The Tongue That Tastes Worlds
The first time Vark tasted the air of this world, he gagged. Not because it was toxic—though it very well could have been—but because it was overwhelming. The spores, the humidity, the electric tingle on his tongue. It was like licking a battery dipped in fermented honey. “Oh, I hate that,” Vark grumbled, retracting his tongue with a shudder. His enormous, glossy black eyes reflected the undulating fungal canopy above him. He could hear them whispering—soft vibrations, imperceptible to the untrained ear. But he wasn’t untrained. He was a professional. A cosmic gourmand. A connoisseur of planetary flavors. His tongue wasn’t just a tongue. It was an instrument, a finely tuned biological marvel that could taste history, energy, even time itself. A single flick could unravel the secrets of a planet. A long slurp? That was for the truly adventurous. And right now, this planet was screaming at him through every pore. “Calm down, calm down,” he muttered, patting a particularly jittery patch of moss. It was like standing in a crowd of gossipy grandmothers, all of them clutching their pearls and whispering frantically in their fungal dialect. Something had them spooked. Vark extended his long, barbed tongue again, letting it slither across the air like a living antenna. A thousand micro-receptors tasted the breeze, the dirt, the pulsing neon mushrooms. Each one told a different story. Some spoke of the soil, rich and ancient. Some whispered of creatures that scurried in the dark, unseen. And one... One sent a jolt through his entire nervous system. “Whoa-ho-ho.” Vark retracted his tongue so fast he almost bit it. “That is not normal.” It had come from a towering mushroom, its cap wide as a ship’s hull, its gills lined with a bioluminescent glow that pulsed like a heartbeat. But it wasn’t just alive. It was aware. And it was trying to tell him something. Vark placed one hand on the spongy surface of the giant fungi and extended his tongue again, cautiously this time. The moment it touched the surface, a rush of information exploded in his mind. Images. Sounds. A rapid download of something that made his whole body twitch. A voice. No, not a voice. A thought. Projected directly into his brain. LEAVE. Vark’s skin crackled with luminescent patterns, shifting from deep blues to anxious purples. His kind didn’t hear things the way most beings did. They tasted information, absorbed it through their tongues, their cells. And this? This was the taste of a warning. “Okay, Big Fungi,” Vark muttered, shaking off the static charge crawling across his limbs. “What exactly am I supposed to be running from?” Then the ground shuddered beneath him. The moss parted in slow, deliberate motion, revealing something just beneath the surface—something metallic. Something humming. Vark took a step back. “Oh, hell no.” The mushrooms swayed violently, their glowing caps flickering in synchronized waves, as if trying to say We told you so. The ground cracked open wider, and for the first time in his very long, very questionable career of licking planets, Vark felt genuine unease. A low mechanical thrum filled the air, rising from the depths of the planet like a beast awakening. Vark’s instincts screamed at him to bolt, to leap onto his ship and fly as far as possible from whatever was stirring beneath the soil. But a professional never left a mystery untasted. “Alright,” he said, flexing his limbs. “Time to get weird.” He unfurled his tongue once more and sent it deep into the crack in the earth. There was a moment of silence. Then a boom so loud the air itself seemed to rip apart. The last thing Vark saw before being hurled backward was a blinding green light, pouring from the chasm like liquid fire. Something was down there. And now? It knew he was here. Vark was airborne. Not the cool kind of airborne where you’re gracefully gliding, limbs extended, basking in the slow-motion glory of an epic moment. No. This was the bad kind. The flailing, limbs-everywhere, internally-screaming kind. The explosion had launched him like a spore in a hurricane. He spun through the thick, spore-drenched air, his body a kaleidoscope of flickering patterns as his brain scrambled to process what the hell just happened. Then he hit something soft. Moss. Blessed, bouncy moss. He landed with a thwump, sinking at least a foot into the squishy terrain. For a moment, he just lay there, limbs splayed, staring at the pulsating fungal sky. “Okay,” he gasped. “Not my worst landing.” His tongue, which had curled protectively mid-flight, unfurled slightly, testing the air. The entire planet was in a state of panic. The spores were vibrating at an alarming rate, sending out distress signals. The mushrooms, normally slow-moving and contemplative, were now twitching, their colors shifting erratically. The entire ecosystem was on edge. And then… The voice returned. YOU HAVE AWAKENED IT. Vark sat up so fast he nearly inhaled a floating spore. “Awakened what?” he asked, coughing. “Listen, I was just sampling the local flavor! I didn’t mean to—” YOU HAVE AWAKENED IT. “Okay, okay! Got it! Super awakened, 10/10, wouldn’t recommend. What is it?” Silence. The mushrooms weren’t answering. But the ground was. A new sound filled the air—a deep, mechanical rumble that sent vibrations up Vark’s spine. It wasn’t just noise. It was language. A frequency that bypassed thought and drilled straight into the nervous system. Vark didn’t like it. He scrambled up, his elongated limbs moving faster than his dignity, and turned toward the crack in the earth. The green light was no longer just light. It was a presence. And it was rising. “Nope,” Vark declared. “Nope, nope, nope.” He turned to run. Too late. The ground erupted, and from its depths came something that made even Vark—who had once licked a black hole just to see what would happen—reconsider his life choices. A vast, shifting mass of bio-metallic tendrils, glistening with a sheen of ancient technology and organic fluid, uncoiled from the depths. It was massive, easily the size of a warship, its form an impossible fusion of living matter and machine. Patches of it glowed with the same neon light as the mushrooms, as if it had been sleeping beneath them for centuries, feeding off their energy. Then it spoke. “WHO DARES TASTE THE LOCK?” Vark froze. “I—I’m sorry, the lock?” The entity shifted, its tendrils weaving through the air like sentient cables. The frequency of its voice wasn’t just sound; it was an assault on reality itself. “THE LOCK WAS SEALED. UNTIL NOW.” Vark’s brain whirred, trying to piece things together while also resisting the urge to scream. “Look, buddy,” he said, raising all four of his hands in what he hoped was a universally disarming gesture. “This is clearly a misunderstanding. I was just, uh, doing some light culinary research. You know, a little planetary tongue-sampling. I had no idea I was licking something important. I mean, I usually do, but not on purpose.” The tendrils twitched. “YOU HAVE BROKEN THE SEAL.” “Oof. That sounds bad.” “YOU HAVE SUMMONED THE END.” Vark took a slow step backward. “Okay. That sounds worse.” The sky above them darkened. The mushrooms, once glowing and vibrant, were now dimming, their colors fading as if something was draining them. Vark extended his tongue again, desperate to taste any final bits of information that might help him not die. And that’s when he realized the truth. This wasn’t just a creature. It was a prison. No. A warden. And the thing it had been containing? It was waking up. Vark slowly turned his head, eyes widening as he saw the second fissure in the ground begin to open. Something was crawling out. Something big. The Warden’s voice thundered one last time. “PREPARE YOURSELF, TONGUE-BEARER.” Vark swallowed hard. “I really hate my job sometimes.” The ground beneath him trembled again. And then, with a roar that shattered the air itself, the true horror of this planet was unleashed. Own a Piece of the Mystery Vark may have gotten himself into intergalactic trouble, but you can bring the adventure home—without the risk of awakening ancient horrors. Immerse yourself in the surreal beauty of The Tongue That Tastes Worlds with these exclusive collectibles: Tapestry: Transform your space with a stunning, otherworldly display. Canvas Print: A museum-quality piece for those who appreciate the eerie and extraordinary. Puzzle: Piece together the mystery—one mind-bending fragment at a time. 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