[X][BLESS] Uxmac - Bless the weapons of your temple-guard with the whispering winds of Uxmac, allowing those wielding them to better coordinate with each other
[X][EQUIP] Foothold Traps - perhaps five or six appropriately sized devices could be made before the expedition leaves
[X][EQUIP] Caxuatn's Venom
REally want the beartrap moment to happen. Also our trademarked venom might be something of an event, hehe
[X][BLESS] Chotec - Bless the weapons of your temple-guard with the blazing fires of Chotec, slowing magical regeneration
[X][EQUIP] Bola/Weighted-Nets
[X][EQUIP] Small Greatbow - experimental attempt to miniaturize the greatbow, only three exist; slow to fire but with high penetration versus blow darts.
[X][BLESS] Potec - Bless the weapons of your temple-guard with the heat of forge of Potec, allowing them to hit like the hammer of the Old One and stymy magical regeneration
[X][EQUIP] Bola/Weighted-Nets
[X][EQUIP] Small Greatbow - experimental attempt to miniaturize the greatbow, only three exist; slow to fire but with high penetration versus blow darts.
[X][BLESS] Chotec - Bless the weapons of your temple-guard with the blazing fires of Chotec, slowing magical regeneration
[X][EQUIP] Caxuatn's Venom
[X][EQUIP] Small Greatbow - experimental attempt to miniaturize the greatbow, only three exist; slow to fire but with high penetration versus blow darts.
[X][BLESS] Potec - Bless the weapons of your temple-guard with the heat of forge of Potec, allowing them to hit like the hammer of the Old One and stymy magical regeneration
[X][EQUIP] Bola/Weighted-Nets
[X][EQUIP] Small Greatbow - experimental attempt to miniaturize the greatbow, only three exist; slow to fire but with high penetration versus blow darts.
Not quite as large as you might expect, certainly larger than anything in use by humans in the real world. Mostly they just have longer cords, even more than real life bolas, the weights are not intended to do much damage on their own most of the time, especially as the Lizardmen often sue them for creature they want to train rather than kill; Horned Ones, salamanders, etc. In this case they would more be aimed to foul up the necks than the legs, given how hydras are shaped.
Man. This really encapsulates the elven egocentrism well, without actually acnowleding it by oneself. At least she went that far, so that's something.
Complaining about them not taking with her, when she's still to learn how to talk with them. Well presented, heh.
hehe, yeah the famous Saurus social mannerisms. Never expected how effective it can prove, heh. Always serves another purpose. Truly a master performance.
"Reasonable, Lord. Temple-guard to pin the beast, skirmishers to harass and weaken with venom darts. Myself, Lady Rheameninthys, and Lady Lyandrya to deliver the killing blow."
"Hydra are resistant to most poisons and venoms," Rheameninthys said, her countenance apologetic but certain.
Many things were in Qu'Qu-Kor's experience, but with enough weight of fire anything could be made to feel the sting of the darts skink skirmishers carried.
Nothing like casual dissmisal of wisdom from one much more ancient.
Gotta love how causlly racist elfs are. Not even in a offencive way, they are just genuenly convinced they are better, it's as sad as it's hillarious. this may be genuelnly eye opening for some of them.
At least some put in the effort to grow past such.
Just to be specific: I'm having fun with how accurate the depiction is. This is not a complaint.
I mean, we already are? we just put a new solar engine inco construction.
Unless ya mean development, in which case we did so even earlier, with boats and new shields designes.
Plus we have brand new spawning pools in under city, so that's new too.
On bigger scale, I guess we can consider restoring closest temple cities, and that WILL be heavy undertaking.
Still no idea how much Vohlu will contribute, but just pacyfying some areas , means less lizardpower spend on threat suppression, so that's is something.
Please elaborate next time.
Edit:
huh, we might be introducing people to early version of stoicism...
[X][BLESS] Potec - Bless the weapons of your temple-guard with the heat of forge of Potec, allowing them to hit like the hammer of the Old One and stymy magical regeneration
[X][EQUIP] Bola/Weighted-Nets
[X][EQUIP] Small Greatbow - experimental attempt to miniaturize the greatbow, only three exist; slow to fire but with high penetration versus blow darts.
[X][BLESS] Potec - Bless the weapons of your temple-guard with the heat of forge of Potec, allowing them to hit like the hammer of the Old One and stymy magical regeneration
[X][BLESS] Uxmac - Bless the weapons of your temple-guard with the whispering winds of Uxmac, allowing those wielding them to better coordinate with each other
[X][EQUIP] Small Greatbow - experimental attempt to miniaturize the greatbow, only three exist; slow to fire but with high penetration versus blow darts.
They're an old experiment, not a new one, and long discarded as being too finicky to build in great quantities (they have all the complexity of a regular Great Bow, but need to be built smaller). Mounted blowpipes are more effective in most situations that a Small Greatbow might be used; and are both simpler to operate and make.
Here the extra punch might be more valuable than a withering volley of poisoned darts.
I don't think Cathay is something we know about in the universe yet, as it may still be just a bunch of tribes. My headcanon is that the dragons who will become the celestial dragon emperor and his wife the moon dragon fled after the great catastrophe, not wanting to bend the knee with Indraugnir. My suspicion is that they are already there but have not revealed themselves.
Blessing of Potec, Small Greatbow and Bola/Weighted-Nets won.
Day 62 Chotec's Season, 11644
Half-a-dozen stegadon trailed behind the expedition when it departed, half young bucks and and half older does. Though they would not be able to follow up the stepper trails and passes that led to the hunting grounds of their quarry, it would be quite difficult to carry all the necessary supplies the expedition needed.
It straddled an unfortunate middle ground between a larger company and small hunting party, which meant it could not subsist off of light rations and forage as the latter might at the same time as it lacked the necessary bodies to carry most of its own supplies without a proper train. Once the expedition reached the foothills, beyond which lay the headwaters of the Yuatek, the stegadon would be left at camp with their own handlers while Wik'keer'mal, his temple-guard, and the cohort of skinks continued with Rheameninthys and her fellows. Enough supplies could be hauled up the winding trails and steep terrain for a week or two.
Anything longer would need to be resupplied from what was left with the stegadon. Though, if the hunt dragged close to half a Season some consideration would need to be made to fetching supplies from Zlatlan itself. Or from the surrounding countryside.
Those were all concerns for later days though.
He saw himself from a dozen different vantage points; his large, bulging form colored in speckled rivers of brilliant shimmering green blotted with patches of near inky black. Pulsing ripples of faint violet traveled up and down his limbs, reflecting back off one another in a rhythmic cascade.
Behind him the clear sky was split by a dark band, and all around him the deep blue figures of his temple-guard were fuzzily indistinct at a distance, the eyes of his bees unable to resolve clear features. Scales criss-crossed by striations of yellow, orange, purple, and black that made them seem alien beyond compare next to the soft wrinkled forms of the warmbloods, whose flesh took on a muted bluish tone. His bees saw other… colors beyond the simple reflections of light too.
Tones of fire and logic, of confusion and death. Wik'keer'mal's own aethyric senses granted him much greater ability to peer beyond the veil of the material world, but he often found himself drawn to see the flows of magic through his bees. In crafting the Five-Fold Hive of Jade he had only been able to mold the bees of his hives lightly, his connection to them granting only the meanest of spiritual senses as the tiny sparks of their quasi-souls touched at the aethyr. They were, for now, still constrained by the base mechanics of their flesh.
He would need to take his focus further in order to break past those limits.
Still he found them useful and fascinating tools, Wik'keer'mal did. Quite literally granting him an unparalleled perspective on things that had done much to aid him over the years, expanding his knowledge tremendously, though he had not had so much a chance to test what he had learned as he might have liked. When he had the time to properly turn his attention to his focus he would be able to put much of it to more direct use.
Meditating upon nature and sense of his focus was an effective purpose to turn his mind to as he carefully wove the magic that would bless the weapons of his temple-guard. No great and terrible working of Winds this; but a careful and subtle arrangement of magic that would last a few bare weeks at most and take him nearly an entire week just to cast. Knitting together threads of earthbound magic into a fiery sheath that resonated with the power and majesty of the Lord of Forge and Smithery.
Unlike the greater blessings of the Old Ones laid upon temple or wall or gate, these required little in the way of greater ceremony. Their tug upon the fabric of reality was lesser, softer, merely a nudging where other spells that called upon the Old Ones— such as that which Macuiltotec had used to cleanse the abandoned and corrupted temple in the east, were an insistent declaration of war.
Wik'keer'mal could quite easily hold onto at least three other trains of thought.
Beyond his meditations and his spell casting he was also drawn into conversations with Rheameninthys (and on occasion others of her household). In many ways the latter was much more the purpose of this expedition from his point of view than the hydra; that might have been taken care of by the Vohlu in another few decades as their numbers swelled and mastery of their lessons grew. For all the years that she and her companions had been here, the elves still stood apart from Zlatlan.
Not unexpected given their nature, but Yvraine had sent her here for a purpose. And though he had never met this incarnation of the Everqueen, if any part of Mehane existed within her, Wik'keer'mal did not doubt that it was for more than simply the safety of distance from whatever threat she had foreseen. He doubted she had any more notion of her purpose her, but nevertheless Rheameninthys had been hard at work over the last years searching for something.
He had suspicions as to what it was, or at least what it might be connected to.
Zlatlan had never known all there was to know of Huitzacatlan, even before the Great Catastrophe; the presence of Rigna and her temple were proof enough of that. And much would have crept in in the wake of the retreat and abandonment of so many temple-cities.
Still, the direction most of Rheameninthys' hunts took was telling. North and East. Sometimes more north and other times more east, with clever little diversions in other directions, but the pattern remained clear and unmistakable. Her focus turned invariably northeast.
Beyond the Teotiqua or the Temple of Skulls on the other side of the Great Mountains, or perhaps the Golden Tower of the Gods within them, there was little of interest in the direction. At least within reach. Sites of power certainly, but nothing greater than Zlatlan itself. And besides Rheameninthys was no mage herself, what schooling she had in magic did not extend beyond petty and minor spell work.
With every year he was more and more convinced that she sought the same spirit which had fled the Carapace of the Winds so many years ago. But why? Mehane had always been wary of those forest spirits with which she shared her home, though they were aligned with her divine patron. Her descendents decidedly less so, it seemed. Many thousands of kilometers lay between the forest of Ulthuan and those of Huitzacatlan though, so why should Rheamninethys now seek a spirit of its wilderness?
It puzzled Wik'keer'mal. By the end of this expedition he intended to have an inkling at least.
Day 73 Chotec's Season, 11644
"... the trouble is not in tracking the beasts," said Rheameninthys days later.
They were another three days out from the Yuatek, making good time after having cut south out of Zlatlan's eastern gate. Warm, sun-baked stone cut across the jungle like a river of gold, stepped pillars flanking its etches every few kilometers, their faces embossed with glyphs and designs that thought not magical still resonated faintly to distant Zlatlan. Lights strung out on a string.
"Nor is it in bringing it to battle. Only grievous injury can drive a hydra from a challenge, rather the difficulty is in striking first; for all that they are hideous, raging beasts they have a certain cunning."
Wik'keer'mal hummed, "How was it done in Avelorn?"
It was a warm day and Rheameninthys had foregone much of her armor, clad in only a light robe of light-blue with faint embroidery of vines and flowers. Her hair hung loose about her shoulders, shining in the sun.
The rest of her retinue remained in their armor; slim steel spaulders, fashioned like oak leaves, a brigandine coat for the upper chest that slipped into a plackart over the gut cinched by a belt of red fabric, and tassets to protect the upper legs. All finely made with little designs line vines or branches at the edges and a long cloak of dark, verdant green worn over the shoulder. Each also bore a tall leaf headed spear, though only half had their bows strung.
"I only joined two such hunts," she said, "Lyandrya is more than expert," she gestured to the she-elf in question, not but a few paces away.
At her name the warmblood turned her to regard himself and her Lady, her expression hawkish. She was dark of hair and sharp of feature, with eyes that threatened like bolts in flight.
"Oh," Wik'keer'mal said, feigning surprise.
He had long ago surmised that for all her years, and she was far from the youngest of the Avelornians in Zlatlan, Rheameninthys was hardly the most experienced of her company.
Lyandrya turned away for a moment and he saw the swirl of aqshy and ghur war with chamon in her for a brief moment, her hand briefly flexing on the hilt of her spear before she finally spoke.
"Hunting hydra is folly, only outmatched by the folly of letting them despoil our forests and meadows. Those that find their down from the Annulii are either the young and vigorous or the old and canny; for the young it is enough to sit in wait for them to charge your lines and with enough preparation even a line of green spears can bring it down, though the cost in blood can be great. Such creatures are driven by hunger and a spiteful, animal rage and do not have the experience to avoid such traps."
"But for the elder specimen?"
"More careful preparations are required, " Lyandrya said, twisting her spear in her hand and causing the sun to catch on its fine edge.
"Such beasts are no less spiteful, but they have survived battles against the strange twisted things that live up amongst the peaks of the Annulii and learned hard lessons. Knowing much better the limits of their bodies, and how far they may push their unnatural resiliency, they will rush a spear line wreak havoc amongst even veteran companies."
Her gaze grew sharper again and Rheameninthys almost took a step towards the other warmblood before stopping herself.
Warmblood minds were such delicate things. Sometimes they seemed, to Wik'keer'mal utterly unsuited to the carnage of battle… but he had faith in the work of his Masters, whatever purpose the weakness of the warmblood mind had served some greater goal. He knew not what it was, but he would see it preserved.
"Are such creatures then only to be brought low by the careful maneuver of armies?"
Drawing in a whispering breath, Lyandrya looked back at him, "Or with a dragon or two, but as I do not see any at hand— "
He considered for a moment mentioning the Obsinite Dragon Eggs, but decided against it. Zlatlan would not risk such vital weapons on a simple beast.
" —we shall have to make do with maneuver. Fortunately this is no elder beast, for all that we will not have the weight in numbers."
"Qu'Qu-Kor commands my own personal guard, and each of the temple-guard they have selected is a veteran."
And even the youngest of them was likely of an age with Rheameninthys, though not so varied in their skills as the Avelornian.
"Mmm," hummed Lyandrya.
Day 75 Chotec's Season, 11644
Long shadows stretched across the jungle and the sky took on a purplish hue as the sun dipped lower and lower, the last embers of its light beginning to flare at the horizon. Sitting atop his palanquin in the middle of the clearing, Wik'keer'mal drew in the last threads of magic needed to bless the weapons of his temple-guard. Unlike the wild struggle of the Winds, earthbound magic moved like strands of silk between his metaphysical fingers, shimmering gray threads of light that threatened to slip from his grasp.
Like water through a sieve it sought the gaps in his control, the lapses in attention and focus. There was no mastering earthbound magic. Instead he shaped and guided it, and the gaps in his focus— his inattention, became just another tool. That was the trick to working with earthbound magic and why so few warmbloods were capable of it.
Before him the temple-guard were arrayed; three groups of ten set in diamond formations around him, two just a few paces to either side of him and the third twenty or so paces ahead, between them the other twenty formed a series of irregular chevrons. Seen through the eyes of his bees they formed a simplistic sketch of a roaring bonfire.
Or rather, a forge fire.
With care Wik'keer'mal wove the last threads of magic, his focus turning just so— power seeped through his grasp and gathered like a dew drop on toothed edge of each halberd. Reaching out his will he etched a cage around the gathered saurus and drew the edges of it tight, the nearly invisible strands of power threaded through each weapon pulsed and shivered like taut rope as the sun at last dipped fully below the horizon and the flare of dusk lit the sky like a flame for a brief instant.
All snapped into place, strands of magic unwinding explosively and knitting together into a web that stretched between each of the fifty-one temple-guard arrayed before him. His lips parted and uttered a word that rang like a falling hammer and burned with a cloying, banked heat. For a moment the shadows around the clearing deepened into black pools, sparks danced through the air in a burst of light and sound, and the phantom of a vast, mountain shattering hammer swung through the heavens to touch each weapon.
Quickly as they came, the shadows and sparks vanished and hammer, dissolving back into the aethyr. The light from the setting sun faded to a dim glow over the curve of the earth and the faint speckled tapestry of the heavens began to peak forth.
Heavy with newfound weight the weapons of the assembled temple-guard sagged in their hands, the obsinite and gold-bronze heads shimmering with the white-orange glow of the power of Potec. Only Qu'Qu-Kor kept their halberd upright through the completion of the ritual, though the rest took only moments to adjust.
Day 77 Chotec's Season, 11644
Progress had been quick the first day, the low foothills offering little challenge even to the stegadon. But by the second day it had slowed considerably as grassy hills gave way to steep, rock strewn heights.
It took all morning and much of the afternoon simply to pick out a likely set of trails through which the expedition could move, then there was a few hours of unpacking and repacking supplies before they finally set off up into the mountains. Thyanire, the young she-elf who had stumbled upon the beast had been able to scramble up nearly sheer heights on her own, but with the weight of ammo, food, nets, bolas, and the Small Greatbows it was impossible for the rest of the expedition to do the same. Then there was the matter of Lord Wik'keer'mal, his palanquin could hardly climb a sheer cliff after all.
All of which made an able distraction for the first day and half for Qu'Qu-Kor.
But eventually as the route was charted out by a combination of Lady Rheameninthys' companions and skink scouts, and the whole of the expedition began to settle into a rhythm they could no longer avoid their duties. Lord Wik'keer'mal had commanded that they make conversations with the warmbloods. He had couched it as information gathering, but that did not make it any more pleasant a duty for Qu'Qu-Kor.
Conversation. Socialization.
Not skills saurus had much need to call on. They were warriors, generals, champions, guardians. What conversation passed between saurus tended to focus on tactics and strategy; it was not that saurus held no opinions, but rather that the world for them was… narrow.
It was difficult to explain in ways that skinks and slann could understand.
Or so at least Qu'Qu-Kor thought, for they had never been called upon to explain anything to either, that was not the way of the world. Slann or skink would explain to a saurus and the saurus would see it done. Knowledge rarely flowed the other way and even when it did it did not require explanation, sometimes elaboration but not explanation.
Lady Lyandrya had seemed of similar mind from what they had seen, focused upon the tasks her commander set forth; dedicated to Lady Rheameninthys' safety even when she was not. That was a familiar struggle to all temple-guard. Her knowledge of the forms of war and battle seemed extensive for a warmblood, who so rarely were as dedicated to the matter as a saurus was even amongst their warriors.
Her chosen weapons were… well, they were given to understand that the choice was not their own. Spears were versatile weapons but they lacked the ability to control the clash that a halberd did.
Bows suffered from a lack of close in utility and from a need for clear, long lines of sight. Though admittedly the conditions which enforced the use of dart guns for ranged harassment were less prominent on Huitzacatlan than they were on Chuqitzan where the jungle often grew so dense in places that sight lines might not extend beyond a meter. Drawing anything but the shortest bow would take preternatural reactions and swift speed of limb; both things that the itz'xa'khanx had been gifted with admittedly.
This, Qu'Qu-Kor decided, made a sufficiently acceptable conversation topic to broach.
Clawing over rock and past young trees they made their way further up to where the warmblood in question scanned at the narrow pass they were currently following as it crawled further up the mountainside until it fell away behind the slope of the next peak. They could just make out the faint shapes of skink scouts clambering up through the terrain ahead, led by a figure practically dancing through the loose scree of rock and gravel.
"Your spears do not offer enough control."
She looked over her shoulder for a brief moment before glancing away to the spear in her hand, then looked back. One eyebrow arched high.
"Those who cannot dance free of a blow would never be taken into the service of Her Serenity," she glanced at their halberd and sniffed, "Our spears are superbly balanced, allowing us to maneuver around our foes at will."
Against unskilled foes; beasts, lesser daemons, uax, and the like they imagined that was largely true. But they had fought more skilled combatants. Great daemons. Uax bosses. Even some of the warmbloods under Tullarian the Dread, had approached competence and against such foes Qu'Qu-Kor doubted she would find it quite so simple to evade.
"You could not outmaneuver me," they said. Her frown deepened.
"Perhaps we shall have a chance to test that," Lyandrya scoffed, her expression raptorial, "In the future— "
"I have fought elves before."
Her face contorted and a hiss escaped her mouth.
"Pirates. Not even fit to serve in Her Serenity's levee. It borders on insult to compare such to Her Handmaidens."
Qu'Qu-Kor thought that likely to be true, and though Tullarian himself had fallen to the Enemy and been granted its gifts, few of other pirates warriors had more than so favored. Slaves of the Excessive were formidable opponents, their patron granting them unnatural swiftness and speed in their reactions. Even the least of them would have been more than a match for most of the pirates they had dispatched.
Lady Lyandrya was some centuries old and experienced as well, so certainly the temple-guard expected she could outmatch lesser servants of the Enemy. But Qu'Qu-Kor was a veteran of millenia and had faced down Greater Daemons to protect the slann of Zlatlan, none of the Excessive, but those of the Bloody were not slow. There were better ways to resolve such uncertainties than exchanges of words.
"We shall spar."
She started, "Ah- my Lady has bid me to— "
"When camp is set tonight. We shall spar," they insisted.
It was past time that they took the measure of these warmbloods, especially if Lord Wik'keer'mal desire that they be brought closer into the strategic and tactical plans of Zlatlan. And there was no better way to do so than to take that measure personally, they would see how Rheameninthys and her retinue fought as a unit when the hydra was confronted, right now they wished to test Lyandrya's individual skill.
Decision made, the temple-guard turned away and set off back up the trail. Only when they were already several paces away did Qu'Qu-Kor perhaps consider that a spar was not exactly 'socialization' as skinks or slann understood it.
They quickly dismissed that thought though. Lord Wik'keer'mal had not sent a skink, he had sent Qu'Qu-Kor and the slann well understood his Eternity Warden, such a possibility must have been foreseen.
Notes: No vote this time, this kind of got away from me a bit. Comments, critique, etc.
Always interesting watching the grappling of a alien mindset. Saurus just don't consider outside of their specialization is such a fascinating concept. It somehow seems like the most terrible and the most freeing thing in the world. On one hand you are extremely specialized, you have no need to care for things out of it and you thrive in it, all other matters are taken care of. Yet on the other you are extremely specialized, you have no knowledge outside of those things and anything that happens outside of your specialization you legitimately have no foreknowledge or even real way to think of a way to deal with the problem.
It fits so well within the structure of lizardmen society, and just like most of this quest has illustrated. Shows the problems that face the society, it is the perfect design in every way for ever foreseeable problem... problem is, not every problem is foreseeable.
Like water through a sieve it sought the gaps in his control, the lapses in attention and focus. There was no mastering earthbound magic. Instead he shaped and guided it, and the gaps in his focus— his inattention, became just another tool. That was the trick to working with earthbound magic and why so few warmbloods were capable of it.
Love the magic system Lore. Far too little is conformed even if most is obvious to deduce, so it's neat to have this showned like that. "One does not control deep magic, merely gives it direction" Makes all the Structures that much more impresive.
Oh! the horror! having to talk with people, So many can relate its even more funny! Come on QQK you can do it!
Loved the excution, sad we did not seen skink highlights but this alone was worth it.
Decision made, the temple-guard turned away and set off back up the trail. Only when they were already several paces away did Qu'Qu-Kor perhaps consider that a spar was not exactly 'socialization' as skinks or slann understood it.
... Words can not describe how much this pleases me, fat too rare are psychology of an alien mind explored like this. He is still operating exacly as he's supposed to even in complitly new enviroment and unexpirienced.
Also I do love how our Saurus keep on adopting people, without knowing it. Bloody adorable, it is.
This is gonna be a start of a grand friendly rivaly, and it's gonna go like a dumpster on fire rolling down a hill riden by a colloction of raccons. Hah!
