Kazuki
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You Can't Take Me
The Creed
Posts: 883
Trainer Class: 
Player Name: Himura Atsushi
OOC Username: Sleepy
Arena Points: 113
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Post by Kazuki on Jun 15, 2023 2:24:12 GMT 9
#s://cdn~discordapp~com/attachments/847006452118978590/1118597088075321376/parasite2~png Awake.
A lone figure drags its new feet past the border of the Precipice Shrine, undeterred by its severe wounds or the blinking reminder in the corner of its vision warning it to PURGE THE CORRUPTION.
Please.
As it strays, the ground under its feet sours to ash. Trees and flowers wither as it approaches, and any wild pokemon unfortunate enough to be stuck in its unyielding path are gone in the next second, reduced to sludge and pixel that gets absorbed into its squirming epidermis.
By the time it returns to Mistra’s borders, it is overflowing with stolen life. It breathes in its home territory and waves the human hand it has claimed, pulling up its host’s tray of data.
A burst of little red light. There comes the sound of a confirmed transaction.
And then the sound of a water bag bursting.
Inked flesh splits as dark coagulations come spilling out from its core, flowing down in a heavy mass over the mortal blueprint. The human frame is overwhelmed by this sentient sludge, forced to hunch from the sheer weight of it piling over its shoulders. A small ball of green fur is pressed to its chest—a momentary glimpse—before it, too, becomes obscured.
The tar churns as it forms itself, its massive arms pouring onto the ground like waterfalls, its fingers long and sharp and permeating the ground like roots. Its skin continues expelling the dark substance, the chunks writhing and inhabited by peeping eyes.
The mass that has overtaken the human neck and head has formed into one. The beastial head is almost reptilian, fitted with too many eyes. A wide maw rips open to reveal rows of sharp teeth.
It breathes from many mouths. The transformation alone has exhausted it. The pit in its belly grows insufferable.
An unholy, bubbling growl rumbles through its barrel chest as it starts to move, its puddles of corruption drying into nothingness as it peels its limbs away from their pools.
It follows the scent of flesh.
SPRIGATITO || 200/250 |
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Lacrimosa
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Player Character
Posts: 136
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Sarthor Caldwell
OOC Username: spibe
Arena Points: 50
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Post by Lacrimosa on Jun 15, 2023 2:50:40 GMT 9
It had been a month, almost to the day.
Sarthor had spent the month... reflecting. Thinking about himself, his goals. What he hoped to achieve with the deep dive. What he wanted. What he wanted out of the other players.
He had studied, too. The corruption, Mistra. The old raids. He'd had Alistair scour the internet for anything he could find, and had poured over it like life support.
Finding the parasite was- random. Uninfluencable by character mechanics. Half of a percent's likelihood, give or take. Some people were just-
Lucky.
He had also studied the Everworld. The last thing he remembered hearing before being forced from the game, deep and ringing-
Wysteria awaits you in the Everworld. Descend when your empathy meets your pride.
A place for 'dead' pokemon. In a game where pokemon couldn't die. What did he care? She was pixels and a means to an end. She could rot there- it mattered not to him.
At least, until his phone beeped. Just once.
He didn't glance at it, at first. His attention was wholly on the areay of paper and information splayed on the desk before him. Coffee was forgotten, breakfast ignored. His eyes scanned over the data, ripping it into pieces, neuron by neuron.
It was numbers and data, and it could be manipulated.
(The sharp memory that he knew how it worked, how to control it- that vanished in an instant. A snarl, the splash of coffee on the ground and the shatter of porcelain against wood.)
Sarthor forced himself to take a breath. His emotions would not help him here. Finally, his fingers found his phone, pulling it up to check what the machine had deemed so vital-
Come to Mistra if you want to remember.
He blinked once, eyes widening slightly. No one had deemed to reach out to him during his unintended hiatus- not the little trainer at Mom's house, not the rude one in town, not Luxe- But here was Kazuki.
Sarthor, nor Lacrimosa, did not respond to the message. It was unlike Kazuki, suspicious in is entirety. But...
Lacrimosa stepped into Mistra, breath coming out in chilled, visible puffs. The land had darkened into an aphotic forest, but otherwise was normal.
And Kazuki was not here. Typical. Still, Lacrimosa moved forward regardless- wincing at the pain that lanced his side, sparking over every inch of his arm. But if it was even a thinnest thread with which to connect with he corruption, he would endure it.
He walked until he heard something, felt his spine clench. Lacri turned, and saw the corruption, loping across the grass. He turned to face it, not too concerned- until at a yard's length he realized it was not going to stop. Panicked, he jerked to lunge out of the way.
phantump || 250/300 |
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Kazuki
•
You Can't Take Me
The Creed
Posts: 883
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Himura Atsushi
OOC Username: Sleepy
Arena Points: 113
|
Post by Kazuki on Jun 15, 2023 4:34:06 GMT 9
#s://cdn~discordapp~com/attachments/847006452118978590/1118597088075321376/parasite2~png The beast reaches him, pivoting as Lacrimosa attempts to dodge, angling its jaws so the player ends up throwing himself straight into them.
The jaws clamp around the frail avatar, teeth pinching toothpick bones, before he’s tossed down like dog’s chew toy.
Thump! Thump! as walls of dripping tar cage Lacrimosa on either side, the beast curling over him like a barge teetering off the edge of the cliff, huge and imposing. Its massive snout drools only inches away from his face. The slobber that seeps between its teeth and down its jaw drips onto the player’s collar, thick and searing hot.
White hair. Horns. A sharp scent, like antiseptic.
Familiar.
“You return. The prodigal son.” A voice of its own, deep and guttural, echoing in the vast cavern of its own anatomy. It had hand-carved it out of its host’s larynx. It is gratifying in a way no human can grasp.
“Do you remember?” It observes him carefully, the void that acts as its skin popping with little eyes that blink and follow his movements.
“False Throat, you sang the overtures of a siren’s song and led a fool to drown. Your porcelain hand slipped through the Veil and grasped what was never meant to be Yours.“
It emits a sound like coughing and hacking, like lungs full of water struggling to breathe. Laughter.
“And it was shattered, as is right. Greedy little pissant. It is no wonder you fail. Your body is teeming with acid and unfit to house me. Your heresy has earned you nothing.“
Its head tilts down, the hunch of its back tightening, as if in a bow. “But it is also why I am here.”
SPRIGATITO || 150/250 |
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Lacrimosa
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Player Character
Posts: 136
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Sarthor Caldwell
OOC Username: spibe
Arena Points: 50
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Post by Lacrimosa on Jun 15, 2023 5:09:56 GMT 9
#s://media.discordapp.net/attachments/355418129385390081/1118624322462945461/MOSHED-2023-6-14-15-31-10.jpg Pain.
It seeped through the avatar, to himself, to his essence. Lacrimosa slammed to the ground hard enough to knock breath from living lungs, world around him flickering disorientingly before settling, a field of black and absence.
The Corruption spoke, and it forced a gasp out of him. Grating and gratifying, tremendous and awe. This was not a spectre, a vision created by the Corruption- this was simply It, in truest essence.
He felt on the edge of a cliff, kept in place only by the will of the monster before him. His shirt flattened, slowly eaten away by the drool dripping onto him- skin burning where it hit- but Lacrimosa paid it no mind- he was unable to pay attention to it.
Not when everything he had sought was here.
Do you remember?
He had no way of forgetting, every time he closed his eyes he was there, in the field of ink and Kazuki-
He looked up at the creature, parsing over Its words. It laughed, and his body throbbed and warped with pain at the sound. "I took only what you gave to me." He hissed, voice flat and meaningless in comparison. An infant's drawing of a cat held up to a smilodon.
Lacrimosa swallowed. "He despises you. Gave you strength so he could wrest control and banish you away. I would give you more." He lifted his hand- his arm was wrong, bent and twisting in ways that made his thoughts spiral. He fixed his eyes again to the Corruption.
"I would welcome you gratefully."
phantump || 200/300 |
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Kazuki
•
You Can't Take Me
The Creed
Posts: 883
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Himura Atsushi
OOC Username: Sleepy
Arena Points: 113
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Post by Kazuki on Jun 21, 2023 10:45:37 GMT 9
#s://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/847006452118978590/1118597088075321376/parasite2.png There’s a rumble in its throat, a gurgling contemplation. “Encore, little prophet. Your paschal lacks mystery. As with my chosen Host, you too seek blood—it simply slips from your fingers, without chalice, without tabernacle.”
Lacrimosa’s gnarled hand reaches to the void that hangs over him, as if seeking the stars in those ghastly little pupils. But this is not a heavenly body. He can close the distance.
The corruption’s texture is indescribable. Shattered bone, churning flesh, smooth eyes, all wrapped in a tar-like gruel that spills over his palm and the gaps of his fingers, curling gently down the length of his broken arm. Burning hot.
“Heed. A miracle is fleeting. I am born upon an iron throne, and there I must remain; there, I must die.”
Every single one of its eyes lock onto Lacrimosa below. “Faun, I am dying.”
The sound of shredding fills the air as it tears itself in two, perfectly bisected. It starts from the bottom of its ribs like a zipper, opening its chest with the elegance of a flower blooming, the frayed ends of its skin pattering on desecrated earth.
In its cradle lies Kazuki. From his neck to the top of his head, stuck inside the tar as if stuffed in a body bag. His eyes are shut, and as he’s held above Lacrimosa, it becomes apparent he’s breathing slowly, as if asleep.
“This form thrives on energy, on power. A thousand hands may build Babel, but they will never reach the heavens under the eyes of a selfish god.”
It lowers itself further, until it pins Lacrimosa’s legs under its bulk. Long strands of dark hair pool to the ground.
“Prove it. Your desideratum. When I die, pull me from the Styx, return me to my throne. Desecrate life’s rule.”
Again, a drowning man’s laughter, sharper now, spiteful.
“Or is that not your birthright, Doctor Caldwell?”
SPRIGATITO || 100/250 |
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Lacrimosa
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Player Character
Posts: 136
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Sarthor Caldwell
OOC Username: spibe
Arena Points: 50
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Post by Lacrimosa on Jun 21, 2023 12:20:41 GMT 9
#s://cdn~discordapp~com/attachments/355418129385390081/1118624322781728879/MOSHED-2023-6-14-15-31-28~jpg Pain.
It seeps into every nerve and vein, searing over skin and into bone, pooling at his shoulder. It chokes the air from his lungs, throat gagging into his mouth. The eyes fixate on him, innumerable and countless, bright and piercing, a thousand eyes, a thousand universes.
He takes the word in eagerly as drops of wine upon his lips, even as the world itself rends apart, a perfect incision, flawless and even despite the cruel chaos of flesh. And from that flesh is Kazuki born again, face still and calm, emotionless. Unblemished by worry, or rage, or life.
Lacrimosa looks at him, waiting for the anger to rise again. There is nothing. Just the thrum of the corruption, and the raspy sound of its voice.
He feels the weight of the Corruption, both physical and emotional. Prove it. Your desideratum.
Or is that not your birthright,
Doctor Caldwell?
He swallows, breath shifting eagerly. "I desecrate nothing," He breathed, eyes bright. "I create... from desecration. When you call for me..." Lacrimosa's eyes are bright, cold, unyielding. "I will raise you to places Kazuki could never dream of. And that is my birthright."
phantump || 150/300 |
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Kazuki
•
You Can't Take Me
The Creed
Posts: 883
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Himura Atsushi
OOC Username: Sleepy
Arena Points: 113
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Post by Kazuki on Jun 28, 2023 0:54:55 GMT 9
#s://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/847006452118978590/1118597088075321376/parasite2.png It does not laugh. It does not hum. It chews on his words, his vow dressed in platitudes, as its skin sloughs off its body to gnaw through fabric, flesh, and femur. “Scorched earth cannot bear fruit, but a pyre creates the brightest flame. Write your Word upon the ashes, be unchanging.”
A lamentation as bone-snapping cracks sound, its ribs creaking as it pulls itself apart further, sucking Kazuki into the tar, ivory dragging over stained skin. It could have been this: weaker flesh for an open door. It could have been a lamb on an altar, a willing sacrifice, instead of insolence that squanders all its gifts.
But it had not wrenched itself from a screaming oblivion to be defeated by fate’s hand.
“My Host is well on his way to ruin. In the next hour, I will lay to rest, and from my cadaver, he will find power. From that power, he will find truth. Both will end him. You are the coup de grâce.”
Its chest snaps shut with the force of a sarcophagus. Its form bubbles and convulses, as if trying to swallow the contents down. It can feel itself being torn apart from the inside. The features baring down on Lacrimosa shift uncontrollably: seven eyes, seven horns, a spasm of jaw. Death rattling the doors.
“Now pray. Pray to the fire. What do you seek, lamb?”
SPRIGATITO || 50/250 |
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Lacrimosa
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Player Character
Posts: 136
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Sarthor Caldwell
OOC Username: spibe
Arena Points: 50
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Post by Lacrimosa on Jun 28, 2023 1:43:40 GMT 9
#s://media~discordapp~net/attachments/355418129385390081/1118624322999816353/MOSHED-2023-6-14-15-31-52~jpg He could feel himself being pulled apart. Muscle tearing into stringy sinew. Skin peeling, layer by layer. Radiation decaying him, one agonizing cell at a time.
There is no more room for pain.
He looks up at the Corruption, even as grip slips. It is a holy glory, seven eyes boring down into him, seven horns curling and twining from the murk. He reaches, with unbroken hand, to curve reverently in the space above them.
"I seek your power." Sarthor knows it would be a fool who lied here, now. His heart is pounding- his chest burns, not with agony but with pressure, with heat. "I want the strength you can offer- and I want to free you from the pathetic state he's dragged you down to." His gaze flicks, to where Kazuki's face has given way only to roiling mass.
To have this- this connection, this capability, this divinity- and to scour and squander it?
How infuriating.
"I give my flesh to the fire, eagerly." For what was anything in the world, compared to what he could attain? Where he could reach?
To know, again?
Desperation seeps into his voice- just the edges, but pungent enough. "Ask, and I will give for you."
phantump || 100/300 |
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Kazuki
•
You Can't Take Me
The Creed
Posts: 883
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Himura Atsushi
OOC Username: Sleepy
Arena Points: 113
|
Post by Kazuki on Jun 28, 2023 8:06:42 GMT 9
#s://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/847006452118978590/1118597088075321376/parasite2.png A beggar’s hand extends a feeble prayer, yet what burns in the lamb’s eyes is far from a cry of mercy. The boiling offal welcomes his offering. It can scent the hunger that enshrouds him, the rage that harkens to half its own becoming: like smoke from a wildfire, like the artificial sting of ink.
“There will come the day that your eyes will open to what you had reached for.” Seven eyes, seven horns, seven rows of smiling teeth; a mechanical, guttural churns from its great throat, of which Lacrimosa can only brush his remaining fingertips against. “To Know, after all, is an act of consequence.”
The bells now toll. Within it lies vast emptiness; its guts have disintegrated in the effort to feed the casing. It has siphoned its Host and the chosen vermin for every last drop of life. Holes rip across its skin in a trypophobic nightmare, the honeycomb lesions glinting white with their own fangs.
“I accept your offering.”
Until all that bares down on Lacrimosa is a thousand maws. He is a spot of blood in a lake of starving leeches. He is the golden idol to the audience. He is all that matters in the world.
“In turn, accept my blessing. It is only right, after such brazen displays of devotion.” After all, what’s one more trip to hell? What’s one last supper?
“Let us feast, La-cri-mo-sa.”
It tears him to shreds.
SPRIGATITO || 0/250
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Lacrimosa
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Player Character
Posts: 136
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Sarthor Caldwell
OOC Username: spibe
Arena Points: 50
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Post by Lacrimosa on Jun 28, 2023 8:19:39 GMT 9
#s://media~discordapp~net/attachments/355418129385390081/1118624323306012884/MOSHED-2023-6-14-15-32-36~jpg The Corruption regards him, churning. Decaying, extant life fading as Kazuki is utterly unmade. Sarthor can feel himself fading, even as something keeps him tethered, bound to this place, to this moment.
The Corruption offers a promise, and it is everything Sarthor had asked for. To see. To know. To comprehend. The Corruption dips, elegantly despite the impending devastation, how its body and Sarthor's own are unravelling into the air.
In turn, accept my blessing.
He wants to answer, to say it is all he had wanted. To thank it, to empower it.
All he has are teeth.
phantump || 50/300 |
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Lacrimosa
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Player Character
Posts: 136
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Sarthor Caldwell
OOC Username: spibe
Arena Points: 50
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Post by Lacrimosa on Jun 28, 2023 8:24:34 GMT 9
#s://media~discordapp~net/attachments/355418129385390081/1118624323528314880/MOSHED-2023-6-14-15-33-4~jpg time is meaningless in mistra
it is hours years decades that the corruption feasts and revels
it is
so
LONG
and then it is gone
ash
and smoke
he is still there though
maybe
how much of a person needs to be there
where is the dividing line between body
and just gore
he hurts
it all hurts
but it is not over
he still has
a promise to keep
phantump || 000/300
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