User and the Seeds of Life

Gloranthan Folk Tales

Gloranthan Songbook

Moonie Madness

Carmanian Sources

Malkioni Scriptures

I'll tell you a story about User, but first you'll want to know what he looks like. Well, he is similar in form to a normal person, only "broken" and dysfunctional. He has long, spindly limbs which get caught in machinery, and gangling elbows which knock apparatus off workbenches, and a thin, thin belly so he's always eating things he shouldn't and getting into trouble. In fact, he's shaped more like a Human than a proper Dwarf: too tall to fit in a workspace without banging his head and breaking things, and with a silly little beard. User is always twitching and fidgeting, and very easily distracted. His fingers are stained with alchemy gone wrong, and his body is bruised and scarred from what he calls "industrial accidents" - but we all know that's just long words for User's Errors.

One sunny day in Godtime, User was visiting his siblings on the Spike. First he went to see Grower - for User was always stupid, preferring his sister's useless moulds and dangerous cancers to the clean, helpful tools of his brother the Maker. Then he came inside, to his brother's workshop.

"What are those, brother Maker?" he asked, peering over his brother's shoulder at some little clay shapes which lay on the workbench.

"They're something I've been designing for some time now. I call them workers," his brother patiently replied - for Maker was always kind to his imbecile brother, and in fact prided himself on being User Friendly. "I have shaped their bodies, and now I'm using my own alchemical transmogrifier to invent the Elixir of Life. It may take me forever, but this is Godtime after all. And when I've discovered the Elixir of Life, I will use it to animate my workers, and they will walk around and mend anything that's broken in the world."

But User was already getting distracted. He played with the nearest clay models, stretching their limbs into absurd shapes like his own and giggling; then, growing bored, he reached into the pocket of his overalls and pulled out a small packet. "Look what our sister Grower gave me!"

"What is it?" asked Maker. "Some sort of chemical compound? Did she grow it on that dunghill of hers outside? Watch out: it could be toxic!"

"Oh, no, brother Maker," said User. "They're called seeds, and they're perfectly safe, she told me so. And they're bound to smell lovely, like everything of hers: see!" And he opened the packet of seeds, and took a big sniff.

"Aa-choo!"

Seeds went flying everywhere, all over the workroom. Maker leapt to his dustpan and brush and cleaned up as best as he could, but it was too late. The seeds had landed on the soft clay bodies of the prototype workers, and they were already sending out their evil roots and infesting the work with the cancer of Growth.

"Well, these are ruined," said Maker, and he threw the worker-shapes that had been nearest to User out of the window, into Grower's midden outside. "Maybe these ones can be saved..."

But even as he looked, the still, clay figures on the workbench began to stir, lifting up their little arms and opening their eyes to look in wonder at their Maker.

"By the Spike!" exclaimed Maker: "Those must have been the Seeds of Life that Grower gave to you. What a fortunate accident: they may not be as good at animating my workers as the Elixir would have been, but they've certainly made my work a lot easier. Did Grower really give such a priceless treasure to you?" User blushed and fidgeted, but said nothing.

And that was how we Workers came to be infected with the principles of Life and Growth, back in the days before User plugged the Instrument of Separation into the Central Solar Power Source the wrong way around and caused the Great Darkness.

There are other stories to tell about how Maker and User shaped the Workers - how the Aldryami and Humans and other degenerate forms were grown from the models rejected by Maker; how the workers came close to bursting when the seeds grew within them, until Maker redesigned their Pee-Shooters to expel the excess seed from their bodies; how User made his own workers, the Idiots and Fools we must all protect our work against by making all of our tools and procedures Idiot-Proof and Fool-Proof - but I'm sure they can keep for another time.

Thanks to Mike Cule for his Androgeus story (Aye and Bee), the prize-winner at the Convulsion 3D storytelling contest, which gave me the voice of Maker.