Statue three (Protector) came ahead by one for saving. Statue one (Pouncer) was almost unanimously sacrificed.
You examine each statue in turn, slowly walking past each until you come to the third gargoyle.
You consider the statue for a few moments and then you make your choice. The Protector will be the one to be saved and the pouncing statue will be the one to be sacrificed.
The moment you speak your choice aloud the Protector statue begins to shake.
Piece by piece it falls apart, and for some reason you feel a
little different. A little tougher perhaps, maybe a bit nimbler, and a little more confident about what lies ahead.
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You turn around to face the pouncing gargoyle. At first there seems to be no difference in it, all over the weather-worn stone shows no sign of cracking, nor does it seems to be melting or moving in any way.
Then you notice its mouth.
What appears to be liquid shadow drips from between its teeth like saliva. Your eyes follow a single drop as it falls towards the ground. It seems to take forever to fall, stretching and thickening as it does so, and when it finally makes contact with the ground it rears up like a snake. Slowly, it slithers over to the gargoyle's feet and climbs up.
More and more drops fall from its mouth, growing ever faster until there seems to be a waterfall of shadow streaming from its gullet. The shadows writhe up and over the statue covering it and squeezing it, breaking off pieces here and there. It is not long before the entire statue is covered in shadow, the stream not stopping until every bit of the statue is concealed.
There is a loud pop and both of its stone eyes fall out and to the ground, shattering into pieces. Almost immediately they are replaced by two glowing yellow slits. The statue slowly, almost laboriously, pads around, turning towards you.
Your eyes meet the yellow slits it now possesses. A few long seconds pass, then it leaps into the air towards you, opening its mouth to reveal a glowing red maw and it utters a single
hissing word as it flies through the air.
"Die!"...
...
...
...
Chapter 0-1
A soft breeze blows through your hair as you drift slowly out of
sleep. Off in the distance you
hear a seagull cry and the hum of a passing airship's engines. Was it a dream? It felt so real though! You can still feel the cold breath of the shadow gargoyle on your face, almost as if it had been there and merely vanished into thin air. You push those thoughts aside in favor of the absence of any. No use thinking about these sort of things, they just end up looping back in on themselves.
Besides, the warm sun feels so good! Even though it's the evening and the sun is close to setting you've been laying here long enough that it barely makes a difference. You could lay here until the sun sank all the
way...*BAM!*
Suddenly you're jolted into wakefulness as a boot embeds itself into the side of your skull. You're sure that's going to leave a mark.
"What was that for?" You mutter as you look up at the culprit. Standing there are two people you're sure that you know.
Hhhm... Who are they, who are they...
Oh, yes!
That's right!
Your two best friends!The first one, whose boot just left quite almost as big of an impression on you as she did on your life, grew up right next door to you. The two of you were rather inseparable for years, and you guess you still are in a way. The two of you even work right next to each other. She's apprenticed to the town's herbalist, and you to the mechanist next door.
Ever diligent, or so she says, she constantly keeps you on your toes and never lets a sneaky nap go unpunished. She tends to have a rather morbid sense of humor and is prone to giving advice even when its clear its not being asked for, but you couldn't find a more faithful friend anywhere.
The second, who is currently having a good chuckle at your expense, you haven't known for quite as long, but has proven himself just as good of a friend. He went to the same preparatory school as you, but you never talked to him much until later when you both became apprenticed to the same mechanist. The two of you got to know each other well, spending hours working and chatting together under your masters watchful eye. Eventually you introduced him to your other friend and the two took a liking to each other immediately. The three of you started to get together more and more and it wasn't long before the inseparable two of you became the inseparable three of you.
More than a little bit of a perfectionist, its not unusual to see him spend hours sanding a single tooth on a gear so that it fits
just right, nor is it unusual to see him depressed over not matching his own impossibly high standards. Although he tends to be pessimistic towards himself, he is otherwise an optimist and is great at cheering people up when they can't seem to do it themselves.
Honestly, you couldn't ask for better friends than the two of them.
But for some reason you can't remember their names...
Hhhhhm...
What were their names again?
HP: 10
Experience: 0/?
Inventory:Work Clothes15 copper coinsGear Necklace