The Streetwalker's Guide to the Hierarchy
- Thread starter Birdsie
- Start date
WeylandSmith
Loose Cultivator
- Location
- [Global State]
[X] Trust the Mask
Never doubt the ability of a voter to be stupid lol, we did straight up maul our own soul once previously.
- Location
- Poland
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Trust the Mask
Such a big NOPE to the contract. Far, far too many lasting obligations for a single hostage, no matter how dear.
Such a big NOPE to the contract. Far, far too many lasting obligations for a single hostage, no matter how dear.
- Location
- Louisiana
[X] Trust the Mask
I mean why would she think we'd ever get it IC to begin with. The terms of "you will drag me across the multiverse" are just lmao
OOC signing the deal is actually a very reasonable proposition. The wording itself doesn't prohibit parties from trying to break the enchantment which, between Mask making and Contamination, should be eminently doable for Dorian, so we could just take the deal, save Musurov, spend some time breaking the enchantment and then hunt down Carrasco at our leisure. Best thing about this is that she can't even stop us from breaking the enchantment due the whole non involvement clause.
Of course the question then is why risk messing around with oathbreaking when you can just shot her.
Zampano
🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈
- Location
- Simping for DSB
[X] Sign the Deal
Contamination is perfect for this. Simply contaminate D̸̢̩̬̖͉̫̑͛́̎̀̇̎̈͛͛̊͒͌͘͝͝ͅo̸͉͈̲̗̅͛͑̇͆̑͗͑̉̈́̌̈́͝ṙ̵̨̨͔͍̹͖̦̜͙̣̖̂͆̈́̓̓͐̒̑̌̚̕ĭ̸̻̟͈̝̤̦̞̯̠͎̥̞̲̤̗̟͇͗̓̏̌̇̑̉̄̓͆̋̕͘͝ą̵̣͖̘̣̲̤͕̫̫̟̝̈́̎̈́̏̒͑͗̍̊̉̄ṇ̷̛̻̅̿̑͒͂̓̀̈̄̂'s name so the contract no longer applies to him. Surely there won't be any repercussions for experimenting some more with our identity
Contamination is perfect for this. Simply contaminate D̸̢̩̬̖͉̫̑͛́̎̀̇̎̈͛͛̊͒͌͘͝͝ͅo̸͉͈̲̗̅͛͑̇͆̑͗͑̉̈́̌̈́͝ṙ̵̨̨͔͍̹͖̦̜͙̣̖̂͆̈́̓̓͐̒̑̌̚̕ĭ̸̻̟͈̝̤̦̞̯̠͎̥̞̲̤̗̟͇͗̓̏̌̇̑̉̄̓͆̋̕͘͝ą̵̣͖̘̣̲̤͕̫̫̟̝̈́̎̈́̏̒͑͗̍̊̉̄ṇ̷̛̻̅̿̑͒͂̓̀̈̄̂'s name so the contract no longer applies to him. Surely there won't be any repercussions for experimenting some more with our identity
[X] Trust the Mask
[X] Trust the Mask
- Location
- 1
The Deal does in fact stop us from breaking it! Note the requirement 'Ensure(...)that she wouldn't be harmed thereafter by anyone under Dorian's employ or Dorian himself'. If we break the binding, or allow it to be broken, with any expectation that we will or might kill her later, we're in violation of that requirement.
That said, if the deal is Exactly as written, we only need to bring her to 'Dorian's world', ergo Drethir. Since we probably won't get to Drethir until the end of our Street journey if ever, we would only need to bring her to one world. And since we only give her the ability to enter Drethir, not this place, unharmed, and the other obligations don't trigger until she reaches Drethir, we can 1v1 her right after she steps through this portal (we can't do it unprovoked, because than we're not ensuring she can go to Drethir unharmed, but if she decides to step onto this world without our permission that's her choice.).
(We might also be able to pretend to sign the deal, then when we hand it back, use Viscerality on her. Or Contaminate it while we reread it, if we're subtle. There's plenty to nitpick and object to- for instance, we might say we can't feasibly fulfill the 'stay out of her affairs' requirement, since on Taure we were apparently messing with her affairs by trying to do our own thing with Orbital Command and thus any ambitious action could be messing with her affairs- which we might want to have changed even if acting in good faith.)
Dorian could also turn himself into a girl before signing, thus invalidating the words "He, Dorian Croft, would ensure that she, Veronica Carrasco, was able to enter his world". He has the Viscerality for it.
[X] Trust the Mask
That said, if the deal is Exactly as written, we only need to bring her to 'Dorian's world', ergo Drethir. Since we probably won't get to Drethir until the end of our Street journey if ever, we would only need to bring her to one world. And since we only give her the ability to enter Drethir, not this place, unharmed, and the other obligations don't trigger until she reaches Drethir, we can 1v1 her right after she steps through this portal (we can't do it unprovoked, because than we're not ensuring she can go to Drethir unharmed, but if she decides to step onto this world without our permission that's her choice.).
(We might also be able to pretend to sign the deal, then when we hand it back, use Viscerality on her. Or Contaminate it while we reread it, if we're subtle. There's plenty to nitpick and object to- for instance, we might say we can't feasibly fulfill the 'stay out of her affairs' requirement, since on Taure we were apparently messing with her affairs by trying to do our own thing with Orbital Command and thus any ambitious action could be messing with her affairs- which we might want to have changed even if acting in good faith.)
[X] Trust the Mask
Last edited:
Rihaku
The Internet
Hm… I bet if we trust Mask we will easily get Musurov back but he will be compromised to some degree. Still, that's much preferable to allowing Somber to fester. And we do have King Crimson + Contamination to mitigate it.
I assume Dorian blitzing Verrasco's army with his now overwhelming stats doesn't have better odds in any parameter than simply trusting Mask. I'm not really sure what a bunch of mortals are supposed to do against a guy who can control their emotions and biologies while thinking and reacting 25x faster than them, and who also has Rank.
I assume Dorian blitzing Verrasco's army with his now overwhelming stats doesn't have better odds in any parameter than simply trusting Mask. I'm not really sure what a bunch of mortals are supposed to do against a guy who can control their emotions and biologies while thinking and reacting 25x faster than them, and who also has Rank.
Though this still requires us to carry the somber artifact everywhere we go, which might actually have pretty significant consequences given how spooked the street seemed to be about it
- Location
- 1
I guess. Whether that's actually a problem depends, though- is it a 'somber artifact', or is it just 'an artifact that a Somber party is using'? My impression was that it was a normal Taure artifact, exceptional only in power and usefulness-for-this-purpose. If so, the Street is spooked because it thinks we will or might use it, and will relax once we've decided to work around the deal.
(and we only need to carry around the artifact under the Dorian's-World-Is-Drethir implication if she doesn't misunderstand our misinterpretation and walk through the portal to Barakah World, giving us a justification to kill her. If she does, we can just kill her, and maybe lug her corpse to Drethir or something).
ThatGuyWithIdeas
Treize died for our sins
- Location
- Romania
[X] Trust the Mask
Providence - A Brother's Smile
New
Birdsie
Sharp Talons Cleave The Worthy
- Location
- Poland
[X] Trust the Mask
---
A Brother's Smile
He stared into the contract, thinking - or pretending to think, as Dorian's only concern was saving the doctor.
He looked into the room, Visceral sense reaching out like invisible tendrils. The doctor was exhausted, showing signs of poor treatment in captivity. His nervous system was overcharged in a manner Dorian associated with overusing Fulminance. His throat was clogged with an odd mass, incapable of speech. He was afraid, angry, glad.
"I can see you're hesitating," said Veronica calmly. The beatific smugness on her face disappeared, turning stern and impatient, back into the mode he'd seen her in when he'd met her first, as Lieutenant Carrasco. "And I think I understand why. You believe this situation can be resolved martially, don't you?"
Dorian didn't answer, staring at her instead.
"Allow me to disabuse you of that notion. You thought I was unprepared to make good on my threat?" She unsheathed a knife, covered in sallow sigils. "If you don't sign that, I'll stab your friend with this knife. Your healing abilities won't save him then, no matter how strongly you feel." A thrill of fear ran down Dorian's spine; bluff or truth?
It didn't matter.
The ceiling over a hundred feet above Veronica's head cracked, as brown roots pierced through at incredible, inhuman speed. Her reaction was immediate, plunging the knife towards Andrei Musorov's throat, almost a sonic boom of motion. Dorian charged in, saber drawn, Linneas after him, Viscerally signaling the Lions.
Needless. From nowhere, a steel blade swung and severed Veronica's attacking arm at its elbow, a stream of blood picturesquely exploding into the air, its contents filled with writhing bilious maggots, each one hissing and screaming as they went. Annoyed, the lieutenant drew another sigil-knife and pierced the invisible attacker's abdomen, a second splatter of blood filling the air and freckling the floor. Gunfire peppered their surroundings, bullets hitting virtually everything as soldiers tried to predict Dorian's course or were shooting too far behind him; each bullet formed a brief bubble of golden light on impact, an energetic concatenation that could've shattered carapace armor.
He invaded their brains with fear, shock, and hesitation, but it didn't work: these soldiers were either supernaturally well-disciplined or practically robots.
Finally, a bullet struck an exposed knee, exploded with citrine light, and took out the patella. Dorian almost buckled as his foot landed on the next step, but narrowly avoided the problem, teeth grit - fear, determination, and desperation lancing out with Visceral impetus and forming an osseous bracing strut.
He came within reach of the fight, as the invisible Mask unveiled its form, to reveal Japhris was completely fine underneath a cushion of flesh shielding, almost like a power armor of meat. The Mask in tandem with Japhris punched Veronica with such force it caved in the side of the woman's skull - who, unbelievably, continued standing unbothered and blithely ignoring the psychic assault of Visceral terror, returning an attack with her knife, hacking through more of the armor with a wet thwack. Above, the roots continued to descend, wrapping about the entire hall and slaughtering soldiers with almost prescient awareness of their positions, as if someone were controlling them.
Acidic blood fired out of Dorian's index finger, aimed at the supports of the metal chair on which Andrei was confined, and his saber followed half a second after, swift cuts freeing the man's torso and wrists. Dorian stood over him as a human shield and formed armor and flesh padding over himself, clothes ripping apart, noble mantle falling off, as bullets struck his back and exploded over and over. Redness filled the room, as the soldiers deployed flamethrowers on the attacking roots. Veronica kicked Japhris' groin with a practiced martial move, with no more efficacy than someone kicking a fleshy dumpster. Their tissues were restored rapidly, Dorian's mere presence accelerating healing.
That said, Dorian wasn't doing well. His back was riddled with a mass of enchanted bullet shrapnel, some of which had pierced through the outermost layer of bone armor and exploded an inch inside his flesh, further weakening and compromising his armor. It seemed their firepower was decreasing, as the Forest killed them, but he was still occasionally struck by a loose round. His spinal cord's integrity was compromised. He'd formed a bypass, two coiling strings of nerve around the midriff compensating and taking over, decentralizing his nervous system.
Finally, he extracted the doctor from his bindings.
"Long time no see," Dorian hacked out.
"Yes - an entire day," answered Andrei, coughing. "She infected me with some worms, but I burned them out with Fulminance."
Concerned, Dorian looked up, only to find Veronica was regenerating her amputated arm at preternatural speeds - matching, if not exceeding his healing. Her restored arm was coated in scales; citrine, gold, and dark amber, nearly draconic or reptilian in appearance, with sharp white fingernails like ivory blades. It seemed the healing was transformative, affecting the rest of her; eyes a flaring yellow, skin becoming pale like marble, clumps of hair falling out like discarded wheat chaff. She looked and felt sick to Dorian's Visceral sense, almost like an organism infected with a feverish bacterium, a disease ingrained so deep even his inner distortion couldn't synthesize a cure.
His mask reacted, the Crimson King vibrating with strange tremulous excitement, something strange, almost like magnetism, as if wishing to answer the query of this disease.
As if she were - not an animal, not to be tamed or hunted - but a parasite, a being sneaking in amidst the flock and threatening to infest the livestock. In a moment, the impression was gone, as sudden as it was grand and invigorating.
"We don't have to fight, we mustn't," Veronica said, voice unnaturally enthralling like somehow she'd pressed one of a billion buttons and found the correct one to get under everyone's skin. Dorian found himself listening raptly after that one sentence, as the rain of bullets paused, her soldiers enthralled as well - as even the Forest's branches and roots slowed down their advance to a mere fraction, to listen. "I'm sorry that I had to do all of this, but you can understand, don't you? I didn't want to die out here, alone and cold on this sad world. We're all simply people, in the end. We all want to survive and live well. Right, Dorian?"
She cast a pleading, sad look towards Dorian, and it was tragically heartbreaking, almost like seeing your daughter or sister with melancholy writ across her face, asking forgiveness after a minor mishap, one which she felt inconceivably guilty about, like she'd spilled hot tea on your thighs at the lunch table.
Dorian remembered fond memories of Drethir and smiled.
"Of course," he said, voice gasping in disbelief, "I forgive you, Ada."
She smiled, relieved. Her yellow eyes twinkled with delight.
Tears in his eyes, Dorian removed his mask and strode toward her. Immediately, the gunfire was forgotten, and the Forest forgot its rage as well. She spread her arms wide, both of them clad in gauntlets of citrine scale, to embrace her big brother. He smiled at this sight and sped up from a walk to a jog.
And, rapidly donning the Theater Child and smiling still, brain Viscerally high on happiness chemicals to counteract the Somber influence, stabbed her through the abdomen with his saber, then moved his arm sideways to carve out a similar wide red smile on her stomach.
The mask he wore shifted, its features maturing but grinning still, from a child to an older brother, and the effects of influence on everyone else stopped as well.
The Forest immediately restarted its advance into the bunker, as if enraged at how fooled it'd been with only a couple of pleasant words, tendrils crushing the ankles and arms of Veronica's soldiers, as they started to fire upon them once more with a vengeance, a pumping audible desire to avenge their commander. The Mask on Japhris' face shifted, now a wooden druid's face, and some of the roots instinctively diverted themselves to protect their small group, shielding them as well as Veronica from the fire.
That slashing wound on her stomach, he understood with Viscerality, was somehow beyond her ability to heal. It'd be fatal, even if she received immediate medical attention. She understood this and understood he understood as well, and he in turn understood all of that as well. The battle was over; one side succeeding, the other losing.
Veronica herself faced Dorian, and now without tricks, said, "No dice, huh?" A tiny trail of blood trickled down a corner of her mouth.
"No," Dorian agreed.
An ivory talon gently touched an entrail, slowly spilling out, like the world's most sedate waterfall.
Her stomach was filled with festering yellow maggots with small lamprey mouths. Now that they understood their host was about to die, some of them launched themselves out of her guts, aiming to escape and find a new life elsewhere. All of them died on the floor, curling up in death after crawling only for a moment, critically unaccustomed to survival outside of her body's warmth. Others, as if rapidly evolving to see their fellows didn't have success with that survival strategy, instead tore each other apart, trying to incorporate the biomass of their fellows to become one apex worm that could survive their world's death.
A root the width of a pipe branched out from its larger system, one amidst a knotwork moving towards Veronica's back, and it seemed she noticed, one eye shifting a little.
"It's a shame... I really wanted to show you, how it all really works," she forced out the words, speaking to Dorian.
Almost like the hand of a cruel mother around the midriff of her misbehaving daughter, it wrapped tightly around Veronica's midsection. Other roots seized her arms and ankles, and pulled her back, leaving a clear trail of blood, its color brownish, between red and yellow, on the floor.
"Farewell, Streetwalker."
The roots lifted her and swallowed her into their mass. She didn't resist for even a moment.
"We should leave," said the Mask. "But I cannot shift my countenance anymore, at least not for a moment longer. I've exhausted most of my power calling the Forest down here and protecting Japhris."
There was a problem with the idea. Namely, they were surrounded by the aforementioned Forest itself: massive rootways that were only expanding, slowly closing in on them, creating a smaller space as the moments went on. Now, the thicket around them was so dense the sounds of gunfire and flamethrowers were almost entirely drowned out. The scent of soil and cold wind filled the air, as if this place were to be their grave.
"Andrei?" asked Dorian.
The doctor shook his head and shivered. "I am exhausted. I don't know if I can muster the wattage, good sir, or I would've done so already."
"Japhris?"
"There is some mana to draw on, but it's diminishing rapidly - and I don't think I could manage a destructive spell."
He nodded, thinking.
He didn't think long, as two heroic roars sounded out dimly through the muffling mass of wood and crushed the wall in their way, splinters flying in each direction as the roots suddenly cleared to reveal two Lions posing on the other side almost dramatically, the characteristic feeling of Barakah thick in the air. A wind full of scattered leaves fell down quaintly about them, enhancing their striking image. Dorian realized he was insane to have accepted the fealty of two Lions, but no less glad for it.
"Let's go!"
All of them ran across the bullethole-marked floor, grasses, vines, and mosses beginning to cover the concrete, as plants and trees speared through stone to bar their advance. The Lions roared again and again, exhausting their voices to raggedness to tear through the mounting greenery. They leaped through the exit as a duo, with Japhris and Andrei right after them, then Dorian, and finally Linneas following on his monarch's footsteps. However, getting a sudden and bright idea at the last moment, Linneas lingered in the doorway and quickly ripped out the relic doorknob before leaping, one foot already through, closing the portal shut.
And, as if none of that had ever happened - they all collectively collapsed onto the desert sand in various states of exhaustion, Japhris removing the Nameless Mask, and allowing it to form its own body to be exhausted with.
Dorian, back still bleeding from various wounds, sighed. He noticed, curiously, that the additional nerves he'd crafted weren't fading away, albeit the spinal cord was still entirely bisected at one point. He felt a little slow and dull, limbs unresponsive. It'd likely remain so until he healed the main damage. He'd not noticed this much earlier, too stressed and with the Crimson King constantly compensating. Speaking of... he switched back to that Mask, wishing to relish and recover in the presence of his fellowship.
"Quite the adventure!" Mask commented jovially, the first to speak after almost a minute. "This ranks at least in my top twenty!"
"Then you must've had some rather insane adventures, sir Nameless," Linneas replied, slightly breathless and still clutching the reclaimed knob.
"Haha, do you truly believe so? Just wait, Linneas! Someday, I shall have to tell you the story of the one time I pranked Drethir's king by pretending to be his wife! Why, he nearly killed me. This was back when it was a kingdom, and not an empire."
"Dorian?" asked Japhris, voice soft and full of concern. "Are you alright?"
"Just a broken spine and a wounded knee, I'll walk it off," he said lightly, looking ahead.
There stood the venerable leafless tree, made only a couple of minutes ago, grown and nourished with crimson blood and the desire to see the doctor again, safe and rescued. And inside of the tree was a door that until moments ago had led back to Taure.
Here, in the aftermath of the wrath and gunfire and invading roots, that entire course of events seemed almost insane, storylike, unbelievable. He'd been a guerilla fighter and secret aristocratic rebel for several years before all this, bound to causal considerations and grim violence. Now, it all seemed so disjointed. Dorian still wasn't accustomed to any of it, deep down, only slowly starting to understand his future life would be full of this: shells of madness, strewn about the Street like pearls before him - the pig of this metaphor, unable to understand the true depth or meaning of what the Street intended until it'd already happened, assuming it could even predict his course so accurately.
His Viscerality churned like pinpricks across his left arm, the sheer laziness and raw passionate desire not to have to stand and walk over there allowed him to create a Visceral tendril out of his palm. He sent it out and collected the other doorknob, the match of the one in Linneas' hand, pulling it clean off the door.
"That's not what I meant, you know?" said Japhris.
"You mean when I called her my sister's name? Yeah, that..." He squeezed the doorknob a little, sighing out with his entire lungs. He threw the knob up and caught it on its way down, repeating this a couple of times, relishing how easy it was with his current mask on. "That's how life is, I suppose. I'm a bit not alright in the head, milady."
"I don't think many of us are, at this point," she commiserated and splayed herself out on the sands.
"Fair point."
Above, the wild fluctuations of Barakah were settling down on them, as if the story that occurred here was finalized - less as a shroud, and more like the first snows in winter, if such a thing even existed on Providence, even at night.
---
Your Theater Child evolved into the Brother's Persona.
The Brother's Persona [30 Potential] - A dark azure wooden mask with a modest, almost infinitesimally mysterious smile on its face.
Satisfied (15) - Generates innate 'life satisfaction.' Can relieve Stress. Acts as effective buff to one's willpower when resisting temptation, maintaining moral integrity, etc.
Creative (12) - Enhances one's lateral and outside-the-box thinking, as well as creativity. Prone to serious conclusions. Will very slowly heal Dreamless when worn.
Forgiveness (3) - Each point of Forgiveness grants +Charisma and access to minor effects associated with its namesake.
*Everyone received a minor dross of Barakah according to their role during the rescue.
Current Barakah totals:
Dorian - 110 fates, aspected towards rulership, mastery, hunting, taming, and forgiveness
*Kind Red King's Countenance - A minor blessing. You've mastered the art of disciplined self-control, able to put on masks (literal and metaphorical) with incredible speed and finesse, as well as mild resistance to all forms of mental influence.
Japhris - 30 fates, aspected towards stealth, trickery, and accuracy
Linneas - 30 fates, aspected towards bravery, loyalty, and quick-wittedness
Andrei - 5 fates, aspected towards frailty and requiring rescue
The Nameless Mask doesn't accrue Barakah naturally, instead converting all gains into facetime, but receives roughly commensurate rewards to its situational input.
You're suffering critical wounds to your knee and spinal cord, compounded by your ongoing exhaustion and mental defragmentation. However, Dorian is fully convinced he can heal them within a day spent on mostly rest and casual enjoyable activity (the latter, after all, enhances one's Viscerality.)
---
Choose three (3) Actions to focus on over the next week - although some minimal quantity of Relaxation is strongly recommended. All actions can be chosen multiple times for better effect.
[ ] Travel Inland - Say adieu to Al-Jawhara's citizens and set out deeper into Misrashan after you're done with your other actions. Choosing this multiple times means you set out earlier, and therefore also arrive earlier. It's assumed this occurs after your other actions.
[ ] Go Hunting - Last time went wonderful. Hunting and/or taming more creatures could not only earn you Barakah, useful sellable furs and meat or Viscerally refinable biomass, but also it increases Crimson King's facetime! A highly productive activity across the board.
[ ] Visceral Refinement - Improve something about your body. Increase general attributes, form or mutate an organ, etc. The recent mishap has given Dorian some ideas about further improving his nervous system to be more efficacious.
[ ] Relax - Perform non-strenuous activities. Accelerates recovery efforts, grants chance for minor Visceral advancement.
-[ ] Bedrest - Just chill lazily.
-[ ] Interact - Luxuriate in the company of one of your friends.
[ ] Gain Currency - Trade services and goods with the citizens of Al-Jawhara to accumulate Misrashanian coinage. Dorian's generally an opponent of cheating and damaging non-tyrannic economies with Gamaliel-generated coin.
-[ ] Sell Masks - Your typical solution: craft some masks and sell them for a relatively high price as they aren't a commodity here.
-[ ] Motley Craft - A simple cycle: acquire matter, process via Gamaliel into a more useful form of matter, and sell. You can also conscript Andrei and Japhris to aid, the former to construct your provided materials into better forms, and the latter to enchant them. Arcanism doesn't work as well on Providence, but you should be able to manage.
-[ ] Labor - Do physical labor. Likely to either somewhat reduce your royal status or earn you respect and recognition as a 'nobleman not afraid to get his hands dirty.'
-[ ] Write-in
[ ] Grind Barakah - Find other ways of increasing your own Barakah and study the system itself in more detail. How does it all work?
[ ] Train Gamaliel
-[ ] Sophisticate - Increase general control over the power, as well as its capacity.
-[ ] Train Technique - Train a specific form of change to be more controllable.
[ ] Train Skill - Given your Lion servants, you can try to increase your Taming Skill or form discrete supernals. At the moment, Dorian's skill in taming animals is masterful, such that even without applying Viscerality or superhuman persuasion, he'd be capable of instantly befriending a hungry and somewhat aggrieved tiger.
You can also train another skill if you wish. Certain actions will train them automatically, but focused more generally rather than on skill development (Go Hunting will increase hunting, Sell Masks will accrue crafting, etc.)
-[ ] Specific aims? (Write-in)
[ ] Write-in
Your other party members' actions, assuming you don't ask them to help you out with anything:
*Japhris - resting, helping either Andrei or you with your actions, meditating
*Mask - studying the world and this nation's history, lazing about, collecting currency for its own use
*Linneas - helping you with all tasks, including bringing you medicines to accelerate healing; also training himself and undergoing Visceral conditioning whenever you have a moment to spare
*Dr. Andrei Musorov - questioning the locals about their magic, recovering from his ordeal, enjoying being alive and clear of Somber worms (you made sure to check)
---
A Brother's Smile
He stared into the contract, thinking - or pretending to think, as Dorian's only concern was saving the doctor.
He looked into the room, Visceral sense reaching out like invisible tendrils. The doctor was exhausted, showing signs of poor treatment in captivity. His nervous system was overcharged in a manner Dorian associated with overusing Fulminance. His throat was clogged with an odd mass, incapable of speech. He was afraid, angry, glad.
"I can see you're hesitating," said Veronica calmly. The beatific smugness on her face disappeared, turning stern and impatient, back into the mode he'd seen her in when he'd met her first, as Lieutenant Carrasco. "And I think I understand why. You believe this situation can be resolved martially, don't you?"
Dorian didn't answer, staring at her instead.
"Allow me to disabuse you of that notion. You thought I was unprepared to make good on my threat?" She unsheathed a knife, covered in sallow sigils. "If you don't sign that, I'll stab your friend with this knife. Your healing abilities won't save him then, no matter how strongly you feel." A thrill of fear ran down Dorian's spine; bluff or truth?
It didn't matter.
The ceiling over a hundred feet above Veronica's head cracked, as brown roots pierced through at incredible, inhuman speed. Her reaction was immediate, plunging the knife towards Andrei Musorov's throat, almost a sonic boom of motion. Dorian charged in, saber drawn, Linneas after him, Viscerally signaling the Lions.
Needless. From nowhere, a steel blade swung and severed Veronica's attacking arm at its elbow, a stream of blood picturesquely exploding into the air, its contents filled with writhing bilious maggots, each one hissing and screaming as they went. Annoyed, the lieutenant drew another sigil-knife and pierced the invisible attacker's abdomen, a second splatter of blood filling the air and freckling the floor. Gunfire peppered their surroundings, bullets hitting virtually everything as soldiers tried to predict Dorian's course or were shooting too far behind him; each bullet formed a brief bubble of golden light on impact, an energetic concatenation that could've shattered carapace armor.
He invaded their brains with fear, shock, and hesitation, but it didn't work: these soldiers were either supernaturally well-disciplined or practically robots.
Finally, a bullet struck an exposed knee, exploded with citrine light, and took out the patella. Dorian almost buckled as his foot landed on the next step, but narrowly avoided the problem, teeth grit - fear, determination, and desperation lancing out with Visceral impetus and forming an osseous bracing strut.
He came within reach of the fight, as the invisible Mask unveiled its form, to reveal Japhris was completely fine underneath a cushion of flesh shielding, almost like a power armor of meat. The Mask in tandem with Japhris punched Veronica with such force it caved in the side of the woman's skull - who, unbelievably, continued standing unbothered and blithely ignoring the psychic assault of Visceral terror, returning an attack with her knife, hacking through more of the armor with a wet thwack. Above, the roots continued to descend, wrapping about the entire hall and slaughtering soldiers with almost prescient awareness of their positions, as if someone were controlling them.
Acidic blood fired out of Dorian's index finger, aimed at the supports of the metal chair on which Andrei was confined, and his saber followed half a second after, swift cuts freeing the man's torso and wrists. Dorian stood over him as a human shield and formed armor and flesh padding over himself, clothes ripping apart, noble mantle falling off, as bullets struck his back and exploded over and over. Redness filled the room, as the soldiers deployed flamethrowers on the attacking roots. Veronica kicked Japhris' groin with a practiced martial move, with no more efficacy than someone kicking a fleshy dumpster. Their tissues were restored rapidly, Dorian's mere presence accelerating healing.
That said, Dorian wasn't doing well. His back was riddled with a mass of enchanted bullet shrapnel, some of which had pierced through the outermost layer of bone armor and exploded an inch inside his flesh, further weakening and compromising his armor. It seemed their firepower was decreasing, as the Forest killed them, but he was still occasionally struck by a loose round. His spinal cord's integrity was compromised. He'd formed a bypass, two coiling strings of nerve around the midriff compensating and taking over, decentralizing his nervous system.
Finally, he extracted the doctor from his bindings.
"Long time no see," Dorian hacked out.
"Yes - an entire day," answered Andrei, coughing. "She infected me with some worms, but I burned them out with Fulminance."
Concerned, Dorian looked up, only to find Veronica was regenerating her amputated arm at preternatural speeds - matching, if not exceeding his healing. Her restored arm was coated in scales; citrine, gold, and dark amber, nearly draconic or reptilian in appearance, with sharp white fingernails like ivory blades. It seemed the healing was transformative, affecting the rest of her; eyes a flaring yellow, skin becoming pale like marble, clumps of hair falling out like discarded wheat chaff. She looked and felt sick to Dorian's Visceral sense, almost like an organism infected with a feverish bacterium, a disease ingrained so deep even his inner distortion couldn't synthesize a cure.
His mask reacted, the Crimson King vibrating with strange tremulous excitement, something strange, almost like magnetism, as if wishing to answer the query of this disease.
As if she were - not an animal, not to be tamed or hunted - but a parasite, a being sneaking in amidst the flock and threatening to infest the livestock. In a moment, the impression was gone, as sudden as it was grand and invigorating.
"We don't have to fight, we mustn't," Veronica said, voice unnaturally enthralling like somehow she'd pressed one of a billion buttons and found the correct one to get under everyone's skin. Dorian found himself listening raptly after that one sentence, as the rain of bullets paused, her soldiers enthralled as well - as even the Forest's branches and roots slowed down their advance to a mere fraction, to listen. "I'm sorry that I had to do all of this, but you can understand, don't you? I didn't want to die out here, alone and cold on this sad world. We're all simply people, in the end. We all want to survive and live well. Right, Dorian?"
She cast a pleading, sad look towards Dorian, and it was tragically heartbreaking, almost like seeing your daughter or sister with melancholy writ across her face, asking forgiveness after a minor mishap, one which she felt inconceivably guilty about, like she'd spilled hot tea on your thighs at the lunch table.
Dorian remembered fond memories of Drethir and smiled.
"Of course," he said, voice gasping in disbelief, "I forgive you, Ada."
She smiled, relieved. Her yellow eyes twinkled with delight.
Tears in his eyes, Dorian removed his mask and strode toward her. Immediately, the gunfire was forgotten, and the Forest forgot its rage as well. She spread her arms wide, both of them clad in gauntlets of citrine scale, to embrace her big brother. He smiled at this sight and sped up from a walk to a jog.
And, rapidly donning the Theater Child and smiling still, brain Viscerally high on happiness chemicals to counteract the Somber influence, stabbed her through the abdomen with his saber, then moved his arm sideways to carve out a similar wide red smile on her stomach.
The mask he wore shifted, its features maturing but grinning still, from a child to an older brother, and the effects of influence on everyone else stopped as well.
The Forest immediately restarted its advance into the bunker, as if enraged at how fooled it'd been with only a couple of pleasant words, tendrils crushing the ankles and arms of Veronica's soldiers, as they started to fire upon them once more with a vengeance, a pumping audible desire to avenge their commander. The Mask on Japhris' face shifted, now a wooden druid's face, and some of the roots instinctively diverted themselves to protect their small group, shielding them as well as Veronica from the fire.
That slashing wound on her stomach, he understood with Viscerality, was somehow beyond her ability to heal. It'd be fatal, even if she received immediate medical attention. She understood this and understood he understood as well, and he in turn understood all of that as well. The battle was over; one side succeeding, the other losing.
Veronica herself faced Dorian, and now without tricks, said, "No dice, huh?" A tiny trail of blood trickled down a corner of her mouth.
"No," Dorian agreed.
An ivory talon gently touched an entrail, slowly spilling out, like the world's most sedate waterfall.
Her stomach was filled with festering yellow maggots with small lamprey mouths. Now that they understood their host was about to die, some of them launched themselves out of her guts, aiming to escape and find a new life elsewhere. All of them died on the floor, curling up in death after crawling only for a moment, critically unaccustomed to survival outside of her body's warmth. Others, as if rapidly evolving to see their fellows didn't have success with that survival strategy, instead tore each other apart, trying to incorporate the biomass of their fellows to become one apex worm that could survive their world's death.
A root the width of a pipe branched out from its larger system, one amidst a knotwork moving towards Veronica's back, and it seemed she noticed, one eye shifting a little.
"It's a shame... I really wanted to show you, how it all really works," she forced out the words, speaking to Dorian.
Almost like the hand of a cruel mother around the midriff of her misbehaving daughter, it wrapped tightly around Veronica's midsection. Other roots seized her arms and ankles, and pulled her back, leaving a clear trail of blood, its color brownish, between red and yellow, on the floor.
"Farewell, Streetwalker."
The roots lifted her and swallowed her into their mass. She didn't resist for even a moment.
"We should leave," said the Mask. "But I cannot shift my countenance anymore, at least not for a moment longer. I've exhausted most of my power calling the Forest down here and protecting Japhris."
There was a problem with the idea. Namely, they were surrounded by the aforementioned Forest itself: massive rootways that were only expanding, slowly closing in on them, creating a smaller space as the moments went on. Now, the thicket around them was so dense the sounds of gunfire and flamethrowers were almost entirely drowned out. The scent of soil and cold wind filled the air, as if this place were to be their grave.
"Andrei?" asked Dorian.
The doctor shook his head and shivered. "I am exhausted. I don't know if I can muster the wattage, good sir, or I would've done so already."
"Japhris?"
"There is some mana to draw on, but it's diminishing rapidly - and I don't think I could manage a destructive spell."
He nodded, thinking.
He didn't think long, as two heroic roars sounded out dimly through the muffling mass of wood and crushed the wall in their way, splinters flying in each direction as the roots suddenly cleared to reveal two Lions posing on the other side almost dramatically, the characteristic feeling of Barakah thick in the air. A wind full of scattered leaves fell down quaintly about them, enhancing their striking image. Dorian realized he was insane to have accepted the fealty of two Lions, but no less glad for it.
"Let's go!"
All of them ran across the bullethole-marked floor, grasses, vines, and mosses beginning to cover the concrete, as plants and trees speared through stone to bar their advance. The Lions roared again and again, exhausting their voices to raggedness to tear through the mounting greenery. They leaped through the exit as a duo, with Japhris and Andrei right after them, then Dorian, and finally Linneas following on his monarch's footsteps. However, getting a sudden and bright idea at the last moment, Linneas lingered in the doorway and quickly ripped out the relic doorknob before leaping, one foot already through, closing the portal shut.
And, as if none of that had ever happened - they all collectively collapsed onto the desert sand in various states of exhaustion, Japhris removing the Nameless Mask, and allowing it to form its own body to be exhausted with.
Dorian, back still bleeding from various wounds, sighed. He noticed, curiously, that the additional nerves he'd crafted weren't fading away, albeit the spinal cord was still entirely bisected at one point. He felt a little slow and dull, limbs unresponsive. It'd likely remain so until he healed the main damage. He'd not noticed this much earlier, too stressed and with the Crimson King constantly compensating. Speaking of... he switched back to that Mask, wishing to relish and recover in the presence of his fellowship.
"Quite the adventure!" Mask commented jovially, the first to speak after almost a minute. "This ranks at least in my top twenty!"
"Then you must've had some rather insane adventures, sir Nameless," Linneas replied, slightly breathless and still clutching the reclaimed knob.
"Haha, do you truly believe so? Just wait, Linneas! Someday, I shall have to tell you the story of the one time I pranked Drethir's king by pretending to be his wife! Why, he nearly killed me. This was back when it was a kingdom, and not an empire."
"Dorian?" asked Japhris, voice soft and full of concern. "Are you alright?"
"Just a broken spine and a wounded knee, I'll walk it off," he said lightly, looking ahead.
There stood the venerable leafless tree, made only a couple of minutes ago, grown and nourished with crimson blood and the desire to see the doctor again, safe and rescued. And inside of the tree was a door that until moments ago had led back to Taure.
Here, in the aftermath of the wrath and gunfire and invading roots, that entire course of events seemed almost insane, storylike, unbelievable. He'd been a guerilla fighter and secret aristocratic rebel for several years before all this, bound to causal considerations and grim violence. Now, it all seemed so disjointed. Dorian still wasn't accustomed to any of it, deep down, only slowly starting to understand his future life would be full of this: shells of madness, strewn about the Street like pearls before him - the pig of this metaphor, unable to understand the true depth or meaning of what the Street intended until it'd already happened, assuming it could even predict his course so accurately.
His Viscerality churned like pinpricks across his left arm, the sheer laziness and raw passionate desire not to have to stand and walk over there allowed him to create a Visceral tendril out of his palm. He sent it out and collected the other doorknob, the match of the one in Linneas' hand, pulling it clean off the door.
"That's not what I meant, you know?" said Japhris.
"You mean when I called her my sister's name? Yeah, that..." He squeezed the doorknob a little, sighing out with his entire lungs. He threw the knob up and caught it on its way down, repeating this a couple of times, relishing how easy it was with his current mask on. "That's how life is, I suppose. I'm a bit not alright in the head, milady."
"I don't think many of us are, at this point," she commiserated and splayed herself out on the sands.
"Fair point."
Above, the wild fluctuations of Barakah were settling down on them, as if the story that occurred here was finalized - less as a shroud, and more like the first snows in winter, if such a thing even existed on Providence, even at night.
---
Your Theater Child evolved into the Brother's Persona.
The Brother's Persona [30 Potential] - A dark azure wooden mask with a modest, almost infinitesimally mysterious smile on its face.
Satisfied (15) - Generates innate 'life satisfaction.' Can relieve Stress. Acts as effective buff to one's willpower when resisting temptation, maintaining moral integrity, etc.
Creative (12) - Enhances one's lateral and outside-the-box thinking, as well as creativity. Prone to serious conclusions. Will very slowly heal Dreamless when worn.
Forgiveness (3) - Each point of Forgiveness grants +Charisma and access to minor effects associated with its namesake.
*Everyone received a minor dross of Barakah according to their role during the rescue.
Current Barakah totals:
Dorian - 110 fates, aspected towards rulership, mastery, hunting, taming, and forgiveness
*Kind Red King's Countenance - A minor blessing. You've mastered the art of disciplined self-control, able to put on masks (literal and metaphorical) with incredible speed and finesse, as well as mild resistance to all forms of mental influence.
Japhris - 30 fates, aspected towards stealth, trickery, and accuracy
Linneas - 30 fates, aspected towards bravery, loyalty, and quick-wittedness
Andrei - 5 fates, aspected towards frailty and requiring rescue
The Nameless Mask doesn't accrue Barakah naturally, instead converting all gains into facetime, but receives roughly commensurate rewards to its situational input.
You're suffering critical wounds to your knee and spinal cord, compounded by your ongoing exhaustion and mental defragmentation. However, Dorian is fully convinced he can heal them within a day spent on mostly rest and casual enjoyable activity (the latter, after all, enhances one's Viscerality.)
---
Choose three (3) Actions to focus on over the next week - although some minimal quantity of Relaxation is strongly recommended. All actions can be chosen multiple times for better effect.
[ ] Travel Inland - Say adieu to Al-Jawhara's citizens and set out deeper into Misrashan after you're done with your other actions. Choosing this multiple times means you set out earlier, and therefore also arrive earlier. It's assumed this occurs after your other actions.
[ ] Go Hunting - Last time went wonderful. Hunting and/or taming more creatures could not only earn you Barakah, useful sellable furs and meat or Viscerally refinable biomass, but also it increases Crimson King's facetime! A highly productive activity across the board.
[ ] Visceral Refinement - Improve something about your body. Increase general attributes, form or mutate an organ, etc. The recent mishap has given Dorian some ideas about further improving his nervous system to be more efficacious.
[ ] Relax - Perform non-strenuous activities. Accelerates recovery efforts, grants chance for minor Visceral advancement.
-[ ] Bedrest - Just chill lazily.
-[ ] Interact - Luxuriate in the company of one of your friends.
[ ] Gain Currency - Trade services and goods with the citizens of Al-Jawhara to accumulate Misrashanian coinage. Dorian's generally an opponent of cheating and damaging non-tyrannic economies with Gamaliel-generated coin.
-[ ] Sell Masks - Your typical solution: craft some masks and sell them for a relatively high price as they aren't a commodity here.
-[ ] Motley Craft - A simple cycle: acquire matter, process via Gamaliel into a more useful form of matter, and sell. You can also conscript Andrei and Japhris to aid, the former to construct your provided materials into better forms, and the latter to enchant them. Arcanism doesn't work as well on Providence, but you should be able to manage.
-[ ] Labor - Do physical labor. Likely to either somewhat reduce your royal status or earn you respect and recognition as a 'nobleman not afraid to get his hands dirty.'
-[ ] Write-in
[ ] Grind Barakah - Find other ways of increasing your own Barakah and study the system itself in more detail. How does it all work?
[ ] Train Gamaliel
-[ ] Sophisticate - Increase general control over the power, as well as its capacity.
-[ ] Train Technique - Train a specific form of change to be more controllable.
[ ] Train Skill - Given your Lion servants, you can try to increase your Taming Skill or form discrete supernals. At the moment, Dorian's skill in taming animals is masterful, such that even without applying Viscerality or superhuman persuasion, he'd be capable of instantly befriending a hungry and somewhat aggrieved tiger.
You can also train another skill if you wish. Certain actions will train them automatically, but focused more generally rather than on skill development (Go Hunting will increase hunting, Sell Masks will accrue crafting, etc.)
-[ ] Specific aims? (Write-in)
[ ] Write-in
Your other party members' actions, assuming you don't ask them to help you out with anything:
*Japhris - resting, helping either Andrei or you with your actions, meditating
*Mask - studying the world and this nation's history, lazing about, collecting currency for its own use
*Linneas - helping you with all tasks, including bringing you medicines to accelerate healing; also training himself and undergoing Visceral conditioning whenever you have a moment to spare
*Dr. Andrei Musorov - questioning the locals about their magic, recovering from his ordeal, enjoying being alive and clear of Somber worms (you made sure to check)
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Zampano
🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈
- Location
- Simping for DSB
yee
colors for the vote update (unless it is vote by plan ofc, then this is just enthusiasm)
[X] Travel Inland
[X] Go Hunting
[X] Visceral Refinement
[X] Relax
-[X] Bedrest
-[X] Interact
[X] Gain Currency
-[X] Sell Masks
-[X] Motley Craft
-[X] Labor
-[X] Write-in
[X] Grind Barakah
[X] Train Gamaliel
-[X] Sophisticate
-[X] Train Technique
[X] Train Skill
-[X] Specific aims? (Write-in)
colors for the vote update (unless it is vote by plan ofc, then this is just enthusiasm)
[X] Travel Inland
[X] Go Hunting
[X] Visceral Refinement
[X] Relax
-[X] Bedrest
-[X] Interact
[X] Gain Currency
-[X] Sell Masks
-[X] Motley Craft
-[X] Labor
-[X] Write-in
[X] Grind Barakah
[X] Train Gamaliel
-[X] Sophisticate
-[X] Train Technique
[X] Train Skill
-[X] Specific aims? (Write-in)
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- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] Relax
-[X] Interact: Andrei
[X] Gain Currency
-[X] Sell Masks
[X] Grind Barakah
-[X] Try to change Andrei's aspects.
Andrei should probably also rest at least a bit after all that. We're gonna be on this world for a while, so having some money is valuable. Most importantly, I'd really rather Andrei not have the narrative frailty of 5 men. That sounds very obviously terrible.
-[X] Interact: Andrei
[X] Gain Currency
-[X] Sell Masks
[X] Grind Barakah
-[X] Try to change Andrei's aspects.
Andrei should probably also rest at least a bit after all that. We're gonna be on this world for a while, so having some money is valuable. Most importantly, I'd really rather Andrei not have the narrative frailty of 5 men. That sounds very obviously terrible.