text: Made by Beeple, the artist for our collaborative worldbuilding project *Yaldev.* You can check out more of his art on - - - PRESSURE REACHING MAX CAPACITY “No, no!” Tan was doomed. Everyone in the bunker was doomed. Tan especially, since they’d all find a way to blame him. If he was to be honest, he'd have to admit they were probably right. It was his sole job to keep the pressure at bay while the others devised a plan of escape from the capital, and send an alert if it was too high, but he hadn’t paid attention. In his old age, he’d often zone out. He tried to tell them he might not be the most capable man for the job anymore, but he had a known name that everyone from the Exodus Academy could trust. A name for them to believe in when their ideals were shattering like the walls of Pelbee's shining buildings. Tan shifted the screens. Various coloured bars growing higher and higher, flashing on top of one another. In his prime, his eyes could follow them and interpret them without thinking. Now, they were just flashes that hurt his overworked mind. The bars were rising higher and higher every second. At this rate, the best case scenario was getting worse and worse. But hey, at least they could still escape further underground? The pressure didn’t need to be perfect- OXYGEN GENERATORS BLOCKED Hmm. If we move quickly- WALLS IN SECTOR 4 BREACHED Nevermind. Doomed. He knew exactly what was happening up there. Mana was flooding aggressively into the room, a colourful liquid which could flow through air and always ran like a raging river. It seemed to target people and artificial constructs, tearing them apart and dissolving them in their wrathful, magical waters. He could faintly hear its raging flood in floors above him. Then a resounding metal creaking and snapping sound as a floor gave way. There’d be the first few deaths. Would it be better to let everyone below die without expecting it? It was too late to fix anything, but should they all die in ignorance or in panic? Tan stared at the alarm button, then back at the screens. The walls wouldn’t last long, the entire ceiling could be destroyed in minutes. PRESSURE MAXIMUM SURPASSED. LOWER PRESSURE. Or seconds. Tan sighed and sat back in his wheelchair. He’d hoped he could make it past 70, but that hope was clearly in vain. He took solace in knowing that his life was a massive success, allowing him to become a renowned professor, even if his final act would be a failure. Unless this wouldn’t be his last act. Tan looked down at his right leg. A shrivelled, burned old limb damaged by a machine. He couldn’t walk, but he could stand. Professor Tan wasn’t going to die sitting down. Propping his leg up and wincing a bit in pain, Tan stood, his legs shaking a bit. He held his arms out to the sides to keep balance for a moment, then held them diagonally upwards, as though witnessing an act of Parc Pelbee himself. He was only a few moments off. The wall he faced broke into pieces. Chunks of the wall flew several feet forward before landing on the ground and breaking into smaller pieces on impact. Mana flooded into the room, a raging river that first flowed upwards into the air, then raged in all directions. The Aethereal river broke walls and smashed computers, the very tools which restricted the natural world it once knew. Then, all at once, it swept over the professor. Tan shut his eyes tight, and screamed in the undertow, not caring that the mana getting inside his body would cause it to dissolve faster. Mana dissolution is painless anyhow, and Tan wouldn’t be surviving this. He clenched his fists and lashed out in every direction with all three of his functioning limbs. Amidst the chaos, a voice came to him. Whether the mana itself spoke to him, or other noise just echoed through the magical floodwaters, or he was simply having a near-death experience due to being old and violently dying, the voice said a word to him: “Behold.” Tan opened his eyes, and the world around him could only be described as beautiful. Immersed in the Aether, he saw a glimpse of the natural world itself. He was suspended in a clear sea, above a coral reef glowing with bioluminescence. Aquatic life bloomed, glowing fish swam around him, and Aether was in the fabric of all. Between atoms. In the gills, eyes and minds of all animals here, in the lifeblood of all the plants. In his moment before death, either by drowning or dissolution - He did not care which, nor did he notice the pain of them - he realized the flaw in his whole approach to his life. He spent his whole life working for Aethereal technology, viewing it as another energy source to be harnessed. Never had he seen at like this. Never had he seen the magic of the world as anything less than an aspect of science. He saw nothing in terms of beauty and harmony until his final moment. The moment quickly passed. Tan’s body was carried and dissolved among the torrent of Aether, becoming more Aether, now one with his life’s focus. At least he didn't live to see them blame him. - - - *Yaldev is a fantasy/sci-fi worldbuilding project based entirely on Beeple art. It is the story of a world in mana-fuelled pandemonium, of the nation which rose to conquer it, of this empire's inevitable collapse, and of the new world which emerged in its wake. The project has major themes about perspective, imperialism, nationalism, nature and the metaphysical battle of law against chaos.