Chords of the Glass-Throated Crane
By @john1208
In the obsidian terraces of Khol-Zhan, the Glass-Throated Lyre-Crane was revered not as a god, but as a vital acoustic instrument. Its haunting, subsonic songs pacified the colossal tectonic worms slumbering beneath the magma vents. But when Baron Morvath butchers the sacred bird to craft a crystalline chandelier from its vocal cords, the earth begins to violently splinter. The curse of the Crane does not kill the guilty immediately. Instead, Morvath and his cronies are afflicted with the Tremor-Plague. Jagged glass vocal cords erupt through their human throats, compelling them to emit agonizing, melodic screams that mimic the dead bird. Thura, a deaf ash-digger who navigates the world purely through vibrations, feels the tectonic worms rising to consume the innocent villagers. She discovers a horrifying truth: the scattered screams of the cursed nobles are acoustically out of tune. To pacify the deep earth, Thura cannot wait for them to die. She must drag them to the volcanic vents, break their ribs, and stretch their mutating necks to achieve the perfect harmonic resonance. Will she lose her own humanity as she physically tunes her oppressors into screaming, living instruments?
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