Bathybius

Also known as the Deepmind, the Bathybius (pronounced /bəˈθɪbiːəs/) is an enormous ellogous layer of oozy material that lies at the bottom of all the oceans of Dadauar. Anything entering the Bathybius will be engulfed and absorbed, adding to its substance and perhaps slightly to its mentality as well. There is evidence that the Bathybius gains the knowledge and skills of all entities it absorbs... and it's perhaps for that reason that it prefers to absorb ellogous creatures.

The adjective used to refer to things related to the Bathybius is "Bathybian" (pronounced /bəˈθɪbiːən/).

Appearance and anatomy

Although few have seen the Bathybius directly, due to the difficulty of reaching the depths where it dwells and the lack of light at those profundities, the few reports that have come back have been mostly consistent. The Bathybius appears like a uniform expanse of a colorless, transparent substance, visually indistinguishable from the water above it except for a slight difference in refractivity, with no obvious organs or other distinguishing features. Its surface is slightly undular and irregular, but on the large scale very flat; essentially, it appears to be just a gigantic lump of gelatinous goo spread over the ocean floor.

While no one is known to have taken a sample of the Bathybius's tissue directly, its composition can be inferred by that of its creations the deeplings and deep oozes, which presumably are made of similar stuff as the Bathybius itself. If this extrapolation is valid, then the Bathybius does not contain separate cells, but is not an entirely undifferentiated homogene. The majority of its mass is made up of a protoplasmal matrix consisting mostly of water, with numerous embedded proteins that give it its gelatine consistency (as well as serving other functions presumably including many not yet understood). Various microscopic organelles are distributed throughout the matrix, similar to those found in amorphean cells, though not so similar as to prove that the Bathybius is a member of that taxon. Notably lacking among these organelles is anything resembling a nucleus, though there are fragmentary rivels of genetic matter.

The oddest component of the structure is a network of tiny tubulets that pervade the jellylike mass, which biologists have termed veniculae. Their hollow structure would suggest that these vessels serve a purpose of transporting some substance or substances, but if so the exact chemicals involved have not been identified, nor has a satisfactory explanation been proposed as to how they are moved through the veniculae. Complicating matters further is the apparent readiness of the veniculae to break apart and reconnect in different configurations, which, if they really carried some chemicals, would seem to risk spilling their contents. For the moment, the true purpose of the veniculae remains a mystery.

The exact volume the Bathybius occupies is unknown, but undoubtedly vast. Calculating the volume would require knowing the Bathybius's thickness, which there doesn't seem to be any easy way to measure. At the very least, however, the Bathybius occupies about a billion cubic meters, and its volume could easily be an order of magnitude higher.

Associated creatures

On its own, the Bathybius, while certainly incredibly intelligent, is immobile and seemingly inert. It lies unmoving at the bottom of the ocean; it never surfaces, or even so much as extends a pseudopod. Perhaps it uses some magical powers, but if so they are powers with no immediately visible effect. It does, however, split off pieces of itself and act through them. Called deeplings, these discerptions of the Bathybius can have any form, and vary widely in their power and abilities. Deeplings may, and often do, appear human in shape, but they have the telltale watery colorlessness and transparency of the Bathybius itself—though that can be disguised through magic or cosmetics. They are neither mere puppets of the Deepmind nor are they identical reduplicates; the Bathybius imparts a different portion of its vast mind into each deepling, and each deepling is a distinct individual with its own talents and personality.

The Bathybius—generally through deeplings—is also able to infuse some of its substance into others, introducing some of the gelatinous matter of a deepling, or of the Bathybius itself, into some other living thing through its mouth or another orifice. A creature thus contaminated gradually takes on the same substance and characteristics of a deepling. Those changed in this way are known as "infected". Once the transformation is complete, an infected is indistinguishable from a deepling, and many hold that there is no meaningful difference between the two aside from the manner of their creation. When it is convenient to refer to them together, deeplings and infected are sometimes collectively called nickers.

Curiously, however, not all infected and deeplings seem to carry out the Bathybius's will; some strike out their own independent existences and show no interest in doing anything to further the aims of the entity that brought them into being, while some few even actively oppose their progenitor and the nickers that serve it. Many take this as welcome evidence that the Bathybius is not infallible, that despite its vast intellect its schemes can and do go awry, but others are not so sanguine. Some suspect that the deeplings and infected who appear not to be in service to the Bathybius are just putting on a pretense, that they are feigning disloyalty to gain the trust of those who would oppose the Deepmind, or to sow confusion and mask their master's true plans. Others think that while these wayward issue of the Bathybius may be sincere in their opposition to their shapeless sire, they unwittingly serve the Bathybius nonetheless, that the Deepmind has complex plans that are furthered in some way by having some of its scions try to oppose it—though this may be giving the Bathybius too much credit for prescience.

There is a third type of offshoot of the Bathybius besides deeplings and infected, the deep ooze. Unlike the other two creatures, the deep ooze shares the fluid and amorphous nature of the Deepmind itself, resembling a blob of watery jelly. Deep oozes further resemble the Bathybius in their immobility; like the thing that spawned them, they cannot move on their own. However, deep oozes are rarely found on their own anyway, nor are they split off in situ from the Bathybius like deeplings, but usually arrive through accition—being translocated away from the Bathybius by its servitors. While not motile, a deep ooze does have the passive abilities of the Bathybius, which its summoners can put to good use—it can absorb organic matter that falls (or is pushed) into it; it can bud off deeplings; and its matter can be used to create infected.

There are also strange creatures known as cahl-tein that seem to extend part of their bodies into the Bathybius, and that some believe, accordingly, to be agents of the Bathybius or somehow associated with it. Others believe they are mere parasites which the Bathybius for some reason tolerates (or, improbably, is unable to remove)... or even mutualists that provide the Deepmind some benefit in exchange for nourishment or some other guerdon. The true relationship between the cahl-tein and the Deepmind is unclear.

Relations

Attempts to communicate directly with the Bathybius seldom if ever prove successful. If it does have some form of telepathy, as many believe it must in order to coordinate the actions of the deeplings, then it chooses not to use it to converse with casual inquirers. It is certainly powerful enough to resist all attempts to read its thoughts directly. There are those who have claimed to have achieved some form of communion with the Bathybius—a few have even claimed to have been allowed to pass through its substance without being devoured—but these accounts have no independent corroboration.

Nevertheless, rumors persist of some individuals and organizations forming alliances or agreements of some sort with the Deepmind. This is not irrefragably impossible; even if the Bathybius does not personally treat with outsiders, it could certainly negotiate deals were it so inclined through nicker envoys. Perhaps the most persistent such potin is that the nation of Olozi has some connection to the Bathybius—and even that its king may be a deepling.

While most nations, developed and undeveloped alike, give the Bathybius a wide berth, Drithidiach has been bold enough to sponsor a scholarly investigation into its nature. The Drithidian government has even gone so far as to establish an underwater research station, called the Großtieflabor, or the "GTL". Suspended from a pelagic reef, the GTL is located just above the surface of the Bathybius itself deep in the Veiled Ocean, almost 2200 kilometers from the coast of Jahanna, and about 1200 kilometers from the edge of the rew. So far, the GTL has discovered little of note about the Deepmind, but nor has it yet met with the disaster predicted by many doomsayers. Twelve years into its operation, it remains intact and active, the only casualties being two explorers who foolishly entered the Bathybius itself, with the usual result, and one hapless young scholar who was eaten by a zochelon.

Some elements of the rebellion against the onirarchs avail themselves of the Bathybius as a way of eliminating their enemies. A few resistance cells dispose of those who cross them by weighting them down and tossing them into the deep ocean in a place where there are no reefs between them and the Deepmind far below—the idea being that the subject will fall into and be absorbed by the Bathybius. Those who carry out this punishment hope that the horrific nature of this fate will dissuade others from standing in their way.

While the Bathybius has never in living memory effected any large-scale assaults on surface civilizations, it has done so at least once in the past. Twelve thousand years ago, the Bathybius sent hordes of deeplings to swarm the capital of the Talvane Empire and summon deep oozes to devour its leaders, as well as overrunning some other major cities—effectively spelling the empire's end. Never since then has the Bathybius made such an open attack on any nation or organization, and the reasons for its doing so on that occasion are unknown—the fall of the Talvane Empire was before the Great Plague, so historical records of the event are sparse and somewhat elliptical. Those reasons are something that many modern onirarchs would be very interested in learning, if only to avoid a recurrence; the fact that the Bathybius has shown such aggression once raises the uncomfortable specter that it may do so again given similar provocation, whatever that provocation was.

Goals

The ultimate goals of the Bathybius are obscure. It does seem to want to grow, to absorb more mass and mentality, though it pursues this end by more subtle means than simply dragging prey to the depths where it dwells. Still, there seems to be more to the Deepmind's ambitions than mere expansion. The patterns of the deeplings' deeds seem difficult to fathom, and the possibility that not all deeplings are acting under the Bathybius's orders further muddies the waters. Some fear that the Bathybius eventually hopes to absorb all life on Dadauar into its own substance. Others are equally certain that it is gathering magical power, in preparation for some unimaginable cataclysm it intends to wreak when it has the power to do so. It could be that its aims are more peaceful, that all it wants is to gather knowledge and vicariously experience different lives through its deeplings—or that its main goal is to propagate itself to either worlds, either by producing offspring that will migrate through the skyfalls or by extending its own substance to span multiple rews. In the end, though, nobody knows for sure what the Deepmind's aims are, except the Bathybius itself.

There is a theory, in fact, that the Bathybius does not have a single goal, because it is not a single entity. Most people assume that when the Bathybius takes other creatures into itself, they are fully assimilated both physically and mentally, the Bathybius having a single mind and personality that is only augmented by the additional thoughts and knowledge it takes in. But there are those who hold that while the creatures that merge with the Bathybius are physically absorbed, they retain their own separate individualities, that the Bathybius is in effect not a single entity, but a collection of discrete minds in a single formless body. This, they say, explains why the plans of the Bathybius seem so inscrutable, and why some of its nickers seem to act against it; while they mostly act in concert, the story goes, its component minds do sometimes come into conflict and act at cross purposes. Still, this remains a fringe theory, and there's little or no evidence to support it; most indications point to the Deepmind possessing a single seity. It is, however, conceivable that some traces of those it absorbs do remain within it and may still even possess some vestiges of consciousness, even if they are subordinate to and powerless to influence the vast intellect of the Bathybius itself.

Origins and taxonomy

There are many theories about the origin of the Bathybius. Perhaps it came about through some chance accumulation of ambient magic, when random fluctuations produced a localized concentration of dream energy that spontaneously generated a new magical creature that grew over time to immense size. Perhaps it was formed by some natural coalescence of smaller organisms. Perhaps it was the result of some magical experiment.

Probably the most popular theory about the Bathybius, however, given the absence of any obvious antecedents or affinities on Dadauar, is that its origins lie elsewhere. Certainly there are no such entities in the oceans of most rews of Qabede—but that doesn't necessarily mean that the Bathybius on Dadauar is unique. Maybe there are such entities on some other worlds, as well, and maybe, in fact, the Bathybius on Dadauar originated as a piece of an older version on some distant world that made its way here through the world-spanning skyfalls. Or maybe, as vast as it is, the Bathybius as it's known on Dadauar is only a part of some much vaster organism, spread out over many worlds... or maybe it's one of a number of similar organisms, each of which have their own purposes and goals, and which may someday get into a war in which Dadauar may get caught in the middle.

Because the nature of the Bathybius is not well understood, neither is it certain how, if at all, it is related to other known life forms. Nevertheless, etorists have made a tentative taxonomic classification. The Bathybius has been given the binomial name of Bathybius profundi, Bathybius having been designated the type (and only known) genus of the family Bathybiidae. Higher classifications, however, are dubious. Even its universe is undetermined, depending on whether it evolved naturally (in which case it belongs to Biota), or was created artificially (Criatura), or is the result of some magical phenomenon (Aeaeae).