Chapter Text
Lord Urale Joro put his hand on the vustal, a huge canister of made of black metal that he had brought me to, his touch almost reverent. Without a way of measuring it, I estimated that it was at least 15 feet tall - much taller than the others used in the sorticid by a not insignificant amount. He turned to me and smiled an odd smile, and something about it put a strange feeling in my gut, almost like spoiled food. “This, Doctor,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “Is the most important object in this entire dyinent.”
When I first learned of the Shahaer Taylon Dyinent on Akiridion Prime, I was immediately intrigued and at once began asking Lord Joro if I could see it. He brushed me off for several parsons, as he is want to do when I wish to focus on my own research rather than assist him with his, but eventually he relented on the condition that he be the one to give me the tour. I had hoped to receive the tour from one of the dexiethans, or perhaps - dare I dream? - from the dalest, Lord Remu Zel, but since I had gotten my wish I did not press the issue in spite of my disappointment.
The journey to the outer ring of Taeoric is short, much shorter than I had expected. It took less than a horvath to get there from the Prime Valtres Center in one of Lord Joro’s imperial strykers, which makes the journey perhaps the quickest field trip I've been on since coming to Akiridion. When we landed in Taeoric (located on the edge of the Corineth Shield on Akiridion Prime,) Lord Joro adjusted the settings on my tank and reset my mask before the taylon guards with us opened the door to the ship. "For your precious Earthling lungs," he explained with a condescending grin. "Keep the mask on, or else you'll be dead within a mekron." When I asked why, he briefly explained that the atmosphere in the area around Taeoric is conditioned to be optimal for taylon growth, and contains many elements which are deadly to carbon-based life forms such as myself. When Lord Joro says such things I am often unsure if he is making up the hazards on Prime and simply trying to unsettle me or discourage me from running off, but I nevertheless complied. He is perhaps the only living Akiridian with extensive knowledge of how various Earthling bodies react and survive in different environments, and it always seemed rather foolish to ignore his warnings.
We exited the hangar, itself a rather nondescript (although enormous) building and made our way out into Taeoric proper with Lord Joro's seven taylon guards around us. Taeoric is what can best be described in Earth terms as something like a cross between a city and a military base. Everywhere you look in Taeoric, you are surrounded not just by the large, imposing figures of the taylon, nearly every one of them towering over both me and Lord Joro (who admittedly is a modest 7' on a very good day, which is on the short side of average for an Akiridian of his class,) but also by the massive skyscrapers that dwarf those in most cities on Earth. Everything there seems proportionally larger to make room for the sheer amount of diations that must circulate through it. We took a quick walk through the outer ring, where I saw more colors than I’ve ever seen since coming to Akiridion. Every celestial body and its structures in the Akiridion empire are washed in shades of blues and teals, but in the outer ring of Taeoric I saw reds and purples, and I swear there was even a spot of yellow. Of course, Lord Joro has explained to me before that my organic eyes are simply not equipped to see the entire other spectrum of color that Akiridians do, but it was still nice to experience.
We were escorted by an additional band of Taeoric taylon guards onto a private imperial shuttle that traversed over the rings of the city about 200’ above the ground. As we flew over the two inner rings, I saw the way the population shifted and the color palette changed. Although most other life beings I saw in the outer ring were taylon, there were also many Akiridians from other classes, and even a few off worlders like myself. As we flew deeper and deeper into Taeoric, I saw the non taylon population dwindle until all that was left was taylon, and exclusively ones in uniform, washed in those same blues. As we got closer and closer to the center, we got closer and closer to the tallest building I've ever seen - a great black obelisk, its intricately designed surface glowing with bands of soft blue.
After about seven mekrons aboard the shuttle we reached the imperial dock at Taeoric's center, where we were greeted by a young dexiethan named Eirzan. We exchanged pleasantries, and then she walked us and our imperial guard through the private path that leads to the dyinent. The path to the dyinent is covered by a tall, translucent arched bubble that runs the entire length of the path, allowing those walking along it to look up. The light from above was completely blocked out by that great obelisk. As I stared up at it in awe, Lord Joro informed me that what I was looking at was, in fact, the dyinent.
The Shahaer Taylon Dyinent is one of the oldest extant structures on Akiridion Prime, hailing from the time of the Shahaer - the first generation of Akiridians after the occupancy of Seklos and Gaylen. Only one Shahaer still lives against all odds, a Bond known colloquially as the Shahaer Matron, and nearly everything else from their time is long gone. The dyinent is the last remaining stronghold of a dead generation, and it still thrives and thrums with the diations of the living. Its footprint is a full six million square feet alone, and the structure itself stretches over a mile into the sky. With 150 floors above ground another 50 below, it is the size of a modest city stacked on top of itself over and over again - and that is not even taking into account the space dilation.
As we walked into the main entrance of the dyinent with Eirzen, leaving our taylon guard outside, I was amazed to see the first taylon children that I had ever encountered. I had never seen nor heard of them before, and had perhaps foolishly thought that since taylon were made without families, perhaps they simply came out of the dyinent sorticid fully grown. I could see that I had been mistaken, surrounded by the equivalent of 10-year-old humans that stand at a whopping 6' tall on average. Eirzen explained that the 3rd oclarics (a developmental group that includes taylon on average from 9-viable-keltons to 13-viable-keltons) were just leaving their lessons for their second period of sleep, and that floors 51 through 63 would be in rest mode for the next two horvaths, and 79-150 for the next three. I watched as seemingly endless streams of children (and a few accompanying adult guards to keep them on task) filed into the labyrinthine hallways branching off of the main entrance to return to their quarters.
The young taylon were largely unbothered by us, save for a few more curious children that - if Lord Joro is to be believed - had never seen hair before. Regardless, I was not surprised to find myself a curiosity because even in my Akiridian transduction I still stick out like a sore thumb, especially in a place where life-beings that aren’t taylon or dexiethans are a rarity. The few onlookers that we had watched us as Eirzen led us to one of the peripheral arterial elevators where we were met by Lord Remu Zel. Tall and lithe with great crests swooping sharply up and out from her faceplate, Lord Zel stands out among the taylon with her distinctly Primian noble features. With a hand to her forehead and a low bow, she greeted Lord Joro, and began speaking to him.
Distracted as I was by the sheer size of the space we were in (the ceilings must have been at least seventy feet high and rippling with ever changing patterns of blues and greens,) I did not at first notice that I could not understand the words being exchanged between Lords Zel and Joro. I thought that perhaps Lord Joro had turned off the universal translator, but as I listened to them speak I realized that the language did not sound like the bits of Akiridian that I had heard before. When I asked Lord Joro about it later, he explained that in the dyinent the taylon dialect called Tirldac is the primary language that is spoken, with common Akiridian being a secondary language that is not taught to the taylon until they have been through three of their tests. Tirldac, he explained, is a language that is only taught to taylon, dexiethans, and of-age royals, and is forbidden from being input into translators. Some life-beings outside of those groups have learned Tirldac, largely through companionships with taylon, but it is not intended for common use.
Of course I asked him if I could learn Tirldac, and he simply laughed at me before telling me to get back to work. I assume that means ‘no.’
After a few mekrons of conversation in Tirldac, the Lords Zel and Joro looked at me, and the latter introduced me as his nufact. Lord Zel gave me one of the more polite greetings I’ve received after being introduced as such by pressing her fingers together into a flat shape while touching them to her collar before sharply jerking her hand away from her body. It's a gesture exclusively directed at nufacts - particularly ones that are still fresh to on world life in the Akiridion empire - which translates approximately to "watch your back or I'll gut you like a larvox." I returned the gesture with the appropriate response of "may your core rot from the inside out" (a hand made into a clawed shape over the center of the chest before sharply straightening the fingers.) Satisfied that I had been taught proper etiquette, Lord Zel addressed me in Akiridian, which my universal translator turned into English for me.
"You are the one who wished to have a tour of the dyinent, yes?" Her tone was surprisingly friendly, in spite of the sharp, traditional greeting. "I am afraid that it will be rather limited in scope as most of our work is confidential, but I am sure that Lord Joro will be able to guide you through the parts which are relevant to your research." I thanked her, and told her that I was looking forward to the tour, but that I was a bit disappointed that it was to be led by Lord Joro and not one of the dexiethans. She laughed, as did Lord Joro and Eirzen. "I am certain that there is no better suited Akiridian alive to give you a tour of this facility than Lord Joro."
It was at this point that I was informed by Lord Zel that Lord Joro had actually worked at the dyinent for 87 keltons - and had been the dalest for 62 of those. “Lord Joro is not the longest-serving dalest,” she explained, “but he and the Tantaer Joro ushered in a new era for the dyinent, and each living taylon is remarkable due to the work the Lords Joro did on those earlier generations.” Chagrined, I resolved to hold my tongue for the rest of the trip. Lord Zel and Eirzen took their leave of us, and Lord Joro and I boarded the elevator. By the time we began our ascent, the last stragglers of taylon children - the distant heirs of that greatest generation - were vanishing into the halls, off to recharge.
Until they enter the 4th oclaric, taylon live exclusively in their birth dyinents. This is standard procedure across the empire, and the most traditional dyinents until very recently prevented taylon from even exiting the dyinent at all until their 4th oclaric. This procedure was changed thirty-two keltons ago - long after Lord Joro’s time as dalest. More to my point, due to the massive quantity of bodies that must be both made and cared for and minds that must be sharpened, dyinents are by necessity enormous places. To try to see everything noteworthy that happens in such a place in one day would be like trying to hit every major landmark in New York City in one day - it’s just not feasible. Due to the number of things that I wanted to see (as well as Lord Joro’s physical condition,) we traversed the dyinent via relable.
Since the 3rd oclarics were in their rest period, Lord Joro decided to show me the floors occupied by 5th oclarics (approximately 17-viable-keltons to 20-viable-keltons.) I asked why he chose the 5th oclarics as opposed to any of the other groups which were presumably still active, and he explained that 1st and 2nd oclarics are not permitted to have any contact with non-approved personnel, particularly nufacts. “And 4th oclarics,” he said with a faint grimace, “are simply the worst.” Even taylon teenagers are challenging, it would seem.
We then spent about two horvaths exploring the 68th floor, a place with an even more impossibly tall ceiling than the main floor, allowing room for the great floating pods which carry everything from rest stations to libraries to presentation venues. Most interestingly, according to Lord Joro, the 68th floor is also host to the most prodigious academy for taylon officers in the entire empire. As with a great many things on the planet, it is simply known as the Primian Military Academy, letting the name Prime carry its full weight. The Primian Military Academy’s students are mostly taylon from the Shahaer Dyinent, but taylon from other dyinents are also allowed to apply and are accepted if they are deemed “gifted” enough. I asked what qualities make a taylon gifted in the eyes of the academy’s administration, but as he often does, Lord Joro ignored my question to offer up a frustratingly untranscribable piece of trivia that carries no meaning to anyone save for him.
Here, I saw taylon that looked much more like I expected, although more youthful - enormous Akiridians that carry themselves in the same strange way, the vast majority of them with fabricated bodies composed almost entirely of what can only be described as muscle. Here, as with the streets of Taeoric outside, Lord Joro and I were once again dwarfed by the sheer number of diations that form their bodies. I felt at least some comfort being in a relable, which with its hovering gave about another two feet of height, but it still falls woefully short of the average taylon. I have yet to be stepped on by a taylon, but I feel it is only a matter of time.
Lord Joro was eager to show me the academy, since apparently it is his favorite place in the dyinent. “I was a… ah…” He fell silent for a moment as he tried to remember the word in English. He rarely speaks to me in Akiridian, apparently keen on keeping his linguistic skills sharp. I can tell because he has a strange, distinctly mechanical rasp when he speaks to me with his true voice rather than through the translator - as well as the fact that he sometimes forgets words. “Professor,” he said at last. “I was a professor here for a period of time.” Apparently it is not uncommon for the dalest to also serve in a professorial role at the academy as needed, but even taking into consideration Lord Joro’s extreme workaholic tendencies, I can’t even begin to imagine how much time and energy such an undertaking must consume. Truly, life in the dyinent seems grueling for all parties.
Hovering our way down the grid of streets, I noticed how nearly every taylon we passed either greeted Lord Joro, or gave him a reverential bow. He smiled and greeted every one by name, something that I found shocking. Did he know all 350,000 taylon in the dyinent? “Don’t be ridiculous,” he chided. “I only know the 5th oclarics that study at the academy.” I would put a snide remark here about how 7,500 is a much more manageable number of individual names and faces to remember, but when I mentioned this to them, Istru - one of Lord Joro’s older apprentices at the Prime Valtres Center - told me that his words were intentionally misleading. When employed by the dyinent, dexiethans and dalests are equipped with a special processor on their optics that allows them to perceive the data stamped into the innermost layers of a taylon’s aura with only a glance - data that is only made permanent when taylon enter the 5th oclaric. Apparently, Lord Joro’s exit from his position at the dyinent had been so abrupt that he had been allowed to keep this particular processor.
“To be fair to Lord Joro,” Istru said, half paying attention to me while they delicately carved a small sliver of stagon off of a dead core that they had on the table in front of them, “even without that extra processor he likely would remember the majority of that data for the 5th oclarics at the academy. The memory capacity on those specialized Prime Ihaer is rather terrifying - it’s what makes him so well suited to this kind of work.” They shuddered. “I would hate to see what his totus praeter looks like.” Either way, Istru told me that Lord Joro was definitely messing with me.
As we reached the academy, I was struck by how small the building seemed - a modest 30’ tall at best, and perhaps 200’ in diameter. From the impressive stories I had heard of the academic rigor and esteem that the institution held, I had expected that to be reflected in the architecture. Exiting the relable, we ascended the short flight of stairs and entered through the main doors. Upon entering the building, it immediately became evident that the building was one of the inverted ones occasionally seen in Primian architecture, its disappointing facade a deception that hides the intricacies of the building from the outside. The space was wide open and devoid of any furniture or walls save for the exterior, and instead housed many suspended display orbs which had written upon them what appeared to be timetables, although I could not be certain because they were written in what I assumed to be Tirldac. In the very center of the room was an elevator chamber, which Lord Joro immediately began moving towards as we entered the building.
We entered the elevator, and after hitting one of the fabricated buttons on the wall we began our descent. The transparent walls of Akiridion elevators allowed us to look as we moved through the levels, rooms upon rooms suspended in the air and connected by narrow walkways with upsettingly feeble-looking railings. With the space dilation and transparency of nearly every solid wall and floor, the Primian Military Academy is both marvelous and terrible to behold. It was easy enough to look into various lecture halls and classrooms as we descended, hundreds and hundreds of taylon youths studiously listening and talking with their dexiethan instructors. As we exited the elevator and stepped out onto the walkway, I had to force myself not to look down for fear of making myself too woozy and falling off of the edge. As is typical for the architecture used in taylon-heavy areas, every part of it is meant to be incredibly disorienting and mentally challenging. I at once felt rather grateful that our tour was to be short, as the idea of spending more than a few horvaths in that transparent building made me feel queasy.
Since Lord Joro had insisted that we go to the academy, I had insisted that I see a lesson. He agreed, and was now leading me to a modest lecture hall down one of the larger walkways. He apparently did not care for the narrower walkways any more than I. When we reached the lecture hall, Lord Joro made me go first and nearly caused the lesson to be disrupted, until the dexiethan saw him enter behind me and continued on without remarking. Three or four taylon glanced at us curiously for a moment before they too returned their attention to the lesson. Discipline and focus is well instilled in taylon by the time they reach their 5th oclaric, and it was easy enough to see how powerful that conditioning is by the way they all sat perfectly still and attentively while the dexiethan spoke. We sat in two fabricated chairs in the back and watched the large projection that filled the enormous ceiling of the room, once again the physical limitations of the space dilated through Akiridian technology. I asked Lord Joro if lecture style lessons were common at the academy, and he told me that they are common for the more basic classes. “Unfortunately, many Akiridian educators find themselves in the same pitfalls as those on Earth.”
From what I could gather, the lesson appeared to be about interplanetary travel and using space dilation to shorten journeys, but I couldn’t be certain. The lesson was in Tirldac, which ended up being my downfall. We sat there for no more than ten mekrons before Lord Joro caught me attempting to covertly take notes on the words I was hearing, at which point he smacked me across my mask with his cane and then escorted me out of the hall. Only a couple taylon students turned to watch the exchange. Once outside, Lord Joro briefly scolded me and then turned to continue our tour, evidently quite irritated if the fast and extraordinarily stiff way he limped along was any indication. As much has he has a tendency to ramble like a doddering old man, he keeps his bursts of anger towards me short. Within a few mekrons of walking through the labyrinth of walkways, his demeanor softened once more to his normal state. It seemed I would live another day.
When Lord Zel had told me the scope of the tour would be limited, I had perhaps foolishly believed that she was exaggerating. If anything, she had overstated the availability of the various spaces in the dyinent that I was permitted to see. With every room that we passed, I asked Lord Joro what it was and if I could see it. Every single answer was a firm 'no.' accompanied by a very brief and vague description of the room. It was frustrating to say the least, and I began to wonder why he had even bothered bringing me there in the first place. As we passed several doors for the training grounds on the 67th floor (a floor that is blissfully made up of only opaque walls,) I managed to get Lord Joro talking about what training constituted for taylon, and I nearly got a straight answer out of him. While we walked he talked in excruciatingly boring detail for a few mekrons about the battle training the taylon received, and how their lessons in battle training were crossed with the tactical training they received at the academy, but changed the subject when I asked how their skills were tested. He also refused to let me see the training grounds. I tried to sneak in through one of the doors, but it was locked and the look on Lord Joro's face when he saw me made it clear that I was pushing my luck.
Perhaps it is understandable that the training the taylon undergo is kept such a secret. The Akiridion Empire has not become what it is today through peaceful negotiations - the Akiridion way of life literally breeds war. There has not been a single parson for the last 7 certons where the Akiridion empire has not been at war with someone - even themselves. The taylon are known throughout the galaxy as bringers of death and destruction, a force that has made Akiridion inevitable. The wild success of the dyinents has had in producing unstoppable armies that are full of intelligent and thoughtful people who are still able to follow orders to the letter has made the planet and its colonies a resounding success. It is a marvel of technological and social achievement the likes of which no other society in the entire galaxy has come anywhere close to reaching on such a large scale - and they aim to keep it that way.
There are of course a great many rumors that circulate as to what goes on in dyinents and how the training of the taylon is conducted, but as a nufact it is incredibly dangerous for me to repeat those rumors here and to speculate, even if they're false. The dyinent's secrets are jealously guarded, and frankly the fact that I was able to see what I did is remarkable, and speaks to Lord Joro's strange fondness for me. Though he values my bluntness and desire to learn about even those things that are critical to the ugly parts of Akiridion society, the secrets of the dyinents are something that I cannot know. The only thing that I can say about the hideous truth of dyinents and the taylon is the obvious - something that becomes readily apparent if you spend more than two mekrons speaking to one of the Akiridion Empire's finest warmakers and listening to how they think. Within those great obelisk buildings the size of cities, there is something unspeakably dark and cruel, and if you were not born into and raised within that crushing despair you would die if you saw its true face.
Having apparently exhausted the things he was willing to show me with the 5th oclarics - which I admit was partially my own fault, thanks to my attempt to gather a pitiful amount of syllables of Tirldac, (by the way, they would have proved to be woefully useless for any kind of linguistic analysis) - Lord Joro led me down to the underground levels of the dyinent where the sorticid levels are housed. The sorticid, like many things on Akiridion, is a concept that is not really translatable into any human tongue and took a bit of time for me to wrap my mind around with his vague descriptions. The sorticid is, for lack of better terms, something of a nursery combined with a manufacturing plant. When you enter a sorticid, you are surrounded on all sides by endless rows of great canisters made of metal, all of which vibrate at different frequencies. These canisters are called vustals, and they are how new Akiridians are made.
As we entered the 1st calnet sorticid, we stood on a walkway high above the rows for a few mekrons, watching as about a couple dozen dexiethans moved from vustal to vustal, opening them and looking at the nodulates within to make sure that they were on track in their development. “The first eighty rows,” Lord Joro explained, “are where the newest nodulates are shaken nearly nonstop until a core forms.” The sorticid was not quite loud, but there was a distinct thrum as thousands and thousands of vustals vibrated smaller canisters of proto-coreslick inside of them. He led me down row 75, and stopped somewhere around twenty vustals in. He handed me his cane, and then hobbled over to the door of the vustal where he keyed in a code and then pressed a button on either side, causing the door to open with a loud hiss. The door swung up on transparent hinges of fabricated energy, and revealed the similarly transparent canister within. He beckoned me over and had me peer inside. The canister was full of a translucent, robin egg blue gel - proto-coreslick. “Look there, towards the middle.” I did, following where he was pointing. There were hundreds of tiny particles that looked almost like sand suspended in the center, well on their way to coagulating into one object. “That will be a core within a few more delsons.” He then closed the door, took his cane back, and led me to row 145.
When he opened the next vustal with the same process as the last, what I saw inside was that same blue gel, but with a fully formed core in the center. It was a plain looking thing, much more plain that some of the other cores I've seen. "Ah, yes, I do not currently have any apprentices working with the taylon cores in the Valtres collection and so you probably have not seen any of them. Most Taylon cores look rather plain like this one." He then pointed out a spot in the gel, not too far above the core itself. Again I saw particulate like sand floating in the gel, coming together to form something, small strands of light like a nervous system extending from the core to those particles. "You can see that this one is forming a - well, I suppose you would call it a skull." I asked him what he would call it, but he didn't answer and instead pointed out how a membrane was beginning to form over the gel. "Once the 'skull' is formed and the membrane is stronger, the nodulate will start forming a face and limbs."
He then took me another seventy rows down to row 215, where we stopped in front of a vustal that a dexiethan named Eelna was working at. They were kind enough to show us the nodulate inside - something that could now be best described as a living creature. Its 'skull' could be seen through the translucent gel - now coreslick proper - but four eye slits could also be seen with four eyeballs forming behind it, as well as a little upside down v where its mouth would someday be. The beginnings of its limbs twitched as Eelna pressed a few buttons on the side, sending small pulses into the coreslick though the membrane to encourage movement. "Ah, isn’t it magnificent?" He then smiled and cooed at the nodulate, hitting one of the buttons to jiggle its arm nub. I had never imagined Lord Joro to be the kind of person who liked babies, but his reaction made a bit more sense when he told me that he spent several keltons as a sorticid dexiethan, like Eelna. Having very few facial features and even less control over its gelatinous mass, the nodulate did not respond to his pestering.
He thanked Eelna and we moved on, down towards a set of doors on the far end of the calnet. I had thought that perhaps he was now going to show me a proper taylon infant that had been born, but when I asked him he let out a tsk and whapped me on the leg with his cane for no other reason than to be mean. “Absolutely not, doctor,” he said. “You are not a dexiethan.” Instead, as we walked through the doors, he led me down another hallway where a rather nondescript elevator sat waiting. “Besides, I have something much more interesting that I want you to see.” His tone was deeply ominous, and with those words still ringing in my ears we boarded the elevator.
If my previous descriptions of this tour have not fully communicated the deep frustration I felt, allow me for a moment to describe to you Lord Joro, and what trying to talk to him is like. Lord Urale Joro is a member of the Primian nobility who is unfathomably old, even by the standards of incredibly long life that is common both among Akiridians, and among the trolls that one finds on Earth. His long life has been pockmarked by tragedy and trauma, which he constantly alludes to but I have had to learn about through the whispers of his students. He is incredibly harsh and condescending, but holds himself with such a great amount of charisma that students flock to learn from him because of it, not in spite of it. He is extremely talkative, and will all at once share a huge wealth of knowledge with whoever will listen while simultaneously telling them absolutely nothing at all. His stories are long and disjointed, and he frequently will switch off of one interesting story thread to jump onto another one that he personally is more intrigued by - until the next one comes along. It is another reason that I had hoped for one of the dexiethans to give me the tour - yes, I certainly got more information from Lord Joro than I would have from Eirzan or her ilk, but his way of sharing it is completely incomprehensible.
His inclination towards chattering made it all the more unnerving that he was completely silent as we walked down a hallway on one of the levels deep below the ground. This floor did not even have a name or number, it seemed, and not a soul save for the two of us was down there. I at once felt on edge, even beyond the fact of Lord Joro’s strange silence. That level had a strange feeling about it, something that seeped into my bones in a way wholly unpleasant, something like dread.
It was when we were walking down yet another quiet, eerily empty hallway that Lord Joro gently grabbed me by the elbow and pulled me to a halt. "Come," he said, and gestured towards another hall that branched off of the one that we were in. "It’s this way." Unsure though I was of what to make of his ominously vague words, I followed him, the new hall even more unsettling. It seemed narrower, darker in spite of the ever present glow that everything on Akiridion has. We walked for a while, longer than I would have thought. The dyinent was huge, but even still the spatial dilation that stretched out the hall seemed so strange. He grabbed me by the elbow again unexpectedly and pulled me in the direction of a door on our left - a nondescript thing that I would never have even noticed had he not shown it to me. He keyed in a combination on the wall beside the door, and then it slid open.
He entered the room first, beckoning me in with a soft tone. The room was dark, so terribly dark. I haven't seen such darkness since coming here. He whispered to me in the room, guiding me with his voice though I did not need it. The room was cavernous, completely empty save for a large cylinder in the center of the room. Lord Joro's strange behavior made me think that perhaps he had brought me here to kill me after all, but he brought me to the cylinder and bade me stand a few feet away from it. As my eyes adjusted fully to the dark, I was able to pick out more details on the cylinder, seeing the reflection of Lord Joro's four blue eyes as well as my own two green ones glowing against the dark metal. I realized after a few moments that it was a vustal, albeit a much larger one than the others that I had seen in the sorticid. He reached out and touched the surface of it, fingers hissing softly against the metal.
Lord Joro told me that the vustal was the most important object in the dyinent, and then he told me a very strange story - stranger even than most of his tales. When Lord Joro is in a particular mood, he has a tendency to talk more to himself than to me. It is something that I have grown used to during my time with him, but it nevertheless did not soothe me when he began raving like a madman when we were down in that room, his voice a loud whisper that echoed so strangely. I think that perhaps Lord Joro would not care for me to tell every detail that he shared with me that delson, and I think that you would not like to hear it. Regardless, I gleaned from his ramblings a piece of the story that he would not show me in person, and gained an understanding of his inner workings that he would never tell me outright.
There is a sorticid kept separate from the others, locked away where only certain dexiethans can access it. In that sorticid is stored the stock that all Akiridians are made from, the chemical makeup of them doled out in different amounts to produce different results. Lord Joro was once one of the dexiethans that worked in that sorticid, mixing and matching different formulas to try to make the perfect taylon - and they’ve historically been successful. According to Lord Joro, the recipe for the extant taylon is near perfect, and improving with every new batch. As the taylon have been successfully bred, the Akiridion presence across the galaxy has proliferated in equal measure. “You know the irresistible force paradox, yes?” He asked me once. “Well, for the taylon, there simply is no such thing as an immovable object.” And the work of him and his late brother are largely responsible. As Lord Zel told me, their work - though quite old now - is still a key piece of how the Akiridion Empire operates their military to this day - and rather actively so.
“One of our more unusual dexiethans had this vustal built,” he said, his dark fingertips brushing along the seam of the door in a way that was almost sensual. “We all thought she was mad, and perhaps she was, but this vustal made the finest thing that this dyinent has ever produced.” He handed me his cane, and he hesitated for a moment before he slipped his fingers into the invisible latches, not questioning even once where they were. He had done this many times, I could tell. The enormous canister inside of the vustal was empty, not even the tracest amount of coreslick inside. Clearly, it had been out of commission for many, many keltons. When I looked inside, I noticed a single energy pin in the bottom, glowing darkly. I asked Lord Joro about it, and he only glanced at me for a moment before he looked back to the vustal and ignored my question. “Only one taylon has ever successfully been made with this vustal, but that one taylon is more than enough.” A most magnificent taylon. Somehow, even though I had not previously known they had a personal relationship, I already knew to whom he was referring.
“I was the one who pulled him from the vustal,” he said, lost in his memory again. “Taylon do not get assigned names until their 3rd oclaric, but I named him right then and there - although they did not give it to him for many keltons.”
“Was it Morando?” I do not know how I felt the courage to speak that name in that space, but I spoke it regardless. I saw the way that Lord Joro tensed, and I knew I was right.
“I’ve always called him Val,” he said eventually, closing the vustal door. “His insistence that I refer to him by his second name is a... ah… a more recent development.” There was a sadness in those words that I have never heard from him before, and have not heard since. Make of that what you will. “He is the most magnificent taylon ever made.” A sentiment echoed nearly everywhere I go, with varying degrees of admiration and horror. General Val Morando is lauded by most as a true Akiridian hero, a bringer of Akiridian goodness to the rest of the galaxy - but most outsiders and nufacts will hold their tongues when his name is mentioned.
But, the tale of Val Morando is one for another time. Perhaps one day I will be allowed to speak with him, to unravel some of the mythology around him - but until then, I have only the whispers that speak of something both terrible and beautiful.
“Val was the only successful jelly ever produced from this vustal,” he explained. “And what a resounding success he is in every way.” A smile, soft and sad. “He is the only surviving member of his cohort, you know.” Cohorts are smaller groupings of taylon within the oclarics, and generally include around 80-100 individuals. I asked Lord Joro what happened to the rest of the cohort. He paused for a moment before he smiled at me, eyes glowing eerily in the dark.
“They were not magnificent.”
And just like that, our tour was brought to an abrupt end. I did not realize right away that Lord Joro was leading me back to the main entrance, but once we reached that large chamber again he explained that his leg was acting up, and it was time to return to the valtres. I would have been more disappointed, but the last half horvath had been so alarming that I found myself eager to be away from the dyinent. Perhaps one day I will try to go back, to see the parts that Lord Joro is hesitant for me to see, mistrustful as he is, but I think I will wait a while before attempting that. We did not see Lord Zel again, nor Eirzan, and we simply let ourselves out and met back up with our guard who had been diligently waiting outside.
Lord Joro was quiet again on the ride back in the stryker, looking contemplatively out of the window while he toyed idly with the handle of his cane. I still do not know what to make of him. He is a respected Primian academic and noble, of course, and beyond that he is my caretaker. Nevertheless, he is disquieting, and seeing the place where he spent so many darcens of his life has made him even more mysterious to me than before.
The dyinent was terribly cold - not particularly in reference to the temperature, although it was that as well, but the whole structure was so strange and clinical. What does time in a place like that do to a person? The taylon military structure is massive and there are countless active duty taylon scattered across the galaxy - but what percentage of those that left the dyinent intact represent those that were born? How many of those children that I saw will be broken in, and how many will be broken? What of the dexiethans? What does their work do to their psyche? Eirzan and Eelna seemed well-adjusted enough, but how much of that is a show for me, a nufact? As an outsider, it is not my place to judge another culture for how they conduct themselves - but there is an icy feeling in my gut now that won’t go away.
And what of Lord Joro? I wonder often how it happened that he had to leave his position at the dyinent so abruptly. It was after his accident, from what I understand, but it was keltons after. What made him snap so suddenly when he seemed to be adjusting? And why did he look so forlorn now, a heavy silence weighing down upon us?
“Do you miss it?” I asked him as Taeoric shrunk out of our view, the dyinent nearly as thin as an energy pin. He turned to me then and smiled oddly, his fangs bared.
“I would tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”
I’m assuming it was a joke, but one can never be sure with an Akiridian.