Re: The Wretched Rite - Round One - The Rose Ring
08-01-2011, 06:44 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by engineclock.
Adelaide was, as to be expected, fucking furious.
It was insult enough to have been kicked in the face by a dolled-up dock whore just as she was getting close to a decent meal, then to have a fire of all goddamn things start drying up all the water in the area, but she drew the absolute line at having to deal with being pelted by fruit. Exactly what was she doing that seemed to shout to people, “Hello, I’m a friendly fucking person, why don’t you all just come up and have a go at me, I’m sure we’ll be best mates in no time and while you’re at it why don’t you chuck an apple at my head, that would just be fucking grand”? The rusalka was lost for an answer. She consoled herself by biting through one of M.’s roots and spitting it into the murky depths.
The plant-cat was not content to just sit there and take it like a champ, however. Adelaide’s skin, already raw from the waves of acid, was being raked by thorny claws and bitten by creaking jaws, scraped by twisting branches and slapped with leaves. The panther body curled around the rusalka’s and the two spun like furious dancers, locked in hissing, biting combat. Adelaide’s horrible undead strength was battling her increasing desire to flee from the acid burning through her skin as she ripped and tore at M., desperately looking for anything resembling organs. She encountered only more thorns, though, and as another apple bathed her face in stinging liquid she gave the creature a final, vicious slap with a muted crack and shoved it down through the water towards the omnipresent darkness.
Kicking sulkily, Adelaide pushed herself away from the now-sinking M. and swam for the surface where she circled slowly, licking her wounds. The drowning beast tilted frantically from side to side, futilely trying to right itself in the maddening darkness. She sneered. No one lasted long in her abyss, not even the strong ones. Either they drowned on their own like this one was doing or she did them the favor of helping them along. She’d let the water finish the plant-cat and then she’d have one less thing to worry about in this new hell of a place.
As the minutes passed, however, the rusalka noticed a rather prominent flaw in her plan. The panther body of her assailant hadn’t even slowed its struggling, let alone died. Its mouth gaped mutely in the greenish murk and its sides heaved in a mimicry of terror, but it thrashed with as much energy as it had gone in with. Angrily she eyed the shrub on its back, suspicion taking root in her mind. Plants drowned, didn’t they? Trees rotted in water. She’d built herself a nest of branches for her treasures once, when she’d first turned, and that had crumbled away in the mud. But that was weeks, she remembered. Not minutes. Idly she watched as M. convulsed and clawed at nothing, fighting for purchase on the emptiness that surrounded it. Its progress was negligible.
Weeks.
Think of the smell.
______
Above ground, the air was filled with the roar of collapsing buildings and the faint, terrible smell of burning flesh. Everyone near the fire had fled, and there was no one to see the surface of a particularly cloudy puddle ripple inexplicably; even if there had been, they would undoubtedly have been startled off by the sudden arrival of a massive wooden body exploding out of the water and skidding to a halt on the asphalt quite a distance away. Immediately the now-sopping creature was on its feet, vines and leaves quivering in the uncomfortably dry air as a dark head emerged from the water, a scowl so deeply ingrained in its face it could have been carved from stone.
“An’ stay the fuck out!” Adelaide shrieked, dragging herself up on her elbows. She pointed a curved nail at the sloping form of M. and growled. “You and yer apples, the both of you. Look’itch you’ve done to my skin!” She pointed to herself, indicating a few patches that were an even unhealthier color than usual.
The plant creature gave no response, only waving its head in the rusalka’s direction and stomping a rooted foot on the ground. It turned to face the burning buildings then turned back, tendrils waving. Its feet shifted and its tail whipped through the air.
“What,” Adelaide grumbled, leaning back into the water. She blew a few bubbles across the surface of the water. “D’you want me ta’ carry you again, y’great shrub? Or’re we going to play pantomime until we both burn t’ crisps?”
No response. The plant thing’s mouth opened and closed with a creak of branches.
Not knowing what to make of this, the rusalka considered diving again and resurfacing somewhere less likely to be occupied by moving topiaries that leaked nasty burning stuff and ruined her lovely skin. Anywhere near the fire was off limits, obviously, unless she wanted to be baked like a salmon, but there was still the hills. They wouldn’t burn for some time, she guessed. There had to be somewhere she could go without taking a boot to the face or getting her poor water all fouled up by nasty fruit.
Before she could submerge, however, M. hunkered down and began to creep towards her, taking exaggeratedly careful steps as if stalking a particularly dense animal. Adelaide bristled, preparing to dive, only to find that the panther body was extending roots towards her. She bared her needly teeth in warning, but the tendrils came closer until they were a mere few feet away, then lay placidly still. The panther had stopped moving as well, frozen in a tense crouch. The rusalka found herself reminded of an awkward new neighbor, hand extended for shaking and face locked into a rigor of politeness. Except that in this case the neighbor didn’t have a face. Or hands.
M. had no knowledge of the language of Walkers, but it gathered from the memories of the panther it had once been what the corpse in the water was trying to say. The bared teeth and the extended claws were clear indications of hostility, as were the thing’s narrowed eyes and hunched posture, but the way it kept to the rear of its curious pool and regarded <i>M.</i>’s tendrils expressed an immediate unwillingness to fight. M. was also hesitant to begin another engagement: it was lacking some rather large roots and had sustained many more bites and scrapes of varying severity from the corpse’s attacks. It hoped that the pale thing would be able to understand its desire to discontinue their battle. M. was unsure of the corpse’s intelligence, though it by no means had high hopes.
Green water splashed again from the dead Walker’s strange pool- M. could not help but shudder at the thought of the terrible confusion that same water had brought on- but it was not the swamping wave that the corpse had thrown at it earlier. It only slightly dampened the strange ground as the corpse made that odd screaming sound again. Was it angry? It was difficult to tell if this dead Walker was ever anything but angry. It seemed to be gesturing now, though. Towards the hills.
As reluctant as M. was to follow the directions of any Walker, even (and especially) a dead one, it couldn’t deny what had prompted it to stay near the corpse even after it had attacked him so viciously. The strange water that surrounded it reeked of all the scents of a healthy river: fertile mud, thriving weeds, the spawn of insects and the blood of fish, all hiding under a powerful overtone of water not yet tainted by the stink of Walkers and their horrible toxins. Even as it had struggled in the highly alarming underground swamp (were there subterranean pools here? M. had heard of such things in the past) the plant spirit could not help but to wonder why no water flora existed in such fruitful waters. Perhaps the corpse had eaten it all? M. doubted this, given the sharp teeth he had become so familiar with. The spirit made a mental note to examine this dilemma later, when there was not quite so much fire in the area.
The corpse vanished suddenly, and M. looked around in surprise before noticing its dark and angry face emerging from a cramped-looking smear of water a quite a ways away. It should not have been possible to travel so far in so little time, but as the panther body began to lope towards the impatiently waiting Walker-corpse it found that it didn’t much care for what went on in the strange water so long as it stayed pure and the plant spirit didn’t find itself tumbling about hopelessly in its curious depths.
Adelaide was, as to be expected, fucking furious.
It was insult enough to have been kicked in the face by a dolled-up dock whore just as she was getting close to a decent meal, then to have a fire of all goddamn things start drying up all the water in the area, but she drew the absolute line at having to deal with being pelted by fruit. Exactly what was she doing that seemed to shout to people, “Hello, I’m a friendly fucking person, why don’t you all just come up and have a go at me, I’m sure we’ll be best mates in no time and while you’re at it why don’t you chuck an apple at my head, that would just be fucking grand”? The rusalka was lost for an answer. She consoled herself by biting through one of M.’s roots and spitting it into the murky depths.
The plant-cat was not content to just sit there and take it like a champ, however. Adelaide’s skin, already raw from the waves of acid, was being raked by thorny claws and bitten by creaking jaws, scraped by twisting branches and slapped with leaves. The panther body curled around the rusalka’s and the two spun like furious dancers, locked in hissing, biting combat. Adelaide’s horrible undead strength was battling her increasing desire to flee from the acid burning through her skin as she ripped and tore at M., desperately looking for anything resembling organs. She encountered only more thorns, though, and as another apple bathed her face in stinging liquid she gave the creature a final, vicious slap with a muted crack and shoved it down through the water towards the omnipresent darkness.
Kicking sulkily, Adelaide pushed herself away from the now-sinking M. and swam for the surface where she circled slowly, licking her wounds. The drowning beast tilted frantically from side to side, futilely trying to right itself in the maddening darkness. She sneered. No one lasted long in her abyss, not even the strong ones. Either they drowned on their own like this one was doing or she did them the favor of helping them along. She’d let the water finish the plant-cat and then she’d have one less thing to worry about in this new hell of a place.
As the minutes passed, however, the rusalka noticed a rather prominent flaw in her plan. The panther body of her assailant hadn’t even slowed its struggling, let alone died. Its mouth gaped mutely in the greenish murk and its sides heaved in a mimicry of terror, but it thrashed with as much energy as it had gone in with. Angrily she eyed the shrub on its back, suspicion taking root in her mind. Plants drowned, didn’t they? Trees rotted in water. She’d built herself a nest of branches for her treasures once, when she’d first turned, and that had crumbled away in the mud. But that was weeks, she remembered. Not minutes. Idly she watched as M. convulsed and clawed at nothing, fighting for purchase on the emptiness that surrounded it. Its progress was negligible.
Weeks.
Think of the smell.
______
Above ground, the air was filled with the roar of collapsing buildings and the faint, terrible smell of burning flesh. Everyone near the fire had fled, and there was no one to see the surface of a particularly cloudy puddle ripple inexplicably; even if there had been, they would undoubtedly have been startled off by the sudden arrival of a massive wooden body exploding out of the water and skidding to a halt on the asphalt quite a distance away. Immediately the now-sopping creature was on its feet, vines and leaves quivering in the uncomfortably dry air as a dark head emerged from the water, a scowl so deeply ingrained in its face it could have been carved from stone.
“An’ stay the fuck out!” Adelaide shrieked, dragging herself up on her elbows. She pointed a curved nail at the sloping form of M. and growled. “You and yer apples, the both of you. Look’itch you’ve done to my skin!” She pointed to herself, indicating a few patches that were an even unhealthier color than usual.
The plant creature gave no response, only waving its head in the rusalka’s direction and stomping a rooted foot on the ground. It turned to face the burning buildings then turned back, tendrils waving. Its feet shifted and its tail whipped through the air.
“What,” Adelaide grumbled, leaning back into the water. She blew a few bubbles across the surface of the water. “D’you want me ta’ carry you again, y’great shrub? Or’re we going to play pantomime until we both burn t’ crisps?”
No response. The plant thing’s mouth opened and closed with a creak of branches.
Not knowing what to make of this, the rusalka considered diving again and resurfacing somewhere less likely to be occupied by moving topiaries that leaked nasty burning stuff and ruined her lovely skin. Anywhere near the fire was off limits, obviously, unless she wanted to be baked like a salmon, but there was still the hills. They wouldn’t burn for some time, she guessed. There had to be somewhere she could go without taking a boot to the face or getting her poor water all fouled up by nasty fruit.
Before she could submerge, however, M. hunkered down and began to creep towards her, taking exaggeratedly careful steps as if stalking a particularly dense animal. Adelaide bristled, preparing to dive, only to find that the panther body was extending roots towards her. She bared her needly teeth in warning, but the tendrils came closer until they were a mere few feet away, then lay placidly still. The panther had stopped moving as well, frozen in a tense crouch. The rusalka found herself reminded of an awkward new neighbor, hand extended for shaking and face locked into a rigor of politeness. Except that in this case the neighbor didn’t have a face. Or hands.
M. had no knowledge of the language of Walkers, but it gathered from the memories of the panther it had once been what the corpse in the water was trying to say. The bared teeth and the extended claws were clear indications of hostility, as were the thing’s narrowed eyes and hunched posture, but the way it kept to the rear of its curious pool and regarded <i>M.</i>’s tendrils expressed an immediate unwillingness to fight. M. was also hesitant to begin another engagement: it was lacking some rather large roots and had sustained many more bites and scrapes of varying severity from the corpse’s attacks. It hoped that the pale thing would be able to understand its desire to discontinue their battle. M. was unsure of the corpse’s intelligence, though it by no means had high hopes.
Green water splashed again from the dead Walker’s strange pool- M. could not help but shudder at the thought of the terrible confusion that same water had brought on- but it was not the swamping wave that the corpse had thrown at it earlier. It only slightly dampened the strange ground as the corpse made that odd screaming sound again. Was it angry? It was difficult to tell if this dead Walker was ever anything but angry. It seemed to be gesturing now, though. Towards the hills.
As reluctant as M. was to follow the directions of any Walker, even (and especially) a dead one, it couldn’t deny what had prompted it to stay near the corpse even after it had attacked him so viciously. The strange water that surrounded it reeked of all the scents of a healthy river: fertile mud, thriving weeds, the spawn of insects and the blood of fish, all hiding under a powerful overtone of water not yet tainted by the stink of Walkers and their horrible toxins. Even as it had struggled in the highly alarming underground swamp (were there subterranean pools here? M. had heard of such things in the past) the plant spirit could not help but to wonder why no water flora existed in such fruitful waters. Perhaps the corpse had eaten it all? M. doubted this, given the sharp teeth he had become so familiar with. The spirit made a mental note to examine this dilemma later, when there was not quite so much fire in the area.
The corpse vanished suddenly, and M. looked around in surprise before noticing its dark and angry face emerging from a cramped-looking smear of water a quite a ways away. It should not have been possible to travel so far in so little time, but as the panther body began to lope towards the impatiently waiting Walker-corpse it found that it didn’t much care for what went on in the strange water so long as it stayed pure and the plant spirit didn’t find itself tumbling about hopelessly in its curious depths.