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

Some animals were too brave, Saries thought, as a small cat jumped down from its perch atop Its left side and disappeared into the underbrush. 

It wasn’t the only animal to have done that in the last few days since the conclusion of Saries’ fight with Sarhush, but it would certainly be the last. Most of the pain and soreness was gone now, so it was time to go. 

Saries opened Its eyes just in time to see a large bear dropping off its catch next to Its mouth - an offering of sorts, It guessed. This particular bear had already been blessed, so Saries didn’t understand why it had come back, much less bearing gifts. Maybe it saw It as some sort of parental figure? Or perhaps the bear felt pity for Saries, having observed the state It was left in after the fight? The thought ticked It off a little. 

Saries grunted and stirred. The bear and the birds perched on every branch of the Hollow Tree were spooked into flight. Saries stretched its muscles whilst whining in relief, and then in one smooth movement devoured the gifted salmon and set off into the forest.

At times it was difficult to move through the dense woods, given Its large body, but nothing was really impassable for Saries. One way or another, It found ways to get to where It wanted to go. Sometimes Its destination was the nest of some beast that had caught Its attention, other times it was a particularly spectacular spot that oversaw entire regions, and some other times It simply had no destination.

During its first journey, Saries saw beasts of all kinds. Some were covered in fur, others had antlers on their head, others were large — even larger than Saries itself — and had magnificent, stone-coloured trunks. And those weren’t all. Besides all the furred and scaled and hairless animals It had seen, It also saw strange little things growing out of dead things and in damp spots. Fungi, eaten by some animals for both nutrition and entertainment, and even smaller things that multiplied and lived entire lives well beyond the sight of lesser beings. 

Had all of this truly come from It? It briefly remembered the vision it experienced before the fight with Sarhush — The moving painting of an Ashuru filled to the brim with life, where one could not take a single step without seeing something new and beautiful. 

Saries hadn’t even tried to bring these beings into the World, and yet they were here now. Was this Its instinct? To bring things to life and banish the coldness of non-life?

It had been some time since Its departure from the first Pen by now, and Saries felt the fur along Its back stand on end. Its Progeny was suffering — It could feel every strike and every wound as if they were being inflicted on It.

It was time to go back.

[center][b]II[/b][/center]

[i]How did this happen?[/i] The thought echoed over and over in Saries’ mind.

What had originally been a small clearing containing a single pen was now a vast field containing nothing but grass, huts, paths, and the sickening scent of burning flesh and plants.

Saries huffed — Yet another log was placed on the platform tied to Its back. 

These trees had not been dead nor sick before they’d been cut. They’d been of the priceless First, and Sarhush decides to murder them anyway? What even was the point, when allowing them to live out their lives would have taken a mere few thousand years?

It was one thing for Sarhush to be depraved and evil, but to go so far as to spread that corruption into the hearts and minds of Saries’ Offspring? There was no greater offense. And yet, a battle right here and now would be counter productive — Saries was meant to protect the living, and fighting Sarhush here would lead to many needless deaths.

Another log was dropped onto Saries’ back. Its paws sank a little into the soft dirt underneath. 

Someone approached Saries from the side and It snapped at them, growling and barking. The growl abated only when Saries saw that the creature now sitting on its behind, shaking and having slightly wet himself, was a lanky and weak-looking ur-human. Not a threat, It thought, so it ignored the weak human and lifted its paws out of the dirt. 

Saries had enough. It shook its body, easily breaking apart the platform on its back and causing the logs loaded on it to drop onto the ground. The ground hadn’t even had a chance to rumble before Saries had jumped away from the clearing and landed at the shore nearby.

There were countless fires raging in the distance, and every breath that Saries took filled its lungs with ash and smoke. It would not have been a cause for alarm, if it did not also feel the sensations of every one of its creations nearby. The burning, the choking, the fading of life — It was nearly maddening. With each life that was unjustly snuffed out, Saries felt its patience wearing thin. The damage had to be controlled!

So Saries howled. It was a long, haunting howl that resonated throughout the land, bringing ur-humans to their knees and calling beasts to It. Yet beasts were not the only ones to respond to the howl. In the distance, four beings echoed.. Not Gods, no, something different. Lesser obviously, but they somehow shone brightly still.  It was time to hunt.

The birds in their many different sizes and colours were the first ones to arrive and perch themselves on Saries’ back. They would do as the first to be blessed, as the first Non-God to have echoed Saries’ howl back at It lived far above in the skies. To a lesser eye, it would have looked like a lone cloud far above the other, but Saries knew. The birds all braced as Saries flexed Its legs, and then It jumped. 

The land below quickly disappeared below layers of clouds and smoke, they went so far above that all but one cloud had disappeared. The closer the group got to the cloud, the more its shape changed. It was always a vague shape, but by the time that the birds could see it, it had formed two magnificent wings and an avian body not unlike theirs. It was flapping its wings trying to get away, but it was of no use, Saries was too fast!

That’s when the birds saw [i]them[/i]. There were [i]things[/i] inside of the cloud. Countless, innumerable things that shone and twinkled like the night lights in the sky! The crows were the first to act, taking flight and shooting straight for the shiniest of them all. Then the hawks, and the eagles, and the parakeets and the owls. 

They all knew that they [i]had[/i] to reach one of the lights and take it. 

And so dozens of birds, along with Saries, shot through the cloud, grasping in their beaks one of the lights and swallowing. Some went back for seconds, others for thirds, but most were only able to get away with just one, for the altitude there were flying in was far too high and their lungs and bodies were not designed to survive it for long. It was not long before the birds had fallen unconscious from the strain of the flight, but luckily for them, Saries was there. It fell alongside them and kept the flames of their lives alight, even when their bodies would have given up long ago. 

They had become connected to something greater than themselves. As they fell lower and lower, they woke back up, completely changed. The very air seemed to nourish them, and the clouds responded to them. Their feathers and wings had changed and in their minds, there was only one thing now: the fires. 

As they approached the surface once more, the birds split up. Some of them went straight for the fires, using their new control over wind and air to make the clouds overhead burst into a torrential rain. Others spread far and wide to herd more and more clouds to the burning lands, so that the torrential rain would continue for as long as it needed to.

When Saries landed on the ground, It saw that other animals had gathered. This was good, Saries thought, for the threat that the ur-humans and Sarhush posed had become clear. There were three more Not-Gods to hunt, and each of them would be forced to give a blessing to Saries’ Progeny.

[hider=Actions]
Saries travels across the lands, observing the Life it created and mentally cataloguing it. 

It soon feels the pain of suffering echoing from the creatures back near Sarhush, and has to go back to check things out. 

One thing leads to another and eventually Saries finds itself being used as a cargo animal moving massive logs back and forth, whilst its forests are burned by the ur-humans themselves. 

It realizes the ur-humans have been corrupted by Sarhush, and immediately leaves to try and contain the damage being caused. It achieves this by hunting the Patron of Air, who is forced to bless several bird species as a decoy in order to be able to escape. 

These birds now have control over the wind as well as weather effects related to the sky, such as rain or drought. The birds use this newfound ability to start a torrential rain over the entire region being plagued by fires.
[center][h1]CONVICTION SPENDING:[/h1][/center]
Starting Conviction = 2

Saries used 2 Conviction to hunt the Patron of Wind and force it to bless the birds (Surreal, High-Power, Fantastical Creatures). This blessing physically changes the birds into brand new species with instinctive access to Form Magic effects under the Air umbrella. Each species has a different application of it, with varying levels of power.

Remaining conviction = 0

[/hider]