“You are afraid.” the king rumbled as they walked, its voice like gravel and stone. They approached what seemed to be a house still to be constructed. Claws and boots scraped and crunched on the earth below. The ground had been flattened, despite there being no evidence of tools. All of this shaping and work had been done by tooth and claw, from the ground to the walls of rock. Civilization was not an easy thing to accomplish, but these beasts took to it was a singleminded determination. No matter what he felt towards them, Willem could not deny these creatures his respect.

“You are—strange things. I do not even know what you are.” Willem murmured, not certain how he should approach the king. He bowed his head deferentially, afraid to offend or antagonize these thing that could easily rip him in half. Yet that statement made the beast snort in apparent laughter, and the king gestured to his brethren that stood nearby.

“We are demons. Born from the earth. The stone is our flesh. The mud is our blood.” the king replied, voice fervent and stirring. With an outstretched palm, tendrils of coiling purple sank into the ground. When they withdrew, they pulled up with them chunks of mud and dirt. The magic crackled with energy, the clods of dirt mashing together into a roiling clump. It churned and spun in a small brown ball in the center of the king’s palm.

The ribbons of magic tugged on different ends, shaping the ball of dirt. Stumped limbs sprouted, a squat face forming in the brown earth. Willem could only watch as, before his very eyes, that clump of dirt formed the body of a grotesque beast. Its expression was fierce, its body squat and broad. Yet, upon a closer look, its eyes were utterly dim and without life.

“This is a vessel.” the king growled, seeing Willem’s interest. “It has no soul, and thus no will.” abruptly, the king’s claws closed around that small figure, the mud and magic worming and crackling as it collapsed. With a shake of the palm, bits and pieces of dirt flew out onto the ground, the action of creation seemingly as simple for the king as waving a hand.

The king had worn an expression of wonder and ardor when magic had shaped that vessel—it had not escaped Willem’s gaze. There had been nothing but passion in those mismatched eyes, a quiet pride in its race and people. Their very flesh was a distinction of their heritage, of their creation. They had been shaped out of the ground, their flesh molded by magic. Even Willem could feel only respect for this king, as evident by all that had been done to these lands.

The king said that he could give me a new body, Willem reminded himself, and he wondered just how that could be done. Was it to be much as these demons were born? To have his flesh reshaped—or perhaps to have a new vessel crafted with blood and bone. Almost unconsciously, he twitched his stunted fingers. A throbbing pain echoed from his legs with every step, and he wondered if losing this body truly was something to be remiss about. What has this crippled body ever done for me anyways? But it was the body that he was born with, the one given to him by whatever gods watched down from above. Would it truly be so simple to spurn it, to discard it like worn clothes?

Yet as his thoughts turned to bodies, he once more remembered seeing magic fly out from Norus’s chest. He had seen them like veins underneath his skin, writhing as they bursted out. Just what was it that the king had called him? A construct? Willem remembered how Kat seemed to have been acting strange around Norus. Just what was the enigmatic soldier, with that scar at his throat?

“We farm the murak.” the king growled as they approached one of the pens fashioned from old wood, and Willem was able to better see the strange beasts. They were reminiscent of deer, with slender legs and thin heads. Their coats were short and light, with brown and speckled patterns running across their bodies. Small tusks jutted out of their mouths, with matching horns sprouting from their foreheads. They were not quite antlers, curling towards the front. Beady eyes watched warily, pink nostrils flared in caution as they danced skittishly around. Shallow trenches had been dug into the ground inside the pens, where grain and water were offered to the beasts.

They seemed to offer little meat, but any amount of portions were appreciated in these harsh lands. With bodies built to weather drought and starvation, they gained weight quickly—although they shed it fast as well. Yet most importantly, they whelped early and often. A single mother could yield a litter of six every few weeks, and the calves grew up fast as well. While this was needed in the wasteland, it also proved useful for raising them as livestock. The only issue was their prey behavior, for they threatened to panic whenever a demon came close. Thus, the demons could only fill the trenches regularly and send the murak into other pens in order to remove the accumulated waste.

“We grow the grain that they eat.” the king explained, gesturing to the fields in the distance tended by the smaller demonfolk. They were rudimentary affairs, without rows or tilled earth. Instead, fresh soil and fertilizer was merely added on top, the hardy azhe growing easily as long as it was given water. “The waste from the murak, we collect and ferment. It feeds the growing crops.” Willem saw a pile of compost and waste near the farms, in a structure that he had at first taken to be a silo. Mold and fungus grew greedily on the pile, which had to be turned regularly. The material would serve as a fertilizer for the crops, much needed in these arid lands where the soil was greatly devoid of nutrients.

“We require new seeds.” the king continued as they walked, throwing a glance at the green sky. “The marai ruins the seeds after generations. They become stunted and weak. We must bring in fresh ones from beyond the mountains.” Willem suddenly understood why the diggers were raiding the nearby villages for seemingly unimportant seeds.

“The—the diggers.” he stammered out nervously, his thoughts turning to the worn and tired people that labored in those damp mines. “You’re using them like slaves.” The words slipped out of his mouth almost of their own accord, and he half regretted them. Fear rose up that he would provoke the king, that he might offend this lupine beast. He had intended for the words to invoke some response from the creature, to better understand the king. Yet he was surprised when the demon merely cocked its head, as if in confusion.

“They are weak. My people hunger. They are better suited for mountain labor. They will serve, or they will feed my people.” the king growled, and Willem found himself once more reminded that this creature before him was no human—its mind and its values were inhuman. Its views on death were not the same as his—and it certainly did not hold life to the same value. As if hearing his thoughts, the king’s lips peeled back in a grisly smile. “Much like you. You still have a choice. Choose well, Oa’kul.” the demon hissed before turning away.

As they walked, Willem could feel the king’s presence pressing down on him—not merely an imposing sensation, but a tangible force from the magic inside the demon. It was a crackling power that pushed him back, made every movement more difficult. Much as a rabbit cowered before a bear, so too could he feel the palpable pressure from the king’s magic.

But even more so, he felt the wild magic that ran rampant in the air, that seemed to warp and corrupt all that it touched. Marai, had the king called it? Whatever it was, it was a creeping taint. Even inside of himself, he could feel it trying to influence him. It poisoned his blood with every breath; how could these creatures even hope to live here? Yet as he watched them, he came to realize that they were far sturdier, far more durable than any man could ever hope to be. Where these conditions ought to be uninhabitable, these demons merely found it an inconvenience.

And so as he followed the king, Willem could not help but tremble in a faint nervousness. It was a nervousness at his own position amongst all these beasts. He had seen the gazes that they had given him. The creatures had all watched him as they strode through the town, their myriad eyes glittering underneath that warped sun. Their gazes were those of a hunter to its prey, those of a curious wolf to a scrabbling rabbit. It was a curiosity awarded to the strong, an idle interest one took in the scurrying of the ants below. And I’m the ant to them, he thought, keeping his eyes low as he followed the king through the town.

His thought were interrupted as they approached one of the stone houses, walking in through the open entranceway only to find that it led to a burrow below the ground. It was perhaps more apt to describe it as a cave, or as an entrance to whatever lay underground. The dirt and stone underneath had been dug out, revealing an underground burrow that branched off in myriad directions. It was almost as if the walls above were merely a facade, serving only as a cover for these tunnels underneath the ground. Even as his feet stepped on that carved stone, he could feel a crackling sensation against his skin. Magic, he realized, in the walls and the floor and the ceiling all around him. It strengthened this underground network of burrows, preventing them from collapse. Having not seen any other channelers amongst the demons, he assumed that this was the work of the king.

“D—does this stretch to all the other dens?” he asked nervously as the king strode forward. There was a brief pause before it turned, throwing a quick glance at the boy and shaking its head. “We are different people. Some live in the earth. Some on it. Others hang from the walls. However they choose to live, that is how they build their dens.” the king growled as he descended into the tunnels, pausing for a moment and gesturing for Willem to follow. “This is my den. I carved it alone.” The king grazed those black claws against the stone as they passed, throwing out sparks that glinted and sprayed onto the ground.

A pale blue moss grew on the stones, giving a dim glow to the tunnels that had been hollowed out. That eerie light shed over the king as it strode forward, casting a dim shadow behind it. Willem could only follow hurriedly, his false legs clacking noisily on the ground. The entire sensation was foreign and disorienting, as if he was no longer in a place of this earth.

When the king finally turned the corner, Willem followed to find himself facing a small room. Moss and lichen grew all along the stone, casting a pale whitish glow upon the lone figure that knelt inside. “Kha. Wake.” the king growled, and the demon that knelt there slowly rose.

It seemed vaguely lizard-like in appearance, thin and slender almost beyond belief. Green scales covered its body, from its skull to the end of its whiplike tail. Its jaw was lined with spiny teeth, a purple tongue snaking its way out on occasion. Two yellow eyes blinked open, the eyelids opening sideways to reveal horizontal pupils..They glistened wetly as they focused on Willem, the gaze disconcertingly foreign and inhuman. Yet what Willem first noticed were the black marks on the creature’s face, the Maes that covered it.

“My king…” it hissed softly, rising up and blinking slowly. “You have brought the Oa’kul…that I found...”

The king merely nodded, clapping a clawed hand on Willem’s shoulder. “Tell him of the vessels, and he will choose. If he does not, then kill him.”

Kha bowed, the gesture alien and abhorrent with the creature’s slender frame and snakelike appearance. “Of course...my king…”