Romancing The Rod: Burnished Requiem

[CALDARI PRIME. A blonde Deteis in snappy dress the color of distant horizons walks briskly beside the crone through an imploded atrium. Mist filters from heights lost in grey oblivion.]

Ordinarily, I would have staged nine times as many boys for each Amarrati, but the numbers seemed as inappropriate to the task as they were to the circumstances. Twelve is much more intimate. My very best singers.

Such wonderfully long... torsos.

[The crone admires the reflection of her pressed gold body suit in a pool of brackish water. Camera drones skim through the atrium out to a basin of shattered infrastructure down to that sunless sea.

The ancient Ni-Kunni makes final preparations on the slopes, directing tall young men in sacred robes of rust-colored wool to crumbling blocks of different levels. Each group of four stands in a half arc around a disk of conspicuously cleared ground. They face the drifting mist beyond which Luminaire sinks lower in an unseen sky.

One beam of sunlight penetrates the vapors and bounces painfully off the old man's eyes, then another. Slowly, mist disengages the sky's dome; clouds break like thawing ice. With a quick snort, the Choir Master mutters that the young meteorologists will get to keep their left ********* after all. He starts back up the slope. Approaching the crone's cylindrical kameira, he whispers in the giant's ear; giant nods and witch gestures to clearing heavens.]

It's time!

[Rapidly appearing drop ships churn the dying fog and chew away late afternoon silence, to vanish as suddenly - snatched back by playful Ithaqua. After their passing, three tall wooden containers remain - attended by muscular eunuchs and a phalanx of cybernetic swordsman. With reverence, the eunuchs guide their floating boxes out of the atrium and down toward the sunless sea, each stopping at a cleared circle.

After light presses, front panels of each box shift in slightly, then open out. Moments pass, and like curious lion cubs, a small child emerges from each box. Boyish bangs bounce lightly in cold breezes; jacinth eyes sparkle. The imps explore their binding circles, and then don pristine robes of white and gold handed to them by deferential attendants. The eunuchs withdraw, taking their floating crates with them.

Above, cloud bellies glow dull orange and light pink. Everyone to their places. In unison, the boys and fey pucks pull forward their hoods and settle in to a standing trance. Thirteen Sebiestor in maxtlatl of fine white feathers and basalt mud race to assigned positions. With practiced synchronicity, they slam palms against chests, beating a Taiko rhythm with only flesh and bone. They conclude, and the first lycanthropic bunny boy emerges from obscuring shadow into spreading light.

Not a Sebiestor, but a tube baby come home, the gaunt, miniaturized Other Rabbit moves with great difficulty through the heaviness of the planet's well. His skin is pale, unnatural, almost ashen - and buried under layered white fur. It wraps around him like falling ribbon, up, up to a brilliant ushanka of snow dipped in gold.

Flanked by two Brutor in ceremonial dress, Other Rabbit moves somberly to the focus of the Choir Master's grand arc. Facing Luminaire's spreading burn, the porcelain figurine speaks hoarsely through an atrophied apparatus of natural voice. Beneath, behind, and around his words, a whisper builds:]

O Saamelaihenki!

These brave warriors, our foes and allies, now lay amongst your rock and alppikukka.

Cry out O Sammelaihenki!

Bear their souls aloft to the halls of their fathers.

Requiem aeternam dona ets, Domine

Bear their souls aloft! to their mothers' hearths.

Requiem aeternam dona ets, Domine

That they have given to you, now give to them.

Kyrie eleison.

Carry them home

Kyrie eleison.

and ask them to war

Sanctus. Sanctus, Sanctus,

no longer.

Osanna in excelsis.

[At the conclusion of Other Rabbit's words, the choir builds.

One Brutor steps forward, offering a lacquered tray of Ealorian grain. Weakly, Other Rabbit digs his fingers in and scatters grains on the wind. Hostias et preces, tibi, Domine. The first Brutor steps back and the second forward, bearing a wooden grail of sacred wine. Holding the goblet only with assistance, Other Rabbit pours its contents slowly over the suffering earth. He and the Brutor kneel.

Hostias et preces, tibi, Domine.

Silent to this point, the Amarrati at last begin to sing. Tempests rise within an intercostal vice, constricted by slender throats, slamming against bone and fragmenting through brilliant white teeth. Faces, placid and serene, betray none of the maelstrom below. Near the cherubim, the sound is like a milling saw, piercing and inhuman. It swells to fill the cratered space, and in reflection from the hardened surfaces - each bounce calculated by the ancient Ni-Kunni and his clapping - it returns as the Voice of God. Rising and falling, in places mellowed by the accompanying singers and a low rumble from the Sebiestor in their feathers and mud, in others, accelerated, it is a sound to carry souls of the dead into setting sun.

From their final peak, voices follow Luminaire's light down into a golden arc on the horizon. Precisely at the Choir Master's calculated moment of darkness, silence falls.

No one moves for many long moments. Reaching in to his furs, Other Rabbit produces a small namesake. As he sets the tiny creature down, it clearly weighs much more than nature would on her own allow; the fibers of its white coat permit no stain.

"Become the fear of fear itself, Carbuncle."

The small creature gives a knowing wink, and splashes into spreading night.]

Romancing The Rod: Scouting Party

[CALDARI PRIME. Camera drones race across a plateau of shattered rock and artificial ruin. Precipitation alternates between jagged wedges of ice and leaves of dirty grey slate. The small machines struggle under rime as they circumnavigate a fallen arcology. Scurrying through ruptured lesions in the fallen behemoth's ceramo-polymer skin, they dart down, down to a sunless sea.

Picking his way slowly along that body's shores, taking care not to disturb the fallen where they lay, an ancient Ni-Kunni claps his large, calloused hands repeatedly. More drones hum and zip to their proper places, assembling a finely nuanced image of the pitted cavern's acoustical characteristics.

In a tent high above, fresh-faced young meteorologists divine the atmospheric future of that inhospitable world.]

[Higher yet floats FEDERATION CUSTOMS TESTING FACILITIES, LUMINAIRE VII, MOON 1. The footsteps of a crone and her cylindrical kameira echo off the distant walls of a restricted pressurized hangar bay. Above, the sleek, unmarked hull of a Redeemer carves a silhouette from the station's illuminated shaft.]

Oh! How could I not love - adore! - a station built like this. These Gallente - such marvelous neurosis! Where have they been all my life? I suppose right here.... But can there be any doubt, I mean really, that they were influenced by depraved sadistic sodomites fleeing the collapse of ancient Araz?

[A lift descends from unpressurized regions. Moments pass, its doors slide back. An enormous, sealed black palanquin glides forward on floating coils, each side burned with the golden mon of Her Highness, the Dowager of Hilaban. The palanquin and dour cybernetic escort reach the crone and pause.]

The main event! The headline act! Three little birds with the Voice of God. Did you enjoy your trip, boys!

"We did!" cry the Amarrati in harmonious unison, eager footsteps falling here and there within their ominous artifact like boosted squirrels - barely more than twenty of the creatures in known space.

Ready for tubs and tubs of ice cream?

"We are!"

Excellent, sweeties!

Romancing The Rod: A Problem Arises

[CALDARI PRIME. Beneath a pitiless slate sky, camera drones race across a plateau of shattered rock and artificial ruin. The small machines deftly dodge embers between columns of acrid smoke as they press relentlessly into the heart of the storm. Beneath their hum, eviscerated bodies sink into the ignominy of futile war. Cresting a ridge, the drones swirl through ruined superstructures, down, down to a sunless, churning sea of waste and rainwater. Along its shores, Sebiestor underwear models in ripped boxer briefs affixed with bunny tails strike ineffectively at the desecrated earth with shiny mattocks. Appearing suddenly above them on an off-kilter terrace, a bent crone clings to the crooked arm of her towering cylindrical kameira for balance.]

Good news, everyone!

Do you remember that movie, you know, the one a while back, it was something like, oh, I'm not quite sure, I think it was... yes! Yes! That one: Blood Raiders of the Lost Temple of Death. That one. Do you remember the scene where the villains were digging in the wrong place? Oh! It's just the most amazing coincidence, Bunnies!

We're digging in the wrong place, too!

Tie an altar boy to the mantle and diddle him with a baster, would you believe it!? Not even just the wrong place, but the wrong planet - orbiting the wrong star! And more is the pity. Tibbus and his lads did such a wonderful job softening up the ground, here. Well, can't be helped - foot massages and warm oil tummy rubs for everyone!

Back to the ship! Fast march!

I love fast march.

Romancing The Rod: Initial Premise

Roughly six thousand years ago, Amash-Akura seized the throne of Dam-Torsad and embarked upon a series of conquests that would see him crowned First Emperor of Amarr. In the tenth year of His Imperial Majesty's reign, the skies went dark and angels descended from realms unknown. These brought gifts, and by gifts I do not mean taxes. Instead, they bestowed upon Amash-Akura the wisdom of Heaven, in the Crown Avetat; and, a fountain of ever-spurting youth, in the Rod Ametat.

Although I do not subscribe to the literal "angels" theory, if an advanced race parks its antediluvian titan over your capital, it cannot be discounted that they were directed in this undertaking by some higher power yet. Yes, yes, I'm aware of the pedestrian eclipse theory - trite silliness. An eclipse might have confused whatever "civilization" was crawling out of the mud on Pator, but come now. In any event, matters proceeded swimming for Amash-Akura, until they didn't.

That's how these things go.

There was a revolt, a plague or two, a Deceiver of some kind, Amash-Akura sent his guests away, and proceeded to win back his empire through personal determination. There was much rejoicing, until the Emperor died the next day. The Rod and Crown remained with the Imperial family for "centuries," but were eventually "lost" (how one misplaces immortality and the wisdom of Heaven, unknown at this time). The exact moment of their disappearance, also unknown.

About three thousand years later, my own bloodline began The Reclaiming. The Sani Sabik, or "Blood Fiends" first came into prominence around the same time. The Blood Fiends believed two things above all else: "savants" would rise to rule the multitudes; and, these "savants" would be immortal.

I redirect your attention, for a moment, back to the Crown (Wisdom) and Rod (Immortality).

The Takmahl were a breed of Templar associated with both the early Reclaiming and Sani Sabik sects. Still thousands of years ago, they left Amarr aboard cryo ships to settle the Araz constellation. There, within the span of a few hundred years, they developed cybernetic and bioengineering techniques far more sophisticated than anything left behind on Amarr at the time - as if guided toward immortality by an alien source of great wisdom. Parallel to Amash-Akura, however, calamity would overtake the Takmahl. Their civilization fell into ruin, picked over centuries later by Blood Raider birds of prey.

But did it end there?

As I mentioned previously, not only can one see the Mouth of God and gilded Amarr nebula from Araz, but so too does the Gallente nebula shine on a distant horizon. And by Gallente, I of course mean both Gallente and Caldari. As it happens, up until recently, the Caldari possessed a religious artifact known as the Creator's Rod. This was guarded by the Achura, which in turn leads me to:

The Takmahl secured the Avetat and Ametat during a time when they were trusted Templar, loyal to the Throne. Their study of the artifacts readjusted their spiritual priorities, turning them into eager, mystical proponents of a New World Order, in which of course, their savants ruled supreme and immortal. They moved too soon, however, and risked being destroyed by the sovereigns they once served. Badly outnumbered, the Takmahl leveraged a superior technological understanding gained from the Avetat to escape Amarr - using technology which manifested "immortality" in part as "cryo ships."

Power corrupts, and the Ametat and Avetat were powerful indeed.

Their civilization fell. Faced with collapse, desperate, some among the Takmahl once again took to space. One such group, carrying the Rod Ametat, reached Luminaire thousands of years ago and settled on what is now Caldari Prime. They took a name from the Emperor who first received their alien artifact: Akura. Having lived through two great falls, these mystics refused to repeat the mistakes of the past, and lived cut off from the outside world, guarding, but not abusing, the ancient relic - until the outside world forced itself upon them, and the relic was again lost.

Others fleeing the collapse of the Takmahl empire settled among the free spirits of what is now Gallente Prime, pampered by warm seas, and returned to the original function of their order: spiritual counselors to power, hidden even as the fangs of their more brutal descendantssank into surrounding spaces..

Was the crown Avetat also moved to Luminaire?

It is this question which draws me to the caverns of infrastructure beneath the Gallente's great cities - well, that and an endless legion of emaciated vagrant youths in desperate need of Mummy Noh's Mummy Dust! Who is a good boy!? That's right! You are! Now stick out your tongue and close your eyes, Mummy Noh will give you a big surprise!