6241, Ascending Void (?), Bloody Punctures
- Pronouns
- She/Her
C - Intentionally Botching a Surgery
Just fully trying to identify the body of this beast was difficult enough - its entire body was like a perfect reflection of what was around it, but soon enough you'd gotten a fairly confident narrowing of what it was. You saw pieces of many different creatures mashed together into one here, which Rama and Garm were able to clarify for you as you all processed the information together.. It had the appearance of a beetle's exoskeleton, but cracked and spotted with patches of reflective fur which were the only reason you felt you were capable of identifying it. You hesitated to get closer to identify the sleeping beast, but in time you swallowed that fear - finding facial structure was more reminiscent to that of a badger, with the lengthened body of some sort of weasel-y creature. Seven limbs came down from its body, three thick and mostly furred, and four thinner like an insectoid leg, made predominantly of the chitin.
You steel yourself as you approach the beast, your hammer in hand. A deep breath as you hold it ever so delicately, bringing the spiked end of it up to where the beast's massive paw lay. Even with your great strength, your hammer was an awkward and difficult to use tool for a job like this, and you wished you had gotten some sort of medical tools made out of the treasures - though the surgical blades that drew no blood would be of no help with your plan. You only had one tool to follow through this task with, fitting or not.
"This is such an improper way to use your weapon." Rama's voice reminded you of the fact as you tried to still your shaking hands, not quite sure if you were able to completely shut out the sense of danger you felt from the Ur-Beast, as Garm had decided to call it, "If you want to kill it, a proper blow with all your strength to the skull is what you need. Not some... bleeding of it."
"Be quiet." You demanded it as you brought the spike towards the end of one of its exposed legs. The way it sat with its legs just slightly up gave you just the slightest of angle to cut at what you felt was the equivalent of a wrist. Your knowledge of the body was predominantly that of humans - at least when it came to living bodies. But your small amount of knowledge of butchery, gained in the halls working with Haimi told you where points to cut to bleed a dead farbeast existed. You just had to hope that you remembered it all correctly.
"Lets! Go! Isha!" Garm cheered for you, which nearly threw you off as much as Rama's complaints, "Blood! Blood! Blood! Isha! Blood! Lets~ Go! Bleed it dry!" The jingling chime of the Will-Steward was positively giddy as you brought the spike down and tapped the body. "And run! Run if it wakes up!" You swallowed your saliva as he put the jinx on you, and then pressed.
"Stance wider, steel your shoulders, loosen your back." Rama's voice drifted in as you realized just how hard the Farbeast's body was - even the bits covered in fur that you were currently aimed at. You quite literally had to put your back into it, and even then you could feel the resistance - it was like trying to cut through stone with a wooden knife. But your tool was stronger than wood, and while you may never be able to gracefully cut it like a surgeon... you knew that you weren't at your strongest either. Even excepting your dangerous and exhausting adrenal glands, you had one more thing you could do.
You step back, but not because you've given up. Instead you place your left hand above your head, letting the back of your hand press against it as you took a breath - and wiith a thought sent through your soul, released a few gallons of water directly onto your head, your skin taking on a sheen and shimmer as scales form over every bit of it that the water touches. The swelling of strength makes you feel right for a moment, as you step in to the still slumbering beast, which doesn't even stir, even as water splashes against it when you move back to where you were.
This time, as you put your back into the spike, you feel the shell under the fur give way, and you instantly smell the iron smell of blood. Red blood squirts through the air from right above your hammer, beginning to spray onto the shimmering mirrored ground beneath it. And then a thicker, silver liquid begins to join it, in a much higher quantity.
And you realize that's your blood, red and iron scented. Your instincts kick in as your brain realizes despite the lack of pain, and you practically drop your hammer as you move to put pressure on your wrist, which bares a puncture wound in almost the exact shape of your hammer's pick - only in miniature. For most people, a wound like this punctured into an artery as it seemed to be, would be fatal. But the Lifesphere was already working its miracles, and knitting your bleeding wound shut.
"Wow, that could have been bad!" Garm commented in the aftermath, as you bled over yourself, "Yeah, mirrors like to reflect. I was like, eighty percent sure which of my kids we were dealing with here, but now I'm one hundred percent certain, to a ninety nine percent degree! It's one of my older kids actually, which is great, we love when we meet our oldest again, after they left the nest, right? That is how humans feel of their offspring? Doesn't matter. This is the Reflection of Ying, an Armament created to hunt down a specific entity my great and glorious and horrifying and awe inspiring and -"
"Garm, focus." You said it in your head seriously, as your wound finished knitting itself shut.
The chiming Garm was speaking with such happiness as he explained the origins of one of his children to you, "Oh, right! Anyways, Nakul made it because he met a foe one time who used a similar madra. Quite a unique one, really. And he was not victorious in their struggle, even with my wondrous presence." A moment of hesitation, the chime becoming more high pitched and quicker for a moment. "Not that we lost - we never lost, you understand? We simply some times did not win. It's very, very different, you see, a victory is when you achieve your goal. But not always achieving your goal doesn't mean you lost. I can proudly say that Nakul never once lost while wearing me. Oh, right, I'm getting sidetracked again! Regardless, this being was a myth from when Nakul was still a young boy, Ying. And no matter what we used on Ying, he threw it back at us. But not in the way that those gloves of your mentor do - those simply utilize Void to contain and redirect. This was a true reflection, power for power, speed for speed. It was a glorious fight that lasted seventeen days and destroyed six- oh, right, focus, focus."
"I sometimes wonder how Lord Nakul could stand to have you in his head." Rama's feeling drifted through with an utter loathing for Garm, that had long since overpowered the fear he may once have felt.
Unlike the Signet, Garm didn't reprimand or harm Rama - instead he ignored the ghost entirely, as he continued his merry chiming, "Anyways, Nakul decided the best way to beat a mirror was with a mirror, theorizing that it wouldn't be able to reflect its own madra from some of what we saw in that fight. And so we made the Reflection of Ying, the Armament Mirror. Unfortunately, that was... hundreds of years before Nakul decided to become an emperor. And yet we never found Ying again. Surely that myth-beast was terrified of us, and hid! Perhaps it even helped the gods in - no no, that would be a crazy thought. Not everything in life is all related. Or is it? The heavens would surely love it..." You felt Garm's anger rising as he started to consider the idea that Ying was working with the Heavens. Even just the baseless idle speculation enough to make you take a deep breath, the anger welling in your soul with enough strength to make your blood start pumping in your ears.
While Garm was sounding off in your head like a windchime stuck in a monsoon, you were busy inspecting the wound on the giant Farbeast. It hadn't even stirred in its sleep, despite the wound that was drippling thick silver blood onto the floor long after your wound had healed. There were no signs of the beast having any sort of enhanced healing, at the very least, "So it can reflect attacks back at people. That's useful, but not exactly impressive." It certainly wouldn't save your home on its own, nor would it help in stopping the sun from falling and destroying everything.
"Your brain is too small, little Isha! No no, those thoughts are the basics of what a mirror does. What happens when you look in a mirror, whilst throwing a fireball? What does it see? Does it see only the fireball? No! It sees you!" Garm cackles and clacks as he seems happy that you fell for thinking the basics, "What could you do with a second you, who is in every way your equ - wait, no. Bad example. Nothing can truly copy my majesty, and so your mirrored self would be weak and pitiful, clearly! But what would you do if you could create a copy of this Ur-Beast? No.. how would you even fit the whole thing in the mirror, that'd be fairly hard, lets even think smaller - your memories of you exploding your hammer, the devestation that inflicted as you launched that silly little blast of yours. What if you could create mirrors of your hammer, so it wasn't one shot?" He seems oh so proud, "Reflection is second only to Will in variety - some might even say it's superior! But they're wrong. I can make anything out of nothing but Will. Reflections must reflect something that already exists. Clearly I am the victor there."
"I guess it was smart of me not to try to smash its brain in with my first move, if it's so capable of reflecting." You feel a little smug, unintentionally directing the energy at Rama's section of your soul fills you, "What are the chances it wakes up, Garm?"
"Probably low? I mean, at least with wounds like that. Maybe if you smashed its side in it'd wake up" Garm seems much less interested in this question, "Perhaps you should thank the renegades you are chasing. The Simulated Heavenly Chains are intensely powerful, of course - all things Nakul made are exalted above any other form of artifice, after all. But if they were not running at their peak, I expect this beast would be much more easily roused by pain, even if not at its full strength."
"I am not much for those tricksters and their dishonorable ways," Rama spoke now in response to that, "So far be it from me to presume... but do we believe they perhaps... No, no. Nevermind."
You already know what he means, though. Perhaps they had seen this beast and sought to seal it? A part of you wanted to find a good reason for what Mala and Darpan were doing. If they understood the risks your home was under, why would they accelerate its death - you wanted there to be a good reason. And you were certain they believed their reason to be good - but... your Father had always warned you that Darpan was self centered. That everything he did was only for himself, that the words he spoke about home were manipulations. What if Darpan was using this time simply to grow his power, not for anything better? What if your Father was right all along?
You channel that energy into your task with the massive Mirror Ur-Beast. Puncturing wound after wound at places where arteries should lie, widening them as much as you can, ever careful despite Garm's warning. And each time bleeding yourself as you add to your scars with more hastily healed wounds courtesy of the Lifesphere Anklet. Soon enough the beast is bleeding its silver blood from dozens of wounds that you have carved as deep and wide as you can, all without it moving.
But something this big doesn't die quickly. While it doesn't seem to be healing, the thick mollasses like blood does not seem like it will empty out with haste. Leaving you face to face with the realization that you simply do not have the time to watch it die. There was a great treasure inside of this beast that was so close, right in front of you. And greed flared in your heart as you thought about having an Armament, the same greed that drove you to complete Garm.
Rama was the voice of reason in this, as he broke through the greed for power that had set in your heart, "We should return to the warding willow for the night, and search other regions in the coming days. If you still wish to... delay in your duty to your home. The beast will die in time, and cannot harm anyone in this state. You are unneeded here."
You weren't sure if it was you or Garm who had rationalized the greed first, but both of you were clearly in agreement as you spoke it, "If I leave, another Farbeast may discover the body. They will eat it for its power... and possibly the mirror as well. That would lose us the chance to gain an Armament. An Armament's a more important prize than any... alchemist's treasure, is it not?"
"Yeah, who cares about alchemists! Lousy losers all of them. We can hang out here, get ready to cook up a nice heart, maybe a brain, and it'll be great! Like camping." Garm throws his full support behind your argument. "And we know where this treasure actually is, unlike this supposed vault!"
"I know I am at fault for bringing up the Modi family in the least," Rama's regret was clear in his voice, "It was a decision born of ignorance for how ruined their former territory was. I would never had suggested this diversion knowing it was to become such a mess of searching without a singular clue. And I accept full and utter responsibility for it. We should leave this beast to die, and continue on our way to save your home. No treasure is as important as fulfilling your duty, Isha. And your Duty is to your home." For once he sounded... mature? Sensible? The longing of his soul for home leaked into the emotions that blasted you directly, neither of you capable of truly hiding how you feel from one another.
Guilt formed in you from the wave of emotion. Had you been distracted from your duty for power, or did you truly think that this was the way to get a better result? Would Mala and Darpan accept the treasures of a lost Major family, in return for reversing it? Or did you just want to find those treasures for yourself? Were you afraid of letting another Farbeast steal a weapon of your home, or did you simply want the weapon so that you might learn to utilize it?
[x] A. Remain with the dying Ur-Beast, preparing to consume it and gather the Armament as soon as it appears to be truly dead. - Garm approves.
[x] B. Return to the Warding Willow, and continue the search for the Modi vault and its treasures, while the beast bleeds out.
[x] C. Abandon the sub-adventure, and start heading back towards Darpan and Mala immediately, with nothing to bargain with except your fists (and words). - Rama approves.
Majority vote
Just fully trying to identify the body of this beast was difficult enough - its entire body was like a perfect reflection of what was around it, but soon enough you'd gotten a fairly confident narrowing of what it was. You saw pieces of many different creatures mashed together into one here, which Rama and Garm were able to clarify for you as you all processed the information together.. It had the appearance of a beetle's exoskeleton, but cracked and spotted with patches of reflective fur which were the only reason you felt you were capable of identifying it. You hesitated to get closer to identify the sleeping beast, but in time you swallowed that fear - finding facial structure was more reminiscent to that of a badger, with the lengthened body of some sort of weasel-y creature. Seven limbs came down from its body, three thick and mostly furred, and four thinner like an insectoid leg, made predominantly of the chitin.
You steel yourself as you approach the beast, your hammer in hand. A deep breath as you hold it ever so delicately, bringing the spiked end of it up to where the beast's massive paw lay. Even with your great strength, your hammer was an awkward and difficult to use tool for a job like this, and you wished you had gotten some sort of medical tools made out of the treasures - though the surgical blades that drew no blood would be of no help with your plan. You only had one tool to follow through this task with, fitting or not.
"This is such an improper way to use your weapon." Rama's voice reminded you of the fact as you tried to still your shaking hands, not quite sure if you were able to completely shut out the sense of danger you felt from the Ur-Beast, as Garm had decided to call it, "If you want to kill it, a proper blow with all your strength to the skull is what you need. Not some... bleeding of it."
"Be quiet." You demanded it as you brought the spike towards the end of one of its exposed legs. The way it sat with its legs just slightly up gave you just the slightest of angle to cut at what you felt was the equivalent of a wrist. Your knowledge of the body was predominantly that of humans - at least when it came to living bodies. But your small amount of knowledge of butchery, gained in the halls working with Haimi told you where points to cut to bleed a dead farbeast existed. You just had to hope that you remembered it all correctly.
"Lets! Go! Isha!" Garm cheered for you, which nearly threw you off as much as Rama's complaints, "Blood! Blood! Blood! Isha! Blood! Lets~ Go! Bleed it dry!" The jingling chime of the Will-Steward was positively giddy as you brought the spike down and tapped the body. "And run! Run if it wakes up!" You swallowed your saliva as he put the jinx on you, and then pressed.
"Stance wider, steel your shoulders, loosen your back." Rama's voice drifted in as you realized just how hard the Farbeast's body was - even the bits covered in fur that you were currently aimed at. You quite literally had to put your back into it, and even then you could feel the resistance - it was like trying to cut through stone with a wooden knife. But your tool was stronger than wood, and while you may never be able to gracefully cut it like a surgeon... you knew that you weren't at your strongest either. Even excepting your dangerous and exhausting adrenal glands, you had one more thing you could do.
You step back, but not because you've given up. Instead you place your left hand above your head, letting the back of your hand press against it as you took a breath - and wiith a thought sent through your soul, released a few gallons of water directly onto your head, your skin taking on a sheen and shimmer as scales form over every bit of it that the water touches. The swelling of strength makes you feel right for a moment, as you step in to the still slumbering beast, which doesn't even stir, even as water splashes against it when you move back to where you were.
This time, as you put your back into the spike, you feel the shell under the fur give way, and you instantly smell the iron smell of blood. Red blood squirts through the air from right above your hammer, beginning to spray onto the shimmering mirrored ground beneath it. And then a thicker, silver liquid begins to join it, in a much higher quantity.
And you realize that's your blood, red and iron scented. Your instincts kick in as your brain realizes despite the lack of pain, and you practically drop your hammer as you move to put pressure on your wrist, which bares a puncture wound in almost the exact shape of your hammer's pick - only in miniature. For most people, a wound like this punctured into an artery as it seemed to be, would be fatal. But the Lifesphere was already working its miracles, and knitting your bleeding wound shut.
"Wow, that could have been bad!" Garm commented in the aftermath, as you bled over yourself, "Yeah, mirrors like to reflect. I was like, eighty percent sure which of my kids we were dealing with here, but now I'm one hundred percent certain, to a ninety nine percent degree! It's one of my older kids actually, which is great, we love when we meet our oldest again, after they left the nest, right? That is how humans feel of their offspring? Doesn't matter. This is the Reflection of Ying, an Armament created to hunt down a specific entity my great and glorious and horrifying and awe inspiring and -"
"Garm, focus." You said it in your head seriously, as your wound finished knitting itself shut.
The chiming Garm was speaking with such happiness as he explained the origins of one of his children to you, "Oh, right! Anyways, Nakul made it because he met a foe one time who used a similar madra. Quite a unique one, really. And he was not victorious in their struggle, even with my wondrous presence." A moment of hesitation, the chime becoming more high pitched and quicker for a moment. "Not that we lost - we never lost, you understand? We simply some times did not win. It's very, very different, you see, a victory is when you achieve your goal. But not always achieving your goal doesn't mean you lost. I can proudly say that Nakul never once lost while wearing me. Oh, right, I'm getting sidetracked again! Regardless, this being was a myth from when Nakul was still a young boy, Ying. And no matter what we used on Ying, he threw it back at us. But not in the way that those gloves of your mentor do - those simply utilize Void to contain and redirect. This was a true reflection, power for power, speed for speed. It was a glorious fight that lasted seventeen days and destroyed six- oh, right, focus, focus."
"I sometimes wonder how Lord Nakul could stand to have you in his head." Rama's feeling drifted through with an utter loathing for Garm, that had long since overpowered the fear he may once have felt.
Unlike the Signet, Garm didn't reprimand or harm Rama - instead he ignored the ghost entirely, as he continued his merry chiming, "Anyways, Nakul decided the best way to beat a mirror was with a mirror, theorizing that it wouldn't be able to reflect its own madra from some of what we saw in that fight. And so we made the Reflection of Ying, the Armament Mirror. Unfortunately, that was... hundreds of years before Nakul decided to become an emperor. And yet we never found Ying again. Surely that myth-beast was terrified of us, and hid! Perhaps it even helped the gods in - no no, that would be a crazy thought. Not everything in life is all related. Or is it? The heavens would surely love it..." You felt Garm's anger rising as he started to consider the idea that Ying was working with the Heavens. Even just the baseless idle speculation enough to make you take a deep breath, the anger welling in your soul with enough strength to make your blood start pumping in your ears.
While Garm was sounding off in your head like a windchime stuck in a monsoon, you were busy inspecting the wound on the giant Farbeast. It hadn't even stirred in its sleep, despite the wound that was drippling thick silver blood onto the floor long after your wound had healed. There were no signs of the beast having any sort of enhanced healing, at the very least, "So it can reflect attacks back at people. That's useful, but not exactly impressive." It certainly wouldn't save your home on its own, nor would it help in stopping the sun from falling and destroying everything.
"Your brain is too small, little Isha! No no, those thoughts are the basics of what a mirror does. What happens when you look in a mirror, whilst throwing a fireball? What does it see? Does it see only the fireball? No! It sees you!" Garm cackles and clacks as he seems happy that you fell for thinking the basics, "What could you do with a second you, who is in every way your equ - wait, no. Bad example. Nothing can truly copy my majesty, and so your mirrored self would be weak and pitiful, clearly! But what would you do if you could create a copy of this Ur-Beast? No.. how would you even fit the whole thing in the mirror, that'd be fairly hard, lets even think smaller - your memories of you exploding your hammer, the devestation that inflicted as you launched that silly little blast of yours. What if you could create mirrors of your hammer, so it wasn't one shot?" He seems oh so proud, "Reflection is second only to Will in variety - some might even say it's superior! But they're wrong. I can make anything out of nothing but Will. Reflections must reflect something that already exists. Clearly I am the victor there."
"I guess it was smart of me not to try to smash its brain in with my first move, if it's so capable of reflecting." You feel a little smug, unintentionally directing the energy at Rama's section of your soul fills you, "What are the chances it wakes up, Garm?"
"Probably low? I mean, at least with wounds like that. Maybe if you smashed its side in it'd wake up" Garm seems much less interested in this question, "Perhaps you should thank the renegades you are chasing. The Simulated Heavenly Chains are intensely powerful, of course - all things Nakul made are exalted above any other form of artifice, after all. But if they were not running at their peak, I expect this beast would be much more easily roused by pain, even if not at its full strength."
"I am not much for those tricksters and their dishonorable ways," Rama spoke now in response to that, "So far be it from me to presume... but do we believe they perhaps... No, no. Nevermind."
You already know what he means, though. Perhaps they had seen this beast and sought to seal it? A part of you wanted to find a good reason for what Mala and Darpan were doing. If they understood the risks your home was under, why would they accelerate its death - you wanted there to be a good reason. And you were certain they believed their reason to be good - but... your Father had always warned you that Darpan was self centered. That everything he did was only for himself, that the words he spoke about home were manipulations. What if Darpan was using this time simply to grow his power, not for anything better? What if your Father was right all along?
You channel that energy into your task with the massive Mirror Ur-Beast. Puncturing wound after wound at places where arteries should lie, widening them as much as you can, ever careful despite Garm's warning. And each time bleeding yourself as you add to your scars with more hastily healed wounds courtesy of the Lifesphere Anklet. Soon enough the beast is bleeding its silver blood from dozens of wounds that you have carved as deep and wide as you can, all without it moving.
But something this big doesn't die quickly. While it doesn't seem to be healing, the thick mollasses like blood does not seem like it will empty out with haste. Leaving you face to face with the realization that you simply do not have the time to watch it die. There was a great treasure inside of this beast that was so close, right in front of you. And greed flared in your heart as you thought about having an Armament, the same greed that drove you to complete Garm.
Rama was the voice of reason in this, as he broke through the greed for power that had set in your heart, "We should return to the warding willow for the night, and search other regions in the coming days. If you still wish to... delay in your duty to your home. The beast will die in time, and cannot harm anyone in this state. You are unneeded here."
You weren't sure if it was you or Garm who had rationalized the greed first, but both of you were clearly in agreement as you spoke it, "If I leave, another Farbeast may discover the body. They will eat it for its power... and possibly the mirror as well. That would lose us the chance to gain an Armament. An Armament's a more important prize than any... alchemist's treasure, is it not?"
"Yeah, who cares about alchemists! Lousy losers all of them. We can hang out here, get ready to cook up a nice heart, maybe a brain, and it'll be great! Like camping." Garm throws his full support behind your argument. "And we know where this treasure actually is, unlike this supposed vault!"
"I know I am at fault for bringing up the Modi family in the least," Rama's regret was clear in his voice, "It was a decision born of ignorance for how ruined their former territory was. I would never had suggested this diversion knowing it was to become such a mess of searching without a singular clue. And I accept full and utter responsibility for it. We should leave this beast to die, and continue on our way to save your home. No treasure is as important as fulfilling your duty, Isha. And your Duty is to your home." For once he sounded... mature? Sensible? The longing of his soul for home leaked into the emotions that blasted you directly, neither of you capable of truly hiding how you feel from one another.
Guilt formed in you from the wave of emotion. Had you been distracted from your duty for power, or did you truly think that this was the way to get a better result? Would Mala and Darpan accept the treasures of a lost Major family, in return for reversing it? Or did you just want to find those treasures for yourself? Were you afraid of letting another Farbeast steal a weapon of your home, or did you simply want the weapon so that you might learn to utilize it?
[x] A. Remain with the dying Ur-Beast, preparing to consume it and gather the Armament as soon as it appears to be truly dead. - Garm approves.
[x] B. Return to the Warding Willow, and continue the search for the Modi vault and its treasures, while the beast bleeds out.
[x] C. Abandon the sub-adventure, and start heading back towards Darpan and Mala immediately, with nothing to bargain with except your fists (and words). - Rama approves.
Majority vote
Hello.
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