Hyperpunk Virgo 1: Dreams of Oblivion

The Gealt let themselves sink below the surface for a few metres before levelling out and swimming for the metallic roots of the nearest tree, the branches glistening like gems within the murky waters.

Reaching under the canopy they climbed upwards, gradually releasing air from the lungs as they rose, cursing with every bubble they produced until they were close to breaking the surface. They roared out a final string of forgotten curses and broke the surface silently, under the shadow of roots that seemed to seep down into the depths of the chamber.

Breathing silently through their mouth, they observed their surroundings and grimaced.

They had faded out of the depths of the Abyss and were thrown into Vihralaza-Icyadar, the Green Ring of the High Heavens. They had heard of this place too. The Vermillion Holt, the nursery of the Heavenly Trees of Life. The Hahayyim.

The Gealt grit their teeth in frustration at their precarious position, nestled in the undergrowth of hydroponically grown hyperlative trees overflowing with Emphyrial energy. A part of them worried that they had been exposed to the tainted essence of the Emphyrean itself, the Peak of the High-Heavens that had long since become a part of the very being of the Usurper-God of Light.

But they didn’t hear any whispers in the back of their mind. No abrasion against their very being as the psyche of a God probed for the weaknesses in their mind. They were among the Juveniles of the Hahayyim. Among yet uncorrupted Crann-Beathadh still unbroken to the will of the High-Father.

Overwhelmed with exhaustion and burdened with pain, the Gealt finally took notice of the waters around them darkened to a shade of purple as magenta diffused into the blue. Their blood continuing to bleed from their hip and thigh.

They sighed with irritated resignation as they reached for a small thin branch and broke it off. Putting it in their mouth before willing a fireball to form in their hands under the water.

With a deep breath and no hesitation, they dived back under and pressed their hands to their hip and their thigh. The pain of the flames searing through their nerves as they screamed into the depths, until the wounds had cauterised and the last of whatever their mind tricked them into believing was air had been ejected from their lungs.

Popping their head back to the surface they gasped hard and wept openly in their agony, their cries echoing through the halls of the Holt.

But with a grim determination, they lifted themselves up from the waters and climbed into the roots above them, finding some darkened alcove of branches that would at least give them shelter and a place to hide in the dense underwood; at the same moment that something like sleep came for them as they lay splayed out across the misaligned pearlescent wood.

-

They awoke upon hearing the low roar of anti-gravs, the displacement of air and the rippling of the waters around them. Springing to their feet they strained their senses, their eyes darting through gaps in the undergrowth searching for any sign of movement.

A colossal shadow zipped past, breaking the rays of ghostlight that shone through the roots, which the Gealt now realised were discolouring. They didn’t shine as bright as they once did.

“I can smell your sickness, your fouled flesh, your tainted spirit”; boomed a large chittering voice from beyond the safety of the alcove, in the language of Angels. A voice that for a terrifying moment the Gealt believed was speaking to them, until with greater unease they realised it wasn’t speaking to them at all , “You are rotting. You are a burden. Cannot permit it to grow, to spread your rot. In the name of the High-Father, I condemn you to death. I consign your leaves to the Plutian Temples of Nilōrangzil , your untainted flesh to the scribes of Yylod, your pure sap to the Devoted Servants of Ryjaek”.

The Gealt was in the presence of Fiarcheon. The Lord of Vihralaza-Icyadar and Warden of the Vermillion Holt. The One charged by the High-Father to govern the nursery of the Hahayyim. The realization made their blood run cold as the shadow rose upward but very likely not far away.

…It was their blood, they realized, that had poisoned the tree. Eons of strict cultivation and selective breeding to meet the needs of the High-Heavens had taken its toll on the Hahayyim. They couldn’t compartmentalize infection effectively in their youth before ascension.

In the distance and then all around them, they heard the sudden roar of rushing water and the slow but visible rise of the water level beneath them.

With a resigned sigh, the Gealt took a deep breath and dove back into the waters, swimming down until they were clear of the roots- or at least until they could no longer see their silhouettes- then twisting around and looking upwards as they let themselves float back up to the surface.

Keeping their arms spread as they broke the rippling surface, they observed their surrounding and planned their next move as they gently backstroked away from their former sanctuary.

Looking upwards towards the crowns of the trees they could see suspended walkways, zig-zagged between what looked like heptagonal and pentagonal netting meant for catching the leaves that appeared iridescent as the Gealts eyes and mind warred between interpreting them as green and red, instead making the two colours bleed into each other.

Why they needed the leaves? The Gealt couldn’t remember. The gap between learning that knowledge and the here and now was beyond vast.

But the water level continued to rise and rise, and they had yet gone unnoticed.

Even as the looming form of Fiarcheon passed them by overhead, his gargantuan form vaguely reminiscent of a stomatopodic dragon, his body covered in plates of vanity gold, scarletite and pearlstone, lifted off the ground by anti-gravity thrusters along his underside that undulated with jade exhaust, between armoured arms and holographic fins that flowed as he zoomed through the air, his face hidden behind a mask of silver though his many eyes- compound eyes like that of an insect- were visible through domes of an amber-like plastic.

The Gealt had heard a story once of Fiarcheon the Restless. Fiarcheon the prudent and diligent. Or as the Demons and Fallen called him and all his ilk, the Castigent and Atelophic.

When first charged by the High-Father, Fiarcheon took to his duties with pride and joy. It was he, not Zóuělróu, who had sown the seeds of the Yggdrasil into what would one day become the Holiest of Holts. He, not Zóuělróu, who had picked the first fruit, sampled the first drops of its sap, felled the first tree and… blazed the holiest of mary-janes? The Gealt still could not remember the reason for collecting the leaves during abscission.

But that was Fiarcheon’s mistake. Having Pride and Joy and Passion that was his own. Not born of devotion to Zóuělróu.

It was this passion that led him to correct the High-Father when he referred to Vermillion as a shade of Green, or whatever was meant to be the Angelic equivalent of the word as it suffered the same problem. A simple, short and innocent correction that the High-Father overreacted to. For Zóuělróu knows all, sees all and hears all… and could not permit a contradiction so small to go unpunished.

So he had his Galgalim restrain Fiarcheon, holding him down as he poured Molten Glass into his eyes. Then Zóuělróu let him heal, as the Angel-King would. For it would take more than this to kill Fiarchron, considering he was truly a God in his own right.

Then he would start again, and then repeat. Over and over again for centuries. To correct Fiarcheon’s hubris, believing he could be more intelligent than the High-Father.

Eventually, either because it became too much for Fiarcheon’s body to endure or because he started recovering too well from his repeated mutilation- somehow Zóuělróu managed to damage his sight.

The Gealt vaguely recalled a species from their homeworld in Mortalis. A… Scrimp Mantis Cock? They couldn’t remember. But it had similar eyes. Eyes the Gealt figured could have once seen the heavens in every colour, every spectrum of light.

Now he could only see in monochrome, probably couldn’t even see that far anymore either.

That what the Gealt mused about as the waters rose and Fiarcheon continued to fly around the poisoned Hahayyim, before the Lord of Vihralaza-Icyadar descended downward into the waters beyond their sight. All without ever seeing the Gealt floating like the most pathetic of turds in the hydroponic pool below.

They had dared in a place that had demanded they let go of all constructs of the self that did not serve survival- their name, their emotions, their identity- to conclude that they felt like shit.

Then they felt the sudden increase in the warmth of the water they floated in, then the roar of hot water in their ears and the gut-churning feeling of being thrown upwards through the air.

A cry of shock died in their mouth as they twisted their body to see were they were being launched to, barely having more than a second to react as they found themselves flung towards a neighboring Hahayyim, at the gap between where the heptagonal walkways orbited the trunk of the trees.

They twisted in the air to crash feet first into the tree hard, enough to rattle their bones, but refusing to give into the pain, they kicked off the tree truck and threw themselves onto the leaf filled netting beyond the walkway.

Letting the leaves stick to their body as they quickly hid themselves beneath them, they watched as the Crown of the poisoned Hahayyim lurched downwards and began to sink into the pools.

Looking down into the pools they saw a blue glow of light, followed by yet another violent explosive sprout of water being thrown upwards, followed soon after by splintered fragments of pearly wood that bobbed atop the waters surface.

Fiarcheon it seemed was now hard at work cutting down the poisoned Hahayyim with his raptorial hammers. Guillotine-like appendages that the Gealt knew struck with the force of a fissile bomb and the heat of a sun. More than enough to fell young Hahayyim.

But while Fiarcheon’s focus lay elsewhere, the Gealt had the chance to escape.

Looking around carefully so as to not rustle the leaves or make sudden movements under their improvised cover, they could see the white-gold robes and armour of Angels and the disintegrating, rune-lidden garb of their Devoted Thralls.

The Angels floated mere inches off the surface of the metal mesh walkway, levitating psychically upon a lower body of tendrils and tentacles and a torso with holographic wings, carrying staffs and spears of gold, their bodies enshrined in plates of gold, pearlstone and scarletite like their superior. And like their superior they wore masks, giving them their visage of an anthropoid species. Not particularly any species that the Gealt was aware of, but that was likely by the angels own design.

The Devoted were not so luxuriously equipped, save for the diamond tipped saws and axes they carried. They were Damned by any other name. Heavenspawn. Spirits long since overwhelmed by the Ego of Zóuělróu as seen by the Gealt by the scars on their bodies.

Like the Damned they were once any number of species; Anthropoid, Avian, Reptilian and Insectoid-they retained at least some of their residual self-image. But their eyes were now glassy and greying, as if they had cataracts, and their nerves and veins visibly glowed yellow under bleached skin.

Rather than corrupted over time and suffering by the High-Heavens, they had to prove themselves worthy of the Eucharist and ascension into true Angels. Hence their devotion. Their desire to prove their love through acts of fealty. Their servitude seemingly payment enough for acts of hard labor and never ending worship.

The waters below inched closer and closer until the surface was once again in their reach and with relief they watched as the fragments of wood on the surface began to flow what their internal compass told them was east.

Meaning there was a drain somewhere. A means of escape. Reaching through the net they grabbed a passing piece of jagged wood, more waiting as the water continued to rise until they were able to float under the cover of iridescent leaves.

Diving under they swam to the corner of the netting, reaching the edge of a Y junction on the walkways. From below the waterline they could see the shadow of Devoted Thralls walking towards the displaced Crown to assist in processing the leaves and branches.

The Gealt waited until they were right on top of them before grabbing the edge of the walkway and pulling themselves up, springing onto the walkway to grab the nearest Devoted Thrall and shank them through the neck.

Grabbing the diamond-tipped axe the Thrall was holding, they brought it down just as fast and mercilessly on the head of the other, cleaving its skull in two and embedded itself in its throat.

And like that they took off into a sprint, pushing through the pain in their side and running while no Angels or Devoted stood between them and the winding walkways east.

But they didn’t get more than a 100 metres before-

“INTERLOPER!!!”; screeched an angelic voice from the west, “HERETIC IN OUR MIDST! HUNT DOWN THE VIPER!!!”.

The Gealt started running harder and faster. The fear of capture, of torture and indoctrination enough to flood their veins with adrenaline. Lowering their profile as bolts of divine energy zipped past them, melting holes in the walkway, exploding on hitting the surface of the water and charring the wood of the great Hahayyim they sprinted past.

Daring to look back to gauge the distance between them and their Empyreal foes, a ball of divine plasma grazed the side of their head, burning the flesh along their temple and leaving their black hair singed on the spot.

The pain that ripped through them threatened to stop them in their tracks, but they kept running. Turning the pain into rage, welling it into fire into their hands that they flung into the pools with such heat as to evaporate the water and leaves into steam and smoke.

Cover enough for them to deny the Angels a target, and a distraction for them to strafe northwards and continue their journey east in another block.