human vassals from the door, reached out and grabbed Jasmine, knocking over the other in the process, bringing her fighting to the lady. She grabbed the side of jasmines head and ran her long blue fingers over the identification code, imprinted into her skin. The lady hissed, “you were the cause of all this,”