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ROLE 1
Allorthis, only being a servant of the House Silverstar, had no place to be questioning his employer's wishes.
He could not help but feel uneasy as he slipped quietly down the stairway spiraling to the ground beneath their
tree-dwelling: he was not used to dealing with foreign humans or conducting House business in the middle of the
night. He unhooked his horses' reins and quietly trotted through the starlit marketplace to the edge of the Vale.
The human, Grange, was there, as Dannathaliorn had said he would be, along with the cart.
Along with the shackled, hooded, black-skinned form of... of an inert fire giant. His heart skipped a beat.
THIS was the new subject? Could it truly be? Was the master MAD?
The human snorted, spat, then cracked a wide crack-toothed grin. "Not what yer were expectin? Hand over the
golds and lets be done with this. Yer don't want him wakin' up prema-chooly." The elf straightened his spine,
regained his composure, and handed over the pouch. Grange just chuckled madly to himself as he swung his bulk
onto his broken-down nag and rode into the night.
Allorthis reviewed his instructions mentally as he hitched up the cart and prepared to make his incognito delivery.
ROLE 2
Dannathaliorn had been delighted. A living, breathing fire giant! It had eaten poorly and been given over to fits of
rage for the first 48 hours, but eventually it submitted to the obstinate frost-enchanted ironwood bars.
Dannathaliorn Silverstar was a transmuter of some skill, given to studying the workings of the mind and the behaviors
it governed.
Eyrndiahl, as he was named, felt only confusion, and a deep-down, burning rage. He had been purchased through an
arrangement (through a sufficient buffer of intermediaries, of course!) with a group of "labor producers". Fire giants
never come cheaply, but House Silverstar was more than able to accomodate such a hefty purchase, especially in the name
of research for the common good, for the Light.
Silverstar's hypothesis was simple: could a base, wicked creature such as a fire giant, be made to be and perform good,
through proper circumstances and conditioning?
ROLE 3
The training went remarkably well. The young giant was obviously not acculturated, and thus took to
his lessons (with the unfortunately liberal use of his associate's marvelous adaptation of the old
Veran collar technology to frost magic) quickly, if not spiritedly. Soon enough, Eyrndiahl was
speaking and exercising the self-restraint and good behavior necessary to allow introduction to
society at large! They had met with much opposition, uncertainty, and general outcry incipiently,
but through numerous scheduled demonstrations of the beast's ability to read simple noun/verb
phrases, match colored tokens, and carry little Itenthis Silverstar in his massive arms with
something resembling gentleness, the allegations had melted into donations and admiration!
Clearly, Silverstar's hypothesis and training skills had been correct: a sufficient dampening
of the primitive giant's adrenal flow, compounded with an increase in estrogen production and
proper training (including, but not limited to: being taught a sufficiently civilized language
such as Darsylonian Elvish, a proper diet low on meat, since such food encourages a savage
nature, and remedial children's lessons such as colors, numbers, and proper nouns) could make
a docile, obedient creature with hope for a life of redemption (and of course, extensive
physical service) in the Light!
ROLE 4
Eyrndiahl sat heavily outside the warrior's guild. Lord Silverstar had pointed the dreaded hickory
wand at him earlier, as he had reached out to grab the end of a flaming stick from the hearth,
and had frozen his neck, his mind with pain and cold. So he was sent to play outside, with Itenthis
assigned to keeping an eye on him (also endowed with one of the hickory wands). The giant liked to
watch the warrior guildmaster: he grinned and sniggered when the students were smacked on the head,
when they fell to the floor, wind knocked out of them. Eyrndiahl had cuffed Itenthis once, and sent
him sprawling in a heap across the room. The giant was pretty sure he'd nearly died from the blasts
of frost afterward.
He remembered the pain all too well. But he also remembered seeing the boy fly... it had felt right.
It was the same feeling as when he watched the cooking fires, as when he'd eaten Itenthis' pet rabbit
whole: it was a feeling of affinity, of belonging he felt only in his dreams. There, he was able to
SMASH through the badcold bars, smash the skinny elves that always held out their little wands in
front of them, hands trembling, fear carving their faces. He smashed them to broken and bloody rags,
then roared, and the small cooking fire answered. It burned their remains, it burned the hated collar
from his neck, it burned the house and the trees. No elf was able to tell the fire what to do: it ate
them, it destroyed their precious trees and flimsy houses that creak and threaten to snap under a
giant's weight.
In his old dreams, Darsylon burns, and Eyrndiahl is as free as the roaring flames. They do nothing
but what they are meant to: they eat and destroy, they dance along his flesh and make him strong. In
his new dreams, though, they coil about him and he roars with them. They take shape and move not like
a simple fire, but like a great snake. Last night it had coiled about him, but instead of screaming
with him, it had curled about with its fiery face centimeters from his, and it had spoken, somehow.
It had made him fire, let him feel the thrill of racing along dry kindling, of screaming over a
summer-brown meadow, it had made him a serpent, feeling the thrill of the strike, the assuredness
of crushing the prey with his coils, the contentment of resting in his warm den with a full belly,
ready to sleep. It had shown him the caves in the stark volcanos, the raging fires and lava within.
The snake had shown him the old times, night-hunting and howling at the moon, the smell of roasting
meat and the rich taste of dripping fat, the taste of warm blood quenching the fire in his belly,
making him finally content and sleepy...
He was startled from his reverie by a small, sharp stone hurled expertly into his left temple.
Eyrndiahl was so startled he fell over. The usual elvish children, led and encouraged by Itenthis,
were throwing rocks again, two of the boys brandishing dull pocket-daggers they'd received a few weeks
earlier. They liked to throw rocks, and stab him with their little daggers, since his thick flesh took
all their strength to prick. They made fun of his words, how his clumsy tongue spoke their Elvish so
crudely and stupidly, how he was big and ugly and fat and malformed and taller than the rest of them,
unlike anyone within idyllic Darsylon.
Eyrndiahl finally snapped.
ROLE 5
Perhaps Silverstar's training had been insufficient. Perhaps there was some cortical or glandular
modification that could have prevented the tragedy. Perhaps the frost collar's magic had faded?
There's now way of knowing now, sadly.
The warrior guildguard recounts a story much like this: the giant ran toward him, howling in grief
and terror, so he held his polearm out before him, ready to legsweep the maddened giant. He only
remembered suddenly looking up from the ground up at the giant swinging his weapon, and his hands
finding fresh blood flowing from his head. Eyrndiahl's howls had changed from fright to bellows of
unbridled rage. He swing the polearm crudely, but with a might born of anger. Very quickly, the small
mob of elven children lay unconscious and bleeding, or had fled.
He saw the collar shaking and crackling with light as the frost magic flashed wildly about the giant's
neck, shoulders, and head. He saw the young Itenthis Silverstar brandishing the wand for all he was
worth. He remembered seeing the giant pick the boy up by the throat, tear the wand from his trembling
hands, and then bury it in the elf's eyesocket 'til it splintered.
Then, the giant roared again, hauled himself mightily up a rope ladder into the canopy. Soon, the
smoke began to billow from the Silverstar house. Thus ended Dannathaliorn's grand experiment.
ROLE 6
Eyrndiahl had escaped the cage of the elves. He had heeded the whispers of the Ancient Fire Serpent, of
his own dark nature, and fought his way to freedom. There is no looking back. He is now free, but
violently and unstably so. Armed with only his stolen polearm (now cracked and battered to the point of
uselessness) he has learned to adapt to life in the wilds. Shying away from the colder north, the giant
ran south, roaming about the Northern Plains and Azreth Forest, where game and cover are plentiful.
He has taken a new name to fit his new life: Pique. The Ancient Fire Serpent finds him in every dream,
now. It wraps about him, becomes him, shows him a life of hunting and combat, of blood and freedom, of
fire and freedom. The dark joy he feels when he swings a killing blow, when he feels the crackling flames
lick his skin, smells the smoke in his nose, watches the blaze eat up trees, grass, walls, screeching
men and women is incomparable. This is who he is meant to be, what he was meant to do. He lives to kill
and eat, to burn and crush what is weak before him.
He has relied on his instincts to primitively bludgeon and bash his prey, but he has seen warriors
travelling the roads and wilds. He has shared meat and fire with some looking for a place to rest, and
has learned from their pastiche of short lessons. He knows he needs a true warrior master to learn from,
to teach him like he saw the Darsylon guildmaster train the weak elves to quick and graceful warriors.
He wants to know their moves, and how to counter them with his strength. He has stuck with his long weapon,
the Darsylon polearm long ago cracked in half, since he can rip a new one from any straight-limbed tree.
ROLE 7
Pique has followed the whispers and urgings of the Ancient Fire Serpent not as a slave, but as a lost
cub finding a kindred spirit. For the first time, life makes sense.
His worldview is immediate, and personal: he is bigger than everything else because he is strong, and
meant to kill and eat, to remove the small and weak from the world. His fire and the ashes that dance
afterward destroy what is dead or too small to survive. He believes life is for those strong enough to
take it, or at least to hold on to it. If a creature is strong enough to live, it will be able to quickly
run, cleverly hide, fight with strength, or have enough offspring that some will scatter and live, whether
that be escaping the hunter or the forest fire. There will be no mercy for slaver elves that use frost
magic and tricks, or any that use his slave name, Eyrndiahl.
The Serpent hisses approval in his dreams. It says he is a child of the wilds once more. It now grants
him visions of fire, of Pique dancing a brutal warrior's forms throughout the flames, and one new vision:
a great Tree across the sea, filled with spirits howling to enter the waking world.
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Prob my fav. role so far. Enjoyed it. Was a fun run.
CraftedDeception.
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