The Crafting of Erdunia

The Crafting of Erdunia

In the darkness that is the universe a voice rang out.  The voice was masculine, commanding, and with a slight accent.  It said, "'Ey!  Can we get some light in 'ere?"

"I think I can handle that," answered a voice of a more feminine persuasion.  This voice somehow managed to give the impression of waves on sand, wind in the branches of a tree, rocks colliding and fire crackling all at the same time.  Shortly after this voice spoke points of light formed in the nothingness and began swirling toward a central location.  They began to collide and form a fiery orb in the center of the spiral.

Two figures stood, illuminated by the newly formed fireball.  The figure with the fireball hovering over one outstretched hand was as feminine as one can get while still being composed of a variety of flying particles.  The other was a man in a long white robe.  His hair was long, green, and tied into a braid.  His skin was blue-green and his nose was long.  His accent was likely the result of the large tusks that protruded from his mouth.

"Is that better, Van'Lashok?" asked the nebulous female.

Van'Lashok looked around for a moment before answering, "Ya, dats much betta, Norash. Tank ya."

"Scared of the dark, brother?" hissed a new voice from the shadow of Van'Lashok.  "You would be."  He stepped out into the light, revealing a negative version of his brother.  His hair was red and kept short.  His skin was red-orange and his nose was small to the point of barely being noticeable.  Where his brother's tusks were large and had an upward curve, this second brother's teeth were needle thin and proceeded straight down from his upper jaw.  His robe was black.

"Should'a known ya'd be slinkin' 'round," said Van'Lashok disdainfully.

"He has made a habit of it," remarked Norash.  "Is there something you needed, Sinoseth?  You weren't hanging around simply to make that comment, were you?"

"Of course not," he said sibilantly. "I was simply passing through.  Thought I'd stop and see what the fireworks were about.  Jokes at my twin's expense are merely an added bonus."

"Well, don' let us stop ya from passin' tru," said Van'Lashok, rather snappishly.  "Go back to ya darkness and leave me in peace."

Sinoseth seemed to consider this for a moment before saying, "I think I would prefer to stay, brother.  This little fireball is quite warm and you know how I do love a little warmth.  Besides, who else could I have so much fun with?"

"I am really hurt," commented a voice with just enough laughter in it to be perpetually on the side of mocking.  It was connected to a man in a suit that couldn't decide what color or style it wanted to be.  He was sitting cross-legged on what would have been the ceiling to the other beings in attendance.  "I am way more fun than any of our friends."  He was a handsome man.  His hair was black, with a slight curl, and it parted above the temples to allow for a pair of long horns.  He sported a goatee under the kind of grin that is usually reserved for used-car salesmen and great white sharks.

Norash sighed.  "This is just wonderful.  We are surrounded by the dregs of the universe, Van'Lashok.  Your brother was bad enough."

"Ya, tell me about it," agreed the tusked man. "Who invited you anyway, Ashbula?"

"Do I ever wait to be invited?" Ashbula said, his suit turning bright pink as he floated down until he was face-to-face, though still upside-down, with Van'Lashok.  "If there is a party then I must be invited.  What grievous oversight would be needed to deprive a party of its life?"

"And who said this was a party?" queried Norash.

"It isn't a party?" asked Ashbula in mock confusion.  "But I thought you were showing off your party tricks with that pretty little ball of light.  It isn't very impressive, you know.  I could do better."

"You think you can do better?" replied Norash, whose voice was definitely more fire than anything else at that point.  "I doubt that anyone, especially you, could do better."

The twins backed up as the fireball flared.

The horned man in the lime green tuxedo began to swim in a lazy circle around the hot tempered woman.  "I can do better," he said as matter-of-factly as he could.  "First off, you only made one.  Try this."  He stopped swimming and started spinning quickly in place, instead.

The twins backed further away.

As Ashbula turned into a psychedelic blur, a multitude of smaller fireballs began shooting from his location and streaking across the universe.

The twins dove for cover.

Fireballs passed harmlessly through Norash's amorphous form.  They passed with slightly more harm through Sinoseth's robe, the end of Van'Lashok's braid, and the middle of a conversation elsewhere in the vastness of space.

As quickly as the barrage started, everything went still.  Ashbula, who was now right-side up and wearing a dark blue, one piece bathing suit, looked around at his handiwork.  He seemed pleased with the billions of points of light that he had just placed in the blackness.  That's when the screaming started.

The twins were screaming that Ashbula was a menace.  Norash was screaming that having more of something didn't make it better.  Another female voice was screaming that she was going to dismember whoever was responsible for almost burning a hole through her favorite axe.  Ashbula screamed for the hell of it.

Ashbula, Norash, and the twins continued screaming until a very large axe appeared between Van'Lashok and Norash.  It was quickly followed by a woman wearing skin tight, dark green clothing.  The green clothing was almost exactly the same shade as her skin.  Her only tuft of hair, being nonconformist, was crimson and seemed to sprout from the top of her head.

"Who was it?" she snarled. "I swear, when I find out who was throwing that shit around, I am going to end them!"

"Not much incentive for them to speak up, then, is there," commented a stocky man who was just catching up to the verdant woman.  "Violence isn't going to get you anywhere here.  Besides, the fireball wasn't even close to hitting you, Natok."

"Stay out of this, Corghaan," snapped Natok, who was still in a fighting stance.  "This is between me and whoever it was that tried to hurt my axe."

Everyone else was standing perfectly still for fear that Natok would swing at the first sign of movement.  Ashbula's suit, also deciding that it would be better not to make any sudden movements, was frozen as a pale yellow smoking jacket over a pair of plaid pants.

Corghaan positioned himself between Natok's axe and the rest of the group.  It might have seemed funny, to the casual observer, due to the fact that Corghaan was just over half as tall as Natok.  His hair was long and a deep brown.  One couldn't tell where his hair ended and his beard began.  His beard ended just above the level of his knees.  Strapped to his back was a shield that was almost as big as he was.

"You are going to calm down," he said commandingly, "and we will deal with this in a civilized manner."

For a moment Natok seemed to consider how best to chop Corghaan in half.  In a flurry of motion she brought her axe around and aimed it for the top of his head.  As the axe came down Corghaan didn't even have a chance to move.

As it turns out, he didn't have to.  As the axe sliced toward his head it suddenly became lodged in air that was more solid than it should have been.  The shock of the sudden stop ran up the haft and caused Natok's arms to go numb.  She let go and the axe remained suspended above Corghaan's head.

"Children, please," said a motherly voice. "Don't you ever get tired of fighting?"

This seemed to snap everyone else out of their stupor.  In unison they turned to face the newest addition to what can only be described as the universal circus.  She was tall and slender with long blond hair.  Sticking through her hair were long, delicately pointed ears.  She wore a dress of muted browns, greens and blues.

"We aren't your children, Merestal," raged Natok. "And you have no right to interfere with my business."

"I think I'm fine with her interferin'," remarked Corghaan as he moved out from under the axe and sat down heavily a short distance away from it.

"Now," began Merestal, "what, in the cosmos, is going on here?"

Everyone had a different answer, all at the same time.  Sinoseth, Van'Lashok, and Norash blamed Ashbula for all of the problems.  Corghaan blamed Natok for trying to kill him.  Natok, in turn, blamed Corghaan for being stupid enough to get in her way.  Ashbula blamed various people for everything from burning the roast to ruining his suit, which was now a lavender toga.

Everyone was yelling, no one was making sense and there was a fair sized fireball floating in the middle of it all.  It was all very silly and Merestal had had enough.  As everyone continued to bicker, Merestal gathered herself to explode.  "Silence!" she shouted, loud enough to shake the fabric of the universe.  Everyone else clammed up and order was restored.

"Please," she said, in a much softer voice, "whoever can tell me how this started, raise your hand."  The twins, Norash and Ashbula raised their hands.  "Van'Lashok, tell me what happened."

Van'lashok looked nervous.  He looked to Norash for support and, seeing that he was in this alone, opened his mouth to recite the events in question.  Before he could, yet another unnamed voice piped in. "Does it even matter anymore?" it asked in an ambiguous monotone.  "They do this all the time.  They are bored, Merestal, and nothing you clear up now will change that."

"I quite agree, Zulan," chimed a more clearly defined feminine voice. "What we need is something to take our minds off of our own miserable existences for a time."

Two more figures entered the circle.  The first was a woman with orange robes and steel-grey hair.  The other looked to be nothing more than a hole cut in the fabric of reality.  The only distinguishing features of this ninth entity were two cold blue eyes.

Merestal turned and addressed the newcomers.  "Rostrev and Zulan, how nice of you to join us.  I was just getting to the bottom of where all these fireballs came from."

"We know how that was going," said the monotonous hole in the universe. "We could hear what you were saying from clear across the universe."

"As we were saying," began Rostrev, "if we could find some way to occupy ourselves, we wouldn't need to hurl fireballs across the cosmos.  Would we, Ashbula?"

"I maintain my innocence," countered the horned man, with a slight widening of his grin.

"What do ya propose, Rostrev?" asked Van'Lashok, who was happy to have the attention on the two newest arrivals.

"Quite simple," stated the woman in orange, "we create something to entertain ourselves.  Perhaps we could work together to build something.  That would be worth at least a little bit of entertainment."

"I got a thought," offered Van'Lashok. "What if we create sometin dat will keep goin' witout us doin anyting?  Den, we can jus sit back and relax."

The crowd seemed to think this was a good idea, with one problem.  "Where do we start?" asked Corghaan.

"I've got you covered," said Norash, who once again held out the fireball that had been lighting this conversation.  She released it and it hung in the air in the middle of the group.  "We build around this."

"Alright, but a fireball is only so entertaining," noted Rostrev.  "Perhaps if we had something sentient?  But, we can't put it on the fireball; it would be lost too easily in the chaos."

"Well," said Van'Lashok, rolling up his sleeves, "if ya be makin' sometin, the best place ta start be da bones."  With that, he clasped his hands together and slowly drew them apart revealing a mass of blue stone that swelled to match the space between his hands.  When it had grown large enough, he hung it in the air and set it spinning around the fireball so everyone could see it.

"Please," said Sinoseth, "that is far too big to be of any use to us."  He repeated the process that his brother had done.  The orb that he created was much smaller than the first, and was bright red.  He flicked it into the direction of the blue giant where it became stuck in the gravity of its larger cousin and began to orbit it.

"No, dat's too small," complained Van'Lashok.  The twins began to argue the merits of their creations.

"I have to do everything myself," sighed Norash.  She released a cloud of particles into the orbiting chunks of rock.  The particles formed a cloud that began to swirl.  As the swirling intensified, bits of fire began to collect at the center.  With the core of fire firmly in place, metal and stone began to pile on top.  When the core was fully incased in stone the swirling stopped and the newly formed world was swept up in the gravity of the passing giant.  It was a perfect sphere that was larger than the red orb, but it was still dwarfed by the larger blue stone.

Looking at the passing globes, Natok felt that something was missing.  She slowly drew a knife from her belt and before anyone could stop her, she had pounced and begun hacking away at the Norash's newly minted planet.  Chunks of rock flew in all directions.

When Corghaan and Van'Lashok finally managed to pull Natok away, they saw that the surface of the sphere was now covered in deep trenches and gouges.  There were only a few places where the original surface was still intact.

"What did you do?" screamed Norash as she ran to her creation to survey the damage.

"I thought it needed more definition," offered Natok.  "I think it is less boring now."

"Don't worry, lass," said Corghaan, trying to console Norash.  "I have an idea how to make it look a little better."  He rummaged in his beard for a moment and came out with a large container with a stopper at one end.  He undid the stopper and poured the contents of the jug onto the desecrated orb.  He kept pouring until the liquid came up to the level of the original surface. "There you go.  It doesn't look so bad now, does it?"

"I think it looked better the other way," called Ashbula.  "You took away all the parts that weren't boring.  Let's see you fix this." He waved his hand at the planet which shook and heaved.  Mountain ranges sprang up and volcanoes grew and erupted.  Landmasses broke and drifted apart.  "Much better," he said, feeling very pleased with himself.

"Well," said Merestal, "it doesn't look bad.  I think we can cover some of it up, though."  She moved her hands over the landmasses and everywhere she touched the brown on the land turned to green as plants sprang up.  Not everything was covered in greenery.  Some portions of the world had been too heavily damaged in the upheaval to support plant life.  

When Merestal was done, the collected beings looked at what they had made.  It looked lovely.  It wasn't until a short time later that they realized that all the plants were withering in the heat from the sun.  No one knew what to do.  They tried to move the world further away from the sun, but this caused the world to start to freeze.  Ice caps formed on the poles first, and slowly began to move on the rest of creation.  The planet was moved closer to the sun.  The ice caps receded slightly but would not melt completely and the plants still withered.

It was Rostrev who found the solution.  She looked down on the world and thought about a shield.  She inhaled and blew out her breath upon the world where it collected and formed a barrier from the oppressive heat of the sun.

"What will we call it?" asked Merestal.  "It must have a name."

Van'Lashok looked into the planet, to the bones of the world.  He read the bones and found a name.  "Erdunia," he said, "dat's what she wants to be called."

"Erdunia, then," said Norash, with pride.  "It is a good name."

With that the world was perfect.  The browns, greens, blues and reds were beautiful to behold.  Even Ashbula felt some connection to this planet.  It was perfect, but it wasn't finished.

Zulan came forward and opened himself to the Beyond, that place behind the universe where these beings had been born.  From the Beyond came wisps.  Zulan directed these wisps to the surface of the new world.  As they settled in their new homes they began to take forms that were suited to the environments in which they found themselves.  These wisps became the animals and the monsters in the world.

Nine wisps remained, floating before each of the creators.  "These," explained Zulan, indicating the wisps, "we will shape for ourselves, so that each of us is represented by the creatures of the world.  These will be the keepers of the world."

To set the example, Zulan was the first to form his wisp.  He gave it long arms and legs.  He wanted it to be as utilitarian as possible, so he gave it strong bones and strong muscles, though there was little muscle apparent.  He was not very creative with the color scheme.  He gave it nails and teeth of obsidian and skin of pure white.  The entire creature was black and white.  "This is my chosen," he said. "I will call it, and all that come after it, Cardomor."

Everyone else, seeing what Zulan had made and knowing that they could do better, set to shaping their own wisps.

Rostrev thought that Zulan's Cardomor was well designed, but needed to be refined.  She took her wisp and copied the shape of the Cardomor skeleton, made it a little shorter and began to work in the differences.  She put more muscle on the bones, giving it a more rounded look.  She also made the nails and teeth from softer materials, feeling that they would be less brittle.  This creature got skin that was a mix of everything from white, to tan, to black and hair that was brown, red, yellow, and grey.  When she was done, she proclaimed her creation to be the first Human.

Merestal thought that the Cardomor and Human were nice, but they were not beautiful enough.  She crafted a skeleton that was more delicate, more graceful.  On this she built a lithe, flexible musculature.  She gave it skin of alabaster and hair that was the green of the plants that she loved so much.  The final touch was to recreate her own delicately pointed ears.  And with that, the first Elf was born.

Norash was paying no attention to anyone else.  She gave her wisp four powerful legs, a tail, a sinuous neck, and wings.  Over that she layered powerful muscle, and lots of it.  She gave it protection in the form of thick scales of every color, sharp teeth and powerful claws.  Then she infused her creation with the power of the elements that she commanded.  The first Dragon stretched itself and beat its wings.

Natok was busy beating her wisp into a shape that pleased her.  She gave it thick bones, for strength.  She proceeded to pile muscle on top of that, for more strength.  She gave it sharp teeth for tearing, green skin for camouflage.  The last thing she did was craft a miniature replica of her axe to give to her creation.  She named her creation Orc.

Ashbula was having a lot of fun with his wisp.  He decided it might be funny to make it half-animal.  He looked around the world until he found a likely candidate in a goat.  He crafted legs reminiscent of the hind legs of a goat, complete with hooves and fur.  He then crafted an upper body that was too close to that of the Elf to be anything but plagiarized.  Instead of adding the pointed ears, however, he added horns to the top of its head.  In honor of the fact the he was satirizing Merestal's creation, Ashbula called his a Satyr.

Corghaan thought that some of the bipedal creations were a bit silly.  He didn't understand why anyone would make limbs so long and easily broken.  His creation's skeleton was made from thick, stout bones.  He covered the bones in hard muscle for added protection.  He gave it skin that was a ruddy brown color and a long, luxurious, black beard.  And so, the first Dwarf joined the universe.

Van'Lashok gave his wisp a very tall frame, with strong arms and legs.  He made sure that it had tusks, like its creator, so that it had some means of defending itself against whatever his brother was making.  He gave it strong, flexible muscles for strength and speed.  He gave it skin that was the same blue as the moon that he had created earlier.  As added protection against his brother's creation, Van'Lashok imbued his creation with the ability to heal itself faster.  When he was done, the first Troll stood in his hand.

Van'Lashok was right to be worried.  Sinoseth was creating a creature that he thought would best make his brother's creation suffer.  He built for speed over strength with a light skeleton and springy muscle.  He gave it a thin, whip-like tail.  He covered his creation in smooth, black and red scales.  As the final nail in his brother's coffin, he added two fangs attached to venom sacs.  He called his masterpiece Sithak.

The nine creators and their nine races stood around the world.  "One of each isn't enough," Merestal thought aloud. "We will need more of them to tend the entire planet."

"We will make more from what we have and we will give them the ability to make still more of themselves," said Zulan.  And with that, each god caused their creature to divide and become full races.

Having their races, The Nine set them upon the planet and let them begin making lives for themselves.  Each deity gave knowledge to their people to allow them to survive.  But something was still not right.

"How can we just sit up here while they live down there?" asked Corghaan.  "What if they need us?"

"That's easy," answered Merestal.  "We simply manifest ourselves to them in dreams and such.  It is no big task."

"But we can't hear them well from up here," countered Sinoseth.  "We are too far away."

"Perhaps the answer," replied Rostrev, "is to join them down there.  As Merestal said, it would not difficult to manifest to them.  I don't see why we can't just create bodies for ourselves and leave a part of our consciousness in them.  We would be close enough to hear them easily."

"I tink dat's a good idea," said Van'Lashok.  "But I don't trust some people not to take advantage of da situation.  Dey might go around killin' people dey just don't like."

"There would obviously need to be some laws made to govern our actions in the world," stated Corghaan.  "For instance, do what you will with your followers, but you can take no direct action against the followers of one of the other eight.  Let disputes be decided by our creations.  We already have the idea of avatars on the planet, why not a rule that says you must always have at least one avatar in the world at all times?"

"I think," began Rostrev, "that those are excellent ideas.  I think it would also be wise to say that we cannot make more followers for ourselves.  We are all starting on equal footing, let our people thrive or not, as they will."

"Enough with the rules already," complained Ashbula.  "I was beginning to think this would be fun before you started in with that crap."

"I think the rules we have are enough for right now, aren't they?" asked Natok.  "Can we just get down to doing things now?  All this talk is killing me."  The look on her face made it clear that she meant that someone else might get killed.

Merestal began an overview of the rules.  "No interfering with each other's followers directly.  We must all have an avatar on the world at all times.  None of us may create more followers, they must be born naturally.  Do we all agree on the rules?"

Everyone, including Ashbula after receiving some threats from Natok, agreed to the rules.  That done, they gathered around the world and prepared to release a piece of themselves into the world.  That was when they realized that time moved more quickly on the planet than it did in the cosmos.

When they looked down on the world they saw that entire civilizations had sprung up.  Wild areas had been tamed; cities and roads had been built.  It was barely recognizable as the world they had created.

"What are we going to do?" asked Norash.  "We can't just pop into the middle of all of that and proclaim ourselves their gods.  They would never believe us.  Or it might cause all of this progress to collapse."

"Sounds like a good time, to me," said Ashbula.  His suit, having grown tired of being ignored, was rapidly cycling through colors and styles in an effort to draw attention to itself.

"No!" exclaimed Corghaan.  "We are responsible for these people.  We can't just disrupt their lives."

Rostrev had a thought.  "We need a way to infiltrate the societies and allow the people to get used to the idea of having us around.  We also need a place where we can meet and plan that is grounded in their time.  We can't continue from out here, the longer we wait the harder it will be to get involved."

Sinoseth had been studying the world this whole time and thought that, perhaps, he had found the 'where' that they needed.  He got everyone's attention and pointed to a vast expanse of empty ocean.  "We can set up shop here.  Our children haven't taken to the seas, yet."

Van'Lashok, surprised that he actually agreed with his brother, had one reservation about the location.  "Dey haven't taken to da seas, yet," he said, "but dey will eventually.  Whatta we do den?"

Norash was already working to raise a large, crescent-shaped island from the ocean.  "I can make sure that we are never disturbed by anyone that we don't want in our sanctum," she said.  Above the island she began to swirl her hand.  Clouds began to form and winds kicked up.  A great maelstrom took shape with the Crescent Isle in the eye of the storm.  "Now we can work in peace."  And with that, Norash sent a piece of herself into the world.

"Best we follow," advised Merestal, "before too much time passes."  She too sent a fragment of her being into the eye of the storm.

The rest of the gods sent portions of themselves down to the world as well.  This marked the beginning of a new Era on Erdunia, an era that would be known as The Time of Gods and War.