All events in this webpage take place some time between the Overseer's second near death experience, and its death.
I coasted through the star system at a brisk pace. I was only 93 of my unit of distance (roughly 729 meters, so in total a little more than the distance from the Earth to the moon) away from my target planet. I had no real reason to be there, but I was exploring. Nothing else to occupy my time for the enneades until my inevitable death.
Satisfied with the information on the screen, my 18 legs helped me scuttle back to the living quarters of the ship. I walked in a strange way, I had 3 leg groups that walked 120 degrees out of phase of each other. My body was based on the 24-cell, I had an octahedron in front which has evolved to become arms, complete with strange 21 fingered hands. That leaves the other 18 limbs to be legs, which are divided into 3 groups of 6. My body lies low to the ground and is mostly flat with 3 segments like an ant, perfectly adept to the high gravity of my home world.
I nested into my bed of artificial stick like structures atop a fake rock, which started heating up when it detected my weight. I'm technically not supposed to leave the flight computer unattended, but I was tired and I've never had to correct it.
During my slumber, the computer used its imaging sensors and processing networks to figure out its position and velocity in five dimensional space. Using its understanding of general relativity and the inverse square law (yes, inverse square, gravity violates energy conservation and we have no idea why) it was successfully able to enter a stable orbit with the planet. 3 hours later, I woke up. (My species doesn't sleep for very long, our days are short on our home world.)
I stretched my legs 6 at a time as I woke. I did a five dimensional wriggle to wake up my hydraulic based joints, and clicked my mandibles open and closed. Okay, I think I'm ready to get some food now.
I consumed the flesh of a fallen animal, and vaguely wondered what star system the meat was from. I have no idea how much shipping goes on when I buy food. After my meal, I went to the flight computer in the piloting room, and ordered the ship to land. I felt a jolt as the ship began accelerating counter to our orbital rotation, and we began plummetting into the atmosphere. The hull was shaking violently and I braced myself as the engines came on again, a deafening roar filling my sensitive ears. A final "ca-chunk!" and the ship stopped. I was on the surface.
I quickly slipped into my space suit and cycled through the air lock. Within minutes I was outside. The planet was beautiful, and full of life. The grass was a vibrant green and the damp soil made sounds as I walked across it. I saw creatures walking about, with a 3-4 duoprism leg arrangement, meaning they were dodecapods with 12 legs.
I continued moving forward, occasionally looking behind me to make sure my ship was still there. I was paranoid about... I don't know what, really. I doubt anyone could take it, it was locked and had auto turret defenses. This planet seems uninhabited, anyway. As I continued walking, the ship was just a gray rectangle in the distance, and the beautiful weather had transitioned to a rainstorm. I should turn back soon, but I spotted something interesting.
There. Just up ahead there were actual ancient ruins. The buildings had strange designs. Some were icosachoral prisms, others were 6-6 duoprismatic prisms. This is insanely exciting!!! With only 52/81 breathable air in my tanks left, I entered one of the stone ruins. Inside were clay pots, and paintings, presumably of the creatures that built this place. As painting in 4D takes forever, the paintings were crude, I only got the vague sense that these were upright beings with an octahedron of legs and an octahedron of arms.
As I continued exploring I felt the sense I wasn't alone. This place, being abandoned for so long and being so old, filled me with strange existential emotions. It got me thinking about how large and vast the universe is, spatially and temporally. As I was exploring the third building, I noticed an outcropping. A small cubic region on the floor that was higher than the rest of the floor, suggesting...
I reached for the floor and picked up a tesseract shaped panel, seemed to be made of wood and clay. Under it was a passage. There was a series of cubic outcroppings on the side of the tunnel, serving as hand and foot holds for the location's creators. They didn't suit my biology well. My flat body barely fit the width of the tunnel, the sides of my three segments kept getting caught on the soil and I'd have to hack it away or rotate myself. I had to crawl looking straight down. It was intense, claustrophobic, and very creepy, but I got to the end. Thankfully, the dug out region expanded to a whole room.
It was pitch black in the small cavern, and it was the quietest room I had ever been in. Not a single sound. No wind, no critters, nothing. I felt as if I could hear my hearts beat. I clicked a button on my space suit helmet and the lights on my antenna flashed a bright red for half a second (what would be a scream, if I had a body like yours). There was one of... them. Staring right at me. Dead of course, but not a skeleton. I could see its rotting flesh.
The lights on my antenna warbled in brightness from darkness and flashed different hues in unease (your version of a whimper). How was it standing? It looks like it's been dead for 9 days at least. I noticed 6 more standing to my right, left, ana, kata, surst (V+) and deorst (V-). What the fuck?
I stumbled backwards and frantically looked around. I noticed the paintings on the walls, they depicted a large gray 5-orthoplex, and these beasts bowing down to it at all angles. There are 7 walls in this room, and they each had a different picture featuring this 5-orthoplex. In one, it showed the shape giving them food, in another showing them how to hunt. The most interesting were the ones showing the orthoplex in front of random red scribbles, and one with it killing random creatures. What in the sweet savory FUCK could this mean??? What is that thing? This culture didn't seem on the level to understand the 5-orthoplex. Was this their god? There seems to be a bit of a betrayal here-
The corpses moved. Within a single second I heard the cracks and pops of old decayed joints moving and they began accelerating towards me, their limbs clambering through the five dimensional space as a horrible tsunami of rotting flesh. Tripping and stumbling over each other, they attempted to reach me. I punched the closest one in the face with all the might I could muster and then some. Its head fully detached from the rest of its body, but that didn't even momentarily distract the others. I quickly scrambled to get up the ladder, feeling the buzz of my adrenaline like molecule coursing through my nervous system.
I struggled to get up, as the zombies (I'll just call them what they are) grabbed at my feet. I wish I had brought my pistol. With a few desparate kicks of my legs, I managed to get up the ladder. I grabbed the wooden tesseract shaped cover and put it back over the entrance to the bunker and sat on it. Only a moment later I felt them banging on the panel, attempting to get through. What was I gonna do??? How are they doing this??
I noticed that my tank had gone down to 38/81 of breathable air due to the prolongued exploration. I had spent too long here. I wouldn't have enough air to get back. Okay, okay. Calm down. I have time to think about this. I have a remotely controllable rover, but it doesn't have nearly enough battery to get here and back. I have a system to call my ship to auto land near me. Good, I think I can use that. Then what? Just bee line it to the ship and hope the zombies don't get in with me? What other choice do I have? I guess the auto turrets could help, but they're overly cautious and intentionally underestimate their ability to shoot around me, and so will refuse to shoot when I'm on screen.
With little faith in myself, I tapped some things onto my wrist mounted computer, and didn't hear the sound of the thrusters waking up. By all means it should be extremely loud, but sound fades very quickly in 5D. After a few of the most stressful minutes of my life, I heard the faintest sounds of engines, meaning it was here! I felt the vibration of the 6 * 93 ton metal craft landing, and readied myself. "Okay, three, two, one." My antenna glowed an orchestra of colors as I spoke to myself.
I launched off the ground with as much force as I could, and I hit my head on the roof of the ruins. Good thing I have this suit! My legs are very powerful, especially relative to this 1.1 G planet. The zombies pushed the lid out of the way and poured out like ants leaving their hill. I had a good 2 or 3 meters on them and I began to gallop like my life depended on it. It probably did!
I was quickly back at my ship and I panicked to get the code in. My dumbass was too impatient and I got the code wrong, substituting a 4 for a 5. Then I held a button for too short of a time and it didn't register, costing me another precious second of confusion. The zombies were surprisingly fast, they were only 2 meters behind me when the door opened. I rushed into the vehicle and slammed the door behind me, but I was too late. Their arms, though decrepit, were strong when working together. They were able to hold off from me shutting the sliding door. I fumbled for the button to close it. It beeped, complaining about the obstruction.
"I don't have time for this!" I cried.
My strength in my 3 arms I was using still fading, I used my other 3 to try and figure this thing out. I need a screwdriver. I fiddled with my spacesuit pockets and luckily I found one. The suit came with the ship, and this ship was made for doing engineering work. Which worked for me, as a split class engineer and adventurer. I unscrewed the panel and had to switch arms to maintain my hold on the door. Luckily, it was a simple circuit. There was a button and some wires that seemed to lead to the motors in the door, or perhaps the computer. There was also a component in the wire, that I assumed lead to the detector.
More fiddling in my pocket gave me a wire cutter and stripper. I cut and stripped the wire, removing the detector from the circuit. Now doing the other side... god my arms are so tired. I twisted the wire ends together, completing the circuit. Yes! I triumphantly pushed the button, now freeing up all 6 of my arms. I grabbed the zombies' arms and tried to push them back outside, to little success, but a few kicks got enough of them out that I could quickly drag open and close the door, severing the last arm.
Looking at the severed arm, I noticed how weird the skin looked. Could just be it being alien but... I also see some colored wires on the inside of the forearm. These weren't paranormal entities out of an Indiana Jones movie, they were animatronics, built by some crazed lunatic inspired by Indiana Jones! Who would do such a thing?!
I looked down at my hands, trembling. That was a lot! I filled my air tanks and stashed my suit away. I got in the piloting seat and entered manual control. I wasn't the best manual pilot, but I knew my way around a HOTAS. Using two hands for steering, one for the throttle, and three for the guns, I flew into the air and vaporized the zombie androids with a 4 kilowatt laser. That's what those bastards get. You fuck with me you face the power of my technology.
With lightning storms threatening to force me to stay the night on this haunted planet, I pulled up hard and accelerated way harder than I usually do. I went off manual control and told the computer to pilot to the nearest unvisited star system. I should be there in a week or three. I've been up for 5 hours, and usually it takes me 6 or 7 hours of being awake to get tired, but as you can imagine I'm a little worn out after my hike and encounter. Ahhh, the sweet comfort of my artificial nest. Goodnight world. As I drifted off, my thoughts were fixated on the orthoplex drawings. What was that thing? Alien tech? A myth or legend? Who built the zombies?