Day 1 Camp Nano April 2019: The beginning of Gods' Seeds:

 I'm trying to motivate for April Camp Nanowrimo and a new book. Here's an excerpt from the first chapter:
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A group of beings — human-like, but with a venerable air for all their apparent youth —  sat in a room whose black crystal-crusted walls shone with reflected light from the molten white floor, from the white and silver table, and seemingly from the participants themselves. The paucity of light did not lessen the sterility of the surroundings. 

“The Apocalypse proved that we, the Archetypes, no longer take our protection of the human patterns seriously,” Luke Dunstan said earnestly, his hands tented in thought. His visage, weathered in contrast to the unlined faces of the other immortals around him, announced that he had become worldly and, unlike most Archetypes, had committed evil — in his case, for the sake of good. Unlike most Archetypes, he had also repented, which gave him a perspective that could be called almost human. 

“But they still embrace evil,” the Baraka Archetype, short and spare like his people, countered. “They fight wars. They envy each other and they commit crimes out of greed.”

“Or out of want, or madness, or jealousy or a dozen other things,” Luke stated, the grimace on his face reflecting a view of reality he knew had wavered from the neutrality of an Archetype. Su, his consort and the Oldest of the Oldest, watched impassively, her tightly curled hair ruddy in the sparse light. She knew how to play the game, Luke noted sourly, something he had lost in his long association with humankind.

“If we give them the full impact of their cultural histories — not just the facts, but the emotions — the fear, the hatred, the xenophobia — “ The Bering Strait Archetype trailed off.

“How do you know it will make them worse? They already have the stories of their peoples’ pasts, and those seem to inspire xenophobia, it’s true. But what if they remember the full impact of the losses of war and weigh it against their hatred — would they decide to fight more? Or would they lay their weapons down?”  Luke paused to take a breath, to calm himself down, to wear the gravitas of the Archetype instead of the passion of humans. “The point is that, if they kill each other, millions of them will not die with each death. If we keep holding the patterns of the humans — “ 

“One of our deaths will kill millions of humans,” Su interjected. “Which is why the Maker created us nearly immortal. Yet Lilith, who held the patterns of all women, was nearly killed by our kind. Can we guarantee this won’t happen again?”

All of a sudden the residents of the room stopped speaking. Luke felt as if a wind had cut through his immortal bones and chilled them for just a moment. Then he felt the weight, a weight of the history of countless descendents of the people of the seax, the knife that gave its name to the Saxons. And then his burdens vanished, and he felt a hollowness inside. The gasps from the others at the table echoed his.

“What — what was that?” The Ibero-Maurasian snapped, breaking the silence..

“I think — Su, did you notice anything?” Luke asked, knowing that Su had not carried humans’ patterns, their cultural DNA, for millennia as all her people, the Denisovans, had long since become extinct.

“Nothing,” Su answered, “except that all of you around me froze for a moment, and slumped forward. As if something had been taken away from you.”

“As it has,” the Bering Strait Archetype murmured. “I think — I think we have lost our patterns, and if we have, the Maker has taken them from us.” He sounded bewildered, as if something more than the weight of patterns had been taken from him.

“I must see — “ the Ibero-Maurasian said, then paused, and Luke knew that she mindspoke another Archetype. “No,” she finally said, speaking slowly as if weighing each word. “I think we are the only ones whose patterns have been taken.”

“But what does this mean?”  the Baraka demanded.

The Arnhem Archetype, theretofore silent, spoke. “I think this means that the Maker has decided for us — He will take our patterns from us whether we are ready to relinquish them or not. And we’re the harbingers of this big change.”