It begins as a game. Kufu has never been in a city like Marina, and he needs time to learn the rhythms of the Cheldrun here - how they live, where they find food and water, their patterns, how they defend themselves. To hunt them of course.
Two delectable options immediately offer themselves. The first is enjoyed in the Outer Market District. There is tremendous commotion as hordes of refugees and rioters and heavily armed police clash in the streets below. Kufu finds a perfect place to sleep during the day, tucked between massive air-circulation fans that are now silent and useless. Most of the grand domes of Marina are shattered, and now broken shells arch over the inhabitants, spindly and corroded metal skeletons once housing shimmering glass. At night he descends and takes prey almost at will. Bodies and parts of bodies are found - a soldier with a helmet but no face, his throat torn out and entrails eaten. A vast pool of blood in an alley in which nothing remains but a pair of shoes, a hat and a left hand.
And swirling around him are nightmares echoing in the minds of the Cheldrun, twisting their bodies in restless movement as they try to sleep, making them cry out to awaken themselves.
The second options is best indulged a few days later, when Kufu is holed up in the abandoned construction site of a southern-style high-rise building, plastic tarps snapping in the wind around him, stretched out on the floor, sniper rifle braced against his shoulder, eye peering through the scope.
Heads explode before the report of the shot is heard. Businesspeople in rumpled suits dance a jig as multiple rounds tear through their bodies with rapid succession. The wind carries the thin sound of giggling. And of course, there are more nightmares.
He learns enough. The city is in a state of controlled chaos, a Maneater Ant nest swarming with frenetic activity, but nowhere near as organized. Even Shadowfang would leave such a nest alone. Marina, however, seems far more accommodating. And he is not here for mere sustenance, mere entertainment. He has traveled many hundreds of kilometers to come here, because this is where the leaders of the most powerful tribe of Cheldrun, the Biomade, live and have their chiefs. The chiefs sit on a Council - wise, since there are more than one. Oversight is its name.
Shadowfang will eat one of these chiefs, and when he does, he will be as strong as a chief of the Cheldrun. The Cheldrun's territory will be his territory. The Cheldrun secrets will be his secrets. He will restore his real name, Eris - NO! - Kufu! Kufu! Chieftain of Cheldrun and Karian, the Hunger of Karia, the Dream-stalker...and he will then turn, at last, to sating the hunger once and for all. To devour. To consume. To evolve.
At last he finds one - called Groom - who serves one of the chiefs of the Biomade. He doesn't ask, he simply bites, and rips, and tears, and chews, and when he is done, he remembers what Groom remembered, briefly but for long enough. He learns of members of the Council, particularly the one that Groom served, and he learns of another chieftain - one called Rain. Another Biomade chieftain, but one of a different kind. The leader of many warriors, gathering her strength to crush her foes.
Rain. Rain. Rain tastes of nothing, of sky, but this rain, this sweet Rain...it is his sudden purring that gives him away, his distracted state that allows it to happen.
There is the barest intake of breath, the slightest brush of feet on the carpet of the abandoned apartment where he is sheltering during the day, and they are upon him. They are like shadow-shaped Cheldrun, flickering in the afternoon light like reflections on water, fast - how did I not smell them!? - and rage wells up in Kufu, as well as surprise. He remembers seasons ago, hunting along the edges of a Gogajin village. They are celebrating the culmination of some kind of competition with other villages. A huge one, a champion perhaps, comes outside to relieve himself, reeking of meed and donkey. Kufu took him, his strength, his iron grip, and as he remembers he swells, muscles rippling and twisting beneath his skin.
The Cheldrun hunters are upon him and are almost immediately thrown back. One collapses gasping with a crushed sternum. Another is seized and hurled out the empty window frame to fall silently, ten stories down, landing with a crack like a dropped egg. Their blades flicker pink and slash, stealing strength, then blue, shedding thick blood. At last, as he crushes the wind out of another attacker, one pounces on top of him, slashing with a flicker of blue and then slamming the suddenly pink blade into the base of Kufu's skull. He goes limp at last as she drains him, dancing nimbly aside as he crashes heavily to the floor, already shrinking in stature, forgetting the Gogajin champion, forgetting everything.
They take his limp form, the rifle he was cleaning as he mused, clear the room and disappear with a flicker.
***
Shade delivers the package, which she was brought in to do. She mourns the three dead bounty hunters in her crew and waits with the fourth while he is in the hospital until they say he is in stable condition. With the remaining five, she divides up the sum that the Executor has paid them - the cash is dicey, perhaps just so much toilet paper in a season or less, but the promises, written up as contracts, are far more valuable. Not for the first time, nor the last, she silently thanks the Gengineers who performed the dihybrid cross which led to her...unique ability. She'd read that the extinct Vorax could do something similar. Well, maybe explorers would come across one in some out of the way place, and she'd get a chance to read the studies that would be published when they vivisected it. She'd love to learn how they do their trick.
Goshi will land on its feet, given enough time. Who will oppose them? Refugees with a famous terrorist at their lead? Hardly, however many apocalypses he can pull off, the son of a bitch. A few seasons of starvation and economic stagnation should take the wind out of them. It always does. Until then, there's no end to the work. And after, still more work. Goshi will come right back - maybe this tiger-man will even help them out, once he hears the deal. But either way, Goshi is the future of this planet, and it isn't down for the count, not by a long shot. They'll be back -
And then everything will be right as Rain.
Showing posts with label Jevumm. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jevumm. Show all posts
At a Loss for Words
All the noise makes reading very difficult. The irritation is like a itch that doesn't need scratching just yet, but you might pre-empt it with a lazy claw before it gets out of hand.
"Would you kindly quiet down? I need to concentrate."
Sloan grunts as he plants the blunt end of the haft he's holding into yet another security soldier's face, snapping his head backward and making his knees buckle. He flinches as a shower of stray bullets tears past him and hammers against the far wall.
"I swear by Ben Hamor that if these bloody ::grunt:: bastards ::crack:: ever get tired of gettin' knocked on their asses ::thud::, I'll bloody well kill you!"
Gogajin. So excitable! Amazing they have any semblance of society at all.
Varissa is out of feathered shafts and is behind Sloan, crouched, ready to hamstring any that get past with her wicked curved blades. She glares at Jin and shows her teeth to him.
Jevumm, of course, have not even a semblance of society, and not for the first time, Jin is happy that the blood covering her arms up to the shoulders is not his; yet at the same time regretful that he has been forced to endure such odd bedfellows (as the Gogajin say - something about mammals sleeping in groups).
But there are more important things to concern him now. Jin needs to activate this fantastic Cheldrun device, and he can't find any kind of instructions anywhere on it.
The device itself offers no hints as to how it functions, exactly. It does not draw on a visible power source (the Cheldrun use veins called cables to carry mechine-energy, Jin knows). It is simply a textured cyllindrical object, dull black, with six spokes rising up from the edges of it, a bit like metallic teeth. In the center on the top a small circular depression is visible. There are what appear to be written characters etched into the surface at regular intervals - not Cheldrun, even more alien.
Jin sighs, and for a moment notices that Sloan is on the floor grimacing in a small pool of blood. Varissa leaps through the air, shifting into a massive hunting cat in mid-air. She slams into the first soldier who tries to enter through the wrecked security door and disappears in a spray of gore. Jin blocks out the screaming from outside the room which is now echoing in the hallway. He notices a device he's always been curios about.
It is, he believes, a data port. Data, as in ontologies; port, as in the place where Cheldrun oceangoing vessels accumulate to disgorge their cargo. It appears to have two cables attaching it to a pair of orifices in the wall. He touches it gently with the tips of his claws, presses the button that bears the symbol the Cheldrun use for the transmission of energy into or out of a mechanical device. The data port lights up and he flinches back as a ghostly, pixellated image erupts out of the device.
He smiles a long smile, and begins manipulating the keys of the machine, assembling Cheldrun words in order to instruct the machine to reveal what it contains. He quickly finds the collections of information pertaining to the device in the room - the data port seems to have been used as supplemental memorization for whoever has been working with the device thus far. The notes are laborious to read, clearly written by a borderline imbecile who needs to record every detail of every activation method attempted.
Finally Jin finds what he wants, slows to read very carefully, unblinking.
Both Sloan and Varissa are outside the room now, shouting to each other. There is the percussive thudding of bodies against floors, walls...ceiling? A collective shout and Sloan is driven back through the door into the room, his feet sliding in the blood on the floor, grappling with four soldiers. A fifth soldier climbs through the wreckage, sees Jin near the wondrous device, and raises his weapon.
A small sign escapes before Jin's dewlaps erupt in a riot of bright colors. His mouth opens suddenly and with a coughing sound he sends a spray of acidic fluid into the face of the soldier. He falls back, wiping frantically at his face and then beginning to scream as he drives more burning fluid into his eyes. The other four soldiers have dragged Sloan down the floor and they are trying to beat him into submission. Jin hunches and leaps, catching one of their helmets in his claw as he passes over the mound of struggling mammals, jerking the soldier's neck and unbalancing him - Vorax-Snatches-Zipsum. Another tries to rise and Jin ducks down, whirling, his tail slamming into the soldier's shaky legs and sending him sprawling - Rising-Water-Trip. As he falls Jin snatches a truncheon from his belt and cracks the temple of a third soldier who has lost his helmet entirely.
The first soldier has righted his helmet and lunges at Jin. They fall in a tangle, but Jin quickly maneuvers out of his grasp, scuttles around to his back and grabs his limbs with clawed feet, left hand, and tail, immobilizing them with a Relentless-Clinging-Vine technique. With his free hand, Jin pulls off his helmet and beats his skull with it until he goes limp.
Sloan, covered entirely with blood, rises to his feet, gasping for air, looking at Jin with his mouth hanging open. "You -"
"Behind you."
He turns just in time to grapple with a fresh soldier. "Reinforcements!" Varissa shouts from out in the hall. Sloan grimaces. "This had better be worth it you bloody lizard." Jin just watches, unblinking.
He turns from the tumult to the device, bends down, and begins depressing areas around a specific series of "First Mind" runes (whatever Cheldrun fallacy that represents). With the last one, the device begins to shift and change. It comes alight, the runes shining out and projecting their images on the walls in bright purple light. As the device shifts and swells, the runes move in whirling patterns. Jin steps back, watching raptly, revealing its internal workings.
There is a chamber at the center through which its energy passes, from the Power Core to the Differential Layer. It is designed to hold a special substance in inertial suspension, altering the charge of the energy passing through before it is projected outward. But the machine has an immediate effect as well - the room quickly begins cooling as particles slow and vital energy dissipates. Jin feels a tremendous weight when he tries to move, and the hallway is suddenly quite quiet. He slowly, gruellingly reaches down into the padded satchel that he's been carrying for months now, reinforced by a careful geodesic latticework of reeds to protect the Vorax egg from being broken. Jin heaves it out of the satchel, already slowing down drastically, feeling an overwhelming need to go to sleep. His steps shuffle forward toward the device.
Clawlength by clawlength he heaves the egg outward and upward, bathed in flickering purple light, until it comes into contact with the stasis field at the center of the machine. Suddenly it slips into the field effortlessly. He watches, heavy-lidded, a distant part of him grinning in triumph, as the egg is burned, cracks, and is incinerated by the energy, rendered from sold and fluid to a colloid inside the chamber. The colloid has its effect, imparting its unique charge to the energy passing through the chamber.
There is a blinding flash of purple light that passes through Jin's body, through the walls of the chamber, outward until it passes through the streets of the city, outward and upward, a rising tide of shimmering purple light, First Mind runes crawling across the surface of the bubble of radiance that is quickly rising to cover the entirety of Stardown, stretching even further, kilometers in every direction, passing over villages and towns and farms, until it comes to rest at last, a vast purple dome.
At first there are screams, panic, scattering, shouting, alarms, and then the sounds die away, until the vast city of Stardown falls silent, watching the dome of light cover them until even the light of the sun takes on a faint purple tinge, seeing the ancient runes on its surface and feeling that they are somehow both alien and familiar, like a half-remembered dream.
Hei-Shi break from their stupor of suprise, their ear-pieces exploding with frantic traffic. They attempt to activate their Dis-Locators...and nothing happens. There is a faint sound of burning circuitry. Nothing.
About this time, Stardown rises up. Hei-Shi blood flows, broken blue armor is stuffed with straw and rags and burned in effigy. Goshi representatives sent to maintain the peace are chased through the streets and beaten by mobs. Goshi monitors are smashed and torn down by shouting revolutionaries. The city scrambles to find some way to respond.
They are suddenly at war.
"Would you kindly quiet down? I need to concentrate."
Sloan grunts as he plants the blunt end of the haft he's holding into yet another security soldier's face, snapping his head backward and making his knees buckle. He flinches as a shower of stray bullets tears past him and hammers against the far wall.
"I swear by Ben Hamor that if these bloody ::grunt:: bastards ::crack:: ever get tired of gettin' knocked on their asses ::thud::, I'll bloody well kill you!"
Gogajin. So excitable! Amazing they have any semblance of society at all.
Varissa is out of feathered shafts and is behind Sloan, crouched, ready to hamstring any that get past with her wicked curved blades. She glares at Jin and shows her teeth to him.
Jevumm, of course, have not even a semblance of society, and not for the first time, Jin is happy that the blood covering her arms up to the shoulders is not his; yet at the same time regretful that he has been forced to endure such odd bedfellows (as the Gogajin say - something about mammals sleeping in groups).
But there are more important things to concern him now. Jin needs to activate this fantastic Cheldrun device, and he can't find any kind of instructions anywhere on it.
The device itself offers no hints as to how it functions, exactly. It does not draw on a visible power source (the Cheldrun use veins called cables to carry mechine-energy, Jin knows). It is simply a textured cyllindrical object, dull black, with six spokes rising up from the edges of it, a bit like metallic teeth. In the center on the top a small circular depression is visible. There are what appear to be written characters etched into the surface at regular intervals - not Cheldrun, even more alien.
Jin sighs, and for a moment notices that Sloan is on the floor grimacing in a small pool of blood. Varissa leaps through the air, shifting into a massive hunting cat in mid-air. She slams into the first soldier who tries to enter through the wrecked security door and disappears in a spray of gore. Jin blocks out the screaming from outside the room which is now echoing in the hallway. He notices a device he's always been curios about.
It is, he believes, a data port. Data, as in ontologies; port, as in the place where Cheldrun oceangoing vessels accumulate to disgorge their cargo. It appears to have two cables attaching it to a pair of orifices in the wall. He touches it gently with the tips of his claws, presses the button that bears the symbol the Cheldrun use for the transmission of energy into or out of a mechanical device. The data port lights up and he flinches back as a ghostly, pixellated image erupts out of the device.
He smiles a long smile, and begins manipulating the keys of the machine, assembling Cheldrun words in order to instruct the machine to reveal what it contains. He quickly finds the collections of information pertaining to the device in the room - the data port seems to have been used as supplemental memorization for whoever has been working with the device thus far. The notes are laborious to read, clearly written by a borderline imbecile who needs to record every detail of every activation method attempted.
Finally Jin finds what he wants, slows to read very carefully, unblinking.
Both Sloan and Varissa are outside the room now, shouting to each other. There is the percussive thudding of bodies against floors, walls...ceiling? A collective shout and Sloan is driven back through the door into the room, his feet sliding in the blood on the floor, grappling with four soldiers. A fifth soldier climbs through the wreckage, sees Jin near the wondrous device, and raises his weapon.
A small sign escapes before Jin's dewlaps erupt in a riot of bright colors. His mouth opens suddenly and with a coughing sound he sends a spray of acidic fluid into the face of the soldier. He falls back, wiping frantically at his face and then beginning to scream as he drives more burning fluid into his eyes. The other four soldiers have dragged Sloan down the floor and they are trying to beat him into submission. Jin hunches and leaps, catching one of their helmets in his claw as he passes over the mound of struggling mammals, jerking the soldier's neck and unbalancing him - Vorax-Snatches-Zipsum. Another tries to rise and Jin ducks down, whirling, his tail slamming into the soldier's shaky legs and sending him sprawling - Rising-Water-Trip. As he falls Jin snatches a truncheon from his belt and cracks the temple of a third soldier who has lost his helmet entirely.
The first soldier has righted his helmet and lunges at Jin. They fall in a tangle, but Jin quickly maneuvers out of his grasp, scuttles around to his back and grabs his limbs with clawed feet, left hand, and tail, immobilizing them with a Relentless-Clinging-Vine technique. With his free hand, Jin pulls off his helmet and beats his skull with it until he goes limp.
Sloan, covered entirely with blood, rises to his feet, gasping for air, looking at Jin with his mouth hanging open. "You -"
"Behind you."
He turns just in time to grapple with a fresh soldier. "Reinforcements!" Varissa shouts from out in the hall. Sloan grimaces. "This had better be worth it you bloody lizard." Jin just watches, unblinking.
He turns from the tumult to the device, bends down, and begins depressing areas around a specific series of "First Mind" runes (whatever Cheldrun fallacy that represents). With the last one, the device begins to shift and change. It comes alight, the runes shining out and projecting their images on the walls in bright purple light. As the device shifts and swells, the runes move in whirling patterns. Jin steps back, watching raptly, revealing its internal workings.
There is a chamber at the center through which its energy passes, from the Power Core to the Differential Layer. It is designed to hold a special substance in inertial suspension, altering the charge of the energy passing through before it is projected outward. But the machine has an immediate effect as well - the room quickly begins cooling as particles slow and vital energy dissipates. Jin feels a tremendous weight when he tries to move, and the hallway is suddenly quite quiet. He slowly, gruellingly reaches down into the padded satchel that he's been carrying for months now, reinforced by a careful geodesic latticework of reeds to protect the Vorax egg from being broken. Jin heaves it out of the satchel, already slowing down drastically, feeling an overwhelming need to go to sleep. His steps shuffle forward toward the device.
Clawlength by clawlength he heaves the egg outward and upward, bathed in flickering purple light, until it comes into contact with the stasis field at the center of the machine. Suddenly it slips into the field effortlessly. He watches, heavy-lidded, a distant part of him grinning in triumph, as the egg is burned, cracks, and is incinerated by the energy, rendered from sold and fluid to a colloid inside the chamber. The colloid has its effect, imparting its unique charge to the energy passing through the chamber.
There is a blinding flash of purple light that passes through Jin's body, through the walls of the chamber, outward until it passes through the streets of the city, outward and upward, a rising tide of shimmering purple light, First Mind runes crawling across the surface of the bubble of radiance that is quickly rising to cover the entirety of Stardown, stretching even further, kilometers in every direction, passing over villages and towns and farms, until it comes to rest at last, a vast purple dome.
At first there are screams, panic, scattering, shouting, alarms, and then the sounds die away, until the vast city of Stardown falls silent, watching the dome of light cover them until even the light of the sun takes on a faint purple tinge, seeing the ancient runes on its surface and feeling that they are somehow both alien and familiar, like a half-remembered dream.
Hei-Shi break from their stupor of suprise, their ear-pieces exploding with frantic traffic. They attempt to activate their Dis-Locators...and nothing happens. There is a faint sound of burning circuitry. Nothing.
About this time, Stardown rises up. Hei-Shi blood flows, broken blue armor is stuffed with straw and rags and burned in effigy. Goshi representatives sent to maintain the peace are chased through the streets and beaten by mobs. Goshi monitors are smashed and torn down by shouting revolutionaries. The city scrambles to find some way to respond.
They are suddenly at war.
Accidental Freedom Fighter
Jin blinks slowly. He can see the glistening scratches curving evenly along the inside of the gun barrel - "rifling" is the Cheldrun word for that method of scoring the barrel. To impart a rotational force on the round when it is expelled, helping it maintain its trajectory for more of its swift parabolic arc. In the darkness, deep in that barrel, he knows there is a bullet, surrounded by a casing, seated on top of a charge of explosive powder. They make the powder in it from charcoal and urine, if such a thing can be believed. The barrel is shaking slightly, making it hard to see more of the mechanisms clearly. How are old casings expelled to make way for new ones? Perhaps the explosion itself provides the motive force...
"Just...stand right fucking there and don't fucking move!" The Stardown Technology and Research security soldier holding the weapon is already sweating, though the ambient temperature and humidity inside this building are carefully controlled. The machines are called "compressors" and Jin is anxious to see one in action. The soldier speaks into a box on his shoulder. "Captain, captain...we've got a...a fucking lizard up here, and...what the fuck? No one's supposed to be in here!"
"I am not a lizard, I am an Anakarix, which any reasonably educated -"
"Shut. The. Fuck. Up. Lizard." With the last explosive phonemes he jabs the end of the weapon into Jin's chest. He doesn't even ask how I can speak Cheldrun. I suppose only their leaders are ingenious, and use ones like this for menial tasks.
The Cheldrun grunt continues to mumble into the box on his shoulder - doubtless a distance-communicator of some sort - and Jin has time to reflect. He'd wished that his first close-up view of a gun would be at a time of more leisure.
***
When it came down to it, Jin was unable to convince the Griolsa to mar their sacred Blade, so it became necessary to travel up and over the roots of Ben Hamor to the ancient site where a star had fallen to earth long ago. The contours of a telltale impact crater were clearly visible, and using a lodestone floating in a bowl of water, Jin was able to locate a fragment of the superheated star-metal which had been used to forge the Blade. Taking this back to the village, Sloan had successfully, under Jin's direction, forged a sort of chisel, which was then mounted on a sturdy hardwood haft and reinforced with steel.
"This should suffice." The edge, laboriously sharpened to a brilliant keen line, caught the afternoon sun. Jin couldn't even lift the thing, but it was like a training-rod in Sloan's meaty fist.
"How d'you know?"
Jin pursed his lips and said "Heuristics of course." Which settled nothing, but the longer explanation helped not a whit.
***
When they encountered their fist logging camp, still many days from Stardown, Jin insisted on going to speak with them and see if they could find a way to negotiate safe passage. He was immediately accosted and tackled to the ground, then wrapped in a net by two impolite Mechified guards who handled him like a bundle of twigs - until a bloom of thick arterial blood blossomed in one of their throats, the shaft of Varissa's arrow buried almost to the fletching.
The second died similarly. That night, Varissa dined on all the raw Cheldrun she could eat, while Sloan and Jin exchanged queasy looks and shared the last of Sloan's mashed oats.
Jin never asked how many she killed, but she smiled for days.
***
It was surprisingly easy to enter Stardown. The city had descended into chaos as various groups attempted to resist the grip of Goshi. When challenged by a particular group - the Stardown Freedom League - Varissa was able to produce a pair of severed Hei-Shi heads, communicators still in their ears, wearing almost comical looks of surprise. One was missing an eye because she had replaced it with an arrow. Jin could still see the image of her languorously licking it clean after she removed it.
Predictably, the various resistance groups failed and were forced underground, or in less fortunate cases executed on closed-circuit viewing screens mounted throughout the city. Otherwise, the screens showed flashing Goshi commercials and news of Goshi victories as city after city was forced to surrender, either by the teleporting Hei-Shi or by Washi San mecha.
The message: The age of corrupt politics is at an end. Commercialism is the new world order, and the market shall rule forever after.
Roving death-squads made people view the claims of meritocracy with more than a little skepticism.
But none of this concerned Jin. He was busy reading - every leaflet, every scrolling news story, every broadsheet, ever official document, street signs, trade-'zines, everything. Sloan made the mistake of asking.
"The heuristic process begins with information-saturation. From this information is derived the salient question, and from it variables are also inferred. We then move to the algorithmic stage wherein mathematico-logical processes are utilized to eradicate the erroneous terms, leaving only the ontological relationship expressed in its most elegant form. This form, a system of mathematical relation, is then applied through the governing model, in this case a modified, shall we say nona-iterational -" he took a moment to savor the invented word, then continued "heliophilic formal logic, essentially nine-trees formal logic squared, differentiated and then reintegrated. The resulting schema will give you the two foci. The second focus is the mathematical representation of that which you have found. The answer."
After that, Jin found he had all the alone-time he needed to run the numbers. Once complete, the answer was clear. Obvious, really.
***
Stardown Technology and Research had been working on a final prototype of a revolutionary inertial dampner, a kind of fail-safe security system which would immobilize everyone within its field of effect, sapping the ambient kinetic energy away from them. Given enough time, it would in fact freeze them, but this would be sufficient to stop any kind of violence, incursion, and so on. The head of the project, an Allskin genius (Jin didn't use the term lightly) named Sousauryoku, was widely considered certifiably insane. He was famous for having invented an incredibly inefficient weapon which fired metal projectiles using only electromagnetic force, claiming it was based on lost First Mind technology.
What wasn't widely known was that he did in fact have a First Mind artifact, and had discerned how to activate and, to a degree, control it. It was designed to manipulate forces at a distance - hence the idea for the revolutionary defense system.
***
Which brings us to Jin, standing near a security door in the Stardown Technology and Research facility, staring down the barrel of an automatic rifle. (Sousauryoku's electromagnetic gun design was far too expensive to actually use to equip mere security personnel.) Until now, security had been quite light. The real difficulty was in finding the installation, deep beneath the city proper, built in an abandoned underground train-tunnel purchased from the government years ago. And of course, once the necessary conclusion became clear, Jin realized there was only one place it could be.
Suddenly, Jin throws his arms in front of his face (they can't stop bullets!) and collapses to the ground, just as the soldier's knees buckle and he collapses bonelessly to the concrete floor. Sloan is standing behind him, hefting a rifle he's using as a bludgeon for a second strike.
"I think" Jin says, standing slowly, "that will be sufficient. Just smash open that last security door, and we'll be there." Jin's clawed hand unconsciously slips down to rest on the thick, padded pouch hanging from one shoulder. It is thoroughly reinforced to resist impact and insulated against heat and cold, but it is a gesture of habit. Sloan drops the rifle and hefts the heavy chisel forged from the star-metal.
The first blow hammers deep into the metal of the door like an axe to balsa wood.
Jin wonders when Varissa will be finished and will rejoin them. If ever. In a few minutes, it will hardly matter.
"Just...stand right fucking there and don't fucking move!" The Stardown Technology and Research security soldier holding the weapon is already sweating, though the ambient temperature and humidity inside this building are carefully controlled. The machines are called "compressors" and Jin is anxious to see one in action. The soldier speaks into a box on his shoulder. "Captain, captain...we've got a...a fucking lizard up here, and...what the fuck? No one's supposed to be in here!"
"I am not a lizard, I am an Anakarix, which any reasonably educated -"
"Shut. The. Fuck. Up. Lizard." With the last explosive phonemes he jabs the end of the weapon into Jin's chest. He doesn't even ask how I can speak Cheldrun. I suppose only their leaders are ingenious, and use ones like this for menial tasks.
The Cheldrun grunt continues to mumble into the box on his shoulder - doubtless a distance-communicator of some sort - and Jin has time to reflect. He'd wished that his first close-up view of a gun would be at a time of more leisure.
***
When it came down to it, Jin was unable to convince the Griolsa to mar their sacred Blade, so it became necessary to travel up and over the roots of Ben Hamor to the ancient site where a star had fallen to earth long ago. The contours of a telltale impact crater were clearly visible, and using a lodestone floating in a bowl of water, Jin was able to locate a fragment of the superheated star-metal which had been used to forge the Blade. Taking this back to the village, Sloan had successfully, under Jin's direction, forged a sort of chisel, which was then mounted on a sturdy hardwood haft and reinforced with steel.
"This should suffice." The edge, laboriously sharpened to a brilliant keen line, caught the afternoon sun. Jin couldn't even lift the thing, but it was like a training-rod in Sloan's meaty fist.
"How d'you know?"
Jin pursed his lips and said "Heuristics of course." Which settled nothing, but the longer explanation helped not a whit.
***
When they encountered their fist logging camp, still many days from Stardown, Jin insisted on going to speak with them and see if they could find a way to negotiate safe passage. He was immediately accosted and tackled to the ground, then wrapped in a net by two impolite Mechified guards who handled him like a bundle of twigs - until a bloom of thick arterial blood blossomed in one of their throats, the shaft of Varissa's arrow buried almost to the fletching.
The second died similarly. That night, Varissa dined on all the raw Cheldrun she could eat, while Sloan and Jin exchanged queasy looks and shared the last of Sloan's mashed oats.
Jin never asked how many she killed, but she smiled for days.
***
It was surprisingly easy to enter Stardown. The city had descended into chaos as various groups attempted to resist the grip of Goshi. When challenged by a particular group - the Stardown Freedom League - Varissa was able to produce a pair of severed Hei-Shi heads, communicators still in their ears, wearing almost comical looks of surprise. One was missing an eye because she had replaced it with an arrow. Jin could still see the image of her languorously licking it clean after she removed it.
Predictably, the various resistance groups failed and were forced underground, or in less fortunate cases executed on closed-circuit viewing screens mounted throughout the city. Otherwise, the screens showed flashing Goshi commercials and news of Goshi victories as city after city was forced to surrender, either by the teleporting Hei-Shi or by Washi San mecha.
The message: The age of corrupt politics is at an end. Commercialism is the new world order, and the market shall rule forever after.
Roving death-squads made people view the claims of meritocracy with more than a little skepticism.
But none of this concerned Jin. He was busy reading - every leaflet, every scrolling news story, every broadsheet, ever official document, street signs, trade-'zines, everything. Sloan made the mistake of asking.
"The heuristic process begins with information-saturation. From this information is derived the salient question, and from it variables are also inferred. We then move to the algorithmic stage wherein mathematico-logical processes are utilized to eradicate the erroneous terms, leaving only the ontological relationship expressed in its most elegant form. This form, a system of mathematical relation, is then applied through the governing model, in this case a modified, shall we say nona-iterational -" he took a moment to savor the invented word, then continued "heliophilic formal logic, essentially nine-trees formal logic squared, differentiated and then reintegrated. The resulting schema will give you the two foci. The second focus is the mathematical representation of that which you have found. The answer."
After that, Jin found he had all the alone-time he needed to run the numbers. Once complete, the answer was clear. Obvious, really.
***
Stardown Technology and Research had been working on a final prototype of a revolutionary inertial dampner, a kind of fail-safe security system which would immobilize everyone within its field of effect, sapping the ambient kinetic energy away from them. Given enough time, it would in fact freeze them, but this would be sufficient to stop any kind of violence, incursion, and so on. The head of the project, an Allskin genius (Jin didn't use the term lightly) named Sousauryoku, was widely considered certifiably insane. He was famous for having invented an incredibly inefficient weapon which fired metal projectiles using only electromagnetic force, claiming it was based on lost First Mind technology.
What wasn't widely known was that he did in fact have a First Mind artifact, and had discerned how to activate and, to a degree, control it. It was designed to manipulate forces at a distance - hence the idea for the revolutionary defense system.
***
Which brings us to Jin, standing near a security door in the Stardown Technology and Research facility, staring down the barrel of an automatic rifle. (Sousauryoku's electromagnetic gun design was far too expensive to actually use to equip mere security personnel.) Until now, security had been quite light. The real difficulty was in finding the installation, deep beneath the city proper, built in an abandoned underground train-tunnel purchased from the government years ago. And of course, once the necessary conclusion became clear, Jin realized there was only one place it could be.
Suddenly, Jin throws his arms in front of his face (they can't stop bullets!) and collapses to the ground, just as the soldier's knees buckle and he collapses bonelessly to the concrete floor. Sloan is standing behind him, hefting a rifle he's using as a bludgeon for a second strike.
"I think" Jin says, standing slowly, "that will be sufficient. Just smash open that last security door, and we'll be there." Jin's clawed hand unconsciously slips down to rest on the thick, padded pouch hanging from one shoulder. It is thoroughly reinforced to resist impact and insulated against heat and cold, but it is a gesture of habit. Sloan drops the rifle and hefts the heavy chisel forged from the star-metal.
The first blow hammers deep into the metal of the door like an axe to balsa wood.
Jin wonders when Varissa will be finished and will rejoin them. If ever. In a few minutes, it will hardly matter.
Laughing With His Mouth Full
They are calling it Shadowfang.
It stalks the darkness of the surrounding forest like an avenging spirit, if such things even exist. It hunts at night. Bullets never find it. Only open flames can drive back the darkness, can keep it at bay.
Sometimes, even fire isn't enough.
They're using flamethrowers, newly arrived from headquarters, to fend it off, but the 'throwers burn the trees as well, cutting into the bottom line. Something has to be done. Mechified mercenaries were sent out, and found days later, their mechanical parts laid out, still bloodstained, like eggshells. All the flesh was gone. Eaten. A team of Biomade bounty hunters were sent out. The next morning, their psi-guns were neatly cut in half and hanging from the low branches of a tree. Still sparking feebly with faint pink light.
That was when the nightmares began. Loggers waking up screaming. Or not at all.
They say it can hear your thoughts, now. That it can disappear. A flicker, then a sudden flash of stripes from the side, from behind, colors washed out by the faint moonlight, and another logger, or guard, or foreman, snatched up by the neck, a shake of the head to break it, and it is gone.
Sometimes, it just uses bullets, large caliber sniper rounds, your skull exploding like a melon before the gun's report is even heard echoing out in the forest. But they say it prefers to feed on a fresh kill.
Slowly, it moves north. Crunching bones out in the darkness. Killing almost at will. It seems like there is no end to its hunger.
Getting closer and closer to the city.
You can hear it, laughing, the sound making your spine crawl, stealing sleep away night after night. It laughts when it kills, it laughs when it eats. Your neck broken, it bites down into your abdomen, mouth trailing entrails, your entrails, and it is the last thing you hear.
It stalks the darkness of the surrounding forest like an avenging spirit, if such things even exist. It hunts at night. Bullets never find it. Only open flames can drive back the darkness, can keep it at bay.
Sometimes, even fire isn't enough.
They're using flamethrowers, newly arrived from headquarters, to fend it off, but the 'throwers burn the trees as well, cutting into the bottom line. Something has to be done. Mechified mercenaries were sent out, and found days later, their mechanical parts laid out, still bloodstained, like eggshells. All the flesh was gone. Eaten. A team of Biomade bounty hunters were sent out. The next morning, their psi-guns were neatly cut in half and hanging from the low branches of a tree. Still sparking feebly with faint pink light.
That was when the nightmares began. Loggers waking up screaming. Or not at all.
They say it can hear your thoughts, now. That it can disappear. A flicker, then a sudden flash of stripes from the side, from behind, colors washed out by the faint moonlight, and another logger, or guard, or foreman, snatched up by the neck, a shake of the head to break it, and it is gone.
Sometimes, it just uses bullets, large caliber sniper rounds, your skull exploding like a melon before the gun's report is even heard echoing out in the forest. But they say it prefers to feed on a fresh kill.
Slowly, it moves north. Crunching bones out in the darkness. Killing almost at will. It seems like there is no end to its hunger.
Getting closer and closer to the city.
You can hear it, laughing, the sound making your spine crawl, stealing sleep away night after night. It laughts when it kills, it laughs when it eats. Your neck broken, it bites down into your abdomen, mouth trailing entrails, your entrails, and it is the last thing you hear.
Shrouded House of Bones
Jin-kalys stares, sputtering, into burning golden eyes framed in a face of bright orange and black. The creature lounging easily before him thrums with power barely withheld. It yawns, showing teeth shining like blades, then transfixes him once again.
"Tell us a poem." The voice vibrates the air and Jin feels it thrumming in his chest cavity like a Zipsum drum.
A poem. Oh gods.
A full season past, Jin-kalys departed Sighing Web of Trees, the village where he had lived his quiet life up to then, leaving the Academy where he had been carefully trained in the sophic arts and sciences at the feet of the Great Doctors of Arborealis Heliophilius, in the ways of curves and lines, of truth's vertices offered in sunlight's verity.
He has since wandered, seeking something he cannot comprehend, but which he knows is crucial. The calculations are...inerrant. Inexorable. The ineluctable Nexus drawing ever closer. It comes to him - nine branches. Each branch is necessary in its own way, providing the balance of angular measurements at the vertices he's found, meeting at the Apogee and Perigee and bending on their course through time, aligned to intersect with the Chronologic Ellipse. Instantaneous angle is approximately equivalent to the distance in time between each as they pass into the Eccliptic, at which point, they resolve as one would expect, intersecting at the Nexus. The key is the curvature -
"Lizard. Give us a poem, or give us your flesh."
Jin is wrenched back out of his reverie. "I. Ahem. Yes. A poem." He closes his eyes and lowers his tail and slows his breathing. The breathing of the Jevumm standing around him in a semicircle is utterly unnerving. He smells their predator stink and the musk of their terrible meeting-place, deep in the jungle.
It comes to him when he's finally calm. Saborakalys. Of course! The first poem he ever learned, in an ancient mode inherited from the Dusk Sages themselves (or so it is said). Jin clumsily renders it into his halting Jevumm, hoping the syllable patters translate -
Dawn burns, sets alight
Kindling the mind - molten gold
Mist is departing
Slowly morning stirs
Sluggish blood thaws and slips free
Murmuring gently
We inherit dawn
Speakers of the love of Sol
Loving speech of leaves
Incline inward, now
Sitting quiet breathing with
Sighing Web of Trees.
Bright golden eyes narrow. Isilo Govelara, his muzzle whitened to show his age, power undiminished, smirks, if such a thing is possible.
"You have brought no fire...yet neither do you bring offerings. You say you come here in peace - it hardly matters. You will be eaten regardless. But we are curious. Your poem has purchased some time for you. How do you wish to use it?"
Jin's vision swirls madly and a great fist clenches his heart as it hammers against his chest. Eaten. No! Not now! I've only begun! He looks around, eyes wide. They are all watching. A few draw closer silently, and he can almost feel their breath.
Behind Isilo's massive form, there is the Bone House, the ancient meeting-place of the Govelara Jevumm of this region. There is no broader Jevumm culture, only local cultures. Truly, somewhat like the Anakarix, though two races could hardly be more opposite.
The Bone House is constructed entirely of bone and sinew taken from the victims of the Jevumm for generations. At the base, filthy bones are yellowing and cracked. In places they have been replaced with gleaming bones, fresh from Jevumm jaws.
A low growl of impatience snaps him back to his awful present, out of reverie.
"I...Great one, lord of the G-Govelara, Isilio Who Sups On M-Marrow, I...I introduce my...h-humble self, Jin-kalys, student of Helio-...student of great m-masters of Sighing Web of Trees, far from this forest. I. Yes. I come in peace, of course. I come t-to...to speak to you, Great lord of hunters. And-and your people."
How can I say this? With a mathematical schema scratched in the moist dirt with my tail!? A detailed chain of argumentation drawing on rich sophic traditions they've never heard of!? Gods! That one licked her lips!
"Great lord. Karia is dying! If you will help me. If...if a particular one of you will help me, and if we can find others...we can save her."
The laughter of the gathered Jevumm is terrible to hear.
There is no sound when one of them slams into him, bearing him down, grinning, crushing him beneath its weight. She begins to laugh with the rest, mouth wider and wider, coming down to crunch out his life.
"Your name is Varissa! You have walked the earth for thirty-three journeys of the sun! You've taken a-a bullet, whatever that is - the wound lingers! And-" he can't go on. Her eyes are wide and her paw is lighter on his chest. The clearing has quieted.
"What is the meaning of this!?"
Varissa ignores him for a moment, pretending to be caught up in the kill, risking retribution despite the blood-hallowed ground. She leans close until her great head is all Jin can see.
"How do you know this?"
Despite himself, he leans forward a bit, painfully, struggling to breathe under her weight.
"I'm. Wisdom. Of Karia. I. Know. You. ::wheeze:: Hunt. Vorax."
She leaps back, snarling, looking around in alarm, but Jin was quiet, so only she would hear. He braces himself against a nearby tree and pulls his battered body upright. They are all watching now, intent. He has to be careful.
"Yes. I know. And I need you to find...to find one for me. No one else can. Then, we need to -"
"This is foolish. Stop playing with your food. Are you eating this lizard or not?"
Isilio is standing, now, larger than the others, some of whom melt back into the jungle before evening falls, no longer interested in what seems like abject foolishness which could become much worse, fast. They depart silently, with no goodbyes, for this is a rare meeting, and will not occur again for many seasons.
Varissa glances to him, but pins Jin with a glare of mingled hatred and shock. "No. I will not eat him. Yet."
"Then go. The kill you offered pleases the spirits, and its blood has fed the land, mingling with the others. Go and take that lizard with you, to do with as you wish."
She slowly changes to her two-legged form, and Jin is unmoved by her feline beauty. He sees only his mission, his vision, his very life, hanging by a whisker-thin thread. She says the ritual words to Isilio without taking her eyes off of Jin. "Feast on the marrow, and may the spirit-gift sleep within you until Karia claims you."
She shoves him ahead of her, still far stronger than he is, taller as well, radiating hatred and musk. Jin's tail is rigid with fear.
When they are a few dozen meters into the forest, out of sight, she grabs Jin by the dewlap and slams him into a nearby tree with bone-loosening force. Her grip moves to his throat and begins to squeeze. She hisses and growls in his ear.
"Now, lizard, explain yourself, and I might not tear you apart."
"Tell us a poem." The voice vibrates the air and Jin feels it thrumming in his chest cavity like a Zipsum drum.
A poem. Oh gods.
A full season past, Jin-kalys departed Sighing Web of Trees, the village where he had lived his quiet life up to then, leaving the Academy where he had been carefully trained in the sophic arts and sciences at the feet of the Great Doctors of Arborealis Heliophilius, in the ways of curves and lines, of truth's vertices offered in sunlight's verity.
He has since wandered, seeking something he cannot comprehend, but which he knows is crucial. The calculations are...inerrant. Inexorable. The ineluctable Nexus drawing ever closer. It comes to him - nine branches. Each branch is necessary in its own way, providing the balance of angular measurements at the vertices he's found, meeting at the Apogee and Perigee and bending on their course through time, aligned to intersect with the Chronologic Ellipse. Instantaneous angle is approximately equivalent to the distance in time between each as they pass into the Eccliptic, at which point, they resolve as one would expect, intersecting at the Nexus. The key is the curvature -
"Lizard. Give us a poem, or give us your flesh."
Jin is wrenched back out of his reverie. "I. Ahem. Yes. A poem." He closes his eyes and lowers his tail and slows his breathing. The breathing of the Jevumm standing around him in a semicircle is utterly unnerving. He smells their predator stink and the musk of their terrible meeting-place, deep in the jungle.
It comes to him when he's finally calm. Saborakalys. Of course! The first poem he ever learned, in an ancient mode inherited from the Dusk Sages themselves (or so it is said). Jin clumsily renders it into his halting Jevumm, hoping the syllable patters translate -
Dawn burns, sets alight
Kindling the mind - molten gold
Mist is departing
Slowly morning stirs
Sluggish blood thaws and slips free
Murmuring gently
We inherit dawn
Speakers of the love of Sol
Loving speech of leaves
Incline inward, now
Sitting quiet breathing with
Sighing Web of Trees.
Bright golden eyes narrow. Isilo Govelara, his muzzle whitened to show his age, power undiminished, smirks, if such a thing is possible.
"You have brought no fire...yet neither do you bring offerings. You say you come here in peace - it hardly matters. You will be eaten regardless. But we are curious. Your poem has purchased some time for you. How do you wish to use it?"
Jin's vision swirls madly and a great fist clenches his heart as it hammers against his chest. Eaten. No! Not now! I've only begun! He looks around, eyes wide. They are all watching. A few draw closer silently, and he can almost feel their breath.
Behind Isilo's massive form, there is the Bone House, the ancient meeting-place of the Govelara Jevumm of this region. There is no broader Jevumm culture, only local cultures. Truly, somewhat like the Anakarix, though two races could hardly be more opposite.
The Bone House is constructed entirely of bone and sinew taken from the victims of the Jevumm for generations. At the base, filthy bones are yellowing and cracked. In places they have been replaced with gleaming bones, fresh from Jevumm jaws.
A low growl of impatience snaps him back to his awful present, out of reverie.
"I...Great one, lord of the G-Govelara, Isilio Who Sups On M-Marrow, I...I introduce my...h-humble self, Jin-kalys, student of Helio-...student of great m-masters of Sighing Web of Trees, far from this forest. I. Yes. I come in peace, of course. I come t-to...to speak to you, Great lord of hunters. And-and your people."
How can I say this? With a mathematical schema scratched in the moist dirt with my tail!? A detailed chain of argumentation drawing on rich sophic traditions they've never heard of!? Gods! That one licked her lips!
"Great lord. Karia is dying! If you will help me. If...if a particular one of you will help me, and if we can find others...we can save her."
The laughter of the gathered Jevumm is terrible to hear.
There is no sound when one of them slams into him, bearing him down, grinning, crushing him beneath its weight. She begins to laugh with the rest, mouth wider and wider, coming down to crunch out his life.
"Your name is Varissa! You have walked the earth for thirty-three journeys of the sun! You've taken a-a bullet, whatever that is - the wound lingers! And-" he can't go on. Her eyes are wide and her paw is lighter on his chest. The clearing has quieted.
"What is the meaning of this!?"
Varissa ignores him for a moment, pretending to be caught up in the kill, risking retribution despite the blood-hallowed ground. She leans close until her great head is all Jin can see.
"How do you know this?"
Despite himself, he leans forward a bit, painfully, struggling to breathe under her weight.
"I'm. Wisdom. Of Karia. I. Know. You. ::wheeze:: Hunt. Vorax."
She leaps back, snarling, looking around in alarm, but Jin was quiet, so only she would hear. He braces himself against a nearby tree and pulls his battered body upright. They are all watching now, intent. He has to be careful.
"Yes. I know. And I need you to find...to find one for me. No one else can. Then, we need to -"
"This is foolish. Stop playing with your food. Are you eating this lizard or not?"
Isilio is standing, now, larger than the others, some of whom melt back into the jungle before evening falls, no longer interested in what seems like abject foolishness which could become much worse, fast. They depart silently, with no goodbyes, for this is a rare meeting, and will not occur again for many seasons.
Varissa glances to him, but pins Jin with a glare of mingled hatred and shock. "No. I will not eat him. Yet."
"Then go. The kill you offered pleases the spirits, and its blood has fed the land, mingling with the others. Go and take that lizard with you, to do with as you wish."
She slowly changes to her two-legged form, and Jin is unmoved by her feline beauty. He sees only his mission, his vision, his very life, hanging by a whisker-thin thread. She says the ritual words to Isilio without taking her eyes off of Jin. "Feast on the marrow, and may the spirit-gift sleep within you until Karia claims you."
She shoves him ahead of her, still far stronger than he is, taller as well, radiating hatred and musk. Jin's tail is rigid with fear.
When they are a few dozen meters into the forest, out of sight, she grabs Jin by the dewlap and slams him into a nearby tree with bone-loosening force. Her grip moves to his throat and begins to squeeze. She hisses and growls in his ear.
"Now, lizard, explain yourself, and I might not tear you apart."
Hunger
I live the truth of teeth.
Life is a dance of hunger and rest, rest and hunger, light and dark. Hunger devours other wills, leaving only one will, the deepest will, the will of teeth.
The blood of the tree-dwellers tastes like rain, and it spills slow down the lips.
The blood of the brawlers is like mead, bright and sweet on the tongue
The blood of the singers tingles and burns, swimming in the belly and echoing in the bones.
The blood of the seekers is thin and fine - so our stories tell. I have not tasted it. Yet.
The blood of the talkers burns the teeth, but it warms the paws as it wells up and out.
The children of steel taste of rust. Their bones are strange and the marrow thick. They are hard to take - leap! Bite! Shake so bones crack! Clench to stop the wind! And watch for their stings.
Hunger comes from deep in the land, deep in Karia. I hunt in dreams and when waking. The children of steel are hungry and devour and shit it out. They do not learn, they do not grow.
I am hungry, and I eat, and I remember. Those who are within me teach me, their living blood mingling with mine, their last gasps swallowed whole. They move through me, and teach me of their power.
If you have not tasted blood, hot and fresh and flowing, you cannot know. In blood there is memory. In bones the soul dwells. Crack the bones and lick them clean, chew the skin and eat the meat, in the darkness outside their camps, in the shadow of their machines, far from their fire and stings.
I eat, and I learn, and I grow. Karia grows.
I am the hunger of Karia.
Life is a dance of hunger and rest, rest and hunger, light and dark. Hunger devours other wills, leaving only one will, the deepest will, the will of teeth.
The blood of the tree-dwellers tastes like rain, and it spills slow down the lips.
The blood of the brawlers is like mead, bright and sweet on the tongue
The blood of the singers tingles and burns, swimming in the belly and echoing in the bones.
The blood of the seekers is thin and fine - so our stories tell. I have not tasted it. Yet.
The blood of the talkers burns the teeth, but it warms the paws as it wells up and out.
The children of steel taste of rust. Their bones are strange and the marrow thick. They are hard to take - leap! Bite! Shake so bones crack! Clench to stop the wind! And watch for their stings.
Hunger comes from deep in the land, deep in Karia. I hunt in dreams and when waking. The children of steel are hungry and devour and shit it out. They do not learn, they do not grow.
I am hungry, and I eat, and I remember. Those who are within me teach me, their living blood mingling with mine, their last gasps swallowed whole. They move through me, and teach me of their power.
If you have not tasted blood, hot and fresh and flowing, you cannot know. In blood there is memory. In bones the soul dwells. Crack the bones and lick them clean, chew the skin and eat the meat, in the darkness outside their camps, in the shadow of their machines, far from their fire and stings.
I eat, and I learn, and I grow. Karia grows.
I am the hunger of Karia.
Jevumm
Fire-Fearing Tigers...
In the era of the Dusk Sages the Jevumm were feared and respected. The Sages themselves treated the great cats with caution, bartering knowledge of storms for safety from the hunt. The Jevumm roamed all over the land bestowing a kind of primal order to things, where creatures were categorized by their strength and intelligence. The weak and the dim-witted were prey for the mighty Jevumm, who feared nothing but the lick of fire.
The arrival of the Cheldrun, the Cataclysm of Fiery Skies, has been devastating to the pride of the Jevumm. The children of steel are masters of fire, using it to power their machines, cook their food, burn their fuel and as a weapon against the forest. From the perspective of the Jevumm, the Cheldrun hide their weakness behind the power of flame to usurp the place of the tiger-people at the apex of the food chain. With wounded egos the Jevumm have slowly retreated deeper and deeper into the jungle as the Cheldrun loggers advance, muttering curses and threats, but slinking away from the churning machines all the same.
The Jevumm are perhaps the least ‘civilized’ of the Karians, because they don’t have to be. They’ve always been the scariest race, able to take what they want – produced by others most of the time. They have the least peaceful interaction with other Karians. Indeed, the other races carry torches with them on long journeys to fend off the tigers, and then it rains and they all get eaten. Since the days of the Dusk Sages the Jevumm have been associated with storms and rain, when outdoor fires are put out and people disappear into the jungle without a sound.
Known as tiger-people, the Jevumm are actually quite diverse. Each tribe manifests as a different variety of great cat, from lions, to jaguars, to cougars and every type of tiger. They have a shorter lifespan than humans, dying on average near their 50th year. Mothers can be quite protective of their offspring, but Jevumm culture sets the 5th year as a firm boundary line at which point the cub must prove itself strong enough to survive. Fathers often step in at that point and chase the cub away into the jungle. Cubs that are too slow or weak often get killed by their fathers.
Jevumm aren’t very numerous, preferring wild places with low populations where there are plenty of individuals and small groups to prey on. They live mostly solitary lives, though they do gather occasionally in tribes. They are highly intelligent and proud, but also lazy and not courageous. They have sporadic interests that stave off boredom – notably poetry. Think, indolent cats that like to play with their food.
Amongst themselves they have a storytelling culture driven by one-upmanship. When summoned together from their wide-ranging territories for a tribal meet it is customary to share stories of prowess, usually told in verse. Everything between two Jevumm is a competition and it does occasionally get violent, though intraspecies fighting is rarely lethal. Sometimes a tribe will announce a Wild Hunt, which involves many Jevumm working together to bring down large prey or to break up a persistent group. Hunting cooperatively like this, the Jevumm are positively terrifying. Even so, these Wild Hunts have not been successful against the Cheldrun.
***Players who wish to play a Jevumm should decide what type of great cat and thus what tribe they are from. Different tribes will have different cultures and personalities depending on the variety of cat. Players should take this into account and detail out the relationships of the character to the tribe. What status does this character have in an ultra-competitive society? Players should consider the poetry that they may have written, and how they will relate to the other races, since the Jevumm are not always peaceful with other Karians.
Example Names: Aburala, Igola, Ihlosi, Isilo, Ithayiga, Kakhona, Leeu, Paka, Shenxisa, Ukaba, Varissa, Xelela, Yomisa
Example Attributes: Combat Technique, Extra Actions, Extra Defenses, Heightened Awareness, Heightened Senses, Jumping, Land Speed, Massive Damage, Melee Attack, Melee Defense, Special Movement (fast), Superstrength, Tough
Example Skills: Acrobatics, Area Knowledge, Burglary, Climbing, Controlled Breathing, Cultural Arts, Interrogation, Intimidation, Performing Arts, Seduction, Stealth, Swimming, Wilderness Survival, Wilderness Tracking, Writing
| Jevumm attitudes towards…. | |
| Cheldrun | Hiss! The fire-lovers are a plague on Karia. At every opportunity, when they are separated from their beloved flames, we will eat them. |
| Allskins | The weakest of the fire-lovers, we enjoy the smell of their terror on the breeze. |
| Biomade | These fire-lovers are mind-sensors. They cannot read our thoughts, but many a hunt has been spoiled because they detected our approach. |
| Mechified | More than anything we hate these fire-lovers who incorporate the flames into their own bodies, fueling engines that drive them like demons of destruction. |
| Karians | We are the people that belong, a natural outgrowth of Karia’s will to diversity and strength. |
| Anakarix | Undesirable to eat, these tree-dwellers are clever enough to make up for their sloth and weakness. |
| Gogajin | Perhaps the only people with a physical prowess we can respect, they are still no match for us because of their dim wits. |
| Jevumm | We are the storm-bringers, the lightning-harbingers, the ones who promise death-rain. We are to be feared. You are to be eaten. |
| Prill | Ha! Singing is no defense against tooth and claw. They eschew their nature to the detriment of their survival. They will sing sad songs while we feast on them. |
| Vorax | The world is mourning the death of these raptors, but it is their own weakness which destined them for the grave. |
| Zipsum | So… hard… to… catch… so… little… to… eat… waste of our time. |
Make Them Pay
I love this part, she thought. Crouching deep in the black mud that always results from the children of steel tramping around in the woods, Varissa felt a tremor course along her spine to the tip of her gently swishing tail. There is nothing - NOTHING - like the hunt, and there are few prey that deserve to get killed and eaten as much as the Cheldrun.
For years the Kibara tribe had been saying there was no way the voracious Cheldrun would get this deep into the woods. There were miles and miles of woods to consume, never in our lifetimes will the Cheldrun destroy so much forest that they threaten our home - that's what the elders had said. Only a month ago the first tree fell south of Mako river. Whatever the elders say the Cheldrun have arrived. They've come leaving a swath of black ground behind them, caring only about cost. Nothing will stop them, unless we make it cost too much.
That was what the hunt tonight was about. As much as Varissa thirsted for Cheldrun blood, as much as her heart hungered for revenge, she knew that in the end, this was about survival - and the only way to survive was to make the Cheldrun pay too high a price.
The last of the smoke belching behemoths that the children of steel used to lance through whole groves of trees in one sweep came to a sputtering halt. The enormous bulbs that enable work in the evenings flickered obnoxiously, Varissa cringed, her feline eyes absorbing too much light. This was the signal for the workers to return to camp. Work for the day was done, they had devastated countless hectares - and they could have continued their devastation by night, but it had grown too dangerous.
Yes, Varissa's whiskered lips peeled back in a toothy terrifying smile, dangerous.
Out of the cab of the nearest deforesting vehicle clanked and whirred one of the mysterious half-metal men Varissa thought of as victims of some cruel experiment. The cruelty of the moment was gloriously multivalent. As he wiped his brow with a filthy towel clutched in metal pincers, he failed to realize that he was the last one out on the front. During the primary hours of work his vehicle would have been flanked with machines that spit horrible stinging metal slugs. If he had been less diligent and returned to camp a few minutes early he would have had them as an escort. If he had been running his behemoth through the denser section of woods to the east he would have made less headway. He would not have found himself plunged so deeply into the forest, away from the open territory of the expanding Cheldrun frontier. If any of these things had been different...
Being a Jevumm, Varissa, reveled in the cruelty of fate at moments like this. She sniffed the air and tasted the sweat rolling off the parts of the Cheldrun that were not mechanized, then she permitted herself a deep, trembling, growl. The man turned hastily in her direction.
The air suddenly tasted like fear.
For years the Kibara tribe had been saying there was no way the voracious Cheldrun would get this deep into the woods. There were miles and miles of woods to consume, never in our lifetimes will the Cheldrun destroy so much forest that they threaten our home - that's what the elders had said. Only a month ago the first tree fell south of Mako river. Whatever the elders say the Cheldrun have arrived. They've come leaving a swath of black ground behind them, caring only about cost. Nothing will stop them, unless we make it cost too much.
That was what the hunt tonight was about. As much as Varissa thirsted for Cheldrun blood, as much as her heart hungered for revenge, she knew that in the end, this was about survival - and the only way to survive was to make the Cheldrun pay too high a price.
The last of the smoke belching behemoths that the children of steel used to lance through whole groves of trees in one sweep came to a sputtering halt. The enormous bulbs that enable work in the evenings flickered obnoxiously, Varissa cringed, her feline eyes absorbing too much light. This was the signal for the workers to return to camp. Work for the day was done, they had devastated countless hectares - and they could have continued their devastation by night, but it had grown too dangerous.
Yes, Varissa's whiskered lips peeled back in a toothy terrifying smile, dangerous.
Out of the cab of the nearest deforesting vehicle clanked and whirred one of the mysterious half-metal men Varissa thought of as victims of some cruel experiment. The cruelty of the moment was gloriously multivalent. As he wiped his brow with a filthy towel clutched in metal pincers, he failed to realize that he was the last one out on the front. During the primary hours of work his vehicle would have been flanked with machines that spit horrible stinging metal slugs. If he had been less diligent and returned to camp a few minutes early he would have had them as an escort. If he had been running his behemoth through the denser section of woods to the east he would have made less headway. He would not have found himself plunged so deeply into the forest, away from the open territory of the expanding Cheldrun frontier. If any of these things had been different...
Being a Jevumm, Varissa, reveled in the cruelty of fate at moments like this. She sniffed the air and tasted the sweat rolling off the parts of the Cheldrun that were not mechanized, then she permitted herself a deep, trembling, growl. The man turned hastily in her direction.
The air suddenly tasted like fear.
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