Vantage: A Primer

You ingested distilled purple. It tried to poison you, but you’re immune!

“So this is either booze… or bleach,” John muttered between smacks of his lips. “But it tastes like pineapple, which is… a nice plus, I guess.”

“Your strange words and strange mouth are noted, John the Newman,” Golgon replied. Before John could correct him again, the old man touched withered fingers to the black plate… and its seemingly solid surface softened sufficiently to see swell a spire of sooty substance. The inky tentacle fattened as more of the plate’s material joined it… and slowly shapes and dents began to appear upon its surface. Before John’s eyes, small scenes began to play out in the holes… and Golgon’s voice suddenly boomed as if coming from every direction. “You seek the history of Vantage…”

John looked as one of the scenes revealed black trees, rocks, and a flowing black river. Though the ooze did not change colors, its shapes were sharply defined; John could see the cheekbones upon the diminutive near-human that suddenly rose out from behind a boulder.

“Before the Violet… before the first Gate of Vo opened… there was only the world below, with air cleansed by plants and water that stretched for miles in pools too massive to explore.”

The scene may as well have been from Earth, save for the humanoid who scratched his head with two hands… while his other two caressed his hips.

“The Dorani claim that they were put here by shapeless gods… and for many years, that myth was said to reign, and upon that reign they formed their societies.”

Symbols and shapes more familiar than John expected began to rapidly cycle: caves to tents to huts of clay-

“Wait, but what is a Dorani?”

The scene paused its transition into something too similar to the tall, square structures of John’s modern world. The pillar of black turned, and another scene opened on its surface: three humanoids, each anatomically different from one another in minute or startling ways, appeared and slowly shifted to new configurations: ears round or pointed, arms numbering from two to as many as eight, some with knees that folded backwards, some with rows of nipples, eyes, or teeth where a human might never have them, and yet more with genitals in curious configurations of male and female. “Dorani were the dominant species, and the only ones in Vantage who could invent the wheel, the rune, and the hammer. They are an ever-shifting species, they breed with virtually anything… and for some time, they welcomed the seed and the womb of the unintelligent beasts of the world, for the strengths of the Dorani all hail from the animal might of Vantage’s creatures-”

“Wh-what, they like… had sex with people who looked like animals, or-“

“No, just… animals. Unintelligent and at their mercy…”

“But… but that’s fucked up!“

Golgon’s head rotated in short, rapid bursts in either direction as he cackled. “Hah, yes, it is! Dorani habits shocked most of the foreign races. You, too, speak of it as shocking, yet we are meant to believe that the Humans did this as well.”

“No, we don’t- I mean, aside from some farmers over in… look, it’s certainly frowned upon!”

Golgon shrugged. “It matters not: their habits waned as the practice became taboo, and no such animals survived the Violet to tempt them again.”

“Then what’s the Violet, finally-”

“Each its due course, please.” John silently waited for Golgon to continue. “The Dorani were once a people undivided: the Dorbin and Dorsin did not exist, for all were Dorani among the Dorani. This remained even when the Dorani sages, in studying the runes and artifacts of their unknown ancestors, designed and activated the first Gate of Vo: a portal connecting this world, this universe, to another.”

“So another Kingdom?”

“I know not what a ‘keengdumb’ be, child, but what they did meet were the Ootuk, the first of the great races of Vantage and my ancestors. They negotiated with their tribes to utilize Ootuk minds and flight, and eventually the two taught one another the best of their ways.”

“Huh… pretty altruistic.”

Golgon’s gnobbly face broke into a grin at that. “Well, it helped that both had… similar appetites. My ancestors mated and mixed with the Dorani, despite their ugly ways, and we numbered too great to be bred out even when birthing Dorani. It came to be that we freely traveled between our world and this one, and we enjoyed the vast lands to colonize; soon, our worlds were united as one, joined Vantage.”

John considered the Kingdom dynamics as he understood them… and realized something was amiss. “I know you don’t know what a King is, but was your world ruled by some kind of superpower, a central figure, something like that?”

Golgon shook his head. “I do not know, child; no such thing was recorded. What was, however, was that Dorani and Ootuk both soon hungered for more company, and so they found it as they opened Gates of Vo, each keyed to another, nearby world, each one untouched by visitors such as the Dorani: the Jita, reptilian and voracious, as you have now met.” A clutch of creatures much like Kitok appeared on a mosaic in the dark. “The Ginips, whose faces change but preferences remain ever the same-“

“Ginips? I don’t think I’ve ever seen one of those.”

“Of course you haven’t, my child; they are prized and flawless actors, kept in the first three disks for their prestige and talent." A peculiar pair of creatures appeared: each one with bulbous, spherical torsos. Attached to them, numbering seven in total, were frail and variably jointed limbs ending in extended digits. Upon their shoulders sat a coiling, giraffe-long neck that flowered at its end into what could only be two recognizable things: a beautiful human face on one and an open, eager, gigantic vagina on the other. The two seemed ready to “kiss” in the snapshot of their appearance. “Their faces, child… oh how they can transform them! The Dorani became wholly infatuated with all six genders of the Ginips, which was quite unfortunate, given how few of them are left to breed their kind back into a sustainable populace…”

John gave Golgon as clear a look of confusion as he could manage.

“Right, well, pray you’ll meet one of them, one day. After that unlucky lot came the Pok, the fat, blue-skinned, and long-snouted, but so close to human as to operate the banks of the upper-disks.” Something akin to an anthropomorphic elephant came into view, with hoof-like feet and seven-fingered hands, curling noses, and large, pointed ears. Segmented, insectoid eyes further made a horror show of this race.

“And afterwards came the ‘various’ that warred like ancient tribes, squabbling over islands and being possessed of myriad forms.” A host of insectoid creatures wielding spears and shields appeared; rising up from the ground to ambush them came serpents with arms bearing stones stitched to tree branches. “So few of them integrated into Vantage by the time the sixth Gate of Vo opened… and it was why none of the ‘various’ are said to have survived to come here.”

The pillar turned back to the town of human-like buildings, and now the illusion swept down a street lined with stone pillars, burning flames, and strange, five-wheeled bicycles that occupied the roads as Dorani and Pok rode them. Ootuks swept through the air, screeching at each other as near-misses and other squabbling broke out high above the earthbound. The view continued to sweep down the road until it arrived at a wrought iron gate of bizarre, intricate knots and jutting angles. Beyond the gate waited a close replica of Stonehenge: a ring of plain rocks organized into gateways, each one massive enough to drive a garbage truck through its portal.

But unlike Stonehenge, these stones bore runes John had only seen on the bracelet Golgon wore; they did not translate to a language John understood. While the runes were aglow, the “doorway” they cast was open: beyond each such opened gate, save one, another world could be seen where lines of visitors slowly filed through. Waiting on the inside of this facility: lines of Dorani and others eager to visit the other places. Diverse in flesh and cloth, the fashion that dominated every species John noticed appeared to be flowing, ribboned ponchos that revealed naked bodies underneath as the wearer moved. Five such gates operated these queues… and a sixth, possessing only two of the three long boulders necessary, watched as robed sages chiseled into the third before it.

“We could not have known. We had found friends, cautious allies, and lovers through the six worlds we had known. The Dorani government, ruled by the Peaks, ordered a sixth gate be opened, keyed to the last world the sages had sensed through their farseeing disciplines. The Peak was said to be eager for a world with yet more experiences not yet seen, more resources to enrich his world… and instead, he found the **** of all six.”

The image shifted to the sixth Gate being completed during a well-populated procession. Throngs of thousands watched and cheered from behind secure ropes, and Lawmen, wielding plain quarterstaffs instead of hammers, kept the crowd under control. The Gate opened… and John watched as something impossible came through it. “That’s…”

“The Steel Ones,” Golgon affirmed.

The Gate’s portal had barely been open before it came through: a sphere of segmented plates spinning on an axis, and that axis held by two metal arms… and those arms leading to what John could only equate to motorcycle. The chassis was too bizarre, yet too crude to be considered futuristic: rough metal, excellently detailed in the model Golgon commanded, made a single-piece chassis and seat that sat suspended above the two orbs that served as tires. The orb flattened the poor sage who was operating the Gate, and so it remained open long enough for the culling to truly begin. The vehicle, and its rider, had ripped through the crowd by driving sideways through it like a scythe through wheat, maneuvering and moving with such speed as to liquidate the unarmored, fleshy bodies that barely began to flee before they were dead.

The memory, or recording, or horrific portrayal, suddenly paused, and John now caught a clear image of the rider: perhaps ten feet tall compared to the Lawmen John was familiar with, if this model was to scale, this giant was otherwise just a plain humanoid armored, from toes to scalp, in flowering plates of steel. Its head bore no visor; its hands, five-fingered, never left the grips of its bike.

“The first Steel One became ten and then became a thousand, and soon all our worlds were being invaded by teeming hordes of them. Tried as we did, the Gates of Vo were beyond our reach to close anew. Their bodies resisted our magic; our spells could not withstand their vessels. They threw spears of metal faster than sound itself, screamed cacophonous spells that made rain into fire and flattened the largest city of Vantage in two days.” The black ooze began to shift and change as a whole, absorbing the various montages it had been showcasing. “We are told, by the Peak, that the Humans came then: from a far-off world, they claimed to be the ancient ones the Dorani had studied. They wielded magic with runes we had never seen; the disciplines of the Dorani masters were like child’s play before the might of the Humans. They alleged to have given the known people life and that they would purge us of the Steel Ones.”

A dreadlocked man with a powerful chin and layers of leathers suddenly manifested from the ooze. His arms were bare and muscular; he held a gnarled root like a wand between one set of dainty fingers and a scroll of thick paper in his clenched fist. “Alois the Destroyer of ****.”

A woman formed from the black ooze. Without color, John could only guess at her heritage or features, save that she was thin, long-haired, and seemed kind. She stood in stark contrast to Alois in dress, however, for she wore nothing but half a veil that more caressed her petite breasts than hid them. “Bianca the Fruitful Sage.”

Finally, the third appeared… and John stared at a most androgynous, bald human of soft features and a body hidden by an overflowing cotton cloak. This person, with pursed lips and narrowed eyes, stood framed by the silhouette of some larger, more menacing beast. Golgon introduced the third, “Fraser the Hallowed.”

“But where did they come from? I mean, how did they come here?”

“It is said they arrived in a chariot of their making, one that traversed an infinite web of worlds like the few we had dared to tread upon… and they knew that this new enemy could not be allowed to spread to the other worlds as it had our own.”

“That sounds… like they did something dire.”

Golgon stared past the innocuous statue between them; something in his old eyes made them glossy, as if he were staring beyond John and to a specter unseen. “The Peak has its version of what came after… and some of us, some who dare to counter that tale… well, we have what we believe to be the truth.”

“Who believes the truth, then?”

The Ootuk’s voice cracked into a whisper. “Fewer, now.”

“… I’m guessing this whole ‘human worship’ or ‘human imitation’ thing is coming from the Peak’s version, huh?”

Golgon waved his hand, and the genderless savior melted back into a solid, black slab. “You may not understand it, but… the Dorani had always obsessed with form… and in so doing, had made emulations of their shapeless gods and given shape to a divine origin. That the Humans so closely matched it… and that the richest and most powerful Dorani, by some virtue of their high-class ****, produced bloodlines so near to the forms of Humans… the divides that had begun to form became sharpened. When at last the catastrophe had truly ended and what remained of Vantage was raised into the heavens… well, the Dorani held the Peak, and so the Dorani made the rules."

"Except now one of the humans is the Peak."

"No, John the Newman."

"Isn't it 'Bianca the Peak' right now?"

Golgon shrugged at that. "The Peaks are Dorani, one and all, but they eschew their given names, strike them from all the records, and make illegal the sin of naming them as they were. They take the name of one of the Humans--whichever they believe to be an ancestor--and become the Peak as an avatar of their divinity."

John's brow furrowed as it began to add up. "Are Humans really worshiped this much...?"

"The Human was declared the savior, the Human form sacred, and the Human features—so long as they came naturally—the signs of divine gifts upon the same four or five families of Dorani who have always ruled. Appearing human in any way was thus an application to rule and live on high; any imitator had to be destroyed, lest they tempt ruination to this world order.”

“That’s bullshit!”

“That is Vantage, child… for now. But worse still was the Dorani’s internal struggle. While they tolerate and move the non-Dorani about, based on talents, based on preference, those Dorani which were too far from divinity were segregated, cast out, and named for their flaws.”

“So Dorbins and Dorsins…?”

“It is said that a Dorani, distressed or cross-breeding with another species, will tempt the production of something varied, something strange… a Dorbin, ‘a lesser of Dorani.’ Further deviance, then, will give birth to even greater variance… variance that makes it impossible to serve in the Lawmen uniform, to please the aesthetic of a Dorani, and so on. Those Dorsin, ‘the mistake of Dorani,’ are cast down to the Plate in the hopes that they will perish.”

Hurk slowed his counting for a moment… but just for a moment.

John narrowed his eyes. “But they’re just Dorani of a different shape or kind… do Dorani have any real strengths over the rest?”

“Prestige… and that’s about it,” Cidi suddenly replied. John turned to regard her as she sat down on Golgon’s side of the presentation. Her wig restored, she remained dressed in some kind of oversized, fluffy-looking white pajamas that did well to hide her body. Even still, John’s searching eyes caused her to blush anew. Most of her mouth remained sealed as the center of her lips spoke. “We cast out anyone who drifts too far: arms too big, hair in the wrong places, extra limbs, anyone too short or too tall…”

“Cidi, won’t you be kind to your protector?” Hurk turned to emphasize his request with a half-grin, half-pout. “You are like a daughter to me… but such a vicious daughter, to mock my form-!”

“Oh shut it, Hurk!” Cidi’s legs and arms crossed as she did her best to disregard the pouting Dorsin.

“We all have our place on the scale,” Golgon continued, “but the Dorani must cull the topmost to the most talented, the most beautiful, the most divine members… and so descending from there, based on merit, based on connections, until one arrives to the home of last resort: the Plate.”

“Alright, back up: what about the catastrophe? The Violet?”

“I will tell you what is fact and not waste your time on what various persons believe: the fact is that the Steel Ones invaded all of our homes, and the Humans arrived to meet them. We filled the mountains, the divine necks of the sky for so many of our old religions, only to flee them as Steel Ones continued their destructive flattening of the world. The expanded Vantage, the unification of our worlds, became disconnected as the Steel Ones controlled the Gates of Vo; we know not what happened to those worlds during the invasion. But after whatever transpired, after weeks of preparation and war, we arrived to a final plan, a final solution: to usher the last survivors of Vantage into the mountain below the Peak and to let the Humans do… whatever they did.

“To the credit of the Humans, it seems they did destroy the Steel Ones… and somehow, from that victory, came the price.”

“The Violet,” Cidi whispered.

“The Violet. A poison that cannot be cured, a disease of madness, a hungry mist that consumes all. The Violet is a fog, dense and heavy, that covers all the world… and were it not for the floatstone, the Peak, and whatever convinced those last survivors to cower into the final mountain, that may have been the end. But under their final Peak, to defend themselves upon the final battlefield, the last of Vantage rose above the sacred, solid ground… just as the rest of the world perished in agony.”

Silence dominated the chamber for ten beats. John swallowed a lump in his throat. “So… the reason Vantage is floating is…”

“The ground, and much of the air above it, is ****. That deadly air even drifts to the bottom of the Plate and poisons our soils, though this is something of an industry for us… and though the Peak’s refineries work tirelessly to consume Violet as something useful, something edible, or something powerful—bok, distilled purple, and potent runic inks, my boy, as examples—there is never an end to it. No matter how much is consumed, more rises to kiss the Plate; no matter where we are or where we go with the world’s turning, all that remains is that pale, purple mist that dissolved the mountains, poisoned the oceans … and evaporated the six other worlds.”

“… What?”

Golgon nodded sadly. “The worlds once united by the Gates of Vo are no longer on the web of worlds the Humans spoke of. We are adrift, alone and out of touch. Aside from grief for the **** of one’s homeland, it matters not: no Peak or Runemaster would dare try and find another Gate of Vo to open, not after the Violet calamity. If the Violet leaked into the worlds through the Gates of Vo, then… those worlds were always doomed. All that remains of our world is the raw material the Peak has used in the past to expand the Plate and disks, harvested with soulless machines of Ootuk make that can survive the acidity of the Violet. As for what else may be down on the old world… no one can know.”

“But… how? How did the Violet get made? What did the Humans do?”

“Save us, if you believe the Peak… doom us, if you believe what the executed criminals of the past have declared. But the ‘how’ we… we have never comprehended.” The goblin scratched his cheek hard enough to leave blue marks. “Only that the Human presence ultimately brought it.”

John suddenly realized the reason for the tension in Golgon’s voice… “I… I’m human, but I don’t want to do anything like that. I don’t think I could.”

“I doubt the Humans confessed what their final solution would produce to the Peak back then, either.” Golgon offered a soft smile. “But it matters not: the Humans, I thought, had been metaphors for Dorani who had gone too far. Perhaps these Humans, like you, were real; perhaps they were objects of propaganda, and you a product of some confusion.”

“It’d be weird for them to nail ‘humans’ as the name, though…”

“Indeed. You told us of your strange ‘translations’ and why your mouth moves that way… but ‘Human’ remains the same word for us both.”

John let the stale air quiet as he processed what he had learned. “That’s… well. So this ‘Plate’ and this ‘Peak’ were part of some mountain…?”

“As were large swaths of the land used to make the disks, yes, though now there is much more land dredged up from below.”

“So if one jumped off a disk, they’d land on the one below-“

“A crime punishable by making such descent permanent, save when they were pushed,” Golgon dejectedly mused.

“… So if you have someone who can jump up-“

“No one can ascend that way without running into the barriers erected by the Peak… at least,” Golgon added with a coy smile, “until now.”

John exchanged the hopeful glances of those around him. “I… see. Well, what about the ascension bridges? I mean, they looked like they connected to the disk above, and the name implies-“

“They are closed until permitted by the disk above… you needn’t consider that an option.”

“What if I could… convince someone?”

Hurk chuckled at that as he sat back in the circle, “Ha ha, well, just convince them you’ve acquired a most notable ascension for good deeds, hope they don’t notice you’re a Human, and just take a stroll right up!”

“There are difficulties,” Golgon summarized, “though we have such a plan… one we hope we won’t need.”

John nodded. “I think I’ve got the basics... so you’re not allowed to go up without permission, and we’re going to try and circumvent that one way or another… to kill the Peak?”

“And to destroy the Commandments,” Hurk eagerly added.

“Commandments… wait, so you guys don’t know about Kings or Kingdoms, but you do know about Commandments?” John swapped back to the barrier-scanning mode of the Eye of the King.

Kingdom of Vantage, the Fallen Crossroads.
King: Bianca the Peak
Sovereignty: You have no sovereignty in this realm.
Commandments: Loyalty of the Lawmen, Population Control, Segregation of Disks
A broken Kingdom, the remnants of which float in a segregated prison of classism and religion.

“So what… oh…” Whereas the interface had been so dubious and dodgy before, the Commandments were now links, each seemingly leading to a tooltip. The Bitter Nines watched curiously as John tapped the air in a bizarre manner. “Just give me a minute here…”

Loyalty of the Lawmen: all who take a pledge to serve the King are warded against corruption by way of avarice, lust, or other base desires; such desires become muted and replaced with a fervent loyalty to the King and the duty of the office so long as the Lawman is wearing his armor.

Population Control: no new life can be conceived on any disk that has met its population limit. The Peak is exempted from this rule, and the Plate simply does not allow for conception of new life. Population limits are dynamically set by the King per layer. The Peak and Plate have no population limits.

Segregation of Disks: the Peak, disks, and Plate of Vantage are segregated into quasi-illusion barriers connected by limited bridges between them. Nothing can enter from outside, or from a lower level, except through a bridge or express will of the King.

John slowly read through the information with grim, tight-pressed lips.

<Sad you can’t make pregnant some poor sow while you’re here?> taunted Juniluny.

No… it’s just… there’s no hope down here. This is just another fucking weird tyrant, dominating the world to some end and… and I’m sick of them.

Hurk leaned over to Golgon and whispered, “Perhaps he is very… tired?”

“No, I’m…” Everyone here is a prisoner. They’re forbidden from procreating. They’re killed for minor offenses. Meanwhile, some bullshit religious government overhead rules everything while these people are poisoned, butchered, and- “I’m just glad I’m on your side.” John closed the information windows and switched his Eye back and looked around. “Golgon... I want to help you, and in exchange I want you to help me and my people.”

“Your… people?”

John nodded. “We need safer shelter than where we are now… and this place is huge enough where they’d probably fit well. Some of them are pretty strong, too… but I want your permission and to ask for your aid in keeping them here.”

Cidi and Hurk both looked flabbergasted at the bluntness of the request… but Golgon only shrugged. “If you help us, truly, then your people are our people. It was the way of Vantage… once.”

John nodded before standing and putting his hand out before Golgon. Despite not knowing their gestures, John was close enough: Golgon grinned as his old body stood upright on his chair to clasp John’s forearm. Surprised, John returned the gesture and sealed the promise. “Alright… please don’t freak out, then.”

Golgon chuckled merrily. “Come child, why would we-“

A massive tunnel suddenly yawned into existence… and dozens of the legendary, barely-believed-in Humans were suddenly staring into the Bitter Nines’ inner-sanctum.

Hurk made a **** noise. Cidi’s whole mouth opened to hang. Kitok leapt over the kitchen counter to hide behind it. Golgon didn’t finish his sentence.