GROWTH - From a Speck to a Titan

Darkness. A darkness so deep and black that it suffocated all those that gazed upon it. There was nothing to see, to do, to hear, to feel, just a blankness so expansive that it made a mockery of all measurements any being could invent. To even call it darkness was to uplift the word, it was far more than just a petty lack of light. Void was a better descriptor. Emptiness.

Then, you were born.

A supernova of sensation, of sound and light flooded the void, banishing its oppressive nature from your world. At least for a while. New muscles contracted and stretched, light sensors passed on their messages to the electric orchestra conducted by your nervous system. Air vibrations were detected, parsed, and edited in the time it took to blink an eye.

The first thing you saw was a Titan far above your small self. She was beautiful, oscillating in vivid colors that almost burned your fragile sight. Vast, billowing sacks held her web-like form in the sky. Oh and what a sky it was. Thundering with rage and fury at the audacity of the Titan to claim a portion of itself. A thousand bolts flashed into her immense form every second illuminating all. They did nothing but add to her splendor as blue and white arced across her being.

A howling wind screeched around you transforming an already torrential downpour of rain into an unstoppable force of water. Your hearing was closed down by your body a mere second after it activated, you could not hear anything of use. There was only angry thunder and relentless rain.

As more systems of flesh and blood awoke, they called out to the Titan above you. Something in the colors, confidence, and size responded. A flash of knowledge burst inside your young mind, she was your mother. One of her mighty branches spawned your tiny form. Your first emotion was awe at how you could be connected with such a being. You were nothing compared to her. A candle to a blazing wildfire, a droplet to an ocean.

The second was hunger. Pangs of pain washed into you like waves at a beach. You needed food, bloody meat squirming in your gullet, succulent vegetables you could crunch into, even tasteless earth. Your circular mouth began to drip saliva onto the muddy ground it faced. You struggled against the rain's force to rise on five stilt legs attached to each section of your pentagonal body. The many jointed limbs creaked and shook but they managed to bring your body over the lid of the small crater you were in. One that was rapidly filling with water rising to cover your wide five-clawed feet.

The eyes on your sides finally caught a glimpse at what surrounded you, at least, what wasn't hidden by the storm and you froze. You were on a tall hill amongst a seemingly endless sea of black strands, now crushed flat by the gale and rain. Those were but minor details compared to what else you were seeing.

Craters just like the crater you were in where beings identical to you rose. Your siblings, as you cast your gaze out, straining against the weather, your many, many, many siblings who all felt the overwhelming rush of hunger. The need to devour and feast, to feel something fill their empty selves.

Your third emotion on this world was fear.

[] FLESH - There appeared to be a runt near you, slow in rising and small in stature. It seemed weak, vulnerable. Appetizing.

[] STRANDS - Black strands covered the ground, they didn't seem as appealing to eat as your siblings but they would do.

[] COVER - Perhaps neither, the hunger ate at your insides yet you were capable of self-control. You could hide in the dirt until the initial feeding frenzy finishes and feast on the leftovers.

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Personality:

Planner - You are a being of deliberation and explosive action at the same time. Wait and plan until that moment of climax where everything coalesces. Your tutelage under Crafter instilled within you a sort of ego. Different to his, rooted in older thoughts. You view that 'moment of climax' where your plans flower, your traps trigger, and you win in combat as you being worthy of crafting the world. Fail in succession and your will weakens. Win in succession and the adrenaline high takes you even higher.

Body: A small form perhaps three-quarters of a foot from top to bottom. You are like a starfish with long legs, there's a mouth on your underside with five chitin legs on your radial body. There are eyes between your legs and on top of your body. Your legs are wider than most, better for digging. Coils of sensitive tendrils bulge out of your joints, wrapping around your limbs. They're extendable and can detect even small changes in the air.

CHANGE LOG

Newborn 1 - Wider legs for digging. Gain traits, Patient and Cautious.

Newborn 3 - Shovel Limbs, good at digging. Decent at swimming. Stronger, less enduring muscles. Long vibration-sensing tendrils wrapped around joints.

Jungle 4 - Longer, more sensitive Tendrils. They now wrap a little around your legs, overflowing from your joints. You are also bulkier and bigger.

Jungle 6 - Planner personality shift.

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Guide: I lied, there is a tad bit of mechanics. I might have mentioned that your body is very changeable. Well, you do that through use and deliberate crafting. They are two different things. For example, your body will get larger and stronger if you're getting into fights and eating meat a lot. By contrast, if you operate as a quick scavenger, it will streamline for speed and a big mouth for fast eating. Deliberate crafting includes grafting new limbs from enemies or crafting a gun arm. Essentially, it's intentional, focused, and fast while Use is more based on your playstyle and general decisions. Slower but with wider changes overall.

As the fear coursed through you, freezing your limbs, you noticed some of your bigger siblings start to tense to pounce even through the storm. You immediately collapsed your limbs to hide fully in the crater. You gathered all your limbs and started digging with a feverish focus. The ground was soft and wet, parting easily to even your thin limbs.

Though you noticed something, as you dug, your limbs seemed to be growing wider as if they were becoming shovels. It was slow but you knew that they would become better at digging the more you dug. Mud clung to your body like ticks and you could feel it's slimy coldness sinking into your joints, the gaps in your armor. You would have to clean it off later.

As you crammed half your body into your little burrow, you decided to exit a tad and take a peek at what was going on outside with your siblings. What you saw as you poked up was nothing less than carnage, sibling after sibling launched themselves at each other, biting and scratching as they landed.

Plumes of dirt exploded as the strongest knocked the weak into the ground, chunks were bit, torn, and eaten as fast as possible before more ambushes. In certain craters, as many as a dozen siblings fought in brutal brawls hitting themselves just as much as they hit others. A particularly strong and brutal sibling, his body shining from blue blood splattered over him, punched another in the eyes and hooked his thick limbs into their mouth. Then, he wrenched.

The frenzy went on.

You ducked down, seeing all you wished to see and more. You returned to your obsessive pace, many limbs slicing through the earth. So far, your siblings didn't seem to have noticed you. The raging storm covered the vibrations from digging. As you dug, you finally managed to squeeze your whole body inside the little burrow, muddy and damp as it might be, it was safe. Safe from the frenzy.

As your mother floated further away, the skies seemed to calm. You marveled at the fact that she was so great as to anger the very sky with her presence. It was unthinkable to one like you. Gradually, less and less water dripped from above. Your hearing slowly came back in pieces as your body sensed it was useful.

Small ears opened all over your body, and small sensitive hairs on your joints grew to touch the soil. To sense vibrations in the air and ground. It seemed quiet, too quiet. You had seen many siblings, too many for the feeding frenzy to be over this quickly.

Just as you thought that another pang of hunger made you spasm inside your burrow, shivering and shaking. No, no matter if the frenzy was over or not, you had to start eating. Slowly, you raised your legs and started digging out. Shifting piles of soft soil quicker as you now had enough knowledge to do better than your desperate rush when you were born.

You emerged from the burrow, mud everywhere on your body. A light drizzle was all that was left of the storm yet you knew you would never forget it or your mother. You gingerly cleared the dirt from your eyes and gazed out into a new world. Rainbows shimmered on the horizon, the black strands had risen by now and gently waved in the wind. The most amazing thing however was the duo of suns, balls of fire in the sky. One was big and blue, the other, was small and red.

Above you, auroras of vivid greens, blues, and reds traveled through the lively sky, the storm had covered them up. They flexed and squirmed as if they were alive. Speaking of alive though, you saw little specks in the clouds, flying and falling, again, your blood and flesh called out. They were your half-siblings, given wing and sack to soar and float instead of claw and leg to rip and run.

A snap of chitin quickly returned your focus back to the ground. It was the brutal one from before, strong legs held a broken corpse up to his mouth. Crunch. You twitched in fear and surprise. His chitin was rent and torn, some eyes seemed ripped out. Yet as the strongest, he was still immense in size, seeming to have grown in just a few hours to twice as big as you. Moreover, you could see the rips closing, the eyes slowly regenerating.

You quickly gathered your legs and skittered away, abandoning the crater of your birth. There had to be some morsels that lay unclaimed. As you searched, sure enough, there were plenty. Limbs, eyes, bits of unidentifiable flesh, and teeth littered the ground. There were even sacks, wings, and strange creatures. Your half-siblings seemed to have had their own feeding frenzy, you wondered what it was like, to be flying then suddenly struck down and spread over a stretch of ground.

Such thoughts quickly vanished under the weight of a new pang of hunger. Your mouth cramped and you decided to finally indulge your instincts. You feasted. Shoving everything into your mouth, it functioned like a saw, quickly cutting and grinding through anything that entered.

Eating was the best thing you had ever experienced in your short life. The textures that you felt, the comforting feeling of gnawing on a bone, the indescribable satisfaction of chewing…there was no compare. That void inside you grew smaller, sated by your siblings.

Here and there, the strong and cautious did much the same as you. The brutal one had carved out the biggest territory but others were still here. Eating and resting after the birth frenzy. They paid little mind to you snatching the smallest bits away, saving whole bodies for themselves.

However, you also noticed a few siblings who clustered together. Packs, no more than half a dozen, there were not many and all those who were in a pack were small and weak. They had to rely on the strength of numbers and coordination to survive and eat.

As your limbs grew strong with food, you wondered what to do.

[] HUNT - Some runts and injured siblings were still here. You were too cautious to go for the packs or the strong. Even the weak and injured were undoubtedly more experienced than you though, from actually participating in the Frenzy.

[] RUN - Perhaps you should just run. Run for frontiers unexplored as some you saw seemed to do. Run for freedom and opportunity. You could still eat the strands if need be.

[] CALL - On the other leg, some packs seemed lacking. A sibling like yourself would likely be accepted. Not too strong, not too weak. Just good enough to fit into the primitive structure of the pack.

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