Leaving Montana by Zebulon Kosted

While in his middle age, with heartbreak and failure in his past, Zebulon Kosted left human society behind. Living deep in the woods and only coming out to buy food at night once a month he avoided contact with others. He had built a small shack deep in the forest miles from the closest small town. Most of his time was spent playing acoustic guitar, singing and drawing. One day however he decided he had recorded enough music and created as much art as was required for one lifetime. This is when he began to meditate every waking hour of the day.

ZK had a feeling his whole life that our species could transport ourselves to the stars, and to different worlds, using only our mind. This idea came to him as a child and he could never shake it, although he seldom spoke of it. Focusing on his breathing first, then his posture, then his thoughts, he slowly was able to develop talents for psychokinesis and remote viewing. Moving objects with his mind and seeing far off places was a good start, but this was just the beginning of his training.

After a while utilizing these new mental techniques he stopped requiring much food and water, only taking sustenance every two or three days, and eventually needing it only once a week. He started to see specific visions of a far off planet over and over again. Usually during meditation he could float through nebula and view star clusters. Quickly he realized that there was a place that was pulling him, as if it was destiny for him to go there. All day, every day, he would see this world with his eyes closed as if it were right in front of him.

The planet he viewed is named Vrozlyd by its half insect, half reptilian dominant species. They were advanced, specifically in scientific innovation, but had absolutely no interest in exploring the stars or traveling even within their own solar system. Vrozlydians had no social hierarchy and worked only to further their civilization applying their resources towards the common good, as they saw it at least. These insectilian creatures were kind to their young and their old and did not recognize race, sex or cultural differences, for they had none.

Zebulon Kosted was amazed at the fact that no-one had conquered these people. Instead of marveling at their civilizations abilities he immediately noted their weakness. Anyone with ambition and intelligence could enslave these creatures. However, enslavement seemed a bit harsh. Harnessing their technology and work ethic would be more accurate. He decided, before anyone else could take his place and dominate these insectilians before he could, that transportation to Vrozlyd needed to happen immediately.

He found a cave while searching the surface during meditation that was far away from any city or village. Here he would focus all his energy on traveling the vast reaches to this new world. At first he could feel himself physically there for fragments of seconds. Day after day he worked to attain ten seconds, then a minute. Each time returning to his shack he could still smell that Vrozlydian cavern. One day however he focused his thoughts and strength and was able to spend an entire afternoon walking in the cave, which had fresh air to breath and fruit nearby, before he decided on his own to replenish his strength by returning.

After weeks of these small then later longer voyages to the cave and surrounding jungle outside of it ZK had made up his mind to go for good. There was nothing left on Earth for him. He would become a non-insectilian Vrozlydian. He ate and slept on and off as much as he could for days to build up his strength, his enthusiasm fueling his desire to transport his body beyond the stars. At midnight three days after the sleeping and eating had boosted his body and moral to new heights he disappeared from our world forever without a trace.

There was a new feeling when he arrived in the cavern this time, a very final and absolute feeling. Zebulon Kosted was breathing and walking and smiling with a new confidence and vigor. The trip was a success, he could tell immediately he was on Vrozlyd for good. Now was the time to head into the nearest city on foot and take control. Somehow the sin of corrupting this global society, without war, without poverty, had never entered his mind. Reading history into the late hours of the night in his youth had convinced him that power brought peace, and he strongly felt as though he was the man to lead the Vrozlydians before a true villain took his place. He walked for days in silence before finding enormously high walls and an open gate.

In the city everyone stopped what they were doing and stared. There was no violence, no shouting, no screams of excitement or terror when the half insect, half reptilian beings gazed upon him. Just awe and confusion. No alien had ever set foot on their planet. Whoever this cocky strutting man was he felt no fear of his surroundings. ZK went to the tallest building, climbed stairs to the top floor, sat down at the biggest table he could find and starting pointing at his mouth. He knew that Vrozlydian technology was advanced enough to have built a translating device, and he just sat their pointing at his mouth for hours until someone finally handed him one.

When he spoke it was the words of a ruler from the first sentence. "I have come from a world far beyond the stars you see in your sky at night", he said with a touch of venom. "I am concerned that you have no leadership here and I am worried about the enemies to your safety that lurk on the edges of this solar system." When asked in the buzzing and gurgling tones of the Vrozlydian language which enemies he spoke of Zebulon Kosted replied, "If I knew their species name I would tell you, but I do not, however I have seen them with my own eyes...and they are FEROCIOUS!"

Fear quickly worked its age old magic and soon ZK was being treated like a foreign dignitary whose advice was more precious than gold. He spoke of a military build up he had noticed on his voyage to Vrozlyd with space weapons pointed at the planet. The sad innocence of the insectilians was easily manipulated and Zebulon Kosted offered his services. Not as warrior. Not as an advisor. As an Emperor. He explained that this was the title of a leader who could keep a population safe, and that if he could travel to the other side of the galaxy with his mind alone surely he was most qualified for the job. There were no objections.

He asked that military devices be constructed for, "purely defensive measures to protect Vrozlyd from outside invaders." The first devices were not guns or bombs however, they were bio-mechanical slaves. ZK had no intention of enslaving these kind creatures, but he could create slaves from organic material and metal frames. This was done fairly easily on a mass scale, for Emperor Zebulon Kosted had convinced the entire planet to work towards this common goal.

We all now know what came next. The expansion from Vrozlyd into an Interplanetary Empire. The founding of the important mining colony on Themis, moon of Saturn, to use humans as his so called "plotting enemy" for propaganda purposes when in fact no-one on Earth knows that Vrozlyd exists. His capture of the Cave Ghoul and theft of the Obsidian Mirror from Earth once time travel was perfected by Vrozlydian scientists. The unnatural extension of the Emperor's life through alchemical means. Slowly, over thousands of years, he grew to become everything he once hated and believed his own lies about humanity being the evil which would destroy Vrozlyd, his beloved new world.

As was seen with the bio-mechanical revolution, when the Synthetics as they are now called rebelled against the Emperor, not everyone was blind to his dictatorial ambitions and campaign of terror. A new Emperor would rise one day, seeming to liberate only to enslave, and this Synthetics name is Utryn. While in the Psychomanteum the Emperor saw in his Obsidian Mirror that a naturally born child of Synthos would usurp his throne. It was foretold by the ghost of the Emperor himself to happen on the cursed and haunted moon of Themis...when, however, was not mentioned...

Experimental Black Metal, Doom Metal, Dark Folk, Space Ambient and Experimental Electronics.

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