"Oh god the rainbows are screaming, the walls are bleeding, and I have to get out of here!"
Get out of the tower and away from any water, then sit down for a bit.
5Dr. Bob runs down the Tower's central staircase. He does his best not to look at anything for too long, particularly the faces, but he can't hear anything over their screams. Eventually he just lets go of the banister so that he can shove his fingers into his ears. That actually does help a little, at least until blood starts oozing out of the floor. It writes crimson messages for him. Or at least one message, repeated thousands upon millions of times:
Infinite lies. Infinity lies. Lies like flies. Infinite lies...He bursts out of the ground-floor entrance and puts some distance between himself and the moat. The rain has deposited water everywhere, so he just keeps moving until he's at the border between the wetlands and the desert proper. When there's nothing ahead of him but flat, empty sand, he sits down and does his best to ignore the sandstorm out to the East. It's probably just a hallucination, like the rainbows and smiley-faces hanging in the sky. They're fading now that Bob has gotten some fresh air. That probably means they're hallucinations, right?
Eventually all the other absurd visual glitches stop, but there's still a sandstorm raging in the distance. When his ears stop ringing, he can even hear shouts of alarm coming from the same general area. They sound a lot like the voices of Deer-Men.
Gather willing militant weavers and primelings with their sentinel legions and head to assist dustwalkers in their military operation, observe if primelings developed as personalities and if their legions grew up to differ between each other in tactics
Nazir shoots a strand of silk upwards and hoists himself to his nest at the top of the web. Representatives of various clans are milling around, some of them familiar faces from the last Council. The largest crowd is listening to a steel bird that looks like it might have something to do with Gral. It's answering questions about some kind of photosynthesis-enhancement treatment, occasionally consulting with an Aetherweaver or one of the Ironwinged accompanying it. They seem confident in the Weaving, but other Spiderlings are mumbling something about a disease that burns people up from the inside. Oversight from the Primelings is probably the only thing preventing a riot.
They can still spare at least seven of their number, plus the troops under their command. They've apparently divided their Sentinels into ten legions, each under direct supervision of a Primeling. The demigods have developed rudimentary personalities in Nazir's absence, and a few have even chosen names, but as of right now their Sentinels seem mostly interchangeable. The only exception is the Tenth Legion, under a Primeling called Parun, which is dedicated to diplomacy. They've just returned from negotiations with the Lightfolk.
As Nazir leads seven of the other Primelings to the Bone Fortress, he takes note of ones with particularly distinct personality traits. One has decided to call himself Ekhor. He is louder and more boastful than his siblings, but seems to have the martial prowess to back it up. He wears a larger version of Sentinel Plate, and has trained extensively to use its magic to the maximum possible effect.
Another of the demigods catches Nazir's eye just as they are about to reach the Fortress. She is unnamed, but he remembers that she is the one born with mental abnormalities. They seem to have become more pronounced over time, judging by her tendency to stare at random objects for hours on end. For all that, she is apparently some kind of tactical genius. Nazir doesn't get a chance to see her in action, but a Sentinel tells him that she single-leggedly defeated three other legions in a mock battle.
"I don't know about it now, but we can try something else"
Take the sand eating goo that I took with me a Concentrate it to one area, solidify the middle area while letting the edge keep consuming.
1While AJAMA extracts sand-eating ooze from the wall, Apollyon returns to making bodies for the other Fragments. The Demiurge gets a closer look at the possessed blobs of ooze, which actually seem to work in much the same was as the ooze-born body that it is currently inhabiting. The Fragments maintain a separation of mind and body, and can even dislodge themselves from their new forms if need be, but they seem to degrade over time if they don't have a physical mass to inhabit.
Once most of the ooze that AJAMA is isolating has been accounted for, it uses its mind to apply pressure to the edges of the mass. The ooze buckles inwards, and in the center of the ball it becomes far more dense. The most concentrated material solidifies, transforming into a brittle black material with properties similar to stone. The primordial applies more force, in a bid to shut down the core's assimilation, but it shatters under the increased pressure. Chunks of black material fly in random directions. One pierces AJAMA's skin. Others whiz past Apollyon and splash through embodied Fragments.
Ira decides to test out her new nothingness powers since she didn't really have time to test the extent to which she could control them before
2Ira reaches for the Nothingness inside her and wills it to pour out. The easiest way to use it is simply to exhale, creating the corrosive gas that she used while fighting on the Web. She can also release it in other ways, most notably by spitting up different kinds of Non-material or allowing it to clot in her wounds. Manipulating her connections with the rest of the Nothingness is also possible, although it doesn't come to her quite as easily. After meditating for a while she works out how to recognize and locate specific entities, which she tests by tracking a small group of demons.
The monsters acknowledge Ira's presence without attacking her. She can sense vague feelings of confusion coming from them, but in other respects they're about as talkative as they were before. Further attempts to communicate are met with nothing but silence.
The World-Eater's heartbeat grows stronger, and for a brief moment she can feel other powers brushing up against her mind. Perhaps they will come to her, in time.
Hynsyr continues to work with Prismatics on their Prayer-Messaging.
4Hynsyr individually walks each of the Prismatics through a simple prayer. They are still uncertain, but with his guidance they are able to communicate clearly, and to confirm that their message was successful. Something clicks after they repeat the exercise a few times, and suddenly it is far easier for them to get themselves in the right frame of mind. The Titan's mind rings with their exclamations, scattered mental discourse, and once even a brief glimpse through a Prismatic's eyes. The mortals are intrigued when he tells them about the accidental sense-transmission. It turns out that they do have the ability to merge their minds with his on a more fundamental level. They resolve to hone that ability on their own time, although mastering it will probably take long hours of practice.
Author
Topic: Sand & Souls - Let There Be Turns (Read 61913 times)