Chapter 3: C3 Taan

The door opens, and an eldritch monstrosity straight from someones nightmares is there, claws, teeth, and eyes, so many eyes. The skin doesnt even seem like skin, just an inky darkness that swallows the light around it, its purple glowing eyes the only source of light. It unleashes a guttural roar and charges towards me. Not wanting to take chances, I shoot the antimatter rifle at it, and when it hits, the abomination fucking SWALLOWS  it. It grew, and grew, and grew, to insane proportions. That, was clearly a bad decision. I swap to my staff and fire my most explosive spell at it, only for the same thing to happen. What the fuck man? At this point its right up in my face, So I take my plasma sword and swipe at it, and while it slashes through the lusus naturae (thats fancy speak for freak of nature) separating it, it quickly reforms. Nothing I have works, no weapons work. I have no idea what to do, and I spend several moments dodging while panicking, trying to figure out what to do. Korr takes damage, and each time he does, I get a little bit smaller. I notice this, and it suddenly occurs to me, that what its doing is the same thing I did earlier, its absorbing the mana of the spells. So, the battle comes down to who can be the bigger glutton. However, with me being unfamiliar with this monsters anatomy, it makes it harder for me to imagine its mana circulation. I eventually manage to do it, and when it notices I was draining its mana, it too began to consume my mana, and thus began the war of attrition and gluttony. 

My crystals kept getting smaller and getting bigger, it was an incredibly painful process, just imagine your muscles doing the same thing, but its also your skeleton and organs too. My entire body getting more and more defiled, debased and degraded as its tendrils of gluttony kept sapping my strength, and my crystalline tentacles draining strength back. However, it was not all bad, I gained the ability to better manipulate and fine tune this ability, finally being able to say I mastered it. As such, I was gradually winning, but I could feel its tainted mana beginning to corrupt me from the inside. I was originally planning on asking Nyx to help me absorb its mana, but since its tainted, I'd rather her not get involved. So, naturally, the only thing I could do, was strengthen the speed I was consuming the creature. Outside of Korr, the mana is surging, causing a mana storm, causing feedback issues with both me and the creature. The blue particles from me and the purple mana particles from the monster reacting, causing mini explosions all over the place, damaging me and it. We need to  hurry this battle up, I increase the strength even more, and this time, Its not a tie, I'm clearly draining more from it than its draining from me. It gets smaller and smaller, until its the size of my hand, although my hand is rather big now after all that eating. I'm now at 13 feet (4 meters)

I consume the rest of it, my body wracked in pain from devouring tainted mana. The room, which was once completely dark apart from our little arena, is now completely lit. Inside, I see a ship. I walk up to it, and I place my hand on it. I feel myself get smaller as it consumes vast amounts of crystals, placing me back at 11 feet, which is what I was before the battle. I hear a mature, sultry voice coming from the ship.

"Are you the one who awakened me?"

"I am, are you Taan?"

"I am, I see you brought Korr, how is my lovely little brother?"

Korr answers

"I'm doing great now that I got to see you! Its been what, several dozen millenia since we've last seen each other!"

I speak to Taan

"Hey Taan, I know we just met, but is there anything you can do about this tainted mana I took in?"

"Ah, yeah, my bad little one, give it to me, I'll refine it for you."

"Thank you kindly"

I feel like a great pressure has been taken off of me as Taan refines the mana within me, making me stronger by removing the impurities. 

"Thanks a lot Taan, I see you and Korr are related somehow, could you explain that connection to me?"

"Sure, no problem Little Brother. So, have you ever seen anything like Korr before?"

"No"

"Precisely, Korr is the first of his kind, he is the primordial mecha, now, as for me, I am the primordial star ship"

"Wait...so youre the first star ship?"

"Yup!"

"didnt the Star Crystals make you?"

"Yup, whats the problem?"

"So, Im part of a race that  literally invented the first space ship, this is crazy, even the first mech. Just how old are my people?"

"Your people, the first Star Crystal, was ripped from the Void, and born within the Great Star Forge, built by the first species to gain sapience, the Precursors. They who seeded life throughout the lonely universe. Your people came from the first Star Crystal, who sacrificed himself so that he wouldn't be the only one of his kind, by removing parts of his body and giving them the gift of sapience, and from there, your race proliferated, usurping the Precursors who used your kind as slaves, and ruled the galaxy for untold aeons, until their great exodus."

"Where did they go?"

"They used the Great Star Forge to return to their home, the Void, where there is no solid, liquid, or gas, only mana. Your kind are mana solidified and given sapience. You, are intelligent mana, how does it feel?" 

"Good question. I have no idea, I just exist, so uh, yeah. Anyway, I need to bring you to the surface so me and my friends can live in you, are you ok with that?"

"No problems at all, you are now my owner after all."

"Maybe so, but I dont like to think like that, you and Korr have intelligence, so I wont treat you like an object."

"Well, you wouldnt be the first, I think you might be the...second person to do so."

"Only the second? How many owners did you have?"

"22. I've been alive longer than entire star systems, but i've only had 22 owners, and all of them were the emperor of the Star Crystals. Considering my position among star ships, only the elite could pilot me."

"And which one treated you...humanely?"

"The last one. Even when his entire race went on their exodus, he stayed behind, with me. However, over time, the mana of this world corrupted him, and he became the thing that you consumed."

"Wait, I ate....one of my own kind?"

"Yes, but dont worry, thats common among Star Crystals, those who are old and have lived too long and wish for the embrace of the Void have their children consume them, so that they may give them strength and live on through them, while attaining the peace they desired"

"Thats both disturbing and...wholesome."

"Indeed. So, your friends? Hop out of Korr, he knows where to go, you can come on in, let me lower the ramp for you."

Korr kneels down, and his head opens again, letting me and Nyx exit. As I help Nyx get up and out of Korr, a ramp is lowered underneath Taan. Korr walks to the side, and a giant hatch opens, with enough room for him and maybe two others of his kind. Me and Nyx walk up the ramp and enter Taan, and what we see is amazing, everything is black, purple, red, and gold, like royalty. The metal is black with gold accents, and the lights are purple, with the red being strange vein like structures. The ship seems enormous, maybe a frigate type. I walk to the bridge with Nyx following, and I sit down.

 I ask Taan a question.

"How does it feel to have people walking inside of you?"

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"It feels just right, like an itch being scratched."

"Really? Interesting."

I sit down in the pilots chair, grab the controls, and realize something pretty important.

"Hey Taan, how do I fly?"

She and Nyx burst into laughter as my excitement from piloting a space ship plummets to the ground.

"Ok, basically, you know the bubble in Korr right? Let me put one up, and it'll take you through a flight simulator so you can grasp the controls"

"Alright, thanks."

"No problem little one."

Two hours later

"I DID IT!!! WOOOOOO!"

"congratulations, you managed to grasp the bare basics of flight, combat, and warping."

"Good job brother, only took you two hours to do so."

Nyx replies in a deadpan tone, but Taan corrects her.

"You mean ONLY two hours, for most people back in the day it took weeks or even months."

Nyx looks away, refusing to correct herself. I decide to ask a pretty risque question

"So Taan, would you classify yourself as a cool onee-san, or a mature okaa-san?"

I feel all the weapons priming and aiming at the ceiling to cause a collapse

"I, am a big sister. If you say otherwise, I'll collapse this whole damn place, I've waited here longer than entire solar systems, I can do it again"

"My apologies, Onee-San. Please forgive this little brother!"

"Apology taken. Now, you ready to take us out of here?"

"Yes, lets go"

I grab the controls, this time knowing what I'm doing, and begin hovering, and then, yet another important realization happens

"Uh, how do we get out precisely?"

Nyx seems to have gotten the pattern by now and replies

"See the door? Since you cant touch it like with Korr, shoot it."

I fire off a short range plasma burst, and the door tanks it, but opens. I fly forwards, and once we pass the door I see an opening in the ceiling, its the original staircase from the surface. Don't know how thats here, but it is. As I level with the surface, I see the rest of the crew, Tyr, Latho, Seth, and Isis. I lower the ramp, and Nyx tells them to get on in. They do so, and just like me and Nyx, they gawk at the sight of the interior of the first spaceship. They enter the bridge and see me in the bubble-pod thing. Me and Nyx then spend the next hour or so telling them all that happened, with Taan and Korr speaking in and answering questions.

"Wait, so are Ares and Nyx like, incredibly old or something?"

Tyr, the musclebrain asks.

I answer

"Well, as baby, nonsapient crystals, we're ancient, at least according to Taan, She told us on the way up since I had the same question, however, as for how long we've been..intelligent, its been as long as we've told you, roughly 19 years."

"So is there more of these, Star Crystals, floating about in space, slowly gaining consciousness?"

Isis, the intellectual asks. This time, Taan answers.

"Not likely, I think Nyx and Ares are one off occurrences. However, the opportunity for it to happen isn't zero."

These questions are asked and answered for a while, as I slowly fly Taan across the planets atmosphere, heading towards Zoltan, the capital city of the planet...Zoltan. Hey, don't ask me what Governor Zoltan was thinking when he named the city and planet after himself several hundred years ago, now we're on Governor Zoltan XIII. I look over at Nyx, and I see her admiring the greenery of the planet, taking in the fact that we are in fact in a star ship, and flying over the planet we've spent our entire lives on. Its a rather absurd thing, me and Nyx, thinking we were the only ones of our kind, thinking we were going to spend our entire lives on this planet, only to find out we were the inheritors of an empire older than almost everything that exist currently, and that we would be the heralds of them when they return from the Great Exodus. Part of me still thinks I'm dreaming, just having an incredibly lucid dream. But alas, it is real, and now we have the opportunity to explore and make a fortune in space, with Tyr, Seth, Isis, Latho, and now Korr and Taan. 

As we approach Zoltan, I have yet another very important realization, one much more pressing than the last.

"Hey Taan, so the flight simulator may have neglected something"

"And what would that be?"

"How do I land?"

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