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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

You're too nice to your players, Chumpu-kun. You have to put the fear of God in them early. Not only that, you have to reteach them what God is. There's no bearded, benevolent Zeus-like figure, no more fatherly variant of Odin, no Indra to guide their path; none of those guys have BZP accounts. It's you. You're God. Repeat it in the mirror every night until you start believing it, and you'll never need to worry about GMing again. Anyway your game looks good and I know it has a lot of interest ready-made, so approved x3. -Tyler

This isn't a bad idea, and it's one of a few I've been considering for a while. There are reasons I lean against it personally, but if it comes to it, it comes to it. I'm not shutting the door on anything that keeps the game chugging at the moment, if Ghosthands' and my schedules don't sort themselves out in short order. kray-kun is, obviously, eternal. -Tyler

Still think you'll have to do the work on your own to compile a list of custom species that are considered fair game in the BZPRPG, but if you want to put that load on yourself, go for it. The Order of Mata Nui thing could also be returned to just "hey submit me for consideration and roll the dice" like, say, Dasakan males in the BZPRPG, but if that's the fix you like then again, not gonna stop you. This looks rad now. Approved x2. -Tyler

Wanting me back without my trademark judging nitpicks is a bold choice. Come in heavy or not at all, ○○○○○○-kun. This looks kinda fun for the most part, a nice little small-scale throwback where you just take players and plop them into Metru Nui and have at it. But there's clear ambition in here that I think some of my more brainlet colleagues (<3) aren't really recognizing here. So: -The "until March 2020" is a pretty big tell for me; without giving much plot away if possible, what is the scope of this universe? I know you specify everything will be in a single topic, but with a big island-sized locale it already gets hard enough to see just how people are moving in a single location with a lot of variety in it. I know it's one of the big problems we've run into when hypothetically discussing how we'd downsize the Mata Nui topics in the BZPRPG. -Speaking of the BZPRPG, I notice that you slipped in a "if it flies in the BZPRPG canon you can submit it here," which is...certainly a can of worms. The Lesterin are easy to name as a reference point, but there's been much weirder in the BZPRPG that you're opening the floodgates to. You're talking about Valkyr, Mystix, the rock-eaters (Uyism's species?) in Onu-Wahi, or even the Dasaka, who aren't really a separate race at all but people have assumed they were for years. Just like "read the BZPRPG rules," "use a BZPRPG species" is a levee that I can foresee breaking if you wind up with some chucklenuts player who, I dunno, wants to submit a living, breathing ghost as a character or something nuts. Unless your "custom species" doctrine applies to those aforementioned BZPRPG lore species, in which case, that should be specified in rules. -The Order of Mata Nui selection process. Is it mandatory for all characters? Are they being drafted into this by GM fiat? Because if someone doesn't want to run the chance of being an OoMN agent when that wasn't in the cards, then they might otherwise make different character decisions when drafting profiles up. If it is optional, I would suggest just a brief (Y/N) field in the profile before you throw them into the RNG. -Character approval by PM instead of hashing things out in the open is a mistake. Sure, you run the risk of running into The Discourse between players and GMs, but as a survivor of multiple tours of duty fighting IcarusBen and Ghidora, you're going to run into a lot of problems by handling approval in PM. On top of that, having them posted in the OOC topic in the first place, then going to PM, then posting again to let everyone know you approved them (which is a necessity so everyone knows a player isn't jumping the gun and posting) is just a series of extra hurdles for yourself as a GM. -You didn't put any colons in the profile form. It bothers me. Fix these things or be ground beneath my heel. -Tyler

I don't have much as much to say as last time. Except yeah, I had a long semester full of projects, papers, and presentations that I put on pause to finish as much of the arc as I did. Some of them required sleepless nights in order to maintain my normal grades. One I kept putting off to work on arc posts until I outright failed it. I understand your frustration. I feel it, too. But when that frustration begins to manifest through me prioritizing writing another thousand words of the Kentoku wrapup post (my current project) over writing 1200 words of my nuclear deterrence paper, and accomplishing only half of both, then it's become unhealthy. So no, it's not fair that you guys have to keep waiting. And I'm sorry that you do. But I literally prioritized putting this game's future over mine once, and it almost bit me in the ##### irreparably. Making the reverse of that decision is not something I'm going to apologize for; all I'm going to do is repeat that I feel your frustration at having to wait even longer for a arc, and tell you that it's going up as soon as I can concentrate on writing a few more posts. This semester, although obviously in full swing now, is basically the first reprieve I've gotten in two years from a heavy, post-grad preparation workload. I'm going to take the chance to enjoy it, as well as getting to do the things I enjoy outside of the classroom again. Which, yes, means getting to describe Kanohi Dragons and eldritch LEGO gods instead of game theory about North Korea. Trust me, I enjoy writing one way more than the other. But you're not going to pay my bills in five years. Unless you are. In that case PM me. -Tyler

i’ll PM you. hey dude -Tyler

"We're going to find help. And I don't know where we're going to find it, but I do know that we can't stay in this village anymore if things are going to change because I'm sick of relapsing and I'm sick of Dorian Shaddix watching me fail but I want you to understand something:" There was a stern power in her face and eyes, "No matter what the outcome is, I still love you. And that's all I need--" To Burn Out -Tyler

IC: He found the old man underneath the stars, contemplating, with two cigar between his callused fingers. It was the first face he’d seen in days; since the chosen few had boarded the arks from Xa-Koro, with Dorian being the last to have his ticket punched, he had sealed himself off from the rest of Aurelia’s anointed ones into his own cabin, and had not departed in days. The lithe figure that emerged and sidled up to the Colonel looked almost like the glorious lieutenant he’d been a week earlier – the swelling was subsiding, his movements were less shambling, bones had been set and scrapes gauzed up. By now Dorian Shaddix looked less like a man who had been beaten into a mound of flesh and left to slither for his life in the dirt of a doomed civilization, and more like a very, very well-off young daredevil who had just botched a stunt on a Gukko bird. At forty thousand feet. He was still clearly getting the hang of being back on his legs, and the slouch he took beside Brykon came with a relieved exhale. “Hey,” he said simply. His voice was raw from days of disuse. Brykon’s face was expressionless, but he flipped the cigar once between his fingers and held it out to Dorian. “Take it,” his commander instructed harshly. “It’s not for the rank and file. You may not have taste in clothes but you’ve got a taste for vice. How are your fingers? Can you cut?” “I could probably manage butter,” Dorian replied, a little sullenly. “In Po-Wahi.” Brykon’s mouth hardly quirked, but he did take an old, improvised-looking cigar cutter and beheaded the cigar at a few millimeters with the makeshift guillotine. He gave Dor a light, too, and the lieutenant of Bad Company took a long drag on it and puffed. His eyes widened, and he coughed slightly. “Whaaaat the #####?” he rasped. “What is this?” The old man’s laugh was metallic and coarse, like worn old widgets in a purse. There were some notes of humor in it, as potent as the notes of vanilla in the exhale Dorian had taken. “It’s a specialty I’m working on. A man needs a retirement plan for the day his muscles get stiff, his eyesight goes bad, and his stomach starts roiling when he spills some blood. I’m thinking of cigars.” Dorian eyed the old man curiously and took another puff. Now that he knew what to expect, his tongue clucked curiously. “That’s good.” “I’ll send you a box sometime.” Brykon stared up into the stars, face inscrutable as ever. Dorian found himself staring into the crags and contours, as he had so many times, and was surprised at how comforting he still found them, even after everything. He felt like a mountain climber in an old, familiar range, where even the dangers were old friends. “I’ve been waiting for you.” “Yeah?” “Mm. You and your restless legs. Like the whole island is just one big field trip, and you keep on finding stops while your life passes you by. While the world moves on.” Brykon took a puff on his own cigar, synchronized with Dor’s; the two Toa of Iron silently pieced together makeshift constellations from the stars. It was midnight, and their smoke was the only cloud cover. “I know you, Dorian. I know what happened to Xa-Koro bothers you. I can see it on your face.” “Colonel, what happened happen—” “Quiet, boy. We did what we did, I know that. I said I can see it bothers you. Do you think I plan on selling these death-sticks tomorrow? I saw you and Grokk going out for your boys’ nights, tearing up the length of the city. I saw how many nights Illicia’s bunk was empty. I see how Jin and Liacada look at you, then and now. You think you wouldn’t be in my shoes if I didn’t see you coming?” “I don’t want to be in your shoes,” Dorian replied quietly. Brykon stared at him and puffed again; the old man cleared his throat, rubbed by old cigars and bad gin into a hollow with the consistency of an old wallet. “I know. Like I said, it bothers you. You want out?” “No.” “Quiet. If you and me and Jin and Grokk all worked at a Kolhii goods store, you’d be happy. It’s people that bind you, boy, not the jobs. It’s people that will lead you astray. ” Brykon’s cigar was wedged tight between his teeth, distorting the words in his poem. “Aurelia knows it. Much as those dreams she has about you thrill her at night, she knows you don’t tell her anything you haven’t said in a hundred girls’ ears. So she gives me the marching orders and I pass them to you, because she knows whose tune can make you dance. If she asked you to light that match, knowing there was gas in there to blow those islands to Artakha, would you have done it?” Dorian was quiet for a moment, as though he was caught in some trap where the only mode of survival was to gnaw through his ankle. “No, I wouldn’t have.” “You’re the highest paid killer on the island, and you won’t kill for money?” “But everyone in a Koro—” “If you did a circuit around the island, six Koros, six kills, six days, in three months you’d have—” “It’s not a math problem!” Dorian replied; the boy was getting heated. “There was no sport in that. That wasn’t even conquest. Nobody kept anything.” “How many of your conquests have you kept around?” Brykon snorted, barreling over Dor’s response. “If a thing is only a conquest once it lasts, nobody could be called a conqueror for long. No. We did a , despicable thing, Dorian, and we’re on our way to do another. Look, say some brute on one of these boats gets cold feet. Maybe he was on the wrong end of a fight. Maybe he misses a girl or a boy he left at home. Say he’s made some powerful enemy on board and he decides to visit Gukko Force headquarters on shore leave. What do you do?” Dorian’s response was predictable, the assassin’s code of honor. “He’s snitching. He’s a coward. We’re paid to kill cowards.” “He is, and we are. He brings plans to sink Ta-Koro back into the volcano. What then?” Dorian’s mouth was open to respond but fell silent. He sucked on his cigar and finally, visibly, grew contemplative along with his mentor. “Two actions, two motivations. Saving a village, but only because you had to save your own #####. Do you get credit for that? How do you know if it’s cowardice or atonement?” Dorian exhaled the puff he’d been holding in. “We don’t know. Only he does.” “Right,” Brykon said proudly. “Businessmen are rarely conquerors, Dorian. Either of us could crush the skulls of Aurelia and all her ilk if we so cared, and we might never face the consequences. But we’re soldiers of fortune and buying us is easy and safe. Whatever they needed Xa-Koro gone for, and whatever they need this next job done for, the consequences can’t be bought, negotiated, or written about in the minutes of the Cultured Gentry. So it’s conquerors that they choose to hire. They won’t care about the people we conquer. The soldiers won’t care, they just want a slice of what we take. You just take orders, too, and I know you’d do your job. But I also know you care. Don’t you?” Silence. “Don’t you?” “Yeah,” said Dorian, reluctantly. Brykon put a hand on the younger Fe-Toa’s shoulder; he flinched, but not away from the contact. “Redemption is only ever individual, Dor,” the old man said softly, his parchment-thin voice shaky. “It’s not rainwater. Yours won’t land on all of us. Only you. So pray for rain or don’t, but just be prepared to go it alone. You understand me? Hey. You understand?” Dorian had been moved beyond words, and underneath his black eyes the iridescent blue was tearful. He nodded faintly, pursing his lips around the cigar. “Good,” said Brykon Senegal quietly. “Then that’s my poem for tonight. You taste the vanilla?” “Yeah.” Dorian chewed the cigar thoughtfully, looking back up into the constellation and hoping to lose himself there. “I guess I’m not too young for my own retirement plan.” Brykon barked in laughter. “I guess you’re not, too. Well, I got the market cornered on these here cigars. But maybe you could go for some whiskey.” Dor smiled wistfully. “I could definitely go for whiskey,” he murmured. ... The storm had raged for an hour now. If he was a betting man, he would wager that Makuta was still attempting to test the limits of his power; no doubt the dark force that they had watched consume Echelon would be wroth at how his attempt at bluster fell short just outside Kini-Nui. But only one of the two heroes was a betting man, and he was currently still unconscious, body and mind no doubt spent from the ordeal of the past few days - or, given the very particular body and mind, the last lifetime. Dorian had exhausted himself time and again in the pursuit of atonement. He had pulled the Toa of Iron into a makeshift shelter while the storm raged and begun to work on a fire. He still had some of his old power, but Merror felt it oddly invigorating to test the new physical limits of his body. Starting a fire by hand felt so unfamiliar Merror almost lapsed into thinking he'd never done it before. Dorian had a lighter around his neck, a bloodstained, pitted thing that the Turaga knew had once belonged to Joske. He had been wearing it since his drunken confession in Le-Koro, in what seemed like the time before time; the boy had carried that weight on his shoulders since then, and likely before. The lighter was a sign of the bond he and Joske had shared. However this phase of his journey ended, Merror resolved to let Dor rest for now. The boy had heart, and made up in courage what he lacked in sense and patience. It was a fearlessness even Joske lacked; at least Joske had fretted over losing Cael. Dorian could lose everything, and it would only steel his nerve. That kind of drive deserved commendation, but it also exhausted the soul. Yes. It was best to let the boy rest. He must have just been resting. Merror had to believe it worked. It was his destiny. ... “Oh my God,” the waitress hissed to her best friend, the bartender, “that’s really him!” “No way.” “He’s a Toa of Iron!” “Lots of people are, my dad was a Toa of Iron—” “He’s wearing leather pants!” “Oh." “Girl,” the lucky waitress admonished, hissing low so her exclamation didn’t become a squeal. “I saw his eyes. They are so blue.” “Holy Mata Nui—" “--we’re serving Dorian Shaddix!” Since the fall of Ko-Koro, there had been a dearth of good news for the inhabitants of the frigid Wahi that was the village’s namesake. Every day the banter at the hearth would center around the confirmed casualties, the latest on mercenary movements to the fallen Koro’s zealously guarded gates, or the vile rumors about what was happening to the citizens trapped inside by Echelon. The only places of refuge were the secondary Koros and outposts, once used by Sanctum Guardsmen and mountain climbers for long arctic voyages away from Ko-Koro; the only bright spots in those days were the occasional Matoran refugees who came filtering in, carrying small nuggets of information and outlandish tales of escape. Now and then there would be some hero, an adventurer or new Toa who wanted to make a name for himself by storming the gates himself. They never came back for a return trip. The Toa Maru hadn’t shown their faces either, though there were rumors now and again that they were operating in the area. The waitress had to believe that was true. In the old days, when Matoro was still Akiri, she had been to a commencement address that had been held in Ko-Koro for Ambages, the Hand – another who was now allegedly gone, murdered by Makuta’s forces under a flag of peace. He hadn’t been the only beneficiary, however. Two of the Toa Maru had attended. Noble, mystic Stannis, with his sad grey eyes, had been far more handsome than anyone had led her to believe. The memory of his jawline alone… There was Reordin, too, the renegade lieutenant, the hero of the Rama Hive, the people’s Maru. Rarely had a man ever looked so good in uniform – and unlike most of the Maru, who had all come from military backgrounds, Reo had not abandoned his roots. The way that Muaka’s fur on his collar had framed his own jaw, his proud cheeks, the cutting smirk or inscrutable blue of his eyes…they were all etched into her memory, every frozen, perfect detail that still kept her up at night. Blue eyes were the best. Joske Nimil’s were blue, too, weren’t they? And so were Dorian’s. And here she was, keeping him waiting on an order! Oh, no… It was a crowded hall, full of witnesses, but the young woman realized with a flutter in her stomach that would hardly save her if it came to that. Dorian Shaddix didn’t fear doing anything to anyone. He was mad, bad, and dangerous to know – the island’s most infamous killer, now allegedly working for the heroes. It was hard to believe, but it made for a better origin story, right? Heroes with dark sides were even hotter than their counterparts. That was why, everyone agreed, Oreius Maru was the next hottest after Reo. If the merch sales in the bazaars of Po-Koro were anything to go by, at least. Even Korero is…kind of a clean-cut cute, I guess… “It’s…bourbon, right? With…no ice?” The order was legendary, so the waitress didn’t know why she’d bothered phrasing it as a question. “And you want…” “Another beer’s fine,” said the gruff Toa sitting across from him. He was older than Dorian, and shrugged his shoulders as if he didn’t even know how he’d wound up here. “Anything you got. I know times are tough.” “Right. Yeah, they are. But that’s—” She broke off, staring into his eyes. They weren’t just blue, they were purple, rimmed with sleeplessness and faint bruising at the edges. He looked tortured; the waitress wondered what it would take to ease that anguish, and how many girls had been roped into attempting. They had to have known it wouldn’t last. She knew that, too. But boys weren’t beautiful because they lasted, or even because they were good people. For a lot of them that wasn’t the case at all. Boys are beautiful because the Great Spirit hates girls, and wanted to inflict them on us. She knew she should have gone and returned the order immediately – why keep a pair of mercenaries like that waiting? – but something in her knew she would never get this chance again. She leaned in closer, so that the rest of the patrons wouldn’t hear her question. “Did you…” she trailed off, as if there was more than one way to ask the question burning in the hearts of everyone on Mata Nui, “…kill Vakama?” She had heard how the Mark Bearers eyes had used to glow in the face of emotion. Dorian Shaddix had been rage – everyone knew that. His eyes and tattoo were supposed to have been blue. She had no idea how any pair of eyes could glow more than they already did…but maybe the question had infuriated him, and his Mark was working as they spoke. “Yeah.” The cigarette in his mouth, unlit, bobbed when he frowned. “Duh.” Holy . “Well…are you going to kill Echelon?” “That’s the plan. Knock ‘em dead. But, uh,” he cocked his head, “I’m gonna need bourbon to do it. So…” The waitress’ posture went ramrod, as she’d used to watch the soldiers do at home in Ko-Koro. Then she inclined her head respectfully at both Toa and scurried off, heart racing at the fact that she’d really survived. … Dor’s incredulous glance moved from the retreating waitress to his companion. “Here I thought that stupid old man was going to haunt me until I died. Why isn’t anyone I know like that? Do strangers really forgive you that fast if you’re hot?” “I wouldn’t know, but it checks out,” Cipher Compassrose said. The Su-Toa shrugged ambivalently and drained the rest of his first beer, foam clinging to his lips. “If it helps, I still think it was pretty heinous.” “You get paid enough not to think that. Which reminds me, hey.” Dor grabbed a napkin from the corner of the table and pulled it over to him with his fingertips. “You got something to write with?” “Maybe. I’ll check.” Cipher began rummaging through the pockets of the disheveled jacket that had once belonged to his best friend, presumably for some utensil that he’d lifted off Dor over the years. “Can you write with an eraser?” “You might not want me to. I’m writing my will.” Cipher exhaled through his teeth. “That’s a little dramatic.” “I buried my friend tonight. He had a destiny way bigger than whatever mine is. I should start thinking about these things.” “Nothing’s going to happen to you.” “I’m giving you all the money I made off of giving Bad Company to the Akiri.” “Well, would you look at this? You should’ve warned me this thing had inside pockets too. One pen, coming up. This is good thinking, you know. Never hurts to have a plan for the future.” Dorian stared at Cipher for a long moment, as if he was somewhere else with someone else, before rolling his eyes. He cupped a hand around the cigarette pursed in his mouth and lit it. He looked down at the napkin for a long, long time before deciding that there was a simple way to word this. No legalese, no pretense, no personal messages to those he was leaving behind; after all, who was going to know until it was over? Instead, the Toa of Iron chewed on the end of the quill and scribbled out a short, sweet last testament. CIPHER GETS EVERYTHING -DOR “There. Now don’t go losing that, it’s got my autograph,” Dor said through the beginnings of a cheeky grin, sliding the legal document over to Cipher. He looked at the napkin as if Dorian had thrown up on it. “Lotta good this is going to do me when I’m dead in Mangaia, too,” Cipher drawled, pocketing the napkin in the driest part of the jacket. “At least I’ll know I could’ve been rich.” “You’re not going to Mangaia.” Dor was staring at the table. Silence fell over the table. The waitress came back, a smile full of nervous energy contorting her face, and set their drinks down. Dorian’s bourbon was down the hatch in a second. “Do you want anot—” “You should go,” the Toa of Plasma cut in, a slight note of warning in his voice. The waitress’ eyes widened at the implication. Everyone had heard about Dorian Shaddix’s bar-destroying meltdown in Le-Koro years ago, after all. Suddenly, the myth of Dorian Shaddix was growing very, very lifelike in front of her; the truth was starting to catch up to his image. “Now,” Cipher insisted. She scurried off, and there was silence again. “I’m not letting you go down there alone.” “You’ve never let me do something once in my life,” Dorian replied heatedly. “I go, I see, I conquer. You’ve never been mad about us taking off in different directions before.” “This is different, Dor.” “Why? Why would it be different if I’m not about to die trying?” the young Toa’s asked, voice continuing to raise. “You were the one who said—” “And you said I wouldn’t! What, you don’t believe that? C’mon, Ciph! Are you gonna need to cash that napkin in or not?” “Maybe I wouldn’t if you weren’t so stubborn about this! You just buried your friend, you should know what charging in half-cocked could—” The empty bourbon glass went flying. Cipher wore a Calix as well, so whether Dor meant to hit him or not he failed; instead, the glass whizzed by multiple heads and shattered in the fire of the hearth. A chorus of outcry started to rise up as people checked to make sure they hadn’t been cut. Dorian had already risen up on his heel and turned to march outside, hands tucked under his arms in the face of the snow. Cipher followed. Figured that now, of all times, he wouldn’t get lost. Not that the Toa of Plasma didn't hang back. He stood a few steps away,, watching Dorian tremble with cold and rage. His breath was leaving him in increasingly rapid puffs, wisps of frost that dissipated in the wind. Like a man who saw ghosts, Cipher wondered if he had ever seen them at all. Dorian's moods had always been ephemeral, removed from the realities and attitudes of normal people. Had his rage ever been there at all? His sadness? How many things had he cried over that were worth sobbing for again? Had he ever really been happy? Cipher asked himself. When Dor spoke, his best friend feared he knew the answer. "What good does it do anyone to make me live like this?" Dorian asked, with eyes gone blank as Joske's. "Why am I taking self-help lessons from people who never did the things I did? Who never had to climb back from where I fell? He was right. In the end, it only ever falls on me. What does it matter if--" He broke off. "I would do it myself if I could. But I can't. It--It feels like giving up. If Echelon does it, then...there's no giving up. I just lost. That's not as bad, right?" Cipher said nothing. The rain was falling on Dorian, and only Dorian; droplets steamed when they hit the snow. "Will you just ##### tell me I'm right?" he asked. His young voice cracked. Cipher chewed his lip and looked down to the snow. "You're gonna do what you wanna do, man," the worn Toa of Plasma said to the banks. "You always do." "I do." The two brothers stood, staring at each other; Dor's shoulders hunched forward, struggling against his new backbone, trying to hold back an outburst with a maturity he had once lacked. Cipher seemed ramrod, solid as always...but when the two found themselves embracing, Dor could tell he needed the support too. "Catch you 'round the way, then, brother," Cipher said into Dor's shoulder. It was shaking softly as the gunslinger cried, then cleared his throat. "Yeah. Head for Ta-Koro on your way back," Dor sniffed. "That way we'll probably meet in Ga." They both laughed, and Cipher thumped Dorian on his back with a fist. He had managed to shuffle the jacket so it slung over Dor's shoulder, cushioning his traps with the accessory. "You know something?" Dorian mused quietly, voice calming down. "If we ran it back today? I bet the two of us would smoke that ##### ." Cipher chuckled again. "Like Rannare weed, brother." ... The storm had died out. As Merror had anticipated, Makuta had tired himself quickly in his attempt to reassert control over the domain that was once his. He found some degree of peace in that, beyond the satisfaction of knowing that the darkness would have a more difficult return than perhaps anticipated. The winds that had been approaching gale force hours earlier had eased now into a pleasant breeze; it almost felt like the guiding hand of Mata Nui that streaked across Merror's face, and not the tendrils of his malevolent brother. Dorian still hadn't woken up yet. That wasn't so surprising, but doubts began to wriggle into his mind, like the worms from the soil as the rain subsided. He had no idea how long something like this took. Obviously he had never pried for specifics from Joske or Cael. Those wounds ran too deep, too visibly on their faces, to ever be picked at safely. Dor could be asleep for another hour, or for a day. Perhaps he would never wake up, and all he had bought was the young man's life - life in its simplest form. It seemed cruel to bring back a Dorian Shaddix who would never be able to laugh, never embarrass his elders in front of others or win a bartender's heart with a single smile. Merror had never understood what it was people loved about that smile until he had seen it as Echelon was dying - a bright, exhilarated grin, lacking in malice yet full of warmth. What if the sun rose in a few hours, but there was no warmth in the light? Would it even be worth it? No. Dorian had to wake. And soon. He was probably just thinking of something clever to say. ... “If you stay here, you will pass on. I can't tell you where; all I know is that you will leave Mata Nui forever. But I've come to collect you, Cael: if you come with me, you can choose to return.” “Does... does everyone get this choice?” “It doesn't matter.” The First Toa smiled. “But you do, and that's all that matters.” How long had he been here by now? Days? Months? Years? Cael had been right; time flowed differently here, at the crossroads, where everything ceased to matter. Eventually he had stopped tallying, for fear of going mad with the realization of how much time had passed him by. The idea of those he loved eventually going on was comforting, but naturally frightening, too. He had lived most of his life under the auspices of fame, and the idea of eventually fading to legend as the First Toa had came with mixed emotions. Still...those were problems for the world below him. Time flowed differently; for the first time in a long time he had been at peace, whether he had been dead for fifteen minutes or fifteen centuries. At least, that had been the case when he arrived. Telling time had become impossible, now that Dorian was here and able to talk forever. Joske sighed. "I learned this one from a Vortixx named Marfoir, one drunken night in the Final Problem at Xa-Koro," the Toa of Iron crowed, body unnaturally balanced from the tips of his feet against the wall to his wrists propped on the pool table. "I watched him cut through three homeless vagrants with a single shot from this pose. Later he taught me how to adjust it for the pool table." "So you learned how to bank three stripes from the murder of three hobos." "If they didn't want to be homeless, why didn't they buy homes?" Dor asked rhetorically, cue probing between his knuckles somewhat suggestively. "A year after that it was banned from competition in all six Wahi." "You cheated in a tourney?" Joske asked. "Well...no." Dorian screwed up his mouth to one side, looking faintly sheepish, as though he'd had something to do with the crime - or had just never thought to take up a career playing snooker and was realizing how much legit money he'd missed out on. "Marfoir blew half of Matau's head off. But that was another life. I'm done using my talents for evil. Only for money." "That still sounds just like mercenary work." At first he'd had the strength to banter back, but by now they had settled into their routine. Routine was a dangerous thing to have in purgatory -- Dor's cheeky name for what, to him, clearly resembled the Lavapool Inn, "but with more pool tables and less Tuara drooling on the bar." Joske had sworn he'd come to on the Kolhii pitch in Ta-Koro, with the heat of the volcano and the emptiness of the stands weighing on his chest. Neither of their experiences seemed to match up with the blank canvas that Cael had described, and he had said as much to Dorian after a few drinks of bourbon too many. Dor shrugged, grinned, and cracked a joke like he always did: "She was an easy one. They're probably up there weighing our deeds against a feather." He had gestured upstairs ambiguously with his pool cue, and Joske immediately knew what he meant. Both of them had seen the Lavapool enough in life to know, instinctively, that there was nothing up there but rooms for rent. Both of the two Toa, one a reformed womanizer and one making a solid crack at it, had spent enough time up there to know there was nothing up there but hazy, drunken memories. Yet somehow neither of them had been brave enough to venture up into the old, familiar halls of the second floor. They had just stuck to the ground floor, playing pool with the same results. Routine. Dorian banked the last three stripes, as Joske knew he would. Dorian loved to treat each victory like his first, though, kicking off from the wall and spinning the chalk between his fingers with a victorious whoop! and a smile. The Toa of Fire groaned. "You're getting better, Jos. Give it another three hundred and you'll go far with this game. Let's see, so we'll add one more tally mark, that's a five, so diagonal--" "I'm going to the Air Kolhii table." "--don't be a baby, so that's 195--" Dor was scribbling furiously on the chalkboard, blocking it from view. "You said we'd play Air Kolhii at 69." "--nice--" Joske groaned. "...Nice. And then again at 100." "--to 3! Another victory for the Young Conqueror" Dorian moved away from the chalkboard with a grand gesture, revealing a battalion of tally marks under the "KILLED ECHELON" column; the soldiers in Dor's army were swelling up faster than his ego, with only occasional - possibly intentional - defeats at the hands of the suicide squad under "DIDN'T KILL ECHELON." At least it beat "SECURED THE BAG" and "FUMBLED THE BAG." Joske had suggested "WOKE MAKUTA" and "DIDN'T," but Dorian had pouted at that and reminded him that he'd had no fair warning of what would happen if the Vault was opened. Which was fair enough. He had also shot down "CAEL'S HOTTER" vs. "TUARA'S HOTTER" on the basis of feminism and not pitting strong women against each other, which got a little more of an eye roll out of Joske when one considered their track records with women. Try as he might to deny it, he had missed this. Dorian had always been good for laughs - and they were both beyond talking shop. "And again at 150," Joske finished. "Air Kolhii. Or I turn to guerrilla warfare and start burning divots into the table, Young Conqueror." That made Dor pout again, and he balanced one elbow on his cue and clasped his hands together. "You know, you could at least let me have this. You're gonna be out of here any time," he mused. "195 to 3 is respectable for someone who sucks at everything. Up there," Dor jerked his head towards the dreaded staircase by the bar, "they're probably ripping me to shreds." Joske had to admit that was true, but he wanted to reassure Dor somehow about the struggle for atonement, the equivalent weight of good deeds for their own sake, motivating yourself to change. He hated hearing it, though, just like Joske got sick of hearing jokes about performing animal rescues and wearing tights and a cape. "Fine," the Toa of Iron continued. "Air Kolhii. Lucky for you, I learned from the best players of real Kolhii on how to function with a Kolhii striker, and--" "Really? I don't remember teaching you a thing, pretty boy. Have you been hoarding autographs of me somewhere? Or just watching from afar?" "Nah, 'cause I learned from the guys who juked you out at that final in Ga-Koro three years ago." "Prick!" "Poor Joske, couldn't stand a chance," Dor tutted softly. "You were never going to kill Echelon with those snapped ankles." "Well, now I want you to go to Karz." Dorian grinned and opened his mouth to return banter when a voice rang out from upstairs. "Paid in full." Joske understood what it meant immediately, and a smile drew across his own face. Dorian, ignorant of what he had gone through to save Cael, looked suddenly anxious. Before-- "Were we supposed to be paying for these drinks?" Joske laughed, both in amusement and at wonder. Truly, Dorian got all the luck; he held no bitterness, no resentment over the Toa of Iron's fortune. If anything, it gladdened his heart to know that someone down there had seen in Dor what Joske saw. Someone capable of more good than any mercenary, zealot, ally, or even the man himself would ever believe. Joske stepped forward and bumped a fist against Dor's shoulder. "I'll pick up the tab. You're needed elsewhere." Dor didn't understand. Or he was playing dense. "You're right. No time to go upstairs. Air Kolhii in thirty seconds. Just you wait, my wrist action is perfect. I could take my Calix off and nail it to my own hand and I'd still have reflexes that could dazzle you. 195 to 3? You're gonna long for the days of 195--" "Next time," Joske interrupted. "Next time you're 'round the way, Dor. You're being called back." ... "No." "Yes." "No." "Yes." "No!" "You don't get to argue over it, I didn't resurrect you." "Tell them to stop!" "I'm dead, too." "Yell upstairs!" "They didn't get a choice, either." ... "Paid in full," the voice said, more forcefully. "No!" "Yes." "No!" "No." "Ye--!" "You fell for that? I think you've hit the bourbon a little heavy, Dor. Go back to Mata Nui and clear your head. Take two Bula and call Cael in the morning." Dorian chewed his lip, eyes glowing angrily. He looked fit to snap the pool cue and charge upstairs with the splintered halves akimbo. As his gaze roved around the bar, searching for other improvised weapons he could use to charge the powers that be, he squinted. Joske turned to look, and even for a one-time Toa of Light, the sheer whiteness of the glow outside the Lavapool's boundaries made shielding his eyes a necessity. That was it, then -- the light Cael had seen, the light he'd saved her from, the light he'd been prepared to feed himself to make his beloved whole again. Joske had to love his friend for trying. Dorian Shaddix, ever predictable in his unpredictability, was already having similar ideas. His brain was moving at a mile a minute, eyes squinted to protect themselves from the glow but also racing with possibilities. There was none of the acceptance and grace with which he'd met his own face; instead, there was desperation, and longing, and hurt, and guilt. He knew the look well. It was the last face Joske had seen in his life. "Come with me." "Next time around," Joske promised, squeezing his friend's shoulder. "I don't feel like winding up stuck in your body. Or digging my way out from under the snowbanks." "We'll rob your grave." "Yikes. Pass, you sicko." Dor bit his lip harder; for a second, Joske wondered if Dor would attempt to bludgeon him with the cue. He doubted he could fall unconscious in this place if he tried. "Next time around," Joske repeated, clapping Dor's shoulder and letting go. "Tell Cael I love her, and look after her for me." "She doesn't need either of us for that." "No. You're right." Joske smiled at the thought of her; Dor looked like he wanted to say something, but thought better of it. "Fine. Tell Agni not to blame himself, even though--" "--we both know he will?" "Yeah. And tell Angelus I'm sorry. And I'm grateful." "Holy #####, you could just write a will already. You know, we have plenty of napkins, I could--" "And one more thing. The boat won't take you all the way. You'll have to swim for the next one." Dorian blinked. Joske grinned; to Dor's eyes, he seemed more vivid than he had since the Toa of Iron arrived. Maybe even more vivid than he'd been in life. The Kolhii star winked at him. "What?" "It's on you to do this if they don't let me out," Joske said playfully. "Give everyone my best. I believe in you, Dor. The boat won't take you the whole way. You'll have to swim for the next one." "Again with the fortune cookie #####. You know, can't you just tell me something immediately useful? Directions? Lotto numbers? Where Cael likes to eat?" The glow was starting to swallow the whole Lavapool, but it curved around Joske to lick at Dorian's limbs. The more Dor tried to back away into the corners, near the chalkboard that sang of his conquests, the more the light followed him specifically and left Joske to his devices. "Like I'd give you the chance. See you, Dor. I'll keep practicing the Matau Brain Masher or whatever." "--The Sharpshooter, you useless prick, and don't think this is over! I'm totally digging your body up when this is over, and if you don't come back I'm going to chuck you right into the volcano, you fortune cookie, kitten-saving, telegram-booth changing, third-wheeling motherf--" ... "--CK!" I shot upright like a cannon, hand cupping the wound where Heuani had pierced me all those years ago. There was a small fire burning, and the wind had picked up a little outside. A small enclave, formed mostly of low-hanging branches that had been snapped off or vines that had been sawed loose, was protecting the small blaze and I from the outside world. My vision was swimming, as though I'd never used my eyes before - or maybe like I'd just crawled from a grave, and was getting used to seeing something besides the inside of my own coffin. But from the looks of things, I hadn't even been buried. Not unless the old dickhead who was smiling at me from across the fire's tongues had been buried, too. That wasn't a bad bet, honestly. I hated Turaga. They were wizened, pathetic reminders that some people were just too high-and-mighty to keep moving forward. They were proof of how seriously some Toa took the concept of 'destiny,' even though getting one particular job done in your life was no excuse for giving up your power. Becoming a Turaga was basically just taking early retirement. Who said you got to have peace while the rest of us were out here busting ##### to try and outwork the voices in your own head, telling you what you were doing wasn't enough? I bet you wish you had that Toa Power now that Makuta's back, you hunchbacked old #####. Yeesh. I must have woken up bitter. Did I pass out after the fall? I remember feeling something pretty important pop out of place near where the ol' R.I.P. Echelon commemorative tramp stamp was going as soon as I was back in Ta-Koro. And where had Merror gotten off too? "I'm looking for my friend," I grumbled to the Turaga, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. "Did he go off for supplies from the settlement?" "Your friend, eh?" The Turaga looked pleased with himself, green eyes bright behind his Noble Kanohi. "I can't say there are many people out here at Kini-Nui. Not tonight, of all nights, at least." Tonight of all nights... Yeah. The story was going to go flying around, all of it, from Joske and Echelon's deaths to the return of Makuta. A lot had happened in only a little while. Time flew when you were about to die. Wait. My eyes flew back down to my midsection. The Turaga laughed. "And what does he look like, lad?" the old man asked knowingly. "This friend of yours. We might be able to find him together, once you're able to move around a little." "He's..." I closed my eyes, still sore from sitting up too fast, and winced. "Ta-Toa. Big green eyes, sad, looks like a...really old puppy." "A really old puppy, eh." "Yeah. Handsome. Like a DILF, but if he wasn't really hot. He's got a Calix on, and bit of a weird brogue in his...voice..." I turned my head to the left, feeling the protestant creaks of a sore neck, and stared into the Noble Kanohi again. "And here I thought I aged gracefully," Merror laughed warmly. "I gather that the Turaga lifestyle won't be for you when you grow up. Hello, lad. I'm so happy you're ali--" "#####!" Our enclave was torn to pieces by the force of the swing. The cold steel of the rifle's barrel felt good in my hands, but honestly, I could have done it with anything. I just picked up the first weapon I saw poking out of the bag. And I swung it again. And again. And again. At trees. At the ground. I almost tossed it back into Kini-Nui, but the last thing I needed to do was give Makuta one more advantage. I remembered everything now. "What is the matter with you!?" I raged, turning around and screaming at Merror. The look of serenity on the Turaga's -- Turaga's! -- face made me want to pistol whip him. He didn't have the strength to fight it anymore, or to do anything but seize up and twitch if I started really laying into him. He didn't have the strength to...to... "What would you do that for!?" "For you," Merror said softly. "You died, Dorian. Thinking you failed. Thinking the people who love you love a failure. You deserve to hear from them yourself how false that is.." "You deserve better, son. And instead you died." Merror shrugged. "I thought it was a fair trade." ... The fire in my stomach went as dim as Merror's had. I dropped back down onto my haunches, taking deep, unsteady breaths. I had died. For a second, I had known peace. Happiness. Real redemption. But then I woke up. It had started to trickle at some point while I was out. The rain was falling on my head, and the Turaga whose life force the storm had doused crawled out from the remains of our shelter to sit beside me. My friend put his hand, so much frailer than it had been when I took it earlier tonight, on mine and clasped. "It's not," I insisted weakly. "It's not fair. You were...good." "Oh? Did I stop being good because I grew shorter? Did I lose my experience? Did my brain dull with age in the course of one night?" Merror squeezed my hand tighter with a teasing smile. "Sometimes, lad, I think you might put a little too much emphasis on looks. Just something we've all noticed." I had to stifle a small laugh. Merror's smile grew. "Son, that man who died tonight has weighed on me for half my life. Probably all of yours. I know the valleys of failure more than most. Dorian, I look at you and I see a success for every man, woman, and child on Mata Nui. You understand? You did not fail." "...Okay." "Okay?" "I said okay, ##### it." I took a long, deep breath, clenching my fist around Merror's gnarled old hand. "Okay.." Underneath Merror's Noble Kanohi, a smile turned into a full-bore grin -- one with mischief I couldn't ever remember seeing when the Calix had been Great. "Then let's go find a bar somewhere before telling our story. I want to see if I can still keep up with the great and self-destructive Dorian Shaddix." ... Merror saw the boy smile softly. "I could definitely go for that," I said. A beat went by. "So wait, did your life juju fix my liver?" "Nothing I could do on that count. Sorry." This time, I laughed. I even gave Merror a ride on my shoulders for a minute, just to see if it was more comfortable for him than walking. He still had too much pride for that, though, and eventually we just decided on walking back to Ta-Koro as equals. Metaphorically. My neck still hurt, and craning it down to look at him was already proving to be a pain in the #####. But I'd dealt with a lot lately. A little height difference between friends was almost...quaint. "Actually, Ga-Koro," I corrected. Merror looked up at me, puzzled. No doubt he'd tailed me to Ga-Koro but had no idea why. I bit down on the edge of my lip and grinned again. "Whole island's waiting for me." ... "Aaaand it goes riiiiiight there!" Dor let out a victory yell and pumped his arms up in the air as though he'd been crowned the island's Kolhii MVP. From her perch on the couch, sitting atop her calves with a bottle of bourbon in her hand, Tuara Drigton looked at her lover skeptically. "You...moved a piano." "It's not a piano. It's the piano." "Oh, the first piano. Wicked." "Well, no, not--it's the one from the casino I knocked over, in Xa-Koro. There are some good memories that this piano absorbed via osmosis! I mean...most of them were probably knocked out when the island blew up. Or when the water corroded the wood. Or during the restoration process. But the memories of those memories...that's what people remember, babe." "Oh my God, why did you never talk this much when you had a Mark." "Nothing fun to say. Besides, I've been playing music all my life." "Explains the eighty guitars." "Like...maybe half that." Dor rolled his eyes. "And we have the card table." "It seats eight, Dorian. Good luck finding six suckers who will sit down and let you cheat at cards." "I don't cheat!" "You dumped Mark Bearers for other Mark Bearers." "Oh, we're talking Mark Bearer stuff? Well, not for nothing, but you did let Kinvex die." "##### dick, wow," Tuara sputtered through a drink. "False equivalence much?" "For the good Captain, no less. Who you then left. For...who again?" Tuara rolled her eyes as he plopped down beside her, and attempted to scoot away slightly. Dor wrapped his arm around her and kicked his feet up irreverently on the coffee table, back of his neck reclining to rest on the top of their couch. Both sighed. "I'm applying for a job tomorrow," he murmured softly. "Really? Is there anything still sacred enough to kill?" "The ##### mouth on you," Dor rolled his eyes, "no. The Lavapool Inn needs a bartender. It pays alright. Comfy location. Gets a lot of business. I get to be around people. I'm thinking of going for it." "Oooh, a plug," Tuara drawled, grinning and rolling on her side. "I'm in favor. Bring a gun to the job interview." "Wha?" "That way you'll definitely get it." "That makes sense, actually. Just keep it holstered. People open carry all kinds of weapons in Ta-Koro." Tuara's grin stretched cartoonishly. She was well and truly drunk. "Are you gonna be able to handle that?" Dor raised an eyebrow at the mostly-drained bottle in her hand. Tuara jabbed at his cheek with the bottom. "Shhaddup. Dorian Shaddup. Who are you to teach me lessons," she grumbled through her grin. Dor rolled his eyes and smiled back. "You'll never learn your lesson." "Says who?" Dorian Shaddup asked, sticking his bottom lip out in a perfect pout. "Deputy, you wrong me. Would I have managed to get this far if, somewhere along the line, I didn't start learning my lessons?" Tuara giggled; Dor laughed. They leaned in as one, together. The piano sat in the corner, suppressing all the ghosts who had graced its keys or ran fingers across the gilded wood. The angry shade of a callow young Toa of Iron was somewhere, buried alive beneath all that polish. It could not avert its eyes. It watched the couple kiss. ... -Tyler

i'm glad everyone is treating OP with the seriousness he deserves in here. anyway, yes, watch Given. -Tyler

F... Franco? -Tyler

IC: Reo mentally tuned out at the oncoming wave of Treespeak, and out of the desire to give Leah a sense of privacy. She was a more open person than he was, and she certainly wouldn't have minded the Toa Maru of Ice getting to know one of her Gukko Force squadmates, but Reordin himself was fiercely protective of the privacy of the assorted screwups behind him. His relationships with them were his, and even though he'd done a bang-up job of it, he still would have liked to keep his old friends sequestered from his new ones. To get that kind of leeway from the other Maru, you had to offer it first. ... But mostly the Treespeak. His head was already ringing as it was; Skri was drifting off from the group in regular intervals, and he was eager to join her. All he wanted to do was beat the ##### out of something already, feel his axe sink into a Rahkshi's carapace, a Piraka's smile, Echelon's throat... A mountain, blacker than Ihu and more stable than Mangai, uprooted itself to stand beside him. Sulov's statuesque Kimi blocked out the sun. He raised his shovel to the northeast, directing Reordin - and the ILF behind him - to pay attention to a run-down old building. The occupation hadn't been kind to it; wooden supports in the roof had fallen in front of the building, or into the structure itself. The windows had all been shattered or blown out. Charcoal, as black as Sulov Maru's armor, licked at the wounds left behind on the facade. "That's the bar," the hulking Toa of Earth said. His prosthetic was still directing Reo's notice like a vane. Reordin blinked, clearly lost. Skrihen, behind them, clenched a fist quietly. "Seventh Squadron. Inspection period. You sneaked away from patrol. We toured for bars," the Toa of Earth explained, shaking his old saperka - a memory of his old life, the tool of the Ussalry he had given everything to - imperceptibly. "That's the bar." Behind the pale ice of Reo's eyes, some glimmer of recognition shone. "We broke out the Three Brothers," the Toa of Ice said quietly, as if he was worried he was constructing the memory from thin, mountain air. "Yeah. Kol Uskey was asking why it was locked up, and I told everyone, 'Don't get any ideas about that stuff. It's meant for the locals, and if you try and drink it, you'll freeze your ##### to death." The two Maru remembered the warning in unison. Sulov's green eyes were dull and lifeless, but a certain happiness had cracked the mountain's summit, too. He seemed relieved that Reo was taking over the memory. The fist slackened. "And what was his name, ah...dickhead." Reo snapped his fingers a few time, trying to conjure the memory forth like he could conjure frosts. "The sergeant back then." "Viniau." "Viniau. He gave me that look like I was trying to ##### around with him or call him a beta or whatever, and you remember what he said?" "'With all due respect, Lieutenant, I can handle one shot. You've been drinking this like Bula juice all night, and everyone knows you're half-Gukko.'" The two best friends were finishing each other's sentences regularly now; Sulov quietly, matter-of-factly, as if he was uncomfortable speaking in full sentences even for nostalgic purposes, and Reo crowing with increasingly open glee at the memories of his military jock days. "And he was stupid enough to drink it!" "Stupid. But deceived. You poured a double shot. Very cruel." Reo's grin was wolfish, not sheepish; an air of mischief was in his face, and suddenly the wounds across his body, the taut energy in his body was easing up. "He locked up in that pose, remember?" Reo leaned backwards, body tightening up and eyes widening as his posture went ramrod. "Plag, you should have seen him, ##### looked like he'd tried to spank you and didn't get away with it--" "He froze all night. Found him in the snow next morning." "--And...oh yeah! Mata Nui, what was his name, uhh...Tarnok! Tarnok and I were the only ones sober enough--" Reordin was laughing openly now. "--Sober enough to carry him back to my post, and we planted him in the snow! He has the bright idea to him up out there like he was me! On guard duty! I almost went up for a commendation for that, Korzaa told me that she wished all Guards looked that disciplined on graveyard shift. It was one of the only compliments that butch old woman ever gave me, Spirit bless her. I didn't have the heart to tell her." His laugh died off in a wistful sigh, and he leaned back against Sulov's arm. The Toa of Earth's enormous body made for a more stable place to relax than half of the damaged buildings in Ko-Koro. "It was that bar, too, man," he said softly, "God ##### it. ##### Echelon. ######." Sisk's bird was taking off. "Whatever happened to him? Viniau?" "Still around. Still Ussalry. Guards an office now," Sulov replied brusquely. "Mm." The Toa of Earth's eyes cut down to his brother's mischievously. "Heatstones everywhere," he rumbled. The dam broke. Reo's laughs restarted, devolving quickly into breathless giggles, the same hysterical laughter that had bubbled out of the mouths of the Maru in the early days, when Reo's biggest concern in the world was tickling Stannis or hazing Korero. Tears started to well up in his eyes, and by the time Leah turned to face them, she was facing Sulov , playing as innocent as he ever could, Reo, so hysterical that he had even started to hiccup, and Reo's assembled strike team, many of whom were looking at their old friend with mixtures of confusion, amusement, and - in one case - relief. “Well, babe, looks like it’s a party after all. Let’s not keep them waiting.” "Wha? Oh." Reo held his breath for several seconds before giving up and hiccuping again. He felt Sulov's shoulders shake underneath him twice, and a heavier-than-normal exhale leave the Toa of Earth. "S-Shut up. Your fault. I bet everyone would hate to figure out what you were like before you learned to swim, #####. Sulov Koskium, clinging to a lilypad, legs like ##### oars slapping the water. Or how about that cute Ga-Matoran girl who finally taught you the br--" "We should go." "Yeah. Yeah, we should. Fine." Reo led the march to the warehouse initially, but as the minutes went on, the tracks of the strike force began to cover themselves, and Reo began to let Sulov and Leah take point as he slipped back between Skri and Alfon. The Toa Maru of Ice had failed to bite back a grin. "He gets shy about it," the lieutenant whispered conspiratorially, "but he's a total heartbreaker." -Tyler

Silvan's already covered most of what's happening with those particular topics, but I can add on that Ga-Koro is mostly still dealing with integrating the Dasakan expedition led by Ayiwah and Hanako. Other than that, not much. It's good to see you back, House, even if temporarily (though I obviously hope you can find the time to see some of next arc). -Tyler

IC: As Merror drifted back into consciousness, the first thing he became aware of was that everything hurt. It was as though he’d been used as a giant’s Koli ball. The side of his head was particularly sore. What had happened? Where was he? He hadn’t yet managed to open his eyes. He racked his foggy mind for memories of the last few hours. There was something important, he was sure of it...something that had happened? Something he still had to do? Someone he had to — Vault. Abettor. Echelon. Makuta. Dorian. His eyes sprang open and he struggled to heave himself up. There was soil and leaf mould beneath his hands, a tree root poking into his leg. He managed to raise his torso off the ground, and looked around with groggy urgency. Trees surrounded him, stretching up to a star-dotted sky. No sign of the Fe-Toa. With further effort he rose to his feet. He gave his injuries a quick once-over: nothing serious, it appeared, just bruises and the occasional shallow cut. Reaching a hand over his shoulder revealed that one of his swords was missing. The other remained safely in its sheath. Good enough. “Dorian!” he shouted into the darkling forest. No reply but the rustle of a soft evening wind among the leaves. He began to move, searching the trees for some sign of the young man he’d come so far to help. “Dorian!” “Alriiiiight, alright,” came the sluggish reply. “I said don’t start cryin’ over me. Yeesh.” He found Dorian on his feet, but only just; the Toa of Iron had inched himself up a tree, with the slow, deliberate pace of a survivor trying to find his footing. There was already a cigarette in his mouth, but it hung unlit from a split bottom lip. His prosthetic Protosteel fingers were clicking uselessly at the battered lighter that had once belonged to Joske Nimil. The digits had none of their usual fluid grace. It only took a few steps until his eyes adjusted in the pale moonlight, and saw the truth of Dorian’s wounds. What had been serious within the heart of the Vault only minutes previously had turned grievous after their rough journey. The wound on his midriff had opened up considerably, and the pulses of blood were starting to slow between intervals. Dor’s eyes were feverish, but even through the shocked haze of Echelon’s death and Makuta’s return, there was a glimmer of something, hidden under the waves of callow cerulean, that Merror had never seen before. Relief. Wonder. Peace. “Alright,” he whispered, bending his head down to the lighter. The cigarette finally caught, and he sucked on it hard for a second, hissing onyx smoke through his teeth. “You caught me. It’s not...oxblood. All this excitement, guess I...might be a season...behind.” His legs spasmed under him, knees almost buckling; his back scraped the tree before the usually-limber Toa of Iron caught his balance. Merror darted forward instinctively as Dorian shuddered. As he stabilised, the Ta-Toa approached more slowly. “Dor…” In the back of his mind, it occurred to Merror that he’d never called him that before. “This isn’t good. We have to get you to a healer.” He offered the battered young Fe-Toa a supporting hand. Dorian looked at the hand for a long time, and his playful grin grew softer, more serene at the edges. His expression was almost pitying. Once again, the assassin was acting as if he had been let in on some secret, some private magic trick with a prestige that would wow everyone but him. Or like he had already accepted something that had not even entered Merror’s mind. “A healer…” he laughed quietly. His eyes drifted up to the sky above them. The day had passed them by while navigating Mangaia; by now it was midnight, an apt time for the horror they had just unwittingly awakened. But Makuta’s reach had not yet extended to the heavens - the moon was still out, shining a spotlight on Dorian Shaddix, and the stars were in his eyes. “I shouldn’t have kissed her. Tell her sorry for me.” Was he delirious? The Fe-Toa had most likely lost a lot of blood. Merror would have to take charge. “Come on.” He stepped forward, and slipped the proffered arm around Dorian’s back, supporting his shoulders. “You’re going to be all right, lad. I think Kini-Nui’s been resettled; they’ll have someone who can help. Maybe a Sana-user. We’ll get you patched up.” Dorian was still staring up into the sky, and he weakly tried to shrug away Merror’s arm from behind him. He had always been strong; strong and fast, and Merror could not understand why the Toa of Iron wasn’t fighting him more forcefully. Dorian had always hated being dragged around like this. “Listen to you,” he kept giggling, blood flowing from his busted lip, from his rent open core, from the teeth biting down on the edge of his smile. “So full...so full of #####. You and Jos.” His hand brushed his empty revolver, trembled slightly. “Why...didn’t he tell me?” Dor finished the rhetorical question with a curse. “Useless. Frickin’ useless. We...would have pranked his stupid ##### out of Bad Company. Or...led him into a tree when Xa-Koro blew. Told...Told him there were kittens to save up there.” He coughed. “He didn’t...tell me. Left...before me. I tried to…” Dor managed to climb to his own feet again, and shrugged Merror’s arm away from him. The blood was pouring out of him, but what little was left was still the blood of the Mark Bearers. He could stand. “Temple...of Peace. I buried him there. Facing the morning...sun. Couldn't...tell. Tell her. Kay?” Merror froze. He felt something drop in his stomach. “Dorian...you’re not saying…” … “...what happened?” he asked softly, returning to his slow stride. They had to keep moving. Dor turned to glare at him. His eyes rolled back into his head for a second - partially out of exertion, but partially… “I took care...of it...” Merror looked at him for a moment, uncomprehending. Then it clicked. “Echelon…” he breathed. Merror closed his eyes, hung his head as they trudged onward. It had happened again. One more good person, taken by that madman. One more person he couldn’t save. Even dead, snuffed out by his own dark master, he had still managed to remove another friend from Merror’s life. First it had been his team: young, naive, so sure they could take on the world. He had watched them die before his eyes. A lifetime later, Tamaru, plummeting from the Le-Koro treetops; catching him mid-fall, only for him to breathe his last on the lakeshore. Taipu too. Utu, that poor broken shell of a man, just another failed experiment to the Dark Toa. And now Joske too, the fiery young champion he’d seen transformed into a Toa, who he’d travelled with and tried to impart with what little wisdom he could offer. So young...all of them, so young. “Hmmm,” Dor hummed softly, peacefully. And now Dorian, Merror thought with a start, wrenching himself back out of that pit of sorrow. If he did not focus now, keep forging ahead with what strength the two of them could still muster, Dorian would join them. He would not — could not let that happen. He could not lose one more. “They’re pretty tonight,” the Fe-Toa said quietly, staring up into the stars. The stars glinted off his eyes, and Merror was shocked to see part of the light inside them was actually tears, shimmering in his eyes. By now, the gunslinger’s feet were dragging more than stepping; he tucked against Merror’s side, cigarette bobbing in his mouth as he swallowed hard. The cinders fell to earth from the stars. “How many are up there, Merror?” Dor asked, another rhetorical question posed only a hair above a whisker. “How many thousands? ...I did more things wrong...than there are stars in that sky tonight. P-Pew.” The Toa of Iron’s eyes closed tightly, to smother the threat of tears. He plucked the cigarette out of his mouth with what strength remained in his fingers - his real fingers - and crushed the embers out on a thumb. “I just...I just. Really...thought...I did this one right.” Dorian Shaddix’s breath left him in half a laugh and half a sniffle. Quietly, he slumped against Merror’s collarbone. ... “...Dorian?” … “...Dor?” ...

"There's an old saying in Tennessee—I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee—that says, 'Fool me once, shame on...shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again.'" [ -Tyler

Hey there, gang! Well, as many years as it took, it seems like the end of this arc still snuck up on a lot of us. I know most of us, myself included, still have some unfinished business to attend to with all our characters. Keep posting with the same IC/OOC format you would anywhere else, but bear in mind that this is meant to draw things to a close for the time being before next arc comes around, so try not to string out interactions for too long. As for how long you have? Well, given that it seems that some people still weren't entirely ready for things to shut down so fast (even though I for one certainly was) we're going to set a tentative closing date for this topic for Sunday, October 20th, 6:00 PM EST. We reserve the right to take a few days on either end of the margin of error, depending on if people think they need more time or whether we feel people have sufficiently wrapped up their stories in time for next arc. Oh, and speaking of which... Pay close attention to some certain posts in this topic. You might be surprised by the plot hooks you see. I love you guys. We did it. -Tyler

YEAH BABY YEAH WE DID IT WE DID IT WE'RE OFF THE BOAT -Tyler

IC: Desdemona knew she had a soft heart. The Fursics had been the opposition party her whole life, a clan of schemers, double-talkers and rebels whose ambitions always raced ahead of their decency. They were cautious to a fault, less impulsive than the Dastana but crueler in their manipulations. The Fursics had risen against Umbraline Roras for as long as histories had been written; the Fursics had taken her mother. Yet the yells of alarm rang coldly in her ears. Every flicker on the mental plane, every candle light that was a Menti's life being extinguished by Inokio's deft fingers, left her stomach clenching. The names and voices that were disappearing had names to her, even if most of them never acknowledged her presence; her tuggings at their minds had equated to an intimacy that almost felt like friendship, and she felt herself mourning for the presences that would never again ring in her mind. Try as she might, she had a soft heart, not a ruler's heart, and she found she could not harden it. They're just people. They're just like me. She tried to close her mind to them, but she had never been good at silencing her mind. Inokio was doing that for her; the sounds of battle had left the mental plane; she heard them outside the door, signs that no mere Fursic had been able to stop the ferocious advance of her sister's Battlemaster. The fight through the castle was no longer abstract, it was at her doorstep...and she steeled herself for whatever Zuto Nui commanded would come through that door. When he did, she bit her lip to prevent herself from crying. Yumi had never lacked for protection. The Hogo were around her night and day since she was old enough to speak, and she and Hana had been inseparable until the expedition to Mata Nui had taken the gentle Herupa away from both of them. But it was Korae Inokio who had been her sister's most deadly sword. Yusanora had picked him for his keen mind, yes, but he had been a killer long before he'd been a tutor. She had read all about the Fifth Fursic Rebellion in her youth, and had relentlessly grilled Rayuke and Commodore Ayiwah for war stories whenever they sat for state dinners with Mother, but Inokio's ferocity was always something that had been unspoken. To Desde, years younger than Hana or Yumi and never subject to their lessons, Inokio had always been an opaque figure, hard to read. She saw him clearly now. He was about Ayiwah's age, and there was still an air of youthful attractiveness on his face that was only slowly giving way to years, but his eyes were hollowed in a way that Des had never seen. His wrist was tied in a splint, and he was favoring it while keeping an unorthodox one-handed grip on his Soulsword. His legs looked fit to give out on him, and his armor was pitted with scrapes and burns, flesh mottled with purpling and yellowing bruises underneath. The look in his eyes was worse. It was as though Inokio was being dogged by something, some force that was nipping at his heels and chasing him towards some hideous truth, previously unknown to them all. This went beyond fighting his way through Kozu. One look at Inokio made her realize that she had been right all along. The Chojo bit her lip. Tears welled up in her eyes as he approached. "My Chojo," Inokio said respectfully, half-bowing before he began to inspect her chains. "I am glad to see you live." "Ino...kio?" she asked softly, surprised at the huskiness of her voice. There was a rasp in the way she asked the word, almost pleading; she hadn't realized how long it had been since she'd spoken physically. "But...you betrayed..." "Yes, Desdemona," he said curtly. "Your bindings. Metal, but not infallible. Your Mindarm has been improving greatly in the past year. The two of us together may be enough to loosen them." "Mom trusted you. Yumi loved you. Hana loved you. Inokio, I loved you. Why?" Inokio's eyes stared into her for a long time. "You have a good and gentle soul, Desde," he finally said quietly. "You could never understand one so black as mine." "Inokio--" "Your Mindarm. Please. Masayoshi will be waiting for us." His voice had grown harsh, the way it was when the Battlemaster quarreled with Rayuke in court. Desde quailed slightly at the change in tone, but closed her eyes and concentrated on her chains. Inokio's remained vacant and far-away, but he was clearly exerting his will in the same fashion. The chains around her right wrist trembled, then gave way; the restraints on her other wrist gave way moments later. Her ankles were still bound, and Desde felt the familiar lurch in her stomach, like tripping in a dream-- --and waking up before you hit the ground. Inokio's arms had caught her, wrapping gently around the Chojo's slender back. The chains around her ankles clinked softly as she flailed, fruitlessly attempting to find purchase in thin air, but Inokio never let her go, and even in his physically diminished state he seemed more than capable of restraining her. He had not let go; with a start, and a sting in her eyes, Desde realized that she was being embraced. Inokio had never hugged her before. "You saved me," she whispered through her sniffles. "No," Inokio replied somberly, "the woman saved you. She enlisted my help. Make no mistake, Chojo. I am here for myself as much as you." "But you are here for me." Desde's head lifted off his shoulder to stare the Battlemaster in the face; he was surprisingly less anxious than she had ever seen him. His face is impassive. "You saved us both." The traitor's lips tightened. So too did his arms around her, until the chains at Desde's feet snapped with a psionic twist and she could be lowered to the ground. "There are ships the way we came," Inokio said urgently as he released her. The fidgeting had returned to his fingertips, and he was rocking back and forth on the soles of his feet, anxious to get moving again. "It has been years since I was at a helm, but the sea is in the blood of my clan dating back as far as our history. I should suffice to at least return us to Sado. There we can consult with--" "You're both a long way from Sado," a voice drawled from the doorway. Desde recognized it instantly, along with the acrid smell of smoke and crackling flesh that heralded her. Battlemaster Sheika had always been a prodigious Willhammer, on par with the Chojo herself; the wildfire that marked her presence on the mental plane raged, threatening to consume them all. The same fire burned in her eyes. "Hello, Inokio. Is it pay day? I'm a little short on dragons myself, but perhaps we could go see dear Nera together." The way that Inokio pivoted his body, blocking the Chojo from sight, was not lost on anyone in the room. Sheika's smile was as catlike as Inokio's mental tell, and her wiry frame was still where Inokio's jittered. "I passed quite a few bodies on the way here. It seems like someone was trying to rescue this poor princess from her tower. As if that's ever gone well for you, young one," Sheika continued to drawl. "I suppose they were too much for the poor guards, but between two Battlemasters, I think we can handle any would-be heroes. I'm sure Nera will be delighted that she has such a loyal retainer in Korae Inokio." Inokio had finally found some steel to armor his voice. "I serve the Empire, woman," he said brusquely, fingers twitching, preparing his Soulsword. "I serve those who benefit her the most. You bring no benefit to the Empire; you bring no benefit to the world. Desdemona, close your eyes." "Yes, Desdemona, close your eyes." Sheika laughed harshly. "Just like Kuno. Just like Arsix and sweet, brave Jasik. The royal family has always been very, very good at closing its eyes. That's why Inokio came crawling here; his eyes were closed, too, and he would do anything to open them. You have always sought knowledge, Inokio, isn't that right? And in return...just close a few more eyes. It was a very sweet deal. One you've now trampled." The silence Inokio's wake had left in the mental plane was being filled with gust; the winds lapped at Sheika's fires with greedy tongues. Desde remembered the night of Yumi's party, the amateurish Soulsword bursting from the chest of her mother. The fires had eaten Yusanora's heart that night. Slowly, but surely, they had eaten her daughters too. "My credit, however, remains quite sound," Sheika continued, a long, thin shape conjuring from one hand. The arrow was joined by a bow, and Desdemona felt as though she'd been transfixed on the spot. Her eyes were wide with shock at the display before her, two distinct Soulswords being joined in a weapon she could never had conceptualized. Of course an orb had been chosen to slay Yusanora; such a majestic weapon, such a Menti, would have been pegged on the spot. And if she had been, who would have been able to stop her... Me. The word felt so foreign, so full of pride, that she thought it had been planted by Inokio. Or Yusanora's ghost. I was her daughter. I would have stopped you. I'll stop you now. The Soulsword was notched and aimed at Inokio's heart; even with the reach of his Soulsword, his wounded legs would never reach Sheika in time-- A vase struck the Battlemaster in the back of the head. Desde, who had found herself brained days ago with a mug of beer, still found the prospect hysterical. The Chojo's face had broken into an impish grin from behind her battered protector. Sheika did not seem to be laughing this time. "You," declared the heir to the Empire, with an unfamiliar strength that coarsed in her veins like hot metal, "are a shitbird." Inokio took the opportunity to lunge. His Soulsword was out and ready to cleave Sheika from waist to collar diagonally, but even dazed from the impact, Sheika was faster and more energetic than the tired, wounded Korae. She nimbly ducked backwards, out of the path of his choreographed attack, and pressed forward with a thrust of her arrow that grazed Inokio's left forearm, cutting it deep. Des could smell the singe of his flesh, but apart from an instinctive yelp of pain, the wound hardly seemed to faze Inokio. He pivoted ninety degrees and gazed down the mercenary Battlemaster, a sworn sword whose focus transcended all his faults. The nervous fidget was gone. The wounds were gone. The indecision was gone. This was Korae Inokio, the demon of Kozu, whose rise to the realm of politics and into the hearts of the Umbraline princesses had been built on Fursic bones. Even as the wounds began to pile up - Sheika's arrow worked well as a makeshift dagger, while Inokio's nodachi strikes were slower and more suited for a range Sheika refused to give - he seemed preternaturally focused, waiting for an opening that Des began to worry would never arrive. In her head, the cats that marked Inokio's presence began to mewl in pain. They licked their paws gingerly. But still, Inokio kept up. The arrow found his right side, and his leg almost buckled. But he pivoted again. He's fighting for me, Desde realized, and even watching the hopelessness of his cause and the seriousness of his predicament, the Chojo's heart sang. He wants me to be okay. "Enough of this, Korae," Sheika growled, lunging forward. Somehow, Inokio managed to step backwards, and cut horizontally in a strike similar to the one that had blinded Masa in the yards all those years ago. Sheika reared back, clearly cognizant of that very risk, and her incisors glinted in a leer. "Enough of this, Korae." ... Inokio smiled. There was a brief leap in the mental plane; the flames had begun to part. Sheika realized something was amiss, but not quite what. Her stance turned into a confused slouch; her smile shifted to an uneasy frown. .:Why did I say that?:. Her eyes demanded of Inokio. .:Why did I say that?:. She realized she had done it again, and began to panic. Her eyes shifted to Desdemona, and the realization struck - but it had struck too late. By now, Desdemona had her. The princess had spent her life in a tower, making it her own and shaping it to her whims; this tower was colder and crueler, with none of the comforts, but a cage was still a cage, and the Chojo had made it her own. .:You killed my mom,:. the mental plane rumbled at Sheika. "...you killed my mom," came the echo from her lips. .:You took her heart.:. "...you took her heart." .:Inokio. Now.:. "...Inokio. No--" Sheika's mind, desperately fighting to keep the raw strength of the Chojo at bay, had started to make progress in the fight for her mind. In the process, though, mental faculties had to be diverted. Her Soulsword had shimmered and vanished. Inokio smiled with grim pride at his Chojo, and finally made his strike. The arm that had wounded him to the quick a dozen times over fell to the ground. The cut was so clean that Sheika did not bleed. But she did scream. The scream grew in pitch and shock as Desde took advantage of the opportunity and pushed into Sheika's mind, without grace or style becoming of a Battlemaster or princess. She was an enraged daughter now, a girl who had been freed from her restraints, ripping and tearing anything she found that seemed vital. It was one of the hundreds of tantrums that Yumi had inflicted on her bedroom, only writ large; the wildfire turned on Sheika's innermost sanctum, lighting fire to the tapestries and the bedsheets. There was nowhere in the room for the Tajaar to turn. Desdemona's hollow blue eyes were in every nook, every cranny, under beds and inside closets. The fires licked at Sheika inside her very brain, and the smell of burning flesh became her own. Slowly, the Tajaar's defeated scream tapered down into a whimper. She sat slumped in the corner, eyes as vacant and sightless as Masayoshi's. Inokio stepped in for the finishing blow. "No," Desde interrupted, before he could bring the nodachi down on her neck. "Leave her." "My Chojo--" "Am I?" "...Desde," Inokio acknowledged, bowing his head in respect for her strength, "she is a powerful enemy. Her recovery from...that...is not out of the question. And she is a traitor besides." "So are you, Inokio," Desde reminded him. The whip in her voice reminded him of Yumiwa. "But I'm letting you steer me home. Leave her be. If she's in there, she knows who her betters are now." A beat. Inokio smiled. "Yes. My princess." ... "And then I said, 'Lady, you are such a shitbird," Desde finished, blowing imaginary smoke away from her fingers the way she'd seen one of the Chaotic Six do, what seemed like a lifetime ago. "And bam. We strolled out like we owned the place. Just like the legend." It was clear that the open air and the smell of the sea had improved Desde's mood. Since they had commandeered the boat - one Des recognized as one of Kuno's private pleasure vessels, still docked at home probably as punishment from his domineering mother - she had been pacing the deck, eagerly recounting - and, eventually, embellishing - every detail for Masayoshi's implicit benefit. The Executioner's assistant could see her charge pacing with the help of her Arthron, and though she could not make out the distinct impression it was clear that the Chojo wore a giddy smile. She was uncharacteristically animated. "The legend," Inokio recounted skeptically. The fight seemed to go out of Desde. "...Yeah," she said uncertainly, turning from the Battlemaster to the Soulsword. "The legend of Desdemona the Valkyr. And her journey into the cave...of the...it's..not a legend. Is it." Masayoshi's sightless eyes revealed nothing. They both turned to Inokio on the helm; typical of the traitor, he could not meet their gaze for a time. Then he did. And he smiled. "Of course it is, my Chojo," he said, stifling a smile as he turned away from them and towards the imprisonment awaiting him on Sado. "It was one of my favorites when I grew up." The smile broke loose; he was glad she did not see it. -Tyler

we're sharp cookies -Tyler

IC: Ow. Ow. Ow ow ow ow OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW Tweaked tweaked RIPPED RIPPED TORN TORN TEARING TEARING ##### ##### ##### ##### CAN’T FIGHT IT CAN’T FIGHT IT TOO MUCH SWORD? SWORD? HE CAN’T WIN. HE CAN’T WIN. HE CAN’T WIN. Ragged breaths breaking through between screams. Bugs eating the corner of my eyes, leaving black spots in peripherals. Thoughts of Joske. Cael. Utu. Tuara. Joske. Cael. Tuara. Tuara. Vault. I was still in the Vault. I couldn't forget. I couldn't give up. I had to stand. Don’t let yourself die you have to remember don’t let yourself die you have to remember don’t let yourself die you have to remember don’t let yourself die don’t, don’t don't don’t.... Echelon’s hand was raising to the quartz ceiling of the Vault, all the power of Makuta contained in his body. Killing blow. Time for last thoughts. I wish I’d kissed Tuara again. I wish I’d kissed Cael again. I should have stayed with my friends. ... “You’re a delightful audience, ladies and gentlemen, I thank you. And I hope this doesn’t come as a severe shock, but I’m through.” No! “Ohh yeah! Oh, it’s boozin’ time!” -- One more! “One more what? I’m going to the bar! I’ll be saying that to the, the waiter in a minute! One more, please!” ... Karzahni was trippy. I wasn’t burning. There were no stalagmites impaling me from mouth to groin, no chains binding me to a legion of sinners awaiting final decimation by Makuta or Mata Nui, not even really a sense of torment. I wouldn’t have minded making some wailing lamentations. This just sucked. It was dusty and arid, not particularly humid, but stiff; the sun’s beating was relentless, its rays pulsed when you looked directly into its majesty, and the only movement in the air was an occasional breeze that brought more sand than relief. Karz wasn’t Karz. Karz was just Po-Wahi. “Well, that makes sense,” I grumbled, moving to loosen the hot pink scarf. If divine intervention wouldn’t bring any relief, I would muster some myself -- -- but the scarf wouldn’t budge. The Fusas seemed to like that. They made amused noises that sound like Tuara’s laughter. Only now did I see them; they numbered in the dozens, as tall as houses, genial creatures that paid me no mind as they flipped and cavorted around their giant enclosure. Only now did I realize that I was enclosed with them, slumped against an oversized, worn wooden gate as I had been slumped against the Vault. I knew this place, too. I’d met Joske here. He changed my life, even though in my arrogance I thought I’d been changing his. Or maybe I had. “...Joske?” I called out weakly, trying not to inhale a mouthful of that stupid sand in exchange for that hopeful word. “Jokesy?” A voice called back, sounding far away and hard to make out. It seemed to come from everywhere at once, like it was piggybacking on every grain of sand in the air. “Boy oh boy, can I do jokesy. How’s this one: what do you get when you cross a Bula berry with a Madu fruit? A burst of energy!” “...I’m in #####.” Out between the legs of one of the closer Fusa, a figure suddenly materialized. Dark, indistinct, all mysterious-looking in its wide-brimmed hat. Even with all the dust in the air, I could pick out the silhouette of a stalk of grain sticking out between the figure’s teeth. Odd, the details you’ll notice when you can’t for the life of you realize quite where you’ve seen this person before-- --Wait. Teeth. “I’m in the last circle of #####.” “Yyyyyep,” Grokk replied, chewing on his cud like a farmer. “Welcome to my party, prettyboy.” “That’s not even funny," I insisted, inching myself up the post in an attempt to stand. I blinked, confused, when I realized that I didn’t have to bother; there was no pain, there was no blood threatening to come spewing out of me like the punctured canteen I was, there wasn’t even a scar. That sword always left scars. I stood up fully once I realized there wouldn’t be consequences for doing so, pushing myself off the gate with a foot casually-- --and eating ##### just as quickly. The act of standing was easy enough, but when I moved forward it felt like something had removed all the bones in my legs, and I was stuck walking on lean sticks of jelly. I rolled onto my back and looked up at the sun angrily, searching the cosmos for answers, and instead of them I only saw the faintest outline of a golden Kakama, a mask that the sun wore with mocking, attractive ease. I knew what it meant. Joske, you prick. I’d have to sit through this one. “You get a burst of energy from a Bula or a Madu,” I pouted up to the heavens. “You don’t need to cross them.” “But when you need extra, let’s say, ballistic force to jumpstart your heart,” Grokk mused, dipping over me and shading my face, “Maybe that Madu pop-rock-factor could go a long way.” Close up, I could see the details of his face. Unfortunately, Grokk looked just as I remembered. Swirling tattoo over one eye; enough gold teeth to open a bank with; cruel eyes veneered in mischief; and, of course, a smile as wide and provocative as a four-lane market road. The only difference I picked out was that he now wore an absolutely enormous hat-- looked to be about 20 gallons. Before I could say “howdy,” Grokk had lifted me up by the armpits, and held me aloft like a rag doll. His scarred hands stole all the strength out of my body, so the jello feeling went from head to foot. I dangled helplessly, my aggravation growing the more I looked on his stupid, stupid face. “You’re supposed to be dead,” I managed to snarl through limp lips. “We have that in common,” Grokk answered, the veneer on his eyes shifting for just a moment. He looked up at the sky, flashing the hazy blue a humorless smile. “But somebody just won’t let me.” “What, sun-Joske?” I mean, why not. “Worse,” Grokk said. “Way-hay-hay worse. This punk has a ‘sense of humor.’” “Sense of humor. Maybe just no sense of fashion.” I fought the urge to smile at him. I would have kneed him in the chest if my legs felt capable of anything beyond being smeared on toast, or wrapped around a dock to keep a rowboat from drifting off, but it felt good to think that there was something out there that was keeping Grokk from drifting off into an eternal siesta. Karmically good, sure. But good good, too. He wasn’t a peaceful person. And it meant that I hadn’t technically killed him. I hated the idea of being held up for the duration of our conversation, but I wasn’t going to say anything; it beat being dropped onto the ground again, which-- He dropped me onto the ground. “#####!” Were my own thoughts not even safe? “Nnnope,” Grokk grinned, spitting out his piece of grass. … Why are there so many Fusa here? Did they kick out your teeth as a little Skakdi or something-- “Agh,” Grokk rolled his eyes, holding his temples exaggeratedly. “It would be easier if you talked. The inside of your head has a real hollow echo, and smells like perfume in there. You been using perfume, Dorable?” “No. So, yeah, what’s with the Fusa? I don’t remember the last time I even saw one in the wild. They must be your thing, right?” I looked at the creatures that had surrounded us, and the more I looked the more they put me on edge. A Fusa wasn’t a threatening creature by nature, just a harmless little marsupial with endless bursts of energy-- “Heh,” Grokk snickered. ##### off. Anyway, Matoran even made little toys of them to flip around the house. My dad had stepped on more than one of them as a kid. He always hated them, but for some reason, he never stopped buying them for me. “S’an entrepreneurial thing,” Grokk clarified. “Way I sees it, even the gods need playthings.” He shot another pointed look up at the sky. “Gods?” “Ooh, you betcha,” Grokk answered, returning his gaze to me. “Lots of those up there. More n’ you’d expect... Enough gods for every one of us to get our own, even. It’s a crowded field. So I’ve had to really up my production of late. Lately, I’m swimmin’ in merchandise.” “I never imagined you’d become an upstanding member of society. Businessman Grokk.” He shot me a wink. “Who said nothin’ about upstanding?” As if on cue, one of the Fusas started to— I don’t know quite how to say it— go haywire? It flipped once, then one of its legs tried to move while the other stayed put. The Fusa flipped again, this time flying sideways and crashing into one of its compatriots. The two kangaroos collapsed into a heap, making plaintive noises and trying to disentangle. Grokk made zero effort to help, which was— “Classic me,” he finished. “Yep. Y’see, Dorable, death doesn’t change people. It gives them a chance to be themselves. Death couldn’t hold me in, no more than it can hold you. Death is temporary if the gods decree it. They don’t care ‘bout giving us any rest. They’re, y’know, just lookin’ for a kick.” My first thought of Utu Kotore, the poor #####ing gigantic Mark Bearer, and how the last he’d ever seen of his only friend was his back, abandoning him again. I thought of Joske Nimil. I thought of all my dead friends, and how many of them had probably gotten talks like this. Joske must have. Gods seemed to favor Joske, in a way they -- didn’t? Did? -- seem to favor Grokk (too?) And here I was, the link that connected them. Joske, Grokk, Echelon, Heuani, Stannis, Cael, Utu, Tuara. And Dor. The center of the spiderweb. There for everything, but always in the shadows, able to flit in and help or bounce out and shelter from any storm that blew my way. I feel so tired. “It doesn’t feel like that,” I protested. “It feels like my skin’s out of the game. I got what I’m after. I was--” Was what? I had been doing something, something that felt important...something I’d thought I’d wrapped up. Echelon? Had I killed Echelon? Echelon was killing me. That seemed ignoble. Everyone was going to think I was a ##### like Joske. Hmmph. “--fine with it.” That sounded wrong. No, it sounded right. It sounded like a blend. I knew what kind of barrel I was staring down when I marched into that Vault; all I wanted to do was burn out, the way Tuara always talked about, and leave Echelon’s corpse snapping, crackling, and popping beside me. That was just an optional objective. “There are people who can do it better than me.” “See but,” Grokk chided, adopting the posture and gestures of a stern teacher. “I don’t give a fusa’s flip about what you think you’re capable of, Mr. Dorian. So you’re the ‘center of a web,’ or whatever other tangled—tangled, hah, I’m good!—analogy you wanna weave—weave!—for me. I’ll letcha in on a little secret, Mr. Self-Involved: we’re all centers of our own webs. Life is all connections. You’re not special—” “—Thanks.” “—But neither is nobody else. Well, except for me. I’m somethin’ special.” “Figures he’d keep his inflated sense of self…” “Don’t mumble, it’s disrespectful.” Grokk wagged his finger one last time, then relaxed out of his teacher bit. “Purposefully obtuse as always. Point is: you’re not special, you’re just dead. Well, close to death as we get, ‘round here. You’re where they sent me after I broke all the rules. You killed me, yeah yeah y’ain’t gotta apologize, I know you did whatcha had to… and I died. But then I didn’t like the, ah, boundaries that created. Flexed my Grokkie self a little too much for the man upstairs, and look at me now. Living in gods-forsaken wasteland in the realm of memory, one more set piece in somebody else’s story. I tellya Dor, I miss having my own story.” For the first time, I thought I got a little honesty from Grokk. If/as he read this reaction in my thoughts—was he reading my reaction to his reaction?—he let it slide. The Skakdi slid onto the edge of a giant trough, some of the vim and vigor sliding out of him as he did so. In that second, the honesty felt suffocating. My head felt like it was going to explode. “I can’t take more of this #####.” Grokk’s brief moment of cosmic relaxation vanished, and some of the strength returned to his posture like he was prepared for me to deck him with one of my noodle arms. Not that he didn’t deserve a good wiggly haymaker. Instead, I stood up and crossed the pen to where the Fusa lay in their own noodly tangle of limbs. The Fusa who had crushed its poor buddy was still flailing and kicking desperately, trying to right its posture, and it kicked me in the stomach as I neared it. If we had been in the real Po-Wahi, I would have stumbled back, breath leaving my lungs in a sudden fwoosh while I sucked in an equivalent amount of dust and hashtagged words. Instead I got closer, and when the Fusa kicked again, I sidestepped to the right, got my hands on its sides, and hoisted it up, as Grokk had done for me. The second Fusa stood on its own, with a bleat of gratitude. Then it started to flip again. Dumb #####ing thing… I turned back to look at Grokk and continue the conversation, and what I saw was a Skakdi different than I had ever known in life. Every detail was the same, everything from the teeth to the tattoo to the pulsing golden aura he liked to pretend was magnetism even though everyone in the world found it repellant instead. But not me. All those years in Bad Company, even when we descended further and further into monstrosity, where the guilt started to creep into me and seemed to bounce off Grokk, it wasn’t Brykon’s pride that concerned me - I had never had that. It was Grokk’s pride that had counted. I didn’t see it on his face even until the moment he died. For a second, finally, I thought I saw it dance along his eyes before wriggling up his tattoo like a serpent and escaping. “Thought it would never shut up,” I exhaled, taking a step towards him. The Fusa that I had lifted in the first place watched me advance back to polite conversational distance before starting to do its circus routine again. I found more and more of the irritation I always felt around Grokk bleeding away from me, redirected to the Fusa. “Why the ##### don’t they just stop?” I grumbled. “What did you do to them?” “Not a thing, Dorbell,” Grokk shrugged. “They was like this when I got here.” That statement hit me in the stomach harder than any kick, and I cocked my head slightly to look at the Skakdi. The motion sent the neon scarf sliding down my neck, but I was too busy looking at him to retrieve it. “I am sorry you’re dead, Grokk.” I smiled, for the first time in my short, sweet second life as a farmhand. “But it was a #####load of money. You would’ve done it, too.” “Eh,” Grokk answered nonchalantly. Typical of him to shy away from a broment. We watched the Fusa continue their erratic dances for an indeterminant amount of time. Grokk finally stood up and stretched. “You leaving?” I asked, bewildered. “Nah,” Grokk answered. “We’re goin’ for a stroll.” … Somehow, once we left the pen and started walking, the scene around us shifted. I found us back in the Vault. A bewildered look behind me, and all I saw was its stone wall. The Fusas had ceased to exist. Did Grokk exist? Did I exist? “You think, therefore you are,” Grokk quipped. “You remember me, therefore I am.” “Sick. Why’d you bring me here?” “Have a look at what’s goin’ down, skinny. Whyd’ya think?” I hugged my abs protectively. M’not skinny. “Like a twig.” M’not! I turned my focus away from Grokk and deeper into the Vault. I looked markedly - Mark! Deep cut! -- “Awful,” Grokk interjected, shaking his head. Hmmph. Speaking of deep cuts, I looked almost as rough-hewn as Grokk in the vision I saw before us. I was slumped against the wall as I had been against the post, looking thoroughly exsanguinated and barely able to keep a sword between my thick, unresponsive fingers. My revolver was useless by my side; the gun that had once kept all of Xa-Koro and the thoroughly psychotic cabal of the Mark Bearers under my thumb was now fully loaded and as dangerous as ever, but the dying lump of flesh beside it seemed incapable of striking fear into much of anything. Echelon loomed over him, holding a beautiful crystalline blade over me as I had once brandished it over-- I felt an electric pang in my chest that would have sent me reeling if I hadn’t been possessed with the fortitude of an ethereal construct. As I once had over him. Heuani’s missive to me rang in my ears. Do me a favor and cut his head off. That #####er was going to cut my head off! Mine! With that ugly mug and that sorcerer’s scowl, he was going to cut my real head off my real shoulders - leaving us eternally deadlocked at one decapitation each, only mine was fake and his was real. Death was one thing. But taking my head… “You think you’re going to bait me,” I eked out through gritted teeth. “Pssssh-ssh-shh,” Grokk chuckled. “Consider yourself baited, Dornament. Betcha he throws your head in the Antidermis. Or hits you with one-a them fancy disks. Betcha you grow legs from your neck or something gross.” “Stop.” “Betcha he names it something cartoon-y and evil. Or something non-threatening and girly.” "Stop!” “Like Dorable.” By now, our little jaunt through purgatory had convinced me that I wasn’t #####ed yet. I’d heard tell of enough of Joske’s exploits, and I was quick enough on the draw, to recognize there was a message here, and why this messenger had been chosen. But I would be #####ed if I let Echelon turn my head into a spider. “I get the point,” I grumbled. “Fine. I’ll go back and kill him. But whatever happens, it’s on you. And your stupid gods.” “My gods? We don’t get to choose the gods,” Grokk sighed. “They only get to choose us. Do me a favor: forget all about me.” I was caught off guard. “Sorry?” “Forget about me. Entirely. Don’t even ‘member my name. I want out.” “What about your crooked business? Who will keep selling the gods recall-worthy Fusa?” “There’s always another crook,” Grokk said. “I’m bored, I want to investigate a different career. The career of being well and truly dead.” I weighed that for a second - the idea of well and truly forgetting about a sin, instead of trying to atone for it. In another lifetime, it had felt so easy to do; now the idea of purging it from my memory, bleaching it beyond any recollection until my conscience shown white and clear, felt impossible. But I had done impossible things before, and the last time I had defied Grokk, it had sent him to a boring afterlife on the ranch. Maybe it could be done. Maybe it would be a favor. I watched Echelon, frozen in time, brandish the sword. Maybe I watched him even longer than I watched the Fusa. “Hey d-bag.” Silence. “Hey d-bag.” “I ain’t ‘bout to dignify your childish vulgarities with a civilized response, Dorian. I’m a changed man now.” Where are you gonna go, dummy? You’re in my head. You can’t walk away, you have to listen. “All you can do is listen and listen, as long as I want,” I finished, turning to wink at him and grinning smugly. I think he may have been surprised I finally had him one-upped. “Hey d-bag.” “What?” asked the unfamiliar Skakdi quietly, like even the four letters were something he was begrudging me. Grokk seemed so… Faint. “I’ll always be your friend,” I promised, punching him in the shoulder with a fully functional arm. “Live with it.” “Too late to live with it. Gotta die with it.” That wasn’t any funnier than that dumb #####ng fruit joke, but I laughed anyway. ... What was that? He wasn't going to cut my head off at all. He was just going to pulverize me into a stain on the wall. That wouldn't have been as bad. But... Still, I wouldn't have been super pumped about it. ... There was no more pain; there was only relief. The blood came flowing from my mouth as my screams turned into quiet giggles; Echelon looked more surprised than he should’ve. Everyone knows I could find a way to laugh at anything. “Hey. D. Bag.” How much blood was on my clothes or the ground beneath me instead of where it belonged? There was no way of telling. I felt like I had been flayed down to my core, stripped bare of every bit of protection Echelon thought I had. But he had forgotten to take my mask - not the Calix, but the facetious smile-and-wave routine that found new and exciting ways to disappoint everybody alive. I smiled, and waved. “Bye.” Echelon’s sneer curdled, and he threw the final ripple of Dark Magnetism down onto my head at the same second that the Protosteel sword was tugged back into my gesturing fingers. The Dark Toa’s attack stopped cold, distorting the air between us for a second before disappearing, replaced only by the glow of the rune. He looked shocked for a second. The first bullet shocked him more. Crack. The smile, the wave, and the gun. The three tools of any good merc. Surprise? Well, that too. But the surprise on Echelon’s face was far sweeter than the feeling of pulling a rabbit out of my hat for the umpteenth time in my life. When I watched his hand go from brandishing the power to rip a Toa apart to touching his torso gingerly, it seemed obvious to me he’d never been shot before. Everyone should try it, honestly. It’s no different from having the wind knocked out of you by a punch - when you’re used to it. Echelon clearly wasn’t yet, but he would learn soon enough. Enjoy paradise, Tuara. I'm building it on this #####er's bones. Crack crack crack crack crack. -Tyler

IC: "Here ya go, Tor!" The giant Onu-Toa hefted Torana Avaliona up onto his other broad shoulder, so that she sat at equal height with her friend. "Now if you need to nap again, you can just lay down." -Tyler

IC: Inokio had always hated the young girl's mind. He could empathize in some way, he supposed, with the girl's confusion. Youth was always a turbulent time. Inokio remembered the aggressive details of his own adolescence, though he comforted himself in the knowledge that he never compared in thuggish nature of First Sons today. But Desde had been formed a gentler creature than most men, and her tendency to yearn for the love of those around her led to her attempting to stifle her prodigious gifts at a young age. It was against their Virtues as Dasaka, but that was no great shock; the Umbralines had been flouting such conventions their whole lives, frittering away such knowledge as Inokio would have killed to possess. And even still-- Inokio had always hated the young girl's mind. --she was able to strike so easily. He felt himself being stripped to his core, past the point of nakedness, past the point of even dreaming he could hide his shame. Desdemona would see all. She would learn of his betrayal. She would learn of his failures. She would learn of his humiliation at the hands of her coarse blind paragon. He would need to move quickly now, need to adjust the plan, need to figure out how this situation could be escaped... "But Desde (two floors up)...early on, my hope was that this would all be too much for Desde. She wanted the family half of the Imperial Family very badly, but none of the baggage that came with it (three guards on the stairs). With no mother, no Hana, and Yumi growing more erratic by the month, in a perfect world she would have leapt right from her tower (i'm in the tower). I suppose we have you to thank for making sure that didn't happen. I must admit, the girl meant little to me. (nera in chambers) She would have died before she produced an heir - that, and I think the experience itself might have killed her. By herself, Desde was never a threat. And if there's one thing that Yusanora assured, it's that Desde was always by herself. (help me)" ... "Who spilled the juice?" he asked. Both sisters were deathly quiet, focusing on protecting their minds from Inokio's wrath. Des was focusing hard on reinforcing Yumi's own barriers, adding an unbidden layer of protection to her big sister's thoughts. The distraction proved fatal. She opened her mouth to give a cautious answer-- --and hiccuped loudly. (i can't find sheika) The jig was up; Yumiwa snorted in an attempt to repress her laughter, which quickly grew into the heinous cackle of a forest witch. Both girls heard the heavy bass of Rayuke's chuckle behind Inokio, and a few of the guards were laughing softly. One, who wore a thin crystal film over her eyes, had let her posture relax in the closest thing to a slouch that decorum would allow, with her arms crossed beside a cane. She was grinning at Desde approvingly. "I...did," Desde admitted carefully, trying to hold her breath to prevent another hiccup. "I'm sorry, Inokio, I meant to pick it--" "I'm not going to chastise you, Desdemona," Inokio said, holding up his hands to assure her. "Did it with your mind, did you? A good effort, Princess. Good work. It will come more naturally as you get older, if you have the true gift - which I think you do, just as much as your sister. Keep practicing and you two will be unparalleled one day." (i'm sorry inokio) "Of course, my princess." Inokio bowed low, the image of chivalry, as Yumiwa stood and moved beside him. "I admire your determination. Keep at it; I believe in you." ... Korae Inokio was renowned for his counsel, once he finally deigned to give it. Once he had all the information in hand, his advice cut to the heart of matters as easily as his blade. He had all the information he needed; he knew what had to be done. He had no doubts that Masayoshi had received her own intimate memories, laced with instructions; Desde was a prodigious Willhammer, and could easily focus on two minds at once, especially if one was untrained. Inokio also knew that the foolish woman was besotted with the Chojo, and already had it in her head that her visored countenance would be the first friendly face that Desde saw since she left Sado. If she did, Inokio obviously feared what she had to say. The woman would turn Desde against him too quickly for him to be able to make any ground up with her, and his sentence would be the worst for it. He had to save her. It was his duty to himself. ... It was his duty to Yusanora. He turned to the executioner's assistant and began urgently making gestures with his hands. She refused to use the mental plane, which Inokio found shrewd but disconcerting nonetheless; he was not used to being deprived of vital senses as she was, and--he cursed then, aloud, at the realization that she had no idea what he was doing behind that visor, with those ruined eyes of hers. By the bosom of Zataka, was the curse Yumiwa used to use. Or something like that. He found it apt. To test his theory, Inokio made an unspeakably rude gesture with both hands, directly in the Umbraline's face. When she didn't respond, through words or facial tics, Inokio decided to whisper urgently. ""One floor up, Toroshu's chambers," he hissed under his breath. "Sheika will be guarding the Chojo. Two floors up, west stairs, the guard tower we passed on our way inside. I will save her. Go." Whether or not that was true or not, Inokio had no idea. But it gelled with what he knew of Sheika. The woman was a Tajaar, and everything about her was predatory. To give up such a trophy as a Chojo, let alone her only competition for the Archipelago's mightiest Menti, must have been excruciating for her; she would at least do what she could to keep it in sight, to remind her of the hunt. If Masayoshi thought that information came from some traitor's knowledge of the castle floor plans instead of his own keen personality insights, then all the better. No doubt Fursic Nera would make an end of poor, dogged Masa soon enough, but even if she wanted to save the Chojo she would have had no chance against a potent Willhammer like Sheika. Even Inokio would have a tough time of it. But with Desde's help... Who was the stronger Menti? It was a question that would torture historians for generations, no doubt - if there were still scholars left after the Empire's fall to the barbarism of old, at least. Most would say Sheika out of hand, a nod to her unique Soulsword, her Tajaar upbringing, and her ferocity in battle. Inokio had seen the truth of all those things well enough for himself, watching her in the Yards. But he had unique insight; Umbraline Desdemona, the girl with the Valkyr's name, had grown up in her sister's shadow for her whole life. Coincidentally, Inokio himself had always been her sister's shadow. Having seen her strength so closely...Desde's strength, mentally, was unparalleled. But she lacked for physical strength in a way that Sheika did not, and Sheika was willing to fight dirty. The experience of killing, like so many experiences, would no doubt break Desde. Sheika had killed more Menti than the sheltered Chojo had ever known; she relished in it; she would not break. That was fine. Korae Inokio relished in it, too. And he could not be broken further than he already was. "Go." And he had two floors of Fursics to soothe his troubled mind. -Tyler

IC: Blades clashed up and down the length of the Vault; I knew I had him. Echelon had never had the makings of a varsity athlete. In all our confrontations over the years, he had honed his mind and his element, but with a sword in his hands I had always suspected he was never more than average. The only thing that was keeping him alive now was the fact that he had an above-average weapon. Even that wasn’t the advantage that Echelon might have thought it was. I’d been on either end of the sword - the edge, the quickness, the perfectly balanced weight each lent it potent value as a weapon. Each was also, notably, contoured for its user, turning even a novice into an equally potent duelist. That leap in prowess was an equation in which only one side was balanced; it fell to the user to be balanced. I had seen it with Joske; I was seeing it now. The sword was teaching Echelon how to fight, and I knew how the sword preferred to fight. I could outthink a weapon. What had begun as an equal contest quickly became one-sided. Echelon’s parries were slow, his feints obvious, his attempts at ripostes clumsy; the sword was giving him a crash course, and like anyone prone to learning on the fly he was prone to mistakes. I drove him back with one cut, two; a few brief clashes and I could see the path to disarming him, cleaving his skinny forearm from his body and scoring the finishing cut— —#####! Another mental blast knocked me off guard, sending me reeling back a step or two. That mask was the last advantage that Echelon had. His greatest weapon, his element, had been nabbed right from his arsenal, and if I could— Another. Another. My sword’s point dropped to the ground while I tried recovering, but the pain in my skull was too much to even lift my blade back up. My revolver relied on muscle memory, if I could get the sword up— —block magnetism— —and fire— I yelled out in pain as I felt my skull begin to crack. -Tyler

IC: … … … “Snrk. Well, it wouldn’t be your skull, moron. Not for a few days, anyway, you’ve gotta decompose first and then there’s--you know what, forget it. You don’t seem like much of a scientist. If you were you’d know to be careful with exploding tattoos.” I had to work to bite back a smile. Bombs and swords could beat up Dors, but roasts could never cook me - and I had seen schemes blow up in Echelon’s face with more intensity than his insults had. This was just like him, honestly. Heuani had been slick, cajoling, subtle with his machinations. The Four Peers had been the same way, a few schemers who wore Matoran’s faces to disguise the monstrosities committed in their names. Echelon had always been the same blunt instrument - in the end, he couldn’t help himself. I never could, either. Maybe that was why I was picked for a Mark all those years ago. “Anyway. That was your one chance to leave peacefully. So if you want to kill me,” I shrugged, lolling my head to the side at him, “now’s your one chance to finish me off. Enjoy it. Because when I get up - and I will get up, you lanky ##### - I’m going to make sure what’s left of you couldn’t even be poured into that lock, Etch-a-Sketch.” “We shall see.” Each of the floating weapons erupted with flares of shadow as Echelon made his move, launching a concerted challenge to Dorian’s elemental control over the Piraka arsenal. For a split second they swivelled in unison, their aim moving away from Echelon, towards Dorian — then Dorian reacted, fighting back, and the weapons shuddered, each one jerking this way and that as the two Toa struggled not only to exert their will over so many objects simultaneously, but to overpower their opponent’s. A Zamor launcher went off, propelling a sphere of amber liquid into a wall of the Vault to explode with a flash of light and a crack like thunder. A high-tech rifle bent under the competing forces, then snapped into two halves that flung themselves in opposite directions, scattering crystalline ammunition across the floor. The deadlock lasted mere seconds before Echelon broke it: he relinquished his control over one Patero launcher (low-powered enough, he had quickly judged, not to pose a significant threat if Dorian managed to point it at him before his gambit paid off) and in its stead, focused that portion of his energy and concentration on a bayonet that lay behind the Toa of Iron, sending it stabbing towards Dorian’s back. Elemental Transcendence. It was an esoteric technique, and one that still hadn’t picked up much steam among most Toa on the island. A lot of Toa were born with elements that the body and mind weren’t suited to reach for, things consciousness could not touch. But some, like fire, water, or earth, were handy for those who had the patience, and a Toa of Iron could do all that and more with the metals that comprised the world around him. I hadn’t been too hot as a student - but I’d had a very hot teacher, something that had kept my attention long enough for me to pick up the much-needed patience that kept me alive as Brykon’s right hand. Brykon. That cruel old man, with his beatings and dismemberments, his old voice rubbed raw by his bellowed orders and his fine cigars. I had beaten him half to death once, and him me more than once...but he had been my colonel, and half my expertise had come from his gruff advice. Sometimes I even heard him in the way Agni spoke, wizened beyond their true ages by long years of competency among the incompetent. I had kept each and every one of the lessons, though - and a small but healthy sampling of the paranoia. So when Echelon released the Patero Launcher we had been struggling over, I felt the familiar elemental tug of war give way and knew something else was up his sleeve. I had all angles of attack covered save one glaring blind spot -- so the Patero Launcher spun around and fired another blast behind my back, sending a compressed air pocket to blow the bayonet harmlessly off course. It was only one of a dozen weapons that had clattered to the ground, an avalanche cascading from the untidy mountain and turning into a second messy heap. While I finally got up and moved off my perch, a few of those - be they projectile weapons or blades - flew at Echelon and were deflected harmlessly, as I figured they would be. It didn’t matter; they’d given me time to stop lazing around and pounce onto my feet. “Do you ever get bored of this? Again and again, the same old song and dance? You always gloat, I always flip. You always live, and so do I. We could just quit.” “I assure you, Shaddix, few things bore me more than grappling with the likes of you,” Echelon retorted, as he managed to wrest control of a foreign-looking crossbow only for Dorian to deflect the bolt with his own powers. “But I will not be kept from my work. If you wish to quit — be my guest.” Another Zamor launcher was triggered before either Toa could seize full control of it, sending a blue-green sphere to explode in a cloud of gas against the Vault wall. “Or you can stay, and die. It really doesn’t make much difference to me. The latter option simply demands a little more EFFORT — “ The Dark Toa abruptly relinquished his magnetic influence over the hovering weapons, and immediately channelled his full focus into a mental blast from the Komau. Dorian reeled back from the pain inside his skull and the weapons, released from the elemental tug-of-war, tumbled down to join the rest of the pile. Echelon strode forward and seized the flamberge from where it lay, levelling it at the reeling Fe-Toa. “ — on my part.” “Yeah, I’d be careful with exerting yourself. Must be hard on your lungs,” I responded sympathetically, “you know. After that Mark blew up.” A Patero swiveled from the ground and shot Echelon’s legs out from under him with a blast of compressurized air. I took the opportunity to push myself back up onto my feet and grabbed a disk at random from the top of the pile. I thought it was bamboo, and only realized as I flung it that it was an unfamiliar alabaster instead of worn wood. That’s weird. The Vault wall behind Echelon shone where the disk struck true, and a thick sheet of ice began snaking across its service. That’s so #####ing cool. -Tyler