TipToeToast
New Member
Turn 3 - Lesser Concordat, Ballon of Hillhome
Ballon knelt before a great slab of stone. It had been pulled out of the dirt and painstakingly heaved up the inclined slopes of the settlement, before being stuck into the ground flat-side outwards. After a metal tool had been used to cleave the rock more or less flat. Ballon had then taken a hand-sized stone of greater hardness compared to the slab, and begun to rub the front smooth as best he could. Lesser Concordat tools, crafts, and means were of no means comparable to the great works of the interior blocs, and so the slab was a primitive creation. Slaves lay in a heap towards the slave quarters, drinking waterskins of poor water drawn from the well. Their break would not last very long, and Ballon did not need foresight to know this. Ballon's body was sturdier due to his few enhancements so the task of drawing back his iron chisel and cutting glyphs into the rock was not impossible. Sweat ran down his neck as he labored. Eventually, written language was apparent on the rock.
Ballon wiped his brow and stepped back. The stone slab was plainly displayed in the town center near the well. Anyone who came to draw water would need to at least glance at it. A crude depiction of an insect was all that was left. He poked his tongue between a gap in his teeth in thought and hissed out a breath. In his mindseye, a nice possibility for a picture took shape. It was one that people would nod their heads at--not worship, no--for he was no artist. He held his thumb up to the slab as an artist may to a canvas, and then leaned forward to make the cuts....
He labored... Tink, Tink, Tonk....
And labored more... Clink, Clink, Tonk...
The picture took on a final form. A few more chips... Tink, tink-ity-tink...
Ballon stepped back to admire his work. Absolutely flawless. He spat upon the shoddy works of the craftsmen blocs, at least privately. The lettering on the glyphs flowed well. The picture was okay. He nodded in self-satisfaction. Sweat shone clearly all over his torso and he knew it was nearly time to turn in for the day. Suddenly, a cry went out from the opposite side of the settlement. A great feeling of dread weighed suddenly down on his mind, like an invisible rolling pin milimeter by millimeter descending to flatten dough. Gods, Dark, and demons! How could he have missed this? A tide of branching knowledge came to him -- NO TIME!
He lurched to the side in a daze and accidentally knocked his entire stone creation to the ground. It broke horizontally in the middle and was rendered purposeless in an instant. 'I DON'T CARE,' he decided. Something was coming!
"BAR THE GATES BAR THE GATES BAR THE GATES!!!" his instincts screamed! "SHUT THEM!!!"
The latent and lesser seers among the tribe clutched their heads. What they were experiencing was not psychic pain or attack as a psionic may have felt; they were knowing the possibility of what was to come, and the possibility reeked of near-certain death or loss of self. Red tides of claustrophobic particulates. Every orfice on a mountain of bodies, ripe with fungi. Agony. Pain in the chest; either acceptance or the slow crackling breaths as certain death came. Ballon's mind spun as he lurched away from his broken and forgotten primitive creation. He stumbled, regained his footing, and ran waving his arms down to the lower level of the settlement.
"Shut the GATES!" He cried, "Block it!"
The master of the gates complied near immediately. Ballon was still running up to the gates as they swung shut, and strained to pick up the fat wooden bar which belonged on the gates. "Moss. Get moss, or pampassgrass! Chink the gap, get dirt all along the bottom. Move!"
The younger warrior in charge of the gate lept to it, tearing at the ground with fervor for material to stuff in-between the little gaps in the door. Ballon hardly understood the details even then, only that what was coming would come soon. Even as a self-styled 'Lord', he began raking at the ground with his fingers and patting dirt feverishly down around the base of the gate.
As he scraped at the dirt, the future became clearer in his head. Deadly spores flowed from out of the temple of the Pobl Ap Gwead and their Scarlet Aeonia. A vision of what imminently came over him. A village. The men had come home from hunting a feline beast. Beast had rent men, but arrows and sustained bloodloss had felled it in the end. A portal never seen before had opened above it and the red tide of death had come for their people. Some fled. Some hid. Some clutched their relatives and spoke the fatalist words of the First Faith, in acceptance that all men die but that they would be with one another. Survivors would come from this place and some would serve the new master. An image flashed into his mind of robed figures with knives emerging from a grove of dead trees amid the red snow and perpetual night...
All of the settlement of Hillhome became consumed with panicked haste and hastily contained panic. The empty barn was packed with vulnerable dillos to protect them from any sporefall. The edible fungal tracts were cleared, and food supplies moved indoors. It had been a stroke of good judgement that their people had not bartered their surplus food, they knew. Ballon carefully felt for the winds direction and began sheltering people away from the potential few spores that floated over the wall. Mid-darkness became late-darkness, and the town's preparations began to break into nail biting. Would the walls keep out the infection, or worse, infected?
Ballon hoped he would not need to find out.
Action: Disrupted. Discussed.
Ballon knelt before a great slab of stone. It had been pulled out of the dirt and painstakingly heaved up the inclined slopes of the settlement, before being stuck into the ground flat-side outwards. After a metal tool had been used to cleave the rock more or less flat. Ballon had then taken a hand-sized stone of greater hardness compared to the slab, and begun to rub the front smooth as best he could. Lesser Concordat tools, crafts, and means were of no means comparable to the great works of the interior blocs, and so the slab was a primitive creation. Slaves lay in a heap towards the slave quarters, drinking waterskins of poor water drawn from the well. Their break would not last very long, and Ballon did not need foresight to know this. Ballon's body was sturdier due to his few enhancements so the task of drawing back his iron chisel and cutting glyphs into the rock was not impossible. Sweat ran down his neck as he labored. Eventually, written language was apparent on the rock.
0. Be vigil-ant always. The sight of one ant is less. The sight of the colony is more.
2. Suplic-ant, are you before her. Thonk is She. She is the one. She is the only. Take no idols before her or after her or co-equally astride her.
3. Be not extravag-ant. Glory is the mindkiller. Do not make merry or horde or conceal or enjoy that which is decad-ant, thereby will you poison the brood.
4. Assist-ant-ce be rendered to your master. Serfs, honor your master. Masters of the home, do not viciously whoop-eth your man. He is yours AND he is Hers, and Her claim over all property is always greater.
1. Be not internally Ant-agonistic. All tribesmen are of your brood. Do not send mixed signals.2. Suplic-ant, are you before her. Thonk is She. She is the one. She is the only. Take no idols before her or after her or co-equally astride her.
3. Be not extravag-ant. Glory is the mindkiller. Do not make merry or horde or conceal or enjoy that which is decad-ant, thereby will you poison the brood.
4. Assist-ant-ce be rendered to your master. Serfs, honor your master. Masters of the home, do not viciously whoop-eth your man. He is yours AND he is Hers, and Her claim over all property is always greater.
5. Repent-ant-ce voiced is grounds for consideration. Oppress and be selfish, but do so as a means to an end. Wisdom, foresight, plots, are survival in the Dark. Short sighted brutalism is deserving of punishment itself.
Ballon wiped his brow and stepped back. The stone slab was plainly displayed in the town center near the well. Anyone who came to draw water would need to at least glance at it. A crude depiction of an insect was all that was left. He poked his tongue between a gap in his teeth in thought and hissed out a breath. In his mindseye, a nice possibility for a picture took shape. It was one that people would nod their heads at--not worship, no--for he was no artist. He held his thumb up to the slab as an artist may to a canvas, and then leaned forward to make the cuts....
He labored... Tink, Tink, Tonk....
And labored more... Clink, Clink, Tonk...
The picture took on a final form. A few more chips... Tink, tink-ity-tink...
It was done...
As the beautiful work was completed, a nearby neighbor had begun AND finished their own 'special work'. Invisible gears on unknown machinations turned... Something had changed radically.
As the beautiful work was completed, a nearby neighbor had begun AND finished their own 'special work'. Invisible gears on unknown machinations turned... Something had changed radically.
Ballon stepped back to admire his work. Absolutely flawless. He spat upon the shoddy works of the craftsmen blocs, at least privately. The lettering on the glyphs flowed well. The picture was okay. He nodded in self-satisfaction. Sweat shone clearly all over his torso and he knew it was nearly time to turn in for the day. Suddenly, a cry went out from the opposite side of the settlement. A great feeling of dread weighed suddenly down on his mind, like an invisible rolling pin milimeter by millimeter descending to flatten dough. Gods, Dark, and demons! How could he have missed this? A tide of branching knowledge came to him -- NO TIME!
He lurched to the side in a daze and accidentally knocked his entire stone creation to the ground. It broke horizontally in the middle and was rendered purposeless in an instant. 'I DON'T CARE,' he decided. Something was coming!
"BAR THE GATES BAR THE GATES BAR THE GATES!!!" his instincts screamed! "SHUT THEM!!!"
The latent and lesser seers among the tribe clutched their heads. What they were experiencing was not psychic pain or attack as a psionic may have felt; they were knowing the possibility of what was to come, and the possibility reeked of near-certain death or loss of self. Red tides of claustrophobic particulates. Every orfice on a mountain of bodies, ripe with fungi. Agony. Pain in the chest; either acceptance or the slow crackling breaths as certain death came. Ballon's mind spun as he lurched away from his broken and forgotten primitive creation. He stumbled, regained his footing, and ran waving his arms down to the lower level of the settlement.
"Shut the GATES!" He cried, "Block it!"
The master of the gates complied near immediately. Ballon was still running up to the gates as they swung shut, and strained to pick up the fat wooden bar which belonged on the gates. "Moss. Get moss, or pampassgrass! Chink the gap, get dirt all along the bottom. Move!"
The younger warrior in charge of the gate lept to it, tearing at the ground with fervor for material to stuff in-between the little gaps in the door. Ballon hardly understood the details even then, only that what was coming would come soon. Even as a self-styled 'Lord', he began raking at the ground with his fingers and patting dirt feverishly down around the base of the gate.
As he scraped at the dirt, the future became clearer in his head. Deadly spores flowed from out of the temple of the Pobl Ap Gwead and their Scarlet Aeonia. A vision of what imminently came over him. A village. The men had come home from hunting a feline beast. Beast had rent men, but arrows and sustained bloodloss had felled it in the end. A portal never seen before had opened above it and the red tide of death had come for their people. Some fled. Some hid. Some clutched their relatives and spoke the fatalist words of the First Faith, in acceptance that all men die but that they would be with one another. Survivors would come from this place and some would serve the new master. An image flashed into his mind of robed figures with knives emerging from a grove of dead trees amid the red snow and perpetual night...
Unknown, Late Post-Sporefall:
All of the settlement of Hillhome became consumed with panicked haste and hastily contained panic. The empty barn was packed with vulnerable dillos to protect them from any sporefall. The edible fungal tracts were cleared, and food supplies moved indoors. It had been a stroke of good judgement that their people had not bartered their surplus food, they knew. Ballon carefully felt for the winds direction and began sheltering people away from the potential few spores that floated over the wall. Mid-darkness became late-darkness, and the town's preparations began to break into nail biting. Would the walls keep out the infection, or worse, infected?
Ballon hoped he would not need to find out.
Action: Disrupted. Discussed.
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