Elder-Thing

''You have some nerve showing yourself to me again after what you did.''

''Yes well since you didn’t kill my herald I figured it was safe to appear as planned,'' the Draug conveys humour with saber teeth grin plastering snout.

''I have a spell tailored specifically to your presence and it nearly obliterated your little pet from existence.''

''I have no doubt you prepared me a welcome, which is why I sent the human first to pave the way for me. I hope the past can be put behind us so we may again benefit from each other's company," shamelessly the Draug sweeps under rug millennia of fued.

''Vile creature that you are, thief! All you know is how to benefit yourself and leaving once you have whateveryou want, you have no loyalties other than to yourself.''

''A practice that's kept me alive when many of my kin and age-mates have perished around me. Do not bemoan what is as some child still fresh from realising the unfairness of the world, I gained from you and I am grateful. Now gain from me if you can and we can get on with our existences.''

The Elder-Creature is sour from dealing with the Draug even this brief a time.

''What do you want Draug?''

''Nothing, I just wanted there to be peace between us. Also, I thought it a good test of the herald's usefulness in sending it to you for its first execution of duty. What do you think?''

''The stink of you on the poor creature is strong, your enemies will find it easily and torment it for its association with you.''

''The mantle of my presence on the herald, I thought it a nice touch. Whenever it speaks in its official capacity as Herald of the Draug it must be bathed with my presence. Dignified so all know it was sent by me.''

''Yes yes, your musk was all over the poor creature. What do you want Draug, you always want something.''

‘’I want you to prepare him for me,’’ the Draug conveys.

‘’Your human?’’

‘’Yes the human, I want him to be presentable.’’

‘’You are not one to take in strays Draug tell me truly, what did you get?’’

‘’I did not steal from the human do not spread around such lies about my name," after a silence the Draug admit. "I take what I want I don’t steal.’’

‘’Half the time you’re not even caught until it's too late to catch you.’’

‘’Listen, I’ll send the human to Kamalate for me as a messenger. I need it to be able to get in there so at least make it smart and tough enough to make it that far without dying.’’

‘’You were banished to your current state for your trespass within the endless skies of fire.’’

‘’I am not one to be shackled you know this, the human will be my key you need to keep him in your menagerie for me.’’

‘’Whatever you stole from him I want half, I won’t take anything less or else you can go show him yourself. Why don’t you show him the way forward yourself anyway, there are many treasures in your coffers that would immeasurably change the human's survivability but you are greedy and want everything to yourself. Half or none.’’

‘’You are a despicable creature, vile!’’ the attack of the λογος stuns the existence between the two beings.

‘’You slivering!’’ Nyoka! Τhe return λογος ripples along the whole of the Draug in a bristling of its entire flesh down through the ground in a rapture of an immeasurable blaze. The Draug opens his eyes and darkness, deep darkness of age. The darkness of a place that has never felt a sun. Darkness so deep it has become a maw to light, pulling it away with an event horizon reflecting darker still as it drinks in the light into the never-ending darkness of two holes the Draug uses as eyes.

The Elder-Thing breaks itself out of the pull with a snort. They breathe calming themselves as they watch each other for further aggression. The Elder-Thing weary of those eyes, even creating an experience. Let the fucker deal with this!

The elder thing bristles in pheromone juices along its long slick tentacles flexing as they puff. Flowers of azour pollen grains land around the dark stone precipice despite the heat where the pheromones had been destroyed by the heat.

The flowers bloom even as they are scorched by the Draug’s presence, living long enough to cause sexual arousal in the Draug who counters by upraising a middle finger madra across his face.

The silence between them wails with psychic strain.

‘’What were we talking about again?’’

‘’I want half.’’

‘’Fine, I’ll give you something nice along with 30%.’’

‘’Was that so hard to say? Fine I will take your little pet but this is only a transaction you are no friend to me.’’

‘’Only as long as I stay away from your bed, you are a twisted creature you know that? You who would make experiments of my seed, I’ll never mate with you!’’

The elder creature bristles pleased to have touched deeper than it appears in the Draug’s defences with that flower.

‘’The exiled serpent that thinks itself a purebred stallion, you mistake your worth. You mistake your prudity as strength and you will never change, you cultivators are all so set in your ways you can never evolve past what you are. Don’t you understand how you are an abomination? Don’t you understand how abdominal you? Yet you think you can steal your way into the heavens?’’

‘’You just get this done and you shall receive your reward.’’

‘’You are desperate, you have no one and nothing that could help as the exile that you are. You come to me begging yet you show no respect to the children I’ve borne, calling them ‘experiments’. You wave your musk around like a dogsnake bitch in heat yet... always there is that arrogance in you mistaken for pride. In fact, I will not help you so do whatever you want.’’

The portal frays and burns to cinders with a wave of the elder creature’s hand as she dismisses into finality the portal connection.

‘’And I’m keeping the human!’’ the elder thing says to the silence. ‘’Arg, he isn’t worth the aggravation.’’ She decides splitting her attention back into the 16 existences she was experiencing before being so rudely interrupted.

*

Sachihiro

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A tall lean demi-human with marks like tattoos wiggling under his skin finds me experimenting with my summoning sigil which is failing to activate here god-tier though it’s supposed to be. He studies me and my numerous failed attempts etched onto the floor with spear tip, he smells like freshly tilled soil on a warm day. Something about him reminds me of the whirlwind that received me here, yes, I feel this to be the same creature. But it's not exactly the same, mhmm. Curious.

‘’Ahh... you fancy yourself a god.’’

‘’Why do you say that?’’

‘’It is your awakening path is it not, it's written all over your spirit as you loudly proclaim who you are with your presence.’’

‘’I didn’t realise I was proclaiming anything with my presence.’’

‘’Oh but of course you are, surely the thief has warned you this much at least before sending you out and about with the likes of us.’’

He can apparently see the confusion on me.

‘’Really? You don’t realise your path is open for all with eyes to see?’’

The being congeals into another form appearing shaking its head as it looks at me.

‘’You’ve been fortunate to be born in a backwater and still manage to achieve what you have, anywhere but in isolation you would have been crippled or stolen by those with more power than you. You have done much but it’s nothing at all in what would need to be done for you to even think of being anything like me, which you aspire to be.’’

This creature assumes it knows me. ‘’You know what I aspire to be?’’

*Grin. ‘’You’ve done well in completing your manna evolution with a high ideal but now you’re stuck here because your ideal is flawed.’’

‘’What ideal is that?’’

‘’Are you a god?’’

--

‘’What kind of a question is that?’’

‘’A direct one.’’

‘’How can a mortal be a god?’’

‘’My question exactly.’’

‘’And have you an answer?’’

‘’It’s one I was hoping you’d answer for me.’’

‘’I don’t pretend to know the ways of gods and men.’’

‘’Understandable, their ways don’t much make sense to most everyone but they themselves. You are wise to realise your ignorance.’’

‘’You seem to have something to say about it.’’

‘’Do I?’’

‘’Yes. As much as I don’t know nor trust you I can easily tell you are a truly old and powerful being, it would be remiss of me not to gain your perspective. Please, tell me what you see in me and how you interpret it. No riddles or leading questions trying to disguise themselves as subtlety or do you not trust that you can speak freely in your own domain?’’

‘’You’ve got quite the tongue on you. An insult you should never get in the habit of making lest you return to your master scared.’’

‘’I have no master,’’ Sachihiro says through gritted teeth.

Hahahaha, the laugh is spontaneous and true. ‘’You say such bold statements with serious-faced conviction. What other tricks has Draug taught you to do? Do you fetch?’’

I wonder the pavilion taking everything while considering the implications of my presence here, where is here even. I certainly don't think I'm on Gaia. This place just feels different. I consider the things this creature has been saying, the things I've been seeing and everything else that's just been going on as I explore the endless pavilion. Finding a chamber that's a nice warm dessert with inviting soft dunes of sand I sit and meditate in jinzen, communing with my zanpakuto.

Everything has been happening so fast of late and it's just been one thing after another jinzen is the most peace I've been having in a while. I don't know how much time passes but the intensity of the sun shifts from only marginally hot to scorching before again cooling then burning again. I soak it in while enjoying being centred in myself, looking at and merging with the part of myself that is the zanpakuto. Becoming more like Honour as she becomes more like me.

Why did the whirlwind ask me about godhood, what did it mean about me proclaiming my presence, what are the implications of the vibes I'm catching here? Will it answer direct questions, can I learn from this creature, could I trust what I learn from this creature?

I try the library orb again and yet, I only have access to stored information I've bought I can't communicate in real-time with the library or get any other sources while I'm here. Somehow I'm disconnected, a strange feeling of untetheredness and isolation.

I leave the dessert to explore more of the chambers in the pavilion, each opening a different terrain. I spot the whirlwind in a different form but I am getting better at noticing its presence now for some reason. I sit by its side as it grazes on grass as part of a herd of large bushy borvinea collecting my thoughts and trying to calm my frustrations about my situation here.

*

‘’What is this path you claim to see in me?’’ The human asks.

Hehehehe, the creature giggles in genuine amusement dealing with such a rare situation from such an unexpected source. You’re just a blank slate, aren’t you? How very quant to come across a blank slate on the path towards divinity, the creature thinks to itself.

‘’Tell me, human, do you know why so few ever achieve apotheosis into the planes through deification? It’s a rhetorical question,’’ I stop his pondering.

‘’The rub to becoming a god is having to go through the testing sieve of another god, say keeping to the requirements of an already established god forcing its acknowledgement into a pantheon. At least that’s what most do anyways, but you. You aren’t under any other’s directory of intent to achieve perfection, are you? So either you truly become a god on your own merits without any divine intervention to back you or you’re on a dead-end path. For those born mortal making concession to those whose ranks you would join is the most successful way forward.’’

‘’So you say, and I am grateful for your wisdom but my path is my own.

‘’Who said anything about your path, we’re just conversing here aren’t we?’’

Of course, your path is your own, it's what makes it interesting.

...

‘’Another popular way of achieving deification is by getting enough people to worship you, that’s a long road which almost always has unintended consequences.

''Or you could just stay on the manna evolutionary path you’re on, and if the path you chose to follow leads truly to godhood it will take you there. A path your presence boldly announces you are on, and quite early too so you could possibly achieve apotheosis at tier 7 where most achieve theirs at tier 12.’’

''How many manna tiers are there?''

You don't know even that. ‘’There are 12 manna evolutions in total at the end of which true immortal existence is reached and you can leave the worlds and enter the endless heavenly planes in whatever form you choose. At this stage the manna beings achieve apotheosis.’’

‘’Then what?’’

‘’Then whatever you want.’’

‘’It’s whatever I want already isn’t it?’’

‘’Is it?’’

‘’As far as I can control.’’

‘’And how far is that?’’

‘’Not very far.’’

‘’I didn’t think it was. Tell me, what did the Draug take from you that made him spar your life?’’

‘’What do you mean?’’

‘’What did he take?’’

A lot, he left me in literary nothing but the skin on my bones with even my musculature having decreased. It’s subtle but I definitely feel myself to be physically smaller on top of everything that the Draug took from me. No wonder he’s called the thief.

‘’He took what he took.’’

Mhm, ‘’and some of these items were great weapons?’’

‘’Not that I’m aware of, why do you ask?’’ Did I have anything that could be considered a great weapon?

‘’Do you do that intentionally?’’

‘’Do what?’’

‘’Pull me in a game of back and forth truths with your spirit aura.’’

‘’I didn’t realise I was playing any games, I assumed every interaction between us threads the line between life and death.’’

Wiser than I presumed, ‘’you assume much to think yourself so high as to take up space in my considerations. Your life or death is meaningless to me but you are right that carelessness from you here could be detrimental to your health.’’

‘’I will consider it a compliment that my life is not in danger here.’’

‘’Is that what you are worried about, again you insult me by thinking much of yourself. You are not a guest here but a pet in my keeping, as such you have no guest rights here but are mine to train and discipline according to the rules of my house. Your life is beneath me to take, why would I kill Draug’s first creature in an age?

‘’And no one that comes here would dare kill my creatures lest they incite my wrath so fear not from those that visit.’’

‘’You think far too little of me it seems.’’

‘’Hardly anything at all.’’

Sachihiro nods his understanding, ‘’I accept your disregard as it is.’’ This is clearly a creature beyond his every evaluation and understanding, one he can’t escape and doesn’t need as an enemy though it grates on him to be captive like this.

‘’You have an impertinence about you.’’

‘’An impertinence? You find me arrogant? I mean no disrespect towards the Elder-Creature,’’ he bows.

Ahh, he finally interpreted what I am, good, ‘’a useless gesture when not between equals.’’

‘’A gesture of respect and humility from many of the cultures of my world.’’

‘’Yes, an instinctive gesture whispered in the blood of many creatures, bowing. There is power in the meaning of every gesture, surely you know this as an initiate user of chakra release mudras.’’

‘’I can attest that movement and gestures have power, yes.’’

‘’And you don’t think a gesture as primal and old as bowing in respect has meaning beyond trivial etiquette? Or you fail to see the power of it?’’

‘’I’ll admit I’ve overlooked it, thank you for pointing this out to me.’’

‘’Cycle your chakra.’’

With only a slight hesitation Sachihiro breathes a fresh breath pulling through the ground up through his pools consciously pushing chakra through arms and legs.

‘’Bow!’’ an irresistible prey instinctive makes him bare his neck to an alpha that cannot be denied bares its teeth.

He performs as incited, intent bursting out beautifully in a collage of aura-spirit-chakra that leaves a tang of fear-tinged respect physically wafting gayly through the air.

‘’That is a true bow of respect, one with meaning.’’