wildestlogs | A Very Dank Side Quest

:I don't know. There weren't any bodies left, after. Just pieces.:

Guts can't help but feel the dread hanging like a dismal fog over him. He covers his face with his hand to hide the distress, leaving just his eye hovering on the corpse, a sadness filling the hollow space where all the rage had gone.

He focuses on the necklace, taking in its designs.

Need considers, vicariously feeling the body as it's dismantled under Saturday's fingers. The dry crackle of it, the slight lingering oiliness, the particles and slivers that pack under the fingernails of her living hand, the smell of it, the pale of the exposed bones in the gloom. She compartmentalizes her consideration away from both of them, unwilling to let them see; Raistlin, with his intent focus on her, might have picked up on something, but he's not here and Need is glad. Bright though he is she could not share this with him - the knowledge that this would have troubled her once, and now it doesn't, nor does not being bothered trouble her. She really is as dead and bloodless as this corpse, and that too is no shock or horror.

She says a brief prayer for the spirits of the dead out of a sense of obligation, and keeps that from her companions too. It would translate literally like :Sun kind at your backs, grass for your horses, sweet water to drink:, and means something like :Whatever still exists of you, let it be better than your last moments, and let you not care what happens to your remains,: expressed through some extremely horse-nomad sentiment about good travel. It's nothing she expects will be heard, or to lift the oppressive atmosphere of the situation.

Which, yes, does worsen as they discover the brand. Need, carefully managing her own reaction so it doesn't spill over into either of the living, finds a mirroring of the imagery of the eclipse in Saturday's mind and so has no compunction with showing her some sliver of it. She does not have a comment, she does not suggest how she feels, except that when Guts allows his initial reaction to slide into some of the grief it had concealed Need does a sort of lean, an intangible expression of sympathy.

Investigation (INT)
Guts: 15 (Success)

Upon closer inspection, the unnatural silvery sheen and vine-like design is reminiscent of the jewelry lent to Casca at the Spirit Tree Mansion. The faint touch of magic is barely perceptible, but there.

He feels reticent to accept pity, though perhaps it was appropriate that the support from the sword did lend comfort in a similar way that his own blade did on a lonely night.

Guts reaches down to pick the necklace up in his hand.

:This looks like a charm from an old witch I knew. Was supposed to act as some kind of talisman. Guess it didn't work this time around.:

And in his head: an image of Casca with the necklace. He was at something of a distance, as it always was in that time, but close enough to spot the engravings in the delicately woven metal. It was the words written that gave the item its power.

Few people like to be pitied, and the distinction between that and other feelings can appear minor, especially coming from something like her. Need doesn't push it.

She passes the image on, most of it given another layer of distance and obscurity so it's more about the necklace than about the unfortunate Casca. She doesn't know how much Saturday knows about her and errs on the side of caution over just transferring everything over. The more important thing right now is the recognition of the item - not something Need herself could have made, she'd specialized in coarser work - and the letters worked into it. Guts can't read them and they're not a language Need knows. She can pick up on the trace of magic as Guts senses it, though.

:Overwhelmed,: she speculates. :Do you know if it's meant for protection? Concealment?:

By now Need has started to realize that the limitations placed on her have been adjusted. She still doesn't have Magesight proper, but maybe she can reach out and tell something more about this charm, and if there are others among the dead. Also if the roots are magic, and if she's missing things. Need always wants to check and recheck, never trusting her first impressions.

Perception
Need: 82 (Fail)

The roots were magical, as their unearthly glow suggested, though in a way that was obfuscated by the metaphysical noise of this new world. Beyond the faint magics of the necklace, there was nothing useful to be gleamed.

While searching the room, there is the distinct sensation that she was being watched. Not in the physical realm, but from within the spiritual depths around them. It felt like many pairs of eyes lurking just beyond reach, fixing their gazes and fanning the flames of paranoia.

:Concealment from whatever was attracted to our brands. Let us sleep easy at night. She had silver chainmail for protection.:

Guts answers bluntly, unaware of the supernatural turbulence. He runs a thumb over the markings on the metal.

:Beats me what this one says.:

She was, Need reflected dourly, too old to quickly learn new systems of magic.

There is a nation in Velgarth blanketed by vast numbers of minor elemental spirits tasked with finding any mage within its borders. The sense is of a bank of fog studded with unblinking eyes following a mage everywhere, a presence that cannot be shielded against or meaningfully attacked, more and more fog and eyes pressing around them them until the mage, harried past all tolerance and often with their sanity fraying, leaves or dies. This makes her think of that but she knows, at least, that those eyes belong to vrondi, which are simply curious and can cause no actual harm. These? These could be anything. The emotional background radiation here is so bad that she can't even distinguish how the watchers feel, or if they're more intent on Guts, or her.

They might not be enemies, Need reminds herself, unconvinced, splitting and shifting her focus. There are too many and too indistinct for even her to monitor them all or easily pin any down to read. Right now she doesn't know if she can launch some of herself into the spirit world with them. Whether or not she can, probably she can communicate with them, but she'll have to wind herself down into a state where she does not assume instant antagonism and in so assuming create it.

Need wants to keep quiet about this until she's learned more and has a brief debate with herself over it, but ultimately she doesn't think there's that much more the two living will learn here while untroubled, and if the watchers are a threat it's better for them to know.

:We're being watched,: she says shortly, allowing some of her alert suspicion into the link. :Not just by your little ceiling friend. Not by material eyes and not through Mind-gifts. Spirits, maybe.:

:Goody goody fuckin' gumdrops: Saturday says sourly, and suppresses the urge to wave cheekily at her invisible watchers. Grandstanding is all well and good when you've got your footing, but they're not there yet. :Can you tell if they can hear us talking like this, or might be able to?:

She leans over the necklace, examining it. :If the magic's still good, this might be worth taking with us. Might not help, but I don't see how it'd hurt.:

Reluctantly Need says, :It seems unlikely, but I don't know. I have no idea how Mind gifts work here and I don't think the boy here can tell me much. If they can touch my mind, or yours, it won't much matter, but if you'd feel better the two of you share at least two languages that aren't local to this plane.: Sylvaen and whatever language it was that was applied in that Rig she's heard something about.

She doesn't comment further on the necklace. Too late to avoid it entirely if it's something more sinister than it appears to be. It's at least of a size and heft that means it's not too difficult to leave behind, throw away, or destroy if it comes to that.

He puts the necklace away in a pouch, none too bothered by the thought of looting the dead.

:Hope this thing's got some use left, or we'll find out soon enough. Let's keep moving.:

With all the dead bodies in his tomb, Guts had little interest in seeing what form of spirit would emerge from the ether to make use of their shriveled forms. He trudges his way forward through the dark hall once they get their torches lit.

It doesn't take Saturday long to light one of the torches. She's getting better with flint and steel, so she uses that instead of wasting precious matches - they might be shitty and victorian, but they might need light in a hurry so there's no point wasting them.

She wishes she had a lighter, though.

:I guess you're right - if they can read our minds, thinking or talking another language won't really do much.: That doesn't mean she likes it, though.

She lets Guts take point and falls in behind him, holding the single lit torch. It's enough to let them see any hazards, and this way his night vision might not get entirely shot to hell. She can get by without hers, but he doesn't have her motion-detector senses.

:I'll watch our rear.:

Beyond the door on the east side of the chamber awaits a long hallway.

The low, squat arches look like the ribs of the tunnel ahead. The stone doors are left slightly ajar, and open with only a small pull and the crunch of gravel. The corpses are sparser here, lying outstretched towards them as if they had been scrambling in panicked futility before their imminent deaths. The shriveled remains were frozen fleeing towards the room where they awoke.

The straight tunnel narrows beyond the second door, ending in a staircase scaling upward. At the top was a heavy stone obstruction, squat and rectangular, thicker than the doorways before it. It was cracked open just enough to let dust motes flow in gently from the next area to their end of the tunnel.

Edited 2022-05-03 03:55 (UTC)

Grumbling, Need lessens the enhancement to Guts' eye. The catlike reflection becomes less pronounced as the room by rootlight dims from something like daylight to closer to the full moon. The torch once it's lit makes the scene brighter, lends a sullen and shifting yellow cast, though of course now shadows also shift and flicker. :You can look at the roots now, but don't look right at the flame,: she says with the tired exasperation of a parent.

In the tunnel she speculates, :They came in here seeking refuge, or to escape something. There may have been more passages from that room, or maybe not. Might be whatever wrecked so much of the stonework closed them off.:

The sense of being watched is continuing to bother her, even as Need manages to subdue her own sense of hostility down into background suspicion. She's picked up that Guts expects spirits are able to make use of the corpses, which... it's not something they do in Velgarth, it must take significant magic given how fragile and parched the bodies all are. Maybe enough magic to mean some level of threat - strengthening them, or summoning something bigger. Addressing them might trigger that. That doesn't mean ignoring them will leave them quiescent.

It had taken Need a long time to turn the sword from something pinning her in place into a prison, from a prison to a shackle, from a shackle to an anchor. She can take a part of herself a little ways into the world of spirits. What she's most used to is the stable Moonpaths where the living may visit almost safely, and the ever-shifting sea of souls surrounding them, but that's not all that the spirit world is and this one might be very different. But it seems to Need that she can take a part of herself there, unlike in the Wilderlands.

Well. This is, she reflects, probably going to be bad but she can't seem to see the watchers any other way.

Need splits her attention. Most of her stays with Guts and Saturday. Part of her dips down under the material world and takes the form of an old woman, slightly indistinct, made of countless ashlike particles of spirit-matter. Not showing blood on her lips or a blade through her chest or anything of the sort at the moment.

Edited 2022-05-03 06:27 (UTC)

Astral Projection
Need: 77 (Success)

Need will find it easy to slip her consciousness from the physical world into the astral. The two had been sandwiched together so tightly that the creatures oozing across the spirit realm may very well bump into their physical bodies. The stone architecture was still visible, but perhaps not so solid as it was before.

The roots above her look like ripples, a rip current or air thermals tugging at her spiritual body. There is the sense that the path she's found can easily tumble far deeper if she doesn't watch where she steps, like murky water. Guts and Saturday's voices will be muffled, although Guts and her own sword body appear to be glowing like torches.

As it was, she will occasionally spot small, wretched creatures scuttling from body to body. They take the form of bottom feeding scavengers. An insect or fungus etched with the visage of human misery. These largely ignore her, wandering from corpse to corpse to nibble at dry skin or sit comfortably in empty skull crevices.

The watchers do not appear to be here, their gaze scratching at the periphery but their bodies still intangible.

Edited 2022-05-03 14:43 (UTC)

In Velgarth the planes are layered against each other like the pages of a book. Page one touches page two along its entire length while still being distinct. A spirit can be under the surface of the material world, a living person can walk around in the stable parts of the spirit world, but this doesn't happen. If she goes with the page metaphor, they've been soaked in oil and gone clinging and translucent. More than the warped little carrion feeders, still being able to see the walls and the living and the sword she's bound to feels deeply uncanny and wrong.

"Is it wrong, or is it just how this works here? Hah. Look at me, getting arrogant in my old age," Need says to herself. She can't see her spirit-self from the material world through the eyes of the living. It makes her uneasy to know that both she and Guts are this obvious to beings they may not be able to detect. Not being able to see the watchers also gets her on edge, she'd been so sure...

She has a bit of a pull to just continue like this, keep part of herself here and walking alongside to monitor the situation, but that seems like arrogance again. Need's encounter with that thing in the back of Guts' psyche had been the first time she'd had anything like a spirit-form fight in longer than she really cares to try and calculate, and she just doesn't have the power, since the Green took her, that she's used to. And she might just end up a lot further away than she'd like, in those depths she senses dimly.

More or less rhetorically she asks the watchers, "If you're not here, where are you?", with an eye also on the awful little scavengers, just in case they have the ability and inclination to respond. Assuming they don't, she'll pull this extension of herself back to her blade.

The small creatures, wretched-looking as they were, appeared to carry little real threat to the wandering trio. They scurried about at the edge of the astral world indulging their taste for the dead, which Guts and Saturday were not.

Saturday doesn't look older than twenty-five, but she radiates at least a century's worth of not-this-shit-again as she looks down the hall. The corpses don't escape her notice in the slightest, and neither does their positioning or expression.

:They saw their deaths coming: is her only comment on it.

Guts is silent as he moves on ahead, having walked past far too many fields of corpses to let himself be bothered by the grim implications of the scene around them. He'd lived it himself, having faced that impending death too many times over.

At the end of the hallway, he puts his hand on the slab of stone blocking their path. It looked like another wall, save for the tiny crack letting in a sliver of blue light.

:There's something on the other side.: he adds, testing the stone with a push from his shoulder. Perhaps it could be shoved open?

Edited 2022-05-11 02:32 (UTC)

Strength
Guts: 66 (Fail)

The stone barely budges. Between the uneven footing of the staircase and the massive size of the obstruction ahead, brute-forcing it wasn't going to be easy, even for him.

These children have lived through too many terrible things, Need muses abstractly. Probably even back when she was in her twenties she wouldn't be shocked, but she'd have had more of a reaction than Guts and Saturday. Now, on her own, she cannot feel much about a massacre unless she lets herself consider if the dead include women and others under her purview. In this case they're long enough gone that even that wouldn't rouse much.

:Can we try to determine something, anything about what's on the other side first?: she asks when Guts doesn't manage to shift the stone on the first go. In this voiceless hush his armor scraping the rock, and her unsheathed blade tapping and scratching against both, seem loud to her. :I can make you stronger, terrifying as that idea is, but I don't like that light.:

Need stretches her awareness out a bit but primarily focuses, running the strengthening exercises through bone and muscle. There's so much of Guts to work with and he's already at least as powerful as she normally brings a body to, past the point where she has to start reinforcing ligaments.

She imagines what this looks like from... 'the spirit world' feels wrong given how close they are. From spiritside. Her glow extends fine strands of blue that go to green and twine through Guts' living fire, finer than hairs. She already has a green thread to Guts' eye and an even more delicate tracery of, oh, probably red in there, and a line to Saturday, letting her ride their minds and senses. Compared to their blazing obviousness that's hard to see, even to something close that knows to look. If 'something' follows the rules she's used to, anyway, which she can't assume.

Perception
Guts: 3 (success)
Need: 73 (fail)
Saturday: 89 (fail)

From Saturday and Need's perspective, the stone obstruction appears as immovable as it did before. Guts, staying pressed up close, notices the low creak of a rusted hinge and spring among the rock. A locking mechanism of some sort, struggling against that initial push.

Despite never mentioning the new aches that the Berserker armor had given him, Guts certainly feels the difference when the sword lends her aid. The wear in his limbs ease, alleviated of all those years of skirting death at inhuman hands.

He could try again with new vigor, but maybe there was a better way to move the obstruction ahead. He looks back at Saturday.

:There's some kinda locking spring in here.: The fingers of his metal hand scape the crevasse of the stone. :Could find a way to open it from this side.:

Where there's a creaking mechanism, there's a way to release it.

Need feels a great, terrible tenderness as the boy notices an easing of the strain he carries everywhere without comment. Guts is so young to be resigned to this inevitable, progressive degradation. She would think this if he was eighty, she knows, and she's been carried by people who were younger than this when their bodies started to fail, or who were never free of pain in the first place. His body has kept most of its astonishing level of function despite what she suspects has been a similarly astonishing amount of abuse, but it's the nature of life to start to break down.

Guts is not someone she would have chosen to care about, and she can't deny that there's some influence from the difficult-to-quantify impression that the energy of his life is uniquely delicious. It doesn't matter. Need has loved a lot of people since sealing herself into her sword and hunger is always a backdrop. If she ever stops caring about people when they get close enough - it's even worse than if she stops keeping herself from caring about everyone she meets. Not worth considering.

:Oh, good. I'd wondered if you had a brain,: she says, making sure to show only standard degrees of affection and that leavened by irritability. :Girl, you're suspicious? Good. I don't know how to recognize whatever you'd look for but if you touch me I can sharpen your sight. Do not cut yourself. This is why scabbards exist, you know.:

:Suspicious? No way, officer, I was just running a late-night errand for my aged grandmother.: Saturday kneels in front of the device, looking with her eyes and fingers and other senses. Need experiences her sixth sense the way she does - as a physical press, a vibration or distortion in the weave of the world, caused by the ripples of life intersecting life, and Saturday like a spider feeling along the strands. :I just know that if you're in an ancient, crumbling ruin, and you find a rusted mechanism, you should check for traps. It's probably in a manual somewhere.:

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