Heya, Tumblr newbie here.
This is just a mini-chapter of a story that was bumping around in my head. I am no seasoned writer, and this is being drafted up in notepad on my phone, so expect plenty of mistakes. Non-human MC and very AU setting.
Yielding Flesh
Ch1: Terribly Wrong
Robes billowed, casting undulating shadow across the corridor. Hard soles wrapped in dark leather thudded rhythmically against polished marble floors. A large man strode with purpose, though his face was dark with simmering frustrations.
His steely gray eyes, flecked with glinting red- the trademark of any good Animaturge, were clouded; and his lips, hidden beneath a deep layer of dark navy facial hair, were pulled into a thin grim line. The long pointed ears that peeked from beneath the messily tied back hair were drawn downwards, making no attempt to hide his sour mood from other elves.
"An envoy? For diplomacy?" He hissed to himself incredulously, letting his irritation bubble up and causing the ashen gray skin along his arms to ripple and stretch unsettlingly as the flesh-altering magic of animaturgy pulsed inside his mana veins.
"An archmage playing foreign politics? Ridiculous. Next they'll be asking the Holy Leader to run courier missions." He scoffed, "Besides, it's not as if diplomacy would even get us anywhere with those primitive, backwards, violent-" his grumbling grew louder by the word, before a voice spoke up, interrupting him.
"Professor Lloyd?" The soft voice queried.
Lloyd takes a sharp breath, gathering himself from his near outburst as he turns to the young human scholar.
"Yes, Erwyn?" He asks, "What is it?"
"You're... leaving the Magus Tower?" The boy asks somewhat pitifully, clutching at the leather bound tome he had dragged along, no doubt for another consultation.
"Yes. But just temporarily. We're to attend a peace summit in the Aa'daala home system."
Erwyn's sad puppy impersonation crumbled and his nose wrinkled in response to this new information.
"The bugs?" He asked with blatant disgust.
Lloyd lets out a snorting chuckle in surprise, "that's right, the bugs." His laughter trails off into a grimace, "but, uh, don't let any of the delegates hear you call them that."
Both frown at the thought of the Aa'daala. Lloyd's 200 some-odd years of interacting with them left a poor taste in his mouth.
The chitinous warrior caste of insectoids had long been at war with the Triumvirate over habitable space and planetary resources. Their psychology and physiology was far too alien for elven minds to truly understand their societies or ettiquite, though. To an Arcane society, their actions seemed wholly barbaric. The acts of non-sapient bugs... a thought shared by the majority of the Triumvirate, including Lloyd and Erwyn.
Rare few would sympathize with the insectoids.
After all, many lives have been lost in these exchanges. While the Triumvirate may have overwhelmingly superior military power via the biomechanical ships the animaturges such as Lloyd produce, the Aa'daala can grow broods of expendable and fearless warrior grunts by the thousands and outnumber them. Not to mention, in order to prevent the Aa'daala from harvesting the battlefield for the flesh of elves and their own kin alike, the Triumvirate had taken to scorching the battlefields. Lloyd himself had taken part in the Ashbringer's clean-ups more than once.
It still made him feel unwell to see death at such daunting scale. And with no bodies to even bring back home to grieving families, it's no small wonder the war is even less popular now. That exact discontent is what has led to these current peace talks. Though, the animosity makes any real resolution seem far-fetched.
There is, however, hope.
A hope for peace built on fragile foundations, but hope nonetheless.
Lloyd broke from his musings when he realized that Erwyn was staring at him with a concerned look.
"I'll be fine. They've set up a teleportation layline to the meeting zone." He gives him a reassuring smile, "I'll have to take a jumpship on the return trip though. It'll be no more than a week or two, as long as talks go well." He smiled, but held his tongue- not sharing his belief that the talks would, in fact, not go well.
Erwyn just nods, giving the tome he had brought along a pensive look, before deciding he could wait a bit longer for the professor's help.
"Then, good luck Professor!" He nods resolutely.
Lloyd tries not to chuckle at the serious expression on the young mage's face.
"Thank you, Erwyn. I'll need it." He smiles, turning back towards his task. He had to get a move on, the diplomats were already waiting on him, after all.
# ----#@#----
'Something has gone terribly wrong.'
It was the first thought in my mind once the blinding light of the translocation field had cleared. I was surrounded by walls of mundane steel, in a small cylindrical chamber. A rubber mat lined the floor, and a variety of inorganic machinery, tubes, and wires crawled up the walls like ivy. A single, baleful white light flickered from above, rattling along with the rest of the machine.
I feared an ambush at first, or some other trap from the Aa'daala- but quickly scrapped the idea.
This was not the handiwork of the Insectoids.
A window, small and round, took up one of the walls, giving me my first clue. Beyond the strange confines I saw the sea of stars and the vastness of space; confirmation I was certainly not in the right location- But below that, and approaching rapidly, I saw a planet.
It was a deathly thing. Grey and mottled. It was... unpleasant. Even before stepping foot on the surface I could tell. It felt like I was approaching a corpse.
There may well be life there, but it would be whatever maggots remained behind to feast on the rot. It certainly wasn't a planet I knew of, however, and judging by the lack of visible hive-swarms or Anima Pylons, this wasn't a planet controlled by the Triumvirate or the Aa'daala either.
I took a step closer to the viewport to get a better look at local space, when a strange crackling came from underfoot. I flinched, stepping back quickly, only to find odd objects scattered on the ground. It was only then that I began to pay more attention to the state of the pod.
The thing I'd stepped on appeared to be some form of nutrient brick, once wrapped in a metallic foil. The seal had already been broken and bite marks were present on the material within. Claw marks were scattered about at lower height, both in the metal and the rubber mat alike- Too deep for traditional humanoid nails to have scored.
A sign of panic, perhaps? But from what kind of beast? Black and vibrant orange hairs were visible in the corners, and some could be spotted partially stuck in the intake ducts. but that information left me with little to glean, and the ducts were not only still sealed, but far too small for most creatures to hide in.
Had... the teleportation accidentally been intercepted? Had something interfered and swapped our destinations?
My musings were short, though. The rattling of re-entry into orbit were starting to become severe. I intended to use the biomass from my Pylon to create a web or fluid suspension to hopefully lessen the impact, but upon channeling my Anima, I realized that my Pylon access was unavailable.
They were miracles of spatial magic, the Anima Pylons. And unfortunately, a branch of arcana I hadn't delved too deeply into. They were one of the first forms of infrastructure deployed during colonization for a reason. It allowed Magus to store exceptionally large quantities of biomass in a subspace pocket, depending on the clearance level you have on that planet.
I, of course, still had my own Arcane Core to store my biomass in, but I had long since stopped using it for more than the bare minimum nutrient storage to keep my body operational without the mundane acts of eating, sleeping, or breathing. While still capable of storing many many times my own weight in mass, it was still miniscule compared to a proper Pylon Grid.
But now, that small core was all I had left.
There wasn't enough material for any major modifications to my body, but I wasn't fully out of options.
I discarded my robe- a shameful act for any Elven Drider were I still planetside- and allowed my body to stretch.
Much of the body cavity of my torso had long been hollowed away. The redundancy of a heart, lungs, or intestines in an animaturge made it a common sacrifice. In it's place, were the things that made me a Drider. The two sets of arachnoidal legs unfolded from the twin cavities along my back, bisected only by my spinal column and it's protective shell.
Were it not an emergency, it would have almost been comical. While ancient Drider were said to have used their extra legs regularly for day-to-day tasks, tradition had long changed the way Drider society operated. To have one's legs out was seen as crude- signaling a desire to either fight or fornicate. Crass, if unprompted, but a mark of romance or readiness for war in proper scenarios.
These were just my idle thoughts as my four legs braced as best they could against the cylindrical walls, suspending me in a rough freefloating center. The shaking had gotten worse, but now, very little managed to transfer itself through the shock absorption of my four legs.
Using a few days worth of biomass to generate the complex proteins and amino acids needed, I generated several thick cables of Drider web, anchoring myself haphazardly across several other axis within the pod, effectively locking myself in place.
Most of body was of little concern, as I could simply re-attach anything lost- but neural damage was different. While I could recover from the damage physically with enough material, any memories or biological codex I had stored in that neural chain would be lost.
As such, I wrapped myself into a ball, protecting my skull while allowing the webbing to secure me tighter; and, as the blazing inferno of re-entry dyed the interior of the ship orange with its violent glow, I braced for inevitable impact.
If you made it this far, I'd love to hear your thoughts below! Thanks for reading. ❤️
