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Current Wheremst
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What if *I* was the small creature all along?
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O . O staring
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OooooooOooOOOOooooooOOOOOooOoooooooOOooOOOOoooOo
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5 yrs ago
V.1.26 (House of Caecilius Iucundus); 4091: Whoever loves, let him flourish. Let him perish who knows not love. Let him perish twice over whoever forbids love.
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It was as true as Ternoc said. The gates were wrought in the same black metal, the same patterns running up and down it. "You say you chose many of these scenes?" Ardasa said. Battles, marriages, creation, with one of thousands of gods or goddesses watching from the horizon. She doubted that any two etchings depicted the same god twice. "Are you the pious sort? You seem to know so many of them . . . "

The inside held as many treats for the eyes as the exterior. While the outside of the temple was wood and stone, the inside revealed an entirely different world. It was a giant dome, entirely of stained glass, depicting the many gods looking down as the humble viewer from below looked up at them. From behind their eyes sat two candles, flickering and making it seem as if their pupils were ablaze. "No wonder you can memorize all those gods . . . " Ardasa whispered.
"Art and architecture. You certainly know the quickest way to a girl's heart," Ardasa said. She walked up to the door and felt along the engravings with an outstretched claw. It was as if she could feel the presence of the god shown within, his unbridled power and anger pouring from where the chisel carved into the metal. "Wow . . . it must have taken forever to do all this," she said, her eyes passing from god to god. "There must be thousands of them."

She eventually managed to will herself away from the gates and into the domain proper of the temple. On the inside was a beautiful harmony of nature and artifice. Vines grew on metal poles, clinging so tight that they nearly became one. Hedges grew so thick and so tall that they formed mazes of the entire square, with vibrant flowers jutting out at every point. Priests bustled this way and that, some in hushed conversation and others in complete silence. Somehow, she knew it was best not to bother any of them, and instead set her sights on the temple itself.
Ardasa could feel her excitement growing. "We've never had paladins. Not in the north at least. I'd never seen metal abundant enough to be made into armor until I was married, funny enough." She laughed. "Worgs, too, only some of the invincible tribes kept a pack of. Not my father, though. It really is wondrous how far we've come."

The great temple seemed to be less a place of worship and more a place of war. A stone wall surrounded it, thick as any around a castle and at least twice as high, and yet its towers still managed to soar above it like giants. If Ardasa squinted, she could just make out the tiny forms of armored guards, standing at the ready at the very tops of every structure. They leered down at every moving thing below them, but as the entourage came forward, all their eyes were glued on Ternoc. "Lead on, Your Majesty," Ardasa said, feeling minuscule before the massive gate plated in copper.
Borealis House, outside the capital city of Zanateyin
1910 January 17

The hall was too loud and too hot. The debates, as they were apparently still regarded as, had gone on for much of the entire day, as satraps from all across the shahdom glare at each other in either grim silence or eruptions of shouting. Who was on the side of who was a question perhaps nobody in the room knew the answer to. The faint stench of corruption hung over the room, the smell of sweat and musk and evil. Shah Tivaz had an arm propped on his knee, with his face resting upon his palm. The throne, while magnificent, hurt to sit on, especially after twelve solid hours of impure feeling.

"Perhaps you had misunderstood me. I am making perfect sense, yet the camel's nose you call your brain seems to have mixed up my words," growled Satrap Oramush. His hand had not left the hilt of his sword in the last hour. "It is the unholy peoples in Etresna that seek the destruction of our harmony with the gods and their world. They offend the very essence of the universe with their great buildings of metal, and invite corruption into their hearts by partaking in their intoxicants. I will not tolerate it! This is our universe we are talking about! We will join arms with Kratoria, and smash their decadence to the ground, else we all pay for it when the reckoning comes."

"Your old donkey eyes may not see more than three years behind you, but we the people of merit have within our lives picked up a book and read about the past," responded Satrap Kazosh. His hand clutched his own beard so tightly that hairs were beginning to peel off of his face. "Kratoria is the enemy, you will find. Hundreds of years past, they have stormed our shores and killed our ancestors. Estresna has given us nothing but good will, and you expect us to return honor with hate? How can you all yourself a man from gods if you treat neighbors the way you treat fiends?"

"Were you to pull your head from your own anus, you would finally see the world around you," shouted Satrap Bahar, her eyes boring into Satrap Kazosh's face. "It would take any of our ships many days to reach either of those nations, and thus would be true for theirs to reach us. To seek a fight on far shores makes us no better than the warmongering Qaroitn heretics, and unless you have taken leave of good sense, you would turn your armies towards them. Furthermore, you son of a rabbit, the-"

"Enough!" shouted Shah Tivaz, speaking for the first time since the sun passed over noon. "I've heard enough! You all have been saying the exact same thing since the early morning, and nobody's mind has changed!" The entire room went silent. Nobody dared to interrupt when the shah spoke, even a young one such as he. He pointed an accusing finger at each satrap as he continued. "It is you who are bringing impurity into this world, not the foreigners! You and your anger and your hate! Begone! Get out of my palace!" Quietly, each satrap bowed before the king and exited with nary a word. When the room was empty and silent once more, Shah Tivaz stood up, rubbing his aching buttocks.

"The stupid rat," grumbled Satrap Bahar, as she strode out of the throne room. With the wave of a hand, two guards detached themselves from the walls and followed her, spears in hand. She continued to rant about the shah, as she descended the many flights of stairs that separated the meeting room with the front gates. All the while, the guards kept perfect step with the pace of her own feet. " . . . hardly a Kehmeyid. That is my throne by the rights of the gods. I bear the same name. I am as much Kehmeyid as . . . what?" She stopped, realizing for the first time that her guards were gone. She tried to turn, reaching for the sword at her hip, but it was too late. A blade plunged into the back of her neck, cutting off her ability to scream.

"Satrap Oramush has heard enough of your treason," whispered a voice in her ear. Satrap Bahar tried to reply, but all that came out was a low gurgle. She collapsed in the halls, and bled to death upon the red carpeting. Her killer removed the sword, and began hacking her corpse into small pieces, filling a shoulder bag with the recognizable features. He opened a window, and threw the rest out. The stray cats will have them be rid of by the end of the day. He turned, and quickly descended the remainder of the stairs. It is time to report back to his master, and make ready for war across the seas.

"How are they so different?" Ardasa asked. The priest's words were so hard to ignore. She had to do something, anything to put her mind off it.
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"Yes you will," said the corpse. His razor claw stretched a line across his neck, letting blood and unspeakable fleshy parts spill out. "The empire is cut, from neck to temple. If even the rebellion against the dracon is housed by dracon, then we the kobolds are already lost.

"I know not of what you speak," Kutur said, clutching his sheets around himself. "Rughoi is our emperor, and he has already won."

"This is our continent. We did not tunnel for so many generations to find at the end a slavemaster with a whip," said Arjun. He crossed the room, letting the blood trail behind him as he went. "It is they who invaded us. So long as even one remains, we are oppressed. You feel the fire in you, it wants to come out and see justic-"

Kutur awoke, feeling too warm in his sheets. The dream comes to him every night, tormenting him. He rubbed his eyes and got out of bed, pulling a book from the shelf. He felt so alone, trapped inside his own head with a beast he only vaguely understands. Something long and dreary might help dispel the horrors that night keeps. Yet, as he flipped through the book, he could not even find solace in the workings of magic. Something was wrong, very wrong. He put on a robe and bustled out of his door. He needed to see priestess Kali about this.
Hi, is there still room in this RP for one more?
"Just continue on with the scheduled tour," she said, defeated. Every new thing she finds in this city is either magnificent or horrific. Hekaga truly is the thorniest and most magnificent rose south of the mountains. This entire temple, she wanted to put behind her. How could she call herself worthy of speaking to gods, when she lives an empress of a nascent city while the kobolds here die in squalor and oppression? The next thing she sees will either bring her great joy, or greater sorrow.

Maybe she just wanted home again, where things were familiar. She wanted to wake up in the mornings and find big lunk of a mate pacing about the room arguing with himself, then freeze in place when he discovers he's woken her. She wanted to head downstairs and say hello to the councillors, then step out into the street and have a pleasant chat with the common working folk. "The city has been so generous to me," she said. Anything to dispel the creeping existentialism. "Perhaps, in the near future, we shall play host to you."
Ardasa looked over to the kobold priests, their head bowed in reverence. Seeing them now, something in their behavior told her that they were . . . scared, of all things. They trembled, their voices wavered, and she could swear that they hardly knew any of Hetuis' hymns at all. The two kobolds were old, older than Ternoc by far. They must have been in service to this temple long before he was in office. "We pray for time, time and mercy," they chanted, again and again, their voices on the verge of breaking down.

"I believe the hymn goes 'time and just-'," Ardasa said, but was cut off by a glare from an older kobold.

"I suggest you leave this temple," she whispered, fire in her eyes. "There is no justice, not in this city in the least. The king has eyes everywhere, watching and waiting, just waiting for little kobolds like you to step out of line."

"Surely not the Prince Ternoc, at least," Ardasa said, but this just made the old kobold snort.

"One cannot trust the son of evils," the old kobold said, falling silent as Ternoc's eyes drifted back to them for a second. She continued when she saw the eyes move away. "Do not expect fruits to fall far from their trees." She picked up her chanting again, as fearful as it always was. Ardasa stood up, her stomach sinking. She no longer felt clean enough for the gods.
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