[center][img]https://40.media.tumblr.com/4f0c243d80adb7364cfdd22110297d81/tumblr_o2t1ksU5vW1u5gf80o1_500.png[/img][/center] Morning is a time of awakening, and it was a grave and wonderful awakening indeed for the Urtelem matriarch. A long fever dream had come and it had gone. Her quartz-lensed eyes now gazed over the same cragged crater lake, the same children and grandchildren that she recalled watching as full awareness passed into shaky memory. A strange story of a dream, yes, and stretched far beyond its time, for an aching hunger had come over her. There had been tugging and pulling upon her rolled, folded shoulders of [url=https://iamshelliambone.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/20080831-lava.jpg]billowy black[/url], a tug that had dragged her so firmly that her heavy form had felt nauseously weightless, entirely separate from the brace the basalt from which she came. It was an uncomfortable hallucination, to be a solid thing held aloft in the air, distantly similar to the feel of being immersed in comforting stone, held aloft by it while flying through rock. Then, stretching. Twisting. That was all she could compare the sensation to. Tugging so far that she could almost remember coming apart at the seams, could feel it still, through that misted half-conscious filter of the dream that dulled pain and sharpened sensation... It was over now. Morning had come. The stirring family saw her, and gathered as they woke, striding on grounded knuckles. Coming to give comfort to their mother and mate, coming, quietly, to receive it. They, too, had slept... Long. She embraced them with the same rough gentleness that she always had. That much had not changed. That much never would. But when she looked upon them, the matriarch knew more than simple affection. Unencoded knowledge, once accepted without thought or form, had coalesced into shape- A very clear, distinctive shape, like a star of many sides and compartments. And as she looked, the lines of each Urtelem face stitched itself into the space in that pattern that was made for them, until they were all accounted for. The diagram folded itself away in her brain, stored to recall at a moment's notice. She lurched to the lake's edge to drink, and the shapes followed in her eyes. Familiar landforms of Crater's Edge, same as every memory of every dawn before, aligned themselves into an array of slanted lines and points interjecting the horizontal plane. Modelled as tessellating slices through a strip of distant sky. An origami of colourless triangles, visualised in correct proportion no matter what perspective her mind's eye saw them from. Again none were counted, nor were such arbitrary symbols as digits assigned to the measure of their number and slant, but all were [i]accounted for[/i]. Old eyes looked upon old land and saw anew. And when those eyes looked aside and met with those of the other Stonemen, she knew that they, too, could see. Eight nights later, the elder Urtelem strode on alone, to the shallow inlet of the lake where she knew a curious thing did live. They were younger than she- A relative newcomer, and always peaceable one. Slender, like a centipede, and with a lower jaw that had split to form two lateral arrays of teeth in a triangular beak. The Weird Hain looked at her with stalked eyes, setting down a grass-blade tapestry to motion with their front set of hands like a pair of curious ravens eyeing a cricket. There was palpable surprise when the Urtelem motioned back. A change, signed the matriarch stiltedly, hands yet indelicate. [i]A weird change.[/i] [i]This one knows.[/i] Hands and fingers darted between the Sculptor and their visitor. Weird Hain's gestures were fast and subtle, and the Urtelem knew that she was missing details among their little twists and flexes. She could visualise them as knotted circles, intersects, lines only lightly touching her own bubble of language. [i]This one saw the change, and is glad! Perhaps this one's guest is glad.[/i] The Urtelem smiled and waved away her appreciation to Weird Hain, who referred to themself with a unique swish of the hand. An identifying sign, a more delicate form of the sign-names some of her children were already using for one another and their surroundings. She had never thought about having an identity other than simply [i]herself[/i]. Maybe soon there would be something to fill that gap in the pattern. Maybe this creature would help provide it. Its complex dance was weaving itself seamlessly into her own understanding of the language, as if one had been made for the other. For now, all the nameless Stoneman could do was beckon and signal curiousity, vague, questioning emotions not untouched by fear. [i]Why is it as it is? What makes it so?[/i] Two pairs of stalked eyes lit like opal in the light. From this point translation became impossible for the still-illiterate matriarch, for the Sculptor was barely communicating any more. They side-stepped in and out of the lake's edge, clicked their fingerplates together, and rasped out a hollow, rattling, elegantly tuneful song. Hands spun and gestured and told a story of something abstract. Fragments of it were understood. [i]A living being, bright as the sun. Waters around a mountain. An elder, strange and dangerous. Whispers of beautiful things.[/i] Abruptly the gestures stopped, their maker turning their head as if listening. Then they raised their hands to the sky and made a name-sign. It was simple, and powerful, and she found herself imitating it- Both palms open and together at the wrist, one curled inwards, the other curled over it to form a loose spiral. Thus the name of something strange was made known to the Urtelem. They feared it, for it had come at night and left only feverish half-memory, and they were glad of it, for it had given them mouths with which to speak, and eyes to go beyond simple acceptance and [i]see[/i]. Mostly, they did not understand it, for they are a calm and simple people, and the abstract puts them ill at ease. But they called it [b][color=9e0b0f]Spiral-Palms[/color][/b], as the Sculptors told them, and they guarded that name, for the Dancers spoke of something that lived and breathed, and what has come may yet return, for good or for ill. [center]* * * * *[/center] Jvan's hijacked vehicle ascended from the canopy of the Venomweald, losing most of its momentum as it shattered thin tropical boughs like twigs and skidded itself limply towards the mountains, still at an eccentrically unbalanced spin. The hollow ball of flesh convulsed in its efforts to cut away the growing calcification of its side, ballooning under its own power into a matrix of squirming bone. [color=9e0b0f][i]One drop... A single drop of this being's bile![/i][/color] From beyond hissed a roar unlike that made by any animal, the sound of stinging air forced to scream between a million writhing stomatal pores. Vividly colourful tendrils whipped out and cracked in the air. Insidious, and vast. She was gaining distance, and decided to cut losses and flee rather than risk her avatar another moment within the territory of the Writhe. [color=9e0b0f][i]I suppose that's one sight I can mark off the list for this safari.[/i][/color] Heartworm's drained, bleached puppet form flicked through the tubing of its laboratory, slicing away great chunks of eye and tongue to let it fall rather than spike out further into the crawling calcareous intoxication. The Venomweald Writhe was no deity, but it... [i][color=9e0b0f]Comes dangerously close. Heartworm's faculties are not unlimited, bless the thing, and I didn't make it for... This.[/color][/i] Even as the escape was made good, Jvan pondered. What had given the Divine Doe incentive to bleed out such a curious creature? A glorious flower, an illicit bloom that outshone even Meimu's delicate contributions to the world. Not that the Engineer was likely to admit it, but... [color=9e0b0f][i]There's something strange about this. It works with flesh as I do. Its design brings out the otherness of plants; Vast things, living things, groping for territory in the dark. Omnipresent. Distinct to the animals that take after divinity. And tentacles- I like that![/i][/color] For now, the Writhe would stay in its vibrant home, where it could not upset the more fragile forests. [color=9e0b0f][i]Maybe one day Galbar shall awaken to see smaller things in its likeness.[/i][/color] Inscription of the weighty Template into the overgrown, rain-carven greenschist Urtelem of this place was soon enough complete once she had recovered. Jvan readied herself to move onwards [color=9e0b0f][i]Oh hang on. Missed a spot.[/i][/color] Swivelling to one side, she dived towards a stony rise where familiar figures were standing with their usual wise serenity. As soon as the distance began to close, however, well, their serenity didn't look quite so wise anymore. [i][color=9e0b0f]What kind of... Ah, meaty blighters are these?[/color][/i] The Ogres held very clear signs of heritage among the Stonemen, but were clearly not made of rock. [i]Somewhat[/i] clearly. Jvan swooped closer. [i][b]Thduk.[/b][/i] A hefty chunk of log butted against an eye budding the vessel's lower half, and the staring ogre who had thrown it giggled laboriously. [color=9e0b0f]"Stop that,"[/color] rasped one of the goddess's many mouths, but its earthy resilience seemed to bolster it against the words of a deity. Or perhaps it was actually just incoherently stupid. Jvan confirmed the later to be the case when the creature reached down to pick up another log. [color=9e0b0f]"Stop. No. Stop that!"[/color] [b][i]Wump.[/i][/b] [color=9e0b0f]"DESIST!"[/color] [i]"Gnuh zurp!"[/i] The ogre laughed childishly in its own tongue, and its mates and companions looked up to see what all the fun was about. Sticks began to fly. Jvan had never felt truly humiliated before, and she told herself that was not what she was feeling now. But it came close. Soon after, when the first ogre was quite regretful of its life choices and the rest were rather thankful for the opportunity to run away and take a long hard look at themselves, Jvan toyed with its pieces, her temper calmed, and wondered what it was exactly that she had just encountered. [color=9e0b0f][i]Humanoid entity, sentient. Not very clever. Resists magic... No sign of culture in these memories. They are very. Derivative.[/i][/color] The vertebrate human form was growing popular, as it was among the gods themselves, but ogres did not appear to add very much to it. [color=9e0b0f][i]If they ever grow numerous, I'll spruce them up. For now, I won't waste my time with them. It's not like I'm spiteful or anything, after all.[/i][/color] For all her dismissive words, Jvan did not realise that, in one way, she already had. That day something cruel and frightful became known to the Ogres. Those of the group which had survived the violence to scatter took their stories and spread them to every corner of the fledgeling population, and as it grew, it remembered. The Ogres looked to the sky, sometimes, in fear of the eyes that came from above, the terrible being that inspired even such tough, dim beings with horror. Tales spread of Ganlugo, the Ogre who had taunted the being and been destroyed in moments, and then somehow [i]undestroyed[/i], only to be eviscerated again by the hand of an unknowable God. Crueler and truer tales still were those that said that Ganlugo had, in death, been twisted into something almost... Beautiful. The Ogres called the many-eyed thing [b][color=9e0b0f]Juk Fonk[/color][/b], though they did not know from where they knew that name, and tried to forget. They failed. [center]* * * * *[/center] Beyond lay the Ironhearts, where Mauve had gone before its master. Jvan did not tarry long within this sea of rippled ferrite strata. To take time navigating routes through which the vessel could pass was a dear luxury to afford where so many of the vaulted cavern cathedrals were only linked by slim cracks and tunnels. And, on occasion, mine shafts. [color=9e0b0f][i]The Rovaick are quiet, but far from lax.[/i][/color] Diverse sapiens they were, too, though most of what she found was of the little goblin-breed, and the clans did not tend to hybridise. Partly this was for strictly mechanical reasons. [color=9e0b0f][i]Tedar are girthy, but not all are so vast. This will be an easy thing to repair. Let the flesh have its due.[/i][/color] Pods of Urtelem were plentiful here, for the red-streaked haematite was fertile, and the cave systems were like lifelines of air for them to breach into and breathe as they glided with cetacean grace through the rock. So fine was the opportunity the caverns offered for Stonemen to fly deeper and longer through the belly of the range that the Ironheart Urtelem even came to look a little whale-like, with a sleeker shoulder and head structure, and slightly conjoined legs. Jvan blessed them wherever she found them, and so too wherever she ran into Rovaick along the way. It was a rough, rushed piece of work she applied to them, but it was more than sufficient for her satisfaction. Those goblinoids she encountered were opened up just enough to untie and bolster those genetic cords that separated each breed. Enabling unmatched chromosomes to coexist without destroying a developing embryo. Seeding diversity of the body. Jvan implanted a few such blastocysts herself into the individuals she found, and supplemented them with a probe. It was easier for the females than the males, but the lack of a natural uterus was no obstacle for the Goddess of Flesh. The children, when they were finally born, were colourful and delicate. Bones lengthened and shrivelled by turns, skin painted with masses of vibrantly textured lesions, and a great diversity of skull shapes among them; Their lifespans were more than adequate payment for their beauty. The last of the Rovaick to be impregnated in such a way was a well-clothed hermit. A member of the relative intelligentsia. The breed called Azibo. This one, perhaps, knew what was coming, for she stood upon a ridge outside her chiselled home, overlooking with a jade-studded staff in one hand and a burning torch in another the crevasse from which the divine vessel arose, inch by shadowed inch. Her feet were grounded so solidly that she may as well have been of the stone herself. [i]"Knär, birlohk asch,"[/i] she growled, and Jvan knew the meaning of those words. [b]"G't out of here, god-bitch. We dinnae ask for yeh pestilence and yeh filth, nor will we thank yah for it. Azibo dinnae bow, not t'you."[/b] [color=9e0b0f]"You know me,"[/color] murmured the many mouths of Jvan, eyes quivering as they swirled to focus on the figure before her. [b]"Know what yeh've done."[/b] [color=9e0b0f]"I have never asked for your allegiance, sweet child, nor your attention. It is enough that you are beautified."[/color] [b]"'Tis not beauty, devil. 'Tis ruin that yeh sow. 'Tis sufferin, 'tis [i]horror[/i]."[/b] [color=9e0b0f]"My dear, innocent girl, horror is just another form of adulation."[/color] A spark of blue-white, blinding in its illumination of the dark, spat from the staff of the Azibo, sizzling against an eye, cracking the cornea and melting the interior. It dripped blindly into the abyss. So many years of work for such crude magic. Whatever god had dispersed such power into the races of Galbar had spread it thin indeed. Jvan finished her business with the hermit and travelled onwards to the sunlands. In this way did something carnal become known to the Rovaick. Such intercourse as would allow for Jvan's petal-like hybrids to manifest remained rare, but the genes thereof did not die easily. Even many generations later, an infant might be born on a hollow year, born with the ulcers and brittle bones of another race lodged into its blood, and the Rovaick came to understand that not only such deformities but all aberrations of the body are of one kind. Are deemed good by one eye, who engineered horror and called it beauty. And those who desired to know the name of this being would climb to the place where the decrepit Azibo hermit lived, and lives still, having dashed her progeny against the stone at the moment of its birth. And this hermit calls the name of that thing [color=9e0b0f][b]Yah-Vuh[/b][/color], for He had told her so, and if ever He returns, then His pestilence again will inseminate the caves, and for Him must the Rovaick stand ready. [center]* * * * *[/center] Jvan had felt the tremors of Toun's oceanic monument shake Galbar, for her true body was deeply cemented into the thigh of the planet, and such vast actions leave ripples divine and physical. Now, finally, she desired to see it in person. White. Smooth. Immense. Unusually defensive. [color=9e0b0f][i]Well, at least there's another ocean, now.[/i][/color] Sunlight glanced off the thing like a beacon, forcing more and more eyes to shut as she approached it. Soon enough she tired of the fly-by, and, skimming the Cornerstone's reflection upon the calm sea, drifted back northwards. [color=9e0b0f][i]It's a little too... Even.[/i][/color] But she could not stay to rectify this. The thing radiated pressure from within, as blood seeps from a wound before the blade is withdrawn and the flow is free. More than simple light was emanating from the enormous china bowl. Tremendous creative energy thrummed through the place, and Jvan did not wish to see it used against [i]herself[/i]. This Avatar had come close enough to destruction in the Venomweald. Near the polar circle, where breezy snows were beginning to fall as a long autumn grew colder, stood to attention another elegant piece of divine craftsmanship. Obsidian black, like the moon from which it came, walled within its own crater was the Hilt. Magnificent waterfalls bellowed from the peak of the construction and energy simmered through into its maker. [color=9e0b0f][i]Just like the Cornerstone... The Celestial Palace, and the Valley of Peace. Even brother Kyre, quiet Kyre, has placed aside a hefty reserve of power. The Warkeeper is preparing. ...Maybe I should be concerned.[/i][/color] There were hain living on the outskirts of the Hilt. They had adapted industrially to the change in the landscape. Jvan hovered over those villages that harboured Urtelem at their outskirts, carrying out her sacred task for them, listening as she was now exorcised, now hid from, now attacked. Such a response did not perturb her. [i][color=9e0b0f]So long as they can live in a shared world. Besides, they are Teknall's family now. I owe him.[/color][/i] But the mechanisms of their assault was strange. Razor edged flint shards were starting to sink into her vehicle with increasing numbers, heralded by the twang of a string. [color=9e0b0f][i]Bows. Who gave them those? They're being so irresponsible with them![/i][/color] Trivial pain alone hardly put her mind into action. It was the investment that startled her. Mortals were growing more godlike by the day. Heartworm's body stroked the glinstering face of an enormous grey-black guardian tenderly, thinking. Weeks passed. The goddess departed, and a village returned to its usual flow. Rinkzurik was startled to find that one of his painstakingly woven reed baskets was being taken by a Stoneman from across the river as he fished to fill them. He was not a quiet hain on the best of days, and he was not quiet as he waved his palms at the creature now. [i]"Eht, arren! Fess kelyei!"[/i] [b]"'Ey- Brute- Oi! Give that back!"[/b] The urt looked him in the eye, and there was something uncannily lacking in brutishness about its gaze. With characteristic gentleness, and a sad droop of the wrist, she gave up the wide basket. [b]"Good girl. What got into yoOOF!"[/b] The immense weight of its contents jerked it out of Rinkzurik's fingers as soon as she let go. As he started swearing toothily to the skylords to smite him there and then, she looked on, and there was a patient little hint of smugness in the way she rested her head on the back of her palms. Eventually, Rinkzurik slowed his tirade long enough to actually look into the basket's contents. [b][i]...Fish 'n fowl, jolly god above, that's funny. Is it... Mud? No. No, this is dust. Dust and water.[/i][/b] Stirring the woven bowl with his hands, the hain looked a little closer, jaw at a droop. Specks of moss and black mulch drifted on the surface of the water. The pale dust was still recognisable as lime, crushed limestone from the ridge around which the river bent. His fingers probed further still, finding darker stone, greyer, and beneath that, little specks of silt-borne quartz. [b]"I... I think I'm a let you have this, big girl."[/b] The urt tapped its forehead and smiled, palm open and outwards. [b][i]Something's funny. Something is real funny here.[/i][/b] Over a few months, a visitant being at once familiar, gross, and unusual had made itself known to the hain of the north. Their children wept at its memory, did not sleep without the embrace of all their parents; and those parents looked upon themselves and remembered the intricacies of their second-hatching, seeing again line for line the patterns they had known in the night as they reined in a deep fear that had, for a moment, returned in full. They remembered the story their forefathers told of a villager who had grown so obsessed with building ugly things with sticks and sand that she had disowned and shamed her family, running for the Warrior's Mountains, where sometimes a monster with a grotesquely familiar hainish face was seen to this day, still playing. And they knew, also, that as the giant apparition flew over them, stopping a single day at a time, the stonemen of that place would forever after look back at them with an appraising keenness that set their teeth on edge the first time they saw it, would often be spotted waving and twisting their hands at one another. Would sift and grind and filter stone according to an unknowable alchemy before they ate it. The hain of the north saw all this, and were confused, because for one little moment of their little lives, they saw all the strangest things of the world come together as the makings of one mind. One being. The hain asked their shamans, and the shamans communed long with that droplet-of-a-droplet of magic that they guarded. And they saw that the being was a strange kind of goddess, with purpose unknowable and body hideous. This goddess they called [b][color=9e0b0f]Jaan[/color][/b], and the hain listened, and pondered the thought that even now, even in the Diaspora of the Maker, some part of them might still be but clay in the hands of something bigger. [center]* * * * *[/center] [color=9e0b0f][i]I don't think they even know it was me. It doesn't matter.[/i][/color] Small change, really. [color=9e0b0f][i]They're not restless. The time they spend sleeping doesn't bother them.[/i][/color] There hadn't been much point in teaching them to externally process a meal, certainly less than what the high-metabolism races could derive from fire. [color=9e0b0f][i]Would they even benefit from civilisation? Is simple transience their utopia?[/i][/color] That seemed likely. [color=9e0b0f][i]Then, I suppose, I am doing them a disservice.[/i][/color] And she would not stop, either. Only grow more refined. These were Jvan's last days in the shadow of the Hilt. An expansive winter had come to drive the birds southwards to the equator for another few years, and it was time to follow. As the structure faded into the distance, a whisper flowed from it, as though it had waited for her departure to call her name. [color=9e0b0f]"...Kyre?"[/color] Like the rush of static wind, a thin stream of divine energy hummed through her. Jvan captured and echoed it within herself, back and forth inside her laboratory, extracting meaning as she could from the distorted non-verbalism. [color=9e0b0f][i]A signal, thinly dispersed. Has my brother no messenger to carry the words theirself? Why is this broadcast so concealed?[/i][/color] Was there, perhaps, a conspiracy afoot? What Jvan managed to drag out of the signal was scant, and unclear. Snippets of recollected phrases. A conversation. [i][b]"-I want one of your best fighters to run into battle naked and wielding a stone dagger. He shall scream 'I love Lakshmi'-"[/b][/i] Astarte. [color=darkred][i]"Genocide this early on is boring. Really, who do you think I am-"[/i][/color] Vestec? [i][color=orange]"-Destroy everything around them on their path, and sentient life is not abundant enough-"[/color][/i] Kyre, of course. [i][color=darkred]"-I will not stop you from fighting against, and beating, these armies-"[/color][/i] ...What armies? [color=orange][i]"-So be it. I imagine we are not allowed to fight them ourselves-"[/i][/color] [i]What was going on?[/i] Vestec? Vestec had an... Well, 'army' was a stretch. [i]Horde[/i] was closer. [i]Ill-meaning mob[/i] described it well. [i]Shoal[/i] came to mind. Almost forty of Jvan's students had been recruited into their number, she knew, and they had her blessing. No harm could viably come from their participation in that horde. It was far too ill-disciplined to restrain them from dancing where they pleased, and gleaning the fields of war for materials of craft. They were artists of many forms; Let them be martial artists. Of the other races... [color=9e0b0f][i]Vestec's servants could be brought to their knees by a mild bout of dysentery, and yet he expects to fight a war with them?[/i][/color] It was far milder chaos than the mess he had threatened with Perfectus. Perhaps there was yet hope for his natural recovery. In any case, there was little she could do. Kyre had pronounced the issue to be between mortals alone, and his judgement was trustworthy; The war-god would put this conflict to constructive use. Besides, her route let her to the Valley of Peace. Surely no harm could befall such a place. Even her borrowed form felt a corrosive sting in the mist. Amber had departed this place long before, and Jvan, now, was eager to pick up where her servant had left off. Urts and Sculptors were free to live here in much the same way as they lived any other place, but fiberlings didn't last long. They lost their edge and starved or went dormant. Her scout had left plenty of detail blank about the race which Jvan was eager to fill. They were plentiful, and it was not a long affair to find them among the familiarly colourful trees. [color=9e0b0f][i]No reason for them all to be green, after all.[/i][/color] The tufts of fur decorating the angels were similarly varied, but- [color=9e0b0f][i]They look so, very, [/i]very[i] divine in shape... Too similar to humans. They have the wings, at least. How well do they work?[/i][/color] For such a large entity, Heartworm's vessel did not make a sound as it moved, and the angel watched with uncomfortable caution. He was blonde, and even within the placidity of Niciel's mountains, he had grown brave, and gave ground patiently, confidence beaming as the Holiest Mangle drew near, eyes fixed upon him. If it had truly meant harm, it would not be able to survive the mist, whatever its nature be. Was it a creature, or some kind of spirit? Could spirits take such unsettling forms? [i]"Eiyein, ol sun na. Físquel?"[/i] Restless fingers twirled with sharpened golden magic as he waited. [b]"Welcome, being. Do you speak?"[/b] [color=9e0b0f]"I do,"[/color] replied Jvan with many tongues, not slowing. [b]"Then, stranger, speak to me: Wherefrom do you come?"[/b] [color=9e0b0f]"I am sent of the All-Beauty, to sate the curiousity of that deity."[/color] Upon hearing these words, the angel's hair prickled. Still walking backwards, he realised that the divine emissary had been increasing its speed imperceptibly, and was now gaining. [b]"The gods are welcomed in the realms of She who Shines, noble being. The angels can offer to tell you anything they know."[/b] [color=9e0b0f]"I'm sure that is the case."[/color] There was a silence. The gap narrowed. Wrinkled sag in the vehicle's belly became increasingly apparent, and the shapes lodged into lobes of its blubber grew unsettlingly familiar. [b]"What do you [i]want!?[/i]"[/b] Golden holiness spiked out from the angel's hands and resolved itself into a pair of [url=https://static.boker.de/images/zoom/09uc0055.jpg]hatchets[/url], elegant in their simplicity of purpose. Now, he stood firm. The peace of the region would be maintained. [color=9e0b0f]"You,"[/color] spake Jvan, with a touch of sadness. Blades swung, blubber splattered and oozed, cartilage moved. The joints of the thing strained to bend, embracing the ground and folding over the winged figure beneath it. Jvan arose, the angel dangling from her lobes by his face and neck. [color=9e0b0f][i]Enough of this place. The mist burns. There's plenty of meat on this vehicle, but I'd rather not waste it.[/i][/color] The outer foothills were safe. Here, Heartworm's body was free to flex and measure the angel's wings, disrobe and examine him. Jvan did not have high hopes for his ability to fly unaided. [color=9e0b0f][i]These wings are almost afterthoughts, equipment on a humanoid figure. And the figures themselves do not vary much. I've seen nary wrinkle or bald patch, stretch-scar or shingle on these creatures. How can they consider one another beautiful like this? Bless your heart, Niciel... You need some advice.[/i][/color] A good thing, then, that she had an angel to serve as messenger. Some days had passed when the golden-haired angel was allowed to separate and peel away from the fold of Jvan. His knees and ankles were fused, forming a sturdy tail with a v-shaped fluke, and his feet were now firmly feathered. Of arms, he no longer had any; They were fused into the bones of his wings, which had been reconfigured, bolstered, locked up into a vast, rigid, albatross-like [url=http://forum.flitetest.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=3990&d=1335671059&thumb=1]span[/url]. Of his face and torso... Nothing, really, had been removed, or mutilated. Only decorated. Spines, ringlets and chains of delicate bone links pierced his septum, ran from his ears to his lip. Bands of bone had been draped over his neck and tightened, stretching it, and so too had a cylinder stretched his lower ear. His teeth were engraved, sharpened, and elaborately arranged in their gums, and the tip of his tongue had been split. Piercings clustered over his nipples and ribs. A cartilage corset had shaped his waist, and his member was circumcised. His entire body had been defoliated bar a single strip of hair from forehead to neck. Slashes of scar tissue formed patterns across his upper sides. Ink blackened the sclera of his eyes. A ragged breath was drawn. [color=9e0b0f]"It's not so bad, is it."[/color] The angel shuffled, slightly, from its tail-kneeling stance. There was no need to look and see what had been done. He had felt it. [color=9e0b0f]"You are unique, sweet child. You are beautiful as no other angel has been before. Does it not please you, to have identity?"[/color] [i]"Nnnngah, haaah."[/i] [color=9e0b0f]"Do not hasten. When the wind stirs, your wings will take you where as it wills, and soon you'll learn to glide under your own guidance. You'll find these wings sturdy enough to carry you even without magic. A rare gift. Your kin will look upon you in wonder."[/color] [i]"N-nyal, iwin sun-"[/i] [color=9e0b0f]"Hush. This blessing is given freely. I only ask a favour in return, which I have no doubt you will undertake anyway. Seek out the angels. Go into the Valley of Peace, which scorches my body. Offer them each a piece of the jewellery I have bedecked you with. I have accelerated the integration of art into your folk; These rings, chains, studs and bands, they are not ordinary bone. Do you feel it? They are soothing. They are tools of expression. Go. Express yourself."[/color] [b]"W-wait,"[/b] mumbled the angel over his teeth. [b]"You- What is your- Name?"[/b] She told him. [color=9e0b0f]"And yours?"[/color] [b]"Hef-"[/b] A cough. [b]"Hefin."[/b] [color=9e0b0f]"Thank you, Hefin. I will remember you."[/color] And so the deity departed. An hour later, the wind picked up, Hefin discovered his glider's wings, and by him, something exotic and bizarre became known to the Angels. For he visited numerous of their enclaves, seeking comfort, seeking empathy, seeking a place to eat and recover, and offering up the translucent god-ivory of his body wherever his kind would be found. For they were a burden to him, despite the warmth that they brought. Indeed, every angel who donned one of these hundred or so items of body art, in their hair, on their fingers, or pierced through their ears, knew comfort from them- Not the comfort of a lover's embrace, nor that of a warm place in the rain, but the strength to stand before others and say thus: I am unique. I am in control of my form. The blood of my birth does not contain me, nor do the eyes of others have power over me. Such expression did pass among the angels, and though none were ever so altered as Hefin, the Soaring Cripple, many came to know the thrill of bead and ring in flesh, and many more came to know his story. And in his story did Hefin tell them the name of [color=9e0b0f][b]Yivvin[/b][/color], the Elegant Fester, a being of many eyes and many tongues, to whom entry was barred in the Valley. Not so because They were perhaps so evil as the Devil beyond, but because to the weird gods of Galbar, to curse and to bless are sometimes not so far different, and mortals can only look on and see that nothing of this world is not strange. [center]* * * * *[/center] There soon came time to depart, and inspect the herds of Vestec. Jvan passed over the land, servicing such Urtelem as she encountered, tasting the air for the song of her estranged students among the roving population. Night glowed into day, blue glazed with black and stars. Moons spun over the lushness of lowland forests and plains. The Valley of Peace, somehow, was no so easy to leave. [color=9e0b0f][i]Has the mist followed me? Surely I haven't angered Niciel- No. No, this is no simple mist. This is aurora. This is music.[/i][/color] Indeed, flourishing pinks were soon trailed by a full compliment of indigo and cyan. As drops of rain, glitters of dream-dust swirled from the enchanted aether, sparks cast off from the tremendous storm of divine melody. Jvan paused her movement, rose into the sky. The puppet-form of Heartworm perched on the highest joint of its nest and through it she stared out into the shifting illumination. [color=9e0b0f][i]It's so soothing.[/i][/color] Glowing pops crackled over the surface of the vessel. The song was an active thing, rippling like a living being, and the bewitching seethe was saturated with information. A flabby tongue stretched out from between the worm's teeth to taste the glow. Then it retracted. Ilunabar had dispersed this flux of spirit for mortals to make stories with. [i][color=9e0b0f]I shall respect that.[/color][/i] Jvan refrained. There would come a time when this flow was over and complete, and its effects could be explored as they were meant to function. Until then she would simply rest here. The Phantasmagoria was a night not to be repeated for eons yet, and Jvan dreamt in it while she could. Whem the lights at last dispersed, the goddess lowered herself from the cold skies, gazing out over the earth for a gathering of sentients to examine. A clump of figures stood out among the greenery. Clearly visible to her eyes, the structures too large to be hain-huts. Humans, yes. In descent Jvan saw the clustered hamlets around their long-dead fire. The ravaged trees and crushed earth surrounding. The bodies. Chewed, burnt. Wide round trenches shoved mightily into the earth. [color=9e0b0f][i]These are footprints. Vast.[/i][/color] Doors open, belongings missing. The Emaciating Fluke leapt from its vehicle and skimmed over to the quartered form of a woman. There was no need to open up her skull to access the memories within. That service had been amply, elegantly supplied by a granite-studded mace. Closed eyes; This one had been destroyed in sleep. Jvan penetrated her shattered temple with a branching gill-ended tentacle anyway, probing her final memories. Dreams. Flickers of phantasmagoria streaming up and down the Arpeggio. A human spirit, wandering in Simulacrum, growing bored, growing inspired, leaping away into Labyrinth. There, a vision, something perhaps not quite true, and not far from truth either. A method. Working hands and scraping skin. Built out of raw materials, a product. Loving, callused hands of the craftswoman. Clean leather. A pair of boots. A pair of boots that would never see creation. Jvan shuddered over the gorgeously mutilated form. [color=9e0b0f][i]No. I was wrong.[/i][/color] There was no hope for Vestec's recovery. That creature malfunctioned still. [color=9e0b0f][i]My disregard... Ignorance- Blind! Blind.[/i][/color] Kyre's warning returned to her memory. [color=9e0b0f][i]Mortals. Let them destroy. Body is cheap. Life is cheap.[/i][/color] But things were different. Things had been different, perhaps, for a long time now. [color=9e0b0f][i]Vessels and vehicles and animals packhorses upon which we load our desire tools with which we are careless.[/i][/color] Among mortals, Jvan finally had something to [i]lose[/i]. She screamed. And the scream became song. [color=9e0b0f][s][b][center]"T R E M O R[/center] Alacrity of Wormling's Egg: Writhe now, Break Penetrate that Milk of Foetal Being Crunch, Of Teeth and Eye Upon Glass[center]A Fool to Hear and Doomed to Drink Partake, Child Extricate the Heartstrings Inch by Mile Go, Reflect Life's Bile Into Blood[/center][right]To Water Drag the Final Bone Drown Rock, Meet Immolate those Gleaning Devil's Ire Breathe, Lead Liquid Stone Consume Them."[/right][/b][/s][/color] ... The Riversons were nomads still, and all the wiser for it. Strange things had lately occurred to the settled villages they passed by. A few had been ruined, some short time ago. Scattered survivors, few as they were, told mad stories: A towering demon god, faceless, had stamped entire hills apart, and from its back had clawed down a great number of smaller devils, some as big as pearskin bulls. Tira Riverson sighed. Indeed, surely everyone knew that these were times of strong magic, and such things were to be expected. The Night of Colour had come, and soon after, an even weirder apparition, faint and localised. The grown-ups said they could hear only a whisper, from this far away, but Tira was young and eager and full of energy, who cut her hair short in the hope that it would never fly in her face and blind her, and she could hear more. Never understand, but hear, hear the sound of singing. Winter was deceptively cold upon the heathlands. Blue horizons were inadequate warning for the chill of a sheer wind that cut through layers of pelt over Tira's shoulders. Sent to scrounge the dirt for tubers where their distinctive flowerheads grew, she sheltered now, skiving, behind a jagged banksia. Little improvement. Tira could feel her head droop onto her knees, and lost track of time. Familiarity stirred her from stupor. The song had returned. Closer. The girl stood, brave, indomitable as only a child of fourteen can be, and faced the overgrown heath, listening closely. Once more did was she rendered incapable of comprehending meaning, but it was near, nearer than it had been. And though the words were formed in shapes she did not recognise, some old old part of her still knew the divine tongue by which Elysium had first called the daughters of Arcon. [i]"To water drag the final bone, come, writhe, break, teeth on glass, stretch thine heartstrings inch by mile, liquid stone partake..."[/i] There were round shapes passing over the earth, passing through the spine-bush scrub like soft grass. Tira turned her head and gazed back. The figures were further than she had been given permission to stray. To ash with their permission! Springing steps carried the nomad's hardened ankles down and to the source of the noise. They were no human clan, she soon saw. No, these were boulders. Rock people, rolling half-buried through the soil. A whole herd of them, silent but for the sifting of earth around them. Two herds! Imminently approaching. No Urtelem-throat could make such a sound. A many-coloured cloud-figure bounced and leapt before them. Tira ran to it. The swirl of faeries scattered before her, and her teeth began to chatter. It- He- They were perhaps the oddest thing she had ever seen, and certainly the oddest thing ever to be so close to her, but she stood right in front of it, brave, curious. Their legs were rather human in shape, but for the digitigrade stance, the spur at each heel, and their number. There were three legs. Just as they had three mouths, and three sets of ribs, and six hands; all twisted in a perfectly symmetrical, curled threefold form. Skin as brown and human as hers peeked out from under elaborately keratinised plates of horn. Each side had one arm that seemed human but for a second thumb, and another arm, below it, that had been added; Its elbow bent down, and its claw was rather bird-like. All those hands held loose loops of stone and bone on leather cords, and clacked them together percussively, delicately at each powerful swing and stop of the sharply swaying dance, producing a clicking rhythm as the being sang. [i]"Sista!"[/i] yelled Tira. [i]"Weit as nu?"[/i] Unceasing, unsurprised, the Sculptor did not approach but simply bounded over her in a fluid leap, landing at a crouch, the eyes in its collarbones gazing deep into hers. Swaying, their legs kicked out from the crouch and continued the dance, still watching, arms beckoning. Tira ran to catch up, and the fae continued to part for her. [i]"As nu!"[/i] she repeated, and the song slowed for an answer, though the rhythm did not for a moment decay. [i][b]"I am Dancer, running girl, brave girl, River's son and sky's child."[/b][/i] Tira grinned, pleased to be called by such names. [i]"Runati nu hals din Nurtalem?"[/i] [i][b]"To Angel's Hill and Misted Point, in the wake of demon-strides. I danced to them, day night and dusk, for wise have grown the Rock Folk, and now they see the way."[/b][/i] [i]"Nu owt-as garn,"[/i] shivered Tira. Just from the cold, of course. [i]She[/i] wasn't scared of demons. [i]"As nu, Dansa?"[/i] [i][b]"Yes!"[/b][/i] And Dancer leapt as if they enjoyed the taste of fear. Perhaps, thought Tira, perhaps he does. That didn't make any sense. Why would anyone enjoy being scared? And she asked as much: [i]"Tui?"[/i] At last there was a dip in the song. The dance slowed, and the Sculptor's clicking died away into silence. They stood still, waiting for Tira to catch up, and leaned towards her. She listened, closely, for the whisper. [i][b]"Because I do,"[/b][/i] breathed Dancer. [i][b]"Because Y'vahn taught me how."[/b][/i] Snap! Clap! Dancer cried out a long, warbling shout, a whoop of energy and life and determination and all that the demons sought to destroy, and three hundred fae stormed around them as the rhythm resumed. Tira did not get a single word out of the Sculptor for hours after, even as she followed far and long beyond where her parents had forbidden and beyond where she could find her way back, even as night fell and she grew so tired that she had to be carried on the back of a gentle Urtelem, and Dancer bounded on until they collapsed at night to rest and feed. Tira never again heard Dancer speak as much as they did on that first day, but though the Sculptor seldom talked, many things were said, and her hands grew to follow the shapes that Dancer and the Rock People made. And on the journey of Tira, of Dancer and other Sculptors like them, did something of beauty and purpose become known the the humans of those parts. For as they travelled long, and Tira grew fit and strong and clever, the band found several other human villages and tribes, and pods of Urtelem. At each one did the Sculptor dance, sometimes for days, with all the elders of the herds, debating, planning, teaching, conversing about the demons to which they marched until at last the herds realised that such a vast anger could not be ignored, that every pattern of thought they drew forbade them to allow peace to be thus broken. And humans looked upon these spectacles and were confounded. But Tira stood up to them with the light of day in her spirit, and spoke to them in the name of the God who whispered to her. The humans listened, and they called this being [color=9e0b0f][b]Y'Vahn[/b][/color], as they were told; This name they stood wary of, but did not forget, for they had seen the dance that led the Rock People on, and on, and on to where the Blue Angels stood guard in aerial ranks. [center]* * * * *[/center] Dawn had started to lighten the sky, and Sharmen worked on. Jvan rested beside her, her vessel outside, watching, wondering. [i][color=9e0b0f]It is nearly complete.[/color][/i] The sculpture stood three metres tall, easily, and the wattle-and-clay cocoon around it even higher, a hemisphere with slightly misfolded edges to allow entrance and a little neutered sun to fall on the thing. It was black as a cave. Blacker, even. The sturdy ironwood inner-frame and outer-frame of the thing, secured by fibrous knots and wedged into grooves like a puzzle, was coated with a thick solidified mix of resin and pitch from the surrounding tar pit. A preservative, as if the surrounding clay construction and sturdy wood was not already enough to see this structure live for a thousand years. Jvan recognised the shape. A sweeping mass of hooded cloak over a robe, beneath which was assembled the form of a god, and supported upon that faceless divine figure a crown of thorns. Sharmen applied the last of the pitch mixture from a gourd, and cast it aside. There was no satisfaction in that wrist-flick. [b]"Done."[/b] [color=9e0b0f]"This is the fourth you have made, dear student, and it has taken you a year. Does nothing else excite your soul? Do you not feel the need to wander further?"[/color] A voice, not from the many mouths of the vessel, but from within the worm itself. Sharmen did not look up. Only showed, again, that onyx figurine around her neck. The same that had inspired the basalt statue, and the enormous mineral-sand petroglyph, and the figure grafted of living ebony trees, and now this. Jvan wrapped her toothed form around the model and ate it. [color=9e0b0f]"You are sick, Sharmen. Vestec has charred your mind."[/color] [b]"I know."[/b] [color=9e0b0f]"Then come. Let me give you the rest you desire."[/color] No movement. Jvan took it upon herself to creep up over the Sculptor's many sets of shoulders, three ending in delicate pincers to work with, the final one ending in dextrous hands to stand on. The eyes on Sharmen's neck stared into her as she passed over them, but the once-Hain did not move, even as Heartworm unzipped to extend a claw of its own that forced its way through the iron-hard plate of her cranium. Jvan called to Other and Galbaric flesh alike, shut down the pain hormones. Then the motor cortex. [color=9e0b0f]"Forget the passage of Julkolfyr, sweet child. I shall ensure he is avenged. Forget, and be at peace."[/color] As memories were forever lost and cognition faded, the Other-form within and around what had once been a hain's brain slowly unwound from its stifling fog of trauma. Jvan looked into the same mind she had looked into many times before when Sharmen was young, and not fully ascended. With a tired heart, she called to that part of her, the old part, the part that still remembered mortality. [color=9e0b0f][i]Fruit-Catcher,[/i][/color] she whispered, using the original hain name. [i]I am here.[/i] [color=9e0b0f][i]Do you remember me?[/i][/color] [i]I do,[/i] and there was happiness there. [color=9e0b0f][i]I am about to send you on a deep journey, where you will find peace.[/i][/color] [i]I'm glad to hear it.[/i] [color=9e0b0f][i]It will be the last time you hear from me.[/i][/color] [i]Oh,[/i] [color=9e0b0f][i]But there is time to say goodbye. Tell me, Fruit-Catcher. How did you get your name?[/i][/color] [i]When I was young, I could not climb. I always slipped from the tree, and cried there in the dust. So my sisters would let me help them by catching the fruit they dropped down, so that it would not squash and get dirty.[/i] [color=9e0b0f][i]It is a good story, child. And what is[/i] my [i]name?[/i][/color] [i]Your name is Jvan. You whispered to me. You guided me to see that there was always something pretty to see, even when I fell, even when I was sad. I called you that. Always-Pretty. I called you mother, and sage, and sister, and when I was angry I called you meaty tongue-flapper. But I did not forget the first. There is beauty in all. All-Beauty.[/i] [color=9e0b0f][i]Thank you, Fruit-Catcher. Goodnight.[/i][/color] [i]Goodnight.[/i] And so Sharmen's mind lost its glow, and her eyes lost their lustre, and Jvan's worm-eyes looked up at the final work of the Sculptor as it stood in memory and as her soul fell quietly down into the Wraith-Stone of Reathos. [hider=Male Pregnancy?] An Urtelem communicates with a Sculptor and discovers that the sign-name of the deity responsible for her changes is Spiral-Palms. Jvan detours to the Venomweald, is noticed by the Venomweald Writhe, and promptly leaves as fast as possible to avoid injury. She does, however, realise that she rather likes tentacles. An ogre pelts Jvan with sticks and she throws a hissy fit. Its companions see this spectacle and remember the name of a vengeful god, and call it Juk Fonk. The Rovaick are blessed by Jvan as a free domain action. This blessing allows the different races to interbreed to form not [i]entirely[/i] unviable children, only [i]somewhat[/i] unviable children. These are beautifully deformed but still somewhat functional, and she impregnates some of the Rovaick with them directly, regardless of what was in their pants at the time. An Azibo hermit bravely challenges her and is dismissed. She remembers the name of the weird god as Yah Vuh. Jvan tours the Cornerstone and Kyre's holy site (which she dubs the Hilt), briefly. This section was pretty rushed. While servicing the urtelem of this region, she sees that bow technology has become prominent, and decides to experiment with giving some kind of simple technology to the Urtelem. Jvan spends one free point to introduce crude 'cooking' to the Urtelem- By crushing, panning, sifting and magically sorting stone before they eat it, they can remove some of the less nutritious minerals and don't have to spend quite so long digesting what they eat. The hain see that weird things are happening, and slowly start to associate Jvan with certain other oddities in the world. Their shamans call her Jaan. Again, rushed. Jvan receives Kyre's message and doesn't think much of it yet. Within the Valley of Peace (presumably before Falas begins marshalling her army), Jvan finds an angel and examines him. Knowing that angels are all rather beautiful, by their definition, she tries to diversify their cultural conventions of beauty by taking a free domain action to engage in extreme body modification with an angel named Hefin. Hefin, crippled and edited to glide where the wind takes him, is tasked with offering every angel he meets with an item of body jewellery that Jvan has given him. These odd bone rings are mild talismans, granting their wearer the confidence to express their unique identity through their body as they please. Hefin asks for Jvan's name and translates it as Yivvin, which gets passed to the other angels. Jvan enjoys the Phantasmagoria thoroughly and decides to investigate its effects on some humans, only to find that a village had been destroyed by Grot and his gang, ruining its potential for technology. Angry at the loss of potential before it had a chance to take root, and also because I didn't really know how to round off this section, she sings to the Sculptors in the region (probably like ten of them, total) and they in turn warn as many Urtelem tribes as possible of the incredible destruction threatened by the horde. A migration of ~several hundred Urtelem begins to the Valley of Peace, to stand alongside the angels. A human girl called Tira sees Dancer, a Sculptor, leading a column of thirty-ish Urtelem, and decides to follow them. Though Dancer is scared of the upcoming battle, they are also excited for the aesthetic opportunities it offers. In time, Tira picks up their language. (Think of her as an ambassador.) Through Tira and the Sculptors, the name of Y'Vahn is passed to the humans west of the Valley of Peace. Jvan watches Sharmen complete her fourth statue of Julkolfyr, and offers her solace from Vestec's missive in the form of death. [b]13 Might Remaining 0 Free Points Remaining Level Four 2/3 Might used to unlock Beauty (Geometry)[/b][/hider]