Chapter 1: Xel'naga
The green campfire burned wildly, providing light in the night as the deep voice of the storyteller began to narrate.
"Let me tell you the wacky, hard to believe tales of a being that is more ancient than any species you can find in this universe. It came from another world, a place which looked much like the one we live in right now, with planets – some full of lush vegetation like you see here, some with environments too hot or too cold to sustain life, and some with a mix of those – in galaxies filled with stars, moons, black holes, and the like.
The being's oldest known ancestors started out as small, black, slimy, limbless creatures with four eyestalks on their heads. The species' mouth full of a hundred sharp teeth allowed it to eat plants very fast. It originated on a planet of which its people couldn't even remember the name. The members of that species, which its descendants called oai, 'old us', were hermaphrodites and had the habit of trying to mate with everything they could find. Eventually, they mated with creatures of a compatible species that led to the laying of hundreds of eggs which hatched into offspring that possessed tentacles. This greatly enhanced that new generation's ability to grasp and use tools. It also led to even greater reproductive compatibility with other species on that planet, which resulted in the oai assimilating them all, becoming the only species there.
At some point in time, the oai, who ended up ten times larger on average than their first known ancestors, started to call their species riai, which meant 'now us'. The riai were peaceful and studious ... except at night, when they were too busy breeding. In time, they built spaceships, leaving their planet of origin to colonize others, spreading over hundreds of star systems within the span of five hundred years.
After contacting the first sapient alien species on a cold planet, the riai invited them to merge with their species so they could both benefit from their strengths. After the merging, the riai physical features still remained dominant in the resulting offspring. In time, the riai became able to convince almost any alien species to join them in their quest to unify the galaxy under a single, strong species. The aliens refusing their offer did not start any wars with the riai, because they did not have the outstanding population numbers that the riai had.
The last iteration of the riai did not change much in terms of shape, but it gained the ability to change its skin texture and color according to the environment. At that point there were no more species to assimilate from the neighboring star systems, so the riai set out on a journey to find more aliens.
Their journey led them to a planet where they found artifacts more ancient than the riai. These structures seemed to call to them, telling them of a prophecy concerning the riai and another species called neant. It said that the riai gained purity of essence and were eligible to merge with the neant, who possessed the purity of form. The result would lead to the creation of the strongest beings in that universe, and one of theirs would be chosen to ascend among the universe's creators and become a xel'naga like them. All they had to do was seek out the pieces of an artifact called the Keystone.
The riai were very eager to meet the neant, so they sought the pieces, which gave them clues that led them to a planet where no life had developed. There they found the last piece of the puzzle at a temple and assembled the Keystone.
The prophecy engraved on the temple said that the other race would be there shortly after the arrival of the riai, and the riai even prepared to throw a party for them. Unfortunately, the neant failed to show up for three weeks. The riai decided to go look for them, but found out that the neant went extinct due to their low reproduction rate. Disappointed, the riai gave up on the party and returned to their planets.
A year later, the riai's scientists discovered another alien species – the larphin – which showed promise. Each of the aliens had a pair of large wings and was bipedal, covered in feathers, with scaly, featherless hands and feet with talons. The larphin also had large jaws with hundreds of tiny teeth, and had great eyesight due to their large eyes. But the most important thing that attracted the riai to the larphin was the race's great psionic potential. They truly fit the description of the purity of form.
The riai rejoiced as they had a new species to assimilate and a chance at fulfilling the prophecy of the xel'naga at the same time, but they had to act fast: the larphin were also threatened by extinction, having only a hundred members left. It didn't help that the larphin required males and females to reproduce, and they only had eight females that could each lay an egg or two every five years.
The larphin had lost all hope when the riai arrived. They did not even attempt to defend themselves, as they were outnumbered. However, they were surprised to find out that they were not under attack. The riai were happy to make first contact, and even gave the larphin the offer to merge species to save the larphin culture from being forgotten. The larphin took the offer, and the two races partied and mated with each other, resulting in the the viriai species, the 'prime now us', which only inherited the feathery wings from the larphin physically, but the species' psionic powers became the greatest in that universe.
Sixteen years had passed since that event, and the viriai had no idea who to send to the place of the Keystone. Most of their members had lost almost all interest in science, preferring to party and continue to reproduce, colonizing more planets of their galaxy and enjoying the various drinks and food made from exotic flora and fauna. At some point, they had completely forgotten about the xel'naga's prophecy.
One day, one of the few viriai who still valued studying over debauchery decided to go visit the Keystone. It wanted to see if what their species became truly matched the requirements of the prophecy as per the riai scientists' hypothesis.
Upon arriving on the barren planet, which was named Moeba, the young viriai went up to the Keystone and touched it with one of its six tentacles. The Keystone began to glow in a bright green light, announcing that the xel'naga had awakened and were on their way there.
The viriai was happy that it would meet the xel'naga, but was also anxious because … it had a problem with excessive slime secretion. What would the xel'naga think if the one representing the viriai as a race was this imperfect creature who could not even fully control its bodily functions?
It was too late to leave, for the xel'naga revealed themselves to it. They were humongous! Their bodies had more tentacles than the viriai could ever dream of having – even their snouts were adorned with tentacles! Their eight eyes were small compared to the rest of their bodies, but not only could they see at peak efficiency, they could peer into time itself!
'We are the xel'naga,' one of the great beings said. 'I am Ouros, one of the two who have seeded your universe with life. This is Kufu, the other xel'naga who is responsible for your creation.'
Shaking while using a tentacle to wipe off a stream of mucus that dripped from under its neck, the viriai said, 'It is nice to meet you people, but I think I should go bring you one of the better members of my species.'
Kufu held out a tentacle and told the viriai, 'That will not be necessary. You are all we need to fulfill our end of the prophecy.'
And so, the only viriai to show up was chosen to be taken to an immense, octahedral stone temple called Ulnar, illuminated by blue crystals and located in the Alterian Rift outside of the universe. There, the viriai would ascend as a xel'naga and live among the gods. Kufu had to give up his life in order to pass his essence of eternity to the viriai through his many eyes, but he was pleased with his choice before he faded out of existence.
As xel'naga, our protagonist changed shape and grew ten times in size. Its body became green and entirely made of fire, with all four eyes now glowing bright white and no longer being on stalks, but instead being housed inside eye sockets just above a snout that looked similar to that of the xel'naga and sprouted five short tentacles at its end. A pair of horns decorated the former viriai's head – they were remains of two former eyestalks. The rest of the new xel'naga's body acquired many tentacles as well, down to the tail, and lost the ability to produce slime. It had retained its wings, whose span increased greatly.
Ouros told the new xel'naga, 'At the moment, you are still young. Your body will, in time, become like ours, able to live efficiently in the Void, which will now be your home. Here, at Ulnar, you will learn about your powers as well as your responsibilities as a xel'naga.'
The young xel'naga became Ouros' favorite pupil, following him around in Ulnar and the Void. Time seemed to flow faster to the new xel'naga. A million years became nothing more than a month for it, so learning very advanced psionic skills that primitive beings could not live long enough to fully grasp was no problem.
One day, the time came for our protagonist to witness the greatest power of the xel'naga: the creation of life. Ouros and another one of his pupils, Amon, who looked similar to him, only with black skin and red eyes, found an empty universe pocket that formed at the edge of the Alterian Rift. They prepared to seed its barren planets with life.
Ouros brought our protagonist and another young xel'naga named Duran closer to the pocket, then told them, 'Watch, young ones, as Amon and I shall start another cycle that will create more xel'naga! One day, you too will take part in this ritual.'
Amon wasn't happy about what he was supposed to do. He had a very grumpy stare, and within him wrath started to grow. Yet Ouros did not mind his eldest pupil's attitude toward the lesson. He grabbed Amon by the tentacle and led him inside the universe, saying, 'We shall plant the seeds of life on a few planets near the core of each galaxy closest to the Alterian Rift's portal. After that, we shall sprinkle little artifacts across several planets, which will lead the races holding purity of form and purity of essence to their unification. Once a worthy individual shows up from the resulting race and reaches the Keystone, we will go greet them, and I will bestow my essence to the chosen one.'
Amon said, 'This is madness, teacher! Have you not seen the wars that my race had been through? Have you not seen that even my ascension could not save them from their doom?'
Ouros did not seem sad about that fact, as he told Amon, 'Your race had brought that upon itself. It is just a consequence of free will. We do not interfere with any lesser being's choices while they are evolving. We bestow the gift of life, but what the resulting beings do with it is all on them.'
'What about your prophecies?' Amon asked, squinting. 'Many races killed each other over who was the rightful one holding purity of form and the one holding purity of essence. Even when my ancestors' races merged into one, the resulting race could not agree who to send as the chosen one. Wars broke out, and everything was taken from me: my parents, my mate, my offspring … It was all in the name of who was worthy to ascend among you, to take on your legacy. I thought that I could save them if I just surrendered to the fate you have placed upon me, but I saw my people slaughter each other into extinction over your choice!'
To that Ouros said, 'Their role in the Cycle has come to an end. New life has been and will be born now that you are here among us. You will have so many offspring that they will more than make up for your losses, even for the ones from the previous cycle we've started.'
'You don't understand,' Amon said. 'I wanted the offspring that were the result of the love between my mate and I! I wanted the family I had established with her! A family for which I had striven to provide a safe future! They are all gone! Now you keep making me create offspring by myself, and throw them into an arena where many of them will suffer and then die! Look how Duran turned out after we seeded his universe! And your elder, Kalama, had to give up her life to save him by giving him her xel'naga essence! The Cycle is a cruel ritual!'
'It is up to the lesser lifeforms whether they go the war path or the peace path,' Ouros said. 'The people I've ascended from managed to unify all races in their galaxy without a single killing. Then we have our newest member here, whose people also proceeded to peacefully assimilate other races into theirs, and they have succeeded the completion of a cycle. Let us seed this universe and see if it will be as lucky.'
And so, Amon and Ouros performed the ritual together for the second time, creating life and starting a new cycle which would take many, many eons to complete. Much to Amon's disappointment, most of the creatures in this universe turned out to be violent too. He hated the suffering that resulted from the Infinite Cycle. He and Duran complained many times to the elders of the xel'naga to put the young creatures out of their misery, but the elders refused to interfere.
The former viriai tried to get to know Duran. Duran was the second youngest xel'naga there, and had managed to take a void form which looked almost similar to that of the elders, including short tentacles on his snout. But he still had four arms left over from his initial form, and his fourteen limb tentacles were very thick, not yet ideal for moving within the Void. He had only four fully formed eyes, with two more still developing, so his ability to peer into time had not yet reached its peak. His psionic energy manifested in his body as a red glow that could be seen in his eyes, on his chest, on his snout, on his head's temples, and on the tips of all but a pair of his large tentacles.
Our protagonist decided to apply some of its species' charm on Duran by saying, 'You are starting to shape up nicely.'
Duran seemed insulted by that remark, because he gave the young xel'naga a nasty look and said, 'This isn't who I should be! This form is ugly! My beautiful arms are being reduced to stubs! Look at them!' He showed the new xel'naga his vestigial arms' two-fingered hands.
The young xel'naga said, 'I am sorry. I thought the xel'naga form is an improvement. I mean … look at all these tentacles I have been blessed with!'
That was when Duran snapped. He pointed one of the stubby fingers of his top-right hand at our protagonist and told it, 'Of course your people appreciate getting appendages! You are descended from limbless, slithering, snot-filled creatures that had no dignity to pass along! That is why even the last iteration of your race regarded themselves as not even worth using pronouns other than what they used for objects and lesser creatures. Your individuals didn't even have names!'
'We did not need names,' said the young xel'naga. 'We knew whom anyone was referring to when they talked about one of ours.'
Duran ran out of arguments, so he left our protagonist with a few choice parting words: 'You are the most pathetic xel'naga in existence!'
While the former viriai was sad about its failure to make a new friend, it was still glad to have Ouros as mentor. Ouros could always see the best in any creature, no matter its stage in the grand scheme of things. He was also very forgiving of the insults Duran and Amon threw at him and the other elders, and he hoped that one day those two would come to accept that overall the Cycle wasn't as bad as it seemed to them.
Many eons had passed, and Ouros had taught our protagonist – who ended up owning nine snout tentacles – the art of shapeshifting, among other skills. It took the new xel'naga a lot of discipline to take the shape of lesser beings, although it could not turn into other xel'naga. Each transformation cost energy, and Ouros taught it that energy management was very important to a xel'naga. Each psionic power had a well-known cost, and was useful for specific situations. Wars among the xel'naga had never happened up to that point, but Ouros thought that it would be wise to train all of the xel'naga to fight and defend themselves just in case the situation might change. With Amon and Duran's ever growing hatred for the xel'naga who supported the Infinite Cycle, those lessons seemed to be almost a requirement.
In time, Amon and Duran managed to gather the sympathy of seven hundred other young xel'naga who could relate to their suffering. Amon tried to make our protagonist side with his cause, and he almost succeeded, but our protagonist decided to stay neutral once it learned that Amon's plan was to destroy all life in the new universe and put an end to the Cycle by creating beings that had no free will. That just didn't sound like fun.
Ouros knew of the scheme, but did not take any action, for he considered that even xel'naga had the freedom of choice. Should they choose to end lives and follow through with that choice, barely then their brethren would take action against them. Hoping that nothing bad would happen, he and the rest of the xel'naga loyal to the Infinite Cycle went into slumber along with our protagonist.
The shepherds of the Infinite Cycle were in for a rude awakening once they sensed an absence within the Void. They found out that Amon, Duran, and the seven hundred other rebelling xel'naga went into the newest universe and interfered significantly with the development of lifeforms on two planets: Aiur and Zerus. On Aiur, clues showed that its locals, the protoss, had been uplifted into a race that was supposed to have purity of form. Yet they were very, very flawed due to their forced evolution. Upon further investigation, Ouros noticed the remains of hundreds of his former xel'naga brethren who had rebelled against the Infinite Cycle. It was then that he realized he had to stop Amon before he'd cause more creatures to turn against the xel'naga's entire race. He gathered the eldest of the xel'naga and they took their worldships to search for Amon and his followers.
On Zerus, which back then was mostly an ash wasteland, Ouros found Amon and the rebels, along with modified zerg, whose pack bore the name of Swarm and were under the influence of a physical hive mind known as the Overmind. The shepherds of the Infinite Cycle tried to negotiate with Amon and his followers, but a war broke out over Zerus, and Amon sent the Swarm to kill the shepherds.
Amon seemed to be winning, but Ouros and the ten remaining shepherds fought back, refusing to allow the destruction of this universe. In the end, most of Amon's followers fell in battle and were sent into the Void after their bodies were severely wounded. Amon himself was defeated too and banished to the Void while his physical body had been destroyed, as he was deemed unworthy of it. Duran escaped and hid himself somewhere in this universe, but he wasn't considered a threat since he was still an inexperienced xel'naga.
Just before returning to slumber at Ulnar along with the other badly wounded shepherds, Ouros peeked into the Void to see how Amon and his followers were doing. The teacher was shocked to find that Amon had slain his own followers in a fit of rage. Very disappointed, Ouros went to his resting pod and resumed his slumber, hoping that the latest cycle would find a way to complete itself in spite of Amon tainting it.
But the xel'naga's peace was once again disturbed millennia later, because Duran set in motion a plan to awaken Amon – who had gone into a deep sleep in the Void – and help him regain physical form.
Ouros allowed his recovering fellow shepherds to continue their slumber while he took it upon himself to observe what Duran was doing. He realized far too late that our protagonist had followed him into this universe, so he had no choice but to let it in on what was happening. He said, 'I have spared little Duran in the hope that he would forget about Amon's horrible plan and see this world for its beauty. Yet here he is, still tinkering with the dreaded Swarm and preparing it to assimilate the protoss against their will. Oh, how foolish I was ...'
Our protagonist said, 'Maybe he could change. There still is hope. I could keep an eye on what he is doing while you can go rest. If he does anything bad, I will let you know.'
Ouros wrapped a tentacle around his pupil and said, 'I have a different plan for you, young one. I want you to take this information that I shall transfer into your mind, and use it to thwart Duran's plans when each of these prophecies come to pass. This world still has a chance to create a champion that could ascend as a new xel'naga. If Amon returns during that being's ascension, he will stand no chance, for a xel'naga is most powerful when still in its young form.'
'But am I not young too?' the former viriai asked.
To that, Ouros replied with, 'Your powers have lost some of their strength since your ascension. The xel'naga that is yet to be born will be the strongest one at that time, and will be the one to put an end to Amon's suffering.'
Our protagonist said, 'For everything Amon did, I think he deserves to suffer.'
But Ouros frowned, telling his pupil, 'His suffering started before he interfered with the Cycle. It is the reason why he has turned against us. We shepherds of the Infinite Cycle refuse to take the lives of other beings, but someone who can and is willing to do so could finally bring Amon the peace he seeks.'
His pupil asked, 'Where can I find this champion you speak of? Among the protoss? Among the zerg?'
'No,' Ouros said. 'There is a species that Amon has overlooked. One that, at this time, seems far too primitive to be worth our attention. Yet it shall stand on equal ground with the zerg and even the protoss, for it possesses both adaptability and psionic potential, but has not yet specialized in either. Its people call themselves humans, and can be found on a planet that possesses conditions that in some areas are friendly to many lifeforms, whereas in others they are so harsh that very few – if any – lifeforms can survive. That planet is Earth. Go there, and the path you must take will be made clear to you.'
Our protagonist took Ouros' orders and flew through the Milky Way galaxy, without the need for a spaceship, trying to find Earth. As it traveled among the stars for thousands of years, the young xel'naga felt a strange disturbance in the Void. Its mental connections to most of the other shepherds had been severed, and from Ouros' side there was a feeling of sadness. The young xel'naga wanted to return to Ulnar to see what happened there, but its teacher's last message to it was, 'Do not stray from our plan, no matter the reason!'
The xel'naga found Earth and turned invisible as it landed in a forest to recover its consumed energy. There, it disguised itself and started living the humble life of a small, slimy, limbless creature called a leopard slug.
After spending one hundred years … 'mingling' with the slugs – which sadly did not result in any eggs because its ascension made it sterile – the xel'naga had a vision. It learned that the humans initiated a chain of events that would eventually lead to the birth of Ouros' champion.
The xel'naga located the Nagglfar supercarrier – the spaceship which would carry some of the humans that would end up inhabiting the Koprulu Sector and calling themselves terrans. Turning invisible again, the xel'naga slid right into the Nagglfar. It was lucky that the humans had not noticed the trail of mucus left behind. Very careless to not cover one's tracks when sneaking around in the form of a slug.
Everything was going almost according to plan, except for one thing: the supercarrier's artificial intelligence, ATLAS, would not allow deviation from the planned trajectory toward planet Gantris VI. The xel'naga decided to mess with ATLAS in order to direct the Nagglfar toward the planet that would be called Tarsonis. It was from that planet that the terrans would spread over the Koprulu Sector, eventually bringing into existence Ouros' champion.
The xel'naga successfully changed the course of the Nagglfar and erased coordinates for Gantris VI and Earth so the passengers would not try to leave, but accidentally caused the crash of the other three supercarriers into other planets. The humans in the Nagglfar, Argo, and Reagan spaceships survived the crashes, but, unfortunately, the ones in the Sarengo were all killed once it smashed into the planet that would be known as Umoja.
Still disguised as a leopard slug, the xel'naga watched over the evolution of the Tarsonis terrans, witnessing a fascinating increase in the terrans' psionic potential with each generation. One day, the terrans made use of the strongest psychics among them by training them as soldiers called 'ghosts'. The xel'naga continued to watch from a safe distance until the day came when it had to disguise itself as a terran and interact with the species to learn more about it. But that is a story for another time.
It's getting late now. You should go to sleep, otherwise you'll be tired in the morning."
As the storyteller blew air onto the flames, the green fire went out, letting darkness take over. Then he said, "Sweet dreams!"
To be continued.