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359 - Sigmund, the Hidden Elder [Sturmblitz]
🕑 Added 2024-05-29 03:26:37 +0000 UTCSigmund, as on many occasions before sunrise, was to be found atop the central spire, producing the enthralling appearance of a lighthouse at a distance. Despite emitting great tongues of blue-white fire as he floated a meter off the floor, the air around him was perfectly cool — colder than ambient temperature, if anything. His shirt hung over the railing. The historian’s appearance had changed a fair bit since the Blue Moon War. His skin had lost effectively all natural pigment — it was a pale, ashy grey with blackened, flame-like patterns. Someone unaware of the fact scorchlanders all had pitch-black skin could possibly mistake him for one of their kind. His facial hair retained its wiry quality and even ruddy colour, which combined to make it strongly resemble a mass of red-hot filaments. His head was as bald as ever.
“You’ve really screwed up my plans with Mata, you know that?” he complained before she could even say hello. His tone was perfectly tranquil, if a bit touched with impish mischief. He unfolded his legs as he stopped meditating, the glow of his body turning orange and fading to the degree of being barely visible as he casually walked towards the edge, leaning on the aforementioned railing.
“C’mon, give me a break. I wasn’t exactly in any position to stop her from going in. Besides, now you might be able to properly replicate… What was it called? The Fiery Spirit-talker Dance?” Zel countered, joining him in looking out over the city. Even here, at the very top, the marks of her epiphany could be seen, and without active effort on her part, she held a passive awareness of the spire’s interior at all times.
The name was clumsy, because the translation was clumsy. The actual name of the method didn’t translate into Ikesian whatsoever — in no small part because the native scorchlander dialects had an enormous number of words relating to fiery matters. Their limited knowledge of it painted it as something practiced by a handful in each tribe specifically for handling the dangerous and volatile tribe-guardian spirits.
“That’s true, but we were reconstructing the Rite of Scorched Honour! Refined, dueling-type beamwand arts! Now she’s gone and mixed it with animism, I’ll have to write up a whole new document…” the historian grumbled, letting slip a true grievance.
Zel conjured a bottle, biting the cork out of it. Loose seals trailed from it, and a thin layer of dark sediment swirled at the bottom. It tasted… Different. Not as if it had gone bad, but certainly different than she remembered — much of the pure viriditas had faded, allowing the somewhat grassy flavours of actual herbs to come through. She downed half of it before setting it on the railing next to Sigmund using a Thundergod.
The historian gave her a dubious look, as if trying to gauge whether she was trying to pull one over on him by pretending the seal-bottle’s contents had not gone rancid.
He took a whiff, made the facial expression equivalent of a shrug, and finished the bottle.
“Tastes like shit. Got used to the good stuff on tap,” he complained, looking up at Zel to meet her gaze. “Come on, something good to wash this grassy garbage out of my mouth. I know you’ve got a stash of Tengri’s Tears up your ass.”
This was true… And now that he mentioned it, that grassy taste did linger a bit too much. So, Zel brought out two bottles of the aforementioned pale-blue nectar. A few minutes and a few sips later, Sigmund spoke up again: “You know, they’ve been calling me the Pure Flame Hidden Elder.”
Looking him up and down, she replied: “You look the part. Hell, you look the least normal besides me. Even Jorfr can pass for a particularly large Borean most of the time.”
“Yeah, well… It’s just a cosmetic side effect. I just figured out how to deal with my condition is all, it’s not like I’ve been chasing power the last year. I don’t recall ever becoming an elder, either,” Sigmund defended himself. Taking another swig, he continued: “I’ve got these dumb kids coming to me to ask for help and I never know what to tell them, so they assume I’m like those temperamental master stereotypes in the pulps. When they can’t come to me, the try coming to one of the scorchlanders. One-arm plays into it and makes them do stupid shit. Mata just spars with them and beats them up, tells them to come back when they get stronger. It’s mostly gone away by now, but… Some of them just don’t know how to give up.”
“Somehow I doubt you want me to do something about it,” she replied.
“Of course not. It’ll do more harm than good no matter how delicately you handled it, no matter whom you got to do it on your behalf.”
“Hang in there, Hidden Elder,” she sneered, patting him on the shoulder before she turned to leave. “You’ll get new subjects before long, I’m sure the Krishorns will bring a few scorchlanders looking to join. Maybe give the Burning Man Manuscript a try in the meanwhile, it ought to have something that interests even you.”
“One more thing,” he stopped her.
“Hm?”
“I’m sure you already know that some of the disciples are directly imitating you. One of them made a working Fang Ripper copy. You may want to look into him. One… Kenneth Colwyn, I think. Half-grekurian half-ikesian, wears a puffy shirt and a stupid leather vest.”
Zel remembered him. He had used a weird ropedart-esque weapon during his entrance exams, to sufficient effect that it qualified him. He had maintained steady improvement and overall excelled in technique, but nothing truly outstanding.
“I’ll be sure to do that,” Zel reassured as she left Sig to his tranquility.
Immediately after visiting the sect’s highest point, she made the opposite journey, venturing far beneath. The lift sped down through the earth, and eventually came to a halt at the entrance of the artificial clearing which was situated overtop the Tree of Life Leyline Well.
The branches of the tree at the clearing’s center, once bent under their own enormous weight, were now held up by bonewrought, multi-armed idols. In some cases, these idols were enormous, towering four or five meters individually. Elsewhere, one could see numerous smaller idols stacked together, their forms interlocked, yet not fused directly.
Four great pillars surrounded the tree at a short distance, bound to it by long reams of scrawl-covered sealing paper. At the tree’s base facing the entrance stood a meticulous, lifelike rendition of Kishin-Shura-Bishamonten, grasping a staff-spear akin to the Oculus with two hands, while six more hands floated at its back. In front of it stood a miniature pagoda, held aloft by four kneeling, demonic figures. The scarlet staff Oculus was placed upon a ceremonial stand at the shrine’s forefront.
Before that shrine, a red-haired humanoid labored in a hunched-over posture — for whomever resided inside that shell, he was not present.
