[center][img]https://img.roleplayerguild.com/prod/users/019ad9be-b7e5-7611-bde4-b08d49ad3ce9.webp[/img]

[b][h3]& Saries[/h3][/b][/center]

Sarhush claimed the Egg of Potential unopposed. He lifted it up to stare into its depths, ran fingers over its surface and admired its perfect polish, so different from the coarseness of the sand underfoot. He understood deep down that this was a precious treasure indeed, but he knew not what to do with it.

There were others like him, wandering off or seizing the other objects strewn across the primordial shore. A misty fiend snatched up some pearl and then absconded into the ocean, tainting the waters even as it refused to so much as offer a name. Sarhush did not like that one.

Actually, he did not especially care for many of these strangers! Some looked to him during his naming of Ashuru, and though Adria assented to reporting her findings, she’d still led a whole group of them wandering off. Others were scrambling to their own devices right away, paying little heed to him. It was not proper, this chaos! 

They all should have consulted him; together they might have determined a course of action, and then under his wise direction, set out on the great task of realizing their great plan. Instead it seemed to Sarhush that they were milling about like listless grains of sand tumbling in the wind.

When the Forms became momentarily visible, it stunned Sarhush there for a moment. He Saw many things: Ashuru, not just its likeness in the Me that he held in one hand, but the world in its vastness and entirety and untapped potential; he saw Civilization, the wild and empty reaches of Ashuru being tamed and cultivated with sprawling cities descending upon every valley and plain like morning dew, with shrines and monuments to exalt the rulers of Ashuru; he saw Kingship, the face of those rulers, [i]his[/i] own face, and the order and efficiency that could exist if all others accepted his direction and authority and [i]obeyed[/i].

These were beautiful sights, and they were etched forevermore into the tablet of his mind. But the revelation and sense of wonder soon faded, and he was once more aware of his place upon that beach, surrounded by fools!

One of the others struck him as especially egregious. It was some sort of wild Thing that was running about aimlessly, licking the black sand, panting, and pressing Its face into the dark waters even after the misty thief had left some indelible mark upon the sea.

Sarhush watched the bestial Thing, entranced by its erratic nature and movements. It strode forward on uneasy paws, found its footing, but then began to violently [i]shake.[/i] Sand went flying from its fur! [color=#9E5020]”And who are [i]you[/i]?”[/color] Sarhush wondered aloud.

He could tell that It was strong, fast, perhaps even dangerous; yet for all of that, It seemed hardly more sapient than something like the wind. There was no discernable purpose behind what it was doing.

It needed direction. It needed Sarhush to guide It, just like they all did. This was the vision of Kingship that he had just seen! Sarhush began to approach It, for offering guidance was in his nature. The beast-thing’s ears perked up upon his approach and soon It had turned Its head to look back at him, primordial waters still dripping from Its mouth. It blinked, huffed, and with a stiff tail, turned around to face him. The Thing was large — even larger than Sarhush himself — and Its jaws were lined with fangs the length of knives. For his part, Sarhush was brave and showed no fear as he strode perilously close to It, a haughty and imperious air about him.

This shook the thing. It stared at Sarhush, a rumble starting deep in its chest. [color=#9E5020]”I asked: who are you?”[/color]

The beast barked. It was a low, deep bark that shook the shore and reverberated through Sarhush’s chest.

Yet that tumult was not a satisfactory response. Sarhush waited, but It said nothing back. The thought that It would ignore him was infuriating for a moment, but Sarhush soon realized that It might simply lack the wit to understand him. Perhaps this being was as the listless wind, existing in some state that was without reason, thought, or planning; something that had been incapable of viewing the Forms and grasping them. Perhaps it was just an object of chaos to be molded, fashioned into something better.

[color=#9E5020]”[i]What[/i] are you?”[/color] he tried one final time, now demoting it to a ‘what’ instead of a ‘who’.

There was silence. The beast was frozen as if it were a statue.

Clearly, it had no name. That made sense, for had the world itself not lacked a name before Sarhush proclaimed it Ashuru? He felt foolish now for not having realized sooner, but the others were no doubt watching him, and it would not do to make a fool of himself trying to speak to a nameless animal that lacked the wits to respond in kind.

[color=#9E5020]”As you are lacking a name, I, Sarhush, will bestow one unto you,”[/color] he proclaimed in the same booming cadence with which he’d announced his name for the world. [color=#9E5020]”I style you…”[/color]

This was the hard part; he had not actually thought of a name yet. In a sense this creature was majestic, so grand and powerful in form, and perhaps Sarhush saw something of himself in it. Whatever the reason, he waited a moment or two and then gave it a name not dissimilar from his own: [color=#9E5020]”Saries!”[/color]

Saries blinked and slowly but surely relaxed its posture. It seemed that even such a primitive being was able to observe and comprehend the magnitude of Sarhush’s excellence! Perhaps even the lowliest of the low deserved a place, even if that was so low as to be nearly beneath his foot. 

Sarhush realized that his hands were full; in one he held the precious Egg, in the other the Me of Ashuru. He needed one free, so he set down the Me and then approached Saries with an open, brawny right hand raised —  ignoring the beast’s recoil — and set it on the nose of Saries. [color=#9E5020]”Obey my words and I shall give you purpose, too,”[/color] he promised.

Saries did not obey. Dismayed, the great beast stepped back from the noise and began to growl. It was a noise unlike any other, like the breaking and grinding of dozens of bones and the beating of drums. It was a noise that threatened violence and pain and death, a noise that came from a beast that did not know its place. This only irritated Sarhush further.

[color=#9E5020]”Impertinent and ungrateful beast,”[/color] Sarhush spat, advancing a step closer to close the gap again. He would not be driven off or defied so easily! It was at that moment that Saries lashed out and quickly snapped at the other god, his teeth closing down on a surprised Sarhush’s arm. Sarhush howled with rage and shook that arm, but the beast’s jaw was tight, the grip of his teeth unyielding. Sarhush still held the precious Egg in his one free hand, but the thing was such a prize that even in that manic state, it did not even occur to him to let go of such a treasure. 

So instead he lifted a foot and kicked at the beast’s throat, even as it shook his arm. Divine blood gushed out and fell into the sea’s dark water and upon Saries’ tongue; the taste drove the wild beast into even more of a frenzy. A furious Sarhush kept kicking at the beast’s chest and throat, again, again, and again!

Saries yelped through its bite, but still the beast did not loosen its jaws. As Sarhush thrashed and kicked, driving the two of them backward towards the water of the sea, Saries swiped with a mighty claw that caught Sarhush’s thigh and gouged the flesh there too. He was still trying in vain to wrest his one free whilst keeping the other one back, holding the precious Egg away from this maddened creature’s jaws. At least, realizing that he would never simply shake the beast off, Sarhush jumped up. Sarees’ neck twisted upward to keep its grip on the arm still, but now the divine beast had an angry ogre of a god half on top of him, and the weight and chaos of the struggle brought them down into the black water.

They had only been wading a moment ago it seemed, but now the water was all around them. It was as though the malefic ocean sensed their calamitous struggle–their distraction and their momentary vulnerability–and dragged them out deeper with its riptide.

In their wild thrashing, they soon found themselves so deep into the corrupted abyss of the sea that it had become impossible, even for the senses of a God, to tell which way was up and which was down.

The pressure was so great that, to Sarhush, there was no more noise. Even Saries’ maddened howls, growls and yelps had gone silent. The beast was there, the battle still raged, but the only sound he could hear now was that of his own heartbeat echoing in his eardrums. 

[i]Something[/i] scurried past, blanketed in the solid darkness. Saries looked the other way for a split second; Sarhush could not see anything of course, but he felt the moving of the beast’s head as it twisted the arm still caught in its bite. In that tiny moment, its jaw became loose.

Somehow, inexplicably, Sarhush still maintained his grip on the precious Egg. The black water seemed almost slimy as its loosened his grip on the glassy smooth surface, but through sheer avarice and force of will, he had not released it.

Time seemed to slow in the silent, suffocated mirk of the sea. Sarhush finally accepted that he could not swim or fight with one arm trapped in the jaws of a beast and the other one clutching a treasure. But he was not prepared to surrender this battle, nor to release the Egg. That left only one choice: to use the Egg to win this battle!

So with bubbles surging out of his half-drowned lungs, he smashed the Egg onto Saries’ head. The Egg cracked, unseen to the two of them. Sarhush brought it down again, and again, bashing the Egg of Potential upon the beast’s skull until the Egg began to come apart and fall from his grasp.

The Egg burst, and from within it erupted a viscous material that clung to Saries’ face and to right hand. This strange yolk coated the two of them, then swirled out through the black depths of the sea. It was both solid and liquid, and it was so cold and hot at the same time. There was motion around them, strange things coalescing about the yolk’s mass. 

Sarhush paid that no heed, because the Beast had at last released its bite. Agony coursed through the mauled ruin of his freed arm, but with a triumphant kicking, Sarhush swam. He surged through the water, at last bursting out onto the surface of the sea as his lungs heaved and screamed for air. Water flowed from his hose and ears and mouth. Saltwater burned his eyes and blurred his sight. The ocean itself seemed to be laughing at all of this; he wasn’t even sure if he could trust his own senses. A moment of two passed, and he had barely recovered at all, but then there was a second great splash as Saries came up to crest the water. 

Sarhush wasted not a second; every inch of him still screamed with pain, but with a great few kicks and strokes he closed the distance between himself and the beast and clambered onto its back. Even as it thrashed, he wrapped his bleeding arm around its neck and squeezed in a great chokehold. [color=#9E5020]”I have you now!”[/color] he roared, fury and glee and suffering all melting together into a madness that filled his voice. The accursed ocean’s waves cast up sea spray that seemed almost mirthful, the foam like its saliva as it watched all of this unfold.

Saries gargled. With not only Sarhush on top of it and trying to choke it out, but the waters that attempted to drag it down again and the Egg-stuff all over its face and inside its nose, mouth and eyes, it was unable to shake Sarhush off. With a terrible strength and the vigor of adrenaline, Sarhush squeezed and choked the great beast, even as its neck was so great that his arms barely wrapped all the way around it.

After thrashing for what felt like minutes, Sarhush finally felt the beast tense up, and then go limp. He choked it a bit longer to be sure, then began the long and arduous process of dragging the thing back to shore. He panted then, as the fatigue and pain finally set in. He collapsed beside the defeated beast, and as he contemplated his great victory, he realized that soon Saries would awaken, and if he was not prepared then there might just be another fight.

He needed to assert himself fully and end all future fights. As he mulled over how to do that, he suddenly felt presences around him. These were not just those of the fellow gods looking upon his triumph in envy and awe; some of them were the fearful and confused eyes of witless, dumb beasts. There were many, and they took all different forms; Sarhush had no names for them, not yet, but he witnessed the multitude of animals with fur, antlers, claws, teeth, hooves, snouts, tails, and tusks, as well as the forms of countless different plants and fungi and mold. There were also some strange beasts that stood upright, with a bit more intellect behind their eyes than the rest. Immediately Sarhush recognized those as beings greater than the rest; he had seen them before, or something like them, when the Form of Civilization had briefly been revealed to him.

So he knew what to do. With a great sigh and heave, he got back to his feet after what had felt like mere minutes of rest. All the animals watched him as he strode right up to one of the mightiest, a great horned bull, and wrapped one of his terrible arms about its neck and choked it into submission. A cow saw this and tried to flee, but Sarhush was mighty and terrible and fast when roused by a great purpose, so it did not get far. With the strength of a god, he hefted the bull over one of his great shoulders and the cow over another, and he brought them to a small clearing where he began to trap them in an enclosure, making some crude fence out of woven tree branches. Yes, there were trees all around too; Sarhush did not appreciate the wretched forests out of some innate hatred for nature, but he would destroy them later. [color=#9E5020]”“That is how it is done,”[/color] he proclaimed to his audience of mortals. He noticed that the curious upright ones looked very close to his own likeness, and this endeared them to him.

He sensed Saries begin to stir. Something manifested in his hand; it appeared as a great straightened branch of wood, a simple-looking shepherd’s staff, but he knew instinctively that this was the Me of Animal Husbandry.

[color=#9E5020]”“Watch,”[/color] he told one of the curious mortal onlookers as he struck the waking Saries with his stick. As the Me rapped Saries, the blow imparted the truth of animal husbandry into the divine beast. Willing or no, Sarees now understood what it meant to be tamed and domesticated. Sarhush knew that this was a great triumph, but only the first of many. It was one thing to accept subservience, and another to be made useful and applied to grander purposes. Perhaps Saries could be taught to knock down trees?

Saries rose on unsteady legs for the second time since it had come to be. It scratched its face free of all the blood and Egg-stuff as best as it could, and stared at Sarhush. What started as a growl suddenly turned into a whine. It was clear to Sarhush that although the thing still wanted to fight, it was too injured and exhausted to bring itself to defy him once more. Saries looked away and, after a moment, limped its way to a great hollow tree near the clearing, where it settled down to rest. 

Sarhush turned to one of the silent ur-humans that had been watching closely all along. [color=#9E5020]”“You,”[/color] he addressed it, [color=#9E5020]”“should do as you have just seen! Subjugate the beasts of this land; through dominating and mastering them, you will become that much grander and more powerful yourself: a master of beasts, ha! A god of sorts!”[/color]

These words only confused it; while they had the latent potential for speech and understanding, it seemed that they still lacked his great wit. Then again, so had Saries. It seemed to Sarhush that only he and maybe one or two of the other gods were beings of natural intellect; the rest would need to have such wisdom cultivated into them through practical instruction, perhaps occasionally reinforced through violence. 

With a sigh, Sarhush hurled the Me of Animal Husbandry at the surprised human, who barely caught the thing. But then, it understood. The humans passed the staff around, each one seemingly momentarily awestruck as it was his turn to hold the stick, but eventually they’d all touched it and the thing made its way back to the greatest of them, that first one that Sarhush had bestowed the Me unto. That one was the first to turn around and leave; the rest followed. The humans soon made their way across the beach and into the forest, capturing and trapping animals and then bringing them back to makeshift pens and pastures. They had some quick success with a few beasts that would eventually come to be known as cattle, dogs, and sheep.

Whilst Sarhush witnessed the success of the ur-humans, he also saw that many animals, sapient or not, would visit the place where Saries had laid to rest to receive its blessing. These lesser beings, created by accident, would see their naturally flawed forms perfected by Saries, granting them a vitality unmatched. It was evident from a single look from one such as Sarhush that these blessed creatures would live longer and be healthier, but also that this blessing would fade in time with each passing generation. It seemed Saries was not capable enough to grant an everlasting blessing, which served as yet more evidence of who was the superior being between the two of them.

Having lost interest in Saries’ work, Sarhush foraged for some waxy plant leaves and reeds, and wrapped them around his mauled and bleeding arm as a crude bandage. He remembered then that he had set the Me of Ashuru down upon the shore before taming Saries, so he wandered off to reclaim it, only to discover some of the ur-humans gawking at the disc. As the benevolent god that he fancied himself to be, he decided to let them keep it; he had only two hands and carrying around a bunch of Mes with him would be a hassle! With nothing else demanding his immediate attention, the god Sarhush finally collapsed and allowed himself to fall asleep.

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Sarhush gives Saries his name! And then he tries to tame the beast and it turns into a very violent struggle. Sarhush is bitten and clawed and bleeds divine ichor into the ocean and all over the shore; something might come of that later.

The Egg of Potential didn’t even last an hour before Sarhush ended up breaking it over Saries’ head. As the yolk swirled around them, it absorbed some of the essence and thoughts of the two battling gods. From Saries, all the forms of all mundane animal life (marine and terrestrial) that can be found on Earth were created.

From Sarhush, the Egg’s yolk manifested as humans, albeit these are very primitive and cavemen-like people for now.

After triumphantly “taming” Saries, Sarhush notices the other animals around and ‘tames’ the first cattle, creating the Me of Animal Husbandry. Both this and the Me of Ashuru find their way into mortals’ hands, so some of these earliest cavemen were bestowed with the knowledge of the world’s name and the concept of the world, as well as the ability to domesticate animals. The humans nearest to Sarhush quickly succeed in domesticating cattle, sheep, and dogs; the vast majority of humans probably weren’t close enough to all of this to have the understanding disseminated out to them right away, so many would still live as purely hunter-gatherers.


[center][h1]CONVICTION SPENDING:[/h1][/center]

Sarhush and Saries each spend 1 conviction battling one another on the shore and into the cursed sea. 

The Egg of Potential is charged with 2 Conviction from each God in the midst of the fight, and then is destroyed during the fight.

Sarhush creates mankind from the Egg’s yolk for free (surreal action)

Sarhush spends 0 conviction creating the Me of Animal Husbandry and then gifting it to a few humans nearby that become his first followers. This grants animal domestication to them (in-domain lucid action)

Saries made all the mundane animals and plants for free from the Egg’s yolk (in-domain lucid action).

Saries spends 1 Conviction to grant a Blessing of Vitality to all Firstborn of every species who visited it whilst it was resting in the Hollow Tree near the first animal enclosure. This Blessing greatly extends the lifespan of every First of each species (Those born directly from Saries, not from mortal parents) and makes them generally healthier and more capable of surviving. This blessing will fade little by little with each generation, eventually leading to every species having a similar lifespan to their mundane counterparts. (In-domain, Surreal Action. Blessing is hereditary but fades a little with each new generation.)

TOTALS:
Sarhush spent 3 Conviction
Saries spent 3 Conviction
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