How ya doin’, doods? It’s been quite a ride and Apeiron’s TGE has successfully inaugurated. Woohooo!!! To learn more about the TGE, read here 🎉

Now, let’s take a breather because today we have brought you a story from a planet far far away…Doods will always be doods, always hungry and lazing around. NOT on this planet though! The doods here seem to be diligently training themselves for something…

Well, let’s take a look at what has happened there! 👀

—-----

Juggy stood in the middle of the arena, crowds of doods were cheering all around him. Doods were shouting and yelling all over the place, nearly deafening him. Those sound waves had even caused the floors of the arena trembling, shaking him to the ground. 

It was really just his own legs that were shaking.

From a distance, he sized up his opponent. The dood was slightly taller than him, wearing armor made up of sturdy shells, with a long wand extending from the ground to over his head, and a shiny topaz embedded at the tip of his wand, most likely a precious jewel polished and imported from Flameo’s realm. His opponent smiled confidently.

He, too, had a wand, but not as fancy. Instead, it was made up of rotten wood. There was supposed to be a ruby embedded at the tip of his wand, but instead they put a really rough rock on there. How disappointing. 

He was severely wounded by his opponent’s previous attack, but he wasn’t ready for a counter-attack yet. As a Mage, he had to wait patiently for sufficient mana so he could launch an all-out strike, giving his opponent a strong blow. In the moment, they were awkwardly standing face to face, taking a moment of breath, while all the spectating doods were yelling with excitement, waiting for their next move.

A burst of energy was gathering around him. He could feel the mana in him resonating those in the air, and so he started charging up his wand. The tip of his wand started to glow, he knew that this would be his chance.

The timing is now. His only hope of victory.

“STARFALL GAMBIT!!!!!!”

Juggy yelled with all his might. And within seconds, glowing magic started condensing at the tip of his wand and expanded into a ball of light, summoning celestial bodies falling from through the roof of the open-aired Apostle Arena’s blue sky.

All the meteors are flying towards his opponent. He smiled, watching the giant rocks landing on the dood, not even the shell armor could protect him from damage…

“STARFALL GAMBIT!!!!!”

To his surprise, his opponent hasn’t surrendered yet. Instead, with a yell under the accumulated rocks, the dood commanded the sky to take revenge for him. 

What happened afterwards? Juggy could not remember. He could only feel heavy rocks and stones falling on him, nearly suffocating him with the excessive pressure, he was gasping for air between the crevices of stacked rocks. Then, he heard the crowd of doods cheering, and he fainted…

—-----

“Cuckkkoodooodling doooooooooooooooooo…”

When Juggy finally woke up, he found himself on his own bed, drenched in nervous sweat. 

Was the fight just a dream? No, he really did fight in the tournament. But he lost, miserably. 

Good thing that doods won’t easily die from punting and squishing, he only felt some soreness  from his last fight. Carefully, he climbed down from his bed which was made up of straws, and headed out to his tiny backyard, taking care of his only two tupecks. 

“Grrr…grrr…”

His stomach made some weird noises, and both of the tupecks were looking in his direction (though their eyes were covered by their long feathers). He really wanted to cook his tupecks for a meaty meal, but when he remembered he couldn’t live without them laying eggs, he refrained from doing so. 

Then, when he walked to the coop adjacent to his little straw hut, he found out that there’s only one tupeck who laid an egg today. Well, that’s still better than none, which he had experienced before. Famine hit their planet pretty hard, even the tupecks were malnourished…

He picked up the egg and gently placed it in his basket. It was still warm, and he started to drool. 

“Dood, I wish there could be more food…” Juggy murmured, taking his egg back to his hut, then fried it for a quick meal. 

The egg was tasty (VERY tasty). It’s just that…one egg wouldn’t fulfill a dood’s appetite. Juggy was starving, especially after the exhausting fight from yesterday, he had used up all his energy. He really wanted some food. Not just an egg, maybe two, or three, or more. He wouldn’t even mind just having a ton of eggs to fill his belly. 

“Grrr…grrr…”

His stomach just wouldn’t stop growling. He hesitated for a moment, but then he kept remembering that he shouldn’t kill his tupecks, or else he would have no food tomorrow. 

Sigh…he should’ve been enjoying his feast now if only he had won in the tournament. Since the resources on this planet were pretty scarce, Magis, God of Organized Play had made a rule that whoever became the winner in one of his many grand tournaments would be promised with a big feast. And yet, for losers they would only get some really diluted stews or even nothing. 

But, how did he lose to his opponent? They were both using Starfall Gambit but somehow his opponents’ skill was much stronger than his. Was it because of their wands? That’s so unfair! He thought to himself, stomping the ground with his stubby little feet. 

With a grumbling stomach, Juggy pulled out some straws from his bed and fed his tupecks. Then, looking at the tiny little bed area he had, he realized that it’s time to get some new straws for his bed and his tupecks. 

—-----

Juggy piled up some straws at his front door and made way to a farmerdood, who was living nearby. As he trudged through the grove and on his way his tummy kept growling, scaring away all kinds of bandicats. Finally, he reached the farm and saw McRooty the farmerdood taking care of his field. 

“Hey McRooty! Do you have some straws for me today?” 

“Ah…Little Juggy! I’m sorry, but look, I have no harvest for O’ McRooty this month…” McRooty scratched his head and replied with a set smile. 

The moment when Juggy looked at McRooty’s field, it’s almost like a field of ruins, full of dead bushes and thorns. It’s gray and dull. 

“McRooty! You have to clear up your field for your crops to grow! That’s what farming is all about, isn’t it?” Juggy was shocked.

“The thing is…I want to clear it up too, but I’m too hungry and tired,” said McRooty, giving up on standing and sitting down on the dirt floor instead. 

“I’ll help you then!” 

Juggy rushed into the barren field, picking up McRooty’s sickle and started to work on the field. However, the more he worked, the hungrier he got, and his stomach just kept rumbling. He felt really tired when cutting the dead bushes and thorns, as if he was casting a spell without any mana. 

Eventually, when he got utterly tired, he had only cleared a tiny tile of that field. Both of them planted their butts side by side, taking a breather.

“You know what, Juggy? O’ McRooty here thought you'd win in the tournament and bring back some food.” McRooty sighed. 

“Was that why you stopped working on the field?” Juggy questioned. 

“Of course not! No, I’m a hardworking good dood,” McRooty laughed with his face slightly going red, “Now tell me, were your opponents that strong?”

“Well, I lost in the second round,” sighed Juggy, “We used the same skills but I have no idea why it was weaker!”

Juggy shrugged, taking out his wand and stared at it for a moment. What if…he could make a pile of food magically appear in front of them? He closed his eyes, imagined some juicy meaty tupeck sticks, or sweet savory pommegrannies, or just some wheaty soft flower flour bread…Mmmm…tasty…

“Hey, hey! Juggy! Did you go and pray to the God of Horns?” McRooty clutched onto Juggy’s shoulders and shaked him back to reality, “Don’t you know all the doods go and get blessings from gods before fighting in the tournament?”

“Huh? Maybe I should have done that…” Juggy thought, “Yea! Why haven’t I thought about it? I should go now, thanks McRooty!”

“Oh hey be careful don’t step on my crops…Nevermind they’re not growing.” 

—----- 

And so, Juggy came to the temple of the God of Horns. It was a place where there were no dull edges. Everywhere he went, he’d have to be careful with the pointy jagged spikes. The exterior of the structure was an echo of war, the many stories of battles fought and victories won. Juggy thought to himself that he had come to the right place. 

There was a line of doods queuing in front of the temple, but when he peeked at the front, he could barely see doods kneeling down in front of the altar, praying to a god. They looked so sincere, and when they said out their prayer, a prayer bubble would form on top of their head, slowly ascending to the ceiling of the temple. After then, the bubble would pop, and some of them would get what they prayed for, while some others…didn’t, because they kept floating to one of the pointy stubs, they kept praying hard. 

While he was drooling when he saw other doods filling their trolleys of food, he was more concerned with the really uniformed head accessories of the queuing doods. They all wore a pair of horns on the two sides of their heads, as if they were going to a costume party. Juggy didn’t know anything about the horns beforehand, he was only here praying for power, but now he started to worry if he missed out something. 

Finally, it was his turn.

“Dear God of Horns, I wish I have the power to win in Magis’ tournament…”

“Hey, this…dood, why don’t you have horns?” The moment when Juggy knelt down praying, a deafening sound came from the sky above the temple, and it wasn’t the nicest thing Juggy had heard in his dood life. 

“Uhh…because…I’m a dood?” Juggy started to shiver on the ground. 

“A dood should have a pair of horns!” The sound echoed in the cold temple walls. “All the other doods have horns!”

“But…but…doods don’t have horns…” Juggy insisted with his voice trembling. 

“What do you mean? All doods have horns! Just look at the doods behind you!” The voice said furiously. 

Juggy didn’t even have to look behind him to confirm the “fact”. Now he understood why every dood wore a pair of horns to the temple. 

“Sorry, God of Horns, I don’t have a pair of horns…” Juggy trembled while prostrating with his forehead sticking to the ground. 

”Well, you should be happy then, because I’m a generous god and I give horns to imperfect doods!” The voice suddenly changed to a joyful tone. “Here you go! Next!”

“But wait- I haven’t…” Juggy could feel something is happening to his body, there’s something sticking out from the sides of his head, but that’s not what he came for. Also, it felt weird. So weird. 

“You’ve already got your horns. I said next!” 

“Ok…Thank you God of Horns…” Juggy stood up and bowed, and left the temple with disappointment. 

—-----

After Juggy returned to his hut, it was already evening. And yet his belly was not filled. He was more exhausted than when he started his travels. He went to bed early and tried to numb his senses. 

However, when he laid down on his bed, he could only feel a mysterious stream of energy bursting within him. It was not mana he was used to, it was something else. It was an urge that made him want to dash and bump into everything…?

“AAAAAARGH! I can’t sleep like this! I want to fight!” 

And so, Juggy didn’t sleep at all, instead he rushed to the town through the night. 

—-----

The morning sun was out. Diligent doods on the planet started to train their physique, but more importantly, a grand tournament was going to happen early on that day, with doods filling the spectator stands of the Apostle Arena at dawn. 

“Ladies annnnnnd gentledoods! Here comes the grand final! Who would win? Blackhole Beast the Berserker, or Sly Silencer the Summoner? Let us begin NOW!”

Magis, the God of Organized Play, had personally attended the tournament and done live commentary on the match. This was the match which would decide who could get the most awesome feast, for the champion could gain the food servings for 5 years, including dolk bellies per week, tupeck drumsticks per day, and sugarmelon per meal as dessert. And after countless rounds of elimination, the grand final had arrived - to decide who would leave with their belly filled. 

Blackhole Beast the Berserker and Sly Silencer the Summoner were standing face to face in the arena, ready for their battle. Blackhole Beast wrapped a thin piece of cloth around his body as armor, and didn’t even equip any weapons. Noticeably, his fist was double the size of Sly Silencer, as sturdy as a rock. On the other hand, Sly Silencer wore some thick armor that seemed heavy, with his feet sinking into the ground. He was also equipped with a very heavy staff, with some intimidating patterns painted on it.

“Battle…start!” 

Blackhole Beast started charging towards Sly Silencer, while Sly Silencer was standing still chanting some weird spells. However, when Blackhole Beast was about to hit his opponent, there was something moving really quickly approaching the arena…

“BANG!”

A creature broke into the arena, crushing and shattering the wooden walls, and rushed directly towards Sly Silencer. In a blink of an eye, the creature had knocked Sly Silencer off into the sky and caused a commotion. 

All of the spectating doods gasped. 

“Huh, what’s that? Or who’s that? So powerful haha! I LIKE IT!” Magis broke the silence and yelled. 

“Uh, but, the creature…Dood? Sdood? Dolk? is not supposed to be here?” The servant dood standing beside Magis said in a faint voice. 

“Oh, we should give every champ an opportunity to shine! Let the battle continue!” said Magis frenziedly, waving his fists in the air. 

And so the show continued. After the dust dissipated, the creature was now clearly visible - It was a dood who stood on the ground with all his four limbs, just like how a dolk would stand. He seemed to be enraged, furiously staring at Blackhole Beast, the only one now left in the battle. There was also a pair of horns weirdly sticking out from the sides of his head. 

It was Juggy. 

The now feral dood was digging the ground with his hindlimb, just like a wild dolk. His body was raging with pumping veins and muscles and his eyes had locked onto his intimidated opponent. Without saying a word, he charged forward at full speed, and crashed his huge pair of horns on Blackhole Beast…

He did it. He knocked off his opponent! He’s the LAST ONE standing! JUGGY WON! (YIPPIE!!)

“What a wonderful match! I’ve not seen a match like this in a trillion years! Marvelous!” Magis’ clap rung through the arena. All the spectating doods stood up and clapped together. 

Juggy had won. He had won! He had reached the height he wanted to! It was right that he should have prayed to the God of Horns! Everything would go fine from now on, he would have so much food to enjoy, maybe even for the rest of his life. The only cost was to live with a pair of horns, which to be fair, was not that bad after all. At least better than a starving belly. 

Soon after, Juggy was brought to the front of a pile of food. A big bowl of mountain frites, pommegrannies, sugarmelons, tupeck drumsticks, dolk bellies, groat milk, molamola balls… Everything he could dream of was right in front of his eyes. They smelled so good. And they all belonged to him. This was what he had been fighting for, what he deserved. 

But then…

He felt nothing…

There was nothing from the table that he wanted to eat…Strange. Really strange. 

Then, he turned his head to the grasslands at the periphery of the arena. So green, smells so fresh, so… so TASTY…He ran over there and started chomping off patches of grass! 

“Oh my! Why is this dood eating grass?”

“Doods never eat greenies! He must be a bood!”

“Or…is he actually a dolk? Look at how he walks!” 

Right…who was he? What was his name? He had a pair of horns, so he must be a dolk…Yes, he is a dolk! And a dolk eats grass whenever hungry. 

He looked at the vast pastures on the planet and thought to himself that he’d never be hungry again in this life. 

—-----

That’s the end of the story! Do you feel sorry for Juggy? Or do you think he got what he deserved? In your opinion, how do you think the famine of this planet could be overcome? Why don’t you pay a visit to our Discord and discuss politics of the godiverse with other godlings? Also, follow our Twitter for more Apeiron news!

And as always, see ya next time, godling!

About Apeiron

Apeiron is the world’s first NFT-based play-and-earn god game. Apeiron will feature a unique card-based action-adventure combat system combined with god game simulation gameplay inspired by classic god games like Populous and Black & White. Players will be able to build up planets from above before descending to the ground as a powerful Avatar to solve the mysteries of the universe. Players will grow their planet to the point of developmental stagnation, then reset the planetary cycle via an Armageddon event to allow for even more advancement and thrilling late-game alliance level GvE and GvG activities. Apeiron will use a tri-token architecture, which means that there will be three separate tokens to navigate their ecosystem: a governance token, a play-to-earn token, and a premium alliance token.

Visit Apeiron’s Website | Official Marketplace | OpenSea | Youtube | Discord | Twitter

During the winter time, the doods are all about that huddlin’, cuddlin’, and snugglin’ to keep warm because baby it’s cold outside. They even have butt muffs to keep their particularly rotund posteriors nice and toasty. Every dood agrees butt muffs are a fashion staple in the godiverse during the winter season. They’re practical AND add an attitude to a dood’s fit. My god, so chic.

Well godlings, you guessed it, today we’ve got a piece on some of the godiverse’s Doodmas lore to share with y’all! On top of that, today we’ll also be looking at the schedule for a set of holiday Nebula Expeditions going live soon as part of our Ronin Migration Celebration.

Speaking of which, the migration is live NOW! If you haven’t already, make sure you migrate your assets over from the old marketplace to the new one. You can read all about it HERE and HERE. And make sure to check out the quests we have goin’ on at Moku right now.

There’s a lot happening and ultimately it’s all a big party, which is perfect for this holiday time of year. So let’s get to it!

Holiday Expeditions

First up we have a wonderful slate of delicious new staking events for you doods! For those of you who might be new, we call these Nebula Expeditions. Basically, for each of these expeditions you can stake your Planet and Apostle NFTs in return for a chance to win rewards.

What exactly the rewards are depends on the expedition, while your chance to win is related to the number and rarity of your assets as well as how long you stake for. You can read all about the nitty gritty details on expeditions HERE.

For this holiday season we’ve got TWO new awesome expeditions, two new nebulas for you to plunder for treasure: the “Mirrored Soul Nebula” and the “Foonie Mavis Nebula.”

The Mirrored Soul Nebula Expedition will reward our in-game currency ANIMUS, and will actually be split up into three separate staking events to give everyone a bit more flexibility in how exactly you choose to stake your assets. Specifically, the dates for exploring the Mirrored Soul Nebula are as follows:

1. The Christmas Adventure — Dec 22 — Dec 28

2. New Years Adventure — Dec 29 — Jan 4

3. Hungover Adventure — Jan 5 — Jan 11

For these expeditions, for the first time, you’ll be able to stake up to (6) Planets and (12) minted Apostles. The higher the IVs, the more chance you have to win rewards, so this is a great time to farm up some premium Apostles.

Please note also that we will have special rewards just for joining these ones! Everyone who stakes will get (1) a redemption code for a Doodelic Wings free mint item and (2) a redemption code for 6 Booty Hours. The codes will be sent to your marketplace-linked email account once the expedition is over.

Finally, to cap it all off, we have a special treat: the Foonie Mavis Nebula Expedition. This nebula represents the birth of the Axie Stella Constellation, and will actually reward Star NFTs, which function as the rentable land of the Apeiron godiverse. This is truly a one-of-a-kind expedition and you definitely don’t want to miss out on a chance to get your own Star, so mark your calendars!

For the Foonie Mavis Expedition, you’ll be able stake (1) Planet and (12) Apostles from the newly minted classes (Guardian, Rogue, Mage) AND your $RON tokens — as much as you want! This expedition will run from Jan 12 — Jan 19. Good luck!

______

We imagine you’ll be blasting off on some expeditions this holiday, but you might be wondering — what are the doods of the godiverse up to? It’s doodmas, after all! How do they celebrate? Well first and foremost we would be remiss if we didn’t direct you to these INCREDIBLY WRITTEN (“5 out of 5, if I could read, and if I had read it,” — Dood on the street) Medium articles from last year with a delightfully doody holiday story. Find ’em HERE (Part 1) and HERE (Part 2).

This year we’re going to talk more in broad terms about some doody holiday season lore: the foods that doods tend to eat on Doodmas, and some of the notable traditions. Enjoy!

Doodmas Delights

When we talk about Doodmas, of course we have to talk about the foods first. After all, doods don’t exactly need an excuse to eat a lot of food, but Doodmas is especially special because there’s A LOT of foods to eat — making it a holiday that every dood looks forward to all year round.

In fact Doodmas is so popular that some doods also celebrate “Half Doodmas”, which is the halfway point in the year towards Doodmas. But it’s never really caught on, to be honest. Anyway!

Foods, wonderful foods for wonderful doods. What’s on the menu? It depends where you come from! All Planets of the godiverse are aspected towards the four elements of Fire, Water, Air, and Earth in different ways, which influences the types of tasty holiday treats the doods will whip up.

For instance, doods on Earth-ier Planets where there are a ton of fruits lying around will make Dot Dot Cake, so called for its famous speckled appearance. Basically doods will go around picking up any sort of fruit lying around and toss it into a great big vat of batter, bake it up, then smother it with a drippingly sweet icing. The tricky thing about this one is keeping the doodlings hands off of the icing in particular, the sugary sweetness draws them like moths to a flame.

And speaking of flame, what’re they eatin’ on Fire-aspected Planets? In short: meat. Doods are big meat lovers, and Fire-aspected worlds are renowned for the meat platters that go on sale during the holidays. Skewers dripping with juices and spices, cold cuts of hams and cured meats, whole tupeck and groat roasts — you wouldn’t want to miss one of these feasts. If you’re really lucky you’ll be able to get some Dolk Wellingdood, a large holk of dolk meat carefully enveloped in flaky pastry. It’s tricky to make though, so most doods just opt for frying up a steak instead.

Now when we talk about Air-aspected worlds — well, the wind sure does blow something chilly at this time of year. And when the wind is howling, what you really need is a good soup to warm you up. Dood soups come in all kinds of varieties, from thin broths with meatballs or dumplings (and often both) to thick stews packed with taters and other starchy ballast. Also if you see a dood looking kind of…well, orange, it might be because they had a rich bowl of ketchy soup, made from the red ketchy plant, which has the quality of suffusing doods’ skin with an orange glow until the morning after. Very nourishing.

Last but not least we have the Water-aspected Planets, and here it’s all about ice ice ice, and, well, snow too. Hot koko made from freshly melted snow: you can’t beat it, many a dood would swear to their god. Ice cream mixed with snow, ice, and cream from the soft loins of a verygold beast, which only come out from their underground nests in the winter. And then there’s the home specialty that many doods will make: a crushed ice dish where the ice flakes are doused in a syrupy sweet sauce, usually made from twinkle berries. Refreshing, delicious, in a word: delightful.

Where would you want to visit first?

Winterland Traditions

Once you’re done eating, it’s story time. What kind of traditions do the doods have when it’s this time of year? Well it all starts with Father Doodmas.

Father Doodmas is a special sort of dood. He wears a big fluffy red coat with white trimming and has a big white beard because he’s pretty old. He flies around in a special sled that travels through the air, which is pretty impressive when you think about it. It is said that he was the first dood to celebrate Doodmas, and that he decided to do so because of all doods, he loved food the most (and that’s saying something), so he turned feasting into the doodiest of holidays. Most importantly, he distributes all kinds of food, FREELY. That’s the point. He’s Father Doodmas.

These are the myths the doods know about Father Doodmas, and all over the godiverse they wait for him to show up every year and toss yummy snacks down from his sleigh in the sky. But what’s the REAL story behind Father Doodmas? Turns out he was once just a regular dood. And every day for his whole life he prayed for this one thing — this one idea — Doodmas, a holiday for doods, just for eating and presents and happy times. And he wished it so many times that one day, one of the gods in the godiverse finally took note, and granted it. Dedication to a dream is a beautiful thing. Or maybe annoying persistence is enough to break down even divine patience? Whatever! Doodmas is awesome.

Besides for watching out at night for Father Doodmas’ rain of free food, doodlings on the holidays LOVE to participate in the Snowball Wars. These are month-long snowball fights that happen between doodlings from different villages. Every day the doodlings will march off to battle and return either happily victorious or battered…but still happy.

What are the wars over? No one really knows or cares. What do the winners get? Not much more than bragging rights. But when you see those doodlings running around pelting each other with snowballs, slipping and sliding on the ice, sledding down the side of hills for a flanking assault before all tumbling together in a laughing pile — that’s the Doodmas spirit, right there, plain for all to see.

And indeed, there’s someone up there who is certainly keeping an eye on things, because despite the mess that the doodlings make playing out in the snow, during the Snowball Wars every day has a fresh coat of powder for the doodlings to enjoy. Those who look up at the clouds might be able to spot a shadow in the gloom, a silhouette of something godly hiding away from doody eyes…

But doodlings don’t tend to look up. Rather, after a day of snowballing, they rush home to have a steaming mug of hot koko by the fire, with a lump of snow in it to cool it down to the perfect temperature and to give it a festive feeling.

Outside, as day turns to night, the prayer bubbles of all the doods float up towards the gods — and there they stay, frozen by the cold. Twinkling in the starlight, it is a beautiful sight — all those dreams, crystallized, hanging halfway to heaven, shining in the darkness. And in the background, the faint laughter of Father Doodmas as he delivers his delicious gifts all around the godiverse.

— — — —

Merry Doodmas to all, and Happy Holidays!

If you’re looking for some festive cheer or feeling lonely, don’t hesitate to find us on Discord and Twitter. We’ll be there for you if you need us.

As always, thanks for reading godlings ~

About Apeiron

Apeiron is the world’s first NFT-based play-and-earn god game. Apeiron will feature a unique card-based action-adventure combat system combined with god game simulation gameplay inspired by classic god games like Populous and Black & White. Players will be able to build up planets from above before descending to the ground as a powerful Avatar to solve the mysteries of the universe. Players will grow their planet to the point of developmental stagnation, then reset the planetary cycle via an Armageddon event to allow for even more advancement and thrilling late-game alliance level GvE and GvG activities. Apeiron will use a tri-token architecture, which means that there will be three separate tokens to navigate their ecosystem: a governance token, a play-to-earn token, and a premium alliance token.

Visit Apeiron’s Website | Official Marketplace | OpenSea | Youtube | Discord | Twitter

Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti Dood! Have you ever wondered about the sonorous sounds that sing in the hearts of doods and gods of the godiverse? Well, this week we’re going to embark on a sonic journey across the different elemental realms and listen in!

But wait, before we delve into the beautiful sounds and melodies of Apeiron, let’s briefly discuss some important news. First, we are going to be gradually opening up our closed beta PvP testing to more players. If you are a Primeval holder, you can sign up now and start testing on Nov 27th! Godlings — that’s our Planet holders — can sign up on Dec 11th and play on Dec 18th. If you can’t wait to try the PvP and really enjoy Apeiron, consider picking up a Planet! More details, as always, on our Discord.

Second, an IMPORTANT REMINDER. S2 Dood Halo and Doodelic Wings (our free mint items for minting Apostles) will EXPIRE on Dec 15th, 12am GMT+8. Make sure to use them before they expire!

Now, with that being said, let the musical journey begin…

— — — — — —

Earth

The grassier parts of the godiverse are rich with a variety of sounds, reflecting both the sibilant rustlings of the trees in the woods and the baritone rumblings in the deep places of the Earth. Clintina, the Lady of Earth, enjoys bringing together these myriad musical notes in doody bands that perform long into the night after a long day of questing in the name of High Goddess Cosmos. Here are some of the instruments that doody musicians living in this realm might use:

Dolk Drum

First on the list we have dolk drums. Crafted from the surprisingly soft and supple skin of dolks, this drum creates a deeply warm tone that has a strange allure to doods. This type of drum is most commonly used during the harvest ritual where doods would hold hands and perform the Bumbum dance around the large sacred rock near Lady Clintina’s humble home. It is said that by doing this dance around this rock to the tune of a dolk drum, the harvest of fruits and goods will be expedited — more food, faster!

Beyond its use in rituals, this instrument is quite a favorite amongst doods, largely because it can be easily learned. It also creates a hypnotic beat that speaks to the doods’ primal nature. The moment doods hear its buttery beats, they will drop everything that they’re doing and start doing stubby taps with their feet.

Cin-nomnom Stick Shaker

In the shaded wallowing parts of the forest, twigs of cin-nomnom rolls can be found amidst piles of leaves. Though they are most often picked to make the infamous pommegranny pie, occasionally, doods like to pick them off the forest ground and bring them home for special treatment. By dipping them in sweet preservatives, the sticks can be prepped and hardened under the scorching suns of the godiverse.

After the sticks are dry and hardened, they are tied in bundles so that when they brush against each other, there is a bony rustling sound that goes: “Whack Click Whack… ” in staccato fashion. Importantly, the musical shaker can still be eaten as a tasty, crunchy snack when the need arises.

Diggy Flute

Initially, doods used hollow wooden tubes to amplify village announcements, but later they discovered that when one blows raspberries into the tube, the hollow pipe will produce a long, deep droning sound which can be transformed into music. Kakaki — the most proficient player of the Diggy flute, has built a reputation by performing in some of the cooler shops in the White City; his enchanting melodies never fail to mesmerize a swooning audience of doodettes with his soothing rhythms.

Fire

The crackling realm of Fire has some of the most exciting events in the godiverse, it has canopies of amazing street food, it has ships flying over the desert and a volcano rumbling over everything — expect the music to be just as exciting! Prepare to hear some hardcore(ish) metallic tunes that capture the explosive energy of flame.

Wrist Bells

During Fireball matches (read here), many heavily tattooed doods can be spotted wearing wrist bells and cheering for their favorite teams. Some of the leaner doods would even fasten these around their waist, jumping up and down to keep their hands free for more important things — holding bundles of groat skewers! The bells are crafted from minerals found in ashen sands near the base of the local volcano. After doods scoop and filter the sand for shiny twinkle rocks, these are sent to a workshop in the Charring Compound. There, the rocks are smelted and shaped into tiny bells before ending up on the wrists of the wild doods. With a shling and a shlong, the arena instantly becomes the wildest place to be, hyping up doods in every corner with the noisy jingle jangle.

Flaming Guitar

In the area around the Charring Compound, a group of juvenile doods will hop around the volcano with their flaming guitars, setting other dood huts on fire while playing — to the frustration of the locals, who officially banned the band from playing. Now they only play at night on empty Fireball pitches. One of the flaming guitar bands, named the Backwoods Warriors were the first dood band to be invited to open for the Epic Fireball Tournament and actually played at halftime. History was made. The famous “Twinkle Toe” hit was scored by the Charries on that very same day. Go Charriesss!!!!

As night comes to the Fire ream, the scorched quartz crystals, heated in the flaming temperatures during the day, start to creak and chime faintly as they cool, producing a lullaby that soothes the peaceful doods resting in their huts to sleep. They call it the Quartzsong, and many doods from the Fire realms who end up traveling to other places have trouble sleeping without some sort of noise in the background to remind them of their distant home.

Air

In the Land of Soaring Winds, the air tinkles with the resonance of chimes. It is as if the Elemental Lord of Air Lark’s presence lingers in the atmosphere. The soundscape here is mainly made up of different kinds of hums that reverberate as the wind sweeps across the natural mountainous formations, the valleys and hills. The constantly shifting winds create a continuous background melody for doods, making the homeland of Lord Lark as a stark contrast to the fire realm — ethereal, harmonious, unfettered.

The Sacred Hums of the Vortex Verge

Among all the mountains, the most noticeable hum emanates from the tallest peak of them all — the Vortex Verge. It is a two pronged, fork-like mountain with a large circle in the middle. It was rumored that this opening was made by one of Lord Lark’s mighty gusts. Another rumor says that the rock that used to be there was a special candy rock that doods licked and ate away, leaving only the circle. Whatever the case, the Vortex Verge stands grandly, making a deep humming note whenever the breeze stirs, resonating calmness.

Lark’s Theremin

The deep resonating hums on this land are often the most angelic when accompanied with Lark’s theremin — one of the rarest musical instruments to exist in the godiverse. According to dood myths, the god creates the music by imbuing his wind magic into the instrument and plays it by moving his hand ever so slightly in the space above it, creating a distinctive timbre that sounds just like a singsong bird. Doods that know (or pretend to know) a thing or two about the arts like to gather near the Vortex Verge, in hopes that Lord Lark shows up for an impromptu performance.

Chimmy Chimes

An array of chimmy chimes are scattered throughout the Land of Soaring Winds, placed to catch not just the wind, but the magical currents of mana-rich air from Lord Lark’s passing. Each chime, varying in different size and tone, emits a pure crystalline sound that fills the air with its melodious notes. As the chimmy chimes collide with each other, the gentle yet metallic notes would weave into a unique pattern that echoes differently every time. The notes blend seamlessly with the natural sounds of the environment, harmonizing perfectly with Lark’s Theremin. Delivery doods soaring by will try to run their fingers across the chimes as they fly to their next destination.

Water

In Coralia, a city of restlessness on the bottom of the sea, doods might expect the music here to be deep-house, arcadey. But in addition to the electronic and 8-bit game music, doods here do occasionally enjoy music as fluid as the water itself, music that enchants and makes the doods forget what they were doing, as if they had fallen under one of Lady Protea’s hypnotic spells.

Pop Pan Drums

The Grand Arcade in Coralia is always switching up their games. As a result the laneways of the Arcade district are always filled with scraps and pieces of metal plates from old game cabinets that have been disassembled and remade. One of the doods living on the streets of Coralia — Boho — found that these could be used as a drum that would make a strangely unique, haunting sound. And so it was that he created the first Pop Pan Drum, which quickly became a hit around the city.

Within the hustle and bustle of the Arcade district in Coralia where most acoustics are blended into one indistinguishable noise, doods of the Water realm can always detect the faintly soothing, raindrop-like sounds emanating in between the narrow alleyways that interconnect the five different arcades. Doods that have lost many arcade games often find solace in the beautiful harmonies played on these Pop Pan Drums.

Cora-lolophone

Corals found in the murky depths of Coralia are sometimes punctured with holes and brought into the city; doods now call them cora-lolophone because it makes sounds through the vibration of water! According to oral tradition, a crafty dood named Poko once accidentally sat on a piece of coral and nudged a bunch of holes onto it. After a few attempts of trying to fix the coral, he realized by pressing the jets of water coming through the openings, music can be created! From then onwards, he made it his life’s mission to pierce holes on to different sizes of corals so that the seabed of Coralia will always have a rich, organ-like sound as ambience.

Cross-Realm Performance — Fritz’s Choir!

Every year the White City hosts a music festival, welcoming doods from all the elemental realms to participate and showcase their musical talents. With the welcome mat spread far and wide, all types of noises are heard in the White City. Doods beating their own drums, tooting their own horns, or even…singing!

Fritz, the God of Harmony, is one of the few deities who enjoys being involved in this event (most find it way too noisy). In fact, he always assembles his own choir of doods to participate! As the God of Harmony, he loves the idea of doods being in sync and harmonizing each other through beautiful melodies. But somehow, it always brings him to frustration because doods will always be doods, being properly in sync just doesn’t really work for them. Even a god can’t change the nature of doods!

— — — — —

And there you have it, folks, the sounds of the godiverse, music to our souls. Although the bard doods will always end up snatching the top prizes at the annual music festival, the real victory lies in the unity and diversity of music. We hope that you’ve enjoyed this lore piece! Want to tell us your favorite part? You can! Follow us on Twitter and reach out to us on Discord and let us know :]

As always, thanks for reading godlings, tata ~

About Apeiron

Apeiron is the world’s first NFT-based play-and-earn god game. Apeiron will feature a unique card-based action-adventure combat system combined with god game simulation gameplay inspired by classic god games like Populous and Black & White. Players will be able to build up planets from above before descending to the ground as a powerful Avatar to solve the mysteries of the universe. Players will grow their planet to the point of developmental stagnation, then reset the planetary cycle via an Armageddon event to allow for even more advancement and thrilling late-game alliance level GvE and GvG activities. Apeiron will use a tri-token architecture, which means that there will be three separate tokens to navigate their ecosystem: a governance token, a play-to-earn token, and a premium alliance token.

Visit Apeiron’s Website | Official Marketplace | OpenSea | Youtube | Discord | Twitter

Hey y’all! Another week, another Apeiron blogpost. This week we’ve got a continuation of the adventures of Crit, Happy, and Tommy — you can read previous parts here, here, and here.

Couple of quick community announcements: our Wonderverse Discord bot will be live on Nov 20th, which should make purchasing goodies from the Soul Shop that much easier. On top of that, we’re also launching a new Doodypoints (DDP) system on our Discord. Godlings (our official Apeiron asset holders) can earn by completing tasks around Doodaria (our server) and get FE to spend on premium rewards!

On top of that we have a special BIG SWORD’S BOUNTY this month. Big Sword is a Foonie Magi and notable Boss Rush grinder who has posted a bounty of 20FE(!!!) for the first person who can beat his Cycle 4 Boss Rush clear time of 18:50. Good luck!

Finally, we’d like to say a big thanks to all the doods who showed up to our IRL community DADI hosted fan booth at ESGS in Manila. We had a great time meeting y’all and spreading the doody love. Big thanks to everyone who helped: Asta, Biku, AbbieG, BossOppa, Seanny, Meatboy, Sinichi, and JENGKOZ. And thanks to all of the other doods who showed up and made the event so wonderfully memorable~ Cheers!

With that all said and done, let’s get to the good stuff and start exploring the Realm of Fire. Doods, it’s going to get HOT🔥

______

He heard a rumble — and then he felt it, the ground trembling underneath his not insignificant buttocks. He opened his eyes and stared up at a flaming red sky. He coughed. The air was sooty with dust. But there was a smell of something…he looked down. He was perched on — kind of squeezed amidst — a large pile of food. “Huh, how did I get here?” Tommy asked himself.

“That’s what we’d like to know.”

Tommy looked up from the food and saw two doods dressed in loincloths and with impressively tattooed bodies staring at him curiously.

“We found you in the pile of food that we were about to offer to the volcano. Good thing we discovered you before we threw you in, eh?!” One of the half-clothed doods giggled.

“What? A volcano?!” Tommy paused for a moment. “What’s a volcano?”

The two other doods stared at him strangely, as if he were an unusual piece of fruit that could be deliciously sweet or grossly sour. “You don’t know what a volcano is? You must not be from ‘round here.”

“Nope.”

“A volcano is a big mountain that spits fire,” explained the other. He pointed. “Right over there.”

“Oh!” said Tommy. He turned around and gawked. Towering above him into the sky was a huge mountain sheathed in ash. The bare rocky mountainside had lava flowing down its side in erratic, narrow rivulets, smoke rising and mixing with the generally sooty air.

“So that’s why it’s so hot,” said Tommy.

“It’s the home of Lord Flameo,” said the first dood. “He’s the God of Fire. You’re sitting in our offerings to him.”

“Oh!” said Tommy, jumping up, ignoring the offerings completely. “Perfect! We were trying to travel to meet Lord Flameo to get his blessing and-”

He paused. His head darted back and forth. “Wait — where are the others?” All he could see were rocks, the volcano behind them, and the two tattooed doods. Where were his dad Crit the Dragoon and Happy the Summoner?

“What others?” the doods asked him.

“My dad — he’s got a helmet. His name is Crit. And a dood named Happy. Except she’s kind of grumpy. We were traveling together…I think.”

The first tattooed dood shrugged. “We only saw you here.”

“Hmm…weird.”

The other tattooed dood stretched and yawned. “Well we’re done here anyway. Wanna come with us?”

“Where you doods going?”

“To the food street! We’re hungry.”

“Yeah!” Tommy thought a bite to eat would certainly clear his mind up. “My name’s Tommy.”

“I’m Flare,” said the second tattooed dood. He grinned at Tommy.

“I’m Flint,” said the first tattooed dood. He flexed in a manner that suggested he had muscles (he did not). “People call us the Char Brothers.”

“Neat!”

And so the Char Brothers ditched their work in preparing the offerings and led Tommy to the foot of the volcano. It was pretty steep. And the ground itself was hot! Tommy was hopping around like a dood on a hot tin roof, while the two charred doods were completely unbothered. At one point Tommy almost hotfooted himself into a river of lava, but the Char Brothers were quick on their feet and pulled him out of danger.

Tommy also saw magma pools and hot springs around the area. The magma pools were filled with dangerously bright bubbling red molten rock. The hot springs, on the other hand, had a thin layer of iridescent shimmer above the water, seeming to shine from the golden glowing rocks that filled the base of the hotspring. Some doods were bathing there. The Char Brothers waved.

As they got closer to the foot of the volcano, the ground cooled enough that Tommy could walk normally. The rock shifted to become pebbles, and then ashen sand. Then suddenly one of the Char Brothers stopped him.

“Careful there, you don’t want to fall into quicksand,” said Flint.

“OH WHAT” Tommy exclaimed.

Apparently there was quicksand, which the Char Brothers helped Tommy to skirt around.

“How do you doods even live here?” said Tommy. “It’s dangerous.”

The Char Brothers laughed. “For an outsider dood, maybe,” said Flare. “We’re used to it.”

As they descended, they crested a rise of rocks and Tommy saw a winding road below them. Both sides of this well-trodden path were lined with hawker stalls with doods yelling out their wares while other doods shopped and munched on the yummy snacks. The smell of roasted dolk meat drifted up through the air and Tommy’s mouth began to water.

As they got closer, Tommy could see that the street extended out to an area of flatness where there seemed to be ships at rest. He pointed at them. “Is that…uh…why are those ships there?”

“Those are our homes,” said Flint proudly. “The desert ships. We use them to get around the desert around the volcano.”

“Wow!” said Tommy. “Neat.”

Finally they reached the hustle and bustle of the food street. The masts and rigging of the desert ships swayed and creaked above the noise of a lot of doods mulling about trying to get food.

There were many colorful signs and canopies set up, and the smells that Tommy had sniffed from higher up were now overwhelming: roasted cuts of dolk, deep fried tupeck legs, and a whole assortment of crispy desert insect things that he was a little afraid of trying but honestly still smelled good.

The young dood’s stomach finally got the better of him: “I’m hungry! I want to try out everything!” Tommy rushed to the end of a line, Flint and Flare hot on his heels.

It was a long line. They couldn’t even tell how long it was to wait, all they could see were just doods, doods were everywhere, and the line was not orderly at all but somehow there was a system of its own where doods just seemed to have figured who was going first and who drifted away in the middle. It was going to be a long time, so they started chatting.

“Why are there so many food stalls?” Tommy asked.

“This is the main road up the volcano, so it’s an important place for us Fire Doods. The volcano is connected to our Lord Flameo’s house, and if we throw food inside the volcano, he’ll receive our offerings!” Flint explained. “So a lot of doods come here to give some offerings, and then of course before they go up they want to get some food.”

“Oh yeah! Flameo. Can you tell me more about him? I want to meet him!”

“Meet him? Hahaha, that’s a crazy wish, but I think he’ll like your spirit!” Flare giggled while slapping his own tummy that was hanging out just above his loincloth. “Doods say that our Lord Flameo will invite doods that win the EPIC FIREBALL TOURNAMENT to join him for dinner. You might just want to give that a try.”

“What’s THE EPIC FIREBALL TOURNAMENT?” Tommy asked, making sure to add emphasis.

“Well, we set a ball on fire. Then you kick it around, try and score a goal,” Flint said while tapping his feet around, juggling an imaginary fireball. “It’s the most popular sport around here!”

“Kick a flaming ball? Woah!” Tommy backed off, but then he thought that if he didn’t do this, they wouldn’t be able to save the doods who needed their help, and he wouldn’t be able to meet up with his brother Timmy again. He needed to be brave. “I guess I have to do it then. Can you teach me how to play?”

“Of course, you’re cool so we’ll teach ya! We LOVE fireball!” yelled Flare while pounding his chest.

As they were chatting, suddenly two doods appeared walking through the crowds. They were both holding big skewers of barbecued dolk meat. One of them was trying to figure out how to eat the meat without taking off his helmet. Tommy recognized him immediately.

“Daaaaaaaaaaaaaad!!” Tommy dashed out of the line and ran towards Crit.

“Oh Tommy! You’re here! Great! We were really worried,” said Crit, still thinking about how to eat the skewers.

“How did you get here?” asked Happy curiously.

Tommy shrugged. “I can’t remember. I woke up in a pile of food.”

“Huh,” said Happy. “Well we had quite the adventure looking for you. But the spirits told us you’d be here, and they were right.”

Crit gave his son a dolk skewer and then grabbed him in a one-handed hug. “We’re back together again! Woooooo!”

“Wait dad, I’ve got two new friends! Hang on a sec…” Tommy dashed back to where Flint and Flare was waiting, and brought them over.

Crit watched his son running away in tiny steps and he smiled. He had never let Tommy adventure on his own, but seeing Tommy doing just fine all by himself, well, he was happy about that. Proud.

After Tommy had introduced Flint and Flare to Crit and Happy, and after they had all chomped down on some skewers, Tommy told them about the EPIC FIREBALL TOURNAMENT.

“Anyway dad, I wanna join and try and win. It’s the easiest way to get to see Flameo and get his blessing.”

“Hmmm…it sounds kinda dangerous, son. Why don’t we all join?”

Flint and Flare shook their heads. “It’s a young dood’s game.”

“I’m still young!” said Crit. “Just let me- ouch!”

Happy slapped his helmet. “Let Tommy do it.”

“Ow…what was that for…are you sure about this, Tommy?”

“Yeah!” said Tommy, holding up his arms. Unlike a lot of other doods, Tommy did, in fact, have some impressive muscles. When had he gotten so strong? “I’m tough, dad! I can do it!”

Crit remembered back when they were in the White City, when his other son was with him; Tommy and Timmy were a pair of silly little brothers who he had to look after. Now that Timmy was staying at Coralia, the realm of elemental water, Tommy was the only son staying with him throughout the journey. Crit knew that Tommy wanted to take on the responsibility to get Flameo’s blessing, so that they could meet Lady Cosmos and tell her about the Taint. Oh, doodlings, they grew up so fast.

They spent a bit more time eating at the food street, and then Flint and Flare led them off to one side of the street, a large, flat, and relatively packed ground where some doods were kicking fireballs around. An EDEN loomed over the pitch, its shadow providing comfort even as wayward mana particles danced in the air.

“So what’s first?” asked Tommy, once they were standing on the pitch. He didn’t want to show it, but he was a little nervous.

“First, we’ll teach you how to play fireball!” Flint patted on Tommy and took a ball out of nowhere, setting it on fire with a pile of burning straws at the side of the space.

“Umm, but it’s on fire! How?” Tommy shrieked.

“Don’t worry, put this on your body!” Flare took a bag of volcano ashes out of nowhere (how did they do that?). “I just scooped them fresh from the volcano. The volcano dust here is magical, given to us by our Lord Flameo. It protects doods from burning!”

“Oh, cool.” Tommy put some of the dust on his body. His body became very itchy that he couldn’t stop scratching, but he had to endure the itch for the sport. For his brother. For his family. For the blessing, and for the godiverse!

Now that the three doods were covered in the magically protective dust, they stepped onto the pitch and started to train. Flint and Flare were not only good at demonstrating their soccer skills, they even had time to do some sort of weird tricks. Flint could spin for five circles and end with a perfect split to prevent the fireball from entering the goal, while Flare could easily bounce the fireball with his round doody butt and score for the team. Tommy was having quite a hard time, he couldn’t even start practicing the tricks, as he was afraid of catching himself on fire.

On the side of the pitch was a sitting area. Crit was standing right on the first row, his eyes following Tommy to wherever he was. He was unusually quiet. Happy picked a spot close to him and closed her eyes, talking to the air, to the spirits. After a long time had passed, she opened her eyes. She saw Crit in the exact same position as when she had started her meditation. She sighed.

“Don’t worry, he’ll be fine,” Happy sat next to Crit and gave him a pat on the back.

“You’re right, he’ll be fine,” Crit repeated mechanically. He himself didn’t sound fine.

Happy sighed, then returned to her spot and continued with her meditation. Suddenly, she felt a burst of mana energy coming out of the area. Weirded out so she inspected her surroundings, only to find the three doods kicking a dazzlingly bright fireball while Tommy was hopping around with his burnt feet and heading to rest next to the EDEN pillar. What had that been? Hmmm…

That night, the exhausted doods went to the Boiling Bath — one of the larger and more popular hot springs on the volcano. This hot spring was famous because it always had bubbles bubbling except for when no doods were in there, no bubbles would appear — a mystery. Flint, Flare, and Tommy toweled off the dust and grime from training and jumped in the bath with some skewers to eat while bathing.

The spice and the boiling spring water warmed up their bodies during the cold and starless night. Tommy was wondering where the stars had gone, he could only see a thick layer of ashes veiled over the sky. Crit and Happy finished soaking and decided to go get some more things to eat. Tommy stayed with the Char Bros in the bath. He felt very dirty and it felt good to clean off.

Eventually, Tommy started to feel relaxed soaking in the warm water after a full day of hard work. Although there were occasional snack breaks that kept him motivated; working out just wasn’t on the docket for a dood, but it wasn’t that bad, in fact he felt a second round of energy charging inside of him.

“Why do you doods love to work out and play sports here?” Tommy asked.

“Because it’s fun? And also food usually comes after!” said Flint while tearing his meat skewer apart.

“And sometimes even when we’re playing, we have food breaks!” Flare added, “Hehe! It’s fun! And also, our lord Flameo loves everything related to heat and that includes Friirryah! Cooking! Sports!”

“Why do you want to play fireball then? Just to meet Flameo?” Flint looked at Tommy curiously. “Why do you want to meet him?”

“Umm… I want to… prove myself?” Tommy thought for a while. He remembered the moment when he was still with Timmy, his brother. He recalled how helpless he felt when he saw his brother doing magic. He couldn’t do that. But he was strong. He knew it.

“Huh, that’s something,” Flint nodded and pretended to be thinking deeply, instead he was just falling asleep as the hot spring was just too relaxing.

“Ok, let’s win the tournament! Don’t worry, we’ll help you out!” Flare made a funny face to cheer him up. Tommy grinned.

Although there were no moons or stars, the night was filled with laughter and good food. The now wrinkly doods got out of the hot spring, except Flint who fell asleep and was forgotten until some bubbles floated to the surface and they noticed him. They dragged Flint out of the pool, then made way into Flint and Flare’s dingy hut where they met up with Crit and Happy and all huddled together for warmth during the night.

_______

Each early morning for the next few days: training, eat, training, eat, bath, sleep. And now he had to get up again. Tommy yawned and rubbed his eyes. A bit of ash got on his face, but he had gotten used to the itch by now. One of the Char Brothers popped his head in the doorway of the hut.

“So are you ready for the tournament?” asked Flint. “It’s today!”

“Already time?” Tommy rubbed his eyes even more viciously, blinking several times, “alright then, I guess I’m ready!” In fact he didn’t feel super confident. He couldn’t do any fancy tricks. But at least he could control the fireball. He had scored once. So that was something.

“Let’s head for the Sparkfire Arena! Otherwise, it’s gonna be full of doods soon,” said Flint.

They traveled from the hut across the volcano, down the food street, down all the way to the desert boats. From there, an older dood ran a ferrying service that would take them to the Sparkfire Arena, which was off across the sands — not far, but far enough that taking a boat was worth it.

The Sparkfire Arena itself was nestled amongst the dunes, with stone seating carved into the sides so that doods could sit and watch and enjoy the matches. When they arrived, Tommy, Flint and Flare went one way and Crit and Happy went the other. Crit gave his son a big hug.

“Good luck, Tommy! I know you can do it!”

“Thanks dad,” said Tommy, quickly trying to get out of his dad’s hug. He waved as he headed down to the competitor’s area.

Meanwhile, Crit and Happy settled on the third row of the spectator stand. Originally, Crit wanted to sit in the front row, but the mad fireball fan doods beat them to it and occupied all the seats. Those doods wore colorful headbands and brought hand-made cardboards with written slogans. He could read the name “Wild Wrath” in messy handwriting… Was it a team’s name? Crit quickly cobbled together a small sign that said “GO TOMMY!” Happy bought some nuts to eat from a snackdood.

Blare horns and music began to echo within the arena, and the one and only Broadcaster Dood introduced the different teams. The first match began — but it wasn’t Tommy’s turn yet. The fireball fan doods cheered and booed and the atmosphere was generally pretty rowdy. Crit felt nervous. Happy munched on her nuts.

And so the tournament went on. Then, it was time for Tommy’s team to have their match. Tommy walked onto the pitch, his feet shaking. Flint and Flare gave him comforting slaps on the back. But he still felt really nervous. What would he do if he failed? And the countdown was starting…

“3”

“TOMMMMMYYYY!”

“2”

Tommy looked at the crowd and saw his dad and Happy both jumping up and down. He saw the GO TOMMY! sign they had made. And he felt better.

“1”

Game time!

The sound of the horn began their match, and the fireball started. Seeing his son hustling on the field, Crits shouted even louder. He was so proud of his son!

Broadcaster Dood, the loyal servant to Magis — the God of Organized Play — was sitting in a booth and yelling his commentaries through a huge megaphone given to him by his god.

“LIKE A BERSERKER, TOMMY FROM … Wait, where is that dood from again? Anyway, this foreign little dood is a flash of pure inspiration for the Charries! Let me tip my doody hat to the birth of this new star. Tommy is absolutely lighting up the arena here!!!!!! Look at him go! He lifts off the fireball with a mighty kick and shoots it past the keeper!!!!.. GOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAL!!!” screamed the Broadcaster Dood.

“AND NOW, we can see that the opposing doods — the Wild Wrath are not happy with that, they are heading for Tommy’s goal post, and OH OH — they just scored!! GOOOOOOOOOAAAALLLLLLLL-”

“The Charries better keep up the good work, otherwise they are going to fall behind! Wild Wrath are not messing around! But OH MY GOD, Flare just did a double-cross alley-oop to his brother Flint, his twinkle toes, his magic feet, the fireball is like his baby, following him wherever he goes… AND HERE WE GOOO…GOOOOOOOOOOOAL! ” the Broadcaster Dood continued to hype up the field.

The sun was shining right into the middle of the coliseum, adding even more heat to the land of flames. The teams had about 30 seconds left to beat each other, and the Charries were getting tired. Tommy wasn’t even thinking anymore. He just got the fireball at his feet, shifted it around a little, and kicked it with all his might.

“AND IT’S THE NEW DOOD TOMMY WITH ANOTHER GOAL! Doods and doodettes, the Charries have beaten the Wild Wrath!”

Tommy, Flint, Flare, and the other Charries got into a big circle and started jumping up and down with excitement. They had done it!

Flint was laughing like crazy. “We never made it past the first round before! And now we’ve done it. WOOOOOOOOOOO!”

Flare was huffing and puffing and slapping Tommy on the back over and over. “You played like a maddood out there Tommy, I loved it! You’re crazy! CRAZY GOOD!”

Tommy looked up at the crowd. Crit and Happy were jumping up and down. Crit had even taken off his helmet and was waving like mad. Happy gave him a thumbs up. Tommy smiled and waved.

The tournament continued. They beat their next opponents easily enough, and then the ones after that too. They had done it! The sun was setting now, transforming the arena into a blazing orange color, and they were all pretty tired. But it was just one last match now. The finals…

“What a tournament this year, doods! No one expected the Charries to make it this far. But now they’re up against the Blazy Blasts, and this is a team of champions. It’s the FINALS so let me hear you doods SHOUT!”

“Wooooooooo!!!” The whole arena was shaking with wild doods yelling and cheering. There were even some doods holding slogans that supported the Charries. And of course Crit and Happy were right amongst all of them.

“Go, Tommy! Go, my son! You can do it!” Crit attempted to yell louder than doods that were supporting the Blazy Blast, “That’s my son!! MY SOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNN!” Even Happy was getting in the mood: “The spirits say he’s going to win! HE’s GOING TO DO IT!!!”

WIth a blow of the whistle, the finals started. Tommy blined. Then, suddenly, a dood from the Blazy Blast ran to the middle of the arena and kicked the fireball. Flint reacted quick enough to block the fireball from entering the goal post, but then another teammate from the Blazy Blast dashed forward and kicked the fireball into the goal. A wave of cheering resounded within the arena. Tommy was shocked. So fast!

“Oh no! Sorry doods, I wasn’t reacting quick enough…” Flint lowered his head and said to his two teammates.

“It’s ok, you still have me!” Flare responded with a smile. Tommy patted his friend to encourage him too.

However, the Blazy Blast had an early advantage and they quickly knocked in another two goals Tommy tried his best to score for his team, but no matter how hard he kicked the fireball, his opponents were able to defend it and made their wildfire counterattack. He looked at Flint and Flare and the other Charries, and they looked so tired. Their team spirit was destroyed.

But then Tommy had a weird feeling in him. He was supposed to be the one to win the tournament and meet Flameo. Then he remembered back in Coralia, how he witnessed his brother Timmy winning all the arcade games, while he could help nothing. He had finally realized it. He was angry at himself. He wanted to be stronger!

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!”

Tommy roared with a loud voice, just like a beast. His opponents were shocked, the whole arena was shocked. For a moment, the Blazy Blast was immobilized by his scary roar. Even Tommy didn’t know he had that in himself. He seized the opportunity to take action and got the fireball in control. And with a powerful kick, he shot the ball right into the goal like a shooting star!

“Unbelievable! The Charries have finally scored their first goal in the final! Will this be the start of something?” the host dood reported exhilaratingly.

“THAT’S THE WAY TOMMY YOU CAN DO IT!” Crit yelled and yelled.

“Oh! That’s what it is!” Happy realized. She turned to Crit. “The burst of mana I felt before. It came from Tommy! He’s a blessed dood — an Apostle like us! Tommy is a Berserker!”

Tommy was out of this world. He dashed from location to location, quickly following the movement of the fireball, winning the ball back for his team, and then spearheading his opponents so that they actually tried to jump out of his way.

“AAAAAAAAARRRGGHHHH!!!” Tommy scored for his team again with a roar. Both his teammates and opponents were just staring at him with their jaws dropped. It was like the field was now Tommy’s playground.

“That’s a total of 5 goals for Tommy’s team! And that’s it! The game is over! Oh my, our new champion has been decided!” the host dood yelled“Congratulations to TO THE CHARRIESSSSSSSSS”

“Wooooohooooo!” All the doods in the arena were jumping up and down and hugging each other. Many of them were chanting for the Charries. Crits couldn’t help but hug Happy tightly, yelling into her ears about how proud he was.

On the other side, Tommy was gradually calming down and wondered what he just did. Was it really him? Why was he so angry and uncontrollable? He just felt that there was a burst of energy within his body, and that he couldn’t stop himself from being mad. What happened to him?

“Hey dood, you’re so strong and cool!” Flare came by Tommy and gave him a hip bump, “how did you do that?”

“Uh, I have no idea,” Tommy shook his head innocently.

“Well, now we’re gonan get an invite to Lord Flameo’s dinner! Dood, I dreamt of meeting him for a long time, but I never knew that it could come true! Thanks, bro!” Flint exclaimed.

Oh right, he did it! He could meet Flameo and ask for his blessing! Tommy was so excited that he wanted to celebrate with his dad and Happy immediately, but he knew that he had to wait for a little bit longer. Just one more thing to do…

Soon, the worker doods brought the team to the podium and started the awarding ceremony. Tommy stood proudly on the highest tier, with his head up and chest outward. One of the worker doods gave him a medal for him which was made of some shiny metals just like those gemstones he saw from around the hot springs. Then, Tommy’s eyes searched for Crit in the crowd, and spotted him clapping so proudly. Aww dood, he’s gonna cry.

With the evening coming on, the Charries traveled triumphantly back to the volcano with their fans cheering for them the whole way. In a daze, Tommy wondered where they would dine with the Elemental Lord of Fire. Would they really go inside the volcano? Maybe they would bring him to a temple in the sky just like Lark the Elemental Lord of Air did last time?

“Ok doods, we’ve arrived!” The worker doods had carted them all right up to the rim of the caldera. Below them, lava boiled and steamed.

“Huh? But that’s just the volcano? Where’s Lord Flameo’s house?” Flint tilted his head doubtfully.

“Bro, I musta got ash in my eyes! I see no Flameo our lord, but only lava,” said Flare incredulously.

“Wait… are we… the offerings?!” Tommy backed off a bit from the volcano and observed the expressions of the worker doods, trying to know what was going on.

“Just go in now!” A grumpy worker dood kicked the cheeky butt of Tommy and doinked him down into the volcano opening. With a scream of fear, Tommy yelled as he tumbled down the sides of the caldera, thinking he would surely die from the burning lava, but at the very last moment, the lava split from the center and slowly formed into a hollow cylinder with lava walls, allowing him to safely drop into the depths of the volcano.

“Ahhhhhh-” After a long time of falling, he landed on a solid ground under the volcano and did a couple bounces; luckily his doody butt served as a cushion. Flint and Flare and the other Charries followed behind and fell onto the ground right beside him, then the worker doods arrived too, landing nimbly.

“Woah, the volcano! I never thought of a place like this inside the volcano!” Flare did a weird dance flinging and waving his hands, which nearly caused him to catch himself on fire from a lava lake that was one step away.

“Doods, we have to go fast! We can’t be late!” One of the worker doods pushed them into a line and hurried them onwards towards the temple that had appeared amidst the lake.

And so, Tommy cautiously trudged through the perilous volcano cave, making sure that he didn’t step onto any lava pits accidentally or touch any burning rocks.

The worker doods kneeled down in front of a gate. It must be the entrance to enter the temple of Flameo. And so, Tommy kneeled down with his new friends too. The gates gradually opened, inviting them to go in.

After walking through the atrium, they entered an enormous banquet hall, with high tables all set up neatly and gourmet food — the finest cuts of dolk meat prepared with numbing spices, the most succulent fishes in steaming sauces, the finest of doodburgers on piles of chips — all served on exquisite golden tableware. Bright candles were lit in the middle of the tables, and the crimson color of the burning lava reflected on the tableware dangerously, making everything shiny and glittering.

There were already some gods settled in the hall, some of them were chattering, while others were walking around, amazed by the hall decorations. The gods gave the doods a look as they entered, but otherwise ignored them. Tommy, Flint and Flare carefully got into their seats and waited patiently. It was all a bit too much. But doods never stay quiet for long.

“That’s crazy! I’ve never seen a god in my life,” Flare said with his jaw wide open.

“I’ve met gods and I’ve joined a party at the White City before, but this temple is so hot and burning!” Tommy exclaimed while his attention was attracted to literally anything in the hall. He really wanted that blessing.

“Where is our lord Flameo though? I don’t think he’s among these gods,” Flint asked.

Just the moment Flint asked, there were drops of lava dripping from the ceiling, which drew attention to the guests. More and more lava started to merge and combine into a weird but fat silhouette, with more and more lava was grouping together, it became a magma creature. Then, the magma creature burnt brighter and brighter, until it shone a beaming light that nearly blinded all the doods. A godly figure appeared.

“HA HA HAAAA! What a lovely banquet! I’m glad to have gathered you all here,” the godly figure laughed, which caused a tiny quake in the hall. His voice was strong, and the fire burning on his head became more vigorous. He had a broad smile and laugh lines etched on his boisterous face. But there was something intimidating about Lord Flameo. Fire danced in his eyes, always moving, always watching.

“Oooo what luscious hair my lord Flameo has?” swooned one of the gods.

“That’s him! Oh, look at me, my lord!” Flare waved his hands dramatically, trying to get the attention of Flameo, but the calling of a tiny dood was so unnoticeable that he failed miserably.

“Now, let’s start feasting and drinking, my friends!” Flameo lifted a goblet of finest firewine and quaffed it in an instant. All the gods in the hall were clapping for him, and the waiter doods pulled out huge plates of the local delicacy — barbecued charchar bird — onto the table.

Tommy was wondering if he should approach Flameo directly and ask for his blessing, however, he was not sure if a god would listen to the story of a tiny dood. He remembered back then at the party in White City, his dad asked him to gather information and perform some tricks to gain the attention of gods, so he asked Flint and Flare to help him with it. However, all Flint and Flare could focus on was which plate of food was the tastiest, and some gossip about famous gods and doods who he didn’t even care about.

Tommy was uncertain about his next move. Suddenly, there was a loud burst coming from Flameo’s table. He was yelling at one of the waiter doods angrily.

“Why is the charchar bird overcooked and full of spice? I ASKED FOR MEDIUM WELL! IT IS NOW TOO ROUGH!”

“Sorry my lord, I’ll prepare it again right now…” the waiter dood shivered with a trembling voice.

“IT’S TOO LATE! I’M GOING TO PUNT YOU!” Flameo shouted, the fire on his head was blazing just like a volcano eruption, the volcanic floors were now shaking, his flames burnt the ceilings into the color of charcoal.

“No, please don’t punt me! It’s the cook’s fault! Punt him not me!” The waiter dood shook his head violently, and prostrated himself in front of Flameo.

“What a silly dood, failing to follow the orders of their god.”

“I would’ve punted him if I were Flameo.”

“If I was him, I would have spoken to him afterwards than spoiling the party-”

Some gods were gossipping about the incident. Flameo heard all the comments, and his flames became more and more uncontrollable, causing the volcano to quake more and more viciously, silencing all the guests.

“ENOUGH! The banquet has ended!”

Flameo slapped the table and brushed off all the dishes on it. Even his godly guests backed away from him knowing his temper; the rage of the Elemental Lord of Fire was not to be trifled with (and indeed, a trifle now lay oozing out onto the floor).

While everyone was freaking out, Tommy was just plain old annoyed. He was still pondering on how to get Flameo’s blessing, but the waiter dood had ruined his plan. It’s not what he wanted. He was frustrated. Had he gone through that whole stupid fireball tournament for nothing? All that training?!

“AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!”

Silence. A dood roaring? The gods all stared, including Flameo. Tommy huffed and puffed but with everyone staring at him he…calmed down. Oh dear. What was going to happen next?

“HAHAHA! That’s funny, little dood! Look at how angry he got! HAHAHA!” Flameo burst into laughter and summoned Tommy to his sight, his eyes running flame-tears down while he was chuckling. Meanwhile, the food was being reserved to the table and the banquet continued while Tommy and Flameo were talking. “Who are you, little dood? Ah yes! Are you the champion of today’s tournament?”

“Y-yes,” the distance between Tommy and Flameo had made him stutter nervously, but then he took a deep breath and collected himself, “I’m Tommy, the champion of today’s fireball tournament, and I want your blessing, lord Flameo!”

“Your roar is so funny — like a tiny tupeck or something. Seems like both of us can get angry sometimes, little dood — haha!” Flameo guffawed again, then demonstratively made a loud roar, which nearly shattered the mirrors in the banquet hall and deafened Tommy. Everything was shaking dangerously, which made the guests gasp. Tommy roared too. It felt like the right thing to do. He stopped when Flameo stopped. Flameo gave him a pat on the head. It stung a bit, his hand was very hot. “What do you want, tiny one? Food? I can give you all the food you want!”

“Umm, I’m actually trying to find Lady Cosmos and tell her about the Taint, because I have some friends out there who need some help, so can you please give me the blessing?” Tommy asked.

“Right, the Taint. THE TAINT!” All of a sudden, Flameo was burning furiously again, his flame was about to turn Tommy into ashes, but then he calmed down. “Well, why not after all? I don’t mind! Here’s your blessing, brave little dood!”

After receiving the blessing, Tommy was taken back to the doods table. Flare and Flint waved to him happily.

“Bro, you did it!” Flint did a high five with Tommy.

“Now I understand where all our food offerings have gone…” said Flare, stuffing food into his mouth without any hesitation.

Tommy sighed. He had done it. He had the blessing! Now he could relax. He dug into the feast with gusto.

The banquet lasted long into the early hours. After everyone became drunk over the free flow juice and unlimited foods, Tommy and his dood companions were eventually tossed out of the volcano by the gods, along with hundreds and thousands of magical mana stones raining all over the realm, nourishing the deserts.

Blinking, Tommy stood up, and arm in arm with his comrades Flint and Flare, they went back to the hut. Crit and Happy were waiting for him.

“DAD! I DID IT!” Tommy ran to Crit and gave him a big hug.

“TOMMY! I’m so proud of you, son!” Crit patted his back with tears.

“Did you get the blessing?” asked Happy nervously.

Tommy grinned and held it out to the Summoner. She grabbed it, then gave him a hug. “You did it! Good job, young dood.”

Crit cheered. “Just one more blessing to go now! To the realm of Earth!”

Tommy fidgeted. “Well, actually…dad. I want to help and all. But I also really like it here.”

He looked at Flint and Flare. They both nodded. “We want Tommy to be the captain of the Charries!”

“Oh,” said Crit. He was shocked. “Oh well…if that’s what you want, son.”

“Don’t worry, dad,” said Tommy, smiling. “I’ll be there when you need me. And you’ll know where to find me! And when you see me next time, I’m going to be even stronger!”

“Well then…” said Crit. “This is goodbye, son.”

“Yeah. But not bye forever. Just bye for now,” said Tommy.

“Yeah,” said Crit.

“Come here you two,” said Happy. And the three of them had a big hug together.

And with that, Crit and Happy continued onto the realm of Earth, on a quest to receive the last blessing of the elemental lords so they could meet with Cosmos and save their friends trapped in a dungeon outside, somewhere in the godiverse. But that’s a story for another day.

END

— — — —

And that’s all for today! Did you enjoy this rip-roaring ride through the Realm of Fire? Let us know! We’d love to hear what you think about this story — and others! Head on over to our Discord to chat with doods about Apeiron all day long, and make sure to follow us on Twitter so you get all the latest doody news.

As always, thank you for reading godlings. ~

About Apeiron

Apeiron is the world’s first NFT-based play-and-earn god game. Apeiron will feature a unique card-based action-adventure combat system combined with god game simulation gameplay inspired by classic god games like Populous and Black & White. Players will be able to build up planets from above before descending to the ground as a powerful Avatar to solve the mysteries of the universe. Players will grow their planet to the point of developmental stagnation, then reset the planetary cycle via an Armageddon event to allow for even more advancement and thrilling late-game alliance level GvE and GvG activities. Apeiron will use a tri-token architecture, which means that there will be three separate tokens to navigate their ecosystem: a governance token, a play-to-earn token, and a premium alliance token.

Visit Apeiron’s Website | Official Marketplace | OpenSea | Youtube | Discord | Twitter

As the celestial calendar turns, we’ve reached a peculiar day when the Dirac Dimension and the physical dimension overlap to the extent that spooky things happen all over the godiverse. Originally known as Summoner’s Eve because the Apostle Summoners would spend the day calling and chatting with the spirits of the past, now it’s become a godiversal celebration named Dood o’ Ween, where doodlings run about the villages for sweets and mischief!

On this fun and spooky day, you can see doods donning themselves in costumes of all stripes, masquerading as different creatures or dabbing makeup on their faces to look especially silly. And of course, it all leads up to one big delicious dessert feast at the end of the day that goes long into the night. But more on that later!

And as it’s a fun time of the year, we’re also inviting our community to participate in our SPECIAL SPOOKY SEASON SOUL EVENT! This will run from today until November 4th, 2023. The event’s got two elements to it: TELL-A-TALE and DOODOWEEN FAN ART TRIBUTE. For the Tell-a-Tale, you share with us your own spooky godiverse story and get rewarded with SOULS. Same thing for the Fan Art Tribute — share with us some art of a villainous doodoween themed dood or bood of your own design, and put together a brief little bio and sweet sweet SOULS are yours for the taking. As always, hit up our Discord for more info.

NOW THEN: prepare yourselves, and hold onto your masks, as we dive into all the deets on Dood o’ Ween!

Major Doody Events

The Spooking

The Spooking is a competition where doods vie to tell the scariest story. When the suns in the Axis Mundi start to set and dinner has been had (but the Sweets Feast yet to begin), doods will gather at the village square and sit around a crackling bonfire. Then, storyteller doods take turns at reciting their specially crafted spooky stories, impressing the crowd with surreal sagas and fearful folktales, and doodever tells the most spine-chilling narrative gets to take the first bite of dessert at the Sweets Feast, sort of like a ribbon cutting ceremony except they take a bite out of a giant candy pommegranny. The level of scariness is measured by the screams and chills that the judge doods get, though most of the time it’s the screamings.

Cirque du Carnevil

Amid the pranks and sweetness, even the most quiet and law-abiding doods find time for some grooving at one of Lady Protea’s biggest events held at the undersea Grand Arcade — the Cirque du Carnevil — a costume dress-up party like none other. Doods that come here like to dress up in all kinds of colorful costumes and masks and dance the night away amidst the darkness of the deep seas. Besides dancing, there’s also tents set up with entertainment that are replete with paranormal activities like traditional Summoner seances, card readings, and cryptic rituals. One particular tent that always manages to be full-house is the tent where the Doody Boody Boo costume contest is held. Doods that come here means business, they will exhibit themselves with the most dramatic flair — as monsters, god parodies (cautiously), godiverse creatures, you name it, they have it. And sometimes a god will show up in disguise to participate! Of course, in these cases, the gods always win.

Sweets Feast

At the very end of the day and night, after The Spooking is finished and the doodlings are done running about, the doods that were hiding from the horrors will eventually come out and everyone joins the annual Sweets Feast that marks the end of Dood o’ Ween. Each doody village would have its own enormous array of desserts, a big candy buffet with friends and family! Imagine — a creamy marshmallow choco fountain set in the middle of the village with hot koko overflowing, fruity forest tarts, ribbon heart booberry parfait, volcanic molten lava cakes, jell o’ jellies, whirlpool raindrop cakes, cin-nomnom pommegranny pies, hickleberry cheesecakes, koko mousse, flour flower pudding, cosmic veil thousand layer cakes, caramel powpowcorns, stretchy gobnobs, twelve-tier doodweeny corns, cooey cannoli, maple syrup nutfruit cookies, glittering galaxy cakes, rooberry crème brulée, star-sprinkle choccy cupcakes, flippy floppy hickleberry-coated churros, pink wooly floof on a stick, mini blackhole chiffon rolls, and more! All kinds of confectionaries of the godiverse, filling the very bench table set up under the twinkling candleflies’ lights. And of course, how can we forget the glistening mega candy pommegranny that is waiting for the Spooking’s content winner under the Dood o’ Ween moonlight.

Dood O’ Ween Candies

Candy Pommegranny

It’s not unusual on Dood o’ Ween to casually spot a few doodlings holding candy pommegrannies down the street as they ask for more treats from door to door. This type of confectionery originated in Clintina’s realm as a gift from the Goddess of Earth herself to a particular prayerful family of doods, who quickly opened their own candy pomegranny shop — the Underground Trader’s Store. Back then, doods would queue up for these pommegrannies overnight, camping outside of the store even. Nowadays pomegrannies are grown everywhere and candy pomegrannies — which is to say — pomegrannies that have been covered in a sweet and syrupy sauce — are a commonplace (but still special) Dood o’ Ween treat.

Stretchy Gobnobs

Another beloved candy in the godiverse. These are long candies that stretch super duper long; doods can walk up to one of the many dispensaries placed in Axis Mundi and start slurping on these candies like noodles. And the good thing about this treat is that they are free! They must have been placed around by Cosmos to celebrate Dood o’ Ween. All hail Lady Cosmos!! (Editor’s Note: She absolutely did not have time to do that but maybe her steward Lublub had something to do with it…)

Doodweeny Corn

This 12-tiered colorful candy is a toothsome treat that pops up during the Dood o’ Ween season. Each color represents a mythic galaxy with the Axis-Mundi color on the tip. These corn-like shaped sweets are both crunchy and gooey, made from mysterious ingredients only known to Horticult. They are procured from one of the faraway farmlands of Horticult and he makes sure these candies are distributed all over godiverse for every single dood to enjoy. Pop one of these in your mouth and it melts and fizzles out, leaving your taste buds tingling with explosive sweet and sour flavors.

Doodling Prankings

On Dood o’ Ween, anything goes. Doodlings will run around in capes and try not to get caught for various capers while stuffing their faces with candies and sweets. Some will even paint themselves as boods or dress up as vegetables to give the older doods a real fright, and that’s just the most innocuous of the prankings!

The Hellfire Fruitcake Prank

The Hellfire Fruitcake Prank is one of the most popular pranks in the books, it’s almost impossible to fall for it anymore, and yet, some doods have farty brains, especially older doods. What happens is that doodlings would hand out slices of cakes that look yummy but actually little do the victims know, the teensy bits of fruits that’re hiding in the layers of the cake have been treated with the spiciest herbs known to dood-kind that will send the eater running and screaming for the bathroom. But over the years, because this prank makes doods poopoo themselves, Sparkle and Joy, the Twin Gods of Cleaning, have banned it in order to maintain the godiverse to a sparkling clean state. So later this prank evolved into simply tricking stupid enough doods into eating something that looks like one thing but tastes like another.

The Bloody Well Prank

Beware when you’re getting water from a well during Dood o’ Ween — you may just reel in a bloody dood corpse in your bucket! Or is it? A closer inspection might reveal an eerie crimson red liquid instead of the expected water. It’s giving off a sweet scent yet tangy aroma though and you will see it’s…it’s…it’s just ketchy berry juice — PHEW! The Bloody Well Prank! Doodlings will drench themselves in ketchy berry juice, cling onto the well walls and wait for the next water-fetching dood. Once an unsuspecting dood lower a bucket and haul the waiting prankster out of the well, they will jump up and frighten the life out of the victim. Most doods try to play it off cool, but angry doods will fight back and this usually ends up as a ketchy-berry punch fest! Which is both delicious and a little violent.

The Stinky Spikefruit Prank

As a Dood o’ Ween tradition, Summoner doods would offer stinky spikefruit to the dead dood spirits as an effort to recruit them as a frequent collaborator. They did this because it is said that the stinky spikefruit has a special effect of granting spiritual power. However nowadays, mischievous doodlings would wear the spiky shells of stinky spikefruit on their heads and pretend to be hangry dood ancestors, going from door to door, asking for candy from their neighbors. If their neighbors decline their request, they’ll perform merciless headbutts, and OUUCHIIE, they’re really sharp! (And stinky too!)

Spooky Stories

To feed your curiosity, we’re going to fill in the bits and pieces of scary tales. Though these were told during the Spooking, there were rumors that these events had actually happened, and so these became some of the most popular and frequently related legends.

The Monster

There was once a group of Shaman Apostles who despised a dood so much that they decided to bestow a curse upon him. That night, when the victim dood retired to bed, he fell into a nightmarish dream — he watched himself morphing into something unknown and there was no way to stop this fiendish transformation. He witnessed his arms sprouting thin and growing longer and longer until 5 limb appendages stretched out from one arm then the other. 10 of these weird floppy sticks also grew on his feet. His limbs became VERY long, just like the stretchy gobnobs that he had eaten. Long straw started growing on his head until it densely covered his entire head. He didn’t know how to live in this weird monstrous body. He only wanted his doody body back, but it was not going to happen…

The Extra Doodling

It’s not surprising that doodlings are always playing around — they’re playful little scamps. Once, there was a group of 6 doodlings in an outlying village and they decided to play hide-and-seek. As the suns set, darkness approached and it became ever more thrilling to hide from each other, so they began to scatter into different spots, waiting for the catcher to find them. When the last doodling was caught, they gathered again at the village square. However, the catcher dood was nowhere to be found. Indeed, when they tried to recall, they had never met the catcher dood before, and they had no idea who that was. The weirdest thing was when they counted their heads, there’s no one less from the beginning — there were still 6 doodlings.

Madame Delphine LaDoodie

Delphine LaDoodie — a popular socialite, an affluent figure in the dood society — with a big mansion right on the edge of the White City, very special for a dood. Everyone thought of her as regal. But then rumors began to make their way through the hills, alleging that Madame LaDoodie was mistreating her dood maids. It seemed as though behind closed doors, this madame had a dark secret. Then one day when the Cosmodoods were patrolling the area they overheard a loud CLANG and YELP coming from the estate, and they ended up discovering Madame LaDoodie forcing her dood maids to eat water-boiled vegetables and perform a routine of hardcore exercises for her own amusement. Madame LaDoodie was immediately brought in and exiled for her crimes. Since then, her estate had been overtaken by Lublub and converted into a hotel for visiting doods, but Madame LaDoodie’s unsettling actions still scare even the bravest of dood hearts…

— — — — -

And that’s a typical Dood o’ Ween in the Axis Mundi, rather orderly but still scary. But did it ever cross your mind how Dood o’ Ween might look in Chaos’ territory? No? Let’s dive into that SOMETIME NEXT YEAR, did you think I was going keep going? HAH But seriously though, boods are evil so we can assume it is probably downright chaotic on the other side of the godiverse, better to stay away.

For now, I’d suggest you hug your dood plushies tight so lost souls from the Dirac don’t ACCIDENTALLY find their way into your cute companion. Also, roll over to our Discord and tell us more ghost stories.

About Apeiron

Apeiron is the world’s first NFT-based play-and-earn god game. Apeiron will feature a unique card-based action-adventure combat system combined with god game simulation gameplay inspired by classic god games like Populous and Black & White. Players will be able to build up planets from above before descending to the ground as a powerful Avatar to solve the mysteries of the universe. Players will grow their planet to the point of developmental stagnation, then reset the planetary cycle via an Armageddon event to allow for even more advancement and thrilling late-game alliance level GvE and GvG activities. Apeiron will use a tri-token architecture, which means that there will be three separate tokens to navigate their ecosystem: a governance token, a play-to-earn token, and a premium alliance token.

Visit Apeiron’s Website | Official Marketplace | OpenSea | Youtube | Discord | Twitter | Apeiron

Hey everyone! This week’s blog we got a THRILLING tale for you — hope y’all love it as much as we do~ We want to jump right into it but of course we gotta hit you with a quick reminder — we’re one month away from the conclusion of the Autumn Off-Season Leaderboard, which features our special Boss Rush mode. We published a deep dive about that last week if you want more deets... So keep grinding until you reach the tip-top of the crowd!

Now with that being said, let me present to you a tale of two doods who live in the Red Wooly Everfall, a special world which is very autumnal. Curtain boy, raise the drapes!

On the outskirts of the White City, near Chickadee Pea Woods, stood a small cottage. It was a home given to Bibo and Bee by Lublub, who was the leader of the Cosmodoods and one of the leaders of the Red Wooly Retirement Support for Heroic Apostles and Cosmodoods (RWRSHAC — pronounced “rawr shack”).

It was on a typical fall afternoon, when the sky seemed to be painted with orange and brown hues. The air had that distinct crisp character, carrying the whisper of the changing season. The sweet scent of pommegranny fruit hung heavily, as early autumn marked the beginning of harvest time from their garden — a task Bibo, who is usually quite lazy, managed joyfully, knowing that it promised Bee’s signature pommegranny pie.

Bee stood by the counter, looking over at her spice rack, glancing at the array of ingredients.

“What should I make for Bibo tonight? Let’s see…cin-nomnom, sugar, flour…AHH, perhaps a pommegranny pie.” Bee exclaimed.

“Bibo, dear…” she called to Bibo.

“Yes, Bee?” Bibo replied, busy packing his satchel.

“Grab me some pommegranny from the garden?” Bee asked.

“Of course,” Bibo replied doodfully.

Fresh pommegrannies from their backyard garden, cin-nomnom from the spice rack, a bit of sugar, and of course, flour to make the crust. She was making a pommegranny pie, Bibo’s favorite.

Bee gazed out into the blazing colors of autumn leaves through her window. She noticed the red and golden leaves began to drift and join hands doing a slow waltz with the cold but brisk wind. Taken away by the scenery, she walked out to the fenced porch.

She sat at the swing that she and Bibo had built and watched the leaves fall as Bibo strolled about the garden. Water droplets glistening on the surface of fallen leaves made her wonder when the jaded greenery would completely transform into a rotting red…

Beyond their home, the giant Red Wooly birches stood silent sentinels. Nourished by the mana-rich air, the enormous trees surrounded their small home. Normally they would be cloaked with leaves, swaying gracefully in the gentle breeze, but now their branches were almost bare, as if dead inside.

Bee turned her attention back to Bibo, who had dropped all the pommegrannies he had gathered and was now picking them up. He caught her eye and grinned at her. She smiled. He had always been a clumsy dood.

Sometime later, they were both in the kitchen, Bee washing the pommegrannies and Bibo taking a well-deserved break with a mug of hot koko. They started to speak about their good old days, to their time together at the White City before this retired life, when they had pledged to serve and protect their world, working as Cosmodoods.

“Remember when we were just doodlings, and getting bossed around by Lublub?” Bibo sighed.

“And how he would always make the both of us stop chitter-chattering?” replied Bee.

“Dood…was he annoying. But if it wasn’t for him we would’ve never met…” said Bibo.

Bee smiled, “Yeah, the hellfire fruitcake prank was really something. That cake really sent Lublub running ahahah…pass me the sugar, will ya?”

As Bee finished up with the crust, she smiled, for love was also pausing to enjoy the sweet moments between them. The pie was ready for the oven! They would have a yummy dessert tonight. Bibo always said that her pommegranny pie was a piece from heaven if there was one.

“Let’s get cooking!” Bibo said.

Bee opened the oven, but the sound of it was strange. Like a tupeck…

“Cuckkkoodooodling dooo…”

She turned back in confusion to Bibo, but he wasn’t there.

She gasped, and then darkness consumed everything.

— — — — — — — — — — — — —

“Cuckkkoodooodling dooo…”

Bee rubbed her eyes and blinked off the sleep blearily. “Wait…was that all a dream?“

Half-asleep, she rolled out of bed, and slowly made her way to the kitchen, picking up speed as she grabbed her walking stick, searching for the pommegranny pie that she had made with Bibo.

“I swear, I smelled pommegrannies…I swear…it felt real.” A tear trickled down her cheek.

“Bibo didn’t get to taste it…”

Where Bee currently lived was indeed the very place where she had once lived with Bibo. But their retired life together hadn’t worked out. It was very undoody: they argued all the time about this and that and basically made the Red Wooly Forest very noisy, which led to a lot of complaints from the other retired doods who just wanted to laze about in peace thank you very much.

The two would argue over the smallest things, such as who forgot to feed the tupecks or who should sleep near the window. Regardless of what it might be, it was trivial, things that shouldn’t have been an issue in the first place. It just seemed all these problems came from within the relationship itself, a paradox, a clash of passion, love, and hurt.

With only months gone by since they first moved in, the ruckus created by Bibo and Bee led to Lublub getting involved. It was decided that the two of them would be separated for the good of the planet. Bibo was put in his own home somewhere far away. And that was that.

Bee went on with her day after she woke up, feeling bittersweet. It had been many years since they had been separated, but these dreams always came around autumn time. Something about the autumnal air…

She sighed.

She spent the day meticulously cleaning the house, stitching a tear in one of her favorite cloaks, and feeding her tupecks. After she was done with her tasks, she took a moment to sit on the swing and thought back on the dream that she had the night before. She had an idea.

“Maybe I should bake a pommegranny pie for myself?” thought Bee. The tupecks clucked around her. One of the larger females kicked one of the smaller males, who squawked in protest.

“Hmmm…but there haven’t been any pommegrannies around here for a very long time…”

She thought a moment longer, then picked herself up, dusted off her clothes, and hustled inside. Grabbing her green cloak, a pair of booties, and her favorite hat, she decided to go through the forest and hunt for some pommegrannies. Why not after all? There wasn’t much keeping her at home today. Her tupecks would be fine if she left for a bit.

“It sure is gloomy today,“ said Bee.

The sky above was veiling its emotions behind a layer of dark clouds. She stepped out and latched the cottage door behind her, leaving her sanctuary, and made way to the giant trees of the Red Wooly Forest. She stopped just as she reached the tree line and waved back to her tupecks.

“Alright, tupecks hold down the fort while I’m gone ya?” said Bee.

“Peck Peck?” said one of the tupecks.

— — — — — — — — — — — — —

Bee marched on with her walking stick into the Red Wooly forest. It wasn’t long before rain was fizzling down and there was a damp fog that covered the forest floor in a layer of mist. It clouded the old doodette’s vision but she didn’t care and continued to trudge forward.

“Weeeeee-” she yelped as she playfully splashed in a puddle of mud.

A bit of mud got splashed on her face.

“Dood oh dood…yuck!”

As she moved deeper into the woods, Bee began wandering off on a trip down memory lane, thinking of all the times when she had served at the White City with Bibo and her friends. Tough times they were, holding back queuing doods who tried to break into temples, standing guard the whole day without having any meals… though Bibo often snuck in and brought some snacks for them. Delicious snacks…

Bee’s stomach growled.

“GULULULULULULUL… GUUUUU”

“Oh shucks, I was so busy thinking about food, I forgot about…food.” Bee facepalmed herself.

She started to look around for food, but the prospects looked grim. The trees were bare and there didn’t seem to be any bunnles or riffins about.

She was getting desperate. But then, in the distance, through the pattering rain, she spotted a faint light…

“A glowstool!” Bee exclaimed.

Hungry and excited, she tried to pull the glowstool out of the ground. But it held on toughly.

“Hmmm…It doesn’t seem to be coming out.”

Bee tried harder to pull it out. But even with her mightiest strength (which honestly wasn’t much), she failed. She planted her butt into the mud by pulling too hard, leaving a mark in the ground. “YOWCH!”

Suddenly someone yelled.

“OOOOOIIIII DOOD, what are you doing ATTACKING that BEAUTIFUL shroomy?!?!”

An older dood bolted out of the trees and rushed right past her to the glowstool. He closely examined it and then looked at her with scorn. He had a beard with shroomies in it and a shroomy-shaped hat. He stomped his feet.

“This is my home! Get outta here and DON’T TOUCH MY SHROOMIES!”

“Wait…what’s the problem here? I was just hungry…”

He looked at her scornfully. “My shroomies have feelings. You hurt her.”

“Her?”

“The glowstool.”

“You can talk to shroomies?”

“Yeah.”

“Who are you?”

“Hmph,” he hmph-ed proudly. “I’m Shroomio the Shroomie Shaman. Retired.”

“Oh. Hi Shroomio.”

“Yo.”

“Can you help me up?”

“Oh. Yeah I guess.”

He helped her up. They both stood there awkwardly for a minute, the only sound was the rain dripping around them. Shroomio coughed. “Uh…so what are you doing here?”

“I’m looking for pommegrannies to make pommegranny pie.”

“Oh! Sounds yummy.”

“Have you seen any pomegrannies around here?”

“Nope, not really.”

“Oh,” she said sadly.

Shroomio thought for a minute. “It’s getting late and you’re hungry, let me cook you one of my famous chunky stews. Then later I’ll ask some of my shroomy friends if they know anything about pommegrannies.”

Bee clapped her hands together. “That sounds great! Thanks dood!”

Shroomio’s house also looked like a glowstool, which was very on theme for him. But as a fair lady dood she couldn’t just enter any doods house so she found herself a spot near the trees and snuggled down on a comfortable carpet of soft wooly leaves.

But it was kind of hard to sleep. The rain kept dripping down on her. She tossed and turned trying to find a comfortable position that also kept the water off of her. Then suddenly the rain stopped. She looked up. Shroomio was standing over her with a shroomie with a wide top. “It’s a brelly shroom,” he explained. Then he went back to his house to bed.

The brelly shroom kept the water off of her wonderfully. She thought it was very nice of Shroomio to get this for her. She sighed deeply and let the susurration of the rain carry her off to sleep.

The next morning she woke up with a bit of a stiff back. It had been awhile since she camped outside. The rain had stopped, and the forest shimmered in the morning light. Shroomio was already outside, sitting on a stump nearby. He waved briskly to her as she got up.

“Hmmm…” said Shroomio. “The shroomies said there’s a really big tree over to the south of here. It’s a bit of a walk but they think there are some pommegrannies there. Also something else…not sure. Could be dangerous.”

Bee shrugged. “Aww who would hurt an old doodette like me anyway? I’m just looking to bake a pie. Anyway, thanks Shroomio!” She gave him a hug.

The old dood blushed and fiddled with his beard.

She left his house and prepared for the next part of her journey, taking up her walking stick boldly. This was a fun adventure! But just before she left-

“Wait!”

Shroomio was hurrying out. “I’m coming too!”

“Oh?” said Bee. “How come?”

“Ehh, well it has been a while since I traveled, but I guess I could help a doodette in distress,” Shroomio said, “Alright! Let’s head out.”

And so together, they embarked on their journey to find the Pommegranny Tree.

— — — — — — — — — — — — —

As they set off, the first rays of the suns peered out from between the trees. It had stopped raining.

Bee picked up her pace.

The retired dodette might be long in the tooth but she was determined to find the Pommegranny Tree and bring back the best pommegrannies for baking. Perhaps it was the stew that she had, but she felt more energized than ever. Bee kept up such a pace that she didn’t even notice that the trees had grown closer together, and that there were still leaves here. It had gotten dark.

“Oooooo this would be the perfect place for some shroomies to grow,” said Shroomio.

The leaves grew denser and thicker, and the towering trees bore branches that moved like huge unknown creatures, creaking mysteriously in the wind.

The two reached what appeared to be a well-trodden path through the gloom. Following it, they arrived at a small cave entrance, partially obscured by some huge exposed Red Wooly roots. They almost missed it, but there were some candleflies fluttering faint light at the cave mouth. And there was something else…

“Ooo, something smells delicious…” said Shroomio.

It was very dark. And looked dangerous. But the two doods were drawn on by the tantalizing odors of something that would surely be very tasty…

Shroomio tried to sniff out where the sweet scent was coming from.

“AHA, IT’S HERE!”

His voice echoed, and Bee followed his voice through the dark.

At the center of the cave, she espied a glowstool. Through the soft light, Bee could see piles of fruit lying around higgeldy-piggeldy. Her belly started to growl, and the growling sounds were amplified by the cave walls…

“GULULULULULULU…”

“So hungry…” Bee hesitated for a moment, staring at the pile of fruits. There were hickleberries, sugarmelons, stinky spikefruits…but no pommegrannies! “I wonder who’s been stacking all this food?”

Bee couldn’t resist taking a sugarmelon. She was drooling when she smelled the sweet scents. Plus, the sugarmelons here were so bright, so yummily square, and smelled so sweet… Ah…

“Maybe I’ll just have one…soooo hungry,” said Bee.

As Bee was just about to reach the pile, a skittering sound came from the darker side of the cave. A chill went up in Bee; she could feel that there was a huge presence approaching her, but she could only make out a large shadow. It definitely wasn’t a dood.

“EEEEEEEEEE…kkkKK!” Bee screamed.

“RUNNN!” Shroomio.

“WHHHAT- WHHAT” Bee continued to shout.

They fled out of the cave, the skittering sound following closely behind them.

They jumped out of the cave mouth and hid themselves in a bush near a river, gasping for breath.

“And here I thought retirement would be boring!” said Bee.

“That was a close one,” chuckled Shroomio, dusting off one of his beard shroomies.

Suddenly, Bee paused, her smile faded as she squinted at the shrubs across the river.

“Do you see that, Shroomio?” she asked, her voice dropped to a whisper. There, partly hidden among the trees, was …Was…WAS…

“Eh? What is it?

Shroomio looked. There, across the water, was a…ant-looking creature. “Oh!” said Shroomio. He stood up. “A blubant!”

“A what?”

“A blubant! And a young one too.”

The blubant came up to them curiously.

It sniffed.

“What do you want, little guy?” asked Shroomio.

“Think it wants to tag along…” said Bee.

“Alright, but Imma name you Toni you rascal, you’re lucky you cute.”

Toni barked.

Shroomio smiled at Bee. “We’re lucky! Blubants have great noses. He can sniff out the Pommegranny Tree!”

“Really?”

“Yeah! Hey Toni. Can you smell pommegrannies?”

Toni looked at them, cocking his head to the side cutely. Then he sniffed the air. He turned and started walking off. After getting a little distance, he turned around and looked at them. “Bark!” he barked.

“Let’s go!” said Bee.

The trio now continued to set course to the Pommegranny Tree with Toni the Blubant leading the way. Bee resolutely moved forward. She could feel she was almost there now.

“I never asked but why do you need pommegrannies?” asked Shroomio, chewing on a nint leaf.

Bee stuttered. Memories flashed back before her eyes. She remembered baking pommegranny pies with Bibo and how when it was just the two of them, those were some of her happiest times. But things are different now, this pie wasn’t just for him. For herself too! She was a damn good cook.

So she shrugged. “I love baking pomegranny pies,” Bee said “As simple as that.”

Toni suddenly sprinted away from the crew.

“Oh dood, Toni my boy, wait for me…” Bee gasped for air.

They rushed after the blubant, and without realizing it stumbled into a clearing. Their jaws dropped. Above them towered a tree that really put all the other trees to shame. It was BIG: a titanic trunk leading up to thick branches which hung heavily thick with pommegrannies of all shapes and sizes.

They had arrived.

Bee’s eyes sparkled at the sight of those plump pommegrannies. She steadied herself and leaped, trying to catch hold of a lower branch. Toni buzzed around excitedly running in circles and Shroomio tried to steady her as she hopped about.

*Yawns*

“Oh? Some doods come to play?”

A voice that echoed with power came down from somewhere above in the branches of the tree. Now the whistlehooters in the forest were flying about, and bandicats were scurrying from bush to bush.

“What what,” Bee looked around. “Ohhh dang! It’s a god! (Maybe.)”

“I am the God of the Red Wooly Woods,” the voice above boomed down, sending the branches shaking and a fair few pommegrannies falling with a splat to the ground. “Why have you come here?” The voice stifled a yawn. “And be quick about it, I was just about to fall asleep…”

Bee, Shroomio, and Toni backed off immediately.

“Oh god! It’s a god!” whispered Shroomio. “What should we do?”

Bee looked up at the branches to see if she could see the God of the Red Wooly Woods. She couldn’t. It was too high up, too many branches, leaves, and pommegrannies. She wasn’t sure what to do. She couldn’t put it into words. But then she had an idea. She didn’t need to put it into words.

She got down on her knees and prayed. The prayer formed a bubble above her head, and with a pop it drifted up towards the god.

There was another popping sound as the god received the prayer. “Oh…I see.”

Silence filled the glade. A breeze caressed the leaves. “Do you miss him that much?” asked the god.

“I-” Bee thought. Then she looked up again at where she thought the god might be. “I miss the dood I was with him.”

“Hmm…” said the god. A breeze shook the branches of the great tree, and a single, perfect pommegranny fell with a plop right at Bee’s feet. She picked it up. It was huge! It would easily be enough for a delicious pie. She smiled.

“Thanks god!”

There was a yawning sound, but no response. Toni the Blubant came up and sniffed the fruit with a bark! Shroomio patted it and brushed her hand gently across the cool skin of the pommegranny. “Looks pretty good! You’ll be able to make a yummy pie with this.”

“Yeah. Want some?”

“I’d love some!”

“I’ll bring some over after I finish baking it.” She smiled. She couldn’t wait to get home.

And so Bee and her crew headed away from the Pommegranny Tree, with the perfect pommegranny just about fitting in her basket. It was getting on for evening and all kinds of lights and shadows were blending, beckoning creatures in the Red Wooly Woods to drift into the sea of dreams before the night was nigh.

She wasn’t sure if she would meet Bibo again, but she understood now things were always going and passing. But for now, she only wanted to enjoy this moment and bake tons of pies as much as she would like for herself and her friends…

End

As the days shorten and the air turns cooler, many of us find ourselves reminiscing about past autumns and the memories associated with the season. This time the writing team has delved further into the more sentimental and emotional side of business in the godiverse. Hope you’ve enjoyed this chronicle of Bibo and Bee, let’s hope they would one day cross paths in their dreams as each other’s sweetest apparition. For all the lovers and fans of Apeiron, let us know which part of the story was your favorite.

As always, thank you for reading godlings. ~

About Apeiron

Apeiron is the world’s first NFT-based play-and-earn god game. Apeiron will feature a unique card-based action-adventure combat system combined with god game simulation gameplay inspired by classic god games like Populous and Black & White. Players will be able to build up planets from above before descending to the ground as a powerful Avatar to solve the mysteries of the universe. Players will grow their planet to the point of developmental stagnation, then reset the planetary cycle via an Armageddon event to allow for even more advancement and thrilling late-game alliance level GvE and GvG activities. Apeiron will use a tri-token architecture, which means that there will be three separate tokens to navigate their ecosystem: a governance token, a play-to-earn token, and a premium alliance token.

Visit Apeiron’s Website | Official Marketplace | OpenSea | Youtube | Discord | Twitter

Howdy, godlings! It’s Apeiron story time again — we’re telling a short story this week! A story about some chaotic dood fights which turned out to become a new festival. But before that, we’ve some community updates for you.

First, we’re gonna have a new boss rush game mode. The new boss rush game mode will take over the October off season leaderboard, with fabulous rewards such as Foonie Emblems (FE) and mini-Black Holes; they’ll even multiply if you’re an asset holder. Take your time to hone your skills and climb up the ladder!

Second, there’ll be new items selling in the FE shop and Soul shop on our Discord. For the FE shop, you can now buy Discord Nitro, Steam Gift Cards, DoodiPortrait NFTs, Fully Bred Tri Planet Raffle Entry, and S3 FE Loot boxes. The current selling items will also be restocked. For the Soul shop, we’re selling Doody Wallpapers custom made on purchase. The writer’s team had a peek of them, and they’re really cute, so you might want to spend your Souls!

Now with the community announcements done, let’s move on to our story. Fasten your seatbelts, as we’re traveling to a distant planet far from the Axis Mundi! Are you ready for the journey? We’ll be launching in…

Three…

Two…

One!

— — — — — — —

How does time work for the doods? Well, doods are bad at time perception, and they don’t have a well-established time measurement system, so they don’t really know what’s an hour or a minute. When dealing with important matters such as cooking, chef doods are able to time well with their extremely sensitive smelling ability that can distinguish between well-cooked food and uncooked food. However, most of the time, doods are just living their days trying to estimate the time by their bellies’ call for lunch and dinner, understanding the concept of time instinctively. Unsurprisingly, they’re pretty bad at accurate timing such as seconds. And who would’ve thought that such a deficiency would lead to the birth of a unique festival in a quiet dood village somewhere hiding amongst the stars of the godiverse…

The year was, as the doods would tell, some random time since the birth of the godiverse. There was a wasteland planet called Nob floating somewhere far from the Axis Mundi. As the resources were scarce, for many generations the doods living there had mostly resorted to banditry and petty thievery, frequently fighting each other while scrambling for food.

However, after a major incident where the doods fought too hard and totally forgot to tend their weedy gardens, leading to even more starving, Vinesworthy the Flourishing, God of Fruits from the Vine, came to the rescue. He blessed the world of Nob with the hardy Ketchy Berry plant. In his divine eyes, this killed two birds with one stone: the berries provided a new and delicious source of food, while also could be used to resolve disputes through a formal conflict known as the Slingshot Showdown.

Since then, the doods lived a relatively peaceful life when compared to their ancestors. Small quarrels and conflicts occasionally broke out during local events though, and that’s when the Slingshot Showdown came into play. It’s simple enough for the single-minded doods to perform — the two doods would go to the central plaza of their town, standing at opposite sides of the square, then turning away from each other, each holding a sling loaded with a Ketchy Berry. Next, they’d count to three and turn to each other as quickly as possible, and see whoever would react faster and shoot the other. This had successfully enforced order for some period of time, becoming a traditional practice on the planet of Nob.

Out of all the slinger doods, there was one particularly famous slinger, called Ballo. He slung with high accuracy: rumor had it that he could aim perfectly at a flying Hippersquish high up the sky and shoot it down with a tiny pebble. However, he wasn’t as accurate when it came to counting down. This wasn’t a problem before he had his first Slingshot Showdown, and things started to go wrong…

Yesterday, Ballo had had a long, tiring day hunting for wild Batterdolks under the scorching sun of Nob, so that night he decided to visit the tavern and grab some food to fill his poor belly. Now, remember, even though he’s exhausted, a cool dood would never show it on his face. They’d act very confident in order to attract the attention of doodettes drinking in the tavern. Therefore, Ballo used some strength and banged the door open with his fat dood tummy, then walked in like a very cool dood who was totally not exhausted at all.

It was a busy night in the tavern. There weren’t many vacancies left, doods in the town crowded the tiny place, chatting and cheering together, some of them even doing some line dancing. Ballo sat down at the only empty table, which was next to a group of cute doodettes, and he gave them a wink.

“Howdy! What would you like to order?” the waiter dood came over and asked.

“Hmm, a gentledood like me would like to have a doodghetti,” Ballo said pretentiously, raising his eyebrows, while the doodettes were screaming frantically at how handsome and cool he was.

“Sure, we’ll serve you doodghetti right away!” the waiter dood confirmed and left.

While waiting for his food, Ballo walked over to the doodettes and casually chatted with them. He boasted about his adventures, such as shooting down a Hippersquish with his sling, taming a sdood at the Rowdy Ranch, and even winning a local Popspicers eating competition. In the middle of the last story, another dood arrived and sat at his table, but he didn’t pay much attention to that dood, as the doodettes were too excited and couldn’t wait to hear what he was saying.

But disaster struck when he finally finished his stories and went back to his table. The late-comer dood was eating doodghetti in front of him, slurping up the pasta with the delicious sweet sour Ketchy Berry sauce.

“Hey, is that MY doodghetti?!” Ballo raised his voice, drawing the attention of the doodettes again.

“What do you mean? I ordered this doodghetti,” the dood said as he continued to munch.

“But I ordered it FIRST!” Ballo couldn’t hold back his hangry rage. He stomped the floor and pulled the doodghetti closer to him.

“Hey! I’m eating!” The dood was annoyed, so he stood up and confronted Ballo, pulling back the plate of doodghetti.

“Calm down! We’ll offer you another doodghetti-” The waiter dood rushed to the table, trying to calm down the situation, but he was immediately interrupted and ignored by Ballo.

“This doodghetti belongs to ME!” Ballo started to slap the wooden table intensely, so the plates and candlesticks started to vibrate. He even stepped onto the table to look more superior.

“Well then, we’re both not gonna have it!” The dood seized the chance, pushing over the table and with a whoosh, everything spilled everywhere. Doods and doodettes in the tavern fled from their heated argument. Ballo, who was standing on the table, fell down miserably onto the floor. Luckily, his soft doody butt landed first.

“My precious dinner!” Ballo shrieked, “What’s your name? I’m gonna challenge you to a Slingshot Showdown!”

“The name’s Flicko! I’m not afraid of you!”

“See you at the town plaza tomorrow after breakfast, and I, Ballo, will defeat you loser!” Ballo yelled at Flicko with his words, eventually turning away and leaving the mess for the waiter to clean up (sadly).

And so, Ballo officially challenged the despicable dood named Flicko who had cruelly eaten HIS doodghetti to a Slingshot Showdown.

The next morning, Ballo polished his sling, picked some Ketchy Berries from his garden, and did some warm-up practice in his backyard in order to prepare for the Showdown. He’s confident that he would win the competition as the best slinger on Nob. There’s no dood who could beat him. Yes! He’d win with glory and show that dood who he was! And maybe the doodettes would come too. He grinned to himself at the thought of his victory.

And so, he left his house and headed towards the town plaza, walking chin up and chest out honorably. It’s a sunny day and the lights shone brightly on his face, adding glory to the champion-to-be.

The moment when he arrived at the town plaza, his opponent was not there yet, but there were tons of spectating doods who surrounded the center, longing to witness the incredible performance of the famous slinger. This boosted the confidence of Ballo to even greater heights.

“HAHAHA! Flicko’s a coward! I’m gonna defeat him and beat his doody butt with my sling!” Ballo yelled proudly.

As soon as Ballo made his declaration, Flicko appeared. He squeezed himself through the crowd and finally reached the center of the plaza, standing at the opposite end from Ballo. Both of them took a deep breath, preparing themselves for this thrilling event.

“The doodghetti was mine!” Flicko claimed.

“No, you son of a bood!” Ballo rebutted.

They glared at each other with their narrow doody eyes, trying to look more intimidating to their opponent. A hot breeze blew a tumbleweed rolling across the battlefield in a dead silence. After a moment to breathe, they both turned away, and assumed the Showdown positions. Once Ballo had faced the opposite direction entirely, he loaded his sling with a Ketchy Berry, then started to count inside his head.

One-

Two-

Three!

“Splat!” The sound of Ketchy Berry bumping and spreading on a squishy dood body rang out. It was bloodily red all over Flicko, and in an instance he was lying on the ground flat without any will to fight on.

Doods hit by Ketchy Berries were prohibited to stand up and fight anymore, until the end of the Showdown — that’s a rule made by Vinesworthy. But…

“Hey!” Suddenly, Flicko stood up grumpily with the gasps of audiences. He brushed off the Ketchy Berry residue on his body, then stomped his way straight to the face of Ballo, “Why did you sling so quickly? Did you count to three?”

“What? Of course! You’re just mad ’cause you lost!” Ballo argued back, “Go back and lie down like the dead dood you are, loser!”

“But…” a spectating doodette opened her mouth and spoke softly, “but, that really felt quicker than other Showdowns…”

“Yea, I remember it should be longer,” said another dood in the crowd.

Soon, the crowd started a commotion, arguing whether the shot was made too quickly and if the Showdown had lost its fairness. Ballo was shocked, as he never expected such responses from other doods; he thought he should be winning heroically. And so, he considered for a moment, and pointed at one of the crowd doods, a doodette.

“Hey you, yea you,” Ballo pointed to the crowd, “You said that other Showdowns were not as quick as the one just now. Show me.”

The doodette was shivering all over, but she stepped forward to the center and followed the instructions of Ballo. Then, Ballo asked her to count until three and they’ll sling Ketchy Berries onto each other.

One-

Two-

Three!

“Splat!” Another Ketchy Berry smacked onto the squishy dood body. And with no doubt, Ballo won again. The poor doodette fell onto the floor with a thump, covered with Ketchy Berry juice.

“Yea! See? That’s way too quick!” Flicko, lying on the ground pretending to be dead, yelled.

“Flicko’s right, this is way too fast. I think you better count aloud so that we can know if you’re counting right,” one of the doods in the crowd suggested, trying to mediate the situation.

“That’s easy, I will count aloud from one to three now! I’ll show you doods!” Ballo said. Another volunteer came down from the crowd to face Ballo. This time, before they started, he yelled out the numbers as loud as he could: “Onetwothree!”

“No, that’s too fast! Listen to me count,” the dood took a deep breath to calm himself down, “One… two… three! Got it?”

“OK,” Ballo nodded confusingly. He had no idea what he was doing anymore.

“Now try it.” The dood stood beside Flicko’s body and played the role of Ballo’s opponent.

“One…” Ballo tried to pause as long as he could, “Twothree!”

“Splat!”

“Nooo dood! Don’t you know how to count?” The dood stood and brushed off the Ketchy Berry sauce on his face, beginning to lose his temper.

“Yea of course, I’m the best at counting!” Ballo was not satisfied either, so he shouted back to the dood.

“No, you’re counting too fast!” The dood raged and argued against Ballo.

“Lie down, you’re dead!” Ballo pointed at the dood, accusing him of breaking the holy rules of the Showdown.

And so, the dood couldn’t do anything about it and backed down, joining the other defeated doods who were lying on the ground waiting for the Showdown to officially end. Ballo grinned confidently, as he believed that he was just being too good at slinging that doods were starting to envy him. But his challengers were an endless stream, they were not convinced by the countdown of Ballo and tried to teach him how to count properly. Doods came, doods went, they all ended up falling under the sling of Ballo, defeated by the merciless Ketchy Berries and Ballo’s lack of counting ability.

At the end of the day, bloody dood corpses were all over the place. Of course they weren’t really dead, but none of them were able to withstand the attack of Ballo. Splattered Ketchy Berries began to flow like a river of berry juice, covering up the floor of the plaza. Ballo, standing on top of every dood, was the only winner of this Grand Showdown.

But then Ballo felt a sense of… loneliness. He had won all the Showdowns, but what was the purpose of all that? Look at all of the doods and Ketchy Berries lying flat on the ground, he could have had tons of doodghetti already!

While Ballo was immersed in sadness and regret, there’s a bored dood who tried to lick the Ketchy Berry juice around his lips. Then, he found himself couldn’t stop licking the tasty fruit juice (it’s irresistibly delicious), and finally decided to put an end to the incident. He sat up. “You know what? Screw all these rules! We should just shoot Ketchy Berries into each others’ mouths and make it a Ketchy Berry Festival!”

“Huh, that sounds like a great idea,” Ballo nodded thoughtfully, gradually picking up his sling again. Then, he loaded it with a Ketchy Berry, pulled the elastic rope, and aimed at one of the lying doods’ mouth. At the moment when he released the rope, a big red fruit flew across the air elegantly with a perfect curve, and ended up perfectly arcing into the mouth of the dood.

“Oooo tasty!” The dood jumped up, as if he was revived, chewing the Ketchy Berry and licking his lips, giving Ballo a thumbs up.

“I want one!” Another dood yelled, raising his hand.

“Yea, shoot me more Ketchy Berries!”

Of course, after all, they’re doods! Who could resist the tempting Ketchy Berries? Ballo stood on a bench and launched Ketchy Berries into the mouths of all the crowd of doods, feeding them the tasty treat with his accurate slingshots. It’s already evening, and doods were queuing up to get their bellies filled, even the bypassing doods joined the unending queue. Although for Ballo, he didn’t do it for long, as he couldn’t wait to redeem his doodghetti from the tavern.

From that day onward, the practice of shooting Ketchy Berries into each others’ mouths became a new traditional festival on Nob. During the harvesting season, doods would line up at the plaza with mouths wide open, waiting for a heroic slinger to sling Ketchy Berries at them. Doods came and doods went, and all were happily stuffed with tasty juicy round Ketchy Berries, enjoying the feast. They’d celebrate madly until they forgot the passing of time with breakfast, lunch, and dinner times all blending together, only to realize that another day had passed when seeing the next sunrise. This was all thanks to Ballo, the heroic slinger who couldn’t properly count to three.

— — — — — —

And that’s the end of today’s story! Do you want to enjoy the juicy festival with the doods? How accurate can you count to three? I bet it’s a useful skill for godlings when timing your castings during dungeon combats! Probably that’s why we have to tell our doods when to cast their abilities… Anyway, come to our Discord to hang out with other cool doods (as cool as Ballo), and follow our Twitter for the latest news!

Thanks for reading, see ya next time, godlings!

About Apeiron

Apeiron is the world’s first NFT-based play-and-earn god game. Apeiron will feature a unique card-based action-adventure combat system combined with god game simulation gameplay inspired by classic god games like Populous and Black & White. Players will be able to build up planets from above before descending to the ground as a powerful Avatar to solve the mysteries of the universe. Players will grow their planet to the point of developmental stagnation, then reset the planetary cycle via an Armageddon event to allow for even more advancement and thrilling late-game alliance level GvE and GvG activities. Apeiron will use a tri-token architecture, which means that there will be three separate tokens to navigate their ecosystem: a governance token, a play-to-earn token, and a premium alliance token.

Visit Apeiron’s Website | Official Marketplace | OpenSea | Youtube | Discord | Twitter

How ya doin’, doods and doodettes? Today, we’re going to have a sweet, sweet lore piece on the sweet, sweet plants in the godiverse, and not only that, but we’ll also talk about some food…uh…animals! Because of course, what could be more appealing for our gourmandizing lil’ doods than edible plants and animals? Food is good! Food is LIFE! And our doods have successfully found ways to turn most of the flora and fauna into food (in dood-terms they’re really now known as “food and food”).

In this week’s blog post, we’re starting our introduction to the flora and fauna with the most common plants and animals that you could see around the Apeiron godiverse, those you could probably see mostly everywhere, particularly on Normal Planets. We hope you enjoy this jaunty exploration — and if you’d like to see more pieces like this, let us know!~

Buuuttttt before we begin, we of course have some announcements we’d like to share with y’all. First, we’ve updated the drop rates for Apostles during Booty Hours. You can expect during Booty Hours to get higher IV Apostles than you normally would — a great time to do some Apostle hunting!

Second, we’re dropping 1000 Dood Halo from now until October 11th, 6pm GMT+8. If you’ve never gotten a Halo before, now you can find one simply by playing! Dood Halo can be used to mint a free dood Apostle NFT, which, combined with the change listed above, means that there has never been a time to find that perfect Apostle you’ve been searching for.

Finally, and this is an important one, we’re removing neutral skill cards from the game. Previously, we highlighted that Planet breeding could produce Planets with Neutral skills, which would be less powerful versions of other elemental skills. Essentially, the way we had implemented breeding, there were certain situations where Planets could not or would not inherit skills from the parents, so to fill in these “blank” spaces, we came up with the idea for Neutral skill cards. However, in the current version of the Skill Tree system (which is still under development), every Planet will have access to at least 3 skills. In this case, there’s no need for the weaker Neutral skills to exist — so they’re no longer going to be part of the game. We’ll have A LOT more to say about the Skill Tree when it’s ready — so be on the lookout for that!

ALSO: a quick reminder that we are roughly halfway through our Off Season Leaderboard! Please note that you need to clear at least Room 100 AND end your run to secure your spot. With a prize pool of over $4000, it’s a great way to spend some downtime — check out the #Play-Now channel on our Discord for more details!

Ok, that’s our housekeeping done. So let’s head outside and…touch grass.

Flora

Hickleberry bush

Things might change over time, but the high quality of Hickleberry jam in the godiverse never changes. It was once asked by a curious dood at Tally’s temple: What’s the best jam in the godiverse to go with toasted bread? Tally, the Goddess of Hierarchical Lists answered, and then officially recorded, that Hickleberry jam is always the best. If you ever get a chance to taste Hickleberry jam, the sweetness is going to melt your tongue (in a good way). Indeed, dood legends say that Hickleberries are blessings from Horticult, the God of Agriculture. Every spring, Horticult would sprinkle sweet magic on the lands to fertilize the soil, of which some of the mana particles later became Hickleberries.

Nowadays, you can find Hickleberry bushes, which are low enough to the ground for any doods to pick the sweetest berries, growing everywhere in the godiverse, especially around the farmlands of the Axis Mundi. The famously rich Lamancha Dood family owns the largest plantation of Hickleberry fields, and they bring huge profits by producing the most reputed Lamancha Hickleberry Jam. “A fine example of dood agricultural produce.” — Horticult remarked, seeing the Lamancha Dood family’s farmlands.

Sugarmelon tree

Icy sugarmelon makes a great snack during the scorching summers. Worker doods are tasked with the daredevil responsibility of catching the plummeting melons from towering trees, but it is not often that they are able to catch them which adds rarity to this specific type of melon. The Days Without Accident sign at the sugarmelon tree catching zone is often at 0 as worker doods often find themselves on the receiving end of some serious sugarmelon-related bonks on the head…

From time to time, doods from the farmlands of the Axis Mundi would engage in friendly barters with their toasty dood friends from the hotter regions for the purposes of turning freshly caught sugarmelons into chilled and delightfully refreshing icy smoothies. Considering the amount of effort that is put in harvesting, delivering, and freezing these fruits, really only well-established doods can get their hands on these juicy treasures. Picture this — it’s midsummer night in Richie Town where the most affluent and cultured dood clans such as the Kardooshians and the Waltdoods, host extravagant, gossip-worthy sangria parties under the glittering stars. And in this distance, a green light…

Flour flower

We all know that doods are simultaneously slack masters and gourmets. In the beginning of creation, the High Goddess Cosmos estimated that doods would only need around 3000 years to discover bread and pastry but the doods were too lazy to grind and mix the flour. Eventually, Cosmos asked Horticult to create a plant called the “Flour Flower”, in which the process of fermentation starts as a bud and the fruit of the plant grows into bread during the autumn.

The flour flower was originally two types of plants in a symbiotic relationship, including a wheat-like plant and a yeast fungi. After years of evolution and the grafting of Horticult, they eventually became one. When the plant is mature, you would see the flower rise like a bread dough, and gradually grow into a bread-like fruit. The sesame-like sprinkles on top of the bread are actually the seeds of flour flower, which doods would take and plant them in their farmlands.

Glowstool

Glowstool is a fungi with a glowing star-shape on top of its cap. It glows with the mana energy it absorbs from the soil, even stealing mana energy from neighboring plants — the nerve! This can, however, be sometimes helpful: these pilfering fungi are particularly effective at curing Manaphytosis, a plant disease which involves the over-absorption of mana energy. More practically for the doods, Glowstools come in different sizes, with some of them large enough to become stools for doods, while others grow only as tiny as a dood palm.

Some doods who tried to eat Glowstools ended up glowing, and were mistaken by other doods as dood ghosts. As the effect was too spooky, Glowstools were banned from consumption (*sad dood noise*) by most village chiefs — although sometimes some cheeky doodlings will still eat some for fun and to cause a bit of mischief. Nowadays, doods would attach the Glowstools to the end of a wooden stick and form a torch on dark winter nights, or take a secret bite when hungry (which is all the time).

Fauna

Groat

Groats are herbivores but are still vicious creatures. Normally, you would find them wandering around brainlessly chewing on stalks of grass. However, some doods know from first-hand experience that if you treat them poorly, they can go from chill to kill in 2.5 bleats. Many a hungry dood has tried to take a bite out of these guys and guess what, they get the infamous groat punt that they deserved.

These creatures live on the hills and slopes around mountains, but really they can be spotted anywhere from Gigas to plains. They usually travel as a herd or in trios, climbing through mountains and valleys, and as their natural habitat is full of slopes, they develop strong hind limbs to climb the steepness. There are a few rare species of groats that can be tamed and domesticated — notably on worlds where a special type of “blue grass” proliferates, one which has a notably sedative property. In any case, these much more chilled-out groats make delicious milk that can be fermented and used to produce different types of cheese, a highly valued product among doods, who use it on everything from doodburgers to pizza.

Dolk / Batterdolk

Dolks are one of the few species to have been fully domesticated by doods. They are large, chonky creatures, rather fluffy, standing on four legs, with a pair of impressive horns on their heads. Despite their large size, the doods had no problem domesticating the dolks, because these animals, unfortunately, are dumb as bricks — dumber, even. They spend most of the time lazing around eating grass or staring up at the sky in wonder (it never stops amazing them). When they are under the blazing sun and wandering around the fields, they enjoy rolling around and getting nature’s scent all over themselves as they nourish their fur with dirt. They are the doods’ primary source of meat.

Beyond regular Dolks, there also exist Batterdolks. These are Dolks with horns that curl around their head in such a way that it almost works to shield their skulls in a fashion akin to a battle helmet. Batterdolks tend to be a touch more aggressive and livelier than their almost catatonic cousins, bashing their helmets together in displays of clattering violence. Most doods consider the Batterdolks something of a nuisance, but certain Apostles love to ride or be accompanied by a Batterdolk into battle. Similarly, if two villages of doods have come to war, Batterdolks will be employed on the frontlines of assault. Still, each side must be careful, because Batterdolks don’t have the best eyesight, and more than one conflict has ended prematurely as both sides end up working together to control their Dolks.

Tupeck

There are no Tupecks crowing in the morning of the godiverse. Not because the Tupecks don’t want to, but because they have veil-like majestic bangs formed by their long feathers and which cover their eyes, making them pseudo-blind creatures who can’t see the sunrise. The doods specifically chose this species to domesticate, as they didn’t want their morning dreams (mainly about food) interrupted by the noisy crows. Moreover, they are low maintenance and doods simply need to feed them with flour flower seeds.

Still, their comical appearance comes down to more than just their lengthy bangs. You might notice that the anatomical components of the female Tupecks are not exactly balanced — a tiny head containing a tiny brain, and a HUGE pair of thighs (very meaty and juicy, yum yum), the latter making up 80% of their whole body. The male Tupecks, on the other hand, due to some evolutionary twist, are much tinier, remaining practically the same size and shape as when they have just hatched from their eggs. As they look rather round and cute, some doods keep the males as pets. Well… just never ask if they eat their pet Tupecks.

— — — — — — -

As the flora and fauna continue to flourish in 1 godiverse street, Axis Mundi, we look forward to hearing your thoughts. Are we loving them or just LOVING ‘EM?! Do you want to hold hands with the Dolks? Let us know on our Discord, where we talk about all things Apeiron related, and don’t forget to also follow our Twitter for the latest juice. We promise there’s more to come, but for now, thanks for reading and as always, see ya next time godlings.

About Apeiron

Apeiron is the world’s first NFT-based play-and-earn god game. Apeiron will feature a unique card-based action-adventure combat system combined with god game simulation gameplay inspired by classic god games like Populous and Black & White. Players will be able to build up planets from above before descending to the ground as a powerful Avatar to solve the mysteries of the universe. Players will grow their planet to the point of developmental stagnation, then reset the planetary cycle via an Armageddon event to allow for even more advancement and thrilling late-game alliance level GvE and GvG activities. Apeiron will use a tri-token architecture, which means that there will be three separate tokens to navigate their ecosystem: a governance token, a play-to-earn token, and a premium alliance token.

Visit Apeiron’s Website | Official Marketplace | OpenSea | Youtube | Discord | Twitter | Apeiron

Hey everyone! It’s been awhile, but we’re returning in this week’s blog post to the ongoing story of Critchens the Dragoon, Happenstance the Summoner, and Tommy — Crit’s son — as they travel the Axis Mundi for the blessings of the Four Elemental Lords. You can find previous chapters of this particular story here and here.

This week our brave group of doods are taking a trip to the Land of the Soaring Winds to see if they can get the blessing of Lord Lark, Duke of Air. We hope you enjoy our little tale of daring doods~

Before we dive in, a quick reminder that rewards for our latest Hidden Lagoon Nebula Expedition can now be claimed by those who were successful on their quests! And be on the lookout for our next Expedition to an all-new Nebula — next Tuesday! Stay tuned to our Discord for more info.

Now then…let’s get to this week’s story!

_____

And so, there they were: Critchens the Dragoon, Tommy his son, and Happenstance the Summoner, making their way back to land on their tiny boat. It was nighttime in the Axis Mundi, and the stars above shone out a message of hope amidst the black stillness.

They had ascended back from the underwater realm of Protea, Elemental Lady of Water, and even managed to win her blessing…in exchange for Timmy, Tommy’s twin sibling and budding Mage. The crew was now tired and weary for their journey, as well as a little downhearted to boot. As Tommy dragged his stubby legs onto the shore, he sighed.

“AHHH, I MISS TIMMY-” he began bawling.

“There, there…” said Crit in support of his son. But the moment of shared sadness was cut short by a sudden-

“Gululululululu, grrrrooooo…”

“Ummm…sorry,” said Crit. “Feeling a little hungry.”

“Come on,” said Happy resolutely. “Let’s find somewhere to rest.”

They weren’t near the fisherdood village they had left from, but rather on an uninterrupted stretch of empty shoreline. It was peaceful…and a little creepy. Hurrying along, they came to a cliff that rose sharply above the beach. Tommy pointed out that — a short way up the cliff face — was an embankment that itself had a small cave opening, partially hidden by grass and a smattering of clinging trees.

It was good enough. They scrambled up the embankment and quickly made themselves at home, setting up a campfire in a dry-ish corner.

“Do we have any food?” asked Crit.

“Nope,” replied Happy sourly.

“Oh,” said Crit. He looked over at Tommy, who was curled on a blanket facing a cave wall. Happy’s eyes glazed over as she…meditated? Slept? Spoke with dead doods?

Having not much else to do, Crit found a spot near the entrance to the cave. He took a deep breath, relishing the cool sea breeze that gently caressed his cheeks (butt cheeks, that is).

“Mmmm the breeze feels nice.”

Some peacefulness washed over him; he felt somewhat better after taking a breather. A day spent pondering about Timmy and their quest ahead had taken a toll on him, and soon, he started to drift off. And as the moon made its way to the night sky, the worn out doods nestled in the heart of the cave and fell deep into slumber.

— — — — — —

Dawn broke, and the first shards of sunlight began to shine into the cave. Slowly, they were awakened by the warmth of the sun gently diffusing into the dimness, inviting them to join the morning’s grace.

“Shhhhhh!” Happy shushed Tommy, trying to not wake Crit.

But Crit’s ears perked up at the sound of a conversation echoing within the cavern.

“You told us we needed to get help from different gods. But Protea… I don’t know, she gives me the creeps! And we lost Timmy because of it!” Tommy argued angrily.

“It was no one’s fault! And we got the blessing, didn’t we?” said Happy, annoyed at Tommy. She made a final “hmph” sound and turned her back on the doodling, who stuck his tongue out at her back before turning to Crit.

“Dad, I’m starving. Should we just go get ourselves some food?” Tommy turned to the half-awake Crit.

Happy perked up. She turned around: “Oh yes! About that! Don’t worry about that.”

“But where’s our food?” the doods started worrying together.

Happy stood up, brushed the dirt off of herself, and walked to the cave mouth. “We need to find an EDEN.”

“An EDEN?”

“Yeah. One of those big…things.”

“Hmm…ok.”

They left the cave and started walking down the shore again. The weather was cloudy and gray, but it wasn’t raining at least. Before too long, they spotted the familiar sight of an EDEN rising up to the heavens. EDENs were all over the Axis Mundi. They marched up to its base. The air fizzed with Mana and magic. Happy put her hands on her hips.

“Hmmm…ok. The old dood ghost said…if I just…” She started to hop back and forth on her feet and waving her arms around. This continued for several minutes.

“What are you doing?” said Tommy.

“Dancing!” said Happy. “Come on, help!”

“How is this going to get us food?”

“Less questions, more dancing!”

Crit and Tommy shared a confused look, trying to understand how this would play out. But Happy seemed serious so they too started to dance.

Their stomachs were growling, and while they still weren’t sure if they were waiting for something, there was a brief moment of stillness in the air, and shortly afterwards an unexpected breeze began to willow along the waves. It only took moments before the wind started intensifying…

“A tornado? Was it summoned by a god?!” Tommy screamed in fear, clinging to a rock to resist the strong pull of the wind.

Suddenly, the gust of wind ended abruptly and a doodette wearing a winged helmet, sporting a cool green badge and carrying a full basket of food appeared.

“Hiya! I’m from the RFDDS, which stands for Royal Food Delivery Dood Service. Here’s the food that you said you needed!”

From the basket, she served up some BBQ Meat Skewers and some Stinky Spikefruit which looked appetizing enough to satiate the hungry doods.

Happy smiled at the delivery.

“Wait, how can you fly?” Crit, still recovering from his shock, asked curiously.

“I’ve never seen a dood flying like that before!” said Tommy, while munching on some groat skewers.

“I got these wings from our god! You should come and visit sometime,” the delivery doodette grinned, flashing them a thumbs up.

“And what realm is that?” asked Tommy.

“The realm of Lark, our Elemental Lord of Air!” she replied cheerfully. “Now, if you’ll excuse me doods and doodette, it’s time to take off!”

A gust of wind picked up around the delivery doodette, lifting her off the ground and carrying her into the sky, leaving no trace of her ever being there.

“That’s so cool!” remarked Tommy, squinting against the blazing sun.

“C’mon son, we gotta get movin’. We need to get the blessing from Lark, and if we can get some of those wings as well, we can fly to Cosmos’ temple and tell the High Goddess about the chaos outside of Axis Mundi!” said Crit. The food had really done a number on him. He felt ready to face the world. Also, those wings seemed sweet.

Happy while munching a piece of meat off the skewer, said emotionlessly, “I saw something in your dreams last night… something about the breeze blowing on your cheeks. It must be a sign.”

They wasted no time packing their things and setting off on their next adventure. There was some debate about exactly how many Stinky Spikefruits they were going to take, with Crit and Tommy strongly against and Happy strongly for. She ended up carrying the extra herself.

As they got ready to depart, Happy couldn’t shake off a feeling of unease. She felt there was something out of the ordinary with the delivery dood’s wings. But maybe it was just her mind being clouded by the smell of the Stinky Spikefruit.

— — — — — — — —

After journeying for a couple of days, they finally made it to Lark’s realm, the Land of Soaring Winds, a place of tall mountains, steep valleys, and even flying islands, hovering amidst the scudding clouds. The doods could feel a constant gust of wind swirling past them, caressing them, tickling them, inviting them forward.

But there was something else as well…the sound of…what was that?

“Is someone crying?” asked Tommy.

“Sounds like it,” said Crit. “Let’s go check it out.”

They were walking at the bottom of a steep valley, the walls of tall cliffs rising up on either side of them. A small stream tinkled along the bottom musically, the tinkling echoing off the rocky walls and creating an ethereal kind of music. As they walked forward they could see…yes it was a crying doodette, plonked on a bit of moss next to the stream.

“Oh, it’s the delivery doodette we saw last night!” Tommy pointed at the crying doodette, recognizing her from the green badge. By her side, her wings lay oddly out of shape.

Feeling their eyes on her, the distressed doodette wiped her tears away, recognizing in turn the familiar faces of her past customers.

“Oh…it’s you doods. Something happened on the way back. As I was flying back to base, my wings — THEY BROKE! I’m a failure as a Royal Food Delivery Dood,” she sobbed, clutching onto her broken wings, “Now I’ll never fly again!!”

Tommy inched closer to inspect.

“Don’t worry. We’ll help you fix them!” said Crit.

“Why would you help me?” the delivery doodette asked.

“My boy Tommy has a doody heart,” Crit said with pride.

“You’re right I do!” said Tommy, crossing his arms boldly in front of himself.

“I’m not sure we have time to-” began Happy, before being interrupted by-

“Wow, you guys are really nice!” The delivery dood stood up and shook their hands, “I’m Feeby, nice to meet you!”

“Hey, Feeby! Tell us what we need to do!” Tommy stood with arms akimbo, acting impressively, flexing his (small) muscles in a few handsome poses, and smiling confidently.

Happy tried to pull the wings out of Feeby’s hands so she could examine them.

“Hey, be careful! “ Feebly exclaimed,

Feeby managed to wrestle her wings away from Happy, who hmphed, then started to explain:

“I was told that my grandpa was a dreamer dood. He dreamt of flying high in the sky just like our Lord Lark does, so he made his own wings. Of course they didn’t really work, but Lord Lark was so moved he blessed the wings. He told him to always follow his dreams (and also to make deliveries for other doods). There’s even a poem about it:

Within a dreamer’s heart, wings took flight,

Against Hollow Rock, danced in pure dood light.

The boneless sky his fast age fair,

To waltz with Lark, Lord of Air.

Dreams dood-ed into a daring guy,

The dreamer’s spirit, the winds corn-fly.

I dunno about what it means, but we all had to read it before joining the Royal Food Delivery Dood Service.”

“Surprised that you even remember,” Happy and Tommy were chewing on their skewers and spikefruit, giving Feeby the side eye.

“Alright, so what do we do now?” Crit asked.

“But that’s just the thing! I went to the Hollow Singing Rock and performed the Whoosh Breeze Dance to give the wings back their magic windy power, and it didn’t work! So now I dunno what to do…” she erupted in a cascade of sniffling again. Crit fished out a handkerchief to give to her and she tooted her nose clean.

“Lark.”

They all turned to look at Happy. She stared them all down as if it was obvious. “What? We need to find Lark. We need his blessing. And he can probably fix those wings too.”

“Oh! Good idea, Happy! I was also going to say that.”

Feeby sniffed, but with just a little bit more hope. “Hmm…I like it, but…Lord Lark isn’t known for staying in his temple. I have no idea where to find him,” she confessed.

“But we must try, we need to find him too!” Crit pointed his spear toward the sky, trying to lift his new friend’s spirit, “We’ve already found and faced gods before, like Lady Protea.”

“Yeah!” said Tommy, also striking a heroic pose next to his dad. It didn’t have quite the same impact without the spear.

“OK, if you guys think it’s the right thing to do,” Feeby nodded. Gathering her courage, she stood tall and reclaimed her spirit. “Off we go!”

Guided by Feeby, they continued to journey across the realm. As a dood born and raised in the Land of Soaring Winds, she knew every nook and cranny of the mountains, and she even knew how to get to some of the floating islands in the realm.

“HERE WE GOoooooo!”

— — — — — — — — —

They first arrived on a floating island — riding on the back of some ferrying Hippersquishes, small chimerical-looking creatures — with a majestic lake in the very middle. Strangely, there wasn’t as much wind here compared to the other places. The atmosphere was serene, and the sky reflected beautifully in the water’s glass-like surface as if the two had become one.

“Hmmm, I don’t see Lord Lark anywhere. They say he loves to paint here…” said Feeby.

Tommy dipped his hand into the water as he looked for Lark, but he saw no god resting in the area, only a reflection of himself in the lake. He gave himself a devilish grin. Then frowned.

Seeing no one but themselves, they moved away from the lake and made their way to the next stop — a village called Lullaby Vale. The place had a small population. As they were walking past, they saw doods living happily and contentedly. It seemed the village doods had a habit of daydreaming — they were walking around with their heads in the clouds, occasionally giggling to themselves. None of them had seen Lark in ages.

They kept wandering, and found themselves at the foot of an incredibly tall mountain — Vortex Verge. In fact, it was the tallest mountain in the realm. It was two-pronged — like a fork — and had some sort of large circle in the middle that made a kind of deep humming vibration.

“We don’t have to climb that, do we?” asked Tommy.

Feeby looked at him with glistening eyes. “Well we could always give up on our dreams, I guess…”

Tommy sighed and shook his head. “Off we go then…should have gotten another doodburger back at that village…”

The mountain was a huge test for them. It was very steep. Crit almost died from exhaustion. Tommy and Feeby had to huff-and-puff haul each other up. Happy basically fainted. They must have climbed for a whole 10 minutes before they finally reached the Hippersquish riders who would carry them the rest of the way up.

At last, with Tommy doing a final belly roll and flopping himself to the ground from the Hippersquish, they all reached the top.

“So tired…” he moaned.

“Oh no…he’s not here either…” Feeby burst into tears.

They toured the mountaintop for a while, but all they found was a patch of grass and some sightseeing doods.

And it was certainly a sight to see — and hear! The humming up here permeated the air right down to the bones. Something about it got Crit’s feet tapping. He wanted to sing a song as he looked out over Lark’s kingdom. He liked it here. It was so peaceful. If only the whole godiverse could be like this…

The sun started to set, the light transforming the mountains and valleys into a dazzling partnership of shadow and gold. They sat down together and watched as the shadows slowly consumed the gold, which faded into orange, then violet, before finally a patchwork gray.

“Hey Feeby,” called Crit.

“Yeah?”

“Why do you work as a delivery dood, even in a place as easy and merry as this?”

“Oh, that’s because my grandpa inspired me!” Feeby proudly lifted her head, “He was such a brave dreamer dood. Without him, I wouldn’t have my wings!”

“And so your dream is to deliver food?”

“You bet! I think it’s cool to travel around the Axis Mundi, and to deliver food for doods!” Feeby tapped her feet energetically.

Crit gave her a thumbs up. “Hope that Tommy can learn from you Feeby. You’re a cool dood.”

“Hey Feeby…would it be ok if I could see your wings?”

“Hmmm….ok…” said Feeby cautiously. She passed them over gently to Tommy.

Tommy gently picked them up, and started to inspect them closely again, trying to see if he could fix them. Honestly, he had absolutely no idea. But then-

“I wonder if we should try to fly,” said Tommy. “Maybe the only way to meet Lark is to fly. We have to prove ourselves!”

Tommy then went to the cliff, and stood by the edge. It was dark below now, with night beginning to cloak the land. That made it slightly less scary, at least. He could make out the lights of a twinkling dood village far below. The humming from the mountain above him seemed to intensify.

“Son, that’s too dangerous…” Crit stepped forward and grabbed his doodling son back from the cliff.

“Yea, yea, the wings are not working now! You’ll fall and… become a dood ghost?” said Feeby.

“Ugh…we’ve already been traveling for so long and got nothing. I think the wings are testing us to be brave!” said Tommy angrily.

The other doods tried to tell him to back away from the cliff. But Tommy stubbornly shook them off. Even Crit found it difficult to control his son. Tommy had grown very strong.

“You can’t fly with a pair of twisted wings-”

“You don’t have to do this-”

“AAAAAAAAAA!!!”

With enough courage gathered, Tommy yelled, “I’m King of the World!”

He had jumped off the cliff, but of course, the wings didn’t work and he tumbled down like a yellow beach ball and into the depths of the darkened parts of the mountain.

“OH NOOOO!!!”

“Tommy!!!”

“I know where he’ll be! Follow me, quick!” Feeby hallooed a Hippersquish rider and they all shot off after him.

— — — — — — — — —

When they arrived at the foot of the mountain, they saw a commotion. A crowd of doods were gathered at the center of the village, watching two doods in the middle of a quarrel.

Crit led his friends and made their way into the crowd. He saw his son standing in the middle of the crowd, scolded by a dood who was positively red with rage. Tommy had crossed his arms stubbornly, but Crit could tell he was nervous. And he looked kind of dizzy as well.

“Oi dood! You need to fix my hut and gimme your stuff!” The angry dood yelled at Tommy.

“Umm….I don’t have any food…” Drops of sweat could be seen on Tommy’s nervous face.

Feeby pushed her way to the front of the crowd. She wasn’t pleased either. “Tommy! Where are my wings?!”

“Hey, hey! Everyone just calm down. What’s happening here?” Crit interrupted the angry dood and tried to rescue his doodling. “Why are you yelling like that? That’s not the doody way!”

“This dood fell from the sky and crash-landed through my roof! I was sleeping peacefully on my bed, but then a dood came flying down, right on top of me!!” The dood huffed while stomping his feet and punching the air. “Buy a dood a dinner first!”

“Hey, it was an accident, let’s all just-”

“He’s gotta pay for my food for 10 years!” The dood roared.

“10 years?! That’s robbery!” Crit’s face turned red.

“Huh, who are you? Are you telling me what to do!?” The dood was even more irritated.

Crit stood up tall and banged his spear on the ground. “You bet I am!”

The angry dood quaked a little, but some of the other villagers rallied to support their friend. “It’s all your fault! You need to pay for it!”

“Yeah! Yeah!” shouted the crowd.

“You son of a bood-”

“How dare you-”

“Come here!”

“TOMMY WHERE ARE MY WINGS-”

“Well, they’re not LESS broken, but they’re still-”

An almighty clamor broke out as the doods began to fight. Chairs, tables, and food went flying.

Happy sighed. This was all so dumb…but then she noticed something. There was a light breeze on her cheek…getting stronger. And stronger, and stronger. It was a wind, then a gale. The doods stopped fighting: the village doods — and Feeby — got down on their knees in prostration. Crit and Tommy stood their mouths agape.

“Whence come these clamors so full and loud?” boomed out an unfamiliar voice.

All doods huddled together in fear, hoping for the best, but it wasn’t long until the wind died down. A sudden tornado spun into existence, and from it emerged the elegant elongated figure of Lord Lark, Prince of Winds, the Captain of Zephyrs, and the Elemental Lord of Air. He gave them all a flashing grin that lit up the night, and a theatrical wave as he hovered over them. His white hair floofed around his neck like a cloud, and his long turquoise waistcoat suggested he had just come from some White City party.

“It’s Lord Lark!” Feeby exclaimed with a squeak.

“All hail Lord Lark!” the crowd of doods recited.

“Lord Lark! Please forgive us!” Some doods cried loudly, including the formerly angry dood, Crit, Tommy and Happy.

The god stretched his long limbs and cracked a wide yawn. Then, he combed and twirled his fluffy silver hair that was glistening in the moonlight, and dusted the leaves that had landed on his shoulders.

“So. What’s happening here?” Lark asked nonchalantly, but the doods were all trembling. They didn’t want to be punted off.

“They were arguing,” Feeby answered in honesty and with dignity, standing right in front of Lark.

“Arguing? About what?” Lark was confused.

“There was my friend who tried to fly with my wings, because…” Feeby hesitated for a while, “…because he wanted to help me repair them. But we failed and he tumbled down the hill and crashed into a dood’s hut.”

“Oh dear, that’s horrible,” Lark gasped, then looked at the doods. The doods could feel the pressure of being glared upon, so they trembled even more intensely. Was Lark planning to punt them out of his realm?

“Please, don’t punt us! We know what we’ve done now, please forgive us!”

“Yea! We promise we won’t argue anymore!” said a dood from the back.

“We can’t live outside your realm! We’re too used to the relaxed lifestyle here!” said a rather larger sized dood.

Lark closed his eyes and pondered for a moment, while the doods were waiting nervously for their punishment. However, after a long wait, nothing happened.

The doods didn’t understand, had their god fallen asleep?

“Um, Lord Lark?” Feeby asked tentatively.

“Oh, right. Arguing,” Lark suddenly came to and looked at Feeby. Everyone was holding their breath. But then, Lark continued with an uncaring voice, “Well, if it’ll make you all quiet down…”

Lark raised his hand. Within a blink of an eye, the dood’s hut and Feeby’s wings were repaired. Witnessing the miracle, the doods were shocked but also relieved, they jumped up and down exuberantly. Some of the doods were dancing the God-Given Jig.

“We love Lord Lark!”

“Lord Lark’s da best!”

“YAYYYYY-”

In fact, Lark was unbothered by all those commotions. His eyes scanned the crowd, picking out Feeby.

“Feeby, is it?” Lark remarked.

“Yes, Lord Lark,” Feeby nodded rapidly.

“Come with me,” said Lark. It was not a question, or an offer, but a command.

“Can my friends come along?” asked Feeby.

Lark shrugged. “Sure, why not.”

Then he hoisted Feeby, Crit, Tommy and Happy onto his shoulder, and flew towards the direction of his temple.

— — — — — — — — —

At last, they arrived at Lord Lark’s temple.

The temple was floating high up in the sky, on an island hovering above all the rest. The doods could only make out the Vortex Verge below — everything else was hidden in the night. The temple was so high up that there was no way for a mere dood to climb up to reach it without first meeting Lord Lark. It was a place suitable for only gods and worthy doods.

As they took their first step into the temple, the sublimity of it all overwhelmed them. The temple itself was merely a circle of stones surrounding a very still pool of water with just the thinnest sheen of clear ice over its surface. It was a kind of natural mirror that reflected the sky, so that it seemed, upon stepping onto the surface, as if one had stepped into the sky itself. The golden edge of Lark’s turquoise robe gently skated over the surface, creating a shimmery trace as the God of Air flew across the thin ice.

He reached a certain spot and signaled the doods to come join him.

It was as if this place had its own timeline, and was unbothered by the agenda of the outside world, filled with serenity and peacefulness. The doods walked over nervously, huddled in a small group. It was somewhat too much for them. Only Happy seemed unphased by it all. She looked around wondering at the stars and their reflections.

The doods made their way to Lord Lark who was enjoying the tranquil moment, bathed in moonlight. The god was quiet even when they stood before him. He seemed to be relaxing, but he didn’t speak a word. Feeby stared at him. She had questions, but she was uncertain of whether she should raise them.

“Lord Lark, aren’t you mad?” Feeby asked, “About me breaking the wings you gave me.”

“Oh no, not at all. That doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things,” Lark shrugged his shoulders, “I remember the day when you told me your dream of becoming a delivery dood.”

“That’s a long time ago! I was just a doodling at the time!” Feeby’s eyes widened, “But why did you give me the wings?”

“Because I knew you’ll become a great dood,” Lark raised his head with a coy grin and looked up to the starry night sky, “So did your grandpa.”

“I want to know more about my grandpa, did he really invent the wings?” asked Feeby.

“Well, yes. But…your grandpa never made his first delivery. An accident happened when he was testing to fly with the wings.”

“Ohhhh…” Feeby lowered her eyebrows and looked down. She looked distraught. Her grandpa had always been her role model, but now she discovered that everything was just in her head. Was she a fool to believe in these stories for so long?

“Your grandpa was a brave dood. He dreamt of flying in the sky for such a long time, so that he even tried to invent a pair of dood wings.” Lark started uncovering the story. “Unfortunately, he died when trying to fly with his wings. I only learnt the story after it had happened. After his death, I kept his wings. I was touched by his persistence and courage, and I love doods who dream. So I blessed the wings and granted them the ability to fly.”

He looked at Feeby’s wings and grinned. “Then other doods asked for some and I thought…ah, a delivery service for doods! That would be funny. So we set it up.”

Feeby was still wrestling with the shock of her grandfather’s death, his failures. “Why…why didn’t I know? How come no one ever told me?”

“You’re so bright and full of hope, even since you’re a doodling,” Lark praised, “Your grandfather’s dream inspired your own. And well…I love doods who dream,” he said with a wink. “In fact, I wrote a poem about it, which maybe you’ve heard before. All delivery doods are supposed to learn it:

Within a dreamer’s heart, wings took flight,

Against Hollow Rock, danced in pure delight.

The boundless sky his vast stage fair,

To waltz with Lark, Lord of Air.

Dreams distilled into a daring glide,

The dreamer’s spirit, the winds confide.”

Of course, Feeby remembered the poem but she felt something special this time around. She didn’t know her grandpa had failed miserably, but the story didn’t stop there. The dreams of doods were infused into the truths in the godiverse, they were part of this fascinating starry sky.

She seemed to be peeking into something very complicated, something that wasn’t supposed to be understood by a dood, therefore she couldn’t bear to think.

Instead, she sighed with relief.

“So, grandpa never danced with you in the sky?” Feeby looked at Lark with glistening eyes.

“Never.” Lark paused for a short moment. “But his spirit probably did. And he’s always flying with you, Feeby, with that pair of wings.”

“Thank you, Lord Lark,” Feeby could feel a bup-bup feeling in her heart. She was finally content and smiled at her god.

— — — — — — — — —

The next day when the doods woke up, they found themselves still in the temple. Lark was not sleeping, but he had entered into a state of deep meditation. The doods were not sure if it’s a good idea to wake him up, so they remained absolutely silent, until Lark eventually opened his eyes.

“What a nice day-” Lark stretched his limbs then greeted the doods, “Oh, you doods are still here? I’d completely forgotten about it. What are you doing here? You’re free to go back and grab some food!”

“We came here for your blessing,” Happy stepped forward and said politely.

“Hmm, I’ve not heard of your stories yet. I told you a story last night, now it’s your turn to tell me your story!” Lark turned to them with his vivid emerald eyes.

And so, Tommy and Happy told Lark about their adventures. They started to describe how they went from meeting Bobo and Rara on Susanoo’s planet, to being split up by the tainted boods when traveling across the godiverse. Then, how they tried to talk to Cosmos in the White City but failed epically, and how they went to Protea’s realm to get her blessing but lost one of their friends, and ended up…here.

“You’re some interesting doods, and you’ve got big dreams,” Lark nodded amusedly. “Sure! You have my blessing. I hope Lady Cosmos will hear you out.” He extended one of his long, slender hands — a whoosh of air and viridian light shot out and surrounded the doods in a mini-tornado of magical power, before suddenly disappearing.

“Woah!” said Crit.

“Excellent,” said Happy.

“Thank you!” Tommy exclaimed. The other doods also had their happiness written on their faces. They had done it!

“OHHH WE FORGOT OUR DINNER,” Crit suddenly realized his stomach was stirring, and remembered that they had skipped dinner last night with all the commotion. How ridiculous it was for doods to forget their dinner time! “We should go and grab our lunch now! A big one, to celebrate.”

“Wanna grab some food together, Feeby?” Happy turned to their delivery dood friend, “Where are you going after this? Do you want to come with us?”

“Thanks for the invitation, but I gotta get back to work. After all, that’s the responsibility of a Royal Food Delivery Dood!” Feeby said proudly, feeling refreshed by the story last night. “I want to fly around all the Axis Mundi again! It’s time for the Royal Food Delivery Dood to take off, see ya next time!”

“Wait! Before you leave, can you please deliver this to someone in Protea’s realm for me?” Tommy handed a letter to Feeby. It had some colorful pictures drawn on it.

“Of course, you’re my friend!” Feeby carefully tucked away the letter and smiled, “I’ll make sure it’s delivered to your brother!”

For one last time, they saw the sight of wind surrounding Feeby. She waved goodbye to her friends, flapped her wings, and skyrocketed into the air. They’d certainly miss her, but they also knew that every time they ordered food, they would meet again.

The doods gazed into the far distance of the sky — what a beautiful sight, the perfect day for doods to dream of flying.

END

And that’s the end of this one! Hope y’all enjoyed it — what did you think of Crit, Tommy, and Happy’s adventures this time around? Would you like to take a tour of the Realm of Soaring Winds? Let us know! We’d love to hear your thoughts — come to our Doodaria Discord and tell us — or tweet (x?) at us on the (dead) bird site.

And as always, thanks for reading, godlings. We’ll see you next time.

About Apeiron

Apeiron is the world’s first NFT-based play-and-earn god game. Apeiron will feature a unique card-based action-adventure combat system combined with god game simulation gameplay inspired by classic god games like Populous and Black & White. Players will be able to build up planets from above before descending to the ground as a powerful Avatar to solve the mysteries of the universe. Players will grow their planet to the point of developmental stagnation, then reset the planetary cycle via an Armageddon event to allow for even more advancement and thrilling late-game alliance level GvE and GvG activities. Apeiron will use a tri-token architecture, which means that there will be three separate tokens to navigate their ecosystem: a governance token, a play-to-earn token, and a premium alliance token.

Visit Apeiron’s Website | Official Marketplace | OpenSea | Youtube | Discord | Twitter

Hey everyone! For this week’s blog, we’ve got a story/lore piece that covers one of the hottest dood fashion shows in the godiverse. Ever wanted to know more about dood fashion? Of course you have! And today, that dream becomes a reality. You’re welcome.

Before we dive in, let’s not forget: the Apeiron S2 Guild Wars (AGW) is in full swing! We’re actually approaching the final stages: we’ve got the semi-finals on Friday (August 11th 8:00 PM UTC+8 and 10:00 PM UTC+8) and the finals on Saturday (August 12th 10:00 PM UTC+8). For the semi-finals, we have Zombie Club vs PIF Nation and Guildless Gamers vs Crypto Inside battling it out for the chance to win it all. They’re sure to be great matches, so make sure to tune in on our Twitch!

But that’s not all! We’re upping the ante for everyone — even our viewers! — for the semis and finals. For the semis, simply show up to watch and you’ll have a chance to win 5k Souls, 1 Foonie Emblem (FE), and 50 Animus. Those prizes are DOUBLED for the finals. But wait there’s more: during the finals, 5 lucky doods will be entered into a raffle to win a free AGW T-shirt delivered straight to your door! So make sure to watch the best Apeiron players go head to head~

Beyond the AGW, we have our Hidden Lagoon Nebula Expedition coming up…now! Go to our Marketplace and head over to the Expedition page and you can stake your Planets AND your newly minted Apostles for a chance at a rewards pool of 800FE. Please be aware that users may NOT stake their Origins Tickets any longer, but will instead need to stake actual Apostles. Please also note that Origins Apostles will accrue Vapor at a faster rate — so convert your tickets into Apostles and get ready to embark!

Alright, with all that being said, now it’s time for one of the most important pieces of news in doody history, the newest editorial — Spring Summer in AP — Fashion Doods.

— — — — — —

Broadcaster Dood: Hey doods, and welcome! We’re coming to you LIVE from the Axis Mundi Four Elements Fashion Show and we’ve got quite the lineup for you tonight. While the doods are getting dressed, let’s hear from Nana Weetour — our resident expert dood — who’s going to tell us all about dood fashion… *signals for Nana*

Nana Weetour: *coughs and glares at broadcaster dood* Go on…?

Broadcaster Dood: Oh, yeah, ok…uhhh….Nana Weetour studied fashion at Pardoods for many many years, born and raised in the heart of the White City, she is one of the to-die-for dood stylists, not with a couple meat sticks can you get a look out of this gal. Let’s ask Nana to come on stage and talk about what dood fashion is all about. Let’s give a big doody welcome to…NaAA…NAAAAAAhhh!!!

*crowd of doods cheering, jumping up and down beneath the stage*

Nana: Thank you, thank you! Now, listen up doods and doodettes as one of the most in demand *fixes shades* stylists, I get inspiration from our gods. I’ve had the pleasure to travel across the Axis Mundi and see ALL the different styles. “Normal” dood fashion as one might call it, there’s actually nothing normal about our cool choices. Green pouches and nakedness are actually quite a statement, and personally I believe-

Broadcaster Dood: “Wow, thank you Nana! Ok we really have to get started now-”

Nana: ANYWAY what I was GOING TO SAY was that a dood’s choice of clothing depends on where they are, what they want to eat. Dood outfits need to be practical — always waterproof, able to fight off the burning heat AND ready to be able to bust a move on the dance floor-

*Nana takes another deep breathe, about to ramble on about fashion*

Broadcaster Dood: THANK YOU, Nana!

*Nana glares at Broadcaster Dood*

Broadcaster Dood: That was very helpful but how ‘bout we sit back and watch this fashion parade? It seems our doods are ready!!! Woooohoo!

*Nana clogs her heels and exits*

Broadcaster Dood: Now, let’s throw over the call to our hosts on the scene, Marzy Pan and Chip Swagger, two doods who know a fair bit about fashion…

*crowd of doods applause*

*Marzy enters in a sparkly meat dress along with Chip who is in the latest Birdoodsocks*

Dood in the crowd: Marzy, Marzyyy, Look at meeeee!!!! I’m your biggest fan!

Marzy Pan : *flashing a trademark smile* Welcome doods!~ Today, the night sky is glowing with stars, and we’re ‘bout to see some new fashion designs! Without further adood, let’s celebrate this season’s most trendy, ready-to-wear butts! Grab your powpowcorn and let’s get this party started!

Chip Swagger: You said it, Marzy, it’s gonna be a heckuva night here in the White City. And it looks like we’ve got our first doods coming down the runway….here we have some doods from the undersea city of Coralia! And boy are they colorful Marzy. Very colorful…

Marzy: Now this is what I call making an effort. This combo of green and pink, looking at it makes me wanna do a little wiggle wiggle and better yet the colors remind me of a sugarmelon. Not only does it taste…I mean looks good it’s got IT, ya feel Chip?! The accessories are a bit loud but I get it, it’s part of the look. I think I might have just found my next wardrobe for the summer bash, speaking of the partaay are ya going, Chip?

*A random dood tries to climb on stage and take a bite out of the dood’s pants. CHOMP!*

Chip: Security!!!

*A team of security escorts this particularly hungry dood out of the show.*

Chip: Anyhoo… Is that an invitation, Marzy? Which party is it? But yeah these doods from Coralia are bringing that doody flare that we just love to see here at the Four Elements Fashion Show. The colors pop and…I’m getting hungry haha. I think we should be getting some snacks soon…anyway!

Marzy: Heck ya! It’s one of the many Coralian parties, I’m totally going to wear a wig so that my hair will be all floaty in the water. *finds a cookie in dress, hands to Chip* Here’s a snack, Chip. The accessories though, they do look heavy. I wonder if that’s how they stay underwater for so long without floating back up. Wait a sec…what’s that on your arm Chip?

Chip: Oh this? One of the Coralia doods handed it to me. She said it’s runway host dood exclusive? Not sure what that means. *munching on cookie*

Marzy: Alrighhhhht, I am sensing something funky here but we’ll talk about this later. Hmmmm…Is it just me or does it smell like…burnt meat stick? What’s taking so long and why is that dood still standing behind the curtain. Come on out, work that fit like you own it!

Chip: …it’s the Hot Tot Doods, wearing their…uhh, Marzy, what are they wearing exactly?

*Crowd of doodettes go “Ooooo” at the sight of the Hot Tot Doods*

Marzy: Hmm bangles, hoop earrings, and some tattoos…they’re pretty much naked Chip…. WAit didn’t they wear (or not wear, I guess) that the last time they showed up?! Nothing new to see here, a bit out of trend and tad bit much of butts if you ask me *side-eye*. What d’ya think Chip… are they committing a fashion crime?

*The crowd of dood rustles with the sound of snacks and confusion*

Chip: I think they did show up with it last time, Marzy. But I guess naked…or mostly naked doods…never goes out of fashion! Maybe?

Marzy: Well..to be fair Infernia does get pretty hot, I had to strip when I visited last week. I had fun at their fireball party but got hella roasted by the legendary blabber dood, Meepo, that dood had a way with his words, fun but mostly I think he’s just a meanie beanie.

Chip: *Sighs* I guess these doods can get a pass this time, but next time we’re expecting something more. I gotta say though Marzy, I do dig this look. It’s easy, and I especially love the feeling on my butt when the breeze hits…

Marzy: OOOOK …every dood’s got its pick I guess. Anyways let’s get moving, I just can’t stop thinking about the things Meepo said to me at the fireball party…

*Infernia dood throws loin cloth in crowd before exiting*

Marzy: Wow! Now that’s an impressive-

Chip: IT’S ALL part of the fun and you certainly know how to party Marzy haha. Ahem. Anyway! It looks like the doods from Aerotopia. They’re wearing stuff…looks like it would blow away in the wind. Very loose. Comfortable! Chill. In their lanes. They look like they’re vibing, anyhow. Not sure if I would wear it to a party but definitely something to relax around the house in, eh Marzy?

Marzy: It does look very comfy, I am just loving this white floral sundress and hankie-chief round the doodette’s head. It’s sooo elegant, magical but also sends the smell of sunflowers. The dress has got a way of complimenting the shape of a dood. And the flowy-ness reminds me of flowers dancing on the fields of Aerotopia… But dood, that place really is windy, I dated a dood once and he just got blown away! Oh well.

Chip: Absolutely Marzy, talk about windy! You can pretty much travel across Aerotopia simply by holding up your dresses or flowy tops.

Marzy: That’s sure a way to travel and save lots of time, you know what they say about traveling in style. Well now…what do you think, shall we move on to the doods coming allllll the way from the Rockies and let’em grace us on the runway?

Chip: They’re coming alright but…very slowly. That outfit…is that dood inside of a rock Marzy?

Marzy: Come’on doods and trot 👏🏻it👏🏻 like 👏🏻it’s👏🏻 hAWT. Heavily fitted, very leathery. It looks quite bulky? but with a peck of uniqueness. I must say its oversized-ness does make a dood look well… less lumpy and kinda cool!

Chip: And not to mention these armors are lined with plenty of pockets, great for storing a sausage or two, really just any snacks when a dood is on the road. The brown and grays really bring out the tuff dood feel — a true representation of where they come from.

Marzy: Yeap yeap, fashion should make a dood look good but it should also serve a purpose, like storing snacks. But let’s move onto the last batch of doods! We’re almost at the end of the show and time for the afterparty wooo. Dressed by the one and only Nana Weetour, designs inspired by the gods and goddess of the Axis Mundi. We present to you, the White City doods!

*Music and lights flashes, White City doods hands on hips trotting down the runway*

Chip: Here comes the grand finale! These guys are special, the real deal. Their outfits are golden, silver, elegant…and you can’t often say that about a dood haha. And so shiny! Very stylish, love it. Ooooo it’s so good it makes me hungry for another cookie. D’ya have any more Marzy?

Marzy: Woah there calm your toots Chip. But yes, *rains cookies on Chip* Nana has got that vision, she understands what doods need. This is a perfect balance between glamming and slayin’. Doods that have been to places do know a thing or two, makes me wanna travel soon…

*crowd of doods passed out from all the lights and music, some passed out from snacking*

Chip: Thanks for the cookies…*weeps a bit* Sorry Marzy, I am getting a bit emotional or maybe just hungry for dinner…

Marzy: I hear ya, it’s alright. This is quite a show. It’s all very beautiful. These White City doods sure know how to dress to impress!

Chip: I wish Nana would dress me…? *glances over to Nana*

Nana: As if! HMMPH!

Chip: Welp, since all these doods have passed out should we just end the show right here Marzy?

Marzy: Yes Chip! Alrighty, what a fantastic close to another fabulous Four Element Fashion show, their designs are a treat as always. But for now, folks, it’s time to sign off! We hope you enjoyed this fashion party as muooooch as we did. Until next time, stay stylish and stay doody!

Chip: Annnd don’t forget to subscribe to our Doody AM Broadcast to stay in the loop with the most updated fashion. And thank you famous dood stylist — Nana Weetour and everyone for coming to our show tonight!! Sleep tight!!

Broadcaster dood: DJ cue the exit music! Curtains close, and lights out everyone!

____

And there you have it, the first feature of Apeiron’s spring-summer collection. This is only the beginning and we will keep searching for the newest designs from our talents and trendiest off-duty looks from the doods of Apeiron, for fashion is constantly changing.

Let us know which haute couture you are picking from the runway! The party’s always goin’ at our Discord, and you can keep up with all the latest fashion Apeiron updates on our Twitter.

And as always, thanks for reading, godlings…that’s all.

About Apeiron

Apeiron is the world’s first NFT-based play-and-earn god game. Apeiron will feature a unique card-based action-adventure combat system combined with god game simulation gameplay inspired by classic god games like Populous and Black & White. Players will be able to build up planets from above before descending to the ground as a powerful Avatar to solve the mysteries of the universe. Players will grow their planet to the point of developmental stagnation, then reset the planetary cycle via an Armageddon event to allow for even more advancement and thrilling late-game alliance level GvE and GvG activities. Apeiron will use a tri-token architecture, which means that there will be three separate tokens to navigate their ecosystem: a governance token, a play-to-earn token, and a premium alliance token.

Visit Apeiron’s Website | Official Marketplace | OpenSea | Youtube | Discord | Twitter

Howdy doods! Today we’re taking a page from an old book and doing something we haven’t in awhile — a lore piece! Unlike regular story pieces, this will be a bit shorter, and focus on a particular topic of interest in the godiverse. In this case, we’re going to be talking about the mysterious DIRAC DIMENSION. We’ve mentioned this in fits and starts before but never really discussed it directly so…we’re doing that now!

Before we jump in, a quick reminder: the season 2 leaderboards will be closing in 2 weeks on Friday July 21st, so please keep in mind that you need to end your cycle/dungeon run in order for it to be recorded by the leaderboards. You can end your current run either manually through the in-game menu or by dying.

We’ve noticed an overwhelming number of players who are yet to record their runs. Perhaps this is because everyone is pushing their limits and seeing how far they can go, which we certainly appreciate. However, the run has to be ended to be recorded, so keep that in mind for next week! Additionally, it never hurts to experiment with a fresh run to see if you can pick up better Artifacts and Apostles that can take you further.

Righty ho, with that being said, let’s get to it!

_______

“AND THAT’S A KNOCKOUT! ANOTHER WIN FOR PROTATH THE CHAMPION!”

The crowds of gods (in the front rows) and the doods (way in the back) erupted in a wave of cheering that shook the foundations of the Godling’s Arena as Protath waved his Gigas Avatar’s enormous hand to his adoring public one last time before exiting with his Apostles from the field of battle.

“WE’RE TAKING A FEW MINUTES BREAK BEFORE THE NEXT FIGHT EVERYONE! GET YOURSELVES READY FOR ANOTHER DIVINE RUUUUUMMMBBBLLLEEE!” Magis, the God of Organized Play, then stepped back from his golden mic staff and was immediately attended to by a host of minor god fans and worrying dood attendants. The crowd in the arena chatted amicably and shuffled about in the interlude.

“Protath is pretty cool, eh?” Lethe the Mage Apostle said to his dood buds as he waved over a serving dood for some refreshments.

“He wouldn’t stand a chance if someone like Lady Clintina took to the field,” said Nava the Priest Apostle knowingly, idly toying with a lock of hair.

“Well, of course not,” agreed Lethe. “But the Elemental Lords don’t come to the Godling Arena. This place is for training’n’stuff. They’re like on another level. And also like super busy.”

“Many gods are too busy at the moment,” said Alakura the Hunter Apostle sadly, leaning on Nava and also playing with her friend’s hair. “My god’s always taking us into the Dirac and more dungeons. So much fighting! It’s never ending down there.

“The Dirac and the dungeons,” sighed Yen the Warrior. “How’ve your adventures been recently? Mine bought us a chicken dinner we found, so it’s not all bad.”

“My god tossed us all over a bridge, but she dropped one of us by accident,” said Alakura, shivering at the memory. “Silly old Gabel…”

“We found some mushrooms,” said Nava. “But our god didn’t let us eat them. She said they were bad for eating, and would make us sick, so we made potions instead. The potions taste good though! A bit like strong fruit juice.”

“That’s not bad,” said Lethe. “Much nicer than our god. Two of my friends wanted to leave the dungeon to go back home together ’cause they were in love. But our god didn’t let them. He said he needed all of us. And then one of them died. That sucked.”

“Hmph,” said Yen. “Sounds like they were trying to desert anyway. Doods like that don’t deserve gods’ attention or care.”

“Hmmm…,” said Lethe. “Well to be fair there’s some pretty scary stuff in the dungeons. My god runs away when he sees that big bood with the magic.”

“Mine too!” chimed in Alakura.

“Same here,” agreed Nava.

“Huh,” said Yen. “We beat up the big magic bood a few times. That’s probably because my god is awesome though.”

“Say,” said Lethe. “Why do we have to keep going back there anyway? Into the dungeons? Why can’t we just stay here and hang out and eat food and stuff?”

They all shrugged.

“God’s business,” said Yen. “They would tell us directly if we need to know.”

“Something about getting souls back? Like rescuing dood souls,” Alakura went on, ignoring Yen. “The planet where we live is still pretty empty. Not a lot of doods there. Not enough to start doing stuff anyway.”

“I did hear some things…” said Nava, pursing her lips. “When we were around the campfire. Everyone else fell asleep but I woke up cause I needed to pee. It was the middle of the night. Well, it’s always night there, but you doods know what I mean…”

They all nodded. Time in the Dirac dimension was something entirely beyond them.

“Anyway,” she continued, “My god was praying to Lady Cosmos for help. Maybe she thought she was in danger or something? Made me think, maybe the High Goddess is in charge of everything in the Dirac?”

“Yeah! That would make sense,” nodded Lethe. “She’s the big boss, after all.”

“But then, where do the boods come from?” asked Alakura.

“They’re from the Bood King,” said Yen. “We all know that.”

“Yeah but then if the High Goddess had control of the Dirac, she wouldn’t let the Bood King in, right?”

“Ughhhh…so complicated,” said Lethe, rubbing his head. “Need more food.”

“Have you guys seen anything weird down there? I feel like it’s hard to understand that place,” Nava mused.

“Hmmm…” said Yen, thinking. “You know, one thing is, when I’m down there. It always feels like I’m being watched. And not by my god. Or the other doods.”

“By who then?” whispered Alakura. “The Bood King?”

“Nah,” said Yen. “It’s just a feeling, but it’s not a bad feeling. Just a weird feeling. Dunno what it is though. But I think something else is out there. In the Dirac.”

“Something else like what?”

The Warrior Apostle shrugged.

Lethe shuffled around uncomfortably on his seat. Nava noticed. “Lethe? What weird stuff have you got to tell us?”

“I don’t wanna…” groaned Lethe. “It’s scary thinking of it.”

“Oh come on,” cajoled Nava. “Stop being such a crydood. Tell us!”

“Uh…….ok then. Fine. When I’m in the dungeons, I have all sorts of weird dreams. Dreams where it’s me, but also, it’s not me. It’s me in a different place with other doods doing different things. But the scary thing is-”

He shuddered. Alakura took his hand. “Go on Lethe. Be a brave dood.”

He inhaled a deep breath. “The dreams always end with me dying. I hate them.”

“Must have been your past lives,” said Yen. “Before you were Chosen.”

“They’re different every time! Did I really live so many lives?”

“I dunno,” said Yen. “Could’ve just been dreams after all.”

“Do you guys remember your past lives?”

There was an awkward silence. “Not so much,” admitted Yen. “Mostly blurry. I think I came from a planet with a lot of trees…”

Alakura jumped in: “I think I was married and had a cute little dood house! Don’t remember who I was married to, but I’m sure I’ll know him when I see him.”

“I don’t really want to say,” said Nava.

There was another pause.

“You know…” said Nava, picking up an earlier thread. “Talking about that thing watching you, Yen, reminded me of something. That night at the campfire when I was peeing, my god, she was praying to Cosmos, right? She was asking to be saved. Saved from something called Z-”

“HELLO THERE!” boomed a voice from above them, cutting Nava off. They looked up. Standing over them was a god — and not just any god. It was Protath, the champion of the arena, now outside of his Avatar, but no less powerful for the lack of it. Yen and Lethe leapt up and saluted, while Alakura and Nava bowed.

“Your Holiness!” they all intoned in unison.

“You look like a fine bunch of Apostles! Talking about the Dirac Sea and the dungeons no less! Very curious for doods, haha! But I’ve come up here because we need to get you training! Your gods are soon to enter the arena and fight. Report to your posts this minute, and prepare yourselves for battle!”

“Yes, your Holiness!” they all shouted.

“Very good!” said Protath, and then he strolled off, followed by a small crowd of fan doods and a couple hanger-on gods.

“What were you about to say, Nava?” asked Alakura.

Nava shrugged. “I forget. Don’t worry about it.”

“You know, about the Dirac, I think we shouldn’t worry about it so much,” said Yen, strapping on his armor and grabbing his sword. “After all, it’s just a place for dead doods.”

“As long as I don’t get any more nightmares, I don’t really care,” said Lethe, checking his spellbook. “I just want to get in, get out, and come back here for some rest and food.”

Alakura twanged her bowstring experimentally. “We’ve got some stuff to do before we can eat our next meal. Come on doods! We better find our gods before we get in trouble.” And with that, the Hunter Apostle trotted off.

“Good luck everyone!” waved Nava

Yen was about to move out when Lethe tugged on his sleeve. “Yeah?”

Lethe looked nervous. “If we die, are we gonna lose all our memories again? Am I gonna become some other dood’s dream?”

Yen grinned and clapped his friend on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it! We’re not just any doods. We’ve been Chosen. We’re here now, and we’re not gonna lose our memories anymore. Trust in our gods. And let’s save the godiverse!”

And with that, Yen marched off. Lethe stood for a moment more, thinking, before moving off after him.

______

And there you have it! What do you think about the Dirac Dimension and our dood Apostles’ experiences thereof? Mysteries! Enigmas! Intrigue! It’s all here, and it’s all there: over on our Discord (what a transition) AND on our Twitter, so make sure you do the good social media stuff and engage engage engage with us~

And as always, thanks for reading, godlings. We’ll see you next time.

About Apeiron

Apeiron is the world’s first NFT-based play-and-earn god game. Apeiron will feature a unique card-based action-adventure combat system combined with god game simulation gameplay inspired by classic god games like Populous and Black & White. Players will be able to build up planets from above before descending to the ground as a powerful Avatar to solve the mysteries of the universe. Players will grow their planet to the point of developmental stagnation, then reset the planetary cycle via an Armageddon event to allow for even more advancement and thrilling late-game alliance level GvE and GvG activities. Apeiron will use a tri-token architecture, which means that there will be three separate tokens to navigate their ecosystem: a governance token, a play-to-earn token, and a premium alliance token.

Visit Apeiron’s Website | Official Marketplace | OpenSea | Youtube | Discord | Twitter

Hello doods and doodettes! For this week’s blog post we’re taking a dive into the deeps and exploring the mysterious (and neon!) realm of Protea, one of the four elemental lords of the Axis Mundi. It’s going to get wet and it’s going to get weird so hold onto your snorkels as we dredge the depths…

Following up from the last story (here!), Crit the Dragoon and his sons Timmy and Tommy failed — quite spectacularly — to reach High Goddess Cosmos and inform her of the happenings out there in the godiverse — and specifically the plight of their friends, out there somewhere and under attack by boods.

Now feeling rather downhearted and sorry for themselves, the trio returned to their erstwhile shack on the beach by the sea, only to find that an old friend has come to visit, and she has plans of her own…

But before we get to it, you know we’ve got some handy-doody reminders for you! The Season 2 Leaderboards are live as of June 21st, so it’s time to show your stuff and climb your way to the tippy-top of the table. We’ll see you there!

Also, this week we have an Angelic Ascension campaign with our partners Guildfi! Register on their platform and complete their Apeiron in-game quests and you can win all sorts of prizes. For more information, check out HERE.

Alright, we’re done with that bit of housekeeping, so we can now settle down and enjoy our storytime, as we return once more to the Axis Mundi, the Center of Creation, and see how our doods are doing…

______

Shame. Shame. Shame!

No dood actually shamed them on their long walk back from the White City to their little shack on the beach. But Crit the Dragoon and his two little doodling sons Timmy and Tommy felt ashamed just the same.

They had traveled across the vast farmlands of the Axis Mundi — weaving across the ever-changing landscape — with a singular purpose: to seek an audience with High Goddess Cosmos, the most powerful being in the Axis Mundi — heck, the most powerful goddess in the godiverse — to go out there and rescue their friends.

And they had failed. Stupendously failed. They hadn’t even seen her!

The only thing they had to show for their adventure was Timmy’s newfound magical powers. As they tromped silently along, Timmy would let off a sparkle from his fingers every now and again as he experimented with his new abilities — much to the annoyance of his brother Tommy.

“Oi!” hmphed Tommy after a particularly egregious burst of light. “Watch where you’re sparkling!”

“I can’t help it!”

“You can definitely help it! You helped it before! Your whole life you helped it!”

“Things are different now!”

“How are they different?”

“I make sparkles out of my fingers. That’s how. And I helped us fly!”

“We didn’t fly! We fell slowly!”

“It saved us, didn’t it?”

“Hmph,” said Tommy. “Dad, tell him to stop with the sparkles anyhow. A dood can only take so much.”

Crit was silent. The Dragoon marched ahead of them, his helmet clanking and his spear on his shoulder. There was no reaction to Tommy’s request.

“Dad?” said Timmy.

Still nothing.

“HEY DOOD!” shouted Tommy.

“Hm?” Crit stopped and turned. “What’s up?”

His doodlings looked at him bemused. “You didn’t hear us?” asked Timmy.

“Nope,” said Crit. He sighed. “Been thinkin’. Sorry.”

“Thinkin’ ‘bout what?” asked Tommy.

“Nothin’,” said Crit evasively.

“Dad…” said Timmy.

“It is what it is,” said Crit. “I know. But…doods we were so close. It’s annoying.”

“Yeah…” the two doodlings agreed.

Then a god got mad at a pair of lazy farmer doods by the side of the road and they had to dodge some errant fireballs. The rest of the conversation — if there was anything left to say — was left unspoken.

______

After a day or two, they finally made it back to the fishing village, cresting the hill that protected the small dood community from roving eyes. Crit planted his spear at the top of the hill, making sure the butt was firmly wedged into the dirt. He left it there, right there at the crest of the hill, like a silent sentinel, and walked off towards the shack at the side of the EDEN.

Timmy and Tommy stood for a moment, looking at the spear sadly. Then they went off to catch up with their dad, who was even now disappearing through the door-

-only to be tossed right out again. The doodlings gasped, but quickly jumped into action, moving protectively in front of their prostrate father. Timmy prepared some deadly(ish) sparkles and Tommy held up his (tiny) fists. They were ready to face whatever might come out of that door-

“AHHHHH!” screamed Tommy.

“GHOOOOOOST!” screamed Timmy.

“No I’m not and be quiet!” shouted the accused figure, stepping out of the shadow of the shack and into the mid-afternoon sunshine. And there she stood: the Summoner.

“It-it’s you!” said Crit, who had picked himself up and was now coming to terms with this blast from the past.

“It’s me,” said the Summoner matter-of-factly. She looked tired. But that wasn’t any different from how she had looked before. Apparently, the spirits of dead doods kept her up during the night so she hardly got any sleep. Which was pretty gnarly, if you asked Crit about it.

They all started talking at once:

“What happened to you back then with the boods and-”

“We went to this snowy place and we were so poor and got sick it was the worst and-”

“-wanted to go see Cosmos but stupid dumb fat dood with bad hair stopped-”

“SHUT UP!” shouted the Summoner.

They shut up.

The Summoner scratched on the bone bow she kept neatly tied to her hair. “I made it to the Spirit Realm. So that was cool.”

“Woah! What was it-”

“Oh! How did you-”

“Did they have toilets in the-”

She held up her hand. They went quiet. Satisfied, she continued. “All of our friends made it out of the bood attack alive.”

“Oh my god that’s-”

“LET ME FINISH.” She sighed. “Why don’t we go inside and have a snack while I tell you what I found out. I’m getting tired of yelling.”

This suggestion was taken as both sound and excellent by the others, and they retired into the shack. Then Timmy and Tommy were sent out to pick up food — they rushed into the village and grabbed some fish and chips — before everyone sat down at the small wooden kitchen table and happily munched away.

With full bellies and the shock of seeing The Summoner behind them, the doods were almost ready to listen. There was just one thing…

“Say, before you begin,” said Crit. “I never actually got to ask you before. What’s your name?”

“Eh?” said the Summoner, picking a bit of fish out of her teeth.

“Your name.”

“Oh right. You can call me Happenstance.“

“Happenstance?”

“Yup. Or just Happy for short”

He blinked, but didn’t miss a beat. “Ok, neat. Carry on, Happy.”

She heaved a deep breath before beginning. “So…last time we were together…was when we were attacked. That’s right…I remember. We were flying through space with Susanoo. We were looking for a way to get to the Spirit Realm. But we got attacked by boods. And there was a goddess…corrupted. We got split up. I ended up with Susanoo. He was being attacked on all sides. But he was so mad! And so was she — the corrupted goddess. Their magic slammed into each other and…I saw a flash of white in the dark. I kind of…fell into it. And then it was quiet. I was in the Spirit Realm.”

Timmy whistled. “That’s some kinda somethin’.”

She nodded. “It was weird there. Not like I thought. My spirits they had described it…differently. But maybe because they’re already not in their bodies, they see things in another way. Not sure. Anyway. I walked around for a long time. Sometimes I would hear sounds. I didn’t know from where, but they were…well, I know they were from you guys. Like I said, it was weird.”

“You were watching us?” said Tommy suspiciously.

“Sort of…but no. I would sometimes see your shadows. Like when you guys were sick. I could see you more easily. But you were still far away.”

The doodlings shivered, remembering that period of sickness with no fondness at all.

“I kept walking all the time. I didn’t get tired. I didn’t get hungry!”

Crit gasped.

“I just kept walking. It felt like I was looking for something…but I didn’t know what. Until I did: I found it. I found them.”

“Who?” they all asked with rapt whispers.

“The Warrior. The Hunter. Our other friends. They had met up with some other doods, and another god, and gone into some sort of…dungeon. There were a ton of boods! Boods everywhere! And a big monster at the end. Just like one of the ones we saw in space.”

Timmy looked like he was about to be sick. Tommy patted his brother on the back.

“They beat it, but it was tough. They went to leave the dungeon but…something happened. There was something in the Spirit Realm waiting for them. I saw it…” she shivered. “It was like a god but…broken.”

“A Chaos god?” asked Crit seriously.

“No,” she shook her head. “But angry, and dangerous. Something happened. I…I couldn’t stay to watch. I was afraid. But I think they’re still there. In the dungeon.”

She fell silent, her eyes drifting around the room. Timmy and Tommy nudged her hands. “What then?” they asked.

“Oh. Sorry. I…well, I left. I was scared. And I couldn’t fight that…thing. So I decided to look for a way out. Back here. To find Cosmos. We need her help.”

“Hang on,” said Tommy, his little doody brow furrowed in thought. “Didn’t that god thingy in the spirit realm — it was angry right? Why didn’t it hurt you? Or…worse?”

Happy gave off a mirthless chuckle. “What god would care about a dood? Especially a lost little dood in the Spirit Realm. It never even saw me.”

She stretched her arms, cracking her joints, then straightened out her hair bone bow. “So I started walking again, except this time it was easier. I didn’t feel like I was lost. Actually I got here pretty fast. And then I just came out…here. So…” she paused dramatically. “We need to go talk to High Goddess Cosmos, doods. That’s our mission.”

There was an awkward silence. “Um…” said Tommy.

“Uh…” said Timmy.

“Oh dear,” said Crit.

She looked at them confusedly. “What?”

“Ahem,” said Crit. “Let me explain…” and he told her about how they had traveled to the White City and met with all sorts of different doods and gods, and how they had even managed to get up to Cosmos’ palace, but had been turned away by a very annoying dood.

“Lublub eh,” mused Happy. “I’ve heard of him. Tough dood. Very stubborn. We’re going to need some real help if we’re going to get past him.”

“Like who?” moaned Crit. “We got help from one of the White City gods. Who could be more powerful?”

Happy looked at the ceiling. “There are different kinds of gods, Dragoon. We just need a more powerful one to help us.”

“And you know where to look?” asked Crit.

Happy glanced at him. “I’ve heard rumors. I think I know where to start.”

“Where?” the Dragoon and his doodlings asked together.

She smirked.

______

Glub the fisherdood had seen a lot of weird things in his — admittedly average — life. Weird things were a part of life when you lived in the realm of the gods. Prayer bubbles would go up and get answered and anything could happen, from sudden rain to fireballs to winds carrying doods around to a sudden table full of food appearing.

That had been one of his prayers. He had been very proud about that one, and it had played a part in him being elected his village’s spokesdood.

But this was definitely up there with one of the strangest things. Out of the shack up by the EDEN had marched that helmet dood and his two doodlings, and they had a doodette with them. She was a scary doodette. She hadn’t even glanced at him before telling him what to do. He had no choice but to listen. She was so scary! All the other doods had agreed.

They had prepared a small boat for the four doods. No food. No fishing rods. Just the boat. And then they had gotten in and sailed off over the sea. Where were they going? What were they doing? Glub shook his head. Strange doods in a strange world.

Meanwhile, just over the horizon, somewhere out at sea, three of the four doods were staring very nervously at the fourth, who was sitting and mumbling to herself near the prow. Timmy came up to one side of his dad at the tiller. “Dad, do you think she knows what she’s doing?”

“Yeah,” said Tommy, coming up on the other side. “She’s kinda crazy.”

“I know boys but she’s also pretty smart,” Crit sighed.

“I can hear you, you know,” said Happy without opening her eyes.

“BEAUTIFUL WEATHER OUT HERE-”

“OH YES JUST GREAT-”

“VERY GREAT WEATHER WITH GREAT DOODS, JUST GREAT-”

Happy opened an eye. “I don’t care what you say, just be quiet. I need to concentrate.”

They went quiet…for about a minute. Then Timmy and Tommy scampered over to her. Tommy asked, “whatcha doin’, anyway?”

“Listening to the spirits. They’re telling me where to go. Take us to the right a bit, Crit!” Crit adjusted their course.

“And where are we going again?”

“Under the sea.”

“Under the sea! You told us yesterday but I can’t believe it. Really under the sea there are doods?”

“I’m not sure. But the spirits say a powerful goddess lives down there.”

“Oh,” said Timmy. His eyes were fluttering a little. “I…can hear…something.”

Now Happy did open her eyes. “What do you hear?”

“They say…they say…a little more to the right.”

Happy cocked an ear. “Wow. He’s right. A little more to the right, Crit!” She patted Timmy on the head. “Good job, dood.”

Timmy smiled. Tommy hmphed. Then he gasped. “I hear them too!”

“Oh?” said Happy. “What are they saying?”

“They say Timmy sucks.”

Everyone looked at Tommy. He shrugged. “What?”

Time passed. They sailed for a good few hours. All around them was water, as far as the eye could see — and they weren’t very tall, so it wasn’t very far. Every now and again — far overhead — a god would go flying by. But otherwise it barely looked like they were moving at all. It was just: blue skies, blue seas.

“There!” said Happy suddenly, pointing to a spot off to their left. They peered. And then they gasped, for the surface of the water was indeed strange where Happy pointed. It was bubbling tremendously, and changing colors — first blue, then purple, then green, as if illuminated by shifting lights from far below.

“What do we do?” said Crit. He had adjusted their course and they were sailing straight to the weird light.

Happy put one foot on the prow and pointed to the light. “Sail, Crit! Right into the light!”

They sailed into the light. And then they sank beneath the waves.

______

They were inside of a giant magical bubble that kept them mostly dry, but for a few drips here and there. It was very quiet inside the bubble as they slowly descended towards the light from the deep. The only sound was a quiet creaking of the boat and the drip-drip of seawater. None of the doods talked: they were staring gobstruck at the ocean as they had never seen it before.

At first, there was light from both above and below that meant they could see everything. They saw fish of all sorts: big and colorful, small and zippy, and some with wide mouths and pointy teeth, going about in big schools or in ones and twos. The fish swam by the bubble without a care in the world, following their own currents through the sea and seaweed. At one point Crit tried to reach out his hand through the bubble and touch one but Happy slapped it before it got there.

As they went deeper the light from the sun started to fade away and they were left in a kind of spotlight. Slowly their world fell into darkness. The fish started to change as well: now less colorful but with strange lights on their bodies, appearing like ghosts out of the watery gloom. And that wasn’t all: there were other creatures now. They could hear them even through the bubble, giant armored creatures with heavy claws clacking across the seabed.

There was a sudden squeak of surprise from Tommy. He pointed out into the dark. “I saw — I saw a giant eye! And a tentacle!”

“Sure you did, Tommy. Sure you did.”

“No really! It was huge.”

“Oh it was probably nothing.” They all huddled closer together regardless.

Down and down they went. For a long time they sat there waiting. It was only them in the spotlight now. No doubt they were thinking whether or not some undersea denizen would decide to have a doody snack. But then it began to brighten up again, ever so slowly. Timmy — with a motivational sparkle from his fingers — peeked over the edge of the boat to see what the light was, and he gasped when he did. The others quickly joined him, and their eyes went as wide as dinner platters.

They were above what looked like an underwater city inside of a giant bubble that was on the edge of a darkened trench. Doods walked comfortably to and fro among buildings made of hollowed-out coral. Neon lights shone over the city, illuminating it in a patchwork of greens and blues, purples and pinks.

“We’re here,” said Happy matter-of-factly. “Welcome to Coralia. According to the spirits I spoke to, this is where Protea, the Elemental Lady of Water, lives. If anyone can help us meet Cosmos, it’s her.”

“Alright,” said Crit, rubbing his hands together gleefully. “This looks like my kinda town!”

Their bubbled boat went all the way down to the seafloor right next to Coralia, then peacefully drifted into the much larger bubble surrounding the city. With a sudden “pop” they had arrived, their boat falling heavily to the sand. They stepped out and onto the seabed, which was sandy and soft. Some of the city doods were looking over and pointing at them. Timmy and Tommy hid behind their dad.

Happy didn’t care. She marched forward, put her hands on her hips, and said very matter-of-factly: “You doods! Take us to Protea!”

“Woah,” said Timmy, impressed.

“Why didn’t we do that in the White City?” asked Tommy.

“Uhhhh…” said Crit. “Reasons. We had reasons.”

Despite her gumption, the Coralia doods seemed rather unfazed by the Summoner’s sudden demands. The doods were wearing an assortment of colorful robes matching the neon-aesthetic of the city.

From within the crowd one dood spoke up: “You can’t just see Protea!”

“Why not?” responded Happy.

A doodling at the front crossed his arms meaningfully. “You need to get the high score.”

“Eh?”

All the crowd of Coralian doods pointed towards a very well lit and sprawling building behind them. Above a very large door was a sign of a dood looking like he was having a very good time playing some sort of…box? Box with a screen?

“Go to one of the arcades,” said the doodling at the front of the crowd. “Get the high score.”

“Get the high score in what?” asked Happy.

The doodling shrugged. “One of Protea’s games.”

______

A little more digging — and a free lunch of fried snippies and clamalams for the talkative doodling at a nearby cafe — and they had a much clearer picture of Coralia and its weird social structures. The arcades dominated life here: the doods were always playing games. If they weren’t playing games, they were eating, or sleeping.

There were four major arcades: the Grand Arcade was the one they had been pointed to when they arrived and was the biggest and most modern of the four, with all the latest and most popular games. Trenchside was one of the oldest arcades in the city, just on the edge of the trench that lurked on the city’s borders. Dood’s Delight offered a family friendly atmosphere with a well-lit, colorful aesthetic and a selection of games catering to younger clientele. And finally, there was Play’n’Eat, a relative newcomer that had rocketed in popularity due to them serving full meals alongside their games.

“Hmmm…” mused Timmy. “This Dood’s Delight place sounds like a good one to check out.”

“Mhm, mhm,” nodded Tommy a little too stoically.

“I like the sound of Play’n’Eat,” said Crit, licking his lips. “Sounds like a party.”

“We’re going to the Grand Arcade,” said Happy matter-of-factly. “It’ll be the best place to find out more.”

“Awww,” the other doods hung their heads in disappointment. But no one argued.

After cleaning up their food at the small cafe and waving goodbye to the doodling, they went on their way to the Grand Arcade. There weren’t actually many doods on the sandy streets of Coralia…but then again, it was hard to tell what time it was here so deep underwater. Neon lights shone out from the interior of the Grand Arcade, giving the city a lurid glow. The coral buildings loomed around them, contorted in strange shapes. And behind it all, outside the city, was a deep and heavy darkness.

Which is to say that the doods made for the Grand Arcade just about as quick as their chubby dood legs would carry them. There were some dood guards with large coral sticks and funny hats at the entrance. One of them held up a hand as they approached.

“Stop!”

“Why?” said Happy.

“Uh…I can’t remember actually.”

“Ok. Can we go in?”

“Yeah.”

“Great.”

Having secured their entry, they waltzed into the Grand Arcade. It was like stepping into a different world. On the streets, it was dark, quiet, sinister. But in here…the lights! The colors! The sounds! They had arrived on the bottom floor of a high-ceilinged atrium. There was a grand stairwell opposite the entrance leading up and around to over five stories of sheer noise that cascaded down gleefully from the open balconies. The place was packed to the rafters with doods.

They stood there for a moment taking it all in. Then Tommy poked Happy.

“Hey so…where’re we going?”

“Uhh…” said Happy. “Don’t know. The spirits never told me about this kinda thing.”

“Oh,” said Tommy. “Dad? Whadda you think?” he turned to ask Crit. But Crit was already gone, strolling off towards the stairs.

“Off we go!” hollered Crit back to them.

They rushed after him. The trip up the stairs to the first floor was enough for them to decide that they would try the games here rather than keep going up. There were groups of doods circled around rows of strange looking cabinets with screens showing images. On this level the most popular game was something called “Dood Fighter 6”, a 2 player game.

Crit was scratching his helmet looking. “Seems kinda weird…whadda we do with em?”

Happy shrugged. This was all rather baffling.

But Tommy walked over to one of the machines and sat down in front of it with Timmy. There were some buttons and a pair of control sticks, and the game started. The two doodlings played a quick round: Tommy beat Timmy.

“Oooooooo,” said Tommy smirking. “I like this game. Lotsa punching!”

“Hmmmm,” said Timmy, looking down at his hands afterwards. “I feel kinda weird.”

“That’s normal,” said a dood from the group sitting next to them. He looked strangely tired, but also…weirdly happy? He had a lopsided smile. “The more you play, the more you can’t stop. Hehe.”

“Sounds great!” said Crit.

“Hey,” interjected Happy. “How do we get the high score on this game?”

“On Dood Fighter 6? Psh. You have to beat Doodaigo.”

They looked over at Doodaigo. His hands were moving so fast across the buttons they couldn’t even follow his inputs.

“Let’s try another game,” said Happy. “This one’s too hard.” They all nodded.

_____

The next level has a bunch of dancing games. They tried one called “Dance Dood Revolution” but only Crit was any good, and he couldn’t get anywhere close to any high score, so it was off to level 3. This level didn’t have any game cabinets, but instead these glass boxes with stuff inside of them — toys and…food? One dood informed them they could get their own doodburgers — for free! — just through playing. Amazing! But no games with high scores, so they went up to level 4.

There were all sorts of games on this level: games where you could shoot down boods, games for racing, games for cooking up dinner as fast as possible. But the game that stood out to them was a relatively new game tucked in a corner called “Metal Monke.” It was a game where you took control of a giant Metal Monke and his army of small monkes and fought against evil monkes in a jungle.

High scores were based around speedrunning through the jungle as fast as possible and beating the Mega Evil Bad Monke at the end. Crit was fine at it, but got hungry and went looking for snacks. Happy gave up after dying the boss once. Tommy managed to sneak into the top 10 after a few tries.

But Timmy was incredible.

“Holy moly,” said Tommy. “Timmy, you’ve made it to 3rd place already!”

“Yes,” said Timmy. His voice was monotone. “But I can do better.”

After a couple more hours — and with a bit of luck — he did it, he got the high score. A small crowd of doods had gathered, and there was some polite clapping. Tommy, who had been watching his brother intently, let out a cheer. “You did it bro! Woo!”

“Who? What??” Happy was woken up by Tommy’s cheering. She and Crit had fallen asleep leaning against each other.

“That’s m’doodling!” said Crit, jumping up and giving Timmy a slap on the back. “Ok then! We got the high score! So can we see Protea now right? How does this work?”

“No,” said all the doodlings in the crowd at once.

“No,” said Timmy. His eyes were locked on the screen. He had started another run. “Now the real game begins”

“Come again?” said Crit.

Timmy’s eyes were glued, his hands moved mechanically over the controls. “Gotta keep playing. Can do better. Can go faster.”

“Just stop,” said Tommy, trying to pull his brother’s hands away from the controls.

“No,” said Timmy, pushing his brother away.

“Come on,” said Happy, “That’s enough- ow!” She had reached out a hand to grab the doodling, but a sudden spark of lightning crackled out of the machine and stung her.

“He’s in the zone,” said one of the dazed doods in the crowd.

“You can’t get him out of the zone,” said another lazily.

“It’s only just begun,” sighed another.

“Come with us and we’ll help you find your own games,” they said to Crit, Happy, and Tommy.

“Let’s play some games…forever,” said another.

“The fun’s only just getting started,” said a doodling.

“Back off!” said Happy. Crit moved his spear defensively in front of her. “Back off I say”

But the crowd was moving towards them unperturbed. They didn’t even seem to notice the brandished weapons. They were smiling happily. “Join us,” they said. “Join us. We have to get more high scores.”

As the gamer doods closed in, Tommy saw his moment and ducked through the bodies back to his brother, who was still playing. He shook Timmy again. “Please bro, come on. We’ve gotta go, these doods are crazy!”

“Gotta keep playing,” whispered Timmy.

“No you don’t! You don’t have to! Come on let’s go-”

“Gotta keep playing,” said Timmy, tightly.

“Don’t you wanna finish the mission? We gotta find Protea so we can go meet Cosmos and save our friends!”

“Gotta keep playing,” said Timmy. He wasn’t even looking at his brother.

“Grrr….” Tommy was angry. Angrier than he had ever been before in his short doody life. What the heck was going on anyway? Stupid game! “STOP PLAYING NOOOOOOOWWWWW!”

And with a terrible roar, Tommy pulled back an arm and threw out a blazing punch that crashed into the machine. The broken screen went to black, and the machine made a spluttering sound, and a small plume of bluish smoke started drifting out of it.

Timmy blinked, then looked at Tommy. “Uh…what happened? Didn’t I just sit down to play?”

Tommy hugged his brother with a sob. Timmy hugged him back very confused. “Uh, you ok Tommy? Also, who are these other doods?”

The crowd of doods behind them were all watching Timmy and Tommy in complete shock. Then one of them said tremblingly, “You…you broke the game. You broke the game!”

“Uhh…” said Tommy. “It just uh…got in the way of my fist…by accident?”

The crowd of doods was unconvinced. In the blink of an eye the big guard doods by the door were there and had arrested Crit, Happy, Tommy and Timmy for troublemaking. They were marched out of the Grand Arcade and back into the empty streets.

“Where are we going?” said Crit.

“Where are you taking us?” asked Happy.

They were moving towards the trench. One of the guards spoke. “You’re to be judged for your crimes.”

“By who?”

“The Lady of Water. Protea.”

“Oh!” said Happy. “Well then. That’s handy.”

_____

At the edge of the city, on the other side of the bubble, there was a terrible darkness. The lights from the arcades just about lit up the steep drop below them into a deep, deep trench. When they arrived, the Guards put them into a cage at the edge of the trench. The cage itself was on a sort of railway track that went out just over the edge. The cage was wheeled out into the water, passing through the city bubble with a popping sound, and gaining its own protective bubbling.

Then the cage was lowered by a winch into the trench. Slowly the lights of the city disappeared. They passed soon into the pitch black, the only sound a bit of creaking from the winch. They couldn’t see anything: not even each other, small as the cage was. So they all held hands and hoped for the best.

After an interminable wait, Timmy spoke. “Uhh…I think she’s here.”

“How do you figure?” said Crit.

“…just a feeling,” said Timmy.

“And a good one, little doodling.” The voice that spoke was enormous, crushing their minds under the incredible weight of water. In the darkness, all they could see were two eyes of purest blue, alien eyes, lidless and lacking pupil or iris: just a watery blue.

“So,” spoke the voice. “You descended into my kingdom. You broke my machines. What have you to say for yourselves before I pop this bubble and turn you into fish?”

None of them spoke. They were petrified. Crit peed his pants and a warmness spread through the cage.

Protea sighed. “Come on, I don’t have all day. I won’t actually turn you into fish…probably.”

“Um,” said Tommy. “I broke it. I’m sorry.”

“And why did you break it?”

“I–my brother he– it was like he couldn’t move. He was trapped in the game. So I just…got mad and punched it.”

“Hmm…” The voice went silent. “Do you know why your brother couldn’t stop playing?”

“He got like addicted to it. It was weird.”

“Those machines test and draw out latent dood magical strength. Your brother has a lot of magic for a dood. He was attuning to the machine.” said Protea.

“Oh!” said Tommy. “I don’t understand at all.”

“You don’t need to understand. All you need to know is: you broke my testing machine,” said Protea.

“Right. Yeah…sorry about that. But we needed him back. ’Cause we needed to come and find you.”

Timmy gave his brother’s hand a comforting squeeze.

“Oh?” said Protea. “And what did you need from me?”

It was Happy’s turn to talk. “Great Protea, we need to meet with Cosmos. We have some news from the godiverse.” And with that, she told her story about her experiences in the Spirit Realm.

Protea was silent for a period of time, her eyes hovering in the black, never blinking. “Well well. Now that is a tale.”

“So can you help us see Cosmos?” asked Happy.

“Hmmm…Lady Cosmos is ever busy. In order to see her, you will need to have not only my blessing, but the blessing of the other Elemental Lords, of Earth, Fire, and Air. If we all agree that this is a matter of importance, then you may meet with the High Goddess.”

“Oh!” said Happy. “Well…can we get your blessing then?”

Silence again. Then: “I admit that I believe your tale warrants attention. However, you also broke one of my machines. That was valuable to me. You must pay for it.”

There was an awkward pause. “I have an idea of how you could pay me,” said Protea.

“What is it?” they all replied.

“I will give you my blessing to go meet with Lady Cosmos, but…I would like the young magical dood in your group to remain down here with me.”

“What?! Timmy?!” yelled Tommy.

“Yes,” said Protea. “He has a talent. I would like to observe him..”

“No! Timmy has to come with us, right Timmy?”

Timmy was silent. He squeezed his brother’s hand again. Tommy whispered: “Timmy?”

“I want to save our friends,” said Timmy. “I’m afraid to stay here alone but also…if it helps, I’ll do it.”

He let go of his brother’s hand. “Lady Protea!” he yelled. “Let’s do it!”

“You accept these terms then?”

“Wait a sec,” said Crit. “Are there any other options?”

“For breaking one of my valuable machines, I will need to make the repairs myself, taking valuable time. I can transform you into fish if you’d like as recompense for this lost time. You’ll be fish for as long as it takes me to repair the machines…or until you get eaten.”

“Oh,” said Crit. “Well then…Timmy are you sure you want to do this?”

“You can’t see me dad, but I’m nodding.”

“Good then,” said Crit. He patted Timmy on the head. “I’m proud of you son. You’re a real dood.”

“…dad you just patted me on the head,” said Tommy.

“Oh…oops…haha,” said Crit.

“Then let it be done,” said Protea. A glowing blue stone floated out of the darkness. Happy caught it and looked at it. “My blessing,” said Protea. “Now go.”

And with that, they started to ascend back to the city.

_____

They — Crit, Tommy, and Happy — were preparing to leave to go find another of the Elemental blessings. Timmy was nowhere to be seen. Tommy was sitting sadly playing with the sand.

“Are we ready?” asked Happy. She was standing by their boat. “We can go back with this boat and figure out our next plan from there.”

Crit hushed her. “Just give it a few more minutes…”

“No need,” said Tommy. “He’s not coming.”

They were starting to push the boat out of the city bubble when they heard a voice. “Wait!”

And there was Timmy running towards them. He was dressed now in some sort of colorful city robe. He was huffing and puffing by the time he reached them. “Sorry…I….was just playing a game…”

Tommy looked pointedly away. But Timmy just went up and hugged him as tight as he could. “I’m gonna miss you bro. Be safe ok? Come back soon.”

Tommy didn’t respond at first…then hugged him back. “You too. Remember to eat!”

Timmy grinned. “Like a dood ever forgets to eat.”

Tommy punched him playfully on the shoulder. “Seeya bro”

And with that, the trio pushed the boat out into the water, and drifted up to the surface, Timmy waving goodbye from the sandy bottom far below the waves.

END

And that’s all for this one! What did you think? Are you excited to meet up with the other Elemental Lords? Do you think Timmy and Tommy will ever be reunited? What about Protea — what does she really look like? Let us know! Come over to our Discord and join in the discussion. And make sure you follow us on Twitter as well, to keep up with all the latest and HOTTEST Apeiron news…

And as always, thanks for reading, godlings. We’ll see you next time.

About Apeiron

Apeiron is the world’s first NFT-based play-and-earn godgame. Apeiron will feature a unique card-based action-adventure combat system combined with god game simulation gameplay inspired by classic god games like Populous and Black & White. Players will be able to build up planets from above before descending to the ground as a powerful Avatar to solve the mysteries of the universe. Players will grow their planet to the point of developmental stagnation, then reset the planetary cycle via an Armageddon event to allow for even more advancement and thrilling late-game alliance level GvE and GvG activities. Apeiron will use a tri-token architecture, which means that there will be three separate tokens to navigate their ecosystem: a governance token, a play-to-earn token, and a premium alliance token.

Visit Apeiron’s Website | Official Marketplace | OpenSea | Youtube | Discord | Twitter

Hey everyone! For this week’s blog post, we’ve got more of that sweet sweet LORE. For too long has the teat of knowledge run dry. Now is the time for suckling knowledge — knowledge of the Apeiron godiverse, its doods, and its gods!

We’re continuing our set of stories devoted to exploring some of the personalities of doods from Apostle classes that haven’t entered the game yet — but which will be coming in over the next few months. Today, we’re (re-)introducing the Dragoon!

The Dragoon has been through…a lot. You can read about his earlier stories…actually, I’m not going to tell you where you can read about them. Find them yourself! And if you do find them you’ll be rewarded with a tasty prize…the Dragoon’s backstory. Knowledge is power! Arm yourself.

But I can’t help myself — here’s a little bit of context to the short story you’re about to read: the Dragoon had been out in the godiverse fighting Chaos with his doodling sons Timmy and Tommy. After many adventures, they’ve FINALLY made it back to the Axis Mundi. But there’s no time to rest just yet — the party is only just getting started. And that’s because…

The Doods are Back in Town

“Holy CRAP!”

“We made it!!”

“We’re back!!!”

The Dragoon — whose name was Critchens, or Crit for short — collapsed on the shore of the sandy beach alongside his two doodling sons, Timmy and Tommy. They were a short distance away from a small village of fisherdoods, of which some inhabitants were pointing at the three exhausted doods resting on the sand in curious surprise.

“How long has it been?” moaned the Dragoon.

“Too long,” said Timmy wearily.

“The boat kind of worked in the end,” remarked Tommy defensively. “It got us most of the way here at least and-”

Crit patted Tommy on the head supportively. “You tried your best son,” he said.

Tommy smiled. “Thanks pa.”

“And you failed.”

Tommy frowned.

Some of the fisherdoods, including a particularly large fisherdood whose protruding belly suggested he was the leader of the village, walked towards them. They stopped a short but safe distance away. “Ho there!” said the big dood. “Who you then?”

“Doods!” said Timmy.

“I can see that,” said the big dood peevishly. “Why you here? We got no food for you.” The other doods nodded in agreement.

Tommy jumped up and thrust out his small doodling chest imperiously. “We’re fighter doods! We want food, we’re gonna take-OOF.”

He stopped talking as Timmy tackled his brother and promptly stuck his face in the sand. At the same time, Crit stood and adjusted his large helmet and sharp spear. Then he struck a heroic pose. The other doods were impressed. None of them knew how to pose, heroically or otherwise.

“I’m Crit the Dragoon!” shouted Crit loudly. He found that when dealing with other doods it was best to shout as loud as possible. “We’re just passing through! But if you have anywhere to sleep, that would be a big help for us! Haha!”

The big dood crossed his arms in front of his chest and rested them on his belly. “No place, no food, you doods can just — OW!”

Crit, quick as flash, flipped his spear around and bonked the big dood on the head with the butt of it. “Oi!” shouted the big dood, rubbing his sore noggin. “What you doin’? Want fight? Get ‘em!”

The fisherdoods flew at the Dragoon and his doodlings. Crit just smiled. After the trials they had been through, the boods they had faced down, this — well, this was a party, and he loved parties.

After delivering a few more bruises to the outmatched fisherdoods, they were much more welcoming. “Uh…you can stay at Voovoo’s old house. He hasn’t been back in awhile,” said the big dood, lying flat on his back and panting for breath. “And um…I guess we could spare a couple fishes for you doods. Since you’re-” he coughed. “Visiting and all.”

“Thanks!” said Crit with a big smile (that was lost on the fisherdoods, since he was wearing his helmet). “Timmy — Tommy — let’s check out our new place!”

“Woohoo!” cheered the doodlings.

“Ouch,” wheezed the pile of beaten up fisherdoods.

_______

Their new place was a small but cozy dood shack pressed up right against a giant EDEN pillar. It was more than spacious enough for Tommy, Timmy, and Crit to all find their own comfortable places to rest, which they promptly did, falling fast asleep.

Later that evening, the big fisherdood — whose name was Glub — brought them some fried Hod fish with chips and mushy beans, and for the first time in a long while they ate until they were absolutely stuffed. Then they sat back and sighed, patting their full bellies happily.

“Well laddies,” said Crit, stretching his hands behind his head and leaning back in his cushioned chair. “Why not stay here for awhile eh?”

“Yeah!” agreed Tommy, lying on a soft rug on the floor, his eyes closed. “This place seems great! Food, place to sleep — what more you want?”

“Hmmm…” said Timmy. His little doody brow was furrowed. He was sitting in front of the back wall of the house, which was actually just the EDEN pillar itself. Strange runic inscriptions ran across its rocky surface. Some of them seemed to move about. It was dizzying to watch for too long.

“Hmmm?” echoed Tommy, lazily opening an eye at his brother. “What’s to hmmmm about?”

“I’m just thinkin’…” began Timmy.

“Well stop it,” said Tommy, firmly shutting his eyes.

“Oh don’t be such a bood,” said Crit, adjudicating. “Timmy, say what you want. That’s the doody way.”

“Well, it’s just…” Timmy sighed. “I think we need to do something.”

“Do what?” said Crit. “Why? It’s like Tommy said! We walked into a good thing here. We don’t need to do anything.”

“Yeah!” said Tommy. “We’ve been through a lot. We need a break.”

“I’m just thinkin’ about those doods we left behind,” said Timmy sadly.

An awkward silence settled on the room.

“…and those boods out there. So many,” shivered Timmy.

“We’re safe now,” said Crit. “Don’t worry son.”

“But those others aren’t,” said Tommy. He sat up with a sigh. “Timmy’s right, I guess.”

Crit scratched nervously at the arms of his comfortable cushioned armchair that he really didn’t want to leave anytime soon. “So what do you have in mind, Timmy?”

“I’m not sure,” said Timmy. “But I know one thing.” He pointed at the EDEN pillar. The runes on its surface hissed and danced in a bluish glow from the mana in the air. “High Goddess Cosmos.”

“Cosmos,” gasped Tommy.

“Cosmos,” said Crit. “She’s the big boss. What do you want with her, Timmy?”

“Well if anyone can save the universe and our friends, it’s her, I bet.”

“True,” said Crit.

“She lives in the White City,” said Tommy. “But she’s the High Goddess! And we’re just some doods. How are we supposed to see her?”

“Dunno,” sighed Timmy. “It was a stupid idea anyway…”

“Pretty dumb,” conceded Crit. Then he grinned. “Just the kind of plan I like! Boys, we’re going to the White City!”

“Woohoo!” They jumped up and down in excitement.

Crit raised a hand. “We’re going tomorrow.”

They calmed down. Crit snuggled down deeper into the chair. “Let’s at least get some rest for tonight. Then tomorrow…” he yawned. “Tomorrow it’s another adventure…”

He fell asleep. And a few minutes later, so did the doodlings.

______

They got up early. Well, early-ish. Time enough for brunch anyhow. They went down to the fisherdood village square and joined in on a big pot of fishy chowder. The other doods gave them a fearful amount of space, which they ignored, busy as they were slurping down the chowder.

After they finished, Crit banged his helmet with his spear with a CLANG — the villagers jumped in fright — and stood up doodfully. “Thanks!” he yelled. “We gotta go! Can we get some stuff before we leave? Also, save the house for us ’til we get back. Kthx bye!”

Glub also stood up and nodded. “Ok. Where you going?”

“The White City!” shouted Timmy and Tommy excitedly.

“Oh,” said Glub, raising his eyebrows. “I got a cousin there. Ribrib. You can ask how he doing. He sell meat. Tell him send more meat, I send him fish.”

“Ok!” Crit gave him a thumbs up. Within 5 minutes, he had immediately forgotten this sidequest.

They went to a hill nearby their shack and waited for Glub to bring their supplies. Over in the distance, they could just make out the White City. Crit put his hand to shade his helmet eye slot and considered the lay of the land. Although, even as he observed, a large section of farmland rose up to the heavens to create a plateau with sheer cliffs. A large god walked by and critically adjusted some of the cliffside. There were some distant screams. “Huh. Gonna be a long journey boys, get ready.”

Tommy had fallen asleep in the peaceful sunshine. Timmy was blinking owlishly, ignoring his dood dad. “Timmy!” shouted Crit.

Timmy quivered as if coming out of a trance, then looked at the Dragoon. “Oh!”

“You ok son?”

“Uh…feel a little weird since last night,” admitted the doodling.

“How weird?”

“It’s hard to explain. I feel like I can feel stuff in the air.”

“Stuff in the air?”

“Yeah! And I can do stuff with it.”

“Like what?”

Timmy shrugged. Crit sighed. “Ah well. Maybe you got a cold or something, you were sleeping kinda near that thing. Just take it easy while we’re walking.”

“Ok!”

Glub arrived with their food. “Good luck!” he said as he waved goodbye.

“Alright doods,” said Crit. “Let’s get started. This is gonna take awhile-”

______

They arrived in the White City.

Not much had happened along the way. They were lucky to avoid any god suddenly changing the landscape (although not lucky enough to have their prayers answered and simply fly to the city). The most exciting thing that happened was when they has passed a fruit tree. Tommy was too lazy to climb it so he had prayed for some god to blow the fruit down. The prayer was answered, but the god who sent it sent too weak of a breeze, and no fruit fell down.

This amused some nearby older fat doods, who chuckled at the young god’s pathetic breeze. Unfortunately for them, the young god was under training with an older god who heard the doods laughing and used a sudden gale to push the tree over entirely, smacking the older fat doods with a whipping of branches.

Tommy got his fruit at least, and they snacked on it until eventually they made it to just outside the city.

“Oooooh,” ah’d Timmy.

“Aaaaaah, oh’d Tommy.

The White City lived up its name. It was very white. And there were doods everywhere! Running about, walking around, milling on corners, sitting on benches, snacking as they went. There were sellerdoods hawking their goods (mostly foods) as they strolled from place to place. And above it all rose the impressive shapes of enormous temples. There were so many of them! And above that — up in the actual factual sky — was a floating palace. Prayer bubbles filled the air, drifting up and floating together to fly towards the heavens. It was a lot to take in.

“Right then!” said Crit, steadying his helmet. “We gotta get up there!” He pointed at the palace in the sky with his spear. “‘Cause that’s where Cosmos lives. And we’re gonna need some friends in high places to do it. So let’s go make some friends, boys! Put your friendliest smiles on.”

Timmy grinned ingratiatingly (he looked like he was about to shit himself). Tommy smiled slyly (he appeared to be preparing to rob somedood). Crit observed his doodlings and sighed. They had a lot to learn, the youngsters.

They set off for the High Goddess’ Temple at the center of the city. There were four large roads — one at each cardinal direction — and all of them led cleanly to Cosmos’ Temple. It was one of the largest structures in the White City, unsurprisingly, with a massive beacon of light that linked the ground to the palace in the sky. It was, in other words, hard to miss, so Crit, Timmy, and Tommy only managed to get lost twice before they reached it.

When they eventually made it, they walked in easily enough — there were very large doors which were flung open to all-comers. However, once inside, they found themselves cut off from the beacon altar by a long desk that sliced the main room neatly in two. Behind this desk were a bunch of doods in robes.

There was also a long line of doods queuing up to be seen at the desk. Prayer bubbles lingered in the air above; even they couldn’t move beyond the desk. They were stopped by some magical force in a big clump in the air. One by one, as the doods got seen, a single prayer bubble would — with a pop — pass through the magical barrier and shwoop up the beacon into the sky. They got in line.

“How long is it going to be?” moaned Timmy after exactly one minute.

“I’m starving!” wailed Tommy (they had bought or pilfered multiple snacks as they walked to the temple). “D’ya think they have lunch here?”

Crit stood silent, resisting the urge to bonk his doodling on the head with the butt of his spear. Luckily for them, they could read their father’s attitude well enough (even through his helmet), and so they kept their commiserating to themselves for the remaining 29 minutes of tiresome waiting.

Finally they reached the desk. “Finally!” said Tommy and Timmy together.

“What can I do for you doods?” said the doodette behind the desk sweetly. “Need a blessing from Cosmos? I have a bunch of them right here. Just tell me what you need and-”

“Um, nope,” interrupted Crit loudly. The robed doodette went quiet. She arched an eyebrow. She wasn’t used to being interrupted. “So what do you need?”

“Ahem,” said the Dragoon. “We need to see Cosmos.”

“You need to see the High Goddess? Why?”

“Uh…” said Crit. “Well ya see, we come from outside the Axis Mundi and, there’s a lotta fighting out there and, we thought the High Goddess might want to know and-”

The robed doodette held up a hand to interject. “You can’t see the High Goddess.”

“Why not?”

“No one can! Unless they get permission from Master Lublub. He’s Cosmos’ personal doodservant,” explained the robed doodette.

“Where’s he?”

“Oh he lives in the palace. With the High Goddess.”

“But that’s in the sky! How are we supposed to get permission if you won’t let us up in the first place?”

The robed doodette shrugged. “Those are the rules. Sorry!”

“Those rules don’t make sense!” shouted Timmy.

“Yeah! They suck!” yelled Tommy.

Crit sucked in his stomach and glowered at the doodette from beneath his helmet. Then he spoke in a very deep and intimidating voice, and even banged his spear against the temple floor for extra effect. “Let us in to see the High Goddess! Or else we’ll beat you up until you let us in.”

The robed doodette smiled icily. Then she screamed: “COSMODOODS! HELP!”

IMMEDIATELY dropping down from the ceiling on long ropes came a group of doods, all in a slick uniform with shiny badges. One by one they landed on the floor, each dabbing in a different direction. “We — are — the — Cosmodoods!” They chorused together. Wow! Tommy and Timmy were blown away, jaws on the floor. Even Crit was impressed.

They didn’t have long to remain impressed. The Cosmodoods swiftly tossed them out of Cosmos’ Temple. “And don’t come back!” said one of the group as she walked away, dusting off her hands. Crit, Tommy, and Timmy were back on the street, no closer to Cosmos, with the other city doods staring awkwardly and pointing at them.

“Ugh,” said Crit. “Let’s get out of here boys, not going to find much joy here.”

“But what do we do now?” said Timmy sadly.

“We find another temple,” said Tommy stubbornly. “There’s gotta be some god who wants to help us.”

______

“I WILL ABSOLUTELY NOT HELP YOU,” said Linus, the God of Straight Lines, from his Square Altar in the Rectangular Inner Chamber. “YOU, DRAGOON, ARE WEARING A HELMET THAT HAS A DISGUSTING CURVATURE TO IT. BEGONE FROM MY SIGHT.”

“Oh-” said Sparkle when they sought her out at the Sanctuary of Cleanliness. “You are all so, so dirty. Dusty and — I can’t even look at you! Get them out of here at once! I need a bath.”

Even Chonk, the God of Doods (in theory — he may have been just a very large, very hungry dood — but he had been around for long enough that everyone was relatively certain of his divinity) was of no use to them.

“Oh great Chonk!” intoned Crit.

“Great Chonk!” echoed the doodlings.

“Bless us with your…uh…blessing! So we can go see Cosmos,” said Crit.

“Bless us!” said the doodlings.

But Chonk just continued to eat and stare forward into space. He was sitting on a very large throne with food all around him, as well as his followers scurrying about bringing more food, fanning his incredibly rotund frame, and massaging his shoulders. They tried a few more times to no effect.

“Bring him some food,” suggested one of the follower doods.

“Will he listen then?” asked Crit.

“Uh….maybe?” said the follower dood. “Look! Someone’s going to pray to him now.”

A dood walked forward and put a platter of food on the floor in front of Chonk. Then he put his hands together and a prayer bubble began to form above his head. Crit squinted. From the image in the prayer bubble, it looked like the dood was praying…to become very fat from eating so much food.

The prayer bubble drifted up to Chonk, who ate it. Then the enormous dood god pointed at the praying dood. In an instant, an ENORMOUS roasted leg of some prehistoric bird fell down in front of the hungry dood. He looked at it in shock. “How’m I s’posed to carry this?”

“Next!” shouted one of Chonk’s attendants, and shuffled the dood out the door while the giant roast leg was put on a cart and wheeled off.

“Hmmm…” said Timmy. “Maybe we should try another god first.”

“Balls,” cursed Crit as they sat on a bench outside of Chonk’s Hall of the Dood. Prayer balls flew around the afternoon sky. Over in the distance, they heard a peal of thunder and the sound of rain — but it was clear skies over them. “None of these gods are letting us even say anything to them! They’re all just — weird! Ugh.”

“If I were a god, I’d punch them,” said Tommy fiercely, punching his hand in emphasis.

Timmy was looking at a map of the White City they had purchased. “The next nearest temple is…the Hidden Rooms of Apropos. We just have to walk down that alley there and knock three times at the window and- ow!”

He stopped talking as he was hit in the head with a large scroll. “Hey!” said Tommy, leaping to his brother’s defense. “Who threw that?!”

“I did!” chirped a small doodling wearing overlong sleeves of a scroll-like robe. “I’m a newsdoodling for Fame, God of the News! Free news for you! Free news for all of you! You’re welcome! Hahaha!” And with that, he scurried away, his overlong sleeves flapping behind him, throwing scrolls at doods left and right.

“Come back here you, I’ll give you some news to report, my fist to your face you dirty little-!” Tommy went chasing after him.

Timmy peeled the scroll off of his face and began to browse through it. “Hmmm…meat prices up…late night music performance canceled…Wind Lord back in town…oh here we go! Pa!”

“Hmm? What?” said Crit, who was still sulking over how poorly their day had gone.

“There’s a party happening. A god party! At Sorority’s Cloistered Estate. We could definitely find someone to help there!”

“A party you say?!” Crit jumped up. “Now you’re speaking my language! Let’s dood and roll!”

Once Tommy returned (still grumbling — he hadn’t been able to catch the little newsdoodling) they zipped on over to Sorority’s Estate. It was almost evening now. The sun was setting and the White City turned a shining gold with just a touch of redness, a hint of something sinister.

Unlike the other temples, which were all in magnificent public squares, Sorority’s place was pushed up against the outer walls of the White City, and had a large fence around it to prevent trespassers and to create a more private atmosphere for her exclusive events.

There was a line of gods at the gates of the Estate waiting to be let in, and a smaller gate with a separate line for doods who were dressed up for the occasion. The prayer bubbles here were very polite, floating neatly above their doods. Timmy moaned. “Another queue? It’s so long…and we don’t have any tickets or invitations or anything.”

“Not this time,” said Crit. “Follow me boys. Lemme show you how to crash a party.”

Crit led the two doodlings down an alleyway next to the fence. “Where’re we going?” asked Tommy.

“Should be…there’s always…yes!”

Towards the back of the alley, a dood suddenly appeared out of a hidden side door heaving a bag of trash. When he saw Crit coming, he quickly tried to close the door, but Crit was quicker. He stuck the butt of his spear in and tipped his helmet politely. “We’re on security for this event,” he said. “No need to worry.”

“Uhh…” said the dood, his eyes darting back from Crit to Timmy to Tommy. “You aren’t Cosmodoods. Are you sure?”

“Yup.”

“Well, ok then.”

He let them in. Crit winked at Timmy and Tommy, and they joined the party.

____

The party was still in its early stages when they snuck in. Groups of gods and doods (separate, of course) were milling around small cocktail tables making polite conversation and then chuckling at each others’ jokes. Timmy and Tommy fidgeted awkwardly. “What are we supposed to do?”

Crit took in the scene with a glance and sniffed the air discriminatingly. “Not quite ready yet,” he pronounced. He turned to the doodlings. “Boys, get out there and start talking to some gods.”

“How are we supposed to do that?” they asked.

“Be cute. Be funny. Be doods. Or…pretend to serve food.” And with that, Crit disappeared into the crowd. Timmy and Tommy looked at each other. Well. It was no use standing around like wallflowers. They got out there.

Tommy decided to make a prayer that he would find some snacks and then a place to sit. Happily, there were so many gods around that he got his prayer quickly answered: he was lifted into the air and placed in an alcove, then a few snacks popped onto his lap. He was about the same level now as the gods’ tables, and in a perfect place for eavesdropping:

“Did you hear that Lark is back in town?” said a goddess wearing a large pair of tacky glasses.

“Oh yes! Can’t wait to see him again. He’s such a poet,” sighed another goddess, nursing her ambrosial drink.

“I heard he was hanging out with a dood. Can you believe it? A dood! Why would a god ever hang out with a dood?” The glasses goddess laughed raucously at the absurdity of the idea.

“DOODS ARE BEST KEPT IN BOXES,” said another god at the table. Tommy recognized him as one of the gods they had gone to earlier for help. “I MAKE ALL MY DOODS WEAR BOX OUTFITS TO HIDE THEIR CURVES. SPEAKING OF WHICH, YOU BOTH NEED MORE LINES IN YOUR LIVES. I CAN HELP OFFER-”

“Um, no thanks Linus,” said the goddess holding her drink, walking away from the table. Linus slouched sadly, but also straightly.

“Don’t worry about her,” said the gossiping glasses goddess. “Did you hear the rumor about her? I hear that she absolutely loves circles. Has them all over her room.”

Linus gasped. “I WILL NOT LISTEN TO SUCH SLANDER. GOOD DAY, MADAM GODDESS.”

On the other side of the room, Timmy had snagged a platter of godly hors d’oeuvres and moved about trying to find an angle on a god who could take ’em up to Cosmos. He kept his little ear holes open as he walked around the rooms.

“Where is Lark tonight, anyhow?”

“Oh I hear he went to Jubilee’s party, she’s got quite the crowd over there.”

“Oh maybe we should go check it out!”

“Actually even though Lady Cosmos is very busy she always makes time for-”

Timmy’s ears picked up something about Cosmos. He turned and saw a — eight-legged? Spidery face? But also kind of cute? — goddess in robes talking to a (very) handsome, chiseled jaw, muscular god. The chiseled jaw god was nodding sagely as the spidery goddess gesticulated with one of her arms and talked:

“I know about all of Lady Cosmos’ plans, of course. She confides in me. I think it’s because I’m always showing her the most devotion out of all the gods, she knows she can trust me. So I can tell you with confidence that-”

“Excuse me!” shouted Timmy.

The two gods looked down on him. The spidery goddess looked annoyed. The chiseled jaw god smiled powerfully. Timmy held up his platter. “Um…food for you…majesties?”

The chiseled jaw god laughed. “No thank you little one. We have our own food to eat. You may go on about your business.”

“Oh! Uh, can I try some of your food?” Timmy spoke quickly, trying to think of a way he could stick around them and keep listening to the stuff about Cosmos.

The chiseled jaw god grinned at the spidery goddess, who sighed. “Well why not? Come up here, little dood.”

And with that Timmy was hoisted onto the god’s table and given a small drop of ambrosia to drink. He sucked on it and was immediately drunk. “Wooooooooowzer!” he said. “Thatsh the good shtuff! Tommy! My bro Tommy! You gotta try thish shtuff!”

While Timmy was getting drunk and Tommy was being dragged over to join his inebriated brother, Crit was getting the party rolling. He went up to quiet tables, told some raunchy battle stories and got the drinks flowing. He danced a few of his more famous jigs. He broke out a little pole dancing routine involving his spear — which even won the attention of some gods.

Within the hour, the atmosphere was just right. Crit could feel it in the air: a tension building, searching for release. He knew it was time, so he grabbed a drink, shotgunned it, and ran off to find the party host, Sorority.

The Goddess of Exclusive Clubs and Societies was dressed in a slinky glittering affair that left little to the imagination. She was surrounded by a group of sycophantic minor gods oozingly praising her graces. Crit could tell she was bored. He smirked. This would be easy.

He vaulted through the crowd of minor gods and tumbled right in front of Sorority, who tilted her head quizzically at him.

“And who might you be?”

“Goddess Sorority! Great party! I’m a Dragoon. Wondering if you would mind if I change the music? I wanna get this party started.”

Sorority stroked a sultry finger on one of her dimpled cheeks and smiled. “Oh do you now? Well…why not. You Dragoons always were good at hyping things up. I give you my permission.”

“Thank you, oh gracious lady goddess!” said Crit politely, and jump-slid off the table over to the god DJing.

This god wore a grinning mask, a dark pinstripe suit, and a tophat. He turned the grinning mask to Crit as the Dragoon approached. Crit gave him the thumbs up. “Sorority said to kick it!”

“Well then,” said the masked god. “Game on!”

The lights dimmed, the beat dropped, and the party kicked into high gear. Gods, doods, everyone was in a big mess of a crowd jumping up and down in alcoholic excitement. Outside observers said the whole estate rocked on its foundations that night. In fact, it flew off the foundations and went whizzing around the perimeter of the city at one point, before returning to its original location. Several doods got their wildest prayers answered — for better and worse. It was a party to remember (or to not remember) and would be the source of all sorts of godly gossip over the coming weeks and months.

Crit loved every second of it. He spent a good hour breakdancing his doody ass off until he remembered why they had come here in the first place. Then he hooked on his helmet and went looking for his doodlings.

He found them doing him proud, drunk as skunks and dancing on a table for a group of cheering gods. “Alrightttt!” he joined in on the clapping as they finished another number and collapsed. “Boys! Did you find anything about Cosmos?”

They were both snoring; two much excitement and they were totally out of it. One of the surrounding gods — a spidery goddess — spoke to the Dragoon. “What do you want to know about Lady Cosmos, Apostle? One of these doodlings was speaking her name as he danced.”

Crit bowed. “Your Goddessness, we’re trying to reach High Goddess Cosmos to give her a message from beyond. About the fighting and the boods and stuff. You see our friends-”

The spidery goddess snorted derisively. “You think Lady Cosmos does not know about what happens in her own godiverse? Begone from this place for your insulting behavior, and think better of the High Goddess before you open your mouth again.” And with that, she swept the doods off the table with one of her long arms.

They landed with a clatter on the floor. Timmy and Tommy woke up with an “oof.”

“Uhh…where are we pa?” they asked. “Our heads hurt…”

Crit sighed. “Come here boys. Let’s get a move on.”

_____

They went outside the estate to get some fresh air. It was a refreshingly cool night. Timmy and Tommy quickly fell asleep again, back to back. Crit sat on the steps and looked up at the Empyrean Palace floating in the sky. The night was quiet. He could hear some insects chirping. It was so close but so far. Ugh.

Behind him, he heard the door to the estate open and close. Crit turned and was surprised to see it was one of the gods who had been watching Timmy and Tommy dance, a friendly-looking handsome deity with a chiseled jaw. He waved to Crit.

“Hello Dragoon! I am Frithrall, God of Harmony, but you can just call me Fritz. I heard you have come from the outside. You have fought Chaos’ boods. Is that true?”

Crit adjusted his helmet, sensing an opportunity “Uh, yes sir. We were with a group of doods and a god traveling when we were attacked by boods and separated. It’s really crazy out there, beyond the Axis Mundi. So we wanted to go to talk with Cosmos to see if she could help.”

“I see,” said the God of Harmony, crossing his arms and pursing his lips in thought. “Interesting…very interesting. Lady Cosmos is very busy these days but…maybe…she has a soft spot for doods. Alright. I will support you in your cause to see the High Goddess, Dragoon.”

“Really?! Awesome!”

Fritz smiled. “You’re welcome. I too, would love to see peace and harmony back in the godiverse once more.” He knelt down to the Dragoon and his doodlings and held out a hand. “Step onto my hand, Dragoon.”

“Boys! Boys lets go!” Crit shook the doodlings awake and together they clambered onto Fritz’s hand. He lifted them up carefully so that they were level with his face. They could see deep into his divine eyes, which seemed exhausted.

“Are you ready?” he asked them.

They nodded, holding hands tightly. “Well then, have a safe flight!” said Fritz.

And with that, he drew back his arm and then threw them powerfully through the air, right at the Empyrean Palace.

______

The halls of the Palace were huge, dark, and empty, but the walls rippled with an ethereal blue-white light. There was no sound but the pitter-patter of their footsteps echoing as they wandered around, looking for the High Goddess.

Crit was nervous. It was so very quiet, but at the same time, there was a large rumbling sound coming from above. The whole thing was very strange for a dood and his doodlings, especially coming from such a lively party.

“Pa, are we almost there?” whispered Tommy.

“Let’s hurry,” hissed Timmy, who was trembling all over. “This place makes me feel weird.”

“Don’t worry boys, everything’s gonna be fine. This is the High Goddess’ home, after all. We’re safe.” But even he couldn’t shake the sense of danger. The Empyrean Palace was no place for a trio of unaccompanied doods. Everything was god-sized, enormous. Prayer bubbles whispered through the air, then faded away. He wished that the God of Harmony had come with them.

After some amount of searching, they came across a wide and winding staircase that led up and up and up. Above, the rumbling sound was louder, and the white light brighter. Crit could feel that this was the place. Cosmos was close.

They started walking up the steps, but some instinct drove them faster — they started to run. But they only made it halfway up when they were greeted by a line of doods. Cosmodoods. And in front of them, a large dood in a white wig and robe.

The Dragoon held his spear confidently in front of him. “‘Sup.”

“Who are you?” said the wigged dood authoritatively. He spoke very loudly.

“I’m Crit the Dragoon, and these are my two doodling sons, Tommy and Timmy.” Tommy and Timmy stuck out their hands from behind their pa’s back and waved. “We’re here to see High Goddess Cosmos.”

The wigged dood peered at them and sneered. “And who gave you permission to come here?”

“The God of Harmony. Frit…something.”

“Hmm. Do you know who I am?”

“Nope.”

“You’re a dood!” said Tommy, still hiding. “Not a god! Let us through!”

“I,” said the wigged dood. “Am Lublub, Cosmos’ personal doodservant. The High Goddess has said she is not to be disturbed. By anyone. So — she’s not gonna be disturbed.”

“But we really need to talk to her!” shouted Timmy. “It’s about the godiverse — there are doods in trouble- our friends-”

“Shh!” said Lublub. “I have served the High Goddess faithfully for over 500 years. I have never failed to follow her instructions. Not once. She said she didn’t want to be disturbed. And you are a disturbance. So now, time for you to leave.”

“No way!” yelled Crit. “We’ve gone through too much to fail now!” He brandished his spear. Timmy and Tommy jumped out and held up their fisticuffs.

Lublub gestured to the Cosmodoods with his robes. “Get them out of here.”

These Cosmodoods were even faster than the first bunch, and Crit couldn’t hold them off alone. There was no real fight. They were swiftly restrained and taken back down the stairs, back through the echoing halls, to the edge of the Empyrean Palace. Below them, the wind whipped about and the White City spread out like a light-speckled tapestry.

“Goodbye,” said Lublub.

And with that, they were pushed off the edge and plummeted to the world below.

“AAAAHHHHH!” screamed Crit.

“AAAAAAHHHHH!!” screamed Tommy.

“NOOOOOOOOOO!” screamed Timmy. But then something magical happened. A purplish-blue light blossomed around Timmy and surrounded him and the others. They stopped falling. Well, they were still falling. But slowly.

“Woah!” said Tommy.

“Wow!” said Crit. “I didn’t know you could do that Timmy.”

“Neither did I!” said the doodling. “It just sort of happened.”

They floated to the ground, landing just outside the White City.

“What do we do now?” said Tommy. “We failed.”

Crit sighed and picked up his spear. “Let’s go home. There’s nothing we can do now.”

______

Back in the village of fisherdoods, inside the shack, the runes dancing on the EDEN pillar began to swarm madly and then suddenly — formed an arch of shining light. Out of the white light stepped — the Summoner.

“Finally,” she said. “I’m back.”

END

And that’s all for this week’s story! We hope you enjoyed it and are excited to (re)meet the final dood Apostle. For now, head on over to our Discord and tell us what you thought of this one~ What kind of Apostle classes do you think Timmy and Tommy will pick up in the future? We would love to hear from you. And don’t forget to do things on the bird website (Twitter) such as but not limited to Like/Comment/Retweet-ing! It helps us out a lot~

And as always, thanks for reading, godlings. We’ll see you next time.

About Apeiron

Apeiron is the world’s first NFT-based play-and-earn godgame. Apeiron will feature a unique card-based action-adventure combat system combined with god game simulation gameplay inspired by classic god games like Populous and Black & White. Players will be able to build up planets from above before descending to the ground as a powerful Avatar to solve the mysteries of the universe. Players will grow their planet to the point of developmental stagnation, then reset the planetary cycle via an Armageddon event to allow for even more advancement and thrilling late-game alliance level GvE and GvG activities. Apeiron will use a tri-token architecture, which means that there will be three separate tokens to navigate their ecosystem: a governance token, a play-to-earn token, and a premium alliance token.

Visit Apeiron’s Website | Official Marketplace | OpenSea | Youtube | Discord | Twitter

Hello everyone! Hope y’all are having a great week. Today we have an announcement to share with you about a new event “Orbital Odysseys.” And to go along with it, we also have a short Apeiron story! Caloo calay oh doodily day!

First, let’s talk about the Orbital Odyssey event! This is an event to encourage players to rent Orbital Tracks (OTs) to age their Planets. Aging Planets is super important! Why?

1. Token Airdrops! Holders with older Planets will be entitled to receive more ANIMA airdrops. ANIMA is our p2e token.

2. Expeditions! Older Planets will generate more Vapor on Nebula Expeditions, our staking system, so you can have a higher chance at top tier rewards.

3. Relic Slots! The older the Planet, the more Relic slots it has for you to slot in your Relics, including powerful Apostles and Artifacts.

For instance, you might have collected the epic rarity Artifact “Black Hole Banner IV” from your dungeoneering and converted it into a Relic. This Artifact heals ALL of your units for 12% at the end of EVERY battle. Super powerful! You also have a Guardian Apostle with a very good IV that you’ve also Relic converted. But your Planet only has 1 Relic Slot, so you can only use either the Artifact of the Apostle but NOT both.

By simply aging your Planet, you’ll unlock new Relic Slots so that you CAN have both! The more Relic Slots, the more potential power you’ll have available.

So now you know why you should age your Planets, let’s get back to talking about this new event: Orbital Odyssey. We know that renting OTs is a new thing and people will take time to get used to it. So to get people started, we’re sweetening the pot!

From Thursday May 4th 4pm GMT+8 (NOW!!) until Thursday May 18th 11:59pm GMT+8 (in 2 weeks) any players who rent an OT will receive rebates in the form of Foonie Emblems (FE), which can be spent on our Discord on a range of Apeiron goodies or sold directly on OpenSea.

The rebate rewards will be distributed pro rata to our Targeted Total Rental divided by the amount of OTs being rented. Basically, the more people renting, the more rewards everyone gets. Let’s take a look at a couple examples:

Note that the more tracks being rented, the more rebates for every individual! So if you know somebody holding an Apeiron Planet, this is the time to rent OTs — you’ll both benefit from increased rebate rewards. Basically we just want to encourage people to use the new system. The rebates will be distributed in one week from the end date of the event — so around May 25th.

A couple of clarifying points. First, you cannot rent an OT from a more expensive Star of a certain rarity tier if there are cheaper Star OTs of the same tier available for renting on the market. This is to ensure that rebate rewards are distributed in a fair manner.

Additionally, the maximum amount of rebates we’ll be distributing through this event will be 1250 FE. In the event that we exceed the targeted total rental, each player will receive a % split of the 1250 FE according to their weighted contribution. We should note that each FE is worth $8, and we will be rounding down to the nearest whole number when we calculate FE rebate amounts.

And as a final disclaimer, we reserve the right to adjust the terms of this event to guarantee that it is both fun and fair to all participants. You may rest assured that we are closely monitoring all event activity to protect honest users from any systemic exploitation.

TLDR: Orbital Odyssey! Rent some Orbital Tracks, get rebates. The more the merrier!

Excellent! So now with that cleared up, the way is open for us to begin with today’s Apeiron story. And it’s a fun one: we’re meeting with Lark, a god of the Axis Mundi — and an important one too: he’s the Viscount of Zephyrs and the Elemental Lord of Wind. He’ll be joined by the Shaman Apostle, who’s by-the-by a pretty chill dude. What happens when the two get together? Shenanigans! Doodnanigans? Join us, then, for….

Flying High (on a Shooting Star)

Lying on a puff of fluffy cumulus cloud floating in a blue sky, Lark, the Elemental Lord of Wind and the Viscount of Zephyrs, yawned salaciously as he stretched.

How long had he been asleep? He couldn’t remember. Ah well. It didn’t really matter. Not much changed in the Axis Mundi to the extent that he needed to be frequently conscious about it. And so: he wasn’t.

He tucked his long hands comfortably behind his mane of wavy white hair, smiled into the sunshine, and sighed contentedly. It was good to be a god.

Well, it was good to be the Elemental Lord of Wind. Being able to drift on the breeze, not a care in the world. Not like Clintina, the Elemental Lady of Earth, who was always getting her earthen armor in a twist about something or other, charging off on another quest. Or Flameo, the Elemental Lord of Fire: what a temper he had! And the less said about Protea, the Elemental Lady of Water, the better…

He sighed again, this time not so contentedly. While he couldn’t say how long he had been away from the White City and its internecine politics, he knew he should probably go back sooner rather than later. Unlike the other Elemental Lords, he wasn’t particularly interested in rising to the rank of the High Goddess’ Consort. But he certainly didn’t want to see any of them rise to that level. And so he would need to return to the Lofty Palace and play the game, just to make sure things stayed as they were now…

Ugh. How very droll. He flipped over onto his front and looked down on the world from his cloudy perch, kicking his long legs up playfully into the air. Where was he? It looked like he had drifted above a vast body of water — the ocean. Protea’s realm — although she would be studying ancient tomes in the Rippling Depths, as was her want. Perhaps he should pay her a visit…but no, the thought of getting all wet and soggy — with all that weight of water above — was very unappealing. He would see her in the Lofty Palace at some point.

A glint of something floating far below, on the surface of the sea, caught his attention. His eagle eyes focused, and all became clear in an instant. He smiled playfully. Why he never — it was a dood! A rather large dood, lying on his back on a small open boat, a fishing rod at his side, his hands behind his head whistling a tuneless song.

He chuckled. There was a certain symmetry between the dood and he himself — the God of all Wind Gods — that he couldn’t help but find titillating. It was, frankly, absurd: there was the dood, lying relaxing on his boat, and there he was, relaxing in his cloud. Kindred spirits, of a sort.

And that was when an idea began to form in Lark’s head, a flight of fancy that pushed out all notions of the actual responsibilities he was supposed to fulfill. No, this is what he wanted to do: he wanted to have some fun. And what better way to have fun than by spending a day with his newest dood disciple?

_______

Voovoo the Shaman lay on his boat, thinking about…not much of anything. What was there to think about? He was on a boat! Somewhere. He had gone fishing when a sudden squall had carried him far out into uncharted waters.

That had been…a few days ago. He had brought some water with him, luckily. And he was quite good at fishing, so he had food as well. Beyond that, he didn’t give it much thought. He ate, slept, fished, and whistled. It was as simple as that. He would get back to his beachside village eventually. Probably? Or maybe he would end up somewhere totally new! That’d be neat. For a dood as chill as Voovoo, it was all cool.

Little did he know it then, but Voovoo’s chillness was about to be put to the ultimate test. It started with his boat starting, ever so slightly, to spin in place. At first Voovoo didn’t notice. But then the spinning sped up, and he began to feel dizzy. He sat up and took a look around. Was he caught in a whirlpool or something? But no, it was very clearly the wind. And it was growing stronger. Beginning to howl!

Suddenly a gale blast knocked him flat on his back, pinned him to the bottom of the boat. He could hardly breathe. Not cool, dood! He thought about muttering some sort of spell or hex, but how does one curse the wind? Words escaped him, lost in the hurricane. Hadn’t it been clear skies a minute ago? What was going on-

And then his boat flew, spinning, into the sky. Voovoo watched in terror as he sped towards the bottom of a cloud. He wasn’t sure what was going to happen when he hit it. But he did have enough of a doody sense to open his mouth ever so slightly so he could get a taste. Maybe it would taste like cotton candy…

It did not. It tasted like water. Then he was through the clouds and above them, his boat floating in the air just as easily as it had on the water. Standing next to the boat — and looming above it — was a smiling, tall, gray-skinned god with a bushy shock of white hair, an elegant turquoise courtier’s outfit, and even a pair of insectoid wings neatly sheathed on his back. The mysterious god grinned at him teasingly. “Hello there!”

“Hullo!” said Voovoo. He had seen gods before, of course. They were all over the place in the Axis Mundi. There was something about this one though. He had an air about him, an air of quiet confidence. It was pretty cool, he had to say!

“Let’s have your name then,” the god spoke crisply.

“Voovoo!” said Vooovoo.

“And what do you do, Voovoo?”

“Do, sir-uh-my…lord? I don’t do anything. I hang out. I chill.” He gave two thumbs up to the god by way of emphasis.

“I see, I see. But I mean to say, you seem bigger than other doods, Voovoo.”

“Yeah!”

“And why would that be?” Lark had infinite patience. He always enjoyed talking to doods. They always responded in the silliest ways.

“I eat a lot, I guess.”

“What about any magic, Voovoo?”

“Oh yeah! I’m a Shaman.”

“Aha! We got there.”

“Woo! We got there~” Voovoo, not knowing where there was, was happy to share a point of commonality with this strange god.

“Well, Voovoo. Do you know who I am?”

“Um…the God of Questions?”

“Nope.”

“God of…Nice Green Clothes?”

“A good guess, but also wrong.”

Voovoo scratched his head. “God of…Spinning Flying Boats?”

Lark laughed. “Voovoo, you are sitting before Lark, Elemental Lord of Wind.”

Voovoo gasped. “Woah! God of the Wind! That’s how you could do that magic to take me up here, huh? Pretty neat!”

“Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it.”

“Sweet!” Voovoo waited for Lark to elaborate, but none was forthcoming. “So, uh, Mr. Lark, sir, which is to say, Lord of Windy Air…or something…what’s up?”

“What’s up? Why, the sky, Voovoo. Always the sky.”

“No, no…uhh…what’cha doin’ up here? And uh…did ya want me for anythin’? Maybe I can catch you a fish or somethin’…”

“Ah! Right! Well, Voovoo, I’m proud to say,” Lark rose up even higher above the boat for good effect, then held his cane aloft over Voovoo and motioned dramatically. “I see in you the spirit of the wind. Therefore, I have chosen you, Voovoo. From now on, you will be my disciple. My Apostle!”

“Woah!” said Voovoo. “Cool!”

“Very cool,” Lark laughed. Then he sunk lower, into the cloud, and lay down next to the boat, so his head was opposite Voovoo. “Come out here then! As my Apostle, the first thing you have to do is learn how to lie on a cloud. Then we’ll take a nap.”

“Ooo!” said Voovoo. To be honest, this whole disciple/apostle business was going over his head. But a nap! Now that was his kind of territory. He clambered over the side of the boat and stepped off onto the cloud and-

Fell right through it.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhh!” he screamed as he plummeted to the sea far below.

Then a current of air caught him, cradled him, and carried him gently back to his boat on the clouds. Lark looked at him with amusement. “A nice first try, but you need to really feel the spirit of the wind, the spirit of the air! Let your lightness carry you higher…”

To demonstrate, the Viscount of Zephyrs stood up gracefully, and then flopped onto the cloud’s surface, bouncing off of it happily. Voovoo was mildly hyperventilating. Good god he didn’t want to die and that was scary. Holy crap he had fell right through the air and almost crashed into the water and-

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Lark reached out a godly hand over the side of the boat and flicked Voovoo off the boat onto the cloud once more.

For the briefest of instances, Voovoo thought he had it. But then of course, he didn’t.

“AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhh!” he yelled again as he fell from sky to sea…only to be once more wrapped up in the wind and carried right back into Lark’s cloud kingdom.

“Better, much better!” said Lark cheerfully. Except this time he found himself speaking to the air, because Voovoo had fainted clean out. Lark scooped up some cloud and brought the much-put-upon-Shaman back to reality with a splutter and a cough.

“You’re getting it, I can tell!” said Lark, once Voovoo had gotten himself under a semblance of control. “A few more tries and you’ll be riding the clouds in no time. I’ll tell you what young dood, nothing like having your own cloud to ride around on. You know, there was this monkey I knew once, now he was really a fast learner, started zooming around on his cloud like nobody’s business-”

“Excuse me!” shouted Voovoo. He was not a dood prone to shouting, but he really felt like he was in need of a rest. He did not want to fall again. “Can we take a break?”

“A break? Already?”

“Well it’s lunchtime,” said Voovoo, having no idea what time it was, but guessing that it was close enough to lunch to warrant the argument.

“Is it?” mused Lark. “I forgot you doods eat every day.”

Voovoo balked. “You mean, gods — my lord — sir — Mr. Lark, you don’t eat every day?”

“Oh good gracious no,” said Lark. “Gods don’t need to eat. You see, we are beings which are made of-”

Voovoo was so shocked he interrupted the god then and there. “But eating is-” he struggled for words “-awesome!”

“Oh it’s fine and well enough but after you’ve lived as long as I have, young dood-”

“Come to my house!” said Voovoo, striking on an idea that would get him out of this cloud diving snaggle and back to his cozy home in one swoop. “I’ll cook us lunch. My speciality: surf’n’turf!”

“Oh! Well that sounds…lovely. Why not after all? I haven’t visited a dood village in a few decades. Could be fun!”

“Yeah!”

“Right then. All you need to do is close your eyes and imagine your home. The more details, the faster we’ll get there.”

“Oh. Ok then,” said Voovoo. He squinched his eyes tightly shut and tried to imagine. He wasn’t a dood who imagined a lot of things. Rather, he just let his thoughts flow wherever they wanted. Focusing was difficult. But he really wanted to go home, so he gave it a try.

_______

First he imagined the beach where his village was — had always been. The farmland of the Axis Mundi gave way to a white sandy shore — his village was right above the shore, on some slightly raised land. Mostly they were fisherdoods. They fished, and then traded with the farmerdoods for other food and stuff. It was cool.

He lived in a small little dood house off to one side of the village. Actually, his house was quite unique because it was right below a giant EDEN. His ancestors had been super lazy (bless ’em) and hadn’t even wanted to build a 4th wall for their house, so they only built 3, and pushed them up against the EDEN for the 4th.

Since then, his family had — weirdly — had a lot of magically attuned doods in the family. Mages, Shamans, Summoners, Priests — you name it. He was the latest: a Shaman. And because he could do all sorts of magic, other doods came to find him. Sometimes for healing, sometimes for cursing another dood. But that was all very unchill. So he went fishing a lot. It was a good way to chill out.

He smiled as he thought about walking down the path from his cozy little cottage with his fishing rod off to his tiny boat by the water’s edge — and then he opened his eyes, and what do you know! He was there. And so was Lark.

The Elemental Lord of the Air took in the village with a glance and was done with it, eyes already roving further, seeing into the long distance. Voovoo could sense a shift of energy from his self-appointed master, a kind of…frustration. Knowing that a frustrated god was a god more likely to take out his frustration on nearby disciples, Voovoo acted fast.

“We made it! Awesome! Let’s go grab lunch, eh?”

Lark came out of his reverie. “Ah yes! Lunch it is then. Lead the way, Apostle Voovoo.”

Voovoo leading the way was made somewhat awkward by the fact that Lark took one step for every ten of his, meaning the god was always stopping and starting. Voovoo picked up his pace to a nervous trot.

They made it the EDEN-adjacent family cottage quickly enough. Lark looked down at the dood house. He wasn’t exactly going to fit. He could transform and make his whole body one with the wind, but that would make eating difficult. Shrinking was another option, but he was still a god, and he thought shrinking down to dood size set a bad example. Didn’t want doods starting to think they were in any sense equals, after all.

Voovoo, upon reaching his door, relaxed greatly. He pointed to a spot on a nearby hill overlooking both the farmland, the village, and the beach. “We’ll have a picnic! Mr. Lark — uh — oh Lord Lark of the Windy Air — you can just wait over there. I’ll bring lunch to you.”

“Thank you, Voovoo. Very kind of you,” said Lark magnanimously as he took a seat on the hillside. He had a good view of the farmlands from the hill, just as Voovoo had promised. Horticult — that was the God of Agriculture — was doing an excellent job of keeping the farmland very neat and tidy, as usual. He was fond of Horticult. Not a very political god. Kept to his own business.

Beyond the farmlands, just on the horizon, shining like a diamond in the sun, he could spy the White City. He grimaced. This little excursion was supposed to take his mind off of…those things. He hoped that no one had seen him. If Jubilee or Sorority saw him, they’d descend upon the little village like a cloud of flies and set up one of their insane parties. Then the whole gang would be there, Sparkle and Joy cleaning up, Linus with his squares, Fritz talking up his peace plans-

He turned his back on the city and nestled his body behind the hill rather than on top of it. That should be good. They probably couldn’t spot him from here. And if he hung on just a little longer, they would be starting the afternoon’s parties and be drunk enough that they wouldn’t notice anything much of anything.

It was then that Voovoo returned with the picnic lunch. Under one arm he had a small blanket, and under the other a basket out of which the aroma of cooked treats wafted towards Lark’s aquiline nose. He had also doffed a very tall and fancy hat, complete with colorful feathers.

“Here we are then Master Lark — uh — Mr. God, sir! So what we’ve got here is a basket of surf’n’turf, which is snappery-clawbies boiled up together with Dolk steak on the side. Seafood and meat! It doesn’t get better,” said Voovoo enthusiastically, his mouth practically dripping with saliva.

“Oh hey! Nice hat, Voovoo,” the God of Wind and Cloud commented politely.

“Thanks!” said Voovoo, plonking himself down on the blanket next to Lark. “It’s pretty cool. Handed down through the family. I wear it when I’m chilling to the max!”

The Shaman pulled out a couple of small plates and handed one up to Lark, who put it in the palm of his hand. Then he took out the surf’n’turf and tenderly passed it up as if it were a priceless treasure.

Lark took it and put it on his plate. He eyed it up. The snappery-clawby had been boiled bright red. The Dolk steak was a dark brown color. He could feel his stomach turning. He hadn’t eaten in a long time and this…dood food…it wasn’t up to his standards.

Down below, Voovoo was tucking in with gusto. “Oh yeah! Now this is the life, isn’t it lord? Good food, can take a nap after this, great stuff.”

“Um…yes, Voovoo, very nice indeed.” Lark looked down at his food again. He couldn’t help but notice the snappery-clawby still had its head. Its dead eyes stared blankly up at him, as if to say: “Why did I have to be cooked?”

And that was that. He couldn’t do it. Well, he could do it — he was a god, he could do anything he damn well pleased — but this did not please him one bit. Still, he didn’t want to disappoint his new Apostle. So he quickly waved his fingers, and the snappery-clawby and steak were carried away by the wind.

Over in the farmlands, this would result in a very surprised farmer dood being hit in the head by steak and snappery-clawby, a holy event that would come to be called “the miracle of raining dinner”. But neither Lark nor Voovoo would ever know anything about that

Instead, Lark fake chewed very exaggeratedly. “Oh my days, Voovoo, this is incredible! Love it, 10/10.”

“Really? Awesome! You know, I made this offering to the Sea Goddess all the time and she never took it. Do you want anymore?”

“Oh no, I couldn’t Voovoo, you know, gods like us, we get full very easily.”

Voovoo shrugged. “Suit yourself.” The dood continued to stuff himself silly. Lark, meanwhile, was content to look out over the ocean and listen to the sound of the waves. It reminded him of something…ah yes, back…well, back a long time ago. Protea and him had made music here. He had whipped up a storm and they had danced up and down on the waves, laughing…

He blinked and it was night. Next to him, Voovoo was gently snoring, his tall and colorful hat usefully covering his eyes. He nudged his chosen disciple. “Voovoo!”

Voovoo sat up at once and a purplish magic light surrounded him. “WHAT WHERE WHO WHY I’M READY-”

Lark surrounded the dood in a bubble of dispelling air. “Calm, young dood, calm.”

Voovoo blinked away the sleep from his eyes, pushing his hat back onto his head. “Oh. Hullo there, Lord Lark sir. Did you want….something?”

“Ah…I’m not sure, little dood.”

“Oh. Ok. Well we can sit here until you’re sure, I guess.”

“That’s a very doody idea, Voovoo. And a good one, too.”

They sat for awhile in silence, Voovoo yawning every now and then, and watched the night sky. The moon was out, and the sky twinkled with stars. Suddenly, one of those stars shot across the heavens.

“Wow!” said Voovoo, pointing. “That was cool!”

Lark grinned. “Shooting star, Voovoo! Make a wish.”

“Really? I can?”

“Why not? Sometimes it pays off to be a god’s apostle,” Lark said with a wink.

Voovoo thought for a minute. “Oh! I got it!”

He pointed at where the shooting star had flashed by. “I want to ride on a shooting star.”

Lark raised a cloudy eyebrow. “Now that is something. Where did you get that idea?”

Voovoo pointed at the sea. “Like you ride on a boat on the waves or lie on the clouds, wouldn’t it be cool to ride on a shooting star? I dunno, just seems neat.” Sometimes this happened to him — he just kind of went for something totally off the wall. Something cool.

“Well,” said Lark. He stood up and stretched. “I haven’t been orbit surfing in a long time. But today’s a day for anything!” He held out his hand to Voovoo. “Ready?”

Voovoo’s eyes sparkled with excitement. “Yeah!” He took his god’s hand and they took off into the air, his village quickly receding into the distance.

________

They were in Axis Mundi space. Lark flew with his hand clasped tightly around Voovoo, who was at once very excited and also potentially regretting his spur-of-the-moment decision. Maybe he should have wished for “a good night’s sleep” or “a very chill week.” Still, he had Lark to protect him. And the Elemental Lord of Wind was not to be trifled with. Everything was going to be fine.

Through the void they went, until Lark stopped in…well, it just looked like more space to Voovoo. He looked around. Nothing stood out to him as “you’re about to ride a shooting star.” There was a star in the near-ish distance. It was very bright. Was that what they were going to ride?

“Now then,” said Lark, anticipating Voovoo’s questions. “Since it’s your first time, we’ll hold hands for safety. The way it works is like this. A Planet will come along in the orbit of a Star. And we’re going to ride along behind the Planet, catching the gravity waves it leaves behind. Orbit surfing!”

“Woah!” said Voovoo. He had 100% no idea what any of that meant. But! He was here for it. “Let’s do it, dood! I mean uh — Let’s do it, my Lord!”

“Let’s do it!” agreed Lark. They waited. 5 minutes passed. 10. 30.

“Ummm…” said Voovoo, “when will we start?”

Lark tugged on a stand of hair. “Oh…sometime in the next 24 hours for sure.”

“24 hours?!” squeaked Voovoo. “But what about dinner? Lunch? Breakfast? Sleeping???”

“Relax, relax,” shushed Lark. “We can move closer to the Planet. Good gracious, I forgot how rushed you doods can be.”

Voovoo chose not to respond to that. The important thing was Lark was taking him closer to the Planet and they wouldn’t be stuck out here for a week. They arrived at another spot in space. And this time, Voovoo could see a Planet coming towards them.

It was beautiful: an orb of blue and green tinged with white at the top and bottom. If he had been enormous, he would have loved to have taken a bite out of it because it looked simply scrumptious.

“Get ready…” said Lark. The Zephyr God was tensing up, the pocket of air surrounding them beginning to spin in anticipation. Voovoo held on tight. Maybe this was a mistake. Maybe they should just go back-

“NOW!” shouted Lark. And suddenly they were flying at top speeds in the wake of the Planet, riding the orbital waves. “WOOOOOOO!” screamed Lark joyfully, his divine being half robed in the shadow of the Planet and half in starlight.

Oh yes, this was what he had needed all along. A trip like this out into the stars, just him and the orbital waves, surfing along at top speed, his worries left behind.

Unfortunately, this was not the only thing left behind. Because while gods were made for orbital surfing, doods were not — a point that Lark had forgotten (or perhaps, chosen not to remember). Voovoo hung on for all of a minute. But then his hat started to slip off his head.

“Oh no! Not my chill hat!” he yelled, his words carried away by the astral wind. He tried to reach out a hand to grab it. And it was then that he lost his grip entirely.

“AHHHHhhhhhh!” he yelled as the force of the orbital waves shot him backwards, away from Lark, away from the Axis Mundi, and, ultimately, off into the godiverse.

The residual protection of the Elemental Lord of Air would keep him safe. But it would be a long time before Voovoo returned home to his little shack by the beach. A long, long time. He spun through the air screaming in fear, until he got tired, and then — fell asleep. He would wake up to a new world, and a new adventure. BUT. At least he had his chill hat!

Lark, meanwhile, finished his orbital surfing after a few turns of the star: maybe a week, all told, as the dood eats. “Very nice,” he said to himself. He felt utterly refreshed, and he simply adored how the starlight brought out the pure whiteness of his hair. Radiant!

Now he could return to the White City. And they would all say, “Look at Lark! How good he looks, where has he been?” He grinned to himself. Why, he even might even be able to convince the High Goddess to dance with him at Jubilee’s latest ball. And wouldn’t that be something…

And so he started his journey back to the Center of Creation. Then he paused, and looked back over his shoulder at the star he was leaving behind. Had he forgotten something? He couldn’t help but think that…

…nope, it wasn’t coming back to him. He shrugged. Oh well. It probably wasn’t important, in the grand scheme of things.

END

So what did you think of this week’s story? Lark! He’s a cool god, eh? Or maybe you think he’s too flippantly callous towards his just-for-the-day disciple. Got any questions about Orbital Odyssey? Tell us! We’ll help in a jiffy! Head on down to our Discord or @ us on Twitter. Socialize with us using media~

And as always, thanks for reading, godlings. We’ll see you next time.

About Apeiron

Apeiron is the world’s first NFT-based play-and-earn godgame. Apeiron will feature a unique card-based action-adventure combat system combined with god game simulation gameplay inspired by classic god games like Populous and Black & White. Players will be able to build up planets from above before descending to the ground as a powerful Avatar to solve the mysteries of the universe. Players will grow their planet to the point of developmental stagnation, then reset the planetary cycle via an Armageddon event to allow for even more advancement and thrilling late-game alliance level GvE and GvG activities. Apeiron will use a tri-token architecture, which means that there will be three separate tokens to navigate their ecosystem: a governance token, a play-to-earn token, and a premium alliance token.

Visit Apeiron’s Website | Official Marketplace | OpenSea | Youtube | Discord | Twitter

This post was updated on May 5th, 2023 with some additional clarifications on the Orbital Odyssey event.

Hey everyone! Today we have a lore piece to share with you — an origin story about how one of the Apostles got started in her own adventures in the godiverse — in this case, the Bard! And this one is super special because…it’s a poem! We love poetry. Well…I love poetry, and I wrote this, so NOW IT IS POETRY WE HAVE. POETRY RISING!

Ahem. Anyway.

Hope you enjoy this little peek into the godiverse! And if you like this taster and want a more robust bit of text to nibble on, you can find the other two published origins stories HERE and HERE.

Without further ado, here is this week’s Ballad of the Bard.

1

Hippytrix the dood, a bard so fine,

Played for breakfast, cheesy bacon divine,

In a busy tavern before the farmers sat,

Sang of Chaddidood, the adventurer most fat.

As she strummed her lute, the aroma filled her head,

And drooled on the floor like a river of dread,

Tongue-tied, she stumbled over her own spit,

Off the stage she fell, food on her face did hit.

Up in the air, the plate of food took flight,

And landed on a meowing, oh what a sight!

The startled feline ran in great fear,

Causing a waiter to suddenly spill drinks and beer.

The crowd then jumped up and joined the fray,

Food and drink flying every which way,

Hippytrix ran fast to avoid being pelted,

But also tried to grab a bite where she felt it was warranted.

And so the morning turned into a mess,

The tavern abandoned in utter distress,

Hippytrix left with a grumbling belly,

Off to lunch, she hoped things wouldn’t get too smelly.

2

The farmer’s marketplace bustles, the crowds they throng,

But all their eyes are drawn, to the city so strong,

The White City looms, on the hill above,

Its shadow cast, o’er the market with love.

Hippytrix at lunchtime, pays with a tune,

Singing and dancing, in the noisy noon,

She’s a little tipsy, and feeling ignored,

But still she performs, for this merry horde.

Then Hippytrix spies, a handsome dood,

With a belly so big, it’s hard to elude,

He waggles his brows, she winks back with glee,

And they sneak off together, behind a tall tree.

But the dood’s wife appears, with a ferocious shout,

Chasing Hippytrix, who knocks the market food all about,

Passerdoods scatter, as they run through the fray,

And Hippytrix escapes, to the White City’s sway.

Now she’s in the city, with not a care in the world,

Thinking of her next meal, and the rest’s all a swirl,

She’ll play again at dinner, and hope for the best,

Up to the gods and fate she’ll leave all the rest.

3

The night had crept upon the White City,

Its streets grew quiet, there was no pity.

Hippytrix had nowhere to go nor stay,

So she looked to the sky and started to play.

She picked a corner, her lute at her side,

Started to strum, to sing and to glide.

The notes were soft, yet carried through the air,

A beautiful melody, with a gentle flair.

Then, in the distance, a group of drunk doods appeared,

Drawn by the music that they all revered.

They gathered ‘round, with smiles on their face,

And Hippytrix played on, with grace and with pace.

The night was young, the air was alive,

As Hippytrix played, and the doods did jive.

The smell of barbecue and alcohol filled the air,

As they danced and sang without a single care.

And then came a figure, towering in her ascent,

The Goddess Jubilee, ruler of all social events.

She looked down upon them, with a smile so bright,

And playfully asked why she wasn’t invited that night.

Before they respond, she explains with a stern face

That “Parties without my blessing are not allowed in this place.

I must ensure the celebration is done right and fair,

Or else chaos and disaster will be in the air.”

The doods all pointed to Hippytrix, abashed,

And Jubilee turned her focus to the bard with a spotlight crash.

“You just had to be there,” Hippytrix squeaked with fright,

Then Jubilee grabbed her and punted her out of sight.

And so Hippytrix flew through the sky, her lute in her hand,

Wondering where and when she would land.

But she played on, even as she soared into space,

And relaxed into her melody’s embrace.

It’s the end of the story! For now. What did you think? Come and tell us! Head on over to our Discord and let us know! Do it! Do it now! Don’t think about it — just do it! And make sure you tag @Bookworm when you’re on Discord to let him know that you’ve read this. Apeiron Lore fans, UNITE! \o/

And as always, thanks for reading, godlings. We’ll see you next time.

About Apeiron

Apeiron is the world’s first NFT-based play-and-earn godgame. Apeiron will feature a unique card-based action-adventure combat system combined with god game simulation gameplay inspired by classic god games like Populous and Black & White. Players will be able to build up planets from above before descending to the ground as a powerful Avatar to solve the mysteries of the universe. Players will grow their planet to the point of developmental stagnation, then reset the planetary cycle via an Armageddon event to allow for even more advancement and thrilling late-game alliance level GvE and GvG activities. Apeiron will use a tri-token architecture, which means that there will be three separate tokens to navigate their ecosystem: a governance token, a play-to-earn token, and a premium alliance token.

Visit Apeiron’s Website | Official Marketplace | OpenSea | Youtube | Discord | Twitter

Hey everyone! This week we have another story looking at how one of our Dood Apostles — the brave Knight — got a start in adventuring in the Apeiron godiverse. There’s a lot of lore tidbits for you to chew over in this one — hope you enjoy!

Before we get to it — announcements! Only ONE WEEK LEFT for the Apeiron Guild Wars: Skydream Scramble Preliminaries! If you’re in a guild that hasn’t gotten three entries yet…make sure you do that ASAP. Also: Primeval Sneak Peeks are BACK. Join Foonie Magus CEO Frank Cheng for a first look at the latest in-development test build of Apeiron. Discord for more info!

Alright, that covers what we need to cover. Onward to adventure! Let us tell you a tale~

________

In the rich farmlands surrounding the White City of the Axis Mundi — the Center of Creation in the godivese — in the shadow of EDENs and gods — there lived a dood. Actually, there were many farmer doods living in the farmlands. But we’re talking about one home in particular: a big house — practically a plantation — which oversaw several fields of hickleberries as well as a modest herd of Dolk.

The plantation was owned and had been owned by the Lamancha Dood family for generations, and they had become famous for producing a very high quality hickleberry jam which Axis Mundi doods put on everything from toast to cake to having on the side of a roast dinner. It had even been endorsed by Horticult, the God of Agriculture (“a fine example of dood agricultural produce”). This had made the family pretty rich.

The current scion of the Lamancha name was a dood who went by the name of Keyhotty. Keyhotty was, like most doods, lazy as hell. And as such, he hired a few hands to help run the farm and keep the hickleberry jam churning out while he reaped the profits. For many years he lived in the lap of luxury and enjoyed an extravagant bachelor’s lifestyle (he never quite found a doodette to settle down with).

And yet as the years went on, Keyhotty found himself getting — well, bored. So he wandered around and in the end settled on reading: his grandfather had amassed quite the collections of tales of doody adventures across the godiverse. Now it should be noted that dood books are mostly pictures with a few explanatory words and lots of punchy dialogue — and for Keyhotty, this was perfect. He found himself loving every word (and picture).

Over time, a strange thing happened. Keyhotty became so entangled in the stories he was reading that he began to believe that he himself was one such adventurer. As he was snarfing down some hickleberry toast one morning at breakfast, he suddenly stood up and said: “I’m late!”

“Um, late for what?” asked the old dood maid who had been with the Lamancha family for many years.

“A very important date!”

“A date? You?” The maid couldn’t believe it. Keyhotty hadn’t had a date in years. Would the Lamancha household finally have doodlings running around again?

“Yes! I must go to the castle to be knighted in the name of Her Divine Majestyness, Her Holiest Holiness, Cosmos, Queen of Goddesses!”

“The castle?” asked the maid. There wasn’t any castle that she could think of near where they lived. In fact, they were the biggest farm around.

“Yes! The Castle at Four Corners!”

“Uh…you mean the Inn at Four Corners?” The Inn at Four Corners, so named for being at a four-way intersection of two of major roads leading to various different parts of the vast farmlands around the White City, was a pretty big and famous building where many a farming dood went to brag about their farmstuffs and get drunk. It was hardly a castle though.

“Yes haha! The castle! To the castle I say!”

“Alright then Mr. Keyhotty, alright. Will you be going alone?” She couldn’t fathom why he suddenly wanted to visit the Inn, but at least it would get his lazy dood butt out of the house.

“Hmmm…good question…don’t really want to walk all the way there…aha!” Keyhotty ran out of the room.

The old dood maid stood there for a minute trying to digest that strange conversation. Then she shrugged and turned her attention to digesting her breakfast instead.

_________

It was a fine mid-morning when Keyhotty Lamancha, Dood Lord of Hickleberry Manor, flew off towards the Inn at Four Corners. He cut quite a sight, clad in rusty armor that he had dug up from who knew where, a sword at his belt, purple riding cloak flashing in the sunlight, atop his noble…sdood.

In point of fact, no self-respecting horse would ever belittle itself so much as to carry a dood around. So instead Keyhotty appeared to be riding…another dood? A heretofore unknown species of dood-horse hybrid? Those farmers marveling at Keyhotty and his sdood couldn’t figure it out, that’s for sure.

They arrived at the Inn just around lunchtime. Four Corners was a famous old inn, built ramshackle below one of the shining EDEN towers scattered around the farmlands. And it was packed: many doods working out in the fields nearby preferred to come to the inn to grab a bite to eat instead of packing something of their own. As such there was a fair old crowd when Keyhotty dramatically shoved open the door and shouted powerfully: “Your majesty!”

Everyone turned to look at him. Keyhotty smiled at them and raised a gloved hand. “Countrydoods, fear not! I have come looking for the king! Please, continue eating.”

“Eh?” said old farmer Mcdoodle, giving word to the confused feelings of many a dood in the inn’s spacious dining room.

“Uh, Mr. Keyhotty sir,” said a serving dood, coming up to him nervously. “There ain’t no king here.”

Keyhotty blinked. “Is this not the Castle at Four Corners?”

“It’s the Inn at Four Corners.”

“That’s what I said! Now bring me the king!”

“Um…what if I just brought you lunch instead?”

“Well…fine, I’ll eat first. Then the king!”

So Keyhotty sat down with the other farmer doods and ate a hearty lunch consisting of bam sandwich with plenty of gravy, cheesy chips, a side of mushy peas, and some hickleberry juice to wash it all down. But as soon as he was done, he jumped up again. “Where’s the king?!” The other farmer doods were getting disgruntled at this point. They were trying to enjoy their lunch break, after all.

The innkeeper, a portly dood by the name of Jasper, came over to Keyhotty to see if he couldn’t calm down the situation. “Hullo Keyhotty! You don’t usually come here for lunch. What’s all this then?”

Keyhotty, upon seeing Jasper, immediately dropped down on one knee. “Your majesty!”

“Uh,” said Jasper. “Key, it’s me. Jas. We went to school together.”

“Your majesty, I need you to knight me,” said Keyhotty, completely ignoring what Jas was saying. “Knight me in the name of Her Holiest Holyness Cosmos, so that I can go out there and save the princess.”

“The princess?”

“The Lady Doodcinea, of course! Oh how hot she is!” Keyhotty sighed in admiration.

“Huh,” said Jasper. Try as he might, he couldn’t think of any doodette who had been romantically involved with Keyhotty anytime recently. But he was beginning to think that Keyhotty was drunk. So he went along with it. “Ok, so you want to be…knighted?”

“Yeah, your majesty!”

“Ok then…” said Jasper, looking around. He grabbed a fork off a nearby table and touched it to both sides of Keyhotty’s head. “I knight you in the name of…uhh…breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And Cosmos. Go out there and…save the princess! Just don’t hurt yourself.”

“YEEESSS!” shouted Keyhotty, letting out a roar of such triumph that the other doods all jumped in their seats. He drew his sword and held it aloft. “Let it be known that Keyhotty is now SIR Keyhotty! HAHAHA!”

“Alright alright,” said old farmer McDoodle. “That’s enough of all this Key. Go home, will ya? You’re disturbin’ our lunch break.”

“Well well! Is this a challenge then?” said Keyhotty, turning on his heel and slashing his sword back and forth in the air devilishly.

“Now now, come on Key-” said Jasper, trying to calm everyone down. Then Keyhotty turned suddenly and, unfortunately, accidentally slashed Jasper’s apron. He didn’t actually hurt him, thankfully. But this attack — accidental or no — was the final straw for the put-upon farmers. As a group they surrounded Keyhotty, who found his newly knighted self grabbed by the scruff of the neck and unceremoniously tossed out of the inn.

He landed hard in the muddy front yard outside, near where his sdood was waiting.

“Neigh,” said the sdood consolingly.

“Ow,” said Keyhotty.

“Oi,” said a voice.

Keyhotty looked up painfully from the dirt. He saw a youthful farmer dood staring at him, but not without pity. “Need some help there pal?”

“Well…yeah.”

The farmer dood gave him a hand up. “Name’s Sando. I help on one of the farms nearby. Aren’t you Keyhotty Lamancha?”

“I am Sir Keyhotty.”

“Right…sure, Sir Keyhotty, we’ll go with that. Well, that’s a big farm you got up there. Need any help on it? The farm I’m on now…it kind of sucks. Too much work, not enough food, if you catch my meaning! Hehe!”

“Well,” said Keyhotty, his eyes suddenly narrowing as a lightbulb went on above his head. “I’ll tell you what, young Sando. Squire me on my adventures, and Hickleberry Manor will be yours. I’ll give it to you.”

“Woah!” said Sando. He couldn’t quite believe his luck. He didn’t know what squire-ing was, but how hard could it be? He put out a hand. “That’s very generous of you, Mr. Keyhotty sir! You got yourself a squire!”

“Excellent,” said Keyhotty, smiling gleefully.

“Neigh,” said the sdood.

________

Sando would think long and hard about his choice that fateful day. Over the coming weeks they roved around the farmlands. “Going to save the princess” or “having an adventure” was all that Keyhotty would say to him when he asked where they were going and why. When would it end?

He could only imagine.

To keep himself going, he had had a little picture drawn for him of Hickleberry Manor, and whenever they were camped out for the night and Keyhotty and the sdood were snoring away, Sando would pull out this little picture and imagine how good he would have it once he was lord.

Until then, he was nothing but a squire. And what that meant, he had found out, was basically being a servant to Keyhotty, with duties including getting them food (or cooking, if there weren’t any places to eat around), brushing down sdood (he was convinced sdood was actually a dood…), reading one of Keyhotty’s adventure books at night, cleaning all their clothes, carrying anything they bought, and announcing Keyhotty’s arrival whenever they got to a farmer’s market or a small village.

It was exhausting. More than once Sando thought: “Balls to this, I’m going back to my old gig. This sucks!” But then Keyhotty would open up a fresh jar of hickleberry jam and buy him a bam sandwich, or a pasty, or a cake, and say “wait until you’re in charge, Sando m’dood, and all this money and food will be yours.” And they would feast and Sando would forget about everything.

And so it was that it was getting on for sunset in the late afternoon of another day of adventuring. Sando was just starting to look around for a place near the road where they could camp out when suddenly he heard a gasp from Keyhotty. “Well I never!”

“You never what, sir?” asked Sando tiredly.

Keyhotty quickly pushed the squire down into the grass beside the road, and then lay down next to him. Sando spluttered out dirt. “What’s all this about?”

“SHHHHH! Look…!” whispered Keyhotty, pointing to the horizon.

Sando squinted. Against the burnt orange sunset, it was hard to make out much of anything. But he could kind of make out a large lump. Tall thing. A big house maybe? Except part of it was fizzing with magical energy.

“A giant!” whispered Keyhotty triumphantly. “Sando my dood, we’ve found our adventure at last! This evil giant is the one who captured my darling Doodcinea! We’ve got to defeat it! In the name of Cosmos! For my princess, Doodcinea! And for breakfast, lunch, and dinner!”

What happened next was so fast that even Sando was impressed. Keyhotty leapt on the back of his sdood, which reared strikingly in front of the sunset: “Neigh!” said the sdood with such emotion that Sando could have sworn that he was saying “Charge!”

And charge they did! Waving his sword, Keyhotty and the sdood barrelled forth across the intervening pasture and started battling the offending giant. The giant, however, seemed unphased: its magic continued unabated, crackling and sparking off mana into the sunset. Sando cheered on his master from the safety of his grassy retreat, while munching on some snacks to keep his cheering energy up.

The Battle of the Giants continued unabated for at least 10 minutes. But Sando could see that Keyhotty was tiring. And now the sun had almost completely disappeared and he wasn’t blinded, he could also see that the giant was…not actually a giant. He gasped. Sir Keyhotty was in fact clanging his sword against…an EDEN. The large magical tower, instrument of Cosmos’ will, loomed divine and unknowable in the rising moon and starlight.

Keyhotty hadn’t noticed yet, caught in the heat of battle as he was. So Sando sat there awkwardly, hoping his boss would notice himself and he wouldn’t have to awkwardly be the bearer of…reality. But Keyhotty didn’t seem to be slowing down. He hacked, he slashed, jumped and pirouetted away from the EDENs static magic. It was impressive! In a dood fighting inanimate object sort of way.

But now it looked like he was on the point of collapse, so Sando sighed and stood up. “Sir!” he shouted. “Sir Keyhotty!”

Keyhotty paused for a moment and looked back at his squire. “What Sando? Can’t you see I’m in the middle of battle?!”

“Sir…um…look at the giant again…sir.”

Keyhotty looked at the “giant”. He stood there quietly for a moment, then sheathed his sword. He patted the EDEN experimentally. “Hmm…yes of course.” Then he laughed. Sando was baffled. “Sir, are you ok?”

“Why of course I am Sando! We won the battle!”

“Against the EDEN, sir?”

“Why, this is obviously a magic spell gone wrong! The giant was planning a ritual at sunset to cast a spell to turn all the doods into mindless slaves. But our brave assault threw off its spell, and instead Her Holy Highness Cosmos saw the danger from on high and turned it into an EDEN! The fool! Hahaha!

“Neigh,” said the sdood comically.

Sando stood there not knowing what to believe.

Keyhotty continued unperturbed: “But I don’t see Doodcinea here, Sando. They must have magicked her away before we had a chance to get ‘er. Quick then! We must continue our noble quest. For the princess!”

______

The next few days they spent traveling fast, not only in pursuit of the princess, but also because it turned out that attacking an EDEN was very much against the rules of the High Goddess Cosmos, who had sent out a detachment of Cosmodoods from on high to investigate. Finally, after they had put some distance between themselves and the searching Cosmodoods, they arrived at an inn, aptly named “The Dolk’s Buttocks.”

Dolks are a species of domesticated animal common across the godiverse, and a primary source of meat for the meat-loving doods. They are large, herbivorous, placid creatures that are even dumber than doods — hence being one of the few species that the doods can actually domesticate.

Into this fine establishment trotted Keyhotty and Sando. Both being tired from the last few days fleeing, they had a fairly quiet lunch, and so could listen to some of the local doody gossip:

“Yum, the sandwiches here really are good, gotta get the recipe from the boss-”

“You heard about those two crazy doods running around? I heard they-”

“War beyond the Veil is none of our business, I tell ya. That’s god’s stuff, not dood’s.”

“My cousin, he went to the festival in the City, and he saw it, this mad dood actually punched-”

“My dolks have run away! Cunning beasts they are-”

Hearing this last complaint, Keyhotty’s ears perked up. Sando looked at him over a mouthful of sandwich. “Please no,” he said around a mouthful of food. But Keyhotty’s eyes were aflame. “A side quest!” he said. Then he got up to talk to the dood with the missing dolks.

“Hello there good dood! Missing dolks, is it? Beasts gone rogue?”

“Hi! Um, yes. Who are you then?”

“Why I am Sir Keyhotty, bold dood knight!”

“Oh! You aren’t that mad dood going around fighting EDENs, are ya?”

“No no not at all,” laughed Keyhotty awkwardly. “Anyway, might there be a reward for undertaking this side quest?”

“Eh? What side quest?”

“To get your dolks back.”

“Oh that! Hmm…reward…I got this old treasure lying around at home…I can give it to you.”

“A legendary gift for my lady Doodcinea! Good enough!” shouted Keyhotty and stuck out his hand. The farmer dood shook it, the deal struck.

“Come, Sando! We go questing!”

Sando sighed. At least it was a real job this time.

_________

After roaming around the surrounding area for a few hours, they found the missing herd of dolk munching on some wild grass not too far from where the farmer’s field was. Sando rubbed his hands together, already thinking about what he would spend his part of the loot on.

“Well, this should be easy enough. For once.,” he said jovially to Keyhotty.

Keyhotty gave him a condescending grin. “Oh really, squire?”

“Yeah really,” said Sando, his mood spoiling fast. “Why not?”

“Ever tried to move a dolk when it’s eating?”

“…no.”

“Well then,” said Keyhotty, still wearing a shit-eating grin. “Go for it.”

“Alright then, fine,” said Sando with a certain amount of doody stubbornness.

“Come here little dolk, here we go!” he said comfortingly to one of the large beasts. It ignored him completely. “Come on baby, off we go! Time to go home! More food over there!”

Nothing.

“Alright, if that’s how you want to play it…” Sando stepped behind one of the creatures and started to push on its furry butt. But the creature was quite a bit bigger than him, and wouldn’t budge. In a fit of sudden frustrated rage, he kicked it with all his might. He ended up stubbing his toe.

He danced in front of it. He blew in one of its ears. He even tried to get close to its mouth, but the creature just sort of shuffled itself to the side, almost knocking him flat in the process. All in all, Sando did not have much success. To top it off, a sudden rainstorm appeared above the field of dolk and downpoured on Sando, who was left drenched and spluttering. Such occurrences with the weather were not uncommon in the Axis Mundi, where any god might take a moment to adjust the landscape with a timely miracle.

Bedraggled and grumpy as sin, Sando returned to Keyhotty, who looked immensely pleased with himself for being proven right. The sdood gave him a consoling gaze. “Neigh,” it said.

“Oh shut up,” said Sando petulantly.

“Now now squire, no need to attack poor sdood here,” said Keyhotty snidely.

“Alright alright, you were right! I admit it!” said Sando, throwing up his arms in the air. “Now can you do anything about this or not?”

“Certainly!” said Keyhotty. “Observe a knight in action, squire.”

Sando crossed his arms and watched. “You might want to stand back,” said Keyhotty. Sando stood his ground. Keyhotty shrugged. Then he drew his sword. “Wait-” said Sando, “What are you doing-”

Before he could finish, Keyhotty let out a tremendous “YAAAAAAAAA!” and charged towards the dolks. The poor creatures were totally spooked, and as a group started loping away from the crazy sdood-riding dood. Keyhotty, not missing a beat, zipped round the other side of them and began driving them down towards the farmer’s enclosure. Sando watched, mouth agape, until he realized the herd was bearing down towards him.

“Yikes!” he shouted as he dove out of the way of the beasts as they went careening past.

“Ahahaha!” he heard Keyhotty guffaw as the knight followed hot on their heels, banging his sword against his armor and generally making an uproar.

The dolks were home in no time, and as a reward they were given something called the “Batterdolk Helmet.” It had certainly seen better days. Sando wasn’t sure if it hadn’t been used as a chamber pot for a period of time. But Keyhotty was thrilled with it.

“Quest complete, Sando!” he shouted joyfully. “Now on, to further adventures! Let us find the Lady Doodcinea!”

________

A few days later they were trudging along with a young doodling girl who Keyhotty had insisted on “rescuing.” Apparently he thought she might be Doodcinea’s younger sister. As it turns out, she was not, just a young doodling out berry picking. But now that they had traveled some distance, she couldn’t take them back to her home, because she couldn’t recognize her surroundings. So now she was crying up a storm as Sando did his best to placate her.

“WAAAAAAA!”

“Look, here’s a little toy that we bought for you and-”

“I WANT MY MUMMY AND DADDY-”

“Yes, yes, we know, don’t worry-”

“I WANT TO GO HOME AND EAT DINNER-”

“Yup, we’re on it, never fear-”

“WAAAAAAAA!”

Sando sighed. He looked at Keyhotty, who was scanning the horizon. It was getting dark again. Suddenly the knight pointed. “Over there, Sando! Is that another giant I see?”

Sando really hoped not, he did not want to deal with another EDEN fiasco. “Sir, maybe we should focus on getting this girl home first-”

“Sando! Giant?”

Sando grit his teeth and squinted at where Keyhotty was pointing. But this time — it really did look like a giant! It was a giant humanoid shape, and it was definitely walking. It was around the edge of the farmlands over to the north, to the front and left of where they were standing on a grassy hill. The shape seemed to be walking away from them. Around it, mana sparkled greenly luminescent in the air like a cloud of fireflies. “It- it is a giant! A magic giant!”

“Quickly then Sando! To battle!” Keyhotty was already charging off.

“Sir! Come back!” Sando couldn’t keep up with the knight charging on his sdood when he had this girl to look after, and he couldn’t just abandon her. He was left caught in the middle, and it was extremely frustrating. It was as if he could see Hickleberry Manor fading off into the distance, just out of reach.

“ARGH!” he shouted. “GOD HELP ME!”

The shape in the distance stopped. Then it turned towards where Sando was standing. Sando gasped. He could feel the giant’s eyes right on him. It started walking towards him. It kept getting bigger and bigger in his vision until it towered above him.

It was a bulky figure wearing a loose white robe, sashed with a golden rope belt. The giant’s hair was golden cornrow braids hanging down in neat rows, and its eyes: they were like nothing he had ever seen, a murky amber that bespoke of the childlike wonder of seeing something grow out of the ground for the first time. The face was clean shaven, and not unfriendly. He couldn’t tell if it was a god or a goddess but he was pretty sure that the giant was one of the two. Next to him, the doodling had stopped wailing. The heady smell of magic filled the air and lit up the surrounding hillside. And wherever the mana touched, a flower bloomed.

“You need help, do you, little dood?” The voice boomed out.

Sando stood there, not at all sure of what to say or do. Luckily he didn’t need to do or say anything, because it was at this moment that Keyhotty came charging back up the hill. Both he and the sdood were panting for breath. “Good god!” Keyhotty shouted, staring upwards. “It’s a god!”

“Wow!” said the sdood. Sando did a double take. Had the sdood just said something other than neigh? But the sdood had returned its face to a placid horselike expression.

The god was unperturbed by Keyhotty’s arrival. “Who has need of me?” it asked.

Sando shook himself. “I do! We do! This doodling is lost and wants to go home!”

The god’s vast amber eyes focused on the tiny doodling, who sniffed. “So be it. I shall take her home.” One enormous hand picked up the doodling, who squeaked in response. But as she was taken up into the air, Sando could see she was fine. In fact, she was being cradled with surprising tenderness. The god’s eyes began to turn back in the direction they had come. Sando thought the god was close to leaving. Who was this, anyway?

“WAIT!” shouted Keyhotty. “I know you! God of Food, Horty!”

The god flinched and turned its eyes to Keyhotty. It did not look amused. “God of Agriculture and Farming,” it emphasized.

“Indeed! Great god, I am Sir Keyhotty, knighted in the name of Her Holiest Holyness Cosmos! I want you to take me with you on your adventures! I have been battling around these farmlands on a quest to save the Princess Doodcinea. I would be a big help to you in your godly duties, I am sure!”

“Hmmm…,” mused the god. It swept its gaze over the surrounding farmlands and a faraway look mantled its dirt-lined face. “I see…you have been busy. But now is the time to rest, dood knight. The Axis Mundi is at peace. Princess Doodcinea…is not here. Time to go home.”

Keyhotty’s crestfallen face was a picture of despair. “But…” then he smiled up at the god. “Another test, is it? To test my adventuring resolve?? Have no fear! I will always be ready to adventure, no matter where or when! I will save the Lady Doodcinea!” He drew his sword and laughed proudly to underline his self-confidence.

The God of Agriculture looked down on him silently. And to Keyhotty’s credit, in the amber light of its eyes, his confidence never wavered. And the god Horticult, known to the doods as Horty, realized that Keyhotty would, in fact, never stop adventuring given half the chance. It sighed. Then it spoke:

“Dood Knight, I offer you this gift, then. If you really want to go on a real adventure, I can help you. You will be sent beyond the Veil. You will fight the enemies of Cosmos. You may never come back…it will be dangerous. You will leave this life behind. But you will have a chance to find your Doodcinea. Is that what you want?”

Keyhotty didn’t hesitate: “With all my heart.”

The god nodded. “So be it.”

Horticult picked up Keyhotty and the sdood, who were clinging to each other. And with a careful motion, flicked them into the air. They rose, and then — to Sando’s watching horror — began to plummet to the ground, screaming all the while. But before they met the earth, the god’s foot caught them and sent them rocketing into space, yelling off into the distance.

“Wow!” said Sando.

“Yes,” agreed Horticult. “It has been awhile since I did a Punting. I hope it didn’t hurt too much. But they should land somewhere safe. I think.” The god turned to Sando. “And what is your part in this tale?”

“I’m just a dood with a dream,” said Sando. “Say, if he’s not coming back anytime soon…he promised he would give me Hickleberry Manor: that’s his farm, see, and…well, maybe I could look after it while he’s gone?”

The god thought, then lowered down a hand and picked up Sando, who suddenly had a bird’s eye view of all the farmlands they had been traveling the last few weeks. And over in the distance, in the light of the moon and stars, was Hickleberry Manor.

“Time to go home,” the god said.

“Yay!” said the doodling.

Sando smiled. Then he looked up at the night sky. As soon as he got to the manor, he was going to make himself a big celebratory dinner. A shooting star flew by…or was it Keyhotty off towards his new adventure?

He hoped his boss found the adventure he was searching for out there…

Beyond the Veil.

END

And that does it for this one! What did you think? Would you add the Knight to your motley crew of doods when he arrives in the game? Tell us what you think! @ us on Twitter and chat with us on Discord. You have opinions and we wanna hear ‘em!

And as always, thanks for reading, godlings. We’ll see you next time.

About Apeiron

Apeiron is the world’s first NFT-based play-and-earn godgame. Apeiron will feature a unique card-based action-adventure combat system combined with god game simulation gameplay inspired by classic god games like Populous and Black & White. Players will be able to build up planets from above before descending to the ground as a powerful Avatar to solve the mysteries of the universe. Players will grow their planet to the point of developmental stagnation, then reset the planetary cycle via an Armageddon event to allow for even more advancement and thrilling late-game alliance level GvE and GvG activities. Apeiron will use a tri-token architecture, which means that there will be three separate tokens to navigate their ecosystem: a governance token, a play-to-earn token, and a premium alliance token.

Visit Apeiron’s Website | Official Marketplace | OpenSea | Youtube | Discord | Twitter

Hey everyone! Before we begin a quick reminder that there’s only 5 days left on our Season 1 Speedrun Leaderboard! You still have time to engrave your name in Godiverse history! Now, to prepare your mindset for the epic grind to come, we have a short story to share with you, the first of several exploring some of the backgrounds of Apostles not yet present in the demo…but who you can certainly expect to see in the future! There’s also some information about doody life in the Axis Mundi — the Center of Creation — and some of the many gods and doods who make it their home. Lots of details for lore nerds :]

So let’s go explore the godiverse right…wait for it……..now!

________

Nob woke up and looked out the window.

Sunday morning.

He smiled.

It had been a busy week. He was a builder in the city and they had been preparing for a festival, which meant a lot of work for him. He’d hardly had time for snacks between meals! But that all changed today. It was time for a break.

He had the whole day planned out. First he would have a nice big greasy breakfast. Then after that he would sit with some tea and biscuits by his little window and read his book until lunch. After lunch, he would take a nap, waking up in time for afternoon tea and more reading. Dinner would follow, then desserts. The previous day he had bought a small (well, small-ish) cake on the way home from work which would serve as a perfect dessert for him and his wife, Flanny. Then he would simply read until he fell asleep.

It had to be said that he was particularly looking forward to reading his book today. He was currently just near the climax of Vance Dood’s Doodimus the Ninth, a series famed for its inclusion of a free sandwich once you proved you finished reading the book. Doodimus was one of the most popular of dood heroes — an ingredient hunter — one of those bold doods who went out of their way to find new things for dood society to eat and add to existing recipes, an adventurer and culinarian par excellence. Nob couldn’t wait to find out what happened next in Doodimus’ latest adventure of daring-do (and he wanted to get that free sandwich, too)!

He sighed contentedly as he lived through his perfect day in his mind, snuggling back down under his covers for 5 more minutes. Or 10. Or 20! Who cared? It was his day off after all.

It was at that exact moment that, unfortunately for Nob, events began to transpire such that his day would not go quite as he planned out. In point of fact, this would be his last day in the White City of the Axis Mundi and the start of his own adventure, though he was not to know it then. Alas, poor Nob! Ah well. He’s hanging in there. But back to the story…

“Nooooooob!” shouted Flanny, his wife, from somewhere in their small house.

He sighed and squinched his eyes shut tighter. Maybe she would stop shouting if he didn’t respond…

“Noooooooooooob!” she shouted again.

He sighed. “Whaaaaaaaaaat?” he shouted back.

“Are you awake?”

“No!”

“Well can you get up?”

“Why?”

“Just come down here please!”

He put his pillow over his head and sighed into it. Then, grumbling ferociously, he lurched out of bed and over to the door, where he donned his slightly-too-small dressing gown and marginally-too-large slippers and went downstairs.

There was Flanny, smiling prettily at him. His heart sank. She only smiled like that when she felt guilty about something. And he had a feeling this was somehow going to affect his plans for a perfect day.

“Morning!” she chirped.

“Morning,” he gruffed. “What’s up?”

“Umm…remember how you told me to prepare the food yesterday? The burgers and bacon and stuff?”

“Yes?”

“Well, the meeting of the DUCT ran late yesterday…and I got hungry so…” Flanny sighed. The DUCT — the Doods United for Cleanliness and Tidiness — was a special counsel that worked under the supervision of Sparkle and Joy, Twin Gods of Cleanliness and Tidiness in the Axis Mundi. Among the gods living in and above the White City, the Twins frequently came round to make sure everything was clean and tidy, and the DUCT was a key part of their cleanup efforts. It was an important group, and Nob was very proud of his wife for being a member. But they did get busy…

“You…ate…everything?” he asked, slightly baffled.

“Sorry!” apologized Flanny. “I got hungry. Been so busy with preparing for the festival tonight.”

“Wait, it’s today? I had totally forgotten…”

“Yeah and actually I gotta run. So, uh, you gotta get your own food today Nob.”

“Oh um…ok. No problem.”

“Righty ho. Love you! Byee!” She gave him a quick peck on the cheek and with that was off.

Nob stood there for a minute and then sighed again. Still, there was nothing for it. Sulking wasn’t going to put food in his belly. Well, he thought, maybe if he hurried to the market he could get back in time to have the afternoon to himself, at least, before he needed to go to the festival. He would cook some simple fried noodlies for lunch and read as he ate.

Yes, everything was going to work out just fine.

______

Flanny hadn’t been kidding when she said it was busy. The cobblestone streets of the White City were positively packed with doods. Nob felt like a pebble being bounced around on a riverbed as he made his way through the crowd — and he was a big dood to begin with. In such fashion he made his way slowly to the markets, picking up here and there on the local chatter as he went.

The talk of the town was the festival, the so-called Festival of Purity, which the DUCT was holding to celebrate a recent clean-up and tidying effort in light of all the preparations that had been going on. The gossip was that it wasn’t just the DUCT members who would be giving speeches tonight, but that the Twins themselves would be descending from the parties of the Empyrean Palace to give the City doods their personal blessings.

It wasn’t every day that a dood got to see a god around these parts. The White City, where the doods lived, was located some distance below the Empyrean Palace which floated high in the clouds. It was a huge city: the biggest dood city in the godiverse. It was also ancient — the foundations haven been laid out by High Goddess Cosmos herself. The city was square in shape, with streets running smoothly in straight lines north-south and east-west. Districts were built around temple squares dedicated to various of the Axis Mundi gods, and market streets where the doods conducted their business.

It was to one such market street that Nob strolled now. He lived in the Twins’ District, suitably so, since Flanny was one of the Twins’ chief worshippers. His district was particularly well-maintained — you could have eaten off of the streets, they were polished so clean (and some doods did) — and the buildings were shining white. He was proud of his district, even though it took some extra effort to keep it that way. The Twins usually were pretty good at rewarding their followers with extra snacks to make up for it.

In a relatively quiet corner of the busy market street, where doods had strung up colorful awnings to provide some relief from the perpetually sunny white city (with the Twin’s permission and oversight), was a small shop “Ribrib’s Meat.” Nob had known Ribrib for many years and had always been impressed by the dood’s selection. But when he got there, the meat display case was almost cleared out. Ribrib gave him a sad wave of greeting.

“‘Hullo Nob”

“Hullo Rib. Not so much meat today?”

The butcher sighed. “Not so much meat any day, Nob.”

“Eh? How come?”

Rib shrugged. “War.”

“Oh. Yeah.” Nob really didn’t know much about it. It wasn’t Axis Mundi business.

“I used to get supply from all over,” moaned Ribrib. “So much yummy meats. Not anymore.”

“What’s going on out there anyway?”

Rib’s eyes flew from side to side nervously. “Best not to talk about it,” he whispered. Then he resumed, more normally. “Well, what do you want anyway? We haven’t got much, but we’ve got enough for you, I reckon.”

Nob picked up a hunk of Dolt meat for his fried noodlies and then went on his way. He quickly got the rest of what he needed and then started to make his way home. His heart was heavy as he walked back. And it was making him annoyed. This was supposed to be his day off! He shouldn’t be shopping and thinking about whatever was going on out there — he should be relaxing! It was enough to make him-

But no. He took a deep breath and thought about his book, and the adventures of Doodimus. Soon. Soon everything would be alright. Nice lunch, chill afternoon, festival. That sounded alright, didn’t it?

________

After another battle of pushing through the busy streets, he was on the road home. Finally he arrived at the door to his little home. All the doods of the White City lived in small, square houses with a big, open area on the first floor (living room and kitchen) and a small upper floor for sleeping and a toilet. They were cozy above all else, and right now Nob just wanted to curl up in his bed, eat, and read.

“Oi, Nob!”

He looked up. There was Trub and Kolt, standing at his door, looking bashful. Trub and Kolt were two of his builder dood colleagues, and they only came to find him if they needed help with something at work. But today was Sunday! What could it possibly-

“Sorry Nob, we need ya. There’s been an accident over in the market. Some dood claimed another dood took his doodburger (you know how that goes) and a fight broke out and they knocked over the awnings and now it’s a big mess down there.”

“And it’s the festival…” said Kolt. “We would say just leave it ’til tomorrow but what with them gods coming down, well, you know how they like it…and besides that, you’re the strongest dood in the city…”

They looked at him beseechingly. Nob could feel a rising fury welling in his chest. He hadn’t eaten breakfast (ridiculous) and now he was going to have to skip lunch too!? And on his day off? The whole day was going from bad to even badder. “Right then,” he huffed.

“So you’ll come?” Trub asked hopefully.

“Yeah. Lemme just drop off these shopping bags.”

“Great! Thanks boss! You’re the best! We’ll see you down there.”

The two doods trotted off briskly. Nob stood for a moment, his shopping bags of food on the ground by either arm, and put his forehead on his houses’ cool door. He closed his eyes. Just a little more, he told himself. Just fix up the market as quick as a flash and then come back for a bite to eat and a clean up, then off to the festival to find Flanny. Simple as that. The festival probably wouldn’t go on that long. He could home and rest and read at long last.

But in truth, he was starting to doubt the assurances he was telling himself.

And he was starting to get (h)angry.

_________

By the time they were finished cleaning up, the sun was about to set, transforming the White City into magnificent gold. Above in the sky, the Empyrean City gleamed in the fading light, defiant. It was time for the festival. Over in the Twins’ Temple Square, they could hear the communal drums begin to bang out a rhythmic beat.

Trub sighed as he looked towards the square where the festival was beginning to kick into gear. “We’ll never make it, not in the state we’re in. Too dirty, too messy. Best everyone heads home and clean up and make your prayers to the Twins later for forgiveness for not showing up.”

There were some sighs from the group, but no one disagreed. The Twins were very picky about appearances. There was simply nothing for it.

Nob straightened up the last awning pole with a THUNK. “I’m going.”

Trub grimaced. “Nob, I know Flanny will want to see you there with her being DUCT and all, but come on, you’re a total mess right now. If the Twins see you-“

“I. Am. GOING,” rumbled Nob, his voice a stone that heralded an avalanche.

Silence. Trub waved to the others to leave. “Good luck then, Nob,” he said grimly. “May the Twins forgive you.”

And with that, the other doods left. Nob was alone in the market. He kicked the air petulantly. “I clean up the market so the Twins don’t get annoyed, and they get annoyed that I’m messy? It’s not fair, not fair at all,” he grumbled. “And on my day off, too…ugh.”

He started to make his way towards Temple Square. There was a small part of him that warned him that this was definitely the wrong idea. I mean, he was likely to embarrass Flanny as much as anything. But he was, quite frankly, pretty peed off. Everything had gone wrong today. And he had decided that this was one thing that was going to go according to plan.

________

Twin Temple Square was packed, but unlike most dood gatherings, it was very organized. Doods sat on neat rows of benches before a large stage that had been set up in front of the Twins’ Temple of Two Towers. There was a cordoned off standing area behind the benches where doods without seats could stand and watch. The edges of the square were kept carefully empty so as to allow easy concourse out of the square, and these were being patrolled by DUCT members.

When Nob arrived, poking his head around the corner into the empty space at the edges, he immediately spotted Flanny. She was center stage wearing her DUCT member’s sash and just finishing a small speech welcoming the Twins. Flanking her on either side were the very tall and large forms of the Twins themselves.

Even though it wasn’t his first time seeing a god, his jaw still dropped. It was always impressive. They dwarfed the stage, easily looking out over the square and beyond the tops of the surrounding dood homes out into the city. Yet their sheer size in no way diminished their heavenly beauty: the Goddess of Cleanliness Sparkle wore a flashing smile that dimmed the surrounding lights, her black hair silkily falling around her slender shoulders, a lovely contrast to the white purity of her shining dress. Next to her, God of Tidiness Joy grinned warmly as he observed the proceedings with his piercing brown eyes, hair tidily coiffed, his cream-colored robes arranged just exactly so, offering a perfect pair with his twin divine.

“-and so with that being said, let’s give a warm doody welcome and all praise to our Twin Gods, Sparkle and Joy!” Flanny finished her speech with aplomb. The dood audience broke out into measured clapping, with just the right amount of cheering. Sparkle raised one of her pristine hands and waved forward, beginning her own speech.

“Welcome, all, to our festival of purity-” Sparkle’s voice, like other gods’, had a quality that made it resonant, pervasive and powerful.

While the doods in the crowd pretended to be interested, Nob saw his chance. If he could just sneak round the edge and find a little corner…so he surreptitiously began to make his way forward. Unfortunately, a couple of factors were working against him. First, he was — as his co-workers mentioned — quite a big dood. This made sneaking around a bit of a challenge given his girth. And second, DUCT members had been specifically instructed to allow no loitering of a surreptitious nature around the edge of the square.

“Oi! Nob! What are you doing??”

He had been spotted. It was a DUCT member. He knew the dood: Bluffins. “Heyo Bluffins. Just a bit late…”

“You’re an absolute mess Nob! Get outta here before the Twins notice, quick!” Bluffins hissed at him and motioned him towards the exits of the square.

“Look, Bluff, I just want to hang out round the edge here, no one needs to know-”

“Can’t allow it Nob, Twin’s orders. ‘Not a Dood out of line, no exceptions.’ You have to go!”

“Make me,” Nob answered matter of factly, crossing his arms in front of his chest. Bluffins paled. He looked at Nob’s thick muscles and huge fists and started to imagine what would happen if he was punched. He quickly shut down that line of thought.

“Look, Nob, I don’t know what to tell you. If you stay, they’re going to-”

“You there!”

Bluffins and Nob turned from their argument to find that the entire audience was staring at them, and up on stage, Sparkle, God of Cleanliness, was waving at them. There was a smile on her face but her eyes were as hard as polished tile. Nob couldn’t help but notice Flanny on the back of the stage. Her face was a picture of terror.

Bluffins immediately prostrated himself on the ground. “Oh great goddess Sparkle, please forgive our interruption-”

Nob looked at the goddess. And you know what? He wasn’t about to fall down on his knees. No sir, not today. He was dirty because he’d been cleaning up others’ messes: for them! For this bloody festival! So he stood there with his arms crossed and said: “Sorry.”

The Cleanest Goddess’ nose twitched slightly. “You don’t seem sorry.”

Nob shrugged. There were stifled gasps from the audience.

Joy, the Lord of Tidy and Neat, moved in to fix up this messy situation: “Young dood…Nob, is it?” His piercing eyes saw all. “Nob, yes. A builder? You have come to this festival — a mess. That in itself is a disgrace to the very reason we’re holding this ceremony. Now you interrupt my dear sister’s speech with your petty arguments. What do you have to say for yourself?”

“Well now that you mention it-” Nob decided to go all in. Hey, if you’re going to argue with a god, might as well make the most of it. “Today was supposed to be my day off. I was going to read my book. Well, I spent the morning shopping because someone ate all the food. I spent the afternoon cleaning up another dood’s mess. And I came here this evening because I wanted at least one thing to work out. And I’m sorry it hasn’t. But I’m not sorry I came.”

Silence.

Joy resumed, unmoved: “Sister, what think you?”

Sparkle sniffed daintily. “Excuses, brother. Classic dood excuses.”

Joy smiled. “Then we are of one mind.”

She nodded.

And suddenly Joy was striding forth. In one swift step he was over the crowd and towering above Nob. “Nob Dood, you will come with me and do a penance as my personal servant for the next fortnight, and let this be a lesson to all doods, that our mercy is such that despite this interruption, we use this opportunity to teach you-”

Even as he was talking, Joy reached down with a huge hand to grab Nob and hoist him aloft. And that was it. He wasn’t going to stand for being picked up and thrown about. Not today. Not now.

He saw red.

And he slapped aside Joy’s hand as it reached down, and dodged out of the way.

The whole audience gasped, at least one dood screamed, and Flanny, who had been more than put upon by this whole state of affairs, took this moment to faint.

For the slightest of moments, Joy, the Immaculate Supreme, was thrown off by this act of rebellion. A curl from his perfectly coiffed hair slipped down onto his forehead.

But in the next moment, the Sovereign of Spick and Span had righted himself and his errant curl. And now his sister Sparkle came beside him, and with speed that no dood could match grabbed Nob from behind. He didn’t even see it coming. And now he was helpless.

But Nob was caught in fury’s grip as much as Sparkle’s, and didn’t stop waving himself about, trying to find purchase to land another punch. “Put me down and let’s have a fair fight then! Come on! I ain’t afraid of no god!”

“Such rage…” mused Sparkle.

“…could be of use in the war against Chaos…” continued Joy.

“…but not here,” Sparkle finished.

She tossed him up like a ball, then, as he plummeted to the ground, she pulled back her leg and kicked him — right out into space. You see, doods have a special quality. When punted in this fashion by a god, they don’t explode. Rather, they get bounced right into space. Eventually they fall back down onto another planet. Eventually.

So off he went, yelling in pain (his buttcheeks were sore as hell) and fear (at first) and then — when he realized it would be awhile until he fell back anywhere — he closed his eyes and sighed, spinning through the void, off onto some other world, on an adventure not of his own choosing.

Goodbye, Axis Mundi, he thought. Goodbye Flanny. Sorry for the trouble.

He hoped he would be able to find a copy of his book (and a sandwich), out there, somewhere…

In the godiverse.

TO BE CONTINUED…

That’s the end of this one! What did you think? Did you enjoy this little tragicomic tale from the White City? Got any theories about the roles Nob, Sparkle, Joy, or any of the others might have in the future? Let us know! Join us on our Discord, where we talk about all things Apeiron related, all the time. Also follow our Twitter. Just ‘cause.

And as always, thanks for reading, godling. We’ll see you next time.

About Apeiron

Apeiron is the world’s first NFT-based Godgame. Apeiron will feature a unique card-based action-adventure combat system combined with god game simulation gameplay inspired by classic god games like Populous and Black & White. Players will be able to build up planets from above before descending to the ground as a powerful Avatar to solve the mysteries of the universe. Players will grow their planet to the point of developmental stagnation, then reset the planetary cycle via an Armageddon event to allow for even more advancement and thrilling late-game alliance level GvE and GvG activities. Apeiron will use a tri-token architecture, which means that there will be three separate tokens to navigate their ecosystem: a governance token, a play-to-earn token, and a premium alliance token.

Visit Apeiron’s Website | Official Marketplace | OpenSea | Youtube | Discord | Twitter

Season’s greetings doods!

In today’s blog post, we proudly present part 2 of The Godiverse Holidays. In this story, the miserly Ebegeezer Dood quests across the godiverse in a bid to rediscover his lost doodiness and to understand the meaning of Doodmas — and he better hurry, because if he doesn’t, he could lose his very sanity and transform into a ravenous bood.

Some announcements: Playas gonna Breed breeding event begins tomorrow! Breed your Planets and win awesome prizes — including, for the first time ever, Astronomicals to enhance your Star NFTs! Also — Christmas is coming and we’re going to have A TON of Christmas events going on soon with lots of surprises in store! Come over to our Discord and share in the holiday cheer with your fellow doods.

Now then, let’s do a quick reminder of where we left off. In Part 1 (which you can read HERE), we are introduced to Ebegeezer before being whisked away by the spirit of Corncob across the godiverse. Ebegeezer visits the Village of Candles and reflects on his relationship with his sister Franny, walks the Road of Inns and remembers his lost love Bonnie, before being finally assaulted by a pack of blood-crazed babari-doods.

We rejoin our (anti?)hero as he reappears in a new place in the godiverse, having only just escaped from being torn apart by the skin of his teeth. But time is running out…

________

Ebegeezer Dood woke up — but not in reality.

He was still in spirit form. And he was alive. Well, as alive as anyone could be whose spirit had left their body and flown across the godiverse. He picked himself up off the dirt, brushed himself off, and looked around.

He was standing in a forest glade. Soft morning light filtered through the leaves above to create a patchwork mosaic on the loam-covered ground. It was peaceful, a far-cry from the bloody castle they had run from. But he was alone. Corncob, his dearly departed friend, had departed again — or been left behind. Had he escaped the bloody dood barbarians? There was no way of knowing. Without Corncob to take him around the godiverse, would he be doomed to wander the godiverse as a spirit for all eternity? Oh dear.

Still, there was no use in just standing around miserably. And Ebegeezer Dood was nothing if not practical. So he chose a direction and started walking. Being a spirit, he passed right through the dense forest underbrush without any discomfort. He was free to admire the natural world around him. It was…pleasant. Small birds flitted amongst the branches singing to one another. A light breeze rustled the leaves. He hadn’t taken many walks like this in a long time. Too busy. Always too busy.

The forest quickly began to thin out. He found himself in a quite striking landscape: it was relatively flat, but with tall mountains punching upwards sheer from the ground. They stood like tower guardians overlooking the rivers and farmland, for he could begin to see signs of doodilization. Following a robust stream flowing out of the forest was a small dirt path that gradually widened and became more packed. There were rice paddies to either side, and farmhouses at some distance — more and more as he got closer to what he assumed was a small town, nestled in a protected valley surrounded by those impressive towering mountains.

Doods started to pass him on the path, but thankfully remained blissfully unaware of his presence. Many of them were carrying red banners and boxes full of fireworks. They appeared to be preparing for something or other. A celebration or holiday, no doubt, just like the other places. Ebegeezer ignored them…at first. But he had nothing else to do, and curiosity got the best of him. So when a father, mother, and daughter dood passed close by and veered off towards a pleasant little cottage, he followed them.

They were greeted at the door by a pair of older doods — he guessed grandparents. There was a bit of a hullabaloo as the girl’s grandmother made a fuss over her and insisted she take some sort of red envelope. Then the girl pulled out a red envelope and handed it to her grandma, which then caused a whole new spate of fussing over whether to take it or not. Eventually both the girl and her grandma pocketed the red envelopes. Ebegeezer wondered what was in them.

Then they started decorating. The family worked together — under the grandfather’s pointed directions — to stick the red banners all over the outside of the house. It was certainly striking if nothing else: he had to give them that. The red banners had some words on them, but he couldn’t quite make them out. They taped the banners all around the doors and windows, and then retreated inside. He tried to follow, but found he couldn’t pass through the walls. Something was keeping him out.

Rebuffed, he decided to move on and explore the other houses. He discovered much the same: red banners pasted on walls near doors and windows, and however much he pushed, he couldn’t force his way in. So he decided to walk through the town instead.

The town was busy with doods buying boxes of fireworks and food. It was a lively atmosphere in the central market in particular, where vendors lined up on the streetsides and crowed out the deals on offer. Ebegeezer floated through it all untouched and unharried. But he had a strange sentiment building inside of him: he wished he could be a part of it, this beautiful flow of doody life. The energy was infectious. He thought about lighting fireworks of his own, perhaps with Corncob or Franny. It would be fun.

As the day wore on the crowds thinned out. Having nothing to do and nowhere to go, he decided to return to that first house he had visited to see if anything had changed. By the time he got back there it was already dark outside. He peered in at the windows. My oh my how the table was set with a veritable feast of tasty treats: roast jungle bird with gravy, an enormous poached snowfish covered in chilis, thick slabs of a crispy fried glutinous cake, a bubbling cauldron of traditional “hairy” soup, and — off to one side — a multi-tiered butter’n’egg sugarcake.

His mouth was watering. When was the last time he had had a meal like that? At some point he had stopped caring about food so much. It was just another expense. He had stopped living to eat, and started to eat to live. But now he felt hungry: and not just for any old snack. He wanted this.

But of course, he couldn’t have it. Feeling sorry for himself, he parked himself on a grassy knoll outside the house and sat there for a good long while and thought about his life, his choices. He had been confident in them before. He wasn’t so sure now.

Time passed. He thought everyone would be sleeping, but suddenly the family reappeared holding their fireworks excitedly. And then one firework went up into the sky in a brilliant blaze of light. And then another. And another! And then the ground was alive with sound as families all over town set off noisemakers and cracklers. The dark world was illuminated by colorful exploding lights, and even the towering mountains got in on the fun, echoing and re-trumpeting the noisy celebrations. It was overwhelming, incredible.

“EBE! THERE YOU ARE!”

“What?” Ebe turned and saw Corncob’s ghost dashing towards him.

His old friend reached him and quickly nabbed him up in a spirited hug. “Oh good gracious! I thought I had lost you. When I did the transfer we got separated. I’ve been looking all over for you. Are you alright?”

“Yes…yes. I’m fine. But…how much time has passed? Shouldn’t it already be daytime back home? I’ve missed my window. I’m dead. Or a bood. Or something. I don’t know,” he said despairingly. Only now, that he had lost everything, did he long for a second chance.

But Corncob was shaking his head resolutely. “Time is a funny thing, when you’re traveling as a spirit. We’ve still got a little bit left before we need to go back! And actually, we’ve got just one last place I wanted us to visit. But we’ve got to hurry. Come on!”

He held out his hand. Ebe took it without hesitation, and in the flash of a firework, they were gone.

_________

They reappeared on top of a hill overlooking a valley. It was nighttime again, wherever they were. And through the valley ran a river of light, cutting through the darkness of night, a twisting and incandescent serpent.

“Wow!” said Ebe. “Would you look at that.”

“Let’s get a bit closer, shall we?” said Corncob with a smile.

They started down the hill towards the bottom of the valley and the river. Snatches of song were carried across the open air towards them as they walked.

Corncob turned to him as they were strolling: “So how was your trip to the last town?”

“The place with the red banners and fireworks?” He thought for a second. “It was strange.”

“Oh? How so?”

“There were some things I couldn’t understand. What were those red envelopes they were passing around?”

“Oh! Those were money.”

“They were giving each other money?”

“Yeah!”

“Huh,” thought Ebe. Then he nodded. “Sensible. Money’s always useful. I’d love to be given some money.”

“That’s the idea!”

“What about the red banners on the walls?”

“To prevent spirits and ghosts from coming knocking. It’s also supposed to scare boods away, but I’m not sure it works in that capacity.”

“Ah, fair enough. And the fireworks, did those represent anything?”

Corncob shrugged. “Fireworks are awesome.”

Ebe chuckled. “That’s true. I love fireworks.”

Corncob looked at him oddly. “Ebe, did anything happen while you were there? You seem…different.”

“Hmm…I know what you mean, but I can’t quite explain it. It’s like when you take a long rest and then you wake up and stretch. That stretch: it feels so good. And you look forward to the day ahead. Then you splash your face with water and you’re really awake, ready for anything. That’s kind of what it felt like.”

“It felt like you woke up?”

“Yeah. A little bit.”

Corncob did a little leap and punched the air happily. “That’s what I like to hear, Ebe! You’re remembering what it’s like to be a dood.”

He smiled at his old friend’s jubilance. “Maybe I am at that.”

They lapsed into amicable silence as they perambulated towards the river of light. As they got closer, Ebe could make out a crowd of doods by the riverside. Parent doods were chatting as doodlings ran about happily, stuffing their mouths with colorful sweets. There were some bonfires set up, around which there was music and dancing. He also noticed some riverside shrines — and below these were hundreds of candles. Looking out over the river, he realized that the river of light was also covered with candles — candles that had been delicately perched on small, flat cups and then set out onto the water.

The atmosphere was breathtaking. “What celebration is this?” he whispered reverently to Corncob.

“The Festival of Light,” said Corncob. “I would say more, but I don’t want to spoil the surprise.”

“What do you mean? What surprise?”

Corncob winked. “You’ll see.”

So they waited. The party carried on, and Ebe’s mind wandered. He worried, to some extent. But he was less worried if he would become a bood now. Instead, he was worried about his future — and not just the future of his business, but of his life. Could he repair the damage done to his relationships? So many bridges burned…was there any chance left he could find forgiveness? He wasn’t sure. But damned if he wasn’t going to try.

He was brought back from his reverie by the sound of hushed silence. He blinked and looked around. There was the river of light and its celebrants. But now they were quiet, whispering to each other excitedly, holding hands, and looking up at the crest of the valley. He looked as well. And gasped.

There, looking out over the edge of the valley, was a god. Or goddess…did gods have genders? He wasn’t sure. Whatever! It was divine, and it was huge. Looming over the side of the valley, the god turned its gigantic head to observe the doods below it. Ebe stared up, slack-jawed, into eyes the size of moons.

Spontaneous cheering erupted from the doods in the valley. The god raised a massive hand in greeting. And then it slowly tilted it’s head upwards, to the sky. Around its body, an aura of light began to build and build and build until it was blinding. Ebe covered his eyes with everyone else — then, with a bone-rattling THROOM sound, the god was gone. Above, a sparkling shooting star could be spotted streaking across the night sky.

The doods in the valley clapped and cheered in rapturous excitement. Ebe was still shell-shocked by the whole experience. Beside him, he heard Corncob snort: “Hmph. Show off.”

“Show off?”

“That god. He didn’t really need to do all that. He could show up anytime he wants and help out. But this is a ritual here on this planet. He only turns up once on this night and it’s a whole song and dance.”

“Well, it’s a pretty spectacular song and dance! He just rocketed into space! And he was huge!”

“Yes, well. Like I said, very dramatic. Once you’ve met some other gods, you’ll see what I mean. Still, the doods here enjoy the spectacle of it. Did you?”

Ebe sighed contentedly as he thought about the dramatic scene he had just witnessed. “It was magical. Really magical.”

“Do you think you learned anything? Or do you feel more doody?”

He nodded. “Yeah. I think…I think before I was almost too hungry. I wanted everything so much that everything was never enough. But now I realize- now I get it. The doody spirit isn’t about just being hungry,” he grinned, “it’s about enjoying life for what it is. Having fun and relaxing! There’s a whole godiverse of things to see and eat…might as well make the most of it.”

Corncob gave him a big hug. When he pulled back, Ebe could see ethereal tears running down his ghostly friend’s round cheeks. “I knew you could do it,” said Corncob proudly. “You were always my best friend when we were alive, even when you started to get distant. I’m proud of you, Ebe.”

Then his friend took a step back and clapped his hands together. Suddenly Ebe was falling through a portal of space and time once more, with Corncob standing over him at the edge of the portal. Not following. He reached out a hand to his old friend. “Wait! Corncob!”

Corncob waved. “I can’t come back with you now, Ebe. It’s time to wake up. I’ll see you soon.” He winked. “Though not too soon, I hope. Bye’e!”

And with that, the portal closed, and he disappeared.

________

Ebe(sometimes geezer) Dood woke up with a start, sitting straight up in bed. Everything in his mostly empty chambers looked just the way he had left it, except the fire he had set in the hearth the previous night had guttered out sometime during the night, and now the sun was shining brightly through the window. He got up and looked outside. It was snowing. And it was Doodmas Day! Oh gosh, he had so much to do.

He quickly put on his hat and coat and rushed downstairs, but then remembered: it was only just Doodmas morning, and he still had time yet. So he grabbed his moneybags and went to the nearest tavern for breakfast and had the biggest meal he had had for a long, long time: scrambled turducken eggs with cheesy mashed browns, several strips of salty, streaky strimmer bacon, a pile of steaming saucy goobers, all washed down with a mug of frothy maplebeer.

As he cleaned up his plate, he noticed that the waitress was watching him nervously with wide eyes. Normally he would come in, order the cheapest thing, and then eat and leave as quickly as possible. So this was…different. He beckoned to her. She came closer, her face resigned to being scolded for some perceived slight or scorned for her lack of wealth.

But instead he took her hand and pressed a small pile of coins in it. She gasped. He smiled at her. “I’m sorry for how I treated you before. Merry Doodmas!”

‘Well I never! I couldn’t possibly take this, Mr. Ebegeezer sir!”

He laughed. “You can and you will. It’s Doodmas, after all. And from now on, just call me Ebe. See you!”

And with that, he was off, the waitress ready to faint out of shock, but secretly basking in the joy of this sudden windfall — she’d be able to pay off her debts with this, and actually start to do all the things she had dreamed of off the back of this little nest egg…

Ebe left her and her dreams behind as he went crunching through the snow down the main street of the town. There were various doods moving about here and there, on their ways to visit family and friends. He smiled and waved to all of them and wished each dood a very Merry Doodmas. No one could quite believe it. And when he ran into a doodling and gave him a gift-coin for the holidays, the whole street began to become alive with chatter. What had happened to old man Ebegeezer? Charity? Love of holidays? Unheard of! It was a Doodmas Miracle, they said. A Doodmas Miracle.

Ebe was having a ball of a time, but there were still butterflies in his stomach as he knocked on the door of his secretary, Critchens. When Critchens opened the door he looked as if the Doodmas spirit had been sapped out of him. He had big bags under his eyes and was only half-dressed. Utter exhaustion mixed with terrible despair as he saw who it was: “Oh…Mr. Ebegeezer sir…I wasn’t expecting you-”

“Critchens,” Ebe cut him off. “Here.” A small crowd had gathered behind him to see what the fuss was about. A murmur went up as they saw him drop a literal sack of money into Critchens’ hands. Critchens looked inside the money sack and then looked at his boss. Astonished didn’t even begin to describe what he was feeling. Total amazement might have come close. “Mr. Ebegeezer…this…this is enough to get the medicine I need for Timmy. And it looks like it might be enough for me to buy a new helmet as well! I can get back to adventuring with this!”

Ebe took a deep breath. “You came to this town destitute,” he said, “And I know I haven’t treated you the way I should have. I guess I took advantage of your situation, and I’m sorry for that. But I’m trying to turn a new leaf. And I hope that this money helps. It’s not a loan. It’s a gift. I hope you can accept it. Are your sons ok?”

Critchens nodded. An uncontrollable smile was starting to creep across his face. “They will be now! Timmy! Tommy! Come downstairs, quick now boys! Come say thank you to Mr. Ebegeezer!”

“No need for thanks,” protested Ebe, already donning his hat and moving away. “Merry Doodmas, Critchens. If I don’t see you again, I hope you find everything you’ve lost and more.”

“Merry Doodmas, Mr. Ebegeezer!” Critchens waved goodbye, now practically jumping up and down with joy and excitement.

Right then! Ebe felt good about how the day had gone so far, but he almost wanted to run back home instead of going to his next destination. Still, he had come this far. He couldn’t give up now. He had to be brave. So off he marched through the streets once more — and as he went he found himself crowded upon by what must have been every doodling in town, who must have heard (or whose parents must have heard) about Ebegeezer Dood’s unexpected charity and come hoping for a Doodmas gift-coin themselves.

Ebe made sure that every single doodling got a coin of their own and left happy and thankful. Buoyed by the high spirits of the giddy doodlings, he swiftly reached the home of his sister Franny. He stood for a moment outside the door, fidgeting and fiddling with his hat, the snow falling chilly now. Would he be a burden, coming to them now when they weren’t expecting him? Oh it had been so long since they had last talked, let alone since he had visited…

But the noise of the children playing around him meant that he didn’t even need to knock. His sister opened the door to check on the commotion and saw him standing there awkwardly in the snowy street. For a time, they just stared at one another. Then she came up and embraced him. “Merry Doodmas, Ebe,” she said with all the kindness and warmth in the whole wide world. “I’ve missed you, big brother.”

“Merry Doodmas Franny,” he returned shyly. “I missed you too.”

“Well what are you waiting for? We’re almost ready for lunch. Come in, come in!”

And so they went in.

And so it was that Ebe Dood rediscovered his doody spirit and learned the meaning of Doodmas — and indeed, the meaning of all of the wonderful holidays spread across the godiverse.

END

________

We hope you enjoyed this holiday story, and — from everyone here at Foonie Magus — we wish you all a very Merry Doodmas and Happy Holidays! And remember, if you’re feeling alone and looking for some doody cheer, look no further than our social media (Twitter, Telegram) — especially our Discord, where you’ll always find some doods to chat with.

Much love y’all. See you next year ❤

About Apeiron

Apeiron is the world’s first NFT-based play-and-earn godgame. Apeiron will feature a unique card-based action-adventure combat system combined with god game simulation gameplay inspired by classic god games like Populous and Black & White. Players will be able to build up planets from above before descending to the ground as a powerful Avatar to solve the mysteries of the universe. Players will grow their planet to the point of developmental stagnation, then reset the planetary cycle via an Armageddon event to allow for even more advancement and thrilling late-game alliance level GvE and GvG activities. Apeiron will use a tri-token architecture, which means that there will be three separate tokens to navigate their ecosystem: a governance token, a play-to-earn token, and a premium alliance token.

Visit Apeiron’s Website | Official Marketplace | OpenSea | Youtube | Discord | Twitter

Hey everyone! ’Tis the season to be jolly — and doody! Such being the case, for today’s blog post we have the first of a two part holiday special — An Apeiron Story: the Godiverse Holidays.

Join us as we meet the grumpy Ebegeezer Dood and accompany him on a magical journey across the godiverse to see the many ways in which doods party it up and to discover the meaning of why we celebrate as one year turns to another~

So gather round once more! Storytime :]

_________

In a small cozy town nestled away in a peaceful secluded corner of the godiverse lived a singularly grumpy dood who answered to the name of Ebegeezer Dood, or Ebe to his friends, of which there were few enough that you could count them on one — well, in fact you couldn’t count any of them, not anymore. Not, at least, since Ebegeezer’s long-time business partner Corncob had passed away.

Still, it was of no concern to Ebegeezer. Who needs friends when you have money? There was little doubt that he was the richest dood in town, a fact of which he was uncontrollably proud, to the point that he would walk around the streets “accidentally” dropping his valuables only to swiftly retrieve them with a sneering look on his face, scolding the poor doods around him to watch their manners and keep their dirty hands off of his things.

And so, it could not be said he was loved by the other doodfolk living in the town. And indeed, they did their best to avoid him. “Old Ebegeezer’s here — run for it!” “Oh it’s that Ebegeezer again. What’s he malding about now?” “Don’t make eye contact, he’ll smack you with his wallet!” There was not a single dood who had anything good to say about him at all — not to the most infinitesimal degree. Awfully enough, if he had simply gone up in a puff of smoke, no one would have missed him in the slightest.

Yet it is not to say that Ebegeezer was entirely cut off from the community. He had a sister named Franny, who had a cheerful doodling son. In fact, even now the young doodling — who went by the name of Frood — was coming to visit his miserly and miserable uncle.

It was Doodmas, you see, and Doodmas only comes once a year. It is a time to spend with loved ones. And Franny, looking out the kitchen window as she prepared the food, thought of her lonely brother — especially the memory of him, as he had once been — and so resolved to send her son to go invite him to their Doodmas dinner. She entertained little hope that the invitation would be accepted. But she was a good dood at heart, and wanted at least to try.

Ebegeezer was currently ensconced in his offices, counting his money for the umpteenth time that day while keeping a beady eye on his clerk in the front rooms. He hardly trusted the dood at all: a vagabond and a scoundrel, he thought. The dood went by the name of Critchens and had only recently arrived in town — with two little doodling sons in tow. Begging for a chance to make some money, and knowing little of Ebegeezer’s sour reputation — he had signed on with the company in the hopes of providing for his doodlings and to recover his financial situation. The labor itself was easy enough — if somewhat dull — but the constant scorn of Ebegeezer was a tough cross for any dood to bear. Even now the clerk was sadly filing unimportant papers just to avoid his boss’ grating ire.

The jingling of the doorbell arrested both of their attentions. Frood gave a happy wave and joyful grin. “Hiya Uncle! Hiya Mr. Critchens! Whatcha doin’ here? It’s Doodmas Eve! Shouldn’t you be home celebratin’?”

“Well-” began Critchens, only to be interrupted by Ebegeezer: “He’ll work until I say he’s free to go, or he can quit — it’s up to him.” Critchens sighed. Frood shrugged. “Whatever you say, uncle. Anyways! Me mum sent me over. She wants to invite you over for dinner. She’s cooking a big ol’ roast jungle bird! Whaddaya say, uncle? It’ll be yummy!”

“Hmph!” said Ebegeezer. “I’m sure that there are enough hungry mouths that I would hardly get any bite of roast bird — maybe just a bone. No! Not interested.”

Frood sighed. “Well alright then, uncle, if that’s what you want. I’m off then. Merry Doodmas to you both!”

The young doodling wasted no time in leaving the dreary chambers. Critchens turned to look at Ebegeezer, his eyes wide with hope. “It is getting late, Mr. Dood, sir, if you please. My sons, one of them is sick, and it would be great if I could get home a bit earlier to take care of him…”

“Harrumph!” said Ebegeezer. “Go then! That everyone should have the day off for Doodmas is robbing from my coffers but so be it. I’ll expect you to be here early the day after the holidays to compensate for the time I am graciously giving you now.”

“Oh thank you, sir! Bless you!” Critchens grabbed his wooly hat — it was getting chilly outside — and ran out the door, leaving Ebegeezer well and truly alone.

“Bah Gumbug! Who needs other doods?” said Ebegeezer loudly to himself. He spent what was left of the afternoon counting and carefully secreting away his money. Then he ate some cold leftovers before retiring to his bedroom, which was right above his offices. He set a fire in his hearth to give the room a bit of light and warmth, then climbed into bed. It was early in the evening still, but he just wanted the holidays to be over sooner rather than later. So he stubbornly shut his eyes and let sleep overcome him.

“Ebe…” A voice the dark.

“Ebe….” Go away! I’m trying to sleep.

“EBE!” He startled awake and looked around his room. It was late at night. The fire in the hearth had gone out. But there was a dim blue-ish light emanating from the form of a dood — who was none other than the dearly departed Corncob, his old business partner and only friend!

“Corncob!” said Ebegeezer in shock. “You- aren’t you- dead?”

Corncob nodded sadly. “I am afraid so, Ebe. But it’s Doodmas Eve, and so the Spirit Realm is aligned for a short time with the physical plane.”

“Eh?”

“Uh…I can visit you. But only for a short time. And only as a ghost.”

“Oh! Well, Corncob, it is good to see you. You were always the only one to understand me.”

“I miss you too, old friend. But I have not come here on a social call. I have come to warn you. You are in grave danger.”

“Danger! How do you mean? Does someone mean to rob me? Or perhaps kill me and rob me? Oh I knew I should never have trusted any of them!”

“It’s not them, Ebe. It’s you.”

“Eh? I’m going to rob…myself?”

“No. You see, Ebe, your grumpiness has reached levels where your very doodhood is in danger. If you continue to be so grumpy all the time, you’ll transform into a bood.”

“A bood? Those monsters our mothers used to scare us with stories of when we were kids? Boods aren’t real!”

“Oh but they are, Ebe, they are. Creatures of chaos. Ravening monsters who have lost their minds.”

Ebegeezer gasped. “But why would I become one?”

“You’re losing your doody spirit, Ebe. Look at that orb floating next to your body.”

Ebegeezer turned around. It was then he realized that he wasn’t sitting up — he was floating! His spirit had left his body. And next to his sleeping body, he could see a small orb he had never noticed before — except it’s light was wavering.

“Ebe,” said Corncob. “I’ve come to help you. We must rediscover your doodiness, your doody spirit. We must find it, Ebe, to save your life.”

“Oh Corncob,” said Ebegeezer morosely. “How are we supposed to do that? I feel nothing, not anymore. Nothing but disgust for those beneath me.”

“Take my hand, Ebe. We’re going to go on a journey tonight. A magical journey across the godiverse. We’re going to collect all the good vibes we can, and we’re going to save you.”

“Is this the only way?” asked Ebegeezer. “And how can we do that? We have no god to help us travel the godiverse!”

“Well,” said Corncob with a wink. “It’s Doodmas Eve. We get to break the rules a bit tonight. Are you ready?”

Ebegeezer looked down at his body, at his fading light. He sighed. It looked like it was going to be a long night after all.

He just hoped he could get back to his money soon. “Let’s go!”

_______

After a paradoxically long and short time traveling through the interminable and endlessly dark void of space, they arrived on a distant planet. They stood on a hilltop outside a small village. A wavering light shone from the windows of the humble brick houses.

Ebegeezer looked around. The countryside above which they were stand-floating appeared as if it had all been burnt to a crisp. The very grass — what was left of it — crumbled under their ghostly weight. And even though it was nighttime here — wherever in the godiverse here happened to be — he could make out, through his spirit eyeballs — the ruins of older structures: what once might have been proud farmhouses.

“What happened here?” he asked disinterestedly. It was of no matter to him, what had happened to whoever once had lived here. But he was curious nevertheless.

“Chaos,” said Corncob matter-of-factly. “An army of boods came here and ravaged the land. Eight days, they fought back. They had no god to defend them here. But Chaos is…chaotic. There’s no rhyme or reason for their actions. One day, the boods simply…left.”

“Hmm…” said Ebegeezer, looking again at the ruined landscape. Would he become the type of creature which would engage in such wanton desecration? Didn’t seem like there was much money in this business.

“Come,” said Corncob into the silence. “Let’s go walk the streets.”

They went down into the village. It was a quiet evening, and late; no dood was walking around to see two ghostly spirits perambulating through the public square. As they passed one house after another, Ebegeezer began to realize where the wavering light was coming from.

“Candles,” he said wonderingly. “Every house has candles in its window. Why?”

“It’s a tradition in these parts,” explained Corncob. “To light candles to remember what happened when Chaos attacked. To remember what they lost. And to remember that the lives they have today have been hard won. Eight of them — one for each day that they fought back against the boods.”

Ebegeezer looked up at the candles in one of the windows. He saw a dood mama standing at the window with a doodling son. She picked him up and helped him to light one of the candles sitting in the window. Then she had to act fast as he tried to eat the candle.

Suddenly Ebegeezer was thinking about his sister. Franny had always looked out for him; was looking out for him, even now, when he had done his best to isolate himself from the entirety of doodkind. He remembered sneaking into the kitchen as doodlings and Franny lifting him up so he could swipe some cookies from the table. How they had laughed as they ran outside and stuffed cookies in their hungry mouths! For a moment, he smiled at the memory…

And then he found himself back in the present. The mama dood and her doodling were gone, the curtains closed against the ingress of haunting eyes and wayward spirits. He was stand-floating on the cold streets with his dead friend. What had Franny thought when she had gotten his steadfast refusal? He sighed. In truth, he hadn’t spoken to her in some time. They had stopped talking, although he couldn’t for the life of him remember why.

Corncob put a comforting hand on his friend’s shoulders. “I think we’re done here for now, Ebe. Are you ready to move on?”

Ebegeezer nodded. “Yes. Well, I do not know if I have recovered any sort of spirit here. But I did remember something, at least. Something I hadn’t thought of for a long while. Let us be off. I would have done with all of this sooner rather than later.”

_______

Quicker than he realized but longer than he thought, they arrived at their next destination. They were standing on a long and winding dirt road. To either side of the wide thoroughfare, tall trees loomed over them, the forest a dark promise.

Yet the road itself was an avenue of light and hive of activity. There were many travelers on the road, especially for so late at night. And not just any travelers, but joyful ones, all of them cloaked and carrying lanterns, and clearly from all walks of life: there were families of proud dood parents with bouncing doodlings scurrying about in excitement, there were young doods in pairs with hands entwined together in warm affection, laughing groups of rebellious youthful doods, older doods supporting each other as they want along, and doods who had obviously just met on the road but were striking up a new friendship. The whole colorful menagerie of dood life was spread before them as a tapestry on this nighttime winding road.

“Where are we?” asked Ebegeezer.

Corncob smiled. “Let’s walk along and you’ll see.”

“You’re enjoying being the mysterious guiding spirit, aren’t you?”

“One of the few benefits of being dead. Come on!”

So they joined the throng. Ebegeezer wasn’t sure if any of the surrounding doods could see them, or whether, if they could, they realized that a pair of doody ghosts was floating amongst them. But if they did notice, they didn’t seem to care: there was no horror from this crowd. They let the current of doods carry them along until they found themselves deposited outside a cheery and bustling roadside inn.

It was just the sort of place you hear about in the stories: wooden-framed, several stories, sturdily put together by determined hands. The place was full to the rafters — literally: some young doods were perched perilously with legs dangling from the roof, mugs of maplebeer in their hands, singing from the top of their lungs. The windows were streaming with light and the sound of cheering and clapping could be heard emanating from within.

“What are they celebrating here?” asked Ebegeezer. “It’s very noisy. What if someone wanted to sleep?” he added petulantly, crossing his arms in dissatisfaction.

Corncob grinned. “This world has been peaceful for a long time. The doods here say it’s because they were saved from Chaos by a dood who became a god. Or who was a god. Or something like that…”

“A dood who became a god? Preposterous!”

Corncob shrugged. “That’s what they say. In any case, they say before he was born, his parents were traveling. They stayed at inns along this road for 8 days, and then on the ninth day he was born. So the doods here are celebrating his story by traveling along the same road, staying at inns along the way. If they can find a room…” he chuckled. “It can get quite busy, as you can see. So there are also campsites. Or some doods will travel for a while and then go back home. Lots of options!”

“I see…” mumbled Ebegeezer. There was something he was thinking about that he couldn’t quite remember…something on the tip of his tongue. He was looking at the windows of that busy inn and then — yes! It hit him in a flash: Bonnie.

As a young dood, he had met a doodette named Bonnie and the two of them grew very close. Once, he had invited her to go on a trip to a nearby village. He had some business over there — this was when he was still just a clerk in the company, working his way up the ranks — and he thought it would be nice to make a trip of it. They had stayed at an inn not dissimilar from the one he was standing outside now. He remembered sitting next to her at a table by the window, sharing a maplebeer with her and chatting about the future. At the time, he had thought that no other moment could be so perfect as that one.

But of course, things didn’t turn out quite as he expected. He did well on that business deal — such that he was promoted and given more responsibilities. Then he no longer had so much time to spend with Bonnie. They drifted apart. Eventually, she moved away. He didn’t know where she was now — they had fallen out of contact, like most of the doods in his life.

Still, at least he had made a lot of money.

He sighed. “Corncob, can we leave now? I’ve had enough of this place.”

Corncob nodded in respectful silence, sensing his companion’s melancholy. In the blink of an eye, the two doody spirits vanished into thin air.

________

They reappeared on a dark and stormy night…somewhere else. It was raining. The sensation of rain passing through one’s soul — one’s very essence — it was disconcerting. Ebegeezer shivered and looked around. It was hard to make out much through the heavy downpour. The only thing he could make out was that they were standing in front of a very large building: some sort of castle, perhaps. Flickering torchlight spluttered in the rain, sending an uneven light out to grasp at their shadows.

“Oh dear,” said Corncob. His stomach was making a grumbling sound. Ebegeezer began to feel sick: Corncob had a unique sense for trouble — his gut always complained when something terrible was afoot. It had saved them from numerous bad business deals. But now he knew not what it meant. Was their danger here?

“Corncob, where have you taken us?”

“Umm…to be honest, Ebe, I’m not sure. We’ll have to go inside for me to figure out which celebration this is.”

“Is it safe, do you think?”

“Come now, Ebe! What could threaten a pair of insubstantial ghosts such as us?”

He hadn’t the slightest notion. Yet he couldn’t help but note Corncob’s nervous demeanor and the obvious use of foreshadowing.

Still, there was nothing for it. They had to press on. His life was in danger as it was — and for all the misery he felt, he didn’t want to give it up. So up they went to the castle gates and passed right through. Could be useful to be ghostly, occasionally.

They found themselves in a wide entrance hall. Down at the other end of the long hall they could just about make out a large room — the keep of the castle, most likely — with doors thrown wide and doods moving about gaily. The heat from the roaring roasting fires and boisterous shouting and laughter invited them to join. They looked at each other and grinned sheepishly. Not so bad after all! Just another party to attend.

Off they went down the hall and into the castle’s keep. But as soon as they entered, Ebegeezer gasped in shock.

There was blood everywhere. The whole room was coated with it — and the doods as well. Although they seemed pretty relaxed about it: they were chatting amicably, drinking, eating, and some of the doodlings were doing blood angels on the ground.

Bloody meat lay scattered on the floor around sacrificial tables where doods crowded with big ol’ chopping knives. Corncob gasped. “I remember now! The Blood Night.”

“How aptly named,” remarked Ebegeezer drolly.

“It’s an old tradition, this one. And not as bad as it sounds! You see, the god here, he prefers his meat on the rare and bloody side. So when they honor him, they make a sacrifice of only very lightly seared steaks and such.”

“I’m more of a medium-rare guy myself,” said Ebegeezer with an arched eyebrow as one dood passed by drenched red from head to toe.

This dood stopped suddenly as he passed by the two ghosts.

“Hang on,” he said. “Who are you then?”

Corncob and Ebegeezer’s eyes widened in shock. Ebegeezer turned quickly to Corncob and hissed: “They can see us?!”

“It must be all the blood and sacrifice. It brings them closer to the Spirit Realm-”

“Bloody hell!” said one of the other doods in the room, pointing at them. “Them’s ghosts!”

Suddenly all eyes were upon them. A robed dood — a priest, perhaps — standing on a stage at the back of the room let out a wail. “Evil spirits! Friend doods, we must drive them out! They’re here to steal our lightly-cooked meat and good fortune!”

“Oh bother,” said Ebegeezer.

The two of them took off back the way they had come with the angry horde yelling behind them. “Corncob! Get us out of here!”

“I can’t!” puffed Corncob as he was jogging. “Not until we’re out of the castle!”

So they ran as fast as they could, but to be perfectly honest, neither of them was in the best of shape physically — or even spiritually. The bloody crowd was gaining on them.

“Jump for it!” shouted Corncob. They were almost at the exit.

Ebegeezer ran as fast as he ever had in his life. He was almost there…almost…one of the bloody doods was right on his tail. It was now or never. He dove over the threshold, headfirst.

And vanished.

_______

Ooo! I wonder what will happen next? Keep a lookout for when we conclude this exciting holiday tale! And in the meantime, head on over to our Twitter, Telegram, and/or Discord (especially the last one — our Discord is awesome) to discuss everything related to Apeiron and the metaverse.

And as always, thanks for reading, godlings. We’ll see you next time~

About Apeiron

Apeiron is the world’s first NFT-based play-and-earn godgame. Apeiron will feature a unique card-based action-adventure combat system combined with god game simulation gameplay inspired by classic god games like Populous and Black & White. Players will be able to build up planets from above before descending to the ground as a powerful Avatar to solve the mysteries of the universe. Players will grow their planet to the point of developmental stagnation, then reset the planetary cycle via an Armageddon event to allow for even more advancement and thrilling late-game alliance level GvE and GvG activities. Apeiron will use a tri-token architecture, which means that there will be three separate tokens to navigate their ecosystem: a governance token, a play-to-earn token, and a premium alliance token.

Visit Apeiron’s Website | Official Marketplace | OpenSea | Youtube | Discord | Twitter

Hey everyone! Today we’re excited to share with you the epic conclusion to the Dungeon arc of the Apeiron Apostle Adventures. We’ve followed Bobo the Warrior and Rara the Hunter as they were separated from their friends, made new allies, met a new god, and explored a dangerous dungeon. Now comes the ultimate test for our brave doods, one in which they’ll need to put everything on the line — and it still might not be enough. It’s time for a boss fight!

Quick recap: we rejoin our doods on the Dungeon World of Letrina, searching for a way to reach the Spirit Realm and potentially find answers in how to push back Chaos and save the godiverse. The party — led by Gale the Tempest God — has just got a new member in the rescued Mage Apostle Balderdash. Now they are on the precipice of reaching the bottom of the dungeon and the dangers that lurk there…

______

“Oh hey! Welcome! It’s you guys again!”

The Shopkeeper waved cheerily to Gale the God of the Tempest and his party of exhausted Dood Apostles. Ignoring her, the Tempest God moved swiftly to study the runic sigils engraved on the other side of the shopkeeper’s dingy chambers. The Doods, on the other hand, weren’t up for any more moving. They collapsed where they were standing in a clumsy pile.

“You guys uh…hangin’ in there?” She moved up closer to the pile o’ Doods. Out of the pile a doody hand shakily rose like a flag and clenched into a thumbs up before slipping back down.

“Uh…good. Would you um…like to buy anything?”

“You wouldn’t happen to have anything in the line of healing items, would you?” pipped a small voice from somewhere in the middle of the pile.

“Oh! Yeah! We got plenty of those! Comin’ right up! One sec!” The Shopkeeper hustled back to her cart, shouting all the while: “Strudel! STRUDEL! Get the box! The box with the healermathingies! Quickly!”

Strudel the grinning pilfy-cat flew out of his resting backpack and started rummaging around the shop with the Shopkeeper. The two of them managed to rustle up the right box and zipped back to the fallen doods.

“Alright Strudel: 1…2…3! HEAVE!” They tossed the box of healery-ish-potions-and-victuals right on top of the pile, where it crashed with a tinkling of glass and a smashing of ancient wood. There was a blinding flash of light and puff of smoke as the magical ointments, unguents, and beverages combined and interacted with each other chemico-magically. The Shopkeeper and Strudel covered their eyes with their hands.

When the light and smoke began to clear, the Dood Apostles stood boldly in front of them. There was Bobo the Warrior, renowned for his leaping strikes, understated leadership, and insistence on stews. Rara the Hunter stood beside him, bow at the ready, a hungry look in her eyes. And there were Gustipharts the Priest and Large the Guardian, big and small always supporting each other, master and pupil, protector and healer. Marigold the Rogue was picking her nose with her dagger. And there was someone new to the Shopkeeper’s eyes. Although she thought she might recognize him…

“Who’re you then?” she asked, pointing at the mysterious cloaked dood. He carried a big book.

He held up a hand in greeting. “Yo! I’m Balderdash. I’m a mage! I do magic stuff.”

She nodded her head. “Very sensible.”

Bobo hefted his sword. “Thanks for the juice, Shopkeeper. I feel like a new dood.”

Rara was more circumspect. “What’s it going to cost us?”

“Nothing! Nothing. It’s on the house,” the Shopkeeper smiled slyly, then whispered under her breath: “Your firstborn doodlings should suffice as payment hehehe…”

“What was that?”

“Nothing!”

“Ahem!” harrumphed Gustipharts noticeably, deciding that the conversation had gone on long enough without his erudite intervention. “We thank you for your aid, good Shopkeeper. May the four winds of Gale always guide you on your journeys!”

Large rubbed his head and smiled innocently. “Thanks! I feel better.”

The Shopkeeper gave their group a big ol’ thumbs up, then motioned at her cart. “Want to buy anything else before you head down? Not far to go now, oh no my dearies he he he…”

“He he he…” echoed Strudel the pilfy-cat ominously.

Marigold slid forward. “Counter-offer! Would you like to buy this bottle of stew?” She held up a bottle with a thick, vaguely reddish liquid inside. “It heals the soul! The body, mixed results.”

“Hmmm…” the Shopkeeper swiped the bottle from Marigold’s hands, uncorked the stopper, and gave it a perfunctory whiff. “Oh yeah! That’s the good stuff! How many bottles you got?”

“Uhh…” Marigold looked shell-shocked. She checked her bag. “Five bottles.”

“I’ll take ‘em!” She grabbed all the bottles, then yelled: “STRUDEL!” The pilfy-cat immediately jumped into action, flying into the cart and reappearing a moment later with a box marked “Healing Potions (probably).” The Shopkeeper dumped the bottles of Stew in the box with a clatter and slapped her hands happily. Then she took out a small pouch and pulled out five gold coins, which she handed Marigold.

The young rogue looked like she was going to faint. “Oh…my…god. FINALLY. REAL GOLD! WE DID IT EVERYONE! TREASUREEEEEEEEE!” She started dancing around joyfully. Balderdash the Mage, meanwhile, found his moment to come forward.

“Ummm…excuse me, Miss Shopkeeper, I was wondering if you had any magical maguffins for sale?”

Rara looked at Balderdash, cocking her head to one side curiously. “What’s a maguffin?”

“Sounds like a muffin,” said Bobo, licking his lips. He was getting hungry. A blueberry chocolate chip muffin with the works sounded pretty good right now…

“It’s not,” explained Balderdash. “A maguffin is a powerful magical artifact that can instantly solve all of your problems! Well, at least some of your problems. Maybe. Depends on the maguffin…”

“A maguffin you want, eh? STRUDEL! How many maguffins we have left in stock?”

Strudel dove back into the cart and ferreted around for a minute before holding up a paw with a single solitary finger. The Shopkeeper turned back to Balderdash. “Well! Only one maguffin left. You’re a lucky dood. And how do you want to pay for it?”

“Well…” said Balderdash. The other doods were suddenly all very busy and pointedly refused to make eye contact. Marigold especially was nowhere to be seen. The Mage sighed. “I guess I can sell this magical book.” He held it out to the shopkeeper. “When I was imprisoned in the spirit realm I could still read. Must have read it a thousand times at least, I have it all memorized I’m pretty sure…”

The Shopkeeper grabbed the book from him and handed him a wrapped up thingy that seemed spherical from the outline. “Here ya go! Enjoy the maguffin. BUT-” she moved right up to Balderdash, her eye-holes going through a kaleidoscopic range of colors — “DON’T open it until JUST the right moment. And not before!”

Balderdash nodded and carefully accepted the small bundle.

“Well then!” said the Shopkeeper, dusting off her suit. “That’s that then! I think we’re just about done here if I had to lick the ground and get a taste of it. Luckily I wouldn’t do that! HAHA!” She hopped in her cart. “STRUDEL!” she screamed. The pilfy-cat hopped into the cart beside her. “Well, see y’all next time! Good luck down there. The last time I saw the thing at the bottom he was a real chonker. Give him a taste of doody medicine! We’re off!” Strudel waved goodbye.

Then the cart started spinning, as if a powerful whirlpool had opened underneath it. “WEEEEEEEE!” shouted the Shopkeeper as the cart spun around and around and around and then poof! Vanished.

The doods stood in the now empty room. “Well,” said Bobo. “Let’s go.”

_________

Another bood-acious battle, another victory. Rara was hopping around Gale’s feet. “We did it again Gale-sama! And you were really cool! I loved it when you did that move and you went wooosh and then the boods were like ‘oh no!’ and then you just came in and gave them a ka-pow: bam!”

From far above came the sound of Gale laughing gently. He reached down and patted Rara on the head. “Thank you Rara. That is an excellent description.”

Rara squealed in delight. From behind sounded a loud gasp. Bobo turned to look. Gustipharts was so green from envy he could have been a vegetable. Large was doing his best to keep the poor priest afloat. “She…Lord Gale…oh my word…”

Gale was already moving swiftly to the next set of runes. But rather than take the time to analyze them, as he usually did, he simply touched one and disappeared.

“LORD GALE NO WAIT FOR MEEEEE!” Gustipharts was after him like a shot, Rara hot on his heels. “GALE-SAMA IT COULD BE DANGEROUS WAIT FOR ME I’M COMING!” The rest of the doods right behind them. They all touched the same rune that Gale had and tumbled one after another right into — another camping room.

It was sunset in the camping valley, and it was unusually still, as if whoever had woven the magic for this place had finally given up and gone home to bed for the evening. The trees stood as silent sentinels around the edge of the valley. The grass waited with bated breath. Even the water in the trickling stream seemed sluggish.

“Time for a break then?” said Balderdash into the silent air.

Gale was waiting for them at the campsite with Gustipharts and Rara sitting around him. Both Priest and Hunter were silent. Concern and worry were written across their faces, in the case of Gustipharts making him appear noticeably nauseous. Gale motioned to the other doods to approach.

“Well, my dear Dood Apostles. The time has come. The final battle is upon us. There is only one chamber left, and it is the realm of the creature lording over this place, the one sending the waves of boods after us. Whatever monster lurks there, it will be a far tougher foe than any we have yet encountered. Beyond the creature, I believe we will have a chance to win our prize: a chance to enter the Spirit Realm.”

“However…” Gale continued, “I am no longer certain that my magic can protect you. The creature we will face has been infused with Chaos to an extent that it is a challenge even for a god such as myself. Therefore, I am telling you now: hope for the best. But prepare for the worst. I will give you some time to yourselves. Please have a good rest.”

Gale floated to a respectable distance and called up a stirring breezer around himself. He was swiftly obscured in a sandy and grassy haze, which Gustipharts informed the rest of the party that it was Gale’s way of getting (and giving) a little privacy from his intimidatingly impressive divine presence.

And so they sat there, a party of doods at the end of the dungeon. It was a very un-doody atmosphere, to be perfectly honest with you. Everyone was feeling rather depressed at the dark intonations of Gale’s words. They sat there for several minutes, each dood with their own thoughts.

Then Large’s stomach gave off a tremendous rumble. The great guardian looked abashedly at them. “Sorry doods. I’m a bit hungry…”

They laughed. After the laughter died down, an awkward silence threatened to overcome them once more. Luckily this time Marigold was having none of it: “I’m scared, guys. Like actually. I don’t wanna die! I wanna go home to my mum and dad and show them all the gold I found!”

They all nodded in understanding. Gustipharts ahem’d. “Yes, young Marigold. I totally understand. And I agree! I mean, I need to get back to the village. They will be simply lost without my august leadership.”

Large sniffed. “I wanna see my mama. She makes the best chicken nuggets. And gives the best hugs.”

“Awww Large…” Marigold and Rara gave the big Guardian a hug. He sniffed again. “Thanks guys.”

Bobo locked eyes with the mage Balderdash. “Hey Mage.”

“Yeah?”

“Can you use your magic to help me cook a meal we’ll never forget?”

“No.”

“What! I thought you were all magical and stuff.”

“Well yeah…but it doesn’t work like that.”

“Well what can you do then with your fancy magic?”

“Lots of stuff!”

“Like what huh? Huh??”

“NOW SEE HERE! I can tell you right now that there’s a bunch of food buried under the ground right where we’re sitting!”

Bobo shut up. “Wait — really?”

Balderdash looked at him smugly. “Yes! I can sense it. It’s been magically preserved in a magical box and then buried here.”

“By who?”

“Don’t know!”

“Can we dig it up?”

“Yeah I guess.”

Bobo waved at the others. “Doods! Stop moping around! Let’s dig up this magic box of food!”

There’s nothing quite like the promise of a coming meal to spark doods into action. The previously morose party leapt into gear and quickly dug into the ground beneath the campsite. And what do you know! There was a magic box. It had a note on it, too.

“Partied too hard. Had some leftovers. Left for some future doods. Party on! Love ya! Boods please don’t open.” Balderdash read out the note. He shrugged. “It’s not signed.”

Rara smiled. “I might have an idea about who left this. Anyway! Let’s eat!”

The box was full of all sorts of things. There were colorful sweet’n’sour jelly beans, crispy fries dripping in gooey cheese, double-patty bacon cheesy doodburgers with extra bacon, slurp-worthy noodles and mouth-watering meatballs in tomato sauce with a crapton of cheesio to go on top, some succulent sushi rolls stuffed with lakfish, a meat lovers pizza with double the usual meat, a few inviting candy moon-limes, a massive three-tiered iced cake, and several kegs of maplebeer (it was a big box).

“WELL,” said Bobo, his eyes widening. “Isn’t that something!” He felt like he had died and gone to heaven, only — he was pretty sure he hadn’t died (yet anyway). Finally a turn of good luck!

“LET’S EAT!” cheered Rara. They all tucked in with gusto and gumption and ate their worries away. They danced, they laughed, they jumped up and down excitedly. Balderdash performed some magical tricks, conjuring on the palm of his hand a tiny group of doods kicking some boods flat butts. Rara and Gustipharts sat together and talked about how cool Lord Gale-sama was. Large drunkenly picked some marigold flowers — his favorite — for Marigold and gave them to her, and she told him when they got back they could start their own flower selling business. And Bobo sat off to one side, a full keg of maplebeer to himself, and hummed a little tune that he had always liked, from the old days, whenever those had been.

It was a splendid feast under a starless sky, one to remember, for the next day they would face the doom of this mysterious dungeon.

___________

The boss’ chamber was not so different from the other dungeon rooms: a wide plateau with floating crystals around it, suspended amidst an endless void that made the eye dizzy to look at too long. Gale the Spinning Tornado entered fearlessly. The doods followed behind not quite as fearlessly, huddled as they were beneath and behind Gale’s impressive divinity.

And there, across the chamber, was the dungeon boss. Bobo’s eyes widened even as Rara gasped in shock. It was a twin to the creature that had separated them from their friends: a massive purplish behemoth with fur as black as night leering out angrily from under a skull-like mask. It was vaguely the shape of a bood, but one that had been ultra-sized. It had enormous, trunk-like arms rippling with muscles inside of two stony gauntlets, and it also sported a mammoth scorpion tail with a cannon-like mouth on its tip.

“Woah,” said Large, his mouth slack and agape. “That thing’s big.”

“Hmmm…” wondered Gale. “I wonder if it’s size comes with any increase in intellect. Perhaps we can glean some information about Chaos’ plans from it…Creature! I call-”

“AHEM!” said Gustipharts, interrupting Gale. “Pardon me, Lord Gale. Permit me, your loyal servant, to announce you to this foul beast!”

Gale sighed. “Oh go on then.”

“At once, my Lord!” Gustipharts walked forward — very slightly — in front of Gale. Bobo was pretty sure he was quaking in his boots. Still, he didn’t run away. He banged his staff on the ground, once, twice. “CREATURE!” he shouted as loud as he could at the monstrous boss. “Lord Gale demands your reply: are you smart or are you as dumb as you are ugly?” Gustipharts looked up at his god for a response to this witticism. Gale gave him a thumbs up.

But Gustipharts’ good feelings were short-lived, for the boss gave out a tremendous ROAR that knocked the Priest flying off his feet and tumbling back behind Gale. The Wind God swiftly responded, his hands whirling off a protective incantation. “Prepare for battle, my Apostles! This creature is not for talking. We strike now, and we strike hard, and fast!”

Rara leapt bravely forward. “Come on Doods! For Susanoo! For Gale!”

“For Gale!” they all yelled, unsheathing their weapons.

“For the universe!” shouted Bobo last, pulling out his sword.

They charged, full of confidence that the monster was theirs for the taking. Together they would win!

Well.

It was not quite so easy after all.

Even as they were charging forward, the creature snorted and leapt high into the air before plummeting right down amidst all of them, slamming them every which direction. All of a sudden it was total chaos, for in its wake came an army of screaming, slavering boods. It was all Bobo could do to keep himself alive in those first few moments, let alone find out where his friends had gotten too. He sliced one bood with a keen cross-chop before bringing his blade down on the head of another. He bumped into something; turning to face his next foe — he came face-to-face with Large.

The huge Guardian’s shield was being pummelled by a squadron of boods. “Help!” Large yelled. Bobo needed no further invitation: the Warrior charged forward, using his momentum to spin his blade in a massive cleaving arc, cutting down the boods to a…bood. Bobo took a breath to steady himself, then waved to Large. “Let’s go big dood! We gotta get back to the others!” Large nodded and the two set off across the battlefield.

They came across Rara next, slippin’ and slidin’ just out of range of the boods while unleashing arrows every which way. “Where’s Gale??” she yelled when she saw them.

“There!” said Large. He pointed. Over in the near distance they saw Gale clashing with the monster. The beast was using its gauntleted fists and slamming Gale again and again, but Gale was as fast as a hurricane, as nimble as a tempest. The monster howled in frustration. Then it jumped back, fell into a crawling position, steadying itself even as its tail opened. A red light began to build up.

Bobo yelled: “RUN!”

The laser tore across the battlefield, even hitting Gale before he could dodge, and tearing a path through bood and dood alike. Bobo, Rara, and Large leapt out of the way, narrowly avoiding getting hit themselves.

When they looked up through the rubble, they found themselves almost on top of Gustipharts, quivering behind a rock. The Priest was simultaneously thrilled and rather embarrassed to see them. “Oh! Right! Yes! Oh it’s so good to see you — Large especially — those boods had it out for me and I only just-”

“No time!” said Rara.

“Gotta go!” said Bobo.

“Come on!” said Large.

And they set off again, heading over as fast as they could to help Gale.

Balderdash and Marigold were not far from the besieged god, but absolutely surrounded by boods. Bobo and the party waved as they approached. “Hang on!! We’re coming!!” It didn’t look like they’d be able to stand much more — both were wavering. But the approach of the party proved to be a decisive distraction.

Balderdash the Mage seized his moment. He fished in his bag for a second. “Marigold! Duck!” He threw something up into the air and whispered a spell.

There was a flash and then a tremendous BANG followed by a whooshing “poof”. When the dust cleared, Bobo and the party saw that the boods had simply disappeared…along with the maguffin.

“Wowzer!” said Marigold. She blinked a few times. “How did you know it would do that?”

Balderdash laughed awkwardly. “I uh…I didn’t.”

The party was back together, and as one they flew across the plateau towards Gale. Even the God of the True Storm was having a tough time of it now, and the monster was landing blow after blow. “My Apostles!” said the god. “You have come!”

“Let’s GO!” shouted Bobo. “Guys! Gimme a boost!”

He jumped onto Large’s shield, who propelled him into the air — even as he flew, he could see fireballs and arrows and daggers flying with him, his sword glowing with holy light — all of them! — together! — he struck the monster.

The beast fell backwards in shock and pain. Then Gale wove his hands in the air, building up a surge of crackling energy and then firing off a blinding Thunder Ray. The sizzling energy sped through the air and struck the beast true.

The monster howled, such a roar that the doods were dizzied and Gale thrown off balance. A foul light began to glow around it — a reddish and blackish aura that licked around its form like flames. Gale’s voice boomed out to the doods: “It is infused with Chaos! This fight isn’t over yet!”

A general melee erupted. The boods fought with the same dark power as their master, and the doods were hard pressed upon to push them back. In those moments, all hope seemed lost, and it was only Gale’s magic that kept them safe. The Lord of Hurricanes moved with blinding speed, constantly saving one dood then another and another right as they were on the point of losing, even as he fought to keep the giant enraged monster at bay with a salvo of spells.

But the wind alone would not turn them back .

Bobo was on the point of collapse. Was this the end? Ugh. That would suck. He really didn’t want to die when he was getting hungry again. Plus, he had kind of hoped he would save the universe.

As the put-upon group gave ground, the monstrous creature suddenly slammed down its front arms and steeled itself for another firing of its tail cannon. Except this time, Bobo could tell it wasn’t just going to be a straight laser: this was going to be the blast to end all blasts.

Uh oh.

The cannon was glowing — shaking — here it comes! — This is it — Sorry everyone-

The monster unleashed the blast. Bobo prepared for the end: but instead found himself in the shadow of a large figure. Or, to be more precise, he found himself in Large’s shadow.

The courageous Guardian had leapt in front of the group and was shielding all of them — even Gale — from the blast. Bobo quickly glanced around him. They were all here, behind the shield. But the blast was so powerful it had actually obliterated the surrounding boods.

He looked up at Large. The Guardian was struggling to hold it back. In fact it looked like his shield was practically melting away. The big dood grunted and steadied himself. “I….AM…LARGE!!!!!”

The shield broke. Gasps erupted from the group. But Large was still blocking the full force of the energy with his very body. The other doods couldn’t move: for fear or for shock at Large’s incredible display of heroism, Bobo would never be sure.

The blast ended. Large collapsed. “LARGE!” shouted Gustipharts in sorrow and rage. The Priest was by his Guardian’s side in an instant. He was crying as he gently cradled Large’s head. “Oh Large. Oh my dear boy…”

Bobo looked at Large’s unmoving form, and within him kindled a very un-doodlike feeling. He was angry. He was so angry that he wasn’t even hungry anymore. He didn’t want to eat: he wanted to fight. For Large.

It was an electrifying second wind. Before he knew what he was doing he was charging forward, screaming at the top of his lungs. He charged the monster fearlessly, and found that his friends were right there beside him.

But Gale was faster. He cracked into the monster with such force it almost fell backwards, a thunderous blow that split the air itself. The resultant vacuum pulled the doods forward even faster, supercharging their assault. Furiously assailed from all sides, the monster swiped its arms and tail to bat them away, and although they did their best to avoid the blows, it was still a singularly powerful creature, and it was holding on. How long could they keep up this kind of emotional attack?

This was the last gambit for Gale and his Apostles. And it was failing.

“CREATURE!”

Everyone stopped fighting for a moment. Bobo looked back. Gustipharts was standing there with his staff. His whole body was surrounded by a nimbus of white light. “YOU HURT MY FRIEND, YOU MONSTER! AND I WILL HAVE VENGEANCE!” And just as he spoke the last word, he raised his staff. The white light surrounding him rushed out towards the monster and struck it dead on.

“RAAAARRROOOOOOFFFF!” it howled in pain.

“NOW!” shouted Gale. The god fired off another devastating Thunder Ray. Bobo leapt at the monster, Marigold flying in beside him. Balderdash tossed an enormous fireball. Rara lined up the perfect shot.

And so it was that the dungeon’s boss was defeated.

But not without great cost.

__________

The battle was over. They had won.

Gustipharts was back kneeling over Large, the rest of the party and even Gale crowded around them. Large’s eyes were closed. He was breathing, but very shallowly.

“Lord Gale,” began Gustipharts, choking off tears. “Is there anything you can do? My magic…it won’t work on such grievous wounds…”

Gale shook his head sadly. “I’m sorry, my Apostle. I truly am.”

Large coughed weakly, and all eyes turned to the fallen dood. He opened his eyes ever so slightly. He smiled. “You’re all…ok. That’s good.”

He coughed again. Gustipharts held his head. “Don’t speak, child. Save your strength. We need to get you home. You hear me? We’re going home.”

“Ok,” said Large. He looked at Gustipharts. “I need to take a little rest now. Tired. “

“No!” said Gustipharts. “No Large, please, you have to stay awake. Just for a little longer.”

“Large!” Marigold fell to his side. “You promised me we would go and find flowers to sell together. Please, you can’t sleep now! This is a great business opportunity! For both of us.”

“Sorry. So tired.” Large closed his eyes, and his whole body shuddered. Then they opened one last time: “Tell my mama I love her.”

Then he was gone. Marigold and Gustipharts were bawling. Balderdash looked on sadly. Bobo met eyes with Rara. Tears were sparkling in her eyes. She sniffed. He held out his hand to her. She took it. They stood like that for awhile, silently supporting each other.

But not for long. “It is terribly sad,” said Gale, “But we must move. It’s time to get what we came for. To do what we need to do. Come,” he started to move off.

“No!” shouted Gustipharts. The Priest’s face was ravaged by grief. “I’m not leaving him.”

“Neither am I!” said Marigold.

Gale nodded. “Very well. Stay here for now. What about the rest of you?”

Bobo and Rara locked eyes. Rara nodded. Bobo replied: “We’re ready.”

Balderdash sighed. “I will go as well.”

They followed Gale out to the runic markings on the other side of the plateau. Touching them, they were taken to a small, circular room that barely fit Gale. In the middle of the room was a pedestal, and on that pedestal, illuminated by starlight from who knew where, was an ancient book. There was some sort of magical aura glowing around it — a sphere of magical power.

“Incredible,” whispered Gale. “The Tome of the Hierophant.”

Balderdash shivered. “That magical energy is…very strong. Can you break it, Lord Gale?”

Gale smiled. “For once, my Apostle, there is no need. This magic is targeted against the forces of Chaos. I believe we should be fine.”

He reached out a hand and pulled the tome from the pedestal, and began flicking through its pages.

Bobo peered around the room in confusion. “Wasn’t there supposed to be a door to the Spirit Realm here or something? There’s nothing!”

“Hmmm…” muttered Gale. “Very interesting…the words on the book are enchanted…if the tome leaves the chamber, the whole book will become blank. Makes sense, these spells are too powerful to have running around outside. Ah but yes here…here’s what we came here for-”

He spoke something that Bobo couldn’t hear, but feel: the god’s voice reverberated with magic, not sound. The whole room shook, and continued to shake, more and more violently, until Bobo had to close his eyes…

_________

“Hey. Wake up, you.”

Bobo blinked. Where was he? Rara? Gale? Large? He looked up. There was a dood standing over him. He thought he recognized her…

It was the Summoner!

“You!” he shouted. He sat up and looked around. He was sitting on a sandy, empty beach that stretched as far as he could see to either side. A pinkish-orangish light diffused the air. Water from a large sea lapped gently against the sand. The water wasn’t blue, but rather translucent, but with a pearlescent sheen. It was really quite beautiful.

“Is this the Spirit Realm?” he asked the Summoner. She looked different. Her body was the same shade of pearl as the water. He gasped. “Are you a spirit? Did you die?”

She shook her head calmly. “Nope. Still alive. But not here.”

“Where are you?”

“Hmmm…can’t say.”

“Why not?”

“Don’t know who else is listening.”

“Even here? I thought there wasn’t any Chaos here?”

“There isn’t any Taint. But that doesn’t mean this place is on our side.”

He sighed. “I don’t understand. Did you find any answers?”

“Some,” she said. “But not enough to save the godiverse. Not yet. You found one way in. There are others. Find them. Find us.”

“Where do I look? What do we do?”

She fished around in her pockets for a minute. Then she pulled out a compass. “This’ll point you in the right direction. It’s a Moral Compass.”

He took it and looked at it. There was a little pointer that was right now pointing directly at the Summoner.

Then he jumped. There was a sound like an explosion some ways in the distance. They both turned and looked. Way out in the sea, something was rising out of the waters. Something big.

“Time to go,” she said. “You must go back.”

“How? I don’t even know how I got here.”

She pushed him, and all of a sudden it was as if he were falling through an endless void. He reached out to her. She was saying something. “A….on….key.”

________

He was back on the plateau where they had fought the boss monster. Gale was there too, and Rara. Rara waved at Bobo. It looked like she was holding a new bow, one ornately carved and painted red. “Bobo! We found the Spirit Realm! I saw Lord Susanoo! He gave me this awesome bow” She went up to him. “Are you ok?”

He sighed. Then he nodded. “Yeah.”

Behind them, Gale opened a portal. “Come on, my Apostles. Time to leave.”

Bobo grabbed his sword and put it in its sheath. Then he rushed up to help Gustipharts and the others lift Large’s body. They would give him a hero’s sendoff. And then he would have to leave.

He hadn’t gotten all the answers he wanted from the Spirit Realm. But he had learned something. Inside of him, a small flame of hope had kindled. And something else, as well. Something from a distant life lived long ago. A hunger for something more than just food.

A hunger for revenge. A hunger for peace. A hunger for…

Saving the godiverse.

END

________

And that’s it for this one, y’all! Thanks for reading — this was a long one, but we hoped you enjoyed the epic conclusion to this four-part adventure. We’ll be returning to Bobo the Warrior and his merry band of doods at a later date, but for now — what did you think? We’d like to know! Head on down to our Discord, or hit us up on Telegram or even Twitter and share with us your thoughts~ We’d love to hear from you!

But for now, we’ll see you next time, godlings.

About Apeiron

Apeiron is the world’s first NFT-based play-and-earn godgame. Apeiron will feature a unique card-based action-adventure combat system combined with god game simulation gameplay inspired by classic god games like Populous and Black & White. Players will be able to build up planets from above before descending to the ground as a powerful Avatar to solve the mysteries of the universe. Players will grow their planet to the point of developmental stagnation, then reset the planetary cycle via an Armageddon event to allow for even more advancement and thrilling late-game alliance level GvE and GvG activities. Apeiron will use a tri-token architecture, which means that there will be three separate tokens to navigate their ecosystem: a governance token, a play-to-earn token, and a premium alliance token.

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