As promised, the plasma shadow clawed its way back into the nest to retrieve something from its hoard. She materialized in the voidlight of Draco, nourished by the sick, thudding heartbeat of the oilstone spire; each time rejuvenated by its presence, its energy hers to wield. She would need it, and Master Vargas, too, for the journey they were undertaking today.

Lord Dhracia made no extravagant entrance, no flash of heat this time nor crack of black lightning; the Master's absence would be noticed, but that was as far as she wanted anybody to know of what transpired. Instead, she silently sought out the monster, her material holographic and illusory until she found him and became full-bodied. Not intending to startle him, she waited until Master Vargas was aware of her. “Are you ready?” asked Lord Dhracia.

@Vargas time for a feel trip

- THE LEVIATHAN -

Ahh, the moment he had been waiting for.

A vision that would guide him. A glimpse of the silken, sparkling future for which he would grasp.

...Maybe.

Really, it depended on where she took him. Master Vargas had lived ten thousand years or so, but all of it had been in the confines of the stuffy caves--or his own damn Oilstone shroud. And what had he asked her to show him-? Well, that would remain a secret. Not a whisper of the purpose of his visit would ever leave his rigid lips. But he had waited, excitement--tension--mounting. Waited for this lifechanging event. Waited for his first, likely agonizing journey from his Nest. Waited for her to prove her intent.

And in the meantime?

Why, he had worked. Gone back to business: creating, molding, instructing, arranging. The delegation of the chief; the management of the executive; the careful maneuvering of the monster that somebody had decided should be put in charge of (at least some) things.

"I am ready," was all he said, after his mammoth head had whipped around, after eager eyes had gleamed acid in the dark.

And oh, was he.

He couldn't fucking wait.

@Game Master Madison

Lord Dhracia nodded. He knew what was to happen next, so she didn't delay it. With a flick of her wrist, Lord Dhracia dismantled the monster's molecular architecture into formless miasma, his essence of chaos attracted to itself now all that bound him together. The process would be searing pain across every inch of his body, heat that melted from inside and out. Master Vargas would be aware of every second of his disassembly, only for his consciousness to become haze once it was done. He would be nestled in her stole like any other weapon, disembodied neurons firing at the sensation of elevating, of flying, of wind. He might remember dream-like flutters of a journey from darkness into light--but awareness wouldn't truly return to Master Vargas until she rebuilt him at their first destination.

Bleak grey stretched for miles around them, a sharp and flat line slicing earth and sky. The terrain resembled an unfinished painting, a swathe of lifelessness beneath the vibrant blue afternoon bearing down on them, the sun gleaming, blinding. But the ground was very much real--just dirt and ash and dust, like a fire had ripped through the plains and stripped them of vegetation. Nothing lived here, no birds nor insects; the emptiness was oppressive, a testament to the intensity of that which had caused it.

Behind them, an ominous black fortress broke the ground in jagged, ugly polyps of metal. Not even the sun shone on its surfaces; it seemed to absorb every ray of light and extinguish it. Lord Dhracia regarded the stronghold, its red, torn flags rippling under breaths of hot wind, the horizon surrounding it specked with minuscule moving parts. “The Verinen Citadel,” remarked Lord Dhracia. “It's about ten miles away. That's Hydra from its easternmost wall to its west.” she added.

The sheer awe of the world beyond the caves might still be too much for Vargas to process. She didn't know if he would grasp the magnitude of the Citadel, so far away and so engulfing in shape, when such concepts as sky and endless plains might still be burgeoning perceptions. Lord Dhracia regarded him curiously, giving the monster a moment to adjust to this vision. She would answer his questions whenever he was ready to utter them.

- THE LEVIATHAN -

He knew what was to happen next, and he braced himself for it, eagerly. It would be terrible, of course, but worth what would come after.

Vargas didn't scream; screaming was for little things, weak things. Screaming was for prey. No: he bellowed, a short, stifled roar of agony followed by the harsh snuffling of a monster trying to silence itself. It was a testament to his design--controlled Chaos--that he did not lash out at the source of his agony, as perhaps another would have; all four limbs remained firmly planted on the ground, braced, head bowed and body tensed. And then, he was-...

Dead? Certainly gone. There was nothing, for a time; and then he was suddenly aware again, with the flood of all the impressions he'd picked up along the way. Of indifferent glimpses of a world that now held no meaning. Flight, darkness, light, fur, but all of these tumbled into his consciousness all at once as he reformed, finding a new ground beneath his feet, a blinding and hot orb-light heating his vibrant hide.

The Leviathan squinted and blinked against the light, nostrils all flaring as one as he inhaled, exhaled, and took unsettled stock of his surroundings. He slowly relaxed his muscles--that is not an orb-light. For a moment, ignorant of the dangers, he simply stared up at the sun: wondering at it, confused, marvelling. Then alarm rippled through him. "Is this light dangerous?" he blurted, before considering how it might sound, as he glanced to Lord Dhracia. It was perhaps not the most dignified first question, but he was always the tactical sort and it seemed to him that he ought to know if he needed to shroud himself against it. If I even can? he wondered. He tried for it--reached out for the shroud of shadows to pull over him like a protective cloak. Nothing came, but he wondered if it were not his own typical failure in magic at the root. It didn't feel gone. But he was left peering into the light, and though he'd obeyed his Lord and tried to accustom his eyes to brightness, nothing in the caves could approach this sun.

It took Vargas time to realize that there was no cave roof above him--that it wasn't reflective ice or rock, but a starched nothing high above. And still he didn't quite understand it. Surely it was... water? Was it ice? Blue, glacial ice, maybe-... in vast curling sheets. What lay above it? Perhaps he'd heard--and dismissed--whispers of a "sky" in the past, but even if it had been patiently explained to him in detail he'd still not have understood it.

Only now--at his Lord's words--did he look around him. At the ground--the scorched earth and lifeless dirt, the charred ash. And back, at the Citadel, at its gleaming obsidian chunks and tattered red banners. It immediately prompted something else in the Leviathan, something that wanted to be taken there, unleashed, told to wreak havoc and destroy. To cascade like a flood through whatever the place was, and destroy everything inside. Something about it screamed combat, roared its willingness to fight, and the Master's heart snarled in response.

He turned his body to face it, curiosity lighting in him, and looked to Lord Dhracia. Hydra-? He looked back again, over the great span of its walls. And then, he wondered--was this what she had chosen to show him, in response to his questions of her? It was a... questionable choice. But he was patient; he had no doubt that there was more to come.

@Game Master Madison

It was callous of her to not warn Master Vargas appropriately, but Lord Dhracia never set out to romanticize the world beyond the caves. Their tiny bubble, left largely undisturbed thanks to Lord Dhracia's meddling, was a shelter from the indifferent harshness of the outside. The cost of this freedom was ignorance; pay that, and see what it truly meant to be unleashed.

“Prolonged exposure to it is, yes,” she replied, observing him, feeling the pull of magic he beckoned to mitigate the glare. Fortunate that they wouldn't be spending too long here, or else the sun might scorch him. She had long forgotten what sunlight sincerely felt like.

“Expect your magic to fail you. This place is sterile of it,” said Lord Dhracia, turning her body to the Citadel. The violet beast tensed and she caught his glance, his questioning. Whatever sense the Citadel imposed on Master Vargas was no coincidence. “These people have killed everything magic. They were raised to conquer the monsters that frightened them, and when they were done, they went to conquer everything else. They've become so high on their might that they don't see killing everything has turned their kingdom into dust and bones. They're languishing in this drought because they're too proud to move. They'd sooner wilt than admit defeat to anything, even their own deterioration.”

She didn't have sympathy for them. This was simply their destiny. They were never meant to survive here, so to dust and bones they too would return.

“This is what becomes a world of endless destruction. It eats itself alive until there's nothing left to digest,” said Lord Dhracia. “I've razed worlds the same way.”

Her voice hovered like the sentiment was unfinished. She didn't want to say it, but she suspected Master Vargas would understand the caveats of her conqueror's path.

- THE LEVIATHAN -

Let it be known that Vargas was not the sentimental sort; not the kind to dwell on what-ifs and ancient memories. His hunter's heart was made for the present, to Oversee the here-and-now, and it required his full attention. Yet, as Dhracia spoke, he did find his mind briefly wandering: a foray into what might have once been, a dip into questions of the past.

What had this kingdom once been like? Or this world, as a whole? Before it was ravaged, before it had been left to devour itself and dissolve into sand?

Acid eyes studied the distant black structures with a critical gaze. If what Dhracia was telling him was true, then they were made--molded and strengthened--to fight and kill things such as he. The glimmer of fierce belligerence that rose in him, that savage desire to clash claw to swords and see who came out on top, reminded him then that he was not so far beyond those he led down below, within the caves. A monster, made to fight; but he wasn't ashamed of that. Survival was survival, one way or another, and though he withheld judgment on whether to admire these creatures (had they conquered their enemies and lived against all odds? Or had they themselves eaten the life from the surface?), he did take the reminder as a sliver of humility. As a warning: an Overseer, a Master, was still a stranger here, and would be nothing more than another beast to fight and try to put down. His title afforded him no protection. His authority had been left wholly behind.

It was almost freeing, in some ways; he had half a mind to ask for weeks to rampage, to stalk the barren land and assault the walls at night. And this was an almost unsettling reminder of what he was, despite his requests to Lord Dhracia. It was a jarring sense of dissonance, too: what world would I build? was a question for his consciousness, whereas what do I wish? provided a primal answer wholly different. One was perhaps more civilized, even compassionate, the result of millennia of thought and consideration. The other was bred into his bones, and came with claws and fangs.

He looked to her, towering monster in the sunlit dust, squinting against the brightness. "They seized power without the sense to cultivate to replace what they destroyed-?" he half-summarized, half-asked her. He was unsure why they were visiting this place first, but he assumed that it was perhaps a contrast for what else she might show him.

Or maybe there were no examples of what he'd asked. Maybe all she'd left in her wake was devastation.

While her explanation of the sun's threat had earned her a nod and a quiet grunt, he now turned toward real conversation. He shook himself with a quiet clack of quills, as if irritated by the sun draped across his skin--burning--and then strode up fully alongside her. He looked the other way, out over the devastated landscape. "They did this?" he added, pondering. It looked to him like a dragon's work, or a user of Flame who'd let things get incredibly out of control. He glanced to her. "Was it deliberate?"

A look back, then, over the misshapen ramparts. "Do they simply not know any better or was this a tactical decision?" Strange, but somehow fitting, to think that above Hydra lay this charred dead earth, with its beating heat and cluster of scarce (and fierce) survivors. "Or is it--natural?" It came strange, to Vargas, to think of a place with weather so severe. The caves were moderated, carefully curated, their atmospheres quietly artificial. It occurred to him that such a vicious drought would be an interesting test--peel the survivors and the clever from the weak and the foolish--but he dismissed that thought, for now.

It was an old thought, and had little to do with why he was here.

@Game Master Madison