Kapaku Faction Quest

Ash buries all, in time. But still we mark the pages and pass down the stories before the all-consuming fire comes.

Auriga frightens. Vast sparkling blue oceans, crisp green plains, snowy wildernesses–a sickening panorama, not unlike the hellscape the machines made of our world.

Twelve-and-five fire-births we have witnessed, cowering and huddling in the shadows of the Endless’ great vessel that carried us to this world. Why they saved us I know not. Time untold we slumbered in their cold crypts, held in dreamless sleeps by strange machines beyond our understanding. Too long, I fear.

Upon our arrival, we discovered several intelligent life forms on the planet. It seems Auriga is not the clean slate the Concrete made it out to be… Overseer Elohys claims to be as shocked as we are, for what that’s worth. For all it’s done for the Kapaku, the thing unsettles me: ancient living brain entombed in a walking coffin, at once magnificent and macabre. I often spy it in kindled conference with Custodian Tua, but she never shares of what they speak. More qualms… Her name would be last on my lips as one to succumb to fanaticism: her mind a grindstone, pragmatic and tenacious. But I confess, the burning reverence for the Endless that has sparked among my kind disturbs me.

Yes, they saved us. But as we Kapaku say: only the flame gives its warmth freely. For now, I must put these doubts aside. The time has come to strike out from our saviour’s cradle.

We will make Auriga our home, even if others already claim it! Descending in the Endless’ great vessel, we spied nomadic trails, scattered hamlets, even bustling metropolises. We will start with the villages in whose midst we find ourselves…

The night terrors assail me every eve.

Half-truth, half-fantasy, they are born from my memories of the last days on our old world. Wave upon wave of killer machines moving ever closer to our last remaining settlements, crushing our Golem defenders whose numbers dwindle every day. Beyond them I see that our beautiful world is already gone–sturdy grasses covering what was once lava plains, volcanoes smouldering into dormancy, the air disgustingly clear. And then our Endless saviours arrive, smashing the machine menace, but when Overseer Elohys reaches me he offers not a hand, but a fist.

I always wake at that moment, stone cold.

Auriga is not only settled with crude Otherskins. Our scouts have unearthed more ancient mechanisms–intricate, complex devices that couldn’t have been fashioned by any of the races we have come across. Even our best tinkers are bewildered by the intricacy of the craftsmanship. There can be only one conclusion: a great civilization once occupied this world. I watched Custodian Tua carefully as the truth was announced at the Magma Council meeting… She knows more than she lets on.

Overseer Elohys claims ignorance and plays down the implications. “The galaxy is ancient,” it says. “Who knows what races spread across the stars in past eras? Today they are gone, and only primitive tribes remain. Auriga is still yours to make in your own image. You have our blessing.”

A solemnity has fallen over the Kapaku. There are stirrings of a schism. Some whisper that we must learn more of these Otherskins before we act further, while others murmur that we must strike while we still have the advantage of surprise.

There is but one thing agreed by all: We must be prepared. Now is not the time for ideological disputes.

We are united in our survival, but the faultlines in our society grow. After leading a geological expedition, Overseer Elohys returned only to be ambushed by an angry crowd. They jostled the Endless, accusing it of deceiving the Kapaku and demanding it admit the truth of why its people sent us to Auriga. I know not what truth they imagined, but their accusations found sympathy among many passer-bys. Open riot seemed imminent until cooler heads prevailed.

Privately, my mind worries too over these ideas… Are we being turned into tools, here to destroy an ancient enemy of the Endless? Are we part of a cruel entertainment or experiment? Or are we, as Elohys maintains, simply unlucky to find Auriga inhabited?

Custodian Tua stands by the latter. Even more than the High Priest of the Temple of the Saviours, she is the one who has become the figurehead of the Endless’ defenders. “The Endless saved us from the machines!” she rails. “Do we so easily forget? Overseer Elohys has forsaken its people, its home, its very physical form, so that we might benefit from its wisdom and survive this harsh world! Remember, we Kapaku are certainly fallible.”

She still burns from the Magma Council’s refusal to address the machine incursion early enough. To our great shame–to my great shame–most of us thought them innocent visitors. And who paid the greatest price for that willful igorance? The Haku Clan. Tua’s clan.

So, we find ourselves split at either side of a fissure that runs deeper every day.

The Doubters and the Defenders.

I don’t know who to believe. All I know is that there is no going back from Auriga. In spite of its harsh wildernesses, hostile races, and strange climes, it is now our home.

With our forces strong, the time has come to thoroughly survey this land.

The Kapaku stand at a great crossroads.

The history of this world remains shrouded in smoke, but it cannot be disputed that Auriga seethes with intelligent life. Myriad races occupy the planet. From windswept deserts to snow-covered peaks, from shadowy forests to deep caverns, even in the clear, terrifying seas: The Kapaku have found creatures that are much more than simple beasts. Understanding is difficult, but we cannot deny the truth. They are civilized. They are like us.

Except for one vital difference. More like a gulf, in truth.

Where we suffer and struggle in Auriga’s hellish landscapes, they flourish.

And that’s the great dilemma that threatens to tear us apart. Do we attempt to claim the entire world, as we originally intended, and consign them to death? Or do we try to fashion some equilibrium with these races so all may survive? The Doubters say turning Auriga into a world of rock and lava would make us no better than the machines, while the Defenders chide that we have no time for sentimentality. In their eyes, to think we can share this world is the deadliest naiveté. Overseer Elohys and Custodian Tua share the latter opinion, of course.

They are not always in harmony, however. Yesterday, I spied them in furious argument, the Endless a trembling volcano of suppressed rage, while Tua spat gobs of incandescent fire. Elohys stonewalled me when I later asked the nature of their feud, while Tua answered with barefaced lies. She told me that their quarrel concerned only tactics, and in the larger strategy of conquering Auriga they were united.

I don’t know which path we should take. All I know is that there are secrets to uncover. The Endless have a past here, I am certain of it.

What is this world that the Endless have delivered us to?

We had expected seasons–even on a world of rock and lava we measured our lives against the shifting weather. Ash blizzards through the depths of winter, lava storms at the height of summer. We marked events and celebrations by these shifts, not least among them the annual meeting of the Magma Council when summer’s meteors burn on the night sky.

Auriga though? Auriga’s seasons are deranged. Yes, there are summers and winters here, but they are chaotic: Their arrival and length no more predictable than Overseer Elohys’ moods. The long nights of twilight unsettle us too, when the world becomes cloaked in darkness and the Dust sparkles and shimmers. We know it is bound to the movement of the planet’s moons, and we can even anticipate its arrival for the Endless have taught us this much, but its mechanism is frustratingly opaque.

But I’m merely dancing around the worst issue: Auriga’s winters are growing longer.

Every season the winters grow worse, the winds more biting, the snows deeper. Each time the thaws come later and later. A growing fear spread like a disease among the Kapaku: We fear one day Auriga will become nothing more than an icy crypt for all its denizens, all our misadventures frozen for time immemorial in its snowy winters.

Did the Endless send us to a doomed world? And if so, for what reason?

I dare not ask Overseer Elohys bluntly, for fear of arousing its rage. But the question remains a burning coal in my mind during the long nights. Perhaps Auriga is experiencing some growing cataclysm, it suggests. All the more reason to fight harder.

Elohys’ patience with us wears thinner by the day. It spends more and more time secluded with Custodian Tua, plotting. I will send my champion into the political fray, and pray she can use all of her wits to uncover the truth.

Some sights you can never forget. They sear into your mind, and you will carry them with you till your flame burns out.

We reached the entrance tunnel to the underground site as night fell. Haukea emerged from the shadows, eyes scanning the horizon behind us. It must’ve only been a matter of moons since I’d last seen her, but in her eyes I could see someone who’d aged half-a-lifetime.

“Thank the Fires,” she managed. “You must be exhausted–and famished. Rest tonight and we can–“

“We go now.”

She nodded, then snapped her fingers to call her mount.

We descended in silence, into the earth. The air grew hotter and murkier–enough so that I could remove my breathing mask–but it was a small comfort against my trepidation. The passage sides gradually smoothed from natural formations to artificial walls, and I gasped when I first spied the familiar symbols of the Endless, their carvings half-eroded by time. Strange dead shells littered the ground, like the sloughed exoskeletons of giant insects. We passed a couple of crumpled suits, the fabric frayed, alien bones poking through the rips.

Then we entered the facility proper. I still shudder at the recollection. Preservation stacks filled with corpses, each displaying different variations of fatal burns. Cylindrical fluid chambers where blind, crab-like tentacled menaces still twitched in time with our footfalls. Flickering screens documenting the terrifying evolution of a fungal phage on different host species. Every chamber greeted us with fresh horrors.

“What is this place?” I stuttered.

“We believe it’s an Endless military lab. They must’ve been researching every conceivable means of mass killing.”

I was left speechless. The horror was too much to take in.

“We have uncovered another two facilities since I sent for you. Even more in the weeks prior. All deserted.”

Everything suddenly fell into place. Auriga, the whole planet, must’ve been an Endless research station. A secret world of horrors until some calamity had befallen it, forcing the Endless to abandon it. Evidently, the world had healed in the time since, and the survivors had emerged from their hideaways to reclaim the surface.

And in the Kapaku, the Endless had found a race capable of erasing their great shame–completely. We were their hapless cleaners, and our survival mattered not a jot.

Custodian Tua was brought before the Magma Council this morning, heavy chains rattling on the stone floor. To my surprise, she had known of the Endless’ history with Auriga before we even set eyes on the world.

“Before I went into cryosleep,” she said, “Overseer Elohys told me that if the Kapaku were to survive on Auriga, I had to do everything in my power to help it destroy certain sites with the volcanoforming machines. It threatened to kill us all if I ever spoke of this plan. I think it chose me because my clan came so close to annihilation; it knew I wouldn’t hesitate. Everything I did, I did for the Kapaku.”

While the Council remained in stunned silence, the news of the Endless’ deeds spread through the city like wildfire. If Overseer Elohys is true to its word, this knowledge will doom us. Or perhaps it was lying to Custodian Tua, empty threats to keep its pawn in check. In either case, the revelation of the Endless’ deception has united the Kapaku.

The Temple of Our Saviours has been ransacked, set to torch. None would defend the Endless now. The Kapaku are nobody’s tool, nor will we be the executioners of the Otherskins from Auriga.

No doubt many of thsoe races evolved from the Endless’ twisted experiments. This world is their birthright, bought and paid for with the same suffering and loss that we have endured on our own world.

If we are to have a future we will have to find a common path–and hope to weather out winter together.

First though, a more pressing matter burns. A thorough examination of Overseer Elohys’ quarters has revealed the Endless’ true plan: To see Auriga cleansed in a single wave of lava, using our volcanoformation machines to precipitate volcanic eruptions from pole to pole. The Endless’ reprehensible past will be lost, along with all life on this planet. Even we Kapaku won’t survive it.

The memory of the Endless’ deceit is still a raw and painful one in our collective psyche. The wounds will be a long time healing. We trusted the Endless, thought them our saviours, but they saw us as nothing more than an instrument of erasure.

Why did Overseer Elohys take such personal interest in the scouring of Auriga? That remains a matter of broad speculation. Custodian Tua wasn’t wrong when she said the Endless had made great sacrifices to join us here. Some think it might’ve been one of the Endless who oversaw Auriga during its days as a world of horrors. Others that it was the scientist personally responsible for birthing the terrifying Necrophages. Others still, think perhaps it was just an ordinary Endless… A citizen riven with patriotic fervour, who couldn’t abide any tarnishing of the Endless’ reputation on the galactic stage.

We may never know.

The winters are growing longer and harsher. We wll claim enough of Auriga to give ourselves a chance of survival, but I am not convinced this great freeze can be arrested. Every moon we hear whispers of the Otherskins’ plans for survival–escape, slumber, descent–and their ideas fuel our own geomancer’s imaginations.

So we hope, and we keep the fires kindled.

Whatever happens, we can ensure Auriga’s past is not lost. We will never destroy–or subvert–history. Not our own, nor anyone else’s.

Expeditions to the Endless’ labs are being mounted, and the grim spectacles locked therein studied, deconstructed, and chronicled. We are tinkerers, after all. This is our great strength. We will build a great monument-archive for Auriga’s story to last through the ages.