You look down, and you see your flesh is mended. Not a trace of your old wounds remain. You even have your sun tan back.
You realize you're smiling. Your skin tingles with a warm, refreshing sensation, as if you'd just come out of a shower.
And yet just beneath that, growing all the while, you feel a revulsion that cuts to the deepest parts of your soul.
With a snarl, you bring lightning and witchfire back into your hands, and slam your burning palm into the healed flesh. You grit your teeth through the icy, arcing stabs of pain. With another roar, you send lightning arcing all over your body, striking everything that watery tart tried to heal.
"DEPTHS BELOW WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!"
Maia's scream is drowned out by your rage and agony. You can still feel that
thing's touch all over you, in every piece of uninjured flesh that once was scarred, and the lightning burns it away. The exhaustion you'd previously gained from fighting the Knights returns, and to your surprise it's redoubled.
Then something comes in, like a tide.
Waves of thought and impression and desire crash against your mind, as if the ocean itself wants to drown you. Rage like water in your lungs, the sting of salty despair in your eyes, dragging and pulling you down into a storm of impression and thought. It rushes not only around you, but in you,
through you, like your will is a cracking dam. You try to repair the walls, to shore yourself up, and much of it stops. But the things both water and not feel you wavering, and they push harder for it. The sensation is akin to drowning in the desires of others, and even as you shore up the damn, you hear new cracks forming
In the cracks, however, there is a command. A roar of defiance and denial, authoritative and angry. No words, more an impression.
HE'S MINE!
And the waves pull back. Something still snaps at you from the waters, but in the same moment you hear it is suddenly silenced.
You're on your hands and knees in the medical room. You cough, and a splatter of red is on the ground beneath you.
Maia's pulled herself up from her bed and is trying to get over to you, pulling at the plastic tubing that you're pretty sure she's not supposed to be moving.
"STOP!" You both yell at once.
Maia, sickly as she appears, still manages to glare fiercely at you. "ME?! You just- what are you even doing?!"
You almost tell her, but hesitate. Would Maia even believe you if you told her about the mermaid in your dreams?
… actually in those terms she'd definitely believe it but also not take it as seriously as she should.
"It… feels refreshing?"
Maia doesn't specifically say 'you're lying and also stupid' but the look/scowl she gives you is close enough. "Shanwei, we have enough problems with these Knights apparently after our heads. They almost killed you. You do not need to help them by doing more damage to yourseHOK" she suddenly doubles over, her hoarse coughing hurting just to hear.
You stand up and, ignoring the pain in your wounds, try to help her back to bed, but she pushes you off.
"Knock that-KAK-off!!" She gasps. "I ain't going to lay in bed while… hrgh…" She falls to her knees, and clasps her mouth with one hand.
"Ah, depths. WE NEED A MEDICAE IN HERE!!" You yell.
As white-robed men and women enter the room and help you and Maia back to bed, you try to shake off the sight of your friend nearly killing herself to try and help you.
For a moment, you wonder if burning away what Delai gave you was a mistake.
… No.
You can't trust a spirit.
You lay down, and bide your time.
Sooner or later, they'll leave the room. And that'll be your chance to sneak away.
-
The problem with forbidding access to all but your own is that you have to seal the areas off. It points out to anyone who happens to visit exactly where they are hiding their most valuable loot. And so as you slip away from the medical bay, still wincing at your physical wounds, there's no question in your mind where you're going. You head straight for the temple proper, and no one questions you at first.
Of course, eventually you have to slip away from anyone's sight.
You aren't back to full just yet (and your choice to re-injure yourself hasn't helped) but you've rested enough that you can sneak your way around pretty easily. True, you're tall and imposing enough to make it a bit of an issue, but you move quickly enough to make up for it. You slip between naves and hidden alcoves, keeping yourself in place as the monks below you transport their goods out of the temple. It doesn't take you long to find areas the monks have sealed off.
You don't bring a torch. You don't need it. If the darkness of the depths wasn't enough to blind you, a cave doesn't stand a chance.
The tunnel you eventually choose is off to the side, built to look like a pointless hole that leads nowhere, too narrow and too out of the way to actually matter. And yet the monks occasionally slip in or out, and between these trips you slip inside yourself. The 'unimportant' hole digs deep into the stone of the temple, but eventually widens into a full corridor like any other in the temple. You move from pillar to pillar, keeping to the shadows as best you can.
You eventually come to a door that wouldn't look out of place on a bank vault. It doesn't match the surrounding stone at all, rather it is a bright and silver steel, obviously added by the monks. And from the looks of it, the door is already sealed.
As you approach the door to examine it, you find warnings and incantations scrawled all over the door. Do not disturb, authorized personnel only, the lives of the unworthy are forfeit here, blah blah blah, where's a keypad or a lock or something?!
… None that you can tell, although to be fair tech like this isn't really your strong suit. Hrm.
You grab the door in both hands and strain as you pull. The thing doesn't budge. You pull harder, but pain suddenly spikes through your wounds and you release on instinct.
You grit your teeth, trying not to let your impatience get the better of you. You're delving down here for plunder, yes, but it would be foolish to leave any trace of your passing. And even if it weren't, the monks are clearly worried about disturbing something down here. And if it's a vault…
…
No, ya know what, fuck this vault, fuck doors and
fuck the monks!
You throw up your hands and lightning lashes forth, striking the door and melting straight through it. You lash out with your fists and snarl as pain rushes through your ruined limbs; ruined, but not without strength. It takes a minute or so to get it to shift, but once you get it off its hinges, the thing lurches and falls with a bang that reverberates through the cavern and your body.
You spit on the door and walk over it.
Deeper and deeper you go, until even the monks stop appearing, and as you continue to go down you realize that the walls no longer look earthen. Rather, they are of a metallic material that feels familiar, yet you're not sure specifically where you've seen it.
Oh, wait; the cages! They weren't made of the same material (the cages actively hurt to touch) but it is very similar. Perhaps the tech monks developed it from places like this? Hm. Interesting, but you're more drawn to the potential treasure.
As you delve deeper, you come to realize this place isn't a vault as you'd initially assumed. The air's all wrong for such a thing. Nothing seems to be out on display from what you can tell, although you suppose that if anything had been it would've been taken already.
No, this place feels for all the world like a tomb.
Sailors, you've found, are a very superstitious lot. Especially pirates. When you live your entire life at the whims of the seas, you learn to take comfort in whatever small rituals you can before a freak storm wrecks you across the rocks.
You've heard tales of places such as this, of course, what sailor hasn't? Some blighter knight from the ages past would have buried himself with his pretty baubles and declared a curse upon anyone who dared to touch it. Some dare to dungeon dive and find themselves cursed by the gods. Some simply never show up again. You don't know for certain how true those tales are but you grew up surrounded by people who swear by them.
But those same stories of curses and horrors tell of glory beyond imagining. Legendary blades that banish evil, gold piled so high you can swim through it (hyperbole, definitely, gold doesn't work like that) or even a full-on Knight waiting for a pilot. The thought of such treasures makes any pirate's mouth water.
And this tomb isn't just out in the middle of nowhere; it's planted right below a Tech Monk temple. Most of the tech surely was taken before you arrived, but the fact that they did so tells you that the treasure here is very real. And perhaps, if you delve deep enough, you will find something that even the monks did not take. Or perhaps something they're simply storing artifacts for-
You stop in the middle of a corridor, then frown and back up a bit, glancing at the wall to your left.
The difference is subtle. Almost entirely unnoticeable. You almost missed it on your initial walk past. But the stone on this section of wall… something about the way it's shaped at the bottom catches your eye. You grin wide, and reach down.
Getting a grip on the false wall is almost impossible at first, but after a good couple of whacks the strange metal bends inward, giving you enough of a grip to pull the ridiculously heavy door up. And fortunately for your screaming muscles, the door recognizes it's being opened and finishes pulling up once you get halfway done.
The chamber you've found seems largely untouched. Perhaps the monks never delved this deep, or never managed to reach this chamber. Perhaps the monks use this place for storage, and you've simply found something they missed. But whatever the case, you see a marvelous piece of plunder on display. It rests in the center of the room on a plinth, like it's waiting to be claimed.
"… well well well," you whisper as you reach out for it, before suddenly freezing.
… This is obviously a trap.
But… it might be worth it.
And even if not, well, it'll be fun.
"What are
you?"
-
What sort of treasure do you find?
[] – Veil of Darkness
It initially looks like a tattered and ruined royal garment, the kind of ostentatious and regal item that many captains like to wear. But you soon discover that the tattered robes are instead threads of physical shadow, and it does more than simply look cool; shadows gather around you and you can move a short distance through space with a thought.
[] – Hyperphase Sword
You find a large, curved sword that reminds you somewhat of an oversized cutlass. The weapon hums lightly in your hand, as the tomb's guardians continue to attack, you quickly discover that the blade slices through even hardened metal as if it were nothing.
[] – Nightmare Shroud
You find a small black cask that you initially think is holding the real treasure. In your attempts to open it, however, you instead discover that the cask is full of terrors and nightmarish visions, unleashing an unnatural horror that even you find difficult to resist. Naturally, it's yours now.
[] – Eldritch Lance
You find a strange staff that fires a bolt of light (lightning? You're not sure) that makes the air scream with agony. Its head is topped with a beautiful crystalline structure and it practically
screams authority. Additionally, it opens some extra doors for you.
[] – Write in
There's a LOT of cool treasures in the =spoilers= Wargear list and I'm not gonna list them all, sue me.
Please make it something that Sun-Sin could conceivably personally use and is not unique. I will reject things like a C'tan shard or the Ghostwalk Mantle (the former is not something Sun-Sin would know how to use or would be able to control if he had the faintest idea; the latter is a unique item granted to Vargard Obryon)
Suggested by
@Tabascoheath
[] – Translocational Compass
"A diminutive handheld box that, when opened on a hinge, reveals a complex three dimensional chartering graph to any given direction. Though it only seems to point towards a shown tear in the void, such that one might navigate around it."
Suggested by
@SpacePaladin
[] – write-in
-[] There were several scarab-shaped machines in various states of disassembly and decay. One stood out to you, as though someone had remodelled it for some unfathomable reason to resemble some form of avian. It called to you.
Stretching it a bit, but if I can't give the pirate primarch an undead alien parrot what am I even doing here?
