Arete Mining Contest: Ilbgar: The
Ritual Grounds +
Coin And Realm
'Shortly after Hunger recovered his corporeal form, he and Gisena were setting off for the Temple. With all the power, Rank, and the new abilities accrued by his Ring, Hunger was much more confident in being able to protect Gisena from the local monstrosities, and her insight and Nullity would almost certainly prove extremely valuable to his efforts. Hopefully the beautiful morning, pinks and golds complimenting each other in the sky, were a good omen. Certainly, Verschlengorge seemed content enough, a confident sneer adorning the conscious head and it's slumbering shoulder heads sleeping quite soundly.
"Stay in Verschlengorge. The Apocryphal Curse might not be active at the moment, but that doesn't preclude conventional enemy action." Hunger lectured.
"Don't worry. I know you don't have an ability that lets you sense that I'm in danger like most Shonen protagonists or anything, but Verschlengorge and I have been fighting together for years." Letrizia flashed a victory sign at him. "We'll be fine. Besides, your ghostlight's healing him pretty fast! Although it might help if you bring back something to eat." she added, still seeming sad that all the fish was gone.
"Between the tendency for the creatures within to be made of magic to one degree or another and the shameful lack of fish in their rivers, I can't make any promises." Hunger sighed. "Still, it is not within me to give less than my all. Remember that the humans are just as much of a threat as the Astrals are, especially if the Republic realizes that you aren't dead."
"Don't get too bored while we're gone!" Gisena called out as they began their trek.
Clutching his arm, she asked "You described the pair of monster species you encountered, but have you seen anything of their masters?"
"No. No adventurers either. To that end, we'll be headed in the direction of the encampment. That's part of why you're here. Your negotiation skills are superior to mine even without the Tyrant's Curse in mind, and they'll come in handy if our search for anyone
capable of negotiation bears fruit."
"Hm, I doubt the Curse would let you bypass it completely so easily hun." Gisena commented.
"True. It's likely to interfere if the terms do not agree with me, but it's better than nothing."
"Oh? Is that all you think of me?" she raised an eyebrow at him, making a show of considering it, before stating. "Well, I'll do it, but it'll cost you... a piggyback ride."
Hunger had already been planning on it, given that a) he was vastly superior to her in raw speed at this point, and b) so was nearly everything in here, meaning it wouldn't be safe to leaver her alone for literally any length of time. He still made a pretense of reluctance as he bent down so she could climb on.
"You're not fooling anyone,
my liege." Gisena giggled, rubbing a foot against his leg.
"You're one to talk." he commented gruffly. "And no distractions. This place is filled to brim with hostiles."
"Aye captain!" she saluted.
"Am I your liege or your captain?" he asked.
"Can't you be both?" Gisena ignored the rhetorical nature of the question in such a way it was
obviously done on purpose, and yet it failed to be as annoying as it could have been. The wonders of Findross.
The Temple itself was no different from yesterday. Considering the clamor he'd raised yesterday, somewhat literally given what happened when a Knight died, that was something of a surprise. Speaking of noise, the Call was something Gisena could dispel on herself, but in Hunger's case it had attached itself to his Ring, and even if she was powerful enough to override it(she was not), she lacked the granularity to target the Calling in specific and not the Ring itself.
They took a circuit of the areas Hunger had already passed through. Individual Knights were of little note to him at this point, and while they encountered a few novel creatures, they proved just as hostile as the Knights, and lacked even the power the Tiller Wurm had possessed, nevermind what would be needed to match Hunger at this point. Once that little warm-up was over, Hunger pointed himself in the direction he believed the encampment to be, with Gisena confirming that while this space was expanded beyond the natural limits of what would fit inside of the Temple, it was not so twisted that the inside was
completely disconnected from the outside in terms of where things were placed. As nothing had yet threatened the pair, Hunger put his back into his run.
"My, a week since our last ride, and you're at least 6 times as fast as you were then. Progression really is something!" Gisena commented.
"It helps that I haven't been in a serious fight today." Hunger commented.
"And modest too! Did your patron give you that as well when you made your bargain?"
"Simply trying to teach you some humility. I've always learned best by example, and I thought perhaps you'd benefit as well."
"How considerate! Do you spend all your time thinking about me?" she batted her eyelashes at him.
"Yes. 'How can I rid myself of this Sorceress?'"
"...How could you say that?" she asked, what he could clearly see were crocodile tears welling up as she gazed at him with what would otherwise be a very convincing rendition of a kicked puppy.
"I told you, no distractions in the Temple." he reminded her neutrally.
He began to accelerate further, spotting something in the extreme distance as they reached an open boulevard of green grass that shimmered slightly in the sun. He wondered if the Temple maintained the nature here or if there were 'groundskeepers' if you would. Neither would account for the lack of normal animals, unless the monsters hunted them. Intentionally depriving potential invaders of food, perhaps?
"It's not my fault if I'm distracting!" Gisena responded cheerfully as she tightened her grip to match his increase in speed.
"That's no excuse for a genius such as yourself." Hunger rejoindered.
"Ah, it seems you're learning from me instead!"
Eventually, they came across what Hunger had spotted, a large formation of Knights forming a gleaming shield wall as they marched off for one purpose or another, quite possibly an adventuring party considering the direction they were headed. Their ponderous clanking was thrown off of it's rhythm when Gisena sent a wave of Nullity into their ranks, banishing the smoke animating their armor. Their formation collapsed entirely from there, and Hunger ripped them apart the moment he reached them, a whirlwind of death.
It was strange to think that any one of these were powerful enough that the Hunger of yesterday had struggled mightily against them. On the topic of strange things, Hunger wondered how the Voyaging Realm this Temple was built upon worked. Were there more such spaces in the Realm? Like the Hidden Realms of the Wuxia and Xianxia novels? Did it have a sun and moon, and did they behave as they did in his home universe, or were they nothing more than illusions made by the Foremost for their purposes in constructing this Realm in the first place? Gisena had mentioned that her home reality seemed similar to his own in at least general strokes like those, although they hadn't been in a position to plumb it's depths. Letrizia had mentioned something about similar ontological parameters when he'd half-seriously asked if the Voyaging Realm was like a great table as opposed to a sphere.
With the Knights defeated and steadily releasing their death wails, Hunger sped on before more of their kind could appear. While the terrain certainly varied over time, it's essential nature never changed, and he began to wonder exactly how
much larger the interior of the Temple was than it's natural state.
Gisena abruptly leaned down, her eyes flashing emerald. "I've lost my slipper." she whined as only someone who felt they had been personally inconvenienced by the universe itself could.
Hunger willed the Forebear's Blade to his hand without slowing down in the slightest. "How many was that?"
"My sixth! I'm beginning to think this Temple has something against them."
Coming to a dead halt for a split second, Hunger turned fast enough to nearly give himself whiplash, and in that same motion launched a blade-wind directly behind him. It unfurled like a Ruin-laced banner, striking something as it made it's way to the horizon. As his blade-winds were laced with Ruin, the old man in surprising crisp blue and white robes with brilliant dyes was not merely revealed in the midst of some incantation marshalling prismatic energies, but several of his layered defensive enchantments, encircling spirits, and some of the sickening, eye-searing steely fog were banished by the strike. It also served well in it's actual purpose of targeting for Gisena's followup Tide of Nullity, which utterly banished his weakened defenses, though his face remained obscured by shadow. Apparently his hood was just that dark on the inside.
"Perhaps the ritual grounds require some further adjustment if they could not even dispatch the likes of you. How many more corpses will I have to make today?" he asked, with a tone rather reminiscent of someone being forced to clean up trash, seemingly more bothered that they were present at all than that they had wiped out his defenses. Even as he made this comment, his hands moved through a complex series of sigils and a pink shield made came into existence around him.
Hunger sprang forward as Gisena deployed a trio of Nullity bolts over his shoulder, each corroding the shield like chalk dipped in acid where they struck. More annoyed than anything else, the magus scoffed and disappeared with a curt gesture.
"Short range teleport. He'll be nearby." Gisena all but whispered to him.
Hunger launched blade-winds in all directions, and one of his blows struck true, drawing an incredulous gasp out of the mage as he reappeared, nursing a stump where an arm ought to be. In no mood to see what the spellcaster would next pull out of his sleeve, Hunger pressed his attack, a blade-projection thrust nearly decapitating his opponent, tearing his hood to shreds as the man bent out of the way with a speed far beyond what a human ought to have, nevermind what his age would suggest.
Hunger rapidly closed the distance, but just before he entered melee range, the man gestured with his free hand, bringing crushing force down on Hunger, even as the the series of strange syllables that no human mouth could produce with a cadence that oozed wrongness the mage was intoning continued. His Cloak was protecting him well enough for the moment, but was visibly thinning as it thrashed and strained. However, the attack slid off of Gisena, and the reason for that, her Nullity, was emitted as a wide-area burst as she leapt off of him, the magic dissolving like so much candle wax.
The magus, growing impatient, finished his intonation with a single, horrible word. The spike of ill-reason ruptured Hunger's eye and ears, but his Cloak held out against the Abhorrent Word just long enough for Hunger to finally land a direct hit, severing his spine.
"Last chance to surrender." Hunger offered as the man staggered and fell to his knees now that it was physically impossible for him to stand. Normally his Rank might have dealt with it, but the Ruin-laced wound would have made that difficult even if any injuries dealt by his blade weren't cursed on top of everything else.
The magus glared at him as if he were something he'd stepped in, refusing to say a thing, his remaining hand pulling out a dagger so heavily enchanted it was
glowing from the density of runes on it, but Hunger was still his physical superior, and his blade the better of this knife even in it's current state. To the mage's credit, the dagger survived the first clash, but one of Gisena's bolts struck it in the moment it was locked with Hunger's broken sword, and he sliced through it, burying his blade in the warlock's neck. Despite having his head almost completely severed from his body, the mage actually tried to form one last sigil, which Gisena would later explain had been some form of spiteful suicide blast, but Hunger instinctively twisted his blade and finished the job before his opponent could.
"It's a shame we couldn't interrogate him." Hunger sighed as he leaned down to collect the dagger, part of a matching pair, for Gisena to examine. While one had had most of it's enchantments burned out by Gisena, the one the magus lacked an arm to use was fully intact, and could be studied without issue.
"Hm... nope! I know his type. He wouldn't have said a thing, no matter what. He likely had defenses against any form of compulsion too, so there was really nothing to be done. Good job beating him without my trump card Lord Hunger!" she took his offered arm to climb back on.
His Ring, despite having relatively little to do with his victory, grew in strength from the power harvested from the fallen mage, the Ring's jewel becoming blood red even as the band it was attached to became a smoky grey band, it's old form melting away, and with a sudden lightning strike of realization, Hunger understood. The Ring was never separate from it's true owner, him. The Tyrant was not able to forge a connection like this with the Ring, meaning he had never seen it's true face. His healing, provided the subject bore blood, was vastly improved, as was the Ring's general influence over bloodbearing beings, whether it was suppressing or empowering them. Though, that meant that a foe his base form could take on without major issue would be quite a problem for his ghostly secondary form.
"I believe my Ring could provide you with some empowerment thanks to what it harvested from the magus." Hunger noted.
"Really now?" Gisena's still-emerald eyes glimmered. "Tell me how it works!"
Hunger explained what he had discerned from his Ring's sudden growth, though it wasn't much. Luckily Gisena happily volunteered, and since she was conscious for the process, she was able to provide him with quite a bit of feedback as they explored the Temple further. "Hm, it's not like Findross in anything but effect. Humans produced a semi-corporeal substance tied to excellence naturally in my home plane, and I seem to still do so." she observed.
"Essentially, I give you customized blood that improves your parameters, like cybernetic augments but regarding your blood. I'm not changing the quality of anything
besides your blood however. Which means that effects tied to specific quantities of Findross are unlikely to be something I can induce artificially at this point."
"It was still quite nice of you to find a way to enhance me before it became a problem!" Gisena replied cheerfully.
"Wholly unintentional on my part. The Ring seems to have absorbed the magus' power without regard for it's relative contribution to that fight." he noted, glancing at the artifact in question. "I believe it's because my Advancement relies on stealing aspects of my opponents for my own use, and my Ring's exotic effects were best-suited for the unwilling donation. I am now certain that there is another,
awakened, Ring here. Normally it would act to suppress my own, at least until I was beyond it's influence here in the Temple, but my dedication to the cause of freeing it has soothed it's concerns, though it would be a different story were it not being tortured every moment of every day for what I would estimate is at least a millennium, likely more. At any rate, this clarifies enough to affect the questions I'd like to ask anyone we come across."
Normally, the Rings would be rivals, and in some ways they still were, but that was precisely why he wished to free the trapped Ring. To see a rival in such a wretched state aroused a deep-seated discomfort, and a disgust towards it's captors for lacking the spine to wield the Ring properly instead of caging it to harvest for power like a glorified battery. Did they truly believe that this was more sustainable than trying to find a worthy bearer?
"I'll keep that in mind hun!" Were he not growing so familiar with Gisena, he might have thought she completely shrugged that off, but he knew better.
As the sun began to set, bands of orange and gold making their way across the sky, they finally encountered other humans. Hunger's body and Cloak alike had long since recovered from the fight, and Gisena from her exertion of Nullity, though they were not careless in their approach, particularly when they noticed that the monstrosities in the area, Knights and others, nodded cordially at the pair despite their lack of apparent weapons, in one case outright moving aside for them in deference. They also retreated from the area when the brothers made a beeline for the Cursebearer and his Remittance. Not far, but enough that they were not within easy striking distance and vice versa.
"It's the lunar sigils." Gisena muttered to him, briefly pointing to the crescent moon symbols the pair openly displayed. Presumably in league with those imprisoning the Ring here to one degree or another then. That could be a problem, as it would make it all the harder to avoid taking offense.
"Hail travelers!" The man on the left raised a stump in greeting as he called out. It was wrapped in what was clearly a piece of cloth specifically tailored for it, so the arm was likely cut off quite some time ago.
"Oi, Graven! Looks like you've found a kindred spirit!" The man on the right chuckled to his... brother, twins based on their appearance and what their Blood indicated, taking note of Hunger's own scars. "Least you've still got a stump though." he added. It seemed that they didn't expect Hunger or Gisena's hearing to be as good as it was. Evidence that they lacked any significant enhancements? Or did they just not care if they were heard? They'd raised their voices to be heard at first, which pointed to the former, but how did they survive long enough to make contact with the civilization in the depths of the Temple without enhancement? Did it send envoys out to the encampment for new recruits on occasion?
"Man, if I knew there were women than pretty here, I wouldn't have bothered collecting all this other crap. I didn't know they
got that pretty!" the scarred brother joked.
"Yeah, and you see how he's carrying her? Either she's totally on board with traipsing around the Temple with him in spite of everything in here, or they're running from something." the unscarred brother briefly glanced at his sigil, then around them, before shrugging. "Eh, they won't bother us." he shrugged.
As Hunger finally came within normal speaking distance, Gisena began doing the talking. "Hello there. I presume you're merchants, and not pirates fallen on hard times?" she gestured at their cart, piled high with miscellaneous items, and their bulging makeshift sacks, clearly added to like the backpack equivalent of a quilt over time. The former had what looked rather like stereotypical dark red health potions. Not much use to Hunger at this point, though leaving one for Letrizia's use in case she was attacked while they were gone might be a good idea. There were also pieces of parchment, though whether they were records of their sales or something more mystical was hard to say from this distance. It was impossible to get a good enough look into the sacks to tell what was inside, but they were clearly experienced in their trade, so it was likely to be of decent value.
The brothers chuckled at the jab. "Yes milady. We might not have the most reliable restocking, but we have the best prices!" the unscarred brother nodded at them.
"I think you mean
only prices, brother." the scarred brother, Graven, commented. "It's not like we have much competition, seeing as most people who try cut their losses and sell directly to the encampment rather than try their luck in here after their first mishap with the monsters, and all."
The brother on the right sighed. "I've told you not to interrupt the pitch brother." he brightened as he turned back to Hunger. "We have 100% guaranteed healing potions," he confirmed Hunger's suspicion, indicating the cart "or
double your money back!"
"Perhaps the one." Gisena demurred. It didn't really matter if she was stringing them along, wanted to analyze the mixture, or simply came to the same conclusion as Hunger. "We'd prefer some information, however."
"Certainly, though that won't come for free either." the unscarred brother agreed.
"We want to know how to reach the inner regions of the Temple, what you know about the civilization within, and any defenses they might have." she said simply.
The brothers glanced at each other, notably paler than before. "Ah... that's privileged information. It's nothing personal, but even if other adventurers didn't safeguard their secrets, that sort of thing wouldn't be cheap for... other reasons." Graven commented, suddenly deadly serious. Even if they hadn't known, that would have been a pretty strong hint that there was a higher authority controlling the Temple. For his part, the other, apparently smarter, brother seemed a bit upset that Graven had dropped that hint.
"Is there anything you could offer to trade?" said brother queried, possibly hoping to brush it aside.
After a glance at Hunger, Gisena explained the workings of the moon gates. "I see... that will certainly fetch a pretty penny at the encampment. Well then. The first thing you should know, is that if you wanted to reach the Middle Temple, you're going the wrong way." he gestured at the road they were on. "Space is odd here. You could go a hundred miles in this direction and never get any closer to the center. However, go in that direction" he gestured 90 degress off the road, opposite to the antechamber and moon gate they'd used to get in here. "and you'll be able to climb 'up' the Temple's rings. Each one is exponentially more powerful than the one before, and the entrances are guarded by more monsters, though that shouldn't be a problem for you if you made it this far. Unlike this axis, the vertical one will see changes within a few miles, which is how you know you're going the right way."
"That's good to know." Hunger commented.
"The second thing is that the Inner Temple residents are very invested in keeping the source of the Call of the False Moon here. Apparently, it lets them live a thousand years or something, so they're understandably against anyone freeing it." Hunger's expression visibly darkened, and the man hurried on. "It's the center of everything, literally and metaphorically. The Calling is what brought everyone here to try their hand at freeing it. Some want to free it out of compassion. Some simply want to claim the power and treasure it's promised to whoever frees it. We've never been beyond this ring, of course, so we can't 100% guarantee everything, but enough adventurers make it that far with the same stories to be pretty sure, though it also means that we don't know much about the defenses, other than the fact that they get a lot stronger, of course. Like I said before, the adventurers are pretty tight-lipped. Only one prize, only one winner."
"What about the monsters here? What can you tell us about them?" Gisena steered the conversation to something less likely to make Hunger angry at the Temple residents for profiting off of torturing a Ring.
"Well, the Knights have this tendency to bunch up more and more the more you kill. We think that most of the monsters breed normally, but the Knights and the Tiller Wurm, a huge, and I mean huge, wurm that likes to tunnel around and eat people, are created. The Knights could never replace their numbers that fast if they bred normally, and there just isn't enough for the Wurms to eat in here if they were natural. Sometimes you get special Knights, and if you kill a bunch, not only will more show up to take their place, but special ones will start popping up. Some people think they promote from the normal ones, but I think it's more likely they just get spawned with extra powers and power if they need it, myself. There's also the Dreadbeast. Nasty thing. I'd avoid it if I were you. It can be invisible if it wants, but when it isn't..." he shuddered. "Looks like a nightmare. Sounds like a thunderstorm too, visible or not."
"So how did you come into possession of those sigils, anyway? I doubt the Temple would just hand them over." Gisena asked, Hunger doing his best not to betray his suspicion with his expression.
"Ah, well, some adventurers manage to slay some of the middle residents, and they, uh, loot the corpses. The sigils aren't much use outside the Temple, so they get sold off." Hunger narrowed his eyes at the lie. He was reasonably certain that the merchants indeed hadn't gone further into the Temple, but the idea that these sigils were sold with any frequency was baffling. Why then had someone not managed to sneak to the Ring and free it in all this time? Besides, the Magus was certainly from deeper in the Temple, and he hadn't left any such sigils behind. So either they were
incredibly lucky secondhand, or they were lying.
"Don't lie." Hunger pulled out the rags remaining from the fallen Temple mage. "I slew a magus a handful of hours ago, and he left no such sigil behind. Even tried to blow himself up at the end. So, how is it that one of your adventurer friends stumbled across one?"
"Ah." If the merchants had paled earlier, now they were positively ashen. "I suppose that would poke a hole in our story, huh? Alright. We made a deal with one of the Middle Temple enforcers who used to be a normal adventurer. The Temple people aren't against inducting new members. They offered us the sigils in return for providing information for them."
"Hm. A good deal for you, but I suspect it wasn't a good deal for
quite a few others." Gisena noted archly.
The brothers glanced at each other, before Graven did something to his sigil. Hunger's blade was instantly at his neck. "What was that?"
"Graven you idiot! We could still have talked our way out this!" the other man shouted at his brother. They froze as the sound of hoofbeats made themselves known, even if no source could be discerned as the sound seemed to come from everywhere. Surmising that Graven had 'called for backup', Hunger dispatched both men in a single solid swing. Pragmatically, it kept them from calling in anything else, and at least it would prevent one from grieving for the other. The pirate was one thing, but these idiots had clearly been terrified for their lives, so Hunger couldn't exactly say they attacked unprovoked, though as Gisena had noted they had likely sent more than a few would-be adventurers to their deaths, so he wouldn't feel too bad about theirs. Gisena grabbed their sigils and immediately began fiddling with them, with Hunger sending blade-winds in all directions in an attempt to locate their enemy. To no avail, as this creature seemed content to wait until Hunger exhausted himself before it moved in. Attempting to inflame it's passions like the Wurm had failed to accomplish anything. It was smarter, and had far greater self-control.
A game of cat and mouse began, the creature attacking Hunger seemingly at random, it's unmistakable presence ensuring that even during a singular 30 second interval, he kept his guard up. This continued for a good 15 minutes, Hunger accumulating cuts here and there, forced to safeguard Gisena as she worked on the sigils in hopes they would provide some means of dealing with the beast. All things considered, probably a good idea. Despite his ability to detect it's passions and the obvious clash of their respective Ranks, neither Ring nor Astral plane could offer the exact location of the creature, which made Hunger suspect it's invisibility went beyond the visual.
"There!" Gisena pointed at a specific spot, and Hunger immediately launched a flurry of blade-winds at it, striking true based on the fact that they clearly impacted something he couldn't see, but it was impossible to tell how much damage he'd done. Clearly Gisena had learned a means of detecting Temple monsters using the sigils. He followed Gisena's directions in striking it twice more before circumstances changed.
The creature, noticing that Hunger had found some means of circumnavigating it's invisibility, as he'd only managed to nick it a few times via sheer luck up to that point compared to the direct hits he was now landing, abandoned it in favor of charging directly with speed that seemed outright supernatural even for the capabilities a creature as large and nightmarish as this would possess. It looked like the equine equivalent of a human centipede with horse legs and accompanying on the bottom, before transitioning to something like a tortoise around the waist, with arms that were clearly designed for little beyond combat, each clawed hand having what might as well have been a quartet of enormous scythe blades, and finally, something akin to a dragon's head. It was a chimeric Frankenstein's monster of a creature, but this was no crudely stitched together first attempt, but an apex predator. Perhaps it had stolen traits of fallen foes, as Hunger had, or it was artificially cultivated as the merchants suspected the Knights were. In any event, Hunger suspected that for all the Magus had been highly dangerous and might have slain them were it not for Gisena hard-countering most of his abilities, this creature would pose a greater threat to the pair.
Sure enough, Gisena's Nullity was of little help against the creature's mundane strikes, it's raw physical strength was in excess of his own, though his Blade could block just fine, even if the sheer strength on display drove Hunger a foot into the ground despite the raw durability of his equipment and forced him to pull himself out, his body was not merely sliced through as if the scythe was passing through water by any blows that did land, but inflicted with a secondary rotting effect, forcing him to cut away the afflicted flesh, destroying the infected areas with Ruin before they could spread. His new healing abilities bought some time, but could not fend off the effect on their own. Although they could close the 'normal' wounds left in the wake of his amputation and begin healing them without issue.
To his surprise, instead of the flames or molten breath he might have expect based on it's head, the creature screamed, a wave of cold accompanying the wall of sound, the ground frosting over. While the cold seemed to actively seek out his ring and blade, it merely frosted them over. They were no ordinary weapon or accessory, after all. His Ruin and her Nullity and the focus on him prevented much of the effects from reaching Gisena, though her dress grew noticeably tattered, which strongly suggested it was meant to destroy mundane equipment, since Gisena's dress was only mildly enchanted compared to his own artifacts. While the cold was certainly unpleasant, heat regulation of the internals was one of the secondary purposes of blood, so Hunger could resist. The Dreadbeast hadn't been planning on finishing him with that, however, and it inhaled again before a stream of classical dragon's breath issued from it's mouth, combining the well-known issues of being set aflame with the somewhat less well-known issues of rapidly shifting from freezing to boiling or vice versa, though the fire was somewhat more discriminate than the sound, and therefore.
While a wave of Nullity dampened the worst of it, his Cloak having long since been depleted and thus no longer an issue for that tactic, Hunger was rapidly being worn down even with the healing his Ring provided. The good news was that he'd taken the opportunity to absolutely wail on the chimera with blade-winds as it used ranged attacks on them, though the cuts were only superficial. It seemed that Hunger's self-healing was vastly superior, though if things didn't change, he'd fall before he inflicted any mortal wounds, and his ghostly form wouldn't be able to keep up without the boosts from his Ring.
Forcing himself forward, to the Dreadbeast's surprise but not Gisena's, Hunger slammed his blade up to the hilt into one of the scratches he'd made earlier, and was rewarded with a gout of the creature's blood, black and brackish. The downside was that he was suddenly afflicted by a binding effect, erupting from the spilt blood, though it only lasted a moment before Gisena dispelled it. Hunger took the opportunity to slide his blade upward, stopping and starting like flickering bulb as the paralysis effect and Gisena's Nullity clashed. Growing frustrated at her interference, the monstrosity began to move towards Gisena, despite the ever-growing wound Hunger was inflicting, ignored in part because his Ruin was insufficient to quickly bring down something of this size without the ability to target it's spirit, and striking from the outside was not conducive for that. That was the entire point of entering the Tiller Wurm at the time. Honestly, the fact that his melee strikes, such as this one, were cursed was almost as valuable to the attack on something this large and durable.'
Gisena responded to the oncoming train of a beast, slowed slightly by the huge crevasse Hunger was working up to it's neck, with remarkable calm, and fired off an absolutely enormous tsunami of Nullity, all color and wonder momentarily bleeding from the world. Hunger took the opportunity for what it was, and made it all the way up to the neck before the binding effect even
began to return, just as color was. Still, it was not yet at full strength, and Hunger continued to cut through the neck, freezing just as he completed the deed. In that same moment, the Dreadbeast had begun to swing at Gisena, but it's aim was fouled by it's decapitation, causing it to only cut halfway through Gisena's stomach rather than bisecting her, forcing her to hold her intestines in with one hand. Luckily, Hunger fell almost directly on top of her as the Dreadbeast collapsed, and he didn't actually
need to move to begin healing someone with the Ring.
"Hey hun..." Gisena began, ashen face slowly regaining color as the wound closed, the rotting effect weakening enormously with the Dreadbeast dead. Hunger himself was rapidly regaining movement without any assistance for similar reasons. "I really hope the enemies don't get much stronger than this. I can't do much better than that right now." she admitted, head lolling and Hunger just barely grabbing her in time as he regained use of his limbs.
He sighed. They were done for the day. On the bright side, not only had Gisena earned that princess carry she'd been asking for, his missing arm was regenerating in the aftermath of the fight, so he could grant a proper carry to her. It would also lend him some extra strength in his swings, allow his unarmed strikes to land as if he were wielding the blade, and his power of Ruin had been enhanced such that his more mundane physical strength would now contribute to it. Of less immediate utility was the safety net he'd acquired. While it would have cost him something, with all the close calls for himself and the very near-death they'd faced just now, and how much less of a cost it would have compared to a Shattering Blow, he couldn't find it in himself to complain. If he'd been even a second later in removing the head of the beast, at least one of them would be dead, likely both.
Moving Gisena into a more comfortable position, Hunger took a moment to move the sacks the merchants had been carrying onto the cart they'd been pulling, hook it onto himself, and hoist Gisena into a princess carry. The sigil she'd been carrying now displayed a number of dots, varying in size and brightness, presumably an indicator of their power, with a crescent moon icon in the middle, which was presumably Hunger, or rather the sigil he was carrying. With the aid of this subverted artifact, Hunger made his way back to the entrance with no further monstrous harassment.'
Okay, Magus rolled for an uneventful victory with how much higher Hunger's stats and offense are, but an 11 on Wandering Caravan probably means fighting the Dreadbeast summoned by their sigils. A 1 would have led to the Dreadbeast with no information gleaned, but Gisena's superior Social carries thing enough that things only go bad towards the end with an 11. I feel a little bad for the merchants in this counterfactual timeline, seeing as they seemed harmless enough in canon, but given that the subsequent 8 very nearly killed Hunger even with Magus-derived Bloodmight(I was
going to grab Iridescence but realized that would mess up future purchases, so instead it'll just be a normal Echo on top of the canonical one), Fall of Night, Thousand Cuts, ++++Strength, ++Con, +++Agi, and +Protection, and this timeline strongly indicates that they informed on adventurers, I only feel a little bad about Hunger killing them. They were canonically information brokers, and they had the sigils, so...
Canonically, the Dreadbeast's percentages look like this:
*50% chance of major Hunger injury
*5% chance of major Gisena injury
*25% chance of grievous injury to both (Pristine Star grants high chance to stabilize)
*10% chance of death of Hunger's Spirit Form, with 80% chance of Rage
*10% chance of Gisena's death, with 90% chance of subsequent Rage
Let's assume that the 15% effectiveness boost Hunger has on his canon self just knocks the percentages around a direct 15%. I think Bloodmight(Absolute Focus and full-strength I Am The Danger has proven Hunger's commitment enough that the Azure doesn't suppress Bloodmight until Hunger leaves the Temple for the day this time) accounting for 10% is reasonable. Thousand Cuts and Fall of Night's combo is something like an order of magnitude improvement of Hunger's blade winds(plus the whole cursed wounds in melee thing) so I'm going to say another 10% shift, and the Stat pluses, well, let's say that they each account for a 2% shift, meaning 10 pluses account for 20%. The grand total shift is 55%. So that changes the equation to be like this:
*25% chance of uneventful victory
*35% chance of major Hunger injury(As Hunger will physically interpose himself between Gisena and the Dreadbeast if necessary)
*5% chance of major Gisena injury
*5% chance of grievous injury to both (Pristine Star/Bloodmight grants extremely high chance to stabilize)
*5% chance of death of Hunger's Spirit Form
Which means that 8 merely means that the pair is done for the day(and Hunger's Bloodmight will heal them rapidly) as it explicitly does not say complication, but injury.
Good news is, if the sigil can call things like the Dreadbeast, Hunger can use it for Pick farming/multi-selection of various monstrosities by calling on monstrous denizens, and he can likely just walk right into the Inner Temple later on, no cutting required. Particularly since Hunger and Gisena are quite willing to work with the Azure on this front if it can interact with it's stolen power somehow, possibly using the way it's latched onto Hunger's own Ring with it's Calling. Also, the potions and tinctures can be studied by Gisena, alongside anything else the merchants might have had in those sacks. Additionally, Hunger getting Zweihander early(4 Dreadbeast Picks, and Zweihander doesn't cost Arete) means he can in fact use both hands to carry Gisena back in this counterfactual timeline, with Form of Rage grabbed again to make Vanreir's Defining Advancement available. Plus, the Dreadbeast's +0.25 Rank(presumably derived from the reputation Hunger would derive as it's slayer, not unlike the Rotbeast) pushes Hunger a little higher than canon. That leaves Hunger as of Ritual Grounds 0.07 Arete up from canon(14.57, drops to 5.57 after Bloodmight), and in Coin and Realm, that +3.27 becomes 3.42, pushing him to 8.99(0.22 more than canon) though that drops down 1.99 because of Form of Rage. Still, that gives Hunger his canonical safety net back, making it easier to calculate his win percentages for the later fights, and I think having both himself and Gisena on the absolute brink of death more than justifies regaining access to it, especially since it was because of a monster
deliberately sicced on them, unlike the Tiller Wurm.
Given I'm running out of time, I'll move along with the build and backfill anything I have time for later for the next post. This Hunger has Zweihander, Fall of Night, Thousand Cuts, +++++++++Strength, ++Con, +++Agi, and +Protection over his canon self, for future reference.
6985 words, discounting this line.
Rolling for the Thunder of Blood encounter table:
