At the Red Tower of Power...Niklas, guessing there's only so many books he can read at this point, takes a look at that Unified Chant Compendium - it appears to be exactly what it says on the cover, a compendium of chants, neatly separated and indexed for easy use. The compendium has three large sections - one-dimensional chants, two-dimensional chants and three-dimensional chants, plus a small appendix of experimental four-dimensional work as well. The compendium's a bit too large to read in a single go, so Niklas supposes he'd be better off searching for some specific chant - there's a handy table of contents here, too.
The information held within the book seems to include many things - the name of a chant, an explanation of its effects, chant suggestions for added synergy, suggested chanting length, the chant itself in its entirety, with some having optional variants, and some comments by influential authors at the bottom of the entry. Each chant has about a page devoted to it in the first section, and one chant at the end takes up fourteen pages and seems to be filled with largely incomprehensible symbols.
Outside a ruined tavinn in Blynn...Timothy feels quite betrayed by the not very nice people he was honestly trying to help. His sensitive soul is rather deeply hurt by these terrible blighters, in fact.
"But... but... but..."Lacking any other option, he sniffs a little, then sobs, then starts to grotesquely weep and wail at the way the world seems to be going out of its way to hurt him and make him look like a bad guy. What kind of world does that? He cries his eyes out, the emotional outburst setting off a chain reaction in his mind, becoming a nearly self-sustaining process. The man and woman look creeped out by it, but nevertheless continue their attempts to escape, the woman managing a burst of strength and beginning to drag the man away. Timothy just weeps on as they slowly disappear around a nearby corner, and the dog briefly shakes in place before choppily flying after them.
Timothy is left once again alone and friendless, with nobody around even caring one whit for his feelings.
At the harbor of Shriekpot...Sigmund, though a rather miserable failure at most other things, believes he can be of use in the dispatching of this dolphin - it is a four-on-one battle now, after all. So he tries to slam into the strange dolphin.
[Sigmund vs. McStrange: 1 vs. 5+1-
1]
As he bumps into the dolphin, the creature gives him a long look. It seems he got its attention.
[Counterattack: McStrange vs. Sigmund: 4+1+1+
1 vs. 2-
1]
It proceeds to leap on top of him and begins smashing the everloving crap out of his not overly delicate body with Mark's leg - pieces of stolen human flesh fly as the leg is swung with unbelievable force by the dolphin. Whole chunks of Sigmund fly through the air, coating his comrades with generous helpings of skin and sinew. Within twenty seconds of wild flailing and ravaging of Sigmund's strange form, it finally reaches the orb deep within the worm's body - its first impulse upon noticing a shiny is, obviously, to hit it as hard as possible. The orb cracks.
[Sigmund's will roll: 4]
Sigmund is nearly paralyzed with fear, and his mind hearkens back to a day in his life when his very own mother told him that the best thing to do when being bullied is to curl up, bear it and let whoever was taking out their issues on you wear themselves out - it's this particular form of paralysis and seclusion that seems to be preventing his very soul from leaking out of the cracked surface of the orb.
It takes a few moments for the others to finally get their undead behinds into gear and try to aid the brave little worm that tried as hard as it could.
Mark goes first.
[Mark vs. McStrange: 3+2 vs. 4]
He pokes the dolphin sharply, but it fails to react, and Mark doesn't think he can get too close without a serious risk of being struck.
Morton, realizing full well how fortunate he is to not have been on the receiving end of that particular outburst, tries to remain as unobtrusive and furniture-like as possible - it works perfectly, as the dolphin has found something else to take its frustrations out on.
Finally,
Kevin attempts to help as well.
[Kevin vs. McStrange: 5+2 vs. 5]
He carves out a solid chunk out of the dolphin's side, yet the creature cares not one whit, and continues beating on Sigmund.
[McStrange vs. Sigmund: 3+3 vs. 5-1]
It doesn't seem to be devoting much attention to Sigmund's exposed orb - rather, it seems to insist on destroying as much of the worm's already gutted and torn form as it can, accidentally knocking the orb aside a little as it devotes all of its attention to turning Sigmund's former body into a bloody smear. Sigmund, though he feels like he probably could move his body, wonders if he really should. The dolphin could take that as provocation.
In a place of blinding white...Scott asks if his new friend could maybe tone down this whole 'being the Sun' thing he's got going.
"Can you turn down the light, and allow me to gaze upon my savior and new found friend?""No, Jeremy, don't be ridiculous! That won't work at all! The light is who I am! Weren't you listening? Besides, we've been best friends for the past seven hundred years! You know what I bloody well look like, you silly bugger! Now come on! To adventure!" the voice rebukes him, and begins to lightly whistle as it floats upward.
At a forming stalactite...Darren watches as the odd creature keeps tapping its beat, eventually daring to speak up.
"Ah.. H-Hello?" he asks unsurely, and one of the creature's eyes twists to face him, and he notices a mouth swim out of the transparent flesh, its rather disturbingly large lips smacking a few times before speaking to him.
"Hey there, beautiful. What's a pretty thing like you doing in a place like this?" it asks in a deep, definitely male voice while still regarding the stalactite with one eye and not missing a single beat.
Author
Topic: Life Begins At Death - Epilogue: We Live And Live Again (Read 564754 times)