Gral falls back to the safety of the Silken nest, and has the followers not engaged in defense pick the maggots out of its body, and seal them in tightly wound balls of silk. While this happens, it creates Brass Buzzards out of its own shed metal feathers.
Winged Spiderlings: 5 v 4
Gral: 6Gral allows itself to drift down to the Silken Nest, where a legion of Winged Spiderlings awaits his arrival. A thick mass of arachnids crawls over the vulture to manually drag maggots from its flesh. The steel larvae have buried themselves deeply in the primordial's body, but arachnids drag them out with fangs and long strands of silk. Some must be ripped from Gral's body, usually alongside large chunks of flesh, but the Contractor grits its teeth through the pain. Better to excise the infection now, when the maggots haven't had a chance to feast on its organs.
The maggots are contained in silk cocoons as soon as they're torn away from Gral, but their bindings are less than secure. A few eat through the strands and throw themselves off of the Nest. Starlight glints off their carapaces as they fall to the ground.
While its followers work, Gral plucks a few feathers from its poisoned wing and assembles them into smaller birds. Their metal bodies darken, transitioning from the light silver of steel to the deep gold of brass, and the Contractor allows a little of its own being to seep into them as they awaken. The buzzards' movements are smooth, but Gral notices that their bodies have a few very sharp edges, and their eyes burn with reflected pain.
I am weakened. Rest, and dream.
3Feeling itself grow faint, the Empty retreats beneath the sands to sleep. Its consciousness slips away, attached to its essence only by the thinnest of strings, and withdraws into its own mind. Within its mind, the soul hovers above a vast expanse of sand. This is not the living sand that it has grown accustomed to, or the confused sand waging war against itself. It is broad and untouched, just as it was before the world began.
Fragments of nothingness float above it. A chunk of ALT's arm drifts passed, followed by amorphous pockets of liquid Empty and wisps of essence that hang in the air like streams of smoke. The Empty feels a kind of kindred with them, even though it can't recall where many of the pieces came from. And eventually, it realizes that it isn't just walking among them. It is the largest fragment, and the most significant, but it drifts along just like the rest.
"Dustwalkers you fight the psuedopods, I will handle the paltry excuse of a dragon."
Ira charges the arch-demon and coils around it, crushing it's obsidian body to pieces (hopefully)
Sand: 5 v Dustwalkers: 5
Ira: 1 v Archdemon: 5The Dustwalkers surround their bone-tree, ganging up on the sand's pseudopods whenever they move within biting range. While a few smaller limbs prod and slap at the mass of Spiderlings, most of the sand's larger constructions circle the battlefield in search of an opening that does not yet exist. The tribe is content to leave them alone while Ira wrangles the giant monster bearing down on them.
Ira wraps itself around its archdemon counterpart, but the dragon's obsidian body is sharp. The edges of its wings dig into the World-Eater's flesh, and the jagged edges of its limbs pierce the worm like so many spears. Ira backpedals and tries to disentangle itself before it can be hurt any worse, but the archdemon uses its own serpentine body to prevent its opponent from getting away.
"You now possess the gift of life and the gift of creation. Use these gifts and live your mortal lives as you wish. Spread, create, learn, and worship. Enjoy the wonders of life but know that I shall always be watching until the time of Tribute. You are my chosen creations which are bound to the Cycle and therefore both enjoy it's benefits and bear it's burden. I eagerly await what you shall do with your gifts."
Hynsyr shall now let the Lightfolk do as they please. Vigilantly watching to both observe what his creations will do with their gifts and to make sure that the others of his kind will not tamper with them so early into the Age of Tribute.
Hynsyr leaves the Lightfolk to their own devices, but keeps a careful watch over them from his place in the desert. A ominous voice speaks to him from the sand, and promises that it will one day break the cycle, but those promises are only words. There are no other threats to Hynsyr's children, and so he gazes at them in silence as they venture out into the world. The mortals are unaccustomed to this world, and as they explore they marvel at the size of the great web and the peculiar motion of the sands. A few look up at the sky, wondering whether it was Hynsyr who created the sun and stars.
The Lightfolk are frightened when they see the twisted forms of demons on the horizon, but realize that they can prepare themselves for the worst. They channel their powers of creation, and a few spires of light flicker into existence above the sands. Many have irregularities, like uneven side lengths or bizarre holes in the walls, but they make serviceable shelters. If enemies approach, they will be fairly defensible as well.
Summon most gifted sand spiderlings and winged spiderlings and aetherweavers to give them lesson on weaving destructive words of power to harm nonspiderlings by unweaving their spirit
Weaving is an art holding immense power for those daring to dwell deep into its secrets
5Nazir uses strands of silk to gather up a few Spiderlings from each of the nascent clans. The chosen Dustwalkers are confused at first, after preparing to fight the archdemons just moments ago, and the Winged Spiderlings are suspicious of Nazir after watching what the great spider did to Gral. They are comforted slightly by the presence of the Aetherweathers, who limp in on weakened legs. They teach the basics of Weaving to the other tribes while Nazir calls their court to order.
The primordial teaches them an entirely new technique, with far more destructive power than any feat of Weaving that has been attempted before. Spirits are like tangled, infinitely complex knots in the strands of the universe, but a skilled Aetherweaver can still force them to unravel. Spiderlings hang on Nazir's every word as the great spider describes this process to them in gruesome, painstaking detail.
The Dustwalkers and Winged understand the basics of the technique, and become Aetherweavers in their own right once they master it, but it is the original group of Weavers who truly take Nazir's teachings to heart. They use the same principles to create other, more varied destructive spells, which tear at flesh and disintegrate inanimate matter. Now that they're not the only magical weavers, they take to calling themselves the Order of Strands.
"Retreat! Retreat! We can't win forever"
Use some of the goo to heal myself, then go float above the sand with as much ooze as possible.
1AJAMA submerges itself in goo again, but whenever it tries to absorb the black ooze, the Nothingness forces itself into the opening instead. More and more Emptiness seeps into the Demiruge, until their body is filled with a dangerous amount of foreign essence. Craters appear on the primordial's surface as Emptiness wears away at them, only for the missing material to be replaced by greater and greater quantities of void. It surrounds AJAMA, preventing them from moving or sensing their surroundings.
keep flying up in search of answers.
are we truly alone? Is the sand all that exist? Are we powerful enough to afect the infinity like ALTERTHENTERRINTARTINTH apparently did when he gave life to the sands?
6Gyaweft continues upwards, seemingly for an eternity. The Sunship is faster than anything else in the universe, and it bears him so far beyond his birthplace that even the Great Web becomes impossible to see. With nothing else around him, the Smelter is left to contemplate the great, infinite emptiness of the world. Sand and sky are the only things left.
He sees nothing else, no matter how far he travels, but for some reason Gyaweft cannot accept that he is alone. He remembers his existence as an unborn soul, before this era of creation. He still feels the presence of others, yet to manifest bodies of their own. They sit quietly and thoughtlessly, but they are there. Perhaps more are incarnating, infinitely far away, and building worlds of their own. Perhaps not. From this limited vantage point, it is difficult to tell.
Gyaweft also contemplates the sand. It is unclear how ALTERTH awakened the world, but the feat must surely be possible for another Primordial to replicate. How else could the Nothing have done it, just moments after the world came to be? Whether ALT truly did create something infinite is also unclear, but wherever Gywaeft looks, the sand always seems to be fluctuating. That might be proof enough.
As he gazes out into the infinite, The Smelter feels something within himself stir.
"What the hell you kids doing, your not supposed to kill the spiders, if you keep killing them Nazir will kick us off of the web and then we'll be killed by the sand."
Try to turn one of the stars into a vehicle, with out killing any of the spiders.
3The deer men back off as soon as Dr. Bob tells them to stop, even going so far as to apologize to the Spiderlings they were just trying to murder. The horde of arachnids pauses for a moment to consider this, but the tentative peace breaks down when the humanoids fail to return. Allies of convenience begin fighting each other again, and spider kills spider as they vie for control of the precious, light-producing star.
Dr. Bob non-lethally brushes them off, but his attempts to chisel the star into a vehicle don't go nearly as well. In the end it's more of a misshapen blob, with sparks of fire streaming out of one particularly deep crack in the glass.
Gyaweft, the Smelter
-Star-smith.
-Master of the Tower.
-Fragile glass wings.
-Sunship.
-Verge of the Infinite
--------------------------------
Dr. Bob, the Unmoved Mover
-Enemy of the sands.
-Spidersilk net.
-Broken Star
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Kūhaku, the Mirror
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Nazir, the Weaver
-God of the great web.
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Ira, the World-Eater
-Blackened Scars
-Pierced by Obsidian
--------------------------------
Gral, the Contractor
-Contract: Winged Spiderlings.
-Gouged Flesh
-Envenomed Wing.
--------------------------------
AJAMA, the Demiurge
-Partially subsumed by Nothing
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Hynsyr, the Titan
--------------------------------
The Empty
-Devoured by the sands.
-Thinned.
-To sleep, perchance to dream.
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The Living Sands: An awakened desert that extends outwards indefinitely. It consumed ALTERTHENTERRINTARTINTH, the being which brought it to life, and subsumed a part of their consciousness known as the Empty.
--Demons: Crude imitations of the primordials made from sand and absence.
--Obsidian Archdemon: An obsidian dragon crafted by the Empty itself. It was granted the power to manipulate nothness.
-Steel Maggots: Metallic larvae which Gral accidentally created while trying to create bird Emissaries. After they were pulled off of the vulture, few escaped into the desert.
-Brass Buzzards: Brass birds crafted from Gral's feathers. They are infused with the pain it felt while creating them.
The Stars: Glass spheres filled with fire. Gyaweft created them and threw them into the air to illuminate the world.
--New Stars: A second set that isn't accessible through the Great Web. Fortunately, that means they can't be blotted out by Spiderlings.
Nazir's Web: A giant web that begins in the desert and reaches up towards the stars.
--Silken Nest: A new star that the winged spiderlings have claimed as a nest. It can only be reached by gliding or descending on strands of silk.
Spiderlings: A race of intelligent spiders which can live on light. They cover both the stars and the great web.
--Dustwalkers: A Spiderling subspecies which can feed on sand as well as light. They live on the sand and fight an asymmetrical war against it for survival.
--Winged Spiderlings: Defeated Spiderlings who made a deal with Gral. They received wings in exchange for service, and have built a nest on one of the new stars.
--Aetherweavers: A few Spiderlings who can perform magic by spinning aetheric webs. Nazir taught them the basics of their craft, allowing them to create fairly intricate wards against evil.
-Order of Threads: The first Spiderlings to learn the art of Aetherweaving. Many have strained their minds and bodies to hone their abilities, making them feeble despite their mystical strength.
Shifting Bog: A large pool of mud drawn from the sand by Kuhaku. Islands rapidly form and dissolve as the sand beneath it moves.
Glass Tower: A tower made of glass, raised from the sands by Gyaweft. It extends upwards through the web, tall enough that its upper floors reach the stars.
Black Ooze: A patch of black goo created by AJAMA which can grow by absorbing sand. A column of ooze goes deep beneath the earth, where it breached a reservoir of Emptiness.
Lightfolk: A species of humanoid mortals born from Hynsyr's golden light. Their powers of creation threaten to overwhelm their bodies, causing their inner light to warp chaotically. Many have begun to train so that they can gain more control over this ability.
--Prismatics: Seven lightfolk which glow brighter than the rest. They were hewn from the rainbow light of Hynsyr's eyes.
-Light Spires: A rudimentary settlement made by the Lightfolk using their creation magic.
Deer-Men: A humanoid race with the heads of deer. Dr. Bob originally crafted them from the silk of Nazir's web.
Bone Sapling: A tree grown from one of Ira's teeth. It is currently under attack by an Archdemon, but if it survives it will grow into a fortress to house the Dustwalkers.
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Topic: Sand & Souls - Let There Be Turns (Read 61813 times)