PROLOGUE

Rows of neglected metallic wheels rolled across a corroding rail, sending shards of rusted biotanium alloy falling into the ocean. Those who kept in the shadows of the SkyRail line gently swept down into the sea, but any who dared venture into the open air were ripped apart by a violent torrent of rain.

The downpour pummelled on the roof of the second carriage, deterring even the smallest insects from exploring the stacks of empty cargo. In the third carriage, not one heart beat, nor in the fourth or the ninetieth. Only in the thirteenth carriage did life stir.

A being was at rest, lying on its back and staring through the barred windows. Giant structures of steel pierced the dense clouds; rectangular monuments to their faith built to compute their solution.

The solution impossible; the secret to eternal death. An escape from an unending cycle of life their inventors found debilitating yet essential. The only escape, The Void Sea, deemed their ego too great, condemning those who attempted to leave the world to have their mind trapped in it forever. 

They exploited the Void to produce eternal energy for their computers; the computers that would permutate their Great Problem. The Iterators were born into eternal life to end the eternal life of others, harnessing great power and intelligence. The immense invention of gods on earth, biohorrors of enormous proportion, was revolutionary to say the least.

However, the use of such power comes with a cost. The nectar of death, the Void Fluid, required the balance of the nectar of life, water. To cool the iterators they fed them water, which they turned to steam, to clouds, to rain. The world's ecosystems - from arctic to antarctic - were drowned under layers of waterlogged swamp and rainforest. The only solace was found atop the very machines that had caused it.

Their creators left them behind, ascending before any concrete solution was identified. They left them trapped as minuscule puppets within bare cubic chambers within a structure that peeked above the clouds their steam produced. Each and every one had a story, but four of them had a particularly unfortunate life. Built on the long remote North Anchorite Island, their isolation would be their doom.

The being watched as their structures faded into the fog. His mind ached within his spherical purple head as he left his siblings for the second time. Once again, Fallen Deity closed his darkened eyes to rest.