Leaderboard

Hrrrrnnggh Colonel, I'm trying to sneak around, but I'm checking in back here instead. Digging the end of the arc and especially the wrap-up content--it makes me genuinely happy to see Sulov written with emotion. I look forward to seeing where y'all take things from here, and maybe getting involved again in some capacity (without quite so lengthy absences). I would be glad to touch base with anyone and everyone.

hey everyone, hope i'm back soon, but in case i'm not @BULiKis officially our newest and most detail-obsessed bzprpg staff member. that's why his name has been blue in the discord for months. i was going to record a podcast to announce it and then slime him in krayzikk's blood like carrie but i don't really have the time rn. congratulate him and feel free to send him your craziest approval ideas, i've let him to know to approve them all ahead of time love you, see you soon, don't stop belie -Tyler

"The Toa will brave any danger to save Mata Nui and its people...and even dare to journey to the very heart of the swarm." I recently put together a recreation of this panel from the 2002 McDonald's comic: High Resolution Behind-the-scenes timelapse

Cuch-Cokvaim-Skak:Dii - Your Guide to the Beast-Men-Gods of Zakaz Table of Contents: I. History II. Traditions and Culture III. Locations IV. Technology V. Forts VI. Language Guide Lamo-Lyco-Zakaz: The Once-Silver Zakaz, Now Meaning - End of All Worlds In the Time BEFORE Time ------------- Paradise! All was Many, which All was its own Paradise. GREAT SPIRIT Mata Nui forged His world in His image, forging many Paradise, each in His Image, which each bore his Perfect Face. Which each bore his LOVE. LOVE was what GREAT SPIRIT Mata Nui gave the LESTERIN, chief among GIFTS. To his children, he gave GIFTS to CHANGE THE WORLD (fire ta) (ice ko) (water ga) (air le) (earth onu) (stone po) (darkness of kuta) GREAT SPIRIT Mata Nui held back (darkness of kuta) from his children. But they sought it anyway? Why? The Lesterin were good CHILDREN, and did not seek the (darkness of kuta) but abused their GIFTS. LESTERI|NII, FAN LESTERI:NII We abused our GREAT SPIRIT Mata Nui’s gifts. We were so so so, so wrong. So sorry we were wrong. We abused our GIFTS, chief among them the gift of SKATHI our Servants, and in return they brought THEIR GIFT THE SWORD to us. IN THE TIME BEFORE TIME---------- The Skakdi were lifted up from dirt. But not by GREAT SPIRIT. Not by Mata Nui. (Who gave Skakdi GIFTS?) They molded dirt as they were molded, seized (darkness of kuta) for themselves, and from Mata Nui’s face they built ZAKAZ. Then they ate Mata Nui’s face from ZAKAZ, leaving just ZAKAZ behind. Once paradise, no more; once Image, no more; once peaceful, nevermore. ZAKAZ IS ZAKAZ. ZAKAZ MEANS ZAKAZ - THE END OF ALL WORLDS. FAN|SKATHI. SKATHI LORLI SKAK:DII. And they will be(,) forever. As we learned. As will you. To know Zakaz, you must know the Skakdi. They created each other. In the Time Before Time, there was no Zakaz; instead there lay an archipelago of near-a-dozen islands, populated by the Toa-cousins known as Lesterin. The Lesterin were a nimble and clever people, skilled merchants and crafters, but not physically strong enough to build glorious Zakaz with the strength of their own backs. Their naval prowess was unmatched, and their travels had brought them into contact with new species on wild new lands, but they had no heart and will, and would drag no treasures, gods or glory back to the grand ziggurats of Zakaz. For thousands of years, the civilization they had raised was the centerpiece of a great mercantile power, capitalists, or here meaning, those who connived against others for the benefit of their handful little islands. From their chief little island, Lamo-Lyco-Oshan, Silver-Jewel-on-Ocean, further horizons dazzled their eyes, ever-seeking competition with the cunning Vortixx Mata Nui had birthed to the North. As their ambitions grow Their clan-weaknesses become apparent Both built atop ⤋ the backs of Skathi. They came from an island to the southwest of Lamo-Lyco-Oshan, denizens of a nameless port which Great Spirit Mata Nui paid no particular attention. The Skathi were strong, but they were foundations themselves, and were not thought of as beings with particular aspirations or capabilities. A weak race, merely strong; powerless and easily vassalized, underneath Lesterin they labor; Silver-Jewel-on-Ocean blossoms under Mata Nui’s watchful eye. Lesterin and Vortixx alike hold Skathi in contempt. They were bred like beasts, treated as little more than slaves. Of course, the Lesterin would not view themselves as slavers. When accused They said They were but children. Mata Nui’s children. The Skathi, fury-fueled, cried “No.” “We are not ones To be dominated by Children.” Mata Nui’s children did not enslave, though the truth writ on souls underneath their skins wrote different stories. The Skathi shed their skins forever to become the Skakdi, Beast-Men-Gods, and shed the Lesterin’s skins forever to show the slaves ⤊ beneath. The Skakdi conquest of their former rulers was their first, and like many first times, it was quick and brutal. With their newfound power they stole island by island, sacked city by city, leaving charred ruin and smoke and salt in their wake. Within a year had Silver-Jewel fallen to golden nightmare, when Great Irnakk:Dii seized the shores of Lamo-Lyco-Oshan and, bellowing, dragged the shores in his wake, drowning the great capital In His Glory’s tide. The Skakdi lacked the fleetness of Lesterin upon endless ocean, and improvised; for the first time in their history, they were allowed to build for themselves, dragging all the Lesterin Isles together into jagged-jigsaw Zakaz. The last piece was Great Lamo-Lyco-Oshan, Silver-Jewel-on-Ocean and apple of Great Spirit’s eye. When all the pieces were together, Great Irnakk:Dii stood at the precipice of old and grand Kvere and bellowed thus: “VELON RAL IRNAKK” I am Irnakk. “IRNAKK LANTE” Irnakk hungers. “FAN:DII BALOM SKAK:DII” No Gods, but for the Skakdi. And golden-nightmare bent low to devour silver-jewel whole, swallowing city and town and merchant alike. The cities, he drank like wine. The towns soaked the wine like bread and kept his mind sharp. The merchants did not go to waste either. Their flesh soothed his stomach. Their blood slaked his thirst. And their bones he spat into the ocean, for the Skakdi had begun life as builders, and knew that every great work needed a foundation. They named their home with the broad brush of irony - Lamo-Lyco-Zakaz, or, Silver-Jewel-at-End-of-All-Worlds, for it was the end of their lives as Skathi, and a silent promise to all the people of the world. Nothing would ever be built on Skakdi land again - and all the land the Skakdi saw would be theirs by right. Section I: History Once a submissive, near-slave race of the dominant Lesterin culture, the Skathi people rose up in the Time Before Time to seize the lands of the merchant-princes and build a homeland of their own. Though the cause of their ancient uprising is probably as simple as a matter of the fierce pride endemic to their species, the actual methods of the Skakdi’s sudden rise to power are shrouded in mystery - and perhaps even more sinister than their later actions, for it is well agreed upon by scholars of other races that the Skathi were a powerless race under the Lesterin, without elemental capability or the vision powers that they later became known for. Some theorize that Seprilli perhaps had free-flowing Antidermis similar to that of the Rift, though such deposits have never been found and the theory is disregarded by most who point out that according to the Skakdi creation myths, the Antidermis within the Rift was not discovered until long after the Skakdi’s rise to dominance. Another implausible, and even darker, tale comes courtesy of the blood-mystics of Zakaz, who teach their neonate occultists that the great Warlord Irnakk:Dii, first of the Ancestors and boldest of his eon, put six, then three, then two, then three of his one-hundred-and-eight wives to the sword, and from their blood and bone powder he drew a demon’s face and formed a compact with it for the Skakdi’s powers. Whatever the case may be, the Skakdi enjoyed centuries of uninterrupted prosperity after the fall of the Lesterin merchants. In time, Warlord Irnakk:Dii died and was consumed in memory of his greatest triumph, the ravenous sack of Lamo-Lyco-Oshan; his blood and bone powder fueled his line, and from the sixty-six young wives the old Golden Nightmare kept at the end of his life, forty of them gave him sons in the nine months after his death, and of those forty, thirteen became Ancestors in their own right after their deaths. The Lesterin had been put in their place, but not extinguished, and provided valuable trade goods to the Skakdi for the sole purpose of surviving as second class citizens. Even the Vortixx to the north were being handled with a surprisingly deft hand. It was a golden age. But betrayal is in the hearts of men and women of all races, and nowhere is betrayal found in more abundance than Zakaz. It began centuries ago, with a Vortixx delegation into Irnakk’s Tooth during a weapons deal with a local warlord. Under the cover of the starless, moonless Zakaz night, seven mercenaries stole away from their barracks and crept down the mountain. Seven ebon shadows dipped into the holy, vital waters of Kvere;Ivi, hoping to discover the great treasure zealously guarded by the Lesterin and Skakdi of old. None of the seven returned, but clearly they had tampered with something - for the next morning, all known Vortixx had become one with the higher mysteries, and the Skakdi as a race had been effectively hamstrung. One of their two vision powers had been taken away from them completely, leaving many warriors feeling as good as blind without their full arsenal. In addition, the full force of the elements they once wielded had been dampened and restricted, leaving the emasculated Skakdi to team up and display what once would have been magnificent elemental displays they were capable of on their own. No Skakdi had dared venture into the water, knowing well the traditions and fearing retribution from the disturbing force named Geym-Kino-Kir-Laru (or, “Our-Unknown-Abyss-Beneath-the-Waves”) so no one knew quite what the Vortixx had found or what had been done when they reached it - save all but the oldest mystics, whose knowing glances and colorless pallors in the weeks after the failed Vortixx expedition did all of their speaking for them. As news spread that the once-unstoppable berserkers of the Skakdi culture had been unmanned, any hopes of territorial expansion beyond Zakaz in the birth of a grand Skakdi confederacy quickly crumbled, in lieu of finding a way to return their powers to them and grant their species the full broth of power their Ancestors had been offered and had gladly supped from. For centuries, all attempts at restoring the Skakdi to their former glory failed...until six cast-offs, pestilence in all its living forms, from all corners of the island, none of whom contained any particular merit to their society, managed to restore their powers. Section II: Traditions and Culture Those who have encountered Skakdi from other lands have a skewed perception of what it is to be Skakdi, seeing them as chaotic beings with no guiding principles or moral compass. In reality, the species is bound by a certain alien sense of honor, at least insofar as respecting themselves and other Skakdi as gods awaiting ascension. Indeed, all beings are allowed under the Skakdi umbrella, so long as respect is paid to the Ancestors and the Skakdi species, which is recognized as the apex species under the Skakdi’s brutal philosophy. The Ancestors are a vital part of Skakdi culture, and serve as the closest thing the famously agnostic race has to a pantheon. Though there are close to two dozen Skakdi who function as universal Ancestors, many bloodlines on Zakaz boast multiple Ancestors of their own further along their family lines, who they worship less fervently but more frequently than the race’s major ancestors like Irnakk:Dii and Nektann:Dii. The suffix :Dii is the highest honorific in the Skakdi race, and is not meted out without great societal consensus when it comes to that Skakdi’s achievements. More often the honorific ;Dii, meaning “king of all on world” as opposed to the “king of glorious legend” of :Dii, will be awarded to an Ancestor worshipped by one family tree. The difference in punctuation is small, but Skakdi have been known to kill when their Ancestors are somehow demeaned, or mantled above the accomplishments of other Ancestors; worse still are those outlanders who confuse :Dii and :Nii, meaning “mongrel.” The worst insults in all the Skakdi tongue are “Heu:Nii,” meaning “a mongrel without his own fate,” eclipsed only by “Mata:Nii,” meaning “a mongrel who kneels for another.” When a great Skakdi dies and is being considered for Ancestral worship, there is a ceremony known as the Valin;Xalt, where his blood and bone is mixed up into a paste which the deceased warrior’s wives must imbibe in and use as a soap. After cleansing themselves with the paste for thirty days, at least six wives should be proven to be with child, or each wife must have killed five Skakdi apiece and returned their skulls to the shrine where the initial Valin;Xalt took place. This proves that the Ancestor lives on in Kino-Ur, the great featureless abyss that the Skakdi believe all beings return to after they die. It is the Skakdi’s belief that a true Ancestor retains his identity in Kino-Ur, and that one day the Ancestors will help marshal the shades of all Skakdi and ride out from Kino-Ur back into the world, where the armies of the dead will seize the mantle of the living, and all the world will be theirs. There is no strict governmental structure on Zakaz. The entire island’s population is mostly rabble, conscripted into the army of any one of the island’s various self-proclaimed warlords. The title of warlord has somewhat lost its meaning in recent centuries. In the days of old, warlords were few but powerful, raised up by deed and ritual. Any formal warlord was forced by the mystic men of Zakaz to undergo the ritual of Silva;ria;Dii, or the Grand Performance for the Gods. This ritual is two-sided; first, beneath the watchful eye of all his people, the Skakdi must spend ten minutes underneath the waters of Kvere;Ivi with only a single Air Bladder to pop in times of panic. Though use of the Air Bladder is allowed, tradition states that since great Nektann:Dii submerged himself for the full ten minutes while breathing in the waters of the dead, a warlord made of true steel will tough it out without requiring the air. Then the Skakdi must venture to the southeast of Zakaz, to the Rift, before the eyes of six of his most devout followers. There he will be fed an overdose of a miraculous cactus that grows in the Spineless Bay, which offers wondrous healing powers in small doses but overwhelms the senses and induces sheer panic if too much is consumed. The exact dosage varies, but generally it will be enough to leave the Skakdi blinded and unable to use his powers. He will then be led to the edge of the Rift and jump down with all his strength. The test is simple - hit the ground without being impaled or dissolved in Antidermis, and if you are impaled or dissolved in Antidermis, just will yourself to survive. The ceremony of Silva;ria;Dii is intended to prove that there is no foe in our reality or any other that cannot be faced down by a Skakdi without fear in his heart. Unfortunately, as several cunning Skakdi have picked up on over the centuries, the ritual is very prone to sabotage; more than one prospective warlord has been pushed into the Rift while still struggling to retain his senses of sight and sound, and met a gruesome death on the end of a stalagmite. In addition, the rite of Silva;ria;Dii has been invoked less than a dozen times since the Vortixx’s invasion of Kvere;Ivi, usually by traditionalist warlords looking to gain favor with the older generations. These days, any Skakdi with even a small mercenary company who occupies one of the many ruined forts that litter Zakaz’s landscape can call himself a warlord, and such demesnes rise and fall without fanfare every year. The only real organized sport on Zakaz is Sarke, taken from an archaic Skakdi verb for “to make a fool of oneself.” It is, simply put, combat sports. Fight clubs are a mainstay in almost every building on Zakaz that has four walls and a roof, and sometimes even those are optional if a large circle can be drawn in the dirt and a crowd is there. There are only two rules in Sarke: never cry, and keep your opponent alive. This way, one’s honor and the camaraderie between Skakdi are safely preserved, and the disorganized, no-holds-barred structure has taught many a Skakdi inventive new techniques during Sarke that have kept them alive on the field of battle - sometimes even against another Skakdi they know from the ring. To interrupt a duel in Sarke for any reason is rightly considered a slight by both combatants; the tale of Herbak, the bumbling referee who stopped a Sarke championship before a Skakdi was ready to submit, is well-known among the "athletic" circles of the island. One of the slighted combatants, future Ancestor and "the Lion of Sarke" Crokk, decided to exercise his prodigious talent for violence on each of Herbak's limbs before he was floated out to sea, still breathing and protesting. Some say he managed to float all the way to safety at Seprilli. Some joke that he stopped early. Finally, no discussion of Skakdi culture would be complete without discussion of the occultists. There have always been those on Zakaz with sharper minds than reflexes, and in a society where the clever and intellectually capable are mocked and belittled, alternative methods of proving one’s worth to the Skak:Dii ideal are required just to stay alive. For such men and women, the past provides more answers than the barbarous present, and many have gone to great lengths to comb through old Skakdi legends for knowledge or locate the teachings of long-dead Lesterin mystics. The Nakihl (Nahk-eel), or “hated dead-men” in Skakdi, are the only long-standing organization on the island, a loose amalgamation of philosophers, mystics, and demon worshippers who attempt congress with what they believe to be two other worlds, layered above and below our own, that house all spirits both altruistic and sinister. It is the prevailing belief of the Nakihl that their power was forged in a compact between the old Skathi generals, led by Irnakk:Dii, and one of these unknowable forces, and that somehow the concordat was broken by whatever the scheming Vortixx did beneath the crystalline surface of Kvere;Ivi centuries ago. While the mainstream Skakdi belief is that their original powers will return after they have conquered enough land for the Ancestors to marshal their hosts, the Nakihl tend to believe that only by returning the balance to whatever bargain was struck by the Skathi of old can the full might of the Skakdi be returned. This approach to Skakdi might has not won them many fans among the people of Zakaz. In fact, the Nakihl fortress to the north of Spineless Bay has been sacked five times by angry warlords seeking to purge the taint of the Nakihl’s bloody magic from Zakaz; but after every purge, survivors crawled out from the woodwork like rats, and in no time the Nakihl have been restored to the same state they were in before the raids. The last assault on the Nakihl was over four centuries ago, when the band of mystic men were led by a Lesterin, of all things: a Lesterin named Ahk’rei:Nii, who played with corpses of the dead like puppets and led many of his followers willingly into Kino-Ur. An army united under four separate warlords, led by Warlord Ga’Rokk:Dii the Gunslinger, marched through the Burning Steppes and battled hungry Tahtorak in order to reach the Nakihl conclave and slay Ahk’rei:Nii. It is said that the four warlords who stormed the conclave found the Lesterin in his ceremonial chambers, practicing a ritual to kill half the Skakdi where they stood and reanimate them to fight the other half; it is also said that when Ga’Rokk:Dii drew his famous silver Launcher and removed Ahk’rei:Nii’s head from his shoulders, the occultist actually continued with his ritual as though he had been stung by an insect, head futilely trying to reform itself from the slush that the Skakdi warlord had made of it. Ahk’rei:Nii’s body was taken and burnt once, outside the fortress, before the ashes were scattered into the Burning Steppes to be immolated again, just to be sure. Nonetheless, rumors of Ahk’rei:Nii’s survival still haunt children’s nightmares to this day, leading them to wonder if the evil Lesterin will appear in their dreams and try to lure them to Kino-Ur with promises of great adventure. Section III: Locations Irnakk’s Tooth - Though no larger than a Koro, Irnakk’s Tooth is probably the closest thing to a true city and capital the Skakdi possess on the Zakaz mainland. The settlement of Irnakk’s Tooth is built into the side of a mountain of the same name, that the sages claim to be one of the great Ancestor Irnakk:Dii’s teeth left behind after the Skakdi people feasted upon Lamo-Lyco-Oshan. The current village upon the Tooth is said to be erected from the gnawed-upon, discarded bones of the former Lesterin trade capital Kvere (Queh-reh) - and while no doubt meant as a grandiose boast, it appears that here, at least, Skakdi mythology has a hint of practical truth hidden beneath the bombast, as there are certain buildings spread throughout the settlement that display Lesterin or even Vortixx architectural philosophy. Though no warlords occupy Irnakk’s Tooth full-time as ruler, and none have been brave enough to try for over two centuries, several of the island’s most dangerous and prestigious warlords do have manses that are occupied during parts of the year. Similarly, although outlanders are not as common a sight here as on Seprilli, it’s not unheard of to find mercenaries on the Tooth seeking employment with a mercenary company or warlord. Kvere;Ivi (Queh-reh-vee) - Fittingly, even the most beneficial landmark on Zakaz doubles as a scar on the landscape. The lake that keeps most of the inhabitants of Zakaz alive, if perhaps not always well-hydrated, was originally situated underneath the capital city of Kvere, used as an underground retreat and natural hot spring that would keep the city warm for the Lesterin merchant-princes during winter months. Now the lake is known only as Kvere;Ivi, or Kvere Grave in Skakdi tongue, for the city that sunk beneath its depths when the Skakdi rose up in the time before time. Caverns which once rested underground are now blown open and ripped asunder from the lakebed, buried within diving distance of the surface of the lake and jutting above its crystalline surface in some places. Though the penalty for outlanders defiling the lake is technically death, this law is not strictly upheld - mostly because few who are foolish enough to plumb the depths of Kvere;Ivi searching for treasures ever return, and even fewer surface again intact. Notably, those foolhardy explorers or treasure hunters who try to mount expeditions are never able to recruit locals. The Skakdi fear going into the water. The Spineless Bay - The Spineless Bay was named by Warlord Nektann:Dii nine hundred years ago, during his short-lived conquest of all lands north of Irnakk’s Tooth. Before Nektann’s arrival, the unnamed river delta that comprised western Zakaz was for the most part a rare oasis on the island, occupied by Lesterin traders and a few Skakdi who had found themselves incapable of fighting battles through infirmity, lameness or meek hearts. Nektann, contemptuously referring to the inhabitants of the western brook as Criebe:Dii, or ‘Gods-Of-the-Weak-Seeded,” had the valley razed as he swept across it, famously declaring that there would never be a place on Zakaz for living Skakdi to sit on their hands and contemplate the flora. Nektann was killed before he could realize his full ambitions, but before he died he had turned the northern half of the delta to cinders and his army had permanently christened it the ‘Spineless Bay.’ Within a couple decades, the still-flaming carcass of the northern Bay had found itself occupied by new warlords - a gigantic species of Rahi known as the Tahtorak, which took comfort in its new environment and sought to migrate south. Only the gigantic flames that still burn on the steppes in the northern valley have halted the Tahtoraks’ advances over the century, leading to two differing legends - the prevailing fable being that the Tahtorak grew from the shed blood of Nektann’s men in the conquest of the bay, and the spirits of the Criebe:Dii kept the fires alight to prevent the rest of their weakling’s paradise from falling to the reborn army. The prevailing theory among the mystics of Zakaz is that the Tahtorak are children of a darker, unknown emissary, and that Warlord Nektann:Dii himself was reborn as the flames, keeping the Tahtorak contained before they run amok on his homeland. In the south of the valley, the lands Nektann never burnt, the name ‘Spineless Bay’ takes on an ironic second edge, for it is here that Zakaz’s largest collection of Spine Slugs lives among the wild. These parasites, which Skakdi use to try and replace a fragment of the rage that was lost to them in days long past, have always found the climate of the river delta palatable, and can be found in plenty the closer the delta gets to Kvere;Ivi. Lesteri;Dak (Less-teh-ree-dah-k) Roughly translating to the mocking nickname ‘Lesterin’s Crown,’ or often just colloquially referred to as ‘the Crown,’ Lesteri;Dak is the ring of mountains, cliffs, and other jagged surfaces that encircle the island of Zakaz. Ranging from coastal cliffs and mild crags to the west and south to the seldom-scaled, mysterious mountains of the east, the Crown is said to be where the bits and ends of old Lesterin islands, fraying and torn from where they were torn apart by the Skakdi and stuffed back into the shape of Zakaz. Though inhospitable and bleak, the Crown does make for a good defensive position during a siege, leading some particularly daring warlords to erect fortresses there. Indeed, even some stray pockets of Lesterin settlement can be found towards the east, where old goat paths and mountain trails will be used by risky caravans and fugitives as a quick path to the sea. The Rift - On the southeast of Zakaz lies a deep gash that cuts through all of reality. In the Time Before Time, a mysterious Lesterin city named Lamo-Lyco-Cosa, the “Silver-Jewel-from-Stars,” was built on the patch of land that the Rift now lacerates. Lamo-Lyco-Cosa was an arcane, avoided city, populated by sages, occultists, and priests, dedicated to the mysteries of the Great Spirit Mata Nui and his mystics, and great care was taken in ensuring that no weapon forged within reality was allowed underneath its gates. Thus it was ensured that even despite the disagreements that often consume scholars, there were protections in place to keep violence from ever breaking out in the sacred city. So it was that the mysteries of Lamo-Lyco-Cosa remained a peaceful, if uncomfortable, fact of life for the surrounding Lesterin settlements. When the Skathi rose up in revolt over Lesterin rule of the islands, Lamo-Lyco-Cosa ignored all pleas for aid and fielded no defense of its own. Their mystics assured each other that the Skathi, as beings of this reality, were unable to break the physical or arcane barriers that protected the city, and that they could continue their work unimpeded. The Skakdi conquest lasted under a year, but the army underneath the walls of Silver-Jewel-from-Stars held out through the whole duration of the war, as the wise men within seemed uncowed by hunger, bombardment, or news of the fall of merchant prince after merchant prince. Until one day, the city did fall. Of course, whether or not Lamo-Lyco-Cosa ever existed is a matter of debate. The small handful of scholars remaining on Zakaz, as well as leaders of the Lesterin conclaves on Seprilli, are quick to point out that there has never been a conclusive shred of evidence that any city ever stood on the area where the Rift now lies, and indeed the wily, pragmatic Lesterin people seem very quick to deny that their culture ever dabbled in such dangerous fare as the higher mysteries. But the stories of the city’s fall are as important as the tales of Ancestors, parents frighten children with the thought of the evil Man-Shades of the Magic City who possess their Spine Slugs and suck the living matter from inside their skulls, and there is a merchant on every corner of Irnakk’s Tooth claiming to sell lost talismans from the Silver-Jewel-from-Stars. The story’s detractors also seem incapable of offering a suggestion of what may have been built over the Rift if not a city. Certainly, it has not always been there. The Rift itself appears to be nothing but a large, particularly narrow canyon through southeastern Zakaz, with stalagmites and crags dotting the ashen ground. Here and there one may find the ruins of old fortresses or ziggurats buried underneath the sands of time, or with new rock outcroppings sticking through ramparts or portculli, as if the Rift is slowly assimilating the structures into its mass. These are not, as many a zealous tour guide would insist, remnants of Lamo-Lyco-Cosa, for the truth would scare any who were mad enough to tour the Rift right from the canyon. Truthfully, much in the way much of the rabble flocks to Lesteri;Dak, many Skakdi have seen the Rift as a potential trap for an opposing army or as a good start to fashion themselves as a warlord to be feared. Such Skakdi are fools; without exception, every attempt to occupy or settle the Rift has ended in calamity, and the most recent settlement there ended four centuries ago with the death of Warlord Nuxukann the Grinner and his chiefs within his own fortress. Those who arrived to sack the fort found the chiefs dead with their eyes gouged out, vision powers having run amok to the point where blindness was preferable to more torment. The Grinner himself was still clinging to life, though his mind had been addled and his element of Ice had been used against him and trapped him in an oubliette of his own making. The warlord died babbling, but whatever pleas or warnings he may have been trying to get out were incomprehensible - all of his famous teeth had fallen out from their roots, thick black blood and ash clotting the gums. There is no vegetation as far as the eye can see in any direction, even by Zakaz standards. Animals flee it or die, having gone rabid and been put down at the hands of their masters. And there is Antidermis everywhere in the Rift. It seems to bubble up everywhere, from natural springs in the ground that seem to spout like blackish-green mockeries of geysers to within the very rocks. More than one Skakdi has angrily broken off a chunk of rock the size of a spear to use on a rival, only to shriek in horror as viscous Antidermis runs down from the inside of a hidden geode and ravages them like gangrene. Executions for the most heinous of crimes are committed here, as only prisoners who commit crimes which mock both Skakdi both living and Ancestral are taken to the Rift and dropped into Antidermis to slowly dissolve, torn apart body and soul by corruption over several agonizing minutes. Seprilli (Seh-pree-lee) - Seprilli is a curious little island to the southwest of Zakaz, left separate during Irnakk’s fabled haphazard construction of Zakaz in order to symbolically leave behind his race’s past as the Skathi. Instead, Seprilli found a second life as a port city and makeshift home for the Lesterin, who found themselves in the unenviable position of having swapped homelands with the race they once utilized as submissive bruisers. It is an irony many Lesterin have rubbed in their faces by the Skakdi. Irony exists everywhere on Zakaz. As a booming port in its own right, Seprilli is technically under the rule of the Skakdi, though they prefer to leave it alone out of a sense of haughty and ancestral pride. The Lesterin have de facto dominion of the island to themselves, along with a race of powerless bruisers known as the Kaiakans who will often be hired as mercenary help for jobs the Lesterin are not physically capable of. While there is a Skakdi population on Seprilli, they are shunned for their birthplace, looked at almost as a subspecies of the mainland Skakdi. Such Skakdi are forced to take the surname Seprillian, to mark them for who they are, and have historically been regarded as misfits who are better suited to lives on the seas and rubbing shoulders with the Lesterin. This outlook has changed somewhat in the last century, thanks to the meteoric rise of Warlord Malnak Seprillian, who seized a large chunk of territory on the mainland by utilizing the nautical knowledge he gained growing up on Seprilli and using the river delta as a launching point for his conquest. Many veteran warriors, however, still view the Seprillian Skakdi as lesser, and it will likely take many more conquests like those of Malnak in order to bring the minority the recognition they crave. Section IV: Technology The technology of Zakaz will be familiar to anyone who has seen a Skakdi on Mata Nui. Rudimentary firearms abound, mostly powered off by a substance that the Skakdi refer to as Najin (or “deathly light” in their tongue) dust - which any citizen of Mata Nui would recognize as Stralix Powder. There are no Madu fruit on Zakaz, depriving Mata Nuians of their favorite homegrown explosive, but there is oil aplenty to be mined in the south of Zakaz and from Seprilli, which helps give the Lesterin a degree of importance in trading affairs. Thanks to the machinations of a particularly fidgety inventor named Avak, a sonic-powered motorbike has started to pick up traction (no pun intended) on Zakaz over the past century and a half as a mode of transportation over the living mounts of centuries past. Though outlandishly expensive and mostly a prized possession for status-obsessed warlords, enough time has passed that inventors without Avak’s avant-garde flair have started to reverse-engineer the machines, and several prototypes of dubious functionality can be easily acquired on the Zakaz black market - for anyone willing to shell out. Skakdi on Zakaz may have two pieces of Foreign Technology, see Character Creation. Section V: Forts Small, defensible fortifications dot Zakaz’s landscape relics from mercenary bands past and present. Though not pretty or even always structurally sound, such a fortified camp is one of the first steps on an aspiring warlord’s path to real power. Some of these are old structures moved into after their previous tenants were evicted by violence or otherwise vacated, while others are recent construction purpose-built by the groups holding them. Often they’re built around a particularly lucrative cache of gear… For one week after the beginning of the arc applications will be open for such a fort. Design it, including its owner, location on the map, what it looks like, what it contains, and how many brave mercenaries call it ‘home’. The staff will compile a randomly generated list of loot placed at each one specifically to encourage other players to wrest control from its original owner and take their prize. This is Zakaz, things happen. Similarly these forts are not protected by the usual guidelines regarding player-established locations. If someone decides the best way to get in is to reduce the place to rubble, they can. Nor are its NPCs safe from attacking PCs. That said, the same rules that apply to any fight apply here. You are not infinitely superior to NPCs, and they are under the owner of the fort’s control as much (and with the same privileges) as Guard NPCs are under their Akiri. Any forts created after this application deadline will have to be created IC and over time, while these approved forts will exist at the start of the game. Section VI: Skakdi Language Glossary Criebe:Dii: “gods of the weak-seeded” - historic name for the inhabitants of the Spineless Bay. :Dii (ah-dee): “king of glorious legend” or “god” - most important honorific in the Skakdi language, used for revered Ancestors of the species such as Irnakk:Dii. ;Dii (dee): “king of all on world” - second most important honorific in the Skakdi language; used for revered Ancestors of a single family line, but can also be used to denote warlords or warriors of high honor without fear of dismemberment Geym-Kino-Kir-Laru: “Our-Unknown-Abyss-Beneath-the-Waves” - entity of Skakdi superstition thought to exist in the depths of Kvere;Ivi. Heu:Nii: “mongrel without his own fate” - a Skakdi insult. Lesteri;Dak (Less-teh-ree-dah-k): “Lesterin’s Crown” (roughly) - the ring of mountains, cliffs, etc that encircle Zakaz. Kino-Ur: the great featureless abyss that the Skakdi believe all beings return to after they die. Kvere;Ivi (Queh-reh-vee): “Kvere grave” - Zakaz’s central lake. Lesteri:Nii: "mongrel who once wore the skins of Lesterin" - the derogatory insult for most Lesterin in contemporary Skakdi culture; also doubles as a backhanded compliment towards the Lesterin ancestors they sacked, though doubtless the Skakdi miss the irony Mata:Nii: “mongrel who kneels for another” - a favorite Skakdi insult, derived from a demon god and blood magician worshipped by the Lesterin :Nii (ah-nee): “mongrel” - a derogatory suffix. Nakihl (nah-keel): “hated dead-men” - native mystics. Najin (nah-jeen): “deathly light” - explosive powder, known to Mata-Nuians as Stralix Powder. Sarke: “to make a fool of oneself” - Zakaz’s combat sport. Silva;ria;Dii: “Grand Performance for the Gods” - the ritual through which a Skakdi may be recognised formally as a warlord. Valin;Xalt: ceremony to recognise a dead Skakdi for Ancestral worship. Zakaz: “the end of all worlds” - island home of the Skakdi. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ This post will be affixed to the second post of every Zakaz-centric location topic in the next arc, so don't think you just have to come back here to find it. -Tyler

IC: Not for nothing did the god-warriors of Zakaz call this plant the Miracle Cactus, Jennak thought with a shiver – a relieved, involuntary tremor that owed as much to the sweet taste of the juice upon his tongue as it did to the cold feeling permeating everywhere else in his mouth. His teeth would have chattered, if only they could touch, but at that moment death seemed preferable than extracting them from the spiny flesh of the legendary plant. So, he slurped more of the pulpy juice from the cactus; eight bony fingers gripped the plant, like spindly skewers at the ends of maize, and the great bricks of alabaster that lined his bulging jaw continued their transformation into great blocks of ice. For the past four days and three nights the Mantling procession had trudged on without true refreshment. That was not to say they were not provisioned; each of the five-Skakdi band had brought survival packs to last them a fortnight, with other fruits, salted meats, and skins of water and ale plenty to keep them from starving until Jennak had completed his Mantling. At least, that was the case on paper. A popular refrain among his fath-- --Warlord Kredak— --among Warlord Kredak’s hanse was that they could provision for a year, with a battalion of livestock at their back, and still die starving before Jennak proved himself a true Skakdi. The jests, as jests so often did, had burrowed under Jennak’s skin like insects, sucking away the nutrients from what little meat trudged upon his bones. Like me, he thought, drinking from this cactus. Suddenly, the juice felt like acid in his throat. Or perhaps that was the urban legends about the Cactus, returning unbidden to his mind. Or perhaps it was just the Rift. He turned again to look at it, even though all the veterans in the party warned him not to, and shivered again at the sight of it – crackling with viridian electricity and lined with rocky, stalagmite teeth that oozed Antidermis like pus, it was not a scar on the face of the world. It was something more, something unspeakable; far beyond any wound to an island, or even a world, it felt like the sneering grin of Irnakk – a terrible rictus, blighting the fabric of reality itself. Even looking at it made his eyes sting with fearful tears. From the way that some of his heralds were rubbing their eyes, Jennak guessed they were stricken by the same terror, even though they would all swear it was ash or silt in the air that brought them to tears. That was the excuse they had used when they stopped being able to swallow food, two days ago – when the meat had started to taste rancid, and the fruit had grown too bitter to even chew. He could still feel the cuts on the roof of his mouth from his last skewer of iguana meat. That was the excuse they had used when they stopped being able to drink water last night, when the ale began to taste like curdled milk and Cronnak touched his leathery canteen for a drink only to find it radiated the heat of a Tahtorak’s scale and the water had boiled inside. The burn still gleamed on his right palm. That was an excuse Jennak recognized for the feeble lie it really was. Such freak accidents were as commonplace in the Rift as those fools who dared to try taming it; thrill-seekers and would-be warlords a-plenty had tried to conquer the Rift in centuries past, and parties would regularly form to search for the treasure that gunslingers, con artists and street preachers swore was buried at the back of the devil’s throat. Casualties and horror stories from these voyages were endless, but still there would always be a few treasure hunters or Lesterin rogues in the slums of Seprilli, trying to get rich quick with the hidden gold of the Rift, and the streets of Irnakk’s Tooth were filled with fundamentalists doom-chanting the same refrain: Run or Crawl, Reclaim or Die. Fan:Dii Balom Skak:Dii – No gods, but for the Skakdi. Until the Skakdi once again controlled all of Zakaz, as they had in the days of the first Ancestors, they could not hope to control all the world. Jennak had always been a superstitious child, fond of stories about Kvere;Ivi, where the palaces of the Lesterin merchant-princes had become their undersea graves. He had grown up on the legends of Lamo-Lyco-Cosa, and the sacrifices made there to the dark god Mata:Nii. But he was fond of the versions Cronnak had told him growing up, the kinds that ended in a jump scare and an affectionate punch in the shoulder. Seeing legends like the Rift up close…well, he would have very much appreciated if they had just stayed legends. Cronnak was right – a Mantling ceremony like this was the best antidote to any stray thoughts of joining the Nakihl. Speaking of Cronnak…his older brother had been gone too long. Jennak nibbled anxiously on the Miracle Cactus. If something had happened to his older brother while he foraged, Jennak had slim odds on outliving him for very long. He knew that his snap decision to undergo his Mantling at the Rift was a foolish one, and likely deadly, but he had spent his whole life being the runt of Kredak’s sons, the bookish one, obsessed with legends of past disasters instead of focusing on the life of glory that awaited all Skakdi. Jennak had only volunteered such a place for his coming-of-age ritual to show that his respect for tradition went beyond the dusty old legends and ghost stories that the Nakihl so zealously guarded in their fortress to the north. He had even thought of challenging his father, reminding him that he himself had never gone to the Rift to undergo the Grand Performance of the Gods and plunge into the Rift. In the ancient days, that ritual was how all true warlords had proved themselves to the Skakdi; nowadays it was a relic, and the Rift was used only for the purposes of terror and execution. To do so on your Mantling, the basic coming-of-age performed by every Skakdi on Zakaz, and for no particular reason…it was akin to suicide. Every veteran warrior, demigods though they might have been, on the island knew it to be so. It was only Cronnak’s intervention to join his party that had shamed other warriors to serve in his Mantling procession, and it was only Cronnak’s reputation that had kept the other Skakdi from leaving him to starve – or, more likely, from just slitting his throat. If something had happened to his brother… Two wolf whistles cut through the air in quick succession. Even in his state of anxiety, Jennak didn’t jump; nothing natural lived or grew in the Rift, so only one of the two scouts could have sent the signal back. He didn’t even jump when he felt the familiar fist slug his shoulder or look up from his Miracle Cactus until he caught the glimpse of scarlet armor that sat unceremoniously on the rock across from him. “Find anything?” Jennak asked, a little petulantly. He found the idea of scouting the Rift to be particularly stupid. This morning, when Cronnak and Grognak had gone off, Jennak mentioned as much – that there was nothing worth seeing in the Rift, and that they would only step in a stray pool of Antidermis without help if they strayed too far from camp, or that something might attack them after all if it did lurk here, or any other number of reasons. Perhaps if he had only stuck to one, honed his argument, it might have had some effect on the others. Skakdi were far from intellectuals, but nor were they brutes; strategy and tactics had been bred into them and brought their Ancestors to the cusp of godhood. If Jennak had put forth a convincing reason, it might have made sense. Ramble on with four or five, and Skakdi began to mistake an abundance of caution for endless excuses. Cronnak, as much as Jennak worshipped him, was no exception. Right now, Mr. No Exception was proving particularly smug about his survival. “Not a thing. What did I say?” Cronnak tossed the sketchpad he had been using to map their progress, as well as a hunk of worn charcoal, onto his younger brother’s lap. Cartography was one of their shared passions, but one of Cronnak’s rules for serving as herald on this Mantling was that there would only be one sketchbook, and he got final say as to when it would be used. That way they could both draw maps to their hearts content, but there would be no use of it as a distraction. Jennak had sworn to their father that he would face the Rift; this was his chance. “You told me I was a coward. You might as well have said that Irnakk had me now.” That was the worst thing one Skakdi could say to another, equal parts grave insult and death sentence. “A lot about glories old and new, looking good for handsome worshippers someday, and how you would have been raw meat if you had jumped blind into the Burning Steppes. The Tahtorak came up. A lot.” His words were dismissive, but he delivered them with a begrudging smile. He could begrudge his brother almost anything; there was no reason one such as Cronnak;Dii, hewn from all the past glories of their fathers, would have any reason to treat a borderline Nakihl like Jennak with any love, but Cronnak doted on him. He had overseen as much of Jennak’s martial instruction as he had ever gotten, coached him on what to hunt and forage for in survival situations, and even read to him some of Jennak’s favorite legends in his youth. Cronnak had no patience or interest in such things, and made it known as often as possible, but the thought went a long way with him. “Where’s Grognak?” he asked. “You two split up?” Cronnak waved his hand dismissively. “He said he saw some old weaponry up in the east and wanted to check it out. You know him, always swearing up and down he’s right behind you. He was the same way on our Mantling. He’s probably a quarter-bio away just waiting to make it seem like he scouted. Throw me that Miracle Cactus.” “How do you want it?” “Up high.” Jennak threw it down low, another one of the dumb games they always played together. When one asked for something, the other would always be sure to give it to them in the exact opposite fashion they asked for it. Perhaps with other races, like the Lesterin, that was a form of playfulness, but among the Skakdi it was rare. Cronnak was an equal participant in the game and knew just how to catch it. He plucked the Miracle Cactus one-handed from the air and took a bite from it; he made the motion look effortless, but Jennak saw his brother wince slightly as his fingers closed, and he shook his wrist afterwards. His burned hand looked raw and blistered, the Rift’s landscape writ large upon his weathered palm. “Will you be able to fight with that?” Jennak asked, concerned. Cronnak waved him off and took another bite. “Of course I – mm! – will. Besides, nothing to fight out here, right? That’s what you said before we left.” Cronnak gave him a toothy grin and looked down at the Cactus. Juice dribbled down his chin, so viscous that he could see the pulp beneath his lip, and for some reason his stomach churned. He could hardly fault his brother for finding the plant nutritious and delicious, not when he’d done so himself, but…when he watched someone else eat one, he remembered the legends of the Miracle Cactus. The plant was used as a mild hallucinogen during the days of the Valin;Xalt, the forgotten ritual warlords used to use to prove their mettle before jumping headlong into the Rift. But it had a darker origin, according to the more superstitious among Skakdi: given its status as the Rift’s only indigenous plant, the rumor went that the plant flowered with the life force of Skakdi who had died there, succumbed to Antidermis or exhaustion. The juice of every plant was alleged to be the essence of a Skakdi, valor and cunning, fear and rage, all distilled into a goulash and entombed inside a plant forever. Thus, the only way to survive in such an inhospitable spit of land would be to cannibalize those too weak to do so themselves. The irony of the tale was probably deeply rooted in its origin, but it still made Jennak queasy to think about. Especially since the Mantling party had stumbled upon a patch of five in the spot where they’d made camp. One for each of them. “You never take your wounds seriously,” Jennak admonished. “Adrenaline will only get you so far. And we aren’t even talking about how water boiled in a leather—” “We don’t need to talk about it,” Cronnak dismissed him. “It happened. Turning back now means you don’t pass your Mantling, and only means we still have to travel another four days before we hit Lesteri;Dak again. Then it’s another three days to Irnakk’s Tooth. No. If either way is a risk, then why go backward?” Jennak opened his mouth to retort, but behind his brother’s broad-shouldered frame, his eyes focused on an earth-toned figure, far from the reds and greys of Warlord Kredak’s sons. Instead of his retort, what came out was: “It’s him.” Cronnak turned around and squinted, confused. “From the west? Did the idiot forget what direction he was supposed to scout? I should beat him to death with my bare hands, that Brakas. He forgot to signal his way back, too. Probably dozed off by a rock and is still shaking off the—” “That’s not it,” Jennak interrupted. His throat had gone dryer than before he’d cracked open his Miracle Cactus. “Cronnak, look at him.” Cronnak looked from his brother, then to the brown dot on the distance. His vision power was laser vision; useful in many a combat situation, but no help now. If Jennak hadn’t been so worthless on his own in survival situations, he probably would have been the one on scouting watch today. “Nektann’s flames…” “Did Grognak get uglier?” Cronnak asked playfully. “What am I missing? You’re the one with telescopic vision, you tell me.” Jennak’s lips trembled. Cronnak’s good-humored eyes, normally red with passion both good and ill, narrowed. By now, golden-armored and Four-Tooth Sabnak, the sage old warrior who had tutored Cronnak at arms since he was still Twelve-Tooth Sabnak, had wandered over. They made up the rest of Jennak’s Mantling procession. “I—I—Ir—" “Spit it out, brother.” There was no humor in Cronnak’s voice anymore. He was acutely aware of the other two warriors glaring at the back of his neck. Jennak whispered at first, but then repeated himself: “Irnakk--has him now.” A tense silence fell over the group. “Jennak?” Cronnak asked, turning his head back to his brother. Jennak had never seen him look at anyone, especially him, so coldly. “You have some nerve, boy,” croaked Trezzik, the bob of his throat straining against the scar where a Skakdi had once slit him end to end. It had ruined his voice forever, made it ghastly to listen to. “I’ve fought at his back in a dozen campaigns while Heu:Nii like you screamed and begged like dogs. I’ve heard his battle roars, loud enough to make Ancestors shake in Kino-Ur. When our blood would rain on Skakdi like you it would rain so heavy you would swear you had been cleaved in half. If your brother wasn’t here—” “He is here,” barked Cronnak, rising to his feet in a flash. Standing there, with the scrapes of every battle he’d survived still looking fresh upon his flame-colored armor, Cronnak looked every inch the young man who had marshaled a rabid Tahtorak through the Burning Steppes during his own Mantling – every inch a future Ancestor. His hand was on his chainsaw, a motion that dared Trezzik to find out if he could survive a slit throat twice. “Stop it!” Jennak was jittering, hands clapping on his knees and the very bones in his fingers clattering like chimes, but his voice had found some steel in its timbre. “Stop it and look. He didn’t signal. He’s staring at the ground, but—but he’s not looking where he’s going. He just tripped on a rock, and…and he’s not even looking for Antidermis. He’s trudging, and he didn’t signal. Irnakk has him now.” Another silence, before Sabnak finally chimed in: “We’ll make a scout of you yet, Heu:Nii.” The words whistled when coming out of Sabnak’s mouth, a Rift unto itself with how many teeth he’d lost in battle over the millennia. But it was still a compliment coming from the Skakdi who had trained his brother and his father, and it would have made him proud to hear. It might even have impressed Warlord Kredak. But today, right this instant, Jennak felt no pride. All he felt was foreboding – foreboding and deep, cold terror. Grognak was at least a hardened warrior; he hadn’t even been Mantled yet. If something in this accursed scar had driven him into the arms of madness, what chance did Jennak fare? The party had been gripped by its longest silence yet – possibly the longest silence of Jennak’s life. By now, telescopic vision was unnecessary. Grognak had shambled close enough to make out the distinguishing features of his face, and every other Skakdi present knew what Jennak said for fact: Irnakk had him now. Irnakk had him now. The four words were the death knell of any Skakdi; it was as good as declaring them dead on their feet. If each Skakdi was a god unto himself, then those words meant that shock, terror, or cowardice had driven a Skakdi to a state of mortality. It meant fearing the same shapes in the dark that a child feared, the same wisps and phantoms that drove young Skakdi into the arms of their mothers. If a Skakdi had plumbed so thoroughly the depths of fear and misery, then his reputation was in ruins; he could never be counted on in a battle again, and he would never go to join the hordes of his ancestors in Kino-Ur, the great staging ground for the Skakdi’s final assault on all the universe. They were, quite possibly, the only people more universally loathed in Skakdi culture more than Sarke referees. Cronnak dared to venture within reach of Grognak, brought so low by terror even his teeth trembled to their roots, and grabbed him by the shoulder roughly. Jennak had been the shoulder grabbed or struck on many an occasion and had come to associate it with fraternity and even love; he had never before seen the world’s most comforting gesture weaponized so. He realized he was no longer the Skakdi most considered scum in this party, but somehow he found no succor in his new place in the world. “Grognak, report.” For the moment, Cronnak’s voice was professional and clipped. “No one told you to head west. What happened to you?” Since his birth, Grognak;Dii’s eyes had a unique, pulsing quality to them – two beating scarlet hearts within his face, they constantly throbbed with fury and a thirst for blood. Now they did not move at all, save for occasional, lagged tracing of Cronnak’s face. Their crimson hue had grown so pink they were almost pale, with only occasional veins to give them color. They look like eclipsed suns, now, the dead eyes of an alcoholic stripped of all his poisons. When his jaw slackened, his reply stolen from his throat, the glimmer of his wolfish-grin had turned the color of bleached skulls. “Cronnak;Dii,” he replied simply, hoarsely. Cronnak had the look of a poisoned man, dark-faced and unswallowing. “Nektann’s flames…” cursed Trezzik softly. “I said report.” Grognak’s eyes had turned to Warlord Kredak’s other heir, and there was a hint of accusation in his pale, fish eyes. “You brought us here,” he whispered. “You killed us all. They’ll find us because of you.” Jennak recoiled slightly from the threat and Grognak’s dead gaze, but he did not have to bear it for long; Cronnak’s meat hook fist struck the beleaguered scout a mighty blow to the body. Any Skakdi in his prime would have had trouble standing, but Grognak’s legs actually seemed grateful for the reprieve, and he buckled without complaint. Jennak remembered the stories of Ahk’rei:Nii, the haggard Lesterin demon worshipper who reunited the phantoms of the dead with their flesh. Grognak seemed proof of one such melding, albeit an imperfect one. Cronnak was not so poetic about the other warrior’s sorry state. “Grognak,” his elder brother roared, blocking Grognak’s slumped body from view. “You were there at my Mantling. You rode with me on that Tahtorak when none else dared, gripped its scales beside me and rode through half the Burning Steppes with more fire on our bodies than armor. You are my friend, and if you’re still in there I grieve for you. But if you ever speak to my brother like that again, or if the next words out of your mouth aren’t telling us what you found, I will kill you. I will knock as many teeth out of your mouth as I need to so my fist will fit, and I will reach down your throat until you choke and die. Now. Report.” Grognak’s eyes focused a little, and Jennak felt relief. Since the days of old, one Skakdi had always required another to channel their once-fearsome elemental powers. Sometimes it was much the same in battle; only the threats and thunder of one could resurrect a man who thought even himself lost to cowardice. He let out a shaky breath that even he hadn’t realized he was holding— Grognak reported. And that breath became a gasp. A rattle escaped Trezzik’s slit throat. Even Cronnak’s pale face had gone ashen. “What did you just say?” he asked quietly. Grognak propped himself against a rock, starting to massage the blow Cronnak had laid upon him. It had knocked some life back into him, clearly, but when he spoke again his voice still shook. “I saw…” He inhaled and held the breath for several painful seconds. “A Vortixx.” The way Cronnak kicked the downed Skakdi’s head was the way a child kicked his ball. “What did you just say?” he asked louder. Grognak’s head lolled, but his voice was absorbing strength from his commander’s furious blows. “I saw…a Vortixx.” The way Cronnak kicked the downed Skakdi’s head was the way a child kicked his ball. “What did you just say?” “I saw a Vortixx.” The way Cronnak kicked the downed Skakdi’s head was the way a child kicked his ball. “What did you just say?” he barked for the final time. Grognak cracked his neck slowly, blood trickling from a face already giving way to swelling. But when he was done cracking his neck, he stood, and pulled himself to his full stature. His eyes had darkened to the color of roses, of blood, and he rubbed at his cheek sullenly. “I saw a Vortixx. I saw a Vortixx. I saw a Vortixx,” he repeated. It was an ancient Skakdi ritual, although Jennak quietly could not comprehend the barbarity of it. When Irnakk gripped a Skakdi by the spine, it became impossible to trust his grasp on the situation that had terrified him so thoroughly. So, under physical and mental duress, a Skakdi would be made to repeat their story over and over in the face of increasing trauma. To stick to their guns and persevere was a sign that they were still demigods at heart, despite a momentary tango with the horrors of mortality. Or the horrors of the Vortixx. Their scout, now reminded of his own greatness, recounted his story. As Cronnak had predicted, he had decided to go off and take a nap, perhaps a little too assured of their solitude in the base of the Rift. They had all been traveling, growing sick of each other and tense in Zakaz’s heart of darkness, so he had thought to steal a few minutes for himself rather than return with the same empty hands they’d returned with every time someone had gone scouting. He hadn’t thought to be gone long, nor had he thought himself very far from camp. But where he had woken up was not the idyllic little spit of wasteland he had chosen to fall asleep in, and what he had awoken to was far from solitude. What he described was a freak of nature with proportions too unnatural to be any living creature; captivating to the eye, but somehow horrific to absorb, too alien to be anything but a nightmare. Her edges were too sharp, her features too angular, and her eyes were as black as her armor; she was a masterpiece, Grognak explained, a miracle of ebonywork that a sculptor had only half-completed; her other half she had carved herself. It was a feat of poetry uncharacteristic for most Skakdi, which made his story ring all the louder with uncomfortable truth. When he finished his report, all five Skakdi had been reduced to statues themselves. None dared to move or speak their nightmare into reality. “We investigate,” Cronnak finally concluded. “Grognak, take us west.” It was the typical Skakdi answer; none of them would dare to openly suggest backing away from a foe, whatever that foe’s origins or prowess, but from the oldest veteran to even the young runt on his Mantling, all of them entertained the thought of just going home in those crucial moments. Cronnak’s orders felt familiar; they rang out in the voice of the horde, simple and dedicated to conquering one and all. They broke camp quickly and began the trek west. Jennak handed over what remained of his Miracle Cactus to Grognak along the way; such a gesture would be considered pitiable by some Skakdi, or an expression of pity itself, but he hoped Grognak would take it in the spirit it was intended – a sign of pride and respect for returning from the clutches of Irnakk. Whatever he thought of it, Grognak didn’t speak. No one spoke. For hours of the march, sky and earth were but different shades on the all-encompassing spectrum of grey, so that as the Skakdi grew more anxious they forgot which they were even marching on – sky or earth. Toothless old Sabnak broke the silence with a brusque order that was half command and half bird call. “Whelp,” he whistled. “Tell us what you know of the Vortixx.” Jennak was surprised to be asked for input. “In the Time Before Time, when the world was in the grip of the demon Mata:Nii and their wicked fingers on earth the Lesterin—” “What, another sermon?” Trezzik grumbled. “Another doom-sayer. There are more of you every year, seems like...makes Irnakk’s Tooth unlivable…” “Ignore the cutthroat, whelp. Keep going,” Sabnak said, not unkindly. “—the Lesterin dominated the Skathi with steel and sorcery. They could not wield the elements without us, and their eyes lacked true vision, but they wore Kanohi capable of powers we were incapable of, and their ships and guile made them a power among the weakling races. The Vortixx were chief among their allies. They were as powerless as the Lesterin in all aspects but one. It was said that whatever they dreamed came to life. Great machines, plagues that could bring low islands, weapons of war the likes of which only gods dared to wield…the Vortixx could conjure these tools with their wits, and the Lesterin would use them to subjugate. After we broke the Lesterin and Irnakk forged Zakaz from their bones, the Vortixx saved themselves by allying with us.” “Until they turned on us,” said Cronnak. “I know this part.” Every Skakdi “knew this part.” First and Cruelest Irnakk:Dii had forged Zakaz and the Skakdi in his own image, but their bid for power had cost them dearly. To try and leech them of their greatness, the Lesterin’s demon spirit had robbed them of their individual elemental control and their vision powers, forcing the once-subservient Skakdi to again be reliant on others. To compensate, the Skakdi horde began trafficking in the Vortixx’s particular, mad brand of creativity – and for centuries upon centuries the synthesis between brutality and ingenuity had been a force to be reckoned with across the known universe. All that had changed centuries ago. The Vortixx had infiltrated Irnakk’s Tooth, the single neutral place in all Zakaz, and dared to dive beneath the frigid, placid surface of Kvere;Ivi to see what secrets the Skakdi had buried alongside the kings and queens of the Lesterin. Perhaps they had not taken the Skakdi at their word when they said no one knew what was at the heart of the great lake in the island’s center; perhaps they had believed them, but ravenous curiosity and the prospect of mystery with no answer had driven them past the point of reason. Regardless of their reasons, a few mad Vortixx took the plunge. Whether they found answers no one knew, but they did find truth. Nothing was at the bottom of Kvere;Ivi. Nothing here not being ‘not a thing,’ but Nothing, a greater, emptier, more horrifying Nothing – Nothing, in the way that the skies and the sea stretched on endlessly with Nothing to fill them. Nothing, in the way that death was Nothing, yet could overwhelm life so easily and outlast it for so long. Nothing was a great, yawning void beneath the heart of Zakaz, and all the universe but Zakaz was doomed to return to it; only the Skakdi, the great cosmic iconoclasts, could stand against Nothing and retain themselves. The Vortixx had proved that in Kvere;Ivi – for those Vortixx never surfaced from the lake to take another breath, no Vortixx ever returned to Zakaz to make another sale, and when ships from Seprilli went in search of the Vortixx homeland to investigate their allies’ absence, they all returned with tales of Nothing. No Skakdi or Lesterin had seen one since until Grognak. “So how did the Ancestors kill Vortixx?” Trezzik asked. “I always heard they were powerless.” “No creature that can pull a trigger is powerless,” Sabnak counseled. “Grognak, did this Vortixx have a gun?” “No.” Single words were about as much as he had been able to manage for the last few hours. “Did this Vortixx have armor?” “No.” “How about limbs?” “Yeah.” “My eyes hurt,” grumbled Cronnak. “Does anyone feel that?” “Then that’s what we do. Each grab a limb and pull.” At least we have a plan, Jennak thought wryly, nose crinkling in wry amusement. Then it crinkled for another reason altogether. “My eyes hurt too,” Jennak said. “It’s hard to see.” “It’s ash,” Sabnak replied stolidly, for the hundredth time in five days. “Ash and silt.” Then the smell started, acrid and harsh like flesh aflame; Cronnak was intimately familiar with the aroma in all its forms. He raised his voice to yell: “Antidermis! Move!” The air did not smell like burning flesh; it was the smell of the air itself that was burning as the Antidermis started to fall to earth. They had prepared for this – Antidermis raining down was about as predictably unpredictable as Antidermis welling up from the ground, after all – but they were all tense and uncertain of heart after Grognak’s report. More importantly, the only scouting reports had come from a single delirious, half-sane source, and the Mantling party could only judge the terrain at face value. Reduced to only their animal instinct, each scurried for what they perceived as cover. Behind him, Jennak heard a loud, shrill scream. It was a sound as undignified as it was pained. Instinctually, he knew that Grognak had been too slow. It was a mercy, in some ways; the Vortixx had left him in the grip of Irnakk, and this was merely the disposal of a body. But now Jennak wished he hadn’t wasted the rest of that Miracle Cactus. He wondered if Grognak would become one too someday. The smell of the burning sky brought him to his senses. He had sprinted on autopilot in the direction of a cave system; his footfalls had gone on until what grey, meager light the Rift afforded him had faded into black, until he had taken enough twists and turns and slides that the decomposed smell of the sky had left him. Only then did he feel it safe to drop to his knees and savor his survival. The musty air he was gulping in great mouthfuls was almost sweet by comparison to what was happening outside. He rubbed his palms on the surface below him, and in his mind several things stuck out to him as odd. For starters, the cave was oddly smooth, almost pleasantly so; he was reminded of the way marbles had felt in his hand as a child, or perhaps empty Zamor Spheres. The whole tunnel, in fact – he had run so far that the rocky outcroppings with their stalactites and stalagmites of Antidermis pockets were but a distant memory. He rubbed the wall beside him and felt certain of it. The second thing he noticed was the black, grainy substance that had smeared on his hands. He’d left a streak of it when he touched the wall. “Hello?” he called out. “Cronnak? Sabnak? Trezzik?” A beat. “Cronnak…?” A miracle from the Ancestors: “Here.” Jennak actually laughed aloud at the sound, resonating deeper into the tunnels. Then he stopped for a second, his superstitious mind overwhelming him. Well did he remember the tales of the city the Rift used to be. The voice could well be some dark magic, attempting to beguile him with the voice of his heroic brother. “Tell me something only we would know!” The darkness was silent. “What the—Kino-Ur. Are you serious?” That was a good start. “Jennak, I’m going to beat you to death if you don’t show yourself. It’s hard enough concentrating as is.” “Just tell me something. Anything.” A loud groan was his response, along with the angry revving of Cronnak’s trademark chainsaw. The sound was getting closer, and Jennak reached behind his back for some weapon, something he had picked up to defend himself before the Antidermis began to fall… “You read too many ghost stories, little whelp,” Cronnak said, an ivory gleam of hope stepping out of the unknown in the cave. “Fine. Remember that Tahtorak scale I gave you when I came back from my Mantling? The one you tried to throw into the lake because Grokk said Tahtoraks gave off pheromones, and his mother would cross the Burning Steppes to find you holding it, and instead you both fell in?” Jennak could have cried. He rushed forward to clap his brother on the shoulder, an action Cronnak mirrored heartily with a relieved breath. “The others…” Jennak started. Cronnak shrugged. “I heard Grognak go down, and saw Trezzik get splashed on. Sabnak was carrying him, and if anyone can stay alive in this desert it’s him. Come on. I’ve been leaving a trail for us to get out of here, but first I think I found something.” Jennak eyed the void behind them uneasily. “You want to go deeper in there?” he asked. Cronnak was glaring unsympathetically. “This is still your Mantling,” his brother reminded him. “If you return alive while veterans are dead, the warlords will only consider you a coward. Just surviving isn’t enough for a Skakdi. You have to prove you survived for a reason. If it’s not bringing back a dead Vortixx, it’ll be something we find down here. Come on.” His brother’s determined face broke into a toothy grin. “Come on. Don’t you want to explore Lamo-Lyco-Cosa?” “That’s not funny.” But like any younger brother, so captivated by the confidence and power of his elder, Jennak followed. He eyed the streak he had left on his brother’s armor during their brief embrace. “Is that Najin dust?” “Told you, I’ve been making a trail,” his brother replied. “We’ll need to watch how much we use if we have to shoot our way back home, but rationing for two is easier than five. Same goes for food and water, way I see it. Maybe three, if we can find Sabnak. More likely than not he put Trezzik out of his misery.” Skakdi would often do the same for other Skakdi in the face of hopeless odds, but to do so out of necessity, or to share rations…well, in a place like the Rift who would really investigate? It was another horrifying thought in a day full of them. “The tunnel’s odd, isn’t it?” Jennak finally asked, after they’d walked for a while with naught but the sifting sound of Najin dust in their ears. “It’s like…an artery, connected to a larger one.” “What, connected to the Rift?” “Yes,” he replied. “This isn’t natural, it’s…infrastructure. These turns all lead somewhere different. How will we know if we’re going in circles?” “Probably when we follow the flames on the way back,” Cronnak said with a wry grin. “Worked for me in the Steppes. Come on, we’re here. Got a Lightstone?” Jennak fumbled in the supply pouch on his right hip and withdrew two Lightstones. “The rest were with Grognak.” “Doesn’t matter. These should do. Use the sketchbook and the charcoal and get some rubbings of the left side.” With the Lightstone in his good hand, Cronnak did a slow rotation in the center of the room – for that was where they stood, a small antechamber where their entrance blended seamlessly into one great, curved wall that enveloped most of the room. The other wall was a flat surface, so broad that ten Skakdi’s wingspans might not have been enough to measure its width. For a couple minutes, Jennak did as his brother instructed – each took a sheet from the sketchbook, snapped the charcoal in half until they each wielded little more than nubs, and began etching whatever symbols they found. Between segments, Jennak would take glances at what they’d copied. The symbols were alien to him, but something about the text made him uneasy. “You know what any of this means?” his brother called to him from across the chamber. Cronnak wasn’t as literary or superstitious as Jennak was, so doubtless he had none of Jennak’s concerns over this – although, if he had to ask in the first place, maybe something here was getting to him too. “No,” Jennak replied with a shake of his head. “If this was Lamo-Lyco-Cosa, you would think more of the characters would be in Lesterin, but this is a…a creole, almost.” He felt uneasy. “Cronnak, can we go? Surely the Antidermis storms have stopped by now…maybe we can find Sabnak and Trezzik…” “You’ll never get anywhere in life if you’re terrified of an empty room, little brother. What did you call it? A what?” “It’s a creole. A mix of languages, old and new, dead and alive. Like you would hear on Seprilli. Characters, grammar, syntax, borrowed words and idioms…there’s just enough Lesterin in here to recognize, but it’s almost as if other words are shoved between Lesterin characters, breaking up the sentences. Those I don’t understand.” Cronnak sighed. “I already looked at the big wall, too. Looks almost like a door, I thought.” “A door?” Jennak looked over and bit his lip in thought. “…Well…maybe? The room would have to be enormous for that. What could it be guarding?” “Treasure chamber?” Cronnak grinned. “Bringing back the treasure of the Lesterins’ demon gods would be as great as joyriding the Tahtorak.” “Really?” Jennak asked, smiling back. “You’d be willing to admit that?” “Well, almost as great.” Despite the sighting of the Vortixx, the Antidermis storm outside, and the eldritch feeling of the tunnel system they’d spelunked into so heedlessly, Jennak felt at ease like this – bantering with his brother. It had become the fulcrum of what was otherwise a very, very dangerous, confusing world. “Here.” Jennak began walking over to the flat wall. Each of his footsteps scuffed against the smooth surface of the floor. “I’ll get this, and then we can…Cronnak?” “Mm?” Cronnak followed his brother over. Jennak had frozen up in front of the wall. “You said there was text here?” his brother whispered. Cronnak lifted up his Lightstone and blinked. “What in Irnakk’s—” The wall was blank from end to end. Cronnak blinked again. His burnt fist clenched, but he hardly noticed the strain. “From wall to wall,” he responded in confusion. “I didn’t get a single letter of it.” “That’s so weird...” Jennak reached out to touch the wall, but Cronnak caught his wrist with the reflex of a viper. “Cronnak, look!” “Nektann’s flames!” Cronnak cursed. “Here I thought I was the one who didn’t pay attention to all those stories. Are you trying to wind up with your face etched on some ancient demon wall, Heu:Nii?” “No, Cronnak.” Jennak looked to Cronnak, teal eyes wide with a mix of awe and horror; the brothers turned to face the wall together. They may not have stretched wall to wall, as Cronnak had described, but both of them could see the text forming now – carvings so thin they looked etched from thimbles, glowing scarlet as they burnt hot shapes into the smooth surface of the stone. Like the carvings they had etched on their scraps of paper, they appeared to the two Skakdi in a smattering of languages – here some Lesterin, there some ancient Vortixx, some in even the ancient writing of the Skathi from the Time before Time. Other characters were in shapes neither had ever seen before. Worse still was that the text itself felt unfinished; even to the untrained eyes of the two brothers, the meanings of parts of the text felt etched into their very souls. Other parts were completely illegible. Jennak squinted. It was odd; he felt dread, for sure, more than he’d felt at any point during his Mantling. Maybe than any point during his whole life. But he felt fascination, too, woven deep into the complex fabric of his emotions – as though he had arrived at a point in his destiny. With bated breath, he began to read: Across an endless ocean Whe▂▂ bones My key rests ▂▃▅ ▅▅■■■■▅▅▂▂dead demons ▂▂rones T▂▃▅▅rkest of my ▂▃▅▅ Will lead you to ▃▃▅▅▃▃ ▂▂▃▃▃▃▂▂ abyss remembers What ▃▃▅▅▃▃ has forgot Lift ▅▅▅■■■■ ▂▂rown ▂▂▃▃▅▅ tore the heavens down “What does it say?” Jennak asked rhetorically. “No, I know some of it…is that a d there, towards the end? Drown and down? It’s a poem of some sort, or a riddle…Cronnak?” There was a look on his brother’s handsome face he had never seen before. His lips traced the same words that Jennak himself “Jennak?” he finally asked. “You’re right. Cark this place. We’re going home.” He’d never been so happy to hear his brother find reason – snapped from his reverie over the text, he nodded his assent with a relief too great to speak. Cronnak knelt and struck a match on one of his enormous front teeth, touching it to the Najin dust at their feet. The powder went up as fast as its name; the Skakdi did not call it ‘deathly light’ for nothing, but right now there was nothing deathly about the light and the heat that went up down the tunnels. The road of fire they walked alongside improved their moods considerably, and to fill the time retracing their steps the two brothers found it in them, as brothers do, to chat about absolutely nothing. It was empty banter, and both knew it, but they both felt that the sooner they put the mysterious chamber out of their minds the better. For those two hours, despite the ache in Jennak’s legs and the terror of his Mantling thus far, nothing in the world was wrong. Then, suddenly, he realized something was. His teeth were chattering. “Cronnak?” “What is it?” “The fire is cold.” Cronnak jumped on his feet slightly in surprise. He had thought nothing of it – perhaps discounting it as fresher air from the surface as they neared it, perhaps thinking nothing of it so long as the fire gave off light, or perhaps trying deliberately not to think of it. No one could blame a sane man for doing so. But Jennak had the truth of it; he waved his burnt hand over the flames once, twice, and felt only a chill as though he’d dived into Kvere;Ivi. He knew on an intellectual level that he had burnt his hand again, but it didn’t feel like burning. In fact, the flames had begun to smolder when his limb approached them, only to leap and jump as though fueled when he pulled away. “Nektann’s flames…” It was hardly an appropriate curse given the phenomenon, but it was the only one that leapt to mind. “Jennak, how long have they been cold? Jennak? Jennak.” Jennak had stopped in his tracks, so abruptly that Cronnak with his leaden footfalls and steady pace walked right into his brother’s back. “Jennak!” His brother’s bony finger raised in a point. At the end of the serpent of flames, a black warrior stood, drinking up the light. She had raised a hand curiously to feel their tongues, licking over her slender arm. The flames burnt; she did not. Her hand hovered for long seconds, fingers dancing between the fire like she intended to grasp it. She was a head taller than any Skakdi, even powerfully built Cronnak, but slimmer than both brothers. She was emaciated; she was full-figured; she drank in the light and heat and offered Nothing in return. Both Skakdi found it hard to look upon her, for her poise and idle glare both lacked life. It was the same uncomfortable feeling that had gripped them at the antechamber wall. It was something truly alien – the beautiful Vortixx was merely its mask of choice. This was no ghostly text or Antidermis from the skies; this was a tangible threat, and Cronnak;Dii was hewn from the glories of the Ancestors and his forefathers, made for combat and decisive thinking. He tossed a heap of Najin dust into the air before them and smashed his Lightstone against a stalagmite. Antidermis trickled out of the rock, sizzling a hole as it bled from its pocket and towards the ground. Greenish-black and viscous, it bled into the fire and dyed it the same sickly shade. That same fire struck the Najin dust Cronnak had created as a smokescreen, and the Vortixx became just another black candle of flame among many. Using the distraction, he grabbed his brother by the shoulder – hard – and shook him. “Jennak!” Jennak shook limply, paralyzed with indecision and horror. He had finally reached his threshold – the same as Grognak. “Jennak!” His little brother looked up; his eyes had the same pale, listless look as Grognak’s had at the sight of the Vortixx, but the expression itself was unmistakable. He was looking for a way out of this that only Cronnak could provide. Cronnak himself was never much for plan Bs – a course, once imagined, would be followed through without regard for the cost. Any doubts he had about his course he kept to himself, if not crushed outright. When he looked for the final time on Jennak’s pleading look, he crushed them outright. “Help me with the elements,” Cronnak urged him. “It’s going to hurt, but you’re going to make it. After that, you run back the way we came. It’s the carkin’ Rift – a big, straight line back home. Promise me you won’t stop. Promise me you won’t turn back.” Jennak blinked hurriedly; the viridian fire was causing his eyes to singe, and one had begun to water up. “But…my Mantling…” he whispered hoarsely. “They’ll say I abandoned you. They’ll say I was a coward. Fath—Warlord Kredak. He’ kill me.” Cronnak gritted his large teeth in frustration and looked down at his own burnt hand. All doubts were crushed outright. Between those gritted teeth, he set the cord to his buzzsaw and pulled. The chainsaw took three tries to rev to life, but only needed one clean cut. The cord snapped back to the weapon as his teeth unclenched, the echoes of his pained bellow going in both directions – down into the labyrinth and back outside into the Rift. Jennak squealed in shock – at the noise, at the hand falling to the ground, at the blood that splattered his torso and his face, and at horror for his brother’s pain. Cronnak kicked his own dismembered appendage as contemptuously as he would a spider. For her part, the Vortixx seemed curious – not quite unnerved, but certainly taken aback. Notably, she refused to touch the fire now that Antidermis had marked it. “Pick it up,” he hissed, grinning through the pain. “Take it to Kredak. He’ll know you were with me, then. At the end. And if anyone still doubts you, I’ll come back from Kino-Ur myself and drag them back with me, to tell them the truth of how brave you were. Pick it up.” Jennak crouched to do so, and when he stood, he did so with a sob. Cronnak wished he could grip his shoulder one last time, the way he had as they were boys, but to do so would mean dropping the chainsaw. And he would die with that in hand. “Listen to me.” Cronnak’s words and voice were not his own anymore; in them was the steel, the fury and fearlessness of two dozen of the Ancestors, all ready to welcome the young phenom into their ranks. There was no such thing as ‘before his time’ for deaths like this. He would die young, and proud; that way he was sure to join their ranks. “I need your help to control the fire. The Antidermis won’t hold her off once the fire breaks, so you take that chance and you run.” “Maybe—” Jennak licked his lips nervously. “Maybe you can kill it. I can help. Stab her in the back.” His big brother seemed to take some humor in that, though he still growled in impatience at the suggestion. “You’re wasting time.” His brother gulped. “I love you,” he whispered, voice thin and papery. “Just. Run.” Jennak turned towards the flames, ashen-faced. One hand he lifted towards the fire, concentrating on the tunnel beneath. The chainsaw in Cronnak’s remaining hand tilted towards the flames. Together, for the final time, the two brothers joined their minds. The tunnel split in half down the middle, fire and rock erupting outwards and towards the Vortixx. She was lost in a haze of flame and dust, completely obscured. Just like Jennak would be, so long as he ran. The two brothers locked eyes. Cronnak knew Jennak didn’t have it in him – now, of all times in his worthless life, he could not run. So he shoved him. With a final yelp, his brother was lost to the burning smokescreen. Cronnak knew he would never see him again and set his mouth into a hard line. He swallowed a lump and waited for their haze to clear. It did, eventually, cinders and chunks of rock beginning to tumble to the ground and stick against the walls. The Vortixx stood where she had before; Jennak’s body was nowhere to be found. Once he’d been given his head start, he took it and ran. Some would call that cowardice, but Cronnak found it comforting. He’d followed his brother’s final order, despite the impulse of every cell in his body to fight. Those impulses, and accepting his command anyway, did him credit. He just might make a good Skakdi someday. Cronnak smiled ruefully, and gripped the cord between his teeth again. Three strong pulls, and the saw roared to life. Ancestors, guide me. The cord snapped back to his blade as he let out a roar and charged. The Vortixx did not flinch – not at his roar, not at his charge, and not as the saw ran clean through her. Cronnak skidded to a halt, kicking up pebbles and the grey, dead soil of the Rift as he slid out of the cave system and spun on his heels. The Vortixx had been cleaved in half; her lower half, long, spindly legs up to a narrow waist, remained planted on the ground. Her top half hung in midair, suspended, arms splayed out and face serene. Then the top half smiled. Jennak sobbed. He had always been too skinny. All his life, Cronnak had worked with him personally, helped him with weights, running circles around Irnakk’s Tooth, gone climbing together in various parts of the Lesterin’s Crown…everything that a meathead older brother could think of to toughen his younger brother up. He had always been too weak. The best warriors in Warlord Kredak’s hanse had worked with him personally, with his father’s permission and with Cronnak’s recommendation, had taught him swordplay, marksmanship, and elemental finesse, all to no avail. He was discerning with his vision power and had a mind for tactics and cartography, but in a straight fight Jennak had always been as honest with himself as the rest of Zakaz had been – he was worthless at being a warrior. But sobbing, outright, over the death of anyone? It was humiliating. Cronnak would be appalled to know his brother was responding to his glorious death with tears. Anyone else would have cheered for him. But sobbing was all Jennak had. Sobbing, and his brother’s amputated hand, fingers interlaced with his own to prevent him from dropping it. He had no idea how far he had run. His legs throbbed and ached, and his organs felt like they were doused in Antidermis as he sprinted. He had gone too many hours without any water, and by now it felt like it had been a day – five? Ten? – since Grognak had returned to camp with his tale of the Vortixx. He needed rest. He needed water. He needed his brother. But to stop was to die. Hurriedly, he wiped at his eyes. They had started to burn again, independently of his tears; they ached and stung with the feeling of foreign matter. Ash and silt, he thought madly, it’s just ash and silt. That was what Cronnak and Sabnak had both said. But it was more than that. It was ash and silt, and grief, and terror. Then the buzzing began. At first he thought it was mere insects, mosquitos and fleas that even he was mighty enough to swipe away. But then he remembered where he was – this was the Rift, and nothing but demons could live here. Stupidly, he turned over his shoulder to look at them. Insects in the tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, were buzzing after him in black swathes that made him long even for the normal, pallid greys of the Rift. They were gaining fast. His eyes widened at the sight. He tripped. His foot caught on one of the spiny arms of a Miracle Cactus, ripping the plant from the ground as he tumbled and rolled. He could feel the pulp on his feet and tried wiping it off out of impulse. He turned back to look for the swarm, sure by now they would overwhelm him. But there was no swarm. Instead, two dozen Vortixx gauged him silently. Twelve they stood, each on one of the craggy lips of the Rift; they gazed down upon him, in the dug-out crater that gulfed them, like an animal in its pen. Each was unique in her own way, like any sculpture, but they shared the same basic template as any race; some male, some female, but all ebony-armored and eyed, all of a body type that was both uniquely appealing and anatomically wrong. The buzzing resumed as another host of insects, maybe hundreds in number, swirled around his head and descended. When they stopped and congealed, they were no more than fifteen feet behind him. From the swarm stepped another Vortixx – and Jennak realized they were not insects at all, but crystals, infinitesimal in size and infinite in number, and that they were combining to form the Vortixx’s shape. In her hand she held his brother’s saw. Oddly, he did not scream. There was not even any fear anymore – or perhaps it was the other way around, and he was so afraid he had become numb to all else. That sounded more accurate. Irnakk has me now. He just did what Cronnak had told him to do – he stood, not bothering to dust himself off or pick up the Miracle Cactus, and ran. The buzzing did not resume, but he knew they were watching, because when Jennak looked up at either lip of the Rift there they stood, equal in number and gaze, all still watching him flee. He could do nothing about it, though; he could do nothing but run, and run, and run until he tasted the sweet air beyond the Rift. Or until the demons grew bored of him, at last, and decided to descend. -Tyler

Mata Nui Online Game Improvement Mod or MNOGIM MNOG is a well-made flash game that, thanks to its use of vector graphics, still looks great even two decades later. However, it does suffer from a few bugs, as well as from the compression once needed to send the non-vector graphics over dial-up internet. My goal with this project is to improve the experience of playing MNOG to be the best it can be. Those at the BioMedia Project have provided versions of MNOG on their website that play at the appropriate 18 fps and save your progress as you play. I have used their original 2001 auto-saving version as a base. High-Quality JPEG Replacement MNOG makes use of many highly-compressed JPEG images. I have re-created nearly every image at the same resolution, but much higher quality. A few images didn’t have an obvious method for re-creation, such as the Ta-Wahi beach sand, so instead I either upscaled with various methods or cleaned up the jpeg artifacts to the best of my ability. Bug Fixes I have fixed a few bugs in the game, such as Maku teleporting to Po-Wahi, incorrectly overlapping layers, and typos. General Changes I have made a number of changes to improve the gameplay: The Telescope wouldn’t update because it looked for 2001 dates, now it updates as you progress through the game; Maku won’t arrive on the beach until you have visited Vakama; A guard will stop you from using the Ta-Onu Highway until after Ga-Koro; Added black bars to the sides of the screen to prevent widescreens from viewing non-playable area; Book of Chronicles can now scroll from bottom to top and vice-versa; Stopped the Ta-Koro gate from instantly slamming down in front of you when you click it; Disabled ability to cross lava when bridge is down & lowered bridge sprites; Villagers no longer tell you that Nokama has a mission for you until you have the chisel; You can now update Maku on Huki’s status; Added check so that Kapura will not be wandering the woods while also in your company. Color Consistency I've modified several Matoran colors, such as changing Matoran eye colors to be consistent with how they are shown in later animations, and a few instances of incorrectly colored parts. Clone Replacement I've changed the appearance of several otherwise identical Matoran to be a little more unique. Eventually I plan for almost all Matoran to have their own unique colors/appearance. Full list of All-In-One changes can be found here. How To Install You’ll first need to install MNOG (Original 2001 Version) from BioMedia Project. You can download the mod as an All-In-One or you can grab separate sections. Install these separate sections in this order as desired: Bug Fixes High-Quality JPEG Replacement General Changes + High-Quality JPEG Replacement Color Consistency + General Changes + High-Quality JPEG Replacement Clone Replacement + Color Consistency + General Changes + High-Quality JPEG Replacement For the All-In-One: Unzip 'MNOGIM All In One.zip' and copy the ‘Mata Nui Online Game’ folder to the same folder that holds your ‘Mata Nui Online Game.exe’ file. Overwrite all files it asks to overwrite. You are now ready to go. For Bug Fixes: Unzip the .zip file and copy the ‘Mata Nui Online Game’ folder to the same folder that holds you ‘Mata Nui Online Game.exe’ file. Overwrite all files it asks to overwrite. For High-Quality JPEG Replacement: Same as for Bug Fixes. For General Changes + High-Quality JPEG Replacement: Install High-Quality JPEG Replacement and then General Changes the same way as Bug Fixes. For Color Consistency + General Changes + High-Quality JPEG Replacement: Install High-Quality JPEG Replacement and then General Changes and then Color Consistency the same way as Bug Fixes. For Clone Replacement + Color Consistency + General Changes + High-Quality JPEG Replacement: Install High-Quality JPEG Replacement and then General Changes and then Color Consistency and then Clone Replacement the same way as Bug Fixes.

OOC: Recommended listening. IC My name is Korero. You might know me as “Toa Korero Maru”. That’s who I’m supposed to be now. “Toa” isn’t a title: it’s a promise. To do what’s right, to stand united against the darkness, and to protect the people of the Great Spirit. I’ve been thinking a lot about promises lately. Before I was Toa Korero Maru, I was just Korero: just a little Matoran with his head in the clouds who stumbled his way into the web of fate. Into a Destiny. I wasn’t even a fighter; my Brothers and Sister all served their Koro before we became Toa, but I barely knew how to hold a spear. Sometimes that feels like a lifetime ago, and sometimes like it’s been no time at all. Sometimes I feel like I’m still just that little Matoran, play-acting at being a Toa. Sometimes I wonder why the Great Spirit chose me for this — and sometimes, when I’m at my lowest, I wonder if he even did. Faith. That’s another promise. Its symbol is there on my shield to remind people of that most intangible yet crucial of the Principles. By carrying that shield I’m promising that there is always hope, that people can rely on us, that Mata Nui will provide…but now, I’m not always sure I believe it myself. Two years ago, we fought Makuta, and we won. Or we thought we did. We certainly said we did. That’s what we told the people of Mata Nui, and what I had the indescribable honour of carving into the Wall of History. It wasn’t a lie — not on my part, anyway. I believed it. I trusted Stannis when he told us that the power of his mask, the power of Mata Nui, had vanquished Makuta. The ways of the Great Spirit are mysterious, and Stannis was our leader. I had faith. I didn’t think I needed to ask questions. Sure, nobody said he was gone for good, but I let myself believe it, and I let the people of Mata Nui believe the same: that we could live in peace and prosperity, free of fear. I didn’t learn the truth until later. After the peace we’d built was shattered by the Piraka, we confronted Stannis. At first he wouldn’t talk, and I think that’s when my faith in him broke. Until then, Reordin and I had been the chalk-and-cheese of the team…but in that moment, we became a united front. We were the only ones who really stood up to him. I know Oreius was angry too, but duty always comes first with him. Leah tried to mediate, as she always does, and Sulov was as inscrutable as ever. Only Reo and I could bring ourselves to call Stannis out on his careful omissions. But he wouldn’t talk. It took more escalations — above all, Ko-Koro — for him to relent and explain that Makuta hadn’t been destroyed, only banished to the Legend. I still don’t really understand what the Legend is, but I now know it’s a far less impregnable prison than Stannis would’ve had us, and everyone else, believe. Makuta is back. I’m sure of it. I’ve been to Kini-Nui — you can feel it there. Even in the brightest sunshine, you feel cold. In your bones. A prickle on the back of your neck, like you’re being watched. I don’t even dare go into Mangaia any more: the Rahkshi are moving, crawling out of whatever caves and crevices they’d retreated to after we cleared it out. They’re focused, they’re coordinated, and their numbers seemed to grow each time I scouted the tunnels. I think an attack is coming. All this time, we let our people believe they were safe. That they could grow and build unthreatened. That it was the beginning of a golden age of peace. But it was only ever a brief reprieve: a long, deep breath before a second plunge. If they’d known he was coming back, they could’ve used that time to prepare, to build defences and unite their forces. I come back to the symbol on the shield: Faith. Hope. False hope is no hope at all, and a lie of omission is still a lie. Promises. Before this all went to Karzahni, back when it really did feel like a lasting peace, I made another promise: to Kongu, the Akiri of Le-Koro. He’s a good man, a good leader, and a friend. I trust him, and I’m honoured to be the protector of his city. He’d just given a speech to usher in a “new dawn” for our people, and we walked together in the treetop streets. He hadn’t shown it in his speech, but he was troubled. I still remember what he asked of me: "No matter how bad things get, no matter how things fall-break apart, no matter what happens, you and the Toa-hero Maru must remain allies until the last man. Do you understand me my friend?" At the time I didn’t really understand. I couldn’t imagine a future where the Maru weren’t united. Now I understand what he was asking…and now I fear I can’t keep that promise. Now more than ever, Mata Nui needs the Maru, and needs us united — not just as warriors, but as champions, as symbols. I know that. But a team needs a leader, and I don’t know if I can ever follow Stannis again. It’s not just about the principle of telling the truth; it’s about the consequences too. If the Akiri had known we wouldn’t be out from under the Shadow forever, they could’ve prepared for this. How many innocents will die because we — because he — never gave them that chance? When I carved our story on the Wall, I left out the part about our predecessors. The First Toa, the Mata whose power lives on in us, descended into Mangaia long before we ever did…and they fell. Everyone knows that much. But they didn’t just fall: they were turned. Twisted into beings of Shadow. We faced them when we made our own descent, and we won, but the price of victory was the knowledge that even the greatest of heroes can become nightmares of Makuta. That part of the story isn’t on the Wall. We discussed it, as a team, and the decision was that it was best to let the memory of the First Toa remain pure…that the truth would do more harm than good. I disagreed, but I was outvoted, so I did as I was told and left it out: a little white lie, carved in the spaces between words. I didn’t even know I was carving one far bigger. Lies of omission are. still. lies. At the time I was blinded by the glory of our victory, and the honour of being asked to carve the fabled Wall of History. Now I don’t think I should’ve done it. I think that’s why we need Chroniclers: the quiet watchers, the storytellers, unclouded by the compromises of power and responsibility. They keep us honest. But when the ones with all the power get to decide how their own stories are told…where does that lead? It leads us here. I just wish I knew what comes next. *** Korero sighed, and flipped the leather cover of his notebook closed again, slotting the pencil into its pouch and slipping the whole ensemble back into his satchel. Pouring his troubles out onto the page always helped him get his thoughts in order, but it never really changed anything. He looked out at the view from the roof of his hut: treetops, stretching almost to the horizon, a sea of brilliant green leaves and just a hint of the real sea beyond, all bathed in glorious afternoon sunshine with hardly a cloud in the sky. It all still looked so idyllic…but he knew it was a mirage. The Shadow had already begun to fall over Le-Wahi once more. He rose to his feet, still looking out across the treetops, his gaze hardening as he tried to forge his dread into determination. Enough waiting. Enough worrying. It was time for him to act. Time to make it right. As for what that actually means…I’ll just have to figure it out as I go. He closed his eyes, concentrated on his destination, and in a flash of light he was gone.

GM IC: “Lord Rayuke.” “Umbraline Masayoshi.” My boss, one of the foremost Battlemasters in the Empire, a member of my own clan’s nobility, uncle to the Rora, and the Imperial Executioner said with stiff, unusual formality. In my years of service he had never called me by clan unless introducing me, not once since the day I began my watch. Not a good sign. But if that was a poor sign the long, gleaming blade that rested on a bench next to him was worse. “Kneel.” But I knew that before I came here. “Some things have… Happened. Since my time. In contemplation.” “Yes, my Lord.” I knew this would come. Despite the results, my transgressions have to be considered. The world may be coming down around us, but Order has to be maintained. I don’t care about that. Not before, but especially not now. Order could follow the entire Empire to the in which we now reside, but I do understand Rayuke’s anger. It isn’t about the laws I broke. Or about the risks I ran. It’s about the trust I betrayed. I could try to run away, I could escape to the Dastana, or try to flee across the sea, but I… “Explain them to me.” “I abused the powers of your office. Powers that do not belong to me. I issued instructions to the Hogo in your name.” I don’t want to run. I did what I did knowing there would be consequences, and knowing I would face them. And pay them. I was willing to risk my life to bring the Chojo home safely. A fair trade. I held my shoulders back and my head high, facing straight ahead. “I consorted with a hostile power. I enlisted the aid of a traitor. I have fought, and killed, citizens of the Empire with your authority. I slew a Toroshu. I left you unguarded while I did, and in so doing I have betrayed the vows I swore the day you brought me here from the Umbraline estate.” The last bothers me the most. I’ve never spoken of it to him. It wouldn’t have been appropriate. But my position at the estate was killing me slowly, piece by piece. With infinite kindness, consideration, and patience. With every act of compassion they drove another nail in my coffin, reinforced again and again that I was to be treated with gentleness, regarded with deference, but never to be respected. I was there to be cared for, to be shown as a pious example of sacrifice for clan and Empire.I didn’t need their sympathy. I didn’t want it. I needed to get mad, I needed to work to pull myself back to my feet and I needed their help to do it. Maybe it wouldn’t have changed anything. But that was the support I needed, and I didn’t get it… Until Rayuke stopped by the estate. He never questioned if I could do the job. Only if I was the right woman for it. From the day I swore my loyalty he never treated me differently from any other Menti, never tried to shield me from danger. I was his guard and he placed in me his confidence. He trusted me not just with his life but that of his nieces, people he valued more than his own safety. And I took advantage of that trust. “My acts come perilously close to treason.” I drew a deeper breath and tightened my hands on my lap as he remained quiet, silently pressing me to continue. He knew what was coming, just as I did, and I think he wanted to see if I would say it myself. If I could take that last step after walking into my own trial. “I submit myself to your judgement, Lord Rayuke. And if you judge that I have strayed so far, I ask only that I may see the gardens I have spent so long in properly.” And that you forgive me, I added silently to myself. That was more important than anything but I- “You… may not.” He rumbled, and for once he was… Taken aback. I had never seen anything like it. He almost rocked back, an immense reaction from a man so controlled, as though I had struck him with all the power in my frame. I couldn’t see his face- a limitation of my ‘eyes’- but I felt at once like I had misjudged the situation entirely.... And that I had wounded him, unintentionally, with my guess. “”It is… In shambles. Those monsters performed… A bombing run. I have not even begun… To correct the damage.” “Masayoshi… Masa.” He began again, the severity gone from his voice. He sounded gentler than I had ever heard, for once looked every one of his years; as though he had aged a lifetime in mere moments. When he began again it was without the voice that could make him seem so brutish, ‘speaking’ in such a way to properly convey all of the nuance that I could not see. .:You aren’t here for judgement, my guardian. You’ve worked for me so long, I thought…:. He seemed to resettle, shifting to regard me with his full attention. And his respect. .:But then you’ve always worked for me, haven’t you? You’ve never considered me your equal. Nor should you have, I know. I’ve always treated you as my underling. But you’re so much more than that. My sister was, and now my niece is, my Rora. My sister could never be close with me after that. Especially not after I was sent to the mines. I have no children. And I have slain too many to truly have friends. They’re all afraid of me.:. His tone softened, mellowed by an untold sadness, and he cocked his head uncertainly. .:I never would have thought you were. But you would be more than mortal if you weren’t, wouldn’t you? Maybe you went too far. The Dastana are not our enemy. You did not aid Inokio, you required him to aid you. You fought those who set themselves against your Rora. And you brought my niece home safe and sound.:. .:Even if that were not so, do you think I could punish you so casually? Here in my garden, without a trial? Without giving you a chance to appeal to your Rora?:. Rayuke shook his head. .:Masa. You aren’t my servant, or my slave. You have been the closest thing to a friend that I have, and you have been my protege. And I could not be prouder of you.:. “Lord Rayuke, I…” .:Please just listen, Masa. You’re rash. You’re bullheaded. And even now I know there’s so much anger inside of you.:. He stood and turned towards a small writing desk tucked into the office just past his garden, and walked towards it with slow deliberate strides. .:It reminds me so much of how I used to be. But you have never acted with any less integrity than you believe your oath requires, even when you wanted to so badly. You have never even broached with me your accident because you knew that if I were to hear the truth I would have no choice but to see justice done.:. .:It would have been the smallest thing, Masa. Zuto Nui knows I’ve given you the chance to tell me. But you refused to use your position that way. I appreciate it more than you’ll ever know.:. My ward shook his head, a ponderous movement, and picked up a wrapped package and a bottle off of the desk. .:Sit, please.:. I sank onto the cushion in front of his table, onto the one that had over the years come to be mine. The absurdity of the thought, at this moment, in this uncertainty, brought a laugh bubbling to the surface just barely caught before its escape. At the end of an Empire all I can do is make sure that I have my pillow at the right spot near the table. Rayuke knows it, too. The deep rumble of a chuckle proves that. He’s twitted me with endless politeness about my dedication to Order, at least where my pillow is concerned. He insists that he has to tell guests not to use it lest I know that the shape is wrong. I reached for the bottle out of long habit to pour us both a drink and Rayuke pulled it away, pouring instead for the both of us. Which is blatantly, blatantly wrong. By every standard I should pour for him, just like I always have, and it’s making me a whole lot nervous the way he keeps breaking the rules. When I thought I was coming here to be punished everything made sense. Now I don’t know what is going on. So I take my drink, raise it in silent toast, and take a good long sip. .:Better.:. He rumbled, taking a drink of his own. .:Masa. I called you here to release you of your oath.:. “No!” The outburst escapes before I can rein it in, touching upon wounded pride atop the fear that I know he must feel too. Now. He can’t possibly do this now, not when he will need my help more than ever. He will need it, Desdemona will need it. To escape the archipelago will take a miracle, and he wants to- “My Lord, I don’t think this is the-” .:Enough.:. The mental plane cracks with the force of command, and he pours again in the silence. .:I’m going to do something foolish. Lethally so, perhaps. I’m an old fool, Masa, old enough to have earned the right to be a fool. I do not have the right to drag you along with me.:. .:This is my home. All of it.:. He gestured expansively, less I think for my benefit than for his. He knows I can’t see it, but he’s always been one to gesture. It helps him to make his point. Sometimes he can be less sure of his words than he acts, but the eyes can rarely lie. .:The Palace, the Yards, the Gardens, every alley and square and plain between here and the mines in which I labored. This land is what I know. It’s what feels right. I never wanted this job, but my sister needed me. I would have been happier to garden.:. .:There will be no need for an Imperial Executioner on Mata Nui. We will have to adapt, and I will never be able to do so. Nor will our people do so if I am there to watch them. I am a relic now, part of an era that is ending. And I helped to bring this threat about. I helped to unbalance our land.:. His ‘voice’ hardened. .:I will help to end it if I can. My duty now, Masa, is to right the wrongs that I can while I can.:. He’s not going to leave.The thought echoes in my brain, a contradiction of a simple truth that I thought I knew. But it wasn’t so shocking, not when I thought about it. My ward could never leave innocents in danger. Not when he could do something about it. Whoever he might once have been, whatever his job was, that was an inviolable truth of Umbraline Rayuke. And there would be innocents left behind, people in danger. Evacuating everyone was simply impossible. “What will you do?” I asked simply, instead. It wasn’t up for debate. I couldn’t stop him, and it wasn’t my place to. “And have you told the Rora?” .:I’ve told both of my nieces.:. He answered, taking a long drink of his own. .:They weren’t happy. I understand why. But even if we did need an Executioner, my badge of office is gone.:. .:Which is also why I can’t pass it to you.:. “What? To me?” I choked on my sip, coughing and meeting his gaze as best I could. “Me?” .:Someone has to take care of my nieces for me, Masa. They’re the only family I have left. They will need guidance, and our people will need help. I don’t think of you as an Executioner, perhaps… Maybe a Justicar. The term doesn’t matter.:. He tapped the package on the table between us. .:I had this made a short time ago, before all of this. I think it’s more important now than it was then. White and black, not a trace of Umbraline purple to be found. You don’t like it, and it would undermine the message.:. He stopped, tapping the side of his cup gingerly. .:I think Zataka has something of a grudge. Towards me, and those Dashi. Take care of them, too. I swore them safe passage and I won’t be there to uphold it.:. The tall Battlemaster smiled, a warm gesture. .:Not as an order. As a request. From a friend to a friend. Equal to equal.:. “... Of course I will.” .:Thank you. One more thing, actually. Ah…:. He laughed aloud, almost sheepishly. .:On the voyage. Don’t let them eat Kellin’s crab.:. “His… crab?” The man who had been Executioner nodded, chuckling. .:His crab. As much as it galls me, little guy saved my life. Take care of him, too.:. ____________________________________________________________________________ The problem was distance, and to a lesser extent time. The Imperial City simply wasn’t built as a city for war, or if it was hundreds of generations of peace and building made it an awful, Zuto- place to defend. Years and years of expansion until the Palace covered all of Sado destroyed any tactical design that had ever gone into the Residences. No, that isn’t quite fair. The Residences still stand, unbroken if not unafraid. But the rest of Sado is not so fortunate. The other parts of the city expand outwards into a ring and none but the Yards are defended so thoroughly as the Residences. We were lucky for a while. The creatures were slow to come, and as stragglers and refugees reached us we learned why. The monsters scattered as they descended from Mt. Koshiki seeking the most fortified clans first. They did not eradicate… But they did destroy. Walls, crops, supplies, any material goods that might have been of use were destroyed by stave, claw, or teeth. When Menti tried to stop them, they were killed. And they continued until resistance had stopped. Scores dead, ancient lands ravaged, and no knowledge of what had come. This scourge swept over the land for a day, then two, then three, and then it was Sado’s turn. They poured over the walls, through the walls, and deep into the city. Some could pass through barriers like nothing, some could simply chew their way through them. Crystal shattering into dust with nothing more than a touch. And all of them could fly. Only the Residences and the Yards were clear with any certainty; the Wards had been hit hardest, the many apartments an infinite number of hiding places for infiltrators that could pass so easily throughout the city. Keeping two sections clear was quite an accomplishment. The trouble with their defensive plan was that even though they were mostly safe, the only place that they could complete their evacuation from was the Imperial Docks attached to the Yards. To evacuate the Rora and her family a path would have to be cleared from the Residences to the Yards. .:We also serve who sit and read.:. .:Shut up, Nono, I mean it.:. .:Thaaat was what you said. When you told me we should come to Sado, instruct others in the things we’ve learned. Nnnnow look at us.:. .:Nono,:. The taller Menti said, a belt of Eiryu blue with three golden knots about her waist, said to the second just behind her. ‘Nono’s’ belt matched, but tied the other way; a left hand to her Twin’s right. .:If the bugs-:. .:-don’t kill me, you will?:. She finished cheerfully, sparing a grin while her eyes swept their surroundings. Theirs were the only garments in such a color, but they weren’t outnumbered; the variegation in their little band was shocking for anything but the end of the world. Ageru, Umbraline, Roku, Vilda, and even a couple Fursics who had nowhere left to turn when news of their clan’s dissolution came home. Worse than their disunity was their inexperience; their betters had decided to balance the need for experienced warriors to defend the Residences, and the need for experienced warriors to help clear the paths. To uncover the Residences would invite disaster, to fail to clear a path would be a waste of valuable time. Nono understood, but she didn’t like it. Herself and her Twin were both Battlemasters, but the half dozen Menti under their command were not. Some far from it. It wasn’t their fault, she had to admit. There hadn’t been a real armed conflict since the last Fursic uprising, something none of these girls had been alive for. Or, if they had been they were too small to pick up a sword. .:Aina.:. Words weren’t something they needed, not with each other. But to use her name was a tap on the shoulder, a request for particular attention before the flow of thought began. That intricate exchange of impulse and feeling without need for words. She was worried. Her partner Knew, and answered with understanding without condemnation. It wasn’t quite fear that gripped her heart, not for herself alone. A Battlemaster surpassed fear, without it their will could not possibly be so strong. She felt the deeper dread that only one of them might live. That their spirit would be reduced, would be fractured without hope of healing. Soothing compassion whispered across their bond, carrying with it a touch of will. The feeling of victory and the determination of a warrior to bolster her scholarly Twin, the need to be strong. Without them not one of these Menti would come back alive. More than powerful they needed to be confident and commanding, to bolster the spirits of their little unit. Belief was as important as any sword. And unspoken below their communion was the promise that neither would say aloud; that they would both return or neither would. It was the briefest of connections, a blink of the eye their cohort didn’t even notice, and their attention snapped back to the present. They hadn’t encountered one of the insects in the hour since they had set out, and the absence was beginning to make them leery. A beast might avoid them if it were timid enough but nothing about these creatures had been timid. Their aggression had been unmatched, uncanny, so why weren’t they striking? They were around somewhere. Saki had detected at least one with her Mask of Sensory Aptitude barely twenty minutes ago, heard the uneasy sound of claws on crystal to the west. Not even a block off of the route they needed to clear for the party coming up the street forty minutes’ walk behind. But the city block went silent as soon as they altered course, so Saki took the lead to search with the Furic Soulsword backing her up. Still nothing. It worked in the back of Nono’s mind, turned over and over looking for the answer. It felt like a trap, but could these monsters plan like that? Nothing about their movements had suggested strategy, but- Saki never even screamed, only gurgled briefly around the Soulsword that sprouted from her mouth before the wound burned closed. The Fursic’s lips contorted with a snarl of vicious hate as she yanked her blade free, scarcely in time to catch a strike from the shocked Ageru Menti that had been watching her from the beginning. Shimmering energy illuminated her Calix as confusion melted understanding and disgust. “Our clan wasn’t enough, you Umbraline sellout? Had to to finish us off?” She snarled, allowing her Soulsword to dissipate and twisting out of the way of the descending Agery scythe with sinuous grace. The blade reappeared in her other hand at the end of the move, carried cleanly into the Ageru’s hamstring. “You make me sick.” “Me? You killed Saki!” The Ageru gasped, bracing hard on her other leg for balance. “Look at her!” “What? I didn’t-” The words died in her throat as she saw their Roku guide facedown in the dirt, the color draining from her face. “How-” Nono never registered Aina’s warning, she simply spun as an extension of her Twin and stopped the stave plunging towards her spine dead with a telekinetic grip. The gray beast’s face split in vicious, soundless cry and it snapped a kick into her midriff with unholy ferocity. In contrast to its silence the crack of her rib was unmistakable. Freed from her grip its stave rose from below to open her from hip to shoulder stopped just short by a shimmering naginata. The stave did not melt, but crackled violently where the energy touched it as it ducked back from a blistering counter strike. It was a trap, and one that had already reduced their capable number by two. Saki was dead, and a lamed Soulsword was no help at all. Even as the beast with damaged staff stepped back the rest of the trap snapped shut, as two more with varying sickly yellow highlights simply appeared. An illusion. The first must have silenced the others, while one simply hid them from view. And manipulated them into attacking their own. There was no time to think about it, only hope they lived long enough to pass the word. The beasts weren’t just smart, they were coordinated. The Ageru and Fursic Menti- she wasn’t even sure they had ever been introduced- fell first. Wracked by guilt the latter tried to defend the former, striking at the nearest monster’s open faceplate. But to no avail. Her Soulsword struck, struck home, and the creature simply… Bit down. It faded a second later as she went limp with the creature’s claws around her throat. The hobbled Ageru didn’t even do as well, simply stabbed and tossed aside with no way to properly defend herself. In less than a minute the insects had very nearly evened the odds, outnumbered only by two. The silent Rahkshi came in again, low and fast, sensing Nono’s weakness in her labored breath. Her eyes widened, she gasped in pain as she tried to evade and the Rahkshi’s staff drove home entirely without resistance. And then she simply disappeared. The Rahkshi had only a second to see her Twin, standing stock-still just to its left, eyes aglow with power, before the naginata in her hand severed its spine and it saw nothing again. Nono wasn’t idle, however. Her rib was definitely broken, and her breaths were coming shallow and rapid. So she might have perforated a lung, too. In either case moving vigorously wasn’t a good idea, but one of the beasts had disappeared again. Probably the illusionist. Her remaining band of subordinates were trying to fight the one that had killed the Fursic, but every blow they landed seemed to no avail. It wasn’t even scratched and one of its foes was already losing blood from a wound to the shoulder. She had an idea of how to deal with that, maybe, but the illusionist was a bigger problem. It had played their band like a lute, and seemed able to do it again. A master Sighteye could replace reality with an illusion so lifelike as to be indistinguishable. A Soulsword could be dodged, a Mindarm tired, and a Willhammer resisted for their art was one of subtlety. But a Sighteye, even if detected, could not be stopped. How could you find someone that fooled your every sense? You struck faster than they could think. Nono drew as deep a breath as she could, circles the dirt beneath her foot with a raised sole, and tapped the earth. Silt blasted outwards from the impact, nearly aerosolized so fine was the spray. Two meters in every direction blocking out the view from beyond; but caking the unseen form to her right. It vanished half a second later, its owner catching on to her trick, but too late. Ethereal light cleaved its head from its body, and Aina stepped out of the cloud coughing delicately. “Nono, are you alright? Let me help you, we need to get out of here.” The naginata dissipated and she stepped forward quickly, arms outstretched to support her Twin just to stagger when Nono drove the Soul dagger into her heart. Betrayal flickered briefly in her eyes, face contorting into rage and clawed fingers rising again to try and lay hands on her killer just once before she passed. But the Eiyu Battlemaster twisted the dagger, and Aina shuddered once, twice, and sagged. “Clever,” Her voice dripped with hatred as the buckling form melted and gave way to a gray and yellow carapace. “You thought I wouldn’t notice when you stabbed her.” Only Aina’s pained, wordless affirmation of safety (relatively speaking) stilled the sick churning in her stomach. It was fortune, blind luck, that the beast had been as blinded as her Twin when it struck. It couldn’t see her well enough to manage a killing blow. The illusionist must have been hiding that one, one last trick. But the dust was clearing and the last still stood where one of her Menti did not. The creatures clearly could be killed, even if their armor resisted traditional weapons. Soulswords could cut through it if they could get close. But only the head and spine seemed to be of any real vitality. That didn’t matter, what mattered is that this one was different. Its impervious hide wasn’t innate, it was a power like any other. And she could put a stop to that. Green eyes locked on its form, welling with hatred for what these creatures had done to the people she was supposed to lead, and the smell of an old library overwhelmed its senses. Its mind was… Evil. Feral. It grappled, pushed, shrieked at the very touch of her mind but it was not in control. Something bigger, something stronger, plucked at its strings. Bent its savagery to her will, coordinated them with precision towards their kills. It did not reside within the monster but outside it, controlling it from afar. All she need do was halt one of those strings for just a moment, coincide it exactly with the moment one of her Menti went to attack. A moment, two, three, and pluck. The Rahkshi faltered, and in that critical second its power failed. A spear struck into its armor, piercing deeply but not enough to kill. It shrieked with real pain and the other Menti grabbed it, held it in place with her mind while her peer pulled the spear back to finish the job and- Something Else noticed. She had been so far beneath its notice, a pebble before a god, but in that briefest second that its control was interrupted it noticed. Noticed the same way that a pebble under foot felt different from the rest of the ground it trod upon. It noticed and an ugly, petty something inside It hated the interruption and seethed with sick, uncomplicated enjoyment that the pebble was within her reach. It reached out through its puppet yet to die and grabbed her mind with both hands, fingers wrapped like vises around her skull and squeezed and burrowed with incessant pressure. It looked within her and began to pull her apart to the last fiber, reducing her very soul to its base components slowly and painfully to see what made her tick. Someone screamed, and Nono was distantly aware that it was her; and that she had fallen to the ground and broken her nose. Time slowed, the torment seemed to go on forever, and then her Twin was there. A gentle, soothing presence in her mind that even weakened with pain promised support. A bastion of sanity that could not be stripped away, told her that all she had to do was hold on. The spear struck home again and the pressure vanished as though it had never been, leaving her panting and trembling upon the dirt. “Get the Toroshu forward,” She rattled to the Vilda holding her spear, pushing herself to her knees. “The path won’t stay clear for long. Saori, you need to help me with Aina. She can’t walk without help and I can’t carry her. Leave the dead. We can’t help them.” ____________________________________________________________________________ Nono breathed and for the first time in nearly an hour it didn’t hurt. It did nothing to combat her exhaustion and nothing to clean the blood that had dribbled from her nose. But she was whole again. So was Aina, and that was something of a mixed blessing at the moment. The other Eiyu’s mouth was set in a hard, grim line as she walked— stalked, more than anything— up to the Toroshu standing on the docks. Neither of them had ever been here before but this particular dock clearly belonged to a Saihoko fisherwoman, not to any Toroshu. The trawler was worn and grubby, not from disuse but from regular use. It had been someone’s livelihood. Emphasis on the ‘had’, for a handful of bodies had been haphazardly covered up after being shuffled aside. “What in Zuto Nui’s name have you done?” She snarled, forcefully enough to raise the Toroshu’s eyebrows. A guard stiffened, reaching for her blade, but stilled at a graceful gesture from the Toroshu. “What, the Hoko? Calmly, Lady Eiyu. I informed them that I would require their boat. They refused.” “It was their ship!” “And I have need of it.” A note of frost crept into her voice at last, as the Dashi and Menti that bore her colors loaded crates onto the ship. “Order must be enforced by Power, if a Hoko won’t do it for their own honor. A lighter punishment might have been offered in peace, but this is a crisis. In Zuto Nui’s name, as you put it, my family must survive. As must yours, a fact I’m sure your Toroshu would remind you of. In the meantime, mind your tongue.” Aina stiffened, fuming, as the Toroshu continued. “Battlemaster you may be but you are a Menti. Mind your betters.” “My apologies, my lady,” The Eiyu forced out calmly, though Nono felt her simmering under the surface. “But might I politely ask why you’re loading these crates?” “Child, surely you realize that my family’s resources cannot be left for the Dastana to find. The Rora has no power to command me to abandon my clan’s treasures, and neither do you.” The Toroshu turned away in dismissal, beginning her walk onto the ship’s deck. “You have done your duty admirably, Lady Eiyu, and I have instructed my healer to tend to you and your partner as reward. The rest is not your concern. I am sure others are awaiting your aid.” The Eiyu’s gaze moved between the Toroshu’s retreating back, the guard that gazed at her with warning, and the pile by the dock. For a brink, Nono knew, she hovered on the brink of the unthinkable. But she couldn’t let that happen. They had a duty to perform, and slaying all of the people here would not undo what had been done. And done legally. Things were different beyond the Eiyu’s walls, something her Twin knew and accepted once the thought had reached her. It allowed her to step back from the precipice, back towards her Twin. The grim smile they shared acknowledged what both knew the other to think. And acknowledged that no matter what they did here the same thing was happening everywhere. ____________________________________________________________________________ .:Remember the plan, Masa.:. .:I will. Rayuke.:. It felt wrong to say, still, but the command had been without negotiation. Whether he was the Executioner or not he was the Umbraline’s First Son and his command was to be obeyed… Even if it was to treat him like an equal. .:Good luck.:. I’m not a fan of this plan and he knows it. But he’s also right. It’s the best we can do. Behind me are arrayed three parties, each dedicated to the protection of a single cause. Myself, and the Menti at my side, formed around the six Dashi that Rayuke had charged me to care for. Behind me another group gathered around the Rora and behind her around Desdemona. For each the highest priority went to their own charge in hope that most would make it through to the Docks even if some were to fall. Rayuke would be the distraction. The fact, in some oblique way, seemed to amuse him. I can’t fathom why, but his sense of humor was always… Odd. He can’t possibly be as relaxed as he seems but if he isn’t I can’t tell. He’s never been moved easily, not in the time that I’ve served him. And now he has trusted me with his family and his sacred honor. Zuto Nui, you and I haven’t seen eye to eye. Not in the past, and especially not now. But he believes you have a plan. He believes in you. Don’t let him down. ____________________________________________________________________________ There’s no blaming Masayoshi for being worried, he reflected. The man who had been Executioner strode out into the open air, down the courtyard of the Residences and past the haggard defenders. Long, easy strides carried him quickly but without hurry; he might simply have been seeking some fresh air had it not been for the tension in the air. She can’t help but worry because, at the end of the day, Masa had never known him in his youth. She hadn’t even been born. To know his past was one thing. To understand it was impossible, as it was for his own nieces. It didn’t make sense. The man who had borne the heavy burden of justice all their lives, the man who spoke so slowly, the man who spent his leisure carving beautiful statues to fill his garden could not possibly have done what was said. It must have been a misunderstanding, or more likely a coverup. It wouldn’t be the first time. Sometimes niceties had to be preserved even at the cost of one’s reputation. Rayuke knew better. “Zataka…” He rumbled into silence, standing with his feet planted shoulder width apart. His rounded shoulders flexed as he crossed his arms across his chest with the sun catching upon his Rode. “You vengeful harlot.” “You said your Sons would have no mercy for me, so why am I here?” Deep within a flame long controlled was stoked, fed with the injustice of Her actions. Stoked with the intensity of his determination, his dedication, and his bone deep conviction that everything would happen as it was meant to. Freeing this evil, be she Zataka or an impostor, was his doing. It was meant to be. He had to believe that. That there was a reason, in Zuto Nui’s plan, that she had to prevail just this once. Just as he believed that there had to be a reason that he was spared. And in the end, just this once, he was angry. Truly angry. He had learned to control. To temper his anger with compassion and duty, to vent his frustrations into productive pursuits. That his fellow Dasaka were not appropriate targets for the tempers of his youth. But these were not his fellow Dasaka, and to crush them would be very productive. “Perhaps… They are not strong enough. A terrible reflection. I am a Son of Zataka, be you she. Surely one of yours must be my equal.” A low, sibilant hiss came from the dark places around him. The nooks, the crannies, the rubble where once had been beauty. “Here… I am. Unarmed. Alone. One that you failed... To kill. Despite the treachery of your gratitude.” The hiss came again, louder and deeper with the fibrillating undertone of rage. “Pathetic.” Long ago, for Yusanora’s birthday, the Fursics had asked of the Vilda a Rahi. Something big, something powerful, something that could stir a crowd as they had in old. The Vilda knew what would be done. Regretfully they gave to the Fursics the Rahi they asked, and it was raised large and strong. And on the day of the Rora’s birth, as part of the grand spectacle arrayed in the Colosseum to honor her they placed this beast with a single Fursic Menti to goad it into charging. She was permitted no powers, nothing but her wit and her skill. It was barbaric, senseless, and it had filled him with disgust even then. As it had Yusanora, though she had no choice but to applaud the show. Just as the Fursics had intended, of course. But he remembered the dart, that last jab that provoked the creature at last. Just as he did. The first Rahkshi to spring forth slammed into the floor with his pickhammer in its head. The second he bashed against the ground until nothing remained, threw into the fourth, and swung at the fifth. He roared as they shrieked in kind and the battle was joined. With tooth and claw, and staff and Soul, and fist and spirit. Just one he grabbed by the throat, fingers wrapped around its writhing spine, and forced it to meet his gaze with its own. “Do… Better.” His voice rumbled like thunder as raw psychic energy wreathed his fingers, melting through its carapace and burning the kraata within to cinders. Then he turned anew towards his next foe. ____________________________________________________________________________ “Move, move, move!” Why did Dashi have to have such short legs? I didn’t like it but Rayuke’s distraction worked like a charm for the first half hour or so. Maybe longer. Adrenaline does funny things to time. But for a while we weren’t disturbed. It couldn’t last, but the first assault had been… Gruesome. A crystalline shard flew from an elevated position, somewhere, and perfectly pierced through the eye of one of my Menti. Then a second. Then a third. We were in a full run, by then, and the fire at my group stopped soon after. Just as the next group entered the monster’s range, I’m sure. The next wasn’t any better. A lightning bolt struck the lead warrior, filling the air with the smell of scorched flesh, and jumped from her to the next and to the next and to the next until one thought quickly enough— or was lucky enough to have it— and triggered her Haunoru to catch the bolt. It hit the focused shield and dissipated, crackling across its surface as it was halted. But the damage was done and there was no time, not at all, to treat the fallen with respect. It didn’t take long for the pace to become arduous, even for us Dasaka. For the Dashi it was murderous. Keeping pace with us was killing them, and slowing the pace for them was killing us. I growled, unable to contain it, and swatted aside with my mind the next incoming projectile. The Menti with Haus or Haunorus I ordered to the front, to block whatever they could with their very bodies if they had to. And it was working, as far as it went. But this couldn’t last forever. Not with how far we had to go. We had already slowed enough that the other groups, their wards huddled protectively in their middles, were just behind us. Before long we would become encircled. The more they slowed us the longer the creatures had to reach us. Worse, perhaps, were the Menti that simply were yanked away through solid walls. Actually, though, I had to laugh. Between the adrenaline, the stress, and the exhaustion it was just too funny. Huddled inside our group with the Dashi was Inokio, the banished Battlemaster, and he was insensate with rage. His hands were bound, preventing him from doing much himself, but he seemed to have met most of the Menti in our little group at least once. What few he hadn’t, and even some he had, he had very poetic terms for. “Who in Zataka’s—” Lightning cracked. “—trained you?! Group in tighter! If you’re going to draw fire, be alert for it! If you aren’t drawing fire pick targets and hit them!” It was almost enough to make my imminent death worth it. We’d lost almost half our escorts already, and there was no way of telling how many— if any— of the monsters we’d felled. My own breath was starting to come hard, and— “Umbraline.” “You there, keep up the pace!” “Masayoshi.” A deep breath, as deep as I can with my burning lungs. “Masa.” “What?” “This can’t keep going, Masayoshi, you know it. The pace is untenable. And despite it we’re slowing down. They’ll surround us soon, and there’ll be no way through. We’ll all die.” “Thank you, Battlemaster of the obvious,” I snapped, a little more harshly than I really meant to. Just because I was hauling him along, because I insisted on keeping my word, doesn’t mean that I’m happy to hear him point out the obvious. “I’m figuring out where to hold them.” “Anywhere is as good as anywhere with these things, Umbraline. You’re stalling. Looking for another way. Sacrifice a few or kill everyone.” “I know.” And I’ve known for a while. Nui, I hate it. I hate what this fight has probably already cost. I hate what it has cost good people because their duty requires them to get the Rora out. But he’s right. They’re going to need the defenders to keep pushing, and they won’t matter to me anyway. No one that plays rear guard is getting out alive. Mindarms. Soulswords. Willhammers and Sighteyes won’t do me/i] any good, but if someone can carry a couple Sighteyes they can keep the monsters on their toes. Best to— “Inokio, stick close to the Dashi. If they get out, you’ll get out. Watch for—” “Don’t be a moron, Umbraline.” He responded, managing to sound almost insulted. “It will be a cold, cold day before I let a cripple shame me.” The angry retort was on my lips before the carefully metered sting in his tone struck home. It was a slap in the face, and it was meant to be. He was goading me, flicking my pride to force me to think instead of simply react. The same thing he’d been doing to students— and me— for a long time. “We had a deal, Korae. Playing rearguard is just a different death sentence.” “And I’m rejecting the deal. Exile among the Tajaar may have been acceptable, but among barbarians? Never.” His voice softened, almost immeasurably, but it did. “Masa, my empire is dead. I betrayed it for nothing. I have been stripped, rightfully, of my clan name. My titles. Let me die with it.” “Don’t force me to live, not like this. Not at this cost. Let me die facing my enemy with weapon in hand like a Battlemaster.” “And if I don’t trust you?” The Battlemaster rolled his eyes. I can’t see them, but I can track the way his head tilted, the exasperated breath that went with it. And I could see with ease the way, with a little will, psychophysical energy wrathed his hands and simply burned away his shackles. A pretty clear point, I had to admit. He rubbed his wrists, cracked his neck, and surveyed the group. A true tactician, selecting his tools. “If I wanted to sabotage you I could do it. You three. And you.” He pointed, rattling off about a dozen names or simply pointing as needed. “You’re going to stay with me. It’s time to show these monsters how a true Dasaka dies.” “Die well, Battlemaster.” “Live better,” He said slowing to a stop and allowing the evacuees to pass him by. Turning to face his enemy in defense of an Empire already gone, with warriors at his command. “Masa. Take care of them.” Nothing left to say after that, for him or for me. ____________________________________________________________________________ The Docks were never busier, not even when the Ryu was set to sail. Every seaworthy ship was being prepared, every last bit of provisions were being loaded, and of course, Menti kept the peace while evacuees jostled for position. Only one ship was spared that chaos, and that was the Rora’s own vessel. Not that it was being spared anything else. Despite the size of the crew, and staff, it was meant to accommodate everything that wasn’t essential was being thrown out to make room for supplies and bodies. It was nearly ready to go, and that was the only reason that we had made our move. Defenders had been relaying updates to the Residences from the Docks and vice versa over the days since the evacuation was announced, coordinating when they would make their bid for freedom. And now it was time. Fewer than half of their original cohorts made it to the Docks. Inokio’s rearguard, for it could be nothing else, drastically slowed the attacks for some time. Gave us time to catch our breath and keep moving into the arms of the Yards’ outer defense. But even so we lost a handful more in the process before we reached the safety of the Yards. Here we could finally catch a rest, though not let down our guard. There were enough fortifications, enough Menti, for us to rest. Me? I hadn’t meant to sleep. Truly. I didn’t think I could, but after the past week… I was out almost as soon as I sat down, and I did not dream. I only sank into that exhaustion and saw darkness. When I finally awoke the chaos had died down, and someone had covered me with a blanket. One of the Dashi shook me awake, I can’t truthfully say which one. Without the mental plane I have no easy way to tell them apart. “It’s time to board.” “Right. Yes.” I stretch the weariness from my limbs, grimace at the ache, and rise. “Let’s go.” “Ah, Miss Masayoshi?” One asks, sounding a touch concerned. “Is it normal in this land for the sun to set so quickly?” “Pardon?” “It’s gotten pretty dark.” It shouldn’t have. Soraya, the one I do know, knows that too. I can ‘see’ her shaking her head nervously. I probably don’t look very reassuring, either, but it should only be a bit after midday. A little cloudy, perhaps, but there was nothing to suggest rain. .:Miho? What’s going on?:. I asked the Daikura leader of the Yards’ defense, trying to look unconcerned. .:What’s the situation?:. .:I’m not sure yet, Lady Masayoshi. We’re seeing it here, too, but there’s no sign of those insects. The horizon looks normal, too.:. My frown deepened, and that said quite a bit. The past week had thrown a lot of surprises my way specifically, let alone the archipelago. But nothing quite lined up with this. Despite Zataka’s presence we hadn’t seen any unusual darknesses, no unusual weather, nothing to suggest… Something hot landed on my cheek, and almost reflexively I touched it. It gave way easily beneath my finger smearing my cheek with something warm and dry and soft and… Ashy? The monsters filled me with adrenaline. A little fear, yes, but only enough to keep me on my toes. Keep me sharp. A little fear is good, it’s Zuto Nui’s way of letting you know you aren’t dead yet. The bellow that split the heavens did nothing of the sort. It didn’t remind me of my life, or sharpen my mind, it only shouted the imminence of my death and the death of everyone I love. It showered the earth in ash and cinders, startled everyone below into silence and denial. I don’t blame them. Who could have expected this? The first pass, the gout of flame hot enough to melt crystal in an instant and reduce bodies to nothingness, claimed a dozen lives and destroyed a supply cabin. A dock went with it, a smaller craft scorched through and left a listing hulk. It bellowed again, and I ran. I don’t fear death in defense of the people I care about, or the people I swore to protect. Had Inokio not volunteered myself I would already be gone. But this isn’t something I can fight. This isn’t something anyone can fight. This is something we can only run away from. “Get to the ship, get to the ship, get to the ship! Book it midgets!” I snapped, tossing one back onto his crab and hustling the others along. Any slower and I swear to Zuto Nui I’ll just fling them on board. “Get Desdemona, get the Rora, we’re leaving now!” The mature Kanohi Dragon slammed down upon the Docks, and I’ll never know how many died there. Or how many died in those first swipes of its tail, or snaps of its jaws, or that next breath of flame. Menti, brave as they were, attacked it in droves. Defense of the outer Yards was forgotten. If they didn’t somehow stop this then there would be no point. I hurried up the gangplank, hurried my charges, snapping orders half out of my mind and hoarse with intensity. “Infected Kanohi.” One of the Dashi hissed, jabbing a finger at it as I hurried— it would be rude to say shoved— them up the plank. “Look!” Whatever in the name of ‘Taka’s left cheek that means, I don’t know. But it definitely doesn’t sound good. “Go, go, go! Talk about it later! Where’s the Rora, where’s the Chojo?” “The Rora is aboard, the Chojo is coming as fast as she can!” Umbraline Desdemona, I swear to Zuto Nui, I didn’t go through the process of rescuing you for you to die because you can’t sprint! “I’ll get her, get the Dashi!” I snapped, jumping off the plank. I can just[/ii] barely make her out, hurrying towards the ship. I don’t have much of a sprint left in me, so I go for a more direct solution; I grabbed my hapless ward, one of the people Rayuke charged me to protect, telekinetically and yanked her towards me. “Weeee can talk about your exercise later, my lady, let’s get you on the ship!” I said as I grabbed her out of the air, only just not throwing her over my shoulders like a particularly unruly feline. “Come on, come on!” “Masa, we can’t get away if we don’t stop it!” “Aaaand who’s gonna do that? We have to take our chances!” The Chojo thought, long and hard, and I felt the world repeat. She slipped a thought into my head, something I neither fought nor consciously understood. But I trusted her intent. As one we shoved off from the ground with our disciplines, attaining a trajectory that carried us clear onto the deck of the ship just as the sailors aboard prepared to give up on us. And just as a breath of flame scorched the earth where we had stood moments before. “Think I can, Masa.” The Chojo said, and if her voice shook it was also as certain as it had ever been. “I’ve gotta. Get everyone below decks.” “What are you-” The psychic shockwave that hit me isn’t something I can describe, not if I used a thousand words and spent a thousand years. It wasn’t simply physical, though there was enough of that. The rush of air as the projection rushed outwards was enough to bowl me over, but my legs had crumpled from the shock already. I think, were I not already, I would have been blinded. The heat alone scorched my face as it passed. I couldn’t perceive it properly, and at first I thought it might have been because of the psychic whammy my brain just took being so close to the eye of the storm. But it wasn’t. I couldn’t perceive it clearly because its surface was shifting, dripping, and constantly forming itself anew. It was a mass of psychophysical energy the likes of which I have never, not ever in my life, seen and have never heard of. It racked my brain, again and again, being so close. It filled the sky and swept towards the land as the ship set sail as quickly as could be. The Kanohi Dragon roared, beginning to rise into the sky for its prey, before a mass of psychophysical energy in the shape of a massive, winged dragon slammed into it. It didn’t roar, not like its foe, but it bit, and clawed, and the Dragon’s roars of anger quickly turned to pain for nothing it could do would faze it. To bite it or claw it only wounded itself further, and what does fire mean to a projection of psychic plasma? To something that burns all but its creator through mere contact? I can’t describe it properly because there are no words. I’ve never seen anything like it, and I never will again. The Docks were in ruins, the ships that had been boarded fleeing, but the Kanohi Dragon was gone. Simply gone as if it had never existed. The Chojo collapsed, and it was all I could do to catch her. Despite her victory we weren’t out of the woods, not when the monsters could fly. But a cry went up, a shocked announcement, as the captain spotted the Dastana fleet moving in steadily. They were loaded for bear, he said, with decks packed with Dasaka holding stolen staves. I wished I could have seen it. And, while I hurried inside with the Chojo in my arms to find a healer, I wished I could see the island that I doubted I ever would again.

After participation in a few TTV Canonization Contests (Helryx; Artakha) decided to improve my colorization skills, cause it's still new for me. Actually original line art was made back in 2018. Special for my mate Krakuva from Rusbionicle.

There are those who braved the flames of Koshiki in the Old Times, back when the mountain raged as the dragons that called it home do. For them, it was worthy pilgrimage— of all the creatures the tribes of Odaiba had encountered, none held such nobility and power as the Kanohi Dragons. It was there that they would find their new home, their new study, their new Way. The fire in the breath of each Dragon was as their own from the Mind, only a billion times brighter. A Dragon was a being without peer, a warrior and sage that flew through the Heavens and touched the same skies as the Gods. To be acknowledged by them was good omen, that they may impart their long-held wisdoms upon you. To antagonize them was to court swift death, the insolence of the small. To emulate them would be to find strength where ones' frailty, ones' blindness to the blaze in their Soul, had formerly shackled them. They would find that same wisdom and power within themselves, as many Long passed down teachings to generation after generation in a single Dragon's lifetime. They would Become Them. This is the old tradition. In collaboration with Onarax, the originator of Soulfire as a concept and the Chand half of the Chand-Long confederation: TAJAAR CLAN- CHAND-LONG The Chand-Long are a confederate clan of Taajar that occupy the mountains and plains of the large island of Odaiba. Originally two clans— wandering crystalsmiths and mountain-dwelling monks— they came to a mutual agreement of protection and exchange of knowledge. Both clans of this alliance value the autonomy of their members highly. So long as one shows respect to traditions such as the Naffir, and the brotherhood between both halves of their clan, they are largely free to do as they wish once they have completed their vocational training. They are a collective rather than a traditional “clan” in this sense: Chand-Long will come together in aid of other Chand-Long, but will not dictate how their fellows spend their lives. Due to the hybridized nature of this clan, the Chand-Long have instituted a tradition of alternating heritages for each Jahagir elected, with an advisor from the opposite tribe appointed to them as their second. Chand: Strongly traditional and nomadic horse people. Renowned throughout the Taajar for producing the best weaponry and hunters/fighters. They are extremely skilled at mounted combat with a blade or other close combat weapon, and tend to spend their time traveling throughout the archipelago. Members of the clan are not required to remain together and are often seen roaming on their own. The exception is when the Toroshu calls the clan together for a Naffir, at which point all members are expected to drop whatever personal work they may be involved in and gather at the ancestral home of the Clan, be it to share knowledge and wealth, or to respond to a crisis concerning their people. Members of the clan typically take on a variety of different jobs, the most common being hunters, hired guards for other Taajar clans, and traveling crystalsmiths. As their weapons and arms are renowned for being the best in Taajar equipment it is easy to make a profit this way. Due to the loose affiliations between Clan members, the clan is known for being even more politically neutral than the standard Taajar clan, bordering on politically apathetic. Taajar fighters of this clan tend to focus heavily on weaponry for close combat, and their easy access to expert crystalsmiths lead to them being one of the few clans still in possession of long curved swords. These included Shamshir, Sorohi and Talwar. They also own a fair number of straight swords, these include the Khanda and the Pata rapier. Members with a higher standing in the clan often carry a Gupti with them, proof of their station. The other focus of their weaponry is on spears, the generic term for which is sinan. Nezah served as the typical cavalry lances and are long but light weight polearms with a small spearhead at the end. On foot, the typical weapons are either the heavy weight Barchhah or the light weight Sang which possessed a longer multi-sided head. While these types of spears were the most common, other forms still exist. While spears and swords were the most developed and common forms of weaponry employed by the clan, they did still possess a variety of daggers and knives. In addition other forms of weaponry have been crafted by the expert crystalsmiths in the clan. Armoring, by contrast, is much less prevalent. Members in the clan did not typically wear heavy armor, preferring to devote their available crystal to their weaponry. Nevertheless they did still employ light forms of armor, preferring cloth interspersed with crystal. In addition they often employed light shields. One thing moderately unique about the clan, is that their crystalsmiths are known for creating crystal armour for their Sokos, lamellar-styled barding they have trained their horses to wear for increased protection. This armor is typically only available for higher ranked and wealthier members of the clan. As part of their alliance with the Long, the Chand that reside at the mountains’ base tend to keep out interlopers from the peaks, as well as provide supplies and information of the happenings of the outside world. Long: Ascetic and largely self-secluded from the world, the Long are a clan that strive to emulate the great Kanohi Dragons that call the mountain range their Dojo is nestled within home, through martial arts and a discipline harnessing the natural psychic energy found within them— Soulfire. The Long tribe are descendants of the first Taajar pioneers to scale the Northern Face of Mount Koshiki, constructing their monastery devoted to the refinement of the psychic energies all Menti carry within themselves, a system of combat and elemental discipline totally distinct from those of the Imperial society to the Northwest. After all, they had already long carved the ten thousand steps that lead to the temple well before anything that resembles recent memory in Dasakan society. The Long lived, until calamity befell Odaiba, in a compound roughly halfway to the peak of Koshiki dominated by the aforementioned stone monastery. Once strictly isolationist, in recent years there was a somewhat free flow between the two tribes of the clan up and down the many, many steps towards the Long temple, as Long accept warriors who wish to train as monks from the Chand into their order, and the Chand take Long on as apprentices in their trades of horsemanship or crystalsmithing, either to simply gain worldly experience or to even realize a new calling— not all find themselves so obsessed by training the body. At times, even fully realized Long Monks will accompany traveling Chand smiths as they walk the archipelago, providing their Nomadic brothers protection as they in turn are provided an enlightening Pilgrimage. During the time of a Naffir, wandering Long will be sure to return to the Nest with learning and examples of new developments in the world around them— oftentimes alongside as many supplies as they can carry. ~SOULFIRE~ Hey Buddy, it’s Arc 3 and everything’s A Mess, How Does This Work: As dark forces invaded their home’s peak, the Chand-Long are today a particularly scattered group post-evacuation. Many Chand smiths and their Long bodyguards were forced to ride out the early days of the storm by mustering as many Soko as possible to help those evacuating the temple retreat from the Rahkshi horde, the most experienced monks staying behind as vanguards to buy time for the children and initiates to escape down a winding, rarely-used trail. The temple they called home was totally lost, its former head anointing her foremost disciple as her successor before taking final rest within the blaze. Many Chand and Long have taken residence within or near the Dasakan footholds into Odaiba, offering services as Crystalsmiths or fighters against the tide of Makuta in exchange for safe land to house the next generation. These settlements are managed by the current Acting Jahagir, a now-Datsue by the name of Long Shunkyou. Others still returned to nomadism upon evacuation, their autonomy uncontested even by the tragedy that befell the whole. They roam the far reaches of the Archipelago, furthering their respective arts without pause. Whichever Path you choose is yours. The seed from which your hoard is grown is your pilgrimage, be it through the land, or through your Arts. Remember— Dragons do not bow, nor do they weep. Go. Learn. Cultivate your hoards. Seek knowledge, seek strength, seek wisdom, seek retribution. Do as you will— as will your fellows. Any who impede you will learn their folly. You are Dragons, and your Soul will be as Inferno.