#amalgamate

Circles on circles, a city constantly building upon itself, new heights, new bodies, and new investment opportunities, skyscrapers arising and then being cannibalized and fed to the newest project. Vision and clout spend better than Calcar, better than gold, the earliest foundations of the town have been eaten away so much that, if not for the undercity constantly strengthening pillars and holding it up, this ‘last height of humanity’ would surely collapse in on itself.

The outermost rings reek of jealousy, the middle hunger, and the innermost a constant, choking paranoia and fear. The Queensguard and their sectioned headquarters at the edges keeping the town just barely from killing itself. At the center, a staircase, going to the edge of the world.

Only the best of the best can live here, can afford to or be allowed to physically. If your forme and style veer too far from the current standard, merchant or permanent resident, you may wake in the Officer’s waiting room with some better options picked out, if they like you. Or a guard station by the outer limits if they do not.

At the top of it all, the staircase reaches the tip of the Queen’s abode, our Astra Memoria, an inverted complex of crystal and glass, positioned upside down at the height of our tallest cavern. Her and the chosen few keeping so close to the surface, keeping watch on the world above so that once it’s healed, once it’s truly ready for us, she will set us free.

Every engine must have its fuel, and more than the miners down south keeping the lights lit, more than the dying mages in the greens and the worn fisherfolk breaking themselves for their food, what the Capital needs most to live, is people they can step on just below, and eat when they need to.

Underground even in an Underground Citadel, the Gwin is a sprawling mass of old rebel tunnels and still active sewer works, its people living on trash barges below Chalcedony’s gutter. Some of the folk work pitiful day jobs in the city itself, spiffing themselves up to get stepped on all day, but some spend their whole lives in the open secret that is this town of refuse.

Most piecemeal work is found here, taking a clear strip of skin off yourself, a finger or two of the crystal’s not got yet just to clear some debts. Bits from all different people all slid together to be a replacement arm for some bastard barrister who’s barely got a few spikes. The work is lovely, top of the line, but that’s not enough to get you out of the gutter.

Hell some of the patch limbs they sell up on the proper streets these days are the cleanest jobs you’ve ever seen. Not a spot of Calcar, fully grown, fully formed, and nobody can even find the seams.

Stagnation is sin, acceptance is avarice.

“The world above lies scorched of life and substance. As we await its rebirth, should we not be rebirthed ourselves? The dretch of first humanity failed its setting and its stars, we must be deserving of more.

Utilize this gift to be greater, not some infinite mirror of singleminded aesthetic but our own personal perfection. All flesh that walks the under earth is but materials for your true sculpting. Your rote birth is simply a blank slate. Make and remake yourselves, grow and shine and hatch out, til this geodic egg of our world below–when we hatch out, when the sun and moon shine upon us again, it will be to a grand kaleidoscope of perfect formes and souls. Chase cellular creativity, chase yourself, your true image formed in flesh. Pain be the only limiter and a cheap one at that.”

The least beloved splinter of the Calcar Church, if they can even be called that at this point, similar only in their mirrored worship for the hidden skies and the Queen herself. Beyond simply embracing Amalgamation, that has become their core binding tenet.

“Change and trade your bodies forever until the earth above falls away again and our stagnant seed can blossom anew under the stars.”

Calcar is not a sign of devotion or divine punishment, it is merely a reminder to advance, again and again, a sign of flesh that no longer serves you. Chase more, find new perfect planks for your Theseus ship sailing through the dull masses.

Some have more strict requirement about what can join themselves, where they can gain the additions to their nervous systems. The majority actually follow in that, a variation of the golden rule, trading limbs with friends and family often, still serving their bodies and chasing their form but with no selfish slant.

Most people of the depths (save for the most devout) actually lean far more towards Geodism than the Calcar Belief in their daily lives. If you point them out to them though, that silent neutral majority is never what they think of.

To all but the most experienced, Geodists are all the worst of themselves, the extremists you see in the papers. Those the Queen has labeled ‘Absolute Geodism”; nightmares of the worst of Officers centuries past, monsters creeping on the edge of town; you must gain your perfect self however you can, however you must. That arm would be better served and loved upon your own shoulder. Care not for the hacked up imperfection that you've left behind.

Though blamed for every outbreak of Mad Amalgamates, very few have ever been brought to punishment. Queensguard are told to stop pursuing them, once they’ve cleared past the edge of town.

Communities can form, out in the condemned caverns, or in ill used back alleys, but usually only with those whose appearance and aesthetic choices align, else wise their groups will skirmish, attacking each other as “pathetic perversions of aesthetics”.

That being said when one of them is under chase, all nearby, and other formes beside, will come to their aid.

When truly desperate for parts, it’s said that Mad Amalgamates, originating from them or not, will sometimes be herded to towns and settlements, the attacks and skirmishes that follow will leave plenty of materials for them to pick through and add to their collection.

“So much life and beauty, and so much misery keeping it all going.”

The ‘Greens’ are a series of interconnected caverns and tunnels constantly flooded with all the moisture, nutrients and power as the regime can muster. Foods of every type known to the underground are grown and processed here, the work constantly boosted by a cycle of young mages who couldn’t buy their way out of the grunt work.

Some caverns host smaller farmworks within artificial ‘seasons’ that never end, whatever setting’s best suited to their target produce. Some grow subsidized ‘nutrient essentials’ like mushrooms that provide the Calciferol we need…once provided by the Sun. Others are run by private companies, who may do whatever they like to gain profit on their land.

Lumberworks transformed into backdrops for Calcedony tourists hunting prey, else growing systems pushed to the maximum. Chained Constellatials and and feeding spells positioned right above their targets, flora and fauna alike growing nonstop, no night, no rest until their harvest. Some issues have been raised, but there’s so much else to worry about…

Mage academies exist here but are highly competitive, and kick students at the slightest grade drop, unless they have connections. Ensuring the best of the best put their all into staying that way, and that the majority of students who enter, must then keep in the Greens and clocking in constantly to settle their loans and have a chance of freeing themselves and settling any elsewhere.

So much energy is continually pumped into the area that new ‘species’ occasionally originate without intention, escaped livestock or the seeds themselves developing into new formes. If they’re useless they’re hunted as a pest, if they’re large enough…What a lovely new advent for limb-harvesting, add them to the stock!