Artifice? What Is That?
The Verdant Maiden was in a pickle. And not a delicious normal sized one! More like a rotten giant one that you couldn't eat without tummy aches. Which confused her (like many of the things that her followers said or thought) because she had yet to see such a specimen, and certainly not any human stuck to one.
Mortal silliness with their metaphors aside, she and her cult were still in trouble. Even with all the advancements they had made, were making currently, and would be making in the future, some of the most optimistic results they could potentially gain were still looking worryingly uncertain and fuzzy. There was the need to shelter their people, look into ways to train soldiers who could face their foes on the open field instead being all sneaky-sneaky while taking them out from the shadows, and oh my so much stuff to do.
But most worrying, and the most frighteningly-fuzzy-blank-future-picture was the Flayer Vessel. They had finally decided to try to reap some benefits from their first conquest, sending both Dana and Layla along with the a few of the most promising members of the Weaver sect along with a small-ish security detachement (if you could Belladonnas small, but the Rangers were, so maybe it balanced out?).
The moment she could see the clearest, that of what the silly mortals called "present", gave the clearest sight of what was going to happen, and it didn't look good. Dana was trying to get out a sample to study out of the wall on the inside of corridor in the cavernous ship still disguised as a cave, but wasn't having much luck.
She had first tried to have the Flower Knights carve out samples of the dull-silvery walls with their ironbark reapers, the whole thing periodically decorated with strange symbols glowing in (now) healthy green. The Reapers had chipped and broken down after multiple futile attempts, not making even a scratch to the surface.
Next, she had ordered one of the Belladonnas to open fire on the wall with their newly-spangled shoulder-mounted plasma weaponry. The spot that was stuck with a couple of brigthly-shining rapid-fire shots glowed yellow for a fraction of second, then went back to the dull-silver look. The heavy-option lead to the spot glowing for a whole couple of seconds.
By now slightly-spooked Dana ordered the Knight carrying a Sunfire Launcher to lob giant blob of plasma at the wall before moving with the rest of the group to safe distance to observe. Okay, this was getting ridiculous and at the same time hurting her feelings! Her work had been brilliant! But then how in the heckity did the stuck wall glow only fraction of a second this time around!? And she was sure that it was a fraction, her followers were writing that to their notes while glancing at the wall before them nervously, which meant that no, she wasn't losing track of that headache-inducing linear time again!
Layla was in turn trying to get a look inside one of the smaller turret-weapons integrated to the wall nearby to Dana's group, with having one of the Belladonnas following her do the same thing that Dana's group had tried to one of the guns that wasn't a green-glowy-transparent-crystal-glass-container, meaning prying it open with hand-sickles, but this time with some actual success!
It was a pity that by the time Layla had jogged from behind the nearby corner, behind of which she had been hiding for in the case of explosion or some other non-Belladonna-survivable event, the silvery substance that they used almost everywhere here had closed itself at the base of the gun where the Knight had spent minutes carefully trying to pry it open. Huh.
She herself wasn't having much more success, even with all that good stuff she was getting through the even-now growing number of her followers. She didn't have the slightest how any of this stuff worked! Sure, she could feel its existence linked to her through the virus, and saw with almost perfect clarity where it was. She had even some idea what it was doing, worming itself to everything it could touch and slowly corroding the original functionality and directives to replace them with more of itself while warping those things it was infecting to serve its own goals!
But beyond that? Her eyes started to cross themselves when she tried to map out the inner workings while trying to use the virus as a reference point, especially as those references points seemed to be constantly shifting their places slightly. The dull-silvery metal acted like it was living, but it was really neither that, or even dead-stuff that had been once alive.
And she didn't even want to get started with those guns! Her new sunfire guns were a thing of beauty and ingenuity, but those things? The echoes of death they were carrying were kind of disturbing in how ancient some of those said echoes were, but also in the sheer scale of the amount of things they had ended since they were made. On top of that, even that didn't help in making any sense of the whole dratety thingy! At this rate, she was going to, oooohhhh goodness gracious she was going to-!
Ummm. What was vibrating close to her chest? She reached down to her clothes and fished around, before she came across something hard and wheel shaped with- Oh! The thing the person she had come across had dropped as a gift (probably) for her before departing! And yes, it was vibrating while radiating warm, steady pulses. Hmmm. What if she....
Yes! Success! The whole thing became immediately more active when she brought it closer to the wall! And those vibrations had turned into making some sounds! Score! Though it was still a little bit unclear in what it was saying, and it was trying to say something. Clearly, she had to integrate this somehow to her being, however temporarily because she could already see miniscule wear and tear on the cog-wheel. It wouldn't last long, but maybe it would last long enough to help her with this dratted thing.
And she knew just the way to take this clever little thing into her being!
Chomp!
***
A small cracking sound was heard in the corridor that had gone silent a while ago as various members of the cult stared at the walls and the weapons with various negative emotions on their faces. Strangely, only two of the highest ranking members seemed to react to it in any manner or way.
Dana looked wildy around, trying to locate the source of the sound, but didn't see anything out of place. And none of the Knights or the Rangers seemed to be reacting. Well, one of the Rangers was looking funnily at her now. "High Priestess, is something wrong?" She frowned. Had she imagined it? The Rangers had far better senses and situational awareness than her, honed even further in their symbiotes.
Then she noticed Layla doing the same at the other end of the large corridor they were in, and getting the same kind of reactions from her escorts. And immediately after that, the Maiden in the middle of the same corridor at her usual giant size, staring at the walls, completely frozen in place.
Without any further thought, she bolted towards her god, seeing the Layla do the same over the questions of her own group. As they came closer, the Maiden still didnt' move. Instead, she was just staring at the wall with her eyes clearly unfocused and crossed. Dana was starting to feel panicked at this point, and Layla didn't look like she was feeling much more confident right now. Had this vile thing of xeno origin done something to her? "Speak to me! What ails you? Can I do something?! Dammit we cannot lose-!"
"Owie."
Eyes were blinked. Panic gave away for perplexed confusion. Layla seemed to find her voice again first. "Hey, is everything... Umm, okay? Did ya stare too deep into this thing from that godly perspective of yours and saw too much, going mad while doing so? Because if you did, it would be nice if you told us before you started demanding that we- Umm. Nevermind. Just, is everything okay?"
A giant head was timidly shaken.
Glances were exchanged between the two Chosen of the Verdant Maiden. "Well," Dana started. "Can you tell us what the problem-?"
"I hurf my teef."
***
The teaching of Living Artifice is one of the rarest gift of the Maiden, given only to her most senior Weavers at the times of great need. A fleeting burning vision of insigth that can be gained by studying devices of complex nature by looking through a symbolical bronze cog by those deemed worthy, this wisdom was gifted the first time by the honored Azure Magus to Maiden herself, as a path to salvation during the Fouding Colony's darkest hour. She in turn passed it to her faithful, the light pulling back the shadows concealing the vile vessel's secrets, which were then crafted to more enlightened forms, ready to defend the innocent.
As alway, remember that even the simplest truths hold wisdom in them. And that there is Strength in Unity.
Verdant Apocrypha, Discussions IX
