Fantasy Terrorchild: Awakening

[dikdik]

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[turtwigwins]

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[asphodelus]

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[K0mori]

1. Admire - As always, anymore, you find yourself in another surreal situation. Halton is handsome - strikingly so. You wouldn't admit this to the rest of the circle, but if you weren't in the midst of an ongoing struggle for survival and obscurity, you could see yourself chasing boys your own age who might grow up into a man like him.

You smile as you picture your arrival in a large city - young, mysterious, and with money to throw around. If you can find a boy who doesn't mind your heresy and the company you keep, then you imagine that he'd fall for you on the spot.

The road ahead passes by in a blur. Since the artifact restored the magic of the circle, the four of you have been able to use crows to scout the path ahead and avoid suspicious riders and other witnesses that might have alerted to the theft you committed. Eventually, however, the forest dissipates, and as the sun goes down you find yourselves in a large, open field with no places to hide.

"Well," Corrinth says, "...what now?"

Nytha stretches and yawns. "There's not much we can do aside from make camp, or press on. And I'm all for making camp, if you don't mind..."

"If anyone comes up on our camp, we'll have our friend here to help scare them off, right?" Embryx says, looking over to Halton. He doesn't reply beyond a grunt and a nod, despite the face that Embryx had been trying for most of the ride to strike up conversation with him whenever she could. Feeling fairly safe yourself since regaining your magic, you support Nytha's notion and minutes later, you're unloading your makeshift bedrolls for the night onto the grassy plain while Embryx gets a fire going.

Finally, Halton feels emboldened to speak up. "...You all packed really light," he says. "Are you on the run?"

"Witch hunters attacked us in Tashlaan," you explain, your lip curling into a sneer. "We killed them all - but there'll be more. We need to get to the city."

He nods, nervous at your demeanor. You can only imagine what you look like to him. That vicious, hungry creature you thought you saw when Rigatte came to retrieve you one year ago - it couldn't have been as frightening. But even though some small, songbird-like trill in your mind is screaming at you to come back from this, to remember that you were a good person before your awakening, it fails to make you care. This life is exciting. People fear you, and that fear is bringing you power and money, just like Corrinth promised.

Speaking of the devil: "Hey, Agranne," Corrinth says, "before we snuff out the fire, do you want to get some practice in? I'm sure we can spare a bit of magic since we'll get it right back..."

1. Practice Telekinesis with Nytha - Before everything went sideways in Tashlaan, Nytha promised to teach you more about telekinesis: namely, how to move liquids and how to move living things. Although you already proved yourself well and capable of the latter, you're certain she means to move them without harming them. In that case, you still have quite a bit to learn.

2. Learn Compulsion from Corrinth - Seeing Corrinth utilize her ability to control others has you intrigued, maybe even a little jealous. ...Okay, Make that definitely jealous. It's a lot more fun to watch it happen when it isn't happening to you. Once you learned that controlling crows was a form of compulsion, you began to sense the frontier ahead.

3. Learn Emotional Manipulation from Embryx - The drow seems pretty glum after all her attempts to get Halton to speak to her came up empty. You remember how easily she tricked him into anger before, and wonder... If she's so good at that, why doesn't she just trick him into liking her? You think about asking her about it in private, and maybe learning a bit about manipulation in general for your own sake.

 

[asphodelus]

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[Breadman]

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[Infab]

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[turtwigwins]

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[joshuadim]

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[hardcore.munchkin]

3

 

[Damian0358]

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[dikdik]

33333

 

[K0mori]

The vote is tied - DEALER'S CHOICE:

1. Practice Telekinesis with Nytha - Before everything went sideways in Tashlaan, Nytha promised to teach you more about telekinesis: namely, how to move liquids and how to move living things. Although you already proved yourself well and capable of the latter, you're certain she means to move them without harming them. In that case, you still have quite a bit to learn.

"Yeah, I suppose I could get back to what I was doing with Nytha last night," you reply with a yawn. You glance over to the elf, who seems almost surprised that you haven't forgotten how much more there is to learn, given how much you showed off your abilities that morning.

"You really want to keep going with me?" Nytha replies.

Corrinth sighs and gives a bittersweet smile. "...I'll be here for either of you if you need me," she says. Embryx, meanwhile, seems not to care one way or the other, this time, that Nytha is leading your lessons. The latter takes out her wand before scanning around the fire for a demonstration piece.

"Agranne, take that bucket and fill it up with water from that mud puddle over there," she says, gesturing over to a bowl in the landscape close to the road which had the shimmer of mud as you walked past it a few minutes ago. "It doesn't need to be pure. In fact, it's better if it's not."

You head over, carefully stepping down the slope toward the muck and returning with a bucket roughly two-thirds full of water, with the remainder being silt and bits of grass. As you return to the fire, Nytha advises everyone to back up for a moment, leaving just the two of you on opposite sides of the flame. "Okay, what now?" you ask her.

"Try to put the fire out," she says, confidently. You can already tell what's about to happen - Nytha is going to use telekinesis to control the water in mid-air and prevent it from dousing the flame, probably by deflecting it into your surroundings. Nonetheless, you cooperate, wanting to see her perform the trick, and after a solid windup, you slosh the contents of the bucket toward the pile of burning wood. Except... instead of leaving the bucket, all of the water stays pressed inside the bucket in a similar manner to how it would behave if you spun around in a circle.

You decide to move a bit more erratically, imagining the difficulty involved with applying telekinetic forces on an object which both moves and changes directions intelligently. But despite your best efforts, even when the water slips beyond the rim of your bucket, you're disheartened to see it change course and return to the pail before it can strike the flame. As you huff, a bit out of breath from the effort, Nytha smirks at you, sending a chill down your spine. Your pneuma demands more respect than this. You look her in the eye intensely, alerting her to what you're about to do.

This time, the muddy water explodes from the end of your bucket, forced outward by telekinetic force that is dozens of times as powerful as the forces keeping it in, but quickly, Nytha matches you, gathering the molecules of fluid out of the air and reversing their travel with a circular twirl of her wand. You grunt, exerting yourself further as you try to will the water to obey, but no matter how much magic you dump into your desires, you can't control the muddy spatter as well as Nytha can, and soon, you're left panting in a cloud of darkness of your own creation, while the elf keenly directs a floating blob of muddy water through the air - nearly to the tip of your nose - before putting it back into the bucket.

"Now, what have we learned?" she says, and only now do you realize that part of her reason for demonstrating in this manner was to humiliate you a little bit, after you defended Embryx earlier in the day. But there's a good lesson at the heart of it, and you force yourself to acknowledge it. Your multi-limbed "spider" is clearly incapable of controlling something as unpredictable as water droplets, while whatever it is that Nytha's doing, is.

You sigh. "I need better control. I tried controlling it from every angle-" you start to explain when the elf fiercely interrupts you.

"Your magic doesn't behave like your hands, Agranne. We went over this before; it's more like a cage. But you can't put water in a cage; it'll just flow right through... So what you really need is a cloud."

"A cloud?" you repeat.

Nytha nods. "Yes. A cloud can be any shape, and yet it holds water just the same. Make your magic into a stormcloud; it will move slower and more methodically this way, but it will offer you so much more control than what you've had. Now put the bucket down." You set it down on the ground and then watch as Nytha pulls the water out again, forming a perfect sphere of muck as she directs it over the fire. The others watch in rapt excitement at the display, aside from Corrinth, who's merely amused, as the ball makes its way over to the elf. "Now... Catch."

She tosses the ball, underhand, in your direction.

1. Catch the Ball - You do your best to allow your magic to take on the amorphous form that Nytha recommended, but she gave you almost no time...!

2. Throw the Ball at Embryx - It's time to cash in on that favor the drow owes you for defending her earlier today. Besides, you should be the one to put in her in her place as the weakest in the circle.

3. Destroy the Ball - This is stupid. In what real-life situation would you be forced to catch a flying ball of liquid? In what scenario would you not be allowed to use your full arsenal of tricks? You decide to teach Nytha a lesson of your own by throwing the bucket at her as a distraction before blasting the water ball with a magical strike - empowered with the sort of strength that could probably kill someone - just to prove your point.

 

[joshuadim]

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[bat_hacker]

3, sounds like it will go well

 

[Infab]

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[dikdik]

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[hardcore.munchkin]

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[turtwigwins]

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[asphodelus]

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[Breadman]

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[K0mori]

1. Catch the Ball - You do your best to allow your magic to take on the amorphous form that Nytha recommended, but she gave you almost no time...!

The ball halts at your command, but jiggles ominously in the air, changing shape as it ripples nervously. "Uh, um," you say, trying to direct it towards your bucket, but moving things in this manner feels deeply unnatural.

"Relax," Nytha says, putting her hands out in a calming gesture, "you've got this; no need to press so hard..."

The ball vibrates and shrinks slightly, until even Corrinth stops smiling, and in a panic, you decide not to put it in the bucket at all, but to send it away from everyone instead. You can feel the muddy water fighting against the compression, which only leads you to apply more power to keep it contained, until you drive it through the air toward a tree in the middle distance. Moments after the sphere of water reaches the trunk, it explodes like a bomb!

The trunk of the tree is torn apart, splintering into shards of wood before the tree begins to tip over. A murder of crows flies out of the tangled branches in a cacophony of agitated sound.

Wide-eyed, Nytha walks up beside you to survey the damage. "That's... a new one," she simply says.

You turn back to her, a mix of excitement and embarrassment playing at your nerves. "Well, I think I almost got it," you say, eliciting a guffaw from Corrinth.

"I'll have to try that sometime," Embryx says.

"This is why we learn how to move living things last," Nytha says. "You don't want to accidentally kill or maim anyone because of a nervous impulse. Next time, keep your powers in check, relax like I told you, and you should get it."

After practicing a while longer with gobs of mud and water from the depression in the ground, you feel satisfied in your ability to move liquids. By the time you return to the campfire, the others have gone to sleep aside from Corrinth and Halton.

"So, we reach the city tomorrow," Corrinth says quietly as you have a seat nearby. "Witch baggers don't tend to hang out in big cities; it's usually city guards who handle us, and not every city is entirely hostile," she says. You can't help but notice her intentional use of Ika's term for the hunters.

She must be feeling nostalgic... or maybe just guilt-stricken.

"What happens once we get there?" you ask.

Corrinth takes out an apple, apparently the last in her satchel, and gives a disappointed sigh as she realizes it's rotten. She tosses it into the fire before putting her head in her hands. "I have to go answer to the Elder Sister of Mardenaal, Diala. I'll have to tell her that I located a hexblood and kept her hidden from the coven for weeks, that I left Ika in charge of training an outsider while I left town, which ultimately led to our circle getting exposed and one of us getting killed."

From her tone, you know that she expects a major punishment to come her way, maybe even death. You do your best to harden your heart, to remember what you said in Tashlaan that morning. Ultimately, Corrinth had done everything of her own volition, and all the consequences which resulted were her fault. She deserves whatever's coming her way, and yet you can't help but feel pity for her. Her mind and spirit is twisted by the same evil influence that dwells in you. To hate her is, to some extent, to hate yourself.

You don't care if she suffers or dies in the end, but on this last peaceful night, you wish she had been able to enjoy the apple.

"So, will Diala tell us three where to go, and who to answer to, then?" you ask a moment later.

Corrinth shakes her head. "I doubt it. When you joined Lythrefang, you gained the right to travel freely, Agranne. Once you feel that you're safe, it's up to you where you go from Mardenaal."

You nod, taking it all in. You decide against telling Corrinth your intentions; they probably won't matter to her, soon enough. Instead, you look to Halton. "Hey, you can go to sleep, alright? Just be ready to help fight if we need to wake you up."

"You first," he grunts.

You shrug, settling down for the night on a blanket with no pillow. "Good enough?" you say. The mercenary nods, finding a spot near the fire to rest. You sit and watch the fire flicker itself lower and lower, into embers, before it disappears into the shadows of your dreams. Corrinth keeps watch over you and the others to ensure nothing happens while you sleep. But despite her vigilance, she can't protect you from your nightmares.

You relive the sound of Lucyk's neck snapping, Ika's dead body in the grass, and the choking, suffocating pain of an arrow through your lung. As you wheeze and gasp for air, you sink into that black, glassy surface you so easily walked on in your prior dreams, and as you fall, you find yourself face to face with the people you've killed, going all the way back to the merchant in Ryggander.

Your dream ends as a pair of ghostly hands place shackles on your limply-kicking feet, anchoring you down, dragging you deeper, drowning eternally...

---
​

The following morning, your sisters awaken to gather their things ahead of the final leg of the jouney. The clouds are hanging low and heavy in the sky, and the air carries an autumn chill that's wet and clings to the skin.

As you watch the others amidst their activity, a growing feeling of dread festers in the pit of your stomach, not unlike the feeling you got when you heard Tashlaan's church bells tolling out yesterday, like something bad is about to happen. You realize that unleashing your worst instincts upon Lucyk had awakened a part of you that didn't slumber until you did, and influenced all of your actions for the remainder of the day as you antagonized people who sought to help you, and tormented and robbed random passers-by.

In the end, Halton found himself trusting Corrinth more readily than he trusted you, a thought which should have disgusted you last night, but didn't. You feel awful, and you need someone to talk to.

1. Talk to Nytha - Out of the three sisters in your presence, only Nytha seems to have her mind and emotions fully in check, aside from the argument she had with Embryx yesterday. Maybe she could help you with retaining your conscience while casting magic.

2. Talk to Corrinth - Corrinth is the witch who worries you the most in your present company, although it occurs to you that, after all she's done, and all the people she's killed, she's easily able to retain an air of normalcy about herself. If she were as susceptible as you, she would have carved a path of violence across the countryside like she did in Zuklanar. No, she chooses when and how to act, and you need to know how she does it.

3. Talk to Embryx - Another novice like yourself, you wonder if Embryx's experiences are more alike to yours than the other two's. You decide to raise the question with her while you have the chance.

 

[Breadman]

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[turtwigwins]

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[Infab]

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