The Book Of Natura Selecti

<div class="IPBDescription">A different look at the NS universe</div> The voice of the teacher was light and mildly amused. “Please, continue the reading from the Book of Natura Selecti, Chapter 1.”

The student cleared his throat somewhat self consciously and proceeded as instructed.

“It was in the night when the Gods came,” he read. “They made themselves apparent in a flash of lightning and a roar of thunder; they descended from the sky in their palaces of shining stone and alighted on the unworthy and undeserving fields beyond our homes.

“All praise to the Gods and to their Power. To them we turn in worship and from them stem all blessing.

“They emerged from their palaces of shining stone, dressed in robes of war and combat and delivered us from the demon plague sent by the Lords of the Abyss. For surely the Gods themselves have heard our most fervent prayers and have come to make war upon the demons. Surely now the children and the women and the men may find peace once again under home and under sky and under star. Surely now, the fields may no longer grow fallow and the harvest be now blessed. Surely now the animals will be made large with meat and the women shall go large with children. For the Gods are come. And they come to wage war on the demons.

“The ways of the Gods are mysterious and strange. For none have ever lain claim to witness them and their ways and the ways of the Gods are not ours. For one, the Gods show their power by standing on two legs and not on three and show their power by their limitless ability to do so infinitely. The Gods speak language that is strange and alien and wonderful to behold and their words rain like music to our unworthy ears. But above all else, the Gods have power over life and death. They wield strange weapons that defy our understanding. With a word, they make the very substance of our land reject the demon plague and the land heaves with sudden violence and fire and destroys the demons that dare lay foott upon our soil. With a wave of their two hands, they spit fire at the demons and spill demon blood before the demons can unsheathe their claws and their fangs. The Gods grow in size and in doing so become so mighty so as to rend with thunder and fire even the most powerful of the demon plague. But none is as miraculous as their ability to ride thunder and the wind and fly like the Raptri fly to deliver unto the demons their just and righteous reward for the evil and the suffering visited upon our homes.

“All praise to the Gods and to their Power. To them we turn in worship and from them stem all blessing.

“The Gods have blessed us. Now that the Gods driven the demons from their forest lairs, the fields are once again ours to work and derive sustenance from. It is as the Gods have intended for when the fields beckoned, the Gods did bless us with rain as we have never seen in ages past. The harvest will surely thrive as will we all, under the shadow of the Gods.”

The student ended his reading, grateful that it was all over and he sat down hurriedly again.
The teacher surveyed his class with all the satisfaction and aplomb of a born stage performer with his audience in the palm of his hand. “Comments class?” he invited.

He was met with silence as expected.

“Come class, surely you can do better than this,” he chided. “Or am I incorrect in assuming that this is a religious critique class?”
Some brave student ventured raising its sole upper limb to gain the teacher’s eye.
“Yes? Do you have an observation?”
“Er…Sir,” stammered the student, “Perhaps a case of couching a simple creation myth or a fertility ritual?”
“And what makes you say that?”
“Er…the sacred text…ahem…so called ‘sacred text’ refers more to the animals and the harvest and the…er…pregnancy of women more than…anything else.”
That comment immediately generated some giggles from the female members of the class and the teacher had to stare silence back into his class.
“Quite so. And what else?”
Another student, now inspired by his fellow’s example ventured raising her limb in the air.
“Sir. Is it not possible that this follows the same ritualistic pattern that we see in other creation myths? That we…that dramkind is evil and unworthy and therefore beset by an evil force as punishment…the demon plague in this case…and is made to suffer…um…until divine intervention by the Gods, garbed in robes of green and silver to redeem and rescue a suffering dramkind?”
The teacher swelled in satisfaction. This was a good class.
The truth however, lay in the fact that the only thing the class was ‘good’ at was figuring out each teacher’s own pet theory in each course and then regurgitating it for the teacher’s own personal ego gratification and to the therefore significant padding of their own flagging academic achievements. In short, they all knew how to **** kiss a passing grade out of a teacher.
“Well done,” the teacher bellowed. “Glad to see you were all paying attention in the earlier classes. But there is yet more to be read, for the religious texts are actually quite insightful into the minds and the psyches and indeed, the very lives, of early dramkind. Continue reading please.”
The student sighed and rose to its three feet again and reluctantly resumed his chore of reciting scripture to this class.

“The Gods refuse our sacrifices in their munificence. We offered to them our most beautiful sons and daughters to take as their own, the meat of our animals, the fruit of the harvest and the pleasures of our wives and they refuse them all. One of us was taken by the Gods to enter into the palace of Shining Stone and was gifted with items of awesome power as a mark of his leadership and the coming into his own as the Chosen of the Gods. The relics shall be as a symbol of the God’s covenant to watch over us and protect us as the Chosen speaks the words of the language of the Gods so that we may heed and understand.”

“Ah yes. The sign of the Chosen bestowed upon dramkind by the Gods themselves.” The teacher shuffled his tripods into a more comfortable position and scanned his class. “The significance of this ritual is not to be underestimated. The Chosen codified and established the earliest form of religion into dramic society and established a clergy. This is significant as this was perhaps the earliest form of social structure and hierarchy in dramic society. That it allegedly stemmed from the Gods lends it a certain credence and authority that leads to acceptance. Social structure is not evident in primitive dramkind until the first Chosen appear, remember that. Religion therefore, children, is the progenitor of the first social structure. Kingdoms come much later and only then with the blessing of the Gods through the class of the Chosen. A ruling class is established and an organized society, civilization itself, is born. Remember this, you will be quizzed.”
Sleeping students promptly awoke and furiously scribbled notes.
The teacher beckoned for the reading to continue. The student glanced at the time keeper and sighed noting that there was still much time left for this torture to continue.

“Lords, our Gods, forgive us for we know not our sins against you,” the student droned. “How have we wronged you and why have you forsaken us? You do not come when we call you. Nor do you leave the palace of shining stone. The demons return in numbers greater than ever and once again we are not safe. The demons kill our men and our children and our animals and our women. What is this test you have burdened us with? Help us! We beg you!”

The student looked up at the teacher hoping for another divine intercession this time on his behalf. But the Gods weren’t listening and the teacher urged him to continue reading.

“Rejoice, for the Gods have accepted our sacrifice and the time of testing is over! We have passed the test and the time of testing is at an end. The Gods have rewarded our faith with their holy presence and walk amongst us once again. Pillars of light emerge from the ground shining with the light of heaven and Gods emerge from them clad in armor that shakes the ground as they tread. But the demons are not to be undone and their evil presence stains the very soul of the land and it cries out in anguish under their foul touch.
“The Gods seek to destroy all presence of demonkind in their path. And a battle mighty is waged in which all suffer. The Gods too suffer under the wrath of the Abysskin. Hordes upon hordes of the rats ravage the flesh of the Gods and profane the ground with the blood of the Gods. They climb the walls of the shining palaces of stone and seek to gnaw their way in but are felled by thunder and lightning. Demon Raptri fly overhead in flocks like clouds and blot the sun and the sky is darkened with their foul stench that kills all who inhale the unholy stench of the Abyss itself. Then in the darkness come the Two-Swords. The Two-Swords dress in dark amour and run on two legs, much like the Gods and indeed are a mockery made by the Abyss Lords in fashion of the Gods themselves. The Two-Swords leap leagues and seem to fly like the Raptri. Their blades slice open wounds in the shining palaces and rend the flesh of the Gods. But the Gods are firm and the battle wages constant.
“We pray to the Gods. We give them of our strength in the hopes that they will continue to protect us. And we have faith that we will prevail.”

The student looked up from his reading and was motioned down by the teacher. The teacher looked out at his class. “This passage was not part of the original text but is an addition made by the Covenant of the Chosen after the discovery of the Ramapa Seals and the scrolls found therein, during the twenty third century. It is a fairly new passage. What is its significance?”
“It’s a really good action scene!” chirped one student.
All chuckled even the teacher. “That it is,” He agreed. “Demons versus Gods, Rat-like demons, Bat-like demons, demons with two swords made in mockery of the Gods; good fiction or fantasy material all around. One could almost make a movie out of it,” the teacher paused and then added as an afterthought, “Or a game you young people are so keen to waste your time on.”
He cleared his dual air passages with a hearty cough to regain attention. “But jokes aside. Who here has read the Cabantine commentaries on the Natura Selecti?”
The teacher was greeted with dumb founded silence.
“No one?” the teacher sneered. “I see visions of falling grades.”
The class moaned collectively.
“The Cabantine commentaries,” intoned the teacher, “Written early this century suggest that this passage; now referred to in some circles, as the Ramapa Heresy, indicates a power struggle within the early Covenant of the Chosen, the split of the Covenant into the Elenish and the Ramapish Covenants. The Ramapish Covenant is the dominant school that we all follow. It is speculated in the Cabantine commentaries that at the time of the split, the Rats and the Bats demons refer to the populace that followed the split, while the Demons with Two Swords, in mockery of the Gods, are those priests of the Covenant that followed the Elenish school rather than the Ramapa school.”
“So the flesh of the Gods that was torn apart,” ventured one student, “is actually the early Covenant of the Chosen?”
“Exactly!”
“So it wasn’t a battle between the Gods?” asked a slow student.
“A record written in mystical form of a schism in the early Covenant, nothing more,” snapped the teacher. “Continue reading please. We’re getting to the good part.”

The student, now reconciled with his doom, rose to his tripods and began reading again, holding limply in his sole limb the Natura Selecti.

“When it appeared that the Gods were to succeed and triumph in their war against the demons, thus did the demons grow desperate and the Lord of the demons did appear. A gigantic four limbed beast did he assume the form of. The Beast was covered in thick scales from head to feet. Red gleamed the scales and the color of its baleful eyes. Its breath steamed in the air and its greatest weapon, a single gigantic horn set in its head gored and rent the Gods asunder as it trampled all in the field of battle.
“Such was its power and fury that it seemed not to care as the Gods inflicted wound upon wound upon it. Indeed, the power unholy that fueled it saw to it that the Demon Lord did heal himself as swiftly as he was wounded. And then did the battlefield echo with the cries of the demons heralding the coming of their Lord as they chanted its unholy name ‘Onos!’ over and over.
“Then and only then did the Lord of the Gods, emerge from the palaces of shining stone and challenge the Demon Lord to combat. Great was the battle that ensued forthwith. The skies and the ground shook with the force and fury of their blows and we did cower in fear of the end of the world.
“Then with His failing strength did the Lord of the Gods land a mighty blow that staggered the Demon Lord to his knees. And did the Lord of the Gods rejoice and muster his strength for a blow so mighty that the force of it did rend the earth and skies in fire and thunder and reduce both to ash.
“The Gods did see their Lord fall in battle and were incensed beyond measure. They then give chase to the retreating demons and did slay them in their own lair ending the demon plague for all times to come.”

The student sighed with relief as he reached the end of the chapter and sat down without being prompted to. The teacher twitched a questioning antenna at his class.
“Another power struggle?” ventured a student.
“Yes?”
Now totally committed to her doom by virtue of speaking first, the student bravely continued, “Onos is the name taken by the first head of the Elenish Covenant. He was beheaded for his heresy but his Covenant survived.”
“Very good. At least you know your history if not your religion,” said the teacher. “But with one mistake. Onos is the name given to him by the Ramapa Covenant. His real name, it is believed was ‘Flayyva’, with variants on the name thereof, depending on the source. Onos was noted not just for his heresy but also for his promiscuous lifestyle. Hence references to his ‘Mighty Horn’…”
The females in the class blushed suddenly while others erupted in a fit of giggles.
The teacher cast a stern gaze around. When order returned, he continued, “It was rumored that amongst his many conquests was the then Chosen of the Covenant, Lady Edaf, who was his lover and later his executioner. You could argue that the split in the Covenant was one of the most spectacular and bloody love stories of dramkind history.”
“LIES!”
The entire class started at the sudden interruption and stared in shock at the source of the outburst. A girl, who had sat in silence throughout the class hand now risen to her tripods, the digits in her limb, clenching and unclenching in barely controlled anger.
“ALL LIES! HERESY AND LIES!” she continued shouting.
The teacher seemed unfazed by the interruption. There was always one of them in his class. He knew how to handle them and the first step was to let them talk. Give them rope and then hang them with it.
“Indeed? And how, pray tell, would you then define the truth?” he purred.
“The Gods WERE real! They came from the stars in ships that can fly between them. They pursued the demons we call Khaara who too came from the stars!” The girl’s eye’s gleamed with messianic fervour as she continued her rant. “The Gods were more advanced beings from another world and they protected us and nurtured us against that one day when they will come back for us and take us to help wage war against the demon threat as their Frontiers Force! DEATH TO THE KHAARA!”
The teacher started. The Khaara cultists were slowly gaining prominence in society, though he hadn’t expected to have one in his class. Admission selection should have weeded them out. He needed to nip this in the bud and fast.
He did not have the chance. It began with a giggle, then a chuckle and soon the class was in fits and riotous laughter danced across the room. The laughter seemed only to infuriate her further and she continued her yelling.
“It’s the only truth. There really IS life on other worlds! And there IS a war being fought in the stars. One day we will have to fight it too! Why don’t you listen to me?”
“Oh and I suppose the book of Natura Selecti is nothing but a record of a war fought here millennia ago between two aliens from the stars?” needled the teacher.
“Yes!” exclaimed the girl and the laughter rose to an even higher volume.
“Why are you all laughing? Why don’t you listen to me?” she begged, her anger now giving way to tears of embarrassment. “Please listen to me. Stop laughing.”
The teacher raised his one limb in an effort to quiet the class. “Now, now students, she has a right to her beliefs and to state them in this class. No matter how…” laughter sputtered through his lips, “PATENTLY RIDICULOUS they may be.” And even the teacher collapsed in laughter. “A war between two alien races, chronicled in the religious texts? HILARIOUS!” The teacher went into paroxysms of laughter and had to lean on his desk to support his helpless mirth.
The girl shot him a look of pure force and hate. “You…BASTARD!” she spat at him and then gathering her books she ran from the classroom, laughter still echoing behind her.
The teacher wiped the tears from his eye and chuckled at the class, “I get one every year. Ah well. To each their own. A war in space between two alien races? Ridiculous! What ever will they come up with next?”