What is the middle ground/The Wander Lands?
The middle ground is an umbrella term, representing the entirety of the Wanderlands. The middle ground is, in simplest terms, the place all souls are transported to after death. The Wanderlands are a key step in the process of the afterlife. The middle ground, being designed by the Death primordial, follows a certain structure, that being the difficulty of biomes in relation to their distance from the epicentre. So the further a soul wanders from the initial spawn point in the spirit forest, the more demanding the environment becomes. The difficulty can arise from a variety of factors such as: The wildlife, the climate, the composition and the most impactful part, whether it has a warden or not. While there are infinite biomes that occupy the middle ground, there are 5 of them that function as the primary biomes (Those which are closest to the epicenter of the Wanderlands as a whole). The danger and distance of each biome is listed as follows:
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Spirit forest-The true beginning to everyone’s journey through the afterlife. It works as the core of the entire afterlife which is why it’s less dangerous and is very forgiving upon first entering. But if anyone attempts to overstay the forest’s benevolence, they will fall victim to its wardens.
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The clearing- A refreshing utopia hidden amongst the spirit forest, blessing anybody fortunate enough with its presence. This biome works as a haven that while completely harmless, only lasts for a set period of time and upon using this duration, you're returned to the spirit forest. A kind reprieve granted to a lucky few
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Below the forests-The land below the clearing and forest; a polar opposite to its enchanting twin. This biome, while dangerous, is almost impossible to reach which negates any real threat of harm. Even upon actually making it there, it works more as a trap rather then actual risk.
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Decaying forest- The epitome of rebirth, a place centered around the recycling of life and death. Around reaching this point, the middle place drastically grows in danger, almost willing itself to flush you out. Additionally, the environment is tailor made in guiding nearby wardens to you, emphasizing its desire to purge you.
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The red waste- A once serene paradise, fallen victim to the corruption of chaos. This place is easiest described with the term ‘wretched hellscape’, depicting it’s desolate landscape and rivers of blood. This environment is also home to an incredibly dangerous warden, The agony hunter, a title befitting to its true nature.
What are Wardens?
To have the full process of the afterlife work coherently, the Death primordial distributes autonomous workers throughout each biome called: Wardens. They were given this name after displaying extreme hostility towards souls entering their territories, but refusing to follow into places other than their own biomes, giving most the impression of guarding something, thus the name warden. But this name is deceptive to their true duty. Warden’s have been given an eternal responsibility to essentially guide everybody with a soul into what is called their ‘Trial’. Each of these wardens may have strong terrifying abilities, but are mostly reserved for the living who manage to enter the middle ground. If a warden manages to find a soul, then they will simply touch them and upon immediate contact, will send them to their trial. Although sharing the same goal, all wardens are physically different and utilise their varied traits to hunt their prey in unique ways. In order of strongest to weakest, these are some of the wardens:
Agony hunter
“In a land of raining blood and savage beasts, it’s ironic that the last thing you’ll want to see is a beam of bright blue light coming from the skies”
Birthed from the corrupted rainclouds of the red wastes, it’s form is that of a crystalized wyrm, with it’s full body being a scarlet hue. It’s flesh is made out of blood-red spikes and is covered in massive fractures that allows it’s body to change shape and fly at bolting speeds. In addition to this, the immortal shower of red pins and needles feeds this warden’s body, causing it to grow to immense sizes and accumulate otherworldly strength. Beneath this terrifying mass of gore and carnage lies a blue, glowing crystal, which works as the core to the wyrm. The Agony hunter’s massive body will morph and shape itself around the crystal and only ever exposes it as a spotlight while searching for its next victim. This wide access to such powers easily makes the Agony hunter the most powerful warden and deserving of it’s name.
The swarm
The haunting cloud of insects that stalk the decaying forest, performing it’s work with great zeal. In comparison to the other wardens, this one is incredibly unique, working as a colony rather than a single entity. In essence the swarm is a collective horde of unspecified medium-sized insects, each equipped with sharp teeth and venom. While they are incredibly weak on their own, they can accumulate massive strength as a horde, leading to surprising strength in large numbers, despite the weakness amongst the individual ranks. Similar to the Agony hunter, the swarm also has a core, which much like the blue crystal is used to track prey and is crucial for the warden’s life. In relation to the swarm, this core takes the form of a ‘queen’ commanding the rest of the insects, with it’s death causing the horde to disband. Furthermore, when a soul breathes in the spores dispersed throughout the forest, it creates a scent trackable by the queen. This means that evading the airborne fungus is key to not being attacked by this warden, but seeing as this information is unknown by everyone and the fungus occupies the entire area, it’s rare that anyone gets passed this biome, especially souls. While this warden may seem physically weaker, it’s specifically designed to hunt souls more effectively as all it requires is a single touch from one of the insects. The majority of souls that travel through the afterlife fall victim to this specific warden.
The spirit oak
The malice of the Spirit forest put into one aggressive entity. The spirit oak takes the form of a large humanoid composed of trees and uses this physical appearance to conceal themselves amongst the forest, trying to ambush new souls. Similar to the agony hunter, but limited to half the potential size, this warden can force excessive growth out of any part of its body, forming weapons, increasing durability and occasionally wings. The spirit oak doesn’t really use this power to grow excessively large as this would ruin the concealed aspect of their hunting, they also can’t reverse the growths at will either, having to manually shave off each enhancement. This warden is the first one that most souls encounter through their journey of the middle ground, posing the smallest threat out of the others. This isn’t because this warden is weaker than the others, but because they have horrifically slow mobility and loud footsteps which makes active patrolling worse then simply waiting and ambushing. Because of this wait and attack style, many souls can simply evade this warden altogether and immediately move on to the decaying forest, which is where most souls get taken by the swarm. Adding on to this, the spirit oak is also way weaker in general combat, encountering someone who was powerful enough to reach the middle place through means other then death, often resulting in the murder of this warden. But whenever this rare occurrence happens, one of the other random trees gets morphed into the warden, slowly growing back to it’s original size.
What is a trial?
A trial is a test of something's performance to determine the suitability or quality of someone or something. In the context of the afterlife, The Trial is used to determine where you go after true death. True death occurs when you're dead, in the middle ground and get touched by a warden, sending you to do your trial. It’s completely tailor made and is the very hardest thing an individual soul can do. Success in a trial leads you to your ideal afterlife, sometimes being specific to one person or going to already detailed afterlives caused by religion. If you were an atheist that loved your deceased family, then the afterlife may be spending quality time with them. But if you believed in a particular god and the afterlife they present, then you would go to their realm. Failure of a trial is a different story, failing is almost the polar opposite to their ideal afterlife, they go to a mysterious place called ‘the depths’. The actual trial in itself is customised per person and can be as simple as a duel against the nemesis that ruined your life or as complex as a groundhog day type situation. There is almost never guidance and despite being incredibly rare some trials may last an incomprehensible amount of time, maybe even testing the patience of somebody. To some, the idea of a trial is extremely daunting or they may not understand their situation and are just trying to survive as they did in the apex plane. They essentially manage to hide from wardens which stops them from going on to their trials, this prolongs the inevitable and allows them to simply exist in the after place.
What happens to digital souls?
When a sapient robot dies, they are transferred to the after just like every other soul with the condition for death being ‘powered off’. If powered back on in the universal plane, a physical husk is left behind in the middle ground and each time they die/power off they re-enter said husk. Warden’s can’t send these digital ‘souls’ to do a trial which locks them out from any level of existence past the middle place. Death has developed a crude solution to this, all wardens have been commanded to drag digital husks and souls to one biome called ‘the junkyard’. The junkyard is essentially a mass grave of digital husks, wavering between life and death. These digital souls can degrade over time, shrinking in size or becoming immobile. While this can happen it should be noted that digital souls never truly die, but after being immobile for a long while, the majority of digital souls become catatonic and simply stop thinking. Becoming immobile and catatonic isn’t the end result for every digital soul though, a very small few have the strength to reverse the degradation of their digital husk. They can accomplish this through killing a warden and siphoning their cosmic energy, with the stronger ones providing longer energy.