Post by Victor Adelai on May 20, 2012 21:00:23 GMT -8
The earthen walls of the sweat lodge were clean of ornament. The entire enclosure was a single, circular room. A single entrance was covered in layers of heavy leather. The room centered around a large fire pit and was dark save a single, old whale oil lamp.
The Ali'i stepped into the lodge, having to stoop through the entrance quite low. For a moment he appraises the room to ensure that things are in order. He nods at the area is clean and ready. He begins to mutter quietly as he reaches into a large sack upon his hip. He pulls chips of flint from the bag and drops them to the floor as he walks a circle about seven feet in diameter. Each chip has words before it is dropped. Each step produces a few chips. Finally, there is a circle. Massive hands are raised as the chant pitches upward and the trap is set.
He turns then to the cold fire pit and begins a different chant. Here he piles sacred cuts of ash. There, small mounds of awakened tobacco. And there, oils from an honorably slain whale. The Ali'i bends and strikes steel to flint, chanting a mantra of oneness and peace. The sparks touch the oil which birth a greedy flame. The fiery tendrils race about the pit, lapping at wood and tobacco, creating a sweet scent and oddly blue flame. The Ali'i nods contently before drawing a small portion of mirror from his satchel and stepping into the world of spirits.
Here, the room was much the same, though the flames brighter. Now the Ali'i draws from his pocket a handful of salt, walking a circle and chanting quietly. The tongue is darker now, twisted. He dances slowly, calling to the heavens and down to the earth. The salt is tossed into the flames and as the ritual peaks the ground rumbles and shakes and cracks. Fissures form and noxious gas erupts. A scaly, taloned hand bursts from the once pristine floor. Its claw dig down and pull. A thick forearm appears and clawed elbow. Another hand emerges. The creature twists and pulls itself free of the earth, a great towering beast.
The creature's skin was grey and smelled of rot, its breath equally horrid. Stringy matted hair caked the creatures body as well, but in sparse patches as if the maker couldn't decide if it was lizard or mammal. The creature's face was dominated by a beak, sharp and curved like a raptor, and two eyes and deep as pitch. The creature's shoulders sloped to fit in the lodge, but upright it might have been as tall as twenty feet. Rage filled it and boiled out; none could look upon it and not know it was a bane of nightmare.
The horror shrieked, a shout terrible and stomach turning. Its legs coiled and energy filled it for a charge. The Ali'i simply snapped his fingers and the air around the creature was suddenly alive with whirling, twirling bits of flint. The creature looked confused for a moment before launching itself at the paltry wall. Ethereal blood and gore flies off the creature as the wall chews it graciously and the creature shouts in shock and displeasure. Again it throws itself at the wall, and again it is rewarded with horror and dismay and pain. After a time, it nurses its injured shoulder and looks to the wicked Garou across from it.
"Why have you summoned me, whelp? I will rape your soul through the streets of Malfious for this!" the voice was loud as thunder and would have quelled a lesser being. The Ali'i shrugged; he had survived worse. "Answer me!"
The Ali'i simply folded his legs and settled before the creature. Reaching into the bag, he begins pulling bits of flint and broken black tile. He begins to arrange them in a pattern before the walls of the caged bane. At first the image is just an oval. Then it fills in. Then it reveals eyes, slots for a nose and a wicked mouth bent in a mocking smile.
"What is the meaning of this?" the bane roared and lashed out at the flint cage it found itself in.
"This," the Ali'i says softly in a monotone whisper. "Is why you are here. I wish you to become accustomed to me. You are my slave, and this will be your new home until the end of days."
The bane barks a laugh, lashing out at the flint keeping it contained. "The magics of this wall will fade soon. And then I will feast on your flesh and do wondrous things to the rest of you."
The Ali'i shakes his head slowly. "Not that cage, slave. That is a paradise compared to this gift I am giving you."
He gestured with a thick finger to the stones and tiles arranged before him, and the bane knew fear and revulsion. The shape was a mask... there would be no escape.