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[Nivim]

>Dragnar: "Sorry, won't do that again... Can you move at all?"
 You can move, you just can't let the mantel fall into water. You can't seem to let any of you in the water now, or deeper as the case is.
< "Someone else will..." You try relaxing again. "But, just how do you do that? So easily."

[dragnar]

"There has to be something around here to eat. Could you try roasting some parasites again?"

[RAM]

"What is the ground made of? Maybe it is edible..."

[Nivim]

>Dragnar: "There has to be something around here to eat. Could you try roasting some parasites again?"
< "I'm surrounded by them." You have no idea if the power you're getting is enough to cook those underwater, you can't seem to feel it at all now. But you do feel like getting rid of all this water, although, you don't want to use the fire to do it. No, you'll have to figure out something else. Useless freeloader, someone's voice says. The floor near the pillar is in a larger piece, and forms something of a ramp. You swim near, and claw half your way up. You think you can just give up on food and sleep.
You are very hungry.
You feel very, very tired.
You are warm.

>RAM: "What is the ground made of? Maybe it is edible..."
 The ground is currently made of structurally unsound mortar.
< "I can't eat rock."

(For Crawlers; I am not affiliated with Cheibriados.)

[RAM]

"Pick a direction and start moving, staying here doesn't seem like a good idea."

[RAM]

(

(Just physically? Awesome.
 He woke up strapped (with covers) to a bed, and stiff, but got out almost regardless. He discovered a wide hallway with two rows of cubicles with beds, four of them were occupied. His movements had no effect on their waking status. He found that he was missing many scales, and they had scabbed over. The missing scales included, and were even concentrated on, the scales of the tattoo. Moving the right way scrambles it, but made it itch a whole lot, and those scabs can break and start bleeding. He spaced out here until he started falling over. He ~jogged to warm up, then spaced a bit. He then examined an old man in one of the beds for a while, then turned to leave and collapsed into something like unconsciousness.
 So it's totally obvious (spoiler?); the points in time when control is switched to you guys is when he would normally lose time, go into a catatonic state, or when he's otherwise insane.
 He tried one door of the hallway, and found it stuck (loudly, but it didn't wake anyone). Tried the other door and entered some kind of study, with a bin full of clothes beside his entry. He grabbed his ~clothing from the bin, put on his socks [with a time-saving use of paper], then started wrapping himself up. He noticed an obviously scholarly man sleeping on a book at one of the other tables, and sped his efforts. He almost got up. He then added his hood, the other scraps of cloth, and the leather strip as a belt.
 He examined the man, but woke him up after touching his neck. The man was slow to truly wake, so the iknan was able to reach the door beside the one he entered. This turned out to be a bad choice, as it made a creaking sound more like a shriek. He entered into a library and storage room with the same total dimensions as the room he woke up in. He worked open the other door in the room, breaking loose a strip of something malleable, and entered absolute darkness. He expected the man to follow, and prepared to tail whip him as he opened the door. The man did not enter, but instead locked the door, and probably replaced the substance broken loose.)

>RAM: "find a disguise"
 The scholar's motions lose their sense of finality as this room loses it's silence. It sounds like he decided that locking and wedging the door wasn't good enough; he was going to barricade it. You listen to the halting scrapes as he moves something large, heavy, and wooden from your right, to right behind you. You judge he made it halfway, and is now panting loudly enough to be heard through the door. He seems quite willing to exert himself to keep you out, when you were apparently both in his custody and running from him.
 Drip.
 You have this feeling that you picked the wrong door. The man starts moving his heavy object again, and it finally occurs to you to talk to him. 'Stop that!' He stops. 'What do you think you're doing?!' Nothing, then you hear scraping again. 'Hey!' you say. His voice, even muffled as it is, sounds soaked in fear. 'You're dead,'▬ Scrape. 'and can't get out!'▬ Scrape. 'You can be useful'▬ Scrape. 'and light yourself on fire.' Clunk. 'Maybe you can burn the whole place while you're at it.' Three seconds later you hear the other door again.
 Like you'd want to be useful to Krasure, he deserves all troubles that come to him. Although... 'Burn the world, somehow that sounds like a fantastic idea.'
You are thirsty.
You are very hungry.
You feel tired.
You feel too cold.
You itch moderately, especially on your torso.

> [A thousand years worth of white noise, transmitted over a second or so.] [(Artificially) Truncated 99.99%.]
 You hear a combination of a chirp and a screech, both loud and nearby. Well, he inferred you'd need fire, probably for that thing in the dark, along with seeing. You of course lack any kind of fire starter. So, you begin quietly moving along the wall away from where you made your last sound. As you move, you become increasingly aware of the itching over your belly. Aware enough that you notice the sensation comes from in your belly. You don't stop moving because of this, intent on reaching the corner.
 You slip and fall, landing hard, by stepping on an wet incline of stone. You mutter an insipid curse as you slide down the incline, some 4 meters, and splash into a probably large body of what is probably water. You find it shockingly cold and you want to find shore as fast as possible. You whip your tail to swim back, but your are greeted by the incline in the form of bricks splashing into the water, and bashing into your side. You thrash your body away from the debris, just in time to hear cracking and crumbling mortar.
 A pause, and then you are sent under by a sudden deluge, coming from the direction of your fall. You learn the water isn't very deep, as you touch down with your hand still touching the surface. An opposing wave passes through a couple seconds later, after which you resurface and clear your nostrils loudly.
 Despite all this, what now occupies all of your attention is the severe itching your guts are enduring. It has gone far beyond "potential urge to scratch" into the territory of "definite urge to remove innards forcefully". Instead of forgetting it would be suicide and giving in, you scrounge together the concentration to invoke mage sight. As some part of you figured, this shows the problem.
 The tattoo itself was only partially damaged, but the magical "tattoo" has been completely shredded. The mess of vague glowing shapes extends from the tattoo into your body, and ends in a single string coming out your back. The string extends a short distance into the air before unwinding and disappearing from your perception. You are certain it does not simply vanish, because it is both taught (it has a strong link to something else) and there is a constant flow of power running into it. Flowing into mechanisms rent apart, and spilling into your flesh. The itching has turned to pain now, and you feel heat building.

[Excised quote.]
> ...Why?
 "Because, they obviously didn't want to give me the control that using my strength would offer. However, with their work broken like this, I can make use of it." As you talk to yourself the string's energy and width jump; pain making it obvious this thing will kill you before long. You focus on doing something with the excess power, something good, something useful... Fire. 'Fire. That which illuminates the world.' You roll onto your back in the water and use your tail to stay steady. Holding your hands above, you 'draw the shape to draw the power to draw my art upon the world.' You see the spark, then the flame, banishing the dark with your claim. It eats, and grows, taking the magic burn and giving you true warmth. You enjoy it.

(...)
> begin feeling your way through this room, looking for a light of some kind on the walls.
 'Hehe.' Right about time.
< "What have you been up to, oh great odious ones?"

(The gate opened partially; guess why.)

> Teleport out of this underground complex.
 If you had a good idea how to do that, you could possibly return to your room or the study-hospital.
< "You're really bad at having conversations, aren't you?"
 Still as clueless as ever. You wonder how they can figure out puzzles they've never seen. It doesn't matter, nothing can ruin your mood when you have fire. When was the last time you had whole fire? Far, far too long.
You are thirsty.
You are very hungry.
You feel tired.
You are warm.
You itch significantly, especially on your torso.

> if you can't, fire some kind of beam upward that will cut a shaft. This might be beyond your power normally (or not), but you may try to create suction through that string and see if it helps to get more power for it.
 You listen to this wonderful form of entertainment.
< "You are clueless in totality."
 You can spend time examining the work now that you're not in danger, since you are nearly as clueless as the voice. The string ends in a ~port that was attached to the rest of the mechanism. You hate university work. Everything they do is so concrete [physical], so bland, so rigid. It's always five fold as complicated as it needs to be and without the slightest bit of life. This is a perfect example, it looks like they had some "efficient system" of "signals" and "receivers" for the "power conduit". Since the system on this side was destroyed somehow, the other side wasn't getting any "confirmation signal" for power, so it entered a loop. The "signal sender" probably decayed a short time ago, and most of the other parts are following suit. Only the string and port remaining steely. You guess it's good for you their work is so lifeless, or it might have caused more trouble.
 You'd still switch it out in a heartbeat for something like your fire; something that isn't quite animate, but isn't dead either. A twisting semisphere between your hands, of bright colors; dominantly white and orange with flits of yellow, red, and blue. It's larger than your head now, and it grows a little with each pulse of power.

 While using mage sight for your examination, you noticed something else of note. There are numerous small, bubbly chains of energy in the pool, questing for your body. Now that you have light, you see similar black tendrils in the water, and on the walls, and on the ceiling. At first you aren't worried about this, since the fire, metaphysically at least, coats your body. But when one of the chains touches your tail, it grows cold and the fire goes out. You try to whip it off, but your tail seems stuck to the corresponding black tendril. The nasty little thing, all of it, is now growing; off of you.

> What are the limits of the amount of power available at the moment?
 You never could tell very well. 'Time to find out!' The ceiling is about eight meters above you, but would have been half that before the top floor fell. The rubble is still partially supported by a column, partially dry, and clean of those parasites. Instead of thrashing about and touching more of them, you thrust your fire into the water and into the feeding one. You successfully boil both by channeling all the magic stored in your body, then spin around and swim as fast as your spine can take you to the ~island. Getting there halves the water's depth, and spreads blood over the interval. Seeing this, you start to feel the maladies you had been ignoring. You are bleeding from places other than the parasite's bite; broken scabs you collected in exertion. 'The worst door.' You do still hold your fire, even if reduced, so at least you're warm.
You are thirsty.
You are very hungry.
You are bleeding slightly.
You feel very tired.
Your torso itches slightly.
You are warm.

> Try to trace the source of the string. Does it come from inside this facility, or from somewhere more distant?
 You don't know how distant the other side is, but the string goes up at an angle, and if your entry is south, it would be south-west. Wait.
< "Quit that! I know you can talk normally!"

>RAM: "apologies for your lack of opportunity to get anything to eat. While you are dealing with that, do you recall anything more now that you are free of the tattoo?"
 Like a voice can provide food. You recall that the university exists for the purpose of creating "useful products" for the "common man", although they have other things in mind.
< "At lest you do it... I don't remeber anything with univerity in mind." Your mind ticks some time more. "Can you provide oportuities to get anything to eat?"

(Remember the door seal? Things are a whole lot worse than they look right now. Figure out an exit and recovery supplies, and intuit a few things I can't justify specifying.)

> Use magic to create food.
 Not the slightest idea. Fire can't create... at least not constructively... at least not for you. You continue generally ignoring your surroundings for a few moments. "Perhps I do have the slighest idea." In that you'll need more power if you want to use it. So with a guilty feeling, you starve your flame of fuel, allowing only a candle's worth of light and heat. The terrible itching tells you all is going according to your slightest plan.
Your torso itches.
You are very hungry.
You are bleeding slightly.
You are thirsty.
You feel very tired.
You are warm.

>RAM: "The tendrils may be edible, mage sight may reveal a safe path to more desirable locations, a sustained jet of flame may propel you away from this place, throwing a sustained and bright flame might reveal more of your surroundings, or you may be able to burn or dig your way through a wall or the floor."
< "That is an opportnity." Referring only to the first few words, the rest being lost as you pay careful attention to how sickening the itching is becoming. Dare not mix magic and flesh, a nagging thought informs you. Regardless of what the voice tells you, you do not free the flow to fire until you are near pain again. When you do, you also invoke mage sight (since you'd let it fade), and the details of your environment finally trickle through to you.
 You are in a ruin, one that would have been able to contain a thousand people if it was intact. Great swaths and splotches of those nasty, glowing chains show you the shapes of other pillars, and sagging floors, of a great domed ceiling, and a beam like spiral stair. You could say it's actually quite beautiful, if you didn't know touching any of them would be a slow suicide. You seem to be running into a lot of suicide possibilities lately, and this strikes you as horribly ironic for some reason. You're still near the wall you followed, and thus far from the spiral stair, but there are other exits. You see rectangles empty of growth along the circumference, the doors you can make out are spaced fairly evenly, and the two nearest you match ones directly above. Krasure needn't have bothered blocking the door, as there is now no longer any way to reach it; the pillar's top might be high enough, but it's out of leaping distance. You think the other door might be stepable, since it still has some floor left, supported by another pillar and two walls. The energy surges, you retch, and accidentally drop your fire below water. The violent hissing, and the cold, chide you better than a family's old. You put yourself rightly, and start looking for a target.
 A drip, surrounded by susurrus.
 High above, hanging over the edge of your clearing, is one drier looking group of tendrils. You could cook some of the ones underwater, and it would help make a pathway to one of the doors, but it would be much harder for less possible food. Then again, your not quite sure about your aim, as you can't quite recall how to manipulate a far fire, or what happens when it leaves your normal influency. 'Hn...'
< "Can 'ou provide ideas?"

(Voice: Start with the jaded, accurate fortune teller, add raw chaos, tone it down a bit and remember it is male. [Oddly enough, I have very little (grapheme→sound) synesthesia for your posts, Dragnar.])
>Dragnar: "Can you enhance your strength magically? If so, try to break through that door you came from. You have to get out of here before we can worry about anything else."
 'Oh,'* not now again▬why don't they ever hear you?!▬listen to eachother▬^'Fire!^' You throw your entire flame with a [simultaneity? Reverberation? Bell tone?] ring along the guideline (you must have sent at some time), the one being eaten as you glare. The great hall grows dark, as a tendril of dark becomes a tendril of light; you can feel the mindless thing trying to absorb the surging power, but it can do nothing about fire. With a flick and snap, the ceiling blossoms in an radiant display greater than it ever had before. From a flower to an eye to a cloud of licks and embers...
 All that falls down to you is ash.

 You never could judge very well.

(*Fully guttural. Also, he just totally failed to notice something important, so I note it here.)

(About 1/5th of the entire ceiling is clear now. The small area near you, around the pillar, was ~cleared by the collapsed floor.)

(I apologize for being painfully slow. I've been feeling nearly as bad as the iknan for some days now, like some virus where exhaustion is the only symptom.)

> drink some water
 Hoping the specks falling from above aren't totally incinerated, you drink from where they land. You do so until you run out of air, then clear your nostrils loudly. However, a light spray shouldn't make a 'splat', and there are now two, black blots in the water before and beside you. You dazedly contemplate eating them.
You are very hungry.
You are bleeding slightly.
You feel very tired.
You are warm.

>Dragnar: "Take a closer look at those areas with no growth, see what's different there... and because I want to see what will happen:╒ß-♀╛ü·╧\T√│╚╖"
 You don't think you can see that▬ ah. The floor you walked on, the floor that▬ A stilted parade of horrible noises that should not be assaults your mind, made even worse by a mix normal sounds and the fact you can almost understand something. 'How in frozen seas do you do that?! And why?' You yell to the air, trying to make it so loud it hurts their minds too.
 You're still so very hungry, and now you're only option left is boiling the parasites in the water. You know you've already gone far past the point of danger, but you also know giving up and starving to death isn't much better. You shudder, and focus again on blocking power from your flame, but find you can't. At this, you feel both relief and hopelessness, you relax to fall back into the water, but find you can't do that either.

(

Spoiler: Hm? What? (click to show/hide)

You know, there are so many ideas throughout time and the world, about just how it all works. Explanations using gods, heroes, magic...etcetera. But what happens when explanations can also have their own ideas about how everything works?

)

>Dragnar: "Sorry, won't do that again... Can you move at all?"
 You can move, you just can't let the mantel fall into water. You can't seem to let any of you in the water now, or deeper as the case is.
< "Someone else will..." You try relaxing again. "But, just how do you do that? So easily."

>Dragnar: "There has to be something around here to eat. Could you try roasting some parasites again?"
< "I'm surrounded by them." You have no idea if the power you're getting is enough to cook those underwater, you can't seem to feel it at all now. But you do feel like getting rid of all this water, although, you don't want to use the fire to do it. No, you'll have to figure out something else. Useless freeloader, someone's voice says. The floor near the pillar is in a larger piece, and forms something of a ramp. You swim near, and claw half your way up. You think you can just give up on food and sleep.
You are very hungry.
You feel very, very tired.
You are warm.

>RAM: "What is the ground made of? Maybe it is edible..."
 The ground is currently made of structurally unsound mortar.
< "I can't eat rock."

(For Crawlers; I am not affiliated with Cheibriados.)

)

[Armok]

]removed]

[Nivim]

( I guess I'll always be waiting. Here's this, just because it's there.)

>RAM: "Pick a direction and start moving, staying here doesn't seem like a good idea."
 You are warm, cozy, and disinclined to move. You're not in water, you're not in danger, and you've been hungry before... You're sure you could just sleep for a while, then you wouldn't feel so hungry anymore.

[dragnar]

"No, bad idea! At least get somewhere without any trace of parasites or plants first."

[Nivim]

>Dragnar: "No, bad idea! At least get somewhere without any trace of parasites or plants first."
 Jerked again to thoughtfulness, you▬ 'What would you will' "me to? In this great bright" 'place'. You look into the merry hearth fire all around you, although it doesn't seem as merry as it was before. 'There' "aren't any paras- right here." There couldn't be.

[dragnar]

So... what just happened? I'm not entirely sure.

[Nivim]

> So... what just happened? I'm not entirely sure.
 ...not entirely sure... entirely sure... I am entirely sure! I made something today, something made of fire. I'm covered with magic and it's burning magic instead of me. I'm so tired. Tired. Maybe it is burning me, just not this me. It needs to get out▬ I need to get out of here. You can't seem to remember how to move.

 (He can't really see anything right now because his entire body is on fire.)

[dragnar]

Put out the fire! Burning magic = bad!

[Nivim]

 (What was he trying to do before with the large quantities of energy being routed through his back?)

> Put out the fire! Burning magic = bad!
 You couldn't do that... Why would you ever want to do that?.. Ever want to do that... Do that. You find the veins of power flowing strongly through your body; thin, twisting, moving constantly. You could cut them, absorb the impact of their motion, but you can't cut them. You would just don't want to do that. No, it doesn't want you do that. It will hurt you if you try and kill it. So you need to make sure it...can...'t hurt you. You try turning around, to slide back down the charred slope, into the water...but your body is all numb, you can't seem to remember how to move.

[dragnar]

(Well I'm stuck...)
 DO SOMETHING. DO SOMETHING OR ELSE BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN!