EPTThe able ones from the mountains, the Kespins, came down covered in strange hides. They sought warm air and arable land. They took it from the peaceful plain-dwellers – Forinners – whom they slaughtered for sport. For a time things stabilized under Kespin rule, but those in the distant forests knew it was a matter of years before their resources became an object of contention.
Seeing that war was inevitable, the forest-dwelling Forinners had begun stockpiling materials and training for war. Even the children were taught how to hamstring a man. Content with their readiness, the people rested and began the sacrifices. Victory would be in the God's hands now.
The following days brought clear skies and renewed hope. The fourth day, the mood was especially buoyant. It was on that day – the fourth day of the sacrifices – that the vertebrates were depleted two days early. The last skull being smashed, the elders, that they would keep their people from despairing, decided hell already awaited – and masqueraded as if the Gods were still being honored. It was upon their first unpaid utterance that the volcano beyond the mountains erupted.
The hooded one realized himself. He was not like the other Forinners, who were plagued with conscious thought that contested itself – and other minds in turn – over the tiniest minutia. He did not think. He was as water. His path had long been decided; a clear stream held together by the surface tension of fate, drawn by gravity to it's destiny. The hooded one set sight on the village below and embarked on his path.
The people had grown uneasy in the days following the “sacrifices”. The eruption was a bad omen, and the young men acting as scouts had seen war-bands of griffin-fowl skulking at the edge of the river, far beyond their usual domain.
These were not ordinary griffins. Owed to millenniums spent in the canopied bogs, they had lost their ability to fly; yet their tongues had grown longer for want of food, and could wield weaponry taken from man. Their talons were barbed, and said to inject a venom that turned one to slime. Their soft feathers had grown chitinous to shelter them from the blade-grass, and fungus grew upon them. The fowls heads craned about with inhuman reflex. To them, man was a crop; it felt no pain. It was harvested with complete indifference. In their soulless eyes, all was consumable.
This wasn't supposed to happen. The elder women knew of the God's dispositions, but said nothing. The men convened at the fire-dent in the center of town. Nervous glances were cast about; “Is our destruction imminent? We have honored the rituals for years, we fell short but once! Oh Unseen Ones, where is our true prophet?”
There had been some hope-carriers in the past. One called himself J'Inro, a legendary warlord who fought the Kespins in their home territory for years, slaying many of their finest warriors; but he was unable to defeat the hordes of skin-bearing able ones, as the Gods cursed him in his prime. He finally inked treaty with the Kespins and took up a has-been capacity among the Forinners of the plains, those whom had not yet been conquered, that is.
There had been Eye'Drah. He had been proclaimed “the angry one”; the one to challenge the Kespins and end the time of pain. He had led the starving bands into the mire to eradicate the griffin-fowls, whose venomous shite and talons had long plagued the Forinner's crops. This maneuver would allow his army to grow exponentially, and overrun the Kespans. But alas, arrogance was Eye'Drah's downfall; “the angry one” blamed his men for his own shortcomings, and inspired mutiny in the ranks. He was relieved of command at the behest of the elder councils. Their dreams crushed, many villagers suicided that year, and the extra sustenance went to waste.
Another called himself Stefano. He had forsaken his studies in a larger village to answer the Forinner's call, the call to end the time of pain; of irrelevance. He led the tattered clans against the Kespins themselves – in the vein of J'Inro – but had an affinity for the drink and smoking strange herbs. After many successful battles, he found his edge blunted by carnality. He saw he could not defeat the Kespins, and chose to forsake the prophecies – and proclaimed himself “but a student” – and returned to his studies – and the times grew dark again.
It had been eight-hundred years since Stefano inspired hope. The Kespins had not lost ground in centuries. The Kespins had taken to fighting amongst themselves more than the Forinners, who kept a good distance away, though at the cost of much fertile land and water. The Kespins were content with their wealth and squandered it on idle musings, with conquest falling by the way-side. As was their fashion, they wore so many pelts that they constantly drank for want of hydration; a custom which mocked both the excesses at their disposal, and their humble mountain times.
All Forinners who attempted to negotiate for land with these strange mounds of hide were stockaded, and then released; of their heads.
The elders continued their anxious banter around the fire. A shadowy figure emerged from the trees. It took the fossil'd ones many moments to notice. “To arms!” they cried upon finally perceiving him. The Forinners scrambled to their devices, formed a crescent-moon in front of the hooded one and paused, fearless in their numbers.
Just then a sly youngster approached the dark figure from behind, eying the man's knees, ready to use his childish tactics. The hooded one extended one fist to the sky, and the boy turned man, rippling with muscle and sinew. The morphed one knelt in reverence to the figure.
Villagers and elders alike were taken aback – mouths agape – and left speechless. Lowering his coif, behind which eyes shined like ruby'd-lava, the figure spoke:
“I will destroy the Kespins. I will heal your tatter'd crops. Assist me by way of sustenance and shelter and I will deliver you from the times of pain – of irrelevance – and seal your future as the masters of this earth! Fossil'd ones, retrieve the prophecies!” And at that, he extended his hands and conjured two-hundred men, willing to die for his cause. The villagers, beaming with hope, set about chopping timber for the warrior's billets.
The elders fixed their stunned gazes upon S'On Plott, the most learned of them all, the guardian of the Cave of the Ancients. “I shall honor your command!” he shouted, as he grabbed a torch and ambled off to the chasm – that chasm which had long before been covered in earth and hidden from the Kespins and fowl.
Grabbing the unmarked patch of grass, he peeled back the earth-stuffs, and slid inside the chamber. Holding his torch to the walls, he paused for a moment to observe the ancient writings of the Protoss, illuminated by the dancing firelight. The learned one breathed in hope and exhaled fear – for the first time in many years – and began the long descent into the holiest of Forinner shrines.
