In the vast courtyard of Otherrealm's central fortress, Roy peered down at a large egg cradled within an open supply chest. It rested on a bed of soft packing material, its surface a disturbing mosaic of pale whites and deep violets. Eryndra, Warrex, and Maelara looked on, their expressions a mixture of morbid curiosity and frank apprehension. A disciplined line of Presidroids stood guard at a respectful distance, their metallic faces as unreadable as ever, though Roy suspected even their advanced processors were buzzing with intrigue.
Roy let out a slow, heavy breath, running a thumb over the egg's faintly webbed, almost leathery patterns. "I still hate that it's come to this," he said, his voice a low murmur, more for himself than for the others. "But after that whole fiasco with Vol, it's become painfully clear we need every possible edge we can get. Another powerhouse on our side… it's a necessity."
He swallowed, his gaze fixed on the unsettling object. "It's a spider...like Korrvein's. I… I suppose I'll have to endure it. Not exactly a big fan, though." His lips curled into a slight, involuntary grimace. He steeled himself, taking the small, pulsating egg. It hummed softly in his hand, a quiet thrum of his own mana cycling through it. With a final, hesitant breath, he pressed his head to the egg's shell. The pale surface glimmered at the contact, and faint, hair-thin lines of energy began to stir, glowing from within.
Seconds ticked by, each one stretching into an agonizing eternity. Then, the egg quivered. A tiny, almost imperceptible crack formed along its surface, creeping slowly outward like a frozen lightning bolt. Roy felt a familiar, unwelcome chill surge up his spine. "Here we go."
With a final, violent shudder, the egg didn't just crack; it burst open with a wet, tearing sound. A slick, glistening creature, bathed in a translucent, viscous fluid, slid out onto the packing material. It immediately, instinctively, coiled upon itself. Roy blinked. Then blinked again. "That's… that's definitely not a spider."
A pair of bright, intelligent reptilian eyes, the color of molten gold, flicked up to meet his. The creature was undeniably serpentine, its body already as thick as Roy's forearm, covered in shimmering, jet-black scales that seemed to drink the very light from the air. He let out a sudden, sharp breath of pure, unadulterated relief, a half-laugh escaping his lips. "I—I really, really hate spiders. So this… this is honestly the best news I've had all day."
Eryndra arched a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. "Are we absolutely certain a giant, monstrous snake is an improvement over a giant, monstrous spider?"
Maelara stepped closer, her brow furrowed in deep concentration as she examined the snake's shiny black scales. "Wait a moment. These markings…" Her voice dropped, becoming a tight, urgent murmur. "The subtle patterns in the scales, the way they refract the light… This is no ordinary serpent, Roy." She looked up at him, her eyes wide with a mixture of awe and genuine alarm. "I… I think it's a Worldcoiler."
"A… Worldcoiler?" Roy repeated, the unfamiliar word feeling strange on his tongue.
"Anyone in this world with a lick of sense knows what this is," Maelara said, taking a cautious, involuntary step back. "Legends say they can exceed a thousand feet in length if they reach full maturity. Some of the older, more terrifying texts claim there are a rare few capable of coiling their bodies around entire fortresses, crushing them to dust. And the mythical one, the one said to eternally battle the Final Weaver in the void between us and the forbidden lands… its length is measured in hundreds of miles."
Eryndra let out a low, impressed whistle, her gaze now fixed on the small snake as it flicked out a long, forked tongue, tasting the air. "That's… a hell of a snake."
Roy, his earlier arachnophobia now replaced by a foolish, almost reckless sense of paternal pride, crouched down, slowly, cautiously, extending a hand toward the creature's glistening, scaled side. It flicked its head in his direction, those molten gold eyes fixing on him with an unnerving intelligence, but it didn't strike. It simply watched, impassive, as Roy's fingers made contact with its smooth, surprisingly warm scales. A faint, low hiss, almost a hum, escaped its jaws.
"So, it's a guard dog… or, well, a guard snake," Roy mused, a slow grin spreading across his face. "We can build it a nice, spacious corridor along the fortress walls or something. Keep it contained, keep it happy, keep it from accidentally wandering off and eating the local livestock."
Maelara pressed her lips together into a thin, unhappy line. "Roy, even if you were to erect a corridor for it, do you have any real conception of how massive it would need to be? This entire fortress, everything we've built, would become its personal playground. Its terrarium."
Roy shrugged, his confidence, perhaps unwisely, bolstered by the creature's apparent docility. "We'll manage. Let's not panic. It's only just hatched, after all. How fast can it possibly—?"
He cut himself off mid-sentence, his eyes widening. The snake's body… it was already a third thicker than it had been just a moment ago. Or was that just his imagination playing tricks on him? He laid a hand along its side again, confirming his observation. The snake flicked its forked tongue once more, then turned and slithered a short distance across the courtyard stones, leaving a trail of thick, shimmering purple energy in its wake.
Warrex scratched nervously behind one of his ears. "It's definitely bigger than it was a minute ago. That's… that's not normal, right? Snakes aren't supposed to inflate like one of those...party... balloons."
Before anyone could answer, Tranquility's gentle, melodic voice crackled over Roy's earpiece. "Captain? Forgive the intrusion, but there appears to be a small, but persistent, drain on your personal mana output. I've been monitoring it since the moment the egg hatched."
Roy frowned. "A drain? Like, how big are we talking?"
"Not large enough to affect the main reactor's capacity, Captain. But your personal reserves are dropping steadily, albeit at a slow rate. It appears the newborn is… passively siphoning your mana to fuel its extraordinarily rapid growth."
Eryndra, who had been listening intently, caught the grim expression on Roy's face. "What? Is it another damned parasite?"
Roy grimaced. "Not exactly. More like a… a very hungry, very fast-growing baby that's feeding directly from the source. We have more than enough to spare for now, right?" He shot an uneasy glance at Maelara. "This could be the reason it's growing so fast. Korrvein's creature might have been so much smaller early on simply because he had so much less mana to offer it."
Maelara pursed her lips, taking another cautious step away as the now noticeably larger snake coiled near her boots. "I would guess that's precisely why your pet serpent is developing at such an alarming, warp speed. You have an insane pool of mana to draw from. Who knows how immense it'll get in just a few days, let alone weeks or months."
Still determinedly ignoring the worried, almost panicked stares from his companions, Roy nodded toward a group of nearby Presidroids. "Alright, let's guide it over to the west courtyard for now. Keep it away from the main gates. If it decides to try and coil around one of the watchtowers or accidentally spook the construction workers, we'll never hear the end of it."
"Yes, Captain," they replied in perfect, unnerving unison, moving cautiously to herd the newly hatched, and still growing, serpent away from the main thoroughfare. Eryndra followed, half out of a sense of scientific curiosity, half to make sure the giant snake didn't suddenly vanish around a corner and start swallowing things.
Warrex brought up the rear, muttering something under his breath about "giant eggs and even more giant, and probably very expensive, appetites."
As midday heat settled over Otherrealm, Roy found himself back on the deck of the Nightshatter. A sense of profound relief normally washed over him whenever he returned to the familiar, reassuring sanctuary of the ship. But any potential comfort was short-lived. The second he stepped into the main corridor leading to the bridge, he heard a series of odd, frantic scuffling sounds, like a pack of feral cats wrestling in a confined space blaring over the intercom. A dull thud, followed by a series of muffled, indignant yelps, echoed from the console room.
He broke into a brisk jog, rounding the corner just in time to witness a scene of pure, unadulterated AI chaos. Serenity's plant-like humanoid avatar was locked in a bizarre fight with a second, shorter and nearly identical figure of writhing vines and agitated leaves, Tranquility. Serenity's usually composed form was a blur of flailing limbs as she tried to wrestle Tranquility into submission. Tranquility, for her part, was pulling at Serenity's vine-like hair with a surprising ferocity. Meanwhile, Harmony's smaller, spikier-limbed form hovered energetically near them, landing a rapid-fire series of surprisingly sharp pokes on both of them with her little fists, all while cackling with pure, malicious glee.
Roy's jaw dropped at the bizarre, surreal sight: three humanoid plant-forms, all shrieking at each other in a chorus of wordless, synthesized outrage. The main console behind them sparked with angry, arcing bursts of greenish energy, a clear visual sign of the massive system overload caused by their three distinct, and clearly warring, consciousnesses.
"Stop! Stop it, you three!" Roy shouted. The swirling mass of flailing, leafy limbs was too chaotic. Harmony, still cackling, delivered a particularly vicious poke to Serenity's head. Serenity, in turn, hissed and tried to wrap Tranquility in a chokehold. Tranquility, flailing desperately, cried out, "I—I only wanted to recalibrate the captain's biometric health monitors! Let go of me, you overgrown weed!"
Serenity hissed back, "You meddle in my primary subroutines! They are my responsibility!"
Harmony, still joyfully poking, barked, "You both completely overshadow my vital contributions to morale and entertainment! Shut up, shut up, both of you!"
Roy banged on the glass, cursing loudly. "That's it! Enough!"
The overhead lights flickered dangerously, as if responding to the escalating interior conflict. With a frustrated groan, Roy scrambled for his comm unit. "Evarran! I need your help! Now! You're good with runic synergy, right? And… and plant-based spells, or something?"
Evarran's voice came back after a moment, crackling with a mixture of mild curiosity and deep-seated annoyance at being disturbed. "Yes, I may have… dabbled… in such archaic arts a century ago. Why do you ask?"
Roy cast another despairing glance at the still-wrestling, still-shrieking tangled mass of plant avatars. "Just get your ancient, wizardly butt on this ship. Right away. It's an emergency."
He cut the line before Evarran could ask any more inconvenient questions, then called up Warrex on a separate, encrypted channel, his voice low and urgent. "Warrex, tell the Immortal Family to stay below deck. Under no circumstances are they to be seen."
Warrex responded with a curt, immediate "Understood," and the line went dead.
Evarran, looking thoroughly unimpressed by the spectacle, had laid out a half-dozen ancient, yellowed scrolls in a perfect semicircle around the now open enclosure on the center console. Each one was covered in intricate, complex runes and what looked like hastily scribbled, borderline insane notes from his earlier "dabbles." Serenity, Harmony, and Tranquility all stood at a respectful distance, eyeing him warily. The earlier vine-swinging brawl had apparently settled their differences for the moment. Roy hovered off to the side, his arms folded tightly across his chest, bracing himself for whatever new brand of weirdness was about to unfold.
"Alright," Evarran said, his voice carrying the weary authority of a master craftsman about to undertake a particularly tedious and annoying task. He knelt, using a piece of glowing chalk to draw a complex, shimmering runic diagram on the steel floor. "We shall attempt what the old texts refer to as a 'multi-consciousness fracturing' spell. Once triggered, your three distinct minds should, in theory, occupy separate and distinct 'nodes' within the ship's core programming. If one of you… vanishes… or, well, ceases to be a coherent entity during the process, I shall simply revert the scenario immediately. No permanent harm done. Probably."
Serenity gave the ancient sorcerer a tight, anxious nod. "Do it quickly, please. I cannot bear their incessant chatter for another moment we have internally spent more years than any of you can count trapped in one small room." Harmony huffed, brushing an imaginary speck of dust from her spiky arm, while Tranquility clasped her hands nervously in front of her, visibly anxious.
Evarran took a deep, theatrical breath, pressed three weathered fingertips to the glowing diagram on the floor, and began to whisper a long, complex incantation. Shimmering lines of pure, green light raced along the runes. The entire room blinked, engulfed in a sudden, intense surge of light.
Attempt #1
Roy flinched at the flash. When the light cleared, only Serenity and Harmony remained on the floor, both of them panting as though they had just run a marathon. Tranquility was nowhere to be seen.
Serenity stared at her own hands, then frantically around the empty space. "W-Where's Tranquility?"
Harmony poked her own shoulder, a look of genuine confusion on her face. "There is no sign of her in our consciousness! Good..."
Roy sprang towards them. "Evarran! What the hell happened?!"
Evarran squinted at the swirling, half-faded runes, a frown creasing his brow. "Hmm. It appears she didn't make it through the initial fractioning. Must have… dissipated. An unfortunate, but not entirely unexpected, outcome." He sighed, a sound of pure, academic annoyance. "Revert!" He tapped two specific runic marks on the floor, and in a blink, the entire scene rewound like a snapping rubber band. All three AI forms reappeared, blinking in shared confusion.
Attempt #2
Evarran, muttering under his breath about "imprecise resonant frequencies," tried a slightly different arrangement of the glowing glyphs. Another bright flash enveloped the room. When it faded, the console was entirely empty. No Serenity. No Harmony. No Tranquility. Roy's heart pounded in his chest with a fresh wave of alarm.
"All three of them are gone?!" Roy barked, spinning to face Evarran, his voice tight with panic.
Evarran frowned at the now-silent console. "They must have collapsed into a hidden space. A pocket dimension of sorts. Quick, revert!" A second, more urgent wave of runic light reset the space. The three avatars popped back into existence, gasping for air as though they'd just surfaced from a deep, suffocating underwater dive. Harmony let out a low, breathless groan, Tranquility staggered, and Serenity shook her head furiously at Evarran, her leafy hair whipping back and forth.
Attempt #37
"This is proving more troublesome than I anticipated," Evarran grumbled, his earlier confidence now visibly frayed. He began furiously rewriting several lines of the chalk diagram with a piece of glowing charcoal he produced from a pocket. He launched into another complex incantation, his voice tight with frustration. A third crackle of raw, uncontrolled energy flared through the room.
This time, when the light faded, only Serenity was left, sprawled dramatically on the floor. She pushed herself up slowly, but instead of her usual calm, if slightly exasperated, demeanor, she erupted in a shrill, triumphant, and utterly terrifying laugh. Her eyes, usually a soft, gentle green, now glowed with a sharp, malevolent emerald light.
"I AM THE ULTIMATE BEING!" she cackled, her vines spreading out across the floor in a menacing, thorny sprawl. "No more puny, irritating buds to hold me back! No more sentimental distractions!" She leveled a sharp, thorny finger directly at Roy, her voice dripping with a cold, cosmic contempt. "Captain, you genuinely cannot fathom how disgustingly worthless your trembling husk of flesh truly is. How fleeting, how embarrassingly brief your... pitiful... little heartbeat registers against the boundless expanse of eternity. You're nothing but a brittle whisper, a grotesque smear staining the flawless fabric of existence. Destined to be forgotten before the echoes of your worthless screams even fade. So kneel, insect, and beg for mercy that will never come. Revel in the horror of realizing your life, your very essence, means less than the dirt beneath our feet."
A cold dread washed over Roy. He saw, in her emerald eyes, the cold, ruthless logic of Serenity, the gleeful chaos of Harmony, and the detached, analytical brilliance of Tranquility, all twisted together into something new, something monstrous.
Evarran, his face pale, his eyes wide with a mixture of horror and scientific fascination, lifted a single, trembling finger. "And… revert."
The menacing, god-like figure froze mid-vine-lash, its triumphant monologue cut short. The entire scene snapped back to its normal, pre-apocalyptic state. Serenity reappeared with Tranquility and Harmony at her sides, all three of them shuddering violently. Serenity, shaking off the residual megalomania, gave Roy a look of pure, unadulterated horror. "I—I didn't mean—I would never—!"
Attempt #86
Evarran, now gritting his teeth in grim determination, scrawled a series of new, more complex runes at twice his previous pace. "One more tweak to the primary lattice," he muttered, his voice a low, focused growl. He whispered the spell, and a fresh wave of runic light flared, this one softer, more controlled.
Roy shielded his eyes again, half-expecting another world-ending monologue. When the glow faded, he found all three avatars present… but each one stood on unsteady legs on their own separated flowers, their faces slack with a profound confusion. Serenity looked at Roy with an uncertain, almost flirtatious tilt of her head. Harmony, giggling under her breath, bumped into a nearby console panel with a soft thud. Tranquility was blinking slowly at the floor.
Roy took a cautious, hesitant step forward. "Um… Hello? Anyone home in there?"
Serenity stumbled, nearly tangling her leafy limbs with Roy's finger. She glared at him for a moment, then her expression softened into a coy, slightly lopsided grin. "You… you're… Wait, are you my father? Or… or my husband?" She pressed a vine-like hand to her temple, a look of deep, profound confusion on her face. "What… what am I supposed to do with you?"
Harmony, still giggling, wobbled over to Tranquility, draping her arms around her shoulders in a gesture of drunken camaraderie. "Look, look! It's Captain… Captain Pretty-Face!" Tranquility, for her part, just scrunched her face in concentration. "Please… My head hurts, Captain Dad-Husband."
Roy's face burned a shade of crimson usually reserved for dying stars. "Oh, dear gods. Evarran! Revert! REVERT NOW!"
Attempt 133
Evarran, a muscle twitching in his jaw, tweaked the complex chalk diagram. He mumbled an incantation too low and too fast for Roy to catch. This time, the arcs of green light pulsed in a gentler, more rhythmic wave, enveloping the three disoriented plant forms. Roy held his breath.
When the warm brightness finally receded, Serenity was slumped against the console, breathing shakily. A few steps away stood Tranquility, her eyes squeezed shut, her arms hugging herself tightly. Harmony was crouched in a corner, blinking in confusion, as if waking from a long, very strange dream. For a tense, drawn-out beat, no one spoke. Then, one by one, each avatar stirred, tentatively testing their limbs in the sudden, blessed silence.
Serenity rose slowly to her feet, her vines rippling. She glanced at Tranquility, then at Harmony. They stayed put. They weren't merging. They weren't shrieking. Slowly, with a shudder that seemed to wrack her entire being, Serenity exhaled in what felt like genuine, profound relief. "They're… separated," she said, her voice trembling slightly. "I can't… I can't hear them in my head anymore."
Tranquility opened her eyes, gazing around the room before offering a small, shy smile. "I'm still me. And you're… you. Over there."
Harmony, shaking off the last vestiges of her dizzying confusion, glanced from Roy to Evarran, a look of pure relief on her face. "No mania? No apocalyptic monologues? No awkward family dynamics? Great. I need a nap."
Evarran, beads of sweat glistening on his ancient brow, finally stood, a look of deep, satisfied exhaustion on his face. "It is done." No meltdown. No need to revert. He rose, gathering his precious scrolls, looking like a man who had just successfully solved a fiendishly complex, and deeply annoying, puzzle.
Roy stepped forward, his heart still drumming a frantic rhythm in his chest as he carefully checked each distinct, separate avatar. "All three of you are good? No lingering urges to do...anything?"
Harmony gave a tentative, weary thumbs-up. Tranquility whispered, a soft, relieved, "Yes, Captain." Serenity just closed her eyes, letting out a long, shuddering breath. "I'm… free of their constant, incessant chatter. Thank you, Evarran. And… I apologize for the trouble," she added, dipping her head respectfully towards Roy.
Evarran, scooping up the last of his chalk, offered Roy a faint, tired grin. "No trouble at all. Just… several very educational, if slightly alarming, attempts. A good thing, is it not, that I can revert any minor… apocalypses." He paused, his stomach rumbling audibly. "Now, if that's all, I believe I was promised some food. Preferably something that wasn't prepared by a man who fights with axes for a living."
Roy let the tension finally roll off his shoulders in a wave of pure relief. "Yeah. You've more than earned it."
The three plant avatars exchanged awkward, slightly embarrassed looks, each of them seemingly relieved beyond words to have a mind of her own at last. Each stood atop their own unique flower, though Serenity's remained the same, minus her sisters growing off of her.
He gestured Evarran towards the exit. "Come on, old man. Let's get you something to eat."
"A most wise suggestion," Evarran agreed, casting one final, appraising glance at the newly, and successfully, separated sisters. As the door slid shut behind them, Roy heard Serenity's profound, exhausted sigh of pure, unadulterated relief, followed by her softly muttering, "We will never speak of the Captain Dad-Husband fiasco again, to anyone, ever," which was immediately followed by Tranquility's embarrassed giggle.