(no subject)

[sythyry]

Yylhauntra in the Pool of Boiling Acid [11 Lage 4261]

I have been accused of transcribing conversations into this journal. This is a false accusation! I would if I could, sometimes, but I can't remember them so precisely and cannot really stop and take notes of my most intimate moments. I reconstruct them afterwards, from memory and from my best impressions of various people's styles.

Except today. Yylhauntra was in class as a visitor, and I was perfectly capable of taking notes. Except that I was too flustered to do it. So this is my usual slapdash reconstruction of things.

1. Q: What was your role in the Battle of Pelcour?
   A: I was the chief military engineer and architect.
2. Q: So you didn't have much to do with the actual battle?
   A: Well, it wasn't my decision, really, but I was at the meeting where we decided to attack Pelcour. I thought it was a good idea.
3. Q: Do you still think so?
   A: I should have invested more effort in military engineering about it, to kill fewer people we didn't mean to.
4. Q, by Prof. Phrass: You were a Hrreptite?
   A: Yes -- I still am.

   (Aside: We had learned that the Hrreptites were -- and are, I suppose -- a philosophically-motivated rebellion against the Calanchian Empire (that part being very much finished, (and, I guess, victoriously, in the sense that there seems to be one Hrreptite still around and no permanant inhabitants Calanchian Empire unless someone in New Calanchia has an exceedingly bad case of diarrhea)) and against the traditions of hereditary ruling nobles in general (that part being, at best, work in progress). (I must introduce Yylhauntra to Strenata.))

5. Q: How could you not know about the viceroy of Pelcour?
   A: We didn't have very good informants among the nobility of Pelcour! They didn't generally support us. Even if they had, it wouldn't have helped much in this instance. The viceroy naturally kept his discussions with the emperor very quiet; he had various political enemies who might well have wanted to know for their own purposes. The nobility of Pelcour, in particular, would have been very upset to learn that the imperial viceroy was considering taking the opposing side. But we weren't particularly aiming at the viceroy.
6. Q: Prof. Phrass said you were trying to destroy the whole city, though.
   A: It was during the Holocaust Wars, and that was the spirit of the times ... but, no, we were trying to destroy the Hausdorff Militia hall, and as many of the militia as we could. I claim no virtue though. We would have tried to destroy the city if we could have done ... if we had known how devastating the tubers were.
7. Q: Who were they? The Hausdorff Militia I mean.
   A: A Cani and Rassimel gang who had been burning our cities and impaling quite a lot of us. The Holocaust Wars weren't a very nice time, really.
8. Q by Prof. Phrass again: Cities? The Hrreptites had cities? I thought you were a philosophically-motivated rebellious movement.
   A: Cities, yes. Perfy and Hrauminy, in particular -- that's the "hr" and "p" in Hrrept, you know. Client cities, not city-states in their own right. The movement started as a bid to make Perfy and Hrauminy into their own city-states in the ordinary way. The philosophical side started when we were thinking about who the dukes of those cities would be. It was never that important a part of it to us -- we were mostly trying to take advantage of a lot of confusion and discord elsewhere to get our own independent city states. Not even really that even -- we'd still have been part of the Calanchian Empire, just like Pelcour.
   A: Prof. Phrass: But the philosophical side distinguished you from the various other local rebellions.
   A: It certainly brought us to the attention of more historians!
9. Q: So, um, what happened, that so much of Pelcour was destroyed?
   A: Killed, not destroyed. Our best guess was that a dying Hausdorff sorcerer -- probably a bit mind-burned -- exploded the guildhall. We'd expected them to burn it, which we thought would have been safe. The tubers came packed with firespells to burn them if they were accidentally opened. Exploding it sent bits of very dangerous tuber all over the city, we gather.
10. Q: What were those tubers, anyways?
    A: Something that Vimirance -- one of our scout types -- stole from the Imperial Arsenal of Dentheia. We never knew exactly what they were, but they weren't guarded as heavily as the things that could out-and-out destroy a city.
    A: by Prof. Phrass: Katarhezoi Varidementia, from one of Birkozon's sub-realms, imported by Thremantia the Polythiator, and first used in... He rambled on for three whole minutes about them. Probably trying to prove that he actually knew something.
11. Q: So was it really as stupid a massacre of innocent people as Prof. Phrass made it out to be? Idrissa does not like Prof. Phrass and wanted to embarrass him.
    A: Yes, it was. But that was the spirit of the time, really.
12. Q (to Idrissa): Is there such a thing as a sensible massacre of innocent people?
    A (by Yylhauntra): Sure, a massacre of anyone but us. Zie used a somewhat obscure pronoun that pretty much had to mean "primes." I'd be glad to help massacre cyarr again. Or nendrai if I could manage it.
13. Q: Massacring nendrai?
    A: Next question please. Zie gave me a meaningful glance from which I elicited absolutely no meaning.
14. Q: How did the Hrreptites decide to attack Pelcour in the first place? What were your command and information structures like? Q by a Cani, of course.
    A: ... Zie said quite a bit about it, and about further questions about what they should have done to avoid mistakes like that in the first place. (Point 1: Don't let the Calanchians take over everything.) I got bored and didn't take many notes.

Comments

[redbird]

A thought and a question:

I suspect you'd best not mention to your great-grandparent that you are associating with monsters on friendly terms.

What are nendrai? And cyarr, for that matter?

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Nendrai are, I think, the most terrible monsters native to the World Tree. They're big lizardly people with a great deal of Muto (transformation) magic. They want things from primes -- the act of getting things from primes is an end in itself to them, and one they greatly crave. Gnarn made them -- she's the goddess who made the Sleeth -- and they're sort of her pet species. She keeps tinkering with them.

Cyarr are [hyena-centaurs]. They have been a problem for primes since the first years -- they were all over the upper world-branches, where we were created, and we had to drive them off or kill them. Which we mostly did. There aren't many (or any?) in Ketheria now. They're still common outwards in the upper branches, and on lower branches. They're not very powerful people individually, but they're very determined.

[goodluckfox.livejournal.com]

Nendrai are powerful monsters with lots of magic. Cyarr are sort of large hyena-centaurs who lack access to certain crucial types of magic. Cyarr are sort of like our own Native Americans. Except the Primes dealt even more harshly with the Cyarr than we did with the Native Americans... and the Cyarr have had somewhere to run to and regroup, and are rather miffed about the whole affair.

That about sum it up, Sythery?

I was fascinated by the story of the tubers.

Loxley

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

I always thought of the Cyarr as being more akin to the asian cultures. Since, you know, we're still enemies with (many of) them, but we trade with them, and aren't *currently* at war although we expect to be at some point in the future.

[goodluckfox.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that is a really good analogy with China for example.

Loxley

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

[Sythyry looks a bit perplexed about Native Americans. Bard explains.]

Well, they're more like sentient vermin, I should say.

[Bard very much disagrees.]

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

*glancing at the answer to 12*

I think it's very, very important that you not let Yylhauntra read your journal.

[brennabat.livejournal.com]

If she does, and if we are all massacred, at least it may provide Sythyry with some insight in to powerful magics. Perhaps we'll even earn a footnote in an obscure branch of prime history, or at least a footnote in a B-grade term paper. The Readership Massacre, by Sythyry (or, rather, by Yylhauntra).

*pauses to rethink above comment*

Speaking of massacres and, ah, tubers I am reminded that I have ... devoured yet another world! It has granted me uncanny resistance to root-based assaults. I am fearsome and impressive! Mortals cower and say, "Oh Bat, you are surely unmassacreable." Which I am. Did I mention fearsome? Very fearsome. No one should, er, would dare massacre me. I also run very fast! Fearsomely fast. Rrr!

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

I think that, if Yylhauntra (or anyone of suitable might) were actively in the mood for a massacre, there are plenty of massacres available closer to hand. There are cyarr within two or three branches, for one thing, and I can't imagine that anyone would complain if Yylhauntra (or whoever) went and slaughtered a few hundred of them.

[Bard notes that the cyarr themselves might complain. Sythyry ignores it.]

In any case, off-world expeditions are expensive and dangerous, compared to closer ones.

In any case, I should think that a nycathath wouldn't make the easiest target.

[Bard privately explains that nycathath are brawny butch bat-beasts, fairly impressive monsters of the World Tree, and not easily massacreable, and that Sythyry has surely mistaken you for one.]

[yotogi.livejournal.com]

Nycathath... Locathah? That seems familiar to me.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Locathath are D&D undersea somethings, aren't they?

Nycathath are WT big brawny giant batmorphs.

[yotogi.livejournal.com]

I honestly can't recall what they are now. I suppose my vocabulary of strange consonant-heavy nouns is growing cluttered with age. Ah well, ai n'gngah!

[brennabat.livejournal.com]

It is good current World Tree prime culture, to the best of my knowledge, is not looking for a taste (of blood) of the extremely foreign. Now and then that sort of desire crops up around here.

(Aside to Bard: Hm, mistaken for a brawny butch bat-beasts, a fairly impressive monster you say? Why, er, that fits me to a T. Yup. No need to correct Sythyry on that. At least, not until cross-dimensional massacres are in style.)

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

They're imperialistic, or colonialistic at least, but they'd rather travel a few hundred miles (through the domain of a vaguely mischiefious god) than an infinite distance (through the domain of an out-and-out vicious god) to do it.

Some of the minority species have a taste for blood, but the majority ones don't particularly. And there's plenty, plenty to fight on the World Tree in any case: there's dangerous wilderness thirty miles away from just about anywhere.

(I didn't show Sythyry any pictures of you, Brenna.)