A little foreword;
I have dabbled in writing like many people on this cursed website for a couple years, but I mostly spent it shitposting or getting about people's decisions on how the fictional doll theatre should act.
As such, expect low quality and quantity.
Proofread by: No one, I would never produce anything if I let myself read my own writing.
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Closing your senses to the rest of existence was a small respite, for a few moments you could pretend like the wasn't clock was ticking ever forward, like an invisible hand had pressed the pause button on everything. A small comfort, as much of a comfort as anything could be anymore.
You know it wasn't always like this. A long, long time ago it was very different. Despite everything it still remains clear to you. A pièce de résistance framed in the main chamber of your mind palace, a time when time still had the same stakes.
Mortal life, a blink in the runtime of the world, a single grain of sand in the hourglass.
How foolish you were back then, you didn't appreciate it enough. Blissful ignorance.
.
..
…
It wasn't one particular malady that made your suffering horrendous, that would be too kind. Instead it was a symphony of many horrible afflictions that perhaps with a strong will, you could ignore individually but in tandem it made every second feel like the humble moment was waiting for an eternity to take its time, out of courtesy or maybe some weird romantic tension you feel between the two temporal measures you cooked up from your delirium.
If someone ever experienced a form of pain, you were probably having it right now.
Thirst so bad you would quench your thirst on the urine of a four legged beast, a throat so parched that you could feel the flesh inside your throat dry out and flake to disintegrate into nothing. Heat so oppressing you're sure that you would be imagining the greatest feast surrounded by the most bodacious bedmates if only you had any energy behind your eyes to dream of them.
The sand, oh the sand, it was coarse and rough and irritating and it got everywhere.
You came all the way to this gods forsaken piece of nothing land and not only did you gain nothing, as a matter of fact fate was gonna throw an even bigger piece of excrement in your face by also just fucking killing you. If a storyteller somehow found your body they couldn't even make up a tale about you because clearly you were planted here at some sort of undecipherable ploy.
Or maybe the punch line was that no one would find your body.
Whatever was left of your willpower, it was used to keep dragging yourself across the dunes forward over the slope, your stick thin arms pulling as hard as they could with the little fraction your flayed forearms could muster after enduring brunts of sandstorms for you.
Finally, you got onto the slope and the strength of the earth could do the rest of the work. It dragged you down the slope into a nook between the dunes, giving you a couple precious moments of rest. Taking the chance to preserve what little strength you didn't have left, your almost died from a collision with something harder and unknown. Not the sand you were more familiar with than any lover.
A sickly glance revealed it wasn't another pile of bones from a wild animal. It was something else, clearly mystical radiating some sort of magical aura.
In your homeland, you were told that you should avoid unknown things, people who take chances like this almost always perished.
…
Well, you were basically dead already. What the hells, why not?
With languid, strained movements you gambled what little existence you had on this plane and interacted with the object.
…Who are you again?
[ ] Write In: Name and Pronouns/Gender.
What was the treasure that saved your life?
[ ] A puddle of silver metal - Shimmying your way into the pool was enough for the magic to take over and allow the rest of the metal to encase you like a cocoon. You don't know how much time passed before your metamorphasis ended, but like a butterfly you came back more glorious than before.
Benefits:
+Gain the physical appearance of your peak, with that comes qualitative increases to memory retention and acquisition. In other words, you will remember everything you have seen and will ever see without any downside.
+Your new body is immutable, nothing on this mortal physical plane may harm it and close to nothing from beyond could either. Additionally, you never tire physically or spiritually and you don't require any form of sustenance for peak performance.
+Your physical might is undeniable, as the world changes and grows so will your power change to reflect that you are strong. In simple terms, you will always be in the upper 50th percentile of strength on your current plane of existence.
Negatives:
-There is no personal, physical or spiritual growth for you from until forever.
[ ] A dried snake eating its own tail - A strange, sickening enlightenment struck you as you observed this cadavre. You snapped your own leg and feasted it with new found fervour, for now you could live forever.
Benefits:
+When you die, you will get a list of people you have met and you will be able to select one. When you do, your mind will move into theirs and attempt to dominate the physical shell, shunting the host mind into the dark recesses of your subconscious.
+You can spend the lifespan of your current body at any time to empower yourself, lifespan is an all encompassing resource that can be used efficiently with all forms of expenditures, magical or physical. Naively, it allows for great feats of athleticism.
Negatives:
-Those of exceptionally strong willpower, stronger than yours might be able to fight you off and force you to find another host. Master sorcerers could theoretically capture your consciousness, through extreme methods.
-Who knows what all the minds could get up to there in your mind?
[ ] A well of sapphire blue water - It looked so refreshing, so calm, so inviting. All you had to do was give yourself to it. Its embrace reminded you of something you never knew, when you were still one with your mother.
Benefits:
+Upon physical demise, your soul and mind return to the pool and you can design a new body to inhabit with any physical characteristic you have encountered in history. The new body takes as much time as its apparent age to gestate.
Negatives:
-You know the pool is never going to dry or be destroyed in any matter, but it also cannot be moved from this desert.
[ ] The Totem - A creature resembling your homeland, it was a nostalgic sight. You leant forward, to touch it and then with a brilliant flash of light it disappeared and left you matching its resemblance.
Benefits:
+Depending on the next vote, you will become a mythical creature from your homeland. They all come with some form of immortality and some form of individual mystical power, the most versatile option.
Negatives:
+They all have some sort of folklore inspired drawback, a dragon's need to gather gold, a spider's need to spin plots. In simple terms, it will be another meta resource to manage.
