Ring : Oracle
Dramatis Personae
Gron Mael (mentioned)
Bleddynia Lacona (mentioned)
Prologues
A Pasture of Crossroads
Starseed Siblings
Ring : Oracle
Blodaiweth waited until the early morning to visit Rodric Maur, who until Blodaiweth had shown up, had been the one parents warned their broods about. Rodric had a headgear which stopped him from being able to bite down, used only for severe cases of cannibalism. No one knew what he had been fed as a nymph, but whatever it was, it was enough for Blodaiweth to have second thoughts about asking the war chief to use his oracle.
“I want to know why,” Rodric said, and Blodaiweth realised that Rodric was a lot bigger than he had anticipated. Like the God of the Gvaneti, Yan Kube Maur, he was massive, the size of a fully grown sour apple tree. “Tell me why you would waste your short lifespan on gambling.”
The mention of his shortened lifespan - not even being able to complete a second Oak and Laurel Cycle, had left Blodaiweth extra sensitive to such implications. “Is that necessary to answer for use of your oracle?”
His fangs were the size of Blodaiweth’s thumbs as he laughed and his lye-blond hair carved out his chiseled, uncanny visage, Though the encampment was loud and chaotic, the roar of a laugh, guttural and just high enough to carry, seemed to hush the crowd into a tense silence for a moment.
“I guess it isn’t. But you gotta make an offering.”
“I have one,” Blodaiweth held up the phosphorescent ring, which glowed an eerie pale green in the dim morning.
“I mean an offering to me,” he said, forcing a grin on his squeaky metal headgear.
Blodaiweth thought for a moment. “You can take one of my handmaids. I have many species. You can pick.”
Rodri laughed. “And what am I supposed to marry it or what?”
“What you do with them after they’ve left my care,” Blodaiweth said coldly, “is up to you.”
And so Blodaiweth went into the mine shaft, carefully, and found a rusted mine cart in which was a towering box covered in strange coils and chunks of electum and copper. He spotted a body further down the shaft that looked badly burnt, though Blodaiweth couldn’t make out what the species was. He stepped delicately into the rusty cart and stared up at the large box, which contained a painted wooden doll- true to life and painted with the features of a Deii. The whites of their eyes and outstretched tongue glowed a soft green.
Blodaiweth glanced down at the copper coin which Rodri had handed to him in exchange for one of his handmaidens. He placed the ring by the strange looking electum and copper wire power source, and inserted the copper coin into a slot, hearing it clink and fall and rattle in the machine as the doll began to shift and move stiffly.
“Welcome, seeker,” a staticky and equally hollow voice boomed and echoed off the walls of the small mine shaft. “Rising from the depths is my sacred ode, the great prophet Myr Gwylt.”
Blodaiweth did not know where the acrid smell of fire was from outside or underground anymore, which worried him because the oracle was in an old mineshaft guarded by this looming creature. “Tell me about the man who gave me that ring. The man named Gron Mael-”
He was interrupted by the recorded voice. “Now touch the scrying ball, and your fortune will be carbonized.”
There was a bright flash of light that stunned the flower bride, and it left an audible gap in the air pocket that filled the mine shaft before a thin, glossy paper began to print out his fortune, curling as it got longer, like a tiny, frail scroll. Even in the low light, Blodaiweth could make out the words.
Did you ever love me, or was I your only way out? I will wonder until your body falls to pieces around my soul.
Blodaiweth’s lip curled and his face scrunched into a deep frown. “That’s it? That’s all he has to say?!” he snapped, grabbing the ring and rushing out of the mine shaft to see Rodoric.”I need another coin. This fortune is useless.”
“Let me see that ring of yours,” Rodoric said, and Blodaiweth gave it to him with hesitation. “I’m not gonna lift it. If it’s what I think it is, a sour fortune is all you can hope to get with a ring like this.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean,” Rodoric said, holding the dimly glowing ring between his fingers, “this thing is a novelty they sell at festivals. Tyl Hen makes them to recruit followers. They’re worth almost nothing.”
“It was gifted to me by a lover,” Blodaiweth said.
“And what happened to that lover?”
“That’s what I was asking the oracle.”
Rodric shrugged. “Suppose you weren’t close enough to him that he wants to answer. Especially if he gave you a cheap toy for a ring.”
Blodaiweth was too angry to answer appropriately, hissing through his sharp, pointed teeth- the ones he’d grown when Gron had first been inside of him. “Well, what would you know about love? Your people breed your nymphs to eat each other.”
He turned away and tried to push his way through the encampment, eyes burning from the smoke and the oracle’s lasting words on his mind, but Rodric wasn’t done yet, even as his tall and lumbering form went toward and into the mine shaft.
“I know one of your flower maids is Lou Hen’s sister,” he said, as he disappeared into the dark and Blodaiweth felt a sharp breath leave his body, realisation unfolding over him like a miasmic cloud. “Hiding away after your disgrace upon him. Make sure she’s dressed up nice when I come to pick my offering tomorrow.”
Notes - Articles to create:
Tyl Hen (character)
Oracle of Myr Gwyllt (item)
Oracle Box (technology)
Electum (material)
Radium Ring (item)
Rodric's Encampment (settlement)
The Mine Shaft (landmark)
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