Tobias

The four suns. The three worlds. The three moons. The two sides. The one hero. Lame little countdown, isn’t it? Let’s start off with the four suns.

The largest and brightest sun of our solar system (Belvedier-Insephia) is known over the three worlds as Zyn. Zyn is told to be the home of the Gods, depending on which religion you are, of course. When it shines its’ brightest, it is said to be good luck. The next-to-largest sun is Yohai, home to the spirits of the good dead clergymen. After that comes pale and dim Lamos, home to the spirits of the other good dead. It’s said to shine it’s brightest when a child dies. But the last sun, Vayor... it is dark. Darker than the emptiness of space. Science has told us that it will become a black hole sometime in the next few trillion years. But for the moment it is just the hell of the bigots, the hypocrites, the greedy, and the atheists. It was considered a terrible omen whenever it shed it’s dark light on a planet. Several hundred years ago, it was declared a sin by two of the three major religions to even look upon Vayor. Thus many scientists and wise, curious people were excommunicated or even killed for it. In our modern age of curiosity it is now allowed, but it’s still an omen and still bad luck to stare at it.

That brings us to the three worlds. Warmest and only two thousand miles closer to the sun than the other planets is small Tendahn. The entire planet is tropical, and all of it’s intelligent creatures are born semi-robotic. The planet has had such a bloody history of war and hatred of all things that it’s known history only dates back 700 years. They don’t have records of why the peoples are robotic. So much information there had been destroyed by war, in fact, that the beings there have yet to start building homes for themselves out of wood. Sadly, they know plenty about weapons.

The nearest planet to Tendahn is Narolia. The planet is nearly 80% city. It’s also massive. The gravity it exerts on it’s peoples, however, is only about twice that of Earth. On the other hand, the plants and creatures and people themselves are at least ten times the size of most things on Earth. A typical adult Narolian from the North usually reaches a height of nearly seventy feet. Most bear wings and physical features of canines or felines. Some have oddly webbed toes and fingers, or long tongues. The Southerners are generally shorter but stockier. The Northeast, Northwest, Southeast, and Southwest are all rivals for power and resources, so it’s no secret that their disagreements are as common a subject at the dinner table as how the kid‘s school day went.

Spinning alongside Narolia is Soda, a planet somewhat larger than Earth. It’s the most diverse of the three, as well. The intelligent creatures there are typically human height or shorter. I couldn’t possibly go into details about all the places and peoples of Soda. To keep it short, Soda is a few billion times more varied than the beverages you drink on Earth. The three planets have been in contact for hundreds of years, usually by flashing messages at each-other.

The three moons, on a not-very-separate topic, used to be four moons. The two smallest crashed into each-other some time in the far past. The moons used to be Sill, Goll, Vull, and Simmiko. Now Simmiko is part of Goll, but the Jjunka religion keeps Simmiko’s goddess alive in their teachings. The three planets orbit so closely together that the moons are caught in the gravitational field of all three. Why I bother to mention the moons is because there are legends surrounding them, just like the suns. But their legends are, if possible, even more important to the people. And even more important to me.

In accordance to the Saikro religion, when Goll and Simmiko separate, the sun Vayor will become a black hole and swallow the planets. Even Zyn, the home of the Gods, would be drawn into a void of nothingness. In accordance to the Jjunka religion, right before the coming of the apocalypse, upon Sill there will suddenly grow a huge and beautiful forest in the shape of a triangle. It sounds kinda stupid to me, but than, I’m not a Jjunka. According to the Jjunka religion, the three moons will combine into a new and holy planet, which the faithful will be sent to before the suns die out and plunge the three old planets into a frozen darkness. Either way, the moons are always under close surveillance, because everyone is certain that their lives depend on it.

Through all their history, even though civil war and petty country-sized squabbles have plagued the three worlds, the three usually co-existed in peace. Never did a thought of hurting the other planets cross anybody’s mind. Even when they first began contacting each-other out of curiosity. Things started off as cute little messages flashed with brilliant lights. “Hello, Tendahn to Soda, please tell us about yourselves.” “Hello, Narolia to Tendahn, we would like to warn you about a comet that will hit your planet at these coordinates.” “Hello, Soda to Narolia, we were wondering if you‘ve found a cure for this disease. We know how to cure that one that‘s been bothering you for some time.”

Later on in history, the messages became a little bit less cute. “Hello, Sodian Rebel Committee to Narolia, we would like to borrow 20,000 troops.” “Hello, Tendahn Inquisition to Soda, in three days we will send an ambassador over to see why you haven’t converted to Jjunka. If you do not conform to our demands, we will have to use force.” “Hello, Northeast Narolia to Tendahn, your construction of a laser with a 50 million kilometer firing range has not gone unnoticed by our sources. Disarm it or we will build our own.” Up until the point where the authorities on these planets began to worry about the other worlds picking sides. Some were good to be allies with. Some were wonderful people but terrible allies. And some were bad all through.

Which brings us to the current problem: The Two sides. On one side you have those who favor war between the planets, in hopes of making each planet its own equal power, to end all the small wars the countries are having with themselves. An end which many realize would cut the amount of intelligent life on all three planets in half, but if it were done properly it would prevent a solar-system-wide nuclear apocalypse. This Side has the blessing of a very special massive terrorist organization, compromising of many peoples from all three worlds. They are known as the Seth Rippers. And they brag that they have incredible technology capable of transporting them through time and space, making them a very formidable opponent, as they can easily cancel the birth of great leaders.

The other Side of course supports pacifistic beliefs. Beliefs that, through much negotiation and toil, the war can be prevented as well as the destruction of interplanetary rivalry. This would take a lot of devotion, presents to other planets, elections- and unfortunately several assassinations. But by taking more time to do things peacefully, both lives and entire cultures could be spared annihilation. They thankfully have the support of the original Ripper peace-promoting organization, whom the Seth stole their name and time-travel ideas from.

Which brings us to the one hero. Me. Okay, I admit I’m a bit conceited. My name is Tobias, and I am an acrucep necromancer from somewhere on Soda. An acrucep? We’re basically bright-colored spiky little people. I happen to be bright blue, a rare color. We stand about two and half feet tall, and have poisonous porcupine-like quills coming from our backs and heads, which a lot of other species mistake for normal hair. It’s their own damn problem is they try to give me a noogie. Anyway, I am a Saikro necromancer and sorcerer, which classifies me as a dangerous and power-mad Satanist by the other religions. I work for the Rippers because they pay well and I believe in most of their concepts.

At least... I used to believe them. I used to be an extreme pacifist. I had grown up not knowing where I came from, so I traveled a lot and had to respect everything I met. From my childhood I had learned that every species, every religion and every place had it’s own good things and bad things- that differences were to be respected, not fought over. But once I started working with the Rippers, I found myself being the different one. I found myself being proven wrong every day by small words that left my mouth when I was on coffee breaks.

The knowledge I gained from seeing friendly faces was being overshadowed by the knowledge I gained from spy work; the things I began to notice about the fights between the people. As a child, I saw mothers protecting their children by teaching them and loving them. Now I saw mothers sending their children off to kill their neighbors. The world was no longer a pleasant mix of colors. It was turning black and white. There was no good and evil. There were only the sides, and to survive you had to respect and fear them both. The only thing left that was still colorful was me, though I had began to fade. Never mind the fact that I had joined the Rippers. By that time I had already started to doubt my pacifistic values and had started wondering about the other side, wondering who would be smiling in the end and wondering if the peace would come in time to save all those smiles.

Maybe the morals of the people were changing. Maybe the “pacifistic” morals of the Rippers were changing. Maybe I was changing. Maybe everything was changing. But change happened. I hadn’t put much thought into the fact that things were changing until my first important mission for the Rippers. My first real look at what I saw as a dark red side. No matter the outcome, I knew it would change my true colors from the very moment I got my assignment.

I had to blow up a Seth ship and everyone on board.