Bromley watches @captainfiretoad and Flick jump into the water and swim for the shore. He whistles for Greywind to fly towards the shore and begin harassing the skaaben, then jumps in the water and follows after Pelt to flee the sinking ship.
Shregresha and her war band unload from their cramped rowboat, having paddled to the shore quicker than the pirates by brute force, as they don't know proper technique for rowing.
"Destroy the undead! We've done this before, the flesh warped horrors of Grixis fell to our blades, and these lightning-charged monstrosities will be no different! Tol Angata!" Shregresha shouted, charging into the fray, bone sword raised high.
Kresh felt old. He was old, by the standards of his people, at about fifty years of age. Even with his exact age and birth unknown, he was one of the oldest Jundian humans alive. By the standards of humans across the multiverse, he wasn’t young, but he wasn’t considerably old either. Even in the rest of Alara, not counting the unfortunate souls of Grixis, the average human lifespan of non-Jundians was between sixty-five and seventy cycles, the Alaran term for years, of age. On most other planes, humans still rarely lived longer than a century, but that was about double Kresh’s current age. On Ravnica, it was said that humans often passed one century and some even made it to two, not counting some Orzhov who managed several centuries before shuffling off to eternal existence as a ghost. Still, he felt old. Older than almost fifty or slightly older than fifty. He didn’t know his exact age, he was found as a toddler in the ruins of a village by Tol Hera, and although it was clear he was between one and three cycles at that point, his exact age was unknown. His hair had only begun graying a few years ago, but the wear on his body far exceeded that of the average fifty year old human, even for one from Jund. There was maybe one or two patches of his skin that weren’t scar tissue, he was reasonably certain that he had some muscles near his spine that only hurt from age, yet nearly all of his gastric viscera was unmarred and thankfully, his eyes hadn’t suffered any permanent damage. But, you couldn’t tell most of that from looking at him. He wasn’t called Kresh the Thousand-Scarred as an exaggeration. He felt old most days, but he hadn’t felt weary just from hearing news since the Invasion. What Goro-Goro had called to tell him about broke that streak.
There was a clone of Durkrag, and it was on Jund, hunting for the killer of its creator, Dr. Zlovol. Turrak, the original Durkrag’s half-brother, was that killer. He was a formidable shaman and if it had been any other extra-planar assassin, Kresh would simply have warned them, posted a guard at their hut, and moved on. But, he knew that even if told about it ahead of time, he would hesitate to strike down someone who looked and sounded like their brother. Most of the clan would, Shregresha included. She also couldn’t be told about this, and might also be a target. That hesitation could be dangerous. He probably wouldn’t, provided he was sure it was the clone he was about to plunge Mage Slayer into, but that could be the tricky bit, being sure which one was the clone. Depending on how much information the clone had, it could disguise itself to look similar enough to Durkrag and confuse matters. Plus, he didn’t want to tell Shregresha or Durkrag, and Turrak was busy dealing with the viashino. They’d been through enough, and he didn’t want Shregresha charging off after the clone and potentially getting herself killed. And, finally, he wasn’t sure the clone deserved to die. Kresh didn’t know how cloning worked, but he was confident that the clone never asked to be created as a living weapon. Was the clone a fully thinking person? Did they count as a member of Tol Angata, and thus have a right to challenge Turrak to combat? They were supposedly an exact copy of Durkrag, but they were also only a few months old, accelerated to physical adulthood by science and sorcery. He would need answers to these questions to know what to do about it, and that would require taking the clone alive. This was not exactly a skill Jundian hunters or warriors had honed, and while some of the shamans could probably do it, he didn’t want word potentially getting out about the mission he would need to send them on. He also didn’t know what the nature of a clone’s soul would be, and would rather have the clone subdued before getting a shaman to answer that question.
He needed someone competent and discreet, who knew the terrain, was skilled enough to take the target alive, but wouldn't hesitate to kill if the situation required it. There was only one person in the multiverse he trusted to do the job, but they had disappeared about six months ago. Only one person fit the bill. One person and a hawk.
The hunter missed the hawk. The hunter hated that they missed the hawk. The hunter shouldn’t even remember the hawk. The hawk wasn’t their companion, it was… another person’s companion. A dead person’s. A person who the hunter had never met. But, if all of that was true, why did they still miss the hawk? They weren’t that person… they were… they couldn’t remember their Kaldheim name. All they could remember was the name of a dead man. A name that missed the hawk.
The hunter was snapped out of their fugue state by a noise from the device that they shouldn’t have kept. It was a device the hunter had abandoned, again and again, the last time just a sleep prior. But some part of them kept finding it, despite how easy it was to lose in the mists. The process wasn’t supposed to be this hard! They’d abandoned every shred of their lives half a dozen times over, but for some reason, here in the realm of shifting faces, where no one was identifiable, they couldn’t let go. The device screeched again, piercing through the mists like a hawk’s cry. The hunter reached down to unhook it from their belt, to leave it on the ground once more, but a traitorous part of their mind, a part that would not die, choose his moment.
Bromley Macpherson answered their communicator to the sound of Kresh the Thousand-Scarred’s voice.
Shregresha trudged through the jungle, still pondering why Kresh had been so insistent that Durkrag and her specifically go as the guards this moon’s trade convoy. She figured it was because Kresh wanted to ease Durkrag back into being more active in the clan, and that she was sent along to watch over him, but that didn’t explain why Kresh had been adamant that they and Shregresha’s war band be the ones to guard the convoy, rather than have Durkrag go hunting, or have them go follow up with Turrak to see how the pathway system was going. Shregresha had suggested both, and both were denied. If there was a specific danger Kresh was concerned about, why didn’t he tell her as much? If there was someone he wanted Durkrag and her to meet, he didn’t give a name or a description. Come to think of it, as far as she knew, Kresh hadn’t actually met the… merchants of the Brazen Coalition that they traded with. Was that it? He wanted to know what was going on from a highly trusted source, and didn’t say in case he was overheard by someone doing something crooked? Maybe it was some combination of everything? Maybe it was nothing specific? Shregresha sighed, took a deep breath, and tried to clear her head. She was overthinking it.
Then, it hit her! Kresh wanted her there to reinforce the terms of the Accord! Yes, it had been announced on the network, but making it clear in person was a better bet. And he insisted to bring Durkrag with her because he figured that was best for her and her son. But why not tell her?
Durkrag had spent the past four hours looking at an iguanar’s behind. Or more accurately, its tail. An iguanar’s long tail swept along the ground, helping provide extra stability and spacial awareness. The tail could also be used as a whip against attackers, although it was mainly a scare tactic, and it could also detach, allowing iguanars to escape even a dragon by leaving a writhing tail in the predator’s mouth. Durkrag knew all of this because he had spent every meal yesterday learning all sorts of iguanar facts from Jakagera, the youngest of the iguanar riders. Like him, she was on the younger side of those on this trip, just a year older than he was. Like him, she hadn’t earned a title yet. Unlike him, this was the first mission of bigger importance than just hunting or driving off goblins she was on. Unlike him, she was very bubbly and fascinated by giant iguanars. It wasn’t that Durkrag disliked the animals, but he didn’t share Jakagera’s enthusiasm about the behaviors and bodies of them. He didn’t need to know how long it took an iguanar to digest its food, nor how many teeth an adult could have, and while some information, like an iguanar’s speed or that it could bite through a medium-sized tree trunk were interesting, there were other things he didn’t need to know. Things that walking at the end of the tail gave him enough knowledge of, well before Jakagera added extra details.
Durkrag tuned out Jakagera as she talked about the dietary requirements of an adolescent iguanar, and focused instead on the bronze-headed ax he held. It didn’t feel right at all in his hand. His normal weapon, a long ax weighted with a stone hammer behind the blade, required two hands to wield effectively, so he’d been outfitted with a bronze ax, a sturdy weapon that was not made from one of his kills, but was still something he had ‘earned’. On his other arm, he had nothing. If he still had a forearm, he would’ve strapped a shield or maybe a blade to it, but with everything below the elbow gone, it was too awkward to weaponize.
Durkrag felt half-naked without a weapon that he was comfortable with, and slipped the ax back into the stiff leather holder on his belt. At least he had a bundle of javelins on his back. While it had taken some adjusting of his technique to get his balance right again, one only needed a single hand to effectively throw a javelin, and he was a good shot with them. In many ways, they were the more effective weapons he had, considering the duty to stay put and guard the convoy, the javelins would allow him to strike down animals or ward off raiders from a distance. Not that he hoped to fight, but it was reassuring that he wouldn’t be helpless if he had to.
It was late at night out on the prairie of Thunder Junction when a hooded figure walked by a Freestrider ranch. They made a single noise, a piercing bird call, and in response, a lone hawk awoke and flew from her perch, landing on the hunter’s left shoulder. The hunter tucked their hood behind their left ear, and a beak pecked at the stubble on their cheek. In response, they fished a piece of thrinax jerky out of a compartment on their belt. Despite being months-old, the smoking, salting, and spicing that Clan Tol Angata did to the meat meant that aside from being tough as boots, the jerky was wholly edible.
The hawk let out a sharp Caw! and pecked the hunter once again, this time hard enough to break the skin.
“Ow, that hurt, Greywind,” Bromley Macpherson said, rubbing his cheek, “But you don’t need to worry, I’m never going to disappear like that again.”
Greywind let out a softer, gentler screech, and nuzzled her head behind Bromley’s ear.
“Now, let’s go hunting.”
JH-3a didn’t know what they felt was regret. They understood regret in the abstract, the feeling that one had made the wrong choices, or hadn’t made the right ones, and they didn’t like where they currently were: wearing ill-fitting akki armor, sweating buckets in a muggy jungle, and being eaten alive by mosquitoes, but didn’t put together that their drive to find the person who killed their creator, the destroyer, was what had led them to this situation. They didn’t consciously. They couldn’t let themselves.
What they could let themselves think about was the fact that they were hopelessly lost. It had been days since they went through the Omenpath, and they were still no closer to their goal. They had maps of Kamigawa, they knew some of the terrain in Jund, the route from the Omenpath to the dragon cave, but they had no way of tracking the destroyer. The plan had not been well thought-out, and although they had some knowledge of tracking implanted in their brain, most of it was for a different environment, and much of it was tactics of how to use people to find people within a city. So, what it left them with was walking alongside a river, hoping they’d eventually find someone, show that person the face of the destroyer, and get pointed in the right direction. It was not much, and they knew it. But JH-3a had committed themselves to a course of action, and did not know how to stop until they were dead, other commands were issued by a superior, or the task at hand was done.
The weather around the Maelstrom always set Shregresha’s teeth on edge. The last two times she’d been near the relative center of Alara, she hadn’t had the luxury of being consciously aware of that. Both times she’d been exhausted and in pursuit of dangerous enemies, or, closer to the Maelstrom, in active combat against hordes of enemies. The first time, she, Kresh, and a war party who’d mostly passed on since then were hunting Sarkhan Vol, and in the company of Ajani Goldmane, who sought vengeance on Nicol Bolas, only to get caught up fighting the draconic planeswalker’s army of undead. The second time, all of Tol Angata, and most of the rest of the clans were waging a grueling campaign to push the Phyrexians out of Jund. She thought zombies were the most horrific things she had ever fought, up until she was knee-deep in blood and rust, putting her sword through the head of an iron-plated viashino, only to have it not die, and have to hack through the torso with a dull blade while keeping the snapping jaws at bay. So, the last couple of times, she hadn’t been paying much attention to the ever-shifting winds or the wild fluctuations in temperature or the miniature storms that formed and dissipated in seconds. Now, she had time to pay attention.
As the wind suddenly kicked up strong enough to force her braids up into the air and hold them parallel to the ground, she wondered how this would affect the Coalition ships. She knew that the giant sheets of fabric called sails somehow propelled the ships using the wind, but didn’t know how the fluctuations in the wind would impact the sails. She grunted as her braids and the shards of metal, bone, and scales bound in them slapped against her back, falling as the wind vanished just as sudden as it came. Shaking her head, she figured that if the Coalition had been coming for at least several months, they had a way, and whatever it was, she didn’t care enough to know. She had bigger issues, like finding something to tie her hair back and keep it down, so that it didn’t smack her again though.
After a few more hours of hiking, with Shregresha having used the first water break to tie her braids together with some spare twine, so that their combined weight was too much for the wind, the trade caravan emerged from the thinning treeline and sighted the Coalition ships, anchored several yards offshore of the inlet which fed the river that the Jundians had followed towards the Maelstrom. A few miles away, the glowing, churning ball of energy at the core of the Maelstrom back lit the ships, competing with the sun to illuminate the clearing. The merchants and pirates of the Coalition had landed smaller boats on the shoreline, and off-loaded some of the goods they were hoping to trade.
“Ahoy there!” an orc woman wearing a bicorn hat called as she sprung out of a hammock, and grabbed an ax that had been resting against one of the trees she’d been resting under. “I be Captain Tressa Laguna of The Tenacious, the toughest ship in the Parsec fleet, and the commander of this here merchant convoy. If y’all be the trading party we’re expecting, glad to see you! If you’re not, then ya better be on yer best behavior or just move along an’ save us the trouble!”
“Shregresha the Scale-breaker, senior war-leader of Clan Tol Angata,” she called out, “And we’re the trading party representing the human Clans. And, although there are no viashino currently present, our clans have struck an accord with several of the viashino thrashes, namely Manytooth, Pitch, Scorch, and Thorn thrashes. The terms of this agreement, the Accord of Hair & Scale, were announced on the communicator network a few weeks ago, but I am here to go over any specifics, and to grant you permission to do things like cut down trees for ship repairs.”
“Aye! Fortune smiles upon us, for the ships be in good repair, although who knows what tomorrow brings! Any goods you’d be wanting next time our ships pass by this way?” Captain Laguna asked.
“I’m not sure about next time, but the rest of the party might have requests. I personally am looking for something, potentially would need to ask for it to be made. I’ll ask about it after my people have set up camp. In private, if possible,” Shregresha said, having walked towards the captain, and lowering her voice significantly.
“Certainly! We can head back to me ship, anything specialty’s probably aboard, might even be able to show ya what yer lookin’ fer!” Captain Laguna said, looking up at Shregresha, a new experience for her, having to physically look up at a human.
Shregresha turned back towards the Jundians, who had begun to unload the iguanars and called out, “Not time to rest yet, gotta pitch camp, clear a fire pit, and set up a watch! C’mon, let’s get moving people!”
Durkrag felt out of place. As the rest of the trade caravan bustled about, unpacking iguanar saddlebags, tossing up tents, and swapping news with the pirates, he stood by the area they’d set aside for the iguanars, javelins ready, ostensibly keeping watch on the rear. He knew the only reason he’d been given this task was due to lacking a forearm, and not being able to carry or unpack things as easily as others. Jakagera was with him, but she was focusing on taking care of the iguanars, examining their feet and claws, and rubbing them down with rough brushes to clean their scales. She was still talking while she did it, mostly about iguanars, from what Durkrag was hearing. Or maybe she was talking to the iguanars, Durkrag wasn’t that focused on her. He was focusing on not focusing on the gnawing pain in the back of his head, the hunger that wanted to dive back into a peppermoss haze and have the warmth fill the hollowness. He wasn’t focusing on it. He was focusing on not focusing on it. But that didn’t seem to be helping.
He was snapped out of his brooding when he felt the light smack of a hard-bristled brush on his shoulder, and turned to see Jakagera holding it.
“Hey, I was asking you if you wanted to eat dinner with me! Did you not hear me the first three times?” Jakagera asked, her brows knitted together in a combination of concern and irritation.
“I, uh…” Durkrag cleared his throat, “I, sure. I have a feeling that my mom’s gonna be eating at the captain’s fire, so to speak, so it shouldn’t be a problem.”
Jakagera smiled wide, and Durkrag felt something flit through the hollow in his chest. He smiled back, his a bit lopsided and showing far fewer teeth, due to being several months out of practice.
Bromley had found the tracks of the clone pretty quickly after reaching the Omenpath to the Sokenzan Mountains, and he hadn’t lost them once. Whatever Dr. Zlovol had intended for the clone to do, they were pretty sure it hadn’t involved moving undetected through a jungle. In fact, despite the several days lead, on account of how long it took to get from Littjara to anywhere you could reach any part of Alara from, let alone get close to Jund, Bromley was confident they had caught up with the clone. Bromley had a decade of experience in Jund, the clone barely had ten days experience with life outside a vat. He was close enough that it was safe, well safer, to project into Greywind’s senses and spot the clone as she flew, rather than just have her patrol for dangers while he focused on tracking. Once he had that data, the clone’s exact position, he’d move in and hopefully take the clone down with the first shot.
He’d do that in the morning. It was getting late, and unless the clone was a lot cleverer than the evidence suggested, they had nothing to worry about. The tale that Bromley had read from the footprints was that clone was still clearly heavily armored, despite it slowing them significantly, and something causing them to stumble fairly often, probably exhaustion, pointed to them likely not having enough skill to figure out that they were being followed, albeit at a mile or two out. Besides, he’d laid some snares around the camp, and Greywind would be alert at dawn, if nothing else.
Shregresha awoke in the captain’s quarters to the sound of shouting. Next to her, wearing a nightgown, Captain Tressa Laguna was hurriedly buckling her boots. Shregresha stood and stretched, her back always complained a bit after sleeping in a bed. Beds were comfortable, but she’d grown accustomed to hard, flat dirt with a bedroll over it or a simple cot at most. She sank weirdly into these mattresses, and her back didn’t know how to handle the lack of support.
Shregresha donned her belt and the short-sleeved top she’d been wearing the night prior, stuck her feet into her boots, and dashed after Captain Laguna, who was wearing an eclectic mix of her nightdress, boots buckled only at the top, cutlass and harpoon pistol hanging from her belt, and the gilded bicorn hat she wore as a token of office. The captain’s slapdash appearance reminded Shregresha of what had been the one awkward part of last night: all the buttons, buckles, and layers that it seemed a pirate, er… merchant captain wore. Shregresha wasn’t used to dealing with any of that.
The two leaders burst onto the deck to find chaos onboard all ships, as well as the shoreline. The first mate hurried over to explain the situation right as the captain of one of the other ships called out, “Dragon-thing’s coming back for another pass! Fire at will!” While Laguna was in charge of the whole convoy, each ships’ captain still operated independently when it came to protecting their ship. The Jundians on the shore weren’t close enough to hit the monster with javelins as it swooped down, but the pirates let out a volley of harpoons and crossbow bolts from the deck. Those that reached the infernal dragon did little more than annoy it, and it shouted out, “Little insects with your little stings! I will crush you like the bugs you are!”
Shregresha’s mind cleared any lingering idle thoughts the instant the dragon spoke. Jundian dragons didn’t talk. Well, not those that were entirely dragons. It’d been over a decade, and she’d only seen him from a distance, but this creature had the same general form as the fell general of the undead horde she’d fought only a day’s march around the Maelstrom from here. It was the spitting image of Malfegor, the demonic dragon. Fortunately, it wasn’t as big as he was, but its wingspan was still wider than the ship’s width. Shregresha cursed under her breath. This was not the terrain for dragon-fighting. Too flat, too open, nothing to scale and get the drop on it, nowhere to hem the dragon in, no way to keep it on the ground if it decided to engage. And since this thing had at least some of the intelligence of a demon, it’d likely just strafe them with its fire breath until the ships burned to the waterline, and those on the shore had scattered into the woods. She began forming the scraps of a plan. It would be dangerous. It would be risky. It would be-
Shregresha’s world was rocked by a massive explosion. The dragon had just strafed a ship that had managed to fire a cannon at it, and unfortunately, the flames caught the fuel for the firecannons. The ship and its crew were reduced to cinders between breaths.
Laguna staggered back, not from the physical shockwave that slammed into her, but from the horror of what had happened. As her eyes began to glaze over, Shregresha grabbed her by her shoulders and shook her.
“Tressa, you need to order everyone to abandon the ships! Tell them to bring harpoons, crossbows, whatever you have and try to draw the dragon to the shore! Try luring it over there, use the tree cover, scatter, Meerama knows how to do this, just follow her lead!” Shregresha shouted.
“Me? What about yerself?” Captain Laguna asked, dazed.
“I’m gonna try something very, very, stupid,” Shregresha told her, grabbing hold of the rigging and starting to climb.
Durkrag had been awake for all of five minutes, and was already leading the warriors Meerama had assigned to throw javelins if the dragon-thing came within range. He had good aim, and Meerama knew him better than many of the other warriors, who were from different clans. Due to them not being in a good position for fighting a dragon, Durkrag’s standing order was to begin throwing after he hurled his first, unless the range was completely off, to launch at will and then scatter, using trees as cover when not throwing, and then resume throwing from a new position. It wasn’t a great plan, but unless someone got a very solid wing hit in, the purpose of javelins was to lure the dragon into fighting on the ground. Unfortunately, Meerama didn’t understand the difference between a dragon and a demon-dragon. She hadn’t been part of Kresh’s war band over a decade ago, and due to none of the Jundians actually fighting Malfegor themselves, few tales were told of the monstrosity.
As the pirates swam ashore, washed up clinging to floating casks, barrels, and the like, or in the case of the sirens, flew, Durkrag started looking for his mother. He didn’t see her, but he saw the captain she’d went back to the ship with, and, since the dragon wasn’t yet in javelin range, instead chasing down an unlucky siren who’d gotten separated from the rest of the pirates, he strode over to Captain Laguna.
“Where’s my mom?” Durkrag asked, sighing as he saw the look of confusion on Laguna’s face, “Shregresha, she’s my mother. Where is she?”
“Yer mom’s o’er thar, climbing up the rigging of me ship. Na sure why meself, but she’s the capable sort, she knows what she’s doing,” Laguna responded. “Are you Meerama?”
“No, I’m Durkrag. Meerama’s over there,” he said, gesturing towards Shregresha’s second. “But I’ll save you some time, order your warriors with ranged weapons to join us in harrying the dragon when it comes. Fire at will, scatter after each shot, don’t want to be clumped together for dragon fire.”
As Laguna gave the orders to the pirates, Durkrag squinted and saw the small figure of Shregresha scaling the rigging, then working her way up the main mast towards the siren’s nest, as the lookout was called by some sailors. He watched as she drew her swords, banging them together and facing the dragon, presumably yelling something. Durkrag had seen what had happened to the last ship engulfed in draconic flames. He would not watch his mother die.
Grinak Laotagar wasn’t the shaman Durkrag would’ve wanted to implement his plan. Durkrag would’ve much preferred his half-brother, Turrak, be the one to help make Shregresha’s scheme work, but he had Grinak instead. It wasn’t that Grinak was a bad shaman, just that his skills lay in the enchanting of items and the shaping of bone. Those were useful talents, and for the trading mission, meant he’d be very valuable, able to discern the magic on items acquired and enchant some pieces of jewelry to increase their value when sold. He also knew medicinal practices, and was a fine healer. Those were not the skills Durkrag required. Unfortunately, it’s what he had.
“Grinak Laotagar, I desperately petition you for aid in fighting the dragon. My mother is attempting to draw it to her, but I fear that it will just breathe fire on her from a distance, killing her and leaving us without the most experienced dragon-slayer here. I implore you to call upon the aid of a wind elemental to blow the dragon towards my mom when it approaches, so she can leap upon its back and hopefully kill it, and so that she doesn’t die. If there’s anything I can give you to help in this, I will. Blood, life-force, treasure, anything!” Durkrag pleaded, making direct eye contact with Grinak.
“I… I can’t make any promises, but I’ll try my best. It might take some time though, and I don’t know how much time we have,” Grinak said, preparing to enter a trance state and pulling off some of his bracelets as an offering for the elemental he intended to call for aid.
“I’ll see if I can give us some more time. It probably won’t be much, but I’ll try,” Durkrag said, mind whirling as he ran back to where the pirates and javelin throwers were loosely assembled.
“Who’s got the longest range weapon here?” he called out.
“That’d be this beauty,” one of the pirates said, unslinging a massive harpoon gun from over his shoulder. It had a long barrel, and unlike most of the harpoons, a scope made from a retrofitted spyglass.
“Could you hit the dragon at this range?” Durkrag asked, eyeing the odd weapon.
The grizzled sharpshooter brought the scope to his eye and trained it towards the dragon, adjusting the position until he grunted and said, “Aye, but it’s at the limit of tha range. It’s a coin flip, but no other gun could put you anywhere near it.”
Ignoring the unfamiliar metaphor, Durkrag simply asked, “And how hard would it be to hit specifically the wing?”
“That’d be… well, na very likely, ’specially cause of the winds blowin helter-skelter, but I’d reckon I could get it within four shots with a bit o’ luck,” the pirate replied, “But it’s a moot point anyways, only got the one harpoon on me, left the rest on the ship.”
“You three!” Durkrag called out, pointing at three other pirates, “Give this warrior your harpoons!”
Shregresha clanged her swords together and called out towards the demon-dragon, “This blade is made from the jawbone of a dragon! While you’re an ugly shit, your jaw looks perfectly serviceable to be turned into a true matching pair! My name is Scalebreaker, because I am strong enough to break the scales of a dragon! Fight me or flee as a coward!”
The fiendish dragon let out a rumble and bellowed back, sparks flickering in the back of its throat, “And what stops me from simply roasting you where you stand?”
“I have sangrite and can use it in such a way as to make me immune to heat!” Shregresha shouted, overselling the truth. While sangrite did make one more heat-resistant, flames would still burn her.
“And the wooden float you stand upon?” the demon said, smiling wide and readying its fiery breath.
Shregresha tensed her legs and crushed some sangrite in her palm. A standing jump towards the dragon was risky, but she might be able to do it. Better than burning alive, even if she missed.
Before either dragon or human could make their move, a harpoon flew from the shore and impaled the demon-dragon in the wing, barbed head shredding the sensitive membrane. The abomination shrieked in agony, but reared back to unleash an inferno from its jaws. A second harpoon flew past it, just under the wing, and it decided that trying to kill one human who couldn’t even reach it was less practical than flying over to the shore and incinerating whoever was shooting those harpoons. With some awkward maneuvering, the creature broke the shaft off the harpoon, an impressive feat considering it was all one piece of metal, and aerially limped forward with the head still in the wing.
The dragon made it all of ten yards before a third harpoon struck it in the underbelly. An involuntary gout of flame poured from its mouth, and as it began to fall out of the sky, a strong wind kicked up, and like a champion boxer driving their opponent up off the mat with a devastating uppercut, forced it towards where Shregresha was.
She was not one to look a gift thrinax in the mouth, and leapt from the siren’s nest down onto the demon, fortunately landing on its back. Her swords impaled it between where the kidney would’ve be for a human and the wings. Moving between wing-beats to avoid being blown off, she sprang forward, up the thrashing form, using the scales as an impromptu foothold, and landed at the small of the back, in between the wings. Normally, when fighting a dragon, anywhere on their back was, while still dangerous, better than being in front of or under them, since you were out of range of their claws and teeth, and only had to worry about them using their tail like a whip, something that not all dragons could do. Since this one was part demon and had a demon’s humanoid torso atop a draconic body, Shregresha knew to position herself in the one place that humanoid arms usually couldn’t reach on their own bodies, the point on the spine that you can never quite scratch unaided.
She stuck her most recent metal blade into the space between two vertebrae, a saber she’d recently acquired from a previous trading convoy with the Coalition, and bent the blade a bit to wedge it in there, ignoring how the flesh she stood upon shook as the demon howled in pain. Holding onto the saber, tuning out everything but the meat and bone around her, Shregresha went to work with the dragon’s jawbone she held in her other hand. It rose and fell like a butcher’s cleaver, except that Shregresha had to sometimes saw it back and forth to pull it free from the spinal column she was cutting. The teeth were hungry for blood, and as Shregresha hacked through the last nerve fiber, the attached wings failed completely, turning the spiraling descent into a plummet.
Fortunately, the winds and a bit of elemental intervention had pushed them away from the ship, so when the dead weight of the demon-dragon’s lower body smashed into the ocean, the waves simply rocked the vessel and caused water to spill over the deck, rather than breaking the masts and crushing the deck.
Unfortunately, Shregresha, her body bruised from the concussive force of the impact, now had to deal with a situation her plan hadn’t developed far enough to account for. She couldn’t swim. As the inert legs buckled underneath the wailing weight of the demon-dragon, the demonic torso began to pitch sideways into the water. Shregresha wasted valuable seconds trying to pull the metal saber loose, before a splash against her ankles made her decide to cut her losses. Stumbling and thrashing, she clambered up the spine, taking a few more seconds to reach below the rising water with her one remaining blade to slit the foul creature’s throat. She knew that while devastating, the wound she had previously inflicted would’ve only meant a slow death. She was a good hunter, and a good hunter always puts their prey out of its misery.
However, finishing the job came at a cost. As the water turned a murky red-brown with plumes of corrosive, steaming blood coursing into it, she found herself lacking anything to stand on, submerged up to her shoulders, and sinking. She flailed about, trying to keep her head above water, with little success. As she felt the cool water and hot blood rise alongside her throat, her body starting to sting, she took a deep breath, hoping her ability to hold her breath she’d honed to survive smoke and volcanic fumes would allow her to live long enough to get rescued.
Bromley crashed through the brush, running with a loaded crossbow in one hand and a machete in the other. He knew it wasn’t safe, but he’d overslept. He wasn’t in as good a shape as he’d been in before he disappeared off to Littjara, and the days of tracking and bushwhacking had caught up with him. Greywind currently had eyes on the target, and he was getting a steady stream of images the clone’s location in one corner of their mind while he focused on the trail of the disheveled youth that would lead him what they were seeing. He finally crested a hill, and saw the clone, just standing there at the treeline, looking at something on the beach in front of the Maelstrom. Bromley would find out what that was after he’d neutralized the target.
JH-3a assessed the situation in front of them and struggled to come up with a plan of action. They saw their target, the killer of Dr. Zlovol and would’ve moved in to kill her if not for the crowd of people around her prone form. There was also the issue that she was not moving, possibly dead already. And looking down at her was JH-3. The original, but without the improvements that Dr. Zlovol had granted him. JH-3a didn’t know what to make of that. The last moments of Dr. Zlovol’s life, which had been uploaded to JH-3a’s brain upon her death along with the directive to eliminate her killer, still showed JH-3 with the improvements made.
Further confusing matters, in replaying that ten seconds of data over and over in their mind to keep themselves focused on the objective, JH-3a had realized that while the killer was the last thing Dr. Zlovol had seen before she experienced indescribable pain and died, the killer was a good four meters away from Dr. Zlovol, and had her hands full fighting off moving cables. Well, if she wasn’t the direct killer, which still wasn’t known, she’d participated, and would probably know who struck down Dr. Zlovol. Still, what to do about the other people? Wait them out? Yeah, that was probably the only plan. JH-3a turned to go sit behind a tree and wait for nightfall.
Durkrag stood over his mother’s body and wished he wasn’t useless. He hadn’t been the one to pull her from the water, minutes after she went under. He couldn’t even swim. He hadn’t been the one to clear her airways of water and make sure she could still breathe. He didn’t know how. He wasn’t the one currently bandaging her body, applying a salve on the caustic burns, and muttering spells under his breath all at once. He wasn’t Grinak, who was a shaman. And being a shaman was much more useful than being a one-armed javelin thrower. Jakagera was standing next to him, and had grabbed his hand to hold, then let go and began to back away before he reached out to her, without even looking her way. Her squeezing his hand was anchoring him, preventing the despair from washing him out into the sea of melancholy and drowning him there. He craved some- NO! The only thing he craved was for his mom to wake up.
Suddenly, Durkrag and the rest of those assembled on the shoreline heard the thump of a body in armor hitting the ground, a noise most of them had heard before. Captain Laguna looked around and gestured at several of her crew to move in, and then said to Durkrag, Grinak, and Meerama, “I’m going to check that out, stay here.”
As she crossed the treeline, she saw her crew members standing over a body dressed in… Kamigawan armor? That’s what it looked like to her, although it didn’t exactly fit the person wearing it. She noticed the crossbow bolt emerging from between the plates over the shoulder, and belatedly raised her harpoon pistol, then scanned the jungle, something the rest of the pirates were already doing.
“Hello there! Whomever you may be, I have no quarrel with you. Walk back the way you came, and no harm will come to anyone else! I will be gone soon, and you will never hear from me again!” a voice called from somewhere deeper in the jungle, probably in the direction of those hills, Laguna guessed.
“How do we know we can trust ye? We can’t even see yer face!” Captain Laguna shouted back, scrutinizing the hillside to see if there was any movement.
“Because I haven’t put a crossbow bolt in any of you, despite having ample time to do so,” the voice called back, although now it seemed to be coming from up in a tree.
Captain Laguna knew that if the voice had taken time to reload the crossbow immediately after firing it, they would’ve just managed to, meaning if they had done so, she likely would’ve heard some strain from the voice. It was thus more likely that they had another crossbow, already loaded. And if they were carrying one extra crossbow, while unlikely, they could be carrying two. However, it was unlikely the shooter could remain hidden while firing, meaning that even if they managed two shots, they’d only take down one or two the four pirates, and rest of the them would be able to respond. It wasn’t great odds, and there were too many assumptions for Laguna’s liking, since there could be more crossbowmen who had simply stayed silent.
The tension was punctured when Meerama stepped past the treeline and asked, “What’s going on?”
An exhausted groan could be heard from the bushes. A groan in a voice that sounded familiar to Meerama, although she couldn’t immediately place why. What she could place was the crossbow bolt sticking out of a familiar figure near her feet. She’d seen it sticking out of enough lizards and undead to recognize.
“Bromley?” she called out, tomahawks still in hand.
“Yeah, it’s me. Before I explain, where’s Shregresha? She deserves to hear this and if she’s going to find out, I’d rather be the person who told her than who hid this from her,” Bromley called, emerging from the foliage, seeming to materialize to the eyes of the pirates unfamiliar with the terrain.
“She’s… she’s in a bad way. Durkrag’s on the beach with her, and Grinak, the shaman, is tending to her wounds, but she was dragged out of a pool of dragon blood from the weirdest dragon I’ve ever seen in the middle of the lake. Did you not hear the explosions and the screaming?” Meerama asked.
“I did, but I had a job to do, and I couldn’t see anything. Thought it was just a skirmish around the Maelstrom, those still happen occasionally. Anyways, you should be there taking command until Shregresha’s better. I’ll be right behind you, just have to tie up our friend by your feet” Bromley said, having unloaded and clipped his crossbows to his belt, and dug a length of hempen cord out of his pack as he walked over.
“Heh! Nice try, but even if I did let you scurry away, how were you going to drag a full-grown person in armor and hide them?” Meerama asked.
“I was going to ask for a favor… from a cephalid who lives on the crime city plane,” Bromley said, a lopsided grin on his face.
“Well, we’re here now, let me help you get this fellow in an easier to tie up position,” Meerama said, reaching down to move the clone.
“NO!” Bromley shouted, stepping forward and reaching out a hand, still a few feet away.
But it was too late. Meerama, Captain Laguna, the pirates, and some assorted Jundians who’d followed Meerama saw the clone’s face as she lifted their prone body, and all assembled out a collective gasp.
“By the bloody names of me long-dead ancestors, tell me what in all the hells going on!” Captain Laguna shouted, “I just talked to that lad, but ’e had warpaint on and only one full arm!”
“Who in the boiling seas of the planes are ye!” she yelled, pointing at Bromley with her harpoon pistol.
“I thought the random dragon attack was going to be the most confusing thing of the day, but this is more baffling, albeit fortunately less disastrous. It is less disastrous than one of my convoy’s ships exploding, right? This isn’t some stupid cosmic timeline magical bullshit, is it?” Captain Laguna ranted, her powers of deduction only telling her so much. She was the only one of the pirates to notice that the clone didn’t have Durkrag’s war paint, and had figured out the armor was from Kamigawa on sight, but that context didn’t help explain the situation.
“No, it’s just cloning nonsense… I’ll explain everything, but we should tie the clone up now. The tranquilizer on the bolt should last about an hour, but reactions aren’t consistent and who knows what alterations the mad scientist who created this clone made,” Bromley said, not moving.
“Mad scientist… You mean that dead vedalken bitch?” Meerama asked, not sure whether a yes or a no would be worse.
“Yes, and… wait, Durkrag’s here?” Bromley asked, his brain finally catching up to the full implications of what Captain Laguna had said.
Laguna and Meerama both nodded.
“Of course he his. By the fucking thrice-dammed angels, fate has a very nasty sense of humor; this is the scenario my involvement was supposed to avoid!” Bromley said, swearing harsh enough to upset a hardened Jhessian sailor, and a Sighted priest to charge him with blasphemy. But, since none of those around him were Bantian, they didn’t catch the specific severity of the curse; they did not have beliefs that much involved angels, let alone spoke to the inherent abomination that a dammed angel would be. They just understood he was angry, and vaguely pissed at the powers-that-be.
“So, I’m gonna tie up this clone, call up an octopod gangster, and disappear. It’d be for the best if you all forgot about this, I’m not gonna fuck up Durkrag’s life with something like this until I’ve had a chance to talk to Shregresha about it, which is gonna have to happen later,” Bromley said, as he began tying the clone’s hands together behind their back.
“Why not just kill the clone?” Laguna asked, lowering her harpoon pistol.
“That wasn’t the job. The client didn’t want the clone dead without a chance to speak with them first,” Bromley said, his hands winding rope around the clone’s arms and torso to limit their mobility.
“And who knew about this situation to hire you?” Laguna asked, her harpoon pistol no longer pointed at Bromley but still in hand.
“I have no clue. I don’t ask questions unless I find the job distasteful, and this job was just a simple retrieval mission that would help protect some old friends,” Bromley said, bold-faced lying.
“Now, I’m sure you have better things to do than gawk at me tying up a person, and we don’t want anyone to get suspicious about what’s taking you so long and coming to investigate themselves, so I suggest that you head back, assure whoever else is on the beach that nothing serious happened, and we go our separate ways for the foreseeable future,” Bromley said, beginning to fashion a frame to lash the clone to, which would allow him to drag the much larger person easier than trying to carry or drag them without support.
Laguna turned to Meerama, whispered something in the Jundian woman’s ear, and then both motioned for their respective groups to head back towards the beach, talking quietly to each other about what Bromley had said, attempting to deduce the nature of the client.
So lost in conversation, Meerama almost walked right into Durkrag, who was rooted to the spot, mouth open in horror, eyes wide with fear.
“Tell me, tell me it isn’t true. Tell me I misheard, tell me I got it wrong, tell me that something else is going on, something other than that vile vedalken having made another weapon out of me!” Durkrag pleaded, grabbing Meerama’s forearm as tears formed in his eyes.
Meerama didn’t say anything. She couldn’t say anything. She simply wrapped Durkrag in a hug tight enough that he felt it on his ribs.
Bromley regretted. It wasn’t the passing thought that things would’ve been easier if he’d stayed gone, the regret ran deeper than that. Bromley regretted leaving in the first place, and having abandoned Durkrag, Shregresha, and Turrak to face Dr. Zlovol alone. Bromley regretted coming into their lives at all. They would’ve been better off if they’d never saved his accursed ass. Bromley regretted stealing that fruit, the mango from the crate on the docks, just unloaded from Topa, back at the tender age of five. He’d gotten away with it, disappearing like ghost before anyone noticed, and that act had sent him down the path of lawlessness, murder, and villainy that brought misfortune to everyone around him. It left his parents heartbroken and shamed, damn near every pirate or thief they’d ever ran with was dead or doing time, and the squad he’d joined up to run away from that life had gotten eaten by a dragon. He should’ve known their luck would catch up to the Jundians who’d been his closest friends and allies, bordering on another family for him. That’s why they left them, and everyone else they’d met when it became clear that Bant was hunting him still, and now Esper was too. He didn’t want people getting wrecked in his wake again. But he came back. They couldn’t stay away from the people they cared about, even though that was the best protection he could offer them.
But they couldn’t leave. This mess was their responsibility, and if he wanted to change, he had to start taking responsibility. But they couldn’t stay. That would just bring more misfortune, more misery from the twisted claws of fate.
Not for the first time in their miserable life, the hunter considered ending the hunt. For good. The only thing that stopped him this time was that it would simply hurt those around him even more. And since that was true, leaving would do much the same. No, he had to take responsibility, and that meant staying here, guarding the clone in this Coalition supply tent. Until Shregresha was stable and awake, and he could tell her about the situation.
Bromley squeezed his hand into a fist hard enough for their fingernails to leave an indent on their palm, closed his eyes, and threw his head back in a silent scream. There was something else they had to do to take responsibility. Telling Shregresha was important, but he also had to tell Kresh. And unlike with Shregresha, there was no reason they couldn’t talk to Kresh right now. There was no reason to protect the fiction of the client. Meerama had figured it out after a single question from Laguna. All Bromley had to do was call him.
Kresh knew he was old. Kresh had been feeling his age, and he’d seen horrible things happen to people. His people. He’d seen them burned alive by dragon-fire. He’d watched them bleed out in his arms as he carried them towards a healer. He’d listened to the screams of a man as the killing magic of Grixis ate through his body, layer by layer, the man screaming until his vocal cords had withered to ash and blown away in the wind, but the man hadn’t died then. Kresh saw his beating heart inside his ribs, after the muscles over the bones had rotted, and only when the skull disappeared and the spinal column with it, did Kresh know the man had passed. He’d been witness to all these horrors and more. The Phyrexian invasion alone would’ve been enough nightmares for a dozen lifetimes. Despite that, his heart hadn’t hardened completely. He felt like he’d been stabbed in the gut when he heard about Shregresha’s injured state from Bromley. It wasn’t a pleasant sensation, nor one he was unaccustomed too. He felt a numbness growing in his chest, and the beginnings of a state the felt like shock.
While he and Shregresha hadn’t had time to be close in years, they’d been friends once. He’d seen a master warrior’s drive and fight in her when she was an upstart teen trying to make a name for herself in Tol Hera, and taken her under his wing. She’d had some sort of hero worship thing going on towards him for the next few years, but by the time he was known as one of, if not the greatest warriors among the clans, she’d grown up and become his right-hand woman. Without her emotional support, he probably would’ve never broken away from Tol Hera and founded Tol Angata.
He’d had ideas, he didn’t like the way Javid was doing things, but he didn’t see any way around it other than potentially fighting the man to the death. While Kresh was renowned, he knew that Javid only lacked his own reputation because no one had fought him in a duel in over ten cycles. Javid didn’t need to prove himself, being the leader of Tol Hera, so he challenged no one, and those who had challenged him after his claiming of Clan Leader had all died quickly and brutally in the ring. It was Shregresha who convinced Kresh that his vision for a society was worth risking not only his life, but the stability of the clan for. It was her asking to train against Javid during sparring sessions that allowed him to observe the way the old man fought without giving away his own measure. And when he’d won, she’d been the first to publicly join Tol Angata. In disputes with other clans, she’d been his champion, wrestling the other clan’s champion to submission, a way of proving strength without overthrowing another clan. She’d been his protegee, then his friend and equal, and for the past two decades, his second-in-command.
While his worries were largely about the fate of the clan, the growing pit in his stomach was not. He was scared for a friend, and there was nothing he could do to help her. He felt his heartbeat quicken, and sat back down on the stool in his hut, only coming out of his thoughts when he heard Bromley’s voice calling his name.
“Kresh? Kresh? You still hearing me? Connection still clear?” Bromley called from his end of the communicator.
“Yeah, just processing the news about Shregresha. I’ve known her pretty much her whole life, and I’ve seen her come out the other side of plenty of scrapes, but never hurt this bad. What was Grinak’s prognosis about her lungs again?” Kresh said, looking at Bromley’s face on the communicator screen, wondering if his eyes were that red and puffy as the hunter’s.
“Her lungs are surprisingly okay, only minor damage. Apparently, even after she passed out, her muscle memory held her wind-tube sealed for at least another minute. It’s the rest of her breathing parts he’s more concerned about. Nostrils haven’t stopped bleeding, even after he tried a skin-seal-spell, and if the burns in her mouth are any indication, she’s going to have trouble talking if, —when she wakes up, and he doesn’t know how long it’s going to last,” Bromley said, looking as miserable as Kresh felt.
“I’ll have Gruak Enagarr get on an iguanar and be there in a few days, but there’s only so much even he can do once scarring starts, I should I know. What’s the situation with the clone?” Kresh asked, trying to keep the worry about Shregresha off his face.
“In the United Army of Bant, there was a phrase that the enlisted used a lot, especially those of us who were in the Expeditionary Corps: ‘All is normal, all is fucked.’ That sums up the situation with the clone. There’s nothing critical or dangerous anymore, but everything is an angels-dammed mess. The clone’s tied up over there,” Bromley said, panning the camera towards them, “but Durkrag knows and so does Meerama. The Coalition captain freaked out at the sight of the clone, was afraid the clone was the result of something to do with time travel. There’s probably a story there, but I doubt it matters to our current situation. So, whatever your decision about the clone, the rest of the planes will probably hear about it eventually.”
Kresh rubbed his temples.
“Look, I do not know enough about the clone to make a decision myself if I want to do it with any semblance of fairness. I think that leaving it up to Meerama to leave it up to Shregresha and Durkrag is my best call for the moment. Unless you’ve got a better idea. If so, I would hear it,” Kresh said.
“My input? I… this is well out of my league, but from what I can tell, we need to some way to have the clone understand…” Bromley said, trailing off to think. “Can you message Goro-Goro to send you the information on the clone? His people know the devices better than we do, probably can get it and send it on the network. You send me a copy, and I’ll have the clone read it. Maybe, if the clone understands that Dr. Zlovol saw them as a thing and not a person, we’d be able to begin teaching them how to be something other than a weapon of vengeance. This is pure speculation, and regardless of if that helps the clone, it won’t change Durkrag’s willingness to even lay eyes on them. And, frankly, the clone probably shouldn’t remain on Jund for their own sake. They don’t know the environment, don’t seem to speak anything other than the Kamigawan dialect of planar common, and don’t seem to have any of the necessary skills for survival outside of a city besides fighting capabilities. Whether or not you consider them Tol Angatan, I think they’re more Kamigawan than Jundian.”
“Well, keep me updated, let me know when Shregresha wakes up, and hopefully, the clone no longer wants to kill her by that point,” Kresh said, wishing it was an acceptable time of day to drink some tukatongue mead and retire to a cot with some of his partners. Unfortunately, he had woken up to Bromley calling on the communicator, and the sun had only risen a short while prior.
“Will do, and I’m sorry. For everything,” Bromley said mournfully.
“What are you- It’s fine, you did your best, didn’t have a better opportunity to get the clone, just bad luck where it happened,” Kresh said, pinching his brow and closing his eyes. He didn’t really get what Bromley was talking about, but he knew when someone needed encouragement.
“I- I could’ve done more, I could’ve done better, I could’ve pushed harder, could’ve been there months ago, could’ve helped Shregresha fight the demon-dragon, could’ve cleared up the mess with Bant instead of running like coward,” Bromley sobbed.
“It’s in the past now. Can’t change it, just gotta move forward. Every day is a new fight for survival, don’t focus on what you did, just make sure you do better in the future,” Kresh said, his face a stony mask. His true thoughts about Bromley disappearing were ones that he wasn’t voicing without being face-to-face with the hunter, but he didn’t blame them for what happened in their absence either. Kresh doubted that their presence would’ve been enough to change anything significantly. “You couldn’t have prevented this, stop kicking yourself for it.”
“I- Ok, I guess. Please have Goro-Goro send those files when you can, it’s a long shot, but it’s all I can think of,” Bromley said, blinking tears out of his eyes.
“Let me know as soon as Shregresha wakes up. And we will talk more about your situation concerning Bant when there is only air between us,” Kresh said, signing off.
JH-3a… didn’t like being JH-3a anymore. The person who captured… him had showed him dozens of files. Their captor couldn’t read the files, for they were in a mix of Kamigawan, Ravi, and High Vedalken. While JH-3a could only read the first two languages, it was enough for him to feel sick to his stomach, and enough to know that they were true. The creator, Dr. Zlovol, wasn’t the benevolent master she’d programmed him to believe she was, the not-so-good doctor was a callous scientist who saw people as little more than experiments or tools. He was, by her reckoning, both. He knew he had been created, he knew it was for the purpose of fighting and killing, but he thought that he would be valued for it! They could hardly believe how deluded they had been! The thought that Zlovol would have respected them, cared for him, treated him like a person, all a lie! Apparently, a part of the programming hadn’t been uploaded before his release, the part that would make him believe the treatment that Zlovol considered normal was actually affectionate. Those akki had never intended to release from the pod him, but apparently, that accident was the best thing that happened to him.
It… it recast his mission of vengeance. He didn’t know how to feel about JH— Durkrag, they didn’t know how to feel about Durkrag, the source. And, apparently, the woman he’d been trying to find and kill was the source’s mother. Biologically, his mother. He had the same half of her DNA that Durkrag did, save for some minor tweaks, mostly to compensate for translation errors in the copying process. The other person they saw directly fighting Dr. Zlovol in her last minutes was the source’s half sibling, for they shared a father. And, the other person they remembered seeing closest was also with the other Jundians. She had also played a role in killing the creator, by throwing a tomahawk into Zlovol’s back. He didn’t know what he was going to do about all of this, but he knew he didn’t want to be JH-3a anymore.
“How does one go about getting a name?” the clone asked Bromley, startling the hunter, as he hadn’t spoken at all in the past two hours of reading files.
“Most people get a name from their… parents, but plenty of people pick one for themselves. I’ve done both. Why?” Bromley replied.
“I do not wish to be JH-3a anymore, but I don’t know who I want to be. I want to have a name that I like, rather than just a designation,” the clone explained. “If I can simply pick one, then that is what I shall do. I do not know many names. If I hear one I like more later on, can I pick that name instead?”
“I’ve used multiple names throughout my life, and plenty of people pick a new name and start going by that name instead of their old one. It’s not something that’s locked in once you pick one,” Bromley said, putting a positive spin on his identity fraud.
“I will think more on this and decide on a name for now. Thank you for the advice. May I be freed now?” the clone asked.
“I’m not the person who’s in charge here, and I’m not one of the people you set out to kill. That’s who’s going to be making those decisions. Although, if you don’t want to kill them anymore, that will go a long way towards helping your case,” Bromley said.
The clone did not respond.
Durkrag was curled up in the fetal position, quietly weeping on his bedroll. His arm ached like it was still there, and while he’d dealt with phantom pains before, the added fact that his clone still had both arms broke something inside Durkrag. It was not fair! It was not fair! He’d been a prisoner and watched Dr. Zlovol turn his body into a weapon without his permission, then watched as his body attacked his family. Now, his body had been replicated without his knowledge and turned into yet another weapon sent to kill his family. It was not right! And he couldn’t even stop his nonexistent arm from hurting!
Wait, he could! Grinak was a shaman, and in his collection of potions and poultices, he likely had packed some peppermoss. Since Grinak was… elsewhere, there might be peppermoss just sitting in his tent. All Durkrag had to do was get up and leave his tent, and he could make the pain go away. He could get the warmth back again!
As Durkrag stood up, his tent flap opened and Jakagera stood in the entryway. He stopped in his tracks, and stared at her, brows furrowed, worry lines on his forehead.
“I- I saw what happened, and I can’t imagine how you’re feeling right now, but I’m here if you need someone to listen,” Jakagera said, her normally joyful energy absent.
“Why would you want to listen to me complaining about my disaster of a life?” Durkrag asked, trying to make her go away.
“Because you need someone to talk to, and you listened to me more than anyone else does. I love iguanars, more than most of the other iguanar riders, and I like to tell people about them. But I’ve gotten used to others telling me to shut up or talk about something else or to be quiet. You never did any of that,” Jakagera said, taking a step into the tent.
“I wasn’t really paying that much attention,” Durkrag said, taking a step towards the tent’s opening.
“You were paying enough attention that you mentioned when I repeated something to you, because you already knew it. No one who isn’t an iguanar rider had done that before. I saw you smile when I told you about their bite strength. You paid more attention than anyone else has,” Jakagera said, looking down at her boots.
“I…” Durkrag began, before trailing off as Jakagera lifted her head and looked him in the eyes.
“You ate dinner with me and then we cuddled last night, and when I took your hand to let you know you had someone earlier, you reached back out for me. If I’ve misinterpreted your actions, please let me know, but I think I care about you, and I want to be here for you, if you want me too, and if you care about me too,” Jakagera said, taking another step towards Durkrag, maintaining eye contact.
Durkrag collapsed into Jakagera’s arms, weeping.
Captain Tressa Laguna sat at her desk onboard The Tenacious, writing a report for Admiral Sussana, head of the Parsec fleet. It mainly detailed how devastating a single dragon was to the merchant convoy, and that if there was a likelihood of future attacks, then Alara would no longer be a viable part of the trade routes, which, due to the plane’s seemingly endless oceans off the coasts of Bant and Esper, was a sizable issue. With the Omenpath navigation tools the Coalition was developing, they could take advantage of temporary Omenpaths, provided they were large enough, and the expanse of water provided many opportunities for such Omenpaths. The regular Omenpath from Istfell to the headwaters of the Maelstrom, which was open once every three days, for about an hour each day, was the main point of entrance, and if no shortcut Omenpaths could be found, there was an intermittent one off the coast of Valeron used by both foreign vessels and Bantian merchants. It wasn’t consistent though, so ships often had to wait in its general vicinity until it opened.
Still, it was a part of trade routes, the markets of Bant and Esper were profitable, and they were in talks with both Bantian and Esperite nations for letters of marquee. The Coalition largely was in favor of privateering; it was like piracy, but you could safely dock at ports of the allied nation for repairs and supplies. But, if the dragon attacks were likely to continue, it wasn’t worth the risk, even if the ships on this route were completely refitted with ballistae and lightning cannons, to prevent the firecannon fuel from causing a similar disaster as had happened this time, a single dragon could still burn the sails, alight the deck, and knock down a mast, all in a single pass overhead.
She needed more information, but her best source for something like that was currently unconscious and severely injured. She’d ask the second-in-command tomorrow, emotions were running high, and discussing such matters as if they were ever returning so soon could be seen as callous.
Thinking of things that could be callous, she should probably go and supervise the search for remains that was being carried out near the wreck. All hands were presumed dead, and while a sea burial was traditional, the water wasn’t too deep to make dredging impossible, some of those who’d known the deceased had volunteered to be divers and retrieve bones, and due to the horrific nature, the remains would be hard to identify without the magic of the Grim Fleet. Thus, the current plan was to fell some trees, carve some coffins, pack them with dried grass, place the bones inside, and take the shortest route back to Ixalan to have the bodies identified prior to the burial.
Tressa looked back at the parchment to see that the fresh ink had run where her tears landed on it. She wiped her eyes, set the quill back in the ink bottle, and went above decks to help with the recovery effort.
Grinak hadn’t felt mana exhaustion this bad since he had undergone the trial of the Shamanic Circle. He’d bargained with a more powerful elemental than he’d ever directly interacted with and since then, had been pumping life energy into a woman whose skin had been burned on over two-thirds of her body, and whose respiratory system had also been similarly burned. He was a good generalist healer, but specialized in first aid. From his training, he knew that one of the biggest risks when it came to burns was infection, especially fungal infection, and that there was no guarantee that life energy alone would drive out the infection. He had taken stock of his collection of talismans meant to ward off infection, only to realize that since most of Shregresha was burned, there was no good place to put them on her; the only areas not as significantly burnt were those where she’d been wearing clothing. Currently, he had settled on simply hoping that proximity would impart some effectiveness, but it was unclear.
Fortunately, he had other methods to forestall infection. Some of his poultices could be applied, and one of the pirate’s medicine worker, called a surgeon, had an alcohol so strong the smell made Grinak’s eyes water, which would apparently kill most infections before they took root. Of course, since the sawbones’ first suggestion had been to amputate Shregresha’s left leg when they saw the intensity of the burns, Grinak took their advice at arm’s length. They didn’t know about the capability for healing magic to regrow and revitalize heavily damaged tissue. As long as the burns weren’t bone deep, which they fortunately weren’t, if Grinak poured his all into it, bandages were changed frequently, and Shregresha was otherwise healthy, some degree of recovery was possible.
Grinak muttered another incantation and applied another ointment to Shregresha’s face. She was strong, she was a living legend. She would pull through. She had slain the dragon, she deserved to bask in the glory of her victory. And, even if she didn’t, Grinak had given her enough medicine that she wasn’t feeling any pain. He hoped he wouldn’t be conducting a funeral ritual for Shregresha.
Thanks to @xenobladexfan for making cards and helping with design!
Content warning (roughly in order of appearance): Gore, Body Horror, Drug Usage, Sucidal Ideation, Drug Overdose
Jundian Diplomacy
Kresh stood in the center of the Bloodhall, the other clan leaders who had answered his summons arrayed around him. Each had an advisor, the oldest shaman of their clan alongside them. Kresh knew these people, had fought with them, both as enemy and more recently, as ally. They knew him, the upstart warrior-champion, founder of the splinter clan, Tol Angata, and the only clan leader to have seized the opportunity of interacting with the planes beyond Alara. Kresh had even set foot in the snowy mountains of Kamigawa after destroying a mining camp by invaders from the same plane. He had begun trading with the Brazen Coalition, whose ships sailed by the edge of Jund on their way to pilfer the other shards. And, on the advice of the outsider, the Hunter known as Bromley, he had sent his most decorated warrior (other than himself) and nine others to travel the multiverse. Of the ten, nine returned, and that alone marked the expedition as a success to many. But his tenure was not just one of boldness, he, more than anyone else, had fallen under the sway of the deceitful Rakka Mar. He had mostly redeemed himself by slaying the traitor, but it still left his judgment questionable in the eyes of his peers. And those peers were an interesting bunch.
Javid Hera, semi-hereditary leader of Highclan Tol Hera, the man who said humanity should take the war to the dragons, do more than just Life Hunts, and that they should claim the highest peaks to prove this, sat closest to Kresh. He was the man Kresh had fought and defeated to earn the right to form Tol Angata. Kresh spared his life because he did not seek to run Tol Hera, and because he didn’t disagree with Javid’s intentions, only his methods. Anyone willing to fight dragons was worth keeping alive. At least that was Kresh’s rationale at the time. He now sat on a boulder in the cavern, his age showing with the whitening of his hair. He had not spoken a word since arriving, and just stared at Kresh, seemingly irritated.
Neyjuth the Survivor, leader of the ill-fated Tol Breot. Formed by Breot the Slayer, a legendary hunter and skilled warrior, it was only misfortune that accounted for the hard times the Riftclan had fallen upon. During the Conflux, half of the clan had been transported to Grixis, and half left behind in Jund. Those in Grixis all perished except Neyjuth. Many were struck with a pox, hunger had set upon them, but even with all of that, they might have survived long enough to find Jund again or even just something not corrupted by Grixis to eat. It was Thraximundar who spelled their unfortunate end, killing Breot before he had time to react, and slaughtering all of them. Except for Neyjuth, who, infected with the pox, had been hidden by her lover, whose dying body covered hers, the rotting pustules on her skin and the corpse of her beloved masking her living scent from Thraximundar. Half a day later, she began crawling. She found the rest of Tol Breot, and despite the ministrations of the shamans, the pox still claimed her left hand and eye. She appointed herself leader, bested a challenger, and has been looking for ways to save Tol Breot ever since, letting non-humans from other shards, a rhox and a cohort of elves, join the clan. She now stood against one of the sangrite walls, idly tapping the fingers of her right arm on the bone and wood shield she wore upon her left. Her eye was flicking around the room, sizing up everyone else as Kresh was doing now. Their eyes met, and she gave him a small nod, but kept the scowl she perpetually wore.
Vilkesh the Crasher, leader of Tol Durek, the Ripclan. She was the youngest of those assembled here, only twenty-something, as compared to Javid, who was over fifty, or the rest, Kresh included, who were somewhere in their thirties or forties. She had been amenable to allowing Tol Breot to hunt regularly in their territory, which Kresh was hopeful would help with his goals at this meeting. The Ripclan did often fight with the viashino though. Vilkesh was presently cleaning her nails with a dagger and sitting cross-legged on a hide mat she’d brought with her.
There had once been five major clans, but Clan Nel Toth had been destroyed several years ago by one of their own, Meren. Kresh was no great ally of theirs, but the loss still stung, and the threat Meren and her undead, especially the dragon that now flew at her command, was one all clans had to deal with. Also, while there were other minor clans, loose collections of humans, sometimes with an elf or two, they largely followed at least one of the main four clans.
Sighing, Kresh looked to Gruak. With two thuds of his staff upon the stone floor, Gruak got the attention of everyone in the room.
“Clan leaders of Jund! I have called you here to our most sacred site, reclaimed from the undead of Grixis by the efforts of our most valiant warriors, to discuss our peoples’ future and our place within the multiverse! We stand at a moment where our decisions now will determine how the clans of Tol endure, and if we endure at all! Since the Conflux, and even before, the continuation of our ways has been called into question by how we have fared during these harsh and changing times!"
"The practices of how we hunt dragons have been challenged,” Kresh said, inclining his head to Javid Hera.
“Large swaths of our clans have been killed in quantities greater than even the most ill-fated Life Hunts!” He roared, looking at Neyjuth as he did so.
“We have had to deal with outsiders, both humans and otherwise, and some have even joined our ranks,” Kresh said, maintaining eye contact with her.
“And all of us have had our homes invaded! Whether by Bantian crusaders, the undead hordes, or by those who replace flesh with metal, regardless of if they called themselves Esper or Phyrexian!” Kresh roared once more, raising his sword, Mage Slayer, aloft as he did so.
“And yet more troubling than that are those who embrace dragons as objects worthy of worship and reverence! We have cast them out of our clans, but they still roam the mountains, a collection of elves and humans. What we do about these things is important. But there is a larger issue looming, one that connects to all of these others; how will we handle and interact with those from beyond the clans, be they from another plane or simply another shard! That is the core of why I have called you here today. I have a basic plan I want to propose, and I would like your input and cooperation with the plan. I believe that united, we are stronger! United, if the Esper attack one of us, they attack all of us! United, when one clan prospers, we all prosper! United, if one clan falls on hard times, the rest can support them! United, we can present ourselves to the multiverse as a people to be respected, to be dealt with fairly, and to be feared on the battlefield!”
“And you’d be the one in charge of this alliance, right?” Javid Hera snorted, crossing his arms.
“I had thought about it, but Gruak convinced me that this plan would work better if we were all on equal footing. One clan, one vote. Ties would be broken by a shamanic council of all the clans. No leader of clan leaders, just a council of equals doing what is best for our people. The goal is cooperation, not tyranny. In order for me to truly believe that we are stronger together beyond just having more numbers, I must acknowledge that my vision is not always the best path forward,” Kresh replied.
“Then why should we believe that your vision, this alliance, is the best path forward now? If you don’t have faith in your vision, why should we?” Vilkesh challenged.
“I HAVE FAITH IN THIS!” Kresh roared, brandishing Mage Slayer. “The alliance is our best path forward. I can see that. I know that. What I don’t know is what the needs of your clans are. What I don’t know is what challenges we will be facing a year or two years from now. I believe that if we pool our resources, including our cunning and our knowledge as hunters, leaders, and warriors, we will be stronger!”
Vilkesh nodded back, sitting back down and trying to keep her face neutral.
“So, what would this be, in practice? These words sound nice, but what actual promises and material benefits would we be getting?” Neyjuth asked, unfazed by Kresh’s display.
“Well, the specifics are one of the things we would need to determine together. But, at minimum, a promise for one clan to aid another against outside opponents, sharing of martial and magical skills, and well, the most material benefits would just be easier to show you,” Kresh said, gesturing to Gruak, who retrieved a satchel from behind the altar Kresh stood in front of.
In many places in the multiverse, the satchel would be largely unremarkable. On Jund, it was something of an oddity. The tanning of gharial leather was unusual, because most Jundians used leather derived from the hide of an iguanar or thrinax. The large lizards were more abundant and easier to hunt compared to the gharial, which could dive into tar or water and disappear with their camouflage. The hide did have a more unique pattern, and was tougher, so it was more prized. More notable however, were the brass buckles and clasps.
Metalwork was largely foreign to Jundians. It was not from a lack of resources, there were ore deposits in the mountains, but due primarily to inefficiency in comparison to making tools and weapons from bone, stone, and wood. Iron, or more accurately, steel, would take days to refine from an ore, which would have taken days to mine, and then several hours work to actually make the weapon. Bronze could be worked, and in the years since the Conflux, the process had been refined with techniques from Naya. It still took several hours to forge into a usable edge or point, but was used for simple axes, daggers, and even spear points. Flint, bone, and wood, however, could be carved into shape within a few hours, and done so intermittently throughout the day or even while on the move. The biggest hurdle however, lay with the techniques shamans knew for the purpose of strengthening weapons. Bone, flint, and obsidian were brittle, but the shamans had spent centuries honing spell-work to reinforce them, and even add flexibility. Wood was soft, but green mana could easily be used to toughen it. Most notable were the shamanic techniques to improve bone as a weapon by evoking the strength of the creature slain into the material. With dragon bone, the effect made weapons superior to well-crafted steel or bronze. Bronze, being a bit newer, had less focus on strengthening and enchanting, and was harder to enchant using typical shamanic techniques due to being more processed. There was experimentation with layering the enchantments into the metal during forging, but due to the tradition of warriors having their weapons crafted from the greatest creatures they’d slain, it hadn’t caught on much beyond tools. Metal armor was also impractical in the sweltering heat, and largely useless against dragons or even a sufficiently large thrinax. Since no humanoids native to Jund used metal armor, the only materials their weapons had traditionally needed to pierce were the hides of dragons and lizards. And dragon bones or teeth could do both with ease. So could flint or obsidian, but those needed magical reinforcement just as much as wood, albeit of a different form.
Because of this, the satchel was clearly made by someone not using wholly Jundian techniques. The leather was in the style the clans made, but the buckles and clasps, made of small brass components, were not what Jundian humans would have used. They used toggles made from bone or horn.
The assembled clan leaders and shamans took note of this, and Javid was about to speak before Kresh pulled a spyglass wrapped in thoctar fur out of the satchel.
“This device is known as a spyglass. It is used by sailors and pirates to see better over vast distances, especially across large bodies of water. My clan has used it to great effect in observing the jungle from a mountain or vice versa. By trading waterproofed gharial leather to the pirates of the Brazen Coalition, we obtained two,” Kresh said, offering the spyglass to the others.
“In addition, we have obtained steel fire-starters, that one can strike upon a piece of flint to create sparks, allowing for the ignition of fires without a shaman or having dry fire-sticks,” Kresh said, drawing the flint and steel while the others used the spyglass to see across the cavern, their vision magnified.
Further items were brought out, metal knives, canvas sacks, and rope. The first two were not remarkable, many hunters and warriors had begun using metal weapons since the Conflux, and while Jund didn’t have canvas, it also wasn’t the most useful material for the environment. The last one, Manila rope, common for sailors, was of interest. Jundians had cords made from hide or plant fibers, and even vines they could use similarly to rope, but they didn’t grow the Abacá trees the Manila rope was derived from and rarely had the hours necessary to braid what rope they did use into strong coils.
“I can see a couple of ways this could be useful for hunting or climbing. Do they also have nets made of this stuff?” Vilkesh asked, seeing the potential in the rope.
“If they don’t, the benefit of having a friendly relationship with them is that we can ask,” Kresh said, smiling wide. “Now, these are some of the most useful goods we have obtained so far, but not the most interesting. Come, let me show you.”
The other clan leaders clustered around Kresh as he drew a communicator from the satchel, and Javid even gasped as he switched it on.
Shregresha trudged through the marshy lowlands near the border between Grixis and Jund. It was not a place she would go to voluntarily. It was miserable, muggy, and mosquito-ridden. At least the bugs weren’t banewasps, but that was a small comfort. Making the journey significantly more bearable was the fact that Turrak was there. It wasn’t just that she trusted them to watch her back or that he was basically her nephew, but because in this case, the… changes, they’d undergone since connecting with the elementals and the leylines, were very helpful. Not the more reptilian claws on his hands or feet, not the increased growth of his scaly patches, but the fact that their body temperature now rested comfortably a few degrees above average, so almost all of the bugs were attracted to him. They also could emanate electricity without breaking a sweat, so Turrak was a living bug zapper. It made the experience far more bearable, not being eaten alive by insects.
The two of them were hunting, but unlike most hunts, they were tracking a person. Meren, last of Clan Nel Toth, to be precise. And, based on the trail, they weren’t the only ones. Meren traveled with a retinue of undead creatures, yes, including a dragon, but overlapping with those tracks was another pattern, a newer pattern, judging by the nature of the indentations. It was a pattern Shregresha had seen before. A pattern laid by a person she didn’t want to tell Turrak they were also now chasing down, even though she knew she should. A person whose presence now made their pursuit of Meren a race.
As they made camp for the night, Shregresha tensed before turning to Turrak. “Kid, sit down. There’s something I need to tell you.”
Turrak found a comfortable perch on a fallen tree, their solid red eyes full of concern.
“The second pair of tracks we found, I recognized them. I know who left them. Xecau.”
The concern in Turrak’s eyes was replaced with crackling lightning.
“I… I… thought he was dead. I thought he would’ve died in exile by now,” Turrak spat.
“I wish. He was always good at hanging on. Scavenging, hunting weak prey, whatever he needed to make it, even if it was foul,” Shregresha snarled. “Almost wish he had violated his exile. Almost more than how much I never want to see him again!”
“What do you think he’s doing? Why would he be going after Meren?” Turrak asked.
“I can think of three reasons. One, he’s going to kill or capture her to try to ingratiate himself into some other clan. Two, he’s going to try to ally with her, they are both exiles from the Clans. Three, she slighted or attacked him and it’s simply revenge,” Shregresha said, hoping it was just one of those. “Whatever the reason, we need to either get to Meren first or overtake and dispatch him. Getting to her first is likely impossible because we don’t know exactly where she’s going, so I guess that we have to hustle and get to him.”
“I’ll commune with some elementals, try to figure out exactly where Meren might be headed and also how far out Xecau is from her,” Turrak said, getting out their incense and assorted ritual offerings and sitting down by the fire, crossing his legs.
Bargaining with the elementals of the tarry swamps was different than bargaining with those of dense jungle and rocky peaks. They cared little for mortal respect, and although not opposed to fear, liked death more. Protection from outsiders was not something they needed the same way; no one of other shards sought to gouge into a bog the way they did a mountain or harvest muck like lumber. They were the elementals most shamans bargained with the least for a reason, and Turrak had little experience making such pacts.
A few minutes later, Turrak stood up, shaking and haggard.
“Whoa, what happened?” Shregresha said, rushing to help them steady their balance.
“I got the answers, but the cost was more than I would’ve liked. Two days of my natural lifespan, one for each question,” he answered, leaning on Shregresha.
“Here, eat some of this, regain your strength, and get some sleep. We’re setting out at first light, and you’ll be leading with the information you have,” Shregresha said, pulling some tukatounge roots out of her pack and handing it to Turrak.
After finishing off the nutrient rich roots, which required a lot of chewing, some color returned to Turrak’s face. “Alright, gonna try to get some rest,” they said, making their way to their tent.
Shregresha stayed up until the fire burned itself out, sharpening each and every one of her blades to a balanced edge.
It was mid-afternoon by the time Shregresha and Turrak made it to where Meren was supposedly heading: the border of Grixis. The tracks lined up with that, and in the distance, they heard shouting and the clash of weapons.
“Think it’s Meren fighting Xecau?” Shregresha asked.
“Hope it’s Meren killing the bastard,” Turrak replied, before summoning up a roiling earth-mote and speeding towards the sound of battle on it.
Shregresha took a deep breath, then crushed some sangrite in her hand. She’d been told by every one of Tol Angata’s shamans that she needed to cut back on her usage. Her new white hair and wrinkles were evident enough of the impact her stunt on Kamigawa had on her body, so this was a smaller crystal than she would’ve liked.
Still, it was enough to propel her towards fight fast enough to catch up with Turrak.
Just on the other side of the hill, which rose from the landscape of Grixis like a boil on skin, Xecau and one of Meren’s undead, a hulking leonin corpse fought a losing battle with a bloodstained body. And, judging from the ghastly killer wielding a two-handed greatsword in one hand and a flaming mace in the other, as well as the shattered corpse of a dreg reaver, and the fact that Meren’s dragon lay decapitated alongside the former steed, it was Thraximundar, He who Paints the Earth Red. A free agent rather than a pawn of one of the liches or demons, he was obsessed with slaughter. Any living being (and many unliving) which came across his path were invariably annihilated. Well, most of them. Some had managed to escape, mostly mages and planeswalkers, but still. It was said he drew power from each of his kills. If true, it was no wonder that he hadn’t been brought to heel. His death toll was comparable to dragons that had lived for centuries.
Turrak knew this, and knew from the accounts of others that the undying killer was resistant to fire and lightning, so his normal tactics wouldn’t work as effectively. So, for the second time in two days, they made a bargain with the elementals of the tar pits. This one was less costly to himself, he promised Thraximundar and made it clear what destroying the marauding assassin would do for their reputation. Eternal gratitude from the humans of Jund, regular sacrifices, the works. The price Turrak personally paid was a week’s worth of life-force, a relative bargain for being able to summon up the boiling, caustic blob that now streaked towards Thraximundar.
Xecau, quick as ever, sprang back as the sizzling tar elemental collided with Thraximundar and the surrounding area. Meren’s leonin zombie wasn’t so nimble, and was subsumed in the roiling elemental’s acidic body. Thraximundar himself howled in rage. It didn’t exactly feel pain, but being restricted by the sticky tar and watching his skin be eaten away wasn’t pleasant. Thraximundar thrashed with flaming mace and greatsword in hand, but the ever-churning tar managed to snuff the flames and reform from the cuts.
Xecau pivoted towards Meren, bronze blade held forward in a guard position, and advanced slowly. The young necromancer wore a large dagger on her hip, but hadn’t drawn it so far. Xecau though, hadn’t survived for a decade and a half in exile by taking stupid risks, and decided to play it safe. That decision likely saved his life, not because Meren drew her blade and lunged for him, but because Shregresha leapt at him from the hillside. Having his sword out in front allowed him to parry her dragon-jaw blade, which would have crashed through his ribs otherwise. It didn’t stop her short saber from connecting, but his outstretched sword arm made the angle of the strike awkward, and she had to sacrifice having the full force of her body behind it to still draw blood, her wrist twisting so the tip tore a gash into his side.
This was almost certainly a miscalculation on Shregresha’s part. Meren was more dangerous than Xecau by nearly any measure, and had massacred an entire Clan. Shregresha hated Xecau with the fury of a hundred volcanoes. There was no choice in her mind.
Meren stood and watched the two Jundians who had, to her, swept in and saved her from each of the other killers, rather than attack her. She didn’t know what to do with that information. On one hand, she wanted to kill the Jundians and make Thraximundar another one of her soldiers. On the other hand, she didn’t like backstabbing people who had just potentially saved her life. So, she could try killing them all now, wait and see who survives and kill the survivors, help the two Jundians, or run.
Thraximundar managed to force its way out of the elemental by twisting, slashing, and bashing until the tar was spattered around and the elemental had to retreat to re-form. Thraximundar, rather than simply going for the closest target, his normal pattern of attack, snarled and charged Turrak.
Turrak tried to call upon the earth and have spikes come up to impale the charging zombie. On Jund or Kamigawa, or any area they had acclimated too, this wouldn’t be a problem. However, this was Grixis, and they weren’t used to working with the land of Grixis. The ground, on the surface, appeared to be a corpse’s skin, with swollen lumps dotting the landscape in places, and it ranged in color from gray to pink to brown. It wasn’t skin… technically, although it did contain a higher-than-average percentage of decomposed flesh. It was a membrane made of dirt, gravel, and sand held together by tar and dried blood which behaved disturbingly like skin. Underneath the surface, stones that formed shapes reminiscent of bones and teeth were packed within more of that off-gray dirt, and miles further down, magma the color of blood seeped through a network of tunnels that forked like veins, coming to the surface and oozing out like pus from an open sore.
Turrak didn’t know any of this. He was used to geologic layers that made at least some sense, formed by layers of lava and erosion, not ones warped from hundreds of years of demonic ichor and necrotic energy seeping into the ground. So, they struggled to call up the spikes, and only managed get one up in time to impale Thraximundar in the chest. The master of massacre responded by howling and smashing his flaming mace into the stone, which, rather than being the sturdy igneous rock of Jund, was the brittle, bone-colored stone of Grixis, and shattered into a pile of shards. Thraximundar stepped forward, and nearly toppled over because of the gaping hole in its abdomen. Snarling, he raised his hand and a hunk of flesh tore itself out of the corpse of one of Meren’s former reanimated soldiers. The lump of meat shot itself into the hole in Thraximundar’s chest and began slowly merging itself alongside the rotted muscle that made up the marauder.
Xecau had been fighting long enough to know that most clashes of weapons were over in a matter of seconds, with one of the combatants having a decisive edge or making fatal misstep. The few exceptions were when two people of moderate skill were evenly matched or when two people of similar talent knew each other’s style in and out and crossed blades. It was the second scenario he found himself in, and he knew he was outmatched. Shregresha was faster, stronger, and caught him off-guard. His single bronze blade had more reach than either of hers, but she had gotten within that reach in the first pounce, and as he retreated, now bleeding from a dozen tiny cuts where she’d nicked him, she was able to close the distance before he could make a feasible threat with his sword. He was fighting a purely defensive battle and slowly losing. Her heavy dragon’s jaw blade jarred his shoulder with each parry or deflection he made, and her steel saber darted around his guard, not hard enough to cause a fatal blow, but drawing blood each strike. It was only muscle memory that kept him alive, his body knowing the pattern of her movements better than his mind. Every sparring match they’d had before his exile fifteen years ago were the only things keeping him alive, and only by a hair. If something didn’t change soon, he’d find his skull smashed to bits and become just another heap of carrion in the wastes of Grixis.
Shregresha snarled as she slashed at Xecau, the murderous coward somehow evading the worst of each strike. She would kill him. For what he did. His blood would stain the jaw of the dragon he once worshiped. As he had once tried to feed the monster, its maw would spill his blood. A fitting end for a miserable creature such as him. She would leave his body here to rot. Once she had sliced it to pieces. As much as he deserved his body to be defiled by a necromancer, she would rather him stay dead and gone. A vicious grin flickered across her face as her shorter saber caught his at an angle and she forced it down, going for the kill with her other sword.
“I still love you!” Xecau blurted out, fear masking desperation.
Shregresha’s blade stopped as it thudded into his rib cage, splitting skin and breaking bone, but not punching into his chest and impaling his heart. Surprise danced over her face, and she was reminded of the good times they’d shared. And the fury in her heart flared as the sweet moments made the betrayal all the more bitter. She raised her sword up a bit, preparing to plunge the jaw bone into his vile heart, but, as she glanced upward, she saw Turrak, retreating from Thraximundar, their lightning only just managing to slow the fell zombie.
Howling in frustration, she charged towards Thraximundar, stepping on Xecau’s balls as she left him lying on the ground, potentially at Meren’s mercy.
Thraximundar’s mind was little more than killing instinct, but he still had some capability to learn and a few emotions had stuck around. And it had learned he hated mages. This one that now backed away from him made him angrier than most. They had seriously injured him and deprived him of several kills that were rightfully its! All life existed so that he could end it, and mages resisted that fate longer than they had any right to! And killing them wasn’t even fun like when he got to cross weapons and draw blood before the final blow! Still, this one seemed to be tiring. He would savor the kill. Use its mace, they had tried to burn him, it would burn back.
He stepped forward, but only by sixth sense did he manage to twist and avoid the blade that would’ve severed his crumbling spine. Even so, Shregresha’s sword still sliced off a large cut of its shoulder muscle, and chipped the clavicle, one of the few original bones still inside the body. Shrieking, Thraximundar turned to face this new threat, this new impetuous mortal to kill. It was only due to his undead nature that the gut wound Shregresha dealt him as he moved didn’t have him double over and collapse in pain.
However, his counterattack drove her back. The heavy greatsword would normally take two hands to wield effectively, but Thraximundar swung it around with just one as if it weighed nothing at all. One strike with it nearly decapitated Shregresha, and she fell flat on her ass stepping back to avoid it. Only decades of combat experience allowed her to parry the mace from a sitting position, and only the sangrite in her system gave the parry enough force to push Thraximundar back a half step.
Turrak unleashed a current of lightning, momentarily paralyzing Thraximundar, giving Shregresha enough time to get back to her feet. Thraximundar spun around, lunging for Turrak, and Shregresha made him pay for it. Thraximundar roared with hatred as his left Achilles tendon snapped like a brittle rubber-band, Shregresha’s dragon-bone sword cleaving it apart. Falling to one knee, he pivoted on its good leg, swiping again, this time looking to cleave Shregresha in half with his greatsword. It took both her blades moving in unison to block the strike, and the impact still jarred her wrists. As Thraximundar pressed against Shregresha’s defensive stance, she disengaged, letting his own momentum and weight send him crashing onto his face. When he released his grip on the massive blade and attempted to push himself up, Shregresha brought her sword down on his rotten neck, dragon’s jaw biting through once-living spine. In her experience, decapitation made most zombies fall slack or no longer be worth the trouble animating without attached sensory organs.
She saw Turrak, still catching his breath but otherwise unharmed, and spun around to look for Xecau and Meren. Xecau was still lying in a heap, motionless, and Meren… Where was Meren? Shregresha glanced side to side, and suddenly saw Meren standing in front of her, having been hidden behind the curve of the hill. Shregresha tensed and readied to pounce, beginning to stow her swords, looking to grapple Meren. Meren raised her hand and it glowed with sickly green light.
“Shregresha! Watch out!” Turrak shouted.
Shregresha stepped to the side, and as she moved, saw in her periphery Thraximundar’s headless body had crept up behind her, and now had its sword raised, ready to cleave her head in two. Well, it would have been, if she was still in the same place. In fact, it hadn’t moved since she had. Not one to look a gift iguanar in the mouth, Shregresha dismembered the corpse where it stood, hacking the arms off with one strike each, then slicing off the legs as high up as she could as the body pitched over.
She turned back to see why Meren hadn’t stabbed her in the gut when she had the chance, and saw that the necromancer’s hand was still outstretched, green energy now fading.
“You… you saved my life? Why?” Shregresha asked, brows creased.
“You saved mine. We’re even now,” Meren said, turning towards her dragon.
It was in that moment, as she spoke, Shregresha noticed how young Meren was. Meren looked to be around eighteen or nineteen, a bit younger than Turrak, a bit older than Durkrag. In a different life, maybe she’d have met them at inter-clan events. If she hadn’t killed her entire clan. If she hadn’t sworn to topple all the cairns of Jund. If whatever had driven her to that point had never occurred. Did Clan Nel Toth do something to her? Or was she always harboring that darkness? By the standards of the clans, Meren was urgenslar, generation slayer, thrice over. But to Shregresha, she looked like almost like any other teenager. Shregresha couldn’t square the version of Meren who was the terror of Jund with the young woman now in front of her. She knew logically they were the same, but it still didn’t add up on some gut level. Why would Meren have saved her life just to kill her later? Why not let Thraximundar finish her off?
Those questions would have to momentarily go unanswered, as at that exact moment, Shregresha’s communicator beeped. She unclipped it from her belt, and brought it to her ear.
“Kresh? I’m kinda in the middle of the mission right now- Why’s it so dark? … You’re doing a video call… I’m holding it up to my ear, give me moment.”
Shregresha brought the communicator to her face and saw Kresh, with the other three clan leaders and the four elder shamans all clustered around Kresh’s communicator. Well, technically, it was a Kamigawan communicator looted from the mining camp that Kresh had factory reset, rather than a custom-made Dokuchi one like Shregresha used, but that functionally made it Kresh’s. Ironically, Kresh’s model had a much larger screen than Shregresha’s more travel-sized one.
“Look, we just caught up with Meren, dispatched Thraximundar, and hold on, I have to go kill the father of my son and figure out how to detain Meren,” Shregresha said, exasperated. “Turrak, you try to stall Meren, I’m going to kill Xecau.”
Shregresha clipped the communicator to the hem of her top, screen and camera facing outward, giving the council a view of the carnage of the battlefield, and trotted over to Xecau, who now lay in a small pool of his own blood, motionless. Shregresha checked his pulse, only to find nothing.
“Fuck…” she breathed. “Didn’t know someone could bleed to death from their balls.”
Meanwhile, Turrak called out to Meren. “Wait! I don’t want to fight you, but I will if you don’t stop!”
Meren, currently in the process of cannibalizing some of the energy in her zombified retinue to use for reattaching Skaal Kesh, her dragon’s head and reanimating him, whipped around and summoned a ball of green fire into her hand.
“I’m not looking to fight you two. You saved my life, but that only goes so far. Let me leave in peace, or you will pay in blood,” Meren snarled.
“I also don’t want to fight, but I also can’t let you leave. You’re responsible for killing an entire clan and at least a dozen other people, and you need to answer for that,” Turrak said, voice steady, but body beginning to glow red with electricity, the tar elemental now back at his side.
“So you just want to kill me? And I’m just supposed to let that happen?” Meren shouted. “You’re just like them!”
“No!” Shregresha yelled. “We want to understand your side of things. You’ve committed an atrocity, but you were never fully taught our ways, so we will show you leniency and let you explain yourself before casting judgment. Kresh the Thousand-Scarred sent us to bring you to the council of clans, but I think we may have a simpler solution. This is a communication device. Through it, the clan leaders will be able to hear your story, and all you have to do is stick around and tell it.”
“This is an outrage!” Javid Hera shouted. “The necromancer should die! I don’t know why we’re entertaining anything otherwise!”
“Because killing first and asking questions never can only get us so far,” Kresh said, his countenance impassive like a cliff. “We need to change somewhat to preserve what really matters. If our children are to survive, it becomes easier if we aren’t picking fights with everyone who we disagree with. Glory in combat can be won without having to start unnecessary conflict. Meren killed all of Clan Nel Toth. If it was because of something other than her nature, then knowing what will help protect us going forward.”
“How about we put it to a vote? Test the idea of equal cooperation on something difficult to see if it holds up?” Neyjuth suggested, staring hard at Kresh.
“Alright. Those not in favor of hearing Meren out?”
Javid’s hand went up.
“And those in favor?”
Kresh’s and Neyjuth’s hands went up.
“Vilkesh, why did you not raise your hand for either one?” Kresh asked.
“Because I don’t know! And us making this decision on our own doesn’t feel right! Meren was cast out by the shamans of Clan Nel Toth. Do our shamans demand vengeance? If so, we should honor that before anything else,” Vilkesh explained.
“That makes sense. What do the assembled shamans have to say?” Kresh asked.
“I think we should hear her out,” Turrak said, speaking first because he was the youngest shaman present.
“It’s worth hearing her out just to learn if Nel Toth made a mistake,” said the shaman of Tol Breot.
“We don’t need to hear her out. I doubt there’s anything she could say that would change the punishment her actions deserve,” said the shaman of Tol Hera.
“We should let her speak her piece. I agree, it likely won’t change what we do, but she should have the right to say it once before she dies,” said the shaman of Tol Durek.
“The elementals do not seek vengeance for their sibling she snuffed out. Yet, they fear her still. I am less concerned with why she killed Clan Nel Toth, assuming they slighted her, and more worried about the fact she has openly stated she wishes to kill all of us. It is worth hearing her side, maybe we can convince her not to ‘topple all the cairns of Jund’. If not, well, we were going to kill her anyways,” Gruak Enagarr, elder shaman of Tol Angata said.
“That’s good enough for me,” Vilkesh said, “I say we hear her out.”
“Then it’s 3 for, 1 against,” Kresh announced. “Javid Hera, will you abide by the decision of this council?”
“Sure. Don’t see the point, but I trust yours to do their duty once this is over,” he answered.
“You… you know I heard all of that?” Meren said, deeply confused and still adjusting to the knowledge of the communicator.
“It’s not like anything we say is going to make you swear to kill us; you’ve already done that,” Kresh snorted. “So, doesn’t really matter what we say, does it?”
“Why would I want to sit around and wait for your judgment?” Meren asked, still surreptitiously manipulating the mana needed to stitch Skaal Kesh’s head back to his body.
“You said you didn’t want to fight,” Turrak spoke, “And if you really mean that, well, this is your only chance at it.”
Meren grunted, crossed her arms, then said “You want to know why I killed Clan Nel Toth? Because they tried to kill me! I was undergoing the rite to be a shaman, and I killed the elemental by accident, rather than convincing it I was worthy of a cure. They wanted to kill me! The elder shaman, Jorshu, said that they should just leave me there, let the Dreamfire Draught do its work and kill me! It didn’t. I found my way to Grixis, and there I learned to hone my gifts. The ones they feared! I made them all pay with those gifts. And I swore vengeance against all of you because each of you would do the same! You make children swallow poison and leave them to die! If I don’t deserve to live, then neither do any of you!”
The assembled clan leaders began talking among themselves, with Kresh thinking to mute the communicator before the conversation got too heated. After a few minutes of discussion, he unmuted, ready to give the council’s decision.
“Wait, before you make your final decision, I have to mention something,” Shregresha said. “She saved my life from Thraximundar. I had decapitated him, but its body was still able to move and nearly cleaved me in half before she used her necromancy to immobilize him. And, her reason was because she viewed my previous actions in the fight as saving her life, and didn’t want to be indebted to me. I’m not sure exactly what that means, but it seems to point to a sense of honor and decency in her.”
Kresh sighed, and then huddled back up with the other clan leaders. After a short discussion, he turned back to the communicator and spoke.
“Meren, last of Clan Nel Toth, for your deeds and vows, we, the Council of Clans, hereby banish you from the shard of Jund, on the pain of death. If you ever set foot inside our territory, your life will be forfeit. Outside of our territory, members of the various clans are not charged with having to hunt or kill you. How they interact with you will be at their discretion. Normally, we would sentence someone who has done what you have to death. However, considering the circumstances and your actions saving the life of Shregresha the Scale-Breaker, we think that exile is sufficient. I hope you acknowledge the conflict between us is over. You have annihilated those who left you to die, and we have cast you, now someone capable of living on her own, out of our lands due to you swearing vengeance against us for actions none of us participated in. The vote for this was three to one, but Javid Hera, the lone dissenter, is willing to abide by this ruling. Shregresha and Turrak, let us know if Meren doesn’t accept this.”
With the judgment delivered, Kresh switched off the communicator, and turned back to face the assembled clan leaders. “This is what we can gain together. The ability to communicate across vast distances, to formally discuss and handle our enemies in ways that hopefully lead to less loss of our people, our families. Tol together!”
“Tol together,” Neyjuth responded.
“Tol together!” Vilkesh said, raising her knife aloft as she did so.
“Tol together,” Javid said, standing up and walking over to where Kresh had been speaking. “Now, if we are working together, then I say we should carve out some practices towards dragons and more pressingly, those who worship them. I think we should plan some attacks against the most dangerous cults, and since we are allied, then pooling our warriors should help these matters. We can assemble a full raiding party out of four clans without leaving any individual clan unprotected. Who’s with me?”
“I,” chorused the other clan leaders.
Back in the wastes of Grixis, Shregresha watched Meren warily. The necromancer hadn’t moved since the council gave their decision, and Shregresha didn’t know what to do. Leaving was off the table, she needed to make sure Meren didn’t head for Jund, but saying something was dangerous, as Meren seemed likely to lash out at the first thing which caught her attention. In the midst of contemplation, she realized that Xecau’s body was still there, un-dismembered. She should probably solve that, make it that much harder for some Grixian necromancer or Meren to reanimate him. Then, she’d have Turrak incinerate the pieces.
Turning to go, Shregresha saw four kathri, the vulture aven of Grixis, swoop down from one of the ashy clouds that choked the sky and grab Xecau’s body, carrying him off to wherever they roosted. Shregresha sighed. It was a fitting enough end, but she still would’ve rather done the deed herself.
This broke the fugue state Meren was in, and she went to go mount Skaal Kesh, when Turrak called out, “Where are you going?”
“To Jund. I’m going to show those clan leaders what I think of their ruling,” Meren said.
“Please, don’t,” Turrak implored. “There’s a whole multiverse out there, entire worlds for you to traverse and find your place in. If you go back to Jund, that just means more bloodshed. More fighting, more death, more anger, more vengeance. What of the children? You say that as shamans, we feed children poison and leave them to die. Would you rather kill those children yourself, or simply slaughter their parents and leave them to die? Instead, you can explore, find yourself, find a reason to live rather than kill until everyone else is dead or you are.”
“I… Does the rest of the multiverse hate and fear necromancers and the undead like Alara does?” Meren asked hesitantly.
“Uhhh…” Turrak stammered sheepishly.
“Say, where’s Baptiste these days?” Shregresha asked Turrak.
“Last I knew, he’d moved to Tarkir, it’s marginally more hospitable than Innistrad. And there’s a… group? Kingdom? Nation? I’m not sure, called the Sultai that he’s with and unliving peacefully because they’re chill about the undead” he answered.
“Ok, so you’re going to want to find a plane called Tarkir, go to the Sultai, ask for Baptiste, and he can contact me on the communicator and I can help sort the situation out. Also, I recommend finding a communicator, they’re very useful. The Esper make some, but if you don’t trust them, so do various groups on Avishkar, Ravnica, Capenna, Kamigawa, and probably somewhere else I’m forgetting,” Shregresha said.
“And these Sultai will be cool with me showing up with a retinue of reanimated animals and people?” Meren asked, arching her brow.
“Yeah, more than anywhere else that isn’t gonna try to use you for their own ends. Just… don’t reanimate any dragons there and explain that dragons on Jund aren’t thinking. Should do it,” Turrak said. “Oh, and take this, it’ll make navigating easier.”
Meren took Turrak’s omenpath atlas gingerly, then immediately stuffed it into Skaal Kesh’s saddlebags, eyes wide with disbelief.
“I… guess I’ll try to find my way there. Thank you? Thank you,” Meren said, shuffling her feet awkwardly.
“Safe travels. If we meet again, let it be outside of Jund,” Shregresha remarked.
“Last I knew, he’d moved to Tarkir, it’s marginally more hospitable than Innistrad. And there’s a… group? Kingdom? Nation? I’m not sure, called the Sultai that he’s with and unliving peacefully because they’re chill about the undead” he answered.
“Ok, so you’re going to want to find a plane called Tarkir, go to the Sultai, ask for Baptiste, and he can contact me on the communicator and I can help sort the situation out. Also, I recommend finding a communicator, they’re very useful. The Esper make some, but if you don’t trust them, so do various groups on Avishkar, Ravnica, Capenna, Kamigawa, and probably somewhere else I’m forgetting,” Shregresha said.
“And these Sultai will be cool with me showing up with a retinue of reanimated animals and people?” Meren asked, arching her brow.
“Yeah, more than anywhere else that isn’t gonna try to use you for their own ends. Just… don’t reanimate any dragons there and explain that dragons on Jund aren’t thinking. Should do it,” Turrak said. “Oh, and take this, it’ll make navigating easier.”
Meren took Turrak’s omenpath atlas gingerly, then immediately stuffed it into Skaal Kesh’s saddlebags, eyes wide with disbelief.
“I… guess I’ll try to find my way there. Thank you? Thank you,” Meren said, shuffling her feet awkwardly.
“Safe travels. If we meet again, let it be outside of Jund,” Shregresha remarked.
“Last I knew, he’d moved to Tarkir, it’s marginally more hospitable than Innistrad. And there’s a… group? Kingdom? Nation? I’m not sure, called the Sultai that he’s with and unliving peacefully because they’re chill about the undead” he answered.
“Ok, so you’re going to want to find a plane called Tarkir, go to the Sultai, ask for Baptiste, and he can contact me on the communicator and I can help sort the situation out. Also, I recommend finding a communicator, they’re very useful. The Esper make some, but if you don’t trust them, so do various groups on Avishkar, Ravnica, Capenna, Kamigawa, and probably somewhere else I’m forgetting,” Shregresha said.
“And these Sultai will be cool with me showing up with a retinue of reanimated animals and people?” Meren asked, arching her brow.
“Yeah, more than anywhere else that isn’t gonna try to use you for their own ends. Just… don’t reanimate any dragons there and explain that dragons on Jund aren’t thinking. Should do it,” Turrak said. “Oh, and take this, it’ll make navigating easier.”
Meren took Turrak’s omenpath atlas gingerly, then immediately stuffed it into Skaal Kesh’s saddlebags, eyes wide with disbelief.
“I… guess I’ll try to find my way there. Thank you? Thank you,” Meren said, shuffling her feet awkwardly.
“Safe travels. If we meet again, let it be outside of Jund,” Shregresha remarked.
Durkrag ground up the peppermoss in a mortar and pestle. It was a bit difficult with only one hand, but he was learning how to do everything that way. Currently, he held the mortar between the stump of his left arm and his chest, near his shoulder, and his right arm used the pestle. He needed to finish grinding, but he had to be careful to not push too hard and risk spilling the peppermoss. It was the only thing that helped. His arm hurt. The part that wasn’t there, it was like he could feel it still, and it had a thousand thorns stabbing into it. The shamans had given him some peppermoss extract back when he first got back to Jund to help him deal with the pain, but they’d stopped recently. The wound had almost fully healed, thanks to Turrak, from where… She had connected the wires to his nerves, the motors to his muscles, and whatever else was in the prosthetic grafted to his body. So, since the scarring was no longer so raw, the shamans stopped giving him the peppermoss tea. But his arm still hurt. In some ways, it felt like everything hurt, although not in wholly physical sense.
Durkrag hadn’t told anyone about the pain, in either his arm or his soul. His mom and brother were off once again doing something for Kresh, and although he would’ve told Turrak if they were there, it was more complicated with Shregresha. She was always distant. She loved him, and he knew that, but he couldn’t tell if she loved fighting and hunting more. He didn’t want to burden her. She was busy, doing stuff for the clan as a whole. She saved his life, but she didn’t seem to want to be in it. And, well, they were the only two people he was close with. The only two left… the only two he hadn’t failed yet. The only two who hadn’t left him fully. The only two. He hadn’t told anyone, he’d had enough of the pitying looks he’d been getting just because of what everyone knew. He didn’t need more. He couldn’t take more. He wasn’t weak. This pain was temporary, all he needed was some more peppermoss. That would make these thoughts go away. It would make him feel good again.
He finished making the tea, boiling it in iguanar blood inside a thrinax-leather water skin lined with a dragon’s stomach, both materials able to take the heat. His hand shook as he removed the skin from where it hung over the fire. The peppermoss would stop the shakes. It always did. He drank up the tea while it still steamed. It didn’t scald him on the way down, it barely touched his mouth. Durkrag closed his eyes and waited for the comforting numbness, the dampening fog of peppermoss to take effect. It was like feeling nothing. Truly nothing, not the nothing of the emptiness he felt every waking minute he wasn’t overwhelmed by grief and guilt. It was the only peace he’d known since he woke up on… her table, immobile, unable to scream, just able to watch as she removed his arm from the elbow down.
It wasn’t coming. His eyes burst open, and he began looking around for more peppermoss. The water skin. It had the moss in it still. The shamans had told him to only drink the tea, that undiluted peppermoss was too strong, but the tea wasn’t working! It still hurt! He still hurt. Durkrag turned the skin inside out, catching the remaining moss on his tongue as it fell, then licking it clean, not caring that it burnt off his tastebuds. He finally felt some relief, but it wasn’t enough. He needed more. Where could he get more? The mortar! Durkrag licked that clean too.
A warmth enveloped him, and he tottered back to Shregresha and his’ hut, then collapsed into his mattress. He felt tired. He felt warm. He didn’t feel any pain. He would just take a little nap.
Shregresha returned triumphant to the village of Tol Angata. She had defeated Thraximundar, (with some help), finally killed Xecau, and convinced one of the biggest threats to the clans to fuck off and become some other plane’s problem. Kresh had made it back from the summit of the Clans, and he congratulated her on another job well done. Turrak was given similar praise by his mentor, Gruak Enagarr. After the pleasantries had been exchanged, and Kresh finished talking business, Shregresha and Turrak took off to find Durkrag, Turrak calling his name.
They found him, still asleep in the hut, his body paint smudged, his clothes and sandals still on. He was lying face down, and despite Turrak shouting his name earlier, hadn’t moved. Shregresha gently laid a hand on his shoulder, and said, “Durkrag, we’re back. I can tell you’re tired, but how about you at least take off your shoes, if not wipe off the body paint. You’ll sleep better that way.”
Durkrag laid there, motionless. Shregresha shook him lightly, but he remained unconscious. She could feel the breath coming faintly out of his nostrils, so she wasn’t panicking, but she was still concerned.
“Turrak, any idea why he’s completely unresponsive? Usually he’s a pretty light sleeper, especially with the night terrors he’s been having,” Shregresha asked, appealing to his shamanic expertise.
“Let me check.” Turrak wiped their claws together, a spark of mana sterilizing them, then gingerly used those to pry one of Durkrag’s eyelids open. Despite the fact that it was the middle of the day, the door was open, and there was no cloth over the window, Durkrag’s eyes didn’t react at all, not trying to shy away from the sunlight streaming into the room.
Turrak turned to Shregresha, trying to keep panic off his face, and stiffly said, “Go get Gruak. I’ll stay with Durkrag.”
“Gruak? Why?” Shregresha asked, voice rising as her heart rose into her throat
“Just go now. It’ll be okay, but the sooner the better,” Turrak said, voice conveying a calmness his face betrayed.
Shregresha sprinted off. It would be okay. Turrak wouldn’t lie to her.
Cards & Characters featured:
Javid, Neyjuth, and Vilkesh.
Shregresha & Turrak's New Appearances (click here to learn why)
Tar Elemental, Dreg Reaver, Skaal Kesh, Meren, Thraximundar, and Xecau
Turrak and Yurlok were perched on a rock, watching a team of viashino and human iguanar riders mark a path between two meeting-points for communicating messages between humans and viashino. It was one of the several systems to communicate, this one being for moderate priority situations within either territory or changes in movement of hostile factions outside of Jund. The other system was untested, and would basically be shamans sending out a distress call through the ground for any shaman to pick up on. There was a simple pattern of pulses they had decided to use to send the distress signals, and the hope was that these pulses would be similar enough to a minor earthquake that anyone not in the loop wouldn’t be alerted of the situation. The tension between the humans and viashino working together was decreasing, but still noticeable. It was to be expected, they were blazing a new trail after all. Turrak and Yurlok were an exception to this dynamic. The two were forming a friendship. Yurlok was about six years older than Turrak, the youngest of the thrash leaders, both were shamans, and both were creative prodigies when it came to using magic. Yurlok had crafted a technique that punished mages for excess mana by siphoning it off and converting it into heat strong enough to burn them. Especially dangerous about this piece of magecraft was that it was an ambient field projected from Yurlok himself, rather than being placed on other spellcasters, meaning it bypassed most wards, and often wasn’t noticed until it scorched the other mage’s skin. Turrak hadn’t invented anything of regular usage as unique, but had joined two leylines on different planes through an omenpath, and in doing so, gained power and knowledge beyond the average mage. Currently, the two were discussing the differences and similarities in how humans and viashino practiced magic, and not paying much attention to their surroundings.
“So, humans do earth magic, lightning magic, fire magic, and amplify magic all using ‘red mana’. But also do earth magic, healing magic, plant magic, animal magic, and amplify magic with ‘green mana’. And do tar magic, death magic, bone magic, and fear magic with ‘black mana’. All that correct?” Yurlok asked.
“Yeah, that’s pretty much it, although I can also wield blue mana, unlike most other human shamans from Jund. Mostly, I can do water magic with it, but when combined with red mana, I can control and call storms. Real useful for screwing up Esper stormcallers,” Turrak replied.
“By human terms, Yurlok wield black, red, green mana. Viashino term magic by source,” Yurlok said.
As Turrak was about to respond, a strange, altered goblin with horns and wings swooped down from the trees and bit down on Yurlok’s snout. Yurlok’s scream drowned out the shouts of the human and viashino warriors who were also being set upon by the strange goblins.
Yurlok clawed at the nasty little goblin, but the bizarre creature held tight, stronger than it should’ve been. Turrak bashed it over the head with their staff, but the goblin stuck fast, clawed feet digging into the underside of Yurlok’s jaw. Turrak whacked it again, splitting open its skull with the crystal adorning his staff, and the goblin corpse fell to the ground, Yurlok now clutching his face.
The two of them heard the shouts of the warriors who’d had to fend off the first wave of goblins with the machetes and axes they’d been clearing a path with, rather than their preferred weapons, and sprang into action. Turrak called down bolts of lightning from the skies, taking out flying clusters of goblins and kathri, all with scaly wings, horns, and muscles so grotesque, Turrak thought they were tumors at first glance. Yurlok jumped down from the overhang, cauterizing the wounds on his face and knocking aside three goblins with a sweep of his staff before he landed on the ground. As his claws touched down on the earth, a crack opened up and a jet of lava shot up, incinerating a host of the strange beings that attacked.
With the two shamans having joined the fight, the humans and viashino began to turn the tide, although they had suffered casualties in the initial assault, so the warriors were mainly clustered together, back to back, going on the defensive rather than the offensive, a rarity for any Jundian. The strategy was working well, with humans and viashino watching each others’ blind spots, using spears, javelins, and viashino challika (plural form of challik) to bring down goblins and kathri. It was working well.
As one of the viashino warriors pulled a winged, horned goblin into the path of a human’s spear, a stranger creature swooped down from the sky. It had a viashino-like upper torso, but with three arms, and dragon wings. Its head was like that of a dragon’s but with two differently sized horns. Where the legs of a viashino would’ve been, things got weird. It was almost like a centaur, but mottled with scales, and instead of hooves, had a different number of talons at the end of each leg, some in a shape like that of a viashino or dragon foot, some more in the shape of a human’s foot.
A cry of fear from the human, goblin corpse still dangling from her spear, was silenced by the torrent of fire the creature let forth form its mouth. Three javelins struck its side, but it just spun towards the throwers, almost hovering as it did so. Its jaws flared orange, ready to pour flame once more, but with a twist of his hand, crushing a small talisman carved from a dragon’s tooth as he did so, Yurlok trapped the heat in its throat. With another motion, Yurlok stoked the bellows. The dragon-thing writhed in pain, and a goblin-thing bit Yurlok on the leg. The viashino shaman grimaced, but kept working his magic.
The fighting momentarily paused when the dragon-thing exploded with a loud crack, burnt viscera raining down on the battlefield. Yurlok took the opportunity to ram the butt of his staff through the goblin’s torso before shaking it loose with a kick.
Turrak let out a roar, calling brambles and vines to grow from the canopy, lashing aerial combatants to shreds. This, combined with Yurlok’s feat of temperature control, caused the strange attackers to start retreating. Jundian humans and viashino rarely show quarter to retreating enemies, tending to pursue them like a quarry, running them down, but they held back with a command from Turrak and Yurlok, who independently both called the warriors to halt. Yurlok, who had commanded more battles than Turrak, knew that going on the offense, and potentially running into more of these bizarre creatures was risky, especially with the fact that six of the two dozen warriors had died in the initial assault, and more were injured. Turrak wanted to examine the strange creatures and send word to the clans and thrashes about the new threat, especially because there was a chance that this attack was meant to disrupt communication between humans and viashino before it really began. If it was just goblins, that was unlikely, but the addition of kathri and a viashino meant that someone was organizing this.
As the two shamans rallied their troops, tending to injuries and beginning an examination of the goblins, another mage of a different stripe turned to his fellow viashino, high upon a mountain looking down at the battlefield.
[The following conversation is translated from Jundian viashino.]
“Do you see how our kin side with the hairy ones? They have betrayed us! I have devised a method of elevating us, and even freeing the pale-hides from their scaleless existence, but they reject it and cast down my champions!” Ushruk Draakhide said to Elder Igh, leader of Pale Hide Thrash.
“Our kin allying with the humans is troubling, but I don’t see how your twisted creations are the answer,” Igh replied, crossing his arms.
“Because dragons are the apex of the scaled form!” Ushruk said, eyes glowing red, and a bloody mist pouring forth from his mouth. “They will cleanse not just Jund, not just Alara, but the multiverse of the soft-backed, save for the chosen few who are worthy of ascending to the perfected form! With your warriors joining us, we can sweep aside the clans and thrashes who oppose us with ease, and empower the dragons to spread scaled supremacy to the other shards, then through the omenpaths! We will make a new order, one where hairy beings know their place!”
“Yes. I see now, I see it!” Ighsaid, his eyes glazing over with the same blood-red color in Ushruk’s.
“But, these pale-hides you want to join us, are they truly scaled?” Igh asked, eyes flickering between his normal black-brown and the solid red of Ushruk’s magic.
“Xecau!” Ushruk shouted, snapping his fingers as he smiled wide.
Flying from a shallow cave a bit higher up, Xecau descended to the outcropping the two viashino were at. His body was not the same one that Shregresha had mauled in Grixis. He looked like a perfected version of the viashino-dragon-thing that Yurlok had blown apart, with the same sort of humanoid torso on top of a draconic body, but with two symmetrical horns, and three-taloned feet at the ends of legs that were not uneven with each other. He had four muscular arms and a thick tail, all covered in reddish-black scales like the rest of him. His hair had transformed into a spiky frill, the adornments of his bloodbraids still on the ends, and it flared up as he let out a plume of flame into the air, startling Igh. He had two massive wings protruding from his upper back, but not counting wings, was almost twenty feet tall, sixteen feet long, and four feet wide. His wingspan was over forty feet in length, but like almost all dragons, his flight was enabled by mana. The wings were just for steering. He wore his bronze saber on a belt where a normal-sized warrior would’ve worn a dagger, and carried a massive blade carved from the bone of a leviathan he’d slain while testing the limits of his form.
Igh fell to his knees, weeping. Ushruk had honed his power of mental manipulation over seventy years of running a dragon cult, and wrapping a half-senile brute like Igh around his claw was something he could’ve done in his sleep.
Pale Hide thrash joined the Blood of Malfegor within the hour.
Through the combined will of Manytooth Thrash, Pitch Thrash, Scorch Thrash, and Thorn Thrash, as well as their allies, Clan Tol Angata, Clan Tol Breot, Clan Tol Durek, and Clan Tol Hera, the following terms are hereby enacted, to be enforced as specified.
Anyone who fells trees, mines the earth, hunts for more than survival, in any other way attempts to extract resources from, or attempts to invade, conquer, or settle the shard of Jund on the plane of Alara without permission from the various clans and thrashes of a region will find their lives at the mercy of the aforementioned thrashes and clans. Any member of a clan or thrash is able to enforce this provision by capturing the offending party and bringing them before the leader and elders in cases of resource extraction, and in using whatever force they deem necessary in cases of invasion. Self-defense is permitted if attacked while attempting to enforce this provision.
If permission is given by one or more clans and/or thrashes but denied by another, any attempt to begin the activities previously prohibited until the Jundian parties have resolved their disagreement will result in the punishments listed in the first provision.
Hunting dragons for sport is not allowed without permission from a clan or thrash to accompany them on a Life Hunt or other form of dragon hunt, and only allowed when accompanying a clan or thrash who would already be hunting that dragon. Attempts to bribe a leader or shaman into commencing a hunt when they would normally not can be punished using force up to the removal of the tongue.
Attacks on the people of the mentioned clans or thrashes will be met with lethal retribution towards the perpetrators.
If a non-Jundian has issue with a member of the clans or thrashes, they are permitted to resolve it through formal trial by combat or arbitration by a shaman from a different clan or thrash.
In order to keep each other aware of the goings-on within Jund to maintain a unified response, the clans and thrashes will use methods including but not limited too: messengers on foot or iguanar, smoke signals, shamanic earth-pulses, and markings of territory. Any attempt to disrupt any means of communication between the thrashes and clans will be punished by death.
The thrashes and clans reserve the ability to alter or expand upon the listed provisions by a meeting of the leaders or their representatives of each clan or thrash that is party to this accord. If a thrash or new clan wishes to be added to a party covered by the terms of the accord, a unanimous vote of all current thrashes and clans is needed.
To promote cooperation between the thrashes and clans, disputes between groups of humans and viashino will be settled by a shamanic council of both humans and viashino. Individual disputes may be settled by ritual combat as normal.
All previous provisions will be enforced by the combined might of all thrashes and clans party to the accord. Enforcement will be swift and consistent.
This accord between human clans and viashino thrashes is affirmed by Leader Kresh the Thousand-Scarred of Tol Angata, Leader Neyjuth the Survivor of Tol Breot, Leader Vilkesh the Crasher of Tol Durek, and Leader Javid Hera of Tol Hera for the clans, as well as by Elder Brosk of Manytooth Thrash, Elder Druusk of Pitch Thrash, Elder-Shaman Yurlok of Scorch Thrash, and Elder-Mother Chekra of Thorn Thrash, and witnessed by shaman Turrak Screnar, diplomatic representative of the Council of Clans as well as by Hunter Thuxl, warden of nesting grounds.
To non-Jundians, take heed of these words. They are like the hiss of an animal telling you to not make any sudden moves.
To Jundians, this is a new era of strength through fighting together.
[Attached to this message are also images of two different stone carvings. One was magically etched in glyphs of Old Jundian with meticulous precision, except for a handful of claw scratch patterns towards the very end. The other is a mirror of the former, made up primarily of the claw-carved characters, except for a handful of etched glyphs in approximately the same place as the claw marks on its sibling.]
Turrak hadn’t realized he could still sweat until today. He was the lead negotiator on this diplomatic mission, and it was also his first official act representing not just Tol Angata, but the whole of the Tol Alliance. Kresh, as well as representatives from each of the other clans were present, but for two reasons, Turrak was the face. The first was that the viashino they were negotiating with respected human shamans more than human warriors. Without the aid of sangrite, the strongest humans were not stronger than the strongest viashino, or even those closer to the middle of the thrash. Since, for both clans and thrashes, it was ostensibly through martial might that leaders held their power, the inherent implication was that the elder viashino who led a thrash were superior to the human clan leader. While in a fight, it wasn’t an immediate lost cause for the human, the odds were definitely against them, so that assumption rarely went tested, and this summit, even less likely than the Council of Clans Kresh had held within the Bloodhall, was not the place to try. However, Turrak, being a shaman, was in a different category. Shamans were rarer among the viashino, but their methods were different than human shamans, tending to more often invoke natural forces in general rather than specific elementals. Still, viashino acknowledged the power of human shamans. They were often a thrash’s first target when charging a human hunting party because of how dangerous they could be. But being a shaman wasn’t the only reason Turrak had been chosen; if it was, an older shaman would likely have been chosen. The second, and larger reason, was that Turrak had claws and scales on both his hands and feet. It was a long shot, but it seemed to have paid off.
Turrak was steaming as sweat trickled onto his skin just to evaporate as it got near his charged lightning scars. He knew the stakes of this summit, and while failing to come to an accord would be bad, if negotiations went poorly, it might mean all-out war.
“I am Yurlok, elder-shaman of Scorch Thrash. I speak for my people,” the hulking red viashino looking at Turrak said. Yurlok wore metal armor, likely looted from different Grixian factions and species, judging by the appearance.
“I am Turrak, shaman and diplomat of Clan Tol Angata, representing the Tol Clans,” he responded. “We-”
“Do you know why we agreed to meet with you?” Yurlok asked, cutting Turrak off.
“Because I have far more scales than most humans?” Turrak replied.
“You know of old legend? How?” Yurlok asked, his grip on his toothy staff tightening.
“What? What legend? We just figured you’d be more receptive to someone more like you,” Turrak blurted out, brow creasing.
“You do not know what foretold about half-scaled ones, yet you meet with us anyway?” Yurlok asked, his eyes similarly narrowing.
“Just tell me, we have no knowledge of viashino tales of ‘half-scaled ones’,” Turrak sighed.
“It not in common speech, so this may not be best words for it, but it go something like this: ‘Beware half-scaled ones, for one bring slaughter and other bring survival.’ Which one are you?” Yurlok said, the rest of the viashino with him also tensing up.
“Survival… In fact, that’s what we wanted to talk to the thrashes about. Our collective survival,” Turrak said. “Jund is a land that outsiders want. The wood of the trees, the metals in the rocks, and for the Esper, sangrite. But those outsiders aren’t just from the other shards, they’re from the other planes too. Just over two moons ago, a Kamigawan noble house captured a dragon, and began mining the cave for sangrite. When a band of my clan’s warriors, hunting the dragon, found them, they were taken prisoner. The only one of the twelve who survived was my brother, and he lost his arm. More recently, the clans formed an alliance. We have realized that strength in numbers is the only way to ensure our survival against the encroaching multiverse. And, we were going to make a statement to the planes that anyone who comes to Jund to fell trees, mine ore, or similarly extract resources without the permission of the clans, would find their life forfeit. It was during a discussion of if the permission of all clans or just the ones in the region would be needed that one of our clan leaders made the point that since much of Jund is under the control of various thrashes, we would have little power to enforce this edict should someone try to extract resources within your peoples’ territories. Now, while you would likely kill them yourself should their activities become obvious, we’re seeking to do more than just kill individual invaders. We want you to join us in promising that if someone invades, attacks, or begins extracting resources in the lands of one of our various clans or thrashes, all would come to their defense. We’re not asking for you to give up claim to your hunting grounds, nesting grounds, or even your watering holes. In fact, if you agree and do the same, our warriors would fight for the defense of your lands as if it was their own village. The times are changing, and we must change with them to survive. I know that our peoples have been fighting for as long as anyone can remember, and I don’t necessarily expect that to change, but I am asking that when it comes to defending Jund, we work together.”
Yurlok nodded in response to Turrak’s statement, then turned to the other thrash elders who were with him and began a heated conversation in Viashino. After several minutes of spirited discussion in the rough-sounding tongue of the viashino, including a few staring contests for dominance, Yurlok turned back to Turrak.
“We know threat that outsiders be. We deal with all in our lands, without your help. Why we deal with outsiders in your lands? Viashino not your servants,” Yurlok said, face impassive, his eyes staring into Turrak’s.
“Because if we present a united front, we will be stronger. Say you come across two thrinaxes while hunting. One snarls at your, gnashing its teeth. The other doesn’t seem to notice your presence. Which would you attack?” Turrak asked.
“Thrinax that not think I there,” Yurlok snorted, rolling one of his eyes.
“Exactly. If we, the clans, made an announcement alone, we would be the snarling thrinax. The thrashes would seem like the thrinax who didn’t see the hunter. But,” Turrak said hastily, noticing Yurlok scowl and tense up, “if we make an announcement together, then it would be like both thrinaxes are snarling.”
“I get point,” Yurlok said, scowl melting into a more contemplative look. “But why have us snarl with you? Why not let outsiders attack us? We fight often, if outsiders kill us, less you need fight with.”
“If the invaders are after resources in your land, or just your land itself, then why would they stop at your land? Our lands hold more resources, more power for them. And, if you are dead, and invaders have your land, then it is harder for us to fight them. Instead, if we don’t allow any incursion, if we both snarl at once, we are both safer. By making the announcement together, it’s like making yourself seem bigger to scare off a potential predator, but instead of just standing up straight and spreading your arms, you have another person on your back, doubling your size,” Turrak explained, smiling. “The human clans have already pledged to act together against large threats, and if the thrashes join us, we all become stronger.”
“Your words seem true. Also clever. If viashino agree, how we fight together? Scorch Thrash canyon not near Tol Angata village, as example. Meeting need days to make happen. Method not work for invasion,” Yurlok pointed out.
“Well, that’s something we’d need to discuss more, figure out the details if you agree. We have ideas, but don’t know if they would work for you. Signaling with colored smoke, iguanar riders, joint patrols, are just some of the possible means of communicating and collaborating,” Turrak said, glad that he’d discussed options with the other human Jundians before the summit.
“We not speak for all viashino,” Yurlok said, glancing at his fellow elders, and seeing each nod to him, “But our thrashes, we try this all-i-ance. Scorch Thrash, Manytooth Thrash, Thorn Thrash, and Pitch Thrash, fight with you against invaders.”
Turrak extended a hand to clasp Yurlok’s forearm, the traditional Jundian human means of greeting or coming to an agreement. Yurlok eyed their hand, and said, “Viashino, when we promise not attack each other, turn back to back, and wrap tail and tail. Mark of trust, turning back, and mark of agree, wrapping tail.”
Turrak nodded, and turned their back to Yurlok, twisting their arm to put their hand behind their back.
Yurlok turned, and lifted his tail to wrap it around Turrak’s wrist.
Future Jundians, humans and viashino, would tell tales of how the Accord of Hair & Scale was struck, and while many of the details would change, the roles of various parties embellished or minimized, one part remained the same, how Turrak and Yurlok clasped arm and tail.
Xecau awoke, which was his first surprise. His second surprise was that he was no longer face-down in the wastes of Grixis, but instead strapped to a stone slab, spread out like an X. Leaning over him was the face of Ushruk Draakhide, a viashino whose features were more draconic than crocodilian. Ushruk, or High Master Draakhide, as he preferred to be called, was Xecau’s… boss. He was a wizened, red-scaled lizardfolk wearing a horned helm made from devil’s horns and the black steel of Grixis. The majority of the rest of his clothes were of Grixian make as well. All except a single piece of rough armor made of green scales. Dragon scales.
“Ah, you’re awake. Good, good. I wanted to explain the rite before I performed it, but if not, then not,” Ushruk said in a gravelly tone.
“The rite?” Xecau asked, also confused as to why his body didn’t hurt.
“The Rite of Bloody Rebirth. The first step towards ascension to a perfect form. I have finally perfected a successful version. Well, successful on goblins. You will be the first human to experience the blessings of our lord! I pulled you back from the brink of death to grant you the honor of approaching perfection, taking a step not even I have! You will become our champion! You will no longer be defeated by a lone human warrior, you will have strength beyond the highest heights reached through sangrite consumption! You will be superior!” Ushruk declared, slipping into his preacher’s voice by the end.
“And can I have some time to think about it?” Xecau asked, sweat running down his brow, wetting the bloodstains on the altar he laid upon.
“Think? What is there to think about? It is a high honor! And, considering all the effort I put into restoring your form to undertake it, you should be doubly thankful,” Ushruk replied, smiling wide, each eye looking in a different direction like a chameleon; one was staring at Xecau, and the other observing his kathri attendants as they finished assembling the apparatus for the ritual.
“Now, be still. I will need to attach three tubes to your veins, one for demon blood, one for dragon blood, and one to remove the frail human blood,” Ushruk commanded, inserting each of the bone needles into a major artery or vein.
Xecau grimaced in pain, but held still as the needles pierced into his flesh. He did not hold still as hot dragon’s blood flowed into his blood vessels, writhing in agony. Nor did he hold still when he felt the touch of demonic ichor, caustic and cold, rush into him. He knew the moment the two met within his body, screaming out as they reacted violently.
But, this was a mountaintop in Grixis. Xecau’s screams simply added a nice baritone to the chorus.
Shregresha and Turrak sat down with Durkrag for the morning meal. It was two days after they found him passed out, and since that time, he hadn’t spent a moment without one or both of them within ten feet. Including when he went to piss, Turrak was facing the other way, within earshot. Durkrag didn’t know how he felt about this. On one hand, this was the most time he’d spent with his mom in months. On the other, he loathed not being trusted enough. He wouldn’t do anything, he’d learned his lesson. He wouldn’t touch peppermoss again. No matter how much his arm hurt. No matter how much he felt cold and empty. No matter how much his hand shook as he ate the tukatounge porridge Shregresha had prepared. It was nice eating it again, she hadn’t made it since he was a little kid, and her recipe was sweeter than any other in the clan. It didn’t fill the emptiness, but it provided some warmth.
“So, we were going to tell you this when we got back, but considering everything that happened… we’re doing it now. Our father’s dead,” Turrak said, not meeting Durkrag’s eyes.
“And I killed him,” Shregresha said, “I know this is a lot, so if you want us to leave you to your thoughts, we will. I also understand if you just want me to leave.”
Durkrag blinked. Once, twice, then he was blinking as tears trickled down his face.
“I… I wished I could’ve spoken too him… Just once. Asked him why. Why his dragon cult mattered more to him than his son! I wish I could’ve looked him in the eyes, seen if he felt regret. See if he still loved me, if he ever did,” Durkrag sobbed.
“I… I should’ve tried to knock him unconscious, given you that chance,” Shregresha said, tentatively putting a hand on his shoulder. “I just… I hated him more than I’ve hated anyone. He betrayed my love by offering you, my son, the one person I loved more than him, to a fucking dragon. I regretted that I wasn’t able to kill him then. I didn’t want him to slip through my fingers again. He nearly prevented me from seeing you grow up, from getting to know the person you’re becoming. Xecau is– was, a craven, power-hungry man, but he was also charming and strong and… …And I wish you’d gotten to know a version of him that I did. If that version ever really existed.”
“He was always sort of distant. Like he didn’t want to be around his own kid, but didn’t know how to step away. I don’t remember him getting angry or anything, but I also don’t have any memories of him making me happy or playing with me when I was young,” Turrak said, hugging Durkrag.
Shregresha sat there awkwardly until Durkrag pulled her into a group hug. The three of them began crying. Durkrag sobbed, water pouring down his cheeks. Turrak’s tears evaporated as they left his tear ducts, creating a salty, stinging mist. Shregresha shed the least tears, and did so without a sound.
Inside a Sokenzan mountain, hundreds of feet into the granite, a team of akki technicians were picking through the wreckage of a Futurist facility. The facility of the late Dr. Selestri Zlovol. They were cataloging the various pieces of machines and specimens, and currently were on sub-level 6. It was a cloning facility, combining the technology that the Imperials used to make enforcers with the biomancy of the Simic, and had largely gone untouched in the initial raid, except for a conflict at the stairwell and elevator. And the results of the structural damage caused by a dragon destroying the uppermost level. Most of the specimens were clones or hybrids of various creatures from across the planes. The hybrids tended to incorporate species native to Kamigawa, although not all of them did. Some had died during or after the attack and the damage to the power systems, but most were still in their pods, being kept in stasis by the restored generators the technicians had repaired after much argument with the Order of Jukai. Some specimens had also escaped, and long since fled. The akki knew they would eventually release all of the specimens, even the dangerous ones, but they wanted to make sure that they did it in an order that prioritized both safety and speed. If it had been just up to Goro-Goro, speed likely would’ve been the only consideration, but some more pragmatic akki convinced him that if the end goal was to free the most animals and people, then making sure that no one started fighting in the laboratory was necessary.
“Uh… hey, go get the boss,” Ike-Ike said to Nib-Nib as she jailbroke the terminal to the pod the two were in front of. “This fellow’s one o’ the ones that we need to call someone about.”
A minute later, Nib-Nib returned with Uukke-Tukke, the lead artificer for cataloging this floor.
“So, what’s the deal?” Uukke-Tukke asked, pulling out his communicator.
“By what we know of Zlovol’s categorization system, this seems like a clone of one of the Jundians that were kept here as her… special projects. Specifically, they’re encoded as JH-3a, meaning they’re a clone of the original JH-3, which would be the third Jundian Human that Zlovol abducted,” Ike-Ike explained.
“Alright, I’m calling Goro-Goro, he’s got a way to contact the Jundian leader. Don’t do anything with this one, I’ll handle it from here. Good job alerting me,” Uukke-Tukke said.
Ike-Ike began disconnecting her hacking console from the terminal, but as she did so, something went wrong. The terminal blinked, and the lights inside the pod turned on. The bio-fluid drained, and the air tubes disconnected from the clone’s mouth and nose. Their eyes opened, and moments later, their fist went through the glass.
“Hey there, I’m Nib-Nib!” the akki chirped, being the only one of their warren-mates to not have dived for cover when the glass broke.
“JH-3a reporting. Where is Dr. Zlovol?” the clone said, in a flat monotone as it smashed through the rest of the pod.
“Uhh….” Nib-Nib glanced from side-to-side, “She’s not here?”
“Unless she gave you orders for JH-3a, JH-3a will go find her,” the clone said, glancing around.
“Yeah, uh, she did give me orders! She told me that you should stay here and not do anything else until we gave you new orders,” Nib-Nib said, sweat running down their brow.
“Understood. Can you please provide your authorization code?” the clone asked.
Nib-Nib scampered for cover.
“Adjusting trajectory,” the clone said, touching a finger behind their ear. “Dr. Zlovol… Come in Dr. Zlovol…”
“Dr. Zlovol is deceased? Switching to Delta protocol. Vengeance.”
The clone, only wearing briefs, set out. As they made their way through the facility, they obtained an akki-sized naginata, a tantō, and some clothing.
At the surface, coordinating the operation, Goro-Goro was surprised to see a human burst through the doorway. He was even more surprised that the human looked somewhat familiar, almost a dead ringer for one of the Jundians that came out of the facility. This surprise meant that he barely had time to dodge as the blade of the human’s naginata darted forward, stopping inches from where Goro-Goro’s neck was.
“Did you kill Dr. Zlovol?” the human asked.
“No- Who are you?” Goro-Goro asked, drawing his katana, lightning crackling from his scabbard as he did so.
“JH-3a. Do not impede my mission,” the human said.
“Dr. Zlovol’s dead and you’re better off for it. Now, you’re free to do what you want, rather than what she commands. How about you put down the naginata and I can show you some of the fun things you can do?” Goro-Goro said, mentally preparing to summon a lightning dragon if things went south.
The clone stared at Goro-Goro, then leapt away, jumping several feet down the mountainside. Goro-Goro watched them for a few seconds before calling Kresh.
JH-3a darted between the shadows cast by the moon as they made their way towards the omenpath. Something about it and the jungle beyond felt… familiar. But, more importantly, according to one of the akki they had interrogated, it was where Dr. Zlovol’s killer lived. Taking advantage that the akki guards were more focused on making sure nothing came out of the omenpath, they dashed past them through the hole in multiverse, the akki not registering their presence until they were on the other side. As their feet touched the dirt of Jund, they quickly disappeared into the brush, careful to not leave a trail.
(credit to @jasper-graphics for the lovely dividers)
Hello multiverse! My name is Turrak Screnar and I am a human shaman from Jund. This will be my first entry in series detailing the various peoples of Alara. When I told the rest of Tol Angata about this, and asked who I should do first, they said goblins, largely as a joke. I took it as a challenge.
Goblins are often seen as the least of Jund's people, viewed as barely smarter than animals. This view is largely unfair, but based on a true aspect of goblin behavior and society, their worship of dragons beyond the extent of any others, where they see being eaten by a dragon as an honor. By both humans and viashino, this is regarded as very foolish, even among the outliers that worship dragons themselves. Multiple warriors on various Dark Climbs have seen goblin mages douse themselves and their fellows with a sweet-smelling sap and summon a dragon, which promptly ate them.
The reason that this behavior can be understood as more than simply being unintelligent. By willingly offering themselves to dragons, goblins likely buy the safety of the rest of their tribes, as by leaving those goblins alive, the dragon can then expect a future food source in tough times. Despite goblins having language, and dragons not, a commonly considered marker of intellect, dragons seem to have cultivated goblins as what the rest of Alara would term livestock.
Now, with the chief reason goblins are considered stupid addressed, I can actually begin discussing their behaviors, appearance, and social structures. Similar to both humans and viashino, they live in semi-familial groups of varying sizes. For goblins, these are called tribes. Unlike human Clans or viashino thrashes, these tribes can number several hundred. It is ironic that, while considered the least of Jund's people, eking out a harsh life atop barren peaks and plateaus, goblins likely are the most by quantity. A tribe's leader is denoted by a mace crafted from the skull of their predecessor. How such leaders are chosen is unknown to me. Goblins wear skins from the creatures they kill, be that a human, lizard, kathari, or viashino as simple clothes, and their bones are worn as jewelry and headgear. Curiously, they make weapons and simple tools from the bones of their dead. A well-made spear or spiked club may well outlive not only the children of the goblin whose femur it was, but their children's children. Combined with the fashioning of the previous leader's skull into a mace, it seems likely that goblins practice some form of ancestor worship in addition to dragon worship, although the details of such practices are unknown to me. Watching goblins would be a dangerous pastime with little reward. Even our scouts only do so for long enough to figure out their movements.
In appearance, goblins have been compared to rodents. There is some truth to this, primarily in their jaws, but only some are as hairy as most rodents. Additionally, they have no tails, and while the shape of their jaws are similar to a rodent, their heads are more truncated, and their noses more flat. Their coloration ranges from grey, green, tan, and brown, with most having hair similar in color to their skin. Furthermore, like rats, their teeth keep growing until dead, with goblins often gnawing on bones to keep their teeth short and crack them open for marrow.
Finally, goblins are fierce in battle, making up for what they lack in strength with fury and tenacity. They still win battles primarily through force of numbers however.
If you have any questions about goblins or suggestions about which of Alara's peoples I should discuss next, please reply.
