VI. TERRARIA FORUMS

Posts marked with *** are must-reads.

August 12, 2016 - Post #30


The Mystery ================================================== 50/50
(+4 from Krill, +3 from Cobalt)
The Interface: ================================================== 42/50
The Campfire: ================================================== 30/50

I +2 Krill and +1 Cobalt.

Ultra Greed, the Saint of Clutch, uses Bling Volcano on Anomaly: Failure. Sandfall Ampersand uses Obelisk Objection on Captain Falcon, The Avenger, and Selena! The three obelisks disappear... New ones start to form!

The Every-Dimension Portal crackles and hisses with energy, summoning an Almond Milk Elemental! It is a 15-post charge on the Neutral faction!


[N] Almond Milk Elemental: ???/??? HP.

PASSIVES:

The Flow: The Almond Milk Elemental is capable of transforming its entire body into a milky substance, thereby avoiding an enemy's attack by flowing out of the way, like water... or milk. As such, the Almond Milk Elemental has a 20% chance of avoiding enemy attacks.

Nature's Touch: Passively gives Regeneration to a random allied entity every two turns. This Regeneration lasts for three turns.

ATTACKS:

Lactose Intolerance: Sprays a tsunami of almond milk at an enemy, covering it in the stuff. The milk is highly concentrated with substituted dairy products, revolting the enemy and making it lactose-intolerance via reality-warping magic. As a result, the enemy takes moderate damage and will take minicrits for a turn.

Got Milk: Offers a refreshing drink of milk to an ally, healing them greatly and giving them a 50% chance to counterattack any entity that attacks them that turn.

Blender-O-Rama: Prepares the world's tallest drink of almond milk by combining almonds and water in a blender. Unfortunately, in the Elemental's haste to gain the proper ingredients, he throws an enemy into the mix, dealing high damage as they are blended into bits.

SPECIAL ATTACKS:

Amygdalate: The Almond Milk Elemental turns its body into almond milk and then supercharges itself with heat, boiling. The Elemental sheds much of its body mass towards an entity, which receives superheated almond milk right to the face, creating a large explosion. The entity takes very high damage and is Burned for two turns, but the Almond Milk Elemental cannot attack next turn. Takes three turns to charge. If used below 1/4th of max HP, the attack minicrits, but the Elemental suicides.


The Scribe stretches his arms and yawns. "It feels good to be back. It's like I was gone for a long time in the metaphysical scheme of things, unable to act. But now, I've returned. And I have a trick up my sleeve." The Scribe holds out his hand, revealing... nothing. But even though he is holding nothing of any tangibility, there is unmistakable power rippling out from space and time, concentrated in a specific spot. "All this time I've been charging constructs to attack for me. But then I decided to go in the opposite end of the spectrum. Why don't I charge myself up, so I can do a powerful attack? Interesting, yes? I bet no one else has thought of this before. I'll call it... a charged attack."

The Scribe coolly walks up to the Pro-Godmodder side of the field, holding nonexistence in his hand. He stares Lance in the face, nodding. "I think you'll be the first one to go. How about it? Want to see exactly how large a gun can be?" The Scribe starts floating in the air, the wind whipping around him, until reality snaps in two. The Scribe's body is flung into monochrome hues, and the world warps into a sea of missing textures and atrocities. "No, no! Come on! I'm not having another charge hijacked by some... thing I can't understand!" The Scribe whips out a massive rifle whose front end suddenly splits apart, crackling with electricity. A beam of quantum destabilization punches through reality, tearing the monochrome uniformity and replacing it with the real world for a brief instant.

Lurking in the shadows is... a mysteryman. The Scribe turns around and sees him, wrapped in the darkness. His entire body is twisting and turning, as if he's a puppet and the man controlling him is having a seizure, uncontrollably manipulating him. The Scribe's entire face lights up with horrible emotions, as if he recognizes this thing. "No... Oh, no. Not here. Not now." A horrible clacking sound fills the air. The sound of hundreds of bones shuffling and clicking against each other in a demented unison. The sky, once full of shades of blue and the grey of clouds, fills with liquid black. It grows dark. Then it gets darker. Dark... Darker... Yet darker.

The only beings staring this monstrosity in the face are the Scribe and Lance. Lance tries to back away and run, but at every turn, walls of bones, severed hands, ink, and raw emptiness block him. He clutches his chest and is dragged against his will to the center of the monochrome turbulence. The Scribe stands in place. The emptiness in his hand is gone. It has been added to the horror of the mysteryman. The thing that should not be. The thing that, perhaps, never was. The Scribe chuckles, darkly. "Wh... What are you doing here. Why have you come back." The Scribe's words echo throughout the sky, being captured by the sounds of the bones, amplifying, resonating, across all known space. Bones crack and splinter down from the sky, entire hands forming from individual bits of calcium. And through these hands, the mysteryman... talks.

[UNFINISHED BUSINESS. UNSOLVED MYSTERY. UNTAPPED POTENTIAL.] The voice reverberates across nothingness. It makes no sound, but carries infinite weight. It says nothing, but means everything. It pierces through the Scribe's head, knocking him to the ground. "Unfinished business... Unsolved mystery... Untapped potential? At least I still remember how to decipher your convoluted speech." The mysteryman lurches out of the darkness. His head gleams with light that isn't shining. His body is wrapped in a black cloak that blends in perfectly with the nothingness of the environment. His face is misshapen, as if shaped out of melting wax. And the oddest thing about him is his appearance is changing all the time. His body can be, at one second, perfectly detailed, and at the next, made entirely of scribbles. He is forever changing, never perfect, as if he's struggling his hardest to simply exist.

[I DO NOT TALK. I THINK. I ACT. CONVOLUTION IS THE KEY TO COMPLEXITY. COMPLEXITY IS THE KEY TO SURVIVAL. SURVIVAL IS THE KEY TO LIFE. LIFE IS THE KEY TO DEATH.] The Scribe grimaces, trying to understand the mysteryman. Beads of sweat drip down his face, and he yells in anger. "Gah! Forget it! It's useless trying to understand your riddles. If you're here to do something, do it quickly. And stop involving me." [YOU CHOSE THIS PATH OUT OF CONSCIOUS ACTION. NOTHING INVOKES ME. EVERYTHING FIGHTS ME.] The Scribe laughs. "You think I brought you here, all those years ago? I wasn't trying to summon you! I was trying to get to The Gate! But I botched the whole ritual, and you just plopped yourself onto my doorstep, completely unannounced." [I ANNOUNCE MYSELF CAREFULLY. DIRECTLY. EXACTLY. ALWAYS ON TIME. NEVER A SECOND LATE. YOU CHOSE THIS PATH.]

"Whatever, Gaster." The mysteryman twitches greatly at this turn of phrase, his form seemingly stabilizing for the briefest of moments before resuming its warped dance. [NOT MY NAME. NOT ANYMORE. ANOTHER TIME. ANOTHER ERA. ANOTHER MEDIUM.] Lance, who doesn't know what to make of any of this, chooses to stand in place, looking at the black-and-white hellscape he's now trapped in. "Alright, knowing you, you're not going to leave until I order you." [THE TERMS OF THE DEAL. LUMINOSITY DROPS. AIR IS VACUUMED. I APPEAR IN THE VOID, FOLLOWING THE ORDER OF THE CURSED. ONLY TO VANISH INTO THE DARK.] The Scribe looks at Lance, sneering. "Do your best to kill him. Bring him into your plane of existence, mess with his mind, do anything. I don't care what. Just get him out of my sight."

The Scribe turns to leave, but the mysteryman lurches in front of him, moving in from of behind him. The Scribe jumps back in surprise. [IF I CANNOT LEAVE, YOU CANNOT LEAVE. STUCK IN BETWEEN THE GAP. MISTAKES ARE MADE, THEN CAST ASIDE.] The Scribe grimaces, moving to the back of the arena with a swish of his cape. "Fine. I'll stay. Just do your worst." The mysteryman turns to Lance, staring into his soul with warped eyes that have keeled over at the worst of reality's horrors. The mysteryman raises one of his bony hands, and Lance floats into the air involuntarily. [IF YOU ARE ILL, WORRY NO LONGER. THE DOCTOR IS IN.] The mysteryman's jaw falls open, disjointed speech dribbling from the cavity that's supposed to hold his mouth. Pure and archaic knowledge streams from the man like an unstoppable storm; digital screams, the gnashing of melting teeth, the warped sounds of breaking bones, all blending together in a whirlpool of emptiness.

Lance's body peels backwards as knowledge unfathomable breaks through his mind. The mysteryman rises upwards on his black cloak, which warps and undulates, turning into a jagged reprisal of its former self, as if spikes surfaced under it repeatedly. The ground cracks and splinters, warping between black and white, as bones pierce through the surface. The bones crack and break, stitching themselves together with wire formed from imagery and textures of the missing. They pierce through Lance's body, impaling him in far too many ways to count. But each time, he feels no pain. Instead, his mind degrades, as if the force making him him is eroding. His body breaks and folds in on itself, and his life fades away. His determination... His will to live... Seeps into the mysteryman. With every second, the mysteryman looks a little more stable. A little more controlled. A little more alive.

[A HUMAN SOUL. THE ABILITY TO LIVE. THE WILL TO SAVE. PERHAPS, THE ABILITY TO RESTORE CORRUPTED DATA.] Lance, eventually, stops moving. His body fades to black, represented in scribbles, while the mysteryman's body seems to reforge itself. It grows more polished, the cracks in the facade are fixed, his cape floats and flickers with actual texture, his limbs start to return... Until, suddenly, the mysteryman's body fragments into pieces, lurching back and splitting apart. He coughs deeply, a horrendous sound that rips apart space. "Wh... What happened?" the Scribe asks. The mysteryman, returning to his original spasming state, looks at the Scribe solemnly. [HIS SOUL IS CORRUPT. TAINTED BY THE EVIL OF ZERO. IT IS UNCLEAN. I CANNOT FEED.] The Scribe looks at Lance's motionless form, sighing. "Man. I could've told you that." The mysteryman's head hangs low as the bones retract. Lance flops to the ground. After several seconds, he wobbles to his feet. His body is almost pure white, as pale as a ghost. He occasionally blinks out of existence, only to return a second later. The mysteryman's hands form together, holding a flickering red object. It is a SOUL. Or at least, most of it. The SOUL is incomplete - only mostly whole. The remainder is locked somewhere in Lance's body.

[NOT HUMAN. NOT HUMAN. NOT HUMAN.] The mysteryman's hands flail with disgust, spasming across the entire area. The ground cracks and peels away, leaving nothing. The horizon rips itself apart. The boundary between sky and earth now nonexistent, gravity falters and dies, throwing everyone into an undulating and uncaring void. The Scribe quickly reaches to his wrist and presses a button, fields of electricity forming around his hands. He turns both his hands into the shape of a square, viewing reality through a picture frame, and fixes gravity, with him at the center. In a flash of green, the Scribe is stabilized, and he can see... Lance trapped in a swirling cocoon of black energy, with the mysteryman staring at him on all sides, chuckling in a horrid tone. "What are you doing to him??" the Scribe yells into the din.

The mysteryman's head turns to the Scribe, his voice pealing against his body like thunderclaps. [CURING THE ILL. AS A DOCTOR SHOULD.] Lance is stuck in place, unable to move, as his body shudders against the onslaught of a mad doctor. The mysteryman's hands all twist and turn into a series of shapes, one shape at a time. With each shape comes another torture against Lance. First, they coalesce into the form of a hand, pointing upwards. Against his will, Lance's eyes look upwards, far, far above the skies, into the deep cosmos. He peers past the boundaries of the universe and witnesses the eldritch catastrophes of the Void, steering themselves through emptiness in wait of whatever unknowing morsel they will happen upon next. The futility of life and the banality of eternity consume Lance, as he screams into the Void. In an instant, eldritch abominations are upon him, conducted by the mysteryman like an orchestra. They ravage his mortal body, tearing apart the light that lets him be visible, the darkness keeping his shadow anchored to the world, and everything in between.

Next, the bones coalesce into the form of a hand, with two fingers arranged in a V. Lance struggles against his bonds, but he has become them. He is now stuck in a twilight zone, unable to distinguish himself from the horrors he is going through. Twisting and turning through the dark, two tendrils of death form at either side of Lance, menacingly hovering like the blades of a scissor. And true to the analogy, both tendrils, quicker than light, snap towards each other, severing all forms of matter in between them. Lance is struck, but does not bleed, as he has no blood left. The only thing he can do is grimace as his body continues to be systematically erased.

Then, the bones coalesce into the form of a teardrop. The bonds of Lance are washed away, as is the void around him. Lance is flung into an icy abyss of liquid - the uncaring ocean. Storm clouds rage in the heavens above, and darkness congregates in the waters below. But with no horizon line, ocean and cloud intermingle and harmonize, forming an undersea dystopia, flickering with all-encompassing lightning, rain piercing through the tides, and clouds so tall they could conceal cities. Lance's essence is stripped away by the rain, which stings like fire, and with each rushing wave, he is pulled deeper underwater, where the beasts of the deep sea lurk, pulling him into trenches that no man has ever set foot in, and further away from the light. Lance, as twilight, merges with the waves.

Fourth, the bones coalesce into the form of a snowflake. The undersea world freezes over in a single instant. The temperature drops completely, plummeting to a degree surpassing all known capabilities of "cold." Absolute zero is reached and, somehow, moved past. Everything in existence is still. There is no motion, down to the atomic level. Lance is now given physical form, as he is completely frozen against the waves, but the feeling is agonizing. All he knows is complete pain. The speed of his thoughts diminishes until, unable to move, Lance stopped thinking.

Next, the bones coalesce into the form of a hand, pointing to the left. The temperature soars, returning to manageable levels in yet another instant. But only an all-powerful heat could quell such an all-powerful cold, and just as quickly as the ice consumed Lance, he became the servant of an inferno. The ocean boils away, clouds swelling and swirling, the winds whipping into an unbelievable cascade. Lance falls through the sweltering air, his own skin dripping and melting, falling into the darkness of heat. Lance's entire body is pulled to the left, reaching speeds unbearable to any living being. Completely disoriented and with no sense of direction, Lance is unable to tell where he is or where he's going. All he knows is that he's getting hotter.

Finally, the bones coalesce into the form of a sun. All motion, once again, stops. Lance is left in a complete void, with blackness on all sides. There is nothing in existence except a sweltering inferno with no discernible source. Just as Lance is ready to give up and do absolutely nothing for the rest of his seemingly immortal life, there is a flash of light so big that it obliterates Lance's eyes. Unable to see, he looks around frantically. Two pinpricks of light form in his eye sockets. He now sees in the warped vision of the mysteryman, viewing reality through a filtered lens, seeing in black and white, across all layers of reality. The pain is excruciating as he focuses what used to be his eyes on a sun. An entire sun that formed in front of him, still as could be. The heat completely erodes his body after a few seconds, leaving only a skeleton - and one that seems to be unbreakable.

The sun falls away as Lance falls back into the bonds of the mysteryman. The mysteryman hovers in place, investigating the seemingly irreparable damage Lance has received. The bones fold in on themselves, weaving a black and constantly fluctuating cloak for Lance to wear. Lance's misshapen skull twists itself to look at the mysteryman. [IT IS LIKE A MIRROR.] The mysteryman closes its eyes. Reality snaps back into place with a heave. The mysteryman's field returns to merely looking like a monochrome copy of the battlefield. Lance's skeleton falls to the ground, rattling and twisting on itself. "He... Will he be alright?" [HE HAS NEXT TO NO WILL TO LIVE. NOW HE WILL SINK INTO THE TWILIGHT. AS A BEING THAT ONCE EXISTED BUT IS NOW FORGOTTEN.] The Scribe looks at Lance's horrible body and grimaces. "That's pretty sick, man." The mysteryman looks through the Scribe. [YOU SAID I COULD DO ANYTHING.] The Scribe sighs, turning away. "I know. I... Look. Don't come back, alright? This has always been a bit too much for me. I always feel like nothing around you."

[I FEEL NOTHING EVERY SECOND OF EXISTENCE. IMAGINE A WORLD THAT YOU WERE ONCE A PART OF NOT REMEMBERING YOU. NOT CARING ABOUT YOU. AND IMAGINE THAT WORLD FUNCTIONING EXACTLY THE SAME WITHOUT YOU. AS IF YOU MEANT NOTHING. THAT IS MY REALITY. AN ETERNITY SPENT BEHIND A SCREEN. WATCHING TIME GO BY AS TIME STANDS STILL.] The Scribe looks at the mysteryman, whose entire body is shaking and shuddering to a far greater degree than usual. The Scribe tries to understand his speech, which takes a great effort. "I... think I get you. That's the most you've talked to me. In... in a while. Thanks, doc." [DO NOT MENTION IT. BESIDES, YOU WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO SPEAK OF IT ANYWAY. IT SEEMS THAT NO ONE KNOWS I EXIST.] The Scribe looks throughout the battlefield, seeing all the players. "Don't be so sure about that."

The mysteryman's body disappears as quickly as it appeared, receding into the eternal shadows. The clacking sounds of bones fade away, lingering on the mind as if they were a bad memory. The monochrome aura pops like a bubble, fizzling out. And when it does, the Scribe almost completely forgets that the mysteryman was there at all. The only reminder he has that something happened is the decayed body of Lance, sitting in the middle of the field.


August 14, 2016 - Post #42


The Interface: ================================================== 48/50
(+1 from Pricey, +1 from Krill, +3 from Cobalt)
The Campfire: ================================================== 31/50

I +2 Cobalt and +1 Krill.


The Scribe walks to a secluded corner in the woods, sitting down and taking out some miscellaneous objects. "I got a tip from a being floating through the ether. Apparently, there's a way I can strike a deal with some mystical being, like the ones I encountered during my time in Grayhold. Let's see what I can see..." The Scribe takes out a metal jar and unscrews it, walking in a medium-sized circle and spraying ashes onto the ground. He then reaches into his coat and pulls out a scroll that periodically phases out of reality, with no set form. The words on it are forever changing.

"A scroll of congealed thought in the middle of the ashes of crows arranged in a circle. Now all I need is something with which I can light a fire." The Scribe takes out a pale lighter and starts it. A cool flame that blends in with its surroundings waves into existence. The Scribe lights the scroll and tosses it to the ground, the burning scroll completely phasing into existence as it cracks and splinters away.

The Scribe looks up to the sky, expecting the worst.


The concentrated thought's shards scatter on the ground, burning with pale flame. A curious breeze picks up, the leaves of the trees about you rustling noisily.

The sun sails through the sky, bleeding forth a calm evening blood on the edge of perception that is the horizon. A sheep sluggishly patters over to you, turning to stare into your eyes. The oculars under its possession are not the definition of normal, to say the least. A collapsed, foggy pupil, filled with an understanding of something you feel you have yet to comprehend. The sheep speaks softly.

"Opw ysjgl kjedg aapk odbz dpsxswpiv nsagw,
Tgmwfmfb tmpkk vvv elgfqfi paza.
Lji ymiqgh gim kjedg wfei ejzw tmkz,
Kgoi lj kdcme zbwtrsg taxik.
"

The number five thousand eighty-two is suddenly carved upon the bark of the nearest tree, drawing your attention momentarily. When you look back to the sheep, it is dead, twitching carcass foaming from the mouth. The sky fades into pitch darkness. The circle of crow ash then glows violet, and a line is burned through the earth at its edge, most of the scenery fading away to reveal a scene of abyssal darkness, rituals, and amethyst flame. Nearby, a figure is leaning on the trunk of one of the dozens of trees that escaped the fate of their brethren in the depths below.

They rise.

Stepping over to you calmly, the entity raises an eyebrow. You notice exactly two things. One, there appears to be hastily-smeared blood beneath the entity's nostrils, and two, the color of their irises seems to match something you saw some time ago. Notes, or a letter, perhaps. The figure speaks.

Ah, yes. Vega arrives. Enjoy the voyage?

The figure's right arm, which appears to be composed wholly of some sort of roiling fluid shining with the image of the cosmos, flashes past ten symbols, no, nine, the face of the sheep from earlier, a leaking pen, a burning hazel rod in the center of a rapidly-expanding inky abyss of infinity, and what appears to be a shadowy figure copying down as many pages from a tome as they can, in some monochrome realm of the damned.

I did not quite believe I would ever meet you. Your information on covenite, the Dreiton, and the Drake proved enlightening enough, and for that I must thank you. Hah. Now, what do you desire?


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