The sound of your breathing filled your ears as you felt your body tremble, yet it was not from anticipation that it did. You felt nauseous, you felt weak, you felt exposed and vulnerable, yet you knew that you had to act, you had to move. You couldn't afford to sit around waiting for the things that chased you to close the distance, you couldn't afford to wait for a plan to simply come to you. You couldn't allow this sensation that had gripped you to slow you down when you had a task to carry out, when you had him depending on you. You struggled to your feet as your vision blurred, as tears came to your eyes as you felt them begin to burn, stinging as if something in the air didn't agree with them.
The air was clear enough, you knew that as your other senses told you that there was nothing that should have agitated you in this manner in it. Your body protested as you lurched foreward, jumping from rooftop to rooftop before you leapt over the fence that surrounded the grounds of the church yard, figuring that while you were here you could glance inside for a weapon at least. You hit the ground hard, stumbling as you felt pain lance through your legs, the pain telling you that you'd fractured one of them, though you didn't stop. Your natural healing was atop it, keeping up with the damage you were inflicting on yourself by refusing to rest with ease.
As you half ran, half limped around the front to the door of the church you could see that those double doors had been destroyed, one of them torn from its hinges and the other shattered. Bones littered the grounds inside, a makeshift barrier visible a short distance back from the door, the scene of a last stand against the things of this city before the last humans inside it had fallen. The scene itself evoked emotion as you strode through the archway of the destroyed doors, a sensation of power, superiority. Had things been different you would have no doubt been here, assisting in battering down the doors, ready to swarm in with the others and consume the pathetic humans inside, crush them in their darkest hour when then turned to their god for protection.
You felt almost feverish now as you continued to sweat, as if you had continued to exert yourself, yet you knew that merely walking in like this shouldn't have done such. You didn't have time to worry about that though, you needed to grab whatever you could and run, you needed to be fast, to ignore these power fantasies that were distracting you from your attempts to prevail here. A few scattered rounds and a servicable rifle remained, claw marks and bloodstains on the stock the only signs of major damage it bore. Its prior owner would no doubt have no objections to you taking his weapon, given he had no further need of it. A belt with several more rifle rounds nearby was bloodied, scratched, though in good enough shape to use for the time being.
You strapped the belt about your waist, a quick count showing that you had but nine rounds, that you would have to use your ammunition sparingly. You wished it could have been a shotgun, as you knew you could point that in the general direction of these things without truly needing to worry about being accurate. A rifle like this was a weapon you knew would be devastating in the hands of Eurochkoles, if only he would take it instead of his revolvers. You had no idea what it was with him and those small guns he preferred, though he used them well enough that most people wouldn't even dare question his choice of them.
You quickly swiped a number of the less damaged items of jewlery that lay around, slipping them around the belt before refastening it and onto your own fingers before you started to head towards the door. You could hear the cries of those things getting closer, your protesting body crying out for you to stop as you started to sprint across the churches grounds, the spoils of your visit jingling at your side. Your vision continued to blur as you started to sweat all the more heavily, your joints aching as you clutched the rifle to your chest, as you clambered up onto one of the low hanging rooftops and started to run across them once again.
No cunning plan was coming to you, though, no obvious means of destroying these things was presenting itself. The city was some backwater place that the Clockworkers had yet to advance to the level of the major cities, it was a place that lacked the network of gas lights that London did. This did however, mean that they would have to have some form of stockpile of oil, likely in a shop. Oil meant fire, fire meant wounds that most of these things would perish from. Fire, a big roaring fire, it was just what you needed, a building you could trap them in, set fire to, burn to the ground with them inside it.
A building, like the town hall.
A place that hadn't collapsed and been exposed to the elements yet, a place that you could lure them all into and... And... You stumbled, sinking to your knees as you groaned, your body shuddering as you curled up into a ball atop the rooftop you had been running over. It was all you could do to reach out, to take hold of the peak of the roof to stop yourself rolling off the sloped surface. You could feel pain, unimaginable pain coursing through your body as you felt it attacking itself, your tainted form seeming to twist and turn on itself, bones breaking as muscles spasmed before they healed, again and again. You could do nothing but gag as you tried to cry out, to scream, no sound other than your strangled attempts to breathe coming from you as you grasp loosened.
You rolled from atop the roof, landing in the street in a twisted bundle as you convulsed, the rifle you had held close clattering against the ground beside you as you shuddered. For a brief moment your shoulders started to hurt, the pain you felt from them sharper than anything you had ever experienced before, more agonising than any injury inflicted on you recently. That pain was followed by the sound of your shoulders popping, your dress tearing behind you as ichor splattered over the pavement and the wall of the house, before mercifully, consciousness fled you.
You felt yourself falling as you struggled to awaken.
Plunging into the darkness.
Your eyes opening to the realm of dreams, to a twisted world in what perspective seemed to be wrong, everything sitting at the wrong angle, oversized or too small. A maddening world in what an oversized bird sat perched atop a stand made of bone, a bird with black feathers, a slightly elongated neck and beady black eyes. A bird that watched you with deceptive intelligence, a bird that shifted its weight from one foot to the other before it turned its attention from you, preening itself.
A vulture.
A carrion crow.
You stumbled towards the bird, feeling weak, lethargic, your hands as you held them before you showing horrific injuries, your flesh flayed away, your dress as you looked down stained with ichor. Your hands reached out as you stumbled, bracing yourself against the birds stand, while it shifted slightly, almost affectionately rubbing its face against your own. This comfort brief as it was, was enough to have you sigh, leaning over to kiss the bird atop the head, a weight on your back seeming to pull you backwards, causing you to topple, unable to fight it as you once more felt darkness envelop you.
Your eyes opened again to the place you had fallen, the pain your body had been stricken with subsiding, your hands grasping the rifle as you braced the butt of it against the ground, using it to assist you as you struggled to your feet. Your body felt oddly light, though you could feel the sensation of weight on your back, weight that seemed to shift at its own accord, the sound of something wet slapping the walls behind you following. Your head turned as you followed this, as you took note of the smear of ichor that coated the wall, of small yet still growing wings bearing ichor stained feathers behind you.
Wings.
You had wings.
You must've either only been out for seconds, or the scent of your ichor must have concealed you, for the sounds of the things that had pursued you were close, yet they had stopped approaching. The sounds they made seemed confused, though you felt too faint, too dizzy to focus on what they were saying. You were shocked, too, too shocked to truly care about what they had to say, given you had wings. Wings. You had wings on your back and your best efforts to control them seemed to do little more than confirm that they were indeed yours, while they flapped, fluttered and twitched as if they were little more than useless extensions of your body.
You staggered unevenly away from the ichor stained scene as you clutched the rifle to your chest, the growing weight on your back striking you as surreal. You needed to think, you needed to focus, you needed to ask yourself, what were your most immediate priorities were right now?Earth: 3 - (Long Distance Running)
Fire: 4 - (Sprinting)
Air: 5 - (Creature Lore)
Water: 3 - (Masking Deception)
Powers:
0 - Ageless.
With enlightenment came eternity.
2 (fm) - Pretender Immortal.
Few know the only methods capable of killing you. Fewer still are able to apply them.
4 (fmmv) - Tainted Flesh.
You rapidly recover from all manner of ills, though there are still substances that your body cannot process. A side effect is, that your bodily fluids are toxic to others.
3 (fmv) - Carrion Crow
Nocturnal blight, capable of flight.
Points Pool: 0
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Topic: They told me I could be anything... (Read 78942 times)