As the creature rips at him, Meruem smiles, and attempts to sting the demon to death and eat its corpse before charging at the other demons. If successful. He'll use their strength to make his firstborn.
Meruem: 3 vs. Bird Demon: 2 & Horde: 3Meruem rips the bird-demon off of his back by impaling it with his stinger. He injects a little venom to soften its flesh, then repeatedly stabs it in the head until it stops moving. The bird's sandy body slumps, becoming nothing more than ordinary dust. Meruem shovels it into his mouth anyway, and his mouth becomes numb as he tastes the absolute Nothingness of a demonic spirit. He swallows, allowing the lack of sensation to move from his throat to the essence bladder lodged in his intestines. The Nonexistent power hangs there, slowly dwindling as it seeps through holes in the organ's bindings.
Before too much can be lost, Meruem turns towards the other demons. He charges at them, prepared to tear the creatures limb from limb, but they meet him as one enormous mass of claws and teeth. Every time the bug-man gets a grip on one of them, the others scrabble at his carapace until he is forced to let go. A few even try to weigh him down by clinging to his body, but Meruem is too strong to be restrained. He plucks them off his exoskeleton and flings them into the air.
Destroy it. No remnants of the sand must be allowed to live.
6 v 3Trickles of sand seep through the gaps in Ira's coils, surreptitiously making their way back to the safety of the ground. The sandworm doesn't have a good way to tell living and dead sand apart, so she just spits a stream of liquid Nothing across the entire area. It eats away at the ground in much the same way as acid, annihilating any traces of the sand-shard that might have escaped her notice. She then turns her attention to the creature itself, which is still flailing helplessly against her hold. It has lived, preserved at the last moment by Awake's axe-swing, but Ira cannot allow it to continue its existence. She thrusts her head between two loops of her body so that she can slurp it up. The stream of sand entering her gullet tastes sweet, like a purpose once again fulfilled. Ira cannot help but feel a little despair at the thought of these beings wandering about, still alive after they should have been consigned to oblivion, but in this, at least, she can act decisively. When the last of the entity trickles into her jaws, she blasts herself with a second cloud of Nothingness just to make sure none of its mass is left intact. This particular piece of earth will never bother her again.
Offer to those not willing to join the dragon to join me, and look how the nothingness ooze interact with the sand now that the sand is dead
AJAMA shouts an offer of its own, startling the obsidian dragon. It stares at him and blows a larger stream of Nothingness out of its nostrils. The Non-smoke hisses as it obliterates a few grains of sand that happen to cross its path.
"You do not belong here, ooze-thing, and you are not one of us. The Fragments do not owe you their loyalty."The Fragments waver. Some of them swivel protrusions of Non-ooze back and forth, presumably to look from one leader to the other. One cautiously shuffles over to the archdemon, whose hiss of delight showers AJAMA in Nonexistent sparks. It is followed by a few more, who occasionally glance over their shoulder at the others. Most of the Fragments follow behind them, apparently most willing to put their faith in a leader from their own bloodline. There are a few holdouts though, including Apollyon. The void-orb's mind brushes up against AJAMA's, leaving the primordial with secondhand feelings of panic and indecision. In the end it stays at the Demiurge's side, along with a slightly smaller group of its fellows. The Archdemon harrumphs and taps the ground with one of its forelimbs.
"...Very well. We will go now."Its group of Fragments climbs onto the dragon's back, where they remain until it takes off. Apollyon watches the Archdemon until its body looks like a tiny speck in the distance.
"We are lost. Lead us?"
Oddly, Non-Ooze has continued to interact normally with the sand. It appears to be making use of some vestige of the previous connection between Absence and sand, fueled by the spiritual power of Emptiness rather than the life force of the sand itself.
"This isn't going well, should have paid more attention during that first aid class."
Keep trying to heal the injured deer men with the help of the others.
Dr. Bob: 1 , Deer-Men: 6+1When Dr. Bob fails to propose a better idea, some of the healthy Deer-Men start tearing strips of cloth off of their clothes to make more bandages. One of them figures out how to make something resembling a tourniquet. He ties it around the man with the stab wound, who stops bleeding as circulation to the shoulder is cut off. Operating on the other two isn't as easy. The one who got knocked unconscious doesn't have a visible injury, but he's been out for long enough that Bob suspects brain damage. The woman is probably suffering from punctured lungs. The other mortals start wrapping them up anyway, while acknowledging the general futility of the endeavor. The cloth doesn't make much of a difference, but it does give Dr. Bob an idea.
He places his hand on each of three injured Deer-Men. Their bodies vanish, replaced by the silk dolls that Bob originally animated. Some of the strands are damaged, now, in more or less the same way that the mortals were wounded in life. One doll has a frayed head, another has a hole running straight through its shoulder, and the third has a squashed chest cavity. Bob carves a glass needle from the side of the bus and tears bandages into individual hemp threads so that he can make repairs. First is the stab-wound. He fills it with a wad of cloth before stitching it closed. Bob patches his next patients' brain damage by replacing his ruined strands, then fixes the woman by swapping her shredded lungs with replicas made of hemp.
The Doctor taps the dolls to bring them back to life. Silk becomes flesh and blood, but the Deer-Men don't start breathing. Instead their fur blackens, as if it had been charred, and their eyes crumble to ash. The three bodies twitch in perfect unison, still without any flesh or heartbeat. Their empty eye sockets stare straight at Bob, and they grin maniacally. Instead of the flat teeth that he is used to, their mouths are filled with sharp incisors. Even their antlers change, splitting apart to form wicked barbs.
Devour more of the grain, and then use the power gained to create a series of Chrome Herons: Harvesters with scything wings to further cultivate these fields.
Afterwords, cut a few of the stalks with the pinions, and bring them over to the Perpetual Bus. Maybe they can aid in the deer man's recovery.
1 , 1Gral gorges itself on the grain. Plants grow faster than they can be consumed, so there is simply no limit to the Contractor's meal. It eats and eats, stuffing itself with Omni-Grain until it is full to bursting. As magical nutrition floods into its body, soothing wounds and replenishing lost Essence, some is channeled out through Gral's plumage. It flaps its wings to dislodge a few quills, but the pent-up vitality refuses to follow them. It builds up within feathers that are still attached the the vulture's body, causing them to grow at an incredible rate. Gral's wings double and then triple in size, becoming so heavy that they can't be lifted off the ground. It struggles to transform some of the excess mass into Herons, then just to flap its wings. It is no use. The primordial stays pinned down, trapped by parts of its own metal body.
The Omni-Grain's explosive growth continues unchecked. Giant stalks spring into being below Gral. They push their way upwards, around its wings, until they've surrounded their creator completely. Before the stalks grow thicker, cutting off any view of the outside, the Contractor sees golden wheat fields stretching from horizon to horizon. If they continue advancing at this rate, it won't be long before they swallow up the Wetlands.
Separate Sekhmet and her legion from other 6 present legions, they are tasked to kill this bovine thing. Request assistance to their cause from order of strands.
My children, this is quite a turning point for spiderkind, as it is chance to extinguish both great threats to whole web existance with one decisive strike, I hope, that all this culture of weaving you flourished, can now show supremacy of our kind.
I, 6 primelings and their followers keep safe distance from awake and shower his armour joints and weakspots with SEA OF ACID SPITS to finish him off
"I can't retreat from a god. But I'm not done yet, spider. Compassionless monster. If fate allows me one good deed in this life, I'll slay you."
Feed the flame with my nothing soul to kill Nazir.
The spiderlings are obviously out of the question. But I might need to convert them later, if possible, since they are the most abundant. The Archdemon already serves a god, too. The maggots were interesting and I might be able to lead them against this "Gral", but there weren't any special individuals between them.
Maybe I can convince that one obsidian humanoid. You said this figure was fighting against an army of those spiderlings, right? There's the chance they might return me the favor if I try to help them out.
Gracefully enter the battlefield and try to literally blind the opposition with my dazzling charm and divine glamour!
If that fails, just charge and gore them with my horns for daring to ignore my presence.
Awake: 4
Aton: 6, 6
Nazir: 2, 4
Primelings: 6 , 2
Sentinels: 4
Sekhmet: 4
Aton runs into the center of the battlefield. His movement through the sand is dazzling, and the golden disk between his horns glows brightly enough to blind. The Sentinel legions barely even realize that they've stopped attacking. They stare at the Herder instead, utterly helpless in the face of his divine majesty. Demigod-spiders called Primelings urge them to continue, to beat Awake into a bloody pulp and drown him in acid, but their troops do not listen. They are transfixed, caught in throes of awe and terror that make it impossible for them to see or focus on anything else. Only those with a semblance of godhood can resist. Nazir's lieutenants regroup as their creator shields his eyes. Awake, whose mind has been strengthened by long hours of contemplation, is also capable of tearing his mind away. He advances on the spiders with grim purpose.
The Primelings strike first. One of them tentatively throws a fireball at Aton. Her aim is poor, and when faced with the blinding light coming from him, she misses her mark altogether. Afterwards the Primeling starts staring out into space, as if she isn't in the middle of a war zone. Aton lowers his head and charges at her while she is vulnerable. He hits her easily, crushing her abdomen with the sheer force of the blow before flipper her onto her back. Sekhmet halfheartedly struggles to right herself, still oblivious to what is going on.
The others cluster around Nazir, then collectively spit acid at Awake. Their secretions splatter against his armor, occasionally even leaking in to erode parts of his body, but the Shardform does not stop. There is no reason for him to stop, because he is about to suffer from something much worse than acid-burns. He wades through the sea of transfixed Sentinels until he reaches the command post, where Nazir and the Primelings are waiting. They skitter away, too slowly to make a difference. Awake holds his ground. The Smelter's plate glows red, then white. Sand beneath his feet melts, becoming molten glass.
Awake feeds his spirit to the flames. A pillar of black fire rises to the heavens as fire and Nothingness combine. It eats away at the sand, forming an enormous sinkhole that blossoms into an inferno. It sucks the spiders inwards, like a hungry thing, even as fire spreads outwards to consume them. The Primelings feel numbness swallowing their legs, instead of heat. They feel their limbs become Nothing, and then their bodies, consumed by fire that feeds upon souls. Sentinels die, Woven armor crumbles, aether burns like gunpowder. Even Aton must run from the flames, though they were not meant for him. They reach for someone else, whispering condemnations. Spider-God, Monster, Tyrant, they say. And somewhere inside the blaze, Nazir burns.
He burns until his essence leaks. His soul trembles under the weight of the Void, and his eyes become Nothing but ash. Only the tiniest spark of life remains, nestled in his doomed, charring heart. Emptiness tears at it, even screams at it in fury. ALTERTH and Awake appear within its blackness, and their spirits call to the Weaver. They will him to cease, to join them in their nonexistence.
Hynsyr decides to work on his ability to create Light Spears. Practicing their creation and destruction as he did with the Hundred Armed Form until he has also mastered them.
2Hynsyr drops the twelve Light Spears that he's been holding, allowing them to flicker back into nonexistence as they rejoin his aura. While keeping his twelve arms outstretched, he materializes them again. Smaller versions of the weapons appear in his hands, sized more like fishing implements than actual tools of war. Unsatisfied with this state of affairs, he casts the miniatures aside so that he can try again. This time the spears have curved shafts, which make it difficult for Hynsyr to perform the typical stabbing maneuvers. He creates more spears one by one, each time focusing carefully on each element of their design. The approach is reliable, if somewhat slow, so he practices it until he can visualize his intended results more quickly. Polearms appear in rapid succession, quickly enough to fill the hands of his natural body but not quite fast enough to provide the Hundred-Armed form with a steady supply of projectiles.
Ashe plays with the fish and tries feeding them fruit.
5Ashe approaches a group of fish. In the dream there is a sort of abstract understanding between them, so that they already know she is a friend. Together they play a kind of underwater tag. Everyone is trying to tap each other on the hand, or in most cases on the fin, but mostly they're just fooling around and having fun. Ashe allows the fish to swim circles around her for a little while, but after seven or eight taps she starts feeling competitive. She jets across the seafloor faster than they can see, tagging each member of the school in quick succession. The only one who can keep up with her is a little yellow guppy, who bops her on the side of the head. She laughs and slows down again so that the rest of the fish can have their fun.
When the game has ended, she feeds them with apples and watermelons that she pulls out of empty water. For the fish, it's an exotic feast the likes of which they've never seen before. They eagerly congregate around the food and dig in, complimenting Ashe on the vividness of her imagined flavors. She tries an apple herself, just to see whether it's true, and to her delight it tastes just like the real thing. Maybe even better, because it'd be hard to find an apple this sweet out in the desert. Are there even apples in the desert? It occurs to her that she hasn't seen any. The realization makes her aware that she's dreaming, or inspires just enough contemplation to wake her up. She spends her last few minutes in the ocean-world eating and laughing with the fish, as she slowly drifts back towards consciousness.
She opens her eyes slowly. There's a flash of color as something small, yellow, and suspiciously fishlike darts past her head.
Dr. Bob, the Unmoved Mover
-Regent of the Tower
-Spidersilk net.
-Improvised glass tools.
-Glass automaton
-Perpetual-motion bus
-Vial of Einyar
-Red Liquor
--------------------------------
Kūhaku, the Mirror
-Catatonia
-Rain-Maker
--------------------------------
Nazir, the Weaver
-God of the great web.
-Burning.
--------------------------------
Ira, the World-Eater
-Empty
-Woven together
-Debt: Gral: Two Favors Owed
-Minor burns
--------------------------------
Gral, the Contractor
-Contract: Winged Spiderlings
-Contract: Ira: Two Favors
-Pinion Blades
-Weighed down.
--------------------------------
AJAMA, the Demiurge
-Ooze-born Body
-Ooze-born Spheres
-Sphere of Darkness
--------------------------------
Hynsyr, the Titan
-Hundred Armed Form
-Knowledge of Essence
-Edge of Infinity
-Maker of spears
-Twelve spears of light
--------------------------------
Awake
-Echoes of ALTERTH
-Smelter's Armor
-Dawn Axehead
-Slightly lopsided
-Stomach wound
-Battered
--------------------------------
Ashe, the Collector
-Brass feathers (underwater).
-Glass trinkets
--------------------------------
Meruem, the Spawner
-Flawed essence bladder
-Demonic spirit
--------------------------------
Aton, the Herder
Bestiary:
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 nothingness.
Fragments of Emptiness: Spirits made from the scattered pieces of ALTHERTH. They were driven out of the sand when Ira consumed the absent heart.
Apollyon: A Fragment which usurped AJAMA’s original body and converted it into Nothingness.
--Absent Ooze: A Nonexistent strain of Black Ooze that Apollyon can produce. Other Fragments often use it to create makeshift bodies.
Shardforms: Obsidian creatures which absorbed the Empty's already-incomplete consciousness. The broken pieces of ALTERTH's identity they possess give them animalistic intelligence.
--Awakened Shardforms: A herd of Sharforms who were granted sapience by Gral. They’ve agreed to provide the Sliken Nest with raw materials in return for goods.
Steel Maggots: Metallic larvae which Gral accidentally created while trying to make avian Emissaries. After they were pulled off of the vulture, few escaped into the desert, where they accepted Gral's peace terms and moved into the shifting bog.
Steel Grubs: Steel maggots that have been bound with Pact-collars and transformed into livestock. They have grown larger than their sapient kin, but are unintelligent and largely peaceful.
Brass Buzzards: Brass birds crafted from Gral's feathers. They are infused with the pain it felt while creating them.
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.
--Ironwinged: 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. They were later granted the ability to weave metal.
--Ancestors: Aetherweavers who have achieved immortality by becoming spirits bound to the great web. They are incorporeal, and their astral bodies make it easier for them to manipulate aether.
--Scarred Spiderlings: Spiderlings who have gained great strength and endurance because of their mistreatment by the Brass Buzzards. They built a market but have mixed feelings about Gral and his servants.
--Sentinels: A army of biologically and magically augmented Spiderlings, created by elite Aetherweavers with Nazir's guidance. They serve the Spider Demigods, and stand ready to protect the Web alongside them.
Primelings: Ten entities created by Nazir and a group of the most powerful Aetherweavers. They watch over the Web in Nazir's stead, but are weakened by flaws in their weaving.
--Ekhor: A proud warrior who wears a larger variant of Sentinel Plate. He was nearly killed in the War of Sands.
--Sekhmet: A Primeling with flaws in the Weavings that form her mind. Despite being a brilliant tactician, her behavior is consistently very odd.
Merchants: Four steel vultures made from Gral’s essence. They are capable of using the Bargain.
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.
Deer-Men: A humanoid race with the heads of deer. Dr. Bob originally crafted them from the silk of Nazir's web. They were granted superior dexterity through a contract with Gral.
Three-Headed Worm: A juvenile sandworm created by Ira to serve the Dustwalkers.
Crops: Hemp, potato, corn, and bean plants created by Dr. Bob.
Suspicious Mushrooms: Mushrooms that sprouted in the Glass Tower after Dr. Bob’s disastrous attempts at brewing alcohol. They spawn clouds of hallucinogenic spores.
Atlas:
The Living Sands: ALTERTH once awakened the desert and allowed it to consume him. For a time his creation was infinite, but now most of the sand has died. The few surviving pieces are a shadow of what they once were.
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.
--Negative Star: A black sphere which radiates darkness, created by AJAMA after Gyaweft's death.
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.
--Tapestries: Libraries of spells and other knotwork which have been woven together and hung from the great web. Some have begun to collect aetheric cobwebs.
--Market of Scars: A grand market built by the Scarred Spiderlings in exchange for their resilience. The Ironwinged sell metal equipment there.
Shifting Bog: A large pool of mud drawn from the sand by Kuhaku. When the sand was alive, islands in the bog constantly formed and dissolved. It has been tainted with Nazir's venom.
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.
--Moat: The Tower is surrounded by a lake. Only one thin bridge connects it to the rest of the sand.
--Sandcastles: A series of elaborate sandcastles built around the moat. They were crafted so masterfully that they won’t dissolve in rain. Ashe later added an incredibly detailed sand city of her own.
--Garden: An irrigated garden containing several different types of crops.
--Laboratory: A room furnished with chemistry equipment and various glass containers.
Light Spires: A glowing city made by the Lightfolk using their creation magic.
--Temple of Yig: A golden temple which houses Yig, the First Tribute. It is an intricately-carved cathedral with walls made from an aurora.
Einyar: A sea of golden light drawn from Hynsyr's aura. It preserves the spirits of the Lightfolk after death, so that the cycle may advance.
Bone Fortress: A giant tree grown from one of Ira's teeth, and given to the Dustwalkers as a gift. It has become a large fortress.
Glass Crater: When Gyaweft flew his Sunship into the ground, it melted a wide swathe of the sand into glass. Fiery essence spilled from the ship still burns here, and sealed fault lines radiate from the impact site.
--Smelter's Grave: The center of the crater. Gyaweft's corpse lies here, alongside the molten remains of his Sunship.
Wetlands: Areas of the sand and the Great Web which Kuhaku continuously showers with water. The rain is heavy enough to form rivers and lakes.
--Abandoned Nests: A nesting ground that was briefly occupied by the Brass Buzzards. It is strewn with metal feathers and bloody talon-prints.
Canal: A shallow canal that Ira dug to fulfill one of her favors to Gral. It was meant to channel water from the Wetlands to various other parts of the world, but it overflowed and flooded the Glass Tower instead.
Knowledge:
Knot-Writing: A written language Nazir formulated so that Aetherweavers could record their spells. It involves weaving complex knots into silk, and therefore comes intuitively to Spiderlings but is almost impossible for anyone else to comprehend.
Bargainer's Tongue: A simplified version of knot-script which can be etched into a flat surface rather than woven into silk. It is comprehensible to non-Spiderlings, but not as intuitive.
English: A written script based on twenty-six letters and a few punctuation symbols. It was introduced by Dr. Bob and is primarily used by the Deer-Men.
Metalworking: Blacksmithing techniques that are typically available to the Ironwinged. They can be used to weave metal objects.
Aetherweaving: A magical discipline which involves spinning spiritual webs. It was taught to the Spiderlings by Nazir and is available to the Tribes, the Primelings, and any other arachnid capable of making silk.
Lightforging: Creation magic unique to the Lightfolk. It is a powerful but chaotic ability which can be used to make solid-light constructs out of one's own aura. More advanced techniques allow practitioners to create complex materials such as metal or wood.
Eight-Talon Way: A powerful martial art created by the Brass Buzzards. It is purely offensive in nature, but consists of strikes so lethal that defense isn’t usually necessary.
Agriculture: Farming is only feasible in the wetlands, but plants watered by Kuhaku’s rain grow quickly. The Deer-Men have been taught to cultivate and use several kinds of crops.
Prayer: A technique which allows Lightfolk to tap into their connections with Yig and Einyar. The Prismatics have learned how to use it to communicate with Hynsyr.
Photosynthesis Enchantments: A personal enhancement Weaving developed by the Ironwinged. It increases the amount of energy that Spiderlings can absorb from light.
Items:
Seven Rainbow Spears: Weapons Hynsyr forged from a rogue splinter of his soul and gave to the Prismatics. They amplify their wielders' magic immensely, and provide slightly more control over their powers of creation.
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.
--Chaos Ooze: Blobs of ooze which have accidentally been made to assimilate a variety of substances and concepts. They were later sealed away.
--Silence Ooze: A strain of chaos ooze that can feed on silence. AJAMA transplanted some of it to the empty desert, where it has grown rapidly.
--Crusted Ooze: Semisolid ooze variants which have been hardened by intense pressure. They take slightly longer to grow as a result of their density.
Pact-Arms: Metal weapons, armor, and tools which can compel their wielders to carry out tasks for the Winged Spiderlings. Most are in the possession of Spiderlings on the Web.
Tribute Tokens: A currency minted by the Ironwinged and infused with the power of the Bargain. They see light use in the Great Web but are not considered especially valuable, so most of the economy still relies upon bartering.
Sentinel Plate: Magical armor developed for use by the Sentinels. It can drain the force of attacks and release it in the form of telekinetic blasts.
Life Machine: A machitech device that can be used to shunt vitality from one area to another. Additional upgrades gave it the ability to drain life from sand, which a Merchant used to create a patch of fertile soil around the machine.
Factions:
Spiderling Tribes: Prominent groups of Spiderlings, mostly organized by subspecies. The are scattered across the Web, the stars, and the sand.
--Order of Strands: 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.
High Council of the Web: The governing body of the Great Web. It consists of delegates from each of the tribes, as well as one Primeling. Most meetings take place in Nazir's nest at the top of the Web.
Lifeweavers: A group of Ancestors who helped Nazir create the Primelings and Sentinels.
Warpriests: A Lightfolk religious order which protects Einyar, the Temple of Yig, and the Light Spires themselves.
Ministry of Light: Civil servants appointed by Hynsyr to oversee the Light Spires. The seven Prismatics were installed as founding members.
Author
Topic: Sand & Souls - Let There Be Turns (Read 61621 times)