Naero wondered how they reproduced.
Den said that it was by asexual splitting and dividing, and that many astral creatures did so. That was quite common.
How very odd. Most astral beings did not have gender. Since any of them could reproduce on their own if they had need or felt like it, there was no direct, evolutionary need among those races and creatures for gender or sexuality.
Of course, there were always exceptions, but that seemed to be the general rule overall. Mates, bonding pairs, and different, collective groups of various sizes formed out of need for companionship, cooperative efforts, or self-preservation in a dangerous dimension, if nothing else.
Naero and her instructors kept themselves cloaked and undetectable, as they observed glowing ships of both races exploring and darting about, hunting, sizing each other up and making ferocious attack on one another and anything they came across that could be taken as food.
Few had spoken to either race of astral raiders.
Both Master Jo and Den had made the attempt in many ways, yet it always ended in a battle, where the raiders tried to capture and devour the astral forms of anyone who could provide sustenance.
So much for all of that. And no one had been able to study them close up with biomancy, enough to attempt shapechanging into one or the other. Thus, to a large part, the Khalon and the Rell, the astral raiders, remained a closely protected and dangerous mystery.
As the weeks passed, and Naero’s confidence and working knowledge of the Astral Plane grew, she was finally ushered into the Dimensional Council.
At first she was completely overwhelmed.
They were within a great, protected astral structure, looking like a bizarre cathedral. Within there were sweeping, towering swaths of crystalline formations, and waves of multi-color, impossible glass. The astral forms of many sentient beings flitted about, conversing and arguing with each other in a cacophony of confusion.
If this wasn’t Babel itself, Naero did not know what was.
Inside, the chamber of deliberation was multiple kilometers in nearly every direction, and it seemed to be constantly expanding at will.
Outside, the insane structure looked like a cocoon, a gigantic chrysalis that was writhing and boiling with creation and energetic madness from within. It defied rational thought in many ways.
Yet inside, as Naero was shown how to tap into various discussions, lectures, arguments, and even musical concerts and various artistic performances and exchanges. The flows of knowledge and enlightenment rang clear.
The desire of all sentients was to know and to share and to seek. And no one wanted to be isolated, only to flare out and fade away without anyone taking note that they had been.
From the least to the greatest, they all felt driven to explore ideas with others, and have their voices heard, before their times ended. And it became very clear that all things came to an eventual end. For general good or ill, species, races, dynasties, and empires ran their courses and then were gone throughout the universe, with astonishing and poignant regularity.
A wider, more expanded view made that fact.
This group in one place was ascending in blazes of glory. While in another, these sentients were in their decline, beginning to fade away, for numerous reasons. Cycles came and went with terrible, inevitable regularity and pattern.
As the wise observed, even entire universes came to various ends, before new universes could erupt in creation and begin all over once more.
And for each universe, there were Cosmic Prophecies, the foreshadow of things to come, based upon both choice and chance. Not all universes survived the threats they naturally faced, and others that were created.
Some universes were cut short before their time and snuffed out, by Great Destroyers and terrible cataclysms.
Here in the Dimensional Council, a host of those experiences could be compared, learned from, experienced, and questioned.
But active, dynamic change in all its beautiful and terrifying forms remained constant. Entire universes and galaxies within them roared forth and were being created each second, just as universes and their galaxies were also collapsing and being destroyed.
These were mind-blowing concepts to encounter, on scales that were beyond staggering, nearly beyond conception and understanding.
It could take many lifetimes to explore even a portion of all of those directions.
For once, Naero beheld something so expansive, that it made even the KDM within her seem small. But she wanted to learn what was going to affect her and her universe and galaxy directly.
Clearly, nothing was ever entirely certain.
How could it be, as everything constantly evolved and changed?
Insights could be gained, but that was probably the best that anyone could ever achieve.
What could be known, Naero wanted to know.
And this was an excellent place to begin.
14
Naero spend alternate weeks exploring the Astral Plane with either Master Vane, Den, or both, and then the next interacting with the Dimensional Council.
Each week was so very different, and that was by design, in order to give her the widest range of possible experience.
One of the fascinating facts about the Astral Plane, was that if people knew where to look, they could locate any access, gateway, or wyrmhole that led to every other dimension possible.
Months went on, they continued to search for an access point to the Dimension of Annihilation, and then the small pocket dimension that the spirits of the G’lothc clung to.
As Master Jo always put it, they knew that they were trying to find a certain grain of sand on an entire beach.
If they could find that access point, they might be able to locate where the enemy was streaming their power and influence through. But so far, they had had no luck in finding it. To make matters worse, the enemy had even pulled back for a time, in fact, keeping a low profile and not showing their hand. Even traces of them and there activities were difficult to pin point.
To Naero, from her past experience, that also usually meant that their foes were concealing their intentions and biding their time, planning something deadly.
Naero surprised both of her instructors by summoning Womi, her friend from among the mercurial and dangerous Kahn-Dar.
When he shot straight at them out of nowhere in his enormous form, Naero had to keep them from attacking him.
The Kahn-Dar were, in fact, very near the top of the food chain of all Cosmic feeders, and not just in the Astral Plane. The immense, dragon like creatures were also among the most accomplished interdimensional travelers. It was too bad that that race as a whole was so volatile, opportunistic, and unpredictable.
Master Jo and Den gasped as she hopped on Womi’s back behind his head. They swirled and twisted around in celebration at their re-union. Naero barely held on.
“Naero!” Womi yelled. “How wonderful to see you! Who are these two stiffs you’re carousing with? They smell like a bunch of creeps! Why can’t I just gobble them down. They’d make a tasty energy snack.”
Naero laughed. “Stop being rude. These are my good friends, so don’t you dare eat them. We’ve been exploring, searching for something important, and I need your help.”
They came back around, and Naero made the formal introductions.
Once Master Jo and Den were no longer considered food, they could talk in earnest. Naero explained what they were seeking.
“The G’lothc have been slipping out through the Astral Plane and into the Prime Material Plane somehow. We don’t know how, and we want to try to find a way to put a stop to it. We need to find the wyrmhole or astral gateway that leads to the Dimension of Annihilation.
Womi shook his head. “Naero, you don’t want to go there. It is an extremely dangerous place, for anyone. You want to find that nasty little pocket of the existence that the G’lothc spirits are both clinging to and trying to escape from? That’s even worse. No one in their ri
ght mind, no matter what their powers are, would actively seek to venture into such a place. It is near one of the vortices into the Beyond, and from that vortex, this is absolutely no return.”
“I agree,” Naero said. “I have been there once, by accident, pursuing the plots of the enemy. You are more than correct, Womi. It is a place of great dread and abject horror. The lost souls of the G’lothc are terrifying and driven mad with lust to break out and destroy every galaxy they can invade.”
“Then why would you possibly want to–”
“Because these foes are threatening to destroy everything I love. We must expose their plots and put an end to them, before they are fully unleashed. Do you know where the access point is in the Astral Plane or not?”
Womi nodded his huge head. “I do, but I am still very loathe to take you there, Naero.”
“Please, Womi, you must. I think time grows short for us. You of all sentients know how vile and destructive they are. We must locate them and sniff out their plans.”
“Very well, but don’t blame me if we are all destroyed in the process. This was definitely not the merry plan that I had in mind when I answered your summons. I had hoped that we could finally have some time to streak around and actually have some fun, not rush right out and find the nastiest possible way to die. That’s what you are seeking.”
Naero grinned. “Maybe we can still have our fun later, Womi–once we get back, as a celebration.”
Womi grunted and puffed out some vapor. “You mean if we get back. I’m serious.”
Naero sighed and shuddered slightly, remembering her own grim experiences.
She and her two companions all climbed upon Womi’s massive neck and formed riding harnesses and saddles via their imaginations.
Thanks to Womi’s dead on reckoning, they flashed into the far off region of the access point within mere instants.
In the Astral Plane, vast distances could be covered extremely quickly, if the traveler knew exactly where they were going.
But as soon as they entered that region, something felt very wrong.
All of them noted it, including Womi.
Naero, I’ve never felt anything like this. I can’t describe it…it’s wrong somehow. Something terrible has happen in this place.
I agree.
Proceed with great caution, Master Jo told them. This entire area has been sucked dry somehow. It has been nullified, completely devoid of any kind of energy whatsoever. The Astral Plane is never like this.
Den added, There is nothing in all of the Astral Plane that is capable of doing such a thing.
There is now, Naero told them.
They studied the devastation and hesitated going straight into the access point.
Around the perimeter, they located shredded, dissolving pieces of slain feeders.
Womi described it all to them through his senses. Something very powerful beyond measure drew in all of these feeders by the thousands, by the tens of thousands, then destroyed them, in a matter of minutes. The hunters became the hunted, and they were quickly drained and devoured. Whatever fell upon them tore them apart very rapidly from within.
Master Jo asked, Can we tell what direction they came from, and in what direction they left?
Not yet, Womi said. They continued on, gathering information.
In another quadrant they came across shattered fleets of the Khalon and the Rell. Even they had been lured in, most likely to what they thought would be a feast upon a newly exposed astral energy source.
Then they all perished somehow, against foes who struck hard and fast without hesitation, and with ruthless, sudden devastation.
The strange glowing vessels of the astral raiders had been sucked empty, and now their hulks began to dissolve, and disperse into the ether as they broke down.
Naero spotted several hundred Khalon and Rell corpses floating or hiding among the wrecks and the overall destruction.
She checked them, and found most to be dead, mere shells, devoid of energy. Their bodies also, being astral in nature, broke down down and dissolved back into the ether.
She located five on the outskirts that still had flickers of life within them–three Khalon, and two Rell.
Through Biomancy, Naero, Master Jo, and Den studied the raiders and their strange astral bodies. They fed the five survivors enough concentrated astral energy to keep them alive, but not strong enough to regain consciousness and attack them.
Naturally, if they were strong enough, the raiders would latch onto them and try to eat them, by sucking their astral forms empty of their energies, just as something much greater had done to all of them, their fleets, and the other feeders. For the raiders, to attack other astral beings and devour them was as normal as a Spacer breathing air.
Yet cannibalism was rare among the two species of raiders as far as devouring their own kind. And much like humans, they only resorted to that at the last need.
But they actually enjoyed eating their enemies.
It took precious hours, but Naero and her two companions completed a full study of the two races, their languages, and the makeup of their minds and astral bodies as fast as they were able.
They also gleaned vital insights and general concepts from the Khalon and Rell minds about their ways of life and their general histories. The raiders were quite unique and unusual in any number of ways, but they were also very similar to other sentients in many other regards. They preserved knowledge. The strove to better themselves. The wanted to protect and see their kind thrive, even if it was at the expense of others.
They had a blunt and astonishing lack of compassion for any other species but their own. It was almost a total lack thereof.
Utter ruthlessness was the order of the day, for both species of raiders.
Master Jo came up with a plan.
They needed to know what had attacked these raiders. To do that, Naero would shapechange into a Khalon, and Den into a Rell. They would revive the others in two locations far from each other to avoid any further conflict.
Womi and Master Jo would also telepathically monitor both situations from afar through his adepts.
Then Naero and Den would simply question the survivors on what had happened.
Naero revived her three Khalon and gave them time to come around.
“How are we alive?” one said, shaking his head and trying to regain his wits. He blinked at Naero. “Who are you? Where did you come from? Why are you still alive? We should all be dead.”
“I am Sheel,” she said plainly, choosing a common, personal name. “I was inside one of the other ships when the disaster occurred. Somehow I was spared, and only stunned. When I came to, everything was destroyed. Everyone was dead except for myself and you three. I never saw anything before I blacked out. What was it that killed everyone?
The three of them wept.
Khalon never wept.
The first of the three shook his fists. “We rushed in to attack our foes and seized the advantage as always. Then the destroyers appeared all around us, as if out of nowhere. Like the ancient times that are not spoken of any longer, the Destroyers took many of us over outright, eating into our heads, burning and blasting out our minds. What they did not take over, they blasted and destroyed, siphoning all of our broken energies into themselves in seconds. We could not harm them in any way.”
“They were unstoppable,” the second Khalon said, hanging his head down in shame and despair.
The third man moaned, nearly sobbing. “They took, slew, or destroyed everything and everyone around them in just a few minutes, with impunity. There was no fighting them. We must get far away from here and try to find others. What if the Destroyers come back?”
Naero scanned the images they had all seen.
They were fell visions of many of the same monstrous things she had witnessed in the G’lothc underworld, clawing to get out.
That was why none of the feeders had a chance.
“All of you are greatly weakened,”
Naero said. “Go, do your best to get away and spread the warning to our kind. Nothing is happening now. The Destroyers, whatever they were, look to be gone. I’m going to stay behind for a bit and keep searching for anymore survivors and anything else that might help us against further attacks.”
“You’re a fool, Sheel,” the first said, turning away. “Stay in this place of death if you want.”
“Go ahead and get yourself killed, you idiot!” the second added. The third said nothing but fled in panic along with the other two. They were traumatized and half out of their minds with terror.
As soon as they were far away, Naero continued on, moving closer and closer to the access point.
When she was close enough to spot it on her own, she returned to her base form.
There were strange power fluctuations and trace flows around the wyrmhole. Very scary.
Naero heard a voice in her head and started slightly. The entire situation had her on edge.
They’re not exactly wyrmholes in the same way that you think of such, Den said, taking shape out of the ether miasma. Travelers call them astral tunnels, and they always lead to a specific place.
Did you learn anything specific from your two Rell?
Not much more than you, N. I saw the images in their minds. Twisted spirits of the G’lothc? I was horrified at the very sight of them.
Indeed. Unfortunately, I had witness such horrors before, and they have haunted my nightmares ever since.
Master Jo zipped in on Womi to rejoin them.
What bothers me, Master Jo noted, is the way the Khalon and the Rell described their people as having been taken over, not just killed or destroyed. The G’lothc sought out hosts, and now they have them, perhaps by the thousands.
Naero had to ask. What are they going to do with such hosts? In the Prime Material Plane, physical hosts burn out within a matter of days under G’lothc spirit possession. Most physical bodies simply can’t hold up under all of the stress at those levels of Darkforce power. Master Jo, how much longer will these astral forms stay together?
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