ORIGIN

Vargas shook his head lightly. "I see this was not yet covered. I will explain, and explain why this step is so important. When you begin, you do not know its scent. You have no way of knowing it. To see the target means it can see you." He paused, eyeing V-Chaos-Two, trying to let this sink in.

He wondered if perhaps its prior blindness had kept it from realizing the obvious, though he was fairly sure it just hadn't grasped the point he was getting at, yet--but this was still a consideration. "So when you arrive, your task is to find a target matching this description--or yes, its name--without being seen in turn. Now, you could go around asking others, but that puts you at risk: they can simply lie, or the like, and word may get back to your target that someone is there, searching for it. Moreso if they recognize you as a hunter."

Vargas pushed up, pacing again as he delivered this lesson. "Now, you do have options. There is the magic to sense heartbeats, or sickness and health. The ability to peer through fungus. You might enlist a familiar, and use its eyes instead of your own--something local, something difficult to spot. You might use the magic of minds, and search the thoughts of others for images of your prey. You see-? There are many options, all of them good, all tools for a cunning hunter to use. And in the meantime, keeping yourself hidden is just as important, because all the time you are hunting your prey, it might be hunting you--or it might flee, once it realizes it is being searched for, and you might lose it completely. So you must be methodical, and you must be precise. If your vague description does give you an idea that it, perhaps, eats large prey, then you might keep watch--from a great distance--on the larger Lessers of that cave--or the bushes you suspect it eats, and so forth. But this will take much longer than a magical search."

Vargas paused in his pacing, and gestured. "Then, once you've seen it--then you can use the rest. The scenting and tracking, the pursuit. Finding its habits or its den. But the reason it is important not to skip the... well, importance, of this step, is that it is the step that is easiest to fail. One moment's failure and it spots you; and then it is gone, never to be seen again. Or one misstep, and you alert it, and the next thing you know its allies are surrounding you in the shadows, preparing a hunt of their own. Now: this is a lesson you may teach our spawn, and they will use whatever tools they possess to take this step safely. But you-? Do you have anything to help you, here?" he prompted, though he already half-knew the answer.

"You have the ability to sense heartbeats, do you not?" Vargas suggested, rocking back to sit back on his haunches. At least, it had mentioned this in regards to Delta's training. "Correct me if I'm wrong. Of course, your prey may also have such magics, but they cannot know when you will arrive, and cannot be using it all the time. That's not to say you shouldn't always assume they're aware of you're presence--you should. But when at first you enter a cave, that should be your--or the spawn's--first step; an attempt to locate the target from a distance. It won't always be precise, but it may give you a few starting points. You needn't worry about shrouding yourself if you're half a mile off," he reasoned.

"It will be up to you, as a creation learns and grows, to get a feel for its magic, and for when an ability that it bears will be useful for this--or any--specific purpose. This is why I wish for you to know the basics; so that you can better assess, and guide, a developing spawn."

Vargas paused, studying Chaos-Two. Was it uncertain, or upset? He could not quite tell. "As for your intent, your creation was not... guided. I was not yet a master, and--have I ever told you where your gemstone came from?" he asked, tilting his head a little to one side.

Vargas grunted, shifting in place on his haunches, rocking back as if settling in. "During the rebellion, it was not only the rank-and-file who rebelled. I pity them, thinking that with the support of Masters, they might have actually had a chance--cruel, false hope. Jupiter was one of those Masters to rebel. I do not know what she wanted, but I know that she would kill anything she found with a gemstone--any creation of the Masters, of this Nest. Did she ally herself with some of them, for convenience's sake? I don't know, but I know that she was deadly with her weapon. Have you seen a bow, Chaos-Two--arrows? A projectile weapon, capable of killing at great distances." He studied Chaos's forelimbs, for a moment. "You might even be capable of its use, if you can see one made." Hell, I could. I should get a large one built; that would make some things much, much easier. Like killing things that were on ceilings.

Anyway...

"She would strike from the shadows, often a single shot. I don't know the details because I never faced her, but I know by reputation that she was deadly, and often feared. She met her end only recently--facing Lord Dhracia. She tried to kill her. She was eaten alive by Lessers for the attempt." Secondhand knowledge, but damned if Vargas wished he couldn't have seen it himself. Not for sadism, but for some warped sense of justice. "Among her collection were Oilstones. She'd killed enough of our creations, children of the Black Spire, pawns of the Creator. And she took those stones back to her den--we never did know where--and from them, she chipped away their life and left only rock. And these she used to make more arrows for her bow," he added. If this was a bedtime story, it was the sort to leave children with nightmares. "We only found this den quite recently. With the aid of another rebel, in fact, one that--for now--I have let live." Where, and who, he would never say--Two's safety and thus that of the entire Nest depended on it. "I saw the stones, and I thought to myself: these deserve a second chance. Cut down simply for their existence, in most cases; their potential never realized. There were very few whose magic had escaped her cutting. Your stone had likely lain there, waiting to be carved apart, for thousands of years. Others took living stones, too, but yours was the only one that I could revive."

Vargas shifted again, moving his weight to another forearm. "As I say, I was not a master at... creation. I had just been made a Master--the title--but Khavur was my first. Hence the... errors. Your own, as well; I tried to guide your creation but it simply did not work. What emerged--you--is very likely a random amalgamation of that stone's former owner, and myself." Vargas offered the slightest shrug. "Still, it is one wrong I hope is righted--I do not recognize your shape, Chaos-Two, but whoever's it was, they did not deserve assassination."

His rigid features twisted, slightly, from solemn to a faint grin. "And as an assassin, myself, I would know."

"He might," Vargas grunted assent, "but it is not metal. It is... wood, sinew, things like that. And stone for the arrowheads." He was familiar enough with it, but didn't know anyone else who had mastered them. "I mentioned bows to a purple elf, a hunter, a long time ago but I do not know his name--he thought himself 'two.' He was not two!" Vargas boomed brief laughter. "If you can find him, perhaps he has figured out how to make them by now. His hair was black, and his ears were pointed, and he had a long tail."

"What is it that you do not blame me for?" Vargas asked, glancing at it. He had his assumptions, but it would be rude merely to run through the list. "As for the stones, I took as many as I could. Yours was the only one with life left in it but perhaps there are more; but the place was well hidden-away. Hidden so that not even I could find it; it would be hard to locate it again. It was in the maze of bones, in Canis. A common hunting ground, for myself, but even hers was a den I'd never seen."

"As for what else I have to teach you, let us end this lesson with a summary. Same scenario; new cave. I send you to, let us say, Pisces--you know of it?--and tell you that your target is Citrine Seven-Five-Three, and is serpentine in shape, gray-green in color. I only know that it is smallish, smaller than you are. Give me a rundown on how you would proceed--from the time you arrive in the cave until, if all goes well, a kill."

He was already thinking that a test, in the end, would be good--not today, no. But he'd have to find someone for Chaos-Two to hunt, even a mock-hunt, and see if the lessons had stuck.

-Ahh, the stone placement. He studied what Chaos-Two showed him, briefly. "I had no hand in that but it is unecessary pain and for that, at least, you have my sympathy. But the placement of stones seems... fickle." He didn't sound sympathetic--he sounded businesslike--and he said no more on that, instead turning his attention closely to what Chaos-Two said.

It had gone from confusion, at the start of this lesson--uncertainty as to how to approach any of this--to grasping the basics of the skeleton of a decent plan. "You have a good start. These are good fundamentals. The mud is a good idea," he added; "always be aware of how terrain might help--or hinder--you. We'll call this lesson now, but tell me first: what have you been taught of combat? Where did the Orthoclase leave off?"

He wanted to get an idea of what pieces might be missing from Chaos-Two's training. To fill in every gap. He didn't want the new spawn receiving incorrect instructions, or piecemeal training that missed large pieces. "I need to know every detail--your future training will be rigorous. I don't want a spawn you've trained being unleashed somewhere only to find that some part of its training was missing and gets it killed, so we will be stringent."