Chapter 1: On the Finding of the Signless

Porrim Maryam was a jade-blooded troll. That meant that it was her caste's sole duty to care for the Mother Grubs and manage the trials that the newly hatched trolls would go through. They were a small caste, far smaller than the teal bloods above them, but being a jadeblood had its advantages. They were almost entirely safe from the predations of the Grand Highblood and his bands of insane killers. They were too valuable a caste to recruit from for any of the Empress's armies. And so Porrim and her ilk were left alone to ensure the survival of the race.

Porrim herself was one of three trolls who tended the Mother Grub Nidara. She was young yet, and only spawned small broods. Three was the lowest possible number of trolls needed to tend a Mother Grub. One was needed to feed the Mother, a second to maintain the Trial Caverns, and a third to manage the lusii awaiting their charges. They alternated their duties, Porrim and her two companions, Harfai, and Belgis.

Today was the day in the rotation that Porrim was assigned to the Trial Caverns. A series of caves branched out from the spawning chamber, each one designed with trials unique to each blood caste. The lowbloods spawned in massive numbers even in broods as small as what Nidara produced. As such, her attendants had standing orders from the Highblood to cull their numbers by at least 75%. Tests for agility and balance would leave slow and clumsy young trolls with crushed legs or torsos. Tests of strength would leave weak trolls missing limbs. Dull trolls would be left bereft of skin in intelligence trials. The failed trolls would be collected periodically. Those still alive would be put out of their misery and fed to the hungry lusii that they would never meet. Among the especially psionically gifted trolls, separate trials would be performed. If they failed they would typically end up burned to ash or squashed into pancakes.

The tests for the high blooded trolls were no less brutal. Most of the trials these young ones faced had to do with instinctive brutality towards lower castes. These required automated monitoring. If a troll failed to be appropriately aggressive, then they would be unceremoniously dumped into the feeding pits. Lusii of different blood types would happily feast on a failed troll. In this way, the eugenics of the race was carried out. Any troll with weak or otherwise inferior genes would be weeded out by the lusii, if not the trials.

Any troll lucky enough to survive the tests intact would then come before the lusii, who would inspect the troll. A lusus of the same blood type would then adopt the troll, if its scent was to their liking. In the case of some rare mutant blood types that managed to survive the trials, one of two things would happen. Sometimes a lusus would take a liking to the scent of the mutant blood and adopt it, or the mutant would be torn apart and eaten.

Porrim was, like many of her caste, a rainbow drinker. The jade bloods evolved the ability to subsist off of blood shortly after their caste was designated as the caretakers. This proved to their advantage, as there was never a shortage of blood in the trial caverns. Additionally, they were able to provide a source of light in the dark caves for their non vampiric castemates.

It was a day like any other day. Porrim was clearing the rustblood cavern. Walking along the access path between trials, hearing the screams of agony of the failed trolls unlucky enough to not die, she was thrown off her feet as the ground shook. Dust filled the air. A rumbling sound could be heard.

"Is it a cave in?" Porrim whispered to herself. The rumbling and shaking ceased, but the thick granite dust still filled the cavern. Shrieking and crying could still be heard, but in no greater or lesser amount than before. There was no means to tell where the potential collapse was, so she called Belgis.

"Bel, it's Porrim." She said. "Do you know what just happened?"

"No, I don't," he replied, "I thought it was a cave-in though. Nidara is safe though, but she is awfully upset."

"Have you heard from Harfai yet?"

"No. You go ahead and call her, I need to calm Nidara down, I'm worried she'll go off spawning for a while after this. You know how she does with shocks…"

"Alright." Porrim shut off the call on her wrist-mounted communication crab. It served as a dual tracker and communication device. Walking to the trial platform, she dialed Harfai as she began the work of clearing the dead and dying from it. "Harfai, are you there?"

A few seconds passed, then a slightly muffled voice came through. "Yeah Porrim, I'm here. There was a cave-in in a side cave off the lusus cavern."

"Were any lusii lost?"

"A couple of Aresians, but they're so common it's practically a good thing to have a couple of them killed off."

"And any young ones?"

"Eh, I think there was one, but he looked like he was already injured. Limping pretty bad."

"I'll call in an order for some drones to patch the place up. Let me finish clearing the rust cave-"Porrim grunted as she lifted the body of a troll off the ground. The troll's head had been smashed by one of the moving pillars. "-there are a lot today."

There was a pause on the other side. "How many of them are dead?" Harfai asked in a strange tone.

Porrim sighed into the crab. "Less than a third. Most of them seem to have failed in the intelligence tests." She winced, despite her genetically and culturally suppressed ability to feel sympathy. "These ones are especially brutal."
"How so?"

Porrim tossed the dead troll over the side of the platform. It'd end up in a pile of dead trolls that would be fed to the various lusii in time. "From the noise I hear up ahead, I'd guess a lot of acid and fire." She traveled to the last platform quickly. It was a scene she was well used to, but her previous bit of sympathy made itself known again. At least fifty troll children lay strewn about the stone floor, all writhing in some unique agony. Many had their skin melted off by acid, others lie smoldering from gouts of fire that they had failed to avoid, and some few were totally dismembered but still alive. "It's terrible today." She said mournfully to the crab.

"I can hear. Damn, the Highbloods must be trying to bring up the IQ of the rusts now."

"I think so." Porrim took out her gun, a simple pistol that shot liquid-filled capsules that would provide a quick death to the suffering. She began her work, euthanizing the tormented young. After a time, she was finished, and started to walk to the lusus chamber. She ended the call with Harfai as she crossed over the bridge. A weak, plaintive cry caught her attention.

"Please…" a young girl's voice caught her attention. "Please don't leave me here…" the girl pled, weeping. Porrim looked around and saw a troll girl in a corner. Rust colored blood leaked out of at least a dozen deep cuts all over the troll's body. That alone wasn't fatal, but what would prove fatal was the gaping hole through her abdomen. She looked up at Porrim. Rust colored tears streamed down her face. "It hurts so bad… please make it stop!"

Porrim looked at her euthanasia gun. It was out of poison. She walked over to the girl and knelt in front of her. Their eyes met.

"Please…" the girl spasmed weakly, the light in her eyes going out. Porrim watched as she died. More than anything else, she was shocked at one thing: the girl could speak. No young troll she had ever seen in her time in the caves had ever been able to speak. Sighing, she picked up the troll and, after a brief moment that could have been considered sympathy or grief, tossed her body down the shaft like all the others.

"Ah, Porrim, there you are." Harfai said as Porrim emerged from the tunnel. Porrim immediately saw the cave-in off the main body of the chamber.

"You said a few Aresians, not half the herd." She said accusatorily.

"A few, half, all of them, what's the difference? They're just a bunch of rustblood lusii. Half of them will probably be culled by the Highbloods before they reach 6 sweeps."

"I suppose… but still, it seems a bit excessive, don't you think?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, don't you think that some of these trials are a bit harsher than they need to be? Why use acid when a rock would work just as well? Why leave them dissolving in agony when you could just smash their heads in and be done with it?"

Harfai raised an eyebrow. "Did you not hear the newest announcement from the Highbloods? They watch the trials now, treat them like some sort of game."

"I suppose that would explain why… but this level of torture seems a bit much for even the Highbloods. They just like to see blood."

Harfai shrugged. "What can you expect? They can do whatever they want, so long as it keeps the masses cowed."

"I suppose."

The two called in the repair drones to properly clear away the debris from the cave in. As the robots worked, Porrim's mind kept dwelling on the scenes from the day. For an instant, she saw just how obscene and ridiculous the entire trial system was, that any other race of creatures would be horrified at how the trolls treat their young, but her clarity was gone in an instant. Eventually, Harfai left to go back to her bedroom, leaving Porrim all alone. The last drone left. She moved to inspect their work.

The side cavern was unused before the collapse. It was an ancillary room that would eventually be expanded to hold more lusii as Nidara aged, producing more offspring as she did. The room was now much larger and higher. In fact, the barest sliver of the night sky could be seen through a small hole in the roof of the cave. Porrim sighed, shook her head to clear her thoughts and went back to her own room to sleep.

The next few days passed in a similar manner. Porrim cleaned the other trial caves, noting the increased brutality and challenge. In her mind, she grew increasingly dissatisfied and disturbed. Sometimes she would observe trials designed to be unpassable, and simply intended to cause as much agony as possible. These would be entirely in the lowblood trials. She had to call in a request for drones to assist her in cleaning the caves, as there would be too many bodies for her to deal with. None of the dead she saw were whole anymore. A corpse would be lucky to only be missing two of its limbs. And then, all of a sudden, the brutal trials were stopped and the more typical ones were reinstated. Probably just the capriciousness of the Highbloods again.

After two weeks on cave-cleaning duty, she was back to tending directly to Nidara. The Mother Grub was very talkative, but the conversations she inevitably would try to initiate with Porrim only deepened her sense of horror at troll society.

Nidara kept up a near constant stream of chatter. "I do hope that these grubs grow up to be happy, don't you dear? These here with the deep red color, these will be very strong, yes, they will. This one with the purple skin? Oh, he will be loved by so many people. This one here, with the yellow, you see her? She'll invent great things…" and on and on the Mother Grub would gush over her brood. Many times Porrim would have to duck out of sight of Nidara, assaulted by her now fully functioning conscience, too grieved to tell her that of her current brood of about a hundred, perhaps ten would make it out of the breeding caverns. The innocent joy of the Mother was so foreign to Porrim, this love of her offspring made her hurt inside.

She could never say to Nidara that perhaps one of those rusts she said would be strong would walk out with a lusus, that the rest would die in agony and never even have a name. She would never tell her that the purple who was fated to be beloved would in fact torture and kill other trolls for the fun of it, to watch their blood flow between his fingers. That the yellow would be used as a living battery to power starships. She could never say those things. And so she kept her silence, watching as the broods grew larger. Nidara would gush over them for hours, spinning her adulation and desires for her children to go out into the world and find joy and love. The Mother would make up names and stories for her children, talking about how they would all work for their common good, and all would live in peace and prosperity. And Porrim could do nothing but stand there, feeding the Mother Grub buckets of genetic material supplied by the drones.

Until one day, Nidara stopped talking and looked at her. "Child, why are you weeping?" She asked gently. Porrim blinked, and was shocked to find that she was indeed crying. She waved as if to brush away the question, but Nidara was persistent. "Child, tell me what grieves you so. What makes your emerald tears flow?"

Porrim crumpled under the weight of her scrutiny. A Mother Grub's gaze is intense, and not many can withstand it. "It's… about your… children." Porrim started hesitantly.
"What about them? Why do my beautiful children bring you such pain?"

"Well, how much do you know of our society?"

And so began the conversation that shook Nidara to her very essence. The knowledge that her children would grow up in a monstrous society and become monsters themselves was a horror to her. The tales of the Highbloods' violence wounded her. And when Porrim told her of the trials, that Nidara's beloved offspring would be maimed, tormented, and killed in the name of eugenics, she let out a terrible keening cry.

"No! No no no no no! My beautiful beloved children… dead… so many dead! Why? Why do they die, child? Tell me! For what purpose do they suffer and die, nameless and alone?" She screamed, screamed with the grief and pain of a mother betrayed. She thrashed and writhed, and the stone she lay on grew wet with her tears. After a time, her screams faded, and her writhing stilled. But she kept her litany of accusing questions. "What role do you play in this-this abomination?"

"I care for you and clean the caves. I care for the lusii that choose the survivors."

"And what if you do not? What if you… disobey?"

"Then the higher-ups come and make me scream, make me cry. That is the way of this world. We are all slaves, every one of us. We do what we are told to, or we provide the entertainment to the Highbloods in turn."

Nidara was silent for a time. Belgis called her crab. "Porrim, what the hell was that noise? Is the Mother Grub alright?"

"She's alright. She got injured, but it's nothing severe. I've got her patched up. Don't worry about it, it sounded a lot worse than it actually is."
"Alright, but pay close attention to her. The Grand Highblood would make us beg for death if she dies."

"I know." Porrim said shortly, and terminated the call.

"The other one, Belgis he calls himself…" Nidara started.
"Yes, what about him?"

"He also knows of the fate of my children?"
"Yes. All three of us do, and all of those who tend other Mother Grubs."

"This is unacceptable. This cannot be allowed to continue."

"And what would you have us do? We cannot contact anyone outside of these caves. We cannot cease in our duties, the Highbloods would send enforcers to beat us into compliance, or even just replace us. We are trapped, no matter what we do we have only the choice of service or death."

Nidara slumped, or at least as much as a giant grub can slump. "And I cannot starve myself… that would just incur punishment upon you." The two sat in silence for a long while. Next to Porrim, a blue grub hatched and the wriggling little creature that came out of it started to crawl around, seeking food and a stalagmite to pupate on. Porrim picked it up and carried it to the basin of food. "Perhaps…" Nidara began, "perhaps all that can be done is simple acts like that." She gestured at Porrim with one of her tiny legs.

"Maybe…" the word floated faintly on the gap between the two. "Or maybe there is no choice at all, and we must do what we are bound to do by laws stronger than iron." She set the grub down for it to eat. "I must bandage you so that my lie earlier is not suspected."

"Do what you must, child. The joy of living has left me."

Weeks passed slowly. Porrim cycled from tending the Mother Grub to caring for the lusii, and maintaining the trial caves. Nidara kept spawning her broods. The trials kept culling them. The lusii kept adopting the survivors. It was nearly a quarter of a sweep after revealing the truth about the trolls when Porrim's life changed forever. A meteor crashed into the cave that had caved in. And in it was a bright, candy-red grub. A mutant. She took it to the Mother Grub.

"Nidara, what should be done with this? It is a mutant…"

"What do you believe should be done with him?" Nidara replied.

"No lusus will accept him… and every troll in Alternia will try to kill him anyways. He has no chance of survival."

Nidara thought for a while. "All of my other children… they have a chance to survive the horrors they face. But this one… he has no chance at all. Unless."

"Unless what?" Porrim asked with increasing certainty as to what would be done.

"Unless you care for him. Raise him yourself."

"Such a thing is unheard of! It seems almost obscene."

"This could be how you change the world. You could save my children. The children of other Mother Grubs. I can see that he will indeed be capable of great things. He is a seer, you know."
"A seer? Seer of what?"

"Of truth! He will be able to see what we are supposed to be! What we could become!"

Porrim stood for a while. Possibilities swirled in her mind. "I will leave you."
"Very well."
"I will take this troll to raise. I will be his lusus. I will be his… mother. Like you are to our race, I will be to him."
"Very good. Love him as I love my own brood. Raise him to love all trolls. Teach him, and learn from him in turn." Nidara beamed.

"He has no sign to him… no lusus will give him a name."
"Then I shall name him." The Mother Grub paused for a moment, deep in thought. "His name shall be… Kankri. Kankri Vantas."

"So it is." In Porrim's arms, the bright red grub nestled into her cradling grasp.

"Now go, my child. Save my children from this endless cycle!" Nidara wept, grieving for all those lost, and who would be lost in the sweeps before her adopted child, Kankri, the one she had named, would save her race. She wept as Porrim ran from the caverns, abandoning her duty, and condemning herself to a life of the worst sort of slavery if caught. She wept in joy, for in her mind's eye she had seen what Kankri could bring about, and so the young Mother Grub became the first true follower of he who would be known as the Signless.