Verse and Dimensions: Stories

Empiroxus thought about what Abstractil had said to him for a great length of metatime, still disagreeing with her but able to see her point of view, afterward and did his best to keep away from Peralitus and ignore him—though Peralitus still remained hostile towards Empiroxus. Soon, only Matharin would remain openly hostile towards Peralitus.

Eventually, Peralitus would get exiled from Beyond by Xenixel. Empiroxus had thought that any exile was bound to happen and he thought that Peralitus making a mistake at this scale was inevitable, but Empiroxus figured that he would be a terrible SuperGod if he were to berate Peralitus now. Peralitus might die from his mistake, like many other SuperGods throughout history. Empiroxus wanted to point out that maybe Peralitus might need another chance but there was no changing Xenixel’s mind now. Empiroxus allowed himself to agree that the exile of Peralitus was the best course of action and hoped that Peralitus would find a place relatively safe for his sake soon enough.

Xenixel had found out that a variant of trosinium only found from the collapsing monocosms within a nearby parallel Beyond bubble was needed in order to patch an area of Beyond and ordered Empiroxus to collect it at once or else their bubble will collapse. However, the area where the said variant was found contained a high concentration of the toxic compound piro. This led Abstractil to beg Xenixel to allow Empiroxus to take extensive precautionary measures before being sent off or else he might pass away or become too weak to serve the Council upon arrival back home. However, Xenixel was impatient and argued that said precautionary measures would take too long and this was an urgent matter. Xenixel then stated that it was perhaps best that one would have sacrificed in order to save the Council. Empiroxus will no doubt be remembered as a hero to the Council, Xenixel would make sure of that. Before Abstractil could argue any further, Empiroxus agreed to volunteer to collect the trosinium, knowing the risks of going out on a mission like this when the storm could happen at any moment. If his retrieving the trosinium would save lives in the end at the cost of his own, then his journey would be worth it. Before Empiroxus would give any farewells for Abstractil to pass onto Matharin and Conceptilum and their children, Xenixel demanded Empiroxus to leave at once and berated him for threatening to lead the Council to imminent disrepair.

Empiroxus travelled back to his home bubble holding onto the trosinium, his godsmoke slowly breaking down and his mind growing deteriorated and clouded as the piro reacted with it but the old SuperGod pressed forward as he thought of his close friends in the Council who were counting on him. Empiroxus navigated through a Least Guardian tunnel and eventually, despite his exhaustion and fatigue, noticed Peralitus’s amazing attempt at being stealthy. Too tired to figure out how long Peralitus had camped in said tunnels without getting noticed, Empiroxus wearily told Peralitus that he knew the younger SuperGod was there and that it was not a good idea to enact some kind of “revenge murder plan or whatever” when the Collapse could happen at any moment. Empiroxus asked if Peralitus could do it later when that’s all over with, ideally when some kind of fight or something between the two could be settled a lot more fairly. After getting over being genuinely surprised at how quickly the older SuperGod caught him and going on a rant about how Empiroxus never treated him with the “respect he deserved” that the older SuperGod found very grating, Peralitus attempted to maim Empiroxus in a fit of rage, only for the elder SuperGod to repeatedly dodge Peralitus’s attacks. Empiroxus, knowing that he can’t actually evade Peralitus in his frail and dying state for long regardless of Peralitus’s poor navigation skills, made it his priority to get as close to the Council’s bubble as possible. Once he got close enough, Matharin or Xenixel would be alerted to his presence and a SuperGod hopefully be able to collect the trosinium while Peralitus remained distracted attacking Empiroxus. Though the plan would lead both to get erased by the Collapse, Empiroxus saw it as the best he could do. As Empiroxus continued navigating the tunnels while Peralitus followed, the more confused he became as his godsmoke broke down. It became too hard for Empiroxus to focus on any of what he had to do. Peralitus took advantage of this and proceeded to violently wound Empiroxus in his disoriented state. Empiroxus was barely aware of what was happening to him and took longer than he should have to realize when Peralitus began to destroy his constituent verses.

Empiroxus began to gradually regain consciousness after much of him had been destroyed and faintly perceived Matharin trying to talk to Peralitus. Matharin explained to Peralitus that she was the one who got him exiled in the first place and bluntly told him to let Empiroxus go as he played no role in his exile. If Empiroxus wanted to point out that he might have actually played some role in Peralitus’s downfall, he had not said anything about that. Empiroxus slipped into Beyond, abandoning the trosinium in a lapse of judgement, and tried to search for either Abstractil or Conceptilum, though his fading from existence caused great difficulty in doing so. Upon realizing that he left behind the trosinium he was meant to retrieve, Empiroxus hoped that the ruse he assumed Matharin was performing on Peralitus would allow her to retrieve the trosinium for him. Empiroxus eventually found his fellow SuperGods, alongside Conceptilum’s sons, and a Xenixel getting ready to deploy Hellensoerensen. Xenixel ushered the fading SuperGod into the automaton in order to have six SuperGods activate Hellensoerensen and the Xenixel set off to destroy Peralitus. The other SuperGods begged Xenixel to not prioritize getting Hellensoerensen activated—Empiroxus needed to be restored to health urgently. However, Xenixel refused to listen. Nearly unconscious, Empiroxus entered Hellensoerensen. Empiroxus was told that Hellensoerensen was off to execute Peralitus—the one who had gravely injured him. Empiroxus was unable to argue. Abstractil tried her best to aid Empiroxus from within Hellensoerensen, but there was nothing she was able to do to save him. The last memory Empiroxus made before he was gone for good was that of Abstractil doing her best to heal him with the few materials she brought aboard Hellensoerensen.

Hellensoerensen

Hellensoerensen is a powerful technological advancement comparable in human terms to an automaton controlled by and capable of combining the strengths of all six members of The Supergod Council, only activated a select few times for unique reasons. A completed Hellensoerensen could fully access Omnipotence^4 on The Omnipotence Hierarchy and all powers associated with it, however unfortunately the creators of the automaton were killed before the project could be completed, and the device was left unfinished and extremely unstable.

Hellensoerensen is still capable of reaching Omnipotence^4, however is incredibly unstable and can cause immense damage to the fabric of Beyond itself when activated, along with being incredibly difficult to use. As such, it is reserved only for the most extreme circumstances.

First Use

Hellensoerensen was created by the founder of the Supergod Council, Xenixel, as a means of combining the Council's strength into one singular entity. Xenixel demanded complete order and unity from his fellow Council members, and thus expected each would fit perfectly as part of a single functioning being, which he believed would be the Council's ultimate defense mechanism. Hellensoerensen would require six pilots, each a member of the Supergod Council, using six shards of Trosinium as a power source. Standard Trosinium was difficult to extract in large quantities and wouldn't be potent enough to power Hellensoerensen, so Xenixel ordered Empiroxus to search for a rare variant rumored to exist in some far away part of Transcendentem – outside of Beyond itself.

The rare variant of Trosinium proved to be more than powerful enough to fuel Hellensoerensen, so powerful in fact that Xenixel and two other Council members later decided to return to its origin to collect more samples. When they returned to the location however, they found the realm completely destroyed by a powerful apocalyptic event known as the Collapse, which Xenixel predicted was soon to reach Beyond. The three Council members desperately rushed back to Beyond in hopes of preparing it for the impending damage, only to discover Beyond was left in an even worse state than they had believed. A Council member named Peralitus had supposedly horribly destabilized the Council's Beyond Bubble and left it vulnerable to the effects of the Collapse. A furious Xenixel immediately exiled Peralitus, forcing him into the collapsing Transcendentem (an effective death sentence in its current condition), and ordered the remaining Council members to swear an oath of absolute allegiance to his every command.

Events would deteriorate further when an already wounded Empiroxus was attacked by Peralitus outside of Beyond as revenge for his exile, resulting in another Council member (Matharin) sacrificing herself to save Empiroxus. An increasingly mentally unstable Xenixel ordered that the remaining Supergods – a dying Empiroxus, two inexperienced children and the confused Conceptilum and Abstractil, activate Hellensoerensen with him to execute Peralitus. Attempting to pilot the incomplete and dysfunctional automaton with such a cast in the harsh conditions of the impending Collapse predictably greatly damaged Hellensoerensen and made executing Peralitus difficult.

Ultimately, due to various reasons (including the death of Empiroxus), Xenixel was the only Supergod still piloting Hellensoerensen, and was forced to take full control of the automaton to execute Peralitus. Hellensoerensen could only function properly with six pilots and no one Supergod, no matter how powerful, could control the robot alone. While Peralitus's execution was successful, the Collapse had caught up with the Council and Xenixel was left trapped inside Hellensoerensen when the Collapse occurred. Hellensoerensen collapsed in on itself, shredding Xenixel into tiny pieces of Godsmoke.

Hellensoerensen was left greatly damaged and highly unstable by its first use during the Collapse, but was ultimately saved from any further damage by Abstractil. (At the cost of her own life.) Still, the surviving members of the Council would have to take great care when operating it, as the automaton was now so unstable that merely activating it alone could cause severe damage to Beyond itself.

Second Use

After the events of the Collapse, it was agreed that Hellensoerensen should be used as infrequently as possible to avoid damage to Beyond. No situations presented enough of a danger for the Council to agree on activating the automaton until one particularly dire situation caused by a powerful consciousness known as Venrensorys.

Venrensorys was a mixture of a Stage I Seed from the External Hazard and the broken mind of an alternate Hyperman from a different Monocosm whom the Supergod Council had previously thought to be dead. All that was left of Hyperman's mind when he merged with the Stage I Seed was his hatred of the Supergod Council and as such, Venrensorys embodied everything the Supergod Council stood against.

When Venrensorys gained physical form, the Supergod Council were forced to merge into Hellensoerensen to fight him, as separated they stood no chance. However, the sheer instability caused merely by Hellensoerensen's activation was so powerful it allowed Venrensorys's physical form to grow exponentially size and power, making Venrensorys even stronger than Hellensoerensen. Initially it seemed as if the Supergods were fighting a losing battle, but the Council members were able to use the fact that Venrensorys stood against the concepts of unity and concern for long-term consequences (as they were concepts the Supergods supposedly valued) against it to gain an advantage.

After a significant struggle, the Supergod Council were able to trick Venrensorys into throwing itself out of Beyond and into Transcendentem, which had been corrupted by the Collapse to such an extent that it was dangerous to even exist within it. As a result, the unstable physical form of Venrensorys began to rapidly decay and, in human terms, disintegrate. Venrensorys was defeated for now, although his consciousness still remained within Beyond.

The battle greatly damaged Hellensoerensen to such an extent that the Supergod Council initially deemed the automaton to be irreparable, however after some experimentation, they were able to get the machine working again. Very slowly but somewhat surely, the Supergods began fixing Hellensoerensen in the hopes of one day restoring it to full functionality.

Later Uses

During the battle with Venrensorys it became very clear that Hellensoerensen's instability presented serious issues and some members of the Supergod Council believed the automaton was more of a hindrance during the battle than anything else. As a result, later uses of Hellensoerensen were used for tiny instants of metatime and at an extremely low level of power; so much so that on some occasions only five pilots were necessary. Usually, these were for minor tasks that required power the individual Supergods did not hold separately.

The majority of later uses of Hellensoerensen were used to gain access to the Kalyubi Dimension, a strange Monocosm Conceptilum discovered that had the remarkable property to shield itself against Omniscience^3. Even Unthil, who possessed far greater swathes of information than the other Council members, was unable to observe any of the Monocosm's contents, or even confirm that it definitely was a Monocosm. The Kalyubi Dimension could only be accessed with the use of Omnipotence^4, which no one Supergod possessed, and thus activation of Hellensoerensen was required.

The Kalyubi Dimension was not accessed frequently, as many Supergod were wary of it due to its unknown contents, but sometimes it was seen as a useful place to send mortals which the Council could not agree should be erased or left to their own devices. One such mortal banished to the Kalyubi Dimension after such a disagreement was Satoru, who originated from The Barrel. Most Supergods have long since forgotten about Satoru (save for one), but it can only be hoped their life inside the Kalyubi Dimension has been peaceful. Of course, given that access to information about its contents is impossible, nobody can know for certain.

The Broken Supergods

The Broken SuperGods are a group of damaged and abnormal Supergods struggling to survive in a small Beyond Bubble located in a Logical Desert near the local Beyond Bubble Cohort. The five (debatably six) currently surviving Broken Supergods are known as Schematus, Abnull, Monopolum (technically a Pygmy Supergod), Binauris and Peralitus, along with a now deceased Supergod known as Barelitil.

When they were discovered, the Broken Supergods' Beyond Bubble was completely drained of energy, which it could not reacquire due to its location in a Logical Desert. It contained a minuscule number of Monocosms and very little life of any kind. The horribly malformed Broken Supergods survive by collecting small amounts of energy from any Transcendent Ecosystem creatures they could find, along with what little Alom was present in the few Monocosms. Monopolum and Binauris are in such a degraded state that they are unable to fend for themselves and must be cared for by Abnull.

However, this was not always the case. All Broken Supergods besides Monopolum have hazy memories of a time (for lack of a better term) in which their lives were much more comparable to the lives of an average group of Supergods in full health. This is until an unknown event which the Broken Supergods call "The Calamity" in which their Beyond Bubble was heavily damaged, a Supergod known as Barelitil was killed and all other Supergods besides Peralitus were greatly altered in mostly negative ways. Strangely, the Broken Supergods have no episodic memories (memories of concrete events or actions) from their life before the Calamity, nor any memories of the events of the Calamity. Their only recollection of life before the event is through semantic memories. (Facts about life and their place in it, along with their relationships with each-other and Barelitil.)

Schematus is obsessed with regaining his lost memories and figuring out what occurred during the Calamity, conducting an absurd number of experiments and investigations, effectively dedicating his life to researching it. Abnull, meanwhile, considers this to be a waste of metatime. She believes the past is irrelevant now and believes what's more important is to survive. Abnull dedicates much of her life to gathering energy for the Broken Supergods and their Beyond Bubble, along with protecting Monopolum and Binauris, who are in constant need of help and care.

Monopolum has a horrible mental condition known as 'Omniscience^0' which makes it completely impossible for Monopolum to comprehend anything besides his own existence. Binauris, meanwhile, is a combination of two Supergods who have had their Godsmoke spliced together into one being. The two Supergods, named Positev and Negatil, are constantly on the verge of collapsing their shared body, which would result in the violent death of both beings.

Peralitus is the only Broken Supergod who was unharmed by the Calamity, however uses none of his energy to help the other Broken Supergods. Peralitus believes the late Barelitil intended him to become a great leader in his name and dedicates most of his life to fantasizing about the incredible feats he will accomplish once he escapes the Logical Desert and reaches the local Cohort.

Discovery

Logical Deserts are inherently inhospitable places, as they are devoid of many valuable logical liquids which are necessary for life to progress beyond simple mortal forms. As such, few would willingly choose to enter one or search for life within. Because of this, the Broken Supergods remained almost completely isolated from all outside Omniscient^2 life prior to the arrival of a Fourth Wall named [O].

[O] was a Fourth Wall living in a Fourth House near the local Cohort and adjacent Logical Desert. Along with two other Fourth Walls known as [R] and [H], [O] created a device known as a Beyond Scanner, the purpose of which was to collect information about the interior of Beyond Bubbles, areas usually inaccessible to Fourth Walls. The first few Beyond Scanners were incredible poorly optimized however, and could only scan exceedingly unstable Beyond Bubbles. One such Beyond Bubble was isolated in the middle of the Logical Desert.

The strange results from the Beyond Scanner, showing the horribly malformed Supergods clinging to life, shocked [O]. Immediately, he directed many more Beyond Scanners at this Bubble to examine it more thoroughly and see if there was some way he could reach out to these Supergods. [R] had absolutely no interest in the Beyond Bubble whatsoever and considered [O]'s sympathy for these backwards creatures ridiculous, however [H] was curious about them and aided [O] in creating an Elastic-based device that allowed him to transmit messages into the Beyond Bubble.

By transmitting instructions on basic Elastic manipulation, [O] was able to speak to a Supergod named Abnull. Abnull appeared to be the closest thing the group had to a 'leader', though she seemingly didn't consider her own role to be particularly valuable. Abnull explained their unique situation and after hearing about what had happened, [O] quickly began attempting to come up with solutions to their issues. Abnull, however, denied his suggestions, claiming their situation was already hopeless. In contrast to this, Schematus and Peralitus were quick to seek [O]'s help. Schematus thought his incredible technology could help unlock his lost memories, while Peralitus believed they might be able to help him escape and make it to the Cohort. After much discussion, [O] and [H] both agreed they were going to attempt to help these Broken Supergods escape and safely reach the Cohort.

The Broken SuperGods short stories