The Mook Maker

Southern Maiville was a silent, boring place.

 

The sun was setting, and the humans left in the town had already retreated back to their houses, either to rest for the upcoming night or to hide from their new overseers, perhaps reminiscent of the times when this place had its human name. 

 

Angela should not care what the clay thought about the shape it would be moulded into according to the design of the higher power, yet couldn’t deny the fact that those rudimentary creatures still possessed consciousness and considered opposing her Master. 

 

It irked her. 

 

She was a Fleshspeaker, a sculptor of minds and flesh, and it was her duty and purpose to reshape this disgusting, ignorant world in her Master’s image, to spread his voice to every corner of the planet, to every creature, especially to the appalling monsters called humans. 

 

That’s why she and her sister were born.

 

To speak the Master’s word. 

 

And they did.

 

Yet, willful inhabitants of this settlement still refused to understand, even if it was presented to them in their own language.

 

It wasn’t like the humans couldn’t understand - Ari, Master’s human, obviously did despite the fact she was a human - so it wasn’t like they were incapable of comprehension, they didn’t want to. 

 

Yet, her Master was very kind, giving the rudimentary monsters like humans time to understand, like he did here in the Southern Maiville.

 

They were however deaf to Ari's words. 

 

Angela would make them listen, would remake them, but it was not the way.

 

After all, Ari didn’t need her brain reconfigured to comprehend the purpose and only grew stronger with understanding.

 

Humans, at least in this village, didn’t quite yet understand after Angela was tasked to oversee the settlement and its integration into Master’s host. 

 

The Named Fleshspeaker, however, had very little to show for, since she had been also ordered to keep the transformation of the humans to the absolute minimum, to restrain herself until it was absolutely necessary to contain yet another outburst of violence the humans were made for.

Angela didn’t mind, it was her call, her purpose, and she was Master’s message, but the ignorance of those she spoke with agitated and frustrated her to no end. 

 

Although, on the surface, humans here had seemingly taken their lesson, being less unruly than their northern counterparts, they still awaited the return of those casters - those priestesses - and what was told to them went above their heads.

 

Master was kind, and gave them Ari to replace the mad casters, but humans refused the blessing as the monsters they were. 

 

It was annoying. They even thought she couldn’t hear them. 

 

The Fleshspeaker knew she should prepare for the situation should the casters slip past the defences, and try to use their magic on her cousins or her sisters, or even threaten the Master. 

 

Then the villagers would feel her wrath - but until they did anything she would honour the wishes of her beloved Master, those were more valuable than the useless creatures under her watch

 

It was too risky. What if they managed to sneak past the Fleshspeakers and hurt their Master?

 

Waiting was as dangerous as it was tiresome. 

 

With an eternity of waiting inevitably comes an eternity of time to think.

 

Angela wanted to do more and was eager for something more creative to ease her mind, but unlike her cousins, she couldn’t do it with metal or wood. 

 

Meanwhile, her sister Irene has been tasked with remaking the humans into forms more useful to Master.  Strong bodies to mine the metals necessary to coat Master’s Ravagers in armour.  Most of those bodies were assigned to the only mine, to dig shafts and find ore.  The remaining bodies were sent to construct the fortifications to oversee that part of the valley.  This left Angela with little to entertain herself with.

 

The Maiville South was dedicated to farming, rather than excavation, and many of its fields were left up to humans to manage, which they did only halfheartedly, much to Angela’s annoyance.

 

If only she could turn more of them into drones, their efforts would be so much more effective.  

 

Angela watched the Eviscerators stalk the emptied streets and some of the buildings, while the few Purifiers lazed around for a while, their original idea to build the palisade ring around the nearby hill and then another outer one around the village hadn’t quite materialised yet.

 

It would require too much digging, moving and logging, and it was so far limited to only a couple of felled trees.

 

Her cousins needed the rest.

 

They were exhausted because the rebellious humans were both stupid and lazy. 

 

That irked Angela, but there was very little she could do about it, restricted to only a couple of carrier drones they had shaped after seizing control of this wretched place. 

 

Most of the work was delegated to the Corruptors, who worked tirelessly to reshape the world with all its plants, creating a beautiful garden on the hill where the blasphemous shrine once stood. It was a much better use of the space, it would keep them fed and their Master happy. 

 

The new fruits were popular, with their rich taste, and intoxicating yet invigorating properties, and she wanted to make her cousins and sisters happy, not to mention that Mai had to be rewarded for the idea. 

 

Angela enjoyed them too, but her attempt to assist went in vain.

 

Unfortunately, plants weren’t under the purview of the element upon which her very being was founded.  The plant’s flesh was still not a valid target no matter how hard her scaly cousins tried to change its structure, leaving her with nothing to do. 

 

It left her restless, and worse, bored. 

 

Angela still wanted to do more - she wanted to contribute the way Mai did, earning her praise of the Master, yet the range of beings the Fleshspeakers currently available to work with was limited, as was their useability. 

 

There were still a handful of animals left in the village, but as with any other mistakes of Creation: if they weren’t useful, they were food.

 

More importantly, some of her sisters were already playing with them - some of them didn’t even think they were worthy to have their own carrier drone and resorted to reshaping the animals. 

 

The few remaining oxen on their side of the valley had to be upgraded, made more prone to muscle growth when fed a special plant fibre the Corruptors had created, producing more meat to be butchered, creating a sustainable source of it for the future. 

 

She could hear the whispers of the Fleshspeakers in her mind, all excited about their current work as they were about the ideas that their Alpha fed them, eager to make a further adjustment to some creatures they managed to capture. Goats would, too, be used, but they were few and far between.

 

Angela thought that Purifiers had already eaten all the rabbits and most birds still nesting nearby. This could not be reliably compensated for by the Displacer’s raids to snatch the farm animals from remote locations. 

 

This, however, was a focus for later. 

 

She could sense her sisters’ excitement, the flurry of minds adding their ideas to the pool, directing the drones to dig shafts far to the north, yet it was not her responsibility.

 

They scoured the brains of the drones for information, puzzling together the carpentry knowledge of one of the originally useless humans, putting it to better use. 

 

To the northwest, her Alpha had retrieved a wounded horse with the help of the Displacer cousin; it would have to be changed to serve their needs, to give Defilers much greater mobility to compensate for their smaller range. 

 

It was smart - if their little cousins who couldn’t fly, portal themselves, be invisible or attack from a distance, could ride horses to close the distance between them and the enemy, their contribution would grow. 

 

So many ideas, and so little play for Angela.

 

She wanted to help - to fill this world with beauty and purpose for the Master, but alas, she could not. 

 

Angela just sat there, overseeing the lame village of the lame humans who secretly still awaited those casters to come to rescue them. 

 

She was in dire need of material to work with, but they already caught the larger ones in the area, forcing her sister to fly further, putting greater strain on their Displacer cousins, or the combination of both. 

 

It was the conundrum of steady supply.

 

They could sense the scurrying in the shadows, the hushed tone of speech from one of the houses, and briefly considered using humans involved as a material turned to drones to tinker them - yet her Master wished otherwise, and he was the most important being to the Fleshspeakers, not some useless pests in the dirt. 

 

Angela still had nothing to show for once the Master woke up refreshed. 

 

His potent and captivating aura shone as the beacon in the distance - his light, filling them with knowledge, teaching them, showering them with love, giving them life and purpose, uniting them in the grand chorus to sing in harmony. They, and their Master, were all one, forever. 

 

Even now, he struggled to bring more life to this ugly, distasteful world to beautify it.

 

She let out a sigh. 

 

Angela, too, wanted to create life. 

 

For Master. 

 

Perched atop her personal carrier, she stretched and spread her wings, feeling the itch on her back.

 

“Dress! Scratch me,” she thought-commanded. 

 

Oh, much better, these were so much more useful organisms than those humans in this village she couldn’t even change! 

 

“No. Bad dress. Stop screaming.” She thought with a frown and disciplined the unruly mind in her outfit with a short mental pinch. It worked. 

 

Yes, much better. 

 

Useless, pathetic beings, and their casters, insects skittering in the dirt! 

 

Then, suddenly, a wave of inspiration hit her.

 

She searched through the symphony of voices singing in unison and cast her consciousness further than the confines of her sisters’ network with queries. 

 

A thousand minds and thousand voices, all connected in the harmonic ensemble that made them one, talked and dreamed their countless dreams. Dreams of fire and shadows, and metal and blooms that sparked in the wasteland once all the other life was made into the past. 

 

Angela asked for a snake… and perhaps a crab, but there were none around the river it seems. 

 

An insect would do. Venomous! Spider! 

 

Oh, yes, she smiled. Cockroach would do, she had to admit, a little disappointed with the selection provided, as those weren’t the creatures known to be deadly to those humans, yet would have to do. 

 

Yes, yes, the crunchy, she confirmed to the Purifier who replied instantly. 

 

Catch them for me, she thought!

 

The host felt amused, and more than a few were willing to entertain her even without their Alpha’s commands, their combined senses cast far and wide, looking for the ingredients of the plan she was about to concoct. 

 

A few Purifiers or Eviscerators could certainly spare some of their time. 

 

In her excitement, she sank her talons into the flesh of her carrier. 

 

She could feel its mind wailing in anguish, as did its body, its vocal cords still untouched as they were supposed to communicate the will of the Master to the humans. 

 

“Oh, no, stupid drone! You aren’t supposed to protest,” she frowned mentally, as she rewired the carrier drone’s pain receptors, forcing it to stop convulsing and making the unspoken note to do better when she adjusted it, then closed the wounds giving the flesh a new shape. 

 

Maybe they skimped on the carrier drone design, she considered. 

 

The Displacer opened her rift nearby, reminding her that this method of transportation was unfit for lesser creatures, risking that her test subject would perish exposed to the void before she could work their flesh.

 

Angela didn’t particularly enjoy the trip through the nothingness and would prefer to fly under her own power despite it being considerably slower than Displacer’s ability, but the eagerness to be given new samples took precedence.

 

The Freshspeaker took the ride with the teleporting feline through the shifting currents of nothingness in between.

 

She was dropped into the confined space of the building, filled with cobwebs, a sensation she didn’t like against her fur, making it all sticky and unpleasant, but the abundant number of spiders trying to scurry away made it up to her. 

 

Dark didn’t bother her. 

 

Angela unleashed the psychic shriek - it worked even on insects, justifying how insignificant creatures the humans were if her ability didn’t even make a difference. 

 

Once she touched the spider her mind overflowed with new options as her power flowed into the arachnid, making it grow slightly, increasing the acidic and poisonous properties of its bite to a reasonable degree. 

 

Oh, there was even a cockroach in there, she noticed, alive and ready to be fused into the spider. 

 

Before she managed to work the rest of the insects, the Displacer was back with her carrier, and Angela hastily grafted the new organisms into it, for her to work with, already inspired for the more chitinous plating and the poisonous bite, along with the changes to its senses. 

 

Fully engaged with her work, ignoring the continuing mental screams of her carrier, she almost didn’t notice the slight tremor where something - someone - landed on the roof, making the already ramshackle structure slightly more ramshackle. 

 

Only then did she finally get to think about where the rift brought her, as her Displacer cousin already departed, impatient as ever.

 

She could sense Michelle, her sister assigned to the northern village, already curiously inquiring about the changes Angela came up with before she even opened the door of the half-ruined hut, already quite loose in their fitting. 

 

The other Fleshspeaker peeked in. 

 

Angela forced the carrier drone to crawl outside, to the open, and she followed it, hopping excitedly out of the crumbling house. 

 

Both Fleshspeakers happily exchanged the greeting in the usual vocalisation.

 

“For Master!” 

 

Then joined their minds, filled with ideas they could now implement, happily sharing them with the rest of the hosts, even her sisters in the mining town with the relative abundance of subjects took interest. 

 

They worked with hardened skin, not chitin, before, making them wonder which other animals they could lay their talons on - rats were quite common and could be easily caught, and worked into more usable organisms. 

 

Ideas were exchanged, and Angela took solace that the use of insects was her idea.

 

She, and Michelle, sank their claws into the now nearly paralyzed drone, giggling happily as it screamed when its flesh was moulded to the new shape, and soon the rest of the Fleshspeakers started working their respective carriers into the tools more useful to the Master 

 

There were options to make weapons to stun, with either toxic or poison, leaving the humans vulnerable even if there wasn’t the Fleshspeaker with their psychic attack to overwhelm them, ready to be collected without any resistance. 

 

How would the toxin or venom be injected? 

 

Claws? 

 

Teeth?

 

So many improvements could be made, making not only Angela but other Fleshspeakers giddy with the implications and promise of the work that would keep them busy for weeks to come.

 

Just a slightly stronger venom was required, but it was only a matter of time. 

 

Snakes were harder to find - especially the paralysing variety, but they would eventually be found and combined into a single organism, something their very power had confirmed was possible with negligible cost in the form of effort. 

 

First, however, testing was in order.

 

So much improvement, for the Master.

 

It was unfortunate that the carriers couldn't have their vocal cords disabled since they were intended to serve as the mouthpieces for the respective Fleshspeakers and to translate their will to the speech the locals understood, but it was of little concern, as here, their screams wouldn’t disrupt the Master’s rest. 

 

There was a minor ruckus from the humans here - but after a short scuffle with the Eviscerators and one psychic blast later, they stopped being an issue. 

 

It, in fact, was rather less than an issue, Angela mused mentally, and the voices of her kin inside her mind concurred it was quite fortunate - by attacking the local garrison the humans forfeited the protection bestowed upon them by Master, spat on his endless kindness in the process, leaving the Fleshspeakers with an ample source of test subject to convert further. 

 

They would soon serve the Master in other, more imaginative ways, than their human bodies originally allowed. 

 

Angela, and Michelle, had an item to present to their Master, without needing to disturb Irene’s mining operation in the Eastern Pass.  

 

Perhaps, trying to make armours well fitted for not just the Fleshspeakers themselves, but to their other cousins, was an option, one not reliant on the dwindling supply of ore, which the Master was worried about. 

 

A living armour for everyone, just like Angela’s dress, fully subservient to the mind of the wearer, more fitting into the grand design. 

 

All beings improved upon, all ready to serve.

 

For Master! 

 

Angela let out a happy shriek, one not meant to paralyse the hapless idiots but to express the joy the Fleshspeaker felt and soon, her sister also joined, realising the possibilities.

 

“For Master!” 

 

An armour, made by them, for Master to wear, for them to connect with, to protect him from all those useless pests that still infested this accursed planet! 

 

Then, the Fleshspeakers would keep him safe even without their very direct presence, easing the workload of Master’s favourites allowing them to be here for him when he retreated for his rest! 

 

“For Master!” She whispered in sound, but her thoughts revealed much more to the perfectly unified network of individuals, working together as one, in the harmony given to them by their Master. 

 

There was, however, another good fortune - the choir of voices that joined all Master’s girls in the single host lit up once again as one of the Displacers caught the snake Angela had been asking for. 

 

This was unexpected, as the wild beasts weren’t exactly easy to find after most larger ones had been hunted down for food.

 

Angela got up in the air with a few mighty beats of her wings - the spot was nearby, allowing her to stretch a little bit instead of abusing their cousins’ teleportation. Still, the notable throbbing of the kindred mind allowed for perfect localization. 

 

It was a faint whisper among the host 

 

The Fleshspeakers swooped down, landing on the small outcropping at the reed-covered riverbank, in the shadow of the few trees, all plants entirely untouched by the Corruptor power. 

 

It was a completely unlikely place to start looking for a new material to work as the area around the northern village hadn’t been combed out perfectly as the more densely occupied zones around the fortress, which only gave credit to her cousin who decided to look there. 

 

Angela’s eyes swept the area, her eyes accompanied to the darkness. 

 

Then her heart almost jumped. 

 

The Displacer kitten lay down, on the shore among water plants, shaking, barely clinging to life after the bite of the venomous snake she still held in her claws despite the repeated attempts of the animal to free itself from her grip.

 

No!

 

The Fleshspeaker now could sense the pain of her cousin, and even though the feline had to fear, it wasn’t acceptable.

 

Angela made sure that the snake felt every single bit of agony through the psionic screech she had released, her grasping talon seizing the animal and throwing it away after her power paralysed the snake’s ability to move. 

 

The Fleshspeaker claw reached the Displacer, gently, but with urgency, letting her power flow through it in a desperate attempt to negate the effect of the venom and prevent the feline’s suffering, but to no avail.

 

The Master’s creatures were the beauty that wasn’t meant to be reshaped to his image, as they were already made so by their very being, and so the power of the chiropteran messenger wasn’t intended to fix the perfect beauty of their maker’s envoys. 

 

Yet, even Master’s creatures weren’t immune to pain, and the Fleshspeaker refused to accept they would experience any, for even the briefest period before they were reborn in their maker’s ever-loving embrace. 

 

Help, she thought!

 

The Displacer, even nameless, was hurting! 

 

The suffering was a punishment for those two who defied their Master, not for his loyal followers!

 

However, before Angela could call for assistance to the ever-chattering network that connected her to other Master’s creations, a space split open, with a different Displacer dragging the ratty form of a Defiler through. 

 

The greenery died.

 

The useless, treacherous plants that still hid some beings that defied the Master’s will died, as they should, their vitality consumed and transferred to better use, restoring the Master’s feline to its original glory. 

 

She awoke practically immediately, her soft fur wet, but her health completely restored in but an instant, the poison within her body negated, and jumped on her feet, hugging Angela in gratitude, which the chiropteran reciprocated with her wide wings. 

 

She was, however, not the one who saved the feline, but the healing powers of the Defiler, more fitting to save their kin, to harvest the energy of this world to reshape it into a much better design. 

 

The energy that now pulsated in Angela’s veins as well, the assistance of the Defiler was invaluable to her as it was to others who had been wounded, and the Fleshspeaker realized she was not meant to be a healer to restore the fine forms of her cousins. 

 

She was the protector.

 

Angela swore she wouldn’t let this happen again - the Displacer should receive the protection of Angela’s first armour that would shield her from damage and venom, should a similar situation happen again. 

 

The Fleshspeaker's attention returned back to the snake.

 

It still lived, its little, purposeless brain knew nothing of the mistakes that had been made, and the purpose which awaited it.  This was soon to change. The glands that secreted the paralyzing venom would soon find their use in the new dress designed to capture the subjects for the Fleshspeakers to mould into the new, better forms, more fitting the Master's needs. 

 

The snake wouldn’t escape its new purpose.

 

However, as the flesh bubbled and grew under her magic, Angela realized that she wasn’t any closer to bringing the village she was assigned to heel, the rebellious humans still eagerly awaited the return of their casters. 

 

Angela would crush that hope;

 

The armour she was going to make should serve a purpose greater than merely protecting its wearer, but strengthen her, just like magical artefacts absorbed by Ekaterina.

 

However, to do so, there had to be a source of magic, bound in flesh, one which would power Angela’s new creation, one which the Master’s girls weren’t yet able to create on their own. 

 

But where should one be found? 

 

The Fleshspeaker’s mind was, once again, cast to the host with the new plan, one for improvement not like others. 

 

There were strong humans, the ‘elites’ as the Master called them, and they showed capabilities beyond their lesser kin, but only the most dangerous of them were truly strong beyond the limits of the host. 

 

Yet, there was a power. A force, bound inside the more vulnerable package the useless, foolish villagers looked up to.

 

A plan was hatched inside Angela’s mind, to sate her creativity, to crush the human in the name of her Master, and create something meant to protect. 

 

First, they would need to make a spider with a stronger, paralytic venom, strong enough to knock out the human, and then … 

 

… then they would catch a human priestess, and use her body as a material for the new dress.