Garnet-Delta had been doing its rounds when the metaphorical bomb dropped. It had spent very little time minding the actual chrysalis; its attention better spent on entryways and potential threats, its free time devoted to carving itself into Perfection. Honing its skills. Becoming what would be a weapon, ultimately dwarfed by its Overseer, its Master, its Lord, and His Lord's Weapon-- but it tore up the seeds of those thoughts and burned them, leaving behind a callous surface of pockmarked holes in its soul.

It didn't really know what to do when She came. It had been returning from the Hydra entrance to check the opposite side, and when it felt hot air blowing the wrong direction, sweltering heat rivaling the one it had just been taking a split second to bask it, its animalistic mind ran through the first conclusion at a breakneck pace: dragons, or something, set inferno to the warren.

Thankfully, its senses caught up seconds later. It was too quiet for flames.

Garnet-Delta swept to the ground, and trotted closer, ears flicking up as "Master Vargas. It's time," dropped as neatly as a pin clattering to the floor. Crimson eyes flashed upward, seeing the Lord for the first time, lurking at the far edge of her shadow. Master Vargas's reply sent it stepping backwards in retreat, tail tucking low as it pulled at its magic.

Like it had never been there at all, its pelt shifted in color, until every inch of it was washed away into nothingness; it became the same as stone, no, the same as nothing. Ears curled forward to listen, as silent paws continued backward toward Hydra. It did not go quickly; truthfully, it did not want to go at all. It wanted to wait and see, wanted to be in the moment when it happened.

That was not its decision, however. It would already be gone, sweeping into Hydra, at the first sign of Demand or Danger, on the command of its Master. For now the stipulation presented by Vargas, left it at the mercy of its own curiosity, waiting for the other pin to drop.

If you go out, bow and stay quiet.

Zoisite was on their back, golden globe eyes watching the others scramble forward to meet mom Alpha with varying degrees of reaction. The grub herself, over twenty days old, had already grown to be several feet in length, and sprawled out on the ground, they looked like a massive fluffy tail with legs. They stayed like that for a moment, considering the situation.

... hm. Something was going on. Pits flared to take in the hot scent in the air. They shifted over, finding their way on to their feet, and scuffled forward after the others. They snaked their way around their siblings, and around Alpha, to inch forward into the open.

A dangerous thing to do, but they had already been told what to do if they wanted to investigate. They stayed crouched low, furs and quills scrapping the stone. Aside from the minor noise from their movement, they were silent, head tilting to one side until their mandibles scraped the floor, so they could at least sideways peer up at the stranger that had come. They stayed relatively close to Orthoclase-Alpha's flank, but they wanted to see who Lord Dhracia was.

They got their answer.

At once, life in the tunnel unfurled on timid fronds. They were the ample Coleopterans watching from their ferns. There was no denying just how ripe with thriving organic material this hovel had become: this biodiversity was flaunted, an experimental culture left unchecked. In outward snarls, Lord Dhracia disdained it. Not that it was wrong--nothing could be wrong if it were the aftermath of an explosion. Just that it was inconvenient. This medley struggled to reach its full potential by fault of its exotic, invasive humanity (or bestial equivalent.) That anyone would wonder whether their ineptitude was accident or by design--that was the inward snarl, the one that cackled behind its disdain.

If their ineptitude at being beasts didn't directly reflect on her, perhaps she wouldn't have to hate them so much. Or perhaps that was just her tickled mood forming fleeting mercies.

Lord Dhracia savored their awareness of her and basked in the orchestra of their fearful shuffling. She needn't drag her eyes over the passage to know what hid in its corners; needn't even lend her ears to listen. She could feel each body quivering with energy that was both hers and not, some more hers, others a clear signature of absent benefactors. Master Vargas was the chief presence among them and it did not escape her how he fluffed his blanket of silence over their heads as she stood at his doorstep. His greeting was followed by warning, and evidence of the Master's lesson learned caught her eye: the one with the new scar that made Cowardice its fundamental anchor. She would reduce this one's emotional turmoil to but a satisfying effect with a smirk.

While the Leviathan held the door for her exceptions to be cast, Lord Dhracia regarded his other creatures critically. “What a delightful menagerie you've accumulated, Master Vargas,” she commented with treacherous warmth, “surely they aren't all new?”

They obviously were. She veiled taunts inside pleasantries. Something old would not be as bumbling and trite as these; but not all of them were wasted biology. As Lord Dhracia strode in the wake of Master Vargas, she picked out his only viable creations: the inky serpent, the tusked biped, the two-headed abomination. Even these were tepid at best, but as prototypes she saw their foundations of calamity. “You reinvent promise with each design,” added Lord Dhracia.

The metric of success was not based off of destructive capacity this time around, and for that, Master Vargas was lucky.

Her attention ultimately returned to the egg. Her tapping nails ceased beside Vargas and she observed the crystals that stirred ominous behind their matte surfaces, feeling it--feeling that creature lurking inside, alive, waiting, just arriving at the juncture of its Fate. Every claustrophobic squirm. Every passing flicker of cognizance in mounting frequency. Lord Dhracia burned with zeal to dig her fingers in and crack apart the chrysalis herself, but here and now, patience was a necessity.

It occurred to her that neither the human nor the hybrid were here to witness this event. Lord Dhracia considered the insult of questioning their whereabouts; but she had to level Vargas with at least a mote of confidence, didn't she? She left it assumed that they had been taken care of.

And since she was so gracious to give him this confidence, why not see him employ it?

Lord Dhracia cocked her head and openly spoke, “I trust you'll be reinventing perfection now. Let's give your brood something to study, shall we?”

All those bodies she could feel, she immediately took note of. She watched the chrysalis and felt for their shifting. She probed for their fear. She wanted them to see what would emerge, she wanted them to see the extent of Vargas' capabilities as a Master, she wanted Vargas to feel the terror of public failure and the compulsion to eternally succeed because of it. And if any of them should step out of line, well--she would hope that the scarred one served as a potent enough example of the risk.

Lord Dhracia expected them all to watch.

All current participants have been assigned a random number corresponding to the intensity of Lord Dhracia's awareness of them. As per the roll of 16, participants 1-8 (Nidhogg, Kethri, Bloodstone, Khavur, V-Labradorite-One, Orthoclase-Alpha, V-Chaos-Two, and Garnet-Delta) are under intense scrutiny from Lord Dhracia via Red Sense, and risk incurring her immediate wrath if they attempt to look away or leave. Participants 9-10 (V-Zoisite-One and Doctor) may attempt to look away or leave without attracting Lord Dhracia's attention, but must roll a minimum of Barely Successful on an Other roll to do so.

Please allow Vargas to post next; the remainder of the round will follow a loose posting order. Observers may still join the thread during this round. This round will end Aug 24, 10 PM CST.

Content Warning
This post contains potentially sensitive material:

mentions of:

child death

violence

gore

- THE LEVIATHAN -

He stood at attention nearby, waiting, the perfect hulking monster soldier and if there were the faintest trickles of rebellious thought in him, well, so what? He wasn't going to act on them. He would obey in his cowardice, in the necessity of it; if she ordered him to kill his own spawn he would do it and for no reason other than to preserve the rest, to preserve what else might later come. Reluctantly? Yes, but that hardly mattered to one bleeding out on the floor with their creator's claws raking through their throat. Motive mattered little, nor would he have been so selfish as to pretend that his thoughts had any importance in such a moment. No, his rebellion was... smaller. Subtle, and Vargas did not do 'subtle' well.

In fact, he noticed nothing of her smirk at Orthoclase-Alpha, merely turning to regard them as she did, to observe, to supervise: to ensure no gestures or behaviors in his spawn were out of place. His responsibility. And when Lord Dhracia at last spoke, he (in this lack of subtlety) perhaps missed any implied taunt in her words. 'What a delightful menagerie you've accumulated, Master Vargas; surely they aren't all new?'

"They are new. There was nearly nothing here, when I awoke," he answered, a little dourly--the caves had been in long disrepair, though for this, Vargas blamed the other Masters--not Lord Dhracia, of course. They should have been at work, not allowing it all to languish. And 'new' for a creature of their age was relative: to him, it meant since this last awakening.

There was a reason Vargas was a straightforward beast: an Overseer's job was direct. Lord Dhracia's crooning manipulations and subtle cruelties were generally beyond him; he saw no use and had little interest in these machinations. The threats that she brandished, however, were clear enough, and if she delighted in making them rather more carnal and sanguine than her serpent-tongued hints, well, she was speaking his language in those moments. For his work, though, Vargas was blunt. Communication was clear and firm. Even now, then, her addition of 'You reinvent promise with each design,' he assumed that the first had been a compliment--if she did not think they were new, why, then she must think of them as adult, as stronger than they were, and therefore his work was good. "I have been working, but it is nowhere near enough." Toxic eyes shifted warily to Dhracia as he realized a slight misstep, perhaps: the decision as to when enough was 'enough' was hers and hers alone. Or was it-? As a Master, the cave's entire state was, in part, his responsibility--no? Emboldened by this thought, he added: "I would see it filled with those of great potential, once I have more familiarity with this power." Because... look at it; one of them had two pelvises, and another was leaking what essentially amounted to cherry juice. Vargas had some strides yet to make, as a Master.

Dhracia was looking over the chrysalis, now: at its oil-slicked surface, and Vargas thought that there was hunger in her. 'I trust you'll be reinventing perfection now. Let's give your brood something to study, shall we?' Vargas turned toward his 'brood,' still matter-of-fact, still blunt. He missed any semblance of a threat, in this; he had no reason to fear his spawn observing. If Lord Dhracia were operating under the assumption that Vargas had not already been fretting about his creation every second of her absence, she was sorely mistaken: his obsessive protection of the chrysalis, his despairing regard of Khavur and its failings, his worry that this human-beast would be equally faulty, had itched at his mind without rest. Every atom of his being had fixated on this moment, and he accepted full responsibility for his failure--or lack thereof--without the hatching itself, or the childrens' watching of it, affecting it in the slightest. A blunt creature, he felt that if she chose to punish or destroy him, well, that would be that and a consequence of his failings. Privately, he would have thought it foolish: he was only just now getting his footing with his powers, and he'd never have destroyed one of his own for failing during a learning process.

But Dhracia was not known for her mercy.

To all the clustered, waiting Gembound and creations, then, he grunted. "Watch closely, as your Lord commands," he ordered, in case they hadn't understood--some were too young, perhaps, to grasp it closely but he eyed Orthoclase-Alpha. Hopefully it would enforce this order, if needed.

And then Vargas eyed the chrysalis... waiting.

He had not truly feared failure: he had worried, but if it happened then that was that, as he'd noted a moment prior. But his tiny act of rebellion... now that traced cold fingers of fear along his nerves. That mantra of 'does she know?' that murmured, lurking, a constant beneath the surface. Surely she knew everything-?

He considered the creation itself: the touch of mercy, of kindness, of perhaps even righteousness, that he'd attempted to impart (and could he even do such things? He was too inexperienced in this form of creation to truly know). She had told him to copy it from Beatris, to-...

A gentle realization struck, soft and fleeting like flower petals carried by a wind: Beatris was merciful. She was kind. She had sought to protect Two, and Two had argued on behalf of others--and so if he had attempted to leave selflessness in this "World Ender," so what? Vargas realized, then, that his 'rebellion' had been following Dhracia's direct orders, even accidentally; by deliberately forming a creature that might inevitably betray its purpose, he had only stuck to her exact command. To make it like Beatris; to craft it after Two. If they had kindness, mercy, then had he not simply done his exact job?

Vargas reflected, then, that perhaps his act hadn't been a very good rebellion after all. It was faintly embarrassing to think, and he felt foolish, even, for having worried about it so. And Dhracia--what if his Lord had meant this deliberately? Cunning beyond all measure, predicting his actions before they were taken; what if that had been her intent, factored into its purpose? Had she outwitted him without having to say a word on it all?

Either way, his fear fell away: there was nothing he had truly done wrong. Faint jubilance took its place: almost a light... exhilaration, distant triumph. 'Getting his way,' in this case--creating a creature with mercy and kindness--had been part of creating the mirror image of a human; he had done nothing wrong. Unless faintly rebellious thoughts counted; and perhaps Lord Dhracia had planned on that.

Vargas turned, lowering himself to his haunches, facing the chrysalis: and his confidence had returned, a pleased expression on his face, almost eagerness in his eyes to see the results of what he had wrought.

For he had created a merciful thing--or tried to--but was that not simply what it meant to be human?

@Orthoclase-Alpha @Nidhogg (Doctor) @Kethri (Bloodstone, V-Chaos-Two) @Khavur @V-Labradorite-One @Garnet-Delta (V-Zoisite-One)

Nidhogg was young, and very bestial in his nature. Oily, squirmy, and spiteful, even mischievous; controlling him was like trying to put a greased stray cat in a bath.

Impossible? Yes. Dangerous? Probably, if one considered small claws and needle teeth potentially dangerous.

Whatever the case, he was still clambering past Orthoclase-Alpha to see what everyone was so interested in, when the command came.

Nidhogg did not understand this command, nor did he care, but his interest already lay in that direction. When he managed to wriggle his six-foot-length out far enough to see what was going on, however, he almost immediately lost interest. Wandering attention darted from point to point: spooky lady, oily rock, Orthoclase-Alpha's hand shifting him to face forward (he bit at it, squirming), Vargas up ahead. The power emanating off Lord Dhracia, at least, drew his attention to her, so while he didn't stare at the chrysalis he began to try and bound forward, staring up at her intently.

Its Overseer thwapped it, pulling it back (and they were still some ways off), but it kept squirming to break free, toxic eyes locked on her.

disc roll picked dhracia out of eight things incl. 'a rock' and 'literally anything else' so that's maybe good i guess...

Bloodstone lay their heads down and watched the goings on, ears down and tail curled around them. They fluffed their wings and stayed quiet, each of the three heads pressed up against each other. They didn't dare see if only one head had to watch, keeping all their eyes locked on Dhracia.

The dull realization that they were still very much a child didn't escape them, and really only served to make them cower a bit more. Hopefully no one noticed, they didn't want to be teased or mocked for their fear. They were oblivious to anyone else's, hence their uncertainty.

Chaos-Two was pushed back towards Khavur, and their ears pinned, before they trotted forward to lay next to the Overseer instead. They still wanted to see.

Oddly enough, they weren't bored, and didn't feel much of an urge to look around and attempt to entertain themselves. 30% of the words they heard they had no idea of their meaning, but they could substitute well enough where they could. Understanding came easier when your mind was the only thing you could rely on.

Despite not being able to really see Vargas and Dhracia (aside from very vague outlines), they watched, ears flicked forward, front legs crossed. Whatever was happening was interesting.

Kethri, once she got over the sudden fear, carefully shuffled next to Doctor, calm and silent. She didn't quite understand what was happening, but now wasn't the time for questions. She wanted to get back to her experiments (which currently were just trying to try and make a permanent ink, not needing magic to be able to attach to surfaces without washing away), and really? This was like a lunch break, only without lunch, which made it kind of terrible.

With her wing slowly healing, she could move around more, and stretched it a bit as she got comfortable, eyes resting on the scene below, half-lidded. She felt no need to look away, as the only interesting thing happening was the conversation between the naked monkey and Vargas. Ignorant to her importance, she only knew that the aura of death around her was sort of like the feeling of eating something that had gone bad, or a toxic berry.

Fascination twinned with trepidation as Doctor watched. The power was here, was real--it didn't resonate with him the way it did with some others in the tunnel, but he could still feel it. It was impossible not to feel Lord Dhracia. But what were they doing..?

Doctor mostly kept to himself, working alongside, with but not particularly involved in the Sentinels' tasks. He stayed out of Vargas' way; he tended those that Orthoclase-Alpha or Garnet-Delta brought him. Other than that, he only knew that the chrysalis had been something very important. Well, he'd heard Vargas' speech and all that--something about the end of the caves if he failed--and he knew it had to do with Beatris and Two, both of whom he'd carefully helped along (and who, he was fairly certain, Vargas had killed; a tad sad, perhaps, but he imagined it had been necessary, what with their decline).

Regardless of his half-ignorance of the situation, however, he could feel that it was something important about to happen: and his fascination left him staring, hardly blinking his single eye, motionless, hushed, and rapt.

He wanted to watch whatever this was; he hoped desperately not to be shooed away completely. He wanted to observe.

He wanted to learn.

Doctor's mind danced with possibilities... What was it that would happen?

Khavur accepted its little sibling's presence with ease, and then did as commanded without issue. Understanding what was going on would be a rather perilous challenge for it. But Khavur was the type to try and understand, especially now in its mental youth. Its brain was already fully formed, all it needed was to explore as any child might.

Khavur would take note of the fact that the strange creature, unlike all the rest of them -- the one without plating or quills or vaguely draconic body -- was addressed as 'Lord'. Was that one the one they were all to bow to? The one even Master Vargas was to obey? Hm.... Hm.

Both pairs of eyes would be locked on the scene, Khavur's whole body leaning forward slightly to demonstrate interest. No need to worry about this one's eyes being peeled away. It was practically on the edge of its seat!