There is a sort of pregnant pause as it tries to parse you. It's a tad odd to see a lich more flabbergasted than the normal human, which likely says more about Edwin than the world. At any rate, in those eternal three seconds of uninterrupted eye contact, you decide to do two things. First off, your collecting of the amulet. You feel the dirty amulet against the palm of your hand, and then cast your magic. The lich raised his own staff, however, and began casting something. Fortunately, your magic is a lot faster.
You considered resurrecting him under your banner, but you've enough intuition to feel when a soul is absent or not. You dare not use soulsight against this thing, however. You can tell that whatever has corrupted this man is likely capable of destroying your mind with the ease one could squash a fly. The controlling magic takes hold, which is something you didn't actually expect to work! You don't push your luck, however, and just try to stiffen his legs before you start making a run for it.
Your magicks are of no match to Xel'lotath, whelp! The lich says, with the sort of calm that makes anybody's hair stand on end. Fortunately, his leg does seem to be stiff, and he stumbles a moment, utterly shattering a statue with his staff. Solid stone, destroyed with such a little swing...
Then he forces his leg to the point of shattering the bone within, sending the shrivelled flesh to bulge outward. The uncommon noise of bones shifting and bending to mend the leg follow, though you've already started running away. You planned on picking up Edwin before leaving, but he seemed to have gotten that idea by himself.
WHAT THE HELL IS THAT THING!?That, is Augustine! We can't hope to defeat that as we are, he is protected against all harm. I shot him in the head, and all it did was cast off his disguise!You feel your control over his leg slipping, though he's likely walking with it as it is. Just as you reach the end of the hallway, however, you feel the link between the limb and you snap.
That isn't how it usually feels.
Then, it hits. All at once. You clutch your head as you scream. You scream and scream and scream as your lungs seem to rupture. You can't stop screaming, your mind is being assaulted by... by...
An outsider? An interloper.
You wish to claim control over our very own puppet?Its strings are poison, sweet music from us to all of you. It will Tear you apart.Two voices, with the same sounds. Coming from the same creature, but babbling against itself. You can't understand, what's happening?
SplitYour screaming reaches a fever pitch and then you feel the world turn green and black. You feel as though your whole body has just been torn in two, but at least it's over. The pain has stopped, but you're suffering from the after-effects. It keeps aching a while longer, but you're sure that things are fine.
Fuck this noise. What?
Wait. Sydney? Are you there?Oh this is entirely not how I wanted things to be.Don't worry, honey. I'll be taking care of everything. Who are you talking to?Be silent, whelp. Alexia says with the usual amount of venom in her voice.
Please explain the situation to him.Why should I? He's just a mortal from a world that is not ours. Edwin suddenly racks his shotgun. It's a quick way to say a lot without speaking.
Possession is irreversible, I'm afraid. Last chance to prove yourself.Please?Nnngh. Fine. I'm Sydney's other half. She's the brains of the operation, usually, but I take over when things get bad. I reach her full physical potential. I am a pure, primal drider, and you should be in awe, weakling....I knew I should have taken that class on psychology. Are you still going to help me, Sydney?Provided you remain useful. If not... Well, our children have needs.How about you keep a lot more distance from me, alright? The lich hasn't followed us yet, we're probably beneath his notice. He's searching as hard as we are, but Mantorok is hiding it from him. Shut up and walk, human. We'll go slot in the runes we have, and try to find a new receptacle for this amulet. Speaking of...Alexia tosses the amulet at Edwin, who catches it handily. He's certainly a lot more wary, and you sure as shit aren't happy about the current arrangement. Still, you came out of a talk with the goddess/god/godless of madness and came out...
Sane is a bit of an overstatement.
Well, not worse off than you were, psyche-wise. OF course, now you're kind of controlling an out of control carriage. Alexia may respect you, but she respects her own ideas a lot more.
You'll have to convince Alexia to do what you need now. Not to mention, with your sanity bottomed out, all the creatures are a bit more dangerous, now... Best not look into any eyes.Basic Stats
Level: 13
Health: 65/65
Sanity: Bottomed out
Poison stings: 1/1
Restraint 3/3 (you can force her, maybe...)
Mana: 35/50 (snapback!) Stunted! It will not regenerate!
Children (none are here)
Adam 11/11
Alice 12/12
Cactus 13/13
Items and equipment
Items:
410 gold coins
Normal Cookbook.
5 rations
Equipment:
Ram Dao
Scimitar
Bone scimitar
D-VA armor
Skills and spells
Magic:
Resurrect vermin: Allows you to resurrect very small creatures such as rats(invests 2 of your max mana) (no mana cost)
Resurrect average beast: Allows you to resurrect creatures such as dogs, cats and other similar-sized creatures.(invests 7 mana) (no mana cost)
Resurrect Humanoid: Allows you to resurrect humanoid creatures. (Invests 10 mana) (Costs 14 mana)
Reshape minion plus!: Allows you to majorly change the appearance of your resurrected minions.
Control Undead: Allows you to attempt to control an undead that doesn't belong to you. (mana cost of 2 per second, unmastered)
Minion Vision: Allows you to see what a minion sees. The minion must have eyes.
Disintegrate undead: Delete a corpse you currently control.
Animate Piece: Allows you to animate just a piece of dead tissue. It requires your constant attention, and cannot act independently. (Drains 0 mana)
Graft: Allows you to use dead tissue as a replacement limb. Requires a lot of mana. (1 per second) (average limb takes around 20 seconds to properly graft)
Gather Soul: Allows you to make a soul visible. You could try putting it in a flame of some sort to keep it around. (9 mana)
Soul battery: Allows you to use a soul-infused flame as a small mana-boost. This snuffs it out, however
Undead flashbang: Allows you to blow up a minion for a flash-bang effect. (9 mana)
Stitch: allows you to close a wound and stop bleeding as fast as you can stitch. Costs zero mana, but requires something to stitch with.
Siphoning Cloud: Breathe out a cloud that drains the life from victims and gives it to you. Adds a LOT to intimidation (4 mana)
Smoke Cloud: Breathe out harmless but thick smoke. (1 mana)
Deathbolt: A bolt that hurts the body's connection with it's soul. Causes minor wounds to appear over the body as it attempts to compensate (1 mana)
Doombolt: A more powerful version of the above (4 Mana)
Pinworks: You can apply spells into a bone spike, relative to the size of the victim. You can also make traps if you use an offensive spell. Allows creation of free zombies.
Skills:
Claws: Your arm has been replaced with a powerful claw. This is BOUND to you, and cannot be removed.
Pride: You have a mind-controlling leech in your arm. This is so mindblowingly unethical/illegal it would put you in "kill on sight" status with a lot of organisations/people.
Broodmother: Once per day, you can sting something to create spiderlings, which are large, clever spiders that adore you by default. Your instincts cause you to be VERY protective of them.
Crossbow usage: Novice
Adaptation: You regenerate mana faster than most
Gun usage: Novice
Oral Fixation: Can cast spells spells from the mouth.
Draining: Can drain blood using fangs.
Major experience in blocking and swordplay.
Climber
Crafty: Bolas
Cooking skill: Excellent
Corpse Cutting: Quite Decent.
Animal handling: inexperienced.
Necromantic knowledge
Soul Sniffer
And we're back. Apologies for the shakey update schedule