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Description
The sulfuric hot springs bubbled and hissed as purple bacterial masses within grew and increased the pressure on the warm jets of water coming up from deep within the planet. A clump of bacteria tried to rise out of the spring along the edge of a rocky surface, shriveling and dying as the oxygen-rich atmosphere suffocated it. Still others tried to escape, to expand, forming larger masses, even growing into blind multi-limbed creatures that would terrorize little human children were they ever to encounter them. All fell back in and died. Finally, one pulled the shriveled corpse of its kin and wore it as armor around itself, manipulating the primitive nerves to crawl out and desperately walk on the surface. Slowly but steadily, others followed its example, and a new species was born, with the first of them to crawl out becoming their leader.

The bacteria grew within the corpses of their former kin, finding that by consuming other early bacterial masses and plant life that they were able to increase the size of their armor, to make it stronger. It took decades, but slowly the species carved channels in the rock around their former home, capturing more and more rainwater and eroding the rock to expand the bubbling waters. They dug into the rock, breaking it up into paste for making a protective barrier against encroaching other species, flooding the local atmosphere with more and more sulfur as they broke open pockets of gas into fumaroles in the water and thin wisps around it. Slowly it increased to the level even the fledgling bacteria were able to crawl and move on the surface of their homeland without protective armor, increasing their mass and furthering the pitting of the rock to further their development.

A gliding insect fell into their home and surprised the bacteria which had just learned how to form basic eyes in their armored forms. Strangely, rather than wings, this species had made strong limbs to launch itself quickly, and a bulbous mass to expel air from in order to slow its descent. The armored bacteria tried to capture it but were seen, the insect unable to escape their home due to the height of the barrier they had formed, but slowly the unarmored bacteria crept onto it and overwhelmed it, consuming it from the inside out as they studied its genetic makeup, passing on the information to the rest. Examining their home, they found that most of the materials needed to create the new creature were within it, or located a small distance outside in the local plant and fungal life that could not survive the sulfuric atmosphere. Their leader again was queried due to its prior intelligent guidance and it gave them its commands.

Slowly exploring the territory around their home, the armored bacteria made way toward a reptilian species basking in the sun, studying it from a distance before its long tongue snatched up and consumed one of them. Furious, the leader emitted a sharp directive, the exploration team swarming the creature and jabbing it over and over as it tried to claw them off, finally succumbing to its wounds as they began studying it, consuming it. Sounding retreat, the leader considered the species they had encountered and new plans were laid.

A new armored body rose out of their homeland as a larger scouting force left it, the genetic makeup of both the reptile and the insect experimented with and merged many times over before the leader was satisfied. She, for now they had armored forms which dictated a shift into specialization and outward gender, still led the scouting party for now, finding more and more species to study and consume, finding more and more diversity to use toward expanding their growing population and territories. Each armored form now held within it multiple bacterial entities, one hive mind between the identical clone cells, and a larger growing intelligence between the colony as a whole. Some had even come across a species mating before they had consumed it and curiously experimented, creating mutations, new entities formed outside their birthright. Most of these became new members of the colony, but some were even more bizarre and alien in thinking, not listening to the leader or her subordinates, diverting into seemingly suicidal attempts to leave the colony without armored shells. Most were drawn back for their protection and lashed out violently before being put out of their twisted minds, but some managed to escape, startling the leader as they, blue and red, survived without her direction, without armor, spreading out into the oxygen-rich atmosphere.

Fearing their errant mutations would wage war upon them, the Queen, for the colony of hive-minds had truly become a growing kingdom as it expanded, sought out more and more species to study and consume, taking their genetic code and creating new armor. They made multiple layers of armor, after one beast pierced the shell of one of her subjects but yet had difficulty slaying another species that shed its tail and scales. They searched and searched for their cousins, finding nothing, not even a sign of them. Troubled and seeing other species waging war against each other for territory, the Queen ordered her people to develop more and more, learning how to craft primitive tools and even to completely camouflage themselves within newly created shells, their bacterial selves hidden inside the cells of larger recreations of creatures they saw as they studied them. It was within one of these forms, a large mammalian glider, that they saw a curious sight.

The bipedal race they encountered was tall and fast, healing itself from a multitude of injuries rapidly, showing clear signs of intelligence as its members conversed with one another and created vast structures, seemingly peaceful as they lived along the shores of one of the seas on the planet, mostly harvesting small aquatic life, plants and fungal life for food, as well as hunting down some carnivores that wandered too close to their territory. They expanded territory slowly, but worked almost insanely to make their space and resource highly efficient, nothing left to waste. Curious, the Queen ordered some of her subjects to contain themselves within insect shells that had been seen to feed on the blood and hair of other species, sending the newest among them to come back with genetic samples. Half of them did perish in the attempt, much as the insect did when going against intelligent creatures. Half, however, returned with a handful of samples.

With a handful of subjects with her, the Queen marched toward the bipedal species after taking on a generated shell and practicing with it. The species came out to examine them, curious and startled a bit at the arrival of others like them, but with strange purple eyes. A few raised weapons and tools in fear, but the leader of the city was called for, marching out to meet her. He spoke rapidly for a bit, clearly trying to communicate, but the scouts had not yet had the opportunity to understand more than a few sounds of the complex language. Undeterred, he gestured to himself and the others, uttering a sound, perhaps the name of his people or of their species. Wary, but interested to learn more, the Queen motioned to herself and the others of her scouting party, finally speaking the name they had decided for themselves.
"Kushmalles." The leader's lips spread into a smile, gesturing to his people for them to approach, and though it took years before clear communication could occur regularly, slowly the two species became allies and deep friends driving each other to develop, eventually both heading into space as their allies shared their secrets with them.

As the Queen's people expanded out into the stars, the kingdom grew and she became the Empress of the First Kushmall Empire, eventually succumbing to old age after an unknown number of centuries, but her people lived on. They were now led by her successor, containing all her memories but with a new hive-mind to make unique decisions all her own. Still fearful of their mutant cousins, her people sought to find them and exterminate them before they corrupted the rest of the Empire. As they searched, halfway across the then known universe, another species slowly rose out of the primordial ooze on a planet orbiting a yellow sun, third in distance, and perfectly seated for life to grow... Soon to become ripe for colonization from its red neighbor.

Description
The sulfuric hot springs bubbled and hissed as purple bacterial masses within grew and increased the pressure on the warm jets of water coming up from deep within the planet. A clump of bacteria tried to rise out of the spring along the edge of a rocky surface, shriveling and dying as the oxygen-rich atmosphere suffocated it. Still others tried to escape, to expand, forming larger masses, even growing into blind multi-limbed creatures that would terrorize little human children were they ever to encounter them. All fell back in and died. Finally, one pulled the shriveled corpse of its kin and wore it as armor around itself, manipulating the primitive nerves to crawl out and desperately walk on the surface. Slowly but steadily, others followed its example, and a new species was born, with the first of them to crawl out becoming their leader.

The bacteria grew within the corpses of their former kin, finding that by consuming other early bacterial masses and plant life that they were able to increase the size of their armor, to make it stronger. It took decades, but slowly the species carved channels in the rock around their former home, capturing more and more rainwater and eroding the rock to expand the bubbling waters. They dug into the rock, breaking it up into paste for making a protective barrier against encroaching other species, flooding the local atmosphere with more and more sulfur as they broke open pockets of gas into fumaroles in the water and thin wisps around it. Slowly it increased to the level even the fledgling bacteria were able to crawl and move on the surface of their homeland without protective armor, increasing their mass and furthering the pitting of the rock to further their development.

A gliding insect fell into their home and surprised the bacteria which had just learned how to form basic eyes in their armored forms. Strangely, rather than wings, this species had made strong limbs to launch itself quickly, and a bulbous mass to expel air from in order to slow its descent. The armored bacteria tried to capture it but were seen, the insect unable to escape their home due to the height of the barrier they had formed, but slowly the unarmored bacteria crept onto it and overwhelmed it, consuming it from the inside out as they studied its genetic makeup, passing on the information to the rest. Examining their home, they found that most of the materials needed to create the new creature were within it, or located a small distance outside in the local plant and fungal life that could not survive the sulfuric atmosphere. Their leader again was queried due to its prior intelligent guidance and it gave them its commands.

Slowly exploring the territory around their home, the armored bacteria made way toward a reptilian species basking in the sun, studying it from a distance before its long tongue snatched up and consumed one of them. Furious, the leader emitted a sharp directive, the exploration team swarming the creature and jabbing it over and over as it tried to claw them off, finally succumbing to its wounds as they began studying it, consuming it. Sounding retreat, the leader considered the species they had encountered and new plans were laid.

A new armored body rose out of their homeland as a larger scouting force left it, the genetic makeup of both the reptile and the insect experimented with and merged many times over before the leader was satisfied. She, for now they had armored forms which dictated a shift into specialization and outward gender, still led the scouting party for now, finding more and more species to study and consume, finding more and more diversity to use toward expanding their growing population and territories. Each armored form now held within it multiple bacterial entities, one hive mind between the identical clone cells, and a larger growing intelligence between the colony as a whole. Some had even come across a species mating before they had consumed it and curiously experimented, creating mutations, new entities formed outside their birthright. Most of these became new members of the colony, but some were even more bizarre and alien in thinking, not listening to the leader or her subordinates, diverting into seemingly suicidal attempts to leave the colony without armored shells. Most were drawn back for their protection and lashed out violently before being put out of their twisted minds, but some managed to escape, startling the leader as they, blue and red, survived without her direction, without armor, spreading out into the oxygen-rich atmosphere.

Fearing their errant mutations would wage war upon them, the Queen, for the colony of hive-minds had truly become a growing kingdom as it expanded, sought out more and more species to study and consume, taking their genetic code and creating new armor. They made multiple layers of armor, after one beast pierced the shell of one of her subjects but yet had difficulty slaying another species that shed its tail and scales. They searched and searched for their cousins, finding nothing, not even a sign of them. Troubled and seeing other species waging war against each other for territory, the Queen ordered her people to develop more and more, learning how to craft primitive tools and even to completely camouflage themselves within newly created shells, their bacterial selves hidden inside the cells of larger recreations of creatures they saw as they studied them. It was within one of these forms, a large mammalian glider, that they saw a curious sight.

The bipedal race they encountered was tall and fast, healing itself from a multitude of injuries rapidly, showing clear signs of intelligence as its members conversed with one another and created vast structures, seemingly peaceful as they lived along the shores of one of the seas on the planet, mostly harvesting small aquatic life, plants and fungal life for food, as well as hunting down some carnivores that wandered too close to their territory. They expanded territory slowly, but worked almost insanely to make their space and resource highly efficient, nothing left to waste. Curious, the Queen ordered some of her subjects to contain themselves within insect shells that had been seen to feed on the blood and hair of other species, sending the newest among them to come back with genetic samples. Half of them did perish in the attempt, much as the insect did when going against intelligent creatures. Half, however, returned with a handful of samples.

With a handful of subjects with her, the Queen marched toward the bipedal species after taking on a generated shell and practicing with it. The species came out to examine them, curious and startled a bit at the arrival of others like them, but with strange purple eyes. A few raised weapons and tools in fear, but the leader of the city was called for, marching out to meet her. He spoke rapidly for a bit, clearly trying to communicate, but the scouts had not yet had the opportunity to understand more than a few sounds of the complex language. Undeterred, he gestured to himself and the others, uttering a sound, perhaps the name of his people or of their species. Wary, but interested to learn more, the Queen motioned to herself and the others of her scouting party, finally speaking the name they had decided for themselves.
"Kushmalles." The leader's lips spread into a smile, gesturing to his people for them to approach, and though it took years before clear communication could occur regularly, slowly the two species became allies and deep friends driving each other to develop, eventually both heading into space as their allies shared their secrets with them.

As the Queen's people expanded out into the stars, the kingdom grew and she became the Empress of the First Kushmall Empire, eventually succumbing to old age after an unknown number of centuries, but her people lived on. They were now led by her successor, containing all her memories but with a new hive-mind to make unique decisions all her own. Still fearful of their mutant cousins, her people sought to find them and exterminate them before they corrupted the rest of the Empire. As they searched, halfway across the then known universe, another species slowly rose out of the primordial ooze on a planet orbiting a yellow sun, third in distance, and perfectly seated for life to grow... Soon to become ripe for colonization from its red neighbor.