Excitey :) :) :)
Thank you all for your reviews:
Tbh the accessories do not change often, and I like to post them so readers who play the game can get a good idea of the power scaling between the Two Terrarians. I only really change the armour & accessories when something happens, and mostly just copy/paste from the previous chapter. However, HP and armour is somewhat important when the Terrarian's are fighting.
Armour: Brimflame
Weapon: Winter's Fury, Undine's Retribution, Stormfront Razor
Acc(11/11): The Bee, Celestial cuffs, Mana Flower, Sorcerer Emblem, Cryo Wings, Ankh Shield, Deific Amulet, TerraSpark Boots, Grand Gelatin, Permafrost's Concotion, Evasion Scarf. (Unlimited Buffs)
Health: (500/500)
Armour: Molten Armour (Vanity - Familiar clothes)
Weapon: Molten Bow (Ichor Arrows); Arkhalis
Acc(11/12): Charm of Myths, Ankh Shield, Terraspark Boots, Luxor's Gift, Deific Amulet, Counter Scarf, Crown Jewel, MOAB, Harpy Ring, Aero Stone, Skyline Wings, Warrior Emblem
Health: (400/400)
"Do you want to be free?"
A voice cut through the static.
That infernal static of the ever whirring flesh circuits, horrendous things which stung and pulsed and carefully controlled her will and her thoughts. She could not think. Her mind was not her own. She was a wretched weapon fated to fight and fight, to drown herself in blood though it shatter her heart. To fly through the air, shrieking with chemical motivations pumping through her brain until she barely knew who she was, or what she wanted. For what reason did she fight? For what reason did she live?
Nobody would think to tell her.
The Builder does not explain anything to his hammer. The chef does not consult his knife. She was a tool, a living tool controlled by a curse. Yet what a curse it was! It was of fine workmanship - a marriage of high science and the infernal. It was a finely tuned incantation which was regulated and administered by fluids and pumps, wires and the crackle of electricity - perfectly clouding her mind. Perfectly crushing her will, until all she could manage was to watch in terror as her brothers were cut down, and her clones were torn free, and ... now she too was plummeting from the heights.
And a face followed her.
Her opponent - a man, yet he didn't look like any of the scientists or knights she's seen in her many years of battle. Although his build was fully grown, something about his face was very young. There an innocence there - a tarnished innocence that'd been thrashed apart and beaten by life's many trials, but this man still had hope. He was pale as birch; his hair was pure white. His eyes were reptilian yet glowed like noble coals... but that in itself was not particularly abnormal. She'd seen many strange people in her days.
No, it was the way he looked at her.
His expression - not disgust, nor snarling, nor the gnashing of teeth, nor the malicious glint of triumphant victory.
No.
He was full of grief.
Grief not for himself, but indignant grief as he saw her plight.
He opened his mouth, and his words cleared the cloud in her mind. The words spoke to her very soul.
"You need not be a weapon."
Kind words, rough, yet gentle - as if he too were a warrior and had never spoken gently in his entire life. His face was expressive, shifting rapidly through a series of emotions she had only foggy memories of, before landing on steadfast, almost begrudging goodwill. There was hope in his face. The glimmer in those reptilian eyes that said 'I have a plan, and my plans are for good'. He reached out a hand as they fell together, and she - unsure of exactly why she returned the gesture, reached her many arms out to clutch at his armoured gauntlet.
Was this a trap?
Perhaps a glint would appear in his eye and he would tear her asunder. Or the bright smile that spread over his face would suddenly turn vicious. Or perhaps he would-
"Your face... you're quite beautiful."
Not a lick of deceit in those wide, child-like eyes. He stated it without any desire or ulterior motive. Simply as a fact.
And if she remembered how to laugh, she might have laughed until she bawled. Beautiful? The cursed, wretched thing that she was - sewn onto corpses and wreathed in bloodflame. If not for his earnestness, she would have thought he were merely mocking her. But he wasn't. He was growing excited at he gazed over her torn, lumbering form - as if he weren't naturally disgusted by her at all. He began to speak quickly as icy wings fanned from his back to slow their mutual fall. Gods, was he an angel? The cold snowflakes fell upon her burning flesh, soothing the fevered skin wheresoever they landed - and the clone felt tears well in her eyes.
And for the first time, they weren't tears of pain or despair. Of anger or self pity.
No, it was something else.
Something so foreign to her miserable existence, she hadn't a word for it.
"I wonder how it will be when we restore you! My Teacher is very skilled. He has given me this body, and I am certain he is capable of healing you as well. You don't need to serve... whoever you were serving. You are a person, and not a weapon."
They landed gently in the grass. Her opponent knelt at her side and attempted to clasp at the many hands clinging to his gauntlets and forearms. Rather obviously, he lacked the limbs to return to gesture in full, and after a long minute he simply gave up. He looked upon her earnestly and continued to chatter. He seemed to like talking very much.
"Would you come with me? Let me help you."
"...P-please-"
She ground through the words, halting through one ghastly syllable after the other until her throat burned and the mechanisms attached to her form trembled and crackled. A flip switched in the back of her mind. The silent, sinister activation of a curse, a spell triggered by her disobedience. She heard it, and she knew it was the end.
For she could not fight her lord.
Nor the curse her Lord had laid upon her.
But... The Man with Dragon's eyes - could he save her? Could she seize that beautiful hope he'd held out so tenderly towards her? She trembled and sobbed, clinging to his armoured wrists as her body began to lose its structure. She groaned at him.
"P-please... he...lp-"
The change did not go unnoticed by The Man. His eyes widened as he watched the limbs that touched him slowly lose their form and collapse, as if she were a sculpture of sand that crumbled at the slightest touch. It hurt terribly, like she was being eaten by a thousand gnawing bugs... yet even so, she clung to him. When one arm snapped and disappeared into the grass, she reached another towards him - as if this man, who had been her adversary only moments ago, was her very lifeline.
Her opponent began to panic, his voice going high and shrill.
"Wait! What are you doing! You're breaking!"
"Ple...ase."
He tried to draw away but faltered at her sobbing. Did he know she was dying? Could he sense the closing jaws of that merciless curse? Her mechanisms were warring against her flesh, pulsing and digging through her, electrocuting her nerves and stabbing at her heart. She could feel the burning consumption eating her alive, turning flesh to brittle chalk, and chalk withering to dust. She could feel it seeping up from her extremities, crumbling her limbs, then her torso, it crawled up her throat - it lodged beneath her tongue. She was breaking.
She raised her eyes to meet her opponent's. He was frozen, his face aghast. A tear slid down his cheek as he watched her crumble to dust is his arms. Was he crying for her? Was he in despair on her account?
Perhaps he really was an angel.
If she remembered how, she would've laughed.
It was shocking how normal The Monster Knight looked dressed in plainclothes.
Indeed, without his signature armour and bobbing feathered plume, The Guide nearly lost him in the crowd each time he took his eyes off of him. The man was made to blend in. His features were painfully average, perfectly symmetrical and so pedestrian that in the sea of faces - The Guide could scarcely pick him out from a lineup. One would think his pale eyes and dull, faded skin would make him appear suspiciously... dead, but such was clearly not the case. After the fiftieth scare in a row, The Guide grew so frustrated with his companion's near-invisibility, he grabbed The Knight by the tunic and threaded their elbows together, demanding that they navigate the festival arm in arm or not at all.
"Guide... why does it glow."
And it wasn't until somebody tried to sell him chocolates that he realized they looked like every other pair of lovers milling about the festival grounds. How awkward... but The Monster Knight was behaving himself in a very non-monstrous way. The Guide had passed through The Capitol Gates fully expecting his companion to be surly with the populace, but in fact, he had done quite the opposite. He turned out to be quite the polite partygoer, if not a very serious shopper, which meant he insisted upon frequently disappearing into crowds to ogle at even the most basic of trinkets.
And frankly, if The Stylist wasn't still in The Compound on The Crimson border, The Guide would be very happy to lose The Monster Knight and simply scurry off into the city. But with his lover's life hanging in the balance, he simply could not afford to. And thus, he held into The Knight's arm, argued with him, and allowed himself to be dragged from shop to shop (because he sure as hell couldn't drag The Monster Knight anywhere). How dearly he wished he had The Stylist around his arm instead, but alas - he bore this indignity for her sake.
"Guide-"
"It just glows because it glows. Can we please leave?"
"..."
Of course they couldn't, The Monster Knight was cripplingly stubborn about the strangest of things, and he had long since fixated on being the most gullible tourist on The Continent. He continued to stare at the glowing vial of stardust as if it were the most shocking thing he'd ever laid eyes upon. The Guide tugged on his arm, but he knew no matter how insistent he was, The Knight would not be convinced to move. The shopkeeper - a large, jolly looking woman, hovered over the two of them, spewing all sorts of old wives tales about The Stardust's magical qualities and The Guide, being a professor of the nearby Magical University, knew that exactly all her claims were false.
"Only two gold for that vial of magical dust! It grants wishes, you know! if you sprinkle it on your doorstep good luck will come to your house. If you drink it, your ailments will be healed. Go on and ask your boyfriend to buy it for you, yes?"
The Shopkeeper waggled her eyebrows at him and The Guide rolled his eyes in disgust. He had continually denied their relationship from morning until now, and was frankly tired of doing so. The Knight didn't seem to be interested in any of the innuendo being thrown his way, and scrutinized the vial of cheap party dust as if he were examining fine pearls.
"Come on now, good sir. Just look at him!" The Shopkeeper indicated towards The Monster Knight with her generous chins. "Two Gold isn't much. I can tell you can afford it, designer shoes and all that."
"...tch."
The Guide glared back at her, but at this point, he was far too tired to argue. They had entered the festival this morning the intention of striding straight through to reach the University grounds ten or fifteen blocks into the metro area (a half-hour's walk at a brisk pace), but The Monster Knight had slowed their progress so dramatically, The Guide swore he'd have covered more ground crawling blindfolded. And to think he was foolish enough to assume that buying whatever trinket The Knight dwelled to long upon would speed up their progress! The almost-man who'd carried him on his back for a thousand miles this morning was better at draining his wallet than all of The Guide's prior girlfriends combined!
I can't believe I paid forty gold for a living shard... how ridiculous.
The Monster Knight tore his eyes from the vial of stardust to look expectantly at him, and The Guide groaned internally as he fished out his coin-pouch. He emptied it into his palm to find just a gold coin and a few coppers. Despite it was his money The Monster Knight was spending so freely, the fact there was no more left The Guide with a viscous sense of satisfaction. He tapped The Knight's arm, then tapped his own open palm.
"You spent all my money. I don't have enough to buy that nonsense party-dust. Can we go now?"
"..."
The Shopkeeper's demeanor soured considerably as she looked over the counter into his palm. The Monster Knight's expression didn't even waver. He reached over and plucked the single gold coin from The Guide's palm and held it out to the unhappy woman. She frowned and shooed him away.
"No, I will not sell for a single gold coin! Don't you know how to count? Two Gold. Two! Put down my merchandise. I will not be short changed by the likes of you!"
The Monster Knight's face twisted oddly and The Guide was momentarily afraid he would lash out in violence. Instead, he met the Shopkeeper's eyes and began the poorest attempt at bartering The Guide had ever witnessed.
"... Two Gold."
"Yes, Two!"
"Not one."
"Not one. Two. And one more for all your bellyaching."
"Fine."
The Knight placed the coin back into The Guide's palm and the man breathed a sigh of relief, thinking this meant they were finally finished falling into Tourist's traps. Unfortunately, he failed to take into account his companion's unnatural abilities.
For from seemingly nowhere at all, a full sized, 400 ounce gold bar appeared in The Knight's gloved palm. It was about the length of his forearm and was just as heavy as its size indicated. He placed it on the Shopkeeper's counter with more than a little annoyance.
"Here. One." *thunk*
"Two." *clack*
He raised his chin and tapped at the two sparkling bars, stacked one atop the other. He sniffed triumphantly, as if he had somehow twisted The Shopkeeper's words and come out of this bargain the victor.
"It's gold. And there are two. Two gold."
"Y-yes! I suppose so!"
"I want the stardust."
"Of course, sir!"
"And I know how to count."
"Indeed, sir you do!"
The Shopkeeper's eyes nearly popped from her head as she quickly snatched the gold bars from the counter and wrapped them in cloths, hiding them in her clothing as she waved them away and promptly abandoned her shop. The Guide's eyes nearly rolled into the back of his head as The Monster Knight jovially dragged him to the next stall, where he was forced to transact in duplicated coins instead of actual golden ingots.
And The Knight's eyes were so purely excited he'd managed to overpay by a literal factor of ten thousand, that The Guide really didn't have the heart to tell him just how badly he'd been ripped off.
Besides, if I did, he'd likely go back and kill that woman...the last thing I need is for us to get arrested...
It was early afternoon.
The Market closed at midnight.
And The Guide was convinced nothing short of divine intervention was going to prevent The Monster Knight from being the last person to leave The Capitol's Autumn Festival.
"She doesn't know what he looks like?"
"Nope, she swears he's of normal height, and average features - but nothing more than that. Crying and begging, snot - the whole works. But she identified his partner without much trouble. Some snooty high-brow scholar. Brown sand-colour hair. Designer shoes. Thin and wiry, and frankly a fantastic hostage. Probably belongs to a wealthy family."
"hm..."
The figures mutter in the shadows. A large group of them, perhaps ten or twenty converse in low voices in the seedy looking bar. Some have stopped playing pool to listen. Others clink their whisky glasses as they gaze upon the sparkling gold bullions sitting in the center of the table. A man in a silken feathered hat rings his fork against his wineglass - a gesture to speak. The mutterings stop, and all turn their ears to him.
He clears his throat.
"These gold bars... are perfectly identical. There are no scratches nor flaws, nor even the slightest difference in print nor dimension. I recall there was a similar incident that arose a month ago amongst The Travelling Merchant's Guild. A colleague of mine - a man who has since gone missing - returned to us with a Slime King's crown and one-hundred-and-fifty perfectly cut diamonds, so flawless and so identical, many ladies of high society have nearly bankrupted their houses seeking to own them."
Muttering among the crowd. Greedy glints appeared in the eyes of many of the more viscous patrons.
The Travelling Merchant continued, his features half hidden beneath the shadow of his hat's brim.
"And the legend is even more outstanding... that the diamonds were not found... they were created. An almost-man with pale dead eyes had spilled them from his palm like water. My illustrious friends... I have reason to believe this fount of wealth is walking our very streets tonight."
Chattering. The clatter of knives and firearms being gathered and holstered. Low laughter and greedy chuckles. The Travelling Merchant finished with a flourish-
"And, good men, when you find him, I -do- expect a finder's fee... "
Clone Calamitas: Say, may you be angels?
MK & Faze: Nay! We are but men.
(Jack Black vocalizes in the background)
When Guide and The MK literally go on a festival date.
MK isn't just buying garbage actually. Every thing he made THe Guide buy are in-game ingredients used for crafting :)
Also rip the goons lmao.
* slight discrepancy that i'm just gonna roll with. The only person who actually saw MK spill diamonds from his palms was Guide #1 in like chapter 20 idk. However Imma pretend the rumor spread through like, Nurse and Arms Dealer who escaped or something. It's been a long long time for a lot of readers and i felt I needed a little more to jog your memory. The diamonds were from when MK first made his diamond hook and put the extra into The Original Guide's socks drawer.
Can you believe it was only a month ago lmao.