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No one could have known what life lay in the nightmare. The shattered earth joined lost ships and the collapsed remnants of Byrgenwerth, and not a soul was there to see what was happening below the dirt. As the brain in the tower glowed a bright orange, spreading beastly insanity to those left with minds, its light shed on others too, granting unknowingly to those without. A lone moth fluttered through the swirling sky, perching on a boulder in view of the tower. The boulder shielded the ground below from the glow, but the moth absorbed all the light shining on it. Blazing bright, the piercing shine from the trapped brain spread something akin to mind; dreams. Perched above a mindless colony of beetles, the moth dreamed. Basking.
Could anyone have guessed at the gift given to the parasites inside the beasts? The shining brain’s light could not reach them in the white beast’s belly, but its power was always felt. Not far from the shaded gathering of moths, this lone beast was overcome by illness, fatigue, mind and body poisoned by the influence of the great brain. When it collapsed, the worms inside could feel the time was right, and blessed as they were, could feel a mind granted. When they sprang free from the warm cocoon, they knew that they were blessed. Feeling the warm light for the first time on its own skin, one decided it would be called “wyrm.” A symbol of its blessing. Of having been raised from the mere mud to the status of higher being. Without eyes, it did not see the light, or the horrors of insanity that the brain deigned to shed, but felt only its consciousness, and the warmth of mind. A new beginning.
The moth spread the glow of dreams through itself. No longer passively absorbing such magnificent energy, it spread its wings as a beacon, and shed light of its own. Reflected. Inspired. Many bugs gathered to bask in its glow. They dreamed of a radiance in the center of their hearts, and worshipped it. Moths flew from far away, not knowing they were drawn to its light until they were granted the wherewithal to see. They had been given gifts by their own great ones, and the gifts were decidedly more compatible to them than the gifts of the great ones the humans once worshipped. The bugs flourished under its light.
The wyrm traveled far, for a thing so small. It readily absorbed any information about its surroundings, the world which it called home. The brain in the tower, eager to communicate, shared all with the wyrm, so accepting of its vast mind. The wyrm came to know the nightmare, the emptiness, the loss. It felt the weight of despair and the loneliness, the feeling of being trapped. Sorrow. It felt as though it were searching for a remedy for some unknown hurt within. It traveled for a long time. When it found the nest, there was already a great number of them, thriving in the golden glow of the radiance. Blissfully unaware of the nightmare just beyond. Of the brain. Blissfully free of mind.
It knew then the remedy. To grant them the burden of its mind. To be like them. To be worshipped by them, as the brain once was. Briefly. To give them what it had learned of: civilization. The wyrm shone with light, not unlike the radiant moth fluttering about. But its light shone a different color. The bugs among them felt a pull away from the Radiance. Toward soul? The wyrm felt a change come from within. Metamorphosis. To be like them. The brain told it about rituals for many things. The wyrm shed its form, took on another, but never shed its mind. Many bugs came to greet it. To thank the new king.
“My children!” he called them. “My own mind, dispersed,” he would say. The beetles came willingly, lovingly, to worship him. They asked only what they might do for him, how could they possibly repay him this debt? This debt of mind? And in them all, the King saw the beacon, the bright light of the dreams shining out from them. This Radiance had got to them first. The dreams of the Great Brain, already lived in his subjects. While it lived, he would never be able to teach them. He wanted to teach them.