Empire and Worm

Setting: Warble

If there's one thing about humanity, it's that whether they walk, run, or crawl, fate sidesteps. This is shared neither by higher nor lower creatures, who have come and gone across the ages. Gods may bring fate to her knees, yet only man can move her. Individuals live and die, but, relentlessly, the human bloodline continues.

The Thousand Worms slept, as they always had.

In the Cornelian year 580, The Great Mage Olam saw stagnation. The Empire Animorum grasped the land and the sea. The only progress in the arcane for the last 50 years had been whittling fractional seconds off incantations of the scriptum magorum.

The divine remained ever out of reach. No mortal could contact the gods except by their own occasional whim.

The priest no longer received dogmatic truths. The mage no longer wrote innovative incantations. The rune-carver no longer discovered new glyphs. The spirit hierophant comfortably manipulated known elements. The alchemist imbibed his own liquors.

The Thousand Worms slept, as they always had.

Olam held a desperation within his soul, that of a caged animal. All he could perceive was within the cage, and he knew not what lay outside it, nor what material formed the bars, nor the form of his jailors.

By the nature of his station as a Great Mage, Olam was afforded sundry resources. All extant magics were within reach, but he imagined greater. His station imbued responsibility as well, participation in the emperor's court and councils.

It was responsibility that found Olam seated in the banquet hall, next to the head of the marble table, which seated Emperor Ocellux. Across sat the emperor's daughter, Adnexa.

The emperor spoke of expanding across The Radiance, humanity stretching across all the lands of the world.

"But will that be enough?" Adnexa asked, her tone already carrying the answer.

"What more could there be?" Emperor Ocellux responded in kind.

Adnexa appeared to ignore the question.

"Tell me, Mage Olam, is one mad to believe in that which cannot be sensed?"

Olam Spoke, "I should need more specificity to answer. What does it mean to sense? Only the natural perception, or the magical as well?"

"The ancients had faith in gods before any evidence of them was known."

"So, faith then. Is faith madness? I shouldn't think so."

"What do you have faith in, Mage Olam?"

"I... don't know. Faith seems hardly needed anymore. Perhaps I find it in my work. Even as the end of the road may seem near, I have faith in the coming stride."

Ocellux spoke again, "At the end of the road, what step does one take?"

Olam smiled, having brought the conversation to exactly where he wanted, "Other worlds. Warble is but a part of a larger cosmos. Expansion need not be limited by the edges of our world. We will pierce the aether and take for empire the breadth of creation."

"I want Adnexa working with you on this." The Emperor stated.

"Oh? What role should she have? Reporting progress to you, I should assume."

"Indeed, but," Ocellux motioned with an upturned palm at Adnexa.

"Besides the depth of my study on all manner of arcana, I possess the eyes of Orion. That should be of use, no?"

This was more than Olam could have hoped for. Adnexa's partnership would mean resources limitless, in both kind and quantity.

"What are your impressions?" Emperor Ocellux asked after Olam had departed.

"Understands the path, and will be easy to manipulate." Adnexa answered. "And, he is a man who desires a woman. I shall have no trouble."

Rustling of paper, scrawling of a pen, sliding of books over each other. The sound from the study was nearly rhythmic as Olam and Adnexa worked. They alternated thoughts as they exchanged words.

"We need an extreme amount of power and something to latch onto."

"Pull open a rift. What foreign thing might we use?"

"We can't even contact deities anymore, much less see through the aether veil."

"Perhaps the wrong direction to be looking. Where else lie the forces of creation?"

"Down."

"The Thousand Worms."

"We'd need an incredible amount of power to even access such a thing."

"A sacrifice, if the price is not too great."

"That would cost hundreds of lives."

"Perhaps more."

"I don't think we can do that. I don't think I can do that."

"Let us perform calculations. And think. What cost is too great for the freedom of infinity?"

"Not. That." Olam forced from his faltering tongue.

He stood suddenly, and exited the room with a large stride.

The Thousand Worms slept, as they always had.

Adnexa beat the door 4 times, then paused. She could hear Olam stand up. He approached the door, unlatched it, and opened it.

Upon seeing that it was her, he asked, tired and melancholic, "Is there something I can do for you, Princess Adnexa?"

"I am sorry."

Adnexa took a step forward.

"I was so singularly focused on what we could achieve."

She stepped forward again, mere inches from Olam now. He recoiled, slightly and slowly.

"I was trying to ignore what I was feeling, that we had something more important."

Adnexa placed her thumb on his cheek, palm and fingers depressing his beard. They moved together, action now dictated by passion.

The Thousand Worms slept, as they always had.

"I completed the sacrificial calculus." Olam revealed. "The minimum number of people is 500, and 500 spirits. If we try to minimize total deaths, 700 humans and 40 spirits is the answer."

"We've got to prioritize humanity." Adnexa replied.

"500 children."

"It will be an opportunity had by none others, the greatest service to the empire."

"Indeed it will."

The tower stood 77 levels. The upper roof was an aperture, closed to the sky. On each floor but the bottom, there was a mechanism, holding an enormous lens, ready to direct sunlight into the shape of a cage. The hematic capacitor took up a portion of the first floor, ready to absorb its grim charge.

Olam and Adnexa guided the children in. They had already locked in the spirits the night before. Once the last child had entered, Adnexa shut the door and they worked to crank the pulley attached to the upper aperture.

At first, all was still. Then, visible even through the thick smoked-glass windows. An orange glow. Flame. Shouts. Screams. Pain.

Olam felt strange. Peaceful. Joyous?

The 2 reached for each other, fingers fiddling with clasps. Free of cloth, Olam brought his lips to Adnexa's neck, then down. Over chest and sternum, abdomen and below.

Their cries were harmonized and lost in the screams from the tower.

I was stirred by a sting. From above, a beam of profane magic point-focused where I lay. This was not right. I was promised my sleep etern. Such pain, I had to rise. At the surface, a blade powered by ash.

2 humans lay together at the base of the tower.

I spoke my grief. "The ashes of your brothers and sisters still smoulder, this done by your hand."

Acting in judgement, I bit through their flesh. Human ichor fell. I, one of thousand, could cull the evil. I reshaped the landscape, dispensing terrible death. When my rage had been sated, I was only left with sorrow and emptiness. I coiled around the land where I had been awoken, in dissipation taking the shape of a great storm which would hide and shield this profane place long beyond when I could foresee.

The Thousand Worms slept, as they always had.

Last Modified 2025-07-23