Vargas was winding his way toward Polaris, back from a visit to Orion. A return to Draco was his end goal, but he wasn't in much hurry to get there. A simple patrol to check on the goings-on of Orion, and the state of Order in the Ordered caves, had been his priority; he was seething to find those white threads still dangling throughout the caves. He admonished himself mentally, but his train of thought--planning, concerns, worries about the repercussions--faded abruptly when he spotted a streak of something fresh and wet across the ground. Blood? He paced quickly over, and--Ugh. No. He recoiled.

He knew that stench, that rank odor, though it took his mind a moment to place it. Effluvium. The meat-beast he'd smashed back into its chrysalis, after it had so badly mauled his Sentinel. He only knew its name because of its Deathmatch introduction. -What had Nemean called it? 'The Overkill?' Hmm. He'd attempted to reshape it to some extent as it reformed in its chrysalis: to grant it a somewhat sharper mind. He'd missed its emergence, but now he wondered if he'd been successful.

Vargas hesitated briefly. Do I have the time for this? No warlord wanted to be away from home for all that long; he felt the need to be overseering (ha, wasn't that ironic) his Forge at all times, just in case. But... no, he had no immediate obligations. He could spare an hour or two to investigate this.

The Leviathan set off, following the thin trail of mucus and the stench, where it faded here and there, of rotting meat.

Well, aren't you disgusting, Vargas thought cheerfully. He'd paused some distance off, a safe distance off... for himself, and for the meat-beast too. He made no attempt to close that gap.

"Effluvium--yes?" he asked, watching. His six eyes drifted over the protruding bones, and then back to the single eye that had sprouted in the midst of the pulsating, wet meat-mess. "I came to see how you were doing." 'If you had improved' seemed like it might be beyond them, truth be told. "You are speaking," he added. "That is already... better."

At least, he hoped it was. So far as he knew, Effluvium had been a relatively non-verbal meat-monster. There was no telling if it were still deadly-dangerous, stupid, but also capable of speech.

Maybe he'd just made things worse.

Effluvium seemed surprisingly... sane. Admittedly it already had food in its mouth, but it wasn't screaming, lunging, roaring, fleeing, or anything equally irritating.

"When we fought," Vargas began, keeping it simple, "I remade you to be smarter. So... are you capable of that?" he asked, pleased and surprised both. "'Just talking?' Tell me; what sort of things do you like to talk about?"

It was a genuine question, too. His guess was food. Effluvium had always seemed territorial and food-motivated, to him; a vicious predator at its core, with little room for other considerations. But the fact that it was speaking was already an improvement.

"Of course I can make things smarter. You can speak, now, can't you-?" If it had been able to before, he hadn't been aware of it. He was amused, despite himself; and he didn't advance on it further. He wasn't out to provoke a defensive response. He-

The magic curled past him like a whisper. This, again? he thought, surprised. And again he sensed that--as much as he wished it--he could not ask it what he wanted. No; this could only be for the meat-beast before him.

So, with as much magnanimity as almost playful malice, he made his wish. Make it even smarter. The subtleties behind that, unspoken in his thoughts, were to grant it the ability to truly converse. The brain to see things as they were, and not past a vague and shifting red film of 'meat' and 'not-meat' or however Effluvium might see the world.