Narkal Infested Lands, Vorashkar
The farthest metropolis in the Narkal territories had no name that the humans would have recognized.
Once upon a time, the locals called it Vorashkar. The locals were long dead, and all that remained of them was their hatred, soaked into the black stone like old grease.
The city itself had changed drastically from the immemorial era in which it once stood. It now bore towers that curved in impossible directions, streets that looped back onto themselves, and architecture shaped by minds that perceived space through an entirely alien vector.
The Narkal that populated it now did not build or tear down. They simply existed in it, as rot exists in a wound.
Eight Outer Gods gathered inside.
They appeared in the meeting chamber without ceremony and took their places in silence.
The chamber was a cathedral turned inside-out, its spires pointing inward, its arches curving toward the floor rather than the sky. The light came from somewhere underneath, bruised and dim, and the long table at the center was the only thing in the room that looked like it had been placed there intentionally.
At the head of that table sat the one the others called Sovereignty.
He was massive, with a frame broader seated than two men standing; draped in something that looked between a robe and a second skin, deep violet, stitched with threads that ran outward in every direction: into the floor, up the walls, and, if you followed them far enough, into the bodies of the other Outer Gods sitting around the table.
The threads pulsed faintly, and each one represented ten percent. It was always ten percent of any being it attached to.
It siphoned ten percent of their mana, ten percent of their stamina, and ten percent of their conceptual authority.
He was the Outer god of parasitic sovereignty
To his left sat Love. That was at least what the beings currently gathered referred to her.
She was the only woman in the room. Her beauty had the quality of a thing that had peaked sometime in the distant past and had been declining since, though it did not seem to have noticed yet.
Flowers bloomed from the seams of her gown; white-petaled, quick, rotting within seconds of opening. The petals hit the table with faint, wet sounds, dissolved, and were replaced by new ones.
She smelled sweet at the first breath and appalling at the second. She was smiling at nothing in particular.
Across from her, Self-Consumption was methodically devouring his own left hand.
Ashen would know him better as the Outer God of Reverent Self-Consumption… the very deity worshipped by the first cult he had uncovered within his territory.
He ate with the intense focus, akin to a craftsman reviewing his work: a bite, a pause, an examination of the result, then another bite. The hand was gone to the wrist. The right had lost two fingers so far.
Between bites, he set the arm down on the table and participated in the meeting with genuine attentiveness, as though the two activities were entirely unconnected.
Beside him sat another being known as The Outer God of False Mercy.
Unlike his deranged companion, both of his hands were folded on the table, expression patient and mild.
He had a grandfather's face, the kind that made you want to explain your problems to him, certain he'd understand.
He radiated calm. He radiated reasonableness. If you did not know what he was, you might mistake him for the most stable person in the room. Most people who made that mistake did not live long enough to correct it.
On his side, the Outer God of Fearless Hiding occupied the chair nearest the door, which struck no one as coincidental, primarily because he was barely occupying it.
His outline shivered at the edges, present when the light avoided him and absent when it didn't. He was, at once, the most indistinct and the most strategically positioned being at the table.
Another two entities sat at the far end, slightly apart from the others, which was their preference and everyone else's relief.
The one called Mandate had not stopped moving since he arrived, though none of the movement belonged to him.
Objects around him shifted between blinks: a cup traded places with a candleholder, a chair rotated a few degrees, colors bled briefly into different colors.
He sat perfectly still while everything around him rearranged itself, watching the room with the bright, open patience not unlike a man waiting for his congregation to find their seats so he could begin.
"Everyone here is still paired incorrectly," he observed to no one, surveying the room. "Sovereignty sits across from no one. Love has no partner at the table. This is a gathering out of alignment. It troubles me."
Nobody responded to this.
Next to him, the one called Reshaping sat in a form that could not settle on itself. Male, then female, then something adjacent and adjacent and adjacent, cycling without rhythm, each iteration wearing the same placid smile.
The change drew no attention from Reshaping; if anything, each cycle came with a faint air of satisfaction, the way someone might feel when they've corrected a small but persistent error.
Between cycles, Reshaping reached across the table and began pairing the cups in matching sets, arranging them by some internal logic that served no visible purpose.
"There," Reshaping said softly, satisfied, after setting the last cup beside its match. "That's better. Everything is better when it becomes what it was always supposed to be." A small, earnest smile. "You're welcome."
Nobody had asked.
In the far corner, on the floor with his back to the wall, the eighth member of their gathering crouched and rocked.
The Outer God of Devoted Malice did not sit at the table.
He had his knees pulled to his chest and his arms around them, rocking in a slow, private rhythm, muttering in a loop that was part crying and part laughing and part something that didn't sound like either. The sound he made ran together: so much… so much… more… no, I can't… too much… ahh… more…
No one looked at him directly. Not from discomfort; they simply knew where he was.
Sovereignty let the silence simmer, then spoke.
"So." His voice was unhurried. Everything about him was unhurried. "Why are we gathered here?"
Fearless Hiding's outline solidified for a moment, enough to indicate urgency. "It's the humans," he said. "They're invading."
"..."
"..."
"So what?" Self-Consumption glanced up, tilting his wrist to examine the latest bite. "They always invade. Then they grow tired and retreat, licking their wounds all the way home."
Gnrrk… chrrk… slrk…
He resumed eating. "I don't see how…Squelch… this warrants a meeting."
CRUNCH
"Agreed," Love said musically, still gazing at nothing. A fresh cluster of petals hit the table and promptly dissolved.
"They've felled a stronghold," Fearless Hiding said.
Self-Consumption stopped chewing.
Love's smile migrated somewhere unfamiliar.
False Mercy unfolded his hands and refolded them. "A stronghold…" His voice was gentle. "That's never happened before."
"No," Fearless confirmed. "It hasn't."
Everyone focused now.
"There's more." Fearless's outline steadied further. "The ones with notable Concepts seem to have gathered. All of them, in the same location."
"Are you referring to the humans that refer to themselves as Sin Lords?" False Mercy's eyes sharpened. "Oh. Now that is something."
Mandate sat up straighter. "Where they gather, bonds will form. Bonds are significant. I have thoughts about this."
Reshaping had stopped rearranging cups and was paying attention, which manifested as staying in one gender for almost ten full seconds.
Sovereignty had not changed expression. He rarely did. But the threads running from his robe went taut, briefly, a pressure bleeding through the surface of his composure. "Fearless." His voice was even. "Is there one with the scent of Sloth among them?"
Fearless blinked. "Sloth? There are a handful, but none at the same level as the others."
"…Is that so."
The threads slackened. Whatever had startled him withdrew, and Sovereignty returned to simply observing the meeting as though he had never spoken. His expression was identical to what it had been before.
…Nobody asked what that was for.