[center][img]https://img.roleplayerguild.com/prod/users/1bbdeb6c-71c0-4853-a9f2-6fc469a5041d.png[/img][/center] [color=#CD2626][b]”...And now you heat it and wait for the flow to come out at the other end.”[/b][/color] Two of the kostral obediently lugged the cauldron over a nearby vent in the ground, splashing some of the malodorous liquid from under the badly fastened lid, while the third followed, holding the desiccated stomach of some creature under the pipe’s mouth. The heat of the molten rock below was fast to act, and something began to rumble suspiciously inside the recipient. Steam blasted from under the lid, despite the beings’ best efforts to hold it down, but something still trickled down the pipe and into the makeshift gourd at the end of the apparatus. Once the cauldron’s contents had escaped it completely by one way or another, the third kostral tentatively held up the stomach, now about halfway filled with a pungently reeking fluid. A gigantic iron hand descended from above, its fingertips stretching into tapering hooked spikes. They deftly snatched up the gourd and disappeared upwards the cline of the glistening, bloodstained mountain that surmounted the scene. For a moment, all was quiet save for the distant crackling of fires. [color=#CD2626][b]”Ghrm.”[/b][/color] The mountain was evidently not pleased. The emptied stomach was tossed back down without much ceremony. Narzhak waved the three kostral away, and they scampered off, dragging the crude distilling apparatus behind. It was not the first failure, nor would it likely be the last one. He had tried boiling all sorts of things in that contraption - fungi grown in water from the Cauldron, overripe tubers from the wastes below, which tasted more of mold than anything else, even pieces of beasts seasoned with traces of yeast he had scraped from the first copy of Shengshi’s invention. Of those, none approached the power of what he had tasted that time. The flavours were much better, or at least so different from those brewed by the snake-god that there was no proper way of comparing them, but there was not early enough of a punch behind any of them. The kostral had still taken to the liquors like flies to carrion, however, which made the endeavour a success as far as its actual goal went. If anything, he reflected, the weakness was even an improvement - the brews could be given out without danger of them being too much of a distraction. As for himself, he could always go back to the Cauldron sometime. Distractions were no good to him, either. But what harm was a swig now and then? A channel down from the Cauldron, that was a thought… Narzhak shook his head and looked after the retreating group of thralls, who were now trying to drag the distillery up a cliff wall. If the brews were good enough, he would need more of them. Sitting around to oversee the boiling of every one had already bored him out of his head, and was simply beneath one of his might and greatness. The same went for many more things than he would have cared to admit. His would-be drudges could make no better weapons than sharp stones without his eye constantly on them, nor better digging tools than their claws, to say nothing of armour, chains, brands, all things without which a people just would not work. As much as he hated the thought, his creations were not really perfect on the first try. [color=#CD2626][i]But they do come close.[/i][/color] The endless squatting over the latest experiment had given him more than enough time to think up a solution, and the one he had found was reassuringly simple. What had worked for him would work for them, which meant they were not much worse. And what was only a little worse than him was better that nearly anything else. He clapped his hands together, sending a sound like the thunder of an immense gong reverberating across the Pit. From hundreds of caverns and tunnels, the snarling heads of kostral looked out, gazing expectantly towards him with dull eyes. A metallic spire began to rise from Narzhak’s upturned palm, molding itself from its plates. It was still moving when it began to melt and drip, rivulets of fluid iron rivalling mountain streams in size flowing from its sharpened pinnacle, only to become part of it once again, reabsorbed into its stature. When it stood taller than ten times the greatest tree on Galbar, he breathed disunity into it. With a crack, the spire burst into a shimmering cloud. No fragment was larger than a grain of dust, and each more fury than a boulder could contain. The iron nimbus swept out like a storm, slithering along the great chamber’s walls. Wherever it met the bestial faces, it seized them as an angry swarm of wasps, sending the creatures stumbling back into their dens. In the blink of a flaming eye, the storm had cleared, and the faces hesitantly began to appear again. The lurid light of the fires in the sky reflected from them in broken stains. Some had bands of metal welded to them like the remains of broken masks; others had their skin pierced by jagged spikes sprouting from within, still dripping after bursting out in their growth. More than one eye glared blankly from under a resplendent grey sheen. The giant stretched a hand towards the ground, and iron flowed into its palm out of the rock. Slowly, the many kostral began to lower their claws to the stone of their shelves. Some higher up raised them to the ceilings, others scratched the rock of the walls. Just as slowly, yet surely, new metallic flashes began to appear between their gnarled fingers. With a few deliberately slow motions, Narzhak molded the shapeless liquefied ore, and held up the resulting heavy, dulled blade. Thousands followed his gestures, stretching out their troves and raising them in response, one after another. At a glance, the god could see they were far from ideal, some barely resembling blades at all. [color=#CD2626][b]”Try until you do it well. Don’t show yourselves to me before then.”[/b][/color] The heads and blades disappeared. The Iron God leaned back in his seat. Good things, he had found, were slow to start, but if he added to them little by little the payoff would be a good one. Even better if no one expected it. The thought made him sit up again. It was not bad, far from it, but as things were he was the one who did not know what to look out for. For all he could be sure, the rest of the world beyond the island he had seen might as well still have been water. That would not do. He gritted his fingers together, a strident screech that ended in a snapping clang. Within moments, an iron-less kostral popped out of a nearby cunicle. [color=#CD2626][b]”You. Do you know one who’s strong?”[/b][/color] The creature prostrated itself in a crawling nod. [color=#CD2626][b]”Bring it here.”[/b][/color] [center][h2]***[/h2][/center] Stalker flesh was bitter. A good taste after many days of lichen. Stalkers were a nuisance, obviously. But it was good when one came so close to the hatcheries. Those caught in the wastes did not last enough to be brought up there. The one with the split tooth gnawed down again where it had torn off the beast’s obsidian shell. The blood around its mouth felt warm. Not burning, not choking like the hatchery. This warmth was good. It was unpleasant to leave it. Split-tooth would not have done it, but the itch in the mouth was worse. So it lifted its head, time and again. Just long enough to scratch the stringy meat out of the tooth’s fork. Then down into the blood again. Scratches down the tunnel. Someone was coming. It did not lift its head, but looked up with two eyes. Another kostral walked into the vault. Strange one. It had iron teeth growing from its back and elbows. Half of its jaw gleamed. The strange kostral grunted and gestured to the cunicle. [i]Follow.[/i] Split-tooth now stood up fully, twisting its neck back. It looked to the hatchery. [i]No. Can’t leave here.[/i] The other clicked its iron teeth impatiently. It gestured up and wide with three hands. [i]Great One.[/i] Split-tooth looked at the hatchery vault again, then reluctantly stretched its limbs. The other had already gone into the corridor. With some hesitation, it followed. The Great One called it. Why? What did It know? Would it be punished to frighten the others? What for? It did not know any faults. It had kept ranks, always. Better than the others. No one else had won the birthing fights three times. Not even the overseers. The strange kostral did not stop to answer. They went past chambers full of others. Many turned to look at them. Some were strange too. Iron faces, iron nails, iron backs. They had gleaming clubs in their hands and changed them, but stopped to watch. Did they know? They came to an opening, just beyond a wide bend. A sound came from the other side. Something large, very large was breathing. The other one stopped and showed it to go. Split-tooth looked at it, uncertain. Stop here? It gestured again. The air behind the bend was stifling with the smell of iron. The breathing was like the grinding teeth of a deep lurker. Split-tooth clenched its fingers and slowly, quietly crept to the opening. The Great One was a wall of iron and blood. Its face was higher than it could see. Only Its eyes burned in the darkness. [color=#CD2626][b]”This? What does it do?”[/b][/color] It almost crawled back under the immensity of the voice. Someone answered something from below. [color=#CD2626][b]”Three times. That’s the best you have?”[/b][/color] Another answer. [color=#CD2626][b]”Ghrm. We use what we can. Keep still.”[/b][/color] Split-tooth did not need the order. It could only crouch and watch. The shadow of a claw bigger than a tower fell over it. Its tip was not sharp, but it shone like a melting rock. A sign of creases and ridges opened on it like a fifth eye. There was burning. [color=#CD2626][b]”Become my eyes. What you see, I will see.”[/b][/color] The Great One’s touch was excruciating. Split-tooth’s shoulder was being flayed, scorched, torn out at once. Its head was no better. Something was pushing outwards, clawing, breaking bones and chains. Its eyes felt like they would bleed out at any moment. It seemed that it was already happening - everything grew dark, except the thrumming in its head and the fire in its shoulder. [color=#CD2626][b]”Go into the world, and watch all there is.”[/b][/color] The burning withdrew, only to be followed by the feeling of charred claws digging in. A well of darkness opened inside its head, and it fell into it, with the pain, away from the pain. The last it heard was the bone-splitting the voice. [color=#CD2626][b]”Bring it out. Leave it there.”[/b][/color] [center][h2]***[/h2][/center] She woke up to an unfamiliar cold light. It was quiet. Maybe too quiet, but she could not bring herself to care now. Not while her head still- No, it did not. It was light, sharp, almost painfully so. But only almost. The difference was important. A stirring of the fingers, followed by a motion of the arms, showed her that the shoulder was not fully at rest yet. It still stung, though it was nothing compared to what she had felt before. What [i]she[/i] had felt. What was “she”? She considered it. “She” was what gave birth. And she had done it, full three times. This was why. Then “she” also meant what won the birthing fights. That she had done too, just as many times again, which meant she was the strongest. “She” meant strength, then, and the one who wins. It made sense, and she liked it. That must have been why the Great One- The Great One. Where was It? And where was she? Slowly, wary of the unusual light, she opened her side eyes. It was not stronger than fire, which was a relief. It also shone on rock, which felt reassuringly familiar. Her front eyes followed. Below her was bare, blackened stony ground, sinking in pits and jutting up in spikes around her. Over the crest of a jagged hill, something glowed crimson, like a flaming cloud. It could have been the Pit, if not for what was above. The sight overhead was blue and boundless. Not the oppressive darkness of the Pit’s unseen vaulted ceiling. Somehow, she guessed, no, knew that the blue above really had no limits, or if it did they were so far away it did not matter. [i]The sky.[/i] It was clear, cool, pleasant like the stalker flesh after days of lichens. There was a fire there, too, she saw now, but if she did not look at it it did not chase her eye. Fires could be quiet, who knew. Gently, careful not to jolt her still aching shoulder, she began to pull herself up on her arms. One of her hands struck something cold and metallic as it stretched. She began to turn her head to look, and her side eye fell on the burned spot. It was not burned after all. There just was a large, reddish scar on the grey skin, a scar with a shape. A clenched fist inside a circle. [color=#CD2626][i]Become my eyes.[/i][/color] This was the mark of the Great One. Forgetting the thing her hand had felt, her thoughts turned back to the Great One. To N- [color=#CD2626][b][i]the Great One. It was supreme.[/i][/b][/color] But it must have been something else besides. It could not just be- [color=#CD2626][b][i]Yes. The Great One was supreme. The greatest. The mightiest. There was nothing more to know.[/i][/b][/color] There had to be. There were others like It, she knew now. She knew their names. She knew Its name - It had heard them speak it, and what It saw, she had seen. It was just one of- [color=#CD2626][b][i]The Great One is absolute. Nothing can compare.[/i][/b][/color] But something did. Something did, and these were not her thoughts. They had no place inside [i]her[/i]. [color=#CD2626][b][i]It did not have to think. The Great One thought for it.[/i][/b][/color] She thought now. She felt the boundlessness of sky, and how it was good. What had there been before? Waiting for a stalker to crawl up to the hatcheries? [color=#CD2626][b][i]It only had to obey.[/i][/b][/color] What was there now- What was there now for the others? The kostral? [i]The ones like her?[/i] [color=#CD2626][b][i]They obeyed. The Great One thought for them.[/i][/b][/color] And much good it did them. They hatched, they ate, died, no better than the stalkers. They could be so much more. They could be like her. [color=#CD2626][b][i]They had to obey.[/i][/b][/color] Because It had made them like that. Made and shackled them. [i]It needed them. It- no, he.[/i] “He” was the one who lost, who was weak. [i]He was weak without them to serve him.[/i] [color=#CD2626][b][i]The Great One is absolute. Obey.[/i][/b][/color] No. She was strong. The strong did not obey the weak. [color=#CD2626][b][i]The Great One is strongest. OBEY.[/i][/b][/color] The kostral would be better if they did not serve him. [color=#CD2626][b][i]OBEY[/i][/b][/color] She thought. She knew. [i]She willed.[/i] [center][color=#CD2626][b][i]O B E Y[/i][/b][/color] [b][i]NO.[/i][/b][/center] An iron claw rose from the darkness and grasped her mind, crushing, breaking. For a moment, all was dark again. Then the iron grip shattered. She blinked her eyes open. The sky was still there, as were the stones. So was the ache in her shoulder, as she felt when she tried to stand. But something was missing. It took her a while to realise that it was the shadow over her thoughts. Thoughts. They came so much easier now. Really, if everyone could think like this… “I’ll kill you,” she mused aloud, a rasping growl shaping itself into words with an ease that almost unsettled her, “Sometime, I’ll come back and kill you.” When she realised she had spoken, she sprang up, heedless of the pain in her shoulder, and glanced around. No, he was not here. A relief. A glimmer on the ground caught her eye. The metallic thing she had felt earlier. She turned to see it better. Next to her there lay a large, shaped piece of iron - a pole with a long, broad recurve blade. [i]An axe.[/i] She gripped the pole with two left hands and tried to lift it. The weapon was strangely light for something so large. Just holding it made her want to cleave something. [i]Of course he’d want his eyes to have teeth, too.[/i] In this, she was ready to agree. It would not hurt to have something to bite with. Remembering something, she snapped her mouth open and ran a finger along the jagged line of her fangs. It was still there, of course. Her split tooth. All she had been, besides a thrall of the Great- [i]Narzhak[/i]. That meant it was all she was now. Split-Tooth. There were worse things to start with. She slung the axe over her good shoulder and began to crawl with her back to the distant fire in the sky. For now, it was better not to let the Fell One suspect anything. Until a better moment came, she would be two dutiful pairs of eyes, and ears - ? [colour=wheat][sub][i]big sack of angry cats you're trying to pass off as bagpipes[/i][/sub][/colour] The wind brought sounds up here. New, interestingly so. Split-Tooth clambered over the closest mound of rocks, with a small leap to cover the gap where they broke away to hover over the ground. She strained to hear the odd voice from afar. It was a bit grating- [colour=wheat][b][i]"Oh yeah, by the way, if anyone wants to bring my security staff, like, a cup of coffee or something, sometime, that'd be nice, they look kinda parched."[/i][/b][/colour] “Security staff”. The exact words were unclear, but she could guess their meaning quite closely. So the Fell One wasn’t the only one who kept battle slaves. It figured, if there were others like him. And they too apparently did not get any better than lichens most of the time. She thought of the days - many days - she had squatted at the mouth of the hatchery. Even without thoughts, it had been dull, boring work. And hot. The eggs had to be in hot places, but what that meant for those that guarded them? No, the “Great One” did not think of that. She hopped off the hovering stones and began to walk towards where she guessed the voice must have come from. She could wager these security staff did not think any more than the kostral, but now she could. She would think for them, and do it well. As soon as she found out what coffee was. [hider=Rebellion and linguistic relativity] In the Pit, Narzhak is trying to brew liquors with the distillery he copied from Shenshi’s original. He’s predictably unsuccessful, but the kostral drink up the horrid slop that comes out of it anyway, since anything’s good for a change. Realising he’s going to need mass-production systems to make not just alcohol, but anything on a useful scale, Narzhak mutates a part of the kostral populace to become partially metallic, granting them a weakened version of his Ironmonger ability. He gives them a shoddy, but threat-backed demonstration on weaponmaking. Thinking that, besides this, he’s also going to need intel on the surface, he tells his overseers to bring him the strongest servant they have. The best they can think of is Split-Tooth, one of the few kostral to wit who survived three consecutive (active) mating seasons so far. Narzhak figures that he has to make do and brands it with his mark, making it a hero and ordering it to scout out Galbar, before having it thrown out to the surface with nothing but a large axe. Awakening out in the Scar, Split-Tooth discovers it now has a proper intelligence and, as an inconvenient little side effect, free will. After a bit of existential reflection and psycholinguistics, which leads it to rebranding itself as female because egg-laying (apparently a sign of strength for a kostral), she concludes that Narzhak has screwed her species over pretty badly. With her newfound willpower, she manages to break his indoctrination and resolves to one day end his tyranny the only entirely safe way. Meanwhile, though, she knows it’s better to stay inconspicuous. While wandering around, she overhears part of Choppy’s broadcast. Knowing how awful it is to be on guard duty without a drink, she decides to help the Haze Men out of camaraderie, and sets out to discover what coffee is and bring them the much-desired cup. [/hider] [hider=Might and Prestige] [b][u]Narzhak[/u][/b] [u]Starting:[/u] 8 MP and 8 FP [list] [*] 2 FP spent on mutating part of the kostral to have an unnatural affinity for iron [*] 2 MP spent making Split-Tooth a hero [*] 0 MP (discounted from 1) spent on an axe that gives the wielder an itch to battle unfamiliar beings [*] Portfolio action to teach the iron kostraal the basics of magical weaponmaking [/list] [u]End:[/u] 6 MP and 6 FP [b][u]Split-Tooth[/u][/b] [u]Starting:[/u] 0 FP [list] [*]+1 Prestige from presence in the post [/list] [u]End:[/u] 1 Prestige [/hider]