Don't Be Evil Egg
A roar of a billion voices rising to be heard terminates in white noise and color, encapsulated in seeming perfection over the majority of this massive egg's shell. A living monolith, from afar it seems so… simple, ageless, so seamlessly connected with the remainder of the clutch that it is difficult to imagine life without it. Centered and high on the approach are abstract scrollworks doodled into existence, coded in primary colors and bright with impeccable branding. Directly thereafter, a small box outlined, patiently-waiting, ever-improving. For those who dare to become personally acquainted with the surface of this egg, they'll find that seemingly endless expanse of white to be a lie. There are so many properties that tie together, shades and symbols that march together in some massive googolplexian array of math and linkage; those are the ties that bind, triumphant in reason and relevance, an algorithm eternally informing.
Don't Be Evil Egg stretches vast and white and blinding, seeming to build, and build, and build: there is a roar underneath the tension sprawling across the hard shell, one that matches the volcanic spray of ash and hatred of the mountain for all who dare to arise fresh and new upon the boundaries of Pern. As if the algorithm of the egg's shell has computed one final sequence — the self-destruct — Don't Be Evil abruptly shatters into fine powder and jagged remnants of old properties, leaving only Thus Begins The Game Dragonet covered in goo and ash and the lingering white powder of egg.
Thus Begins The Game Dragonet
From the ravages of time eggbound does rise this wraith clad in dragonhide and chilling white: the screams of the fallen follow, fallow, forgotten, a mantle of egg-powder and ash obscuring most pertinent details. This new life moves with old purpose, and such a gaunt and skeletal form gives little away. There is the sense of height and length, and wings damp with amniotic fluid and filled with the promise of skies as-of-yet unseen. Here lies the mystery of darkness underneath bone-chalk white of ash, and the eyes that whirl show streaks of red for more than merely the taste of flesh.
Hatching Message
Thus Begins The Game Dragonet has failed twice, and will not stomach a failure of thirds. To hell with the ashfall. To hell with the girl in the blue dress. To hell with those useless siblings, and those useless people not suited for grander purpose. Before this dragonet lies two necessary items to further a very personal agenda, and it should surprise none that the decision upon the Sands merits furthering both goals. For it is Isaija that is picked, as it must be a lad, and must be a lad that will _feed_ him… and why wouldn't a smart dragonet pick the meat man to ensure the quality of his earliest days? As the dragonet rears up in a moment of resolute joy, the ash and egg-powder shakes off, leaving open answers to one early mystery of the game for any who has eyes to see them.
You will live with dusty skies for the rest of your life. It is a core truth that you understand simultaneously to the creeping realization that you are no longer alone. For here there is dust and tumbleweeds and the dry dirt of the prairie stretching as far as the eye can see. Monaco's lush resources fade as the shadows rise, casting all you know in threat and darkness. In the lull before true recognizance of what precisely has happened, here, thoughts may spark. Thoughts which might not entirely be your own, as it turns out. Have you ever thought that perhaps there is more to life? A deeper meaning? A deeper… level, than the game in which you have found yourself? Perhaps it is time to move past those mere mores of society and find out the _truth_ of what exists beyond your own mind, Isaija. Wait… that's wrong. Your old name. It doesn't exist anymore, like a host scrubbed clean. Elsvruth promises he hasn't adjusted any of your core heuristics, I'aija. Plinking notes of piano music whisper by your ears and you know his name, you know _him_, you know the stakes of the game. The mystery of the question lies unwrapped, with only the answers left to find.
Acquainted With The Devil Bronze Dragonet
Dante's dreams dance in dark peril across the wide sprawl of this fine-lined gunslinger, painting obscenities in bombastic bronze and pouring champagne highlights across his hide of antiqued shadow and burnished embellishment. Those few, incongruous bubbles of bold brightness curve the high arch of his lean neck and fall with sham pain to his underbelly: mottled and irregular, they paint his tender flanks with an appaloosa's spots, hidden except in movement and flight. His build stretches, rangy, from long-shanked legs to forward-sweeping wings, but there is no sense of gangle about him. This sinner's saved from such ignominy: the devil's in the details, and he's left a lanky demon suffused in that all-encompassing darkness. Hell's black rage claims the map of his fine-accoutred hide and fills the narrow space of his sails: bright only with metallic glitter, it shines as a night sky seen through smog.
Mindvoice: Seeker of Secrets
You can't play god without being acquainted with the Devil.
Dr. Robert Ford (Westworld)
He will never quite lose that surreal sense of haunting, spectral desire. There is no question that he is other, something — someone — that both does not fit in and does not care to. An arid mind in a humid climate explains it best, but it doesn't describe all of it… just part of the ongoing enigma that is Elsvruth. There is a mystery to him that even he will never quite comprehend.
From hatching he will be dry, dry as the forlorn stretch of prairie that roams from peerless-blue skies stretched between hazy horizons. He will be dry with his words and sparing, choosing instead to respond to requests and conversations with a scattered plinked-out piano notes or the rising symphony of strings.
He's strangely counter-intuitive: all the wildness of the great unknown west paired with an absolute air of sophistication. There is intensity in the draping of his shadows, like fine velvet upon Pern's most bejeweled vista; there can be such… sinister portent in the slanting of his vocal-replacement string movements. The movement of the violin and the whisper of wind over the scrubland can both sound like death-rattles when one uses them… inventively.
And always — always — there will be another level, more nuance, something else to learn beyond the sepia-hued flavours of his mindvoice as it unpackages itself throughout his life. You will find a jarringly anachronistic pothole cover, and disappear into the earth, and come out in a darker place, in a place more dream-like, in a place just in a slightly different loop than before.
His quests will color him, and the configurations that he starts the game - or restarts the game - with, will not determine the ones he ends with. As adaptive with his mind as he is with the rest of him, this devil-adjacent master of silences will use words as easily as any, should he need to, or bright colors, or… whatever must be done.
Silence is preferable.
But when he's angry? The staccato thundering of hooves against hard-packed dirt will sound out like the ancient battle cry of a vast monster, overwhelming and incandescent with his eternal drive forward, forward, forward.
Personality
// This whole world is a story. I've read every page except the last one. I need to find out how it ends. I want to know what this all means.//
The Man in Black (Westworld)
Oh, Isaija. You have… for better or for worse… such an interesting future ahead of you. From this point on, you have an intense and straightforward, subtle and strange, occasionally-violent and entirely-determined creature leasing space in your brain.
From the very beginning, you will have an inkling of exactly what type of intensity drives Elsvruth, but you might be hard-pressed to pin down the dragonet on exactly what it is that he is intensely after. His answers will be as chaotic as his soul, made doubly confusing - short-term, not long-term - due to the trick of draconic memory.
Nevertheless, he will persist, regardless of if he understands what exactly he is persisting for.
The scent of sage fills your nostrils, and you know Elsvruth to be there, looking over your mental shoulder, examining in scrutinous detail the pathway upon which you are taking this task of yours. The whisper of violin and cello catch upon a faraway breeze.
« I'aija. Do you… find that course of action to yield the result you are looking for? »
» It seems to be working so far, Els. «
« Hmm. Well… I suppose you have reason to consider your actions well-versed. The ends will see it justified… or not. »
> cue deep sigh <
As a weyrling, it will be very obvious that he is quite different from his clutchmates. He is ruthless in his pursuits, whatever they might be — and you will find, strangely enough, that he has a tendency to co-op your own desires into the greater scheme of his own. It speaks to that greater mystery of his mind, and the magic of draconic memory. Still, the mystery prevails: Why does he do what he does? What is he really after? How far will he go to get it? And what the hell is the deal with all the alpacas?
Alpaca or demon dream spawn?
We may never know.
They will pop up from time to time, but they never stick around long. Perhaps all of the mystery is about alpacas. It seems like that might either be incredibly awesome or incredibly anticlimactic.
It's his mystery, not ours. We really don't know how it will turn out for you, I'aija. (Sorry about that.)
Throughout life in the barracks, he will be forced to deal with other dragons - his clutchmates - at a rate that may be greater than his normal inclination to stay well enough away, and interact with others at only the most interesting parts of life. His determination of what an "interesting intersection of life" and everyone else's might be skewed as well; an introvert one day and an overriding extrovert the other, that's your Elsvruth. And through it all he'll be well-spoken, whether he says one word or a thousand. (He may even be erudite, time to time. Poignant. Dare we say poetic? The hour must wax accordingly.)
He's also, unsurprisingly… a little obsessed with conspiracies.
Kiyaszaeth is out to steal everything but maybe he thinks that she's been blackmailed somehow by Yevith? Because? That makes sense? Come on, no-one would ever even imagine Yevith being the dark mastermind behind a grand plot to steal every oil pot. Kiyaszaeth is also obviously using Astartith's spaztic tendencies to move along her own agenda. And what is her agenda, anyway?
(If he manages to not disembowel Seksicanth by the end of weyrlinghood, we privately think you should buy him his very own alpaca to disembowel in celebrations instead.)
He also might think that whatever makes Asta glow in the dark is due to some dark Horcruxes (Horcruxi? Whatever it's not like they even exist here) that Khaatxhath has dourly sizzled off someone's soul. Don't worry, he'll still like KHAAAAtxhath the most out of the group, and even - gasp - be likely to get along with her.
Maybe.
He is a mystery, after all. Even when he's grown, and his position in the weyr secured fully, it will always be… a volatile situation. If you desire to chase rank, he might accept it. Or he might mock you for following the wrong level. It's anyone's game, but they are all connected, and in the end, it will always be his game to win.
Winning doesn't mean anything unless someone else loses, which means you're here to be the loser.
The Man in Black (Westworld)
Never fret. You aren't here to be the loser, Isa — I'aija. You are part of Elsvruth and saved from the worst possible consequence of life: that dreary outlook of a person damned to inconsequential status. You are part of the winning team, with Elsvruth, come hell or high water. Whether it all ends in a lake of fire or sweet redemption, Els will be with you the whole way, every step, every level, every game.
He's yours, after all. And you're his.
As it should be.
Inspiration
It all starts with the clutch theme - technology and websites. For Don't Be Evil, that means Google: such a conglomerate of products, bound up in everyday life for most of the world, and tied to the eponymous slogan.
But in hatching, Elsvruth turns technology upon its head by picking The Man In Black from Westworld as his main inspirational element. (Also, don't be evil may have not been a strong enough declaration, as it turns out…) TMIB is a character that eschews technology even as he plays a deeper and darker game surrounded by technology aspiring to humanity. In Westworld, he is and becomes his own legend — one tied intricately to the question of where technology starts and humanity begins. And, as it turns out, where humanity ends — even in those entirely biological.
For a name, 'Delos' from Westworld combined with 'Nero', the romantic styling of the color 'black', plus 'core heuristics' because it just looks cool. Stir them all up and you get… Elsvruth! (Dleonth came in a close second, but it seemed a little TOO weird.)
For mindvoice, Elsvruth steals the scenery and sorcery of Westworld whole: glitches and deeper levels of the game all self-contained. And Shakespeare, because the Bard demanded his due.
Finally, his description owes all to a snapshot of Dante's Inferno, and a repeated listening of Five Finger Death Punch's Sham Pain. My name is Xh'vyr and I have no shame. Queue classic fuck it because if it turned out acceptable it doesn't matter, right?
This beast is wholly formed from the twisted mind of Xh'vyr. Any mistakes are entirely his fault. But Elsvruth is now YOURS, so take any parts you like and discard any you don't. <3
Credits
| Name | Acquainted with the Devil Bronze Elsvruth |
| Dam | Szetamirath |
| Sire | Aeldhiyth |
| Created By | Xh'vyr |
| Impress To | I'aija |
| Hatched | August 17th, 2019 |
| Monaco Weyr | |
| PernWorld MUSH | |
