((Would’ve posted yesterday but was unexpectedly dragged to an event.))
Dan shrugs. ”Frankly, I’m shit as discussing non-cataclysmic weather. Lemme try a quick nap, see if that does the trick.”
Power nap!
Don't blame a girl for trying to help, Peaks shrugs with slight exasperation at having relatively little to do but watch you do your things without any kind of amusing surgical or chemical intervention.
[Pull Yourself Together: 1]
You don't really notice yourself falling asleep, as is quite normal. You definitely notice when you wake up, however, because your eye is immediately drawn to where your arm used to be where you cut it off.
Something has definitely grown back, you immediately discover - it most reminds you of a lotus flower, radially symmetrical, interleaved layers of flesh indecisively having opened up around a core of marrow-engorged bone, immaculately grotesque on the fibrous, ovoid stalk of upright scar tissue that seems to have grown from your stump seamlessly.
Peaks, sat down a little ways off, seems to be having the time of her life watching this. Noticing you waking up, she immediately speaks - you've missed a hell of a lot in the past hour, that's for sure. She's never seen something resent being observed as much as your regrowing arm. You think the flowery growth might be some kind of well-intentioned camouflage? It's frankly amazing to watch it go, truth be told. It looks to have just finished forming the pseudoanthers, in fact!
Honestly, Peaks says, you simply have to let her put you under.
Seriously under. She'd like to really dig into what you've got in that weird substrate of yours. Thus far it's been full of surprises! Holy shit, what wouldn't she do for a proper alchemy lab to study you in...
Thomas had by this point lost the ability to perceive talking to rats as strange. "Right then, uh, yes. Let's keep looking."
Help the rat find his thing.
[Show You How To Turn It Up A Notch: 5]
The rats argue between each other a considerable amount on your shoulder, their tails snapping against your back impatiently as they try and decide what to do - the most excitable of the rats quiets down first, beginning to nod quickly as the pensive rat rears up on your shoulder, looking into the distance as it speaks aloud.
INEVITABLE
[Word: 3]
You feel as though you split into many selves, fanning out every which way simultaneously, the rats multiplying beyond reason and scampering all around as you spread out to fill the unfathomable space of this iterative tower complex. You slide along walkways and flit on powerful currents along the central columns between the towers. Even so you feel you are seeing but a small subsection of this massive place - it dwarfs the city above by whole orders of magnitude, aided more than a little by it harnessing all three dimensions of space and possibly some other ones on top to work its wonders.
In your manifold wanderings the thousands upon thousands of rats sniff around each fresh-birthed stone and consult with each other on arcane details. Every now and then one of them bids you to grab a stone floating by and test its weight and texture, and each time a version of you is surprised by just how hot they are to the touch.
The rats seem to come to an agreement - you're too deep in to go back and the place is too damn large to find a way out of here, at least not without damaging it unreasonably. It wouldn't do to damage any of this infrastructure, no. You need to find a key -
no! You need to fashion a key, make one out of stone, something to carry you out of here!
The argument continues as your alternate selves all begin to merge somewhere very far into the overgrown tower complex. Eventually you are but one, and the rats but three - still no agreement between them, however. The apocalypse rat seems to feel like a sail and a hook is in order, the inevitable one insists you need some kind of canoe and paddle, while the alcoholic rat privately voices the suspicion that the two others are clearly stupid - if you're gonna ride out of here in style, why not just make a surfboard?
"Sure."
Sure.
In the blink of an eye you and Dan are on the top deck, a sharp wind rising from your passing as Dan leads the way and leaps easily to the shore of the river. Adventuring in his experience is best done in a vaguely lateral fashion. Sweeping an unfolding claw straight through a tree trunk, your new friend straightens to his full 12 foot height, looking like a solid glistening shadow in the midday sun. The cut tree begins to fall, and presumably will continue to do so for about the next subjective hour at least.
[Blood and Glory: 1]
You jog after Dan, sending waves of unimaginable terror to every sense of every animal within at least a mile of your position. Underbrush is left smoking and strewn everywhere in your wake despite you taking reasonable care not to touch it in any way (wouldn't want to mess up your robe, would you?). You manage to disrupt a creek by hopping over it, upend a bear while stepping around it and finally come to something Dan finds interesting enough to bother with.
It looks like a tree at first, but someone with your expert eye and familiarity with kooky adaptations can easily tell that this is the result of some serious evolution or incredibly silly magic. In fact it looks to be something a lot more like a very knobbly house-sized spider, standing up on a few legs held together while the others, covered in what look to be to stinging hairs what a claymore is to a thumb tack, menace from above while pretending quite nicely to be leaves.
It's such a bizarre sight to witness that you don't notice you've been moving faster as you approach, exceeding a subjective 30 mph as it begins to dawn on you to try and stop. It also begins to dawn that perhaps the pick-me-up juice might be wearing off, and also that one Sir Isaac Newton may be feeling a mite frisky at the present time judging from your acceleration.
It doesn't dawn on you for long, mind you, maturing into a more retrospective and possibly fatalistic realization as you tumble in a last ditch attempt to dodge and impact the treespider's trunk.
[Careless Speeding: 1]
The collision is not as relativistic as it perhaps could have been, and though you're not in a position to bend your knees presently the treespider seems to have enough experience with quickly moving objects to pick up the slack, the trunk very readily folding under the ballistic collision to avoid losing several legs. But even with this amazing display of reflexes from something that clearly shouldn't be able to move so quickly it still feels like you've hit a row of sandbags bodily at 90 miles per hour.
[Land On Your Feet: 4]
Of course, that's when the spider, having folded its trunk, begins to fall on top of you. Dan, seemingly not having gotten the memo about the juice wearing off, smashes into it with perhaps a second's delay - the spider flies back and off where you currently lay, the world still happening to you about half as quickly as it by all rights ought to.
You blink and notice Dan next to you, starting to buzz like a hundred hornets trapped in a megaphone before noticing that you appear to be at least halfway back to slow-time. Switching gears, he speaks in a recognizably measured manner instead - aha. The juice appears to have worn off. Do you need assistance? You appear to be made of stern material. He can do the spider on his own if you have had enough.
The spider, you notice, is still quite startled, having begun a retreat to get a sense of what the hell just hit it and took one of its upper limbs off - the bladed leg lays not far from where Dan hit the creature, neatly severed and seemingly placed on the ground as opposed to having been permitted to fall.
"A hideout? Not really, I'm afraid; I'm just visiting. We could skip town, I guess, if you two don't have any suggestions, but I have a few things to take care of first."
Help Ember get those webs off. Somehow. Time to finally pick up the adhesive for my tape project.
[Let Me Help You With That: 4]
You manicure Ember's wig as the three of you walk and begin to extricate the webs from her clothing - luckily her clothing is both extremely old and rather dry, letting you go for the simple solution of just pulling web-covered ribbons from it, which gets the job done and also seems to get you what to any reasonable observer would indeed resemble some kind of adhesive proto-tape. You examine it and wonder if this is good enough for that wizzard person. Ember meanwhile wonders if you intend to compensate her for ruining her dress while holding onto the disintegrating ensemble with no small measure of grace.
But that's nothing compared to Cindy, who is peering all around extremely warily, watching out for every shambling shadow in the alleyways as she makes ready to dart off at a moment's notice. Too quiet out here, that's what she says, too quiet and too suspicious - 'tis no place for a well-moneyed girl to walk around in, even with friends and such.
I drink more, and entertain the stoats with the tale of how I slew the great night gaunt, elaborating just a little so it sounds like I intentionally set out to hunt it instead of blindly stumbling into danger.
[Drink Hail: 5+1, 5]
As you get increasingly drunk (as does the doctor) you begin to tell a story of one of your previous adventures - the night of the gaunts! And what a night it was, silver bones and terrible teeth, a black mass of the creatures of the night that you dove right into the middle of, armed with little but magic words of terrible power. The doctor, though not present for that particular event, nevertheless corroborates what you've said on the magic words front, mentioning that even speaking them aloud can bring about cataclysmic results if improperly applied! Like a Speaker, one of the at this point incredibly drunk stoatmen mentions before everyone - literally everyone else but you, the doctor and Oggie - gives him a sharp look to quiet him down before urging you to go on.
You fail to mention that you tend to do most of your incredibly impressive work by complete accident until recently, mind you, because that's hardly what heroic stories are made of. The doctor seems to recognize this as well, and the two of you make for a splendid night's entertainment as the Firs Aplenty only continues to gather more patrons until the entire place is just a packed, quivering mass of rapt ears and open mouths, marveling at the things you've seen and done. After you're done with the gaunt story, you turn to the curious case of the world beyond the reflection on the pond, and how you learned to breathe water because there is no air in the other world, and how you once dispatched the animated remains of one of the ancient kings of the Imaginary period, a story that the doctor in particular enriches with a great deal of historical context that you have a bit too many pints in you by that point to properly appreciate. She's a little hard to stop once she gets going, in fact.
Oggie is perhaps a little less enthusiastic about the celebration, but even she begins to cave after a well-meaning gang of evil-eyed stoatfolk pass her an interesting-smelling dreamstick, which she neglects to give back as it becomes her valued companion on a much-needed night of relaxation and mellowing. She works on remembering how to laugh in particular, testing out various combinations of unsettling noises until she manages to get it more or less down.
The proprietor catches you at one point, whispering that if you're welcome to stay for however long you like - he'll clear out a regular for you without any trouble, and naturally you can drink for free. You can almost see the dollar signs spinning in his eyes as he dreams of the exclusive patronage of an honest-to-goodness Hero of the Republic in his humble establishment.
Eileen Minett, Monster Hunter
- Monster hunter's silver badge
- Monster hunting license
- Distilled alcohol (in flask, partially depleted)
- Spirits of salt (in clay jar, partially depleted)
- Soaps of elk, bear, bat and snake
- 3 flasks of lamp oil
- Oil lamp (unlit)
- Linen stoat shirt (worn, plasma-scorched)
- Stoat trousers (worn)
- Comfy slippers (worn)
- Tooth-handled hunting knife
- Black leather boots
- An assemblage of amber and amethysts
- Silver thread-necklace
- Onyx spiral earrings
- 2 oaken rings
- Rusty, bloodstained knife
- A Word: HUNGER
- A Word: SYNTHESIS
- A Weapon: Explosive Cysts
- A Weapon: Nightmare Blade
- Grenade Jumping: A Solid Technique
- The Good Doctor: Last of a Long Line
- Sword of the Sand People: Cleaning Supplies
- Sword of the Sand People: The Services of a Minder
- Higher Tonight: There And Back Again
- The Old Mistress: Monster Monster Hunter
- Our Old Bridge Is Falling Down: Hero of the City
- The Firs Aplenty: An Adventurer Is Always Welcome
- She Who Fights Monsters: The Ghoul Vanquished
Jack Daniels, Karate Man
- Linda the peg-legged manikin (lively, joyful)
- Red and gold vest and breeches combo (worn)
- Leather boots (worn)
- Rubber mattress (filled with water)
- 14031 gp (in sack)
- Poor Unfortunate Soul: Forever Captive
- The Queen's Guard: Actual Asset
- Powers of the Beyond: Gardener of Thoughts
- Garden of Thoughts: the Stoat-Magistrate
- Dusty Wooden Speaking-Trumpet
- Crossbow Bolt (in throat)
- A Word: REND
- A Word: SILENCE
- A Word: EXECRABLE
- A Weapon: Murder-Thought
- Uncoupled: Strength
- Wooden Door
- Induced Lucidity: The Silent Garden
- Elongated Affairs: Enemy of the New State
- 2 rats, crushed
- 1 rat, strangled
- 1 rat, live
- Doomstones: So High Up But Such A Bitter View
- The Majordomo: A Great Divide Between Us Now
- The Voracious Dark: Decreasing Demand
- The Voracious Dark: More Specific Requests
- The Vault of Heavens: Special Treatment
- Scars of Time: Unfortunate Business
- Process of Elimination: A Whole Arm!
- The Night Sky: How Very, Very Quaint
- Fires, Pines & Day, Minions At Law: Dipper and Dan Double Duty
- They Call Me Doctor: Opportunistic Orderly
- Traces of Science: An Arm In Bloom
- Body Count: 3
Thomas Minstep, Insurance Agent
- A Word: ABSENCE
- A Word: GOODBYE
- A Word: WORM
- A Word: SELF
- A Weapon: The Sword They Fear
- Insurance contracts, signed in triplicate: 12
- Nobody Cares
- Helen Clampitt
- Lily
- Undine and Prosper Eke
- Silver
- Tabernacle, treefisher scout
- Treefisher elder
- 4 treefishers
- Make A Man Out Of You: Battle-Tested
- The Grip of Tharn: Insurance Against The Storm
- Ranging fork
- 2 feet of sinew-thread
- Tooth-needle
- A Bowl, Black and Knobby
- Tight Leather Pants (worn)
- Incredibly Tight Blue Dress (worn, mutilated, mildly provocative)
- The Queen's Guard: A Reward Well Earned
- The New Queen: Lasting Gratitude
- The Box: Absolutely Delightful
- The Voracious Dark: The Place of Lost Souls
- The Voracious Dark: Testing Run
- Proof of Concept: An Interesting Student
- Clans of the Northern Wilderness: A Distraction
- The Living City: A Threat To Elizabeth
- His Educated Rodents: Rat-Bearer
- Body Count: 12
Oscar Wilde, Chemistry Teacher
- A Word: REVELATION
- A Word: THANKS
- The Wicked King's Missive On Economic Reform (in massive silver scroll case)
- Webbed-up cloth ribbons
- Traces of Mischief: Glowing Facial Rift
- The Serpent's Egg: Dissemination
- Body Count: 4
- Cornerstone Helm (worn, out of light, collecting)
- Bottle of aspirin
- Time-ender's measure (wrapped, processing? stopping?)
- 10 m of rope
- Half a candle
- 1 rat, skinless and smoked
- 101 gp
- Lock of Hair (unidentified)
- Iron nail, unused
- An Inauspicious Key
- Moth-Eaten Hat (worn)
- Old Brown Waistcoat (worn)
- A Wealth of Burlap Ribbons
- The Winding Path of Inspiration: The Less Dangerous Friend
- The King's Court: The Greatest Gift of All
- The King's Court: The North Wind's Gift
- The King's Court: Makala's Old Glory
- The King's Court: The South Wind's Gift
- The King's Court: The West Wind's Gift
- The King's Court: A Gift For The Wicked King
- Wizzards Bargins: Copper Springs from Old Bobbleparts
- Wizzards Bargins: A Roll of Your Finest Sticky Tape
- Wizzards Bargins: Styli of Ancient Plumbago
- In High Spirits: But Not Very Useful In The Lab
- Traces of Mischief: Missing Finger
- Wall-Breaker: A Generous Tab
- No Rest For The Wicked: Partners In Crime
Rindle Fischgartner, Evolutionary Biologist
- Wounds: 1
- High quality gilded paisley bathrobe and matching slippers (worn)
- The New Flesh: The Best Kind of Accident
- Lift Me To The Sky: Compatibility With The Juice
- Empty wooden mug
Sorry for disappearing, been lacking time as of late - hopefully I can get back on schedule now.
Author
Topic: Our Salvation: It Is Written (Read 263358 times)