Audio / un: of corpse not

[nothinglikefather]

[ Originally recorded the day of the senator's ill-fated party.
Jacob's voice is sore, rough from coughing, and throughout the recording he coughs periodically, as if he's just escaped a fire. ]

It's a snake. The Chained God. A great big fucking snake, covered in... in bits of paper. With writing on. Couldn't read it.

The chains are too. We were chaining him up, the the floor. It was broken, full of fissures. Not the chains, the floor.

We were chaining him, and he was... he said he someone else had... broken the womb? Birthed destruction? Not him. Or they'd taken up the mantle, because they'd chained him up.

[ He coughs then, and keeps coughing until someone seems to pass him a drink, and he murmurs thanks.]

That priestess. She asked me afterwards. If he was still a threat, I think. Told her that he was a bloody god, and they'd chained him up, so if he got loose then they'd be fucked.

That's... that's what I rememeber. Before the fire started.

Comments

un: abwhorent / audio

[wifedup]

Another snake?

( Is he not keeping you busy enough, Jacob? )

[nothinglikefather]

He was just one.

Or you've met snakes before?

[wifedup]

Not personally.

( He does not fuck with giant snakes. )

But the girl, Hermoine, mentioned one, and then there was Kharil-asuk, the snake god wishing for sacrifices. I wonder if they are one and the same.

[nothinglikefather]

Me neither.

[ He doesn't have much to do with snakes of any size. Although he does feel... a strange kinship with the Chained God. ]

I've met Heromine. Sells nuts.

Was... this Asuk another one of the undead lieges? Or someone else entirely?

[wifedup]

Oh? Well, I suppose that's better than getting high in a tree.

( Sorry, Hermoine. )

I'm not sure. But there's an abundance of them either way. Perhaps someone more qualified can put two and two together.

[nothinglikefather]

High in a tree? I mean... you risk falling out.

[ He's got drunk on a roof before. Still dangerous, just less so.

He coughs, and again it takes a while to stop. ]

Maybe this world just has lots of giant snakes in... positions of power? Can see why people worship them. They're fucking huge.

[wifedup]

( Skill issue. )

It could be a snake is just the form the various deities of this place take, but then that implies Ephes has a correlation to Unkharil and I thought the movement implied otherwise.

( It's giving him a headache. )

Did you escape unscathed?

[nothinglikefather]

Unkh-karl? The jungle place we were at before? Fuck.

[ This is the problem with being fashionably late all the time Jacob.]

What? Yeah. He was chained up. Poor bastard.

[wifedup]

He might have been chained for a reason, I'd be more cautious in extending my sympathies either way.

( But Jacob does seem a little like a bleeding heart. )

[nothinglikefather]

Probably was. They...

[ Cough ]

They wouldn't do it for fun. I don't think tying up a god is easy. You don't do it on a whim.

And I don't think he was enjoying it.

audio. un: a_civil_serpent

[inferus]

( Why are there so many gods related to serpents in this world? That is supposed to be Wrath's claim. Never mind it is hardly the point, and he will not allow his pride to cloud the purpose of this conversation - that's for his brother to do. There was a long time within his own existence when he had been 'chained' in a manner of speaking. )

...I imagine the paper had wards on it.

Chains alone, even magical ones, would not be enough to contain a god. ( He would know having needed to imprison the likes of gods himself previously. )

[nothinglikefather]

God's aren't my area of expertise.

[ He doesn't know anything about how religion works here, not really, and he doesn't much care. He never believed in Gods at home either.]

This bastard though? He wasn't happy. Not trying to get away, but it was all cracked and crumbling like he had been.

[inferus]

Few beings would be happy about being chained for an undefined length of time, and gods generally have eternity - that is a long time to be trapped.

( Even mortals will rail against it unless they feel true remorse and guilt for their actions. Of course then, they would hardly deserve to be chained at all. )

Did they happen to mention why they were chaining this serpent god to begin with?

[nothinglikefather]

True. Worse if people are still praying to you and expecting you to do things for you. They chained him up and still hold this festival. Makes no sense.

[ He coughs, a little breathless, throat raw.]

He's god of destruction. I guess they were trying to stop him doing that.

[inferus]

As you mentioned, it's incongruous. Why worship a god of destruction so openly? Much of the city would do so? Generally, worship of gods of pure ill intent would be done in secret.

There are likely pieces still missing. ( There's an eyebrow raise at the coughing. Wrath is not currently attending the party, but he is in his residence at the moment, and it seems like the party may have... exploded as events often do when the group is around. ) ...how did you come across this information?

[nothinglikefather]

Maybe because he was the one helping them destroy others? People have gods of war after all. Death has a seat at most pantheons.

[ Evie could back him up on this. Where was the bookworm when you needed her? ]

Priestess gave me a drink, full of who knows what. And then I was chaining a fucking golden snake.

[inferus]

( And yet mortals don't worship him. They tell frightening stories about how the demon princes will take their childrens' hearts, and blood, and etc. He prefers to be feared than worshipped, but it is the principle of the thing. )

...it was gold? ( Why is this serpent stealing his colors as well? Sigh. Magical visions induced by a concoction then. ) They do have gods of death and war, but neither death and war are unbridled destruction. Death is a natural and necessary part of life, souls need a place to go. War requires strategy, and it is often about conquest, growing in power. This Chained God must have more to what it presides over than simply destruction itself - perhaps before it was chained, it was different.

[nothinglikefather]

[ Jacob would tell you to get over yourself mate. ]

You know more about this rubbish than me. All's the same from where I'm standing, but he's not my god.

...But you do have a point. Wasn't always "the Chained One" so, what was he before then? Maybe that would help us with all of this, help us work out... whatever it is we need to work out for these people.

[inferus]

It is difficult to keep track of all the gods in this world. ( Wrath attempted to learn them all in Taravast when he first arrived, but there was such a wide variety of beliefs and gods to keep track of. It was not clear even which were real and which were not. )

So long as we don't leave this place worse off than when we arrived. It is difficult to make decisions for an entire city - certainly without enough information. ( It is why Wrath has been cautious with his influence thus far in politics. The group won't remain to experience the consequences of whatever they do here. )

un: absterge

[downswing]

...rest.

[nothinglikefather]

Yes mother.

Will you tell me a [ cough ] story?

[downswing]

Unearned.

[nothinglikefather]

It's true you've not been very parental towards me but if you pull your finger out you could earn that moniker.

[downswing]

( What even. )

What priestess?

[nothinglikefather]

We weren't formally introduced.

But the priestess. The important one.