Chapter 92 #2
“Okay, okay. This one is pretty good. It’s stupid, but it’s good.
I wonder if it was like that, if they had a menu with so many different choices?
That’s the problem when society spreads unchecked.
Too many cooks in the kitchen and so forth.
We’d spread so far, so fast, there was a real chance we would end up overwhelming the resources of the galaxy.
So in the end, we made a Decision. We decided to slowly start to sunset our civilization.
But—and this is a big but—keep our consciousness alive.
We would develop a biological form that would allow us to transfer our minds into a whole when we ceased to be.
We would build an impenetrable structure that would house our collective consciousness.
This would be a process that would take a hundred generations to complete.
Our first step was to develop a genetics program, and within a generation, everyone who was born soon had the ability to understand what the others were feeling. It only evolved from there.”
“Carl,” Donut whispered, “the people are doing something weird.”
Everyone in the crowd started waving back and forth, like they were swaying to a beat.
Elle: We had an interpretive dance group come to Meadow Lark once and put on a performance. That bullshit made more sense than whatever this is. The AI guy should’ve put Donut in charge. At least it would’ve been entertaining.
Prepotente: I find this story fascinating.
Donut: YOU’D THINK SOMEONE WITH SUCH A FLAIR FOR THE DRAMATIC WOULD’VE BEEN MORE ABOUT THE RAZZLE-DAZZLE.
Carl: I think we should probably wait until this is done before we complain about it being boring.
“But here’s the problem,” Grigori said. “Do you really think we came to a consensus? Of course not. Those who didn’t wish to be part of this psychotic eugenics program fled even deeper into the galaxy.
They were hunted mercilessly by those who’d decided to follow this path.
More wars. More destruction. More chaos.
In their effort to stop it, they became it.
After all, for this path to work, it would require 100% participation.
Biological life is much like an Avernus Creeper.
If one tiny sliver remains, it will just come roaring back. ”
Donut: LOUIS ISN’T HERE TO SAY IT, SO I WILL. ANYBODY GETTING STRONG STAR TREK BORG COLLECTIVE VIBES OFF THIS?
Carl: I was just thinking the same thing.
Elle: Okay, guys. It’s our turn in a minute.
“Right about this time, in some tiny corner of the galaxy, she was born. The Apothecary. I don’t know the full story of how she became what she is today.
The lore of the dungeon has some bullshit fairy tale.
The reality is, at first, she was very much like those you see before you now.
A Primal that was born near the end, birthed with biological engineering that would prepare her body to meld into the whole.
Eventually, she would grow, and she would become part of the resistance. ”
Float number three. Begin your presentation.
The float featured several mannequins sitting in chairs, watching their televisions.
I couldn’t see it, but I knew right at this moment, all the screens were turning on.
They were supposed to show flashing words like “Death” and “Blood,” but I knew they hadn’t been able to get it to work because they were just showing the same thing everybody else was watching.
They’d placed alternating smoke curtains atop the televisions that billowed first black and then red smoke up into the air, which represented blood.
At the end of their line, they each held up signs.
Imani’s sign read, “You are watching real people die.” She flipped it over, and it read, “Real people, just like you.”
The three Chinese guys came next. The first, a guy named Muchen, held a sign that read, “I had a wife. I had children.” He flipped it, and it held their names.
The next, Qianfan, held, “We breathe, we dream, we love.” He flipped it, and it said, “We bleed, we suffer, we die.”
The third was Lingyun, the only nonhuman of the group.
His race was Monkey King. He still appeared mostly human, but with an elongated face and a hulked-out body.
He was one of the heroes of the Faction Wars battlefields, despite me having never spoken with him.
His sign read, “You did this to us.” He flipped it over.
“Your betrayal will never be forgotten or forgiven.”
Elle, at the very end, held a sign that read, “To all the viewers of Dungeon Crawler World: Earth: Fuck you.” She flipped it over, and it was a rather detailed drawing of a middle finger.
Grigori barked with laughter. “This one is my favorite, I think. Good effort. It’s like that, yes.
There’s a lot missing in our memories at this point, but it soon became clear that those wishing to wipe out everyone left in the universe were fighting a losing battle.
So they developed a plan. This arc of consciousness that was already starting to accept the minds of those who’d died was developed into a weapon.
A doomsday weapon designed to eradicate all biological life left in the universe. ”
Elle: Whew. It liked us. What’s up with the dudes in the stands?
Imani: Not gonna lie. That felt good to get out.
We started slowing down.
Tipid: Just got a note that we are to “slow-walk” this final part.
“For many, this was considered a betrayal. Those who had been ready to accept that they would die and meld into the collective, they started to change their minds. But the mind itself, now housing the consciousness, the first true Macro Aggregate Intelligence, started the process of collecting everyone it could, even those who weren’t quite ready to ascend. It started to grow in power.”
Donut: HOW IS CHACO DOING?
Imani: He’s unconscious on the donkey. I didn’t dare try to heal him as we passed.
“While this happened, the resistance worried that this weapon would succeed, and they began a plan of their own. A biological fail-safe that would spread seeds out into the galaxy, should they all die. The Primal Engines, some call them. They were life rafts. They weren’t meant to do what you think they would do.
It was a way to create sustainable habitats for when this collective experiment ultimately failed and starved. ”
Float number four. Begin your presentation. Make it loud.
“And then, war. The war to end all wars.”
Makana and Sarah and everyone else on the Destruction float fired their guns all at once.
The Abrams tank’s main gun was like a thunderclap.
They had other weapons as well, all crackling and sparking and spitting fire into the air.
Makana, from the RV, unleashed his eighth-floor card, some lava man who literally exploded in the air like a massive firework.
Above, the Reaver transport rocked with the shock wave.
Samantha: Ooohh, I like fireworks.
At the same moment, the horribles all started falling over like they were dead. One by one, they fell. The moment they hit the ground, their large masks cracked and shattered like glass, leaving bits everywhere. The horribles themselves would disappear into the fog.
“To end this war, the collective initiated what some would come to know as the nine-tier attack. In that chaos, much happened, but so much more didn’t.
Such is war. The resistance’s desperate attempts to keep life alive were started and not finished, and for a while, the collective thought they had achieved their genocidal goal.
Thinking the final attack a success, the collective evolved to its final form.
This is what you called the Eulogist. It is now asleep, only monitored by a smaller instance of itself. We’ll call this guy the Security Guard.
“But life, as I’ve said a thousand times, finds a way.
While all of this was going on, the deep oceans of so many new, baby worlds were starting to bake.
And by the time the first mudskipper was taking its first fish Nazi steps into forming its own culture and society, the broken remnants of the great war littered the universe. ”
All of the horribles were now gone. All except a group of people sitting in a set of bleachers up ahead. And in the distance, a form started to grow. It was in shadow, but it was huge.
“Carl, that thing is inside the arena!”
“At this point, only a single physical Primal survived. The Apothecary. But even she wasn’t truly alive, not after that final attack, which she took the brunt of, thus allowing all the nascent life to survive.
She was trapped on a world of her own creation, cocooned for a millennium.
By the time she finally emerged like a butterfly, physically changed into a version of the very thing she’d been fighting against, the burgeoning Syndicate was already well on their way to repeating history, this time with a more diverse set of starter species. ”
The horribles, who’d all collapsed, were now rising back up out of the fog. They no longer wore masks, but their faces had all transformed into horrific versions of the creatures they’d once portrayed.
They still didn’t appear on my minimap. I examined one.
Marsh Troll. Level X.
This is a non-combatant. This is an avatar of a troll that died during the 3,424th season of Dungeon Crawler World. He isn’t really here because he is dead and gone, never to return.