Stage 5
Helminth Hatchery
A Brother’s Respite
Field Report
Massive shining coils shift, red as Mercury blossoms, revealing a sphere of bright molten obsidian glowing inside a bowl of red stone.
Four stories up a large dark hand reaches through the glassless window, pets the coils and brings the bowl inside.
Strange tools of silver line the walls alongside endless artifacts freely given, intricately carved, and tenderly loved. His tribute.
He pulls an oblong clay jar down, a seal bearing his likeness breaks under his grip with a hiss.
Inside the jar, crackling starseed thorns and dried kifruit skins, their earthy scent fills the smoldering workshop.
For the morning star, he reaches into the molten obsidian and pierces the bowl with a starseed thorn from within. A thorn for each fate changed.
Many thorns and fates later, he tap tap taps a silver tool against the stone of the workshop.
Red coils in the window shift again, a massive burning eye curiously takes in the room, then it’s open mouth appears in the window, the sudden heat wave sending a song through a ceiling of silver chimes.
He places the spiked obsidian ball inside and pats it’s muzzle twice. The gilded wurm is to take the mace to the surface. The obsidian cools in a shaft of putrid moonlight, collecting lunar rage and loneliness.
For the handle, he wraps a rod of silver in dried kifruit skins and an eon of freedom, lost to gravity wells long ago.
Finally, he seals the obsidian weapon with a golden T emblem.
His gift. No, his apology.