Re: The Battle Majestic (Round 2 - Firestar)
04-08-2010, 08:23 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by Schazer.
The alien sniggering faded as the light was squeezed from the pit, Sen letting himself emit a whimper as Jacob disappeared behind a shield of tough roots. Something in the green beast's gut churned over, and a pale, watery glow lit up the well. Sen shook his head, blinked up at hearing the hacking change pace into something more methodical, and padded gingerly around with his mangled hand to seek out his wayward digits in the gloom. Several moments of scouring the rocky soil yielded fruit in the form of two now-withered twigs, shrivelled and clearly dead even under the Tender's mean phosphorescence. Picking them up with a slender, bereft hand, Sen felt the prickle beneath the scabby bark upon his terminated fingers, itching to be a means and not a painful end again.
The creature didn't waste time trying to uselessly adhere the deadwood to the green. Instead, the toothy, glowing maw opened, a snaky tongue weaving up to drag the dead fingers past the gauntlet of needles before Sen swallowed with a clicking gulp.
Nothing visibly happened to interrupt the insistent, rhythmical thunks of sword on wood far above. The curious gel which comprised the Tender, meanwhile, almost bubbled with activity as it interpreted what Sen had ingested. In the same manner with which Sen had learnt to grow fire-resistant bark after dining from a tree with similar properties, the pods ricocheted between them a new set of data gleaned from his own severed fingers. His tail lashed around as neural systems went into a personal overdrive, the unlit pod in its thin glowing membrane carving a strange path through the gloom of the pit. Staggering a little as the rush of information became too much to consciously comprehend, Sen rested his snub head upon one of the roots which was holding this bolthole up. Despite all logic claiming otherwise, a shoot burst from the grubby wood and swiftly became a spine of hardwood upon the Tender's barely-conscious whim. Head still hazy with the ramifications of the fingers he had just eaten, Sen snapped off the fresh twiglet, crunched it up, and ate it.
If reattaching a new finger was impractical, the Tender could simply regrow one. And unlike a regular plant, the regrowth would be better adapated to deal with what had destroyed it in the first place.
The tough, dense fibres crept from the stumps, timidly at first, but then marginally faster as the scaffold was constructed and the burgeoning fingers could concentrate on an improved form - Sen was building himself an exoskeleton of iron-hard heartwood, and flooding the insect-like digit with green goo. The result was cumbersome, certainly - compared to the fluid positioning of joints in his other fingers, the four-segmented fingers felt cramped and clunky. On the bright side, the tips were sharper than ever, and rapped satisfyingly on a pebble as Sen thoughtfully drummed his new toes as he glanced up at Jacob. The chronomancer's earlier incoherent rage had subsided to simmering, intensified fury, as he now employed his sword as an axe to hack through the mat of roots.
The Tender dug its new complement of toes into the earth (which he calculated to be unpleasantly rocky, minimal of nutrients, but oddly warm) at the bottom of the dark pit, and chrrr-ed pensively.
Spoiler
The alien sniggering faded as the light was squeezed from the pit, Sen letting himself emit a whimper as Jacob disappeared behind a shield of tough roots. Something in the green beast's gut churned over, and a pale, watery glow lit up the well. Sen shook his head, blinked up at hearing the hacking change pace into something more methodical, and padded gingerly around with his mangled hand to seek out his wayward digits in the gloom. Several moments of scouring the rocky soil yielded fruit in the form of two now-withered twigs, shrivelled and clearly dead even under the Tender's mean phosphorescence. Picking them up with a slender, bereft hand, Sen felt the prickle beneath the scabby bark upon his terminated fingers, itching to be a means and not a painful end again.
The creature didn't waste time trying to uselessly adhere the deadwood to the green. Instead, the toothy, glowing maw opened, a snaky tongue weaving up to drag the dead fingers past the gauntlet of needles before Sen swallowed with a clicking gulp.
Nothing visibly happened to interrupt the insistent, rhythmical thunks of sword on wood far above. The curious gel which comprised the Tender, meanwhile, almost bubbled with activity as it interpreted what Sen had ingested. In the same manner with which Sen had learnt to grow fire-resistant bark after dining from a tree with similar properties, the pods ricocheted between them a new set of data gleaned from his own severed fingers. His tail lashed around as neural systems went into a personal overdrive, the unlit pod in its thin glowing membrane carving a strange path through the gloom of the pit. Staggering a little as the rush of information became too much to consciously comprehend, Sen rested his snub head upon one of the roots which was holding this bolthole up. Despite all logic claiming otherwise, a shoot burst from the grubby wood and swiftly became a spine of hardwood upon the Tender's barely-conscious whim. Head still hazy with the ramifications of the fingers he had just eaten, Sen snapped off the fresh twiglet, crunched it up, and ate it.
If reattaching a new finger was impractical, the Tender could simply regrow one. And unlike a regular plant, the regrowth would be better adapated to deal with what had destroyed it in the first place.
The tough, dense fibres crept from the stumps, timidly at first, but then marginally faster as the scaffold was constructed and the burgeoning fingers could concentrate on an improved form - Sen was building himself an exoskeleton of iron-hard heartwood, and flooding the insect-like digit with green goo. The result was cumbersome, certainly - compared to the fluid positioning of joints in his other fingers, the four-segmented fingers felt cramped and clunky. On the bright side, the tips were sharper than ever, and rapped satisfyingly on a pebble as Sen thoughtfully drummed his new toes as he glanced up at Jacob. The chronomancer's earlier incoherent rage had subsided to simmering, intensified fury, as he now employed his sword as an axe to hack through the mat of roots.
The Tender dug its new complement of toes into the earth (which he calculated to be unpleasantly rocky, minimal of nutrients, but oddly warm) at the bottom of the dark pit, and chrrr-ed pensively.
peace to the unsung peace to the martyrs | i'm johnny rotten appleseed
clouds is shaky love | broke as hell but i got a bunch of ringtones
eyes blood red bruise aubergine | Sue took something now Sue doesn't sleep | saint average, day in the life of
woke up in the noon smelling doom and death | out the house, great outdoors
staying warm in arctic blizzard | that's my battle 'til I get inanimate | still up in the same clothes living like a gameshow
clouds is shaky love | broke as hell but i got a bunch of ringtones
eyes blood red bruise aubergine | Sue took something now Sue doesn't sleep | saint average, day in the life of
woke up in the noon smelling doom and death | out the house, great outdoors
staying warm in arctic blizzard | that's my battle 'til I get inanimate | still up in the same clothes living like a gameshow