Subsumption (PMMM Faux-Quest) (Witch MC)

> Attempt communication...

Okay, this is a bit abrupt, and the entirety of your pre-meeting preparations were just rendered nil, but you'll just have to make do.

You swiftly scrawl a couple of sentences onto the open pages of Novella, hoping the windmill witch will wait to see what you're doing before acting herself. She does, thankfully, allowing you to rapidly arrange the chains of runes you just created in front of you, and present them to the other witch as what amounts to a giant floating subtitle.


A bit cliché, but it should get the point across. Since you seem to be able to naturally read these symbols now, hopefully she can too, and you feel as though this has the best chance of working regardless of her mentality, it being witch language and all. If it fails... well, you'll deal with that then.

...though, you're not quite sure whether it's succeeding OR failing right now, actually, as the windmill witch isn't reacting. She's not attacking, which is good, but that's sort of just a function of the fact that she doesn't seem to even be acknowledging your presence anymore. Weird, she definitely knows you're here, or she wouldn't have turned around... maybe she doesn't know how to indicate that she does or doesn't understand? Or maybe her eyesight is just bad? She does only appear to have one eye, if you can even call that an eye, and while your words are pretty large, you suppose you are kind of far away.

Cautiously, you approach the hill and begin ascending, floating closer to the other witch. As the slope decreases, the wide patch of multi-colored blooms that cover the area where her "body" meets the ground comes into view again — pretty, but considering their location, you think you'll stay as far away from those as you can. Good thing you float anyways.

Once you're on roughly the same level as the other witch, you tentatively present your message again. This time, you immediately hear a sort of sucking, gurgling noise issue from her direction. Wait, is she trying to speak? She might be-!

The gurgling roars louder, and a large jet of murky purple water blasts out of the ground beneath the flowers, aimed directly at you. You immediately shove yourself to the side, causing the stream to miss the interlocked straps that compose your thin upper body, but pass directly over top of the pages of Tome. You hastily pull away, fairly certain that water is probably not good for the book, what with it being mostly made of paper and all.

...well damn. She's attacking, and shows no signs of understanding you. Should you return fire...?



[-] Continue attempting to communicate. Persistence pays!
[-] Respond in kind. You can't just sit here and let yourself be attacked!
[-] Leave. You didn't sign up for a fight, and she can't exactly follow you, now can she?
[-] Write in.

> Continue attempting to communicate.

...no, you can't just give up immediately. She might just not be able to read the runes, and as a trespasser in her domain, you kind of expected some aggression anyways, sapience or no. You'll try something else.

You begin quickly rearranging the pieces of your message, even as hose-like streams of magenta water continue coming your way. You do your best to evade them, petals and flowers falling off of you like snow as you sway back and forth through the air. Thankfully, the attacks seem to be aimed at the virtual stick that is your top half rather than the colossal book just below it, making them fairly easy to dodge. You are getting hit with a bit of the spray though...

Nonetheless, you continue with your efforts, making a few more shatterwords when you run out of material, and finish before too long. The end result is bit rough from your haste, as well as the fact that you're actively under fire right now, but it should work.

Still keeping your distance, you mentally grab your new message and swivel it around for the other witch to see: numerous strings of shatterwords, now arranged into large, blocky Japanese characters.


The attacks cease, the watery assault halting as the witch stares down at you. Or at least, you think that's what she's doing. Her eye doesn't really seem to move so much as... spin, so you can't actually tell if she's reading the message, but you'll take the fact that the water spouts have stopped as a-

A strange clacking noise, almost like that of wooden gears grinding together, suddenly begins echoing out over the area. At the same time, the windmill witch's four larger fan blades extend outward and begin to change, the poles bending inward like elbow joints as the sails gain a strangely metallic shine. After a few seconds, the noise stops, and the witch is left with four long, newly usable arms, the blades attached to them appearing as though they may actually live up to their name now.

That's... not a good sign. Unless she's going to attempt charades, you don't like the look of this...

The gurgling sounds return, and you internally curse. You'd thought using your runes like that was a clever idea, but apparently not clever enough to actually work. You swiftly ready yourself to dodge the coming attack-

The expected jet of water shoots up not from around the base of the windmill like those prior, but from the ground almost directly beneath and behind you. Unprepared for the change up, you're unable to avoid the geyser as it strikes the underside of Tome with a surprising amount of pressure, forcibly propelling you towards the other witch. Crap-!

The moment you enter melee range, two of the witch's newly limber blades lash out at you like a pair of giant meat cleavers. You manage to pull back quickly enough that they miss your main body, but not quickly enough to avoid them entirely, leaving them to gouge themselves down into the open pages of Tome.

Contrary to the fact that books are generally not known to contain nerve endings, yours is apparently the exception. Silently screeching in horrid pain, you frantically reel out of the other witch's range before she can issue a follow up attack.

Diplomacy appears to have failed.



[-] Carry on your efforts anyways. Maybe she's illiterate just in general...?

[-] Attack!
[-] Illusion!
[-] Evade!
[-] Flee! It's still a perfectly valid option!
[-] Write in.

> Flee!

This isn't working, and you've officially been injured now. You know when to cut your losses — it's time to leave before you manage to get yourself killed.

You float away from the windmill witch, intent on getting away from the hill she seems to be permanently stuck on. Spouts of dull purple water continue to shoot up from below, forcing you to move backwards in order to dodge them, but thankfully they seem to be your opposition's only long range method of attack. Thank goodness you didn't encounter a witch that could actually follow you...

As you float over the divide between the grass of the hill and the muck beyond, a horridly sharp screeching noise resounds throughout the air, the corroded metal of windmill witch's smaller fan forcing itself past its own rust to haltingly spin a single rotation around the witch's eye. While it puts you on guard, nothing seems to happen immediately, leaving you to assume it was just her way of expressing anger with you moving out of range.

...until the world roars, and a giant cyclone of wind carrying the colors of the witch's kaleidoscopic aura spirals out from her and slams into you with the force of a rather large truck. Surprisingly, it doesn't actually hurt that much, but the angle of the attack results in you being thrown down into the muck below, where you impact facedown with a very loud, wet-sounding SPLAT.

You're not entirely certain whether "owww" or "ewww" is more appropriate here. Either way, straining your flotation ability to do so, you lever yourself back up and out of the sticky, cloying mud. It really does not seem to want to let you go, but you manage it, pulling yourself back into the air...

Just in time to see the witch's larger fan begin rapidly spinning again.

The same typhoon-level winds you were caught in before return with a vengeance, more than twice as strong as the time previous. The strength of the gale is enough to completely override your own movement ability, sending you whirling completely out of control, helpless to escape the chaotic winds around you. You feel some of Tome's already damaged pages tear off completely with the force, the loss of each one feeling akin to a layer of skin being flayed from your body. Several small, sharp objects crash into you, followed by more pain, a sudden loss of sensation, and the wind abruptly blowing your tower of straps to the right a lot further than it should be able to go.

...you think you just lost both your left arms.

As if recognizing their job is done, the winds vanish, leaving you tumbling aimlessly out of the air like an oversized piece of trash. You don't manage to right yourself before crashing into land, though face up this time, and on a much more solid surface than the mud you hit before. Still in shock at the damage you've taken, it takes you a few moments to raise yourself off the grass-covered ground beneath you- wait, did you just get thrown back onto the hill? Oh no, bad place to be, bad place to b-!

A jet of water shoots out of the ground in front of you, and this time you're not fast enough to get out of the way. It strikes you head on, the force blowing you backward slightly, even as a large portion of the liquid sinks into the already muddied pages of Tome.

Oh no, you're completely... drenched...

...why was that... bad... again...?

Another spray of water hits you, this one slamming into Novella, leaving its pages utterly waterlogged.

Who... cares...



[-] Fight...
[-] The water is... kind of nice...
[-] You should just... stay in it...
[-] Forever...



> ...

Dimly, you're aware that you're now being hosed down from multiple sides, the torrents of water doing nothing much to your straps, but utterly ruining what's left of Novella and Tome. You watch disinterestedly as their pages dissolve, and your vision begins to dissolve with them.

You shouldn't be… alive… anyways…

…this is… for the best…