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<blockquote data-quote="jeffwik" data-source="post: 4603220" data-attributes="member: 9739"><p><strong>DAY THREE, dawn.</strong> We are out of the Hive, with the sun on our faces. I would thank the dead gods, but they had and have nothing to do with this place. I can hardly begin to recapitulate the experiences of yesterday afternoon and evening, but I must commit it to palimpsest or Yang's crimes might pass from memory.</p><p></p><p>The gate was ordered open, eventually, by a robed male dragonborn in early middle age, old enough he was surely born on Toril-That-Was. This man introduced himself as Advisor Shion, and greeted us and invited us into Yang's settlement (which he called either Mountain or the Mountain). That is not entirely accurate: he greeted Rhogash and myself, but ignored Throg and Grog as if they were our pets.</p><p></p><p>We traveled into the settlement I have dubbed the Hive, for reasons which will soon be apparent. The corridor was high-ceilinged and wide -- easily ten feet high and ten broad. It's obvious this is to facilitate movement by the hulking brutish sibeccai guards, and the nearly-as-hulking sibeccai workers. We were taken on a brief tour of part of the Hive, to impress us with Yang's power. The most memorable locations I recall were a barracks where Shion claimed 4500 sibeccai workers slept in three shifts of 1500 each, which given the size of the space and the tight packing of the tiny spare beds I can well believe, and a vast open cavern where hundreds and hundreds of sibeccai laborers mined out ore.</p><p></p><p>Every sibeccai we saw had the same dull, glassy expression. Every laborer was clearly focused on his task (we saw, now that I think about it, no female sibeccai, and no children; presumably they are penned up deeper within the Hive and made to perform different sorts of labor). Every guard stood impassive and blank, not laughing, not joking, not conversing with his fellows. In the pit mine, I saw one laborer's pick slip from his hands and pierce his bare foot, and he did not cry out or flinch, but merely picked the tool back up again and resumed his labor, ignoring his own welling blood.</p><p></p><p>These sibeccai too were dressed alike, in leather breeches, while the guards wore heavy scale armor. I did not see any evidence of animal husbandry, though later we learned Yang keeps a herd of goats high up above the Hive. The breeches were not goatskin, however, I can assure you.</p><p></p><p>We tried to communicate with the folk of the Hive, but Shion kept answering for them (which seemed to be what they expected, as they looked to him for answers to questions such as "what is your name?"). Most of Shion's answers, and indeed his words at this stage, consisted of praise for Yang. This praise quickly passed the point of embarrassment and became absurdly flowery and effusive; more than once Yang was referred to as a god. At several points, Shion stepped away from us to speak to a sibeccai messenger, but only briefly; we were never left unescorted or unsupervised.</p><p></p><p>I wanted to ask after the cafeterias, but our tour was interrupted when Shion took us to a conference room and plied us with delicacies. We sat at a wooden table, in wooden chairs (sized for dragonborn, so we all fit easily). Shion offered us meat, bread, cheese, and wine (something which I had never actually seen, up to this point). Rhogash and I, fearing poison, declined, but Throg and Grog ate heartily. Once we were ensconced, Shion impressed upon us several points, which I can but summarize here.</p><p></p><p>1. Yang has expected us for years now; he remembers his early communication with Zharroun. Though he does not know the location of Valley, he has anticipated us appearing and petitioning to join his great society, and we are welcome to do so.</p><p>2. The many benefits of accepting Yang's leadership include the alchemical cocktail developed by Yang's ally the savant Zakharov, which grants tremendous physical strength and spiritual tranquility.</p><p>3. We are to be thanked for recovering the bodies of the Hive patrol that succumbed to the mindworms. (I recall actually that I am conflating the earliest words Shion spoke with our dialogue during the tour, but it makes little difference.)</p><p>4. That patrol was the only patrol ever lost by the Hive; they harvest many Planetpearls all the time. (LIE!)</p><p>5. Approximately fifty thousand people live in the Hive. (LIE!)</p><p>6. <em>Of course</em> the Hive's genius savants can sure Zharroun's illness.</p><p></p><p>Shion asked us the precise location of Valley; Rhogash (who spoke for us) placed us at a very different part of the map (though still southerly) relative to the Hive than Valley's actual location, and well away from the monolith.</p><p></p><p>Eventually the tour continued, or was supposed to continue, with a visit to the Hive's "tree grove." As we traveled down a corridor towards this supposed grove, however, a series of three sibeccai ran down Shion in the hallway and passed him palimpsest reports; apparently there were crises that only Shion could handle. Shion left us alone in a corridor with a sibeccai messenger -- Sibeccai Jax (apparently "sibeccai" is in the Hive a job title as well as the name of a sapient species), who had a message for Shion about "Drone Dolapar." Jax seemed somewhat less drugged than the sibeccai we had seen elsewhere; he was aware enough to be fearful of speaking to us.</p><p></p><p>We were unable to visit the "grove," though we heard screaming coming from that direction. Shion soon reappeared and escorted us to the presence of Yang himself.</p><p></p><p>My hand and spirit alike are too tired to properly describe this encounter now. More later.</p><p></p><p><strong>Day Three, night.</strong> So much has happened in so little time. I feel I must backtrack, to make sense of that which has already happened. As I already wrote, after the dreadful encounter with Yang's corrupted troops, we cached some Planetpearls, then returned to the Hive -- Mountain, its inhabitant names it, but I deny him the authority of naming -- and there we were met, eventually, by Shion. After a delay Shion took us back to Xijin's laboratory, where the Planetpearls we'd agreed to retrieve were accepted by a gleeful Xijin. She claimed that some hours delay would be necessary before she could give us the potions of "cure" for Zharroun; it was during this interaction that Rhogash said the codephrase Vladimir had specified.</p><p></p><p>So we were stuck in the Hive for an indeterminate time, which ended up being the rest of the afternoon and on to sunset. Shion couldn't spend the whole time minding us, of course (I imagine making 12% of all the decisions for thousands of people is a demanding job) but before we were locked in a "guest chamber" we managed to impress Shion with our humble eagerness to admire their tree farm. Shion was receptive to the idea of showcasing one of the Hive's many strengths over Valley, and led us up and in, until we reached a secluded box-canyon or valley (we did not explore it thoroughly) high up on the mountain which covered Yang's paradise. There we saw a great many trees -- two kinds of conifers -- tended by a group of glassy-eyed ritualists, who were (Shion claimed) using magic to encourage the trees to grow faster. While we pestered Shion with questions, Throg exhibited great cunning in stealing not just one, but two pinecones: a treasure beyond rubies, smuggled out of the very lion's den.</p><p></p><p>We were then politely imprisoned, supposedly until the potions were brewed. After some hours of delay, Shion claimed us, and gave us six small vials for Zharroun (as well as a sample of the drugs Yang uses on his soldiers, though I did not learn this until Rhogash mentioned it later), and escorted us to the Hive's main gates. He was intercepted by another messenger, however, who pulled him away from us just as we were leaving -- presumably with the news that Vladimir had escaped Yang's paradise. We would have left anyway, but the guards politely refused to permit us to pass without Shion's approval, and we decided against testing our strength against theirs.</p><p></p><p>While we waited, Throg farted -- I mention this because he and Grog both think farting is the wittiest action imaginable. But the guards did not acknowledge the act, nor their howls of laughter; they were motionless and blank-eyed.</p><p></p><p>Eventually, no thanks to the dead gods, Shion reappeared and booted us out (after asking us, apropos of nothing, if we'd interacted with Vladimir or knew of his activities, which of course we denied), and as we tread down the mountainside in the dusk, Vladimir and his associate Cadre emerged from their hiding place and joined us.</p><p></p><p>They had stories to tell, which brevity forbids my repeating here -- perhaps later. But we agreed to entrust them with our greatest secret, the location of Valley, and to help them escape the Hive. </p><p></p><p>To that end, we had to kill the patrol of Hive soldiers who saw us -- if we had fled, they might have reported our location and Vlad and Cadre's presence with us. Further they would not listen to reason, doubtless, given their drugged state. Under Yang's command they were little more than animals; our attacking them was surely justified under the circumstances, much as it pains me to initiate violence against a thinking being... on this thrice-cursed Planet, surely all sapients should stick together... but I digress. By attempting to parley, we were able to close the distance to the patrol, who might otherwise have lobbed javelins at us as we approached. Cadre revealed his magical prowess, granted allegedly through astrology, and soon enough there were a half-dozen dead sibeccai where once there had been living beings.</p><p></p><p>Shortly thereafter -- before the combat was ended, really -- we witnessed a bizarre occurrence. Planet shook, and split asunder, and a great column of twisted fungal matter thrust out the gap in a distressingly phallic matter. This fungal tower spat forth a great many mindworm hatchlings -- the pods that rupture and burst into swarms -- which peppered the surrounding area, including us; we fled, and made for the monolith, where even now we rest.</p><p></p><p>The monolith was as we left it. We showed it to Cadre and Vladimir, it and the cavern beneath containing the blood of Planet. Afterwards we took advantage of Cadre's teleportation-magic to arm the crossbow traps and escape unharmed, which makes it slightly less probable that the shadar-kai Planet cultists will discover our defilement of their holy space.</p><p></p><p>Soon we will begin the trek back to Valley -- there will be so much to tell Zharroun...</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="jeffwik, post: 4603220, member: 9739"] [b]DAY THREE, dawn.[/b] We are out of the Hive, with the sun on our faces. I would thank the dead gods, but they had and have nothing to do with this place. I can hardly begin to recapitulate the experiences of yesterday afternoon and evening, but I must commit it to palimpsest or Yang's crimes might pass from memory. The gate was ordered open, eventually, by a robed male dragonborn in early middle age, old enough he was surely born on Toril-That-Was. This man introduced himself as Advisor Shion, and greeted us and invited us into Yang's settlement (which he called either Mountain or the Mountain). That is not entirely accurate: he greeted Rhogash and myself, but ignored Throg and Grog as if they were our pets. We traveled into the settlement I have dubbed the Hive, for reasons which will soon be apparent. The corridor was high-ceilinged and wide -- easily ten feet high and ten broad. It's obvious this is to facilitate movement by the hulking brutish sibeccai guards, and the nearly-as-hulking sibeccai workers. We were taken on a brief tour of part of the Hive, to impress us with Yang's power. The most memorable locations I recall were a barracks where Shion claimed 4500 sibeccai workers slept in three shifts of 1500 each, which given the size of the space and the tight packing of the tiny spare beds I can well believe, and a vast open cavern where hundreds and hundreds of sibeccai laborers mined out ore. Every sibeccai we saw had the same dull, glassy expression. Every laborer was clearly focused on his task (we saw, now that I think about it, no female sibeccai, and no children; presumably they are penned up deeper within the Hive and made to perform different sorts of labor). Every guard stood impassive and blank, not laughing, not joking, not conversing with his fellows. In the pit mine, I saw one laborer's pick slip from his hands and pierce his bare foot, and he did not cry out or flinch, but merely picked the tool back up again and resumed his labor, ignoring his own welling blood. These sibeccai too were dressed alike, in leather breeches, while the guards wore heavy scale armor. I did not see any evidence of animal husbandry, though later we learned Yang keeps a herd of goats high up above the Hive. The breeches were not goatskin, however, I can assure you. We tried to communicate with the folk of the Hive, but Shion kept answering for them (which seemed to be what they expected, as they looked to him for answers to questions such as "what is your name?"). Most of Shion's answers, and indeed his words at this stage, consisted of praise for Yang. This praise quickly passed the point of embarrassment and became absurdly flowery and effusive; more than once Yang was referred to as a god. At several points, Shion stepped away from us to speak to a sibeccai messenger, but only briefly; we were never left unescorted or unsupervised. I wanted to ask after the cafeterias, but our tour was interrupted when Shion took us to a conference room and plied us with delicacies. We sat at a wooden table, in wooden chairs (sized for dragonborn, so we all fit easily). Shion offered us meat, bread, cheese, and wine (something which I had never actually seen, up to this point). Rhogash and I, fearing poison, declined, but Throg and Grog ate heartily. Once we were ensconced, Shion impressed upon us several points, which I can but summarize here. 1. Yang has expected us for years now; he remembers his early communication with Zharroun. Though he does not know the location of Valley, he has anticipated us appearing and petitioning to join his great society, and we are welcome to do so. 2. The many benefits of accepting Yang's leadership include the alchemical cocktail developed by Yang's ally the savant Zakharov, which grants tremendous physical strength and spiritual tranquility. 3. We are to be thanked for recovering the bodies of the Hive patrol that succumbed to the mindworms. (I recall actually that I am conflating the earliest words Shion spoke with our dialogue during the tour, but it makes little difference.) 4. That patrol was the only patrol ever lost by the Hive; they harvest many Planetpearls all the time. (LIE!) 5. Approximately fifty thousand people live in the Hive. (LIE!) 6. [i]Of course[/i] the Hive's genius savants can sure Zharroun's illness. Shion asked us the precise location of Valley; Rhogash (who spoke for us) placed us at a very different part of the map (though still southerly) relative to the Hive than Valley's actual location, and well away from the monolith. Eventually the tour continued, or was supposed to continue, with a visit to the Hive's "tree grove." As we traveled down a corridor towards this supposed grove, however, a series of three sibeccai ran down Shion in the hallway and passed him palimpsest reports; apparently there were crises that only Shion could handle. Shion left us alone in a corridor with a sibeccai messenger -- Sibeccai Jax (apparently "sibeccai" is in the Hive a job title as well as the name of a sapient species), who had a message for Shion about "Drone Dolapar." Jax seemed somewhat less drugged than the sibeccai we had seen elsewhere; he was aware enough to be fearful of speaking to us. We were unable to visit the "grove," though we heard screaming coming from that direction. Shion soon reappeared and escorted us to the presence of Yang himself. My hand and spirit alike are too tired to properly describe this encounter now. More later. [b]Day Three, night.[/b] So much has happened in so little time. I feel I must backtrack, to make sense of that which has already happened. As I already wrote, after the dreadful encounter with Yang's corrupted troops, we cached some Planetpearls, then returned to the Hive -- Mountain, its inhabitant names it, but I deny him the authority of naming -- and there we were met, eventually, by Shion. After a delay Shion took us back to Xijin's laboratory, where the Planetpearls we'd agreed to retrieve were accepted by a gleeful Xijin. She claimed that some hours delay would be necessary before she could give us the potions of "cure" for Zharroun; it was during this interaction that Rhogash said the codephrase Vladimir had specified. So we were stuck in the Hive for an indeterminate time, which ended up being the rest of the afternoon and on to sunset. Shion couldn't spend the whole time minding us, of course (I imagine making 12% of all the decisions for thousands of people is a demanding job) but before we were locked in a "guest chamber" we managed to impress Shion with our humble eagerness to admire their tree farm. Shion was receptive to the idea of showcasing one of the Hive's many strengths over Valley, and led us up and in, until we reached a secluded box-canyon or valley (we did not explore it thoroughly) high up on the mountain which covered Yang's paradise. There we saw a great many trees -- two kinds of conifers -- tended by a group of glassy-eyed ritualists, who were (Shion claimed) using magic to encourage the trees to grow faster. While we pestered Shion with questions, Throg exhibited great cunning in stealing not just one, but two pinecones: a treasure beyond rubies, smuggled out of the very lion's den. We were then politely imprisoned, supposedly until the potions were brewed. After some hours of delay, Shion claimed us, and gave us six small vials for Zharroun (as well as a sample of the drugs Yang uses on his soldiers, though I did not learn this until Rhogash mentioned it later), and escorted us to the Hive's main gates. He was intercepted by another messenger, however, who pulled him away from us just as we were leaving -- presumably with the news that Vladimir had escaped Yang's paradise. We would have left anyway, but the guards politely refused to permit us to pass without Shion's approval, and we decided against testing our strength against theirs. While we waited, Throg farted -- I mention this because he and Grog both think farting is the wittiest action imaginable. But the guards did not acknowledge the act, nor their howls of laughter; they were motionless and blank-eyed. Eventually, no thanks to the dead gods, Shion reappeared and booted us out (after asking us, apropos of nothing, if we'd interacted with Vladimir or knew of his activities, which of course we denied), and as we tread down the mountainside in the dusk, Vladimir and his associate Cadre emerged from their hiding place and joined us. They had stories to tell, which brevity forbids my repeating here -- perhaps later. But we agreed to entrust them with our greatest secret, the location of Valley, and to help them escape the Hive. To that end, we had to kill the patrol of Hive soldiers who saw us -- if we had fled, they might have reported our location and Vlad and Cadre's presence with us. Further they would not listen to reason, doubtless, given their drugged state. Under Yang's command they were little more than animals; our attacking them was surely justified under the circumstances, much as it pains me to initiate violence against a thinking being... on this thrice-cursed Planet, surely all sapients should stick together... but I digress. By attempting to parley, we were able to close the distance to the patrol, who might otherwise have lobbed javelins at us as we approached. Cadre revealed his magical prowess, granted allegedly through astrology, and soon enough there were a half-dozen dead sibeccai where once there had been living beings. Shortly thereafter -- before the combat was ended, really -- we witnessed a bizarre occurrence. Planet shook, and split asunder, and a great column of twisted fungal matter thrust out the gap in a distressingly phallic matter. This fungal tower spat forth a great many mindworm hatchlings -- the pods that rupture and burst into swarms -- which peppered the surrounding area, including us; we fled, and made for the monolith, where even now we rest. The monolith was as we left it. We showed it to Cadre and Vladimir, it and the cavern beneath containing the blood of Planet. Afterwards we took advantage of Cadre's teleportation-magic to arm the crossbow traps and escape unharmed, which makes it slightly less probable that the shadar-kai Planet cultists will discover our defilement of their holy space. Soon we will begin the trek back to Valley -- there will be so much to tell Zharroun... [/QUOTE]
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