TanjBear

Deep locust: A miner's best friend. Will tap on stone that has ore one block behind or diagonally of it. The glass bulb can come in any color. Its feet make little tink sounds when tapping. Corrupt deep locusts have a habit of throwing themselves from ceilings, using their heavier frame to bludgeon players. Theirs a chance they will stun themselves when they fall. Their light will flicker dimly when stunned. They are hardier than other locusts but can’t leap in return. Will not flee in combat. Will attempt to hit ankles similar to that scooter from your childhood.

Sometimes at night I enter a fugue where my mind wanders and repeats various ideas or nonsense keeping me awake. I have a habit when writing, I flip between dark and cold to light and warm. So a happy ending maybe? I have a little knowledge of the lore for vintage tory. But my mind would not stop making up lore from the perspective of the rotting. So here goes. The disease known as rot has blighted the world. Digested it into a fettering soup. I was moved underground before I had a chance to study. Information of the disease was suppressed by the nobility until it reached our door step. The chance to study came when infections started to show in the underground. The disease ate everything it came into contact with. I can not imagine an environment that would create such a level of adaptation. The Rot spreads through contact. If it were air borne. Well we’d all be dead wouldn’t we. The initial rate of infection differs depending from where it's contacted. There is a maximum rate the rot consumes and its fast. Just a couple of days. The hunters consistently have the highest rate of infection. Then the foragers or malfactors. The dregs of society. I pity them. No choice in where they were born or the right to die where they wish. Next are tailors and clock makers. The infection is particularly slow in clock makers. While I don't get many blackguards in my lab I will confirm they have the slowest rate of infection. I noticed a discrepancy in the blackguard. The rate of infection is higher among the noble born.The turn over of black guard captains are anomalously high. I found myself drawn to the metal they wore. The rust seemed to slow the infection. We've been quarantined from the rest of the underground. The high risk infected have been going missing prior to this. I'm afraid the nobility here failed to cover up the infections. It is a good thing. The quarantine I mean. Resources are passed through bars left for clock makers to continue to make parts for the Salvation engine. Couriers come and go delivering parts. They ultimately end up here too. I discovered there to be nothing wrong with the couriers. Their skin had momentarily been stained by rust. I tried to speak on their behalf but the guard on the other side wouldn’t listen. I've made a discovery. It shames me to not have found it sooner. The quarantine shook me especially when certain gruesome details came to light. Even with what I've seen I still haven't been desensitized to it all. The rust stops the progression of rot. Those rusted armours the blackguard are forced to wear have been an unknown grace. It has been some time. I shared my discovery and I believe I have unintentionally sparked some strange beliefs. I've seen many of the quarantined as of recent carrying crude totems of rusted scrap. Someone in the underground has been dying rags in iron oxide baths. The smell is undesirable and unfortunately unavoidable. I have been infected. The rate was superior to that of the hunters. I have no doubt I contracted it from someone and not an animal or scavenged food. My left arm and hand have been tightly bound. It has only mildly abaided me in my studies. The lack of pain and lethargy is unsurprising. The hunters bring back stories as well as food and they are both as assuring as they are appalling. The animals are lethargic but still fight as if they're not falling apart and ready to die. I fear I have inflicted an atrocity on my people. The wounds under my wrapping began itching a few days ago. It spread and has become unbearable. We haven't been able to clean ourselves down here. I was hoping. No praying. That it was hives or a rash from the oxide. I cannot explain to you the dread and horror in my gut. (Graphic Warning)The rot never stopped. It had been slowly digesting my skin soaking into the rags and wrapping. My arm had been completely stripped exposing the mussel under a layer of nearly black sludge. With a scalpel I exposed the greater damage. The consumption of mussels was more severe internally. My left forearm had been hollowed out, Sludge poured from the incision. Nothing was holding the flesh to the bone. My arm was a hollow tube and brittle bone. I lost the arm and was fitted with a prosthetic by a clock maker. I locked myself in my study. Not out of fear but revulsion. I only found a delay. I can’t save anyone… Earlier I felt it. The Salvation engine turned on. You could feel it humming through the rock. There was a flash of light. Like a bubble passing through everything, ignoring walls and obstruction. After the flash passed, I opened my eyes to a void of ambient light. The walls of my study were shattered, thrown and frozen mid air. Sections of the underground were scattered through the space. I found myself miles from the Salvation engine. It was in shambles. That much was clear even from this distance. Over days I and many others trekked our way to it. It became apparent that we no longer needed to eat or sleep here. When we arrived I spoke with someone I swore I saw traveling in the opposite direction of us. He told me that distances were warped. If you stood in the right spot you could see the salvation engine from different angles by turning your head. Lastly, despite arriving in the void at the same time he'd been wandering for months… Jonas had saved us. The quarantined, at least I thought. Some felt they were condemned. We spent years here before everyone and everything showed signs of something new. The afflictionless started to glow. Even bits of Jonas's tech. They could navigate the void by instinct. Then the rot started to progress again. It had adapted to the void. We couldn’t die here but no one wanted to be consumed by the rot either. People tried greater and more barbaric ways of slowing it. It's horrible. The monsters were becoming… Everything's a little foggy these days. Wherever I go I see shambling figures with metal impalements. Some drag themselves on useless limbs. They’ev been harassing me regularly. I'm afraid their minds are gone. The afflictionless have lost their minds as well. They flee like startled deer. The rot consumes and the void breaks things down. Everything and everyone should have become energy in the background. But the rot is affecting the void. Slowing it. Feeding off it. It's the glowing junk Jonas left behind that has sustained me. Gives something else for the rot to chew on. The void has become a sickly brown. I occasionally catch glimpses of the afflictionless before they dart away like fire flies. They are drawn to me just like the wretches. It's the Jonas tech. I'm struggling to find any of it. The salvation engine has been overtaken by the rot and the wretches there have begun to meld with the machinery. I have no doubt it's an instinct driven by the rot to leech out every bit of energy in the material. There's nothing left for me there… A hum in the air broke the monotony. I turned my head to the salvation engine wondering how it could be running. It was silent. The humming in the air intensified. Sections of the underground disappeared before my eyes. I realised then that some lunatic must have built a second engine. The entire void trembled. The void was torn. Pale scars lingered in the air. The scars never healed. They were like windows to the world. The world had recovered or perhaps been rewound. The afflictionless could pass through and roam the new world. I tried to follow but they were too quick. It's just me and the wretches now. For days I watched them get their bearings. They started building hovels and tools. Their forgotten knowledge slowly surfacing. But not quick enough. The longer they stayed in an area the more wretches gathered on this side slowly corroding the scars till the rot bled though like a haze in the air. The wretches pushed through. I watched an unafflicted die, They reformed before me, their glow a bit dimmer. I was ignored. They ran through the nearest scar. They picked up their tools and started swinging. A wretch died and stayed dead, its suffering was over. Weeks have passed. I am increasingly more desperate. The void is nearly empty except for the salvation engine and the wretches. They're less of them but they’re stronger now. The breaches are increasing in alarming frequency. I tried to escape but the breach I chose wasn't weak enough to cross and I'm running out of time… There was a moment where the void seemed to overlap with the world and the wretches ran rampant. I thought I had finally escaped. I ran from the chaos only for the void to snap back within minutes. The breaches closed and were firm. The wretches weren’t getting out soon. I noticed that there were considerably more wretches in the void after the void overlap. They were weaker. I recognise the ragged clothing. They were harboring in sections of the underground when the second machine activated. More alarming to me was that only the wretches returned. None of the underground facilities that might have Jonas tech. And none of the automata or their factories… My desperation drove me to the salvation machine. I have become an expert at dismantling wretches. I have replaced my prosthetic seven times already. I ran out of blasting bombs clearing locusts and have no way to make them. I should be dead. I found a room the wretches seem drawn to. They can’t get in but I can. Their hyper focus allowed me to slip into the next room. I braced myself against the exterior wall and slowly climbed to the locked room's window. I felt a rush of air pass my back as I crawled inside. Had I been a second late I'd be smeared on the ground or torn to bits by a mechanical bird. I could see why they wanted inside so badly. The place was absolutely glowing. I stayed inside right up to the second overlap. I stuffed my bag and bolted. I thought if I were quick enough I could make it to the next window but nearly got my head shot through. Then the blasted bells started. I went for a lower window instead. The room was clear but the window frame was warped and I couldn’t force it open with one hand. I was knocked off the tower. My bag shone like a beacon and was ripped from my back. Jonas tech rained down the side of the tower like blue stars. I fell through a breach. The tech tumbling through with me. The bird slammed against the breach, unable to follow. I landed in hot water and experienced pain for the first time in years. Nearly boiling water filled my lungs through the punctures. I flailed screaming scrambling out of the water. I slumped on the ground. My gargled screaming turned into insane laughter. I was going into shock. The rot began to seep through my wrappings. It wanted to consume the light from the tech I clutched in my hand. I was dying anyway. So I thought I'd deny it one final meal. I crushed the gear in my hand shattering it into motes of light. I watched in horrible fascination as my arm turned into motes of light in a rising cascade. I let out one final chuckle and found myself back in the void. I lit up the void in a blue hue. I took one look at the salvation engine. Then stepped through a breach. I found myself. All that remained was a pile of rags and broken metal. I walked past my own remains and am leaving this journal in the rocks. Hopefully someday this will all just be a story and the rot forgotten. Extra stuff that popped in my head. There's nearly nothing to do here besides playing Omac with myself and writing in the dwindling pages of my journal. I've catalogued every form of both halves that humanity has become. Homo Heileos (seraphs) have a variety of skin and eye color ranging from from blue to yellow and in gray scale. They have a faint glow that increases when absorbing energy. They can navigate the distortions in the void with ease. They avoid anything that isn’t another heileos. Homo Mortem (drifters) are hyper aggressive and have an unwilling symbiotic relation with the rot. They actively attempt to attack anything not consumed by the rot, especially homo Helleos. There are no animals like homo heileos as they've been consumed by the rot while in the void. There are however Mortem like animals and machine hybrids. The black guard hounds, blood hounds and hunting dogs that survived in the underground are now Kanis Mortem (shifter). The locusts among other automata designed by jonas have become Mortem Machina. The rot has eroded subsystems and replaced sections with tissue resembling mycelium. The stone cutter locusts are one of the more threatening small machines in the void. Some Homo Mortem have diverged from the human form. Having melded with machines. The most notable I suspect were hunters once and who are now walking crossbows (bowtorn). The arms and part of the skull and neck have been consumed and amalgamated into an internal firing mechanism. The fire bolts are grown from bone that can potentially spread rot if struck. Fan ideas. Drifting nest: A drifter melded with a locust nest. A Malfunctioning locust nest slowly builds half form locust that crawl out of the drifter's back while it drags along the floor. They are very weak. Shifterpede: yes it's what you're thinking. Shifter centipedes are fast and can climb any structure that is the length of the body. They do very little damage and run if struck but will return to drop your sanity with its visage. Lowers sanity when close. Inspired by the forest. Stalker: A tall antlered entity that roams wooded areas. It keeps a distance equal to the minimum player view distance. Follows the player and hides behind the nearest tree when the target player turns their camera.It will not follow out of the woods unless agro’ed. If seen and under crosshairs by the target, the stalker will agro yell and rush the player. If line of sight is broken the staker moves twice as fast. Will not agro to players that look at it from behind. When entering the F5 view to look behind the stalker will tilt its head (this is just to mess with people). Deep locust: A miner's best friend. Will tap on stone that has ore one block behind or diagonally of it. The glass bulb can come in any color. Corrupt deep locusts have a habit of throwing themselves from ceilings, using their heavier frame to bludgeon players. Theirs a chance they will stun themselves when they fall. Their light will flicker dimly when stunned. They are hardier than other locusts but can’t leap in return. Will not flee in combat. Will attempt to hit ankles with an impact like a scooter from your childhood. Boomba: The helper bomb or exploding roomba. A simple Jonas creation to clean spaces. Retrofitted with a bomb. It will seek the nearest enemy. Will flee from bosses back to the player then explode. why? Thought it was funny. Chuck: an automaton made to move stone and rubble. Chuck will grab latch onto a block and slowly wind up till it's ripped from the ground or wall.. Then Chuck will release like a spring hurling it at the player. It's moderately damaging and has a huge knock back. Chuck can not grab blocks below or above them. Chuck is one of a kind or so they think as they've never seen another chuck. Chuck can spawn with other mobs but not another chuck.

I would love to see a replay system. i could record one perspective were i build multiple things side by side and edit the videos into one where it looks like their being build simultaneously. it be awesome. or make it look like i have friends.