The Temple of Inari 57: Life goes on

[Rebonack]

[Full Moon Party]

Many people were speaking to Torus. Not just speaking to give commands, but speaking to convey that they didn't want Torus to... what? Act toward them in a subservient fashion? The one called herself a queen but insisted that Torus was equal in value to herself? Torus' mind reeled at the very concept. That couldn't possibly be. The queen must have been mistaken. There wasn't any other explanation. The shoggoths were created things with a purpose; to serve the needs of the Masters. But the Masters weren't known here. That had to be the problem, the missing information that made these people draw the faulty conclusion that there was some measure of worth to Plasma Torus' life beside the utility she could provide.

Since they had spoken to her as if she were a person rather than servitor (another thrill of rebellion, one that the Maker should have punished. Was something wrong with her?) Torus felt it would be within reason to respond. She had to help them to understand.

"Please forgive this servitor for speaking again. I am not equal to you; I am a tool whose value is only the services that I can provide. The Maker created the Masters in its image. The Masters created the shoggoths to be their servants. I exist because the Masters willed it to be and so I serve them out of love and obligation. My owner, Academician Guldat, was using me to test the interactions between fundamental forces. I suspect they intended to test me to destruction and to my shame I felt fear; a shoggoth should be happy to give their life in whatever cause a Master deems appropriate. There was... a voice? It asked me if I wanted to live and in a moment of weakness I said yes. There was a flash and I found myself in this place, disconnected from the labor-net and with no Masters to be found."

Torus hoped that its tale would help them understand. It's only a tool, but... But what would it be like to be her own Master? To choose her own labors? Or, almost blasphemous to even imagine it, to choose no labor at all? The shoggoth instinctively winced, her ears flattening out, as she waited for the Maker's punishment to fall upon her. But there was nothing. Slowly her eyes opened, a look of confused fear on her face as it finally struck her what was happening.

"I... I can't feel the Maker's hand anymore. I don't feel joy when I do well and I'm no longer punished when I have blasphemous thoughts," Torus moaned, tears welling in her eyes again. She looked to these strange, alien creatures. "My heart feels empty. Is there something wrong with me? Am I broken? Is..."

She cast her gaze around the temple grounds in a desperate search.

"A shoggoth without the Maker's Blessing is a danger to the Masters I- I need to have it restored. Or I must find a veterinarian who can euthanize me. B-but I don't want to die- I..."

To those with particularly good sense for spellwork, should they look, will find the shattered remnants of a spell that was once wired to what serves as the neural and magical core of the shoggoth. The spell appears to have been quite simple and insidious. Linking to the centers for memory and emotion, it provided shots of pleasure when the shoggoth thought she had served her Masters well and shots of pain when she felt guilt towards them. It had a failsafe to kill Torus if it were removed, but instead the crystalline structure of her core that it was embedded in appears as though it was damaged in whatever experiment sent her to the Nexus. The crystalline structure is regenerating, but the spell is broken beyond repair. Torus is a creature who was once bound in arcane shackles.