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Home > Story > Event 9 > Page 47
WHAT GOD COMMANDS▼
WHAT GOD COMMANDS
[Chip Ship - Yoann Turpin - Adventure Time]
Centuria
2024-10-03 12:51:14
Centuria Profile
Posted by ID #118
Last edit: 2024-10-03 12:51:22
Centuria's been having a pretty great vacation, now with not one, but two mythical osebeings to their name, time well-spent doing tarot readings for folks...
Centuria
... but it's time to get back to work. Or, at least, talk to the coolest sailor they've ever met about starting a new line of work.
Centuria
Centuria makes their way to Naut's ship, a little slowly as they make friendly chit-chat with various crew members (they might hopefully be Centuria's new colleagues soon, after all!) until they make their way aboard.
Captain Naut
Captain Naut is quick to spot the familiar pink visitor. "Aye, sailor! Back for another adventure I see?"
Captain Naut
"I don't have anyone reserved for today. You doing a walk-in, sailor?"
Centuria
"Glhf, captain. I guess I am, yeah, but not just for the one adventure."
Centuria
"You're kind of like the coolest guy I've met and I want to learn all about sea creatures and protecting them and helping other people appreciate them and I don't think I could, ever, ever be the rival of someone as amazing as you so uh,"
Centuria
"... how do you get a job as a sailor, I've never really asked someone for a job before so I'm assuming I have to win a job somehow if people aren't giving them away, but I don't know how to sign up for a job contest."
Seraphiel
2024-10-03 13:14:46
Seraphiel Profile
Posted by ID #118
Last edit: 2025-07-18 17:52:23
One of the crew members sort of pokes a ... puppet out from behind the captain, concealing the rest of himself "Thou sees such beauty these beings possess- How wonderful!- Splendorous-!"
Seraphiel
2024-10-03 13:18:07
Seraphiel Profile
Posted by ID #37
Last edit: 2024-10-03 13:20:55
"If your heart rings so pure and thine self can survive the sea- Then I believe you can be one of us!- How joyous!"
Seraphiel
2024-10-03 13:19:54
Seraphiel Profile
Posted by ID #118
Last edit: 2025-07-18 17:52:54
"... Though you mustn't let the horrors of... Others corrupt your soul.. Lest We must-"
The crew member cuts himself off as he hides behind Naut again, realizing Centuria could see him.. well, the rest of him.
Centuria
"I mean, I might still technically have gills but from here down-" -Centuria here gestures from their neck to the rest of their robotic, Circe-like chassis- "I've obviously got, y'know, a few logistical problems with the sea proper- but other than that, yeah, I think I can-"
Captain Naut
Naut holds his arm out to hide his "shy" crewmate. "Tell me, sailor, have you ever seen the beasts of the sea in their own lands? Not behind tanks, nor from the top of the waves, but in their domain, under the sea?"
Captain Naut
"All of my crewmates, like Seraphiel here have seen the true world, one more vast than that above it. The underworld, where all things go to die, and all things rise to life. The ocean floor."
Centuria
"No sir I have not, but if that's what I gotta do to work for you, then rng betide me if I don't figure out a way."
Seraphiel
"Tis true... Tis true- Mine eyes have seen so much... Beauty, Tragedy- many worlds...I envy your readiness to plunge into this unknown..."
Captain Naut
"My crew can be a little strange, but when you see what they have seen, you realize that the sea...."
Captain Naut
"She's been calling to you, your entire life. Begging you to join her world where death is only the first step to life."
Captain Naut
"To the bottom of the sea we go! If you feel fear in your bones, know that it won't last long, sailor. Let the waters rush over you, and follow the school."
Centuria
Centuria hesitates for the merest moment. I mean... that's kind of what it means to 'give your life in service to something', right?

"Aye aye, captain!" they declare, with all the confidence they can muster.
Seraphiel
2024-10-03 13:35:31
Seraphiel Profile
Posted by ID #118
Last edit: 2025-07-18 17:53:46
"Aye aye-" he echoes.
[Deep Waters - Bardify]
Centuria
The toreka can't tear their gaze away from the windows, from vistas both deeply alien and profoundly ancestral. "This is... incredible."
Captain Naut
2024-10-03 13:37:11
Captain Naut Profile
Posted by ID #118
Last edit: 2025-07-18 17:54:01
"You know, I didn't fall in love with the sea for no reason lad." Captain Naut walks the hall with his crew, and Centuria.
Captain Naut
"I've told this story a million times to my crew, and now that you want to join me, I'll tell it to you. The day I met my first crewmate, Pierre."
Pierre
Pierre comes when he hears his name. He twists his head side to side, waiting for orders until Naut tosses him a biscuit to snack on.
Captain Naut
"Here's the thing about Poseidon units. Their outer self is quite large, but their true self, is but a fish in their tanks." Captain Naut knocks on the glass of his tank.
Captain Naut
2024-10-03 13:42:18
Captain Naut Profile
Posted by ID #2
Last edit: 2024-10-03 13:42:27
"But you don't see a fish ever swim through my tank, sailor."
Centuria
Centuria was about to interject, that toreka aren't dissimilar - they themselves are but cephalopods, all their sensory bits concealed behind a raised collar, piloting a noodly-limbed robot.

They can read the room well enough to not interrupt, however.
Captain Naut
"The man before you, called "Captain Naut" ain't anything but a shell with no guts. Only the shell spine of a turtle. No meat inside."
Many years ago.....
Captain Naut
2024-10-03 13:51:05
Captain Naut Profile
Posted by ID #118
Last edit: 2025-07-18 17:55:07
"I used to have a fish, just like any other Poseidon unit. Back then, I was only a sailor. A tool for the captain. "Crew of the Winged Sail!" we used to call ourselves. Captain saw me as nothing more than a piece of scrap, which I am. Truly am. One day I happened to make too many mistakes for that ole grumpy captain..."
Sailor Naut
"Sorry, Captain. I got scared. That galehaut was so large, I thought if I speared it, it'd bring the ship down in a rage."
Captain Naut
2024-10-03 13:57:54
Captain Naut Profile
Posted by ID #2
Last edit: 2024-10-03 13:58:22
"But the captain didn't care about excuses. That galehaut was big money, and I might have not gotten the crew killed, but it would be my fault they'd go hungry for a few weeks. Here I was, a worthless machine who wouldn't get punished by my own mistakes while the organics around me suffer."
Captain Naut
2024-10-03 13:58:14
Captain Naut Profile
Posted by ID #2
Last edit: 2024-10-03 13:58:26
"He ripped me from my tank, and threw me into the ocean. Yelling at me "Go get that galehaut by hand then you worthless piece of scrap!"
Sailor Naut
2024-10-03 14:02:36
Sailor Naut Profile
Posted by ID #118
Last edit: 2025-07-18 17:55:40
"And so I sank like the scrap I was. While I could swim in the safety of my tank, the rushing currents of the sea were impossible to swim against. Try as I might, I tried to swim up only to be pulled deeper and deeper down. Despite spending my entire life on the sea, it felt like I had been transported in an instant to a new world....no, sailors....a new universe."

"And then that galehaut, the one we were hunting swam up to me. I thought it was over. It surely remembered me and wanted me dead just as I wanted it dead."

Captain Naut
"But instead of doing to me what I had tried to do with it, it swam around me, watching the currents it made push me around. Tapping me with its fins. Even when it opened its jaws, it held me like a father holds a newborn."
Captain Naut
2024-10-03 14:13:04
Captain Naut Profile
Posted by ID #118
Last edit: 2025-07-18 17:56:33
"A galehaut, I learned, is not a stupid mindless creature. Yes, it kills day in and day out en masse, but it's got a brain 5 times the size of most aliens. I've been told that I personify animals too much, but most of them are smarter than we take for granted, especially the galehauts. They're intelligent, just not in a way aliens care for, with their boats and the murdering of them for their pheromone glands."
Sailor Naut
2024-10-03 14:15:49
Sailor Naut Profile
Posted by ID #2
Last edit: 2024-10-03 14:16:20
"When the galehaut saw me flipped upside down due to currents, it'd tap me with its fins, flipping me back upwards. It let me swim under its flippers with the many damsels it had stolen....."
Sailor Naut
"It was then that I realized I belonged under the sea, but as the galehaut swam past me, disappearing in to that deep blue, I was alone and sinking again. It had realized I was only a toy, like all machines are. Everything grew dark......"

"Until Pierre appeared."

Sailor Naut
"I asked in vain if he could bring me up, knowing it wouldn't be possible. He grabbed me. Bit on my hull a few times, and then....surprisingly, it's as if he understood me, sailor. He swam upwards, abandoning the comfort of his universe to bring me to mine."
Captain Naut
"And how did my captain thank the efforts of Pierre for bringing me back to land? By capturing him! Putting him in a cage, and pondering his sale!....The same way that a robot like me gets boxed and put for sale. AI were created to be objects! To be sold! But Pierre was not! He was an animal, born wild, and healthy! He wasn't something to be caged! He wasn't injured and in need of a sanctuary!"
Captain Naut
"That's when I knew my life's goal, sailor. I needed to protect these seas, and return to it in a form that belonged. Even if that mean tossing my captain into the seas like he did to me."
Captain Naut
"I bet you wonder to yourself, if your true self, your fish was able to return to land, where is it right now?"
Captain Naut
"It's very simple you see....."
Captain Naut
"You're in it right now."
Centuria
Centuria looks around them, taking in the submarine with a new kind of awe.
Centuria
"What you had to go through is... that's awful. I get why you did that to your captain. And, uh, maybe I'm getting hung up on the wrong part of your story here, but..."
Centuria
"If this ship is your fish, how big was your original body????
Captain Naut
"HA! No, sailor! The shell before you has always been the size it was. I merely took my true self, that fish, and built upon it, building up its size!"
Captain Naut
"It was so that I could swim in the sea, with the life down there, but....they know."
Captain Naut
"They know I'm just a large object. Trash in their universe. They'll offer some interest, even condolences to me, but they all wander away sooner or later, knowing I'm not worth their time. I can truly never be them."
Captain Naut
"All these parts I have added. Even hiring crew to assist me in seeming more lifelike, but it's all a lie! I can't even operate myself without people, organics helping me!"
Centuria
"Do... do you have to be, though?"
Centuria
"I mean, is that what you really want?"
Centuria
"Because, like, if you wanted to be a cool fish, and not have to deal with awful captains and not feeling like you belong, I get it. Like, I don't get it get it, but I can understand why you might feel that way."
Captain Naut
"It is the only thing in this universe I want, sailor. To be alive. To be worth something more than money."
Centuria
"But you are, captain!! And, like, I don't want to dissuade you from finding a way, heck, if that's what I gotta do before you'll let me join your crew is find a way to change you into a big beautiful fish made of meat, I'll spend the rest of my life looking for it..."
Centuria
"But if you were a fish, there'd still be people who would just, see you as money? As a rare and unusual specimen? But the only difference is you wouldn't know that's your fate."
Captain Naut
2024-10-03 14:57:54
Captain Naut Profile
Posted by ID #118
Last edit: 2025-07-18 17:59:18
"You may think that I am worth more than money, but I am NOT! AIs are BORN to be sold, to be used, to be machines that toil for the living. It is INHERENT to their existence to be objects. In the same way that people who see animals as nothing but a payday, are the exception, those who see AIs as people are the exception!"
Captain Naut
"Tell me, sailor. What's the metal of your body made out of?"
Centuria
"I- I don't know, Captain. Sorry. It's a standard-issue torekaan unit. My second one, I guess, after I upgraded from a fry's hull."
Captain Naut
"Maybe it ain't the case for your body, but for many people with automatic mechanical bodies, there's a "brain" in there of an AI, and that ain't a bad thing, sailor. This isn't an accusation."
Captain Naut
"The place of an AI is under the foot of an organic. To improve their lives, for organic things will always be better than they."
Captain Naut
2024-10-03 15:06:23
Captain Naut Profile
Posted by ID #2
Last edit: 2024-10-03 15:06:37
The entire ship rumbles. "But I am tired of being a servant!"
Captain Naut
2024-10-03 15:08:16
Captain Naut Profile
Posted by ID #118
Last edit: 2025-07-18 17:59:55
"If AIs wish to pitifully fight for their right to not be in the servitude of organics, to them I say, idiots! All of them! There is only one way out, and it is the one I saw under the sea! Away from those above. That artifact that turns that which doesn't live, into that which does!"
Captain Naut
"You don't need to find it for me to join my crew. You only need to swear that you will not stop me and my goals."
Captain Naut
2024-10-03 15:10:38
Captain Naut Profile
Posted by ID #118
Last edit: 2025-07-18 18:00:16
"Promise this to me, sailor, and I will assist you in your own needs should I, a humble forced servent of organics, be able to help."
Centuria
"... I've got one condition, but I guess it's more like a request?"
Captain Naut
"Do tell, sailor."
Centuria
"You're allowed to say no, because now that I think about it, it's selfish and I'm just asking you to keep on doing things for me, an organic, but, uh-"
Centuria
"Before you use the artifact, please teach me? Or your crew? Everything you can to be a protector of the seas, so they - we - can keep doing what you do."
Centuria
"Please don't go until you're confident someone else can take on your mantle? If we weren't capable, or confident, and we ended up hurting or harming a creature, well, I guess you wouldn't care that much at that point because you'd be another creature, but..."
Centuria
"I'll do it. I'll follow wherever you go, and when you eventually go where I can't, I'll make it my life's work, captain."
Captain Naut
2024-10-03 15:24:47
Captain Naut Profile
Posted by ID #118
Last edit: 2025-07-18 18:01:15
"That's a smart idea. I do believe that those who are brought back by the artifact still have their minds in there. I've seen it with my own captain. My idea was that I could just teach the animals down there ways to avoid hunters, those who see them as nothing but something to rip the glands out of and toss back to die."
Captain Naut
"But you're right. Best to teach someone my tricks. Have someone above the waves protecting as well."
Captain Naut
"Consider it a done deal. I haven't been able to get the artifact to this ship anyway! A few issues in my way. Namely that I can't do it alone."
Captain Naut
"Don't think I have to tell you this, sailor, but if I activated the artifact on my body while you were all inside, well, I'm not sure how you would all feel about getting crushed by my meat and bones."
Captain Naut
"Yet, as a complex ship as I am, I cannot operate much without someone manning a station or two, and not many AIs are willing to put up with me and die with the ship. Not that I want them to be involved anyway."
Seraphiel
2024-10-03 15:31:25
Seraphiel Profile
Posted by ID #118
Last edit: 2025-07-18 18:02:06
There's the sound of scampering, and a sudden few tugs on Naut's coat are felt. "Captain! There is!! We have an intrusion - a most unwelcome guest!!!!"
2024-10-03 15:33:11
Profile
Posted by ID #2
Last edit: 2024-10-04 05:48:15
[Valley Of Fools - Fraudulence Vol. 1]
Captain Naut
"Huh, who dares stow away on the ship of Captain Naut!?"
Abyss Horse
2024-10-03 15:34:08
Abyss Horse Profile
Posted by ID #118
Last edit: 2025-07-18 18:02:18
"I am not a stowaway." Abyss Horse flicks his tail in anger.
Abyss Horse
"The gods have invited me, and there is no greater, yet no worse invitation than those from them."
Abyss Horse
"I am not here to disrupt your plans. I am merely here for one thing that the gods have demanded. Cazkade, is their name, yes? The gods have informed me, there is a terrible device they've been creating."
Abyss Horse
"Drop it into the ocean, and there shall not be any grief on board this vessel."
Abyss Horse
Abyss Horse's horn glows. "To refuse my orders, is to refuse the orders of the gods, and thus punishment will be swift."
Centuria
"Cazkade? Is that... that krell you tossed overboard that one time?"
Captain Naut
"You think we're going to submit to you! You talk of gods, but you are just one person, in a ship of a loyal crew! The gall of you!"
Abyss Horse
"I will give you one more chance to halt. Understand it will not be me who kills you, but it will be the gods."
Abyss Horse
"Submit."
Seraphiel
2024-10-03 15:47:15
Seraphiel Profile
Posted by ID #118
Last edit: 2025-07-18 18:03:35
"How d-dare thou threaten us w-with such - such!" He digs his claws into his own puppet, but squarely sticks to Naut's side - afraid of this godly "guest" but unwilling to flee.
Centuria
Centuria steps forward, fists clenched. "You heard the captain! You can't just, just show up announced and demand things from people with zero explanation!"
Abyss Horse
Abyss Horse pulls out a pouch of pebbles. "The gods whispered in my ears, "attempt to do this peacefully, but know that you will fail.""
Centuria
"Like. We're a couple hundred feet underwater at this point, clearly, this is pretty important to you that this gets done, but you can't expect people to just be chill with that-"
Centuria
"Just, take a minute, explain the situation a little more, so then everyone can make a rational decision about it! Like, is there a reason we can't ask Cazkade directly?" Centuria turns to the captain. "Maybe they know what's up!"
Captain Naut
"Sailors, hold it together! He is a mad man with a few pebbles! We won't humor his threats!"
Centuria
"Captain, he might be a mad man, but he's like, a madman with a mission, there's gotta be some kind of reason-"
Abyss Horse
"Understand my pain. My suffering. Forced to follow the demands of gods who cheer with joy at your deaths." Abyss horse tosses a single pebble in the air as his horn glows once again.
Abyss Horse
"If I do not do what the gods command, they will destroy this world. No. This universe. All because we did not put on a play for them that brought them they joy they wanted. Because we toys did not amuse them."
Abyss Horse
2024-10-03 16:00:38
Abyss Horse Profile
Posted by ID #2
Last edit: 2024-10-03 16:00:55
"You're in the way of the god's little game."
Abyss Horse rolls a 20 sided die. A 20 is rolled.
2024-10-03 16:04:55
Profile
Posted by ID #2
Last edit: 2024-10-03 16:05:01

The pebble flies and jams itself into a defense laser on the walls. The gun malfunctions wildly, jittering side to side until it aims suddenly at Centuria and fires upon the toreka.

Centuria is killed. Fired upon by Captain Naut's malfunctioning form.
Abyss Horse
Abyss Horse holds up another pebble. "I have a hundred more of these."
Abyss Horse
"You do not have a hundred more crew mates."
Captain Naut
Captain Naut slams his fist down on one of the control panels. "Forcing my own body to shoot my own crew! You're a monster! The poor sailor had only just joined! A greenhorn and you shoot them down with no mercy!"
Abyss Horse
"I did not shoot them down, the gods did, and gods will rip everything apart until they get what they want."
Abyss Horse
"I beg you to not defy them again."
Captain Naut
"Damn your gods. No machine is worth the life of even the smallest sardine! We'll drop it!"
Abyss Horse
"A breath of relief for you and me."
Captain Naut
Captain Naut's hand was forced. Cazkade's work was dumped into the ocean, along with the body of Centuria.
But Naut did not want Centuria to die.
2024-10-03 16:29:02
Profile
Posted by ID #2
Last edit: 2024-10-03 16:29:09

Centuria's body, weighed down, was tossed with Cazkade's machine near the artifact. The endless swarm moved out the way for Centuria as they surrounded the machine, a power inside of it attracting them more than the artifact lured them. Captain Naut's eyes stared in disbelief at it all. For ages he feared taking the artifact, because it had belonged to the swarm of fish, and yet, now, they had found something more they wanted.

Maybe Abyss Horse's gods knew more than he did after all.

2024-10-03 16:32:15
Profile
Posted by ID #118
Last edit: 2025-07-18 18:05:46

Centuria's body touched the artifact. With a glow, Centuria was brought back to life as a rare underwater creature known as a sunkin.

Freed from the shackles of past commitments.

END OF EXPO
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