In the Veins of Old Sleeping Giants

[Franny Stein]

Franny paused the procession and snuffed the light of her mage light candle out. Waiting again the in the darkness she sighed quietly to herself in resignation. She dared not voice complaint at their general situation.


“I got us into this mess, and I’ll be damned if we don’t profit from it…”


She looked over her shoulder at Noctis voicing in a whisper.


“This is it. Eyes on the prize, whatever it is…”


Cooldown over, she flicked the light on once more.


“Let’s go.”


Waving her hand over her shoulder, the tiny necromancer pushed the procession forward through the end of the hall and into a large and wide chamber, so different from the before tunnels in fact, that the mage light failed to adequately highlight the entire room. They found themselves in a flat domeish cavern room, comparable in size to a smaller American gridiron field. On their feet, in pulses, ran what seemed like the magitechnical equivalent of clear Ethernet cables. Pusling with energy they ran toward the less well-lit center. Franny followed them uncertainly gradually piercing the fog of war.


“Sha?!”


Franny jumped like a cat to the right as the sound echoed throughout the chamber. She had nearly stepped on it….a black slime crawling or whatever it is they do in gross locomotion toward the center.

Franny continued forward this time looking down. The humidity in the room was oppressive.
 What next hit Franny was the stench. Gagging reflexively, Franny quickly covered her mouth and nose with the side of the hood and attempted to stifle her coughs, looking through teared eyes upward, she paused at what the light revealed. Even today she would hesitate to describe it.

A featureless manikin stood poised like the atlas holding upon its back what could only look like a 90’s lightning globe, it crackled with a dull hum. Franny looked at Noctis, but quickly decided that an explanation was clearly impossible. The tiny necromancer could not be sure if the figure vaguely in the shape of a moss-covered green man was something organic, a statue, or vaguely some third category inbetween.
 More disturbing still were what appeared to be miasmatic corpse flowers in full bloom across the figure, the source of the awful stench. Franny watched the black slimes slither into the open buds as they continued to open and close like mouths. In a pile below this tarp of inky flesh on the overall hellish equation of an art work were coal-like solidified globules and orbs.


“Say, is that the trail you were following Notics?’


She said in a low voice slowly lifting one fist-sized chunk. Metal-like in a fashion, the piece felt like something inert. Knocking it with her knuckles, Franny confirmed the hardness of the material.


“Organic and inorganic…. Like teeth…or bones….hey Noctis…”


Franny grimaced.


“I’m holding monster sh*t aren’t I?”


Grimacing and glad to be wearing gloves, she pointed at the colony of spread flowers as another small chunk fell into the pile. She wondered if they were not in fact standing upon a large source of under-flowing groundwater, and if they were, whether these flowers’ roots of tainted material could crawl down to reach them.

NOTES- Not sure how that came together, but there we go. Something that was originally for one purpose has been corrupted by a flowery flesh blanket that is attracting slimes and eating them to grow. Maybe its the generator that cut off Sarum, not really sure but I think that could potentially work for an explanation.




WORDS- 531









TAGS- Noctis Corvo

[Noctis Corvo]

Noctis was awestruck at the pure size of the structure. The statue was definitely radiating the strange energy that he had been picking up on since they ventured down into the caves. He actually had to purposefully switch off his Element Sense, simply because whatever this was gave him a headache. He made his way forward slowly, as to not step on any slimes. The squeal of his companion told him she wasn't quite so lucky.

The device was definitely pulsing some strange energy, and whatever it was, it couldn't be good. The veins carrying the mana and miasma straight to the base of it, the miasma flowers eating the slimes, none of it seemed natural. This would definitely have to be a location to return to later, try and get some more data out of it.

"This is definitely it, whatever IT is."

He began by observing the device upon the statue. It seemed to almost be organic, but definitely composed of inorganic matter. Whatever it was, the channels ran straight to it. He could not deduce any visible engine that would run of the energy, but just the hum and pulsing of it being focused in the strange contraption. It had no output either, which was strange even by this world's standards. He dusted some of the moss off of the rim, trying to deduce the meaning of the strange glyphs that were inscribed upon it.

“Organic and inorganic…. Like teeth…or bones….hey Noctis…”

"Yes?", he replied, still partially trying to deduce the machine.

“I’m holding monster sh*t aren’t I?”

Her last comment made him chuckle. He bent down to the flowers and plucked one out of the ground. It had definitely been tainted by miasma, and had apparently been feeding off of the monsters and whatever latent energy laid within the channels. They didn't smell too good, but with a quick adjustment to the miasma flow within it, he granted them a bit of anima instead. While it still held its shimmer, the colors inverted themselves, the black becoming a pearly white, the dark miasma turning into a shine of blue and pink, resembling almost an opal or moonstone in its shimmer as it passed over it. 

"I don't think so. I believe whatever it is, seems to be constantly shifting as though it were in flux with the universe. It almost seems to deny itself any permanent form, or give itself any one attribute. It just seems to have sucked up so much miasma by devouring slimes that the material itself has become almost solidified miasma ore." 

He placed the now healthy flower in the corner of Franny's hair above her ear.

"Think of it as purified and solidified monster essence combined with meteorite or something, my little Santa Muerte. Like pig-iron."

Tags: Franny Stein

[Franny Stein]

“I hope you’re not just saying that to make me feel better…”

Adding the stone to her inventory, Franny pulled the flower out of her hair and smelled it before shrugging and placing it back.

“Sages are something else….”

Crossing her arms, she descended into thought as her two skeletons began placing the ‘ore’ into some sacks she had brought along. It was taking forever so she summoned two more to aid.

“So I take it that neither of us knows just what the hell this is, eh Noctis?”

The tiny necromancer tapped her foot as though she were impatient with herself.

“So…. What do we do with it? I have a feeling neither of us is a high enough level to dent the thing in the classical sense, and yet you seem to be able to effect it….”

Franny faded to silence once more, clearly deep in thought. She opened her mouth at least three times in false starts before settling on her phrasing. When she finally did so, her eyes burned as she locked eyes to mass with the bundle of unidentifiables that could only be considered the great question.

“Alright. If I hadn't brought you, there wouldn’t even be a decision, but now there is one, and it falls to you. Do we leave this as is, or restore it to whatever it should be. For all we know these corrupt flowers could be a seal on the big mannequin thing over there, or maybe it’s the reverse the mass is preventing some force of good. Maybe they’re both bad, or totally worthless, I have no idea…”

Franny shrugged turning around to look at Noctis seriously.


“I have gotten what I came for, what do you want to do with this?”


-wc 294

notes- a little short but I thought I'd leave you with a decision parn'er. Renegade? Paragon? And how do we tell which from which?

Noctis Corvo

[Noctis Corvo]

Noctis regarded the strange statue with an obvious curiosity. He didn't know exactly what to do with it, but it definitely held his interest. He slowly walked in between the skeletal familiars as they began gathering the strange ore, placing a hand against the statue. He could feel the energy coursing within it. He didn't have any idea whatsoever what possibilities could be contained by such a strange construct. The flowers, he could manipulate to a small extent. The display of power with the one he had placed in the necromancer's hair was rather small. But to effect all of them as they were connected, or to modify the nature of the statue itself? He didn't even know where to begin. 

Instead he looked at the flowers at his feet, bending down and observing one as it ate another small slime. It seemed healthy enough. He should, at the very least, take one of the strange plants with him, see if he could possibly research it further. He scooped up the plant, along with a tuft of the strange, black mass it was growing out of, and saved it within his inventory. Perhaps he could find a gardener to help him reproduce them. He could at least send out the research for that. As far as the statue goes, he would need to do some major research into the nature of it before he began trying to alter it.

"For now, Ill leave it. I need to do more research before just blindly doing something to it. We don't know enough, and if it turns out to be something we cant handle on our own, we will be in a definite amount of trouble."

After taking up his prize, he walked back over to the necromancer, letting out a soft quote into her ear as he made his way back towards the entrance to the antechamber:

"They walk unseen and foul in lonely places where the Words have been spoken and the Rites howled through at their Seasons. The wind gibbers with Their voices, and the earth mutters with Their consciousness."

He stopped at the entrance, his suit leaving him barely visible at the edges between her magelight and the eternal darkness of the caves. All that could be seen as he turned his head slightly back in her direction was the faint glint of his teeth beneath the stitching at the edge of his smirk-curled lips.

"Ready when you are, my little Santa Muerte."

Tags: Franny Stein

[Franny Stein]

Franny crossed her arms in deep contemplation. Two fingers to her chin she tried to consider the angles before once again coming to the conclusion that this entire situation was as hopeless opaque as the echoing caves around them. Snapping her fingers, the skeletons were reigned in with what she considered to be most if not all of the 'ore' lying around the room. Ooophing, Franny handled the hefty bags with inward curses as the skeletons handed them to her before quickly adding them to her inventory. Dusting off her hands, the tiny necromancer flips one wrist in a wave causing two of the four skeletons to collapse into aether.

"That's that then. Your choice is probably as good as any. I have no complaints, I have what I came for. I believe your president said something once about having a list that rhymed with bucket....It'll do."

Stretching, Franny moved to follow her compatriot.

"A poet eh?"

Franny matched grin for grin as she passed him.

"Aren't we the thing of confidence now? My my."

She managed a quiet chuckle before humming along an excerpt of a poem in response as she took the lead once more in their formation:

I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after~

When she had finished and they were well on their way she sent her ally a friend request. Turning around, she held a finger to her lips when she saw it had arrived. It seemed to say 'mind the noise' They marched through the echoing caves in silence. It was still a way before they would reach the surface. The left behind system of 'Mystic Script' would guide them.


tags- Noctis Corvo