They stood in a loose circle Six standing on their own power and the fourth held in place by the maker's power. The five of them stared at Mitzen in surprise and shock. Krill pressed his pods against his glass containment unit, "How did you find us/"

Ahead of them the maker paused and craned his neck to see into the glass casing behind adam's back, "Ah, I have missed one it seems, lost in the shadow of Impetus's inane thoughts."

Adam frowned, "hold on, inane!?"

He sensed a flicker of amusement from where Sunny was standing.

The maker ignored him and continued to crane his head around, until Adam finally allowing krill to see out of his glass containment and more easily into the room.

The maker chuckled in grim amusement, "Ah, Prolix, I should have known, where Impetus goes destruction reins after and there must be someone there to pick up the pieces."

"Prolix!" Krill said his offense clear through the glass of his containment, "I can think of plenty of words that describe me better than, Overly verbose! In fact I can think of several, keen, cunning, canny, astute, learned-"

He continued as the rest of the group exchanged knowing looks.

Maverick Raised an eyebrow.

Adam turned back around ignoring Krill's rant for the most part. There were plenty of questions he would have liked to ask, but there was one that was far more pressing. He turned to look at Mitzen, "How did you know where we were going."

Mitzen lifted his head in defiance, his ears pulled back against his skull, "I am an expert in predictive analysis. And your ship may be cloaked but it is not invisible. These things always leave traces."

Adam crossed his hands over his chest, arms resting against his chest plate, "Okay then WHY follow us."

"You MURDERED the theocrat. You DESTROYEd a sacred temple and you have left our galaxy in turmoil! And it may be that no one was willing to listen to me, but I for one will not allow this to stand, and i will take recompense.." His voice was high and growing higher as he grew more agitated. Unable to move from that spot he flailed in confusion flapping his wings and kicking his feet in anger.

Adam sighed.

"I didn't kill the theocrat, and I didn't collapse the temple either. I DID sneak in intending to talk to him, that is true, but if you are going to accuse me of misconduct accuse me of the correct misconduct."

Mitzen continued to kick and squirm, "The Theocrat is dead, and you were seen at the scene. I heard everything."

Adam's mouth pulled back in a frown, "Yeah, I am sure you heard plenty, but the council of zealots refuses to understand what they didn't see. I entered the temple from the boiling lake underneath, but by the time I got there Kazna, the hand of the void had made it before me. When I got there your theocrat was already dead and growing void spines from his eyes. Perhaps if the zealots had let me through earlier, your theocrat might still be alive, but instead it is likely he has been harvested by the void to be used as a power source."

Mitzen stared at him with wide, angry eyes, "I didn't come here to listen to your nonsense. Perhaps you believe what you are saying, but I cannot bend to the words of a madman."

Adam threw up his hands in frustration, "Open our eyes mitzen." he gestured around the room, "open your eyes and LOOK. Have you ever seen anything like this." Mitzen was quiet for the moment, and Adam took the opportunity to teep speaking, "This building is of maker design." He jabbed a finger at the maker standing before him, "This one here IS a maker, just look at his robes. Why would someone who looks like they belong on the council of zealots be hiding in a crimson temple under an ice structure guarding alien technology."

Mitzen was quiet turning hopefully towards the maker.

His thoughts were muddled, having difficulty fitting this all into an explanation with Shanshara at the middle. He was a devout believer, had been all his life. A part of him thought that this strange being might be a disciple or the hand of shanshara, as signified by his red robes.

The maker shook his head sadly at Mitzen, "I am afraid that is not the case." and then he morphed, slowly before their eyes until he formed into a creature that was almost two feet taller than sunny. The red robes faded away, replaced by a white skirt, almost like an egyptian, and golden armbands running the length of his arms.

The creature he had morphed into was tall and thin with a head that was neither entirely humanoid nor amphibian. Despite his thin body, he had a very thick neck and stump like feet to hold up his tall frame.

He had a full three sets of arms each topped by two fingers and a thumb. The entirety of his body was covered in a pattern of stripes and small geometric patterns. WIth a sigh he sat on the floor resting all six of his hands gently in his lap as if in meditation. Mitzen stared on in shock and near horror.

He looked at mitzen, "It was not me who modeled myself after your zealots, but your early zealots who modeled themselves after me."

The room seemed to shake for a moment, and then their eyes were collectively filled with burning light as the Maker granted them all a vision. A beautiful planet of purple plant life and crimson red stone where the makers had built their laboratory.

The voice continued and the scene played out before them like a movie reel silent except for the narration, "In the beginning the architects were not alone. Their origin is complicated, and their story cannot be told in one simple sitting. In the beginning there was neither nothing nor something for the idea of space and time had not yet been invented. But with their immense power the architects raised their hands and created order, space, time, dimension, gravity, mass, and light. But there is opposition always, where there is creation there is destruction, and so as the architects, beings of creative power exist, so to exists beings of systematic destruction" Adam felt his legs wobble as he tried to follow the strange visions. He had nobody here, but he could certainly still feel his legs.

"The void and the makers have been battling for millennia as is the unforeseen consequence of how the architect chose to design such a universe. They spawned pieces of themselves to populate the universe, and so too did the creatures of darkness. The forever war has gone on for time immemorial and will continue to go on until the stars die and the universe collapses in on its own weight. For billions of generations, the power of the void has been equal to our own.... Until recently they have gained ground. The void switched tactics, started bringing young makers over to their side, corrupting them from the inside out."

More visions flashed through his head, one after another, "So the architect, knowing the void would only gain power were this allowed to continue, designed a plan with the help of the already existing makers to hide the young makers within construct bodies, designed to dampen and conceal their power until such time as they were ready to return and withstand the temptations of the void. The early makers helped to design and test many models, each and every maker taking on a construct for themselves to test its efficacy. Billions of archives and laboratories like this one were set up around the universe to serve as strongholds and as activation sites for the construct design process. The architect, hoping for progress, left each of the laboratories to their own design devices."

Adam thought he felt himself fall over, but he couldn't be sure. The inside of Mitzen's head was interfering too much with his own sense of body, "Some systems were more successful than others. Some did out before they could ever make it to the construct stage, others lasted for a while before dying out. Our greatest designers were given the task of designing constructs for the Deus generation and the last cohort." Adam could feel the maker shaking his head, "The Polaris project ended in abject failure and the site was abandoned."

That little bit of revelation shook Adam slightly.

Polaris was their own system, why had it been a failure?

Sensing his question the Maker thrummed with amusement, "You are proof of that failure Impetus. The constructs they created were unable to hold the anima within. Each and every design struggled to dampen the power. Telepathy, spirituality, unpredictable strength, intelligence, and otherwise. The polaris system has been a beacon to the void since its inception, and has attracted the void for long before you were born."

Adam shook his head slowly, "but I thought.... I thought the first void appeared.... Really showed up during the Hand of God incident."

"The Cannibal ship?" The maker laughed, :Please, you flatter yourselves. The void has been leaching its way into your galaxy since inception. Since Kane picked up a rock and smashed Abel in the head, since Celzex began eating their children, since the first Drev threw their squalling children into the fire, since Vrul practiced eugenics. Your galaxy is a cesspit of the void infected. Mass genocides, wars, serial murder, torture, slaughter, infanticide. Your galaxy is a spawn point for monsters."

The room was silent.

"Wherever you go destruction and damnation follows."

Adam's heart pounded hard against his ribcage.

"We aren't evil." He protested.

The maker laughed long and cold, "No perhaps not, but you are creatures that are neither simultaneously maker or void. You have the void inside of you, living in you, breathing in you, and there is nothing you can do about it." Adam could feel the creature shaking his head, "You know that saying about power corrupting? Well it is true, the more a maker has power the more corruptible they are."

The maker let go and Adam found himself resting on his side on the floor like everyone else.

He slowly raised himself to his feet shaking himself, "Be that as it may, We are what we chose to be, and we don't choose the void."

The maker looked at them in amusement, "To deny the void is to deny your very nature, Human."

Adam shook his head, "Once we die it doesn't matter what we were."

The maker laughed again, bitter and cold, 'Of course it does, a construct never truly leaves you."

"You're a real unhelpful bastard, you know that?"

The voice did not emanate from their group members, instead they all turned to find they were no longer alone.

Two familiar faces floated down from above.

Celex's chromatic hair was washed of color in the red lighting, and Conn's hellish grin made him appear as a demon from the very depths of hell as his ribbons fluttered out behind him.

Behind them. The Maker gasped. And even took a step back.

"Y-you...."

Adam looked back and forth between the maker, conn and Celex as they touched down on the ground below.

Conn was still grinning, with an expression that would given anyone nightmares.

Celex tossed his hair nonchalantly over one shoulder, "Do I know you?"

"Incubus.....Sinister."

Conn grinned, "Oh I like my maker name, Rather sexy, don't you think?"