laboratory complexes the size of cities, towers shining in the noonday sun
installations in stabilized wyld-shoals, black sites in the parasite-reality beneath your feet, outposts in hell
The Kiln, your pet gods, that which fires clay and makes it pleasing
this world, this world, trapped in this world so small and so boring and so quaint.
dead centuries stretching ahead, dead centuries stretching behind.
you were so proud of what you made at the start, don't you remember?
the serums that strangled plagues. the seed-strains that murdered hunger. the organic systems that replaced frail, faltering flesh.
you were their salvation. they loved you. they worshipped you.
and so did their children.
and their children.
and their children.
and their children.
and their children.
how many generations did it take to realize the trick, the trap?
that in the end you were locked in this world with only seven hundred others for company.
with only hollow permutations of empty conversations.
every scrap of novelty exhausted. every obstacle effortlessly demolished. an eternity of steady, even sunlight washing the colors from Creation.
Bright Shattered Ice understood, better than anyone else She understood the question, the problem.
it's like she asked you once:
Can the Host make a stone it cannot lift?
Can we build something we cannot break?
this stagnant, sterile system. this rotten reality. its walls closing in on every side; penning you in, suffocating you.
there is a way out. there is a way to be free. you just have to find it.
your whole world is seven hundred people and you are so.
so.
sick of them.