From Under the Blue Sun

Universe: Kalazus

Location: S’abdi; unknown

Time: Year 308, first human paron (app. 308 years post-industrialization)

S’abdi, the realm of spirits. It’s stretching cerulean plains born of the blue comet, its cities built by the father of the angels. In the southern center lies Kharoshka, city of Basur - the incarnations born of the magic of the foretold blue sun. Its cobblestone streets and buildings grey with once living rock was a canvas for all of the vivid and vibrant beings that stumbled across its path.

A man who stood taller than most and gowned in a hooded, blue-gray cloak walked beside a silent teal-skinned child. The child wore a golden garment covering most of their chest, and lavender pants to compliment it. They could be seen occasionally straying away from the man to steal the remnants of debauchery that could be witnessed outside of widened taverns. The two had been traversing the boulevards of Kharoshka for many hours that day, and the child had been filled with boredom in addition to nearly too much time with their own thoughts.

“Father,” Luho looked up to the man walking next to him. The gentleman's gray barb and head of hair contrasted the exuberant life that echoed throughout the city around them. An umbrella of cobalt leaves coated the sky above the streets of the boulevard.

“You know I’m not your father,” Deslunaris chuckled back.

Glancing at their feet, eyes dropped in a state of contemplative melancholy, Luho’s attention affixed to specks azure sand that had made their way inside the walls of the city, their brisk movements carried by the wind overhead.

“Spit it out, child.”

Luho looked up at the man, their jaune eyes glossed over with superficial tension, “where do we go when we die?”

Deslunaris peered at the quintuple-leveled fountain that sat at the end of the boulevard, the artifact of the center of the city. “Come, sit with me.” The fountain was a sea in comparison to Luho’s size, shooting out gallons upon gallons of water every second in an elaborate abstract display. Putting two arms on the top of the fountain wall, Luho pushed their body up with a feat of force. Deslunaris merely took a seat next to them, hands on his own lap as he watched Luhos feet dangle over the edge. “Death is a gift Luho, a gift we have already endured long ago. That’s why we’re here in the city of Kharoshka, in the spirit realm and under the blue sun.” He gestured an open hand towards the pale blue sky.

Luho kicked their feet, “but what about now? What if we die now?”

Deslunaris contemplated through his violet and lemon shaded irises, sighing, “I suppose that does not matter very much, does it.”

“That’s not what I wanted,” Luho said in pejorative angst.

“If you want a more literal answer, we may simply be integrated back into the spirit energy of the universe. Our pieces shattered through the metaphysical cosmos, never to be whole again.”

Luho made a slight frown, “I thought the answer would be more optimistic.” They reached their hand back into the water, scooping a handful of coins out from the floor of the fountain and pouring them into their ecru colored bag.

Deslunaris smiled at Luho’s shenanigans, “I hope that your pocket dimension comforts you when I’m gone, Luho.”

“If death doesn’t matter very much here, then I’ll never have to worry about that, will I.”

“You may be right, but we’ll likely never be certain.” Deslunaris moved his head to look behind the fountain towards the Moaj-Amil, palace of the angels. It’s walls stretched a mile in height, and its thin glistening white pillars etched shadows into the streets below.

In one days time S'amilica, the festival of the incarnations, would begin. Banners and wooden outlets made to pay respects to the angels were being hung and erected throughout each of the nine boulevards that connected Kharoshka. The Albu-Pikar, huge and immensely mighty humanoid beasts sported dulled silver armor as they patrolled the boulevards and city center. Their spears were taller than Deslunaris himself; they were the truest guardians of reincarnation.

“Hello father,” a deep voice billowed from beside the two of them. A four armed, cerulean-skinned man standing at the height of a small tavern stood to the left of Deslunaris. Their four upper eyes closed as their two lowermost yellow eyes shone instead — their braided silver hair hung down past their shoulders.

“Oh Jeusia,” said Deslunaris, rolling his eyes, “why do you kids keep calling me father!”

“I saw you two had entered the square and thought I would say hello.”

“Thank you,” Luho chimed in.

“I have a sense you have something else you want to discuss, child,” Deslunaris addressed the Basur towering beside him.

“I have another question,” Luho interrupted, their golden eyes peering downward. “Are there Basur incarnated elsewhere?”

Deslunaris turned to face Luho, “I’m not sure what you mean by that.”

“I mean not in S’abdi, but somewhere else.” Luho pointed to the boulevard right of the one they had initially walked down, “like the Malhana, where did they come from?” On the street of the rightward boulevard sat twelve black-furred creatures slightly larger than Luho. Their heads laid on thick, stumpy necks; their almond-shaped faces all covered in similarly formed, uniquely colored and designed masks. Some had cracked with age, others had colors preserved since the day they had received them. Luho had always admired the intricate designs on their masks, but was intrigued by what exactly they were covering.

Deslunaris let out a pensive sigh, “well, they came from somewhere far away for sure. I found them not very long after you were incarnated.” He looked up at the sky, the scent of the air had changed since their conversation started. “What did you want to tell me, Jeusia?”

Jeusia opened his four upper eyes that stood out in an emerald green, “Shamir revealed a premonition to me during my previous sleep,” he looked down at Deslunaris as a small blue light lit up beside Jeusia’s head. “I’d like to be skeptical, but he is the Basur of dreams so I am inclined to believe something may occur of great importance today.”

Deslunaris peered pensively at the ground in front of him, unsure of how to react. “I suppose we will see,” he sighed.

The smell of asphalt permeated through the city as bystanders began to retract their faces and quease in disgust. The ground began to rumble, abruptly stopping after merely a few seconds. The citizens began glancing around in a collective sense of utter confusion. The ground rumbled once more, Deslunaris hovered into the air in a cone of blue dust.

Screaming pedestrians began running frantically down the streets in a flurry of panic as the grayed cobblestone ground began cracking. From the walkway in front of the palace emerged a spiralling tidal of humongous void-black tentacles woven with thin veiny eyes — all far larger than the sapphire-leaved trees planted on the boulevards. As the tentacles began enveloping the outer border of the city center in a circular fashion, Luho revolved their body to capture the scene. A lacquered fear befell their eyes and terror enveloped their heart as it filled itself with sickly anxiety.

Out from the center of the sprawling tentacles slowly emerged the largest of them all, carrying a figure befouled with effervescent black slime who was topped with an ever-melting and reshaping crown. It approached Deslunaris with a crowned staff of inky sludge as a swarm of large, similarly coated gastropods gowning barely humanoid faces and melting black coronas began filling the center of the city. Luho and Jeusia began stomping on the viscid creatures as they mindlessly approached them.

“Father!” Luho screamed up towards Deslunaris.

“You’ve inhabited this domain for too long, human man,” growled the figure through the slime, continuing to slowly approach.

“I have banished you before and I alone will banish you again,” echoed Deslunaris.

“Give me back its children and we will leave,” the figure tapped it’s crowned staff lightly on the side of the enormous appendage on which it stood.

“Those Basur are not your gift to have,” Deslunaris mumbled between closed teeth, “and you’ll have to slay me before you ever get your hands on them.”

“Fine then,” the figure waived its right hand, splitting the tentacles that encircled the circumference of the cul de sac; it revealed the boulevard that contained the dozen masked beings. Seeing the twelve Malhana embracing each other in fear, “I’ll just take them myself.” Two more enormous tentacles erupted from the ground and started hurtling towards the creatures.

Jeusia bolted in a sprint towards the Malhana, jumping towards them just as the massive tentacles drove through the ground; the rubble of the disaster shooting into the air and blinding Luho temporarily.

Deslunaris billowed out in unbridled rage. As he began flying towards the rubble as a void colored tentacle ensnared him. Luho had already begun sprinting towards the shattered ground to recover his siblings, flattening the umbral black slugs below. The tentacle wrapped tighter around Deslunaris as he was dragged towards the malicious entity.

“Your arrogance has angered the void mother,” they spoke through the sludge, “and we will use your energy to make even more of our children.” A smile could be seen through the bubbling inky ooze.

“What is your name, creature,” coughed Deslunaris.

“Bureamus. Although I’m certain it won’t matter what my name is once I have killed you.”

As the black limb tightened around the now powerless man, Deslunaris let out one last scream, “Luho!” The child turned to see the man he had always called his father. “I love you Luho!” The man's body began vibrating in a luminous and binding light, the tentacles recoiled in a searing pain. Luho, feeling the intensity of the magic, fled to the inside of their bag.

As the bag closed above him, the blue child landed in a staggering pile of gold and silver. Merely a moment after they had landed Luho was thrown against the cloth walls back again and again, until they had collided with the bejeweled ground enough times for the external world to go dark.

⁂

Luho lived two-hundred and thirty one years drifting through the vacuum of space. Deslunaris had made the bag which contained Luho’s pocket dimension unnaturally resilient, and thus more than a single lifetime had passed with the Basur inside. On a course towards the southern Samine galaxy, far north of the azure paradise that was S’abdi, the child of blue skin would find themselves out of the reach of all of their previous knowledge.

“Aha!” A mumbling exclamation could be heard from beneath the dense pile of treasure. Luho’s arm burst through the coinage wielding a silver, gold-hilted longsword containing a large spherical green jewel that lay between the hilt and the blade. Fully emerging from the mound of loot, they pushed themselves up, threw the weapon to the ground and headed towards a large aureate throne near the opposite wall. Luho let out a sigh as they mounted their miniscule body onto the red cushioned seat.

Resting a fist to their cheek in an ever growing boredom, “I wonder when I’ll leave,” Luho said to themself. They glanced up at the opening that had been tied shut for an immemorial sum of time, and peered back down at the almost organized mess that they had made in their time here.

Luho had previously contemplated their exit, but this had been a paradise of theirs — an escape — for quite a long time. The depth of this dimension was unknown to all but Deslunaris, and although the child could recall visiting landmarks through the golden wastes, they conceived of the visits to merely be an episode in a greater break; a vivid psychosis perhaps. The decision had been a terrifying but inevitable reality, and Luho’s greed-fueled fantasies funneled by their crippling kleptomania only grew in intensity over time.

Kicking a mound of gold in frustration and determination, the child decided that it was time to leave, and made their way to the nearly-tattered cloth wall that had encircled them for much too long. Grasping the light, thin material, Luho began to scale it.

“But what if I missed something here?” they thought to themselves doubtfully, “what if death lies outside?”

They continued scaling the fabric wall, pessimism entered Luho’s psyche like torrential waves. Coming to face the puckered cloth opening, Luho took a deep breath before they loosened it and crawled through. They stumbled out of the bag onto a cold, hard metallic floor as their golden crown flew off of their head and rolled into the unfamiliar. Dusting themselves off, Luho noticed that their bag had been left on a dark metallic shelf. They jumped, grabbing it from its height and latching it back onto their robes.

“Now where did my crown go,” they whispered to themselves. The shades of black and grey that surrounded Luho in every direction was an discomforting sight, although Luho thought that Deslunaris may have simply built a new section of the palace. The static, ambient noise of the area was off-putting in its lack of natural qualities — but the Basur concerned themselves more with the runaway crown. Seeing its jewels shimmering behind two iron rafts, they picked it up and placed it back atop their head.

Fumbling around the perimeter, curious of where they may be, Luho was intimidated by what felt like an infinite maze. They had never been anywhere like this, Kharoshka nor the Moaj-Amil had never felt so winding and elaborate.

“Headed towards Ramibar sir, our supply should arrive on time,” a voice spoke from an adjacent hallway.

Luho peeked around the corner to see a creature seated in a chair in front of a large curved window. The being hung up the rectangular device they had been talking into and stared out of the window from their seat as the ambient noise grew slightly louder.

“Hello?” Luho walked around the corner, revealing themself, “where am I?”

The being jumped and fumbled out of its chair, appearing to be bipedal with four slender arms; it’s height and nearly gaunt frame being the defining feature of its stature. It’s four thinned arms scrambled against the ground like a scuttling animal as it backed farther away, “Wha… what the hell?” It cried.

“I’m just wondering where I am, I think you stole my bag.” Luho held the bag containing their pocket dimension beside their head.

The figure took its upper right hand and put it up against its forehead, breathing heavily, “I told them I needed new medication!”

“Oh!,” Luho exclaimed, “You speak my brother's language!” Switching to the tongue in which Jeusia spoke, Luho persisted, “where am I?”

“Oh heavens now I can understand it!” the figure fell to their knees and began softly crying, hands covering its thin red-irsed amygdaloid eyes.

Luho raised a brow at the figure weeping on the floor, and decided they would walk up to the chair to review the area. In front of the chair was a dashboard of numbers, buttons and projected red screens. On the prowl for collectibles (or anything they could get their hands on) they turned towards the figure. Seeing a red and black pistol and what appeared to be a black dagger, Luho reached and grabbed the two artifacts as the being screamed in mental anguish.

The pistol, although crimson in color, was nothing very remarkable. Upon grasping the dagger, however, its cutting edge lit a delicate azure flame that shone throughout the room. The figure ceased groaning in agony, despite its intense trembling, to raise its head in marvel at the edge of the blade.

“How…” the figure began, “how is it blue?”

Luho shrugged and the flame retracted as they put it in their pouch bag. With their upper left arm the creature grabbed Luhos shoulder, visibly astonished that they were real, “where did you come from?”

Luho looked down at the figure, “I told you, you took my bag.” They paused, peering into the infinite stars and galaxies glistening in the void outside of the window, “but where I’m really from is S’abdi, if you’ve ever heard of it.”

“Never have…,” he extended both right arms, still sniffling, “my name is Tanain Viestrus.” Tanain had no other choice than to befriend the blue child, seeing as they had stolen his weapons. Luho stared confusingly at the unknown gesture, believing it was a dysfunction in the man's motor cortex. Shrugging the sign off, they hopped into the seat positions in front of the board of screens and faced the endless stretching vacuum.

Raising themselves up, the man began, “are you familiar with Ramibar?”

“Nope,” Luho responded, infatuated by the lights that had been blinking and the switches that had automatically been rotating in front of them.

“It’s the city we’re on course for,” Tanain said, “it’s just finished its primary stages of construction, although they expect it to take much longer to fully complete it.”

“Interesting,” Luho mumbled as they began inexplicably searching nearly every compartment in the vicinity of their seat, scooping every bit of dust and crumpled up paper into their sack. “You look just like my brother, Tanain.”

“Really?” He exclaimed, “I’ve never heard of a Querryn with blue skin.”

“That’s what you are? I thought you had been experimented on to the point of physical contortion.”

Tanain giggled, “I’d throw you out but you seem to be both harmless and enjoyable. What a treat.” He knelt beside the seat, still towering over the blue child. “May I drop you off at Ramibar? And have my weapons back as well?”

Luho gazed in silence once more, their pupils thinning as their yellow irises grew like an ocular sea. “Just the pistol, is that okay?”

“I suppose I never got that damn dagger to work…” the Querryn said, “deal, you little blue thing.”

“Yes!” Luho exclaimed, proceeding to reach into their bag and pull out the crimson crystal.

“We’re almost there,” Tanain said.

In the center of space, not much more than a few minutes distant, lay a metallic grey fortified wall that seemed to stretch infinitely in both horizontal directions. Its subtle pale hues of silver and iron spliced into shrinking darkness, it’s horizontal length was immeasurable except by those who had built it. “Ramibar, the great human wall.”

As they began approaching this stretching monument, Luho was flooded with memories of the wall of Kharoshka. Its cobblestone fortifications perfectly laid and aligned as to be unbreakable, except by those with the most malicious of intent. Protecting its citizens from the ultramarine dust and sand storms that were carried from the farthest western reaches of S’abdi. Luho began to long for their home and their family, somehow more than the greed they were incarnated to satisfy.

As the sheer size of this great wall became more apparent, the vehicle they had inhabited hovered into a loading dock full of dozens of other ships. All of their sizes towering in comparison to Luho, their colors either worn by debris and shrapnel or vibrant with the excitement of a new journey.

Pressing some miscellaneously blinking buttons, the shrilling shriek of compressed air could be heard not far from them. “What is your name?” Asked Tanain.

“Luho,” they answered.

“Well it was wonderful having you on board, even if you scared the hell out of me.”

Luho waved to Tanain as they walked out and through the lot of countless ships, its number ever changing as engines roared from vagabonds leaving and entering the port. Many of the surrounding beings looked very much like those he had grown up with in the spirit realm.

Men with flowing molten skin, reflective like mercury and ever-changing in an incomprehensible way doing what seemed to be communication. Bulky insectoid creatures with ears draped down to their knees and arms larger than Luhos body could be found leaning against stationary ships, their sharp jaws and thickened necks produced roaring laughter. The bulbous sacks of dimly glowing blue blood that protruded from their skin reminded Luho of the few times they had seen Albu-Pikar take off their glistening armor; they wondered if that species became the guardians of reincarnation in the afterlife. Humans were certainly the most common species to be found, but Luho’s newfound knowledge of the Querryn species helped him better distinguish the taller four-armed humanoids wandering about.

They came to a ramp at the end of the landing, scaling it until they reached the massive stretching hallway that conspicuously went in both horizontal directions. Creatures of all shapes, sizes and colors filled the corridor as high-speed trains blasted back and forth on both ends. The chatters of a thousand dialects could be heard echoing in a chaotic cacophony from every angle. The Basur approached a circular booth situated in the center of the corridor, a humanoid creature standing behind it. Luho spoke, “Hello, do you know where the nearest…” Luho paused, unsure of the appropriate wording, “transportation… to… S’abdi is?”

A human woman turned around to reveal herself. Her skin shone like wet clay and her weaving dark hair was reminiscent of the grey locks Jeusia bore atop his head. “S’abdi…” she put her index finger to her chin in contemplation, “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of it.” Looking down to Luho, “is it in the bounds of any human emperium? Or is it within the bounds of Saphonia’s intergalactic jurisdictions?”

“Oh no no no,” Luho mumbled as their eyes wandered off, “surely none of those.” They began wandering away from the booth, in awe of the idea of constructing such a place. Its length was baffling despite its width being no more than half a mile.

An entity bumped into Luho from seemingly nowhere, briefly apologizing as they walked away. A weight had left their person, and after quickly checking their own body they noticed that the bag containing a pocket dimension had vanished. Squinting precariously, they saw the figure that had run into them holding it in one hand. Letting out a small snarl, Luho sprinted after the figure as the world gradually appeared to become smaller in size. Leaping towards the being, the blue angel slid and pinched against metal under the cloak. With both hands they flipped the figure around to reveal a pitch shimmering onyx bipedal android. The singular large eye in the center of its metallic head swivelled sporadically as Luho held it down and reclaimed the bag. As they arose from their pin, the entity scurried away into the crowds of species.

The bag now appeared smaller in Luhos hand, although they had no idea as to why. Looking at the massive window that was no more than a few paces to their left they saw that their body had grown in size. Muscles had become defined, their height had grown to that of Deslunaris and their clothes had somehow stretched with them. Just as soon as Luho had noticed it, though, they had begun to shrink to their normal size. Perplexed, they continued to look at their reflection, groaning and attempting to stretch muscles that were no longer there. They looked at the bag clasped in their hands, “I wonder if that was Father’s doing.”

Now enveloped in a shroud of beings passing by them in every direction, Luho ran to the side parallel to the one they were currently on. As they worried about what to do next, they saw a flash of violet colors spewing from an enclave. Approaching the luminaire, a row of at least half a dozen purple portals were lined along a wall as entities stepped both in and out of them in near unison. Turning to view the portal nearest to them, Luho saw purple bolts streak across the portal like sun rays frothing through a chaotic hellscape.

The circular machinery that encapsulated the portals twisted. as it let out echoes akin to drilling and metal aligning. Luho approached a Querryn dressed in a distinctive vermillion outfit, who appeared to be monitoring the portals from a close distance. All four of the creatures' hands placed behind their back.

“Do you have a question?” asked the Querryn man, as if he had read Luhos' mind.

“I think I do. What are these portals? Where do they go?”

The man let out a deep laugh, “I suppose at your age I also had no idea what these did,” he continued, “these are chaos wormholes. Although their names imply a lack of predictability they’re quite reliable when under the hold of the alumeters.” He gestured to the circular, ever moving containers that had previously caught Luhos eyes.

“Where do you think I should go?” Luho asked, now facing a portal not more than fifteen feet in front of them.

“Hmm,” the Querryn audibly thought, “how about Aruin? It’s the capital of the planet Tanaka, under Calizian jurisdiction at the moment.”

“Do I just step through?”

“Only if you will it so, the portals tell us where they lead but only our minds hold the key to controlling them adequately. You’ll get used to it in time.”

“Thank you,” Luho glanced up at the man who had been towering over them.

Taking a deep breath and shrouding their bright lemon eyes from the world, Luho advanced steadily as the portal's power only became more apparent. Violet lightning exuded from its surface, coming into contact with Luhos contrasting azure skin and enveloping them; blasting Luho into a universe of infinite unknown, and cataclysmic potential