Scint River
09-27-2017, 06:27 PM
It was true—he had killed many of the Helovians, and for reasons he might not otherwise have killed for, but there was one thing he wondered if they truly considered: he could change.
He had, already. He'd been born in the fires of vengeance, a single purpose seared into his divine soul: bring life back to the Rift. With nothing but fury and corruption and greed in his body, he had not had it in him to care.
Bit by bit, he was learning, yet it was Erthë who was so eager to put him back in the mold of what he'd been. It was she who clung to his past actions as if they gave her meaning in his beautiful world, as if she was nothing without her hate.
His eyes remained focused on what happened, flitting from one mare to the other, but he did not speak again. There was no point in it. Erthë had already made up her mind, and if she chose not to give the items to him, he didn't have time for anything save violence. Spikes and spines bristled down his neck and spine, and the blade hummed a little faster through the air. Restless breaths turned to black smoke when they passed his slitted nostrils.
Finally, she gave the bow and the fangs to Kiada, who took them and, without hesitation, held them out to him.
No!
He ignored the burning pain of Vjanta's resistance, and reached out. Where the bow touched him, iridescent scales formed, black blood oozing around their singed edges—the bone disappeared somewhere beneath the almost-cloak of tiger stripes, fused into the mess like a spine over his own, bleeding shimmering scales. The teeth lodged themselves in his mouth, glowing faintly green, and for a moment his eyes blinked with bright orange instead of teal. Then, it was gone, but the edges of his hair—where he still had hair—turned bloody red.
Three of the four presences within intensified. Struggled. Kisamoa pressed his eyes shut, bared his teeth; his face twisted, but on such grotesque features, would one still recognize pain?
It was unbalanced. Uneven.
But it was all he fucking had.
"Thank you," he said to Kiada after a few, tense moments, his limber neck uncurling from its contorted position. His jaws were full of jagged, rugged teeth, but the tip of his elongated muzzle was strangely soft as it pressed against Kiada's wounded shoulder.
"A word of warning: you have both stepped where you should not. It might be ..unpleasant, returning to the surface. Would you rather drift around here, be my guest. I'm going now. Hold on if you want to come with me." He eyed Erthë for a moment, her broken wing, her clouded mind—had they had more time, he would've explored ways to fix at least the wing, but as it was, he had a lot more at stake.
If they chose to go with him, he wrapped his serpentine body around them, his thick, black blood burning with the conflict raging within.
Then, he bit down on the sword again, and the demon dragged them up the surface.
The void yawned wider and wider, as the whole of the river swung out into the aether—tethered only by the shadow-veiled east, with the foaming, milk-white river between it and the crowd.
Perhaps, it would've happened so much faster, hadn't it been for those who fought. In a land both starved and saturated with magic they created resonance, harmony, a thin, fragile binding to cause the land to pause in its self-defensive shedding. It was devastated, distraught, so angry that its Champion had driven it to this measure—to cast away something so precious, so old, because Kaos dabbled in powers he had no control over.
It didn't matter what he found in the vaults, he wouldn't be strong enough to turn the tide on what he had unleashed.
But they—wielding corruption, wielding song, wielding little but their bodies and their hearts and souls and minds—gave the land pause. Gave it enough time to let its dark child out of the Scint's depths.
Gave everyone a chance.
"KISAMOA!" someone screamed, full of hope and need, and they moved towards the cry. I am coming the deity of the darkness thought, his mind so carefully shielded from the implications of what was going on.
Kisamoa resurfaced, not with a glorious surge, not with a triumphant cry, but with his own blood dripping down his jaws as the bone-sword cut into his mouth. He simply rose from the white depths of the river, stood blinking for a moment as the ghosts and echoes bounded about.
The bonelights, they were gone, most of them, stolen by the ferocious current.
The earth quaked again, violently; Kisamoa bared his teeth. "RUN!" he yelled, dropping the sword, its demon holding on to it—the gap between the Rainforest Cliffs and the Scint was too wide, impossible to leap, so it was only the other direction left to go.
The river froze.
Thin sheets of milky water rushed over the coating of hoary ice, and the ghosts seemed to loose momentum in the suddenly frigid air. Kaos stood frozen in the river, muttering and mumbling under his breath—the veil of shadows to the east pulled back. A way out. A means of escape.
He hoped they ran.
Those who did not, or those who were too slow, would find themselves swept forward by dark wings, into the safety of the uncloaked East.
When, at last, all had crossed—or those intent on dying had chosen to stay—Kisamoa let go of the raging river, and flung himself across the distance as the world ripped apart. The ground lurched, sickeningly, and in a vertigo-inducing movement the void closed. The Scint was gone, the edges of East and the Cliffs meeting nearly seamlessly, with but a thin, black scar to remember the River of Souls by.
Kisamoa stood next to the fracture, staring dispassionately at the vein of darkness, too stunned to yet take in the magnitude of what he had done.
beauty in darkness
kaos in light
kaos in light
This will remain open a long while, to let people catch up and get their exits.
KAOS returned and froze the river, enabling people to run across it and into the East. A thread will be made there.
HIS ITEMS:
Tiger God Hide Armor (shape of a cloak)
Tiger God Bone Sword (wielded by a shadow demon)
Crocodile God Spine Bow (masquerading as a spine on Kis)
Wolf God Fangs (glowing in his mouth)
Anyone who interacted with ghosts can add glowing markings and/or scars! Please post in Account Updates if you do, so we can add them to your records!
And finally, the Rift chose to hand out some rewards, and some, well.. not quite rewards.
CASTIELLA: Magic Offensive: Can create chains of electricity. Chains cause minor burns upon victims, and mirrors the burns onto her.
CLEMENTINE: Item Vanity: Tambourine with a solar flower pattern on it. It has a soothing effect on those who hears it.
EREBOS: Magic Offensive: Can summon and wield dark blades wreathed in fire.
ERTHË: For stepping into the river, you constantly hear the murmurs of the dead around you.
Item Vanity: A small, frosted charm. It grows hot when blood relatives are near her.
ISKRA: Your sparks are no longer sulfurous.
Item Vanity: A small bonelight, made from a pristine bone with an undying solar flower atop it.
KIADA: For stepping into the river, you develop a spectral lung condition. No matter what you do, it feels like you're always drowning.
LENA: Magic Defensive: Ability to create a shield from song.
MAUNA: Magic Offensive: Can cause eruptions of magma.
OTEM: Item Vanity: An oak leaf charm. When asked things, it answers, sometimes in Isopia's voice, and sometimes as something very rude and cheeky.
Item Vanity: A small bonelight, made from a pristine bone with an undying solar flower atop it.
PATRICK: Magic Offensive: Can move animate and inanimate objects/beings/matter from one location to another with his mind. The targets occasionally shrink or become larger when moved.
VOLTERRA: Vanity Magic The ground around him either quivers or erupts into butterflies when he's angry.
VULKÁN: Item Offensive: A black sword seeping lava.
ZÉKLÉ: Mutation Zekle now has gills.
Item Vanity: A small, metal feather charm engraved with a blue tribal lightning. It occasionally emits harmless sparks.
.. and kaos opened up its eyes
