PM to join That Awkward 'Getting to Know You' Stage

[Prophet]

18th of Summer, 518 AV
KRI
18th Bell

A face stared down into the water. Her eyes were as cold as the stone that comprised the structure in which she stood yet held all the wonder and curiosity of a child. Such contradictions were normal and expected once people got to know the good doctor. There were always sad tales and failed experiments in the world of science but a shrewd mind knows that it is only through diligence that success can be found and then replicated. That is the true test of victory. Once is a fluke or luck. Twice, well, that is something else entirely.

Amanda Nitrozian had been tasked by Aemeli to expand her research. Kelvics were the doctor’s passion but these new Deplorables held similar powers just in different manners and methods. Science, magic- they are one in the same when broken down to the very basic structures of the world. There was a full docket on course for today. The Pycons were to be tested against physical stimuli by reimancers. The Dhani were going to be sedated so samples could be taken from various organs. The goal was to tranquilize the specimens in their various states so multiple samples could be taken. The Ebonstryfe had graciously agreed to send several units of highly trained interrogators and a handful of highly skilled warriors to help deal with the violent nature of the serpent shifters. Finally, the Eths were going to be tested against various forms of false light, chemicals drafted from blessed artifacts and acute types of torture related to several areas of the body generally linked to the sun and moon.

The woman was no longer as young as she once was but her ultimate hypothesis and reason for the institute was to control these alien populations through very specific patterns of breeding and hereditary mapping. She had some success with certain breeds of kelvics always yielding other breeds but she had never even thought to extend her stabling methods to the other shifting races on Mizahar. The Druvin’s insistence was unwelcomed at first but her logic was sound. For her support, the priestess asked for Amanda to create a version of Mevakal that would force or stunt shifting within Dhani, Ethaefal and Pycons. The frizzy-haired doctor had done enough research to know that Pycons were going to be less complicated since they were highly complex animations, at best. Arrogant mages had created them so she had the Black Sun round up a few mages to help deal with the issue of controlling the clay creatures.

“We’re ready to begin, ma’am.” A white-coated assistant called from the door. Amada gathered herself from the reflecting pool in her office and walked briskly with notes and book in hand. She gathered her lab coat at the door and proceeded down to the holding chamber where the Ethaefals were being held.

Eths :

The fallen would each wake to find a chain wrapped around her left ankle that leads back to a moisture-laden stone wall. The same would be true for her right wrist. The room is strange and it takes a moment to adjust as there is a mist which rises from the center where a round metal grate sits in the absolute center of the round floor. The chamber is an old silo constructed of stone and mortar; a marvel of masonry since there seem to be no seams. The diameter is over twenty feet and the walls are almost as high. As eyes travel further towards the sky, a metal cage creates a dome where various panels are open and some are closed. There is an intricate pattern that resembles something like a mechanism or a glyph. Its purpose cannot be known even after extensive observation. The smell is musty and cold but also strangely metallic. There are stains on the floor and walls but it is not possible to to determine the source. Atop the walls rests a crown of sorts which is actually a boardwalk that holds no less than five humans in lab coats, each with a notebook scribbling details or findings.

There are three eths chained to the walls. They are spaced equally from one another though not within the round chamber. There is clearly room for two more if distanced in the same way. The one on the left has a broken horn. The one on the middle is in her daytime form -an Isur. She is short, muscular and has a bright red arm. Her veins shine like silver and her clothes are nothing more than dingy white rags that might have once been a gown or robe. Medium length brown hair like the color of muddy water hangs overher face as her head is cast downward. She seems to have been chained for some time given the bruise around her restraint. Finally, on the right is a newcomer only recently captured.

Dhani :

Dhani are held in small rooms not much larger than a shed. The frames are completely metal but also reinforced by mortar. There is a sliding metal gate on the top, one end and one side. Each snake will awaken to the sound of scraping like stone on heavy stone but none of the gates are large enough to fit any of the specimens through so it is a mystery how one would arrive inside such a box. There are claw marks, dents and other signs of struggles against the old metal cages but there are no structural flaws or damage to be found. Peering through the pinholes in the metal gates would reveal a much larger empty room outside the concrete coffin. Empty meaning void of objects and large enough that the dim torches do not illuminate the walls. There are handfuls of men in armor, however and it seems as if a few of them are betting or discussing other nefarious aspects of their present station. If one sits long enough, he will determine that his cage is splashed by water on almost regular intervals that range from twelve to fifteen chimes. The amount of liquid forms merely a spray that renews the smell of mildew, oxidized metal and something like sewage.

Are you ready to learn your fate?

A Firenze Template

[Maore]

Ciraaci's awakening in the bowels of the KRI had initially been with struggle, the rebellious urges of an unbroken spirit still riding tall and high above the very mortal despondency that the ethaefal had survived with on the long journey from the twisted-riddle city, Alvadas, to Ravok. It came and went in broken frequency, like waves crashing onto a still boat, interrupted by the low tide. She lost her spirit during the day, when her sun-given form had made her feel weak and useless, kept for the novelty of being beautiful and hated for the appearance of shifting. At night, when her mortal memories were strongest, and dead faces faded long into memory, she regained that fleeting spirit and resisted.

It was day now, and Ciraaci was in her celestial form, a tangle of marble limbs and messy blonde hair that hadn't shifted with the season change, still resolutely frozen in time at the exact moment she'd turned her back on her goddess and sought out a different kind of life with her drykas brethren, no more interested in what the fickle sun could offer. Even a mess like she was, with the tattered remains of whatever rags that her captors had seen fit to dress her in before presenting her to the city, Ciraaci possessed the god-given beauty of this form, and she commanded it with an ageless practice. Her hands had clumsily braided the near-platinum strands out of her eyes, wrapping the coiled length at the back of her head into a loose and messy approximation of a proper drykas knot. It put the broken horn on display, though she refused to touch it; it remained uncomfortable, pulsing a dull, throbbing sensation behind her eyes that only abated when the sun was setting and she no longer possessed horns. She'd found a comfortable enough position, even chained to the wall, and longed for something to eat and drink now that she couldn't rely on Syna to provide the sustenance for her.

Her 'housemates' were the furthest thing from her mind, though she knew they were there. Ethaefal, both of them, Ciraaci felt there was little in common with either, although one was familiar enough to have initially warranted a double-take before being dismissed as just another unfortunate method of torment. She knew Asterope from Alvadas where they'd met at the scene of a murder, but didn't consider the other woman a friend. Her friends, after all, were riding horses over the Sea of Grass. The third ethaefal there, having introduced Ciraaci to the concept of night-shaped cursed, was something else entirely during the day, and she couldn't adequately guess what, but it was clearly not human.

After casting a searing look over her chained accomplices, Ciraaci looked away from them and up, towards the grate that formed something reminding her of a cage, though it was well out of reach, even if she could stand, and she determined she couldn't climb out, even if she tried. The fingers of the hand not chained to the wall beat an uneven tune out on the floor as she considered that grate and the assembly of people circled around it, judging them, with the same measured patience that they were using on them. The time for kicking and screaming had been done, and she was curious of them, and what they'd brought for their prisoners today. More studying? She wasn't perceptive enough to detect a change in their behaviour, and she couldn't understand their quiet conversations.

586

[Asterope]

Aster sighed softly, shifting to try and find a more comfortable position, wincing as her shoulder twinged; the chains attaching her ankle and wrist to the wall rattled quietly against the stone with her movements.

She'd spent the last several days in a blur, in an unknown location; she thought maybe it had been a hospital of sorts, but she'd been isolated from any other patients as her shoulder was treated. The medical experts that tended to her had been silent, ignoring her questions, but Aster gathered that she'd gotten lucky.

The bolt hadn't pierced all the way through her shoulder, and had just narrowly missed the bone of her shoulder blade, instead piercing the small section of muscle near the top of her shoulder. The bolt had been removed, her shoulder bandaged, and she'd been confined to bed rest, though she had no idea for how long.

Her shoulder was still sore, and she was careful not to move it too much; the injury transferred between her forms, a constant annoyance. She could tell it was beginning to heal, though. Then that morning, she'd awoken blearily to find herself where she was; in a round stone room, with a faint mist rising from a grate in the center of the floor, wrapping around her and providing a constant, irritating blur to her surroundings.

There were two other Ethaefal in the cell with her; one of them she recognized as Ciraaci, the Eth she'd met in Alvadas, at the scene of a murder. One of her horns had been cracked and broken, missing a chunk of it including the point. It was horrific, and a deep part of her was sad to see the other fallen of Syna in the same situation as her, but more deeply and intensely she was simply numb.

The other woman, at the moment, must have been in her mortal seeming. She had a stone-like arm, similar to that of a man she'd met earlier in the season, when she'd still been new to Ravok. She must have been one of Leth's fallen.

Perhaps the only thing Aster could be thankful for was that she had a decent shirt on in an attempt to keep infection away from her healing shoulder, whereas the others were dressed in tatters. She wasn't sure if it was good or not that they, whoever they were, so clearly wanted to keep her alive.

Aster squinted upwards, frowning at the artificial light above her and the people milling about; she could hear their voices, but not the words they were speaking. A deep, churning hatred for them turned in Aster's chest and stomach, seething through her and seeping into every inch of her body, filling her with contempt and anger. It was an unfamiliar feeling for her, and not entirely pleasant...but she welcomed it. It was better than the numbness that otherwise enveloped her.

She missed sunlight. She felt weak and almost hungry but not quite, something she'd never experienced in her divine form. Between having holed herself up in Tarsin's Boarding House for so long, then being captured and holed up in a medical facility, and then finally put into the strange, metallic-smelling, cold and misty chamber...she hadn't seen Syna's rays in days, and it was beginning to affect her.

Asterope let her head fall back against the wall behind her, hissing out a breath between her teeth. Her rose-gold hair fell stringy and oily around her face; she blew the strands away, irritated with them, but unable to tie her hair up with her injured hand. She envied Ciraaci that small luxury; the other Eth had her hair knotted and braided to keep it out of her face, in the style of what Aster recognized as very Drykas; which made sense, given that the other woman spoke Pavi.

Silence reigned over the three women, save for the whispering of the scientists above. An urge to yell rose in Aster, but she bit it back, pushing it down; she still had some semblance of control, though the anxiety in the back of her mind would not be kept at bay for long. Asterope knew if she was kept chained up for too long she would begin to go insane.

Hatred, anger, apathy, anxiety...the emotions swirled, fading in and out as one took dominance over the other. It wasn't a healthy concoction stirring in the Eth, that much was certain. Finally, Aster broke the silence; her voice was hoarse from disuse, and she had to clear her throat before she could speak properly. Even so, her voice was low and somewhat raspy.

"Ciraaci," She addressed the familiar Eth. In her accented Pavi, she asked, "Days?" And held up her good hand, making a show of counting from one to three. She was asking how long the other woman had been imprisoned, if she knew; though whether or not Ciraaci understood her was questionable.

If she didn't, Aster would give up. She was too tired to try and figure out how to communicate, especially since she was unable to use both hands properly to use her limited knowledge of the signs that accompanied Pavi. She ignored the other woman, not particularly interested in her.

Word Count: 1,745

[Prophet]

There was a period of quiet observation that took place. No one addressed the subjects directly and the scattered placement, though seemingly random, was absolutely orchestrated. Meticulous detail went into every aspect of the good doctor’s work; she left nothing to chance. Science, research and understanding had to be replicated in order to become relevant. Anything that could not be duplicated was a waste and a cancer that must be excised. The subjects had now been set in the chains for two bells according to the shifting bellglass.

It was a marvel, really. A standard bellglass held enough sand to pass from one tapered chamber into a another over the extent of one bell. Flip it over and it would recount the exact same length of time. Amanda had commissioned Trigol, the gadgeteering Isur, with a task of coming up with one that was able to be divided and compounded. The man with the red arm and charred door did not disappoint. His device held enough sand for six bells. It was the size of a coffee table but in a self-contained sphere. Each bellglass was hooked up onto a swivel which was controlled by rods and pins that connected to an axis inside the sphere. There were trays, pulleys and counterweights that all could be shuffled around via more pins and gears and ramps. The orientation one undertook to understand and create setups was lengthy and there were times when Amanda called the smith back to her laboratory for a refresher course. The mechanism could be tailored to register any amount of time from five chimes all the way up to thirty-six bells. The woman sighed. She loved her most prized piece. It was precious to her and no one else was allowed to touch it except to move it from one place to another on the casters built into the frame.

Her countdown had finished and the woman was ready to begin. She gave a nod to a particular assistant who had one duty; watch Dr. Nitrozian and then ding a bell. The woman gave him a look and the boy struck a small metal bell with a small metal hammer. The ring permeated the chamber with its din but was soon overpowered by the sound of the panels above. Light from the setting sun was seen and lost as pieces of the roof moved about on a slowly creaking piece of tech. Several research assistants high in the rafters were turning cranks and realigning the gaps. Once it was completed, each occupant in the silo would be directly under an opening.

Next, a strange gurgling sound came from the grate in the floor. The mists rose higher and the cloud concealed what was actually happening for some time. During this facade, the senior researcher moved to her shifting bellglass and reset the timer so that she could calculate what was to come in an easily quantifiable and replicable manner. A belch from the grate in the middle of the silo’s floor announced that the experiment’s next phase had begun.

Muck spewed forth around the metal. It smelled of rancid water, compost and a hint of sewage. It’s mass was simply a blob that began to fill and slop about in the middle of the floor. It rose up to nearly three feet high before gravity began to spread it around. Slowly, the puddle of mire spread outwards towards the three specimen. The test subjects would see only the muddy outpouring for several chimes until the flow stopped and the gargling sound of the drain ceased. Nothing happened for a solid two chimes but them movement could be detected within the slime. Line that arched and curved slashed outward from the grate but whatever made them was below the surface of the goo that was only a few inches deep. As the sour substance leveled itself off and the ring of grossness reached further and further out, more lines and movement could be seen. The final resting place of the disgusting matter would end roughly fifteen inches from the wall’s edge and all went still; silent. Even the watching eyes from above did not make noises as they prepared their notebooks and journals to record the data.

Steadily, each test subject would watch a mass rise from the filth directly in front of them. The taller it grew, the narrower it became -either that or the more gunk fell away to reveal the true shape. Giant centipedes. Each one was almost four foot in length with massive antennae that were nearly a foot long each. Pinchers looked like talons from a raptor and their shells were all adorned with little whiskers on the edge that shaded somewhere in the color of orange. The bugs stood up as if smelling the creatures in front of them and lingered while the festering stew continued to return to the floor. One by one, the chilpods leapt onto the bodies of their targets. Exceptional climbers, fast moving and armored with heavy shells, they are not easily thrown or destroyed. The insects are special pets of the primary doctor. They are loaded with Mevakal as well as syrup rendered from the adrenal glands of common goats. The concoction is one that is used often on fresh kelvics because it not only facilitates a shift but makes it exceedingly painful and sometimes will create a double shift.

Amanda Nitrozian watched with wide eyes and all the curiosity of a child as her pets delivered the serum that she hypothesized would lead to a derivative which could then be used to generate a Mevakal for Ethaefals. She was more than excited and jotted everything down that she could see as the Isur woman began to fight and scream.

Are you ready to learn your fate?

A Firenze Template

[Syresshvassydir]

Sydir was not made for confinement. Large as a human, larger still as a serpent, and a true behemoth of a Dhani, the pit-fighter turned captive found that his once white-hot and near constant raged had begun to burn low. Only embers remained, stoked by what was left of his instinct for survival and fed by the fuel of his own cruel and twisted imagination. Life Ravok had never been particularly pleasant, but at least he had been occasionally afforded the luxury of battle, of spilling the blood of another sentient even as it tried to spill his own. All of that life was over now. There were no screaming crowds here. No, the air smelled quite different. It stank of piss and shyke and fear. Mostly fear. Though his human nose was not as sensitive to the air currents as his others, even that dull sense could detect the atmosphere of terror that pervaded the belly of the Kelvic Research Institute.

What did they want from him here? He was no Kelvic, though he supposed to ignorant and feeble humans the similarities must have been striking. The first day, he had tried every Dhani trick he could think of. But the walls of his cell were strong, marked by jagged claw marks in the stone though even the sheer strength of his glorious Dhani form could not so much as widen a crack in the mortar. The bars in the door were far too narrow to slip through as a serpent, even as much as he longed to taste the flesh of the guards beyond the door. That was one small comfort at least: Jati and Krati had rarely allowed him the pleasure of assuming his more natural forms. The researchers here seemed indifferent, at best, towards keeping him as a human. And so it was that Sydir’s sinuous body lay coiled upon itself, the mass of muscled scales completely covering the floor area of his cell. His body pressed against the cold stone walls as he kept his long arrow-shaped head positioned to the side of his door.

His forked tongue flickered from between his lips, tasting the air once. Twice. A third time. There was no change. Mildew. Burnt metal. Rotting flesh, or something akin to it. And of course, there was always the fear.

“Have you seen that thing in there?” Came the voice of one of the men outside his cell.

“Yeah, it’s a real freak. What do you think they want with it?” A second voice, more fresh in his years.

“Petch if I know,” the first replied, “I just hope they don’t expect us to move the damned thing.” The clanking of shifting metal plates betrayed his shrug, and the second man’s chain mail plinked softly as he nodded. Silence again.

Unbeknownst to them, the curiosity of the guards was shared by their ward. Before he had time to ponder further, a splash of water dropped from above. He had come to expect these, though the timing always seemed just off enough to make them difficult to predict. Can’t have prisoners keeping track of time, Sydir surmised with a sour thought. Whoever his captors were, whatever they wanted, they were clever. And clever beings were, in his century of experience, dangerous. But not unreasonable, came the follow-up thought. All he needed to do was discover exactly what it is they wanted from him. To see him fight? That he would be glad to do, though they hardly needed to keep him imprisoned for such a spectacle. To witness the beauty of his scales? A strong possibility, but then why keep him in such dank and mildewed filth? The mystery remained. But Sydir had had a century to learn patience. His kind were ambush hunters. When he was but a snakeling he had learned to master the art of waiting in place for days, sometimes weeks, before his next unsuspecting meal happened by. So it was in the jungle, so it shall be in Ravok. Assuming whatever they were planning didn’t kill him outright first, that was.

[Prophet]

~Sydir~

A small woman in a white lab coat entered the large chamber which housed the strange, stone and metal coffin. She held a batch of vials and a leather-bound journal that had all kinds of papers crammed into it. Some looked like they’d been burned or gotten wet and others looked like the fibers might simply turn to dust as age has taken its toll. Whoever she was, the guards snapped to attention and ceased their conversation. It wasn’t long before a strange and rhythmic squeak could be heard echoing from somewhere far away. Every few ticks, the noise repeated and it sounded like it was gradually getting closer. Within a chime, the squeak became twice as noticable and three times as annoying when the metal cart of tooled casters rolled into the room. The contents were not easy to decipher because of a cloth that covered everything but the smell.

The large predator would easily discern the scent of rodents amidst the moisture, mildew and human stench. Out of the view of the prisoner, the woman turned to the cart which was flanked by three orderlies in blue jackets and black pants. She used a needle to lance the corks on her vials then one by one injected the various substances into the rather large rats held in cages atop the cart. There were six of the vermin altogether. These creatures were the size of small dogs or house cats and obviously well-fed. The institute was large enough, produced enough trash and filth to support such a population so these feisty survivalists were readily available for experiments and as food for some of the subjects. The substances injected into each furry morsel were denoted based upon the color of the rat’s fur and skin. This was all written in the journal which the woman opened to verify her procedure before giving a nod to the orderlies.

The one white rat held a psychotropic substance meant to distort the senses and enhance lateral thinking. It was a favorite of the research assistants for afterhours. The two black rats were injected with equally potent doses of tranquilizers which wouldn’t normally affect such a large subject but when combined--- the development team was confident it would do the trick especially after laying out a pair of Jamouras with the cocktail. The three grey rats were all injected with a philtered down version of Mevakal that’s been adapted by running it against the blood of reptilian creatures who had been injected with the blood of kelvics. The woman moved to one side of the larger room out of the light and prepared to observe as the orderlies rolled the cart on its squeaky wheel to the cage. The guards drew their crossbows and pointed them at a sliding metal panel which was opened. One by one the rats were dropped into the cage and then the plate closed then locked. The rats weren’t ignorant...the blood of the predator froze several of them while others began to dig at the corners looking for places to hide.

Are you ready to learn your fate?

A Firenze Template

[Lee William]

Lee absentmindedly noted one of his colleagues straighten her back and Lee offered a glance in the direction of the third monstrosity, the one Lee had seen on the first of summer – the one the authorities had decided to make an example of – deservedly so. Lee gave the observer a glance as well, she was dressed much like himself, in white. Lee turned his attention back to the injured ethaefal – he didn't know if it had a name, but it did have milky white horns. He had been an assistant to the doctors who had ensured the survival after the injuries it sustained during its capture. It would have been a waste. A terrible waste. To capture her - no it, only for it to die a few days later. Especially since Lee was one of the observers whose job it was to take notes of that particular ethaefal.

At first he had been a little breath-taken by its apparent beauty, but as time progressed, it became inconsequential to him. He was much more intrigued by the shifting she did twice a day. It was what Dr Nitrozian had been tasked – and thus, Lee indirectly – with finding out. Lee would almost have done the work for free. It was invaluable knowledge to his own morphing-aspirations. He knew the bell drew close that the experiment would begin, so he scribbled a few final notes about his subjects appearance and apparent mood. It might be useful for comparison later – if not, he could purge it from his rapport to Dr Nitrozian.

It was Lee's turn to involuntarily straighten his back. The creature was speaking. Two words, but neither made any sense to Lee. The fingers made sense one-two-three. Lee figured it was a question in regards to time spent in chains. But he didn't want to assume, so he wrote down the words – phonetically. He would attempt to track down a translator later. Once this was over with. He liked to be thorough.

Somewhere he heard a loud ding. It was time for the main event of the day. All his other notes scribbled down thus far, were only a small appetizer, what was going to happen now, however, was the main course for the day. He drew a line across the paper. A few lines below the last word – in case he had to add something in later. Ready to begin with fresh observations. Awaiting the roof to be opened so these creatures may see the setting Syna. He briefly contemplated if the goddess would dare intervene – if she dared move again Rhysol. Lee banished those thoughts – he had more important matters to attend to.

The water gurgled forth and Lee made a few more observational notes about his subjects reaction. The main course was about to begin – yet Lee also knew what that entailed. And while he enjoyed his work, he wasn't fond of the centipedes that were about to appear. They disgusted him, but he suppressed the emotion – he couldn't be seen as weak-willed by Dr Nitrozian. He wanted to keep this job. Dr Nitrozian was from one of the major houses. Getting in her good graces might grant him a short-cut into the high-society of Ravok.

Lee trained his eyes upon the milky-horned creature – awaiting a shift in its appearance. Intent not to fail the doctor.

[Syresshvassydir]

As Sydir sat within his cell, still as a stone, his ears picked up a new sound. The squeaking of wheels drew the serpent out of his languishing repose, his ebony tongue flickering into the air with renewed rapidity. At first he didn’t detect anything different beyond the sound; the air tasted no different. As the cart drew closer, however, Sydir’s sensitive sense of smell picked up a strange new scent that was at once familiar and strange. While he was not accustomed to rats from his century of hunting within the jungles of Falyndar, the massive predator could hardly fail to recognize the smell of prey. The rasping of scale upon scale created a soft hissing sound as he came alive, his huge body sliding over itself as he positioned his head away from the center, coiling the first quarter of his body into a spring-loaded position. When travelling, his serpent’s body was slow and somewhat ponderous. But when the time came to hunt and strike, he was fast as lightning.

The overhead panel scraped open, revealing the guards with their crossbows. Despite the gnawing hunger within his gullet, Sydir was not foolish enough to lunge at the opening, preferring instead to allow a loud hiss reverberate from his open maw. One of the guards seemed taken aback and faltered, but only for a moment. Even still, Sydir had no interest in taking a guard. Not today, anyway. There was a new squeaking sound now, and the air practically stank of prey. Only now did Sydir truly realize just how hungry he had become. To be fair, Dhani appetites were nigh insatiable, and those of the constrictors exponentially moreso. What had it been? Weeks? Months? Since his last truly satisfying meal? Another hiss, louder and more insistent this time, communicated his hunger and impatience.

One by one, six rats fell from the ceiling. Large rats, as well. Certainly big enough to provide a satisfying snack for the great python below them. As the final rat was deposited into his cell, the metal plate above snapped shut and locked with a reverberating click! The rats sensed danger, as they should. The two larger ones froze at the sight of Sydir’s large arrow-shaped head, while the other four bolted for the corners of the room, desperate for some respite. There was no escape. Sydir’s massive form filled the room. His tongue flickered, tasting and savoring the fear as he singled out his target: the fat white rat had frozen with fear, and had the dubious honor of being closest to Sydir as it landed. With a hiss and a flash of dark scales, Sydir struck, his maw of piercing teeth barreling into the rat’s flank even as he brought the upper quarter of his body to coil around it, squeezing with all the force he could muster.

The strike itself stunned the rat. The sudden impulse of muscle around its spine resulted in an intensely satisfying crackle of crunching vertebrae. After a few chimes of frantic thrashing, Sydir felt the life ebb from his first victim. But the others were already making nuisances of themselves. In their desperation to escape, the animals had begun gnawing and scratching at anything they could, and in the small coffin-like space, the only thing fitting that description was Sydir himself. Rage flashed through his mind as he felt tooth and claw pierce his flesh in various places. He didn’t have time to dispatch five rats individually, and he could hardly allow the rodents to make a meal of him even as he devoured his first kill. There was only one thing to do.

Sydir relinquished his grip on the white rat and focused on changing his body. He sprouted his Dhani torso and arms, and his sinuous body widened in girth even as it shrunk in length. This sudden change seemed to surprise even the terrified rodents. As the bulk of his coils began to recede somewhat, Sydir noticed the two black rats seemed groggy and wobbled in their steps as they tried to flee once more, as far away from the serpent as possible. The gray rats, on the other hand, were bolder. More aggressive. Sydir’s serpentine mouth twisted into a cruel mockery of a smile as he lunged at one, wrapping it up in the coils of the lower third of his body. The other two he grabbed by the throat, reveling in the choking gasps as they struggled to breathe through his grip.

The rat caught in his coils continued its vain attempt to chew through him, though Sydir’s sinuous body slowly wrapped more and more around its furry form, squeezing and suffocating it as more mass was added. The other two, unable to bite him any further with his fist around their necks, took to kicking and scratching even as they shieked in rodential terror. A raspy chuckle came from within Sydir’s breast. The rodent in his right hand was pummeled into the stone wall, face first until only a scarlet pulp of blood, bone, and brain matter remained. Sydir dropped the headless corpse to the floor and took the second rat’s head in his bloodied fist. Gripping with all his strength, the Dhani twisted first one way, then the other and was rewarded with the crackle of snapping bone even as he began to pull his hands apart, rending the second rodent’s head from its body.

By now, the black rats roamed his cell listlessly, wobbling to and fro as if drunk. Sydir had no idea what had been done to them, but he doubted it was anything he wanted to eat himself. The third gray rat gasped its last, buried beneath his coiled lower half. Satisfied that nothing further would disturb him, and taking a moment to assess the damage done, Sydir shifted once more into his serpent form. While not strictly necessary to eat, the Dhani constrictor had always found meals taken as a true python more satisfying than those eaten as a Dhani or, Siku forbid, a human. Turning his attention back to his first kill, the white rat, Sydir set about the slow but measured process of devouring the creature whole, head-first. The others will make a good dessert, perhaps, he thought as his jaws stretched and worked the white-furred form down into his gullet. Today was shaping up to be better than the last interminably dull stretch of existence in this hellhole after all.

[Maore]

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.Ciraaci had used her respite to relax and offer reverence for her gods of death, earth, and wind, with no regard for the spiteful sun-goddess that had left her unmoored in this garish existence. She had grown out of spite and remorse herself, accepted and persevered the hardships offered on the Sea of Grass, and came into a proper life without need of acknowledgement for the goddess that had spawned her in the open sea. Her Dira, Semele, and Zulrav were accredited, palpable presences in her everyday life, and though she'd been locked up in this stone grave after being humiliated in Ravok, Ciraaci put her faith in these figures rather than the one that had sculpted the visage of her daylight form. She'd be content to ignore Syna's existence in this damp, dark, fetid prison if it wasn't for Asterope, and so her reception was icy at best and downright unkind otherwise.

But she'd been asked a question, and it would be impolite to ignore the difficulty Asterope had struggled through to piece together a word and its meanings. Cirraaci could appreciate the effort, at least; she'd made none of her own to speak Common and had so far pretended that she couldn't herself put together a few words in that language and understand a few of the things being said about her - although context made it useless, as baseline humans refused to inflect meaning into their gestures.

At first, Ciraaci blinked at Asterope, not quite grasping the meaning of counting with her hand before the realization settled in, and she thought about the length of her stay.

"It's been a while," she said, and with her hands, she fluttered through uncertainty, exhaustion, confusion before letting them rest together, long and pale and thin, a black smudge on her palm that marked where she'd been touched by divinity, folding together, though not for long, as she spoke like true Drykas and threw a lot of inflection into her hands, explaining emotional significance with the context provided by her narration. "At least twenty-days," she continued with a small lapse in her speech devoted to good, long thought. Her green eyes flicked to their companion, layered with judgement and wariness, as her feelings for Leth were more ambiguous and positive before she'd come to the conclusion that he'd been throwing out his devoted as well. Fortunately, he was not one of her gods of convenience. "Was it long for you?"

Her handsign was interrupted in the motions of sympathy by the strange gurgle from the grate that sat in the centre of the three ethaefal, startling Ciraaci who might have briefly thought the humans were about to drown her - an irrational fear, lingering from being forced to cross Lake Ravok to and from the city that hadn't been disturbed in the hundred or so years after she'd crossed the Suvan. She'd have stood had her ankle not been shackled to the wall, though she pulled back to make herself compress against the wall and the floor, like maybe she thought she could squish herself into as small a shape as possible and float. The smell, a rancid waste like nothing she'd ever breathed before rose bile in her throat. She might have vomited, but strength of constitution kept it in, let her take deep breaths in through her mouth without the curse of letting the air pollute her nose.

It was not the worst thing that Ciraaci could ever imagine happening to her. The outpouring of gross sludge tapered off, leaving a couple inches of muck to stink up their air, and that could have been the worst of it. Until the movement, at least, she was ready to relax a bit and glare at their captors, but the thrashing inside of the sludge kept her transfixed and horrified.

Ciraaci couldn't say she'd ever feared anything more than the sea until that moment and she was forced to behold the length of a four-foot long centipede. It was ugly, and horrifying, and she was sure she'd suffer night terrors about them for the forseeable future. And when the one that had targeted her jumped on her? Ciraaci fought back, trying to protect herself from the deadly pincers that she was certain could ruin a man if they sank into their flesh, trying to shield herself with her unchained arm and use the bound one to fight and push and pull, whatever she could do to throw the monstrous thing away and preserve her sanity and health. Nothing she did was actually effective, though; this insect was heavy and thick, its carapace similar to actual armour, and its tenacious drive quickly outdoing her restricted defences. No screaming came from her, though her breaths were shallow and strained and she more than once cursed in Myrian and Pavi both, spitting out spite previously reserved for Syna like a scorned lover finding victim in a suitable replacement. The centipede would, of course, restrain her in its mass and sink its mandibles into her, though she didn't know what it would do, or whether it would be a creative way to kill her.

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