Musty tomes line the shelves of a disused, abandoned library; deep within an unknown ruin. The room itself is dotted with crumbling, colorful rugs and assorted furniture of all types. Empty chairs and stools surround a large rectangular table at the focal point; all of which are cracked, loose, and ready to fall apart with just the right amount of effort. Off in one corner is a curious workstation composed of a desk, a busted but functional lamp, and what appears to be a once well-kept sofa bed in the open position. Although precious little remains of what once was there, a single figure discovered them soon enough to protect and maintain what little was left: A living inflatable toy, shaped as a dark blue fox, with similarly dark red markings on his body that match his eyes well. His forehead is marked with an upside-down club suit, and his back is covered with a spiral of seven thick circles, each larger one joined to the previous at a cardinal direction, clockwise. His front was much plainer looking, a lighter shade of blue reminiscent of a barely-cloudy midday sky making up the point from the bottom of his belly to the tip of his chin. He stands at six feet tall, the typical height of his kind, and what would otherwise be a fairly slim build is round and exaggerated by his overinflation, done so out of preference. It helps him think, or at least that’s what he believes. In fact, having previously spent so much time being stretched full, his capacity in this state has greatly increased since his early days, giving him a somewhat fat look every time he grows to such an extent.
Being a high vulpoid, as self-described by his kind, he was gifted with moderately dextrous hands that he now uses to claim the reward of his expeditions. Dusting off yet another half-destroyed book, he recalls the many years he’d already spent deciphering and extrapolating texts from an age no one remembers; despite their timeless bodies, the magic-granted memories of these animated shells wore away just like any other living being might, if not faster. He takes a dusty, uncomfortable seat by a now well-used table, and his daily routine begins again.
If anything’s survived the previous age more, it’s the written language. Despite never writing and often having no tools to do so, the forms of all the words they speak float freshly to the top of their minds just with use. In the case of Calunes, he’s almost certainly one the most learned people of his kind; an intelligent fox, who retained difficult concepts well into his new life. Perhaps it is this which drove him to engage in this pursuit, or perhaps it’s the madness of an immortal being, head clouded with hundreds of years of facts and events, isolated from proper interaction with his or any other kind.
The words don’t make sense. Either they are smudged beyond recognition, or it could be that they are truly new words, but without a doubt, the texts before him are incomprehensible. Is this what he’d been looking for? It’s hard to say, until the context can be worked out. His usually quite neutral—borderline smugly content—face contorted into a frown. He would have hours of work ahead of him, and it would be wasted on a single stack of books.
It’s a painful process, but part of his chosen purpose. Diagrams, manuals, reference books, muddy-looking manuscripts… It isn’t until he’s finished poring over dull technical writing that he finally has a lead on the purpose of these documents. Many recognizable and interesting things appear to him: The resurrection machines stationed all over the world, images and statistics for all races, even a description of a machine he had found elsewhere in the ruin. He doesn’t recognize the units of measurement, and in fact hasn’t recalled a time where anyone has ever spoken them aloud, but he knows there’ll be plenty of time later to learn what they are.
What seems like days pass, and a normally unshakeable one such as Calunes is left rather weary by the research effort. Never has his information gathering been so taxing, which is also rather surprising for an artificial entity. Eager for a break, he flicks open a valve located on his belly and slims himself back down to normal size; a somewhat rare occurrence in his present life. He rather forcefully tosses himself onto the ratty sofa bed nearby to absorb and process the data he felt was most compelling. Time has lost all meaning for him down there, but its effect remains fully intact, and even the most tireless of creatures need a moment of quiet once in a while.
After what seems like hours of idle pondering, Calunes suddenly springs up from the bed, feeling like he now has all the answers. He isn’t quite rested yet, but it doesn’t matter now—things were beginning to click. Without even thinking to top himself off again, he leaps back to his table with a squeak, eager to understand what he’s learned. He returns to the top of his texts and reads through, faster, and faster again. His mind is racing; nothing could have prepared him for what he discovered.
The texts don’t belong to his people. They belong to something that came before. His kind aren’t even real people. Everything they thought they knew is just a residual memory of the time that came before them. There is no royalty. There is no government. Many of the books and papers are on the creation process for blank slate inflatables; others are training manuals to teach them the way the world works and cover an astonishing array of subjects. Some are concepts well known but misused in modern times, and others are completely new.
He stares at his books in despair. He had learned so much about the past, and yet the past was not his own. The past belonged to some kind of other creature, beyond his imagination. His own purpose, simple physical labor. The blessings of his form, only a cold design to meet an end. Even his own intelligence, and that of others, is just a mere enchantment on an otherwise inanimate object. Even having seen the factories before, to this day he only expected—perhaps foolishly—that it was simply how the world always worked.
As he sunk down further into the depths of his own mind, the terrible reality of everything rose above like a mountain. For countless centuries, the four races have been at odds. Vulpoid against rattoid, procyoid against dracoid. Whatever caused them to drift apart no longer mattered. The differences that set them clearly apart were nothing more than the design differences some greater creator laid out. Worse yet, they were all created by the same original species, entirely capable of working in tandem. Shame and anguish muddles Calunes’ ordinarily clear thinking as he frets over the relatively insane nature of the modern day world, lamenting a future with no purpose or direction, doomed to live eternal and further drift from the truth of all things. What can he do? Where can he go? Does it truly even matter?
As if the years had finally caught up to him, he snaps. The knowledge he’s unlocked and his willful separation from society is too much for him, and has dulled his cares and concerns. The possibilities are endless, and he needs not recruit anyone to his side; He knows their artificial nature makes their perceived lives inconsequential and he has no thoughts against creating his own followers from scratch. He understands more than any ever might, and it’s frightening to him; but to him, the world is now his.

He is now a god.