NationStates Jolt Archive

Life begins...
In the warm, dark place. Safety, thoughtless floating, no cares.
Then, suddenly, the warmth and darkness vanish, replaced with cold, hard reality.
"Stand."
Of all the organics in the planes, Phyrexians are amoung the few who understand the first words, and remember their births. Many wish they did not.
"Follow."
Six more...pale, weak and still soaked with the oil of the Vats. Six freshly decanted Phyrexian newts take their first clumsy steps on legs never before used. They are only four feet tall, but they look like fully grown humans, although they are genderless and pale. They have no hair or fingernails or toenails. Two fall, weak in body or mind. They die.
On Phyrexia, only the strong survive.
Each newt holds in its hands a stone, which glows ever so slightly, they are polyhedrons, many sided, but black at the very core. The Priests take them, saying, "This is your Heart. All your mistakes will be written on it. Should you make too many mistakes the Ineffable will devour your heart and make you part of His dreams. Do not make mistakes."
Soon the remaining newts pass through a portal, coming to the First Sphere. They know this place, all have seen it in their dreams. A grey sky reflects the surfaces orange glow back on itself. Phyrexia has no sun, no moon, no stars, only the everpresent glow of, the newts are told, the Ineffable.
"This is the place where your fate will be determined." The Learning Priest says to the Newts, now merged with other groups brought from the Fourth Sphere, "Here you will be evaluated. Some will become warriors, others priests, many will become labour. Most will become meat. Strive to learn and you will succede. Listen and obey."
Knowing nothing else, the Newts follow the priest, it shows them their homes, sturdy buildings of brick filled with rows of boxes. These buildings were built perhaps a thosand years ago, preserved by the dry atmosphere of Phyrexia, standing much as they did when they were first constructed, maintained by the hands of every generation of Newts that passes through them.

There are no names, only places. A Newt is not worthy of a name, only the Overlords and higher Phyrexians gain such honours. But Newts must be identified and recorded. A Newt is known by the name of the place where it stands to receive food, the place of the box it sleeps in. The great Lists show the place-names, and their work.
The food is meaty sludge that comes from the Fourth Sphere. On Phyrexia, nothing is wasted. It sustains the Newts in an environment that would kill any normal human.
Occasionally, the priests call the name of a Newt, and that Newt steps forward and vanishes. They are never seen again.
Work comes in the form of farming, of building, and of fighting. The farming is a futile exercise, all that grows on the First Sphere is metal, the organic seeds supplied to the Newts cannot take hold in the barren Phyrexian soil, so contaminated with heavy metals and salts. No matter how much scraping and digging is performed, no matter how many blisters and open sores the Newts collect.
Building is more rewarding after its own fashion, Newts maintain the buildings of the First Sphere, such as do not require expert attention. Others build new buildings, when one of the ancient dormitories finnaly collapses in the ever present winds of the First Sphere. The Newts pave roads, build houses, and demolish old or redundant structures. All to the everpresent "Listen and Obey".
When Newts fight, it is a special occasion. Very rarely an Overlord or Demon of the Ineffable will come to the First Sphere, and call the positions of two Newts. The fighting is rough, bare handed until one Newt is dead or broken. One newt is recycled, the other gains its position, receiving more food and space.
The Overlords and Demons are not like the Teacher Priests. Teacher Priests are low in the heirarchy of the High Phyrexians, being made of leather and other cheap materials. Only a few weeks after birth, many Newts no longer fear them. But the Demons are made of metal, and are capable of tearing a Teacher Priest into shreds with their minds alone. To speak to one as a Newt and survive often means that great things will come to that Newt.

Once the work is done and the Newts are strong, they begin to learn. They learn from the Priests of the history of Phyrexia, from when the Ineffable first came to mighty Halcyon as a mere meat-organic to the day he Ascended and became the God he is now, how in a mighty battle he took Phyrexia from a weaker God, as things should be. They learn that they, and billions before them, are repeating his journy from meat to perfection. It is at this point that their learning diverges. The Priests begin to learn more of the history, warriors make trips to the Fourth Sphere to observe the Compleat warriors training, labour goes to the Third Sphere and watches as the factories churn out the food of Phyrexia and learn how they work.
All who make it this far are honoured to a degree, although still meat, still trembling as feeble organic hearts pulse with blood, not the pure glistening oil of the Compleat Phyrexians.
Then the day comes when, a few at a time, Newts begin to vanish. Excitment builds as the group grows smaller, for in the night boxes vanish and rumous begin to circulate that Newts are being Compleated.

It is said that the first sign that they will take you is music. The first sound a Phyrexian hears aside from the howling of the wind, the threats of the Priests or the cacophany of the Third and Fourth Spheres. They say that the Ineffable will speak to you from his Dream, and tell you what you will become, or that he will take your soul and make it part of his dreams.

Then comes the day when they take a Newt, and that Newt goes to the fountain in the middle of the dormitories. The Priests raise the newt to the highest level of the fountain and the Newt steps in, baptised in the pure oil of the Fourth Sphere for the second time, and that Newt Ascends, for in Phyrexia 'up' is towards the Ineffable, mere orientation means nothing, all aspire towards the Ninth Sphere where perfection resides.
The Newt vanishes, taken to the Sixth Sphere, where, for a short time, they sleep and dream, while the High Priests do their work.

Thus begins the next phase of the life of a Phyrexian.

EDIT:
'Interest' meaning that this is basically just a background thread, no IC replies are expected.)

-OOC-

Nice! It's good to see a nation based on Yawgmoth's pawns.

Welcome to the endless struggles of Future Tech.

The Warrior

Darkness again, like in the Vat, but somehow more...more...
Words fail. There is only the darkness, the presence of the Ineffable close by, seperated only two spheres. Feeling the joy of the Ineffable as he dreams the workings of Phyrexia, guiding all life on the plane.
And then, the Newt awakens.
Only it is no longer a Newt. It is a true Phyrexian, no longer a creature of flesh and blood but a servant of the Ineffable, whose veins carry glistening oil and whose mind is tied forever with that of the Ineffable.
The warrior slides off the table, still slick with a mixture of oil and blood, and flexes its new arms. Marvels of Phyrexian design, they are longer, stronger, faster, in all ways better than the meat which used to enclose them. Six inch claws, fingers strong enough to punch those claws through a human skull with minimal effort, yet able to wield weapons effeciently.
The first steps in the new body are always awkward, the legs are a different shape and far, far more powerful than a Newts.
And, always present in the back of the mind, an undeniable urge to fight something.
A priest steps in front of the new born warrior.
"You are compleat." It says, "You will go to the Fourth Sphere and begin your training."
A portal appears, and the warrior steps through.

If the life of a Newt is hard, the life of a warrior is near impossible. Every day for twelve hours the warriors practice. They run, they spar, they fight. Then they go to their camps and rest. There is no sleep for them, warriors do not need it, no more than they need the soggy grey matter in their heads. A warrior can go on for hours without its brain, driven by the will of the Ineffable.
But some warriors show more potential than the rank and file. Some show cunning, brutality and drive needed to become more than mere killing machines.
These go on to become Negators, the warrior-assassins of Phyrexia. They return to the Sixth Sphere, and undergo weeks and months of modification. All trace of humanoid form is lost, as is all trace of humanoid thought. Negators think only of the mission and how to acomplish it, they need no emotions, no petty feelings. A Negator, however, can do more than simply kill a being, many are equipped for capture, others use weapons which can burn away the very soul of a being.
Without mercy, they will track down a target relentlessly, following it thorugh planes and across galaxies, destroying anything that gets in their way.
Negators follow no pattern, each is customised for a specific purpose. Some Negators carry weapons, others support equipment. All are lethal in a certain fashion.

Amoung these warriors a few are sent out every few cycles on some mission, the removal of a rouge, the deletion of a troublesome organic, maybe even a little random violence here and there to keep up their reputation.
One such mission finds them on the plane of Hussa, a mostly desert planet.
There are challenges to be had when attempting a stealthy infiltration of a desert nomad camp. They are often exceptionally paranoid people. The Qadirs tent was surrounded by torch-bearing guards, and with only two negators it would be difficult to defeat the entire camp should an alarm be raised.
Keeping low to the ground and making barely a sound, the negators have managed to come this far and now they wait, just outside the circle of firelight cast by the torches. Thus far they have avoided killing any of the camps guards or other denizens, as their mission commands. These people must be made to think that the neighboring Harshin have assassinated their Qadir, not a Phyrexian death squad.
Careful planning has thus far worked well, but it seems that the guards are a new addition to the Qadirs already tight security.
Then, opportunity strikes.
A guard shifts and his torch falls into the sand, going out. After a hasty conversation he assures the others that he is OK, and the Negators move in.
A single slash across the neck with a carefully prepared blade-arm, designed to mimic the wickedly serrated knives of the Harshin, and the guard goes down. The Negator carefully lowers him to the ground, then silently slices the side of the tent open and steps inside.
Two spells are plainly visible, alarms. The Negators hide, however, prevents these spells from detecting it. The only sound comes from a small bird, which chirrups briefly before a dart from the Negator fells it.
The Qadir's bed is, of course, empty. The Phyrexians have studied these people for some time now, and know their secrets though.
Silently, the Negators remove the carpets from the tent floor, searching.
One carpet reveals a reed mat underneath it, with holes to allow air to pass through. Once removed, the mat reveals the Qadir.
Without pausing, one of the Negators draws is knive-arm across the mans neck, severing his head. The other steps in and slices open his chest, plunging a grasping arm in, it rips out his still-beating heart, flooding the shallow depression in the tent floor with blood. Moving quickly, the first Negator slices the word Kirad into the Qadir's forehead, a word equivalent to the English 'Dog', only far more insulting.
Slipping out through the tent, the Negators take the same route they mapped on entering the camp, escaping undetected.