About this time Whisper began to hear the echoes of alchemical theory on the telepathic song-lines. It was far from the first time she had listened to such arts, though they frustrated her. None of the reagents or conditions specified existed in recognisable form in the Ring of Lex.
She had tried to replicate what she could, anyway, only to find that she had neither the time nor the support from the sorority. Change-eaters in Lex could not survive by lazing, yet nor did they struggle. As such their arts were elaborate and their technologies simple. They gardened. They herded. They whaled. They did not need to make goods or potions.
Nonetheless, the lyrical exchange was stronger here, wittier, and harsher. Whisper homed in on the cry of the local Sculptors, thinking that they were lone wanderers, much like herself. And she was wrong.
There was an indigenous sapient native to the Changing Plains after all, Whisper found. They were... Rough.
Vestec's insidie lived clambered on the rocks like gargoyles or hungry baboons. They ate small animals they kicked to death with their talons, large animals they hunted in packs, and a cocktail of drugs derived from volcanic flora. At night they slept in rough hammocks spun between whatever two jutting rocks they could find, even if they seemed liable to collapse any second. Maybe especially if.
But they slept in the daytime too. And sometimes they just piled on top of each other for... Well, brawls and group sex seemed to be pretty much the same thing for them, and apparently the intimate physical connection of curling up and sleeping in an awkward pile of scarred muscle and fifty-seven gangly limbs fell into that spectrum too.
All of the 'tribes' Whisper found were a mix of mature adults and young children. Adolescents, it seemed, had to be nailed down to make them stay put, and none of the Voren- as they called themselves- had the motivation nor the nails required to do that. None of them even really knew how they kept their numbers up. Sometimes they just wandered across one of their own on the fields of chaos, bashed them across the head, and if they weren't too hungry they were allowed to stick around.
The Jvanic monks of the shattersteppe called themselves Fleshshapers, and flesh they shaped. Lethal physical trauma was abundant among Voren, and these oddballs were never far when it struck, ready with faery and thread to stitch and slice, cauterise with fire and purge with herbs and twist bones back into shape with rope. They transfused and transplanted, even, from any living thing they could find, taking advantage of the Voren's adaptive immune system- The genes of which read, as far as Whisper could tell, 'You see that leg? That's my leg now. Fuck you.'
Their own modified blood facilitated the process, and they carried wagons laden with bits and pieces preserved in barrels. Often storing these pieces became a hassle, and the Fleshshapers would combine them into something weirder. They were good at that. No two Voren looked the same after a while, and the Fleshshapers made good use of... Pets. Whisper learned that if you lashed three arms together wrist to shoulder, they make a good grabbing tool.
So... Adults, children and Sculptors. And slaves, near the edge of the plains, but nobody counted those and they didn't last long. And, well, maybe a few small demons. Demons that were also slaves, that they managed to fish out of blood wells in exchange for whatever they could find, which was usually each other after they got bored of exploring the caves for precious stones.
When Whisper first encountered the Voren, their immediate response to her presence was to take up their javelins and try to hunt her, to no success whatsoever. When the change-eater tried to pull her trick of standing in a humanoid shape, they seemed to take it as a challenge, and eventually she learned to play along.
Play was the correct term. Though Whisper could toss an insidie across twenty metres of bare rock with a flick of a tail and lacerate the skin from their chest with nothing more than a twitch, the people of the shattersteppe only laughed and shrieked and fought harder, scampering across the plain with catlike speed. Despite everything, they were actually enjoying themselves. They hadn't had a fight this good in years- No, ever!
Eventually the extended family grew tired, in that they had either been beaten unconscious, had passed out in exhaustion, or were actually dead. It was hard to tell. Whisper piled them up into a tidy bundle and waited.
Only the tribe's Fleshshaper remained, inhaling sulphurous lichen fumes out of a bowl and watching with lazy interest as she busied herself distilling a mix of spirits and oil of vitriol. She was the strangest Sculptor that Whisper had yet seen- Many limbs growing in two rings around a spoke with a fluted head, locking together to form something like a basket, or a spring, or a wheel. Hard to tell.
When prompted, she explained that the brew was producing ether, a liquor made of which could induce sleep. It made her family easier to work on, and there was plenty of work to be done. Whisper apologised. The Fleshshaper congratulated her on beating the living shit out of her relatives. It gave her an opportunity to have fun.
Morning came and the Voren were eager to try again. This time Whisper hovered above them and knocked away anything they threw. Between the work of the Fleshshaper, whose name was Fucking Big Mallet (after her backup anaesthetic), and the grogginess that gripped them as their natural blood rush from the previous night wore off, they soon calmed down and decided Whisper was a friend.
With some explanations from Fucking Big Mallet, who for a time joined her on her journey, Whisper soon learned that the Voren actually had a thriving artistic tradition. Their language had a complex system of synonyms and affixes allowing any and all adjectives to turn vulgar. Their stories lauded kismesitude- Romantic passion characterised by jealousy, frustration, rivalry, and mutual loathing. They flyted as easily as they breathed, settling disputes with verses that could put most Djinni to shame.
Whisper, having not forgotten her quest, took avid notes.
Listen now, you spineless bitch,
Step into the fray
You never got the chance to run-
Your love arrives today.
She leaves you groaning in a ditch
And wishing she would stay.
She tears you down and wraps your eyes
Makes you into her whore.
She says she hates you, lover dear,
And leaves you wanting more
For nothing ever satisfies
Until you're on the floor.
Your love will stretch you on a rack
She'll fuck you up and fuck you blind
But still you love with all your heart
The girl you sold your soul to find.
For, after all, she loves you back-
With bruises sweet and hands entwined.
Vec
Timemaster