Xeno Core

I awake and immediately regret it. The blurry image of Nuhst looms over me, scalpel busily employed slicing free the artificial organs keeping alive my withered and war ravaged body. He's splattered bright blue with my blood, his fine grey robes ruined. I can't move, strapped tightly to a table by cords of some fibrous material. Bright white lights glare into my face, blinding my primary eyes. The whir of suction, draining the blood as it pools in the gaping pit that was once my upper thorax, fills the chemical scented air.

"Awake are you, Denn?" With a sharp yank from his lower tendrils the filter leading to my toy lung is severed and pulled out of my thorax. "Wouldn't want the dry air to cause you distress, would we?"

"Mos Denn. You will address me properly, Jurer." Barely audible, and more painful than the crude incisions Nuhst is making, this short speech, I feel, is more than worth the effort.

"You are of no caste now, Denn," he sneers derisively. One of his upper tendrils stabs a sharp ended tube into the raw hole of my exposed lung, and I shudder as something cold is pumped in.

The worst fear our people know grips my soul. Only the most desperate seek it out, or those hatched doomed by fate. The dust.

The drug that gives the thaumatists their powers. Why would he waste this? Will this in some way help with his ritual?

I can't cough, the lung has been cut free of muscle control and Nuhst is manipulating it with his own tendrils. Driving the dust into my lung, to be carried into my hemolymphic pathways.

Why? He's using far more than any thaumatist would use on themselves. Is he trying to make me overdose on dust? Is that even possible?

First an emotional numbness washes over me, dulling my panic. Even the resentment at being so casually handled by one of a lower caste fades into a mere buzzing in the background.

Then the burning starts. Spreading from my thorax into each tendril, then further, burning the air around me, but causing even more intense pain than my failing flesh. The moment Nuhst sets his intricately cut core into my upper thorax is lost in the agony.

Even screams are denied me now, my vocoder laying in a tray along with several other organs, both magitech and natural. More are added even as I watch. My peripheral eyes? Four, five, yes all six are now on the tray. How I still see with no eyes is a mystery. And still he cuts away, though at what I cannot tell, as I have lost all feeling from my body, save a vague sense of cold.

I should be dead. Neither of my hearts are beating and Nuhst has stopped pumping my lung full of either air or dust.

I.. am I? I'm dead... But it still burns.

Everything passes from my awareness as I sink into a darkness deeper than any before it in my long life.

---

At least the pain is gone, though my surroundings leave much to be desired. As near as I can tell, I'm inside the package Jurer Nuhst has been carrying around.

Soft golden light filters through the organic membrane of the container, allowing me to take stock of my surroundings. Surgical tools, vials of dust, and coils of cord. Scrolls and jars of ink and my organs, neatly packaged in my fine zelsilk kerchiefs. We'll just tell people the blue spatters and smears are some of those new post-industrial designs the young are so fond of. Those stains are never coming out, blood never does.

A slow rocking motion informs me that the package I'm in is being carried.

This continues for quite some time, until an unknown feeling washes over and through me before fading as quickly as it began. A warmth rises inside the structural lattice of my new form as if energy were flowing gently inside, through the charred pathways left by the inferno only so recently gone.

A great deal of harsh noise can now be heard through the thin amber walls of my prison, so unlike the quite streets around my home, or the gentle susuration of the hivecity proper. It is also somewhat darker now, and cooler, as if less of the daylight were reaching us.

Clanging and shouts in unintelligible dialects as well as strange animal noises fill the air, echoing off the insides of my container. It is like nothing so much as the chaos of the battlefield. I can only be thankful for the lack of scent receptors of my new form. Industry has a reek all its own, and the opportunity to avoid the unique melange of odors this world offers is greatly appreciated.

The rocking becomes more pronounced, with irregularly spaced turns and stops adding variety to the routine. Nuhst, or who ever is carrying me now, must be walking through a bustling city. The closeness of alien voices confirms this. These are not my people we are moving through.

Eventually the all encompassing noise lessens, and a new darkness envelops my limited perceptions. We must have gone inside some building, or perhaps a tunnel.

My temporary home is set down before the top is peeled back and familiar tendrils remove me and place me onto a raised pedestal.

Nuhst is not the only one here, though he is the only one of my kind, the others being some strange alien races. Altogether there are six beings in this circular cavern, arrayed around the pedestal in the center. Three of them tower over Nuhst, being between seven and eight ubits tall, far too thin to seem stable upon their two legs. The remaining two are the strangest of the lot. Short, not quite reaching five ubits, but nearly as wide as they are tall.

As all are shrouded in darkness, most of the horrid details are hidden, but it is impossible to miss that these misshapen creatures resemble nothing from the world I knew. They resemble the basest of animals warped by a mad intellect into the parody of personhood. Perhaps odder than their appearance are the strange clicks, grunts, and whistling sounds that pass for speech among this group.

Whatever is being decided here is beyond my ability to influence. I can only watch, perhaps to learn what value they set for me. A price Jurer Nuhst will pay back several times over, once I wrap my tendrils around him!

Finely cut gems and small bits of metal are waved around, as well as a few objects which might be weapons. The shorter pair don't seem to be offering as much as the taller three. Nuhst is nearly dancing in place as more valuable goods are bid. A dust eater's greed knows no limits, and he continues to gesticulate, as if demanding even more.

The short pair produce several objects made from carved bone which excites Nuhst greatly.

It is with a sense of dread that I await the conclusion of their negotiations, knowing that my fate rests outside my control. Nightmare scenarios play out in my imagination, twisted visions of being cut into tiny pieces and used to barter the price of zelweavers.

Unwilling to be outbid, the tall gray creatures begin a strange display, with much shouting and gesticulation. They don't produce any more strange treasures, so I can only assume that their latest bid would not fit within the cavern where the auction is being held.

Whatever they bid, Nuhst is finally satisfied and gathers up the trade goods the thin giants have used to purchase me.