Confusion Underground

Where ecology is not merely a science, but the basis of life; where even the strangest adaptations are the measure of fitness; where genetic engineering has produced the most outlandish of creatures. And that's just the citizens!

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The Incarnates
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Confusion Underground

Post by The Incarnates »

On the surface, Shimmerspring - as it always did - looked serene, slow-paced, its local life bound up in the rhythm of the villages that dotted it's many valleys. And, as always, the surface impression was quite misleading. Uunderground cities, both small and vast, teemed with the variably-modified Deep Singers, who had dwelled here for centuries now, all unconcerned by the outside world.

Until now, that is.

News of the mad usurper's edicts had reached even here, but the population had been, at most, nervous. Such rhetoric could not possibly translate into action, they said. We are safe underground, they said. Even the Singer colony in the Underkeep, they said, would not be seriously touched. And when the mobs of Shirekeep proved them wrong, the result was shock. When the new Minister of Military Affairs was overruled by his own Kaiser in his attempt to protect the differently alive from unjust attack, this was elevated to panic, for all the declarations of the Crown Council defying the Imperial Armed Forces.

Most Singers neither knew nor understood that the present occupant of the Golden Mango Throne might not have legitimately become Kaiser. Kaiser he had become, and the mobs and the armed forces did his bidding. What more was there to know? Hasty councils were convened, debates were held. The world conspired against the people of Cultivators, and how to face it?

The first and smaller branch of thought - composed mainly of the Biological Containment Corps and the Lifemesher's and Wayfarer's clades and their families - argued that the forces of the Outside could not be allowed to defile the Garden, even if this required the deployment of forces beyond its borders. They wished to send auxiliary forces north to Lichkeep and the River Elwynn, to offer their services to the Crown Council; if Lichbrook fell, they argued, then the Garden must surely follow. After much heated debate, they were finally granted permission to go, and they began the preparations to march north.

For the larger portion of the population, this course of action was brave, even selfless, but futile. Even here, in their homeland, there was no safety to be found, no way to seal their cities against the Outside - not fully, never fully. Another path beckoned them, the basics prepared for long ago, and they quietly gathered up their stores and possessions for a journey even more arduous than their militantly-minded brethren.
The Incarnates: the Webweaver, the Broodmother, et al.
Burrow in the dark; reach toward the light; grow the Garden, within and without.

AKA Shyriath

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The Incarnates
Posts: 54
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Re: Confusion Underground

Post by The Incarnates »

In the dark far beneath the world, a figure sat, and he waited.

He had heard fearful whispers among the guards. Atrocities. Terror. Despair. And then, one day, his guards had given him a long, long look through the slit in the door...

And then they left. They never came back.

There should have been no way for him to hear what was going on above. Even considering the weird echoing to be found in caves, he was far too deep, insulated by too much stone from the halls of Elder Beacon above, to hear its bustle. But he knew in his mind what his senses could not tell him; he could feel it:

The Beacon was empty. Everyone had gone. The doom of the Garden was at hand.

He knew he would not last long. He had been fed, but sparingly; they'd known how long he could do without nourishment. They'd known how easily his biomantic powers could return to him if his body were not lacking in fuel. So his diet had been just a few notches above starvation, enough to keep him alive but little else, to prevent him from casting a ritual that might help him escape. Even then, he had some internal reserves that would keep him, if he remained still and dormant - maybe a month, possibly a little more - but the end result would be the same. He was trapped, and he would starve.

They didn't know about the final gift he had in store, concealed deep inside his body despite the invasive scans and the careful searching. He could release it at any time, and thereby choose the moment of his death, and the death of all Shimmerspring. But something in him, some cold remnant of sanity, bid him wait, though it could not possibly do any good.

His enemies had been in control of Shimmerspring, but now they were gone. He could assume control, he could rebuild the Garden as it was meant to be. If he could but escape... if he could find a few souls, even some of the helpless masses of the Outsiders, and offer them the enhancements that would place them among the Cultivators... if they would let him lead them in building a new society...

There must be a chance. There must be a way.

Above in the world, days passed unheeded; but in the darkness, he sat and waited.

And then, at last, there came the sounds of figures working outside the door. He no longer had the strength to move from his position, but he closed his eyes, wondering what had brought his jailers back to him. He prepared to release the gift, but he would look them in the eyes before he did. He wanted them to see his eyes before he did. It was important that they knew who brought the end, even if they could not see the end before-

The door opened, and he hesitated. He knew some of them. They weren't guards.

"Lord Geneshaper?"

They were old comrades, some of them; others he recognized as lesser followers. They had served under him. The one who'd addressed him - Tanir Den, a Ritualist-Commander.

"Can you hear me?" he asked.

"Yes," he croaked.

"We're getting you out of here, Lord Geneshaper," Tanir said, squatting down by his side. "We're being hunted by the vultures that are among the remnants, but we can get you out before they arrive."

"Vultures?" he asked, as three members of the group at the door came in to pick him up.

"Most of the People have left. Those of us that are left behind..." He jerked his shoulders in indifference, but the bitterness dripping from his voice could not be hidden. "We're all willing to fight. But most prefer to fight for the Outsiders, to try to protect us from other Outsiders. They won't believe us when we tell them they'll be betrayed. So we came here to free you, but we think they've guessed what we're doing; they've been following us."

He closed his eyes. "How many are you?"

"Several hundred. But there are thousands more that are not with us."

"...we will have to run. Conceal ourselves. Gather strength," he murmured. "Until we can return, and take back our Garden. One day, the Outsiders will betray them. One day they will see. They will be ready to accept the truth then."

"Yes, Lord Geneshaper."

"Ritualist-commander..." he whispered.

"Yes, Lord?"

"I am no longer the Geneshaper. Until I have won back a name, you must called me what I am: the Nameless."
The Incarnates: the Webweaver, the Broodmother, et al.
Burrow in the dark; reach toward the light; grow the Garden, within and without.

AKA Shyriath

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