75th of Ashan 719, 11:30am - Continued from here
Soon enough, the debilitating effects of the Kinaba's venomous ether were lifted. Fridgar was free to cast again without the bizarre backfiring effects on their magic and without draining their life force by doing so.
They looked to the armored scales of their arm through their blindfold, which had been wounded in the fight. Shallow puncture wounds from the big cat's fangs were left carved into their scales, which had already coagulated and left little threat to their wellbeing. Still, the effect of the ether poison had left damage to their heart and lungs, and they were still recovering. Chrysalis wasn't really an option, as they'd taken a gestalt form via borrow. If they healed the minor damage, they'd be wasting far more ether than what it was worth.
They stayed there, on the edge of the mountain's path, beside a trail that they believed belonged to that of the great Scalv Ziemia, the boulder snakes of the mountains. They'd been waiting to recover their strength before they did what all Jeger did and hunted the monster. Now, it seemed they were in the best state they would be for some time. They forewent the danger of challenging a potentially lethal enemy though and simply crawled across the stone and examined the trail with their fingers.
Since the fateful trial that Fridgar's life was claimed by the demons of Byblos, nothing had truly felt the same. It felt as though they were watching the world through a stranger's eyes, that their body wasn't their own. They felt tired, lethargic and slow, as though they were on the brink of sleep and that their body operated without them. Other times, they felt as though they were already asleep, that the world around them wasn't real or that they were dreaming. The only thing that had convinced them otherwise thus far was pain.
A small, insignificant jolt of stimulation that reminded them that they could feel, that they were in the waking world. It never lasted though. No matter what they seemed to try, they found themselves void of drive and light.
"We don't have time to dwell," they reminded themselves suddenly, and the gestalt blinked before nodding. "We don'ts," they said then in addition, and Varthakh nodded in agreement. "We know," they spoke forlornly, "we just... I'm struggling," they confessed. They went silent then for a few more paces before they brushed their fingers across the trail, then tasted the stone flake remnants. "We know," they said. "You are in controls, you knows," they said to themselves.
"It doesn't feel like it," they replied to their own words. "We all miss him," they said, "we does," they confirmed in a whisper. "I know. It's hard for all of us, not just myself," they sighed, "I'm sorry."
When they reached a fork in the road, they kneeled and felt through the broken pebbles with their bare, clawed hands. Their other hand reached to their cheek then and drew the chained rune of touch and sound. Unlike their previous attempt, the rune didn't backfire and no additional stamina drain was invoked. They'd truly ridden out the worst of the poisonous ether.
With the completion of their rune, the world lit up around them with every sound. They could quite accurately make out the contours of the world with naught but their mind's eye and the deflection and vibration of sound. They clapped their hands together once to show themselves their immediate surroundings. They saw the ground and how it curved with the imprint of a large, cylindrical body, and knew exactly what had come through. It was their prey, the Scalv.
"We're closer now," they said, "we can almost taste it."
The time came to prepare for the fight ahead after they'd headed down the trail a little further. In the distance, they could hear the shuffling of scale against the stone of the mountain. They could roughly make out the mouth of a cave in the distance, meaning that they would be fighting this beast in its own nest. They kneeled against the stone and began to draw their runes upon their bare scales and rune-laced arms. There were two approaches they could take when handling the Scalv... Speed or Strength.
In their last encounter with a Scalv, the monster attacked everything that made a noise with lightning-fast agility. It was a force of incredible precision, strength, and speed. They'd gotten lucky when they killed it with Aeon's aid.
Speed wouldn't really help them aside from being able to evade its strikes. Their strength wouldn't phase a sixty-foot boulder-crushing snake by much. If they used three sheets to the wind, however, and added all strength runes to their body, they might be able to evade some of its strikes while dishing out some real punishment. They grinned to themselves at the tactic, for no matter the form they took, they always seemed to be partial toward the heavy, brutal bruiser.
With that, they began drawing ether into their scales, tied to a mental trigger. The time had come for Varthakh to demonstrate his strength, and they were all eager to see how they performed. They activated three sheets to the wind, which was heralded with a brief sheet of lightning that run down their body, then checked their permanent echos. They had the Llewnos's bodily control, the Llewnos's reflexes... And empty space. Their final echo had been Fridgar's voice so that they might talk to others in their totem's forms.
They shook away the thought and thought of what other traits they could take in its stead. They looked across the remainder of their totems, then looked to Terrance, their Solghannon. His species specialized in the blood rage, which they could utilize quite well in this fight. So, they activated the Solghannon's blood rage as their permanent echo, then focused their mind on their memories through meditation.
They sifted through the chaos of the images that Fridgar had left behind, the scene of the beach, the night they learned of Alistair's betrayal, all fo it... But no rage came that they could make use of. They stopped then and focused on clearing their mind, rather than clouding it. Through meditation, they were able to dedicate all their body's resources to one task. They put all their focus, energy and power toward killing the beast in the cave. Once they were ready and clear, they walked toward the mouth of the cave without pause or concern. At the click of their claws on the stone, they felt the earth rumble and quake as the weight of their prey stirred within. It was awake, though they didn't care.
None of it felt real; the danger, the void that their self totem had left. It was all a dream, and the result of this fight was out of their hands.
As they appeared in the mouth of the massive cave, the violent and forboding hiss of a female Scalv echoed. It was a warning, a threat to leave immediately or die. Evidently, she wasn't hungry, else she might have killed them outright and made a snack of their corpse by now. Without hesitance or consideration for the snake's wishes, they took another step in. Like a tensed coil, the snake sprung at them, lightning fast with their head poised like a battering ram. With a thought, they activated their runes in a bright flare of crimson and darkness.
The sensory field around them detected the trajectory of the snake, and they dug their claws into the stone appropriately. Their arms raised to catch the strike as it hurtled toward them. With their runes working to make their body feel weightless, they were able to move significantly faster. They lifted their arms in time to catch the propelling head of the snake, and its full momentum crashed into them. Their claws shrieked as they raked the stone of the cave floor, but they held their ground unscathed for the most part. Just holding the strength of the snake, even when their whole body was operating at ten times its usual strength, was no mean feat.
They hissed viciously while they tried to fight the snake all in vain. All of a sudden, the tail end of the beast came to sweep at their side, and they reflexively shot out their hand to stop it in its tracks. But when they lifted one of their hands from the snake's jaw, it opened its maw wide and hissed viciously as it tried to open its mouth wider in an effort to devour them, though it couldn't quite reach their whole body. Varthakh grunted and growled at the strain in their arms and continued to hold off the snake's relentless pressure when the beast pulled its tail away, then threw it toward them as if trying to bludgeon them.
Again, Varthakh stopped the strike, though their strength was already waining. They couldn't keep holding it much longer and they hadn't managed to strike the creature once. As the protean's strength failed, the creature pressed in on them at tried to force itself over them. Their legs slowly began to give in when the snake reeled its tail again. They probably couldn't stop another strike, not with their strength. They had to take action or suffer defeat. As the tail hurtled toward them, they kicked off the ground and hooked the Scalv's jaw with their talons. While the boulder snake's hide was incredibly difficult to pierce, it's mouth wasn't. Their claws rent its flesh and left it shrieking.
They pressed as hard as they could with both their feet and arms to try and open the snake's jaw as far as possible while they gripped one of its massive fangs and tried their best to break it off.
Just a trill alter, the cave wall hurtled toward them and slammed their back with such sudden and tremendous force that they were knocked clean from the snake's jaws. The beast had slammed its head against the wall in an effort to dislodge them, and it had worked. Fridgar skidded across the cave floor but quickly recovered. When they came to, they found the severed fang of the beast slowly petrifying, turning to stone, but it was severed and in their grasp. They coughed and sputtered as they clutched it, then rose to their knees.
All of a sudden, they were pulled from behind. The snake's jaws were clamped around their feet and tail. Varthakh immediately dug their claws into the ground to try and pull themselves free, but to no avail. The snake jumped forward and took the entirety of their lower half into its maw before it lifted them off the ground and pointed its maw skyward. With the aid of gravity and the Scalv's will to devour them, they were pulled even further into the snake's gullet before they took hold of the scalv by its jaw.
They were mere inches from the belly of the beast, and the snake shook viciously to try and dislodge their one-handed grip. Out of options and out of time, Fridgar drove the petrifying scalv tooth into the roof of the snake's mouth from within and pierced its brain. All around them, the air reverberated as the creature shrieked, and the moisture of its body dried as their surroundings turned to solid stone. It was done, the Scalv was slain.
They all but relaxed then and sighed in relief. Carefully, they pulled their legs free of the stone gullet, then climbed their way out of the statue's mouth before they dropped to the floor. They stayed kneeling there for a little bit while they caught their breath and reflected on the fact that they'd almost ended up as a meal. Once they'd collected themselves and their flow-state had worn off, they spoke. "That was close," said the Protean. "You barely tried," replied their own mouth.
They squinted beneath their blindfold, then hissed as they spoke. 'What do you mea-?" Was all they managed before they interrupted themselves. "We didn't even change shape, we summoned no totem guardians. We didn't fight to our fullest, we couldn't even bring ourselves to anger for the sake of a blood rage." Varthakh paused at the truth, then rose to their feet and inspected the statue. "It just... It all sorta flowed without me, you know?" They asked, and the hiss they had in reply said it all. Their totems were displeased with them.
Even though they'd grown in becoming and hone alike, it seemed they were still no closer to discovering how to make the Scalv into a totem. They sighed, disappointed, and turned to walk off when the drag of their tail echoed and bounced off all sorts of surfaces. Deeper in the cave, they felt a nest, the shapes of several smooth, round eggs just waiting in the cave. The giant paused, then turned back to weave through the Scalv's stone coils before they happened upon a nest of five Scalv eggs. One by one, they collected each one and stowed them in their Domain bag for ease of transportation.
They hadn't been able to learn anything from the mother, but perhaps they could run some experiments on the young? "That might works, maybe the hatchlings will be easier to works with?" proposed themselves. "Where to next then?" they asked. "Kaer Jeger, they'll aid us, no doubt," proposed one of their consciousnesses. "You overestimate the hospitality of the Lotharren horde," said the Protean quite simply before they made their way through the cave, then headed southward toward the home of their late totem's faction; Kaer Jeger.
Soon enough, the debilitating effects of the Kinaba's venomous ether were lifted. Fridgar was free to cast again without the bizarre backfiring effects on their magic and without draining their life force by doing so.
They looked to the armored scales of their arm through their blindfold, which had been wounded in the fight. Shallow puncture wounds from the big cat's fangs were left carved into their scales, which had already coagulated and left little threat to their wellbeing. Still, the effect of the ether poison had left damage to their heart and lungs, and they were still recovering. Chrysalis wasn't really an option, as they'd taken a gestalt form via borrow. If they healed the minor damage, they'd be wasting far more ether than what it was worth.
They stayed there, on the edge of the mountain's path, beside a trail that they believed belonged to that of the great Scalv Ziemia, the boulder snakes of the mountains. They'd been waiting to recover their strength before they did what all Jeger did and hunted the monster. Now, it seemed they were in the best state they would be for some time. They forewent the danger of challenging a potentially lethal enemy though and simply crawled across the stone and examined the trail with their fingers.
Since the fateful trial that Fridgar's life was claimed by the demons of Byblos, nothing had truly felt the same. It felt as though they were watching the world through a stranger's eyes, that their body wasn't their own. They felt tired, lethargic and slow, as though they were on the brink of sleep and that their body operated without them. Other times, they felt as though they were already asleep, that the world around them wasn't real or that they were dreaming. The only thing that had convinced them otherwise thus far was pain.
A small, insignificant jolt of stimulation that reminded them that they could feel, that they were in the waking world. It never lasted though. No matter what they seemed to try, they found themselves void of drive and light.
"We don't have time to dwell," they reminded themselves suddenly, and the gestalt blinked before nodding. "We don'ts," they said then in addition, and Varthakh nodded in agreement. "We know," they spoke forlornly, "we just... I'm struggling," they confessed. They went silent then for a few more paces before they brushed their fingers across the trail, then tasted the stone flake remnants. "We know," they said. "You are in controls, you knows," they said to themselves.
"It doesn't feel like it," they replied to their own words. "We all miss him," they said, "we does," they confirmed in a whisper. "I know. It's hard for all of us, not just myself," they sighed, "I'm sorry."
When they reached a fork in the road, they kneeled and felt through the broken pebbles with their bare, clawed hands. Their other hand reached to their cheek then and drew the chained rune of touch and sound. Unlike their previous attempt, the rune didn't backfire and no additional stamina drain was invoked. They'd truly ridden out the worst of the poisonous ether.
With the completion of their rune, the world lit up around them with every sound. They could quite accurately make out the contours of the world with naught but their mind's eye and the deflection and vibration of sound. They clapped their hands together once to show themselves their immediate surroundings. They saw the ground and how it curved with the imprint of a large, cylindrical body, and knew exactly what had come through. It was their prey, the Scalv.
"We're closer now," they said, "we can almost taste it."
The time came to prepare for the fight ahead after they'd headed down the trail a little further. In the distance, they could hear the shuffling of scale against the stone of the mountain. They could roughly make out the mouth of a cave in the distance, meaning that they would be fighting this beast in its own nest. They kneeled against the stone and began to draw their runes upon their bare scales and rune-laced arms. There were two approaches they could take when handling the Scalv... Speed or Strength.
In their last encounter with a Scalv, the monster attacked everything that made a noise with lightning-fast agility. It was a force of incredible precision, strength, and speed. They'd gotten lucky when they killed it with Aeon's aid.
Speed wouldn't really help them aside from being able to evade its strikes. Their strength wouldn't phase a sixty-foot boulder-crushing snake by much. If they used three sheets to the wind, however, and added all strength runes to their body, they might be able to evade some of its strikes while dishing out some real punishment. They grinned to themselves at the tactic, for no matter the form they took, they always seemed to be partial toward the heavy, brutal bruiser.
With that, they began drawing ether into their scales, tied to a mental trigger. The time had come for Varthakh to demonstrate his strength, and they were all eager to see how they performed. They activated three sheets to the wind, which was heralded with a brief sheet of lightning that run down their body, then checked their permanent echos. They had the Llewnos's bodily control, the Llewnos's reflexes... And empty space. Their final echo had been Fridgar's voice so that they might talk to others in their totem's forms.
They shook away the thought and thought of what other traits they could take in its stead. They looked across the remainder of their totems, then looked to Terrance, their Solghannon. His species specialized in the blood rage, which they could utilize quite well in this fight. So, they activated the Solghannon's blood rage as their permanent echo, then focused their mind on their memories through meditation.
They sifted through the chaos of the images that Fridgar had left behind, the scene of the beach, the night they learned of Alistair's betrayal, all fo it... But no rage came that they could make use of. They stopped then and focused on clearing their mind, rather than clouding it. Through meditation, they were able to dedicate all their body's resources to one task. They put all their focus, energy and power toward killing the beast in the cave. Once they were ready and clear, they walked toward the mouth of the cave without pause or concern. At the click of their claws on the stone, they felt the earth rumble and quake as the weight of their prey stirred within. It was awake, though they didn't care.
None of it felt real; the danger, the void that their self totem had left. It was all a dream, and the result of this fight was out of their hands.
As they appeared in the mouth of the massive cave, the violent and forboding hiss of a female Scalv echoed. It was a warning, a threat to leave immediately or die. Evidently, she wasn't hungry, else she might have killed them outright and made a snack of their corpse by now. Without hesitance or consideration for the snake's wishes, they took another step in. Like a tensed coil, the snake sprung at them, lightning fast with their head poised like a battering ram. With a thought, they activated their runes in a bright flare of crimson and darkness.
The sensory field around them detected the trajectory of the snake, and they dug their claws into the stone appropriately. Their arms raised to catch the strike as it hurtled toward them. With their runes working to make their body feel weightless, they were able to move significantly faster. They lifted their arms in time to catch the propelling head of the snake, and its full momentum crashed into them. Their claws shrieked as they raked the stone of the cave floor, but they held their ground unscathed for the most part. Just holding the strength of the snake, even when their whole body was operating at ten times its usual strength, was no mean feat.
They hissed viciously while they tried to fight the snake all in vain. All of a sudden, the tail end of the beast came to sweep at their side, and they reflexively shot out their hand to stop it in its tracks. But when they lifted one of their hands from the snake's jaw, it opened its maw wide and hissed viciously as it tried to open its mouth wider in an effort to devour them, though it couldn't quite reach their whole body. Varthakh grunted and growled at the strain in their arms and continued to hold off the snake's relentless pressure when the beast pulled its tail away, then threw it toward them as if trying to bludgeon them.
Again, Varthakh stopped the strike, though their strength was already waining. They couldn't keep holding it much longer and they hadn't managed to strike the creature once. As the protean's strength failed, the creature pressed in on them at tried to force itself over them. Their legs slowly began to give in when the snake reeled its tail again. They probably couldn't stop another strike, not with their strength. They had to take action or suffer defeat. As the tail hurtled toward them, they kicked off the ground and hooked the Scalv's jaw with their talons. While the boulder snake's hide was incredibly difficult to pierce, it's mouth wasn't. Their claws rent its flesh and left it shrieking.
They pressed as hard as they could with both their feet and arms to try and open the snake's jaw as far as possible while they gripped one of its massive fangs and tried their best to break it off.
Just a trill alter, the cave wall hurtled toward them and slammed their back with such sudden and tremendous force that they were knocked clean from the snake's jaws. The beast had slammed its head against the wall in an effort to dislodge them, and it had worked. Fridgar skidded across the cave floor but quickly recovered. When they came to, they found the severed fang of the beast slowly petrifying, turning to stone, but it was severed and in their grasp. They coughed and sputtered as they clutched it, then rose to their knees.
All of a sudden, they were pulled from behind. The snake's jaws were clamped around their feet and tail. Varthakh immediately dug their claws into the ground to try and pull themselves free, but to no avail. The snake jumped forward and took the entirety of their lower half into its maw before it lifted them off the ground and pointed its maw skyward. With the aid of gravity and the Scalv's will to devour them, they were pulled even further into the snake's gullet before they took hold of the scalv by its jaw.
They were mere inches from the belly of the beast, and the snake shook viciously to try and dislodge their one-handed grip. Out of options and out of time, Fridgar drove the petrifying scalv tooth into the roof of the snake's mouth from within and pierced its brain. All around them, the air reverberated as the creature shrieked, and the moisture of its body dried as their surroundings turned to solid stone. It was done, the Scalv was slain.
They all but relaxed then and sighed in relief. Carefully, they pulled their legs free of the stone gullet, then climbed their way out of the statue's mouth before they dropped to the floor. They stayed kneeling there for a little bit while they caught their breath and reflected on the fact that they'd almost ended up as a meal. Once they'd collected themselves and their flow-state had worn off, they spoke. "That was close," said the Protean. "You barely tried," replied their own mouth.
They squinted beneath their blindfold, then hissed as they spoke. 'What do you mea-?" Was all they managed before they interrupted themselves. "We didn't even change shape, we summoned no totem guardians. We didn't fight to our fullest, we couldn't even bring ourselves to anger for the sake of a blood rage." Varthakh paused at the truth, then rose to their feet and inspected the statue. "It just... It all sorta flowed without me, you know?" They asked, and the hiss they had in reply said it all. Their totems were displeased with them.
Even though they'd grown in becoming and hone alike, it seemed they were still no closer to discovering how to make the Scalv into a totem. They sighed, disappointed, and turned to walk off when the drag of their tail echoed and bounced off all sorts of surfaces. Deeper in the cave, they felt a nest, the shapes of several smooth, round eggs just waiting in the cave. The giant paused, then turned back to weave through the Scalv's stone coils before they happened upon a nest of five Scalv eggs. One by one, they collected each one and stowed them in their Domain bag for ease of transportation.
They hadn't been able to learn anything from the mother, but perhaps they could run some experiments on the young? "That might works, maybe the hatchlings will be easier to works with?" proposed themselves. "Where to next then?" they asked. "Kaer Jeger, they'll aid us, no doubt," proposed one of their consciousnesses. "You overestimate the hospitality of the Lotharren horde," said the Protean quite simply before they made their way through the cave, then headed southward toward the home of their late totem's faction; Kaer Jeger.
