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

[i]A stirring upon the deep.[/i]

Vast burning eyes flickered open, sending the tiny shapes crawling around their sockets scurrying away from the sudden blaze of heat. Iron claws quietly rasped into motion, crushing rock outcroppings the size of ancient trees to dust. The earth rumbled as the colossal weight within it shifted forward, slowly straightening up.

With a smooth though audible rasping, Narzhak turned his head to one side, then to the other, careful not to dislodge the thick, pulsating tubes that snaked past his armour and into his throat. The continuous flow of bitter fungal spirits through them might not have helped clear his mind, but he suspected that, if he stopped too suddenly, he would get a headache. His fingers gently pressed together over one of the gargantuan root-like growths, pinching it closed before lightly tearing it away. He left the leech-like suction mouth at the tip leaning against the edge of a plate, detached three more tubes to join it and finally looked around.

The once crude chamber he had carved for himself at the end of the Pit was, in truth, still crude, but had sprouted new furnishings, like strange cave-swamp growths, over the last decades. Rather than a near-shapeless, worn mountainous outcropping, his bulk now rested over a rough simulacrum of a gigantic seat, hewn out hastily, though not entirely carelessly. Nested in the corners above and below, immense metallic vats, steaming intoxicating vapours and tended to by hundreds of kostral, gathered the other ends of the living tubes in webs of titanic vines around their bases, with others yet extending out from them towards hidden sources. All across the vault, handholds had been cut into the rock to ease the hurrying of hordes of attendants. They swarmed across the god and his surroundings alike, scraping rust from his armour and sharpening its edges, pouting the contents of rudimentary iron vases into the vats and periodically refilling the monumental trough the quiescent monstrosity at his foot sipped from. Upon his stirring, they hastily streamed down from the throne’s sides, putting as wide a space as they could between themselves and his sweeping motions.

Narzhak leaned forward, eyes narrowing as he tried to find the source of the disturbance. It was not anything in the drinks, nor in the air. A quake, perhaps? No, he would have felt whatever had caused it.

Then it struck him. It was the sounds. Groaning, bellowing, howling rose from all sides, surrounded by confused snarls and snapping of teeth. Sounds the Pit had never heard. [i]Sounds of fear.[/i]

A furious roar rose to drown all other voices from one end of the measureless cavern to another. Boulders fell from the unseen ceiling and new fissures split the ground open as the earth quaked under the sheer wrath pouring from the Iron God. Struck by his voice as by a maul, myriads of kostral dropped from wall and sky and collapsed in prostration. The sleepers jolted awake from their unquiet dreams, only to fall to the ground again.

[center][color=#CD2626][h2][b]”S I L E N C E”[/b][/h2][/color][/center]

The command was unneeded, as all sounds, even the rasping of beasts and crackling of flames, had fallen still for a few moments after being smothered in the tide of rage, but Narzhak felt that, without even a word of release his anger, he would have torn down the entire chamber around himself. The kostral, his kostral, had been forged with naught but blood-hunger and subservience to fill their minds, perfect instruments for the shaping of such vast designs as could direct a world down the path of growth. They had known no fear, could know no fear. And now someone had jarred that flawless mechanism, maybe out of nothing but carelessness. Who was the insolent heap of scum that dared? Azura again? If it was her, he would tear out every feather on her body, then the skin under them, then-

He scraped his fingers together in the likeness of a snap. In the time of a few blinks, two skestral descended from above, holding one of their wingless kin between themselves. As soon as it was released onto the iron desert of the god’s expectant palm, the kostral crawled into a grovel, only to shiver and curl its middle arms under itself as the searing gaze of the four eyes burned past its flesh and bone to stab into its thoughts like an incandescent blade. Mercifully, a divine eye was fast to spot what it needed, and before it knew it the hapless servitor had been deposited, shaken but unharmed, onto the ground amid the bowed ranks of its fellows.

[color=#CD2626][b]”K’nell,”[/b][/color] the god clenched his claw into a fist. Though his voice was more subdued than they had ever heard it, the kostral shrank under the menace even their dim minds could discern in it. [color=#CD2626][b]”Think you’re clever? That you’re safe to throw out whatever filth you like while you hide in your castle of air?”[/b][/color] His fingers dug gouges into the ageless stone of his seat.

[color=#CD2626][b]”Now you will learn to fear the shadows you cower in.”[/b][/color]

[hr]

Bloody paste squelched under the worn makeshift pestle, spraying deep-red drops on Vrog’s hand, the rocks around it and the ground. The crouching brute reflexively licked the spatters from his fingers, grimacing as he blew off the dust they withered to dust as his tongue withdrew, and tossed the crudely sectioned remains of a farmer ape’s limb into his imposing if rudimentary mortar. The pestle went up and down, again and again, as he threw in new pieces of assorted wildlife, interspersing them with splashes from one of the flasks that always happened to find themselves in his hand just at the right moment. Now and then he paused to spit a burst of acrid sludge into the concoction, prompting bursts of caustic hissing and puffs of smoke to rise from its midst.

He still could not get a mouthful of any kind, no. As much as he had tried to find a measure that worked, from large enough to need some chewing for once to finely shredded, he had only succeeded in thinning the numbers of marauding dragons and desolating swathes of woodland after emptying them of animal life. So long as it was getting eaten in some way, it went no further than the first row of teeth. Orvus might have been a terrible vrog-talker, but this was by all accounts a job well done. Picking every last crumb of that absurd sword - who brought swords to a battle, anyway? - from his body would have taken much longer than he had patience for, and even then he was not sure it would work at all.

So, he had looked for other ways.

Drinking worked, to a degree. It still dried up fast enough, but it he knotted together his tongues outside his mouth and held it there, he could feel the taste for a few moments. If the stuff was strong enough, he could even pretend he was sending down the actual thing. With a bit of dulling of his insides, dust did not feel entirely different from a regular sip, except for the part of coughing it up later. But, for someone who had really drunk, pretending was not good enough.

And he had come up with something better.

He wiped the pestle from the dense bloody mixture, set it aside and blew into the contents of the mortar. What life remained in the gruesome slime shrivelled up and fled on the wind, leaving behind a heavy, cloying mass that reeked of slaughter. Vrog gathered a wad on a hooked finger, slapped it in the middle of a long, wide dry leaf and wrapped the whole tightly. His tongue curled around the manufact in a spiral, holding it well outside his mouth. A snap of his fingers sent a spark into the tip of the macabre construct, lighting it into a sharp crackling burst of noxious black smoke. On his exposed tongue, it tasted vaguely like nearly every being that had gone into the making of the core, mangled, mashed and roasted into a near-indistinguishable, but all the more delectable mess of carnage. The thought alone made him slaver, and he had to snap down with a few hastily grown lateral mouths to avoid biting his tongue off.

But, of course, it would have been many times better if he could actually gnaw and gorge something like that. The mouths gritted in frustration. This thought never failed to show up when he lit a stack, and sucked out the best part of the enjoyment from it.

Vrog took an angry pull, stopping the smoke just short of his jaws. Another couple decades like this with nothing but animals to slice up, and he would turn into a raving beast himself. Since that Laurien, he had not found a single thing that could properly appreciate the pain and fear he would deal - and without that, where was the fun?

Speaking of pain, this one wrap must have come out bad somewhere along the way. None of the others had made him feel a burning deep in the now unneeded stomach, certainly not one that spread like an actual fire through his limbs, into his head-

His mouth gaped open, tongue darting in with its load of what was now dust, and he clutched the center of his thorax. The metal skin twisted under his grip, a force that was certainly not his own violently pushing out from beneath it. The hand was forced aside as the metal rose up like a wave of molten fluid, rapidly cooling into the shape of a ribbed spine writhing and bending as a skeletal worm. It coiled upwards, its still flat-plated extremity hovering before his mockery of a face. In the last throes of its fluid transformation, the plate’s edges became even more ragged and irregular, much like something he had nearly forgotten.

Four points of flame lit up amid the simulacrum of Narzhak’s visor.

Rivulets of dust streaming to the ground between his teeth, Vrog spluttered out the remains of his wrap. [color=saddlebrown]“D’you really have to do it this way?”[/color]

The answer sounded halfway out loud, halfway inside his mind. [color=#CD2626][b]”You know a faster one?”[/b][/color]

He had to admit he did not. [color=saddlebrown]“What’s the deal now?”[/color]

[color=#CD2626][b]”I’d ask about what you’ve done about our first one,”[/b][/color] even as a shrunken talking head, the Iron God managed to sound threatening enough to someone who could catch the allusions behind his tones, [color=#CD2626][b]”but you’re lucky there’s worse things to think of. New orders. Find K’nell and bring me to him.”[/b][/color]

[color=saddlebrown]“K’nell? That the dream one?”[/color] He parted the skin curtain at one corner of his mouth, exposing pensively clenched teeth. [color=saddlebrown]“How the gut am I supposed to do that?”[/color]

[color=#CD2626][b]”You’re asking me?”[/b][/color] The mask oscillated on its spine like a snake poised to strike. [color=#CD2626][b]”You’re the one out there. You talked to one of his puppets earlier? That’s your start.”[/b][/color]

Vrog raised a finger in protest. [color=saddlebrown]“More like I talked [i]at[/i] someone who said she was dreams. Wasn’t very convincing about it, either. What’s that do to spitting help, anyway?”[/color]

[color=#CD2626][b]”You do the thinking on that one.”[/b][/color] The fiery eyes flared up in a blaze that consumed the daylight around them, and Vrog grated all six sets of teeth and then some as a fist of molten iron clenched around his thoughts. [color=#CD2626][b]”I won’t take excuses for failure.”[/b][/color]

The spine with Narzhak at its tip uncoiled and began to sink back into his chest with a feeling unpleasantly similar to being impaled on Orvus’ sword, if much worse. Before its last vertebrae had fully retracted, the visor turned upwards one last time. [color=#CD2626][b]”Stop us at that place of Chopstick’s on the way. I haven’t seen her in a while.”[/b][/color] With those final words, the mask merged back into the breastplate, as though it had never been there.

Curling his skin-lips and straightening his various mouths, Vrog massaged his still painfully thrumming head and spat a seed from his throatless pair of chewing jaws. Things just kept getting better, didn’t they.

[hr]

The woods around the easternmost mountains were much as he had left them. Same nondescript smells of sap and leaves, same roots that snapped underfoot with almost every step. The only difference was that those wretched morsel-things he had been fed that one time had spread - and quite a difference it was. With nothing much to eat them, the filthy things were everywhere, from the braches to the soil, and every lick in between. Squashing them like overripe fruit as he walked was satisfying in more ways than he cared to count. He chuckled when a few leapt into his mouth and crumbled before he could feel their hatefully bland taste. At a distance of years, he had to admit that had not been a bad joke, though of course it would have been much better if it had been done to anyone else.

Even now, however, the parasites had a way of making themselves a nuisance. The trace he was searching for, if it was to be found at all, was easily drowned out by their similar irksome smell. There was no telling if his quarry was still anywhere near there, and, even if so, if he would feel it at all without a lucky gust of wind, no matter how many of the vermin he stomped on. And, if not, even wind might not have been enough.

Similar, not the same. There it was. Not new by any stretch, but unmistakable amid the background noise. Vrog clicked his tongue. He did not need to make excuses; he simply did not fail.

From there, following the track was as easy as it had been the first time. He grimaced at the thought of how the bitter foretaste had given him pangs of hunger then. Now, after having had enough to burst, it did anything but that, casting a mildly disgusted apathy over his innards. All things considered, that was probably for the best given his ability to put anything into them. Two wrongs did add up to a right after all.

And, just when he thought he had it, it vanished. Not by breaking off, but abruptly going skyward. That complicated things. Whatever had happened there, he doubted he could jump up as easily. His tongue darted up, then around, seeking any kind of grip on the disappearing path. It found something. Not far.

Disappointingly, it was just a bauble of some kind. He picked it up between two fingers, trying it to the tongue, then to the tooth. Close as the taste was now, and though it made his teeth itch with anticipation, his stomach was still perfectly indifferent. Vrog rolled the small sphere in his hand, considering. It was unlikely to help the search in any way, but, if it was anything of value, better times were to be had by keeping it. At the same time, he did not have room to spare for any litter he found. What if, though…

For all he was likely to get out of it, he might as well just have the last laugh in the eating matter. With a flick, he tossed the orb into his mouth.

It did not become dust. In fact, it did not become anything - it simply was not there. No, there was something after all. Not something he could feel, but he could see it. See it?

[i]Chomping, gnashing, grunting, squealing, cutting, snapping, chopping, scrapping, skinning, ripping, smashing, slamming, swiping, crawling, loping, growing, fattening, gorging, gutting, mauling, bashing, biting, stomping, snorting, scrouging, plundering, pummeling, beating, brawling, tearing, bleeding, smelling, stabbing, snatching, little arms in the mouth, little bones in the pouch, bloating, swelling, spreading, scourging…[/i]

Funny little things that those were.

So engrossed was he with watching the scenes of tangling pests rolling inside himself, one followed by a still better other, that he caught himself with a foot almost off a cliff, an alarming heat rising from below. Shaking himself from the curious sights - was that what dreams were like? - Vrog probed the air around himself. The trail was still a line above his head, and just a step forward was the boiling sea someone had had the brilliant idea of putting along one of the coasts.

He lit a wrap, contemplating the way ahead with a few side-tongues. On the better hand, the party was actually close enough on the way, which meant no more annoying detours than strictly needed. On the other, he still had to get across that oversized pot, and who knew where the Omen had gone off to.

It seemed, however, that someone had conveniently enough dropped something into the water. Not just one something, but another, equally big one, and another further left, and... Though the spectacle of the great marine lamps was lost on Vrog’s lack of anything to see them with, their usefulness to someone in his situation was fairly clear.

Were there enough to get to the other side? Maybe. Worth a try, either way.

He took a pull from the wrap, spat a seed and jumped.

[hider=Lakes of blood and Belomor]

Having finally managed to more or less adequately make alcohol out of unspecified underground mushrooms, Narzhak has set up a handy drinking system in his corner of the Pit. However, he’s stirred from his etilic slumber by unrest among sleeping kostral due to the recent dream events. He is more than a little annoyed that people keep trespassing on his turf, and divines that K’nell is behind this.

Meanwhile, on the surface, Vrog has been trying to poke loopholes in his curse, but the best he’s managed so far is smoking handmade fresh petrol. He gets a chestburster-call from Narzhak, who tells him to go find K’nell and Choppy so he can talk to them by, for once, using an avatar for its original purpose (which seems to transcend the current MK altogether). Vrog is less than thrilled at the idea, but is given little choice.

Lacking better leads to follow, he tries to pick up Diana’s trail again. While poking around, he finds the piggut dream orb she dropped, eats it and sees visions of the creatures within. He’s so amused by them that he almost falls into the Saluran Mendidh. Briefly stumped on how to cross it to both follow the trail and reach the tea party, he notices the newly-sprouted giant lava lamps. Though unable to appreciate the visuals, he thinks they might be good for hop-frogging his way across the strait, and rather recklessly sets off to prove his theory.

[/hider]

[hider=Might Summary]

[u]Starting:[/u] 8 MP, 8 FP

[list]
[*] 1 FP spent on teaching the kostral to brew and distil alcohol (as well as conditions allow).
[/list]

[u]End:[/u] 8 MP, 7 FP

[/hider]