Adoration’s Obsession
The flesh removed,
The skin consumed,
Bones crushed to powder,
Nothing is left behind but disgust.
Adoration’s Obsession, also known as the Dassen Origin, is a story told by both the dassen and zokex peoples. It is thought to take place before the awakening of the Goddess Scara, when Das was still whole and unshattered by the Island Mover Vale Nor, and details the creation of the dassen race.
The story tells of a zokex named Adoration who desperately wanted to become a nurlak. Adoration gained influence among a small, dedicated group of zokex and rose to power as leader of what can only be described as a fanatic cult. This cult committed horrible crimes in Adoration’s name; eventually kidnapping, mutilating, and murdering a young nurlak child in order to create a form-changing potion. This potion was supposed to transform the members of the cult into nurlak but, due to the brutal nature of the murder, the ancient nurlak gods refused to allow the cult members to become fully nurlak and instead they became the first dassens.
There are some theories that Adoration lived on what are now the Garro islands and her spirit is the cause of the uneasy aura that lingers over the land. This has never been confirmed.
The Origin of the Dassens
Adoration.
That was the name she had chosen.
Her old name, the one given to her by her mother, was abandoned long before she landed on Das. Nobody knew it; all they knew was what she called herself.
And what they called her behind her back.
Obsession.
For Adoration did not adore; she obsessed.
She obsessed on stories; old fairy tales and mystical legends passed down the generations.
And she obsessed on change; the mystery of the seasons and the turning of the weather.
And she obsessed on magic— Oh, did she obsess on magic!
It was her everything.
Magic.
She bothered alchemists and spell-casters until they would hide from her. Though she would always find them.
She was incessant.
Unwavering.
Unbearable.
Magic users never stayed long in the settlement. As soon as Adoration discovered them, they would find themselves fleeing the land to get away from her.
And there was nothing any zokex could do about it.
They couldn’t punish her nor drive her out; she’d broken no laws.
But, oh, how they longed to.
How they longed to find a reason to justify her expulsion from their home.
To chase her out into the jungle to fend for herself and bring peaceful quiet back to their lives.
But they couldn’t.
For, as irritating as she was, she had done nothing to harm anyone.
Well.
Not at first.
They say it was the beginning of a new year when she first discovered the nurlak.
That was when the settlement started to fear her.
She was no longer simply a pest— She had become a danger to the community.
She wanted to study the nurlak, she said, and would pay to anyone who would escort her to their territories so she could seek out their temples and watch their rituals.
It didn’t take many deaths for the locals to start avoiding her.
And only a few more before travellers learnt to do the same.
There were too many incidents for it to be coincidence and so rumours started to spread.
Why were there so few survivors, when she was always unharmed?
Was it really the nurlak killing her guides? Or... was it something much more sinister?
The settlement was grateful for the final day of the hot season— The day that Adoration’s guide returned without her.
Most had assumed her dead. Taken by the nurlak she obsessed over.
Others claimed they had caught glimpses of her in the jungle; adorned in clothes and animal pelts stolen from offerings left at the temples.
Nobody was sure what was true. Nobody really cared.
They were just happy for the peace that followed her disappearance....
If only it had lasted.
Four years of peace.
That was all that the settlement had from the magic-obsessed dragon.
Four years.
And then, as suddenly as she had vanished, she was back.
She was said to be a horrible sight.
When she had first lived in the settlement she had been blue. Bright and beautiful like the most pure soulstone crystals.
But not anymore.
Now she was a colour never known before to zokex kind.
Swirls of red and black and yellow covered her body, looking like an infected wound that would not heal. The membranes in her wings were dry and flaking from neglect; the thin skin between her long fingers covered in scratches and half-healed scabs from the jungle’s thick brush. Her teeth were rotted and yellow and her eyes bloodshot; her pupils so constricted she looked frantic as she stood at the settlement’s edge.
It is said that every bone in her body was visible under her tight skin; her gaunt form moving like a corpse in rigor mortis as she walked, agonisingly slow and deliberate, to the colony’s centre.
The other zokex dared not touch her; fearful that whatever was in her flesh would pass to them if they got too close.
And nobody dared to stop her from speaking, as she lifted herself on two legs and spread her front legs out wide and addressed the colony in a voice that was new and unnatural; mimicked from the foreign tongue of nurlak.
“Salvation!” she had cried. “I have found our salvation!”
The others cringed away.
“I have watched the nurlak; I have learnt their secrets! I know now why the monsters of the jungle fear them so! Why the creatures of the night do not feed on them like they do on us!”
It was then that she lifted her pack; dripping red with fresh blood and stinking with the rot of old.
“No longer shall we be weak. No longer shall we be prey! Eat with me, my brothers and my sisters! Eat with me as the nurlak eat! And feast on the meats. Of the predators. Of Das!”
The pack was emptied on the trampled ground; dust sticking to the surface of the meat it contained as droplets of blood spattered from the severed veins.
“Eat with me, my family!”
Nobody in the settlement moved.
“Eat, and call upon the blessings of the serpentine gods that give nurlak their strength!”
Slowly... three youth stepped forward to join her.
It was only a few who listened to her, at first.
Young dragons who had lost their families to the creatures she claimed she could protect them from. Dragons who had nobody to teach them better; nobody to keep them grounded from Adoration’s hysterical ramblings and unhinged promises.
She preyed on their loneliness and their desperation. Their memories of their families. Their fear and their pain. Their unfulfilled need for love.
And through them, her influence grew.
Three followers.
Five followers.
Nine.
Twenty.
Slowly, more came.
Slowly, more listened.
It wasn’t until the first children were born into her teachings that the settlement realised they had to intervene.
So Adoration was forbidden from her speeches.
Her followers were forbidden from speaking the nurlak tongue.
Forbidden from their meetings.
Forbidden from even mentioning the nurlak and their serpent gods.
And, eventually, when all else failed, they were chased from the settlement altogether and forbidden from ever returning.
Banished to the jungle, Adoration and her followers prowled in the territories between the zokex and the nurlak. They stalked the edges of the settlement, recruiting dragons that would listen and growing their population to a dangerous size.
They forsook their natures to impersonate that of the nurlak; wearing the pelts of their prey as clothes and adorning themselves in stolen body paints and jewellery.
Their skin soon faded from bright soulstone colours into dull imprints of their old selves. And their eyes soon lost their shine. And their bodies soon were nothing but bone and muscle; their haggard forms barely able to hold themselves together.
“It was a satire of the sickly,” those in the settlement said. “That would soon destroy them from the inside out and take with them all that they could reach.”
There was nothing they could do.
It wasn’t safe to stay.
And so, the peaceful zokex left.
And the cult took the abandoned settlement for themselves.
Empowered by their newfound sovereignty the cult began to test their boundaries.
And it wasn’t long before they did the unforgivable.
It was the last hour of daylight when Adoration broke into a temple and stole a baby from their mother’s arms.
A newborn, no more than week old, who was flayed alive and then torn apart piece-by-piece; stripped down to bones as their flesh was thrown into a cauldron of enchanted serum.
Adoration consumed their raw skin as what was left of the baby was charred black and ground into pigment for her followers to paint themselves with.
Magic imbued into them from the gory ritual, the zokex shared the foul potion made from the newborn’s flesh and called to the nurlak gods for their rewards.
“Change us!” they cried. “Take us as your own! Change us into nurlak! We have all the pieces you need; painted on our skin and drunk into our flesh! Change us, so that we may be fearless and strong! Change us, so we may live amongst your children! Change us, so that we will no longer be prey!”
The serpents were disgusted.
At first, the potion seemed to be working.
Taunt old skin stretched over new forms as bones broke and re-knit in shapes they’d never been before. Soft padded paws elongated into bony fingers with sharp nails and dexterous movements. And hair sprouted over bald heads; falling over ever-shortening faces in long tangled tresses as the dragons writhed in agony on the ground.
Then, a shaft of light broke through the thick branches of the jungle trees. And from the light came the darkened forms of the serpent gods.
They had heard the dragons’ calls and prayers —witnessed the cultists’ heinous crimes— and could stay quiet no longer.
Now they stood over the convulsing bodies of the no-longer-zokex. Their gazes unreadable and unwavering as they watched the sickening transformation taking place.
The cultists thought that the gods had come to bless them. But then, when their wings began to shrink to fingers, the serpents’ unreadable gazes become those of fury and they lifted their many arms; muttering ancient magics as they surrounded the changing cultists.
The spell was being reversed.
They were returning to their zokex forms.
They clung to the serpents; their sharp nails desperately grasping at the gods and tearing scales from their hides. Where each serpentine scale fell on transforming skin, it stuck, scattering new marks over the bodies of the cultists as they wailed in anguish and despair.
“No!” the cultists pleaded. “No! Take us! Please! Don’t turn us back! Don’t make us prey again!”
The serpents ignored their cries; barely moving to shake off the repulsive creatures that clawed at them.
Then, the ancestors of the zokex stepped from the shadows with as much fury on their faces as in the serpents.
The zokex spirits lifted their wings, a low light sweeping out from them and over the cultists as the serpents finally lowered their hands and stepped back.
The no-longer-zokex but not-yet-nurlak creatures collapsed in exhaustion and pain as the spirits and gods took up either side of them and stood tall.
“Do not return them to us,” the zokex ancestors growled. “They are no longer ours.”
“They are yours,” the nurlak gods responded firmly.
“We deny them,” said the zokex.
“They are yours,” repeated the serpents.
“We do not want them.”
“Nor do we.”
“We will not take them.”
“Nor will we.”
The zokex ancestors snorted, their disgusted gazes falling to the exhausted cultists.
“Then leave them as they are,” the zokex said. “Let them rot in these monstrous half-bodies they have created for themselves.... Not nurlak.”
“Nor zokex.”
“No ancestors.”
“No gods.”
“Let them wander alone.”
“Let them be something else.”