[center][img]https://img.roleplayerguild.com/prod/users/1bbdeb6c-71c0-4853-a9f2-6fc469a5041d.png[/img][/center]

The last clinging grains of sand were scraped away as Narzhak trudged over the jagged surface of the World Scar. He hummed contentedly, a sound more akin to a gathering avalanche. Entertaining as his circle about the continent had been, returning to the first grounds he had marked with his presence brought a sense of satisfaction all of its own. He could almost feel the heat of the Pit seeping up from below the earth, an invigorating warmth that pleasantly contrasted with the irksome flaming breath of Sartr's pet. He could still feel an itch below his iron plates where one of the beams had struck him. Strange that it should linger in that spot and no other.

Even stranger that it should be an itch. Fire did not leave itches.

The god prodded the tip of a finger into the gap closest to the odd sensation, extending a long, slender hook from its tip to reach deeper into the fissure. Sure enough, it latched onto something, and the itch stopped. Narzhak raised the claw to his eyes, and found himself staring into a familiar placid snout. The boar had grown considerably since he had last seen it, being large enough to tower over the rest of its kind. Its once brown fur had turned a steely grey, and through the sharp end of his hook the god could feel it was denser and harder than he had first made it to be.

The cause of this transformation was itself clear enough - the beast’s tusks were stained with black blood and hung with shreds of divine flesh. Dimly meeting its creator’s gaze with its beady, bloodshot eyes, it swallowed what must have been the last mouthful it had bitten out of his body.

[color=#CD2626][b]”That’s where you were.”[/b][/color] In the heat of the clash with the Phoenix, the Iron God had forgotten he had left the progenitor of his dire swine interred in the chinks in his armour with the intent of bearing it back to the Pit. While being embedded underneath the colossal iron plates had allowed it to weather the titanic battle unscathed, it had also exposed the flesh beneath to its appetite. It was not as though Narzhak would miss a few bites, but the thought that this had gone on for a while without him noticing was irksome.

[color=#CD2626][b]”Off with you, now!”[/b][/color] Without much ceremony, he lowered the boar to the ground and prodded it with the hook, making it stumble into one of the larger crevices. Without so much as a trace, the creature was swallowed by the awaiting darkness. There would be time to deal with it later. The life of one who had partaken of godly flesh was unlikely to be short in one way or another, and indeed the greatest danger now was that it might fill the Pit with more of its brood. At worst, wrangling it could be a trial for his thralls down there.

Leaving his domain’s inhabitants to their own devices, Narzhak resumed his walk northwards. A few more strides, and he was past the Scar. Here, the soil was still as barren as it had been when the continent had been dragged up from the ocean floor. The monotony of the rocky landscape was only broken by that flow of blood in the distance - whose blood it was, he had yet not found out. Perhaps if he…

The god approached the unusual river, dipped down a suddenly concave finger and brought its contents up for a draught. No, the taste was not familiar, either. He trudged upstream, absently following the sanguine course without much heed for its surroundings. Not that there was much around it at all, was there? As soon as he thought it, however, a crunching sound underfoot, followed by something scraping at his metallic skin, made him reconsider the notion. Glancing down, he saw a copse of oddly animate trees flailing their branches in an admirably coordinated, if still rather static fashion. More interesting that them, though, was what they surrounded. From what he had seen of rivers, it was not unusual for them to flow out of lakes, but he could not think of anyone large enough to have spilled this one. Could it be that red-skinned one, Kirron? For all Narzhak knew, he might have been able to conjure such quantities of ichor.

Not that it mattered overmuch at the moment. Though vast, the lake was still only a speck amid these unshaped lands. His mandate called for them to be seeded with something interesting, and besides, if he was to make good on his challenge to Sartr, he would need a foothold aboveground from which to wage war in person.

[i]Foothold. Staging ground. Infrastructure?[/i] Curious how easily words found a meaning.

The Iron God glanced back at the lake. Small as it might have been compared to the bare terrain, it could still prove useful.

Plunging an immense hand into the sanguine basin, he melded his fingers one to another, forming a single great recipient. The amount of ichor he lifted in it would have been sufficient to fill another, if much smaller, lake on its own. But a single lake of blood, unless it was drawn from someone else, was enough.

The crimson liquid in the giant’s grip began to churn and boil, suffused by an infernal heat that radiated from the iron claw. A thick, cloying mist steamed from its surface, pierced by sputtering gouts and geysers. It roiled to the ground, soaking into the gravel. Red stains spread where it touched down.

Narzhak clenched his fist, and the blood erupted into a carmine storm.

Clouds of divine ichor poured into the sky, new vapours rising from the lake to join them. In a matter of moments, a charnel darkness had fallen where there once was day, the light of Heliopolis blotted out by the grisly exhalations. Far they spread, from one end of the land to the other, stifling and choking the air as they crawled.

[color=#CD2626][b]”Fall.”[/b][/color]

The heavens bled.

Torrents of divine gore washed over the rocks, pouring down from what seemed less of a sky than an open wound. Stone crumbled and melted under its onslaught, collapsing into fine, damp red soil. Pools were hewn into expanses of loose gravel. The mountains were slick like swords after a battle.

The Iron God’s skin cracked open, and waves of noxious black rose in the red’s wake. Rocks struck by it were swollen with horrid shapes and sharpened into bladed edges. Patches of soil grew dark, heavy and hungry for carrion feasts. Puddles of sludge lay reeking of decay like ancient swamps.

The skies had not fully cleared - and, indeed, they never would from that day - when Narzhak set about completing his work. His hands gouged vales into the earth, carving hillsides and digging down to unearth hidden springs. Soon, a thick, murky river flowed through the blood-tainted lands, branching out into sluggish rivulets that cut them across like so many scars.

Wherever he breathed, life sprang up from the soaked ground, from pockets of soil amid the rocks, from stagnant pools and dim waters. It was harsh and savage like the earth that birthed it, barely distinguishable from it to the point that they almost were one. Plants and beasts alike were iron-grey in hue, veined with red and black within and without. Tufts and fields of grass were like the spears of numberless hosts, sharp and hardy; thorny shrubs hunkered down on hillsides as if lying in ambush; the trees were stout and twisted, gnarly branches swaying slightly with unnatural animation. Streams were clogged with sanguine water-weeds, soon to grow rank and stagnant. Voracious packs of vile savage rats roamed like restless waves at sea, preying on heavyset reptilian beasts and hystrices bristling with envenomed quills, and many-tusked dire hogs rolled over loose rocks in search of vermiform prey.

Still blood-spattered from his efforts, Narzhak gazed over his work. Much like the Pit, it was but a beginning; but a beginning was all he needed now, and this was certainly a mighty fine one. Humming to himself, he ambled back to the Scar, contemplating the grey earth and sanguine skies on his way. [i]A Charnel Steppe, in name and guise.[/i]

The ichor was more resilient than the sand, still besmirching him as he clambered into the abyss wrought by his first encounter with Galbar and stepped into his cavernous realm. He did not mind. Without seeing his reflection somewhere, he could not be certain, but he doubted it detracted much from his majesty. Quite the contrary, in fact, if the astounded looks of the Pit-thralls in the tunnel mouths he passed by were any indication. Some even lifted their heads from the half-devoured bodies of their fellows, likely smelling a more pungent blood in the air.

[color=#CD2626][i]A worthy reverence, I’ll say.[/i][/color]

Narzhak paused mid-step, preoccupied with a new thought. He had neglected to bestow a name on his servants. The matter seemed insignificant enough, but would it not have been simpler to issue commands if he knew how to address them? After all, it was a simple enough thing.

He turned his head sideways, eyes converging on the nearest of the beings. It froze, a piece of entrails dangling from its mouth.

[color=#CD2626][b]”You are -”[/b][/color] the god briefly pondered what sounds would have been easier on the tongue, [color=#CD2626][b]”[i]Kostral[/i]. Spread the word.”[/b][/color]

The newly-named kostral dropped to the floor of its cavern in prostration, then scurried off, leaving behind a good portion of its meal. Little matter - as far as he could tell, it had been bright enough to go for the birth-sacs first, and that was all it needed to spawn. The loss would not go to waste.

Who knew, perhaps that Kalmar had the right idea, however strangely distorted.

There would be time to find that out too, Narzhak mused as he settled on his coarse seat. There was time for everything.

[hider=Best fertilizer on the market]

Back in northern Kirronland, Narzhak notices that the First Boar, whom he’d taken along in his equivalent of a pocket, has been munching on him while he was distracted by the Phoenix, ingesting some divine essence, with all that entails, in the process. Mildly annoyed, he drops off the boar into the Pit and goes on to fill the mostly untouched territories with interesting, and possibly useful, things.

He investigates the Seihdh, trampling a few Guardian Trees in the process, and while he’s not sure whose blood it is that it’s made of, he concludes that it’s good for more than just filling a lake. As you do, he conjures a giant storm from Seihdhara’s blood mixed with his own ichor, permanently darkening the sky over the plains and mountains further north with sanguine mists, and, to put it simply, getting the stuff everywhere. This results in most of the place, which thus gains the name of Charnel Steppes, acquiring a layer of fertile soil. Narzhak uses it to populate the Steppes with predictably savage, limited-palette wildlife. He then adds some hills and a branching river and calls it a day for now.

Back in the Pit, he considers the benefits of being covered in caked blood, and names his servant species [i]kostral[/i] for the sake of simplicity. It’s canonised that their reproductive cycle involves eating each other.

[/hider]

[hider=Might Spending]

[b][u]Narzhak[/u][/b]

[u]Starting:[/u] 3 MP, 11 FP

[list]
[*]3 FP spent on a storm of divine blood and resulting lingering fog
[*]4 FP spent on a large ecosystem
[*]2 FP spent on a hill range
[*]2 FP spent on a river
[/list]

[u]End:[/u] 3 MP, 0 FP

[u]Progress towards unlocking Portfolios:[/u]

[list]
[*]5/5 towards Earthquakes
[*]4/5 towards Cannibalism (from creation of the kostral, for whom cannibalism is an essential part of the vital cycle)
[*]1/5 towards Subjugation (from instilling obedience into the kostral)
[/list]

(See [url=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/4842324]this post[/url] for references on the latter two.)

[/hider]