The Ith (quintus) (Patreon)

So doctor says my cough is probably just a side effect of covid.  Had to go to urgent care for it...  Ahh, American healthcare...  but some folks asked about the Ith.

In my world there is the Maelstrom, a massive seething realm of infinite possibility.  Within it form spheres of stability, and within one of these spheres the world of Quintus formed.  It went through a fairly normal development phase, the sphere expanding and forming stars, galaxies, and planets.  And on one such world, something interesting happened.  The world in question wasn't that different from our own.  The continents had mashed together into a hot, volcanic, swampy mass covered with thick rainforests, swamps, and peat bogs.  Hot, steamy rain was a regular occurrence along the equator where it mixed with the rich minerals of hot springs and geysers.

And if one travelled to the heart of this super continent, one would also notice the slime.  Grayish, with streaks of black, it formed thick mats between the trees.  If one was patient, one might see a rotten fruit or dead animal fall upon it, watch the slime slowly crawl up over it, and then watch the slimy lump pulled along.  If something tried to eat it, it would swell up in the esophagus.  And if one waited long enough, they'd see a lump form in the middle of the slimy mass.  A thick tendril would form a stalk, and that stalk would then form legs, arms, and a head.  It would then look out at the world with dark eye spots and start wandering.  If it found another of its kind, it would mash itself against them, swapping genes haphazardly, and then pull away, find somewhere with tall trees or other resources, and expel a fresh patch of slime.  It might repeat this process a dozen times before its resources were expended and it starved to death.

These creatures were the Ith.  In the mobile stage, it would pull together neural matter into a brain, form a body, and go forth.  Some formed radial designs, with three or six legs and eyes.  These tended not to travel as far nor exchange new DNA.  Others formed symmetrical designs, and these tended to travel further and find new environments to propagate.  As symmetry prevailed, so too did the organization of brains.  Ith would leave a bit of their brains in their offspring, thus instilling the knowledge of previous generations.  Then they evolved a sack in which edible organics could be sequestered as they travelled.  A more dedicated pouch held the slime for deposit, growing more as it travelled.  A patch was dedicated to swapping gametes more efficiently.  

After a few million years, what was originally just a lump of slime now had regular internal organs. They were still shiny and gray, but could have two, four, six, or twelve limbs.  One to twelve eyes.  A mouth in the face, a mouth in the chest, or a mouth on the palm.  Hooves, claws, or hands.  Ith also became more violent, fighting each other for the most fecund organic territory to spawn from.  Then one Ith did something new; it formed a hard calcium plate, and extruded it from its mass.  Attaching it to a stick, it was more effective than the claws or hooves.  It was a lever.  It could be thrown!  The Ith learned how to expel an epidermis, turn it into a sack to carry more things with it.  Or to use its hands to build a wall to keep more aggressive fungivores at bay.  Each generation was born with knowledge of the earlier ones.

Soon the Ith were using bone axes to cut plants into fermentation heaps.  Leather sheets to protect them from the sun.  Ith became more selective in the gametes swapped, organizing into family groups, isolated pools of slime, knowledge, and traits.  Over time, the Ith became more efficient.  Two dexterous, responsive legs were better than six energy hungry legs.  Two dexterous, nerve rich hands with good feedback was better than four clawed lumps.  Two highly sensitive eyes better than twelve eye spots.  A head with sensors close to the brain was more responsive than yard long nerves conveying critical data.  A mouth close to the brain in the head more likely to detect toxic matter before it could be ingested, and a nose for breathing above it to take in scent data.  A second orifice to expel indigestible organics.  More sensitive nerves in reproductive areas to remind and encourage reproduction.

By the beginning of their history, the Ith were gray skinned hermaphroditic humanoids, possessing ear holes and flat faces.  Their villages were covered slime pits fed with organic waste.  Eventually, they learned that a fire next to the pits would burn off methane before it reached toxic or explosive levels.  Fire lead to cooking organics to increase their energy.  Fires next to rocks bled out copper and lead.  Soon the Ith were using these metals to augment their bone weaponry.  Ith soon found themselves with free time to ponder the universe.

And soon, an Ith discovered magic.  The barrier between the Maelstrom and their planet was thinner than usual, allowing the Ith to pull a little possibility to them.  The first Ith 'mage' nearly starved to death trying to conjure a meal, but fortunately survived.  The Ith soon discovered that magic could allow them to turn calories into specific things.  Instead of weaving epidermal fibers into cloth, they could simply create the cloth from a concept in their memory.  The process was crude at first, used to supplement needs when normal foraging or hunting failed.  The Ith learned transforming existing matter was far easier than conjuring raw matter, and so villages focused on producing goods and tasking a mage to finish them into more refined products.

It worked, and it was good.  Soon villages specialized and had surpluses that lead to trade.   Trade lead to rules and rules lead to laws.  The smartest, most experienced Ith were tasked to come up with the best rules.  And productivity lead to idleness.  Boredom lead to experimentation.  The Ith began to ingest exotic substances to alter brain states, including alcohol and various semi-toxic fruits and fungi.  The hallucinations made them more receptive to beings that lived in the Maelstrom.  Beings that wanted to cross the barrier.  To enter our world and become more real and stable.

Geography kept the Ith unified.  The super continent contained the Ith in a geographical region, slowing expansion.  The ruling council generally prioritized survival and unity.  They tamped down on the Outsiders meddling.  Some Ith meddled and dabbled in summoning them, creating bodies for these entities to puppet.  And these beings introduced ideas, good, bad, and strange.  Art began to appear, and art conveyed ideas and concepts.  And part of that art was in the Ith themselves.

Before, where Ith were uniformly gray, patterns of color appeared.  Then ear ridges, points, and fringes.  Spikes.  Feathers.  Hair.  Ith began to develop things that were not simply functional, but decorative and expressive.  Traditionalists shunned these 'wasteful' practices, but the 'new' Ith saw these self expressive traits as a positive thing.  The traditionalists were slowly pushed from power over centuries, replaced by 'innovation'.  And one innovation was the idea of having other people to do the work for you.

The Ith used magic more and more readily, crafting more elaborate homes and palaces; more elaborate clothes and self expression.  And an Ith then used magic to take a rather clever mammal and uplift it into a servant.  The poor creature was the first of a long string of beings created for service to the Ith.  As Ith refined their creative magic, it became easier and easier for them to create whatever they desired.  However, they ran into a problem.  Mass creating tended to result in servants who were confused, disjointed, or needed frequent reinstruction.  To improve efficency, the Ith created a magical template that would be unique to that mortal life.  A metaphysical ID card to help keep their creations individualized.  Thus did the Ith create souls.

The Ith creations became more and more numerous.  Elves were created to be lieutenants and concubines of the Ith.  Humans were made to be crude laborers.  Dwarves would engineer projects the Ith didn't want to invest magic in.  Others were created as curiosities or distractions, and each one had a soul.  When the being died, the magic of the souls persisted, and had no where to go.  Though the power of a single soul was pathetic, the souls of billions would grow to become substantial.

Oblivious to this, the Ith reached the heights of their decadence.  Some abandoned the humanoid form all together, becoming trees and stones, and separating from society.  Others took the forms of their creations to spy upon them or breed with them.  Others sought truly monstrous abberative forms, merging with their gene pools to become sprawling monstrosities requiring the sacrifice of thousands.  But other Ith created creatures solely with the purpose of killing them.  These creatures were made, armed, and thrown in mass combat with each other.  The blood sport escalated more and more.  Soon giants were created and thrown again tens of thousands of other creations.

Then, some Ith dreamed up dragons.  And not just dragons of fire and lightning, but dragons with the power to unmake creations.  They were the ultimate expression of the Ith's self destructive spiral.  Millions died in pointless battle with these creatures, and even Ith were unmade when they slipped free of the battlefield.  The smartest dragons, however, changed their shape and disappeared into the populace.  Rumors spread that the Ith were creating something even WORSE than dragons...

And their creations had had enough.  Humans stopped working.  Dwarves stopped building.  Even some elves very politely wondered if maybe the Ith could cut it out?  The Ith leadership was deaf to these as the rebellions spread, aided by a few shapeshifted dragons in the midst.  The Ith responded by creating legions of monsters to cull the 'disobedient' servants.  Yet mortals responded with divine magic.  Magic that could heal injuries and even bring slain leaders back to life.  With divine magic, the rebellion relentlessly crawled towards the capital.

The Ith concluded that this was simply a problem of power.  With sufficient power, they could just create loyal servants to replace all these disloyal ones, and finish the abomination they were crafting for their entertainment.  But the solution was simple.  Create a hole in the barrier separating the Maelstrom from the finite world and they would have all the power needed!  And so they did... and it worked.

And in one instant, infinite touched finite.

It's rumored that a dragon was at the breach when it was created, and that in that critical instant, they unmade the hole piercing the world.  Or perhaps the creation was flawed and collapsed.  Or perhaps the Ith realized in a moment of clarity the insanity of their act.  None know, because the blast of energy shattered the world.  The super continent was broken into five land masses, shoved apart from each other that ripped huge new mountain ranges and flooded valleys.  The majority of Ith were vaporized in that instant.  Their many works annihilated.

Many... but not all...

In the aftermath, it was only due to copious use of divine magic that people survived at all.  Hundreds of Ith created species went extinct, though many monsters held on tenaciously.  The most senior elven leader, the Primus, was told by dying, broken Ith leaders not to allow this type of summoning magic ever again.  The Dwarves threw themselves into the challenge of survival with gusto.  The humans simply endured wherever they could.  And the hobs, a race created to battle, thought it was all good fun.

Some Ith survived, in far forests or in caves, or even amid their creations.  Most would meet their end at a Dragon assassin.  And so the Ith slipped into myth, into legend, into forgotteness.