Z5.odt



Crystal God

Inspired by http://www.scifiideas.com/sfi/story-ideas/starting-point-crystal-gods/

“Jayvin approached the crystalline plant structure with curious eyes.

It was old. Very old. And it had grown to enormous proportions. Little wonder the villagers revered it so deeply; it must have been here for countless generations, and the way it glowed was… Jayvin wanted to think of it as magical. He tried to see it through the villagers’ eyes, he really did, but to him it was actually kind of eerie.

At the base of the crystal, the villagers had carved a series of shallow stone steps, and a deep fissure cut right to its glowing heart. This must be what the villagers called ‘the alter’. Jayvin could believe that their offerings affected the crystal in some way – or rather the lifeforms living inside it. Perhaps it – or they – could even be reliant on them in some way. But the miraculous powers Yin’Hal had described… No, that was impossible.”

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-1-

Jayvin followed the throng of natives deep into the forest of giants. He had seen many alien worlds during the five years he was serving with the Union Science Corps Exploration and survey division. He had seen the depressing, black forests of Kalhum, the sweltering jungles of Oghmar and the pink and blue mushroom trees of Agurs. He had of course seen visuals of Green Hell and completed his field training on Emerald III.

Yet this forest had no equal, trees as tall as a thousand meters, with trunks as thick as sky scrapers and exposed roots creating a chaotic organic shaped three dimensional labyrinth of arched shapes.

The light of the local sun reached the ground only in a diffused greenish twilight.

The air was heavy with the smell of rotting wood and moss.

This forest was eerie quiet. Most forests he knew had a constant din of animal voices in the background.

While there was a slight breeze that moved the man sized ferns growing between the gnarled and arched roots, it wasn't strong enough to create much sound.

Four local days ago they had left the village, travelling in a steady pace ever deeper into this continent spanning forest.

The local sentients were somewhat humanoid and resembled upright walking primates with some familiarities to the Terran Orang Utan, with long powerful arms that ended in a three fingered hand and two opposing thumbs. Their body was covered with a dense long haired fur of a rich coppery shade. It was evident that they evolved from a tree dwelling species but had developed into an upright bipedal ground dwelling race.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Technological they had reached Tech Level B, the stage of manufactured dwellings and permanent settlements.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">The largest villages had about 300-400 individuals and they only had sporadic contact to other villages. Trade appeared to be a only recent discovered concept.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Six weeks ago Jayvin and six members of the planet survey team had made first contact. The natives who called themselves Torath welcomed them friendly and considered the visitors to be members of a distant fur less tribe.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">The Union researchers had chosen only humanoid members to make contact, and had not revealed that they had come from outer space. They had kept the open visible tech to a minimum, not to frighten the natives.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Previous Prim Contacts had shown that the open display of Union Tech usually was a tremendous shock to primitive civilizations and caused many problems.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">At first it was just a standard prim contact. The language was simple verbal acoustic and the computronic at the UES DARWIN had no problem creating a cerebral skill upload enabling the field team to speak and understand the natives.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Jayvin observed the natives preparing food, making tools and weapons, consisting of spears and throwing sticks somewhat akin to a hunting boomerang. All in all nothing out of the ordinary and only a variation of similar carbon based bipedal species the known Universe over.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">But then one of the villagers was attacked by a local snake like creature they called the Awrow-Wither.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">The ten meter long reptilian amalagam between snake and millipede was not only equipped with powerful mandibles capable of biting a native in half, but also was very poisonous.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">The villager was mortally wounded, had lost his right leg and according to Dr. Blythe the teams MD would not survive to see another sunrise.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Yet the locals were not concerned or distressed and refused any help.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">The episode was nearly forgotten until Jayvin noticed that villager ten days later walking into the village on both of his legs and healthy as can be.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Dr. Blythe confirmed using DNA comparison that it was indeed the same villager that had lost his leg and was near death due to blood loss, trauma and poison.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Only now did they notice that there was no one sick, no one had wounds or so much as a scar.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Now this was no miracle to Union Science, but impossible to a prim civilization that just reached Tech Level A.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">The mysterious and complete recovery of the maimed native caused quite a stir among the Union survey team.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">The USE DARWIN resting on its landing gear on a remote unpopulated island of the planet had orbital mapped and scanned the entire planet before planet fall and had detected no artificial energy signatures of any kind.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">The Torath explained that their God affected the miraculous cure.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Jayvin however kept his hand on his service blaster.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">He was not to keen being bitten in half by sonmething that made a Xinpin look friendly. Besides if there was one harmful life form there could be others.

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