Twilight Throw-down
The jungle trembled with every great step Verschlengorge took. It did not, however, tremble in fear. Many of the denizens of this shaded path fled, but just as many stalked, anticipating the meal that might be won from this new challenger to their bestial lords. Few indeed had ever come so far into their domain, and such a spectacle was tempting to the scavengers and opportunists of the Voyaging Realm. But for all that the prize was great, every step that the interlopers took was further into the contested heart of the jungle.
Their journey began with fighting off great predators, trailed by a growing swarm of eager vultures. Now, as the trees began to rise over Verschlengorge's hunched form, the lesser creatures of the jungle fell away. Birdsong and the murmur of insects left them shortly afterwards.
Gisena stood like a splendid beacon atop the shoulder of the machine, keen green eyes searching the brush and canopy for enchantment as often as they locked on to Hunger's form. The titular bodyguard was as terse as he'd been since their journey began, senses strained to their peak even as his ring pulled his focus towards their distant goal.
"I've lost radar." Letrizia whispered through Verschlengorge.
"Oh! I suspect that's the content of the foliage!" Gisena replied. She plucked a fruit as Verschlengorge ducked under the heavy branches of a tree.
"They're metallic! I've always wondered about the taste of a gem.." she continued, turning the faceted fruit over in her hands, noting the brilliance of the cut in addition to the heft of the thing, she tossed it at Hunger's head below her.
The hired help dodged the offering without a glance. His gaze locked on the river their route lead across. "Toxic before you even touched it." He noted. "You've really out-done yourself, Allria."
"You're safe from my efforts this time, sir, they're far too flammable to cook!" Gisena chirped.
"F-Flammable?" Letrizia's concern came calling from Vershlengorge's remaining external speakers.
"Don't jinx it." Hunger grumbled. "After we ford this river we're meant to follow a cliff for about eight kilometers. We'll leave the jungle behind in another hour."
The river was slow as to be still, crystal clear and vast. Verschlengorge was up to its chest in water and mud, and climbing over the roots of the massive mangroves as much as it was walking. Hunger scouted out their path through the bog, finding a way that the ponderous wounded mecha could navigate. The emerald canopy above them thinned enough to allow the last rays of morning in. Sunbeams caught in the treasure-trees scattered out across the river, a vista almost blindingly brilliant after the damp dark of the deeper jungle.
Lord Hunger hopped across great distances, and managed a fierce one-arm stroke through the waters when the gaps were too vast. As their party drew up to the far shore, he signaled a halt.
When Verschlengorge stopped, all was still. The sunbeams tracked slowly across its scarred vestment, providing a backdrop which Gisena handily out shined. In her hands, light dimmed and the world seemed less, as she prepared for what was to come.
On the bank, the stones lining the river stirred, as a massive creature tore itself from is basking place, impatient for its meal to arrive. The stony hide of the beast was shot through with seams of ore. Rust red scars marked its swollen underbelly, and more noble metals snaked among the cracks and edges of its great stony scales. Its six legs propelled it half-up the mangrove it had slept so near, and its the two dull eyes on either side of its head were outshone by the incandescent third orb glowing in its brow.
"A newt!" Gisena proclaimed, even as Hunger cast Evening Sky into Verschlengorge's waiting grasp, dashing towards the beast unbothered by his starry tether. Her nullity blast splashed across the beasts immense nose to no visible effect
"It's hot!" Letrizia announced, voice tense and cool now that combat was imminent.
"I can see that." Hunger struck first, Forebear's blade finding an alarming degree of resistance from the beasts rocky hide, before a jet of white-hot fluid drove him back. Evening Sky provided a measure of protection, rendering the glancing spray down from a terrible burn into an irritating splash across his cheek.
"Obviously!" Letrizia shot back, "It's radioactive! Limit your exposure!"
Hunger cut back his reply as the Salamander's throat swelled up, heralding the holocaust of nuclear material which the beast expelled in his general direction. As he deftly avoided the attack, his ring pulsed on his finger, and he couldn't help but taste the still-burning ichor sliding down his jaw. Salty. And hot enough to kill, although the sensation and harm was muted by the ring's vast will. Blood was blood, after all, no matter the chemistry.
Gisena released a sharp gasp at the massive heat and rising plume of steam from the Salamander's blast, retreating to join Letrizia in the cockpit. As she deftly worked the seals, she was nearly thrown from Vershengorge's back by the explosion of a nearby fruit. Letrizia helped her inside, where she gently probed the new pain in her thigh.
"I'll get us into the lake!" Letrizia offered, focus and worry warring across her face as she turned back to the controls. Gisena steadied herself on the cot, medical chest thrown open as she examined her injury. "Will you be alright?" Letrizia questioned.
"Marvelous!" Gisena replied, bloody jewel held steady in a forcep. "It matches my eyes!"
Outside, Hunger dodged shrapnel from the towering inferno around him. The river boiled as the mangroves caught one-another alight, their fruits cooking off like thunder above him, casting razor sharp seeds out for miles around. The Salamander's deceptively lazy gait following him as he tried to move their battle away from the growing inferno. Verschlengorge tugged insistently on Evening Sky, and he allowed himself to be pulled away from the beast and into the waters. A brisk boil abated after the first few meters, and then he was beneath the river, watching the world burn above him as seed-shards shot through the clear water around him. He grasped a green pod as it went by, idly noting the color matched Gisena's eyes as it cooled.
"We have air for days, and I still have that haunch of Conventional Critter in the cooler." Letrizia offered. Hunger signaled negative, the quick cut of the Forebear's blade through the water punctuating his disagreement. The map wouldn't keep, and they had no way of knowing how long the forest might burn. He pointed, and Verschlengorge nodded in agreement. Thrown out of the river in a vertical arc, he spotted the Salamander waiting patiently by the shore, ready for its cooked dinner to float to the surface. Kicking off a passing sunbeam, Hunger propelled himself toward the gleaming eye of the beast, which reared back to accept his generous surrender. He cut, and the beast tasted ruin rather than flesh. Howling its anger at his continuing resistance, the Salamander was open for a moment when he landed among its conflagration.
Hunger took every advantaged offered to him. A white-knuckled strike with the Forebear's blade tore into the gullet of the beast, and the following blade-wind opened the wound further. As the beast reared back, and began to swell in anticipation of his annihilation, hunger stood ready. The moment before the beast could release his doom, he pulled tight on his Ring's connection. The burning blood sang its willingness to comply, and the flaw in its neck-sack sprang open. A torrent of firey death shot out, to embrace him, but under his power, not the creature's. Drinking deeply of the deadly ichor, Hunger felt his hold on the beast grow stronger. He burned, within and without, but his Ring saw his flesh accepting the offered poison with relish, and Evening Sky kept him sheltered enough to continue. Their match ended with a wimper, even as the riot of flames continued around them.
Exsanguinated, the Salamander finally lay down to die before him. Its shinining eye slowly dimmed, until it was just another jewel reflecting the fire around them.
As Verschlengorge rose from the water and approached the shore, Letrizia's amused "Oh!" rang from the speakers, followed by the silence of an interior conversation.
Gisena's melodious cackle joined her.
Looking down at his gem-powdered form, sparkling in the last light of sunset, the newly minted vampire sighed.
---
1400. I found a way to meme at the end so I'm pretty stoked with this one!
Gimmie blood! It's good for memes and I really like Bloodborne. False moon synergy for my insight collection as well!
I'd also take Passion, but I'm not sure how lewd I can be allowed to go..
[X] The Scenic Route
[X] Conservative - Letrizia in Verschlengorge, Gisena to Protect Them, Explore Temple Yourself
I'm ready to accept death in the temple! Let's just get there alive.
Edit:
@Thomasfoolery , I see you! better get your hand on that remove-like button till you read it! (not that I'm not guilty of that myself some times)
