Antarctic Termite

Mid/High Casual - Divinus: The Deity Roleplay Mk.II

@Cyclone hey! That sounds awesome, thanks for letting me know. I'll hit up Poog again about it asap.

listen I just need somewhere to dump Tauga's stats until I write her next post

D A B B L E S<br>A B B L E S D<br>B B L E S D A<br>B L E S D A B<br>L E S D A B B<br>E S D A B B L<br>S D A B B L E<br>

Mid/High Casual - Divinus: The Deity Roleplay Mk.II

*takes a shot of the plot resolution whiskey*

Jvan has yet another new name and this one has diacritics. Have fun kids.

Anyway, I'm pushing Alefpria and the Pronobis civ (Old Sea empire? Old Sea theocracy? idk) a little closer together so Alefpria can keep some relevance; I hit up Poog way back and we established that they'd be allies. Their goals align fairly well anyway.

Cosmic Knights are starting to wander and find new causes, mostly one by one. Most are still isolated in Alefpria but hit me up if you want to write a few into your stories or civs. The rule of thumb is basically- A) do they have a reason to leave their beloved City and Emperor, and B) do they have an even more noble cause to join? If yes to both you can probably take a couple.

Mid/High Casual - Divinus: The Deity Roleplay Mk.II

The Dissolution of the Knights

In many places, it is traditional for hain to fight naked. A sash or splash of paint is used to mark their side, and beyond this the only use of clothing would be to remove and bind or gag the opponent anyway.

A Cosmic Knight, on the other hand, is always naked. They have long since given up the option to change their uniform.

Tauga tossed her polehammer out of the ring and spat bile. A page brought her water and she gulped heavily. The one femme-looking Knight took a squat next to her and drained a calabash gourd, breathing heavily. The other one, the big coated one with the serrated cleaver, simply stood.

"You don't talk much, do you?" said the smaller one, after a few seconds.

"I don't waste words," said Tauga.

"You had some real great words to waste on the lost ship the other day."

"Fucking idiot captain should've listened to my fucking advice, piece of shit," said Tauga instantly. The Knight laughed. His name was Sevvin. "What? You want me to banter?"

"Well, if you're offering..."

"I didn't offer jack shit. I asked if you want me to."

"If... That's acceptable, Marquise."

"Oh shut up," she said, picking her ravaged shell off the ground and flexing. Tauga was so rarely out of her suit that it was easy to forget how damaged she was, a corroded husk of a hain body barely holding in the bodily power beneath. She hadn't moulted in twelve years. "Third round, hand to hand. Let's go."

The big Warden set its cleaver down at the side of the ring. The watchers who'd gathered raised a whoop as it cracked its knuckles for their benefit. Feet stamped and a chant rose as Tauga stepped into the ring.

A pale green spark flickered between the two Knights. A duet of warriors is always greater than the sum of one and one. For Knights, even more so. For a Knight and a Warden... Well.

Tauga hadn't even won their last round.

The page cried, "Fight!"

The femme knight squared off and his partner stepped forward, the numbers setting him at leisure. A yellow halo blazed above its head.

Tauga was expecting it. At the moment of the cry she'd spun on her front heel and stepped forward, carrying the force through a kick into the space the Warden had entered. Her heel slammed on blue glow. Sevvin's own halo flared the same.

The Warden shot a jab into the space she'd been and Tauga flattened backwards onto palms and feet. She cartwheeled back on one hand.

Sevvin crossed into the Warden's space and the Warden appeared at Tauga's fore. She twisted her shoulders into a punch at its hip and saw Sevvin's halo switch to pink, jabbing an elbow to his knee as he approached.

He buckled back. Tauga leapt into him. The Warden spun a hook into her skull.

Sevvin took Tauga's knee to his face and was thrown backwards, Tauga crashing into the turf on her hip. She stood immediately. Bleeding from the face into the eye, it didn't stop her assuming the guard position. The Warden's mask flickered. Sevvin crouched outside of the ring, green connection broken. It had been a very unfavourable exchange for him.

"You wanted banter, Sev? Here's some," she said. The Warden and Blowfly circled. Its halo, too, had flashed to pink. "You come to my islands because your Emperor sent you. You fight my battles in Lifprasil's name. You train my soldiers and say 'glory to Alefpria', but whose Marquisate is this?"

The Warden's orb went yellow and it threw a volley of punches at the tiny figure, lunging down into each thrust. Its reach was greater than Tauga's ability to move, but Tauga was canny and knew what she could win. The blow that put its studded knuckles into her chest was the same she used to grab the Warden's wrist and toss herself upwards with the leverage. Her heel entered its face with a hard crack as the two leapt off one another.

Tauga flicked her twisted wrist into shape as the Warden went blue. Her bones didn't fit the same way normal hain's did.

"Mine, Sevvin," she said. Despite the blood, dripping now, she spoke on. "Look around you. This is the empire you were sent to build. And it's not Alefprian. It's not even Xerxes anymore. Xerxes got eaten by the Devil. This is where all your ideas and your peoples come together and conquer. This is your glorious future, here in the dirt and the sand and the sweat. It's alive."

The Warden made a sweeping kick and Tauga vaulted over it, smashing her fists into its sides, its gut, boxing and kick-boxing the giant warrior. They disengaged, Tauga bleeding from the fists. Her aura swirled from her. The watchers began to yell.

"Show me an God-Emperor who preaches from a palace and I'll show you nothing more than a sage with a general who can't be assed to claim power. You love him because he's kind, not because of what he's done. All true emperors are tyrants, Sevvin."

The Warden stepped forward. Tauga flicked her beak and braced.

"And when you worship a tyrant-"

She spun through the air, slamming a kick into the Warden's collarbone, and was smacked from the air onto the sideline. Tauga slid into the wall as the Warden skidded on its feet, leaving gouges in the dust. The back of its heels were just touching the ring.

"-you create a god," she said, and stood.

Some crowds might roar. This one simply murmured. Tauga felt her eyes fall shut.

"Some banter," said Sevvin. "Wow."

Tauga put her palm in the air, snapped her fingers. A blood-eyed worm fell into her hand and wound up her shoulder. It peeled away her damaged cranium and she licked her bloodied teeth. "Could've won that if I wasn't talking. Just wasted words."

"Perhaps not so much," said the Warden. Heartworm looked at it and felt no fear.

* * *

A Cosmic Knight met the edge of the cliff and didn't stop.

The way down was a steep slope, not a drop. The Changing Plains had broken like a wave here. Oriana hit the rock face with her heel and began to skid down, high stone grinding away her armour and threatening to make her tumble. Only her Astartean will gripped her and pushed her to balance.

The ground flew at her like a fist to the skull.

Oriana rebounded from the earth in a spray of rock splinters, crashing back into the rock and immediately curling into a wounded position.

She touched the flower that grew from her shoulder to make sure it was still alive. She opened her eyes and saw another flower growing just ahead of her. It was a deep red rose, an iron rose, growing with steel-coated leaves on a bed of haematite.

The sun hammered down at her as she lay. The bloodstones shimmered with heat. High above, the ogres were finding another way down, armed with the spears of her friends. As she watched, a pale glow rose from the petals of the rosebud.

She asked it, "Why?"

"Because I intended it," said Chiral Phi. "It was I who lured the ogres to your camp."

She scrunched her crying eyes. "Why?"

"Who am I, Oriana?"

"You said you were a God of Empathy," she spat. "Liar."

"I am the liar and the mother of lies," said Phi. "Thus it is written in the Great Book. But I am also the God of Empathy."

"How is this empathy," she said, forming her teeth into a growl. The mandibles that passed for her lips slavered.

"I am giving you what you asked for. Didn't you ask for this?"

Oriana raised herself from the ground on her fists. "I never asked for this. I never asked for this!" She rammed her fist into the rock, creating more fractures. "I asked for glory! Camaraderie! To chase the stars! I thought I would die at Lifprasil's side! I thought I would die!" Her halo shone pink, healing bent bones. "I thought I would die and I was happy until YOU came!"

"Die then," said Chiral Phi. "Do what you came for." The light winked out.

"...raaAAH!"

Oriana lashed out, and the rose was nothing but a trail of shredded feathers on the wind. She looked down at her hands. She scrunched her eyes and curled up on her knees.

One beautiful thing in the wasteland, and even that was gone.

"AAAAAAAH!"

The ogres came and Oriana went to them. Her halo flared yellow. She'd lost her weapon long ago but, like the rose, her armour was nothing but thorns.

Oriana raged and gouged and ripped and tore and gnashed. The blood covered her as she killed with her shoulders, drew blood with her teeth. Everything was red. Everything was violence. She caved the last ogre's skull with a rock and smashed it until stone hit stone.

She sat on the body of the clansman and put her head in her hands. "...I was wrong," she whispered. "Just take me back."

Phi blinked back into existence. "You're alive, Ori."

"I don't want to."

"You made a mistake. I know. I kept you alive through your rage, and I'm sorry, Oriana. I'm sorry."

"Why did you do it?"

"Because I don't want anyone to make a mistake like yours. You're still suffering." The light swirled. For a moment it seemed to form the shape of a woman, gazing out into the distant sunset, but that was just pareidolia.

"I won't lie to you any more, Ori. I'm not better than him. In many ways I'm much the same. In fact, I'm worse. But I'm not him. Enough is enough, Oriana, daughter of Tyufik. Don't spend your eternity living your mistake. You can run. Run away from your pain and never come back."

Oriana said nothing.

"In the morning I'll guide you away from this place. I'll take you out of the Changing Plains, and show you the way to wherever you want. You can go anywhere. I will not stop you. But I'm hoping you'll stay with me."

"...Why," she said. "I don't want it to hurt."

"So you can guard my flock," said Chiral Phi. "Teach them that there is no god worth dying for. And how to treasure themselves. Teach them how to love truly, and how important are the lives of others. Teach them that there's no god worth dying for," she repeated. "Not even me."

And the indigo light winked out. Oriana daughter of Tyufik was left to stare at the moons and wonder at her future.

* * *

A small figure stood in a long room, facing the kneeling masses. Its arms were spread wide, a dove evenly perched on each one. Every inch of skin was covered in dense rags. Rags that were no longer just coverings, but had become a symbol.

The figure said, "And what is the purpose of life?"

The masses replied, "There is none."

"And what is the outcome of all action?"

"Futility."

"And what is the noblest falsehood?"

"In the face of eternity, only diversity."

"State the number of stars."

"Eleven orders of magnitude."

"And how can infinity be filled?"

"We must expand."

"And where must you go?"

"To the heavens."

"And why must you go?"

"Our fate is our own. Thus we create. Creation is the only true exercise of free thought."

"And who am I?"

"You are the Dove."

"And who am I?"

"You are the only Dove."

"And who am I?"

"You are nothing but the Dove."

"Sleep now."

The heads bowed, and the congregation was lost in ritual slumber, kneeling in rows upon the floor. Dabbles nodded his head, and gently raised his hands. The pigeons fluttered off and onto their perch.

The kilted Warden standing at his side watched the catechism and when Dabbles turned to him he nodded. "Would that Lifprasil had never touched the Godslayer," he said. "That we would not have to rely on such a cult."

"Cult or no, my dear, most everything I've said is true," said Dabbles. "It is the will and the teaching of the Horror. I do it gladly. My Lord has done much for me, and this Humble Servant will return."

"You're mad, Monk."

Dabbles cocked his head and said, "Oh..?"

"Don't catch me with your games, Sculptor," said the Warden, staring down at the alter where the slaughtered Sweetheart lay. "We each think we're swindling the other. And neither of us are wrong. Let's leave it at that, and pursue our shared goal."

Dabbles laughed. The voice was merry and cordial and almost utterly sourceless. "Have no fear, o Warden of Alefpria," he said, raising a hand and allowing a pigeon to alight thereon. A huge wave crashed against the side of Father Dominus and the sound hushed faintly through the Ark. "The Cancer will grow and the cosmos will be yours. Mark my words, the cosmos will be yours."

The Warden nodded and stared at the tiny sage. Its grip on its cleaver tightened just slightly.

* * *

The two warriors faced each other, kneeling evenly. They each took up a tiny cup in both hands and raised it to their lips. A double click as the porcelain touched the floor.

Yuna opened her eyes and watched the figure before her. She was not especially strange, by the standards of a Knight. Her strangeness had been exaggerated by her followers. Yuna supposed that her similarity to the other Pronobii was still too apparent to strike them as anything other than uncanny.

She still had the glow of the siphons in her joints, as red as a raven's blood. She still had a body like sculpted ice. It was hard to tell what was different about her, even, until you saw the seam between her face and her skull.

Lambda opened her eyes. Yuna didn't see this happen, of course- the High Priestess's blindfold was still firmly in place.

"A successful evening, I'd think," she said, her smile just a faint touch wry. Would that it were just a little more so, thought Yuna.

She nodded. "I'm glad this all worked out as well as it did, my lady. I was afraid there'd be friction, and another failing front to consider."

Lambda waved a hand. "I wouldn't pin too much on fortune. You're an honourable girl, Yuna. You do your city a favour. I'll prepare a formal statement soon enough-" Lambda's eyes fell on the pile of scrolls and letters signed in Lakshmi's name and that of her Emperor, and she wheezed. Yuna smiled with her. The dusk was bright amber. "-I'll get Omicron to do it. But, suffice to say, the Pronobii of the Old Sea will gladly stand as an ally to Alefpria."

Yuna bowed her head and smiled. "Thank you, Priestess. The gods know we need them."

The mats they kneeled on were small. There were no real furnishings in this room, as yet. An altar. A map. A simple table. A sword. Recombinance. The Pronobii were still getting used to decorating above water, and with anything that wasn't ice.

Outside the waters lapped, calm and pelagic. Yuna was more than capable of meeting Lambda in the water, but she had insisted: some ceremonies had been born on dry land and would remain there. This was the platform at the top of Mias'Thul, the Twisted Tower. A large village could fit here. Slender though it was, the platform stood perfectly even on a tower ten miles tall.

Yuna sighed. Lambda was still resting, though she flexed her shoulders every now and then. Yuna found herself watching every time.

"It's as well we've found a companion to take into the heavens," she said. "Things are... Tense in Alefpria. People are uncertain." Lambda's gaze fell on her. She didn't know how she knew that, but she did.

"The Battle of Xerxes was harsher than anyone could have expected," Yuna continued. "The people saw gods. Even the Knights had never faced deities in person, other than Lifprasil. We saw how much blood would be spilled for Lifprasil's vision..."

"And then the Godslayer." Bitter notes as Yuna spoke, unable to contain herself. These were things too close to be spoken to any but a stranger. "She was a living legend before the Battle, but we didn't know what she truly was," she explained, as Lambda watched. "Now Lifprasil is ailing from her touch. We don't know... when he'll recover." Lambda nodded. She knew the pain of losing a god.

"In his absence new thoughts are starting to creep into the city." Yuna spoke on and on. "We always thought we would unite the world, but now... There are sects. They aren't spoken of, the seams don't show up in the light. But they're there. There are people who've given up on this world. So long we've been hidden under the veil of mist that they don't care for anything but Alefpria. They just want to carry it to the stars. The House of Life..." Lambda caught the word 'clandestine'.

"Others have seen outside and decided that Alefpria's not worth staying," she said. "So they wander. To Rulanah, to the Blowfly Marquisate. Shalanoir. Metera-"

"Here?"

Yuna looked down into her cup.

"Take your time. We're all Yän bastards here."

Yuna laughed.

"She really does have a hand in everything, doesn't she."

"Tell me about it," murmured Lambda.

"I'm just glad to have found someone kind," she said. "Someone who can fight and love. That's all our Emperor wanted, in the end. To win, and have peace, and chase stars."

And even that was Yän's little scheme, thought Lambda. But she didn't say it. She put a palm on Yuna's shoulder and she looked up.

"Don't be anxious about my friendship, Yuna," she said. "I like you. I offer it gladly. If our nations draw together, then I'll count it a blessing. If our hearts draw together... That's even better."

Yuna smiled, and looked down. The sun was nearly missing. "In Amestris," she said, not meeting Lambda's gaze, "there was once a custom that, when two ambassadors cemented a union, they'd be joined in body as well as paper." A small shrug. "It's not as if my body can still do such things, but..."

Lambda smiled. "I'm sorry. I don't swing that way."

"Of course. I-"

"But I know a girl."

D A B B L E S

This post documents the slow dispersion of the Cosmic Knights as Lifprasil fades from public view and Alefprians encounter more of the outside world.

A Knight named Sevvin and one of the Wardens Three, sent to assist Tauga as she establishes the Marquisate, spar with her in a ring. The Warden decides that Lifprasil is no longer the greatest hope of conquering the world to establish a mortal empire- that lies with the Blowfly.

A Knight named Oriana is sent to travel with the Vestecians of the Changing Plains, who are related to the Lifprasilians. Her party is attacked by ogres and she is the only survivor. As she flees and waits to die, Chiral Phi appears to taunt her, igniting her own Vestec-given rage in order for her to survive. Oriana realises that none of the dreams she had upon sacrificing her humanity for Knighthood have materialised, and Phi offers her sanctuary in the hope that she will teach the Meterans not to rely on the promises of gods.

A second Warden works with Dabbles to establish a clandestine Jvanic space cult in Alefpria. Though the Warden sees the cult as nothing but a tool and Dabbles is a true zealot, they both agree that the Alefprians must be goaded to expand into space as soon as possible and by any means necessary, with or without Lifprasil's guidance. Dabbles has taken on the epithet 'the Dove'.

A Knight named Yuna is sent to meet the newborn Pronobis nation in the Fractal Sea. This isn't exactly the best section of the four, but she entrusts Lambda with a lot of her concerns for Alefpria and the future. The two are equally happy to have many goals and views in common, and they both still intend to expand into space with the Arks. Yuna and other Knights will probably stick around as a symbol of the alliance.

Khookie counts will happen eventually.

listen I just need somewhere to dump Tauga's stats until I write her next post

* * *

The two warriors faced each other, kneeling evenly. They each took up a tiny cup in both hands and raised it to their lips. A double click as the porcelain touched the floor.

Yuna opened her eyes and watched the figure before her. She was not especially strange, by the standards of a Knight. Her strangeness had been exaggerated by her followers. Yuna supposed that her similarity to the other Pronobii was still too apparent to strike them as anything other than uncanny.

She still had the glow of the siphons in her joints, as red as a raven's blood. She still had a body like sculpted ice. It was hard to tell what was different about her, even, until you saw the seam between her face and her skull.

Lambda opened her eyes. Yuna didn't see this happen, of course- the High Priestess's blindfold was still firmly in place.

"A successful evening, I'd think," she said, her smile just a faint touch wry. Would that it were just a little more so, thought Yuna.

She nodded. "I'm glad this all worked out as well as it did, my lady. I was afraid there'd be friction, and another failing front to consider."

Lambda waved a hand. "I wouldn't pin too much on fortune. You're an honourable girl, Yuna. You do your city a favour. I'll prepare a formal statement soon enough-" Lambda's eyes fell on the pile of scrolls and letters signed in Lakshmi's name and that of her Emperor, and she wheezed. Yuna smiled with her. The dusk was bright amber. "-I'll get Omicron to do it. But, suffice to say, the Pronobii of the Old Sea will gladly stand as an ally to Alefpria."

Yuna bowed her head and smiled. "Thank you, Priestess. The gods know we need them."

The mats they kneeled on were small. There were no real furnishings in this room, as yet. An altar. A map. A simple table. A sword. Recombinance. The Pronobii were still getting used to decorating above water, and with anything that wasn't ice.

Outside the waters lapped, calm and pelagic. This was the platform at the top of Mias'Thul, the Twisted Tower. A large village could fit here. Slender though it was, the platform stood perfectly even on a tower ten miles tall.

Yuna sighed. Lambda was still resting, though she flexed her shoulders every now and then. Yuna found herself watching every time.

"It's as well we've found a companion to take into the heavens," she said. "Things are... Tense in Alefpria. People are uncertain." Lambda's gaze fell on her. She didn't know how she knew that, but she did.

"The Battle of Xerxes was harsher than anyone could have expected," Yuna continued. "The people saw gods. Even the Knights had never faced deities in person, other than Lifprasil. We saw how much blood would be spilled for Lifprasil's vision..."

"And then the Godslayer." Bitter notes as Yuna spoke, unable to contain herself. These were things too close to be spoken to any but a stranger. "She was a living legend before the Battle, but we didn't know what she truly was," she explained, as Lambda watched. "Now Lifprasil is ailing from her touch. We don't know... when he'll recover." Lambda nodded. She knew the pain of losing a god.

"In his absence new thoughts are starting to creep into the city." Yuna spoke on and on. "We always thought we would unite the world, but now... There are sects. They aren't spoken of, the seams don't show up in the light. But they're there. There are people who've given up on this world. So long we've been hidden under the veil of mist that they don't care for anything but Alefpria. They just want to carry it to the stars. The House of Life..."

"Others have seen outside and decided that Alefpria's not worth staying," she said. "So they wander. To Rulanah, to the Blowfly Marquisate. Shalanoir. Metera-"

"Here?"

Yuna looked down into her cup.

"Take your time. We're all Yän bastards here."

Yuna laughed.

"She really does have a hand in everything, doesn't she."

"Tell me about it," murmured Lambda.

"I'm just glad to have found someone kind," she said. "Someone who can fight and love. That's all our Emperor wanted, in the end. To win, and have peace, and chase stars."

And even that was Yän's little scheme, thought Lambda. But she didn't say it. She put a palm on Yuna's shoulder and she looked up.

"Don't be anxious about my friendship, Yuna," she said. "I like you. I offer it gladly. If our nations draw together, then I'll count it a blessing. If our hearts draw together... That's even better."

Yuna smiled, and looked down. The sun was nearly missing. "In Amestris," she said, not meeting Lambda's gaze, "there was once a custom that, when two ambassadors cemented a union, they'd be joined in body as well as paper." A small shrug. "It's not as if my body can still do such things, but..."

Lambda smiled. "I'm sorry. I don't swing that way."

"Of course. I-"

"But I know a girl."

Mid/High Casual - Divinus: The Deity Roleplay Mk.II

"Are you sure you want to put a cup holder on it, brother? A demigoddess might black-hat your pwned ass again."

@Muttonhawk

*whistling*

Mid/High Casual - Divinus: The Deity Roleplay Mk.II

@Muttonhawk

Mid/High Casual - Divinus: The Deity Roleplay Mk.II

Y'know, this post got me wondering: why didn't I jump at the chance to wage a grand tunnel war? Really endangers my eagles.

Anyway, today we learned that there's a Sculptor with a massive fancrush on Heartworm because of course there is, why wouldn't there be. About a million posts incoming because WrongEnd has my Discord and keeps hitting me up with ideas. Someone help me.

ed: put a point into Urteverm because eh. if I'm not at zero by the end of the turn it probably wasn't even worth waking up Jvan tbh

Mid/High Casual - Divinus: The Deity Roleplay Mk.II

Mirus.
Prime Meridian: Atoll Caldera, 209 kliks south of the equator.
Coordinates: 48.772°N, -80.141°E, -3,704m.
Submaterium of Mirus.

"Hey, Scritches! I found another one!"

The centaurine Sculptor pitter-pattered over to the source of the sound, clattering around it, towards it, away from it, all at the same time because these things were not mutually exclusive in the metalhell, until she was waiting some meters ahead of it on a fairly straight path. She flattened herself against the wall.

The quadcopter hummed towards her and she smacked it with a heavy staff.

The thing spun out over the floor and she stopped it with a prehensile foot. She applied the tool at the end of the staff and cut it open, jabbing at the circuitboard until it stopped moving. She scratched up the calligraphy like she'd been instructed to.

"Scritches!"

Scritches skittered down the tunnel and folded up at Skele's side, carrying a bag of drones.

"Look at it. It's a good one."

Scritches signed something. Skele was indignant.

"They're not all the same! Some are better. Cuter."

Scritches picked up the drone and pointed at it, then put it in its bag and turned to go. Skele followed with a huff.

"Ugh! You have no taste."

---

Mirus.
Coordinates: -27.843°N, 85.058°E, -2,622m.
Submaterium of Mirus.

Steady high pitched whine as the quadcopter made its way down the tight bundle of forks and loops. The walls were thin in this sector, highly permeated, and the tunnels tightly packed, like the interior of a lung.

The constant screech was the mark of a damaged motor. This drone had survived one encounter it likely shouldn't have, and blindly whirred its way onwards to another.

A whorl of metal blinked as it passed.

There was a sudden snap. Acrid smoke hung in the air where it lay, thinning slowly in the lack of gravity. Shrapnel lay across the floor.

Ten tentacles reached out and gripped their shards of metal, retracting back into a seamless face. The drone lay where it fell. Its siphon leaked a stream of liquid sulphur and went out.

---

Mirus.
Coordinates: -50.366°N, -30.284°E, -460m.
Submaterium of Mirus.

Quadcopters homed in on foreign sounds in the maze. The sounds were recorded by the central processor and used to mark dangers, as well as possible leads.

This was the deep booming sound that the drones had learned to associate with tunnelling wyrms. They avoided it as best they can, but to escape completely was impossible- too many wyrms, blocking too many tunnels.

A quadcopter veered left to avoid the long-echoing sound of a distant wyrm. It sang in a tiny voice of its own, a pinging echo that kept it company between the walls.

Its pathfinding equipment detected a dead end. It stopped. It turned around.

A set of white orbs ignited into a glow, but the darkness was no weaker for it.

A long sharp tongue speared the drone upon its barb and dragged it skittering into the wyrm. A second clanging rumble echoed through the tunnels. After a while, the first one stopped.

---

Mirus.
Coordinates: 14.926°N, -7.350°E, -6,621m.
Submaterium of Mirus.

A lone figure strode through the tunnels, carrying a long net. It swished it effortlessly through the air and tangled an approaching quadcopter.

The figure bent, human-like, and took the drone in its jagged fingers. It pulled out a plate marked with scarlet runes and pressed it to the fibre shell, causing it to lie still. It examined the copter closely, then wiped some residue off its lense and wound a patch around its damaged arm.

"There isn't much I can do for you, Teknall," it murmured. "Heartworm will not tolerate a traitor in its ranks. But I will keep my oath."

A second plate touched the quadcopter, and it spun into life. Help watched it rise up and head on down the tunnel.

"Good luck," said the mentor.

---

Mirus.
Coordinates: 81.983°N, -26.900°E, -11,545m.
Heartworm's Laboratory.

"Heartworm looook," pleaded Skele as Scritches dragged their creation down the corridor.

Heartworm looked.

Skele posed beside the big mess of bone-flesh and metal, a crowd of Sweethearts monitoring its constant hisses and fizzing. The most cobbled-together divine siphon ever seen on Galbar lumbered towards them on pseudopods looted from about eight other projects. Skele gestured up and down gleefully. It looked set to explode.

"Eclectic," it said.

Skele slapped her hands on her cheeks and grinned 'til her teeth shone. "You do love me!"

"Continue harvesting quadcopters," said the Emaciator. "Consider the following project: Sweetheart disassembly teams. Their empathy does not preclude them from setting traps."

Skele saluted sharply. Scritches sighed. "Yessir! And..." she looked to one side. "Once we've dealt with the drone problem, can we go on a..?"

"No."

"...That means yes," she whispered to Scritches as Heartworm disappeared. Scritches smacked her.

---

Mirus.
Coordinates: -31.146°N, 34.865°E, -903m.
Submaterium of Mirus.

A sharp kick out of nowhere. The drone ricocheted around the tunnel and fell. Heartworm picked it up.

Teknall was overwhelming it, little by little. Its power was limited and even if it set all of its energy to mass-producing counter-drones to wage a grand tunnel war against the god, it would eventually be outperformed. Eventually, luck and persistence would carry one of Teknall's probes just far enough to follow.

Heartworm picked its limbs up from the ground and hovered there, disassembling the drone. The sensors on its vehicle were keen but not made for its current purpose. Heartworm opened its mandibles and extended a bundle of microfibres.

A calligraphic link, identical in each drone. To disable the swarm was increasingly implausible. If Heartworm were to buy itself time, it would have to strike at the data as it was stored- somehow corrupt the veracity of the map itself.

The pattern of silicon and earth-metals imprinted itself on Heartworm's mind. The fundamental nature of Tounic sigils was clarity: there was no question of where the stream of data led. Another receiver, elsewhere, bore a complementary mark, and thus received its input in the exact same manner. Somewhere there lay another processor, much like this one, to which every single drone was somehow linked.

Heartworm had already discerned the site of the original portal with which these devices had been released into its den, but that gate was now closed. There was nothing entering Teknall's headquarters but telepathic data, and very little being received. Without access to the center, it was impossible to discern its properties, let alone engage with its hidden defenses.

The idea of an infohazard was hot in Heartworm's mind. With pure data its only avenue of retaliation, it had planted several in the tunnels, and observed closely the result of those that had already been triggered. All was futile. Its measures had been shot blind, and as such, no matter how powerful they may be, they were crude.

And yet, Teknall had made one critical mistake in his plans. One that could yet be its salvation.

Heartworm wasn't alone.

Heartworm kicked a hole into reality and emerged in another lab entirely.

It was a Dwarven lab, an arksynth refinery. Here the basic goods that oiled the lives of the psyker elite were produced: Mineral tests, acids, stimulants and refined armour material. Lay resources like fertilisers and elastics were manufactured elsewhere. There masses of the twitch-eared craftsdwarf caste sat in rows and rows, lost each in their own unique little desk of chaos and rogue flesh.

But this was a resort for the oligarchs, and conditions were roomy. A long shelf of labelled samples covered the far wall. Tubes and bladders stood carefully strutted on stone tables.

Heartworm took a moment to examine the shelf as the psykers stared at it, falling into whispers. It had not been here in some time.

"Arctic midge and peasant fur typically creates a microtubule polymerisation catalyst," it said, striding easily to read the labels on the other shelf, which was packed with flesh. Its limbs were too lanky for this room by far, but the fang-like pod it piloted was not. It lifted the arms beneath it and hovered. "Apply to tissue one five four."

The psykers nodded. Some of the younger ones bowed. Heartworm extended its twin hooves in sync and stamped the floor.

"Lazarus."

Somewhere distant, Lazarus felt a draw, as if somebody was calling for her. She put down the lab equipment she was holding, returning it to a mass of disparate objects ranging from a test tube of dwarven-make to a wooden device of unknown enchantments. Unknown to anybody but her, at least. Stepping out of her lab, she began down a winding maze of tunnels to get appropriately far away.

When she was far enough away to make it difficult to locate her lab, she reciprocated the message, giving away her location. "Heartworm, it has been long. Come to me if you wish to speak to me."

Heartworm swished its hoof in an untidy loop and vanished through it. It emerged in a disused passage. At the other end stood Lazarus, at the base of a particularly dense set of tunnel intersections.

There was no need in Heartworm's psyche to catch up with affairs. It reached its limb through the void, plucked a drone from the air in its own maze, pulled it back and smashed it on the floor. "Aid," it said. "Your sphere is necessary. Privacy?"

Lazarus waved her hand dismissively. "The entire set of tunnels is hidden from both dwarven maps and divine signatures. You wouldn't have found it if I hadn't let you find it. Privacy is assured," she paused, saying, "I can detect an energy siphon on this creation. Powered by divinity? Primitive. Whoever made it doesn't truly understand how divinity works."

Heartworm scratched the stone wall with its hoof. It made a horrible sound. The defenses Lazarus had laid on that particular spot gained a tear. "Privacy, Lazarus. Arcane boxes researched in location of absolute secrecy." It tapped the drone. "Five orders of magnitude of these. Heartworm's tunnels more secure than these and they are cracking. Time runs short. Where is it?"

Lazarus pondered the question, responding "If you are asking about my lab, it has long since been secured. My experiments are too delicate to allow anybody in, even you," she paused, taking her journal box from a pendant on her neck. Opening it to reveal a confusing swarm of millions of arcane runes, overlaid on each other and constantly changing, she breathed power into it, the runes expanding into the air around the two. "If you wish for privacy, this will do. It won't last forever, but it will allow us to speak without any.. Listeners," pausing, she looked about, continuing, "what you say here will appear to the outside as a mass of arcane runes, as secure as the writing in the box."

Heartworm spun in a wide ring, gouging deep arcs in the surrounding stone. It kicked the wall and a dead rune sparked. It opened its mouth and something slick and shadowy crept across the floor, liquefying it into magma. The magma glowed purple with Lazarus' magic.

"Insufficient," it said, at the end of its tests. It picked up the shadow and swallowed it again. "Research. Your lab. Where?"

Lazarus stared at Heartworm, saying, "My lab is strictly off-limits. I will not take you there. That is final." with that, she leaned against the wall, crossing her arms as the millions of runes continued to multiply exponentially as the full effect of the box came into existence. It was as though the runes were 'unpacking' themselves into even more complex sets of runes.

"Time," said Heartworm, and stalked away down the corridor of encryption. A flick of stars in the dark and it was gone.

---

Much like Heartworm, Lazarus was not a perfect being. And she was right: Heartworm could see no conceivable way in which it could penetrate the layers of compressed countercode and divine interference.

But Teknall had lately taught Heartworm a valuable lesson: Divinity wasn't everything.

Lazarus' maze was substantially darker than Heartworm's, yet in concrete physical nature, it was simple- hundreds of tunnels of stone hewn into three-dimensional space, by slaves who had then been killed to silence their memory. What Heartworm lacked in time and the ability to compromise, it had gained by observation.

Urtelem flesh preserves easily, yet must still be kept alive. Heartworm kept its samples in a form of heated glass, tubes of it standing in rows embedded in the floor of its expansive genetic archive.

It was time to add a species to their genus.

The humanoid form of urtelem is not strictly necessary to their function, and Heartworm had no intention of keeping it, nor their size. Their ability to manipulate the very substances of which they are created gives their physiology a special kind of flexibility, one it knew Jvan was exploiting in her martial arts. The new creatures came easily.

They were heavily spiked granite worms, multisegmented and bearing many legs. Folded they were smooth spheres; active not so much. A single line of crystals flashed fluorescent signals down their back.

Urte lemma nobilis, et Urte vermis isopoda, it thought.

Heartworm had no time to breed them exponentially, but it did have cloning vats for urtelem, and each one could hold a hundred urteverm. Additionally, it still had the massive and powerful altering vats it had used to create the Bludgeons; These could be repurposed.

A few days later it fished the final and first generations of urteverm from the embryos of their failed sisters and assembled them in a great stack. Each was like a polished igneous marble.

Heartworm cut a portal directly into the stone of the World Mountain and released the hordes of urteverm. They swam into the rock and were gone.

It opened a model of the mountain's interior with its flickering augmented-reality visor and stalked around it. Heartworm watched green lines begin to spread within the walls of the labyrinth, forming the outline of Lazarus' maze.

---

Within the lab, Heartworm found various half-completed projects of little note, which it catalogued anyway. However, there was one major project that stood out. A vast wood-and-bronze mechanism stood at the center of the lab, covered in various gold-inlaid arcane runes, cogs, and gems. When Heartworm entered, one of the gems began to glow brightly. Underneath it, a simple Dwarven heiroglyphic read, "GOD".

There was a second gem, that did not glow, the labelling under it saying, "LAZARUS".

Implications.

The machine churned as the gem remained lit, fascinating yet bewilderingly complex in its function. If the divine siphon used in Teknall's drones were high points in divine technology, this machine was indistinguishable from magic. Yet, it looked in no way mobile. It was a massive machine, covered in easily-broken moving parts. Heartworm's own specialties were no help in identifying its purpose.

It nonetheless memorised everything it could see. Its systems sparked with momentary panic when the glyphs of the Empress' name light up before its eyes.

Heartworm stood, re-scanned its surroundings. "Lazarus."

Lazarus was nowhere to be found, but a voice spoke up, seeming to come from every corner of the room. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't collapse the protections of the lab and leave you trapped in there."

Panic.

Suppression. Heartworm doped itself with the knowledge that it could find its own way out, and it was probably no more poorly equipped for a fight than its fellow recluse. And, it had an excellent reason either way.

"Heartworm is about to die," it said. "Aid."

The room fell silent for a short while. Then, the voice, again, this time somewhat strangled. "You come to me for aid?"

"Lazarus was informed," it said, using a few too many words and a little too much emphasis. "Will be repaid in equal measure. Within limits."

Lazarus' voice seemed mistrustful, a hint of recognition in her voice, as if she'd experienced this before, "And who is to say you will uphold your end of the deal?"

"I invoke the name of Amul'sharar."

That was apparently satisfactory for Lazarus, as one of the walls split open into a flurry of runes, and out she stepped from it. The runes died down into nothingness after she was through. "Name what you want."

Heartworm unlocked its mouth and revealed the core processor of a quadcoptor, holding it in a worm-tongue and placing it ever so gently on the edge of a table. "Observe."

Fourteen seals on its back hissed open and Heartworm's whiplike tentacles wavered through the room. It released a bubble of luminous aeroplankton and popped it, the cloud of light forming a projection. The left seven tendrils arranged it into a circuitboard and silicon chip schematic, the right seven adding a massive display of digital language.

"Secrecy must be preserved until Keriss's arrival. Necessary for Heartworm to disable or distort the accumulated hypergeographical data. Number and constant replenishment make manual methods unviably inefficient.

"Given programming observed in drone processors, no precaution was taken against offensive counter-programs. System is nonetheless highly robust. Centralised. Data sent and read to a core. Heartworm's knowledge strictly limited."

"Lazarus' sphere encapsulates language. Divine. Hidden. Heartworm requires a sequence of offensive information. A weaponised secret. Adaptable. Independent. Undetectable. Capable of moulding to whatever lies at the end of this signal and assigning control to Heartworm. Heartworm has access to resources unavailable to the Lazarus demideity.

"In this, there exists an opportunity."

"If this is the drone you plucked from your realm earlier, it will be simple. It apparently does not befit a god like Teknall to ask for help, and he clearly settled for subpar workmanship with the intricacies of divinity. I could have made the same drone, minus the shell, in moments. It would be simple to subvert," Lazarus said.

"However, my work does not come cheap. I will be upfront, I wish for a plane to call my own. To research what I cannot in my demideity form," Lazarus responded quickly, observing the divine aspects of the chip.

This was not a small request.

Heartworm's power was limited and with the awakening of Jvan it was smaller still. It had access to All-Beauty, but not all of it- just part of what Jvan had originally assigned it, when she was smaller, weaker, and then what it had manage to steal since. For one without magic, creating a demiplane by hand was an almost impossible challenge.

But Heartworm's sins were nihilism and cowardice, not idleness.

"Done," it said. "To the limits of my ability."

"Very well," Lazarus responded, picking up the chip. She said, "I will prepare for you a sigil that will corrupt the divine energy around it. When converted into electrical energy, it will return a random, yet specific enough to damage things, path through the chip. I will essentially be running arbitrary code of my own instead of Teknall's trusted and tested code," she paused, turning the chip over in her hand.

"Replicate the sigil and leave it in your tunnels. When a drone gets near, it will take in the corrupted energy and attempt to use it. Teknall clearly made no attempt to distinguish between the various forms of divine energy," pausing again to walk away, she went to a table and rapidly began inscribing runes onto a nearby gem.

"After the drone sends back corrupted data, that data will be acceptable to the system but subtly wrong for the area the drone was surveying. And, with a little bit of good fortune in the idea that Teknall did not assume the drones would be weaponized in the way that I am doing it, in that I will also send bad code designed to escape any blocks keeping it sanitized." She stopped, seeming to consider something as she carved runes into the gem.

"The code the drone runs will attempt to send packets of divine energy with the rest of the information. If his network is robust enough, then it will go through and make his master processor's data essentially fall apart into corrupted fragments, and if it is not robust enough, then the extra data will be lost and the map will just be too wrong to use, but not wrong enough to notice."

Finally finished, she stopped inscribing runes, looking at Heartworm to get its thoughts on the matter.

"Unusual," it said. It seemed to be studying the sigil.

"Upon subverting the system, Heartworm may discover information worth exploring. Can the mechanism allow the connection to be made two-way?"

Lazarus thought on it a moment, saying, "It depends. If the malicious code packets aren't lost in translation, if his network is robust enough, and the master processor has the capability to, it would be possible. Unless he doesn't plan on sending new orders to these drones, meaning they are single purpose. Then I doubt the processor will be able to send data."

"Calligraphic receivers used to update navigational data."

Continuing, she turned back to the sigil, "I will make it so instead of corrupting the map, the data will attempt to co-opt any transmission devices to control itself. The question will be, has he centralized everything or gone with security? You'll have to find out. Now, I'll repurpose the drone chip you gave me to be your personal master processor. Some of the data may be lost in translation, though."

After a pause, she continued, "If he gave the chips more processing power than they need, then you'll have a copy of his master processor, essentially. Otherwise, your data may be incomplete, but enough to give you an idea of how the situation is unfolding."

Heartworm jittered a tentacle. "Drones are efficient. Few unnecessary components or capabilities."

Lazarus pondered on the comment, "If he's looking to reuse these drones afterwards, or modify them, he'd probably give them slightly more than they need. I doubt so many drones will be just left behind after they've served a purpose. That'd be too inefficient for Teknall."

Heartworm wordlessly enhanced the processor schematic to confirm.

She continued to carve into the sigil, sometimes looking at the chip. After several minutes of carving, she was complete. Holding out the chip and sigil, she said, "I simplified the sigil. It should be easy to replicate if you've got steady hands. Or, make one of your organic machines do it. Just make sure to imbue the runes with power. Otherwise, it will be a trinket."

That would be a problem. The Emaciator was not a source of divine energy the way other deities were. Heartworm would solve it later.

She finished the statement with, "Also, keep that chip safe. The sigil will corrupt the drones into sending data to it as well."

"Noted." Heartworm stretched out a tongue designed for this exact purpose and picked up the microchip with a touch no wider than a hair. It encysted it in a protective cavity and froze the exterior with a drop of nitrogen.

When the time came, it would make backup processors of its own. Bacterial networks spun on conductive graphite or metal deposits seemed promising. The graven gemstone was scanned and then swallowed.

"Time," said Heartworm. "Will return to provide Lazarus' demiplane. For now, Heartworm must act." It waited a moment.

"Very well. I expect that plane," came the response.

Heartworm paused to let the moment wait a second longer. Its thoughts waved between Lazarus and the sigil, and back to the Empress' augmented face, and what lay behind.

"Expect Tauga," said the Emaciator, and slipped through a slit in reality's throat.

* * *

Heartworm emerged into outer space, then into its lab. It didn't trust Lazarus quite that much.

Skele's machine had been left in the middle of her sizable workshop, a space cleared for it and a coolant system brought over, the Sweethearts as always making up in diligence what their masters lacked in organisation. Heartworm examined it again.

Genius, for mortals. Shoddy for a god. That said, waste not.

Heartworm slipped out of its visor and ran a Mammonic connector made of demon veins out from her device. It secreted an epoxy and scratched the sigil into its surface. Magic sparked.

Within hours, wandering Sweethearts were disguising identical carvings under layers of metallic paint.

Heartworm coupled its new processor to an existing cerebral construct in a vat as monera spun nanoscale wires in hexagonal growth patterns. Aeroplankton filled the darkened room. Behind it, bulbous things formed from a vat of black tar, sparking violet as they breached the surface. The sigils disappeared under a light-eating skin and they waited in slick bundles to be scattered into the dark.

yes, her full name is Skele Tonne

uuuuugh summaries

Heartworm reacts to the drone invasion by setting traps and Sculptors to go destroy what they can, but can't delay the inevitable. It turns to Lazarus for help.

Lazarus snubs its request for access to her own lab initially, being the secret-keeper she is. Heartworm considers the rest of her tunnels too low-security to organise in. After a brief argument, it pulls a Teknall and creates the Urteverm to sneak through her mountain tunnels until they've found the physical location of her lab. Urteverm are pretty simple tbh, I think this counts as a level six Flesh free action.

ed: actually nah given how I used them I think that should be at least a free point. i've got godmoney MAKE IT RAIN

Heartworm teleports there and finds a large device that detects traces of the divine. It seems to be powerful enough to identify it, at least at close range. Lazarus walks in on Heartworm snooping and gets mad. Heartworm flinches.

Soon enough though they have a deal: Lazarus will help Heartworm gain access to Teknall's central processor for the drones in exchange for a demiplane of her own. Heartworm is given a sigil that functions as a powerful means of code injection via the drones' magical siphon. This bypasses the code sanitisation in the drone itself and allows packets of incorrect data to be sent to the core. Lazarus's Might count goes to -1 for this. The repercussions will become apparent later.

Heartworm is instructed to power the sigil, copy it and expose it to the drones.

And that's exactly what it does.

I wasn't fully conscious for half of this.

Jvan
15 Might Ambient
0 Might in Ovaedis
3 Free Points
2C / 0D
Level Six

Lazarus
-1 Might
1? Free Point?
2C / 2D
Level Two

listen I just need somewhere to dump Tauga's stats until I write her next post

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