Rak'tos

Space Unwound

Spending any extended amount of time around her means running the risk of either going mad, or learning far more than you bargained for.

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— Comprilith groundskeeper.

A column of crowded, overlapping, endlessly appearing and vanishing faces make up the core of this 400m tall God-husk, stretching from navel to where her original head once was. These faces erupt through heavy purple skin, looking around her surroundings endlessly, but never seeming to see anything; some mumble, some are silent, while some scream in abject horror. Across her warped form is draped a massive robe, ancient and rotting, with small gatherings of trees growing across the shoulder regions.

Rak'tos was once the god of Space and Learning -- the partner architect designing the ill-fated Comprilith, together with T'kalia. The two of them used their combined mastery of space and time, as well as their shared love of knowledge, to bully the universe into accepting a structure such as the Comprilith -- at least, that was the plan before all fell apart, leaving both it and its designers as twisted, broken husks.

Space to Learn

It's thought that Rak'tos's love of knowledge and desire to learn all she could was stronger than any force in the universe -- so strong that it seemingly split her into a multidimensional being. Long before her death and Husk-form, she was called Rak'tos of the Many Faces, because of the way she seemed to inhabit multiple dimensions at the same time; she'd split her attention as many times as needed to take in information from every single source possible.

Scraps from The Comprilith

An entire room converted to an Arboretum found within the Comprilith, containing every species of tree and bush growing on Rak'tos's robe.

A small, hardly legible pamphlet, with descriptions of other dimensions seen by Rak'tos. Most appear to be quite similar to what Cathedrans here know, though some seem to very different; such as one seemingly inhabited by many different sentient space-faring species, under threat by the star that provides them light.

The Voluntary Isolation of being Everywhere

She embodied Learning, not Teaching. She cared not for us humans, not for teaching us and furthering our own knowledge; rather she saw us as nothing other than as sources of yet more knowledge.

— The Tower Duo; A history of Rak'tos and T'kalia

The gods, when they still had vigor and life within them, each had different relationships to the humans that worshiped them; some, like He'an, loved and dedicated their time to their humans. On the other hand, there were gods like Rak'tos, who barely paid more than the bare minimum attention required to get something from her humans.
She was worshiped as the god of Learning, yet directly taught people nothing; to her, the only goal in existence was to learn more and hoard more knowledge for herself. She didn't directly stop humanity from learning what she knew or gathered, however, and thus still managed to be a great source of information; rather she viewed what humanity did or did not learn as simply inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.

Other Isolation

This lack of care and attention from Rak'tos was not uniquely directed at humanity; anyone or anything she had learned everything from no longer mattered to her. Even T'kalia, her partner in creating the Comprilith, barely registered as someone Rak'tos cared for, and that's only due to his ability to look through large swathes of time.

The strange and distant relationship between two of the gods most famous for working together has always been one of the most fascinating facts among all the gods.

Scraps from The Comprilith

A list of all the gods. Some in the list are simply a name followed by a check-mark, while others have a conspicuously empty spot beside the name. Thought to be Rak'tos's checklist of things to learn from her fellow gods.

An otherworldly piece of metal thought to be from another dimension or world.

Birth

Born on the 18th day of the 19 Days of Creation.

Kill Count

Killed none during The Seven Day War.

Death

Died on 2nd day of The Seven Day War.

Killed by

Miyu, graceful goddess of combat.

Present-day Power

---

Movement

Rak'tos can generally be found in one of two states; standing mostly still, yet moving slightly as if unsure of what to do or where to go, or floating just off the ground, slowly drifting. When she floats, she moves very slowly, and at most she will drift a few kilometers total in a single day.

Creation and Destruction

When Rak'tos is in her hovering state as she moves slowly over the landscape, anything that she might collide with -- like trees, hills, or buildings -- seem to phase out of reality on contact with her legs. The vanished matter never returns, and is essentially wiped from existance.

Awareness

None of Rak'tos's many faces appear to respond to any stimuli -- at least, not from this reality. The faces instead regularly turn their attention to, or respond to, things that do not seem to actually exist around the God-husk.

---

Her general detatchment from this reality was likely her greatest flaw leading to her swift defeat at the hands of Miyu; hazy records from the day state that Rak'tos didn't even see the godess of combat approach, and before anyone could move, Miyu pulled Rak'tos's Dimensional Stake from the ground and attacked her with it.

— The Tower Duo; A history of Rak'tos and T'kalia

Her general detatchment from this reality was likely her greatest flaw leading to her swift defeat at the hands of Miyu; hazy records from the day state that Rak'tos didn't even see the godess of combat approach, and before anyone could move, Miyu pulled Rak'tos's Dimensional Stake from the ground and attacked her with it.

— The Tower Duo; A history of Rak'tos and T'kalia

Her general detatchment from this reality was likely her greatest flaw leading to her swift defeat at the hands of Miyu; hazy records from the day state that Rak'tos didn't even see the godess of combat approach, and before anyone could move, Miyu pulled Rak'tos's Dimensional Stake from the ground and attacked her with it.

— The Tower Duo; A history of Rak'tos and T'kalia

Spatial Collapse

Dimensional Stake

In order to help herself remain firmly attached to her original dimension, Rak'tos had Codod and Farad craft her a truly exceptional device; the Dimensional Stake, capable of anchoring her in whatever dimension she pierces it into the ground within -- allowing her to explore other realms without fear of becoming lost.

Maximum Potential

Rak'tos could vary the amount by which she was anchored to this reality with; by pulling the stake more out of the ground, she could reach farther and farther, the threads tying her to this reality becoming stretched ever more thin.
Additionally, the Stake exhibited a strange secondary power; the places where it was plunged into the ground seemed to begin to overlap with other realities, warping slightly as other dimensions began to make their presence known.

Current Power

The Dimensional Stake now remains firmly lodged within Rak'tos's body; pierced in through where her neck once was, plunging down into her very core. The Stake's reality breaking power is now unleashed locally on Rak'tos herself -- other versions of the God-husk continuously overlap in an infinite agony.

Flesh folded in on itself in fractal patterns as the wound warped and twisted space around it. It took only moments for other versions of Rak'tos to begin violently bursting into existence, and soon her entire core was populated by screaming, horrified faces.

— The Tower Duo; A history of Rak'tos and T'kalia

Rak'tos doesn't seem to move far from where she died; for the thousands of years since the war, she's seemed to be anchored to the space. At most, she drifts a few kilometers here and there, but always returns to the site of her death.
It's become a bit of a research lab now -- an offshoot of the Comprilith exploration and archival effort. Just as with many other official and potentially world-changing things, the site is run primarily by the Legion. Around the clock, reserchers listen to and record what comes out of Rak'tos's many mouths, in order to capture the rare moments when she speaks of things that are otherwise unknown.

Dimensional Threats

The other reason the Legion are spearheading this knowledge-gathering initiative is for their capability to deal with the horrific, violent, and generally ever-present threat of Rendlings; Rak'tos, like most other God-husks, is a constant source of the monsters. However, unlike the others, the Rendlings spawned from Rak'tos seem to appear out of thin air -- warped in from other dimensions, other realities, popping into ours without any warning.
Of course, this too is an opportunity for learning; over the years, new biological materials, viruses, and even states of matter have been discovered through examining the bodies of Rendlings that have warped into existence around Rak'tos.

The Example She Set

Every god, and every God-husk, have reasons for people to have and to still worship them. While Rak'tos did not have a personal connection to humanity, she remains as a shining example of dedicating time to learn all that one can.

Across classrooms through all levels of all eduation, small prayers or offerings are made to Rak'tos in order to facilitate learning. In some countries, the school system itself is named after or based in some way around Rak'tos and hear dedication to knowledge.

No space for friends, no space for leisure. Only space for studying.

— A stern parent's lecture

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