ohohoho harry potter time
Armour: Brimflame (Vanity- Rags)
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: (300/500)
Armour: Molten Armour (Vanity - CAU Robes)
Weapon: Uzi (High-Velocity Bullet); Molten Bow (Ichor Arrows); Arkhalis
Acc(12/12): 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, Sniper Scope
Health: (400/400)
It's existence was nothing more than a rumor.
Supposedly, there was a small room, or rather, a vault somewhere in the castle in which The Nameless King kept his prized tomes. It was said that all manner of forbidden arts were inscribed upon the pages of these spellbooks, things considered so dreadful and dangerous that only a madman would dare enact such incantations. The Wizard had only had the opportunity to browse its shelves briefly, but what little he saw caused him to tremble. Sorcery to not just invoke the powers of outer gods, but to summon them? To tear the fabric of reality and spread starborne plagues upon the green earth? The sacrifice of human beings to give life to abominations who sullied even the ground upon which they trod. The chants of malice from between hurtling blackened stars. The silent terror radiating from the surface of an empty, muted sea. The-
"Oh dear... "
The Wizard shook the thoughts from his head and sighed heavily over his fifteenth cup of herbal tea. He hated herbal tea, but unfortunately, it was just about all he could stomach nowadays. The spells that prolonged life could only do so much for him, and after three hundred years - The Wizard felt the grave tugging at him at every waking moment. He was old and he was tired - and it didn't help that the last of his old 'friends' have since disappeared. When the news of The Archmage's death had reached his ears, The Old Wizard couldn't help but weep amidst the festivities. When The Lunatic Cultist defected, The Wizard was horrified - but not for the same reason as the rest of The Capitol's citizens.
For although The Cultist was quite a character - ambitious, sometimes insane, oftentimes cruel and unreasonable - he too had once been a boy who ran about these scholarly halls, playing pranks on his classmates and setting the curtains aflame. He was a brilliant boy, the genius of this century to whom magic came as naturally as breathing. How else would he had discovered the Nameless King's magical library? And not only did he pierce through the myriad of cloaking spells, but he decoded the enchantments and broke through as well! How long had it been since they discovered this little secret? Forty years? Fifty? The Wizard sighed heavily as he stood from his chair and slowly made his way out of his office and into the deserted hallways.
(cheep cheep... twitter...)
The Old Wizard breathed deeply as he slowly strolled through the aptly named 'summer courtyard'. Although it was nearly evening and the frosty autumn wind must surely be howling over the ramparts and rooftops, this courtyard was quiet, warm and sunny - it's 'sky' extending much further than the confines of the building allowed. On a normal day, a whole bunch of students would be hanging off the grove branches like loud, misshapen fruit - screaming and throwing food at each other like a pack of monkeys (The Wizard found it amusing, truly) but today it was quiet. So quiet that The Wizard dared to approach the great central tree and relive the first moments he and the young cultist discovered The Nameless King's treasure.
"..."
*click*
This was their little secret. A little inkling of mischievousness he and that brilliant young man shared amongst themselves. It was a stash of great power, of amazing schematics and techniques that had been long lost to time. Even The King didn't know about the secret library, but given the recent developments with The War and the now missing 'Resistance Terrarian', only a fool would dare disclose it.
For it wouldn't take long for even a layman to understand the spells and methods for summoning The Terrarian had been borne here. Back then, he had worked with The Cultist to perfect all manner of techniques. In the years thereafter, when The Cultist was in service to the Imperial court, he would often come back to the University to seek The Wizard's advice on summoning circles and the creation of the most terrifying of beasts - Terrarians included. The Second Resistance war began in The Capitol's magical university, and if Yharim found out - heads would surely begin to roll. Sure, perhaps The King would summon a few more Terrarians using The Cultist's methods, but who knows how many human lives would be sacrificed in the attempt to raise another one of those monsters?! Truly, it wasn't worth it. The Wizard would carry this secret to the grave.
But still...
Despite the risk, sometimes he just had to go visit that darkened vault.
To relive those exciting days where the frontier of discovery was pushed forth day by day.
rumble*
click*
The invisible wards came undone with a gentle hiss - momentarily splitting the fabric of space to reveal a short hallway studded in massive jewels. The corridor was lit from the ground up, iridescent light fluttered and glowed beneath the marble with such intensity, the curved ceiling was peppered with refractions. Behind him, the seam in space zipped shut and the Old man sighed as he approached the vault at the end of the hallway. He laid a hand on the gold plated lock, but froze when he realized the wards had been undone.
It's unlocked? How?
... Had The Cultist come here? Perhaps to hide from The King after The Resistance was destroyed? Perhaps he really had! After all, if The Imperial troops had managed to kill him in the recent battle against The Resistance - such news would have already become widespread. When The Archmage was killed by Yharim's own hand, the news was paraded about ad nauseum for nearly a week thereafter. But The Cultist? If CC agents weren't marching around with his head on a pike, then he was most certainly alive - and in hiding.
So as for the intruder in The Vault, it must be him. Nobody else knew about this place, and if they had, they certainly didn't have the skill to unlock the enchantments.
And perhaps it was rather unpatriotic for The Wizard to be feeling this way... but he really was quite pleased to see his old student once more.
I'm seething.
I'm shaking.
I'm crying and seeing red and grinding my teeth and just so, so angry.
I'm so angry I could kill. I'm so angry I could die. I'm not sure exactly which part of this whole damn catastrophe I'm the most angry about, but I suppose it doesn't really matter, does it? From the moment I was born, conflict followed me everywhere. I was given life, then I was sent to take others. I was made to be a tool, a weapon, chained down and beaten until I became compliant.
But I didn't bend. I didn't become compliant.
Instead, I just broke.
And those bastards saw no value in the one they broke. They sent me away - through The Corruption - to the high tundra. To the prison of The Archmage who, of all the men I've yet encountered, was the first to have pity for me. How sweet his companionship was. I didn't realize how starved I was for it until I experienced that unconditional goodness. In The Archmage's castle, I was safe. I was protected. I belonged.
...
It's at times like this that I miss him.
How terribly I miss him.
I miss having a home. I miss having somebody I can trust. Someone who I care about, and who cares for me. What I would give to once more lounge in The Archmage's drawing room, surrounded by glassy bookcases full of magical tomes and staring into the intricate ceiling and the massive crystalline chandelier. The lessons he taught me eased my mind. His careful ministrations healed my broken soul. I loved The Archmage. He saved me, and I loved him for it. Where would I be without him? What sort of depths would I had fallen into? If I had died there and been cast to the crimson - torn apart continually until now - where would I be? Would my spirit be crushed? Would my fragile sanity shatter? Perhaps I'd become nothing more than a savage beast, abandoning my mind to revel in base instincts. Perhaps I'd be so consumed by fear I'd be merely a shell of myself.
In the past, I wondered at these things. The thoughts of what my future could have been plagued my mind.
But now, I need not wonder.
The Depravity... I've seen it with my own eyes. I know what it looks like when a person becomes a weapon. I have see the disgrace. The humiliation. The utter baseness of reigning in a soul until it becomes fully subjugated to its masters. What did she look like before? What kind of person was she before she was hammered together with the corpses of her peers and made to fight, driven wild with curses and frenzying chemicals? Perhaps she was like me? Or maybe she was born of more natural means? Did she have somebody who might have protected her from such a fate?
Maybe Yharim killed that person as well?
Haah... haah... Tch...
I... I think my imagination is running away with me.
I have a sense I'm not thinking entirely logically.
Perhaps I am unsound. All of this has unbalanced me to the point where even my thinking is skewed. Is it reasonable for me to become so fixated on 'becoming a weapon?' that the very thought is apt to cast my mind into a descending whirlpool? Maybe not. Probably not... but as it stands, I can no nothing about it. I preach reason to myself, but reason cannot cleave through that great lump of hurt which molded me into what I am now. Like an obsession, the idea plagues my mind - branded into my psyche by the searing heat of trauma. I was fed to the worms because I refused to be a tool. I suffered and suffered until I snapped in two. My Teacher abandoned me because I failed to achieve 'usefulness'. Yharim called me a war machine, not a person, but a plague, a bludgeon, a curse... but I will not become a weapon. I-I must not become a weapon... I won't tolerate it. They almost caught me too! As I fled from The Twins, I was chased by bullets and nets, by lasers and traps! If they caught me, what would they have done? I couldn't escape, even with my mirror, even with my potions. Stuck here, trapped, chased around like an animal, corralled into the Sky Trap and only escaped by the skin of my teeth. If I'd failed, what would have happened?
I won't let Yharim make me like her, I... I-
*Tap*
*tap-tap*
Footsteps.
The noise snaps me out of another whirlpool of anxiety. Suddenly, I'm myself again. Back in my body, crouched here in this small cramped vault, surrounded by wards and old books. Surrounded by velvet silence, stillness of the air, quiet darkness and settling dust. I'm not exactly sure why I've sought this place out. Recently, I've become a far more emotional person than I would like, but alas, I always seem to find myself in libraries when I need to escape. I've always found peace in libraries... whether that be the dark and dusty Resistance Library which played my cradle - and my prison or The Archmage's drawing room. For it too - although it was bright and airy, also housed books from wall to wall, from floor to ceiling. Even my own little room, the secret place The Archmage carved out of time for me. I've stashed all the books I've stolen there and it's beginning to look more like a book closet than a resting place.
tap-tap*
But even here, in this place I thought to be safe...They've found me!
I raise my head and feel my stomach sink into the floor beneath my feet. My breath is shredding in my throat, rough and rapid as I cling to my knees and press my temple hard against the cold granite bookcases. I'm clammy with sweat and trembling like a leaf, and no matter how carefully I try to control my breathing I can feel myself begin to grow hysterical. How stupid I was! Did I think nobody could find me here?!
*tap-tap*
*tap-tap*
Who's there? Spies? Soldiers? There's... there's no rest for me. The footsteps ring from outside the vault, and although I scream at myself to get up and fight, I just freeze. Everything freezes. My brain goes numb and I sit here as dumbly as a stone, staring in terror as the heavy vault door slowly creaks open and light fans out in a radius. Who is it? Were they sent by Yharim? Has he finally come to rend me to pieces and drag me away? Perhaps I shouldn't have issued such a bold threat to the camera! Perhaps I should never have come to The Capitol at all! What was I thinking!? I hold my breath and squeeze between the shelves, doing my best to sink into the stone and disappear in the darkness, yet-
*ka-chack*
"Hah! My boy... It's been quite a while, hasn't it?! How dare you sneak in here without greeting your old friend. I'm not dead yet, you know!"
"..."
A wizened old man peeks in from behind the vault and startles. He wears a silly looking silk hat - purple and conical, studded with golden stars and a matching robe. He is thin and tottery and doesn't... look very threatening, but I keep my guard up anyways. He blinks at me, and we stare at each other for a long moment before suddenly, realization breaks over his face. His eyes light up and his old lips stretch over tea-stained teeth into an excited grin. This puts me on edge. Who is this man? How does he know me? Had he seen the posters with my face on them? Perhaps he wants to sell me out, just like the residents of the village had. No, I must escape. If this man is here, surely soldiers will follow-
"Oh goodness, stop that. Although I understand why you'd be paranoid, young as you are, you need not defend yourself from me of all people. Violence does not live in these venerated halls, a fact I'm glad for... When you're very frail, a fight is the last think you look for."
I slowly lower my blade. The Old Wizard chuckles at me and slumps into a nearby chair.
"Now, Youngling... tell me, what brings you here?"
He's losing it.
Insanity was threatening. Unpredictability was discomforting. When a man trembled and twitched, unable to control their actions or emotions... that was a dangerous man. And such was The Monster Knight in this very moment as they delved into the depths of The Underground Temple, carefully navigating the traps and pitfalls by torchlight. All about them, flying snakes and lihzards swarmed, their screams cut abruptly short with the strikes of arrows and the flash of a blade. Bloodshed. Bloodshed. Rabid, feral, seething monsters crashing into one another, rending flesh from bone, and skin from sinew.
It was terrifying.
And it was true that The Guide had feared him in the past. Who wouldn't, after all. He was a powerful fighter, but as his mental state deteriorated, as his emotional integrity began to collapse, he became more and more dangerous. More and more unpredictable. This was a man with a heart of spun glass, a delicate thing that had since been shattered. He was seeking something long lost, trying to fill that great pit within him with anything he could lay hands on - but there was nothing that fit.
Grief demanded to be felt... but The Monster Knight would not face it. He had numbed himself with fantasies and with bloodshed, half aware that everything he did was futile, but going through the motions regardless. It was insanity, and when insanity became dangerous, no longer was it something to be pitied.
It was something to be disposed of.
It was a mercy to put down a rabid dog.
MK: What language is 'Ligma' even in?
Faze: It's in Sugeondese
MK: Sugondese?
F: *shit_eating_ *
In response to the guest review: The first merchant died of crimson infection. he was replaced by another iteration of Merchant who orchestrated the bomb that tore off MK's arm and dumped him in crimson. After that merchant died, the dice rolled, and the first merchant respawned. He remembered his last moments because it was he who died. When Guide died, he was replaced with the current one. if he were to somehow respawn one day, he too will remember his last moments. this system is based off the pool of names each terraria npc can have. permafrost has only one name. he cannot respawn because he is unique. There are no iterations. The Merchant can cycle through iterations, and even land on one that already died before.
note that the original merchant specifically could not remember the Terrarian. this is a safeguard in the event The Terrarian killed the npc. You cannot have hostile NPCs, at least upon respawn.
Thank you reviewers. I love you