Sessik the Tongue-Taker

Origins and Birth

Sessik the Tongue-Taker was born from the collective fear and reverence for silence of the old underhouse lines of the Kobolds.

Kobolds live where surface and underworld meet imperfectly: mine-edges, fracture seams, drains, service shafts, and collapsed works. In those places, noise is dangerous. A shout can bring down loose rock or a failing brace. A voice that carries can draw a predator, or a larger people who would rather the tunnels were empty. Long before silence was a craft, it was the difference between living and being found. The underhouses did not pray for "voices to be heard"; they prayed for "silence to be kept." They begged for "a guardian who would take the words from the careless," for "a quiet that keeps the stone standing," and for "a power that lives in the space between breaths."

Appearance and Presence

In full manifestation, Sessik appeared as harrowing, silent majesty.

• Visuals: He was a tall, gaunt figure whose skin was the colour of polished slate, smooth and cold to the touch.
• The Atmosphere: Around him, the air became heavy and muffled.
• The Voice: He did not speak.

Powers and Abilities

Sessik did not speak; he took. He did not reveal; he concealed.

• The Severing: He could remove a person's ability to speak, permanently or temporarily, by "taking" their tongue.
• The Silence of the Loud: He could silence a person's voice, preventing them from speaking, lying, or even thinking in words.
• The Secret Keeper: He could hide a truth so perfectly that it became impossible to find, even for the gods.
• The Judgement of Silence: He could determine if a person was "worthy" of the underhouse, often by subjecting them to a trial of silence.

The Fall: The Return of the Voice

Sessik's existence was a paradox. By silencing the underhouses, he kept them from warning one another.

• The Stagnation: Underhouses that kept Sessik's silence became afraid of their own voices.
• The Shift: Over generations, crews learned to make sound safe: taps, low calls, and rhythmic signals that carried a warning without carrying far.
• The Fading: The collective belief shifted from "fear the noise" to "know the noise." Sessik, sustained by terror of sound, found his fuel thinning into indifference.
• The Dissolution: Sessik did not die; he faded into the draught.

Legacy and Echoes

Although Sessik has faded, his echo still lingers in the underworks.

• The Whispering Shafts: Some old shafts where underhouses once kept his silence now carry sound strangely.
• The Legend of the "Silent Elder": One tale is of a crew-elder who tried to keep Sessik's silence alive by refusing ever to speak again.
• The Silent Stones: In abandoned underhouses, there are stones that make no sound when struck.
• The Unfound Hoards: Underhouses in his age hid their stores and their dead's grave-goods from raiders by asking him to fold the knowledge away, and when he faded, it went with him.
• The Silence Trial: Old crews tested a stranger by sitting them in the dark in his name until they broke or were accepted, and some never came out.

Relationships with Other Entities

• With Verba Prime: Sessik was a corrupted expression of Verba's nature.
• With Iskel the Scribe of the Silent (Verba): Never met, and kin only in silence.
• With Tavi the Bard of the Broken (Verba): Opposed in principle.