[i]Midnight. The moons echoed over a white-splashed sea. A faint wooden scratching sound, even and repetitive, followed by a rustle in the palms. Tauga raised the pole on her palm, perfectly balanced and still beneath its weight. Once a glass khopesh had rested in a sling over her shoulder. Now there hung on her belt a sheathed Alefprian gladius, wrought in bronze. The light of the Ophanim competed with the eyes of Vulamera far above her head. A presence emerged among the palms. Tauga's tongues curled around it by reflex. For a while there was quiet. She looked up. [color=antiquewhite]"So."[/color] [color=f6989d]"You have returned."[/color] [color=antiquewhite]"Felt like it was time."[/color] Quiet. She went back to trimming her mast. Flakes of bark and wood fell from her obsidian knife. [color=antiquewhite]"You're out of your shell."[/color] [color=f6989d]"Yes."[/color] The response drew her eye. There it coiled, barely the length of her forearm, a snake or fluke lined with bulbous blood eyes. Not 'correct'. Just 'yes'. [color=antiquewhite]"Aren't you scared?" [/color] [color=f6989d]"Your presence makes me safe."[/color] She looked down, watching the ocean with her spare eyes. [color=antiquewhite]"Oh."[/color] [color=f6989d]"Tell me where you came from."[/color] Cocked head. [color=antiquewhite]"But you already know."[/color] [color=f6989d]"It would benefit Tauga to recall her story,"[/color] said Heartworm. [color=f6989d]"Start at Alefpria."[/color] Her head dipped. She took out a pair of callipers and began to measure. [color=antiquewhite]"When the Alefprians beat me, I blacked out. By the time I came to I was halfway to their city. I'd never heard of it before. I was in chains. I didn't care."[/color] As she spoke, she heft the mast on her shoulder, an impossible burden, and carried it to the waves. A catamaran rested on the lagoon. [color=antiquewhite]"I learned that the Rotflies were dead. Sen, Dracces, Jinini, everyone. And the City was gone. Just a hole in the ground. I didn't think much about. Much. I just ate when they told me to. I said words when they talked to me. Sometimes, anyway. I'm dead. I don't know what they wanted."[/color] [color=antiquewhite]"They put me on trial. There was no one to confess. No Énas to answer to. It was so quiet. Like a... I was a quiet beggar. They expected me to say something but I had nothing to say."[/color] [color=antiquewhite]"After a while they decided I was broken. And, guess I am. They sent me to a gibbon monk who... She'd seen girls with fear dreams before. But she knew I was different. So, she arranged to let me go."[/color] [/i][color=antiquewhite][i]"I was in the city for a few months. Eventually the god-emperor found me.[/i] Their [i]god-emperor."[/i][/color][i] [color=antiquewhite]"He told me to go back. Said he had work for me. Said that my sins could be atoned, and he needed a loo- lieute- a right hand. To govern Amestris, and build a new City. While he went on conquest."[/color] [color=antiquewhite]"He named me Marquise. That means, 'border lord'." "So I spent the year... learning... The gibbon had sweetmeat..."[/color] She shook her head, beak to the sand. Her memories weren't too clear. [color=antiquewhite]"And now here I am."[/color] [color=f6989d]"Not Amestris."[/color] Tauga shrugged. [color=antiquewhite]"If he wants me to rebuild Xerxes, I'll go to where Xerxes is."[/color] They looked out together. The Metatic waters spread in all directions for thousands of miles. There was a sound like a weight in the sand. [color=f6989d]"This." [/color] Tauga picked up the maul. The Emaciator had disgorged it head-first, like a trick from a hat, though it was eight times Heartworm's length or more. It was the same weapon she remembered: an executioner's hammer, all haft and a small head, with a dull point on one end and a curved spike on the other. But it was more, too. A new weight suffused it, more suited to her obscene strength. The bronze gleam was only a tint, and a spike had been affixed to the killing end. [color=antiquewhite]"You found it,"[/color] she said. [color=f6989d]"Adamantium carbide. Used in divine weaponry."[/color] Faint nod. She spun the weapon, feeling its weight. A small mace had been flanged onto the butt end. Setting it to the sand, it was maybe twice her height, and taller than any man. She gripped the bludgeon cords whistling high above. It was an aerial weapon, not meant for close quarters. Hovering a few feet above the sand, she rocked it back and forth in her hand, then fit it to the clasp in her suit. Once more her silhouette was complete. Sword and hammer, polearm and sidearm. Heartworm inspected the pile of canvas inside the catamaran. As Tauga swooped down to set her feet on the boat, it unzipped its teeth and stretched the fabric with black tongues, cutting it evenly into shape. [color=antiquewhite]"Hey."[/color] [color=f6989d]"Triangular sails. Efficiency."[/color] Tauga watched it work. Together they attached it to the new mast. Heartworm perched on her shoulder as she did so. She regarded it coolly with her side-eyes. [color=f6989d]"You and I are a team, Tauga."[/color][/i] [center][img]http://img.roleplayerguild.com/prod/users/253784f7-b755-41ef-b248-616664056bb6.png[/img] [b]Birth of the Marquisate Part I: Islanders[/b][/center] [right][url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hc0U4Ik1yN4&index=41&list=PLc_RJ2laVnkAwYhZ7V8t4n4y-U1zd0fOj]Keiichi Okabe - KAIJU[/url][/right] Grey conquered the sun and then the waves. Fierce winds lashed the ocean into a spitting mess of turbulence. Spray flew from the prow of Tauga's catamaran and ran in droplets from the eyes of the Blowfly mask. Her hands clenched rope, heaving the sail high into the air with the strength in her arms alone. Firm in the buck of her ship, she worked knot, yard and spar, guiding through force of will a vessel meant for ten. [color=antiquewhite]"Change tack! We'll circle Mimichti and pull up on Long Beach!"[/color] Behind her head rose a cry of loyalty: [i]'BLOWFLY!'[/i] As the catamaran raised a crest of foam, the line of boats following behind her came into hard determined focus. Men and women of all colour bent into the wind and drove their hulls into the water. Human, hain, goblin, troll, they wore trousers of black leather and bared chests lined with muscle. It was a Tlaca fashion. Xerxes may have thrived on the islands, but their people were old, and their songs were powerful. What came from the city and what came from the sea were no longer so clearly apart. Tauga rode her cat into the far surf and sprang into the water, submerged entirely only to force herself from the toppling force of the swell and onto the beach, dragging the huge boat behind her. The young men of Axotal followed her shortly onto the sand. The wind cut across her words and she roared in defiance of it. [color=antiquewhite][i]"We'll take the route to Ihuian tomorrow! Tell the villages to ready eight days supply!"[/i][/color] A disparate mass of teenage fury called back. [i]Tauga! Mason God! Blowfly![/i] And among it, a new call: [i]MARQUISE![/i] [center][h3]* * *[/h3][/center] Hurricane gales screamed past the ophan cords, washing the great iron spheres with torrential rain as Tauga navigated the storm. Numbers clicked in her head as she felt her changeling body mark the miles on Galbar's web of magnetic field-lines. She yanked at the ophanim to follow her lead, but even her sprawling tentacles were not enough to force them to bear. Slowly they drifted off course, perfectly yielding to every command that did not bring them to the eye of the storm. Finally she paused, miles high over the middle of the ocean, sensing the djinni as they whipped and chattered in swarms around her. Her tentacles knotted hard over the cords. Even the ophanim would only withstand so much without marking a challenge. [color=antiquewhite][i]"Heartworm!"[/i][/color] A presence in her skull. [color=antiquewhite]"I need a new-"[/color] She struggled for words, not breath. The winds howled, but her mask could still air in the void itself. [color=antiquewhite]"-Mount. A pair of wings. Something that can kill Djinni,"[/color] she appended, knowing that this storm would make landfall. [color=antiquewhite]"Something that can hunt."[/color] [color=f6989d][i]Will take time. Can reconfigure the Opha-[/i][/color] [color=antiquewhite]"Do it now, you wormy fuck! I don't care!"[/color] [color=f6989d][i]Done.[/i][/color] Tauga gazed into the storm. Soon, very soon, she would map the winds. [center][h3]* * *[/h3][/center] Auricolor slammed into volcanic earth, scattering shards of brittle glass stone over the magi. Laughing a scream that Jvan alone would call musical, the slick change-eating shapeshifter leapt from the dirt and twirled as she flew. A'a groaned deep fury as his alien quarry escaped him. The volcano shuddered and spat more stone into the sky, driving back the elementalists fighting at his feet, but Tauga did not fear the scything ash. Planting her feet in stone as it exploded beneath her, she propelled herself heavenwards on the cords of the grand ophanim, their lesser cousins whipping around her skull, shattering every pebble that dared face her, tiny fists of a foreign god. Tauga leapt from hunks of steaming magma as they fell around her, and as Auricolor again savaged the elemental lord with her Stance of the Threefold Ferret, the Blowfly descended upon him- And smote the fiery giant's skull. [i]TCAKK[/i] of splitting stone. Auricolor cackled. Glass smoke streamed from A'a's head. The change-eater pierced him with six claws and split her face nine ways, and her other three hands kicked and jittered as the golden creature gorged. Tauga settled on the Djinni's nose. [color=dimgray][b]"THIS IS NOT OVER,"[/b][/color] spoke the spirit elder, betraying not his pain as the alien fed. [color=dimgray][b]"MY BROTHERS WILL HEAR OF THIS. THEY MAY HAVE ACCEPTED YOUR SACRIFICES, STONE-CUTTER, BUT THEY WILL NOT SUFFER THIS. YOUR FIELDS WILL BE ASH. THE MOUNTAINS WILL AVENGE ME."[/b][/color] [color=antiquewhite]"Then they will die,"[/color] said the Blowfly. She leapt to one side as an elder Bludgeon crashed into the crater, striking A'a's head from his body. Her invisible tongues crawled over his corpse like a wind. She tasted his Flicker dying with tendrils that were only now learning how to feel. The mass of tentacles seized a young lava swaying with psychic distress. It floundered for lack of a lord, and was easy prey for Tauga. Her grasp was growing stronger. [color=antiquewhite]"You. Tell the magma lords of Xiloxoch and Axotal what you saw here. Tell them that I am a God, and this is my proof. They chose the right side to play on."[/color] The invisible monstrosity lifted the djinni, and tossed it down into the waves. A tired cheer of azibo sorcerers followed it's splash. Tauga felt something move behind her. It had a different taste to elementals and the cords, and yet was of the same Flickering substance. [color=antiquewhite]"Not now, Auri. I fucking hurt."[/color] Disappointed chatter. Tauga turned and pointed her hammer high into the face of the Diaphane. [color=antiquewhite]"You're like a moulted kid, you know that? You think you're so... So, fuckin'... Fresh. God, do you ever, ever get tired?"[/color] Sheepish eldritch mumbles. [color=antiquewhite]"Whatever. Just get the hell out of here and let me sleep."[/color] Heartworm's vessel stepped lightly onto a nearby stone from nowhere. The draconic three-tiered ferret giggled and teased at it as it busied itself with Tauga's suit, addressed her myriad wounds. If Tauga could ever feel glad for anything, it would have been that Heartworm wasn't smug. [center][h3]* * *[/h3][/center] Saws rasped at the palms. Planks clacked together, and humans worked late into the night as the hain tired of measuring canvas. There were few porcelain folk on the islands and their sharp eyes were widely sought. The planks were being laid out in long piles, carried off to be weighted and hammered into the sediment. More were laid atop them to produce a flat surface. A friendly tribe of urtelem had taken to the task of moving stone into place over the reef, producing a sheltered harbour. The growing wooden structure within it was being dubbed a sea-path in Tlaca, but Tauga knew a Xerxian dock when she saw one. Forges were bright enough that they could be operated night and day, without lamps. Buckets of bronze pegs were being filled and hammered into overlapping planks, then hammered on the other side to flatten them, forming a link. More and more planks were added this way, until the Tlaca saw something new: a ship made not out of one great tree, but many small ones. A long-boat. Clink, clink, clink, went the hammers on the rivets. Clink, clink, clink, went the rivets in the forge. No wonder the work was called clinking. No wonder the boats were called clinker-built. The problem was rivets. The Tlaca had long ago learned to connect their canoes into catamarans and outrigger vessels, more stable in the water and able to carry a greater load. Now that the Blowfly demiurge walked among them, teaching how to make sails in mountain-shapes that could easily fly in the face of the wind, they could travel even faster. Yet, fast as they were, they still would not carry a hundredth as much as the vast and sluggish triremes on which the Xerxians had come. Somewhere between the extremes were these new, sleek creatures. But copper and tin were both scarce on the island. Tauga had already scavenged all she could from the nails of the old triremes and it was still not enough. She walked into the forge carrying a sack of heavy rocks that clicked together under a layer of char. The workers here were used to her, but they still looked up when they felt the chill in their spine. A woman who was mostly shoulders looked up from her bellows and squinted through her sweat. [color=antiquewhite]"You have much coke here?"[/color] "Yes," said the woman, flinching as the heavy bag smacked into the floor. She pointed to a pile of cooked coal with which they'd been feeding the forges. [color=antiquewhite]"Nice. I'm going to take over this furnace for a while. Go work with the saws, or, sleep,"[/color] she said, sensing the smith's exhaustion. [color=antiquewhite]"And. Don't expect this chimney to be here tomorrow. I need it."[/color] The woman nodded. "...Um, Blowfly?" [color=antiquewhite]"Tauga."[/color] "Tauga. What, exactly are you doing?" [color=antiquewhite]"Making cheaper clinks,"[/color] she said. [color=antiquewhite]"See for yourself."[/color] The woman looked. "This? This is pig metal." [color=antiquewhite]"Mm. There's a way to soften it, make it stronger. Learned it in the mist city."[/color] Tauga waved her hands over the forge, feeling heat. No mortal hain could work here. They'd dehydrate themselves panting within an hour. "And you can make it with nothing but coke and clay chimneys?" Affirmative grunt. "To think, we've been throwing this out for years," said the smith, already yawning. "And praying for more copper. Ironic." [color=antiquewhite]"Yeah,"[/color] said Tauga, who didn't know what that word meant. [color=antiquewhite]"Sure. Ironic. Hey, does this metal have a name?"[/color] [hider=Summary] I'll count Might and khookies later. Tauga's back! Having been named Marquise of Amestris by Lifprasil, she promptly abandons Amestris entirely and heads straight to the Metatic Islands. There she meets Heartworm, who gives her back her hammer, slightly improved. They have a lovely chat. The Xerxian refugees and Tlaca are slowly fusing into a singular culture. Heartworm has ensured that Tauga has a huge following to come back to. [b]Heartworm spends 1 Free Point miniaturising some ophanim for alternative combat use.[/b] Diaphane Auricolor, a change-eater we saw mentioned like once way back when, is recruited as Tauga's mount. Tauga murders a volcano spirit who wouldn't comply with the growth of her civilisation. She seems to be getting better at using her tentacles to manipulate Flicker-based entities, originally limited to just ophanim but now including djinni and change-eaters. Tauga appears to be trying to map the trade winds. This will be relevant later. There's also a lot of major technology development on Axotal. [b]1 Might spent for a naval and general construction revolution among the newborn Marquisate.[/b] The specific technologies introduced from scratch are [b]bronze rivets,[/b] which allow for [b]clinker-built hulls[/b], an overlapping plank design for ships. Between them, we see Tauga's people developing viking-style longboat-like vessels. Longboats had square sails, though, while these ships have [b]multiple-mast rigs[/b] fitted with [b]bermuda and lateen sails,[/b] allowing faster and more versatile open-ocean travel with less need for rowing. Technologies borrowed from other civilisations include [b]docks and harbours[/b] from Xerxes and [b]outrigger canoes[/b] from the Tlaca. Finally, with both copper and tin scarce on the island, Tauga appears to be experimenting with the first non-Alefprian [b]wrought iron.[/b] It was mentioned in Alefpria a while ago and probably won't be equal in quality to bronze for some time yet. That may change in the future. [b]Jvan 16 Might Ambient 0 Might in Ovaedis 0 Free Points 2C / 0D Level Six[/b] [/hider]